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On January 14 2012 17:51 Daozzt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 14:51 DoubleReed wrote:On January 14 2012 09:56 fabiano wrote:On January 14 2012 09:31 DoubleReed wrote:Blizzard specifically mentioned they wanted even low level players to be able to do crazy things and feel epic, hence easy to learn, hard to master. So I think that's partly the motivation for smartcasting. It's annoying as a newbie player to have all your high templars storm the same spot when you select storm as a group. So smart cast seems like a good fix, so that even if you select 50 high templars, only one will storm at a time. Cool. Newbie player can feel epic laying down a ton of storms. Smartcasting wasn't in BW because they were trying for epicness. Smartcasting wasn't in BW because they hadn't thought of it yet. Consider if BW had smartcasting. Do you really think that would reduce the epicness of BW Storm? Do you think it would need to be nerfed? Nah, probably not. Can't believe you said that... Of course it would reduce the epicness and it certainly would have to be nerfed somehow otherwise Z can't beat P no matter what. I hope I pulled a romanian there and missed your sarcasm oO Okay so like pros can actually use it properly without smartcasting. Smartcasting would literally do nothing for pros. So aren't you blatantly saying P > Z and high templar OP? I see no reason why smartcasting reduces epicness. It's like saying MBS reducing epicness or godforbid: automine. MBS does reduce the "epicness" of macro. No one ever displays "impressive macro" in SC2 because it everyone is good at it due to MBS being a huge crutch.
Uh...have you watched high level Sc2 at all?
I mean you have players like Bomber who have gotten famous just off of the strength of their macro.
On January 14 2012 23:42 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 23:31 TaShadan wrote:
sry big j but you obviously never played bw at a competetive level I'm wondering if he ever played BW at all....
So someone makes an argument and rather then respond to it you just throw this around?
Two can play that game, judging by how ignorant your statments about fungal and roachs is I doubt you've ever played Sc2 at a competitive level, hell sometimes I doubt you've played it all.
See isn't this a constructive way to have a discussion?
On January 14 2012 20:57 R3demption wrote:
Blizzard is too concerned with "unit counters" when it comes to balance in SC 2. If you're not convinced just watch any HOTS interview with D. Kim or D. Browder; all they talk about is how a new unit will be good against another unit (straight up example: the Tempest will be the direct counter to mass Mutas).
Corsairs and Valks say hello, I mean Tempest is at least more interesting then them because of how much slower they are then mutas which means you will need to work a lot more to get full value out of them.
On January 14 2012 21:45 R3demption wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 21:29 Big J wrote:On January 14 2012 21:25 R3demption wrote:
My complaint on concussive shell:
(From Liquidpedia) "Micro is the ability to control your units individually...The general theory of micro is to keep as many units alive as possible. For example it is better to have four half-dead Dragoons after a battle, rather than to have two Dragoons at full health and two dead ones."
I cannot do this in SC 2 because my Stalkers, once hit by concussive shell, become too slow to micro back and save. until you have blink. That's why progamers these days get blink before charge in TvP, because then they can still poke around with stalkers against bio then. It's one of the things that just had to be developed, but a lot of people in the community still don't get that this is the way the game is being played now, and not the combat focused way they in their low leagues play. It's one of those interesting timing dynamics like banelings vs marines, banelings vs stim marines and speedbanelings vs stim marines. They are differently useful against each other at different timings/tech stages. Ugh.. So many make this arguement. Just take casting abilities out of the equation people! Keep it simpler. What if its too early for Blink and he has Conc shell (which is entirely possible). I have Stalkers, what can I do now with my Stalkers to increase my chances of winning an engagement with Marauders? Step 1: Attack move. The pathing of the game forms a natural concave with out any real input from me. Step 2??? What can I do now!? My entire life depends on this one engagement, I have the opportunity cost to use up all right now to help try and save me! Well, I cant really do nothing but sit back and watch really... Not with micro reducing conc shell.
Focus fire, land perfect FF's, micro your zealots so they aren't just dancing, position the units you're warping in to get a flank on the Marauders.
Sc2 is a complex game, stop expecting simple answers.
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On January 15 2012 04:14 TheButtonmen wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 17:51 Daozzt wrote:On January 14 2012 14:51 DoubleReed wrote:On January 14 2012 09:56 fabiano wrote:On January 14 2012 09:31 DoubleReed wrote:Blizzard specifically mentioned they wanted even low level players to be able to do crazy things and feel epic, hence easy to learn, hard to master. So I think that's partly the motivation for smartcasting. It's annoying as a newbie player to have all your high templars storm the same spot when you select storm as a group. So smart cast seems like a good fix, so that even if you select 50 high templars, only one will storm at a time. Cool. Newbie player can feel epic laying down a ton of storms. Smartcasting wasn't in BW because they were trying for epicness. Smartcasting wasn't in BW because they hadn't thought of it yet. Consider if BW had smartcasting. Do you really think that would reduce the epicness of BW Storm? Do you think it would need to be nerfed? Nah, probably not. Can't believe you said that... Of course it would reduce the epicness and it certainly would have to be nerfed somehow otherwise Z can't beat P no matter what. I hope I pulled a romanian there and missed your sarcasm oO Okay so like pros can actually use it properly without smartcasting. Smartcasting would literally do nothing for pros. So aren't you blatantly saying P > Z and high templar OP? I see no reason why smartcasting reduces epicness. It's like saying MBS reducing epicness or godforbid: automine. MBS does reduce the "epicness" of macro. No one ever displays "impressive macro" in SC2 because it everyone is good at it due to MBS being a huge crutch. Uh...have you watched high level Sc2 at all? I mean you have players like Bomber who have gotten famous just off of the strength of their macro. Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 23:42 EternaLLegacy wrote:On January 14 2012 23:31 TaShadan wrote:
sry big j but you obviously never played bw at a competetive level I'm wondering if he ever played BW at all.... So someone makes an argument and rather then respond to it you just throw this around? Two can play that game, judging by how ignorant your statments about fungal and roachs is I doubt you've ever played Sc2 at a competitive level, hell sometimes I doubt you've played it all. See isn't this a constructive way to have a discussion? Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 20:57 R3demption wrote:
Blizzard is too concerned with "unit counters" when it comes to balance in SC 2. If you're not convinced just watch any HOTS interview with D. Kim or D. Browder; all they talk about is how a new unit will be good against another unit (straight up example: the Tempest will be the direct counter to mass Mutas). Corsairs and Valks say hello, I mean Tempest is at least more interesting then them because of how much slower they are then mutas which means you will need to work a lot more to get full value out of them. Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 21:45 R3demption wrote:On January 14 2012 21:29 Big J wrote:On January 14 2012 21:25 R3demption wrote:
My complaint on concussive shell:
(From Liquidpedia) "Micro is the ability to control your units individually...The general theory of micro is to keep as many units alive as possible. For example it is better to have four half-dead Dragoons after a battle, rather than to have two Dragoons at full health and two dead ones."
I cannot do this in SC 2 because my Stalkers, once hit by concussive shell, become too slow to micro back and save. until you have blink. That's why progamers these days get blink before charge in TvP, because then they can still poke around with stalkers against bio then. It's one of the things that just had to be developed, but a lot of people in the community still don't get that this is the way the game is being played now, and not the combat focused way they in their low leagues play. It's one of those interesting timing dynamics like banelings vs marines, banelings vs stim marines and speedbanelings vs stim marines. They are differently useful against each other at different timings/tech stages. Ugh.. So many make this arguement. Just take casting abilities out of the equation people! Keep it simpler. What if its too early for Blink and he has Conc shell (which is entirely possible). I have Stalkers, what can I do now with my Stalkers to increase my chances of winning an engagement with Marauders? Step 1: Attack move. The pathing of the game forms a natural concave with out any real input from me. Step 2??? What can I do now!? My entire life depends on this one engagement, I have the opportunity cost to use up all right now to help try and save me! Well, I cant really do nothing but sit back and watch really... Not with micro reducing conc shell. Focus fire, land perfect FF's, micro your zealots so they aren't just dancing, position the units you're warping in to get a flank on the Marauders. Sc2 is a complex game, stop expecting simple answers.
It's possible to have near perfect macro in SC2 because of MBS, at least early/midgame. Any C level iccup player shouldn't have a huge issue doing it. The only exception might be zerg because of the importance of having precise timing on injects. Macro is not impressive on its own. Good macro is just a requirement for being good at all, because it's a pretty low skill ceiling.
And I'm not trying to be snide to Big J. I just legitimately think he's never played BW, at least 1v1. Many SC2 players haven't, and many freely admit to that. It's just frustrating when those players talk about BW as if they're BW players, when they're not. Obviously I'm an SC2 player, or I wouldn't have made this thread in the first place. I played at a fairly high level all throughout beta and for a while on release, but now I just play at mid masters level casually, if you care to know.
Corsairs and valks were interesting because they were fragile on their own and required a lot of babysitting to keep alive. Why? SCOURGE. Scourge punished bad micro from players with those air aoe units. There's no mechanic to force players to be smart with their tempests, at least that we know of. Instead we'll just have floating thors. How interesting...
Blink negating concussive shell doesn't add a layer of micro to the game. It simply restores one that concussive shell took away. If you had neither ability the game would be just as interesting. Blink is a pretty crappy spell in general since it actively defeats positional play and encourages mobile a-move armies.
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On January 14 2012 23:51 EternaLLegacy wrote:
This is because the only way for players to excel in this game is to multitask. Harass more spots at once. Do more attacks at once. This is because any single battle has such limited micro in it, there's just no place for players to excel past setting up a good engage, because in fight micro is so limited.
I'm of the opinion that the transition into a more multi-task oriented game is a result of the standardizing of safe, macro build orders removing much of the early-game volatility from the scene (though obviously, not all of it). I'd also like to make the point that just because army vs army battles reward less micro doesn't make the game any less demanding, or challenging than BW. The game simply rewards different skills more heavily than the corresponding skill set in BW. So where micro was heavily rewarded in battle in BW, now multitasking during a battle is heavily rewarded (also, I'm not convinced that we aren't going to see some insane micro coming out in our army vs army battles in the future, making the units easier to use SHOULD eventually result in the units being capable of achieving MORE than they could in BW, where you had to fight with the AI just to make the unit do the basic action you wanted done).
Just as a typical new player learns the game starting with one-base cheese, into 2-base cheese, into 3-base ball of death, into proper, high skill play... We've watched the pro scene do the same thing. Go back and watch the VODs of the first GSL. Most games were won based on the success or failure of a one-base all-in. Over time, that turned into 2-base plays, and so on. For a few months we were watching the death-ball plays from the pros, and now they're learning how to play in a way that defeats the ball of death.
It's how most strategy games develop in their play, and if it weren't for HOTS and LotV coming out so soon and ruining the development of WoL, we'd begin to see some amazing things out of it by the time it's 10 years old too, just like we did in BW. As it stands, we would have to wait for LotV, and lets be honest with ourselves here, we KNOW that they'll release a new version before that game's fully developed too. The main point that I want to make here is that the common argument that SC2 takes "less" skill to succeed in than BW is flawed. Our players are just as capable of carrying out multiple actions per minute in SC2 as they were in BW, but since it's a different game, with different mechanics, our players are still working out how best to carry out the actions they're capable of to reward their skill.
Your point on micro being "limited" holds a touch of fallacy to it too. To reference Day9's 'baseball vs frisbee' argument. I would put it out there that BW handed you a defective frisbee, one that wobbles in the air no matter how you throw it, but with persistence, you can figure out how to make it do what you want, more or less. Unfortunately, some things you can do with a brand new frisbee are absolutely impossible to do with your broken frisbee, but given how difficult it is to use the broken frisbee, you can dominate just by learning how to make the broken frisbee work in the standard way a brand new frisbee will.
In SC2, we've been handed a brand new frisbee. It's MUCH easier to use than the broken frisbee, so all the things that used to impress us with the broken frisbee are par-for-the-course. Now, there are LOTS of things that were IMPOSSIBLE with the broken frisbee, that we can eventually learn to do with our brand new frisbee, but we're so boxed in with our old thought patterns and habits that we're happy to play the game the way we did with the broken frisbee, and haven't yet explored all the cool new things that are now possible with our brand new frisbee. With time, someone REALLY good is going to come out and show us how to use the new frisbee properly, but for now, we're happy playing as if we're using the broken frisbee, because it's easy and comfortable for us.
Having said all that, it's absolutely possible that I'm dead wrong in my assessment of where this game should end up. But I'm also aware that only time will tell, and if by the end of next year, we aren't seeing new and innovative play that continues to separate the best from the also-rans, I'm more than willing to admit that I was wrong the whole time. But so far the argument that "give it time, the game will reward skill and get better" has been proved ACCURATE. I don't believe that you can show me that the overall play of our best players in 2010 is the same, or worse than the overall play of our best players in 2011. The skill is increasing in this game, and we're being rewarded with exciting, epic matches as it does. More exciting, and more epic than anything 2010 gave us, and I'm confident that the same will happen as the game progresses through 2012.
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Nemireck, I don't think it's a good idea to look too much into analogies and comparisons as things become unclear and sometimes ridiculous. The purpose of the frisbee vs baseball argument is to have a reference that you can have an emotional connection to. You might be able to relate to Sean's comparison, having played frisbee with a bunch of friends in the past. The result is, if the situations are actually comparable that people will also view his actual argument on a more emotional level.
I mean, it's not so hard to understand: some units have higher micro potential. I think you can argue for that being a good thing in itself without having to call on frisbees and baseballs, but I guess it's hard to feel the same urgency if the argument is made that way.
However, if you create ridiculous situations about defunct frisbees and new not-wobbly frisbees the emotional connection is gone and the analogy ceases to have any useful purpose.
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Canada11369 Posts
On January 14 2012 20:33 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 06:01 Falling wrote:On January 14 2012 05:39 Big J wrote:On January 14 2012 04:59 jinorazi wrote:On January 14 2012 04:52 Big J wrote:On January 14 2012 04:15 jinorazi wrote:
micro limiting spells existed in bw. the key difference is, in bw, it was late, late game stuff and rarely used because it took long (tech+upgrade+waiting for mana regeneration)
it is very abundant in sc2.
blizzard wanted to make it fancy for the viewers, therefore making spells available earlier in the game.
i guess the debate is, is it good or bad for the gameplay? and the debate has to be led about each and every single such spell, because as seen from broodwar, different spells (the broodwar ones) and different usage (the broodwar usage) in a different enviroment (broodwar) lead to a different opinion within the same person. Furthermore things like Siege Tanks, Lurkers and dark swarm could be regarded as such things as well. They limit you're ability to micro, because they limit the area in which micro can take place. But that again is also an interesting aspect of such spells. If you want to hear my opinion on those things: FFs are necessary, but I don't like their offensive usabilities (probably because I'm zerg). If they could get rid of it, or change it so you can't use mass sentries offensively, I would love that. Fungal is a great spell imo. Used with burrowed infestors (or without them), it allows for so much stuff, not even to mention infestor drops etc. It really makes it necessary to split up your units when engaging infestor play and also to keep them split at all times. Also the low dps (yes fungal has very low dps compared to real high dps units like bio or lings or blings or tanks or colossi etc...) make it so that not overfungaling is important, which makes it hard to control in a battle, when lots of things are going on. The only thing that is a little frustrating is to see how strong it is against zealots and sentries and zerglings and banelings (like storm in SC2 and BW) Dark swarm is a great example that forces micro and does not prevent micro. exactly. like fungal. it decreases microability in a certain area and increases overall micro in a battle Not at all in the same way. This isn't even comparing the same things. Limiting micro as described by jinornazi means your opponent throws something down and when you click on your unit, you literally cannot move it. All the spam clicking in the world will not free you from FG or Forcefields. That is what is meant by limiting micro. Dark Swarm, siege tanks, and lurkers threaten a zone. And you have to devise a plan that will mitigate that threat. If you are halfway into the engagement and realize the threat is great... you can click on your units and click them back and they will move. FF's and FG's you engage and you are locked into place and though you think it wise to retreat, you click on your units and there is nothing you can do. THAT is limiting micro. so how is this worse than siege tanks or reavers? I run into range of them... my units are dead. If I run into the range of an infestor... there is the chance my opponent screws up, there is the chance that I have siege tanks or colossi or HT or somthing in pace to kill infestors when they try to refungal... Just compare it: Siege tanks in SC2 have the same amount of damage as infestors do. Instantly! In SC1 it was a even a little higher for siege tanks and way higher for reavers. And still you consider this to be superior for microability... I just don't see your point. If my unit is dead there is nothing left to micro. If my units are fungaled I can't micro them, but I have a chance to safe some of them/they have a use until they are dead (they still shoot).
You make it sound like BW battles was like a nuclear bomb that went off in the first volley with tanks killing everything instantly. I believe it's 4 shots for a zealot and 3 for a dragoon. (edit for correct numbers- thanks Garmer.) Furthermore, because it makes a difference which way the turret faces and tanks overkill, it actually makes a huge difference when and where and how you engage. So with overkill, it will insta kill certain units and leave the rest unscathed. This gives a greater dynamic to the battlefield in that BW is made up of short bursts of high damage in specific areas based on player decision making. SC2 AoE tends to spread out the everywhere, but takes out a lot of that decision making that much more limited, focused damage bursts allow.
Reaver damage really varies depending on which unit you target based on which direction the splash damage goes. That sort of predictable asymmetrical damage allows for greater variance in decision making and results rather than evenly spreading damage across the entire battlefield.
Furthermore, you keep on confusing abilities that threaten zones with abilities that literally prevent you from moving your units no matter how much you click on them. As I said before, both games have pre-battle micro. You have argue eloquently for the amount of splitting and set-up goes into avoiding these SC2 spells. I agree. And I think pro's will get even better during the pre-battle set-up. But that's what it is, pre-battle set-up. BW has that too.
The difference is once you engage. Zealots are pre-spread out and sent in first to tank, followed by dragoons and after the storms come down (depending on whether you cloned your storms before or stormed after the battle started.) If the terran set up mines poorly, you might even mine drag some into his line. And during the battle you can grab groups of zealots to target fire tanks or spread out and force the tanks to shoot at each other. But once you run out of zealots your dragoons are going to die fast... so you grab your units and click back and they will retreat. Vs SC2's FG where certainly you can focus fire. But as soon as those FG or FF get spammed down... you can no longer click your units and move them. I don't know how this can be seen as anything other than limiting micro. You literally cannot move those units and not just some. Smart casting means a whole ton get's clogged up.
Vs something like Dark Swarm. That get's thrown down and it forces micro. After it's thrown down. As soon as the Terran sees those orange clouds going down, he's getting the hell out of there to avoid getting slaughtered by cracklings and lurkers. Even think of marines vs banelings. They have the pre-battle micro and set-up, but when the battle begins you can continue to micro your units. And that's what makes it marine splits vs banelings so cool. We didn't suddenly prevent one side from being able to control their units once the battle begins. Both sides are microing all their units until the bitter end or one side retreats.
It's the difference of being able to micro through the entire battle rather than suddenly have it come to a screeching halt once FF surround your army.
But it's more than spells. It's that twitch, rapid pace micro like muta stacking that dances around the periphery, sniping any lone unit, but if they fly straight into the marine group they'll get massacred. Or scourge vs muta and absolute precise control required to pick off the scourge without it catching up and exploding. The game engine itself as well as LAN latency allowed this refined micro to occur.
Or the type of precise reaver control where it actually made a difference whether you targetted the forward tank, back tank or side tank and which way the turrets were facing and if you can bait the tanks into firing against a zealot so you can drop, fire, and pick up your reaver before retreating back to avoid getting sniped. Rather than perfectly microing a handful of units to completely preventing the opponent any chance of control. (Even in the case of zealot bombs, tanks could unsiege quickly if it was beneficial to do so. And tanks could actually kite zealots if they were unsieged.)
Or microing carriers- it wasn't just a prebattle positional micro, but endless harassment of attack-retreat, attack-retreat and always trying to keep your interceptor attacking as you hug cliffs to avoid goliath fire.
tldr. Limiting micro= you click on your unit and it will no longer move and there's nothing you can do but wait.
...Actually, I almost feel like deleting my 'essay' and just write this instead.
Side Issues: Zealot Charge and Tanking units as a concept
+ Show Spoiler +Zealot charge bugs me a little because you actually have to fight against automation to make it work properly. In addition, it's attempting to automate something that worked perfectly fine in the hands of pro's. Speedlots allow for much more precise control because they will do what you tell them to do. Chargelots always run the risk of doing something stupid because it's automation kicks in. To me, this is the wrong sort of automation and the sort that's frustrating to deal with.
It's kinda like the auto-cover mechanics in the Mass Effect series. They're trying to make it easier, but it also has the tendency to stick to walls or the cover mechanic won't kick in when you want it to. You could argue that this makes it 'harder to micro' as you try and figure out how the automation handles. But it's the wrong sort of 'hard.' It's the sort that makes you frustrated because you're trying to peer around the corner to get a good shot, but the cover mechanic is keeping you glued to the wall. Whereas a manual crouch button and precise left-right controls would perform the same function without all the frustration of fighting against the automation. It also allows for more possibilities as automation governs behaviours. If it wasn't programmed, the automation doesn't kick in and there's no way to figure out a new possibility even if a clever person could figure it out with the right control.
I mentioned that zealots tanked in BW, but this wasn't so much by design so much as it turns out zealots were cost-effective and could survive 3 shots vs the dragoon surviving 2 shots to a tank. Now by not designed, obviously because of the size mechanic, it was clearly designed that zealots being a small unit so a tank's damage would be reduced. But I don't think the zealot was specifically designed as a tanking unit. It just happened to fill that function in PvT. And really, I think that's the better way to go about it. Player's will automatically find their cannon fodder that will survive enough hits that will allow the rest of their army to close the distance and fire.
But creating a unit around the concept of "this unit will tank damage" is a really boring concept design in my opinion. The 'unique' ability is to survive a really long time. It's the old roach, marauder, and immortal problem. I think it was Day9 that said that 'If you lose to roaches, you didn't macro correctly. There is nothing tricky about roaches.'
Not that every needs a gimmick, but a unit designed to survive a long time and nothing else? Meh.
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On January 15 2012 04:49 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 23:51 EternaLLegacy wrote:
This is because the only way for players to excel in this game is to multitask. Harass more spots at once. Do more attacks at once. This is because any single battle has such limited micro in it, there's just no place for players to excel past setting up a good engage, because in fight micro is so limited. I'm of the opinion that the transition into a more multi-task oriented game is a result of the standardizing of safe, macro build orders removing much of the early-game volatility from the scene (though obviously, not all of it). I'd also like to make the point that just because army vs army battles reward less micro doesn't make the game any less demanding, or challenging than BW. The game simply rewards different skills more heavily than the corresponding skill set in BW. So where micro was heavily rewarded in battle in BW, now multitasking during a battle is heavily rewarded (also, I'm not convinced that we aren't going to see some insane micro coming out in our army vs army battles in the future, making the units easier to use SHOULD eventually result in the units being capable of achieving MORE than they could in BW, where you had to fight with the AI just to make the unit do the basic action you wanted done). Just as a typical new player learns the game starting with one-base cheese, into 2-base cheese, into 3-base ball of death, into proper, high skill play... We've watched the pro scene do the same thing. Go back and watch the VODs of the first GSL. Most games were won based on the success or failure of a one-base all-in. Over time, that turned into 2-base plays, and so on. For a few months we were watching the death-ball plays from the pros, and now they're learning how to play in a way that defeats the ball of death. It's how most strategy games develop in their play, and if it weren't for HOTS and LotV coming out so soon and ruining the development of WoL, we'd begin to see some amazing things out of it by the time it's 10 years old too, just like we did in BW. As it stands, we would have to wait for LotV, and lets be honest with ourselves here, we KNOW that they'll release a new version before that game's fully developed too. The main point that I want to make here is that the common argument that SC2 takes "less" skill to succeed in than BW is flawed. Our players are just as capable of carrying out multiple actions per minute in SC2 as they were in BW, but since it's a different game, with different mechanics, our players are still working out how best to carry out the actions they're capable of to reward their skill. Your point on micro being "limited" holds a touch of fallacy to it too. To reference Day9's 'baseball vs frisbee' argument. I would put it out there that BW handed you a defective frisbee, one that wobbles in the air no matter how you throw it, but with persistence, you can figure out how to make it do what you want, more or less. Unfortunately, some things you can do with a brand new frisbee are absolutely impossible to do with your broken frisbee, but given how difficult it is to use the broken frisbee, you can dominate just by learning how to make the broken frisbee work in the standard way a brand new frisbee will. In SC2, we've been handed a brand new frisbee. It's MUCH easier to use than the broken frisbee, so all the things that used to impress us with the broken frisbee are par-for-the-course. Now, there are LOTS of things that were IMPOSSIBLE with the broken frisbee, that we can eventually learn to do with our brand new frisbee, but we're so boxed in with our old thought patterns and habits that we're happy to play the game the way we did with the broken frisbee, and haven't yet explored all the cool new things that are now possible with our brand new frisbee. With time, someone REALLY good is going to come out and show us how to use the new frisbee properly, but for now, we're happy playing as if we're using the broken frisbee, because it's easy and comfortable for us. Having said all that, it's absolutely possible that I'm dead wrong in my assessment of where this game should end up. But I'm also aware that only time will tell, and if by the end of next year, we aren't seeing new and innovative play that continues to separate the best from the also-rans, I'm more than willing to admit that I was wrong the whole time. But so far the argument that "give it time, the game will reward skill and get better" has been proved ACCURATE. I don't believe that you can show me that the overall play of our best players in 2010 is the same, or worse than the overall play of our best players in 2011. The skill is increasing in this game, and we're being rewarded with exciting, epic matches as it does. More exciting, and more epic than anything 2010 gave us, and I'm confident that the same will happen as the game progresses through 2012.
I think you forget that most of the 1 base allins were dealt with not by improvements on the side of players, but balance patches removing the viability of those strategies, and by maps getting better. Players were trying to play all sorts of macro and technical playstyles since day 1. It's only after the introduction of better, macro-oriented maps, and the removal of some broken allins through nerfs, that the game has manifested itself into its modern form.
You're pretending that heavy multitask and harassment based play is representative of a different skillset than is seen in BW. That's just bogus. BW had plenty of heavy harass, multitask based play, and still does. There's MANY ways to gain the advantage in BW, not just those we see in SC2. If anything, BW encapsulates a far larger array of applicable skills than SC2 does. This is what the whole OP was about - that SC2 has actually manage to cut off huge areas of interaction between players, and as such we're left with fewer ways that players can outplay each other, which makes for a much less dynamic game.
Every single thing you can do in SC2 you could do in BW. It's just that in BW, doing these things has far more of an opportunity cost, and if you didn't rely on great multitask and multi-pronged harassment, you could excel in other ways, like better macro, great timing attacks, excellent force control, and solid pushes. SC2 has nullified or diminished the importance of many of these skills.
I repeat, it is NOT that SC2 has added anything new to the table. It has ONLY removed avenues that were once open.
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Every single thing you can do in SC2 you could do in BW. It's just that in BW, doing these things has far more of an opportunity cost, and if you didn't rely on great multitask and multi-pronged harassment, you could excel in other ways, like better macro, great timing attacks, excellent force control, and solid pushes. SC2 has nullified or diminished the importance of many of these skills.
???
You don't see people beating other players through better macro, timing attacks, force control, and solid pushes?
I just see absolutely no evidence for such claims.
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On January 15 2012 06:42 Falling wrote:
You make it sound like BW battles was like a nuclear bomb that went off in the first volley with tanks killing everything instantly. I believe it's 3 shots for a zealot and 2 for a dragoon.
it's 4 for zealots and 3 for goons 
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On January 15 2012 07:25 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 04:49 Nemireck wrote:On January 14 2012 23:51 EternaLLegacy wrote:
This is because the only way for players to excel in this game is to multitask. Harass more spots at once. Do more attacks at once. This is because any single battle has such limited micro in it, there's just no place for players to excel past setting up a good engage, because in fight micro is so limited. I'm of the opinion that the transition into a more multi-task oriented game is a result of the standardizing of safe, macro build orders removing much of the early-game volatility from the scene (though obviously, not all of it). I'd also like to make the point that just because army vs army battles reward less micro doesn't make the game any less demanding, or challenging than BW. The game simply rewards different skills more heavily than the corresponding skill set in BW. So where micro was heavily rewarded in battle in BW, now multitasking during a battle is heavily rewarded (also, I'm not convinced that we aren't going to see some insane micro coming out in our army vs army battles in the future, making the units easier to use SHOULD eventually result in the units being capable of achieving MORE than they could in BW, where you had to fight with the AI just to make the unit do the basic action you wanted done). Just as a typical new player learns the game starting with one-base cheese, into 2-base cheese, into 3-base ball of death, into proper, high skill play... We've watched the pro scene do the same thing. Go back and watch the VODs of the first GSL. Most games were won based on the success or failure of a one-base all-in. Over time, that turned into 2-base plays, and so on. For a few months we were watching the death-ball plays from the pros, and now they're learning how to play in a way that defeats the ball of death. It's how most strategy games develop in their play, and if it weren't for HOTS and LotV coming out so soon and ruining the development of WoL, we'd begin to see some amazing things out of it by the time it's 10 years old too, just like we did in BW. As it stands, we would have to wait for LotV, and lets be honest with ourselves here, we KNOW that they'll release a new version before that game's fully developed too. The main point that I want to make here is that the common argument that SC2 takes "less" skill to succeed in than BW is flawed. Our players are just as capable of carrying out multiple actions per minute in SC2 as they were in BW, but since it's a different game, with different mechanics, our players are still working out how best to carry out the actions they're capable of to reward their skill. Your point on micro being "limited" holds a touch of fallacy to it too. To reference Day9's 'baseball vs frisbee' argument. I would put it out there that BW handed you a defective frisbee, one that wobbles in the air no matter how you throw it, but with persistence, you can figure out how to make it do what you want, more or less. Unfortunately, some things you can do with a brand new frisbee are absolutely impossible to do with your broken frisbee, but given how difficult it is to use the broken frisbee, you can dominate just by learning how to make the broken frisbee work in the standard way a brand new frisbee will. In SC2, we've been handed a brand new frisbee. It's MUCH easier to use than the broken frisbee, so all the things that used to impress us with the broken frisbee are par-for-the-course. Now, there are LOTS of things that were IMPOSSIBLE with the broken frisbee, that we can eventually learn to do with our brand new frisbee, but we're so boxed in with our old thought patterns and habits that we're happy to play the game the way we did with the broken frisbee, and haven't yet explored all the cool new things that are now possible with our brand new frisbee. With time, someone REALLY good is going to come out and show us how to use the new frisbee properly, but for now, we're happy playing as if we're using the broken frisbee, because it's easy and comfortable for us. Having said all that, it's absolutely possible that I'm dead wrong in my assessment of where this game should end up. But I'm also aware that only time will tell, and if by the end of next year, we aren't seeing new and innovative play that continues to separate the best from the also-rans, I'm more than willing to admit that I was wrong the whole time. But so far the argument that "give it time, the game will reward skill and get better" has been proved ACCURATE. I don't believe that you can show me that the overall play of our best players in 2010 is the same, or worse than the overall play of our best players in 2011. The skill is increasing in this game, and we're being rewarded with exciting, epic matches as it does. More exciting, and more epic than anything 2010 gave us, and I'm confident that the same will happen as the game progresses through 2012. I think you forget that most of the 1 base allins were dealt with not by improvements on the side of players, but balance patches removing the viability of those strategies, and by maps getting better. Players were trying to play all sorts of macro and technical playstyles since day 1. It's only after the introduction of better, macro-oriented maps, and the removal of some broken allins through nerfs, that the game has manifested itself into its modern form. You're pretending that heavy multitask and harassment based play is representative of a different skillset than is seen in BW. That's just bogus. BW had plenty of heavy harass, multitask based play, and still does. There's MANY ways to gain the advantage in BW, not just those we see in SC2. If anything, BW encapsulates a far larger array of applicable skills than SC2 does. This is what the whole OP was about - that SC2 has actually manage to cut off huge areas of interaction between players, and as such we're left with fewer ways that players can outplay each other, which makes for a much less dynamic game. Every single thing you can do in SC2 you could do in BW. It's just that in BW, doing these things has far more of an opportunity cost, and if you didn't rely on great multitask and multi-pronged harassment, you could excel in other ways, like better macro, great timing attacks, excellent force control, and solid pushes. SC2 has nullified or diminished the importance of many of these skills. I repeat, it is NOT that SC2 has added anything new to the table. It has ONLY removed avenues that were once open.
well said.
its true MBS has opened up apm for multitasking as people have suggested. but such multitasking has always existed and was performed without a problem.
as for micro-ing ability, i love playing tvt and tvz because of the need for micro. splitting marines while charging at tanks, splitting marines against banelings, stutter stepping, focusing firing banegling groups with tanks, gaining vision with vikings, banshee vs marine, etc. same reason i dont enjoy tvp as much because its more about focus firing, emp, positioning and kiting.
as toss, the only thing i care or prioritse is force field/positioning vs emp and making sure my zealot is at the front, and if i have blink, blink micro.
zerg is about surrounding your opponent, sending in lings first before banes, baiting, controlling banes so it doesn't explode on useless stuff like thors, fungal the marines, harass with muta, NP the big units, etc.
i play all race and have had the chance see their micro potential. what i want is more of what terran has to do. i'm not saying its easier or harder, i'm saying the game needs to promote micro and that makes it fun and the player with better micro should be able to come up in battle, not who casts a spell first.
casting spell is not challenging, loading up or burrowing units against FF is not challenging, dropping banes on toss army is not challenging. things that i do enjoy: controlling marine against lurker and banes, dragoons vs vulture, splitting 4 hydras to kill 1 reaver, splitting your muta to kill corsair, picking out the irradated muta, consuming and putting down spell before defiler dies to irradate, blink micro.
the things people suggest as "micro" aren't micro at all imo("colossus need micro" -,.-). stutter stepping, moving your roach inside for maximum damage, moving colossus behind army, they're not impressive micro, they're just common sense stuff that needs to be done. what i want is more instinctive, reflex micros like dragoon vs mines, marine vs bane(as banes are coming, not pre-positioning), micro opportunities that sets apart the chobo, hasu, and gosu. (i personally love early pvp during stalker/zealot vs stalker/zealot because better micro will come up top)
and in that sense, forcefields and fungal ruins that. and the shredder that may get added, adds to this micro limiting equation.
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I can't agree with most points.
Micro-reducing units, or let's just call them what they are: Snares and roots are an interesting feature.
They require your opponent to think. No, you can't harrass a terran with stalkers, if he has concussive shells. No, you can't just walk up a toss ramp.
It requires though. You must think befor eyou act. Think your complain further: Every unit that is faster than another is automatically doing the same as those spells you discribed.
About those micro-less units, you are wrong again. The micro part is positioning them right. Protecting them is micro. The same way as Vikings killing them is also positioning.
Things you get right is the power distribution of the units. Collossus is better than HT/carrier. Roach better than Hydra. Just straight better. That makes the game somewhat stale. But that's the only problem.
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On January 15 2012 08:48 testthewest wrote:
I can't agree with most points.
Micro-reducing units, or let's just call them what they are: Snares and roots are an interesting feature.
They require your opponent to think. No, you can't harrass a terran with stalkers, if he has concussive shells. No, you can't just walk up a toss ramp.
It requires though. You must think befor eyou act. Think your complain further: Every unit that is faster than another is automatically doing the same as those spells you discribed.
About those micro-less units, you are wrong again. The micro part is positioning them right. Protecting them is micro. The same way as Vikings killing them is also positioning.
Things you get right is the power distribution of the units. Collossus is better than HT/carrier. Roach better than Hydra. Just straight better. That makes the game somewhat stale. But that's the only problem.
So you want SC2 to be a volatile game where if you commit at the wrong time you will be punished by the death of your entire army and having the game lost? Everything could have been perfect to the build up of that one big battle and one tiny mistake, having all your HTs emped results in a loss of the battle -> loss of the game.
You dont seem to understand the point of the OP and some of the other posters are trying to say.
Nobody is arguing that one must think before you act. Nobody is arguing the fact that one must pre split and position their armies before the engagement. Lets look at it this way:
Pre battle micro and In fight micro. Pre battle micro could be characterised by army positioning, splitting and what not, trying to maximise ones army's effectiveness before committing. In fight micro is targeting firing, splitting, getting off your spells, retreating due to wrong engagement etc.
But the main point is that these micro limiting spells limit the infight micro. Think marines vs banelings. The constant splitting and micro for both the marines and banelings is phenomenal to watch (both pre battle and during the fight). But now an infestor turns all that action during the battle into nothing but boring outcome where the opposing player simply cant do anything with even a single mistake. You cant even split during the battle because the fungals are instantaneous and the opposing player has no idea when the spell will go off. IF it had a slow effect instead of a stunning one, this would turn the fights more interesting because you still CAN do something about it. Thats why I actually liked when the fungal was a projectile spell and this made the T player split his army during the fight.
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Great thread, glad to see it's getting the attention it deserves.
As a gamer with no BW background ( am I even a gamer at all?) I really appreciate the points you've rose.
It's kinda obvious that there are units that were intended to be 'micro' (Fungal, FF, Storm, EMP, tanks, etc) and units that were just sorta slapped on to make the game different for... what reason exactly? Talking about banelings, colossus, marauders, etc.
With the poor implementation of AoE, and units that simply are a-move, it's kinda... bleak and not as deep as a SC game could or should be, imo.
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Great post. It echo's a lot of my personal complaints about SC2, as well many pro players also I believe.
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On January 11 2012 03:26 julianto wrote:
Are you complaining about tanks versus protoss when there's the 111?
Yeah but 1/1/1 is (on the older maps) op while in the later stages tanks are unusable. That is poor unit design.
I agree with your statements..I love the game but I really hope the design changes to add more depth.
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So what would be appropriate fixes for forcefields? Obviously we don't want them to be useless, especially early on, because protoss HAS to have them to survive some pressure attacks and allins. One suggestion I remember from beta was giving them finite hp, but no target priority (and perhaps giving them high armor would be good too to make them stronger earlier rather than later). I personally like this idea a lot since it forces micro from the other player, but does not auto-win a fight for the casting player. I'm sure there are other options out there as well.
i think the problem with force fields is that they are more powerful than the raw mechanical skill required to use them
i think a much simpler fix than radically changing the functionality of forcefields, would be to cut both their energy costs and duration in half simulataneously
by adjusting force field in this way, not only is the ability more flexible in its use, but it also requires either your entire attention during its use, or, alternatively you are MC, and are one of half a dozen people with the multitasking capability of juggling force fields while warping units in
the shorter the duration of force field, the narrowing the timing window you can take focus off your army and safely macro up, which is quite a bit more important with protoss due to the warp-in mechanic requiring you to actually look at where you're building the unit
i agree with your sentinment that they overall a pretty good idea that just doesn't quite work right, but i think in theory it's a viable space controlling mechanism like dark swarm and tanks you can't hard counter were
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In my opinion there shouldn't be root, snare or stun effects in a RTS without serious drawbacks. Also you shouldn't be able to manipulate terrain (forcefields) because it just amplifies favorable as well as unfavorable map design.
I also think stimpack is boring. There is no choice, you want you units stimmed, in every battle. I like auras like guardian shield a lot more. You have to keep your sentry with GS close to your units to achieve maximum effect and it creates a target your opponent wants focused down which forces micro.
One more thing: Units and spells should not be able to fulfill too many strong support features. Fungal is an example of one that does a little too much in my opinion. EMP, storm & neural parasite are much better designed that way - they have clear drawbacks or limits. One more example for a unit that feels like it fulfills too many roles is the medievac though I'm not sure if it actually is too strong. I only feel this way because it has too strong a synergy with the marine and the marauder which are super effective in small scale battles with stim and heal.
One last note: Blizzard say they try hard to have very different units for all 3 races though for some reason they decided to take the marine, specialize it and call it the marauder. I think it should be more different to the marine than it is.
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On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against.
PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro.
Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack.
PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving.
PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want.
Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement.
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On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement.
So your counterexamples are:
A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here.
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On January 15 2012 13:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 11:16 Myrddraal wrote:On January 11 2012 03:09 EternaLLegacy wrote:
There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them.
This is just plain wrong, not to say that every situation can be micro'd against, but there are certainly some in which the micro of the other player changes the outcome completely. I will give you a situation in each match up where forcefields are micro'd against. PvT: Protoss throws down forcefields cutting the army in half, Terran proceeds to stim and kite anyway (not backwards obviously) in order to do maximum damage. If there was any gap in the forcefield wall, Terran will likely escape the majority of their units and sustain little damage. Zealots are now in a bad position if there are any left and Terran comes out on top due to good micro. Alternatively, if Terran has Medivacs in the above situation, he lifts up his trapped units and drops them back on the other side of the forcefields, now the forcefields are acting against the Protoss as his Zealots will be unable to attack. PvZ: Protoss forcefields off a bunch of Roaches, they burrow move under them and kill off the Protoss units/ burrow move to escape the trapped Roaches. Can go further where the Protoss tries to throw down more forcefields so the Roaches can't unburrow and have to keep moving. PvP: Not quite as common but using Archons/Colossi to bust down a Forcefield and attack up a ramp, or down a ramp depending on the situation. Only really counting this as Micro because of how much effort it takes to get Archons to do what you want. Also, there is quite often a dance between two players when forcefields are a threat, and in my opinion this can often be a tense and complex micro situation that not only increases the micro required, but adds a great deal of depth to what would otherwise be a clear cut engagement. So your counterexamples are: A case where Protoss screws up, a case where one unit using an expensive (250/250) ability can somewhat negate the FFs, and a case where only 2 units (and you concede, really 1) can even do anything about a FF. And then you talk about a dance between players before engagement, as if that's something that happens only because of FF, and doesn't happen in BW as well. I think you need to start thinking big picture here.
I don't really know what you're talking about. FF is clearly one of the most interesting abilities both theoretically and in practice. I mean, do you really think BW would be significantly worse if protoss had a similar forcefielding ability? It clearly adds quite a bit of complexity to engaging and micro in general. Not to mention overall strategies that can rely on forcefields to stay alive until better things can be obtained.
It just seems like you're against it because it's not BWish and then you come up with reasons that it's bad with post hoc rationalization. It's not supposed to be exactly like other abilities, and it has rather unique uses. And quite frankly it's rare that it's just "FF lololol" anymore like you keep saying. Players are getting better with dealing with it, which is raising the skill cap in terms of unit control.
You were the one saying there's no dancing with FF, when there blatantly is. It's not just because of FF and he never said that. When you say something that's just wrong then it's just wrong.
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Canada11369 Posts
Ok, I was just looking through the Cool and unsual Starcraft thread and this game demonstrates so much of the that individual control that we want to see more of.
Baby vs Effort- wraith control GOMTV Classic Season 3
Action get's going at the 5min mark if you're really in a hurry, but it's better to have the full context.
But don't go away! This is casted by none other than Tasteless himself. This is such an action packed game with individual control, positional battles, drops, air to air battles. It has it all. Now mind you, heavy wraith use is unusual, but the point is a lot of these older units contain the potentional for this highly specific control. Even if every unit isn't used every time.
Now imagine FG exists in it's current smart-casting form during this game. Would it add or subtract the micro if the wraiths could be completely frozen in place and damaged? Micro, micro, micro. FG!. Blam. Can't micro.
More examples of precise, individual control
+ Show Spoiler +Dragoons are buggy right? Except they also can be extremely precise when handled correctly: Nony in an assymetrical fight which if un-microed would've blown up to mines When units are hard to use, they are allowed to be ridiculously powered: Why positional games are awesome. There's so much going on here, it's so good.
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EPT
