On January 14 2014 03:03 mTwRINE wrote: Have to agree, PvZ was very/pure Gatewayheavy in SC1, but Gatewayunits stand no chance vs Roach/Hydra/Lurk right now. Units clump too much and everythnig dies within 3s if you A-Move, cant really micro anything. Since Storms deal alot less damage, even if you carpet the whole Zerg army, your Units are dead before you can cast a second round.
I think from the editor-tests I did Roach/Hydra/lurker added like 5-10% extra cost efficiciency compared to Hydra/Lurker (or something like that). But ofc.: One thing is unit test vs AI, other is actual gameplay. I would really appreciate if someone uploaded replays of PvZ.
Also has anyone tried 1gate expand vs zerg? We made some changes that should make it easier for protoss than in Sbow (though it still requires that you have a pretty refined build order).
Is there any player currently streaming starbow? I havent played sc2 for a long time and I don't think I want to come back but I'm willing to take a loong look at starbow
i just dont think you can viably balance a BW:SC2 type game due to the ai, spells like psionic storm are much less efficient. you cant really mimic the way BW units used to move, the way units interacted with each other was completely different in general
On January 14 2014 03:23 TT1 wrote: i just dont think you can viably balance a BW:SC2 type game due to the ai, spells like psionic storm are much less efficient. you cant really mimic the way BW units used to move
Well, it's not like those questions are new. They have been discussed in Starbow over the course of 2years and the game has been balanced and rebalanced and designed and redesigned a lot of times. I think they can only be answered by playing the game.
I do agree that some stuff may be problematic currently, but after all it's still a betatest for a reason and the way to improve the game is feedback, feedback, feedback. At the end of the day, problems that are caused by BW stuff in an SC2 enviroment may be fixed by changing some of the BW stuff or some of the SC2 enviroment.
Makes me kinda happy that no matter how badly Blizzard could mess up LotV, there will always be talented people in the community who can make a great game of it!
I hope pro-players/popular ones start to stream themselves playing this -- i would argue that even though it's not helpful for them in the short-term, it might be helpful in the long run if it draws attention and blizzard does something (but im not optimistic =/)
On January 14 2014 04:05 tshi wrote: I hope pro-players/popular ones start to stream themselves playing this -- i would argue that even though it's not helpful for them in the short-term, it might be helpful in the long run if it draws attention and blizzard does something (but im not optimistic =/)
Blizzard would never probably take anything away from this because that would be them admitting they were wrong.
On January 14 2014 04:12 deacon.frost wrote: Well, I hope this overhype will not shatter the sc2 player base. Because that would be the worse possible effect you could ever do for the sc2 ;-)
What does that even mean? If Starbow turns out to be better than SC2 why shouldn't it shatter the player base and gain popularity? I think they really missed the mark with SC2 and it became even worse in HoTS.
I would be all for having a BW based unit game with a mix of BW and SC2 mechanics.
Different players played different styles in BW PvZ after their initial openings.
Some would have a bigger focus on zealot/archon heavy compositions in mid-late, while others preferred to be dragoon heavy.
Personally I liked to be dragoon heavy (not that you wouldn't mix it up frequently... but generally I felt more comfortable with being dragoon heavy PvZ in mid-late).
I think you can make a good BW:SC2 type game with good pathfinding/ai, but my personal belief is that such a game needs to be a grander scale game (= not just 200 supply) in order to play out in the same chaotic and entertaining manner as BW. When you're restricted to 200 supply with unlimited selection and MBS, too many players are too close to optimal performance in regards to macro and builds and compositional choices.
When too many players are too close to optimal in all those regards, then the game just devolves into who can find the most practical uses with his/her army. And SC2 past early-mid game is mostly this... an incessant prodding/poking/mistake/hole-finding endeavour with your army.
When Jaedong first joined EG, you could see when he streamed how he nailed all those injects in the mid-late game like his life depended on it. That was a learned/acquired behaviour from Brood War. When you see him stream today, he plays much more calmly in mid-late game with less epilectic screen jumping and less emphasis on perfect injects. Because Jaedong figured out what has the most impact in SC2, and that is: constantly trying to find holes and being correctly set up with your army will give you more opportunities to seize a win than trying to get ahead by epilepsy inducing macro-perfection.
The impossibility of nailing every aspect of the game perfectly is IMO something that allows for unique styles and player personalities to shine through in gameplay.
In SC2 the impossibility of finding all the possible uses for your army is still very much there. And the more intensely you focus and streamline your play to give yourself more opportunities to constantly prod/poke and find holes, the better your performance as an SC2 mid-late player will be.
Constrast this with BW: macro and build order exececution were as important and as impossible as "finding all possible uses for your army" is in SC2. Infact players like Bisu were basically all about build order execution, macro, and sloppy epileptic multi-pronged control. Why did Bisu fail so hard with SC2? Bisu was never ever good with large scale army control in BW. His decision making was notoriously poor when it came to large scale engagements. And perfect build order execution isn't something that exactly translates into getting a noticeable advantage in SC2.
Look at Taeja, Polt, Innovation and you'll be astounded at how little they take their eyes off of their armies/drops in the mid-late stages. This is a common theme amongst the best top SC2 players. The best players are the ones who have streamlined the other aspects of the game so well that they can spend time doing what, in SC2, affects the outcome of a game the most. And that is finding the most possible uses and opportunities with your army. Watch Stephano play and he spends 90% of his time fixed on his army.
In that regard I think Starbow will eventually hit some form of a wall as well. Althought it won't be to the extreme degree to which you see it in SC2. Starbow has more room for chaos. Starbow has more room for positions that are not "immediately obvious" when analyzed, because there are more advantages and variety to be found in expanding/macroing/executing build orders.
But if there's enough of it is hard to say. Personally I'm a proponent for smartcast being disabled (for one so storms and other abilities can be more overpowered, because in an unlimited selection game I think you need more impactful spells than in a limited selection game).
And I wouldn't mine an option to turn off automine because in an unlimited selection/MBS game, I don't ultimately think 200 supply is enough to achieve the proper difficulty of preventing a major portion of the top level players from performing close to optimal in the macro execution department. But on this question I'm not 100% sure.
If storm would stack then it would be fairer to remove smartcast. It sounds like a crazy idea, but would it be overpowered if the trade off was no smartcast?
I personally am in favor of more mechanical restrictions, but I think it would hurt popularity of the mod. I guess it's human nature to sell out, I was all for hardcore gameplay before last week, but now I want its popularity to last even if that means catering to reddit.
re: corsair/dt Corsairs are less useful in Starbow because of the UI I think. It's much easier to keep track of your overlords nowadays, so you should never have to lose one to a corsair, much like how it's bad play to lose overlords to phoenixes. It's not purely about how much damage the corsair does.
I think you can make a good BW:SC2 type game with good pathfinding/ai, but my personal belief is that such a game needs to be a grander scale game (= not just 200 supply) in order to play out in the same chaotic and entertaining manner as BW. When you're restricted to 200 supply with unlimited selection and MBS, too many players are too close to optimal performance in regards to macro and builds and compositional choices.
Couldn't agree with this more. I've always thought 200 supply armies worked terribly with unit clumping and macro mechanics. If the supply cap was raised, maybe players with better macro could shine like they did in Brood War. It would probably take some rebalancing of macro mechanics and the different races' production capabilities, but I think it would be well worth it.
I hope others weigh in and support this idea, or are at least openminded to trying it out.
On January 14 2014 04:12 deacon.frost wrote: Well, I hope this overhype will not shatter the sc2 player base. Because that would be the worse possible effect you could ever do for the sc2 ;-)
What does that even mean? If Starbow turns out to be better than SC2 why shouldn't it shatter the player base and gain popularity? I think they really missed the mark with SC2 and it became even worse in HoTS.
I would be all for having a BW based unit game with a mix of BW and SC2 mechanics.
I think it has to do with any RTS that comes out that pulls people away from sc2. If that RTS is more fun, more interesting to watch, more appealing to sc2 fans, it'll hurt sc2. If that game can't support the pro scene as well as sc2 can, it'll hurt that as well. Less people will want to watch sc2, so the scene will diminish. If the new RTS can't support the pro scene with a ranked ladder and matchmaking, it's harder for pros to switch. It won't have a company like blizz running a tourney like WCS. It probably won't have big tourneys like Dreamhack, or if it did, would sc2 still be there? Probably not.
Anyway, the death of sc2 (or anything that removes interest from existing fans) isn't good for sc2 and isn't good for starbow. Ideally starbow will gain in popularity just enough to force blizz make some drastic changes to sc2. Some small tournies, some pros investing time to help balance, people having fun and being able to point to the drastic changes they like. That's best case scenario here. I don't think a full switch from sc2 to starbow would be good for the scene even if it proves to be the superior game.
EPT
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