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Are you worried about the skill ceiling in SC2? - Page 13

Forum Index > SC2 General
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LoneWolf.Alpha-
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
123 Posts
October 29 2011 21:17 GMT
#241
On October 29 2011 17:56 hehe wrote:
i am thinking the same way you are. a team bw progamers skill is pretty much wasted in sc2 because of how easy builds are to pull off.. there arent any builds that require such multi tasking and use of scouting information and star sense like bisus pvz.


yet, SC2 is still harder than anything that any ladder noob is ever going to play. A quality strategy game is too difficult to play, so why make it harder?
LoneWolf.Alpha-
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
123 Posts
October 29 2011 21:18 GMT
#242
On October 29 2011 18:07 Mise wrote:
The true skill ceiling of SC2 is humanly impossible to reach. To achieve the skill ceiling you need to macro perfectly and micro invidual units through the whole game. You can't play that fast you'd need thousands of APM.


you are a fucking retard. have you even read the OP or even know what we are discussing here? get out.

User was temp banned for this post.
LoneWolf.Alpha-
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
123 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-29 21:24:11
October 29 2011 21:22 GMT
#243
On October 29 2011 18:20 FuzzyJAM wrote:
Not remotely worried. Easier macro means more focus on other areas.

+ Show Spoiler +


Now, I don't think we're going to be seeing that in the near future, nor do I think we realistically ever will. However, that is the skill ceiling for Zergling micro. You could make more videos about the other skill ceilings for mutli-tasking, spell casting, Colossus control - whatever, and these can all be done in conjunction, theoretically. That's the skill ceiling in SC2.

The question is, are these skill ceilings even remotely attainable? I'd say no, but then you look at what people would have thought when talking about BW in 1998 and I don't think anyone would have expected the ridiculous ability of people 13 years down the line. The ceiling is high, the question is how high people can get to it. Certainly, the game is not the limiting factor here.


example of SC1 ability: stim pack (lots of micro and emergent properties that affect the game)
example of SC2 ability: charge (no micro. gets pwned by stim pack any time.)

actually, charge will negate stim pack, so charge actually has a negative "emergent property" value.

it's like if SC2 gave zerg an upgrade that prevents terrans from kiting. that would benefit zerg. it would also be a rock/paper/scissor thing. but would utterly destroy the game. blizzard just doesn't know what they are doing when it comes to emergent properties.
Akta
Profile Joined February 2011
447 Posts
October 29 2011 21:23 GMT
#244
On October 30 2011 06:10 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
The skill ceiling is seeming a level or two lower than in BW. My concern is that it actually too low and people can become only negligibly better past a certain point.
How would you rank the "skill ceiling" in sc2 compared to games like quake or cs 1.6?
LoneWolf.Alpha-
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
123 Posts
October 29 2011 21:27 GMT
#245
On October 30 2011 05:20 opdomo wrote:
I am a gold level terran player... Obviously I am not good at all..

I do feel however that sc2 is easier to play than bw for obvious reasons, such as the new macro system etc.

Things that I could make this game better, these are just ideas and please take them with a grain of salt (I personally would like for a harder game so the best players will always shine through)

1. For terran (only race I play and can say things that would make it harder to play) Put a time limit for how many mules can be called down. 1 per every minute or something like that, that way I can't just call down two mules if I forget to call them down at 50 energy.
2. Get rid of scan and make ravens cheaper.
3. Get rid of being able to que units

4. For all races, if somehow blizzard could cut down on the ball of death, make it so a certain amount of food can be in a control group. I personally feel micro is not as important because it is so easy to put units in a huge ball and attack. Granted pros still do great mircro with these balls with spits and ect, it would make a higher skill gap to be made to have multiple armies instead of one big army.

All these ideas could suck but the community needs to come up with ideas if they want things changed and propose them to blizzard.



retarded solutions from a retarded player. do you have enough experience with bw to even know what the discussion is about?
evanthebouncy!
Profile Blog Joined June 2006
United States12796 Posts
October 29 2011 21:29 GMT
#246
nah when the game distills down.
It took people 10 years to figure out bw until it is stable. SC2 is hardly old enough. That's part of the reason why people don't want to switch because it is not yet stable so why risk it.
Life is run, it is dance, it is fast, passionate and BAM!, you dance and sing and booze while you can for now is the time and time is mine. Smile and laugh when still can for now is the time and soon you die!
Shaok
Profile Joined October 2010
297 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-29 21:32:41
October 29 2011 21:30 GMT
#247
The automation bot proves the ceiling will never be reached by a human.

The fact that builds and scouting is so "easy" means that the pro players can spend their time multitasking and doing insane micro like the automation bot. The fact that they are not proves that the game is harder than people make it out to be and this "worry" is unfounded.
Alzadar
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Canada5009 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-29 21:36:28
October 29 2011 21:33 GMT
#248
On October 30 2011 06:22 LoneWolf.Alpha- wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 29 2011 18:20 FuzzyJAM wrote:
Not remotely worried. Easier macro means more focus on other areas.

+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs


Now, I don't think we're going to be seeing that in the near future, nor do I think we realistically ever will. However, that is the skill ceiling for Zergling micro. You could make more videos about the other skill ceilings for mutli-tasking, spell casting, Colossus control - whatever, and these can all be done in conjunction, theoretically. That's the skill ceiling in SC2.

The question is, are these skill ceilings even remotely attainable? I'd say no, but then you look at what people would have thought when talking about BW in 1998 and I don't think anyone would have expected the ridiculous ability of people 13 years down the line. The ceiling is high, the question is how high people can get to it. Certainly, the game is not the limiting factor here.


example of SC1 ability: stim pack (lots of micro and emergent properties that affect the game)
example of SC2 ability: charge (no micro. gets pwned by stim pack any time.)

actually, charge will negate stim pack, so charge actually has a negative "emergent property" value.

it's like if SC2 gave zerg an upgrade that prevents terrans from kiting. that would benefit zerg. it would also be a rock/paper/scissor thing. but would utterly destroy the game. blizzard just doesn't know what they are doing when it comes to emergent properties.


Umm, why wouldn't you compare stim pack with itself, instead of a completely different ability? Your comparison is useless.

Example of SC1 ability: Stim pack (lots of micro and emergent properties that affect the game)
Example of SC2 ability: Stim pack (lots of micro and emergent properties that affect the game)

Example of SC1 ability: Leg Enhancements (no micro)
Example of SC2 ability: Charge (potential for micro, albeit small)
I am the Town Medic.
gurrpp
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States437 Posts
October 29 2011 21:34 GMT
#249
On October 30 2011 06:23 Akta wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 30 2011 06:10 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
The skill ceiling is seeming a level or two lower than in BW. My concern is that it actually too low and people can become only negligibly better past a certain point.
How would you rank the "skill ceiling" in sc2 compared to games like quake or cs 1.6?


I think the main difference in comparing rts to fps games is that its easier to do something consistently well in rts games. For example, you can practice marine splits until you consistently split your marines nearly perfectly. In fps you can practice shooting the rl or rail all day, but sometimes you'll just miss a few rails in a row or you'll be on fire and nail 10 in a row. In other words, a lot of the skill ceiling in fps games is due to how hard it is to consistently perform well. In rts a lot of the skill ceiling comes from how many different tasks you have to complete in a short amount of time.
hot fuh days
Giga
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United Kingdom114 Posts
October 29 2011 21:35 GMT
#250
Even tho they were great in BW war and undoubtfully will be great players in SC2 the unts micro and in a way macro is diffrent and I don't think it will come to them that easy and they'll be the best as there is ALWAYS chance to improve imo.
은하
phiinix
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
United States1169 Posts
October 29 2011 21:37 GMT
#251
Horrible op, just another ridiculous sc1bw trio fanboy.

I don't even understand what he's saying. If low reward is better than a-moving, it should be done in every possible situation. Microing 10 stalkers vs 40 roaches actually does work, since stalkers have faster move speed and have blink. How is winning a battle so heavily in favor of zerg (theoretically) a gimmick and not representative of skill? If a protoss player can use 10 stalkers to kill even 20 roaches, i'd say he was pretty skilled. Because of the "easy" mechanics, it's absolutely possible.

OP hasn't even considered the possibilities of micro opportunity in sc2, and just writes it off. Tank/medivac micro, kiting with marines/marauders on separate control groups, hellion/medivac harass, i could go on for quite a while.

Skill ceiling sc2 are so insanely far away it's unfathomable.

Aberu
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States968 Posts
October 29 2011 21:39 GMT
#252
I think all this theorycrafting about the importance of macro and micro, and it's influence on a skill ceiling point to one key point. That the best progamers and champions of BW AND SC2 in both their respective histories so far, have one thing in common. Their decision making. Decision making is a common element and I think that you can't put a ceiling on that.
srsly
dashmode
Profile Joined August 2011
60 Posts
October 29 2011 21:46 GMT
#253
I think that death balls of units + a-move is too effective sometimes and keeping in mind that units tend to clump up in sc2 and nothing can be done about this at all we should have a much stronger AOE spells/dmg and ofc on bigger radius so that way instantly we will see difference between bad players (1a - all units on one control group) and good players (perfect spread all the time on 5 control groups). Any ideas of limiting number of units on one control group are just bad and unfair for zerg since they rely so much on zerglings and banelings, so somehow there are limited options to force players to use more than 1-2 control groups, one of them is a stronger aoe. There are still two expansions coming up so new units could make game more complicated and make sc2 much harder to play but we will see how things will turn out. I don't think that sc2 skill ceiling is reached but there are still some units missing for each race making this game sometimes limited and predictable, and ofc there is too much deathball vs deathball stuff going on.
Falling
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada11586 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-29 21:58:18
October 29 2011 21:48 GMT
#254
On October 30 2011 01:35 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
worried? no since if we are honest its well known since the release of beta.

the only difference is that by now ive given up all hope that this will ever change.sc2 just rarely has that wow effect. in most games you see the same stuff and the caster hype/environment makes the excitement instead of the game/players.


also i think "skill ceiling" is not really the right term. esp in a game like starcraft you wont see "perfect" play. but what is the real problem is that people cant use and show their true skill since the game limits them and where it doesnt limit them it helps the player so much that the skill needed is very small. which is bad for competition, fun and viewing pleasure.

this is one of the main reasons i nowadays dont play sc2 anymore(atleast till hots), barely watch anymore and absolutely cannot watch any match without topnotch casters.


Hm, maybe your right that skill ceiling it the right term, but I'm not sure what the right word would be. Because the counter to a lower skill ceiling seems to be that until we individually control each unit as though we were playing DOTA or WoW, then there is still a higher ceiling. However, I don't think that's what is meant by low skill ceiling.

It's more do the units have the responsiveness/ robustness to be handled in skillful and unique ways that produces amazing viewing experiences. And yes SC2 does have some of those moments, marine split vs banelings comes to mind. There other examples and I guess low skill ceiling arguments suggest that there aren't enough of them. Moments like vulture micro, muta stack and harass, reaver dropping and mine dragging.

Blizzard's been rather all over the place with this. On one hand they put in auto rally/mine and multibase selection, but on the otherhand they put in larva inject, mules and chronoboost. The first were taken out because they were boring apm sinks, but I don't really so how the new macro mechanics are all that different. (Although creep spread accomplishes what I always thought Zerg's should be doing if not for the horrendous waste of resources for no benefit in BW.)

The biggest question to answer is SC2 frees up apm to do other things (debatable on Zerg's part quite frankly between larvae injects and creep spread), but what exactly are these new things?

Again Blizzard's been all over the place with places to spend this freed up apm. The phoenix moveshot was a half attempt, but doesn't really function the same way and they've patched out potential micro moments like the old voidray faze. It's too bad they didn't balance the voidray around the faze and kept it in.

Spell Caster problem
I think the best place to look is spell casters however. Because a lot of the micro potential is on the basic units, particularly marines and stalkers. Roaches aren't very tricky and chargelots are countermicro and there's not much to collosi. But one of the biggest mistakes was to make spell casters ez with smart casting. The immediate counter is that you still see pro's missing spells cast, but that's not really the point.

The problem is that the spells are then balanced based on the assumption that every single spell will go off covering the screen with storms or fungals. This necessarily means the spells MUST be nerfed or it will be just a caster war. The problem then is the spell casting is not very exciting except for the shiny lights part. It's expected that the pro is going to cover the screen with spells, grab you high templar and spam 't'. When spells are balanced on the assumption the player will only have enough time to get a few off, then the spells can be more powerful. And then when a player is able to master firing off a whole bunch at once, it's an amazing moment because it's unique and SO powerful.

So part of the 'low ceiling' for lack of a better term is that Blizzard tried to make casters in particular much more available to everyone as part of their 'easy to learn, hard to master' philosophy. The problem is in BW newbies had just as much fun without casters and had fun incorporating a couple of them and getting off a couple storms, then they could feel awesome. And they could be in awe of when Jangbi covers the screen with storms. That's part of what's missing.

Latency

One thing I've been wondering recently is latency. Maybe it's just me, but I played one game of SC2 and then switched to iCCup and was amazed at the difference in feel. Unit movement/ responsiveness on SC2 always feels a little sluggish to me while BW has a quick, crisp feel to it. Is it just me? Because a lot of BW micro tricks didn't work on Battlenet 1.0, but needed LAN latency to work. Is this possibly hindering micro potential, but we have no way of knowing?

Edit
They also should add in ground magic boxes. It could possibly deal with the death ball and at the very least give players one more tool to use.
Moderator5000 of our finest Taliban warriors have been released! Rise up my brothers. Mashalla! al-Donald ibn-Frederick al-Masih allows it.
Darkkal
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States60 Posts
October 29 2011 21:51 GMT
#255
comparing BW and SC2 is retarded, seeing how they are RTS but they are almost two completely different RTS
Nomag
Profile Joined March 2011
Sweden10 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-29 21:56:09
October 29 2011 21:52 GMT
#256
Yes, im am quite worried that it will happen sooner than in bw but i think its better for the current bw pros to switch because bw isnt really developing anymore. Im excited for a possible sc2 switch

EDIT: meant that the game will get figured out alot sooner than broodwar. A skill-ceiling will never be reached
Thebbeuttiffulland
Profile Joined October 2011
Brazil288 Posts
October 29 2011 21:54 GMT
#257
theres always space to improve on somethink just a little example you always will see some marines dieing to banelings right?so someone still can improve micro close to automaton
truth is out there
Falling
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada11586 Posts
October 29 2011 22:02 GMT
#258
On October 30 2011 06:54 Thebbeuttiffulland wrote:
theres always space to improve on somethink just a little example you always will see some marines dieing to banelings right?so someone still can improve micro close to automaton


But is the goal to be able to control each unit individually like in DOTA or WoW simultaneously? I'm still wondering how to describe the issue. Because while you're right that people are not playing like an AI with unlimited apm, I don't think that's what the question is about.
Moderator5000 of our finest Taliban warriors have been released! Rise up my brothers. Mashalla! al-Donald ibn-Frederick al-Masih allows it.
ThisGS
Profile Joined October 2011
Germany255 Posts
October 29 2011 22:06 GMT
#259
there is no such thing as skill ceiling in sc2 and there will never be a "perfect" game
khanofmongols
Profile Joined January 2011
542 Posts
October 29 2011 22:07 GMT
#260
On October 29 2011 17:57 EtherealDeath wrote:
Imo the Zerg skill ceiling is not nearly reached yet, whereas Terran and Protoss are much closer.



I think this. As a terran player I shutter at the thought of a zerg hitting every inject, spending all their larvae, spreading creep constantly with an extra queen, spreading overlords everywhere, spotting and picking off every drop, and mutalisk harrassing constantly.

What more can terrans do? Control drops better and drop more, Marine and maurader micro better.

Protoss though I don't feel has much more to do without harrassment, I think phoenix will see more use.

I think that all of the above shows that multitasking is the key to a high skill ceiling and the giant deathballs of SC2 are the problem. They have said many units for HOTS are aimed at combatting this so I hope this improves.
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