EPTLegacy of the Void: Multiplayer Development Update - Page 9
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Entropy137
Canada215 Posts
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On November 20 2014 10:04 Hider wrote: Sc2 is more problematic: Everyone above GM have pretty solid macro. The only real difference I can notice (when I really pay attention) is that someone is better at starting upgrades just in time while other people are like 10 seconds too late. But that's so difficult to identify, and thus not an interesting skill-set. It's really problematic when you want to describe different types of players, because there are so few variables to describe them with. All you can say is that: X plays more defensive, but Y plays more offensive. Sure there are slighly more nuances than that, but it's so difficult to make a narrative describing the difference between Innovation and Taeja. So why even have the macro-perspective in the game at all? All it serves is to raise the entry-barrier without having any esport-purpose. Now obviously Sc2 cannot remove the macro-perspective, but it's a lesson to learn for future developers of the RTS-genre: Either you get almost completely rid of the macro-element or you make it much harder than it is in Sc2. The middle-of-the-road approach of Sc2 is the worst possible solution. I don't think the situation is as bad as you describe. There are players who deservedly make a reputation of being the best in the business (Scarlett's creep spread, soO's injects, Rain's perfect defense, Bomber with his infinite bio), and there are also players who can compete at the highest levels but still allow macro to get away from them (Zest is probably the biggest name/worst macro ratio, Hydra and Fantasy are worse offenders though). Could macro be a more distinguishing factor? Probably. Do you have something in mind for how to add meaningful, non-artificial macro into the game that would address your concerns? | ||
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SonGoku
Germany152 Posts
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Caihead
Canada8550 Posts
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necrosexy
451 Posts
On November 20 2014 11:13 SonGoku wrote: David pls, just give back reaver and vulture. It isnt that hard vulture and widow mine? that's not happening | ||
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Lumi
United States1612 Posts
On November 20 2014 11:26 Caihead wrote: Why don't we just admit that RTS balancing is ridiculously difficult to do and that you can't point to A SINGLE studio that has done a better job than Blizzard on their multiplayer RTS balancing. It's up to the players and community to do the other half of the work, regulate internal rules and map pools, craft the meta game to a point where it's entertaining to the viewers and not ridiculously tedious for the players to play. BW wouldn't have lived past the first few years if everybody just screamed "Terran obviously imba, PvZ impossible, map pool is shit, mineral walk is bugged, muta stacking is bugged, reavers should be removed from the game due to rng, hire me as your designer instead.". Or we could acknowledge the basic possibility that Blizzard is not an elite group of people who are better equipped to balance an RTS than others on the planet, especially people who spend far more time with the game than the actual developers of it who are just working for paychecks. Can we admit that that is possible? There's nothing enlightened about us coming to accept some notion that reads like a straight-up blizzard fanboy bias. The problems with other RTS games haven't been 'balance' so trying to give Blizzard an award for balancing is a complete waste of time. Why are you only considering this narrow field of criteria that makes no sense to begin with? | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
On November 20 2014 11:30 Lumi wrote: Or we could acknowledge the basic possibility that Blizzard is not an elite group of people who are better equipped to balance an RTS than others on the planet, especially people who spend far more time with the game than the actual developers of it who are just working for paychecks. Can we admit that that is possible? There's nothing enlightened about us coming to accept some notion that reads like a straight-up blizzard fanboy bias. The problems with other RTS games haven't been 'balance' so trying to give Blizzard an award for balancing is a complete waste of time. Why are you only considering this narrow field of criteria that makes no sense to begin with? Then just do it, blizzard gave you the tools. If people here really think they can do a better job, open the editor and make your sc2 edition and prove you are better. You know what? You won't be better than people who actually are educated in that field, but whatever. | ||
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tshi
United States2495 Posts
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On November 20 2014 11:43 The_Red_Viper wrote: Then just do it, blizzard gave you the tools. If people here really think they can do a better job, open the editor and make your sc2 edition and prove you are better. You know what? You won't be better than people who actually are educated in that field, but whatever. There is a difference between having it as a job->possible to work on it 8hours every day. Then you need to know the editor for this to work->Need good skills i would say. Then you need playtesters->To try out ideas etc Its not realistic. I actually do believe blizzard isnt a top-class-company anymore. What exactly does educated mean? Like, why havent sc2 been about micro vs micro. Just now, recently lotv has the potential to fix this..After 10years of development. What kind of education is this? Math. Logic. Sure, they might be good at that. But unit design or rts design, they are lacking big time. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On November 20 2014 07:15 LaLuSh wrote: Even MOBAs have better (WARNING: potentially harmful for a casual viewer) micro: This made me wanna play this game, lol | ||
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
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Kinky
United States4126 Posts
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LaLuSh
Sweden2358 Posts
On November 20 2014 11:12 pure.Wasted wrote: I don't think the situation is as bad as you describe. There are players who deservedly make a reputation of being the best in the business (Scarlett's creep spread, soO's injects, Rain's perfect defense, Bomber with his infinite bio), and there are also players who can compete at the highest levels but still allow macro to get away from them (Zest is probably the biggest name/worst macro ratio, Hydra and Fantasy are worse offenders though). Could macro be a more distinguishing factor? Probably. Do you have something in mind for how to add meaningful, non-artificial macro into the game that would address your concerns? Macro mechanics which remain as relevant in the lategame as in the midgame for starters. I think SC2 has a decent amount of macro in the midgame, and the definition of macro I use is this: Macromanagement (Macro) To focus time on creating new buildings, researching upgrades, expanding, and training units. To focus on Macro typically means to let battles fight themselves or to ignore units in combat while focusing on building, training, and expanding. But all of those macro actions fall off super hard towards the lategame. In SC2, you have all supply depots/overlords/pylons required for the rest of the game in place already in the midgame. Your production infrastructure will likewise be built out to support the maximum possible income rate the game allows by the midgame. Larva injects, Mules, Chrono Boosts. Super important to nail with good timing in the midgame. In the lategame you perform them with nowhere near the regularity. You just use up the energy every once in a while when it's needed. There should be more tension between macro and micro in a game like Starcraft. When you rush through the early stages, and install most if not all of the infrastructure you will ever need by the 12th-15th minute, you're leading the game in a different direction where players can sit and babysit units for the rest of the game. Terran and Zerg players don't even need to look away from battles while producing stuff in the lategame. In that sense adding a bunch of abilities to every LotV unit might make sense. Because how else are you going to differentiate players in the lategame? They have all the time they need to babysit that army, those drops and that harass? The differentiator in a lategame is micro and micro actions. The macro is trivial. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9375 Posts
I suggest you do it. I was positively surprised after trying out League. I used to think the game was just about spamming abilities, killing monsters, amoving and teamwork, but in reality the mechanical skillcap of LOL is actually pretty high because Riot is amazing at designing champion vs champion interactions. It really makes me wish they would design an RTS game.  As a comparison, Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm is basically just spamming abilities + a-move. Pretty easy to see that it's the Sc2 developers working on this game. I don't think the situation is as bad as you describe. There are players who deservedly make a reputation of being the best in the business (Scarlett's creep spread, soO's injects, Rain's perfect defense, Bomber with his infinite bio), and there are also players who can compete at the highest levels but still allow macro to get away from them (Zest is probably the biggest name/worst macro ratio, Hydra and Fantasy are worse offenders though). Rains perfect defense is related to playstyle, not macro skill level. Bomber doesn't have better macro than other pro terrans, he just has a different style that allows for faster production at certain points in the game. Soo injects? I don't think anyone talks about "this guy is much better than injecting than this other guy" any more. But ofc it happens that casters in a game will do all they can to hype up various players, but the scenario I imagine is more related to the narrative stories prior to a game. It just makes it more difficult to hype up a game when all of the players are so similar so there is only a difference in some players being more defensive than others. @ Scarlett's creep spread. I heard people talk about her creep spread early HOTS. But whenever I look at her games now, I don't really notice any difference in creep spread skill relative to most other top zergs. I am not saying that we can't create some narratives with some players, but I am saying that it would be much more interesting if we can go into a game and be interested in seeing how this player who builds a lot more stuff would fare vs this other player who has less stuff but is more efficient with his units. Early WOL, we actually his narratives and it was kinda interesting to follow. Could macro be a more distinguishing factor? Probably. Do you have something in mind for how to add meaningful, non-artificial macro into the game that would address your concerns? If we look at LOTV, I think it's impossible for macro to be a distingushing factor, and it just serves to raise the entrance barrier quite signifciantly. Archon mode could perhaps help with that, but dno. In my opinion, focussing on micro and multitasking is just a much more interesting way of increasing the skill cap. When I talk about narratives and how that relates to the difficulty of macro, that's still not as a good as making it easy for viewers to see the direct effect of the skill during an engagement. Micro can do that, but with macro it's just a lot harder to understand the effects as a viewer. I also believe that the RTS genre could have quite a bit of potential if it succeeded in reducing entrance barriers significantly, but casual players shouldn't be forced to worry about knowing all timings, build orders and working on both micro and macro simultaenously. Therefore, next-generation of RTS will likely be inspired by the MOBA-genre and get rid of macro, and create a natural defenders advantage through towers (or something similar) so even if you make early game mistakes, you don't directly lose. This model will also function better with a spread-out economy. | ||
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brickrd
United States4894 Posts
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On November 20 2014 12:26 Hider wrote:Rains perfect defense is related to playstyle, not macro skill level. So you think if I said to Terminator "would you rather have your playstyle or Rain's playstyle" he'd pick his own? Bomber doesn't have better macro than other pro terrans, he just has a different style that allows for faster production at certain points in the game. He also has a style that doesn't include being supply blocked or floating resources. That's what good macro means. Soo injects? I don't think anyone talks about "this guy is much better than injecting than this other guy" any more. You would be wrong to think that. I am not saying that we can't create some narratives with some players, but I am saying that it would be much more interesting if we can go into a game and be interested in seeing how this player who builds a lot more stuff would fare vs this other player who has less stuff but is more efficient with his units. Early WOL, we actually his narratives and it was kinda interesting to follow. How do you know this is a game design issue? How do you know that players like Taeja, Innovation, Bomber, and Maru wouldn't be approximately equally good at everything in an RTS given sufficient time to iron out their mechanics? It sounds like you want the best players in the world to have distinct weaknesses, but it's their job not to. Watch Ruff vs Avilo and you'll find plenty of distinct weaknesses. If we look at LOTV, I think it's impossible for macro to be a distingushing factor Impossible? What? So if we give creep tumors only half of their creep spread range, meaning players have to work literally twice as much to spread the same amount of creep, you think that wouldn't make a difference? What if we reduce creep spread to 1/5 of current range? You're saying that SC2 might not be the future of esport RTS, and that could very well be true, but I don't see how it's supposed to help us make LOTV the best game it can be. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9375 Posts
Impossible? What? So if we give creep tumors only half of their creep spread range, meaning players have to work literally twice as much to spread the same amount of creep, you think that wouldn't make a difference? What if we reduce creep spread to 1/5 of current range? I would also say it's impossible that protoss gets a Marine. It could theoretically happen (blizzard could just do that), but in reality, it's never gonna happen. Point here is that, there is no simple and effective way of increasing the macroskill capy enough in order for it to worthwhile. He also has a style that doesn't include being supply blocked or floating resources. That's what good macro means. Like any other terran player on the planet in GM or above. You would be wrong to think that. No I think Lichter is wrong if he thinks that Soo's larva injects are more than 5% better than other zergs. It wouldn't even surprise me that if you actually did a more comprehensive statistical analysis, then Soo wouldn't be better than his peers. I think it's more likely that it's just a causation = correlation error: Soo is doing well as a zerg --> It must be becasue he has good injects. The way you create a solid narrative with great injects is if it's actually easy to see that Soo has a lot more stuff than his enemies/peers. But I don't think that's the case (because every pro zerg has pretty good injects here). And I don't trust that any viewer is good enough to notice the difference between someone having 2-3% better injects over a longer game-period than another top zerg. How do you know this is a game design issue? How do you know that players like Taeja, Innovation, Bomber, and Maru wouldn't be approximately equally good at everything in an RTS given sufficient time to iron out their mechanics? It sounds like you want the best players in the world to have distinct weaknesses, but it's their job not to. Watch Ruff vs Avilo and you'll find plenty of distinct weaknesses. Because Sc2 is a really bad game from a narrative-perspective. 90% of all matches are just: Player X is going to meet player Y. Both players are really solid, but player X is better than Y, and therefore I think he will win. It was actually awesome back in early WOL, where we could create a story of Idra where he was this "macro-god" with a poor mentality. Now part of this is obviously related to player personality, but your mistaken if you think game-design isn't a big part in creating a great narrative as well. If we look at real sports, I believe MMA is benefiting a lot from a strong narrative. The fighters here come from all different background with different advantages and disadvantages. It's easy to create lot of hype there. It would help if macro had such an insanely high skillcap so that some pro player would have like 20% more stuff than his peers, but it would come at the expense of less efficient unit-control. But obviously, creating this effect isn't possible with Sc2. And if you get cannot create this effet at all, then I would argue that the macro-skill cap is a counterproductive element in the game as it merely serves to raise the entrance barrier. In the end, I don't think having a bad narrative in the game makes it a bad esport (it just one little factor). Most imortantly for me is still proper micro-interactions. | ||
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
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Wertheron
France439 Posts
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bombthejuice
Canada1 Post
I think one of the many reasons BW was a much more micro intensive game than its predecessor, and concurrently, how to make Sc2 a more micro intensive, and less death ball focused game (which I believe is one of the goals of the expansion), lies in the hotkey system, and I would like to touch on that briefly. I would like to clarify that when I am talking about hotkeys I mean the 1-9 numbers, and the F buttons, and not the letters that are used for spells and abilities. Sc1 hotkeys worked on a system that allowed players to have 1 building, or 12 units, on one of the numbers 1-9. Prioritizing what buildings and units to put on what hotkeys was(is? :'( ) an extremely important skill, especially when the game starts to transition to late game. It becomes quite clear that you will not have enough hotkey space to fill all of your buildings, and your units at the same time. Using the F buttons allowed players to jump to certain preset points, on the map, giving you more variety in using your number keys (instead of having your raxs hotkeyd, press an F button, jump over top of them and quickly mouse click everything that you need etc). This is the one example invisible micro I believe blizzard is talking about. These actions actively forced a player to spend much more time clicking and using hotkeys to set up the infrastructure. This being more difficult, adds for a more rewarding and exciting experience in the game, especially when the game transitions into late game.( As a viewer, watching the players sweating ferociously, while managing all of the cool buildings they have is exciting. You can see that what the pro player is doing requires lots of concentration and dexterity. ) You really had to work to keep your economy moving, it felt very empowering. In SC2, being able to have all of your production structures on 3 or less hotkeys (cough zerg cough), makes the feeling of having a more bustling economy less exciting, and rewarding. Making this production macro easier allows players to transition faster out of the low unit count, high micro intensive battles of the early game. Freeing up clicks and energy from macroing allows players to focus more on the unit control. But the hotkey system has also been simplified for the units. Instead of needing to have multiple groups of hotkeys for your army, you can press F2 and instantly get everyone. Combine this with the unit clumping, and this creates 1 button deathballs, that are easy to maneuver around the map. Not nearly as rewarding or exciting as massive sprawling armies, or rapid lighting fast raids across multiple bases, stretched across the players (and the veiwers) screens. Simplified macro (production and unit control) rapidly boosts the players into the late game. Combine that with 200/200 armys being able to clump, and the late game turns into deathball vs turtle or death ball vs deathball fights. One taking forever and being boring to watch (swarm hosts), and the other with a fight lasting 4 seconds. The more a player takes a lead, the less that he needs to micro. This snowballs so fast, that no matter how much micro you have you are normally fucked. The irony is(sometimes anyways), that some of the best micro comes from players holding on with the last of their units (say terran splits against banelings) in a situation where it doesn't really matter if he holds out, the other guy can just press 2 buttons to have all of his reinforcements streaming in. One of the really sad parts of this is that we rarely see pro players fight with last remaining units anymore. Like reach being able to crawl back into the game with a handfull of manly zealots. They realize that they are spending way more energy defending than the attacker, so they minus well just GG and save energy for the next fight. This makes for a less tense game for the viewer. The viewer, is one of the important parts of Starcraft, and what seperates SC's from being a merely a game, to an esport. When the game is less tense, it becomes boring, and you lose passionate people who are looking for something to becoming dedicated into. So thats how I think hotkeys and clumping have effected the game, how about some suggestions for toying around with? Remove any "get entire army in 1 click button" aka F2. Make it so ground units dont automatically clump in the tightest formations possible. Limit the number of units and buildings the number hotkeys can have. How many? Im not sure but I feel experimenting with the number could be a good thing. I think some of the best part of Starcraft is in the opening game. Is he expanding fast, is he going for aggression, if so, what kind? What build order a player chooses, and how he handles his scout and early army, is always one of the most tense and exciting parts of the game. The small unit battles in this stage of the game are always incredibly fun to play, and fun to watch. I think adding more workers will really hurt the incentive to go for some early pressure play. The meta would have players expanding to their natural bases much faster, allowing players to gear up for death-ball type play. You could try, lowering the amount that workers can carry, making it so that players will spend more time in the early game, and more time with early game units. It would be harder saving money for more expensive stuff, and put more emphasis on low tier, micro intensive fights. Anyways, this is getting kind of long so I think Im going to wrap this up. TL:DR No more all army in 1 button? Bring back Bw style limited number of units and buildings for your Hotkeys? Reduce the clumping? Decease how much workers can hold? Maybe 1 gas? P.S Thanks Blizzard for the many, many years of awesome games, good times, and memories. Here is to making sc2 last into the ages | ||
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