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On October 23 2018 10:51 Malongo wrote: This is not an strategic skill, I don´t get why people think making a better UI could make the game less interesting. By that logic we could implement things like auto splitting bio, auto muling enable/disable, better siege tank AI, auto focus fire critical units, etc.
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On October 23 2018 03:01 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2018 00:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote:this is an interesting suggestion. i'm not a zerg player. i'm slightly against it. it is interesting though.. how far do we take automating "economic household chores". We have auto-mining and worker #s... how much further do we go? That is never an easy question to answer. On October 22 2018 23:02 Fango wrote: I really feel like you don't understand how skill ceilings work. Generally any change that benefits lesser players to a greater extent/makes the game easier, is an indirect nerf to the top players.
You're removing part of the skill required to know and optimise inject timings. That's a skill that separates better players from lesser ones. Doing so would absolutely lower the skill ceiling. Pros can already "plan ahead" like you say, its just more difficult to do. i'm not sure i agree with the change in the OP. However, I do like things like auto-mining and worker #s on the Main base. This allows players to focus on cool army micro and spend less energy doing "economic household chores". In Brood War, taking idle SCVs and putting them on minerals was boring and repetitive and a lame way to differentiate good players from bad players. I thought we're playing RTS games because we like doing "economic household chores"? For the people who like RTS games but find those chores boring there has been a new genre created called MOBA. or you can play SC2 or SC64 or Red Alert 3. Less repetitive lame economic household chores and more emphasis on tactical decision making.
economic household chores such as gathering 2 SCVs and putting them on minerals is boring; this is why Browder replaced "in base chores" of BW with in-base tactical decision making such as the choice between calling down a MULE or using the CC energy for a Scan.
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If we want this then we should probably revert stacking injects.
A better change in my opinion would be to display mana bars for spellcastes in the unit select panel, and have that mana bar light up a different color when the unit has enough mana for any spell, which should let players easily eyeball which queens can inject, which templars can storm, which ghosts can snipe.
QoL changes are always the best when they apply to all races
Edit: Warpgates have this asked feature because you can't tell their progress unless you click them. Injected hatcheries display a little bar next to their health, so they don't really need it.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
I agree, it would be benefitial. But I don't get the negative reactions, have you tried to play the Zerg? I am in a platinum league and I can hit injects just by muscle memory on time. If this change doesn't help me to be better in macro, how this would help higher level players? (playing P2 - D3 as unranked)
From my view this change is awesome for lower level players to learn them how to macro and for those, who have their inner OCD triggered by this inconsistency It's the same as worker count - for high league players this didn't make any change, they already could estimate the number just by seeing the mineral lines and gases.
TL, DR, awesome change, won't affect higher leagues, would be benefitial to get lower league players better
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TL paints such a bleak picture of professional Zerg players who have no place in the game to show their mastery except inject timings. It truly sounds like the rest of the race is happening on autoplay because apparently players can't distinguish themselves anywhere else.
There will always be other areas of the game where additional attention will be focused on and as a watcher I'd rather see the impact of that than "watching" players do perfect injects with slightly less information.
All these posts bringing out the good old slippery slope of "why not just automate the entire game then" just admit they either have poor reading comprehension or no good arguments at all.
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I am not against the feature. However I don't think it would have a huge impact. The queens show how much energy they have after all.
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If you develop a good macro cycle this is meaningless. You should be going to your bases more often then this will not be an issue. If you arent good enough to be returning to your hatcheries regularly to inject adding a timer does nothing. This is an argument for both sides.
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On October 23 2018 08:54 Rodya wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2018 03:23 The_Red_Viper wrote:On October 23 2018 03:01 Charoisaur wrote:On October 23 2018 00:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote:this is an interesting suggestion. i'm not a zerg player. i'm slightly against it. it is interesting though.. how far do we take automating "economic household chores". We have auto-mining and worker #s... how much further do we go? That is never an easy question to answer. On October 22 2018 23:02 Fango wrote: I really feel like you don't understand how skill ceilings work. Generally any change that benefits lesser players to a greater extent/makes the game easier, is an indirect nerf to the top players.
You're removing part of the skill required to know and optimise inject timings. That's a skill that separates better players from lesser ones. Doing so would absolutely lower the skill ceiling. Pros can already "plan ahead" like you say, its just more difficult to do. i'm not sure i agree with the change in the OP. However, I do like things like auto-mining and worker #s on the Main base. This allows players to focus on cool army micro and spend less energy doing "economic household chores". In Brood War, taking idle SCVs and putting them on minerals was boring and repetitive and a lame way to differentiate good players from bad players. I thought we're playing RTS games because we like doing "economic household chores"? For the people who like RTS games but find those chores boring there has been a new genre created called MOBA. What kind of argument is that, it is about the implementation of these elements. Mobas have it as well btw, it is called csing. Okay so you don't like everything that isn't fighting. Go install Battlerite - you'll never get the urge to play an RTS or MOBA again. Economic "chores", as you call them are staples of the RTS genre - they are what make it an RTS and not some kind of strategic military simulator. As someone else said, zergs ALREADY HAVE the information that OP is asking for - use camera hotkeys. As a protoss player, I agree that protoss/zerg have gotten way too many "quality of life" buffs (because that's what they are - buffs). I feel bad for Terrans, but also am jealous of them because for me it's too easy to not miss warp-in cycles among other things as previously mentioned. If I weren't mostly playing Remastered now I would consider switching to Terran because it is by far the most untouched race.
I am really not sure how you come to all of these conclusions, so arbitrary and random. I only like fighting? Where did i state that? I called it "economic chores" ? No i did not. I simply responded to a silly post. Moba titles also have "economic chores" depending on the game you play. In dota and lol you need to lasthit to get money, different game implement this core element differently was the point. Yes ofc qol changes are slight buffs in a sense, it's way less of a buff than any actual balance changes though as i explained previously. So it is kinda perplexing that sc2 players are arguing that vehemently against these small changes when blizzard regularly changes way bigger things. It is still not "easy" to not miss macro cycles, did you ever hear of "zest macro" ? That's a player who made gsl finals and he oftentimes macros sloppily even with these indicators. Your whole post is really bad
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On October 23 2018 21:47 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2018 08:54 Rodya wrote:On October 23 2018 03:23 The_Red_Viper wrote:On October 23 2018 03:01 Charoisaur wrote:On October 23 2018 00:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote:this is an interesting suggestion. i'm not a zerg player. i'm slightly against it. it is interesting though.. how far do we take automating "economic household chores". We have auto-mining and worker #s... how much further do we go? That is never an easy question to answer. On October 22 2018 23:02 Fango wrote: I really feel like you don't understand how skill ceilings work. Generally any change that benefits lesser players to a greater extent/makes the game easier, is an indirect nerf to the top players.
You're removing part of the skill required to know and optimise inject timings. That's a skill that separates better players from lesser ones. Doing so would absolutely lower the skill ceiling. Pros can already "plan ahead" like you say, its just more difficult to do. i'm not sure i agree with the change in the OP. However, I do like things like auto-mining and worker #s on the Main base. This allows players to focus on cool army micro and spend less energy doing "economic household chores". In Brood War, taking idle SCVs and putting them on minerals was boring and repetitive and a lame way to differentiate good players from bad players. I thought we're playing RTS games because we like doing "economic household chores"? For the people who like RTS games but find those chores boring there has been a new genre created called MOBA. What kind of argument is that, it is about the implementation of these elements. Mobas have it as well btw, it is called csing. Okay so you don't like everything that isn't fighting. Go install Battlerite - you'll never get the urge to play an RTS or MOBA again. Economic "chores", as you call them are staples of the RTS genre - they are what make it an RTS and not some kind of strategic military simulator. As someone else said, zergs ALREADY HAVE the information that OP is asking for - use camera hotkeys. As a protoss player, I agree that protoss/zerg have gotten way too many "quality of life" buffs (because that's what they are - buffs). I feel bad for Terrans, but also am jealous of them because for me it's too easy to not miss warp-in cycles among other things as previously mentioned. If I weren't mostly playing Remastered now I would consider switching to Terran because it is by far the most untouched race. I am really not sure how you come to all of these conclusions, so arbitrary and random. I only like fighting? Where did i state that? I called it "economic chores" ? No i did not. I simply responded to a silly post. Moba titles also have "economic chores" depending on the game you play. In dota and lol you need to lasthit to get money, different game implement this core element differently was the point. Yes ofc qol changes are slight buffs in a sense, it's way less of a buff than any actual balance changes though as i explained previously. So it is kinda perplexing that sc2 players are arguing that vehemently against these small changes when blizzard regularly changes way bigger things. It is still not "easy" to not miss macro cycles, did you ever hear of "zest macro" ? That's a player who made gsl finals and he oftentimes macros sloppily even with these indicators. Your whole post is really bad  Zest macro doesn't apply for Zerg IMO as this is a totally different mechanics. Once you have queens you have to hit the injects(or build more hatcheries ). This is like missing chrono cycles and even this comparison is bad. On the level we're talking about it can't change anything. It's similar to the workers change(workers above gas/nexus), masters and above didn't need that, it was QOL for lower league players. Damn, even I was able to tell how many workers I have in gas/minerals just by looking and I am Diamond pleb. I don't look at the number nowadays either, sure, it helps to catch my attention at later stages of the game, but I can see oversaturation even without it.
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On October 23 2018 10:57 IshinShishi wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2018 10:51 Malongo wrote: This is not an strategic skill, I don´t get why people think making a better UI could make the game less interesting. By that logic we could implement things like auto splitting bio, auto muling enable/disable, better siege tank AI, auto focus fire critical units, etc.
How is adding a visual indicator that high level players won't even look at comparable to any of these mechanics? Why is everyone here up on their soapbox being so insane about how a tiny little box showing inject timer is a gamebreaking change? It's really not. Anyone who is plat+ will just know when to inject, and this is a good change for lower tier players and will visualize the time between injects, especially when injects are staggered.
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On October 24 2018 00:53 vult wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2018 10:57 IshinShishi wrote:On October 23 2018 10:51 Malongo wrote: This is not an strategic skill, I don´t get why people think making a better UI could make the game less interesting. By that logic we could implement things like auto splitting bio, auto muling enable/disable, better siege tank AI, auto focus fire critical units, etc. How is adding a visual indicator that high level players won't even look at comparable to any of these mechanics? Why is everyone here up on their soapbox being so insane about how a tiny little box showing inject timer is a gamebreaking change? It's really not. Anyone who is plat+ will just know when to inject, and this is a good change for lower tier players and will visualize the time between injects, especially when injects are staggered. The reasons people are advocating for changes like these would also apply to things like auto splits, auto build workers etc. The idea that it takes no strategic thought and is just something you have to do.
While a timer on it's own isn't gamebreaking, consistent QoL changes like this do nothing but make the game easier. And that isn't a good thing. And sadly blizz seem to like adding them lately.
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On October 24 2018 00:53 vult wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2018 10:57 IshinShishi wrote:On October 23 2018 10:51 Malongo wrote: This is not an strategic skill, I don´t get why people think making a better UI could make the game less interesting. By that logic we could implement things like auto splitting bio, auto muling enable/disable, better siege tank AI, auto focus fire critical units, etc. How is adding a visual indicator that high level players won't even look at comparable to any of these mechanics? Why is everyone here up on their soapbox being so insane about how a tiny little box showing inject timer is a gamebreaking change? It's really not. Anyone who is plat+ will just know when to inject, and this is a good change for lower tier players and will visualize the time between injects, especially when injects are staggered. I think you've just answered your own question here :D. I personally lose track of inject cycles a lot during games, and looking at unit tab would be way faster than having to look at your base. I actually find it quite surprising how people who claim to be low diamond or below also claim to have seemingly much better inject management than I do at low master.
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On October 23 2018 03:21 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2018 03:17 Haukinger wrote: This would be cool. Not too useful, actually, because injects stack, so you only miss the first one ever, unless you're behind a complete cycle.
But as everything else that makes the game difficult to play just to reward repetitive training instead of actually understanding the game, manual injects should go away completely (together with splitting, stutter-step, focus-fire and so on). how do you automate focus-fire?
Make priorities situational, not just per unit type. Example: a burrowed (scanned) baneling not in the path could easily be given a lower priority than a baneling rolling towards a marine. To take things a bit further, give the player the option to adjust the priority rules to his liking.
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On October 24 2018 01:10 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2018 10:57 IshinShishi wrote:On October 23 2018 10:51 Malongo wrote: This is not an strategic skill, I don´t get why people think making a better UI could make the game less interesting. By that logic we could implement things like auto splitting bio, auto muling enable/disable, better siege tank AI, auto focus fire critical units, etc. The reasons people are advocating for changes like these would also apply to things like auto splits, auto build workers etc. The idea that it takes no strategic thought and is just something you have to do. While a timer on it's own isn't gamebreaking, consistent QoL changes like this do nothing but make the game easier. And that isn't a good thing. And sadly blizz seem to like adding them lately.
The opposite is true. Making the game easier, as you like to call it, is a good thing. If you want it to be artificially difficult, just play without keyboard, fully zoomed in, without area-selection... there are loads of stuff in the game that make the game "easier", but truth is, it does not become easier.
It becomes harder.
And that is because the difficulty you like can be overcome by mechanical training. Like simple, physical sports - if you cycle 50000km a year for a few years, you can ride along at the tour de france. And you get visibly better from day to day. Now, if you remove the mechanical part, you suddenly do not become better anymore just by playing. You have to understand the game, think and plan better to get better. And that's a lot harder than just sitting down and playing.
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I mean this is a ui thing across the board, Barracks don't show how close a unit is to completion on the selection tab only if its qued or not, command centers don't show if they have more than 50 energy banked and Terran has missed a mule, nexus don't show if they have more than 50 energy banked and toss has missed a chrono. frankly I'm ok with this information not being displayed. People say that managing these mechanics is just a dumb chore, but its not. Players don't have infinite apm and knowing when and where you can commit the time to go back to your base and check that you have injects up, check that you can mule, check that you can chrono, check that you are building all the units you could be is a core aspect of the game. Part of the strategy of starcraft 2 is determining how to best spend your limited amount of actions at any given time to gain the biggest advantage possible in the current game. Distributing apm is a core part of the strategy of rts games. Granted SC2 is more accessible than games like brood war and that's fine, it gives it a lower barrier for entry, but I'm also fine with where that barrier is right now, we don't need to lower the bar more and make it easier to know where and when to spend your apm on certain things in the game.
I say this as a player who struggles sometimes due to my low apm for my league, I can only play at 240 apm at my absolute best and in masters 3 and 2 where I reside that is alot lower than most. I supply block myself, float minerals, miss macro cycles, don't always check the minimap, lose units and workers unessarily, all the normal noob mistakes slow people in this game make. But I don't want the game to be dumbed down for slower players like myself, Part of what makes sc2 beautiful and fun is the mechanical challenge of the game, although its lower than its brood war counterpart no one is truly at the point where they can do everything at all times, Even the strongest pros are known to make occasional mistakes in macro and when situations are tense you do see pros miss things, that's why zergling runbyes work, that's why multi prong drops work, People cant manage everything that the game and thier opponent demands of them at the same time that's an important aspect of how the game functions. Sure UI changes might make the player base universally "better" in that everyone gets closer to the ideal level of top pro play, but why do we need that? if two players are equally matched they should be able to enjoy the game despite their macro mistakes, and if they are not well then the player who knows how to use there apm better deserves that advantage Its a core aspect of the game that needs to stay.
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On October 24 2018 02:24 Haukinger wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2018 01:10 Fango wrote:On October 23 2018 10:57 IshinShishi wrote:On October 23 2018 10:51 Malongo wrote: This is not an strategic skill, I don´t get why people think making a better UI could make the game less interesting. By that logic we could implement things like auto splitting bio, auto muling enable/disable, better siege tank AI, auto focus fire critical units, etc. The reasons people are advocating for changes like these would also apply to things like auto splits, auto build workers etc. The idea that it takes no strategic thought and is just something you have to do. While a timer on it's own isn't gamebreaking, consistent QoL changes like this do nothing but make the game easier. And that isn't a good thing. And sadly blizz seem to like adding them lately. The opposite is true. Making the game easier, as you like to call it, is a good thing. If you want it to be artificially difficult, just play without keyboard, fully zoomed in, without area-selection... there are loads of stuff in the game that make the game "easier", but truth is, it does not become easier. It becomes harder. And that is because the difficulty you like can be overcome by mechanical training. Like simple, physical sports - if you cycle 50000km a year for a few years, you can ride along at the tour de france. And you get visibly better from day to day. Now, if you remove the mechanical part, you suddenly do not become better anymore just by playing. You have to understand the game, think and plan better to get better. And that's a lot harder than just sitting down and playing.
Here's the thing I think alot of players don't get and that Day9 said very well when he was talking about broodwar. "Understanding when and where to use your apm is a part of the strategy of the game." (paraphrasing)
Good players do increase there apm by practicing alot and getting better mechanically but mechanics is not all about raw speed, Good mechanical players don't just do everything all the time, no one even maru is good enough to do that. Good players think and plan about what is and is not important to do in a given situation and put there apm into the most critical things at any given time. In RTS games managing time is a key aspect of the game hence the real time strategy label.
Time is a resource and knowing how to best use your limited action at a given time to get the most value is a core skill of the game.It Just like how if you watch a blitz chess match the games are messy and even really good players make mistakes but the most interesting aspect of blitz chess is how players manage there time to make the best decisions. and this is a game where there is no apm no constant things to think about doing, but having a clock on you having a limit on what you can do completey changes the landscape of what the game looks like. Starcraft is Like this but morso, because you have all these "chores" that you need to do it makes the game harder no only in that you need to be fast enough to keep up on the chores but you need to know what chores are and are not worth doing, You need to think hrm I'm in the middle of a fight, is it a higher value play right at this instant to go back to my base do my 30-45 second macro cycle go back to my army and micro or to invest all my time into this attack. Is it a higher value play for me to try to get 1 or 2 more workers with my oracle or to make sure that I hit my chrono on time? Time is a resource just like minerals and gas and its an important expression of skill that players can show that they can manage it effectively.
People think that the best players just do everything perfectly with no mistakes and to some extent they do, that's why they are the best players but they also know how to line up all there production, harassment, micro, base building, scouting actions,looking at the minimap, ect so that they squeeze the absolute most out of the large but not unlimited amount of actions they can use. If you don't like this aspect of rts why are you playing it to begin with? there are plenty of tbs games that provide alot of interesting strategic decisions and don't require alot of raw apm. Poker is very similar to starcraft if you were to take all the mechanics out of the game, so why don't you go play poker and leave RTS to those of us that like RTS?My guess is that you do actually enjoy the realtime element. maybe you just don't recognize that you do and that's why you are on this forum in the first place. If you dumb it down to much it becomes bland, unexciting, you lose the tense feeling and action that a fast paced rts game provides and it losses its identity. Granted with the proposed change its not that big a deal I will admit that, Players will find new things to do with their time management skill, I'm not hugely against this kind of change. What I am against is how you and other people in this thread are arguing for this kind of change by arguing that strategy and time management are separate and unrelated skills when they are deeply intertwined in this game.
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On October 23 2018 16:14 deacon.frost wrote:I agree, it would be benefitial. But I don't get the negative reactions, have you tried to play the Zerg? I am in a platinum league and I can hit injects just by muscle memory on time. If this change doesn't help me to be better in macro, how this would help higher level players? (playing P2 - D3 as unranked) From my view this change is awesome for lower level players to learn them how to macro and for those, who have their inner OCD triggered by this inconsistency  It's the same as worker count - for high league players this didn't make any change, they already could estimate the number just by seeing the mineral lines and gases. TL, DR, awesome change, won't affect higher leagues, would be beneficial to get lower league players better
All these people saying they have near perfect macro in diamond and plat and yet I make a ton of macro mistakes on all my races and I'm masters with Terran and Random. = (
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On October 24 2018 03:14 washikie wrote: Here's the thing I think alot of players don't get and that Day9 said very well when he was talking about broodwar. "Understanding when and where to use your apm is a part of the strategy of the game." (paraphrasing)
Here's exactly the misunderstanding on your side: if there wasn't a single mechanical chore, all those precious apm could be spent on meaningful things. If every click mattered, and a single command could make you lose the game if given a second too early or too late, the game would not only be more demanding to play but also more exciting to watch. If you tune down the mechanical aspect, the game gets more exciting. If you increase mechanical difficulty, it gets more boring.
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On October 24 2018 04:17 Haukinger wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2018 03:14 washikie wrote: Here's the thing I think alot of players don't get and that Day9 said very well when he was talking about broodwar. "Understanding when and where to use your apm is a part of the strategy of the game." (paraphrasing) Here's exactly the misunderstanding on your side: if there wasn't a single mechanical chore, all those precious apm could be spent on meaningful things. If every click mattered, and a single command could make you lose the game if given a second too early or too late, the game would not only be more demanding to play but also more exciting to watch. If you tune down the mechanical aspect, the game gets more exciting. If you increase mechanical difficulty, it gets more boring.
how is macro not meaningful? did you even read the rest of my post spending actions correctly is one of the most meaningful and skillful things you can do in this game. Having macro take up players time is one of the things that creates windows for players to interact with each other. If you could look at you army 100% of the time you would Greatly reduce the number of mistakes you can make with your army and the game would be a lot less interactive and interesting as a result.
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Well, I think Protoss has cooldown process bar on Warpgates icon :-)
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