|
Some random thoughts/ideas:
Claims have been made that the pacing is much different with the macro mechanics gone. I think what causes the macro mechanics to fail design-wise is that it tampers with time. Time is a fundamental thing to balance around. When you have stuff suddenly disregarding the game's otherwise normal rules of time (and accelerating different parts of the game at different times), it starts getting complicated fast.
In Legacy we have more units that allow the dynamic of trading APM for power (like babysitting a medivac + tank combo as an example). But, is it wise to have dynamics that trade APM for economy? I think this might be tough to balance. Economy is like a snowball and once it gets rolling with an advantage it snowballs out of control. This is why macro style is so strong. Once the macro player stabilizes on the defense, with the larger economy, it's pretty much gg for the player that is a base down. All they have to do is wait it out.
As far as I can tell, Brood War did not have a mechanic to change the standard rules of time.
|
I hope they don't actually remove the macro mechanics, but maybe a nerf to all of them would be good.
|
Ok, don't take this seriously, just in case.
But to me SC2 is like dancing speed chess. Its like speed chess but you must play while dancing. The dance is an important part, without the dancing its just speed chess. Macro mechanics are like a dance.
Im ok if someone change the dance moves but i don't feel like playing speed chess.
The fun is that nobody can make good moves in the short time or dance well when you have to make a move and think about it every minute. And if the other guy moves in a second you are in trouble.
Picture this in your mind. Its the beauty of SC2.
|
Even if this will be tested there is no way it will go through in the way they proposed.
|
@MJesk, neither BW or Starbow have these mechanics, and neither of them have the flaws that you are suggesting come from the lack of these mechanics. SCI mod is also removing/nerfing them, but we haven't seen any SCI matches yet.
All they do is make the game focused around these repetitive and unenjoyable tasks. You spend like 10 minutes of every game just injecting and spreading creep... then it's often over after one 5 second fight. The game/winner is mostly focused around who has better macro, rather than who makes a better use out of the units they make.
I would highly recommend you watch some BW/Starbow VODs.
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.
Same.
It seems like it's mostly people who've only played SC2 who want the macro to stay.
|
|
|
On August 09 2015 07:53 Superbanana wrote:
Ok, don't take this seriously, just in case.
But to me SC2 is like dancing speed chess. Its like speed chess but you must play while dancing. The dance is an important part, without the dancing its just speed chess. Macro mechanics are like a dance.
Im ok if someone change the dance moves but i don't feel like playing speed chess.
The fun is that nobody can make good moves in the short time or dance well when you have to make a move and think about it every minute. And if the other guy moves in a second you are in trouble.
Picture this in your mind. Its the beauty of SC2.
Actually I believe this is a superb comparison. As with speed chess, everything is in the preparation: your brain actually plays from models that have been studied prior to the games you play: you don't think during the play (or as little as possible), you only act and react from memory built from careful preparation (Innovation demonstrates this to it's utmost incarnation I believe). And yes, there is the dance aspect because it's all about flawless movement execution, which requires alot of muscle memory, a bit as with improvised music which is also a choregraphy of gestures, with a musician whom adapts to what he hears from his colleagues (his colleagues being an opponent whom you adapt/react to in an SC2 context). I can't help but think this RTS reunites so many things that I love, along with the competitive part  And yes, SC2 needs to be something more than speed chess: it needs to be unique, and so mechanics (the «dance» part to it) needs to stay somehow.
Anyways, just giving your argument my support and sharing the excitement
|
On August 09 2015 10:08 MaximilianKohler wrote:@MJesk, neither BW or Starbow have these mechanics, and neither of them have the flaws that you are suggesting come from the lack of these mechanics. SCI mod is also removing/nerfing them, but we haven't seen any SCI matches yet. All they do is make the game focused around these repetitive and unenjoyable tasks. You spend like 10 minutes of every game just injecting and spreading creep... then it's often over after one 5 second fight. The game/winner is mostly focused around who has better macro, rather than who makes a better use out of the units they make. I would highly recommend you watch some BW/Starbow VODs. Show nested quote +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.
Same. It seems like it's mostly people who've only played SC2 who want the macro to stay.
See the post by superbanana and my own support of it sooner. These tasks you call «unenjoyable» are actually all the things that ask for a superb and flawless sort of «micro-dance» execution which requires alot of discipline in their training. If you remove them, you get speed-chess: a strategy game which is pretty much all determined by preparation prior to the game because respecting timing windows is a top priority you have to pay respect to. The only thing I ask from these tasks, as I argued earlier, is that they stay in touch with the idea of strategy at least (make sure they don't have to be part of every possible strategy for a race, like injects are).
And as a matter of fact, I did play quite a lot of BW as a kid, then Age of Empires, WC3 and then SC2. In all of them, I could appreciate these qualities I've listed above which connect with my musical background. Music, too, asks for these sort of repetitive perfectly rehearsed micro-moves whose basic blocks can seem redundant (you only need 7 different notes in many Mozart pieces, and isn't depressing a piano key something that can seem terribly repetitive in the long run?), but their sum builds something amazing
|
Seems to me:
If you have 8 workers mining a fresh base, you will benefit from forcing them to mine the high capacity patches. That way, at some time later, if you add another 8 workers, you will mine at double rate. Contrast with the case that they are mining the low capacity patches, at some time later, if you add any workers, the mining rate is still the same since now only 4 patches remain.
#newEconomyDetails
#microYourWorkers
TL, DR: Optimal mining depletes all 8 patches at the same time (when feasible)?
|
For many of the comments which are against removing macro from the game, i dont know in what point of the time the concept of macro had been reduced to 3 tasks: mules,crono,inject, lol.
The question here is which game we want, we want a macro oriented game where making workers and buildings is more important than control the units, or we want a micro oriented game with more interesting engagements and battles than the typical a+click vs a+click.
And dont tell me the bullshit answer of :"I want a game balanced between micro and macro", because right now we have a macro oriented game, and blizz want balance a little modifing 1 task per race, just 1 task of all the macro tasks, and you are crying a lot. Cmon, give me a break.
|
On August 11 2015 05:53 FaiFai wrote:
or we want a micro oriented game with more interesting engagements and battles than the typical a+click vs a+click.
lololololololololo. surely all sc2 engages atm are amove vs amove :D:D:D:D:D:D
|
On August 11 2015 06:16 Luolis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2015 05:53 FaiFai wrote:
or we want a micro oriented game with more interesting engagements and battles than the typical a+click vs a+click.
lololololololololo. surely all sc2 engages atm are amove vs amove :D:D:D:D:D:D
lolololol, in which part did i say: all sc2 engages. Pfff, why people can't read well.
|
If a change like this would enable players to spend more energy actually doing cool stuff with their units, this game might be interesting to me again. I think people against removing them are afraid of any simplification of game mechanics, even when the complex element didn't really add much to gameplay and wasn't necessary in the first place. These kind of macro mechanics are only interesting when you first start playing SC2. It strikes me as something that's not very noticeable, that only the most hardcore of Starcraft bores find interesting - if I had to choose between a complex task of macro-management and a more simplified macro system in favor of allowing for more of that much-desired micro, I know which one I would choose. I would choose it in a heartbeat and never look back.
|
The Articel totally speaks directly out of my SC Heart. As an SC Player from the first Hour on, i am totally against the cutting strategy from blizzard. We don't need more of that disgusting Heroes of the Storm casual crap. That game is the best Example how to stupidify a game for the mass of the players at all costs... Let the games stay complex and difficult to master, it's a part of a Competition that i like about Games.
|
More and more I wonder if they just need "pro" modes for the game. It does make the game accessible, but it's not totally unheard of. They have amateur tees in golf, they have a shorter 3 point line in college basketball. Like imagine if BW launched today with MBS and auto mine. The mechanical cap would be significantly lower. But then imagine for pro tournaments they took it out. It would make pro play sit on this beautiful perch.
There's an obvious problem with this of course which is ladder. So this would probably only work if an organization was really dedicating cash to making pro tournaments happen and allowed a separate pro ladder / league or something. I even think they could take HOTS, take out MBS and it would still work because I do think macro is beautiful, it's just that it's done a little artificially through macro mechanics now which are honestly too approachable.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
