On October 04 2013 03:29 Goldfish wrote: Traditional RTS just aren't as competitive (in terms of popularity and time investment) anymore nowadays.
Anyway, as for whether appealing to casuals helps or not.
First, an important thing is, it doesn't matter how casual friendly the game is if it's not as fun or doesn't have as much depth as other games. Second of all, BW is actually more casual friendly in gameplay (I'm not talking about battle.net 1.0 or so, yes those help but the actual game itself is also more casual friendly). In BW, (for example) it's easier to know what you need to improve on than in SC2 (yes, that includes the so called "fighting the interface" we had in BW. Yes it was fighting the interface but doing it successfully was rewarding but yet also very doable by anyone. When someone remembered to put their workers on minerals, they sure felt really good >.>).
Not only that, in terms of pro level play, it's easier to replicate things that pros do (microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers are the #1 examples). In SC2, the higher level things pros do is either mostly just strategy/game knowledge (what BOs to use, what to do when you see x or y unit at x or y time, what it means when opponent takes 2 gas, etc) which isn't exactly exciting or appealing to casuals. The other thing higher level pros do is simply "how fast you can do it" which (unlike in the case of microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers) aren't as easy replicable or easy to get into since it's simply a "speed thing" compared to BW where it wasn't purely just speed (and I'll get onto what makes microing more deep in BW compared to SC2 a little later).
BW was seen doing #6th in PC bangs. SC2 (this was after HotS release) was seen doing at #11.
Also I said this before but BW was actually more casual friendly.
In BW, there was more depth in everything but yet everything was much easier to learn and practice.
In SC2, the game is hard but how is it hard? Microing in SC2 is hard but it's hard only because most microing is just how fast you micro (splitting up marines against banelings, splitting up zerglings against widow mines, etc).
In BW, microing Mutalisk was not purely about speed but about so many other things.
You had to pay attention to the direction the Mutalisk were facing before attacking (if you were attack moving) or else the Mutalisk will lose acceleration. You had to know which situations to use attack move, attack directly, patrol, hold position, etc and when doing that, you also had to pay attention to the distance between targets.
Also the micro depended on what you wanted your mutalisk to do. If you wanted you only had six Mutalisk (against Marines) it was best to use attack directly (you can take out one marine per attack volley). However, if you had more Mutalisk against a bunch of marines (twelve for example), then using hold position was better.
Against Scourge, when using patrol micro, you had to pay attention to the distance between Mutalisk and the scourge before using patrol micro.
Overall, from the Mutalisk example alone, micro has much more depth than in SC2.
SC2 has the speed thing but it has none of the depth in micro and depth helps makes the game more fun and interesting.
A deep game is probably also a difficulty game to master. However a difficult game is not nessarily a deep game (it may be difficulty simply because of a few things). An example is splitting up marines against banelings. It's difficulty but it's not as deep as Mutalisk micro (for example). I know it's not the same thing but the majority of micro in SC2 is simply just that - how fast you do it.
In BW, this reached greater heights.
Also, those type of things is what helps casual players more interested into the game (and what potentially makes a causal into a more hardcore player).
When you see something like this:
Epic Drone micro video (6 minutes and 7 seconds if the video doesn't take you there automatically): + Show Spoiler +
Another example with Wraiths (3 minutes and 10 seconds if the video doesn't take you there automatically): + Show Spoiler +
Don't you want to try it yourself and replicate it and potentially impress others with it? Then you start copying and trying it.
SC2 doesn't have nearly as much things. Again, most of it just all goes down to "how fast you split marines against banelings" (to be fair - I did link the video with Jaedong splitting Mutalisk "but" the video didn't just showcase splitting, it had Mutalisk micro in general which is beyond simply splitting or speed).
Also it's not just air units in general, even things that weren't exactly the same (Reavers being the prime example) had a ton more depth. Reavers for example - the more things that get in the way of the scarab's pathing (and any ground unit or structure that isn't the target of the scarab can block or mess with the scarab's pathing), the more likely the scarab will be a dud and won't deal damage.
Also Reavers are one of the few units that encourage micro and attention from both sides. The Protoss player has to move and protect their Reaver (with shuttles) and when attacking, they need to pay attention and attack the unit that may be lead to potentially the most AoE damage (as well as the one that's less likely to move away). The opposing player can try to move the targeted unit out of the way of others (this also involves running behind structures or anything so that the scarab gets blocked by the ground unit or structure).
Reavers are deep units. As for how to replicate scarab to be similar to BW? Well, BW had eight directional movement but one way to replicate something similar is to make it so that Scarabs can only turn (towards their target) once every 0.5 seconds or so. Additionally, Scarabs could be made so that they don't home in on the target directly but they could be limited to make only 45 angle turns towards the target (and no more than that) once every 0.5 seconds. (This could potentially mean a stim marine could run directly behind the scarab and the scarab would have to do a curve to hit the marine instead of being able to turn around directly.)
While I'm not sure about the data editor, something like this can easily be done in the trigger editor (and Blizzard can add it in easily to the data editor).
Anyway, that's one example of how to add the Reaver back into SC2 environment (scarabs function similarly by being limited to making a turn once every 0.5 seconds or so, and being limited to making a max of a 45 angle turn once every 0.5 seconds, so that means a stim marine could potentially just run behind a scarab and cause it to make a curve).
It's different compared to BW but what wouldn't be different is how the Reaver would add fun and engaging micro for both sides of the battle.
(In SC2, the only closest example is probably the seeker missile but seeker missiles are too slow compared to Scarabs and don't have that fun "try to get the scarab to get blocked by pathing to dud" element + Ravens are no where near as fun to control as shuttle + Reaver. As for Widow mines - they are way too fast and too volatile, and they can't be microed against or controlled with as easily compared to Reavers.)
As for the accidental things in BW? Well, lots of competitive games (like fighting games and FPS) have a lot of accidental things that were used by players. It became mainstream and supported by the developers.
While a lot of stuff like how units with no attack animation (or for SC2's case, they could pick a unit to have a passive that could function the same way) could attack and move at the same time and how turning also affected it were probably accidentally, that doesn't mean it something else (whether similar or the same) shouldn't be in SC2.
tl;dr - Bring back Reavers. Make Scarabs turn once every 0.5 seconds (this is just an example) or so to try to be similar to the eight directional BW pathing. Also make Scarabs only able to turn 45 degrees (or so) once per 0.5 second turn (so if a marine was targeted, stim and runs directly behind the scarab before it makes a turn, the Scarab would have to make a curve back to hit the marine). Yes it may sound silly but Reavers are awesome and need to find a way back into the game (and those 2 limitations to Scarab would make it so they're not overpowered in SC2's environment).
Again, BW is doing sixth in PC bangs while SC2 (after HotS release) is doing eleventh in PC bangs in South Korea. Why? Reavers. That's why. (But in all seriously, I think I explained my post well. BW is just more of a deep game than in SC2. Both are challenging but one still lacks a bit of depth compared to the other.)
I dont disagree w/ any points but BW is mostly active and only compete at pro lvl in KR, I'm sure that Blizzard wont want this for SC2. I remember watching JD play a protoss (from Chile?) at WCG Final - Group round and after the easy win, he said that he feel like he play w/ computers. SC2 maybe seem problematic and less fun to many compared to BW but it absolutely reduce the big gap between the foreigners and Koreans, here and there u see and have hope for a foreigner beat top player from KR. So can SC2 turn back to a more micro depth like BW, I think Blizz can do that, in the end they create both, but for the sake of the popularity of SC2 they wont.
Traditional RTS just aren't as competitive (in terms of popularity and time investment) anymore nowadays.
Anyway, as for whether appealing to casuals helps or not.
First, an important thing is, it doesn't matter how casual friendly the game is if it's not as fun or doesn't have as much depth as other games. Second of all, BW is actually more casual friendly in gameplay (I'm not talking about battle.net 1.0 or so, yes those help but the actual game itself is also more casual friendly). In BW, (for example) it's easier to know what you need to improve on than in SC2 (yes, that includes the so called "fighting the interface" we had in BW. Yes it was fighting the interface but doing it successfully was rewarding but yet also very doable by anyone. When someone remembered to put their workers on minerals, they sure felt really good >.>).
Not only that, in terms of pro level play, it's easier to replicate things that pros do (microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers are the #1 examples). In SC2, the higher level things pros do is either mostly just strategy/game knowledge (what BOs to use, what to do when you see x or y unit at x or y time, what it means when opponent takes 2 gas, etc) which isn't exactly exciting or appealing to casuals. The other thing higher level pros do is simply "how fast you can do it" which (unlike in the case of microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers) aren't as easy replicable or easy to get into since it's simply a "speed thing" compared to BW where it wasn't purely just speed (and I'll get onto what makes microing more deep in BW compared to SC2 a little later).
BW was seen doing #6th in PC bangs. SC2 (this was after HotS release) was seen doing at #11.
Also I said this before but BW was actually more casual friendly.
In BW, there was more depth in everything but yet everything was much easier to learn and practice.
In SC2, the game is hard but how is it hard? Microing in SC2 is hard but it's hard only because most microing is just how fast you micro (splitting up marines against banelings, splitting up zerglings against widow mines, etc).
In BW, microing Mutalisk was not purely about speed but about so many other things.
You had to pay attention to the direction the Mutalisk were facing before attacking (if you were attack moving) or else the Mutalisk will lose acceleration. You had to know which situations to use attack move, attack directly, patrol, hold position, etc and when doing that, you also had to pay attention to the distance between targets.
Also the micro depended on what you wanted your mutalisk to do. If you wanted you only had six Mutalisk (against Marines) it was best to use attack directly (you can take out one marine per attack volley). However, if you had more Mutalisk against a bunch of marines (twelve for example), then using hold position was better.
Against Scourge, when using patrol micro, you had to pay attention to the distance between Mutalisk and the scourge before using patrol micro.
Overall, from the Mutalisk example alone, micro has much more depth than in SC2.
SC2 has the speed thing but it has none of the depth in micro and depth helps makes the game more fun and interesting.
A deep game is probably also a difficulty game to master. However a difficult game is not nessarily a deep game (it may be difficulty simply because of a few things). An example is splitting up marines against banelings. It's difficulty but it's not as deep as Mutalisk micro (for example). I know it's not the same thing but the majority of micro in SC2 is simply just that - how fast you do it.
In BW, this reached greater heights.
Also, those type of things is what helps casual players more interested into the game (and what potentially makes a causal into a more hardcore player).
Don't you want to try it yourself and replicate it and potentially impress others with it? Then you start copying and trying it.
SC2 doesn't have nearly as much things. Again, most of it just all goes down to "how fast you split marines against banelings" (to be fair - I did link the video with Jaedong splitting Mutalisk "but" the video didn't just showcase splitting, it had Mutalisk micro in general which is beyond simply splitting or speed).
Also it's not just air units in general, even things that weren't exactly the same (Reavers being the prime example) had a ton more depth. Reavers for example - the more things that get in the way of the scarab's pathing (and any ground unit or structure that isn't the target of the scarab can block or mess with the scarab's pathing), the more likely the scarab will be a dud and won't deal damage.
Also Reavers are one of the few units that encourage micro and attention from both sides. The Protoss player has to move and protect their Reaver (with shuttles) and when attacking, they need to pay attention and attack the unit that may be lead to potentially the most AoE damage (as well as the one that's less likely to move away). The opposing player can try to move the targeted unit out of the way of others (this also involves running behind structures or anything so that the scarab gets blocked by the ground unit or structure).
Reavers are deep units. As for how to replicate scarab to be similar to BW? Well, BW had eight directional movement but one way to replicate something similar is to make it so that Scarabs can only turn (towards their target) once every 0.5 seconds or so. Additionally, Scarabs could be made so that they don't home in on the target directly but they could be limited to make only 45 angle turns towards the target (and no more than that) once every 0.5 seconds. (This could potentially mean a stim marine could run directly behind the scarab and the scarab would have to do a curve to hit the marine instead of being able to turn around directly.)
While I'm not sure about the data editor, something like this can easily be done in the trigger editor (and Blizzard can add it in easily to the data editor).
Anyway, that's one example of how to add the Reaver back into SC2 environment (scarabs function similarly by being limited to making a turn once every 0.5 seconds or so, and being limited to making a max of a 45 angle turn once every 0.5 seconds, so that means a stim marine could potentially just run behind a scarab and cause it to make a curve).
It's different compared to BW but what wouldn't be different is how the Reaver would add fun and engaging micro for both sides of the battle.
(In SC2, the only closest example is probably the seeker missile but seeker missiles are too slow compared to Scarabs and don't have that fun "try to get the scarab to get blocked by pathing to dud" element + Ravens are no where near as fun to control as shuttle + Reaver. As for Widow mines - they are way too fast and too volatile, and they can't be microed against or controlled with as easily compared to Reavers.)
As for the accidental things in BW? Well, lots of competitive games (like fighting games and FPS) have a lot of accidental things that were used by players. It became mainstream and supported by the developers.
While a lot of stuff like how units with no attack animation (or for SC2's case, they could pick a unit to have a passive that could function the same way) could attack and move at the same time and how turning also affected it were probably accidentally, that doesn't mean it something else (whether similar or the same) shouldn't be in SC2.
tl;dr - Bring back Reavers. Make Scarabs turn once every 0.5 seconds (this is just an example) or so to try to be similar to the eight directional BW pathing. Also make Scarabs only able to turn 45 degrees (or so) once per 0.5 second turn (so if a marine was targeted, stim and runs directly behind the scarab before it makes a turn, the Scarab would have to make a curve back to hit the marine). Yes it may sound silly but Reavers are awesome and need to find a way back into the game (and those 2 limitations to Scarab would make it so they're not overpowered in SC2's environment).
Again, BW is doing sixth in PC bangs while SC2 (after HotS release) is doing eleventh in PC bangs in South Korea. Why? Reavers. That's why. (But in all seriously, I think I explained my post well. BW is just more of a deep game than in SC2. Both are challenging but one still lacks a bit of depth compared to the other.)
This is a great post, gives so much insight and analysis. If anyone could repost it to Blizzard forums so that DK read it.
Damn I think just referring people to Goldfish' post is all I need to do. Its such a good explanation as to why even though BW is infinetly harder to play, it is so fucking fun and you can feel yourself improving and it is such a rewarding feeling. I want to just make a point about the spectator experience, to me there is no WOW factor in sc2, nothing that impresses since its all fucking easy to do. Oh shit he targeted down the colossus oh shit he empd the entire army oh shit he spread out his death ball. There is more casuals who ladder in sc2 then there ever were in BW... in BW we all accepted we sucked at the game and werent going to be good enough and so we mostly played UMS. But we all fucking tuned in to watch the pros do shit we would never be able to. All you gotta do is go turn on Bisu's stream, first of all there is not anyone else that handsome and there is not anyone else that can play BW that way.
On October 04 2013 12:51 ChoiSulli wrote: Damn I think just referring people to Goldfish' post is all I need to do. Its such a good explanation as to why even though BW is infinetly harder to play, it is so fucking fun and you can feel yourself improving and it is such a rewarding feeling. I want to just make a point about the spectator experience, to me there is no WOW factor in sc2, nothing that impresses since its all fucking easy to do. Oh shit he targeted down the colossus oh shit he empd the entire army oh shit he spread out his death ball. There is more casuals who ladder in sc2 then there ever were in BW... in BW we all accepted we sucked at the game and werent going to be good enough and so we mostly played UMS. But we all fucking tuned in to watch the pros do shit we would never be able to. All you gotta do is go turn on Bisu's stream, first of all there is not anyone else that handsome and there is not anyone else that can play BW that way.
Cool
How in the hell does that develop a scene? It doesn't. Brutally hard games have a niche scene like what BW was outside of Korea. It doesn't mean that SC2 shouldn't be more in depth, and there's a shit ton that SC2 can and should learn from BW, but the fact that it was brutally hard and derp derp everyone sucked is not a good idea. Who wants to play a game that they suck at unless they practice 10 hours a day?
Traditional RTS just aren't as competitive (in terms of popularity and time investment) anymore nowadays.
Anyway, as for whether appealing to casuals helps or not.
First, an important thing is, it doesn't matter how casual friendly the game is if it's not as fun or doesn't have as much depth as other games. Second of all, BW is actually more casual friendly in gameplay (I'm not talking about battle.net 1.0 or so, yes those help but the actual game itself is also more casual friendly). In BW, (for example) it's easier to know what you need to improve on than in SC2 (yes, that includes the so called "fighting the interface" we had in BW. Yes it was fighting the interface but doing it successfully was rewarding but yet also very doable by anyone. When someone remembered to put their workers on minerals, they sure felt really good >.>).
Not only that, in terms of pro level play, it's easier to replicate things that pros do (microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers are the #1 examples). In SC2, the higher level things pros do is either mostly just strategy/game knowledge (what BOs to use, what to do when you see x or y unit at x or y time, what it means when opponent takes 2 gas, etc) which isn't exactly exciting or appealing to casuals. The other thing higher level pros do is simply "how fast you can do it" which (unlike in the case of microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers) aren't as easy replicable or easy to get into since it's simply a "speed thing" compared to BW where it wasn't purely just speed (and I'll get onto what makes microing more deep in BW compared to SC2 a little later).
BW was seen doing #6th in PC bangs. SC2 (this was after HotS release) was seen doing at #11.
Also I said this before but BW was actually more casual friendly.
In BW, there was more depth in everything but yet everything was much easier to learn and practice.
In SC2, the game is hard but how is it hard? Microing in SC2 is hard but it's hard only because most microing is just how fast you micro (splitting up marines against banelings, splitting up zerglings against widow mines, etc).
In BW, microing Mutalisk was not purely about speed but about so many other things.
You had to pay attention to the direction the Mutalisk were facing before attacking (if you were attack moving) or else the Mutalisk will lose acceleration. You had to know which situations to use attack move, attack directly, patrol, hold position, etc and when doing that, you also had to pay attention to the distance between targets.
Also the micro depended on what you wanted your mutalisk to do. If you wanted you only had six Mutalisk (against Marines) it was best to use attack directly (you can take out one marine per attack volley). However, if you had more Mutalisk against a bunch of marines (twelve for example), then using hold position was better.
Against Scourge, when using patrol micro, you had to pay attention to the distance between Mutalisk and the scourge before using patrol micro.
Overall, from the Mutalisk example alone, micro has much more depth than in SC2.
SC2 has the speed thing but it has none of the depth in micro and depth helps makes the game more fun and interesting.
A deep game is probably also a difficulty game to master. However a difficult game is not nessarily a deep game (it may be difficulty simply because of a few things). An example is splitting up marines against banelings. It's difficulty but it's not as deep as Mutalisk micro (for example). I know it's not the same thing but the majority of micro in SC2 is simply just that - how fast you do it.
In BW, this reached greater heights.
Also, those type of things is what helps casual players more interested into the game (and what potentially makes a causal into a more hardcore player).
Don't you want to try it yourself and replicate it and potentially impress others with it? Then you start copying and trying it.
SC2 doesn't have nearly as much things. Again, most of it just all goes down to "how fast you split marines against banelings" (to be fair - I did link the video with Jaedong splitting Mutalisk "but" the video didn't just showcase splitting, it had Mutalisk micro in general which is beyond simply splitting or speed).
Also it's not just air units in general, even things that weren't exactly the same (Reavers being the prime example) had a ton more depth. Reavers for example - the more things that get in the way of the scarab's pathing (and any ground unit or structure that isn't the target of the scarab can block or mess with the scarab's pathing), the more likely the scarab will be a dud and won't deal damage.
Also Reavers are one of the few units that encourage micro and attention from both sides. The Protoss player has to move and protect their Reaver (with shuttles) and when attacking, they need to pay attention and attack the unit that may be lead to potentially the most AoE damage (as well as the one that's less likely to move away). The opposing player can try to move the targeted unit out of the way of others (this also involves running behind structures or anything so that the scarab gets blocked by the ground unit or structure).
Reavers are deep units. As for how to replicate scarab to be similar to BW? Well, BW had eight directional movement but one way to replicate something similar is to make it so that Scarabs can only turn (towards their target) once every 0.5 seconds or so. Additionally, Scarabs could be made so that they don't home in on the target directly but they could be limited to make only 45 angle turns towards the target (and no more than that) once every 0.5 seconds. (This could potentially mean a stim marine could run directly behind the scarab and the scarab would have to do a curve to hit the marine instead of being able to turn around directly.)
While I'm not sure about the data editor, something like this can easily be done in the trigger editor (and Blizzard can add it in easily to the data editor).
Anyway, that's one example of how to add the Reaver back into SC2 environment (scarabs function similarly by being limited to making a turn once every 0.5 seconds or so, and being limited to making a max of a 45 angle turn once every 0.5 seconds, so that means a stim marine could potentially just run behind a scarab and cause it to make a curve).
It's different compared to BW but what wouldn't be different is how the Reaver would add fun and engaging micro for both sides of the battle.
(In SC2, the only closest example is probably the seeker missile but seeker missiles are too slow compared to Scarabs and don't have that fun "try to get the scarab to get blocked by pathing to dud" element + Ravens are no where near as fun to control as shuttle + Reaver. As for Widow mines - they are way too fast and too volatile, and they can't be microed against or controlled with as easily compared to Reavers.)
As for the accidental things in BW? Well, lots of competitive games (like fighting games and FPS) have a lot of accidental things that were used by players. It became mainstream and supported by the developers.
While a lot of stuff like how units with no attack animation (or for SC2's case, they could pick a unit to have a passive that could function the same way) could attack and move at the same time and how turning also affected it were probably accidentally, that doesn't mean it something else (whether similar or the same) shouldn't be in SC2.
tl;dr - Bring back Reavers. Make Scarabs turn once every 0.5 seconds (this is just an example) or so to try to be similar to the eight directional BW pathing. Also make Scarabs only able to turn 45 degrees (or so) once per 0.5 second turn (so if a marine was targeted, stim and runs directly behind the scarab before it makes a turn, the Scarab would have to make a curve back to hit the marine). Yes it may sound silly but Reavers are awesome and need to find a way back into the game (and those 2 limitations to Scarab would make it so they're not overpowered in SC2's environment).
Again, BW is doing sixth in PC bangs while SC2 (after HotS release) is doing eleventh in PC bangs in South Korea. Why? Reavers. That's why. (But in all seriously, I think I explained my post well. BW is just more of a deep game than in SC2. Both are challenging but one still lacks a bit of depth compared to the other.)
BW isn't doing better because of reavers. they grew up playing starcraft, it's a part of their culture. They played BW and understand BW and BW has already developed for years with stars that they are familiar with. this is why BW is ONLY played in KR pretty much right now. Why only look at S.Korea? Why don't you compare BW vs SC2 all across the globe? Why did SC2 become more successful than BW in everywhere in the world EXCEPT S.Korea and China?
casual viewers don't care about those micro if they don't understand how 'deep' is it. this is why BW was on decline and why BW is now on 6th in netcafe. Only core fans are left and casuals etc all went to watch League. Why SC2 is doing worse is because most of them don't like what they are seeing because they, like you, are comparing it to BW, both core and casuals. Why SC2 is doing well in other areas is because new casuals are fine with these 'flaws', old fans appreciate SC2 even if it is not as 'deep'.
The argument is stated countless times in this thread, so I didn't repeat it. Since you didn't bother reading the thread, the point is that there are no storylines, no infrastructure for growing local players, leading to viewers and progamers losing interest in WCS regions like NA. This is something Blizzard can learn from Riot.
Traditional RTS just aren't as competitive (in terms of popularity and time investment) anymore nowadays.
Anyway, as for whether appealing to casuals helps or not.
First, an important thing is, it doesn't matter how casual friendly the game is if it's not as fun or doesn't have as much depth as other games. Second of all, BW is actually more casual friendly in gameplay (I'm not talking about battle.net 1.0 or so, yes those help but the actual game itself is also more casual friendly). In BW, (for example) it's easier to know what you need to improve on than in SC2 (yes, that includes the so called "fighting the interface" we had in BW. Yes it was fighting the interface but doing it successfully was rewarding but yet also very doable by anyone. When someone remembered to put their workers on minerals, they sure felt really good >.>).
Not only that, in terms of pro level play, it's easier to replicate things that pros do (microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers are the #1 examples). In SC2, the higher level things pros do is either mostly just strategy/game knowledge (what BOs to use, what to do when you see x or y unit at x or y time, what it means when opponent takes 2 gas, etc) which isn't exactly exciting or appealing to casuals. The other thing higher level pros do is simply "how fast you can do it" which (unlike in the case of microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers) aren't as easy replicable or easy to get into since it's simply a "speed thing" compared to BW where it wasn't purely just speed (and I'll get onto what makes microing more deep in BW compared to SC2 a little later).
BW was seen doing #6th in PC bangs. SC2 (this was after HotS release) was seen doing at #11.
Also I said this before but BW was actually more casual friendly.
In BW, there was more depth in everything but yet everything was much easier to learn and practice.
In SC2, the game is hard but how is it hard? Microing in SC2 is hard but it's hard only because most microing is just how fast you micro (splitting up marines against banelings, splitting up zerglings against widow mines, etc).
In BW, microing Mutalisk was not purely about speed but about so many other things.
You had to pay attention to the direction the Mutalisk were facing before attacking (if you were attack moving) or else the Mutalisk will lose acceleration. You had to know which situations to use attack move, attack directly, patrol, hold position, etc and when doing that, you also had to pay attention to the distance between targets.
Also the micro depended on what you wanted your mutalisk to do. If you wanted you only had six Mutalisk (against Marines) it was best to use attack directly (you can take out one marine per attack volley). However, if you had more Mutalisk against a bunch of marines (twelve for example), then using hold position was better.
Against Scourge, when using patrol micro, you had to pay attention to the distance between Mutalisk and the scourge before using patrol micro.
Overall, from the Mutalisk example alone, micro has much more depth than in SC2.
SC2 has the speed thing but it has none of the depth in micro and depth helps makes the game more fun and interesting.
A deep game is probably also a difficulty game to master. However a difficult game is not nessarily a deep game (it may be difficulty simply because of a few things). An example is splitting up marines against banelings. It's difficulty but it's not as deep as Mutalisk micro (for example). I know it's not the same thing but the majority of micro in SC2 is simply just that - how fast you do it.
In BW, this reached greater heights.
Also, those type of things is what helps casual players more interested into the game (and what potentially makes a causal into a more hardcore player).
Don't you want to try it yourself and replicate it and potentially impress others with it? Then you start copying and trying it.
SC2 doesn't have nearly as much things. Again, most of it just all goes down to "how fast you split marines against banelings" (to be fair - I did link the video with Jaedong splitting Mutalisk "but" the video didn't just showcase splitting, it had Mutalisk micro in general which is beyond simply splitting or speed).
Also it's not just air units in general, even things that weren't exactly the same (Reavers being the prime example) had a ton more depth. Reavers for example - the more things that get in the way of the scarab's pathing (and any ground unit or structure that isn't the target of the scarab can block or mess with the scarab's pathing), the more likely the scarab will be a dud and won't deal damage.
Also Reavers are one of the few units that encourage micro and attention from both sides. The Protoss player has to move and protect their Reaver (with shuttles) and when attacking, they need to pay attention and attack the unit that may be lead to potentially the most AoE damage (as well as the one that's less likely to move away). The opposing player can try to move the targeted unit out of the way of others (this also involves running behind structures or anything so that the scarab gets blocked by the ground unit or structure).
Reavers are deep units. As for how to replicate scarab to be similar to BW? Well, BW had eight directional movement but one way to replicate something similar is to make it so that Scarabs can only turn (towards their target) once every 0.5 seconds or so. Additionally, Scarabs could be made so that they don't home in on the target directly but they could be limited to make only 45 angle turns towards the target (and no more than that) once every 0.5 seconds. (This could potentially mean a stim marine could run directly behind the scarab and the scarab would have to do a curve to hit the marine instead of being able to turn around directly.)
While I'm not sure about the data editor, something like this can easily be done in the trigger editor (and Blizzard can add it in easily to the data editor).
Anyway, that's one example of how to add the Reaver back into SC2 environment (scarabs function similarly by being limited to making a turn once every 0.5 seconds or so, and being limited to making a max of a 45 angle turn once every 0.5 seconds, so that means a stim marine could potentially just run behind a scarab and cause it to make a curve).
It's different compared to BW but what wouldn't be different is how the Reaver would add fun and engaging micro for both sides of the battle.
(In SC2, the only closest example is probably the seeker missile but seeker missiles are too slow compared to Scarabs and don't have that fun "try to get the scarab to get blocked by pathing to dud" element + Ravens are no where near as fun to control as shuttle + Reaver. As for Widow mines - they are way too fast and too volatile, and they can't be microed against or controlled with as easily compared to Reavers.)
As for the accidental things in BW? Well, lots of competitive games (like fighting games and FPS) have a lot of accidental things that were used by players. It became mainstream and supported by the developers.
While a lot of stuff like how units with no attack animation (or for SC2's case, they could pick a unit to have a passive that could function the same way) could attack and move at the same time and how turning also affected it were probably accidentally, that doesn't mean it something else (whether similar or the same) shouldn't be in SC2.
tl;dr - Bring back Reavers. Make Scarabs turn once every 0.5 seconds (this is just an example) or so to try to be similar to the eight directional BW pathing. Also make Scarabs only able to turn 45 degrees (or so) once per 0.5 second turn (so if a marine was targeted, stim and runs directly behind the scarab before it makes a turn, the Scarab would have to make a curve back to hit the marine). Yes it may sound silly but Reavers are awesome and need to find a way back into the game (and those 2 limitations to Scarab would make it so they're not overpowered in SC2's environment).
Again, BW is doing sixth in PC bangs while SC2 (after HotS release) is doing eleventh in PC bangs in South Korea. Why? Reavers. That's why. (But in all seriously, I think I explained my post well. BW is just more of a deep game than in SC2. Both are challenging but one still lacks a bit of depth compared to the other.)
BW isn't doing better because of reavers. they grew up playing starcraft, it's a part of their culture. They played BW and understand BW and BW has already developed for years with stars that they are familiar with. this is why BW is ONLY played in KR pretty much right now. Why only look at S.Korea? Why don't you compare BW vs SC2 all across the globe? Why did SC2 become more successful than BW in everywhere in the world EXCEPT S.Korea and China?
casual viewers don't care about those micro if they don't understand how 'deep' is it. this is why BW was on decline and why BW is now on 6th in netcafe. Only core fans are left and casuals etc all went to watch League. Why SC2 is doing worse is because most of them don't like what they are seeing because they, like you, are comparing it to BW, both core and casuals. Why SC2 is doing well in other areas is because new casuals are fine with these 'flaws', old fans appreciate SC2 even if it is not as 'deep'.
What do you mean more successful? BW was released 15 years ago, do you know any other game of 20th century that is doing as well as BW right now? SC2 is more popular right now just because it is NEW game. Casuals mostly dont care about game mechanics and depth they just want to play game which is easy and new.
But since SC2 doesnt have such depth that BW has, SC2 wont last as esport as long as BW lasted. Since SC2 is more popular right now among casual players these casual players wont be playing and watching this game for long.
On October 04 2013 12:51 ChoiSulli wrote: Damn I think just referring people to Goldfish' post is all I need to do. Its such a good explanation as to why even though BW is infinetly harder to play, it is so fucking fun and you can feel yourself improving and it is such a rewarding feeling. I want to just make a point about the spectator experience, to me there is no WOW factor in sc2, nothing that impresses since its all fucking easy to do. Oh shit he targeted down the colossus oh shit he empd the entire army oh shit he spread out his death ball. There is more casuals who ladder in sc2 then there ever were in BW... in BW we all accepted we sucked at the game and werent going to be good enough and so we mostly played UMS. But we all fucking tuned in to watch the pros do shit we would never be able to. All you gotta do is go turn on Bisu's stream, first of all there is not anyone else that handsome and there is not anyone else that can play BW that way.
Cool
How in the hell does that develop a scene? It doesn't. Brutally hard games have a niche scene like what BW was outside of Korea. It doesn't mean that SC2 shouldn't be more in depth, and there's a shit ton that SC2 can and should learn from BW, but the fact that it was brutally hard and derp derp everyone sucked is not a good idea. Who wants to play a game that they suck at unless they practice 10 hours a day?
Do you realize that every single game is niche game? Some people prefer shooters, some RTS, some MOBA etc.
Traditional RTS just aren't as competitive (in terms of popularity and time investment) anymore nowadays.
Anyway, as for whether appealing to casuals helps or not.
First, an important thing is, it doesn't matter how casual friendly the game is if it's not as fun or doesn't have as much depth as other games. Second of all, BW is actually more casual friendly in gameplay (I'm not talking about battle.net 1.0 or so, yes those help but the actual game itself is also more casual friendly). In BW, (for example) it's easier to know what you need to improve on than in SC2 (yes, that includes the so called "fighting the interface" we had in BW. Yes it was fighting the interface but doing it successfully was rewarding but yet also very doable by anyone. When someone remembered to put their workers on minerals, they sure felt really good >.>).
Not only that, in terms of pro level play, it's easier to replicate things that pros do (microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers are the #1 examples). In SC2, the higher level things pros do is either mostly just strategy/game knowledge (what BOs to use, what to do when you see x or y unit at x or y time, what it means when opponent takes 2 gas, etc) which isn't exactly exciting or appealing to casuals. The other thing higher level pros do is simply "how fast you can do it" which (unlike in the case of microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers) aren't as easy replicable or easy to get into since it's simply a "speed thing" compared to BW where it wasn't purely just speed (and I'll get onto what makes microing more deep in BW compared to SC2 a little later).
BW was seen doing #6th in PC bangs. SC2 (this was after HotS release) was seen doing at #11.
Also I said this before but BW was actually more casual friendly.
In BW, there was more depth in everything but yet everything was much easier to learn and practice.
In SC2, the game is hard but how is it hard? Microing in SC2 is hard but it's hard only because most microing is just how fast you micro (splitting up marines against banelings, splitting up zerglings against widow mines, etc).
In BW, microing Mutalisk was not purely about speed but about so many other things.
You had to pay attention to the direction the Mutalisk were facing before attacking (if you were attack moving) or else the Mutalisk will lose acceleration. You had to know which situations to use attack move, attack directly, patrol, hold position, etc and when doing that, you also had to pay attention to the distance between targets.
Also the micro depended on what you wanted your mutalisk to do. If you wanted you only had six Mutalisk (against Marines) it was best to use attack directly (you can take out one marine per attack volley). However, if you had more Mutalisk against a bunch of marines (twelve for example), then using hold position was better.
Against Scourge, when using patrol micro, you had to pay attention to the distance between Mutalisk and the scourge before using patrol micro.
Overall, from the Mutalisk example alone, micro has much more depth than in SC2.
SC2 has the speed thing but it has none of the depth in micro and depth helps makes the game more fun and interesting.
A deep game is probably also a difficulty game to master. However a difficult game is not nessarily a deep game (it may be difficulty simply because of a few things). An example is splitting up marines against banelings. It's difficulty but it's not as deep as Mutalisk micro (for example). I know it's not the same thing but the majority of micro in SC2 is simply just that - how fast you do it.
In BW, this reached greater heights.
Also, those type of things is what helps casual players more interested into the game (and what potentially makes a causal into a more hardcore player).
Don't you want to try it yourself and replicate it and potentially impress others with it? Then you start copying and trying it.
SC2 doesn't have nearly as much things. Again, most of it just all goes down to "how fast you split marines against banelings" (to be fair - I did link the video with Jaedong splitting Mutalisk "but" the video didn't just showcase splitting, it had Mutalisk micro in general which is beyond simply splitting or speed).
Also it's not just air units in general, even things that weren't exactly the same (Reavers being the prime example) had a ton more depth. Reavers for example - the more things that get in the way of the scarab's pathing (and any ground unit or structure that isn't the target of the scarab can block or mess with the scarab's pathing), the more likely the scarab will be a dud and won't deal damage.
Also Reavers are one of the few units that encourage micro and attention from both sides. The Protoss player has to move and protect their Reaver (with shuttles) and when attacking, they need to pay attention and attack the unit that may be lead to potentially the most AoE damage (as well as the one that's less likely to move away). The opposing player can try to move the targeted unit out of the way of others (this also involves running behind structures or anything so that the scarab gets blocked by the ground unit or structure).
Reavers are deep units. As for how to replicate scarab to be similar to BW? Well, BW had eight directional movement but one way to replicate something similar is to make it so that Scarabs can only turn (towards their target) once every 0.5 seconds or so. Additionally, Scarabs could be made so that they don't home in on the target directly but they could be limited to make only 45 angle turns towards the target (and no more than that) once every 0.5 seconds. (This could potentially mean a stim marine could run directly behind the scarab and the scarab would have to do a curve to hit the marine instead of being able to turn around directly.)
While I'm not sure about the data editor, something like this can easily be done in the trigger editor (and Blizzard can add it in easily to the data editor).
Anyway, that's one example of how to add the Reaver back into SC2 environment (scarabs function similarly by being limited to making a turn once every 0.5 seconds or so, and being limited to making a max of a 45 angle turn once every 0.5 seconds, so that means a stim marine could potentially just run behind a scarab and cause it to make a curve).
It's different compared to BW but what wouldn't be different is how the Reaver would add fun and engaging micro for both sides of the battle.
(In SC2, the only closest example is probably the seeker missile but seeker missiles are too slow compared to Scarabs and don't have that fun "try to get the scarab to get blocked by pathing to dud" element + Ravens are no where near as fun to control as shuttle + Reaver. As for Widow mines - they are way too fast and too volatile, and they can't be microed against or controlled with as easily compared to Reavers.)
As for the accidental things in BW? Well, lots of competitive games (like fighting games and FPS) have a lot of accidental things that were used by players. It became mainstream and supported by the developers.
While a lot of stuff like how units with no attack animation (or for SC2's case, they could pick a unit to have a passive that could function the same way) could attack and move at the same time and how turning also affected it were probably accidentally, that doesn't mean it something else (whether similar or the same) shouldn't be in SC2.
tl;dr - Bring back Reavers. Make Scarabs turn once every 0.5 seconds (this is just an example) or so to try to be similar to the eight directional BW pathing. Also make Scarabs only able to turn 45 degrees (or so) once per 0.5 second turn (so if a marine was targeted, stim and runs directly behind the scarab before it makes a turn, the Scarab would have to make a curve back to hit the marine). Yes it may sound silly but Reavers are awesome and need to find a way back into the game (and those 2 limitations to Scarab would make it so they're not overpowered in SC2's environment).
Again, BW is doing sixth in PC bangs while SC2 (after HotS release) is doing eleventh in PC bangs in South Korea. Why? Reavers. That's why. (But in all seriously, I think I explained my post well. BW is just more of a deep game than in SC2. Both are challenging but one still lacks a bit of depth compared to the other.)
BW isn't doing better because of reavers. they grew up playing starcraft, it's a part of their culture. They played BW and understand BW and BW has already developed for years with stars that they are familiar with. this is why BW is ONLY played in KR pretty much right now. Why only look at S.Korea? Why don't you compare BW vs SC2 all across the globe? Why did SC2 become more successful than BW in everywhere in the world EXCEPT S.Korea and China?
casual viewers don't care about those micro if they don't understand how 'deep' is it. this is why BW was on decline and why BW is now on 6th in netcafe. Only core fans are left and casuals etc all went to watch League. Why SC2 is doing worse is because most of them don't like what they are seeing because they, like you, are comparing it to BW, both core and casuals. Why SC2 is doing well in other areas is because new casuals are fine with these 'flaws', old fans appreciate SC2 even if it is not as 'deep'.
What do you mean more successful? BW was released 15 years ago, do you know any other game of 20th century that is doing as well as BW right now? SC2 is more popular right now just because it is NEW game. Casuals mostly dont care about game mechanics and depth they just want to play game which is easy and new.
But since SC2 doesnt have such depth that BW has, SC2 wont last as esport as long as BW lasted. Since SC2 is more popular right now among casual players these casual players wont be playing and watching this game for long.
as for the BW 15 years ago comment, sour that we don't live in 15 years ago anymore. Players don't invest so much time into a game anymore, they want an easier to pick up but hard to master game.
No one wants to play a game that controls don't feel fluid. Don't think so? Check out the change in resident evil and FF. SC2 isn't NEW by any mean for a modern gaming standard, games like GTA V, BF4 are new. unless you would also consider final fantasy 13 to be new. (which already received several DLCs and sequels)
SC2 will last however long until it faces another big competitor. Just like how BW was pretty safe from any competitions in S.Korea for years until League took over, a game that is easier, simplier, more international, and arguably a lot less depth than bw.
Pretty much. I like that word. Brutal. As I was searching for a few things I came across this post from a while back:
On April 25 2010 14:41 Go0g3n wrote: Blizzard is really in a big bind with StarCraft II in Korea. With 18+ rating StarCraft II cannot be broadcast on television in prime time or any time slot other than late night, meaning that there will be 0 money in it for TV broadcasters, even if they partner with GOM or other b-company. Plus the 18+ will affect the sales to an extent.
Because the game is not recognized by Kespa, progamers, as owners of the license will be forbidden to play televised (if there will be any) matches, and there in fact will be no StarCraft 2 progamers at all in Korea.
As for governmental support, a year or so back Blizzard appealed to Korean Ministry of Culture (not sure about exact name) after their first negotiations with Kespa and MBC/OGN failed, but they were sent back to deal with Kespa and threatened to set a 18+ mature rating for the game. Almost the same thing happened with China, only they gave the same rating 6 months earlier.
This is actually a very interesting find. SC2 got a Teen rating like BW did back in the day in the US but in Korea they gave it a +18 ESRB rating and this is a pretty dramatic shift when it comes to what they're allowed to show on Korean Television. Just another reason for KeSPA to start streaming the games online. I don't think you can avoid that impact when we're dealing with the Korean scene and it's bite size piece of the puzzle. It's a minor detail, but it has consequences.
Traditional RTS just aren't as competitive (in terms of popularity and time investment) anymore nowadays.
Anyway, as for whether appealing to casuals helps or not.
First, an important thing is, it doesn't matter how casual friendly the game is if it's not as fun or doesn't have as much depth as other games. Second of all, BW is actually more casual friendly in gameplay (I'm not talking about battle.net 1.0 or so, yes those help but the actual game itself is also more casual friendly). In BW, (for example) it's easier to know what you need to improve on than in SC2 (yes, that includes the so called "fighting the interface" we had in BW. Yes it was fighting the interface but doing it successfully was rewarding but yet also very doable by anyone. When someone remembered to put their workers on minerals, they sure felt really good >.>).
Not only that, in terms of pro level play, it's easier to replicate things that pros do (microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers are the #1 examples). In SC2, the higher level things pros do is either mostly just strategy/game knowledge (what BOs to use, what to do when you see x or y unit at x or y time, what it means when opponent takes 2 gas, etc) which isn't exactly exciting or appealing to casuals. The other thing higher level pros do is simply "how fast you can do it" which (unlike in the case of microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers) aren't as easy replicable or easy to get into since it's simply a "speed thing" compared to BW where it wasn't purely just speed (and I'll get onto what makes microing more deep in BW compared to SC2 a little later).
BW was seen doing #6th in PC bangs. SC2 (this was after HotS release) was seen doing at #11.
Also I said this before but BW was actually more casual friendly.
In BW, there was more depth in everything but yet everything was much easier to learn and practice.
In SC2, the game is hard but how is it hard? Microing in SC2 is hard but it's hard only because most microing is just how fast you micro (splitting up marines against banelings, splitting up zerglings against widow mines, etc).
In BW, microing Mutalisk was not purely about speed but about so many other things.
You had to pay attention to the direction the Mutalisk were facing before attacking (if you were attack moving) or else the Mutalisk will lose acceleration. You had to know which situations to use attack move, attack directly, patrol, hold position, etc and when doing that, you also had to pay attention to the distance between targets.
Also the micro depended on what you wanted your mutalisk to do. If you wanted you only had six Mutalisk (against Marines) it was best to use attack directly (you can take out one marine per attack volley). However, if you had more Mutalisk against a bunch of marines (twelve for example), then using hold position was better.
Against Scourge, when using patrol micro, you had to pay attention to the distance between Mutalisk and the scourge before using patrol micro.
Overall, from the Mutalisk example alone, micro has much more depth than in SC2.
SC2 has the speed thing but it has none of the depth in micro and depth helps makes the game more fun and interesting.
A deep game is probably also a difficulty game to master. However a difficult game is not nessarily a deep game (it may be difficulty simply because of a few things). An example is splitting up marines against banelings. It's difficulty but it's not as deep as Mutalisk micro (for example). I know it's not the same thing but the majority of micro in SC2 is simply just that - how fast you do it.
In BW, this reached greater heights.
Also, those type of things is what helps casual players more interested into the game (and what potentially makes a causal into a more hardcore player).
Don't you want to try it yourself and replicate it and potentially impress others with it? Then you start copying and trying it.
SC2 doesn't have nearly as much things. Again, most of it just all goes down to "how fast you split marines against banelings" (to be fair - I did link the video with Jaedong splitting Mutalisk "but" the video didn't just showcase splitting, it had Mutalisk micro in general which is beyond simply splitting or speed).
Also it's not just air units in general, even things that weren't exactly the same (Reavers being the prime example) had a ton more depth. Reavers for example - the more things that get in the way of the scarab's pathing (and any ground unit or structure that isn't the target of the scarab can block or mess with the scarab's pathing), the more likely the scarab will be a dud and won't deal damage.
Also Reavers are one of the few units that encourage micro and attention from both sides. The Protoss player has to move and protect their Reaver (with shuttles) and when attacking, they need to pay attention and attack the unit that may be lead to potentially the most AoE damage (as well as the one that's less likely to move away). The opposing player can try to move the targeted unit out of the way of others (this also involves running behind structures or anything so that the scarab gets blocked by the ground unit or structure).
Reavers are deep units. As for how to replicate scarab to be similar to BW? Well, BW had eight directional movement but one way to replicate something similar is to make it so that Scarabs can only turn (towards their target) once every 0.5 seconds or so. Additionally, Scarabs could be made so that they don't home in on the target directly but they could be limited to make only 45 angle turns towards the target (and no more than that) once every 0.5 seconds. (This could potentially mean a stim marine could run directly behind the scarab and the scarab would have to do a curve to hit the marine instead of being able to turn around directly.)
While I'm not sure about the data editor, something like this can easily be done in the trigger editor (and Blizzard can add it in easily to the data editor).
Anyway, that's one example of how to add the Reaver back into SC2 environment (scarabs function similarly by being limited to making a turn once every 0.5 seconds or so, and being limited to making a max of a 45 angle turn once every 0.5 seconds, so that means a stim marine could potentially just run behind a scarab and cause it to make a curve).
It's different compared to BW but what wouldn't be different is how the Reaver would add fun and engaging micro for both sides of the battle.
(In SC2, the only closest example is probably the seeker missile but seeker missiles are too slow compared to Scarabs and don't have that fun "try to get the scarab to get blocked by pathing to dud" element + Ravens are no where near as fun to control as shuttle + Reaver. As for Widow mines - they are way too fast and too volatile, and they can't be microed against or controlled with as easily compared to Reavers.)
As for the accidental things in BW? Well, lots of competitive games (like fighting games and FPS) have a lot of accidental things that were used by players. It became mainstream and supported by the developers.
While a lot of stuff like how units with no attack animation (or for SC2's case, they could pick a unit to have a passive that could function the same way) could attack and move at the same time and how turning also affected it were probably accidentally, that doesn't mean it something else (whether similar or the same) shouldn't be in SC2.
tl;dr - Bring back Reavers. Make Scarabs turn once every 0.5 seconds (this is just an example) or so to try to be similar to the eight directional BW pathing. Also make Scarabs only able to turn 45 degrees (or so) once per 0.5 second turn (so if a marine was targeted, stim and runs directly behind the scarab before it makes a turn, the Scarab would have to make a curve back to hit the marine). Yes it may sound silly but Reavers are awesome and need to find a way back into the game (and those 2 limitations to Scarab would make it so they're not overpowered in SC2's environment).
Again, BW is doing sixth in PC bangs while SC2 (after HotS release) is doing eleventh in PC bangs in South Korea. Why? Reavers. That's why. (But in all seriously, I think I explained my post well. BW is just more of a deep game than in SC2. Both are challenging but one still lacks a bit of depth compared to the other.)
BW isn't doing better because of reavers. they grew up playing starcraft, it's a part of their culture. They played BW and understand BW and BW has already developed for years with stars that they are familiar with. this is why BW is ONLY played in KR pretty much right now. Why only look at S.Korea? Why don't you compare BW vs SC2 all across the globe? Why did SC2 become more successful than BW in everywhere in the world EXCEPT S.Korea and China?
casual viewers don't care about those micro if they don't understand how 'deep' is it. this is why BW was on decline and why BW is now on 6th in netcafe. Only core fans are left and casuals etc all went to watch League. Why SC2 is doing worse is because most of them don't like what they are seeing because they, like you, are comparing it to BW, both core and casuals. Why SC2 is doing well in other areas is because new casuals are fine with these 'flaws', old fans appreciate SC2 even if it is not as 'deep'.
What do you mean more successful? BW was released 15 years ago, do you know any other game of 20th century that is doing as well as BW right now? SC2 is more popular right now just because it is NEW game. Casuals mostly dont care about game mechanics and depth they just want to play game which is easy and new.
But since SC2 doesnt have such depth that BW has, SC2 wont last as esport as long as BW lasted. Since SC2 is more popular right now among casual players these casual players wont be playing and watching this game for long.
as for the BW 15 years ago comment, sour that we don't live in 15 years ago anymore. Players don't invest so much time into a game anymore, they want an easier to pick up but hard to master game.
No one wants to play a game that controls don't feel fluid. Don't think so? Check out the change in resident evil and FF. SC2 isn't NEW by any mean for a modern gaming standard, games like GTA V, BF4 are new. unless you would also consider final fantasy 13 to be new. (which already received several DLCs and sequels)
SC2 will last however long until it faces another big competitor. Just like how BW was pretty safe from any competitions in S.Korea for years until League took over, a game that is easier, simplier, more international, and arguably a lot less depth than bw.
That is precisely what I am talking about GTA V is the recent game and is doing much much better than SC2. So I find nothing surprising in the fact that foreigners right now play more SC2 than BW.
On October 04 2013 08:10 Xapti wrote: I can't help but ignore any e-sports related issues, and instead focus only on the game issues itself. I don't see the successfulness of a game being mostly due to [professional] esports; Supposedly KeSPA had some real problems with it during SC1, but it didn't seem to hinder it's popularity at all.
as mentioned in the post: Chat I think that makes a really big difference. No need to explain, because OP already explained it. Sure they FINALLY introduced chats into SC2, but it's still not quite as good as it was in SC1. If Blizzard is concerned about children or streamers seeing certain things, they could easily have an option to disable the chat and have a parental lockout for it.
That would add another layer of UI complexity.
I personally like the new chat and found SC1 and WC3 not as good because I was often not in the mood to be in an open channel. WC3 later hat a patch to allow to play without going into a channel, but to access the friend list UI, I still automatically had to go into a chat. So every time I did that, I needed to join a new channel to get rid of clan bots and kids insulting each other.
Of course I am only one of many, but I am one of those who like the approach SC2 took.
Traditional RTS just aren't as competitive (in terms of popularity and time investment) anymore nowadays.
Anyway, as for whether appealing to casuals helps or not.
First, an important thing is, it doesn't matter how casual friendly the game is if it's not as fun or doesn't have as much depth as other games. Second of all, BW is actually more casual friendly in gameplay (I'm not talking about battle.net 1.0 or so, yes those help but the actual game itself is also more casual friendly). In BW, (for example) it's easier to know what you need to improve on than in SC2 (yes, that includes the so called "fighting the interface" we had in BW. Yes it was fighting the interface but doing it successfully was rewarding but yet also very doable by anyone. When someone remembered to put their workers on minerals, they sure felt really good >.>).
Not only that, in terms of pro level play, it's easier to replicate things that pros do (microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers are the #1 examples). In SC2, the higher level things pros do is either mostly just strategy/game knowledge (what BOs to use, what to do when you see x or y unit at x or y time, what it means when opponent takes 2 gas, etc) which isn't exactly exciting or appealing to casuals. The other thing higher level pros do is simply "how fast you can do it" which (unlike in the case of microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers) aren't as easy replicable or easy to get into since it's simply a "speed thing" compared to BW where it wasn't purely just speed (and I'll get onto what makes microing more deep in BW compared to SC2 a little later).
BW was seen doing #6th in PC bangs. SC2 (this was after HotS release) was seen doing at #11.
Also I said this before but BW was actually more casual friendly.
In BW, there was more depth in everything but yet everything was much easier to learn and practice.
In SC2, the game is hard but how is it hard? Microing in SC2 is hard but it's hard only because most microing is just how fast you micro (splitting up marines against banelings, splitting up zerglings against widow mines, etc).
In BW, microing Mutalisk was not purely about speed but about so many other things.
You had to pay attention to the direction the Mutalisk were facing before attacking (if you were attack moving) or else the Mutalisk will lose acceleration. You had to know which situations to use attack move, attack directly, patrol, hold position, etc and when doing that, you also had to pay attention to the distance between targets.
Also the micro depended on what you wanted your mutalisk to do. If you wanted you only had six Mutalisk (against Marines) it was best to use attack directly (you can take out one marine per attack volley). However, if you had more Mutalisk against a bunch of marines (twelve for example), then using hold position was better.
Against Scourge, when using patrol micro, you had to pay attention to the distance between Mutalisk and the scourge before using patrol micro.
Overall, from the Mutalisk example alone, micro has much more depth than in SC2.
SC2 has the speed thing but it has none of the depth in micro and depth helps makes the game more fun and interesting.
A deep game is probably also a difficulty game to master. However a difficult game is not nessarily a deep game (it may be difficulty simply because of a few things). An example is splitting up marines against banelings. It's difficulty but it's not as deep as Mutalisk micro (for example). I know it's not the same thing but the majority of micro in SC2 is simply just that - how fast you do it.
In BW, this reached greater heights.
Also, those type of things is what helps casual players more interested into the game (and what potentially makes a causal into a more hardcore player).
Don't you want to try it yourself and replicate it and potentially impress others with it? Then you start copying and trying it.
SC2 doesn't have nearly as much things. Again, most of it just all goes down to "how fast you split marines against banelings" (to be fair - I did link the video with Jaedong splitting Mutalisk "but" the video didn't just showcase splitting, it had Mutalisk micro in general which is beyond simply splitting or speed).
Also it's not just air units in general, even things that weren't exactly the same (Reavers being the prime example) had a ton more depth. Reavers for example - the more things that get in the way of the scarab's pathing (and any ground unit or structure that isn't the target of the scarab can block or mess with the scarab's pathing), the more likely the scarab will be a dud and won't deal damage.
Also Reavers are one of the few units that encourage micro and attention from both sides. The Protoss player has to move and protect their Reaver (with shuttles) and when attacking, they need to pay attention and attack the unit that may be lead to potentially the most AoE damage (as well as the one that's less likely to move away). The opposing player can try to move the targeted unit out of the way of others (this also involves running behind structures or anything so that the scarab gets blocked by the ground unit or structure).
Reavers are deep units. As for how to replicate scarab to be similar to BW? Well, BW had eight directional movement but one way to replicate something similar is to make it so that Scarabs can only turn (towards their target) once every 0.5 seconds or so. Additionally, Scarabs could be made so that they don't home in on the target directly but they could be limited to make only 45 angle turns towards the target (and no more than that) once every 0.5 seconds. (This could potentially mean a stim marine could run directly behind the scarab and the scarab would have to do a curve to hit the marine instead of being able to turn around directly.)
While I'm not sure about the data editor, something like this can easily be done in the trigger editor (and Blizzard can add it in easily to the data editor).
Anyway, that's one example of how to add the Reaver back into SC2 environment (scarabs function similarly by being limited to making a turn once every 0.5 seconds or so, and being limited to making a max of a 45 angle turn once every 0.5 seconds, so that means a stim marine could potentially just run behind a scarab and cause it to make a curve).
It's different compared to BW but what wouldn't be different is how the Reaver would add fun and engaging micro for both sides of the battle.
(In SC2, the only closest example is probably the seeker missile but seeker missiles are too slow compared to Scarabs and don't have that fun "try to get the scarab to get blocked by pathing to dud" element + Ravens are no where near as fun to control as shuttle + Reaver. As for Widow mines - they are way too fast and too volatile, and they can't be microed against or controlled with as easily compared to Reavers.)
As for the accidental things in BW? Well, lots of competitive games (like fighting games and FPS) have a lot of accidental things that were used by players. It became mainstream and supported by the developers.
While a lot of stuff like how units with no attack animation (or for SC2's case, they could pick a unit to have a passive that could function the same way) could attack and move at the same time and how turning also affected it were probably accidentally, that doesn't mean it something else (whether similar or the same) shouldn't be in SC2.
tl;dr - Bring back Reavers. Make Scarabs turn once every 0.5 seconds (this is just an example) or so to try to be similar to the eight directional BW pathing. Also make Scarabs only able to turn 45 degrees (or so) once per 0.5 second turn (so if a marine was targeted, stim and runs directly behind the scarab before it makes a turn, the Scarab would have to make a curve back to hit the marine). Yes it may sound silly but Reavers are awesome and need to find a way back into the game (and those 2 limitations to Scarab would make it so they're not overpowered in SC2's environment).
Again, BW is doing sixth in PC bangs while SC2 (after HotS release) is doing eleventh in PC bangs in South Korea. Why? Reavers. That's why. (But in all seriously, I think I explained my post well. BW is just more of a deep game than in SC2. Both are challenging but one still lacks a bit of depth compared to the other.)
BW isn't doing better because of reavers. they grew up playing starcraft, it's a part of their culture. They played BW and understand BW and BW has already developed for years with stars that they are familiar with. this is why BW is ONLY played in KR pretty much right now. Why only look at S.Korea? Why don't you compare BW vs SC2 all across the globe? Why did SC2 become more successful than BW in everywhere in the world EXCEPT S.Korea and China?
casual viewers don't care about those micro if they don't understand how 'deep' is it. this is why BW was on decline and why BW is now on 6th in netcafe. Only core fans are left and casuals etc all went to watch League. Why SC2 is doing worse is because most of them don't like what they are seeing because they, like you, are comparing it to BW, both core and casuals. Why SC2 is doing well in other areas is because new casuals are fine with these 'flaws', old fans appreciate SC2 even if it is not as 'deep'.
What do you mean more successful? BW was released 15 years ago, do you know any other game of 20th century that is doing as well as BW right now? SC2 is more popular right now just because it is NEW game. Casuals mostly dont care about game mechanics and depth they just want to play game which is easy and new.
But since SC2 doesnt have such depth that BW has, SC2 wont last as esport as long as BW lasted. Since SC2 is more popular right now among casual players these casual players wont be playing and watching this game for long.
as for the BW 15 years ago comment, sour that we don't live in 15 years ago anymore. Players don't invest so much time into a game anymore, they want an easier to pick up but hard to master game.
No one wants to play a game that controls don't feel fluid. Don't think so? Check out the change in resident evil and FF. SC2 isn't NEW by any mean for a modern gaming standard, games like GTA V, BF4 are new. unless you would also consider final fantasy 13 to be new. (which already received several DLCs and sequels)
SC2 will last however long until it faces another big competitor. Just like how BW was pretty safe from any competitions in S.Korea for years until League took over, a game that is easier, simplier, more international, and arguably a lot less depth than bw.
I am not so sure about MOBA games being simpler and easier than BW. Yes for one player it’s easier to control one unit. But as a whole the game is more complicated since five players are needed to control all the heroes. What game is more complicated in SC2 5x5 or 1x1? Definitely 5x5. Team games are more complicated than single games I think it’s quite obvious.
Traditional RTS just aren't as competitive (in terms of popularity and time investment) anymore nowadays.
Anyway, as for whether appealing to casuals helps or not.
First, an important thing is, it doesn't matter how casual friendly the game is if it's not as fun or doesn't have as much depth as other games. Second of all, BW is actually more casual friendly in gameplay (I'm not talking about battle.net 1.0 or so, yes those help but the actual game itself is also more casual friendly). In BW, (for example) it's easier to know what you need to improve on than in SC2 (yes, that includes the so called "fighting the interface" we had in BW. Yes it was fighting the interface but doing it successfully was rewarding but yet also very doable by anyone. When someone remembered to put their workers on minerals, they sure felt really good >.>). Not only that, in terms of pro level play, it's easier to replicate things that pros do (microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers are the #1 examples). In SC2, the higher level things pros do is either mostly just strategy/game knowledge (what BOs to use, what to do when you see x or y unit at x or y time, what it means when opponent takes 2 gas, etc) which isn't exactly exciting or appealing to casuals. The other thing higher level pros do is simply "how fast you can do it" which (unlike in the case of microing Mutalisk, Vultures, and Reavers) aren't as easy replicable or easy to get into since it's simply a "speed thing" compared to BW where it wasn't purely just speed (and I'll get onto what makes microing more deep in BW compared to SC2 a little later).
BW was seen doing #6th in PC bangs. SC2 (this was after HotS release) was seen doing at #11.
Also I said this before but BW was actually more casual friendly.
In BW, there was more depth in everything but yet everything was much easier to learn and practice.
In SC2, the game is hard but how is it hard? Microing in SC2 is hard but it's hard only because most microing is just how fast you micro (splitting up marines against banelings, splitting up zerglings against widow mines, etc).
In BW, microing Mutalisk was not purely about speed but about so many other things.
You had to pay attention to the direction the Mutalisk were facing before attacking (if you were attack moving) or else the Mutalisk will lose acceleration. You had to know which situations to use attack move, attack directly, patrol, hold position, etc and when doing that, you also had to pay attention to the distance between targets.
Also the micro depended on what you wanted your mutalisk to do. If you wanted you only had six Mutalisk (against Marines) it was best to use attack directly (you can take out one marine per attack volley). However, if you had more Mutalisk against a bunch of marines (twelve for example), then using hold position was better.
Against Scourge, when using patrol micro, you had to pay attention to the distance between Mutalisk and the scourge before using patrol micro.
Overall, from the Mutalisk example alone, micro has much more depth than in SC2.
SC2 has the speed thing but it has none of the depth in micro and depth helps makes the game more fun and interesting.
A deep game is probably also a difficulty game to master. However a difficult game is not nessarily a deep game (it may be difficulty simply because of a few things). An example is splitting up marines against banelings. It's difficulty but it's not as deep as Mutalisk micro (for example). I know it's not the same thing but the majority of micro in SC2 is simply just that - how fast you do it.
In BW, this reached greater heights.
Also, those type of things is what helps casual players more interested into the game (and what potentially makes a causal into a more hardcore player).
Don't you want to try it yourself and replicate it and potentially impress others with it? Then you start copying and trying it.
SC2 doesn't have nearly as much things. Again, most of it just all goes down to "how fast you split marines against banelings" (to be fair - I did link the video with Jaedong splitting Mutalisk "but" the video didn't just showcase splitting, it had Mutalisk micro in general which is beyond simply splitting or speed).
Also it's not just air units in general, even things that weren't exactly the same (Reavers being the prime example) had a ton more depth. Reavers for example - the more things that get in the way of the scarab's pathing (and any ground unit or structure that isn't the target of the scarab can block or mess with the scarab's pathing), the more likely the scarab will be a dud and won't deal damage.
Also Reavers are one of the few units that encourage micro and attention from both sides. The Protoss player has to move and protect their Reaver (with shuttles) and when attacking, they need to pay attention and attack the unit that may be lead to potentially the most AoE damage (as well as the one that's less likely to move away). The opposing player can try to move the targeted unit out of the way of others (this also involves running behind structures or anything so that the scarab gets blocked by the ground unit or structure).
Reavers are deep units. As for how to replicate scarab to be similar to BW? Well, BW had eight directional movement but one way to replicate something similar is to make it so that Scarabs can only turn (towards their target) once every 0.5 seconds or so. Additionally, Scarabs could be made so that they don't home in on the target directly but they could be limited to make only 45 angle turns towards the target (and no more than that) once every 0.5 seconds. (This could potentially mean a stim marine could run directly behind the scarab and the scarab would have to do a curve to hit the marine instead of being able to turn around directly.)
While I'm not sure about the data editor, something like this can easily be done in the trigger editor (and Blizzard can add it in easily to the data editor).
Anyway, that's one example of how to add the Reaver back into SC2 environment (scarabs function similarly by being limited to making a turn once every 0.5 seconds or so, and being limited to making a max of a 45 angle turn once every 0.5 seconds, so that means a stim marine could potentially just run behind a scarab and cause it to make a curve).
It's different compared to BW but what wouldn't be different is how the Reaver would add fun and engaging micro for both sides of the battle.
(In SC2, the only closest example is probably the seeker missile but seeker missiles are too slow compared to Scarabs and don't have that fun "try to get the scarab to get blocked by pathing to dud" element + Ravens are no where near as fun to control as shuttle + Reaver. As for Widow mines - they are way too fast and too volatile, and they can't be microed against or controlled with as easily compared to Reavers.)
As for the accidental things in BW? Well, lots of competitive games (like fighting games and FPS) have a lot of accidental things that were used by players. It became mainstream and supported by the developers.
While a lot of stuff like how units with no attack animation (or for SC2's case, they could pick a unit to have a passive that could function the same way) could attack and move at the same time and how turning also affected it were probably accidentally, that doesn't mean it something else (whether similar or the same) shouldn't be in SC2.
tl;dr - Bring back Reavers. Make Scarabs turn once every 0.5 seconds (this is just an example) or so to try to be similar to the eight directional BW pathing. Also make Scarabs only able to turn 45 degrees (or so) once per 0.5 second turn (so if a marine was targeted, stim and runs directly behind the scarab before it makes a turn, the Scarab would have to make a curve back to hit the marine). Yes it may sound silly but Reavers are awesome and need to find a way back into the game (and those 2 limitations to Scarab would make it so they're not overpowered in SC2's environment).
Again, BW is doing sixth in PC bangs while SC2 (after HotS release) is doing eleventh in PC bangs in South Korea. Why? Reavers. That's why. (But in all seriously, I think I explained my post well. BW is just more of a deep game than in SC2. Both are challenging but one still lacks a bit of depth compared to the other.)
BW isn't doing better because of reavers. they grew up playing starcraft, it's a part of their culture. They played BW and understand BW and BW has already developed for years with stars that they are familiar with. this is why BW is ONLY played in KR pretty much right now. Why only look at S.Korea? Why don't you compare BW vs SC2 all across the globe? Why did SC2 become more successful than BW in everywhere in the world EXCEPT S.Korea and China?
casual viewers don't care about those micro if they don't understand how 'deep' is it. this is why BW was on decline and why BW is now on 6th in netcafe. Only core fans are left and casuals etc all went to watch League. Why SC2 is doing worse is because most of them don't like what they are seeing because they, like you, are comparing it to BW, both core and casuals. Why SC2 is doing well in other areas is because new casuals are fine with these 'flaws', old fans appreciate SC2 even if it is not as 'deep'.
What do you mean more successful? BW was released 15 years ago, do you know any other game of 20th century that is doing as well as BW right now? SC2 is more popular right now just because it is NEW game. Casuals mostly dont care about game mechanics and depth they just want to play game which is easy and new.
But since SC2 doesnt have such depth that BW has, SC2 wont last as esport as long as BW lasted. Since SC2 is more popular right now among casual players these casual players wont be playing and watching this game for long.
as for the BW 15 years ago comment, sour that we don't live in 15 years ago anymore. Players don't invest so much time into a game anymore, they want an easier to pick up but hard to master game.
No one wants to play a game that controls don't feel fluid. Don't think so? Check out the change in resident evil and FF. SC2 isn't NEW by any mean for a modern gaming standard, games like GTA V, BF4 are new. unless you would also consider final fantasy 13 to be new. (which already received several DLCs and sequels)
SC2 will last however long until it faces another big competitor. Just like how BW was pretty safe from any competitions in S.Korea for years until League took over, a game that is easier, simplier, more international, and arguably a lot less depth than bw.
I am not so sure about MOBA games being simpler and easier than BW. Yes for one player it’s easier to control one unit. But as a whole the game is more complicated since five players are needed to control all the heroes. What game is more complicated in SC2 5x5 or 1x1? Definitely 5x5. Team games are more complicated than single games I think it’s quite obvious.
ok. so you are saying league is more complicated than bw. i have to disagree on that and leave the argument here
The argument is stated countless times in this thread, so I didn't repeat it. Since you didn't bother reading the thread, the point is that there are no storylines, no infrastructure for growing local players, leading to viewers and progamers losing interest in WCS regions like NA. This is something Blizzard can learn from Riot.
Then put an effort and show how your post is related to current discussion. If LoL was mentioned in previous pages then you should provide some context. Either by quoting someone, or describing whole matter.
btw, People are not obliged to read whole thread to participate in it. Neither they have to go and look up previous posts if you're too lazy to provide proper information.
The argument is stated countless times in this thread, so I didn't repeat it. Since you didn't bother reading the thread, the point is that there are no storylines, no infrastructure for growing local players, leading to viewers and progamers losing interest in WCS regions like NA. This is something Blizzard can learn from Riot.
Then put an effort and show how your post is related to current discussion. If LoL was mentioned in previous pages then you should provide some context. Either by quoting someone, or describing whole matter.
btw, People are not obliged to read whole thread to participate in it. Neither they have to go and look up previous posts if you're too lazy to provide proper information.
I think you are too harsh on him. WCS system was mentioned in OP.
The argument is stated countless times in this thread, so I didn't repeat it. Since you didn't bother reading the thread, the point is that there are no storylines, no infrastructure for growing local players, leading to viewers and progamers losing interest in WCS regions like NA. This is something Blizzard can learn from Riot.
Then put an effort and show how your post is related to current discussion. If LoL was mentioned in previous pages then you should provide some context. Either by quoting someone, or describing whole matter.
btw, People are not obliged to read whole thread to participate in it. Neither they have to go and look up previous posts if you're too lazy to provide proper information.
I think you are too harsh on him. WCS system was mentioned in OP.
His original post didn't mention any WCS and the first time I read it I thought he was posting some news related to LoL, I pointed out that he may have posted it in a wrong thread. But he went a little harsh on me by saying "Since you didn't bother reading the thread", which I actually do everyday. Therefore I replied in the same way.
EPT
