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Hello there TL!
I think we have come along way in the history of SC2 and BW with enough data and sample size to really know what kind of games we have in our hands and determine the best path to the future for SC2 and maybe BW as well. We can conclude that both games share an essentially similar core - both are RTS games which are highly exciting for players of all levels, from mouse clicking noobs to apm bombing pros. Both games have their own pros and cons, and where one edges the other, the other more than makes up for in a lot of other ways. so whether you are a micro-oriented player where you value mechanics and precise control, or you are a strategist who view the game from a wide perspective, there is something to bring joy to you in both games.
Now, I would like to focus more on SC2, specifically its strengths and weaknesses as a competitive game (from the point of view of the players and the spectators), and its marketing and economic prospects which could propel it further in success into the future. I will not touch on gameplay and balance as there are plenty enough opinion on those matters, and most of them from experts who are more than capable of coming up with ideas better than what we average TLers can contribute, no matter how enthusiastic our ideas are .
Moving on to the meat of the matter, let us briefly evaluate SC2's commercial success. SC2 was created to succeed over the hugely successful and overwhelmingly loved SC Broodwar game, a game which many view despite its popular success as a game that does not monetize well. Moreover, it is a game that was well over a decade old when SC2 was launched. So with the help of some organizational maneuvers, such as the ones we experienced here in TL as it sidelined Broodwar to make way for SC2, SC2 became a success.
But then again, this success still falls short of its ideal target. In truth, with the right strategy, SC2 could be at least 5 times as successful as it is now globally. Yes, there have been plenty of major tournaments such as GSL and WCS and WCG, and there have also been smaller and more intimate events like HSC and the like, SC2 is not fulfilling its true potential. Here is why. Despite all these tournaments and progamers and the ever-supportive fans, the entire scene feels disjointed and there is no great narrative to really follow. As an example, consider how it was in South Korea with the dominance of the old bonjwas, to the TBLS era, to the exciting race-oriented subplots and developments such as the dragons era of protoss, the zerg micro-macro revolution, the domination of terran, etc etc, and of course the crop of exciting upcoming young progamers. In SC2, the events all feel like individual one-shot thing unrelated to each other without much consequence or impact to the general SC2 scene, whether competitively or for the fans. There is no genuine swelling of support for the game itself, only excitement for specific local events, teams, and players, and even those were very fickle. It could really be much better.
Here is the path SC2 could take in the future to propel it to greater success. First, institute a single governing body (either as a new entity or as a conglomeration of existing bodies) which shall govern the competition and the players. Second, there must be regular geography based competition that are of equal degree of importance to spread out the competitive scene and reach out to bigger markets without being too niche. I suggest there are 6 major ones - on in Korea, the heart of SC2, one in the Philippines, where there is MASSIVE support and fanbase for SC2 and BW, two in Europe, and two in the USA. Then there could be minor events appropriately seeded as well. Then there is one grand finals in Korea where which will be the be-all end-all event in SC2 each year. With the players having gone thought the rigorous competition across the season. Third, and finally, let us market SC2 more than a game for nerds but as a truly competitive sports activity, such as basketball, football, tennis, but only with a different platform. This means going out with universal game merchandise such as computer hardware and accessories AND mainstream items such as shirts, cups, watch, apparel, theme designs, etc. This also expands SC2's breadth as it partners with major sponsors such as Nike, Timex, etc. I would personally be willing to extend my experience and support, and even my leadership to this much-much-needed community initiative. I have plenty of experience organizing SC2 events and teams and have had a few international SC2 events here in my country. TL as an institution is in the right position to spearhead with this effort. It will further promote TL as the absolute authority in all things SC2 and with the support of the community, we can achieve this for SC2. We can even do special competition for BW for the sake of the fans and for old-times sake.
Thanks, GL
+ Show Spoiler +I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who helped us succeed with the SC2 event here in the Philippines last 2011. Looking forward to more success for SC2 with you guys. Also shoutout to my TL Bros! First to Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, who is a personal friend. Thank you so much for your support in those trying times during the tournament here in the Philippines. Lets have a beer on the next tournament here in my country. Also to Geoff, I hope you are still incontrol. Good luck with marriage man. I have always rooted for you in BW and SC2, I am in love with your mental approach to the game. Speaking of marriage, also shoutout to my boy, Jesse Plexa. I admire your work here in TL. And finally, to my idol, Victor the Nazgul! I, Sir, am a fan.
All right. Chill out guys. See you all soon.
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Even with all you have said the game will still struggle because there are bullshit strats in the game that are extremely easy to execute in which a player can lose to a player of lesser skill. The game needs a complete redesign. Late game Zerg and Protoss as a whole need a complete redesign
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While I would love to be proven wrong, I do think the the ship has already sailed on reinvigorating sc2, with the last expansion having been and gone, as well as the recent overhaul. I still think it's an amazing and beautiful game to both watch and play but at the end of the day it's probably just not accessible enough to pick up new fans at this stage. There are just so many nuances and unit interactions compared to the simpler days of WoL. Having watched it for so long and hence, losing my objectivity, I wonder what it's like for a casual spectator to watch a pro-match these days. I remember being floored watching MMA dismantle Losira at the MLG Columbus final, there was no going back for me after that, I was hooked.
The casual viewership of new fans thing takes me on to my next point, which is the rise of e-sports and market place saturation as a whole, the success of which is in no small part thanks to Blizzard pioneering the way with SC2. I think games like LoL, Heroes and CS are more adept at picking up new players due to the more intuitive understanding of basic mechanics as well as the naturally more social team based element. I think these games do a better job with the mantra of 'simple to learn hard to master' and players slowly get pulled in to the depth over time. In addition, we are very time poor these days. compared to other media and a lot of sports, I feel many eSports broadcasts are quite long, with large breaks between action (i know baseball and American football go on a bit too! but I think this is an American cultural thing! ). When people have to choose what to spend their limited time on, they are bound to be drawn to be something that at least looks less complex. I'm not saying other titles aren't deep too, it's just that 'on the surface' perception thing. SC2 is just so fast, with massive damage. Maxed army battles, which should be epic, are over in a heart beat, often due to one simple mistake of attention or positioning. It's so punishing in this way.
I think that's the reason why we won't see Bonjwa story lines in SC2, it's just too hard for players to manage everything effectively with the speed and damage of the harassment options, things spiral really fast. The difference between the top 10 and top 100 players world wide is indeed big but I would argue not as big as BW due to it's need to master the mechanics. In saying this, the rare game where a crazy comeback does occur, makes it all the more amazing and exhilarating to watch and SC2 certainly still does have it's story lines (continuation of the Kong line, Byun's 'one-man army' victory and the dubbing of the 'four horsemen of Terran' more recently). Being able to watch more top Korean's streams post the Kespa era has been quite insightful, a lot of the tactics seem to involve trying to focus the opponents attention on the 'wrong' thing and hence many try and outplay their opponent this way, over what might be consider 'traditional tactics'.
Getting back on topic now, I would certainly like to see more support for SEA if there is a strong player base. At the end of the day though, Blizzard can't just keep throwing money at it. They either need to attract advertising or the fans need to pay, merchandise is penny's unless you turn over hundreds of thousands of units. I wonder if Blizzard would have done anything differently, if they got to do SC2 over again, or whether the multiple factors that saw it's decline were actually external, from other games and hence out of their control?
Finally, in terms of ways to help grow the scene for new players the inbuilt tourneys etc are all good steps but I feel like much more could be done officially in-game to help noobs make the transition from casual to having a better understanding before hitting the ladder. For example, a single player campaign that uses the multiplayer races and actually teaches macro principles. I'm thinking it would have 'missions' based on scenarios like rush defence, where you have to scout the AI opponent, figure out what they are doing, prepare accordingly and hold their attack. I feel the meta is starting to get stable enough now that some common one-base/two bases pushes could be included that would help the player learn to scout the signs and the AI could select from a random selection of builds, even on the same 'mission'. Or a mission where you learn to out greed your opponent, or need to execute a rush yourself and deny scouting. I know there are already custom maps some of these things but you often need to know they exist to find them.
It would also be cool to see an in built practice partner finder and coaching functionality, where an observing coach (with your vision) could highlight things to you in game using an interface or comms. Or where players input that they are looking to practice a specific match-up, build or defence and they can find other players willing to help. This is where the resume from replay button would really come into it's own. For example, two practice partners could practice their army control in late-game TvP ghost/viking/MMM/lib vs. triple splash/deathball over and over to specifically improve one facet of their game.
Before I get shut down on these silly ideas, I do realise they are likely pure fantasy but a man can dream can't he?
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There's a lot of really good points in this thread on both sides. I can honestly say as someone who isn't a pro at this game but loves to watch and spectate, there's a level of complexity that is difficult to handle now when it comes to explaining and understanding the engagements to new viewers. I was showing a friend of mine SC2, who was genuinely excited to see it, and we watched a bit of WCS because, I mean, hype, right? Go for the hype. PvT matchup, immobile tanks and libs setting up awkward circle zones and some bio trying to dodge in and around disruptor shots while a protoss ball flubbed in between shots. He asked what was going on because he couldn't tell. I had no idea how to answer.
I tried to explain zoning and immobility, and the disruptor as a unit in general, and he just got lost on the idea. Now, I'm not trying to just complain about disruptors, I don't play nearly enough to have an opinion about them gameplay wise. But I can say that the fast nature of dissolving armies is a problem - I was a plat zerg at one point in HotS, and I loved my roach hydra viper. I wasn't very good at the game mind you, but it felt nice to have a reward for remembering my injects and creep spread. I got a big army that was hard to kill, and positioning that army in concaves became a reasonable micro goal to achieve. Disruptor wrecks my day. That hard work is wiped in an instant because the number of commands I had to try and enter in a very short period of time were way less than what happened on the other side. As a result, my army disappears very quickly. Losing never really feels great, but there's something very 'eh' about losing a bunch of units in a very short period of time to something that is observed to be a small amount of effort. Ditto, banelings in ling bling wars zvz. I play zerg, obviously. I'm not sure what other examples might be applicable, just using what I have. Then again, ling bling wars can be kind of exciting. They're very intensive. Maybe people with differing points of experience will negate much of what I'm saying, which is totally fine, this is simply one perspective from one very specific point of view of a casual non-try-hard who watches more than he plays and admittedly doesn't watch or play too much anymore. That said, you know what got my heart racing back in the day? The suspense of watching to see if a nuke was gonna drop or not. I might be contradicting everything I just said, but I think there was something between the acknowledgement of it coming down and the delay and the search for the little red dot and the suspense of watching that army move around or those harvesters to get out of the way that just added an element to it. Something to do with the duration, the lead-up to the boom. I dunno. Maybe I'm talking in circles.
My point is, my friend who didn't know anything about SC2 at all asked a question that kind of made it hard to get him excited after: "if he just builds big units that explode everything the other guy makes, why is he making things that get exploded so easily?" It's a really innocent question, that whether we can explain it away easily or not, simply reveals that there's a lack of intuition to SC2 now (not sure if it was there before, just saying now because it's what we're talking about) that a simple game like soccer doesn't have. Anyone who looks at a soccer game can understand clearly that there is a ball and one color of shirt is trying to get it into the other color shirt's net. It's intuitively simple, and that's literally all you need to know to enjoy a brew and cheer your lungs off in a bar. I couldn't get my friend into SC2 simply because, maybe I was bad at explaining, but I had to do so much explaining. The nature of armies clashing is intuitive, but the engagements themselves are insanely complex to understand why things happen the way they do to someone who doesn't know what it all means.
That said, I'm very fluid on this opinion, so I'm happy to read other feedback on the issue. Just got me thinking and I thought I'd share a thought. Thanks for the thread
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I think China is a bigger market for sc2 than Philippines, it has quite a few good pro level players and the potential is huge.
Hoping sc2 find a way to regain some lost ground. They really slow down too much after lotv release. The hype just fall off the radar among so many games out there now.
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Starcraft 2 needs a major balance patch to be reinvigorated, major sweeping changes need to be done with a promise from the balance team to be transparent, receptive to criticism, and more frequent, balance patches come out extremely few and far between for Starcraft and I think what the game is missing isn't good balance, it's just good design.
Look at things like HOTS 2.0, that was a big boost for the games popularity. The HOTS team also very frequently rolls out minor balance patches which even if they all aren't grade A flawless changes at least it shows they are willing to shake the metagame up a little bit and try to slowly but steadily improve things over time. SC2 balance patches come out so infrequently that it's hard to even care. The core problems with the game never seem to get any attention, units that are grossly underpowered or overpowered seem to either receive nonsensical changes or no changes at all (Swarm Hosts being so stronk vs mech comes to mind instantly)
Add on top of that the immense learning curve all but guaranteeing the noobs and curious will stick to a purely spectator role and go for easier and cheaper games like League of Legends, Dota 2, and Heroes of the Storm. Starcraft 2 is still hands down the best modern RTS to date but RTS is a dead genera, it's not SC2 being a dead game at all, it's the only relevant one left at all.
I don't know, team needs to be bold with changes and get people interested in practicing, playing, and watching tournaments again.
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Why is everyone moaning or "sharing their thoughts" about this game, projecting their views onto other people with walls of text. This is an old game and is still played by many and its been a massive success
However times move on and people move on too. RTS isn't exactly flavor of the month possibly due to consoles and mobas where team games and team work dominate.
Perhaps the wheel will turn and RTS will make a comeback,so be patient and wait a decade or two. Enjoy your time rather than sitting at a keyboard with posting "ohh woe the game is dying posts" or "the game is failing because x,y and z don't work in a particular way"
Perhaps you could write a mod which is so good it will catch on and replace SC2 as the most widely played RTS. Avilo and TLO have done this so has the creators of Starbow. Didn't Dota spawn from WC3 and look at the success it is now
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On May 26 2017 15:59 Topdoller wrote: Why is everyone moaning or "sharing their thoughts" about this game, projecting their views onto other people with walls of text. This is an old game and is still played by many and its been a massive success
However times move on and people move on too. RTS isn't exactly flavor of the month possibly due to consoles and mobas where team games and team work dominate.
Perhaps the wheel will turn and RTS will make a comeback,so be patient and wait a decade or two. Enjoy your time rather than sitting at a keyboard with posting "ohh woe the game is dying posts" or "the game is failing because x,y and z don't work in a particular way"
Perhaps you could write a mod which is so good it will catch on and replace SC2 as the most widely played RTS. Avilo and TLO have done this so has the creators of Starbow. Didn't Dota spawn from WC3 and look at the success it is now
Aside from one post, I don't think there is much in this thread that I would consider to be a moan, especially by TL standards.. but as for why are we "sharing our thoughts"? Well, we love the game, we care and this is a discussion board isn't it? You write it as if sharing opinions is something to be frowned upon..
Yes I get it, talking doesn't change anything but when has that ever stopped anyone.. Saying we're not expecting a mass re-invigoration ≠ saying the game is dying. The RTS genre has been a niche for over a decade now, SC2 is really the only stalwart that goes against that trend.
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the tipping point for me was the cyclone changes. Blizz struck gold with the original cyclone. lock-on was a really fun ability and satisfying to micro. with a little tweaking, it could have been a core mech "zoning" unit like the vulture (cyclones could out-run everything on the ground except zerglings). instead, they turned it into a boring 1A mech marine
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RTS might be a niche but it does not mean RTS cannot have more audience. If you have ever visit Starcraft 2 forum on Baidu or other Chinese platform you will find that there is a overwhelmingly amount of discussions, no the competitive games, but on Co-op mode. At least in China, as a growing market for gaming, Co-op seems to be growing and enjoy greater popularity. Chinese Streamers challenging weekly mutation is one of the more popular content as well. The microtransaction nature of co-op also makes it easier for the young Chinese players, mostly students in Uni or high school, to justify their purchases. As I see it, co-op mode is probably one of the best part of the game introduced in LotV. It give a the causal part of the community something to play other than just watching tournaments and are attracting regular RTS fans that may not interested in competitive game. If anything I wish to see more development in co-op to keep it alive, and its player base may also help to keep the competitive scene alive.
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Blizzard has been pulling ressources away from SC2's multiplayer since the release of LOTV. The nail in the coffin was DK leaving the team.
Now i'd be surprised if there's more than two people that aren't programmers working on the multi full time. Of course Blizzard does its little PR circus to keep people interested, but the reason why SC2 has been declining and why the pro/multiplayer scene is slowly dying off is a commercial one. Blizzactivision doesn't think that the multi and the pro scene are profitable enough to be sustained.
It's not because of the community, which is extremely passionate and loyal, it's not because of the pros, who are extremely passionate and hard working often without being intergrated in some kind of social framework to encourage them, the main and sole reasons are that : - blizzard failed to solve WOL's issues with "first aid kit full of band-aids" HOTS and "speed up everything and turn every unit into a harass unit" LOTV - blizzard decided that it'd be more profitable to release coop, solo and comestic content than to invest ressources into redesigning and rebalancing the game to re-dynamize the multiplayer and the pro scene
I think blizzard made it clear that they'd rather squeeze what's left of the milk in a dead cow by selling skins, announcers and commanders (which, in a full price game with 2 expansion, is an insane ripoff) than to try to make free (unsellable) changes to multiplayer to attract more players and to encourage the pro scene. The evidence being the INSANE lack of patches and design changes made to the game since LOTV's release (2 balance patches and 1 design patch or something? In one and a half year?).
From there, our options as customers are pretty narrow : - either we encourage blizzard in their aim by buying skins, announcers and coop commanders while hoping this will encourage them to invest ressources in the multiplayer (which in fact will probably encourage them to release more and more purchasable bullshit) - either we state that we aren't happy with the state of the multiplayer and the lack of changes made to solve the issue, and stop buying purchasable content to protest (which will probably lead blizz to drop SC2 as a whole) - either we go over blizzard and try to have few known and good willed SC2 personalities work on some kind of a SC2 mod that would apply healthy changes to the game. Avilo and TLO mods are good initiatives in that regard (no matter what one may think about the changes in themselves). However, this would need the respect of the community for this kind of "SC2 innovation parliament", and some massive community following to legitimize the changes for them to be applied to official tournaments, which would probably face blizzard's disapproval.
In any case, future isn't very bright for SC2.
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^ Jack pretty much said it all, /thread
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On May 25 2017 19:11 GLBossSC wrote: Hello there TL! I have plenty of experience organizing SC2 events and teams and have had a few international SC2 events here in my country. [/spoiler] Are you talking about the PPSL in Manila? And which teams have you managed?
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This is a really sneaky post. Hmnnn. If you are who I think who you are from way back in the PPSL fiasco here in teamliquid, you've got massive balls man, i give you that!
Also this
I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who helped us succeed with the SC2 event here in the Philippines last 2011. Looking forward to more success for SC2 with you guys. Also shoutout to my TL Bros! First to Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, who is a personal friend. Thank you so much for your support in those trying times during the tournament here in the Philippines. Lets have a beer on the next tournament here in my country. Also to Geoff, I hope you are still incontrol. Good luck with marriage man. I have always rooted for you in BW and SC2, I am in love with your mental approach to the game. Speaking of marriage, also shoutout to my boy, Jesse Plexa. I admire your work here in TL. And finally, to my idol, Victor the Nazgul! I, Sir, am a fan. I'm speechless. I'm sorry for the slight derail on the SC2 revival discussion, but I was reading the post again and again and something just felt off. Maybe the mods or some oldies who are familiar with what happened then can chime in.
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Ohh Man PPSL. Nevar Forget.
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