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On August 04 2015 03:02 stuchiu wrote:
I understand the need to try to simplify the game to make it more user friendly, but this change to inject will make everyone have the injects of soO without the mechanics, without the strategy, without the hard work.
If this went through as is, then everyone can be special like soO.
And because everyone is special, no one is.
Just earlier you had written, "Even in the second tier of pro gamers, mechanics is often beaten by strategy or tactics." No, nobody gets to be as special as soO just because you've taken out a layer of macro mechanics. And you imply that macro is being wiped out when it's only being deemphasized a little bit. Blizz is only taking out one part of macro and increasing the emphasis on strategy. Personally I'm fully in agreement with Blizzard's direction. It is personally far more exciting to me when I see something like, "he brilliantly maneuvered his opponent into a trap before surrounding him and completely destroying him," than "he hit all his injects."
This is a really old argument about "dumbing down" Starcraft, but in my opinion, making Starcraft a more strategic rather than mechanical game actually it makes it smarter and harder. Any number of Korean teenagers can hit all their injects, but it takes a genius to outplay and outthink your opponent.
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I think most of the points are perfectly well known to Blizzard. They invented these mechanics in the first place!
I think, from a perspective of a casual player like me, David Kim is right for once. The game can be at a better place, if such things (mindless apm sinks that are only there meant to compete with your other actions, and very hard to notice by the viewers) can be redesigned to have less importance.
There are basically two issues in your article, the first is strategy, the second is balance. I agree that mules and chronoboosts can be interesting decisions, but the same thing cannot be said for creeping and injecting. In fact, it is inarguable that protoss is the easiest race to play in the sense that it requires the least apm, so your argument how those two are compensating for building supply buildings is kind of weird. Do you really think Zerg becomes the easiest if say, you play in archon mode and there is one person managing just those two things for you?
Anyway, the bottomline is from a strategical point of view, mules and chrono, maybe; creeping and injecting, not so much.
Then it's balance. I think it should be obvious to Blizzard or anyone, that removing these mechanics will have an impact on balance. It is okay as long as other adjustments are made to compensate. I mean, saying that Soo won but Solar lost against flash due to their inject difference is fine, but that does not necessarily mean therefore we want inject to continue to exist. As said in the article there are arguably more important ways for players to distinguish themselves, I think it is fair to think about removing aspects that are hurting casual players.
I am not sure how most people think. For me esports is not sports after all. Unlike, say, playing tennis, there is a natural and obvious advantage for players that run faster and hit the ball harder, I don't think it is natural to require players to have as high apm as possible. It should be the case that some apm is necessary, but after that point the gain should greatly diminish. And if there is such gain, it should manifest itself in ways that are more visually impactful such as how splits affects a battle, much similar to how physicality is viewable in sports. The worst case is to have an apm sink that a bot can do as good, frustrates new players, rewards apm to levels that hardly anyone one can master, and is not obvious to most observers.
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4713 Posts
On August 04 2015 06:35 Evil_Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2015 03:02 stuchiu wrote:
I understand the need to try to simplify the game to make it more user friendly, but this change to inject will make everyone have the injects of soO without the mechanics, without the strategy, without the hard work.
If this went through as is, then everyone can be special like soO.
And because everyone is special, no one is. Just earlier you had written, "Even in the second tier of pro gamers, mechanics is often beaten by strategy or tactics." No, nobody gets to be as special as soO just because you've taken out a layer of macro mechanics. And you imply that macro is being wiped out when it's only being deemphasized a little bit. Blizz is only taking out one part of macro and increasing the emphasis on strategy. Personally I'm fully in agreement with Blizzard's direction. It is personally far more exciting to me when I see something like, "he brilliantly maneuvered his opponent into a trap before surrounding him and completely destroying him," than "he hit all his injects." This is a really old argument about "dumbing down" Starcraft, but in my opinion, making Starcraft a more strategic rather than mechanical game actually it makes it smarter and harder. Any number of Korean teenagers can hit all their injects, but it takes a genius to outplay and outthink your opponent.
No, if you remove macro mechanics you just have a dumbed down game where its nearly impossible to distinguish players apart because of how few subskills there are.
What many of you people in this thread are missing, and indeed what many community figures and even Blizzard is missing is that SC2 is a Real Time Strategy game. What that means is that, since the game takes place in real time then time itself becomes a resource. At some point in the mid and late game as a player you're going to have to make decisions as to how to distribute your attention and APM, weather it be macro and base management, micro and army movements or a mix of both. If you remove one or the other you remove a significant bit of depth from the game.
And yes in actual fact Blizzard did realize they dumbed down SC2 compared to BW when they streamlined the UI, its the very reason they even created macro mechanics, so that there would be actual depth to macro. If anything SC2 actually needs more and different macro mechanics, such that different players can have even more opportunities to distinguish themselves. We actually need there to be possible for some players to dedicate so much APM to macro that they can outproduce anyone else if they really put their mind do it and roll over people with pure mechanics.
I find it downright appalling that people like Jakatak or David Kim can fail so utterly to recognize this aspect of RTS and its importance.
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I understand the need to try to simplify the game to make it more user friendly, but this change to inject will make everyone have the injects of soO without the mechanics, without the strategy, without the hard work.
If this went through as is, then everyone can be special like soO.
And because everyone is special, no one is.
The issue I have with this comment (besides the mechanic element which is less relevant in LOTV) is that you clearly are intereted in associating strategy with inject larva. What does inject larva have to do with strategy. Its raw mechanics. There are no decisions involved and its not related to the gameplan.
Instead of focussing on the actual arguments you are arguing like a politican and redefining terms so they fit your purpose.
I find it downright appalling that people like Jakatak or David Kim can fail so utterly to recognize this aspect of RTS and its importance.
Or maybe their opinion is that you can increase the skillcap and reduce the learning barrier at the same time? I find it downright appaling that you didn't consider that.
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There is a TON of behind-the-scenes complexity in major sports that 95%+ fans aren't aware of and therefore don't appreciate immediately, but the games are better for it on a level that they can appreciate. In SC2, this is the "whoa, how does he have so many units?" moment or "wow, the timing on that attack was perfect."
And I really really can't even begin to understand how their arguments apply to chronoboost. Chrono is used to manipulate builds, which yields a greater variety of things a protoss can do. Players and viewers appreciate the variety. It is not some routine mechanic used for general-purpose macro. Furthermore, casters often see chronoboost as a "tell" in the player's build, tipping them off on what they're cooking up, therefore making it easier for fans to understand what's going on. Chronos on blink over and over? Blink timing. Chronos on nexuses? Investing in economy. It is simple.
It feels like someone at Blizzard is thinking "how can we make SC2 gameplay like other esports?" and came up with some abstract concepts and is trying to apply them to LotV. And in my opinion getting a lot of it wrong.
The only thing that has ever been wrong with SC2 is lack of build variety. There were stretches when players did the same thing too much until something got nerfed or a counter got buffed and during those times lots of people lost interest in SC2. The #1 priority should be creating a game with many build possibilities. The 12 worker start already goes against that. These macro mechanic ideas go against it as well.
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Great article! I really hope Blizzard reads this.
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so blizzard is going after mechanics themselves? seriously? euh
plus one to this artcile
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Long-time lurker here, jumping in the conversation because this is an important discussion that might have an effect on the direction the game takes.
I disagree with almost the entirety of this article and am in favour of making macro mechanics less important.
I’m quite surprised at the outcry against Blizzard’s propositions. Yet it reminds me of how a lot of people were against worker rally and multiple building selection before the release of SC2. I’m sure everyone realizes how backwards that sounds today therefore I respectfully ask you all to consider whether your opinion about macro mechanics isn’t just you being afraid of change.
The only argument in this article that seems reasonable to me is the idea that macro mechanics create tension which makes the decisions on how to spread your attention and what to prioritize strategic. That is definitely true, however past the early game there is an infinite supply of things you could be doing other than casting injects / mules so you’ll always have to prioritize no matter what. And the good thing is you would have to prioritize between things that are strategic in themselves: army movement, positioning, harass, scouting, etc. How great would it be to see pros harass nonstop at 3 different places at once?
You say mechanics are sometimes beaten by strategy. Sure, but let’s be honest, mechanics are still way more important than strategy right now. To take your example, it doesn’t matter how bad Cure is strategically, he’ll crush anyone from bronze to GM on mechanics alone. I think we can all agree that gamers cannot compete at the highest level past 25-30. That is due to the physiological response time increasing with age, making it impossible to reach the same APM as the best players. How sad is that for what is supposed to be a STRATEGY game? As a new player, if you want to be any decent you have to practise mechanics for months and any strategy consideration before that point is irrelevant because you don’t get to experience the proper timings. Is that the way it should be? What’s wrong with making the game more accessible and more strategic?
The point about Soo is irrelevant. If the game had been less mechanically demanding and Soo hadn’t done as well as he did, then someone else would have been in those GSL finals and we would have praised that player as much as we praised Soo albeit for different things, maybe strategic genius for example. Now I don’t know about you but to me strategic genius sounds way more exciting than god of macro.
And as pointed out by multiple people before me, why on earth would “whether something is fun” not be a good argument for keeping it or not. To the counter example, I do think figuring out scouting opportunities and defensive timings against cheese or harass (including DTs) is extremely fun and rewarding. I really do not understand the comparison.
Side note: as a master zerg player, I do think getting rid of macro mechanics (all other things remaining equal) would give a significant advantage to zerg but that doesn’t matter right now. We’re talking about game DESIGN, and once decisions about DESIGN are made, blizzard will make sure to achieve good overall BALANCE (likely by nerfing zerg in some way).
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There is a TON of behind-the-scenes complexity in major sports that 95%+ fans aren't aware of and therefore don't appreciate immediately, but the games are better for it on a level that they can appreciate. In SC2, this is the "whoa, how does he have so many units?" moment or "wow, the timing on that attack was perfect."
The problem is that that noone actually says "wow" before the sentence "that timing was actually perfect". Timing attacks where one guy has a lot more army value than the opponent generally aren't exciting to watch (only if its a foreigner vs a korean I guess).
Instead, viewers are mostly intested in seeing back and fourth games with lots of micro and multitasking.
How do I know that's the case? because protoss is all about these refined timings and it's a lame race. Then you watch someone like Polt play and his timings typically aren't very good/very predictable, however he does really well his multitasking and its exciting to watch.
Its a general misconception amongst a big portion of the community that the opinions of pro gamers actually matter more than from that of the average gamer (when it comes to what they find fun).
But competitive games/high level games shouldn't be assessed on whether they think the game has lots of depth/fun or not, but instead on whether the way they play makes for a great viewing experience.
Hypothetically speaking, if you have some super specific depth that only pro's can appreciate but almost no other players and viewers can't see it, then it doesn't add anything of value to the game.
So whether inject or CB is good should be determined mainly on whether the majority of the target group enjoys using them.
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Timing attacks and production efficiency are still in the game. Idle time on a building adds up throughout the course of the game. You can still test your opponent by demanding they attend to micro (and make them risk missing macro timings) or else trade inefficiently in the battles/skirmishes.
Macro mechanics just provided a multitasking template of 'hey to be most effective, check in with these additional actions every X seconds'. With the change, the multitasking template is more open-ended, with more room for creativity.
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On August 04 2015 07:20 mishimaBeef wrote:
Timing attacks and production efficiency are still in the game. Idle time on a building adds up throughout the course of the game. You can still test your opponent by demanding they attend to micro (and make them risk missing macro timings) or else trade inefficiently in the battles/skirmishes.
Macro mechanics just provided a multitasking template of 'hey to be most effective, check in with these additional actions every X seconds'. With the change, the multitasking template is more open-ended, with more room for creativity.
See i would actually agree if sc2 was designed that there is a lot of room for creativity and multitasking.
How would that be the case?
You would need a lot of places where attacking/harassing is worth it AND you would need a lot of different builds to do so.
The first one is 100% missing.
You guys say "hey if we reduce the mechanical skill for macro, we have more time to micro and multitask!"
It sounds logical, but it's simply not true, you have no place to multitask more in the current design of economy/mapdesign.
Removing one aspect won't change the others too much without other changes as well.
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On August 04 2015 07:41 The_Red_Viper wrote:
You guys say "hey if we reduce the mechanical skill for macro, we have more time to micro and multitask!"
It sounds logical, but it's simply not true, you have no place to multitask more in the current design of economy/mapdesign.
I respectfully disagree. Especially considering the push in Legacy to have more spread out bases and more interesting battle micro.
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4713 Posts
On August 04 2015 07:17 nTzzzz wrote:
Long-time lurker here, jumping in the conversation because this is an important discussion that might have an effect on the direction the game takes.
I disagree with almost the entirety of this article and am in favour of making macro mechanics less important.
I’m quite surprised at the outcry against Blizzard’s propositions. Yet it reminds me of how a lot of people were against worker rally and multiple building selection before the release of SC2. I’m sure everyone realizes how backwards that sounds today therefore I respectfully ask you all to consider whether your opinion about macro mechanics isn’t just you being afraid of change.
The only argument in this article that seems reasonable to me is the idea that macro mechanics create tension which makes the decisions on how to spread your attention and what to prioritize strategic. That is definitely true, however past the early game there is an infinite supply of things you could be doing other than casting injects / mules so you’ll always have to prioritize no matter what. And the good thing is you would have to prioritize between things that are strategic in themselves: army movement, positioning, harass, scouting, etc. How great would it be to see pros harass nonstop at 3 different places at once?
You say mechanics are sometimes beaten by strategy. Sure, but let’s be honest, mechanics are still way more important than strategy right now. To take your example, it doesn’t matter how bad Cure is strategically, he’ll crush anyone from bronze to GM on mechanics alone. I think we can all agree that gamers cannot compete at the highest level past 25-30. That is due to the physiological response time increasing with age, making it impossible to reach the same APM as the best players. How sad is that for what is supposed to be a STRATEGY game? As a new player, if you want to be any decent you have to practise mechanics for months and any strategy consideration before that point is irrelevant because you don’t get to experience the proper timings. Is that the way it should be? What’s wrong with making the game more accessible and more strategic?
The point about Soo is irrelevant. If the game had been less mechanically demanding and Soo hadn’t done as well as he did, then someone else would have been in those GSL finals and we would have praised that player as much as we praised Soo albeit for different things, maybe strategic genius for example. Now I don’t know about you but to me strategic genius sounds way more exciting than god of macro.
And as pointed out by multiple people before me, why on earth would “whether something is fun” not be a good argument for keeping it or not. To the counter example, I do think figuring out scouting opportunities and defensive timings against cheese or harass (including DTs) is extremely fun and rewarding. I really do not understand the comparison.
Side note: as a master zerg player, I do think getting rid of macro mechanics (all other things remaining equal) would give a significant advantage to zerg but that doesn’t matter right now. We’re talking about game DESIGN, and once decisions about DESIGN are made, blizzard will make sure to achieve good overall BALANCE (likely by nerfing zerg in some way).
No, you're flat out wrong. Mechanics is the most important aspect up to a certain point. At the top level when most pros have a certain baseline of mechanics then strategy, positioning, army management, micro and build orders start growing in importance. That doesn't mean that all pros have equal mechanics you can clearly see Maru has superior multi-task to some other Terrans from his ability to constantly attack while keeping up on macro, this is a good thing since it allows room for players to distinguish themselves from their peers in different aspects. At the same time since SC2 is a RTS, players have to chose between different tasks, this adds the element of strategy in managing your time. If there were no macro mechanics we wouldn't have been in awe of Dear when he was hitting all his Chronoboosts on his Royal Road, or soO who hit all his injects to overwhelm Flash, or Bomber who always seemed to have another army ready to replace his recently slaughtered one.
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*Claps hands* 100% agree.
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It sounds logical, but it's simply not true, you have no place to multitask more in the current design of economy/mapdesign.
Yeh this is kinda correct but it overlooks one element. What happens when you actually can fight the opponent, but also need to go back to your base to macro? Then you have to prioritize, e.g. decision. You might think that's good, but if the majority of the target groups heavily prefers micro, then it makes the experience less enjoyable. Decisions should mostly be about different fun choices. Not between 1 fun and 1 boring choice.
I experience that scenario frequently when a zerg player transitions to Ultralisks and I have lots of reactors on my barracks. I then need to go back to base and find new locations for my barracks to add tech labs. It's incredibly annoying and boring whereas I really just wanna micro my bio units. It also makes it even more frustrating when you cannot make a new rally when your barracks are lifted (fix that Blizzard plz).
But ofc in many other situations it is true that you cannot attack if its not efficienct to attack (even though you may have time for it). That's, however, also what David Kim is looking to change in LOTV by giving all races more harass options.
(Guess this somewhat ironically sounds like I am a big fan of David Kim)
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Seems like some people try to imply that every input related to "macro" is somehow removed from the game.
Where, even, is the line? For example, if I move my units to go sit and defend a key resource location is that a micro action or a macro action?
In reality, I don't feel like anything "macro" is lost, but a checkpoint of an effective multitasking cycle has been removed and is now open for players.
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On August 04 2015 07:20 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +There is a TON of behind-the-scenes complexity in major sports that 95%+ fans aren't aware of and therefore don't appreciate immediately, but the games are better for it on a level that they can appreciate. In SC2, this is the "whoa, how does he have so many units?" moment or "wow, the timing on that attack was perfect." The problem is that that noone actually says "wow" before the sentence "that timing was actually perfect". Timing attacks where one guy has a lot more army value than the opponent generally aren't exciting to watch (only if its a foreigner vs a korean I guess). Instead, viewers are mostly intested in seeing back and fourth games with lots of micro and multitasking. How do I know that's the case? because protoss is all about these refined timings and it's a lame race. Then you watch someone like Polt play and his timings typically aren't very good/very predictable, however he does really well his multitasking and its exciting to watch. The general confusion amongst a big portion of the community is that the opinions of pro gamers actually matter more than from that of the average gamer. But what's interesting about pro gamers isn't whether they find it fun or not, but rather whether what they do is fun to watch for viewers. If you have some super specific depth that only pro's can appreciate but almost no other players and viewers can't see it, then it doesn't add anything of value to the game. So whether inject or CB is good should be determined mainly on whether the majority of the target group enjoys using them.
StarCraft has an identity and every design decision that is made must remain true to that identity. If they want to make another game to appeal to a different target group then make another game. But I don't care for subjecting StarCraft design to the tyranny of the majority. I don't know why you quote me in particular just to contradict my opinions. I say "wow that timing was perfect." So there's at least one person who says it. I really doubt you have that great an idea of what the majority of fans want anyway. No one has any idea what most fans want anyway ever since reddit became a significant part of the community. Their voting system is so fucked, SO much the tyranny of the majority of regular voters while giving the illusion of representing a large portion of the community, that a lot of people get the wrong ideas.
Maybe if timings go unappreciated, Blizzard should take it upon themselves to teach it to people with the campaign. Have missions with timers that require players to put some work into optimizing build orders. Maybe commentators need to do a better job of talking about timings. Google "ee han timing." Timings are a big deal. If the average fan doesn't appreciate them anymore, then maybe have some self-respect and raise the standards rather than lower them.
Or maybe who cares. Let it be an aspect of the game that doesn't fit into the awareness of the casual viewer. As long as the casual viewer has enough action to occupy their attention, there can be an infinite amount of stuff happening behind the scenes that only adds to the game.
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I think you missed another vital and interesting factor - Queens are the primary early defence for a macro zerg and they're also required for the macro mechanic. This creates a very interesting dynamic where queens are valuable for defending harassment, however also must be protected, kept alive I.E: through transfuses as they are a target because killing them does economic damage due to their role in inject larvae.
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On August 04 2015 07:48 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +It sounds logical, but it's simply not true, you have no place to multitask more in the current design of economy/mapdesign. Yeh this is kinda correct but it overlooks one element. What happens when you actually can fight the opponent, but also need to go back to your base to macro? Then you have to prioritize, e.g. decision. You might think that's good, but if the majority of the target groups heavily prefers micro, then it makes the experience less enjoyable. Decisions should mostly be about different fun choices. Not between 1 fun and 1 boring choice. I experience that scenario frequently when a zerg player transitions to Ultralisks and I have lots of reactors on my barracks. I then need to go back to base and find new locations for my barracks to add tech labs. It's incredibly annoying and boring whereas I really just wanna micro my bio units. But ofc in many other situations it is true that you cannot attack if its not efficiency to attack (even though you may have time for it).
Well i think this is more a problem of the micro potential. If i actually have the choice to micro in this situation and be extremely efficient cause of it it maybe is even worth it to macro a few seconds later.
I don't think it is a problem that you kinda have to macro in that situation when you would rather micro, it's a problem that macroing is 'always' better.
The solution to this isn't to remove the macro, it is to give 'micro players' more potential.
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They should remove some of the macro mechanics to make it easier for new players, but add in some non-essential features that require high APM and practice to master so that higher level players can show skills. For example, give marines the ability to duck. High skill players could manually duck their marines to reduce damage if timed properly, instead of dropping mules. Zerglings could hop in the air to avoid hellion fire, zealots could phase out for 1 second to avoid damage... this way each race gets to show off APM, and the skill ceiling for new players is lowered due to less macro required.
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EPT
