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Keep "my game is better than yours"-slapfights out of this. If the discussion devolves into simple bashing, this thread will be closed. |
Actually there's been a suprising number of GSL games where something similar to your DT example just happens.
Anyways, rereading theivingmagpie's posts I see several strange assertations.
1) He doesn't seem to have played SC2 for the last 2 years (or even ever!) because even in Plat you get a significant amount of players people who don't get supply blocked.
2) His rather odd substitution of "mechanics" when he means macro and lots of other snippets like his strange deliniations in where upon leagues are clearly divided into abilties, reveals that he has been influenced by some "how to ladder to masters" or some youtube video to the point where he beliefs that whatever was expoused there is the complete and utter truth.
3) He doesn't seem to understand what a build order is. For him scouting doesn't exist, all build orders are blind until masters where you magically learn to scout and interpret and adapt and micro. Which leads to the point above really.
Anyways in the end there is nothing wrong with RTS, except that for whatever reasons, recently the major RTS's released either suffer from bad programming or bad design choices, which simply limits how fun the game was, which in turn limits the interest in the "esports (tm)" aspect of it.
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Ye my example is not silver league but probably way higher.
The silver league example is:
You go dt rush, opponents scouts it, you attack anyway, opponent has no detection, you win. :D
= viable strategy
Anyway dividing SC2 population into 0-masters and masters-GSLS and assigning these different things to each group is not possible. The SC2 ladder is dynamic, the less players it gets the less ppl get into masters but their ability to use strategy or not wont change about just wearing the tag "masters+" or not. A GSL code S guy, if he played against one, would not even be able to determine if the player is high platin or low masters, just as the masters player wont be able to determine if his opponent is in silver or gold league (if he didn't know).
Maybe the focus should rather be on the fact that SC2 has very limited strategical options and very narrow metagames that are responsible for this and why that is and how it can be helped instead.
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On February 09 2015 07:17 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2015 05:55 Big J wrote:On February 09 2015 03:52 The_Red_Viper wrote:On February 09 2015 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:On February 09 2015 01:51 The_Red_Viper wrote:
What exactly is the point of this argument?
If you wanna have the best training possible and get to the highest lvl you are capable of, YES then mechanics are all that matters till X (not sure if your statement about masters is right, but that's not really important)
A lot of people don't think this is a fun way of playing though, that's the reason they choose to "make the false decisions", here: focus on other things than mechanics.
Is it bad if you wanna get better? Yes! But that doesn't mean that these players don't make decisions in their games ("strategy", "tactis").
Matchmaking allows exactly that, you play vs players of your skill level, so each decision is just as valuable as if both of you would play mechanically "perfect".
By that logic, all games are equally well designed so long as players self gimp themselves. I am still not sure what you even argue tbh. Right now you even wanna value what "good design" means in regards to mechanics:strategy? His argument gets weirder every time he lays it out anew. Previously it was all about there being no strategy. Now it's about "producing more units" actually being a superior strategy to anything else. Previously he said that picking one unit and mass producing it was the best strategy at low levels. I don't see how mass producing pure marines is any superior to mass producing marines and having a starport producing medivacs in lowlevels, because MM is better suited for everything that M is suited for (you don't even need to drop to make the medivacs pay off hugely). He is plainly wrong here and its annoying because he spams the same beliefs on every page. Given that he has never defined what a strategy is in his opinion, it is completely pointless to discuss anything. He is just arbitrarily dismissing stuff as "not strategy" that clearly falls under the category "strategy". Even if we clear the strategies from the board that are plainly always going to lose (hence translating his sledgehammer example into SC2 gameplay), then there is still no argument that doesn't tell me how a 2gate or a canon rush is ultimately inferior to his mass production of marines or stalkers. There is going to be times when a 2gate will get the job done, but the mass marine build doesn't, so the mass marine cannot be superior in every way, hence 2gate is on board when talking strategies. And we can play that through with so many build orders that there is going to be a million ways to play that are still not excluded by his sledghammer-method... We need a definition or it's useless to discuss any further. If you're in bronze-gold, simply having the mechanics to not be supply blocked will win you games. Trying to mix and match could win you game, but so too will just massing zealots/marines/roaches. Better to learn not to be supply blocked than to learn how to micro tanks or reaver drops.
Yes not getting supply blocked is a great skill to have, but you still need to be strategically capable to understand the game and how to react to stuff. Droning to 70 and then making mass roaches won't win you a single game when your opponent does any form of one or early two base attack, not even if he gets massively supply blocked and you don't. And that is strategy. Knowing the ins and outs of your build order and why it is actually legit (or why it isn't). That is strategy.
And there comes a certain point in learning to macro when the difference between getting rarely supply blocked or not supply blocked at all becomes very small, but the ability to split your shit against banelings makes you 50% more efficient and then you simply should focus on your micro instead of perfecting your macro.
And when your opponent is taking 3 Nexi of 1gate and then goes into double Robo Colossus, then you better have some dedicated strategy against it of your standard 3hatch build, because your perfect macro won't safe you if you don't kill him fast or take the skies. That is strategy. That is necessary to improve. People on the ladder take gambles (many, many, many of them do), and then you either know why it is a gamble or you are fucked with your mass unit approach.
Get to play Diamond and suddenly it becomes important to follow a build order correctly than it is to try mimicking innovation correctly. Just pick an arbitrary unit comp and stick with that build. When you get to masters and supply blocks are no longer a hindrance and executing build orders is finally something you can do efficiently, only then can you start doing other moves. Before masters the only strategy is making dudes, not getting supply blocked, and not fucking up the execution of one build (let alone multiple builds).
Even beyond masters making more dudes is going to win you the game. The thing is, making more dudes is hard. You pretend that this is all you should train, but the payoff to learning some basic micro skills instead of better macro and to learning some basic strategical dynamics instead of more macro is very high. Because there comes the point when your opponent is sitting in your mineral line and then you better know that a good countermove is to pull your workers and just making more workers is a bad countermove since he is killing them faster than you are making them. That is strategy too.
It's not rocket science, it's not a complicate concept. Before masters there is no strategy, since straying from learning mechanics is just a quick ticket to teach yourself to be a bad player forever complaining that the ladder system is broken. You quickly end up with all your friends not playing SC2 because tey don't want to spend their nights clicking on the worker button or clicking tapping through hot keys.
Making workers is more important than tactics. Making pylons is more important than maneuvers. Literally, until masters, doing anything but making more dudes than the other guy is not helping you as a player. Strategy in SC2 does not exist below masters level players who finally know how to execute a build order properly without needless unforced supply blocks.
You oversimplify things. Making workers doesn't help you past a certain point. You have to understand when that happens. That is strategy. Finding that point and playing for it. That is strategy.
I feel like you are confusing micromechanics and unit movement with strategy. That is mainly mechanics and execution. Strategy is the underlying gameplan and your acquired standard ways of reacting/thinking: "If he drops my mineral line and I have nothing nearby --> pull workers". That is a strategical element. The way you box your workers and how fast and precise you do it, that is mechanics.
Doing a reaver drop. That is a strategy. Actually controlling the reaver, that is mechanics.
Yes, if you are not capable to controll your reaver in profitable ways while maintaining your macro, don't do it. But if you are still producing a lot of dudes meanwhile (maybe not as many but still a lot) and your reavercontrol is good enough to reduce your opponents dudes, yes, do it. And btw, this example also shows why this isn't even gimping you into being a bad player: your opponent now has to deal with your reaver and unless he is better than you, his macro will drop too and that makes the strategy legit, even if your level isn't high enough to maintain full macro-capabilities.
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Northern Ireland23764 Posts
It's certainly not perfect but SC2 still is a remarkably good game for many an historic RTS fan. The UI is good, the controls are very responsive and the overall game is pretty slick in that regard.
I feel too many posts in this thread are complaining about a lack of strategy or depth when in reality they're just experiencing a jaded feeling from overconsumption of SC2 content.
I've been super busy and cut my viewing quite a bit, so the SC that I do get to see is pretty fresh and exciting. Gumiho for example was doing some mental things for the last few months in online cups and the likes
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On February 09 2015 09:33 Wombat_NI wrote:
It's certainly not perfect but SC2 still is a remarkably good game for many an historic RTS fan. The UI is good, the controls are very responsive and the overall game is pretty slick in that regard.
I feel too many posts in this thread are complaining about a lack of strategy or depth when in reality they're just experiencing a jaded feeling from overconsumption of SC2 content.
I've been super busy and cut my viewing quite a bit, so the SC that I do get to see is pretty fresh and exciting. Gumiho for example was doing some mental things for the last few months in online cups and the likes
Well to be fair, SC2 has a lot of strategic depth up until we get to those Korean pros. At the highest level of play, their isn't much strategic depth when countless games end up at the same composition game after game.
That doesn't mean the pros aren't creating new and awesome strategies for us plebs to copy, but I think the meta is starting to get a bit stale lately.
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Northern Ireland23764 Posts
I just take the relative staleness of the meta to mean that the top pros have really busted their collective arses to arrive and at refine so-called optimal ways of play. We've seen little trends of players trying out other things compositionally that have seemed promising, but largely haven't been adopted by the top Koreans en-masse yet.
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On February 09 2015 09:50 Wombat_NI wrote:
I just take the relative staleness of the meta to mean that the top pros have really busted their collective arses to arrive and at refine so-called optimal ways of play. We've seen little trends of players trying out other things compositionally that have seemed promising, but largely haven't been adopted by the top Koreans en-masse yet.
I feel like a big problem is that foreigners focus too much on copying koreans. " If it's a good strategy - then why don't koreans do it? " I've heard this sentence hundreds of times. For example, mech against protoss. There are players who make it work at top GM, but still very few people try it just because koreans don't do it. And koreans train so much that after having played thousands of games with a certain playstyle to refine it, it isn't very rewarding for them to invent new strategies. In general, I think that strategy-focused play is better for people who don't practice a lot and want to outsmart their opponents, which is not the case with koreans obviously.
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On February 09 2015 09:50 Wombat_NI wrote:
I just take the relative staleness of the meta to mean that the top pros have really busted their collective arses to arrive and at refine so-called optimal ways of play. We've seen little trends of players trying out other things compositionally that have seemed promising, but largely haven't been adopted by the top Koreans en-masse yet.
I don't think the meta is completely stale, and I have seen some top Koreans try out some new strategies that have yet to be adopted by others.
It is really fun when someone does something new, cool, and crazy. Its like watching the meta unfold before our eyes.
I remember watching Stephano use the 12 min max roach rush for the first time. Not sure if he invented it, but it was cool to see a new strategy employed.
Then I started hating every zerg because it took me months to figure out how to deal with that shit. Thank goodness none of my silver/gold opponents knew how to execute it perfectly.
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On February 09 2015 09:38 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2015 09:33 Wombat_NI wrote:
It's certainly not perfect but SC2 still is a remarkably good game for many an historic RTS fan. The UI is good, the controls are very responsive and the overall game is pretty slick in that regard.
I feel too many posts in this thread are complaining about a lack of strategy or depth when in reality they're just experiencing a jaded feeling from overconsumption of SC2 content.
I've been super busy and cut my viewing quite a bit, so the SC that I do get to see is pretty fresh and exciting. Gumiho for example was doing some mental things for the last few months in online cups and the likes Well to be fair, SC2 has a lot of strategic depth up until we get to those Korean pros. At the highest level of play, their isn't much strategic depth when countless games end up at the same composition game after game. That doesn't mean the pros aren't creating new and awesome strategies for us plebs to copy, but I think the meta is starting to get a bit stale lately.
While the meta is changing ever so slowly over time, I honestly think the game would benefit from a yearly tossaround of a bunch of units and mechanics. Some other games do this (like Dota), and it really helps keep the game fresh. The big problem with sc2 compared to dota is that sc2 needs to be kept perfectly balanced, as you can't really swap races that easy, while dota achieves balance through imbalance as players needs to know how to play all heroes (More or less).
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On February 09 2015 10:16 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2015 09:38 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote:On February 09 2015 09:33 Wombat_NI wrote:
It's certainly not perfect but SC2 still is a remarkably good game for many an historic RTS fan. The UI is good, the controls are very responsive and the overall game is pretty slick in that regard.
I feel too many posts in this thread are complaining about a lack of strategy or depth when in reality they're just experiencing a jaded feeling from overconsumption of SC2 content.
I've been super busy and cut my viewing quite a bit, so the SC that I do get to see is pretty fresh and exciting. Gumiho for example was doing some mental things for the last few months in online cups and the likes Well to be fair, SC2 has a lot of strategic depth up until we get to those Korean pros. At the highest level of play, their isn't much strategic depth when countless games end up at the same composition game after game. That doesn't mean the pros aren't creating new and awesome strategies for us plebs to copy, but I think the meta is starting to get a bit stale lately. While the meta is changing ever so slowly over time, I honestly think the game would benefit from a yearly tossaround of a bunch of units and mechanics. Some other games do this (like Dota), and it really helps keep the game fresh. The big problem with sc2 compared to dota is that sc2 needs to be kept perfectly balanced, as you can't really swap races that easy, while dota achieves balance through imbalance as players needs to know how to play all heroes (More or less).
Why do you think they are testing radical changes to the swarmhost?
I don't want sweeping changes in SC2, but I like Blizzard at least testing these changes.
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Northern Ireland23764 Posts
On February 09 2015 10:08 KingAlphard wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2015 09:50 Wombat_NI wrote:
I just take the relative staleness of the meta to mean that the top pros have really busted their collective arses to arrive and at refine so-called optimal ways of play. We've seen little trends of players trying out other things compositionally that have seemed promising, but largely haven't been adopted by the top Koreans en-masse yet. I feel like a big problem is that foreigners focus too much on copying koreans. " If it's a good strategy - then why don't koreans do it? " I've heard this sentence hundreds of times. For example, mech against protoss. There are players who make it work at top GM, but still very few people try it just because koreans don't do it. And koreans train so much that after having played thousands of games with a certain playstyle to refine it, it isn't very rewarding for them to invent new strategies. In general, I think that strategy-focused play is better for people who don't practice a lot and want to outsmart their opponents, which is not the case with koreans obviously.
I've seen very, very few games where mech has worked vP unless the Protoss is playing blindly (for example Bbyong v Classic)
One would have thought the the switchover of the elephants, Flash especially would have seen them try mech out vP
Foreigners actually do try out quite a lot of things independently of Koreans. Infestor play in WoL was initially the preserve of foreign players before the Koreans adapted, likewise mass Swarmhost styles. In the semi-recent past we've seen Snute and Scarlett experiment with Swarmhost play vs Bio.
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The meta isn't completely dictated by the Korean pros, as Wombat above me stated, but they do have a large influence over it.
As well, there have been some Korean pros that said they get inspiration for strategies from some foreigners. I believe Snute has been stated as one of them.
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On February 09 2015 10:16 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2015 09:38 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote:On February 09 2015 09:33 Wombat_NI wrote:
It's certainly not perfect but SC2 still is a remarkably good game for many an historic RTS fan. The UI is good, the controls are very responsive and the overall game is pretty slick in that regard.
I feel too many posts in this thread are complaining about a lack of strategy or depth when in reality they're just experiencing a jaded feeling from overconsumption of SC2 content.
I've been super busy and cut my viewing quite a bit, so the SC that I do get to see is pretty fresh and exciting. Gumiho for example was doing some mental things for the last few months in online cups and the likes Well to be fair, SC2 has a lot of strategic depth up until we get to those Korean pros. At the highest level of play, their isn't much strategic depth when countless games end up at the same composition game after game. That doesn't mean the pros aren't creating new and awesome strategies for us plebs to copy, but I think the meta is starting to get a bit stale lately. While the meta is changing ever so slowly over time, I honestly think the game would benefit from a yearly tossaround of a bunch of units and mechanics. Some other games do this (like Dota), and it really helps keep the game fresh. The big problem with sc2 compared to dota is that sc2 needs to be kept perfectly balanced, as you can't really swap races that easy, while dota achieves balance through imbalance as players needs to know how to play all heroes (More or less).
I think some heavier changes could be nice, but for starters they could just try to achieve certain goals. Like when they nerfed the mine, buffed the hellbat, mech upgrades, siege tank attack, banshee, Thor we got banshee openings in TvZ, hellbat rushes (meh, but strategically it is an improvement) and Mech play from it. Their patches were a massive success for the game variety, which is why they stated they wanted to nerf the mine and buff other aspects of Terrans to begin with. Through those balance changes blizzard gave Terran a few varieties besides plain 3CC openings and a few varieties for their overall playstyles.
They could easily experiment with the same for other races, e.g. nerf mutalisks, buff infestors, play around with zerg upgrading, play around with swarm hosts (they are doing that), play around with drops. I think it is really not that hard to increase the strategic depth, it is plainly a question of how much effort you want to put into the game to create balanced (and fun) unit/upgrade/timing/racial relations.
But I think a lot of pros and other parts from the community just don't like the constant support approach and give blizzard an easy way out of their promises ("we will make Mech viable vs Protoss") with this reasoning ("we get a lot of mixed feedback. Many professional players don't want us to make changes unless absolutly necessary").
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I totally agree Big J.
I like how they are testing changes initially intended for LotV. I wish they would do more of that.
But actually implementing all the changes is another story. I don't like how this new sh really plays. It feels like another mutalisk, but less risky. Besides, zerg already has lots of harassment tools.
Making mech viable against protoss is a lofty goal, but one that Blizzard should totally test.
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Canada11265 Posts
On February 08 2015 08:03 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2015 07:59 Eliezar wrote:
If you think the possibilities are endless in broodwar but not StarCraft 2 that is an opinion. The only thing that was limitless in broodwar was fighting the AI instead of the opposing player. Why bother to make this statement? It's a myopic assertion of BW that will only cause negative reactions. The difference between you and the poster before is that he stated his comment as an opinion and you stated your last sentence as if it was fact.
Well. . .I went back to see the other things he has posted about BW, and I guess it should be no surprise.
but the game itself was not balanced and was overly tediouis.
Literally, after Broodwar came out the competitive scene was almost dead within 6 months (2 ladder seasons).
BW didn't thrive because it had high microability. BW thrived because there were almost no other good online options to play with friends
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On February 09 2015 09:33 Wombat_NI wrote:
It's certainly not perfect but SC2 still is a remarkably good game for many an historic RTS fan. The UI is good, the controls are very responsive and the overall game is pretty slick in that regard.
I feel too many posts in this thread are complaining about a lack of strategy or depth when in reality they're just experiencing a jaded feeling from overconsumption of SC2 content.
I've been super busy and cut my viewing quite a bit, so the SC that I do get to see is pretty fresh and exciting. Gumiho for example was doing some mental things for the last few months in online cups and the likes
It's not overconsumption of SC2 content in my case. Rather too much experience with other RTS (1997-20xx) prior to discovering Starcraft (2009), and the realisation that low-level multiplayer games had considerably less mechanical requirements in those other games.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
This thread is sadly totally derailed.
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I am proud that Blizzard don't force out changes, just for the sake of shaking up the meta game. The coolest things to have ever happened in e-sports games, is when you have a meta game that seems so figured out and then along comes a revolutionist and invents a new way for the game to be played.
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On February 09 2015 21:22 ejozl wrote:
I am proud that Blizzard don't force out changes, just for the sake of shaking up the meta game. The coolest things to have ever happened in e-sports games, is when you have a meta game that seems so figured out and then along comes a revolutionist and invents a new way for the game to be played.
To keep the game best for proffesionals, I agree. The problem is that a game lives and dies of the casuals. If the game isnt interesting to play for everyone, the game dies. A stagnant metagame is the easiest way to achieve that. Having a pro come around and find new strategies does unfortunately not make the game more fun for regular Joe
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You all seem to confuse the term "game " with the term "match".
If you play a *game*, you play it because you enjoy playing. The other word you're looking for is 'competition'. In a competition, you play a *match* under the constraints of a given game for the gratification of winning or a reward.
"Competitive play" is an oxymoron. It's work.
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EPT
