EPTa compromise should be found
The Curious Case of soO's Macro Mechanics - Page 9
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Makro
France16890 Posts
a compromise should be found | ||
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NyxNax
United States227 Posts
I think a good compromise would be having a mode that gives you the option between the 2, that way people on either side of the fence are appeased. Even if that means making a separate ladder for "Auto", but I dont think that would be necessary. Or it could be like a new player ladder that is less formal but it seems just havin the choice in Casual mode would suffice. | ||
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TedCruz2016
Hong Kong271 Posts
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newtii
58 Posts
On August 04 2015 12:09 lichter wrote: There's a reason this is called an editorial You did write the following: "In this article I will argue ...", also there is front-page link to it as "Article". This is the only time it is referenced as an editorial. As an article it is very poorly written but changing the type to editorial makes the wall of text good. It is always nice to see well written pieces that spark more conversation in sc2. EDIT: I think you should've picked better against-arguments to counter in order to make your writing more impressive. | ||
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KillerInstinctHood
3 Posts
The first game put you inside the robot, to rotate each piston individually, to scramble around making each gear work, and somehow produce a cohesive strategy and movement to destroy the other giant robot. It took so much effort to even move the damn thing. The second game, the robot has a life of its own, and starts moving faster and faster of its own accord. Your role now is basically running around putting out fires, and crisis management. If you dont do everything that needs to be done, the tiniest mistake will lead to your robot crashing out. It makes no sense in the second scenario to still have a bunch of pistons I need to rotate. The key direction of the game was set 4 years back. | ||
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baiesradu
Romania150 Posts
To simplify the game without thinking , is to make it's life span short. Just another title that was nice for one year or so. Blizzard has such a big and free resource available in the passionate community of starcraft lovers,From casual to professional players that make a living based on their game. I can only hope they use it. Their game helped create an industry but if they do not do the right thing , that industry will go on without starcraft. | ||
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TypeOfT
14 Posts
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lichter
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
On August 04 2015 15:31 newtii wrote: You did write the following: "In this article I will argue ...", also there is front-page link to it as "Article". This is the only time it is referenced as an editorial. Actually in the front page the description text reads "In this editorial, ..." so not sure why the link is labeled as article. | ||
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OG.YoGo
France8 Posts
And ofc it will bring even more frustration to the game. How hawfull is that to lose vs all-in/cheese to player that have poor micro/macro but by some luck or abuse manage so sneak something. Moreover, it create diversity, and it's also the beauty of SC2. Some player will play crazy strategy with less mechanic. And some other will just cut their brain to only stomp you with pure strenght. A good exemple is Losira at last ASUS ROG: -Vs Terran-BIO. Just stomp them with outstanding mech (with some brain to setup complex game but overall it was full speed game) -Vs Protoss. Just could outplay opponent because of the matchup, he had to play more on strategic level. -Vs Terran-Mech. Had to balance both. Mechanic to take control of the map. But strategic choices to be able to close the game. | ||
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Quineotio
Australia128 Posts
On August 04 2015 03:02 stuchiu wrote: Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. The opponent isn’t supposed to know what you’re doing. That’s the entire point of fog of war and limited information... In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either. Every subtle action a pro performs does not need to have some visceral or visual effect. Macro mechanics are one of the more subtle, less visible things in the game. Yes they have an impact, and yes (if you know what to look for and take the time to do so) you can tell when someone is doing it well, but they aren't fundamental to the game. From a player's perspective, they add clicks without adding much strategy. From a viewer's perspective, they are almost invisible. Cutting something because it’s too difficult isn’t an argument. It is important to find a balance between difficulty, purpose and effect. If an action is too difficult for its purpose, then a tweak might be necessary... I think they feel (and I agree) that macro is too difficult for its purpose, and are therefore tweaking it. Being “not fun” is not an argument... I think "not fun" is the best argument. It is a game after all. People play to have... At the pro level of play there is a base level of mechanics that you need in order to compete. ... These minute decisions are almost imperceptible but they often dictate the outcome of a match. Which is why they're talking about minimizing their importance, they are mostly minute decisions that are almost imperceptible but often dictate the outcome of a match Another limited resource that is rarely acknowledged is attention. ... With injects, that is one more unit that zerg has to select, one more skill a zerg has to activate, one more location that the zerg has to visit, a few more split seconds that he has to count his larva, and a few more split seconds that he has to reorientate his internal timer. Multiply that with the number of bases and you can feel how much attention a zerg must pay to his hatcheries. Take that out and there is suddenly an abundance of attention freed for other actions. This is exactly why they want to remove macro mechanics. 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. I'd gladly not have to do the work. This is a game after all - I play to have fun. For me, controlling the units is more fun than injecting hatcheries. | ||
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Lunchador
United States776 Posts
Well, this is certainly an interesting discussion, and I must respectfully state that as my opinion, the toning down or even removing of macro mechanics will indeed be a good thing for the game. Times have changed a lot and we've all grown up with a whole new set of priorities over learning a game inside and out. Nowadays, the number one factor to "is a game worth my time?" is accessibility. Can I jump right in and realistically play with the tools I am given as effectively as I can without being hampered by not being the best a technical mechanic? If I can never be good at that one particular mechanic, even though I know the game inside and out, it just won't be fun to play. Way back in 2003, Warcraft III introduced MBS and, to a lesser extent, improved waypointing (command queueing). I absolutely loved that feature and ever since the beginning, I was saying, "If they brought this feature to Brood War, that game would be so much more enjoyable to play." Back in SC1, you had to click each building individually to build your units. And if you played Terran, if your SCV is already constructing a building you can't shift command it to go back to minerals, but you could if you were fast enough to shift command constructing a building and returning to minerals. Even back then, I really never got the "ooh" and "ahh" factor about that. The fun of StarCraft 1 was always the micro battles and strategic positioning, but if you weren't good at the keeping your production rolling, then there really isn't a getting to the micro and strategy part. And in the end, it's not fun because there's no strategic alternative to maximizing your production. And that part is why every single one (yes, really every single one) of my friends except for myself quit playing competitive StarCraft. I dabbled in a little bit of League of Legends as well. I've seen pro matches and watched Worlds live one time. The fun part about League of Legends is, not to sound like a broken record, the team fights and strategic positioning. But I am not good at the technical aspect of last hitting. I'll always misjudge how much life a creep has, try to auto it, and find out I left it alive with 3 HP and my minion gets the killing blow, leaving me with no gold. The punishment goes double when you fail to last hit a cannon minion. To miss something like that is like missing your larva injects. And because of that, you're down that amount of gold for the rest of the game. There really is no strategic alternative to missing CS outside of flat out killing the opposing hero, which is no small feat. The frustrating part of that is knowing, "You fell behind, but not because you were outplayed by the other player. Now you have to suffer a disadvantage for the rest of the freaking game." Pro players in League of Legends are capable of last hitting every single minion in each wave in high stakes matches, easily hitting over 100 CS by the 10 minute mark. They have the timings, their attacks, and movements down to a science. And because of that, my enjoyment of LoL has been utterly destroyed. I cannot emulate their actions vs the lane creeps because you have to be so damn precise. It really is all or nothing when it comes to last-hitting. I cannot last hit for crap, and I do not care to improve myself at it because it doesn't even bring any valuable real-world lessons to it either. And so I do not play League of Legends anymore. On a side note, Heroes of the Storm is an amazing game because there are so many strategic alternatives to each situation in the game. It's easy to jump into the game and adapt and change your playstyle on the fly. And most importantly, you aren't held back by not being good at PvE. And going to StarCraft 2, I've had many aspiring zerg friends from the beginning of Wings of Liberty. As an experienced StarCraft veteran, I can easily teach my friends strategy and the flow of the game. But they'll never be good at continuously larva injectinvg, and thus they can't reach the strategy part of the game because they're held back by that one technical mechanic. And so they do not play StarCraft 2 anymore. It's as simple as that. Now, speaking for myself, I play random race (and hit masters 18 times in a row playing random  ), but if I were to main a race, I would not pick zerg. To miss a larva inject is just simply too punishing compared to missing chrono boost and MULE. And it just sucks to lose games knowing you messed up not against the other player, but against yourself. Again, there's no strategical recourse to missing an inject. All you're doing as a zerg is playing from behind. Why should you honestly be that punished just for missing a simple task? And if you win a game vs a zerg and find out they were stockpiling tons of resources but screwed up their larva injects, that victory would feel hollow.Even if the macro mechanics were totally gutted, I believe the game would still be reasonably difficult, yet rewarding and FUN to play. Games are most fun when you can get your buddies IRL hooked and see them enjoying it and discussing it. I love StarCraft 2 to death because I have played the full 17 years (20 years if you wanna go even further back to Warcraft 2). I am capable of the nuanced mechanics required to play effectively, but all my friends are not even though they enjoy the franchise. So they do not play. I commend Blizzard's gaming philosophy of making things as accessible as possible to newcomers. I would be enjoying StarCraft 2 to its fullest if my friends were actively playing and discussing it. StarCraft 2 is still my absolute favorite game in the world. It deserves more players, and by making it where getting to the fun part of the game easier is a step that I see will make leaps and bounds. Thank you for reading this humble gamer's post. | ||
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Black0ut
United States75 Posts
I disagree with OP on this one. The depth of a game should not come from the game not automating near obvious choices. Depth of a game should come from players making choices on OPEN ENDED decisions. If your game lacks depth when you improve the user interface and automate obvious decision making, then your game sucked in the first place and you have other things to fix than forcing the players to click more unnecessary buttons. Would the game be much more macro intensive if you had to tell your workers to return their minerals they just mined EVERYTIME they did it? Yeah. Is it stupid to make players do that? Yes. When a player has a queen near a hatchery, it is obvious what that queen is gonna do, inject, and maybe auto attack (which doesn't take energy). Sometimes they will transfuse. In that case, why not give the player the ability to automate their macro just like returning minerals? The beauty of auto-cast is that you can turn it off if you decide to use the queen for something else. Forcing the player to add clicks to handle decisions that are already decided 99% of the time is pointless and makes the game more "micro intensive" in the wrong way. | ||
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nanaoei
3358 Posts
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 assertion is meant to say that there should be something different in place of what seems to take the fun out of it. regardless of if it's a valid argument or not, if enough people have a dislike for their options or how a game plays out it is a concern. massing an army of stalkers doesn't seem fun to play nor to play against once you've seen it enough. if i had to say why, i'd put it on a small amount of polish that the unit is lacking. it would boil down to how the unit controls, how much space it takes up, how it looks, or how it sounds. if the game does not appeal to a player's basic senses it starts to be "not fun". people have big expectations for a modern AAA game regardless of it's genre, but due to the repetitive nature of an RTS, we have to be the ones putting up with these tiny little details all the time. what i'm saying is--while the argument is invalid, there's still merit to the complaints that players have about the overall feel of even the most casual of games of starcraft that are played. the game suffers from the fallout of large amount of players becoming disinterested and they view the expansions as a sort of contingency. that's why i believe you see complaints like this all the time. | ||
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YyapSsap
New Zealand1511 Posts
On August 04 2015 17:19 Black0ut wrote: I'm just gonna talk on the larvae inject thing because that's all I feel like arguing about. I disagree with OP on this one. The depth of a game should not come from the game not automating near obvious choices. Depth of a game should come from players making choices on OPEN ENDED decisions. If your game lacks depth when you improve the user interface and automate obvious decision making, then your game sucked in the first place and you have other things to fix than forcing the players to click more unnecessary buttons. Would the game be much more macro intensive if you had to tell your workers to return their minerals they just mined EVERYTIME they did it? Yeah. Is it stupid to make players do that? Yes. When a player has a queen near a hatchery, it is obvious what that queen is gonna do, inject, and maybe auto attack (which doesn't take energy). Sometimes they will transfuse. In that case, why not give the player the ability to automate their macro just like returning minerals? The beauty of auto-cast is that you can turn it off if you decide to use the queen for something else. Forcing the player to add clicks to handle decisions that are already decided 99% of the time is pointless and makes the game more "micro intensive" in the wrong way. I see it two ways. Having no MBS, smartcast etc allowed a greater skill difference amongst pros clearly enough to separate whos in teir 1, 2 etc and in no way shape or form could a casual or semi decent amateur player take down a pro (more appropriately, these events were very rare). However because its difficult to play due to so much house keeping, casuals would not find ladder or melee games "fun". This is what BW was like. Most casuals would opt to play custom games period. However it didn't stop people from watching progames streamed/aired on TV because the stuff they were doing was simply mind blowing stuff even for the untrained eye. But with MBS, much nicer interface, automated micro etc in SC2 the skill level between an amateur and a pro may not be so large. Even amongst pros its very hard to differentiate them out. For casuals, its good because its easier to play the game and somewhat be like the pro to some extent. I personally prefer the former because I like watching pro games vs playing ladder. The skill cap allows multiple playing styles and perfectly sets up the "god" tier players who are able to overcome all that to dominate the field. Even if that means playing ladder is difficult. Any newb whos touched starcraft will instantly know what they are doing is inhuman. They'll also know whos macro-ing like a beast or micro-ing like a fiend. The latter I feel is the modern way forward but it simply doesn't help the current esports scene. I really don't understand blizzards fixation of action action action mentality. Go make a FPS if you want that or a MOBA.. oh wait. Theyve done that already. The skill cap is not that big to begin with in SC2 and they're trying to automate more things. Why not just throw the econ stuff out of the window and we can just micro units that are all autonomously made for constant non stop action? | ||
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Cricketer12
United States13990 Posts
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Blargh
United States2103 Posts
In this era of Starcraft, there is a huge amount of planning and timing that goes into a build. Let's look at Terran for a sec. As Terran, you are pretty much balancing aggression with defense at all stages of the game. This means that you must create enough units to do damage to the opponent (Protoss or Terran typically), while having just enough units to defend against potential builds the opponent is doing. There is this really neat dynamic between macro and knowledge and build orders. With perfect macro, you can make these really strategic and clever plays. You can see, "Oh, if I time things JUST right, I'll be able to do damage at this SPECIFIC MOMENT!!" Like, seeing these really tight timings where you can do a bunch of damage with a small set of marines. It's stuff like that which makes Starcraft unique. It's the perfect balance between timings/macro and skillful maneuvering/micro. Does CC-energy macro matter? Eh, not too much. I remember Idra saying how the Orbital Command actually punished players for being good at macro, since things like DTs can only really be defended through scans, and a good macro player will use the mules right as they hit 50 energy. I've seen too many good Terrans use both mules just seconds before a few Dark Templars waltzed in, and the game was already decided as soon as those mules hit the ground. Chronoboost, on the other hand, actually adds a surprising amount of depth. In fact, as odd as it may be, it is actually my favorite aspect of Protoss. It gives players a lot more versatility when it comes to build timings. In addition to defining some builds, it gives a visual cue to the opponent on what the Protoss is doing. It's actually sort of great. And Injects? Injects are the last thing that should be changed, because I'd say Zerg is already the easiest to manage in terms of "building macro". I find Zerg significantly easier to macro with, even when including creep-spread. Should they make creep spread automated? Naw, that'd be lame. At high level play, the Zerg must choose how much they want to dedicate to creep. Do they want two queens solely for creep tumors? What about using those two queens early on for defense, instead of zerglings, that way they have more value? Maybe the build does not need creep at all, because it is a very aggressive build where fights will be determined on the other side of the map? Then there are the situations where the Zerg is able to contain Terran (often mech, sometimes bio) onto a few bases on their side of the map. Using this, the Zerg can pretty much consume the whole rest of the map with creep. I think creep spread is a cool mechanic. It also gives Zerg a much needed "zerg-y feel". Plus, it gives vision. I think injects are a needed mechanic. Plus, injects also add a lot of depth to ZvZ and early-game timings. It's pretty awesome, in my opinion. The constant multi-task of macro is one of the most satisfying to see, imo. Some people want to watch people like MarineKing split every one of his marines against fifty banelings. I think it's cool to watch someone micro like a god, too. But I also think it's really awesome seeing someone keep minerals below 500 throughout a 20-minute game. It's awesome watching those situations where both players need to make every unit count, and squeezing out 2 extra marines through better macro/planning will end up winning the game. Overall, great article stuchiu. You always do a lot of research for your writings, and I greatly appreciate that. | ||
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Valon
United States329 Posts
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FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Netherlands30548 Posts
Such a good writeup. I agree with this 100% | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On August 04 2015 03:02 stuchiu wrote: I’m against cutting macro mechanics. They may not be visible to the viewer, but they add a level of depth and complexity to macromanagement and overall strategy. Almost everything about the article is wrong. Removing macro mechanics will reduce the amount of macro required, but it will not reduce the amount of strategy required. In fact, it is the opposite. The less attention people have to waste on macro the more attention they will spend on optimizing other parts of their play, such as strategy. The question is simple. Should SC2 have more emphasis on macro (which is basically mindless clicking) and hence less emphasis on everything else, or should SC2 have less emphasis on macro and hence more emphasis on everything else. The latter is more fun to play and watch. Suppose that it was possible to control SC2 perfectly using the player's mind and implement macros (i.e. a set of automated instructions) using the player's mind, thereby killing macro completely. Would SC2 cease to be a hard game? Will you never lose under such a setup? Will it cease to be a fun and engaging game? According to your argument, the answer is yes. | ||
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YyapSsap
New Zealand1511 Posts
On August 04 2015 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote: Almost everything about the article is wrong. Removing macro mechanics will reduce the amount of macro required, but it will not reduce the amount of strategy required. In fact, it is the opposite. The less attention people have to waste on macro the more attention they will spend on optimizing other parts of their play, such as strategy. The question is simple. Should SC2 have more emphasis on macro (which is basically mindless clicking) and hence less emphasis on everything else, or should SC2 have less emphasis on macro and hence more emphasis on everything else. The latter is more fun to play and watch. Suppose that it was possible to control SC2 perfectly using the player's mind and implement macros (i.e. a set of automated instructions) using the player's mind. Would SC2 cease to be a hard game? Will you never lose under such a setup? Will it cease to be a fun and engaging game? According to your argument, the answer is yes. How is that mindless clicking? My strategy to the game could be.. simply out macro my opponent because i am capable of doing that. It adds another layer to this game. Another way of beating my opponent without having to outdo his build or out micro him. | ||
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