EPTThe Curious Case of soO's Macro Mechanics - Page 25
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Trizztein
Canada45 Posts
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MaximilianKohler
122 Posts
As far as I know there are no showmatches being done for SCI though. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9433 Posts
The very first game I watch (picked a non korean TvT), I find Happy forgetting scv production for 10 seconds three times before 30 supply. Granted he's not the most mechanically sound pro out there but he's still infinitely better than I am. Why do you not believe I can miss scvs for 30 seconds? Because I watched thousands of master league replays over the years, and I always study how well my opponent macro's. I do the same thing for pro games and it was why I well already aware that Happy sucked at scv production. But most pro's are very close to max efficiency here (Goody is actually good at scv production, he just sucks at production by overqueing). I noted it becasue he was worse than producing Scv's than I was (when I played actively 1-2 years ago in master league) and I was generally close in macro skills to most other terrans in master league. You come from a postion where you probably haven't been watching how well they macro on a consistent basis. But I have made that a habit of mine. I both look at unspent ressources and production tab whenever I watch games. So I am still waiting for you to send me these replays of huge macro flaws that you claim exist. Shouldn't be that much work when you say its something that happens frequently. | ||
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MJesk
Netherlands18 Posts
On August 08 2015 08:51 Trizztein wrote: I understand from what I read that the reason for injects to exist is to compensate for the extra charge of macro terran and protoss have to do compared to zerg, making it, by DEFINITION, a band-aid to a problem rather than an true cure to it. Assuming queen injects exist because zerg needs a macro mechanic comparable in difficulty to the mechanics of terran and protoss it just does not follow that this means the zerg mechanic is a band-aid solution. It could also be no solution or the solution. This argument is flawed. | ||
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MJesk
Netherlands18 Posts
On August 07 2015 20:57 Hider wrote: No it's because you literrally don't need to. You just need to have enough production. What's the benefit of having 50+ idle larva? There are obviously a lot of factors involved (when are we in late game, what kind of composition is the zerg going for, etc.), but having 50+ larvae allows you to remax instantly after a battle. Take roach hydra vs mech for example, it may require the zerg 3 maxed out armies to take the terran down. You need to keep your injects up (to a degree) to make this possible. In my opinion, this is fine, because the extra macro zerg needs to put in is rewarded with an ability (instant remax) terran and protoss do not have. And this remains balanced because instant remax units are generally a bit weaker than protoss or terran units. Another method of playing late game is going for the super army (brood lords). I would agree with you that if it gets to the massive brood lord army, injects become way less relevant. If you lose that army, you very probably just lose the game. | ||
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newtii
58 Posts
However, it could be the case that there is a bias: long-time sc2 players do not want to give easy way to new players. They've put long hours, especially zerg players, honing their macro and new players would not have to do that kind of grinding in case macro mechanisms were removed. So maybe this could be a improvement even if it's not very liked. The biggest problem with current mechanisms is how punishing missing injects is compared to forgetting muling or chronoboosting. Taking account community's wants, one possibility would be making protoss and terran mechanisms more punishing as well. On top level this would barely affect the balance but for lower ranking players missing injects would be less punishing as protoss and terran players would miss their macro mechanisms as well. One way to "punish" protoss and terran could be to introduce timer, as injects have, for chrono and mules as well. This would put end to mule hammers and mass warpgate boosting. Every race would still have another ways to spend cc/nexus/queen energy, but they'd need almost equal amount of attention to macro. | ||
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MJesk
Netherlands18 Posts
On August 08 2015 20:55 newtii wrote: I am astonished to see how many tl users actually like the macro mechanisms. I was expecting opposite reaction since I believe that as players are able to concentrace on micro we will see more small fights over the map. For me microing units is much more fun to play and watch. Great macro isn't appreciated much by the viewers. It doesn't give much wows in a instant even if it was the determing factor between winning and losing the game. However, it could be the case that there is a bias: long-time sc2 players do not want to give easy way to new players. They've put long hours, especially zerg players, honing their macro and new players would not have to do that kind of grinding in case macro mechanisms were removed. So maybe this could be a improvement even if it's not very liked. I think you can't take micro and macro apart like that. Current micro is so impressive because players have to macro behind it. Maybe I'm wrong, but if micro is "the only thing" you have to do, we'll reach skill caps really soon and 'amazing' moves become way too common. The biggest problem with current mechanisms is how punishing missing injects is compared to forgetting muling or chronoboosting. Taking account community's wants, one possibility would be making protoss and terran mechanisms more punishing as well. On top level this would barely affect the balance but for lower ranking players missing injects would be less punishing as protoss and terran players would miss their macro mechanisms as well. One way to "punish" protoss and terran could be to introduce timer, as injects have, for chrono and mules as well. This would put end to mule hammers and mass warpgate boosting. Every race would still have another ways to spend cc/nexus/queen energy, but they'd need almost equal amount of attention to macro. The biggest problem is pulling out one aspect of the game that is different between the races in order to brand it as imbalanced (or I guess, punishing). If you don't like how punishing queen injects are, play a different race. It is just wrong to me to want the races to be more alike. I want more diversity between the races not less. It is amazing to me the three races differ on such fundamental levels. | ||
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Aocowns
Norway6070 Posts
On August 08 2015 21:17 MJesk wrote: I think you can't take micro and macro apart like that. Current micro is so impressive because players have to macro behind it. Maybe I'm wrong, but if micro is "the only thing" you have to do, we'll reach skill caps really soon and 'amazing' moves become way too common. The biggest problem is pulling out one aspect of the game that is different between the races in order to brand it as imbalanced (or I guess, punishing). If you don't like how punishing queen injects are, play a different race. It is just wrong to me to want the races to be more alike. I want more diversity between the races not less. It is amazing to me the three races differ on such fundamental levels. yeah its kinda like the gumiho incident with drops before hots. in WoL people were like: wow, gumiho is really good at dropping! with superspeed medievacs he'll probably be even more insane. Then instead we got a dozen more gumihos, and it wasnt really special anymore | ||
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Quineotio
Australia128 Posts
On August 08 2015 21:17 MJesk wrote: If you don't like how punishing queen injects are, play a different race. It is just wrong to me to want the races to be more alike. I want more diversity between the races not less. It is amazing to me the three races differ on such fundamental levels. I don't think inject is intrinsic to the identity of zerg. It's also not the only point of difference between the races. As you say, the races differ on fundamental level. I personally like the zerg units and zerg in general, but I dislike inject as a mechanic. | ||
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MJesk
Netherlands18 Posts
On August 08 2015 22:02 Quineotio wrote: I don't think inject is intrinsic to the identity of zerg. It's also not the only point of difference between the races. As you say, the races differ on fundamental level. I personally like the zerg units and zerg in general, but I dislike inject as a mechanic. The methodology and mechanics of production as well as creep spread are the defining features of zerg. These mechanics differ on a fundamental level from the other two races. All else follows from that (like how the units are). If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you. But I would like to know what you think the fundamental differences between the races are. | ||
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newtii
58 Posts
On August 08 2015 21:17 MJesk wrote: I think you can't take micro and macro apart like that. Current micro is so impressive because players have to macro behind it. Maybe I'm wrong, but if micro is "the only thing" you have to do, we'll reach skill caps really soon and 'amazing' moves become way too common. I feel that the casual viewers cannot understand the mechanics required for macro, the restriction it makes for micro. More awesome micro is needed for sc2. And I'd believe this change would encourage it even more as attention to macro isn't limiting factor. Hopefully new micro techniques would emerge. Of course current Maru style TvP micro would be diluted but maybe Maru maybe this change could allow even more room for Maru's brilliant micro. | ||
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Quineotio
Australia128 Posts
On August 08 2015 22:10 MJesk wrote: The methodology and mechanics of production as well as creep spread are the defining features of zerg. These mechanics differ on a fundamental level from the other two races. All else follows from that (like how the units are). If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you. But I would like to know what you think the fundamental differences between the races are. If you mean fundamental to the way zerg is currently designed in HotS, then yes, I agree. But inject didn't exist in broodwar, and is not necessary in order for zerg to feel like zerg. Yes, inject is a feature that is unique to zerg, but removing it does not remove zerg uniqueness. | ||
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newtii
58 Posts
On August 08 2015 21:17 MJesk wrote: The biggest problem is pulling out one aspect of the game that is different between the races in order to brand it as imbalanced (or I guess, punishing). If you don't like how punishing queen injects are, play a different race. It is just wrong to me to want the races to be more alike. I want more diversity between the races not less. It is amazing to me the three races differ on such fundamental levels. The change I proposed do not affect the design of the races, all the fundamental differences would still exist. Reasoning for it is because lots of posters in this thread like and feel that need to go back to one's base to macro is essential for sc2. It is a feature to distinguish sc2 from other rts games. The change would force this (arguably) liked feature for protoss/terran more in the late game too. Implemented in HOTS chrono and mules could be buffed if needed, but in LOTV it's impossible to make any balance calls. I do not main as zerg. | ||
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MJesk
Netherlands18 Posts
On August 08 2015 22:26 newtii wrote: I feel that the casual viewers cannot understand the mechanics required for macro, the restriction it makes for micro. More awesome micro is needed for sc2. And I'd believe this change would encourage it even more as attention to macro isn't limiting factor. Hopefully new micro techniques would emerge. Of course current Maru style TvP micro would be diluted but maybe Maru maybe this change could allow even more room for Maru's brilliant micro. I think the casual viewer can see the restriction macro puts on micro almost every game. The frequency in which stuff dies because players aren't paying attention is pretty high. It may be that casters should explain this better, but it seems to me that it doesn't take much for people to realize something's up. And really. Do you want to change the fundamentals of the game based on a vague hope some amazing micro stuff will miraculously pop up? | ||
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
On August 08 2015 08:51 Trizztein wrote: This debate is really interesting. There's just something I can't help but notice about stuchiu's article: I understand from what I read that the reason for injects to exist is to compensate for the extra charge of macro terran and protoss have to do compared to zerg, making it, by DEFINITION, a band-aid to a problem rather than an true cure to it. Writing it in italic and caps doesn't make it true. Or adding «double angle brackets» for that matter. (How do you even type those??) And please tell me what is the DEFINITION of a band-aid to a problem that separates it from a solution to a problem? Or a true cure to a problem for that matter? Anyway, just got a bit annoyed at your choice of words, sorry about that.  I think I understand what you are trying to say.Moving on: Historically, the mule, chrono boost and inject were introduced roughly simultaneously in the WoL beta (or alpha probably?), and the reason was mainly the huuuuge outcry from the ex BWers about how the macro was incredibly simplified through MBS and auto-rally workers. Those were simplified much for the same reasons people bring up now: it's silly to have people do mindless repetitive action (such as clicking through 10 barracks or tell every worker to go mine manually). They still wanted to keep people busy in their bases though, so they introduced the macro mechanics for each race that would introduce meaningful strategical clicks. Don't see what's band-aid about that train of thought. Mechanics in Starcraft shouldn't just be «robot-like» based, but strategy-based (I really can't see why we shouldn't make the two things - decision making + good mechanics - happen at once when we can - is there a counter-argument to this I'm not aware of?). So, isn't the issue at hand to propose actual concrete changes rather than simply saying «remove the band-aid» or «don't remove it» since we all reckognize there IS a problem? Shouldn't we be focusing our energies on writing articles about these proposed changes with mods incremented in the game to test them, like I believe some mods have been set up to adress the mothership core and warp-gate design issues in the past? Then as you say, people figured out pretty quickly what was the best way to spend the queen/OC/nexus energy, and they turned into pretty mindless tasks for most of the time, especially the inject. So as you say, from that perspective, it'd make sense to try to change or nudge the macro mechanics, especially the inject, to introduce more meaningful choices (or strategy if you want) in the macro clicks. That's definitely a direction I'd welcome, and if you read around you will see suggestions to tweaks as you called for. I'd also like to question whether every single click really needs to be either a strategic choice or removed. If so, you could argue for removing or automating a whole bunch of other mindless tasks that really are pretty straight forward, both in macro and micro, and you'd end up with a game that me personally wouldn't enjoy playing. I don't think anyone actually argues that (so it'd be a strawman to just stop here ftw), but what it does show is that the argument "this click rarely involves strategy, so it should be automated or removed" isn't really enough by itself, unless you also want to remove all other clicks that rarely involve strategy. So before we remove or automate inject, we need to ask why we remove the mindless macro-click of inject, but not remove the mindless macro-click of building supply depots, or the mindless micro-click of blinking back injured stalkers? | ||
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MJesk
Netherlands18 Posts
On August 08 2015 22:32 Quineotio wrote: If you mean fundamental to the way zerg is currently designed in HotS, then yes, I agree. But inject didn't exist in broodwar, and is not necessary in order for zerg to feel like zerg. Yes, inject is a feature that is unique to zerg, but removing it does not remove zerg uniqueness. I think it can be argued that zerg is more 'zergy' in hots than in brood war. But let's not go there  . I think that we're mostly in agreement. I don't think queen injects are the only means of making zerg unique, but I do think that just removing it would make zerg less unique (leaving all else more or less the same). And arguing for removal because the other races do not have this specific burden is in my humble opinion, a very wrong way of looking at it. And that was the actual point I was trying to make. | ||
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newtii
58 Posts
On August 08 2015 22:36 MJesk wrote: I think the casual viewer can see the restriction macro puts on micro almost every game. The frequency in which stuff dies because players aren't paying attention is pretty high. It may be that casters should explain this better, but it seems to me that it doesn't take much for people to realize something's up. And really. Do you want to change the fundamentals of the game based on a vague hope some amazing micro stuff will miraculously pop up? Your point is true, but is it something that we'd like to see/experience in (high-stakes) games? Instant deaths because of small misplay? Of course it is a skill to give enough attention to everything, but to me games decided in instand because of misplay are lacklusters. I am more keen on seeing continuous harrasment, multi-pronged attacking and insane micro in engagements. If you formulate the question that way then yes. | ||
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Quineotio
Australia128 Posts
On August 08 2015 22:49 MJesk wrote: I don't think queen injects are the only means of making zerg unique, but I do think that just removing it would make zerg less unique (leaving all else more or less the same). And arguing for removal because the other races do not have this specific burden is in my humble opinion, a very wrong way of looking at it. And that was the actual point I was trying to make. I agree that wanting to remove inject just because other races don't have something equivalent would be the wrong way of looking at it. Personally I want it removed because I find it really irritating to have to inject every hatch every 30 seconds. The negative definitely outweighs the positive. | ||
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MJesk
Netherlands18 Posts
On August 08 2015 22:53 newtii wrote: Your point is true, but is it something that we'd like to see/experience in (high-stakes) games? Instant deaths because of small misplay? Of course it is a skill not give enough attention to everything, but to me such games are lacklusters. I am more keen on seeing continuous harrasment, multi-pronged attacking and insane micro in engagements. If you formulate the question that way then yes. I think you underappreciate all the moments in which it went right. Those moments are amazing because it is so easy for things to go wrong. And to be fair, in pro play, it does not happen that often. I am unconvinced removing macro mechanics will bring what you think it brings. I think it makes what's currently special normal. The skill of players constantly grows. We're seeing micro we never saw 5 years ago. It will be the same in 5 years. We do not need to remove the macro mechanics for that. | ||
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MJesk
Netherlands18 Posts
On August 08 2015 23:02 Quineotio wrote: I agree that wanting to remove inject just because other races don't have something equivalent would be the wrong way of looking at it. Personally I want it removed because I find it really irritating to have to inject every hatch every 30 seconds. The negative definitely outweighs the positive. I think that a personal dislike of a mechanic in a specific race is a bad argument as well. The races are different for a reason. Play another one. Or come back here and argue that no one likes it, that it's fundamentally imbalanced or that it's bad for the game in general. I would go for the third option if I were you . | ||
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