On August 05 2015 18:20 TRaFFiC wrote: Managing your economy while at the same time controlling your army has been a fundamental part of every RTS I ever played.
And it still will be?
It still will be but the balance between the two is getting messed up. How would people who love micro feel if Blizzard just flat out told them the thing they like isn't actually fun or appreciated by viewers of tournaments so they're removing force field, fungal and stim to allow players to focus more on the fun stuff, the macro mechanics?
When Blizzard added multiple building selection to SC2, which made macro easier and take less time, they compensated by adding the macro mechanics (and warp gate) which are the subject of this article. That was cool because using the macro mechanics (and warp gate) is more interesting than selecting a bunch of buildings in quick succession. But now they're saying they want less attention to be spent on macro. They'd remove macro mechanics without providing any compensation, on purpose. That's not keeping the balance.
RTS and StarCraft in particular is about macro. The whole premise of playing it instead of some other genre of games is "what if we had to build a base and develop an economy and be the master of all the behind-the-scenes stuff and not just do the fights." I wouldn't say that removing macro mechanics is ruining this but it's a step in that direction. Those of us who don't like that direction, even if this step might be tolerable, need to voice our concerns every step of the way to make sure it doesn't go too far. If the whole community said in unison "YES YES YES" then I 100% believe Blizzard is of a mindset to just roll with it, not caring about the tradition and identity of RTS and StarCraft.
What they're doing to SC2 with LotV is exactly like what they did to get from League/Dota to Heroes of the Storm. Some people like it and some people don't. The things that annoy me are (1) when the people who like it act like they're right, as if it's not a matter of preference, and (2) that Blizzard is transforming StarCraft into this rather than making another game. Isn't this trend obviously better suited for WarCraft 3? Why not let StarCraft be StarCraft for its final expansion rather than leaving us permanently affected by this fad of design philosophy which hasn't even proven itself yet?
And yet you do the same thing when you decide what is Starcraft's identity, which is very much one's personal perception as well.
I personally can 100% agree that Starcraft is about macro. It's the build up of epic armies and a huge empire of multiple bases that I love - something that SC2 more or less pioneered compared to the much smaller scale RTS games it succeeded. And then pair it with a lot of micromanagement - something that only blizzard has really understood in the RTS genre up to these days. What I don't agree with is that the build-up part must be inherently hard mechanically for SC's identity, even if your opponent doesn't try to make it hard for you (i.e. force you into strategic choices, force you to cut economy for defense, force you into playing aggressive, force you into playing it slow).
I'm not deciding StarCraft's identity -- I'm starting the conversation on it. No one else seems to care. It seems like people assume a utilitarian approach for SC2 game design while I think it's obvious that, since there's such a great variety of games, a utilitarian approach for each individual game is a horrible idea. But I appreciate you weighing in on what you feel is core to StarCraft.
Oh, very sorry. I reread your previous comment and realized that you indeed said nowhere "this is SC's identity" and you were actually saying
... What we can try to figure out is what StarCraft's identity is. What makes it unique? ...
Other people later on interpreted or extended your post in the way I thought it was and that somehow stuck...
I very much like this approach of first identifying what concepts we actually want and then having a discussion based on that.
first time reading any sc2 article in about 2 years. Only thing I want to add to this is that BW did it right regarding utilizing macro mechanics to separate the gods from the rest.
Why are not you be honest and say that took you months or years get good mechanics, and now that blizz want they have less importance you are against it,it is more trueborn saying that, than bullshit like the soul of the game,historical esence, big part of strategy,etc., or maybe are afraid of a player with better micro or better engage decisions gona win you. Im sure that if blizz make the macro more busier, all those not gona say a word, and i can bet that XD, because even it affect them, affect more the rest of people, and more important the newbie players. Also why being so dramatic, blizz want to decrease a little the macro required, they are not saying that gona automate all macro. And is a correct decision i guess, whoever who played LotV beta knows that is a game faster than HotS, and only could be played well with good mechanics, not even decent mechanics i guess, if for a newbie or casual player the game rigth now is unenjoyable, maintening the same macro relevance, not gona be only a barrier will be a proclamated restriction. also at high lv we could see the real potential of the new units, that are micro oriented, and only we could see that if the players can focus more in the micro than the macro. Lets be all less selfish and dramatic, and if the game gona change a little the relevance of micro macro, give a chance, personally i prefer that the game being played for a lot of people, than get the point to have to play with the same players over and over.
On August 05 2015 18:20 TRaFFiC wrote: Managing your economy while at the same time controlling your army has been a fundamental part of every RTS I ever played.
And it still will be?
It still will be but the balance between the two is getting messed up. How would people who love micro feel if Blizzard just flat out told them the thing they like isn't actually fun or appreciated by viewers of tournaments so they're removing force field, fungal and stim to allow players to focus more on the fun stuff, the macro mechanics?
Imo, the balance between macro and micro IS already messed up. I'm sure we can agree macro is way more important than micro right now. That's especially true for players who are diamond and lower because for them ignoring micro completely while focusing on macro is the best thing they can do if they want to win. And I believe macro is still more important than micro even at the highest level. If you want a better balance between the two, cutting on macro mechanics is the right thing to do.
On August 06 2015 00:46 NonY wrote:
When Blizzard added multiple building selection to SC2, which made macro easier and take less time, they compensated by adding the macro mechanics (and warp gate) which are the subject of this article. That was cool because using the macro mechanics (and warp gate) is more interesting than selecting a bunch of buildings in quick succession. But now they're saying they want less attention to be spent on macro. They'd remove macro mechanics without providing any compensation, on purpose. That's not keeping the balance.
Are you saying injecting hatcheries repeatedly is INTERESTING? If you mean chronoboost, I'm with you, but injects?
The compensation for cutting macro abilities is the additional unit abilities in LOTV which require extra APM. Yes, that would make LOTV more micro intensive than HOTS but no, macro would still be more important than micro in LOTV, we would just be moving closer to the balance you seem to want.
On August 06 2015 00:46 NonY wrote: RTS and StarCraft in particular is about macro. The whole premise of playing it instead of some other genre of games is "what if we had to build a base and develop an economy and be the master of all the behind-the-scenes stuff and not just do the fights." I wouldn't say that removing macro mechanics is ruining this but it's a step in that direction. Those of us who don't like that direction, even if this step might be tolerable, need to voice our concerns every step of the way to make sure it doesn't go too far. If the whole community said in unison "YES YES YES" then I 100% believe Blizzard is of a mindset to just roll with it, not caring about the tradition and identity of RTS and StarCraft.
Starcraft's identity being about impossibly difficult macro mechanics is your opinion. To me, its identity is being a STRATEGY focused game. Although Starcraft should be difficult mechanically, the macro requirements shouldn't be so difficult and punishing that it takes away from the strategy. Right now, unless you have GM level APM to do everything, it feels like you're better off focusing mainly on macroing off an all-around build you have practised times and times again instead of scouting, thinking, and adapting.
I'm really curious about what you think about that. Don't you think that's a shame? Is is not important to you whether or not the SC2 gaming experience includes a good share of strategy?
I think for a lot of SC2's 5 year lifetime, micro has been more important at higher levels. For a while, there wasn't enough harassment and skirmishes going on to distract players from macro, so both players had equally good macro. And then games were often decided by one big fight, which of course is about micro. Constantly watching your big death ball army has historically been too important in SC2, especially in WoL. Timing attacks and deadly harass openings have been prominent in HotS, where good pros and bad pros are differentiated by micro, not macro.
I think that with some of the ideas of LotV, like having more small battles going on constantly and requiring players to defend more area (because they're taking more bases), should improve the game in these aspects. Instead of focusing on macroing perfectly until the big battle, at which point micro is the only thing that matters, games should be more of a constant mix of both.
Ideally, some players should have the option to pick between different viable styles. If macro becomes too easy and paying attention to every skirmish becomes too important, then a whole dimension of style can virtually disappear. There should be players who are great at production and kind of just throw units around. But in order for that to be viable, pro players who focus on micro must have imperfect macro, so that a macro-focused player can actually differentiate himself. Simplifying or removing macro mechanics is in the wrong direction for that. I'd be more comfortable leaving them in for WCS 2016 and seeing what the games are like by season 3.
Inject larva is a mechanic that wasn't any more interesting than how zerg macro is done in SC:BW. Queens themselves are an added complexity to zerg macro. But eventually in a game zerg macro gets to a point where you need X number of inject queens just injecting regularly and that is not more interesting. The important thing is that it's not impossible for macro mechanics to be interesting. Blizzard says inject larva is boring, and they're mostly right, so they use it as a reason to remove all macro mechanics. I say chronoboost is awesome and interesting and has done great things for protoss builds and macro, so I'd use it as justification for redesigning zerg's macro mechanic.
The way Blizzard goes about it, they're basically using their failure to give zerg an interesting macro mechanic as a reason to remove macro mechanics when they could be making it interesting instead. They could redesign them and give them a special spot on the observer UI or make them a central part of some campaign missions so newbs know them better, as steps toward remedying the problems they say they have. But to just be like "nah actually we just want to make our game less about macro instead" really sucks for some of us to hear.
As for the game being more about macro than strategy, that's up for each player to decide. Certainly a low league player trying to get the highest league he can could probably do it most easily by learning how to macro better and practicing it a bit. But he could also just not care what percentile he's in and play the game he wants. And actually there are pros who just play however they want, too. Certainly there are pros with worse mechanics or better mechanics, and in particular worse or better macro, worse or better builds, worse or better tactics, etc.
Whenever someone says the thing they love most about StarCraft is the strategy, and that strategy (as opposed to mechanics) is what's awesome and great about StarCraft, I always feel like they ought to be saying in parentheses that of course it's strategy performed in the context of extremely demanding mechanics that is really beautiful and great about StarCraft. I know for sure that StarCraft has a reputation for being extremely mechanically demanding. And a key component to all esports is mechanics. If you really love pure strategy, you'd be playing card games or table top games (or simulations of those games on the PC). I'll more humbly express my opinion on what StarCraft is on any point except this, because this point I'll say with complete confidence: the basic mechanics of StarCraft should be too difficult to consistently execute perfectly in a real game against a challenging opponent. StarCraft is on the extreme edge of strategy games, being the one that's MOST difficult to actually do what you want to do. That undoubtedly is part of its identity.
If you want it to be about just strategy, play Chess or Hearthstone or a million other games. If you want strategy and micro, play a MOBA. If you want strategy and micro and macro, then right now there's only StarCraft. Let the macro in StarCraft stay difficult and important.
On August 06 2015 08:07 nTzzzz wrote: Imo, the balance between macro and micro IS already messed up. I'm sure we can agree macro is way more important than micro right now. That's especially true for players who are diamond and lower because for them ignoring micro completely while focusing on macro is the best thing they can do if they want to win. And I believe macro is still more important than micro even at the highest level. If you want a better balance between the two, cutting on macro mechanics is the right thing to do.
I don't really care about making the game easier for silver leaguers. Because even if blizzard makes some changes that makes macro easier, then BOTH of the silver league players have that new advantage. And when both players have an advantage, nobody does.... thus if blizzard simplifies fundamental game play mechanisms, then the only people who will actually be affected are the people who are already playing the game at a very high level.
The "macro vs micro" discussion shouldn't even be a discussion at all. There should be opportunities for great players to differentiate themselves with their macro AND their micro. And if you cut away some macro mechanics (or, for that matter, make units more difficult to micro), you remove the opportunity for great players to separate themselves from everyone else. And a lower skill ceiling = more boring game to watch and to play.
Strategy is doing the right thing in any given moment. But macro trumps any other action spending a lot of the time. I don't know how to solve it while still keeping macro styles viable, visible, and exciting. I am willing to try out the macro booster cut.
As a note on aesthetics: I believe that the macro boosters clutter balance and analysis of timings and build orders. Also they seem to provide complicated power surges throughout the game that are accounted for by precautionary nerfs for each race.
On August 06 2015 09:20 Jonas wrote: And if you cut away some macro mechanics (or, for that matter, make units more difficult to micro), you remove the opportunity for great players to separate themselves from everyone else.
How so is it that making units more difficult to micro removes that opportunity?
Pretty much agree with Nony. I do think though that perhaps macro boosters stand in the way of rapid expanding. I think it would be cooler if attention was given to expanding all over and controlling points on the map instead of having stuff to do on your 3 bases, which essentially represent 6 bases worth of production.
I hate to say it Nony but as a Zerg player I love larva inject! It's one of my favorite parts about sc2 - nothing makes you feel like youre multitasking more than injecting then spreading creep tumors then doing some micro - hell yeah. IMO multitasking and not dropping the ball is what makes StarCraft interesting!
On August 06 2015 10:15 CursOr wrote: I hate to say it Nony but as a Zerg player I love larva inject! It's one of my favorite parts about sc2 - nothing makes you feel like youre multitasking more than injecting then spreading creep tumors then doing some micro - hell yeah. IMO multitasking and not dropping the ball is what makes StarCraft interesting!
oh yeah i totally get that. but i think it's also possible to make it an interesting strategic choice or make it a defining part of a certain style of play. so you can happily do it every game but someone else could get by without focusing on it or practicing that skill. or if it really is gonna be kinda mandatory for everyone, then make the zerg macro mechanic more complex somehow so that the people who get satisfaction from making good decisions can get satisfaction from their macro mechanic. i think it's a case where a pareto improvement is possible (no one comes out worse, some people come out better).
keeping macro-focused style viable and interesting but not all-powerful is what blizzard's goal should be. so you can inject like a pro while your opponent is trying to get in your face to mess up your injects and take advantage of your attention being on injects instead of units. and that battle of attention should be balanced so that both styles are viable
I appreciate the time and effort that went into this post but I don't think its particularly designed without a mind already made up. Personally I'm really excited for some of these mechanics to be dropped in LOTV. I understand wanting pro players to be able to separate themselves from the pack but I'm not convinced the skill ceiling is dropping, rather, being shifted to other tasks.
While I'm constantly impressed by soO or Jaedong being able to make an enormous tech switch on account of perfect injects over the course of 20 minutes, its a mechanic that up until that point doesn't appear exciting. With further expansion taking place in LOTV as well as some more harass options, I would much rather watch the pros separate themselves by being able to spend the time attacking on multiple fronts rather than checking their injects.
Chrono I don't see a particular issue with, MULEs aren't exciting when they're just dumped in large numbers, to me that rewards poor mechanics being able to dump them all at once.
All in all I would like people to at least consider more where the new found APM can be spent. The pros won't have slower mechanics, they'll use the actions which would normally be spent on highly mundane tasks to the viewer to entertain with more interesting ones. In my opinion, a much more exciting venture for the esports audience.
On August 06 2015 09:12 NonY wrote: I think for a lot of SC2's 5 year lifetime, micro has been more important at higher levels. For a while, there wasn't enough harassment and skirmishes going on to distract players from macro, so both players had equally good macro. And then games were often decided by one big fight, which of course is about micro. Constantly watching your big death ball army has historically been too important in SC2, especially in WoL. Timing attacks and deadly harass openings have been prominent in HotS, where good pros and bad pros are differentiated by micro, not macro.
I think that with some of the ideas of LotV, like having more small battles going on constantly and requiring players to defend more area (because they're taking more bases), should improve the game in these aspects. Instead of focusing on macroing perfectly until the big battle, at which point micro is the only thing that matters, games should be more of a constant mix of both.
Ideally, some players should have the option to pick between different viable styles. If macro becomes too easy and paying attention to every skirmish becomes too important, then a whole dimension of style can virtually disappear. There should be players who are great at production and kind of just throw units around. But in order for that to be viable, pro players who focus on micro must have imperfect macro, so that a macro-focused player can actually differentiate himself. Simplifying or removing macro mechanics is in the wrong direction for that. I'd be more comfortable leaving them in for WCS 2016 and seeing what the games are like by season 3.
Inject larva is a mechanic that wasn't any more interesting than how zerg macro is done in SC:BW. Queens themselves are an added complexity to zerg macro. But eventually in a game zerg macro gets to a point where you need X number of inject queens just injecting regularly and that is not more interesting. The important thing is that it's not impossible for macro mechanics to be interesting. Blizzard says inject larva is boring, and they're mostly right, so they use it as a reason to remove all macro mechanics. I say chronoboost is awesome and interesting and has done great things for protoss builds and macro, so I'd use it as justification for redesigning zerg's macro mechanic.
The way Blizzard goes about it, they're basically using their failure to give zerg an interesting macro mechanic as a reason to remove macro mechanics when they could be making it interesting instead. They could redesign them and give them a special spot on the observer UI or make them a central part of some campaign missions so newbs know them better, as steps toward remedying the problems they say they have. But to just be like "nah actually we just want to make our game less about macro instead" really sucks for some of us to hear.
As for the game being more about macro than strategy, that's up for each player to decide. Certainly a low league player trying to get the highest league he can could probably do it most easily by learning how to macro better and practicing it a bit. But he could also just not care what percentile he's in and play the game he wants. And actually there are pros who just play however they want, too. Certainly there are pros with worse mechanics or better mechanics, and in particular worse or better macro, worse or better builds, worse or better tactics, etc.
Whenever someone says the thing they love most about StarCraft is the strategy, and that strategy (as opposed to mechanics) is what's awesome and great about StarCraft, I always feel like they ought to be saying in parentheses that of course it's strategy performed in the context of extremely demanding mechanics that is really beautiful and great about StarCraft. I know for sure that StarCraft has a reputation for being extremely mechanically demanding. And a key component to all esports is mechanics. If you really love pure strategy, you'd be playing card games or table top games (or simulations of those games on the PC). I'll more humbly express my opinion on what StarCraft is on any point except this, because this point I'll say with complete confidence: the basic mechanics of StarCraft should be too difficult to consistently execute perfectly in a real game against a challenging opponent. StarCraft is on the extreme edge of strategy games, being the one that's MOST difficult to actually do what you want to do. That undoubtedly is part of its identity.
If you want it to be about just strategy, play Chess or Hearthstone or a million other games. If you want strategy and micro, play a MOBA. If you want strategy and micro and macro, then right now there's only StarCraft. Let the macro in StarCraft stay difficult and important.
If there were an alternative to the current mechanics, but still kept the macro/choice ceiling high, would you be for it? I've always felt like chrono was underwhelming, (maybe it would be better if it drastically increase shield regen for units or building s- more than it already does for buildings). I have always thought mule was a bit too strong, and that it takes away from dt/burrow play - I'd much rather see the terran player make the choice for a mule drop add on or a scan add on. Injects are very one dimensional, and I agree with your and most others sentiments on it.
So, regardless of my ideas or feelings, how would you feel if blizzard were able to create an alternative to the current macro mechanic in place, perhaps ones that are completely new and never seen before.?
If you want micro to be related to controlling multiple units, then what? MOBA's doesn't properly fulfill that role.
You may then argue that you cuold play other RTS games like that, however, all of the "easy mode" RTS games have awfully slow and unresponsive units. Sc2 is the only game that gives satisfaction in terms of unit control.
I'm with Nony on this (but I wont quote his huge post), with the addition that I, like cursor, actually enjoy injects.
Actually, let me quote myself from the other thread, saying something fairly similar:
On August 03 2015 15:55 Cascade wrote: For me, and I think for many others in the thread, the problem isn't the total mechanical requirement of the game, which as you say will still be very high in lotv, with or without macro mechanics. What bothers me is that the mechanical requirements would shift from economy to unit control. I'm not saying that a game needs to have super hard economy mechanics to be a good game. but I think many of us, maybe especially people that have played sc1/2 for a long time, are used to and enjoy having macro skills as a huge factor in who wins the game, especially at lower levels. Removing inject, as a reaction to the increased micro requirement, would be a step away from that, which I'd be a bit sad to see.
I feel that it'd move sc2 towards "all the other games" that typically are more about unit control than demanding economy. Again, I don't try to claim that having a hard-to-handle economy is required to make a good game, and it may be less inviting for new players, I am not sure, but it is at the heart of why I have played starcraft 1 and 2 since it was released, and that may very well the case for others as well.
So this is a purely emotional argument from my side, nothing right or wrong, just explaining why I am not personally happy to see this suggestion.
I'm all for redesigning inject to have it involve more choices (apart from: should I micro my harass lings or go back and inject, /signed gold player). As long as it gives me a reason to actually look at my bases regularly, and gives me a chance to outmacro (or be outmacroed by) the other player.
If you want micro to be related to controlling multiple units, then what? MOBA's doesn't properly fulfill that role.
You may then argue that you cuold play other RTS games like that, however, all of the "easy mode" RTS games have awfully slow and unresponsive units. Sc2 is the only game that gives satisfaction in terms of unit control.
But slow units makes the game more open to new players, and let's us focus on what RTS is REALLY about, namely strategy, so we should congratulate those games for that, right? (Sorry, just trolling a bit, feel free to disregard.)
On August 05 2015 18:20 TRaFFiC wrote: Managing your economy while at the same time controlling your army has been a fundamental part of every RTS I ever played.
And it still will be?
It still will be but the balance between the two is getting messed up. How would people who love micro feel if Blizzard just flat out told them the thing they like isn't actually fun or appreciated by viewers of tournaments so they're removing force field, fungal and stim to allow players to focus more on the fun stuff, the macro mechanics?
Imo, the balance between macro and micro IS already messed up. I'm sure we can agree macro is way more important than micro right now. That's especially true for players who are diamond and lower because for them ignoring micro completely while focusing on macro is the best thing they can do if they want to win. And I believe macro is still more important than micro even at the highest level. If you want a better balance between the two, cutting on macro mechanics is the right thing to do.
No we cannot agree on this. On the highest level micro is the more important of the two. The higher you go, the greater its relative importance.
You will have to convince us otherwise before we can agree.
There are two sides of the coin here: casual players and pro players.
For pro players having demanding macro is another way to separate good from the average or another path to focus on to beat your competitors.
For casual players the fun does not come from making 2 more zealots or 2 more swarm hosts. My best memories from BW was getting to those fun units before enemy was prepared to defend well and harassing or killing them. You didn't share stories with friends how it was cool that I had 10 marines at minute 4 vs his 7 marines but how you managed to rush to dark templars and keep the enemy Terran in the base until he got SVs or how a Lurker drop with slow overlords managed to surprise him or how that 1st Tank in a good position stopped the attack.
Even in sc2 the most exciting games from the past were the baneling traps, hidden void ray rushes and so on. The way first Zerg champion won first GSL is still cooler than most winning afterwards and that was not about better macro.
I am pretty sure a much smaller number of players and viewers get off on seing someone have 10 more units due to better macro mechanics.
EPT
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