I think the special ability thing will be fine. It will open up the game cause ppl will start getting more magic units. I just vs a protoss who had 3 bases to my 7 zerg bases. I'm maxed out, he's at 90 population defending his choke with cannons, and templar. The map was hunters btw, he started bottom middle and I started top middle. Make a long story short, my micro sucks reaaally bad now since I haven't played in over a year, and my units were simply walking to their deaths.
NOW with the new starcraft 2 game, I can EASILY make 10 queens (Due to my superior resource management and MACRO) and then I can send em in, click B 10 times while not having to switch units, and WAMMO - I've just killed 10 TEMPLARS. And don't tell me it's not fair, spawn broodling is 150 mana while Templar storm is 75....
I don't think this will ruin the game at all, you'll simply have to get units to counter them - and by the end of the game, whoever has the best resources will win.
BTw, I did win that game within 23 minutes..
BUT, I will go to most of your POV, if Sc was like that now, what will stop a zerg from literally getting like 20 queens to own while flying around the map. What will stop Terran from going mass ghosts and lock down all 15 carriers.....
Yeah, they better keep it the way it is now. AS for the unit thing, 24 seems to be reasonable. To be able to click on limitless in thought seems to be fair since it's for everyone - perhaps it will play an advantage to someone like me but also takes away from the original game.
The chaos of hotkeying your units, building at all hatcheries at the same time, and still be able to control over 100+ units makes it intense. To be able to just select 160 population, "A" --"LEFT CLICK" will take away I think.
Lol here's a video I thought was Kind of interesting:
It has some guy who's running warcraft 3 on a table via projection, only thing is he can control the units with his hands. NOW, is it real? Or is there someone in the background, with a mouse and keyboard actually doing the movements. I could've sworn I heard some mouseclicks. AND LISTEN to the guy at 1:15:
He can select units using a "Bi-manual" selection technique. ANd it's quite difficult to do with just a mouse...... Watch what he does, and tell me how difficult that is to do with a mouse.
I hate those tech dudes who think they made something special when it's totally useless. MOUSE and keyboard FTW!
On May 21 2007 00:30 Zironic wrote: Somethings should really be on autocasts.
Examples: Normal attack (You maybe havn\'t noticed but standard attack really is just a spell on autocast game mechanics wise) Heal Standardised buffs (I don\'t think SC2 will have any though, doesn\'t make sense in Sci-fi)
I think Blizzard is also adding alot of semi passive abilities. Like the Zealot charge activates automaticly and I also think that it looks like the Reapers jump ability is automatic if you tell them to go somewhere above or below them. Generally I think skill should be about deciding what to do, not clicking 5 times per second.
hmm i wanna quote something i said in a thread a few months back
\"They just seem to think they are all some brilliant strategists that are only held back cause they can\'t click fast. Well they need to get a clue, most gamers can theory craft just fine, the ones who stand out are the ones who can execute it the best\"
THEY= referring to the people on the relic forums who said things simliar to your own but more extreme.
What I was trying to say is, MOST people who make statements like the one you made above are the same people that aren\'t fast enough to be good or at least not on top. This may not apply to you but it has just been my general experince.
I am not saying that a competitive RTS (sc style anyway) should be all about mindless clicking, but having to constantly go back and make scvs/units (from individual buildings, not all hotkeyed together) and puts scvs on minerals aren\'t simply \"flaws\" in the UI.
First I should point out how *important* macro like that is in a game of sc. 75% of sc games among less skilled players, the one with the better macro (by that I mean noticibly better) will generally win the game. All this constant background action helps set the pace of the game. It requires a gamer to wire his brain so that while playing the game, he has to set a timer in his mind so that he can remember to go back to his base and manage it as fast as possible. It makes victories more decisive and creates a much more noticible skill gap between players. Not many people can click fast and execute well ( the beauty of sc ) while still maintaining a strategic outline in their gameplay. *Alot* of people are good at what you define as \"skill\" when it comes to taking away the speed so players can focus on strategy. It isn\'t nearly as impressive when alot of people can do it on a similar level. There isn\'t nearly as much room for the \"progamers blow good gamers out of the water\" factor. What you will see is progamers that are better than many good players, but not in an OMG sort of way.
To illustrate my point I\'ll use war3, although it is a somewhat extreme example. There is basically almost not macro in war3. At the same time, this is made up for by having units with higher life-totals, heroes, and most units have at least one if not multiple abilities. This allows fast players to still have an advantage through micro, although the speed required comes in spikes and doesn\'t last as long. This is fine for the players, but it will cause a much smaller gap in skill throughout all levels of the game. ( besides the few really bad people who just DONT micro;o)
I also believe this is why koreans don\'t dominate as hard when it comes to war3. (this is just a guess) They arguably still have way more reason to practice 24/7 since they are STILL the capital of progaming, and war3 is still pretty big. In starcraft these long hours of practice make koreans stand out pretty far above most foriegners because they get rewarded when it comes to speed and execution. In war3, practicing the game for 10 hours a day wont reward you *as much* (obviously still some) over someone who practices 4 hours a day.
So now I refer you to my quote above. When it comes down to it, taking away the repetitive tasks of SC will cause the game to get \"too easy.\" The only way to avoid this is to do what they did in war3, but that isn\'t spectator friendly for many reasons......and it definitely isn\'t staying true to bw;p
That being said, I think some changes will make the game interesting, and they might have to make some changes since they are introducing many new units with many new abilities.
Used spoiler quotes since your text was so massive xD
I think it's possible to make SC a fast paced game where practise pulls off, I just think that the clicking should be focused on perfoming brilliant moves (I saw a video somewhere where a pro used mutalisks to completly decimate a terran marine army), rather then the mundane task of going through your production buildings to build new units or telling your SCV to gather minerals.
As games have progressed the UI and Unit AI's have been improved and that is I think a good thing. In the begining of RTS units could only do "Hold ground", there wasn't any fancy thing like "attack move" and in some games you could only select one unit at a time. Now when technology has advanced a bit I think it's a good idea by Blizzard to remove a bit of the mundane micro and add more advanced gameplay elements instead. Examples of the new advanced gameplay elements are how Zerg seems to be able to teleport across the map with Nydus Worms and Protoss can teleport around their base with their Pylons and Warp Prisms. Also the way Reapers and Collusos can ignore cliffs and that unseen units that attack are no longer revealed show that Blizzard is trying to make Starcraft into a deeper game then before.
Sure it takes great skill to pull off all the mundane micro currently in Starcraft but I think the game will be better both for casual gamers and the hardcore/proffesional ones if you replace the mundane micro with meaningfull gameplay elements. Many mention that spectators really appreciate the speed which proffesional starcraft players use to macro their base while harrasing their opponents with godlike micro, but don't you think they might appreciate even more if the proffesionals need to spend more time microing production buildings and instead can micro larger and more spread out advancements on the enemy?
Atleast I think that the new gameplay elements that Blizzard are introducing to Starcraft seems to more then well compensate for the reduced APM needed to manage your base properly.
I don't have a conclusion about whether this feature is better or not because I don't know how the actual gameplay works I mean, if the gameplay require players to pay more attention at micro ( by micro i don't mean controlling a small group of troops, but more general, clicking mouse and keyboard in battle field) , then the unit selection cap is a limit to how spectacular a battle could look like, and hence, both players and observers would benefit from removing it. Remember, no matter how many unit you can select, a micro oriented battle would still require you to divide you troops into different groups to perform their functions well. Let's say mmf + tank + vessel pushing, you still need divide them into respective groups to make the marching efficient and less vulnerable to flanking. The difference is you can group all the marines in ONE group instead of two or three ( which makes non sense do you think so ) But if the gameplay is macro oriented, in a sense, more like the current starcraft gameplay style, I think removing this unit selection limit would affect balance. I think blizzard would make a good balance between macro and micro in order to justify this new feature.
Anyway, this is a progress i think. Because relieving progamers from repeatedly and mechanically clicking would probably make it easy for them to achieve things more creative. (Re-allocating their APM distribution)
If you look at the end battle in the gameplay video I think it demonstrates how big difference there will be between bad and good players when it comes to micro. In the gameplay video both armies basicly just have attack move towards eachother and that is a good demonstration of how the army controlled by a bad to mediocre player might act.
As you see the Warp Rays specifically designed to kill heavy enemies like the Battlecruiser and Siege tank is completly wasting it's time killing off single marines. At the same time the Siege tank is hitting the Immortal that barely takes any damage from it's fire. The Stalkers are just standing still taking punishment when they can blink around to flank the enemy, same with the Reapers. The marines really should be focus fireing on the Immortals so the heavier machinery can take care of the stalkers and the collosus.
Because of this heavy micro needed to effectively use the Starcraft 2 armies I don't think any interface limitations are neccesary.
On May 21 2007 02:15 red.venom wrote: It is confirmed there is no unit selection cap. This thread isnt about theorizing.
Where and when was it confirmed? Give me a url. I think you may be mistaken.
StarCraft 2 will have no unit selection limit, which should please or enrage StarCraft purists. The game has been in development since 2003, and may have been further along had World of Warcraft not impacted the development process to a degree. Today, StarCraft 2's development team is around 40 members strong, with several other teams around Blizzard helping out here and there.
The odd thing is, listening through the panel discussion it's completly missing all the the information in the second last paragraph in the IGN article, atleast if it's supposed to be in chronological order. Was all that information said in another part of the panel or did IGN pull it out of their ass?
Oh, now I understand what's wrong with unlimited select:
I want to see all the units' wireframes and see if they're injured or not, see their shields and make decisions based on that. I also want to quickly select wounded units/casters through wireframes to retreat/cast spells. Limitless selection at least hardens that process, if not makes it impossible. Now they computer monitor have gone larger, therefore, there can be a larger amount of meaningful icons on the screen, so the selection cap should be increased, but the resolution is still limited, so the selection must be limited as well.
Ok, new info from the gameplay vid high resolution:
Buildings ARE group selectable. (seen in the part where Stalkers, and later, Zealots are being warped in by Warp Gates) However, at least with warping in, its 1 click = 1 unit, despite the buildings selected as a group. As I suspected, Blizzard did in fact implement the building group selection, but did it carefully, allowing rallying and warping (imagine the click load when you have warp gates as single selectable thing and their warp-in point at another part of the map), but not making it 1 click & forget.
New acc cause java was disabled on this comp and required to retrieve pw, original acc "The_HoG" not that it matters.
anyways~~
What you request Zironic has already been done. As an example I am going to use the only RTS aside from bw I ever really played even half seriously. Age of Titans. Both cause it is a better example than wc3 when it comes to removal of UI limitations and because well I totally blow at wc3.
In AoT the number of units you can have on a given hotkey is in no way limiting to how well you move your often huge army.
Furthermore you can mass select production facilities (And you often have more of those than in an average pvt game) and put them on hotkeys. But this only really helps with the constant changes of rally point cause there is a feture in the game called auto queue, yea thats right units constantly queue up without you having to do a thing. You can rally workers to work, which combined with said auto queue option really reduces ecco managment to zero, at least if u look at it with BW eyes. Which is a very wrong way to look at it.
Because AoT is infinitly more macro and "strategy" based than broodwar. And 75% of all games are decided on who has better macro, macro here meaning ability to balance workers beetween the 4 types of res, base layout, strategic decisions on where and how to expand, what goldmines to go for and in lategame when exactely to start preparing the ecco switch to caravans. etc etc Often the game is decided purly on skills than can be denouted "singleplayer skills" (Exagerating here) Becuase managing workers and building an efficient base is HARD. Even very good players constantly learn new things on these fronts. And there are very clear skill gaps. This far it sounds almost exactely like what you wanted from sc2 right?
The downside with all this, is that it is newbie unfriendly and, very important, there is very very little "adapting to your opponent" going on. The only scouting actually happening even in high level games is scouting the map (One uses random maps) When introducing a friend of mine (~~top 5 AoT) to the broodwar concept of scouting he was like what the hell why???. When starting a game of AoT both players know pretty much what the other one is going to do in terms of unit composition and such. After the usuall FEs a constant rally pointed mega fight usually breaks out in the center and keeps going until someone gains and advantedge through harassing the opponents eco into ruins or simply managing his own ecco better. (Or gets his super titant up quicker but whatever bw ailien concept lol=P) (Sounds sorta like a pvt no?) Only all mathups are like this.
No comes the part where I am NOT going to recomend you to start playing AoT, cause the game only ilke 2 years after its releze hade like 5000 people playing.... It "died" insanly fast.
The things that made broodwar so great (and so _popular_) is the fact that it is both *easy* and straight forward while beeing physically demanding and at the same time having a decent strategic depth. (Not like chess but enough to allow someone to win purly by outsmarting the other from time to time, especially on higher levels).
soccer is more popular than cricket no?
If the UI limitations dissapear in sc2 and the skill in the game becomes more knowledge and strategy based, without the insane physicall and "fast thinking" demands of bw. There is no doubt in my mind that it will face the same fate as AoT (or DoW, or any any other RTS ever made aside from wc3 and possibly AoC)
I don't see why people complain about unlimited selection. It will make life easier but it won't change skill levels at all.
Seriously, how many pro players just do an attack move with all their units? I can think of a few scenarios, but if you have spent the last 2 minutes meticusly setting up your super flank of 100 units does it really matter if you have to do 1-8 a + click or just a + click?
Micro will still require you to handle your units in smaller groups, all this does is to get rid of the annoyance factor of say, getting your units from point a to point b. When the times comes to attack you still want a better control.
Same thing with gateways really. So yeah, noobs will be able to keep their mineral count down easier. Problem is that the great player will have all those extra actions to harass and expand with. Nothing really changes.
On May 21 2007 05:30 KlaCkoN wrote: New acc cause java was disabled on this comp and required to retrieve pw, original acc "The_HoG" not that it matters.
anyways~~
What you request Zironic has already been done. As an example I am going to use the only RTS aside from bw I ever really played even half seriously. Age of Titans. Both cause it is a better example than wc3 when it comes to removal of UI limitations and because well I totally blow at wc3.
In AoT the number of units you can have on a given hotkey is in no way limiting to how well you move your often huge army.
Furthermore you can mass select production facilities (And you often have more of those than in an average pvt game) and put them on hotkeys. But this only really helps with the constant changes of rally point cause there is a feture in the game called auto queue, yea thats right units constantly queue up without you having to do a thing. You can rally workers to work, which combined with said auto queue option really reduces ecco managment to zero, at least if u look at it with BW eyes. Which is a very wrong way to look at it.
Because AoT is infinitly more macro and "strategy" based than broodwar. And 75% of all games are decided on who has better macro, macro here meaning ability to balance workers beetween the 4 types of res, base layout, strategic decisions on where and how to expand, what goldmines to go for and in lategame when exactely to start preparing the ecco switch to caravans. etc etc Often the game is decided purly on skills than can be denouted "singleplayer skills" (Exagerating here) Becuase managing workers and building an efficient base is HARD. Even very good players constantly learn new things on these fronts. And there are very clear skill gaps. This far it sounds almost exactely like what you wanted from sc2 right?
The downside with all this, is that it is newbie unfriendly and, very important, there is very very little "adapting to your opponent" going on. The only scouting actually happening even in high level games is scouting the map (One uses random maps) When introducing a friend of mine (~~top 5 AoT) to the broodwar concept of scouting he was like what the hell why???. When starting a game of AoT both players know pretty much what the other one is going to do in terms of unit composition and such. After the usuall FEs a constant rally pointed mega fight usually breaks out in the center and keeps going until someone gains and advantedge through harassing the opponents eco into ruins or simply managing his own ecco better. (Or gets his super titant up quicker but whatever bw ailien concept lol=P) (Sounds sorta like a pvt no?) Only all mathups are like this.
No comes the part where I am NOT going to recomend you to start playing AoT, cause the game only ilke 2 years after its releze hade like 5000 people playing.... It "died" insanly fast.
The things that made broodwar so great (and so _popular_) is the fact that it is both *easy* and straight forward while beeing physically demanding and at the same time having a decent strategic depth. (Not like chess but enough to allow someone to win purly by outsmarting the other from time to time, especially on higher levels).
soccer is more popular than cricket no?
If the UI limitations dissapear in sc2 and the skill in the game becomes more knowledge and strategy based, without the insane physicall and "fast thinking" demands of bw. There is no doubt in my mind that it will face the same fate as AoT (or DoW, or any any other RTS ever made aside from wc3 and possibly AoC)
The difference would be that SC2 would still be a game that's atleast 50% focused on microing your units in a good manner, if you just massed units to the front with excellent macro you would lose. I'm fully confident that you can remove arbitiary UI limitations and still make the game fast and frantic.
On May 21 2007 05:30 KlaCkoN wrote: New acc cause java was disabled on this comp and required to retrieve pw, original acc "The_HoG" not that it matters.
anyways~~
What you request Zironic has already been done. As an example I am going to use the only RTS aside from bw I ever really played even half seriously. Age of Titans. Both cause it is a better example than wc3 when it comes to removal of UI limitations and because well I totally blow at wc3.
In AoT the number of units you can have on a given hotkey is in no way limiting to how well you move your often huge army.
Furthermore you can mass select production facilities (And you often have more of those than in an average pvt game) and put them on hotkeys. But this only really helps with the constant changes of rally point cause there is a feture in the game called auto queue, yea thats right units constantly queue up without you having to do a thing. You can rally workers to work, which combined with said auto queue option really reduces ecco managment to zero, at least if u look at it with BW eyes. Which is a very wrong way to look at it.
Because AoT is infinitly more macro and "strategy" based than broodwar. And 75% of all games are decided on who has better macro, macro here meaning ability to balance workers beetween the 4 types of res, base layout, strategic decisions on where and how to expand, what goldmines to go for and in lategame when exactely to start preparing the ecco switch to caravans. etc etc Often the game is decided purly on skills than can be denouted "singleplayer skills" (Exagerating here) Becuase managing workers and building an efficient base is HARD. Even very good players constantly learn new things on these fronts. And there are very clear skill gaps. This far it sounds almost exactely like what you wanted from sc2 right?
The downside with all this, is that it is newbie unfriendly and, very important, there is very very little "adapting to your opponent" going on. The only scouting actually happening even in high level games is scouting the map (One uses random maps) When introducing a friend of mine (~~top 5 AoT) to the broodwar concept of scouting he was like what the hell why???. When starting a game of AoT both players know pretty much what the other one is going to do in terms of unit composition and such. After the usuall FEs a constant rally pointed mega fight usually breaks out in the center and keeps going until someone gains and advantedge through harassing the opponents eco into ruins or simply managing his own ecco better. (Or gets his super titant up quicker but whatever bw ailien concept lol=P) (Sounds sorta like a pvt no?) Only all mathups are like this.
No comes the part where I am NOT going to recomend you to start playing AoT, cause the game only ilke 2 years after its releze hade like 5000 people playing.... It "died" insanly fast.
The things that made broodwar so great (and so _popular_) is the fact that it is both *easy* and straight forward while beeing physically demanding and at the same time having a decent strategic depth. (Not like chess but enough to allow someone to win purly by outsmarting the other from time to time, especially on higher levels).
soccer is more popular than cricket no?
If the UI limitations dissapear in sc2 and the skill in the game becomes more knowledge and strategy based, without the insane physicall and "fast thinking" demands of bw. There is no doubt in my mind that it will face the same fate as AoT (or DoW, or any any other RTS ever made aside from wc3 and possibly AoC)
The difference would be that SC2 would still be a game that's atleast 50% focused on microing your units in a good manner, if you just massed units to the front with excellent macro you would lose. I'm fully confident that you can remove arbitiary UI limitations and still make the game fast and frantic.
Sure thing, but it will have nothing to do with StarCraft.
all you toss players harping on how great this feature will be....take two seconds to imagine ultraling + defs and queens. its going to be a PERFECT flank + ensare, plague and ds. its gonna take zero skill to flank with this, and this is coming from a zerg player. it eliminates so much skill....
24 would be an ok number I think. and please, for the love of god, dont give people the ability to cast spells when units are mixed (zealots and temps together, hit t and they storm 1 by 1...)
As a toss player I know will get even more pwnt by Zerg players with limitless selection, and guess what, I don't care. I don't want to win vs. Zerg simply because they were too struggling with the interface to control their units properly, just as I don't want to lose because they happen to be TWITCHING MACHINES with 300 APM and therefore able to get around the crippled UI. It's best if the game was designed and balanced in such a way huge mass Zerg attacks could be handled by a properly microed P or T army GIVEN that unlimited selection is possible. Again, it sounds like you think the balance of the game should be enforced through handicaps placed on the players by the UI, rather than by time and resource costs. What's the reason?
its hardly a handicap. did zergs ever have a big problem in any mu because they were limited to 12 units? all it does by removing the cap is dumbing it down so that less-skilled people have a better shot vs more skills people. it dumbs down the game and dilutes it. starcraft didnt remain popular after a decade because it was so easy to master—nothing sticks around that way. the reason it remains one of the best rts games of all time is because it still is fun for your casual gamers, but leaves plenty of room for people to master the game.
On May 20 2007 11:17 Meta wrote: I think that this will make the game feel too much like C&C and not enough like starcraft. I'd be all for increasing the number of units you can select to something like 24, but eliminating the cap all together seems like it would cause balance issues. Imagine if zerg could swarm their whole army with one click!
Couldn't have said it much better myself, it would be ok if you could select like 24, but not more, that would take away the fun and make microing too easy.
Also, PLEASE do not remove too many units from original Starcraft, pleaase!
EPT
