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Hey folks, Today I’ll be talking about why StarCraft II feels difficult to play. I’ll be focusing on the design of the game’s mechanics and why they lead the game to feel hard. This is a spiritual follow-up to an earlier post on mechanics; if you missed it, I recommend checking it out first prior to reading this one. How Players Experience Real Time Strategy GamesLet’s start by discussing the thought process most people employ when playing real time strategy games. In general, players: - Play the game as fast as they comfortably can - Execute tasks in priority order Playing faster is better than playing slower. There’s always things that need to be done in a real time strategy game. Completing tasks is valuable in and of itself because it exercises the core mechanics of the game, something that RTS players inherently enjoy – similar to how players who play shooters enjoy the mechanics of shooting. Furthermore, completing tasks increases the player’s odds of winning – whether by controlling their army better, producing more units, or building more production facilities. Players are therefore incentivized to play games as fast as they can, with their physical speed and personal comfort threshold acting as the ceiling. In addition to executing tasks quickly, players also prioritize the set of work in front of them. There’s always more to do than can reasonably be accomplished at once, even for the fastest professionals. Players are incentivized to do important work before unimportant work because it increases their chances of winning. A well-designed title will reinforce this by ensuring the most common, important tasks have strong inherent rewards as well – think of the smooth animation and satisfying plop of dropping a mule on a mineral line. Putting these two things together, players tend to execute tasks quickly and they tend to order these tasks based on what they think is most important. ...
This is a well written blog and i think it's worth to discuss it.
The full article can be read here: illiteracyhasdownsides.com
Author is https://twitter.com/brownbear_47
edit: I also recommend watching his two videos about "StarCraft II for Age of Empires Players" which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdW7bhyBsV6vmvn0BISfxxw/videos
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Very interesting read indeed !
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That's a pretty fair assessment.
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Valuable intel. I totally agree about what' said.
What makes SC2 unfun/difficult for me is that fights happen too quickly. If i'm 0.5 seconds late to the reaction I might lose a game that lasted for 10 minutes.
I had the same feeling in broodwar to a certain extent (like not EMPing arbiters soon enough), but it wasn't ALWAYS the case.
Now with the focus on abilities the game feels more punishing than ever to me.
I wish this guy would review Supreme Commander Forged Alliance now, just to see what he thinks of the set of power mechanics present in this game.
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I agree, simply put the harassment options do too much damage for the amount of work needed to pull it off, or the other way around, the amount of effort needed to stave off game ending harassment damage is too much compared to the effort needed to harass.
But if you think about it this way, isn't this what blizzard wanted all along? Rewarding aggressive play-styles and thus having shorter, more exciting/explosive games?
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Honestly I feel like SC2 gets better and better but the worst parts of it are still leftovers HOTS introduced. Widow mines, oracles, boost vacs all give the harrasser a giant edge over the other player. There's almost no reason NOT to do one of these things as the risk is so low and the reward is insanely high.
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On November 01 2016 01:19 Kingsky wrote:
I agree, simply put the harassment options do too much damage for the amount of work needed to pull it off, or the other way around, the amount of effort needed to stave off game ending harassment damage is too much compared to the effort needed to harass.
But if you think about it this way, isn't this what blizzard wanted all along? Rewarding aggressive play-styles and thus having shorter, more exciting/explosive games?
yes, for the superficial viewing enjoyment (for me it's not great cause whenever I see a situation develop in a game I know it can be reversed instantly for whatever reason and anybody may catch the win in an instant as the game can nearly never build up in complexity and players do mostly short term stuff) and against the fun of playing and the strategic/tactical depth of the game
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this is actually interesting - if it is based on reality - as an insight into why people who think this way dont enjoy sc2. i personally dont experience feelings described there (i for example do not find joy in slowly learning menial tasks) but apparently someone does.
my biggest gripe with these kinds of essays is the generalization. it seems to me that the author fails to realize that he descibed only a certain group of people, not everyone. this is related to the recent talk about blizzard "not listening to community" as it is simply impossible to cater to everyone at once ...
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On November 01 2016 04:41 opisska wrote:
this is actually interesting - if it is based on reality - as an insight into why people who think this way dont enjoy sc2. i personally dont experience feelings described there (i for example do not find joy in slowly learning menial tasks) but apparently someone does.
my biggest gripe with these kinds of essays is the generalization. it seems to me that the author fails to realize that he descibed only a certain group of people, not everyone. this is related to the recent talk about blizzard "not listening to community" as it is simply impossible to cater to everyone at once ...
Well he does talk like a game designer would.
It's like manipulating high level concepts above the usual talk going on about here which is closer to specific unit designs or balance.
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I hate to disappoint you, but not everyone can be a winner. In any game - fast, slow or whatever - you will lose 50% of your games in a fair ladder (think chess etc.). The only way out is to play in a team and blame your team mates for your losses. But Starcraft's main focus is 1v1. It is the 1v1 that is just hard - no matter what game.
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The article is cool, but for me the contents feel a little bit too similar to how BW elitists tried to reason why sc2 is a dead gaem. And some of the things written is just a bit shallow. You could often hear how perfect injects are what makes or breaks zerg, but in reality zerg is much more about gamesense on when you can and when you can't drone. Also a lot of people complain on how you can just lose in an instant, but once you learn more about the game and become aware of threats, it is usually possible to counter them or count for them to some degree even without borderline godlike reflexes. But you need some time invested into the game to really learn about these things.
Anyways its rare to see good analytics on the game, or just general game design, so it was a nice read. And some of the things can be tought-inducing. Maybe we could use a bit more "solid" type mechanics in the game alongside the "comeback/big play" kind of mechanics that makes things like disruptor wars exciting, even if the first one can become boring for a spectator sport because of the slow snowball effect that kills hype.
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This stuff feels like Japanese soldiers fighting long after the war is over. It's pretty clear the dev team likes everything you dislike about the game. In fact they think that after 2 expansions full of new harassment options, there's still not enough offense and harassment in the game so they're going to give dark templar BLINK. They crashed the plane a long time ago, and now they're just peeing on the cinders.
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i reckon dark templar's the one who shoulda had blink from the beginning, and none of this stalker bs, keeping dragoon
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On November 01 2016 07:58 mishimaBeef wrote:
i reckon dark templar's the one who shoulda had blink from the beginning, and none of this stalker bs, keeping dragoon
eheh, I think the same^^
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I kind of agree, but as long-time player I also have something to add. I believe that the over-flow of abilities and spells has added more focused strategy to the game. This meaning that if you don't go with one specific strategy, you don't have sufficient time or resources to change strategies effectively. Whereas, for example, in brood war, you could try one strategy and if it failed, you could instantly change strategies and turn the tide of the game very quickly. As for the harass aspect, there are so many different ways to harass in SC2. Many more than there were in previous versions of the game. But the addition of easily accessible, over-powered defensive units such as queens and mothership cores make the harassment aspect of the game almost non-existant.
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It feels like there are too many spells and abilities to detract from the main battle, and not enough to prolong the said battles to a degree where it is satisfying to watch and understand. I don't think they should have punished deathballs with lots of AoE but rather with larger unit models, tankier gateway units(especially stalker and sentry) and more mobility spells that is not blink for protoss. A displacement spell on sentries would do much more to help protoss kite than forcefield- which forces both sides to get stuck in a slugfest- and would actually make interesting plays.
In WoL I felt this way what was happening was mainly on your screen and everything else was secondary and was easier to avoid. Watching zergling-bane muta against marine-tank was clean. Broodlord-infestor was clean. Skytoss and terran were very clean. Archon toilet was not a convoluted scheme. Even the deathball was clean(It was stupid, but it was clean). I feel weird watching and thinking about LotV right now. I really can't put my feet into the shoes of the current pros. Now ravager bile and blinding cloud and abduct makes siege tanks and lurkers and colossi wacky, liberator is a fucking weird concept. Disruptor and widow mines are just there to stop two armies from engaging. There is no time for a breather since the bases run out of resources so easily. Everything happens to be everywhere.
Watching pros dance around and endless stream and sources of AoE is pretty annoying, just like how it was, watching the swarm host spam all day every day. I also don't like the mothership core, it acts more like a get out of jail free card, as an old WoL zerg.
Above everything, the races may reach a perfect 50% winrate against each other, but when the game is too convoluted, hard to get into or understand, it's just not fun to watch. It was the case in the end of WoL already and that game already had its faults. I remember some 1-1-1 terrans with great skill having %85 on ladder back in the day when blord infestor were supposed to dominate so it's worth questioning if it even really matters if you balance or change the game around that level or not.
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In the comments of the video, he says he is the player Parfait. If it is him, he finished 2nd in wcg 2007, which for AOE3 was basically the only major tournament of note from year to year. So he definitely knows hows his AOE material.
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On November 01 2016 01:19 Kingsky wrote:
But if you think about it this way, isn't this what blizzard wanted all along? Rewarding aggressive play-styles and thus having shorter, more exciting/explosive games?
No, it isn't what Blizzard wanted at all. And that is what is so shocking about how SC2 has been designed.
They had a game that rewarded aggressive play that had shorter, exciting and explosive games: Wings of Liberty. And lo and behold it was the top E-Sport in the world for a time.
But Blizzard decided they needed to remove game ending early aggressive play. But they found out the hard way that led to boring early games, so to create more action throughout the game, they created more harass tools. But it was a misguided goal from the start that put Blizzard on the carousel of harrassment and defensive tools. And often times, the harrassment tools are so strong they can be game ending anyway. We traded actual early game battles between armies with lots of opportunities for micro, for Widow Mine drops and Oracles.
And so where is SC2 now in terms of a E-Sport?
Proof is always in the pudding.
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Agree with the article more or less. As a protoss player most games feel like
1. Scout something
2. react to what you scouted
3. If you reacted incorrectly or interpreted incorrectly, you lose, else you win.
I think this is also why there's so many toss doing well in tournaments but underrepresented in ladder.
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On November 01 2016 13:03 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2016 01:19 Kingsky wrote:
But if you think about it this way, isn't this what blizzard wanted all along? Rewarding aggressive play-styles and thus having shorter, more exciting/explosive games? No, it isn't what Blizzard wanted at all. And that is what is so shocking about how SC2 has been designed. They had a game that rewarded aggressive play that had shorter, exciting and explosive games: Wings of Liberty. And lo and behold it was the top E-Sport in the world for a time. But Blizzard decided they needed to remove game ending early aggressive play. But they found out the hard way that led to boring early games, so to create more action throughout the game, they created more harass tools. But it was a misguided goal from the start that put Blizzard on the carousel of harrassment and defensive tools. And often times, the harrassment tools are so strong they can be game ending anyway. We traded actual early game battles between armies with lots of opportunities for micro, for Widow Mine drops and Oracles. And so where is SC2 now in terms of a E-Sport? Proof is always in the pudding.
From a viewer-only perspective: I watch BW for over a decade now. I found WoL a lot worse than BW and barely watched games after the beta. I started watching regulary again in HotS after swarm hosts were nerfed and I think LotV is by far the best iteration of SC2.
However I early on decided that playing SC2 would require way too much time and played pretty much only the campaigns on the easiest difficulty to see the story after beta.
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On November 01 2016 09:49 kuzyk wrote:
In the comments of the video, he says he is the player Parfait. If it is him, he finished 2nd in wcg 2007, which for AOE3 was basically the only major tournament of note from year to year. So he definitely knows hows his AOE material.
Yes, he is Parfait. He was quite a good aoe3 player and was an awesome mentor. Harley14 from my clan was coached by him and he was amazed by the levelheadedness and valuable input he got from Parfait.
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On November 01 2016 15:07 Hildegard wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2016 13:03 BronzeKnee wrote:On November 01 2016 01:19 Kingsky wrote:
But if you think about it this way, isn't this what blizzard wanted all along? Rewarding aggressive play-styles and thus having shorter, more exciting/explosive games? No, it isn't what Blizzard wanted at all. And that is what is so shocking about how SC2 has been designed. They had a game that rewarded aggressive play that had shorter, exciting and explosive games: Wings of Liberty. And lo and behold it was the top E-Sport in the world for a time. But Blizzard decided they needed to remove game ending early aggressive play. But they found out the hard way that led to boring early games, so to create more action throughout the game, they created more harass tools. But it was a misguided goal from the start that put Blizzard on the carousel of harrassment and defensive tools. And often times, the harrassment tools are so strong they can be game ending anyway. We traded actual early game battles between armies with lots of opportunities for micro, for Widow Mine drops and Oracles. And so where is SC2 now in terms of a E-Sport? Proof is always in the pudding. From a viewer-only perspective: I watch BW for over a decade now. I found WoL a lot worse than BW and barely watched games after the beta. I started watching regulary again in HotS after swarm hosts were nerfed and I think LotV is by far the best iteration of SC2. However I early on decided that playing SC2 would require way too much time and played pretty much only the campaigns on the easiest difficulty to see the story after beta.
Well early WoL was mess, but during 2011-2012 SC2 was awesome in my opinion, to both play and watch. And it was then when the player base and viewership peaked too, so I am not alone in that assessment.
Of course my point wasn't about that at all, it was that Blizzard doesn't want a game that rewards aggressive play, because they had that and it didn't work for them, for some odd reason...
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On November 01 2016 15:49 BronzeKnee wrote:Of course my point wasn't about that at all, it was that Blizzard doesn't want a game that rewards aggressive play, because they had that and it didn't work for them, for some odd reason...
I think Blizzard were trying to combat the BO lottery that was somewhat prevalent in WoL, meaning some BO combinations were just an instant loss for one of the players.
I don't think Blizzard applied the correct remedy though.
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On November 01 2016 13:03 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2016 01:19 Kingsky wrote:
But if you think about it this way, isn't this what blizzard wanted all along? Rewarding aggressive play-styles and thus having shorter, more exciting/explosive games? No, it isn't what Blizzard wanted at all. And that is what is so shocking about how SC2 has been designed. They had a game that rewarded aggressive play that had shorter, exciting and explosive games: Wings of Liberty. And lo and behold it was the top E-Sport in the world for a time. But Blizzard decided they needed to remove game ending early aggressive play. But they found out the hard way that led to boring early games, so to create more action throughout the game, they created more harass tools. But it was a misguided goal from the start that put Blizzard on the carousel of harrassment and defensive tools. And often times, the harrassment tools are so strong they can be game ending anyway. We traded actual early game battles between armies with lots of opportunities for micro, for Widow Mine drops and Oracles. And so where is SC2 now in terms of a E-Sport? Proof is always in the pudding.
Actually, the only reason anyone looked at WoL because it was riding off of BW's success. Not only that, LoL was in its esport infancy at the time, so WoL didn't have any direct competition. If you remembered the WoL forums on TL, a lot of people were calling it a terrible game (remember, this is a game that didn't even come out with chat channels). I mean, a spectator game where people cheered JUST BECAUSE it wasn't close spawn on Lost Temple is a pretty bad foreshadowing for the future.There is nothing exciting, explosive, or shocking about getting 4 gated and then being forcefield at the ramp. The common defense back then for WoL was that BW had 10+ years to grow, while WoL was only in its first year, give it time, there's still 2 more expansion! Well, now that both expansions are out, and Blizzard is pretty much done with sc2, it's time to just see sc2 for what it is. A niche genre that will never be number 1, but it won't go away either.
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On November 02 2016 01:35 phodacbiet wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2016 13:03 BronzeKnee wrote:On November 01 2016 01:19 Kingsky wrote:
But if you think about it this way, isn't this what blizzard wanted all along? Rewarding aggressive play-styles and thus having shorter, more exciting/explosive games? No, it isn't what Blizzard wanted at all. And that is what is so shocking about how SC2 has been designed. They had a game that rewarded aggressive play that had shorter, exciting and explosive games: Wings of Liberty. And lo and behold it was the top E-Sport in the world for a time. But Blizzard decided they needed to remove game ending early aggressive play. But they found out the hard way that led to boring early games, so to create more action throughout the game, they created more harass tools. But it was a misguided goal from the start that put Blizzard on the carousel of harrassment and defensive tools. And often times, the harrassment tools are so strong they can be game ending anyway. We traded actual early game battles between armies with lots of opportunities for micro, for Widow Mine drops and Oracles. And so where is SC2 now in terms of a E-Sport? Proof is always in the pudding. Actually, the only reason anyone looked at WoL because it was riding off of BW's success. Not only that, LoL was in its esport infancy at the time, so WoL didn't have any direct competition. If you remembered the WoL forums on TL, a lot of people were calling it a terrible game (remember, this is a game that didn't even come out with chat channels). I mean, a spectator game where people cheered JUST BECAUSE it wasn't close spawn on Lost Temple is a pretty bad foreshadowing for the future.There is nothing exciting, explosive, or shocking about getting 4 gated and then being forcefield at the ramp. The common defense back then for WoL was that BW had 10+ years to grow, while WoL was only in its first year, give it time, there's still 2 more expansion! Well, now that both expansions are out, and Blizzard is pretty much done with sc2, it's time to just see sc2 for what it is. A niche genre that will never be number 1, but it won't go away either.
I hear this line of argument a lot, but it doesn't make it less false. Maybe the group of people who watched SC2 because of BW's success was significant, but it wasn't "anyone". I personally never watched BW, although I played it for many years - but after those years, my interest in it significantly faded and last two years I was mostly just waiting for SC2 to come out. SC2 was a godsend and I started playing it and following it because of all the things it finally improved upon, such as
- UI improvements making playing the game not making me want to throw my keyboard out of the window
- matchmaking giving me finally more than three people to play against
- English-language scene to follow and accessible streams
Moreover, know that most of my irl gaming friends had roughly the same evolution. Most importantly, none of the people I talk to about SC2 irl ever followed the BW e-sports scene.
And yeah, many people called it a terrible game back then and it was already annoying. Just try to imagine how annoying it is six years later.
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What the article is missing out on in my view is:
1) Most of the power mechanics in sc2 are not very interactive, which is not a problem for soloplayer games and might even be acceptable for a viewer if it provides a comparison and narrative. However, it feels repetitive and introduces buffer actions that lead you away from trying to interact. A lowlevel zerg player that parks his mutas in a corner to inject some rounds and spread some creep simply experiences less variety and interaction than one, that attacks with them and takes a hit in the macro. That however is many times worse than the idle-muta decision. It's one of the reasons why players frequently try to break out of the macro-game corset, as cheesy plays make your interaction matter more than the repetitive tasks you just don't want to focus on for once.
2) The shift towards more hard tasks, as the author calls it, is not inherently bad in my opinion. The game simply is a mess in its mixture of hard and easy tasks. Especially when such a hard task kills many simple tasks, like said mine drop into a mineral line, the gameplay becomes too punishing. I'd say that a main problem with this is that the hard task here is only as hard as the opponent makes it. And making opponent's hard tasks actually hard is not that easy in a game in when your reaction time is so limited due to unit speed, vision range, zoom level, your general occupation with easy tasks and the lack of safety net game features.
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On November 02 2016 04:20 Big J wrote:
What the article is missing out on in my view is:
1) Most of the power mechanics in sc2 are not very interactive, which is not a problem for soloplayer games and might even be acceptable for a viewer if it provides a comparison and narrative. However, it feels repetitive and introduces buffer actions that lead you away from trying to interact. A lowlevel zerg player that parks his mutas in a corner to inject some rounds and spread some creep simply experiences less variety and interaction than one, that attacks with them and takes a hit in the macro. That however is many times worse than the idle-muta decision. It's one of the reasons why players frequently try to break out of the macro-game corset, as cheesy plays make your interaction matter more than the repetitive tasks you just don't want to focus on for once.
2) The shift towards more hard tasks, as the author calls it, is not inherently bad in my opinion. The game simply is a mess in its mixture of hard and easy tasks. Especially when such a hard task kills many simple tasks, like said mine drop into a mineral line, the gameplay becomes too punishing. I'd say that a main problem with this is that the hard task here is only as hard as the opponent makes it. And making opponent's hard tasks actually hard is not that easy in a game in when your reaction time is so limited due to unit speed, vision range, zoom level, your general occupation with easy tasks and the lack of safety net game features.
Regarding one: I actually don't think that this problem of player interaction is due to "power mechanics" or "easy tasks".
RTS games have this problem in general, why would you want to interact with the enemy if nothing really forces you to do so?
That can be a strength (in my experience low lvl players like to just build stuff, build an army and every time player interactions are forced upon them they are stressed), but it also can be a bad thing because at the end of the day it should be pvp.
So yeah, the pvp then should be enjoyable. Why is it not? Because oftentimes games are decided because of only a few "wrong decisions" (hard tasks) like: i decided to look away from my army for a few seconds to scout with another unit and now my main army is dead because the enemy attacked and focused solely on that.
It's frustrating that everything i have done until this point is basically meaningless. It is also really hard / impossible to fix some of these things because you cannot make perfect decisions in a game based around imperfect information.
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I believe a solution is to generally let battles evolve slowly enough and damage distributed slowly enough, so that if you're not looking at something for a few seconds it's never a game-ending problem.
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On November 02 2016 09:28 ProMeTheus112 wrote:
I believe a solution is to generally let battles evolve slowly enough and damage distributed slowly enough, so that if you're not looking at something for a few seconds it's never a game-ending problem.
so like back to SC1?...
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I found a way to enjoy SCII again. Went to the options, and switched the expansion back to WoL, play multiplayer, TADA!
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On November 02 2016 16:58 Kingsky wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2016 09:28 ProMeTheus112 wrote:
I believe a solution is to generally let battles evolve slowly enough and damage distributed slowly enough, so that if you're not looking at something for a few seconds it's never a game-ending problem. so like back to SC1?...
yeah though SC1 still has things that sometimes can deal game ending damage very quickly, things like storm drops or irradiate on a stack of muta and such. but yes SC1 is the best so far ofc . . . . . . .
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I think making the engagements less violent and gamechanging would need a different look at things mostly regarding dps and maneuverability of units. I have some thoughts right now on what should or could be changed (not ideas that should go straight to the game).
Terran:
- Stimpack redesign - one click ability giving a big maneuverability boost and highest dps in the game - not sure what to do with dps, but I'd tone down the speed units get (Banelings should be adjusted for that), stim stutter-step is a problem in my opinion
- Medivac afterburners redesign - afterburners are a very nice thing letting Medivacs live for longer, but afterburners with constant uncertainty of how many of Medivacs full of units can come to your base is a problem due to the surprise element that can cost games if you are not 100% sure on where the entirety of opponent's army is. You can prevent Zerg or Protoss drops with a handful of units, but to deflect a Terran drop you either need to be constantly aware of the possibility, have a lot of vision, or in case Terran manages to unload - often more units than the drop has. This ability was never needed nor asked for
- Siege Tank pick-up - I just hope the removal of it comes through in the coming patch, it existing just for the sake of how exciting is to see TY or other Koreans use them is not enough of a reason to keep it in the game, very frustrating for beginners
Zerg:
- Zergling redesign or Metabolic Boost redesign - Zerglings most of the time are used to prevent movement, being too far out on the map with main army often led to a straight-up loss for years since the beginning of SC2, looking at a line of 30 lings running through your base to mineral lines just because you didn't put a unit in the wall/did not put buildings correctly (you have to learn how to do it on every different map) is really frustrating as well, especially to beginners. I have nothing against idea of zerg being a swarm-like race that wins big fights by hugging enemy army, but what if Zerglings for example did not prevent movement (could be pushed by enemy units) and/or had slightly bigger collision size (to prevent "impossible" slips through walls)?
Protoss:
- Blink is an amazing control-based ability when used in straight-up engagements and smaller skirmishes, but it was too often an issue when it was used to outmaneuver the opponent. It should keep it's battle micro side, but the outmaneuvering part should be looked upon
- Adept's Psionic Transfer should not give vision as the present one does, I hope the change comes through
- Disruptor model should be changed, I don't like it that much, especially when many of them are close together :/
- Mothership Core Time Warp - compared to other abilities it's 100% a waste of energy, for a time warp you can have two recalls/overcharges. Also it is very easy to lose it and therefore it should not react to attacks like an attacking unit, it should move away when attacked like any other non-combat flying unit so attacking with MSC could be entirely player's choice (its attack is only relevant in the very early game anyway)
EDIT: funny, thread goes inactive when I put some thoughts into it, though it's not the first time I put time into joining a discussion on tl and it's completely ignored lol
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Is it that bad? sorry didn't read the post , maybe later
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Playing faster is better than playing slower. There’s always things that need to be done in a real time strategy game. Completing tasks is valuable in and of itself because it exercises the core mechanics of the game, something that RTS players inherently enjoy – similar to how players who play shooters enjoy the mechanics of shooting. Furthermore, completing tasks increases the player’s odds of winning – whether by controlling their army better, producing more units, or building more production facilities. Players are therefore incentivized to play games as fast as they can, with their physical speed and personal comfort threshold acting as the ceiling.
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the worst part about sc2 is protoss design and the economies which lead to frustrating scenarios.. for example, the nature of Z totally dictates the early game of the matchup, but it doesnt stop there. map control in the matchup feels more about what zerg is doing than overall design or what protoss is doing. in BW you could move out with a few zealots and go scout/harass hatcheries whi le you take your third. but in sc2, if you do this, zerg units are all so fast and the AI is perfect, they jump on the zealots and kill them nearly for free, and then you dont have enough units, and they hydra bust u vs nerfed cannons with perfect hydra AI and perfect zergling AI. ucan literally just amove in sc2 , even though people seem to think it takes good control. did we really balance the early game PvZ around speedlings who may or may not be able to punish teleporting adepts? how coinflip can u get blizzard
people complain about the deathball when i play protoss all the time (i play random), and what i say is this: if i split up my army and you see that, you are instantly going to box everything and try to kill part of my army for virtually nothing. i honestly dont understand how the devs seriously launched the game with the current stalker/current zealot. where the zealot without charge does nothing, but if you get +1 armor on it and combine it with a guardian shield it takes a marine a full minute gametime of shooting to kill it. and this is why TvP looks exactly the way it does.
so thats the problem
zero incentive to split units off from main army because AI is really good, units are way too mobile, u instantly get punished for sending a ten zealot hitsquad to roam the map, they will just kill these units for free or kill ur now gamelosing army size because everything is so razors edge. it feels like you are never rewarded for these kind of plays unless u are terran and by design need to be rewarded for these kind of plays
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i fucking love this game, i dont think its perfect, but i think the games are
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EPT
