EPTThe Curious Case of soO's Macro Mechanics - Page 12
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
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Foudzing
France181 Posts
On August 04 2015 20:46 nottapro wrote: It's weird knowing that for 5 years TL staff were the biggest proponents of saying mules / chronoboost and inject were terrible and dumbing the game, countless articles and posts how they were making it imbalanced and needed to be reworked. The most hardcore players cheered when Starbow made changes to them. In a week they've changed their mind completely, so either TL was wrong for 5 years and they are right now or they were right for 5 years and wrong now. Either way, it's clear it was never an objective opinion. They just want BW. Why they don't play BW? | ||
lichter
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
On August 04 2015 20:49 Sholip wrote: No, being or not being fun is a very valid argument, only it may apply differently to different people depending on their tastes. If 90% of people think something is not fun and 10% think it is fun, then it is probably a bad design, even if "fun," of course, is not objective. (These are of course not the numbers in this case; just to show that something not being fun is actually a strong argument.) "X is not fun because _______." is an argument. "X is not fun." is not an argument. The problem is most people don't bother to discuss the reason, only the symptom. If we understood the root of the problem then we'd actually be able to discuss it and find a solution. But "X is not fun" alone is useless because it doesn't help anyone find answers. On August 04 2015 20:46 nottapro wrote: It's weird knowing that for 5 years TL staff were the biggest proponents of saying mules / chronoboost and inject were terrible and dumbing the game, countless articles and posts how they were making it imbalanced and needed to be reworked. The most hardcore players cheered when Starbow made changes to them. In a week they've changed their mind completely, so either TL was wrong for 5 years and they are right now or they were right for 5 years and wrong now. Either way, it's clear it was never an objective opinion. 1. This is stuchiu's opinion, not TL staff's opinion. That's why this is an editorial. 2. 5 years is a long time. I don't think any of the writing staff or strat staff at that time are still around now. Maybe 1 or 2. 3. Being wrong is perfectly fine as long as it helps find the solution. | ||
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
On August 04 2015 20:35 paralleluniverse wrote: Look at archon mode. When people are freed from mindless macro mechanics there's so much more people can do. Attention is finite. If it's not wasted on macro it will be spent elsewhere or else you will lose to people who do spent it elsewhere. Yes... but someone told me that there is nothing else to multitask... how can it be...  | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3363 Posts
On August 04 2015 19:11 Yiome wrote: + Show Spoiler + On August 04 2015 06:30 Existor wrote: Please don't make shadows like that next time ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/y1auTjl.png) Wait a sec, is that a dragon's fang? ( Wheel of Time reference?) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130326042806/starwars/images/3/33/BibFortunaHS-ROTJ.png) | ||
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
If someone cooked you food and you didn't like it, then someone else asked you why you don't eat it, you can say "it doesn't taste good". The reason you don't eat the food is because it doesn't taste good. argument: a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong. To persuade you to stop cooking me your crappy food (i.e. you cooking for me is wrong), I am using the reason that it does not taste good. | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
On August 04 2015 20:42 Big J wrote: Because I opened my statement with "Getting into the concept of a multiplayer focused experience". Singeplayer-like actions are by definition not that. The whole post was meant to be a bit philosophical.  That part of the post doesn't really say something about Starcraft, but it is my firm believe that Starcraft should be a game that focuses on multiplayer experience. There will always be singleplayer like elements in any game and sport - if you can't run with the ball, you can't play football; if you can't place buildings, you can't play starcraft. But those elements shouldn't ever be more important/attention-eating/harder than the interaction with your opponent. Since you bring up sports. 1) the multiplayer focused sports are a thousand times more popular. In this infographic the only country that prefers a "singleplayer" sport is Austria + Show Spoiler + how ironic, hehehe - but seriously, this is probably wrong to begin with; this is the big Austiran ski manifacturing industry talking; the moment our national football team is playing semidecently - which they finally do again these days - it's football; if we'd beat Germany once, it would be football for the next decade. Viewer numbers of our national TV station for top-football events do top the top-skiing events and a lot of people are watching German football which doesn't really find a way in most statistics. https://s3.amazonaws.com/piktochartv2-dev/v2/uploads/6c996ec1-7dff-40e7-9ed5-6ec962e076df/a93adfbfee04d6f1782bd64a998452c7939c5970_original.jpg Fuck, sorry it's in German. I kind of missed that. ^^ It's only logical that people prefer players interacting over someone who has perfected an action and then is showcasing it every week. It makes for much more dynamic gameplay and unique situations - how does player X's actions matchup with player Y's actions. 2) even in the singleplayer focused sports the important actions are often being changed to make them unique in every instance. E.g. in skiing you have different courses. 3) even when there is no interaction by concept, the sports often try to create or fake interaction because it is more exciting and fun. E.g. in sprinting you don't let the runners take turns but you let them sprint next to each other. In other running disciplines this even leads to important strategical and direct interactions like speed regulation and positioning in the field. --> a focus on multiplayer is better. For popularity and for the game itself because it creates interaction, it creates real competition, it creates fun. Back to starcraft, actions like inject being singleplayer, always the same mechanical performance on every map in every game makes it so that they should be a very minor piece of puzzle to win the game. But they aren't, in particular injects aren't. Taking back their importance - which is what blizzard is doing; they are not removing them completely! In particular they don't remove any conceptual interactions of inject, you can still snipe queens etc - is good for the game to create room for more interaction. Well if i look at soccer for example, you need to be able to dribble with the ball, shoot it hard and precise, in general work on your speed, etc These are all "singleplayer skills" in itself, just like being good at injecting is one. If you add an opponent all these things become harder cause your opponent tries to interrupt you and your worked on skills as best as he can. I would agree that it's maybe a problem that injecting is 'always' your best option if it is available, but as i said before i don't think this is a problem that stems from macro mechanics as a concept, but rather from micro not being rewarding enough in comparison. Some people seem to have a problem with macro being a deciding factor in the game, others love the micro/macro/attention interactions. I would love if both ways would be viable and hard to master so people actually have a decision to make On August 04 2015 21:21 mishimaBeef wrote: "X is not fun" is an argument. If someone cooked you food and you didn't like it, then someone else asked you why you don't eat it, you can say "it doesn't taste good". The reason you don't eat the food is because it doesn't taste good. argument: a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong. To persuade you to stop cooking me your crappy food (i.e. you cooking for me is wrong), I am using the reason that it does not taste good. It is a reason you personally don't eat the food, it's no argument for the cook to not cook it like this again if he personally likes it (and others). Target audience is the deciding factor here. | ||
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
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ejozl
Denmark3363 Posts
I don't agree that removing Inject necessarily simplifies macro, in the sense of, where to spend attention. Inject is so strong that there really isn't much of a choice, lets say Inject was 10 energy and had no cooldown. It would be so strong, doing anything else would be stupid and that would grossly simplify macro. All you would do is spam inject and send lings to the other side of the map, not microing one bit. It might take more APM, but it's still simplified. Nerf inject=make more room for micro, buff inject=less time to micro. So while you're protecting SoO, you could also see it as nerfing Life, so why favour one player over the other? Blizzard is simply saying Life is the more exciting player, so we buff him. I think it's just important to go back to the core of what Starcraft is meant to be. A game where you build armies and wage war against an opponent. So obviously automating the build army process, is wrong, but so is making it harder, for the case of external factors. | ||
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Blargh
United States2101 Posts
I do think the game would still be alright if they simplified the macro mechanics significantly. But it would not be the same game, and not the game I personally enjoy. It'd end up being something a lot closer to something like Warcraft (not necessarily a bad thing, just not the same). | ||
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
On August 04 2015 21:31 The_Red_Viper wrote: If the cook is only cooking for you, sure, but that's hardly the case for the cook blizzard If someone invited you to a game and you didn't accept, then someone else asked you why you didn't accept, you can say "it is not fun". The reason you don't accept the game invite is because the game is not fun. argument: a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong. To persuade you to stop giving me game invites (i.e. you inviting me to the game is wrong), I am using the reason that it is not fun. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On August 04 2015 21:23 The_Red_Viper wrote: Well if i look at soccer for example, you need to be able to dribble with the ball, shoot it hard and precise, in general work on your speed, etc These are all "singleplayer skills" in itself, just like being good at injecting is one. If you add an opponent all these things become harder cause your opponent tries to interrupt you and your worked on skills as best as he can. I would agree that it's maybe a problem that injecting is 'always' your best option if it is available, but as i said before i don't think this is a problem that stems from macro mechanics as a concept, but rather from micro not being rewarding enough in comparison. Some people seem to have a problem with macro being a deciding factor in the game, others love the micro/macro/attention interactions. I would love if both ways would be viable and hard to master so people actually have a decision to make There is a huge difference with the "singleplayer skills" of the football example and the macro-one. All of those skills only become important if you add an opponent in football. You only need to shoot hard because you need to make it hard for the opponent to intercept the shot. There is a certain amount of dribbling skill necessary, but you only need to dribble the ball close when there is an opponent trying to tackle you. The only reason why you do tricks with the ball is to get past an opponent. And so on... Of course you only need inject because the opponent is also trying to macro well. But the actual action to inject is 100% disconnected from your opponent's actions on the battlefield. You devote your APM to injects every 40seconds because you get a benefit regardless whether your opponent has dropped a mule right now. That's different from shooting harder due to an opponent being somewhere between you and the goal. Because if the player was behind you, you would try to shoot more precise instead. The thing you bring up with "micro should be more en par" is that I think this is not really achievable from the current status of SC2. You either bring micro up to the point that it can compete with macro (and I'm not just saying with the macro mechanics, but plainly with the generation of value). Which would mean your microed marine can kill ~40resources of enemies per minute while surviving to bring it en par with worker efficiency - an insane value that also produces the problem that in such a scenario there wouldn't be any development left. If killing stuff is as efficient as mining stuff, you very soon get into a state in which you cannot afford to tech and expand further. The other approach would be to nerf macro mechanics, but there is a bottom cap how much you can do it. If you nerf the macro mechanics to be less costefficient than regular macro (e.g. injects being worse than plainly building more hatcheries) than people will just not use them at all. So I think the pure existance of macro mechanics that have to be superior to regular macro tools to even be useful makes it impossible to have them less important than micro managing units. However, you can very well work with "storage" of those abilities like mules. You don't have to drop mules every 40seconds like injects. You drop them every 80seconds to begin with and you can store multiple mules per OC that you can drop later on. | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
On August 04 2015 21:38 mishimaBeef wrote: If someone invited you to a game and you didn't accept, then someone else asked you why you didn't accept, you can say "it is not fun". The reason you don't accept the game invite is because the game is not fun. argument: a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong. To persuade you to stop giving me game invites (i.e. you inviting me to the game is wrong), I am using the reason that it is not fun. So you are into arguing semantics? Fine, keep doing it. The truth stays the same though, you not having fun is no objective argument blizzard or anyone else has to value highly when there are also people who think the exact opposite. It's subjective. | ||
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Foudzing
France181 Posts
On August 04 2015 21:32 Blargh wrote: Also, I do not understand why casual players complain about macro having too much influence when there are builds that revolve almost completely around micro, and almost not at all around macro. You can do early aggression every game, and you'll get to micro to your heart's content. In fact, I would actually argue that the early game has the most opportunities to exercise strategic play. There's a strange stigma attached to early aggression, but seriously, if microing and timings are what you enjoy, just do those. I won't judge you. This leads to many problems. 1- You don't improve much, yes we can say casual don't want to improve anyway. But I think one of the BIG problems with SC2, is that it's a pain in the ass to improve, not because it's difficult, but because it's boring. Seriously lwhen I see the "finally hit master after shit tons of games" post on reddit I feel like poster went throught something horrible and it's the end of the purge lol. 2- What if what you enjoy is big fights, strategic and multitask? What you're saying is that people casual should cut off 80% of the game. It's almost the same as saying "well you can't macro? Then just don't play the game." | ||
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
On August 04 2015 21:45 The_Red_Viper wrote: So you are into arguing semantics? Fine, keep doing it. The truth stays the same though, you not having fun is no objective argument blizzard or anyone else has to value highly when there are also people who think the exact opposite. It's subjective. I'm not arguing that it's not subjective. I'm arguing that it's a valid argument. They can do as they please with the objective *numbers* of how many people find the game fun vs how many don't. | ||
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Deleted User 132135
702 Posts
On August 04 2015 21:45 The_Red_Viper wrote: So you are into arguing semantics? Fine, keep doing it. The truth stays the same though, you not having fun is no objective argument blizzard or anyone else has to value highly when there are also people who think the exact opposite. It's subjective. It can be measured by how many ppl stick to the game. In sc2 these are not alot and the obvious reason and argument for not doing so is not having too much fun. | ||
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Foudzing
France181 Posts
If all the players were like soO starcraft would be way less entertaining to watch. | ||
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Sholip
Hungary422 Posts
On August 04 2015 21:10 lichter wrote: "X is not fun because _______." is an argument. "X is not fun." is not an argument. The problem is most people don't bother to discuss the reason, only the symptom. If we understood the root of the problem then we'd actually be able to discuss it and find a solution. But "X is not fun" alone is useless because it doesn't help anyone find answers. "X is bad." is not an argument. "X is bad because it is not fun." is already an argument in my opinion, even if not too constructive. It does not offer solutions, but it does not have to; and it gives a reason why I think X is bad. I agree that it is kind of useless on its own, but I think it's up to you how much you want to understand what people mean by it. You may say it doesn't help to just say this without digging to the root of the problem, but I would like to believe that most intelligent people understand what others mean by it not being fun, even if they themselves think otherwise. But, as many have already worded, a complete argument would be something like, "Macro mechanics are not fun because they are repetitive, don't bring in too much strategic depth (if at all), but at the same time require a lot of attention and they punish players heavily if they are not good at them. Therefore they are bad." This is an opinion, with which you can agree or disagree (I personally think it is only a real issue in case of Larva injects). If you don't agree with it, you may or may not have reasons as to why, which I would really be interested in hearing. | ||
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lichter
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
On August 04 2015 21:48 mishimaBeef wrote: I'm not arguing that it's not subjective. I'm arguing that it's a valid argument. They can do as they please with the objective *numbers* of how many people find the game fun vs how many don't. Then by your estimation, "protoss is dumb" is a valid argument. But again, it is useless unless explained. Everyone here is so obsessed with being "right" instead of, as I mentioned, finding the root of the problem. No one is saying that SC2 couldn't be more fun. Of course it can be. But saying "it's not fun" helps absolutely no one. Saying "it's not fun because I would rather do other exciting actions instead of macroing" is a more useful argument. Very few have bothered to try and explain why it isn't fun, and only demand that it isn't. If people actually explained their presumably intelligent reasons instead of bickering wanting to be right then maybe we could have thought of a solution by now. On August 04 2015 22:01 Sholip wrote: But, as many have already worded, a complete argument would be something like, "Macro mechanics are not fun because they are repetitive, don't bring in too much strategic depth (if at all), but at the same time require a lot of attention and they punish players heavily if they are not good at them. Therefore they are bad." This is an opinion, with which you can agree or disagree (I personally think it is only a real issue in case of Larva injects). If you don't agree with it, you may or may not have reasons as to why, which I would really be interested in hearing. Now this is a good argument, because we can actually try to tackle the things pointed out. Too repetitive? Maybe try to tweak it so you do it less often but with a comparable effect. No strategic depth? Let's give it more uses or make those uses more pronounced. Too big an impact? Make it easier with smaller reward. See, this is a useful argument. "Not fun" is not constructive at all, and for our purposes (finding a way to make SC2 better), it should never be accepted as an argument unless explained. | ||
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