Is there easy cloning mode now? - Page 3

On August 07 2007 12:26 FlyingHamsta wrote:
The pros will still be better than you.

On August 07 2007 13:52 zobz wrote:

of course they will. that's not all that matters though. if people played life on a professional level, they'd be better than me, but i still might not appretiate their skill. what kind of skills should be emphasized in a certain type of game is what was being discussed.
To each their own but broodwar is a really important game in a couple ways and there are reasons why it shouldn't be too different from the original.

On August 07 2007 11:24 NonY[rC] wrote:
BW has the right amount of hand dexterity required. If a BW game goes long enough, even the pros known for their perfect mechanics have to make decisions with regard to BW's third resource: time. The top players have to decide how much time to spend with each pressing issue, knowing that the issues ignored will suffer. A computer game shouldn't be built such that if you know what to do, you can automatically do it. That's a board game. For example, in Chess, or Risk, it does not take any skill to move a piece. Simplifying a computer game's interface to the point that the action on screen is just an extension of your thoughts is a big mistake. How much of your decisions actually come through on-screen should be mitigated by hand speed.

Purposely setting up the interface this way is not supporting an outdated or stupid interface, but rather it is perfecting what makes computer games computer games as opposed to sports or board games. All games require decision-making but sports also require physical fitness, computer games require hand dexterity, and board games require nothing in addition at all. A tennis player can decide to hit the ball into the far corner, but he can still fail if his body is not capable of such strength and accuracy. It would be silliness to alter the game of tennis in some way such that players are not limited by their physical capabilities. Tennis fans know that the strategical requirements and the physical requirements of the game are already well-balanced.

I say that BW has achieved balance because it is quite comparable to other very successful games. The popular sports in America, like football, basketball and baseball, are all successful at both the professional and amateur levels. If you watch professional games, the best players in the world still come up short in performance: an NFL receiver drops a pass, an NBA player misses a shot, etc. These mistakes exist and in similar frequencies in each sport. "Easy" moves still have a noticable failure rate, likewise "impossible" moves still have a noticable success rate. And despite the professional players struggling to achieve perfection, millions of amateurs still love to play. The professionals and amateurs form a mutual relationship. Professionals need fans and replacements, amateurs need someone to look up to and try to copy.

Setting up a mutual symbiotic relationship between professionals and amateurs is the best way to make a game successful and long-lasting. There is a formula out there among all the most popular games in the world (mostly sports) and Blizzard just happened to strike upon it with BW. With SC2, Blizzard musn't leave it to blind luck again. The execution of strategies cannot be made any easier in SC2 than they are in BW.

PS: Blizzard's idea of making a game easy to learn but difficult to master is exactly what this is about, partly. It seems that they want to make the execution of strategies easy, while formulating strategies will take a lifetime. This is not how to make a proper computer game, especially not the successor to BW. People don't want an animated board game on their screens. Other RTS's have been going that direction and their games hold interest for less than a year. The solution is for Blizzard to apply "easy to learn, difficult to master" to both strategy and execution. That is, it's easy to learn how to clone magic spells, but it's incredibly difficult to master.

On August 07 2007 14:17 FlyingHamsta wrote:


There will still be extremely micro intensive abilities on each side that will seperate good from the noob. For example, phase prisms is a big one. You gonna select all 8 of your phase prisms and order them all to turn into pylon power? No, you'll need excellent micro. Even warp in only allows 1 unit queue, so people who excel at micro will be able to utilize that to its fullest.

Stalkers vs Zealots. Noobs will undoubtedly lose vs zealots with stalkers every matchup. That's just the way it is, because he'll blink them all and accomplish nothing but give a 1 second gap or something between the stalkers and charging zealots. Meanwhile a pro player will only blink back the front stalkers, and kite using that method to kill the new charging zealots almost in the same fashion as dragoons used to, except much more stylishly.

What do you think the War2 pros said when they realized the UI enhancements of SC? "Wow this is noob, now those noob sc players can catch up to the pros." UI's improve with each game, and I think it's quite premature to say pro games will be uninteresting. If anything I'm interested to see what the pros can do with such enhancements, and like I said before there will still be hard moves to pull off.

Who cares about absolute noobs-vs-pros? A mediocre player could pull all of that stuff off.

How is one pro supposed to be any better than another?

On August 07 2007 16:29 A3iL3r0n wrote:

All of the so-called "improvements" will make cool feats of micro less impressive.

On August 07 2007 17:04 shadowenergy wrote:


changed it to be more appropriate.

It will only reduce the amount of micro thats hard to do, but will most likely increase the overall strategy used on the macro or mid levels -thats blizzards intention, not saying that it will occur if blizzard screw it up.

Personally I rather be impressed by overall strategies and counter strategies being used on the macro or mid level, than just the micro employed by a player.

On August 07 2007 18:33 Heen wrote:
Upgradeable autocast would be cool, at least I think so

Taking BW for example, you wouldn't have irradiate on autocast for the first 6 or so vessels (assuming autocast upgrade is expensive) but late game it when you've acquired a dozen vessels, it would be worth it to research it.

And autocast should be upgradeable for select units: marines (stimpack), vessels (irradiate), ghost (lockdown)

Also, there are downsides to autocast. In War3, I recall that humans would get owned by mass ghouls because they relied on sorceress slow autocast too much but they're not programmed to cast unless they're actually under attack. So UD players would move their ghouls *into* the human army and then attack.

An instance where autocast would backfire, I speculate, for SC2 would be a T with a cloud of vessels and Z running a swarm of zerglings to it and thereby triggering the vessels to waste irradiate on the zerglings.

On August 07 2007 16:29 A3iL3r0n wrote:
I find it aggravating that a lot of the newer posters to the forum are all for these simplifications of the famed SC UI. There is one statement that counters everything you have to say:

All of the so-called "improvements" will make cool feats of micro and strategy less impressive.

Done.

Now please quit posting.

I don't care that it will make it easier for YOU to do these things. I don't care about arguments that it will help sell the game to 12 year-olds who constantly complain about how the game sucks if they aren't pro at it immediately after installing the game on their computer. All I care about the creation of a game that has the appeal and longevity of the original SC. Making the moves that are considered top tier feats in SC more accessible is the completely wrong way to go.