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On January 12 2012 02:39 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 01:36 iky43210 wrote:
it smells bias when you do every one of your comparison with broodwar. This shows your lack of knowledge in the RTS universe in general and perhaps unwilling to accept advantages and good aspects other famous RTS games have.
It simply becomes a strong opinionated post when first thing you do is make a thread and do a one way comparison of X game with Y game, just let it go.
Broodwar is not popular and did not kick off anywhere else but Korea. Just a food for thought BW was very popular worldwide for an RTS. The biggest reasons why a game does not remain immensely popular do not reflect on the game's design. It's not completely fair which games get a shot at being a real competitive game and which don't. BW in Korea has gotten the best shot of any video game ever. Whether the Koreans got it wrong for sticking to the game or the rest of the world got it wrong for abandoning is not even worth time discussing; they have proven that it is a game worth playing for over a decade. There's no discussion to be had about it. Now, given that BW did get a shot and has proven that it was worth it, we ought to examine it to learn how the game is designed for lessons on how to design future games. BW has gotten the closest out of any video game to becoming as successful as athletic games (soccer) and board games (chess) have become. It makes sense to stay close to its formula, especially when talking specifically about its sequel. Because though there may have been good designs in other RTS's like you said, none of them have added up to anything close to BW. So unless sticking to BW's formula puts us worse and worse off, there's no reason for us to shake up the hat and pick a game design at random that some folks theorize may be the best.
I think a lot of us at TL forget how close Blizzard stayed to BW compaired to how much RTS games have changed in the last 10 years. Most games moved far away from base building, economic managment and the even the concept of macro. If you look at many highly rated RTS games in the last 10 years, they removed a lot of the difficulty that made BW the game that it was. And this was considered to be progress, to remove the layers of difficultly and allow players "use strategy" to win. The concept that micro was bad and no one wanted to "baby sit" their units.
And then Blizzard made SC2 and everyone loved it. If you listen to some of the interviews from Dustin about when he was first brought on to SC2, he was in shock at how far they were from the industry norm. That Blizzard was sticking with 3 factions, around 45-50 units total and that was it. That there would be no auto build, that the pathing of units would still be slightly retarted. This so far from everything that I have seen in RTS games, which are moving toward more automation.
The main conflict with SC2 right now is that Blizzard wants to the game to be accessable, but also be deep. That is a hard balance to make and can lead to things like the "death ball". The death ball really comes from the automation of the units being so efficent that there is no reason to not blob them up and smash down the front door. But Blizzard also has to make it so beginners can enjoy the game and not feel like there is an inpassable learning curve for the game. Doing this will mean few causal players over time and fewer people who may become interested in watching professional play. I recently showed a friend Liquid-Hero's stream and his response was "Wait, you play that? Why would you do that? My god, its so fast." I did tell him I would never be able to play that fast, but he was still in awe that I even attempted it. And to be clear, this friend loves RTS games, but SC2 terrified him. He is now intrested and wants to watch more professional games.
The real challenge is how to we make SC2 deeper without losing the accessability. I would love to see fewer death balls, but how do you get that done and still keep the game we have now? This is a harder task that just pointing to BW and saying "this is perfect, so you make this". Drawing some ideas from BW is great, but it should be done with a grain of salt. Blizzard isn't going to do this alone, but we do need to encourage them to give us more tools to combat the blob of DPS.
To put it another way, anyone can throw or catch a foot ball and enjoy it. Because of this, we understand how hard it is to throw the ball in the freezing cold while ten, three hundred pound men are attempting to smash the life out of you. The more people who play SC2, the more people can enjoy and respect the highest level of play. We should be wary of making the game so challenging that only the most devoted break into the game.
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On January 12 2012 03:38 jinorazi wrote:
phoenix is a blatant example of dumbing down. spamming right click is not impressive micro.
How can you guys be so down on Pheonix which has grav and can kite and not talk about VR or Carrier? VR had charge micro when its base was crap and charge insane but that's gone now. 1a and run is all you get with Carriers and VRs. (running is better but this is not a balance thread )
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Really good write up again, thank you
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On January 12 2012 04:13 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 02:39 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On January 12 2012 01:36 iky43210 wrote:
it smells bias when you do every one of your comparison with broodwar. This shows your lack of knowledge in the RTS universe in general and perhaps unwilling to accept advantages and good aspects other famous RTS games have.
It simply becomes a strong opinionated post when first thing you do is make a thread and do a one way comparison of X game with Y game, just let it go.
Broodwar is not popular and did not kick off anywhere else but Korea. Just a food for thought BW was very popular worldwide for an RTS. The biggest reasons why a game does not remain immensely popular do not reflect on the game's design. It's not completely fair which games get a shot at being a real competitive game and which don't. BW in Korea has gotten the best shot of any video game ever. Whether the Koreans got it wrong for sticking to the game or the rest of the world got it wrong for abandoning is not even worth time discussing; they have proven that it is a game worth playing for over a decade. There's no discussion to be had about it. Now, given that BW did get a shot and has proven that it was worth it, we ought to examine it to learn how the game is designed for lessons on how to design future games. BW has gotten the closest out of any video game to becoming as successful as athletic games (soccer) and board games (chess) have become. It makes sense to stay close to its formula, especially when talking specifically about its sequel. Because though there may have been good designs in other RTS's like you said, none of them have added up to anything close to BW. So unless sticking to BW's formula puts us worse and worse off, there's no reason for us to shake up the hat and pick a game design at random that some folks theorize may be the best. I think a lot of us at TL forget how close Blizzard stayed to BW compaired to how much RTS games have changed in the last 10 years. Most games moved far away from base building, economic managment and the even the concept of macro. If you look at many highly rated RTS games in the last 10 years, they removed a lot of the difficulty that made BW the game that it was. And this was considered to be progress, to remove the layers of difficultly and allow players "use strategy" to win. The concept that micro was bad and no one wanted to "baby sit" their units. And then Blizzard made SC2 and everyone loved it. If you listen to some of the interviews from Dustin about when he was first brought on to SC2, he was in shock at how far they were from the industry norm. That Blizzard was sticking with 3 factions, around 45-50 units total and that was it. That there would be no auto build, that the pathing of units would still be slightly retarted. This so far from everything that I have seen in RTS games, which are moving toward more automation. The main conflict with SC2 right now is that Blizzard wants to the game to be accessable, but also be deep. That is a hard balance to make and can lead to things like the "death ball". The death ball really comes from the automation of the units being so efficent that there is no reason to not blob them up and smash down the front door. But Blizzard also has to make it so beginners can enjoy the game and not feel like there is an inpassable learning curve for the game. Doing this will mean few causal players over time and fewer people who may become interested in watching professional play. I recently showed a friend Liquid-Hero's stream and his response was "Wait, you play that? Why would you do that? My god, its so fast." I did tell him I would never be able to play that fast, but he was still in awe that I even attempted it. And to be clear, this friend loves RTS games, but SC2 terrified him. He is now intrested and wants to watch more professional games. The real challenge is how to we make SC2 deeper without losing the accessability. I would love to see fewer death balls, but how do you get that done and still keep the game we have now? This is a harder task that just pointing to BW and saying "this is perfect, so you make this". Drawing some ideas from BW is great, but it should be done with a grain of salt. Blizzard isn't going to do this alone, but we do need to encourage them to give us more tools to combat the blob of DPS. To put it another way, anyone can throw or catch a foot ball and enjoy it. Because of this, we understand how hard it is to throw the ball in the freezing cold while ten, three hundred pound men are attempting to smash the life out of you. The more people who play SC2, the more people can enjoy and respect the highest level of play. We should be wary of making the game so challenging that only the most devoted break into the game.
How many of those "accessible" RTS's are still being played 10 or even 5 years later? And that matters the way Blizz' EULA works whereby they get a cut from tounaments. Would be wise to consider that instead of sales/accessiblty alone.
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Very nice.. I look forward to more things from you in the future ^^
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Oh lovely more BW fans coming into the SC2 forum and telling us that our game needs to be more like theirs to stop sucking; how lovely. 
If you think BW is a much better designed game then watch/play BW, if you think Blizzard needs some tips on how to improve their game then post on their forums.
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On January 12 2012 04:34 TheButtonmen wrote:Oh lovely more BW fans coming into the SC2 forum and telling us that our game needs to be more like theirs to stop sucking; how lovely. If you think BW is a much better designed game then watch/play BW, if you think Blizzard needs some tips on how to improve their game then post on their forums.
people aren't split between sc2 and bw, we love both. and those who knows bw, wants sc2 to improve as it isn't "perfect".
no need to bring up sc2 vs bw. sc2 only has bw to compare to, its natural to compare.
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On January 12 2012 04:32 tdt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 04:13 Plansix wrote:On January 12 2012 02:39 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On January 12 2012 01:36 iky43210 wrote:
it smells bias when you do every one of your comparison with broodwar. This shows your lack of knowledge in the RTS universe in general and perhaps unwilling to accept advantages and good aspects other famous RTS games have.
It simply becomes a strong opinionated post when first thing you do is make a thread and do a one way comparison of X game with Y game, just let it go.
Broodwar is not popular and did not kick off anywhere else but Korea. Just a food for thought BW was very popular worldwide for an RTS. The biggest reasons why a game does not remain immensely popular do not reflect on the game's design. It's not completely fair which games get a shot at being a real competitive game and which don't. BW in Korea has gotten the best shot of any video game ever. Whether the Koreans got it wrong for sticking to the game or the rest of the world got it wrong for abandoning is not even worth time discussing; they have proven that it is a game worth playing for over a decade. There's no discussion to be had about it. Now, given that BW did get a shot and has proven that it was worth it, we ought to examine it to learn how the game is designed for lessons on how to design future games. BW has gotten the closest out of any video game to becoming as successful as athletic games (soccer) and board games (chess) have become. It makes sense to stay close to its formula, especially when talking specifically about its sequel. Because though there may have been good designs in other RTS's like you said, none of them have added up to anything close to BW. So unless sticking to BW's formula puts us worse and worse off, there's no reason for us to shake up the hat and pick a game design at random that some folks theorize may be the best. I think a lot of us at TL forget how close Blizzard stayed to BW compaired to how much RTS games have changed in the last 10 years. Most games moved far away from base building, economic managment and the even the concept of macro. If you look at many highly rated RTS games in the last 10 years, they removed a lot of the difficulty that made BW the game that it was. And this was considered to be progress, to remove the layers of difficultly and allow players "use strategy" to win. The concept that micro was bad and no one wanted to "baby sit" their units. And then Blizzard made SC2 and everyone loved it. If you listen to some of the interviews from Dustin about when he was first brought on to SC2, he was in shock at how far they were from the industry norm. That Blizzard was sticking with 3 factions, around 45-50 units total and that was it. That there would be no auto build, that the pathing of units would still be slightly retarted. This so far from everything that I have seen in RTS games, which are moving toward more automation. The main conflict with SC2 right now is that Blizzard wants to the game to be accessable, but also be deep. That is a hard balance to make and can lead to things like the "death ball". The death ball really comes from the automation of the units being so efficent that there is no reason to not blob them up and smash down the front door. But Blizzard also has to make it so beginners can enjoy the game and not feel like there is an inpassable learning curve for the game. Doing this will mean few causal players over time and fewer people who may become interested in watching professional play. I recently showed a friend Liquid-Hero's stream and his response was "Wait, you play that? Why would you do that? My god, its so fast." I did tell him I would never be able to play that fast, but he was still in awe that I even attempted it. And to be clear, this friend loves RTS games, but SC2 terrified him. He is now intrested and wants to watch more professional games. The real challenge is how to we make SC2 deeper without losing the accessability. I would love to see fewer death balls, but how do you get that done and still keep the game we have now? This is a harder task that just pointing to BW and saying "this is perfect, so you make this". Drawing some ideas from BW is great, but it should be done with a grain of salt. Blizzard isn't going to do this alone, but we do need to encourage them to give us more tools to combat the blob of DPS. To put it another way, anyone can throw or catch a foot ball and enjoy it. Because of this, we understand how hard it is to throw the ball in the freezing cold while ten, three hundred pound men are attempting to smash the life out of you. The more people who play SC2, the more people can enjoy and respect the highest level of play. We should be wary of making the game so challenging that only the most devoted break into the game. How many of those "accessible" RTS's are still being played 10 or even 5 years later? And that matters the way Blizz' EULA works whereby they get a cut from tounaments. Would be wise to consider that instead of sales/accessiblty alone.
Very few of the accessable RTS games are being played, which was my point. Blizzard understood what made BW work so well and tried to include at much of it as possible in SC2.
Also, I doubt that the amount of money Blizzard is making of their EULA and tournments could even compair to the amount they made off sales of the SC2 itself. I don't think it would be wise at all for them to consider their EULA over sales. The vast majority of purchasers do not even touch the multiplayer. I have over 20 friends who own SC2. I am the only one who plays 1v1. Most of them have never even played a single placement match.
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OP is just flat out wrong on several points. You actually need to micro more vs ForceFields, Fungal allows zerg to capitalize on opponent's bad army positioning, and concussive shells ensure Protoss doesn't endlessly kite their units in the first 7 minutes of the game. Colossus has changed since beta, gasp, you need to micro it, but if you do you lose splash benefit, counter to roach is air (or if you like, the counter to anything is that anything), the Thor is slow because if it was fast no Zerg would play the game, and you've clearly never played phoenix vs muta at a high level.
Conclusion: OP doesn't know enough about SC2 to be making threads like these.
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Thank you for putting forcefields as number 1. 
As a random player, I think the most irritating aspect of this entire game are forcefields in their current form. You are right, there really is very little a player can do against them, there are so many circumstances where you are simply left helpless. And the ability to turn entire bases into instant islands indefinitely is absurdly strong.
People too quickly jump on the "But protoss needs forcefields to survive" straw man. We aren't suggesting completely removing forcefields from the game, just tweaking them in some way to make them not so damaging to the skill cap and fun of this game. I agree that being targetable with micro is a very intriguing idea for fixing this problem, though it would be difficult to balance effectively. They would likely either be too strong against early game armies, or too weak against late game armies.
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On January 12 2012 04:54 tehemperorer wrote:
OP is just flat out wrong on several points. You actually need to micro more vs ForceFields, Fungal allows zerg to capitalize on opponent's bad army positioning, and concussive shells ensure Protoss doesn't endlessly kite their units in the first 7 minutes of the game. Colossus has changed since beta, gasp, you need to micro it, but if you do you lose splash benefit, counter to roach is air (or if you like, the counter to anything is that anything), the Thor is slow because if it was fast no Zerg would play the game, and you've clearly never played phoenix vs muta at a high level.
Conclusion: OP doesn't know enough about SC2 to be making threads like these.
"capitalize" here means "instantly win an engagement based on one microsecond of positioning."
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I think you missed some points, this is not BW. SC2 has issues however there are quite a few things you point out as issues that aren't and are rather than bad design things you like about BW. Banelings kill enough. The Lurker filled a droning window/tech window that zerg needed. There is no offensive aoe in BW Zerg, There is no mid game unit that kills or holds marines other than the lurker. In Sc2 there is the infestor and speed baneling these fill the timing for zerg to hold against this.
Second the Phoenix, Look at corsair vs spire. What makes it so interesting is quite similiar of what makes Penix vs Muta interesting in Sc2. It is that neither are stronger than the other it comes down to micro from both sides. Making the Phoenix harder to micro would just make it to hard to micro vs mutas making mutas even harder to fight as they are ezpz to micro in sc2. Basically its not the weight that makes one unit interesting it is the balance between it and the counter weight.
Static defence is fine in Sc2, The point of static defence should rather than defence be to gather time. This something that Sc2 things to better than their BW counterpart does. Sunkens kill things fucking fast but Zealots destroy them.
You need to differentiate between its better design and I like it that way say that bishop could only move maximum 5 spaces, its like your saying its better that it goes as far as it want while not saying anything other than I like it this way. Having something being immobile can make thing more interesting. Terran people are using medivacs to move thors to combat a problem which make everything more interesting.
On January 12 2012 05:03 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 04:54 tehemperorer wrote:
OP is just flat out wrong on several points. You actually need to micro more vs ForceFields, Fungal allows zerg to capitalize on opponent's bad army positioning, and concussive shells ensure Protoss doesn't endlessly kite their units in the first 7 minutes of the game. Colossus has changed since beta, gasp, you need to micro it, but if you do you lose splash benefit, counter to roach is air (or if you like, the counter to anything is that anything), the Thor is slow because if it was fast no Zerg would play the game, and you've clearly never played phoenix vs muta at a high level.
Conclusion: OP doesn't know enough about SC2 to be making threads like these. "capitalize" here means "instantly win an engagement based on one microsecond of positioning."
Instantly lose was how you got better as zerg in BW.
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its the same i thought when i stopped playing sc2 but i never had the will to write about it
gj but it will change nothing and the sc2 fanboys will flame you
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a very nice read again! i love your way on viewing on the game  i also hope the fix alot of that issues with HOTS.
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I agree with much of what you said here. Unfortunately much of the design decisions were done to create a more accessible game to broaden the market appeal of the game to a new audience, which is why you have no-micro Juggernaut-esque units as they let lower skill players access the game more easily. Blizzard did state early on in SC2 development (if memory serves correctly) that they were looking to quicken the pace of games as well, so with that aim they didn't add much map-control units, preferring to provide players with incentives towards having visually appealing and quicker army battles.
With the changes in the HoTS, it seems like they're trying to right some of the wrongs that have happened to the multiplayer gameplay as a result of their focus on more accessible and faster gameplay, with units like the terran shredder that is supposed to provide some sort of map control. But as you said, the core units needs to be changed, and I'm not too sure if Blizzard is willing to change course 180 degrees and address the issues that you brought up.
Instead, I see them making patchwork efforts by adding a few units here and there to give players the choice to utilize their micro and superior decision making abilities to defeat opponents who solely rely on death-ball tactics. It's not a choice that I think is correct, but they are in the business of making games, and they gain nothing from alienating the vast majority of their current userbase. We have to keep in mind that the people that can fully micro, macro, and execute complex strategies are in the minority of people who play and enjoy the game.
Thanks for the writeup. It was a great read.
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I really like your 2 parts, because i think the exact same way! my first rts was sc2 recently i discovered bw ... and it feels so mutch better, i hope blizzard will change atleast something
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Forcefield is a really interesting mechanic on paper. I have to credit Blizzard for making it fit into a game at all. However, the way they implemented it in beta was absolutely game-breaking. Many of you remember the days before massive units crushed forcefields. Many of you remember the days when you could trap units literally inside forcefields so they were unable to do anything. Forcefield was so destructive to the game that Blizzard had to patch in fixes for it. However, part of me thinks that they were only buckling to community complaints and didn't realize exactly what fundamental flaws forcefield had which caused it to be a source for complaint in the first place.
Forcefields cannot be interacted with by the opposing player. All you can do is try to avoid them and bait them as best you can, and hope to drain sentry energy through EMP if you're terran. It comes down to, “does he hit good forcefields or not?” There is no dance between the players, where forcefields come down and the opponent micros against them. I've seen (and been in) many games where a forcefield on the ramp literally ends the game, because there is literally nothing the other player can do about it. Force stuck outside your main? Well, you lost the game.
Force Field is the worst problem in SC2 it's a clutch mechanic that you can't avoid unless the Protoss messes up.
Force Fields do not belong in the game because it encourages little to no micro and saving you in a clutch situations.
clutch mechanics do not belong in RTS and Force Fields certainly are something that the enemy player Terran/Zerg can do little about unless you have medivacs and/or burrowed roaches.
But in many situations in the game you will not have these units/upgrades yet and auto-lose to good force fields.
Broken mechanics should not be involved in an RTS. I'd hope they can re-create the race to not require Force Fields.
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On January 12 2012 04:54 tehemperorer wrote:
OP is just flat out wrong on several points. You actually need to micro more vs ForceFields, Fungal allows zerg to capitalize on opponent's bad army positioning, and concussive shells ensure Protoss doesn't endlessly kite their units in the first 7 minutes of the game. Colossus has changed since beta, gasp, you need to micro it, but if you do you lose splash benefit, counter to roach is air (or if you like, the counter to anything is that anything), the Thor is slow because if it was fast no Zerg would play the game, and you've clearly never played phoenix vs muta at a high level.
Conclusion: OP doesn't know enough about SC2 to be making threads like these.
meh nah i disagree.
you can not micro when the ffs are casted.
what exactly should i do when my ramp is blocked?
yeah sure i could have prevented that but thats not the point
the point is what is my response to that
i dont have one."zerg"
and to talk about what is worse is kind of stupid.
both ability are bad.
but to defend my point that forcefileds are worse.
you can spread your army that less units are hit by that.
but when you do then against ffs the toss says thx for the gift.
not to mention that almost every map has 100choke points.
about the colossus.
dude wtf have you even read the OP?
As such, the colossus does not need careful attention to make sure it is maximizing its role. The only thing you have to do is keep it alive, and it kills everything with glee. As such, the burden does not rest on the protoss player to use the colossus well, but the opposing player to counter them well. The colossus does not become a conduit for interaction between players, because the interaction around the unit is very one-sided, where the protoss simply makes them and his opponent has to react to the units' very existence. As such, either colossus work or they don't. There's no battle where you go, “man, that guy had such great colossus control. If he played worse there he'd have lost it.”
and by right clicking them back when there is no air unit and some 4/5/6 range units try to kill them is micro for you?
counter to roach is air
rly? and whats the counter to losing your nexus/hatch?
and you've clearly never played phoenix vs muta at a high level.
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Yea I thought it was a pretty good read and agreed with a lot of it. Its sad to see some people in this thread so butt hurt about one mans comments on the game... If you don't agree that fine lol there's no need to sound bitter. No I haven't played BW so so don't call me a fan boy lol, I think there is still room for improvement with sc2 and look forward to seeing it develop.
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Comparing the Colossus to the Reaver really shows you how poorly designed the Colossus is. That isn't to say that the Reaver needs to return, as it doesn't. The Colossus just needs to be made harder.
Most glaringly is the Colossus' absurd ability to walk over friendly units, meaning you can't even catch the goddamn thing out of position. If you go through work of flanking the unit and attack it at the rear of it's ball where it's vulnerable, it'll just walk over it's stalkers until it's safe back in the middle. It's very hard to be punished for using a Colossus poorly.
I wouldn't mind seeing a Protoss without warp gates, force fields, and easymode Colossus... but it's probably too late to make such radical changes.
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EPT
