Hey everyone. We’ve got a really short feedback update this week. As we’ve mentioned before, if there are others topics to discuss we can also chat throughout the upcoming week. As for this week however, here are a couple of things we wanted to bring up.
Worker Counter on the in-game UI Last week, we discussed a suggestion to add a worker ‘counter’ to the in-game UI. We’re definitely seeing a lot of positivity around potentially adding this feature. Please let us know if we’re wrong here, but for now we will start exploring internally what this means on the UI side.
Season 3 Maps We just wanted to let you guys know that we’re currently working with KeSPA in order to be able to align at least 4 maps with KR tournaments with the Season 2 and Season 3 ladder. Because Korean tournaments happen in between the two ladder seasons, we will do our best to have at least 4 of the tournament maps in both ladder seasons. This way, pro players can veto accordingly, and use the ladder to practice.
We’ve also been working on improvements to New Gettysburg with KeSPA, Korean players, and ‘Jacky’, the creator of the map, since the map looked so promising. The current thinking is to use New Gettysburg, Sejong, Frost, one map between Frozen Temple and Dusk Towers, and the remaining 3 slots are still to be determined.
However, we did want to give a shoutout to many of the map makers out there that participated in the Team Liquid map contest. We noticed a lot of the maps we liked were from new map makers. This was especially awesome because we could definitely see that the map making scene is continuing to grow!
Cyclone Cooldown Value We were also seeing some discussion around Cyclone ability cooldown increasing this week. We’ve located why this human error happened, and will do our best to prevent this from happening again. We will get this bug fixed with the next update to the game.
There are also a few other minor bugs that we’ve located thanks to the community, and we’ll definitely include these fixes as well. Thanks for looking out for the game and helping to correct even the smallest issues within the game.
At last a short community update with only sensible things. Good.
As for worker UI : I'm all for it as long as it's done well. It shouldn't take too much place on the screen. It's not like it's hard to add the workers you've got in all your bases to know your worker count.
On June 04 2016 02:57 Nerchio wrote: Meh New Gettysburg wasn't that good of a map, island bases are boring and the rest of the map is too straightforward
Highlights how influential a couple good games on a map can be I guess.
On June 04 2016 02:47 atrox_ wrote: putting a worker counter on the UI? Like the army counter?
why??????????
Well the first thing that came to my mind was when watching matches it's hard to see worker comparisons. But a lot of that is up to the observer... So I dunno what other uses it really has. As we already have workers per base over each base in game for playing.
Personally I'm happy dusk seems to be staying. Might just be my Terran bias though. Sure it's old and fairly straight forward but it also has some interesting features, the safe nat, the ramp at third, the close 4th+5th all lead players into macro games. It's a map I think most players who want to play a straight forward game of sc2 feal comfortable on. I think personally it's nice to have that one map in the pool that's very figured out. That when you load into as a player you feal comfortable on and know what to expect. That does not mean theirs no variation on the map. We still see new builds and styles a fair amount because of the cushin the safe early game provides. We've also seen a lot of great games on dusk towers. I understand why some people want it out but I think it can be ok to leave a good map in unless it reaches daybreak status. Also recent map adds have not been real gems I'd rather have a good old map then a bad new one especially if it sticks around like prion did.
On June 04 2016 02:47 atrox_ wrote: putting a worker counter on the UI? Like the army counter?
why??????????
A better question is "why not?"
You could implement this in a way that would help everyone from a brand new player to top pro and not really have any downside.
It's not like anybody at any stage of skill is 100% sure how many workers they have at all stages of the game, especially with 4-5+ bases and harass happening. The only thing that would change would be this:
prepatch: "How many workers do i have?" - make educated guess with some level of error
postpatch: "How many workers do i have?" - look at UI. Maybe rebuild a few more or less workers or spend a few seconds doing something more useful than checking your worker count
Regarding Dusk Towers - If they include it for another Season please Reskin this Map - It's really getting boring to look 3 Seasons on the same asthetics
I'm not one to spout "it's making the game easier", but, when they added workers on patches? why? it's not hard to quick drag box and count. Adding an overall worker count? Why? What purpose does it add other than taking away an action that requires you to invest some human resource into checking
On June 04 2016 05:32 Mightygear wrote: Overall cool stuff, congratz to Jacky -
Regarding Dusk Towers - If they include it for another Season please Reskin this Map - It's really getting boring to look 3 Seasons on the same asthetics
What purpose does it add other than taking away an action that requires you to invest some human resource into checking
Even if that's exactly the goal, so what? I think that the vast majority of stuff on the UI is well worth being there. Minerals, gas, supply cost, minimap, unit health when selected at the bottom, command card showing ability availability and cooldowns etc - if you took any of this out of the game, it would make the game worse IMO. So why then is it so bad to add more similar things to the UI which give more information about the game?
You can (and a lot of people have) make a strong argument for hiding stuff such a unit cooldowns because it requires more "skill" to remember the individual cooldown on every stalker for Blink, etc.
On June 04 2016 05:29 Scarlett` wrote: Id rather they work on unit interaction and stuff not dying instantly if they wanna help lower level players rather than making the UI/macro easier
I don't think the worker count thing would really make a difference at any level. Low level players simply don't build enough workers and higher level players can manage their worker numbers just fine thanks to the worker overlays on bases.
I'm unhappy they're dragging their feet with fixing the cyclone. The unit has had and still has so many issues, if they're going to let it exist in its current state they need to make it actually work. The cooldown problem isn't the only bug the unit has either and the game has been out for half a year at this point.
On June 04 2016 05:29 Scarlett` wrote: Id rather they work on unit interaction and stuff not dying instantly if they wanna help lower level players rather than making the UI/macro easier
you know that's not gonna happen.
It'll happen if enough people ask for it
I'm normally one who doesn't want the game to be easier but I really don't think it will make a huge difference. Lower level players may be able to hit worker benchmarks easier but for high level players it really doesn't matter.
I think it's more of a QOL (quality of life) change at all levels
On June 04 2016 05:34 atrox_ wrote: I'm not one to spout "it's making the game easier", but, when they added workers on patches? why? it's not hard to quick drag box and count. Adding an overall worker count? Why? What purpose does it add other than taking away an action that requires you to invest some human resource into checking
I'm normally one who doesn't want the game to be easier but I really don't think it will make a huge difference. Lower level players may be able to hit worker benchmarks easier but for high level players it really doesn't matter.
On June 04 2016 05:34 atrox_ wrote: I'm not one to spout "it's making the game easier", but, when they added workers on patches? why? it's not hard to quick drag box and count. Adding an overall worker count? Why? What purpose does it add other than taking away an action that requires you to invest some human resource into checking
I'm normally one who doesn't want the game to be easier but I really don't think it will make a huge difference. Lower level players may be able to hit worker benchmarks easier but for high level players it really doesn't matter.
In unusual situations it will really make it easier for pros even
and it will be easier for not top level pros to have exactly what they want in terms of workers all the time (in WoL almost every pro made mistakes with saturation b4 the counter was added above bases; and i was against that change as well)
On June 04 2016 02:57 Nerchio wrote: Meh New Gettysburg wasn't that good of a map, island bases are boring and the rest of the map is too straightforward
thought for sure they would add Dasan Station after singling out Snute to talk to him about how great his game was on the map
I don't mind the worker count as long as it isn't intrusive. As an added bonus, it would allow us to see worker counts in tourneys when the observer has declined to show us worker counts. New Gettysburg is "promising". I guess that means is that Blizzard likes to choose Blizzard-like maps to replace Blizzard maps. Sigh. Also...
On June 04 2016 05:51 Mightygear wrote: I imagine the Worker Count is an indirect nerf to runby and mine drops -since you immidently recognize what's going on by a quick look at the UI
the "your workers are under attack" voice has the same effect without requiring you to check something.
On June 04 2016 05:51 Mightygear wrote: I imagine the Worker Count is an indirect nerf to runby and mine drops -since you immidently recognize what's going on by a quick look at the UI
the "your workers are under attack" voice has the same effect without requiring you to check something.
Now that you mention it, that voice line is still semi-broken and gets overwritten inconsistently by other sound effects
On June 04 2016 05:34 atrox_ wrote: I'm not one to spout "it's making the game easier", but, when they added workers on patches? why? it's not hard to quick drag box and count. Adding an overall worker count? Why? What purpose does it add other than taking away an action that requires you to invest some human resource into checking
I'm normally one who doesn't want the game to be easier but I really don't think it will make a huge difference. Lower level players may be able to hit worker benchmarks easier but for high level players it really doesn't matter.
In unusual situations it will really make it easier for pros even
and it will be easier for not top level pros to have exactly what they want in terms of workers all the time (in WoL almost every pro made mistakes with saturation b4 the counter was added above bases; and i was against that change as well)
agreed, this is another step in the wrong direction
To me pros/GMs speaking against any UI improvements is just inconsiderate. Yeah, we get it, you are GOOD. We aren't. The game is difficult as fuck. Every small accessibility change makes it more fun to me. Why can't I have it just because you think it makes you less special? I really hate this kind of thinking.
On another topic: do you have time to talk about our lord and savior Dusk Towers? That map is AWESOME. It is the single-handed source of a large portion of great games of LoTV. It's almost exclusively only Dusk Towers where games go over 20 minutes. I don not demand all maps to be like Dusk Towers, but in the absence of a suitable replacement (which is the state right now), I would be really be sad if it was gone.
On June 04 2016 17:30 opisska wrote: To me pros/GMs speaking against any UI improvements is just inconsiderate. Yeah, we get it, you are GOOD. We aren't. The game is difficult as fuck. Every small accessibility change makes it more fun to me. Why can't I have it just because you think it makes you less special? I really hate this kind of thinking.
it doesn't make the game easier to learn, it makes it (much) easier to perfect
and honestly at every level, you play vs opponents of similar skills to yours so yeah idk
On June 04 2016 17:30 opisska wrote: To me pros/GMs speaking against any UI improvements is just inconsiderate. Yeah, we get it, you are GOOD. We aren't. The game is difficult as fuck. Every small accessibility change makes it more fun to me. Why can't I have it just because you think it makes you less special? I really hate this kind of thinking.
it doesn't make the game easier to learn, it makes it (much) easier to perfect
And what? I never said anything about learning. I am not a "newbie", I played >5000 games of SC2. Yet I would still appreciate this change - and also many others that will never happen, because people like you would feel threatened in their superiority.
I don't even understand what merit you think the ever-repeated argument about the game needing to be hard has. The game is clearly hard to master well enough. The evidence is presented in plain sight every time a foreigner plays a Korean.
On June 04 2016 17:30 opisska wrote: To me pros/GMs speaking against any UI improvements is just inconsiderate. Yeah, we get it, you are GOOD. We aren't. The game is difficult as fuck. Every small accessibility change makes it more fun to me. Why can't I have it just because you think it makes you less special? I really hate this kind of thinking.
it doesn't make the game easier to learn, it makes it (much) easier to perfect
And what? I never said anything about learning. I am not a "newbie", I played >5000 games of SC2. Yet I would still appreciate this change - and also many others that will never happen, because people like you would feel threatened in their superiority.
On June 04 2016 17:30 opisska wrote: To me pros/GMs speaking against any UI improvements is just inconsiderate. Yeah, we get it, you are GOOD. We aren't. The game is difficult as fuck. Every small accessibility change makes it more fun to me. Why can't I have it just because you think it makes you less special? I really hate this kind of thinking.
it doesn't make the game easier to learn, it makes it (much) easier to perfect
And what? I never said anything about learning. I am not a "newbie", I played >5000 games of SC2. Yet I would still appreciate this change - and also many others that will never happen, because people like you would feel threatened in their superiority.
clearly you haven't learned enough yet then
And you haven't shown a will to consider any other viewpoints than yours. May I try again? The "competitivness" (whatever it's supposed to be spelled) of the game is clearly not threatened. There is still a hell of a space to show your skill in the game. The evidence for that is the Korean domination - the game doesn't "hold the hands of lesser players" - if if did, there won't be a clear distinction between tiers of players at the pro level, but there is.
So what does it hurt when the game is made "easier"? It makes my games more fun, it doesn't make the pro scene less interesting. It's a win-neutral scenario, what are the reasons to oppose it? So far I see only "but I am so good on the foreigner ladder, some noskill noobs could threaten me if the game wasn't hard enough", which is not a very good reason.
On June 04 2016 17:30 opisska wrote: To me pros/GMs speaking against any UI improvements is just inconsiderate. Yeah, we get it, you are GOOD. We aren't. The game is difficult as fuck. Every small accessibility change makes it more fun to me. Why can't I have it just because you think it makes you less special? I really hate this kind of thinking.
it doesn't make the game easier to learn, it makes it (much) easier to perfect
And what? I never said anything about learning. I am not a "newbie", I played >5000 games of SC2. Yet I would still appreciate this change - and also many others that will never happen, because people like you would feel threatened in their superiority.
clearly you haven't learned enough yet then
And you haven't shown a will to consider any other viewpoints than yours. May I try again? The "competitivness" (whatever it's supposed to be spelled) of the game is clearly not threatened. There is still a hell of a space to show your skill in the game. The evidence for that is the Korean domination - the game doesn't "hold the hands of lesser players" - if if did, there won't be a clear distinction between tiers of players at the pro level, but there is.
So what does it hurt when the game is made "easier"? It makes my games more fun, it doesn't make the pro scene less interesting. It's a win-neutral scenario, what are the reasons to oppose it? So far I see only "but I am so good on the foreigner ladder, some noskill noobs could threaten me if the game wasn't hard enough", which is not a very good reason.
Worker count UI wont change how good you are at the game. I am neutral to it. However the game already is so retarded, might as well go all the way. (auto-production etc.)
Blizzards decision to keep in frost and KSS for another season simply has me stunned, I have no idea what makes them think overplayed maps need another half year of playtime when theres so many new maps trying to squeze their way in.
On June 04 2016 19:13 Meavis wrote: Blizzards decision to keep in frost and KSS for another season simply has me stunned, I have no idea what makes them think overplayed maps need another half year of playtime when theres so many new maps trying to squeze their way in.
There were a lot of complaints last season because the map pools for SSL, GSL and Proleague were completely different from the ladder/WCS pool, so people couldn't turn to Koreans to learn stuff because they play entirely diffferent maps anyway. To fix that, they're now aligning the KR tournament pool closer to the regular ladder pool. But the leagues have already started up using Sejong and Frost.
The GSL map pool this season:
Sejong Frost Dusk Frozen Lerilak Rak'Shir Orbital
SSL:
Sejong Frost Dusk Frozen Invader Ruins of Endion Ulrena
As you can see, only 4 of those overlap. Meaning to achieve their goal of aligning tournament and ladder pools, they have little choice but to use Frost and Sejong. With Frost especially since there were almost no 4-spawn maps in the TLMC finals.
On June 04 2016 02:57 Nerchio wrote: Meh New Gettysburg wasn't that good of a map, island bases are boring and the rest of the map is too straightforward
thought for sure they would add Dasan Station after singling out Snute to talk to him about how great his game was on the map
haha xd i hope you read my post about it because there were greater Human Errors made during that series than my choice of strategy on that map, i don't mind being called out for losing one map with a dumb strat, the rest of the story was just a shitty experience so it's not very pleasant to be reminded of :D
on topic i think gettysburg is not that great, dusk towers and ulrena fill its role much better. it's just too stale like newkirk precinct version 1 and the islands don't contribute much to the map with 6 1/2 bases easily available on the ground. the bridge is a bit silly compared to ulrena's as well. maybe there's something to it, but overall i wouldn't rate it too highly compared to other maps.
don't care much about the potential ui change. it might help players to see worker supply but sooner or later we'll end up with full observer interface and it will be a bit weird if MPM, GPM, army supply, army values, etc begin to show too.
On June 04 2016 17:30 opisska wrote: To me pros/GMs speaking against any UI improvements is just inconsiderate. Yeah, we get it, you are GOOD. We aren't. The game is difficult as fuck. Every small accessibility change makes it more fun to me. Why can't I have it just because you think it makes you less special? I really hate this kind of thinking.
Finally someone said it! Thank you so much for this. It really is annoying to hear this argument with every QOL change. And it's not much more than that tbh.
And clearly worker count above bases, worker auto-split at the beginnig or rally points to minerals haven't made the game too easy. Neither will this, should it go through.
I have stopped playing SC II a long time ago and nearly stopped watching although it has been a huge part of my life for quite some time. Of course this change won't bring me back but it is changes like this that make the game much more enjoyable and accessable for people that don't have the time to play all that much. As if it hasn't been pointed out enough that you need an active player base in order for a game to be successful and to support a pro scene. It's this elitst bullsh*t that drove me away from SC II
On June 04 2016 05:34 atrox_ wrote: I'm not one to spout "it's making the game easier", but, when they added workers on patches? why? it's not hard to quick drag box and count. Adding an overall worker count? Why? What purpose does it add other than taking away an action that requires you to invest some human resource into checking
I'm normally one who doesn't want the game to be easier but I really don't think it will make a huge difference. Lower level players may be able to hit worker benchmarks easier but for high level players it really doesn't matter.
In unusual situations it will really make it easier for pros even
and it will be easier for not top level pros to have exactly what they want in terms of workers all the time (in WoL almost every pro made mistakes with saturation b4 the counter was added above bases; and i was against that change as well)
agreed, this is another step in the wrong direction
agree as well.
On June 04 2016 19:47 Liquid`Snute wrote: don't care much about the potential ui change. it might help players to see worker supply but sooner or later we'll end up with full observer interface and it will be a bit weird if MPM, GPM, army supply, army values, etc begin to show too.
If this is the direction we're heading to, I'd rather they do nothing at all. EDIT : maybe we could have a poll about worker UI in the OP ?
OK, but remove the counts on the base for mineral and gaz, it would be redundant (and these counters always been ugly imho)
Maps :
Remove Dusk Towers, it's been there for too long, and such an easy to macro and slow maps is not needed anymore because LotV is much more figured out. We can cope with usual base layout now.
If you have to keep frozen temple, go for it, but I have the impression ruins of endion would deserve more to stay, games seems more fun on this one, both when watching pros and when laddering.
On June 04 2016 21:02 Gwavajuice wrote: The worker count in UI :
OK, but remove the counts on the base for mineral and gaz, it would be redundant (and these counters always been ugly imho)
Maps :
Remove Dusk Towers, it's been there for too long, and such an easy to macro and slow maps is not needed anymore because LotV is much more figured out. We can cope with usual base layout now.
If you have to keep frozen temple, go for it, but I have the impression ruins of endion would deserve more to stay, games seems more fun on this one, both when watching pros and when laddering.
You can remove the counts on bases for minerals and gas (I do because as you say they don't look pretty and I can still check my saturation by passing the cursor on the base/assim).
By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
Learning SC2 is about overcoming difficult things, and each time you do it you enjoy it, because you feel like you're learning to master yet a little more of the game. If you just have everything on the UI, what's the point. Of course it's a small thing, and probably won't change much since you already have the workers per base displayed, but it's a step in the wrong direction. It's yet another attempt from blizzard to attract people may not be overly fond of the RTS genre, but we're way past that point.
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
Learning SC2 is about overcoming difficult things, and each time you do it you enjoy it, because you feel like you're learning to master yet a little more of the game. If you just have everything on the UI, what's the point. Of course it's a small thing, and probably won't change much since you already have the workers per base displayed, but it's a step in the wrong direction. It's yet another attempt from blizzard to attract people may not be overly fond of the RTS genre, but we're way past that point.
OK, so that's your view. I am fully in favour of having the option to hide whatever you please (even though Blizzard is probably not gonna do that, because they think the players are dumb as sticks, but that's another point). But why do you feel like showing this down everyone else's throat? Why we should not be given those things just because you enjoy not having them?
For God sake please no more Dusk Towers. And among all the great maps we saw in the TLMC, New Gettysburg was literally the worst one, nice accuracy from blizzard again.
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
this situation doesn't happen except maybe for zerg because every player stops at 66 workers (optimal 3 base saturation) anyway. it's not an "instinct" telling you to stop producing workers it's the worker counter above each base showing 16 + 6 in gas.
Personally, I'd be glad to see the worker count added to the UI. Make it an option that you can toggle on/off (like health bars) so that those who think it would "look ugly" can simply turn it off. Now that I mention it, the health bars seems like a pretty good comparison. Some people turn them off because they think it clutters up the screen too much. But most people find that the information provided is worth a bit of screen clutter.
I really don't see any good reason to oppose having this additional information about worker counts. Since we are all playing opponents of more or less equal skill on ladder, who is threatened by this minor change? It seems to me that the main difference this change would create is that lower level players will be more directly/obviously confronted with their lower worker counts from game to game and might realize that they need to improve this area of their gameplay. So, if a few more bronze leaguers finally graduate to silver does that make SC2 worse? I don't think so. Above bronze/silver/gold/platinum, I don't see the additional UI information making any significant difference.
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
this situation doesn't happen except maybe for zerg because every player stops at 66 workers (optimal 3 base saturation) anyway. it's not an "instinct" telling you to stop producing workers it's the worker counter above each base showing 16 + 6 in gas.
You're very optimistic if you think that just seeing optimal saturation will stop someone's fingers to go for their usual worker production routine, it actually takes time to discipline yourself to not go up to 70+ workers simply because in the heat of the battle your fingers went for <cc hotkey>+S just because your neurons have "plastified" around this routine.
On June 04 2016 21:26 Aegwynn wrote: For God sake please no more Dusk Towers. And among all the great maps we saw in the TLMC, New Gettysburg was literally the worst one, nice accuracy from blizzard again.
Please stop stating your opinions as facts. I, for one, loved New Gettysburg.
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
this situation doesn't happen except maybe for zerg because every player stops at 66 workers (optimal 3 base saturation) anyway. it's not an "instinct" telling you to stop producing workers it's the worker counter above each base showing 16 + 6 in gas.
If you play macro, even at high masters, you're gonna have situations where you forget you have 15 scvs on 1 mineral patch in your base, and keep producing scvs to saturate your fourth. And yeah, it happens to zergs a lot, if I had a coin for every zerg i've beaten or seen loose because they produced 90 drones on 4 bases, I'd be scrooge mcduck. It's about cases where you do mistakes because you fail to go look for the information, not because you're not able to get it. And having the idea to look for this kind of information is what i'd call instinct, instead of being spoonfed what you're supposed to learn to look for.
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
Learning SC2 is about overcoming difficult things, and each time you do it you enjoy it, because you feel like you're learning to master yet a little more of the game. If you just have everything on the UI, what's the point. Of course it's a small thing, and probably won't change much since you already have the workers per base displayed, but it's a step in the wrong direction. It's yet another attempt from blizzard to attract people may not be overly fond of the RTS genre, but we're way past that point.
OK, so that's your view. I am fully in favour of having the option to hide whatever you please (even though Blizzard is probably not gonna do that, because they think the players are dumb as sticks, but that's another point). But why do you feel like showing this down everyone else's throat? Why we should not be given those things just because you enjoy not having them?
Dude I don't even know what you're doing here. If your only answer to "i don't agree with this and here's why" is "why should your opinion matter", I think you fail to grasp the very basic and fundamental purpose of a forum.
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
this situation doesn't happen except maybe for zerg because every player stops at 66 workers (optimal 3 base saturation) anyway. it's not an "instinct" telling you to stop producing workers it's the worker counter above each base showing 16 + 6 in gas.
If you play macro, even at high masters, you're gonna have situations where you forget you have 15 scvs on 1 mineral patch in your base, and keep producing scvs to saturate your fourth. And yeah, it happens to zergs a lot, if I had a coin for every zerg i've beaten or seen loose because they produced 90 drones on 4 bases, I'd be scrooge mcduck. It's about cases where you do mistakes because you fail to go look for the information, not because you're not able to get it. And having the idea to look for this kind of information is what i'd call instinct, instead of being spoonfed what you're supposed to learn to look for.
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
Learning SC2 is about overcoming difficult things, and each time you do it you enjoy it, because you feel like you're learning to master yet a little more of the game. If you just have everything on the UI, what's the point. Of course it's a small thing, and probably won't change much since you already have the workers per base displayed, but it's a step in the wrong direction. It's yet another attempt from blizzard to attract people may not be overly fond of the RTS genre, but we're way past that point.
OK, so that's your view. I am fully in favour of having the option to hide whatever you please (even though Blizzard is probably not gonna do that, because they think the players are dumb as sticks, but that's another point). But why do you feel like showing this down everyone else's throat? Why we should not be given those things just because you enjoy not having them?
Dude I don't even know what you're doing here. If your only answer to "i don't agree with this and here's why" is "why should your opinion matter", I think you fail to grasp the very basic and fundamental purpose of a forum.
No, you don't understand my point at all. You consider not having the information important for your experience of the game. I do not. So what is the problem in having the option to have this information shown? I do not want this information withdrawn from me just because you think it's better for me.
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
this situation doesn't happen except maybe for zerg because every player stops at 66 workers (optimal 3 base saturation) anyway. it's not an "instinct" telling you to stop producing workers it's the worker counter above each base showing 16 + 6 in gas.
If you play macro, even at high masters, you're gonna have situations where you forget you have 15 scvs on 1 mineral patch in your base, and keep producing scvs to saturate your fourth. And yeah, it happens to zergs a lot, if I had a coin for every zerg i've beaten or seen loose because they produced 90 drones on 4 bases, I'd be scrooge mcduck. It's about cases where you do mistakes because you fail to go look for the information, not because you're not able to get it. And having the idea to look for this kind of information is what i'd call instinct, instead of being spoonfed what you're supposed to learn to look for.
On June 04 2016 21:18 opisska wrote:
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
Learning SC2 is about overcoming difficult things, and each time you do it you enjoy it, because you feel like you're learning to master yet a little more of the game. If you just have everything on the UI, what's the point. Of course it's a small thing, and probably won't change much since you already have the workers per base displayed, but it's a step in the wrong direction. It's yet another attempt from blizzard to attract people may not be overly fond of the RTS genre, but we're way past that point.
OK, so that's your view. I am fully in favour of having the option to hide whatever you please (even though Blizzard is probably not gonna do that, because they think the players are dumb as sticks, but that's another point). But why do you feel like showing this down everyone else's throat? Why we should not be given those things just because you enjoy not having them?
Dude I don't even know what you're doing here. If your only answer to "i don't agree with this and here's why" is "why should your opinion matter", I think you fail to grasp the very basic and fundamental purpose of a forum.
No, you don't understand my point at all. You consider not having the information important for your experience of the game. I do not. So what is the problem in having the option to have this information shown? I do not want this information withdrawn from me just because you think it's better for me.
Well then, why shouldn't you have the option to auto build units? Some people would enjoy it. And if you don't, you should have the option to auto build or not. That's the same logic. When you make the game simpler competitively it impacts everyone. It makes some skills required to play the game go down the drain, which is effectively dumbing it down.
Autobuild changes the fundamental nature of the game by the actions undertaken by hand. Showing worker count does not. They are incomparable. I don't have a worker count problem, so personally I don't care, so long as I have the option to hide worker count, but I don't see a good reason coming from jackoneill to deny such a change, other than a strange unhappiness that what is probably a hard earned skill for him would be made less relevant.
Well then, why shouldn't you have the option to auto build units? Some people would enjoy it. And if you don't, you should have the option to auto build or not. That's the same logic.
But, but, imagine how much more strategic the game will be if we do that! Imagine what possibilities the pros will have, since they can free up the APM and use it to create more fantastic plays for us to enjoy! ;]
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
this situation doesn't happen except maybe for zerg because every player stops at 66 workers (optimal 3 base saturation) anyway. it's not an "instinct" telling you to stop producing workers it's the worker counter above each base showing 16 + 6 in gas.
If you play macro, even at high masters, you're gonna have situations where you forget you have 15 scvs on 1 mineral patch in your base, and keep producing scvs to saturate your fourth. And yeah, it happens to zergs a lot, if I had a coin for every zerg i've beaten or seen loose because they produced 90 drones on 4 bases, I'd be scrooge mcduck. It's about cases where you do mistakes because you fail to go look for the information, not because you're not able to get it. And having the idea to look for this kind of information is what i'd call instinct, instead of being spoonfed what you're supposed to learn to look for.
On June 04 2016 21:18 opisska wrote:
On June 04 2016 21:08 JackONeill wrote: By giving too much information, at some point you steal people from the thrill of learning. The satisfaction to have your instinct telling you "hm i got 160 population but my army looks tiny... I should stop SCVing/droning/probing". And then watching the replay after you win and say to yourself : "i'm happy because i had a good instinct that came from learning and work".
Learning SC2 is about overcoming difficult things, and each time you do it you enjoy it, because you feel like you're learning to master yet a little more of the game. If you just have everything on the UI, what's the point. Of course it's a small thing, and probably won't change much since you already have the workers per base displayed, but it's a step in the wrong direction. It's yet another attempt from blizzard to attract people may not be overly fond of the RTS genre, but we're way past that point.
OK, so that's your view. I am fully in favour of having the option to hide whatever you please (even though Blizzard is probably not gonna do that, because they think the players are dumb as sticks, but that's another point). But why do you feel like showing this down everyone else's throat? Why we should not be given those things just because you enjoy not having them?
Dude I don't even know what you're doing here. If your only answer to "i don't agree with this and here's why" is "why should your opinion matter", I think you fail to grasp the very basic and fundamental purpose of a forum.
No, you don't understand my point at all. You consider not having the information important for your experience of the game. I do not. So what is the problem in having the option to have this information shown? I do not want this information withdrawn from me just because you think it's better for me.
Well then, why shouldn't you have the option to auto build units? Some people would enjoy it. And if you don't, you should have the option to auto build or not. That's the same logic. When you make the game simpler competitively it impacts everyone. It makes some skills required to play the game go down the drain, which is effectively dumbing it down.
But that's not how you argued. You posited that showing additional information hurts the players because it damages their experience of the game. All that I am saying is that this is easily solvable by making it optional, instead of making not having it compulsory because some people don't want to see it. You have made an argument, but consistently refuse to face any counter-arguments to it. I wonder who is the one who doesn't want to discuss.
As for your actual reply, I insist on my observation that the game is already competitive enough, as evidenced by the fact that people who put in a significant focus effort (a.k.a. the Koreans) are able to vastly overplay everyone else. Do you have any arguments against this simple observation?
Being constantly concious about your approximate total worker count and being fast enough to toggle through your bases to queue new workers are both skills. One is mental, one is mechanical. Both have to be earned/learned. Bringing up the constant "here's your worker count!" or an option to auto-build workers takes those skills away. One of those skills is vastly more significant then the other (people would uproar if auto-build gone through). But the fact is, both of those skills, and taking those away will always dumb down the game to a certain degree.
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many workers you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy". So why be against one of the changes, and not both?
I think Jack is not really against the worker counter per se. But he is probably worried that the game he loves because of its demanding nature, is getting casualized.
On June 05 2016 01:41 Nazara wrote: Being constantly concious about your approximate total worker count and being fast enough to toggle through your bases to queue new workers are both skills. One is mental, one is mechanical. Both have to be earned/learned. Bringing up the constant "here's your worker count!" or an option to auto-build workers takes those skills away. One of those skills is vastly more significant then the other (people would uproar if auto-build gone through). But the fact is, both of those skills, and taking those away will always dumb down the game to a certain degree.
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many workers you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy". So why be against one of the changes, and not both?
I think Jack is not really against the worker counter per se. But he is probably worried that the game he loves because of its demanding nature, is getting casualized.
I feel like that's generalizing way too much. They may both require mental skills, but how they effect mental skill is vastly different. One is about "giving information to make decisions" while the other is "making the decision for you". Providing information so a player can make better judgement call in a given situation is what generally allows better strategy to develop.
But let's flip this argument around, "why be against one of the changes and not both?" If someone is against worker count, then why are you not against not showing resources & total/max population. That works exactly in the same vein as showing worker count (though more important). Not showing resources or total/max population would easily raise the supposed "strategic level" by a great significance if showing worker count has enough of an impact to lower it.
On a personal note: I don't really see the appeal of worker count seeing how the information is already given on town homes and gas stations, but if people really care. Ehh.
If someone is against worker count, then why are you not against not showing resources & total/max population.
One of those pushes the game to the verge of being almost unplayable by obfuscating the information (if you have no idea how much resources you have, in what ratio, or are you at 120/120 supply or 120/150), while the other is more like an addition that is not necessary to obtain the information you want in a reasonable amount of time (you can still quickly have a look at your 3 bases and estimate that you have 40 workers, or 20, or 70).
Personally I'm indifferent to worker counter being shown. I just wanted to point out that there is one downside of having it, however small and maybe insignificant for maybe 70% of the playerbase.
One is about "giving information to make decisions" while the other is "making the decision for you"
I disagree. If it's a toggle, then nothing is making a decision for me - it was my decision to turn the auto-build on, and I can turn it off as I please.
If I don't like the part of Blizzard, which came with WCS 2016 and Korean ban from international tournaments, I definitely like David Kim and the part of Blizzard around him!
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many workers you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy".
The choice to check how many workers you have or what you're going to do based on how many workers you have is strategy
Requiring you to take 5-10 actions and do quick math to ballpark your worker count is not
If someone is against worker count, then why are you not against not showing resources & total/max population.
One of those pushes the game to the verge of being almost unplayable by obfuscating the information (if you have no idea how much resources you have, in what ratio, or are you at 120/120 supply or 120/150), while the other is more like an addition that is not necessary to obtain the information you want in a reasonable amount of time (you can still quickly have a look at your 3 bases and estimate that you have 40 workers, or 20, or 70).
Personally I'm indifferent to worker counter being shown. I just wanted to point out that there is one downside of having it, however small and maybe insignificant for maybe 70% of the playerbase.
One is about "giving information to make decisions" while the other is "making the decision for you"
I disagree. If it's a toggle, then nothing is making a decision for me - it was my decision to turn the auto-build on, and I can turn it off as I please.
And yet that's missing the point of the argument. I'm not arguing that worker count is needed. I'm just arguing that the argument you placed against it is weak and generalizes way too much. For example, I'm now going to use your argument against worker count, to argue against resources & total/max population (because what you said there basically hold true in this situation as well).
Being constantly concious about your approximate resources & total population and being fast enough to toggle through your bases to queue new workers are both skills. One is mental, one is mechanical. Both have to be earned/learned. Bringing up the constant "here's your resources & total population!" or an option to auto-build workers takes those skills away. One of those skills is vastly more significant then the other. But the fact is, both of those skills, and taking those away will always dumb down the game to a certain degree.
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many resources & population you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy". So why be against one of the changes, and not both?
Now I'm going to use your own words when you defended resource & total/max population, not wanting worker count to be shown is just obfuscating the information. In comparison to having the option to auto-build, auto-build isn't information being given. It's just making things easier for the sake of not doing repetitive actions. They are different in how it affects players and why saying being against 1 and not the other doesn't really hold much merit.
If someone is against worker count, then why are you not against not showing resources & total/max population.
One of those pushes the game to the verge of being almost unplayable by obfuscating the information (if you have no idea how much resources you have, in what ratio, or are you at 120/120 supply or 120/150), while the other is more like an addition that is not necessary to obtain the information you want in a reasonable amount of time (you can still quickly have a look at your 3 bases and estimate that you have 40 workers, or 20, or 70). .
you can estimate total/max population by the number of units and the number of supply structures/townhalls you have. you can also estimate your ressources by counting the number of mineral patches your workers mine.
Being constantly concious about your approximate total worker count and being fast enough to toggle through your bases to queue new workers are both skills.
It's a skillset that is only really relevant for players below masters since the skillcap is limited. Experienced players have a very good sense of their actual worker count at any given point in time.
So unless its an interesting skillset that lower level players enjoys, there is no reason not to add it to the UI.
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many workers you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy".
The choice to check how many workers you have or what you're going to do based on how many workers you have is strategy
Requiring you to take 5-10 actions and do quick math to ballpark your worker count is not
okay so choosing to make 10 marines or 5 marauders is strategy so you should have to press only 1 button to do so ?
or choosing to inject your hatcheries so there should be 1 button to do all of them ?
its not like the game is unplayable without telling you exactly how many workers you have and (imo) this change makes more of a difference at gm level than below
On June 05 2016 03:28 Clear World wrote:Being constantly concious about your approximate resources & total population and being fast enough to toggle through your bases to queue new workers are both skills. One is mental, one is mechanical. Both have to be earned/learned. Bringing up the constant "here's your resources & total population!" or an option to auto-build workers takes those skills away. One of those skills is vastly more significant then the other. But the fact is, both of those skills, and taking those away will always dumb down the game to a certain degree.
Yes, I agree that this argument can be used against resource tab or population. It is a mistake on my part for not including the later bit as well:
obtain the information you want in a reasonable amount of time
Without resource tab you have no way of obtaining semi-accurate information about your resource count. Without supply tab you have no way of obtaining semi-accurate information about your supply or how far away are you from being supply blocked in a reasonable amount of time. Without a "Worker count: X" add-on you have a semi-accurate way of obtaining information about your worker count - 1 base, around 24 workers, 2.5 base saturated? K, I'm around 55-65.
On June 05 2016 03:31 Charoisaur wrote:you can estimate total/max population by the number of units and the number of supply structures/townhalls you have. you can also estimate your ressources by counting the number of mineral patches your workers mine.
In less then 2-5 seconds? Better start practising for some game show
why is there no word about further balance changes? o0 zerg larva buff still discussed?
btw, would have a rly nice idea, how to give zerg a little bit more power, but not overpower them.
hatches should give 3 larva per inject. liars should give 4 larva per inject and hive should give 5 larva per inject.
zerg would rly benifit from upgrading more hatches to alteast liars, while it doesnt have any effect to the early game. also, zerg tech wouldnt be that vulnerable. for me, this sound WAY better, than giving zerg back the 4 larva per inject.
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many workers you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy".
The choice to check how many workers you have or what you're going to do based on how many workers you have is strategy
Requiring you to take 5-10 actions and do quick math to ballpark your worker count is not
okay so choosing to make 10 marines or 5 marauders is strategy so you should have to press only 1 button to do so ?
or choosing to inject your hatcheries so there should be 1 button to do all of them ?
its not like the game is unplayable without telling you exactly how many workers you have and (imo) this change makes more of a difference at gm level than below
Those are all examples of mechanical difficulties that you have to go through to make the game do what you want it to do after you've already made all of the important decisions.
There's a place for mechanical difficulty but it doesn't have to be everywhere by default. One of the biggest changes made in sc2 over BW was to make multiple buildings selectable and make buildings effectively hotkeyable, this does not change what you can do in the game and it does not change strategy at all but it massively lowers the amount of "effort" that it takes to do what you want to do while you're playing the game.
If you make mechanics very hard, they start to overshadow everything else. Two different strategies or great micro won't matter because the person with better mechanics will win. People will spend a larger % of their time dealing with neccesary mechanics instead of allocating those seconds, actions and brainpower to other things like strategy and unit control; mechanical difficulty has a lot of impact on the skill ceiling and skill floor of the game, but all of this other stuff is very important too IMO.
The worker ui will especially effect Zerg it will make it more straight forward for Zerg to build the correct number of workers after taking dmg. I'm not sure if that's a good thing tbh.
On June 05 2016 04:45 DalaiiLameR wrote: why is there no word about further balance changes? o0 zerg larva buff still discussed?
btw, would have a rly nice idea, how to give zerg a little bit more power, but not overpower them.
hatches should give 3 larva per inject. liars should give 4 larva per inject and hive should give 5 larva per inject.
zerg would rly benifit from upgrading more hatches to alteast liars, while it doesnt have any effect to the early game. also, zerg tech wouldnt be that vulnerable. for me, this sound WAY better, than giving zerg back the 4 larva per inject.
Why would you ever morph a Lair to gain 1 larva instead of building another hatch for 3?
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many workers you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy".
The choice to check how many workers you have or what you're going to do based on how many workers you have is strategy
Requiring you to take 5-10 actions and do quick math to ballpark your worker count is not
okay so choosing to make 10 marines or 5 marauders is strategy so you should have to press only 1 button to do so ?
or choosing to inject your hatcheries so there should be 1 button to do all of them ?
its not like the game is unplayable without telling you exactly how many workers you have and (imo) this change makes more of a difference at gm level than below
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many workers you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy".
The choice to check how many workers you have or what you're going to do based on how many workers you have is strategy
Requiring you to take 5-10 actions and do quick math to ballpark your worker count is not
okay so choosing to make 10 marines or 5 marauders is strategy so you should have to press only 1 button to do so ?
or choosing to inject your hatcheries so there should be 1 button to do all of them ?
its not like the game is unplayable without telling you exactly how many workers you have and (imo) this change makes more of a difference at gm level than below
Game-design wise, I would say a game should have the easiest controls possible for all basic "atomic-actions", or action singletons, which you could define as actions that cannot be divided further into several basic actions. These actions ideally would be linked to a single strategical decision singleton. Mechanical complexity should emerge from combining multiple basic actions, but when a game is well-made those combinations all create semantically different strategic decisions. Everything else is artificial complexity added for the sake of making a game more difficult in a bad sense, hence bad game design (think of all early 80' computer games where you just had to die 10 times before learning where all ennemies were before you can complete a level, pure developper laziness).
Example: in BW you cannot select more than 12 units so it takes a lot of actions to move your whole army from one place to another, whereas it is a single semantic decision that could be described as "move all units from X to Y". Game is made "artificially" complicated (however in this case it was more a technical limitation, but it does not matter). Splitting your army in 3 different parts to move to 3 different locations cannot be defined simply, and would involve too much of different single actions combination to describe well (how many units do I allocate to each third split of my army, etc.), so it is an "advanced" strategy (think of a molecule) that combines singletons in a smart way to create new semantics.
In your exemple, pressing 1 game button to make 10 marines and 5 marauders would be having 1 basic control to make a complex strategic move (what if I only need 8 marines and 6 marauders instead, should I press another button for that?), so it would be a bad macro to implement.
Choosing to inject all your hatcheries is a simple strategical decision so yes, in a vacuum, it should take only one action to do so, as it is not a basic decision to inject only one of them but rather a strategical "mistake" as there is no added value to do so whatsoever; however, in this specific case, inject mechanic was purposefully implemented to add "artificial" complexity to the game because designers felt that the game would be "too easy" without it probably, but game design wise it is a bad call. The T and P counterparts are a little smarter as it allows for strategical decision though (to a small degree), so it might just be that they wanted to even out the difficulty for all races and could not come up with a "smart" macro mechanic for Zerg.
I would say that if you choose to link all single actions to 1 element of the interface (or display important game information that does not involve strategical thinking to figure out by adding a couple of digits on the screen) and the game is made too easy for the pros or lowers the skill ceiling of your game to a point its becomes not interesting enough to play anymore, that would just means the game fundamentals are broken and developers must rework their copy or find better sets of single actions that create a nice "natural" complexity instead. Adding artificial levels of it is always a sign of failure from a developer's standpoint.
The fact that you could very easily define a singleton such as "inject all hatcheries" and argue that it would break the game if it was actually linked to a single interface action, sheds some light on the poor quality of this mechanic, rather than justifying its necessity.
Source: The Art of Game Design, Jesse Schell, 2008
People already say that the game requires too much mechanics but there is not enough strategy. Knowing how many workers you have and need is a mental skill, and mental skills contribute to "strategy".
The choice to check how many workers you have or what you're going to do based on how many workers you have is strategy
Requiring you to take 5-10 actions and do quick math to ballpark your worker count is not
okay so choosing to make 10 marines or 5 marauders is strategy so you should have to press only 1 button to do so ?
or choosing to inject your hatcheries so there should be 1 button to do all of them ?
its not like the game is unplayable without telling you exactly how many workers you have and (imo) this change makes more of a difference at gm level than below
Game-design wise, I would say a game should have the easiest controls possible for all basic "atomic-actions", or action singletons, which you could define as actions that cannot be divided further into several basic actions. These actions ideally would be linked to a single strategical decision singleton. Mechanical complexity should emerge from combining multiple basic actions, but when a game is well-made those combinations all create semantically different strategic decisions. Everything else is artificial complexity added for the sake of making a game more difficult in a bad sense, hence bad game design (think of all early 80' computer games where you just had to die 10 times before learning where all ennemies were before you can complete a level, pure developper laziness).
Example: in BW you cannot select more than 12 units so it takes a lot of actions to move your whole army from one place to another, whereas it is a single semantic decision that could be described as "move all units from X to Y". Game is made "artificially" complicated (however in this case it was more a technical limitation, but it does not matter). Splitting your army in 3 different parts to move to 3 different locations cannot be defined simply, and would involve too much of different single actions combination to describe well (how many units do I allocate to each third split of my army, etc.), so it is an "advanced" strategy (think of a molecule) that combines singletons in a smart way to create new semantics.
In your exemple, pressing 1 game button to make 10 marines and 5 marauders would be having 1 basic control to make a complex strategic move (what if I only need 8 marines and 6 marauders instead, should I press another button for that?), so it would b a bad macro to implement.
Choosing to inject all your hatcheries is a simple strategical decision so yes, in a vacuum, it should take only one action to do so, as it is not a basic decision to inject only one of them but rather a strategical "mistake" as there is no added value to do so whatsoever; however, in this specific case, inject mechanic was purposefully implemented to add "artificial" complexity to the game because designers felt that the game would be "too easy" without it probably, but game design wise it is a bad call. The T and P counterparts are a little smarter as it allows for strategical decision though (to a small degree), so it might just be that they wanted to even out the difficulty for all races and could not come up with a "smart" macro mechanic for Zerg.
I would say that if you choose to link all single actions to 1 elements of the interface (or display important game information that does not involve strategical thinking to figure out by adding a couple of digits on the screen) and the game is made too easy for the pros or lowers the skill ceiling of your game to a point its becomes not interesting enough to play anymore, that would just means the game fundamentals are broken and developers must rework their copy or find better sets of single actions that create a nice "natural" complexity instead. Adding artificial levels of it is always a sign of failure from a developer's standpoint.
The fact that you could very easily define a singleton such as "inject all hatcheries" and argue that it would break the game it it was actually linked to a single interface action, sheds some light on the poor quality of this mechanic, rather than justifying its necessity.
Source: The Art of Game Design, Jesse Schell, 2008
On June 05 2016 04:45 DalaiiLameR wrote: why is there no word about further balance changes? o0 zerg larva buff still discussed?
btw, would have a rly nice idea, how to give zerg a little bit more power, but not overpower them.
hatches should give 3 larva per inject. liars should give 4 larva per inject and hive should give 5 larva per inject.
zerg would rly benifit from upgrading more hatches to alteast liars, while it doesnt have any effect to the early game. also, zerg tech wouldnt be that vulnerable. for me, this sound WAY better, than giving zerg back the 4 larva per inject.
Could actually be pretty cool, sounds very Warcraft 3 like.
On June 05 2016 04:45 DalaiiLameR wrote: why is there no word about further balance changes? o0 zerg larva buff still discussed?
btw, would have a rly nice idea, how to give zerg a little bit more power, but not overpower them.
hatches should give 3 larva per inject. liars should give 4 larva per inject and hive should give 5 larva per inject.
zerg would rly benifit from upgrading more hatches to alteast liars, while it doesnt have any effect to the early game. also, zerg tech wouldnt be that vulnerable. for me, this sound WAY better, than giving zerg back the 4 larva per inject.
Why would you ever morph a Lair to gain 1 larva instead of building another hatch for 3?
Because you naturally get at least one lair and hive throughout the game anyway (so a change like that would be throwing a few free larvae at you) and because lairs have 1.334x the HP of hatcheries at a 150/100 cost.
It's not particularly great but players have already used the hatchery to lair upgrade in the past to make a specific base harder to kill or to restore some HP after it took damage. I wouldn't expect people to build lairs everywhere instead of just building a 5'th hatch as macro hatch but it has some utility especially with extra larvae
I dont think worker count should be added to the UI. As it is, it adds another variable to juggle that is part of starcraft. The less auto-pilot the game is the better it is for it's long term playability imho.
On June 05 2016 20:47 Parcelleus wrote: I dont think worker count should be added to the UI. As it is, it adds another variable to juggle that is part of starcraft. The less auto-pilot the game is the better it is for it's long term playability imho.
People said the same thing before ingame clock was added.
It was a terrible argument back then and still is a terrible argument today.
On June 05 2016 20:47 Parcelleus wrote: I dont think worker count should be added to the UI. As it is, it adds another variable to juggle that is part of starcraft. The less auto-pilot the game is the better it is for it's long term playability imho.
Like MBS, unlimited unit selection, customisable hotkeys, in game clock, shift-queues, automining at the start of gane, etc?
Is not about auto pilot (this change doesn't has such a big impact) but about focusing the attention of the game by getting rid of the menial tasks.
Splitting workers at the start of the game and managing 12 unit control groups were also skills needed to play but having them didn't made the game better and not having them didn't take away skill it just made it so the skill needed was focused somewhere else.
Nydus worms that cant be killed Ultralisks still with 8 armor Parasitic bomb cant be dodged Ovi drops super early in the game 4 supply tempest Warprism speed and pickup range etc etc etc
lategame zvt i have no idea if i have 65 or 85 drones on my 6-7 bases. sure, i will know something is wrong if i have less than 60 (hey where are mah drones where's my income) or more than 90 (hmm i'm on limit but this army looks a bit thin). i will be happy to check the worker count from time to time, to adjust it to the sweet spot that i have chosen.
i wouldn't mind even more ui QoL additions, like all ongoing upgrades shown with an icon (just like replay production tab interface, but keeping the finished upgrades for 30s or until i click the icon which would bring me to the building so i could continue upgrading if i wanted).
steal hotkeys were a very nice QoL improvement as well, i like it.
Ultralisks don't need to be nerfed, Ghosts are hilariously OP against them, I'm not a fan of the, "Ultras are OP vs and Ghosts are OP vs. Ultra and Broods" dynamic that's what we have so hey, it is what it is, learn to use Ghosts, your meant to go to late game tech in the late game sometimes.
Nydus Worms are gimmicky as shit
Warp Prisms are just ridiculous, it's a flying Warp Gate that can pick up from range for minerals only...minerals only? Even droplords cost 25 gas, Medivacs cost alot more gas then that, why don't Warp Prisms cost gas? They don't need to be nerfed, they need to cost gas, or if they don't cost cost then they need to be nerfed.
Swarm Hosts are still what in the holy Hell horrible regardless of their cost, that unit needs to be removed from the game or redesigned, it just sucks from the bottom up, you could make that thing cost only minerals and it would still suck.
Oh, and Cyclones still suck, Zerglings shut them down hard, Mutalisks shut them down hard unless they are like even numbers of Cyclones vs. even numbers of Mutalisks.
Last balance update was fantastic, but more work needs to be done.
On June 06 2016 10:03 Beelzebub1 wrote: Ultralisks don't need to be nerfed, Ghosts are hilariously OP against them, I'm not a fan of the, "Ultras are OP vs and Ghosts are OP vs. Ultra and Broods" dynamic that's what we have so hey, it is what it is, learn to use Ghosts, your meant to go to late game tech in the late game sometimes.
I'm tired of explaining why t lategame sucks, the fact that every pro terran allins the zerg before ultras come out speaks for itself.
On June 06 2016 10:03 Beelzebub1 wrote: Ultralisks don't need to be nerfed, Ghosts are hilariously OP against them, I'm not a fan of the, "Ultras are OP vs and Ghosts are OP vs. Ultra and Broods" dynamic that's what we have so hey, it is what it is, learn to use Ghosts, your meant to go to late game tech in the late game sometimes.
I'm tired of explaining why t lategame sucks, the fact that every pro terran allins the zerg before ultras come out speaks for itself.
T late game sucks because it's early game and mid game pretty much holds all the cards, they all in because it's optimal, there are optimal ways to play every match up from every angle, when you play ZvP, you try to be aggressive and not let the Protoss assemble the ultimate doom army. TvZ has always been about Terran inflicting harass damage to slow the Zerg economy down or else they will get run over, people are starting to bring this up like it's a new issue when it's been the same way the match up has been played for years. Why do you think Terrans like Bomber are so special? Because he defies the norm and plays passive macro games against Zerg and still wins.
Ultralisks are OP, but to be honest when I see a Zerg go late game, get the Ultras and NOT kill the Terran, the Zerg usually loses. Ghosts/Liberators/Mines/bio works pretty damn good against pretty much everyone who isn't Korean, anytime I see Polt get to the late game against a Zerg the Zerg usually looks like he's grasping for straws as Ghosts mow down Ultras and Broods and the double drops to outlying expansions makes securing strong late game economy difficult to say the least.
I'm not saying Terran's late game isn't on the weaker end, but Terrans act like they have no chance if they don't all in is just an exaggeration. Blanket statements like, "the fact that every pro terran all ins Zerg before Hive" are almost unanimously false.
Ultras were super strong against bio in BW to, so i don't think it's a problem that they massacre bio in SC2. In BW Tanks were the answer, in SC2 it's apparently Liberators. The problem might be the entire air vs ground that leads to air vs air. If anything i think air units are the problem with SC2. They are to strong compared to ground.
On June 06 2016 10:03 Beelzebub1 wrote: Ultralisks don't need to be nerfed, Ghosts are hilariously OP against them, I'm not a fan of the, "Ultras are OP vs and Ghosts are OP vs. Ultra and Broods" dynamic that's what we have so hey, it is what it is, learn to use Ghosts, your meant to go to late game tech in the late game sometimes.
I'm tired of explaining why t lategame sucks, the fact that every pro terran allins the zerg before ultras come out speaks for itself.
T late game sucks because it's early game and mid game pretty much holds all the cards, they all in because it's optimal, there are optimal ways to play every match up from every angle, when you play ZvP, you try to be aggressive and not let the Protoss assemble the ultimate doom army. TvZ has always been about Terran inflicting harass damage to slow the Zerg economy down or else they will get run over, people are starting to bring this up like it's a new issue when it's been the same way the match up has been played for years. Why do you think Terrans like Bomber are so special? Because he defies the norm and plays passive macro games against Zerg and still wins.
Ultralisks are OP, but to be honest when I see a Zerg go late game, get the Ultras and NOT kill the Terran, the Zerg usually loses. Ghosts/Liberators/Mines/bio works pretty damn good against pretty much everyone who isn't Korean, anytime I see Polt get to the late game against a Zerg the Zerg usually looks like he's grasping for straws as Ghosts mow down Ultras and Broods and the double drops to outlying expansions makes securing strong late game economy difficult to say the least.
I'm not saying Terran's late game isn't on the weaker end, but Terrans act like they have no chance if they don't all in is just an exaggeration. Blanket statements like, "the fact that every pro terran all ins Zerg before Hive" are almost unanimously false.
Didn't you just make a blanket statement? It's pretty obvious that outside of Dusk Towers, no Terran is going into the mindset of ... let's play out to late game TvZ and the only reason Dusk Towers is like that cause the map architecture allows you to turtle up behind a pretty small mid area. There's been times in SC where Terrans have gone for early game timings cause that's the best way to beat another race (1/1/1 vs Protoss, SCV pulling vs Protoss, WoL 2/2 Tank Timing to combat Infestor/BroodLord), there was always a top player that was very good at the late game (like Taeja's TvP late game was stupid strong and made late game TvP look very winnable). I don't know any top Korean Terran right now that willingly goes into the late game vs Zerg.
Considering that the entire game now revolves around the fact that when Ultras pop and if their + armor is done is just silly when we had probably the most dynamic and skillbased matchup in HoTS because of a strong midgame, that's basically gone now.
On June 06 2016 10:03 Beelzebub1 wrote: Ultralisks don't need to be nerfed, Ghosts are hilariously OP against them, I'm not a fan of the, "Ultras are OP vs and Ghosts are OP vs. Ultra and Broods" dynamic that's what we have so hey, it is what it is, learn to use Ghosts, your meant to go to late game tech in the late game sometimes.
I'm tired of explaining why t lategame sucks, the fact that every pro terran allins the zerg before ultras come out speaks for itself.
T late game sucks because it's early game and mid game pretty much holds all the cards, they all in because it's optimal, there are optimal ways to play every match up from every angle, when you play ZvP, you try to be aggressive and not let the Protoss assemble the ultimate doom army. TvZ has always been about Terran inflicting harass damage to slow the Zerg economy down or else they will get run over, people are starting to bring this up like it's a new issue when it's been the same way the match up has been played for years. Why do you think Terrans like Bomber are so special? Because he defies the norm and plays passive macro games against Zerg and still wins.
Ultralisks are OP, but to be honest when I see a Zerg go late game, get the Ultras and NOT kill the Terran, the Zerg usually loses. Ghosts/Liberators/Mines/bio works pretty damn good against pretty much everyone who isn't Korean, anytime I see Polt get to the late game against a Zerg the Zerg usually looks like he's grasping for straws as Ghosts mow down Ultras and Broods and the double drops to outlying expansions makes securing strong late game economy difficult to say the least.
I'm not saying Terran's late game isn't on the weaker end, but Terrans act like they have no chance if they don't all in is just an exaggeration. Blanket statements like, "the fact that every pro terran all ins Zerg before Hive" are almost unanimously false.
Didn't you just make a blanket statement? It's pretty obvious that outside of Dusk Towers, no Terran is going into the mindset of ... let's play out to late game TvZ and the only reason Dusk Towers is like that cause the map architecture allows you to turtle up behind a pretty small mid area. There's been times in SC where Terrans have gone for early game timings cause that's the best way to beat another race (1/1/1 vs Protoss, SCV pulling vs Protoss, WoL 2/2 Tank Timing to combat Infestor/BroodLord), there was always a top player that was very good at the late game (like Taeja's TvP late game was stupid strong and made late game TvP look very winnable). I don't know any top Korean Terran right now that willingly goes into the late game vs Zerg.
Considering that the entire game now revolves around the fact that when Ultras pop and if their + armor is done is just silly when we had probably the most dynamic and skillbased matchup in HoTS because of a strong midgame, that's basically gone now.
Where did I make any blanket statement about anything? I'm saying that I know T end game is weak but early and mid game is strong but that late game ZvT is still winnable just because it's the one unfavorable part of the match up. That's been how ZvP has been for years and years with Zerg holding more cards in the mid game but in the late game Protoss has the edge in large army scenarios and nobody really batted an eye.
In all non mirrors there is a better part of a game for a certain race, mid game Zerg vs. Protoss and end game Zerg vs Terran, that's why the entire goal of Zerg right now is to literally just survive until Ultralisks.
Add in the worker count, I say. It helps with the late game when you have 4+ bases and you've got workers spread out everywhere. Means you can focus on production and army control, which is way more fun that checking each base and seeing how many workers you have.
On June 06 2016 10:03 Beelzebub1 wrote: Ultralisks don't need to be nerfed, Ghosts are hilariously OP against them, I'm not a fan of the, "Ultras are OP vs and Ghosts are OP vs. Ultra and Broods" dynamic that's what we have so hey, it is what it is, learn to use Ghosts, your meant to go to late game tech in the late game sometimes.
I'm tired of explaining why t lategame sucks, the fact that every pro terran allins the zerg before ultras come out speaks for itself.
T late game sucks because it's early game and mid game pretty much holds all the cards, they all in because it's optimal, there are optimal ways to play every match up from every angle, when you play ZvP, you try to be aggressive and not let the Protoss assemble the ultimate doom army. TvZ has always been about Terran inflicting harass damage to slow the Zerg economy down or else they will get run over, people are starting to bring this up like it's a new issue when it's been the same way the match up has been played for years. Why do you think Terrans like Bomber are so special? Because he defies the norm and plays passive macro games against Zerg and still wins.
Ultralisks are OP, but to be honest when I see a Zerg go late game, get the Ultras and NOT kill the Terran, the Zerg usually loses. Ghosts/Liberators/Mines/bio works pretty damn good against pretty much everyone who isn't Korean, anytime I see Polt get to the late game against a Zerg the Zerg usually looks like he's grasping for straws as Ghosts mow down Ultras and Broods and the double drops to outlying expansions makes securing strong late game economy difficult to say the least.
I'm not saying Terran's late game isn't on the weaker end, but Terrans act like they have no chance if they don't all in is just an exaggeration. Blanket statements like, "the fact that every pro terran all ins Zerg before Hive" are almost unanimously false.
Didn't you just make a blanket statement? It's pretty obvious that outside of Dusk Towers, no Terran is going into the mindset of ... let's play out to late game TvZ and the only reason Dusk Towers is like that cause the map architecture allows you to turtle up behind a pretty small mid area. There's been times in SC where Terrans have gone for early game timings cause that's the best way to beat another race (1/1/1 vs Protoss, SCV pulling vs Protoss, WoL 2/2 Tank Timing to combat Infestor/BroodLord), there was always a top player that was very good at the late game (like Taeja's TvP late game was stupid strong and made late game TvP look very winnable). I don't know any top Korean Terran right now that willingly goes into the late game vs Zerg.
Considering that the entire game now revolves around the fact that when Ultras pop and if their + armor is done is just silly when we had probably the most dynamic and skillbased matchup in HoTS because of a strong midgame, that's basically gone now.
Where did I make any blanket statement about anything? I'm saying that I know T end game is weak but early and mid game is strong but that late game ZvT is still winnable just because it's the one unfavorable part of the match up. That's been how ZvP has been for years and years with Zerg holding more cards in the mid game but in the late game Protoss has the edge in large army scenarios and nobody really batted an eye.
In all non mirrors there is a better part of a game for a certain race, mid game Zerg vs. Protoss and end game Zerg vs Terran, that's why the entire goal of Zerg right now is to literally just survive until Ultralisks.
Blanket statements like, "the fact that every pro terran all ins Zerg before Hive" are almost unanimously false.
I keep thinking they could have introduced some lotv unit with a passive ability that gives double damage for the first attack, with a 30 seconds cooldown or something similar. Would have encouraged smaller and more often skirmishes.
Probably could have replaced some unit failures from HotS, like the swarmhost or tempest. Oh well
On June 06 2016 10:03 Beelzebub1 wrote: Ultralisks don't need to be nerfed, Ghosts are hilariously OP against them, I'm not a fan of the, "Ultras are OP vs and Ghosts are OP vs. Ultra and Broods" dynamic that's what we have so hey, it is what it is, learn to use Ghosts, your meant to go to late game tech in the late game sometimes.
I'm tired of explaining why t lategame sucks, the fact that every pro terran allins the zerg before ultras come out speaks for itself.
"the fact that every pro terran all ins Zerg before Hive" are almost unanimously false.
okay show me the terran pro that willingly goes into lategame tvz. Polt crushing noobs on NA ladder doesn't count.
had a good think about this for a few days and i really think you should revert back to wols way of ui!
Ok dont kill me, hear me out!
When we were playing wol the idea of saturation and counting workers and getting a balance and bench marks were a thing. Now they arent.
I dont need to be mindful of the game im going to master cos half of this shit is done for me and that is the point im trying to make.
The mastery is being taken out. Casuals can still have a game of starcraft, the serious players can take and soak all the info giving them a deeper learning of the whole game adn the satisfaction of having the edge over competitors becuase they took the time to learn it.
My case and point with this is my programming classes. 60% can take code ive given them and implement it willingly. Copy pasta in other words. 30% can modify and improve.... ( maybe but my code is shit hot! . . sometimes) . . but there are 10% that dont want it to be made easy, they are the ones that think up the new ideas and indeed become the gms of the class.
They see the idea or read or hear, then apply their knowledge and come up with something better or innovative. I see sc like this in many ways, yes we can all cheese our way to masters but if we cant develop a solid way of verifying what we are doing, ur basically just trying to hit numbers against other numbers. is starcraft strategy game or not? Im still appalled with my classes that noone has ever head of starcraft. Im dead, fuckin, serious! With this, the game doesnt need to be made any easier or accessible, we need to keep the core and get rid of all the shit that are the ones who are probably bringing this game down. its not dead, never will be but making the game easier to access may take away the skills people have put into this game over the last 10 years. ive totally grown up from my teen with this game i personally dont mind change but if i ever hit GM i want it to be on my strategy and deep knowledge of the game not because i cant seem to hit the buttons 500 times a minute which seems to be the going rate for 'knowledge of the game' which has been banded around for the last 6 years.
On June 06 2016 04:29 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Nydus worms that cant be killed Ultralisks still with 8 armor Parasitic bomb cant be dodged Ovi drops super early in the game 4 supply tempest Warprism speed and pickup range Blizzard is really on top of things.
clearly they think all these things are good enough to be in the game for 6+ months through several patches before and after retail release. they are not in the game by accident;
i thought Terran was too air-centric and they reacted with their latest patch. i've gotten everything i asked for except a buff to the Tank with a corresponding nerf to anything in the air. i even got stuff in LotV that i didn't ask for and made the game better. i think Blizzard and the RTS team are on top of things.
Despite the great job Blizzard is doing with LotV I'm playing a lot less. now if you'll excuse me its time for my afternoon nap; big Overwatch all-nighter coming up tonight and i have to be well rested.
On June 06 2016 10:03 Beelzebub1 wrote: Ultralisks don't need to be nerfed, Ghosts are hilariously OP against them, I'm not a fan of the, "Ultras are OP vs and Ghosts are OP vs. Ultra and Broods" dynamic that's what we have so hey, it is what it is, learn to use Ghosts, your meant to go to late game tech in the late game sometimes.
I'm tired of explaining why t lategame sucks, the fact that every pro terran allins the zerg before ultras come out speaks for itself.
T late game sucks because it's early game and mid game pretty much holds all the cards, they all in because it's optimal, there are optimal ways to play every match up from every angle, when you play ZvP, you try to be aggressive and not let the Protoss assemble the ultimate doom army. TvZ has always been about Terran inflicting harass damage to slow the Zerg economy down or else they will get run over, people are starting to bring this up like it's a new issue when it's been the same way the match up has been played for years. Why do you think Terrans like Bomber are so special? Because he defies the norm and plays passive macro games against Zerg and still wins.
Ultralisks are OP, but to be honest when I see a Zerg go late game, get the Ultras and NOT kill the Terran, the Zerg usually loses. Ghosts/Liberators/Mines/bio works pretty damn good against pretty much everyone who isn't Korean, anytime I see Polt get to the late game against a Zerg the Zerg usually looks like he's grasping for straws as Ghosts mow down Ultras and Broods and the double drops to outlying expansions makes securing strong late game economy difficult to say the least.
I'm not saying Terran's late game isn't on the weaker end, but Terrans act like they have no chance if they don't all in is just an exaggeration. Blanket statements like, "the fact that every pro terran all ins Zerg before Hive" are almost unanimously false.
Didn't you just make a blanket statement? It's pretty obvious that outside of Dusk Towers, no Terran is going into the mindset of ... let's play out to late game TvZ and the only reason Dusk Towers is like that cause the map architecture allows you to turtle up behind a pretty small mid area. There's been times in SC where Terrans have gone for early game timings cause that's the best way to beat another race (1/1/1 vs Protoss, SCV pulling vs Protoss, WoL 2/2 Tank Timing to combat Infestor/BroodLord), there was always a top player that was very good at the late game (like Taeja's TvP late game was stupid strong and made late game TvP look very winnable). I don't know any top Korean Terran right now that willingly goes into the late game vs Zerg.
Considering that the entire game now revolves around the fact that when Ultras pop and if their + armor is done is just silly when we had probably the most dynamic and skillbased matchup in HoTS because of a strong midgame, that's basically gone now.
Where did I make any blanket statement about anything? I'm saying that I know T end game is weak but early and mid game is strong but that late game ZvT is still winnable just because it's the one unfavorable part of the match up. That's been how ZvP has been for years and years with Zerg holding more cards in the mid game but in the late game Protoss has the edge in large army scenarios and nobody really batted an eye.
In all non mirrors there is a better part of a game for a certain race, mid game Zerg vs. Protoss and end game Zerg vs Terran, that's why the entire goal of Zerg right now is to literally just survive until Ultralisks.
Blanket statements like, "the fact that every pro terran all ins Zerg before Hive" are almost unanimously false.
Looks pretty blanket to me
Yea, looks like you pretty much either can't read or you're just passive aggressive crying, done wasting time replying to you, at least Charisaur leaves something worth discussing even if I don't personally agree with him entirely.
@Charisaur He wasn't crushing "noobs on the NA ladder" I believe it was a very recent tournament against European pro players, best of 5 vs Nerchio or something like that, Nercio or Bly I always confuse them.
On June 07 2016 00:47 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Despite the great job Blizzard is doing with LotV I'm playing a lot less. now if you'll excuse me its time for my afternoon nap; big Overwatch all-nighter coming up tonight and i have to be well rested.
EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
