EPTBuilding workers and supply doesn't necessarily measure up well either, but killing workers and supply and the consequent need to rebuild under pressure or say screw it and all-in certainly does.
The Curious Case of soO's Macro Mechanics - Page 6
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lpunatic
235 Posts
Building workers and supply doesn't necessarily measure up well either, but killing workers and supply and the consequent need to rebuild under pressure or say screw it and all-in certainly does. | ||
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FaiFai
Peru53 Posts
Second, terran and protoss at mid- late game not even need to switch his attention to their bases, and just had focuses in control their units, and only if there a harrasment,or a cronobusting at specific time they have to switch attention, but for zerg is different, not matter what happens at the moment, if their units have to engage in a battle, or they have a multidrop, or they try to harrass, no matter what is happening and when is happening, they have to switch the attention to their bases to inject, praying to their units not get caught at bad position. And in a game that basically reduces to use your attention more efficiently, is a big dissanvantage to zerg players. And for newbie zerg players could be a nightmare, i think the problem is not the mechanical by itself, is that not all the races make the same effort to play them. In consistant not always won the best player at all points, usually heard in the analisis game: he lost bcoz didnt snipe well with their vikings, or he lost bcoz he shouldnt blink with stalkers,but for zerg reduces to he lost bcoz he missed some injects, is something dissapointed. I think the inject shouldnt be the factor to determine how good the zerg player is, bcoz it directly affect at detritment all the other skills that zerg player could have, while the other races can focus on what they want and when they want, showing the real skill one. | ||
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CometNine
New Zealand87 Posts
I won't lie, my personal stance on the matter is sitting on the fence. Conceptually, I think it's a bad idea remove these mechanics from the game. Like others have mentioned, progressing from Bronze to Platinum and getting better at said mechanics is quite rewarding. Over the 5 years I've played this game, I've had moments of frustration to moments of sheer joy. However, this brings me onto my next point - over the 5 years I've played this game...I'm the only one from my group of friends that still plays this game, and even that too - I'm a casual nowadays. If Blizzard's aim is to bring more new people into the game (or recapture people like my friends who've stopped), then realistically this is something that they need to explore. In 2010 when SC2 was released - there was a sense of novelty (with the game being new) and a strategy niche that the game filled. At the time we basically had Dota 1, HoN and SC2 and I think most of the people I knew chose Starcraft over the other two. Fast forward 5 years and now we have DotA 2, LoL, Heroes, Heartstone, CS:GO and SC2 to chose from. When I've tried to get my friends back into SC2 I was often met with the response "it's just too hard" or "but *insert game here* is more fun" or "easier". Which leads onto: This is a game, most of us play games to have fun, yes? Most of us play games to have fun, wind down from a long day in the office and/or something to make us feel good at the end of a day. At least, that's what I've observed amongst my circle of friends. Blizzard is a games company and needs to make a return on their investment and if they've observed that sales attributed to starcraft 2 has dropped then obviously they are trying to do something about it to try and get more people to play the game. Legacy of the Void so far feels like Blizzard is trying to re-invent the wheel...is this a bad thing? The casual gamer side of me thinks not but the elitist doesn't want much to change unless it adds to the experience both viewing and playing. Mmm this turned into a bit of a long post, but to reiterate - I'm sitting on the fence with this one and the reasons above highlights why I'm even entertaining the idea of the changes. If I were on the team that was testing things internally - I'd suggest and trial: - Changing the mule's duration and energy cost so that you have longer intervals by which you have to call them down. - Introducing that idea that BisuDagger mentioned in another thread where Queens inject larvae automatically but less efficiently than if you were to instruct it to inject onto the hatcheries - Not too sure what to do with Chronoboost :/ - depending on whether or not the warpgate changes go through, there could be possible interactions/changes with regards to that "warp-in power" concept that DK mentioned. Again - just thinking out loud and offering an alternate view as to why changes to the current system may not be a bad thing. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9376 Posts
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. Well its the combination. How important is it to macro at this given point in time in relation to micro? I think the situation I describe is very common for a lot of terran players and eventually you just gotta downprirotize going for an extra drop or kiting Ultralisks, and instead going back to base becasue having 90% Marines isn't an effective compositions vs Ultras. The solution to this isn't to remove the macro, it is to give 'micro players' more potential. So I think that without more micro potential, it's actually neccasary to have macro mechanics in the game. Otherwise the game simply feels empty as there is nothing else to do. However, if you have constant opportunity for micro + it feels rewarding, then almost noone will whine about the lack of macromechanics. My ideal RTS games has 100% automized macro in the sense that there are interesting decisions to which units/styes you build but they are as least mechanically demanding as possible. Instead there is constant action from the get-go and you have units everywhere on the map. Thus, I would actually like to see a much higher mechanical skillcap in an RTS game than what Sc2 has atm., but it shouldn't be based on macro. Obviously Sc2 can't do that, but I think its possible to get a bit closer with LOTV as it looks to be a more actionpacked game. This is a game, most of us play games to have fun, yes? It's funny becasue a lot of people tend to overlook the obvious answer when discussing game design. David Kim frequently falls into this trap as well as he often determines his decision decisions based on whether it will add more action or not, instead of the almost-too-easy question "does it make the game more fun"? We all play games for fun and that should be the overall primary goal. Targets such as "more action" should be seen as a subgoal/general rule. However, if a certain change increases the skillcap or adds more action but makes the game less enjoyable in the proces --> Its a bad change. And this is one (of multiple) problems I have with the article. It uses a lot of positive-associate terms such as "depth" "strategy" "special" "mechanics" to explain why inject larva is good, whereas in reality it should mainly focus on whether it actually makes the game more enjoyable for the majority of the target audience. | ||
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nTzzzz
France30 Posts
On August 04 2015 07:46 Destructicon wrote: 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. What am I wrong about? Can you be more specific? None of what you're saying contradicts any point I made. The fact that you have to get to pro level mechanics for strategy to make a difference is exactly what I am speaking against. And I do think you're missing the point. Of course it's good that players can distinguish themselves. But we always find something to differentiate them once we see them play enough games. I'd just rather we give them opportunities to differentiate themselves for something else than being really good at hitting V on their hatcheries every 40 second. To be honest, I find it quite sad that you remember Dear for "hitting all his chronoboosts". Maybe if the game was less demanding mechanically, we would have had a GSL champion that distinguished himself with something more interesting. Isn't this supposed to be a strategy game? Lotv is doing a good job providing pros with a lot of micro and multitasking opportunities to showcase their skill, I don't think there's a need for arbitrary macro mechanics (I'm talking specifically about injects as chronoboosts are a bit more interesting). | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
So I think that without more micro potential, it's actually neccasary to have macro mechanics in the game. Otherwise the game simply feels empty as there is nothing else to do. However, if you have constant opportunity for micro + it feels rewarding, then almost noone will whine about the lack of macromechanics. My ideal RTS games has 100% automized macro in the sense that there are interesting decisions to which units/styes you build but they are as least mechanically demanding as possible. Instead there is constant action from the get-go and you have units everywhere on the map. Thus, I would actually like to see a much higher mechanical skillcap in an RTS game than what Sc2 has atm., but it shouldn't be based on macro. Obviously Sc2 can't do that, but I think its possible to get a bit closer with LOTV as it looks to be a more actionpacked game. 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. This directly relates to something you always write: instead of the almost-too-easy question "does it make the game more fun"? 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. Do we actually wanna reach the biggest group possible? (in most commcercial productions it's the case, yes) or do we wanna build a game which is liked by a more specific kind of target audience. This also is the deciding factor most people don't really talk about at all i feel. 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) | ||
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grogburg
United States329 Posts
 soO game and a Curious game.Anyhow, this was a good read! I'm torn on this one. As a casual player at best, this would probably make my life a lot easier, since I've always had more fun focusing on what units to build and positioning than on mechanics. However, as a pretty avid viewer, I am convinced by your arguments that this would have a negative impact on the pro scene. I wonder if the no-macro-mechanics idea would be a good setting for an arcade game or other setting. Much like archon mode, it could help get casual players into the game. | ||
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Qwyn
United States2779 Posts
The whole tempo of supply, army size, tech timings, everything is built on the foundations of each race's macro mechanics. What happens to Protoss vs. Zerg, for example, when Zerg is unable to reach our current acceptable supply to hold off a Protoss timing attack because inject has been removed? The influence of chrono vs. inject is asymmetric, sure, but I think it's quite easy to see what the outcome of such a change would be. And that's just one example. This tempo is built into the core of the game. This one change would have far more of an impact than all other changes in LOTV put together. Macro mechanics change the core of the game so much that alternative implementations (Starbow, for example) of SC2 spent YEARS fiddling with everything from unit build times and alternative macro mechanics before they just settled on using BW as a foundation. But the SC2 developers will NEVER use BW style macro mechanics as a foundation. Which means you are removing the impetus for all current game dynamics without considering the consequential interactions of the pieces that REMAIN. And that's a huge can of worms. To the contrary, I would prefer it if the developers took a page out of Starbow's book and increased the FREQUENCY of macro mechanic use, while slightly dampening their potency. The result being that it is even more rewarding to focus on developing solid use of macro mechanics, while not radically changing every other aspect of the game. Same tempo (greater frequency, slightly dampened effect). I don't know why people are opposed to making a game of SC2 as jam packed with action and as mechanically difficult as possible. As a player, that is what I wish more than any other. There is nothing more satisfying than the realization that I can really dig into the game because there are a nigh on infinite things to work on and improve. Rather than focus on simplifying for the sake of something as abstract as "spectator value" why not focus on the core player experience? The TEMPO of the game itself? And with a game like StarCraft, you are NEVER going to lower the barrier of entry to the point where a beginner can jump in and start competing without a significant investment of time and energy. Just get over it - SC is not that type of game. It requires a commitment, and rewards players who are willing to invest themselves. That depth is what all got us hooked on SC in the first place - it's part of SC's appeal. The process of refining one's macro cycle and learning to split attention at the proper place in the proper time is one of the most rewarding things in the entire game. It is the primary component of what spectators call "speed," or "multitasking." That dynamic should be broadened and reinforced, not removed. The one thing I liked about Starbow macro mechanics? They had a much higher frequency of repetition. And what I disliked the most? That the impact of each individual use of macro mechanics was dampened too much. There's gotta be a balance, and I'd rather the developers focus on finding that rather than removing macro mechanics altogether. That's the wrong direction, and creates far more balance problems than any developer in their right mind should want to deal with. But hey, it's beta, a time for testing things. If the developers want to test the complete removal of macro mechanics and are willing to put them back into the game or go in the opposite direction if it turns out it wasn't a good idea, then I'm all for it. I could be wrong. | ||
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LaLuSh
Sweden2358 Posts
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
I don't mind the mechanics being in the game, they are mostly fun, but your argument is internally inconsistent. | ||
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Evil_Sheep
Canada902 Posts
On August 04 2015 07:05 Destructicon wrote: 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. I am just highly skeptical of the idea that Blizzard and David Kim don't understand their own game. Of course they do. They have been living it and breathing it for years and years. You may disagree with the direction they're taking but I think it's absurd to be saying they don't actually understand what's going on or the effects of what they are changing. I'll put it this way. I don't want Starcraft to be dumbed down, I want it to be smartened up. I think Blizzard is moving in the right direction with this. They have stated they want to give players more strategic options with LotV. I honestly don't think that injects etc are the most strategic way to utilize players' APM, and it is not the most interesting for viewers. Blizzard continues to push SC2 as an esport and to do that they need to make ways to show off player skill that are visually interesting and obvious to viewers. | ||
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Pillowpants117
33 Posts
On August 04 2015 03:02 stuchiu wrote: Being “not fun” is not an argument. Making SCVs or depots/pylons/overlords is not fun. Getting cannon rushed is not fun. Getting surprised by mutas as protoss is not fun. Getting DT rushed is not fun. The fact that it's "not fun" to play against these strategies is no reason to cut out these units or builds. In fact, the assertion that these macro mechanics are not fun is flawed. How many times have we been excited by Maru, on his last breath, mule a base with abandon to give his economy an adrenaline injection? How many times have we been awed by soO gathering just enough units in time to repel INnoVation's advances? How many times have we been held on the edge of our seats as PartinG's crucial chronoboost allowed his +1 to finish before his forge died? All aspects of the game can be fun or not fun depending on the circumstances, and using it as a reason for removal—again, without investigating its purpose/effect—is folly. The biggest argument around what is or isn't kept as a part of sc2 should be how fun it is. There is no other metric that compares. On August 04 2015 03:02 stuchiu wrote: All aspects of the game can be fun or not fun depending on the circumstances, and using it as a reason for removal—again, without investigating its purpose/effect—is folly. This seems like your main point, so are you suggesting that it's of no use to measure how often something is fun? Also, using "All aspects of the game can be fun or not fun" to excuse things that are "not fun" can't work if you don't multiply how fun it is by how often it happens. How many games contain a mule drop or an inject that gets us or our viewers excited? How many games contain marine micro that gets someone excited? We all know they aren't comparable. Should we replace a forgettable task with something that consistently entertains in a more obvious and strong way? | ||
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Qwyn
United States2779 Posts
To me, learning to split my attention and multitask - "getting faster," focusing on honing my mechanics and nailing complex macro, these are the things which make SC2 fun. The funny thing here, is my definition of fun seems to be running against the definition of fun a bunch of others here are throwing out and claiming as fact. Yet what I find "fun" is no less correct, and no less an essential part of the essence of Starcraft. | ||
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Pillowpants117
33 Posts
On August 04 2015 09:15 Qwyn wrote: The fun argument gets me every time. How the hell do you dictate something as subjective as fun and use that as an argument for the implentation/removal of a core mechanic? To me, learning to split my attention and multitask - "getting faster," focusing on honing my mechanics and nailing complex macro, these are the things which make SC2 fun. The funny thing here, is my definition of fun seems to be running against the definition of fun a bunch of others here are throwing out and claiming as fact. Yet what I find "fun" is no less correct, and no less an essential part of the essence of Starcraft. True quality transcends taste man. | ||
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Scarecrow
Korea (South)9172 Posts
A mix of strategy and mechanics is what made starcraft so addictive, challenging and fun for me. Cherry-picking one thing out of the game and saying it's not fun is ridiculous. As the article said building pylons isn't fun either so why not just give everyone 200 supply and remove them? The thing is not every element of the game needs to be individually 'fun' as long as the game is fun overall. | ||
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Pillowpants117
33 Posts
On August 04 2015 09:21 Scarecrow wrote: Great article and I'm depressed but hardly surprised at Blizzard's continued failure to understand their own game. One of the parts I always loved about the game was attention as a resource and choosing where to devote mine and trying to stretch my opponents. Then when you watch pros it adds that level of awe when you see them manage everything perfectly whilst executing micro (or hilarity when they fuck up). If macro is too simple it removes part of what makes the game unique and turns it into more of a paper-scissors-rock micro map. A mix of strategy and mechanics is what made starcraft so addictive, challenging and fun for me. Cherry-picking one thing out of the game and saying it's not fun is ridiculous. As the article said building pylons isn't fun either so why not just give everyone 200 supply and remove them? The thing is not every element of the game needs to be individually 'fun' as long as the game is fun overall. The people designing the game are paid to cherry pick what is and is not fun. | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
When we came up with the Double Harvest economy model, our goal was to slow down the economic growth of each player to some degree by forcing a player to expand beyond 3 bases in order to achieve maximum income, thereby lengthening the pace of the game to provide for a more varied mid game. Blizzard swatted down this idea and went ahead with their own model with the goal in mind that they wanted a fast-paced, action-packed game with lots of back and forth action that would never really settle into a maximum economy, and that's fine. However, the implication of giving several units extra active abilities and pressuring each player to expand way before they were able to defend it caused a severe contraction in time, pushing the pace of the game to a hectic extreme. Simply put, players would still get to max economy quickly, and there wasn't much back and forth except in various all-in situations where both players were starving to death and trying to micro perfectly. Macro mechanics were originally designed to give players something to DO. Blizzard was worried that the unlimited selection and building grouping would be problematic and fail to live up to the ESPORTS name, and so they added macro mechanics (AKA repetitive tasks with little to no variation) in order to keep players busy. You can talk about how there's somehow strategy involved in macro mechanics, but if we're honest, outside of a few early game decisions, the choices are always clear: Always MULE, always inject, always chronoboost. There's nothing strategic about them, they are literally just things to do, and a mechanically sound player can definitely pull ahead just by being on point with their macro (i.e. soO). Some of the key problems in LotV are: there is too much too do, and peak economy still gets reached far too quickly. Removing macro mechanics addresses both of these concerns by removing some of the strategically unnecessary burden from the players and simultaneously slowing down the pace of the game to a reasonable level, allowing for a longer and more varied mid game before a maximum economy is reached. | ||
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Qwyn
United States2779 Posts
On August 04 2015 09:24 Pillowpants117 wrote: The people designing the game are paid to cherry pick things out of the game so they can see what is and is not fun. You are throwing the word fun around as if it is a reliable metric for dictating what elements remain in the game. That's a very slippery slope. Why don't you give me YOUR definition of fun as it pertains to SC2? And I'll give you mine! And we'll both notice how drastically different our two definitions are. Yet I'll bet anything that both definitions contain elements which are essential to SC2 as a whole. RTS is such a complex genre. It has many different facets. You have to be careful about letting one single definition of "fun" run amok, lest it dictate the entire experience of the game. Or else you'll end up with a variety of SC2 which I don't find fun anymore. Ha. SC2John, I always find myself agreeing with your posts. I would love Blizzard to test removing macro mechanics, but only if they go through with it and address the myriad of consequences that will emerge as a result. As for the effects of their removal, I would prefer Blizzard keep the hectic pace of SC2 while targeting the economic curve. Shaping order out of the hectic chaos of the game's tempo has always been the most appealing thing about StarCraft to me. Agree with your assessment. The reason why I'm on the fence is I'm afraid the removal of macro mechanics will open up a whole new host of problems that will not be adequately addressed. | ||
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Scarecrow
Korea (South)9172 Posts
On August 04 2015 09:24 Pillowpants117 wrote: The people designing the game are paid to cherry pick what is and is not fun. Thanks for the thoughtful response. Is right clicking fun? How about having to place your buildings every game? Building workers? Why can't I just automate everything and get down to the real FUN? The designers are paid to ensure the game itself is fun, not each individual element. BW was hard as fuck with many elements that in isolation were hard/annoying but subjectively I had more 'fun' with it than I ever did in SC2. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On August 04 2015 09:28 SC2John wrote: I'm actually excited that Blizzard is looking at cutting macro mechanics, and the core reason all goes back to contraction of time cited in TheDwf's big Razzia of the Blizzstars article: the game is moving too damn fast. When we came up with the Double Harvest economy model, our goal was to slow down the economic growth of each player to some degree by forcing a player to expand beyond 3 bases in order to achieve maximum income, thereby lengthening the pace of the game to provide for a more varied mid game. Blizzard swatted down this idea and went ahead with their own model with the goal in mind that they wanted a fast-paced, action-packed game with lots of back and forth action that would never really settle into a maximum economy, and that's fine. However, the implication of giving several units extra active abilities and pressuring each player to expand way before they were able to defend it caused a severe contraction in time, pushing the pace of the game to a hectic extreme. Simply put, players would still get to max economy quickly, and there wasn't much back and forth except in various all-in situations where both players were starving to death and trying to micro perfectly. Macro mechanics were originally designed to give players something to DO. Blizzard was worried that the unlimited selection and building grouping would be problematic and fail to live up to the ESPORTS name, and so they added macro mechanics (AKA repetitive tasks with little to no variation) in order to keep players busy. You can talk about how there's somehow strategy involved in macro mechanics, but if we're honest, outside of a few early game decisions, the choices are always clear: Always MULE, always inject, always chronoboost. There's nothing strategic about them, they are literally just things to do, and a mechanically sound player can definitely pull ahead just by being on point with their macro (i.e. soO). Some of the key problems in LotV are: there is too much too do, and peak economy still gets reached far too quickly. Removing macro mechanics addresses both of these concerns by removing some of the strategically unnecessary burden from the players and simultaneously slowing down the pace of the game to a reasonable level, allowing for a longer and more varied mid game before a maximum economy is reached. Yes, the other aspect of macro mechanics. The one that isn't just about giving players something to do for the sake of it but the discussion what they actually do for the game (which isn't all that positive in my opinion). | ||
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