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On December 08 2011 11:17 happyness wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2011 11:01 LaLuSh wrote:
Honestly don't see any reason to whine or complain about these things. And I used to be the one leading the charge when it came to riling people up against Blizzard. It's impossible to draw conclusions about how HotS will turn out at this point. What's more: people's expectations of how HotS is supposed to somehow "save" SC2 are unrealistic.
I think this pretty much ends the thread. There is no point in theorizing what HotS will be and what SC2 could have been. I'm personally going to put little thought into what HotS will be. Blizzard can worry about that. I for one will enjoy SC2 for what it is. If you like BW better, go enjoy BW.
It is a great point, but I don't think it ends the thread. We have every reason to suspect that SC2 will become a good, but not great e-Sport game.
The HotS demo and repeated interviews have indicated many things:
- The Blizzard design team may have accepted the Colossus as a unit that must remain in the game, in spite of community consensus that it is very boring and creating a mediocre unit dynamic that is holding the spot of what could be a better one. This is evident in that all the new units they proposed for protoss revolved around them having a single concentrated death ball of units including the colossus so there is little split action or excitement a la Hero (luckily Hero understands showmanship and is an explorative player).
- Blizzard may be incapable of fundamental changes that could improve the game for spectating and excitement, such as unit spacing to make armies feel bigger, and moving shot micro that may not be possible given the game engine and the programming team's shortcomings (Phoenix moving shot, gross oversights in attack ranges, etc).
- The design team is dead-set on preserving certain game dynamics even though it arguably negatively effects other game dynamics to a greater amount. EG Jinro and many in the community want to see more terran mech, but the insistence on strong bio for the sake of Bio being viable in TvT mean that bio is the strongest choice in all TvX matchups and the strongest choice for any player picking up SC2 looking to be the best in the world and win big money. You can't tell me it's impossible for a non-meching Terran to beat factory units given the strength of ghosts and Terran air. The new TvT could very well be Air Mech vs Ground Mech if bio were nerfed. That MVP Top game was pretty damn exciting to me, with ghosts and nothing but mech in the sky and air...
- The suggestion that it's unrealistic for us to expect an expansion to 'save SC2' implies it's already failed on some level to live up to it's predecessor.
- The Macro mechanics' effect on the game may be negative for SC2 in the long-term for achieving the chaos of contemporary macro BW excitement, but we have no indication that these will ever change.
- Blizzard's omission or removal of high-level micro (EG instead of a buff, the Carrier is scrapped for a slow strong AoE air unit with unexciting micro/speed potential) - only one example...
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On January 03 2012 13:36 Barrin wrote:
I will pick up where LaLuSh has left off. Long in the works actually. Fruition is soon.
I want to say that I have done truly extensive research on this subject: not a single soul out there has touched the heart of issue as closely as LaLuSh has. I shall be referencing your above two posts, Mr. Lalush. I won't let you down ^^
Curious as to what you got to say Barrin.
I enjoy reading well-thought out discussions of such nature, especially from those with experience from BW. Too many of these people here on TL that only played SC2 try to defend it till their death about how they don't want SC2 to be BW, they are different games, but it's true no one does. But what these newbies don't understand that people that truly understand what made BW so dynamic, not so coin-flippy, and a clear separation of skilled and non-skilled, and also what made games REALLY fun to watch instead of large-army clash vs large-army clash is what BW vets want transferred over to SC2. Many SC2 mechanics make sense like auto-mining, and more than 12-per-controlgroup, however watch game after game of one big clash deciding the entire game gets boring.
TLDR: Don't want SC2 to be a better-looking carboncopy of BW, but instead we want all the glitz and glamour of SC2, but with some aspects that made for BW to be highly entertaining and epic in terms of watch-ability.
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Good point mau.
We can identify universal principles that made BW great while still having a completely different RTS game. Things like unit spacing and perceived army size and resulting audience excitement is just simple psychology, and BW happens to be our best evidence to submit for cross-examination.
Same thing with wasteful attacking as LaLush mentioned (aka exciting multi-pronged harass), and so on...
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Seems like there are a lot of skeptics... Go White-ra, always putting his best foot forward 
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what Bliz should for HOTS at blizon was a joke. The way the make changes it seems i just throw an idea out there are and then balance it way later. I hope some of these changes are not done.
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If Cloud didn't suck in the pro scene, I would take his opinion seriously. But I take it as "Waaahhhhhh, why can't I be better?!??!" Blame it on the game, fool, blame it on the game. Real pros never blame the game.
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Cloud just seems to whine more than most. As he does have some points, they seem outdated. However the rest of the opinions were great to read.
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@Nuclease @Moochlol
While it may seem whiny, his underlying message carries some merit, there's a lot of gamble and abusable aspects that allow lesser-skilled players to take games of clearly better players. I'm not saying that lesser-skilled should never be able to but, it's quite obvious and general consensus amongst top tier players that the game can be very coin-flippy.
No need to be attacking his whining, he's speaking some truth.
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Yes, this game can be coin flippy, welcome to the beta, get over it. HOTS will address this. If you don't have faith in blizzard to right the wrongs, then you have been living 20 leagues under the sea (there is no internet under the sea).
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To be honest, Blizzard will eventually realize their folly. They will nerf Terran bio to hell, but still keep it good enough to be viable in TvZ with insane micro (as well as buffing Ravens so they don't demolish your own shit) and also viable at the lower levels of the game. The result will be that Terran mech takes over as the top strategy, and since it's insanely hard to pull off in every fucking matchup, only the best can truly win with it and it will require tremendous skill, multitasking (oh dear God; Blink Stalkers, Hellion drops/runbys, and Mutalisks/Roach drops), and strategic sense.
Then, Zerg will lose Banelings, get back Lurkers, and will return to how they were in Broodwar (except with Broodlords and Swarm Lords or w/e). Oh, and I guess they'd get improve Queen anti-air DPS or lower Queen build times (or Hydras finally return to their rightful spot as a tier 1.5 unit that costs only 25 gas).
Finally, Colossi will be removed, Carriers will return (as a micro-able unit somehow... improved Interceptor hp?), and Protoss will receive a Reaver-like unit (essentially further nerfing bio) that creates AoE damage suicide units, a Baneling launcher if you will, so that Protoss will have "a legitimate harassing units" as well as a "legitimate way to deal with tier 1-1.5 bio (aside from Tier 3 Psi Storm)". Also, Warp Gate will somehow be nerfed such that retarded Protoss all ins are no longer possible (or VERY DAMN HARD to pull off). Protoss has other issues to fix, but they will also be fixed.
Bottom line will be that A-moving units will be removed and the game will be fixed!
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On January 06 2012 12:06 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2011 11:17 happyness wrote:On December 08 2011 11:01 LaLuSh wrote:
Honestly don't see any reason to whine or complain about these things. And I used to be the one leading the charge when it came to riling people up against Blizzard. It's impossible to draw conclusions about how HotS will turn out at this point. What's more: people's expectations of how HotS is supposed to somehow "save" SC2 are unrealistic.
I think this pretty much ends the thread. There is no point in theorizing what HotS will be and what SC2 could have been. I'm personally going to put little thought into what HotS will be. Blizzard can worry about that. I for one will enjoy SC2 for what it is. If you like BW better, go enjoy BW. It is a great point, but I don't think it ends the thread. We have every reason to suspect that SC2 will become a good, but not great e-Sport game. The HotS demo and repeated interviews have indicated many things: - The Blizzard design team may have accepted the Colossus as a unit that must remain in the game, in spite of community consensus that it is very boring and creating a mediocre unit dynamic that is holding the spot of what could be a better one. This is evident in that all the new units they proposed for protoss revolved around them having a single concentrated death ball of units including the colossus so there is little split action or excitement a la Hero (luckily Hero understands showmanship and is an explorative player). - Blizzard may be incapable of fundamental changes that could improve the game for spectating and excitement, such as unit spacing to make armies feel bigger, and moving shot micro that may not be possible given the game engine and the programming team's shortcomings (Phoenix moving shot, gross oversights in attack ranges, etc). - The design team is dead-set on preserving certain game dynamics even though it arguably negatively effects other game dynamics to a greater amount. EG Jinro and many in the community want to see more terran mech, but the insistence on strong bio for the sake of Bio being viable in TvT mean that bio is the strongest choice in all TvX matchups and the strongest choice for any player picking up SC2 looking to be the best in the world and win big money. You can't tell me it's impossible for a non-meching Terran to beat factory units given the strength of ghosts and Terran air. The new TvT could very well be Air Mech vs Ground Mech if bio were nerfed. That MVP Top game was pretty damn exciting to me, with ghosts and nothing but mech in the sky and air... - The suggestion that it's unrealistic for us to expect an expansion to 'save SC2' implies it's already failed on some level to live up to it's predecessor. - The Macro mechanics' effect on the game may be negative for SC2 in the long-term for achieving the chaos of contemporary macro BW excitement, but we have no indication that these will ever change. - Blizzard's omission or removal of high-level micro (EG instead of a buff, the Carrier is scrapped for a slow strong AoE air unit with unexciting micro/speed potential) - only one example...
it's been said far too many times but i'll say it again.
SC2 =/= BW
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its harder to be consistent in sc2. this is a fact. what makes you good in bw is unit control/BO vs macro
in sc2 macro is a joke and thus only one aspect separates you from your opponent, build order. if i go mutas and you blindly go blink stalkers you win. if i play standard and you play greedy you might win nothing i can do about it. if you just roll the dice u can win and most important of all is that making an army and controlling it is not only easy but battles are so short it can be over with 1 mistake in 2 seconds. in BW the fights stretch across the map as the poor AI made you slowly file in and thus the fights were longer and not game ending if it didnt go so well at first
sc2 is by far the best skill game atm (other then BW) but it is by far from being a game where the MOST skilled player ALWAYS wins. the best players in a game should win most of the time how can you argue otherwise
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I think HoTS will address a lot of problems with SC2 the main ones being is ability to control your space like BW and defenders advantage more like BW thereby increasing micro needed to win battles. As of now ONLY terran has that capability and still less than BW with nerfed seige tanks.
New units and abilities such as arc shield and recall for protoss, Swarm Host for Zerg, etc will allow for real map control and micro will be far more relevant and precise needed to win offensive battles. We shall see.
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I'm super excited for zerg to have a defiler again! Otherwise everything else just doesn't interest me that much. Battle hellions are alright I guess, but I'm kind of curious how mech terran will fight zerg in HotS. The lack of a thor to tank damage plus the introduction of ultra charge ought to make tank lines a little harder to pull off, even if warhounds mean that keeping muta flocks off your head gets easier. Neither warhounds nor battle hellions are going to be ideal going up against mass roach / ultra. At least we know blizzard will put in the effort to try and balance whatever they create!
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On January 06 2012 13:58 ohokurwrong wrote:
its harder to be consistent in sc2. this is a fact. what makes you good in bw is unit control/BO vs macro
in sc2 macro is a joke and thus only one aspect separates you from your opponent, build order. if i go mutas and you blindly go blink stalkers you win. if i play standard and you play greedy you might win nothing i can do about it. if you just roll the dice u can win and most important of all is that making an army and controlling it is not only easy but battles are so short it can be over with 1 mistake in 2 seconds. in BW the fights stretch across the map as the poor AI made you slowly file in and thus the fights were longer and not game ending if it didnt go so well at first
sc2 is by far the best skill game atm (other then BW) but it is by far from being a game where the MOST skilled player ALWAYS wins. the best players in a game should win most of the time how can you argue otherwise
Pretty much this. Like IdrA already pointed out, SC2 is like chess without vision of what your opponent is doing.
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BW is not more hard to play just for the outdated UI, the skill in BW also come to control tree specific units that make the gameplay way deeper than any units in SC2, i'm speaking about vulture, lurker and reaver, blizzard should aim to introduce positioning units like that; HOTS seems to going in the right direction in regard to this.
i hope they will remove the Colossus in LOV at least.
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lol cloud is such an emo
its understandable for pro's to be worried because they spend so much time learning a game and then blizzard effectively say "hey guys we're just gonna change the entire game and make it a new game".
but for spectators, the new units and changes are fecking awesome and (at first glance) appear to be designed to make sc2 more exciting by fixing the boring stuff like deathballs.
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I love how this thread started with comments from pros about HotS (which are COMPLETELY worthless because none of them or us or anyone has played a released version of the game yet) and slowly evolved into the ever existing SC2 vs BW, newcomer vs oldschool, "BW was so much better" discussion (in which LaLush is pretty much the only one who is constructive).
Everyone should chill and just wait for Blizzard to do their things. You can evaluate what they did when you actually got a finished product and more than "Hey look at this, we thought these are cool unit ideas, but half of them will probably get scrapped 3 months from now and we didn't do any balancing so far whatsoever". I think most of us can agree that WoL wasn't the top of our dreams when you compare it to BW, but it comes pretty close and is a good game. If you hate it then don't discuss about it, BW is still existing and you can play (and watch) it on a high level. 2 Addons are still to come for SC2 and we can only really compare BW and SC2 once Legacy of the Void is out and established itself in a period of time.
Really, half of the thread just animates to shake your head relentlessly. Something that is usually only be seen in the Starcraft 2 Strategy Forum.
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This is a great article, I really enjoyed the read. I too, suspect that there will be a tonne of nerfs, and even some units being added/taken out.
I have to really agree to WhiteRa, Protoss is becoming WAY too gas heavy...also...the Oracle? The hell is that?  I guess it'll be good for scouting, but I don't like the 'passive harass' style of this unit.
But having said that, if there's one gaming company I trust to make a game amazing, it's Blizzard.
EDIT: I also take issue with the Tempest. It really seems to me that it's a late game solution to a mid-game issue...Protoss have a hard time dealing with Muta's around the 10 minute mark, which is far from when you'll have Carriers (which is being replaced by the Tempest, so I assume the tech tree will be the same?)
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On December 03 2011 07:29 MasterBlasterCaster wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2011 07:12 VanGarde wrote:
No offense to Cloud but it is getting silly how all of the mid tier foreign players are the ones who whine that the game is too random and the skill cap is too low so there is no point in competing. Unless you are beating mvp or nestea in gsl finals arguments like that are completely irrelevant when it comes to actually competing in the game. Seriously stop using how "flawed the game is" to explain away a lack of results. These kinds of comments always only come from the players who play seriously but who are never seen in the top of tournaments. To be fair, I've heard similar comments from multiple tourny winners.
Like Idra. Notice how there's a wildly different set of winner/2nd/3rd every time. The asme is not true to BW.
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EPT
