EPTNow that's epic!
The Curious Case of soO's Macro Mechanics - Page 17
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
Now that's epic! | ||
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Superbanana
2369 Posts
On August 05 2015 01:37 Big J wrote: That's of course a valid concern. I don't believe the game would be "too easy" or something, but it would definitely change a bit. Though less than people pretend. There is neither infinitely more to do that you could spend the extra attention on, nor are the macro mechanics that taxing - assuming you learned the right tricks like backspace inject-cycles - that professionals would suddenly play that much better due to that change. From a gameplay perspective I think this change gets more and more subtle (as this article shows, the difference is very subtle if even adressable towards soO's great injects at all) the higher you get. While a missed inject or 200stored energy on your CC are probably some of the bigger reasons why people lose games, aka "learn to macro". I agree. Removing mules, chrono and inject makes it easier to macro - specially for newcomers - making micro and strategy more important in lower levels of play. Its true, when learning the game we have fun with micro and unit compositions, but we win or lose mostly with macro. Players on mid-high level and above enjoy a more complete experience, we need the full skill set to win. While new players need to practice macro if they want to improve fast. To the point that some macro training tool is better than actual play. But removing those mechanics is a lazy solution. If there was no down side, or if everyone was happy with the removal of macro mechanics then its all good. But thats not the case. Blizzard can come up with some good changes that don't hurt the identity of the game and don't have a backlash from (what im guessing is) a big chunk of the community. Even if its a vocal minority i think its a minority with a point. On August 05 2015 01:53 PulcoAgrumes wrote: What about dividing the gameplay based on the race? If you play Zerg, mechanics are favored against strategy If you play Protoss, strategy is more important than mechanics It is already the case imo and maybe it just needs to be assumed like this. Not sure about your specific proposal, but i agree they should look at each race individually. | ||
KadaverBB
Germany25649 Posts
On August 05 2015 03:15 mishimaBeef wrote: Wow, rifkin said at The International, they have lightning effects go off in the crowd whenever Zeus, the lightning guy does his global ultimate spell! Now that's epic! Heh, I think you might have ended up in the wrong thread :D | ||
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Heat_023
Canada160 Posts
On August 04 2015 23:52 weikor wrote: noones asking to remove the running from soccer, this is just a heavily biased article that picks away at quotes with arguments that dont even make sense at times. Ill give you some examples of doing the same thing. Nony's argument wasn't not a reduction to absurdity, it was an analogy or even merely an image, and therefore it does not rely on the statement "you should remove running from soccer" to actually be held true by anybody. I actually thought about this exact parallel with soccer. Only I realized that it is flawed. Because you just can't remove running from soccer. The game would not make sense. Like would you not be allowed to run faster than X km/h, or you would have to stay completely still? Anyway, the point is that all the other rules of the game would not make sense if you "removed" running. You would have to change literally every rule for that to work, and it would probably end up as a board game or something . The thing with StarCraft is that you can change the macro mechanics (notice I did not write "remove," although I think you could remove most of the macro aspects) and the game would still make sense. It would be different, depending on the magnitude of the changes, but it would still work. On top of being an analogy, Nony's point is an abstract one, he's not drawing a parallel between 'running in soccer' and 'macro in starcraft' because they are the same thing, but because they share some characteristics : - they are somewhat separate from strategy and tactics, although they feed into those - they require repetition training since they heavily involve muscle memory - to most people they are not fun in themselves - instead of involving decisions, they are mostly quantitative, it's a matter of being faster, more precise, more endurant etc., there's no two ways about it In short, 'running in soccer' and 'macro in SC2' represent the crude physical components of their respective games, and the more rewarding and the more relevant this component is in a game, the more a player can count on the effectiveness of going for this material advantage. In a game like chess, truly materialistic advantage doesn't exist as you can only gain "material advantage" through tactics and strategies, you can't flex your muscles to generate an additional pawn, for example. However, in soccer as in starcraft, you may theorycraft as much as you want with your Os and your Xs on a drawing board, you may know the perfect ideal answer to every situation, you are going no where if your opponent has you beat in the material department, if you're not competing in terms of execution. To me the debate is between people who like to win by going for the raw material advantage and more cerebral people who like games won by mind blowing strategical moves and decision-making. I like to think that SC2 has both and should keep having both. | ||
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Superbanana
2369 Posts
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NEEDZMOAR
Sweden1277 Posts
On August 05 2015 03:14 LSN wrote: You should at least agree on that high mechanical demands is something that holds alot of players back from playing Sc2 and not the other way round. Cause that is common sense. Therefore it is an entry barrier. You can go and research yourself why coh or the companies behind it don't have the means or will to push it further e.g. with big tournaments and what other reasons there are in the game itself for why it is not as successful. Sc2 and blizzard has everything that is needed. It is in one league with other tripple A multiplayer games like CS or Dota so that I would rather search to compare it with these games. Correlation does not imply causation. | ||
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Boucot
France15997 Posts
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nTzzzz
France30 Posts
On August 05 2015 03:26 Heat_023 wrote: Nony's argument wasn't not a reduction to absurdity, it was an analogy or even merely an image, and therefore it does not rely on the statement "you should remove running from soccer" to actually be held true by anybody. On top of being an analogy, Nony's point is an abstract one, he's not drawing a parallel between 'running in soccer' and 'macro in starcraft' because they are the same thing, but because they share some characteristics : - they are somewhat separate from strategy and tactics, although they feed into those - they require repetition training since they heavily involve muscle memory - to most people they are not fun in themselves - instead of involving decisions, they are mostly quantitative, it's a matter of being faster, more precise, more endurant etc., there's no two ways about it In short, 'running in soccer' and 'macro in SC2' represent the crude physical components of their respective games, and the more rewarding and the more relevant this component is in a game, the more a player can count on the effectiveness of going for this material advantage. In a game like chess, truly materialistic advantage doesn't exist as you can only gain "material advantage" through tactics and strategies, you can't flex your muscles to generate an additional pawn, for example. However, in soccer as in starcraft, you may theorycraft as much as you want with your Os and your Xs on a drawing board, you may know the perfect ideal answer to every situation, you are going no where if your opponent has you beat in the material department, if you're not competing in terms of execution. To me the debate is between people who like to win by going for the raw material advantage and more cerebral people who like games won by mind blowing strategical moves and decision-making. I like to think that SC2 has both and should keep having both. I think everyone understands the analogy, you don't need to explain it. The reason that analogy has no value is you couldn't remove running from soccer even if you wanted to. Therefore the fact that it is still a part of soccer (despite not being a strategic element) doesn't give us any insight about whether we should keep macro mechanics or not. On top of that, soccer isn't primarily labeled as a strategy game so it only makes sense that it would include a lot of non strategic elements. The fact that Starcraft is 90% mechanics and 10% strategy is a bit more worrisome. | ||
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mishimaBeef
Canada2259 Posts
On July 09 2015 01:02 Liquid`Ret wrote: It's the macro mechanics that speed up the game immensely. Which it why it feels much more fast-paced and if you disregard the aspect of how hard it was to control your shit properly in BW mechanically, it's actually a harder game because you make decisions much faster and there is 0 room for error. Source: www.teamliquid.net | ||
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bITt.mAN
Switzerland3689 Posts
Mules keep a pretty constant utility, maybe even increasing once you get many OC's. Since Mules can stack, it seems that using them gets EASIER as the game progresses, since you can be busy "dong other things", come back for a second to do 6x"macro mechanics" then move on. Creep spread only ever gets harder, due to more surface area. There will never be a point in the game where a ready supply of larva isn't essential. Larva injection is always crucial, but worst of al, its difficulty scales (6 hatches are much harder to inject than 2). I don't think its fair, and its certainly grind-y as hell, to have to always inject into the lategame, especially when that's when you want to be doing just about everything else. So, I think they should change injects, so that their difficulty or "effort required" stops scaling at some point. I think the best way to cap this difficulty would be to make "Autocast Inject Larva" upgradable at Hive tier, for a fair amount of money. Where: You could get it from the Hive itself, or, if Blizzard really want you to use some obscure spell-caster, they could give the upgrade from that unit's building instead. Having it auto-cast outright would make it too easy. Putting it near the end of the game caps the added effort, but doesn't give everyone a cop-out at the earlier stages. Cost: I'm thinking 500/500. If you're really pro and really dying, you can forgo it and just inject manually. But, if you can't spend all your money fast enough already, why not be allowed to purchase "Zerg Macro - Easy Mode Upgrade"? It's important to give it a cost as a dis-incentive. I for one would always research it, because I'm sick of being at risk of dying simply because I didn't perfectly hit my timings. Or you could even make it researchable AND upgradable, where you'd have to pay extra to morph specific queens into "Hive Queen"s with auto-inject, and a different look (adding an extra harassment priority) but otherwise identical stats as normal queens. | ||
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Dazed.
Canada3301 Posts
On August 05 2015 03:14 LSN wrote: The nature of an RTS is an intellectually and physically challenging game, thats what draws people away from the genre. Like, for fuck sakes, people are condemning MULTITASKING now as a thing thats dooming the game. Does this have to be spelt out? RTS is a niche genre, it appeals to a small demographic. To the degree you move the game away from that niche demographic, is the degree to which you lose players. Because there isnt a demographic sitting out there that would "really like rts if only it was as easy to pick up as cod". Its moronic to suggest there is, and pointless too. If you personally dont like RTS' macro and multitasking functions, you dont like the game, so be gone. If you do, on the other hand, your potentially (lets be honest: certainly) supporting something that destroys a game you do like, for nothing.You should at least agree on that high mechanical demands is something that holds alot of players back from playing Sc2 and not the other way round. Cause that is common sense. Therefore it is an entry barrier. You can go and research yourself why coh or the companies behind it don't have the means or will to push it further e.g. with big tournaments and what other reasons there are in the game itself for why it is not as successful. Sc2 and blizzard has everything that is needed. It is in one league with other tripple A multiplayer games like CS or Dota so that I would rather search to compare it with these games. | ||
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weikor
Austria580 Posts
On August 05 2015 04:12 bITt.mAN wrote: Chronoboost drops off in utility as the game progresses. The effort/attention cost of casting it starts to outweight the benefits. Once you're far enough in the game (e.g. all upgrades done) it's a fair trade to chose "doing other things", since "doing macro mechanics" wouldn't give you as much benefit. Mules keep a pretty constant utility, maybe even increasing once you get many OC's. Since Mules can stack, it seems that using them gets EASIER as the game progresses, since you can be busy "dong other things", come back for a second to do 6x"macro mechanics" then move on. Creep spread only ever gets harder, due to more surface area. There will never be a point in the game where a ready supply of larva isn't essential. Larva injection is always crucial, but worst of al, its difficulty scales (6 hatches are much harder to inject than 2). I don't think its fair, and its certainly grind-y as hell, to have to always inject into the lategame, especially when that's when you want to be doing just about everything else. So, I think they should change injects, so that their difficulty or "effort required" stops scaling at some point. I think the best way to cap this difficulty would be to make "Autocast Inject Larva" upgradable at Hive tier, for a fair amount of money. Where: You could get it from the Hive itself, or, if Blizzard really want you to use some obscure spell-caster, they could give the upgrade from that unit's building instead. Having it auto-cast outright would make it too easy. Putting it near the end of the game caps the added effort, but doesn't give everyone a cop-out at the earlier stages. Cost: I'm thinking 500/500. If you're really pro and really dying, you can forgo it and just inject manually. But, if you can't spend all your money fast enough already, why not be allowed to purchase "Zerg Macro - Easy Mode Upgrade"? It's important to give it a cost as a dis-incentive. I for one would always research it, because I'm sick of being at risk of dying simply because I didn't perfectly hit my timings. Or you could even make it researchable AND upgradable, where you'd have to pay extra to morph specific queens into "Hive Queen"s with auto-inject, and a different look (adding an extra harassment priority) but otherwise identical stats as normal queens. making a 500-500 upgrade at the hive, for an autocast inject upgrade is most certainly not the way to go. It would be completely unuseable. However hatcheries could produce extra larva once you reach Lair, and even more with hive... thats something worth considering. | ||
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Qwyn
United States2779 Posts
// Instead of autocast spawn larva, just increase the spawn rate of larva at hatcheries by a few seconds. That way we don't have to dedicate 6+ supply to AUTOCAST something (if you have to autocast - which is by itself horrible - then why is the feature itself even there). Nony your posts are so damn on the spot, I was trying to come up with something similiar to say but you took the words straight out of my mouth. You can argue it both ways, there are multiple different definitions of "fun" each equally as valid, but the only concrete thing which can be discussed is the identity of StarCraft itself. What is it that this game is all about? And for me that has always been a mechanically challenging game and I don't want to lose that. But if removing macro mechanics might do some good for the tempo of the game then I am all for testing it, if only they are completely removed. | ||
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Heat_023
Canada160 Posts
On August 05 2015 04:05 nTzzzz wrote: I think everyone understands the analogy, you don't need to explain it. The reason that analogy has no value is you couldn't remove running from soccer even if you wanted to. Therefore the fact that it is still a part of soccer (despite not being a strategic element) doesn't give us any insight about whether we should keep macro mechanics or not. On top of that, soccer isn't primarily labeled as a strategy game so it only makes sense that it would include a lot of non strategic elements. The fact that Starcraft is 90% mechanics and 10% strategy is a bit more worrisome. Despite what you say, you are misconstruing Nony's analogy (and other people too) when you argue as if he meant : "soccer has it, starcraft should have it too". He's not saying that at all. The analogy is here to say : macro mechanics is the "sport" element in starcraft. By underlining this, he's framing the debate between pure gamers who want SC2 to look more like a game like chess and other gamers who appreciate the sport/game hybrid nature of SC2. He then argues that SC2's identity as an e-sports, according to him, is exactly that sports component. Now you can disagree with his conclusion, but you can't throw away what he says by objecting to his analogy the way that you did it, because the fact that you couldn't possibly remove running from soccer is irrelevant to what Nony meant to say. | ||
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loko822
54 Posts
This is what makes it possible to seperate yourself from others in terms of skill at any level. Fortunately the game is divided in leagues to find similar opponents for everyone. When I started to play ~5 years ago I obviously was a monsternoob. Yet still with every match you could feel improving up to this day, because there is always something to improve. Games where every 2nd person can get to around a similar level as the best arent intresting. Making things easier isnt intresting. It ends up in pros practicing all day not beeing much better as casual gamers and I want to see differences even at the highest level of play. As in every other sports these are mainly made by practice and natural talent and thats fine with me. Lionel Messi does a thousand things we all cant do. We dont make football easier because of that. We have plenty of different leagues for different skill levels so none of us amateuers have to play him. We do however have the option to try to get as good as him or get as close as we can. Its a choice mostly and as stated earlier obviously also a question of talent. What I read over and over again here is the argument of "new players quickly go away cause to hard...". So just theoretically if all macro was done for them and they only needed to do the "fun" battle stuff, you really think it wasnt to hard for them then?? They loose their armies 5 times on move command, another 5 times to 5 banelings and another 5 times cause they arent watching at all. Noob quits game. Same story. I play/ed an arcade game for also almost 5 years now. Constantly there was similar topics on the forum about "make it easier for nubs" and so on. Over the years it actually got easier to a point where it is hard to make a difference as the much more skilled player vs average players. Its frustrating for the one that put alot of effort into it and cant always show it because the game restricts it. Did it attract more players? Not at all. All it did is thrive away skilled players and find more of "I just wanna play a game for one hour for fun without wanting to improve at all" players. And dont get me wrong that attittude is totally legit everyone can use their time as they wish. But then please go find another easy game and dont destroy my harder one. | ||
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nTzzzz
France30 Posts
On August 05 2015 04:46 Dazed_Spy wrote: The nature of an RTS is an intellectually and physically challenging game, thats what draws people away from the genre. Like, for fuck sakes, people are condemning MULTITASKING now as a thing thats dooming the game. Does this have to be spelt out? RTS is a niche genre, it appeals to a small demographic. To the degree you move the game away from that niche demographic, is the degree to which you lose players. Because there isnt a demographic sitting out there that would "really like rts if only it was as easy to pick up as cod". Its moronic to suggest there is, and pointless too. If you personally dont like RTS' macro and multitasking functions, you dont like the game, so be gone. If you do, on the other hand, your potentially (lets be honest: certainly) supporting something that destroys a game you do like, for nothing. How does removing or even just tweaking injects and mules destroy SC2? Nobody is talking about removing macro from the game. Why don't you come up with more logical arguments instead of calling people moronic? The elitist bullshit is getting old. You're saying the nature of a RTS is "an intellectually and physically challenging game" but right now, though it's challenging physically, it doesn't feel very challenging intellectually because mechanical skill is much more important than everything else. Even on masters level where strategy plays a larger role than on lower leagues, when I look at what would be the most efficient way for me to get better, I'm still convinced that gaining an extra 20 apm would make me more successful than any strategic improvement. To use your own words, part of what Blizzard is trying to do is restore a balance between the intellectual and physical components. SC2 will still be really hard even without macro boosters, the big differences will be that: -good players will have to focus more on meaningful actions instead of APM spam to make a difference compared to their opponents. -weaker players will have a baseline of guaranteed macro (in the case of auto-casting) which means they won't get fucked as badly by their bad mechanics and they'll get more enjoyment out of the game. I also strongly disagree that moving away slightly from the hardcore macro requirements will lose SC2 players, in fact I'm sure of the exact opposite. Obviously SC2 still won't convert many COD players but there are a lot of ex SC2 players on the fence about whether to give LOTV a try. I myself have 4 friends who are seriously considering it and they all have the exact same reason for why they might not do it. It goes along the lines of: "Sure, I love SC2, but it's just too punishing mechanically. Whenever I come back I just can't execute anything close to the strategies I have in mind unless I practise mindlessly for dozens of hours. Since I don't have the time to play 5 hours a day anymore, I sometimes get more frustration than enjoyment out of it. If that's the case, I'd rather not play at all." | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
This also is the wrong question, the right question would be "is this more fun for the group of people we actually wanna reach" "More fun" is a concept which loses its meaning completely if we don't define the target group. Yeh ofc its fun relative to the target group, and you will see mee write that frequently too, but it can get too tedicious to state the obvious every time. I would much rather play a game where both styles are viable and ewach person can decide if they wanna be a 'macro player' or a 'micro player' or anything in between. I think that concept sounds nice in theory, but I am not sure it grants the best experience in practice. The reason for that is that I think micro is most interesting when both players micro during in engagements (heavily) and in relation to what the opponent is doing (countermicro). For that reason, its my belief that if you have one specific style/race that is not very microheavy but very taxing on macro, it will also make the experience worse for the microplayer. IMO games are at its best when developers know perfectly which group of people they wanna reach with it, the more you 'play safe' (hey there is something in it for anybody!) the more the actual quality of the game suffers. (there are exceptions, but imo they are rare and thus shouldn't be considered in most cases) Yeh so I think with regards to Sc2 the business model isn't set up to fit a more niche/hardcore target group (I estimate that target group at around 0.5M-1M). That's not to say that F2P is the correct business model either because I don't think the combination of a very high learning barrier and free access to lots of casuals makes sense either. I think F2P makes a ton more sense if the first impression is really good. For Sc2, I think it's clear that you need to be very commited to learn the game before in order to be wililng to go through the steep learning curve. With such a model, it makes more sense to have an upfront-fee's as you then better monetize the "commited beforehand target group". However, when you have a very low target group and development costs are still relatively high, it still makes sense to try and monetize the "commited/hardcore players" that spends alot of time on the game on top of the initial upfront cost. Given that Blizzard doesn't have this business model in place for sc2, I do think we need to attracht a larger target group. Thus if the learning barrier of Sc2 was reduced you would also attracht more people whom would play the game more casually, which makes more sense for Blizzard financially. | ||
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FaiFai
Peru53 Posts
Also the idea of a mode with automatic mechanics and a mode with manual mechanics, is good i guess, could be interesting see how many of those manual mechanics fanboys still gona play at manual mechanics mode XD. Other idea could be start with automatic mechanics at bronze, and every league you advance one automatism is removed, to get the point where you have good mechanics, and the upgrading of league could be for election of the player to, because many people not want to learn mechanics to. PD: Im in favor of other larva production method, i think the inject heavily affect negativily the rest of skills of zergs players could have, for the reason to constantly switching attention to their bases, even they are in an engage that could end the game, or any other situation like multidrop, or harrasing mutas. | ||
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mantequilla
Turkey775 Posts
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nTzzzz
France30 Posts
On August 05 2015 05:16 Heat_023 wrote: Despite what you say, you are misconstruing Nony's analogy (and other people too) when you argue as if he meant : "soccer has it, starcraft should have it too". He's not saying that at all. The analogy is here to say : macro mechanics is the "sport" element in starcraft. By underlining this, he's framing the debate between pure gamers who want SC2 to look more like a game like chess and other gamers who appreciate the sport/game hybrid nature of SC2. He then argues that SC2's identity as an e-sports, according to him, is exactly that sports component. Now you can disagree with his conclusion, but you can't throw away what he says by objecting to his analogy the way that you did it, because the fact that you couldn't possibly remove running from soccer is irrelevant to what Nony meant to say. Well, if that's what he meant it was poorly worded and I am still objecting to his analogy for being manipulative (comparing something that's rigorously impossible to something quite reasonable that he just doesn't want Blizzard to do). On August 04 2015 23:41 NonY wrote: Do you want to remove the running from soccer? Is it unfair that only people with time to extensively train their bodies to be able to run get to enjoy soccer at a competitive level? Why not let people only train ball skills and teamwork, which are the fun parts of soccer, and remove all the running? Some people would agree removing running from soccer could be a good thing if it didn't sound so absurd, hence the logical fallacy. But if you're right, I did overlook that part because I don't see SC2 like a sport. You and other people keep talking about preserving the identity of SC2. To me the identity of SC2 is being a strategy game but it doesn't feel much like a strategy game when mechanics almost always trump every other skill. I would agree difficult macro and multitasking is also part of the identity but they will still both be very challenging even without macro boosters, the same way worker rally and MBS didn't make SC any less difficult to master. The skillset might change but in the end you're always competing against other players with access to the same ressources. You framed the debate well, and YES, I want Starcraft to be less like a sport and more like a strategy game. In SC2, you cannot compete at the highest level past the age of 25-30, because the increasing physiological response time puts a cap on the APM you can reach. Flash was on top of the BW world when he was a kid but now he cannot compete with Maru. Do you think Maru is so much more talented that he can overcome the 6 extra years of Starcraft experience Flash has? Or is he, just like Flash, a smart kid and a very hard worker who happens to be quite younger? I just don't see the point in keeping arbitrary macro boosters that add nothing to the game (injects) except in the way they raise the mechanical skill ceiling to a level that only a 15-20 year old who dedicates years to SC can get close to. It's not good for the competition, and it's not good for new players. | ||
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