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On April 16 2011 11:29 Najda wrote:Show nested quote +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. So many of those things are 'Omg that's sooo hard to do' vs sc2 where it's 'Meh I could probably do that'.
this is exactly the feeling i get out of so many sc2 games.
watching someone better then you in bw was always super exciting. in sc2 you can throw the 2 best players in a bo7 against each other and get 0-50% somewhat exciting games.
On April 16 2011 11:33 Horse...falcon wrote:Show nested quote +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.
yeah. TvT constantly creates the by far best and most "skillful" games out of all matchups.
right now i even would rate pvp quite high cause the 4gate vs 4gate battles are often quite interesting..
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Overall I love your post and the points you make are valid, but in the end I think more and more that most of your points can base back just a couple of things, which you did mention.
1. Maps - in SC2 the maps are not nearly as evolved and started out much smaller so the early games were a lot more focused on micro and 1 or 2 base attacks. More and more we are seeing larger and larger maps being created and played, so I think this will evolve with time.
2. The maturity of the game as a whole. I am not saying that everything is perfect, but overall you mention things like positional battles and multitasking in comparison to BW. I agree that those are things that the game should have more of, but I think it is just a matter of time and the relation to point number 1. As we have seen a lot more recently those positional battles are becoming used more. Look at Nada is the NASL. Those games were amazing to watch because they had a lot of those old style BW play in them, position and multitasking/multipronged-tactical attacks.
I think that most of the issues that people are having will evolve and we have seen those start to happen already. Thanks for the excellent post and I wish that I could give more suggestions, but I just do not agree that much NEEDS to be done. I just think that as players and play evolves over time it will become what we want it to become.
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I stopped playing BW long ago, and never quite got in the competitive side (mostly played at LANs with friends), but I've been following it (and playing it at work) casually since I started playing SC2 and I have to say it has some things that makes it much better for both the spectator and the player.
I guess the one I agree with the most is the units interaction. As much as I love SC2, the units are much more one-sided in their use.
I mean, I find myself missing some units from BW: lurkers, scourge, defilers, vultures,science vessels,reavers, arbitrers... They made the game so much interesting.
However, I have to admit that even though there were some features that have been included to cater to casual players, some of the micro and macro requirements that came with BW were a byproduct of a really old engine and clunky AI: would you imagine the amount of critics they would be subject to if they kept 12 units as the control group max? Or if you had to keep up on the micro just to have that dragoon go down the ramp? It has been designed in 2010 after all.
I think some things won't change in the near future, such as smart casting. However, with the expansions and plenty of patches coming (but mostly with the expansions) there's still tons of potential for this game to become much more engaging. I mean, some of the units you described and that became staple in SC:BW actually came after the expansion, didn't they? And we have 2 more to look for 
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Great post, but it's depressing t.t I hope Blizzard will revamp the game with HotS, but who knows....
Bring back Lurkers!!!!!
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On April 16 2011 11:32 Mailing wrote:Show nested quote +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"
Sigh, you can't criticize a single balance change without someone coming in and yelling "But it was OP and needed to be nerfed!". That is not the point at all. The point is the way these things were changed. Rather than doing some sort of subtle adjustment, they just axed whole strategies.
Another thing is that they clearly prefer removing troublesome stuff rather than giving other races better ways of dealing with it. The recent Infestor change is the only significant buff to a unit since release, to my knowledge.
At the very least, they've shown a clear preference towards bringing the hammer down on "powerful" strategies and units. This might make the game more balanced, but it's definitely not making it more exciting or fun to watch.
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I liken this nostalgic phenomenon to the Socom franchise. No game will ever be perfect. The beloved Socom 2 wasn't, SC:BW was not, and SC2 certainly is not.
SC2 imo has more tools for success as an E-sport than its predecessor.
1) Interesting to the layperson. Graphically the game is very pleasing. SC:BW just looked awful, period. Starcraft 2 is much less grating to the eyes and the effects are much cleaner, graphics and sound.
2) Greater emphasis on balancing economics and warfare. SImply put, workers are more valuable in SC2, so you have a new dynamic in worker counts as well as goals for harassment. People understand these concepts more.
3)Two additional expansions around the corner, which will undoubtedly lead to some tweaking of the product, potentially for the better
4)released at a time when it can succeed. SC:BW is and was a somewhat small community, especially relative to SC2. SC2 is much more accessible simply because people have the internet now lol. I remember in SC1 being jealous of all the people with their 1 green bar and cable modems. Now everyone is on pretty much a quality connection. Bigger player base SHOULD lead to better overall players emerging. We are starting to see that now with just the sheer number of good players out there competing with the household names of broodwar.
5)Game is not driven as much by mechanics as SC:BW. This is HUGE interms of accessibility as well as creating situations for clever play. BW was unnecessarily cumbersome, so much so that it was a major turn off to alot of exceptional competitive players. Simply put, why play a game that lacks in so many departments when you can be competitive in a game with fewer interface deficiencies. That IS essentially what made SC:BW much more difficult to begin with... it was bogged down by a terrible interface. I think as players develop and get better, the fact that mechanics is a smaller pillar of good play will lead to moments of awe from sick micro and clever strategy.
On that last point take war3 for example. War3 was one of the most exciting, edge of your seat, games to observe. Close calls with portals, the overall importance of an individual unit, etc. This stuff is exciting. The problem for war3 is that that game is fucking confusing...period. Starcraft 2 can capture that micro-based excitement and its a whole lot less fucking confusing for the layperson.
I'm a fanboy of broodwar and fanboy of war3... blizzard games in general really. As such, my opinion counts just as much as anyone that favors broodwar drastically over all other games. I get the nostalgia... I really do... but I am ultimately confident that this game will surpass Broodwar if not sooner than later
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Excellent post. Usally i'm not a fan of comparing SC2 to SCBW, but you pointed out things in a way that made me rethink.
Assuming the fact, that Mr. Terrible terrible damage & Co. arent able to look at things in _that_ way by themselfes i really hope "they" will take this into account. Somehow. Somewhen.
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Hmmm.. I "pseudo-agree" with your points. Up to a certain level it is impossible to argue against these points. However, I believe the metagame and the pro players are not developed enough to make these comparisons relating SC2. To put it simple, I'm pretty sure BW had many of those "falencies" that SC2 has, when it was just released.
Positional battles are still possible, map control is still incredibly important, perhaps the only point that doesn't fall in this category is spellcasting issues, since smart cast changed that completely.
Basically, the ceiling in SC2 has not been reached yet, and most players aren't playing the game to it's fullest, even the best players. This is why MC can be so incredibly dominant while showing "good" but not BW quality micro, and why July can swarm enemies with instant remax of armies, and it looks so damn impressive, other players aren't pushing the limits far enough.
I'm certain that at one point, we'll be talking about 12-unit control groups once again, because having multiple control groups will mean a more effective army, it just hasn't happened yet.
If you watch NaDa vs DDE in NASL day 3, you'll see that NaDa effectively macroed his army in a more BWesque style, he had constantly low resources and forced engagements persistently, while reinforcing immediately. His macro was what eventually won him the series, and it wasn't even that good. I think in that series, NaDa is showing a little bit of how players can push the limit of this new, noob-friendly interface.
Wait on it a little bit, have some faith, and expect better games. I'm pretty sure it has the potential to give epic feats of macro micro and decision making, it's all up to the players to reach the ceiling, we're DEFINITELY not there yet.
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On April 16 2011 10:52 Jibba wrote:I disagree with this almost entirely. Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 09:35 mahnini wrote:
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. What exactly is your counter example from BW? Vultures laying mines, lurkers and what else? Perhaps Consume, but no one ever got excited over that. Pre-fight unit positioning is more important in SC2 because there are more units in each composition with more roles, and once you're into a battle, there are actually more abilities to micro, as well as more decisions to make regarding targeting. People just aren't doing it yet, so it sucks when two people 1a2a two larger armies into each other, but eventually it won't be that way.
i mean let's take tvp as an example. before a fight you are laying mines everywhere, in front of your tanks, possible flanking points, basically exerting as much map control as possible so the protoss can't freely move into your tank line. you put up turrets to take care of shuttles, tier off tanks to make sure shots aren't wasted and try to get pot shots on units as they attack into your minefield. tvp in sc2 is a matter of spreading units and making sure all of your units are firing.
Show nested quote +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. How is game flow any different? I feel like you're just using it as a non-descript buzzword and expecting people to think the BW way was automatically superior. "When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen." We don't see this happen all the time when July, qxc or AdelScott take their opponent on a tour? It doesn't always work out that way, but it didn't always work out in BW either. Players are still capable of forcing their "game flow" (again, whatever that means in your example) on the other player and on the game as a whole.
it's true you can still control pacing in sc2, but not to the extent with which you could in BW. again tvp as an example, if a terran tries to death push you from his nat to your nat you use your mobility and exert map control. give inch by inch. force extra seiges force mines to be laid AWAY from your nat. this aspect of controlling the pace by exerting map control doesn't exist in sc2 because unit dynamics don't allow it to. forcing a colossus to fire a laser at my kiting units is completely different from forcing a tank to seige.
Show nested quote +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? Infestors and sentries. Map control isn't as static as lurkers and spider mines once were, but why don't you see how BW Protosses feel about it? Because there are no more lurkers and spider mines, there's a lot more potential backstabs and pokes in SC2 which are exciting in their own right.
backstabs are interesting in their own right but that doesn't replace the ability to definitively control area as well as tanks and lurkers did. if i push a protoss back into his nat and he warps in a round of units putting him at an advantage over me there's no way to solidify my position, no way to punish him for losing map control.
Show nested quote +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. Why does positioning make these units exciting? Unless it's lurkers at the top of a ramp. Waiting for the Irradiate vs Lurker stage of a BW game was usually the worst part. In BW there were zerg and terran sieges. In SC2, terran sieges still exist and certain variants of Z play have sieges as well (IdrA's hydra/spine crawler push comes to mind.) There's still plenty of contains that go on in SC2 and they're still just as exciting when they get broken.
this is true. tvz is still quite an enjoyable matchup in that respect. it has these aspect because the siege tank is used regularly in that matchup.
Show nested quote +Another unique aspect of the siege tank and lurker was that they required time before they were useful, tanks had to siege and lurkers had to burrow. This introduced a unique dynamic in which armies weren't always doing 100% DPS and introduced the idea that you can actively seek to cost-effectively trade units BEFORE tanks or lurkers were setup. What? This the same. There's still a critical mass of certain units, where it's important for different races to pick them off before there are too many or they gain too much energy. How much tension is there when a 2rax is pushing into a zerg base while everyone is waiting for banelings or hooks to finish?
i feel like i am repeating myself a lot here but, pvz corruptor roach hydra vs colossus sentry stalker zealot. these are huge moving balls of death that dont require setup. there is still some excitement with forcefields and the outcome of casting those but what else? what is honestly happening when these two armies clash, they are just dishing out as much dps as possible. it doesn't matter if the zerg has half the map covered in creep the outcome of the fight will be entirely unchanged.
Show nested quote +This gave micromanagement a larger role to play other than simply pulling away damaged units. If you're attacking into a Terran army as Zerg, you are using lings to tank the majority of the damage and buy time for your lurkers to burrow in addition to trapping marines and killing tanks. Of course, your Terran opponent isn't just sitting there, he's microing his marines back, dodging spines, escaping lings, and picking off the lurkers that you are still advancing. As a zerg or terran in ZvT it was entirely possible to attack into the opposing army and kill almost nothing while losing everything if your control was worse. This 100% exists in SC2. Pros don't do it because current pros are bad, but there is a ton of stuff for units to do and targeting is a lot more involved in SC2 because it's ambiguous. In BW, you know exactly what unit should get killed first, while in SC2 that varies a lot more depending on the numbers and composition.
in bw pvz, you are able to risk units for damage. you can get shots off before a lurker is burrowed. pick off overeager lurkers, storm chasing zerglings. in sc2 pvz, the setup time doesn't exist. you fight ball vs ball with everything you have and more likely than not the outcome of that fight will determine the game.
Show nested quote +What this adds up to is that it gives the person with proper positioning a significant defender's advantage so, even if you come out somewhat behind in an engagement, your opponent can't immediately attack into your remaining army without severe repercussion. This also introduced a way to delay your opponent by slowly giving up ground rather than doing what most SC2 player have to do, which is run back to their nat and turtle until they have a unit advantage. It also meant it required some finesse to get the most out of your attack. If your opponent was low on unit count, you couldn't just 1a into his army, micro a little, and still come out on top. What it really comes down to is that unit relationships were far more complex and, as a result, proper engagements required a higher level of control. Again, you're simply arguing that the requirements on a current BW pro are higher than that of a current SC2 pro. That's absolutely true, but that's not necessarily due to the game. An obvious example is July. He's been playing SC2 for 6 months now, yet if you watch his game he is awful with banelings and it took him 4+ months to start doing runbys with zerglings. He even did runbys in BW, but he didn't pick them up immediately in SC2. This point is on the players, not the game.
i'm saying sc2 units do not have the range necessary to provide a significant defender's advantage. when it's ball vs ball with no sieging or burrows needed, there's no reason to hold ground unless it puts you at a surface area advantage. in SC2 zvp, if i trade half my army for 25% of yours you can march forward uncontested because i won't have units to hold any ground. any fight i pick before i have a solid unit advantage results in a loss. in bw i can delay with lurkers because they exert definitive map control. if you want to attack into 2 control groups of well spread lurkers you are taking significant damage no matter what.
Show nested quote +Player-unit interaction.
If we take a moment to consider BW spellcasters, we can see that not only did BW spellcasters involve massive player-unit interaction to use properly but also player-unit interaction to combat. Psi storm required tons of apm to use effectively or to dodge; irradiate could be used to massacre high value zerg units but it could also be turned against you; and dark swarm required exquisite levels of control on both sides. When you see a dark swarm get thrown up in a TvZ you don't go, "well that sucks, I need to kill defilers faster", you unsiege your tanks, run out of lurker range and keep raining shells because dark swarm assists zerg units rather than directly hindering terran units. I mean, obviously it hinders terran units to an extent, but you are able to mitigate damage and micro out of it, there's not an instantaneous downpour of lasers down on your army because staple damage dealers required setup time. It's not like it was easy for the zerg to use properly either, it wasn't a fire and forget spell like forcefield. After it was casted both players were microing their asses off. You're glorifying BW spell casting too much. Irradiate's main purpose was an instant, long range "fuck you" to clumps of mutalisks, lurkers, defilers and ultras. The only situation where it was turned against you was with ultras, but that happens all the time with storm and is beginning to happen with siege tank fire. It's not like there was ever a decision to be made on whether or not to use Irradiate because of that. It was just a side effect, that has essentially been replaced by ultralisk's innate AoE ability. PDD/FF is the modern Swarm.
you pick out irradiate here but you can't honestly say the player interaction when someone casts a forcefield was vs a dark swarm is anywhere near the same. you can move 100% freely under a dark swarm and unit compositions allowed you to fight units in a dark swarm. it forced a tremendous amount of control on both sides. what does a protoss have to do to maximize his forcefield wall? what can a terran do to minimize damage from a forcefield wall? more importantly, perhaps, what happens when you lose 10% of your army to a ff wall when you were otherwise on equal ground with the protoss? you run. you can't slowly move back. can't cost effectively pick units. you just run.
Show nested quote +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. This is just a micro issue, and I don't see how it adds to the excitement of BW at all. Consume made defilers instantly powerful, so no, they didn't need much time to set up. The fungal thing is the exact thing that happened with Irradiate, so I don't see how it's a downside in SC2 but not in BW. There is nothing you can do to save your initial zerglings after an ultra gets Irradiated. If anything, I think the dynamic of fungal + infested terran vs dropship is more exciting. If you're a second too slow or they're in too good of a position, all of the drop ships will fly off slightly damaged. If it's done perfectly, they're all dead. Either way, you're staring at those eggs and waiting for them to pop.
what? if an ultra gets irradiated you split the units around it. same with muta. you have to clone mutas so they dont stack. when you get fungaled you sit there. you can't do anything with the affected units at all, you just wait till the spell wears off. though you're right, the effect irradiate is similar on the unit casted.
Show nested quote +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. If microing against multiple storms in SC2 is so difficult, then why isn't that impressive?
it would be impressive but the effect of the spell is diminished. so instead of a mutual exchange of crazy micro you have a one-sided exchange.
Show nested quote +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. How is there no contest? Reaver/shuttle is obviously one of the coolest mechanics ever, but what is impressive about 6 +1 sairs flying around and killing anything that comes within 5 range? Why are Goliath and Dragoons so great, when they were kind of retarded and didn't have any abilities. Thor plays such a big role in battles, even without doing damage. It's a giant road block that can nullify another unit for 5 seconds. Wraith was awesome because of the 1 vZ and a few vT builds it got used in? Viking is so much more versatile and plays a bigger role where it is used.
goliaths required player involvement to be effective. goliath vs mutas or lings would be a massacre if goliahts weren't micro'd. on the other hand, thors effectively can't be micro'd because they are so slow. what does a thor do against zergligns? it can't do anything. the interesting part of bw units was the player involvement needed not necessarily the role it had in composition. phoenixes are much more diverse that corsairs but think of the micro that is required to keep corsairs alive vs scourge. think of the micro that's required to kill corsairs. this is the kind of invovlement that is missing from sc2 units.
Show nested quote +
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.
Because players are bad compared to where they will eventually be. IdrA is arguably the #1 mechanical Zerg in the world and what did he do in his last two matches against MC and Cruncher? He fucked up unit control and donated large portions of his army. There is a lot to be done, players just aren't doing it yet. Most of them don't use more than 3 hotkeys for units and that's the fault of them, not the game.
there's much less potential for micro in sc2. what do you do with a roach? or corruptor how do you micro those well? think about the differnce between lategame zvp in sc2 and lategame zvp in bw. there is always tons to do in bw. burrow lurkers, surround with lings, cast dark swarm, consume, rinse and repeat as the protoss pulls back. this doesnt exist in sc2, hydra corruptor roach just deals dps and if your attack runs out of steam you cant pull back to the ground you've earned and occupied with lurkers. you just run back home or keep attacking.
Yeah, you can't in SC2 either.
true. exaggeration on my part but still holds some truth to it.
I'm not going to go into the subjectivity of your spectating SC2 games, but you are giving far, far too much credit to the AI in SC2. Have you played zerg yet? Because even with the fancy new AI, zerglings are fucking retarded on their own. Same goes for zealots, when 16 of them decide to charge 2 or 3 units. 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.
that's true. however, let's think about lurker ling vs roach ling zvp. there's no tension in an attack because there's nothing to anticipate other than perhaps forcefields. in bw it depended on how you burrowed how well were you pushing with lurkers and surrounding with lings. this doesnt exist with roach ling because it's just an exchange of flat damage. you can't pick a roach before it does damage. more importantly when a zerg is defending what can they do besides attack into the protoss?
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On April 16 2011 11:34 Crunchums wrote: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: I think you meant to say "hold your breath" here
At this point, the only things Blizzard can do is to just tweak unit stats, tweak with the tech tree, and tweak the map pool. It is possible for Blizzard to mess with spells like Fungal and FF to be less one-sided, but there would be a ton of QQ from each respective race if they change it improperly.
Indeed, the expansions are going to be the "last hope" for fixing these issues. Adding some powerful, micro-intensive units to each side should make top-level games more interesting without imbalancing lower level games. The Reaver+Shuttle comes to mind, as does Muta stacking. Adding spells or upgrades to existing units to make them less one-dimensional would also be an interesting possibility.
In addition, I think it is an undeniable fact that Zerg still has some rather glaring holes in their arsenal. Without Lurkers, Zerg needs one or more units that can exert map control and force detection. Also, a Hive-tech spellcaster would also be helpful in buffing their late-game in in the same way that Defilers helped BW Zergs hold off late-game Terran siege lines and Protoss balls.
Injecting BW dynamics into SC2 is not an impossible feat, but at this point, the main way of achieving this is through additional units from the expansion. Though balance patches would help in forcing some of these dynamics, I don't think they will be the final answer in addressing these very fundamental issues.
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Maybe it's because I never followed SCBW, but I don't find any of those situations particularly mind-blowing. I think SC2 as a whole is a ton more enjoyable to follow.
Each to their own.
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Know what sc2 is missing? The mofuckin ultimate weapon. Flash get your ass over here now.
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On April 16 2011 11:46 Jayrod wrote:
I liken this nostalgic phenomenon to the Socom franchise. No game will ever be perfect. The beloved Socom 2 wasn't, SC:BW was not, and SC2 certainly is not.
SC2 imo has more tools for success as an E-sport than its predecessor.
1) Interesting to the layperson. Graphically the game is very pleasing. SC:BW just looked awful, period. Starcraft 2 is much less grating to the eyes and the effects are much cleaner, graphics and sound.
2) Greater emphasis on balancing economics and warfare. SImply put, workers are more valuable in SC2, so you have a new dynamic in worker counts as well as goals for harassment. People understand these concepts more.
3)Two additional expansions around the corner, which will undoubtedly lead to some tweaking of the product, potentially for the better
4)released at a time when it can succeed. SC:BW is and was a somewhat small community, especially relative to SC2. SC2 is much more accessible simply because people have the internet now lol. I remember in SC1 being jealous of all the people with their 1 green bar and cable modems. Now everyone is on pretty much a quality connection. Bigger player base SHOULD lead to better overall players emerging. We are starting to see that now with just the sheer number of good players out there competing with the household names of broodwar.
5)Game is not driven as much by mechanics as SC:BW. This is HUGE interms of accessibility as well as creating situations for clever play. BW was unnecessarily cumbersome, so much so that it was a major turn off to alot of exceptional competitive players. Simply put, why play a game that lacks in so many departments when you can be competitive in a game with fewer interface deficiencies. That IS essentially what made SC:BW much more difficult to begin with... it was bogged down by a terrible interface. I think as players develop and get better, the fact that mechanics is a smaller pillar of good play will lead to moments of awe from sick micro and clever strategy.
On that last point take war3 for example. War3 was one of the most exciting, edge of your seat, games to observe. Close calls with portals, the overall importance of an individual unit, etc. This stuff is exciting. The problem for war3 is that that game is fucking confusing...period. Starcraft 2 can capture that micro-based excitement and its a whole lot less fucking confusing for the layperson.
I'm a fanboy of broodwar and fanboy of war3... blizzard games in general really. As such, my opinion counts just as much as anyone that favors broodwar drastically over all other games. I get the nostalgia... I really do... but I am ultimately confident that this game will surpass Broodwar if not sooner than later
1) has nothing to do with this thread.
2) disagree strongly. if anything economics matter way way less in sc2. see taking many expansions having less value, producition beeing way less important etc
3) thats why threads like this exist.
4) nothing to do with the thread.
5) again strongly disagree.
firstoff its not only the interface that made stuff hard. thats what this thread tries to explain. the dynamics and important stuff you had to do made it hard. even if you could group unlimited units you still couldnt 1a into a fortified siegeline in pvt.
also the accessibility only applies to playing the game. not to watching it. as i said in a previous post i had a much easier time explaining "outside" people whats so interesting about match X. now i have to explain why this or that is smart vs that build and that subtile fake attack baited forcefields.
in bw it was "look he is doing this and this and that all 50 other things in those 3 seconds. pretty damn skillful right?"
and again korea has shown that massive numbers of "random people" can easily enjoy the matches because they can enjoy the magic the players do with their units.
what you say about wc3 isnt true either. wc3s problem wasnt really that it was too complex. wc3s problem for spectating that the screen was totally cluttered by bright shiney cartoong colors with air units flying around above so the entire screen was just lotsa sparkles and rainbows.
i played the game for a quite a bit from time to time (playd a race to ~lvl 30 ,quit, playd another race to 30 8 months later,repeat) and even i often couldnt see ANYTHING in a battle.
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I agree with the OP but I think it missed a few key points and wasn't that clear on some of them:
1. What made units such as siege tanks and lurkers awesome in BW was that they could efficiently kill large amounts of enemy units, especially with BW's stronger high ground advantage. This allowed players to split units away from their army to harass other players. Do that right now in SC2 and the deathball will just kill you.
2. Spells were more interactive. Irradiate was an awesome example. If your ultralisk got irradiated, you can move it near your opponent's marines and kill them. If one of your mutalisks got irradiated, you move it away from your other mutalisks. Same thing with spider mines. They do friendly fire so fast units like zealots and zerglings can make the mines damage their own friends. Spells were generally more powerful but most can be minimized by moving units in response.
3. Blizzard removed a lot of micro tricks in SC2. The number of units that are capable of moving shot decreased dramatically. Most have to slow down or stop completely to fire. Seeing Leta hit and run with wraiths is a beautiful thing to behold. Vikings are just a-moved with their superior range. Even without blink, the ability to fire on the move opened up more micro possibilities to the dragoon compared to the stalker. Vultures with moving shot are more fun to watch compared to hellions.
4. Slow air transports. Shuttles and dropships in BW were fast enough that you can evade many ground anti-air troops. Dropping and picking up units was frequently used to great effect. Sniping shuttles and dropships wasn't easy. It's too easy to snipe medivac dropships and warp prisms in SC2 with their crappy speed.
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One minor thing that always annoyed me about Starcraft 2 was Blizzard's decision to give every race a Dragoon, and make it one of their core units. I found the dynamic between Zealots, Zerglings and marines one of those small touches about Broodwar that very strongly defined the "feel" of each race.
Instead, in Starcraft 2, we have the Marauder and the Roach. In both cases, the unit just feels out of place, like Blizzard just shoehorned it into the race and intentionally de-emphasized the other units (especially in the case of Zerg) for the sake of being different from Brood War. Marines still have a very strong role for Terran, and it's quite clear that they were the most well-planned race, but a high hp beefy, mobile anti-armor unit just never quite seemed like it fit with the Terran theme of low hp, high DPS, high synergy units.
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Completely agree. The only thing that makes Sc2 watchable for me is good English commentary, whereas I'll be at the edge of my seat watching BW with Korean i can't understand in the background. Reavers, mines, scourge, lurkers, and plenty of other units make me hold my breath, and nothing in Sc2 comes close. Also, i really dislike the art style of Sc2, but i know I'm in the minority there.
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i agree with all your points. Not that i hate sc2 or anything, but i really doubt that it will ever reach bw's level of finesse. We can only hope 
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Amazing OP, thanks for taking the time to lay everything out.
The thing about the most powerful units (Dare I say, overpowered?) in Brood War was that they took so much skill to use, while the big units in SC2 basically hulksmash.
Brood War: "Our Protoss player now has 8 reavers on the field, if he executes his reaver control properly, he'll be able to destroy any ground army."
Starcraft 2: "Our Protoss player now has 8 colossi on the field and he'll be able to destroy any ground army with ease, we'll how his opponent deals with it."
It really blows as a spectator because in an even macro game, if someone hits that critical mass of colossi then it feels like the game is over; whereas in Brood War, you don't know when it's over until it's over.
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Completely agree. The only thing that makes Sc2 watchable for me is good English commentary, whereas I'll be at the edge of my seat watching BW with Korean i can't understand in the background.
This is so true. If SC2 commentaries were only broadcast in korean, I would have stopped watch them a very long time ago. It almost seems SC2 is riding on the backs of the awesome commentators out there. I don't think I could personally watch SC2 for years, like it did BW, but I'm crossing my fingers for these next expansions.
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On April 16 2011 10:50 ghrur wrote:
I think people who're saying, "Well SC2 is different and won't be a BW copy," or"Give it some time. Of course it's not BW level yet," or "The old mechanics of BW didn't make it good. You're just being senile," are all missing the point. Mahini specifically stated it wasn't SC2 vs BW. Thinking in such a comparison-oriented viewpoint misses the point of the OP. The point isn't that BW is better in anyway.
The point is that SC2 at this moment is lacking in some areas which causes games to be less interesting. This could be improved upon. The reason BW is brought up is because it's a good example of the improvement and the success it could have.
yes. i have bw still installed on my computer but i never touch it and play sc2 instead. i watch all the tsls and catch as many other tournaments as i can whereas i haven't followed a season of bw since savior lost to bisu. i have favorite players and i thoroughly enjoy watching and playing sc2, i just think the experience can be better.
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EPT
