StarCraft 2 story = WarCraft 3 story?

On March 17 2013 01:24 Rabiator wrote:

They do match (they were never intended to mesh ... since you decided to be picky about words I decided to ) since I was talking about "including lots of casters and clickies". The problem with SC2 is CRITICAL mass of units and for certain spellcasters that is terrible ... which results in totally screwed balance OR nerfed casters. For units with clickable abilities you include a skill requirement which makes the game rather bad for casual / low league players of that race (Protoss mostly). Warcraft III had the option to activate autocast for many abilities, but that doesnt work for Blink, Burrow, Stimpack, ...

+ Show Spoiler +

On March 17 2013 00:35 nanaoei wrote:
Honestly, the magic in gaming (i'm looking mostly at nostalgia) is when a particular game has you experience a bunch of new things, and has you remember them. I can see the arguments for why SC2's campaign doesn't quite do it.
Let me go on a tangent. Why do you think Starcraft has always been a beloved multiplayer experience?
I'd say that it's because the multiplayer allows your fantasy and imagination to take place in the game, and for you to refine your art as you keep trying new things and improving.
You're saying that protoss is harder than zerg at the casual level, I agree and disagree. Some players decide they want to throw the art out the window and they just wanna' win, and for those situations we have certain build orders that sink into our minds. We have to be conscious of these builds or we risk losing easily and wasting our time.
..But when you have options all the more glory comes to you when you find something that works and you perform it.

I'd be truly disappointed if there wasn't any one race that had those options.

The problem with games like SC2 is that people like you and the game developers believe that "the sky is the limit". Well it isnt, because there are human limitations which make certain things rather bad for games. In BW you had the 12 unit limit and the stupid movement to "overcome" and that is gone in SC2. The thing is that these "game hardships" create a level playing field for all players of a certain skill level. In SC2 this isnt the case anymore and the REQUIRED MASTERY of a certain ability (Blink and Forcefield for example) create a gap between players of a skill level at the lower end; this only narrows down when you reach a higher level of mastery, but even there the requirements for mastering their units are different. No Zerg really needs to learn Marine-split-micro as much as all Terrans do.

In contrast you could a-move your Marines into an attack without ever being forced to use Stimpack ... just adjust the ratio of Medics to Marines a bit and you dont really need it. That is what I did in my casual games.

Starcraft 2 has LOTS of asymmetric masteries which kinda make the game terrible to balance in multiplayer and these triggered abilities are a prime example. BW never had units like that which were massed as they are in SC2 and that is the problem. Spellcasters are powerful because they can focus their power on one moment in time. If they have any stacking damage dealing or control abilities that is a bad design. Since WC3 never had a critical mass of any unit (due to the hero-centered and food design of the game) they didnt have a problem with every second unit having an activated ability. Balancing wasnt affected by that.

i understand the difficulty of using words (as i have a hard time articulating myself), but i wasn't trying to be picky over yours. you are making broad statements about the game over its design IMO.

to make it clear, i'm not going to address most of what you said very properly.

you do not generally need abilities to autocast, or to be made easier to make it any more balanced for any race in an RTS. i'll simply take broodwar as an example (neither autocast or easy to use abilities). i don't know if you played way back in the day, but the consensus between my naive friends and i was that terran was the most difficult race to play well due to the lack of units with abilities early on. the same argument can be made for both zerg and protoss at different points in game where tech looked more or less appealing.
though, the main reason why it was hard for us was the lack of good mechanics (also completely arguable for all 3 races, rather than with just terran) which resulted in lots of cheese with varying levels of success.... rather, it wasn't a lack of units with abilities early in the game, it was the player's inability to make those units, or making any reliable amount of units at all.
i'm talking about macro-ing out of 1 base, 3 barracks and constantly producing while controlling what, marines? medics?
yes, those are casual games, but there's a limit to how casual you can remain while looking for an even-match of an opponent---and yes, those were the woes of having to select each individual barracks to produce one unit every 24 seconds, then rallying them individually to one point.
my point is that it's not all down to units and their abilities; it's being able to use each and every one of your units to their full ability.. this includes your standard 1-a units.

"BW never had units like that which were massed as they are in SC2."

yeah we made mass spellcasters in BW, they were hella strong LOL
because of pathing, ui, game mechanics, they were even stronger at points
(high templar, dark archons, science vessels, queens, arbiters, and lets face it... everyone has made mass BC's just to cast yamato cannon.)
if balance design were the case you could make a modern chess game where everyone plays 1 race with the same units.
that's almost completely balanced isn't it? but is it good game design

..autocast stimpack... really..? T_T;;

so why would you ever say starcraft:brood war was a great multiplayer experience for you or your friends?
because it was balanced and the game design was perfect?
because of the magic of a game that captured us with its original storyline at the time?
or was it in part because the game's strategies were evolving to this day despite the balance patches coming to a halt in 2001? it is now 2013, but i believe starcraft:BW is still moving and changing, which makes me believe that sky is the limit when it comes to gaming (lets get progamers for truck simulator pls). this does not change the fact that SC2 does not capture you or many others, nor does it change the fact that it captures myself and a growing population of gamers.

tldr;
i think sc2 rides on its own quite fine. i enjoyed the campaign because i enjoy a fresh and fun entry into the series rather than letting it end with a game that was made 13+ years ago.
i dont know if you noticed, but gamer rage happens just the same as it did years ago over any game.
you wouldn't believe how angry i was at tanks and spider mines as protoss until i first watched pro-games and found [oops]reach loading zealots into shuttles for bombing.

and yeah i think automining/autorally is pretty bullshit, lol
but you can only cater so much to casual gaming before you start to hurt all of the players interested in the game.

StarCraft 2 story = WarCraft 3 story? - Page 6

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming