Khaldor posted a video in which he talks about the future of RTS, and the general differences between SC2, MOBAs and WC3, most specifically for the viewer.
Key points:
- His opinion about why SC2 isn't as popular as LoL, DotA 2, etc. - The fundamental differences between SC2, MOBAs and WC3 from the viewer's point of view - SC2's struggle with popularity in general - The future of RTS games - His own experience as a shoutcaster on both WC3 and SC2
Overall, I agree with him. I am still a big fan of WC3, and I actually believe that, given the huge success of MOBA games, if WC3 were to be released today, it would be a huge hit (though I am not so hopeful about WC4 as he seems to be, I've developed a bit of a cynical side for Blizzard). Simply because there is so much action going on, mixed with good strategy, that it's just good. SC2 does not lack strategy, quite the contrary, but it does lack that flashy visual highlight that a lot of viewers are looking for.
I don't think such elements will ever be added to SC2, if truth be told, but in any case I think it's good to have a respected shoutcaster like Khaldor discussing it.
***EDIT***
As Khaldor requested in this very thread, here is the link to his second video on the topic:
As well as Khaldor's explanation regarding his points:
"after reading more of the comments I have to highlight again that my main point is not about RTS vs. MOBAs. The comparison comes to mind easily because of the nature of the discussion. But the main point is the micro vs. macro aspect and how to get people EXCITED about what's happening and also why it's easier to be passionated about a game with a strong micro focus."
Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Chess isn't exactly a huge spectator sport. The argument is not what is 'better' since that is subjective. But it is true that it would draw in more casual audiences.
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Chess isn't exactly a huge spectator sport. The argument is not what is 'better' since that is subjective. But it is true that it would draw in more casual audiences.
I'm pretty sure it is lol. It may just be because it has a several century headstart, but its crazily deep strategy draws in a lot of people.
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Chess isn't exactly a huge spectator sport. The argument is not what is 'better' since that is subjective. But it is true that it would draw in more casual audiences.
I'm pretty sure it is lol. It may just be because it has a several century headstart, but its crazily deep strategy draws in a lot of people.
Yes, a lot of people watched the Carlson-anand series. But do you have stadiums of people watching chess live like the big pro sports?
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Chess isn't exactly a huge spectator sport. The argument is not what is 'better' since that is subjective. But it is true that it would draw in more casual audiences.
I'm pretty sure it is lol. It may just be because it has a several century headstart, but its crazily deep strategy draws in a lot of people.
Yes, a lot of people watched the Carlson-anand series. But do you have stadiums of people watching chess live like the big pro sports?
I don't doubt your point. I'd just say that a sport can be popular without flashy stuff. Of course the flashier the easier it is to be popular though.
I think he makes good points on the reason as to why the state of the game in eSports is today, with MOBA's being super popular and such. Giving casual gamers something familiar to relate to makes it much easier for them to get interested, and stay interested. So does "flashy visual stuff", or "varied and colourful design", as I like to call it. This can change in a few years though, people may grow tired of always watching or playing "hero-type games".. By the time WC4 rolls around, MOBA's may be on the decline.
On February 15 2014 23:55 Luppy1 wrote: Before talking about attracting new players, maybe he should consider why SC2 is struggling to even retain existing ones.
Can't really agree with this. I've played (the old) Dota a lot (back in the days), still I don't really get what is going on in the MOBA battles. Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
In my opinion the main problem of RTS is that it is mechanically and attententionwise too hard. You have to focus on too many places all over the map and you have to grind out all those mechanical training sessions (which is extremely boring). Compared to how easy it is for a player to always stay focused on one screen and control one hero, it is just annoying to have to switch screen, select a worker, tab through a menu and find a place where you want to put down that supply depot. While all you really want to do is run around with your units and have new armies being made. I think for RTS games this has to become a keyfocus if they want to regain popularity amongst players (viewers will follow, since the viewers are 95% recruted from the playerbase): make macromechanics easier or straight out automate parts of them. I know this is an unpopular thought amongst oldschool RTS elitists, but think about what would be if we had even less automatization. Imagine you had to manually mine with your workers (send them to the minerals; send them back home). Of course the skilllevel would improve greatly, but is this fun and does this lead to growth of playerbase? Even elitists would say that this is too much, yet, we draw the line with arbitrary standards that have been created by games in the 1990s like CnC, Warcraft 1-2 and Broodwar. So I ask, is switching screens away from where the battle happens fun? Is spamming keys to build units in the midth of a fight what you want to focus at? Of course, making parts of the game easier may be problematic for competitive play, yet, there are easy ways to make up for that, by making units more potent. Give all units more standard abilities they can do apart from move+attack. E.g. give infantry the ability to run and crawl, and let tanks overrun smaller units if controlled properly. Three dimensional airbattles where you can avoid missiles with loopings and stuff like that! Skilllevel would increase through unit control and tactical usages of their abilities - which is the amazing thing we really like about playing RTS games, not the qeuing of another SCV or the ability to get supply blocked for only 1:15min in a 20min game.
Speaking about RTS skill videos. SC2 has very few and it's not because it's RTS game but because game is made that way.
Brood war has a ton, i mean a ton of pimp movies (and i don't want to start sc2 vs bw) just want to say that RTS can have those exciting moments where casual crowd can easily identify. Reaver micro and scrabs killing ton of shit, muta micro, mines from voltures, volture micro, lurkers, defilers etc. all those things make some big moments and you can go "woooah" there's not much stuff like that in sc2
On February 16 2014 00:04 Big J wrote: Can't really agree with this. I've played (the old) Dota a lot (back in the days), still I don't really get what is going on in the MOBA battles. Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
In my opinion the main problem of RTS is that it is mechanically and attententionwise too hard. You have to focus on too many places all over the map and you have to grind out all those mechanical training sessions (which is extremely boring). Compared to how easy it is for a player to always stay focused on one screen and control one hero, it is just annoying to have to switch screen, select a worker, tab through a menu and find a place where you want to put down that supply depot. While all you really want to do is run around with your units and have new armies being made. I think for RTS games this has to become a keyfocus if they want to regain popularity amongst players (viewers will follow, since the viewers are 95% recruted from the playerbase): make macromechanics easier or straight out automate parts of them. I know this is an unpopular thought amongst oldschool RTS elitists, but think about what would be if we had even less automatization. Imagine you had to manually mine with your workers (send them to the minerals; send them back home). Of course the skilllevel would improve greatly, but is this fun and does this lead to growth of playerbase? Even elitists would say that this is too much, yet, we draw the line with arbitrary standards that have been created by games in the 1990s like CnC, Warcraft 1-2 and Broodwar. So I ask, is switching screens away from where the battle happens fun? Is spamming keys to build units in the midth of a fight what you want to focus at? Of course, making parts of the game easier may be problematic for competitive play, yet, there are easy ways to make up for that, by making units more potent. Give all units more standard abilities they can do apart from move+attack. E.g. give infantry the ability to run and crawl, and let tanks overrun smaller units if controlled properly. Three dimensional airbattles where you can avoid missiles with loopings and stuff like that! Skilllevel would increase through unit control and tactical usages of their abilities - which is the amazing thing we really like about playing RTS games, not the qeuing of another SCV or the ability to get supply blocked for only 1:15min in a 20min game.
Wow, I would play the fuuuuk out of that automated macro / micro-focused game! And so would everyone I know that's ever played an RTS, I would imagine.
60 year olds who didn't play the game could see finess in SC1 micro situations if given a broad concept of how stuff worked in the game. Silly to hear opinions like this claiming flashiness is needed. Dota is pretty ugly to the non-trained eye, horrible aesthetics, terrible looking characteristics, but yet is one of the largest games because you can sorta(if untrained eye) still see the finess in everything. Starbow already has shown it looks much better in every way compared to SC2 when it comes to just "seeing" skill(opinion of course), and yet this game is "slowed down".
I remember some years ago the concensus was actually the complete opposite, that WC3 was very confusing for a casual viewer to watch while a lot of people without any understanding loved watching BW, because it was said to be easier to relate to and get excited about on the very surface. But I guess that was somewhat unique to BW and not something you can apply to SC2 today one to one.
I'm theorizing here, but I think the reason BW was so "easy to watch",and easy to recognize the beauty in, was because it's so old... The reason 60 year olds could find finesse in it, was because: A) It wasn't "just another video game" which is probably the common consensus among casuals watching a new game today. Don't think it was like that back then. B) sc:bw has a beautiful, simplistic, minimalistic and effective graphics. It was the best they could do at the time, and it turned out to be a classic style. Didn't need flashy graphics to be attention grabbing OT:Nice cignature, LS! Sorta sums up mine pretty well
It is easy to spot a good gank (terrible terrible damage for casual, nicely set up for more experienced moba player), or close escape with moba, but not so easy with a RTS because there are millions other things to take in consideration. last time I was watching a tournament with my fds, people go crazy at ganks, even if it was horribly executed etc. Starcraft 2? You only get more excited when more actions are going on and even then, not all actions are flashy.
another point is that I have always felt there is some very artificial skill differencing factors in RTS, supply upkeep for example. No one look at a game and focus on whether a player has missed a depot or missed one round of production. It is what units that are getting made, how the units are used, when the new base is set up, how it is defended etc that is more interesting for viewers. unless you are bomber who somehow can squeeze out so much unit with the same resources, there isn't much differentiating a player from another.
I don't think you need heroes for exciting moments at all. IMO the most important part for a success as a viewersport is that there is constant action going on. In sc2 this isn't really the case. Whether you achieve this with heroes or with other stuff isn't really the point i think, as long as there is stuff happening and the unit interactions are somewhat interesting (nice animation, not binary) there will be excitement and viewers. So i kinda have to agree with BigJ here, the next rts should maybe cut the macro parts to a minimum and try to force action instead. Are heroes needed for this? NO
On February 16 2014 00:15 UmberBane wrote: I remember some years ago the concensus was actually the complete opposite, that WC3 was very confusing for a casual viewer to watch while a lot of people without any understanding loved watching BW, because it was said to be easier to relate to and get excited about on the very surface.
A consensus will never be reached IMHO, because the people who entered the RTS genre through WC2, BW and now SC2 will think that a game like WC3 is incredibly slow, even sluggish in its battles while on the other hand the people who enjoyed WC3 will obviously think that the main old school RTS games are too macro focused and/or too fast in their battles; if you guys were around in brood war you will remember that when wc3 got released most of the bw crowd considered wc3 a different game rather than bw's successor, and for good reasons, it basically exists in its own sub-genre.
This is also the real problem with balance suggestion and especially design suggestions, the community is somewhat split between ex-bw players, new sc2 players and ex-wc3 players, with the latter category being the most distant from the first.
Imho, the StarCraft franchise has a much better chance as an esport due to its clutch moments, which while somewhat rarer than a MOBA's, have usually a much more epic feeling (compare a gank, which is arguably somewhat predictable an will happen often in a game against what a truly epic baneling/widow landmine, or a clutch fight down to the last few units is in a sc2 game)
In the end, viewer count is almost solely dependent from the playerbase, and that's the reason why LoL has a bigger viewerbase than Dota2 even tho most of the starcraft players seem to agree that Dota2 is the better esports between them; Hell, a properly advertised Flappy Bird stream/tournament (does that even make sense?) would SURELY make more viewers than any game except the big 3 on Twitch (LoL,Dota2,Sc2)
On February 16 2014 00:04 Big J wrote: Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
In my opinion the main problem of RTS is that it is mechanically and attententionwise too hard. You have to focus on too many places all over the map and you have to grind out all those mechanical training sessions (which is extremely boring)
I agree with you on both points. For me it was much easier to get into watching BW back in the day than it is now to try and watch some Dota2, half the time I dont even know which hero is producing which of the million confusing little lights on the screen that cause some other heroes to die. I don't see how I could possibly enjoy watching it before playing or reading up on it a lot to know what all the heroes do.
The only reasons they are more popular is because 1) they are free, 2) they are mucch more accessible to begin with, 3) you can't report the fault on your mate when it's 1v1.
In my opinion, Starcraft 2 (or 3) will not grow unless the non-player aspects of e-sports (casting, observing, production, etc.) also grows.
I'm seriously not a big fan of how SC2 in foreign scene only have two casters. Casters doing analysis while some interesting action (but not necessarily a huge battle) is taking place is a huge peeve of mine. And pathetic camera-work (observer work) cuts the quality of entertainment down by a lot.
There's seriously a lot of room for SC2 scene to grow as a whole. I think I went a bit off topic. But before we think of changing the game itself, let's first look at what we can do better outside of the game itself.
Back when WC3 was popular, it was rather common for a shoutcaster to say that the game could be confusing if you were not introduced to it at all. It is true, to a certain extent. Mostly because you have to have at least a little sense of what the units and heroes do in order to know what is happening. It's really true with all RTS games, and pretty much any game that is not very straightforward the way FPS games are. Their popularity largely comes from that as well, there is nothing much to understand to play the game: you just shoot stuff. Yet there was more strategy to it, at least in CS 1.6. The important thing was it was very, very easy to introduce someone to it.
Also, the broadcasting technology was nowhere near as developed as it is now, and WC3 didn't benefit from televised events the way BW did (at least in South Korea). I personally think streams have made it much easier to immerse yourself in the game play of a particular game, because watching someone else play is a good way to learn. Just look at Hearthstone: many people watched the popular streamers during the beginning of the closed beta, and I think it would be accurate to say that a lot of viewers learned a few things from that.
The same applies to DotA. I think having a media which gives you the option to actually show someone playing the game makes for a better understanding, as it is easier to see what is going on when you are not playing the game yourself but only watching it, which means you don't have to both control your actions and try to see what is going on. In the end, I find pure action to be more enjoyable to watch than pure strategy and mind games, as the latter doesn't... jump at you, so to speak.
A free well promoted game from riot brings in a lot more casual players and therefore viewers who spread the game themselves to their friends and family. While Starcraft which is buy to play , a lot more harder to get a hand of the basic builds , macro and micro and blizzard's not perfect promoting and unfriendly battle net interface is what makes it a not so popular game .
I doubt it has anything to do with heroes or whatnot . It's about preference and accessibility .
On February 16 2014 00:51 raga4ka wrote: A free well promoted game from riot brings in a lot more casual players and therefore viewers who spread the game themselves to their friends and family. While Starcraft which is buy to play , a lot more harder to get a hand of the basic builds , macro and micro and blizzard's not perfect promoting and unfriendly battle net interface is what makes it a not so popular game .
I doubt it has anything to do with heroes or whatnot . It's about preference and accessibility .
Yeah I'm behind this train all the way. That's why I played LoL instead of HoN back in the day and transferred into DotA II now (because DotA II is free while DotA I needed WC3). I can learn DotA II from friends that are a lot better than me while still playing a good enjoyable game.
Also the ingame DotA II guides and builds are typically considered to be pretty decent/playable, which adds to accessibility.
Ive said this before and I still hope PTZ vs PTZ team games can become legitimized, making Starcraft more exciting and accessible to casuals.
Yes I know the meta game is non existent Yes I know the balance of SC2 is around 1v1s Yes I know the current 3v3 map pool is not conducive to good games
But whose to say that if we try, we won't breath a completely new life into Starcraft and RTS in general?
It keeps everything beautiful about Starcraft, how impressive pros can macro and micro, how they can manage entire armies, how the better player(s) will always win. It will be more action packed, flashy and exciting for new viewers. It will push the skill ceiling even higher. Instead of army positioning, its armIES positioning and team coordination. It will open up a completely new frontier of mapmaking, casting, strategies and tactics for us to explore.
I know its gonna be hard, requiring teams of players devoting their time to 3v3s instead of 1v1s which is their main source of income, requiring map makers to completely redefine everything we know about 'quality maps', requiring everyone to throw away old meta game ideas and explore new ones. But I do believe if someone is willing to take this step and commit Im sure it can be big.
The things he said are valid only if SC2 is succeeding in retaining its players and the problem is with attracting new ones. But, SC2 cant even retain existing players. So, why are people blaming the game's ability to attract new players?
On February 16 2014 01:05 Luppy1 wrote: The things he said are valid only if SC2 is succeeding in retaining its players and the problem is with attracting new ones. But, SC2 cant even retain existing players. So, why are people blaming the game's ability to attract new players?
without new players and viewers, tournaments will make less and less money, stream revenue will drop, sponsors will pull out, teams will disband and the scene will dwindle as players leave because they cant make a living out of SC2
SC2 is just really weird in that it seems as though it was designed by a group of people who had little to no awareness of WC3 or any of the advancements made in RTS design after SC1.
SC2 is at the far end of the RTS spectrum in terms of the emphasis placed on macro vs. micro. The game is mostly about rigidly copying standard build orders and making small timing adjustments based on replay study. This is hardly something that has casual appeal. I believe that the game only got as popular as it did because people fundamentally misunderstood what the game was really about.
I think this is the last time we will see an SC2-style macro-heavy RTS of any prominence. I believe that if the genre is going to have a future, it will take WC3's design as a launching point, and will use SC2 as an example of what not to do.
I also believe that 4v4 will be the way the genre goes in the future. The reason is that 1v1 RTS play, with all the replay and VOD analysis, quickly generates a stale meta and overemphasizes differences in mechanical ability over strategy and tactics. 4v4 and a more micro-oriented design will open the genre up to western players and audiences.
On February 16 2014 00:51 raga4ka wrote: A free well promoted game from riot brings in a lot more casual players and therefore viewers who spread the game themselves to their friends and family. While Starcraft which is buy to play , a lot more harder to get a hand of the basic builds , macro and micro and blizzard's not perfect promoting and unfriendly battle net interface is what makes it a not so popular game .
I doubt it has anything to do with heroes or whatnot . It's about preference and accessibility .
Yeah, that is true. As much as it pains me to say it, the free to play model has become somewhat of the industry standard. I personally have no problem with buying a game, but it seems a lot of people do, which is understandable. The F2P model can sometimes go horribly wrong though, but still.
In a RTS game, I see little that could go wrong. So long as you don't sell items that could directly affect the outcome of a game, it is fine. A shop in a F2P RTS game could stick to vanity items and account related stuff exclusively and still generate good income. I'm sure a ton of people would be willing to invest real money to have that special-looking armor on their units or heroes (HoN proved that it works).
Blizzard isn't big on F2P though, even though they are getting into it now with Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm. BNet 2.0 is also probably to blame for SC2's loss of popularity. BNet 2.0 just feels so lonely, whereas the older version was much more lively and promoted social interactions between players. I really do hope that if they ever release WC4, it will come with a massive overhaul of BNet 2.0.
On February 16 2014 01:14 jdsowa wrote: SC2 is just really weird in that it seems as though it was designed by a group of people who had little to no awareness of WC3 or any of the advancements made in RTS design after SC1.
SC2 is at the far end of the RTS spectrum in terms of the emphasis placed on macro vs. micro. The game is mostly about rigidly copying standard build orders and making small timing adjustments based on replay study. This is hardly something that has casual appeal. I believe that the game only got as popular as it did because people fundamentally misunderstood what the game was really about.
I think this is the last time we will see an SC2-style macro-heavy RTS of any prominence. I believe that if the genre is going to have a future, it will take WC3's design as a launching point, and will use SC2 as an example of what not to do.
I also believe that 4v4 will be the way the genre goes in the future. The reason is that 1v1 RTS play, with all the replay and VOD analysis, quickly generates a stale meta and overemphasizes differences in mechanical ability over strategy and tactics. 4v4 and a more micro-oriented design will open the genre up to western players and audiences.
I see your point. 4v4 seems a little extreme though, too close to DotA, and much too messy with actual units on top of heroes.
2v2 is definitely viable though. 2v2 matches were very compelling and interesting to watch in WC3. It was a real thing, every league included 4 solos and 1 duo match (see WC3L), and there were even a few 2v2 tournaments held by ESL and other organizations. I could see myself being involved and interested by a team-oriented RTS if it were 2v2, though I see no reason not to stick to 1v1 as the primary format if the game itself is developed enough to offer various strategies. I believe action-packed games can largely make up for stagnant meta game, at least until a new trend is found.
On February 16 2014 01:05 Luppy1 wrote: The things he said are valid only if SC2 is succeeding in retaining its players and the problem is with attracting new ones. But, SC2 cant even retain existing players. So, why are people blaming the game's ability to attract new players?
without new players and viewers, tournaments will make less and less money, stream revenue will drop, sponsors will pull out, teams will disband and the scene will dwindle as players leave because they cant make a living out of SC2
Why are you explaining to me about the importance of the game to attract new players?
My point was that the problem with the game is not about its inability to attract new players. It can't even retain its existing ones!
I don't think it gets the real point. Of course, a hero kill is much more exciting. But people like games for playing. Just watching doesn't make you chose the game.
My opinion is that Starcraft is just more serious and most people find it too "uncasual". They like controlling one unit only. They like superspells. And they like being able to blame everyone but themselves. You see this even in Starcraft. Quite a few players feel really uncomfortable losing 1v1s, so they switch to mundane Arcade games where you always can feel like a winner.
So, I'd say the main reason (next to the pricing model) is the difficulty. It takes some knowledge, but very little skill to start the game and "play like everyone else". And you can feel great about yourself with all the shiny spells.
To fix this in Starcraft would mean to force slower game rate, force team play and add flashy spells. The game would be highly random and boring for serious players, but it would have many more gamers (and thus viewers).
I don`t think WC3 was easier to follow with all ist spells. Slow, Blizzard, Lightning Shields, Stomp, Chainligthning, Dispell etc. all taking place in one fight is too much for a casual to handle imo.
i never thought i would say this, but most of the comments in this thread don't really touch his points at all, this is mostly the same stuff we see in any other thread, even reddit did a better job.. This isn't about the business model, khaldor already did a video about this kind of stuff, why can't people ONE time argue about the topic and don't just feel the need to completely change it?
Khaldor's main points i feel are:
- Mobas generate more exciting moments - Mobas are easier to appreciate and understand from a casual point of view (heroes and stuff)
Now he concludes that the next rts should have heroes aswell if it wants to be successful.
That is pretty much the basic you should argue about, not if sc2 isn't free to play or lol "is easier to play" . I think BigJ has an interesting point of view and adds something to the table, the rest of the posts (ok not all of them, but most) are just mindblowing ignorant and i really doubt you guys even watched the video...
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Yet there is no one watching chess on TV or on the internet. It's a small population. Also old movies are good for people that where there at the time.
Take a 15yo kid and make him watch predator or alien... or conan. He will say to you that you have shitty taste in movie.
Also those bashing comments without making point is a pain to read
I bet the scene would be doing better if people stopped posting things about how much its failing so often. Posts like this from a prominent figure in the community have a lot of influence. Instead of talking about how the game isn't as popular as other games why not talk about growth of the scene (like the fact pro league saw a huge spike in viewers) compared to itself. I think SC2 is far from a dying or unpopular game but things like this don't help it.
On February 16 2014 01:56 The_Red_Viper wrote: i never thought i would say this, but most of the comments in this thread don't really touch his points at all, this is mostly the same stuff we see in any other thread, even reddit did a better job.. This isn't about the business model, khaldor already did a video about this kind of stuff, why can't people ONE time argue about the topic and don't just feel the need to completely change it?
Khaldor's main points i feel are:
- Mobas generate more exciting moments - Mobas are easier to appreciate and understand from a casual point of view (heroes and stuff)
Now he concludes that the next rts should have heroes aswell if it wants to be successful.
That is pretty much the basic you should argue about, not if sc2 isn't free to play or lol "is easier to play" . I think BigJ has an interesting point of view and adds something to the table, the rest of the posts (ok not all of them, but most) are just mindblowing ignorant and i really doubt you guys even watched the video...
Starcraft is so much easier for casuals with great casting and great observing. It's purely anecdotal, but when I showed few different broadcasts to my friends - guess which they found more entertaining?
The ones they found more entertaining had the following qualities. Casting which was energetic and on point, did not go into too far into analysis or predictions (which frankly alienates casuals since they don't get it). And observing which was smooth and did not miss important events.
Foreigners didn't watch bw, so I dont understand the argument that bw was Flashy. Onlykorea watched that game, in SC2, several countries watch.
It is very simple, if people play, they will watch. Starcraft has less players than MOBA games, therefore less viewers. Growing up, most guys play football, can relate to and understand the game. Everyone knows how a race works, thus NASCAR popularity. RTS is complex and therefore will always be niche. Warcraft version of RTS will not remedy this complexity. Heroes aren't what people love, they love watching good players play a game they are familiar with.
I have played League of Legends very little, but from what I have seen, every action is easily discerned. You know when someone is attacking a minion, you know when an ability is being used, an ultimate, etc... In Starcraft, it would be too annoying and visually confusing to play with complex animations, but even simple things like changing the color of time warm to match the color of the respective player's color is better than the default green. (This can be seen at the Ender's MLG tournament) Simple color changing can enhance the viewing experience drastically.
Spells in league of legends are the focus of visual effects. In Starcraft, there are many spell casters, (sentries, infestors, ravens, etc...) and some spells have sub par animations. EMP is the first that comes to mind. In game 1 of Jjakji vs Dear at IEM Cologne 2014, the final battle was the protoss death ball vs the Terran bio (marine/marauder/medivac/viking/ghost). They had a post game analysis of it, and the person analyzing the game talked about viking positioning changing the game... However, there were a couple of EMP's that landed on the high templar. The casters didn't see it. The analyzer didn't see it. I barely saw it. EMP's are unnoticeable. I have heard numerous times, "EMP's can change the game!" when watching PvT. If EMP's are so pivotal, their animation should be extravagant! Stalkers, after being EMP'd should should have visible electricity pulsing on them and making their movement appear messed up or aimless (with no actual effect).
Feedback is a great example of a well-done animation. It makes a high pitched sound and has a great flash of light. A feedbacked medivac may only lose 15 hit points, but you think, "HOLY CRAP IT'S DEAD!" because of the excellent animation. I've heard casters and crowds react explosively when a couple of feedbacks are cast on medivacs.
Psi storm has a great sound, but I think the visual effect can be enhanced. right now it's just a circle with some shiny things inside. At the ender's tournament, the color changes according to the player's game color -- I personally think red psi storms look great. I think an increase of the radius of the visual effect of psi storm would help it. (just with something that looks like horizontal lightning bolts straying from the circle of effect.)
Fungal growth is done right depending on the units. I think the fungaled stalker animation is incomplete. If a colossus is fungaled, you know it. if a marauder is fungaled, you know it. Fungaled stalkers aren't as easily seen.
There are more spells that could be changed, but it isn't that important. You get the idea. If Blizzard changed the look of these spells, then the flashy visuals that people look for will be there.
The reason LoL gets so many more viewers than SC2 is because so many more people play it. That's where people get the interest to watch these things in the first place. LoL is far more accessible than SC2 and people enjoy the team aspect as well (team games are generally more popular and this applies to real sports as well).
If anything SC2 gets pretty damn good numbers considering the active playerbase. LoL has how many millions of people playing at any given time? The SC2 playerbase would be measured in the thousands. I'd say that says that the game must be pretty enjoyable to watch, it seems to hold onto viewers pretty well.
Basically it's very hard to get people to know about or become interested in your game as an esport unless they're playing it. Whilst LoL has 100 times more people playing (or whatever the number is) it will also get a lot more viewers.
You can build your viewership without necessarily growing the player base but it's a lot more difficult.
I dont really agree with Kaldor because he focuses on viewing and casting the games only. But he should focus on playing the games itself.
As a general rule, I think it is correct to say that those who play are those who watch. And mobas are more easier and less stressful for the general gamer and they are free to play so they attract more gamers which in turn leads to more viewers. And mobas are a team game and I think that this is an aspect that he did not focus on at all. I think team games in general introduce their own element of dynamics and are therefore much more enjoyable. Even in "conventional" sports team games are the crowd favorite most of the time. Soccer, football, hokey, baseball, basketball in comparison to tennis for example. Racing sports are a bit different, maybe you have a team in Formula one consisting of 2 drivers but for the viewer he has always multiple drivers to watch and not just two slugging it out. I thing its the accessibility of the game to new players and the better possibilities of comebacks and turn arounds that make them more enjoyable.
The problem of SC2 is that its too hard. Just look what games are popular today : CoD, Battlefield, BoreZ, some random WoWCloneMMO, LoL and that is pretty much it. Surprisingly LoL is the hardest in that list. The funny thing is that the starcraft comunity itself bring this to themselves. You wanted the game to be so much like BW(completely outdated game that will have no success in modern age) that blizzard was kinda forced to make a game with extreme learning curve. Fortunatelly they added some new features like MBS, easier unit managment and smartcasting that saved the game. SC2 is not dead and won't die for a long time, but it will be a niche game, if Blizzard doesn't make drastic changes with the third(and last) expansion. By the way this has nothing to do with F2P... From the games I listed only LoL is free. F2P =\= popular. Also I agree with Khaldor that games that are focused on one important figure(the Hero, the soldier or whatever) are easier to follow than a game that is focused on managing economy and massive armies.
I personally hope that Blizzard will make WC4 and that will revive the genre again
On February 16 2014 02:11 ElBlanco wrote: The reason LoL gets so many more viewers than SC2 is because so many more people play it. That's where people get the interest to watch these things in the first place. LoL is far more accessible than SC2 and people enjoy the team aspect as well (team games are generally more popular and this applies to real sports as well).
That is, of course, true. Most people will only watch the game(s) they play themselves. It still leaves an underlying thought: why is SC2 not played more?
The RTS genre may have died out, since essentially, SC2 is the only real title that holds up on a competitive level right now. But I don't think it's quite done yet. It may simply need a little overhaul to get back into the good graces of the masses.
I mean, WC3 basically spawned LoL & DotA 2. DotA 2 is nothing short of a HD remake of the WC3 custom map. It literally adds nothing to the game itself except for better graphics and a better engine. It's still incredibly successful (granted, Valve has a lot to do with that). I strongly believe that a RTS game which would evolve toward the MOBA genre without suppressing the key elements of a RTS would be successful. A hybrid version of a RTS/MOBA game would, in my opinion, be very successful.
The degree to which the RTS game would take after MOBAs and suppress the more "core" elements of true RTS games (resource gathering, base building, etc.) could vary, but I believe there is a recipe for success out there. That is the main point of Khaldor: he looks at WC3 and its distant descendants (MOBAs) and argues about a "new" type of RTS that would please both the casual viewers and the more serious gamers.
On February 16 2014 00:04 Big J wrote: Can't really agree with this. I've played (the old) Dota a lot (back in the days), still I don't really get what is going on in the MOBA battles. Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
Agree with this. I feel like if I had more experience with MOBAs I would understand what is going on more as a spectator, but even so it's hard to focus on 5 characters at once at times. With SC2 I understand everything that is going on, but as many on TL have pointed out, a lot of the problems with SC2 are stale gameplay. I am really starting to get bored of SC2 games. If you look at the history of SC2, there have been huge periods of boring gameplay (protoss deathballs, BL/infestor, now swarmhosts) that drive away viewers. If build diversity was stronger and micro mechanics mattered more, along with less of an element of chance, SC2 would have retained many of the viewers that it has lost over the years.
Overall MOBAs seem considerably easier to design for than a complex game like SC2; since there are so many heroes, perfect balance means almost nothing, while it is everything in SC2. However, if an RTS game does arise that emphasizes sick micro and 2-3 different late-game gameplans per matchup (that are not stale), then the games become considerably more exciting to watch. Maybe Starbow?
On February 16 2014 02:11 ElBlanco wrote: The reason LoL gets so many more viewers than SC2 is because so many more people play it. That's where people get the interest to watch these things in the first place. LoL is far more accessible than SC2 and people enjoy the team aspect as well (team games are generally more popular and this applies to real sports as well).
That is, of course, true. Most people will only watch the game(s) they play themselves. It still leaves an underlying thought: why is SC2 not played more?
The RTS genre may have died out, since essentially, SC2 is the only real title that holds up on a competitive level right now. But I don't think it's quite done yet. It may simply need a little overhaul to get back into the good graces of the masses.
I mean, WC3 basically spawned LoL & DotA 2. DotA 2 is nothing short of a HD remake of the WC3 custom map. It literally adds nothing to the game itself except for better graphics and a better engine. It's still incredibly successful (granted, Valve has a lot to do with that). I strongly believe that a RTS game which would evolve toward the MOBA genre without suppressing the key elements of a RTS would be successful. A hybrid version of a RTS/MOBA game would, in my opinion, be very successful.
The degree to which the RTS game would take after MOBAs and suppress the more "core" elements of true RTS games (resource gathering, base building, etc.) could vary, but I believe there is a recipe for success out there. That is the main point of Khaldor: he looks at WC3 and its distant descendants (MOBAs) and argues about a "new" type of RTS that would please both the casual viewers and the more serious gamers.
SC2 is a very difficult and stressful game and unlike team games you have no one to blame but yourself for the loss. In some cases the losses can also be frustrating where you felt like there was little you could do.
I think your idea is interesting and i'd love to see it done. It's why i love the macro/micro mini game so much, it feels great to just focus on one side of the game and it's actually a really fun team game. Man i'd love to have an actual ladder for it.
I still think that the SC2 player base could be expanded without making as big changes as you're recommending.
On February 16 2014 01:56 The_Red_Viper wrote: i never thought i would say this, but most of the comments in this thread don't really touch his points at all, this is mostly the same stuff we see in any other thread, even reddit did a better job.. This isn't about the business model, khaldor already did a video about this kind of stuff, why can't people ONE time argue about the topic and don't just feel the need to completely change it?
Khaldor's main points i feel are:
- Mobas generate more exciting moments - Mobas are easier to appreciate and understand from a casual point of view (heroes and stuff)
Now he concludes that the next rts should have heroes aswell if it wants to be successful.
That is pretty much the basic you should argue about, not if sc2 isn't free to play or lol "is easier to play" . I think BigJ has an interesting point of view and adds something to the table, the rest of the posts (ok not all of them, but most) are just mindblowing ignorant and i really doubt you guys even watched the video...
Well i argued what i believed is the cause of SC2 failing . I don't think that MOBAS generate more excitement and are more easier to appreciate when you control 1 unit ... The only thing that could interest me in a "Hero" is the story/lore behind it . I enjoyed WC3's single player as much as BW and SC2 . League of Legends doesn't really have a lore behind it's "heroes" . One page of some random text describing a character isn't a lore . Starcraft is way more complex than controling 1 unit , so the only thing that brings in more players/viewers is the accesibily , simplisity and personal preference of the games .
If Blizzard and Kespa worked together at promoting a free to play SC2 you would have kissed your LoL glory goodbye at least in Korea . Broodwar was already bigger or as big as LoL in Korea right now , so it would have been only natural that SC2 would have been gigantic . Bad blood between Kespa and Blizzard is what did the game in , suboptimal game design helped . As you can see , as i and probably many other predicted you are forced to work with Kespa if you want for something to succeed as an eSports in Korea. Anything else is just temporary (eSF). Kespa has the money and power to make it happen.
MOBA doesn't bring in more players / viewers then RTS , because of the "Heroes". There will always be one main eSports game in a game gender . In RTS this is SC2 and Blizzard and Kespa failed to establish it as the main eSports game. No competition for developing RTS games also played a role . LOL at least has Dota to compete , while SC2 has what ? There was an online free to play Generals game coming from the CnC series , EA games is failing hard making it happen ...
What people have wrote above me are also valid points .
On February 16 2014 02:11 ElBlanco wrote: The reason LoL gets so many more viewers than SC2 is because so many more people play it. That's where people get the interest to watch these things in the first place. LoL is far more accessible than SC2 and people enjoy the team aspect as well (team games are generally more popular and this applies to real sports as well).
That is, of course, true. Most people will only watch the game(s) they play themselves. It still leaves an underlying thought: why is SC2 not played more?
The RTS genre may have died out, since essentially, SC2 is the only real title that holds up on a competitive level right now. But I don't think it's quite done yet. It may simply need a little overhaul to get back into the good graces of the masses.
I mean, WC3 basically spawned LoL & DotA 2. DotA 2 is nothing short of a HD remake of the WC3 custom map. It literally adds nothing to the game itself except for better graphics and a better engine. It's still incredibly successful (granted, Valve has a lot to do with that). I strongly believe that a RTS game which would evolve toward the MOBA genre without suppressing the key elements of a RTS would be successful. A hybrid version of a RTS/MOBA game would, in my opinion, be very successful.
The degree to which the RTS game would take after MOBAs and suppress the more "core" elements of true RTS games (resource gathering, base building, etc.) could vary, but I believe there is a recipe for success out there. That is the main point of Khaldor: he looks at WC3 and its distant descendants (MOBAs) and argues about a "new" type of RTS that would please both the casual viewers and the more serious gamers.
Honestly, the biggest reason why LoL is so much more popular than SC2 is that LoL is free, and SC2 comes with an 80€ price tag unless you manage to track down the physical copies somewhere.
SC2 Melee games (in arcade not ladder) are free now and the same as ladder games, yet you still dont see a huge influx of new SC2 players compared to MOBAS
its not only due to the "free to play" factor, SC2 is basically F2P now (not counting ladder)
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Great point and strengthens Khaldor's points. For the more casual viewer Football, Basketball, Hollywood movies are more entertaining but that doesn't mean they are better compared to Chess or Film Noir.
On February 16 2014 02:11 ElBlanco wrote: The reason LoL gets so many more viewers than SC2 is because so many more people play it. That's where people get the interest to watch these things in the first place. LoL is far more accessible than SC2 and people enjoy the team aspect as well (team games are generally more popular and this applies to real sports as well).
That is, of course, true. Most people will only watch the game(s) they play themselves. It still leaves an underlying thought: why is SC2 not played more?
The RTS genre may have died out, since essentially, SC2 is the only real title that holds up on a competitive level right now. But I don't think it's quite done yet. It may simply need a little overhaul to get back into the good graces of the masses.
I mean, WC3 basically spawned LoL & DotA 2. DotA 2 is nothing short of a HD remake of the WC3 custom map. It literally adds nothing to the game itself except for better graphics and a better engine. It's still incredibly successful (granted, Valve has a lot to do with that). I strongly believe that a RTS game which would evolve toward the MOBA genre without suppressing the key elements of a RTS would be successful. A hybrid version of a RTS/MOBA game would, in my opinion, be very successful.
The degree to which the RTS game would take after MOBAs and suppress the more "core" elements of true RTS games (resource gathering, base building, etc.) could vary, but I believe there is a recipe for success out there. That is the main point of Khaldor: he looks at WC3 and its distant descendants (MOBAs) and argues about a "new" type of RTS that would please both the casual viewers and the more serious gamers.
So like Warcraft 4?
Perhaps. It depends on Blizzard.
The differences between WC2 and WC3 were astonishing. It brought on a whole new type of RTS games, and indirectly created MOBAs.
If WC4 were to be as revolutionizing as WC3, then maybe. But taking into account the progression from BW to SC2, I doubt it. Also, the environment of WC3 was much more pleasant than the current environment of SC2, mostly due to BNet 2.0, once again.
On February 16 2014 00:00 zerK wrote: I rly love sc2, but all my friends that are casual dont like it because its too hard and not really user friendly. Not fun for a casual player...
Why the sad face? There is room in this World for many things. You don't go to a chess tournament and ask the participants to talk trash, to dress like adolescent punks, just to appeal to the brain dead masses, there is fake wrestling for that.
You don't go to an opera house and ask the musicians to sing about drugs and whores and have stripers on the side with fireworks in the background, just to appeal to the masses.
however there is another reason why i kinda stopped watching sc2
The quality of twitch and streaming services (but twitch especially) is atrocious. It really spoils my enjoyment so i just watch recommended games at my leisure later.
Starcraft 2 will never be more popular or even like LoL. League of legend is a "free game", easiest to play and cast, a teamplay game, funniest in some way and lowest requierement regarding the PC equipements. The efforts you put in a RTS are far more important than in a Moba. Because there are more things to manage so differents skills you must have and it's a 1v1 based game. So all the pressure of a game is on you. On LoL, as a casual you can do shit and still win because of your team mates. Very less stressfull.
I think Blizz can do things to gain more viewers: free the game but it will not happend (next extension but maybe 1 year after it). Make the game better and better with some drastic change with a full active help of progamers. One of the main problem making the developement and the balance so slow is because the game is divised in three extensions. They should make the last one a campaign only and start to balance/delet/had units.
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
There are other reasons Chess will never be a competetive e-sport. And there are even more reasons old movies won't ever become competetive esports. I don't think I need to list those reasons.
On February 16 2014 00:13 lastshadow wrote: 60 year olds who didn't play the game could see finess in SC1 micro situations if given a broad concept of how stuff worked in the game. Silly to hear opinions like this claiming flashiness is needed. Dota is pretty ugly to the non-trained eye, horrible aesthetics, terrible looking characteristics, but yet is one of the largest games because you can sorta(if untrained eye) still see the finess in everything. Starbow already has shown it looks much better in every way compared to SC2 when it comes to just "seeing" skill(opinion of course), and yet this game is "slowed down".
My dad watched some games with me one day while I was folding laundry and he was very impressed with the tactical situations that arose even in pvp which is dragoon vs dragoon for the first 8 or so minutes usually haha.
Khaldor seems to not understand that SC2 is easier to get into. The only reason for the Heroes system being more recognizable is the fact that more people play LOL than RTS...
Thought he was gonna make a really well argued point about how the RTS genre is stagnating in terms of mechanics, but we got this ill informed piece of content instead.
On February 16 2014 04:10 thezanursic wrote: Khaldor seems to not understand that SC2 is easier to get into. The only reason for the Heroes system being more recognizable is the fact that more people play LOL than RTS...
Thought he was gonna make a really well argued point about how the RTS genre is stagnating in terms of mechanics, but we got this ill informed piece of content instead.
I would more say RTS is stagnating because now there are no RTS games where you build anything. I miss the base building RTS so much like age of empires, the way age of empires/starcraft are done are what an RTS should be. I keep hoping it'll make a resurgence and can have more then once choice, but alas right now it's FPS/MMO .
actually my biggest problem is being unable to add custom skins to units. As one always interested in the modding community SC2 lack of it keeps it down. Also the fact that we cant do BASIC customization while laddering is dumb (red and blue unit colors gets really boring)
On February 16 2014 04:10 thezanursic wrote: Khaldor seems to not understand that SC2 is easier to get into. The only reason for the Heroes system being more recognizable is the fact that more people play LOL than RTS...
Thought he was gonna make a really well argued point about how the RTS genre is stagnating in terms of mechanics, but we got this ill informed piece of content instead.
I would more say RTS is stagnating because now there are no RTS games where you build anything. I miss the base building RTS so much like age of empires, the way age of empires/starcraft are done are what an RTS should be. I keep hoping it'll make a resurgence and can have more then once choice, but alas right now it's FPS/MMO .
Can you exaggerate what you mean with "base building RTS"?
Yeah i think if sc2 was more micro intensive it would be more interesting/entertaining for viewers and players of course. So in this scenario, peaple would not have to really be focus on the macro part. Thats one of the reasons why LoL work better. The casual public just watch and enjoy seeing the actions without necessary understanding all what is happening background.
Starcraft have to be more heavy micro, so by having more micro units focused. The best exemple is the marins micro against zerg banneling. If all the races was able to have more micro heavy units, the game would be more entertaining for every one. Like it was in BW but blizz have some "pride" and don't want to insert to the game units/mechanic of it. The big issue is it lead to one battle of 20sec witch say who will win the game.
On February 16 2014 04:10 thezanursic wrote: Khaldor seems to not understand that SC2 is easier to get into. The only reason for the Heroes system being more recognizable is the fact that more people play LOL than RTS...
Thought he was gonna make a really well argued point about how the RTS genre is stagnating in terms of mechanics, but we got this ill informed piece of content instead.
I would more say RTS is stagnating because now there are no RTS games where you build anything. I miss the base building RTS so much like age of empires, the way age of empires/starcraft are done are what an RTS should be. I keep hoping it'll make a resurgence and can have more then once choice, but alas right now it's FPS/MMO .
Base building doesn't have to die or disappear from RTS games for them to make a resurgence. I just think the game needs to be tuned in such a way that promotes near-constant action. A lot of people have been complaining that SC2 games lack actions, mostly that the games tend to be passive and then climax into a single 30 second fight that determines the winner, which by definition is actually pretty anticlimactic.
I would welcome a new RTS that would learn from WC3, SC2 and the more recent MOBA games.
On February 16 2014 04:55 Killmouse wrote: i love sc, but the lack of terrans in tournaments atm made me not watch alot of sc2 atm T.T
The amount of terran wins in 2011, 2012 and 2013 make me never root for any terran till other races get the same amount of wins (zergs need ~ 10 protoss ~ 20-25 I am happy with terran in finals but not with their wins)
On February 16 2014 04:10 thezanursic wrote: Khaldor seems to not understand that SC2 is easier to get into. The only reason for the Heroes system being more recognizable is the fact that more people play LOL than RTS...
Thought he was gonna make a really well argued point about how the RTS genre is stagnating in terms of mechanics, but we got this ill informed piece of content instead.
I would more say RTS is stagnating because now there are no RTS games where you build anything. I miss the base building RTS so much like age of empires, the way age of empires/starcraft are done are what an RTS should be. I keep hoping it'll make a resurgence and can have more then once choice, but alas right now it's FPS/MMO .
I also enjoyed Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War the best RTS after StarCraft for me.
I don't think RTS needs heroes to be more spectator friendly. But it does need a lot move-shot type micro so that most units can be microed like a hero. Graphic style is really important for viewability and sometimes ramping up realism means the units get lost in the background- my thought on the change from Age of Empires II to Age of Empires III... the graphics upped in quality, but somehow the units didn't 'pop' as much from the terrain compared to Age II. That subtle indistinctiveness does effect how easy it is to view as a casual.
Dark maps in SC2 I think exacberate this problem.
But as a counter-point, I find team fights 5v5 in mobas incredibly confusing to watch because once you combine spells, there are so many elements packed into a small ball in the centre of the screen that it is hard to distinguish. This is despite me playing LoL on and off.
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Yet there is no one watching chess on TV or on the internet. It's a small population. Also old movies are good for people that where there at the time.
Take a 15yo kid and make him watch predator or alien... or conan. He will say to you that you have shitty taste in movie.
Also those bashing comments without making point is a pain to read
are you serious? find me a 15yo kid who DOESENT think those movies are awesome
edit: ok maybe not conan but come on the first predator movie and second alien are like the peak of my child hood
Well the way I see it is that when you play Starcraft 2 you have to keep constant attention to the game. When I play Starcraft I am not taking sips from cup of coffee or taking a bite out of meal. A lot of popular games has the feature which allows you to play it in a relaxed manner.
I can watch Starcraft tournaments till late in the night, however, I never find myself grinding ladder games late into night unlike in many other games where I can play at more leisure.
I do not think that RTS games couldn´t be as popular as MOBA games if there would be other aspects than 1v1 ladder to it like in Starcraft.
I know that for example in LoL it is popular to play vs. AI. In Starcraft you pretty much just play 1v1 if you play a lot.
I think Khaldor is overstating how easy it is to get into MOBAs. As someone who's been around video games a long time, the first time I saw League matches played online I didn't have the faintest clue what was going on and most of what the casters were saying might as well have been in another language because none of it helped me understand the game any better. It wasn't until I played some DOTA2 for myself that I began to understand how that style of game worked a little better. The same is true of SC to an extent, though I think it's easier to understand in the most basic sense because watching two armies (usually of very distinctly different races) fight each other paints a bit of a clearer picture for the uninitiated to understand. Of course, things like spellcasters would require some degree of explanation, as mentioned in the video.
On February 16 2014 04:10 thezanursic wrote: Khaldor seems to not understand that SC2 is easier to get into. The only reason for the Heroes system being more recognizable is the fact that more people play LOL than RTS...
Thought he was gonna make a really well argued point about how the RTS genre is stagnating in terms of mechanics, but we got this ill informed piece of content instead.
I would more say RTS is stagnating because now there are no RTS games where you build anything. I miss the base building RTS so much like age of empires, the way age of empires/starcraft are done are what an RTS should be. I keep hoping it'll make a resurgence and can have more then once choice, but alas right now it's FPS/MMO .
Can you exaggerate what you mean with "base building RTS"?
putting word in mouth
but when you go back to the start with dune2, c&c RA warcraft 1 the majority of the game was about base layouts because people hadn't yet figured out macro. I also think some of that is due to resources being a distance way in all of those games.
In several of those games you had to place concrete to build upon.
The game was much more about efficient base layouts.
I think peopel are missing the point khaldor is makign about mobas
it doesnt matter how hard the game is to get into. As an ignorant spectator you can see that the game is about 5v5 battling it out in very obvious and in your face ways
the reason why those games are good is that there is also a shit ton of depth behind that.
The other main point is that as a commentator that also gives you something really tangible to latch onto. Its easy to know when to build tension and how to release it because its thing sthat anyone can understand.
OMG its first blood! OMG its a gank out of the treesm wooooah he fucked it up .... wow they managed to reverse it and kill mid who was ganking that helps both the side lane and the other mid that was losing before. Even if the spectator doesnt get the game easy explanations and excitement are easily conveyed. The result ... the commentary is enjoyable. SC2 commentary is quite frankly terrible - i have just gone back to the game and am amazazed at how lifeless or banal a lot is.
On February 16 2014 04:10 thezanursic wrote: Khaldor seems to not understand that SC2 is easier to get into. The only reason for the Heroes system being more recognizable is the fact that more people play LOL than RTS...
Thought he was gonna make a really well argued point about how the RTS genre is stagnating in terms of mechanics, but we got this ill informed piece of content instead.
I would more say RTS is stagnating because now there are no RTS games where you build anything. I miss the base building RTS so much like age of empires, the way age of empires/starcraft are done are what an RTS should be. I keep hoping it'll make a resurgence and can have more then once choice, but alas right now it's FPS/MMO .
Can you exaggerate what you mean with "base building RTS"?
On February 16 2014 00:04 Big J wrote: Can't really agree with this. I've played (the old) Dota a lot (back in the days), still I don't really get what is going on in the MOBA battles. Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
In my opinion the main problem of RTS is that it is mechanically and attententionwise too hard. You have to focus on too many places all over the map and you have to grind out all those mechanical training sessions (which is extremely boring). Compared to how easy it is for a player to always stay focused on one screen and control one hero, it is just annoying to have to switch screen, select a worker, tab through a menu and find a place where you want to put down that supply depot. While all you really want to do is run around with your units and have new armies being made. I think for RTS games this has to become a keyfocus if they want to regain popularity amongst players (viewers will follow, since the viewers are 95% recruted from the playerbase): make macromechanics easier or straight out automate parts of them. I know this is an unpopular thought amongst oldschool RTS elitists, but think about what would be if we had even less automatization. Imagine you had to manually mine with your workers (send them to the minerals; send them back home). Of course the skilllevel would improve greatly, but is this fun and does this lead to growth of playerbase? Even elitists would say that this is too much, yet, we draw the line with arbitrary standards that have been created by games in the 1990s like CnC, Warcraft 1-2 and Broodwar. So I ask, is switching screens away from where the battle happens fun? Is spamming keys to build units in the midth of a fight what you want to focus at? Of course, making parts of the game easier may be problematic for competitive play, yet, there are easy ways to make up for that, by making units more potent. Give all units more standard abilities they can do apart from move+attack. E.g. give infantry the ability to run and crawl, and let tanks overrun smaller units if controlled properly. Three dimensional airbattles where you can avoid missiles with loopings and stuff like that! Skilllevel would increase through unit control and tactical usages of their abilities - which is the amazing thing we really like about playing RTS games, not the qeuing of another SCV or the ability to get supply blocked for only 1:15min in a 20min game.
I totally agree. I think the problem for rts is that they are dumbed down a lot in terms of microability and strategy and instead we get the apm-spam-requirement of constantly increasing your base production. I wish it was the other way round. Also base-building is incredibly boring to watch.
Problem is though to find the balance of micro and viewability. If every unit has special abilities like moba-heroes, the game gets to complex for beginners and viewers. I doubt that many of the viewers of dota 2 and lol dont play the game at least casually.
As a new viewer of moba and someone who does not play them, I find key engagements too fast. in a team fight, all I see is a bunch of flashing lights and then it ends. it just makes me yawn.
I presume that's how a new viewer of SC2 feels, and that is the key engagements happen too fast and there just isn't time to digest what happened.
What I do enjoy in a moba is the times when they are in the lanes and farming for gold. watching a team grow their economy faster than the other to gain an advantage. it's calculated and obvious.
In brood war, it was great watching the 2 players chipping away at each other until one of them broke.
Think SC2 would be much better if they made the unit pathing more similar to SCBW and Starbow. the griddy feel of the game just makes engagements more interesting and slows down the speed of those battles, which makes the game more enjoyable to watch.
On February 16 2014 04:10 thezanursic wrote: Khaldor seems to not understand that SC2 is easier to get into. The only reason for the Heroes system being more recognizable is the fact that more people play LOL than RTS...
Thought he was gonna make a really well argued point about how the RTS genre is stagnating in terms of mechanics, but we got this ill informed piece of content instead.
I would more say RTS is stagnating because now there are no RTS games where you build anything. I miss the base building RTS so much like age of empires, the way age of empires/starcraft are done are what an RTS should be. I keep hoping it'll make a resurgence and can have more then once choice, but alas right now it's FPS/MMO .
Can you exaggerate what you mean with "base building RTS"?
putting word in mouth
but when you go back to the start with dune2, c&c RA warcraft 1 the majority of the game was about base layouts because people hadn't yet figured out macro. I also think some of that is due to resources being a distance way in all of those games.
In several of those games you had to place concrete to build upon.
The game was much more about efficient base layouts.
I think peopel are missing the point khaldor is makign about mobas
it doesnt matter how hard the game is to get into. As an ignorant spectator you can see that the game is about 5v5 battling it out in very obvious and in your face ways
the reason why those games are good is that there is also a shit ton of depth behind that.
The other main point is that as a commentator that also gives you something really tangible to latch onto. Its easy to know when to build tension and how to release it because its thing sthat anyone can understand.
OMG its first blood! OMG its a gank out of the treesm wooooah he fucked it up .... wow they managed to reverse it and kill mid who was ganking that helps both the side lane and the other mid that was losing before. Even if the spectator doesnt get the game easy explanations and excitement are easily conveyed. The result ... the commentary is enjoyable. SC2 commentary is quite frankly terrible - i have just gone back to the game and am amazazed at how lifeless or banal a lot is.
Na, I literarilly meant to ask what he means exactly with "base building RTS". Because imo this can be interpreted at least two ways: 1) RTS games that require you to focus a lot on developing bases 2) RTS games that require you to build a lot of bases *) the combination of both of those elements.
And I believe the first category is basically what every Strategy game until WC3 has been mainly about, often but not always being combined with the second category. So I'm a little confused with what he means with
I would more say RTS is stagnating because now there are no RTS games where you build anything.
since in my eyes, base development based games are already what most RTS games have been around and the range of games for that is pretty big.
What we basically have never seen is the second category standing alone, that is, games that make players expand a lot but in a very disposable way. Closest realized thing to such a concept would be zone-control like RTS games like CoH or WiC. Not to be mistaken, I don't believe that alone makes for a superior concept, but I think that there is much more to be explored when you give the player more time to spend with his units than building up "the perfect base".
On February 16 2014 00:04 Big J wrote: Can't really agree with this. I've played (the old) Dota a lot (back in the days), still I don't really get what is going on in the MOBA battles. Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
Saying that is like saying " You need to know the formations, every single one of the players and their abilities to be able to enjoy football." Nope you don't. All you need to know is that the ball is round and the teams are trying to put it into the net. Same with moba... You have 10 guys in teams of 5 and they try to kill each other. When one of them dies the crowd cheers - it's that easy.
I think its a different problem. The game is just too boring some times and no hero unit will help it. What kills the viewer experience is the lack of interesting things happening in the first 6-7 minutes, the ONE fight that needed 20 minutes to happen and them decides the game, explicit build order wins like DT rush against someone without detection. Cheases that are only interesting if the defensive players holds (2gate proxy vs some greedy). Starcraft has so many boring parts that a newcomer will hardly see something interesting. If he doesn't get hooked by the casters personality in the first minutes what does he have to keep watching a tournament.
If someone sees a big army getting ready to fight a smaller army, and the smaller army wins by any reason (micro, lack of focus, doesn't matter for him) he will think that it was a good play by the winner and he will be excited about it. If 2 players have the same units (reaper vs reaper openins) and both players micro them back and forth, pull workers to help the weaker reaper, all that is cool to watch, if suddenly a new reaper joins and the lonely one has to retreat to marauder... holly crap thats awesome. He won't undesrtand a 200/200 with EMPs, storms, vikings flanking colossus, stimmed MM... but he can undesrtand smaller fights, too bad SC2 is not a game for this.
Like most say, we need more smallers engagements, focusing on expanding and less deathballs turtles. Heroes could help but don't think they are the only answer.
On February 16 2014 00:04 Big J wrote: Can't really agree with this. I've played (the old) Dota a lot (back in the days), still I don't really get what is going on in the MOBA battles. Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
Saying that is like saying " You need to know the formations, every single one of the players and their abilities to be able to enjoy football." Nope you don't. All you need to know is that the ball is round and the teams are trying to put it into the net. Same with moba... You have 10 guys in teams of 5 and they try to kill each other. When one of them dies the crowd cheers - it's that easy.
Im pretty sure he said what he meant to say.
Kinda hard to throw an analogy at someone and then say because of that i know what you think about your experience is not at all what you claim to of experienced.
What i can add though is that football is fucking tedious to watch, i have no idea why its so popular unless you get pissed and become emotionally invested in something that you don't give a fuck about. OK its been 70 minutes its 0-0 and for some reason im excited? ... no i'm fucking bored, im switching to watch cricket. I was thinking tonight that actually football commentators deserve a lot of praise.
Thats probably a very fair criticism of mobas - in only watch dota which ive played for years so the fights for me are an anticipation of what i expect to happen vs what actually does. If you don't know what to expect then following will be extremely hard.
this was something i felt more with hon and origional dota as effects were a bit insane. Dota2 is a becoming more like that as time goes on, but early it was fairly clean.
On February 16 2014 00:46 Faust852 wrote: The only reasons they are more popular is because 1) they are free, 2) they are mucch more accessible to begin with, 3) you can't report the fault on your mate when it's 1v1.
this x100 first time ever playing lol i won just because of my team and and clicking on the heros hoping i would kill them first sc2 game i was so lost i got crushed but the computer with a 5 marine attack lol.sc2 is just scarier to get into when first starting out so much going on and while your trying to learn what to do.where lol and dota you can run around click stuff and be ok to a certain point.
Why to compare moba and rts in the first place? does ppl compare soccer and basketball? well yeah, soccer is way more popular... so does this means basketball is a dead sport? hell no...
SC2 just needs to be made more fun to play. David Kim focuses too much on making the game 'fun for the viewers' and 'interesting to watch'. Yeah, it was fun watching when a Widow Mine blows 20 Banelings. But not so fun when it happens to you in-game. And every professional PvT, every Blink and Immortal all-in or hour long SH games vs. Mech / Toss remind me how frustrating this game is to play.
Dota 2 has this middle ground where casuals, 'noobs', semi-pros, pros and what-not can all enjoy the game. And I know plenty of people who were in top SC2 leagues yet can't progress in Dota 2 even after playing it for months. The game has a huge depth to it.
Just from my own perspective, I enjoy watching SC2 tournaments more than Dota 2. But I enjoy playing Dota 2 and I can't stand playing SC2. I find it completely unfun. And this is coming from a guy that still plays War3, Age of Empires 2 and some oldies like Heroes 3. I like strategy games, but SC2 just doesn't cut it for me.
On February 16 2014 00:04 Big J wrote: Can't really agree with this. I've played (the old) Dota a lot (back in the days), still I don't really get what is going on in the MOBA battles. Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
In my opinion the main problem of RTS is that it is mechanically and attententionwise too hard. You have to focus on too many places all over the map and you have to grind out all those mechanical training sessions (which is extremely boring). Compared to how easy it is for a player to always stay focused on one screen and control one hero, it is just annoying to have to switch screen, select a worker, tab through a menu and find a place where you want to put down that supply depot. While all you really want to do is run around with your units and have new armies being made. I think for RTS games this has to become a keyfocus if they want to regain popularity amongst players (viewers will follow, since the viewers are 95% recruted from the playerbase): make macromechanics easier or straight out automate parts of them. I know this is an unpopular thought amongst oldschool RTS elitists, but think about what would be if we had even less automatization. Imagine you had to manually mine with your workers (send them to the minerals; send them back home). Of course the skilllevel would improve greatly, but is this fun and does this lead to growth of playerbase? Even elitists would say that this is too much, yet, we draw the line with arbitrary standards that have been created by games in the 1990s like CnC, Warcraft 1-2 and Broodwar. So I ask, is switching screens away from where the battle happens fun? Is spamming keys to build units in the midth of a fight what you want to focus at? Of course, making parts of the game easier may be problematic for competitive play, yet, there are easy ways to make up for that, by making units more potent. Give all units more standard abilities they can do apart from move+attack. E.g. give infantry the ability to run and crawl, and let tanks overrun smaller units if controlled properly. Three dimensional airbattles where you can avoid missiles with loopings and stuff like that! Skilllevel would increase through unit control and tactical usages of their abilities - which is the amazing thing we really like about playing RTS games, not the qeuing of another SCV or the ability to get supply blocked for only 1:15min in a 20min game.
I totally agree. I think the problem for rts is that they are dumbed down a lot in terms of microability and strategy and instead we get the apm-spam-requirement of constantly increasing your base production. I wish it was the other way round. Also base-building is incredibly boring to watch.
Problem is though to find the balance of micro and viewability. If every unit has special abilities like moba-heroes, the game gets to complex for beginners and viewers. I doubt that many of the viewers of dota 2 and lol dont play the game at least casually.
yes. This is a problem that I think is best adressed in two ways: 1) instead of having a lot of special abilities in the game, units should have more basic abilities. That is abilities which every unit - or every unit of a certain category, say biological - possesses. As an example, it makes a lot of sense if every infantry unit has the ability to run, while, as you say, it is confusing if a marine can stim, a marauder can jump and a ghost has 3 specific spells. Taking SC2 as an example, units basically have the ability to attack and move. And that's it apart from special abilities like spells. Everything else - Patrol, Hold Position, Stop, Attack Move - is just a combination or fraction of attack and move. 2) Controls have to improve. This is the really complicated one, since we need as few keys as possible to make for the most precise and fast possible control - but also the one that is easiest to learn. And if it was that easy, RTS games would have done it already. However, I really need to point out how - at least Starcraft - has not even included the usage of the middle mouse button yet! Instead of 3buttons, we only use 2buttons with our better trained - right for righthanded, left for lefthanded - mousehand. Especially since we don't use the most potent button with 3uses - click, scroll up, scroll down. This is important for new players, since the more you can do with fewer mechanics, the more gameplayoptions are unlocked and the faster they can do what they want and stop feeling overwhelmed with learning gameplay basics.
Additionally to those two points it is a lot about how you design the game. For example, Starcraft and similar RTS games allow for lots of early gamewinning moves and thereby make new players scared going on the map and using their units to the most potential action and fun. Instead, I think that we could learn a little bit from games like MOBAs by having a certain amount of early game protection (like towers). Or also question whether certain principles like fog of war have to be so strong early on, since they essentially force the defender to scout for what his opponent is doing, instead of forcing the wannabe aggressor to try to hide his gameplay.
meh, i disagree. when you watch a starcraft battle you know who's winning. you actually see shit die and armies melt. moba games. heros keep spawning, running, kill some creep. i played warcraft III, and i still don't get whats up with moba games.
playing on the other hand, is a different story. moba games easy to pick up and play. i get carried by teammates, i admit it.
On February 16 2014 06:39 Big J wrote: Additionally to those two points it is a lot about how you design the game. For example, Starcraft and similar RTS games allow for lots of early gamewinning moves and thereby make new players scared going on the map and using their units to the most potential action and fun. Instead, I think that we could learn a little bit from games like MOBAs by having a certain amount of early game protection (like towers). Or also question whether certain principles like fog of war have to be so strong early on, since they essentially force the defender to scout for what his opponent is doing, instead of forcing the wannabe aggressor to try to hide his gameplay.
God that sounds awful... The MSC is already a nasty step in that direction.
I'm not getting this at all. As someone who doesn't play MOBA's I find them unfathomable and somewhat boring to watch. I agree SC needs more micro and action to be more watchable, macroing up a deathball with the odd bit of light harras isn't interesting at all but that's not what it could or indeed should be with a nudge in the design. I think its way more impressive when someone's controlling 20 units instead of just one. People watch MOBAs because they play MOBAs, its got little to do with them being more watchable or entertaining. I'd rather have a smaller scene and a better game than dumb down to make it more moba-like to get the numbers in, but realistically that won't do it anyway, team games are just more popular for casuals, that's why casual SC2 playing is all team games and the arcade.
i agree with the, they watch it because they play it argument. example, i'm never gonna be a pro football player, but i play with my friends at the park all the time. even if somebody sucks, they can at least play some defense. i've played moba games with my friends on occassion as well just because they play it. i think starcraft is just harder to play, and i guess people don't want to get rekt 1v1.
I think it's silly to say that watching a MOBA is easy and exciting if you just have basic knowledge of what MOBA's are about. It's basically just players using a bunch of abilities on each other, a bunch of lights and explosions going off and people dying. What happened? What did any of those abilities do? You can't even tell who used most of them.
While Starcraft 2 is definitely a lot harder to understand for new viewers compared to Brood War, I think it's definitely easier than a MOBA. It's very easy to tell what most units do just from looking at them, and most of them only do one thing. Anybody can look at the game and see that marines are basic soldiers who shoot stuff, or that zerglings are fast, fragile melee units.
Wanna make sc2 more excited to watch? Get more people like idra, stephano and destiny playing at a high level in the game. The viewer decrease as being tremendous as they stepped out.
The personality of the players has a huge role too and koreans barely show it for the public viewership. Now if u say " blabla koreans also dominate League of Legends scene " but Fnatic vs C9 final would still have much more viewers than korean teams finals.
And in League of Legends its much more excited to watch koreans since the casual viewership rarely watches them because of the so active NA and EU LCS, and its like a new level of plays.
In Sc2 you are constantly watching koreans. Foreigners rarely make it out to quarter finals nowdays in most cups.
A lot of people tune in on television to watch football games, not so much the stretching before a game, or the training they do all season for the games. A lot of people watch Dota 2 to see the action between teams, the back and forth, and that is what most of the game is based around, and what the players focus on.
From my very casual Starcraft viewpoint, most of what Starcraft is about is building your base, keeping your macro running, not getting distracted by the occasional fights, harassment, or whatever. It's about timings. However, at least to me, and I assume a lot of other non-hardcore fans, the macro of Starcraft is not very enjoyable to watch. I enjoy seeing which strategies the players choose, and how they handle split second decisions.
It's a shame that it seems like the most important focus of the game to the players is not the same as the viewers.
On February 15 2014 23:55 Luppy1 wrote: Before talking about attracting new players, maybe he should consider why SC2 is struggling to even retain existing ones.
No game can retain fans forever. People get tired and move on, otherwise great games would last forever. That is obviously not the case as with brood war, quake 3, cs1.6 and other great titles.
I don't think sc2 is losing viewers in any dramatic way, but the influx of new viewers is very small and seems limited to release of the game/expansions. This is the biggest problem, not people leaving for other games which is completely natural. We need people who grow tired of their current games to get into sc2, just like people who get tired of sc2 get into theirs.
Lol and Dota2 are only so popular because they are free to play and have a lot of players. Since only a percentage of those players will watch tournaments and streams of pro players a bigger base will still create a big audience.
If Sc2 was free, it would have more viewers.
Also LoL and Dota 2 are by far easier games to play, so they get more players. Also as only team games they are easier to lose because you can always blame others or spread blame to whole team. While on Sc2 when people lose they stop playing because they can only blame themselves or "balance"
I can't say my personal experiences follows from Khaldor's opinion. I put close to 100 hours into league and I'm still a total nub. When my friends are playing, I need someone to tell me what's going on. I guess he's referring to casual players who play a couple hours a day.
I do think the main attractions of viewing MOBAs is the attraction of watching what you play and the attraction of playing MOBAs mainly comes from - being free-to-play - having a wide variety of characters you can play as, all for free, opening up a variety of new and exciting (supposedly -_-) things to try and see! - having a system that means before paying money or using your character selection points, you get different characters each week (Encouraged variety! Yay!) while still allowing some free points so you can choose to always have your first favourites available - Computer requirements are lowish - Pwetty pictures! - only having to control one thing at a time and the game not being super fast paced. Easy!
On the topic of macro not being easy to show, I think the production tab and things like that encourage current observers to be lazy and unaware of what they could be showing to viewers.
Back in Brood War (back in the ol' days :D), you didn't have that production tab, so Korean Proleague and Starleague observers would manually select all of the gateway/barracks/factories in a base on click on some of the eggs to show which units was being created and also just the fact that units WERE being created. This showed new viewers that it's not all automated production and that yes, the players are continuing to keep up with unit production.
It's easier to show newer users how things are done by the players when they switch to a player's camera and in that short space of time you see all the amazingly quick unit selections, unburrowing of lurkers followed by running and surrounding actions for the lings, followed by burrowing of the lurkers and then see the bloody results. Very impressive to viewers.
It can also be great for showing the macro in that you'll suddenly see Flash's screen, executing something on the field and then going back to his base to click 9 buildings and queue up a unit at each of them in under 3 seconds, then grab two SCVs and tell them to make a pair of supply depots, then scan some map locations and successfully reveal the enemy protoss army moving through the area, unsiege his tanks and push the bulk of his army into an advantageous position to take the high ground near the location the protoss seems to be heading for.
With the production tab, observers are clicking on very little. They could afford to click on units more often to show upgrades (many don't use Gameheart or do, but do not have the little upgrade indicator at the bottom of the screen that others do). Personally I'd like to see short switches to first-person perspective more often.
For playing, the force mechanics like chronoboost, MULEs, Queens injecting larva and placing/spreading creep tumours feel like tedious extra mechanics that don't add fun to playing the game, but observers could be showing a little more of that (at least seems like something for the zerg functions anyway; the others don't happen as often), commenting on what injections do etc. The trouble is that to all experienced players and viewers, it would get really tedious to hear and there would be a lot of negative feedback for it because people would think the casters sound #@$%ing stupid, but if new viewers are to appreciate what they're doing and be impressed, it's a bit hard without explanations from casters. I'm pretty sure many fanboys and fangirls barely played BW but loved watching it and from time to time I see people in SC2 chat saying they enjoy watching but they've still never played the game. Because of this, I would say it's a dilemma for the community.
Can we bear it if there's a lot more seemingly blatantly obvious commentary that helps newer players get into at least watching the game or do we maintain our sense of casting "standards" and do little to make it an easier learning experience for newer viewers? Obviously there are different casters for random games that can help people to get into watching it, such as Husky for those who like the energetic and DAy[9] for those who want a more analytical explanation that still works for newer people, but that sort of casting doesn't really happen at live events and I don't know about you, but if I were browsing twitch.tv or were in Korea and wanted to watch a bit of a game I'd heard about but knew nothing about, I'd look for a tournament stream.
~~ On the topic of new viewers not understanding things they see in a game, I only really agree about pinpointing the units like High Templar. They can be hard to see amongst the blob of zealots, stalkers, colossi and whatever else (another trouble of anything vaguely resembling a deathball). There have been some games recently, I think Rain vs RorO was one, which had great examples of units needing to be close enough so that they need only move 0-2 range before storming while needing to be constantly controlled in order to avoid getting sniped by locusts, roaches etc. If the camera shows this darting and dancing and players become aware over the course of the game that those units are essentially fragile little wizards that can cast murderous storms, new players should be able to be excited and nervous about that.
On the other hand, while I dislike the MOBA genre, I have barely any experience of playing it (concept, watching and what little I have played just don't appeal to me) but because I appreciate complexity when I think it adds to the game, I am still a little curious about all the huge number of characters and different rune trees etc., so I have tried tuning into big stream a few times occasionally. My god the fights were a crazed mess. Abilities flying everywhere from god knows which characters. You can get used to the characters, but it's chaotic trying to understand who has which abilities out of over 100 characters in LoL now (right?) with 5 abilities on each and many different skins so that you could be tricked into not realising that character you saw last Monday is the same as the one you see today. Obviously a normal 5v5 has just 10 characters at once though, but for me I found it pretty confusing. Hasn't always been that bad though, sometimes people do simple short range teleport->attack->retreat moves and that's very easy to follow...but then things like blink mostly are too.
This has been a thread of personal opinions masquerading as facts.
I find hero interactions and MOBAs in general confusing as hell, Starcraft being 1v1 just is easier for me to follow, MOBA observing is difficult given you have 10 participants. I've had more success in getting non-SC players sort of understanding the goings-on, than I have ever had in watching MOBAs without playing. Anyway, it's purely anecdotal, but I don't hide that.
Part of the issue for me has always been a lack of FPViews, they add a hell of a lot to making SC2 that much more visceral.
Stuff like that is sick.
What isn't cool are deathballs and passive macro games into just a few engagements that end quite quickly. Nothing new there though.
I just wish people (irony inc) would stop projecting their every desire onto a title. An RTS without much macro and a lot of automation could be sweet, but why ever think of taking SC down that direction? Even with the current changes from BW it's still a mechanically demanding game, and that's part of the fun for me and many others.
personally i like dota 2 better becos it is more interesting. the coordination of diiferent heros is beautiful and I especially love watching QW invoker control teamfights as you can see him moving around with high speeds around the fight and placing skillful tornado-EMP and ice walls to kite as well as occasionally cold snaps to help the team out . I wouldnt say sc2 has no flashy plays but it feels kinda boring when you compare it to high action games like dota 2 where action happens almost immediatedly from god-knows-wat SC2 has many different factors that can affect the game like maps . As MC has said maps cause the imbalanceness of PvT and maps are hard to design to be able to be considered balance to you will go between races to dominate when map pools change . Dota 2 only has one real map(excluding events) and this map has 2 sides with both side having different advantages like dire having the rosh advantage or radiant SF having an advantage of farming
On February 16 2014 15:03 hai2u wrote: Khaldor is wrong here. If he were correct, W3 would have been more popular than BW.
It was in Europe and everywhere else besides Korea. And I don't think people understand how much the culture in Korea influenced the rise of eSports. This would not have been possible in any other country. The PC Bang culture, the focus on Seoul as the hub for everything and tons of other aspects that are absolutely unique to the country.
People need to stop trying to "defend" StarCraft. Nobody is saying the game is bad. Hell if I would be saying that why did I then spend the last 3 years working my ass off to provide content and push it? I'm only saying that it is an aspect that has to be considered when we talk about the future of the genre.
I think some of my points didn't really come across properly and I wanted to address a few of the responses I got so far
EDIT: a lot of people don't really seem to be willing to actually think about what I am saying. It's a VERY difficult topic to talk about imho as it is very diverse. You have to actually put some thought into it and be open about the basic points that I make. It's food for thought as I've been saying already, picking a single line or statement out of context and homing in on it doesn't really do anything for anybody
EDIT 2: after reading more of the comments I have to highlight again that my main point is not about RTS vs. MOBAs. The comparison comes to mind easily because of the nature of the discussion. But the main point is the micro vs. macro aspect and how to get people EXCITED about what's happening and also why it's easier to be passionated about a game with a strong micro focus. Maybe one could add that to the opening post as well
I think the premise is true: micro is very cool to spectate and easy to understand; SC2 kind of fails in delivering in this department
Provided i understood the premise correctly, here's what i think:
Heroes fucking suck and are difficult to understand. First time i've watched WC3 and a MOBA game i had the same reaction: What the hell is going on? Lots of shiny effects going around, some buildings that were "shops?"or something, lots of spells and effects that did stuff but couldn't tell what (apart from the ones that clearly did dmg); a 3 way battlefield that you had to keep tabs on at all times; lots of numbers on the screen (LOL)
On the other hand, first time i've seen BW: side A vs side B; both sides used mostly 2 unit types with a 3 in support. ex: Mutalisk Zergling vs marine medic, Zealot Dragoon vs Vulture Tank; The design of these units was so diferent and constrasting that it was obvious to anyone who was who in a battle.
Talking about the battle: they often lasted for tens of seconds to a few minutes, plus there were relatively few units on one screen (talking about BW here) so any and all movements (micro) was very clear to see. Armies being spread over several screens also gave the impression of an epic army/ battle.
So IMO SC2/3 does not have to be more like MOBAs or to implement heroes or god knows what. It needs to be a PROPER RTS, more like BW. -away with the stupid deathballs and unit clumping. It is very difficult on the eye to see 2 200/200 armies packed in 1/3 of a screen, especially when the compositions are very diverse. Once the fights begin it's a mess of colors and explosions for a few seconds aaand it's gone. Definition of cluster fuck right there. -the unit compositions need to be simpler. The fewer unit tipes each side gets, the easier it is to keep track of what is what. Zealot Dragoon vs Vulture Tank, NOT Zealot, Stalker, Immortal, Archon, Colossus, Templar MSC vs Marine Marauder Ghost, Medivac (will we add mines in the future?) Keep it simple and focus on micro and positioning, not flashy lasers. -battles need to last way longer. It's very hard to tell what is happening in a big fight even for experienced players and let alone for new ones. Micro is extremly watered down as a consequence. This is the most important part of the game, you don't want it to be over in a flash. -basic unit design; the majority of (new) units in SC2 have very limited micro capabilities. The thread on "unit micro" goes in great detail here.
I'l stop here and say that, IMO, SC2 does not have to be more like a different genre, it needs to be more like what it is SUPPOSED to be in the first place!
okay, first of all, lets just stop calling Dota a MOBA or some crap like that, Dota is an original game and every other is Dota - like, not any kind of massively obscure bullshit assuption game
the main reason why people are losing their passion for starcraft is the whole practicing environment by itself, I'm playing Starcraft 2 for the last month since I kinda found the passion for the game again after playing some BW and for the last 8(?) years I've been playing Dota
the major issue is that you can't really enjoy practicing Starcraft, there're lot of things in the game that can go horribly wrong or some really silly strategies you can lose against and it creates a lot of anger towards YOURSELF for making some stupid mistake; in Dota you can practice playing in a more fun way mostly because of the diversity of the game (every single game is different and brings you new challenges) and mostly because of the SOCIAL ASPECT
nerds are a kind of people that is naturally more introvert-ish (not my case tho) and are spending a lot of time locked up in their respective rooms playing their minds out, the thing is that deep down a very little part of these people truly want to stay alone in that room, every god damn nerd wants to talk with someone about the game, wants to play a game with a friend just for the sake of killing him every now and then; the biggest difference Dota creates is when you lose, it's either yours or your teammates fault, that makes all the difference
I have to agree with the hero factor that Khaldor pointed out, why do you guys think that we absolutely LOVE moments when we call some unit "Billy the marine" and keep cheering for that unit for the rest of the game?
Starcraft is a great game like Dota, it's still really bloody amazing to watch the game ever for the casual audience (everyone can tell whether they see a massive storm or collosi firing lazers) but it's really not fun practicing on a daily basis unless you're living in a team house or something with that social aspect I was mentioning earlier being added
One particular OSL, not at Brood War's peak, got 525,000 viewers on TV, 8000 in the live audience, and 2-3 thousand non-Koreans watching a restream. Did anything in Warcraft 3 ever get over half a million viewers? Just because it was bigger outside Korea doesn't mean it was bigger as a whole than Brood War.
because kids these days are suffering from adhd or some kind of learning deficiency. reading books has become a laughing matter aside from the popular young adult fiction series which feature extremely poor writing.
mobas are actually very simple games, particularly lol, which is the shallowest of them all. it seems complex because there are a 100 heroes to learn, grasp and adapt to. but once you get the hang of them, excluding buffs/nerfs/changes, it becomes a static exercise.
BW on the other hand seems simple because there are only what, 12 units per side you have to get to know? But the strategies are endless. Imagine we were back in 2001. It was a tabula rasa. Where do you begin? What builds are good? What is the general strategy you should go for? There are no solid answers - you have to figure out yourself. It is a beautiful game.
TBH, people just have to come to terms with the fact that the RTS fanbase splintered off into hero arenas. Starcraft 2 has the monopoly of traditional RTS because it's a great game supported by Blizzard. Yes we whine in hopes that it could be (in our individual opinions) improved, but SC2 is in fact successful. It's the "non-traditional" RTS crowd, be it whatever term you choose, that have transplanted over into the MOBA audience.
While I agree with your point that micro makes for a better viewer experience, I don't think MOBAs are massively better in that regard. Watching a big marine split or a clutch baneling mine is intense. Sure SC2 puts an emphasis on developing infrastructure, but there's a shit ton of downtime in MOBAs too. If you focus on 1 individual player, how much time is devoted to fighting vs farming neutrals/warding/pulling/etc.? It's up to the individual to decide what's more boring, RTS macro or MOBA farming.
As far as the casual appeal, I think we should really differentiate between LoL's audience and Dota's audience. LoL I can only speculate draws casuals off being the first "FREE" MOBA and having cute hero designs. On the other hand, I'm kinda skeptical that Dota draws casual viewers? Obviously rolling on assumptions (so feel free to clarift), but the community there seems even more hardcore than BW's. I don't know how much more casual viewers are, but I sure as hell believe SC2's audience has a higher % of non-active players.
One particular OSL, not at Brood War's peak, got 525,000 viewers on TV, 8000 in the live audience, and 2-3 thousand non-Koreans watching a restream. Did anything in Warcraft 3 ever get over half a million viewers? Just because it was bigger outside Korea doesn't mean it was bigger as a whole than Brood War.
As I was saying in my post and also in the second video: you people have to stop referring to BW when you are trying to make a point. The success of BW was unique to Korea which was in large parts because of the culture in Korea. Today the same thing would not happen by a longshot.
If you have missed what I said about it have a look at the second video. Nobody is saying BW was bad, nobody is even saying Wc3 is/was the better game. This is not about better or worse, both types of games have their fanbase. It's about what, in the long run, the future of RTS is going to look like in MY(!) opinion. And the reasons as to why I think that. Quoting stats from a 10 year old game that flourished under very specific circumstances in ONE(!) country in the world is not adding to the discussion at all. I can not understand why people think this would be relevant.
We can all try to emulate what happened back then. But thinking that this model is in any way applicable or indicative of how esports will/should/can grow is absolutely insane. eSports has it's roots in Korea, no doubt about that. But we long since passed the point where Korea is the country to look for innovation in the industry. They still have big advantages in infrastructure and other parts, but the growth is happening in EU and NA nowadays, not in Korea any longer.
In my opnion LoL and Dota 2 have more viewers because it is free. Many people understands the game and ready to watch it. And I dont think the main point is heroes.
Good follow up video, clarifies things a little more. Though I'm not the biggest fan of Heroelements like they have been used in WC3 for RTS games, it creates something like what I have talked about in the post on the first page naturally. Since your Hero's "macro" is to get experience, achieved through combat for the most part.
I think the main point is that good play should happen frequently and in a very catchy way during a game. Whether this is through Heroes running ramapant or waves and waves of Units trying to break a defensive position over and over again is probably not so important. But I guess the "hero" part you talk about shouldn't be taken to literally or too much in the context of WC3 or Mobas.
On February 16 2014 18:32 Prince_Stranger wrote: In my opnion LoL and Dota 2 have more viewers because it is free. Many people understands the game and ready to watch it.
That this plays a role goes without saying. But it's not as big a factor as people make it out to be. If you would make SC2 free to play today it would change very little. It would definitely have an impact, but not by as much as people seem to think.
I've also talked about this in the video (which you have obviously not watched). I ignored that argument the same way I didn't talk further about the team vs. solo argument since I wanted to add another one that has not really been discussed a lot so far. That's the entire point of the video, adding something new to the discussion and making people aware of it. Didn't call it food for thought for nothing
On February 16 2014 18:36 Faust852 wrote: WC3 was logically more successful because it came after BW, with fancy graphics and at a period where video games were more popular.
That was not the reason. One of the biggest reasons was how the internet infrastructure improved in the years before WarCraft3 was released. That's something people tend to forget completely. BW didn't create an Esports infrastructe in Europe, we did that with WarCraft 3. Creating regular tournaments, big leagues and regular broadcasts that became more and more popular over time.
Back then it was also all audio. There was no bandwith etc. for videostreams a the beginning of WarCraft3. That came a few years later and had it's breakthrough then with StarCraft 2.
On February 16 2014 18:32 Prince_Stranger wrote: In my opnion LoL and Dota 2 have more viewers because it is free. Many people understands the game and ready to watch it.
That this plays a role goes without saying. But it's not as big a factor as people make it out to be. If you would make SC2 free to play today it would change very little. It would definitely have an impact, but not by as much as people seem to think.
I've also talked about this in the video (which you have obviously not watched). I ignored that argument the same way I didn't talk further about the team vs. solo argument since I wanted to add another one that has not really been discussed a lot so far. That's the entire point of the video, adding something new to the discussion and making people aware of it. Didn't call it food for thought for nothing
It would have made a huge impact had the game been released F2P. Look at HoN. It was billed as the Dota sequel (supposedly with Icefrog helping behind the scenes). There was like a 1 year window prior to Dota 2's announcement for HoN to establish a large player base or retain it's 3 million beta account users. They went with the pay model while LoL went with the free model and the rest is history.
You are assuming HoN would have been superior to LOL if both of them were F2P which you obviously can't know. I'm just saying that I do not think that if you make SC2 F2P that it would suddenly solve everything and the game would boom and gain a massive followership.
It might have been different if the game would have been released as a F2P game but I honestly doubt that even then we would have the number MOBAs currently generate. Be it as it may: those points are completely besides what the video is about and this discussion should be about. Those points have been discussed over and over again, the video I recorded was to add something new. I think it plays an important role, people are of course free to disagree but I think it's a point that has to be mentioned/talked about.
Ok I'm the biggest SC 2 fanboy in the world. I still watch all the major events including GSL. I play league of legends.
Why?? because my friends play it. They don't play sc 2 because it's too damn hard. Plain and simple
One example, i was a masters player in 1v1,2v2,3v3,4v4 in WOL. i was diamond in HOTS 1v1 because I didn't play much. I have been playing BW since 99 rush protoss carrier days, LT 1v1 bgh days.... I tried getting my friends to play. We went to 2v2. 5 games we played, all zerg ling rushes and other early rushes. The game is way too hard for the casuals to play. People play COD because it's so easy to get kills even if you suck. I love SC2 to death, but it's just too hard for the casuals.
I feel like people reminisce on BW and how it was the biggest esports title. That was because there were no League or dota back then.
On February 16 2014 18:32 Prince_Stranger wrote: In my opnion LoL and Dota 2 have more viewers because it is free. Many people understands the game and ready to watch it.
That this plays a role goes without saying. But it's not as big a factor as people make it out to be. If you would make SC2 free to play today it would change very little. It would definitely have an impact, but not by as much as people seem to think.
I've also talked about this in the video (which you have obviously not watched). I ignored that argument the same way I didn't talk further about the team vs. solo argument since I wanted to add another one that has not really been discussed a lot so far. That's the entire point of the video, adding something new to the discussion and making people aware of it. Didn't call it food for thought for nothing
Sorry was commenting while watching. Heroes + StarCraft = WarCraft. It is better to not add heroes to StarCraft and have WC4 and SC3 - 2 different games instead of 2 almost equavalent. I think you are wrong about SC2 free to play today would change very little. I agree the fact that people don't understand game. Anyone can play game or you have to make some operations before getting the game. More people understand the game. I think this is huge difference. Jaedong stream watching 2K and some random LoLer watching 30K persons. Another disadvantage SC2 is non-stop pathches - game changers. Yeah MOBA game has it too. In my opinion it is disadvantage of competitive LoL and Dota2 too. Just my 5 cents.
If Riot puts a considerable amount of effort in making a RTS game, I am CERTAIN that it would be a hit. I don't think this is about the genre being non-popular, just that the offer of those games have not been good these past years. SC2 has been an ongoing trainwreck from the start, with it being kept alive by Blizzard's past games' reputation. Maps, balance, Battle.Net, and actual design were lacking in the game. It's not bad eough to be a bad game, but certainly not good enough to stay on top.
As for why developpers don't make RTS games.. mostly because this generation (starting with ps3 and xb360 in 2006) has been very poor in terms of originality and effort. There were so many FPS games, all built onto the same graphics engine. RTS on the other hand are very difficult to program, which is why the genre has been left for dead in the past years.
On February 16 2014 18:32 Prince_Stranger wrote: In my opnion LoL and Dota 2 have more viewers because it is free. Many people understands the game and ready to watch it.
That this plays a role goes without saying. But it's not as big a factor as people make it out to be. If you would make SC2 free to play today it would change very little. It would definitely have an impact, but not by as much as people seem to think.
I've also talked about this in the video (which you have obviously not watched). I ignored that argument the same way I didn't talk further about the team vs. solo argument since I wanted to add another one that has not really been discussed a lot so far. That's the entire point of the video, adding something new to the discussion and making people aware of it. Didn't call it food for thought for nothing
Sorry was commenting while watching. Heroes + StarCraft = WarCraft. It is better to not add heroes to StarCraft and have WC4 and SC3 - 2 different games instead of 2 almost equavalent. I think you are wrong about SC2 free to play today would change very little. I agree the fact that people don't understand game. Anyone can play game or you have to make some operations before getting the game. More people understand the game. I think this is huge difference. Jaedong stream watching 2K and some random LoLer watching 30K persons. Another disadvantage SC2 is non-stop pathches - game changers. Yeah MOBA game has it too. In my opinion it is disadvantage of competitive LoL and Dota2 too. Just my 5 cents.
Don't get me wrong, I think it would change something. I just don't think it would suddenly solve everything. Should have made this a bit more clear in my post. It would, as I already said: definitely have an impact on the scene and with the release of LotV maybe even cause a second/third wind. But I still think that it would not suddenly put us on par with the MOBA scene. The F2P aspect is only one part of the problem, an important one for sure, but there's more depth to it.
On February 16 2014 18:32 Prince_Stranger wrote: In my opnion LoL and Dota 2 have more viewers because it is free. Many people understands the game and ready to watch it.
That this plays a role goes without saying. But it's not as big a factor as people make it out to be. If you would make SC2 free to play today it would change very little. It would definitely have an impact, but not by as much as people seem to think.
I've also talked about this in the video (which you have obviously not watched). I ignored that argument the same way I didn't talk further about the team vs. solo argument since I wanted to add another one that has not really been discussed a lot so far. That's the entire point of the video, adding something new to the discussion and making people aware of it. Didn't call it food for thought for nothing
Sorry was commenting while watching. Heroes + StarCraft = WarCraft. It is better to not add heroes to StarCraft and have WC4 and SC3 - 2 different games instead of 2 almost equavalent. I think you are wrong about SC2 free to play today would change very little. I agree the fact that people don't understand game. Anyone can play game or you have to make some operations before getting the game. More people understand the game. I think this is huge difference. Jaedong stream watching 2K and some random LoLer watching 30K persons. Another disadvantage SC2 is non-stop pathches - game changers. Yeah MOBA game has it too. In my opinion it is disadvantage of competitive LoL and Dota2 too. Just my 5 cents.
The player stream viewer count is an entirely different issue. In my opinion league player streams attract way more viewers not only because the player base is bigger but because it's possible to interact a lot more with the viewers. Commentary during sc2 Games is basically non-existant, because the Games are much more mechanically demanding(personal opinion) while it is essential for every league stream. Aside from that Western league players are as of now still way more relevant in the lol scene than in sc2, what increases the difficulty in providing an entertaining sc2 stream
On February 16 2014 18:36 Faust852 wrote: WC3 was logically more successful because it came after BW, with fancy graphics and at a period where video games were more popular.
That was not the reason. One of the biggest reasons was how the internet infrastructure improved in the years before WarCraft3 was released. That's something people tend to forget completely. BW didn't create an Esports infrastructe in Europe, we did that with WarCraft 3. Creating regular tournaments, big leagues and regular broadcasts that became more and more popular over time.
Back then it was also all audio. There was no bandwith etc. for videostreams a the beginning of WarCraft3. That came a few years later and had it's breakthrough then with StarCraft 2.
And how the fact that it came later didn't help ? Blizzard made a name or itself, internet became more popular, and videogame where exploding at the time. It could have been WC3 in 1998 and BW in 2002, i'm pretty sure we would have see the same patern. It's more due to the context of each game more than the game in itself.
On February 16 2014 18:47 Khaldor wrote: You are assuming HoN would have been superior to LOL if both of them were F2P which you obviously can't know. I'm just saying that I do not think that if you make SC2 F2P that it would suddenly solve everything and the game would boom and gain a massive followership.
It might have been different if the game would have been released as a F2P game but I honestly doubt that even then we would have the number MOBAs currently generate. Be it as it may: those points are completely besides what the video is about and this discussion should be about. Those points have been discussed over and over again, the video I recorded was to add something new. I think it plays an important role, people are of course free to disagree but I think it's a point that has to be mentioned/talked about.
I'm not suggesting either is superior. I'm just saying it's (the impact of F2P) not a marginal factor considering how the 3 MOBAs turned out (I participated in all 3 betas mind you). The active userbase of HoN's beta was actually on par with LoL's, but fell off the cliff once the game went "live" and then practically doubled once they switched to "f2p."
In any case, I put in my response to your videos a few posts back. Some agreements, some disagreements. Much sadness for SC2.
On February 16 2014 18:36 Faust852 wrote: WC3 was logically more successful because it came after BW, with fancy graphics and at a period where video games were more popular.
That was not the reason. One of the biggest reasons was how the internet infrastructure improved in the years before WarCraft3 was released. That's something people tend to forget completely. BW didn't create an Esports infrastructe in Europe, we did that with WarCraft 3. Creating regular tournaments, big leagues and regular broadcasts that became more and more popular over time.
Back then it was also all audio. There was no bandwith etc. for videostreams a the beginning of WarCraft3. That came a few years later and had it's breakthrough then with StarCraft 2.
And how the fact that it came later didn't help ? Blizzard made a name or itself, internet became more popular, and videogame where exploding at the time. It could have been WC3 in 1998 and BW in 2002, i'm pretty sure we would have see the same patern. It's more due to the context of each game more than the game in itself.
The way you wrote your initial post I assumed you were saying that the reason why WC3 was more successful was because BW pathed the way. Which is not really true as we weren't really able to build an infrastructure for esports in Europe just yet.
If you are referring to WarCraft3 having the better standing because of the improvements in technology etc. you are of course correct. That helped tremendously and gave us the chance to start building esports in the first place. Sorry if I misunderstood your comment. I just answered one on the page before where someone referred to the success BW had in Korea (which is imho a silly argument for reasons mentioned). So I automatically assumed you were going in the same direction with your comment.
I don't think it is true that the audience likes to just see flashy moments. People can appreciates tactical maneuver, clever tech choice, strategy.
The biggest problem in SC2 is still, "Turtle 3 bases, massing up a big army then A-move across the map." This is still the most efficient way to play the game, and most pro-gamers tend to use this method to win.
People cannot appreciate other strategic choice because we see this format far too often.
On February 16 2014 18:47 Khaldor wrote: You are assuming HoN would have been superior to LOL if both of them were F2P which you obviously can't know. I'm just saying that I do not think that if you make SC2 F2P that it would suddenly solve everything and the game would boom and gain a massive followership.
It might have been different if the game would have been released as a F2P game but I honestly doubt that even then we would have the number MOBAs currently generate. Be it as it may: those points are completely besides what the video is about and this discussion should be about. Those points have been discussed over and over again, the video I recorded was to add something new. I think it plays an important role, people are of course free to disagree but I think it's a point that has to be mentioned/talked about.
I'm not suggesting either is superior. I'm just saying it's (the impact of F2P) not a marginal factor considering how the 3 MOBAs turned out (I participated in all 3 betas mind you). The active userbase of HoN's beta was actually on par with LoL's, but fell off the cliff once the game went "live" and then practically doubled once they switched to "f2p."
In any case, I put in my response to your videos a few posts back. Some agreements, some disagreements. Much sadness for SC2.
You also have to take into consideration though that HoN, LOL and DotA are all MOBAs. StarCraft2 is a completely different genre. Therefore the matter is much more complex than isolating a single reason for the success or lack of success compared to other games. And I think that the argument that I made in the video is one of these additional reasons.
On February 16 2014 18:36 Faust852 wrote: WC3 was logically more successful because it came after BW, with fancy graphics and at a period where video games were more popular.
That was not the reason. One of the biggest reasons was how the internet infrastructure improved in the years before WarCraft3 was released. That's something people tend to forget completely. BW didn't create an Esports infrastructe in Europe, we did that with WarCraft 3. Creating regular tournaments, big leagues and regular broadcasts that became more and more popular over time.
Back then it was also all audio. There was no bandwith etc. for videostreams a the beginning of WarCraft3. That came a few years later and had it's breakthrough then with StarCraft 2.
And how the fact that it came later didn't help ? Blizzard made a name or itself, internet became more popular, and videogame where exploding at the time. It could have been WC3 in 1998 and BW in 2002, i'm pretty sure we would have see the same patern. It's more due to the context of each game more than the game in itself.
The way you wrote your initial post I assumed you were saying that the reason why WC3 was more successful was because BW pathed the way. Which is not really true as we weren't really able to build an infrastructure for esports in Europe just yet.
If you are referring to WarCraft3 having the better standing because of the improvements in technology etc. you are of course correct. That helped tremendously and gave us the chance to start building esports in the first place. Sorry if I misunderstood your comment. I just answered one on the page before where someone referred to the success BW had in Korea (which is imho a silly argument for reasons mentioned). So I automatically assumed you were going in the same direction with your comment.
Yep there was a misunderstanding then, i totaly agree with you. BW was really a niche game back in the day in the West.
I don't agree with Khaldor. Clarity of the graphics is definitely a huge deal for neophytes, both players and spectators, but that's basically it. All this obsession about 'heros' is non-sense to me. LoL is a slow game, with very obscure and confusing animations. You wouldn't get excited by LoL/HoN if you don't know the heros well, in other words, if you didn't play the game.
The significant difference is that these games are easier to play than games from the RTS genre, thus more appealing to a wider audience. It takes far less skill and less personal investment to become decent at LoL or HoN.
TLDR : what matters for neophytes 1/. clear graphics 2/. noobie friendly interface no "heroes", as if they were a concept in themselves...
On February 16 2014 18:32 Prince_Stranger wrote: In my opnion LoL and Dota 2 have more viewers because it is free. Many people understands the game and ready to watch it.
That this plays a role goes without saying. But it's not as big a factor as people make it out to be. If you would make SC2 free to play today it would change very little. It would definitely have an impact, but not by as much as people seem to think.
I've also talked about this in the video (which you have obviously not watched). I ignored that argument the same way I didn't talk further about the team vs. solo argument since I wanted to add another one that has not really been discussed a lot so far. That's the entire point of the video, adding something new to the discussion and making people aware of it. Didn't call it food for thought for nothing
Sorry was commenting while watching. Heroes + StarCraft = WarCraft. It is better to not add heroes to StarCraft and have WC4 and SC3 - 2 different games instead of 2 almost equavalent. I think you are wrong about SC2 free to play today would change very little. I agree the fact that people don't understand game. Anyone can play game or you have to make some operations before getting the game. More people understand the game. I think this is huge difference. Jaedong stream watching 2K and some random LoLer watching 30K persons. Another disadvantage SC2 is non-stop pathches - game changers. Yeah MOBA game has it too. In my opinion it is disadvantage of competitive LoL and Dota2 too. Just my 5 cents.
Don't get me wrong, I think it would change something. I just don't think it would suddenly solve everything. Should have made this a bit more clear in my post. It would, as I already said: definitely have an impact on the scene and with the release of LotV maybe even cause a second/third wind. But I still think that it would not suddenly put us on par with the MOBA scene. The F2P aspect is only one part of the problem, an important one for sure, but there's more depth to it.
Agree with important one for sure.
On February 16 2014 18:51 Malphite wrote: Ok I'm the biggest SC 2 fanboy in the world. I still watch all the major events including GSL. I play league of legends.
Why?? because my friends play it. They don't play sc 2 because it's too damn hard. Plain and simple
One example, i was a masters player in 1v1,2v2,3v3,4v4 in WOL. i was diamond in HOTS 1v1 because I didn't play much. I have been playing BW since 99 rush protoss carrier days, LT 1v1 bgh days.... I tried getting my friends to play. We went to 2v2. 5 games we played, all zerg ling rushes and other early rushes. The game is way too hard for the casuals to play. People play COD because it's so easy to get kills even if you suck. I love SC2 to death, but it's just too hard for the casuals.
I feel like people reminisce on BW and how it was the biggest esports title. That was because there were no League or dota back then.
However, there was Dota when BW was still popular. I always liked BW sport game for it looked similar to chess with skill require factor. Yes, it is harder to play BW/SC2 but it motivates to play it. In Korea BW succes mentality is great and I think it could be repeated in another country, at least hoped for it.
I totally agree about how the games are compared from a viewer perspective and that in Starcraft 2 it's harderd to appreciate what the player does if you don't know the game or watching a match for the first time.
On February 16 2014 19:08 SiroKO wrote: TLDR : what matters for neophytes 1/. clear graphics 2/. noobie friendly interface no "heroes", as if they were a concept in themselves...
The concept is not heroes, the concept is Micro vs. Macro.
With a hero-based game Micro will be the dominating factor. To make a player micro intensively you must make the individual unit important enough for him to be willing to spend the time to do it. The more valuable the unit the more willing he is. A hero unit puts that principle to an extreme, that's why I used it in all the examples.
The concept IMO is free to play and fun game results in a huge player base, thus very good stream numbers. I don't know how many people watch LOL or Dota that don't actually play the game, but there are people that watch SC2 and barely play any and there were many thousands that watched BW and never player a competitive ladder game ever.
LOL and Dota do not have big stream numbers because of heroes or easy/good spectator entry value but because of huge install base.
I don't think the problem with starcraft is that it is too hard for casual players to get into. I had only FPS experience before starting to play SC2 and I finished my first season in platinum, masters three seasons later. Than I stopped playing SC2 and started playing DotA. The truth is that SC2 is just not as fun to play due to macro aspect being pretty boring and due to repetitiveness. In MOBAs you play around with hundreds of heroes with hundreds of different items. Every game is somehow different. In SC2 you have 3 races with each one having a few units and only a handful of builds that won't get you behind from the start in higher level. I actually enjoyed SC2s arcade way more than the game itself and arcade was only reason why I kept playing for few seasons. There are some sick games up there.
What I'm getting out of this -- and I might be oversimplifying, but I don't think I am -- isn't really micro vs. macro but excitement vs. downtime. And your contention is simply that a typical game of SC2 is not intrinsically dramatic. There aren't a lot of exciting moments that turn the tables without immediately ending the game (even if the inevitable GG takes another 15 minutes to get to). You focus on heroes, but I think (and I'm guessing you would agree) that a lot of things could substitute for that "hero factor," that "goal factor."
If the game were simply more back and forth, if the series between Innovation and DRG were absolutely typical of how games across all MUs in SC2 play out, I think SC2 would be doing significantly better than it is for viewership.
The problem is Protoss isn't capable of trading endlessly the way Zerg and Terran bio are, so any MU that includes Protoss is made up heavily of all-ins, which aren't exciting unless the all-in is held/almost held after a very close struggle, and passive deathball play, which is inherently unexciting. It's basically a macro army. Even when it engages, all you can really get excited about is... Forcefields? Storms? Time Warp? MOBAs have their annoying AOE spells too, but there, there's still a lot of unpredictability because there are plenty of other heroes who haven't been trapped in the AOE who can do something about it. What can an army do against Time Warp? It's just there, sucking excitement out of the game by preventing players from moving the units as quickly as they're capable of moving them. (And Zerg can play either like Terran or like Protoss, it really depends on the MU and meta.)
On top of that, there are a lot of niche/useless units. For instance, as a TvZ bio Terran, once you get Medivacs you have absolutely nothing to add to your composition. You're done. It's been true since the day WOL came out, it's still true 4 years later, and it's ridiculous. It means that after ten games of Inno vs. DRG, we're getting kind of tired of seeing the same units be used in the same way, because nothing except MMMMH is viable. In MOBA games, you have 5 heroes per team which will have different dynamics depending on exactly which heroes are chosen, and also depending on which heroes are chosen for the enemy team. The permutations are pretty endless as far as eye candy goes. MOBAs are absolutely not my cup of tea, but I can imagine it's pretty easy to get excited when you look up one team's roster and you look up the other team's roster, and you start to imagine how this fight is going to play out.
So with all that said, I think that SC2 is... uniquely challenged, and not representative of the entire genre. I think that SC2 could have been made a lot more viewer friendly, without resorting to adding heroes specifically.
Yeah you're right, it's a lot easier to tune into LoL or DOTA games and enjoy them if you only have a very basic understanding of the game.
Obviously more players means more viewers and I've been thinking about how they could make starcraft more accessible to new players but I don't really know a way without potentially ruining the game If you look at them both from a newbie's perspective starcraft is just too abrupt. As a newbie starcraft player you don't scout a whole lot, you're more focused on building your base and units. Then after five/ten minutes the other guy suddenly shows up out of nowhere, kills your units in a couple seconds and the game is over. It feels like the game's over before you ever got to play. In RTS games your opponent's hidden in the fog of war a lot but in dota you lane against your opponent and you can see him most of the time so it feels more like a back-and-forth struggle.
I think that if they make your opponent more visible in LoTV without changing the scouting/ hiding your build part too much for skilled players they could win some casual players back. That seems very hard to accomplish though.
LoL definitely looks like a much easier game, though personal experience with LoL and sc2 would force me to argue otherwise.
As a viewer, when you watch a pro LoL player last hit and trade in lane, most of the time you go "hey, that looks like something I could do myself". Even though in reality if you laned vs a pro you'd get crushed. In sc2 it's very clear when you watch a pro player... there's very little you can actually do that even compares with what you see on stream.
I don't think it has to do with flashy visuals but mobas just have a bigger player base. Mobas are way funner to get into especially since you can play with up to 4 of your friends in a matchmade game so theres the social experience there whereas in starcraft you don't really have that. I mean yes there are team games but they aren't all that fun least in my opinion compared to playing a game of league with your friends. If we assume about the same % of the player base is interested in the esports side of the game then obviously league and dota will be more popular. Personally, I kinda burned out on Starcraft after watching all those gsl's, mlg's, dreamhacks, etc since the SC2 release.
On February 16 2014 20:20 ChaosTriggeR wrote: I don't think it has to do with flashy visuals but mobas just have a bigger player base. Mobas are way funner to get into especially since you can play with up to 4 of your friends in a matchmade game so theres the social experience there whereas in starcraft you don't really have that. I mean yes there are team games but they aren't all that fun least in my opinion compared to playing a game of league with your friends. If we assume about the same % of the player base is interested in the esports side of the game then obviously league and dota will be more popular.
If all it comes down to is teamplay and playerbase, why did WoW arenas crash and burn as an esport? WoW still has crazy huge subscription numbers, there's everything from 2v2 to 5v5.
On February 16 2014 19:21 rudimentalfeelthelov wrote: I don't think the problem with starcraft is that it is too hard for casual players to get into. I had only FPS experience before starting to play SC2 and I finished my first season in platinum, masters three seasons later. Than I stopped playing SC2 and started playing DotA. The truth is that SC2 is just not as fun to play due to macro aspect being pretty boring and due to repetitiveness. In MOBAs you play around with hundreds of heroes with hundreds of different items. Every game is somehow different. In SC2 you have 3 races with each one having a few units and only a handful of builds that won't get you behind from the start in higher level. I actually enjoyed SC2s arcade way more than the game itself and arcade was only reason why I kept playing for few seasons. There are some sick games up there.
I'm in the same boat. I was diamond the couple of first seasons and pretty much stopped playing after that. SC2 was not fun for me, it was mentally taxing and winning a game didn't really give any satisfaction. The fact that you pretty much had to follow certain builds every game or you'd get crushed was a let down for me since in WC3 you could do some funny shit and still come on top because of good micro and decision making. It just felt that there was very little room for improvisation and in a way i just felt i couldn't express myself in the game.
On February 16 2014 19:21 rudimentalfeelthelov wrote: I don't think the problem with starcraft is that it is too hard for casual players to get into. I had only FPS experience before starting to play SC2 and I finished my first season in platinum, masters three seasons later. Than I stopped playing SC2 and started playing DotA. The truth is that SC2 is just not as fun to play due to macro aspect being pretty boring and due to repetitiveness. In MOBAs you play around with hundreds of heroes with hundreds of different items. Every game is somehow different. In SC2 you have 3 races with each one having a few units and only a handful of builds that won't get you behind from the start in higher level. I actually enjoyed SC2s arcade way more than the game itself and arcade was only reason why I kept playing for few seasons. There are some sick games up there.
I'm in the same boat. I was diamond the couple of first seasons and pretty much stopped playing after that. SC2 was not fun for me, it was mentally taxing and winning a game didn't really give any satisfaction. The fact that you pretty much had to follow certain builds every game or you'd get crushed was a let down for me since in WC3 you could do some funny shit and still come on top because of good micro and decision making. It just felt that there was very little room for improvisation and in a way i just felt i couldn't express myself in the game.
So you can say that you want or wanted more a Warcraft game rather then a Starcraft.
Thanks for video, I have really enjoy it. Agree with every word. Maybe it sounds too primitively, but I think, SC2 is just not an epic game, it looks really poor - and this is its main problem. This game is just not impressing like BW or WC3 (in their times).
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Yet there is no one watching chess on TV or on the internet. It's a small population. Also old movies are good for people that where there at the time.
Take a 15yo kid and make him watch predator or alien... or conan. He will say to you that you have shitty taste in movie.
Also those bashing comments without making point is a pain to read
are you serious? find me a 15yo kid who DOESENT think those movies are awesome
edit: ok maybe not conan but come on the first predator movie and second alien are like the peak of my child hood
Really. Try it. I've been watching movies like that with friends a few years from now with one of my friend beeing just 5years younger than me and well... he did not like any of the old movies we watched.
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Yet there is no one watching chess on TV or on the internet. It's a small population. Also old movies are good for people that where there at the time.
Take a 15yo kid and make him watch predator or alien... or conan. He will say to you that you have shitty taste in movie.
Also those bashing comments without making point is a pain to read
are you serious? find me a 15yo kid who DOESENT think those movies are awesome
edit: ok maybe not conan but come on the first predator movie and second alien are like the peak of my child hood
Really. Try it. I've been watching movies like that with friends a few years from now with one of my friend being just 5years younger than me and well... he did not like any of the old movies we watched.
Well, it not about old vs new but about the level of understanding. Some old movies (or music) are considered classics not because of nostalgia but because they are good. It takes a little bit of maturity to understand character development, quality dialog writing, plot, cinematography, social commentaries, etc. Kids and simpletons don't get this things and gravitate to the flashy and simple, like Transformers or boy bands and biebers.
I stopped following SC when the expansion was released. Stuff just went downhill really fast, got boring, etc. And a lot of people would agree with me. Plus, I think dota "stole" a lot of SC players. Myself and most of my friends started playing dota. More fun game anyway.
On February 16 2014 19:08 SiroKO wrote: TLDR : what matters for neophytes 1/. clear graphics 2/. noobie friendly interface no "heroes", as if they were a concept in themselves...
The concept is not heroes, the concept is Micro vs. Macro.
With a hero-based game Micro will be the dominating factor. To make a player micro intensively you must make the individual unit important enough for him to be willing to spend the time to do it. The more valuable the unit the more willing he is. A hero unit puts that principle to an extreme, that's why I used it in all the examples.
I think the success of Sc3 as an esport doesn't really rely on whether they add heroes into the game or not, but simply on whether they add more of the interesting moments into the game (cool micro), which is more of a design issue IMO. Then ofc, they will probably also have to further increase the easiness of the macro part to reduce the entry barriers.
At last, ofc a better functioning arcade and F2P are also important ingredients in establishing a large player base.
On February 16 2014 21:31 DwmC_Foefen wrote: I stopped following SC when the expansion was released. Stuff just went downhill really fast, got boring, etc. And a lot of people would agree with me. Plus, I think dota "stole" a lot of SC players. Myself and most of my friends started playing dota. More fun game anyway.
How do you know sc2 got boring at the expansion release if you stop watching from there?
RTS games tend to settle on a particular set of units and/or strategies which are viable for each MU. Sure, there's a huge amount of variation in subtle timings and a vast depth of skill in that, but to a casual observer it's just MMM running into supported gateway over and over.
The mobas have the advantage of having a million different heroes. Even if many of those heroes are never seen in competitive play, the draft system still creates changes from game to game that are immediately apparent, even if you know nothing about what's going on.
Plain and simple, highlight videos don't get made about having good macro, hitting a perfect timing, and just face rolling the opponent. People want to see big plays, back and forth action, and impressive unit control. What we get more often than not is a lot of posturing, one big fight, and the game abruptly ends.
I for one am thrilled to see the continued success of esports.
LOL, DOTA, SC2, though not equal market shares, provide self-sustainable products. Most developers are forced to churn a game out each year, spend millions through advertising, and often those games experience a steep decline curve.
On February 16 2014 21:52 Belisarius wrote: I dunno, I feel like it's as simple as variety.
RTS games tend to settle on a particular set of units and/or strategies which are viable for each MU. Sure, there's a huge amount of variation in subtle timings and a vast depth of skill in that, but to a casual observer it's just MMM running into supported gateway over and over.
The mobas have the advantage of having a million different heroes. Even if many of those heroes are never seen in competitive play, the draft system still creates changes from game to game that are immediately apparent, even if you know nothing about what's going on.
I feel like you are not talking about RTS here but about Starcraft. Starcraft suffers from having three, very asymetrical races, so it is very hard to design/balance units that find broad usage in multiple matchups. Instead there are a lot of units/playstyles that are required, because they are the only ones that can deal with what your opponent is doing. Other playstyles being simply not balanced for the particular situation in that matchup and cannot easily get balanced for that, since it would break situations in other matchups.
Additionally, Starcraft is a game that is a lot about limiting your opponent instead of using your options. This is due to how punishing it is to lose something (a base, a part of your army...). Killing a natural early immidiatly results in a loss, because a base = 50% of your income. Which is Starcrafts gamedesign, but not a universal feature of RTS games that you have so few points you can harvest from early or that those are all as important as you starting area.
It's interesting; your reasons why a casual viewer might prefer mobas/arts to an RTS are sort of the opposite to mine, or what they used to be at least. They can have very obtuse, weird mechanics compared to a game like SC2 which I think is fundamentally easy to grasp. However mentioning the focus points sort of turned me over to your point of view and I'd never really considered all the stuff about macro being difficult to explain to a viewer. In actual fact I don't think it's difficult to explain; I think it's just basically boring to a casual viewer and I think that's what you were getting at with all the talk of it being more cerebral.
Really though I think the reason Dota and LoL are more popular as spectator esports isn't to do with this stuff; it's just because they are fundamentally easier to play and as such have far bigger playerbases (not a slight against them; I don't watch or play SC2 anymore, Dota 2 all the way baby). Dota has 7.2 million unique players and right now 770k are playing it; how many does SC2 have?
Actually I am a pretty good DotA2 player (for casual standards), but don't understand what's going on.. Like - I can pretty easy get 15k with say Lina for example, but problem is - people are far too "determined", and I suspect that they have a point..
Like - minute 2 in ally chat - omg Lina is taking my farm.. I was like w.t.f. dude, who said the farm is yours ?? He reponds - you're a support, you should let me farm/kill/whatever.. I'm like - you have a rule-book for everything going on don't you ??
ofc. i'm pretty damn good at it and even healing others during fights going on, but really - the other guy might have a point
I really can't quite understand the "carry/support/jungler/whatever" concept in playing the game cause I usually have over 10 kills in a game as a support hero, usually.. And in those games that we lose I get blamed for not letting the "carry" guy get strong enough, i.e. - because of I was stealing kills..
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What I wanted to say is - when someone says - this hero, lvl3 woods, lvl5 rosh, I'm like - w.t.f. - why can't he gank or sth like that ?? It's like as if everything is "set in stone".. well - don't know those values
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In SC2 is actually easier - 2 armies fighting each-other, but the problem is --> not enough "special" moves, or hard to make ones in it.. Not saying that laying down good Force-fields and making a good concave isn't hard enough, but true that the viewership won't get excited for it..
In BW for example there were Reaver-drops, sick Storms, Lockdowns, e.t.c. - people appreciated it far more cause they really knew how hard it is to make it.. AND - it was easier to "bring" to the crowd cause those were the "focal point".. AND not only that - the fights could often be more "dispersive" rather than everything happen at one place already
The battle however in SC2 is far easier to implement, to that point that the average players are convinced that they could do the same if they were in the place (except the splitting and kiting maybe), well - there's no doubt that they're trolling, even catching sometimes myself doing it..
And YET --> they happen too fast anyway that everything is done in like less than 10 sec already..
I for example - (cause you asked in the VoD as a specific question) --> here's what I usually get hyped most about in SC2 - the SICK HOLDS.. That's it..
That's like maybe 35% of why I even watch the games.. Other than keeping up with the meta and following good players, and therefore maybe keeping the "rights" to further trolling..
But yah - like - the sick holds that can happen are maybe the biggest part of why I get excited.. Especially when a player you like, or you were rooting for does it.. And if it happens in a F vs SK scenario - it's even better and even more exciting
Still - like you said - other than the SICK HOLDS (yes, again all-capping it cause they're the best moments by far in the game) - I guess it indeed is a true "story" that the "reality" happens in the production tab, or the supply difference - mostly.. =======================================
And b.t.w. - those "simultaneous drops" and "managing many things at once" - those aren't Macro, those are Multitasking.. Those are really hard to even notice unless watching the game itself from a minimap-point-of-view, i.e. - being an observer/caster silently in yourself (despite there being an official caster on the stream already) usually
A lot of things I agree on have already been mentioned (accessibility, down-time in the game, stale strategies, etc.). Something I have to point out as a reply to some of the comments is that as a player in all three games, it's very easy to feel what is easiest and what is hardest to improve at. LoL felt the easiest because it was simply a learning game. "Skillshots" don't require practice, honestly. There is no mechanic in LoL that I feel makes the game require extra work. Dota 2 would be slightly more difficult, because compared to LoL where you just had to learn the timing for last hits, suddenly you have people trying to deny your creeps. Additionally, spells and disables seem far more potent. The game just FEELS much more punishing. Everyone here knows how difficult SC2 is. It's not JUST a learning game. Practice, practice, and more practice is the only way you will improve. Good mechanics are absolutely fundamental to being a good SC2 player.
tl;dr Popularity of LoL > Dota 2 > SC2 correlates to the amount of learning vs. practice in the games. You can learn LoL just by playing and you will feel yourself improve. In SC2, learning just isn't enough, and feeling like you have to practice in order to improve can feel like a burden.
EDIT 2: after reading more of the comments I have to highlight again that my main point is not about RTS vs. MOBAs. The comparison comes to mind easily because of the nature of the discussion. But the main point is the micro vs. macro aspect and how to get people EXCITED about what's happening and also why it's easier to be passionated about a game with a strong micro focus. Maybe one could add that to the opening post as well
I've added the link to the video, as well as the paragraph you added in your second edit.
Most people don't like to play 1v1 because it's too stressful for them. This is the main reason why SC2 is not that popular (and yeah, Protoss and some bad design choices in general).
On February 16 2014 18:36 Faust852 wrote: WC3 was logically more successful because it came after BW, with fancy graphics and at a period where video games were more popular.
That was not the reason. One of the biggest reasons was how the internet infrastructure improved in the years before WarCraft3 was released. That's something people tend to forget completely. BW didn't create an Esports infrastructe in Europe, we did that with WarCraft 3. Creating regular tournaments, big leagues and regular broadcasts that became more and more popular over time.
Back then it was also all audio. There was no bandwith etc. for videostreams a the beginning of WarCraft3. That came a few years later and had it's breakthrough then with StarCraft 2.
Off-topic: I most definitely remember that time. Back when the e-sport scene (and e-sport coverage scene) of WC3 was beginning to develop, the only broadcasting means were WaaaaaghTV (yeah!) and "web radios". Basically, it was your poor man's Twitch, seeing as players would watch the game on WTV while listening to the shoutcaster. WC3 definitely missed the opportunity to benefit from live streams, which is a shame.
Other factors were in play regarding the development of e-sports though. The two main games featured on ESL were WC3 and CS 1.6. Those two games definitely paved the way for e-sports in Europe, and a lot of tournaments and events were created at the time. E-sport was shaping up to be a real thing, and I think its development is very satisfying now. LoL, DotA 2 and SC2 have greatly enhanced the scene, which is something to be happy about.
On-topic: I personally think SC2 isn't very enjoyable to watch, mostly because there isn't enough action. WC3 made up for that with creeping, which also somewhat transferred to MOBA games through the laning phase. I think SC2 is still very successful though. It's just that DotA 2 and LoL are absolutely huge. SC2 is the sole representative of RTS games on a competitive level, and we should be thankful for that. The differences between macro and micro are distinct, but as some people have said in this topic, some prefer it that way. Though it is bound to attract less players, which is something the community should live with. There is no competing with different genres.
I wouldn't argue that MOBA games are simpler than SC2. In truth, DotA 2's learning curve is very steep - you have to know what the heroes do, you have to know their spells, you have to know the items, etc. There are many factors that come into play. SC2 and RTS games, as you say in your video, are actually more straightforward, mostly because the items don't matter and you have a lot less heroes. Nonetheless, most people choose to stick to MOBAs once they discover them, because they are entertaining.
SC2 becomes easier to watch when you acquire the basics. You know what happens and you can tell the moves and stuff. If you only have the basics, you're not going to grasp all the details of one game, but you'll definitely be aware of what happens. MOBAs are a little different, as a game has 10 players with 10 heroes, you typically need to know more to follow what happens. Overall, I think that thanks to the high popularity of MOBAs, a game like WC3 would be more easily understood by the casual viewer now, since the concept of heroes isn't all that new anymore (which it was when WC3 was introduced, thus explaining why people were having troubles following the games - the concept of a hero-based RTS was entirely new, but now with MOBAs... I think people would get used to it very quickly).
It's also true that a lot of RTS players switched over to MOBAs, a trend that begun under WC3 itself as DotA was gathering more players than the actual game. WC3 itself lasted a solid 8 years or so before the professional scene really started to fade, so I don't think DotA "killed" WC3, it simply created an alternative for other players.
On February 16 2014 19:21 rudimentalfeelthelov wrote: I don't think the problem with starcraft is that it is too hard for casual players to get into. I had only FPS experience before starting to play SC2 and I finished my first season in platinum, masters three seasons later. Than I stopped playing SC2 and started playing DotA. The truth is that SC2 is just not as fun to play due to macro aspect being pretty boring and due to repetitiveness. In MOBAs you play around with hundreds of heroes with hundreds of different items. Every game is somehow different. In SC2 you have 3 races with each one having a few units and only a handful of builds that won't get you behind from the start in higher level. I actually enjoyed SC2s arcade way more than the game itself and arcade was only reason why I kept playing for few seasons. There are some sick games up there.
I'm in the same boat. I was diamond the couple of first seasons and pretty much stopped playing after that. SC2 was not fun for me, it was mentally taxing and winning a game didn't really give any satisfaction. The fact that you pretty much had to follow certain builds every game or you'd get crushed was a let down for me since in WC3 you could do some funny shit and still come on top because of good micro and decision making. It just felt that there was very little room for improvisation and in a way i just felt i couldn't express myself in the game.
So you can say that you want or wanted more a Warcraft game rather then a Starcraft.
Thats not at all what he were saying. Improvisation in micro and builds is what he want. What has that to do with warcraft?
Like right now, you have to train some builds alot to get them right or else u have no chance. You have your timings - Either offense or defense. You have your timing - Expansion, tech, units.
Improvisation. God i would love an RTS that doesnt have builds or timings.
EDIT 2: after reading more of the comments I have to highlight again that my main point is not about RTS vs. MOBAs. The comparison comes to mind easily because of the nature of the discussion. But the main point is the micro vs. macro aspect and how to get people EXCITED about what's happening and also why it's easier to be passionated about a game with a strong micro focus. Maybe one could add that to the opening post as well
You can make people excited about macro. just have to know how.
SC2 will never be the biggest game or biggest ESport. People need to stop trying to force it to happen. Theres no deffinitive reason why it isnt successful...the RTS genre is falling off and people are into other kinds of games just deal with it. SC2 will have its loyal fans and its little scene and thats fine. But people trying to make it a big thing like LoL or DOTA have terrible expectations. I played SC2 since the beta and was always Masters and switched to LoL. Not because I disliked SC2 but it got repetative and boring. Same A moving always. Everyone has their own tastes and preferences stop forcing things. WC4 might be the game to bring back the RTS scene
I really don't we can make bold claims that SC 3 would fail as an Esport. I still believe Blizzard doesn't design games to be an esport. They design them to tell a story, and sell that story to the masses. The players of SC 2 made SC 2 a esport. MLG, IPL (RIP my favorite league), GSL...ect ect made it an esport. Blizzard realized hey this is a thing and suddenly they took a small budget in the grand scheme of things and made the WCS. Khaldor does make some interesting points of course which is great and all, but yeah.
I wish they allowed everyone to make new stuff with the HotS dependencies even if they don't have it. All these posts are giving me ideas about alternate ways sc2 could have gone, but I can't make them because I only have WoL, and can't use the HotS dependencies for mapmaking
Response to your second video about macro vs micro:
You're someone who undoubtedly was very familiar with WC3, but (correct me if I'm totally wrong) don't seem as familiar with BW.
I say this because, personally, I hold the belief that SC2 is closer to WC3 than it is to BW in terms of game flow and in its emphasis of micro versus macro.
To clarify what I mean: the amount of time you spend in SC2 controlling and moving your army about versus doing actual base/macro management makes SC2 a closer relative to WC3 than it ever was of BW.
If, in BW, you spent as much time staring at your army as you do in these games you'd be floating 5k minerals already in the midgame. Classifying SC2 as a macro heavy/focused game is just buying into the propaganda surrounding the game ever since its unveiling.
With that said: I don't disagree with you about a hero focused RTS being more intuitive to understand if it's a micro focused game. I just think that SC2 has always had something of a split identy disorder. It tries hard to portray itself as a macroesque swarmy game, even marketing itself as thus, but in reality it's really more about army control/movement/harass/drops. Your prowess with the aforementioned army control methods then creates the illusion of there being differences in macro performance between players.
In reality, all pro players in SC2 can achieve near perfect macro and pretty much always are achieving near perfect macro relative to and depending on the choices they make in a game. What I mean more specifically with that statement: It's not the difficulty of macro itself in SC2 that accounts for economy differences, but rather the imperfect choices players make in relation to safe/greedy play and in relation to their micro performance (losing workers to drops).
This is very different from BW where the difficulty of perfect base/macro management itself accounted for meaningful performance differences between players. In SC2, it may look like one player has significantly better macro, but really it's mostly because of and a result of decision making. The player with a lesser economy in an an SC2 game is rarely at that economy disadvantage because they macroed imperfectly, but rather because they made the decision to play too safe. They still had near perfect macro relative to their chosen safe play.
So to tie back into why I agree with you in regards to a hero based RTS being more intuitive when it comes to WC3 vs SC2: because SC2 is mostly about army movement & control. All players in SC2 macro near perfectly relative to their decision making in a given game. If you have 2 micro based competitive games where doing stuff with your army is what will differentiate you from an opponent: then yes, the hero based approach makes more sense. Creates something to care about in the fights. A hero in a way is a third resource, as the xp system gives incentives to attack and gives feedback as to the success/progress made.
Maybe I give off the impression of overstating the differences between BW and SC2. But I really personally do hold this belief that SC2 is a BW-WC3-hybrid rather than a BW successor. BW was a game where you managed bases full time and intermittently checked in on your army. In SC2, conversely, you manage your army full time and intermittently check in on your bases. The later into a game you get the more true this SC2 vs BW split becomes.
In that sense, and from that perspective, I would agree a hero design would benefit something like SC2 (which is not a macro game in the truest sense). In thinking and arguing SC2 is a macro based game you're, in my opinion, misrepresenting what a real macro esports RTS title would look and behave like. It wouldn't be one where people stare and micromanage their armies with the level of obsession that they do in SC2.
A macro based RTS by my definition is one where there's simply not enough time to both manage bases/economy and to micro an army. In a macro based RTS you are forced to allocate your time to either one or the other. And after the choice the effect of neglecting one of them should be palpable. I simply don't think that it is true in SC2 once you get about halfway through a game and have your core bases and production set up.
TL;DR:
Don't treat SC2 as a good example of a macro game. It's more of a hybrid micro-macro game that's confused about its identity and its "orientation".
I haven't really disproven your point with this argument -- I've only really had myself a rant on using SC2 as an example of a macro based RTS.
I don't really think WC3 was much of the esports juggernaut you portray it as when compared to contemporary titles like Counterstrike. And if I'd make an argument to try and disprove your point, I'd base that argument on that it's likely wholly other factors that decide the success of an RTS esport than their supposed casual spectator appeal.
I think social connectivity and cultural permeation were more important factors for both the success of BW and WC3. And in both cases it likely had little to do with the quality or casual accessability of the RTS itself, but rather that WC3 gained familiarization and cultural permeation from DotA; and likewise the stars aligned for BW in Korea with UMS/money maps/4v4s/3v3s and the PCBang culture.
Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
Don't treat SC2 as a good example of a macro game. It's more of a hybrid micro-macro game that's confused about its identity and its "orientation".
I haven't really disproven your point with this argument -- I've only really had myself a rant on using SC2 as an example of a macro based RTS.
I don't really think WC3 was much of the esports juggernaut you portray it as when compared to contemporary titles like Counterstrike. And if I'd make an argument to try and disprove your point, I'd base that argument on that it's likely wholly other factors that decide the success of an RTS esport than their supposed casual spectator appeal.
I think social connectivity and cultural permeation were more important factors for both the success of BW and WC3. And in both cases it likely had little to do with the quality or casual accessability of the RTS itself, but rather that WC3 gained familiarization and cultural permeation from DotA; and likewise the stars aligned for BW in Korea with UMS/money maps/4v4s/3v3s and the PCBang culture.
WC3 was always smaller than CS 1.6, that is true. That's really because FPS games were, are, and most likely always will be largely more popular than RTS games. CS 1.6 was appealing to the casual gamer and also had a great deal of depth, so it was a pretty particular case.
Nonetheless, WC3 was definitely a successful game in e-sport. It had many competitions, both in leagues and solo, and well across the world, albeit mostly in Europe with a small scene in South Korea. WC3 is still big in China too, as the Chinese players joined late but in masses.
If I recall, and correct me if I'm wrong, but Blizzard actually marketed SC2 as a hybrid between BW and WC3, and claimed it had micro elements similar to WC3 while retaining some key principles of BW. I definitely remember that when they showed footage of SC2 for the first time, they displayed "flashy" elements, such as Banelings exploding and Baneling traps, Stalker blink, etc. Things that, out of context, would make you think that the micro might be close to WC3 and that the game would promote action.
Interesting post LaLush. I am not too familiar with BW but the perspective that you spent all your time managing bases in BW and checking in on your army is somewhat of a revelation to me given the difficulty of army control and level of micro needed to be efficient with an army.
How was dawn of war (warhammer 40k) in these factors? I seem to recall that having resources generated via control points, so it was meant to favor map control for more continual fighting; but I only really played the demo and know nothing about what happened to it in terms of how it relates to this.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
BW wasn't meant to be an esport either and got very little support from Blizzard, so those are obviously non-factors. The last one might have played a big role, I'm nowhere near familiar enough with what happened to know. My guess is that still won't be the whole story, though. WoW arenas are just boring to watch.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Only a small part of the whole playerbase actually played arenas.
On February 17 2014 06:32 LaLuSh wrote: On the parts where you say SC2 would not have benefitted in any significant way from an F2P-model: I agree 100%.
THIS. A lot of people bought SC2 at first.. the fact that they left is not because it cost them something.. come on.
On February 17 2014 06:32 LaLuSh wrote: On the parts where you say SC2 would not have benefitted in any significant way from an F2P-model: I agree 100%.
THIS. A lot of people bought SC2 at first.. the fact that they left is not because it cost them something.. come on.
Yeah they left cause the singleplayer only takes a few hours
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Only a small part of the whole playerbase actually played arenas.
And only a small part of BW's playerbase played BW, but people still watched the game because it was a fun game to watch. Surely if WoW were more fun to watch, WoW players wouldn't have let "I don't play 2v2" stand in the way of their watching 2v2.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
BW wasn't meant to be an esport either and got very little support from Blizzard, so those are obviously non-factors. The last one might have played a big role, I'm nowhere near familiar enough with what happened to know. My guess is that still won't be the whole story, though. WoW arenas are just boring to watch.
Only way to actually make it work would've been that tournament realm was up all the time which it wasn't if i remember correctly, it was only up during the qualifiers etc. If you're not playing on TR you would be only playing against players on your battle group so that kinda sucks and how to play against specific opponents? Also the gear from PvE would've given an edge to some players. I'm not 100% sure but only Blizzard had access to the spectator tool and twitch wasn't a thing when WoW was at it's peak so no player PoV streaming with HD.
There were just way too many complications to make it a real esport and blizzard clearly didn't want it and they even stated that many times.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Only a small part of the whole playerbase actually played arenas.
And only a small part of BW's playerbase played BW, but people still watched the game because it was a fun game to watch. Surely if WoW were more fun to watch, WoW players wouldn't have let "I don't play 2v2" stand in the way of their watching 2v2.
So what if BW's playerbase didn't play BW because it was too hard for them? That means they'd still be interested in BW even though they cannot play it 'properly' themselves. It seems very logical to me that wow players who are not interested in arena will not watch an arena tournament. It's not like they stopped watching because it wasn't entertaining enough they just never started because they didn't care about arenas at all.
Both of Khaldor's videos are excellent, but he stops just short of the main difference: hero units are directly linked in the viewers mind with the player. They personify the player, with whom the viewer has an emotional connection. Their progress and death is the progress and death of the player itself, at least in the suspended reality of the viewers mind. The death and life of an important, but non-singular unit, just doesn't create the same psychological drama.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Only a small part of the whole playerbase actually played arenas.
And only a small part of BW's playerbase played BW, but people still watched the game because it was a fun game to watch. Surely if WoW were more fun to watch, WoW players wouldn't have let "I don't play 2v2" stand in the way of their watching 2v2.
So what if BW's playerbase didn't play BW because it was too hard for them? That means they'd still be interested in BW even though they cannot play it 'properly' themselves. It seems very logical to me that wow players who are not interested in arena will not watch an arena tournament. It's not like they stopped watching because it wasn't entertaining enough they just never started because they didn't care about arenas at all.
90% of BW's playerbase DIDN'T play BW competively, they only played BGH, UMS, Tower Defense (and IdrA striptease ) . But just by playing the game casually for like a day or two, people would understand the difficulty and herculean tasks to do what the pros are able to accomplish. BW was attracted enough in the casual level as well as the hardcore one.
On February 17 2014 07:14 _SpiRaL_ wrote: Interesting post LaLush. I am not too familiar with BW but the perspective that you spent all your time managing bases in BW and checking in on your army is somewhat of a revelation to me given the difficulty of army control and level of micro needed to be efficient with an army.
The later into a game you got in BW, the more difficult it became to keep up with your production. There was no way you could hotkey all your production buildings past the early-midgame in BW. Every production round required shifting screens to individually select every building. Rally points needed to be set manually for every production building. Workers sent to mine manually for every main building. Buildings couldn't be shift queued when built... you had to wait for probes to start warping something before issuing another build order.
The later into a game you got in BW, the more complex the base/macro management aspect became. The later you got, the greater the tension became between distributing your time between production and between micromanagement.
In SC2 it's kind of the opposite. Macro management is the hardest in the early-midgame when you're still building up your production while trying to be active and/or stay alive. Once you get so late that most of your supplydepots/pylons/overlords and your barracks/hatcheries/warpgates are already setup and operational, there is less and less of a reason to jump back to base/macro management in SC2.
You lose workers in the lategame in SC2? Relatively, and mechanically, speaking it's easier to replace them in the lategame than in the early/midgame (with 3 nexus you queue up 3-15 workers and produce them 3 at a time, whereas with only 1 nexus you have to alocate your attention towards producing probes at that nexus on more seperate occasions).
This applies to zerg and larva inject as well. The later into the game you get, the more you tend to run on a larva surplus than actually be forced to nail those injects with perfect timing. People have too much larva lategame rather than too little of it. Also the more hatcheries you have the easier and faster do you replace lost workers and units.
In BW, when every worker has to be produced individually because there simply aren't enough hotkeys, and when every of those workers on every nexus has to be sent to mine manually... the complexity of macro increases with game length.
It's sort of paradoxical that macro becomes easier the further into an SC2 game you get, but it's essentially true... Those injects are most important to hit in the early-midgame. Those MULEs are most important to use regularly in the early-midgame. Chrono boost relevance and importance equivalently seems to decrease with game length. Having to build 5 probes from 5 nexii in SC2 as opposed to 1 probe from 1 nexus does not bring with it any meaningful difference in time and attention allocation.
Time allocation is generally the same or easier the further into a game you get, whether it be for making marines/marauders or for warping in zealots/stalkers/HTs. Sure, you have to click aaaaaaaaaaa or zzzzzzzzzzzz a few more times. But the time and attention allocation to that round of production is essentially the same as in the earlier phases of a game (with the difference that earlier in a game there was the added complexity of worrying about not getting supply blocked, and about adding production buildings to keep up with a growing economy).
* "Spending all your time managing your bases in BW" is of course an exaggeration. All players had different styles and approaches to this in BW. But the point I wanted to convey was: the later into a game you got, the more you would suffer from neglecting either one or the other of micro and macro management. If you controlled that lategame battle in detail, you could be damned sure you'd be floating 5k minerals while -- out of your opponents production buildings -- another 100 supply just popped out.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I've never really liked when Khaldor made these types of videos because his opinion seems very basic usually. There are a bunch of factors why SC2 isn't extremely popular his "opinion" doesn't begin to explain why the game isn't that popular. Just to list a few.
Blizzard's constant patching changing meta game which delays what happened is Broodwar where a full developed meta game allowed players to make/design builds to counter said metagame. Blizzard's WCS system splitting up the best players in the world into 3 regions delaying the progression of the metagame in Korea and weakening the GOM tournament. How spread out players and teams are delays the improvement and refinement of players and their strategies. The lack of SC2 being played in PC bongs for one reason or another, decreasing the fan base. The delayed solid UMS/casual play of the game also deterred people from playing casually.
Honestly if Blizzard just made the game and didn't touch it the esports side of the game would be much improved. Maybe perhaps in a situation of a metagame that was truly boring in one matchup or another change the game to modify that aspect, but other than that do nothing. After that SC2 will do great as far as attracting fans, being popular, ect. It might not overtake Dota or LoL, but I think the fans/player base will increase greatly.
I definitely agree that SC2 focuses too much on macro to become a big esport.
Those aspects of the game definitely take skill, but they are also basically invisible for spectators and not very fun.(IMO)
I see that people are bringing up BW macro, but they are kind of missing the point. BW required a lot of micro at the pro level, which makes it very watchable. Boxer's Marine Micro
It's easy to see what is going on even if you do not have strong game knowledge. You aren't looking at his barracks pump out more marines, you are watching a handful of marines take out a huge number of units.
I don't think that SC3 needs heroes or anything like that, but I do think that having more readable battles would be helpful.
Sometimes it's very had to see who's ahead/winning until the battle is already over and there is very little someone can do after a battle starts.
On February 16 2014 00:46 Faust852 wrote: The only reasons they are more popular is because 1) they are free, 2) they are mucch more accessible to begin with, 3) you can't report the fault on your mate when it's 1v1.
This is the simplest way of putting it and all that needs to be said really
blizzard is too money hungry to let the game go totally f2p minus the campaign
On February 16 2014 00:46 Faust852 wrote: The only reasons they are more popular is because 1) they are free, 2) they are mucch more accessible to begin with, 3) you can't report the fault on your mate when it's 1v1.
This is the simplest way of putting it and all that needs to be said really
blizzard is too money hungry to let the game go totally f2p minus the campaign
The way I see it, it is the F2P model that is greedy. It has to be. It usually puts almost everything behind a pay wall, making you take out the credit card at every corner. I prefer buy to play over free to play.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes F2P is done right. But most of the time, it goes very wrong.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I think im writing this shit to empty walls since im repeating myself here. Blizzards first priority was PVE so it was balanced from PvE stand point first, there was no spectator tool for the public, players were divided on their on servers and battle groups, there was no "lobby" that you could join and have people spectate the game and there were no replays. You have to be a wizard of some sorts to make a working esport from that shit... there's just no way.
I watched a game of LoL just now and i didn't really understand the player's movements and i couldn't tell what was amazing so it was boring as fuck.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I think im writing this shit to empty walls since im repeating myself here. Blizzards first priority was PVE so it was balanced from PvE stand point first, there was no spectator tool for the public, players were divided on their on servers and battle groups, there was no "lobby" that you could join and have people spectate the game and there were no replays. You have to be a wizard of some sorts to make a working esport from that shit... there's just no way.
I watched a game of LoL just now and i didn't really understand the player's movements and i couldn't tell what was amazing so it was boring as fuck.
The improvements to BW were not for esports they were for multiplayer though the internet not for esports or balance. Also any modder could have done the same thing. I feel the same way about LoL, but that doesn't make my point any less valid because I didn't invest any time into LoL and too don't understand it.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I think im writing this shit to empty walls since im repeating myself here. Blizzards first priority was PVE so it was balanced from PvE stand point first, there was no spectator tool for the public, players were divided on their on servers and battle groups, there was no "lobby" that you could join and have people spectate the game and there were no replays. You have to be a wizard of some sorts to make a working esport from that shit... there's just no way.
I watched a game of LoL just now and i didn't really understand the player's movements and i couldn't tell what was amazing so it was boring as fuck.
hey man dont make fun of LoL they right click alot to move their one unit around.
In all seriousness the biggest problem that the community can fix overnight is the problem with prize distribution. Having a tournament with 100 thousand dollars winner takes all, will be more exciting for sure, but at the cost of not rewarding our players we love so much.
someone made this point a while ago, but in SC2 we have... 1st 20,000 2nd 10,000 3rd 5,000 4th 2,000 5th 1,000 6th 500 7th 400 etc....
While in Golf they have 1st 13,000 2nd 11,000 3rd 8,000 4th 6,000 5th 4,000 6th 2,000 7th 1,000 etc....
Im not sure their actual percentage but its a hell of a lot more forgiving and lets people actually win SOMETHING, and not spend an entire weekend doing really well, but getting 8th place and coming home with 300 bucks. which probably will not cover the travel expenses.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I think im writing this shit to empty walls since im repeating myself here. Blizzards first priority was PVE so it was balanced from PvE stand point first, there was no spectator tool for the public, players were divided on their on servers and battle groups, there was no "lobby" that you could join and have people spectate the game and there were no replays. You have to be a wizard of some sorts to make a working esport from that shit... there's just no way.
I watched a game of LoL just now and i didn't really understand the player's movements and i couldn't tell what was amazing so it was boring as fuck.
hey man dont make fun of LoL they right click alot to move their one unit around.
In all seriousness the biggest problem that the community can fix overnight is the problem with prize distribution. Having a tournament with 100 thousand dollars winner takes all, will be more exciting for sure, but at the cost of not rewarding our players we love so much.
someone made this point a while ago, but in SC2 we have... 1st 20,000 2nd 10,000 3rd 5,000 4th 2,000 5th 1,000 6th 500 7th 400 etc....
While in Golf they have 1st 13,000 2nd 11,000 3rd 8,000 4th 6,000 5th 4,000 6th 2,000 7th 1,000 etc....
Im not sure their actual percentage but its a hell of a lot more forgiving and lets people actually win SOMETHING, and not spend an entire weekend doing really well, but getting 8th place and coming home with 300 bucks. which probably will not cover the travel expenses.
You are not wrong, but you are not right either. The money split is not the reason for the game not being popular or even in most situations pros quitting. Though you are right a better distributed prize pool over time keeps people trying hard. Also this is one tournament not every tournament. There are plenty of opportunities to win money in SC2.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Only a small part of the whole playerbase actually played arenas.
And only a small part of BW's playerbase played BW, but people still watched the game because it was a fun game to watch. Surely if WoW were more fun to watch, WoW players wouldn't have let "I don't play 2v2" stand in the way of their watching 2v2.
So what if BW's playerbase didn't play BW because it was too hard for them? That means they'd still be interested in BW even though they cannot play it 'properly' themselves. It seems very logical to me that wow players who are not interested in arena will not watch an arena tournament. It's not like they stopped watching because it wasn't entertaining enough they just never started because they didn't care about arenas at all.
90% of BW's playerbase DIDN'T play BW competively, they only played BGH, UMS, Tower Defense (and IdrA striptease ) . But just by playing the game casually for like a day or two, people would understand the difficulty and herculean tasks to do what the pros are able to accomplish. BW was attracted enough in the casual level as well as the hardcore one.
But the vast majority of BW viewers were Koreans who played at PC Bangs, which had cloned BW copies installed. Which meant you basically only had LAN melee maps.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I think im writing this shit to empty walls since im repeating myself here. Blizzards first priority was PVE so it was balanced from PvE stand point first, there was no spectator tool for the public, players were divided on their on servers and battle groups, there was no "lobby" that you could join and have people spectate the game and there were no replays. You have to be a wizard of some sorts to make a working esport from that shit... there's just no way.
I watched a game of LoL just now and i didn't really understand the player's movements and i couldn't tell what was amazing so it was boring as fuck.
hey man dont make fun of LoL they right click alot to move their one unit around.
In all seriousness the biggest problem that the community can fix overnight is the problem with prize distribution. Having a tournament with 100 thousand dollars winner takes all, will be more exciting for sure, but at the cost of not rewarding our players we love so much.
someone made this point a while ago, but in SC2 we have... 1st 20,000 2nd 10,000 3rd 5,000 4th 2,000 5th 1,000 6th 500 7th 400 etc....
While in Golf they have 1st 13,000 2nd 11,000 3rd 8,000 4th 6,000 5th 4,000 6th 2,000 7th 1,000 etc....
Im not sure their actual percentage but its a hell of a lot more forgiving and lets people actually win SOMETHING, and not spend an entire weekend doing really well, but getting 8th place and coming home with 300 bucks. which probably will not cover the travel expenses.
The real difference between SC2 and Golf is that the Championship winners in SC2 make what the 70th place finishers do in Golf.
Unless it's a WCS Grand Final, and then the winner makes about the same as the 20th...
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Only a small part of the whole playerbase actually played arenas.
And only a small part of BW's playerbase played BW, but people still watched the game because it was a fun game to watch. Surely if WoW were more fun to watch, WoW players wouldn't have let "I don't play 2v2" stand in the way of their watching 2v2.
So what if BW's playerbase didn't play BW because it was too hard for them? That means they'd still be interested in BW even though they cannot play it 'properly' themselves. It seems very logical to me that wow players who are not interested in arena will not watch an arena tournament. It's not like they stopped watching because it wasn't entertaining enough they just never started because they didn't care about arenas at all.
90% of BW's playerbase DIDN'T play BW competively, they only played BGH, UMS, Tower Defense (and IdrA striptease ) . But just by playing the game casually for like a day or two, people would understand the difficulty and herculean tasks to do what the pros are able to accomplish. BW was attracted enough in the casual level as well as the hardcore one.
But the vast majority of BW viewers were Koreans who played at PC Bangs, which had cloned BW copies installed. Which meant you basically only had LAN melee maps.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I think im writing this shit to empty walls since im repeating myself here. Blizzards first priority was PVE so it was balanced from PvE stand point first, there was no spectator tool for the public, players were divided on their on servers and battle groups, there was no "lobby" that you could join and have people spectate the game and there were no replays. You have to be a wizard of some sorts to make a working esport from that shit... there's just no way.
I watched a game of LoL just now and i didn't really understand the player's movements and i couldn't tell what was amazing so it was boring as fuck.
hey man dont make fun of LoL they right click alot to move their one unit around.
In all seriousness the biggest problem that the community can fix overnight is the problem with prize distribution. Having a tournament with 100 thousand dollars winner takes all, will be more exciting for sure, but at the cost of not rewarding our players we love so much.
someone made this point a while ago, but in SC2 we have... 1st 20,000 2nd 10,000 3rd 5,000 4th 2,000 5th 1,000 6th 500 7th 400 etc....
While in Golf they have 1st 13,000 2nd 11,000 3rd 8,000 4th 6,000 5th 4,000 6th 2,000 7th 1,000 etc....
Im not sure their actual percentage but its a hell of a lot more forgiving and lets people actually win SOMETHING, and not spend an entire weekend doing really well, but getting 8th place and coming home with 300 bucks. which probably will not cover the travel expenses.
The real difference between SC2 and Golf is that the Championship winners in SC2 make what the 70th place finishers do in Golf.
Unless it's a WCS Grand Final, and then the winner makes about the same as the 20th...
Thats truly silly. I'm comparing and pointing out how broken our current prize pools work out, not in how much cash flow is being injected into SC2. We should never have a 100k winner takes all tourney. Alls it will do is make one exciting tourney, and might pump up the viewers by a decent margin, at the expense of not paying and rewarding the other players we love to watch.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I've never really liked when Khaldor made these types of videos because his opinion seems very basic usually. There are a bunch of factors why SC2 isn't extremely popular his "opinion" doesn't begin to explain why the game isn't that popular. Just to list a few.
Blizzard's constant patching changing meta game which delays what happened is Broodwar where a full developed meta game allowed players to make/design builds to counter said metagame. Blizzard's WCS system splitting up the best players in the world into 3 regions delaying the progression of the metagame in Korea and weakening the GOM tournament. How spread out players and teams are delays the improvement and refinement of players and their strategies. The lack of SC2 being played in PC bongs for one reason or another, decreasing the fan base. The delayed solid UMS/casual play of the game also deterred people from playing casually.
Honestly if Blizzard just made the game and didn't touch it the esports side of the game would be much improved. Maybe perhaps in a situation of a metagame that was truly boring in one matchup or another change the game to modify that aspect, but other than that do nothing. After that SC2 will do great as far as attracting fans, being popular, ect. It might not overtake Dota or LoL, but I think the fans/player base will increase greatly.
And that is just YOUR opinion? Not sure why you would post about it if you feel Khaldor shouldn't be making a video...
First of all, a lot of the NA/EU koreans are still playing in Korea on KR ladder, so the meta develops fine. If all the Koreans was just in WCS Korea, you would see a lot more retirements from KR pros since you can't support that many players with one tournament (and PL). So overall, you would have less korean pros playing and wouldn't that slow the meta farther?
As for the balancing and meta is BW, I think that has been overplayed. A lot of BW balancing came down to maps, imagine if the map pool didn't change for 3 years, you would see a lot more imbalances.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Only a small part of the whole playerbase actually played arenas.
And only a small part of BW's playerbase played BW, but people still watched the game because it was a fun game to watch. Surely if WoW were more fun to watch, WoW players wouldn't have let "I don't play 2v2" stand in the way of their watching 2v2.
So what if BW's playerbase didn't play BW because it was too hard for them? That means they'd still be interested in BW even though they cannot play it 'properly' themselves. It seems very logical to me that wow players who are not interested in arena will not watch an arena tournament. It's not like they stopped watching because it wasn't entertaining enough they just never started because they didn't care about arenas at all.
90% of BW's playerbase DIDN'T play BW competively, they only played BGH, UMS, Tower Defense (and IdrA striptease ) . But just by playing the game casually for like a day or two, people would understand the difficulty and herculean tasks to do what the pros are able to accomplish. BW was attracted enough in the casual level as well as the hardcore one.
But the vast majority of BW viewers were Koreans who played at PC Bangs, which had cloned BW copies installed. Which meant you basically only had LAN melee maps.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I think im writing this shit to empty walls since im repeating myself here. Blizzards first priority was PVE so it was balanced from PvE stand point first, there was no spectator tool for the public, players were divided on their on servers and battle groups, there was no "lobby" that you could join and have people spectate the game and there were no replays. You have to be a wizard of some sorts to make a working esport from that shit... there's just no way.
I watched a game of LoL just now and i didn't really understand the player's movements and i couldn't tell what was amazing so it was boring as fuck.
hey man dont make fun of LoL they right click alot to move their one unit around.
In all seriousness the biggest problem that the community can fix overnight is the problem with prize distribution. Having a tournament with 100 thousand dollars winner takes all, will be more exciting for sure, but at the cost of not rewarding our players we love so much.
someone made this point a while ago, but in SC2 we have... 1st 20,000 2nd 10,000 3rd 5,000 4th 2,000 5th 1,000 6th 500 7th 400 etc....
While in Golf they have 1st 13,000 2nd 11,000 3rd 8,000 4th 6,000 5th 4,000 6th 2,000 7th 1,000 etc....
Im not sure their actual percentage but its a hell of a lot more forgiving and lets people actually win SOMETHING, and not spend an entire weekend doing really well, but getting 8th place and coming home with 300 bucks. which probably will not cover the travel expenses.
The real difference between SC2 and Golf is that the Championship winners in SC2 make what the 70th place finishers do in Golf.
Unless it's a WCS Grand Final, and then the winner makes about the same as the 20th...
1. From what I recall Koreans didn't play "clones" they played the full game nothing excluded. I played against many of Korean on Iccup and they didn't have any trouble with the maps or multiplayer. 2. There isn't really a need to compare the money. It isn't relevant to much of what the video is about. Again the players who win a tournament and live for free in a team house probably aren't struggling. And even still the ones at the bottom who are starving have something to strive for, but in either scenario even if I'm wrong it doesn't affect the popularity of SC2
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I've never really liked when Khaldor made these types of videos because his opinion seems very basic usually. There are a bunch of factors why SC2 isn't extremely popular his "opinion" doesn't begin to explain why the game isn't that popular. Just to list a few.
Blizzard's constant patching changing meta game which delays what happened is Broodwar where a full developed meta game allowed players to make/design builds to counter said metagame. Blizzard's WCS system splitting up the best players in the world into 3 regions delaying the progression of the metagame in Korea and weakening the GOM tournament. How spread out players and teams are delays the improvement and refinement of players and their strategies. The lack of SC2 being played in PC bongs for one reason or another, decreasing the fan base. The delayed solid UMS/casual play of the game also deterred people from playing casually.
Honestly if Blizzard just made the game and didn't touch it the esports side of the game would be much improved. Maybe perhaps in a situation of a metagame that was truly boring in one matchup or another change the game to modify that aspect, but other than that do nothing. After that SC2 will do great as far as attracting fans, being popular, ect. It might not overtake Dota or LoL, but I think the fans/player base will increase greatly.
And that is just YOUR opinion? Not sure why you would post about it if you feel Khaldor shouldn't be making a video...
First of all, a lot of the NA/EU koreans are still playing in Korea on KR ladder, so the meta develops fine. If all the Koreans was just in WCS Korea, you would see a lot more retirements from KR pros since you can't support that many players with one tournament (and PL). So overall, you would have less korean pros playing and wouldn't that slow the meta farther?
As for the balancing and meta is BW, I think that has been overplayed. A lot of BW balancing came down to maps, imagine if the map pool didn't change for 3 years, you would see a lot more imbalances.
Yes, it is my opinion that Khaldor has very basic thoughts and puts them on youtube. I would post because I feel like his opinion is lacking and TL users gobble any post from someone in the scene like it is golden.
The playing on Korean ladder is not the same as playing in team houses and developing strategy. Play Iccup back in the day? I never got gosu cheesed by any top player because they didn't show those strategies in public. There was a whole new level to the metagame which was the hidden gameplay and strategy development behind the scene. The ladder is not the place for this practicing with the very best is.
I don't want all Koreans anywhere. I don't even care about one off events. It isn't about where they play it is where they practice. And to your point no you're wrong. If we lose the 20-40% if lower tier players it would not slow down the development of the game as much as the current system does. The amount of pros playing doesn't develop a meta. The quality of their play and the improvement of that play does. There are a lot of people very good at video games who can copy builds and execute them well enough but their existence in the system does nothing for the meta. When the next season of GSL/gomexp or w/e comes out do you think that the same number of protoss will be in it? I don't. Why? Because there are protoss who simply eliminated equal players by blink rushing meanwhile there are others in the same event that are truly talented. I'm not saying anything about balance there I'm talking about the individual choice. One player copies a build and executes it well meanwhile there are others who may use the same build, but are capable of more and stronger play.
Balance in BW was based off maps yes. My post had nothing to do with balance because nothing is actually "imba" unless it cannot be beaten. The protoss had the worst path in BW taking the fewest titles, but they were right there at the top as well too. I feel like the other races in BW though had tip top players that found their stride in the game and it took longer for other players to outmatch them.
I think that the poster who suggested making team games viable had the best post so far. There should be a version of SC2 that is optimized for 4v4, if it means taking out units or changing the game dramatically I think it should be done. (NOTE we can bring back the units for 1v1) People would really get hyped for that I think.
Second issue with SC2 was that the culture of RTS here wasn't ready for primetime. What I think sucks is that players who NA players followed religiously and got them into SC2 in the first place, ended up sucking in SC2 on a world stage. If they just played amongst themselves we would see a much different scene I think.
I would love to see guys like Husky, Day9, Destiny, Idra, the guys who got us all addicted to SC2 back in the beta, carry through and be our eSports heroes. If Day9 played Idra in the first WCS NA championship the viewers would be unbelievable because its who we all grew up with. Then imagine guys like Minigun, Major, Scarlett all vying to take the crown from these guys in WCS NA season 2. Its that name recognition with casuals that we love.
For example, In LOL and DoTA2 we continue to root for teams who stay similar for long periods. I am personally a Na'Vi fan and love following Puppey and Xboct (Havost) because they are some of the best, charming guys and been so for awhile. In SC2 I get crushing disappointments every year because I follow some guys and they are always out pre-32 round because they are cool but not up to random Korean FOTM. Will the winner be San, StarDust or herO (not the cool TL Hero but this other herO you've never seen before!) wow I can't waaaaaait to find out!
So players are a big part. Also the lack of actual entertainment but no shortage of drama based on bullshit imported Korean standards of conduct that don't fit a Western paradigm really make the game boring. If say X player talked shit about Y player, you would see a 100 page TL thread but it only leads to pitchforks and apologies. People got afraid to say anything. So then all players were trained by fire to become bland robots except Stephano of course. <3
In sports there are controversies don't get me wrong but it seems like there are always enough supporters to make it entertaining. Like the Richard Sherman rant which had Seahawks fans defending him. In TL nobody would defend any shittalker. So really its just sad in the end.
Besides culture and local scene, I think the game needs to remove everything that is not useful to making the game cool to watch. Creep should just grow off buildings infinitely until they die and chronoboosts should just be random procs and MULES random as well. Or remove them. I dunno.
The game should be more linear. Getting a Battlecruiser should be hard requiring a long 20min game but a 'OH SHIT' moment like you get a nervous pit in your stomach because you know cool shit is about to go down. It could even be Terran's "Hero Unit" like in WC3 able to micro a lot better, and use more Yamatos and maybe have scouting abilities and stuff. Then you as a casual viewer know that every unit gets bigger and more badass and that is a good thing.
Now its just like small pathetic units are actually the best lol. As a casual fan it must be weird, you see a guy make his best unit, the other guy has a bunch of marines, the marines win? It gets confusing for them.
I think people see a badass unit they want to cheer as the guy actually made it happen.
Finally, I think people want to see plays and understand them. Maybe a GG brings a cool moment in the game replay immediately like in COD. The thing with MOBA is that big plays are easily recognized. I think the only way to show off big plays to n00bs in SC2 would be something like BIG TEXTS that give some cool idea. Like when kill streaks happen show a 10 KILL STREAK above the unit in rainbow color font. BADASS KILL when a lesser unit micros a larger unit down and so on and so forth. Flashy colors for the plebs to enjoy.
On February 16 2014 00:13 lastshadow wrote: 60 year olds who didn't play the game could see finess in SC1 micro situations if given a broad concept of how stuff worked in the game. Silly to hear opinions like this claiming flashiness is needed. Dota is pretty ugly to the non-trained eye, horrible aesthetics, terrible looking characteristics, but yet is one of the largest games because you can sorta(if untrained eye) still see the finess in everything. Starbow already has shown it looks much better in every way compared to SC2 when it comes to just "seeing" skill(opinion of course), and yet this game is "slowed down".
Dota 2 has wonderful graphics. some people prefer the low quality Anime type of graphics which is in League of Legends (terrible eye bleeding for my personal taste.) Dota 2 has a big following because of Warcraft 3 as well. I respect and agree with your opinion. But sadly todays younger generation prefers brainless flashiness to be entertained.
On February 17 2014 06:24 LaLuSh wrote: Response to your second video about macro vs micro:
You're someone who undoubtedly was very familiar with WC3, but (correct me if I'm totally wrong) don't seem as familiar with BW.
I say this because, personally, I hold the belief that SC2 is closer to WC3 than it is to BW in terms of game flow and in its emphasis of micro versus macro.
To clarify what I mean: the amount of time you spend in SC2 controlling and moving your army about versus doing actual base/macro management makes SC2 a closer relative to WC3 than it ever was of BW.
If, in BW, you spent as much time staring at your army as you do in these games you'd be floating 5k minerals already in the midgame. Classifying SC2 as a macro heavy/focused game is just buying into the propaganda surrounding the game ever since its unveiling.
With that said: I don't disagree with you about a hero focused RTS being more intuitive to understand if it's a micro focused game. I just think that SC2 has always had something of a split identy disorder. It tries hard to portray itself as a macroesque swarmy game, even marketing itself as thus, but in reality it's really more about army control/movement/harass/drops. Your prowess with the aforementioned army control methods then creates the illusion of there being differences in macro performance between players.
In reality, all pro players in SC2 can achieve near perfect macro and pretty much always are achieving near perfect macro relative to and depending on the choices they make in a game. What I mean more specifically with that statement: It's not the difficulty of macro itself in SC2 that accounts for economy differences, but rather the imperfect choices players make in relation to safe/greedy play and in relation to their micro performance (losing workers to drops).
This is very different from BW where the difficulty of perfect base/macro management itself accounted for meaningful performance differences between players. In SC2, it may look like one player has significantly better macro, but really it's mostly because of and a result of decision making. The player with a lesser economy in an an SC2 game is rarely at that economy disadvantage because they macroed imperfectly, but rather because they made the decision to play too safe. They still had near perfect macro relative to their chosen safe play.
So to tie back into why I agree with you in regards to a hero based RTS being more intuitive when it comes to WC3 vs SC2: because SC2 is mostly about army movement & control. All players in SC2 macro near perfectly relative to their decision making in a given game. If you have 2 micro based competitive games where doing stuff with your army is what will differentiate you from an opponent: then yes, the hero based approach makes more sense. Creates something to care about in the fights. A hero in a way is a third resource, as the xp system gives incentives to attack and gives feedback as to the success/progress made.
Maybe I give off the impression of overstating the differences between BW and SC2. But I really personally do hold this belief that SC2 is a BW-WC3-hybrid rather than a BW successor. BW was a game where you managed bases full time and intermittently checked in on your army. In SC2, conversely, you manage your army full time and intermittently check in on your bases. The later into a game you get the more true this SC2 vs BW split becomes.
In that sense, and from that perspective, I would agree a hero design would benefit something like SC2 (which is not a macro game in the truest sense). In thinking and arguing SC2 is a macro based game you're, in my opinion, misrepresenting what a real macro esports RTS title would look and behave like. It wouldn't be one where people stare and micromanage their armies with the level of obsession that they do in SC2.
A macro based RTS by my definition is one where there's simply not enough time to both manage bases/economy and to micro an army. In a macro based RTS you are forced to allocate your time to either one or the other. And after the choice the effect of neglecting one of them should be palpable. I simply don't think that it is true in SC2 once you get about halfway through a game and have your core bases and production set up.
TL;DR:
Don't treat SC2 as a good example of a macro game. It's more of a hybrid micro-macro game that's confused about its identity and its "orientation".
I haven't really disproven your point with this argument -- I've only really had myself a rant on using SC2 as an example of a macro based RTS.
I don't really think WC3 was much of the esports juggernaut you portray it as when compared to contemporary titles like Counterstrike. And if I'd make an argument to try and disprove your point, I'd base that argument on that it's likely wholly other factors that decide the success of an RTS esport than their supposed casual spectator appeal.
I think social connectivity and cultural permeation were more important factors for both the success of BW and WC3. And in both cases it likely had little to do with the quality or casual accessability of the RTS itself, but rather that WC3 gained familiarization and cultural permeation from DotA; and likewise the stars aligned for BW in Korea with UMS/money maps/4v4s/3v3s and the PCBang culture.
You are basically saying SC2 is not about macro, because there is a game in which you spend even more time on macro... In SC2 you spend 90% of your time macroing. The emphasis is clearly on macro. It's rather like that:
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Only a small part of the whole playerbase actually played arenas.
And only a small part of BW's playerbase played BW, but people still watched the game because it was a fun game to watch. Surely if WoW were more fun to watch, WoW players wouldn't have let "I don't play 2v2" stand in the way of their watching 2v2.
So what if BW's playerbase didn't play BW because it was too hard for them? That means they'd still be interested in BW even though they cannot play it 'properly' themselves. It seems very logical to me that wow players who are not interested in arena will not watch an arena tournament. It's not like they stopped watching because it wasn't entertaining enough they just never started because they didn't care about arenas at all.
90% of BW's playerbase DIDN'T play BW competively, they only played BGH, UMS, Tower Defense (and IdrA striptease ) . But just by playing the game casually for like a day or two, people would understand the difficulty and herculean tasks to do what the pros are able to accomplish. BW was attracted enough in the casual level as well as the hardcore one.
But the vast majority of BW viewers were Koreans who played at PC Bangs, which had cloned BW copies installed. Which meant you basically only had LAN melee maps.
On February 17 2014 06:42 mnck wrote: Lol is popular as a spectator sport because everyone plays it. Not everyone plays SC2 cause it's fucking hard and unforgiving. If sc2 was easy and casual like LoL it might have a massive player base but it would also be just as interesting as LoL in terms of strategic depth. Also, DOTA 2 wont have nearly the same impact as LoL since it is also unforgiving for new players (which league isn't at all).
LoL doesn't have many viewers because of how the game is presented but because of how many players play the game. I have given LoL an honest chance as a spectator sport many times, and even as a DOTA veteran who has watched dota 1 since long before LoL even existed and even I still have a very hard visually seeing what is happening because the graphics in that game and the way its presented during any LCS live cast terrible. Yet I understand that if I had played it myself I would understand anything that goes on because no matter how complex it is visually you will learn to see through it as a player, thats part of what kill MOBA players have. This is not a critique of LoL specifically because I'm sure it's the same for completely new players watching DOTA (even tho my personal opinion is that DOTA is far better presented than League both in terms of ingame graphics as well as outgame graphics during production)
Whether SC2 suffers from this complexity as well I cannot say, since I have played the game since before I saw my first tournament, but one thing for sure, its not even NEARLY as popular as a game compared to LoL so no way it will have a similar viewerbase. If SC2 was more fun for the bad players as well, then I'm sure it would have been a huge success.
I said this on the previous page and I'll say it again, if that's really true, why did WoW Arenas fail so spectacularly as an esport? Certainly not for lack of players.
Because it wasn't meant to be an esport and blizzard didn't support it at all and it was impossible for anyone else to hold tournaments.
Wrong. Blizzard didn't support SCBW and it did just fine. To a casual (myself at least with WoW arena) that shit was boring as FUCK and you don't really understand the player's movements and because of that you cannot determine what is amazing and decide it is boring. Also how long it took for something to die was an issue in WoW arena which might be a part of the reason for the lack of success for Warcraft.
I think im writing this shit to empty walls since im repeating myself here. Blizzards first priority was PVE so it was balanced from PvE stand point first, there was no spectator tool for the public, players were divided on their on servers and battle groups, there was no "lobby" that you could join and have people spectate the game and there were no replays. You have to be a wizard of some sorts to make a working esport from that shit... there's just no way.
I watched a game of LoL just now and i didn't really understand the player's movements and i couldn't tell what was amazing so it was boring as fuck.
hey man dont make fun of LoL they right click alot to move their one unit around.
In all seriousness the biggest problem that the community can fix overnight is the problem with prize distribution. Having a tournament with 100 thousand dollars winner takes all, will be more exciting for sure, but at the cost of not rewarding our players we love so much.
someone made this point a while ago, but in SC2 we have... 1st 20,000 2nd 10,000 3rd 5,000 4th 2,000 5th 1,000 6th 500 7th 400 etc....
While in Golf they have 1st 13,000 2nd 11,000 3rd 8,000 4th 6,000 5th 4,000 6th 2,000 7th 1,000 etc....
Im not sure their actual percentage but its a hell of a lot more forgiving and lets people actually win SOMETHING, and not spend an entire weekend doing really well, but getting 8th place and coming home with 300 bucks. which probably will not cover the travel expenses.
The real difference between SC2 and Golf is that the Championship winners in SC2 make what the 70th place finishers do in Golf.
Unless it's a WCS Grand Final, and then the winner makes about the same as the 20th...
1. From what I recall Koreans didn't play "clones" they played the full game nothing excluded. I played against many of Korean on Iccup and they didn't have any trouble with the maps or multiplayer. 2. There isn't really a need to compare the money. It isn't relevant to much of what the video is about. Again the players who win a tournament and live for free in a team house probably aren't struggling. And even still the ones at the bottom who are starving have something to strive for, but in either scenario even if I'm wrong it doesn't affect the popularity of SC2
IIRC, Iccup came long after BW boomed onto the scene. And by "clone", I meant the built-in clone option that would create a LAN only version of the game. Something very appealing for any PC Bang owner that didn't want to buy dozens of copies of a game...and wanted to keep everything legal.
Iccup was also pirate friendly, and Battle.net was not, so anyone without a legal copy couldn't just hop over to play a find a UMS lobby (not to mention that being on Iccup at all already made you a non-casual).
Point is basically that people playing BGH, Tower Defenses, and other UMSes really didn't care about professional Brood War. They probably didn't even know it existed. The difference in Korea is that the situation that drove people to PC Bangs is also what restricted them (mostly) from playing a lot of the casual maps that the rest of the world flocked to.
SC2 is very macro intensive the first half of a game. It's probably closer to your macro-micro scale than mine in that period.
My definition of this is more: Can top players regularly perform near-optimal macro in relation to their decision making? I mean most BW top players could also perform near optimally the first 6-8 minutes of a game, regardless of there not existing automining and such.
But I definitely think that the latter half of a SC2 game slips more and more into the micro-macro scale I used. And that's because the intensity/difficulty/time requirement for macro doesn't increase in a meaningful way once you move into the later parts of an SC2 game. If you make a relative macro-micro scale, BW just moved a whole lot further to the left relatively speaking because of how insanely the mechanical requirements scale up with increased production.
On February 17 2014 06:24 LaLuSh wrote: I don't really think WC3 was much of the esports juggernaut you portray it as when compared to contemporary titles like Counterstrike. And if I'd make an argument to try and disprove your point, I'd base that argument on that it's likely wholly other factors that decide the success of an RTS esport than their supposed casual spectator appeal.
You misunderstood me, I didn't try to say WC3 is better. I don't care for which game is "better" or "worse". At the end of the day I'm the guy watching SC2 for several hours.
Only thing I'm saying is that I feel in the long run RTS has to develop into something that has a stronger focus on micro. Heroes are an extreme to that. To motivate a player to micro you have to make microing worth his while. Meaning you need to make the individual unit worth more. A hero takes that to an extreme.
I didn't want to say game A is better than game B or that one genre is superior to another. I'm just seeing the development and the shift in ESports and was trying to add something to the discussion. Thanks for your post though, there have been a lot of good points in this thread. I actually enjoyed the discussion in here quite a lot, so thx for all your thoughts
SC2 is very macro intensive the first half of a game. It's probably closer to your macro-micro scale than mine in that period.
My definition of this is more: Can top players regularly perform near-optimal macro in relation to their decision making? I mean most BW top players could also perform near optimally the first 6-8 minutes of a game, regardless of there not existing automining and such.
But I definitely think that the latter half of a SC2 game slips more and more into the micro-macro scale I used. And that's because the intensity/difficulty/time requirement for macro doesn't increase in a meaningful way once you move into the later parts of an SC2 game. If you make a relative macro-micro scale, BW just moved a whole lot further to the left relatively speaking because of how insanely the mechanical requirements scale up with increased production.
Ok, I get what you say and I think it makes sense. Still I think you undervalue SC2's macro aspect. At least as Zerg I think most of the mid-lategame still comes down to reproducing the right units (and building the according tech/upgrades), spreading creep/injecting and setting up the right amount of defenses. I know, same thing is even more important in Broodwar, but having (very casually for some) played lots of other RTS games (from CnC RA2 to CnC RA3, SupCom, WC3, World in Conflict, DoW, OpenRA...) I still feel like SC2 is on the left of most of them. Just the fact that economy and production is so continuous (compare it to something like CnCs where you usually build your 1-3 refineries in an area and then you are often done building up economy; or you built that one barracks, factory and whatever-the-name-of-the-Starport-was in CnC and you are done building your infrastructure) makes you spend so much time on macro. Not to mention the whole principle of supply and how little one depot provides (though there are equivalents like "power" in many other games).
The thing is, I'm not sure we even want it to be further to the left of the scale than it is currently. Like, even the people who do prefer BW over SC2 (which I don't belong to) usually refer to BWs strengths in terms of microabilities and mostly talk about the implications to strategy when talking about economy. I think having complicated macro is great (--> strategical implications), but it should be action/attentionlight and I do think it is a good thing if proplayers and regular players can both reach similar setups in their games. Imo the difference should be what you make of that setup, which I relate to the positional/compositional decisions and the unit control/multitasking - which are the most tense/fun parts of the game. And I definitely believe that another big RTS could be improved in that aspect compared to Starcraft (both).
Its strange, because personally I find mobas really hard to understand, while I found Starcraft really simple straight from the beginning. I guess it comes from growing up with RTS, I've played them all my life (including chess/other board games) and honestly its one of the simplest concepts in gaming. Get resources, build an army, crush opponent. Mobas with their million different heroes, weird combinations, and spastic casting is almost impossible to understand unless you've played them, at least in my experience.
Khaldor is 100% right about hero units getting the viewers attention however, it was that aspect which made warcraft 3 huge for sure. Truth is, the broodwar style of rts has never been massively popular outside of Korea, Starcraft 2 is in some ways the biggest one we've seen.
I agree with you on the micro aspect Khaldor. However I don't think a potential SC3 can't be made successfully as long as some of the lessons learned from BW, WC3 and SC2 are applied to it.
First, SC3 doesn't need hero units, what it does need is a game speed just right so that the players have ample time to properly micro their units. The HP to damage ration in WC3, or the pathfinding + game speed of BW combined to make battles in those games last longer and have a lot more potential for great micro, SC2 sorely lacks that.
Another issue in SC2 is deathballing, due to certain game mechanics the best way to play most of the time is to just have all your units in once place and attack in one big shove. The DPS density, game speed and shear firepower in these huge clashes means the battles often end in a couple of seconds, depriving players of the time to really react and pull off crazy feats of micro, and thus they leave us, the spectators wanting.
I believe that, if you switch to another economic model one that encourages taking and defending multiple bases, coupled with a different unit design, one where the primary fighting units are self sufficient + some sort of proper defenders advantage, then you could have the same micro excitement in SC3 as you had in WC3.
The most different element however in a SC3 vs a WC4, is that, instead of the emphasis being put on one hero, as in being concentrated, the attention would be scattered and divided across the map with players trying to juggle and multi-task several armies, the focus would be a bit more split up, but, if done properly, I believe it could be just as exciting as following one single hero unit.
On February 17 2014 06:24 LaLuSh wrote: I don't really think WC3 was much of the esports juggernaut you portray it as when compared to contemporary titles like Counterstrike. And if I'd make an argument to try and disprove your point, I'd base that argument on that it's likely wholly other factors that decide the success of an RTS esport than their supposed casual spectator appeal.
You misunderstood me, I didn't try to say WC3 is better. I don't care for which game is "better" or "worse". At the end of the day I'm the guy watching SC2 for several hours.
Only thing I'm saying is that I feel in the long run RTS has to develop into something that has a stronger focus on micro. Heroes are an extreme to that. To motivate a player to micro you have to make microing worth his while. Meaning you need to make the individual unit worth more. A hero takes that to an extreme.
I didn't want to say game A is better than game B or that one genre is superior to another. I'm just seeing the development and the shift in ESports and was trying to add something to the discussion. Thanks for your post though, there have been a lot of good points in this thread. I actually enjoyed the discussion in here quite a lot, so thx for all your thoughts
Yea the only thing I oppose really in your argument is that I think you equate the development of the MOBA/ARTS scene too much with the RTS genre. And there's really not much evidence to go by in the RTS scene. We have SC1, we have WC3, we have SC2, and some smaller games (supreme commander). Realistically speaking the 1v1 esports modes of all these games were pretty small.
Even if you make an RTS very micro focused, if you put in heroes (or not), I don't think it will make much of a difference. The only way I see it making a difference would be if you'd make an RTS so micro focused and so MOBA-like that even casuals wouldn't be stressed out by playing it. But then you wouldn't get the respect of the RTS community, and by definition I don't think what you created would be an esports RTS, but more something like a commercial RTS (world in conflict etc).
Fundamentally I think esports RTS games just have too high barriers for the majority of casuals (whether it be micro or macro focused ones). I know your argument centers more around the spectator friendliness of the games, and you may have a point here, but in the grand scheme of things I don't think that's what decides whether an RTS blows up or not.
Hard to address your arguments since I don't think we have much to go on aside from a trend in the MOBA genre possibly transfering over to RTS games. But whether it translates... hard to say. I don't think the evolution of SC/WC3/SC2 provides an answer to that.
Also I agree RTS games need more micro focus to incentivize attacking and "making moves", otherwise I wouldn't be making all these threads
In a way I can see how your micro-argument makes sense in the context of SC2 and BW. In BW, the advanced micro tricks were really mostly and pretty much only used in the first 10 minutes of a game.
Muta-micro, corsair/wraith/vulture moving shots were really only used when the game was still low-econ and when spending a lot of time and attention on micro still made a difference and a dent in the enemy's progression to a developed economy.
Once you got to the midgame and lategame in BW, nobody bothered to muta-micro with the same precision or vulture micro to evade zealots/zerglings in every fight. The importance of every single individual unit drops in a macro-focused game, and the macro-scale movements and orders become more important.
If SC2 had reliable moving-shot micro tricks, I still fear the game pace of SC2 is so fast that there would only be a very narrow window where it would be worth it to utilize this kind of micro. So in that sense I think your argument holds some ground. And the best kind of RTS I think would be one where there were distinct build-up stages where small micro tricks were encouraged, but also fully develoepd stages with huge massive strategic battles.
On February 15 2014 23:31 Saumure wrote: Chess does not provide flashy visual stuff. Neither do old movies, yet they are better most of the time. There is no other point you 'developped' to give thoughts on ...
Yet there is no one watching chess on TV or on the internet. It's a small population. Also old movies are good for people that where there at the time.
Take a 15yo kid and make him watch predator or alien... or conan. He will say to you that you have shitty taste in movie.
Also those bashing comments without making point is a pain to read
Though lots of TL users seem to have followed vishy vs carlsen a whole lot. I think that comparing RTS to Moba is basically impossible. MOBAs might have their origin as RTS mods, but developed into a completely different game. Thing is, RTS games do seldomly have the "Hero" thingy, MOBAs live from that. Those genres can ofc coexist, but can't really be compared. The only thing to compare is "why does LoL get more viewers?" and I think the answer to that is simply "more action, less game understanding needed, teamgame providing more entertainment than 1on1 because of emotions and feelings"
SC2 is very macro intensive the first half of a game. It's probably closer to your macro-micro scale than mine in that period.
My definition of this is more: Can top players regularly perform near-optimal macro in relation to their decision making? I mean most BW top players could also perform near optimally the first 6-8 minutes of a game, regardless of there not existing automining and such.
But I definitely think that the latter half of a SC2 game slips more and more into the micro-macro scale I used. And that's because the intensity/difficulty/time requirement for macro doesn't increase in a meaningful way once you move into the later parts of an SC2 game. If you make a relative macro-micro scale, BW just moved a whole lot further to the left relatively speaking because of how insanely the mechanical requirements scale up with increased production.
Ok, I get what you say and I think it makes sense. Still I think you undervalue SC2's macro aspect. At least as Zerg I think most of the mid-lategame still comes down to reproducing the right units (and building the according tech/upgrades), spreading creep/injecting and setting up the right amount of defenses. I know, same thing is even more important in Broodwar, but having (very casually for some) played lots of other RTS games (from CnC RA2 to CnC RA3, SupCom, WC3, World in Conflict, DoW, OpenRA...) I still feel like SC2 is on the left of most of them. Just the fact that economy and production is so continuous (compare it to something like CnCs where you usually build your 1-3 refineries in an area and then you are often done building up economy; or you built that one barracks, factory and whatever-the-name-of-the-Starport-was in CnC and you are done building your infrastructure) makes you spend so much time on macro. Not to mention the whole principle of supply and how little one depot provides (though there are equivalents like "power" in many other games).
The thing is, I'm not sure we even want it to be further to the left of the scale than it is currently. Like, even the people who do prefer BW over SC2 (which I don't belong to) usually refer to BWs strengths in terms of microabilities and mostly talk about the implications to strategy when talking about economy. I think having complicated macro is great (--> strategical implications), but it should be action/attentionlight and I do think it is a good thing if proplayers and regular players can both reach similar setups in their games. Imo the difference should be what you make of that setup, which I relate to the positional/compositional decisions and the unit control/multitasking - which are the most tense/fun parts of the game. And I definitely believe that another big RTS could be improved in that aspect compared to Starcraft (both).
I think you make a great point at the end where you say complicated macro is great for strategical reasons. A complex macro system creates more strategical play, where you make sweeping moves and don't care too much about controlling stuff in detail.
I think you saw examples of this in BW, where the advanced forms of micro (moving shots, reaver-shuttle micro) were mostly used in the earlier stages of a game. There was no physical restriction put on using these techniques later in a game, but players generally opted not to (because they favored the broader strategical plays with complex and fully developed economies).
This is one of the reasons why I think SC2 should switch to a design that more suits its 200 supply cap. As it is, SC2 skips through much of the build-up phase where for example stuff like warp prism-colossus drops could be effective. It's not that players wouldn't want to warp prism-colossus micro, it's more that the game is so god damned fast that warp-prism colossus shenanigans wouldn't make a dent in an opposing pro player's economy.
I actually think RTS is much easier to follow and understand and has wider appeal. RTS is far more simple to appreciate, it's pretty to understand that Flash doing 5 things at once is really impressive and you can appreciate that skill. You have be really good at League of Legends to really understand and appreciate what makes players, Faker doesn't seem all that impressive because what you're looking at in LoL doesn't appear difficult even if it is. People just don't watch games they don't play, only like 20% of the playerbase of NA/EU watches LCS, but SC2 is probably closer to 60 or 70 for major tournaments.
lol Khaldor lost me @2mins when he basically said that you dont need much knowledge about the game to enjoy spectating a teamfight in a MOBA. I have roughly 1.5k games in dota2 and I still have no idea whats going on when I occasionally tune in to a LoL stream. And thats not going to change unless I pour in something like 50 hours into LoL before I learn the core set of heroes and their abilities.
BS video and opinion of someone who has zero idea about 'MOBA' games. and dont even get me on the casting part, during the WoL days when I was still following the game there wasnt a single caster who knew T builds and gamestyle, mainly because those said casters could play the race in platinum league at best.
SC2 style RTS is too hard for casual players to be different (or decent).
People have fun trying different things (food, clothing, activities, games etc) Hero MOBA's have a lot of variety for the player(items, skills, team combos)
You can be bad at a MOBA and still play a game out trying something new to you.
Difficulty wise War3 and SC2 have similar barriers when compared to casual MOBA. DOTA took players from the War3 scene as an easier Hero game (only controlling 1 unit instead of full army).
Ease of use, varied user experience, and team play make MOBA games that much more appealing.
On February 18 2014 20:33 LaLuSh wrote: If SC2 had reliable moving-shot micro tricks, I still fear the game pace of SC2 is so fast that there would only be a very narrow window where it would be worth it to utilize this kind of micro. So in that sense I think your argument holds some ground. And the best kind of RTS I think would be one where there were distinct build-up stages where small micro tricks were encouraged, but also fully develoepd stages with huge massive strategic battles.
Just a question here, do you mean game speed as in the overall pace of the game or the game speed? If the latter, I think the speed at which SC2 is played from beginning to end (the effect of which is felt especially as economy and production kick into gear) imposes a certain level of mechanical difficulty (and intensity) to the game which is good for SC2.
If you mean the speed at which we rush to the mid-late and late game (due to the economy boosts) then, yeah, I agree. But as with many of my thoughts on SC2, I now doubt that this is as crippling to SC2's development as I once thought.
Edit/ And, yeah, I don't get MOBAS either. I've tried playing HON and watching DOTA and LOL: Bored. Every. Time.
Back in the 90's RTS was super popular, like really it was pretty much "the genre" back in the mid-late 90's for a lot of old school PC gamers like myself, despite people some peoples saying that it has always been a niche genre. On a competitive level, ok, it has not blown up as much Worldwide in recent years as other some others have, but I think that is more due to the lack of popularity in RTS in general in recent years rather than the games are "too hard/non casual". I do expect RTS to come back and be the flag bearer for e-sports, it may take some time but I am quietly confident.
On February 16 2014 00:04 Big J wrote: Can't really agree with this. I've played (the old) Dota a lot (back in the days), still I don't really get what is going on in the MOBA battles. Imo to get excited about MOBAs you have to know all the Heroes and spells involved. Like, when I tried to watch LoL, it was just random stuff and effects going off and people randomly dying, since I had no clue what possibilities were there.
In my opinion the main problem of RTS is that it is mechanically and attententionwise too hard. You have to focus on too many places all over the map and you have to grind out all those mechanical training sessions (which is extremely boring). Compared to how easy it is for a player to always stay focused on one screen and control one hero, it is just annoying to have to switch screen, select a worker, tab through a menu and find a place where you want to put down that supply depot. While all you really want to do is run around with your units and have new armies being made. I think for RTS games this has to become a keyfocus if they want to regain popularity amongst players (viewers will follow, since the viewers are 95% recruted from the playerbase): make macromechanics easier or straight out automate parts of them. I know this is an unpopular thought amongst oldschool RTS elitists, but think about what would be if we had even less automatization. Imagine you had to manually mine with your workers (send them to the minerals; send them back home). Of course the skilllevel would improve greatly, but is this fun and does this lead to growth of playerbase? Even elitists would say that this is too much, yet, we draw the line with arbitrary standards that have been created by games in the 1990s like CnC, Warcraft 1-2 and Broodwar. So I ask, is switching screens away from where the battle happens fun? Is spamming keys to build units in the midth of a fight what you want to focus at? Of course, making parts of the game easier may be problematic for competitive play, yet, there are easy ways to make up for that, by making units more potent. Give all units more standard abilities they can do apart from move+attack. E.g. give infantry the ability to run and crawl, and let tanks overrun smaller units if controlled properly. Three dimensional airbattles where you can avoid missiles with loopings and stuff like that! Skilllevel would increase through unit control and tactical usages of their abilities - which is the amazing thing we really like about playing RTS games, not the qeuing of another SCV or the ability to get supply blocked for only 1:15min in a 20min game.
+1
Funny to see a lot of what you tell there was already present in the first Total Annihilation. SupCom (the first) and to some extent Planetary Annihilation are the descendants of this.
Yes it was a 'macro' game, but there were so much smart automation embedded in it that a skilled player could focus pretty much all the time on unit control.
Wow, I would play the fuuuuk out of that automated macro / micro-focused game! And so would everyone I know that's ever played an RTS, I would imagine.
On February 18 2014 20:33 LaLuSh wrote: If SC2 had reliable moving-shot micro tricks, I still fear the game pace of SC2 is so fast that there would only be a very narrow window where it would be worth it to utilize this kind of micro. So in that sense I think your argument holds some ground. And the best kind of RTS I think would be one where there were distinct build-up stages where small micro tricks were encouraged, but also fully develoepd stages with huge massive strategic battles.
Just a question here, do you mean game speed as in the overall pace of the game or the game speed? If the latter, I think the speed at which SC2 is played from beginning to end (the effect of which is felt especially as economy and production kick into gear) imposes a certain level of mechanical difficulty (and intensity) to the game which is good for SC2.
If you mean the speed at which we rush to the mid-late and late game (due to the economy boosts) then, yeah, I agree. But as with many of my thoughts on SC2, I now doubt that this is as crippling to SC2's development as I once thought.
Edit/ And, yeah, I don't get MOBAS either. I've tried playing HON and watching DOTA and LOL: Bored. Every. Time.
To be honest, if you look at BW, SC2 and Starbow, you'll quickly come to realize that the fastest speed is really detrimental to RTS games, the faster the game speed the quicker things die and the less reaction time you have to micro, split, focus fire, or really do anything meaningful. It also makes maxed out army fights end in between 5 and 15 seconds sometimes.
So I think what Starbow did was smart when they reduced the attack speed of everything across the board by 40%. However even with that, if deathballing still exists in the game then the effect will only be marginal, since in maxed out fights things are still going to die fast, and armies will still prefer to aggregate together instead of spread out, this leads to my next point.
Yes the pace of the game is also wrong, yes you are right its too easy at times to max and rush to the late game and it feels like you don't have a proper mid game many times. The pace of the game is also tied to economy and to unit design. If you change the economic model to one where the more bases you get the better your economy with a equal number of workers, well that will encourage you to spread out more, but its useless and out of place if units themselves don't function well on their own, and only work in synergy inside a deathball.
Again, there isn't one single change you could apply to SC2 to make it a better game, you need about 3 big ones.
I still think Khaldor touches upon a great point though, I think RTS games could benefit more in general from having units be more micro able, its just that heroes are the most obvious and extreme of those examples, but they aren't the only one. If you watch WoL TvZ you'll notice certain patterns, you can kind of tell how good a game was going for either player not only by the state of his economy, but also by that of his army.
Was the zerg trading efficiently enough that he could mass more mutas? Suddenly the focus was starting to switch to the mutas, how efficient the zerg could be with them, keeping them alive while harassing, doing damage and evading traps.
Then the terran, how was his tank control? Was he positioning his tanks well, was he protecting them properly from muta harass? Was he getting good trades and slowly building up his count?
Yes in some of these situations certain key units, like the tanks and the mutas in this case, became in essence the hero. BW had a lot more of these interactions though, you had lurkers and tanks, you had science vessels and scourge.
This is why I say SC3 doesn't need hero units, it just needs well designed units that can act as hero units for the purpose of attracting your attention, after that good design and unit interaction is what is supposed to keep you glued to the edge of your seat, watching marines dance back and forth defending tanks, splitting and kiting for their lives against the banes, while tanks try to cull their number as best as possible, all the while droping and still macroing.
i think too many assumptions are being made here . . casual gamer . . hmm what does that mean
i consider myself a hardcore starcraft 2 gamer and extremely knowledgeable gamer over all, like us all really! I casually follow lol, dota and insert any other tournament game here . . i follow and play it all. Im going to say trying to follow games if ur fully not interested in games is impossible. most of my friends(we are all over 33) think its sad that i sometimes say on saturday nights"im going home now i want to watch the mlg or sc2 tourny" when they come round to the house when we are getting ready to go out ill have a stream or some re run on and ill "say this is it". they will watch it and not give a fuck. theyll humour me by asking questions as they are mates and know im interested and trust me, they really cant see it. When he talks about viewer experience, there will be fewer than 2% (not counting people who have just gone cos of someone else) who know fuck all about games, so the idea that moba games are easier to watch and easier to showcase skill is a load of fucking shit. We all know tiger woods is one of the greatest golfers of all time, but how does any player show of any showcase there and then. ITs only when they see the scoreboard later and see whoes winning do they acknoledge hes good. Same applies, dont show the player in a golf match or ANY match . . who knows really what makes skill skill. to the non player it looks the same from every professional. if you took the player names away from all games noone will know who is who. its a game, a set thing at its very core following what the game only lets you do. If you are not a gamer this shit just isnt exciting. My own girlfriend thinks im sad as fuck as old as i am for even being as interested as i am in it. Barely any real life mate i know is. we are a minority ANYWAY. at work noones really into it, around the clubs, bars and social events i go to, noones heard of it. When i do find someone who has heard of it he IS the casual gamer and the few people ive found who admit to any of this straight up agree its boring. I often find it boring. Khaldors argument about the popularity of the games boils down to just one simple thing. Mobas are all free and not so many buttons. for a new player ur in the game, in the action, right away. Sc2. ive given this game to friends really really AND REALLY tried to get them to play it. Its too fucking hard for them, they dont see the idea right away, and they really dont want to invest the time as their final verdict after giving it a few games is its boring. these i feel are truly the casuals we talk about.
Then the final nail in the coffin is the balance whine. If 1 caster or personality says it enough it becomes so. I remember everyone professing that you shouldnt build more than 6 infesters in wol(i use this evertime i argue) i heard it day in day out . . then an mlg came and the top 3 korean zergs were building upwards of 20 . . .yea. . and then the birth of the bl infester arrived. People going mad over how OP zerg was! This shit was ALWAYS IN THE GAME its just the players figured it out and then all the casters jumped on the blordinfester days, give me a break they didnt see it coming in the first place. my point hee is, if you are listening to this shit too much "Protoss Power" being coined over the last week you start to believe it, i fucking destroy toss players 80% accoring to my stats . . its not an issue. People simply just dont want to figure the game out any more and this adds to its decline and hatred from once dedicated players
got to stop, i follow this scene day in day out, i hate posting now cos it really doesnt matter. the shit i hear these personalities say and it just but totally full of shit. Its all gaming. In the real grand scheme of things its not going to matter and with such accessibilitya good player isnt going to stay at the top for long. With a forever expanding platform the idea of spotting peoples skill in the game is going to become even harder and harder to see as there will be even more and more people able to compete. think about it, not everyone is a pro at golf as you need money, the away time and daylight to stand half the chance (the away time here is the key) becoming a pro gamer. a pc to run the game . . . .practically play for as long and whenever you like.
On February 18 2014 20:33 LaLuSh wrote: If SC2 had reliable moving-shot micro tricks, I still fear the game pace of SC2 is so fast that there would only be a very narrow window where it would be worth it to utilize this kind of micro. So in that sense I think your argument holds some ground. And the best kind of RTS I think would be one where there were distinct build-up stages where small micro tricks were encouraged, but also fully develoepd stages with huge massive strategic battles.
Just a question here, do you mean game speed as in the overall pace of the game or the game speed? If the latter, I think the speed at which SC2 is played from beginning to end (the effect of which is felt especially as economy and production kick into gear) imposes a certain level of mechanical difficulty (and intensity) to the game which is good for SC2.
If you mean the speed at which we rush to the mid-late and late game (due to the economy boosts) then, yeah, I agree. But as with many of my thoughts on SC2, I now doubt that this is as crippling to SC2's development as I once thought.
Edit/ And, yeah, I don't get MOBAS either. I've tried playing HON and watching DOTA and LOL: Bored. Every. Time.
To be honest, if you look at BW, SC2 and Starbow, you'll quickly come to realize that the fastest speed is really detrimental to RTS games, the faster the game speed the quicker things die and the less reaction time you have to micro, split, focus fire, or really do anything meaningful. It also makes maxed out army fights end in between 5 and 15 seconds sometimes.
So I think what Starbow did was smart when they reduced the attack speed of everything across the board by 40%. However even with that, if deathballing still exists in the game then the effect will only be marginal, since in maxed out fights things are still going to die fast, and armies will still prefer to aggregate together instead of spread out, this leads to my next point.
Yes the pace of the game is also wrong, yes you are right its too easy at times to max and rush to the late game and it feels like you don't have a proper mid game many times. The pace of the game is also tied to economy and to unit design. If you change the economic model to one where the more bases you get the better your economy with a equal number of workers, well that will encourage you to spread out more, but its useless and out of place if units themselves don't function well on their own, and only work in synergy inside a deathball.
Again, there isn't one single change you could apply to SC2 to make it a better game, you need about 3 big ones.
I still think Khaldor touches upon a great point though, I think RTS games could benefit more in general from having units be more micro able, its just that heroes are the most obvious and extreme of those examples, but they aren't the only one. If you watch WoL TvZ you'll notice certain patterns, you can kind of tell how good a game was going for either player not only by the state of his economy, but also by that of his army.
Was the zerg trading efficiently enough that he could mass more mutas? Suddenly the focus was starting to switch to the mutas, how efficient the zerg could be with them, keeping them alive while harassing, doing damage and evading traps.
Then the terran, how was his tank control? Was he positioning his tanks well, was he protecting them properly from muta harass? Was he getting good trades and slowly building up his count?
Yes in some of these situations certain key units, like the tanks and the mutas in this case, became in essence the hero. BW had a lot more of these interactions though, you had lurkers and tanks, you had science vessels and scourge.
This is why I say SC3 doesn't need hero units, it just needs well designed units that can act as hero units for the purpose of attracting your attention, after that good design and unit interaction is what is supposed to keep you glued to the edge of your seat, watching marines dance back and forth defending tanks, splitting and kiting for their lives against the banes, while tanks try to cull their number as best as possible, all the while droping and still macroing.
Game speed: I disagree. This is because the game speed does not affect micro control in small and medium scale engagements. Neither, really, does it affect micro in large scale engagements (and there is micro in these engagements too, at least at the higher levels of play). The effectiveness of the micro may be lessened, at least to my eyes, in these large scale engagements where ball literally collides with ball, but that has to do with numbers and tech (upgrades etc). The other, of course, is that the unit density makes it harder to see micro and even to actually micro. I think the game speed is fine.
It also, as I noted earlier, imposes a mechanical requirement on players. You have to be fast to micro and multi-task and at the same time not let your resources slip out of control (i.e. your macro). If you do, you generally lose because macro owns.
Game pace: I am in two minds about this. Sure, it would be nice to have a longer window for the early game and the mid game (although the window for the mid game, I think, is usually fine). Interestingly, I remember reading DB saying in an AMA that they had originally envisaged SC2 to be played on smaller maps. This may have given the early game a larger window.
But, at the same time, the fact that the game enables lower level players to tech to their respective balls is not necessarily a bad thing. It allows players to access their tech and make their armies fast and then fight. We may over-emphasise the importance of lots of small scale engagements in lower leagues. Note that these are still possible if we want it, it is just that generally lower level players do not have the mechanics to do all this and maintain their macro. Therefore, they usually lose to equally skilled players who have focused on probes and pylons and have more stuff.
The other reason is that the game is mapped out to certain points in certain match-ups. Given that maps reflect that learning and reinforce it, there is an incentive to adhere to that learning rather than throw it out the window and usually fail.
At the highest levels of play, we actually do find and are starting to see more engagements and multiple fronts across a map. Therefore, there is nothing intrinsic to SC2 that limits it to deathballs. Only the skill of the players concerned. So, while I see your point, and have thought the same thing myself before with regard to production and economy boosts, the most skilled players seem to be playing just fine with it. So, if it appears to be working, then I am generally OK with it.
Fixing SC2: Three changes are too big. Even a fundamental rework to the economy is likely to lose players at this stage (even for LOTV). Nor am I convinced that these changes will necessarily make SC2 a better game. We actually don't know what the effects of one (let alone three) major changes to SC2 will be. They may be better or worse, but we can't say either way until the players develop the game over a few years (which also voids the development of the game thus far).
The game and the players have constantly surprised my over the 4 years I have followed SC2. And both have gotten immeasurably better since WOL. I think this is an indication that the core design framework of SC2 is better than many, including myself, think it is. Now, it can be argued that it could be better. But, the current iteration seems to be working. Given that, I am fine with the core framework as it is, with needed changes coming from within that framework (e.g. maps).
Hero units: I agree that I do not want to see this in a game called Starcraft. But, we sort of have these already in valued (usually) higher tech units. Immortals, for instance, tend to famous in many PvZ games. Protoss seem to have more of these than the other races (maybe because of the race design of the few but strong). It would be good to see more of these in the game (and for the other races). As for more and better interactions, I agree with that too. We already see some of this in SC2, ironically the SH is one such example of that interaction. But, we could use more of these and better.
EPT
