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On October 08 2013 17:13 RampancyTW wrote:More shameless stealing from reddit: Show nested quote +In the last 20 Brood War OSLs, there were 13 different winners, and in the last 20 MSLs there were 12. Or combined, 21 unique winners in 40 different star leagues over eight years (i.e. five leagues per year).
The Liquipedia page for the OSL even talks about the "Curse of the OSL Champion":
The champion of the previous Starleague would fail to advance out of the Round of 16, usually with a victory in their opening match and then two subsequent losses.
It's worth noting that even at their most dominant, Jaedong-level Korean BW pros had around 70% win ratios over the calendar year. That is, they lost more than a quarter of their games. Flash was considered impossibly dominant, sustaining a ~75% win rate through 2009-2011.
MMA, Polt, Taeja, Innovation are around ~65%. MC 62%. Jaedong 63%. What's your point?
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Canada11266 Posts
Scarabs would randomly not detonate.
As far as I know, it is not actually random at all. The scarab takes up space and it must find a path to travel that the scarab will fit to hit it's target. The scarab is also on a timer. So if the scarab makes it through the path within the time limit, it explodes. If it doesn't, it will dud.
Therefore. Pulling workers away from the reaver makes it more likely to run down the timer and the scarab will dud. Running away perpindicular, the scarab will probably catch up and explode for crazy damage. In addition, you could build your base so that certain buildings, the scarabs must go around because the gap is too small. Then you could pull workers behind those buildings, delaying the scarabs route, making it dud. Effectively the sim-city can be anti-reaver. In addition, if you let the reaver do it's own thing, it might target a lone scv making a 1 kill, 1 scarab exchange. But if you target clumps and suddenly you are reigning destruction. Combine that with directional splash damage, and zlot tanking shot so reaver can snipe tanks...
What a casual may see as random is in fact a playground for highly skillful tactical decisions on the part of both players. And interplay of back and forth micro combined with pre-planning on the sim-city level. The result is unpredictable, but not (usually) random. And that right there is some heady, exciting stuff to spectate.
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When you take away all the excitement and hype that a sequel to Brood War brings, it is just an RTS game.
And as an RTS game , it is ok but far from what we all wanted.
The design is to blame. Whoever designed SC2, clearly has no idea on what die-hard RTS gamers want. We want to micro our units so that it actually can change or overcome a build order. SC2 relies so heavily on build order that it is just a 'early scouting game' and then match BO, then throw in a little micro. What happened to the importance of army control (oh wow - one major battle shouldnt be all the decides a great RTS game - yes blizzard you are morons on this point).
David Kim has already stated how Blizz likes to buff units to 'balance' out any 'problems'. This approach makes the game more about rock-paper-scissors type of games, which is just plain noob RTS.
The game is exploited by pros and others alike for the different race weaknesses at different times of the game - THIS IS FUCKING AWFUL DESIGN. Why should race design be limiting other races to play the game at different times in the game ? Just pathetic, and the main reason why 'meta pros' win games, cos they exploit design timings, THIS IS NOT SKILL - this exploiting weakness of the game design.
Blizzard, get your RTS shit together. SC2 is not even close to a great RTS game.
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On October 08 2013 17:18 saddaromma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:13 RampancyTW wrote:More shameless stealing from reddit: In the last 20 Brood War OSLs, there were 13 different winners, and in the last 20 MSLs there were 12. Or combined, 21 unique winners in 40 different star leagues over eight years (i.e. five leagues per year).
The Liquipedia page for the OSL even talks about the "Curse of the OSL Champion":
The champion of the previous Starleague would fail to advance out of the Round of 16, usually with a victory in their opening match and then two subsequent losses.
It's worth noting that even at their most dominant, Jaedong-level Korean BW pros had around 70% win ratios over the calendar year. That is, they lost more than a quarter of their games. Flash was considered impossibly dominant, sustaining a ~75% win rate through 2009-2011. MMA, Polt, Taeja, Innovation are around ~65%. MC 62%. Jaedong 63%. What's your point? That BW didn't have near the consistency of results that people like to believe? Also, a healthy MVP is just as dominant as the non-Flash BW top guys, and the current top tier is close.
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On October 08 2013 17:22 Falling wrote:As far as I know, it is not actually random at all. The scarab takes up space and it must find a path to travel that the scarab will fit to hit it's target. The scarab is also on a timer. So if the scarab makes it through the path within the time limit, it explodes. If it doesn't, it will dud. Therefore. Pulling workers away from the reaver makes it more likely to run down the timer and the scarab will dud. Running away perpindicular, the scarab will probably catch up and explode for crazy damage. In addition, you could build your base so that certain buildings, the scarabs must go around because the gap is too small. Then you could pull workers behind those buildings, delaying the scarabs route, making it dud. Effectively the sim-city can be anti-reaver. In addition, if you let the reaver do it's own thing, it might target a lone scv making a 1 kill, 1 scarab exchange. But if you target clumps and suddenly you are reigning destruction. Combine that with directional splash damage, and zlot tanking shot so reaver can snipe tanks... Thanks for the clarification here 
What a casual may see as random is in fact a playground for highly skillful tactical decisions on the part of both players. And interplay of back and forth micro combined with pre-planning on the sim-city level. The result is unpredictable, but not (usually) random. Replace "casual" with "BW enthusiast" and you have the current state of "randomness" in SC2.
While I do think that SC2 matches can be mundane to spectate at times, that has less to do with the game itself than it has to do with the actions of the players.
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On October 08 2013 17:27 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:22 Falling wrote:Scarabs would randomly not detonate. As far as I know, it is not actually random at all. The scarab takes up space and it must find a path to travel that the scarab will fit to hit it's target. The scarab is also on a timer. So if the scarab makes it through the path within the time limit, it explodes. If it doesn't, it will dud. Therefore. Pulling workers away from the reaver makes it more likely to run down the timer and the scarab will dud. Running away perpindicular, the scarab will probably catch up and explode for crazy damage. In addition, you could build your base so that certain buildings, the scarabs must go around because the gap is too small. Then you could pull workers behind those buildings, delaying the scarabs route, making it dud. Effectively the sim-city can be anti-reaver. In addition, if you let the reaver do it's own thing, it might target a lone scv making a 1 kill, 1 scarab exchange. But if you target clumps and suddenly you are reigning destruction. Combine that with directional splash damage, and zlot tanking shot so reaver can snipe tanks... Thanks for the clarification here Show nested quote +What a casual may see as random is in fact a playground for highly skillful tactical decisions on the part of both players. And interplay of back and forth micro combined with pre-planning on the sim-city level. The result is unpredictable, but not (usually) random. Replace "casual" with "BW enthusiast" and you have the current state of "randomness" in SC2. While I do think that SC2 matches can be mundane to spectate at times, that has less to do with the game itself than it has to do with the actions of the players.
Sorry but the stats and the facts of your previous posts show me that you are a BW noob. No need to argue about that.
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On October 08 2013 17:24 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:18 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 17:13 RampancyTW wrote:More shameless stealing from reddit: In the last 20 Brood War OSLs, there were 13 different winners, and in the last 20 MSLs there were 12. Or combined, 21 unique winners in 40 different star leagues over eight years (i.e. five leagues per year).
The Liquipedia page for the OSL even talks about the "Curse of the OSL Champion":
The champion of the previous Starleague would fail to advance out of the Round of 16, usually with a victory in their opening match and then two subsequent losses.
It's worth noting that even at their most dominant, Jaedong-level Korean BW pros had around 70% win ratios over the calendar year. That is, they lost more than a quarter of their games. Flash was considered impossibly dominant, sustaining a ~75% win rate through 2009-2011. MMA, Polt, Taeja, Innovation are around ~65%. MC 62%. Jaedong 63%. What's your point? That BW didn't have near the consistency of results that people like to believe? Also, a healthy MVP is just as dominant as the non-Flash BW top guys, and the current top tier is close.
I think it is safe to say that you were proven wrong.
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On October 08 2013 17:29 TaShadan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:27 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 17:22 Falling wrote:Scarabs would randomly not detonate. As far as I know, it is not actually random at all. The scarab takes up space and it must find a path to travel that the scarab will fit to hit it's target. The scarab is also on a timer. So if the scarab makes it through the path within the time limit, it explodes. If it doesn't, it will dud. Therefore. Pulling workers away from the reaver makes it more likely to run down the timer and the scarab will dud. Running away perpindicular, the scarab will probably catch up and explode for crazy damage. In addition, you could build your base so that certain buildings, the scarabs must go around because the gap is too small. Then you could pull workers behind those buildings, delaying the scarabs route, making it dud. Effectively the sim-city can be anti-reaver. In addition, if you let the reaver do it's own thing, it might target a lone scv making a 1 kill, 1 scarab exchange. But if you target clumps and suddenly you are reigning destruction. Combine that with directional splash damage, and zlot tanking shot so reaver can snipe tanks... Thanks for the clarification here What a casual may see as random is in fact a playground for highly skillful tactical decisions on the part of both players. And interplay of back and forth micro combined with pre-planning on the sim-city level. The result is unpredictable, but not (usually) random. Replace "casual" with "BW enthusiast" and you have the current state of "randomness" in SC2. While I do think that SC2 matches can be mundane to spectate at times, that has less to do with the game itself than it has to do with the actions of the players. Sorry but the stats and the facts of your previous posts show me that you are a BW noob. No need to argue about that. Well, luckily for everybody, whether I'm a BW noob or not has literally zero bearing on the relative randomness/consistency of results between SC2 and BW. And at the moment they're pretty damn comparable.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
I regret it every time I read the last few pages of this thread
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On October 08 2013 17:33 lichter wrote:
I regret it every time I read the last few pages of this thread
What exactly are you regretting about?
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On October 08 2013 17:30 saddaromma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:24 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 17:18 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 17:13 RampancyTW wrote:More shameless stealing from reddit: In the last 20 Brood War OSLs, there were 13 different winners, and in the last 20 MSLs there were 12. Or combined, 21 unique winners in 40 different star leagues over eight years (i.e. five leagues per year).
The Liquipedia page for the OSL even talks about the "Curse of the OSL Champion":
The champion of the previous Starleague would fail to advance out of the Round of 16, usually with a victory in their opening match and then two subsequent losses.
It's worth noting that even at their most dominant, Jaedong-level Korean BW pros had around 70% win ratios over the calendar year. That is, they lost more than a quarter of their games. Flash was considered impossibly dominant, sustaining a ~75% win rate through 2009-2011. MMA, Polt, Taeja, Innovation are around ~65%. MC 62%. Jaedong 63%. What's your point? That BW didn't have near the consistency of results that people like to believe? Also, a healthy MVP is just as dominant as the non-Flash BW top guys, and the current top tier is close. I think it is safe to say that you were proven wrong. ..What?
SC2 demonstrates AT LEAST a similar overall consistency to BW when it comes to major tournament winners and top finishers. We also see the same top names coming up again. And again. And again. Players that have had slumps that return to top form, etc. While SC2 doesn't have its own "Flash" yet, the scene overall is extremely comparable in consistency.
And again, a healthy MVP is just as dominant as any non-Flash bonjwa, so I'm right on that count, too.
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On October 08 2013 17:36 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:30 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 17:24 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 17:18 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 17:13 RampancyTW wrote:More shameless stealing from reddit: In the last 20 Brood War OSLs, there were 13 different winners, and in the last 20 MSLs there were 12. Or combined, 21 unique winners in 40 different star leagues over eight years (i.e. five leagues per year).
The Liquipedia page for the OSL even talks about the "Curse of the OSL Champion":
The champion of the previous Starleague would fail to advance out of the Round of 16, usually with a victory in their opening match and then two subsequent losses.
It's worth noting that even at their most dominant, Jaedong-level Korean BW pros had around 70% win ratios over the calendar year. That is, they lost more than a quarter of their games. Flash was considered impossibly dominant, sustaining a ~75% win rate through 2009-2011. MMA, Polt, Taeja, Innovation are around ~65%. MC 62%. Jaedong 63%. What's your point? That BW didn't have near the consistency of results that people like to believe? Also, a healthy MVP is just as dominant as the non-Flash BW top guys, and the current top tier is close. I think it is safe to say that you were proven wrong. ..What? SC2 demonstrates AT LEAST a similar overall consistency to BW when it comes to major tournament winners and top finishers. We also see the same top names coming up again. And again. And again. Players that have had slumps that return to top form, etc. While SC2 doesn't have its own "Flash" yet, the scene overall is extremely comparable in consistency. And again, a healthy MVP is just as dominant as any non-Flash bonjwa, so I'm right on that count, too.
Lets see.
At first, you say this:
On October 08 2013 15:16 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 15:00 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 14:51 aZealot wrote:On October 08 2013 14:37 Arco wrote:On October 08 2013 14:27 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 13:55 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 13:16 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 12:14 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 12:08 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 11:58 Highways wrote:
OMG the OP is post of the year!!!
Agree on all points.
I particularly like the point one SC2 being more of a simulation. When a battle starts everything is basically attack move, the player is required to have very little micro. Imagine from a spectator view, wait 20 minutes of nothing happening then a 5 second battle occurs that decides a game where the players barely need to micro.
Letting David Kim design this game is like letting a monkey fly a plane. This has very little to do with the game design and very much to do with player choices/lack of ability. Haven't it occured to you that lack of choices is due to design? There isn't a lack of choices. Some players just choose to play passively. Some players don't have the ability to play actively on the map without falling behind in other areas of their game. There have been a ton of matches lately between very good players with action all over the map; back-and-forth, long, micro-intensive engagements; and a solid game duration of ~20 minutes or more. While SC2 does allow players to play "competently" by being passive and engaging in big deathball fights, it isn't the ideal way to play, and those players usually get picked apart by the ones that can macro just as well as the passive guy while also being active on the map. Totally disagree. SC2 promotes deathballs rather than splitting army. Do you think it's pure coincidence that as the top players get better and better, they split up their army more and more? Do you think that those players would benefit from not splitting up their army? Considering your assertion runs counter to most of the evidence we have available to us, you're going to have to qualify it a bit. A couple expendable units here and there for harassment or flanks maybe. In Brood War, you would even split expensive tech units off from your main army to defend expansions. For example, late game PvZ, where you need Reavers/High Templars at multiple expansions. Even in an evenly matched by skill game if you leave 1 or 2 Colossus out of your army from the main fight, chances are you're going to lose that fight and the game. The problem here is that defender's advantage doesn't exist, so you can't afford to leave expensive units standing around defending. If you lose most/all of your army in a big engagement, it's over. In StarCraft: Brood War, it's much different. You can buy time to macro up some units on very low supply. Siege Tanks, Spider Mines, Lurkers, and Dark Swarm are all great at defending against innumerable odds. The high ground advantage and the increased difficulty of moving your whole army up the natural choke point and into the main production lines also adds to this defender's advantage. On October 08 2013 11:41 aZealot wrote:On October 08 2013 10:43 SpeghettiJoe wrote:
The bottom line is that SC2 is heavily macro based and very weak in the micro aspect. And macro is boring to watch - "oh look at how he's never missing an scv! Wow!"
People like it when fighting games are about fighting. That's why LoL, Dota are all more popular. They're always fighting. Laning phase: constant trading, ganking. Teamfights, fighting over dragon/baron, tower diving, etc etc.
The bottom line is, SC2 is just not that action packed - spend 20 min to build up a big deathball, then a 10 sec. fight and gg. Yeah there is some harass here and there, but it's nothing near the action of the games.
I repeat - SC2 is just not that action packed. Fix that and you fix its dying popularity.
Well, first of all the dying popularity of SC2 has to be established. Apart from that, I love seeing good macro play. I like seeing a great macro Protoss or Terran not missing a single worker, production cycle or supply point, especially if they are being active with scouting and army (either defensively or offensively); which is what you get at the highest level of play. I appreciate it all the more because as a low-mid level player, I know how hard it is to keep pressing 5E (or 4E) while doing these things (or in my case, trying to do these things without derping over the keyboard). When I see a top level Terran like Bomber, or a Protoss like Rain, manage their economy, I am awestruck. This is not to say that I don't appreciate good micro (I especially like Protoss micro by players like MC who somehow eke out an advantage), but to say that good macro is boring to watch misses one of the defining features of SC2. It is not just a fighting game. It is also a resource management game. SC2 would bore me if it were all about fighting. This may be one reason why I find DOTA and LOL boring. I've tried to give these games a chance and they have nothing for me. I've never thought too much about why, and this might be one reason. I find all that "action" just tedious. Now, it may be that I don't understand those games. Fair enough. But, I have no spark of interest in learning them, either. As to the 20 minute build up into gg this is one of those prevalent false statements that still keep getting bandied about. Sure SC2 is not action packed like MOBA games. It can't be. But, too often, I think players transpose their own ladder experience onto what everybody else is doing or what everybody else is seeing. At the highest level of play, many games are quite action packed. Certainly in comparison to where they were a year ago. As to ladder experience, there is nothing stopping players trying to play a more action intensive game and finding out more about the rules and limits of the game. Why does macro impress you when there is little difference in macro skill at the top level? Flash was the macro king in Brood War (among other important skills) and it would win him games, yet this does little for him in this game. This game is all about decision making and metagaming when you have solid fundamentals. There is very little difference in micro and macro skill at the upper echelons of SC2 progaming. You can't design a game with three completely difference races that's too easy for the top tier players to play. In StarCraft: Brood War, it wasn't perfectly balanced. You overcame racial balance and map balance by player skill. As we can see in StarCraft 2, with S Class Koreans losing to not even top tier foreigners, at a certain point, the skill requirement just drops off dramatically. It impresses me because I am bad at it. It also impresses me because I think there are players, at the highest level, who are better at it than others. As a Protoss, I really like seeing Rain do what he does, because I am torn apart by any halfway decent Terran (even if I prefer a more MC-esque style). As to decision making and metagaming, I also like these as good skills to have (although, if I am being honest, I am not overly a fan of metagaming). As to why Flash has not been able to mimic his skill in BW to SC2, I have no idea why. There could be other reasons than those above (such as putting in the same work to conquer a new game might be beyond him). Fact is, I don't know. And I have no inclination or interest to theorise as to the reasons. As to BW, like I said, I did not follow the scene (apart from playing it a little from 1998 - 1999/2000 and then giving it up like a lot of other people do with games) and didn't watch it. If I did, maybe I'd agree with you. But I did not. So, it's a moot point. Regarding Flash, BW was less luckbased and snowbally, I still remember how crowd whould gasp when he loses couple of tanks but he'd still recover by good decision-making and solid mechanics. In SC2 if opponent catches you off-guard, its pretty much gg. SC2 is far less luck-based than BW was.
Then, you say BW and SC2 are comparable.
On October 08 2013 17:31 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:29 TaShadan wrote:On October 08 2013 17:27 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 17:22 Falling wrote:Scarabs would randomly not detonate. As far as I know, it is not actually random at all. The scarab takes up space and it must find a path to travel that the scarab will fit to hit it's target. The scarab is also on a timer. So if the scarab makes it through the path within the time limit, it explodes. If it doesn't, it will dud. Therefore. Pulling workers away from the reaver makes it more likely to run down the timer and the scarab will dud. Running away perpindicular, the scarab will probably catch up and explode for crazy damage. In addition, you could build your base so that certain buildings, the scarabs must go around because the gap is too small. Then you could pull workers behind those buildings, delaying the scarabs route, making it dud. Effectively the sim-city can be anti-reaver. In addition, if you let the reaver do it's own thing, it might target a lone scv making a 1 kill, 1 scarab exchange. But if you target clumps and suddenly you are reigning destruction. Combine that with directional splash damage, and zlot tanking shot so reaver can snipe tanks... Thanks for the clarification here What a casual may see as random is in fact a playground for highly skillful tactical decisions on the part of both players. And interplay of back and forth micro combined with pre-planning on the sim-city level. The result is unpredictable, but not (usually) random. Replace "casual" with "BW enthusiast" and you have the current state of "randomness" in SC2. While I do think that SC2 matches can be mundane to spectate at times, that has less to do with the game itself than it has to do with the actions of the players. Sorry but the stats and the facts of your previous posts show me that you are a BW noob. No need to argue about that. Well, luckily for everybody, whether I'm a BW noob or not has literally zero bearing on the relative randomness/consistency of results between SC2 and BW. And at the moment they're pretty damn comparable.
I think TaShadan is right. I shouldn't take you seriously.
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On October 08 2013 17:23 Parcelleus wrote:
When you take away all the excitement and hype that a sequel to Brood War brings, it is just an RTS game.
And as an RTS game , it is ok but far from what we all wanted.
The design is to blame. Whoever designed SC2, clearly has no idea on what die-hard RTS gamers want. We want to micro our units so that it actually can change or overcome a build order. SC2 relies so heavily on build order that it is just a 'early scouting game' and then match BO, then throw in a little micro. What happened to the importance of army control (oh wow - one major battle shouldnt be all the decides a great RTS game - yes blizzard you are morons on this point).
David Kim has already stated how Blizz likes to buff units to 'balance' out any 'problems'. This approach makes the game more about rock-paper-scissors type of games, which is just plain noob RTS.
The game is exploited by pros and others alike for the different race weaknesses at different times of the game - THIS IS FUCKING AWFUL DESIGN. Why should race design be limiting other races to play the game at different times in the game ? Just pathetic, and the main reason why 'meta pros' win games, cos they exploit design timings, THIS IS NOT SKILL - this exploiting weakness of the game design.
Blizzard, get your RTS shit together. SC2 is not even close to a great RTS game.
I am die hard RTS gamer. I like to macro. Macro is the best thing in RTS games. Aah building your own city/empire and trying to survive.
Its clear that you want ACTION rts game.
Yes, im also die hard aoe fan. The best game series of all time. (AoE 1-3)
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On October 08 2013 17:22 Falling wrote:As far as I know, it is not actually random at all. The scarab takes up space and it must find a path to travel that the scarab will fit to hit it's target. The scarab is also on a timer. So if the scarab makes it through the path within the time limit, it explodes. If it doesn't, it will dud. Therefore. Pulling workers away from the reaver makes it more likely to run down the timer and the scarab will dud. Running away perpindicular, the scarab will probably catch up and explode for crazy damage. In addition, you could build your base so that certain buildings, the scarabs must go around because the gap is too small. Then you could pull workers behind those buildings, delaying the scarabs route, making it dud. Effectively the sim-city can be anti-reaver. In addition, if you let the reaver do it's own thing, it might target a lone scv making a 1 kill, 1 scarab exchange. But if you target clumps and suddenly you are reigning destruction. Combine that with directional splash damage, and zlot tanking shot so reaver can snipe tanks... What a casual may see as random is in fact a playground for highly skillful tactical decisions on the part of both players. And interplay of back and forth micro combined with pre-planning on the sim-city level. The result is unpredictable, but not (usually) random. And that right there is some heady, exciting stuff to spectate.
Yes there is nothing random at scarabs, but they work with the BW path finding system, which has so many condition near a Mineral line or near a ramp, that it makes them hard to predict. Especially since they react with the movement of the opponent, that tries to avoid damage.
Thats probably what makes people love them so much. Something that is not random at all, but to complex to understand for someone who doesn't care to much, since it works without doing so. The more someone gets used to such a system, the higher the chances of doing damage gets. Especially since the better your opponent is the more predictable is their movement in those cases. The result is that the higher the level of play is, the lower is the random look of it. So someone unaware of this mechanic, where units get easier to use the higher the skill level gets, will find it incredible good.
Though easier is the wrong word probably, since you need a deep understanding of a really complex system and the ability to recall it instantly, for something that is just a tiny part of the game.
I loved Reavers because you could use them for a fun Minigame, where one player has to positions a couple of drones and the other has to snipe as many with 5 scarabs available and added obstacles for increased difficult.
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Russian Federation221 Posts
On October 08 2013 17:43 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:23 Parcelleus wrote:
When you take away all the excitement and hype that a sequel to Brood War brings, it is just an RTS game.
And as an RTS game , it is ok but far from what we all wanted.
The design is to blame. Whoever designed SC2, clearly has no idea on what die-hard RTS gamers want. We want to micro our units so that it actually can change or overcome a build order. SC2 relies so heavily on build order that it is just a 'early scouting game' and then match BO, then throw in a little micro. What happened to the importance of army control (oh wow - one major battle shouldnt be all the decides a great RTS game - yes blizzard you are morons on this point).
David Kim has already stated how Blizz likes to buff units to 'balance' out any 'problems'. This approach makes the game more about rock-paper-scissors type of games, which is just plain noob RTS.
The game is exploited by pros and others alike for the different race weaknesses at different times of the game - THIS IS FUCKING AWFUL DESIGN. Why should race design be limiting other races to play the game at different times in the game ? Just pathetic, and the main reason why 'meta pros' win games, cos they exploit design timings, THIS IS NOT SKILL - this exploiting weakness of the game design.
Blizzard, get your RTS shit together. SC2 is not even close to a great RTS game.
I am die hard RTS gamer. I like to macro. Macro is the best thing in RTS games. Aah building your own city/empire and trying to survive. Its clear that you want ACTION rts game. Yes, im also die hard aoe fan. The best game series of all time. (AoE 1-3)
What do you think about BW then? Is it RTS or Action game?
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[QUOTE]On October 08 2013 18:05 MikeMM wrote:
[QUOTE]On October 08 2013 17:43 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
[QUOTE]On October 08 2013 17:23 Parcelleus wrote:
[/QUOTE]
What do you think about BW then? Is it RTS or Action game?[/QUOTE]
BW is THE RTS game -_-. Remember total anihilation? command and conquer? WC2? Z? all these were slightly different cause RTS was still something very open then and every developer came out with their version. Then came SC BW. That heralded the end of the rts era as all rts is compared to sc and all failed spectacularly. Command and conquer managed to survive a lil longer but thats about it. Even blizzard was afraid of SC. Remember the first trailer of WC3? It was supposed to be a RPG game -_- coz blizzard didnt dare to touch rts for fear of failing like all the others after SC. Finally they took a middle route with rpg elements in a rts game. so that ppl cant compare with sc.
That is SC, THE RTS. SC was the end of all RTS and the beginning of esports.
PS oops forgot the thread topic. SC2 problem? lol dota. basically moba. rts was long dead. Too stressful. I bought sc2 as nostalgia. Play 1 mnth got to diamond and realise its too stressful compared to dota. Also the fear of losing diamond status (its was the highest rank then). Most sc2 audience are currently hardcore gamers who rlly like to play sc2 (very very small niche market in todays game market), or old timers who watch it when they can. Love the wcs esp the portal. So convenient to watch. SC2 need domination. Nerfing innovation was a stupid idea. Terran wasnt imba, the top 4 at season 1 finals had all 3 races so did wcs am, eu kr. If only innovation was allowed to dominate another season, imagine the hype when some non-terran finally beats him in say season2. Plenty of new stories and stars. Instead we get ho-hum 'balance' and when innovation lost it was expected and nothing special.
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Wow, this thread devolved quickly. Must every post mention BW?
BW fans, get it through your head. We don't want SC2 to be BW, it's a different game and we like it how it is.
I'm glad we have Rampancy as the voice of logic and reason here.
We can discuss how to make SC2 better but WITHOUT mentioning BW, mkay?
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On October 08 2013 17:13 RampancyTW wrote:More shameless stealing from reddit: Show nested quote +In the last 20 Brood War OSLs, there were 13 different winners, and in the last 20 MSLs there were 12. Or combined, 21 unique winners in 40 different star leagues over eight years (i.e. five leagues per year).
The Liquipedia page for the OSL even talks about the "Curse of the OSL Champion":
The champion of the previous Starleague would fail to advance out of the Round of 16, usually with a victory in their opening match and then two subsequent losses.
It's worth noting that even at their most dominant, Jaedong-level Korean BW pros had around 70% win ratios over the calendar year. That is, they lost more than a quarter of their games. Flash was considered impossibly dominant, sustaining a ~75% win rate through 2009-2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBCgame_Starleague
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 08 2013 18:18 flashimba wrote:
Wow, this thread devolved quickly. Must every post mention BW?
BW fans, get it through your head. We don't want SC2 to be BW, it's a different game and we like it how it is.
I'm glad we have Rampancy as the voice of logic and reason here.
We can discuss how to make SC2 better but WITHOUT mentioning BW, mkay?
"We" being the optimal sense of the word since right now it feels like only about 2 people actually like the game in its current state (part sarcasm), but if SC2 goes along the route it does now, I'm not entirely sure unless Blizzard start fully funding anything that we'll even have any top players left in 2 years max. Bisu, S2 and a bunch of other people just retired partly for the reason there's no fans to drive them to play better or even show up (atleast that's what they say in their retirement interviews).
With BW if you were a top player you'd go out to huge stadiums of cheering fans and that alone must have kept a lot of them "in the game" as it were as they always knew there'd be crowds of people who wanted to watch them play.SC2 just isn't interesting enough of a game to pull in those sorts of fans. It's shallow, the game design really limits what maps can be played or people will claim imbalance and one of the matchups hasn't even changed 1 iota since the start of the Wings of Liberty beta.
Oov said himself that he thinks that Blizzard interfereing is causing the metagame to stagnate, but the metagame won't change when every single map might as well be the same and there's only really one viable playstyle for each race.
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On October 08 2013 17:15 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:11 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 17:00 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 16:49 Caladan wrote:On October 08 2013 15:16 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 15:00 saddaromma wrote:On October 08 2013 14:51 aZealot wrote:On October 08 2013 14:37 Arco wrote:On October 08 2013 14:27 RampancyTW wrote:On October 08 2013 13:55 saddaromma wrote:
[quote]
Totally disagree. SC2 promotes deathballs rather than splitting army. Do you think it's pure coincidence that as the top players get better and better, they split up their army more and more? Do you think that those players would benefit from not splitting up their army? Considering your assertion runs counter to most of the evidence we have available to us, you're going to have to qualify it a bit. A couple expendable units here and there for harassment or flanks maybe. In Brood War, you would even split expensive tech units off from your main army to defend expansions. For example, late game PvZ, where you need Reavers/High Templars at multiple expansions. Even in an evenly matched by skill game if you leave 1 or 2 Colossus out of your army from the main fight, chances are you're going to lose that fight and the game. The problem here is that defender's advantage doesn't exist, so you can't afford to leave expensive units standing around defending. If you lose most/all of your army in a big engagement, it's over. In StarCraft: Brood War, it's much different. You can buy time to macro up some units on very low supply. Siege Tanks, Spider Mines, Lurkers, and Dark Swarm are all great at defending against innumerable odds. The high ground advantage and the increased difficulty of moving your whole army up the natural choke point and into the main production lines also adds to this defender's advantage. On October 08 2013 11:41 aZealot wrote:On October 08 2013 10:43 SpeghettiJoe wrote:
The bottom line is that SC2 is heavily macro based and very weak in the micro aspect. And macro is boring to watch - "oh look at how he's never missing an scv! Wow!"
People like it when fighting games are about fighting. That's why LoL, Dota are all more popular. They're always fighting. Laning phase: constant trading, ganking. Teamfights, fighting over dragon/baron, tower diving, etc etc.
The bottom line is, SC2 is just not that action packed - spend 20 min to build up a big deathball, then a 10 sec. fight and gg. Yeah there is some harass here and there, but it's nothing near the action of the games.
I repeat - SC2 is just not that action packed. Fix that and you fix its dying popularity.
Well, first of all the dying popularity of SC2 has to be established. Apart from that, I love seeing good macro play. I like seeing a great macro Protoss or Terran not missing a single worker, production cycle or supply point, especially if they are being active with scouting and army (either defensively or offensively); which is what you get at the highest level of play. I appreciate it all the more because as a low-mid level player, I know how hard it is to keep pressing 5E (or 4E) while doing these things (or in my case, trying to do these things without derping over the keyboard). When I see a top level Terran like Bomber, or a Protoss like Rain, manage their economy, I am awestruck. This is not to say that I don't appreciate good micro (I especially like Protoss micro by players like MC who somehow eke out an advantage), but to say that good macro is boring to watch misses one of the defining features of SC2. It is not just a fighting game. It is also a resource management game. SC2 would bore me if it were all about fighting. This may be one reason why I find DOTA and LOL boring. I've tried to give these games a chance and they have nothing for me. I've never thought too much about why, and this might be one reason. I find all that "action" just tedious. Now, it may be that I don't understand those games. Fair enough. But, I have no spark of interest in learning them, either. As to the 20 minute build up into gg this is one of those prevalent false statements that still keep getting bandied about. Sure SC2 is not action packed like MOBA games. It can't be. But, too often, I think players transpose their own ladder experience onto what everybody else is doing or what everybody else is seeing. At the highest level of play, many games are quite action packed. Certainly in comparison to where they were a year ago. As to ladder experience, there is nothing stopping players trying to play a more action intensive game and finding out more about the rules and limits of the game. Why does macro impress you when there is little difference in macro skill at the top level? Flash was the macro king in Brood War (among other important skills) and it would win him games, yet this does little for him in this game. This game is all about decision making and metagaming when you have solid fundamentals. There is very little difference in micro and macro skill at the upper echelons of SC2 progaming. You can't design a game with three completely difference races that's too easy for the top tier players to play. In StarCraft: Brood War, it wasn't perfectly balanced. You overcame racial balance and map balance by player skill. As we can see in StarCraft 2, with S Class Koreans losing to not even top tier foreigners, at a certain point, the skill requirement just drops off dramatically. It impresses me because I am bad at it. It also impresses me because I think there are players, at the highest level, who are better at it than others. As a Protoss, I really like seeing Rain do what he does, because I am torn apart by any halfway decent Terran (even if I prefer a more MC-esque style). As to decision making and metagaming, I also like these as good skills to have (although, if I am being honest, I am not overly a fan of metagaming). As to why Flash has not been able to mimic his skill in BW to SC2, I have no idea why. There could be other reasons than those above (such as putting in the same work to conquer a new game might be beyond him). Fact is, I don't know. And I have no inclination or interest to theorise as to the reasons. As to BW, like I said, I did not follow the scene (apart from playing it a little from 1998 - 1999/2000 and then giving it up like a lot of other people do with games) and didn't watch it. If I did, maybe I'd agree with you. But I did not. So, it's a moot point. Regarding Flash, BW was less luckbased and snowbally, I still remember how crowd whould gasp when he loses couple of tanks but he'd still recover by good decision-making and solid mechanics. In SC2 if opponent catches you off-guard, its pretty much gg. SC2 is far less luck-based than BW was. I think you can say this. But at the same time, SC2 is far more randomness-based than BW was. Nobody means the behaviour of the game itself, like high ground advantag in SCBW, that really seldom did decide games, like almost never. But we are talking about the gameplay randomness that with less powerful units, only small defenders advantage, faster worker build rate and lower macro/micro skill ceiling it often comes to build order and all in wins. Given the lack of scouting for some races at some specific times this becomes only more severe. In BW the better player always had the possibility to come back. In SC2 that's not the case because of the reasons above. That's the reason we have all these "upsets" and random looking results. So at game mechanics level you're right, at gameplay and actual effects level you're wrong. Stealing this from a reddit post: The "coin flip" variety of SC2 I feel is on the decline. At DeMuslim's level the coin flips will be more prevalent, but at the top of Code S that's not the case as much. It's like in tennis - sure Djokovic or Nadal could lose the odd match here or there, but generally they're only losing to each other. Meanwhile there are upsets galore to be had outside of the top ten where people will lose matches they really shouldn't (double fault on the only break point they got the whole set or something like that).
Anyway, we're seeing players more consistently get deep in tournaments. In Europe MC made the last two finals. Vortix made Ro8 then Ro4. MMA made Ro4 then won. Duckdeock won then made Ro8. I'd say season to season half the Ro8 staying the same is pretty good. Obviously it wasn't that way Season 1 to Season 2 where it was all different, but at least it's progressing. We'll see how WCS AM goes this season as well.
These are results from a few players dating back a few seasons (some are different, for example Innovation/Soulkey have only played five). I'll start from when they first broke into Code S. They are chronological from left to right:
Innovation: Ro4, Ro8, 2nd, Ro4, Ro16
Soulkey: Ro8, Ro8, 1st, 7/8th, Ro4 (at least)
Rain: Ro4, Ro32, Code A, Ro32, 2nd, Ro8 (at least)
PartinG: Ro8, Ro4, Ro32, Ro32, Ro16, Ro8, Ro8, Ro16, Ro8 (at least)
Symbol: Ro8, Ro8, Ro16, 2nd, Ro4, Ro8, Ro32
If this list looks like a list of the best players in the world, well, there's a reason for that. I'll make a score system. How often do these guys make Ro8:
Innovation: 4/5
Soulkey: 5/5
Rain: 3/6
PartinG: 5/9
Symbol: 5/7
I don't really know how much more consistent we expect people to be. Just a question: before Flash, did anyone make five Ro8s in a row in OSL/MSL? I can't think of anyone. Boxer was close (he did three, then didn't qualify, then did four). It's also a bit hard to compare the similar statistical difficulty of each one between how you have to qualify (Ro8 seeds you back into Ro32 in Code S which makes it easier, but then again in earlier BW there was only a Ro16). Anyway I think the consistency in SC2 from the top players over the last year has been pretty damn good, and you really can't demand consistency from those well below the top, no other sport has that.
Soulkey and Innovation broke into Code S in the same season, 2012 Season 5. Since then Innovation made Ro8 four times in a row and Soulkey made Ro8 five times in a row. Do you know who else has made Ro8 four times in a row? No one. EVER. Mvp's best results was three Ro4s, but he never made four Ro8s. Not that during these incredible runs the game released an expansion, meaning both players were both consistently good through the biggest shift ever in the game. Did I mention that these two had the highest winning percentage for their respective races in Proleague? Because that also happened over that time period. Soulkey is currently on the most impressive run in SC2 history. Coin flips be damned he just finds a way.
Is the game really flawed when players at Ro32 WCS AM level have trouble with "coin flip" games? I don't think so personally. If we looked at the similar level of play in BW you won't see this utopia of the better player always winning and cheesy all-in play not outright winning game after game. The results are no more "random" than they were in BW for the vast majority of players. People have a serious case of rose-colored glasses when looking at BW. Yet there are no bonjwas in SC2 who could consistently dominate the scene for a long time. MVP is absolutely dominant when in good health. Has had health/injury issues, though. SC2 also has far more/far more frequent tournaments than BW did. Makes a 1:1 time comparison much less valid.
MVP was one of the few A-teamers that came straight from KeSPA to SC2. His competition wasn't that strong, to say the least.
On October 08 2013 17:27 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 17:22 Falling wrote:Scarabs would randomly not detonate. As far as I know, it is not actually random at all. The scarab takes up space and it must find a path to travel that the scarab will fit to hit it's target. The scarab is also on a timer. So if the scarab makes it through the path within the time limit, it explodes. If it doesn't, it will dud. Therefore. Pulling workers away from the reaver makes it more likely to run down the timer and the scarab will dud. Running away perpindicular, the scarab will probably catch up and explode for crazy damage. In addition, you could build your base so that certain buildings, the scarabs must go around because the gap is too small. Then you could pull workers behind those buildings, delaying the scarabs route, making it dud. Effectively the sim-city can be anti-reaver. In addition, if you let the reaver do it's own thing, it might target a lone scv making a 1 kill, 1 scarab exchange. But if you target clumps and suddenly you are reigning destruction. Combine that with directional splash damage, and zlot tanking shot so reaver can snipe tanks... Thanks for the clarification here Show nested quote +What a casual may see as random is in fact a playground for highly skillful tactical decisions on the part of both players. And interplay of back and forth micro combined with pre-planning on the sim-city level. The result is unpredictable, but not (usually) random. Replace "casual" with "BW enthusiast" and you have the current state of "randomness" in SC2. While I do think that SC2 matches can be mundane to spectate at times, that has less to do with the game itself than it has to do with the actions of the players.
There's plenty of calm and well written replies describing the randomness of SC2 in this thread, why do you fail to see them?
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