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On January 24 2012 00:48 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +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...
And the only way those stragies become viable to begin with is when you have the APM to spare to do them because you don't have to waste them doing menial tasks in your base that the UI should take care for you to begin with.
Basically, add in more units that are microable and add in interesting and tactical macro mechanics.
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The game is still incredibly difficult, but for the sake of the professionals, it needs to have a slightly higher skill cap, just slightly though.
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These types of threads are so stupid.
Was broodwar harder to play? Of course. But there is a difference between a game being hard to play and a game being hard to win at the top levels. Take a look at chess. Learning how to play and being able to play is so simple that a child can do it. Learning to play well enough to beat top grandmasters? Takes an immense amount of innate talent and decades of study and learning and practice.
There is a HUGE difference between a game being mechanically difficult and a game being strategically difficult. Do you really want a game that is just mechanically more difficult? Then play broodwar for nostalgia. Again, I'm using the example of chess here, because it's a truly amazing game. The strategic depth in chess is absolutely immense, and in the end it's got only 6 different pieces and 64 squares. Now imagine a board with thousands of squares and a hundred pieces played in real time, that's starcraft. No matter how dumbed down blizzard makes the UI, it will still be complex enough to have a limitless skill cap, and a limitless skill cap means a game is only as hard as your competition.
I'm gonna repeat that since it's a simple idea people don't understand yet. In a game with no skill cap, the difficulty depends entirely on your competition. Not the unit mechanics, not the rally mechanics, not spell mechanics, not any of that shit matters. We don't want a game to be harder to PLAY, we want a game to be harder to WIN. And if SC2 is easier to win, it's because the level of play has not reached that of broodwar.
Please don't tell me the skill cap in SC2 will be reached eventually either. That's nonsense.
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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 ...[/QUOTE]
Well, the thing that I was pointing to is: as long as you would need like 20.000 exact APM to micro a battle perfectly with exact precision, there will always be room for people to outplay each other with a limit of 200-300 APM with spamclicking.
There will simply never ever be a gamer that knows exactly how to play a complex situation right, meaning intuition will always play a huge role and there will always be room for development.
furthermore, people might get faster than they are now, which means that kind of stuff gets "more capable".
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On January 24 2012 00:47 Dalavita 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 ? 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.
Fair enough thanks for the detailed information .
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Northern Ireland24539 Posts
On January 24 2012 00:55 liberal wrote:
These types of threads are so stupid.
Was broodwar harder to play? Of course. But there is a difference between a game being hard to play and a game being hard to win at the top levels. Take a look at chess. Learning how to play and being able to play is so simple that a child can do it. Learning to play well enough to beat top grandmasters? Takes an immense amount of innate talent and decades of study and learning and practice.
There is a HUGE difference between a game being mechanically difficult and a game being strategically difficult. Do you really want a game that is just mechanically more difficult? Then play broodwar for nostalgia. Again, I'm using the example of chess here, because it's a truly amazing game. The strategic depth in chess is absolutely immense, and in the end it's got only 6 different pieces and 64 squares. Now imagine a board with thousands of squares and a hundred pieces played in real time, that's starcraft. No matter how dumbed down blizzard makes the UI, it will still be complex enough to have a limitless skill cap, and a limitless skill cap means a game is only as hard as your competition.
I'm gonna repeat that since it's a simple idea people don't understand yet. In a game with no skill cap, the difficulty depends entirely on your competition. Not the unit mechanics, not the rally mechanics, not spell mechanics, not any of that shit matters. We don't want a game to be harder to PLAY, we want a game to be harder to WIN. And if SC2 is easier to win, it's because the level of play has not reached that of broodwar.
Please don't tell me the skill cap in SC2 will be reached eventually either. That's nonsense.
I made the point that I don't necessarily mind SC2 being mechanically less demanding than BW if the capacity to out-strategise your opponent was just as big or bigger. Don't think that's the case yet either but we shall see after the two expansions
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On January 24 2012 00:45 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:41 MichaelJLowell wrote: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 .
He didn't say anything you're suggesting. He did not say StarCraft II is easy. He did not say Brood War is easy. He said it is silly for other players to state that StarCraft II is easy, the reason being that the best players continue to make mistakes. He cast no personal judgment on either game, and never even mentioned Brood War. There was no "StarCraft II vs. Brood War" argument to be found anywhere in that statement. You're taking his original statement and using it to invoke a comparison that has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'm trying to be nice about it (and given how dumb this particular discussion thread is to begin with, I'm being really reserved here), but I'm still baffled you came to that conclusion.
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On January 24 2012 00:57 MichaelJLowell wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 00:45 Sawamura wrote:On January 24 2012 00:41 MichaelJLowell wrote: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 . He didn't say anything you're suggesting. He did not say StarCraft II is easy. He did not say Brood War is easy. He said it is silly for other players to state that StarCraft II is easy, the reason being that the best players continue to make mistakes. He cast no personal judgment on either game, and never even mentioned Brood War. There was no "StarCraft II vs. Brood War" argument to be found anywhere in that statement. You're taking his original statement and using it to invoke a comparison that has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I am taking his experience on what he says about players mistake in sc2 and relate it to what I know about broodwar and yeah like I said I have respect for both games and I am just stating the obvious . Mistakes happen in broodwar too and sc2 is not a easy game . Because in both games players has to be multi tasking on the fly and juggle between microing or macroing . Not trying to sound condescending in any way to be honest if that's what you are trying to say I am doing here .
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On January 24 2012 00:54 Wombat_NI wrote:
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.
Agree with both issues. I've always felt a bit sad that the games macro, while being hard as hell to play optimally is enough to keep any advantage by playing at 70% efficiency. Idra also mentions this quite alot in sotg among other things how you can't just outmacro someone like in BW if you were behind to catchup, or just outmacro them to win period. I'd like it if Blizzard figured out ways to make macroing more demanding without making it menial. Things like larva injects, mules and chrono boosts are great ideas, since they add mechanical difficulty and reward good execution.
The same thing goes with 2. We need more units like marines, banelings, tanks, stalkers and less units like the colossi to make the game more interesting.
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The only reason I've played this game non stop since beta is because it's hard and competitive. I hope the difficulty continues to increase and regardless of expansions I think it will no matter what just by the nature of a game maturing.
I see your point about a game being too hard for new players but the difficulty of any game over time is going to go up so why fight it?
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Zerg and Protoss need more microable units.... I think Terran is fine and doesnt really need much adjustment. But Zerg needs better units and Protoss needs to not be so fragile in the early game ~_~ Other than that I think the difficulty is fine, more units will just increase multitasking necessary to compete at the highest level
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They are just not enough things to be good or bad at, in order to make the game really interesting for high lvl players.
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I havent seen any bad players win tournaments yet so i do not see the problem with the skill cap not being high enough.
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yea seriously needs to be more difficult. Even players like forGG use 1 hotkey for the army omg...players may have multiple hotkeys for units, but if you watch closely. there is none of that usage on streams. Not sure why players show off the 1a2a3a before the game tbh.
Also in BW people use the hotkeys to remember certain screens (in SC2 is like ctrl f7, f8 or something, but it can be changed). Players still use the minimap to move around at the pro level kind of annoys me tbh.
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You're correlating the ease of use of SC2 relative to BW as being the sole or large deciding factor in SC2's popularity. In reality this has LITTLE to do with SC2's success. This release not only built upon the franchise established by SC1 and BW, but it had substantially better marketing from it's publishing company, and was released at a time where consumers had a much greater access to reviews, gameplay videos, tutorials, etc.
It is redundant but apparently needs to continuously be stated that this game is JUST over a year old. BW as we know it now was 10 years of tweaking every little thing that needed tweaking to get the final product. Saying this game is too easy when there is not a single player in the world who has come within miles of hitting the skillcap for this game is absurd. Yes, I agree with you BW was a more difficult game, but that does not mean every production relating to that franchise has have a similar skill cap. This poll is completely meaningless and inconsequential to the resolution of what you proposed. This forum is NOT the majority who play the game, believe it or not. And it's especially fruitless given a fair amount of the responses you get come from the common misconception that checking "make this game harder" correlates to the length of one's ePenis, regardless of the fact that it's a blind poll.
People all over this thread are talking about diamond and masters level like it's somewhere close to the skill cap of SC2, that is COMPLETELY untrue. MVP, Nestea, MC, ALL get supply blocked more than once a series. They ALL lack the ability to macro effectively while under pressure, etc. This game is not solved. The first expansion is not even out yet. This is sensationalism and nothing more. Think about it.
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On January 23 2012 21:35 Detwiler wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2012 21:26 MCDayC wrote:On January 23 2012 21:20 aTnClouD wrote:On January 23 2012 20:54 firehand101 wrote:
TL DR
The game being hard makes it better for the pros, but we owe the success of SC2 in the west compared to BW to its ease of use and accessibility
It's not proven that the SC2 success in the west comes from that. It's most likely just the fact it has been marketed on a larger scale as a game and eSport, and since we are way more superficial than asians we think graphic matters a lot. We can just make speculations but my eyes bleed whenever somebody take for granted that SC2 success is most likely given by the fact the game is easier than SCBW. Where does that come from? ikr where does this come from. Oh and we are way more superficial than asains? Have you been to SKorea? Try picking up a girl in Seoul. Nuff said.
Let's skip your ignorant comment first and address what Cloud is talking about in reference to video games. He's saying we're way more superficial than asians when it comes to playing video games. In the West, sales/esports are dominated by the latest and greatest in visual appeal relative to the East.
Compare: GTA4/Halo3/CS:S/Crysis/COD/BF3/GOW vs. SC:BW/Kart Rider/Lineage/Maple Story/WC3/Dota 1/Tekken/SF. Of course there are exceptions to this, a prime example being League of Legends.
Also, don't stereotype an entire continent of women as superficial because of your failures at pickup in Seoul. Typical scrub mentality: instead of taking responsibility for your failures, you blame it on the game, or the other party.
Leave your inferiority complex behind, as well as your racist attitude. You won't pick up chicks that way. Nuff said.
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This thread does not make any sense whatsoever.
The idea that a duel game is easy or hard compared to another duel game is completely inappropriate.
Noone will ever play a mechanically perfect game, neither in bw nor in sc2. (If you doubt this btw then go and watch the videos with the micro-AI.) Therefore it is exactly as easy or as hard to win in both games, since the mechanics are exactly the same for both players in both games. The skillset might be somewhat different in SC2, but its neither harder nor easier.
You wouldn't go and start rambling about how football is harder than hockey or would you? Because statements like these don't even have an actual meaning attached to their words other than someone crying out in need of attention.
The whole SC2 is easier than BW talk is nothing more than the whining of people who are butthurt that their skills in one game dont transfer completely to another game.
Sorry to break it to you, but you actually never lose on ladder to someone "obviously below your skill level". Your skill is your ability to win in this game, nothing more, nothing less. If you lose, the other guy was better, at least for that one game, everything else is delusional.
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On January 24 2012 01:11 Switchy wrote:
I havent seen any bad players win tournaments yet so i do not see the problem with the skill cap not being high enough.
I dont really see GSL being won through consistent good performance other than MVP. Here are some inconsistencies that show that skill cap not being high enough, and the volatility of the game at the moment. Too much of the game is based on luck of build order prepared.
- Jakji being a darkhorse winning the GSL recently.
- Oz to semi-finals
- Nestea drop to UpAndDown (after he recently winning GSL)
- MC drop to UpAndDown (after recently winning GSL)
- MVP drop to UpAndDown (after previously winning GSL)
- MKP struggling to stay in Code S
- Inca in GSL finals....
- OgsFIN, ForGG winning Code A yet knocked out in GSL groups in 4th place too
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Accessible =/= Easy
Ever try understanding a pick up cast of LoL or Dota?
Then listen to a random MLG commentary of SC2 by Day[9]. Worlds of difference, and SC2 is leagues harder than any MOBA title ever made.
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EPT
