On January 08 2012 08:10 aderum wrote: Im gettting kinda sick of these points, they are just hidden "BW is better sc2" threads. Yeah the army clumps a bit more, but that doesnt stop players for splitting them. They aren't doing this because people are still to bad. Just like people arent doing micro stuff because they are to bad. With time people will split armys much more, micro much more and everything will be fine in the world!
Demanding from players to split their armies won't let them do that. Problem: The fights are way too fast. There is just not enough time to split reasonably. So my suggestion: More HP for all units but same damage.
ehm it will change because the first person to do it will win much more. Its kinda simple.
But why is there so few army splitting? Either your assuption that splitted army > blob is wrong (don't think so) or there must be other reasons for not splitting: Fights are over in the blink of a second => Not enough time to split properly.
Players do not intuitively operate their macro game on the same level they did in BW on a massive scale that necessitates the usage of advanced micro tactics on a scale that BW pros need to operate at in order to differentiate themselves. More often then not, a better macro game or new unit composition will win games easier then new unit control styles.
These comparisons of what worked in BW should their for be modeled to work on SC2 are are so superficial it two different games with completely different physics and A.I. systems, it is entirely possible and likely that new approaches to strategies and tactics will be required.
On January 08 2012 02:37 TheKefka wrote: Your A and B points are common misconceptions in my opinion. Since the beta people talk about units clumping and army movement and how it was harder to control units in BW due to the mechanics of the game. First of all,there is nothing stopping you from dividing your army into 4 control groups.If I want I can make the game hard for myself on my own,the same as it was in BW if I want. As far as unit clumping goes. Try out this.Go into a sc2 game,divide a 120 supply army into 4 control groups,set the units in a line and a-move into a direction,but not by clicking into a direction directly,but move them by a-move clicking on the map far away from your location and observer what happens.You'll get yourself a BW army movement. I have no idea who in the right mind thinks right now that its advantages to have your army fight in a ball at high supply numbers.You will eat fungals,storms,EMPs and you will die. One of the reasons why we see balls fighting right now in starcraft 2 is because people are bad.Really bad.People need to realize this,no one right now in starcraft 2 is playing the game MECHANICALLY correct right now.Pros have so many bad habits due to the simplification of the way the game works and no one is bothering themselves to correct it and I would even dare to say that most are too lazy to attempt to correct it or don't have time due to tournaments or whatever. Oh and almost forgot,another thing people are commonly bitching about is how sc2 graphics and that it hinders micro. Go into your option for graphics,turn everything to low,turn the gama slightly up and there you go.You'll have a nice,clean,clear and crisp looking game with no flashy shit.This is how I play at least and I seen many other pros do the same,like Hasuobs and Mana for instance.I would even go further and do this with broadcasted game for the viewers,but at this point it seems slightly impossible because of how many people are used to the way the game looks and if you turn the graphics down,they will just bitch about it.
Now the real problem in stacraft 2 and the reason why people are playing the way they are right now is the unit design. The starcraft 2 unit design is by far the worst part of the game and if the game at some point dies out and people call it quits,in my opinion,it will be due to the Dustin Browders idea off "cool" unit design. There are more badly designed units in sc2 than there are good ones right now and its what causes the game to break at a mechanical level.I can't analyze this unless I make my own thread and make a huge post of how sc2 units cause the game to be volatile and force players to play a certain way right now. The defenders advantage and high ground mechanics become obsolete not because of how blizzard intended it to be or didn't intend it to be,it fails because of a certain way each race and its units are designed. I may be crazy but this to me is the main problem that sc2 has and,get this,blizzard can actually solve this problem,but it would involve them having to admit basically that they made huge mistakes and I'm not so sure that that will ever happen.The expansion are the perfect opportunity to fix these problems but from the units I saw at the HoTs presentation Blizzard clearly has different ideas. People advocate that blizzard should change the way the game AI works,the units selection,army movement and what not,no.It's just not logical to think this way. Units like marauders,colossus,sc2 marines,concussive shell,amulet,the insanely high dps of some units,+something damage against a certain armor types,hard counters,gimmicks like forcefields,etc. is what is wrong with the game and they are lowering the skill ceiling and not the mechanics of the game.
+1. Seriously. Sickest post in this thread.
Here a video from a game. Keep in mind that this is FlaSh. He can probably 1a2a3a4a5a in like 0.2 sec. Notice the way how the marines can only move in 8 directions. Also notice how they line up.
The thing is, I realize that you can't actually go backwards in terms of technology. Making 8 directional movement for units is unintuitive. But there should be some way to reward a player who spends more time setting up a flank.
I did some thinking on the bus about the high ground thing and thinking of a way to get it to be similar to BW without the chance thing and I realize just halving damage or letting every other shot hit may be a bit bad so here's an idea I came up with. What if we double the cool down between shots for ranged units shooting up high ground? Best way to simulate 50% imo
Or how about units gain "setup time" when shooting up high ground? This was first shots also go to high ground units.
One thing I think would help significantly is changing charge back to an old school basic movement speed increase, right now chargelots move at the exact same speed as stalkers, where if they were faster you could set up flanks with them, and you'd have to pay more attention to keep them from wandering too far.
Why can't this be done now under current conditions? Is it a fundamental flaw in the game that it does not force the player to play the game with the BW-like examples being proposed, or is it a decision made by competitive players who realize their time and energy is better spent developing a more perfected macro game and fully exploring the options that aspect of SC2 offers in the ways of dealing with current challenges.
I think people who are calling for a lot of the fundamental unit changes are trying to artificially bring the game closer to the BW meta-game for the sake of familiarity or nostalgic appeal. Perhaps certain suggestions are warranted if there is a really bad design flaw for a unit, but I would say 99% of the complaints are impatient people wanting something that takes a bit of time to develop.
Once a state is reached where macro game developments provides a diminishing return from the competitive stand point, I believe players will seek out micro based exploits in order to push themselves ahead. This wont be a black and white transition, as players already fiddle around with how units behave before, during, and after engagements, but I right now the focus is on the macro side of things.
New builds and styles used to come out every week or every other week, now it is slowing down a bit. We are seeing better and more high caliber games from players then we saw 6 months ago or a year ago, but we have not his such a wall that we need Blizzard to reintroduce all these new fundamental mechanics and really screw with any kind of stability currently present in the metagame.
What nonuniform formations do for a game is allow multiple variations on the starting point for armies, so your micro is different every time, and unit movement is more dynamic. The reason clumping is so bad is not because it makes the game easier, but because it means every army micro using the same techniques, and every army function roughly the same in every situation so long as the army compositions on both sides are similar. You're going to arc and engage with marauders the same as roaches and the same as stalkers.
However, if you start from more random and chaotic formations, the micro does not play out the same in every situation, and as such players have to improvise and practice more than one type of army splitting. Yes, it is harder, but the real benefit is that it's more varied and more decisions are necessary.
I disagree. What you post is simply an aesthetic opinion on how you like to see your games. Your post makes it look like all engagements are two armies are in a ball, they meet, they arc, and they win. This may be true, at the moment that is. But if you watch the really good pros, they do not usually have their units in the ball you describe unless they are moving to get ready or if they are downright destroying their opponents base or something. I think one poster said it before, that the reason why so many people do this is because the players now are bad. Read the elephant in the room post, although i do not agree with everything, the level of mechanics and talent in the current proworld are bad enough that players like goody can get by with queing up 4 units in each of his buildings and by getting supply blocked for minutes at a time. I believe because unit control and formation is superior in this game, it can lead to superior unit positioning and superior tactics. Deathball engagements only work if everyone else is deathballing. The problem is that most people are because they are too lazy or unable to.
Nonuniform formations are too random for me, imagine two players moving 10 zealots and 10 dragoons out of range of each other but closer together. By chance due to the random and chaotic formation, one side has all of the zealots behind and one has all of the zealots ahead. One player is going to die due to random unit placement or is going to have to put a lot more effort in because unit formation was random. This should not happen in a game. Pros should not have to put in more effort due to chance while a possibly worse player can get by because his opponent is incapable to microing fast enough or because his opponent has to expend more concentration on maintaining a good unit formation. Randomness should be taken out of game, instead of moving backwards we should move forwards.
One thing i am puzzled on though is you want mechanics that can separate good players from bad. Separating and managing a deathball most certainly separates good players from bad and rewards those who can. Players who avoid deathballs play and who are able to manage a deathball when it formed are the top notch players today. So why is unit clumping so bad? It is more realistic, it makes it harder to manage/select your units, and is punishing against AOE spells.
Ahh the joy of these posts. People scream for SC2 to be just as hard as BW, when they somehow get their way and SC2 is harder to play than BW, who will actually be playing it who agree's with this thread? Probably not even half of you.
i feel its so silly to continue to attempt to bash sc2, i am just now seeing the complexities of sc2 come to the forefront.. your introduction is false, sc2 is NOT mature yet, it still is constantly changing every month or two.
Sure it might not be as "hard" as BW .. in the respects that BW was hard. The thing is though its a completely different game. there was no ball in BW so you didn't have to deal with splitting your ball, as well as personally i find it easier to defend harassment in sc1 than sc2 since you are predisposed to have your units in smaller groups so have less issues splitting your army to deal with said harassment. in sc2 i generally have 3 groups where BW i had 4+ (talking about army selection here and not production/queens/upgrades ect.)
YOU might find sc2 "stale and boring" I however find it to be great to watch and it still is in its development, whether you want to agree with me or not is your own issue.
If you really want high ground mechanics and defenders advantage just use the map editor to add in to a regular map and show players/map makers how much better games become on it if it works like you think it will. Just convince some people to give it a try for a bit and share their impressions and replays. You don't even have to copy broodwar's 50% miss chance you can test out any good or crazy idea and find what works best.
(Crazy idea: How about a neutral guardian shield spells on the map that gives any nerf or buff you can think of under it. Broodwar had neutral spells on a few tournament maps and their is lots of "terrain-based augmentation to the combat strength of units" there! And put one around each natural base that only benefits that persons units so you have defenders advantage. )
Pathfinding behavior and mechanics would be a lot harder/impossible to edit for now but sc2bw shows that high ground advantage is possible to add. Just saying you don't need to theorize about the effects changing that last point if you really want to convince people you are right about this.
I like how all these kids saying "i'm sick of these BW is better than SC2 posts" never played or even understood Broodwar at a high level. You guys are seriously bias as fuck.
There are many aspects of BW that make it way more entertaining, more watchable, more dynamic, just fucken more exciting display of skill. I'm not saying a worse player could never win, but in BW, if you were worse it was obvious. There was a clear differentiation in skill. To all you SC2 fanboys, people that came from BW and truly understand what made it great, DO NOT WANT SC2 to be BW2.0.
Get it through your thick skulls, no one is arguing to make the game "artificially harder" to be more like BW. What is supported by long time RTS players is that certain aspects that made BW great, exicting to watch, dynamic, and not as coin flippy, should somehow be implemented into SC2 (in a way that's not "artificially harder") so that SC2 can be just as great as BW.
Every single one of these posts I hear people bitching about "stop trying to get SC2 to be exactly like BW." Well guess what, cut it out, no one wants BW2.0, we just want the best game SC2 could be, and it could really improve with some carry over of certain aspects that made BW fucking one of the most epic games of all ages.
I hope I assisted players that only played SC2 out in your comprehension of what BW-vets are really trying to say, quit misinterpreting.
On January 08 2012 16:56 deadmau wrote: I like how all these kids saying "i'm sick of these BW is better than SC2 posts" never played or even understood Broodwar at a high level. You guys are seriously bias as fuck.
There are many aspects of BW that make it way more entertaining, more watchable, more dynamic, just fucken more exciting display of skill. I'm not saying a worse player could never win, but in BW, if you were worse it was obvious. There was a clear differentiation in skill. To all you SC2 fanboys, people that came from BW and truly understand what made it great, DO NOT WANT SC2 to be BW2.0.
Get it through your thick skulls, no one is arguing to make the game "artificially harder" to be more like BW. What is supported by long time RTS players is that certain aspects that made BW great, exicting to watch, dynamic, and not as coin flippy, should somehow be implemented into SC2 (in a way that's not "artificially harder") so that SC2 can be just as great as BW.
Every single one of these posts I hear people bitching about "stop trying to get SC2 to be exactly like BW." Well guess what, cut it out, no one wants BW2.0, we just want the best game SC2 could be, and it could really improve with some carry over of certain aspects that made BW fucking one of the most epic games of all ages.
I hope I assisted players that only played SC2 out in your comprehension of what BW-vets are really trying to say, quit misinterpreting.
On January 08 2012 16:56 deadmau wrote: I like how all these kids saying "i'm sick of these BW is better than SC2 posts" never played or even understood Broodwar at a high level. You guys are seriously bias as fuck.
There are many aspects of BW that make it way more entertaining, more watchable, more dynamic, just fucken more exciting display of skill. I'm not saying a worse player could never win, but in BW, if you were worse it was obvious. There was a clear differentiation in skill. To all you SC2 fanboys, people that came from BW and truly understand what made it great, DO NOT WANT SC2 to be BW2.0.
Get it through your thick skulls, no one is arguing to make the game "artificially harder" to be more like BW. What is supported by long time RTS players is that certain aspects that made BW great, exicting to watch, dynamic, and not as coin flippy, should somehow be implemented into SC2 (in a way that's not "artificially harder") so that SC2 can be just as great as BW.
Every single one of these posts I hear people bitching about "stop trying to get SC2 to be exactly like BW." Well guess what, cut it out, no one wants BW2.0, we just want the best game SC2 could be, and it could really improve with some carry over of certain aspects that made BW fucking one of the most epic games of all ages.
I hope I assisted players that only played SC2 out in your comprehension of what BW-vets are really trying to say, quit misinterpreting.
I'm glad you made this comment, because I didn't want to sound like an ass saying it myself, and it needed to be said. BW2.0 already exists. It's called SC2BW. I have no problem with a lot of the improvements in SC2. I like some of the mechanics they changed. I like some of the units, or at least could like them if they were only slightly tweaked. I like that I don't have to spend half of my apm getting dragoons unstuck from my mineral lines cause they derped into there from across the base.
What I don't like is that there is really no clear differentiator between good and bad players. You can't simply sit down and watch a game of SC2 and say, "that person is really really good" or "that guy is struggling." You don't see evidence of the struggle players have by watching their forces. Honestly, even the GSL finals I watched recently was fairly unimpressive. To me it looked like a fairly normal B- game of Broodwar. There just wasn't any evidence that the players were truly world class, because there's just no real contrast between solid army control and world class army control. The best players just seem to have good multitask and good strategic sense.
On January 08 2012 16:56 deadmau wrote: I like how all these kids saying "i'm sick of these BW is better than SC2 posts" never played or even understood Broodwar at a high level. You guys are seriously bias as fuck.
There are many aspects of BW that make it way more entertaining, more watchable, more dynamic, just fucken more exciting display of skill. I'm not saying a worse player could never win, but in BW, if you were worse it was obvious. There was a clear differentiation in skill. To all you SC2 fanboys, people that came from BW and truly understand what made it great, DO NOT WANT SC2 to be BW2.0.
Get it through your thick skulls, no one is arguing to make the game "artificially harder" to be more like BW. What is supported by long time RTS players is that certain aspects that made BW great, exicting to watch, dynamic, and not as coin flippy, should somehow be implemented into SC2 (in a way that's not "artificially harder") so that SC2 can be just as great as BW.
Every single one of these posts I hear people bitching about "stop trying to get SC2 to be exactly like BW." Well guess what, cut it out, no one wants BW2.0, we just want the best game SC2 could be, and it could really improve with some carry over of certain aspects that made BW fucking one of the most epic games of all ages.
I hope I assisted players that only played SC2 out in your comprehension of what BW-vets are really trying to say, quit misinterpreting.
+1
I watch so much SC2 it's almost unethical. For the few games I watch that have me genuinely excited and on the edge of my seat, I have to sit through so many games that end within ~2 big battles, that it makes almost makes me think it's not worth my time sometimes.
I actually think that unit DPS is a big problem that hasn't been mentioned here yet. SC2 fights in 200/200 balls are over in mere seconds, whereas in BW they lasted a lot longer. This may be partly due to the deathball issue itself, but I think SC2 would be a lot more entertaining if stuff just didn't die quite as fast.
On January 08 2012 16:56 deadmau wrote: I like how all these kids saying "i'm sick of these BW is better than SC2 posts" never played or even understood Broodwar at a high level. You guys are seriously bias as fuck.
There are many aspects of BW that make it way more entertaining, more watchable, more dynamic, just fucken more exciting display of skill. I'm not saying a worse player could never win, but in BW, if you were worse it was obvious. There was a clear differentiation in skill. To all you SC2 fanboys, people that came from BW and truly understand what made it great, DO NOT WANT SC2 to be BW2.0.
Get it through your thick skulls, no one is arguing to make the game "artificially harder" to be more like BW. What is supported by long time RTS players is that certain aspects that made BW great, exicting to watch, dynamic, and not as coin flippy, should somehow be implemented into SC2 (in a way that's not "artificially harder") so that SC2 can be just as great as BW.
Every single one of these posts I hear people bitching about "stop trying to get SC2 to be exactly like BW." Well guess what, cut it out, no one wants BW2.0, we just want the best game SC2 could be, and it could really improve with some carry over of certain aspects that made BW fucking one of the most epic games of all ages.
I hope I assisted players that only played SC2 out in your comprehension of what BW-vets are really trying to say, quit misinterpreting.
I'm glad you made this comment, because I didn't want to sound like an ass saying it myself, and it needed to be said. BW2.0 already exists. It's called SC2BW. I have no problem with a lot of the improvements in SC2. I like some of the mechanics they changed. I like some of the units, or at least could like them if they were only slightly tweaked. I like that I don't have to spend half of my apm getting dragoons unstuck from my mineral lines cause they derped into there from across the base.
What I don't like is that there is really no clear differentiator between good and bad players. You can't simply sit down and watch a game of SC2 and say, "that person is really really good" or "that guy is struggling." You don't see evidence of the struggle players have by watching their forces. Honestly, even the GSL finals I watched recently was fairly unimpressive. To me it looked like a fairly normal B- game of Broodwar. There just wasn't any evidence that the players were truly world class, because there's just no real contrast between solid army control and world class army control. The best players just seem to have good multitask and good strategic sense.
That speaks more to your power of observation than it does to the game itself. Also to a lesser extent the ability of the observer and casters to show you why a player is better or worse. If you watch and I mean if you really watch a good terran and an average terran there are a lot of differences that you can spot. There is a slight problem of overhyping of certain players which does lead to multiple letdowns as well but it doesnt take a genius to spot that MVP is good and that he is doing things that other terrans dont or cant do at the moment.
Then there are players like Idra who is actually fairly consistant if you look at why he wins and loses but since he loses a lot but then beats top players people blame it on the game. Before I move on the reason for that is he is consistantly a little weak early but very very strong late which means if he isnt crippled early he typically wins vs terran and vs protoss he is just weak vs them in general. If you watch you can see the little things that he does and that every zerg does and that every protoss and terran does for that matter that they do that shows why they are at the level they are.
Also to the main article the main culprits of unit stacking are protoss as a race and terran bio. Even though the dropping in terran bio does help create several multi pronged battle the fact that it clumps is still true. However the main micro when doing bio is to spread the units out as much as you can against protoss and against banelings when you play zerg.
This leads to the main culprit of stacking and staying stacked is protoss. Every single issue with units stacking can be equated to the fact that the collosus exists and forces units to stack tight and both protect the collosus and force the fight to be in the chokes to maximize the dmg the collosus does. Templar based armies can get away far better with fighting in the open vs terran but still not vs zerg but still overall create more interesting game as a result.
However the way to the game goes is completely decided on the map that it is played on. This is true in every matchup from PvP to TvZ. Calm before the Storm plays a lot differently than say Xel Naga Caverns. Its often talked about in GSL threads how Daybreak has never failed to deliver awesome games but then there are other maps that just dont deliver those same exciting games and that needs to be fixed by either changing the map or switching up the map because the map determines more about how a game looks than almost any balance change blizzard can make.
This is incredibly biased post about a point discussed to death and long forgotten.
You tell us that 12 unit max selection is a limitation that increased the skill cap. Why can't the unit clumping be viewed as the same?
In BW you have to try hard to keep your units from being too separated, because of the limited unit selection. In SC2 you have to try hard to keep your units from clumping up, because of the clump-up mechanic.
Did you watch IMMvp's stream a few days ago? The unbelievable comebacks he pulled off after taking over a game his coach messed up? You try to do half that shit before talking about how SC2 machanics are "trivialized". The skill cap is as high as it ever was in BW, just not given enough time.
On January 08 2012 16:56 deadmau wrote: I like how all these kids saying "i'm sick of these BW is better than SC2 posts" never played or even understood Broodwar at a high level. You guys are seriously bias as fuck.
There are many aspects of BW that make it way more entertaining, more watchable, more dynamic, just fucken more exciting display of skill. I'm not saying a worse player could never win, but in BW, if you were worse it was obvious. There was a clear differentiation in skill. To all you SC2 fanboys, people that came from BW and truly understand what made it great, DO NOT WANT SC2 to be BW2.0.
Get it through your thick skulls, no one is arguing to make the game "artificially harder" to be more like BW. What is supported by long time RTS players is that certain aspects that made BW great, exicting to watch, dynamic, and not as coin flippy, should somehow be implemented into SC2 (in a way that's not "artificially harder") so that SC2 can be just as great as BW.
Every single one of these posts I hear people bitching about "stop trying to get SC2 to be exactly like BW." Well guess what, cut it out, no one wants BW2.0, we just want the best game SC2 could be, and it could really improve with some carry over of certain aspects that made BW fucking one of the most epic games of all ages.
I hope I assisted players that only played SC2 out in your comprehension of what BW-vets are really trying to say, quit misinterpreting.
+1 The new generation is just defending SC2, without them understanding how much better SC2 could be.
I am starting to like the fact that SC2 battles are so fast and end with one player in a huge lead over the other. You don't stay 5 minutes watching one battle across 3 screens, just one quick engagement that can mean the end of your, or your favourite pro's game.
BW unit design wasn't all that great, since there were units that weren't used for a long time and in that regard SC2 is doing a bit better. I think a lot of people here fail to see how hard it is to make a game such as SC2 and their decision not to make BW 2.0 is the right one. After all BW was the success story of its time, making the same thing today is going to be appealing for the same BW fanbase, but will hardly reach the newer crowd. The fact that SC2 is easy to pick up and play, but hard to master makes it so popular among casual players.
I liked BW, but wasn't all that into it, I was more of a Warcraft 3 player. So what Blizz managed to do is attract a lot more people with different tastes, via incredibly talented gameplay design, something that an updated version of BW would have never been able to do. I know I wouldn't play BW 2.0 and I am sure my friends wouldn't either. BW is a great game, not my cup of tea though, SC2 on the other hand is. I love it.
EPT
