The Importance of Strategic Depth in the Early Game
When LotV was released, it ushered in an era of great change. Gone were many of the things once viewed as detrimental to the game, such as a slower economy, which many thought encouraged 3 base turtling. They were replaced by a host of perceived improvements meant to foster faster, more dynamic and exciting gameplay for both players and spectators. Mech was a high profile victim of this change, as well as the mutalisk. The strength of early harassment options like the reaper and adept was increased to the point that the game became inordinately influenced by them. In recent times, the ability for Protoss to safely tech and expand has led to an increase in carrier usage - a composition lacking in interactivity. These are noteworthy metagame shifts but far from the most influential change LotV brought. The changes in starting worker count and mineral patches was a massive one. They completely altered how the game is played and what builds are viable. Besides encouraging earlier third bases and all further expansions, LotV removed a number of builds which served Starcraft well in the past.
Few people complained when the 6 pool and similarly aggressive builds were removed. The impact of its loss was far reaching, though. Even a year later the community struggles to attribute the decrease in viable builds to something which was heralded as such a positive. If nothing else the 6 pool was a vital element of strategic depth, something essential to Starcraft 2.
Section 1: Strategic Depth and How StarCraft 2 is Bettered By It
Every build in Starcraft is a compromise. Want to play a long game? Three hatchery before pool fits the bill. Want to stunt your economy slightly, but ensure your safety versus early attacks? Pool before hatch will make you impervious against aggression but put you behind against greedier openings.
No single build covers every situation and that’s part of the beauty of Starcraft 2. Build orders exist on a spectrum, the top end of which is characterized by the most economically greedy. Command center first, nexus first, and three hatchery before pool all have the express purpose of entering the midgame with the greatest economic advantage possible. They in turn are held in check by the opposite end of the spectrum, aggressive 1 base builds.
6-10 pools, the most extreme versions of proxy gateway(s), 11/11 rax and cannon rushes were unintentionally eliminated as a part of the LotV overhaul. Though replaced by other proxy builds and early strategies, the most frequently utilized being 12 pools in ZvZ, these builds do not carry the same threat due to the fact that players can get to stable footing much easier in LotV. The economic changes made greedy builds more conservative since there simply is not as much to gain from taking 3 hatches before pool.
While the aforementioned HotS strategies were nearly unscoutable, early timings like 3 rax reaper are detectable by traditional scouting. For example, in Game 6 of the WCS Grand Finals, Dark’s overlord arrived in time to scout all three of ByuN’s barracks while 2 of them were in production.
Another thing to note is the timings of these builds. Although proxy factories and robotics facilities are more common in LotV than they were in previous expansions, they arrive at a much later point in the game than 11/11 or even the nearly extinct proxy 4 gate. They have a place, but they do not counter economic greed as well as lower tech proxies or early pools.
Most importantly, these builds were incredibly effective. Executed properly, they had a respectable win rate against players who did not take measures to prepare themselves. They were not as fringe as equivalent builds are in the current incarnation of Starcraft. These builds were the glue that held the metagame together and although it has not completely vanished, said bond has weakened. This type of one base play made eschewing one’s defenses punishable by death.
Unfortunately these builds were removed with the introduction of LotV. They were a part of a larger change which had an unanticipated effect. Blizzard’s grand vision for the expansion limited the pool of build orders and homogenized openers by making economic greed overly viable.
Section 2: How Things Have Changed
Click to Expand. Note: Mirror Matchup counts have been doubled (e.g. 42 builds from 21 PvPs)
These were the builds used in every game of GSL 2015 Season 3 (the final GSL of the HotS era) and GSL 2016 Season 2. “Build Archetypes” refers to things like command center first, 3 hatch before pool or stargate. An example of “build deviations” would be if a Protoss made oracles or phoenixes, or if a Terran included cyclones into their composition. Things such as medivacs, zergling speed or stalkers are not included in build deviations as they are present in an overwhelming number of compositions.
In TvT and PvP there was an increase in the number of deviations from HotS to LotV. This can be attributed to the introduction of new units (cyclone and adept respectively) which saw heavy usage in the early stages of the game. These new units offered little to no strategic depth, however, as they naturally fit into the existing matchup dynamics.
TvZ saw the most dramatic shift of any matchup. Due to faster mineral income and the increased strength of the reaper, the build spectrum shrunk massively. CC first disappeared almost entirely with the release of LotV, going from 18 appearances to 2. Reaper expands were also prevalent in HotS (11 instances) and there were 4 proxy builds. That number increased in LotV where reaper expands accounted for 80% of all builds.
In response Zerg were forced to narrow their openings. In HotS Zergs had the option (among several) to safely get a Spire before or after their third. This became incredibly difficult in LotV. 2 base spire all but disappeared in the new expansion. Zergs were forced to go hatch/gas/pool 77% of the time in order to defend terran aggression while generating a sufficient economy. Spending crucial money on these expensive units made it so Zergs were unable to tech as they had in HotS.
Nexus first builds all but disappeared in PvZ and PvT. In HotS PvZ, Protoss opened with nexus first 18 times, gate expands 11 and forge first 5 times. In LotV PvZ, Protoss opened with gate expand 22 of the 25 games played. Due to the emphasis on expansion and the tools available to other races, Protoss were forced to play this particular style 88% of the time.
Overall there was a decrease in the ratio of games played to build deviations. In addition, the most aggressive and greedy builds didn’t just occur less frequently – they became more conservative. With higher income rates from the beginning, players could establish their naturals with greater ease through what used to be considered “middle of the road” builds.
Section 3: But At What Cost?
LotV removed opportunities to make meaningful decisions in the early game. In HotS players had more options to begin with which led to more divergent tech paths later on. Colossi were always heavily used in PvT, but the routes by which players reach that tech varied heavily in HotS. They could make a robo before or after their third, accompanying it with a twilight for blink or dark templars, as well as opening with a stargate. When the gateway expand became empowered by the changes in LotV, there became no reason to do anything else. The risk/reward of build selection that was integral in HotS was replaced as the starting number of workers rose to 12. Where benefits could once be construed from opening nexus first or tech before expand, the safety and economic boost offered by the gate expand in LotV made those options unnecessary. The blink/warp prism tech path most commonly used in LotV was spawned from this development. This has changed as of late with players favoring phoenix/adept builds, but the same principle remains. Gate expand is still the most efficient way to reach the Protoss tech of choice.
The type of early builds mentioned earlier held everything in place. Viewed in a negative light by most of the community, they deviate from what is perceived as normal or optimal: by nature they are risks based on incomplete information. Additionally, they often cannot be countered in a conventional manner. Opponents must MacGyver patchwork solutions with whatever they have available. As a result, they’ve acquired the stigma of being last resort options for ‘bad’ players. While all of these are true to a certain extent, the fact that they cannot be dealt with in standard ways forces players to account for them in every game. Their openers need to adjust as long as the threat of 8 pool or proxy 2 rax is present.
The threat of unleashing one of these builds needs to be a constant thought in both players’ minds if they want to claim victory. The fact that they exist changes the risk/reward dynamic of the map pool. It is a big risk to go Nexus first on a 2 player map against Zerg simply because fast pool is available. What might otherwise be the default choice become a calculated decision.
As scenarios stemming from these early builds unfold, the consequences are magnified to the extreme. When working with limited resources single events have a much greater effect; an error that might be innocuous later on can singlehandedly spell defeat in the first 3 minutes. The sort of exchanges that occur in these situations test a player’s awareness and general understanding. Just as a base trade can highlight quick critical thinking, a 6 pool can do the same.
Well timed cheese is tinged with a certain romanticism. Like the real thing, it can be simple yet potent. Be it Maru battering INnoVation into submission on Heavy Rain or MVP clawing the GSL Finals away from the seemingly invincible Squirtle, early game rushes are part of our heritage as StarCraft fans. They are perfect examples of the glory that can arise when players force these strategies on to their opponent. Who could forget how sOs demolished herO’s confidence again and again with proxy gates? These moments stick with us, sometimes defining players for their entire careers.
Games such as Classic vs soO on Frost or Has vs Jaedong on Polar Night are also forever etched in our memories.
There are times when the risk is miscalculated. Zest’s cannon rush on Frost to open the GSL Finals against soO, INnoVation's 2 rax after Soulkey began his infamous comeback...cheese offers infinite chances for ridicule too. Regardless of whether they succeed, these builds serve a purpose. They diversify the pool of potential builds and create a broader experience where superior, more versatile players can thrive.
These builds can shift the momentum of an entire match.They can throw an opponent off in a way a mid game timing or prolonged victory never could. In the 2015 Starleague season 3 final between ByuL and herO, the latter relied on 2 base immortal builds to win the first 2 games. ByuL changed the tenor of the series in Game 3, directly countering his opponent with an early pool. He used both end of the build spectrum in this series, opening with 8 pool and 3 hatch before pool—a versatility unavailable in the current metagame. Maru vs Rain in the OSL final also followed this template. Maru was down 2-0 after losing in the late game as well as to a sharp timing attack. Needing a way to claw back into the series he opted for a proxy 2 rax, which caught Rain off guard and kickstarted his comeback. Builds like these can resonate through an entire series.
One of the particularly noteworthy features in LotV was overwhelmingly powerful economic harass. Due to the new economy, early damage became influential in a way it never was in LotV. Early adept pressure, marine drops, liberators, banshees and oracle could effectively end games with ease. In HotS players had an easier time recovering, but in LotV, where the speed at which economies grew was accelerated, this early damage was completely devastating.
The longer LotV exists, the more players will utilize aggressive builds despite them having diminished since HotS. Simultaneously, the inertia generated by the economic changes is extremely strong. The stagnancy in the metagame will not change simply because players want it to. As long as players have access to stable economic builds and early units that can force defensive postures from their opponents, the breadth of builds will remain small.
Section 4: A Problem Even Overgrowth Can’t Solve
Even a year after the introduction of LotV, the breadth of builds is still far narrower than it was in HotS. Despite players having made adjustments and gained a better understanding of the new expansion, the new economic model has not yet shown a capability to foster the varied play seen towards the end of HotS. The 6 pool and its compatriots had an important role in that varied play. Their loss, combined with other factors mentioned earlier are the primary reason why the number of builds decreased from HotS to LotV. This created games that eerily mimicked one another.
As builds and strategies blended together into one unspectacular mass, the number of eye-catching games decreased. Similar scenarios played out ad nauseum as players were given no choice but to play the same stale styles over and over again. Instead of the varied builds used in HotS, games became dictated by difficult-to-counter economic harassment stemming from a few builds. It was not just players who were robbed of a robust gaming experience. It was the fans who never witnessed the exciting gameplay which had been promised when LotV replaced HotS.
And the result really isn't surprising due to the way Blizzard has pigeoned holed units into the game.
Blizzard didn't want early aggression to be effective (outside of a number of specific worker killing units/strategies), so early aggression was nerfed in every way possible in LOTV. And the problem with this approach is that is pigeon holes strategy... "Want to kill SCVs? Build an Oracle!"
The result is stagnation and the removal of the best part of the game in my opinion, creative builds. A second base is just about free in LOTV, so you might as just well start with a second base. It is nearly a false choice to not expand.
Perhaps the worst result and most damning evidence of the incompetence of Blizzard, is that with less builds and less variety, balance should be better than ever. But it isn't.
agreed on some points, disagreed on others. I do miss the variety of openings, but I certainly don't miss having to make a guess about my opponents opening nexus/CC first or rushing me. Some of the BO advantages in pro games were often transfered into direct wins which was pretty lame tbh.
Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
Regardless, trading fewer builds for less cheese is a good deal in my mind, and one that I happily accept. There aren't too many things I think LotV did better than HotS, but less cheese is one of them.
Of course, then they had to go and put in pylon rushes....
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
I really enjoy articles like this one. It's nice to see all of the builds in GSL in HotS and in LotV and understand why 6 Pool was so important for the state of the game. I will say that, while I miss 9, 10, and 11 Pool builds quite a lot and believe it's a big part of why I still haven't quite adjusted to LotV, HotS did have a lot of games that felt more like coin flips than I believe was good for the game.
Whether going to 12 was the right call who knows. While I enjoy watching LotV much more than I did in HotS and openings are part of that, I do wonder if we will see the team take another look at the economy and adjust it to start at 11 or 10 workers and 12-14 supply in the near future. It's something I think about nearly every time I've played in the past few months, and a part of me wants them to knock back that number.
StarCraft 2, on top of everything that it offers mechanically and strategically, is constantly changing through frequent patches and new maps and occasional expansions in a way that doesn't happen with other esports, and it's a huge part of why I love it so much. I think the team feels similarly which is why they weren't afraid of changing the economy to begin with and is open to doing something else crazy and testing it with the public...
Though if it were me I'd just make every game start with 0 Workers today.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
Its about levels of gradients. Aggressive play, Standard Play, and Greedy Play are less amorphous when Aggressive and Greedy plays are more defined.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
I have a hard time understanding the stats used. It was a good read, tho. While I kinda hate P because of adepts, I'm still having having a great time watching GSL. While there might be fewer build orders, I feel like at the GSL level, games are way more often won by multiple engagements/micro/harassment instead of by one big death ball clashing into the other after 15min of build up with few actual consequences.
Probably just a preference, but I'd rather watch that I think. It's not perfect for sure and might be boring even for me after a while, but I enjoy watching fighting games and speed runs : no cheese or build variations there, just great players show casing how crazy good they can be.
The main point that stands out to me in this article is the idea that the new economy has put such a heavy importance on early game economic damage. Early game cheese was frustrating to deal with for sure, but so is constantly having to deal with worker harassment. One of those things got killed and the other was made more prominent.
The end result, are the games any more fun to play now than they were before?
Frankly I'm glad some allins are somewhat dead. I do definitely miss some of the low Econ situations hots created but I also don't mind not losing to blink Allin 8 games in a row because I had a minor positional error. I do like cheesing I do like to Allin, ( I cannon rushed my Protoss off race to masters in lotv) but I am glad that it's harder to pull off now.
The most unfun games I played in hots generally were the ones where I lost to gambling oponent, I'm glad that victory is now more based on skill and less on luck. I don't have to deal with all those players who only knew how to dt rush, or could only exicute the same orcles Allin evrey single game. The game now properly rewards macro play, and aggression is now appropriately difficult to exicute, I no longer see 80 apm players in high masters who only Allin evrey game and that's a good thing.
Honestly I found hots protoss to be the most frustrating part about hots. Every game I loaded in vs Protoss I wondered which one of the 20 Allin builds they planed to cheese me with. Than i would have to scout the whole map because people loved to proxy all there tech, even robos to try to force you to guess there build rather than being allowed to scout it. often as Terran you had no way to know what Allin was coming so you would usualy have to make blind guesses about what your oponent was doing, often these guesses would decide if you won or not. This interaction often felt awful for both sides sometimes I would build 3 bunkers or 3 turrets anticipating correctly, my opponent would call me a hacker and leave emediatly, other games I would not have the right deffense and I would atomaticly lose the game to void ray busts, or dt allins, or proxies immortals, or fast orcles or Blink Allin, or 7 gate Allin .
I understand the ops opinion, in tournaments this made the game poker like with people cooly calculating there oponent's move. But on ladder it just made the game very arbitrary sometimes. I was often able to take down masters Terran with my off race by just gambling correctly one day I even limited myself to winning games with 60 apm or less. I would exclusively cannon rush or proxy blink Allin and I was able to win 70% of my games. No I don't want to back to the times on ladder where victory or defeat was often decided by flipping a coin,
On April 02 2017 03:25 BronzeKnee wrote: Amazing article.
And the result really isn't surprising due to the way Blizzard has pigeoned holed units into the game.
Blizzard didn't want early aggression to be effective (outside of a number of specific worker killing units/strategies), so early aggression was nerfed in every way possible in LOTV. And the problem with this approach is that is pigeon holes strategy... "Want to kill SCVs? Build an Oracle!"
The result is stagnation and the removal of the best part of the game in my opinion, creative builds. A second base is just about free in LOTV, so you might as just well start with a second base. It is nearly a false choice to not expand.
Perhaps the worst result and most damning evidence of the incompetence of Blizzard, is that with less builds and less variety, balance should be better than ever. But it isn't.
It's time for David Kim to go.
I always wonder if you realize a team of people balance SC2.
David kim is just the guy they throw in front of the camera.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
I disagree with this. Part of the strategy side of starcraft is knowing what your opponent can do, and you have to play to that.
I open hatch first every ZvP, and don't scout my natural. I'm fully aware there could be a cannon building in the fog of war, but I choose to ignore that possibility go ahead for the hatch first.
If I lose from here, it's not because of a coin flip. In all my ZvPs in LotV, I've been cannon rushed maybe a dozen times, out of hundreds of games. I didn't lose a coinflip, my opponent played the expectation that I wouldn't scout for a cannon rush, and I played the expectation that I wouldn't be cannon rushed.
That's not not a coin flip, that's playing the game.
On April 02 2017 06:41 IMSupervisor wrote: Wouldn't it be more fair to compare the first year ot LotV to the first year of HotS when looking at diversity of strategy?
It certainly would be more fair. However their argument would be greatly diminished if all their example of strategic diversity turned out to be hellbat drops.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
I disagree with this. Part of the strategy side of starcraft is knowing what your opponent can do, and you have to play to that.
I open hatch first every ZvP, and don't scout my natural. I'm fully aware there could be a cannon building in the fog of war, but I choose to ignore that possibility go ahead for the hatch first.
If I lose from here, it's not because of a coin flip. In all my ZvPs in LotV, I've been cannon rushed maybe a dozen times, out of hundreds of games. I didn't lose a coinflip, my opponent played the expectation that I wouldn't scout for a cannon rush, and I played the expectation that I wouldn't be cannon rushed.
That's not not a coin flip, that's playing the game.
Maybe rock paper scissors is a better way to describe it than coinflip. Still I don't want to have tournaments decided by rock paper scissors which is mostly luck. Yeah I guess you can mindgame someone who takes rock 3 times in a row by choosing scissor (surely he won't go rock 4 times in a row, right)) but this is not what I'd like to see from an RTS game.
And your approach doesn't work for competitive players because your opponents would analyze your build and just cannonrush the shit out of you until you learn.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
I disagree with this. Part of the strategy side of starcraft is knowing what your opponent can do, and you have to play to that.
I open hatch first every ZvP, and don't scout my natural. I'm fully aware there could be a cannon building in the fog of war, but I choose to ignore that possibility go ahead for the hatch first.
If I lose from here, it's not because of a coin flip. In all my ZvPs in LotV, I've been cannon rushed maybe a dozen times, out of hundreds of games. I didn't lose a coinflip, my opponent played the expectation that I wouldn't scout for a cannon rush, and I played the expectation that I wouldn't be cannon rushed.
That's not not a coin flip, that's playing the game.
Maybe rock paper scissors is a better way to describe it than coinflip. Still I don't want to have tournaments decided by rock paper scissors which is mostly luck. Yeah I guess you can mindgame someone who takes rock 3 times in a row by choosing scissor (surely he won't go rock 4 times in a row, right)) but this is not what I'd like to see from an RTS game.
And your approach doesn't work for competitive players because your opponents would analyze your build and just cannonrush the shit out of you until you learn.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
this isn't comparable because vs an oracle you have the opportunity to gather the required information to deflect the attack. if you lose to a not scouted oracle you did something wrong beyond guessing wrong (not scouting the stargate).
On April 02 2017 06:24 washikie wrote: Frankly I'm glad some allins are somewhat dead. I do definitely miss some of the low Econ situations hots created but I also don't mind not losing to blink Allin 8 games in a row because I had a minor positional error.
That's exactly what skill is. A good player doesn't make those positional errors. He runs away until he can CRUSH every blink stalker. You just keep on engaging and bleeding units.
If you take out things that take decision making, positioning, macro, micro out of the game, what is left?
On April 02 2017 06:24 washikie wrote: Frankly I'm glad some allins are somewhat dead. I do definitely miss some of the low Econ situations hots created but I also don't mind not losing to blink Allin 8 games in a row because I had a minor positional error.
That's exactly what skill is. A good player doesn't make those positional errors. He runs away until he can CRUSH every blink stalker. You just keep on engaging and bleeding units.
If you take out things that take decision making, positioning, macro, micro out of the game, what is left?
By positional error I mean ohh I thought he would blink into my main but nope went into nat gg. Honestly once agian it's more of a guessing thing stopping the pre netf hots blink Allin is not like stoping drops wher if you split your army well you don't take damage because splitting up means death. You mostly had to guess where he would blink/ where his army is on most maps back than. Most Korean terran's could not position to deal with it and that's why only Maru survived in gsl that season.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
I disagree with this. Part of the strategy side of starcraft is knowing what your opponent can do, and you have to play to that.
I open hatch first every ZvP, and don't scout my natural. I'm fully aware there could be a cannon building in the fog of war, but I choose to ignore that possibility go ahead for the hatch first.
If I lose from here, it's not because of a coin flip. In all my ZvPs in LotV, I've been cannon rushed maybe a dozen times, out of hundreds of games. I didn't lose a coinflip, my opponent played the expectation that I wouldn't scout for a cannon rush, and I played the expectation that I wouldn't be cannon rushed.
That's not not a coin flip, that's playing the game.
Maybe rock paper scissors is a better way to describe it than coinflip. Still I don't want to have tournaments decided by rock paper scissors which is mostly luck. Yeah I guess you can mindgame someone who takes rock 3 times in a row by choosing scissor (surely he won't go rock 4 times in a row, right)) but this is not what I'd like to see from an RTS game.
And your approach doesn't work for competitive players because your opponents would analyze your build and just cannonrush the shit out of you until you learn.
It can be coinflippy though depending on the ballance of a matchup. Genneraly things are more coonflippy and you have to take more chances if your race is on a clock in a specific mu. In hots often times once p got the perfect deathball they would just win. Period so you always had to choose to be safe va cheese but be to far behind to win if your opponent did not cheese or be vunerable to cheese but have enough units and tech to do the dmg you had to do to prevent the opponent from getting the right deathball togeather. If you guessed wrong you would frequently lose. I'm talking about pre mine but tvp once mine got adjusted build diversity went down a bit and it was more reasonable to hold allins or put your own pressure on.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
Of course they are educated guesses, it would be retarded not taking into account the available information (opponent style, opponent strengths, your strengths, how opponent has reacted in similar situations in the past etc etc) in a competitive setting. But they remain a guess in SC because you cannot in many scenarios react to what you see until it is too late... and if you choose wrong the result is potentially dire, game-ending consequences. This is why people don't like it and see it as 'coin flippy'.
I understand that you see value in it, to an extent I can too, but if every game of football was a single scenario where it's 4th and goal from the one yard line where you either win or lose on one play, I don't think it'd be quite so popular either.
The LOTV economy model was done because the beginning of games were "boring" for the average spectator. Blizzard wanted to make it so the action (mid-game) happened earlier. They also wanted to bring the length of games down significantly, and what better way to do that then eliminate the first ~3 minutes of the game.
Personally, I hope Blizzard never makes another RTS game again. Unless they take a look at what made RTS games actually fit the definition of REAL TIME STRATEGY.
LOTV is so far gone from what made classic RTS games so damn good. Managing an economy in LOTV could be done by a monkey using an xbox controller. Defending against cheese builds is hardly a problem anymore, and neither is scouting for cheese builds. When pro players do not scout on a regular basis anymore, there is a problem with the game.
I recently came back to Starcraft after quitting way back in 2012 and couldn't believe they changed from 6 workers to 12 in the beginning. Any of the other decisions that were made with unit design I can understand, but adding 12 workers pretty much just seemed to be because Blizzard wanted to create more macro games and shorten the amount of "down time" at the beginning of the game to create hype. I've been watching a lot of tournament games to better understand the state of the game and it seems that even a year after LoTV has come out, a few strategies are completely dominant at high level play. Protoss is almost foolish to not open stargate, and if they don't you can be assured blink will be coming out. If it doesn't, they die to liberator/medivac harass vT and drops and runbys vZ. While I am a Protoss player, the same can be said of both Terran and Zerg matchups, where the meta of the game has become to take map control early on via a rock-paper-scissors game of a few openings and then win off of that containment. I'm not a professional level player and never was, but from my perspective the depth of the game has shrunk a lot with new expansion. Still, we've yet to see where the meta will evolve to, however I think Blizzard may have to make some serious balance revisions, if not totally remove/change some poorly designed units. I really don't want to be a balance whiner, but just from an observers perspective the Oracle, Liberator, and Swarmhost don't really seem to add much to the game and are so pigeon holed in their specific uses that, with the exception of the Liberator, they seem to have very few actual uses. Other than specific harass builds.
On April 02 2017 08:13 LtCalley wrote: thank you for this
i truly believe the 12 worker start ruined the game. i honestly don't know why i still play
It did ruin the game. Removing 1500 mineral patches + 12 worker start made the game too coin flippy.
If Blizzard wanted to really salvage some of the last year, they should add back 1500 minerals per every base. I dunno if people have seen any Brood War streams lately or played any Brood War but...1500 patches makes the game 100000000000x better because you can stay on 2,3, and 4 base longer and there is WAY more comeback potential even if you lose some workers or armies because you can rebuild.
12 worker start + removing minerals per base doomed LOTV to being the coin flippy BO win/loss game that it currently is. But the thing is we all know this is a huge issue and it could be addressed by reverting all patches to 1500 minerals and reverting worker start.
Problem is reverting 12 workers to 6 is probably too drastic for Blizzard, but honestly the game needs drastic changes. And for the love of god, winning/losing coin flip games to nydus worms and pylons under the ramp also really needs to be addressed imo.
On April 02 2017 11:55 stuchiu wrote: I always thought having early game all-ins as viable was integral to starcraft's identity.
The ironic thing is all-ins are more about build order win/loss in LOTV compared to WOL/HOTS. Like in WOL/HOTS you had almost 45 sec to 1 minute to react when you realized you were being all-ined. You could prepare. Remember all those 5-6 gate sentry all-ins where you'd see them doing it, it's very telegraphed, and you can prepare 4-5 bunkers.
Well...in LOTV those all-ins exist...it's just that they immediately end the game because they are not telegraphed and they hit at the exact same time that you see them. lol xD
And that's cause the 12 worker start has builds accelerated to points they are not possibly supposed to be at.
Warp prism adept all-in type of stuff...by the time you scout it, the warp prism is already to your base and about to warp-in mass adepts. You already have to have done a build that blind counters it if you want to live.
Same with invulnerable nydus worm. If the guy opts for this, by the time you scout his base and realize he's doing it, the nydus is already building in your main with queens about to pop out = you autolose unless you already were anticipating it and blind countered with cyclones, etc etc.
I really wish a lot of us here and in the community would petition or write up something to Blizzard about reverting some of the economy changes, and the 12 worker start, but i feel like it will just lead no where =/
After thinking about it more I dont mind early game allins in general. I LOVED ra3 and that game is just constant early aggression. But what I dont like about sc2 early allins is how unscoutable they often are especially in hots. Viable early game allins are acceptable if they can be scouted. It should be a gamble on the allining players part that can be used to punish corner cutting and greed. Viable early game allins should not be viable simply because you cant scout them fast enough resulting in a coin flip for the defender, where even if you went a defensive build if you went the wrong kind of defensive build you would lose. RA3 allins were generally the earlier type, hots protoss allins the latter. Im glad we have less coin flips now and more skillfull execution tbh.
for an allin to be healthy for the game it should be stopable in one of the following ways Defenders should a. be able to make a very small investment to stop the allin, like building on high ground vs zerg b. be able to somewhat reliably scout the allin, or at least enough parts of the opponents tech they can make good guesses. scouted answers need to be very very effective agianst the allin they deal with since there is a big downside for building defenses for something thats not coming. c. opening in a fairly defensiveness manner that still gives you a shot at the late game vs greedy builds if you can squeeze out edges latter on.
the problem with many of the best sc2 allins in the games past is that often, there was either 1. no strong deffensive build capable of stoping the allin consistently, you could know it was coming and loose anyway,blink stalker allin pre nerfs, and 1-1-1 allin pre protoss buffs are good examples. 2. no ability to scout if an allin is coming in time and further no ability to safe guard yourself against unscountable allins without coin flipping or crippling yourself in a macro game, proxy dts, proxy 5 minute orcles, proxy robos, proxy rax before the nerfs back in wol.
blizzard could have fixed this problem by buffing scouting, instead they just flattened alot of allins with econ, probably not the right approach but i prefer it over having to flip a coin to decide victory or defeat.
The thing i miss most honestly is the nice peaceful beginning to every game. It was so calm and chill at the start, the casters had time to talk about other things and build the hype, and for me this was a much less stressful experience. I really enjoyed learning how to scout and defending the iconic builds like 6 pool, 11/11 gate etc.
I completely understand why blizzard made the changes and I respect them doing so, I think its been long enough to accurately reflect on it. When i switch to HOTS or WOL and play a game I feel a strong sense of nostalgia and realise how much more i enjoy the beginning of the game.
I don't have a strong opinion on the actual mineral patch change in terms of economy, in some ways I like it, and i wonder what the game would look like with 6 workers and new mineral patches.
Maybe in some way we see less bo's. But in general I love LotV more than previous expansions, don't get me wron there were plenty of enjoyable moments, cool strats and insance games in both HotS and WoL. But I really like LotV as the evolution of sc2, so far the best strategy evere mad to my mind.
On April 02 2017 11:55 stuchiu wrote: I always thought having early game all-ins as viable was integral to starcraft's identity.
The ironic thing is all-ins are more about build order win/loss in LOTV compared to WOL/HOTS. Like in WOL/HOTS you had almost 45 sec to 1 minute to react when you realized you were being all-ined. You could prepare. Remember all those 5-6 gate sentry all-ins where you'd see them doing it, it's very telegraphed, and you can prepare 4-5 bunkers.
Well...in LOTV those all-ins exist...it's just that they immediately end the game because they are not telegraphed and they hit at the exact same time that you see them. lol xD
And that's cause the 12 worker start has builds accelerated to points they are not possibly supposed to be at.
Warp prism adept all-in type of stuff...by the time you scout it, the warp prism is already to your base and about to warp-in mass adepts. You already have to have done a build that blind counters it if you want to live.
Same with invulnerable nydus worm. If the guy opts for this, by the time you scout his base and realize he's doing it, the nydus is already building in your main with queens about to pop out = you autolose unless you already were anticipating it and blind countered with cyclones, etc etc.
I really wish a lot of us here and in the community would petition or write up something to Blizzard about reverting some of the economy changes, and the 12 worker start, but i feel like it will just lead no where =/
yeah so you would turtle 2 times longer each game, I appreciate that you have you own way to enjoy the game, but 3 hour long games were kinda exhausting during HotS especially with mech terrans.
I think the issue is a combination of nerfed macro mechanics for P and Z, as well as weakened mules for T, mining out faster and the 12 worker start that tilts LotV so heavily in a harassment direction. Economy is everything in LotV and weakened macro mechanics mean that getting back into a game after losing workers is far more difficult. You can't rebuild workers quickly or catch up through MULEs properly. So something that in HotS wouldn't have done game ending damage now does. On top of that, LotV introduced or changed a bunch of units that excel at killing economy - adepts, liberators, overlord drops, warp prisms, auto-turret on ravens.
So in the end the economy is more fragile by design, but also more important. Then on top of that it's also easier killed. In HotS, there were a ton of choices to make as to when it's better to delay economy for tech or when a stronger standing army is more important, or when economy over both is the right choice. There were far more varied strategic choices. In LotV it's always economy that's the best option. Always.
The introduction of the 12-worker start was when I left SC2 and never looked back.
Of course, at the time, I was one of the few people quitting solely for that reason... and as such... caught a lot of flak from people like "common 12 workers will be great, you're being a baby".
I wish I'd had this article to back me up at the time haha.
This excerpt from the article sums it up beautifully: "The threat of unleashing one of these builds needs to be a constant thought in both players’ minds if they want to claim victory. The fact that they exist changes the risk/reward dynamic of the map pool. It is a big risk to go Nexus first on a 2 player map against Zerg simply because fast pool is available. What might otherwise be the default choice become a calculated decision. "
I agree whole heartedly. I think people were so blinded by the fact of "finally! no more 6 pools!" that they never pondered the long-term implications of the meta.
Blizzard should seriously see this article!!! I think if they understood, they'd consider it. With all the extra harass options, think of how interesting LoTV games would be with 6 worker starts. Shoot.... it'd bring me back to this game.
But lets be honest... they care more about the viewers than they do the players so I'm not holding my breath.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Missed a good opportunity for an ActionJesuz callback.
But yeah, not sure what to respond, I like the 12 worker start, I feel I'm doing more of what I find really fun in RTS real sooner, but I acknowledge all the problems described in the article and the comments.
Super fragile workers and over-designed "harassment" units isnt really helpful to that either. Not sure how to consolidate these beliefs and make a reasonable suggestion to how to alleviate it, or perhaps time will fix things.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
Yes, If the start would be with less workers but overall with a faster build time of them. Worker harass and higly effective harassment units would be less of an issue. This makes combacks easier and will most likely lead to more battle focuses gameplay. Making it more attraktive to watch and play...
I also have felt that 12 workers really took away from the "feel" of what StarCraft is supposed to be.
I understand the reasoning, and probably that it is less frustrating for some, but the possibility of early aggression in SC has always been a staple of the game.
There was always a certain suspense to it, and it allowed a different kind of player to have a role.
For some reason, a lot of players seem to feel that StarCraft is all about the "macro game" and only want big battles with full economy, but I have always found the scrappy nature of the early and mid game to be much more interesting to play and watch.
It's probably too late for Blizz to ever go back to 6 workers, but until then, LotV just isn't appealing to me. I'm glad to have BW being revitalized... it feels really cool to have that early game back.
It's probably too late for Blizz to ever go back to 6 workers, but until then, LotV just isn't appealing to me. I'm glad to have BW being revitalized... it feels really cool to have that early game back.
I'd love If Blizzard would even try to transfer BW in Numbers and Models to the SC2Galaxy engine.... So far they didn't try, we all think that it would be of inferior balance, but it hasn't been proofed so far.
I don't think this would be that big of an efford to do as all Models already exist....
I completely agree about the 12 worker start I wish they had just reduced the total amount of minerals, and made all the patches have the same amount too (what's up with that seriously)
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
That aside, removing Fog of War in StarCraft wouldnt make it a comparison of who has the best micro execution. It would still be about understanding the game strategically and tactically, and mechanics. What would make it boring, though, is how silly the games would play out.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
yeah, getting rid of 5mins of making one worker at a time and staring at your base while counting sheep is soooo terrible!!! bring back the excitement!!! /s
also avilo moaning about having 12 workers to start with is all the validation anyone should need that it was a good change
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
That aside, removing Fog of War in StarCraft wouldnt make it a comparison of who has the best micro execution. It would still be about understanding the game strategically and tactically, and mechanics. What would make it boring, though, is how silly the games would play out.
The point of poker is that you can read your opponents and therefore determine the cards they have, which affects your calculations. In this sense it is not mathematically trivial, because your data is based on psychological interpretation using factors as your knowledge of his playing strength, 'tells', patterns, capacity for deception, preparation.
This is also why I mentioned fighting games, as you clearly see the same structure there: the necessity to predict your opponent's actions based on 'tells', or patterns in his movement, because you can't block an attack if you play in a purely reactive manner due to limits to human cognition such as reflexes.
Applying this to Starcraft 2 we discover the following: you are not blind, you have the option to scout and investigate your opponent's behaviors and react appropriately. If you fail to get sufficient information you can invest resources into acquiring more of it (scans, sacrificial scouts etc.). Based on the context of the game (your opponent's strength, history etc.) you can elect to play more safely, or to take more risks. You are not playing a computer who blindly gambles every game with perfect execution.
Maybe you can't win every game, but it's idiotic to pretend like the better player is not statistically favorable in a match with a system like this. Structurally it's sound, but Blizzard needs to secure that all the parts are in working order.
On April 03 2017 03:15 waiting2Bbanned wrote: yeah, getting rid of 5mins of making one worker at a time and staring at your base while counting sheep is soooo terrible!!! bring back the excitement!!! /s
also avilo moaning about having 12 workers to start with is all the validation anyone should need that it was a good change
afaik the balance between tech and economy is different after the 12 worker change. Specifically, you have more income by the time you have to choose your tech options. Also, the time line for tech tends to be linear (e.g. gateway -> cyber core -> twilight council -> blink research), and the build times for all these have been generally increased over the years. This means that the cost is less of a factor than it used to be (higher economy), and the result is that research will come online around the same time for both players. What this means is that investing into tech options is no longer something that can really distinguish builds, hence the annihilation of them as a separate category. (this is more theoretical and based on old analysis though, in any case, if Blizzard were to follow up on it a solution might be to decrease the build time of some tech options by a bit)
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
That aside, removing Fog of War in StarCraft wouldnt make it a comparison of who has the best micro execution. It would still be about understanding the game strategically and tactically, and mechanics. What would make it boring, though, is how silly the games would play out.
The point of poker is that you can read your opponents and therefore determine the cards they have, which affects your calculations. In this sense it is not mathematically trivial, because your data is based on psychological interpretation using factors as your knowledge of his playing strength, 'tells', patterns, capacity for deception, preparation.
This is also why I mentioned fighting games, as you clearly see the same structure there: the necessity to predict your opponent's actions based on 'tells', or patterns in his movement, because you can't block an attack if you play in a purely reactive manner due to limits to human cognition such as reflexes.
Applying this to Starcraft 2 we discover the following: you are not blind, you have the option to scout and investigate your opponent's behaviors and react appropriately. If you fail to get sufficient information you can invest resources into acquiring more of it (scans, sacrificial scouts etc.). Based on the context of the game (your opponent's strength, history etc.) you can elect to play more safely, or to take more risks. You are not playing a computer who blindly gambles every game with perfect execution.
Maybe you can't win every game, but it's idiotic to pretend like the better player is not statistically favorable in a match with a system like this. Structurally it's sound, but Blizzard needs to secure that all the parts are in working order.
How one can label that which is out of one's control not as coin-flip is beyond me. If you are playing against someone who only ever has 6-pooled, there is no way to know they are going to 6-pool in their next game. You may expect it, you may assume it, you may account for that eventuality when deciding upon your opening of choice, etc however there is no certainty.
The reason why Fog of War can be tolerated is that a game such as StarCraft allows a strategically and mechanichally superior player to overcome bad luck reasonably consistently.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
Solving this game using a standard CFR implementation (2 double-precision floats per canonical infoset-action) would require 1 093 904 897 704 962 796 073 602 182 381 684 993 342 477 620 192 821 835 370 553 460 959 511 144 423 474 321 165 844 409 860 820 294 170 754 032 777 335 927 196 407 795 204 128 259 033 (1.094 × 10138) yottabytes of RAM
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
That aside, removing Fog of War in StarCraft wouldnt make it a comparison of who has the best micro execution. It would still be about understanding the game strategically and tactically, and mechanics. What would make it boring, though, is how silly the games would play out.
The point of poker is that you can read your opponents and therefore determine the cards they have, which affects your calculations. In this sense it is not mathematically trivial, because your data is based on psychological interpretation using factors as your knowledge of his playing strength, 'tells', patterns, capacity for deception, preparation.
This is also why I mentioned fighting games, as you clearly see the same structure there: the necessity to predict your opponent's actions based on 'tells', or patterns in his movement, because you can't block an attack if you play in a purely reactive manner due to limits to human cognition such as reflexes.
Applying this to Starcraft 2 we discover the following: you are not blind, you have the option to scout and investigate your opponent's behaviors and react appropriately. If you fail to get sufficient information you can invest resources into acquiring more of it (scans, sacrificial scouts etc.). Based on the context of the game (your opponent's strength, history etc.) you can elect to play more safely, or to take more risks. You are not playing a computer who blindly gambles every game with perfect execution.
Maybe you can't win every game, but it's idiotic to pretend like the better player is not statistically favorable in a match with a system like this. Structurally it's sound, but Blizzard needs to secure that all the parts are in working order.
How one can label that which is out of one's control not as coin-flip is beyond me. If you are playing against someone who only ever has 6-pooled, there is no way to know they are going to 6-pool in their next game. You may expect it, you may assume it, you may account for that eventuality when deciding upon your opening of choice, etc however there is no certainty.
The reason why Fog of War can be tolerated is that a game such as StarCraft allows a strategically and mechanichally superior player to overcome bad luck reasonably consistently.
You're using coin-flip as a derogatory word, but I think it would be very foolish to dismiss all random behavior in games like this. Given sufficient random events, parity is the overwhelmingly likely possibility. Every successful competitive game is rife with randomness (or at least actions you could not predict), its advantages are manifold including creating more excitement for viewers, more options for players, deeper strategies. It is part of the wider idea that you want players to be able to react to unpredictable events, because that is what shows true skill. Anyone can memorize an opening, but not everyone can respond well to an unexpected move.
The pitfalls of "coin flips" in SC2 are well known, of course, but it's an implementation problem. Honestly, the fact that you would so casually dismiss a core aspect of RTS gameplay just tells me you don't know what you're talking about and are distracting from more useful discussion.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
On April 02 2017 03:37 Chris_Havoc wrote: This article expalins a lot of why I haven't liked LOTV since day 1.
12 starting workers and the forced aggression/harassment that resulted from it removed so many different variables from the early and even mid games.
I feel the 12 worker start is the worst change sc2 has ever seen. I never felt like I had to sit and wait for things to get going in the older versions. It was just the right amount to allow you to ease into the game and get warmed up. Now it feels like I have to take a base all the time instead of doing the things I feel the game should be about. They ruined the macro/micro/mechanics balance at a fundamental level in my opinion.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
That aside, removing Fog of War in StarCraft wouldnt make it a comparison of who has the best micro execution. It would still be about understanding the game strategically and tactically, and mechanics. What would make it boring, though, is how silly the games would play out.
The point of poker is that you can read your opponents and therefore determine the cards they have, which affects your calculations. In this sense it is not mathematically trivial, because your data is based on psychological interpretation using factors as your knowledge of his playing strength, 'tells', patterns, capacity for deception, preparation.
This is also why I mentioned fighting games, as you clearly see the same structure there: the necessity to predict your opponent's actions based on 'tells', or patterns in his movement, because you can't block an attack if you play in a purely reactive manner due to limits to human cognition such as reflexes.
Applying this to Starcraft 2 we discover the following: you are not blind, you have the option to scout and investigate your opponent's behaviors and react appropriately. If you fail to get sufficient information you can invest resources into acquiring more of it (scans, sacrificial scouts etc.). Based on the context of the game (your opponent's strength, history etc.) you can elect to play more safely, or to take more risks. You are not playing a computer who blindly gambles every game with perfect execution.
Maybe you can't win every game, but it's idiotic to pretend like the better player is not statistically favorable in a match with a system like this. Structurally it's sound, but Blizzard needs to secure that all the parts are in working order.
How one can label that which is out of one's control not as coin-flip is beyond me. If you are playing against someone who only ever has 6-pooled, there is no way to know they are going to 6-pool in their next game. You may expect it, you may assume it, you may account for that eventuality when deciding upon your opening of choice, etc however there is no certainty.
The reason why Fog of War can be tolerated is that a game such as StarCraft allows a strategically and mechanichally superior player to overcome bad luck reasonably consistently.
You're using coin-flip as a derogatory word, but I think it would be very foolish to dismiss all random behavior in games like this. Given sufficient random events, parity is the overwhelmingly likely possibility. Every successful competitive game is rife with randomness (or at least actions you could not predict), its advantages are manifold including creating more excitement for viewers, more options for players, deeper strategies. It is part of the wider idea that you want players to be able to react to unpredictable events, because that is what shows true skill. Anyone can memorize an opening, but not everyone can respond well to an unexpected move.
The pitfalls of "coin flips" in SC2 are well known, of course, but it's an implementation problem. Honestly, the fact that you would so casually dismiss a core aspect of RTS gameplay just tells me you don't know what you're talking about and are distracting from more useful discussion.
Reading is hard? If you read what I actually wrote you would have realized that I dont disagree with you. I literally wrote removing Fog of War would be a worse evil than keeping it. Somehow that statement makes you think I dismiss Fog of War???
As far as these unpredicted moves you're mentioning go, obviously you are not a good player who understands the game if you dont make adjustments as more information is available to you when adjustments make sense.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
Solving this game using a standard CFR implementation (2 double-precision floats per canonical infoset-action) would require 1 093 904 897 704 962 796 073 602 182 381 684 993 342 477 620 192 821 835 370 553 460 959 511 144 423 474 321 165 844 409 860 820 294 170 754 032 777 335 927 196 407 795 204 128 259 033 (1.094 × 10138) yottabytes of RAM
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Fighting over jargon is the coolest. Poker is considered "nontrivial" in all the scholarly articles I found in a few minutes of searching. What you got?
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
That aside, removing Fog of War in StarCraft wouldnt make it a comparison of who has the best micro execution. It would still be about understanding the game strategically and tactically, and mechanics. What would make it boring, though, is how silly the games would play out.
The point of poker is that you can read your opponents and therefore determine the cards they have, which affects your calculations. In this sense it is not mathematically trivial, because your data is based on psychological interpretation using factors as your knowledge of his playing strength, 'tells', patterns, capacity for deception, preparation.
This is also why I mentioned fighting games, as you clearly see the same structure there: the necessity to predict your opponent's actions based on 'tells', or patterns in his movement, because you can't block an attack if you play in a purely reactive manner due to limits to human cognition such as reflexes.
Applying this to Starcraft 2 we discover the following: you are not blind, you have the option to scout and investigate your opponent's behaviors and react appropriately. If you fail to get sufficient information you can invest resources into acquiring more of it (scans, sacrificial scouts etc.). Based on the context of the game (your opponent's strength, history etc.) you can elect to play more safely, or to take more risks. You are not playing a computer who blindly gambles every game with perfect execution.
Maybe you can't win every game, but it's idiotic to pretend like the better player is not statistically favorable in a match with a system like this. Structurally it's sound, but Blizzard needs to secure that all the parts are in working order.
How one can label that which is out of one's control not as coin-flip is beyond me. If you are playing against someone who only ever has 6-pooled, there is no way to know they are going to 6-pool in their next game. You may expect it, you may assume it, you may account for that eventuality when deciding upon your opening of choice, etc however there is no certainty.
The reason why Fog of War can be tolerated is that a game such as StarCraft allows a strategically and mechanichally superior player to overcome bad luck reasonably consistently.
You're using coin-flip as a derogatory word, but I think it would be very foolish to dismiss all random behavior in games like this. Given sufficient random events, parity is the overwhelmingly likely possibility. Every successful competitive game is rife with randomness (or at least actions you could not predict), its advantages are manifold including creating more excitement for viewers, more options for players, deeper strategies. It is part of the wider idea that you want players to be able to react to unpredictable events, because that is what shows true skill. Anyone can memorize an opening, but not everyone can respond well to an unexpected move.
The pitfalls of "coin flips" in SC2 are well known, of course, but it's an implementation problem. Honestly, the fact that you would so casually dismiss a core aspect of RTS gameplay just tells me you don't know what you're talking about and are distracting from more useful discussion.
Reading is hard? If you read what I actually wrote you would have realized that I dont disagree with you. I literally wrote removing Fog of War would be a worse evil than keeping it. Somehow that statement makes you think I dismiss Fog of War???
The point is that there is sound theoretical justification for having hidden information in the game, and you haven't demonstrated an appreciation of this. If you remove fog of war as a mechanic, and the concept of hidden information in general, you are changing the game in a very fundamental way that will completely alter gameplay and in my opinion destroy the game. It's not just that removing it would break the balance and lead to "silly games", the point is that it is categorically a bad idea because you've just annihilated the border between e.g. chess and poker.
Poker where you can see all the cards is not fun, it's not just different, it's broken beyond repair and it can't be saved.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
Solving this game using a standard CFR implementation (2 double-precision floats per canonical infoset-action) would require 1 093 904 897 704 962 796 073 602 182 381 684 993 342 477 620 192 821 835 370 553 460 959 511 144 423 474 321 165 844 409 860 820 294 170 754 032 777 335 927 196 407 795 204 128 259 033 (1.094 × 10138) yottabytes of RAM
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
On April 02 2017 05:26 BronzeKnee wrote: [quote] It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
[quote]
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
Solving this game using a standard CFR implementation (2 double-precision floats per canonical infoset-action) would require 1 093 904 897 704 962 796 073 602 182 381 684 993 342 477 620 192 821 835 370 553 460 959 511 144 423 474 321 165 844 409 860 820 294 170 754 032 777 335 927 196 407 795 204 128 259 033 (1.094 × 10138) yottabytes of RAM
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
Can you please explain what you mean by mathematically trivial, so that we can all marvel in your wisdom.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
That aside, removing Fog of War in StarCraft wouldnt make it a comparison of who has the best micro execution. It would still be about understanding the game strategically and tactically, and mechanics. What would make it boring, though, is how silly the games would play out.
The point of poker is that you can read your opponents and therefore determine the cards they have, which affects your calculations. In this sense it is not mathematically trivial, because your data is based on psychological interpretation using factors as your knowledge of his playing strength, 'tells', patterns, capacity for deception, preparation.
This is also why I mentioned fighting games, as you clearly see the same structure there: the necessity to predict your opponent's actions based on 'tells', or patterns in his movement, because you can't block an attack if you play in a purely reactive manner due to limits to human cognition such as reflexes.
Applying this to Starcraft 2 we discover the following: you are not blind, you have the option to scout and investigate your opponent's behaviors and react appropriately. If you fail to get sufficient information you can invest resources into acquiring more of it (scans, sacrificial scouts etc.). Based on the context of the game (your opponent's strength, history etc.) you can elect to play more safely, or to take more risks. You are not playing a computer who blindly gambles every game with perfect execution.
Maybe you can't win every game, but it's idiotic to pretend like the better player is not statistically favorable in a match with a system like this. Structurally it's sound, but Blizzard needs to secure that all the parts are in working order.
How one can label that which is out of one's control not as coin-flip is beyond me. If you are playing against someone who only ever has 6-pooled, there is no way to know they are going to 6-pool in their next game. You may expect it, you may assume it, you may account for that eventuality when deciding upon your opening of choice, etc however there is no certainty.
The reason why Fog of War can be tolerated is that a game such as StarCraft allows a strategically and mechanichally superior player to overcome bad luck reasonably consistently.
You're using coin-flip as a derogatory word, but I think it would be very foolish to dismiss all random behavior in games like this. Given sufficient random events, parity is the overwhelmingly likely possibility. Every successful competitive game is rife with randomness (or at least actions you could not predict), its advantages are manifold including creating more excitement for viewers, more options for players, deeper strategies. It is part of the wider idea that you want players to be able to react to unpredictable events, because that is what shows true skill. Anyone can memorize an opening, but not everyone can respond well to an unexpected move.
The pitfalls of "coin flips" in SC2 are well known, of course, but it's an implementation problem. Honestly, the fact that you would so casually dismiss a core aspect of RTS gameplay just tells me you don't know what you're talking about and are distracting from more useful discussion.
Reading is hard? If you read what I actually wrote you would have realized that I dont disagree with you. I literally wrote removing Fog of War would be a worse evil than keeping it. Somehow that statement makes you think I dismiss Fog of War???
The point is that there is sound theoretical justification for having hidden information in the game, and you haven't demonstrated an appreciation of this. If you remove fog of war as a mechanic, and the concept of hidden information in general, you are changing the game in a very fundamental way that will completely alter gameplay and in my opinion destroy the game. It's not just that removing it would break the balance and lead to "silly games", the point is that it is categorically a bad idea because you've just annihilated the border between e.g. chess and poker.
Poker where you can see all the cards is not fun, it's not just different, it's broken beyond repair and it can't be saved.
I do appreciate Fog of War despite of the inherent coinflipping it forces upon the game. I do appreciate all the clever ways one can go about dealing with incomplete information: how you scout, how you adjust, how you do small things to account for possibilities, oh trust me I appreciate these things a lot more than just about anyone.
On April 02 2017 20:27 BlackPinkBoombayah wrote: [quote] what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
Solving this game using a standard CFR implementation (2 double-precision floats per canonical infoset-action) would require 1 093 904 897 704 962 796 073 602 182 381 684 993 342 477 620 192 821 835 370 553 460 959 511 144 423 474 321 165 844 409 860 820 294 170 754 032 777 335 927 196 407 795 204 128 259 033 (1.094 × 10138) yottabytes of RAM
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
Can you please explain what you mean by mathematically trivial, so that we can all marvel in your wisdom.
Why would I throw pearls before a swine such as yourself?
I would gladly explain it to you if you were honestly interested.
On April 02 2017 23:53 Grumbels wrote: [quote] Is this sarcasm? The whole point of strategy games is decision making based on incomplete information. This is a fundamental aspect of many games, ranging from poker to a variety of video games like RTS, MOBA, FPS. You can even find it in games with so-called "perfect information" like chess and fighting games. It is what distinguishes competitive games played by humans against humans from other genres of puzzles, challenges, feats of skill.
So yeah, "removing it would make the game boring". Starcraft is supposed to be a strategy game, not a comparison of who has the best micro execution. If the game and the players can no longer evolve strategically then what's the point?
The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
Solving this game using a standard CFR implementation (2 double-precision floats per canonical infoset-action) would require 1 093 904 897 704 962 796 073 602 182 381 684 993 342 477 620 192 821 835 370 553 460 959 511 144 423 474 321 165 844 409 860 820 294 170 754 032 777 335 927 196 407 795 204 128 259 033 (1.094 × 10138) yottabytes of RAM
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
Can you please explain what you mean by mathematically trivial, so that we can all marvel in your wisdom.
Why would I throw pearls before a swine such as yourself?
I would gladly explain it to you if you were honestly interested.
I am honestly interested, please tell me. And it's not just me, think of what other people might learn.
On April 03 2017 02:14 SKNielsen1989 wrote: [quote] The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
Solving this game using a standard CFR implementation (2 double-precision floats per canonical infoset-action) would require 1 093 904 897 704 962 796 073 602 182 381 684 993 342 477 620 192 821 835 370 553 460 959 511 144 423 474 321 165 844 409 860 820 294 170 754 032 777 335 927 196 407 795 204 128 259 033 (1.094 × 10138) yottabytes of RAM
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
Can you please explain what you mean by mathematically trivial, so that we can all marvel in your wisdom.
Why would I throw pearls before a swine such as yourself?
I would gladly explain it to you if you were honestly interested.
I am honestly interested, please tell me. And it's not just me, think of what other people might learn.
It simply means that how to calculate it is easy, straight-forward, trivial, etc
How fast computers can calculate in its entirety is something else which I did not comment on.
On April 03 2017 02:59 Puosu wrote: [quote] This is false. The least complex commonly played form of poker, Limit Texas Hold'em was only "kind of" (it's ~close~) solved last year, after years of work in academia. More complex (and more popular) forms of poker such as No Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha, on the other hand, are, depending on how you calculate it, more complex, and possibly harder to solve than Chess.
edit: Try to think of a game that becomes more complex when each player is given perfect information. Now think of a game that becomes less trivial (more complex) due to withholding information. Now it should be plain to see that the amount of information given to each player at time of play is essential to complexity. (and ~strategy~) If anything, StarCraft would become more trivial with full maphacks.
?
At any given time, it's trivial to calculate the chances of all eventual scenarios.
Because which scenario occurs is out of your control it is by definition gambling.
Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject.
Solving this game using a standard CFR implementation (2 double-precision floats per canonical infoset-action) would require 1 093 904 897 704 962 796 073 602 182 381 684 993 342 477 620 192 821 835 370 553 460 959 511 144 423 474 321 165 844 409 860 820 294 170 754 032 777 335 927 196 407 795 204 128 259 033 (1.094 × 10138) yottabytes of RAM
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
Can you please explain what you mean by mathematically trivial, so that we can all marvel in your wisdom.
Why would I throw pearls before a swine such as yourself?
I would gladly explain it to you if you were honestly interested.
I am honestly interested, please tell me. And it's not just me, think of what other people might learn.
It simply means that how to calculate it is easy, straight-forward, trivial, etc How fast computers can calculate in its entirety is something else which I did not comment on.
Sure, but that's irrelevant. By that definition, with only a few tweaks, Starcraft 2 is a game which is mathematically solvable given infinite computing power. But because we live in the real world this information is only interesting for mathematicians and not for people that play games. Not unless you can apply this knowledge to a real world situation.
Because that's what you (infamously) said: "The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game. "
You are implying that the fact you could potentially write out an equation to solve poker (if you had near infinite computing power and if you ignored human psychology) has some bearing on its status as a strategy game, but this connection does not exist. Poker mapping to some mathematical construct which fits a certain category is not necessarily related to poker as a strategy game played by humans. You can't jump from one to another, because when humans play poker they don't have a magic 8-ball with the required 1000000000000000000000000000000 bytes of memory to store the solution with them. Even if it existed (e.g. chess computers) they could just be made illegal and it still wouldn't matter.
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
Can you please explain what you mean by mathematically trivial, so that we can all marvel in your wisdom.
Why would I throw pearls before a swine such as yourself?
I would gladly explain it to you if you were honestly interested.
I am honestly interested, please tell me. And it's not just me, think of what other people might learn.
It simply means that how to calculate it is easy, straight-forward, trivial, etc How fast computers can calculate in its entirety is something else which I did not comment on.
Sure, but that's irrelevant. By that definition, with only a few tweaks, Starcraft 2 is a game which is mathematically solvable given infinite computing power. But because we live in the real world this information is only interesting for mathematicians and not for people that play games. Not unless you can apply this knowledge to a real world situation.
Because that's what you (infamously) said: "The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game. "
You are implying that the fact you could potentially write out an equation to solve poker (if you had near infinite computing power and if you ignored human psychology) has some bearing on its status as a strategy game, but this connection does not exist. Poker mapping to some mathematical construct which fits a certain category is not necessarily related to poker as a strategy game played by humans. You can't jump from one to another, because when humans play poker they don't have a magic 8-ball with the required 1000000000000000000000000000000 bytes of memory to store the solution with them. Even if it existed (e.g. chess computers) they could just be made illegal and it still wouldn't matter.
You really dont know what you are talking about, huh. StarCraft has infinitely many scenarios and starting to apply algorithms to guide a computer to find desirable scenarios is anything but trivial - in a math sense and otherwise. Hence why people with an interest in developing machine learning have been looking in StarCraft's direction (DeepMind).
On April 03 2017 04:37 Puosu wrote: [quote] Not so trivial. This is an example game from a paper released on the subject. [quote] Michael Johanson 2013, Measuring the Size of Large No-Limit Games https://arxiv.org/abs/1302.7008
As per your comment on anything that is out of one's control being gambling... I don't care how you define gambling, but even if something happening is out of your control, you may just as well adjust to the chances of specific things happening and therefore guarantee yourself better chances of winning a game. This is very much so strategy, and games of imperfect information indeed become super complex because there are so many things you have to prepare for.
You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
Can you please explain what you mean by mathematically trivial, so that we can all marvel in your wisdom.
Why would I throw pearls before a swine such as yourself?
I would gladly explain it to you if you were honestly interested.
I am honestly interested, please tell me. And it's not just me, think of what other people might learn.
It simply means that how to calculate it is easy, straight-forward, trivial, etc How fast computers can calculate in its entirety is something else which I did not comment on.
Sure, but that's irrelevant. By that definition, with only a few tweaks, Starcraft 2 is a game which is mathematically solvable given infinite computing power. But because we live in the real world this information is only interesting for mathematicians and not for people that play games. Not unless you can apply this knowledge to a real world situation.
Because that's what you (infamously) said: "The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game. "
You are implying that the fact you could potentially write out an equation to solve poker (if you had near infinite computing power and if you ignored human psychology) has some bearing on its status as a strategy game, but this connection does not exist. Poker mapping to some mathematical construct which fits a certain category is not necessarily related to poker as a strategy game played by humans. You can't jump from one to another, because when humans play poker they don't have a magic 8-ball with the required 1000000000000000000000000000000 bytes of memory to store the solution with them. Even if it existed (e.g. chess computers) they could just be made illegal and it still wouldn't matter.
You really dont know what you are talking about, huh. StarCraft has infinitely many scenarios and starting to apply algorithms to guide a computer to find desirable scenarios is anything but trivial - in a math sense and otherwise. Hence why people with an interest in developing machine learning have been looking in StarCraft's direction (DeepMind).
If you remove hidden information, then mathematically speaking Starcraft is not different from chess and can be solved with the same method. Let's say that you have 30 frames/cycles per second, that the average game length is 30 minutes and that every frame you have about 1000 possible actions. By my count that leaves a mere 10^150000 game states to calculate, which is only a trifle if you have infinite computing power.
If DeepMind is really serious about creating an SC2 AI they will cease their pitiful efforts using machine learning and switch to this obviously superior system of building a database of every theoretically possible game ever, which requires repurposing only a few trillion universes for data storage.
Face-up poker is mathematically trivial. Limit variants like Razz would still require proper play with pot odds evaluations. No-Limit would just be shoving blinds to whoever got the best starting hand.
Hidden information poker – the way we know and love it – is not trivial, in part because one player doesn't know what strategy another player is using. The margins for play decisions in certain situations (e.g. preflop raise range) are based on all the hands played before the current one and thus fluctuate constantly.
On April 03 2017 02:14 SKNielsen1989 wrote: The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game.
Now I wonder what your definition of a strategy game is... Unless you disqualify poker based on there not being a movement of army pieces (classic idea of strategy) I don't see why chess wouldn't be trivial too. The result of the game is fixed: it's either white always wins or (more likely) it's always a draw. Basically overcomplicated tic-tac-toe.
Bonus note: Triviality is one of the few things in mathematics that kind of has a vague definition in an otherwise very strictly defined world; what is considered 'easy' is to some degree a subjective verdict.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
You forgot Squirtle losing to Mvp (one of the greatest finals ever on sc2, btw).
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
You forgot Squirtle losing to Mvp (one of the greatest finals ever on sc2, btw).
I think that a lot of this argument in this thread arises from the difference between tournament and ladder play. In tournament play a pro's opponent is often some one they have played/seen play before. this allows them to make educated guesses about there opponents strategy The ladder on the other hand which most of us play has a meta that we gamble on but we can't make the same kind of bets as we would if we knew our opponent well, rarely do you see the same player enough to form an accurate picture of how they play. This changes the amount of mind games that go on significantly and the amount of strategy vs coin flipping involved in decision making. On the ladder you often will lose because you made incorrect predictions about your opponents strategy without getting enough information from scouting to make informed decisions. In a tournament you can take more calculated risks because you can make better predictions about the range of strategies your opponent will feel comfortable using.
Knowing about your opponent's play style lets you make all sorst of educated guesses about how they will play. For instance my friend tends to focus a lot on offbeat zergling timings and runby harassment but rarely does he allin. Knowing this I can prepare myself against his preferred style, I can build extra bunkers and make sure I'm walled up while expanding safety but not being overly defensive. Tournament play Is a lot like this when innovation plays SoS he knows to expect a lot of crazy off beat builds and that he should be defensive. If he is playing zest he can have a higher expectation of a macro game with some kind of harassment or pressure opening. If he is playing stats he can expect the phoenix adept build. Based on his knowledge of his opponents Innovation can select strategies that accommodate there preferred style of play.
Most of us mortals who play sc2 mostly experience the game through playing the ladder. The ladder definitely has a predictable meta game that you can use to make educated guesses about what your opponents doing but outside of the meta all you have is the scouting information you can grasp. In some matchups at some times this information has been substantial. Sometimes you have been able to see gas timings, expo timings, first tech choice, ect. When matchups are like this you have enough information to make good educated guesses about what your opponent is doing, just like tells in poker can let you make good educated guesses. At other times though match ups have allowed players to lock out scouting and hide there build enough that you prity much have to flip a coin and hope you pick the right answer to there strat. For instance in hots Protoss had several Allin builds that could all. Branch from the same opening, same stalker+msc timing, same gas timing, same pylon placement and they could lock Terran out of scouting once they had units. In this meta the best you could usually do was make a blind guess of what build they were going. Sc2 has had a fair number of ladder metas that felt arbitrary and coin flippy . That's why some players view strategic choices as coinflippy. and others as poker like. It's match up and meta dependent. Since you have limited knowledge of your opponent you often can't make calculated plays and tend to have to rely more on luck.
^ In my opinion this is why this sort of completely anonymous ladder with a billion opponents to cycle through is not the objective, ideal implementation. If you look at virtually any game, like chess or poker, or sports, people prefer to play it against real opponents, whom you get to know and study. I think this culture exists to a degree in video games as well, if you look at pc-bangs, practice partners, old methods of finding a game where you first had to meet someone in chat and then play one or more games, I think all of these are superior to an anonymous ladder from a certain perspective? Of course all of these are inconvenient in some way.
At some point they introduced the dungeon finder in WoW, which let you almost immediately find anonymous people to group with, instead of the slog of having to advertise in public chats or bully guild mates. This had many advantages(time), but in my opinion reduced the quality of groups, because you no longer had the chance to screen players and you were no longer limited to players from your realm, who are known and reliable; and whose guild affiliation makes for interesting gossip. I guess this sort of development was inescapable, and you get a feel of progress and convenience marching on, at the expense of turning people into anti-social sheep. There were still solutions available, like being in the right guild, but you almost deliberately have to step outside the mainstream, and you are always tempted to just give in.
Other games like CS and LoL, being team games, are more naturally about human interaction, which I suspect leads to different cultures. I suppose a lot of people like the individualism and anonymity of Starcraft, it is just very nice to have the instant gratification of an immediate opponent in a 1v1 game, whom you don't have to interact with. In that sense, even if you were to promote or enable all these social features, like clans, local tournaments, pc-bangs, rematch features, team games, friend lists and so on, it still wouldn't make a significant dent unless you either sabotaged the ladder or radically changed the culture because the primary hurdle is the passivity of the player weened on the anonymous ladder.
An additional point about build orders is that you often have no information about your opponent during early phases of the game. And I don't mean scouting, what worries me is that the early clash of build orders can be pivotal even though you haven't had any real chance to interact with your opponent yet and therefore it is a blind guess. It is not like you got tricked by a friend who defied expectations, it is just a stranger whose play style is still a mystery, so even this element of human psychology is missing. But this is not the complete story, because obviously there is the metagame to provide information. Players can reason about each other, but it is mediated via this nebulous concept of the meta game. But players don't have an obligation to copy common play styles. It reminds me of some IdrA stream where he would whine that his opponent was obviously an allin player because of his stereotype about protoss players, and when they met the expectation IdrA was angry, and when they defied the expectation IdrA was angry also because his reaction was wrong.
On April 03 2017 04:52 SKNielsen1989 wrote: [quote] You dont seem to understand what trivial means in a mathematical sense.
All in all I dont really think we disagree much at all - our choice of words and definitions simply appear to be different.
So what exactly do you mean? You said something vague and then every time something takes a reasonable interpretation of your comment you respond by saying that we are all speaking a different language.
Also, something being "trivially mathematically solvable" is an absolutely irrelevant statement given realistic constraints. If poker is "trivially solvable", but it will just take 1000000000000000000000000 years to calculate all to the end, then it has no bearing on the world we live in.
Mathemathically trivial is not at all vague. It's not my fault you dont know what it means. Feel free to go educate yourself about its well-established and well-defined meaning. It's funny how you so readily claim a statement you dont even understand to be false.
Can you please explain what you mean by mathematically trivial, so that we can all marvel in your wisdom.
Why would I throw pearls before a swine such as yourself?
I would gladly explain it to you if you were honestly interested.
I am honestly interested, please tell me. And it's not just me, think of what other people might learn.
It simply means that how to calculate it is easy, straight-forward, trivial, etc How fast computers can calculate in its entirety is something else which I did not comment on.
Sure, but that's irrelevant. By that definition, with only a few tweaks, Starcraft 2 is a game which is mathematically solvable given infinite computing power. But because we live in the real world this information is only interesting for mathematicians and not for people that play games. Not unless you can apply this knowledge to a real world situation.
Because that's what you (infamously) said: "The fact that you refer to Poker as a strategy game says everything about how our definitions of strategy clearly differ from one another. Poker is a mathematically trivial gambling game. "
You are implying that the fact you could potentially write out an equation to solve poker (if you had near infinite computing power and if you ignored human psychology) has some bearing on its status as a strategy game, but this connection does not exist. Poker mapping to some mathematical construct which fits a certain category is not necessarily related to poker as a strategy game played by humans. You can't jump from one to another, because when humans play poker they don't have a magic 8-ball with the required 1000000000000000000000000000000 bytes of memory to store the solution with them. Even if it existed (e.g. chess computers) they could just be made illegal and it still wouldn't matter.
You really dont know what you are talking about, huh. StarCraft has infinitely many scenarios and starting to apply algorithms to guide a computer to find desirable scenarios is anything but trivial - in a math sense and otherwise. Hence why people with an interest in developing machine learning have been looking in StarCraft's direction (DeepMind).
If you remove hidden information, then mathematically speaking Starcraft is not different from chess and can be solved with the same method. Let's say that you have 30 frames/cycles per second, that the average game length is 30 minutes and that every frame you have about 1000 possible actions. By my count that leaves a mere 10^150000 game states to calculate, which is only a trifle if you have infinite computing power.
If DeepMind is really serious about creating an SC2 AI they will cease their pitiful efforts using machine learning and switch to this obviously superior system of building a database of every theoretically possible game ever, which requires repurposing only a few trillion universes for data storage.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
You forgot Squirtle losing to Mvp (one of the greatest finals ever on sc2, btw).
Except Squirtle got a build order win and choked.
It still hurts reading these comments after all these years ;__;
I still feel like I fell prey to bait and switch tactics in the LotV beta. I was drawn into the beta because of the removal of macro boosters. While Terran had a hard time during the short time that macro boosters were gone, I played some of the most enjoyable games ever in Starcraft 2. There was a clearly defined early game, mid game, and late game, and it felt like a real RTS game to me.
And then the macro boosters were added back, and the SCV count bumped to 12.
I'll say it again... People watch the games they enjoy playing. This is why Minecraft consistently has more viewers than SC2 despite being not as flashy as the latter. The game should be patched to make it fun to play and not just fun to watch. When few people have fun playing the game, few people will bother to watch.
On April 04 2017 23:28 Eternal Dalek wrote: I still feel like I fell prey to bait and switch tactics in the LotV beta. I was drawn into the beta because of the removal of macro boosters. While Terran had a hard time during the short time that macro boosters were gone, I played some of the most enjoyable games ever in Starcraft 2. There was a clearly defined early game, mid game, and late game, and it felt like a real RTS game to me.
And then the macro boosters were added back, and the SCV count bumped to 12.
I'll say it again... People watch the games they enjoy playing. This is why Minecraft consistently has more viewers than SC2 despite being not as flashy as the latter. The game should be patched to make it fun to play and not just fun to watch. When few people have fun playing the game, few people will bother to watch.
The macro mechanic removal was fun, but the queen's autoinject was terrible. They should have removed inject entirely and mucked with larva spawn rate/hatchery cost.
Blizzard cares about metrics like game length, session length, customer satisfaction. I don't know where I heard it, but I thought there was some reference by a Blizzard employee about how players want games to last around 15 minutes. That was probably the main reason they cut down on dungeon length in World of Warcraft and why they introduced many more one-off raid encounters which could easily be done in a single session. They pitched the shorter average game length as a unique advantage to Heroes of the Storm.
I can recall Dustin Browder talking about the brutality of the six-pool, and how this was an amazing part of SC2 gameplay, but I don't think this is current Blizzard policy. There is a reason DB talked about six-pool and not marine rushes or proxy gates, and it's because the zergling rush is a recognized trope in the wider gaming community, it is essentially part of the Blizzard brand. I honestly don't think the design team will put their money where their mouth is and make the game harsher and more uncompromising, and promote early game cheese in general. I literally can't remember even a single example of patching which seeks to strengthen, rather than weaken rushes.
Like I said earlier, progress marches on, and given that it's Blizzard who designs the game, this progress will be on Blizzard's terms and it means that games will become ever more streamlined, with ever more hard edges removed. The 12 worker start will never be changed, Blizzard already gambled to implement it (given that it risks destabilizing the balance), they balanced the game around the change, and it fits with their overall goals and direction for future games.
On April 05 2017 18:33 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard cares about metrics like game length, session length, customer satisfaction. I don't know where I heard it, but I thought there was some reference by a Blizzard employee about how players want games to last around 15 minutes. That was probably the main reason they cut down on dungeon length in World of Warcraft and why they introduced many more one-off raid encounters which could easily be done in a single session. They pitched the shorter average game length as a unique advantage to Heroes of the Storm.
I can recall Dustin Browder talking about the brutality of the six-pool, and how this was an amazing part of SC2 gameplay, but I don't think this is current Blizzard policy. There is a reason DB talked about six-pool and not marine rushes or proxy gates, and it's because the zergling rush is a recognized trope in the wider gaming community, it is essentially part of the Blizzard brand. I honestly don't think the design team will put their money where their mouth is and make the game harsher and more uncompromising, and promote early game cheese in general. I literally can't remember even a single example of patching which seeks to strengthen, rather than weaken rushes.
Like I said earlier, progress marches on, and given that it's Blizzard who designs the game, this progress will be on Blizzard's terms and it means that games will become ever more streamlined, with ever more hard edges removed. The 12 worker start will never be changed, Blizzard already gambled to implement it (given that it risks destabilizing the balance), they balanced the game around the change, and it fits with their overall goals and direction for future games.
If they care about metrics, I sent them a message by not playing the game, I hope their metrics are showing the interest =) (on the other hand I already bought the game so why should they care)
Anyway, the 12 worker start isn't that bad on its own. It's just the change that can be easiest blamed because it does a lot of easy to see harm.
I would rather see a change with full bases. Or removing all the speed buffs in the game. Or removing all the units that can kill worker lines in few shots. There are so many changes that were not like and made the game more fragile and could be reverted yet no one tried Or removing all the megasuperhyper damaging units. The time to kill an army is getting shorter with every expansion and the possibilities are growing(which means you need to look at more signs than before).
Generally speaking a lot of LotV changes are good - on their own. But combined together it just doesn't work for me.
People have such a narrow definition of early game. But if you widen it and say that it means the first 3-5 min, then we have a lot more variety.
Also really early stuff still exists, it is just not as game ending as before and not as all in. Isn't this a good thing?
For example instead of a 6pool you make a ling drop and just watch byun, he does really cheesy stuff, where you think that can't work vs protoss (or vs z or vs t) but he wins! There is also another player who plays only canon rushes in gm and wins enough games to stay in gm.
On April 05 2017 20:37 todespolka wrote: People have such a narrow definition of early game. But if you widen it and say that it means the first 3-5 min, then we have a lot more variety.
Also really early stuff still exists, it is just not as game ending as before and not as all in. Isn't this a good thing?
For example instead of a 6pool you make a ling drop and just watch byun, he does really cheesy stuff, where you think that can't work vs protoss (or vs z or vs t) but he wins! There is also another player who plays only canon rushes in gm and wins enough games to stay in gm.
By 5 minutes, you have a 3 base zerg defending double medivac stim drops. That is very much not early game tech.
On April 05 2017 18:33 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard cares about metrics like game length, session length, customer satisfaction. I don't know where I heard it, but I thought there was some reference by a Blizzard employee about how players want games to last around 15 minutes. That was probably the main reason they cut down on dungeon length in World of Warcraft and why they introduced many more one-off raid encounters which could easily be done in a single session. They pitched the shorter average game length as a unique advantage to Heroes of the Storm.
I can recall Dustin Browder talking about the brutality of the six-pool, and how this was an amazing part of SC2 gameplay, but I don't think this is current Blizzard policy. There is a reason DB talked about six-pool and not marine rushes or proxy gates, and it's because the zergling rush is a recognized trope in the wider gaming community, it is essentially part of the Blizzard brand. I honestly don't think the design team will put their money where their mouth is and make the game harsher and more uncompromising, and promote early game cheese in general. I literally can't remember even a single example of patching which seeks to strengthen, rather than weaken rushes.
Like I said earlier, progress marches on, and given that it's Blizzard who designs the game, this progress will be on Blizzard's terms and it means that games will become ever more streamlined, with ever more hard edges removed. The 12 worker start will never be changed, Blizzard already gambled to implement it (given that it risks destabilizing the balance), they balanced the game around the change, and it fits with their overall goals and direction for future games.
If they care about metrics, I sent them a message by not playing the game, I hope their metrics are showing the interest =) (on the other hand I already bought the game so why should they care)
Anyway, the 12 worker start isn't that bad on its own. It's just the change that can be easiest blamed because it does a lot of easy to see harm.
I would rather see a change with full bases. Or removing all the speed buffs in the game. Or removing all the units that can kill worker lines in few shots. There are so many changes that were not like and made the game more fragile and could be reverted yet no one tried Or removing all the megasuperhyper damaging units. The time to kill an army is getting shorter with every expansion and the possibilities are growing(which means you need to look at more signs than before).
Generally speaking a lot of LotV changes are good - on their own. But combined together it just doesn't work for me.
There is often a common thread to the type of changes that Blizzard pushes, like speed buffs and neutering early game attacks. What annoys me is that they never come out and state this, instead they defend every individual change on its merits while (deliberately?) neglecting to look at it with a broader scope.
A lot of the minor changes Blizzard implements accumulate to destabilize the game because they all point into a certain direction. And I don't even know if this is a conscious process.
Has this been re-posted elsewhere (with author's consent, of course)?
I think it deserves far more views/discussion. As someone that stopped playing solely because of the 12-worker start, I really enjoy seeing this change broken down and dissected from more than just one angle (aka "no more 6 pools, so it must be a good change, right?).
In LotV I find more interesting to watch only TvT, not sure if it is due to how strategic it is in regards to positioning, or due to how great the top Terrans are now -- for example Zerg players just don't seem to be that good themselves.
I think that with introduction of Adept, all Protoss matchups are less fun to watch, to play against, and even to play as. When they were introduced, DK said they will not be ashamed to replace Adept if it doesn't work out, and quite clearly it seems to me that it hasn't. They should replace it with another unit, or compensate with others; i.e to reintroduce Zealot as a primary unit
I still maintain that the unlimited unit selection in Starcraft 2 is what caused so many problems for the game. Think about the mentality that players have now that they are able to select an unlimited amount of units. Is there even a point too small skirmishes? Not really.
The idea behind the argument is that because of unlimited unit selection this led people to play more passively into the late game. Controlling max supply in Starcraft 2 is easy as hell in comparison to games like Brood War and Warcraft 3. Naturally, players are comfortable playing until that point. Thus, we got turtle games in Starcraft 2.
The focus of competition was on the different unit compositions and unit count, rather than, mechanical superiority. The game became more like Poker where outsmarting your opponent was how you won. Don't get me wrong, mechanics still matter, but not on the scale they used too. This passive style of games in Starcraft 2 led to the LOTV economy overhaul. Which in effect cuts off the early game and makes the mid game all about harassment and gaining a supply lead.
If a unit selection limit was still in the game I would be willing to bet (because empirically it is impossible to know) that the economy model would not have changed in LOTV.
I think another big game breaker besides the 12 worker start, are the reduced ressources per base. Why are we not talking about this ? It's a huge deal imo and it hurts the game so much more than we think.
Just take a look on the mapper scene, look how maps devolved in lotv. It's so hard to design a macro map in lotv, without making the map huge and spamming bases everywhere.
The reduced ressources per base hurt especially if you're playing terran, because mules suck out your minerals so incredible fast. When you're taking your 3rd base, your mainbaise is already almost outmined. It's just wrong, it feels wrong.
I miss the old days of intense macro games with nonstop armies trading and remaxing etc.
LotV's economy is extremely fragile. It's not healthy for a macro oriented RTS game.
On April 06 2017 02:54 seopthi wrote: In LotV I find more interesting to watch only TvT, not sure if it is due to how strategic it is in regards to positioning, or due to how great the top Terrans are now -- for example Zerg players just don't seem to be that good themselves.
I think that with introduction of Adept, all Protoss matchups are less fun to watch, to play against, and even to play as. When they were introduced, DK said they will not be ashamed to replace Adept if it doesn't work out, and quite clearly it seems to me that it hasn't. They should replace it with another unit, or compensate with others; i.e to reintroduce Zealot as a primary unit
Yes i absolutely agree. I think adepts are horrible for a RTS game. They break the basic rules of RTS.
It's hard to watch SC2 esport these days. It's sad that i have to say this, because i love SC2 more than everything else. It's my favorite RTS of all time and i consider it to be one of my hobbies. I spent so much time with RTS and SC2.
LotV just feels like they are wasting so much potential. I think SC2 could be so much better.
On April 05 2017 20:59 IMSupervisor wrote: LotV is way more interesting to watch too in my opinion.
In what way? Judging by the build deviation chart in the OP, it's not because of the variety of builds. Is it just the new units?
Because there's lots of harassment and a need to keep spreading out bases, the games don't feel as stale especially early on. No more knowing that both players are going 3 base double upgrades while the casters talk about something else for 5 minutes and the first serious interaction between players happening after 10 minutes. LotV seems like a way better display of mechanic skill which is what I find interesting. The strategy side of Starcraft is not exciting to me, I reckon I could figure it out and understand it too, but the physical aspect of what happens at pro level play blows my mind and I like watching it for that.
On April 06 2017 07:44 StraKo wrote: I think another big game breaker besides the 12 worker start, are the reduced ressources per base. Why are we not talking about this ? It's a huge deal imo and it hurts the game so much more than we think.
This has been discussed to death and back, and Blizzard is clearly unwilling to accept that the 20yo Brood War game does this infinitely better than their SC2. Probably some ego in the balancing team that refuses to go back to the roots (just like Goliaths would be infinitely more helpful in making Mech work than rebalancing the Thor twice a month, or how they finally implemented Lurkers)
Why isn't there a perfectly good BW mod working on SC2 engine
On April 05 2017 20:59 IMSupervisor wrote: LotV is way more interesting to watch too in my opinion.
In what way? Judging by the build deviation chart in the OP, it's not because of the variety of builds. Is it just the new units?
Because there's lots of harassment and a need to keep spreading out bases, the games don't feel as stale especially early on. No more knowing that both players are going 3 base double upgrades while the casters talk about something else for 5 minutes and the first serious interaction between players happening after 10 minutes. LotV seems like a way better display of mechanic skill which is what I find interesting. The strategy side of Starcraft is not exciting to me, I reckon I could figure it out and understand it too, but the physical aspect of what happens at pro level play blows my mind and I like watching it for that.
In real sports mistakes and execution is expected and you are impressed by the player that makes them the least often.
But elitist SC2 players will willingly say a match was awful because a player made a mistake. It boggles my mind how toxic SC2 fans are to the SC2 scene.
I stopped playing in LotV because of the change to 12 workers+new mineral constraints. I played a few handfuls of games well after I bought it to see if that break would change how I felt. After those...it was exactly what I thought it would be like months before.
You start with a fire in your arse compared to all versions of SC before this. It simply does not feel right to me at all. I went long enough for muscle memory to almost vanish, and it still felt bad.
I understand the arguments they made for forcing more expanding. However, they also stated they were going to test this, and literally would not even discuss it once implemented. Oh they did give a few more minerals per patch on the low ones, but that was it...and again with essentially zero discussion before or after. They just marched on.
I also basically stopped watching SC2 streams shortly after launch. Flying tanks (yeah these are finally gone), adepts all day everyday (absolutely loathe this unit design...and i played protoss a lot). Harrass harraass harrass...weee isn't killing workers fun! Not when this is the main dynamic of the game. Plus real risk taking cheeses, and macro styles are simply dead. It looks more static than HotS for a large part of its life.
going between BW and sc2 is incredibly hard and ive kind of just made the decision to stick with SC2 at this point.
in one game my main base literally nEVER RUns out of MINErals and in another game my main is nearly fuckin dry by the time my third is up and running (terran who does not scan often)
in one game i can have lings in my main as my rax is finishing and in the other, they can't (12 pool its not really fast enough). but they can drop speedlings in my base 1min 30 seconds after that. lol. theres just too much random design shit they decided to do in sc2 that deviates from RTS norms/BW norms (basic units cannot circumvent static defenses/defensive positions. lower tech is ideal for lower economy situations, higher tech is ideal for higher economy situations), and when i go back to play any other game i forget about them. but when i go back to play BW i dont need to be thinking about the ten different ways my opponent can ruin my game
On April 07 2017 14:11 c0sm0naut wrote: going between BW and sc2 is incredibly hard and ive kind of just made the decision to stick with SC2 at this point.
in one game my main base literally nEVER RUns out of MINErals and in another game my main is nearly fuckin dry by the time my third is up and running (terran who does not scan often)
in one game i can have lings in my main as my rax is finishing and in the other, they can't (12 pool its not really fast enough). but they can drop speedlings in my base 1min 30 seconds after that. lol. theres just too much random design shit they decided to do in sc2 that deviates from RTS norms/BW norms (basic units cannot circumvent static defenses/defensive positions. lower tech is ideal for lower economy situations, higher tech is ideal for higher economy situations), and when i go back to play any other game i forget about them. but when i go back to play BW i dont need to be thinking about the ten different ways my opponent can ruin my game
TLDR
"I hate that my opponent has many different ways to affect me and I would rather have predictable things to play against"
One of the biggest problems with that game was "build order poker." Because everyone started with a boatload of credits (10000), everyone could skip straight to their build without having to wait for more resources to arrive. Back when I was active, there were three main builds for Nod: Shadow Rush (rush/tech), Crane First (macro play), and Standard (balanced opening).
1. Shadow Rush always won against Crane First. Your Shadow Teams would blow up the enemy's crane instantly, setting him back by 1500 credits immediately. Any economic boost he could've gotten from going crane first was negated by your rush.
2. On the other hand, a Shadow Rush would fail spectacularly against a Standard opening. Standard openings have just enough units to repel a Shadow Rush and then eventually outmacro the Shadow Rusher.
3. Finally, the Standard opening would fall far behind a Crane First opening. It was impossible to do enough damage to catch up to the Crane First opening.
EA abandoned the game long before any solution could be found. I think that the solution was just to lower the starting resource count. Maybe lower it to 5000 (enough for a barracks + refinery + war factory or barracks + two refineries) or 3000 (just enough for a refinery + barracks + one or two infantry squads).
I realized that we're having the same problem with LotV. Because we start with 300 extra minerals in workers, we don't have enough time to scout out our opponents to see what their game plan is. As a Terran player, it is trivial for me to deny scouting to my opponent by walling off, and he now has to guess what my opening is.
Lowering the worker count back to 6 would help alleviate this problem.
On April 02 2017 03:49 Charoisaur wrote: Don't really agree. It's not strategic depth but a coin-flip because you have to make potentially game-deciding decisions before having the opportunity of gathering information. PartinG losing a GSL because he guessed wrong in game 7 was bullshit.
It isn't a coin filp. It is a skill.
The Patriots won a Superbowl believing the Seahawks were going to throw a slant based on their formation and the number of timeout Seattle had (Seattle was on the 1 yard line with the best rushing offense in the NFL, everyone thought they would run the ball). The Seahawks did throw a slant, and the Patriots intercepted the ball and won. But it wasn't randomness, it was preparation and calculated risk taking. But if the Seahawks didn't throw a slant and made their formation look like it, they might have been able run the ball in easily, and win the Superbowl.
So it isn't a coin flip at all. That is the kind of decision making that is present in every game, including LOTV (if I build an Oracle and without knowing I have a Stargate you place a Widow Mine in your mineral line, that isn't a coin flip, as Bill Belichick says, something might just not look right). The problem is that LOTV has removed a lot of the decision making from the game, and that is why it is stale.
You have to micro, have to macro, but the behind the scenes is significantly diminished. The preparation and build order planning, the skill I brought to Starcraft, was beating my opponent with preparation before the game began with unique build orders behind the scenes
It's sad that I can't do exactly what Sun Tzu says all warfare is based on: deception, in a strategy game! I used to like to make it look like I'm taking a third and throw an all-in at you. Or make it look like an all-in while I take a hidden base. It forces you to scout, react, and think, not just mindlessly macro and micro. But while you're thinking on your feet, I'm executing a game plan I made long before the game. And that is how I won a lot games in WOL, by out thinking my opponent because I'm not great at micro or macro.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
And that's why the Patriots win, behind the scenes the players are supported by a system that tries to understand what their opponent is going to do, and the counter it, before the game begins.
And thus, the outcome of that play in the Superbowl, just like Parting's GSL 7 game, was decided before the game began. That isn't a coin flip at all. Stating it is disrespectful to the skill and preparation that goes on behind the scene.
There is a reason we had so most repeat GSL Code S champions in the first year of the GSL, the most volatile of the all years in terms of gameplay. Starsense is real and a skill.
what a disgusting way to think about strategy
as far as Im concerned the only justification for Fog of War is removing it would make the game boring
From the Trojan Horse to Hannibal cheesing the Romans to at Lake Trasimene, Trebia and Cannae, to the Battle of Trenton, the Ardennes offensive and Desert Storm... All warfare is based on deception.
Sorry that disgusts you like it has disgusted losing generals for a millenia. Maybe that means you wouldn't be a great general, but I love it, I love to outsmart people that can outplay me.
In a vacuum I like the 12 worker start after playing thousands of games of sc2 I don't need to sit around for 3 minutes before it starts. I've always hated arbitrary waiting in games. I hate the time in Dota, LoL and HOTs before creeps spawn. I hate the time in wow were you regen mana and eat. I hate the time in overwatch were you sit in the spawn. I hate the time in hearthstone I spend waiting for my opponent to Play cards. I hate the time in chess waiting for my opponent to move (why I like blitz).
Some people say arbitrary waiting helps build suspense but it just annoys me. It's like waiting in line at a theme park or the DMV.
With that being said 12 worker start has had negitive effects on the game, especially in regards to scouting.
On April 10 2017 15:42 washikie wrote: In a vacuum I like the 12 worker start after playing thousands of games of sc2 I don't need to sit around for 3 minutes before it starts. I've always hated arbitrary waiting in games. I hate the time in Dota, LoL and HOTs before creeps spawn. I hate the time in wow were you regen mana and eat. I hate the time in overwatch were you sit in the spawn. I hate the time in hearthstone I spend waiting for my opponent to Play cards. I hate the time in chess waiting for my opponent to move (why I like blitz).
Some people say arbitrary waiting helps build suspense but it just annoys me. It's like waiting in line at a theme park or the DMV.
With that being said 12 worker start has had negitive effects on the game, especially in regards to scouting.
None of what you said is arbitrary waiting. So much can be gleaned and learned from from the amount of time people spend to respond to what you do. And the time in MOBA's is for positioning, wards, and scouting. Its super intricate and strategically interesting.
HOWEVER, saying all that, jumping to 12 workers instead of waiting for 16 workers is a fucking godsend.
Has anyone thought about the fact that the reduced strategic breadth witnessed since last year might be linked to the reduced breadth of the actual pro player pool itself ? I mean the pro scene is shrinking, isn't it ?
Not saying it's an absolute truth, but that might be worth considering.
openings based on variations in gas timings has been nearly eliminated other than single vs double gas (gas first barely makes a difference)
zerg macro machine explodes too fast and makes them way more of a defensive/reactionary race than before (in WoL, TvZ was more like... the zerg struggling to live and take new bases while the terran contains and drops them all over, but now it feels like Zerg is exploding safely while terran does some pokes but eventually has to play the attrition game and just defend)
protoss mass gateway style explodes too much vs mech
overall, i think the variety of builds and build matchups has increased which is great (though protoss viability of aggro openers, fast tech, 1 base openers etc. has decreased more recently), as in before in WoL you could only focus on army first, tech first, or econ first, whereas in LotV you can pick 2 of the 3 which allows you to do things like start with an aggro build but it's not all-in, it reduces coin flips and build order losses
but overall, econ is still slightly more favored than it needs to be, so 9 or 10 workers would probably be significantly better and a happy enough middleground
This is one of my favourite articles on the site. Neatly summarises why early-game and mid-game jeopardy are important, and why it was a mistake for Blizzard to remove so many avenues of attack.
On August 02 2024 15:58 MJG wrote: This is one of my favourite articles on the site. Neatly summarises why early-game and mid-game jeopardy are important, and why it was a mistake for Blizzard to remove so many avenues of attack.
Cheese frequently sucks, but the possibility of cheese, very important. The scales are very difficult to balance though.
Aside from cheese the other side effect was effectively removing a lot of the impact of your first big tech choice and truncating the mid game a lot too. I’ve long felt taking away the phase of the game where he excelled was a huge factor in sOs falling off in Legacy
On August 02 2024 15:58 MJG wrote: This is one of my favourite articles on the site. Neatly summarises why early-game and mid-game jeopardy are important, and why it was a mistake for Blizzard to remove so many avenues of attack.
I’ve long felt taking away the phase of the game where he excelled was a huge factor in sOs falling off in Legacy
Couldn't agree more. And this partially is also why I am still not exactly convinced that LotV is the better version of SC2 than HotS.
On August 02 2024 15:58 MJG wrote: This is one of my favourite articles on the site. Neatly summarises why early-game and mid-game jeopardy are important, and why it was a mistake for Blizzard to remove so many avenues of attack.
I’ve long felt taking away the phase of the game where he excelled was a huge factor in sOs falling off in Legacy
Couldn't agree more. And this partially is also why I am still not exactly convinced that LotV is the better version of SC2 than HotS.
Same. sOs was one of the most genius players ever. I feel like LotV removed so much of the strategical part of RTS, which is why all the best players in the world are the ones who are excellent mechanically. sOs still used to crush such players by being really smart in the early/midgame, but he just can't compete at the highest levels anymore.
EPT
Or removing all the megasuperhyper damaging units. The time to kill an army is getting shorter with every expansion and the possibilities are growing(which means you need to look at more signs than before).
