EPTDo We Want the Game Harder? - Page 27
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branflakes14
2082 Posts
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10328 Posts
On January 24 2012 16:22 Koshi wrote: Mechanical it should be a bit harder. Something simple like a 25 food cap on selection and removing MBS would be a great step. This is ofcourse not balanced in WoL but should be something Blizzard should consider for HotS imo. You realize that making it mechanically harder again will simply put even less focus on micro? | ||
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dUTtrOACh
Canada2339 Posts
I feel too many players are way narcissistic about how good they think they are and they would rather blame something like the perceived "ease" of a game which is supposed to be a level playing field for why so many people are better than them at it. What some perceive as ease, others perceive as having a good interface and being responsive, versus having a dated interface while being awkward. That could simply be a barrier which needs to be overcome. The interface is beautiful... so leave it alone. On a side note, barring the interface of Star 2, I think HotS could do with a harder brutal campaign with some harder challenges and achievements. It would be interesting to see achieves and portraits for 2500 and 5000 league wins (especially if they pop up as earned on day 1). The currently proposed Terran units for HotS are pretty "A-clickish" (besides the shredder which is kind of boring and reeks of cheese potential) and I'm not very big on this whole transformers concept they're pushing so hard. At the very least, these changes will lower the perceived skill-cap for Terran and make TvAliens easier. For Protoss, I'm going to miss the mothership and it's sad to see that Blizzard has just given up on giving the community time to work mutalisks through their system. That tempest looks like an uninteresting muta-killer. It's pretty cool that they're getting the T1000, though. Killing Protoss should be a bit harder come HotS. Zerg gets a Death Knight. Anybody who's played WoW will tell you, Death Knight is pretty good. | ||
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branflakes14
2082 Posts
On January 25 2012 06:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: You realize that making it mechanically harder again will simply put even less focus on micro? Not necessarily, it'll just mean that players that can pump out the kind of effective APM the game would be asking for would rise to the top of the pile. At the moment it feels like the game doesn't have near enough focus on mechanics. Like a football game with no running, just ball kicking. | ||
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Eknoid4
United States902 Posts
You could play sc2 and have 4 control groups of 15-30 units each for one army, but you rarely see that because it's hard. Because players haven't evolved in this game hardly at all. | ||
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firehand101
Australia3152 Posts
On January 25 2012 09:39 Eknoid4 wrote: The sad part about this thread is that people think the only way to control multiple groups of units is if you put a cap on the amount of units per control group (there is one, by the way. Try putting 400 zerglings on one control group) You could play sc2 and have 4 control groups of 15-30 units each for one army, but you rarely see that because it's hard. Because players haven't evolved in this game hardly at all. Not really, i think that is what you are thinking | ||
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iamke55
United States2806 Posts
On January 25 2012 06:10 branflakes14 wrote: It feels like a bit of a trick question. The difficulty in any multiplayer game (co-op aside) isn't the game itself, but your opponent since everything is a common factor between players and thus cancels out. What Starcraft 2 is lacking for me is the ability to control what's happening to any great extent. Everything's too one dimensional. Just like Day9 said a while ago, Starcraft 2 is like playing with a ball, there's only so much you can do with it until it just becomes a case of how accurately you can throw it. Although Starcraft 2's lower skill requirements make it like playing with a ball, there are still many who defend it by arguing that you can always throw a ball more accurately. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On January 25 2012 15:21 iamke55 wrote: Although Starcraft 2's lower skill requirements make it like playing with a ball, there are still many who defend it by arguing that you can always throw a ball more accurately. Honestly... I don't like that comparison. Look at ballsports: Everyone plays with the same rules (no "race" principle), everyone plays on the same pitch (no "map" principle), everyone plays with a ball. Yet I would argue that at least in some ballgames the skilldifference between players/teams does matter at least the same as in in SC2 or BW or frisbee games. Based on those indicators: -) market value differences of players/teams -) winrates (e.g: FC Barcelona had a 79% winrate in 2010/11 in spain - no KO-sytem, which would "artificially" raise the winrate of a team to 100% if they became champion!) But I get what Day9 tried to argue with it, but I also remember the part in which he said: "right now, it feels like this, but this may change with the metagame" and the other part where he said "in BW this was because the units did not do what you wanted them to do, unless you were babysitting them". Also because I don't want to be always the guy who just says: "you are looking at the wrong things when you try to find ways to improve SC2", I'd like to give my opinion on what (in my eyes) could be done to further improve SC2 without breaking with fundamental game mechanics, or changing the game to broodwar 2.0: a) slow down macro: -) larva injects should go down by 25-50% in efficientness -) mules (or Terran mineral units) should be nerfed (not removed: mule/scan duality is awesome) -) If the Nexus gets more powerful in HotS, they should also increase it's cost -) higher warpgate cooldowns and production cooldowns on Terran/Protoss unit production -) more "stepping stones" for low-mid tier units (possibly for small costs): like roach, roach+burrow, roach+speed, roach+burrow movement, or marine, marine+shield, marine+stim, marine+medivac; all without buffing the "endversion" of those units: e.g: mutalisk glaive worm upgrade, sentry guardian shield upgrade, T2 Adrenalin Glands for zerglings (combined with less larva), hellion battleform upgrade b) Unit buffs/nerfs -) (very) small speednerfs and firespeed nerfs on most units -) (very) small buffs/upgrades for units that are hard to mass c) strengthen micro abilities: -) more micro abilities like blink and burrow or lift, instead of raw firepower/health/speed/range balancing. -) burrow to T1, if it doesn't break the balance too much; better burrow regeneration for roaches, maybe a similar hydralisk upgrade/ability -) better methods to targetfire. (Maybe something like "shift+a"-attack on a unit forces all your units to fire at the next unit of that type, with all its consequences: overkill, units running towards the enemy line to attack the next such target - but on the other end the reward for being able to make your marauders shoot only stalkers and your marines shoot only zealots while kiting.) d) other stuff: -) smaller detection radius - single dts/banshees and infestors and few roaches are just not worth the risk right now -) more timing interactions like zealots+1 vs zergling+0, marines with stim vs banelings without speed etc. - a little bit of additional brain tools to fool around with -) maybe more "morphs" for zerg, so that small amounts of units have more value -) better scouting options - if I know better what my opponent is doing, I can be more sure of wether I want to engage/harass or not. What should that stuff do? a): Mostly to take money out of the game and to give players more time to work with the units they have (more poking and multitasking). Also to make the forming of huge armies a little harder overall. If only 16zerglings pop out at once instead of 20, I can poke more. If only 8drones pop out at once, the time until he can afford units again is longer. If a nexus costs more, expansions are later and Protoss has to work with less money. (same for mules) Stepping stones take out more money as well and force more complex builds, while not influencing the general unit balancing too much. I also think that taking out money takes out reactivness, therefore rewards the player that actively finds ways to trade efficiently. b) slower units with less firepower means longer combats means more time to reposition. But I'm talking VERY small changes (like 1%). Hard to mass units (Ultralisk, Broodlord, Carrier/BC/Tempest, Mothership, Raven) are a little too limited by passive costs. 20min broodlords if and only if my opponent allows me to play in this way are just too late to really base a concrete gameplan around. But if half of the broodlords at 16min would already be a useful tool, people could experiment with smaller broodlord attacks of less bases. (or just implement an extra raven etc.) c) I think that speaks for itself. Due to the AI of SC2 being good, the basic stuff doesn't need so much babysitting anymore. Instead there should be more rewarding "babysitting" options... But without just being an extra APM-consuming tool, like "just make hardened shields an activated ability, so you have to spam it". I'm thinking stuff like blink (not just pure combat strenghtening and even in combat somewhat optional: you don't want to blink micro too hard, if you need your blink to chase opponents, and you don't want to blink everything into marauders...). Maybe some "flash out" ability to protect protoss casters, but with the downside of them not being useable for the next X seconds. Maybe some form of viking transformation "abuse" to avoid shots. Maybe an egg upgrade, that makes zerg units hide in highly armored eggs and block movement, when on creep. d) explanations given Final note: Of course everything has to be balanced out. But with HotS having a beta and a volatile phase anyways, there would be room for such changes without influencing WoL or professional play. | ||
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redDuke
Australia207 Posts
As for people wanting harder mechanics (control groups etc being limited), this just makes for a more stressful task of interfacing with the game. Why 1a, 2a, 3a somewhere when 1a is enough, and lets you get back to macroing etc | ||
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Sawamura
Malaysia7602 Posts
On January 25 2012 20:30 redDuke wrote: I kinda feel that the more people 'figure out' the game, the more other people will have to improve their game to counteract that. Though there seems to be no skill cap at the moment, what is lacking in the game (especially coming from me as a mainly toss player) is *variety* of game styles and tactics. Hopefully Hots will give us all more variety and complexity in our strats. As for people wanting harder mechanics (control groups etc being limited), this just makes for a more stressful task of interfacing with the game. Why 1a, 2a, 3a somewhere when 1a is enough, and lets you get back to macroing etc I use to 1a2a3a , than I realised If i do that my unit's are dumb enough to get into unfavourable position , now I control each group's before entering in to an engagement which makes me happy in the result as my units do what I intended them to do instead . Solve the 1a2a3a argument . | ||
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littlemozart7
69 Posts
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rd
United States2586 Posts
On January 24 2012 19:55 Koshi wrote: -How would you like it if they changed the creep tumor spread system? Instead of having to click the new tumor and place it further, in HotS the creep tumor just automatically on cooldown spawns towards a point that you can decide on in the start and can be manually changed if needed. This feels unnatural not? The game is far from played perfectly, but simple things like automine, MBS and mass unit selection can be added to the game and the pro's and master players will still be able to execute the same builds, perform at the same level, but will have a bigger reward for their practice. There is a big misconception that extra "needless" clicks bring out worse timings/gameplay. I am certain that all the pro players who practice +8 hours a day can execute the same timings, build orders or strategies if they didn't have automine/MBS/1a. These "needless" clicks would bring much joy to casual gamers as well. People don't understand how great it is to have to click every building to make a unit. How much more beautiful an army moves if you can only select a limited amount at the time. Simply because they never had to do it. Like I said, what if tomorrow creep spread was automatic, would you like it? Thats a ridiculous comparison though. You could literally just go down a long list of features to streamline. Blizzard chose a couple of mechanics that were limited by the engine of BW, and fixed/'made them easier.' They didn't go any further to keep the game at their choice of difficulty level. It's a line drawn in the sand. It's not some oversight where they didn't realize fixing those features would make the game easier, it was completely intentional. And like it was mentioned before: They're trying to push some more units to task spare APM with, replacing the APM that went to the harder mechanics to benefit control and decision making. Beyond that, it's really whether or not you'd prefer the difficulty in mechanics. I don't see why people looking for hard mechanics can't play BW. SC2 can be difficult with out them. | ||
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japro
172 Posts
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Eviscerador
Spain286 Posts
I still don't see the point about the fact that in SC2 the UI is better than in BW. It is like grumbling about the new laser printers when only good administratives could type pages so fast on the old machines... Come on, the future is now! At OP. If making SC2 harder you mean more tactical deep and unit composition, then I agree. But increasing complexity of the tech tree and downgrading the UI is NOT the way. BTW, at everyone bitching about the "ball syndrome" I would like to say that you needed micro in BW to avoid the "conga line" and do a proper spread. Now in SC2 you need micro also to avoid the "ball syndrome" and do a proper concave to avoid AoE and get better fire placement. | ||
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drgoats
United States310 Posts
It will also allow more players to compete near the top level which will create a more dynamic scene. And if you are worried that this will prevent players from standing out at the top then you can look at a Warcraft III, a game that this community constantly criticizes for being too easy, and you will see that their top level guys were always at the top and for many years. | ||
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y0su
Finland7871 Posts
On January 25 2012 22:23 Eviscerador wrote: I still remember when WC3 RoC got out and everyone were amazed about the automine, multiple rack selection and smartcasting. I still don't see the point about the fact that in SC2 the UI is better than in BW. It is like grumbling about the new laser printers when only good administratives could type pages so fast on the old machines... Come on, the future is now! At OP. If making SC2 harder you mean more tactical deep and unit composition, then I agree. But increasing complexity of the tech tree and downgrading the UI is NOT the way. BTW, at everyone bitching about the "ball syndrome" I would like to say that you needed micro in BW to avoid the "conga line" and do a proper spread. Now in SC2 you need micro also to avoid the "ball syndrome" and do a proper concave to avoid AoE and get better fire placement. ^ I couldn't agree more. People keep complaining about units clumping up AND that the mechanics are too easy... "Unlimited" unit selection is NOT the problem. The problem is players not reaching the full potential that they could have with better unit positions and groups. I think SC2 has a long way to go before we can say it's "too easy" | ||
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Dellward
Australia138 Posts
More spells and micro intensive units and abilities are what we need. Browder always talks about "removing food from the deathballs" with units like the new Protoss Oracle, the new zerg Viper, Warp Prisms, etc and I'm glad that that's the direction HOTS looks like it's going in. I mean, look at a game like WC3 that had all of the above mechanical features but still had a huge, huge micro skill-ceiling, with every unit and hero having multiple spells, etc. Obviously we don't want SC2 to reach that kind of variation (the sheer amount of units that you can field in SC2 would just reach clusterfuck proportions if that were the case) but a decent amount more would be nice. And we need to slowly add that on, otherwise we risk breaking the game (which is what Blizzard is doing.) So if you ask me, SC2 is right on track in the grand scheme of things. | ||
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Bleak
Turkey3059 Posts
On January 26 2012 01:17 y0su wrote: ^ I couldn't agree more. People keep complaining about units clumping up AND that the mechanics are too easy... "Unlimited" unit selection is NOT the problem. The problem is players not reaching the full potential that they could have with better unit positions and groups. I think SC2 has a long way to go before we can say it's "too easy" The reason players aren't doing it is because there isn't any incentive. The deatballs have so high firepower that if you stop and try to split in the middle of a battle (banelings v. marines excluded as they are a melee unit) or try to reposition a split second, you will lose 20% of your army without dealing any damage to the other side. This is enough to turn the tables against you and you will lose that battle unless you are heavily ahead in upgrades or your units are rock whereas his are scissors. And as we all know, if you lose a main battle in SC2, that's it, game over, there is no comeback unless your opponent is retarded. Furthermore, using multiple control groups to control a ball does not result as effective and efficient firepower which is needed in the battles to crush the opponent. Even if it did, what incentive is there to split a colo-stalker deathball into three sub groups? If you send them seperately they will lose laughably to your opponent's army, as they are supposed to work together in group. Don't make it look like the players are idiots and they don't know that they can use multiple hotkeys. The problem is, there is no incentive. Units in SC2 most of the times at least in battles, can fight with just 1-a and do well enough, because they are that smart. This is at least true for Protoss, I have been following about only TvZs and TvTs for past few months in SC2, as I can't stand watching PvPs, ZvZs(it isn't that great in BW tho, but at least good muta-scourge micro can make a player shine) PvTs or PvZs. Honestly I think the biggest problem of this game is Protoss and how terribly it was designed. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On January 26 2012 01:30 Bleak wrote: The reason players aren't doing it is because there isn't any incentive. The deatballs have so high firepower that if you stop and try to split in the middle of a battle (banelings v. marines excluded as they are a melee unit) or try to reposition a split second, you will lose 20% of your army without dealing any damage to the other side. This is enough to turn the tables against you and you will lose that battle unless you are heavily ahead in upgrades or your units are rock whereas his are scissors. And as we all know, if you lose a main battle in SC2, that's it, game over, there is no comeback unless your opponent is retarded. Furthermore, using multiple control groups to control a ball does not result as effective and efficient firepower which is needed in the battles to crush the opponent. Even if it did, what incentive is there to split a colo-stalker deathball into three sub groups? If you send them seperately they will lose laughably to your opponent's army, as they are supposed to work together in group. Don't make it look like the players are idiots and they don't know that they can use multiple hotkeys. The problem is, there is no incentive. Units in SC2 most of the times at least in battles, can fight with just 1-a and do well enough, because they are that smart. This is at least true for Protoss, I have been following about only TvZs and TvTs for past few months in SC2, as I can't stand watching PvPs, ZvZs(it isn't that great in BW tho, but at least good muta-scourge micro can make a player shine) PvTs or PvZs. Honestly I think the biggest problem of this game is Protoss and how terribly it was designed. Yeah. There is no way to move units in between shots. You lose exactly 20% army with this move! Like Zerglings and banelings are completly useless against Protoss, Infestors overall unplayable, warp prisms useless and 1 Thor counters 50mutalisks. I'm just glad that at least in SC2 I play a race that can evolve, as it seems humans aren't... | ||
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Zandar
Netherlands1541 Posts
Im a crappy silver/gold casual player but my total noob friends who bought it last month didn't have any chance beating me 3 vs 1.... after playing for like a week The next days they played a lot of ladder in bronze league, but of course they really sucked still. They took gas before barracks at 8 scvs, stuff you don't even see in bronze league anymore. Because even people there know their builds and how to expand etc after a year. So beating the campain and a little laddering , after like 100/100 losses they gave up on sc2. If there was a league below bronze where they would have won like 1 in 10 they might actually be a little more encouraged to stay, but now they thought, well I tried but I will never learn this and quit. And that's a bit of a shame. They aren't bad gamers or anything, pretty sure if they practiced a few months they would be my skill level at least. But for a total noob, a total beginner, even bronze leauge seems to be too hard right now. Because the total skill level increased a lot, bronze now is what silver was a year ago Maybe there should be a league for new accounts only and if you're still in it after for example a month or 50 games you are automaticly promoted to bronze. | ||
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