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Am I the only one that recognizes the need to grow the player base through a more newbie friendly game? Clearly, the skill cap is not enough to draw in adequate viewership. Afterall, it's much easy for viewers to appreciate and be blown away by pro gamers when they also play the game, and, really: does any popular esports game exist where relatively few players play the main game?
I don't believe it's just because of 1v1, as opposed to team games. That's a small contributor at most. Clearly, people aren't getting stressed or intimidated the same way when they play Hearthstone and Super Smash Brothers. Let's face the facts: the game is incredibly taxing, regardless of your skill level. And CO-OP is by far the most popular main game mode; not 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 or archon mode.
The barrier for entry is still too damn high. SC2, unlike BW, was launched during an era of increased accessibility. Some people actually thought that SC2 was too accessible, by taking away the 12 unit selection limit, being able to rally workers to mine automatically, and having a "find idle worker" button. Yet, despite all of the changes over the years, it's clear that nobody's close to reaching the skill cap. There's always more a player can do in this game. That being said, I think it would be prudent for Blizzard to reduce the barrier of entry. Some things may be possible without affecting the skill cap, but even if it were to drop a bit, I feel like the skill cap could be reduced while still being unreachable by the very best. Micro alone, ensures this.
First and foremost, I hope others can realize the importance of increasing accessibility. That being said, here are some ideas (not the "be all end all", but hopefully will generate discussion!):
1. Macro mechanics need to change or go away. I feel like Blizzard was on the right track with this before, but gave up because they didn't want to deal with the balance changes. In my opinion, they dropped the ball here, big time.
2. Put optional progress bars that can be displayed in the corner, helping players keep track of what they're building and researching. Also have bars to assist in keeping track of your unit composition.
3. Incorporate a build order helper of sorts. This not only allows players to focus more on "fun" aspects of the game, but would also help new players from feeling lost. Build orders could not only give players a simpler start, but could also have a "game goal" attached on how each build order directs you towards a win. Giving new players direction could go a very long way! Could even be a professionally voiced guide, similar to campaign mode, where they discuss the goals with you and how you will achieve them (maybe this would also help players feel less "isolated").
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In Wc3 4v4 was almost played as much as 1v1. (atleast to some stats I read a year ago about bnet games).
In Sc II you play random team 2v2/3v3/4v4 and you have to play against an arranged team of 2/3/4s. You lose. They sit on TS, you just got paired with a random m8. I never understood why Blizzard decided to scrap the old Idea of WC3, where AT and RT was split into 2 branches and had no direct connection. It is extremly frustraiting in team games, when you want to play with random people against random people and get totally crushed by a team that workes togeather for longer time and is in a TS all time.
Just another thing of Bnet 2.0 that is worse then Bnet 1.0. I remember when the post above mentioned teamgames and it is a hugh bummer to the random team games appeal RTS games have. And by no means justified.
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On November 29 2016 07:57 Clonester wrote:
In Wc3 4v4 was almost played as much as 1v1. (atleast to some stats I read a year ago about bnet games).
In Sc II you play random team 2v2/3v3/4v4 and you have to play against an arranged team of 2/3/4s. You lose. They sit on TS, you just got paired with a random m8. I never understood why Blizzard decided to scrap the old Idea of WC3, where AT and RT was split into 2 branches and had no direct connection. It is extremly frustraiting in team games, when you want to play with random people against random people and get totally crushed by a team that workes togeather for longer time and is in a TS all time.
Just another thing of Bnet 2.0 that is worse then Bnet 1.0. I remember when the post above mentioned teamgames and it is a hugh bummer to the random team games appeal RTS games have. And by no means justified.
I know what you mean. When I complained about that I was getting responses from other players that "team games don't matter" and that 1vs1 is the real game. I've been masters in 1vs1 many times, but I still don't understand that. There's no support even from players, so how could you have support from Blizzard?
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"If you look at all the LotV balance patches that came out, almost no change can be noticed. Now, let’s look at the same thing for the same amount of time for LoL. All the changes that were performed in one year. This is insane. It makes us wonder who is actually working on SC2!"
"Ultralisk, once popped out, make marines useless. Adept is unbearable. Liberator is a low micro, very powerful unit. There are still a lot of issues and in a year, Blizzard almost changed nothing."
That sounds like balance whining to me? I'm sorry if this sounds mean FireCake, but seriously, despite a region lock that is supposedly hurting the Korean SC2 players quite bad this year, you achieved nothing in 2016 despite an abundance of tournaments available to you with minimal Korean threats. E-sport for SC2 will continue in 2017, clearly your career has ended. Contrary to your speculation, IEMs and DHs will happen in 2017. There will also be a WCS 2017 and overall, LOTS of tournaments that you could potentially participate but you have decided not to - NOT because there will be none.
Perhaps you should whine less and try to study the build and come up with counters to a powerful strategy rather than waiting for Blizzard to patch. Coming up with a counter and winning against a supposedly "OP" build is one of the most rewarding feeling of playing SC2.
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Well, as followers of TL know I have been advocating alot of the points made myself, especially the gameplay, one-type strategy ones and that it is seriously not so much about 1v1 vs. teamgames.
But I am way further than what has been stated in this issue:
1. Problem of SC2 is not only not to attract new players (F2P) but as well to lose old players and frustrate those who love the game the most by nature. Before elitism was all around blaming "noobs" for leaving the game for it being too difficult, which is utter bullshit but was being believed by a good amount of pros/casters for a long time.
2. the question is not if or that always the same unit compositions are being played but why!
- This is quite easily being answered: It is the day 1 criticism argument against SC2, which is terrible terrible damage. The units counter each other way too well and therefore always the same is needed to counter each other the best possible way.
- You state swarmhost and winfestor areas amongst reapers etc. Noone can deny this. But the problem is much deeper. Even without that zergs were mainly/always playing muta/bling against terrans who always use armies composed of 80% bio. The issue there is that bio just is too good for this game to have more evenly balanced set of choices. For me it is the source of all evil in SC2 as bio introduces terrible damage at first. Only after bio was as strong as it is counters had to be implemented to counter this terrible damage with more terrible damage (colossi/baneling) and even more mobility or mechanics that compensate for bio mobility. You can easily see that from what is being used and what has been imlemented. To overcome bio mobility and offer the option to disengage from fights against bio ppl. mostly used a) units that could maintain a superior mobility (muta/bling) and b) other stuff like MSC teleport and nexus/pylon cannon was implemented so that its mobility would not have such a huge impact.
3. I brought up already the question why the wrong feedback was being delivered/heared/etc. This is again about SC2 elitism and ppl. continuing to claim that the game is right and that it is on the player if there are any issues. The elitism of SC2 led to a world of where nothing else than detail balance on pro-level seemed to matter instead of fundamental improvements to the games basics. There were voices like that of destiny hinting in the right direction, but those were not taken seriously enough for the longest amount of time and as well never hitted the mark perfectly. And when I remember right destiny was giving a variety of reasons and you basically could pick the ones you like and dismiss the ones you don't. Again probably this is a result of SC2 political correctness where nobody really dared to blame it all on gameplay mechanics alone and instead was embedding any points to be made in this regard in a variety of other reasons that contribute to the inevitable.
Congrats on the post (well the transcript of the video)! I like those emotional posts cause they speak way more the truth than those pure analytical statements that are usually being provided here.
One misunderstandings should be cleared nevertheless:
Of course there is the soccer vs. tennis issue with SC2. Tennis can never be as popular as soccer and neither can SC2 be as popular as the teamgames. But is completely right that the decline of SC2 is not due to that. SC2, when successful, could easily maintain a user base that is lesser than those of CS/mobas but still huge enough to legitimate it.
When I see ppl. argue about that it is always about either or. Both is true instead. SC2 wont be as popular for the reason of soccer vs tennis popularity but it is even less popular than it should for reasons that are totally not connected with that at all.
SC2 needs a major redesign/balance still. Start off with nerfing bio and continue with its counters. Then suddenly you realize that almost any unit in SC2 is overpowered. The mistake of SC2 was to believe letting op units fight against op units is interesting. E.g. bio vs zerg if not enough banelings bio will win 100:0 and if enough banelings zerg wins almost 100:0 (if you don't count the lost banelings). This can by default never get balanced as little variance translates into huge differences and any deviation from the best practice combinations of units is being punished harshly. SC2 is stuck and will stay stuck as long as muta/ling cannot fight bio without banelings at all or as long as protoss needs MSC backwarp/pylon cannon in order to have an exit strategy from fights they are inferior and to fight drops while moving out, etc (just 2 most visible of the many example).
But blizzard goes the opposite way still. +1/2 range hydras, +armour ultralisk, buff tanks, buff banelings. Why not simply nerf bio instead? Then nerf baneling dmg by 50% (so that they are a supporting splash unit but not the backbone of the army against bio). Then nerf roaches, then nerf immortals, etc.. Suddenly you have viable mech play and bio still has its place. GG.
Hydralisks for example have always been viable against protoss (non air) and even in ZvZ. The issues with hydra is that they cannot compete with bio. Slower, less dps less effective hitpoints, larger.
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On November 29 2016 07:37 p68 wrote:
Am I the only one that recognizes the need to grow the player base through a more newbie friendly game? Clearly, the skill cap is not enough to draw in adequate viewership. Afterall, it's much easy for viewers to appreciate and be blown away by pro gamers when they also play the game, and, really: does any popular esports game exist where relatively few players play the main game?
I don't believe it's just because of 1v1, as opposed to team games. That's a small contributor at most. Clearly, people aren't getting stressed or intimidated the same way when they play Hearthstone and Super Smash Brothers. Let's face the facts: the game is incredibly taxing, regardless of your skill level. And CO-OP is by far the most popular main game mode; not 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 or archon mode.
The barrier for entry is still too damn high. SC2, unlike BW, was launched during an era of increased accessibility. Some people actually thought that SC2 was too accessible, by taking away the 12 unit selection limit, being able to rally workers to mine automatically, and having a "find idle worker" button. Yet, despite all of the changes over the years, it's clear that nobody's close to reaching the skill cap. There's always more a player can do in this game. That being said, I think it would be prudent for Blizzard to reduce the barrier of entry. Some things may be possible without affecting the skill cap, but even if it were to drop a bit, I feel like the skill cap could be reduced while still being unreachable by the very best. Micro alone, ensures this.
First and foremost, I hope others can realize the importance of increasing accessibility. That being said, here are some ideas (not the "be all end all", but hopefully will generate discussion!):
1. Macro mechanics need to change or go away. I feel like Blizzard was on the right track with this before, but gave up because they didn't want to deal with the balance changes. In my opinion, they dropped the ball here, big time.
2. Put optional progress bars that can be displayed in the corner, helping players keep track of what they're building and researching. Also have bars to assist in keeping track of your unit composition.
3. Incorporate a build order helper of sorts. This not only allows players to focus more on "fun" aspects of the game, but would also help new players from feeling lost. Build orders could not only give players a simpler start, but could also have a "game goal" attached on how each build order directs you towards a win. Giving new players direction could go a very long way! Could even be a professionally voiced guide, similar to campaign mode, where they discuss the goals with you and how you will achieve them (maybe this would also help players feel less "isolated").
I quite like your ideas, especially 2 and 3. Macro mechanics is a tough one at this point because of the zerg EZ accusations without injects.
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Put me in the thread.
Hello future starcraft3 players!
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I think we should take out MBS and limit control groups again. If we're going to play a game that casuals can't get into lets go all out on toughening it up. Make the AI shit too, that was fun apparently
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SC2 is a difficult game, yes. But it's not the problem. The problem is that it's difficult & not rewarding.
How a player can be rewarded in a game like sc2?
There are plenty different ways, but obviously the most important along them is that a player should feel rewarded just with achieving victory. Can you say that you feel happy winning in sc2? I personally can say at best that I feel satisfied, but not delighted. Why so? Because I achieve most victories not through beautiful micro, smart strategies, but just being a little faster, doing less mistakes, distributing my attention better... Such things.
Well, I do win also with help of some nice micro or smart moves, but it happens so freaking rarely. 1 of 100 games (actually, even less) is brilliant for me, but all others are routine.
I think the game speed is just too fast. I think I would love if the game was even more difficult, but not because of increase of game speed.
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The game speed is too fast not cause of 7, 6, 5 but because of terrible damage.
If bio didn't wreck anything within a second and banelings/colossi(the old ones mainly) didn't wreck bio as quickly players could have longer fights where they can make the difference outside of pure numbers and timings.
Now we even got adepts that wreck light units within seconds. Too many steps into that direction have been made to take them all back. But it must still happen.
We got mutas that kill anything within seconds and heal up for dmg taken to be perfectly fine some seconds later. We got phoenix that kill mutalisks within seconds and little micro.
The list could be endlessly continued.
It is boring.
But it is important to understand that the origin of that is terrible damage marines/bio which have no downside other than being victim to terrible dmg counters.
Remember WOL:
PvT fights alway about boring colossi vs. viking fights. Either colossi kill bio fast enough and T got no chance or vikings kill colossi fast enough and P got no chance. It was only about that.
It is and was boring! LOTV only shifted and covered some of the basic issues with more overpowered tools for every side. The nail in the coffin so to speak as the game designers majorly misunerstood what made broowar great.
This is more like command & conquer than broodwar but on a much better pro-balanced level (hello browder).
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Thanks for adding the transcription btw!
On November 29 2016 08:26 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:
I think we should take out MBS and limit control groups again. If we're going to play a game that casuals can't get into lets go all out on toughening it up. Make the AI shit too, that was fun apparently
Well if it overall has a positive effect on the gameplay then it's a good measure. Unless you can get the same effect with other methods.
A good example is smartcasting. Smartcasting is what makes sc2 spells extremely frustarting to play against as soon as the enemy has a certain number of spellcasters. That is true for reaper grenades, parasitic bomb/abduct, it was true for fungal, pdd/seeker and sniper, it is/was true for pretty much any spell which was perceived as too strong. The solution? Nerf, nerf, nerf to the point where abilities don't feel satisfying to use anymore or add some other mechanic to it which makes the spell extremely situational.
Just because smartcasting seems to be essential, which imo is absurd. I would much rather have strong spells which are hard to use than spammable spells which aren't satisfying anymore. Both when i use it actively or when i have to play against it.
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On November 29 2016 06:52 PharaphobiaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2016 06:02 DeadByDawn wrote:
For me, what killed my playing was that fights are over so quick. So quick in fact that if I am back at my base swapping an add-on then my army could get caught and melt away before I had a chance to switch the view, assess the situation and make an adjustment.
In other RTS games, I felt that I had more chance to influence the outcome by making a tactical decision than in SC2. The only time I felt that in SC2 was using small numbers of units as hit squads and dropping all over the place. As a mech player by preference that was not satisfying. Why are you attacking with your army while knowing you gonna do macro stuffs in your base? That's a common mistake and there is nothing about the game you can blame, well maybe you do if you need half an hour to realize ur in the middle of the map with clumped army and have enought time to prepare. Bad fights were bad in every RTS when u did not paid attention.
Who said I was attacking then macroing?
When your army is on the map moving out and you need to do something back at base then you have to divide your attention. Most things can be queued up by putting your buildings on tab groups but when you need to do something attention consuming, such as swap addons then you are too vulnerable to say a couple of disruptor balls from nowhere.
Seconds count in this game, you can not baby sit your army as it moves all the time, you have to multitask.
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On November 29 2016 08:47 LSN wrote:
The game speed is too fast not cause of 7, 6, 5 but because of terrible damage.
If bio didn't wreck anything within a second and banelings/colossi(the old ones mainly) didn't wreck bio as quickly players could have longer fights where they can make the difference outside of pure numbers and timings.
Yep, and Kim did say that they were looking into slowing the fights down. Never heard anything about it again.
It would allow a player to showcase their skill better. But it seems 'terrible, terrible damage' is the mantra of SC2 and it will never change. It would also allow a spectator to understand better what is happening. Even after these years I still have to watch replays to understand what the hell happened in a fight I just saw.
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On November 29 2016 08:52 DeadByDawn wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2016 08:47 LSN wrote:
The game speed is too fast not cause of 7, 6, 5 but because of terrible damage.
If bio didn't wreck anything within a second and banelings/colossi(the old ones mainly) didn't wreck bio as quickly players could have longer fights where they can make the difference outside of pure numbers and timings. Yep, and Kim did say that they were looking into slowing the fights down. Never heard anything about it again. It would allow a player to showcase their skill better. But it seems 'terrible, terrible damage' is the mantra of SC2 and it will never change. It would also allow a spectator to understand better what is happening. Even after these years I still have to watch replays to understand what the hell happened in a fight I just saw.
This is mostly due to the pathing though. Stuff clumps up in sc2, which makes big armies look small and in general makes it harder to spectate big engagemens. It also increases the dps density, which is to this day one of the biggest problems of sc2.
People can say that the bw pathing is "dumb" but the effect it had was simply superior.
If you can get the same effect with a "smarter" pathing then go for it, but it seems to be essential that the units spread while moving
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But yes lets rather add + 2 range hydras and + 3 armour ultralisk and + life banelings and + this and that instead of just admitting that bio is way too strong and universal of a unit/composition.
Sure you can achieve balanced winrates like that but the game wont be balanced in itself and cannot be by default.
Any little variation will have huge frustrating effects. E.g. a little micro mistake of bio vs. banelings and you lose them all in the fraction of a second. Or a little misplaced drop defence and bio kills whole eco + hatch within a second or two.
@viper
Ofc bw pathing could tone that down and allow only less dps/area, allow better surroundings, allow better anti splash dmg by default but it is not only the pathing. Bio got +10 hp upgrade. They got marauders to tank damage, to slow down escaping units and deal dmg against armoured. They got heal from the air which is always in perfect position in opposite to BW medics. They can load into their healers and escape almost any situation.
Sure this needs strong counters and the existing history of buffs/implementation of units/mechanics against that.
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I find this game has been called dead since year one of its release. Year after year passes with the ever present dead game prophet screaming at the top of his lungs at how certain he is the game is over. And with each passing year I smirk more and more thinking "shouldn't we wait for a game to be dead before we announce it as dead?"
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the difference of mood between TL and reddit is astonishing.
guess which place became the actual best place to follow and appreciate the game.. (love the LR tho)
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On November 29 2016 05:12 Little-Chimp wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2016 04:34 MaestroSC wrote:On November 29 2016 04:05 WGT-Baal wrote:
The fact that you have to pay was not a big issue at launch. Lots of ppl bought the game. But bnet 2 being so bad didnt help.
Back in bw i would sometimes just sit and chat on a channel for a while, playing a game or 2 in 4 hours. It was fun, it was social.
Ladder could have used separate mmr for each race from the start , funnier team games (i mean 2v2 and all suck... Whereas i have so many crazy memories on 4v4 hunters)
The design was also at fault. Ppl had high hopes for hots then felt disapointed and left. I stayed until lotv but adding even more gimmicky units killed the game for me A lot of people have already said it... but for most gamers the UMS scene was bigger than the melee map scene. IN BW and WC3 especially... there were hundreds of thousands more people playing those than the ladder. And BNET 2.0 completely KILLED that scene... because the new UI was absolute dogshit for: finding games, joining games, seeing what games were popular, seeing what games were getting a lot of attention. In BNET 2.0 all of the UMS creators stopped trying, because they realized it was most likely that none of their maps will ever even get seen let alone played. How you can go backwards 10 years after the original... is a truely special Feat that Blizz pulled off with 2.0 All they needed was to return to Bnet 1 from BW/WC3 and it would have given their game sO MUCH MORE LIFE. Then we get to the multiplayer ladder experience... which was balanced/designed by people who dont understand what people appreciate about RTS games. I dont play RTS games expecting them to play like Fighting games.... I dont need big explosions of 200 units crashing into 200 other units... The damage was so turned up on everything that the fights were over in 2 seconds regardless. Go watch a BW stream (Jaedong is streaming right now) you can see the battles ebb and flow, going back and forth. In sc2 literally 90% of fights were over within 2 seconds of engaging. Then you throw in stupid design units like: Colossus, Widow Mines, Banelings and its EASY to see why this game was never going to succeed. Then Blizz decides "You know whats wrong with our game? We arent getting to 200/200 fast enough... lets add more workers to the start!" Most people were complaining about how the game devolved into every match being a race to 3-4base 200/200 so they made that race even faster... hell they should have jsut made that the way the match starts. Both players start with 3 bases and full worker saturation... since thats all Blizz thought we wanted form a RTS why even go with the half-measure of just increasing starting workers. Go big or go home. This game was not what anyone hoped for, and every expansion made the game worse....added more and more ridiculously stupid units... id rather play Wings of Liberty than Legacy of the Void. Blizzard decided to make a game that didnt appeal to casuals OR hardcore RTS fans. Instead they made this game that hovers in the middle.. that neither group cares enough about to stay interested.... which is why their game/scene is now dead. They needed to either go full LoL and make it super casual friendly and get rid of the cheesy units like Banelings/widowmines that have a chance of ending the game immediately... or they needed to slow down the game and let it become about strategy again. Any/everyone who has been on this site since before SC2 saw what SC2 was and how it wouldnt have a long life because it didnt appeal to the people who were actually fans of the genre. But then TL got flooded by 100000 new fans of SC who refused to listen to anything negative. And i feel obligated to mention... that Blizz's idea to sell this as 3 full priced individual games... was a giant slap in the face, especially in an era of gaming riddled with DLC... they sold expansion packs at the same price of the original, and they were NOWHERE near worth that. And thats from someone who LOVED the campaign. they didnt sell BW as 3 individual games, they didnt sell WC3 as 3 individual games...there was no reason to do that with Sc2 except because they thought they could get away with it because they were making the sequel to BW, a huge success. Wow dude nice job. You reiterated complaints from 2010 that have been written 1000 times and largely have been fixed at this point. What would be more useful is realizing games like CSGO and Melee started at far worse points than SC2 and had dramatic revivals. I dont believe in "too little too late" when you look at these examples. We should be asking how to get there instead of cluttering up the thread with 2010 BNET 2.0 complaints.
What did they fix?
Unit design: nope
Bnet 2.0: nope
game pacing:not only nope, but they actually made it worse
Price/balls of selling 1 game as 3 full price games: nope.
Manage to stop their alienation of either/both the hardcore and/or casual crowd: nope.
Changed anything regarding the poor design of SC2 units: nope. (if anything they added more terrible units in HotS and LotV.
Tell me again what they fixed and what we should focus on fixing moving forward?
Also my favorites are the people saying "everyone quit cause the game is too hard" its a PvP game... our opponents are eachother. We didnt quit because the game is hard... we quit because the game is shit, and we wanted to play something better. Ive played BW since release, and was stil playing it up til Sc2 launch, and BW was infinitely harder than SC2.
The skill cap has NOTHING to do with why people dont play the game anymore, why it gets no views on twitch, and why the scene is so fucking dead, while it was basically the Flagship of Esports for years.
The game is unpopular because Blizzard just took a huge shit on a lot of peoples favorite gaming franchise, and were turned away from it.
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On November 29 2016 09:02 LSN wrote:
But yes lets rather add + 2 range hydras and + 3 armour ultralisk and + life banelings and + this and that instead of just admitting that bio is way too strong and universal of a unit/composition.
Sure you can achieve balanced winrates like that but the game wont be balanced in itself and cannot be by default.
Any little variation will have huge frustrating effects. E.g. a little micro mistake of bio vs. banelings and you lose them all in the fraction of a second. Or a little misplaced drop defence and bio kills whole eco + hatch within a second or two.
@viper
Ofc bw pathing could tone that down and allow only less dps/area, allow better surroundings, allow better anti splash dmg by default but it is not only the pathing. Bio got +10 hp upgrade. They got marauders to tank damage, to slow down escaping units and deal dmg against armoured. They got heal from the air which is always in perfect position in opposite to BW medics. They can load into their healers and escape almost any situation.
Sure this needs strong counters and the existing history of buffs/implementation of units/mechanics against that.
Oh yeah sure there are more reasons for bio specifically. The medivac for example shouldn't be in this game period.
But i was mostly talking about the general pace of fights, etc. The whole deal with "deathballs" is due to the pathing as well (mixed with hardcounters; If hardcounters can move tight as a ball, yes then you get a true deathball)
Personally i think sc2 gets worse the bigger the armies get. Which is sad and shouldn't be the case.
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People need to focus more on the future at this point, sc2 was partially successful because of the small but very passionate foreign BW viewer base who did a great job hyping the SC franchise to esports fans. That kind of crazy passion doesn't really exist in sc2 right now, which is both blizzard and the community's fault, and that fact means it will be harder for SC3 or WC4 to be successful.
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EPT
