<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:300italic,400italic,400,700' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'><style>#article {background: #fbffe2; font-size: 1.1em; padding-bottom: 50px; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif;} #article .header{background: url(http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/lichter/TL_Strat/qxc/qxcmindbanner.jpg); height: 150px; padding-top: 150px; padding-right: 50px;} #article .text {padding: 0 6%; padding: 0 -o-calc(10% - 24px); padding: 0 -webkit-calc(10% - 24px); padding: 0 calc(10% - 24px); color: #000;} #article .intq{font-weight: bold;} #article .inta {border-left: 2px solid #b2bed4; padding-left: 30px; margin-left: 50px;} #article .inta:hover {border-left: 2px solid #586d92;} #article h1 {font-size: 3em; color: #FFF; text-align: right; margin-bottom: 0;} #article h2 {font-size: 2em; color: #FFF; text-align: right; font-weight: 300; margin: 0; font-style: italic;} #article .pfooter{font-size: .8em; text-transform: uppercase; text-align: center; padding:30px 0 0 0; border-top: 1px solid #ded8b8;} #article a:link, #article a:visited {color: #1f9fae;} #article a:hover {color: #876e18}</style><img src="http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/lichter/TL_Strat/qxc/qxcmindbanner.jpg" style="width:100%;" /><div id="article"><div class="text"> Everything in this article is my opinion unless otherwise stated. As a progamer for several years now, I have a wealth of personal experience and observations to draw upon. That said, sometimes I have to speculate.
What Changed:
In the last few days a new LoTV patch was released. Source: here. MULEs and chronoboost were removed from the game while larva inject was reduced by 50% (generates 2 larva instead of 4), but can be set to auto-cast. There are some other changes in the patch but in this article I’ll be focusing on the macro mechanic changes.
You won’t be seeing this anymore.
General Implications:
The simplest implication is that the economy in each game gets going a bit slower than before. Each race will have less overall income at any given point in the game and their economy will not spike as quickly. From a strategic standpoint, harass and worker killing type builds are stronger as workers are slightly harder to replace now and thus more valuable. No build order has survived fully intact, but most builds are similar. For Terran, we can support fewer production structures for a given base count and have a lower ratio of minerals to gas. While the economies increase a bit slower than before, the game doesn’t feel slower. There is just a heavier emphasis on harass and smaller squad movements rather than just big army on army fights.
As Terran:
As the patch is quite new, I’ll keep my commentary to a Terran perspective. I haven’t had enough time to see how things are going on the Protoss/Zerg sides. There are 2 huge differences with this patch. The first is that early build orders do not involve an orbital command at the normal time and the second orbital comes much later than pre-patch. Unless you can actually use the supply drop you’re better off just producing scvs and the early extra scans are not useful. The balance between scan and supply drop is pretty interesting in the mid game and having more scans than usual is refreshing. Any builds that would abuse Terran’s lack of detection are substantially weaker after the patch. Banshees are basically gone from TvT and the threat of dark templar is pretty light. The lack of a need for extra orbitals also means you can pf your 3rd in almost every matchup and situation. This is a very welcome change as the game has become even more harass oriented.
When playing mech, you won’t notice much of a change in terms of your overall production. Gas has always been the limiting factor for mech so the removal of mules only helps keep the 2 resources more in balance. You’ll no longer easily bank several thousand minerals when playing mech to spend on turrets and extra orbitals. Of course, late game mass orbitals is also gone. Sometimes you’ll add 1 or 2 for more consistent scanning but without mule you can no longer do the heavy orbital economies of old.
When playing bio, you will have to adjust everything you used to do in terms of production structures, gas and expansion timings. As bio is a very mineral heavy unit composition, you can support far less production for any given base count. In addition, if you take the gases for every base you have, you will bank a lot of gas. Bio in TvT now requires even more expanding to increase mineral income to cope with your production requirements or to add some gas heavy units to supplement the basic bio medivac ball. The problem is that terran doesn’t really have accessible gas dumps like the other 2 races making the second option substantially harder. Nothing particularly useful comes out of the barracks that takes a lot of gas relative to its mineral cost. Adding extra factories/starports to dump your gas kind of defeats the purpose because usually at that point you’re so low on money that it’s unreasonable to add additional production anyway. Liberators are the best option right now as a second reactor’d starport offers a lot of production and they are 1:1 ratio of minerals to gas. As an aside, I’m really hoping for a mid/late game upgrade for the reaper to increase their viability past the early game.
My Thoughts:
Some say that Blizzard is making the game too easy and removing too much emphasis from macro. Others say that there will be no difference watching Life macro vs some lesser korean or foreign zerg. Another common argument for macro mechanics is that they are a necessary part of Starcraft as they are an interesting and defining element of the game. There are a number of balance complaints regarding macro mechanics, specifically from the terran perspective but this article is more focused on the philosophy of the changes as balance can be tweaked here and there in the future.
Macro is a big part of Starcraft and always has been. There’s no denying that macro is one of the most defining aspects of Starcraft. That said, Starcraft has so much more to offer than pure macro. The problem is that macro is the gateway to the rest of the game. Without good macro, you can’t experience a substantial part of what Starcraft offers. Micro, strategic decisions, tech switches and mind games all take a back seat to just ‘produce as much stuff as possible’ until you get close to optimal macro. High level macro impresses me in the same way that high level DDR impresses me. It shows a high level of expertise and a great deal of time invested but it does not show me any spark of brilliance. I want Starcraft to be a game that is more about strategy, micro, map control and positioning rather than about performing the same repetitive actions perfectly in order to eke out the biggest army possible. The interesting part of macro in Starcraft is the decision of what to make, not the execution of actually making it. By reducing the physical and mental requirements of macroing, players will have more time to focus on the more interesting parts of Starcraft. That said, removing macro mechanics does not make macro trivial, nor does it impact a player’s ability to make interesting decisions regarding their tech path and unit composition. While the difference in the number of units Life and a lesser Zerg player may decrease with this patch, macroing perfectly while doing all the other tasks on the map is not trivial and differences will still show. In addition, a player like Life will be able to demonstrate his skill by his tech choices and ability to hit sharp timings while multi tasking and controlling the map.
Some arguments have arisen that Blizzard should have done this change in baby steps. They want macro mechanics to be toned back but not removed all together. That way they would still have an impact if players are good enough to use them but not be as significant for those who can’t. I’m not interested in this ‘solution’ in the slightest. Macro mechanics take away from Starcraft by creating an additional barrier between the player and the core of the game which lie in player interaction and conflict. Starcraft has been a game about macro, but macro is not where Starcraft shines. Starcraft’s greatest strengths have always lied in interesting unit design and unique races.
Summary:
The most interesting parts of Starcraft have to do with unit design, map control and micro. Without good macro, players cannot really experience those other aspects. By reducing the macro requirements, Starcraft can become a game that’s less about producing as much stuff as possible and more focused on the more compelling parts of the game at all skill levels. Newer players will have less to worry about in terms of production so they can focus on the more interesting parts of Starcraft while more skilled players will be able to expand their army movements and multitasking. In addition, the increase in multitasking and army movements will help improve the overall viewer experience as there’s more conflict and interaction between the players during the game. Although the balance involved in their removal might not be there yet, there’s still plenty of time to tweak the numbers. Overall, the removal of macro mechanics helps push Starcraft to be a game more about army positioning, strategy, micro and more rather than a game that’s more focused on who can make the most stuff.
Everything stated here is my opinion unless noted and/or cited otherwise. As a progamer for several years now, I have a wealth of personal experience and observations to draw upon. With that said, I sometimes have to speculate due to lack of studies/concrete facts. It’s important to note that this patch is only days old.
"Newer players will have less to worry about in terms of production so they can focus on the more interesting parts of Starcraft while more skilled players will be able to expand their army movements and multitasking."
I think that's true for Zerg players. As a Protoss player who played a lot of games since the macro patch, I feel that the macro is as hard as before. That said, I still can't make my mind about this patch. Too much pros and cons.
There is already a game where you don't have to focus on macro and can put all your attention on unit movement and strategy. It's called LoL. Why do so many people want to turn sc2 into LoL instead of playing the original?
"I want Starcraft to be a game that is more about strategy, micro, map control and positioning rather than about performing the same repetitive actions perfectly in order to eke out the biggest army possible."
I usually side with Qxc on a lot of stuff, but not here. Macro is interesting. I still remember how impressed I was back when Bomber was tearing up Code A with pure macro alone, producing 15 marines at once, absolutely overwhelming everyone. I still remember Parting's "1-gate into 3 Nexus into 8 gate zealot archon" build from WoL, where he just ran everyone over. Producing stuff is cool, and interesting to me.
Another point that Qxc kinda eluded is the question of the skill floor. Yes, Life will still be able to shine by doing things high masters zergs can only dream of doing. Nonetheless, "easier" macro still means there is one less differentiating factor between players. In a game that is already quite volatile at the highest level, with only a few repeat champions, is this really a good thing ? And ok for the difference between Life and low GM players, but what about the difference between soO and Hyun for example ? soO's strength lies in his pristine injects, so this patch will hit him hard. I think we can all agree that right now, soO is the better player when compared to Hyun. Will this still be the case in LotV ?
Yes, playing sc2 is hard. Yes, it is true that macro actually prevents a lot of people to see the beauty and subtle intricacies of starcraft, because producing more stuff is enough. However, that is the game I love, and I wouldn't want it any different.
Last point: even if I'm globally against this change, there is one upside to it. The reduced pace. This is definitely a good thing IMHO, and if macro mechanics were re-instated, I'd like Blizz to try and keep this slowed pace somehow.
On August 24 2015 23:55 myRZeth wrote: I DO want Starcraft to be a game about "who can make more stuff".
This is what Starcraft is to me. If I wanted more micro I could be playing Warcraft 3.
Macro mechanics or no there are always other areas to invest your actions. If you're outpacing your opponent and straining their multitasking it's likely they will still be making macro mistakes. If you have confidence in your macro, it will still apply completely without these "turbo" mechanics.
But since it seems you're not interested in propelling your macro via microing pressure, the future of SC2 might just not be for you.
I think it's a shame that Protoss has so little options, where Zerg can atleast spread creep, and Terran can scan and use supply calldown. Overall though i love the thought of these usless clicks gone. It's also great that harassing workers is really strong once more. I fear that the harassment options for all races are quite strong though, which might make maps more defensive.
In regards to terran gas, builds can adapt, perhaps you can secure a really fast 3rd base early on by gaining map control with bio. Or maybe something entirely else is viable now. Don't forget that just because bio has been a staple in PvT thus far, doesn't mean it has to stay that way. Numbers can be tuned.
On August 24 2015 23:55 myRZeth wrote: I DO want Starcraft to be a game about "who can make more stuff".
This is what Starcraft is to me. If I wanted more micro I could be playing Warcraft 3.
As a SCBW fan, I never cared for Warcraft 3 and I never thought that SCBW was about making the most stuff. The notion would be preposterous. Making a lot of stuff is a tool that you use to get the real shit done. It's a means to an end and not a goal of its own. I think that this change by Blizzard is (finally) a small step in the right direction.
You can still make a lot of stuff, obviously. Now see if you can keep it alive.
On August 25 2015 00:10 Charoisaur wrote: There is already a game where you don't have to focus on macro and can put all your attention on unit movement and strategy. It's called LoL. Why do so many people want to turn sc2 into LoL instead of playing the original?
I don't understand this kind of mentality. Dropping the macro mechanics =/= dropping macro. You still have to focus on making the right units, finding an economically balanced yet effective army composition, planning expansions, defending them, and reacting to the macro of your enemy.
I want Starcraft to be a game that is more about strategy, micro, map control and positioning rather than about performing the same repetitive actions perfectly in order to eke out the biggest army possible.
Since HotS is already the kind of StarCraft game you want, isn't your argument more appropriately used against a change that would make macro in LotV more important, not in defense of a change that makes macro in LotV less important?
In other words, HotS macro already doesn't cross the threshold that you deem dangerous. LotV is not getting closer to the threshold with these changes but rather farther away from it. So why bring up the danger of crossing the threshold at all?
The problem with SC2's macro mechanics is that they rewarded certain races more than others. Protoss simply required less skill and offered less reward than Zerg. It was in asymmetry in gameplay that I don't think any person benefited that much from. It was always harder to inject Than chrono. It would have been one thing if they were different but equally deep mechanics, and offered similar benefits, but thatt turned out not to be the case.
Can't say I agree with qxc. It sounds like he's under the impression that those were a huge distraction and they really never were. I don't see how freeing up a few seconds in a match is going to make anything super interesting go on.
Also those mechanics could be argued that they INCREASE macro potential for newbs. Now we'll just have a bunch of people who forget to make workers and get behind anyway.
I'm mostly afraid of how much easier some races become compared to others because of the change. Injects were a huge part of what zergs had to keep track of, and it was more punishing than MULE/chronoboost, but for a good reason. Zerg doesn't have to manage infrastructure almost at all. Zerg doesn't have to micro as intensively in most cases. I feel like the removal hardly made protoss or terran any easier to play (not a bad thing) but trivialized big parts of zerg.
On August 25 2015 00:36 gillon wrote: I'm mostly afraid of how much easier some races become compared to others because of the change. Injects were a huge part of what zergs had to keep track of, and it was more punishing than MULE/chronoboost, but for a good reason. Zerg doesn't have to manage infrastructure almost at all. Zerg doesn't have to micro as intensively in most cases. I feel like the removal hardly made protoss or terran any easier to play (not a bad thing) but trivialized big parts of zerg.
LBM requires alot of micro, defending drops to.
If you are so afraid of Zergs getting good because its easier, it means that you dont have faith in your skill so you want a handicap for the other person.
Yes, removing macro "spells" is an absolutely great change. The macro mechanics are still there, however, as you still need to produce workers, units and buildings. Besides, with the reduced amount of minerals you'll be a lot busier expanding. During the mid-late game you don't want to be kept unnecessarily busy by having to use the macro spells. Besides that, the economy vs harassment situation is in a lot better shape without those spells than it is with them, essentially reducing the desire/need for a double harvester mechanic.
Some balance will have to revisited on this subject, but I'm sure it will even out towards the end of the LOTV beta.
I'm not entirely sure where I stand on the issue of macro mechanics, but I just wanted to say that this was the best piece I've seen written on the topic. And I thank you for that. You actually addressed the issues that Blizzard wanted you to address and didn't balance whine the entire article (unlike another pro who posted his thoughts yesterday). Even if you disagree with QXC's stance, at least give him props for approaching this topic the correct way.
On August 25 2015 00:10 Charoisaur wrote: There is already a game where you don't have to focus on macro and can put all your attention on unit movement and strategy. It's called LoL. Why do so many people want to turn sc2 into LoL instead of playing the original?
Removing macro mechanics does not make Starcraft into LoL. It's also not about putting all your attention away from macro. Macro is still non-trivial with these changes and a huge part of the game.
On August 25 2015 00:19 LoneYoShi wrote:
Another point that Qxc kinda eluded is the question of the skill floor. Yes, Life will still be able to shine by doing things high masters zergs can only dream of doing. Nonetheless, "easier" macro still means there is one less differentiating factor between players. In a game that is already quite volatile at the highest level, with only a few repeat champions, is this really a good thing ? And ok for the difference between Life and low GM players, but what about the difference between soO and Hyun for example ? soO's strength lies in his pristine injects, so this patch will hit him hard. I think we can all agree that right now, soO is the better player when compared to Hyun. Will this still be the case in LotV ?
Volatility of the skill of players has nothing to do with skill ceilings/floors and much more to do with the difficulty in being a consistent performer as well as the volatility of the game balance itself. Every time there is a patch the relative skill of players will shake up a bit.
First speed it up, then slow it down again. I wonder if Blizzard planned to remove the macro mechanics all along, before the implementation of the LotV economy. A 2 step approach to change the game, wouldn't be surprised if they did.
Very well put dear qxc. If the community wants competition, said competition should be more about "how well one reads the game while playing it""how deadly or inventive are we when using the given tools". When you say
The most interesting parts of Starcraft have to do with unit design, map control and micro.
I agree with qxc on this. However I think zerg still needs a bit more change. The issue is that Zerg can bank lots of larva on one hatchery. I think this should be capped. Similar to protoss/terran if Zerg want to produce more units at once they must build additional hatches. They can go about it two ways: 1. Remove auto inject and increase larva spawn rate. Here a Zerg will have to be on top of their macro to not waste larva. 2. Keep auto inject but cap max larva in a single base to maybe 4/5. This will be slightly more powerful that above but might still work.
On August 25 2015 00:19 LoneYoShi wrote: I usually side with Qxc on a lot of stuff, but not here. Macro is interesting. I still remember how impressed I was back when Bomber was tearing up Code A with pure macro alone, producing 15 marines at once, absolutely overwhelming everyone. I still remember Parting's "1-gate into 3 Nexus into 8 gate zealot archon" build from WoL, where he just ran everyone over. Producing stuff is cool, and interesting to me.
Another point that Qxc kinda eluded is the question of the skill floor. Yes, Life will still be able to shine by doing things high masters zergs can only dream of doing. Nonetheless, "easier" macro still means there is one less differentiating factor between players. In a game that is already quite volatile at the highest level, with only a few repeat champions, is this really a good thing ? And ok for the difference between Life and low GM players, but what about the difference between soO and Hyun for example ? soO's strength lies in his pristine injects, so this patch will hit him hard. I think we can all agree that right now, soO is the better player when compared to Hyun. Will this still be the case in LotV ?
Yes, playing sc2 is hard. Yes, it is true that macro actually prevents a lot of people to see the beauty and subtle intricacies of starcraft, because producing more stuff is enough. However, that is the game I love, and I wouldn't want it any different.
Last point: even if I'm globally against this change, there is one upside to it. The reduced pace. This is definitely a good thing IMHO, and if macro mechanics were re-instated, I'd like Blizz to try and keep this slowed pace somehow.
I believe if a talented and dedicated player like soO focuses his effort on whatever aspect of play has the most impact on victory it will show. On the first day of competitive LoTV, it could very well be soO will have a hard time shining over other high end micro oriented zergs, but given the time and practice he should be able to stand out again. Core changes to the game tends to weed out players who could only excel in a specific way, but the real talent adjusts as needed even if that adjustment is counter to their natural strengths.
It's all speculation at this point anyway, too much is going to be different to really know how these players will adapt. It could very well be LoTV will be more mechanically difficult than HoTS to an extent where the fastest and best multitaskers will really shine even though there's a higher skill floor, because the skill ceiling actually reaches higher than ever allowing a greater distinction between players than ever before in SC2.
This is the direction they're going in with so many active units and the importance of expanding. Top level players will be ruthless in their harassment in a way they currently can't be. In my opinion the potential of a theoretical 'perfect' player in late game LoTV is far greater than a 'perfect' player in HoTS.
On August 25 2015 00:56 WickedBit wrote: I agree with qxc on this. However I think zerg still needs a bit more change. The issue is that Zerg can bank lots of larva on one hatchery. I think this should be capped. Similar to protoss/terran if Zerg want to produce more units at once they must build additional hatches. They can go about it two ways: 1. Remove auto inject and increase larva spawn rate. Here a Zerg will have to be on top of their macro to not waste larva. 2. Keep auto inject but cap max larva in a single base to maybe 4/5. This will be slightly more powerful that above but might still work.
The first version is perfect You need to spend larva and make macro hatches.
Also they need to give 5 larvas to hatch if this happen cuz if they keep 3 it kills the early and mid game.
I want Starcraft to be a game that is more about strategy, micro, map control and positioning rather than about performing the same repetitive actions perfectly in order to eke out the biggest army possible.
Since HotS is already the kind of StarCraft game you want, isn't your argument more appropriately used against a change that would make macro in LotV more important, not in defense of a change that makes macro in LotV less important?
In other words, HotS macro already doesn't cross the threshold that you deem dangerous. LotV is not getting closer to the threshold with these changes but rather farther away from it. So why bring up the danger of crossing the threshold at all?
agreed. read the whole op feeling like i was in the twilight zone
I think QXC and I are of a pretty like mind here. Going forward SC2 needs to be a game more about player vs player interactions than about player vs self. The skill cap in LotV going forward will not be lowered with removal of macro mechanics it will instead be shifted. I also believe removing the macro mechanics increases the skill floor. SC2 was almost impossible to "get into" because you have to spend at least 50 games just trying to formulate any semblance of an internal clock for when to go back to base and macro mechanic. Because even if you win a game you know for a fact the only reason you won is because the opponent was just plain worse than you. Rarely (as a Diamond player) did I ever get the feeling of "Cool! I really outplayed that guy!" it was always a feeling of "God I played like trash that guy must be terrible because I know I'm terrible."
Personally I'd like to see them tweak the game going forward with the idea of macro mechanics removed. LotV is not even close to perfect with the removal of the mechanics. But I *like* the direction.
Just want to comment on " Banshees are basically gone from TvT ". Watched Taeja win a TvT off the back of 1 banshee yesterday. I think they buffed the banshee base speed and he was able to fly out of scan radius rather easily.
On August 25 2015 01:08 Ignorant prodigy wrote: A micro orientated player wants more focus on micro.. is anyone surprised?
The reason qxc like these changes is because it helps bring down players in areas he’s deficient
I don’t use hotkeys.. so I say blizzard removes them so everyone comes down to my level…
I'd argue that a vast majority of people want more focus on micro. The reason I don't watch or play SC2 anymore is that macro is boring as all fuck. And when I was high masters back in the days before HOTS, my macro was the only good thing. My micro was shit, and I still found micro heavy games more entertaining. And I hardly think qxc takes this so seriously that he'd just "lobby" for things that are advantageous to him, let's be serious x_x
On August 25 2015 01:08 Ignorant prodigy wrote: A micro orientated player wants more focus on micro.. is anyone surprised?
The reason qxc like these changes is because it helps bring down players in areas he’s deficient
I don’t use hotkeys.. so I say blizzard removes them so everyone comes down to my level…
That is a silly way of looking at it. The fact of the matter is SC2 lacks a ton of "big play" moments even at the highest level. It is a game more of subtleties. Which if you've played the game for years you can appreciate but if you haven't it is almost impossible to ever figure out why someone won a game. I've watched with people who don't play SC2 and to them it just looks like two armies meet in the middle of the map and someone won for whatever reason and won the game. But if you watch DOTA2 even casually you can recognize big plays. Last TI was defined by the Echo Slam play. Previously it was Dendi's Dream Coil. I have watched SC2 since very early WoL beta and I can't even think of a defining "big play" moment. The only moments in SC2 are storylines. Because no one goes "Holy shit look at this guy's queen energy it is at 5 energy 20 minutes into the game! This is so fucking exciting!"
On August 25 2015 01:08 Ignorant prodigy wrote: A micro orientated player wants more focus on micro.. is anyone surprised?
The reason qxc like these changes is because it helps bring down players in areas he’s deficient
I don’t use hotkeys.. so I say blizzard removes them so everyone comes down to my level…
I'd argue that a vast majority of people want more focus on micro. The reason I don't watch or play SC2 anymore is that macro is boring as all fuck. And when I was high masters back in the days before HOTS, my macro was the only good thing. My micro was shit, and I still found micro heavy games more entertaining. And I hardly think qxc takes this so seriously that he'd just "lobby" for things that are advantageous to him, let's be serious x_x
the argument isn't who likes maru vs innovation it's the fact you want to see maru vs maru and eliminating innovation entirely.
that's fine.. you hate macro.. but you don't speak for everyone (thankfully)
On August 25 2015 01:08 Ignorant prodigy wrote: A micro orientated player wants more focus on micro.. is anyone surprised?
The reason qxc like these changes is because it helps bring down players in areas he’s deficient
I don’t use hotkeys.. so I say blizzard removes them so everyone comes down to my level…
That is a silly way of looking at it. The fact of the matter is SC2 lacks a ton of "big play" moments even at the highest level. It is a game more of subtleties. Which if you've played the game for years you can appreciate but if you haven't it is almost impossible to ever figure out why someone won a game. I've watched with people who don't play SC2 and to them it just looks like two armies meet in the middle of the map and someone won for whatever reason and won the game. But if you watch DOTA2 even casually you can recognize big plays. Last TI was defined by the Echo Slam play. Previously it was Dendi's Dream Coil. I have watched SC2 since very early WoL beta and I can't even think of a defining "big play" moment. The only moments in SC2 are storylines. Because no one goes "Holy shit look at this guy's queen energy it is at 5 energy 20 minutes into the game! This is so fucking exciting!"
and can we not compare dota to starcraft it's like comparing pool to chess
On August 25 2015 01:08 Ignorant prodigy wrote: A micro orientated player wants more focus on micro.. is anyone surprised?
The reason qxc like these changes is because it helps bring down players in areas he’s deficient
I don’t use hotkeys.. so I say blizzard removes them so everyone comes down to my level…
I'd argue that a vast majority of people want more focus on micro. The reason I don't watch or play SC2 anymore is that macro is boring as all fuck. And when I was high masters back in the days before HOTS, my macro was the only good thing. My micro was shit, and I still found micro heavy games more entertaining. And I hardly think qxc takes this so seriously that he'd just "lobby" for things that are advantageous to him, let's be serious x_x
the argument isn't who likes maru vs innovation it's the fact you want to see maru vs maru and eliminating innovation entirely.
that's fine.. you hate macro.. but you don't speak for everyone (thankfully)
"You hate macro"...? No I don't... and then you end your post with a passive aggressive little maneuver. Of course I don't speak for everyone, but it's clear to me that I speak for a lot of people.
Nonetheless, it's clear that you're not really worth interacting with since you're lazy and aggressive in your comments . Have a good day.
I just don't understand all those guys stating three strange things:
1) Macro mechanics is not interesting That's just... silly. If it's not interesting for you, it doesn't mean that it's not interesting for everyone, it doesn't even mean that it's not interesting for an average viewer. As a caster (russian-language one, it's ok that you probably don't know me), I'm always pointing out viewers attention on what's going on in early game in macro mechanics state. Terran can just use mules, terran can use extra depots in some cases (which is often a result of some mistake), terran can scan in order to understand what's going on - come on, there are even several different styles based on macro mechanics choices like Bomber's one without using scans completely! Zerg can spawn a creep tumor early to boost creep spread or to build a wall in ZvZ instead of a usual injection, can build certain amount of queens which will mean something important and so on. Protosses can boost their economy, their production, their upgrades; the amount of energy saved in nexus is a huge tell for scouting purposes... It's such a variety you're just losing here! Macro mechanics is not just "something that differs mechanically strong and weak players", it's one of the most important, most strategical things of the game. Yeah, here is the same "strategy" you're talking about.
2) Complex macro machanics is bad for the game, because removing it will give us more action So do you really think that, umm, mech terrans in mid-late TvZ right now are not using harrasment and are playing completely defensive because they are macroing? Do you really think that pros on a high level are not performing with much more action because they just cannot deal with everything properly? Do you really think that Brood War was a boring game with no action, because macro was like 10 times harder there? I'm just... omg... lol. Removing macro mechanics won't do ANYTHING for a high level of play, because you need to give players some sort of in-game motivation to play more aggressively (and yeah, making the value of workes a bit higher is a way to deal with this problem, but not the best one), not just the time to do it. And talking about casual players is a nonsense here, you can do absolutely any random staff in casual games - get serious, no one is losing in low leagues just because he/she is not using boosts while microing with oracles.
3) We should make StarCraft easier, because blahblahblah We can do whatever is possible in order to make StarCraft easier -> more popular and so on, but ruining an important part of COMPETITIVE play probably shouldn't be the part of making casuals satisfied, right? Mechanical complexity of StarCraft is the thing which differs this game from ANY other popular esports games. There are tons of tactic, strategy and other aspects of play in every other esports discipline, but not the complex mechanics we have here in StarCraft. Removing it makes this game a bit closer to that gray mass which is not the thing we all want.
I tend to agree on the removal, i would give it just more time to really see its impact. I know teamliquid isn´t really the place for arguing in favor of casuals, but i am certain that a few friends are going to enjoy the game more than ever, which is a good thing for starcraft and us "hardcore"-follower.
On August 25 2015 00:36 gillon wrote: I'm mostly afraid of how much easier some races become compared to others because of the change. Injects were a huge part of what zergs had to keep track of, and it was more punishing than MULE/chronoboost, but for a good reason. Zerg doesn't have to manage infrastructure almost at all. Zerg doesn't have to micro as intensively in most cases. I feel like the removal hardly made protoss or terran any easier to play (not a bad thing) but trivialized big parts of zerg.
At the end of the story only stats counts, if zerg are to strong for a reason or an other, Blizzard will react. Don't be afraid and believes in DK.
Regardless of whether it's "good for the game" or not, I'm having much more fun with the new patch. And actually having fun with the game is an aspect that I think is highly underrated on these forums.
On August 25 2015 01:34 Pontius Pirate wrote: Regardless of whether it's "good for the game" or not, I'm having much more fun with the new patch. And actually having fun with the game is an aspect that I think is highly underrated on these forums.
How dare you enjoy the game, sir. The game is for theory crafting and discussing, not playing and certainly not having fun with. As a filthy casual who gave up on hotS I am enjoying LotV more.
All the posts commenting on the macro changes seem to assume that removing the macro mechanics will make macro easier, but aside from Zerg I feel like the lost depth is hardly compensated by an easier macro. When I was struggling to macro as protoss, it wasn't the forgotten chrono that slowed me down, but the supply blocks, lack of production and good old forgetting to build workers.
If they want to make macro easier to make the fun parts more accessible, they could add more things like the supply drop for each races, as well as integrated, more obvious alerts/pop-ups, for example when you're 5 supply away from a block, or when you haven't used a warpgate for 30 sec, when your minerals hit 500, all alerts that could of course be disabled.
On August 25 2015 01:08 Ignorant prodigy wrote: A micro orientated player wants more focus on micro.. is anyone surprised?
The reason qxc like these changes is because it helps bring down players in areas he’s deficient
I don’t use hotkeys.. so I say blizzard removes them so everyone comes down to my level…
I'd argue that a vast majority of people want more focus on micro. The reason I don't watch or play SC2 anymore is that macro is boring as all fuck. And when I was high masters back in the days before HOTS, my macro was the only good thing. My micro was shit, and I still found micro heavy games more entertaining. And I hardly think qxc takes this so seriously that he'd just "lobby" for things that are advantageous to him, let's be serious x_x
the argument isn't who likes maru vs innovation it's the fact you want to see maru vs maru and eliminating innovation entirely.
that's fine.. you hate macro.. but you don't speak for everyone (thankfully)
"You hate macro"...? No I don't... and then you end your post with a passive aggressive little maneuver. Of course I don't speak for everyone, but it's clear to me that I speak for a lot of people.
Nonetheless, it's clear that you're not really worth interacting with since you're lazy and aggressive in your comments . Have a good day.
When this idea was proposed, then released, I must admit that I raged about it a little. Since then I have come to appreciate that it may allow the more interesting moments of SC2 shine through. There is some balancing to be done here as Protoss and Terran are still punished for lackluster macro (if we miss making workers) which is much less of a punishment than realizing that you forgot to make some drones then making 5 at a time from your larva bank.
But the balancing is going to be very hard for Blizz to get right in the short time that they now have.
im just upset zerg feels lame as fuck. managing my bases and having good mechanics actually meant something in hots, in lotv i basically just spazz around the map with units cus i dont really have to do anything else
I love how the pros in the SC2 scene are much more open-minded compared to the random people who post here. In my almost two decades of playing Starcraft (and Warcraft), I've seen pros simply roll with the punches, er... patches and go on to adapt and win. It's usually the lesser (but still highly-skilled players) who complain about major game changes.
Personally, I like the clean slate that this drastic change will bring. The problem with Starcraft 2 is that it takes a huge time investment and a lot of skill to play the game on a basic level. Basically, the skill floor is way too high. Not only does it take a long time for a random scrub to learn how to play properly, but the game isn't F2P. These two factors significantly contribute to Starcraft 2's lesser popularity compared to games like DotA and LoL.
I like Starcraft but for the past two years, literally none of my friends (real-life friends and online friends) play the game, let alone watch it. Most of my friends play DotA 2, and I can actually play satisfying games with them because my lesser skilled friends can simply play low skill floor heroes like Viper or Wraith King or Sven whereas I go for complicated heroes like Rubick or Chen or Brewmaster or Io. Compare this with Starcraft, where I either demolish them very quickly in 1v1 (before the average solo mid in DotA 2 reaches level 6), or I 1vX the enemy team in team games if they don't all gang up on me because I'm significantly better than them.
I also want Starcraft 2 esports to draw bigger crowds than the past few years. I miss the glory years of 2010 to 2012 when SC2 was the biggest thing in esports, before it got overtaken by more accessible games like LoL and DotA 2. SC2 is too top heavy; there's too much of an emphasis on the highest levels of play at the cost of random peasants like me who form the bulk of the fan base.
Wouldn't you rather have more people to play with? More people to dominate? Right now, with SC2's sky-high skill floor, we don't have a lot of noobs to crush. If the barrier to entry were lowered by lowering the skill floor, we'll have more people to play with and crush.
I RARELY post, but I need to give my opinion on that.
First, I think QXC clearly ''forgot'' to talk about some things.
#1 Im completly against this change. I love macro, if I wanted a micro game, I would play LoL. But I can understand why blizzard wants to make the game easier. Even if I dont agree.
My problem with that?
If you want to make the game easier, make it easier for EVERY RACE EQUALLY.
Right now, theres Protoss, Terran and a joke.
What was harder to do before? Injects, Mule, or Chrono?
Every body would say Injects were way harder. And not only way harder, but way more important.
Removing all of that gives a HUGE buff for zerg, making the race way easier, but doesnt make the 2 other races way easier too.
Its pretty unfair.
ATM, if a terran and a zerg that are equally skilled in HOTS play in LotV, the zerg will win all the time, since his race became way easier than mine.
The lower you are on ladder, the more true it is.
And I really dont think QXC's opinion is good or valuable (not saying mine is, im just midmaster).
With all due respect, QXC's macro was never really good for a ''pro''. Its obvious that this patch would benefit him way more.
What he doesnt seem to understand is that some people love macro more than micro.
And taking Life as an exemple is awfull too, since Life is known for is great micro, but his macro is not really good for his level.
Ask soO, innovation, FlaSh, Rain etc......
Do you think they think its good for the game?
Im pretty sure, that if you ask pros if they like this patch, most good koreans would say they hate it, and most foreigner with bad macro would like it.
On August 25 2015 00:36 gillon wrote: I'm mostly afraid of how much easier some races become compared to others because of the change. Injects were a huge part of what zergs had to keep track of, and it was more punishing than MULE/chronoboost, but for a good reason. Zerg doesn't have to manage infrastructure almost at all. Zerg doesn't have to micro as intensively in most cases. I feel like the removal hardly made protoss or terran any easier to play (not a bad thing) but trivialized big parts of zerg.
LBM requires alot of micro, defending drops to.
If you are so afraid of Zergs getting good because its easier, it means that you dont have faith in your skill so you want a handicap for the other person.
Shame.
What? Stop being so defensive, it's not like I'm alone in this sentiment. Loads of players have stressed the same problem, zerg is like objectively the easiest race in LotV.
On August 25 2015 01:20 Tenks wrote: The DDR analogy is perfect. Macro mechanics don't show how good you are at the game it just shows how much you've played it.
What does that even mean. How is having good macro NOT being good at the game?
On August 25 2015 01:20 Tenks wrote: The DDR analogy is perfect. Macro mechanics don't show how good you are at the game it just shows how much you've played it.
What does that even mean. How is having good macro NOT being good at the game?
It's one skill out of many in Starcraft. Imagine a player who is exceptional at producing units and has fantastic macro mechanics.... but he only makes marines and doesn't micro them at all, and tends to lose a lot because they just a-move and die. Would that player qualify as being good at the game? He probably wouldn't even qualify as a diamond player.
On August 25 2015 01:20 Tenks wrote: The DDR analogy is perfect. Macro mechanics don't show how good you are at the game it just shows how much you've played it.
What does that even mean. How is having good macro NOT being good at the game?
because qxc's macro is bad, so for him, only micro and strategy is what you need to be qualified a good player.
But of course, if something in which he was really good was made way easier, he would complain much more.
I think all of you naysayers haven't put in enough games to have a legit cause for concern... I think the macro changes have if anything increased the skill disparity between good players and bad ones which is why a lot of you are having a hard time swallowing the truth here...
QxC's points are valid and powerful and I'd like to add to them the fact that because harass is stronger than ever so will defense and also keeping on point with workers building is so important you can't rest on the fact that you have mules or can chrono out workers or make 18 drones at once you have to defend your workers maynard away from danger as well as harass your opponent. While most of you don't like this it is bringing the bwesque days back imo.
We have lurkers, we don't have macro crutches, and we now have reaveresque units and ultras are super scary again LOL Bring back the sci vessel and my friend we have bw 2
"The problem is that macro is the gateway to the rest of the game. Without good macro, you can’t experience a substantial part of what Starcraft offers. Micro, strategic decisions, tech switches and mind games all take a back seat to just ‘produce as much stuff as possible’ until you get close to optimal macro."
When you think that the "stuff league" is gold and below and that's roughly 60% of the player base, feels weird to call SC2 an RTS. The learning curve for Sc2 is very high and I do think that's one of the main issue with it's popularity overall.
On August 25 2015 02:44 AKAvg wrote: I personally agree with pretty much everything.
"The problem is that macro is the gateway to the rest of the game. Without good macro, you can’t experience a substantial part of what Starcraft offers. Micro, strategic decisions, tech switches and mind games all take a back seat to just ‘produce as much stuff as possible’ until you get close to optimal macro."
When you think that the "stuff league" is gold and below and that's roughly 60% of the player base, feels weird to call SC2 an RTS. The learning curve for Sc2 is very high and I do think that's one of the main issue with it's popularity overall.
I think even the gateway is higher than Gold. I was Masters in WoL and Diamond (sometimes Master -- usually Diamond) in HotS and it still felt like the game was completely won and lost on macro. That is why mostly every Terran player around the skill level has one build they perform and aren't completely concerned with the other player's build. It is a simple "catch all" build because 9/10 if you lose it is because you screwed up your macro somewhere.
After the entirely HUGE disappointment that was Heart of the Swarm...
I am SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY to see Blizzard taking steps into turning LotV into something better.
Wings of Liberty was fun and exciting because it was new, but there were still giant design flaws people were hoping to see "well.. Starcraft became much more balanced with the release of Brood War..im sure well see the same thing with HotS"... but HotS design.. ugh.
There is no need to beat a dead horse regarding Hots...
Just REALLY want to emphasize how ecstatic I am that they are making bold moves, and really attempting to make the game better. Not just sticking with it going "No! They players are wrong! this game is perfect!"
The macro mechanics were always a stupid gimmick, that proved Blizzard design team didnt understand what makes a competitive RTS enjoyable...
Nobody enjoyed SCBW for over a decade because there was "no downtime" or it rushed to max armies at a much faster rate... in fact BW building was probably less than half the speed that you could reach 200/200 in SC2... what made BW great, was it was a combination of control AND strategy!
For the last 2 iterations of SC2 it has been.. the same BO vs the same BO, and whoever had better mechanics won..because every game devolved into the same thing.
When they implemented more starting workers.. i thought it was a nail in the coffin.. further cementing the fact that Blizzard thinks what makes the game more exciting is getting to 200 v 200 supply as fast as possible...
The truth is..with the beginning and mid game slower.. you actually open up a LOT more opportunities for plays..
In HotS and WoL.. if you went for harass instead of fast 3 bases.. u just lost because every game devolved into a race to 200 supply..
By slowing down the midgame and early game... people will be able to take more chances, get out on the map, and without focusing all of their screentime on macro mechanics..they can actually control their units on the map, to be effective with them...
All I want to see now... is Blizzard acknowledgement that warpgate technology is terrible design.
It makes no sense... the tradeoff SHOULD have always logically been... "Create from Gateway to be faster... create from warpgate to be able to place on the map where you reinforce from." And let you switch back and forth between gateway and warpgate... Gateway production into Warpgate tech for a push... reinforce during push... switch back to gateway to continue normal production.
Alright im just ranting now... hopefully we see more dramatic changes from Blizzard for LotV...
On August 25 2015 01:20 Tenks wrote: The DDR analogy is perfect. Macro mechanics don't show how good you are at the game it just shows how much you've played it.
What does that even mean. How is having good macro NOT being good at the game?
because qxc's macro is bad, so for him, only micro and strategy is what you need to be qualified a good player.
But of course, if something in which he was really good was made way easier, he would complain much more.
Hes just bias
Even if you're correctly classifying qxc's playstyle, I think a selfish competitive player with that style would want obvious macro tasks to stay in the game because they're the lowest hanging fruit for improving win rate. If he loses games because he spends too much time trying to harass with 10 reapers at the 30 minute mark, then I think that's a rather easy adjustment to make in order to turn losses into wins.
You can argue that people who have mastered a skill want it to stay in because their mastery of it wins them games. You can argue that people who are bad at a skill want it to stay in the game because it's the lowest hanging fruit. And that seems like a draw where you go nowhere. However, you can rate skills based on their complexity, with the macro mechanics currently being discussed being conspicuously NOT complex, as opposed to something like the skill of improvising timing attacks, which is really complex. So you put skills on a spectrum of complexity. If it is really complex, then the people who already mastered it would want it to stay relevant to competitive play. The less complex, the more it favors people who haven't taken advantage of it yet. So competitive players who currently suck at macro should actually want it more because they've already mastered the more complex parts of the game and it'd only take some disciplined practice of the basics to reach the next level of play.
But the way a lot of top players approach the game isn't really competitive. Most pros don't behave in a way to maximize win rate. They have ways that they like to play the game and they limit themselves by these "stylistic" choices and then proceed to try to maximize the win rate of the handicapped form of themselves. If a micro and harass-oriented player watches a replay of a loss and sees a micro mistake that, if corrected, could have won the game, but also sees a macro mistake that could be corrected to win the game, they don't even stop to think which mistake is easier to more consistently correct and therefore result in a higher win rate overall, they just focus on the thing they want to focus on, micro.
Once upon a time when I was good at StarCraft and was really hard pressed to figure out how to increase my win rate, when looking at a loss I always asked myself "what was the thing that is easiest to change to turn this loss into a win?" and worked on that. But other players have a vision of how to win games and they see losses as the result of not perfectly living up to what was envisioned. So there's no change in focus from a loss. Sometimes there isn't time to go back to the drawing board, like when you have a Proleague game coming up, so it's understandable. You've already made your plan and you're scrambling to execute it as well as possible by the deadline. But as a general rule there's widespread misbehavior by pros in their practice.
I'm not in the beta, but for a casual player like myself I think removing mules/injects/chrono would make the game more fun to play. Even when I first started playing WoL (zerg), remembering to inject the hatchery felt more like a chore than anything else; but you had to do it, because not doing it meant you were a shitty player. I think remembering to produce workers/not get supply blocked will be even more important now, because you can't bang out units as quickly (fewer larva, can't chrono workers, no mules). I feel like the focus shifted to other parts of the game that are more fun, and additionally it hasn't diminished the importance of production.
What if they brought Mules back but made them cost 25/25 per cast, in addition to the energy? They could also bring Chronoboost back, but weaken it to accelerating times by 1.33x instead of 1.5x. Hell, why stop there? Since it's a bit more of a subtle effect, might as well let it be castable on units and canons!
On August 24 2015 23:46 qxc wrote:Starcraft’s greatest strengths have always lied in interesting unit design
This is what I've always felt. Insane micro maneuvers/plays is the most fun thing to execute as a player as well as the most exciting thing to spectate.
Also, this argument to go play War3/LoL/etc for micro is honestly the worst argument anyone could ever make. The difference between micro in War3, LoL, SC2 and BW is quite different. This change is somewhat aiming to make the micro more BW like. I personally find War3 micro to be incedibly boring and LoL never appealed to me.
On August 25 2015 01:10 Tenks wrote: I think QXC and I are of a pretty like mind here. Going forward SC2 needs to be a game more about player vs player interactions than about player vs self. The skill cap in LotV going forward will not be lowered with removal of macro mechanics it will instead be shifted. I also believe removing the macro mechanics increases the skill floor. SC2 was almost impossible to "get into" because you have to spend at least 50 games just trying to formulate any semblance of an internal clock for when to go back to base and macro mechanic. Because even if you win a game you know for a fact the only reason you won is because the opponent was just plain worse than you. Rarely (as a Diamond player) did I ever get the feeling of "Cool! I really outplayed that guy!" it was always a feeling of "God I played like trash that guy must be terrible because I know I'm terrible."
Personally I'd like to see them tweak the game going forward with the idea of macro mechanics removed. LotV is not even close to perfect with the removal of the mechanics. But I *like* the direction.
This is a big point. Back in the WoL days I'd always open Stargate in PvP just because even if I lost slightly more or there were less pro builds that I could do with the given meta, I'd feel great when my phoenix micro would help me take care of his army and I really felt like it was my good micro winning me games instead of my bad macro losing me games.
On August 24 2015 23:46 qxc wrote: The problem is that macro is the gateway to the rest of the game.
If you believe macro is what stops Starcraft being the best it can be, then logically you must support far far deeper mechanical simplifications than the ones Blizzard has introduced with these changes.
You talk as though without this one mechanical requirement (per race), players can now just jump right in and enjoy the game. But Starcraft will always be a min/max game of precision. Simple build orders are baffling for new players, up to specific timings being something everyone below masters struggles with.
Most of my friends who gave up in the lower leagues said they didn't like the game because it was too "rigid": this complaint referred to build orders, not mechanics. My point is that learning "strategy" at the lower levels is just as "mindless" and "boring" as learning timing-based mechanics. (9 pylon, 12 gate, 15 gas, 16 pylon, 18 cyber, ...)
Starcraft will always be a game that's too hard and too rigid for most people who want to just pick up a game and play it. With this firmly in mind, I advocate that a harder more multitask-focussed game, with a wider range of macro, micro, and strategic thinking skills, which can be selected for priority based on preference with comparable end results, is what helps more players differentiate themselves in different ways, and that makes the game more interesting to both play and to watch.
Once you're already in the mindset that learning things through repetition is bad or boring, Starcraft is already lost to you.
I remember that when SCtoo came everyone complained about the extra macro mechanics that felt unnecessary when compared to BW. And so now everyone misses these once they finally got rid of it.
Also, people complained about how HotS was only minor balance tweaks compared to vanilla and they want baby steps.
Obviously the people aren't the same but it's still sad to see this collective schizophrenia.
On August 25 2015 01:20 Tenks wrote: The DDR analogy is perfect. Macro mechanics don't show how good you are at the game it just shows how much you've played it.
What does that even mean. How is having good macro NOT being good at the game?
It's one skill out of many in Starcraft. Imagine a player who is exceptional at producing units and has fantastic macro mechanics.... but he only makes marines and doesn't micro them at all, and tends to lose a lot because they just a-move and die. Would that player qualify as being good at the game? He probably wouldn't even qualify as a diamond player.
That's relevant just looking at my response, but if you look at who I responded to he seems to feel as if macro should be a nonfactor.
On August 25 2015 01:08 Ignorant prodigy wrote: A micro orientated player wants more focus on micro.. is anyone surprised?
The reason qxc like these changes is because it helps bring down players in areas he’s deficient
I don’t use hotkeys.. so I say blizzard removes them so everyone comes down to my level…
It is completely unfair and disingenuous to think that a top tier player looks at things from only under their racial biases. They have a long term investment in the health of the game, and most (all?) would like to see the game succeed and potentially grow. That will only happen if the game is balanced and interesting.
You should give better players the benefit of the doubt even if you completely disagree with him. He's approaching it from a different and (arguably) more knowledgeable position than you or me, and so what he says should be weighed. Feel free to add your own opinion, it looks like QXC has even responded to those that have disagreed with him, but coming at him as if he is biased simply because you disagree with him cheapens your position and your opinion.
This is exactly what should be happening with a beta change this large. Try it out, formulate opinion, and discuss said opinion.
On August 24 2015 23:46 qxc wrote: The problem is that macro is the gateway to the rest of the game.
Most of my friends who gave up in the lower leagues said they didn't like the game because it was too "rigid": this complaint referred to build orders, not mechanics. My point is that learning "strategy" at the lower levels is just as "mindless" and "boring" as learning timing-based mechanics. (9 pylon, 12 gate, 15 gas, 16 pylon, 18 cyber, ...)
Blizzard is somewhat trying to address this in LotV. They're trying to make a variety of compositions viable for each race. They're trying to give a larger emphasis on small-scale skirmish and harass so you aren't just sitting at your base waiting for the next depot to be built and just macroing out units until you finally have a force capable of being on the map. So to that end what I'd like to see more in LotV is individual games are decided more on your interactions with your opponent than interactions within yourself. So if you did a really good job with your Reaper harass this game you can point back and be like "I did really well here and this won me the game." And less "I had 20 marines and 2 dropships out 10 seconds earlier than usual and that won me the game." At least I believe that is the theory. Once LotV settles down and gets figured out by the pros who don't need to play HotS as their livelihood maybe it won't hold true.
The absurd thing is the "main goal" they mentioned so many times about it being Worker Harass. At some point you will blindly build defenses and try to kill your enemy's workers in order to win wihotut any army engagement.
Harass should be an option, not a game ending damage situation like it is right now, and was like that before too, but it was like that to "counter" the Macro Mechanics that are now gone...
Funny how people cannot dissociate qxc's post from qxc.
His post was eloquently honest and well put, I disagree with the change (I'd like more areas/avenues of gameplay, never less) but I thought he made some good points regarding people who are getting in the game (people whom I have nothing in common with).
I feel like the Westerners always try and harp big on the ultimate-ness of strategy and decision making without considering how much more powerful the Koreans are with their macro. There's a HUGE different in the same game scenarios within WCS and Code S. A lot of games in WCS end fast with GGs because either the cheeser or the cheesie don't have the macro to get out of the game predicament. Also, micro does not tend to impress everyone. A lot of people want to see the inexplicable ability of Koreans to just mass produce under duress. That to me is amazing. I don't care how much sweet little sick micro trick people do to assure their wavering egos that they aren't strictly worse players than Korean players are.
I feel like posting only the westerner sentiment presents a very very biased attitude to Starcraft as a holistic combination of macro and "decision-making" and micro. Please can we get more Korean Code S opinions?
On August 25 2015 03:27 PVJ wrote: I remember that when SCtoo came everyone complained about the extra macro mechanics that felt unnecessary when compared to BW. And so now everyone misses these once they finally got rid of it.
Also, people complained about how HotS was only minor balance tweaks compared to vanilla and they want baby steps.
Obviously the people aren't the same but it's still sad to see this collective schizophrenia.
so do i, but people began to enjoy how difficult the game was as a result of having them in the game. what they fail to realize is the additional complexities of the game. instead of macroing up and playing passive, you've got to get aggro on your opponent. if someone says that they're bored, its probably because they're playing a boring style
I agree with QXC on this. Macro is amazing when you couple complex macro with intense micro, Maru three reaper rush owning zerg players in their base, constant micro yet somehow (wtf when?) He has macroedat home, done stuff like keep the tech tree rolling, expand, build supply depots. These are the cool things, I'm not going "wow he microed and called down mules at the same time, muling, injecting or chronoing is all very simple things you just "do". The more intricate parts of macro are still there, the parts that actually impress me.
Macro impress me but not just calling mules, people have name dropped Bomber a lot in this thread. You guys seriously think Bomber was so much better than everyone else just because he could call down mules crisply? There are a hundred other reasons his macro shined and those are still in the game.
In regards to soO I agree its the player that this will hit the hardest.
On August 25 2015 04:14 Isarios wrote: I feel like the Westerners always try and harp big on the ultimate-ness of strategy and decision making without considering how much more powerful the Koreans are with their macro. There's a HUGE different in the same game scenarios within WCS and Code S. A lot of games in WCS end fast with GGs because either the cheeser or the cheesie don't have the macro to get out of the game predicament. Also, micro does not tend to impress everyone. A lot of people want to see the inexplicable ability of Koreans to just mass produce under duress. That to me is amazing. I don't care how much sweet little sick micro trick people do to assure their wavering egos that they aren't strictly worse players than Korean players are.
I feel like posting only the westerner sentiment presents a very very biased attitude to Starcraft as a holistic combination of macro and "decision-making" and micro. Please can we get more Korean Code S opinions?
I hate to break it to you, but the Koreans are also much better tactically, strategically, and have better decision making. They aren't winning solely because their macro is better. Good foreigners can keep up with the macro of the korean pros in the early to early-mid game no problem, yet they still find themselves falling behind and being outplayed.
Foreigners are worse than Koreans at pretty much everything in the game, not just the macro. The idea that Koreans beat foreigners solely off of mechanics is a myth.
Analyze the games and replays and it becomes pretty clear that their decision making is just on another level.
On August 25 2015 01:20 Tenks wrote: The DDR analogy is perfect. Macro mechanics don't show how good you are at the game it just shows how much you've played it.
What does that even mean. How is having good macro NOT being good at the game?
because qxc's macro is bad, so for him, only micro and strategy is what you need to be qualified a good player.
But of course, if something in which he was really good was made way easier, he would complain much more.
Hes just bias
Even if you're correctly classifying qxc's playstyle, I think a selfish competitive player with that style would want obvious macro tasks to stay in the game because they're the lowest hanging fruit for improving win rate. If he loses games because he spends too much time trying to harass with 10 reapers at the 30 minute mark, then I think that's a rather easy adjustment to make in order to turn losses into wins.
You can argue that people who have mastered a skill want it to stay in because their mastery of it wins them games. You can argue that people who are bad at a skill want it to stay in the game because it's the lowest hanging fruit. And that seems like a draw where you go nowhere. However, you can rate skills based on their complexity, with the macro mechanics currently being discussed being conspicuously NOT complex, as opposed to something like the skill of improvising timing attacks, which is really complex. So you put skills on a spectrum of complexity. If it is really complex, then the people who already mastered it would want it to stay relevant to competitive play. The less complex, the more it favors people who haven't taken advantage of it yet. So competitive players who currently suck at macro should actually want it more because they've already mastered the more complex parts of the game and it'd only take some disciplined practice of the basics to reach the next level of play.
But the way a lot of top players approach the game isn't really competitive. Most pros don't behave in a way to maximize win rate. They have ways that they like to play the game and they limit themselves by these "stylistic" choices and then proceed to try to maximize the win rate of the handicapped form of themselves. If a micro and harass-oriented player watches a replay of a loss and sees a micro mistake that, if corrected, could have won the game, but also sees a macro mistake that could be corrected to win the game, they don't even stop to think which mistake is easier to more consistently correct and therefore result in a higher win rate overall, they just focus on the thing they want to focus on, micro.
Once upon a time when I was good at StarCraft and was really hard pressed to figure out how to increase my win rate, when looking at a loss I always asked myself "what was the thing that is easiest to change to turn this loss into a win?" and worked on that. But other players have a vision of how to win games and they see losses as the result of not perfectly living up to what was envisioned. So there's no change in focus from a loss. Sometimes there isn't time to go back to the drawing board, like when you have a Proleague game coming up, so it's understandable. You've already made your plan and you're scrambling to execute it as well as possible by the deadline. But as a general rule there's widespread misbehavior by pros in their practice.
Thank you for your insight.
Part of how many pros create their best interesting new plays are based of macro though. sOs' crazy builds involve huge amounts of specific scouting and unusual building placement and saving this and that. His macro is immaculately controlled to a degree that I honestly do not see in most players, even in Code S. I don't see this at all in WCS. Fundamentally, I think macro is just not understood by most players, even by most professionals. Its a much more interesting and hard to master skill than micro and should stay in. It has wayy more repercussion than micro and "decision-making" (that ambiguous thing that lesser players believe they have better to assuage their egos). Commonly in Code S, you hear the casters talk about how on point Soo's macro is. or Life's. Or Innovation or sOs. Guess what? Those are the most reliably top16 players.
I really think people should stop making LoL/Moba comparisons... the games are really nothing alike nor are they moving closer together with these kind of changes.
This is the first article on this side of the argument that has been explained well enough for me to appreciate the points made. I still think i prefer the original mechanics, but this definitely pushes me closer to the fence.
On August 25 2015 04:46 FFGenerations wrote: lava inject was one of , if not the worst, mechanics of the game for me it was such an artificial and unnecessary way to inflate macro reqs
- bw player who never 'played' sc2 - not sure about that grammar
it was definitely a construct imposed by blizzard on zergs as a way to keep their apm up so that they wouldn't just creep the entire map and infinitely have their eyes on their army. on the surface, people might argue, "well then why did they make injects autocast bc that's what blizz is promoting right now?"
yeah that might be true, now zerg does have a ton of attention to devote to their units. however keeping an eye on their army is even more of a necessity in the beta with the various levels of harassment and pressure that you can place on a zerg's attention and the reciprocation that's required from the zerg in order to stay relevant because there is less larva in the game for them at every point in the game after the first inject occurs.
I don't know what game Qxc have been playing lately but what he wrote is not about SC2 post macro mechanics removal. Everything resumes to "who kills as many workers as fast as possible wins". No micro needed, no skill involved, only thing needed is to just suicide units in the opponent worker line, repeatedly.
I want Starcraft to be a game that is more about strategy, micro, map control and positioning rather than about performing the same repetitive actions perfectly in order to eke out the biggest army possible.
I didn't even realize I agreed with this until he said it; I appreciate amazing macro in games, but I watch SC2 for the micro and decision making a lot more. If this change pushes the players to work more on the latter aspect of LOTV, I'm on board.
On August 25 2015 05:44 HomeWorld wrote: I don't know what game Qxc have been playing lately but what he wrote is not about SC2 post macro mechanics removal. Everything resumes to "who kills as many workers as fast as possible wins". No micro needed, no skill involved, only thing needed is to just suicide units in the opponent worker line, repeatedly.
That's more a problem with the lack of defender's advantage coupled with the ridiculous strength of harassment rather than any relation to macro mechanics.
While the economies increase a bit slower than before, the game doesn’t feel slower. There is just a heavier emphasis on harass and smaller squad movements rather than just big army on army fights.
I strongly disagree with this. Before I thought it felt maybe a little too hectic, but this is a huge swing in the other direction. While it all isn't like 6 worker downtime, getting up infrastructure takes so long (especially as terran) that the game feels like it's moving at a snail's pace thanks to the strength of harass and the necessity of getting so much defense for that harass. The pacing of Wings and HotS after getting up some workers feels much better than the slog that is legacy's early and mid game.
I don't want StarCraft's macro to become like Supreme Commander/Planetary Annihilation either. If I wanted to play that style of game, they're already there.
I like the removal of macro mechanics, but I disagree with QXCs reasons completely. How does removing the ability to call-down a mule make terrans more aggressive and able to micro better? I just don't see the correlation. It not like larva inject which has to be done at very specific times or you can just die.
I love the removal of macro mechanics because it slows down the game, removes some of the ridiculous volatility, and weakens cheese builds. To me, Starcraft 2 is awesome to me because there is a certain logic to everything. These macro mechanics defied that logic and made the game too unpredictable.
No longer will terrans pull all their SCVs to kill their opponent, fail, and then still have the better economy off the backs of mules. No longer will terrans sacrifice all their SCVs late game for mass orbitals, so they can have 40 more army supply. No longer will a protoss build a bunch of gateways and walk across the map aggressively, then just walk back home and have an eco lead because all his chrono was going into probes. You won't scout a protoss expanding and then die to a stalker immediately after because you didn't see that all their chrono was going to their gateways. Blizzard's only mistake was not removing inject also.
These are by far the best reason for removing the macro mechanics in my opinion, not what QXC said. But now, apparently harass is too strong. So the next step is to change to the double mining economy model. Then this game might be saved.
as a person whose favorite part of starcraft is macro, i can't say i really like the patch, but my opinion doesn't really matter since all i play is arcade these days. The removal of mules effects the game more than just economy. Mules can repair and be used to trigger tank fire in late game TvT. Also, chronoboost is no where near as significant as larvae inject and mules.
I can't ever see how taking out macro element would help sc2 it would only hurt the core parts of the game. It's only going to make the game easier. Ask Flash how he would feel about removing macro? When alot of players are known for There solid macro. I don't think that change is one we need. First You need to Balance the Races. So much talk about Terran and Zerg. Why are we not addressing protoss equally. There is way to many changes going on at the same time So you can't expect the new expansion to be good. It would take a Long time... And they are just now Discussing these core elements? or the removal of them. It's Bizarre Blizzard.
I think one of the biggest issues I have with the removal of 'Macro Mechanics' is that I don't agree that the 3 of them are really that similar to begin with.
Zerg injections were really a liability - It was rarely decision-based except at the very beginning (tumor vs inject). You either did it well and got all the larvae, or you missed some and got less.
Terran MULEs were actually a choice between abilities - You could MULE, scan, drop supply, or you could make a PF or not transform a CC at all. There was actually a fairly complex series of decisions and strategy here that even extended into the very late game when workers may have been replaced by MULEs. You could bank energy and use it later, so it wasn't the liability Zerg injects were.
Protoss Chronoboost was essentially a pure asset - It was decision based on what you would choose to accelerate, but there was no alternative choice, there's Chrono or nothing, the energy didn't do anything else. It also could be banked, like the Terran ability, you could save energy and Chrono 12 gates at once or something.
So Zerg is simply made 'easier', Terran is changed in a much, much more complex way, and for Protoss its a straight nerf with no decrease in difficulty or any alternative being introduced.
So while i'm not necessarily opposed to changing these mechanics, especially the zerg inject one, I do very much object to the concept that these 3 things be treated as 'Macro Mechanics' collectively.
They should be evaluated for nerfs, changes or removals completely separately, not as a blanket decision, because the impacts and role they play simply are not the same.
This post seems like it's more talking about agreeing with Blizzard's high level goals for the patch than what the patch actually accomplished. Does anyone actually find Terran or Protoss macro any easier since the patch? It's pretty much the same difficulty wise. It's only Zerg that really benefited here in that it got its macro pretty much completely optimized automatically. I feel like it's super odd to talk about how great this patch is because it's making macro easier, when all it really did was create a massive asymmetry in the races where Zerg never gets punished for missing production rounds (which inject used to basically take the place of). Meanwhile Terran and Protoss gain nothing really except they lose key, but low apm tools that really have no relation to inject besides being labeled "macro mechanics."
Really nice post. I strongly agree with qxc here. The whole debate reminds me of similar controversies in Street Fighter 4's release, where players worried that input shortcuts would "make the game too easy." Instead, the game turned out great, and the community now has swung the other way and is excited for the removal of 1-frame links.
On August 25 2015 06:56 EnderSword wrote: I think one of the biggest issues I have with the removal of 'Macro Mechanics' is that I don't agree that the 3 of them are really that similar to begin with.
True, but this is a difference between balance en game design, first you remove this, balance and tweaking comes later renember its a beta
On August 25 2015 07:13 SuperFanBoy wrote: A famous pro once said "If you're not attacking, you're probably losing". This patch allows us to focus more on attacking.
I feel a lot of arguments being thrown out are from people that havent played the game in the new patch. Me being one of them so I can only speculate. At first mention of this I hadnt even thought of removing them and was rather displeased at the notion. Its the beta though and why not try something like this. If its possible to better the game and increase popularity, is it not worth a shot? If it fails it fails, at least its the beta. I hope people will actually play it, objectively, before jumping to conclusions and turning their back to it. Obviously there are things that will need to be adjusted, so I hope ppl can differentiate between balance and the actual effects of removing the macro mechanics.
On August 25 2015 06:26 hitpoint wrote: How does removing the ability to call-down a mule make terrans more aggressive and able to micro better? I just don't see the correlation. It not like larva inject which has to be done at very specific times or you can just die.
If you're not spending that time looking at your base pressing buttons to call down mules, you have more time to focus on the map and army movement.... Seemed pretty self-explanatory to me...
You can die just as easily in HOTS as a terran if you don't call down a mule and are a little short on that last supply depot to finish your wall, or if you miss that last chrono on your warpgate and the banelings roll into your wall before you could warp in sentries...
On August 25 2015 00:10 Charoisaur wrote: There is already a game where you don't have to focus on macro and can put all your attention on unit movement and strategy. It's called LoL. Why do so many people want to turn sc2 into LoL instead of playing the original?
Controlling one unit is still vastly different from controlling many units and for many of us controlling armies is significantly more exciting.
On August 25 2015 06:26 hitpoint wrote: How does removing the ability to call-down a mule make terrans more aggressive and able to micro better? I just don't see the correlation. It not like larva inject which has to be done at very specific times or you can just die.
If you're not spending that time looking at your base pressing buttons to call down mules, you have more time to focus on the map and army movement.... Seemed pretty self-explanatory to me...
You can die just as easily in HOTS as a terran if you don't call down a mule and are a little short on that last supply depot to finish your wall, or if you miss that last chrono on your warpgate and the banelings roll into your wall before you could warp in sentries...
you think it's because of the time it takes to call down mules? really? how much time do you think it takes? If you don't call the mule down right when its available it's not like an inject.. you can still get that mule. unless of course your orbital is maxed energy but the time it takes to call down 4 or 5 mules is so small.. i hardly think there's any huge benefit from removing that.
i really don't think the advantage here is the time you gain from not having to call down mules.. that's pretty inconsequential
On August 25 2015 06:26 hitpoint wrote: How does removing the ability to call-down a mule make terrans more aggressive and able to micro better? I just don't see the correlation. It not like larva inject which has to be done at very specific times or you can just die.
If you're not spending that time looking at your base pressing buttons to call down mules, you have more time to focus on the map and army movement.... Seemed pretty self-explanatory to me...
It's not though. Outside of the early game, you can bank all the energy and call down mules in 1 second. It's literally nothing like inject which gets harder as the game goes on. The two can't even be compared. Inject is a "macro mechanic" since it takes the place of adding production for zerg. Mules are just steroids for your mineral income. Terrans add depots, barracks, factories and addons. That's their real macro mechanic.
Choosing how to spend apm is interesting and mentally stimulating. If you have enough apm to do everything, then there is no choice. Apm is the most interesting resource, because it is the one that is hardest to decide what to spend on. Manual larva injects make TvZ more interesting, because the Zerg player has to choose between injecting larvae and microing versus an aggressive Terran. Smart players will try to pull back, inject, and then go forward to attack again. But good Terran players know this and will try to force multiple engagements simultaneously. Furthermore, a really smart Terran can scan the inject timing and attack when it's about to finish.
A zerg player can choose to prioritize his injects above everything else, but if he does that, his creep spread, or something else, probably suffers.
All of those interesting tactical maneuvers are gone with automatic macro.
On August 25 2015 00:10 Charoisaur wrote: There is already a game where you don't have to focus on macro and can put all your attention on unit movement and strategy. It's called LoL. Why do so many people want to turn sc2 into LoL instead of playing the original?
Controlling one unit is still vastly different from controlling many units and for many of us controlling armies is significantly more exciting.
Supreme Commander, etc have automated macro with many units.
On August 24 2015 23:55 myRZeth wrote: I DO want Starcraft to be a game about "who can make more stuff".
This is what Starcraft is to me. If I wanted more micro I could be playing Warcraft 3.
So much this. I love outmacroing opponents while putting up constant pressure and harassment. There's nothing more rewarding than the final moments of obliteration before the opponent has to gg. Even though I enjoy some micro aspects (keeping scouting stuff alive, blink, splitting, pre battle positioning), macro has always been the more interesting part of Starcraft for me.
One question I have now is, how do low level terrans and protoss cope with zerg now? Seems like automatic injects would severely favor zerg at those levels where people were sloppy with injection in the first place...
Macro changes are difficult to digest, since I feel that there are a lot of excellent arguments on both sides, for both keeping and simplifying them. But overall i guess the game wont lose depth, it will just emphasize different things. So maybe lets go with the change and witness a different Starcraft. Not a worse one, just different.
On August 25 2015 08:37 Djzapz wrote: One question I have now is, how do low level terrans and protoss cope with zerg now? Seems like automatic injects would severely favor zerg at those levels where people were sloppy with injection in the first place...
Thank you for saying all this. I agree with you. I just hope certain people I keep seeing pop up on the beta chat will take the time to digest this. Some minds don't want to change.
On August 24 2015 23:55 myRZeth wrote: I DO want Starcraft to be a game about "who can make more stuff".
This is what Starcraft is to me. If I wanted more micro I could be playing Warcraft 3.
So much this. I love outmacroing opponents while putting up constant pressure and harassment. There's nothing more rewarding than the final moments of obliteration before the opponent has to gg. Even though I enjoy some micro aspects (keeping scouting stuff alive, blink, splitting, pre battle positioning), macro has always been the more interesting part of Starcraft for me.
If that's true can't you have just as much fun playing versus an AI and just massing up, hell why do you need an opponent? Maybe you should play SimCity or Cities Skylines instead.
For me I think the positioning, and decision making aspects are where true skill is shown. People act like macro isn't a thing anymore. You still have to multitask and continue production while you harass and move your army around. You can still outmacro your opponent.
Its sad how people think this change makes the game worse or easier when what it really does is open the game up more to everyone while reducing the amount of overhead needed to manage the most boring part of this game.
On August 25 2015 08:52 thurst0n wrote: Thank you for saying all this. I agree with you. I just hope certain people I keep seeing pop up on the beta chat will take the time to digest this. Some minds don't want to change.
On August 24 2015 23:55 myRZeth wrote: I DO want Starcraft to be a game about "who can make more stuff".
This is what Starcraft is to me. If I wanted more micro I could be playing Warcraft 3.
So much this. I love outmacroing opponents while putting up constant pressure and harassment. There's nothing more rewarding than the final moments of obliteration before the opponent has to gg. Even though I enjoy some micro aspects (keeping scouting stuff alive, blink, splitting, pre battle positioning), macro has always been the more interesting part of Starcraft for me.
If that's true can't you have just as much fun playing versus an AI and just massing up, hell why do you need an opponent? Maybe you should play SimCity or Cities Skylines instead.
For me I think the positioning, and decision making aspects are where true skill is shown. People act like macro isn't a thing anymore. You still have to multitask and continue production while you harass and move your army around. You can still outmacro your opponent.
You completely misunderstood my post. I don't want mass up mindlessly, I want to OUTPLAY my opponent. Outmacroing him is just a part of that, of course strategy, decision making and micro are also very important. (and I do enjoy them very much.) I don't enjoy playing vs AI, actually I really hate that. I love the challenge of the "real" game.
I'm actually quite fond of the new patch, as hitting injects mainly is a mechanical task without any strategical depth. To me, having good macro doesn't only mean that you have more stuff, it also means that you have more of the right stuff. And you can't build the right stuff, if you're playing on auto-pilot. Without the macro mechanics, you still have to build workers constantly, avoid supply blocks and know how your build order works. (transitions, reactions, timings, etc.)
PS: I played Cities Skylines and liked it. But without zerg and the possibility to multitask like a madman, it became boring pretty quickly.
On August 25 2015 08:37 Djzapz wrote: One question I have now is, how do low level terrans and protoss cope with zerg now? Seems like automatic injects would severely favor zerg at those levels where people were sloppy with injection in the first place...
Assuming you mean Gold and Lower then I can answer this. I play random and so far I have a 100% win rate in PvZ and TvZ lol, bizarrely - my ZvX is really bad... 0% winrate (from 6 games).
Two PvZ's I've played yesterday, I've come from behind to win as well. So while these 'sloppy' zergs don't have much to do in the way of injecting, their unit compositions and positioning are probably what causes them to lose. Also, given that they only have base hatcheries and no macro hatcheries, their larvae count isn't that high to continuously be aggressive.
TvZ - I've found Hellion/bat, Tank, Cyclone off three bases is enough to hold off most things. I add in liberators if I scout a spire.
ZvP - I've died to a Voidray push and proxy oracles followed up by a gateway push off two bases. ZvZ - I've died to a Hydra/Lurker rush (when I was teching to spire) and a ling/bane all-in. ZvT - proxy 2 rax and bunker rush vs hatch first, 3 factory cyclone / hellbat push when I was attempting to take my third.
On August 24 2015 23:55 myRZeth wrote: I DO want Starcraft to be a game about "who can make more stuff".
This is what Starcraft is to me. If I wanted more micro I could be playing Warcraft 3.
That is what was said when SC2 first came onto the scene! In fact a lot of hardcore BW fans will still say SC2 is not Starcraft since its too easy to macro and now its more about army positioning etc. Maybe blizzard should remove automining,MBS and all that crap. Make it more like broodwar with its difficulty in macro.
The macro-mechanics in SC2 have always been a badly designed bandaid meant to address the easing of the game from broodwar due to all these neat features. It resulted in major imbalances and have resulted in numerous design articles in team liquid itself. Yet adding them still didn't make SC2 macro for 2 of the 3 races any more harder.
The last 5 years have proven that the macro mechanics in their current form is not the answer. Its about time that something new was tried.
Some people think these changes are coming due to the devs trying to improve core issues in Sc2, but I just think this is yet more ActiBlizz casual pandering. Sc2 may be able to be balanced better with these macro mechanic changes, but if they can not improve balance issues then the game has been dumbed down for no reason. Remains to be seen I guess.
people to seem to think that this change removes macro all together. constantly producing and spending on units, workers, upgrades is still the core of macro and still completely intact.
ultimately, people enjoy the game for different reasons. to make an analogy to music; some are really impressed by technical ability like blazing fast, shredding solos. others have no interest in this at all and just want to hear a good melody or song. no one is right or wrong but to continue the analogy it would really be a bummer if you HAD to be able to rock a blazing fast guitar solo just to be able to play a decent song - just like you HAVE to be good with injects/mules/chrono to be decent at SC2
Was there not macro in BW without these mechanics? I understand people see this is as a defining trait, but lets see how this plays out. I think it would be cool if they kept the MULE, absent its mining abilities, or mine the same as an SCV. Can use it for repairs, maybe allow it to build,. Theres a bunch of stuff it could do. Just a thought.
I never thought I'd disagree with QXC, but here I am. Mechanical difficulty only adds to the depth of the game. It introduces strengths and weaknesses which define players. Each action in this game is itself "rote," and no more exciting than any other. What you choose to specialize in defines what kind of player you are, creating a style or aesthetic. Different players are good at different things.
SC2 does not stress the real time component enough. The solution is not creating flashy new units or adding a host of new abilities. StarCraft blossoms when both players in a game are stressed for time - when neither player can possibly do everything they want to do and are forced to prioritize. The real time element is something that this recent bout of discussion appears to completely neglect. Stresses are created by mechanical difficulty. As you lessen the importance of execution you reduce the amount by which the RT element of RTS matters from the player point of view (I am not talking about timings). Because players are not required to triage, depth through specialization disappears.
There is a very fine line which must be walked here. The end result is not "making the game difficult for difficulty's sake," nor making the game "painful" to play. It is about making SC2 just mechanically difficult enough to FORCE the sensation that there isn't enough time to do everything. We all feel this when we start playing SC2. But as we become proficient mechanically, this feeling begins to disappear. Suddenly players are limited in what they can do by the ruleset / design of the game. They are not scrambling to do all they can in the last ounce of time. I think all mechanically oriented players reach this point eventually in SC2. All that is left is to eek out the last bit of optimization and refinement. The feeling is very depressing.
This feeling of "running out of time," is what I yearn for in SC2. You feel this sensation in Brood War. It is an amazing feeling. It opens your eyes to a game with infinite possibility for improvement. Suddenly, the problem becomes not only how to defeat your opponent, but how to balance the burden of so many things to do. There are so many solutions to this problem - it is JUST AS DEEP as the strategic side of the game. You solve this problem by increasing your raw hand speed. By increasing your accuracy. By reducing redundancy. By zooming in to the level of the keystroke, and optimizing the most efficient finger patterns. Even so far as intricately constructing entire BUILD ORDERS to squeeze out time to do other things (Flash is incredible at this). Moving your army in such a way that you can fit all the pieces together. Harassing to buy yourself breathing room. Choosing to prioritize macro over micro, knowing that will bring you success in the later stages of the game. Microing a timing attack to squeeze out a minute advantage and then investing your attention towards macro to win the game. Putting every last drop of mental effort into microing your army, knowing that it is your last chance to win a game. Attacking from many places at once, sacrificing micro of individual units for the chance of crushing psychological damage. Understanding what your opponent is choosing to prioritize, and using that knowledge to abuse him. Understanding your own strengths, and building a gameplan that capitalizes on them.
It is all a brilliant balancing act. As a PLAYER, it is the most important thing SC brings to the table as a game. This is what makes SC unique. I play this game because I enjoy fighting against the clock - to do as much as I can in the shortest span of time as accurately as I can, knowing that my opponent is desperately trying to do the same. We both fight as hard as we can to bring our plans to fruition.
StarCraft II is an RTS game. Yet most neglect the power and potential of the REAL TIME element to trivialize design flaws. The importance of mechanical difficulty has been forgotten. It is understated. Disrespected. Discarded and not even considered, when it offers the solution to the most pressing problems of SC2. It pains me to read the reactions of so many people who join in the community consensus that manual action is a thing of the past. Automation is the name of the game. It is, sadly, the direction which LOTV is headed even further towards.
Mechanical difficulty is not a "barrier." The goal of requiring more manual action is to STRESS the real time element as much as possible - to mold the sensation that both you and your opponent are running out of time and CANNOT do everything at once. When the mechanical threshold is reduced as much as it has been, this sensation of urgency disappears.
I do not feel stressed for time at all in LOTV. In fact, with inject being autocast, I now feel like I am sitting on my ass most of the game (no more reason to jump from base to base other than purchasing upgrades or to defend harassment). I am able to execute everything I want to do in the game with relative ease. I rarely have to triage my actions. The only limits now, are those the rules of the game impose on what I can or cannot do.
The mental pressure is gone. It has been ever since I reached that plateau in HotS. Brood War has its share of flaws. But every game I play, I still get to experience the sensation of walking the tightrope.
I think NonY understands what I'm trying to grasp at with my poor choice of words far better than I do:
Since HotS is already the kind of StarCraft game you want, isn't your argument more appropriately used against a change that would make macro in LotV more important, not in defense of a change that makes macro in LotV less important?
In other words, HotS macro already doesn't cross the threshold that you deem dangerous. LotV is not getting closer to the threshold with these changes but rather farther away from it. So why bring up the danger of crossing the threshold at all?
Rather than trying to create a game that is even less mechanically demanding - where every player can put into action everything they want to do - why not explore the opposite? A game where choosing HOW to spend your time is JUST as important as what units you build or what strategy you choose to employ? By making the game a few degrees more mechanically difficult, Blizzard could introduce a whole new layer of depth to StarCraft II.
I love you QXC~ always have going back to the early WoL days when you were on ROOT.
I just can't help but wonder how much of your opinion is based on your own preference of play style. You were never, as far as I can remember, a macro focused player. This change seems good for players like you and bad for players that aren't.
On August 25 2015 09:59 GronkleMcFadden wrote: - just like you HAVE to be good with injects/mules/chrono to be decent at SC2
I really enjoyed this part of the game~ it was a huge motivator for me and has been the biggest reason I've played 20K+ games since WoL Beta.
On August 25 2015 10:36 NyxNax wrote: Was there not macro in BW without these mechanics? I understand people see this is as a defining trait, but lets see how this plays out. I think it would be cool if they kept the MULE, absent its mining abilities, or mine the same as an SCV. Can use it for repairs, maybe allow it to build,. Theres a bunch of stuff it could do. Just a thought.
It's not the mechanics that people are rallying about, it's the reduction in difficulty for macro that people are complaining about.
Where's the line here? It's totally unclear to me. Let's say blizzard turn on "auto-saturate" on your CCs. You would always produce scvs, never queued, and they would automatically transfer to other ccs if the base was saturated and there was another available base with fewer scvs.
This is not completely ridiculous, it would reduce macro influence and increase "strategy".
Why not allow for pre-programmed build orders in the game based on the map. You could go practice it in a practice mode and you could just "take over" when you deemed it time, or click on a different build branch you had created?
To me this is like saying you want to watch CS:GO but without the economy restrictions. "I want to see which players can execute the best shots / map control, not who happens to be able to conserve the most resources". Yes, the really cool part of watching CS:GO is the great control, but what makes it a great competitive game is the economy and there being real tradeoffs.
HOWEVER: There is something to be said with the way macro works in sc2. The skill curve is not quite right. Basically you should be able to get 80% the way there with 20% of the practice on macro and then it should be really hard to keep getting marginally better. That's not really how it works because the mechanics are so bursty. Maybe there should be auto-injects, but they're worse than regular injects or cost more energy. So some pro players might use them, but then a really top pro would come along and NEVER use auto-inject even in the late game and you could track that stat and it would feel impressive.
I like the idea of being able to get new players a large fraction of the way there on macro relatively easily and then have an attainable goal of improving over time with diminishing marginal returns.
A simple, repetitive, no-choice task that is difficult enough to master that the majority of the playerbase must put most of their focus on it instead of the strategic parts of the game and fun unit control (see: Brood War) is backwards. The strategy and unit control should first be able to be focused upon, and then the mechanics should differentiate the best of the best.
Macro mechanics were something you had to master to play competently. When there is no choice, it is not strategy, it is not depth. When only one choice of "time management" is optimal, there is only one solution, no room for innovation except for the highest skill levels. The macro mechanics literally defined the leagues, not strategy, not innovation. I think qxc's analogy of DDR is proper.
I don't think the comparison to the small limit in unit selection in BW is a proper comparison. That is mechanics, not macro mechanics, and is directly related to unit control. BW did require a high mechanical skill, but unit control was equally important to macro skills, if not slightly more important. HotS macro mechanics were decidedly more important than unit control until both players had practically optimal macro mechanics, which only a very small portion of the playerbase has accomplished.
If macro mechanics truly were a distractor from the game, let us remove Orbitals and Queens and Warpgate entirely. And Terran and Zerg and Protoss should never err from their army. But I think we do value the alternative contribution, rather than the same base/worker/expand algorithm. Especially when they create new micro situations. We do value the attention triage. It's just LotV has distorted and stretched human capacity with all these pacing changes. The perfect pacing lies somewhere inbetween these extremes.
What I seem to get from the OP: "macro which distracts from micro is counterproductive," so minimizing encroachment on one another would be ideal. I see you want to achieve maximum combat complexity. But we should acknowledge that different people get different things out of this game, and micro-oriented style may be for viewership but playership is not so uniform in their values. Seeing bias in unit production manifest as macro choices is part of richness of the strategy and builds tension and expectation for the viewer and the player. We haven't seen that potential realized with Mule or Inject, which is why I think you are ready to discard them, because Terran mechanics have failed you. But then we condemn all the mechanics for their sins. If we focus too much on the bare unit production, the scouting experience will suffer and there will be less angles to tackle the unit compositions, and less reward for anticipating your opponents meta and more guesswork. I see macro mechanics as a opportunity to reduce volatility and increase gradation of resource negotiation, thus giving us more back-to-back action. Something needs to continually feed the war machine.
You can remove the macro variables and simplify the macro equation, thus leading to less encroachment, but at what cost to macro diversity? Macro will still be the gatekeeper to this game. Macro asymmetry has always been with us and will always be with us, and these distinctions of what is artificial and what is pure is arbitrary. Zerg being completely different macro style is testament to that. Is the Zerg macro style ideal for us all? The fewest distractions. I don't think a couple clicks every once in awhile is going to distract from the beauty of micro. It's a matter of diminishing return. The laws of DPS density still limit our grandiose plans of extensive unit interfaces.
There is an argument to be had that scrappier fights with less units is desirable, because it's more digestible. I agree. But that is a matter of basic inflation/deflation of numbers.
I posted a longer reply earlier but short stuff seems to get more traction here so I just want to reiterate:
The purpose of these changes was to make macro easier, that should be the emphasis of what we're talking about, but only Zerg's benefited in this way. Losing mules and chrono barely influences the ease of terran/protoss macro at all, while automating inject trivializes zerg macro. The patch had a very disproportional effect on the races.
On August 25 2015 12:04 NinjaDuckBob wrote: A simple, repetitive, no-choice task that is difficult enough to master that the majority of the playerbase must put most of their focus on it instead of the strategic parts of the game and fun unit control (see: Brood War) is backwards. The strategy and unit control should first be able to be focused upon, and then the mechanics should differentiate the best of the best.
I agree with this. There's this notion that anything that decreases the "skillcap" in sc2 is bad, but difficulty should not be added to a game solely for the sake of difficulty. If there was a patch that required the player to tap the "b" key 8 times every 10 seconds for their units to continue producing, would people support that? I wouldn't, because it would add pointless difficulty that isn't interesting and doesn't have much strategic depth.
In the perfect RTS, the highest possible level of strategic depth is combined with the highest possible level of skill required to perfect gameplay. There have been very boring periods of sc2 where the skillcap was still very high and the best were able to distinguish themselves from the rest. So the question is: does the potential decrease in the skillcap outweigh the increase in time spent making interesting choices? There is almost no strategic depth involved in injecting, same with mules, and chronoboost has a bit more but not much. These mechanics basically involve following a formula. Other activities like harassing and army movement and scouting and expanding are much more interesting and less formulaic. And I doubt the removal of mechanics like these, which are a small fraction of those taken by a high-level player, will have much of an impact on the "skill ceiling" we haven't even come close to reaching yet.
While it's easy to think that we should only think about improving gameplay at a high level, because this is a very old community with a lot of experience with the game, it's also worth considering that the vast majority of players are pretty bad. If they want to win, they have to focus almost all their effort on queuing units and expanding and macro mechanics like these, which are an afterthought for better players. This is such an enormous quality of life improvement for average players. They can now spend more time doing what is most enjoyable about the game: making non-obvious decisions.
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've written a lot about the macro mechanics, the last thing I will write on this subject is that I disagree with most people's thoughts on streamlining the game. I don't think it improves anything.
On August 25 2015 09:56 KrOeastbound wrote: Some people think these changes are coming due to the devs trying to improve core issues in Sc2, but I just think this is yet more ActiBlizz casual pandering. Sc2 may be able to be balanced better with these macro mechanic changes, but if they can not improve balance issues then the game has been dumbed down for no reason. Remains to be seen I guess.
One of the major differences of slower pace BW and faster pace SC2 is the existance of macro mechanics in SC2. The removal will bring back metagames closer to BW. Decisionmaking will get alot more complex for any race's player, attacks and harrassment will get a new meaning and we will see less pure all-in play and less pure passive macro play up to 200/200. The game will get more skill intensive. This is what we all want to see happening instead of 15 minute macro into scv pull one-fight TvP. The game has been casualized with exactly the mechanics that are being removed now, not the other way round.
I find it funny that alot of ppl are so much stuck on what they learned to be good at that they don't see this change for the good coming.
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 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. I wouldn't mind seeing a flat stats buff to the marine either to compensate for the substantially less amount of them you will have. A first step could be to remove the combat shield upgrade, making it innate, possibly adding it again at the fusion core for an additional lategame upgrade.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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......
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
.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.
This should be obvious to people... but I get the feeling that most people who are against removing the macro-mechanics aren't interested analysizing why they are bad.
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
Now what can I tell you to drop this false belief?
The extreme example: Harrassment on a 3 nexus protoss drops him to 0 probes. Restarting with probe 3, 6, 9, ... (chronoboosted) Harrassment on a 3 OC terran drops him to 0 SCV. Restarting with 3 mules (= 12 SCVs? 15 SCVs? whatever) + SCV 3, 6, 9, .... (non chronoboosted)
It is simple math to scale this up to the amount of workers that you like. The advantage will stay but get negligible at higher numbers of existing workers.
At the early game, tho, the mule mechanic is defining and deceicive for the metagame and thus for the viable strategies that P/Z can go with. Mules are clearly narrowing the strategical diversity of P/Z in early game in the respective matchups. As limited strategical diversity (roughly said: either fully commit on an all-in or macro up to 200/200 and try to commit as few as possible on attacking/harrassing the terran eco but fight his army and only harras his eco when you are in minimum risk/commitment situations) is not only boring to play and watch and highly repetitive but also reduces the amount of different scenarios a player can exerience and has to learn to deal with on both sides. This makes it easier to undersand the metagames and the potential options of the respective matchups for lower skill players while higher skill players get strategically underchallanged and bored with always ending up in same or very similar scenarios. Therefore it is very true to say that mules (as well as the macro mechanics of the other races for different reasons) reduce the skill cap in the respective matchups, make SC2 more casual and are overall detrimental to the game (notice: I am not talking about hots balance here but about game design).
Additional aspects: - You can completely circumvent the mule mechanic by all-ining the terran. It is basically enforcing a coinflip where you either lose or win and mules don't matter anymore. -> - When harrassing the terran eco early to mid and manage to kill several SCVs at the cost of own probes/drones or at the cost of an own earlier additional expansion, then you also increase the %-impact of mules on the total economy of your opponent. This is something that you don't want to do usually. You usually only do it when you don't have to commit own growth on it.
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
.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.
This should be obvious to people... but I get the feeling that most people who are against removing the macro-mechanics aren't interested analysizing why they are bad.
Yes! Not only that. They also argue with wrong facts!
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
This is not about whining and it is not about balance. It is about what is true and what is false.
An interesting opinion but I feel that if macro is taking too big of a step back. Bad players will be over performing and thats what you and blizzard want? Starcraft is a game of mechanics. The player with better mechanics should win not some bs strategy. Oh sorry I mean "micro, map control, or positioning". Like really if you think about it and honestly take your own personal biases out, Lotv will ruin starcraft. No mechanics = no skill = dead game. Sorry to say it but its the truth. If you dont have your macro to fall back on when your put under pressure and are on the defensive, one bad engagement means gg. If thats you and blizzard feel that this dramatic change fix starcraft. Why didnt you do this is hots and use Lotv to balance it correctly? Right because blizzard put out hots with no thought *cough* swarmhosts. So now blizzard is gonna gamble and ruin a great game. I am disappointed in you QXC. We need people defending how bad of an idea this is and we need pros to step up and voice the truth. Your a smart guy but if you think this is a good idea, you just lost a fan.
But maybe thats just my own personal bias. If the game ends up being balanced. This might be worth the dramatic change.
I agree with QXC wholeheartedly. Not only have I been enjoying SC2 a lot more since the removal of Macro Boosters, but I think it will make the game more viable to balance properly.
Macro boosters can be advantage accelerators, but the major three macro mechanics at least satisfy the criteria that there is diminishing return, contingent on the saturation of a base, and diminishing return contingent on the effective worker cap. So, not necessarily will a macrobooster to a behind player be equal to a macrobooster to an ahead player.
I completely disagree with the statement "The interesting part of macro in Starcraft is the decision of what to make, not the execution of actually making it." Decisions in themselves are only partially interesting and will always take a backseat to execution.
This isn't necessarily saying macro mechanics themselves are necessary, just that I find execution far more interesting than general decision making, overall strategy, etc.
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
False.
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.
That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran
On August 26 2015 01:49 QSpec wrote: 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)
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).
Its all true. But i don't think he said it should be removed, as i read it i agree with him. Chrono should stay, those are good reasons to keep it.
He had proposed an alternative change in his first post.
He said:
I like this change but completely removing chronoboost might not be the best move. There are parts about chronoboost I like which I think is reason enough to keep it in the game. The "improvised" chronoboosts to forgive yourself from the original mistakes you've done is the part that I don't like. I think having the best of both worlds might be a possibility just by making chronoboost more exclusive (cooldown, energy cost, resource cost?).
I gathered that he wants chrono to be a part of macro while being nerfed as a way of fixing mistakes.
That said, his post a few days later seemed to imply that he was okay with it being removed. He's only ever taken umbrage at the auto-injects.
In any case, I was just trying to explain to a few posts why Blizzard might be interested in removing Chrono.
I like this change but completely removing chronoboost might not be the best move. There are parts about chronoboost I like which I think is reason enough to keep it in the game. The "improvised" chronoboosts to forgive yourself from the original mistakes you've done is the part that I don't like. I think having the best of both worlds might be a possibility just by making chronoboost more exclusive (cooldown, energy cost, resource cost?).
I gathered that he wants chrono to be a part of macro while being nerfed as a way of fixing mistakes.
That said, his post a few days later seemed to imply that he was okay with it being removed. He's only ever taken umbrage at the auto-injects.
In any case, I was just trying to explain to a few posts why Blizzard might be interested in removing Chrono.
Im ok with changing chrono, making it more exclusive is an interesting idea. However i don't think thats the reasoning from blizzard. It sounds like blizzard removed for the same reasons they removed inject and mule, but i think the point doesn't stand. They only pretend it applies to chrono to "make it fair", but thats absolutely unnecessary as things must be rebalanced anyway after such macro changes.
On August 26 2015 10:57 Cloak wrote: Macro boosters can be advantage accelerators, but the major three macro mechanics at least satisfy the criteria that there is diminishing return, contingent on the saturation of a base, and diminishing return contingent on the effective worker cap. So, not necessarily will a macrobooster to a behind player be equal to a macrobooster to an ahead player.
expected this one:
1. Inject yes, chrono yes, mules no!
2. lets pick injects as an example: with removal of 2 larva it takes little longer to get back to temp/global income cap but I'd strongly assume this is proportional to the reduced ability of your opponent to pull ahead in the same time with its army size. So it is basically a matter of general slowed down game pace, the slower scaling applies to both players, not only to the player that took damage on his eco. Taking that into account I see better recovery potential with lowered larva count still as in a ZvZ took damage in 3 hatch scenario there will be 6 less drones per inject cycle to recover with but also 6 less lets say roaches of the opponent that stand against you in the next fight what might/will put you behind again and therefore reduce advantage scaling with the removal of these macro mechanics.
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
False.
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.
That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran
Yes it does, you are right. Which is why you cannot say: 'Terran has 50 SCVs' without counting the mules in them. This gives: Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income. Terran has 50 scvs (44 SCVs + 2 mules or whatever), loses 4. Terran loses 8% income.
Or
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income. Terran has 50 scvs 2 mules loses 4. Terran loses 7.1% income, but he was already a bit ahead.
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
False.
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.
That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran
Yes it does, you are right. Which is why you cannot say: 'Terran has 50 SCVs' without counting the mules in them. This gives: Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income. Terran has 50 scvs (44 SCVs + 2 mules or whatever), loses 4. Terran loses 8% income.
Or
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income. Terran has 50 scvs 2 mules loses 4. Terran loses 7.1% income, but he was already a bit ahead.
On high worker numbers this is true, on low numbers mules will give the advantage. In early game decision making therefore mules have a huge impact on chosen and viable strategies of P/Z opponents. The popularity of 3OC openings is as it provides better eco defense than a PF and at the same time is the straight way into offense and putting that much economical pressure on your opponent that he has no choice but macro up as much as possible himself or kill you with an all-in, but barely anything in between. (just to make it clear: sure there are few things inbetween but those will get more with the removal).
In lategames with mule economies it is even worse at some points. Killing economy means exchanging your time, supply and cost intensive units vs. mules = free, supplyless, respawning units. It is like fighting against locusts.
I am mostly a sc:bw player, and I did watch mostly sc:bw. In bw even the best players couldn't micro without loosing on they macro, you had to know where you can go back to your base to macro, you had to predict how the fight go for the next few sec and go back to base when you could afford it. This was the big part of what had made BW interesting, if you can do almost all macro by just using your keyboard you loose important part of the game.
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
Now what can I tell you to drop this false belief?
The extreme example: Harrassment on a 3 nexus protoss drops him to 0 probes. Restarting with probe 3, 6, 9, ... (chronoboosted) Harrassment on a 3 OC terran drops him to 0 SCV. Restarting with 3 mules (= 12 SCVs? 15 SCVs? whatever) + SCV 3, 6, 9, .... (non chronoboosted)
It is simple math to scale this up to the amount of workers that you like. The advantage will stay but get negligible at higher numbers of existing workers.
At the early game, tho, the mule mechanic is defining and deceicive for the metagame and thus for the viable strategies that P/Z can go with. Mules are clearly narrowing the strategical diversity of P/Z in early game in the respective matchups. As limited strategical diversity (roughly said: either fully commit on an all-in or macro up to 200/200 and try to commit as few as possible on attacking/harrassing the terran eco but fight his army and only harras his eco when you are in minimum risk/commitment situations) is not only boring to play and watch and highly repetitive but also reduces the amount of different scenarios a player can exerience and has to learn to deal with on both sides. This makes it easier to undersand the metagames and the potential options of the respective matchups for lower skill players while higher skill players get strategically underchallanged and bored with always ending up in same or very similar scenarios. Therefore it is very true to say that mules (as well as the macro mechanics of the other races for different reasons) reduce the skill cap in the respective matchups, make SC2 more casual and are overall detrimental to the game (notice: I am not talking about hots balance here but about game design).
Additional aspects: - You can completely circumvent the mule mechanic by all-ining the terran. It is basically enforcing a coinflip where you either lose or win and mules don't matter anymore. -> - When harrassing the terran eco early to mid and manage to kill several SCVs at the cost of own probes/drones or at the cost of an own earlier additional expansion, then you also increase the %-impact of mules on the total economy of your opponent. This is something that you don't want to do usually. You usually only do it when you don't have to commit own growth on it.
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
.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.
This should be obvious to people... but I get the feeling that most people who are against removing the macro-mechanics aren't interested analysizing why they are bad.
Yes! Not only that. They also argue with wrong facts!
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
This is not about whining and it is not about balance. It is about what is true and what is false.
Dropping down to 0 workers from harassment is completely unrealistic. Yes, mules are effective in base-trade scenarios, but this has nothing to do with the opinion that harassing Terran is less effective than harassing protoss. Rather compare losing 1-10 workers.
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
False.
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.
That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran
This is kind of a ridiculous comparison. Zerg on 50 drones and Terran on 50 SCV's is not a comparable scenario, Terran is ahead here if they are even on army. Zerg generally have more drones than Terran have SCV's.
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote: 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.
exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
False.
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.
That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran
Yes it does, you are right. Which is why you cannot say: 'Terran has 50 SCVs' without counting the mules in them. This gives: Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income. Terran has 50 scvs (44 SCVs + 2 mules or whatever), loses 4. Terran loses 8% income.
Or
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income. Terran has 50 scvs 2 mules loses 4. Terran loses 7.1% income, but he was already a bit ahead.
On high worker numbers this is true, on low numbers mules will give the advantage. In early game decision making therefore mules have a huge impact on chosen and viable strategies of P/Z opponents. The popularity of 3OC openings is as it provides better eco defense than a PF and at the same time is the straight way into offense and putting that much economical pressure on your opponent that he has no choice but macro up as much as possible himself or kill you with an all-in, but barely anything in between. (just to make it clear: sure there are few things inbetween but those will get more with the removal).
In lategames with mule economies it is even worse at some points. Killing economy means exchanging your time, supply and cost intensive units vs. mules = free, supplyless, respawning units. It is like fighting against locusts.
I get you point. My post was mainly to react on the given example, that -as the stand alone it was- was too biased.
In the end I guess it is all about which part of sc2 you like to be more challenging, macro or micro.
A lot of people (including qxc) come in and say "Sc2 is all about m[a/i]cro!", "the interesting part of sc2 is m[a/i]cro" and so on, but it is close to impossible to make those statements into more than a personal preference I feel. Yeah, people talk about micro being more visible to an observer, macro is what separates sc2 from other games and so on, but neither are really defining properties of micro or macro. In the sense that it is possible to make macro more visible, and it is possible to have sc2 micro that separates it from other games.
I almost feel that instead of trying to argue the perceived shortcomings of m[a/i]cro, maybe we should think about how to address these shortcomings across the game, be it in m[a/i]cro or m[i/a]cro or other areas. How can we make skill be more visible (whatever that skill may be) and how can we make sc2 into a more unique game (in any aspect).
On August 26 2015 10:57 Cloak wrote: Macro boosters can be advantage accelerators, but the major three macro mechanics at least satisfy the criteria that there is diminishing return, contingent on the saturation of a base, and diminishing return contingent on the effective worker cap. So, not necessarily will a macrobooster to a behind player be equal to a macrobooster to an ahead player.
expected this one:
1. Inject yes, chrono yes, mules no!
2. lets pick injects as an example: with removal of 2 larva it takes little longer to get back to temp/global income cap but I'd strongly assume this is proportional to the reduced ability of your opponent to pull ahead in the same time with its army size. So it is basically a matter of general slowed down game pace, the scaling applies to both players, not only to the player who took damage on his eco. Taking that into account I see better recovery potential with lowered larva count still as in a ZvZ took damage in 3 hatch scenario there will be 6 less drones per inject cycle to recover with but also e.g. 6 less lets say roaches that stand against you in the next fight that might put you behind again.
1. I will admit that the Mule barely makes it because it's a difference of relative impact, as an economy grows larger so does the fixed income bonus become less % of the pie. Also, having a fixed basal mineral income rate irrespective of worker count has its own benefits, mostly in worker genocides and cash grab expansions. I have railed enough against Injects and Mules to make my intentions clear they could be better developed.
2. Inject will favor the one with a lower drone count over the one with a higher drone count. Not only in relative impact, but also the additional drones of the behind player will be less susceptible to saturation DRs. You are right that dealing with less numbers across the board will extend comeback time, but that doesn't necessarily preclude one from using macro mechanics, just an argument of scale. I think we've moved past that point since we acknowledged just how potent Inject was pre-removal.
So instead of just theory posturing, I've been thinking about Zerg and Terran ideas. Zerg is about DNA and isolating strains, so perhaps special drones can be produced periodically, such that their building is faster and their harvesting is faster, both gas and mineral. They would be prime targets for harass, and rare enough that it doesn't break the game. Another idea for Zerg is focusing on the larva themselves for unit design. Perhaps Larvae being able to migrate in some form? The Zerg Warpgate? But they run the risk of leaving larvae and eggs exposed.
For Terran, I've always wanted to expound upon their structure based macro style. Tech Lab, Reactor, OC, PF. Perhaps some structure system can be designed aside from Tech Lab/Reactor that eases production switches more. The Mule can return for spot repairs and possibly superimposed building help, and of course, Manner Mules.
SC2 is not only m[i/a]croing, it's strategy, decisions, reactions and more. This "new macro" make 1 little step behind to let all thoose things more important, more accessible. If today we thought macro have to make a step behind, it's surely because it took soooo much place in this game for soooo long time. I think it could be the root of all the abuse we saw in the meta (ZvP BL/Infest age, full air Protoss, Half-Map Meca TvT, ex-Swarmhost abuse etc...)
Now, pros and all of us have to make the difference between a good player and a bad one with the whole Starcraft2, and not only the poor macro counter.
I dont know if this patch is balance or not, i dont know wich meta will reach the ladder and the competitions, but i really enjoy the pace of the game right now.
Great article. I always enjoyed your play style QXC, and your take on the spirit of this macro change is exactly in line with how I feel (have always felt) about Starcraft 2. Macro repetition should be important, but the rest needs to matter even more than it has.
This is so bad for the game. As a sc2 veteran, the only good thing that comes from this is to bring new players in (which would have happened anyway with a new expansion), while half of the current active and dedicated players will drop sc2 for good.
If you want a game that's less mechanically challenging, you can allways wait for Warcraft 4. LotV isn't out of beta, and i'm more excited about warcraft 4 in the future, a game we don't even know for sure is even a project Blizzard is working on. Says a lot about how lotv beta turned out for me (and the majority of other dedicated players).
I am shocked at how QXC defends this major destruction of a patch Blizzard released. I hope to god they change their mind, for the sake of the future of SC2, if you want it last many many years to come.
This reminds me of the difference between, say, mtg and hearthstone. It looks like blizzard is taking this approach again. Sc2 is the hearthstone to starcraft 1.
Why even mine resources? Why not just be given 1000 minerals and 300 gas per minute per macro building? Then you can *really* focus on just strategy.
btw, side note: I've played games that work like what I just suggested. That mechanic was always terrible.
Great post qxc! Thanks for taking the time. Agree 100%. I too think overwhelming macro mechanics are a distraction from the most interesting parts of the game.
Reading the comments, I'm glad to see some people are changing their minds about this.
Like many others, I had 10+ friends who were passionate about SC2 but all quit playing because they got increasingly frustrated with the mechanical requirements. At this point, the TL community is mostly hardcore competitive gamers (who are somewhat ok with the state of the game) so the fact that even here opinions are now quite balanced makes it a no brainer for Blizzard to get rid of macro boosters. I'm very excited for the future of SC2!
I do feel bad for the people here who only care about the mechanical skill ceiling being totally out of reach, however Blizzard can't please everyone and I really believe this change is a big step in the right direction for 95% of the original (post WoL / HotS release) player pool.
I disagree completely. I feel it's important as the player pool and talent increases, so should the skill cap of the game. Being able to play perfectly at 500 apm should STILL not be enough. The idea is that someone has the ability to "reach higher." There should always be a higher point. This is why I think SCBW was so successful. There was this insanely high cap that so few could reach, that it was AMAZING to watch them do it. You watched them because they completely blew you away with their ridiculous speed. THEN, WHILE having that speed, they could do cool shit too!
Knowing that the top 1000 players all play at the same speed cap makes this game seem soooooo boring to me. It makes the game so utterly predictable when you know everyone around you is operating at the same cap of speed.
I want to see people think someone has a mineral hack when they see that insane army. I want to see people make this massive force and just totally overwhelm someone. Brute force is entertaining, that's why we remember the times when it happened. We remember when NaDa would just amass this insane quantity of units like.. omg WTF! We noticed when flash, even as late in the game as we saw, would macro at this new found insane level. Making macro even HARDER would present new levels of the game. A higher tier for example, that only the true greats could achieve. Sure, it was cool to see someone do a cool micro trick...... but it was WAY more amazing when I first saw the fastest koreans play. Cheater Terran anyone?
I want to see some 450 APM korean completely dominate some 200 apm foreigner contender. I picture some giant basketball player yelling "GET THAT SHIT OUTTA HERE!" <-- THIS is entertainment. We can all sit here and awe at the great micro someone does, but the greatest we have witnessed came from those who could do it WHILE pulling off insane macro.
I'm sorry, but I refuse to watch a game where I know exactly what someone can have at a particular time, and all the top 1000 operate at the same speed.....
Basically we're just going to make WC3 with no heroes and no items. Just because we're old and tired doesn't mean we should take that opportunity away from the younger generation growing up with this game.
Personally I always felt like Zerg Macro was the easiest, now it's going to be even easier :-/ oh well.
edit: Removing MULE and Chronoboost and reducing the effectiveness of Inject are all steps in the right direction though. Now we just need to increase the build time of all units / buildings / research to further slow the macro of the game down.
Personally I always felt like Zerg Macro was the easiest, now it's going to be even easier :-/ oh well.
edit: Removing MULE and Chronoboost and reducing the effectiveness of Inject are all steps in the right direction though. Now we just need to increase the build time of all units / buildings / research to further slow the macro of the game down.
We could just force the game to be played on Slowest too. Then the real fun would start!
Personally I always felt like Zerg Macro was the easiest, now it's going to be even easier :-/ oh well.
edit: Removing MULE and Chronoboost and reducing the effectiveness of Inject are all steps in the right direction though. Now we just need to increase the build time of all units / buildings / research to further slow the macro of the game down.
We could just force the game to be played on Slowest too. Then the real fun would start!
There's a huge difference between slowing down the build / research time and slowing down the units. Basically, if units / tech build more slowly then you can do more things with the units you have before the next stage of the game begins (i.e. if reaper is only viable until speed is out, then slowing down the build / research time of all things means the reaper has more time to move and attack before speed comes out). Right now timing windows are really small and the game progresses through the stages very quickly and usually with little action. There isn't enough time to harass, unless you have uber units like the oracle or widow mine drops that can wipe mineral lines in seconds (and even then it's because of how quickly they harass, not because you have time to do it). This is why we often see games have very little aggression and instead go straight to a specific game deciding timing or 200/200.
But this has all been said before by people who've done more research into it than I, so I digress.
On August 28 2015 17:23 Gruntt wrote: I disagree completely. I feel it's important as the player pool and talent increases, so should the skill cap of the game. Being able to play perfectly at 500 apm should STILL not be enough. The idea is that someone has the ability to "reach higher." There should always be a higher point. This is why I think SCBW was so successful. There was this insanely high cap that so few could reach, that it was AMAZING to watch them do it. You watched them because they completely blew you away with their ridiculous speed. THEN, WHILE having that speed, they could do cool shit too!
Knowing that the top 1000 players all play at the same speed cap makes this game seem soooooo boring to me. It makes the game so utterly predictable when you know everyone around you is operating at the same cap of speed.
I want to see people think someone has a mineral hack when they see that insane army. I want to see people make this massive force and just totally overwhelm someone. Brute force is entertaining, that's why we remember the times when it happened. We remember when NaDa would just amass this insane quantity of units like.. omg WTF! We noticed when flash, even as late in the game as we saw, would macro at this new found insane level. Making macro even HARDER would present new levels of the game. A higher tier for example, that only the true greats could achieve. Sure, it was cool to see someone do a cool micro trick...... but it was WAY more amazing when I first saw the fastest koreans play. Cheater Terran anyone?
I want to see some 450 APM korean completely dominate some 200 apm foreigner contender. I picture some giant basketball player yelling "GET THAT SHIT OUTTA HERE!" <-- THIS is entertainment. We can all sit here and awe at the great micro someone does, but the greatest we have witnessed came from those who could do it WHILE pulling off insane macro.
I'm sorry, but I refuse to watch a game where I know exactly what someone can have at a particular time, and all the top 1000 operate at the same speed.....
Basically we're just going to make WC3 with no heroes and no items. Just because we're old and tired doesn't mean we should take that opportunity away from the younger generation growing up with this game.
This is just my opinion as well.
Everytime you say "we", you're making assumptions about what other people find enjoyable in the game. As it turns out, the APM competition you seem to enjoy is literally of zero interest to me (and I do mean none whatsoever). Some other people find it somewhat interesting but most value the strategic aspects of SC2 more and that's where your logic doesn't work for most of us: the bigger the advantage you get from a higher APM, the less important strategy is. If you needed 500 apm to play the game, it would just be dominated by 12 year olds who don't really know what they are doing strategy wise but still win because they have the speed to manage everything. It really does not sound interesting to me.
On August 28 2015 17:23 Gruntt wrote: I disagree completely. I feel it's important as the player pool and talent increases, so should the skill cap of the game. Being able to play perfectly at 500 apm should STILL not be enough. The idea is that someone has the ability to "reach higher." There should always be a higher point. This is why I think SCBW was so successful. There was this insanely high cap that so few could reach, that it was AMAZING to watch them do it. You watched them because they completely blew you away with their ridiculous speed. THEN, WHILE having that speed, they could do cool shit too!
Knowing that the top 1000 players all play at the same speed cap makes this game seem soooooo boring to me. It makes the game so utterly predictable when you know everyone around you is operating at the same cap of speed.
I want to see people think someone has a mineral hack when they see that insane army. I want to see people make this massive force and just totally overwhelm someone. Brute force is entertaining, that's why we remember the times when it happened. We remember when NaDa would just amass this insane quantity of units like.. omg WTF! We noticed when flash, even as late in the game as we saw, would macro at this new found insane level. Making macro even HARDER would present new levels of the game. A higher tier for example, that only the true greats could achieve. Sure, it was cool to see someone do a cool micro trick...... but it was WAY more amazing when I first saw the fastest koreans play. Cheater Terran anyone?
I want to see some 450 APM korean completely dominate some 200 apm foreigner contender. I picture some giant basketball player yelling "GET THAT SHIT OUTTA HERE!" <-- THIS is entertainment. We can all sit here and awe at the great micro someone does, but the greatest we have witnessed came from those who could do it WHILE pulling off insane macro.
I'm sorry, but I refuse to watch a game where I know exactly what someone can have at a particular time, and all the top 1000 operate at the same speed.....
Basically we're just going to make WC3 with no heroes and no items. Just because we're old and tired doesn't mean we should take that opportunity away from the younger generation growing up with this game.
This is just my opinion as well.
Everytime you say "we", you're making assumptions about what other people find enjoyable in the game. As it turns out, the APM competition you seem to enjoy is literally of zero interest to me (and I do mean none whatsoever). Some other people find it somewhat interesting but most value the strategic aspects of SC2 more and that's where your logic doesn't work for most of us: the bigger the advantage you get from a higher APM, the less important strategy is. If you needed 500 apm to play the game, it would just be dominated by 12 year olds who don't really know what they are doing strategy wise but still win because they have the speed to manage everything. It really does not sound interesting to me.
Then why even have economy in the game? If you just want to watch micro then why even have macro in the game? Starcraft was built on who could make shit fast and micro simultaneously. Managing multiple things at once is like the entire concept of the game.
12 year olds with no direction? The planning involved and memory skills that needed to be refined for impressive macro is VERY difficult to achieve. Then to combine that with impressive micro? This is greatness.
I think you're probably right, because I care about the entire game. I love seeing someone multitask like a god and do shit that seems inhuman while also coming up with awesome ideas in the moment.
If you only enjoy 1/2 of the game and like to ignore the other half, then you're absolutely right, we enjoy different things.
On August 28 2015 17:23 Gruntt wrote: I disagree completely. I feel it's important as the player pool and talent increases, so should the skill cap of the game. Being able to play perfectly at 500 apm should STILL not be enough. The idea is that someone has the ability to "reach higher." There should always be a higher point. This is why I think SCBW was so successful. There was this insanely high cap that so few could reach, that it was AMAZING to watch them do it. You watched them because they completely blew you away with their ridiculous speed. THEN, WHILE having that speed, they could do cool shit too!
Knowing that the top 1000 players all play at the same speed cap makes this game seem soooooo boring to me. It makes the game so utterly predictable when you know everyone around you is operating at the same cap of speed.
I want to see people think someone has a mineral hack when they see that insane army. I want to see people make this massive force and just totally overwhelm someone. Brute force is entertaining, that's why we remember the times when it happened. We remember when NaDa would just amass this insane quantity of units like.. omg WTF! We noticed when flash, even as late in the game as we saw, would macro at this new found insane level. Making macro even HARDER would present new levels of the game. A higher tier for example, that only the true greats could achieve. Sure, it was cool to see someone do a cool micro trick...... but it was WAY more amazing when I first saw the fastest koreans play. Cheater Terran anyone?
I want to see some 450 APM korean completely dominate some 200 apm foreigner contender. I picture some giant basketball player yelling "GET THAT SHIT OUTTA HERE!" <-- THIS is entertainment. We can all sit here and awe at the great micro someone does, but the greatest we have witnessed came from those who could do it WHILE pulling off insane macro.
I'm sorry, but I refuse to watch a game where I know exactly what someone can have at a particular time, and all the top 1000 operate at the same speed.....
Basically we're just going to make WC3 with no heroes and no items. Just because we're old and tired doesn't mean we should take that opportunity away from the younger generation growing up with this game.
This is just my opinion as well.
Everytime you say "we", you're making assumptions about what other people find enjoyable in the game. As it turns out, the APM competition you seem to enjoy is literally of zero interest to me (and I do mean none whatsoever). Some other people find it somewhat interesting but most value the strategic aspects of SC2 more and that's where your logic doesn't work for most of us: the bigger the advantage you get from a higher APM, the less important strategy is. If you needed 500 apm to play the game, it would just be dominated by 12 year olds who don't really know what they are doing strategy wise but still win because they have the speed to manage everything. It really does not sound interesting to me.
Then why even have economy in the game? If you just want to watch micro then why even have macro in the game? Starcraft was built on who could make shit fast and micro simultaneously. Managing multiple things at once is like the entire concept of the game.
12 year olds with no direction? The planning involved and memory skills that needed to be refined for impressive macro is VERY difficult to achieve. Then to combine that with impressive micro? This is greatness.
I think you're probably right, because I care about the entire game. I love seeing someone multitask like a god and do shit that seems inhuman while also coming up with awesome ideas in the moment.
If you only enjoy 1/2 of the game and like to ignore the other half, then you're absolutely right, we enjoy different things.
Gruntt no one says they want macro gone completely you seem to jump to extremes when replying to someone. Also IMO your points on macro are off, alot of macro becomes mechanical repetition with minimal thinking outside of your opening build and reacting to scouting info.
This is an extreme example but did any General in the world have to be personally responsible to escort there supply lines to the front? Think of the macro changes as delegating, since i don't have to babysit my supply line as much I can focus on winning the war.
In the end opinions vary, but you will still see good macro from good players, but now your macro heroes will have more options to position and make interesting plays with there army.
On August 28 2015 17:43 Pursuit_ wrote: Personally I always felt like Zerg Macro was the easiest, now it's going to be even easier :-/ oh well.
edit: Removing MULE and Chronoboost and reducing the effectiveness of Inject are all steps in the right direction though. Now we just need to increase the build time of all units / buildings / research to further slow the macro of the game down.
As a random I have to agree on this. Learning to inject was hard but once you had it down I found zerg macro much easier than terran and fairly similar to protoss, primarily as overloards are easier to handle than supply deplons and the unit building all happens off one hothey. The macro booster mechanics are a fairly small part of the process. While missing injects is more serious than missing mules or chrono, the rhythm of it and it being the main thing going definitely makes them easier to hit. If anything creep spread is what makes zerg mechanically demanding. In WoL/HotS this works out because the micro is usually super basic compared to the other races, but that looks set to change in LotV.
I'm personally in favour of a faster start, slower acceleration and more micro. I do feel the harassment units might need toning back a bit though, its too easy to devastate a mineral line when it takes longer to restock.
Conceptually this makes sense for more micro; however, I really want to see QXC's beta account and how many games he's played. This is not an insult; I honestly think more time was spent (intellectually) on this article than playing the new patch.
After playing 30 games, and being gm several times, I would say playing TvZ is absurd at this point. After games in which I've killed 50+ drones, the Zerg is still on equal footing. The great David Kim, who marginalizes everything, said "Terran mid/early game took a big hit [b/c of no mule]". Why doesn't QXC amend his post even when David Kim nullifies the changes a week into this new patch and reversing the mule change? Guys...it is one thing to be "open minded" but it is another for us to sit here and analyze an over-the-top broken change all day long. I'm watching streamers who will just not play LOTV b/c it is all Zergs.
On August 29 2015 17:54 cheekymonkey wrote: People do realize that Terran and Protoss macro won't become any easier, right?
The reason for that you must believe it is balance whining when people complain about the game getting too easy. And in alot of cases it probably is.
Actually terran is getting a little easier and less punishing with the OC changes in different situations: - forgot depots, lost depots? No matter you wont be supply blocked. - Couldn't scout or didn't do it in time? Scanning wont be at the cost of a mule anymore and 2-3 scans in a row will give you a pretty instant and complete picture about your opponent in midgame where others have to spend apm and mins/gas on suiciding scouting units.
In early game zerg could probably have some more tasks in LOTV. But for lategame on 5+ hatches the changes are absolutely good. Asking a zerg to do 5+ hatch injects and doing the creep spread around the clock is a little bit much when at the same time Terran and Protoss have pretty much nothing else to do than queuing and warping in units.
On August 29 2015 19:26 thezanursic wrote: Remember when good macro was impressive? (removed BW terran vod)
Where does terran have this impressive macro now and when does it get lost?
You think spamming 4/5/6 + q/w/e/r in order to queue bio in barracks is the impressive endgame macro in SC2 that might now get lost!?
I don't get the whole point of impressive macro in SC2 anymore. In early/midgame with fewer production macro isn't at all that hard to deal with for any race and in lategame SC2 terran macro is nothing about being impressive but just the easiest of them 3 races. And this got multiplied by mules even so that Terran didn't even have to care that much on SCV counts while the other races had to. Macro in BW used to become the more impressive the more production you had to work with. Is this at all the case e.g. for Terran in SC2 with multi building selection and the supply thing being done after reaching 200/200?
Is the argument that zerg will get an easy life while terran has to macro the shit out of their brains true or false? Is all this impressive macro "whining" actually something that should have/has taken place at the release of WOL and is now just being mindlessly repeated and wrongly mixed into the macro changes from HOTS to LOTV? ...
SC2 can't lose what it never had the same way as you cannot come back from positions where you are not behind in!
On August 28 2015 00:34 travis wrote: This reminds me of the difference between, say, mtg and hearthstone. It looks like blizzard is taking this approach again. Sc2 is the hearthstone to starcraft 1.
Why even mine resources? Why not just be given 1000 minerals and 300 gas per minute per macro building? Then you can *really* focus on just strategy.
btw, side note: I've played games that work like what I just suggested. That mechanic was always terrible.
Oh what a good post I found there man., I will steal it for a moment =P
The problem is that macro is the gateway to the rest of the game. Without good macro, you can’t experience a substantial part of what Starcraft offers. Micro, strategic decisions, tech switches and mind games all take a back seat to just ‘produce as much stuff as possible’ until you get close to optimal macro.
This. You can try to argue against removing macro mechanics but you should carry a big, wet, heavy bag of sand with you while doing it.
On August 29 2015 17:54 cheekymonkey wrote: People do realize that Terran and Protoss macro won't become any easier, right?
The reason for that you must believe it is balance whining when people complain about the game getting too easy. And in alot of cases it probably is.
Actually terran is getting a little easier and less punishing with the OC changes in different situations: - forgot depots, lost depots? No matter you wont be supply blocked. - Couldn't scout or didn't do it in time? Scanning wont be at the cost of a mule anymore and 2-3 scans in a row will give you a pretty instant and complete picture about your opponent in midgame where others have to spend apm and mins/gas on suiciding scouting units.
In early game zerg could probably have some more tasks in LOTV. But for lategame on 5+ hatches the changes are absolutely good. Asking a zerg to do 5+ hatch injects and doing the creep spread around the clock is a little bit much when at the same time Terran and Protoss have pretty much nothing else to do than queuing and warping in units.
You don't have to worry about Terran "queuing" anything when Zerg is on 5 hatches...they don't have any minerals left after the mule change. For David Kim to say yesterday that "Terran's economy took a big hit mid/early game" is an understatement. This patch, although conceptually in the right direction, killed Terran. There is nothing but ZvZ on LOTV ladder right now. I could do screenshots with the early game mineral deficiency TvZ but it has already been done...
On August 29 2015 17:54 cheekymonkey wrote: People do realize that Terran and Protoss macro won't become any easier, right?
The reason for that you must believe it is balance whining when people complain about the game getting too easy. And in alot of cases it probably is.
Actually terran is getting a little easier and less punishing with the OC changes in different situations: - forgot depots, lost depots? No matter you wont be supply blocked. - Couldn't scout or didn't do it in time? Scanning wont be at the cost of a mule anymore and 2-3 scans in a row will give you a pretty instant and complete picture about your opponent in midgame where others have to spend apm and mins/gas on suiciding scouting units.
In early game zerg could probably have some more tasks in LOTV. But for lategame on 5+ hatches the changes are absolutely good. Asking a zerg to do 5+ hatch injects and doing the creep spread around the clock is a little bit much when at the same time Terran and Protoss have pretty much nothing else to do than queuing and warping in units.
You don't have to worry about Terran "queuing" anything when Zerg is on 5 hatches...they don't have any minerals left after the mule change. For David Kim to say yesterday that "Terran's economy took a big hit mid/early game" is an understatement. This patch, although conceptually in the right direction, killed Terran. There is nothing but ZvZ on LOTV ladder right now. I could do screenshots with the early game mineral deficiency TvZ but it has already been done...
I very much agree to this. Terran need to be improved in almost everything now. The only goal should be that we do not end up with bio only play in all matchups as it was not long time ago when doing this.
On December 31 2015 22:02 heishe wrote: Sorry for the bump, I never knew Blizzard tried removing the macro mechanics entirely. Why were they reintroduced?
No time to rebalance the whole game again after 5 years of MM
On December 31 2015 22:02 heishe wrote: Sorry for the bump, I never knew Blizzard tried removing the macro mechanics entirely. Why were they reintroduced?
It was easier for them to balance the game around weaker versions of the existing macro mechanics than to balance it around no macro mechanics. Since chrono and MULEs were gone but inject was still in the game (just automated), Zerg got very strong at all levels. Creep spreading became really easy since the APM that went into larva inject was freed up. Especially against Terran since they had scans cost 100 energy around that time. A giant mess they didn't really have time to fix.
If u want to know more, just look for the community feedback threads around this date, e.g. September 6, September 18, etc. These are official statements.
But I have to agree with WrathSCII here. They were forced to reintroduce MM, cuz release date was close and they were under pressure. But they are not admitting that, of course.
Without MM best sc2 ever I played. Incedribly fun to play if you are more busy with your army than with your economy. Economy is and was always the most boring part in any RTS game, even worse if economy is your most busy task.
It is rather annoying that a large majority of the beta was used for experimenting with macro mechanics, only for them to bring them back and make all that used up beta time essentially worthless.
I still feel pretty bad for Qxc. He was so damn prepared to play at the Redbull tournament, then Terran got dumpstered because of the Macro Mechanic removal (and the broken Zealot Charge) hitting right before it happened. But regardless of the balance/brokenness of that set of beta patches, the games at that Redbull were so amazing.
Shifting significant APM away from Macro Mechanics into Army Control just opens up the map so much at the top end. It was really fun to watch.
At the same time, Terran had to be completely & utterly rebalanced if they left it in. With no MULE for Terran, it highlighted how badly designed the MULE always had been in the game. So the problem wasn't having to redo all of the Unit Costs, it was that Terran was so completely balanced around its existence that everything had to be rescaled. And they didn't want to devote the time. (Frankly, it wouldn't have taken as long to do as they thought it would, but it would have been a radical change to the game.) So we get a somewhat nerfed version of Macro Mechanics and the launch of LOTV.
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.
Imagine how much of a skill game SC2 could have become without macro mechanics.
Terran had to actually care on not to lose every single SCV. Z had to decide wisely on every single larva. And all the op aoe damage that the game automatically evolves around now, especially that of toss and zerg, would not be needed to that extend. Variety would be increased by default. Strategical/tactical skill cap would have been increased by default.
Now Terran can at times waste scv, zerg can hoard larva and spam units and protoss got new op aoe. But hey the game is alot better than hots/wol ever was. So that will do the job for some time I guess.
Come on, it is not a MOBA :p Chosing where to pay attention is totally part of a RTS. Attention is a ressource in a RTS, and where you choose to dedicate it is a choice. Just managing your army is so... arcade !
Plus zerg was OP as fuck with auto inject as they had near 0 macro to do. I mean pressing a button to build a building then paying attention to your army and engagements 99,5% of the time was dumb. When terran and protoss lose macro effiency once they decide to move across the map, zerg was like "oops let me make mutas -> press one button, select a drone, make a building -> double press 1 and come back to your army management".
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.
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. )))
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. )))
Protoss is and has always been dumb to play. perception, perception... Anyways, read the zerg section in CU Sep 18th, their "primary reason" was what i 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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Sc4uMEM_p24/maxresdefault.jpg)
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