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This article highlights part of the reason many players are playing other games or broodwar again. I do not sign on sc2 anymore, I still sign onto bw a few times a week to play games with my friends.
People think these games can't be compared but i don't think it's true. Blizzard has made a conscious effort to make sc2 as easy as possible and along with this there have been good and bad changes. Good; latency improved by automining start off, idle worker button increases the quality of games. Bad; select all army hotkey leading to very robust control of entire armies, armies like muta ling bane simply do not function the ways muta into lurkers or muta lings did, they can instantly crush an army out of position. selecting unlimited units, takes away an inherent limit of unit control (12 -> unlimited) making one less factor in the battle. If you had tanks, lurkers or good dfensive storms you can clobber armies much bigger in bw.
my #1 petpeeve about these units in sc2 is if you leave them at home (lik terrans leaving tanks at home, moving out with bio only just to poke) you are punished sooooo much harder than in b w if ur bio is caught off guard.
If you are playing sc2 however, if you hvae an army size, upgrade or composition advantage, you can literally just attack move and win regardless of what your opponent has. This game is too punishing because the AI, Pathing and unit control commands are far too polished and predictable. I can't tell you how many times i have lost battles in bw because the units derped out the battle, werent even firing, his units derped in a good way, etc. In sc2, you pretty much cannot mess up an advantage, so the game has become harass until you get an advantage, into extremely safe passive play.
Playing on the korean servers I had a lot of trouble breaking top 8 m and was only able to do so once i started mixing in more aggressive harass/coinflip openers. It seems like the entire pace of this game is decided from early harass or build order advantages and players, even professional ones struggle to overcome these built-in disadvantages. in other words, I have zero fun playing sc2 in it's current state because it's essentially a game of impatience or luck as opposed to mechanicals skill. 50% win rate is extremely easy in this game, 80% plus is the completely opposite (sc2 is conflip)
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On September 30 2013 23:56 lolfail9001 wrote:
By the way, does anyone have a foreign viewership numbers for BW during it's peak in Korea (yes, i am telling it with straight face)?
You can't compare BW and SC2 viewerships. Internet was much much smaller back then. People didn't have PCs.
But you can feel how popular bw was, almost every gamer kid in every country played it, millions of lans in each city. It definitely was top 2 along with counter-strike.
I guess the only way to compare BW and SC2 is to check their popularity in PC bangs at their peaks times.
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On October 01 2013 00:01 c0sm0naut wrote:
This article highlights part of the reason many players are playing other games or broodwar again. I do not sign on sc2 anymore, I still sign onto bw a few times a week to play games with my friends.
People think these games can't be compared but i don't think it's true. Blizzard has made a conscious effort to make sc2 as easy as possible and along with this there have been good and bad changes. Good; latency improved by automining start off, idle worker button increases the quality of games. Bad; select all army hotkey leading to very robust control of entire armies, armies like muta ling bane simply do not function the ways muta into lurkers or muta lings did, they can instantly crush an army out of position. selecting unlimited units, takes away an inherent limit of unit control (12 -> unlimited) making one less factor in the battle. If you had tanks, lurkers or good dfensive storms you can clobber armies much bigger in bw. If you are playing sc2 however, if you hvae an army size, upgrade or composition advantage, you can literally just attack move and win regardless of what your opponent has. This game is too punishing because the AI, Pathing and unit control commands are far too polished and predictable. I can't tell you how many times i have lost battles in bw because the units derped out the battle, werent even firing, his units derped in a good way, etc. In sc2, you pretty much cannot mess up an advantage, so the game has become harass until you get an advantage, into extremely safe passive play.
Playing on the korean servers I had a lot of trouble breaking top 8 m and was only able to do so once i started mixing in more aggressive harass/coinflip openers. It seems like the entire pace of this game is decided from early harass or build order advantages and players, even professional ones struggle to overcome these built-in disadvantages. in other words, I have zero fun playing sc2 in it's current state because it's essentially a game of impatience or luck as opposed to mechanicals skill.
Are you really hanging your argument on the fact that SC2's interface is more friendly? If so, I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. Technology evolves, interfaces become more practical and I'm thankful for it. Yes, it takes more skill on BW than it does on SC2 to perform simple tasks like army control, but come on, that is the result of technological restraint and nothing else. Back then, the interface was nowhere near as evolved and it just wasn't as good.
People can come up with a lot of valid reasons as to why SC2 isn't as good as BW, but saying the game actually suffers from improved UI and interface is just plain wrong. What do you propose we do? Put neck breaking commands into the game and set up interface restraints just for the sake of skill? I'm pretty sure the game would die really quickly simply because it would feel overly clunky and unpractical.
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On October 01 2013 00:11 saddaromma wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2013 23:56 lolfail9001 wrote:
By the way, does anyone have a foreign viewership numbers for BW during it's peak in Korea (yes, i am telling it with straight face)? You can't compare BW and SC2 viewerships. Internet was much much smaller back then. People didn't have PCs. But you can feel how popular bw was, almost every gamer kid in every country played it, millions of lans in each city. It definitely was top 2 along with counter-strike. I guess the only way to compare BW and SC2 is to check their popularity in PC bangs at their peaks times.
The popularity of BW, Quake, CS, WC3, and DotA constantly alternate in my area. But otherwise BW have always been in top 5 in PC popularity rank before the inception SC2, LoL, HoN, World of Tanks. But it still hangs at top 10 along with CS and WC3.
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We need to remove things like unlimited unit selection, shift que on many things imho, and maybe a cap of something like 50 or 80 units in a control group or so. I really think part of the problem of this game's battles is how easily you can get your entire army to the battle and how hard u are punished if your whole army isn't' there. That's my point, it's not to be neckbreaking as you put it, it's to make games less of a snowball and give more defenders advantage
edit: all these easy shift queue and robust control options were design to be casual friendly. that's not who's leaving or coming to this game anymore. the people leaving are the HARDCORES. This game is frustrating not because it's too difficult, it's because it's too easy and that's been mine and some friend's experiences.
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On October 01 2013 00:14 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2013 00:01 c0sm0naut wrote:
This article highlights part of the reason many players are playing other games or broodwar again. I do not sign on sc2 anymore, I still sign onto bw a few times a week to play games with my friends.
People think these games can't be compared but i don't think it's true. Blizzard has made a conscious effort to make sc2 as easy as possible and along with this there have been good and bad changes. Good; latency improved by automining start off, idle worker button increases the quality of games. Bad; select all army hotkey leading to very robust control of entire armies, armies like muta ling bane simply do not function the ways muta into lurkers or muta lings did, they can instantly crush an army out of position. selecting unlimited units, takes away an inherent limit of unit control (12 -> unlimited) making one less factor in the battle. If you had tanks, lurkers or good dfensive storms you can clobber armies much bigger in bw. If you are playing sc2 however, if you hvae an army size, upgrade or composition advantage, you can literally just attack move and win regardless of what your opponent has. This game is too punishing because the AI, Pathing and unit control commands are far too polished and predictable. I can't tell you how many times i have lost battles in bw because the units derped out the battle, werent even firing, his units derped in a good way, etc. In sc2, you pretty much cannot mess up an advantage, so the game has become harass until you get an advantage, into extremely safe passive play.
Playing on the korean servers I had a lot of trouble breaking top 8 m and was only able to do so once i started mixing in more aggressive harass/coinflip openers. It seems like the entire pace of this game is decided from early harass or build order advantages and players, even professional ones struggle to overcome these built-in disadvantages. in other words, I have zero fun playing sc2 in it's current state because it's essentially a game of impatience or luck as opposed to mechanicals skill. Are you really hanging your argument on the fact that SC2's interface is more friendly? If so, I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. Technology evolves, interfaces become more practical and I'm thankful for it. Yes, it takes more skill on BW than it does on SC2 to perform simple tasks like army control, but come on, that is the result of technological restraint and nothing else. Back then, the interface was nowhere near as evolved and it just wasn't as good. People can come up with a lot of valid reasons as to why SC2 isn't as good as BW, but saying the game actually suffers from improved UI and interface is just plain wrong. What do you propose we do? Put neck breaking commands into the game and set up interface restraints just for the sake of skill? I'm pretty sure the game would die really quickly simply because it would feel overly clunky and unpractical.
it depends...many modern RTSes have army formations, which when you think about it seems perfectly reasonable to have in a military style game. just an example.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 01 2013 00:17 c0sm0naut wrote:
We need to remove things like unlimited unit selection, shift que on many things imho, and maybe a cap of something like 50 or 80 units in a control group or so. I really think part of the problem of this game's battles is how easily you can get your entire army to the battle and how hard u are punished if your whole army isn't' there. That's my point, it's not to be neckbreaking as you put it, it's to make games less of a snowball and give more defenders advantage
edit: all these easy shift queue and robust control options were design to be casual friendly. that's not who's leaving or coming to this game anymore. the people leaving are the HARDCORES. This game is frustrating not because it's too difficult, it's because it's too easy and that's been mine and some friend's experiences.
If it is easy it is not punishing. Make up your mind.
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On October 01 2013 00:24 shadymmj wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2013 00:14 Spaylz wrote:On October 01 2013 00:01 c0sm0naut wrote:
This article highlights part of the reason many players are playing other games or broodwar again. I do not sign on sc2 anymore, I still sign onto bw a few times a week to play games with my friends.
People think these games can't be compared but i don't think it's true. Blizzard has made a conscious effort to make sc2 as easy as possible and along with this there have been good and bad changes. Good; latency improved by automining start off, idle worker button increases the quality of games. Bad; select all army hotkey leading to very robust control of entire armies, armies like muta ling bane simply do not function the ways muta into lurkers or muta lings did, they can instantly crush an army out of position. selecting unlimited units, takes away an inherent limit of unit control (12 -> unlimited) making one less factor in the battle. If you had tanks, lurkers or good dfensive storms you can clobber armies much bigger in bw. If you are playing sc2 however, if you hvae an army size, upgrade or composition advantage, you can literally just attack move and win regardless of what your opponent has. This game is too punishing because the AI, Pathing and unit control commands are far too polished and predictable. I can't tell you how many times i have lost battles in bw because the units derped out the battle, werent even firing, his units derped in a good way, etc. In sc2, you pretty much cannot mess up an advantage, so the game has become harass until you get an advantage, into extremely safe passive play.
Playing on the korean servers I had a lot of trouble breaking top 8 m and was only able to do so once i started mixing in more aggressive harass/coinflip openers. It seems like the entire pace of this game is decided from early harass or build order advantages and players, even professional ones struggle to overcome these built-in disadvantages. in other words, I have zero fun playing sc2 in it's current state because it's essentially a game of impatience or luck as opposed to mechanicals skill. Are you really hanging your argument on the fact that SC2's interface is more friendly? If so, I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. Technology evolves, interfaces become more practical and I'm thankful for it. Yes, it takes more skill on BW than it does on SC2 to perform simple tasks like army control, but come on, that is the result of technological restraint and nothing else. Back then, the interface was nowhere near as evolved and it just wasn't as good. People can come up with a lot of valid reasons as to why SC2 isn't as good as BW, but saying the game actually suffers from improved UI and interface is just plain wrong. What do you propose we do? Put neck breaking commands into the game and set up interface restraints just for the sake of skill? I'm pretty sure the game would die really quickly simply because it would feel overly clunky and unpractical. it depends...many modern RTSes have army formations, which when you think about it seems perfectly reasonable to have in a military style game. just an example.
To be frank I would be ecstatic about any serious attempt from blizzard to experiment with anew kind of pathing. I have always felt the army interactions take so much away from how great of a game this is.
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On October 01 2013 00:17 c0sm0naut wrote:
We need to remove things like unlimited unit selection, shift que on many things imho, and maybe a cap of something like 50 or 80 units in a control group or so. I really think part of the problem of this game's battles is how easily you can get your entire army to the battle and how hard u are punished if your whole army isn't' there. That's my point, it's not to be neckbreaking as you put it, it's to make games less of a snowball and give more defenders advantage
edit: all these easy shift queue and robust control options were design to be casual friendly. that's not who's leaving or coming to this game anymore. the people leaving are the HARDCORES. This game is frustrating not because it's too difficult, it's because it's too easy and that's been mine and some friend's experiences.
The snowball effect comes from the units themselves and what they do. It comes from the sheer speed of the game and the amount of hp granted to units, both of which cause battles to last for 30 seconds. Why would you split up your army to interrupt your opponent's economy when it won't make a dent as big as taking your whole army and having a cluster battle to severely damage them?
What are you basing yourself on to say that the people leaving are the hardcores? I certainly don't see it that way. Compared to LoL or even WC3, SC2 is far from casual friendly. On the contrary, I'd say that the people who are sticking to the game are the hardcores, simply because they like the skill-dependent part of the game and the knowledge it requires.
With mechanics such as shift queue, unlimited group control and what not, all Blizzard is doing is taking away the unpractical parts of the game and making the whole experience more smooth and pleasant, thus leaving more space for more important plays. It's simple, if you have to spend more time on simple and very basic commands such as ordering your units back manually instead of shift queueing, you have less time for micro and real macro and harassment and everything else.
I'm sorry but no matter how you put it, the improvement of the interface can't really be presented as a flaw, unless it literally plays the game for you somehow (e.g if there was some sort of feature that made your unit back off when it reaches low hp).
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On October 01 2013 00:27 lolfail9001 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2013 00:17 c0sm0naut wrote:
We need to remove things like unlimited unit selection, shift que on many things imho, and maybe a cap of something like 50 or 80 units in a control group or so. I really think part of the problem of this game's battles is how easily you can get your entire army to the battle and how hard u are punished if your whole army isn't' there. That's my point, it's not to be neckbreaking as you put it, it's to make games less of a snowball and give more defenders advantage
edit: all these easy shift queue and robust control options were design to be casual friendly. that's not who's leaving or coming to this game anymore. the people leaving are the HARDCORES. This game is frustrating not because it's too difficult, it's because it's too easy and that's been mine and some friend's experiences. If it is easy it is not punishing. Make up your mind.
Punishing and easy aren't mutually exclusive,
the game is punishing because it is easy, if my opponent flips a coin and gets a slight advantage because of it, as i wrote above i feel it's too easy to ride that advantage out and win the game.
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Quick question:
I do not have SC2 on my comp anymore and I honestly can't be bothered to reinstall it only to check that, but how many players are online nowadays? BNet still displays those numbers right? Could anyone tell me?
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On October 01 2013 00:29 Spaylz wrote:
I'm sorry but no matter how you put it, the improvement of the interface can't really be presented as a flaw, unless it literally plays the game for you somehow (e.g if there was some sort of feature that made your unit back off when it reaches low hp).
I disagree, this is a matter of opinion i think. So do you suggest we alter the units themselves? What then? Do you see any problem in unit interactions? Should battles be as short as they are?
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On October 01 2013 00:11 saddaromma wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2013 23:56 lolfail9001 wrote:
By the way, does anyone have a foreign viewership numbers for BW during it's peak in Korea (yes, i am telling it with straight face)? You can't compare BW and SC2 viewerships. Internet was much much smaller back then. People didn't have PCs. But you can feel how popular bw was, almost every gamer kid in every country played it, millions of lans in each city. It definitely was top 2 along with counter-strike. I guess the only way to compare BW and SC2 is to check their popularity in PC bangs at their peaks times.
Sorry but there is no way "almost every gamer kid in every country" played BW. RTS are a niche on its own and fps will forever massively overshadow it. It might be popular but not even close to what you are suggesting.
Also, your suggestion to compare a game that can use the PC bangs models compared to one that has to jump through hoops is really biassed.
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On October 01 2013 00:33 Spaylz wrote:
Quick question:
I do not have SC2 on my comp anymore and I honestly can't be bothered to reinstall it only to check that, but how many players are online nowadays? BNet still displays those numbers right? Could anyone tell me?
about 1 million players on bnet, 12k games live, about 1.5k in US region as we speak
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On October 01 2013 00:35 c0sm0naut wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2013 00:29 Spaylz wrote:
I'm sorry but no matter how you put it, the improvement of the interface can't really be presented as a flaw, unless it literally plays the game for you somehow (e.g if there was some sort of feature that made your unit back off when it reaches low hp). I disagree, this is a matter of opinion i think. So do you suggest we alter the units themselves? What then? Do you see any problem in unit interactions? Should battles be as short as they are?
Yes. The battles are as short as they are because the game is too fast and because units have too few hp. Silly comparison but look at WC3: every unit had much more hp and the game was slower, and battles went on for minutes. Now that's fine, as the cores of SC2 and WC3 are both very different, one is focused on mechanics, macro and timing and the other one is focused on micro, fighting and a different type of timing. To me it seems to be a matter of taste: which do you prefer, sheer strategy or dynamic battles? Objectively I can't say one game is better than the other, they just attract different audiences. But the battles in SC2 do seem to finish too quickly though. At least, according to most of the players who are saying something is wrong with the game.
If I recall, the famous game between Life and PartinG which was acknowledged to have been played at fast speed instead of faster had a lot more impressive feats of micro. I could be wrong though, someone correct me if I am.
Now if someone could tell me how many people are online on BNet (SC2) these days, I'd be grateful!
edit: I see. That's decent, although not too impressive. Thank you.
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On October 01 2013 00:37 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2013 00:11 saddaromma wrote:On September 30 2013 23:56 lolfail9001 wrote:
By the way, does anyone have a foreign viewership numbers for BW during it's peak in Korea (yes, i am telling it with straight face)? You can't compare BW and SC2 viewerships. Internet was much much smaller back then. People didn't have PCs. But you can feel how popular bw was, almost every gamer kid in every country played it, millions of lans in each city. It definitely was top 2 along with counter-strike. I guess the only way to compare BW and SC2 is to check their popularity in PC bangs at their peaks times. Sorry but there is no way "almost every gamer kid in every country" played BW. RTS are a niche on its own and fps will forever massively overshadow it. It might be popular but not even close to what you are suggesting. Also, your suggestion to compare a game that can use the PC bangs models compared to one that has to jump through hoops is really biassed.
lol man u got no idea how popular starcraft : brood war was.
it's one of the most played game ever
edit : anyway i think people really waste time thinking about sc2
1st : it wont accomplish anything nor bring any change to the game
2nd : i doubt sc2 will be around much longer like bw lasted, that is, unless china picks up the game, wich is highly unlikely
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On October 01 2013 00:30 c0sm0naut wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2013 00:27 lolfail9001 wrote:On October 01 2013 00:17 c0sm0naut wrote:
We need to remove things like unlimited unit selection, shift que on many things imho, and maybe a cap of something like 50 or 80 units in a control group or so. I really think part of the problem of this game's battles is how easily you can get your entire army to the battle and how hard u are punished if your whole army isn't' there. That's my point, it's not to be neckbreaking as you put it, it's to make games less of a snowball and give more defenders advantage
edit: all these easy shift queue and robust control options were design to be casual friendly. that's not who's leaving or coming to this game anymore. the people leaving are the HARDCORES. This game is frustrating not because it's too difficult, it's because it's too easy and that's been mine and some friend's experiences. If it is easy it is not punishing. Make up your mind. Punishing and easy aren't mutually exclusive, the game is punishing because it is easy, if my opponent flips a coin and gets a slight advantage because of it, as i wrote above i feel it's too easy to ride that advantage out and win the game.
so you are complaining because your opponent is better at positioning and army movement than you are and it is too easy to execute?
or you are saying you want a game where mechanics should outshine the flaws of your strategy including army movement?
hell, why stops it at shift queue and pathing, why not have everything manual, you need to tell your harvestors to walk to the minerals and get the minerals and get it to the base.
why not have it to 1unit per control group?
why even have control group?
Seriously, if you think bw is so successful is because of the controls and limitations, you are just not understanding the game at all.
the game is popular because it has depth and fun to watch. part of the depth came from the difficult control scheme.
but that is not what sc2 needs, all it needs is to figure out how to increase the depth of the game but it doesn't have to be via difficult and unnecessary mechanic limitations that would push new comers and current players out.
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On October 01 2013 00:51 Boonbag wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2013 00:37 Assirra wrote:On October 01 2013 00:11 saddaromma wrote:On September 30 2013 23:56 lolfail9001 wrote:
By the way, does anyone have a foreign viewership numbers for BW during it's peak in Korea (yes, i am telling it with straight face)? You can't compare BW and SC2 viewerships. Internet was much much smaller back then. People didn't have PCs. But you can feel how popular bw was, almost every gamer kid in every country played it, millions of lans in each city. It definitely was top 2 along with counter-strike. I guess the only way to compare BW and SC2 is to check their popularity in PC bangs at their peaks times. Sorry but there is no way "almost every gamer kid in every country" played BW. RTS are a niche on its own and fps will forever massively overshadow it. It might be popular but not even close to what you are suggesting. Also, your suggestion to compare a game that can use the PC bangs models compared to one that has to jump through hoops is really biassed. lol man u got no idea how popular starcraft : brood war was. it's one of the most played game ever edit : anyway i think people really waste time thinking about sc2 1st : it wont accomplish anything nor bring any change to the game 2nd : i doubt sc2 will be around much longer like bw lasted, that is, unless china picks up the game, wich is highly unlikely
China is still playing WC3 a lot. They know where it's at. 
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On October 01 2013 00:29 Spaylz wrote:
With mechanics such as shift queue, unlimited group control and what not, all Blizzard is doing is taking away the unpractical parts of the game and making the whole experience more smooth and pleasant, thus leaving more space for more important plays. It's simple, if you have to spend more time on simple and very basic commands such as ordering your units back manually instead of shift queueing, you have less time for micro and real macro and harassment and everything else.
Getting rid of impractical parts of the game would be fine if "important plays" were actually important. SC2 is a fast game that seems like it the main skills should be micro and battles, but almost all of them are decided before the fights begin. In think this is the main crux of the issue people have. This is also why it's compared so much to BW as the mechanics for BW were much harder (the unpracticality notwithstanding) and yet also had way more micro potential than SC2 does.
This is a big reason why SC2 just feels...wrong in comparison. They made macro easy, but degraded the micro experience so much that it leaves the entire game flat.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
Shortly saying:
they fixed bugs, that made the so-called-micro-of-BW exist, while not adding new bugs, to make new so-called-micro, amirite?
Also, SC:BW may be the most played RTS ever, but most popular after WC3? Bwhahahahahahah.
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EPT
