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On August 25 2015 19:32 cheekymonkey wrote:
I kind of like these changes, but I'm worried that terran bio will now be forever gone from the game. A substantial mineral income nerf will make bio much much weaker. Crossing my fingers that the medievac boost upgrade will make the difference here. In able hands it might spell guaranteed safety of harassing units.
Imo bio should never have been the standalone solution that it was. Bio shouldn't be something that you can play in every game and matchup from the start to the end. It should be something to use for a certain period of time with a good ability to transition out of and additionally it should be something to transition into in lategame for dumping minerals and getting back some mobility and flexibility.
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I think one of the major issues with SC2's fun factor has always been the design idea of giving even less skilled players insanely powerful tools, let it be extreme firepower of tightly packed army balls or the economic effect of the macro boost mechanics. Because single actions have such huge effects, controlling these features routinely becomes a necessity for any kind of stable game and makes mistakes very punishing. All this makes the learning curve very dull and forces you to learn specific things rather than allowing you to improve bit by bit here and there on a multitude of gameplay aspects.
For example in Warcraft 3 I could often have a little sloppy macro play or miss a timing and still come slightly ahead in multitasking, map movement and decisionmaking and as a result the game would turn out to be relatively even and back and forth where both players have their satisfying moments. Meanwhile in SC2 missing the critical inject or being late on a timing too often means that you're going to have the smaller army ball and get crushed - it's a very punishing mechanic for any kind of more casual or less disciplined play. Basically in SC2 some elements - including the macro boosters - play a very imbalanced role in the learning curve and force a very dull experience for players who enjoy some other aspects of RTS gameplay more.
I think SC2 would have definitely benefitted from more subltle and less explosive mechanics that can be gradually improved alongside other aspects. Meanwhile I'm not so sure whether the change this late is good. The whole game and its audience have been shaped by these mechanics in mind for over 5 years and I'm not sure at all that removing them at this point is going to remedy anything. Had this been early WoL beta or something, I'd be very excited about the possibilities, but now I'm more curious and slightly skeptical on whether they're able to gain much mileage out of these changes. At the very least they need to be prepared for a long beta phase and lots of rework if they want to embrace a change like this properly.
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Well said.
I really like this series and hope to see more from qxc.
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I think people should remember that macro mechanics aren't removed, just the importance of 'boosters' has been relatively scaled back.
Wether that's good/bad, is another thing. I tend to favor the direction, but it can always be improved. But it's not like there is 'no macro'.
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On August 25 2015 19:14 DarkLordOlli wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2015 19:07 -Archangel- wrote:
So TL officially supports macro changes by making this article? Or are we going to get another that will give another view at this change?
Personally I am all for removal of these economy/unit boosters but I am wondering about what TL owners support. This article is not a TL statement. Have you seen stuchiu's article about macro mechanics? Both write for us, yet have completely different views on the matter.
I have not, where is it?
EDIT: I see you were talking about the one before that was pure theorycrafting and irrelevant now if the person writing it didn't play with the changes.
That article has other values but it is not only about these changes
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On August 25 2015 20:51 AdrianHealeyy wrote:
I think people should remember that macro mechanics aren't removed, just the importance of 'boosters' has been relatively scaled back.
Wether that's good/bad, is another thing. I tend to favor the direction, but it can always be improved. But it's not like there is 'no macro'.
Yeah, I think the mechanics are fine, but they played too big of a role on their own. Having them downscaled and played alongside other macro diversifying mechanics seems like a better concept in my books.
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About macro mechanics, I feel there is two important (and independent) things in this patch: slow down of the pace of the game, which can be arguably a positive change, at least we can discuss about it as I will do below. And the casualisation of the mechanics, with auto-inject and removal of Mules/chronoboost which is, in my opinion, a very negative change. I feel that the problem in this article from QXC is that the discussions about both change introduced are merged while they are independent : We could have a slow down of the pace of the game (and the advantages of the current change with terran having more mules and so on) without the simplification/casualisation of the macro mechanics, or we could also have a simplification of macro mechanics without altering the pace of the game.
Now, I think the first thing to consider about the game, is to first identify the kind of game we want, and then we can discuss how to get there.
Blizzard considers that to make the game more interesting, you have to have more interactions between players, instead of both player macro-ing alone in their corner of the map and then everything clash in one final and unique battle, and I think a lot of people would agree with it. To this end, they have translated "more interactions" to "more harass", which is indeed one way to do it but probably not the only one. So they have added a lot of options to harass, like adepts, warp prism buff, zealots buff, medivacs buff, overlord drops, ravager, reaper grenades, Liberator, siege tank drop... and so on.
Let's consider the different equilibrium of the different starcraft games to understand where we are at in LoTV, and where we would want to go.
Brood War:
First of all, I am not an expert at all in BW, so I might be wrong about what I write now, that's just what I understood as a general consensus about what I read. The game actually had fairly limited options to harass and it was not that frequent. However, when it did happened , due to the economical model even the loss of few drones was more important than it is right now : . There was a lot of interactions between players, because as we stated earlier that is maybe how to make the game the most enjoyable, with a lot of skirmish but it was due mostly to the economical model that forced you to spread your bases and thus divide your army to defend them and the UI "imperfections" with the limited amount of units you could select.
I do not think that BW's equilibrium between options to harass/gains you can get is attainable in LoTV, there are already too many units that are design to harass and a complete redesign is unrealistic. However, it is interesting to see that harass is not the only option to force more inteaction to player.
SC2 HotS:
I think HoTS is also pretty much well balanced in that regard, although differently from BroodWar, between the number of possibilities to harass, how much damage you can get , and how much/well you can recover from it. This as a result of 5 years of build optimization and balance tweaking (dat 5 sec bunker change!). You can lose probes/VCS from proxy oracles or widow mines drops, but you can recover with mules and chronoboost. Sure, you'll then be behind in terms of production facilities, economy or technology. It's usually not end-game level of damage, and through good decision you can comes back in the game. Problem with HotS is that these kind of harass are usually more located in the period between early to mid game and then finally some in the very late game, Zerg have limited options to do harass due to building preventing runbies and drop being weak.
SC2 LoTV pre-mechanics change :
As said earlier, LoTV brings a looooot of new possibilities to harass and its economical model force you to expand much more agressively: as a result, the pace of the game has been rising a lot since HOTS. However, all this new possibilities, added to the previous one (widow mines, drops, oracles, mutalisks... etc) have led the game to a state where it was considered by some a bit of a slugfest, where players exchange huge blows and the game never really stabilized. As David Kim correctly stated, sometimes too many options is not always only positives, and while there were more interactions with these new harass options, they have become almost the only interactions.
SC2 LoTV post-mechanics change :
I think the "slugfest" state of LoTV indeed needed to be addressed, and the removal of macro mechanics is the first attempt in that direction, but I think it's unsuccessful. Although I agree that the pace of the game has been successfully reduced with this change, it does not change the number of harass options nor their strength, but it drastically changed the ability to recover from harass: lose 5 drones/probes/Vcs due to runby hellions/widow mines drop/oracles is still as easy as before, but now the damage are much larger, to a point where it is almost impossible to recover. So in fact it is still as much a slugfest as before, maybe slower indeed but with game ending damage much more frequent.
Basically, iI believe we must find a sweet-spot of equilibrium between the harass options/harass damages/harass recovery. If we want a game with lots of harass going on the harass options will not be changed (which the direction the game is going anyway, so with that in mind we should focus on how to improve the game) but without being a slugfest, harass must be either (or a combination of) :
* Easier to defend,
* Easier to recover,
* Reduction of the amount of its damages,
* Spread the timings of the harass options through a longer period of time.
Then, once we agree and identify where the game should evolve to, then we can discuss about what changes should be done (like alternative economy model, different macro-boost mechanics, redesign of some units and ability...etc): not the other way around as Blizzard is doing right now.
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On August 25 2015 15:09 Firkraag8 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2015 00:43 Djzapz wrote:Reduce control groups to 24, since you guys think you're going to have so much free time now that you don't have to inject  . Srsly x_x Why? How could adding unnecessary clicks and screw up peoples control groups possibly improve anything? Instead of having 3 control groups in an engagement you'd just have 5 but it would still be the same damn game, just clunkier.. I'm confused......
I was being facetious.
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While im against the removal of mules, one of my biggest concerns is the balance rework required, and i cannot deny there is time to adjust it.
What i really don't understand is why chrono boost was removed. What comes to mind is "for the same reasons mules and injects got removed" but i don't think it applies. Its not a meaningless task, not too unforgiving and not overwhelming.
Isn't protoss with chrono on par with current terran and zerg when it comes to macro mechanics? Zerg must spread creep and terran make use of those scans and supply drops. Chrono decisions are as meaningful (if not more) as choosing creep tumor position and casting scans/supply drops.
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I'm sorry but even a silver player can double tap their production hotkeys, tap their nexus hot key, it shift+c and click on buildings. All removing chrono does for Protoss is screws with our timings and rules out early aggressive builds
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People argue that less complex macro puts a heavier focus on micro/harass but they forget that the whole point of harass is to disrupt macro.
What is the point in harassing if the macro process is so automated that he won't lose injects even when being pushed beyond his multitask ability?
Why should I bother to research cloak on Banshee when forcing out scans means nothing?
I can understand (though I don't agree) why they removed mule/inject but chrono is a whole different thing. Just thinking about how much you use chrono for pushing timings, gaining upgrade advantages, chrysis managment etc... I personally feel like they need to think about chrono change a bit more instead of just tweaking warpgate and disruptor when boost can (and is) be applied to everything.
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The removal of chrono, inject and mules is one of the best changes to ever happen in the game. Bringing back the old system which caused huge imbalances and burdened players with highly repetitive tasks is really not seeing the forest through the trees, any imbalances will be ironed with new solutions.
The macro demands are increasing in the correct direction, expanding matters more, consistently building workers matter more.
The fact that the game is trending towards more micro potential is also great. I remember when Flash first started playing he wanted to define himself around constant medivacs harass then he quickly learnt that the system is designed around deathballs and you just lose to timing attacks if you do anything creative or strategic.
People who complain that the game is getting mechanically easier definitely aren't really paying attention, the game is getting harder and the fluff is being removed.
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On August 25 2015 23:40 Annie92 wrote:
People argue that less complex macro puts a heavier focus on micro/harass but they forget that the whole point of harass is to disrupt macro.
What is the point in harassing if the macro process is so automated that he won't lose injects even when being pushed beyond his multitask ability?
...
What is the point in harrassing T and P?
What in particular is the point in harrasing T with mules behaving the other way round and do not multiply dealt damage but nullify it?
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My feeling is very strict: If they want to remove macro mechanics that's fine - but don't leave zerg in a state where they still have the macro mechanic and all they have to do is create one additional hatchery and the game is EXACTLY the same for them. That's just completely crazy to me.
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On the Chronoboost changes (the 'why'), instead of giving my opinion, I'll just quote MorroW's opinion as he articulated it twice before. I've said it before, Chronoboost was easily the most interesting of the 3 mechanics, and in some sense I'm sorry to see it go. But anyway, on to why it needed reworked/removed.
The bad part being that Protoss can naturally become easier or more forgiving in the fact that you can line up build orders and timings as you go along in the game. (pushing out storm in time for a Terran timing with chronoboost is arguably less impressive than pre-planning storm in time for the Terran timing in the first place). Or realizing halfway through you started storm and archives too late for your 1-1 storm timing to finish you start chronoboosting where as without your timing is fucked and you need to wait (punished instead of forgiving)
2: Chrono Boost removed
I also talked about this in my previous post in the macro mechanics topic but I'll try to not sound too repetitive. Chrono boost has pretty much always been the back bone of every single Protoss all in or timings in general. Without chrono boost the possibilities of Protoss go down. The ability to just shove all your energy down one direction is mostly what has enabled Protoss to push their "cheese" to the limits.
To be more concrete, a Protoss that is allinning will not be able to squeeze out warp tech quicker than a Protoss who is playing macro game for example.
The "five different blink timings" that you had to consider will now be maybe only a couple.
Suddenly as a Terran or as a Zerg you pretty much have an easier time deducting what the Protoss is doing. Not only are their timings weaker in itself through chrono boost removal - but having fewer options to begin with makes the choices you have left weaker as well (this is a big deal).
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On August 26 2015 01:04 OPL3SA2 wrote:
My feeling is very strict: If they want to remove macro mechanics that's fine - but don't leave zerg in a state where they still have the macro mechanic and all they have to do is create one additional hatchery and the game is EXACTLY the same for them. That's just completely crazy to me.
have you played it? it does not feel the same to me at least, larva progression is not only slower but starves more easilly. But those are my first impressions at least...
Leaving the queens with a connection to inject forces repositioning of queens, to me at least, more than before else they don't inject in addition to queen loss being still a bit problem for production. And if we want macro hatches earlier then we sacrifice number of queens or something else.
We also have to remember hatches stop producing above 3, so if using larva is not fast/efficient it'll also hurt production efficiency even more because we have less of a surplus.
I mention the repositioning because before the rapid fire inject method would do that by itself.
however i do agree that zergs should have somethind additional, either that or the idea of different injects. Manual costing less than automated, so overtime it pays off. Possible earlier timings or whatever..
i'm not going into balance debates because not only am i limited in knowledge but also it makes little sense to debate it from all ends when the OP isn't even touching much of that, even when blizzard aknowledged that balance would be off, that this is a beta, that the balance between races is not what's being tested with this change.
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This IMO makes comebacks even harder....
also w/o mules harassment on terran is much more substantial. how many games have you heard a caster say (he's down # workers but he has 2 orbitals so he's fine)
This means successful harassment is rewarded greater in given matchups
zergs can't just make a huge round of drones and be fine because larva are a precious commodity now
Protoss can't just chrono out probes instead of other things when behind
And terrans can't drop the mule hammer to make a comeback
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On August 26 2015 03:57 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
This IMO makes comebacks even harder....
also w/o mules harassment on terran is much more substantial. how many games have you heard a caster say (he's down # workers but he has 2 orbitals so he's fine)
This means successful harassment is rewarded greater in given matchups
zergs can't just make a huge round of drones and be fine because larva are a precious commodity now
Protoss can't just chrono out probes instead of other things when behind
And terrans can't drop the mule hammer to make a comeback
You forget that you can only come back from a position of disadvantage. When you have 2OC and your opponent has 3OC then dropping your mules wont make you come back. When you have 2OC and opponent has 4 hatch, thenit wont make you come back. Etc.
If you have 3OC and 20 scv while your opponent has 2OC and 30 scv after an engagement, and none is promtly able to kill the other then you are not behind so you also cannot come back (the additional OC and the mule must be factored in when determining your status of being behind/ahead/on par at the first place).
If you have 3OC and 3 SCV and your opponent has 2 hatch and 22 drones (and noone is able to kill the other), then you are not behind so you cannot come back with dropping mules.
There is a very limited amount of scenarios where these mechanics allow you to come back in reality. In 95% of cases they simply serve as advantage accelerators.
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On August 25 2015 23:31 dr3am_b3ing wrote:
I'm sorry but even a silver player can double tap their production hotkeys, tap their nexus hot key, it shift+c and click on buildings. All removing chrono does for Protoss is screws with our timings and rules out early aggressive builds
If all your concerned about is timings, remember all that can be adjusted, like they said.
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The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.
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EPT
