No this isn't a conversation about stratagy. I recently watched one of Day[9]'s "musings" video's and thought that the topic could be further discussed. In the video http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-s-musings-game-design-baseballs-vs-frisbees-5837982#disqus_thread Sean talks about game design, and more specificaly the skill ceiling and the optimization of units that existed in Broodwar, and have been toned down alot in Starcraft 2.
I disagreed, somewhat, with what Sean said.
To start, and this was brought up in the video already, the game is young. In Broodwar, the pro's had years to develop little tricks that would increase the value of their units. Starcraft 2 hasn't had nearly this amount of time, so it's silly to assume that everything has been discovered and used.
But this argument doesn't lead to any discussion, nor does it alleviate the issue that Sean brought up, which is that skilled players cant seem to get much more out of their units than mediocre players.
But I thought otherwise, skilled players can still get alot more out of their units than your average gamer, but it doesn't work the same as it did in Broodwar.
Take for example, in Broodwar, clustering your muta's. Doing so well, and then microing them to 1 shot units 1 by 1, and take minimal damage, increased the value of all your muta's. A good macroing player kept track of his workers, which didn't auto mine back then. Reavers in shuttles could be game changing, and flanking manuvers were used more often, and with greater success, partly due to the 12 unit selection cap.
But in Starcraft 2, those tricks don't exist, many are now gone because they were made automatic (mining and mass selection). But I would still argue that units can be made far more valuble in the hands of certain players.
Now take an example from Starcraft 2. A protoss player has his "deathball" AOE army and his terran opponent has his medivac bioball army. Ignore the battle, focus on the units. I'll go from the protoss point of view: Zealots tank, blink stalkers snipe medivacs, sentry's FF his army, Psi storms go off, colossus... just a-move most of the time. Each unit has a role in that battle, and if they complete that role then they have made up for their cost and have been used effectively.
But what if the protoss player wanted to get more out of his units? I would suggest that this is entirely possible, simply by removing them from battle. Lets say the same battle occured, but with 6 less zealots. Instead, a warp prism droped 4 zealots in the Terrans newly saturated third base during the battle. Those 4 zealots are worth more to the protoss now than the original 6 in the battle. Alot more, I would argue.
As for the discussion, try to come up with ways to get more out of a unit. Preferably not along the lines of "well, I will stutter step my marines". Think about compositions that would get more out of certain units that support eachother, think about positioning, flanks, multi-pronged attacks, timing, the surprise factor of a hidden tech path. Get more out of your units.
On January 01 2012 06:10 triforks wrote: i think more terrans should be repairing there mech. it should be standard to include a handful of scvs with any army that can be repaired.
I'm pretty sure most do. Especially pure mech. It's rare to see a mech push without scvs.
On January 01 2012 06:05 VPCursed wrote: Oh, so there are no tricks in sc2?
Why, my argument is exactly the opposite.
I think he is referring to your comment that literally is, "But in SC2, these tricks don't exist anymore."
Yes, i meant that Reaver drops and making your workers mine well and muta clustering don't exist anymore, but that there are new tricks to be discovered. Sorry, will edit.
Load up 1-3 speed prisms with zealots. Run them over the terran army pressing "d + click" on each one OR drop them behind the terran army. You basically get a flank without having to set up one. The only downside is that you waste supply on warp prisms. Don't know how effective it is but it's a good idea.
Credits to NEXSickness to this one:
Load an immortal, let it hit the roaches and then load it up. The projectile is faster for an immortal so you will dodge the roach shots while hitting them.
It's odd for me to say this, but I also think Day9 was a bit off on this. Maybe not completely, but preemptive in saying that there isn't the same skill ceiling. We're still seeing different combinations of units and timings to maximize unit efficiency. Look at Boxer's latest Reaper/Medivac timing in TvT for an example. He may have more foresight than myself, but I think we should at least wait a couple years before we write off low unit efficiency micro options.
On January 01 2012 06:21 Durn wrote: It's odd for me to say this, but I also think Day9 was a bit off on this. Maybe not completely, but preemptive in saying that there isn't the same skill ceiling. We're still seeing different combinations of units and timings to maximize unit efficiency. Look at Boxer's latest Reaper/Medivac timing in TvT for an example. He may have more foresight than myself, but I think we should at least wait a couple years before we write off low unit efficiency micro options.
Actually, the new expansion's just ruin this even more. If we have WoL for 5 more years, it will be figured out for the most part in the sense that micro tricks will be explored. If we keep resetting the AI with HotS and that Protoss one, you're just cleaning the slate again.
Also, Reaper/Medivac isn't what Day9 was talking about. He's talking about how an amateur player would lose a battle with more units than his progamer opponent whereas in Starcraft 2, if you have 7 maraduers vs 5 maraduers, the 7 will always win.
After watching Day9 discuss this I got to thinking about using Colossus with Warp Prisms with the Warp Prism speed since you can outrun basically anything [except Fungal Growth I presume]. Of course, today I see someone else has already taken the initiative to exploring this tactic which excites me, I think it'll be something huge once it catches on.
On January 01 2012 06:10 triforks wrote: i think more terrans should be repairing there mech. it should be standard to include a handful of scvs with any army that can be repaired.
I'm pretty sure most do. Especially pure mech. It's rare to see a mech push without scvs.
well yea but i mean like even taking like 1-3 scvs on your early game tank marine push can help a lot. i don't think i see repair used much in tank marine pushes. it can help heal the medivacs up too which usually end up taking some damage.
On January 01 2012 06:21 Durn wrote: It's odd for me to say this, but I also think Day9 was a bit off on this. Maybe not completely, but preemptive in saying that there isn't the same skill ceiling. We're still seeing different combinations of units and timings to maximize unit efficiency. Look at Boxer's latest Reaper/Medivac timing in TvT for an example. He may have more foresight than myself, but I think we should at least wait a couple years before we write off low unit efficiency micro options.
Actually, the new expansion's just ruin this even more. If we have WoL for 5 more years, it will be figured out for the most part in the sense that micro tricks will be explored. If we keep resetting the AI with HotS and that Protoss one, you're just cleaning the slate again.
Also, Reaper/Medivac isn't what Day9 was talking about. He's talking about how an amateur player would lose a battle with more units than his progamer opponent whereas in Starcraft 2, if you have 7 maraduers vs 5 maraduers, the 7 will always win.
Yeah, I got that. I was just using that as an example of the game still growing. Sorry for the confusion.
But to your point, I do agree. Looking forward to an expansion gives pros very little incentive to spend 8 hour training sessions on how to maximize Roaches against Thors when there's really no certainty it will be the same in 1 year.
On January 01 2012 06:17 Kluey wrote: Credits to LiquidHerO for this one:
Load up 1-3 speed prisms with zealots. Run them over the terran army pressing "d + click" on each one OR drop them behind the terran army. You basically get a flank without having to set up one. The only downside is that you waste supply on warp prisms. Don't know how effective it is but it's a good idea.
Credits to NEXSickness to this one:
Load an immortal, let it hit the roaches and then load it up. The projectile is faster for an immortal so you will dodge the roach shots while hitting them.
The immortal trick is good but if their is hydras/mutas then its basically useless.
The issue, at least currently, is that most end game battles tend to be quite one sided depending on how effective a few skills wind up being. Whoever takes the big maxed battle usually has a good clump of units left over and can proceed to gather up some reinforcements and just win. In this scenario, the 6 zealots in the main battle are much more important than any harassment.
To put it another way, nuking 3 bases with all the probes is awesome and effectively brings your opponents economy to 0. However, if those nukes come at the expense of not having enough emps in the main fight, you will lose your entire army while doing minimal damage to theirs, and they will proceed to walk all over you.
edit: to address your proposed discussion, stalker micro and focus firing is perhaps the clearest example. You can focus fire the anti air or the enemy casters and thus allow your own casters or collosi to be extremely effective. This messes with the enemies composition. If they overinvest in antiair, then you focus casters and your ground army with casters wins. Otherwise, you focus fire the anti air and you air army/collosi win.
Still, I think this is a poor example when compared to bw. A little thing like mine placement patterns before battles, which certainly isn't considered micro, would be game changing and could effectively move you up from d/d+ to c-.
I think you are correct that the ease of sc2 unit control means we will need to see players show their superior skill by doing more tasks at once rather than doing a particular task very well. (in day9's analogy this would be equivalent to throwing several baseballs at once to make up for the comparative simplicity of the baseball as compared to the frisbee.) Still, I don't think you example is correct, and I dislike this aspect as multitask and control were almost 2 separate skills to develop in bw.
I'm not sure if anyone has seen vileIllusion vs Liquid'Sheth from MLG, now it's casted by HD But he did a really sweet move to abuse the spine crawler. When the crawler would attack, he would pull his marines out of the bunker and attack the crawler. You can go check out the game for yourself, some really cool stuff :D + Show Spoiler +
I'm not really sure what is the point you are trying to make but I think what Day[9] was trying to say is that units in sc2 do not feel as interactive and interesting as in Brood War.
It's more about what's fun and what's not for the average gamer then about skill cap and pro players.
There are way to maximize the usefulness of units in Sc2 too, but it is not such an integral and vast part of the game as it was in Brood War.
Bronze level Colossi are pretty much as good as Platinum level Colossi.
I know I get way more out of my roaches than the average play just from doing burrow micro on hurt roaches. Usually it causes a rage quit from the other player
EDIT: Also I wouldn't say that sc2 has a lower skill ceiling just because the sc2 UI makes it easier to perform the same actions that only pros could do in sc1. At the very least the ceiling would be equal because pros can still do those same actions in sc2, but I would say that sc2 has a much higher potential ceiling because of how much higher the sc2 UI raised baseline skill level.
On January 01 2012 06:40 phyren wrote: The issue, at least currently, is that most end game battles tend to be quite one sided depending on how effective a few skills wind up being. Whoever takes the big maxed battle usually has a good clump of units left over and can proceed to gather up some reinforcements and just win. In this scenario, the 6 zealots in the main battle are much more important than any harassment.
My thoughts exactly. any time you hit their probes, if you havent actually won the main and ONLY main fight in the game, you end up on the backfoot trying to gather and attack with whtaever units you can mass. they get steamrolled being a smaller group, and then ur done.
On January 01 2012 06:04 Gl!tch wrote: But what if the protoss player wanted to get more out of his units? I would suggest that this is entirely possible, simply by removing them from battle. Lets say the same battle occured, but with 6 less zealots. Instead, a warp prism droped 4 zealots in the Terrans newly saturated third base during the battle. Those 4 zealots are worth more to the protoss now than the original 6 in the battle. Alot more, I would argue.
As for the discussion, try to come up with ways to get more out of a unit. Preferably not along the lines of "well, I will stutter step my marines". Think about compositions that would get more out of certain units that support eachother, think about positioning, flanks, multi-pronged attacks, timing, the surprise factor of a hidden tech path. Get more out of your units.
Apologies if poorly written and or too long.
So you are saying that in sc2 you get more use out of your units by making smart decisions? Okey...well...that was in bw to and that is not what Day9 wants. Day9 wants to get more from units with micro. And if micro is gona be replaced with smart and creative decision making on what to do with units, no thank you.
I feel like two zealots are even enough for the OP's idea. Huk made that pretty clear in PvP with proxy pylon's warping in two zealots and using defender's advantage to make up for the two lost units.
I've been really curious why in a game where splash damage is such an important thing, why people don't do unit splits like marines do against banelings as much. One example that comes to mind is late game PvP with Colo vs blink stalker. Why don't we see people doing blink stalker splitting against large numbers of colo to get an incredibly wide and spread group of units to minimize splash?
Late game PvT, why aren't protoss splitting units like crazy against terran ghosts? We'll see pro's do small splits like 3 groups but why not split up into an even wider spread? Same thing goes for how protoss had trouble with infestors for a while with colo/voidray/stalker army because the entire army was the width of two fungals. Maybe the solution to emp is clump up a lot less.
Just some thoughts, and I'll admit that it could be that it's not worth it but personally, I feel that one of the big things that will happen within the next 3-5 years will be people splitting their units a LOT better. Both pre-battle and mid-battle.
On January 01 2012 06:59 CrtBalorda wrote: ...And if micro is gona be replaced with smart and creative decision making on what to do with units, no thank you.
You do realize that sc2 is a real time STRATEGY game right? Perhaps you should play League of Legends if all you want to do is micro.
Obviously BW had a higher skill ceiling regarding microing units, which is different than saying that sc2 has no room at all for a better player to get an advantage over a lesser one. You still don`t see all pros doing close to perfect micro (flanks, spread, focus fire, perfect accuracy on spells, etc); until that happens, it doesn`t make much sense to complain about a lower skill ceiling. The warp prism + immortal against roaches is a great example. It`s rare to see someone doing that in a big battle, which they should if they were really good.
Day 9 was right IMO. This game is to easy so the good players and even OK players are all similar in unit control and macro. The game is really decided by decision making and scouting it seems like. I really do miss being blown away playing against a player that could really micro reavers really good or someone that could always get all the mines down out of a group of vultures in a flash. Probably the most irritating thing now is how noob friendly Psi Strorm is. BW storm was really really good but really really hard to use haha so I would concede to the fact that when i lose all my hydra to some good storming that guy out played me in that fight. Now its like wow he just cast 8 storms at once no impressed at all add some colossus next time so u literally can 1 a afk me.
BW seemed much more rewarding when you did a sick play or even got beat by one. Now I feel like anything I see or that I can do anyone can do. It doesn't take hours of practice to learn to micro HT or Colossus or any of that crap.
I will say though if there is one thing that can be challenging it would be marine splitting but when that is the only thing off the top of my head that I can come up with that sorta sucks.
On January 01 2012 06:59 CrtBalorda wrote: ...And if micro is gona be replaced with smart and creative decision making on what to do with units, no thank you.
You do realize that sc2 is a real time STRATEGY game right? Perhaps you should play League of Legends if all you want to do is micro.
exactly. I want a game more like BW. Micro can really up your unit uses well, but making good strategic decisions and using units in tactical and strategic ways are what players want.
why do you think they upped the shields on warp prism, lancer?
On January 01 2012 06:59 CrtBalorda wrote: ...And if micro is gona be replaced with smart and creative decision making on what to do with units, no thank you.
You do realize that sc2 is a real time STRATEGY game right? Perhaps you should play League of Legends if all you want to do is micro.
He clearly did not say that all he wants is micro. Imagine Starcraft as a purely strategical game. Every time the same decision is made under the same circumstances, it would have to have the same outcome. Oh, he put that bunker down outside my fast expand at that specific place and time.. I now lose because I can't change the outcome of his decision or this wouldn't be a purely strategical game. That works well for some games, but it would make Starcraft incredibly boring.
In BW, if you have 20 Zerglings, 4 Lurkers, and some left over Mutalisks from earlier and your opponent has three sieged tanks, a dozen marines and a few medics, there are endless ways for that engagement to play out that could result in an even trade or a landslide victory from either side, especially considering terrain. In SC2 it's still there, but to a much smaller degree in the vast majority of cases.
The picking up zealots and dropping them as harrassment during a battle is an example of decision making. In BW, if a protoss decided to do some shuttle/reaver harrass during a battle, they would have endless options due to the freedom in control of the shuttle and reaver. A thousand different players would have a thousand different outcomes in that situation due to the skill required and the freedom of choice in specifics of how you do the harassment, even though they all made the same decision.
i get what you are saying man, zerg has the most potential for this, terran comes second, finally protoss. i think making your units cost more are harasses or building sniping, when you engage in battles you need every unit you can get, splitting armies is too risky for mediocre players, i think in the future we will see more of splitting armies.
Just some micro-stuff i can think of, that i see hardly in pro play:
- Nydus loading units in and out (dragon did some cool stuff with mass queens + leenocks queen infusion on nydus in blizzard cup) - Burrow micro (Burrowing damaged units, like blinking hurt stalkers - sniping detection and protecting own detection /forcing scans) - Overlord drop/pickup (Flanking+Pickup hurt units- especially effective with mass overlord above main battle) - I noticed that terran tank/rine armies get really wide spread when they get into postion - thats great - but miss see someone move them nicely spread yet (for example to avoid to get caught off guard by banes - 1a2a3a to 3 parallel points instead of 1a to one point) - i feel like banshees get microed quite a bit to be more effective, but theres a lot room for more effectiveness
Totally agreed with Day9. All you need to do is consider how much less rewarding micro is in this game by looking at player skill differences. Take MKP. I don't know about you, but some high skilled NA/EU GM could probably beat him 2-3/10 games reliably. Compare Brood War. An A- player would be lucky to take ONE game in a hundred off of Flash. Why? Because APM means so much more in that game. Training yourself to play at 700 APM affects every stage of the game; not just splitting against banelings.
On January 01 2012 06:10 triforks wrote: i think more terrans should be repairing there mech. it should be standard to include a handful of scvs with any army that can be repaired.
please please please please please tell me u r trolling cuz if u are being serious then u havent played or been around sc2 since like early beta when people found auto repair and mass thors O_O
On January 01 2012 06:05 VPCursed wrote: Oh, so there are no tricks in sc2?
Why, my argument is exactly the opposite.
I think he is referring to your comment that literally is, "But in SC2, these tricks don't exist anymore."
Yes, i meant that Reaver drops and making your workers mine well and muta clustering don't exist anymore, but that there are new tricks to be discovered. Sorry, will edit.
You can make your workers mine better my stacking on close minerals.
Remember last year how much people said sc2 will never have all the tricks bw had? I think we're finding tons now. I mean just look at warp prism ussage, esp speed warp prisms with collosi, or storm drops. Or PvZ these days, which is basically a huge harass fest when the z goes muta. Man o man this game is so awesome <3
On January 01 2012 07:53 Shiori wrote: Totally agreed with Day9. All you need to do is consider how much less rewarding micro is in this game by looking at player skill differences. Take MKP. I don't know about you, but some high skilled NA/EU GM could probably beat him 2-3/10 games reliably. Compare Brood War. An A- player would be lucky to take ONE game in a hundred off of Flash. Why? Because APM means so much more in that game. Training yourself to play at 700 APM affects every stage of the game; not just splitting against banelings.
I don't agree with your comment about MKP at all. The top of the NA gm ladder right now is Kyhol, all praise to him but I've hardly heard of him and I doubt he'd take a single game off mkp.
Plus your argument falls apart when you realize MKP has an 80% winrate against the KR gm ladder. Which is actually absurd considering it's not hardcore play, it's fucking ladder!
On January 01 2012 08:02 Oreo7 wrote: You can make your workers mine better my stacking on close minerals.
I think that's exactly what Day[9] was on about - you can still improve how useful each unit is, but not to the same extent as in Brood War. For example, stacking them on close minerals gives you (IIRC) 7% extra minerals from that base (until you reach saturation). That's well within Day[9]'s guesstimated number of 1.55x, with x being the baseline usefulness of a unit a-moved. Brood War's coefficient here could stretch far higher than 1.55, which is what Day[9] was saying.
On January 01 2012 07:53 Shiori wrote: Totally agreed with Day9. All you need to do is consider how much less rewarding micro is in this game by looking at player skill differences. Take MKP. I don't know about you, but some high skilled NA/EU GM could probably beat him 2-3/10 games reliably. Compare Brood War. An A- player would be lucky to take ONE game in a hundred off of Flash. Why? Because APM means so much more in that game. Training yourself to play at 700 APM affects every stage of the game; not just splitting against banelings.
Yah, well said. The fact is, in SC2 you only need to have basic macro skills (infinitely easier with automine/MBS/better hotkeys). If you can follow a build, you probably can win games vs much better players, especially in the more volatile matchups like PvP and TvP. In BW there was always a way to defeat a badly controlled army with a smaller army, even in PvP and ZvZ. That's why it's so damn hard for a bad player to win without doing allin cheese..
On January 01 2012 07:53 Shiori wrote: Totally agreed with Day9. All you need to do is consider how much less rewarding micro is in this game by looking at player skill differences. Take MKP. I don't know about you, but some high skilled NA/EU GM could probably beat him 2-3/10 games reliably. Compare Brood War. An A- player would be lucky to take ONE game in a hundred off of Flash. Why? Because APM means so much more in that game. Training yourself to play at 700 APM affects every stage of the game; not just splitting against banelings.
I don't agree with your comment about MKP at all. The top of the NA gm ladder right now is Kyhol, all praise to him but I've hardly heard of him and I doubt he'd take a single game off mkp.
Plus your argument falls apart when you realize MKP has an 80% winrate against the KR gm ladder. Which is actually absurd considering it's not hardcore play, it's fucking ladder!
MKP is extremely mortal. You're missing the point, though. In a tournament, any of the non-pros that account for MKP's ladder losses almost certainly wouldn't win. But that doesn't mean they can't play on the same level as him. It was literally not conceivable to play on the same level as Flash/Jaedong/etc even if you were a top tier foreign player. 80% is nothing compared to the fact that top BW pros have been known to have that same sort of winrate in tournaments. It's not that they were simply magically better than the opposition. In terms of playing and practicing, all the top pros were doing similar things; but how much does talent matter in Sc2? I love this game as much as anyone else, but I firmly believe that basically anyone of suitable physical and mental fortitude can play at a fairly high (i.e. GM) level in Sc2.
To some extent, this is due to the youngness of Sc2, but it was clear from the outset in BW that micro = huge benefits. Every. Single. Engagement. Compare Sc2: it ultimately doesn't matter if you play with the best control in the world, Marauders are gonna roll Stalkers, and so on. That's why Sc2 is becoming so focused on opening properly and trying to scout so much that you don't get hard countered blindly. That shouldn't be part of this game. You know what's frustrating? When you're completely aware of how you want a battle to play out, you should be able to make things work with virtually any units given some threshold of micro. You CANT do this in Sc2 right now, or at least not very often. There's some really nice mechanics: blink micro, marine splitting, warp prism HTs, etc. But in 9/10 scenarios, these are either not influential enough to help you come back from a weak scenario or completely unnecessary because the game is a walkover anyway.
If you want a very easy example to think of how deep controlling certain BW units can be just look at the terms used for certain players. Jangbi storms. Jaedong mutalisks. Fantasy vultures. Just a few examples, but these players are so proficient with these particular units that they become their trademarks. They are able to bring those units to a whole new level of efficiency. And that kind of expertise with a particular unit comes from hours and hours of practice and experience.
In SC2 do we see any players claim a unit in a similar fashion? I can't think of any examples. Instead we see players known for their various styles and strategies primarily; something BW players were known for ON TOP of their fantasy unit control.
BW's bad UI caused an extremely high ceiling cap which is exactly why the game never got too popular in America.
To most people, SC:BW, and SC2, is just a video game. Watching someone have good micro of their workers and good control of their limited 12 person groups was just not that impressive or entertaining. Think of any other sport or video game, and think of the miniscule, mundane tasks/objectives that make a difference that you find stupid. That would be the micro that BW spawned. Yeah, it's impressive to people who appreciate the game and see how difficult that is. But to everyone else, its silly. What made BW and SC2 actually entertaining and impressive? The strategy.
Every game and every task that requires some form of skill has these "micro" requirements. The kinds of tasks that takes days upon days of practice to master. For example, in baseball, if you think about the pitcher. Lets say he has a slider, curveball, 2 seam fastball, 4 seam fast ball, and a change-up. Now, the pitcher has to decide where to place the ball, with what pitch, depending on the playstyle of the batter itself (your opponent) and the current count.
So, how does this relate back to the BW micro? well, the pitcher's form is extremely important to the quality of your pitch. Someone who has practiced 1000 days worth of throwing is going to have better form than someone who's only done 800 days worth of practice. So who is the better pitcher? well, even if the 800 days pitcher can't hide the ball as he throws as well, or make balks sometimes, if he's making the better strategic decisions on what to throw and where to throw, he's going to be the one throwing the batters out.
point is, yes the micro is impressive and it's great and all, but the essence of this game and the truly impressive skills I respect and love about this game is the intense, difficult, fast-paced strategy behind it.
everything has their difficult practice-consuming skills you must master to be the best of the best in your specific task. What makes SC special is the strategy that comes with it!
Flash has a higher winrate by about 4%. The only significant difference between the two is Flash's reign has been much longer - only time will tell if MVP persists.
The argument that you can't dominate as hard in sc2 as people did in BW is basically decided by this simple comparison. We could also look at some other statistics - Inca's PvP, Nestea's ZvZ etc. But the point is made - it is very possible in SC2 to absolutely dominate your opponents.
The argument that you can dominate as hard in sc2 is further strengthened by the elephant in the room. If what we're seeing now is a collection of bench warmers and meh A-teamers, then when the gods of BW switch, they'll dominate so fuuuuucking hard.
[QUOTE]On January 01 2012 08:12 Shiori wrote: [QUOTE]On January 01 2012 08:04 Oreo7 wrote: [QUOTE]On January 01 2012 07:53 Shiori wrote: Totally agreed with Day9. All you need to do is consider how much less rewarding micro is in this game by looking at player skill differences. Take MKP. I don't know about you, but some high skilled NA/EU GM could probably beat him 2-3/10 games reliably. Compare Brood War. An A- player would be lucky to take ONE game in a hundred off of Flash. Why? Because APM means so much more in that game. Training yourself to play at 700 APM affects every stage of the game; not just splitting against banelings.[/QUOTE] To some extent, this is due to the youngness of Sc2, but it was clear from the outset in BW that micro = huge benefits. Every. Single. Engagement. Compare Sc2: it ultimately doesn't matter if you play with the best control in the world, Marauders are gonna roll Stalkers, and so on. That's why Sc2 is becoming so focused on opening properly and trying to scout so much that you don't get hard countered blindly. That shouldn't be part of this game. You know what's frustrating? When you're completely aware of how you want a battle to play out, you should be able to make things work with virtually any units given some threshold of micro. You CANT do this in Sc2 right now, or at least not very often. There's some really nice mechanics: blink micro, marine splitting, warp prism HTs, etc. But in 9/10 scenarios, these are either not influential enough to help you come back from a weak scenario or completely unnecessary because the game is a walkover anyway.[/QUOTE]
Maybe my lack of knowledge about BW is showing, but can't you get absolutely build order countered there too? I think I saw Fantasy getting allinned by some KT zerg in the PL finals and the z just left as soon as a Valkyrie popped out. Some things just fucking kill you.
Also I'd advise you to watch, for example, Sase's stream. If you think people don't make units count, holy shit you're in for a surprise.
On January 01 2012 06:04 Gl!tch wrote: No this isn't a conversation about stratagy. I recently watched one of Day[9]'s "musings" video's and thought that the topic could be further discussed. In the video http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-s-musings-game-design-baseballs-vs-frisbees-5837982#disqus_thread Sean talks about game design, and more specificaly the skill ceiling and the optimization of units that existed in Broodwar, and have been toned down alot in Starcraft 2.
I disagreed, somewhat, with what Sean said.
To start, and this was brought up in the video already, the game is young. In Broodwar, the pro's had years to develop little tricks that would increase the value of their units. Starcraft 2 hasn't had nearly this amount of time, so it's silly to assume that everything has been discovered and used.
But this argument doesn't lead to any discussion, nor does it alleviate the issue that Sean brought up, which is that skilled players cant seem to get much more out of their units than mediocre players.
But I thought otherwise, skilled players can still get alot more out of their units than your average gamer, but it doesn't work the same as it did in Broodwar.
Take for example, in Broodwar, clustering your muta's. Doing so well, and then microing them to 1 shot units 1 by 1, and take minimal damage, increased the value of all your muta's. A good macroing player kept track of his workers, which didn't auto mine back then. Reavers in shuttles could be game changing, and flanking manuvers were used more often, and with greater success, partly due to the 12 unit selection cap.
But in Starcraft 2, those tricks don't exist, many are now gone because they were made automatic (mining and mass selection). But I would still argue that units can be made far more valuble in the hands of certain players.
Now take an example from Starcraft 2. A protoss player has his "deathball" AOE army and his terran opponent has his medivac bioball army. Ignore the battle, focus on the units. I'll go from the protoss point of view: Zealots tank, blink stalkers snipe medivacs, sentry's FF his army, Psi storms go off, colossus... just a-move most of the time. Each unit has a role in that battle, and if they complete that role then they have made up for their cost and have been used effectively.
But what if the protoss player wanted to get more out of his units? I would suggest that this is entirely possible, simply by removing them from battle. Lets say the same battle occured, but with 6 less zealots. Instead, a warp prism droped 4 zealots in the Terrans newly saturated third base during the battle. Those 4 zealots are worth more to the protoss now than the original 6 in the battle. Alot more, I would argue.
As for the discussion, try to come up with ways to get more out of a unit. Preferably not along the lines of "well, I will stutter step my marines". Think about compositions that would get more out of certain units that support eachother, think about positioning, flanks, multi-pronged attacks, timing, the surprise factor of a hidden tech path. Get more out of your units.
Apologies if poorly written and or too long.
I think your missing the point he was making. Puling zealots out and dropping purely a decision that is made. "I am going to multi prong harass" is simply a DECISION.
A simple example of what he means is for instance in zvz if one player a-moves lings and banes while the other player target fires baneling with lings and sends single banleing off to get kill, send 2 banes into a group of 3 or more to get an efficient trade. Both players are "Attacking" but one player is using micro to get way more out of their units.
This is why i love zvz ling bling wars, you can open 14/14 and never lose to inferior players simply because your micro is way better than theirs.
Similarly, if you watch MC force-fielding it is terrifying. His game in the TSL vs ies.Ciarra was crazy as he was down 30-40 supply vs roach hydra and his boss toss forcefields allowed him to kill an army most protoss players wouldnt.
Further more, if you watch top terrans vs zerg you see huge amounts of banelings rolling in and somehow they hold? Target firing banes with tanks, targeting the center of a ling clump, splitting are all ways to use micro to get the most out of your units.
And just think about a pro's burrowed banelings vs some random ladder dude...
He is not arguing that these methods dont exist in SC2, just that they are more important as well as appear more in BW than SC2. For example, the difference between idras muta micro and a lower tier pro isnt that significant. The difference is idra macro like a boss while he micros.
I believe more and more techniques will arise as the game progresses however there are alot of units in the game that just require herp derping (roaches, colossi, marauders, thors, corruptors come to mind for a short list) as well as early game sentries FF and infestors fungal removing any ability for your OPPONENT to micro.
My main issue is with the ease of using spellcasters due to smart cast. + Show Spoiler +
blanket storming/fungling/EMPing an entire army is not that mechanically hard. all you have to do is hold the spell key and click. Compared to having to individually select casters + target i am not surprised EVERY SINGLE CASTER HAS BEEN NERFED AS PLAYERS GET BETTER because of the ease + unit clumping. However i think this is a moot point as they are different games its not quite as applicable, without smartcasting casters would need to be buffed so its less important to me
I do agree that the game is young however but there are alot of timing attacks that only require following a build order to X minutes and attacking that can net wins vs far superior players due to the simplicity of the game engine.
TLDR: I think your missing the point but at the same time i didnt play brood war alot so i cannot make direct comparisons to the game + SC2 is young and more techniques will arise for micro.
On January 01 2012 07:53 Shiori wrote: Totally agreed with Day9. All you need to do is consider how much less rewarding micro is in this game by looking at player skill differences. Take MKP. I don't know about you, but some high skilled NA/EU GM could probably beat him 2-3/10 games reliably. Compare Brood War. An A- player would be lucky to take ONE game in a hundred off of Flash. Why? Because APM means so much more in that game. Training yourself to play at 700 APM affects every stage of the game; not just splitting against banelings.
I'm not even sure if this is a serious post but there's a lot more to being a top player in BW than APM.
there have been lots of tricks in sc2 which have been discovered, however blizz just removed them when people started to bitch cos they were "bugs"... tricks like the mineral booster thing, voidray fazing and the old archon toilet(yea that was probably imba) to name a few off the top of my head. even now people are still asking for the removal of the archon toilet right now
On January 01 2012 07:53 Shiori wrote: Totally agreed with Day9. All you need to do is consider how much less rewarding micro is in this game by looking at player skill differences. Take MKP. I don't know about you, but some high skilled NA/EU GM could probably beat him 2-3/10 games reliably. Compare Brood War. An A- player would be lucky to take ONE game in a hundred off of Flash. Why? Because APM means so much more in that game. Training yourself to play at 700 APM affects every stage of the game; not just splitting against banelings.
I'm not even sure if this is a serious post but there's a lot more to being a top player in BW than APM.
I'm aware of that, but APM is one of the most relevant ways in which Sc2 differs from BW.
On January 01 2012 06:28 Ares[Effort] wrote: 100% agreed with Day[9]
Why? How can you counter argue the OPs points?
By agreeing with Day[9]. The OP didn't "counter" Day[9]'s points - it is a completely subjective notion anyway, so step-by-step points would be impossible - but gave a differing opinion. Ares didn't have to counter argue, he just had to agree more with Day[9] than the OP.
To me Day9's argument is sort of silly. SC2 is in its infancy. Like it or not SC2 is in its infancy.
Just because we have people coming over from broodwar doesn't mean they're just all automatically optimizing their play to broodwar levels with their units, for two reasons: 1. they dont HAVE TO. 2. The game is new as shit. It's silly to be making this argument this early in general. ----- What sean's argument also fails to mention is that when he started playing broodwar he was actually throwing a rock around, if we want to use his metaphor. he threw his rock and threw his rock and threw his rock and it got sort of round after a while and like a ball. but eventually it started getting more difficult because the obstacles evolved, and he got frustrated and threw his rock and threw his rock and wore it down so it was kind of shaped like a football and he could then throw it straight, OR he could throw it and make it bounce. but again eventually as things got more difficult and the objects got more complex the football didn't work anymore, until he got so frustrated one day he BASHED THE ROCK AGAINST HIS HEAD AND SPLIT IT AND PASSED OUT. when he woke up he found his rock broken into little pieces, with one big disk shape. he loved his disk shape though, because he started to find that he could throw it like a ball still, or a football, or if he caught the wind right he could do something crazy like throw it like a frisbee. through the magic of nostalgia (and maybe hitting himself in the head with a rock over and over) decided he ALWAYS had a frisbee.
I'm not saying that SC2 has broodwar level abilities of micro, but what I am saying is it's a stupid argument to make when you're comparing something you've loved for a long time and have done for a LONG time with something that's NEW that frankly, no one is particularly good at yet, and it's REALLY premature to be making it at all.
The reason why you don't see a huge amounts of flanks and surrounds in SC2 is simply because it really isn't worth the advantage you get for the risk of having half of your army annihilated by a mistake. In BW surrounds were so so much better than their sc2 equivalents because if you do a head on engagement half of your units are probably going to bug out and be useless. I think that the 'stupidness' of the BW A.I. led to a lot of interesting things that you must do to get the most out of your units, and in sc2 since everything is so smart it doesn't really matter and its better and safer 95% of the time to just go for a straight up engagement. Another thing that adds to this is since units are less likely to be spread out in SC2 you don't get that much extra surface area as you would in a BW engagement.
On January 01 2012 06:28 Ares[Effort] wrote: 100% agreed with Day[9]
Why? How can you counter argue the OPs points?
It's not up for discussion whether or not there is as high a skill ceiling in SC2 as there is in BW. It simply isn't. Day9 is not wrong in any way for saying such. What is up for discussion is whether or not some units are not being used to their fullest.
For instance, flanks. In SC2, the AI is FAR better. Now I'm not saying this is better or worse -- but think about it. In BW, if you ran a zergling into a tank line, all 40 tanks would shoot. Now if you do it, only 1-2 tanks will shoot -- only what is needed is shot in this game. So while flanks do have clear purposes, it's extremely diminished with greater AI since you can't "fake out" the AI. You can't run in an army from the front, and then one from the back and have it done to the same effect as in BW simply because of the improved AI.
On January 01 2012 06:28 Ares[Effort] wrote: 100% agreed with Day[9]
Why? How can you counter argue the OPs points?
It's not up for discussion whether or not there is as high a skill ceiling in SC2 as there is in BW. It simply isn't. Day9 is not wrong in any way for saying such. What is up for discussion is whether or not some units are not being used to their fullest.
For instance, flanks. In SC2, the AI is FAR better. Now I'm not saying this is better or worse -- but think about it. In BW, if you ran a zergling into a tank line, all 40 tanks would shoot. Now if you do it, only 1-2 tanks will shoot -- only what is needed is shot in this game. So while flanks do have clear purposes, it's extremely diminished with greater AI since you can't "fake out" the AI. You can't run in an army from the front, and then one from the back and have it done to the same effect as in BW simply because of the improved AI.
I won't argue the BW skill scene isn't higher than sc2's, but I think both are so high it doesn't matter.
On January 01 2012 08:46 Angel_ wrote: To me Day9's argument is sort of silly. SC2 is in its infancy. Like it or not SC2 is in its infancy.
Just because we have people coming over from broodwar doesn't mean they're just all automatically optimizing their play to broodwar levels with their units, for two reasons: 1. they dont HAVE TO. 2. The game is new as shit. It's silly to be making this argument this early in general. ----- What sean's argument also fails to mention is that when he started playing broodwar he was actually throwing a rock around, if we want to use his metaphor. he threw his rock and threw his rock and threw his rock and it got sort of round after a while and like a ball. but eventually it started getting more difficult because the obstacles evolved, and he got frustrated and threw his rock and threw his rock and wore it down so it was kind of shaped like a football and he could then throw it straight, OR he could throw it and make it bounce. but again eventually as things got more difficult and the objects got more complex the football didn't work anymore, until he got so frustrated one day he BASHED THE ROCK AGAINST HIS HEAD AND SPLIT IT AND PASSED OUT. when he woke up he found his rock broken into little pieces, with one big disk shape. he loved his disk shape though, because he started to find that he could throw it like a ball still, or a football, or if he caught the wind right he could do something crazy like throw it like a frisbee. through the magic of nostalgia (and maybe hitting himself in the head with a rock over and over) decided he ALWAYS had a frisbee.
I'm not saying that SC2 has broodwar level abilities of micro, but what I am saying is it's a stupid argument to make when you're comparing something you've loved for a long time and have done for a LONG time with something that's NEW that frankly, no one is particularly good at yet, and it's REALLY premature to be making it at all.
o_O wtf
And SC2 isn't new. It's been out for almost two years (if you count the beta)
On January 01 2012 06:28 Ares[Effort] wrote: 100% agreed with Day[9]
agree 100% with day9 as well. it's just obvious with how the game is designed as it stands. it takes most of the things that seperated players (keeping track of workers, etc) out of the game.
On January 01 2012 06:52 Xlancer wrote: I know I get way more out of my roaches than the average play just from doing burrow micro on hurt roaches. Usually it causes a rage quit from the other player
EDIT: Also I wouldn't say that sc2 has a lower skill ceiling just because the sc2 UI makes it easier to perform the same actions that only pros could do in sc1. At the very least the ceiling would be equal because pros can still do those same actions in sc2, but I would say that sc2 has a much higher potential ceiling because of how much higher the sc2 UI raised baseline skill level.
I don't think you understand the term "skill ceiling". What SC2 raised is skill floor (what you said), which has a priori nothing to do with skill ceiling.
On January 01 2012 08:46 Angel_ wrote: To me Day9's argument is sort of silly. SC2 is in its infancy. Like it or not SC2 is in its infancy.
Just because we have people coming over from broodwar doesn't mean they're just all automatically optimizing their play to broodwar levels with their units, for two reasons: 1. they dont HAVE TO. 2. The game is new as shit. It's silly to be making this argument this early in general. ----- What sean's argument also fails to mention is that when he started playing broodwar he was actually throwing a rock around, if we want to use his metaphor. he threw his rock and threw his rock and threw his rock and it got sort of round after a while and like a ball. but eventually it started getting more difficult because the obstacles evolved, and he got frustrated and threw his rock and threw his rock and wore it down so it was kind of shaped like a football and he could then throw it straight, OR he could throw it and make it bounce. but again eventually as things got more difficult and the objects got more complex the football didn't work anymore, until he got so frustrated one day he BASHED THE ROCK AGAINST HIS HEAD AND SPLIT IT AND PASSED OUT. when he woke up he found his rock broken into little pieces, with one big disk shape. he loved his disk shape though, because he started to find that he could throw it like a ball still, or a football, or if he caught the wind right he could do something crazy like throw it like a frisbee. through the magic of nostalgia (and maybe hitting himself in the head with a rock over and over) decided he ALWAYS had a frisbee.
I'm not saying that SC2 has broodwar level abilities of micro, but what I am saying is it's a stupid argument to make when you're comparing something you've loved for a long time and have done for a LONG time with something that's NEW that frankly, no one is particularly good at yet, and it's REALLY premature to be making it at all.
o_O wtf
And SC2 isn't new. It's been out for almost two years (if you count the beta)
i do count the beta, and compared to brood war, it's a newborn.
On January 01 2012 08:46 Angel_ wrote: To me Day9's argument is sort of silly. SC2 is in its infancy. Like it or not SC2 is in its infancy.
Just because we have people coming over from broodwar doesn't mean they're just all automatically optimizing their play to broodwar levels with their units, for two reasons: 1. they dont HAVE TO. 2. The game is new as shit. It's silly to be making this argument this early in general. ----- What sean's argument also fails to mention is that when he started playing broodwar he was actually throwing a rock around, if we want to use his metaphor. he threw his rock and threw his rock and threw his rock and it got sort of round after a while and like a ball. but eventually it started getting more difficult because the obstacles evolved, and he got frustrated and threw his rock and threw his rock and wore it down so it was kind of shaped like a football and he could then throw it straight, OR he could throw it and make it bounce. but again eventually as things got more difficult and the objects got more complex the football didn't work anymore, until he got so frustrated one day he BASHED THE ROCK AGAINST HIS HEAD AND SPLIT IT AND PASSED OUT. when he woke up he found his rock broken into little pieces, with one big disk shape. he loved his disk shape though, because he started to find that he could throw it like a ball still, or a football, or if he caught the wind right he could do something crazy like throw it like a frisbee. through the magic of nostalgia (and maybe hitting himself in the head with a rock over and over) decided he ALWAYS had a frisbee.
I'm not saying that SC2 has broodwar level abilities of micro, but what I am saying is it's a stupid argument to make when you're comparing something you've loved for a long time and have done for a LONG time with something that's NEW that frankly, no one is particularly good at yet, and it's REALLY premature to be making it at all.
o_O wtf
And SC2 isn't new. It's been out for almost two years (if you count the beta)
i do count the beta, and compared to brood war, it's a newborn.
Yeah, but you need to understand that SC1 defined RTS. BOs barely existed when BW came out. We've grown since then. Sc2 started off at a far higher skill than Sc1 did, mostly because people had played RTS's competitively before and understood what builds and timings and macro and micro were. The problem is that this eliminates some of the supposed infancy syndrome you're talking about. If you're expecting us to look back in a year and say "man, BL/infestor was actually such a weak comp," you are KIDDING yourself. When Sc1/BW came out, things like abusing maps (island maps) or doing air rushes and so on were the norm. It's like Bronze was the norm, because nobody was better than Bronze.
Can you seriously tell me with a straight face that the pro's of the first months of BETA were anywhere near the current Bronze/Silver leagues? Not a chance. Hell, mostly of them would still probably easily be diamond, and anyone from BW would be high masters.
Can someone link VODS of BW games where a significantly weaker army won the battle thorough sheer micro? I'd be very interested in seeing that. (Honest request.)
I think many people just don't understand that SC2 did not start from point 0 like SC/BW. There were proteams/houses nearly from the very beginning, which was not the case for bw. In BW teams had to win in order to stay active and to be able to pay the bills for the teamhouse and food/water. There were no big sponsors and no big audience to support those guys, who basicly sacrificed their livelihood and future for that game. No big media support, no mass replays, no vods. We have all those things since beta for SC2. We know what Macro and Micro. Those were things that evolved with BW and were not something anyone would know back then, but we knew it from the beginning.
On January 01 2012 09:13 AndAgain wrote: Can someone link VODS of BW games where a significantly weaker army won the battle thorough sheer micro? I'd be very interested in seeing that. (Honest request.)
would come to my mind (just saw it a day ago) Dragoons vs Zealots ~ Reach doesn't lose one single dragoon in that fight.
This one. Flash plants spider mines everywhere (125 splash damage, also called "mini nukes"). Bisu defuses almost every single one and prevents his army getting demolished, eventually taking the game. Flash's push would have demolished any other player but Bisu is something different.
Then, in another game (can't find VOD), JD went 9 pool, and Flash 14cc (is exactly what it sounds like). 9pool completely demolishes 14cc. And still, Flash won.
oh, and the most epic of em all: the 32 kill dragoon.
positioning, flanks, multi-pronged attacks, timing, the surprise factor
This is very underdeveloped aspect of the game right now. Even pro players have SHIT army positioning and movement, COMPARED TO what can be possibly achieved in the game. Those discussions are pretty pointless on open forum tho.
On January 01 2012 09:13 AndAgain wrote: Can someone link VODS of BW games where a significantly weaker army won the battle thorough sheer micro? I'd be very interested in seeing that. (Honest request.)
This game comes to mind, depending on how you define "weaker":
Even if SC2 is in it's infancy, it definitely is easier. The best way I can relate this is for LoL and Dota (Although these games are no where near SC/SC2). Complexity comes from more points for failure, more places where one player can outplay the other player. There is just less room for failure in SC2, plain and simple.
Don't get me wrong, SC2 is plenty difficult to play at the highest level for 95 % of people. But Brood War is that difficult for 99%. Arguing over this triviality is how we view the difference between a great game and a good one.
With that said, SC2 could find something to gain in making effects more punishing. More punishment = more close calls = more entertaining, of course, only if people don't get wrecked instantly : P Game design is tough for sure.
There's a different reason why pros supposedly don't get much more out of their units than mediocre players compared to BW. It's because the mediocre players are simply know more than what used to be known. They got better.
Players know why Mutalisks are good, because with their speed and mobility, they can backstab into favorable situations and disengage from unfavorable ones. Players didn't know that in the beginnings of Starcraft vanilla though. But at the start of SC2, they did. Transferring workers was not always around in BW, and when Maynard first started using this technique, many people questioned it. Now everyone takes for granted that you should always transfer probes. Nowadays, even mediocre players understand the concept of a concave and why it is good. Even the most noobie scrub understands that proper Macro is one of the most important aspects of the game. As the player base gets inherently better, so the gap between what the pro and the mediocre can accomplish shrinks.
That being said, I think there is still a ton still left to learn about SC2. SC2 can be very unforgiving. One of the aspects of my game I've been working on to get more out of my units lately is my army movement, which isn't battle micro. Choosing which lane to press forward through can be extremely important given the terrain. Even if I just want to take the xel'naga with my army, how I actually move my army to get there can be important, moving along a lane that allows me to threaten an attack, before pulling back to the positioning by the tower that I want to hold, while having good defensive retreat paths to not leave me too vulnerable to counters. Many maps have multiple paths and be quite complex in how you might wish to use them.
I like Day9's thinking on this, and I wonder if there is a good way to quantify the ratio he is referring to. For example, battles between a player who does no micro (e.g., a computer that 1a's) and a pro. How many fewer units can the pro use and still win? For example, if a computer 1a's 15 roaches, what is the minimum number of roaches a pro needs to reliably win? You could try all kinds of unit match-ups to see how they compare.
On January 01 2012 09:37 whatthefat wrote: I like Day9's thinking on this, and I wonder if there is a good way to quantify the ratio he is referring to. For example, battles between a player who does no micro (e.g., a computer that 1a's) and a pro. How many fewer units can the pro use and still win? For example, if a computer 1a's 15 roaches, what is the minimum number of roaches a pro needs to reliably win? You could try all kinds of unit match-ups to see how they compare.
I'm sorry, but I feel like I must stop you there, roaches are one of the most A-movable units of the game. Even pros only A-move with them, at best stutter step. We've yet to see individual burrow micro though, but no one does it as of now...except computer scripts, ironically.
On January 01 2012 09:37 whatthefat wrote: I like Day9's thinking on this, and I wonder if there is a good way to quantify the ratio he is referring to. For example, battles between a player who does no micro (e.g., a computer that 1a's) and a pro. How many fewer units can the pro use and still win? For example, if a computer 1a's 15 roaches, what is the minimum number of roaches a pro needs to reliably win? You could try all kinds of unit match-ups to see how they compare.
I'm sorry, but I feel like I must stop you there, roaches are one of the most A-movable units of the game. Even pros only A-move with them, at best stutter step. We've yet to see individual burrow micro though, but no one does it as of now...except computer scripts, ironically.
That was actually my point in choosing the roach - I suspect the number is not far below 15 (even with burrow micro). Now, that could potentially be due to pros not yet using units in SC2 to their full potential, or it could be a game design flaw. One way to determine that would be to compare dumb AI (1a) vs. pro to pro vs. clever AI (optimized micro).
On January 01 2012 09:37 whatthefat wrote: I like Day9's thinking on this, and I wonder if there is a good way to quantify the ratio he is referring to. For example, battles between a player who does no micro (e.g., a computer that 1a's) and a pro. How many fewer units can the pro use and still win? For example, if a computer 1a's 15 roaches, what is the minimum number of roaches a pro needs to reliably win? You could try all kinds of unit match-ups to see how they compare.
I'm sorry, but I feel like I must stop you there, roaches are one of the most A-movable units of the game. Even pros only A-move with them, at best stutter step. We've yet to see individual burrow micro though, but no one does it as of now...except computer scripts, ironically.
That was actually my point in choosing the roach - I suspect the number is not far below 15 (even with burrow micro). Now, that could potentially be due to pros not yet using units in SC2 to their full potential, or it could be a game design flaw. One way to determine that would be to compare dumb AI (1a) vs. pro to pro vs. clever AI (optimized micro).
I think burrow has a "cast time" which is why its not done a bit more. Zergs are usually lazy with micro (compared to T kiting, splitting etc and protoss ff's plus 2-4 control groups and focus firing or storming, i notice Z tends to just attack move and then go inject stuff in half of their battles) so it would probably be best to use something marine-marauder focused, maybe just marines, with or without medivacs (would help pros more) just to measure that. I think with perfect control terran can scale far better than Z and still notably better than P in a micro situation.
Protoss isnt really measurable though because of the forcefield mechanic i think - If you include sentries in an army and amove you will get so little from them compared to even throwing up gshield and a few ffs, sentry+bstalker vs pure roach or something is pretty insane how cost effective you can get with good control
On January 01 2012 06:52 Xlancer wrote: I know I get way more out of my roaches than the average play just from doing burrow micro on hurt roaches. Usually it causes a rage quit from the other player
EDIT: Also I wouldn't say that sc2 has a lower skill ceiling just because the sc2 UI makes it easier to perform the same actions that only pros could do in sc1. At the very least the ceiling would be equal because pros can still do those same actions in sc2, but I would say that sc2 has a much higher potential ceiling because of how much higher the sc2 UI raised baseline skill level.
I don't think you understand the term "skill ceiling". What SC2 raised is skill floor (what you said), which has a priori nothing to do with skill ceiling.
what I'm saying is that with a higher floor on which to stand, that it should be possible to push the ceiling even higher. Just look at the insane things that Automaton 2000 micro is capable of. So with less time needed to macro, more time can be spent learning how to do insane micro.
The automaton bot should clearly show the ridiculous feats of micro that are possible. Obviously, none of them are even feasible. But you can do them on a small scale within the limits of a human and sure get more 'value' for your units. With how AoE centric SC2 is now compared to BW due to clumping, theres a ton of a room for adding more unit hotkeys and keeping units spread out to mitigate AoE damage from tanks/colossus/storm/fungal/emp/etc...
Terrans need to stop losing important units in the early midgame.
Banshees, hellions, reapers. A lot of Terrans in TvZ, TvT, will sacrifice them for one or two extra workers or for nothing (running them into/near the opponents base, trying to be cute).
These are hard to produce if you're just going standard marine tank, and add a lot of depth to the army value.
Use reapers to kill rocks, the grenades take them down really quickly. You can use them to kill creep tumors really fast as well. Keep them alive! Hold the far watchtowers, and pull the reaper back before anything kills it Use them for delayed scouts, que them up to hit the mineral line when you're dropping or doing a push. I personally like to have my reaper scout around in TvP for hidden pylons, even after 2 base.
Hellions in TvZ are so valuable it's not even funny. Just keeping the 4-6 hellions from the reactored factory adds a lot of firepower once you get the terran ball moving. You can clear the watch towers quick quick, and if you ever go for blue flame hellions they're perfect for dealing with any sort of Zergling flanks on your tanks. Losing them to a pack of zerglings after you get your expansion down is just retarded.
Banshees should NEVER die in any matchup. Their damage is ridiculous and again: just having them in your main army in the midgame is just so good. Use them for map control, clear towers, kill tumors fast. TvT, cloaked banshees are just really strong in a marine tank army. Cloak them, get a few kills then move back to your ball. Mech TvT, keeping 1-2 cloaked banshees and 1 raven helps deal with the low anti air marine marauder ball SO MUCH, especially since your hellions will kill the marines that jump ahead to kill the banshees.
Just to recap: these uses are completely lost to you if you suicide them for an extra SCV. Unless you're going for a stupid all in, DON'T LOSE THESE UNITS!!
Your ideas are basically nothing to do with the units themselves and more to do with the new tactics available. That's great and all, but (to take your example) in a TvP no one cares about that 4 zealot harass if you lose the big engagement and then get killed - and if you were already 30 supply behind, there's no way to make your army be 2-3x as effective (like Sean was talking about) and win an engagement they shouldn't (outside of something stupid happening).
Basically, go watch a decent amount of broodwar. The difference in well-used unit effectiveness will blow your mind. Until we start seeing players win games with immortal/colossus drop micro, or dominate in fights where they were behind/had a weaker composition, the units don't have the same depth.
If we get that depth, along with things like warp prisms, SC2 might actually get close to (or surpass) it's predecessor.
On January 01 2012 06:59 CrtBalorda wrote: ...And if micro is gona be replaced with smart and creative decision making on what to do with units, no thank you.
You do realize that sc2 is a real time STRATEGY game right? Perhaps you should play League of Legends if all you want to do is micro.
Perhaps we should all play chess because it's a strategy game. The thing that makes Starcraft 2 so incredibly amazing is that fact that you have to be FAST at making these decisions while maintaining the normal things.
On January 01 2012 10:35 Jehct wrote: Your ideas are basically nothing to do with the units themselves and more to do with the new tactics available. That's great and all, but (to take your example) in a TvP no one cares about that 4 zealot harass if you lose the big engagement and then get killed - and if you were already 30 supply behind, there's no way to make your army be 2-3x as effective (like Sean was talking about) and win an engagement they shouldn't (outside of something stupid happening).
Basically, go watch a decent amount of broodwar. The difference in well-used unit effectiveness will blow your mind. Until we start seeing players win games with immortal/colossus drop micro, or dominate in fights where they were behind/had a weaker composition, the units don't have the same depth.
If we get that depth, along with things like warp prisms, SC2 might actually get close to (or surpass) it's predecessor.
i think easier would be to tell people to go to muta micro UMS in bw and see for themselfs
its just different, you cant really make easy comparisons, zergling in bw is different than zergling in sc2 ,not to mention mutalisks and each units roles etc.
im noobish in bw, but when i played muta micro ums's i could clearly see the difference in game design and theory behind it, games are totally different, you could see it by watching beta matches in sc2 when players tried to copy their old styles in bw, there are similarities beetwen both games but game feel and players primary influence is slightly different and lies on different aspects
I think your missing the point he was making. Puling zealots out and dropping purely a decision that is made. "I am going to multi prong harass" is simply a DECISION.
A simple example of what he means is for instance in zvz if one player a-moves lings and banes while the other player target fires baneling with lings and sends single banleing off to get kill, send 2 banes into a group of 3 or more to get an efficient trade. Both players are "Attacking" but one player is using micro to get way more out of their units.
This is why i love zvz ling bling wars, you can open 14/14 and never lose to inferior players simply because your micro is way better than theirs.
Similarly, if you watch MC force-fielding it is terrifying. His game in the TSL vs ies.Ciarra was crazy as he was down 30-40 supply vs roach hydra and his boss toss forcefields allowed him to kill an army most protoss players wouldnt.
Further more, if you watch top terrans vs zerg you see huge amounts of banelings rolling in and somehow they hold? Target firing banes with tanks, targeting the center of a ling clump, splitting are all ways to use micro to get the most out of your units.
And just think about a pro's burrowed banelings vs some random ladder dude...
He is not arguing that these methods dont exist in SC2, just that they are more important as well as appear more in BW than SC2. For example, the difference between idras muta micro and a lower tier pro isnt that significant. The difference is idra macro like a boss while he micros.
Lol. By that definition:
Every single move you make is a decision. Building a hatchery, micro'ing low hp lings away from a surrounded zealot, dropping two zealots splitting marines as you see banelings or know they are there magic boxing mutalisks
It are all decisions:
Some are macro-strategy decisions(Unit compositions), others are micro-strategy decisions(Small drops/harassing). Some are macro-battle(Army placement) decisions, others are micro-battle(Focus fire/loading and unloading/micro'ing low HP units to the back) decisions.
On January 01 2012 06:52 Xlancer wrote: I know I get way more out of my roaches than the average play just from doing burrow micro on hurt roaches. Usually it causes a rage quit from the other player
EDIT: Also I wouldn't say that sc2 has a lower skill ceiling just because the sc2 UI makes it easier to perform the same actions that only pros could do in sc1. At the very least the ceiling would be equal because pros can still do those same actions in sc2, but I would say that sc2 has a much higher potential ceiling because of how much higher the sc2 UI raised baseline skill level.
I don't think you understand the term "skill ceiling". What SC2 raised is skill floor (what you said), which has a priori nothing to do with skill ceiling.
what I'm saying is that with a higher floor on which to stand, that it should be possible to push the ceiling even higher. Just look at the insane things that Automaton 2000 micro is capable of. So with less time needed to macro, more time can be spent learning how to do insane micro.
that was insane... i wonder how close a pro can ever get to that level
I thought a nice little tactic vs terran or potentially toss is to use mutas to clear a small area in your opponents base and then drop some banelings and burrow them undetected there. Then use your mutas to harrass and always pull back toward that spot. If they chase you all the way to the edge with stalkers or marines blow the banelings.
I think banelings currently are not used very efficiently, and I think either banelings drops or burrowed banelings are the key to being more efficient with them!
EH, I don't really think you CAN disagree with Mr. Plott on that point, sir.
In BW it was kinda like having all your units work at 5% capacity at all times... and then having to intensely manage them to get them to work at 100% (What you just told them to do)... and anything beyond that was godlike micro.
In SC2 units basically do what they're told... almost like 100% capacity to start with.
To illustrate, go on a BW map and tell 5 or so units to go back and forth by patrolling... then do the same with an analogous units in SC2. In BW the unit is sure to slam on the brakes at every turn and eventually veer so far off course that they "forget" the patrol command... in SC2 things are relatively smooth for well... forever.
I feel like SC2 might have a higher skill ceiling than SC1 in a more general aspect... but SC2 lacks that the death defying tightrope explosion of APM of Brood War fame. Instead SC2 will have something like super tiny, almost immeasurable by current standards, advantages that will have to build up into a SLIGHTLY different final outcome in the late game mega engagement. The majority won't know why said player won, it'll seem like magic and be thrust onto a thousand different more glaring things... but in the back of many a Pro's head will be a "Hmph, he got those three tiny advantages during the early and mid game and that allowed him to get this tiny advantage here, and since both of them played just about immaculately, it was just a foregone conclusion anyways..." SC2 seems like it will become a war of butterfly flutterings rather than of the tremulous twitching and thwacking of SC:BW.
I really feel that this thread has missed the point. It isn't purely micro that makes things different. Look at my post on the first page with spider mine placement as an example. The issue is that there were things you could do with your units that made them significantly better. This wasn't just a matter of microing individual units. The issue was less that you can make a unit do something and more that you could make a unit do many things. However, out of all the many things you could do, some were better for some situations.
As you learned the game, you learned of all these new things you could do. But the best players would also know the correct time to do each. Mutas are a great example. However, muta micro isn't simply stacking the mutas by selecting them with an overlord. It includes using hold position to instantly fire against some targets while also using right click to target specific buildings or key units. Patrol micro is another example. Mutas as well as other units used this to fire while moving. Arbiter stasis is a game changing ability, but certain targets are better for stasis than others. The more advanced player knows that you want to stasis the units in back to avoid creating a wall blocking off your own units. This needs to be weighed against the danger of running your arbiter forward as well as the goal of targeting a big clump. In addition, unless you were planning on running through the entire siege lines (and a really in depth one could go back a few screens), you wanted to stasis a group that would have actually been key in the fight rather than the groups that is farthest back.
The point isn't just that micro allows skilled players to distinguish themselves. It is that things shouldn't be so obvious. There is such a thing as overmicro. Even without the possibility of overmicro, there is just correct micro vs incorrect. In SC2 you need to stutter step ranged units. That is pretty much it. You want your aoe spells and attacks to target the biggest group. Again, that's all there is to it.
The stalker is a great example of how to do things. It rewards micro, true, but there is also an element of decision making in where to blink. Sometimes you want to blink up into their base, but many times that will get you killed. Often, the best choice is to engage, force a stim, and just blink away. Sometimes, you don't even want to individually blink stalkers, but rather just blink forward to get the largest burst damage and possibly surround to cut off retreat. All of these things are options, and while any one can be executed better or worse, each has its own situational use.
On January 01 2012 09:24 blubbdavid wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqsSrWZciY0 This one. Flash plants spider mines everywhere (125 splash damage, also called "mini nukes"). Bisu defuses almost every single one and prevents his army getting demolished, eventually taking the game. Flash's push would have demolished any other player but Bisu is something different.
Then, in another game (can't find VOD), JD went 9 pool, and Flash 14cc (is exactly what it sounds like). 9pool completely demolishes 14cc. And still, Flash won.
I remember watching that for the first time, it's just the way he micros his probes WHILE controlling the dragoon in the beginning of the hold is just incredible, not to mention the entire thing. I wouldn't necessarily call it a trick though, it took so many years of play to develop that level of control and awareness, he's constantly thinking of possible marine paths and checking his surroundings to make sure he won't be backed into a wall, SC2 isn't at that point yet, and it's unfair to compare them on that front.
I understand where day[9]'s coming from, and yeah, we're barely scratching the surface a year in, but give it more time. These things will come, they're will always be epic control clips, just give 'em a chance to get there first ^^
SC2 is still very young and we have seen many micro tricks. I think there will be more to come. Looking automatoc 2000 and I think it's safe to say that Pro can do much better with their micro eventhough they can never reach automaton 2000's level. lol
On January 01 2012 06:04 Gl!tch wrote: But what if the protoss player wanted to get more out of his units? I would suggest that this is entirely possible, simply by removing them from battle. Lets say the same battle occured, but with 6 less zealots. Instead, a warp prism droped 4 zealots in the Terrans newly saturated third base during the battle. Those 4 zealots are worth more to the protoss now than the original 6 in the battle. Alot more, I would argue.
Splitting your army in a major engagement can be disastrous. The smallest of differences in army strength become exponential because the larger army kills the smaller one faster. Much like how 10 marines can kill 10 zerglings with minimal losses, or 30 zerglings can kill 10 marines with minimal losses.
Besides, that's not even relevant to what Day9 was arguing, lest you forget that you can drop 4 zealots in BW as well.
On January 01 2012 06:17 Kluey wrote: Credits to LiquidHerO for this one:
Load up 1-3 speed prisms with zealots. Run them over the terran army pressing "d + click" on each one OR drop them behind the terran army. You basically get a flank without having to set up one. The only downside is that you waste supply on warp prisms. Don't know how effective it is but it's a good idea.
Credits to NEXSickness to this one:
Load an immortal, let it hit the roaches and then load it up. The projectile is faster for an immortal so you will dodge the roach shots while hitting them.
Well, Hero practices the game 10 hours a day. Why doesn't he actually practice that and then say how it works out? :S Sure it sounds like like a good idea, but until it's really worked at and empirically proven, it's theory crafting.
On January 01 2012 06:04 Gl!tch wrote: But what if the protoss player wanted to get more out of his units? I would suggest that this is entirely possible, simply by removing them from battle. Lets say the same battle occured, but with 6 less zealots. Instead, a warp prism droped 4 zealots in the Terrans newly saturated third base during the battle. Those 4 zealots are worth more to the protoss now than the original 6 in the battle. Alot more, I would argue.
Splitting your army in a major engagement can be disastrous. The smallest of differences in army strength become exponential because the larger army kills the smaller one faster. Much like how 10 marines can kill 10 zerglings with minimal losses, or 30 zerglings can kill 10 marines with minimal losses.
Besides, that's not even relevant to what Day9 was arguing, lest you forget that you can drop 4 zealots in BW as well.
Even within what you just said, can you not see the obvious point?
30 Zerglings destroy those 10 marines, but with 20 it is close, but those 10 you saved, rather than kill the marines have damaged the economy of the opponent. If you'd won the battle and be left with 20, would they of reached his base before he had regrouped? Who knows. It is often a knife edge in battles, but also sometimes losing the battle, but winning the war, is far more important, especially at the top.
On January 01 2012 06:52 Xlancer wrote: I know I get way more out of my roaches than the average play just from doing burrow micro on hurt roaches. Usually it causes a rage quit from the other player
EDIT: Also I wouldn't say that sc2 has a lower skill ceiling just because the sc2 UI makes it easier to perform the same actions that only pros could do in sc1. At the very least the ceiling would be equal because pros can still do those same actions in sc2, but I would say that sc2 has a much higher potential ceiling because of how much higher the sc2 UI raised baseline skill level.
I don't think you understand the term "skill ceiling". What SC2 raised is skill floor (what you said), which has a priori nothing to do with skill ceiling.
what I'm saying is that with a higher floor on which to stand, that it should be possible to push the ceiling even higher. Just look at the insane things that Automaton 2000 micro is capable of. So with less time needed to macro, more time can be spent learning how to do insane micro.
You are aware that the Automaton 2000 assigns 300APM to each marine/unit, and is physically impossible for a human to do?
On January 01 2012 09:24 blubbdavid wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqsSrWZciY0 This one. Flash plants spider mines everywhere (125 splash damage, also called "mini nukes"). Bisu defuses almost every single one and prevents his army getting demolished, eventually taking the game. Flash's push would have demolished any other player but Bisu is something different.
Then, in another game (can't find VOD), JD went 9 pool, and Flash 14cc (is exactly what it sounds like). 9pool completely demolishes 14cc. And still, Flash won.
I remember watching that for the first time, it's just the way he micros his probes WHILE controlling the dragoon in the beginning of the hold is just incredible, not to mention the entire thing. I wouldn't necessarily call it a trick though, it took so many years of play to develop that level of control and awareness, he's constantly thinking of possible marine paths and checking his surroundings to make sure he won't be backed into a wall, SC2 isn't at that point yet, and it's unfair to compare them on that front.
I understand where day[9]'s coming from, and yeah, we're barely scratching the surface a year in, but give it more time. These things will come, they're will always be epic control clips, just give 'em a chance to get there first ^^
Hasn't losira or something hatch firsted and then defended a 6pool? People's bias o.O
On January 01 2012 06:40 phyren wrote: The issue, at least currently, is that most end game battles tend to be quite one sided depending on how effective a few skills wind up being. Whoever takes the big maxed battle usually has a good clump of units left over and can proceed to gather up some reinforcements and just win. In this scenario, the 6 zealots in the main battle are much more important than any harassment.
To put it another way, nuking 3 bases with all the probes is awesome and effectively brings your opponents economy to 0. However, if those nukes come at the expense of not having enough emps in the main fight, you will lose your entire army while doing minimal damage to theirs, and they will proceed to walk all over you.
edit: to address your proposed discussion, stalker micro and focus firing is perhaps the clearest example. You can focus fire the anti air or the enemy casters and thus allow your own casters or collosi to be extremely effective. This messes with the enemies composition. If they overinvest in antiair, then you focus casters and your ground army with casters wins. Otherwise, you focus fire the anti air and you air army/collosi win.
Still, I think this is a poor example when compared to bw. A little thing like mine placement patterns before battles, which certainly isn't considered micro, would be game changing and could effectively move you up from d/d+ to c-.
I think you are correct that the ease of sc2 unit control means we will need to see players show their superior skill by doing more tasks at once rather than doing a particular task very well. (in day9's analogy this would be equivalent to throwing several baseballs at once to make up for the comparative simplicity of the baseball as compared to the frisbee.) Still, I don't think you example is correct, and I dislike this aspect as multitask and control were almost 2 separate skills to develop in bw.
If you have a battle in Brood War, each individual unit has a baseline a.i. In this old game the a.i. had some bugs, but these bugs created opportunities for a better player to increase the value of each unit through good control. A good example would be mutalisks against scourge. Scourge was a fast flying unit, that would suicide and explode on other air units to kill them. Now a lesser player would perhaps be able to get a shot off with hold position micro and kill 1 or 2 scourge with any luck, but then lose his mutalisks to the remaining scourge.
A mediocre player could use patrol commands moving in a certain degree, away from the scourge, to sometimes dodge a scourge and get a free shot off at the same time.
A great player (Jaedong), would be able to use Patrol micro to first patrol away from a scourge in a certain angle, immediately issue another command to another angle upward, and then patrol command behind scourge to completely dodge the scourge, and hit them at the same time. The mutalisks would never get hit and just survive.
This means that a mutalisk can dramatically increase in value through very precise control, partly caused due to old and bugged A.I.
Now let's go to Starcraft 2 shall we, and let's take Phoenix vs Mutalisk as an example. The Phoenix is faster than the mutalisk, and shoots automatically while moving. This would allow for some good kiting micro you'd think. I will explain how that is impossible due to the nature of SC2 A.I.
If a pack of mutalisk chases you and you fly away from them, kiting, you will get further and further away from the muta pack. This means you have to fly closer to them again to resume kiting and damaging these mutalisks. The player using the mutalisk can abuse this fact by turning around, forcing you to follow them to do damage, and then when you get closer they turn around randomly and get some good shots off at you.
In BW, with good control, you can prevent this, but here is the deal with SC2 A.I. Air units always glide a little bit in the same direction as their attack, this is extremely problematic when it comes to phoenix, because it's a feature of the A.I. that prevents air unit stacking (viking flower) and is also caused because of the *shoot* animation. When the Phoenix fires his attack, he will glide until the animation finishes.
So when you want to outperform mutalisks, you'd want to move in, get a shot and turn back immediately to avoid taking damage from the mutalisk to increase the value of your Phoenixes. But in SC2, you get punished for trying to do so. When you move in and your Phoenixes shoot, you click them away from the mutalisks, but they all glide for a short amount of time. In this time, a mutalisk pack can gain exactly enough ground to hit your Phoenixes, and actually do more damage than you did if the pack is at a medium size. In this case you actually decrease the value of your units if you try to micro more than just moving away.
Another good example is the Stalker. In BW, you could kite marines with dragoons because their attack was instant. You could shoot and move away in time just before the marine could get in range to hit you once. In Starcraft 2, Stalkers have 1 more range than marines. You would think you would be able to kite marines then, right? Sorry to dissapoint you, but this is not the case, due to the following:
In Starcraft 2, some units can fire instantly in every angle, 360 degrees around them. The marine is one of these units, which makes stutterstep what it is today, while that's actually one of the easiest micro moves to learn. Some units, have to turn around and face the target before they shoot, and some even have an attack animation that has to finish. Stalkers are one of these units.
The scenario will be the following, you move and see a marine pack heading your way. You start using attack move toward them, and move away from them right when the Stalkers fire their shots. Unfortunately, the Stalkers have to turn to face the location that you issued the move command in. Now the marines get to fire their shots and do some good damage to your stalkers. Your micro now makes Stalkers slightly better against marines (10% approx), where it could have been much more. Due to the way the A.I. and attack animations work in SC2 (this is partially due to 3D), you lose all these possibilities to increase your unit value and turn battles around with less.
Lastly we have units such as the Marauder, Infestor, Sentry, Mothership. What do these units have in common? Answer: They all prevent the other player from microing their units by restricting or halting their movement.
The Marauder gets concussive shells for a measly 50/50 in cost. Now they can do even half-assed stutterstep and kite pretty much everything except speedlings. So the Terran player has to only do a bit of stutterstep, to have vastly more efficient units than you (think of roach vs marauder, roaches cannot ever connect).
The Infestors fungal most of your army, and the Zerg proceeds to surround you and destroy you. What can you do about it in the battle? Exactly, nothing at all. Pre battle you can spread your units and continue to split them a bit while in battle but these are things you could do in BW as well. But what you did not have in BW were spells and abilities that prevented movement in such a way that it became detrimental to the opposing player. Fungal does damage and roots units, force fields completely block movement in an area, concussive shells snare you for 0% extra effort.
In BW you had Stasis, that could freeze units in an area, and do aoe unit nullifying you say? Well due to the nature of BW, the armies were much more spread out, and larger. Stasis and maelstrom were the only spells that could do an aoe lockdown, but the trick was that if you damaged a stasised unit, it would come out of it. Maelstrom did root biological units only (which makes it very niche right off the bat), but did no damage to them. In order to get maelstrom, you had to research a completely different tree of spells, for a unit that was completely niche for fighting massive bio armies. You would only see Dark Archons in PvZ late game.
But again, this wasnt as powerful because BW had more spread out armies, and because of the nature of micro possibilities to increase unit value + some A.I. bugs, there were fights all over the map instead of one big battle, because this further increased your efficiency, and you could hold against vastly bigger armies due to the micro possibilities + highground advantages (low to highground attacks only had a 70% chance to hit in BW).
In conclusion, I agree with Day9 100% and hope we can get some kind of superb control reward back into SC2, instead of only gaining tiny benefits or even getting PUNISHED for trying to micro. This combined with a smoother A.I. means that the correct action in a lot of situations is to invest your apm into other actions than micro, because these other actions give you a bigger reward.
I think the reason we haven't seen as much exploitation of micro in SC2 is because of how volatile the metagame is, there is a much greater incentive to learn new abusive build orders than there is micro. The metagame is still so young and players are nowhere near experienced enough to handle every possible build or strategy in their matchups. Just think about how successful the discovery of builds like the 4 gate, roach ling all-in, baneling bust, colossus void ray deathball, 1/1/1, SlayerS hellion opener, and Hero's hard counter 1/1/1 phoenix build have been. There's also evidence to this when you note that the most developed metagame matchup at the moment, TvZ, is also the one matchup with the highest level of micro we've seen so far. The position battles of bio siege vs. muta, marine splits vs banelings, target firing of baneling and muta, using siege tanks as baneling walls. In my opinion the sheer amount of micro involved in the TvZ matchup is the closest we've seen to what we expect from BW, and gives weight to the idea that once the metagame is more refined players will have more incentive to eek out an advantage by working specifically on their micro.
The only way to get more out of your units is to nerf the effective power of AoE attacks/spells. For example baneling roach busts on a 1 rax expand is extremely effective, where as if you went for a bust on a tank expand its a complete failure. This is because all of the units cram up a tiny ramp and thus a siege tank is 1026180680 times more effective. However if we nerfed the power of fungal/emp/storm/banelings/tanks/collusi/archons much more of the end game battle would depend on macro situations rather than "well he has 101 banes everything on the ground is dead no matter how well the other person plays."
Actually wondering who, out of all those who disagree with day9, have played bw for years & years as what he says is quite correct (even though it's more like an opinion).
But, he also says he's not implying sc2 is a bad game ect... but it's just not frisbee-ish like bw & I agree 100% about this, maybe because the game is still quite young, like he said himself he might have to take those words back within a few months if people prove him wrong but still.. right now I agree with him 100%
+ it's still mostly opinion based so you can't really say he's right or wrong.
And about the skill ceiling I think that's more of a fact than just an opinion & what day9 says regarding this, is completely true & only someone who's not familiar with how bw works/worked will disagree on this but then again, I wouldn't be happy either if someone would say that the game I play requires less and whatnot than the previous game so I guess it's a bit understandable for people not to agree with this.
But who knows, maybe sc2 will go through some major changes but still, I can't see it become as hard & demanding as bw (unfortunately).
On January 01 2012 06:04 Gl!tch wrote: But what if the protoss player wanted to get more out of his units? I would suggest that this is entirely possible, simply by removing them from battle. Lets say the same battle occured, but with 6 less zealots. Instead, a warp prism droped 4 zealots in the Terrans newly saturated third base during the battle. Those 4 zealots are worth more to the protoss now than the original 6 in the battle. Alot more, I would argue.
As for the discussion, try to come up with ways to get more out of a unit. Preferably not along the lines of "well, I will stutter step my marines". Think about compositions that would get more out of certain units that support eachother, think about positioning, flanks, multi-pronged attacks, timing, the surprise factor of a hidden tech path. Get more out of your units.
Funny. You could do the same thing in Brood War except you could also position your zealot/dragoon line, micro your shuttle/reavers, etc, etc.
well the ai in sc2 is better yes, but there are still flaws in it and added features like the magic box. A good example is blinking up and down cliffs. Waypoint the blink and you units and you will get them all out, don't do it and you will most likely have a few stay on the highground left dying. Have you seen top leagues where players that had enough time to retreat with the que blink simply blink down and lose stalkers ? Yes we have. (up and downs recently) In bw such moves would be already standard and everyone would use them. If such a simple 3 clicker isn't used, how should people find out some better micro, if they don't have to. I mean the more complex version will probably look like this, blink the stalkers you know for sure will make it down, then shift que the rest so the lining up at the waypoint will be reduced, so the stalkers escape even faster, so you might give one more burst of shots before leaving. Another thing is the terran sieging the zerg, with marine tank and medivacs. Medivacs can now be a clicked so they heal, but when kiting, they kite their constant heal wave, which reduces the heal alot. On the other hand the ai heals the weakest units so your marines will get healed equally. having the heal spread sometimes is a good idea, for example against fungal, but with the medivac being fungaled it will only heal one marine up. A medivac can actually save 6 unstimmed marines from a fungal if you micro it, otherwise it will be only 1. Medivac micro would also make them use more energy for heal ... so you run dry really fast, so maybe medivac energy will become more popular. I mean if you have them separated in an group and behind you army, and a click them into the kiting direction of your units after the stim, they will heal so much more. And once they are on top of your army, you can kite with them as well to not lose them to the anti air units chasing.
Well back to the sieged by terran zerg. The terran is all nicely split marines almost immune to baneling splash etc, the zerg retreated to wait for their chance. Now the terran attacks with marines a nice a click all marines used are stacked again. Instead of using magic box to keep them spread, so if they kite back baneling hits wouldn't matter all to much.
But what can a zerg do, all their banelings will die to a few siege tank hits and after the banes are gone the terran will clump up to make a wall against the lings and mutas. The zerg himself could magic box the banes so the target fire of tanks wouldn't work. And the target fire by marines is way way more risky for the terran. But both can work out to get the banelings. But a baneling clumb and some banes scattered would really mess up the terrans, because he would have to targetfire with the marines and the siege tanks. Anyway every unit can be optimized by player micro ... and its really sad to see an immortal range buff, because people can't micro a range 5 units that is slower then the players range 6 unit, because the attack command will block units. (we see that happen to zerg with roaches often as well). And then there are people that say the ai is more clever and make a mediocre player be able to use their units as effective... Sure a mediocre player can put his stalkers on autofollow on the immortals, that way the stalkers will be behind the immortals if you engage and there won't be no issue that the immortal had an shorter range. But a good player would be able to have the same effect without reducing the damage output of his stalkers. Just because he would leave holes for the immortals to slip through, sentries that are in the front for forcefield could also retreat and gather up energy for more instead of getting focused.
There are tons and tons of examples where the ai is ineffective, autoturrets being the high priority target for siege tanks for another example, players can get so much more out of their units and at some point mediocre players can't keep up anymore. The best example is terran on ladder i would say. Pros do fine gm does fine and master, the rest gets destroyed, by units you can hardly call controlled by the player, since even the pros don't really control them better.
So while the ai doesn't mess up so heavily anymore like in bw, and for example turning tricks to outrun lings and stuff has been removed. Its still far far away from replacing player control, that being said i think Blizzard did an awesome job with the ai, it allows casuals to play a good game, without being frustrated like in bw. But at the same time the ai does so horrible things if a few different units are together. That a good player can do it 100 times better. And if they say it isn't worth it, then i hope they never meet someone who thing it is worth to do it. The skill ceiling of sc2 is really high maybe higher then bw, because the benefits of good micro aren't as strong, so microing a shuttle with a reaver really well isn't enough, but 2 should do the trick. But surely micoring even one is harder because sc2 is way faster then bw.
We might have to bear with sc2 being called easy mode and looking like it until the last expansion is out and blizzard stopped their patching, as i bet alot will face a strong strategy with blizzard will fix it. Or even be in fear that blizzard will nerf something if they run over everyone with it for around 2 weeks. But maybe after this time and if sc2 survived this time, there will be people that want to win and never be pushed away from their throne and they might find micro moves that will heavily benefit them over other players.
PS: I don't think good sc2 players aren't trying or holding back or something, but it seems there aren't many that will do research on stuff that has lead to the archon toilet or magic boxing mutas. Or that you can stack marines.
the reason u dont see more micro or more cute moves is not because it doesnt exist. its because this game is fucking hard, i want to do so much more stuff with my units and builds, and use so many timing windows to do stuff but its very hard.
wait for players to become better and im sure youll find that awesome :p
just look back on micro control or games in general 1 year ago, they just amoved their armies and walked around in a death ball all game long. where as now its alot better, but its far from perfect, trust me
On January 01 2012 06:28 Ares[Effort] wrote: 100% agreed with Day[9]
As a WarCraft 3 player I can say that I totally agree with Day[9]. I love StarCraft 2, but there really is something missing when it comes to controlling units. It just doesn't feel as good as in games like BW or W3.
split focus firing during engagements with large armies. E.g. selecting a cluster of 5 stalkers to target one medivac instead 10+ or in a roach v roach our stalker v stalker army to prevent unit/damage overkill
On January 02 2012 00:24 MorroW wrote: the reason u dont see more micro or more cute moves is not because it doesnt exist. its because this game is fucking hard, i want to do so much more stuff with my units and builds, and use so many timing windows to do stuff but its very hard.
wait for players to become better and im sure youll find that awesome :p
just look back on micro control or games in general 1 year ago, they just amoved their armies and walked around in a death ball all game long. where as now its alot better, but its far from perfect, trust me
Coming from a pro, this means a lot.
I do agree with Day[9], but I also think it will get better in the future. There are still imitations in the game design, as people have mentioned, but micro-wise, I don't think anyone is near full potential.
the game mechanics of protoss as a race and the warp mechanic in specific was ill-thought out. tbh, i dont put much hope on any strategy game developer out there at the moment. with the command & conquer series that went in completely the wrong direction with #4, and dawn of war having done the same with DOW2. perhaps generals 2 will bring new hope as it should probably not have any instant reinforcement/teleporter mechanic for super strong units. also, protoss only have to 1a tttttttttttttt to win. end of rant.
On January 02 2012 04:17 CptCutter wrote: the game mechanics of protoss as a race and the warp mechanic in specific was ill-thought out. tbh, i dont put much hope on any strategy game developer out there at the moment. with the command & conquer series that went in completely the wrong direction with #4, and dawn of war having done the same with DOW2. perhaps generals 2 will bring new hope as it should probably not have any instant reinforcement/teleporter mechanic for super strong units. also, protoss only have to 1a tttttttttttttt to win. end of rant.
i don't agree completely. While the microed units in BW could be up to 10 times better, microed units in SC2 may get up to 2-3 times better (not 1.5 as day9 says). The downside of a micro heavy game is, that mechanics get more important than strategies. So players peaked in skill when being 15-18, rarely a player older than 20 was successful.
I feel like this is something that could be changed relatively easily with some tweaking. See this thread to get an idea what sort of things could be changed.
Of course, there probably are a few micro tricks our players haven't found yet - this is not an unreasonable prediction having seen how it went in BW.
Day[9] is absolutely right. I finally got around to watching the video and he does an excellent job of explaining the difference between the games.
The thing is, for the average gamer, it doesn't matter. They struggle to make the right decisions as is. Macro is not that easy. Multitask is hard. Handling the big decisions is difficult. And that's FINE. Perfectly okay. Most players in BW were the same way, and that's why they played BGH or Fastest so they didn't have to worry as much about expanding decisions and macro and were more interested in just making a ton of units and having fun blowing things up. That's what low level SC2 is like, and it's perfectly cool, and pretty fun. I still love playing BGH every now and then. It's simple and enjoyable.
BUT, Starcraft is not just another game you play for fun. It is like paint, rather than an etch-a-sketch. It's a medium through which we can express our abilities, thoughts, and emotions. Broodwar is incredible for this, unmatched in the arena of RTS. You can tell exactly when players are stressed, distracted, overtaxed. You can see the finesse by looking at their units. The difference between a bad player and a good player is enormous, but so is the difference between good players and great players, and great players and pros, and pros and Flash. In SC2, it's just bad players and good players, and then there's a little extra you can see from great players, but by and large it's just bad and good. That's what Sean is talking about with the "unit multiplier" which is by far the best analogy I've ever heard for it..
So that's why most people just don't complain about it. In fact, most people enjoy the easiness of the game and the lack of depth because it's more accessible and you don't have to work as hard to do what you want. But lets be honest... LOTS of people played customs in BW. LOTS of people played BGH. There was no lack of casual experience in that game. People just found a good way to achieve it on their own without sacrificing the depth at which the actual game was played. SC2 simply removed the complexity from the start, which is horrific design and insulting to the players, because it's a way of saying, "you're not capable of appreciating depth." Look at the number of fans BW had, and still has! Of course people can appreciate it!
I also think that's why people watch professional sports. People want to be amazed. They want to worship the players as gods who can achieve things beyond what us mere mortals can achieve. There's a reason you don't see chess on TV. It's really hard to appreciate the depth of thought it takes to make a really good move. It takes you sitting down and really looking deeply at the game, almost playing it in parallel. It's not a spectacle, it's a puzzle. That's great for some people but it's not good entertainment.
Look at Broodwar now. There are things players do, like JD's double stacked muta, or Bisu's dragoon micro, Stork's reaver use, Flash's... everything - they're simply inhuman. None of us ever expect to be able to play like that. Even the best foreigners are simply in awe of what these guys can do.
Compared that to SC2. Yes, SC2 is flashy, and takes skill, and is a decent strategy game. But, I don't see plays that are simply so awe-inspiring that I would never be able to play at that level. The skill is not in execution, but in decision making, and anyone, even a computer program, can have good decision making. Decision making is not awe-inspiring, just in the way that chess is not awe-inspiring. It's just not entertaining at the same level that sports should be.
This is why SC2 struggles as an esport, and simply cannot have the longevity BW has, at least in its current form.
SC2 has to undergo a major redesign, both of the units, and some of the mechanics. Blizzard is capable of this. Anyone who played War3 knows the difference between RoC and TFT. It was a complete rework of the game. We need this for HotS.
On January 02 2012 04:26 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i don't agree completely. While the microed units in BW could be up to 10 times better, microed units in SC2 may get up to 2-3 times better (not 1.5 as day9 says). The downside of a micro heavy game is, that mechanics get more important than strategies. So players peaked in skill when being 15-18, rarely a player older than 20 was successful.
Ridiculous. Stork is... 25? Flash is at least 20 and still untouchable. Age has nothing to do with it. It's just that players have the time to dedicate most when they're 15-18 and only a few choose to continue pursuing it as a serious career past then.
On January 02 2012 00:24 MorroW wrote: the reason u dont see more micro or more cute moves is not because it doesnt exist. its because this game is fucking hard, i want to do so much more stuff with my units and builds, and use so many timing windows to do stuff but its very hard.
wait for players to become better and im sure youll find that awesome :p
just look back on micro control or games in general 1 year ago, they just amoved their armies and walked around in a death ball all game long. where as now its alot better, but its far from perfect, trust me
You know this but for those that don't I'll spell it out: Big reason we don't see anywhere close to perfect micro(or what it could be called) in sc2 when the armies grow right now is because it requires extreme reaction times and apm.
Ironically, sc2 would probably be more BW like when it comes to top players getting more out of their units than others if the game speed was for example 30% of what it is now.
These things should change some as people get better and expansions could change things as well. And there are other areas that probably have huge potential gains, I doubt it will be possible to compete at a high level using the default keyboard layout in a couple of years for example.
On January 02 2012 00:24 MorroW wrote: the reason u dont see more micro or more cute moves is not because it doesnt exist. its because this game is fucking hard, i want to do so much more stuff with my units and builds, and use so many timing windows to do stuff but its very hard.
wait for players to become better and im sure youll find that awesome :p
just look back on micro control or games in general 1 year ago, they just amoved their armies and walked around in a death ball all game long. where as now its alot better, but its far from perfect, trust me
You know this but for those that don't I'll spell it out: Big reason we don't see anywhere close to perfect micro(or what it could be called) in sc2 when the armies grow right now is because it requires extreme reaction times and apm.
Ironically, sc2 would probably be more BW like when it comes to top players getting more out of their units than others if the game speed was for example 30% of what it is now.
These things should change some as people get better and expansions could change things as well. And there are other areas that probably have huge potential gains, I doubt it will be possible to compete at a high level using the default keyboard layout in a couple of years for example.
Easy way to test this out. Play a game at slower than fastest speed. See what you can achieve. Your control will be better but there isn't any hidden dimension of play that emerges. It'll just be more of the same type of micro, which is target firing, kiting, and spreading vs aoe.
On January 01 2012 18:59 Masayume wrote: What day[9] meant was the following:
If you have a battle in Brood War, each individual unit has a baseline a.i. In this old game the a.i. had some bugs, but these bugs created opportunities for a better player to increase the value of each unit through good control. A good example would be mutalisks against scourge. Scourge was a fast flying unit, that would suicide and explode on other air units to kill them. Now a lesser player would perhaps be able to get a shot off with hold position micro and kill 1 or 2 scourge with any luck, but then lose his mutalisks to the remaining scourge.
A mediocre player could use patrol commands moving in a certain degree, away from the scourge, to sometimes dodge a scourge and get a free shot off at the same time.
A great player (Jaedong), would be able to use Patrol micro to first patrol away from a scourge in a certain angle, immediately issue another command to another angle upward, and then patrol command behind scourge to completely dodge the scourge, and hit them at the same time. The mutalisks would never get hit and just survive.
This means that a mutalisk can dramatically increase in value through very precise control, partly caused due to old and bugged A.I.
Now let's go to Starcraft 2 shall we, and let's take Phoenix vs Mutalisk as an example. The Phoenix is faster than the mutalisk, and shoots automatically while moving. This would allow for some good kiting micro you'd think. I will explain how that is impossible due to the nature of SC2 A.I.
If a pack of mutalisk chases you and you fly away from them, kiting, you will get further and further away from the muta pack. This means you have to fly closer to them again to resume kiting and damaging these mutalisks. The player using the mutalisk can abuse this fact by turning around, forcing you to follow them to do damage, and then when you get closer they turn around randomly and get some good shots off at you.
In BW, with good control, you can prevent this, but here is the deal with SC2 A.I. Air units always glide a little bit in the same direction as their attack, this is extremely problematic when it comes to phoenix, because it's a feature of the A.I. that prevents air unit stacking (viking flower) and is also caused because of the *shoot* animation. When the Phoenix fires his attack, he will glide until the animation finishes.
So when you want to outperform mutalisks, you'd want to move in, get a shot and turn back immediately to avoid taking damage from the mutalisk to increase the value of your Phoenixes. But in SC2, you get punished for trying to do so. When you move in and your Phoenixes shoot, you click them away from the mutalisks, but they all glide for a short amount of time. In this time, a mutalisk pack can gain exactly enough ground to hit your Phoenixes, and actually do more damage than you did if the pack is at a medium size. In this case you actually decrease the value of your units if you try to micro more than just moving away.
Another good example is the Stalker. In BW, you could kite marines with dragoons because their attack was instant. You could shoot and move away in time just before the marine could get in range to hit you once. In Starcraft 2, Stalkers have 1 more range than marines. You would think you would be able to kite marines then, right? Sorry to dissapoint you, but this is not the case, due to the following:
In Starcraft 2, some units can fire instantly in every angle, 360 degrees around them. The marine is one of these units, which makes stutterstep what it is today, while that's actually one of the easiest micro moves to learn. Some units, have to turn around and face the target before they shoot, and some even have an attack animation that has to finish. Stalkers are one of these units.
The scenario will be the following, you move and see a marine pack heading your way. You start using attack move toward them, and move away from them right when the Stalkers fire their shots. Unfortunately, the Stalkers have to turn to face the location that you issued the move command in. Now the marines get to fire their shots and do some good damage to your stalkers. Your micro now makes Stalkers slightly better against marines (10% approx), where it could have been much more. Due to the way the A.I. and attack animations work in SC2 (this is partially due to 3D), you lose all these possibilities to increase your unit value and turn battles around with less.
Lastly we have units such as the Marauder, Infestor, Sentry, Mothership. What do these units have in common? Answer: They all prevent the other player from microing their units by restricting or halting their movement.
The Marauder gets concussive shells for a measly 50/50 in cost. Now they can do even half-assed stutterstep and kite pretty much everything except speedlings. So the Terran player has to only do a bit of stutterstep, to have vastly more efficient units than you (think of roach vs marauder, roaches cannot ever connect).
The Infestors fungal most of your army, and the Zerg proceeds to surround you and destroy you. What can you do about it in the battle? Exactly, nothing at all. Pre battle you can spread your units and continue to split them a bit while in battle but these are things you could do in BW as well. But what you did not have in BW were spells and abilities that prevented movement in such a way that it became detrimental to the opposing player. Fungal does damage and roots units, force fields completely block movement in an area, concussive shells snare you for 0% extra effort.
In BW you had Stasis, that could freeze units in an area, and do aoe unit nullifying you say? Well due to the nature of BW, the armies were much more spread out, and larger. Stasis and maelstrom were the only spells that could do an aoe lockdown, but the trick was that if you damaged a stasised unit, it would come out of it. Maelstrom did root biological units only (which makes it very niche right off the bat), but did no damage to them. In order to get maelstrom, you had to research a completely different tree of spells, for a unit that was completely niche for fighting massive bio armies. You would only see Dark Archons in PvZ late game.
But again, this wasnt as powerful because BW had more spread out armies, and because of the nature of micro possibilities to increase unit value + some A.I. bugs, there were fights all over the map instead of one big battle, because this further increased your efficiency, and you could hold against vastly bigger armies due to the micro possibilities + highground advantages (low to highground attacks only had a 70% chance to hit in BW).
In conclusion, I agree with Day9 100% and hope we can get some kind of superb control reward back into SC2, instead of only gaining tiny benefits or even getting PUNISHED for trying to micro. This combined with a smoother A.I. means that the correct action in a lot of situations is to invest your apm into other actions than micro, because these other actions give you a bigger reward.
Your argument isnt really arguing with Day9. You say that + Show Spoiler +
"But what if the protoss player wanted to get more out of his units? I would suggest that this is entirely possible, simply by removing them from battle. Lets say the same battle occured, but with 6 less zealots. Instead, a warp prism droped 4 zealots in the Terrans newly saturated third base during the battle. Those 4 zealots are worth more to the protoss now than the original 6 in the battle. "
But this isnt an example of the micro that day9 was talking about (imo). You are talking about separating your units from the battle, Day9 was talking about getting more out of your units in the battle itself.
But i still think you are right in that they will be worth more... Hero does this a lot, he barely trades army with the opponent but he drops at the same time which gives him an advantage.
I'm so confused at this point. Is this thread to argue about whether or not micro tricks exist in SC2 at all? If they exist but their marginal value is less than other decisions people have to make (macro, harassment)? For ex-BW players to yell at whippersnapper SC2 players to get off their lawn? Or to catalog some micro tricks that already exist to improve battle outcomes?
I didn't play BW or WC3 so I don't know enough to compare them. But here's my contribution to the last one. If you're in a TvT split map, sit-there-with tanks situation, float a barracks and land it in front of the tanks. The rax will absorb all of the tank shots for free, so your army can run in afterwards. The concept is the same as the general tanks/first or medivac drop over the tanks, just taken to the extreme. Not exactly the highest skill but effective. Take that, mech turtlers!
but bw had the same options as in sc2 but with more mechanics required to do them. this may change in the future. i think one of the main problems is that sc2 is significantly faster than bw. this raises a ceiling, but also makes it more difficult for people to do the required micro that bw took.
Day[9] wasn't talking about just micro, he clearly states that he is also talking about positioning, timing, angles of attack and exactly how you use your army composition for greater effect (he talks about how you use lurker/zerglings to attack). What he means when he says that units lack physicality is that they don't fell like objects. Take for example tennis, in tennis all a player gets is a tennis ball and a tennis racket. Now it is up to the player to decide how to use these tools to further their goal of wining. And because of this every player has a different serve, backhand ect, and because the units in BW have this sort of physicality every player used every unit differently (even if the differences were very subtle). So just like a tennis pro might be known for their serve or backhand a BW pro could be known for a certain unit, Julyzerg and his mutas, Savior and his defilers, Bisu and his dt's to name a few.
He isn't saying that SC2 lacks micro tricks but instead that the units don't feel like objects the same way a tennis racket is just an object in tennis.
In BW, with good control, you can prevent this, but here is the deal with SC2 A.I. Air units always glide a little bit in the same direction as their attack, this is extremely problematic when it comes to phoenix, because it's a feature of the A.I. that prevents air unit stacking (viking flower) and is also caused because of the *shoot* animation. When the Phoenix fires his attack, he will glide until the animation finishes.
So when you want to outperform mutalisks, you'd want to move in, get a shot and turn back immediately to avoid taking damage from the mutalisk to increase the value of your Phoenixes. But in SC2, you get punished for trying to do so. When you move in and your Phoenixes shoot, you click them away from the mutalisks, but they all glide for a short amount of time. In this time, a mutalisk pack can gain exactly enough ground to hit your Phoenixes, and actually do more damage than you did if the pack is at a medium size. In this case you actually decrease the value of your units if you try to micro more than just moving away.
See, these are arguments that actually make me think that SC2 has a lot more potential than we're seeing right now. There's a bunch of weird AI glitches that made skill in BW, and this gliding thing is EXACTLY the same thing. Masa is claiming that this makes you get punished for microing more? No, that means you get punished for microing incorrectly. Maybe it's not exactly back and forth, maybe you have to glide at 90 degree angle or something so that you can dodge the mutas. It frustrates me to see people complain about certain AI eccentricities and then say that we clearly are missing them all from SC2.
At the moment we're still seeing protoss players really misuse their air units, constantly losing them in unnecessary ways. It's getting better though.
Lastly we have units such as the Marauder, Infestor, Sentry, Mothership. What do these units have in common? Answer: They all prevent the other player from microing their units by restricting or halting their movement.
The Marauder gets concussive shells for a measly 50/50 in cost. Now they can do even half-assed stutterstep and kite pretty much everything except speedlings. So the Terran player has to only do a bit of stutterstep, to have vastly more efficient units than you (think of roach vs marauder, roaches cannot ever connect).
Why do people always leave out zergling surrounds in this argument? I never understand it. Zerg has the ability to completely surround your units. If this succeeds, then you can't micro. It's the same thing, but it isn't an "ability." Yet everybody seems perfectly okay with this. Then when the other races getting equivalent trapping mechanisms and everyone is complaining. Sounds totally disingenuous to me.
Lastly we have units such as the Marauder, Infestor, Sentry, Mothership. What do these units have in common? Answer: They all prevent the other player from microing their units by restricting or halting their movement.
The Marauder gets concussive shells for a measly 50/50 in cost. Now they can do even half-assed stutterstep and kite pretty much everything except speedlings. So the Terran player has to only do a bit of stutterstep, to have vastly more efficient units than you (think of roach vs marauder, roaches cannot ever connect).
Why do people always leave out zergling surrounds in this argument? I never understand it. Zerg has the ability to completely surround your units. If this succeeds, then you can't micro. It's the same thing, but it isn't an "ability." Yet everybody seems perfectly okay with this. Then when the other races getting equivalent trapping mechanisms and everyone is complaining.
Difference is that a pack of lings trying to surround your units can be avoided with foreseeing. And even so, afterwards you can shoot your way free. Your ability to micro has been reduced but not completely taken away from you. A fungal can't really be microed against. Once it hits, your units are stuck there until he doesn't have more infestors left or you die. In BW, the equivalent ability would be plaguuuu, which instead of completely taking away micro, simply reduced it.
I agree with Day9. The problem that not many people have touched on yet, tho, is that this has the indirect effect of progamers not being able to pull away from mediocre players. If you make a buildorder mistake in sc2, a player below your skill level can easily suddenly outright kill you (Idra vs cruncher in TSL comes to mind. Altough I'll admit that the game was younger back then, and the skill ceiling has risen a bit since). In bw, however, a progamer could work such magic with his units, that he could come back from a potential bad situation. Thats why certain progamers back then could have over 90% winrate.
Lastly we have units such as the Marauder, Infestor, Sentry, Mothership. What do these units have in common? Answer: They all prevent the other player from microing their units by restricting or halting their movement.
The Marauder gets concussive shells for a measly 50/50 in cost. Now they can do even half-assed stutterstep and kite pretty much everything except speedlings. So the Terran player has to only do a bit of stutterstep, to have vastly more efficient units than you (think of roach vs marauder, roaches cannot ever connect).
Why do people always leave out zergling surrounds in this argument? I never understand it. Zerg has the ability to completely surround your units. If this succeeds, then you can't micro. It's the same thing, but it isn't an "ability." Yet everybody seems perfectly okay with this. Then when the other races getting equivalent trapping mechanisms and everyone is complaining.
Difference is that a pack of lings trying to surround your units can be avoided with foreseeing. And even so, afterwards you can shoot your way free. Your ability to micro has been reduced but not completely taken away from you. A fungal can't really be microed against. Once it hits, your units are stuck there until he doesn't have more infestors left or you die. In BW, the equivalent ability would be plaguuuu, which instead of completely taking away micro, simply reduced it.
I agree with Day9. The problem that not many people have touched on yet, tho, is that this has the indirect effect of progamers not being able to pull away from mediocre players. If you make a buildorder mistake in sc2, a player below your skill level can easily suddenly outright kill you (Idra vs cruncher in TSL comes to mind. Altough I'll admit that the game was younger back then, and the skill ceiling has risen a bit since). In bw, however, a progamer could work such magic with his units, that he could come back from a potential bad situation. Thats why certain progamers back then could have over 90% winrate.
FF and Concussive work the exact same way. All of them mean that if you try to attack in a bad position, you can't run away or do anything. Micro is "reduced."
Fungal (and maybe vortex) is the only thing in the game that is stronger in those terms than a zergling surround. And saying that fungal can't be foreseen obviously wrong. Look at the crazy micro involved with muta vs infestor! It's fucking awesome, and it's only a matter of time before we see that in the other matchups.
Edit: I don't necessarily disagree with Day9. But these comments about "abilities that remove micro" and stuff is just bullshit. It has absolutely no merit. It really makes sight and information a stronger part of the game. If anything it makes the game much more difficult in terms of micro, because it forces players to figure out how not be put into those bad positions.
Have to disagree with day9 here. I'll start with an example I'm familiar with: KZ in Counter Strike: The oddities of the Half life physics engine made trick jumping a valuable tool and a sport within the counter strike community. It was incredibly difficult, top kz'ers had years of experience, and the sense of timing and judgment they have is quite stunning. It is also v v fun to do.
The difference between this and a strategy game is that a basic understanding of trick jumping was necessary for the professional counter strike player, but they did not need to be masters at it. Aim, reflexes and tactical decision making remained the hall mark of the best teams. The various 'physical' aspects of the game, like auto switching weapons while sniping or trick jumping were icings on the cake.
Compare this to a faulty ai or technical limitations on a game. Getting the most out of your units should not involve battling the flaws in the game engine. You could enhance their performance by exploiting gaps or features of their design, this is seen in starcraft 2 with magic boxing, blink micro, marine splitting and other techniques. These are incidental features of the unit and its abilities. Blink stalkers do not come with a label that says use them in this manner, it happens to be a way of exploiting the ai of units in sc2. Magic boxing exploits the physics of splash damage. Marine splitting does the same, but also involves exploiting the cost effectiveness of trading banelings for marines. The point here is that all these units can be trusted to perform the basic commands that they receive, it is upto the player to enhance their performance by giving them the optimal set of commands. In counter strike, pressing the w key guaranteed you to move forward and pressing space guaranteed a jump, but if you could do it, you could run forward and perform a long jump, which could be used to escape certain hairy situations. Basic decisions work flawlessly, but you could use your mechanical aptitude to enhance your strategies.
Stream lining the most basic set of commands does not make a game less interesting, it rewards the decision making and strategic aspects, with the caveat that mechanical prowess will be further required to get more out of your decisions. In fact, in sc2 certain strategic avenues are open to only those with the mechanical aptitude for it.
all these sc2 vs bw fights are funny. half of them can be solved if people would just try BW out once. just once.
sc2 obviously does not have the micro skill ceiling of BW, and it aint gonna happen anytime soon just because of how the game works. sc2 is vastly different from BW, and unless the expansions bring out micro heavy units, sc2 will fall short in this regard.
Lastly we have units such as the Marauder, Infestor, Sentry, Mothership. What do these units have in common? Answer: They all prevent the other player from microing their units by restricting or halting their movement.
The Marauder gets concussive shells for a measly 50/50 in cost. Now they can do even half-assed stutterstep and kite pretty much everything except speedlings. So the Terran player has to only do a bit of stutterstep, to have vastly more efficient units than you (think of roach vs marauder, roaches cannot ever connect).
Why do people always leave out zergling surrounds in this argument? I never understand it. Zerg has the ability to completely surround your units. If this succeeds, then you can't micro. It's the same thing, but it isn't an "ability." Yet everybody seems perfectly okay with this. Then when the other races getting equivalent trapping mechanisms and everyone is complaining.
Difference is that a pack of lings trying to surround your units can be avoided with foreseeing. And even so, afterwards you can shoot your way free. Your ability to micro has been reduced but not completely taken away from you. A fungal can't really be microed against. Once it hits, your units are stuck there until he doesn't have more infestors left or you die. In BW, the equivalent ability would be plaguuuu, which instead of completely taking away micro, simply reduced it.
I agree with Day9. The problem that not many people have touched on yet, tho, is that this has the indirect effect of progamers not being able to pull away from mediocre players. If you make a buildorder mistake in sc2, a player below your skill level can easily suddenly outright kill you (Idra vs cruncher in TSL comes to mind. Altough I'll admit that the game was younger back then, and the skill ceiling has risen a bit since). In bw, however, a progamer could work such magic with his units, that he could come back from a potential bad situation. Thats why certain progamers back then could have over 90% winrate.
FF and Concussive work the exact same way. All of them mean that if you try to attack in a bad position, you can't run away or do anything. Micro is "reduced."
Fungal (and maybe vortex) is the only thing in the game that is stronger in those terms than a zergling surround. And saying that fungal can't be foreseen obviously wrong. Look at the crazy micro involved with muta vs infestor! It's fucking awesome, and it's only a matter of time before we see that in the other matchups.
Edit: I don't necessarily disagree with Day9. But these comments about "abilities that remove micro" and stuff is just bullshit. It has absolutely no merit. It really makes sight and information a stronger part of the game. If anything it makes the game much more difficult in terms of micro, because it forces players to figure out how not be put into those bad positions.
What you're basically advocating is that Sc2 devolves into even more of an elaborate guessing game and nothing else. Just because you'd rather play Risk without ever having to pick up the pieces doesn't mean that's the direction the game wants to go. For all the people clamoring about Sc2 being a "strategy" game as if this aspect should trump everything by miles, what you're essentially asking for is a glorified, 3D board game. That's not what makes Sc2 good. The strategies are cool and innovative, but they're nothing if they aren't executed well. What I, day9, and others wants is a bigger emphasis on execution to the point that strategies are good half for their innovation and half for their execution. The flipside is that the defending player can take advantage of poor execution and win. You can't do that with stalker vs marauder, for instance, no matter what the situation is.
Lastly we have units such as the Marauder, Infestor, Sentry, Mothership. What do these units have in common? Answer: They all prevent the other player from microing their units by restricting or halting their movement.
The Marauder gets concussive shells for a measly 50/50 in cost. Now they can do even half-assed stutterstep and kite pretty much everything except speedlings. So the Terran player has to only do a bit of stutterstep, to have vastly more efficient units than you (think of roach vs marauder, roaches cannot ever connect).
Why do people always leave out zergling surrounds in this argument? I never understand it. Zerg has the ability to completely surround your units. If this succeeds, then you can't micro. It's the same thing, but it isn't an "ability." Yet everybody seems perfectly okay with this. Then when the other races getting equivalent trapping mechanisms and everyone is complaining.
Difference is that a pack of lings trying to surround your units can be avoided with foreseeing. And even so, afterwards you can shoot your way free. Your ability to micro has been reduced but not completely taken away from you. A fungal can't really be microed against. Once it hits, your units are stuck there until he doesn't have more infestors left or you die. In BW, the equivalent ability would be plaguuuu, which instead of completely taking away micro, simply reduced it.
I agree with Day9. The problem that not many people have touched on yet, tho, is that this has the indirect effect of progamers not being able to pull away from mediocre players. If you make a buildorder mistake in sc2, a player below your skill level can easily suddenly outright kill you (Idra vs cruncher in TSL comes to mind. Altough I'll admit that the game was younger back then, and the skill ceiling has risen a bit since). In bw, however, a progamer could work such magic with his units, that he could come back from a potential bad situation. Thats why certain progamers back then could have over 90% winrate.
FF and Concussive work the exact same way. All of them mean that if you try to attack in a bad position, you can't run away or do anything. Micro is "reduced."
Fungal (and maybe vortex) is the only thing in the game that is stronger in those terms than a zergling surround. And saying that fungal can't be foreseen obviously wrong. Look at the crazy micro involved with muta vs infestor! It's fucking awesome, and it's only a matter of time before we see that in the other matchups.
Edit: I don't necessarily disagree with Day9. But these comments about "abilities that remove micro" and stuff is just bullshit. It has absolutely no merit. It really makes sight and information a stronger part of the game. If anything it makes the game much more difficult in terms of micro, because it forces players to figure out how not be put into those bad positions.
What you're basically advocating is that Sc2 devolves into even more of an elaborate guessing game and nothing else. Just because you'd rather play Risk without ever having to pick up the pieces doesn't mean that's the direction the game wants to go. For all the people clamoring about Sc2 being a "strategy" game as if this aspect should trump everything by miles, what you're essentially asking for is a glorified, 3D board game. That's not what makes Sc2 good. The strategies are cool and innovative, but they're nothing if they aren't executed well. What I, day9, and others wants is a bigger emphasis on execution to the point that strategies are good half for their innovation and half for their execution. The flipside is that the defending player can take advantage of poor execution and win. You can't do that with stalker vs marauder, for instance, no matter what the situation is.
You also can't do that with zergling on stalker. Do you have a problem with that as well?
What elaborate guessing game? I'm talking about positioning and information. You have to position yourself so that forcefields don't completely tear you apart as Zerg. If you're having trouble seeing the infestors coming maybe you need to have observers or observer speed so that you know when you need to split. I don't know why you're calling that a guessing game. That's micro and tactics and positioning and exactly what people are talking about. That's getting more out of the units that you have. That's exactly the kind of thing these units force people to do. We're seeing more and more of that happen.
Phoenix v Infestor could very well become the what we're seeing with Muta v Infestor with the frantic micro. And that would be awesome. Doesn't that sound fun and sexy and cool to you?
On January 01 2012 06:17 Kluey wrote: Credits to LiquidHerO for this one:
Load up 1-3 speed prisms with zealots. Run them over the terran army pressing "d + click" on each one OR drop them behind the terran army. You basically get a flank without having to set up one. The only downside is that you waste supply on warp prisms. Don't know how effective it is but it's a good idea.
Credits to NEXSickness to this one:
Load an immortal, let it hit the roaches and then load it up. The projectile is faster for an immortal so you will dodge the roach shots while hitting them.
Pretty sure boxer invented the second one with Siege tanks vs dragoons
On January 02 2012 09:50 aTnClouD wrote: no offense but op is clueless and this thread doesn't make any sense
I think you could apply that to most of the people who talk about BW like they played it at beyond 3v3BGH level. I guarantee only a handful of the people in this thread even played iccup, much less at a high level.
P.S. I remember reading a post by you a while back about clumping and aoe killing SC2. I think there's a lot more than just that, but it's good to see a good BW player weighing in a thoughtful opinion. Too bad the thread was mostly full of derp.
Broodwar units start out at 20% of effectiveness. SC2 units start out at 95%. 100% = doing what you tell them to do.
You can increase BW units to about the same level as SC2 units (110-200% depending on the unit, eg: Colossi or marines) - it's just WAY harder in Broodwar because the units start out so bad.
In Broodwar it was easy for your opponent to make micro mistakes by being inattentive, in SC2 they need to actually misclick or make a bad decision. This makes it seem like the better player is able to win a battle by being a better player - when in fact the other guy just turned out to be shit (even if it's just temporarily).
Positioning, focus fire, juggling units in and out of fire, flanking moving between firing cooldowns, etc are things that people are saying you could do in Broodwar, guess what? I do the exact same shit in SC2 (I'm worse at it, but whatever).
Now, this last point is the most important, so pay attention: I've mentioned how BW and SC2 are basically the same if nobody fucks up, right? Well now ignore all that because really good micro in SC2 is WAY FUCKING HARDER. Why? Because units die SO fast and any mistakes are amplified by the fact that it's unlikely your opponent will make any if he decisively wins the battle (you often see frantic micro in close battles, but then just an a-move to finish off a weakened army because that way you can't make any mistakes if you don't do anything).
People are saying that what made BW better than SC2 is the mechanical micro you could do - but guess what, that's almost exactly what DIDN'T make it better - even if you agree that it was (I do, btw and not just because I was better at Broodwar than SC2 ) .
What made it better was the effectiveness of smaller army chunks, the better defender's advantage, the years-long refined strategy and mechanics, the amazing unit voices (seriously, SC1 sounds > SC2 sounds x100) and the ease with which you could control space. These things don't exist in SC2 but the micro DOES exist. It's easier to get it going decently but to do it brilliantly is much harder.
People way in with the same stupid nonsense in every BW vs SC2 thread I see, but rarely do they actually get it RIGHT. It's got nothing to do with micro (unless you mean purely in terms of feel, in which case that's just personal preference and not an argument that makes any sense, even though it was way more awesome). It's actually just due to unit design - which is good because that CAN be fixed if the developers are clever enough (it's harder to do in SC2 though due to movement AI, current crappy units and bronze league having to be balanced).
P.S. I love the shit out of both of these games but BW rewards skill more than SC2 and more difficult to control units won't solve the problems with clever builds being better than perfect mechanics in a lot of circumstances.
If anything, micro in sc2 requires more practice and skill. In bw, it's pretty obvious that your units need help making decisions, so players have gotten used to manually controlling their units. In sc2, most players say "ok, my units will do everything automatically. Perfect." and then they proceed to think micro is non-existent like in bw. Like someone else said, sc2 units FEEL different than bw, and don't FEEL as micro friendly - but just because they feel that way doesn't mean it's true.
When we start seeing EVERY pro micro like MKP and fOrGG have in the GSL, we can complain about the skill cap. But I've seen both of those players do stuff with their units that shows there is still potential for amazing, game-changing micro in sc2.
On January 02 2012 10:50 althaz wrote: Broodwar units start out at 20% of effectiveness. SC2 units start out at 95%. 100% = doing what you tell them to do.
You can increase BW units to about the same level as SC2 units (110-200% depending on the unit, eg: Colossi or marines) - it's just WAY harder in Broodwar because the units start out so bad.
In Broodwar it was easy for your opponent to make micro mistakes by being inattentive, in SC2 they need to actually misclick or make a bad decision. This makes it seem like the better player is able to win a battle by being a better player - when in fact the other guy just turned out to be shit (even if it's just temporarily).
Positioning, focus fire, juggling units in and out of fire, flanking moving between firing cooldowns, etc are things that people are saying you could do in Broodwar, guess what? I do the exact same shit in SC2 (I'm worse at it, but whatever).
Now, this last point is the most important, so pay attention: I've mentioned how BW and SC2 are basically the same if nobody fucks up, right? Well now ignore all that because really good micro in SC2 is WAY FUCKING HARDER. Why? Because units die SO fast and any mistakes are amplified by the fact that it's unlikely your opponent will make any if he decisively wins the battle (you often see frantic micro in close battles, but then just an a-move to finish off a weakened army because that way you can't make any mistakes if you don't do anything).
People are saying that what made BW better than SC2 is the mechanical micro you could do - but guess what, that's almost exactly what DIDN'T make it better - even if you agree that it was (I do, btw and not just because I was better at Broodwar than SC2 ) .
What made it better was the effectiveness of smaller army chunks, the better defender's advantage, the years-long refined strategy and mechanics, the amazing unit voices (seriously, SC1 sounds > SC2 sounds x100) and the ease with which you could control space. These things don't exist in SC2 but the micro DOES exist. It's easier to get it going decently but to do it brilliantly is much harder.
People way in with the same stupid nonsense in every BW vs SC2 thread I see, but rarely do they actually get it RIGHT. It's got nothing to do with micro (unless you mean purely in terms of feel, in which case that's just personal preference and not an argument that makes any sense, even though it was way more awesome). It's actually just due to unit design - which is good because that CAN be fixed if the developers are clever enough (it's harder to do in SC2 though due to movement AI, current crappy units and bronze league having to be balanced).
P.S. I love the shit out of both of these games but BW rewards skill more than SC2 and more difficult to control units won't solve the problems with clever builds being better than perfect mechanics in a lot of circumstances.
Well, it's a mix of both. The trick is designing units that take active micro to be effective at all. Lurkers were useless if you didn't position them correctly and actively move them around. Likewise, fighting vs lurkers with an amoved marine/medic army is hilariously ineffective. Swarm forced both players to be active. Zerg had to get all his units in the swarm, and terran had to run out of lurker range and reposition.
Storm took longer to do its full damage so it was more dodge-able in BW too, so it became more of an area control spell than a pure damage spell in a lot of circumstances, since it was possible with good micro to dodge the storms, especially as zerg. It was also a good way to punish clumping up in static positions in PvT.
Lets not even talk about spider mines, the ultimate area control ability.
And then we have sunkens that mattered. Cannons did get a nice hp buff in SC2, which as it turns out only makes cheese stronger (oh I know you zerg players feel me on that one). Look at the new units in SC2... Marauders, roaches, immortals. All of these guys are designed to a-move afk steamroll through static defense.
I definitely think that there's major design flaws with the spells of SC2, especially fungal, conc shells, and FF. FF and fungal are literally unmicroable vs. They don't force a response from the other player. They simply do their thing and either it works or it doesn't. There's no interaction between players. Conc shell too greatly reduces the microability of other units, but at least it's single target so it's not quite as stupid as fungal.
Just combine these things together and you get a game that's much less about two players trying to outplay each other so much as two players trying to not make dumb mistakes.
On January 02 2012 11:15 EternaLLegacy wrote: Well, it's a mix of both. The trick is designing units that take active micro to be effective at all. Lurkers were useless if you didn't position them correctly and actively move them around. Likewise, fighting vs lurkers with an amoved marine/medic army is hilariously ineffective. Swarm forced both players to be active. Zerg had to get all his units in the swarm, and terran had to run out of lurker range and reposition.
Storm took longer to do its full damage so it was more dodge-able in BW too, so it became more of an area control spell than a pure damage spell in a lot of circumstances, since it was possible with good micro to dodge the storms, especially as zerg. It was also a good way to punish clumping up in static positions in PvT.
Lets not even talk about spider mines, the ultimate area control ability.
And then we have sunkens that mattered. Cannons did get a nice hp buff in SC2, which as it turns out only makes cheese stronger (oh I know you zerg players feel me on that one). Look at the new units in SC2... Marauders, roaches, immortals. All of these guys are designed to a-move afk steamroll through static defense.
I definitely think that there's major design flaws with the spells of SC2, especially fungal, conc shells, and FF. FF and fungal are literally unmicroable vs. They don't force a response from the other player. They simply do their thing and either it works or it doesn't. There's no interaction between players. Conc shell too greatly reduces the microability of other units, but at least it's single target so it's not quite as stupid as fungal.
Just combine these things together and you get a game that's much less about two players trying to outplay each other so much as two players trying to not make dumb mistakes.
You have pretty much agreed with what I said and I am glad you did so in the way that you did. It's just the design of units/spells/abilities that needs to change to make this game as good as BW was - and Blizzard I hope are smart enough to do it. I'm not entirely sure though that they are brave enough anymore .
The ONLY outlier is flash. And he's not even THAT much of an outlier.
I think people aren't talking about winrates in leagues where the competition is similar, but vs other, weaker players. I think Hiya is #1 on Fish since "retiring." These guys absolutely demolish lesser players.
Obviously the winrates vs other pros will be around 50-55%, with a few exceptions on the top. But I've watched pros on stream for SC2 ladder and they lose all the time, especially to allins. The best players in BW would drop very few games to inferior players.
The ONLY outlier is flash. And he's not even THAT much of an outlier.
I think people aren't talking about winrates in leagues where the competition is similar, but vs other, weaker players. I think Hiya is #1 on Fish since "retiring." These guys absolutely demolish lesser players.
Obviously the winrates vs other pros will be around 50-55%, with a few exceptions on the top. But I've watched pros on stream for SC2 ladder and they lose all the time, especially to allins. The best players in BW would drop very few games to inferior players.
That's probably gonna be the difference between pros and amateurs in a few years. Sc2 is still a young game and a lot of things are being figured out as we go. If you want some laughs, go back and watch the first 3 GSL Open seasons from 2010 - the strategies and style which the pros used back then were hilarious, and that's how the sc2 games of today are probably going to look in 2013 or 2014. Of course, HOTS will probably set back that development by a year or so.
Just the same, we're probably not even looking at the best sc2 pros that will emerge yet. Just like grrrr....., slayer_boxer, and July Zerg were amazing in their time, so are MVP, Nestea, and oGsMC in today's time - they're the best of the best, until better players will replace them. Who will the Flash, Jaedong, and Bisu of sc2 be? Whoever they are, they will be MILES ahead in terms of skill of the pros we're seeing now.
Needless to say, many micro "tricks" are going to be discovered between now and then, and it's likely that we'll look back at this thread in few years and think "wow, sc2 used to suck, but it's gotten a lot better." I sure hope so, anyway.
On January 01 2012 06:52 Xlancer wrote: I know I get way more out of my roaches than the average play just from doing burrow micro on hurt roaches. Usually it causes a rage quit from the other player
EDIT: Also I wouldn't say that sc2 has a lower skill ceiling just because the sc2 UI makes it easier to perform the same actions that only pros could do in sc1. At the very least the ceiling would be equal because pros can still do those same actions in sc2, but I would say that sc2 has a much higher potential ceiling because of how much higher the sc2 UI raised baseline skill level.
I'd like to elaborate on this point. It feels like..if any units can be extrememly microed it is...extremely hard....I mean the logic goes like this. With roach burrow you should be able to lose a lot less roaches and be more cost efficient..but roaches burrow so slowly..
Blink stalkers can blink away from projectile attacks. That should literally mean that stalkers roll over pure roach with blink kiting, by getting free kills.
Zerg arguably use drops the least yet they have the most potency. They are required to have like 23 OLs to be maxed...and they double as drop shits. BULLSHIT is the day when a zerg has a mass ultralisk army and a big bank vs a ball of anything and he doesnt have drops to drop and get a FREE FLANK! More bullshit is when people make tons of banelings and havent made mutas and dont have OL drops. You MUST be trying to take out expansions why simultaneously dropping banes on their mineral lines. And why is it that zergs harass toss with mutas and get scared away by stalkers. Why isnt overlord drop researched and a death drop done? You have air dominance, you get free probes and buildings, and chances are the stalkers cant engage without waiting for zeals or something. And with good micro you can retreat from any losing battle for FREE.
On that topic. When overlord speed and drops become more common like they should zergs should have one extrra queen in an overlord just rolling around the map dropping the queen, spewing creep, and then letting the queen place a creep tumor. More vision, more base blocking, more creep.
Also....if you watch leenock vs MVP set 1 gsl november...mvp sacrificed losing the big battle for doing 3 drops that crippled leenocks economy and ultimately won him the game...its what the OP was talking about.
Also...the counter to EMP is drops of spellcasters.
On January 02 2012 15:35 taitanik wrote: people complain about units clumping in sc2 so why not to use skill to move with units splitted?
because clumping is actually beneficial in most situations. a tight ball of marines fares better against zerglings, for instance. Part of the micro in BW, as I understand it, was dealing with the fact that you couldn't get things to clump very easily.
On January 02 2012 15:35 taitanik wrote: people complain about units clumping in sc2 so why not to use skill to move with units splitted?
because clumping is actually beneficial in most situations. a tight ball of marines fares better against zerglings, for instance. Part of the micro in BW, as I understand it, was dealing with the fact that you couldn't get things to clump very easily.
Part of the micro in SC2, as I understand it, is dealing with the fact that units clump up very easily. Spread zerglings fare better against sieged tanks, for instance.
See what I did there? Different games and different mechanics but it's still possible to micro. But maybe not in the same way.
I don't get what the problem people have with units being extremely effective. The main problem I had with bw is all the units being ridiculously hard to control, even such things as just simply moving up your own ramp. I prefer the units being extremely effective without having to have a lot of micro and control. It rewards better macro
On January 02 2012 15:58 scarper65 wrote: I don't get what the problem people have with units being extremely effective. The main problem I had with bw is all the units being ridiculously hard to control, even such things as just simply moving up your own ramp. I prefer the units being extremely effective without having to have a lot of micro and control. It rewards better macro
ROFL? SC2's macro is SO EASY that they needed to artificially make it harder by adding in "macro mechanics." Too bad as terran you can wait til 199 energy before you gotta actually drop mules and you don't even NEED chrono past midgame as protoss. Only zerg actually has to do anything macro-wise, and they have the easiest baseline-macro of all cause all you have to do is put every hatchery on 5 or something and tada you can select EVERY SINGLE LARVA YOU HAVE.
On January 01 2012 06:10 triforks wrote: i think more terrans should be repairing there mech. it should be standard to include a handful of scvs with any army that can be repaired.
EPT
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