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On January 01 2016 00:31 Ppjack wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2016 00:27 Big J wrote:On December 31 2015 23:51 heishe wrote:
That's actually quite sad to hear. There's pretty much zero chance of them revisiting this now that all expansions are out right? I know they would consider stuff like adding new units to keep the game fresh, but I doubt they're going to do major redesigns like this anymore. Weird to abandon it just because they "didn't have enough time to rebalance everything", the beta seems like the last real chance they had. The official reasoning wasnt "not enough time". Blizzard literally said that they were fearing a negative circlejerk around "zerg too easy without injects" and didnt want to take the risk, even though they saw the positive feedback provided by some polls. It's in one of the community updates after removal. It is not entierely true. They explicitely said they were 50/50 inside their own staff concerning injects. Regarding the mule and chrono they liked the strategic choice of using a scan/mule/supply or fastening a tech path with chrono. Btw, zerg was just so dumb to play at the time that even the lost vikings in Heroes where harder.  )))
I didn't play during the time of that patch but I can imagine zerg would've been pretty easy to play without macro mechanics since there is very little infrastructure to manage once you take that away.
I think zerg should've been rebalanced to have no injects at all, requiring additional hatcheries to be made to increase production. You couldn't do this with zerg as it is but removing the need for a queen for every base would free up some money for hatcheries. The cost of some buildings/units may need to be lowered (i.e. spawning pool from 200 to 150 or 100) as well to free up a little more money for macro hatches as well.
For those who don't know, this is the way it was in BW. I'm not suggesting it just because of that, but I think this was a better design than larva injections and it looks like Blizzard has realized that finally.
Hopefully since there are no more expansions to be released this gives Blizzard the 'time' to make the changes necessary to make SC2 a better game. I doubt that will happen, but we can hope...
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I think everyone forgot by now that they cut the beta time by three months just after they decided to remove macro mechanics, and that was the reason they reverted it. It wasn't a sudden case that they realised they had no time to balance around no macro mechanics, but rather that the balance team suddenly lost the expected 3 months they would have had otherwise.
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And I bet now they will never touch on this again and LotV will continue to be the way it is right now.
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On January 01 2016 01:53 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
I think everyone forgot by now that they cut the beta time by three months just after they decided to remove macro mechanics, and that was the reason they reverted it. It wasn't a sudden case that they realised they had no time to balance around no macro mechanics, but rather that the balance team suddenly lost the expected 3 months they would have had otherwise.
Personally, I didn't forget. The issue is that they didn't stick with it. Even now LotV is pretty much a beta, just forced to be released on shelves.
With how much information they were putting out in Community Feedback, the playerbase would understand if they were forced to heavily re-design the game and recommend to tournament organizers to not start any big circuits until it was finished. Blizzard is so ingrained in all the events (GSL included) that they do have the ability to communicate like that. They just picked the PR route instead. Now that important tournaments are starting they basically lost their time window. If they aren't going to redesign upon release, they definitely aren't going to do it now.
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This just means reapers in 2v2 will be even more annoying now.
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To macro automatisation:
Automatisation has one big issiue. It removes your control over timings. This might sound good at first look but you will get frustrated if you want to make a second base but cant because the ai has already spend all your resources for other things. We could give automatisation a switch to turn it on and off but would that make the game really easier. No, it makes the game only more complex (not depth). If you have to turn off 10 things to start an upgrade, a new base with some static defenses, it will get very annoying, especially when you have to turn everything on again.
To injection, mule and chrono:
We are overreacting when we talk about injection, mules and chrono. It doesnt need resources as other macro mechanics. Many say it doesnt add a choice, i disagree, you have a choice in extreme situations. But even if it wouldnt give you a choice, it is a memory check which adds indirectly depth to the game. But i want to talk about its difficulty now.
In early game you have nothing else to do, it is easy to call down a mule or to inject. In early midgame mules and injects are only nessecary for making units because 3 of your bases are almost saturated (2 base saturated, 10 workers on third). Once you reach 130-150 supply, it is ok to call down your mules every 2 min or to stack all your injects. In late midgame you can miss injects for several minutes because you are already maxed and have many bases (I am not talking about pro games!).
Really good injects in early midgame are only nessecary in dia and higher. Good injects in midgame is only important in midmaster and higher. But not even in gm you will need perfect injects in late midgame and later. Take soo or life as an example, they have huge inject delays in lategame because you have more bases, produce higher supply units and unit control is just more important (e.g. multi pronged harass).
Also in lotv we have units which can kill bigger armies. That means micro can be as important as injects.
EDIT:
I dont hear any complains since lotv release. Also i personally dont think it is a problem at all. People started to realize that macro mechanics are already very easy in sc2. If you want to make it easier, you have to remove things completely because half way automatisation doesnt make the game easier.
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Macro mechanics always seemed to be more unnecessary record-keeping to me and I've never understood how they enhance the game in any way. Why not also make players pat themselves on the head and rub their stomach simultaneously for 10 seconds every minute, or they'll lose 200 minerals? That would really separate the weak from the powerful! /s
But really, there's already plenty of other ways players can differentiate themselves from the pack, especially with the ridiculous speed of LOTV! Also, unnecessary complications mostly hurt new players. Blizzard should consider more quality-of-life changes that don't meaningfully affect the skill cap, and making MM more effortless should be on the table. Protoss actually got a great deal, in the end, by significantly curbing the record-keeping of chrono boost. Zerg also had beneficial changes, but I think larva injects are still poor design as-is. And Terran? No quality of life changes, period. Wish they kept the mule autocast; you'd still have to mess with it if you wanted to save energy for other things, but by default, it would be lower maintenance.
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I dont hear any complains since lotv release. Also i personally dont think it is a problem at all. People started to realize that macro mechanics are already very easy in sc2. If you want to make it easier, you have to remove things completely because half way automatisation doesnt make the game easier.
It's not that they are "easy" or "hard". Many people against macro mechanics (including myself) have learned to do them. I've played since WoL and have the timings down by instinct.
That does not make them a well made mechanic. I have many issues with their design. Some of the problems (among others):
They are boring to do. Strictly repetition (except in rare scenarios).
According to the devs were created with the intent of artificially increasing the mechanic requirement of players. In other words, simply to make the game harder, rather than the strategic impact.
They speed the economic curve up, which is already extremely fast in SC2. This leads to hard counters being more of an issue, mass air being more of an issue, makes the scouting window even lower, late tech being extremely easy to attain, etc.
They are a balance nightmare. Even in a game with async races, they allow their respective races to snowball in unpredictable situations. It's not possible to have a truly balanced economic curve with all 3 mechanics working differently.
They are not welcoming to newer players. They make an already intimidating game even more intimidating.
Relative to the other mechanics in the game, they contiribute very little strategic value. If they want a mechanic that will be an APM sink unique to each race, there are much better options with more strategic value than something that directly affects the economy.
There is very little to no counter-play involved. Nor do they involve any significant scouting. Meaning they contribute very little to the competitive matchup aside from APM/mechanical/attention requirements. Well designed mechanics are made of APM/mechanic/attention requirements that are actually integral to the strategic gameplay.
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EPT
