On September 27 2013 06:17 Destructicon wrote: I can't believe some of you are actually even downplaying the depth of a SC2. 10 more things to think about in a LoL game then in a SC2 game? Get real, if you think that you have obviously never watched a high level GSL or listened to Artosis analyze in depth how a build will pan out from the subtleties of a game.
There are tons of things you need to take into consideration when playing SC2. Did he open GW first or quick Nexus? Did he take 1 gas or 2? How many probes does he have in each gas? How many pylons does he have in his base, where are the pylons placed? When did he expand? Is he making tech or GWs? Does he have many sentries?
These lead to a huge number of permutations and possible strategies, they can lead to economical and greedy play in the form of double forge, robo tech or twilight tech with later GWs, they can lead into timings or pressures of different kinds or they can go into all-ins straight up.
Against zerg, did he open pool first or hatch first? Did he take gas? How long has he harvested from the gas? Has he gotten a 3rd at a normal time? Did he get additional tech, how many queens does he have? Did he get additional gases?
I also dare not touch ZvP because the number of possible questions that need to be asked by a pro player, as well as the number of possible permutations in possible strategies, economical, tech or timing or all-in from both sides with all the possible follow ups.
You are either naive or a blind hater if you truly believe LoL has more depth then SC2. The shear number of possibilities available to all races, the subtleties of reading into all of them coupled with the number of follow ups that you need to take into account are truly vast. I guess its kind of easy to just write off the game as having little to no depth when you as an observer can see everything, and its easy to overlook all the subtleties that need to be read into to make a proper assessment of the situation and be able to adapt to it.
And don't even dare to bring mechanics into this discussion. Its exactly this difference in mechanics between players that makes this game exciting and its what made BW one of the greatest games ever. Even if the game is figured out and even if you have standardized strategies, it is still exciting to watch games to see how the players execute said strategies, you had a sense of wonder, nothing is completely set in stone, you still see upsets like Soulkey losing to True, MC losing to Thorzain etc.
You are only getting the illusion of lack of depth because you see opponents of vast skill differences fighting each other and one coming out ahead by a wide margin, so you draw the incorrect assumption that mechanics is all that matters. However when opponents are very close together in skill and in particular at the highest level of play, then they are so close in mechanical skill that they need other skills to differentiate themselves.
What I'm saying is, mechanics are important, but only up until a certain level, after that though, other factors start mattering more. And this, in my opinion, is great and its just as it should be, because, even if you want to do an a 14 min SCV pull timing against a protoss, if you don't have the mechanics to macro properly, then you can't even think about hitting said timing, or if you don't have the micro you can't even contemplate executing a PartinG soul push.
TLDR Mechanics do matter, but only up until a certain threshold, beyond which its very hard to improve further mechanically, after that other factors start to matter much more, and here is where you can see the true beauty of RTS games like SC2, the vast depth of strategies and the infinite ebb and flow between them. You are severely depreciating SC2 if you believe LoL has more depth then it, and you should consider watching some truly high level games to capture its magic. Don't let low level games with huge skill gaps between players influence your opinion on the game.
He was not talking about SC2 lacking depth, he was talking about emphasis.
None of the depth in SC2 and BW is relevant to people who don't have the hand speed to execute them.
LoL does not have as high of skill-wall preventing players from groking it allowing them to immediately go into the strategic smart play style of game that he is describing.
His example of chess is revealing because he focused on the low apm requirement of chess as a plus while most SC2/BW loyalists wants for there to be APM tax to differentiate the skilled from the unskilled.
I don't think the chess example holds.
How much of a chance do you actually stand in chess with no training against an experienced player? Chess is just as much a game of rote memorization, of studying and of training. There's lots of "boring" aspects of chess you have to get through in order to become decently competitive at it.
But sure, maybe chess is a more "relaxing" game when you're matched up with other players of your calibre. Though I sort of have my doubts about that as well. There honestly shouldn't be too much of a difference between battling it out in bronze league and noob level chess.
And if you're a diamond-master level player in SC2, I'd say the corresponding level in chess would likely also put pressure and stress on you. Especially when facing a superior and more knowledgeable opponent.
I don't think a game's depth necessarily has much to do with its accessability. The negative form of depth, though, is often labelled in game design as "complexity". Those are the so called pointless hurdles that players have to overcome to actually have a chance at playing the game. You have to have some degree of complexity in your game to be able to have depth. The trick is to squeeze as much depth as possible out of the available complexity.
The fact that chess is incredibly deep at the top levels, the fact that you have to train, study and grind for thousands upon thousands of hours of "boringly complex" books, board positions and opponents to become the best at chess really resembles the mechanical side of Starcraft. This "depth" does not mean that either Chess or Starcraft has to be boring for players of lower levels. Where Starcraft has burdens of mechanical execution, Chess has just as much of a burden of knowledge and of mental execution. You can always discuss which game is more complex ad infinitum without agreeing. I'll just end this with saying I don't think chess is the best example here. There are plenty of games with simpler, more straight forward rules that are more popular.
Personally I think SC2 should embrace its mechanical side. 1v1 multiplayer popularity is hardly going to be adversely affected by increasing mechanical strain at the top levels. The bronze leaguers willing to learn the rules of the game will be just as terrible and far removed from that aspect of the game as before, just as novice chess players will continue to be far removed from the complex/deep parts of chess upon starting out.
I certainly think SC2 traded away a good portion of its depth needlessly, but I'll address that at a different time.
I guess you're referring to openings when you point out rote memorization and "boringly complex" books. For 95% of players it doesn't matter, chess is 99% tactics, and this is what chess coaches teaches players. In fact the current World No.1 Magnus Carlsen is by a huge margin the worst at openings among the gms. Yet, he's reached the highest elo ever purely based on calculating skills.
The question comes when a person is trying to slowly improve his game. When I see my brother in gold league, he can simply beat platinum players just by producing more stuff. When you outproduce your opponent, your options to kill him goes up by 10x and his options to kill you go down by 10x. And this is even valid in high diamond, when I got stomped by low masters, for example I had never faced a Protoss who had so much stuff at the 15min mark.
I agree, the question of mental execution and mechanical execution is personal preference. I personally think Wc3 had a good balance of macro/micro for the game to be enjoyable.
Also on a side note, the custom map system is just horrible. I wanted to play and get achievements in the day/night map with zombies attacking your base in the centre, when it was released. Whenever I created a game, a bronze player joins the game and it auto starts, and he selects a lower difficulty when the game starts. I've never tried playing a custom game since then.
On September 27 2013 08:12 LaLuSh wrote: There are too many people justifying and excusing themselves in this thread, as though somehow their latent strategical genious were resticted by the mechanical difficulty of SC2.
Bullshit. Just as sure as fuck as you don't become a chess grandmaster from playing casually and infrequently with little or no effort put into studying the game (i.e. going through the boring and repetitive portions of what makes a competitive chess player competitive), just as sure could one say that you don't become a SC2 GM without putting in the same kind of effort.
You don't even need 200-300 apm to be a progamer. But you need to at least have studied the game long and deep, and grinded your ass off with the deliberate intent of learning and getting better. None of which, I can guarantee, any of you did.
So what if 200-300 apm is needed to be the best of the best in the world? Thousands upon thousands of hours of study, analysis and memorization is likewise needed to be the best of the best at Chess. Too many people in this thread acting like "strategy" manifests itself in a radically different manner in chess. Like you could become good at chess without having to put in just as much deliberate effort as you would do in Starcraft.
Get real. You would all have quit playing Chess for the same exact reasons you quit playing SC2 ("I have to study le books to stand a chance at moving up through the ranks? How unfair, where's the strategy in that?!")
As someone whose won my fair share of chess tournaments, I have to agree that too many people don't realize how physically difficult it is to keep up with being a good chess player...
It doesn't need fast hands, but it needs a fuck tonne of mental practice.
SC2 is the "opposite" of chess - when it comes to "thinking games". You need quick reflexes and actions which are based on instinct (and thus lots of repetitive training) instead of a lot of thought. SC2 is not a strategy game anymore like BW was, but rather an action game due to the "throw away and quickly reproduce-nature" of units and in fact whole armies. A lot of times the winning player used his ability to quickly reproduce stuff over and over again to wear down the enemy. That isnt a strategy game, its an economy simulator with action elements added to it.
On September 27 2013 01:51 MrLion wrote: The reason I stopped playing is the game's too much reliance on spamming keys and clicks (what is referred as macro). This limits the audience to people who like spamming keys and a little bit of tactics/strategy on top of it. I was a diamond reaching low masters, and it was really stupid how furiously you have to keep spamming keys to keep up with the opponents. This is not a battle of wits or intelligence.
Recently, I rediscovered chess. You just 1 or 2 apm to play chess, yet its complexity of tactics and strategy is orders of magnitude above sc2. I'm really enjoying playing it. The difference in not being able to copy a gm in chess and sc2 is that in chess, you simply cannot think deep enough or just don't understand why a higher level player is making such moves. In sc2 it's cause I haven't practiced spamming buttons for hours everyday.
Not comparing LoL and chess, but in LoL too there is more "thinking" in 1 LoL game than 10 sc2 games combined, without spamming buttons. You just need one click to go from mid lane to bottom/top, but the question is should you go to top or bottom? Or just stay mid and farm? or are you expecting the enemy jungler to gank a lane and go and help them? There's some mechanics of last hitting, but there's a huge reliance on knowledge of different factors. Again emphasizing, a scrub and a top player in LoL has around the same apm, yet their gameplay is worlds apart.
There needs to be more depth in tactics and strategy in sc2.
I totally agree. I was only plat in sc2 so I never really understood the click spamming. I just never did it. I'd hate to think that was why I never got better.
But I did get the sense that it was 95% execution and maybe 5% strategy. Pros just practice their builds and pre-selected tactics so much that they just execute them flawlessly at 200-300 APM. A lot of pros don't even scout, as I saw in many WCS matches.
Pros in LoL have about the same APM as a silver player, but what separates them is their deep understanding of game strategy. They know all the strengths/weaknesses of the 100+ champions, how to itemize, how to balance between fighting and taking objectives, etc.
It's definitely a more strategy based game than an APM based one.
Yes, Starcraft is a game of mechanics. How is that a bad thing? My mechanics were SHIT when I started playing the game, after a while I managed to macro quite decently. Yeah, it took practice. Finishing a game with relatively high APM and good macro, for me, was very enjoyable, win or lose.
LoL isn't devoid of mechanics either. Playing the AD carry role means always being perfectly positioned and getting out as many auto-attacks as possible. You can't do that with silver league APM.
Though yeah, I enjoyed the mechanics part of the game but I also feel that SC2 lacked strategic depth. You could use several different openings which would give you different options early game, but after that the mid-game ideal position to be in was always the same thing. Very little, if any variation.
Disregarding of course having excellent game knowledge knowing what can kill you and when. It becomes more a game of properly identifying what's going to hit you before it hits and then knowing how to deflect that. Strategy? Mehbe
Mm, some of the arguments on the past few pages have thrown doubt in my mind. There's no doubt that mechanics hold a very important place in SC2, however I think the strategy might not be as lacking as I used to think so.
Edit:
There are tons of things you need to take into consideration when playing SC2. Did he open GW first or quick Nexus? Did he take 1 gas or 2? How many probes does he have in each gas? How many pylons does he have in his base, where are the pylons placed? When did he expand? Is he making tech or GWs? Does he have many sentries?
These lead to a huge number of permutations and possible strategies, they can lead to economical and greedy play in the form of double forge, robo tech or twilight tech with later GWs, they can lead into timings or pressures of different kinds or they can go into all-ins straight up.
Against zerg, did he open pool first or hatch first? Did he take gas? How long has he harvested from the gas? Has he gotten a 3rd at a normal time? Did he get additional tech, how many queens does he have? Did he get additional gases?
I also dare not touch ZvP because the number of possible questions that need to be asked by a pro player, as well as the number of possible permutations in possible strategies, economical, tech or timing or all-in from both sides with all the possible follow ups.
The thing is, all of what you talked about here concerns openings only. The only thing player A is looking for is what player B is opening with. Then he's going to try to deduce (or guess) his opponent's unit composition and how many he's going to have. He's also going to try to deduce what his opponent's plan is, whether it's a quick expansion or quick tech.
Once he has a fair idea of what's going on (or he confirms it with a scout), then a player has several options on how to play out the situation. Does he all-in if opponent is being greedy? Does he tech to x because the other dude went for y? Do both players have a fair idea of what's going on, so let's play "standard"?
Indeed, there is some strategic depth to it. But this is early game only I feel. Once players have made their decisions and have gone down a path (tech/rush/expand), then both players know what's going on and then strategy seems to really fall off around this point. Also this strategic depth is somewhat sullied by the fact that a lot of "strategies" rely on the opponent NOT seeing something coming. Surprise bullshit leads to cheesy and anti-climatic games.
On September 27 2013 08:12 LaLuSh wrote: There are too many people justifying and excusing themselves in this thread, as though somehow their latent strategical genious were resticted by the mechanical difficulty of SC2.
Bullshit. Just as sure as fuck as you don't become a chess grandmaster from playing casually and infrequently with little or no effort put into studying the game (i.e. going through the boring and repetitive portions of what makes a competitive chess player competitive), just as sure could one say that you don't become a SC2 GM without putting in the same kind of effort.
You don't even need 200-300 apm to be a progamer. But you need to at least have studied the game long and deep, and grinded your ass off with the deliberate intent of learning and getting better. None of which, I can guarantee, any of you did.
So what if 200-300 apm is needed to be the best of the best in the world? Thousands upon thousands of hours of study, analysis and memorization is likewise needed to be the best of the best at Chess. Too many people in this thread acting like "strategy" manifests itself in a radically different manner in chess. Like you could become good at chess without having to put in just as much deliberate effort as you would do in Starcraft.
Get real. You would all have quit playing Chess for the same exact reasons you quit playing SC2 ("I have to study le books to stand a chance at moving up through the ranks? How unfair, where's the strategy in that?!")
As someone whose won my fair share of chess tournaments, I have to agree that too many people don't realize how physically difficult it is to keep up with being a good chess player...
It doesn't need fast hands, but it needs a fuck tonne of mental practice.
SC2 is the "opposite" of chess - when it comes to "thinking games". You need quick reflexes and actions which are based on instinct (and thus lots of repetitive training) instead of a lot of thought. SC2 is not a strategy game anymore like BW was, but rather an action game due to the "throw away and quickly reproduce-nature" of units and in fact whole armies. A lot of times the winning player used his ability to quickly reproduce stuff over and over again to wear down the enemy. That isnt a strategy game, its an economy simulator with action elements added to it.
Wait...
I need clarification.
Are you upset that SC2 requires too much reflexes or that it doesn't require enough reflexes?
Because you start your post complaining that you just need to be quick to play SC2, then you say that you simply need to throw units at the opponent to win in sc2
So which is it? Is SC2 all about being fast or is SC2 all about decision making?
On September 25 2013 03:27 nottapro wrote: My experience with trying to introduce people to SC2.
First reaction: It looks boring. Then months later, after constant harassing, you maybe if your lucky convince them to try it.
Playing reaction: I have no idea what I am doing, this is way to complicated, I suck at this game, nothing is happening. I can't control my units. If your extremely lucky, they will have this horrible experience for the next 2 months and not quit, always hating the game, clueless why you keep telling it is entertaining but working their asses off to maybe one day have fun
They finally get a handle on the basics: This is fun! Lets play SC2! This lasts for about 6-7 months until
Final reaction: I got into a higher league, its way too hard now, I have to be in lower league to have fun so I am constantly losing games. I think Ill just quit instead.
And its over.
Yeah, exactly. I could name roughly 10 friends that played or were interested in SC2 but don't play it these days. The two most common reasons: -) "It's too hard to play at any reasonable level. I don't want to take part in this spam-click-fest." -) "It's too time consuming to get anywhere."
Not once did I hear the comment: "Guys, my problem is that the game is badly designed for reason XYZ."
.... or maybe the game is too hard to play at a reasonable level because the game is badly designed? That sort of thing goes hand in hand you know. Obviously your friends aren't going to take a monocle and a pipe and say "Yes, indeed, this game isn't enjoyable because I believe that x and y are badly designed; indeed x has this kind of effect on this match up and y makes this part of this match up coin-flippy".
No! People who aren't experienced in RTS just don't think about game design, especially if they haven't played several different kinds of RTS. In fact many people who have played many RTS for many years still don't think about game design.
Some people do however. I remember talking to one of the top DoW players (maybe the best? can't remember) back in Beta/early release. He was a top Terran back then and was taking games off of pros. He really didn't like the game at all, for design flaws (didn't manage to get an in depth discussion though and back then what I really wanted was to enjoy SC2). Just goes to show that just because the average scrub doesn't think about these sort of design flaws, others still do.
The game as it is now is playable but it's by no means a high-quality RTS. Even at tip-top Korean Code S play, you see players who can place really high off the back of gimmicks and cheese. Maru beating Innovation was an upset for a reason. There are other examples. What really makes SC2 any good at all is the fact that so many people play it. So finding a game is a matter of seconds, watching high level tournaments is easy, the players are interesting and have personalities, the casters are top notch. EVERYTHING is good about SC2 except the game itself. The game isn't BAD but it's not ground-breaking either. Good play revolves around knowing what kind of bullshit can be thrown at you and what kind of bullshit you can throw at your opponent. If both players have equal knowledge of bullshit, then games come down to mechanics in a macro game and that's kind of really enjoyable to watch and play.
And yeah, the lower of the level of play, the more effective bullshit can be. That can really hurt the casual (money-making) side of a game.
OK, so let's have a look in detail about my friends and why they don't play SC2 and something else instead:
Friend S: Played Protoss for 1-2months. Then went back to RPGs (he spends a ton of time on them), because he prefers RPGs and RTS (he has played every CnC, WC3, BW too; stuck to neither of them) is just a nice diversion for him, but he said they are hard and repetitive. All RTS in general. Friend L1: Would like to play a game of SC2 once in a while (between bronze-gold), but he said he's fed up with playing against kids that have too much time in their life for gaming. So he plays Desert Strike and Simulation games these days, but in general he cut down on gaming a lot. Friend L2: Played Zerg a lot towards the middle and end of WoL. Then paused, because he said it takes too much time to play SC2. Lately has returned as Terran for some games, but he said he had to stop because he becomes way to ambitous when playing SC2 and he doesn't want to spend that much time on it. Friend D: Tries every RTS game, but very casually. Watched SC2 from time to time with me. Says it is too nerdy and talks about the "good old days" of SC2 when weird cheeses were dominating. Friend T: Plays mostly shooters and played the WoL campaign. Would have loved to try SC2, but he is afraid he would spent too much time on it. Friend V: Played a lot up to platinum as Zerg 2011. Stopped playing because of ladder anxiety. Plays LoL (and a lot of other games) these days because "it's much more relaxing". Friend P: Says he can't controll his temper when playing SC2. Word for word he said that he liked the game, but it was too hard for him and LoL caters more to his skillset. Friend A: Played Zerg up to diamond level between 2010-2012. Switch back and forth between SC2, LoL and other games. Stopped playing multiplayer games outside of LAN parties due to time issues. Friend I: Didn't play the game, but used to watch GSL in 2010 and early 2011. Stopped gaming alltogether. In that periode of time and therefore didn't buy WoL.
So yeah, nearly all of those people stopped playing because the game was too hard or they would have to spend too much time on it to get better (which is a very similar reason). Not one of them blamed the game's design for it and all of them actually like SC2.
We got your point. But don’t forget that when we talk about SC2 we talk about it not only as a game but also as e-sport. Those who watch sc2 tournaments want this game to be harder and more demanding for players than it is now.
The only e-sports I watch are BW and SC2.
I also watch a lot of real sport NBA and F1 and I must tell you what these sports on professional level are difficult as hell. And nobody asks to make NBA rules easier or to lower basket to make it more casual friendly. F1 cars are the most difficult cars in the world and spectators are happy with that.
The problem is that SC2 tries to be both e-sport and casual game. It’s just not possible.
On your basketball point.
A lot of people actually suggests to raise the NBA basket because right now people power dunk their way to points and they want to bring back the finesse style play of the older generations like the times when larry bird and what not were the top players because back then the game was more about team positioning, proper lay ups, and passing. Now its all focused on power players and strong dunk plays which are hard to block because of the mass/velocity relationship of a human body lunging towards you.
But I digress.
The actual point I wanted to make was that he is trying to show you the reason why people stop playing Starcraft 2 and it turns out to be the same reason people had stopped playing BW outside of Korea.
Big J is showing you that the game is too hard for people and is filled with a community that yells at them that the game is too easy.
I said that I understand that for the most casual players sc2 is too hard. What I wanted to say is that for SC2 to be successful as e-sport the game must be more exciting for viewers and allow top players do tricks like they did in BW (you mentioned these tricks in your blog) . You must have heard quite often Rabiator suggesting limited selection, no smart casting and other things? What if only GM and pro players play on these hard settings, will this make the game more interesting for viewers without making it more difficult for casuals?
I have another idea and I honestly don’t know if it is good idea or bad. It is generally agreed that team play in sc2 is not good. What if with limited unit selection each player controls his own group of units? For example one player controls economy and production, second player controls group of 12 mutas, third player controls lings, fourth player harasses whith vipers and hydralisks, fifth attacks with roaches. It’s really hard to balance 2x2, 3x3, 4x4. I see no other solution how to make team play viable in sc2.
I started my Esports fandom with broodwar but as soon as I was introduced to LoL I was hooked. The largest problems to me are A) cheese and B) no connection to players.
A) In LoL, there are no cheeses, there are set builds and gamestyles for each champ. As a result, you know what you are getting into and therefore every game truly is about skill level. In SC2, I just watched a WCS series in which Jaedong 6 pooled an opponent (I think vibe?) twice in a row for the win. Yes it works but it is unrewarding for viewers. There is no way for blizzard to fix this that I can think of but I still wasted 20 minutes of my life watching both games feeling cheated and soiled afterwards. In LoL, even if you 5 man gank a guy, he can still recover and potentially carry a game.
B) I am a huge TSM fan. I watch their streams whenever I can. I know their personas, I look for advice, I actively care about them. That's impossible in SC2. There is no connection with players. Even the few who stream do so irregularly. In LoL, there is an incentive for teams to interact with fans and riot even encourages this by giving them skins to hand out. TSM especially makes tons of money off of item sales and streaming, they stream many hours everyday. In SC2, there are no consistent streamers-I don't understand why. Fans need someone to cheer for and there is no one there for me.
TLDR: Cheeses leave viewers thinking their time was wasted and sc2 is stupid. SC2 progamers need to connect with fans more.
On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote: What's the problem: I feel like SC2's gameplay is inherently less fun to watch than Brood War, aside from the graphics. Matches feel stale and anticlimactic.
I agree with everything in the OP, even that watching SC2 is not a great as it could be, but it is clearly better to watch than BW in my opinion. I feel a lot of people (including the OP) don't objectively judge BW. BW is only better to watch in very few aspects like tank line battles and some micro tricks. And that is it!
If you look past nostalgia, you realize that: - The first 10 minutes of every BW game are boring as fuck! Nothing happens at all. So much worse than SC2. - 80% of all games play out exactly like SC2 matches (both power up -> one single fight -> one-sided stomp -> gg). - 90% of 'epic comebacks' never happen, because 'dieing a slow death' is just as common as in SC2. - Bad play from a weak player looks a lot worse in BW (idle workers/units everywhere, blind pushes into un-winnable fights, no micro in sight in the crucial big battle and so on). To the casual audience it does not look half as awkward in SC2. Bad players just react too slow to an attack for example or get surprise by a tech switch or get outflanked or something similar like that. - There is even less variation in build orders and transitions in BW, a majority of games 'play out by the book'. - Fewer units are 'playable' overall. - Special scenarios like 2vs2, island map, semi-air maps are sadly long gone. - So much information is not shown to the audience ('production' tab, 'units lost', zoom out, player selections and all that good jazz).
So, for me, when it comes to simply watching a game: SC2 > BW most of the time. Only one in ten BW games is truly better to watch / more entertaining. The rest is not at all.
On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote: What's the problem: I feel like SC2's gameplay is inherently less fun to watch than Brood War, aside from the graphics. Matches feel stale and anticlimactic.
I agree with everything in the OP, even that watching SC2 is not a great as it could be, but it is clearly better to watch than BW in my opinion. I feel a lot of people (including the OP) don't objectively judge BW. BW is only better to watch in very few aspects like tank line battles and some micro tricks. And that is it!
If you look past nostalgia, you realize that: - The first 10 minutes of every BW game are boring as fuck! Nothing happens at all. So much worse than SC2. - 80% of all games play out exactly like SC2 matches (both power up -> one single fight -> one-sided stomp -> gg). - 90% of 'epic comebacks' never happen, because 'dieing a slow death' is just as common as in SC2. - Bad play from a weak player looks a lot worse in BW (idle workers/units everywhere, blind pushes into un-winnable fights, no micro in sight in the crucial big battle and so on). To the casual audience it does not look half as awkward in SC2. Bad players just react too slow to an attack for example or get surprise by a tech switch or get outflanked or something similar like that. - There is even less variation in build orders and transitions in BW, a majority of games 'play out by the book'. - Fewer units are 'playable' overall. - Special scenarios like 2vs2, island map, semi-air maps are sadly long gone. - So much information is not shown to the audience ('production' tab, 'units lost', zoom out, player selections and all that good jazz).
So, for me, when it comes to simply watching a game: SC2 > BW most of the time. Only one in ten BW games is truly better to watch / more entertaining. The rest is not at all.
oh man... I think you mistook some other game for BW.
The most hilarious part was that about come backs in not happening.
On September 27 2013 08:12 LaLuSh wrote: There are too many people justifying and excusing themselves in this thread, as though somehow their latent strategical genious were resticted by the mechanical difficulty of SC2.
Bullshit. Just as sure as fuck as you don't become a chess grandmaster from playing casually and infrequently with little or no effort put into studying the game (i.e. going through the boring and repetitive portions of what makes a competitive chess player competitive), just as sure could one say that you don't become a SC2 GM without putting in the same kind of effort.
You don't even need 200-300 apm to be a progamer. But you need to at least have studied the game long and deep, and grinded your ass off with the deliberate intent of learning and getting better. None of which, I can guarantee, any of you did.
So what if 200-300 apm is needed to be the best of the best in the world? Thousands upon thousands of hours of study, analysis and memorization is likewise needed to be the best of the best at Chess. Too many people in this thread acting like "strategy" manifests itself in a radically different manner in chess. Like you could become good at chess without having to put in just as much deliberate effort as you would do in Starcraft.
Get real. You would all have quit playing Chess for the same exact reasons you quit playing SC2 ("I have to study le books to stand a chance at moving up through the ranks? How unfair, where's the strategy in that?!")
As someone whose won my fair share of chess tournaments, I have to agree that too many people don't realize how physically difficult it is to keep up with being a good chess player...
It doesn't need fast hands, but it needs a fuck tonne of mental practice.
SC2 is the "opposite" of chess - when it comes to "thinking games". You need quick reflexes and actions which are based on instinct (and thus lots of repetitive training) instead of a lot of thought. SC2 is not a strategy game anymore like BW was, but rather an action game due to the "throw away and quickly reproduce-nature" of units and in fact whole armies. A lot of times the winning player used his ability to quickly reproduce stuff over and over again to wear down the enemy. That isnt a strategy game, its an economy simulator with action elements added to it.
Wait...
I need clarification.
Are you upset that SC2 requires too much reflexes or that it doesn't require enough reflexes?
Because you start your post complaining that you just need to be quick to play SC2, then you say that you simply need to throw units at the opponent to win in sc2
So which is it? Is SC2 all about being fast or is SC2 all about decision making?
I am upset that reflexes are more important than in-game-brains (for correct decision making). It is supposed to be a strategy game - which has something to do with thinking and being smart - instead of an action game where only quick and trained reflexes count. And before you start: Yes, Korean progamers have a lot of very smart builds, but that doesnt really make them smart in-game; you could have an "outside brain" which tells you to "do this or that build" and then win without any important decision making in game.
There seems to be no need to be careful with your units in SC2, because you can easily replace them. That is the reason why I think it is too much focused on the action part of the game and most of the time the worst thing that happens is two armies eliminating each other. Cute and tricksy play - such as TLO or Catz have tried again and again - doesnt matter because brute force will always win. No need for any complicated strategy, just build the stuff that counters the opponents units well and then dont suck at using them. That is boring to watch and I would rather have cute and tricksy instead ...
On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote: What's the problem: I feel like SC2's gameplay is inherently less fun to watch than Brood War, aside from the graphics. Matches feel stale and anticlimactic.
I agree with everything in the OP, even that watching SC2 is not a great as it could be, but it is clearly better to watch than BW in my opinion. I feel a lot of people (including the OP) don't objectively judge BW. BW is only better to watch in very few aspects like tank line battles and some micro tricks. And that is it!
If you look past nostalgia, you realize that: - The first 10 minutes of every BW game are boring as fuck! Nothing happens at all. So much worse than SC2. - 80% of all games play out exactly like SC2 matches (both power up -> one single fight -> one-sided stomp -> gg). - 90% of 'epic comebacks' never happen, because 'dieing a slow death' is just as common as in SC2. - Bad play from a weak player looks a lot worse in BW (idle workers/units everywhere, blind pushes into un-winnable fights, no micro in sight in the crucial big battle and so on). To the casual audience it does not look half as awkward in SC2. Bad players just react too slow to an attack for example or get surprise by a tech switch or get outflanked or something similar like that. - There is even less variation in build orders and transitions in BW, a majority of games 'play out by the book'. - Fewer units are 'playable' overall. - Special scenarios like 2vs2, island map, semi-air maps are sadly long gone. - So much information is not shown to the audience ('production' tab, 'units lost', zoom out, player selections and all that good jazz).
So, for me, when it comes to simply watching a game: SC2 > BW most of the time. Only one in ten BW games is truly better to watch / more entertaining. The rest is not at all.
I laughed for a long time... xD
thanks for keeping me in a really nice mood throughout the day !
- The first 10 minutes of every BW game are boring as fuck! Nothing happens at all. So much worse than SC2. - 80% of all games play out exactly like SC2 matches (both power up -> one single fight -> one-sided stomp -> gg).
What about : there is no problem with StarCraft II ? Don't you know about good things that don't enjoy that great of a popularity ? Bad things, terribly boring things that enjoy a great amount of popularity ? I have plenty of examples and it is not even necessary to make a list ; everyone can think of such things. Popularity does not only come from the inherent perfection of the thing it is about. It's about timings, luck, circumstances, external factors as well.
On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote: What's the problem: I feel like SC2's gameplay is inherently less fun to watch than Brood War, aside from the graphics. Matches feel stale and anticlimactic.
I agree with everything in the OP, even that watching SC2 is not a great as it could be, but it is clearly better to watch than BW in my opinion. I feel a lot of people (including the OP) don't objectively judge BW. BW is only better to watch in very few aspects like tank line battles and some micro tricks. And that is it!
If you look past nostalgia, you realize that: - The first 10 minutes of every BW game are boring as fuck! Nothing happens at all. So much worse than SC2. - 80% of all games play out exactly like SC2 matches (both power up -> one single fight -> one-sided stomp -> gg). - 90% of 'epic comebacks' never happen, because 'dieing a slow death' is just as common as in SC2. - Bad play from a weak player looks a lot worse in BW (idle workers/units everywhere, blind pushes into un-winnable fights, no micro in sight in the crucial big battle and so on). To the casual audience it does not look half as awkward in SC2. Bad players just react too slow to an attack for example or get surprise by a tech switch or get outflanked or something similar like that. - There is even less variation in build orders and transitions in BW, a majority of games 'play out by the book'. - Fewer units are 'playable' overall. - Special scenarios like 2vs2, island map, semi-air maps are sadly long gone. - So much information is not shown to the audience ('production' tab, 'units lost', zoom out, player selections and all that good jazz).
So, for me, when it comes to simply watching a game: SC2 > BW most of the time. Only one in ten BW games is truly better to watch / more entertaining. The rest is not at all.
I laughed for a long time... xD
thanks for keeping me in a really nice mood throughout the day !
- The first 10 minutes of every BW game are boring as fuck! Nothing happens at all. So much worse than SC2. - 80% of all games play out exactly like SC2 matches (both power up -> one single fight -> one-sided stomp -> gg).
these two I liked the most ! xD
A few days back there was the third qualifier for the TLS3 - thats a BW tournament - and one game even had about 90 Ultralisks dying, BUT in contrast to SC2 they didnt die on the same screen and never "instantly" (you know what I mean: in a few seconds). So yeah, BW can have quite a lot of deaths and large armies, but the games and battles dont play out the same way as they do in the clustered SC2 way. I think they didnt even have all the upgrades at the end of that 38 minute game ...
First engagement: roughly 4:30-5 minutes. So yep ... BW games are played with "no rush 10".
----
The thing which all "BW haters" fail to understand is that BW could have overpowered units and abilities like the Reaver or the Arbiter while a similar overpowered ability in SC2 (Fungal Growth, Archon Toilet, ...) has to be nerfed and it is the "locally overpowered abilities" which make the game exciting, because ONE USE of them isnt game ending like the Archon toilet. Those abilities / units are also quite hard to use very efficiently and this prevents "abuse" like chained Fungals ...
- Macro = key spamming is just an excuse for not trying to improve. If there is only one button to hit, the bronze player would have the same APM as the GM. It's not spamming, it's about efficiency and optimizing your own pattern. It comes with hard and menial practice, like any other skill worth having. - The emphasis of RTS should always be mechanics (which includes tactics), because it is fun to watch. Most people watch SC2 for the actual fights, not strategy. A good strategy is only interesting if it is hard to execute, if not it should be patched overnight. And mechanics doesn't mean mindless. There are so many micro-decisions to be made for army movement, positioning, before and during battle, which fights to take etc... Watch Bogus's and Polt's bio play or Mvp's mech and you see they are the tactically smartest of the respective style. Strategy is overrated. - TvT in SC2 is actually better than in BW IMO.
On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote: What's the problem: I feel like SC2's gameplay is inherently less fun to watch than Brood War, aside from the graphics. Matches feel stale and anticlimactic.
I agree with everything in the OP, even that watching SC2 is not a great as it could be, but it is clearly better to watch than BW in my opinion. I feel a lot of people (including the OP) don't objectively judge BW. BW is only better to watch in very few aspects like tank line battles and some micro tricks. And that is it!
If you look past nostalgia, you realize that: - The first 10 minutes of every BW game are boring as fuck! Nothing happens at all. So much worse than SC2. - 80% of all games play out exactly like SC2 matches (both power up -> one single fight -> one-sided stomp -> gg). - 90% of 'epic comebacks' never happen, because 'dieing a slow death' is just as common as in SC2. - Bad play from a weak player looks a lot worse in BW (idle workers/units everywhere, blind pushes into un-winnable fights, no micro in sight in the crucial big battle and so on). To the casual audience it does not look half as awkward in SC2. Bad players just react too slow to an attack for example or get surprise by a tech switch or get outflanked or something similar like that. - There is even less variation in build orders and transitions in BW, a majority of games 'play out by the book'. - Fewer units are 'playable' overall. - Special scenarios like 2vs2, island map, semi-air maps are sadly long gone. - So much information is not shown to the audience ('production' tab, 'units lost', zoom out, player selections and all that good jazz).
So, for me, when it comes to simply watching a game: SC2 > BW most of the time. Only one in ten BW games is truly better to watch / more entertaining. The rest is not at all.
While BW being seen in SC2 perspective may look underwhelming when you count army supplies the number of troops moving, SC2 from BW perspective looks like a lie, a 100 zergling production or 200 army moving in unisono.
Trust me looking at BW from SC2 angle gives you a weird as fuck game, loosing that angle and becoming neutral lets you see the beauty of the game, you were missing before, the fixation on idea gives you the wrong impression, because the variable you receive is only a portion of a pretty borderless gameplay.
The slow deaths you mention are not slow death in a matter of being overwhelmed by numbers, which is 90% of the case in SC2. It is being overwhelmed by numbers and execution you expect top players to have. And despite that they make mistakes, and the number of mistakes commited in Professional BW compared to professional SC2 is astounding, and frankly expected at some point.
Let's take hard counter strat situations. Like Flash vs GGplay in which Flash let himself get stuck on 3 base vs actual 7gas zerg, he got sauroned. But instead of labeling the game "Flash got the wrong end of the stick" or "Flash got ezed" i prefer to see "GGplay performs an incredible feat of high tech sauron zerg, ultra + muta, unachievable in normal circumstances".
That game was one of the best games of the year, because you would normally never see someone of such high caliber get pounded so much (and it was one of the few cases in post-rookie Flash). And more so the fact that despite game being won by GGplay on paper, DID NOT stop the game becoming an amazing spectacle. You dont charge into pure mech straight up, but he actually could The execution part of achieving sauron zerg and executing sauron zerg on such high level is always a special case.
On September 27 2013 20:29 DinoToss wrote: The slow deaths you mention are not slow death in a matter of being overwhelmed by numbers, which is 90% of the case in SC2. It is being overwhelmed by numbers and execution you expect top players to have. And despite that they make mistakes, and the number of mistakes commited in Professional BW compared to professional SC2 is astounding, and frankly expected at some point.
Concerning the "number of allowed mistakes" I would say that in BW you can make a few without automatically losing the game, but in SC2 you can lose after one critical mistake.
The best example is "Marine splitting against Banelings", because you have to make it perfectly or you will lose a disproportionate amount of units. Sadly this is also an example of "SC2 logic" where the defender has to be skillful instead of the attacker ... and where the winner didnt win through better skill, just because his opponent was looking elsewhere for a second or responding too slowly.
It's not wrong that someone has to level up first. Bunker rushing against an incompetent is make bunker, put marines in it, win. Try doing it against a competent opponent? It's a whole different ball game, which is the point. The game could use more situations where it is the attacker that is asked to level up his game first though, I agree with that.
On September 27 2013 20:29 DinoToss wrote: The slow deaths you mention are not slow death in a matter of being overwhelmed by numbers, which is 90% of the case in SC2. It is being overwhelmed by numbers and execution you expect top players to have. And despite that they make mistakes, and the number of mistakes commited in Professional BW compared to professional SC2 is astounding, and frankly expected at some point.
Concerning the "number of allowed mistakes" I would say that in BW you can make a few without automatically losing the game, but in SC2 you can lose after one critical mistake.
The best example is "Marine splitting against Banelings", because you have to make it perfectly or you will lose a disproportionate amount of units. Sadly this is also an example of "SC2 logic" where the defender has to be skillful instead of the attacker ... and where the winner didnt win through better skill, just because his opponent was looking elsewhere for a second or responding too slowly.
The one thing banelings got wrong (I actually LOVE them in sc2) is that they changed the dynamic from Marines having to split when attacking lurkers into marines having to split when defending banelings.
On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote: What's the problem: I feel like SC2's gameplay is inherently less fun to watch than Brood War, aside from the graphics. Matches feel stale and anticlimactic.
I agree with everything in the OP, even that watching SC2 is not a great as it could be, but it is clearly better to watch than BW in my opinion. I feel a lot of people (including the OP) don't objectively judge BW. BW is only better to watch in very few aspects like tank line battles and some micro tricks. And that is it!
If you look past nostalgia, you realize that: - The first 10 minutes of every BW game are boring as fuck! Nothing happens at all. So much worse than SC2. - 80% of all games play out exactly like SC2 matches (both power up -> one single fight -> one-sided stomp -> gg). - 90% of 'epic comebacks' never happen, because 'dieing a slow death' is just as common as in SC2. - Bad play from a weak player looks a lot worse in BW (idle workers/units everywhere, blind pushes into un-winnable fights, no micro in sight in the crucial big battle and so on). To the casual audience it does not look half as awkward in SC2. Bad players just react too slow to an attack for example or get surprise by a tech switch or get outflanked or something similar like that. - There is even less variation in build orders and transitions in BW, a majority of games 'play out by the book'. - Fewer units are 'playable' overall. - Special scenarios like 2vs2, island map, semi-air maps are sadly long gone. - So much information is not shown to the audience ('production' tab, 'units lost', zoom out, player selections and all that good jazz).
So, for me, when it comes to simply watching a game: SC2 > BW most of the time. Only one in ten BW games is truly better to watch / more entertaining. The rest is not at all.
EPT
The execution part of achieving sauron zerg and executing sauron zerg on such high level is always a special case. 
