Artosis says SC2 is more strategic than BW - Page 25

On July 02 2015 05:29 TMagpie wrote:


People like you is the reason we have weird game rules like traveling in basketball

"But what if we never dribble the ball sir? How can they get it? Just get one point ahead and hold on for dear life."

strategy / macro (used here to mean the same thing)
mechanics / micro (used here to mean the same thing)

On July 02 2015 13:56 JieXian wrote:

wrong.

mechanics definitely = macro + micro (according to convention) like being tall, able to run fast, jump high and shooting accurately in basketball.

strategy might mean any dam thing as he didn't define it and everyone is confused

On July 02 2015 13:56 JieXian wrote:

wrong.

mechanics definitely = macro + micro (according to convention) like being tall, able to run fast, jump high and shooting accurately in basketball.

strategy might mean any dam thing as he didn't define it and everyone is confused

On July 02 2015 14:32 G5 wrote:


Strategy is the type of build order you use, where you decide to take fights, when you decide to attack, when you decide to defend, what type of units you decide to make. Strategy can almost completely be synonymous with decision making.

Micro involves very limited decision making. There is a perfect way to micro your units in basically every situation but rarely does micro perfection ever happen. However, your micro skill level is basically dependent on how close to that perfect engagement/unit movement/targeting that you can get consistently.

Macro involves very limited decision making. Your strategy determines when you will expand and whether you're going for a more high economy ("macro-style") or low economy style but regardless, whether you have 1 command center or 2 command centers, you have to make SCV's and keeping on top of that, along with your army production, infrastructure, etc. The pure ability to keep up with the necessary actions that your strategy requires like producing workers, units, buildings, etc. that is required in every game IS MACRO. The only real decision making involved in macro is deciding where you will spend your time when time is limited and your attention is divided onto multiple screens.

On July 02 2015 14:09 Jaedrik wrote:
Well then.
That makes this thread nothing but flaming news, and Artosis' words inane.

I always thought macro AND strategy were the same thing as anything related to build order, workers and their management to an extent, and adjustments to be made depending on what information is gathered during and out of the game. 'Tis a good thing I made that clear, then, otherwise there'd be even more confusion.

On July 03 2015 20:37 OkMong wrote:
Honest question, does anyone here really seriously truthfully think that BW is more strategic than SC2?
I was not able to see the height of BW, I just saw most of it through YT based on what people say about BW players, but Artosis is 100000% correct here. In BW, it mostly mechanics and speed, while SC2 allows greater emphasis on strategy since mechanics is mainly autoed.

I have never been to Germany or known any Germans. I just saw most of them through WW2 videos on YT. Based on what people say about Germans, they hate the jews, they scream when they talk and they are very efficient.

On June 30 2015 16:15 Musicus wrote:
So I had to bust out the paint skills here for one more point:

On July 03 2015 20:37 OkMong wrote:
Honest question, does anyone here really seriously truthfully think that BW is more strategic than SC2?
I was not able to see the height of BW, I just saw most of it through YT based on what people say about BW players, but Artosis is 100000% correct here. In BW, it mostly mechanics and speed, while SC2 allows greater emphasis on strategy since mechanics is mainly autoed.

On July 03 2015 22:43 Footler wrote:
Has any modder or theorycrafter ever explored the idea of either a) slowing SC2 down or b) increasing unit defenses/decreasing unit damage and/or speed. I ask simply because a common complaint is how quickly a match can be decided from one large fight where there was not enough time to properly micro. Is this not the situation that leads people to scream "build order loss!" Just thinking out loud, not necessarily my stance.

On July 03 2015 22:43 Footler wrote:
Has any modder or theorycrafter ever explored the idea of either a) slowing SC2 down or b) increasing unit defenses/decreasing unit damage and/or speed. I ask simply because a common complaint is how quickly a match can be decided from one large fight where there was not enough time to properly micro. Is this not the situation that leads people to scream "build order loss!" Just thinking out loud, not necessarily my stance.

On July 03 2015 22:46 Hider wrote:


There are 3 misconceptions with your post:

(1) It's a common misunderstanding that damage numbers is what leads to "quick battles". In reality though damage numbers in BW were much higher (relative to HP). Instead, the issue is lackluster ability-design.

(2) If its just one battle and GG, this is due an issue with the dynamic of the game (like lack of defenders advantage or escape mechanic).

(3) Build-order losses is a completely different topic.

On July 03 2015 22:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:


The complaint is not that there is only one fight in the end--this happens in all games.
The complaint is that jockeying for positioning in SC2 looks boring.

BW as an example, jockeying for position equated to engagements. Small part of your army fought a small part of their army and you kind of took losses on both sides.

In SC2 the jockeying is more abstract with lots of "almost" engagements. So the army comps in SC2 threaten to take a space, and then move back and forth until both sides are happy with their position, and then they fight.

Let me go back to the Chess vs Go analogy.

In Chess, which is more mechanics focused than go, jockeying for position usually is done through trading of pieces. I take your piece, you take my piece, etc... There is action, there is drama, and someone wins at the end. In Go, nothing happens for about 100 moves as you just fill the board with these deathballs--and in one well placed piece the one side of the board literally disappears all at once. Neither game is wrong for putting more focus on mechanics over strategy. They are what they are *because* of their focus.

On July 03 2015 23:22 Footler wrote:


I definitely agree that lackluster ability-design and really unit design in general is what needs to change but I just wanted to see what others thought in regards to some sort of universal change to the game. For the sake of discussion, isn't BW slower in gamespeed than SC2? Obviously, they are two completely different games running on different engines with different units but just in general BW played a bit slower than SC2. Sort of like going to WC3 from BW felt like trying to run in water (not hating WC3, but it was slow in comparison). This is sort of what I was getting at in terms of change to SC2 but just not as drastic.

For (2) and (3) I don't necessarily agree with the whole 'build order loss' BS, I was just bringing it up since it's a somewhat common complaint. If we took all of the modernizations of SC2 (unit selection, MBS, no defenders advantage, etc) and applied them to BW, would BW have the same issues? Or would the BW unit design and balance hold up and provide us with a similar level of strategy and micro?



I agree that BW was more interesting in this regard but I wouldn't necessarily say SC2 is 'almost' engagements. SC2 is usually more ability based jockeying (EMPs, fungals, force fields, etc) whereas BW had a lot more emphasis on position and taking those smaller engagements as you said.

Regardless, the only reason I bring any of this is up is because many people are preoccupied trying to get Blizzard to fix the economy when in reality that's just going to leave SC2 with the same unit design and interaction problems. Or am I missing something on how the economy fix will make these interactions more interesting?

If we took all of the modernizations of SC2 (unit selection, MBS, no defenders advantage, etc) and applied them to BW, would BW have the same issues? Or would the BW unit design and balance hold up and provide us with a similar level of strategy and micro?

On July 03 2015 23:47 Hider wrote:


Defenders advantage? If you are talking about holding position with a minimum of units, that's certainly something that is very important to the gamedynamic of BW.

On July 03 2015 23:52 Thieving Magpie wrote:


BW doesn't have "defenders advantage" it has an uphill mechanic. Something used just as much for making strong attacks (until maps were designed against it) as it was for defending. There's a reason Lost Temple and its mirrors eventually stopped being a design with its near unstoppable cliff sieges.

On July 03 2015 23:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:


You have not. Skim through those econ threads and you'll see me being the dick telling everyone that the economy doesn't matter since its an arbitrary stopgap whose only goal is to put a linear pacing to army growth.

What I also meant by "almost engagements" is that you normally stay out of range of each other, but try to position yourself to have the better concave. You see the same thing in Street Fighter games where players walk back and forth throwing "random" punches to gauge position, range, and to try to punish sudden dash-forwards. And usually spells does the pokes--but Vikings and muta snipes poke the deathball just as often as well. But yeah, I think we're in agreement.

On July 03 2015 23:47 Hider wrote:


Defenders advantage? If you are talking about holding position with a minimum of units, that's certainly something that is very important to the gamedynamic of BW.