Hello Teamliquid! Starcraft 2 is exiting its youth. Balance patches have slowed dramatically, the pro scene has had its kings emerge and the one-trick ponies have fallen from glory. All in all, the scene is developed, the game is well explored, and the players are pushing themselves to the limit of their abilities. However, I know exactly what's on the mind of thousands of players and viewers. Namely, something feels lacking.
RTS games are about more than just strategy. RTS combines speed and awareness, mechanical skill, tactical ability, and strategic decision making. RTS stands apart from games like chess, which do not have a mechanical component, and apart from many FPS genre games, which are far less about strategic decision making and more reliant on mechanics. Does Starcraft 2 really fill the role of a well designed RTS, one which balances the mechanical with the strategic? That's the big question we have to answer, and so I will attempt to shine a light on what I think are the most glaring problems for the game from a design perspective.
IMPORANT: This is explicitly not a balance or game design suggestion post. I am merely providing some analysis as to why things are what they are. It's up to Blizzard to design their own game. If the community thinks these are legitimate problems, our voices can be heard by them.
I am going to break up this discussion into four sections, as there is too much to talk about in one post. They are: Mechanics, Macro Mechanics, Unit Design, and Map Design.
One last caveat before I embark: This is not supposed to be a Broodwar vs SC2 post, but unfortunately the comparisons are simply unavoidable, and so a lot of what I will talk about is contrasts between the games. Broodwar was an amazing game, and if we fail to understand why it was so great, it'll be impossible to reproduce that greatness. I refuse to accept that SC2 is incapable of living up to its predecessor. I want SC2 to be as good as possible. Unfortunately, simply dismissing all comparisons with “they're different games but neither is better” provides no useful feedback.
Part 1: Mechanics
Sorry, not that kind of mechanic.
Mechanics are the fundamental skills that all RTS players must have. Fast hands, good memorization of hotkeys, good use of rallies and unit groups, and general speed of execution are all components of mechanical skill. Without these, execution of your plan in an RTS is impossible. From a game design point of view, mechanics are primary components in the accessibility of the game. In addition, game mechanics provide the methods by which choices are generated for players. Every mechanic presents new options for each player on how to utilize it. The more mechanics there are, the more demanding the game is. A game that is too easy requires little practice and is both unexciting to play and unexciting to watch, from a visual entertainment perspective. While a game that is easy can be intellectually interesting, like chess, it is not “edge of your seat” excitement. On the other hand, if a game is too hard, it will be too difficult to carry out the strategic plans that the player has in mind, which makes the game both frustrating as well as “noob unfriendly.”
This is not simply Starcraft 2 at 0.2 APM.
The latter scenario is frequently a complaint about Starcraft: Broodwar. Simply put, the game is ridiculously hard, notoriously unforgiving, and sometimes it feels like you're fighting two battles – one vs your opponent and one vs the AI. It can be extremely daunting for new players, and so we saw the emergence of a large casual scene centered around money maps (Big Game Hunters, Fastest Map Ever, Zero Clutter), which often including “no rush” rules, and custom games. Blizzard clearly wanted people to actually play the game no matter how good they were, so they tried to lower the mechanics requirement to play the game. However, I think they went too far. By removing some of the mechanical barriers, they removed some of the complexity which separated good players from bad, and added depth to the game. Skills which were essential in Broodwar were trivialized, which I think is a major reason why gameplay can look and feel extremely stale at times.
A) Unit Clumping and Formation Movement
This isn't the first article addressing the “clumping” problem in SC2. Whether it's a design flaw that leads to bad gameplay, or simply something new we have to get used to – that's the debate. I believe that it is a critical design flaw, and for some very simple reasons.
Take two units. We can arrange them in one type of formation, a line. They can be close or far apart, but they're always in a line. Add a third unit, and now you have two types of formations, a line and a triangle. I am simply treating units like vertexes and the formations as resulting shapes. The number of possible formations increases dramatically as you add more units, or vertexes. The number of possible shapes a 20 vertex group can take is absolutely mindbogglingly high. This is how Broodwar units feel so organic. There are nearly infinite permutations of positions that units can be in, and no (large) army ever looks exactly the same.
Look! Shapes!
Now, what if we make it so that instead, there is only one form the units can be arranged in? That's what SC2 does. There is only one formation in SC2, and it is the ball. You can use precious APM to break the ball up, as players do with marines vs banelings, but the default is always the same, a big blob of units.
Not only is this visually unappealing when every army looks the same, but it makes combat extremely deterministic. After all, if engagements only can arise out of one formation, it makes sense that units will behave in one way as they fight in that formation. This determinism takes away a large amount of excitement and thrill from fights, because often the winner is known before the battle even starts.
This is a familiar sight.
But this... this looks much more interesting.
I won't even delve into the balance problems caused by extremely tight formations of units, since that's been beaten into the ground multiple times over. We all know that ranged units benefit, melee fares worse, and AOE is empowered astronomically, and the problems that causes for balance.
I think if we want more interesting combat and more decisions in fights, unit movement formations have to be changed. In addition, the way units move in large groups – with each unit pushing the others out of the way – could be changed. It seems to enable clumping. That, above all, may be the biggest offender.
EDIT (copied from a comment later in the thread):
I think people are misinterpreting what my point with unit clumping is, so I will reiterate again in a different way:
First, I do not say that clumped up units are always desirable. I just say that it is the default formation in the game. Clumped units are the best for dealing with melee (least surface area) and air (less stragglers and more ground able to hit any given air unit), and they are the best formation for moving around the map, since you have less chance of stragglers and wandering units getting picked off.
Balls are worse in range vs range than arcs/lines. They are bad vs splash damage.
Obviously some times you want a ball and some times you don't. There is certainly a great amount of skill involved in making the ball into not a ball, whether it's arcing stalkers or splitting marines vs banelings. However, most combat, or at least army movement, still takes place in the ball.
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.
B) Unlimited Unit Selection
This is something I don't see talked about much, but I think is the source of a great number of woes. Every Broodwar player remembers the horrors of having to move 80 zerglings into battle. It was damn near impossible to do in an orderly manner. Controlling large terran bio armies was a complete nightmare. 12 unit selection felt inadequate so often, and it so severely limited what you could do with micro that it defined mutalisk use (11 muta + an overlord in a group was the norm).
Fast forward to SC2, and we can now control unlimited flocks of mutas, entire screens full of zerglings, and a maxed army all with a single command. Sounds great, right? This will make the game much more accessible for new players, correct? It sure as hell makes army movement easier. But, we lose something very important when we let a player command unlimited units at once.
That actually required 2000 APM to pull off.
As forces get bigger, and more units are on the battlefield, limited unit selection forces players to make more choices and increases the complexity of simple tasks like moving your army from point A to point B. This causes large armies to behave extraordinarily inefficiently as compared to small ones.
First, this means that small armies which are easier to control, and are well controlled, can do a lot of damage to much larger armies, and as such, there is an efficiency incentive to use multiple smaller forces rather than one giant blob of death.
Second, as the game progresses and more units enter the battlefield, it becomes harder and harder to push a small advantage for a win, because the very act of trying to do anything with your army causes you to make mistakes. This makes battles more forgiving and leads to more engagements and more opportunities, giving rise to this epic struggle for survival that makes Broodwar games so enjoyable to watch. Broodwar games end up being a lot closer, even when one side has a large advantage, because pressing that advantage actually has its own costs, and is much harder to do.
Now people might find the idea of 12 unit selection groups to be antiquated and ridiculous, but that doesn't mean we can't limit them to something. Selection limits should keep the game from being too unfriendly to newcomers, but still retain some level of increasing complexity with increasing force size. All I know is that, as of right now, SC2 is missing that dimension of control.
C) Defender's Advantage and High Ground Mechanics
Those of us who were present in beta remember the huge arguments that ensued about the implementation of Blizzard's new high ground mechanic. While I think SC2's high ground system leads to a lot of good strategic play and interesting micro, I also think it traded a solid defender's advantage that added another dimension to strategy and tactical combat for gimmicky mechanics.
And the lurker says, "Respect the high ground."
I think one of the most interesting aspects to Broodwar was the strength of the high ground. Controlling high ground areas was vital, and making pushes into high ground areas required fantastic effort and careful planning. This meant that the name of the game became about territory control, something SC2 greatly lacks. An army in SC2 is only as good as the units that comprise it, and position just does not seem to matter greatly, outside of camping in your main early on. Terrain should be there as an augmentation to the army controlling it. The lack of a terrain-based augmentation to the combat strength of units, makes map design less interesting, area control less important, and especially leads to more fights that are predetermined. Again, this is another dimension to gameplay that seems to have been completely cut. I think it's worth having the discussion on this issue some more.
In Conclusion:
I think the biggest problems with the game from a mechanical standpoint stem from a lack of dynamic position. As a spectator, it's uninteresting to see different players control their armies when they are always roaming around in the “one true formation to rule them all.” As a player, it's uninteresting to have every battle start from the same point, since I apply the same tactics every time, rather than having to improvise on the spot. I want combat to be fresh and dynamic, where every battle feels unique, visceral, and organic.
Obligatory funny picture of Artosis.
Part 2 will focus on macro-mechanics and macro in general. I hope you all enjoyed this article and that it brings good discussion.
P.S.) I don't know how demonstrable these mechanical changes can be. I know that SC2BW custom maps include an attempt to limit unit selection and possibly change pathing, but the implementation is pretty imperfect (not that I can do better). I would love to see an implementation of limited unit selection and formation locking in Starcraft 2, if for no other purpose than to have directly comparable situations. If you feel up to the task, feel free to do it and let me know about it. It would be really nice to see. I know it's been done before for other mechanics.
Also, I know pros are hesitant to criticize the game they play for money, but their insight is far more valuable to the community and to Blizzard than legions of casual players. I strongly insist that everyone respect and take with heavy consideration any posts from the players at the top. No pro wants to be criticized by the hordes of derp, so please refrain from attacking them so we can actually hear their opinions on these issues. Thank you.
very interesting read, dude. As a starcraft 2 player who only recently discovered the joys of broodwar from hdstarcrafts casts around christmas, I couldnt agree move with your points, as I find, even as a complete bw noobie, the games to be a lot more action packed and intense.
"This is not meant to be a bw vs sc2 comparison post" oo?
In terms of clumping produces deterministic battles & reducing the complexity of the game - this is actually just wrong. A ball is almost not the optimal formation of your units. Try taking an army and moving it across the map in a line only 1-2 units at any given point. That actually requires a huge amount of apm as the units repeatedly cluster back into a ball.
interesting read. could you explain how exactly the high ground mechanic worked in BW and how it differs from SC2? i've never played BW, i come from wc3 where positioning was important, but high ground practically irrelevant.
On January 07 2012 21:19 Schelim wrote: interesting read. could you explain how exactly the high ground mechanic worked in BW and how it differs from SC2? i've never played BW, i come from wc3 where positioning was important, but high ground practically irrelevant.
range units from low ground may miss shooting on high ground units. im pretty sure it existed in wc3 as well.
On January 07 2012 21:19 Schelim wrote: interesting read. could you explain how exactly the high ground mechanic worked in BW and how it differs from SC2? i've never played BW, i come from wc3 where positioning was important, but high ground practically irrelevant.
range units from low ground may miss shooting on high ground units. im pretty sure it existed in wc3 as well.
ah, ok. thank you.
now that you say that, yes it did. but it hardly ever mattered cause many maps didn't even have high ground and no decent player would take a fight uphill lol
Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2.
On January 07 2012 21:34 Daemonic-Force wrote: Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2.
It is not advantageous to move units in groups of 12 as compared to 1 giant block. The point is that the constraint creates increasing complexity in army movements because it is not possible to keep all your units together in a big ball of doom as your army size grows. It's about creating a layer of decision making for the player.
On January 07 2012 21:16 qxc wrote: "This is not meant to be a bw vs sc2 comparison post" oo?
In terms of clumping produces deterministic battles & reducing the complexity of the game - this is actually just wrong. A ball is almost not the optimal formation of your units. Try taking an army and moving it across the map in a line only 1-2 units at any given point. That actually requires a huge amount of apm as the units repeatedly cluster back into a ball.
Yah, I should say... this WAS not meant to be a BW vs SC2 post.
I do agree that balls aren't the optimal formation in all situations. However, vs melee units like zealots or zerglings, it is ideal to be in a tight ball formation. In terms of getting through narrow spaces and up ramps, a ball formation is ideal. When fighting vs air, being as compact as possible is optimal. While units exist in SC2 (as they did in BW as well) to punish clumped armies, and it requires a vast amount of APM to separate them, it's still the same army movement, which is from ball to arc or ball to rabble. If units did not automatically try to clump together for maximum tightness, we'd see more rabble to different rabble, and rabble to arc, and rabble to ball movement, which is far more complex and interesting, as rabbles can take many different forms.
I'm not saying that the ball formation makes the game EASY, though it can in some situations. I'm saying that it makes it predictable, and thus uninteresting from a tactical perspective.
umm bw unit formations work because people actually abuse the mechanics from bw to get units into formation. Best example is probaly the line flank, where you use the horrible unit pathing to form a long line along the side of the opponents army and then move towards the opponent, getting a huge concave.
Play bw without an idea how to move your units correctly ... it will look terrible, feel horrible and ends in utter defeat. Now lets go over to sc2, looks horrible, feels horrible, will end in defeat. Result, in sc2 being a noob with your units isn't as bad.
Attack moves will make units solids, just like hold position. stop commands is liquid, where units flow into each other. Magic box breaks with attack move but stays with hold position. You see many people still attack move, when it would be more clever to hold posi move as it would retain your formation against aoe units.
Anyway clumpig is the most horrible thing that can happen to you in bw, because it really messes up unit movement, thats why you even take care of it with building rally points. So i like the sc2 approach, you still don't want to clump, but you aren't unfiddling your units for about 2 minutes or have to rally every building at another point to prevent clumping. That adds to game speed, which results in an higher difficult. So the sc2 system is fine, easy to learn hard to master, just as wanted. Also its fully controllable if you wish so.
Good post but I disagree with most of the points. The writer clearly wants "BW with updated graphics" (roughly at least) which blizz has clearly stated is not what they want to be SC2. Many of the challenging aspects of BW came from artificial limitations in the game engine that simply do not exist in SC2's engine. Unit clumping for instance arises mostly because you can select an unlimited number of units (which imo is a good way to "punish" this - e.g. if you ball up ur toss units ur lots will probably not hit anything, the game prioritizes sentries so you'll have a hard time blinking with stalkers, etc.). While its true that battles do feel stale and uninteresting if you just ball up and A-Move, there will be clear advantages if you don't do this (as almost all pro players now do very well) and so this becomes a way in which mechanics can shine through - to distinguish between good and very good players you can see how they use their APM to break clumps of units, position them around, etc. The "only select 12 units" is such an artificial limitation that I don't see how anyone can see this as good design at all. Again, if you clump up 100 lings into one control group and A-Move them, good luck having more than 20 or so actually hit anything....
People must eventually realize that BW and SC2 are very different games. The features of the BW engine naturally gave rise to mechanics that are key to good gameplay (regarding unit control, army movements, etc.). Similarly, the features of the SC2 engine naturally give rise to mechanics that are key to good gameplay, except they are different than those of BW! Instead of the distinction between players being the ability to actually move out with more than 12 units and control them appropriately, the distinction is now the ability to separate their 24 unit ball into the correct formation (simplistic example)! The ability of being able to select your entire army and A-moving it across the map does not mean that its the right thing to do! It adds mechanics to the game in order to do the right thing (splitting, controlling, moving units to the front line as they move, battling with the AI to make sure that your zealots don't get stuck behind ur stalkers, etc.). Its just a different approach to the same issue, it has advantages and disadvantages, but I would hardly call it poor design.
On January 07 2012 22:10 Lord_J wrote: How many times must we endure this exact same thread in the SC2 General forum?
I agree. I'm sorry OP and the effort is appreciated, but I see no point in bringing this same topic up again and again. The game is designed the way it's designed.
I disagree with a couple of points but I have an idea of how I can say it in a way that makes sense.
Mechanics
BW was hard a lot because of its very primitive interface and unit AI, it took thousands of hours fo training to learn to overcome these shortcomings and to trully master the game. However while it really does differenciate the good from the fantastic, this isn't the only method to make the game harder to master.
In SC2 Blizzard introduced 4 new and unique macro mechanics that have come to set apart the good from the excelent. These mechanics are Larva Inject, Creep Tumors, MULEs and Chrono Boost.
Now when you go into a game of Zerg vs X, think about what it is that makes you think, "This guy has monster mechanics". If you where to say, "he never misses an inject" you'd be correct. Such people are scarry because, they always have the maximum ammount of larva available to work with, they add a new meaning to the word swarm when they come at you with endless waves. Creep is the 2nd mechanic of a zerg you look at, when you see creep cover half the map by the 10 min mark you can not help but admire the player who did this.
Chrono is another tactical mechanic you need to keep track of this one is more interesting in the sense that, you need to plan on how to spend it, while with larva you always need to inject.
MULEs, you don't want to pool too much energy and use two at a time because, that is uneven resource production, you get a lot more at a time, then your unit production becomes uneven because you'll have too much resources at one time and too little at another.
While not all these mechanics are equally hard to pull of or important in an equal way, they are still very important to each race, and they are some of the defining ways to tell a good player from a bad player.
I believe that this is the way to go. The future of designing challenging strategy games is to add more of these dynamic mechanics. To dumb down the game just to make it harder is very poor and unimaginative design in my opinion. I'm glad Blizz chose to go downt his path, however maybe more of these mechanics could be added in the future.
Formations Despite what a lot of people may thing, the ball formation is actually the one that makes most sense and is most organic for traveling from place to place. If you think about armies in real life soldiers don't fall into star shaped formations on the likes of that, its just dumb, they go into very tight formations because it allows the maximum number of people to cover a certain surface.
However, when fighting, a ball formation is terrible. Again if you look at armies in real life, when they are about to engage the form a line as long as possible to get as much surface area and to have the maximum ammount of people shooting. This concept works in SC2 as well, only newbies engage in ball on ball fights, the experts usually micro their army to form an arc, this arc is designed to get maximum surface area and minimize aoe damage, it also requires micro to execute.
So I disagree with your assesment on formations, it is organic and it is efficient for traveling from place to place, but its still not effective for fighting. The experts will still need to micro their armies to be as spread out as possible and to get the best arc possible to win. In a sense this is almost like the dumbing down part from BW, since the engine always wants to put units into a ball the players need to fight to re-arange them, sometimes in the heat of battle.
High Ground This one I kind of agree with, defenders advantage is still good because of the likes of ramps that provide favorable engagements due to concaves, but asuming equal vision (air units, Xel'Naga towers), range units and a particularly straight piece of cliff, then there isn't much advantage to holding a high ground.
However I don't agree with putting a 25% chance to miss against units on high ground, and the reason is, its RNG, is a chance based system and I feel those should have no place in RTS games, they should have as few random elements as possible.
However you could say, make it in such a way that units on low ground will always miss their first or 2nd shots (depending on attack speed). This way you still get an advantage for high ground, but it isn't random nor is it too large to be too ridiculous. Usually an engagement can be determined by the side that can fire the first shots, so I believe this could work.
Conclusions The RTS genre is, like all other game genres, ever changing and evolving, we can take lessons from the past to make better games in the future. However I believe that Blizzard has done just that in SC2. They have modernized SC2 in the sense that the interface and AI are much more streamlined. However to compensate they have introduced new and dynamic mechanics to separate the best of the best from the rest.
And their formation improvements, while great for moving armies around is not optimal for engaments, players still need to micro and control their armies to obdain the best concaves.
Perhaps only the high ground mechanics could be improved. But overall while being of the same origin and genre, BW and SC2 are different, and in a good way.
Interesting post, nice presentation, but I disagree with many points. For example
Not only is this visually unappealing when every army looks the same, but it makes combat extremely deterministic. After all, if engagements only can arise out of one formation, it makes sense that units will behave in one way as they fight in that formation. This determinism takes away a large amount of excitement and thrill from fights, because often the winner is known before the battle even starts.
First, visual appeal is a matter of taste, right? I mean for me a giant death ball is more appealing than the chaos in BW, watching the AI having a hard time moving the units around the map. Moreover, you speak of determinism as a bad thing, but I doubt that many people will agree that depending on sheer luck and hoping that your inits will be arranged properly is exactly 'excitment and thrill' (yeah, I know pros will (maybe) manage to arange their units properly, but still the AI in BW was terrible). Still, all the points you made can be true or false for someone, depending on what one wants. I personally enjoy simply playing the game, I have no intention to prove my SC skill to anybody and/or compare epeen sizes, so to me all these mechanics look like simply artificial hurdles. To someone who likes another layers of complexity, your thoughts stand.
On January 07 2012 21:34 Daemonic-Force wrote: Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2.
while that is true about unit selection that has nothing to do with clumping and formation movement. In bw you can spread out units and walk spaced out from point a to point b, whereas sc2 they will clump to a little ball automatically regardless if you have 12 units selected or 50.
On January 07 2012 21:34 Daemonic-Force wrote: Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2.
while that is true about unit selection that has nothing to do with clumping and formation movement. In bw you can spread out units and walk spaced out from point a to point b, whereas sc2 they will clump to a little ball automatically regardless if you have 12 units selected or 50.
Isn't that what magic boxing is for? Or am I missing something.
On January 07 2012 21:34 Daemonic-Force wrote: Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2.
while that is true about unit selection that has nothing to do with clumping and formation movement. In bw you can spread out units and walk spaced out from point a to point b, whereas sc2 they will clump to a little ball automatically regardless if you have 12 units selected or 50.
Isn't that what magic boxing is for? Or am I missing something.
On January 07 2012 21:34 Daemonic-Force wrote: Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2.
while that is true about unit selection that has nothing to do with clumping and formation movement. In bw you can spread out units and walk spaced out from point a to point b, whereas sc2 they will clump to a little ball automatically regardless if you have 12 units selected or 50.
Isn't that what magic boxing is for? Or am I missing something.
Magic box does apply to ground in SC2, but it is very small. I did some testing to verify this and it's only about 5 marauders in length. With forces of any real size it just doesn't apply.
Not just that, but SC2 is much smarter pathfinding, and units themselves simply get tighter to each other, so you end up with more compact balls of units. Not that this itself is a bad thing, but it certainly accentuates the clumping that naturally occurs with reasonably sized forces.
I agree completely. I have been watching a lot of BW lately and I notice how freaking long and nice the games last. Very rarely game ends in an attack or it is decided between two balls of death. The fact that the units don't clump as well readily in BW contributes to that a lot, because one can always pull back easily without getting obliterated by first few volleys by the opponent's army.
The games last much longer and it is much harder for a player to exert their dominance, so the whole game becomes more meaningful. Harrassment, army movement all over the map, and big battles really looking big instead of two balls merging together, makes it much more enjoyable than most of SC2 games. I think Blizzard should at least bring back limited unit selection, limiting it to 30 or something.
On January 07 2012 21:34 Daemonic-Force wrote: Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2.
It is not advantageous to move units in groups of 12 as compared to 1 giant block. The point is that the constraint creates increasing complexity in army movements because it is not possible to keep all your units together in a big ball of doom as your army size grows. It's about creating a layer of decision making for the player.
In that case, the added complexity is artificial, and does not relate to the strategy or tactics engaged - it would be like forcing you to click twice on your units to select them. It becomes busy work, that is merely taxing the APM spam, rather then checking the tactical and strategical choices that are made by the players.
On January 07 2012 22:55 Lavi wrote: while that is true about unit selection that has nothing to do with clumping and formation movement. In bw you can spread out units and walk spaced out from point a to point b, whereas sc2 they will clump to a little ball automatically regardless if you have 12 units selected or 50.
Actually, in BW, the units did clump up if they were too far apart when ordered to move and so magic boxing was used then too. One example that springs to mind is High Templar. Since there was no smart casting (so all Templar cast storm at once if they were all selected) one way to avoid storm stacking was to manually spread out the Templar so that they were in a magic box formation. However, if they were outside the maximum distance that they could be separated, they would clump up. Again, if you don't want your units to clump up, there is nothing stopping you manually spreading them like you had to (when moving) in BW.
What I mean is that in BW, what you would do is grab 12 units and move them, grab the next 12 and move them a bit next to the last 12, and so on - so at the end of your move you had a line. You can still do that now - and have your units in a formation at the end, in SC2 - its just that you also have the option of grabbing all of your units at once. If you still want the formation, you now have the option of moving all of your units at once, and separating them at the destination or moving them BW style - small groups at a time.
The only thing here I could get behind would be changes to the way high ground works, which would have a large positive impact on the game IMO. However there is a better article about that here:
aren't there like fifty different threads about the whole "oh SC2 is so different/terrible compared to BW!!" thought process? SC2 and BW are 2 different games, so don't try to compare them. you don't have to play SC2, nobody's forcing you to play. hell, i chose to stop playing BW. go play BW if you want only 12 units in a control group.
On January 08 2012 01:13 aviator116 wrote: aren't there like fifty different threads about the whole "oh SC2 is so different/terrible compared to BW!!" thought process? SC2 and BW are 2 different games, so don't try to compare them. you don't have to play SC2, nobody's forcing you to play. hell, i chose to stop playing BW. go play BW if you want only 12 units in a control group.
I agree, unit selection is fine, but still SC2 could be better with less unit clumping and more high ground advantage. Also more area control and micro-able units. Anyone who watched enough BW understands that SC2 looking more like BW is a good thing for SC2. Hell even the best SC2 games resemble to the BW style of play... Yeah it's a good game as it is, but if you know it could be better, why not support it?
Intelligents thread with solid arguments leads to stupid comments later on I love to read this kind of article, but the comments just ruin everything xD Why nobody make an article about SC2 Mechanics I would really like to read that ( not sarcasm)
On January 08 2012 01:13 aviator116 wrote: aren't there like fifty different threads about the whole "oh SC2 is so different/terrible compared to BW!!" thought process? SC2 and BW are 2 different games, so don't try to compare them. you don't have to play SC2, nobody's forcing you to play. hell, i chose to stop playing BW. go play BW if you want only 12 units in a control group.
What a pointless and unnecessary post.
Nice explanation of the differences in BW and SC2 mechanics - really helps people understand how SC2 has possibly oversimplified ideas in the name of streamlining.
What I wonder is what can replace these mechanics? Or do you just bring back the BW versions?
The way I see it, if you brought back limited unit selection, the major race you'd want to be affected is protoss as zerg/terran usually have great incentives to de-ball (flanks, splits/spreads, surrounds, etc.). The issue is that for protoss to really be affected, control groups would have to be smaller than Blizzard would probably like. A casual zerg player might be okay with 30 or 40 units per control group, but for the protoss that'd be a 120 supply army. Where would you draw the line? Or would the selection limits be different for each race? Weird situation.
Similarly, what do you do to rework the high ground mechanic? High ground is actually in a nice place right now - layering the BW mechanic on top would probably be too strong, and removing SC2's current mechanic would fundamentally alter the game. People also might be uncomfortable with attacks missing.
Dynamic unit movement really just needs to be in SC2 though IMO. It simply makes the game more interesting, though the rebalancing and tuning that'd be needed after it was implemented would be huge. Things like unit model sizes might even need to be reworked, a pretty daunting concept.
Regardless something really needs to change to fix the ball against ball antics of TvP, PvP and even ZvP. The removal of these mechanics really changed the 'manliest' race into something ghastly to watch (and frustrating to play).
On January 08 2012 01:48 therockmanxx wrote: Intelligents thread with solid arguments leads to stupid comments later on I love to read this kind of article, but the comments just ruin everything xD Why nobody make an article about SC2 Mechanics I would really like to read that ( not sarcasm)
I think SC2 was designed to be play as a casual game, and it is balanced to be that way Easier mechanics, easy army control, smart casting, pathing, AI Everything scream: Lets move our massive army to the battlefield and enjoy how the DIE, because its awesome !! And certainly it is !! but thats not what I am looking in TeamLiquid
suggestion to solve many issues with sc2: Double amount of HP, damage should stay the same => longer fights, more time to micro your units (no more dumb ball vs ball 5 sec. fights)
as for unit clumping, it is very very 'small ranges units favoured' i.e marines maruaders. due to clump they are extremely powerful. this can be said with units such as mutas and the 'mass voidrays' phenomenon( this is actually true with almost all air units).
even stalker clumps and hydra clumps and ghosts sniping clumps.
thats why aoe is so strpng such as baneling, colossi, siege tanks and also spells, fungal, HSM, Storm, EMP.
On January 08 2012 01:51 Jehct wrote: The way I see it, if you brought back limited unit selection, the major race you'd want to be affected is protoss as zerg/terran usually have great incentives to de-ball (flanks, splits/spreads, surrounds, etc.). The issue is that for protoss to really be affected, control groups would have to be smaller than Blizzard would probably like. A casual zerg player might be okay with 30 or 40 units per control group, but for the protoss that'd be a 120 supply army. Where would you draw the line? Or would the selection limits be different for each race? Weird situation.
Similarly, what do you do to rework the high ground mechanic? High ground is actually in a nice place right now - layering the BW mechanic on top would probably be too strong, and removing SC2's current mechanic would fundamentally alter the game. People also might be uncomfortable with attacks missing.
I thought it would be inappropriate for me to suggest any changes in the OP, but as a comment I don't see why I can't address your questions.
For unit selection limit, I always thought a supply-based system would be best. This doesn't have to be 12 supply worth of units. I think something higher like 24 would be perfectly reasonable. It's a pretty significant design shift, but it'd be a nice way to equalize the mechanic across all army types among the 3 races.
As for high ground mechanic, I suggested back in beta that high ground increase unit range, or shooting up decrease unit range. No RNG, and no complicated mechanics. It's a straightforward and logical advantage, which actually existed in Total Annihilation, for those of you who remember that old game.
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.
This was probably the sickest post I've read over the past months of being on Teamliquid. You sir are the voice of reason.
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.
This was probably the sickest post I've read over the past months of being on Teamliquid. You sir are the voice of reason.
Yet another SC2 vs BW post. With regards to the OP's points:
A) The ball formation is not the most effective fighting formation in SC2 - a superior concave will defeat this formation. The reason why the ball exists is because many pros are not good enough to spread their units. In regards to mechanics, the skill ceiling is hardly reached - in many games, I can see glaring errors made by even the top players. Also, multi-tasking (e.g. multi-pronged attacks) is only capable by the very best at the moment.
B) In BW, you can select 12 units, but this is an complete arbitrary number. I'm sure Warcraft2 players were complaining when this was done (in Warcraft2, you can only select 9 units). I don't mind the select all units function at all - the best players will be able to keep key units in a separate hotkey and differentiate themselves.
C) This I partially agree, and I argue that warp-gates are a broken mechanic. Still, many pros are now utilising the defender's advantage of terrain by adopting a superior formation.
Not only is this visually unappealing when every army looks the same, but it makes combat extremely deterministic. After all, if engagements only can arise out of one formation, it makes sense that units will behave in one way as they fight in that formation. This determinism takes away a large amount of excitement and thrill from fights, because often the winner is known before the battle even starts.
Anyone who's ever spent any time with a Unit Tester map knows that that is completely untrue.
oh look it's this sc2 vs bw thread again. just use multiple control groups and BAM, you've got bw army. the best pros already do this and split pre-fight.
On January 08 2012 05:10 Mortal wrote: oh look it's this sc2 vs bw thread again. just use multiple control groups and BAM, you've got bw army. the best pros already do this and split pre-fight.
Isn't the point of being a pro to do things that the average player can't do, i.e. attacking with spread units and handling numerous control groups? Shouldn't there be an opportunity for casual players to enjoy the same game that pros play, while in reality not limiting the actual control a player has over the units (such as 1,000 apm demonstrations done by high end AIs)?
I don't have high APM or incredible mouse precision, thus I cannot do the amazing marine splits I see professional players doing. I played BW and appreciate the dynamics the units (combined with awful AI) offered, but I mostly feel that in 5 years or so SC2 players will be doing incredibly advanced unit control schemes which will make engagements as a whole much more interesting.
One thing I COMPLETELY agree with however, is that there needs to be a high-ground advantage, or essentially a defender's advantage. It's ridiculous that you can go unit for unit firing up a cliff, it just defeats common sense.
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.
the overall problem with sc2 is lack of prolonged fights. in sc2 you dont WANT to have a BW style attack Thekefa because its not as good as a ball.
the game has no chance of recovery since once you lose a battle u get crushed and its game ending 90 percent of the time. in BW the fights lasted longer because units streamed in in small groups and so new rallys and new spawns can fend off the small units that are here now and when you win a fight because it doesnt take 1 second to attack a new base the player can make an attempt to recover and regroup up.
also the defender has the advantage. this is a huge aspect missing in sc2. yes defenders in sc2 have the advantage but not like they should. you should REALLY have to do something special to push a ramp in scBW because simply they are already grouped in the highest level of dps per inch of screen while you are streaming in. This leads to macro games. a macro game is 3+ base not 2. sc2 is centered around 2 base play really. most games can easily easily end before 1-2 bases and in no way are these builds risky.
the fact that making units is easy in sc2 and controlling them is even easier sc2 is just too easy. now you can go look at BW stats and see how in the Pro leagues the TOP pros have 70 plus win ratios while in sc2 a good pro has nothing close to this vs other pros. its too volatile of a game. they need to slow down the game without slowing down the game. do this by making unit keybind caps.
On January 08 2012 07:02 ohokurwrong wrote: in sc2 you dont WANT to have a BW style attack Thekefa because its not as good as a ball.
What?No.....That's just not true at all.A ball of units is such a bad formation and always should loose to a good concave,unless its like a ball of marauders with medivacs against a concave of stalkers,than it doesn't matter. People have this "ball of units" phobia because of how PvZ was in the past where the "deathball" was the answer to anything,it doesn't work like that anymore.
On January 08 2012 07:02 ohokurwrong wrote: in sc2 you dont WANT to have a BW style attack Thekefa because its not as good as a ball.
What?No.....That's just not true at all.A ball of units is such a bad formation and always should loose to a spread army,unless its like a ball of marauders with medivacs against a concave of stalkers,than it doesn't matter. People have this "ball of units" phobia because of how PvZ was in the past where the "deathball" was the answer to anything,it doesn't work like that anymore.
no you dont want a ball vs a concave but i would rather have a ball then a stream of units
"Not only is this visually unappealing when every army looks the same, but it makes combat extremely deterministic. After all, if engagements only can arise out of one formation, it makes sense that units will behave in one way as they fight in that formation. This determinism takes away a large amount of excitement and thrill from fights, because often the winner is known before the battle even starts."
1. Players should be punished for clumping up units, that is why we have AOE and splash, the question is if the punishment is harsh enough. Also the blob has the disadvantage of troops in the back not firing and that it takes a finite time for firing units to spread out. 2. Very often does battle-prediction get wrong. 3. This part seems to be based on the premise that two homogenous blobs engage each other with no micro, when the blobs are heterogenous and controlled by players trying to optimally utilize their units. 4. If the AI automatically clumps up units and clumping up units is punished one could view it as central challenge of the game to try to break up that ball, then it is a question of: is it too hard to manually break up the clump?
"First, this means that small armies which are easier to control, and are well controlled, can do a lot of damage to much larger armies, and as such, there is an efficiency incentive to use multiple smaller forces rather than one giant blob of death."
Why is this different in SC2, doesn't the blob from the previous section get more inefficient as to the percentage of the units able to shoot as it grows? "Second, as the game progresses and more units enter the battlefield, it becomes harder and harder to push a small advantage for a win, because the very act of trying to do anything with your army causes you to make mistakes."
Couldn't this be achieved with better defensive units and better maps which punish clumping?
C) Defender's Advantage and High Ground Mechanics + Show Spoiler +
"While I think SC2's high ground system leads to a lot of good strategic play and interesting micro, I also think it traded a solid defender's advantage that added another dimension to strategy and tactical combat for gimmicky mechanics."
I think mechanics can be good and deciding without being gimmicky.
Think of the Napoleonic' Wars.
Cavalry forced the Infantery to form Carré (or Infantery Square) or be ridden down - this took time to deploy (I wish more units would have a vulnerable phase like the Siege tank) and made it vulnerable to artillery fire (splash) and also made it some more vulnerable to other infantery since not every musket could be fired at the enemy (this making skirmishers valuable).
What interesting dynamic!
A nice thing would be by making splash directional, having artillery which punishes the depth of the clumps, forcing the enemy to advance on line, the Hellion has the right idea but is not an artillery unit. The Lurker has an ideal attack. The Siege tank should in my opinion have an elongated shape to it's splash and the other races given similar units. An Infestor with similar splash pattern would be interesting also.
A vulnerable transformation period for units which can be forced from one mode to another for some units is way to mimic the dynamics (similar to Siege tank not being able to shoot during transformation).
So in conclusion: I think it is not necessary to have to revert to BW-style game-rules to have BW-esque play providing that the pros are good enough, clumping is punished enough and transformations and formations can be forced by the opponent.
I had some suggestions for changes:
1. Change the shape of splash damage to punish a clump even more, preferably with great range, forcing the opponent to move in a certain formation. Don't really like brood lords as a ranged artillery for this reason. 2. Vulnerable transformation periods which can be forced could be a way to improve the defenders advantage.
I really think brood-war style high ground would be SO MUCH BETTER for this game. Air vision is not equal amongst the races, and at different stages of the game you can just... hide everything you have, by being on greater elevation. An example of this, is a protoss colossus deathball parked on the watchtower in Antiga shipyard. Without air units, you basically can never approach it, or know the exact amount/composition.
In brood war, it was still just as difficult to push up a defensive position on higher ground, but at least you could see what was there and make an intelligent decision about it.
i dont think it can be disputed that sc2 is by far more casual friendly as is every other blizzard game that was released recently and most games that will be released in the future. the days of hard video games are over.
My main problem with these threads can be summed up by a quote from the OP, of all places:
However, I think they went too far. By removing some of the mechanical barriers, they removed some of the complexity which separated good players from bad, and added depth to the game. Skills which were essential in Broodwar were trivialized, which I think is a major reason why gameplay can look and feel extremely stale at times.
This is entirely opinion. You have provided perfectly valid reasons for why you may feel this way, but you've provided absolutely no reasons why I should agree with you. No examples from current games, no real specific examples at all, really. You kind of just assert it as if we should all agree with it. I, for one, don't see the gameplay as stale at all. I don't think it's very hard to tell the good from the bad at all, and even further, I can usually tell the clear difference between a pro and someone who is just a very good player.
Every objection you raise seems to have this feeling to it to: that you like it this way so that is necessarily the better way. Then it seems you go back to justify why that way is the better way with the objections. Instead of looking at problems and calling the game inferior based on that, it seems you're calling the game inferior and then looking for problems to display how.
Now, what if we make it so that instead, there is only one form the units can be arranged in? That's what SC2 does. There is only one formation in SC2, and it is the ball.
I understand what you're getting at, but I still disagree. The default is the ball, ok, but that is not the only formation you can use. In fact, part of what separates very good players from decent players is how they position the units within and without the ball. Most decent players have great micro with their ball. Very good players have great micro that often results in breaking up the ball. Basically, instead of the game making formations for you, it forces you to make them and constantly apply them. To me, this is not only realistic, but desirable (as a spectator).
Not only is this visually unappealing when every army looks the same, but it makes combat extremely deterministic. After all, if engagements only can arise out of one formation, it makes sense that units will behave in one way as they fight in that formation. This determinism takes away a large amount of excitement and thrill from fights, because often the winner is known before the battle even starts.
It seems to me that I hear this espoused as fact way too much. The ball doesn't look visually unappealing to me, and I've spoken to others who feel the same way. I understand that a lot, probably even a majority, feel like it is visually unappealing. Please understand that having a majority of people agree with you about an aesthetic value does not make it suddenly an objective law.
Also, I hear the "winner is known before the battle starts" way too much. For one thing, a lot of times it is just not true. And I'm sorry but I don't like the idea of a clearly superior army being destroyed by a crappy game engine. I saw this one video of a BW game where a single dragoon(?) not only held off like thirty marines, but killed every single one of them and then went on to win the game. ONE UNIT killed the ENTIRE rush. Not even a "hard-counter". I'm sorry but I just don't think that is legitimate or realistic at all.
Broodwar games end up being a lot closer, even when one side has a large advantage, because pressing that advantage actually has its own costs, and is much harder to do.
I'm sorry, but IMO, a large advantage should almost always result in a win. I don't like the idea of a guy who is ahead by 100 supply being afraid of moving out because a 3 supply unit could wreck the entire thing. Sure, it CAN happen in SC2, but it's going to be a LOT rarer.
Other than that, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Blizzard will NEVER limit the amount of units that you can select in a group in SC2.
This meant that the name of the game became about territory control, something SC2 greatly lacks. An army in SC2 is only as good as the units that comprise it, and position just does not seem to matter greatly, outside of camping in your main early on.
Unlike your other assertions, which were mainly opinion being passed off as facts, this one I feel is just straight up untrue. The name of the game is, and has always been, territory control. Or do you actually think that there will be no difference between engaging tanks that are covering a choke on an elevated position and engaging those same tanks in an open field where they are completely spread out, not covering each other? Positioning is all-important in 99.999% of all engagements in SC2.
Also, I HATE, absolutely HATE the idea of randomly missing shots because the guy happens to be on top of a hill. If I have vision, my shots should hit. IMO, this mechanic would break the game. It would make assaulting certain positions just straight up impossible, and would also encourage huge turtle games where no one wants to move out because attacking is almost impossible. I don't see how that would make games more exciting...
On January 08 2012 07:02 ohokurwrong wrote: in sc2 you dont WANT to have a BW style attack Thekefa because its not as good as a ball.
What?No.....That's just not true at all.A ball of units is such a bad formation and always should loose to a spread army,unless its like a ball of marauders with medivacs against a concave of stalkers,than it doesn't matter. People have this "ball of units" phobia because of how PvZ was in the past where the "deathball" was the answer to anything,it doesn't work like that anymore.
no you dont want a ball vs a concave but i would rather have a ball then a stream of units
Yea but,you don't stream your units into a line of siege tanks either in BW that's not how it works......
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!
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!
No it won't.....because Blizzard has a terrible mindset when they are designing units...
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.
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.
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.
I think people are misinterpreting what my point with unit clumping is, so I will reiterate again in a different way:
First, I do not say that clumped up units are always desirable. I just say that it is the default formation in the game. Clumped units are the best for dealing with melee (least surface area) and air (less stragglers and more ground able to hit any given air unit), and they are the best formation for moving around the map, since you have less chance of stragglers and wandering units getting picked off.
Balls are worse in range vs range than arcs/lines. They are bad vs splash damage.
Obviously some times you want a ball and some times you don't. There is certainly a great amount of skill involved in making the ball into not a ball, whether it's arcing stalkers or splitting marines vs banelings. However, most combat, or at least army movement, still takes place in the ball.
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.
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!
No it won't.....because Blizzard has a terrible mindset when they are designing units...
I also agree, the unit design is exceptionally problematic, far beyond the mechanical problems in the game. I will talk in great depth about the major flaws in unit design in either the next or third part, though Day[9] did a great job of showcasing one serious concern with SC2 units in his video blog.
Also, I think the unit design problems are something that is most easily remedied by an expansion, and something we need to be talking about adamantly. Remember how heavy the redesign for War3 was when TFT came out. Major unit redesign is very possible and sometimes much needed, even according to Blizzard themselves.
I definitely agree that SC2 could use some fundamental changes that would lead to more epic fights/games and that there are some really interesting ideas in this thread... so now ,as always, the question is how do we get Blizzard to consider these arguments and tinker around to figure out what works? Especially because HotS is most likely almost to the beta stage so the time window in which Blizzard would be willing to change things around that much is rapidly closing.
I agree that the aesthetics of unit clumping are bad, but it's very wrong to think it's the only formation in SC2, let alone being the optimal one.
As for limitless unit selection, I really dislike "mechanics" that force you to fight with the UI. Mechanics should focus on "carrots" like creep tumors instead of "sticks" like UI limitations. In any case, it's obviously not optimal to keep your whole army under a single hotkey.
I do wish terrain had more of an impact, but I don't like the random nature of the high ground advantage in BW. Furthermore, you're completely exaggerating when you say that "position just does not seem to matter greatly" - unit positioning is extremely important in SC2, especially with the fast pace of battles and the various abilities that limit movement (e.g. force fields). TvT in particular, can look very similar to BW (if both players go mech, which is happening more and more frequently).
With all that said, it is harder for a high level SC2 to reach the epicness of a high level BW game. TvZ and TvT are the best matchups that lead to such situations IMO.
I agree with Kefka that the primary flaws of SC2 is unit design. Terran unit design is fine for the most part. Zerg sorely lacks a terrain-controlling unit like the Lurker. Protoss is screwed with the warp gate mechanic and the Colossus - there already are plenty of other threads on this.
Apart from that, I wish SC2 would up the unit cap due to the need for more workers than BW, and a 10% slowdown in game speed to allow more micro in battles (anti-clumping and formations).
On January 08 2012 09:05 lbmaian wrote: I agree that the aesthetics of unit clumping are bad, but it's very wrong to think it's the only formation in SC2, let alone being the optimal one.
Read the edit update which addresses that misinterpretation of what I'm saying about clumping.
On January 08 2012 09:05 lbmaian wrote: As for limitless unit selection, I really dislike "mechanics" that force you to fight with the UI. Mechanics should focus on "carrots" like creep tumors instead of "sticks" like UI limitations. In any case, it's obviously not optimal to keep your whole army under a single hotkey.
A very good point with the carrots and sticks analogy. However, there is a huge advantage for many compositions, especially protoss, in keeping their army on one hotkey, so that it can move cohesively as an army, and attack simultaneously, especially from multiple flanking positions. You may not want a giant ball formation, but even so, having the whole army on one hotkey is very powerful and very useful.
On January 08 2012 09:05 lbmaian wrote: I do wish terrain had more of an impact, but I don't like the random nature of the high ground advantage in BW. Furthermore, you're completely exaggerating when you say that "position just does not seem to matter greatly" - unit positioning is extremely important in SC2, especially with the fast pace of battles and the various abilities that limit movement (e.g. force fields). TvT in particular, can look very similar to BW (if both players go mech, which is happening more and more frequently).
I don't like the RNG of high ground in BW, but there are alternatives and many were discussed in beta when this was a hot issue. I think "position just doesn't seem to matter" is perhaps a poor wording, because of course relative army position between armies is VERY important. However, the terrain they fight on does not seem to have any meaningful impact much of the time. You could put all sorts of permutation of hills on and in between them and it won't have any effect on the outcome.
On January 08 2012 09:05 lbmaian wrote: I agree that the aesthetics of unit clumping are bad, but it's very wrong to think it's the only formation in SC2, let alone being the optimal one.
Read the edit update which addresses that misinterpretation of what I'm saying about clumping.
On January 08 2012 09:05 lbmaian wrote: As for limitless unit selection, I really dislike "mechanics" that force you to fight with the UI. Mechanics should focus on "carrots" like creep tumors instead of "sticks" like UI limitations. In any case, it's obviously not optimal to keep your whole army under a single hotkey.
A very good point with the carrots and sticks analogy. However, there is a huge advantage for many compositions, especially protoss, in keeping their army on one hotkey, so that it can move cohesively as an army, and attack simultaneously, especially from multiple flanking positions. You may not want a giant ball formation, but even so, having the whole army on one hotkey is very powerful and very useful.
On January 08 2012 09:05 lbmaian wrote: With all that said, it is harder for a high level SC2 to reach the epicness of a high level BW game. TvZ and TvT are the best matchups that lead to such situations IMO.
I agree with Kefka that the primary flaws of SC2 is unit design. Terran unit design is fine for the most part. Zerg sorely lacks a terrain-controlling unit like the Lurker. Protoss is screwed with the warp gate mechanic and the Colossus - there already are plenty of other threads on this.
Apart from that, I wish SC2 would up the unit cap due to the need for more workers than BW, and a 10% slowdown in game speed to allow more micro in battles (anti-clumping and formations).
TvZ and TvT definitely are the best matchups to watch and play in SC2. That's because there's strong elements of map control in both matchups. Defender's advantage keeps both sides from just killing each other, and so you actually get multiple and complex engagements.
Unit design is the biggest culprit, I agree, especially in the role of area control.
SC2 doesn't need a higher unit cap, so much as a readjustment to mining/macro mechanics.
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.
I agree completly, though I want a diffrent high ground advantage obviously. Most hate for the unit clumping, my god is it ugly. Blizz wil never again limit unit selection, but at least they dont let you cast storm, GS and blink with an army on 1 hotkey However I would like to see MULEs, Larva injects...be made way more crucial and faster energy regen.
Seriusly though, the unit clumping, the unit clumping should DIE-IN HELL!
Have you ever seen more unexiting battles in an rts my god.
On January 08 2012 18:22 Inex wrote: 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.
Here we go again -__-
As I said no one is arguing for a BW2.0 stop misinterpreting. I have not read anywhere or anything that says "I want BW with SC2-Graphics." Nobody nobody nobody, wants this not SC2 players, not BW players that now play SC2; absolutely no one is saying this, why does every new generation SC2 player think that's what these posts are saying?? Who the heck wants SC2 to be BW with 3d-graphics? Not one person anywhere has said this yet you guys keep thinking that. I actually associate myself as more of an SC2 player because I didn't play BW 1v1, as I was very young and bad at the game, but I understood and followed the pro/toptier scene a lot, and if you SC2 players didn't you can't understand the beautiful display of skill that BW had, the epicness of the battles, not just 200/200 clash and win.
You do bring up an intriguing point. You say that you like the fact that the battle ends so fast, and end with one player in a huge lead over the other. I don't know any pro or top-tier player that likes such a thing, as it's rather tiresome to watch over and over.
I agree with a lot of your points and I thought it was a great read. I think sc2 is missing area control units for certain races (zerg) while other races have a lot (terran) if not too much of it.
On January 08 2012 18:16 nokz88 wrote: 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.
Completely missing the point of the post...
First, 12 unit max selection caused army control to grow more difficult with force size, which meant that larger armies naturally tended towards inefficiency. This raised the skill ceiling for large army control dramatically. The ceiling is incredibly low in SC2 because there's no real fundamental difference between a small force and a 200/200 army. That's one reason why 200/200 armies are so much less 'impressive' than their Broodwar counterparts.
Warcraft 3 functioned just fine on a 12 unit max selection system. It's not an outdated or antiquated system, but simply a design choice. Games were using unlimited selection for many years. Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, etc. all used unlimited selection.
And of course, you're trivializing what I'm saying about unit clumping. I'm saying that there are more unique positions for armies in BW, and as such fights are more unique and there's more improvised micro.
The skill cap is as high as it ever was in BW, just not given enough time.
lol, the only person who could say this is someone who never played a game of BW. THAT GAME IS SO HARD. Just making workers, getting them to mine, and spending your money takes SO much effort.
The benefit of dumbing down Starcraft 2 is the influx of new players, that bring money and viewership to the esport scene. The problem though is that these former WOW players will soon enough move on to the next game, for them this ain't no keeper. The die hard fans that held BW alive for 10 years will never hold this train-wreck going for 10 years.
Something drastic needs to be done in HotS, and having in mind Blizzard actually listened and acted on a TL post about the shoot-move animation and made Pheonix autoshoot (they completely missed the mark though), then it is good these posts keep on coming.
Ugh is this another thread about this? It has been discussed to death already 20 times before.
Also lol @
The ceiling is incredibly low in SC2
If it is so incredibly low then how do we still see such huge differences in skill and multitasking? People are only just now scratching the surface of what is possible with some of the plays of Hero for example. A well executed multi-pronged attack can be devastating and I've noticed this happening more and more lately.
On January 08 2012 18:30 deadmau wrote: Who the heck wants SC2 to be BW with 3d-graphics?
Actually...many BW diehard fans. Go into most old BW vs. SC2 debates, and you'll inevitable find people praising BW as the epitome of RTS gameplay (and also hardcore SC2 fans saying BW looks shitty). Out of those, there have to be several that want BW gameplay with next gen graphics. Hell just look at this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=216686
i don't get how people can say bw is harder than sc2, but at the same time say sc2 is more coinflippy and its easier to lose to a inferior player. i mean, doesn't this make it a harder game?
what i think people need to understand is the difference in being good at bw and being good at sc2. everyone talks about skill in sc2, but really, what does it mean? we all know what is needed to be good at bw, but what does it mean to be good in sc2? i don't know for sure, but i think its something completly different than what made you good in bw.
the way i see it is, that most people still don't know how to play sc2. thats the reason it looks so random. but really, it isnt. people say its coinflippy, but be honest, whan was the last time you saw a game and went "ok, this was a random/undeserved win/loss."? every win or loss i every witnessed was deserved in some way or another. we should stop saying its easier to win for worse players, because thats not fair to those so-called worse players. instead we should reevaluate what makes you a good sc2 player.
if everything said in the OP and in this debate would be true, it would mean there will never be a bonjwa. i think thats what the sc2 scene needs, a the player who just dominates the scene. because this would cancel this debate once and for all. and i think and hope it's a only a matter of time.
people souldn't act like blizzard didn't think before making the game, they earn there money my making games. and they're not so stubborn like many say, they admited mistakes time and time again. i mean, why would they be? its in there own interest to make the best game possible. why wouldn't they want wo benefit from such a caring community they're blessed with? it doesn't make sense to think so.
i think people talk too much about the negative sides and ignore what makes sc2 better than bw. i've never seen a thread about what makes sc2 such a great game, but hundreds about why it sucks. but there has to be something blizzard did right with sc2, because otherwise we wouldn't play, watch and talk about it on forums, right? let's start to talk about those things
I would also like to chime in that it most definitely isn't an issue of wanting BW 2.0. It is looking at specific design flaws that SC2 has and how BW did the same thing only better.
The same sort of dismissive attitude could have applied to design flaws of SupCom2. Supposed improvement in SupCom2- unlimited unit selection combined with the armies fighting for you. Yay! Improved ui, we no longer have to fight an antiquated system that forces you to control your army to get maximum effectiveness. (Legit arguments from SupCom fans that hate the so-called spammy games of the Blizzard franchises.) Now we have more time to do more strategic stuff... like what exactly? Everything has in SupCom2 has been automated and not only that, the unit responsiveness is horrendous. Just try to concentrate fire, have reflex attack/retreat. The actual unit responsiveness and handling has been sacrificed for the supposed benefit of more automation and more time for strategic thought. Furthermore, most units have a pretty same-y feel to them.
I see the same sort of thing the unit clumping and formation unit (combined with smartcasting) has been 'improved' by automating a lot of things and giving better movement ai (no question here- dragoons are stupidly buggy). But it was at the sacrifice of unit/ formation handling and any AoE had to be nerfed to be properly balanced (and then boring because it's balanced on the idea that every storm goes down, so everything must necessarily be weaker.)
One more reason for bringing back limited unit selection and more spread out units: you can bring back proper mutalisk micro. It's one of those things that separates the gods of war from the men and always has to remain in an imperfect form for fear of 30 muta flocks one shotting buildings. Furthermore, units will be more separated giving more targets to snipe.The improved ui should free up more apm for muta micro and jangbi storms and flanking/formations, not nerf it to oblivion because it's too easy to do (or you have to fight against the clumping/formation system every step of the way). These are the tactical options that multi base selection was supposed give more time for.
Edit. In regards to the person above me. After playing SupCom2, I actually have a new appreciation for what Blizzard did to SC2. There is a lot to be improved upon, but they did not automate absolutely everything and there are ways, if limited compared to BW of gaining the upperhand on the battlefield. I've been forcing myself to play through SupCom because I have some friends that play it, but one day I'm going to explode into a gigantic rant. I've never been so bored with a campaign and frustrated with the lack of control with my armies.... gah gotta stop. SC2 did a lot right, but there's so much more to add or change to make it truly awesome.
If it is so incredibly low then how do we still see such huge differences in skill and multitasking? People are only just now scratching the surface of what is possible with some of the plays of Hero for example. A well executed multi-pronged attack can be devastating and I've noticed this happening more and more lately.
A multiple army attack is not the same as a large army engagement. You are trying to compare apples and oranges.
On January 08 2012 19:10 tztztz wrote: i don't get how people can say bw is harder than sc2, but at the same time say sc2 is more coinflippy and its easier to lose to a inferior player. i mean, doesn't this make it a harder game?
Ever played Candyland? Easy to lose != harder.
On January 08 2012 19:10 tztztz wrote: if everything said in the OP and in this debate would be true, it would mean there will never be a bonjwa. i think thats what the sc2 scene needs, a the player who just dominates the scene. because this would cancel this debate once and for all. and i think and hope it's a only a matter of time.
Idra has stated on multiple occasions that there is likely never going to be a truly dominating player. It's not possible because what I'm saying IS true.
On January 08 2012 19:10 tztztz wrote: people souldn't act like blizzard didn't think before making the game, they earn there money my making games. and they're not so stubborn like many say, they admited mistakes time and time again. i mean, why would they be? its in there own interest to make the best game possible. why wouldn't they want wo benefit from such a caring community they're blessed with? it doesn't make sense to think so.
No it's in their best interest to make as much money as possible. They don't care about making a game a good esport, because the whole thing is just a big advertisement. All they have to do is make it look legitimate and that's good enough for PR. Blizzard did not think before making this game. If they were trying to make a good game, they'd have done what they did with Warcraft 3 and done complete redesigns. WoW gave Blizzard the intoxication of money, and it's forever poisoned their development ideology.
On January 08 2012 19:10 tztztz wrote: i think people talk too much about the negative sides and ignore what makes sc2 better than bw. i've never seen a thread about what makes sc2 such a great game, but hundreds about why it sucks. but there has to be something blizzard did right with sc2, because otherwise we wouldn't play, watch and talk about it on forums, right? let's start to talk about those things
Okay, go make a thread praising this game instead of complaining in this one. Nobody is stopping you.
sc1 battles were pretty unpredictible and unique. it was a much more special thing to watch these huge battles while in sc2 its "just another clash". they enter fight in different formations every time, the terrain looks different and matters alot. and micro control even the best fucks up, while sometimes they just hit it perfectly and win battles and you just go like "wtf just happened".
terrain and high ground mechanic is great point too. controlling space and ground, grabbing areas of the maps is alot more existent in sc1.
and its true higher mechanical demands would make the game harder obviously :p
however i dont think its a good idea to have cap on how many units units u can have in a control group. i think its great as it is now. players should be triggered to have more engagements on more places at once out of better reasons than something like this. sc1 didnt have so many fights at different places because of how 12unit cap worked
unit formation and Ai i think is fine as it is. sc2 acually goes alot faster than sc1. units are move,die, build faster. if we had to deal with all this ai it would probably just make it too difficult (frustrating, annoying etc) or spectating would be less interesting cause players do so many silly mistakes.
what many needs to keep in mind is, sc2 is a very very hard game. sc1 was harder for many reasons. sc2 has so much more potential than were seeing. better micro, more multitasking, harass, multipromt attacks and unit movements. but its so hard and players arent good enough to pull this off yet.
this OP makes many very good points and explains them very well too, just because you like sc2 and think the game is awesome (just like all of us) doesnt mean it cant be improved. coming from bw i can tell you for sure map architecture, controlling ground is so much more important. and how battles begin, how the clash looks from the start and how it progress during the fight is alot more dynamic and interesting.
overall i think OP did good comparisons but his solutions (fucking up the ai, making 12selection limit) is a bad way to accomplish what he wants
On January 08 2012 19:10 tztztz wrote: i don't get how people can say bw is harder than sc2, but at the same time say sc2 is more coinflippy and its easier to lose to a inferior player. i mean, doesn't this make it a harder game?
Not in the same way. It makes SC2 a harder game for the really top players to separate themselves from the pack. See it is way harder to win the lottery than chess, just statistically. But chess is harder to do and you can influence the outcome. Any argument in regards to coinflippy is a frustration of the lack of tools that allow the pro's to influence the outcome. Skills that require practice and need fast reflexes and tactical timing.
There are so many tools available to a BW player that it makes it a very difficult to master. The same exists in SC2, but not to the same extent, or at least not yet if I use the Day9 caveat. (There are some frustrating things to see- Hero using stalkers early game with awesome micro and then it's countered by... researching slow. One passive upgrade prevents further micro battles until blink comes out.)
On January 08 2012 19:01 Logros wrote: People are only just now scratching the surface of what is possible with some of the plays of Hero for example.
And yet Hero often drops games to players that can't multitask to save their lives.
What's the point of even scratching the surface at all if you're not being rewarded for the effort you took to master and natural ability you have to multitask like a BW progamer when you can simply be rolled over by a better unit composition or a weird timing?
All I want to see is good players playing their opponents into the ground by raw skill alone, the kind of domination where the other player doesn't stand a slightest chance, no matter how weird his timings are or how smart his transitions and unit compositions may be, or whether or not he's blind countering the better player.
Seeing that kind of thing happen makes me admire the progamers and their skill level, and gets me interested in the game. Seeing someone with superb control and multitasking simply get rolled over by an a-move because he misread the opponent who was doing some weird shit (and executing it sloppily) makes me die on the inside.
I don't care how similar or dissimilar the game is to BW. When I want to watch BW, that's exactly what I do. But no matter what game I watch I want to SEE skill and perfection in play, and I'm not seeing it at all. I see glimpses of it in one game out of 20, and then I see players who CAN actually play well thing lose all the freaking time.
On January 08 2012 19:33 MorroW wrote: this is a very good article
sc1 battles were pretty unpredictible and unique. it was a much more special thing to watch these huge battles while in sc2 its "just another clash". they enter fight in different formations every time, the terrain looks different and matters alot. and micro control even the best fucks up, while sometimes they just hit it perfectly and win battles and you just go like "wtf just happened".
terrain and high ground mechanic is great point too. controlling space and ground, grabbing areas of the maps is alot more existent in sc1.
and its true higher mechanical demands would make the game harder obviously :p
however i dont think its a good idea to have cap on how many units units u can have in a control group. i think its great as it is now. players should be triggered to have more engagements on more places at once out of better reasons than something like this. sc1 didnt have so many fights at different places because of how 12unit cap worked
unit formation and Ai i think is fine as it is. sc2 acually goes alot faster than sc1. units are move,die, build faster. if we had to deal with all this ai it would probably just make it too difficult (frustrating, annoying etc) or spectating would be less interesting cause players do so many silly mistakes.
what many needs to keep in mind is, sc2 is a very very hard game. sc1 was harder for many reasons. sc2 has so much more potential than were seeing. better micro, more multitasking, harass, multipromt attacks and unit movements. but its so hard and players arent good enough to pull this off yet.
this OP makes many very good points and explains them very well too, just because you like sc2 and think the game is awesome (just like all of us) doesnt mean it cant be improved. coming from bw i can tell you for sure map architecture, controlling ground is so much more important. and how battles begin, how the clash looks from the start and how it progress during the fight is alot more dynamic and interesting.
overall i think OP did good comparisons but his solutions (fucking up the ai, making 12selection limit) is a bad way to accomplish what he wants
I really appreciate your thoughtful response. I wanted to show in this section how mechanics can play a role in defining engagements. I don't necessarily think we need to go backwards, but it's important to understand why battles play out like they do in BW vs SC2, so we can compensate for the lack of degrees of freedom mechanically with other degrees of freedom.
It seems that the overwhelming feeling is that the only mechanic that really is missing and needs to come back is some sort of high ground advantage. That actually tells me a lot on what I should focus on in the parts I'll be writing on unit and map design. I also think I'll skip the section on macro mechanics until later and do the unit design article next, since it seems to be the elephant in the room.
On January 08 2012 19:01 Logros wrote: People are only just now scratching the surface of what is possible with some of the plays of Hero for example.
And yet Hero often drops games to players that can't multitask to save their lives.
What's the point of even scratching the surface at all if you're not being rewarded for the effort you took to master and natural ability you have to multitask like a BW progamer when you can simply be rolled over by a better unit composition or a weird timing?
All I want to see is good players playing their opponents into the ground by raw skill alone, the kind of domination where the other player doesn't stand a slightest chance, no matter how weird his timings are or how smart his transitions and unit compositions may be, or whether or not he's blind countering the better player.
Seeing that kind of thing happen makes me admire the progamers and their skill level, and gets me interested in the game. Seeing someone with superb control and multitasking simply get rolled over by an a-move because he misread the opponent who was doing some weird shit (and executing it sloppily) makes me die on the inside.
I don't care how similar or dissimilar the game is to BW. When I want to watch BW, that's exactly what I do. But no matter what game I watch I want to SEE skill and perfection in play, and I'm not seeing it at all. I see glimpses of it in one game out of 20, and then I see players who CAN actually play well thing lose all the freaking time.
On January 08 2012 19:01 Logros wrote: People are only just now scratching the surface of what is possible with some of the plays of Hero for example.
And yet Hero often drops games to players that can't multitask to save their lives.
What's the point of even scratching the surface at all if you're not being rewarded for the effort you took to master and natural ability you have to multitask like a BW progamer when you can simply be rolled over by a better unit composition or a weird timing?
All I want to see is good players playing their opponents into the ground by raw skill alone, the kind of domination where the other player doesn't stand a slightest chance, no matter how weird his timings are or how smart his transitions and unit compositions may be, or whether or not he's blind countering the better player.
Seeing that kind of thing happen makes me admire the progamers and their skill level, and gets me interested in the game. Seeing someone with superb control and multitasking simply get rolled over by an a-move because he misread the opponent who was doing some weird shit (and executing it sloppily) makes me die on the inside.
I don't care how similar or dissimilar the game is to BW. When I want to watch BW, that's exactly what I do. But no matter what game I watch I want to SEE skill and perfection in play, and I'm not seeing it at all. I see glimpses of it in one game out of 20, and then I see players who CAN actually play well thing lose all the freaking time.
Hero still makes a ton of mistakes and you can probably account those losses to many other things. If you want to see players dominating just watch some of the games of Koreans vs lower tier foreigners at HSC, it's not even close.
i just wanted to say that 25% of your shots miss is not as random as many ppl seem to think. Its all the damage you could have dealt in a certain time frame, minus 1/4 of it. So you cant say that the old highground mechanic was random...
please i have had enough of these threads in the SC2 section. the op hardly promotes any useful discussion, other than an elaborate bash on sc2 making it out to be really "unbiased".
Regarding Unlimited Unit Selection. Objectively, having control over more than 12 units at a time is better. It is better because then you can move your army more precisely and it increases the micro ability.
The problem with sc2 is that it doesnt have microable units that take advantage of the extra apm GAINED from having more efficient control groups.
Also: this has been discussed to death. This thread boils down to broodwar was better than sc2. People know that, there was no reason for you to make another thread because if you use the search engine you will see that other people have posted what you have posted, sometimes better, sometimes worse. You dont bring up ANYTHING NEW, you just give your opinion on the problems which should be done in a blog or as a post on an already established thread, However if there was no such post about broodwar mechanics being better than sc2 mechanics this would be quite nice.
It seems to me odd that many here consider that Broodwar is a better game that SC2. While SC2 is still settling down (2 expansions to go), the main complaints seem to revolve around antiquated technology.
There are three major mechanics discussed. I will address each.
1) Pathing. So units control better, they tend to be less stupid. This leads to the ball. This has various game effects (AOE, ranged vs melee).
2) Unit Selection. Unlimited vs 12 limit. The main effect I feel this had is that it increases opportunity cost for micro. If you are forced to group units in groups of 12, there is less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations. In essence it costs you nothing to choose a better location for your units. In an unlimited control scenario, you don't have to make the extra click, so it's a choice of manoeuvring your units OR macro etc. It turns out, minor adjustments of unit location are not worth the APM.
3) High ground... well... this is just a balance issue. It slightly affects balance depending on which implementation is used. This is little more than a matter of taste. Being able to shoot with impunity has its advantages. Missing also has its advantages. PvP is a matchup that might have been better suited to the old mechanic rather than the new one for instance.
The final point I want to address is the Frisbees vs Baseballs analogy of Day[9]. While it is cute, there is a bit of a flaw in the ideas presented.
The difference between Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 2 in regards to the frisbee analogy, is not that SC2 has replaced Frisbees with Baseballs, but rather that the physics of SC2 frisbees are more predictable allowing less-skilled players to use the 'complex' shots more easily (imagine a little 'guide-line' from the source to the target for instance).
In essence instead of bad control => good control changing unit effectiveness from 1 to 9 (SC1), what is really occurring is that base unit effectiveness in SC1 is like... 0.15. In SC2 it's 1. So going from pro in SC2 gives you ~1.5x skill but the apparent difference between skill levels is far more dramatic in SC1 as going from 0.15 => 1.5 is a factor of 10.
This is not because SC1 is harder to master. This is because SC1 is harder to play. There seems to be this great nostalgia surrounding BW because of this, but the reality is that SC2 has just allowed less skill players to compete more effectively but making the interface more user-friendly.
In summary, it isn't a lower skill-ceiling. It's a higher skill floor.
for me this seems like the good old sc2 is worse then bw and change everything to what it was in bw even if that wasnt OPs intention, which I believe him, it really seems like thats how he thinks about sc2
On January 08 2012 18:30 deadmau wrote: Who the heck wants SC2 to be BW with 3d-graphics?
Actually...many BW diehard fans. Go into most old BW vs. SC2 debates, and you'll inevitable find people praising BW as the epitome of RTS gameplay (and also hardcore SC2 fans saying BW looks shitty). Out of those, there have to be several that want BW gameplay with next gen graphics. Hell just look at this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=216686
hoho I am so happy my thread is actually mention ^_^ , I thought broodwar could use a facelift a little bit , better sprites and better animation although the engine still retain the same mechanics left untouched . I wish , I could have done some kind of a ff7 ps3 demo like for broodwar .
In essence instead of bad control => good control changing unit effectiveness from 1 to 9 (SC1), what is really occurring is that base unit effectiveness in SC1 is like... 0.15. In SC2 it's 1. So going from pro in SC2 gives you ~1.5x skill but the apparent difference between skill levels is far more dramatic in SC1 as going from 0.15 => 1.5 is a factor of 10.
Nope. Day[9] mentions the muta in this example. The muta is one of the units in BW that isn't retarded, and the general pathing and AI of a BW muta is approximately the same of a SC2 muta. So the effectiveness is also ~1. But thanks to the BW engine, you can highly improve the effectiveness of a BW muta. If you haven't seen BW-mutas in action yet... all I can say that those guys are surgical knives if used correctly.
I completely agree! And what the SC2 only players don't understand is that we don't want a BroodWar with better graphics, we want a better RTS game than BroodWar. And Blizzard should have known how to deliver that after all their experience with BroodWar.
On January 08 2012 15:33 sc14s wrote: 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.
There is nothing to mature. The game has already matured, and it's still fucking horrible to watch any matchup involving Protoss. It's damn too boring, because it always revolves around blobs.
TvT and TvZ is fine, ZvZ is a different matter but I believe it is better than BW ZvZ, in my opinion, in terms of spectatorship.
Also, just a quick suggestion, what about creating huge-ass maps, like 3 times the size of taldarim with mega big open areas? In that case armies would look much bigger and maybe players would try to spread in order to not get surrounded easily by a non-clumped army?
On January 09 2012 01:42 Bleak wrote: Also, just a quick suggestion, what about creating huge-ass maps, like 3 times the size of taldarim with mega big open areas? In that case armies would look much bigger and maybe players would try to spread in order to not get surrounded easily by a non-clumped army?
I actually experimented with this in beta, since the maps then were STUPID small as we all remember. It turns out that the game just doesn't reward spreading out your bases from a macro sense, and due to the hard caps on macro and linear returns on adding additional workers, it's just a lot of blank space. Not to mention, it destroys the pressure timings which this game is so delicately balanced on. Hell, even Broodwar has pretty delicate balance with regards to attack timings and spawn distance. The fact is, the game would just have to be completely rebalanced anyways on such maps, and the macro mechanics in SC2 do not favor such maps.
I will touch more on that topic when I discuss macro mechanics.
On January 07 2012 22:25 FeyFey wrote: umm bw unit formations work because people actually abuse the mechanics from bw to get units into formation. Best example is probaly the line flank, where you use the horrible unit pathing to form a long line along the side of the opponents army and then move towards the opponent, getting a huge concave.
Play bw without an idea how to move your units correctly ... it will look terrible, feel horrible and ends in utter defeat. Now lets go over to sc2, looks horrible, feels horrible, will end in defeat. Result, in sc2 being a noob with your units isn't as bad.
Attack moves will make units solids, just like hold position. stop commands is liquid, where units flow into each other. Magic box breaks with attack move but stays with hold position. You see many people still attack move, when it would be more clever to hold posi move as it would retain your formation against aoe units.
Anyway clumpig is the most horrible thing that can happen to you in bw, because it really messes up unit movement, thats why you even take care of it with building rally points. So i like the sc2 approach, you still don't want to clump, but you aren't unfiddling your units for about 2 minutes or have to rally every building at another point to prevent clumping. That adds to game speed, which results in an higher difficult. So the sc2 system is fine, easy to learn hard to master, just as wanted. Also its fully controllable if you wish so.
Wrong.
I'd like to justify this with an explanation but any self-respecting BW player that's also played SC2 would disagree with you to the utmost regard.
Its too bad you couldn't write this article without mentioning BW somehow, now your awesome post will be summarily ignored by what TL has now become, because BW is evil and having any good elements of it transfer over to SC2 would be a true tragedy.
On January 09 2012 01:42 Bleak wrote: Also, just a quick suggestion, what about creating huge-ass maps, like 3 times the size of taldarim with mega big open areas? In that case armies would look much bigger and maybe players would try to spread in order to not get surrounded easily by a non-clumped army?
I actually experimented with this in beta, since the maps then were STUPID small as we all remember. It turns out that the game just doesn't reward spreading out your bases from a macro sense, and due to the hard caps on macro and linear returns on adding additional workers, it's just a lot of blank space. Not to mention, it destroys the pressure timings which this game is so delicately balanced on. Hell, even Broodwar has pretty delicate balance with regards to attack timings and spawn distance. The fact is, the game would just have to be completely rebalanced anyways on such maps, and the macro mechanics in SC2 do not favor such maps.
I will touch more on that topic when I discuss macro mechanics.
yeah an overlord would need 3 years to get across. terran would be all in every time they move out the game would be like 10min no rush 200 vs 200 etc.
On January 07 2012 21:16 qxc wrote: "This is not meant to be a bw vs sc2 comparison post" oo?
In terms of clumping produces deterministic battles & reducing the complexity of the game - this is actually just wrong. A ball is almost not the optimal formation of your units. Try taking an army and moving it across the map in a line only 1-2 units at any given point. That actually requires a huge amount of apm as the units repeatedly cluster back into a ball.
This is a great point.
Also, did high ground really give the low person a random chance to miss? That's a terrible mechanic, rnd is not good.
On January 09 2012 01:42 Bleak wrote: Also, just a quick suggestion, what about creating huge-ass maps, like 3 times the size of taldarim with mega big open areas? In that case armies would look much bigger and maybe players would try to spread in order to not get surrounded easily by a non-clumped army?
I actually experimented with this in beta, since the maps then were STUPID small as we all remember. It turns out that the game just doesn't reward spreading out your bases from a macro sense, and due to the hard caps on macro and linear returns on adding additional workers, it's just a lot of blank space. Not to mention, it destroys the pressure timings which this game is so delicately balanced on. Hell, even Broodwar has pretty delicate balance with regards to attack timings and spawn distance. The fact is, the game would just have to be completely rebalanced anyways on such maps, and the macro mechanics in SC2 do not favor such maps.
I will touch more on that topic when I discuss macro mechanics.
This is worker saturation on mineral lines right? Wouldn't having less mineral patches per base solve this problem? Large maps are very much playable, but the players have to progress with the maps. If players are used to playing on tiny maps, of course they're not gonna transition well instantly onto large maps.
I'm wondering, but did the auto-surround mechanic for melee units was born out of the Blizzard unit pathing decision for SC2? The ball mechanic meant that melee units would be more inefficient with lings/zealots not being able to spread out. Thus, auto-surround was added to lessen the micromanagement of melee units, and slightly boosting their utility. If we had dynamic unit pathing in SC2, I would think the auto-surround mechanic can have a slight to moderate impact on the game because units would be easily surrounded and picked off.
On January 09 2012 00:07 Goobahfish wrote: It seems to me odd that many here consider that Broodwar is a better game that SC2. While SC2 is still settling down (2 expansions to go), the main complaints seem to revolve around antiquated technology.
There are three major mechanics discussed. I will address each.
1) Pathing. So units control better, they tend to be less stupid. This leads to the ball. This has various game effects (AOE, ranged vs melee).
So what's your point here?
On January 09 2012 00:07 Goobahfish wrote: 2) Unit Selection. Unlimited vs 12 limit. The main effect I feel this had is that it increases opportunity cost for micro. If you are forced to group units in groups of 12, there is less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations. In essence it costs you nothing to choose a better location for your units. In an unlimited control scenario, you don't have to make the extra click, so it's a choice of manoeuvring your units OR macro etc. It turns out, minor adjustments of unit location are not worth the APM.
OK now you're just making zero sense. "Less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations?" What? Have you ever tried controlling a 200/200 army with 12 limit selection? It's not just an APM sink. The limited unit selection added a strategic depth to the game as already mentioned before in the thread, not to mention it raised the skill ceiling.
On January 09 2012 00:07 Goobahfish wrote: The final point I want to address is the Frisbees vs Baseballs analogy of Day[9]. While it is cute, there is a bit of a flaw in the ideas presented.
The difference between Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 2 in regards to the frisbee analogy, is not that SC2 has replaced Frisbees with Baseballs, but rather that the physics of SC2 frisbees are more predictable allowing less-skilled players to use the 'complex' shots more easily (imagine a little 'guide-line' from the source to the target for instance).
In essence instead of bad control => good control changing unit effectiveness from 1 to 9 (SC1), what is really occurring is that base unit effectiveness in SC1 is like... 0.15. In SC2 it's 1. So going from pro in SC2 gives you ~1.5x skill but the apparent difference between skill levels is far more dramatic in SC1 as going from 0.15 => 1.5 is a factor of 10.
I'm really laughing at this one. Even if "base unit effectiveness in SC1" is 0.15, that number doesn't mean shit by itself because it's a constant that's imposed on all players. What's important is the CHANGE between bad control => good control which you yourself admitted is a factor of 10 increase compared with SC2 which is a factor of 1.5. This is exactly one of the flaws of SC2 atm.
On January 09 2012 00:07 Goobahfish wrote: This is not because SC1 is harder to master. This is because SC1 is harder to play. There seems to be this great nostalgia surrounding BW because of this, but the reality is that SC2 has just allowed less skill players to compete more effectively but making the interface more user-friendly.
Wait so you basically pulled an arbitrary number out of your ass to conclude that SC1 is "harder to play"? How on earth is that a bad thing for competitive gaming? No matter how hard the game is, each player will have to overcome the same difficulties. As long as the skill ceiling isn't too high then it's perfectly fine. And please explain why you think allowing lesser-skilled players to compete with better players is a good thing, because quite frankly that's the last thing we want in a competitive game.
On January 09 2012 00:07 Goobahfish wrote: In summary, it isn't a lower skill-ceiling. It's a higher skill floor.
This topic has been discussed extensively before. I do agree with some points, however, most of them I believe are “by design” if you ask Blizzard and the game design team. At least now after the fact.
I think Blizzard agrees that clumping can be a problem and the “big death ball” phenomenon is not that interesting in the game. I seem to remember that their reasoning behind e.g. the proposed Shredder for HOTS was to “remove some supply from the Terran main army”.
The clumping does make it somewhat more difficult to balance the game as some races will benefit more than others. E.g. on one hand, the Protoss “death ball” army mostly benefits from the new and improved (from BW) pathing of the units as this is the best way to move around an army that contains Colossus. Zerg, on the other hand, would often prefer a more spread out stance of their units and their opponents units as then want as much surface area as possible when attacking with Zerglings and Ultralisks. On yet another hand, the fungal growth spell (and other area effect spells) benefit from the opponents clumping up.
I too have been thinking a lot about the pathing of units and the unlimited selection groups but it is difficult to see how this could be improved by changing the game mechanics. I think the appropriate approach would be to encourage players to work against the clumping. Take, for example, marine splits vs. banelings or toss spreading out the “death ball” to limit the effects of EMP. This makes for interesting and micro intense action.
Regarding high ground, I don’t like randomness so I would not enjoy that change. One could imagine other benefits to be gained from high ground, e.g. shooting units loose one range when shooting up? However, as was seen in e.g. the games between YJP and MC in Homestory cup yesterday, already today’s implementation of high ground can be quite interesting. I’m not so sure that something has to be done w.r.t. this.
On January 09 2012 01:18 Dizzy.exe wrote: I completely agree! And what the SC2 only players don't understand is that we don't want a BroodWar with better graphics, we want a better RTS game than BroodWar. And Blizzard should have known how to deliver that after all their experience with BroodWar.
What players of both don't understand is how BW players are completely missing the mark on what makes a good RTS. The kefka said it best: The problem with SC2 is entirely because of unit design! Ignore the technical stuff for once.
On January 09 2012 01:18 Dizzy.exe wrote: I completely agree! And what the SC2 only players don't understand is that we don't want a BroodWar with better graphics, we want a better RTS game than BroodWar. And Blizzard should have known how to deliver that after all their experience with BroodWar.
What players of both don't understand is how BW players are completely missing the mark on what makes a good RTS. The kefka said it best: The problem with SC2 is entirely because of unit design! Ignore the technical stuff for once.
I don't see how SC2's unit design is bad. For the current game mechanics, most units work as intended, including the A-move colossus. If the pathfinding and dynamics were similar to BW then obviously such a unit will have no place in the game, since units don't clump so much, but in SC2 it makes sense. Blizz has admited that they made a number of design mistakes, but with a game so complex, it is incredibly hard to predict how a unit will perform, unless you choose a simpler unit design.
On January 09 2012 20:51 rKzzz wrote: Would it help with defenders advantage if low-ground units shooting up have -1 range? That would feel very intuitive in my opinion.
As I've said before in the comments to this thread, I fully believe that range adjustments for high/low ground would be the most logical way to implement a non RNG high ground advantage, and there is precedent in other games for it.
OK now you're just making zero sense. "Less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations?" What? Have you ever tried controlling a 200/200 army with 12 limit selection? It's not just an APM sink. The limited unit selection added a strategic depth to the game as already mentioned before in the thread, not to mention it raised the skill ceiling.
They are the same thing lol.
Sigh...
So in SC1 to move 96 units must click 8 times. In SC2 you must click once.
In SC1, you can decide to click 8 times in the same location, or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is high, but not excessive.
In SC2, you can decide to click 1 time in the same location or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is the same as SC1 + 7 APM, not to mention wasted control groups. In SC2 it may be more sensible to invest that 7 APM in other macro elements (spreading creep, drops, raids etc) rather than positioning micro.
So in SC1, the positioning micro is effectively cheaper as the opportunity cost is lower. That is my point.
On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote: I'm really laughing at this one. Even if "base unit effectiveness in SC1" is 0.15, that number doesn't mean shit by itself because it's a constant that's imposed on all players. What's important is the CHANGE between bad control => good control which you yourself admitted is a factor of 10 increase compared with SC2 which is a factor of 1.5. This is exactly one of the flaws of SC2 atm.
It does mean 'shit' when comparing games, which is the point I am driving at. Much of the apparent differences between SC1 and SC2 derive from the need to fight the engine. This difficulty has been taken away in SC2 which has the result of levelling the playing-field some-what. Whether this is a bad thing is questionable. It may be bad for the pro-circuit although pros tend to beat noobs fairly easily... What would be a better indication of real problems would be if the 'top-pros' group was highly variable.
Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining * I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing * I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth.
By this approach one could argue that limiting control groups to 4 would add more depth. Perhaps reducing the number of control groups would too. Requiring players to path units manually would also add this kind of 'depth'.
The real argument with merit in this thread is that by making some aspects more intelligent, certain abilities become 'obviously' overpowered at all levels of play. Hence the reduction in AOE splash radii etc. In BW, these units would be OP, it is simply the interface that balances them out rather than the raw numbers.
However because pro 'interface use' negate the balance provided, some units become more OP, making the game more twitch and causing more 'sudden shifts' in the game which is 'good for spectating' but doesn't actually constitute strategic depth, merely the illusion of it.
On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:They are the same thing lol.
Why everybody always state Blizzard should know this or that, or anything... It's not like its a unique guy. Most of the staff that funded Blizzard in the early days are gone now: diablo, warcraft, starcraft! So current employees Blizzard does not know anything about their past games. Even if there are, what make you thing that their voice can be heard ? As a proof, what is the game designed by the current esport designer ?
Also, keep in mind that the team involved in developing sc2 from the ground is probably not at the same size now. It's not like they can change the whole engin or anything now. A team has been set up for a price, the game has been sold. End of story. We are luck enough that they still have left some people to tweak things for us. Most people now on the team are focusing on extensions, and it's not to rebuild to game from the ground up. I can assure you that. Even if the developers were willing to, it is not them who have to money and can make that kind of decision.
If you want to have the perfect RTS with the whole knowledge of BW, I see 2 options: 1. Building an OpenSource RTS. 2. Pray that Blizzard integrate more functionality in their Editor that will allow us to do it ourself. The possibilities of the Map Editor is sublime, but limited to a map! We can't mod the game with tweaks that will affect everything without reapplying everything to each map. Or we can't affect the physics of the units. And that is a plague.
In any of theses cases, the number of people who will want to tweaks things will be too high and will divide the community, regarding the kind of game they want, or even the choices to apply to achieve this goal. We already are lucky to have a strong, unified community to promote esport. It is a good thing that balance changes or game designs are not in the hands of everybody.
It is just that they have the wrong people. The best scenario for me would be to have some community representatives involved into the game developement, with a strong weight. Without thinking of choosing some, I don't even think it's going to happend anytime soon.
OK now you're just making zero sense. "Less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations?" What? Have you ever tried controlling a 200/200 army with 12 limit selection? It's not just an APM sink. The limited unit selection added a strategic depth to the game as already mentioned before in the thread, not to mention it raised the skill ceiling.
They are the same thing lol.
Sigh...
So in SC1 to move 96 units must click 8 times. In SC2 you must click once.
In SC1, you can decide to click 8 times in the same location, or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is high, but not excessive.
In SC2, you can decide to click 1 time in the same location or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is the same as SC1 + 7 APM, not to mention wasted control groups. In SC2 it may be more sensible to invest that 7 APM in other macro elements (spreading creep, drops, raids etc) rather than positioning micro.
So in SC1, the positioning micro is effectively cheaper as the opportunity cost is lower. That is my point.
On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote: I'm really laughing at this one. Even if "base unit effectiveness in SC1" is 0.15, that number doesn't mean shit by itself because it's a constant that's imposed on all players. What's important is the CHANGE between bad control => good control which you yourself admitted is a factor of 10 increase compared with SC2 which is a factor of 1.5. This is exactly one of the flaws of SC2 atm.
It does mean 'shit' when comparing games, which is the point I am driving at. Much of the apparent differences between SC1 and SC2 derive from the need to fight the engine. This difficulty has been taken away in SC2 which has the result of levelling the playing-field some-what. Whether this is a bad thing is questionable. It may be bad for the pro-circuit although pros tend to beat noobs fairly easily... What would be a better indication of real problems would be if the 'top-pros' group was highly variable.
Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining * I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing * I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth.
By this approach one could argue that limiting control groups to 4 would add more depth. Perhaps reducing the number of control groups would too. Requiring players to path units manually would also add this kind of 'depth'.
The real argument with merit in this thread is that by making some aspects more intelligent, certain abilities become 'obviously' overpowered at all levels of play. Hence the reduction in AOE splash radii etc. In BW, these units would be OP, it is simply the interface that balances them out rather than the raw numbers.
However because pro 'interface use' negate the balance provided, some units become more OP, making the game more twitch and causing more 'sudden shifts' in the game which is 'good for spectating' but doesn't actually constitute strategic depth, merely the illusion of it.
On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:They are the same thing lol.
They have similar results...
First, APM cost is NOT opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is why players will not utilize these "advanced" micro techniques very much. Think about it: If you can get 90% effectiveness from your army by simply using 1 control group, why would you bother using 8x as much APM to get that extra 10%, when that 8x APM will give you more rewards by doing multi-pronged attacks, more macro, etc?
On January 09 2012 21:25 Merlimoo wrote: Why everybody always state Blizzard should know this or that, or anything... It's not like its a unique guy. Most of the staff that funded Blizzard in the early days are gone now: diablo, warcraft, starcraft! So current employees Blizzard does not know anything about their past games. Even if there are, what make you thing that their voice can be heard ? As a proof, what is the game designed by the current esport designer ?
Also, keep in mind that the team involved in developing sc2 from the ground is probably not at the same size now. It's not like they can change the whole engin or anything now. A team has been set up for a price, the game has been sold. End of story. We are luck enough that they still have left some people to tweak things for us. Most people now on the team are focusing on extensions, and it's not to rebuild to game from the ground up. I can assure you that. Even if the developers were willing to, it is not them who have to money and can make that kind of decision.
If you want to have the perfect RTS with the whole knowledge of BW, I see 2 options: 1. Building an OpenSource RTS. 2. Pray that Blizzard integrate more functionality in their Editor that will allow us to do it ourself. The possibilities of the Map Editor is sublime, but limited to a map! We can't mod the game with tweaks that will affect everything without reapplying everything to each map. Or we can't affect the physics of the units. And that is a plague.
In any of theses cases, the number of people who will want to tweaks things will be too high and will divide the community, regarding the kind of game they want, or even the choices to apply to achieve this goal. We already are lucky to have a strong, unified community to promote esport. It is a good thing that balance changes or game designs are not in the hands of everybody.
It is just that they have the wrong people. The best scenario for me would be to have some community representatives involved into the game developement, with a strong weight. Without thinking of choosing some, I don't even think it's going to happend anytime soon.
Most of the cost of development is cutscenes, graphics, and engine. Balancing and design work is, from a man-hours perspective, easy. That being said, they've created an editor so convoluted that it is borderline unusable. Have you tried working with the thing? My god, it's so complicated to do the simplest tasks. No wonder nobody has utilized the functionality to create their own RTS.
I actually was working on a project over the summer to implement an RTS version of Master of Orion 2 with the Starcraft 2 engine. It was one of the most frustrating things I've ever attempted and I just gave up because it took a day of reading to do one new thing. Compared to the warcraft 3 editor, which was pretty damn powerful as is, the starcraft 2 editor is garbage.
A rant that's slightly out of place, but feels so good to say...
Oh, and you can create mod packages that can be used by multiple maps. I believe SC2BW uses this functionality. Probably one of the few good features of the SC2 editor.
OK now you're just making zero sense. "Less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations?" What? Have you ever tried controlling a 200/200 army with 12 limit selection? It's not just an APM sink. The limited unit selection added a strategic depth to the game as already mentioned before in the thread, not to mention it raised the skill ceiling.
They are the same thing lol.
Sigh...
So in SC1 to move 96 units must click 8 times. In SC2 you must click once.
In SC1, you can decide to click 8 times in the same location, or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is high, but not excessive.
In SC2, you can decide to click 1 time in the same location or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is the same as SC1 + 7 APM, not to mention wasted control groups. In SC2 it may be more sensible to invest that 7 APM in other macro elements (spreading creep, drops, raids etc) rather than positioning micro.
So in SC1, the positioning micro is effectively cheaper as the opportunity cost is lower. That is my point.
On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote: I'm really laughing at this one. Even if "base unit effectiveness in SC1" is 0.15, that number doesn't mean shit by itself because it's a constant that's imposed on all players. What's important is the CHANGE between bad control => good control which you yourself admitted is a factor of 10 increase compared with SC2 which is a factor of 1.5. This is exactly one of the flaws of SC2 atm.
It does mean 'shit' when comparing games, which is the point I am driving at. Much of the apparent differences between SC1 and SC2 derive from the need to fight the engine. This difficulty has been taken away in SC2 which has the result of levelling the playing-field some-what. Whether this is a bad thing is questionable. It may be bad for the pro-circuit although pros tend to beat noobs fairly easily... What would be a better indication of real problems would be if the 'top-pros' group was highly variable.
Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining * I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing * I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth.
By this approach one could argue that limiting control groups to 4 would add more depth. Perhaps reducing the number of control groups would too. Requiring players to path units manually would also add this kind of 'depth'.
The real argument with merit in this thread is that by making some aspects more intelligent, certain abilities become 'obviously' overpowered at all levels of play. Hence the reduction in AOE splash radii etc. In BW, these units would be OP, it is simply the interface that balances them out rather than the raw numbers.
However because pro 'interface use' negate the balance provided, some units become more OP, making the game more twitch and causing more 'sudden shifts' in the game which is 'good for spectating' but doesn't actually constitute strategic depth, merely the illusion of it.
On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:They are the same thing lol.
They have similar results...
First, APM cost is NOT opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is why players will not utilize these "advanced" micro techniques very much. Think about it: If you can get 90% effectiveness from your army by simply using 1 control group, why would you bother using 8x as much APM to get that extra 10%, when that 8x APM will give you more rewards by doing multi-pronged attacks, more macro, etc?
On January 09 2012 21:25 Merlimoo wrote: Why everybody always state Blizzard should know this or that, or anything... It's not like its a unique guy. Most of the staff that funded Blizzard in the early days are gone now: diablo, warcraft, starcraft! So current employees Blizzard does not know anything about their past games. Even if there are, what make you thing that their voice can be heard ? As a proof, what is the game designed by the current esport designer ?
Also, keep in mind that the team involved in developing sc2 from the ground is probably not at the same size now. It's not like they can change the whole engin or anything now. A team has been set up for a price, the game has been sold. End of story. We are luck enough that they still have left some people to tweak things for us. Most people now on the team are focusing on extensions, and it's not to rebuild to game from the ground up. I can assure you that. Even if the developers were willing to, it is not them who have to money and can make that kind of decision.
If you want to have the perfect RTS with the whole knowledge of BW, I see 2 options: 1. Building an OpenSource RTS. 2. Pray that Blizzard integrate more functionality in their Editor that will allow us to do it ourself. The possibilities of the Map Editor is sublime, but limited to a map! We can't mod the game with tweaks that will affect everything without reapplying everything to each map. Or we can't affect the physics of the units. And that is a plague.
In any of theses cases, the number of people who will want to tweaks things will be too high and will divide the community, regarding the kind of game they want, or even the choices to apply to achieve this goal. We already are lucky to have a strong, unified community to promote esport. It is a good thing that balance changes or game designs are not in the hands of everybody.
It is just that they have the wrong people. The best scenario for me would be to have some community representatives involved into the game developement, with a strong weight. Without thinking of choosing some, I don't even think it's going to happend anytime soon.
Most of the cost of development is cutscenes, graphics, and engine. Balancing and design work is, from a man-hours perspective, easy. That being said, they've created an editor so convoluted that it is borderline unusable. Have you tried working with the thing? My god, it's so complicated to do the simplest tasks. No wonder nobody has utilized the functionality to create their own RTS.
I actually was working on a project over the summer to implement an RTS version of Master of Orion 2 with the Starcraft 2 engine. It was one of the most frustrating things I've ever attempted and I just gave up because it took a day of reading to do one new thing. Compared to the warcraft 3 editor, which was pretty damn powerful as is, the starcraft 2 editor is garbage.
A rant that's slightly out of place, but feels so good to say...
Oh, and you can create mod packages that can be used by multiple maps. I believe SC2BW uses this functionality. Probably one of the few good features of the SC2 editor.
Ok thanks. I didn't knew that. But the main point remain unchanged.
I don't think their is any kind a capitalisation over design knowledge at Blizzard. Some people complain about the physics of units that has been changed between BW and SC2. I don't even think that this was done on purpose. Having the Blizzard and the Starcraft franchise has the advantage of grouping people and making a big community, and the disavantage of letting a private company decide everything within their constraints: rentability, politics, career oportunities, etc.
Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining * I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing * I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
First of all, you will not lose by default if you have these problems. You will only lose if you are worse at these things than your opponent is. So you played a few games of BW and lost because your mechanics were worse than your opponent's; doesn't mean the game needs to be changed.
Second, it is precisely these difficulties that make BW so impressive to watch. It is so impressive seeing beast macro, impressive 200/200 army control, Jangbi storms, etc in BW. Not so in SC2.
On January 09 2012 21:21 Goobahfish wrote: The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth.
See this is the thing that annoys me the most. SC2 players who have never watched BW will say things like "BW is just a button mashing game", "BW is all about who can click faster", "there is no strategic depth" etc. They characterize BW as a game where players are spending all their APM fighting the interface and don't have any to spare for tactics and strategy. If you take the time to watch professional BW you will see that nothing could be further from the truth. That is why many people including me are so worried by the SC2 interface changes. Yes we know telling your workers to mine and building from one factory at a time isn't strategic depth. MBS, automine, smart casting etc free up players' apm....to do what exactly? There was no lack of strategy in BW. Why change something that will only lower the skill ceiling?
On January 09 2012 21:21 Goobahfish wrote: Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining * I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing * I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
Lets look at all the things in SC2 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building workers so sometimes my economy fails because I dont have enough miners -> I lose -> have a button that produces workers out of every cc or nexus until i tell it stop, after all building workers is really just wasting apm *I am not good at spreading marines it is too hard -> banelings are killing all of my units wtf can't play TvZ -> I lose -> why not have auto-micro where my marines automatically split so banelings dont kill me? *I am not good at selecting where to place my storms -> I lose -> ai automatically storms in areas that are most clumped instead of having to do it manually
You may be thinking oh wow thats stupid because then i'm not accomplishing these feats myself.
Well, I can't speak for all players, but for some thats exactly how they feel. We don't want smart cast because it cheapens the experience, it ruins the thrill of executing perfect storms and watching dozens of tanks explode. we like 12 unit movement because it we're doing it ourselves, our way, moving the units and positioning them manually. When we win a battle, the game AI is so terrible we have to manage and position our units ourselves. In BW, you're in a way, overcoming the restraints of the game to achieve your own victory, not the game's. In BW every victory was your own, and the game couldn't have done better.
I dont know if people can truly discuss mechanics when the top level starcraft2 pro's don't have perfect mechanics. I think this thread will have more validity on the day that Nestea never misses an inject or when a player never goes above 300 mins.
The reason I do not understand with the BW vs SC2 argument is that BW is a outdated game. Looking only at game design, it is really crappy. Units had awful AI, only 12 units per control group, and even workers couldn't auto mine. Simply put, if Blizzard released BW with better graphics today, it would be slammed for being a crappy game.
Mechanics such as MBS and unlimited size in control groups is something that we such be excited about. No longer is as much APM spent on macro, forcing the players to have better control of their armies. Yes this does make it lean more to Warcraft 3 style of play, where the heavy emphasis is on army control. Though many people may feel this is boring and people think that it leads to the inferior player winning. However, the game is still young. SC2 has only been out for a year and a half, many things have been discovered and things have been patched. I am looking forward to seeing more exciting play by professionals down the road, where engagements don't become ball A vs ball B. but more about positioning and smaller skirmishes for important locations such as xel'naga watch towers.
SC2 has tons of potential, but it is often overlooked by people who have been used to the handycap imposed on them by BW's UI. imagine if Flash or Jeadong didn't have to spent so much effort on Macro, but could focus on every single multiple battle happening around the map! That kind of play, where there are multiple smaller battles happening almost simultaneously that really gives me nerd chills.
I don't understand why people think that Brood War is such a higher class game than SC2, when you have to fight with the AI and UI the entire time playing it. What I am trying to say I guess, is instead of disowning SC2 for its improvements in game design, welcome them and try to find new and exciting ways to utilize them for your benefit.
On January 09 2012 23:40 T.BonePickens wrote: The reason I do not understand with the BW vs SC2 argument is that BW is a outdated game. Looking only at game design, it is really crappy. Units had awful AI, only 12 units per control group, and even workers couldn't auto mine. Simply put, if Blizzard released BW with better graphics today, it would be slammed for being a crappy game.
Mechanics such as MBS and unlimited size in control groups is something that we such be excited about. No longer is as much APM spent on macro, forcing the players to have better control of their armies. Yes this does make it lean more to Warcraft 3 style of play, where the heavy emphasis is on army control. Though many people may feel this is boring and people think that it leads to the inferior player winning. However, the game is still young. SC2 has only been out for a year and a half, many things have been discovered and things have been patched. I am looking forward to seeing more exciting play by professionals down the road, where engagements don't become ball A vs ball B. but more about positioning and smaller skirmishes for important locations such as xel'naga watch towers.
SC2 has tons of potential, but it is often overlooked by people who have been used to the handycap imposed on them by BW's UI. imagine if Flash or Jeadong didn't have to spent so much effort on Macro, but could focus on every single multiple battle happening around the map! That kind of play, where there are multiple smaller battles happening almost simultaneously that really gives me nerd chills.
I don't understand why people think that Brood War is such a higher class game than SC2, when you have to fight with the AI and UI the entire time playing it. What I am trying to say I guess, is instead of disowning SC2 for its improvements in game design, welcome them and try to find new and exciting ways to utilize them for your benefit.
Well I like your approach you are taking here , First there is a thread created to criticising my AWESOME (Sc2) game , so in counter response , I take revenge by calling broodwar a bad game ? Oh really ?
You say bw is a bad game and you blame on bad design , well like you said , LOOKING at the game design , nice choice of word here , let's do an interpretation , Possible interpretation 1 : Oh I see , ugly units , not cool , don't look bad ass not 3d , in conclusion bad game and design , Interpretation 2 : I didn't play broodwar before , so let's try poking fun at it and label it having bad game design , because that's what everyone is doing .Do you want me to go further ?
The fact that blizzard didn't even have the guts to release a difficult game like broodwar counter's your argument that the game will be bad . Are you nostradamus ? Can I predict that shares will go down tomorrow ? Well it's like saying if warcraft 2 is release today with updated graphics and retain the same mechanics . It will be bad by today's standard . I can play the same game with you .
In response to the game is still young , yes it's young but can you put it in the same light as vanilla starcraft did ? Let me answer that for you , vanilla and broodwar had 10 years of history of evolution and game changing play style and strategy , no longer do we see people trying to play 1 base any more for like 20 minutes than only take an expansion in broodwar . Same can be said for sc2 , Naturally Sc2 being the "supposed " successor of broodwar , strategies were brought over to sc2 , You don't see people staying on 1 base any more for like 20 minutes just like broodwar in it's early days .
Muta harassment to keep your opponents busy in base , while you take another expansion , Protoss in sc2 also are taking much faster expansion in PvZ by using http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Forge_Fast_Expansion_(vs._Zerg) . Can you truly say that Sc2 is naturally a blank slate not tainted with previous broodwar knowledge brought in to the game ?.
Here's another interesting argument that most sc2 people like to bring up , Flash and Jaedong are too busy fighting the user interface and their apm is wasted because they are merely just spamming keyboards and button mashing to win . So might as well come to sc2 because we focus more on the "STRATEGY" . You see , son they have already been doing what you already are suggesting in broodwar , they are already spending their apm efficiently , getting upgrades , taking an expansion , doing that muta dance , microing that mnm , making more units , macroing all at the same time .
Now let's just say they play sc2 , what are they going to do with their free up apm ? Suppressed their boredom by sending their first group of units to death ? Jaedong not being able to do his speciality , Is muta micro is effective as it is in bw ? If it's not Jaedong loses another advantage he had previously in broodwar . Sure you can argue that sc2 has made everything easy and accessible, than let me ask you , how is that going to help pro players like jaedong gain any advantage over his opponent . When everything is accessible and strategy capable of being pull of by any tom dick and harry, when what you can do I also can do because the low level entry of mechanics ?.
You say you are looking forward to looking at engagement not being in blob vs blob format , I can tell you it's not happening until blizzard fixed that problem them selves , units will auto clump naturally if you put all your units under 1 hot key and right click at a direction . So Jaedong and Flash moving to sc2 isn't going to magically make units un-clump themselves .
SC2 has tons of potential, but it is often overlooked by people who have been used to the handycap imposed on them by BW's UI. imagine if Flash or Jeadong didn't have to spent so much effort on Macro, but could focus on every single multiple battle happening around the map! That kind of play, where there are multiple smaller battles happening almost simultaneously that really gives me nerd chills.
You haven't been watching broodwar at all , am I right ? , if you did you wouldn't have come out with such a uninformed opinion of the game that I have been watching for like 10 years ago ? . Let me tell you , I won't accept change just for the sake because sc2 " seems" to have potential . I gave it a try , didn't like the graphics at all , I disliked the way that my siege tank has turn to the sissy side , I hated the idea that I can't make medics anymore from my barracks and I dislike the idea that the medivac's once dead my marines are going to be "Screaming " Whose in charge HERE " .
First, APM cost is NOT opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is why players will not utilize these "advanced" micro techniques very much. Think about it: If you can get 90% effectiveness from your army by simply using 1 control group, why would you bother using 8x as much APM to get that extra 10%, when that 8x APM will give you more rewards by doing multi-pronged attacks, more macro, etc?
And writer is absolutely correct.
Is this disagree with what I said? I'm a bit confused.
On January 09 2012 22:52 writer22816 wrote: First of all, you will not lose by default if you have these problems. You will only lose if you are worse at these things than your opponent is. So you played a few games of BW and lost because your mechanics were worse than your opponent's; doesn't mean the game needs to be changed.
Second, it is precisely these difficulties that make BW so impressive to watch. It is so impressive seeing beast macro, impressive 200/200 army control, Jangbi storms, etc in BW. Not so in SC2.
True, you don't lose by default, but they are essentially unnecessary skill requirements. Any programmer (not pro-gamer) will realise this. Why force a player to make 3 clicks per worker when they can use 1. Then those 2 clicks can be used for more 'strategy' stuff. Unfortunately it turns out BW & SC2 aren't actually that deep strategically. BW seems more deep because of the UI issues, but in reality it is not.
It is true that it is impressive to watch, but again that is more in your head than behind your eyes so to speak. It is impressive from an academic perspective, but actually watching the game doesn't directly reveal this. You're overlaying it on top of what you see.
On January 09 2012 22:52 writer22816 wrote: See this is the thing that annoys me the most. SC2 players who have never watched BW will say things like "BW is just a button mashing game", "BW is all about who can click faster", "there is no strategic depth" etc. They characterize BW as a game where players are spending all their APM fighting the interface and don't have any to spare for tactics and strategy. If you take the time to watch professional BW you will see that nothing could be further from the truth. That is why many people including me are so worried by the SC2 interface changes. Yes we know telling your workers to mine and building from one factory at a time isn't strategic depth. MBS, automine, smart casting etc free up players' apm....to do what exactly? There was no lack of strategy in BW. Why change something that will only lower the skill ceiling?
You are making some generalisations here... e.g. I have watched BW games. There is strategic depth in that game. Maybe even slightly more than SC2 depending on your definitions. However, a lot more of Broodwar APM is sunk in MBS, Worker-Rallying, Worker Splitting and other tasks which don't really add much to the strategic game. While these skills are theoretically impressive, they aren't interesting to watch other than in a peripheral way (I can't believe he's doing all these things at once!) as opposed to (OMG did you see that worker rally!).
One of the big things with BW is that because there is so much 'wasted' activity, each player makes far more errors giving more opportunities to take advantage of such errors. This can add to the viewer value by shifting the game from strategy to twitch. Perhaps more entertaining to some, but not to others.
On January 09 2012 22:59 whatusername wrote: Lets look at all the things in SC2 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building workers so sometimes my economy fails because I dont have enough miners -> I lose -> have a button that produces workers out of every cc or nexus until i tell it stop, after all building workers is really just wasting apm *I am not good at spreading marines it is too hard -> banelings are killing all of my units wtf can't play TvZ -> I lose -> why not have auto-micro where my marines automatically split so banelings dont kill me? *I am not good at selecting where to place my storms -> I lose -> ai automatically storms in areas that are most clumped instead of having to do it manually
You may be thinking oh wow thats stupid because then i'm not accomplishing these feats myself.
Well, I can't speak for all players, but for some thats exactly how they feel. We don't want smart cast because it cheapens the experience, it ruins the thrill of executing perfect storms and watching dozens of tanks explode. we like 12 unit movement because it we're doing it ourselves, our way, moving the units and positioning them manually. When we win a battle, the game AI is so terrible we have to manage and position our units ourselves. In BW, you're in a way, overcoming the restraints of the game to achieve your own victory, not the game's. In BW every victory was your own, and the game couldn't have done better.
But in SC2 doing the above things feels so cheap.
I think the main difference between my examples is that having automated splitting/automated storms might reduce strategic depth. Storming not on units to discourage an advance is a good example. I understand the argument 'why not automate everything', but I think there is a big difference between smart-casting/automining/group-size and automating other aspects of the game such as unit spliting.
Mostly, I think that first group don't detract from strategy particularly. There are exceptions. Some times I would like to select 8 infestors and in a few clicks have mass-dumped their eggs (SC1 control would be superior in some circumstances). But largely, these mechanic changes don't detract from strategy.
I only agree with lack of defenders advantage since you can manually control the other issues you feel are lacking.More succintly as it pertains to "defenders advantage' is lack of ability to control your space as a whole in this game which differed from BW and I think expansion will go a long way to addressing. So I wouldnt worry about that either.
The major issue that you missed is removing micro entirely with spells like FG and FF do which never should exist in a RTS.
I just wanted to give an update that I am currently writing Part 2: Unit Design and I expect to be done by the end of the day. I'm making this part as BW vs SC2 independent as possible since it seems to stir the pot too much, and it's even more in depth and significantly longer than this article. It turns out there's a lot to say!
On January 10 2012 23:20 EternaLLegacy wrote: I just wanted to give an update that I am currently writing Part 2: Unit Design and I expect to be done by the end of the day. I'm making this part as BW vs SC2 independent as possible since it seems to stir the pot too much, and it's even more in depth and significantly longer than this article. It turns out there's a lot to say!
I don't agree with you on many of these points. I do think BW is in many aspects a better game then SC2 but I think there are other reasons for that then the ones you said. In game design clarity is a very important concept as it allows people to plan more. SC2's 'noob friendly' mechanics like unlimited unit selection and units balling up more is imo not bad and actually improve the strategic depth of the game. What tactics you follow is more based on which units are good in which situations not so much on rediculous stuff like how the pathing or pop count of the unit is. In BW controlling tons of lings is hard simply because they require more control groups, that is just a completely rediculous concept in my opinion. Likewise the terrible pathing of dragoons or funky fizzles of reavers impact the game in a way they shouldn't as strategically it doesn't make sense. The clumping up in a ball is not bad either, in fact pro play see's much more unit splitting then it did before already and this is actually a great thing. Given how easy it is to ball up the units having a good split becomes much less random, in BW the exact configuration of your units is much more the result of part luck and skill which is just not good. The part where BW is much better then SC2 still imo is the skill ceiling, there are simply more things to do at any time that really benefit your play making the players differentiate in skill more. The different aspects also allow for more distinct styles to develop among the players. In sc2 the skill ceiling is too low for the pro's imo which means that the random effects of the game play too big of an role, you can especially see this is in GSL where a huge proportion of the game comes down to build order wins something which doesn't happen as much in BW I believe.
The 'solution' to sc2 therefore is also just simple imo, heighten the skillceiling making it easier for the top players to differentiate while at the same time reduce the effect of the random effects a bit. Put more specifically, there need to be more skill intensive units (that are viable) or existing units need to be made more skill intensive. At the same time scouting should be made easier / more effective or scouting should matter less. Zerg is already very skill intensive as it is so is mostly fine but need to have access to better scouting (the amount of zerg losses to random allins is staggering.. almost every top TvZ and PvZ revolves around it) and needs a slightly better endgame i think (so zerg actually wins when they get 6 bases superquickly instead of sometimes still losing to stuff like ghosts or mothership). Protoss needs more skill intensive harass options, their playstyle revolves way too much around defending till reaching some critical army size/tech and moving out, warp prism buff was a move in the good direction but more is needed like this. Finally terran needs to get more interesting abilities for mech (like spider mine) if blizz ever intents to buff that style to mainstream viability again, mech vs anything is just to boring from a spectator point of view (even though it's quite skill intensive to play). Many of the aspects blizz already knows about and they are working on for HOTS, I just hope they will alter some of the idea's they have now as they are not great. Specifically the changes they have in mind for protoss and terran just suck at the moment (P will still lack a cool harass unit and T mech will still be be boring), zerg's fixes seem awesome though.
tl;dr the flaws of this game are not in the core mechanics/workings of the game but in small design flaws of the races, most specifically the general difficulty of scouting in this game and the lack of interesting harass.
The point about unit formations and high ground advantage I can get on board with. It would add more strategic elements to gameplay.
The whole unit cap selection thing is overblown though. It seems that BW nostalgia has people clamoring for SC2 to just be a BW port. Hardcapping unit selection is not just bad for newer/casual players, but limiting player options in general is just a bad idea. The better approach is to have incentives in the game that encourage multiple unit groups/splitting of forces, which goes back to the whole unit formation point. For example if unit formations were adjusted to be more spread out it might make controlling a very large army in one control group very ineffective.
On January 11 2012 00:11 fabiano wrote: There is no point arguing with someone who has no experience with BW if you are going to talk about BW vs SC2 mechanics/strategy/etc.
And by experience I don't mean "yeah I played the campaign in 98" or "hurh, I played tons of MONEY MAPZ with my cousin".
So, please, just ignore those who clearly have never experienced BW if you are going to talk about BW subjects.
Vouch this.
There is too many people who seem to think BW mechanics > Sc2 mechanics, therefore Sc2 strategy > BW strategy.
Agree and Disagree. While this thread is nothing new, I think that SC:BW vs SC2 (that's blatantly what this discussion is) leaves out a critical stepping stone: WC3. Many of the interface/gameplay enhancements (automining, unlimited control groups, etc.) were first introduced in WC3, and at the time, they were what made me switch over from SC:BW instantly.
For a casual player with limited apm, a lot of SC:BW's focus was on macro, hotkeying, unit selection etc. The genius of WC3 wasn't necessarily that it fixed and automated a lot of SC:BW's interface flaws, its that it used this automation to shift the focus of the game to micro. Considering the dumbed down mechanics, WC3 still had a nearly unlimited skill ceiling for pros to differentiate themselves from casuals. A myriad of strategies were available because the depth of unit control, items, and maps. The game had great casual appeal (at least in my view) because even the newest players were spending their time controlling their hero and fighting, rather than fighting the UI.
I understand what SC2 was trying to do... find a sweet spot between WC3 and SC:BW. The problem is SC2 has no heroes, creeps, or battles that last more than 30 seconds, and the unit/macro abilities are what's left to make gameplay interesting. All i can say is that it worked to some extent: I genuinely like using chronoboost, blink, forcefield, storm and phoenix micro as a protoss player. What I think is missing most is the opportunity for game changing micro, and the interaction between abilities/units... oh yeah and armies that spread apart a little so you can tell what you're looking at
What I said at the begining of the thread and sadly, a lot of people seem to have missed/ignored, is that SC2 doesn't have to force some artificialy large skill cap by using a bad interface. While I agree that, seeing the BW pros being able to overcome the shortcomings of the interface is spectacular and it does require a ton of skill, I see this model of game design as out dated.
Yes the best of the best in BW did get to such a high level of mechanics that they could still macro and had time for strategic thought and to fight, however it still doesn't change the fact that a lot of their APM and mechanics where used to fight the interface.
SC2 brought one innovation in the right direction, Larva Injects, Creep Tumors, MULEs and Chrono boosts. The correct and timly use of these abilities defines great players in SC2, think of how impresive it is when you see players spread creep across half a map by the 10 min mark, of players that consistently have 0 energy on their queens. We are starting to see this becoming the norm.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, imagine if there where more macro abilities like these, that when managed corectly provide tactical/strategical advantages, like better/faster unit production, better resource gathering, faster travel etc. Yes it is an APM sink, but it is a strategic one, when you spread creep you do so to better your defensive and offensive powers, you raise your armies mobility, when you inject larva you maximize the ammount of units you'll be able to produce. Now that, to me is infinetly times better then having to individually select every building to build units or having to manually make workers mine.
And, last but not least, people are ignoring the fact that, as players improve more and more and their APM raises they can and will take advantage of the easier macro we have now in SC2 (if it stays that way), to dedicate more APM to army movement/positioning and attacks. If you thought 2-3 attacks at a time was impresive, imagine people being able to conduct 3-6 attacks at a time and control them well while macro-ing at home. That is the freedom that the current system provides, and I've yet to see many SC2 players to reach such a level.
So, while many people consider the skill cap in SC2 to be too low, perhaps we have mearly not yet reached the highest level of play. I really don't fear for SC2, I believe there is still a lot of room for players to improve in multiple ways, maybe some time in 2-3 years we will start to get glimpses of the true potential of players playing near perfect, then you'll see a real separation of the cream of the crop players from the average.
My conclusion is that, BW was and still is a great game, but some parts of it are out-dated, like the interface, the AI and some of the controls. I think the way forward for RTS games is to make as many units as possible micro friendly, to encourage a lot of skill based encounters, and to make macro more strategic by adding various powers that optimize macro and separate the best of the best fromt he rest.
And I don't think SC2 is a bad game, since it is still very young and players still have tons to learn and optimize, SC2 already brought some innovations and it can only get better from here on.
Nice Post and good read. I also feelt that that sc2 is missing something. Not in every game played but in the most of it. I remember a game between TLO (T) and Sheth (Z) on tal´darim in wich TLO pulled of some ridiculous strategy. The game was totaly chaotic, battles all over the place, mistakes and blunders on both sides, but it was so exciting to watch and i almost could swear i was watching a broodwar game. Maybe you are right with your points, but i really hope sc2 will look like sc:bw in future.
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.
You're comparing 12 year old brood war to <2 year old sc2.
While skill in sc2 is going to advance faster than it did in Brood War, I feel confident in saying that the sc2 pros of today will look like trash compared to the sc2 pros of 2 years from now.
Go back and watch some 2002 games of pro Brood War. With a few iconic exceptions, they're going to look pretty lackluster compared to some average GSL games of today.
I think that the "watchability" of SC2 compared to BW depends a lot on the viewer's (and to a lesser, but not insignificant extent, the player's) depth of knowledge about the game. For instance, I feel that I am better able to discern the differences in player quality between two SC2 players than I can in BW. This is because I have a better understanding of what they are trying to do as well as how well they are doing this. This says nothing about the relative quality of either game, but I certainly enjoy watching SC2 more because of it. I have no doubt that the BW players have a better knowledge of their game than the SC2 players, but would be more interested in a comparison between the skill levels at the same (or similar) times in the game's lifetime. Either way, this says nothing about how well designed the games are.
This is not limited to SC2 and BW. I feel like I cannot enjoy soccer as much as I can hockey because I don't know what are good plays in soccer that set up goals. This is also what limits my enjoyment of MOBA and fighting games from a viewing perspective.
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.
You're comparing 12 year old brood war to <2 year old sc2.
While skill in sc2 is going to advance faster than it did in Brood War, I feel confident in saying that the sc2 pros of today will look like trash compared to the sc2 pros of 2 years from now.
Go back and watch some 2002 games of pro Brood War. With a few iconic exceptions, they're going to look pretty lackluster compared to some average GSL games of today.
2002 pro brood war was one hell of a interesting time for broodwar , 1 base plays <3 , players trying to out micro the opponent, Can't believe build orders and strategy has come a long way , from a micro intensive game , broodwar has change in to a semi aggressive and economical in balance . Neither do we focus on the aggressive aspect too much well except going all in for , or trying to go to economical to gain the advantage because you can't expect to mass expo without putting up a smoke shell to cover your evil scheme's .
Lack luster is the poor choice of word's , because you pick the time where broodwar was at early's days and Sc2 like i have mention earlier in previous posts , they can't be compared to early days of broodwar because current strategies that come from broodwar and play style has been brought to sc2. Sc2 in fact has the benefit of having 10 years of knowledge from broodwar and other strategy game . Than again bw at it's current form , it's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen , crucial fake's to get that extra expansion , infinite amount of unknown build orders are into the making , we have even seen old school builds being refined and still are being used today .
Broodwar has come along way and they are here to stay.
The esports bubble has been bigger than we all think. It's popped many times and just completely failed leaving only the real passionate fans, Brood War was so much bigger than starcraft 2 has ever been. (Of course not in the west)
(One of my favorite games Jaedong vs Stork WCG 2009 Chengdu China)
Players retire, fans move on, the community is split between 2 games: Brood War & SC2
wow great articles ... a couple of days ago i was randomly watching a BW Pro Koeran game and couln't help but think how much superior in term of excitement, imprevedibility, strategy and so on, SC-BW was (and is) compared to SC2.
You're comparing 12 year old brood war to <2 year old sc2.
While skill in sc2 is going to advance faster than it did in Brood War, I feel confident in saying that the sc2 pros of today will look like trash compared to the sc2 pros of 2 years from now.
Go back and watch some 2002 games of pro Brood War. With a few iconic exceptions, they're going to look pretty lackluster compared to some average GSL games of today.
well ... you can see already the direction that the game is going ... you don't need to wait 12 years, what he says on formation (big ball vs big ball) is dramatically correct and i doubt this is gonna change in the future, unless there is a radical change of direction.
Every game nowadays tends to oversimplify the mechanics of every genre in compare with the precessors. Other way, 'dumbs' couldn't play (Developers point of view). Overall they care only to sell more games and gain more money, there is nothing new here.
I am sure we will come to a point where we are going to say 'why they don't make RTS games for PC instead of console' in some years from now on.
My point is I am pretty sure that complaining about the oversimplification and less skill demanding state of the game won't lead us to anywhere. We have to adapt what we have now and move forward, like RPG fans did for last 7-9 years. Old good days are gone.
You're comparing 12 year old brood war to <2 year old sc2.
While skill in sc2 is going to advance faster than it did in Brood War, I feel confident in saying that the sc2 pros of today will look like trash compared to the sc2 pros of 2 years from now.
Go back and watch some 2002 games of pro Brood War. With a few iconic exceptions, they're going to look pretty lackluster compared to some average GSL games of today.
well ... you can see already the direction that the game is going ... you don't need to wait 12 years, what he says on formation (big ball vs big ball) is dramatically correct and i doubt this is gonna change in the future, unless there is a radical change of direction.
This is incorrect.
It is rare that in Ball formation is the most efficient, it's just dramatically more so than non-simultaneous engagement.
As mentioned by another poster in this thread, the core challenge of SC2 (in regards to formation) is different than SC1. In SC1, the core challenge was to keep your army together, and to provide the optimal positioning. In SC2, the core challenge is to keep your army apart, and to provide the optimal positioning.
Eternal agreed with this position, but remarked that his point was not that the ball is always efficient, but that it's the default; that the default results in boring battles and skirmishes. This is why I mentioned the disparity in ages between the two games. The pros of today suck at SC2. They are not controlling their armies well, or interestingly.
The trade off between the two designs is the following: * SC1 behaviour ensured that the pro scene was always interesting, because chaotic movement removed the chance for staleness. The cost of this is that players below the pro level are consistently frustrated because they found it unfairly challenging (ie: not fun) to try to get their units to behave the way they intended * SC2 behaviour ensures that players' armies will routinely behave in the way that is intuitive and predictable. The game is not cumbersome to control and therefore allows [more] players to have fun. The cost of this is that the default behaviour will be efficient for all players (including pros) for quite some time until a skill level is reached where micromanagement is more effective than default behaviour.
Did SC2 get the balance of this correct? Maybe not, but I feel they got it pretty damn close. Basic understanding of tactics and positioning elucidates that their default behaviour is far from optimal while improving the player experience for 98% of the player base. Kudos Blizzard, you got this one right.
On January 12 2012 02:20 Laserist wrote: Every game nowadays tends to oversimplify the mechanics of every genre in compare with the precessors. Other way, 'dumbs' couldn't play (Developers point of view). Overall they care only to sell more games and gain more money, there is nothing new here.
I am sure we will come to a point where we are going to say 'why they don't make RTS games for PC instead of console' in some years from now on.
My point is I am pretty sure that complaining about the oversimplification and less skill demanding state of the game won't lead us to anywhere. We have to adapt what we have now and move forward, like RPG fans did for last 7-9 years. Old good days are gone.
What a cynical and awful perspective. (and incorrect to boot).
Wanting to have your game be accessible is not driven just by sales, but also by [competent] designers understanding that a game can accessible without sacrificing depth. That the former does not have to come at the cost of the latter.
So please support your perspective with more constructive examples: games that keeps the depth and content without oversimplification. (C'mon not Starcraft 2)
On January 12 2012 07:22 Laserist wrote: So please support your perspective with more constructive examples: games that keeps the depth and content without oversimplification. (C'mon not Starcraft 2)
Warcraft 2 to Starcraft Dawn of War to Company of Heroes Civilization 1 to Civ 2
I used the term 'nowadays' at the beginning of my post. None of the examples hardly fit into this category.
W2 1995 to Starcraft 1998, Dawn of War 2004 to Company of Heroes 2006 (can't tell the connection) Civilization 1 1991 to Civ 2 1996
Late 90's and early 2000's draws the border of the golden age of gaming history. What I was trying to say is childern or grandchildren of these games are oversimplified and relatively empty.
For turn-based strategy HoMM3(99) was a great game and ruined at the 5th(06) and 6th(11) of the same series. Same as Civilization 4 provides better and deeper gameplay experience in compare with Civ 5. Civ 5 is really designed for players who clearly have no idea how to play Civilization.
For RPG genre, Fallout(97-98) and Baldur's gate(98-2000) series was, imho, way more better than current RPG's, i.e Dragon Age(even see the difference between 1 & 2), Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls series.
I am not trying to say newer games necessarily bad. But it is clear that, for some time, newer games tends to be simple and broad. I am not the only one who stated that. Look at the reviews of the games I wrote above. All of them is critised by being simple and dissapointing.
Same is applied to starcraft too. I am not advocating 'return to broodwar' concept. I dislike many limitations of it and know SC2 is better in many aspects. But to reach this point, Blizzard sacrifices many things(storyline depth etc.).
Blizzard even oversimplied the units(one purpose, boring units) and battle mechanics. Zerg should swarm, Terran should all-in or rush, toss should turtle and deathball. Is there any depth in that I am not able to see?
I don't pretend to know anything about design, but it seems to me that the difficulty of the UI (including unit selection limitations, "smart casting" and the like), combined with the type of non-clumping engine that Broodwar has can actually play a critical role in the balance of the game.
For example,
Imagine that you have 4 full energy high templar in broodwar. To cast a carpet storm you would have a couple of basic options:
1) click on each templar individually and storm individually, which takes time and precision 2) use the magic box to spread your templar out properly so that when you storm, they all storm together in the appropriate formation, which also takes practice 3) have your HT in different control groups (inefficient)
If you could cast BW storm with just t-click with a group of HT, it would wipe out virtually everything easily.
My point is that along with the balling, storm in SC2 has to be relatively weaker because it would otherwise obliterate everything with the push of a button.
I think that the difficulty of using, moving, etc a unit could, and in fact, should be a key factor in balancing that unit (another example: the reaver), which is something that, besides the "macro mechanics," Blizzard haven't really experimented that much with. Yes, you could argue that the players discovered stuff like reaver/shuttle micro, or mutalisk control or whatever, but the game has clear mechanical limits that allow things to be overpowered individually because overall, the player cannot hope to make the most of them unless they are extremely talented.
You can't micro your reaver and your shuttle and macro at your base unless you are pretty good, but if you could, it would be absurdly easy to do economic damage with almost none of your own in return. Imagine if, while microing a reaver, you could hit your gateway hotkey and hit ZZZDDD and then hit your nexus hotkey and hit PPP and then go back to microing your reaver because you don't have to worry about probes sitting idle. Crazy.
While people dont like to hear it, mechanical difficulty is, I think, a very valid and important way to balance the game.
On another note, its getting pretty annoying seeing the number of stock responses in threads like these. Things like: "BW and SC2 are different games so dont you dare compare them," and "randomness has no place in an RTS" and "the game design wont change" are really annoying to read.
I think part of it is because people feel strongly but dont really know what to say, so they repeat conventional wisdom or common opinions as if theyre saying something new and interesting. The uncertainty really is disturbing: how can anyone know if clumping is actually better or worse? Still, these threads -- which many people cynically dismiss because they attempt to do something incredibly ambitious (and admittedly, often end up failing) -- actually try to do something good for the community, which is to encourage thought about difficult subjects. Some people have some interesting insight, but the people who really ruin the TL experience are not the OPs who start a new thread about an old issue (btw, I think this is a great topic), but the people who get all up in arms about the fact that its not BW dammit, mind your own business, or those who repeat the common opinion or understanding as if it were fact instead of trying to actually think about the OP's topic.
Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining * I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing * I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
First of all, you will not lose by default if you have these problems. You will only lose if you are worse at these things than your opponent is. So you played a few games of BW and lost because your mechanics were worse than your opponent's; doesn't mean the game needs to be changed.
Second, it is precisely these difficulties that make BW so impressive to watch. It is so impressive seeing beast macro, impressive 200/200 army control, Jangbi storms, etc in BW. Not so in SC2.
On January 09 2012 21:21 Goobahfish wrote: The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth.
See this is the thing that annoys me the most. SC2 players who have never watched BW will say things like "BW is just a button mashing game", "BW is all about who can click faster", "there is no strategic depth" etc. They characterize BW as a game where players are spending all their APM fighting the interface and don't have any to spare for tactics and strategy. If you take the time to watch professional BW you will see that nothing could be further from the truth. That is why many people including me are so worried by the SC2 interface changes. Yes we know telling your workers to mine and building from one factory at a time isn't strategic depth. MBS, automine, smart casting etc free up players' apm....to do what exactly? There was no lack of strategy in BW. Why change something that will only lower the skill ceiling?
Not even just at proscene though, right down to D level there's tons of strategy. You can beat people far better mechanically with strategy, and not nessecerily in an all-in easy coinflip win but in actual tactics and smart play. Plus you got versatile units enough to innovate and try things without being forced into roles.
People just keep bringing up the same tired defences over and over even though it's not even supposed to be a game vs game argument; the criticism stands on it's own against it. BW is just the easiest comparison because it's the obvious benchmark for a competitive RTS. SC2 is not just 'different' and therefore immune to criticism, it fails to implement some of the things fundamental to BW's long term success as a game. Defending some of these things just sounds like you immediately jump to the defence of the SC2 with any argument; keep bringing up things like interface, unit limit etc. when that isn't even the big deal.
It's fine you have MBS and all the rest of those things but then they also went and simplified every other aspect too. So there's nothing to replace that giant chasm of difficulty that resulted from the mechanics and unit design.. but it was the difficultly precisely which has made the game strategically evolve to this day. The idea that it somehow allows for more tactics/strategy is just wrong, it has the opposite effect: see TvZ in BW and the ability of Z to do extreme aggressive micro based 2hatch muta or a completely defensive fast hive tech build and all things in between; and T's ability to use nearly every unit in some way if they wish. Add to SC2 much more intensive micro units and abilities which can give the edge by constant control, space things out slightly and slow engagements down prehaps; and that alone will improve the game and it's longetivity, yet HotS doesn't appear to be doing this at all.
Edit: the post above is on the mark this is one whole aspect completely ignored by Blizzard, as if they hadn't paid any attention to the game's success at all. It's actually frustrating to see them go in a direction of less mechanics when there's much more potential.
And, last but not least, people are ignoring the fact that, as players improve more and more and their APM raises they can and will take advantage of the easier macro we have now in SC2 (if it stays that way), to dedicate more APM to army movement/positioning and attacks. If you thought 2-3 attacks at a time was impresive, imagine people being able to conduct 3-6 attacks at a time and control them well while macro-ing at home. That is the freedom that the current system provides, and I've yet to see many SC2 players to reach such a level.
Have to respond to this too because it's one of the completely false points repeatedly said as truth. Players will never be able to do this anymore than they did in BW, infact it's probably less so; see how fast a major engagement happens in SC2 and how much maximum potential actions a player could use, then compare to a BW engagement (not to mention BW engagements can be smaller, spread out across the map and happening at once). Even with the extra macro mechanics there's very clearly far more actions actually available for micro, and pro BW players you can see in fpvod are constantly microing. Your statement is just wishful thinking not how it's actually working. This video is often bought up but you have 1:12 shown of constant 300-400 APM unit micro, SC2 in no engagement even comes close to the amount of actions devoted to precision unit control.. let alone more than it.
Regarding the "Ball vs. Ball" unit clumping problem:
In Age of Empires series, there were unit formation hot keys. You could arrange your units in spread, box, line, etc. formations. Is this something that would be received positively by the community? Or is this too noob friendly as well?
Everyone wants change; i don't think you are understanding any of this if you think otherwise. Currently there's not actual change at all just simplified and removed things and this is what you get. Add whole new good features in and change units in new ways for the better. That'd be great, i'd love to see many things added if they are fun to use/watch.
I don't think formations would be very good at all, that sounds awful as a spectator. But they will never put it in either so thats good.
just wanted to add that thinking the 12 unit limitation was because of technical limitations sounds ridiculous, they could have easily done unlimited selection in bw, right ?
Im not really opposed to change, and I think that if the people posting stock responses and nonsense (of which Mr. OmegaWeapon's link is only a small sample -- no offense meant, but I will call you out on it) would keep their eyes open and read what people like myself and Mr. Infinity2k9 (among many many others) are saying, they would find that what people want is actually an improvement over broodwar. In many ways, SC2 is an improvement, but in many (I would argue many more) ways, it takes steps backwards from broodwar. I dont especially want to single anyone out, but I do want to spotlight a really foul attitude towards constructive discourse that a lot of TL members display.
While it may be debatable what exactly "a step back" entails, I would argue that things like macro mechanics are actually an artificial way of adding macro back into the game after it was taken out under the same argument: that one building selection and no rally to minerals, etc. were taken out for the same reason of artificiality. One may be more appealing to players, but that doesnt mean that the other one doesn't have its strengths and its place in the game. Both are ultimately included by the developers, hopefully with purpose.
While I don't necessarily recommend bringing these nightmarish things back, people should realize that their presence helped craft the game Broodwar has become over more than a decade of people playing it. Taking out vital skills and replacing them with weak and poorly thought out facsimiles is not an encouraging prospect (see: Chronoboost being rapidly added to the game late in the development process).
Ive been a fan of macro mechanics in theory, but not in their current forms. Actually, I think chronoboost is closest to the mark, but thats another story. My main point is that people criticizing SC2 are genuinely concerned about the game design and its perceived problems. It isnt that critics are necessarily hostile, but rather that they think that SC2 has problems that could be addressed by studying and emulating broodwar, given the huge success and history of the game. That doesnt mean a 1:1 ratio of mechanics/strategy, and it doesnt mean that SC2 has to play the same way at the end of the day. No, most of us don't want BW in 3D (though that would be awesome) instead of SC2. I think that even going to 3D would cause many unforeseen changes. Thats just a nonsense phrase people on these forums throw around like litter.
When SC2 came out, I was excited because Blizzard had a huge competitive scene to study and take examples and advice from. They really had a good shot at improving the numerous flaws of broodwar while simultaneously creating something completely new and, hopefully, better. While they did craft an exceptionally strong game by themselves, they forgot or left out some things that people perceive to be crucial, as you can tell by the repeated threads about X that too many of you complain about. It isnt just random people trying to piss the good citizens of TL off: most of the time its a real concern. Will it always be constructive? No. Is it worth giving a pretty decent OP like this a good response and some real thought? Yes.
Instead of being unconstructive, go experiment in the unit tester or the map editor, go study map design or the history of broodwar mechanics evolution. Dont be a pill. Please either be a responsible and constructive poster or stay silent and let such people get a word in edgewise.
I do have a realistic expectation of how many people will read this, but I will post it for the few who do. Cheers.
On January 12 2012 18:54 Laserist wrote: I used the term 'nowadays' at the beginning of my post. None of the examples hardly fit into this category.
W2 1995 to Starcraft 1998, Dawn of War 2004 to Company of Heroes 2006 (can't tell the connection) Civilization 1 1991 to Civ 2 1996
Late 90's and early 2000's draws the border of the golden age of gaming history. What I was trying to say is childern or grandchildren of these games are oversimplified and relatively empty.
For turn-based strategy HoMM3(99) was a great game and ruined at the 5th(06) and 6th(11) of the same series. Same as Civilization 4 provides better and deeper gameplay experience in compare with Civ 5. Civ 5 is really designed for players who clearly have no idea how to play Civilization.
For RPG genre, Fallout(97-98) and Baldur's gate(98-2000) series was, imho, way more better than current RPG's, i.e Dragon Age(even see the difference between 1 & 2), Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls series.
I am not trying to say newer games necessarily bad. But it is clear that, for some time, newer games tends to be simple and broad. I am not the only one who stated that. Look at the reviews of the games I wrote above. All of them is critised by being simple and dissapointing.
Same is applied to starcraft too. I am not advocating 'return to broodwar' concept. I dislike many limitations of it and know SC2 is better in many aspects. But to reach this point, Blizzard sacrifices many things(storyline depth etc.).
Blizzard even oversimplied the units(one purpose, boring units) and battle mechanics. Zerg should swarm, Terran should all-in or rush, toss should turtle and deathball. Is there any depth in that I am not able to see?
I see your point and don't have enough experience [with new games] to have grounds for agreement.
The only new game that I've played is Starcraft 2. The flaws that I see in the game are not from oversimplification of mechanics, but of errors that designers are bound to make on their first iteration of the game. In my opinion Starcraft 2 is better than Starcraft 1. Brood War is better than Starcraft 2. We'll see where they land with Heart of the Swarm.
Regardless, examples of developers failing to design games that are accessible without the cost of depth is not proof to it's lack of possibility. The reason games have failed to do so may be the one you offer - that developers, by trade, are there to make money, not to create good games. Lack of experience, skill, or budget may [often] force developers to deliver on the former at the cost of the latter, but again, that doesn't necessitate the two being exclusive.
On January 13 2012 00:22 sudzy wrote: Regarding the "Ball vs. Ball" unit clumping problem:
In Age of Empires series, there were unit formation hot keys. You could arrange your units in spread, box, line, etc. formations. Is this something that would be received positively by the community? Or is this too noob friendly as well?
Yes it would be. Just like Age of Mythology's "caster" units with auto cast would be too friendly and if you gave a button to make marines and marauders automatically shoot and scoot. Forget about BW, just think about current SC2 opportunities. Banelings vs Marine spread. What was one of the Age 2 unit formations? Auto spread to deal with onagers. So we take a cool micro opportunity and automate it and then we have to nerf the marine because its automation makes it too efficient.
The advantage of BW, is the tools existed to precisely control your units and make your own 'formations' simply by good micro. Sure at the basic level, a lot of units could be a headache. But once you overcome the unit's stupidity, the potential existed for extremely precise control. And you didn't have to fight against group automation to get it. Or rather group automation were dynamic enough that some methods would cluster units, some would allow the units to march spread out in a line and others march in formation. (right clicked zealots, and magic boxing.)
Automatic formations might seem good, but if you want to micro a set of units to move differently from the formation, your actions will keep being reset whenever the auto formation kicks. Thus over-riding your orders and conforming to the default formation. This (I think) is the problem with group clumping and why it will always be a frustrating thing to deal with. No matter how many orders you give the units, your troop formation will always lack preciseness because the automated grouping that cluster units keeps resetting your commands.
EPT![[image loading]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1RwN9IQP4vM/TS-hbJVeQMI/AAAAAAAAACU/F8v6j8F9MqQ/s1600/The%2BMechanic%2BFilm.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2247/2498304690_fba5ded63f.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/figs/polygons.gif)
![[image loading]](http://sc2strat.net/img/deathball.png)
![[image loading]](http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1161/flank1ne2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.sirlin.net/storage/articles/zerg_rush.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1225777374213)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/flamewheel/SPL_LR/VerSaviorFE/savioririslong2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://starcraftmazter.net/images/4chan/tech_games/sc2/nasl/artosis.png)
obviously. Most hate for the unit clumping, my god is it ugly. Blizz wil never again limit unit selection, but at least they dont let you cast storm, GS and blink with an army on 1 hotkey 
