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One side-effect I've noticed is as a viewer, anything below the absolute top level is much less interesting to me. When every mid-tier zerg is just "Serral but worse mechanically", why would I bother watching anyone but Serral? It's not quite to that extent, and you can definitely tell the difference between Serral or Reynor or Dark, but the differences used to be a lot less subtle.
I think it's because the mid-game is so short now (especially the early mid-game), and that's where all the variety happens. Every PvZ eventually wants to converge to 4 bases with immortal-chargelot-archon-storm, but there are so many possible permutations before that checkbox is filled out. I think it's a real shame it's so easy to go from "I have a few things that I want" to "I have all of the things that I want". I want to see Protosses defending a third base with just robo tech because they're not sure they can afford to tech storm. Or harassing with phoenixes for 5+ minutes because their army isn't big enough to take the third. Or delaying robo tech to afford storm. Or any number of different things.
My takeaway from watching a game used to be: "So that's how a 1 gate expand plays out against a tank push", or "so that's why twilight openings can't punish a 3 hatch before pool." Whereas now I rarely feel that I learned about something new, and the takeaway is always just execution: "Oracle only got 2 kills" or "Lost the warp prism." It probably rewards the better player more consistently, but I find myself less entertained.
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6 workers was too slow. I mean, yes, 6 workers gives you more room to see deviation in the meta but what realistic deviation are you expecting to see? More cheese? More allins?
Because that's what's going to happen...and we already have enough cheese/allins. I think that going back to 6 workers now would be a death knell for the game and while some people would love it, I suspect the vast majority wouldn't.
The issue StarCraft 2 has is multiplicative. We have a stagnant meta because players at the top rarely innovate. It's the same standard builds over and over and over. To change this you need someone to lead by example. I thunk AlphaStar did this by showing pros some new tools to use that they had never considered before.
Next we have some seriously questionable balance decisions. Right now the game is decent...but letting Infestor Broodlord dominate the game again and doing nothing to stop it until year end...was a huge mistake. I don't think StarCraft 2 will survive another incident of wanton imbalance. Luckily those incidents are pretty rare.
Then we move on to their design mandate being all over the place...it's not consistent at all. On one side, we're officially in nerfing Observers because they're "frustrating" territory yet if we're nerfing "frustration" then why is the only frustrating thing being nerfed the Observer? Widow Mine drops are infinitely more frustrating, yet those haven't ever been nerfed. That's not me saying I want things to be nerfed due to frustration, my point is the opposite. You NEVER nerf things out of frustration because in a high skill game, that's part of the skill ceiling; dealing with frustrating crap.
Finally, this forced meta shift nonsense has got to stop. Unless Blizzard's statistic tools are showing a single build being used so often it's literally defining an entire meta, then if it aint broke...don't fix it. This is how we end up with imbalances, unnecessary changes and we're starting to see some balance issues already. Thors gibbing all air is one issue, as an example and has lead to some fairly overpowered mech play recently which while does have counters, those counters are basically named Viper and Disruptor. Because nothing else works with the Thor's support units mixed in.
So instead of looking for things to blame for why StarCaft 2 isn't as good as it usually is, maybe we should start asking ourselves a hard question; is the balance team doing a good job...and if not, is there a constructive, civil way to communicate to them what they're doing wrong?
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There is a reason you can proxy buildings or early pool get scouted and still get out ahead.
Starting with 12 workers makes it way 2 easy to get away with cheese even doh you get scouted.
If you scout with 6 worker and you spot a proxy build you have time to counter it properly instead of having to guess what kind of proxy it is and is he cutting workers or not while doing it.
5 workers will also balance out the income advantage snowball that Zergs can get away with these days because their scouting info is so insane that at high level they safely get away with mad droning which even acts as a counter to harass itself if the Terran or Protoss does not get a an absurd amount of drone kills. (do not try to counter argument, Terran and Protoss can not make workers out of their barracks and gateways to compensate for failing to defend worker harass well) I feel like I am the only one who thinks its okay that Zerg can lose 20 drones and still have a shot at the game, while if protoss loses 7+ probes at the same in game time the game is basicly over and everyone knows it, just listen to the high level commentators.
At the end of the day its about viewer and player preference(faster action) vs a good meta and easier game to balance (6 workers > 12 workers)
But new cheeses we have not seen yet may become a problem, like I can imagine some super fast 3xravager builds into droning can be super annoying.
Another thing I just remembered as Im rambling, the 6 worker start makes it easier 2 put pressure on zerg earlier in the game to control the zerg mad droning, at current meta as Protoss for example you choose macro harass build or you choose 2 base all inn that is the only thing that is gonna happen and it will be stargate 99,9999999% of the time.
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On January 24 2020 21:57 Drfilip wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2020 21:39 Wombat_NI wrote:
To my taste there is both truth here and it also misses the mark in some ways too.
I think there is strategic homogenisation to a degree yes. The early game is more stable in general.
The tech paths are less distinct as you pick them up faster, so yeah I agree there.
On the other hand the strategic variety side is overstated somewhat as I think it overestimates how much was actually scoutable.
My memory is of a lot of blind rock/paper/scissors scenarios in the early game that were really frustrating to both play and watch. The old 1/1/1 you’d arrive at a depot wall and have to blindly decide if it was coming or not, and prepare accordingly and for a period people would fake out. It only really died when Protoss figured 1 gate expands and the maps got better. Or proxy oracle builds where Terrans had to blindly throw down turrets, or die, or be behind if the Protoss wasn’t doing that if they did prepare for it. PvP has had its rock/paper/scissor periods on robo/twilight/stargate too.
Having those extra workers and your tech coming up quicker does homogenise things, but it does eliminate more of the ‘I picked the wrong tech I lose’ early game scenarios too.
So I think the article makes good points and makes them well, I think it does underestimate the information component in making sound strategic choices and how that actually played out in previous iterations.
Plus, in general strategic homogeneity will occur eventually in any RTS that has been played professionally for a decade, people will eventually figure out the optimal ways of playing.
The "bag of protoss bullshit" is no longer a term used in every single thread about a game that included a protoss. The frustration on build order losses was very big in the community. There were more than 10 people complaining in a discussion of 15 people. The build order losses was not even something I considered anyomore. I needed this article to be reminded of them. They were especially bad in the case of TvP. Roughly speaking there were 4 outcomes: a) Oracle and oracle defense -> terran survived and protoss plays from behind b) Oracle and no defense -> terran either dead or soon to be dead c) Oracle defense and no oracle -> terran plays from behind d) No oracle, no defense -> terran a bit ahead This time of SC2 was not very fun to watch TvP in. The other match ups were great, though.
I believe you losing to oracles in the past is the one single reason you are writing this and defending oracle was figured out back then and would be even easier to defend than in the past due to game changes and increase in player knowledge.
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Czech Republic12128 Posts
On January 31 2020 03:58 BabelFish1 wrote:
6 workers was too slow. I mean, yes, 6 workers gives you more room to see deviation in the meta but what realistic deviation are you expecting to see? More cheese? More allins?
Because that's what's going to happen...and we already have enough cheese/allins. I think that going back to 6 workers now would be a death knell for the game and while some people would love it, I suspect the vast majority wouldn't.
The issue StarCraft 2 has is multiplicative. We have a stagnant meta because players at the top rarely innovate. It's the same standard builds over and over and over. To change this you need someone to lead by example. I thunk AlphaStar did this by showing pros some new tools to use that they had never considered before.
Next we have some seriously questionable balance decisions. Right now the game is decent...but letting Infestor Broodlord dominate the game again and doing nothing to stop it until year end...was a huge mistake. I don't think StarCraft 2 will survive another incident of wanton imbalance. Luckily those incidents are pretty rare.
Then we move on to their design mandate being all over the place...it's not consistent at all. On one side, we're officially in nerfing Observers because they're "frustrating" territory yet if we're nerfing "frustration" then why is the only frustrating thing being nerfed the Observer? Widow Mine drops are infinitely more frustrating, yet those haven't ever been nerfed. That's not me saying I want things to be nerfed due to frustration, my point is the opposite. You NEVER nerf things out of frustration because in a high skill game, that's part of the skill ceiling; dealing with frustrating crap.
Finally, this forced meta shift nonsense has got to stop. Unless Blizzard's statistic tools are showing a single build being used so often it's literally defining an entire meta, then if it aint broke...don't fix it. This is how we end up with imbalances, unnecessary changes and we're starting to see some balance issues already. Thors gibbing all air is one issue, as an example and has lead to some fairly overpowered mech play recently which while does have counters, those counters are basically named Viper and Disruptor. Because nothing else works with the Thor's support units mixed in.
So instead of looking for things to blame for why StarCaft 2 isn't as good as it usually is, maybe we should start asking ourselves a hard question; is the balance team doing a good job...and if not, is there a constructive, civil way to communicate to them what they're doing wrong?
Cheese and all ins were easier to defend on the 6 worker start side though  You had more time to properly react and you could have scouted earlier. Nowadays even if you go early you scout late. Defending all-ins/cheeses is an argument for 6 worker start IMO.
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On January 31 2020 04:55 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2020 03:58 BabelFish1 wrote:
6 workers was too slow. I mean, yes, 6 workers gives you more room to see deviation in the meta but what realistic deviation are you expecting to see? More cheese? More allins?
Because that's what's going to happen...and we already have enough cheese/allins. I think that going back to 6 workers now would be a death knell for the game and while some people would love it, I suspect the vast majority wouldn't.
The issue StarCraft 2 has is multiplicative. We have a stagnant meta because players at the top rarely innovate. It's the same standard builds over and over and over. To change this you need someone to lead by example. I thunk AlphaStar did this by showing pros some new tools to use that they had never considered before.
Next we have some seriously questionable balance decisions. Right now the game is decent...but letting Infestor Broodlord dominate the game again and doing nothing to stop it until year end...was a huge mistake. I don't think StarCraft 2 will survive another incident of wanton imbalance. Luckily those incidents are pretty rare.
Then we move on to their design mandate being all over the place...it's not consistent at all. On one side, we're officially in nerfing Observers because they're "frustrating" territory yet if we're nerfing "frustration" then why is the only frustrating thing being nerfed the Observer? Widow Mine drops are infinitely more frustrating, yet those haven't ever been nerfed. That's not me saying I want things to be nerfed due to frustration, my point is the opposite. You NEVER nerf things out of frustration because in a high skill game, that's part of the skill ceiling; dealing with frustrating crap.
Finally, this forced meta shift nonsense has got to stop. Unless Blizzard's statistic tools are showing a single build being used so often it's literally defining an entire meta, then if it aint broke...don't fix it. This is how we end up with imbalances, unnecessary changes and we're starting to see some balance issues already. Thors gibbing all air is one issue, as an example and has lead to some fairly overpowered mech play recently which while does have counters, those counters are basically named Viper and Disruptor. Because nothing else works with the Thor's support units mixed in.
So instead of looking for things to blame for why StarCaft 2 isn't as good as it usually is, maybe we should start asking ourselves a hard question; is the balance team doing a good job...and if not, is there a constructive, civil way to communicate to them what they're doing wrong? Cheese and all ins were easier to defend on the 6 worker start side though You had more time to properly react and you could have scouted earlier. Nowadays even if you go early you scout late. Defending all-ins/cheeses is an argument for 6 worker start IMO.
How is it an argument for 6 workers when you have enough time to send a worker to build proxy gateway/barracks?
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On January 31 2020 06:28 SC-Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2020 04:55 deacon.frost wrote:On January 31 2020 03:58 BabelFish1 wrote:
6 workers was too slow. I mean, yes, 6 workers gives you more room to see deviation in the meta but what realistic deviation are you expecting to see? More cheese? More allins?
Because that's what's going to happen...and we already have enough cheese/allins. I think that going back to 6 workers now would be a death knell for the game and while some people would love it, I suspect the vast majority wouldn't.
The issue StarCraft 2 has is multiplicative. We have a stagnant meta because players at the top rarely innovate. It's the same standard builds over and over and over. To change this you need someone to lead by example. I thunk AlphaStar did this by showing pros some new tools to use that they had never considered before.
Next we have some seriously questionable balance decisions. Right now the game is decent...but letting Infestor Broodlord dominate the game again and doing nothing to stop it until year end...was a huge mistake. I don't think StarCraft 2 will survive another incident of wanton imbalance. Luckily those incidents are pretty rare.
Then we move on to their design mandate being all over the place...it's not consistent at all. On one side, we're officially in nerfing Observers because they're "frustrating" territory yet if we're nerfing "frustration" then why is the only frustrating thing being nerfed the Observer? Widow Mine drops are infinitely more frustrating, yet those haven't ever been nerfed. That's not me saying I want things to be nerfed due to frustration, my point is the opposite. You NEVER nerf things out of frustration because in a high skill game, that's part of the skill ceiling; dealing with frustrating crap.
Finally, this forced meta shift nonsense has got to stop. Unless Blizzard's statistic tools are showing a single build being used so often it's literally defining an entire meta, then if it aint broke...don't fix it. This is how we end up with imbalances, unnecessary changes and we're starting to see some balance issues already. Thors gibbing all air is one issue, as an example and has lead to some fairly overpowered mech play recently which while does have counters, those counters are basically named Viper and Disruptor. Because nothing else works with the Thor's support units mixed in.
So instead of looking for things to blame for why StarCaft 2 isn't as good as it usually is, maybe we should start asking ourselves a hard question; is the balance team doing a good job...and if not, is there a constructive, civil way to communicate to them what they're doing wrong? Cheese and all ins were easier to defend on the 6 worker start side though You had more time to properly react and you could have scouted earlier. Nowadays even if you go early you scout late. Defending all-ins/cheeses is an argument for 6 worker start IMO. How is it an argument for 6 workers when you have enough time to send a worker to build proxy gateway/barracks?
Exactly, except now cheeses would be even stronger. You'd have to scout no building, stay a while to see if it's just slightly delayed while scouting tons of proxy locations because not scouting what cheese, means more build order losses. Build order losses are very, very bad. With 12 workers, you can scout it late or not scout it at all and still have a chance, if your reactions are up to par and you have a relatively safe build.
Going back to a 6 workers start would be really, really bad from a gameplay perspective but also from a viewer perspective, hell, even a casting perspective unless you like casters who basically get to do a podcast for the 1st 5 minutes of the game instead of 2-3.
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On January 26 2020 19:38 ZombieGrub wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2020 10:35 Steelghost1 wrote:On January 26 2020 07:36 Hunta15 wrote:On January 26 2020 01:16 Steelghost1 wrote:On January 25 2020 06:00 Hunta15 wrote:
As a Zerg player the only difference between a 12 worker start and a 6 worker start is that I can make my natural hatchery at 48 seconds into the game compared to the 2 minutes 5 seconds. These times are not completely accurate since the game clock was changed; however, the point still stands. Reducing the starting worker count will not do anything beneficial to the game: all it does is make the most boring part of the game take longer.
All of the games cheeses such as pool first, proxy 2 rax, etc can still be done. If you really think this then I´m sorry to tell you that you are wrong. The math has been done, tested and explained. Zerg economy and larva mechanic rely on snowballing via massification of workers at the start, starting with 12 workers directly buffed zerg early game economy and it is not just a matter of when you put your hatchery. I frankly don't care if you think I'm wrong. 12 workers is better for the game because it gets the player into the more interesting parts of the game quicker. The game is fine with it, and it's most likely going to stay that way. 12 workers is worse because it completely trivializes deep strategical choices and the implications that they used to have in this game. It is almost mandatory that you get a third early into the game and tech paths are not a big commitment anymore. Opening build orders, which were a very strong mindgame/gamble/decisions in itself have diminished in number. Styles have become more generalized and players are not able to show their strengths/weaknesses the same way they could during Wol and HoTS. Midgame play and tactics are not as prevalent anymore because almost always you will get to have some kind of lategame army, specially if you are zerg. No, almost every high level player or pro that has spoken out about this on streams/forums etc agree that 12 workers was a very big reason as to the game failing to retain the number of users that it had during HOTS. Playerbase and viewership numbers already spoke for themselves during the initial months of LOTV, a lot of people left permanently or for a time because they were angry the economic model took this current direction. I lean to believe that you are most probably a low level player or your knowledge about starcraft 2 during its Wol or Hots days is limited. The argument that 12 workers is better because "speed ups boring early game" is, at best, a lame excuse that David Kim came up with (as if the reason the game was not as popular was because you had 3 mins of little action) and, at worst, plain stupid. It completely destabilizes a lot of strategical and tactical options this marvelous game could possibly have. But anyway, not that you care or anyone at Blizz does, they are specialists at screwing things up and almost never acknowledging their mistakes. Such a great company that used to be the pinnacle of imagination and creativity, delivering high quality and memorable products, that is blatantly incompetent at balancing or understanding what makes their game great. 12 Workers was a mistake, maybe a change was needed, but doubling the amount of workers did more overall harm than it did good. I would really like to see any sources on the middle paragraph there. Every pro has said 12 workers is a big reason for the game failing to retain users? What? And a lot of people left permanently? Our perspectives must've been SUPPPER different, because I remember a lot of excitement and hope for what LotV would bring. And most everyone agrees that LotV is the best step-up for SC2, with only the occasional '12 workers is baddddd' thread popping up here and there. I for one am convinced stuff like this thread is what comes out of wearing nostalgia goggles, but I'll admit to that being a personal opinion not shared by everyone. If you don't like the 12 workers start, great. But your whole post just reeks of having your own personal opinion and then blanketing it over everything and everyone.
Ok I guess I should clarify, thanks for replying ZG. Note that I wrote that "almost (not all) every high level player or pro that has spoken out about this worker start change (meaning the ones that did bother taking the time to talk/rant/discuss about this in public forums, streams, etc...) is very clearly against it. This was an issue that was already mentioned and ignored by Blizzard since the very beginning and all throughout BETA (including in several high profile posts in this very own site). The discussion kept going on until the launch of LoTV and even afterwards.
Example: https://tl.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/490539-12-worker-start-is-ultimately-bad-for-the-game
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/6a855dv.jpg)
Why is it that with all the excitement and hope for what LoTV was supposed to bring viewership numbers went down to last period of HOTS levels (and not even) in just 6 months? Blizzard told us that getting quicker into mid game would make this game less boring and more interesting (thus more entertaining, no? which obviously = more popular).
If the game was so much fun and improved upon the weak points of Heart of the Swarm, if expectations were so high then why did high profile pros such as Rain, Jaedong, Flash and many more leave? Why did Proleague stop, why did all this giant eSport ecosystem built around the game just disappear? Just because of Life´s matchfixing scandal or some oldschoolers feeling like going back to Brood War? I find that as a partially correct but weak excuse that just ignores the main underlying problem: Blizzard´s abysmal game management and balancing philosophy, which should directly include the 12 worker change that people were already calling out from day 1.
Simply put, a lot of us believe that Starcraft Legacy of The Void is not as fun as the previous iterations of the game. The opinion of players that do not reach a certain skill level in this hard game (difficult to draw a line, but around mid to high diamond I would say) should not be taken into consideration when trying to choose a balance/design change. These people have very limited mechanical, real-time analysis ability or understanding of how build orders, tech choices, macro and micro all glue together in order to form a clear strategical or tactical picture. The problem these players have more than their higher level counterparts is that their losses in games can basically be boiled down to getting supply blocked, not having constant worker production and not spending their money.
Now, when it comes to better players that are master and above (and here the skill gap is also quite huge, difference being that it shows in the control of small details, optimal adjustments and actual decision-making skills) we can see what the actual metagame, openings and playstyles are in LoTV compared to HOTS and WOL. What do we have? One or two standardized opening build orders, less experimentation, less compositional variety, almost mandatory scouting and teching up... remember the days where you were not forced to scv/probe scout every game? Back when players would have to make a meaningful early game choice by deciding whether they went 3 hatch before pool or nexus first and they would get either rewarded or punished for it (Hyun vs Naniwa game 5 IEM New York)? When players would try to mindgame each other and when tech was an actual long-term commitment that you were stuck with? Yeah, I personally take that game over anything anything LOTV has offered me.
To me it felt like each player had more of a soul of its own and they would fit their playstyle to what they thought their strengths were. Maru was a collossus and nexus sniper, sOs tricked his opponents with weird plans, Bomber played greedy and beat you by outproducing having insane marine control. To me it feels like nowadays all we get is macromonsters playing the same game over and over again, with the same viable tactics, same viable units, same everything all the time.
Yes ZombieGrub, our perspectives are indeed super different. "And most everyone agrees that LotV is the best step-up for SC2" I would also want a source for this coming from you, because I think that as a caster (and a good one IMO, don´t get me wrong) who made a name for herself during the last years of HOTS and the beginning stages of LoTV, as a person that goes to events, surrounds herself with remaining sc2 pros and depends on the survival of this game in order to get an income, then of course you would claim that. But what do the statistics show? How often or how likely is it that doing what you do you meet with people that lost their interest in Sc2? Who is more likely to be more active on sites like TL or Reddit defending this game, someone who decided to leave or those that remain because they like this game? You are conditioned to be positive about the state of Sc2 and yet threads of users complaining about 12 worker start appear every now and again.
Nostalgia goggles? Sure, but there also exist very legitimate concerns which can be measured with objective parameters that could potentially signal that, indeed, 12 worker start was an overall mistake for this game. I wish I had the time and resources to conduct a research, perhaps someone in TL could someday come up with an extensive polling system in which active and retired pros, former and current players gave their opinion on which economic system they preferred and why. Results could be surprising and we would definitely be able to, if not finally solve the enigma, have a little bit more clarity. It just baffles me, that one of the biggest gaming franchises ever has remained so stagnant and mediocre in comparison to the rest of eSports titles. And while yes, it is true that SC2 is less appealing to the mainstream due to complexity and solo player focus, but we should not act as if the direction Blizzard chose for Starcraft has not buried much of the perceived potential this game actually had.
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Just because a game loses popularity doesn't mean its a bad game. The entire RTS genre is sinking. This is similar to the dot eating maze game genre sinking in popularity when at one point it was the #1 genre in the entire world.
As video game genres age people play them less. Technology improves giving consumers new choices that were previously not possible. The consumer moves on to the next new and shiny thing that has new game mechanics and features that were not possible only a few years earlier. Ms Pacman was a far better game than Pacman. Yet it generated less then 1/4 of the money Pacman did and Ms Pacman died fast and it died ugly. The entire genre was going down. The consumer had moved on.
Ms Pacman is 1 of dozens if not hundreds of examples. of good games that died before worse games died in the same genre ... because the entire genre was tanking.
You discuss how ZombieGrub can't see the forest through the trees. That is a fair theory to float out there. Maybe she can't. However, maybe you can't see the forest through the trees either.
I'd say SC2 is in a similar position that Ms. Pacman was in when it was released. SC2 was released just as RTS was starting to decline. Similarly, Ms Pacman hit the arcades just as the Dot Eating Maze Game genre was starting to die. It didn't matter that MsPacman was a far better game than Pacman. The consumer was moving away from the entire genre.
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Czech Republic12128 Posts
On January 31 2020 06:28 SC-Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2020 04:55 deacon.frost wrote:On January 31 2020 03:58 BabelFish1 wrote:
6 workers was too slow. I mean, yes, 6 workers gives you more room to see deviation in the meta but what realistic deviation are you expecting to see? More cheese? More allins?
Because that's what's going to happen...and we already have enough cheese/allins. I think that going back to 6 workers now would be a death knell for the game and while some people would love it, I suspect the vast majority wouldn't.
The issue StarCraft 2 has is multiplicative. We have a stagnant meta because players at the top rarely innovate. It's the same standard builds over and over and over. To change this you need someone to lead by example. I thunk AlphaStar did this by showing pros some new tools to use that they had never considered before.
Next we have some seriously questionable balance decisions. Right now the game is decent...but letting Infestor Broodlord dominate the game again and doing nothing to stop it until year end...was a huge mistake. I don't think StarCraft 2 will survive another incident of wanton imbalance. Luckily those incidents are pretty rare.
Then we move on to their design mandate being all over the place...it's not consistent at all. On one side, we're officially in nerfing Observers because they're "frustrating" territory yet if we're nerfing "frustration" then why is the only frustrating thing being nerfed the Observer? Widow Mine drops are infinitely more frustrating, yet those haven't ever been nerfed. That's not me saying I want things to be nerfed due to frustration, my point is the opposite. You NEVER nerf things out of frustration because in a high skill game, that's part of the skill ceiling; dealing with frustrating crap.
Finally, this forced meta shift nonsense has got to stop. Unless Blizzard's statistic tools are showing a single build being used so often it's literally defining an entire meta, then if it aint broke...don't fix it. This is how we end up with imbalances, unnecessary changes and we're starting to see some balance issues already. Thors gibbing all air is one issue, as an example and has lead to some fairly overpowered mech play recently which while does have counters, those counters are basically named Viper and Disruptor. Because nothing else works with the Thor's support units mixed in.
So instead of looking for things to blame for why StarCaft 2 isn't as good as it usually is, maybe we should start asking ourselves a hard question; is the balance team doing a good job...and if not, is there a constructive, civil way to communicate to them what they're doing wrong? Cheese and all ins were easier to defend on the 6 worker start side though You had more time to properly react and you could have scouted earlier. Nowadays even if you go early you scout late. Defending all-ins/cheeses is an argument for 6 worker start IMO. How is it an argument for 6 workers when you have enough time to send a worker to build proxy gateway/barracks?
Because you have enough time to send the scout? You can scout at 6(although it's very bad), 9, 12, 15 (as P) with various degree of success, if you pylon scout(9) you are safe against every cheese the enemy can throw at you. 2 base cheeses/all-ins are you scouting them properly. The argument is that with 6 worker scout you have EASIER defense against early game shenanigans...
(unless you play Maru  )
With the 12 worker start you scout late this every time 
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12 workers start didn't change anything. I open hatch first in every MU since WOL, i defend bunker rush/early pool/photon rush/proxy since WOL (what changed is just with shield battery, photon rush are stronger and can transition into proxy immortal/WP, and are nearly unconterable if the protoss manage to set up, i can't do anything than defending until 3 bases saturation with the same set of units : zerglings, queens, spores. Mid game is mostly defending push on creep, and the game really start at 7-0min, the rest is just scripted and you can't do anything except trying not to lose, but you can't really do anything else than having the highest workers number to try to win.
Actually, it's not true there is a MU where things are not scripted, where every units/cimposition BO are viable =ZvZ. It's awful that symetric balance is much better than asymetric balance for Zerg. There were some fresh air when they added T1 drop, for the first time since WOL, you could do something different than droning. Of course it was rapidly removed, and now every zerg units needs two upgrades/hive to be played, to be sure Zerg can't be anything than Terran's punching ball during the whole game.
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On January 31 2020 18:10 Tyrhanius wrote:
12 workers start didn't change anything. I open hatch first in every MU since WOL, i defend bunker rush/early pool/photon rush/proxy since WOL (what changed is just with shield battery, photon rush are stronger and can transition into proxy immortal/WP, and are nearly unconterable if the protoss manage to set up, i can't do anything than defending until 3 bases saturation with the same set of units : zerglings, queens, spores. Mid game is mostly defending push on creep, and the game really start at 7-0min, the rest is just scripted and you can't do anything except trying not to lose, but you can't really do anything else than having the highest workers number to try to win.
Actually, it's not true there is a MU where things are not scripted, where every units/cimposition BO are viable =ZvZ. It's awful that symetric balance is much better than asymetric balance for Zerg. There were some fresh air when they added T1 drop, for the first time since WOL, you could do something different than droning. Of course it was rapidly removed, and now every zerg units needs two upgrades/hive to be played, to be sure Zerg can't be anything than Terran's punching ball during the whole game.
I think you re miss reading something.. the 12 workers subject is about sc2 scene (including viewers), not about casual or hardcore gamers...
Without transition,
The number of starting workers will only shift some building sequence ? isn t it ? some BO could relive ?
As community is divided, would not it be wiser to experiment a new kind of game in period (inside test in-game-mode) ?
I mean, there s no problem for Blizzard to let the 'facts / experimentation' decide,
without some real feedback they cannot afford to ignore that...
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On January 31 2020 16:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Just because a game loses popularity doesn't mean its a bad game. The entire RTS genre is sinking. This is similar to the dot eating maze game genre sinking in popularity when at one point it was the #1 genre in the entire world.
As video game genres age people play them less. Technology improves giving consumers new choices that were previously not possible. The consumer moves on to the next new and shiny thing that has new game mechanics and features that were not possible only a few years earlier. Ms Pacman was a far better game than Pacman. Yet it generated less then 1/4 of the money Pacman did and Ms Pacman died fast and it died ugly. The entire genre was going down. The consumer had moved on.
Ms Pacman is 1 of dozens if not hundreds of examples. of good games that died before worse games died in the same genre ... because the entire genre was tanking.
You discuss how ZombieGrub can't see the forest through the trees. That is a fair theory to float out there. Maybe she can't. However, maybe you can't see the forest through the trees either.
I'd say SC2 is in a similar position that Ms. Pacman was in when it was released. SC2 was released just as RTS was starting to decline. Similarly, Ms Pacman hit the arcades just as the Dot Eating Maze Game genre was starting to die. It didn't matter that MsPacman was a far better game than Pacman. The consumer was moving away from the entire genre.
I think I've read posts of you saying that the RTS genre is sinking ever since 2012. So why does interest in SC2 and BW go up and down, why do people buy the remastered editions? Why do all recent RTS games suck? You can't just repeat this point over and over again, that in this day and age the RTS genre is too old fashioned. There is still war, isn't there? People want to play war games. you have a ton of strategy games that sell for a decent amount. Complex ones too, in general games have been getting more complex and difficult in many ways.
More likely than that RTS is just dead is that nobody dares to compete with Blizzard.
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Czech Republic12128 Posts
On January 31 2020 19:49 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2020 16:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Just because a game loses popularity doesn't mean its a bad game. The entire RTS genre is sinking. This is similar to the dot eating maze game genre sinking in popularity when at one point it was the #1 genre in the entire world.
As video game genres age people play them less. Technology improves giving consumers new choices that were previously not possible. The consumer moves on to the next new and shiny thing that has new game mechanics and features that were not possible only a few years earlier. Ms Pacman was a far better game than Pacman. Yet it generated less then 1/4 of the money Pacman did and Ms Pacman died fast and it died ugly. The entire genre was going down. The consumer had moved on.
Ms Pacman is 1 of dozens if not hundreds of examples. of good games that died before worse games died in the same genre ... because the entire genre was tanking.
You discuss how ZombieGrub can't see the forest through the trees. That is a fair theory to float out there. Maybe she can't. However, maybe you can't see the forest through the trees either.
I'd say SC2 is in a similar position that Ms. Pacman was in when it was released. SC2 was released just as RTS was starting to decline. Similarly, Ms Pacman hit the arcades just as the Dot Eating Maze Game genre was starting to die. It didn't matter that MsPacman was a far better game than Pacman. The consumer was moving away from the entire genre. I think I've read posts of you saying that the RTS genre is sinking ever since 2012. So why does interest in SC2 and BW go up and down, why do people buy the remastered editions? Why do all recent RTS games suck? You can't just repeat this point over and over again, that in this day and age the RTS genre is too old fashioned. There is still war, isn't there? People want to play war games. you have a ton of strategy games that sell for a decent amount. Complex ones too, in general games have been getting more complex and difficult in many ways. More likely than that RTS is just dead is that nobody dares to compete with Blizzard.
Considering Blizzard's SC2 isn't exactly a very innovative game maybe it's just an issue of Blizzard?
We can talk about Total War and its success. The last release sold over 1m copies in a week. Doesn't look to me like the RTS is dying. Maybe, just maybe, people are not interested in the e-sport nonsense... In the end the biggest revolutions SC2 gave us over SC1 are:
- multi building selections
- auto-working workers
- unlimited unit selection
Oh. My. God. The RTS genre was changed, what a bold move. (I wanted to write nobody was expecting this but considering the BW players - they were probably not expecting this )
Edit> in the case somebody wouldn't notice - the old AoE II had these things, not sure about MBS, but still, 2/3. And if my memory wasn't so bad I would say even AoE 1 had this, but that's like 15 years I played it. So there goes the "innovation"
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On January 31 2020 14:42 Steelghost1 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2020 19:38 ZombieGrub wrote:On January 26 2020 10:35 Steelghost1 wrote:On January 26 2020 07:36 Hunta15 wrote:On January 26 2020 01:16 Steelghost1 wrote:On January 25 2020 06:00 Hunta15 wrote:
As a Zerg player the only difference between a 12 worker start and a 6 worker start is that I can make my natural hatchery at 48 seconds into the game compared to the 2 minutes 5 seconds. These times are not completely accurate since the game clock was changed; however, the point still stands. Reducing the starting worker count will not do anything beneficial to the game: all it does is make the most boring part of the game take longer.
All of the games cheeses such as pool first, proxy 2 rax, etc can still be done. If you really think this then I´m sorry to tell you that you are wrong. The math has been done, tested and explained. Zerg economy and larva mechanic rely on snowballing via massification of workers at the start, starting with 12 workers directly buffed zerg early game economy and it is not just a matter of when you put your hatchery. I frankly don't care if you think I'm wrong. 12 workers is better for the game because it gets the player into the more interesting parts of the game quicker. The game is fine with it, and it's most likely going to stay that way. 12 workers is worse because it completely trivializes deep strategical choices and the implications that they used to have in this game. It is almost mandatory that you get a third early into the game and tech paths are not a big commitment anymore. Opening build orders, which were a very strong mindgame/gamble/decisions in itself have diminished in number. Styles have become more generalized and players are not able to show their strengths/weaknesses the same way they could during Wol and HoTS. Midgame play and tactics are not as prevalent anymore because almost always you will get to have some kind of lategame army, specially if you are zerg. No, almost every high level player or pro that has spoken out about this on streams/forums etc agree that 12 workers was a very big reason as to the game failing to retain the number of users that it had during HOTS. Playerbase and viewership numbers already spoke for themselves during the initial months of LOTV, a lot of people left permanently or for a time because they were angry the economic model took this current direction. I lean to believe that you are most probably a low level player or your knowledge about starcraft 2 during its Wol or Hots days is limited. The argument that 12 workers is better because "speed ups boring early game" is, at best, a lame excuse that David Kim came up with (as if the reason the game was not as popular was because you had 3 mins of little action) and, at worst, plain stupid. It completely destabilizes a lot of strategical and tactical options this marvelous game could possibly have. But anyway, not that you care or anyone at Blizz does, they are specialists at screwing things up and almost never acknowledging their mistakes. Such a great company that used to be the pinnacle of imagination and creativity, delivering high quality and memorable products, that is blatantly incompetent at balancing or understanding what makes their game great. 12 Workers was a mistake, maybe a change was needed, but doubling the amount of workers did more overall harm than it did good. I would really like to see any sources on the middle paragraph there. Every pro has said 12 workers is a big reason for the game failing to retain users? What? And a lot of people left permanently? Our perspectives must've been SUPPPER different, because I remember a lot of excitement and hope for what LotV would bring. And most everyone agrees that LotV is the best step-up for SC2, with only the occasional '12 workers is baddddd' thread popping up here and there. I for one am convinced stuff like this thread is what comes out of wearing nostalgia goggles, but I'll admit to that being a personal opinion not shared by everyone. If you don't like the 12 workers start, great. But your whole post just reeks of having your own personal opinion and then blanketing it over everything and everyone. Ok I guess I should clarify, thanks for replying ZG. Note that I wrote that "almost (not all) every high level player or pro that has spoken out about this worker start change (meaning the ones that did bother taking the time to talk/rant/discuss about this in public forums, streams, etc...) is very clearly against it. This was an issue that was already mentioned and ignored by Blizzard since the very beginning and all throughout BETA (including in several high profile posts in this very own site). The discussion kept going on until the launch of LoTV and even afterwards. Example: https://tl.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/490539-12-worker-start-is-ultimately-bad-for-the-gameWhy is it that with all the excitement and hope for what LoTV was supposed to bring viewership numbers went down to last period of HOTS levels (and not even) in just 6 months? Blizzard told us that getting quicker into mid game would make this game less boring and more interesting (thus more entertaining, no? which obviously = more popular). If the game was so much fun and improved upon the weak points of Heart of the Swarm, if expectations were so high then why did high profile pros such as Rain, Jaedong, Flash and many more leave? Why did Proleague stop, why did all this giant eSport ecosystem built around the game just disappear? Just because of Life´s matchfixing scandal or some oldschoolers feeling like going back to Brood War? I find that as a partially correct but weak excuse that just ignores the main underlying problem: Blizzard´s abysmal game management and balancing philosophy, which should directly include the 12 worker change that people were already calling out from day 1. Simply put, a lot of us believe that Starcraft Legacy of The Void is not as fun as the previous iterations of the game. The opinion of players that do not reach a certain skill level in this hard game (difficult to draw a line, but around mid to high diamond I would say) should not be taken into consideration when trying to choose a balance/design change. These people have very limited mechanical, real-time analysis ability or understanding of how build orders, tech choices, macro and micro all glue together in order to form a clear strategical or tactical picture. The problem these players have more than their higher level counterparts is that their losses in games can basically be boiled down to getting supply blocked, not having constant worker production and not spending their money. Now, when it comes to better players that are master and above (and here the skill gap is also quite huge, difference being that it shows in the control of small details, optimal adjustments and actual decision-making skills) we can see what the actual metagame, openings and playstyles are in LoTV compared to HOTS and WOL. What do we have? One or two standardized opening build orders, less experimentation, less compositional variety, almost mandatory scouting and teching up... remember the days where you were not forced to scv/probe scout every game? Back when players would have to make a meaningful early game choice by deciding whether they went 3 hatch before pool or nexus first and they would get either rewarded or punished for it (Hyun vs Naniwa game 5 IEM New York)? When players would try to mindgame each other and when tech was an actual long-term commitment that you were stuck with? Yeah, I personally take that game over anything anything LOTV has offered me. To me it felt like each player had more of a soul of its own and they would fit their playstyle to what they thought their strengths were. Maru was a collossus and nexus sniper, sOs tricked his opponents with weird plans, Bomber played greedy and beat you by outproducing having insane marine control. To me it feels like nowadays all we get is macromonsters playing the same game over and over again, with the same viable tactics, same viable units, same everything all the time. Yes ZombieGrub, our perspectives are indeed super different. "And most everyone agrees that LotV is the best step-up for SC2" I would also want a source for this coming from you, because I think that as a caster (and a good one IMO, don´t get me wrong) who made a name for herself during the last years of HOTS and the beginning stages of LoTV, as a person that goes to events, surrounds herself with remaining sc2 pros and depends on the survival of this game in order to get an income, then of course you would claim that. But what do the statistics show? How often or how likely is it that doing what you do you meet with people that lost their interest in Sc2? Who is more likely to be more active on sites like TL or Reddit defending this game, someone who decided to leave or those that remain because they like this game? You are conditioned to be positive about the state of Sc2 and yet threads of users complaining about 12 worker start appear every now and again. Nostalgia goggles? Sure, but there also exist very legitimate concerns which can be measured with objective parameters that could potentially signal that, indeed, 12 worker start was an overall mistake for this game. I wish I had the time and resources to conduct a research, perhaps someone in TL could someday come up with an extensive polling system in which active and retired pros, former and current players gave their opinion on which economic system they preferred and why. Results could be surprising and we would definitely be able to, if not finally solve the enigma, have a little bit more clarity. It just baffles me, that one of the biggest gaming franchises ever has remained so stagnant and mediocre in comparison to the rest of eSports titles. And while yes, it is true that SC2 is less appealing to the mainstream due to complexity and solo player focus, but we should not act as if the direction Blizzard chose for Starcraft has not buried much of the perceived potential this game actually had.
I appreciate you taking the time to make a fair post. I am of the opinion that the end of HotS/LotV was also the downfall of RTS (or rather, the growth of every other Tier 1 esport we currently have) and has nothing to do with the game quality, but again, perhaps that is only an opinion.
It's cool that my post got such discussion but the actual point of my post was to remind people not just blindly blanket opinions as facts. You say a couple of pros posted on TL to critique the 12 workers - I remember that, but it was a small portion that was known for being generally critical (which is not a bad thing!). The post I quoted initially came off as very 'this is how it is cuz I say so' and that is what I had issues with. Please, discuss away and share opinions.
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12 workers is fine. Please don't go back to 6 workers.
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I would be interested to know what Special think about 12 workers ..
I mean, even best terrans who are representating sc2 in Korea are lazy about the game and to my point of view, Special was the best foreigner able to deal with korea. Who will we send now ?
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On January 31 2020 19:49 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2020 16:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Just because a game loses popularity doesn't mean its a bad game. The entire RTS genre is sinking. This is similar to the dot eating maze game genre sinking in popularity when at one point it was the #1 genre in the entire world.
As video game genres age people play them less. Technology improves giving consumers new choices that were previously not possible. The consumer moves on to the next new and shiny thing that has new game mechanics and features that were not possible only a few years earlier. Ms Pacman was a far better game than Pacman. Yet it generated less then 1/4 of the money Pacman did and Ms Pacman died fast and it died ugly. The entire genre was going down. The consumer had moved on.
Ms Pacman is 1 of dozens if not hundreds of examples. of good games that died before worse games died in the same genre ... because the entire genre was tanking.
You discuss how ZombieGrub can't see the forest through the trees. That is a fair theory to float out there. Maybe she can't. However, maybe you can't see the forest through the trees either.
I'd say SC2 is in a similar position that Ms. Pacman was in when it was released. SC2 was released just as RTS was starting to decline. Similarly, Ms Pacman hit the arcades just as the Dot Eating Maze Game genre was starting to die. It didn't matter that MsPacman was a far better game than Pacman. The consumer was moving away from the entire genre. I think I've read posts of you saying that the RTS genre is sinking ever since 2012. So why does interest in SC2 and BW go up and down, why do people buy the remastered editions? Why do all recent RTS games suck? You can't just repeat this point over and over again, that in this day and age the RTS genre is too old fashioned. There is still war, isn't there? People want to play war games. you have a ton of strategy games that sell for a decent amount. Complex ones too, in general games have been getting more complex and difficult in many ways. More likely than that RTS is just dead is that nobody dares to compete with Blizzard.
It remains a valid point. So its worth repeating.
As far as BW and SC2 still selling copies goes... Pacman Championship Edition still sells as well. Hell Pacman Championship Edition was developed 20+ years after Ms. Pacman came out.
This doesn't mean the Dot Eating Maze Game genre is the dominant video game genre in the world though.
I think its important to realize the level of success Starcraft and the RTS genre enjoyed. As cool as the Starcraft franchise is.. it still has not hit $1 billion in revenue. So even at its peak.... Starcraft was never really some amazing mainstream hit.
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Czech Republic12128 Posts
On February 01 2020 00:21 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2020 19:49 Grumbels wrote:On January 31 2020 16:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Just because a game loses popularity doesn't mean its a bad game. The entire RTS genre is sinking. This is similar to the dot eating maze game genre sinking in popularity when at one point it was the #1 genre in the entire world.
As video game genres age people play them less. Technology improves giving consumers new choices that were previously not possible. The consumer moves on to the next new and shiny thing that has new game mechanics and features that were not possible only a few years earlier. Ms Pacman was a far better game than Pacman. Yet it generated less then 1/4 of the money Pacman did and Ms Pacman died fast and it died ugly. The entire genre was going down. The consumer had moved on.
Ms Pacman is 1 of dozens if not hundreds of examples. of good games that died before worse games died in the same genre ... because the entire genre was tanking.
You discuss how ZombieGrub can't see the forest through the trees. That is a fair theory to float out there. Maybe she can't. However, maybe you can't see the forest through the trees either.
I'd say SC2 is in a similar position that Ms. Pacman was in when it was released. SC2 was released just as RTS was starting to decline. Similarly, Ms Pacman hit the arcades just as the Dot Eating Maze Game genre was starting to die. It didn't matter that MsPacman was a far better game than Pacman. The consumer was moving away from the entire genre. I think I've read posts of you saying that the RTS genre is sinking ever since 2012. So why does interest in SC2 and BW go up and down, why do people buy the remastered editions? Why do all recent RTS games suck? You can't just repeat this point over and over again, that in this day and age the RTS genre is too old fashioned. There is still war, isn't there? People want to play war games. you have a ton of strategy games that sell for a decent amount. Complex ones too, in general games have been getting more complex and difficult in many ways. More likely than that RTS is just dead is that nobody dares to compete with Blizzard. It remains a valid point. So its worth repeating. As far as BW and SC2 still selling copies goes... Pacman Championship Edition still sells as well. Hell Pacman Championship Edition was developed 20+ years after Ms. Pacman came out. This doesn't mean the Dot Eating Maze Game genre is the dominant video game genre in the world though. I think its important to realize the level of success Starcraft and the RTS genre enjoyed. As cool as the Starcraft franchise is.. it still has not hit $1 billion in revenue. So even at its peak.... Starcraft was never really some amazing mainstream hit.
Sometimes you should use sources for your claims, because SC2 is one of the best selling games. EVER. Total War is a great selling series, the last launched game overtook Twitch for a while, sold 1m of copies in a week. The genre is not as dead as you claim it to be.
If you mean RTS e-sport - that's a completely different topic IMO and shouldn't be listed as "RTS are falling down", Zombie in the upper posts is writing the same thing but she writes e-sport here and there so it's clear she doesn't mean the genre itself
RTS genre was never the pinacle of games IMO. That was FPS, but since I come from FPS background it may be my social bubble
Anyway, I think I should stop to defend RTS genre in this thread as I am getting OT.
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EPT
