On October 29 2011 17:07 roymarthyup wrote: [...] and also, consider this. because you still need sick bw level mechanics to battle well in Sc2 (and we will witness this being true sooner than we expect), that means top bw level mechanics will still be needed to be the best once the game makes this final shift.
and heres what i mean by this. assuming both players need super sick mechanics to "battle well", in bw you saw the same thing however players needed to prioritize and pick when to macro during the battles to make sure they dont dry up at home
well, in sc2 the players will not need to prioritize because macro'ing only requires a fraction of the APM that it did in BW. however this just means BOTH PLAYERS are now free from the need to macro at the bw level, which means BOTH PLAYERS now will simply be putting those mechanics into MORE BATTLE MICRO.
before in BW, players had to pick when to put their mechanics into macro'ing, now macro'ing doesnt require as much mechanics. but that simply means both players will still need to put their mechanics into battle micro or they will lose. so the level of mechanics is still the same, its simply shifted from macro to micro
the pro players still will need BW level mechanics but in Sc2 they will just be putting almost all of it into battle micro with less time spent macro'ing. players still must constantly be watching their army and paying attention to it nonstop because alot of times in pro games its constant pressure and battle micro going on as one army is constantly poking at the enemies base, and players need to be able to micro that army properly and always make sure its safe so players still will need top level mechanics all the time, because one slip up equals dead army and you lose
Yes SC2 macro is easier so players that are used with BW mechanics will have a lot of APM that they can spend else where. But keep in mind that micro is a lot easier too. I mean with auto-surround, smart-target, smart-cast there is just less stuff to do. The battles are also a lot shorter, in BW they can go on for ever while the outcome of death ball vs death ball tends to be resolved rather quickly.
I just don’t see what magical stuff Jaedong can do with unmicroable mutalisks, what stork can do with colossus (“the new reaver unit”) or how Jangbis storms will be any more impressive than other protoss players’ when everyone can storm like a progamer with smart-cast. SC2 is easier in all aspects so I wouldn’t get too excited, BW players cant break the rules of the game design, and if they do, Blizzard will patch a fix.
Yes SC2 macro is easier so players that are used with BW mechanics will have a lot of APM that they can spend else where. But keep in mind that micro is a lot easier too. I mean with auto-surround, smart-target, smart-cast there is just less stuff to do. The battles are also a lot shorter, in BW they can go on for ever while the outcome of death ball vs death ball tends to be resolved rather quickly.
I just don’t see what magical stuff Jaedong can do with unmicroable mutalisks, what stork can do with colossus (“the new reaver unit”) or how Jangbis storms will be any more impressive than other protoss players’ when everyone can storm like a progamer with smart-cast. SC2 is easier in all aspects so I wouldn’t get too excited, BW players cant break the rules of the game design, and if they do, Blizzard will patch a fix.
i completely agree with this. another thing is that in sc2 macro tends to stop earlier and there is a lot less harass than in broodwar. the builds are completely different and have different purposes than in broodwar i just always felt that there would never be a bonjwa in sc2 because if these progamers came even though they are so much better than current sc2 pros they will still lose occasional games.
On October 29 2011 17:07 roymarthyup wrote: [Big wall of text about army control being a very important differentiating factor in SC2 to determine skill]
This guy speaks truth. They're different games and we can't say for a fact that BW>SC2. And they both require a very high amount of skill and decision making. Why can't we all just let's see how this unfolds instead of having pages of arguments which bring us nowhere?
What he fails to bring up is the damage and tankability scaling that occurs with deathballs vs non-deathballed units. When people start declumping their armies, we will FINALLY be able to fairly judge whether splitting armies into smaller control groups is worth more effective HP and DPS than smashing through like a cannonball. After all, most SC2 matches have not really gotten to the point of showing non-ball engagements vs balls and non-balls vs non-balls.
Footnote: LOL BALLS
For example in PvP clumped up colossus loose to colossus that are spread even litle bit. In any engagement where there are same type of units battling each other - assuming they have same amount of units and upgrades - only thing that matters is your concave. This could mean only preparation into the fight, but then again your opponent might not want to walz into your perfectly positioned stuff and instead go somewhere else or force a battle on better terms.
In marine vs baneling fights spreading out your marines when you cant run any more will increase your changes to absorb baneling wave by insane amount. From zergs point of view it is much better to spread banelings and lings to avoid taking so much splash damage from siege tanks, or to prevent marines from spreading so that banelings could do maximum damage.
And so on.. these are typical things to hapen in sc2 these days. It took marineking to show terrans how to use marines, people didnt micro their stuff properly before someone brought new idea into the battle, and i say that they still dont.
If you think that SC2 has reached its skill ceiling, you are fooling your self and dont really understand SC2 at all. You might like to think that you do whilst jerking off, but you are wrong. If bisu switched into SC2 he wouldnt suddenly start doing absurd amounts of trash APM, he simply could pay more attention to the field instead of hes probes and unit production.
i just always felt that there would never be a bonjwa in sc2 because if these progamers came even though they are so much better than current sc2 pros they will still lose occasional games.
First of all, MVP is damn close to being a bonjwa and how do you know they'll be better than the current progamers? I'm sorry, but people like MVP/Nestea/MMA/Ryung etc all play incredibly well as is and just because people are super good at Broodwar it doesn't mean they're just going to dominate in SC2.
The only reason why they dominate in SC1 is their insane practice schedules and that's the reason players like MVP/MMA do so well as SlayerS/MMA have good amounts of practice. Heck, just look at Boxer at the last MLG. He was losing all his games, so rather than sleep he practiced nearly all night and came back fighting the next day.
Foreigners now can make money from progaming, foreigners won't be instantly dominated this time like they were with BW. It was just impossible for a foreigner to really get involved in SC1. Teams were insular and the majority of pro gaming teams were not willing to take on/live with foreign players as the language barrier was an inconvinience. However as shown by OGS/Liquid non korean and korean players working together can be good for both their language skills and shows that if they practice together they will get better. Just look at Huk <3
Hopefully Kespa has no power over this and releases stupid pro gamer lisences which just secludes the Korean scene from the rest of the world. Also, I really hope teams like SlayerS/oGs stay around as I worry that the korean teams from BW will be unwilling to send their players outside of Korea for tournaments.
i will never get whats the problem with pro gamer lisences :D go get one and u can play in there. or want 2 let every random fag play in ur high leagues?
but yeah dont let Kespa come in so the chicken stores can go on sponsoring ur SC2 teams.
On October 29 2011 18:37 rasers wrote: i will never get whats the problem with pro gamer lisences :D go get one and u can play in there. or want 2 let every random fag play in ur high leagues?
but yeah dont let Kespa come in so the chicken stores can go on sponsoring ur SC2 teams.
As exciting as this might be for SC2 fans i just get this shitty feeling of inevitability that it's going to completely change the status quo as far as GSL and current teams and everything is concerned.
Right now everything feels happy, for the most part. I want it to keep feeling happy, and not feel like how i expect it will end up.
On October 29 2011 14:42 ScoutingDrone wrote: Since many people are saying BW is "better" because it is "harder" to play, I suggest Blizzard patch BW so that each control group can hold max 1 unit instead of 12, remove rally points from all production buildings, and remove the ability to automatically attack ("a" attack) so they have to manually right click on every unit to attack.
This would definitely increase the "skill ceiling" for BW, thus making BW a better game.
User was temp banned for this post.
not to be an ass, but i think this guy has a pretty valid point and got temp banned. he's just using an extreme example to counter BW player arguments about making the game harder.
It's not valid it's a dumb strawman. Who said they wanted things to be any more difficult than BW? Most criticizers infact don't even mind one or two elements automated/made easier. It's just the fact there's so many elements and there's nothing to replace them. It's just being ignorant if you try and suggest such stupid things, obviously there's a balance to be had. You could make the groups slightly smaller or slightly bigger in BW, but too far either way would make it worse. Nobodies saying 12 is some perfect number for it. A lot of people don't even think unlimited is the problem, it's the fact they clump up and the unit design pretty much encourages it.
On October 29 2011 18:29 Hittomogasin wrote: In marine vs baneling fights spreading out your marines when you cant run any more will increase your changes to absorb baneling wave by insane amount. From zergs point of view it is much better to spread banelings and lings to avoid taking so much splash damage from siege tanks, or to prevent marines from spreading so that banelings could do maximum damage.
And so on.. these are typical things to hapen in sc2 these days. It took marineking to show terrans how to use marines, people didnt micro their stuff properly before someone brought new idea into the battle, and i say that they still dont.
The fact that splitting marines amazed everyone in the first place and is still the only good example of interesting micro dynamics between units is exactly the problem. Even banelings/marines combat is over so quickly it doesn't allow the full potential of what could be possible. No matter how much APM anyone has, players switching over cannot squeeze much more micro out of a couple of seconds. Skill ceiling is a dumb argument that should stop being mentioned, but this is a genuine problem.. it doesn't matter how much APM someone has free from macro if they only get a tiny window to use it in.
Players probably manage to spend just as much attention/APM in BW engagements simply because they last longer. I bet if someone worked out the only unit micro related actions in both games during the same short timeframe, it wouldn't even be different. Partially down to unit design and partially down to speed that everything happens. That is the problem with the 'they will just have more APM for micro' comments. It doesn't work out in reality.
On October 29 2011 18:37 rasers wrote: i will never get whats the problem with pro gamer lisences :D go get one and u can play in there. or want 2 let every random fag play in ur high leagues?
but yeah dont let Kespa come in so the chicken stores can go on sponsoring ur SC2 teams.
What's wrong with chicken stores being sponsors? You can't be thankful for any source of monetary support, can you?
On October 29 2011 18:42 infinity2k9 wrote: You could make the groups slightly smaller or slightly bigger in BW, but too far either way would make it worse. Nobodies saying 12 is some perfect number for it. A lot of people don't even think unlimited is the problem, it's the fact they clump up and the unit design pretty much encourages it.
Using that feature and making one big group is almost always a bad way to play. Also the unit design encourages you to fight against the clumping up or you get splash damaged to death - see marines vs banelings, collosus wars etc etc.
i just always felt that there would never be a bonjwa in sc2 because if these progamers came even though they are so much better than current sc2 pros they will still lose occasional games.
First of all, MVP is damn close to being a bonjwa and how do you know they'll be better than the current progamers? I'm sorry, but people like MVP/Nestea/MMA/Ryung etc all play incredibly well as is and just because people are super good at Broodwar it doesn't mean they're just going to dominate in SC2.
The only reason why they dominate in SC1 is their insane practice schedules and that's the reason players like MVP/MMA do so well as SlayerS/MMA have good amounts of practice. Heck, just look at Boxer at the last MLG. He was losing all his games, so rather than sleep he practiced nearly all night and came back fighting the next day.
Foreigners now can make money from progaming, foreigners won't be instantly dominated this time like they were with BW. It was just impossible for a foreigner to really get involved in SC1. Teams were insular and the majority of pro gaming teams were not willing to take on/live with foreign players as the language barrier was an inconvinience. However as shown by OGS/Liquid non korean and korean players working together can be good for both their language skills and shows that if they practice together they will get better. Just look at Huk <3
Hopefully Kespa has no power over this and releases stupid pro gamer lisences which just secludes the Korean scene from the rest of the world. Also, I really hope teams like SlayerS/oGs stay around as I worry that the korean teams from BW will be unwilling to send their players outside of Korea for tournaments.
Your first sentence makes whatever you said invalid.
Several SC2 players have similar or even better winrates than Flash incidentally. Not saying they're bonjwas because they aren't, but it is certainly possible to be very, very dominant.
On October 29 2011 18:53 Yaotzin wrote: Several SC2 players have similar or even better winrates than Flash incidentally. Not saying they're bonjwas because they aren't, but it is certainly possible to be very, very dominant.
Being a Bonjwa requires dominance OVER TIME. Starcraft 2 hasnt even been out as long as Flash has been tearing it up in BW, or Savior did before him. Give it another year and if MVP (or the other players you're referring to) are still clearly the most dominant player(s), then we might be able to talk. To be honest though, I agree with those who think that the term Bonjwa should honestly just not be used anymore. It was savior's label, started and ended with him. SC2 should come up with its own legacy and terms.
On October 29 2011 18:53 Yaotzin wrote: Several SC2 players have similar or even better winrates than Flash incidentally. Not saying they're bonjwas because they aren't, but it is certainly possible to be very, very dominant.
I'd argue its still not yet comparable because Flash has dominated SC:BW for a few years now, SC2 is still only been in its second year, not saying its not possible but that more time is needed before that particular comparison will be fair.
I really hope that Kespa and Gretech sort something out and that there's a new league in Korea. Its weird that this is considered the home of Starcraft eSports and yet there's only one major SC2 competition there at the moment, especially given that there are now a few competing (losely speaking) leagues in NA.
People misunderstand what it means for units to clump or ball.
If I spread out my units and 1a2a3a4a5a6a with 6 groups, they will move in 6 sets of clumps. If I do this in BW, they will all move in one giant spread out "ball".
If I have 5 marines and send them to the other side of the map, they will stay clumped the entire way. In BW these marines will be very spread out individually, thus buffing lings against marines.
If I have a 200/200 ball moving into a choke, they will clump more than in an open map. In BW they will spread out more than in an open map.
It is theoretically impossible to keep units spread out while moving in SC2. They will always clump, even if they are in lesser clumps. This means spreading units (while moving) will make little difference to AoE effectiveness.
In the marine vs baneling example, can you move marines forwards while attacking and spreading at the same time to fight banelings? maybe its possible, but it would require so much attention that you wouldn't have any time to macro. In which case you probably won't see pros doing that.
You can only spread marines against banelings and same against collosus by moving backwards. This is a problem because when you are advancing you will be stuck with moving clumped, and this makes 200/200 armies look tiny and isn't very spectacular when you eventually get the cliche SC2 ball vs ball smashing into each other.
On October 29 2011 18:53 Yaotzin wrote: Several SC2 players have similar or even better winrates than Flash incidentally. Not saying they're bonjwas because they aren't, but it is certainly possible to be very, very dominant.
Depends, because of the short time span no team-league for half of that span SC2 player win-rates will be much higher, a lot of players came from a pro-gaming background which means they could start winning from the get go.
BW players start out as rookies and lose a lot before they get good. Flash didn't have the highest win-rate starting out, but those early losses still affects his current win-rate. MVP was winning a lot from the get go.
BW players also just play a lot more games and they have less time to practise for each one, where as other teams will have single matchup snipers just to beat you.
If you look at Flash's win-rate in his peak it was something ridiculous like 95% with constant 3:0 3:1 grandfinal 1a2a3a stompings over a very long period of time.
On October 29 2011 18:42 infinity2k9 wrote: You could make the groups slightly smaller or slightly bigger in BW, but too far either way would make it worse. Nobodies saying 12 is some perfect number for it. A lot of people don't even think unlimited is the problem, it's the fact they clump up and the unit design pretty much encourages it.
Using that feature and making one big group is almost always a bad way to play. Also the unit design encourages you to fight against the clumping up or you get splash damaged to death - see marines vs banelings, collosus wars etc etc.
Why should you be fighting against the clumping though, why not just let them spread out a bit? It doesn't even have to be by much. It doesn't quite discourage as you say, because de-clumping also puts your units out of range in some situations and will lower your DPS. And like i edited my post to mention, the speed that everything happens also discourages it, not to mention obvious clumping units like Collosus. I don't think it's a design choice, rather just to make the pathfinding easier because everything is so close its almost overlapping.
Anyway i'm not someone wholly against unlimited selection. It would break BW that's all i meant really. It's just one thing easier out of many things. Same with automining, that isn't much of an effect.. but just together with the rest. MBS is more of a big effect, and smartcasting is another in my opinion. While everything else is just little effects piled ontop of each other. The units also being easier in a lot to use (ie: muta micro vs new muta micro, the a-move high dps units such as the roach) is one of the biggest problems to me because that simply isn't needed; It's not a UI thing or something people should complain about.
As for Flash it wasn't just about winrates (although i think he's close to 90% during his best period). It's how the games played out. He looked like he could actually not be beaten in some of the games, and i don't mean the normal exaggeration of someone dominating a game. He'd scout anything sneaky, defend anything early game then push out with ridiculous numbers and just win.
Edit: good post by gn0m at the top of the page. The whole 'more battle micro' argument is such bullshit. People are being overly defensive in spite of detailed explanations and reasoning; even if they do agree then they just say 'well give it time' as if it will change the fundamental aspects of the game in the future. For a lot of people it's the first RTS they followed competitively and we are all very serious into our competitive gaming - it's very easy to get attached to; so i understand their feelings to get defensive. But there's some facts involved here it's not just opinion and logically sound reasoning behind peoples concerns. Personally i think BW could be improved in a few ways too; some minor adjustments to units could make even more strategies viable.
It's better everyone identifies and agrees on some things that can be improved cause ultimately it can help change the game for the better, and i don't mean anything like MBS i just mean mainly unit design.
On October 29 2011 16:18 Cyrox wrote: Consider that all the greats have pretty much unparallelled multitasking. Jaedong, Flash, Bisu. Then consider the macro in SC2 is like WC3, lol.
How will they be able to differentiate themselves ? The game exists not out of love for eSports and RTS but only to make money for activision.
I'd like to point out that July, the original Sauron Zerg with obviously tremendous macro, has pretty average macro in SC2. His creep spread is actually one of the worst among professional Zerg.
I'm not sure if you watch much competitive SC2, but even the top top players, the best in the world right now, they frequently supply block themselves, float 2k+ resources, even queue up a lot of units. Nobody's macro is even close to optimal. TBLS will have no problem differentiating themselves.
Of course. It's all part of activisions plan to slander the great pillars of light. How can you represent yourself fully when the game holds you down I ask you ? The man is up there controlling the games for the sake of profit.
Rise up! Keep the man down!
I'm not really getting what Activision has anything to do with anything discussed in this thread.
On October 29 2011 19:05 sluggaslamoo wrote: In the marine vs baneling example, can you move marines forwards while attacking and spreading at the same time to fight banelings? maybe its possible, but it would require so much attention that you wouldn't have any time to macro. In which case you probably won't see pros doing that.
You can only spread marines against banelings and same against collosus by moving backwards. This is a problem because when you are advancing you will be stuck with moving clumped, and this makes 200/200 armies look tiny and isn't very spectacular when you eventually get the cliche SC2 ball vs ball smashing into each other.
Wrong. Watch Polt vs MMA Super Tournament Finals Metapolis game when he spreads his bio against sieged tanks. Players can force their units to spread as they advance by selecting a small group of them and move commanding them off to the side before a-moving.
Also a lot of players have learnt to spread out their units before engagements, so that when the units engage, they clump up less.
You don't need to be moving backwards to spread your units. You just need to not A-move temporarily.
What you guys must take into account is the economic aspect of esports. Kespa is more or less the esports body of all big Korean corporations. The main purpose for these companies was to selling their products and branding ther products with something "cool", "young", something new potential customers would buy. They fund the system that lets BW progamers desire to practice. They fund 200k earnings. That is a stable flow of income. If BW only had tournament money to win, fewer BW players would have taken the pro gaming path. In contrast, SC2 is based around only tournament earnings and thus the "stable" BW pros simply see no point in exchanging their security for a mere opportunity to win 50k $.
That was the situation when SC2 came out.
Now the Korean corporations (Kespa) see a fading Korean market and the opportunity to let their already "in-place" system capture the world. They have to make a decision where they want to allocate their fundings to. Either a Korean fading market that is losing interest in BW? Or should they move on to SC2 to reach out to the world where they can attach their products to "cool" pro gamers who are loved by a way way bigger audience? Where do they get the best bang for their bucks?
These thoughts run through the heads of the upper echolons of Kespa and the Korean corporations.
That is exactly the reason why many companies have already stopped funding BW pro gaming all together. They see no point in putting millions into something they feel the don't get something in return. The remaing corporations are weighting the pro and cons, if they should follow the exodus, carry on in a fading market or should move on.
Exactly this decision making runs down to the very end of the chain, to the progamers themselves.
On October 29 2011 14:42 ScoutingDrone wrote: Since many people are saying BW is "better" because it is "harder" to play, I suggest Blizzard patch BW so that each control group can hold max 1 unit instead of 12, remove rally points from all production buildings, and remove the ability to automatically attack ("a" attack) so they have to manually right click on every unit to attack.
This would definitely increase the "skill ceiling" for BW, thus making BW a better game.
User was temp banned for this post.
not to be an ass, but i think this guy has a pretty valid point and got temp banned. he's just using an extreme example to counter BW player arguments about making the game harder.
No, thats an absolutely retarded point. Same as saying
Since many people are saying SC2 is "better" because you dont have to struggle with the interface to play, I suggest Blizzard patch sc2 so that macro could be done with toggles, and low health units would automatically retreat during a fight, the spells automatically cast themselves on the optimal targets, and all the macro mechanics occurred automatically. Exaggeration/Hyperbole is never a good point.
Some of those changes would be decision making engines which would remove decisions which have better-worse outcomes from the game. That is different than an interface allowing a player to make the same, simple always correct decisions more easily.
Agreed with Darth. Sorry but your examples do not make sense lol. Moving units with low HP back, for example, will not necessarily help. A human brain is infinitely more smarter than an AI in deciding what is an "optimal" target too. An AI can't read your mind (yet!). Also, having everything be automatic, once again, is a bad example. You are talking about 0 work. The original poster's argument is comparing lots of work to an insane amount of work (like 1 unit per control group). 0 work = no strategy regarding what you spend your time/APM on. Insane work = you still have to choose, for example, should i even make control groups? Or should I just box and click units when I need to, and just do other things with those few actions needed to make a control group?
You can make a better interface that goes from eye->brain->computer instead of eye->brain->hand->computer...
They do have mechanical arms that can be controlled via electrodes/brain. DARPA have already created something like that for people who have lost an arm. You could just as well make a device to send information to a different computer to process those thoughts to play a game ( maybe in like 2020... ) you could probably even execute 100+ actions/second in the game via that link/interface might be neat for sc3...
EPT
