On November 21 2012 18:42 Xanbatou wrote: I understand the reasoning presented in the OP, but I still cannot really stand behind any change that makes an interface less intuitive and more frustrating to use. :/
There must be a better way.
Without immediately getting involved on the argument at hand I do want to say something about intuitiveness. Certain things may seem intuitive through repetition, but that is not what intuitive means. In this case I believe the sole reason you say it is less intuitive is because you are not used to it, not because it actually is less intuitive. In 10 years of BW I have not heard anyone bring up that they felt it wasn't as intuitive as it could be. That itself is a more convincing argument than intuition based on repetition. If something is genuinely not intuitive people should be able to notice this by being uncomfortable, without awareness of other options.
I feel like in the end this doesn't matter that much on the Pro level, from a viewers perspective it would almost look the same, since they are just so good. But on a more casual level, this just completely ruins game play for them. Generally I'm for smarter interface, smarter units, since in my opinion the player i want to succeed is the player with the more brilliant strategies, compared to having sickest APM. However i do think that for to be successful in Starcraft 2, a rather high APM is needed.
I wonder how easy or difficult it would be to disallow smart casting in the Galaxy Editor. Perhaps a small mod that disables only smart casting to try this out would be a great way to get people used to the idea, perhaps even with a showmatch or two weaved in.
I am all for the removal of smart casting myself, but describing it versus letting people try it out for themselves is going to make quite the difference I feel.
The thing about less intuitive or frustrating is what I liked about BW. So many games I was playing with "okayish macro" but soon as opponent starts to pressure or make fancy moves my mechanics, macro and defiler use drops down as I am too slow to react. This was that inspired me to play more BW and enjoy every win I got but losses I could always blame so many things I did wrong and try to improve. Especially defiler use was so hard as you had to consume occasionally to be effective (that breaks macro cycle so hard) and to use defiler was hard.
Infestor and its spells, meh, I would like infestor to be replaced by lurker but not possible it seems.
I mentioned spellcasting scale-ability long time ago, when the sniper nerf arised. I remember giving an example of Snipe vs Irradiate. (pretty straightforward for anyone who remember terran vs zerg mid/late game from BW, basically irradiate being exhaust-like spell unlike burst-like spell both because it being under dumb-cast and from design, not even mentioning scourge/plague vs sci-ves 'antagonistic relationship')
The problem is, with smarcasting on we will always reach a point in metagame where its optional/easy/favorable to mass those units and abuse THE mechanic (thats different point of view, abusing the smart-cast not the spell).
But wait what?
Remember, zergs, used to terrans? Pro tips: Bind your snipe/IT to mousewheel, abuse it, you will never conveniently click any key on keyboard fast enough to match scroll wheel. (you can queue it but imagine snap situation, which you cannot pre-plan).
It adds additional layer of problems for blizzard.
Does it really makes the game smarter because you can utilize 20 infestor with machinegun-fungals instead of 4 properly placed one with fast reaction ? Does really beach-balling sounds fun? Imho no, it completely drives away hype from the game(just read the SC2 GSL LR), everything is stale and calculated, oh he has 8 infestor so i can expect 16 fungals or 40 beachballs. Instead of maybe due to pressure he won't be able to cast half of them? Or you know actually legitimately command someone from casting a good fungal (HAH).
There is a reason why Jangbi storms vs Nada have god knows how many viewers on youtube, because he managed to TIE the "sure-lost" (from unit composition perspective) engagement with a godlike spellcasting. Occurance of that scale happened once, only once in 10+ years of progaming(correct me if im wrong), few people were close but no one did it like him. Im ok with Zidane being the only Zidane, Ronaldo being the only Ronaldo. Many probably tried to copy them, but thats what makes sports beautiful isn't it?
Im not expecting any change, Blizzard built up the game from the ground with addition of smart casting, Zerg utilizies smart casting in macro (press that Z/D), literally happiest day of SC2 Zerg when he discovers that. Its just pure academic talk.
On November 21 2012 18:42 Xanbatou wrote: I understand the reasoning presented in the OP, but I still cannot really stand behind any change that makes an interface less intuitive and more frustrating to use. :/
There must be a better way.
Without immediately getting involved on the argument at hand I do want to say something about intuitiveness. Certain things may seem intuitive through repetition, but that is not what intuitive means. In this case I believe the sole reason you say it is less intuitive is because you are not used to it, not because it actually is less intuitive. In 10 years of BW I have not heard anyone bring up that they felt it wasn't as intuitive as it could be. That itself is a more convincing argument than intuition based on repetition. If something is genuinely not intuitive people should be able to notice this by being uncomfortable, without awareness of other options.
I don't think the BW comparison is really valid here given the mental evolution of the progamer and the community as well as the possibility of comparison in itself. Raising concerns is in a way a self-fulfilling prophecy that intensifies to the extent that Blizzard decides to engage itself with the concerns of the community.
I dont know, i love the idea of raising the skill cap for players, but at the same time the game is struggling because compared with other games out (read: LoL) the skill cap is already percieved as being too high for the majority to take up, and for this alone i can see blizzard not wanting to implement changes like these, even if they would make the game more interesting from a pro stand point
On November 21 2012 20:28 tsango wrote: I dont know, i love the idea of raising the skill cap for players, but at the same time the game is struggling because compared with other games out (read: LoL) the skill cap is already percieved as being too high for the majority to take up, and for this alone i can see blizzard not wanting to implement changes like these, even if they would make the game more interesting from a pro stand point
What made these games popular among the casuals was the custom games and the interface that was the old battle.net style (war3/bw). But the arcade to me alienated what was already established for the sake of something "new" I suppose? Custom games where you hang out with your friends (+chat channels) were killed off in the last 2 years. Im surprised no one got fired over at blizzard. I mean the occasional ladder is great (the idea of unranked ladder is great too) but casuals most of the time play custom games. A reason why war3 was so popular ala dota/island defense/arenas/etc.
I'd like to see an internal cooldown to forcefields be experimented with. Reduce FF duration to 10 seconds, put a cooldown of 15 seconds. (arbitrary numbers here)
I don't agree with this at all, even though I would like some changes to sc2... Smart casting, just like automining, mbs etc are just modern tools. Its like going back to using a browser without tabs to remove these features. However, I would like to see a slower game (ie nerf macro mechanics or reduce minerals per base) and more dynamic unit movement.
They're not going to make the UI functionality (re: Smart Casting) worse to make the game more difficult. All they are going to do is nerf spells and make them more difficult to use or less effective.
Good thread though and I do miss having to keyclone Templar to get sick Storms off. Ah, BW. What an amazing game.
On November 21 2012 18:42 Xanbatou wrote: I understand the reasoning presented in the OP, but I still cannot really stand behind any change that makes an interface less intuitive and more frustrating to use. :/
There must be a better way.
Without immediately getting involved on the argument at hand I do want to say something about intuitiveness. Certain things may seem intuitive through repetition, but that is not what intuitive means. In this case I believe the sole reason you say it is less intuitive is because you are not used to it, not because it actually is less intuitive. In 10 years of BW I have not heard anyone bring up that they felt it wasn't as intuitive as it could be. That itself is a more convincing argument than intuition based on repetition. If something is genuinely not intuitive people should be able to notice this by being uncomfortable, without awareness of other options.
This. From a purely logical standpoint, every other command (move, attack, patrol, etc) applies to all units in a selected group simultaneously. There is nothing in the graphical UI to indicate otherwise (as far as I could tell) for spells. Thus in BW, it made sense that spells would follow the same rule of grouped unit commands.
Just because the UI doesn't do what you implicitly want doesn't mean that the UI isn't explicitly internally consistent.
This is such an amazing OP and I just wanted to post and let you know that you've done a fantastic job addressing a huge issue with SC2, I got all excited as I read your post and then I remembered that we're dealing with the SC2 community:
On November 21 2012 11:59 zlefin wrote: making the interface worse, making units dumber, is NEVER a good way to balance things; it just annoys people; whatever benefits it might allegedly yield; the drawbacks are far worse. find another way.
On November 21 2012 19:30 Bagi wrote: No.
Having to click more to achieve the same thing isn't what this game needs.
On November 21 2012 21:31 robih wrote: oh yes lets make the interface terrible so that the units arent OP ...
It's seriously so disheartening to read stuff like this, and I have all but given up hope on SC2. The sad reality is that blizzard is more interested in making people "happy" than making a competitive e-sport. After reading countless threads on MBS/Pathing/Deathball/Macro Mechanics/etc during beta and watching absolutely nothing be done about it I honestly feel like SC2 will just fizzle out.
Watching tournaments feels like watching the same set of situations play out over and over and over again, and HoTS looks like more of the same. I don't mean to come across as a downer or anything, because seriously this is one of the best OP's I've read in a long time (and if this was implemented it would be a HUGE step forward), I just have given up dealing with SC2.
Always hated smart casting. It makes super fast player's casts the same as an average player's ones. Also good spell control is a way to score a comeback in a game with no smart casting. Plus smart cast makes the game easier, and easier game = volatile tournament scene, where average players actually have a chance against people who put hours into training. Tho, nothing's gonna change. Wanna know why?
1. Slowpoke pros/homegrown pros wont ever support a change like that, no matter how more enjoyable it would make the game, cause they would just drop out
2. SC2 is a mass game. Call of Duty of the RTS world. If it's too hard to play/emulate what pros do, people will bitch and moan
edit: would be cool if it was like in DoW2, where players could choose the way they want to cast spells with multiple unit selection - either same unit types would use the same spell at the same time sc1 style, or only the first selected one would use it and players would tab between units for individual casts
edit2:
On November 21 2012 15:19 Ryder. wrote: (...) IMO when you have a group of units and you click to storm once in a single place, it is much more natural and intuitive to only have a single templar drop a storm, instead of all of them storming the same place at the same time, in much the same way as it feels more intuitive to be able to select multiple buildings and have no limit on unit selection (...)
*cough* stim *cough*
There is stuff that applies to all units selected. They all attack move, they all patrol move, they all move. They all stim, they all siege, they all land. They all drop units, unless you tell them to do it by selecting them individually. But they cant all drop a spell if you order them to? You have ALL of them selected, so ALL of them should proceed to try and execute the action you gave them. That's the most intuitive thing ever, because that's how all the untis already work. :3 Your argument is invalid.
EPT
