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On January 24 2012 00:23 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:18 Whitewing wrote:
When players are playing perfectly you can complain about skill caps being too low and the game being too easy. For a so called 'easy' game, people sure make a lot of mistakes. I see  firebathero and Flash getting supply block in the middle phase of the game . Bw must be easy because they do make a lot of mistakes too.
What you said there just made absolutely and positively no sense. In-fact, I'm completely baffled by how your thought process came to that conclusion in instinctively defending Brood War for no apparent reason.
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I dont agree with making the UI harder like in BW (no automine, clunky pathing, etc), because that was just unnecessary, except for maybe stuff like 12-unit control groups would really bring back a staple multitasking/mechanical element that should make the game harder + more fun to watch. I think once people stop bitching about how they can't 1a big 200/200 armies we could really see some new dynamics to how the game is played.
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On January 23 2012 22:13 HiSi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2012 20:58 Lysenko wrote:
That there are GSL Code S players who win two thirds or more of their games tells me there's no skill cap that matters in SC2. Under that logic there must not be a skill cap in BW, last I checked Flash and Jaedong have rather retarded high w/l.
There isn't a skill cap that can realistically be reached in a game with this many variables regardless of the potential being lower than BWs. Starcraft 2 might be easier than BW, but it's still one of the hardest and most competitive games out there.
As for the topic at hand.
Make the game more mechanically demanding by gimping the UI? No.
Make the game more mechanically demanding by adding units get exponentially better with micro for all races? Yes.
Make the game more mechanically demanding by adding macro mechanics that enforce good mechanics? Yes.
Design the maps to allow for more intelligent and strategic play? Yes.
No more needs to be said really.
/thread
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On January 24 2012 00:28 MichaelJLowell wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:23 Sawamura wrote:On January 24 2012 00:18 Whitewing wrote:
When players are playing perfectly you can complain about skill caps being too low and the game being too easy. For a so called 'easy' game, people sure make a lot of mistakes. I see firebathero and Flash getting supply block in the middle phase of the game . Bw must be easy because they do make a lot of mistakes too. What you said there just made absolutely and positively no sense. In-fact, I'm completely baffled by how your thought process came to that conclusion in instinctively defending Brood War for no apparent reason.
I am not defending broodwar at all , I watch their fpvods and I do realized that they do get supply block when things get too hot and I mean hot in terms of engagements every where :O.
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Ease of gameplay and just being able to '1A' to victory, rather than selecting 12 units at a time to attack, has sparked a universal debate that will most likely go on for a long time still.
I, for one, am on the side that Starcraft 2 is a much, MUCH easier game than BW after playing both, strategically (most likely due to the time it had to develop) but more importantly, mechanically. Is this bad? This is the question I am asking, and I for one think that it is the most important aspect of the game.
Try A-moving vs someone set up in defensive position with concave and good spread then talk.
God, when will those stupid threads end. People talking about skill cap and having no fucking clue what it means. There is plenty more actions to be done to win battles that top tier players are not even close of achieving.
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On January 23 2012 23:50 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I'll tell you what.
If this game is not easy, then why don't some of you guys in GM/top masters come play some BW for a while. Clearly it shouldn't be that hard, because the game is just as hard, right?
No one ever stated that SC2 was just as hard as BW. People just discuss that there is no need to make SC2 harder since the skill cap is not reached
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I dont like how you sell all the pros of this sport short by saying "you don't have to work hard to reach the top". It does take a lot of work to reach the top, and SC2 is the hardest game since BW.
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I believe there are many ways to make SC2 better that don't involve directly increasing the mechanical difficulty. For instance if units didn't clump so much it would instantly make it a better game to me. That's almost zero sum mechanically, in some circumstances you want your cute lil ball of bio to occupy a tiny amount of space and destroy everything with absolutely no input from the user and others you want your units spread out. Aesthetically it improves the game, and gameplay wise it makes splash less rapey
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On January 24 2012 00:23 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:18 Whitewing wrote:
When players are playing perfectly you can complain about skill caps being too low and the game being too easy. For a so called 'easy' game, people sure make a lot of mistakes. I see firebathero and Flash getting supply block in the middle phase of the game . Bw must be easy because they do make a lot of mistakes too. Lets see.
-Sc2 too easy mechanically.
Counter argument: Then why are good players making simple mistakes?
-Something
Rhetorical conclusion: BW is easy because good players make simple mistakes.
scratches head
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Ideally Blizzard could find a way to up the skill ceiling at the top levels while keeping the game accessible and fun to newbies, but that is a tall order.
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On January 24 2012 00:34 AceTenRyu wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2012 23:50 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I'll tell you what.
If this game is not easy, then why don't some of you guys in GM/top masters come play some BW for a while. Clearly it shouldn't be that hard, because the game is just as hard, right? No one ever stated that SC2 was just as hard as BW. People just discuss that there is no need to make SC2 harder since the skill cap is not reached
How can we define the term skill cap ? for broodwar and sc2 ?
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On January 24 2012 00:32 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:28 MichaelJLowell wrote:On January 24 2012 00:23 Sawamura wrote:On January 24 2012 00:18 Whitewing wrote:
When players are playing perfectly you can complain about skill caps being too low and the game being too easy. For a so called 'easy' game, people sure make a lot of mistakes. I see firebathero and Flash getting supply block in the middle phase of the game . Bw must be easy because they do make a lot of mistakes too. What you said there just made absolutely and positively no sense. In-fact, I'm completely baffled by how your thought process came to that conclusion in instinctively defending Brood War for no apparent reason. I am not defending broodwar at all , I watch their fpvods and I do realized that they do get supply block when things get too hot and I mean hot in terms of engagements every where :O.
The original statement was that "You can't call StarCraft II easy when players make mistakes all the time." Your reply was "People still make cheap mistakes in StarCraft: Brood War, does that mean that game is easy?" You misunderstood what he said.
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Why are we arguing about this? We have not gotten close to the skillcap. Marine splitting is at a fraction where it will be. Stalker blink micro is getting good but will become even better. I watch top protoss players sitting with an afk phoenix for half the game when it should constantly be moving and annoying the enemy. Just give it more time.
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On January 24 2012 00:37 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:34 AceTenRyu wrote:On January 23 2012 23:50 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I'll tell you what.
If this game is not easy, then why don't some of you guys in GM/top masters come play some BW for a while. Clearly it shouldn't be that hard, because the game is just as hard, right? No one ever stated that SC2 was just as hard as BW. People just discuss that there is no need to make SC2 harder since the skill cap is not reached How can we define the term skill cap ? for broodwar and sc2 ?
Here is a possibility...
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=210057
--> Skill cap not humanly reachable 
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I was just about to make a similar post to this. Op says truth, and i gonna put my thoughts in here later.
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Should SC2 be more mechanically difficult? No, it's already bloody hard to master all the mechanics of Starcraft 2.
Think about Chess or Go; it is very easy to learn the mechanics, but there is enormous strategic and tactical depth to them such that players can spend a lifetime on them and still find them challenging.
SC2 shouldn't be so physically demanding that only a few have the reflexes to play it at all, it's the strategic depth that makes the game interesting at high levels, not just the display of high APM skills.
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On January 24 2012 00:41 MichaelJLowell wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:32 Sawamura wrote:On January 24 2012 00:28 MichaelJLowell wrote:On January 24 2012 00:23 Sawamura wrote:On January 24 2012 00:18 Whitewing wrote:
When players are playing perfectly you can complain about skill caps being too low and the game being too easy. For a so called 'easy' game, people sure make a lot of mistakes. I see firebathero and Flash getting supply block in the middle phase of the game . Bw must be easy because they do make a lot of mistakes too. What you said there just made absolutely and positively no sense. In-fact, I'm completely baffled by how your thought process came to that conclusion in instinctively defending Brood War for no apparent reason. I am not defending broodwar at all , I watch their fpvods and I do realized that they do get supply block when things get too hot and I mean hot in terms of engagements every where :O. The original statement was that "You can't call StarCraft II easy when players make mistakes all the time." Your reply was "People still make cheap mistakes in StarCraft: Brood War, does that mean that game is easy?" You misunderstood what he said.
In both games , both of this "Progamers" do make mistake getting supply block , not injecting larvae to get more larvae,not chrono boosting and pro gamers in broodwar also do miss their macro cycle timing . Both games are not easy .
On January 24 2012 00:43 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:37 Sawamura wrote:On January 24 2012 00:34 AceTenRyu wrote:On January 23 2012 23:50 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I'll tell you what.
If this game is not easy, then why don't some of you guys in GM/top masters come play some BW for a while. Clearly it shouldn't be that hard, because the game is just as hard, right? No one ever stated that SC2 was just as hard as BW. People just discuss that there is no need to make SC2 harder since the skill cap is not reached How can we define the term skill cap ? for broodwar and sc2 ? Here is a possibility... http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=210057--> Skill cap not humanly reachable
But that kind of capability is only capable of being done by robots ...
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On January 24 2012 00:37 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:34 AceTenRyu wrote:On January 23 2012 23:50 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I'll tell you what.
If this game is not easy, then why don't some of you guys in GM/top masters come play some BW for a while. Clearly it shouldn't be that hard, because the game is just as hard, right? No one ever stated that SC2 was just as hard as BW. People just discuss that there is no need to make SC2 harder since the skill cap is not reached How can we define the term skill cap ? for broodwar and sc2 ?
The skill cap of a game is the point where you execute every single action optimally, or at the very least, every aspect that has a significant bearing on the game.
The skill cap of Starcraft 2 might be as massive as the sun in comparison to Brood Wars Antares to make a silly comparison. You'd be a fool thinking you could bench press the sun because it's not as massive as Antares. Both have a mass/skill cap that's way beyond anything a human being can pull off, which makes it irrelevant.
If the current SC2 pros are at an average skill level of x, the current top tier Brood war average pros would be at a skill level of x+5. BW is just that much more mechanically harder to play, and the BW pros, while being better than the current SC2 pros due to their experience and training regimen, are still human beings who are limited by their human bodies and minds, and they prioritize on what makes the biggest impact when they play the game, and there are always a x+trillion variables left untouched because they're to slow handle them, whereas in SC2 there'd "only" be x+billion variables left untouched because the pros are to slow to handle them. The skill cap of the games lie in handling all the variables of the game. When people actually peak SC2 and play like automatons, you can complain about the skill cap being reached.
THAT SAID, there is still a lot you can do to make the game more interesting, which is implementing units that have a ton more variables to use, variables that are interesting and mechanically rewarding rather than small, to make the game better.
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On January 24 2012 00:45 Freddybear wrote:
Should SC2 be more mechanically difficult? No, it's already bloody hard to master all the mechanics of Starcraft 2.
Think about Chess or Go; it is very easy to learn the mechanics, but there is enormous strategic and tactical depth to them such that players can spend a lifetime on them and still find them challenging.
SC2 shouldn't be so physically demanding that only a few have the reflexes to play it at all, it's the strategic depth that makes the game interesting at high levels, not just the display of high APM skills.
having enough apm should/do make certain strategies viable. just look at marine micro vs banelings...
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Northern Ireland27265 Posts
Ok I was thinking about this the other day, and postulating as to what Blizzards thinking is.
1. Macro is easier, it is harder to get ahead just by macroing like a beast, and hard to come back from a deficit if your opponent is just macroing 'ok'. This makes the games defined by critical engagements because you can't make up a deficit if your opponent isn't retarded. There are relatively few players who are lauded specifically for being good at macro, because it's pretty easy to get up to par in that respect.
2. Micro is still a good area that skill differentials exist in, but the problem here is that after the early/midgame and the arrival of deathballs, micro becomes less and less important as the army sizes grow bigger.
Now it is fine for these two areas to be easier, in my view. I don't like the deathball syndrome but Blizzard seem loathe to change it. There needs to be more variation in a third category.
3. Strategy. If there is little to separate the average from the good in the prior two categories, there must be more capacity to out-think your opponent. I think this is where Blizzard are trying to push things with the next two expansions. The problem with the game as it is at present is that there are not enough ways to do this. The matchups progress in a pretty standard way with little scope for imagination.
Note I don't count coinflip bo wins as 'out-thinking' your opponent, though they are an important and interesting facet of competitive Starcraft. I'm referring to the ability to think on your feet and make dynamic tactical choices.
Here are just a few ideas that have been put forward in the past
1. Make warpgate cooldown > gateway cooldown. This is a simple, simple change that would introduce an interesting strategic dynamic. You can go aggression heavy, with fewer units but utilising forward pylons to try and pressure your opponent, or you can safely macro up and get more units, but without as much aggressive potential.
I think Blizzard really need to not drop the ball with the next few expansions and patches. Appealing to casual players by dumbing the game down is retarded, because they don't tend to advertise the game in the same way that high-level players do. I for example and some of my friends have streamed in the past, done video diaries from Dreamhack, and people on my Facebook who had never played an RTS were intrigued and bought Starcraft because of it.
Making a game easier to appeal to casuals is a stupid concept that doesn't work. As an analogy I'll take the Call of Duty series. Basically whether through incompetence or intention, the devs always included one weapon that was super powerful, good at everything and easy to use, in short it was 'imba'. I believe this was intentional (it happened in like 5 separate titles), to appeal to the casual players. However, when you give bad players an easy to use weapon, you also give the good players such a weapon so the casuals still end up getting destroyed, but the game is railroaded down a path that everyone at a competitive level HAS to use such a weapon to compete.
Starcraft has a matchmaking system that pits you against players of an equivalent level. That should be enough to not dishearten the casual player, as they will be playing similarly skilled opponents, you don't need to dumb down the game more to do so.
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EPT
