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On November 09 2013 07:09 Plexa wrote:
You don't need to add flashy abilities to create this healthy mix, you just need to open up the potential of units so that players can do impressive things with them.
._.
I totally agree.
Sadly, I think it now look more likely that Blizzard will do something like this for LotV...
New castable ability added to all units called...
'Micro'
1sec cooldown.
Causes the unit to do 25% extra damage with their next attack.
A big shiny halo appears over 'Microed' units so that spectators know how pro you are playing.
Now you can truly find out who can "micro" all their units the best and be the top dog in Starcraft 2!
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Classic StarCraft Music in StarCraft II
Delight your ear drums in-game with the classic StarCraft and Brood War soundtracks, which have been remastered, and will be available for play in StarCraft II following the patch.
Warcraft III Orc Heroes
The Far Seer, Shadow Hunter, Blademaster, and Tauren Chieftain Orc heroes from Warcraft III have all been remodeled and will be available for use by map developers in the StarCraft II Editor some time in 2014.
Wow, kudos to Blizzard for this.
Remodeled WC3 models were a somewhat common request but it seemed unlikely except it turns out they ended up doing it anyway for map editors (along with the HotS BW models like the new Devourer model for map editors), which is really nice by blizzard.
Props to them !
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Well, it took them 2 years to make massive units crush forcefields. 2 years to realize that an Ultra shouldn't be blocked by a forcefield. Blizzard just is unable to comprehend what makes a RTS good, unable to understand the consequences of their design decisions. They focus too much on their definition of casual experience and mess up pretty badly because of it. At this point I don't have any faith left for Blizzard to improve this game significantly.
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On November 10 2013 00:47 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2013 00:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On November 10 2013 00:16 Plansix wrote:On November 10 2013 00:08 Thieving Magpie wrote:
All I hear from David Kim's statement is,
"I tried showing the LaLush video to my manager and he slapped me in the face saying wtf is that? And then proceeded to walk over to this panel with my tail between my legs." -David Kim Is English DK's first language? I always feel his comments get taken out of context and he reuses the same words over and over in his posts, like "we think it would be cool if..." Not that it is an excuse, but he always seems to have the right intent, but voicing it is a problem for him. Also, the starter editing shit is dope. Good for Blizzard on that one. I don't know myself. But "casuals don't get it" is such a non-answer since casuals barely get worker production and minimap awareness. A video asking more units to move like marines seems like something casuals should get. But since I believe David Kim is a smart man who works in a large company, all I hear is red tape mumbo jumbo. Yeah, I think it would take programmers that are likely working on other things to make the changes work and avoid horrible bugs. Also the question itself was a bit broad, since it dealt with a 15 minute video. I would have rathered a specific question like "what about the turret thing?" or "do you think you could make large numbers of air units more microable on mass?" Its the classic community video thing of us asking "Did you see this amazing video? Are you going to do all the things that are in the video?" I think Blizzard is trying to make everything more microable and snappy, just not the way the video described. Still want the turret thing, just because it would be awesome to watch. Show nested quote +On November 10 2013 00:42 vjcamarena wrote:
I find it fascinating that there's been several very positive changes announced, but people choose to focus on the one thing they didn't like.
Personally, I loved Lalush's video, and think some of the ideas could very effectively raise the skill cap for Starcraft II, while still making the fact that you're microing obvious and clear to everyone. Say, like tank turrets, or lowering viking "time-to-start-attack-time". Also, I agree with Lalush's analysis that the Oracle whether-we-stop-depends-on-whether-we-get-the-killing-blow is a bug, that should be fixed. The fact that it is a beam weapon should only influence the visual, not the gameplay like it does now.
However, whether they like it or not at Blizzard, they can't say anything until they actually commit 100% percent to redesigning several elements. With most of the team in Heroes, they probably can't do this now. (And, no, they can't say that, 'cause people would complain that "Starcraft doesn't get enough attention!").
That said:
1)This patch essentially makes it so GameHeart (and many other mods!) only has to produce one file, and then can just combine that with maps in order to produce the awesome GameHeart maps we all want. -> Easier map creation!
2)This patch makes 90% of Starcraft II free if you have someone to play it with. Many people said that it was Starcraft's model that held it back. Well, let's see! Maybe we can bring a lot of people into the community with this!
3)This patch provides SC:BW music (OMG!)
4)Cosmetic changes, like more levels, more portraits, better decal support, slight changes to clans, are all for the better.
Why are we so negative? I am with you and I think Blizzard is doing a ton of cool stuff with carbot, game heart and decal support for teams. The negativity just from the set of people who were really into the video and saw it as the way to make SC2 more exciting. You can't make everyone happy.
Right, I get that many people found Lalush's video to be the bee's knees. That's great! Even as a noob that has never reached a tenth of the skill displayed there, it was absolutely fascinating! But really, why not just keep it constructive?
I think a discourse that goes more like "We loved that you did this and this, and we'd like to discuss the following change, and we're open to the fact that we might be wrong" would really serve us better. I mean, Blizzard reaches out to us every so often, and that's great, 'cause they don't need to do that. However, half the time they do, we clobber them.
I think it's obvious that they don't reach out every day, or every week. If when they do, we just attack them, the'll do it less and less, won't they?
PS: And yeah, we might be wrong. I'd love to micro my Vikings in an easier fashion, and I'd love to see Mvp do that as well, but stacked flyers don't show how many units there are there! It goes against one of the core eSports principles ("Everything someone does has to be clearly visible"). Maybe discussing the perfect balance between microability and visibility when manouvering clustered flying units would be a better way to push eventual changes forward?
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On November 09 2013 23:48 howLiN wrote:
Yeah that sounds reasonable.
On November 09 2013 23:55 NovemberstOrm wrote:
yeah that's true.
What is going on here? Are we actually having open, thought-provoking, and friendly discussions on TL?
On November 10 2013 01:11 Ravomat wrote:
Blizzard just is unable to comprehend what makes a RTS good
nvm
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On November 10 2013 01:11 Ravomat wrote:
Well, it took them 2 years to make massive units crush forcefields. 2 years to realize that an Ultra shouldn't be blocked by a forcefield. .
This was implemented in Beta Patch 13 ie 2-4 months at most after the beta was released, not sure where you're pulling 2 years from unless you mean since the start of SC2's development in which case the design would never have been solidified enough to make those kinds of calls.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On November 10 2013 01:11 Ravomat wrote:
Well, it took them 2 years to make massive units crush forcefields. 2 years to realize that an Ultra shouldn't be blocked by a forcefield. Blizzard just is unable to comprehend what makes a RTS good, unable to understand the consequences of their design decisions. They focus too much on their definition of casual experience and mess up pretty badly because of it. At this point I don't have any faith left for Blizzard to improve this game significantly.
Stop pulling facts out of your /dev/random.
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The more I read from David Kim the more I get the impression that he and the people in the community who are trying to provide detailed feedback are simply talking past one another. It seems like he truly does not understand what is being said, and his responses are all just platitudes and clichés.
I don't think a QA panel is enough for something like this, we'd need like a ten hour long session with the first five being spent very carefully explaining exactly what the feedback really is trying to say.
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I need to comment on the depth of micro answer aswell and say that it doesn't matter if new players doesn't understand it. What they will understand is people cheering more which is an important part of watching e-sports. Depth of micro will add more cheering from the audience during every stage of the game, I'm sure.
Yes we want cool moves that are easy to understand for new players but it's not more important than depth. We want both.
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On November 10 2013 01:13 vjcamarena wrote:
It goes against one of the core eSports principles ("Everything someone does has to be clearly visible").
Then tell me why games with bugs or glitches are the ones most popular? If you take fighting games, old Street Fighter games had several bugs that were appreciated by the community (Capcom vs SNK2: Roll cancel, Alpha 3: Crouch Cancel). Even Street Fighter 4 is filled with Option selects that cover several situations (If opponent back dashs, you sweep, if he blocks, you throw him). Nobody sees players inputting those option selects or using some of the bugs and the viewer just thinks "How is he doing that?! That guy is super skilled!"
Imo game breaking bugs are not bad, as long as they are entertaining. I mean, the best example for RTS is Broodwar with all its control bugs (stop lurker, stack Zerg ground units).
Not everything needs to be visible. Sometimes it's better that it's not visible, as that leads to tension and exitement for the viewer.
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On November 10 2013 00:49 Honner wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2013 07:09 Plexa wrote:
You don't need to add flashy abilities to create this healthy mix, you just need to open up the potential of units so that players can do impressive things with them.
._. I totally agree. Sadly, I think it now look more likely that Blizzard will do something like this for LotV... New castable ability added to all units called... Show nested quote +
'Micro'
1sec cooldown.
Causes the unit to do 25% extra damage with their next attack.
A big shiny halo appears over 'Microed' units so that spectators know how pro you are playing.
Now you can truly find out who can "micro" all their units the best and be the top dog in Starcraft 2!
That made me laugh out loud. Yesh, because we certainly need more abilities in the game. Every unit should have four abilities like a moba as well, hue.  *Commences disco ball dance*
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On November 10 2013 01:11 Ravomat wrote:
Well, it took them 2 years to make massive units crush forcefields. 2 years to realize that an Ultra shouldn't be blocked by a forcefield. Blizzard just is unable to comprehend what makes a RTS good, unable to understand the consequences of their design decisions. They focus too much on their definition of casual experience and mess up pretty badly because of it. At this point I don't have any faith left for Blizzard to improve this game significantly.
Blizzard have only created the best RTS game in existence. Surely they have no idea what they're doing.
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On November 10 2013 01:40 ScoutWBF wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2013 01:13 vjcamarena wrote:
It goes against one of the core eSports principles ("Everything someone does has to be clearly visible").
Then tell me why games with bugs or glitches are the ones most popular? If you take fighting games, old Street Fighter games had several bugs that were appreciated by the community (Capcom vs SNK2: Roll cancel, Alpha 3: Crouch Cancel). Even Street Fighter 4 is filled with Option selects that cover several situations (If opponent back dashs, you sweep, if he blocks, you throw him). Nobody sees players inputting those option selects or using some of the bugs and the viewer just thinks "How is he doing that?! That guy is super skilled!" Imo game breaking bugs are not bad, as long as they are entertaining. I mean, the best example for RTS is Broodwar with all its control bugs (stop lurker, stack Zerg ground units). Not everything needs to be visible. Sometimes it's better that it's not visible, as that leads to tension and exitement for the viewer.
Well, I'm no expert, but Dustin Browder and his team, are, and when I've seen them discuss SC II design [1], they have mentioned visibility as a key factor. Other eSports (LoL, Dota, Fifa, Shooters,...) seem to have very visually distinct effects/moves as well.
I actually don't think bugs are necessarily good or bad, that's not my point at all. The question is: do bugs make the game better by "eSport standards" (obviously I have no idea what those are, or I'd get paid for designing videogames!). I don't really know much about fighting games, but as far as I know, combos are something you see clearly: in Smash Bros at least, when someone comboes you, you just float on the air helplessly while he hits you repeatedly.
And absolutely, I agree that counterplay "(If opponent back dashs, you sweep, if he blocks, you throw him)" is key. And obviously, I agree that there need to be skill differentiators! There should be "hard things to do" (Capcom vs SNK2: Roll cancel, Alpha 3: Crouch Cancel) that make pro players distinct from one another! I like those things just like you!
I'd argue the ideal eSport has most/all of what the players do be visible/audible to the viewer. Naturally, WHAT IT MEANS should not be always clear (who is going to win this game? who is going to win this battle? does Terran on 2 Base with a third command center at home and mules have more income than a zerg on three bases that aren't completely saturated?). All watchable activities, incluiding eSports, need to generate uncertainty, on that we agree.
But as I understand it, the tension should come from "What is better, A or B?" (The Terran's mass of stimmed bio, or the Toss' small gateway army+splash) not from "What the hell is going on on the screen?".
What are your thoughts on this? What are things you shouldn't see in order to make an eSport more fun to watch?
[1] http://gdcvault.com/play/1014488/The-Game-Design-of-STARCRAFT ->Particularly at 10:45-13:30
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On November 10 2013 01:51 S1eth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2013 01:11 Ravomat wrote:
Well, it took them 2 years to make massive units crush forcefields. 2 years to realize that an Ultra shouldn't be blocked by a forcefield. Blizzard just is unable to comprehend what makes a RTS good, unable to understand the consequences of their design decisions. They focus too much on their definition of casual experience and mess up pretty badly because of it. At this point I don't have any faith left for Blizzard to improve this game significantly. Blizzard have only created the best RTS game in existence. Surely they have no idea what they're doing.
the real problem is that they were so good in it that everyone else gave up. That way there was no good way of stealing good new things from others. So they had no idea how people react towards certain things. Guess thats why they extended the period between the expansion packs as well.
But I don't care alot for more microable units unless pros actually start to use all the stuff you can do already properly. For me it sounds more like we want our units to be easier to micro. But even the BW superstars got lazy, because the reward isn't as high as it used to be when you fight the pathfinding and micro your units. Thats why most concentrate on the a-move units, unless there is no other way.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On November 10 2013 01:41 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2013 00:49 Honner wrote:On November 09 2013 07:09 Plexa wrote:
You don't need to add flashy abilities to create this healthy mix, you just need to open up the potential of units so that players can do impressive things with them.
._. I totally agree. Sadly, I think it now look more likely that Blizzard will do something like this for LotV... New castable ability added to all units called...
'Micro'
1sec cooldown.
Causes the unit to do 25% extra damage with their next attack.
A big shiny halo appears over 'Microed' units so that spectators know how pro you are playing.
Now you can truly find out who can "micro" all their units the best and be the top dog in Starcraft 2! That made me laugh out loud. Yesh, because we certainly need more abilities in the game. Every unit should have four abilities like a moba as well, hue. *Commences disco ball dance*
Hey, i like this idea.
I think zerglings should have this:
Metabolic boost:
Run faster, duration 1 second, cd 1 second
Adrenal glands:
Attack faster, duration 1 second, cd 1 second
and so on.
After that we can clearly see who is the better player!
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Micro like this is actually probably one of the most clearly visible and intuitive forms of micro. Having a flashy spell effect that you have no idea as a viewer what it's doing is often quite difficult to understand; see most Dota style games, etc. Seeing a progamer move his units really well is something that is pretty darn obvious and intuitive to grasp.
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On November 10 2013 01:51 S1eth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2013 01:11 Ravomat wrote:
Well, it took them 2 years to make massive units crush forcefields. 2 years to realize that an Ultra shouldn't be blocked by a forcefield. Blizzard just is unable to comprehend what makes a RTS good, unable to understand the consequences of their design decisions. They focus too much on their definition of casual experience and mess up pretty badly because of it. At this point I don't have any faith left for Blizzard to improve this game significantly. Blizzard have only created the best RTS game in existence. Surely they have no idea what they're doing.
If I remember correctly most if not all of those responsible for said game are no longer working for blizzard.
I thought about writing a little more but apparently most of you still think Blizz is going to improve this game significantly in one way or another. I hope you're right.
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Seems like you will only be able to micro the units in an impressive way that Blizzard wants you to micro. Meaning that in LotV they will give us some shit like Blink Stalker or Banelings for some obvious micro with certain units, while just ignoring the rest of the units altogether. Gotta be flashy (and not like BW!!).
Seeing how Lalush constantly points out the fundamental flaws of SC2's design vs what Blizzard actually does always saddens me.
Smart move with the Arcade tho. Blizzard is super fucking late on nearly everything in SC2 but at least this is a right move.
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On November 10 2013 01:40 ScoutWBF wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2013 01:13 vjcamarena wrote:
It goes against one of the core eSports principles ("Everything someone does has to be clearly visible").
Wall of text incoming. Then tell me why games with bugs or glitches are the ones most popular? If you take fighting games, old Street Fighter games had several bugs that were appreciated by the community (Capcom vs SNK2: Roll cancel, Alpha 3: Crouch Cancel). Even Street Fighter 4 is filled with Option selects that cover several situations (If opponent back dashs, you sweep, if he blocks, you throw him). Nobody sees players inputting those option selects or using some of the bugs and the viewer just thinks "How is he doing that?! That guy is super skilled!" Imo game breaking bugs are not bad, as long as they are entertaining. I mean, the best example for RTS is Broodwar with all its control bugs (stop lurker, stack Zerg ground units). Not everything needs to be visible. Sometimes it's better that it's not visible, as that leads to tension and exitement for the viewer.
Strange that you'd use a Street Fighter Alpha series game as an example, the FGC has largely shunned most of the alpha series in the long term because of the fact that the bugs with custom combos tend to be extremely game breaking despite something like the Valle CC being an interesting glitch for it's time. Compared to say SF:Turbo for instance which is likely the most buggy game still played at a high level with any frequency that just has so many bugs that it somehow evens out. The other thing those games have in common is that they're older, older games are figured out and people are generally more accepting of their flaws because they're no longer able to be fixed, nostalgia is pretty strong. Weird example of this are zelda speed runs, the games seem to get popular for speed running in chronological order, the new one is always the worst and new discoveries happen over time that make the newer old ones entertaining to the point of being viable often their popularity with people the right age is more important then any objective measure of their quality because those people are willing to put in the time to figure them out.
On the topic of options selects I say they're almost the exact situation that Blizzard is attempting to avoid, as a player, they're great they help you bypass some of the inherent coin flip nature of certain situations in fighting games, they're difficult to uncover and skillful to execute but as a spectator they're almost indistinguishable from a guess to someone watching unless you have a high enough knowledge of the game, the match up, and the player to some extent. Even from personal experience playing and watching a fair amount of fighting games I definitely can't pick an option select unless I have prior knowledge that it exists.
This I think is where David Kim and the community diverge in their views, bugs and micro tricks like option selects and patrol micro very clearly add depth to the game, so for the community that's seen as a undeniably a good thing, but they do so by adding edge and special cases sometimes to the point of being imperceptible or often contradictory to the way the game usually works, this funnily enough is also why they're seen as interesting.
The difficulty for the design team is to make things that are designed, and that work in a consistent and visual, understandable manner that seem equally game changing and game breaking, they want depth by building a larger number of interactions on top of each other that all work consistently and are represented visually, not just depth through complexity.
LaLush's video unfortunately takes a long time to get to the parts that actually are useful. The built in wind up on air unit shots, the spreading before firing priorities and turret bugs are all no-brainers to me as they're all consistent with SC2's philosophy and are just good for game responsiveness (though they would require re-balancing, especially for vikings). This is the stuff that should have been put up front on the video and been like "these are bugs and should be fixed". Stuff like patrol micro (which I think is what David Kim is addressing) and the behaviour of hovering units I don't think are making a come back and I think lumping them all together is what has lead to this mis-communication in the first place. I also got down voted for this on reddit but the video really didn't need 30 minutes of BW micro highlight videos pasted on the end of it, you have to respect the time of the people watching it to get your point across.
TLDR: Buggy games are held in high regard because they're time tested, mature and cannot be fixed, LaLushes video is good, but covers a lot of ground and should really be more focused, some of it is useful, and some of it is completely against the the design philosophy of SC2 and will likely never be implemented despite how much depth it adds because it does so through complexity. David Kim is addressing the latter without addressing the former which is source of the mis-communication but the video also has to shoulder some of the burden for being rambling and long winded.
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EPT
