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Wow. Wonderful discussion everybody.
As someone who played almost nothing of BW multiplayer, here´s what I think:
1) Im so happy I can actully play SC2 (although I know BW fans are not saying that the game should be harder).
2) I like watching BW much more than I can watch SC2. Its partially because of "cute micro", but above all because the units were more "spread", battles were more epic and yes, the game actually felt more strategic.
I can both play SC2 and watch BW. No prob, Im happy with that.
But can SC2 learn some lessons from BW to become a superior game, without losing its identity (aka as "becoming better looking BW")?
I think so and I think it would be like this:
a) Deathballs are boring after the 20th time you watch it/play it. Spread camp battles from BW were so much funnier. As people have stated, its because size and/or pathing of units. I don´t think Blizzard is going to adress that. But they are trying to nerf balls in the expansion, that is clear. Let´s see what happens;
b) BW also had more tactical units, or so it seems (SC2 meta isnt final yet). I don´t think we need lurker and reaver in SC2. We need stuff that aren´t just DPS dealers.
c) Units die faster, so there is less micro; that´s actually a design decision and this isnt gonna change;
d) Another thing about micro: spells seemed to be more micro-intensive in BW. Now they are easier to cast and favor decision-making and timing upon skill (spells now wether work or dont work). I think its intentional, its how they want it to be. Beaultiful, I´d like this to feel more awesome, and I know they can do it.
What I want from SC2? Less deathballs, more strategic play. If they want to reward decision-making and not insane micro, than dont give me more micro, but give me more decision making!
I think things are improving thou.
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I think what BW fans want out of SC2 is outline pretty well in this blog: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=278553
Essentially, the units should be designed simply, yet have very complex interactions with other units, whether its from the same race or others. I do agree that there is a bit of this in WoL so far, but with the addition of the new units in HotS, it takes away the simplicity of the units, and makes them more for specific purposes and situations, rather than a basic, universal unit. I'm not saying that new units shouldn't be added at all, it's just that the new units should have some sort of synergy with the rest of the units in the previous games for more potential, instead of being units made to counter a type of situation.
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I feel you OP, but think about it from the other point of view.
Brood War 'eliteists' love BW (duh). They love it for the epic-ness that it comes with. Long lines of siege tanks, fights that take up multiple screens, units spreading out and having skirmishes EVERYWHERE. They love the difficulty that comes with the game. It allows them to appreciate the dedication that the top Koreans give to the sport. When you see Flash micro a single marine to kill of Jaedong's Lurker on FS during an OSL Final, you can't help but cheer for that single marine (even if you want JD to smash Flash's twitching face into the ground! [JD > Flash all the way!]). Its this love for the game that has allowed it to live for so fucking long. Allowed for it to last and continue to grow in Korea (10 Mill views for the last OSL final anyone?).
BW eliteists don't hate SC2. They just want to see another game worthy of the Starcraft name. They want to see epic engagements. Tight, crisp execution. They respect BW for being so fucking hard. They want to respect the next generation of the game that they love so much. But how can they when the things that made BW so fun to play, and even more fun to watch, are not at par in SC2?
Have you ever tried medic marine micro in BW? That shit is INSANELY hard. Like crazy fucking hard. For me at least. I sometimes mess up by selecting a marine, and not stimming, allowing me to get caught off guard and surrounded by lings while 8 lurkers burrow right by my army. Its brutal. Takes a lot of practice and work to get right. However, a child can control a marine in SC2. Sure splitting is tricky at times, but after an hour practice on a UMS map, I felt like I was practically MKP. However, no matter what I do, I cannot control three marines the way Boxer does to kill lurkers.
Its THIS that makes BW so awesome! Blizzard got some of it right in SC2. I love watching Baelings vs Marines at insanely high levels. Its like having scarabs back. The idea of creep infesting the map is brilliant! I'm loving the idea of this new oracle unit or wahtever.. But when Blizz adds units like the Marauder to terran, it completely ruins the entertainment value of the game. No longer do we have EPIC fucking pvts. Where the terran slowly, methodically pushes out. Sieging and unsieging with every move. Laying mines while the protoss techs to arbs.. sigh we never get to see this kind of gameplay in star2. Instead we just have a bio ball vs a chargelot archon ball with a couple cols or ht thrown in there. It comes down to who can get the FF/Strom off first or who can EMP first. (My personal opinion, get rid of this piece of trash unit called the marauder and buff up tanks a little more... We with the new goliath 2.0 and better tanks we might see more mech vs p and everyone is happy).
I dont want to see BW again. I just want to see a game that has the same entertainment value as BW. Blizzard took everything that made BW awesome (lurker, defiler, reaver, etc.) and tried to replace it to get a new fresh game. Some it worked as mentioned previously. Others didn't. (Mainly cols and marauders). It is an insanely hard task to do. I am not denying that. There needs to be some true spark of genius to get the perfect game. They are getting closer. But they are not there yet.
I am not worried about having a balanced game from Blizzard. They will continue to patch the shit out of SC2 until its 50/50 across the board. But will it still be a fun game to watch? Will it still be as entertaining to play? Tic-tac-toe is pretty balanced. Chess is one of the most balanced games in the world. However, I do not keep going back to Chess or Tic-tac-toe after months of break. They lose their novelty after a point in time. Grandmasters have already memorized the first 20 moves of chess. The game has become repetitive and stale. Yet, I always come back to BW. 12 years after release we see new strats and counters. New ideas and better execution of older strategies.
Blizzard has garunteed an ESPORTs game that will last at least 3-4 years (due to expansions) and maybe another 5. But I really cannot see the game keep up it's current drive. It will run out of steam (everything does.. even BW, one sad sad day ]= )...
Anyways my point is that everyone on this site is a starcraft fan. We all 'get it' (as Day9 would say). We all want the best for this game (its like parent's badgering their kids to do study hard or eat their vegies. We never liked it, but we understand it), and just want to see a worthy successor to what is (and no one can dare to fucking disagree) the best game on the planet.
Edit: Also, I can just see TL in three year from now. It will no longer be SC2 vs BW. It will be BW vs WOL vs HOTS vs LOV. lol should be interesting.
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MAP CONTROL.
MOAR OF IT.
PLZ.
A lot of what people are calling 'BW-ness' is really just better map control. The Swarm Host and Lurker look the same because they both siege and control ground. The Shredder looks like vulture mines, because they both deny area but can't join an army. Blinding Cloud looks like Swarm because, okay, yea, it is swarm, but swarm was f-king awesome.
Point is, we don't want BW units, we want units that are more tactical and give you options besides building a ball of death and 1A-ing your way to victory. BW units do this, we want new units that do this, but that doesn't mean every new unit is a BW throwback.
Thank you.
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Umm, well - that's not the problem.
The problem lies in balancing. They'll never keep a version of the game for long enough to let the gameplay solutions evolve.
Just when the game is about to be somewhat balanced (current state of WoL with EMP change), everything is reset and we're back to experimentation again.
The beauty of esports (as with any sport) is found in near-perfect execution.
The pro players are never going to start microing with higher precision as long as they can get away with rock-paper-scissor buildorder wins. I want to see a four control group army bouncing back and forth. I want to see phoenix pick-ups and feedbacks on ghosts while stalkers are blinked back from marauders.
I'll never get to see that at this rate. It'll only be "whose clumped deathball is going to be better when A-moved".
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On October 27 2011 03:40 Thrill wrote:
Umm, well - that's not the problem.
The problem lies in balancing. They'll never keep a version of the game for long enough to let the gameplay solutions evolve.
Just when the game is about to be somewhat balanced (current state of WoL with EMP change), everything is reset and we're back to experimentation again.
I'm sorry but PvT was near impossible to win as a protoss because of EMP. It had to be changed, and I still don't think this change will do much, all it will do is make T make 2-3 more ghosts.
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SC Broodwar HD Edition would be perfect!
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On October 27 2011 00:30 ArchDC wrote:
Anyone who has not seen Kennigit's interview with Dustin Browder should go see it.
I totally agree with them that they need to think of ways to pull food out of 200/200 deathballs which is not as exciting to watch all the time. BW w its stream of armies continuing fighting for more than 20 secs was amazing to watch, n though we will not have that in SC2, at least making it viable to have more skirmishes (value in pulling food out of a deathball for all races) throughout the match will make it better to watch n play.
That interview was actually pretty depressing. Browder knows that the only way to kill deathballs is by changing the way units move, but he won't do it because he thinks that would make the game "worse." Even if you shrink a 120 food deathball into a 80 food one, it's still going to play out the same.
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I've probably played over 5000 games of BW
I prefer SC2
I like that it is different.
I hope that the custom maps get a little love though.
Having said all that, i consider SC2 to be a work in progress.
I enjoy the game, but there is much room for improvement
I just hope blizzard is willing to improve it
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I would love to see something else than BO wins in SC2.
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On October 26 2011 23:10 JayJay_90 wrote:
Am I the only one that thinks SC2 being less challenging when it comes to pure mechanics is actually a great thing? I've never played BW and never followed it as an esports, so I might be lacking some understanding. But I think it's awesome that SC2 is harder than most (casual) games but less hard than BW in terms of mechanics for 2 reasons.
1) It's challenging enough to be a competitive esports game, but easy enough for beginners to get started. That means that more people are gonna play it and the bigger the community, the more money sponsors will want to invest into the growth of esports, be it in price money, teamhouses or whatever.
2) Although at the highest level of BW, where everyone has sick mechanics, strategy is gonna be what decides the game, in BW usually the player with slightly better mechanics will win. I think it is really cool that, although mechanics are obviously super important, in SC2 you can actually win by having a sick gamesense and better tactical decision making, even if your mechanics are worse than your opponent's. To me, this deep understanding of the game is much more impressive than just high apm. Surely you need a lot of practise for that aswell, but it seems like that actually requires a bit of intelligence and talent, while i'd think that everyone who got the willpower to just play > 8 hours a day will get good mechanics pretty soon.
Um yeah, Flash wins the most games because of his sick game-sense and strategic decision making.
Jaedong on the other hand has amazing instantaneous tactical decision making, he will strike if you leave the slightest weakness anywhere. He also has great defiler and muta control meaning he can get bases earlier.
Bisu is a sick multitasking macro/micro god, and has builds that no other protoss' can do.
Three of the best players, great in completely different ways.
What you've essentially said, is that its great that now only players like Flash can be good at the game.
Well let me tell you, that there are a lot of people who don't enjoy Flash's games.
Also tactics barely exist in SC2, they make a much bigger difference in BW due to larger variation in effectiveness of units, depending on positioning and micro. Even the dynamic between zerglings and marines, if you catch a bunch of marines off guard in BW it makes a MASSIVE difference. In SC2 they move clumped all the time, so how can you be tactical?
Read this if you wanna learn about tactics 
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=226236
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In my honest opinion, you got some good arguments there, but I will say that changing something just for the sake of changing it, is sometimes not the best idea.
There is a saying: "don't fix something that ain't broken" or something like this, you get my point.
I like that they are trying new things and some of them are really cool, but sometimes I think like in Sarm Host case - "god damn, I wished they gave this lurker back and let's just be done with it'' and I'm by no means BW hardcore gamer, I started off from SC2. But I watched some top BW players play and it's very entertaining, because those games are that similar.
Look what we got coming in HotS:
Pseudo Lurker - Swarm host
Pseudo Goliath - Warhound
I think some ideas are oh so awesome that they shouldn't change it, Lurker for me and I think for many other is one of those ideas. To replace Lurker with something, you gotta have super idea and Swarm Host seems like an average one. I played almost no BW and am I entitled to say I want some old units back? Probably not, but I am SC2 player and I'm entitled to say that those units are awesome and I want them in.
Moral of my story is: if they want to replace some cool stuff they have to give us some cool stuff as a replacement, not some average Swarm host phobia mushroomlike creature which is all around weird from the way it looks to the way it attacks and it's counterpart from BW is great.
I do think that some of their ideas are awesome, but some of them are questionable to say the least.
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The other day I was sitting in the student dining here at my college talking to a guy I know from a while ago, and he knew I was I big star craft fan. His one complaint about the new starcraft, he said, is that it felt too much like playing the old one.
but...
You don't just change shit around in the plot line of a book and a movie when you produce its sequel (unless you're Arthur Clark hehe+ Show Spoiler +) precisely because you're continuing on the basis of the idea that you had a good thing going. Video games are a complex industry, and just as esports was bound to come with the digital age individual esports are going to be affected by changes in technology. A more sophisticated and streamlined UI affects how the game gets played, and indisputably makes certain aspects of a game easier. But very few people just want bw with updated graphics, and this can be known to be true because it exists and has, to my knowledge, little traction. But going back to my initial point about the fundamental similarities of the games; if that is true, similar problems will arise in both, and they'll have similar fixes. If sc2 is taking a bw-like turn, it's because blizzard has done a good job of assimilating old and new. No one can fault them for that just because they, for whatever reason, didn't like the original or want something different. If you want don't want starcraft go play LoL or wc3 or chess. But, and I'm saying this as someone who loves bw and did before sc2 came along, and as someone who loves and plays sc2, the definitive standard of what is starcraft is bw. It's sc2's job to try and live up to it, and it is making huge strides in that direction.
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On October 26 2011 10:02 sunman1g wrote:
i sort of agre, i am so tired of all the ppl asking questions like "Back in BW we had"
go fucking play BW if you love it.
i like SC2 the way it's designed and i like that it is really different from bw.
that's why i feel it's a shame when kennigt asked DB questions that were all Bw centric...
waste of time/questions imho
"in BW we had units stretching out for screens and screens" etc.
jesus, i do not want to see that shit in SC2 personally -.-
i feel all this obsession to have SC2 looking like BW is something not THAT popular.
if you go around TL it may appear that way but thank god there's tons of people who agree SC2 shouldn't be more BW-y
Really? You don't want to see positional gameplay? You don't want units to be able to function on their own? The reason sc2 gets stale is blob vs blob combat. There's not much excitement in actual battles they are just too anti-climatic. Battles tend to end in like 8 seconds, there's no back and forth. People who talk about brood war don't want sc2 to be brood war as much as you do...they just want the aspects that made brood war what it is.
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On October 27 2011 07:46 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2011 23:10 JayJay_90 wrote:
Am I the Only ONE that thinks SC2 being Less challenging when it comes to pure mechanics iS Actually a great thing? I've Never played BW and Never followed it as an esports, so I might be lacking some understanding. But I think it's Awesome that SC2 iS harder than most (casual) games but Less hard than BW in terms of mechanics for 2 reasons.
1) It's challenging enough to be a competitive esports game, but easy enough for beginners to get started. That means that more people are gonna play it and the bigger the community, the more Money sponsors will WanT to invest Into the growth of esports, be it in price Money, teamhouses or whatever.
2) Although at the highest level of BW, where everyone has sick mechanics, strategy iS gonna be What decides the game, in BW usually the player with slightly better mechanics will win. I think it iS Really COol that, although mechanics are obviously Super important, in SC2 you can Actually win by having a sick gamesense and better tactical decision making, even if your mechanics are worse than your opponent's. To me, this Deep understanding of the game iS much more impressive than just high apm. Surely you need a lot of practise for that aswell, but it seems like that Actually requires a bit of intelligence and talent, while i'd think that everyone WhO got the willpower to just play > 8 hours a day will get good mechanics pretty soon. Um Yeah, Flash wins the most games because of his sick game-sense and strategic decision making. Jaedong on the other hand has amazing instantaneous tactical decision making, he will strike if you leave the slightest weakness anywhere. He also has great defiler and MuTa Control meaning he can get bases earlier. Bisu iS a sick multitasking macro/micro god, and has builds that no other Protoss' can do. Three of the best players, great in completely different ways. What you've essentially SaiD, iS that its great that now Only players like Flash can be good at the game. Well let me tell you, that there are a lot of people WhO don't ENJoY Flash's games. Also tactics barely exist in SC2, they make a much bigger difference in BW due to larger variation in effectiveness of units, depending on positioning and micro. Even the dynamic between zerglings and marines, if you catch a bunch of marines off guard in BW it makes a MASSIVE difference. In SC2 they move clumped all the time, so how can you be tactical? Read this if you wanna learn about tactics http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=226236
THIS is exactly what I hate.
Shutting all avenues of discussion because the "noob" made a little misstatement, than proceed to turn your post into pure condescending crap.
Can we have a discussion while not being thrown in the face that we don't know anything about life, like if being a fan of this or that game also defined the size of our cocks?
That being said, SC2 has evolved a lot since Beta. Terran and Zerg are taking shape and big balls don't work anymore in these match ups. (Terran would be better without the marauder though ) At the very least in hi levels of play. When you watch T & Z plays, you can really distinguish the player's styles behind the games now.
Issue is Protoss...
This race just doesn't allow to drift away from the same core boring builds. Deathballs or 4-8 gates all-ins are the only way to go. What is sad is that creative and innovative Protoss builds will always be inferior to these strats.
That's why I like the new HotS P units, they are different to what BW brings on the table.
Replicators, Oracles, Nexus recall, Arc cannon or whatever it's called, those things encourage to get away from the Deathball or the gates all ins, they try to reward "cute" and inventive play. I have faith in them.
The Tempest (more or less an Air Colossus) on the other end... This unit will not address any of SC2 Toss' problems.
Revised carriers instead of that thing would have helped more there IMO
An example where a BW solution would help SC2.
Reavers, arbiters? These units would aggravate the Deathball syndrome.
An example where a BW solution would severely damage SC2.
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i dont care if sc2 becomes more like bw or less like bw, its a different game after all
however, what i do want from sc2 is for it to be more spectator friendly and have better protoss design (not balance, as the game is balanced imo, but design) I feel that it is bad design for protoss to rely on a poorly designed unit -the colossus- and be all but forced to make it almost every game
i also disagree with the design philosophy behind the replicator and tempest (oracle i don't mind) the replicator is there so that protoss can play terran or zerg, although i do like mind control for those fun games it doesnt have as much of a place in competitive play especially considering how niche the unit is and how its role in protoss play is far from what protoss actually needs, the tempest suffers a similar design flaw where the whole design point of the unit is to fight mutalisks
-_-
honestly i'd prefer blizzard to remove the colossus and re balance protoss armies
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I agree 100%. Even without adding in BW units and making things deliberately more broodwar-ey, there will EVENTUALLY be a shift towards that gameplay style anyways.
Korean pros sucked hard at broodwar for a long time. Remember when July realized that mutas could be microed? OMGWTFBROKENNERF.
As players get better mechanically, they will start breaking up the ball vs ball approach and start doing seriously all-over-the-place stuff. Watch nestea vs BratOK's blizzcon match, game 2 on shakuras. He has turrets everywhere, planetaries as defensive structures, and his army was spread nicely. Nestea circumvents it with a nydus and then crashes the front on multiple points. It was brilliant to watch.
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i played SC:BW for 10years on and off. when sc2 came out i played few games everyday just because i enjoyed bw so much.
altough i didn't like the game at all, i didn't get happy when i won, neither angry when i lost. played around 1,5k games total and then i quit.
I dont enjoy SC2 at all, they made everything so easy. in BW u could drop when u saw him move out and make real damage, in SC2 they just warp in 3units and np.
imo they removed everything hard from bw or made it auto (Automining) to attract more noobs.
Just my opinion
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Protoss deathballs exist mainly due to colossi. Colossi are simply so powerful that most P games live and die based on how well they are protected. Normally this wouldn't be a bad thing if colossi required excellent micro and positioning, but instead they are A-move units in their purest form. It's a shame that one of the biggest causes of deathball syndrome went completely unchanged in HotS, and I'm willing to bet money that it stayed in simply because Blizzard likes the model of the unit.
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On October 27 2011 09:27 Spawkuring wrote:
Protoss deathballs exist mainly due to colossi. Colossi are simply so powerful that most P games live and die based on how well they are protected. Normally this wouldn't be a bad thing if colossi required excellent micro and positioning, but instead they are A-move units in their purest form. It's a shame that one of the biggest causes of deathball syndrome went completely unchanged in HotS, and I'm willing to bet money that it stayed in simply because Blizzard likes the model of the unit.
no, its more likely that it stayed in, because removing it would mean rebalancing protoss, something they dont want to do
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EPT
