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On August 06 2007 17:16 terranmetal wrote:
Personally I think cloning adds a factor of skill to the game, this would just make 12 sci vessel irridiate seem much less impressive, or 12 ghost lockdown unimpressive.(Not saying that sc2 has sci vessels or lockdown)
Translation: average players will actually be able to use Yamato and sniping. The horror...
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On August 14 2007 01:50 Chodorkovskiy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2007 17:16 terranmetal wrote:
Personally I think cloning adds a factor of skill to the game, this would just make 12 sci vessel irridiate seem much less impressive, or 12 ghost lockdown unimpressive.(Not saying that sc2 has sci vessels or lockdown)
Translation: average players will actually be able to use Yamato and sniping. The horror...
I could use Yamato cannons 'properly' when I first got Brood War and had to do that Dylarian Shipyards mission in the single player campaign. Of course, I couldn't do it to the extent that a progamer could, but it's not like using them is impossible. The distinction is between using them well and using them amazingly.
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On August 14 2007 02:10 H_ wrote:
I could use Yamato cannons 'properly' when I first got Brood War and had to do that Dylarian Shipyards mission in the single player campaign. Of course, I couldn't do it to the extent that a progamer could, but it's not like using them is impossible. The distinction is between using them well and using them amazingly.
Define "amazingly". Do you mean having each BC simultaneously take out a different target? That's the thing, it's how they're supposed to be used.
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On August 14 2007 02:10 H_ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2007 01:50 Chodorkovskiy wrote:On August 06 2007 17:16 terranmetal wrote:
Personally I think cloning adds a factor of skill to the game, this would just make 12 sci vessel irridiate seem much less impressive, or 12 ghost lockdown unimpressive.(Not saying that sc2 has sci vessels or lockdown)
Translation: average players will actually be able to use Yamato and sniping. The horror... I could use Yamato cannons 'properly' when I first got Brood War and had to do that Dylarian Shipyards mission in the single player campaign. Of course, I couldn't do it to the extent that a progamer could, but it's not like using them is impossible. The distinction is between using them well and using them amazingly.
There is a difference though, on that map you only have a lot of battlecruisers and nothing else to do, and also your targets are the biggest and slowest units in the game wich also have extreme health compared to damage making it the easiest time ever to use the ability. I doubt that you could use them effectively at all during normal game conditions.
And as said before, most pro players dont use them either, just a selected few that are overpowered compared to the rest of the spells such as irradiate, storms and swarm. Other things are hardly worth doing even for the fastest players out there.
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i dont even know why u defend all this crap.
BW was perfect in evry possible way we all agree on that right?
wc3 and all the other " hey evry 5year old should be able to play this game ez!" games were not and are not even close to bw right?
why put carebear features of "failed" games(not talkin bout wc3 ) in the best rts ever?
evryone of you should be used to clone the hard way. u got to draw a line. where should it stop?
whats next? marines auto spreading/circling out vs lurkers cause the random 8 year oldwasnt fast enough and lost all his marines vs 2 IMBA lurkers? a "spread out" button for mutalisks cause vessels were to strong vs them? mass psi storms grillin evrything on in a huge 1 click evry second(which ofc wouldnt be a problem with the autorunoutofpsistormAI )? and ofc autoblind evry unit with detection around the medic. it only makes sense cause playing will be much easier for evryone and the weak players can use evrything to full potential too! it only makes sense! right? RIIIIIIIGHT?
BW is still the #1 RTS because of its balance and its simple but very rewarding controls. Multiple aspects of what made this game great and the most skill dependant rts ever made are watered down with changes like that.
Put such crap in for the easymode in singleplayer so evry 6 yr old can play thru the game. but keep it out of multiplayer.
(btw yes i playd quite some wc3 and liked it. but its a easymode rts for kids. after 4 weeks of playing i was lvl30++ getting bored in some battles with 90 apm controlling evrything without probs. the only thing that really limited me from winning sometimes was that i sometimes couldnt see wtf was going on. with air and mucho pewpews flying around i just couldnt figure out whats happening and lost. other then that the slow pace and the carebear macro together with carebear micro bored me to death.)
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On August 13 2007 20:22 Zanno wrote:
You are psychotic, thanks. All smartcasting means is "pick the closest caster to the target that has enough mana and cast one time" as opposed to stupid casting where the AI says to itself "hey lets all cast a spell that may or may not be stackable at the exact same spot"
I'm psychotic, eh? Is this the opinion of a professional psychologist?
Either way, your approach to this issue is not that simple by any means. How do you think the closest unit with enough mana is chosen? A program must calculates this for you and then issue the final command on your behalf. Whether you like it or not, this is a tactical element of the game and one that I consider fun.
If you believe that smartcasting will not make spellcasting in StarCraft mundane and commonplace, then that's your opinion. If our desire is to simply make everything easy so we see it performed more, then Blizzard might as well just remove our need to perform any action at all. We should have programs play the game from start to finish for us. This way we would be sure to see every unit and ability in the game being used. I'm sure the game would be much easier to balance as well.
I agree that certain spells like Broodling were rare to see used. But I used it quite often. If anything, the spell itself isn't powerful enough in comparison to the price. That's the real reason it isn't used.
Hell, I'm not even asking that cloning be left as difficult as it is in StarCraft. I clearly want the interface itself to be smoother and be one that provides more information. I outlined what I wanted in the previous post. I simply don't want a computer program to decide which unit is the best unit to cast a spell for me as a pseudo improvement to the interface. Choosing which spellcaster should cast a spell is a fun tactical decision and the fact that StarCraft's cloning process made this so difficult was bad enough, I don't want a computer program to completely take this decision process out of my hands. I think that's a fucking boring solution to an interface problem and if you disagree with that assessment then I am forced to say that I think you're boring too.
Otherwise, I'm not even sure why you quoted my post since you contradicted none of the basic things I said. Oh well, it's an interesting issue and one that I am passionate about.
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On August 14 2007 02:25 Chodorkovskiy wrote:
Define "amazingly". Do you mean having each BC simultaneously take out a different target? That's the thing, it's how they're supposed to be used.
How many people do you know of that can do that? That's part of why it's amazing, because it's incredibly hard to do.
There is a difference though, on that map you only have a lot of battlecruisers and nothing else to do, and also your targets are the biggest and slowest units in the game wich also have extreme health compared to damage making it the easiest time ever to use the ability. I doubt that you could use them effectively at all during normal game conditions.
And as said before, most pro players dont use them either, just a selected few that are overpowered compared to the rest of the spells such as irradiate, storms and swarm. Other things are hardly worth doing even for the fastest players out there.
I don't understand, you're just reiterating my point from a different perspective - which is that it is looks amazing and it is not easy to use the yamato to hit several different targets, and that SC2 is taking that away. There's a great NaDa replay I have of him using BCs to hit targets under swarm, it was awesome - now anybody could do it.
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On August 14 2007 01:50 Chodorkovskiy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2007 17:16 terranmetal wrote:
Personally I think cloning adds a factor of skill to the game, this would just make 12 sci vessel irridiate seem much less impressive, or 12 ghost lockdown unimpressive.(Not saying that sc2 has sci vessels or lockdown)
Translation: average players will actually be able to use Yamato and sniping. The horror...
Last I checked, average players could use Yamato in BW.
Your post should read. "average players will actually be able to use Yamato and sniping as well as the pros. The horror..."
And yes, why should an average player be able to coordinate spellcasters as well as a pro? Why dont we add smart micro as well then if we want average players to be able to do everything like the pros? We could also completly automate macro, that way average players would be able to macro like the pros as well.
What makes a pro a pro? Simple, the fact that he is a lot better than the average player. The fact that there is no hope for an average player when they play against a pro. I stand as much chance as beating a progamer in a game of starcraft as I do beating a pro tennis player in a game of tennis. The difference is that no-one trys to get tennis changed so the average person can hit a ball just like a pro.
In competition, everyone should have their place. The difference between a noob and a pro should be massive, so as to allow everyone in between to have their skill level also a unique position. An example of this is in starcraft where we measure things in APM. A noob will have 40 apm and a pro will have 300 APM. The difference is massive, and everyone has their place in between. There is a meaning when someone says I have a 140 APM. And we can assume that they wont win against a 200 APM player because there is such a large scale in skill.
Automation features such as smartcasting, will reduce this range of skill, reducing the competative value of the game.
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On August 14 2007 19:23 Fen wrote:
Automation features such as smartcasting, will reduce this range of skill, reducing the competative value of the game.
Competitive value is important, but I think we can also say that some challenges are also fun, right? Even us average players can enjoy pulling off a difficult action sometimes and that's a more important reason to retain some of the cloning difficulty if you ask me. 
Along these lines, the learning curve in StarCraft was one of its most amazing features. I've been playing it for almost ten years now and I still learn new, powerful things I can do! It's amazingly fun in this respect.
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On August 14 2007 19:23 Fen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2007 01:50 Chodorkovskiy wrote:On August 06 2007 17:16 terranmetal wrote:
Personally I think cloning adds a factor of skill to the game, this would just make 12 sci vessel irridiate seem much less impressive, or 12 ghost lockdown unimpressive.(Not saying that sc2 has sci vessels or lockdown)
Translation: average players will actually be able to use Yamato and sniping. The horror... Last I checked, average players could use Yamato in BW.
Its hardly ever worth it though, wich is a huge problem. The thing is that spellcaster use has to be balanced for pros, and not even the pros use spellcasters a lot(Only ht, def and vessels), meaning that most of them will become completely useless for the less than pros in the sense that it takes way to much resources and time for it to be worth it.
Now they change so that the spellcasters are easier to use (note that its just easier and noncasters are still a ton easier to use than the casters) they can achieve a ton better unit balance than before giving the players more choices and also more strategical depth in all situations.
And lastly as i said before, casters are still a lot harder to manage than noncasters meaning that the average player will most likely have less casters than the better ones. A noob using storms will most likely just hurt himself with zealots autocharging into them or getting killed by siegetanks, the lethality and pace of the game is still extremely high so every second casting spells will cost you a lot in a combat situation.
I don't understand, you're just reiterating my point from a different perspective - which is that it is looks amazing and it is not easy to use the yamato to hit several different targets, and that SC2 is taking that away. There's a great NaDa replay I have of him using BCs to hit targets under swarm, it was awesome - now anybody could do it.
Yes your right, you dont understand. The thing is that unless you used the spells AMAZINGLY, the units werent worth it, wich creates the huge problem of having an extremely different balance in pro games compared to noob games.
Blizzard cant make a caster the counter to another unit in such a game due to it making the whole game extremely imbalanced in either the noob setting or the pro setting, meaning that they have to make the game quite shallow with bad internal unit balance. This is the reason we had the scout, bc, ghost, queen, valk, etc wich were hardly used, since there were no way blizzard could balance them without totally breaking one of the parts of their game.
Btw, wc3 dont got much skill difference but thats more beacuse you have to micro only ~10 guys, mapcontrol doesnt mean anything untill lategame and lethality is low.
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On August 14 2007 19:08 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
BW was perfect in evry possible way we all agree on that right?
No. Bw is better than other rts, but far from perfection.
Klockan3, I bow to your talant for repeating same over and over again without signs of anger and every time trying to make different examples and arguments -_-
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On August 14 2007 20:37 Klockan3 wrote:
Yes your right, you dont understand. The thing is that unless you used the spells AMAZINGLY, the units werent worth it,
Bullshit, the only unit that "wasn't worth it" was a ghost, and even then they're not that hard to use. Battlecruisers and Templars (among the ones who will really be affected by this change) were absolutely fine, unless you had an apm of like, 20.
This is the reason we had the scout, bc, ghost, queen, valk, etc wich were hardly used, since there were no way blizzard could balance them without totally breaking one of the parts of their game.
That's great, but it has absolutely nothing to do with a thread about cloning. The reasons scouts, valkyries, and queens are never used have absolutely nothing to do with this thread.
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On August 14 2007 21:03 H_ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2007 20:37 Klockan3 wrote:
Yes your right, you dont understand. The thing is that unless you used the spells AMAZINGLY, the units werent worth it, Bullshit, the only unit that "wasn't worth it" was a ghost, and even then they're not that hard to use. Battlecruisers and Templars (among the ones who will really be affected by this change) were absolutely fine, unless you had an apm of like, 20.
So the countless amounth of players all saying that the bc isnt worth it are wrong? Sure, in noob play theyre fine since when massed they counter almost everything thrown against them, but then you dont even use the yamato. On non moneymaps you have to use the yamato effectively or the bc is totaly crap, and remember that noobs wont play on moneymaps anymore since theres a real ladder in sc2.
Show nested quote +This is the reason we had the scout, bc, ghost, queen, valk, etc wich were hardly used, since there were no way blizzard could balance them without totally breaking one of the parts of their game. That's great, but it has absolutely nothing to do with a thread about cloning. The reasons scouts, valkyries, and queens are never used have absolutely nothing to do with this thread.
How is the queen irrelevant, even if you only look at the units directly and dont consider how it would change the balance indirectly by affecting other casters? If brood were on smartcast in sc queens would be used a lot.
Also theyre all relevant for this thread, even the scout and valk, since they couldnt be balanced for both the pro play and the noob play meaning that they went somewere in between with these units. The scout is seen as strong by noobs, but in pro play theyre seen as weak since HT+shuttle is better in almost every situation, the valks are useless since iradiate vessels are better vs mutas wich is nearly the only thing you would want to counter with valks. Both of those units would totally break the balance in noob games if they were balanced for pro's.
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On August 14 2007 21:16 Klockan3 wrote:
So the countless amounth of players all saying that the bc isnt worth it are wrong? Sure, in noob play theyre fine since when massed they counter almost everything thrown against them, but then you dont even use the yamato. On non moneymaps you have to use the yamato effectively or the bc is totaly crap, and remember that noobs wont play on moneymaps anymore since theres a real ladder in sc2.
I've never seen anyone say a BC isn't worth it. They have 500 hp and they do 25 damage, not to mention I've seen them used by progamers in replays (that suggests they are indeed worth it). I'm not talking about moneymaps, because I haven't played them in years.
How is the queen irrelevant, even if you only look at the units directly and dont consider how it would change the balance indirectly by affecting other casters? If brood were on smartcast in sc queens would be used a lot.
I don't see very many replays utilising mass queens, even by progamers (who are the people who can utilise them to their fullest potential). Maybe if the queen had a consume ability they would be used more often, but that's an entirely different story.
Also theyre all relevant for this thread, even the scout and valk, since they couldnt be balanced for both the pro play and the noob play meaning that they went somewere in between with these units. The scout is seen as strong by noobs, but in pro play theyre seen as weak since HT+shuttle is better in almost every situation, the valks are useless since iradiate vessels are better vs mutas wich is nearly the only thing you would want to counter with valks. Both of those units would totally break the balance in noob games if they were balanced for pro's.
The reason Scouts aren't used is because they aren't cost effective at all. They do terrible damage to ground (8) and slightly-better-than-wraith-damage to air (24). Nobody sees them as strong, they're just bad all around because they cost 275 minerals and 125 gas, which could be spent on almost ANY OTHER UNIT and it would be better spent. Even noobs can do math.
Valkyries were designed to fill a niche that wasn't there - Terran anti-air. With Goliaths, Marines, Wraiths, and Science Vessels/Irradiate, there's really no room for Valkyries at all. The reason Corsairs work so well on the Protoss side is because, guess what, the Scout sucks (for the aforementioned reasons). The "balance between pro play and newb play" as you seem to perceive it does not exist. If it did, we would see numerous complaints about the units in question (Battlecruisers, Templars, Ghosts).. but we don't. Probably because they're simple to use well, but very hard to use amazingly. Which is where we (finally) get back on topic. SC2 is removing the emphasis on this 'amazing use of units' by allowing simple cloning. This is the final time I'm reiterating it. Obviously I'm not going to convince you, and you're not going to convince me.
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On August 09 2007 20:09 Tiptup wrote:
If spellcasters get "smartcasting" (where the computer decides the best spellcaster to cast a spell for us), then, by that logic, other units should also get similar computer control. For instance, Scourge #1 should automatically avoid targets (when attack-moving) that are already being targeted by enough other Scourge to kill that target, but if some of those Scourge die before reaching their target the computer control system should automatically give Scourge #1 an order to attack the target which it was previously told to avoid.
Smartcasting is not fun to me. Why don't they simply design a streamlined system for cloning and forget about smartcasting? That would make more sense to me. I enjoy having that control and it does take skill.
This is a great idea! It would make micro more accessible while still taking considerable mechanical skill and letting the player have control over the units (no computer making decisions). If we want to convince Blizzard to not use smart-casting this is what we should be advocating.
Here's how I think it could work: There would be a key that when pressed it switches between "control group" and "subgroup". When you have a control group set up, you can then press this key and the number keys now become available to make and use subgroups within this control group.
For example: You make a control group of 12 Scourges at "3". While you have this group selected you press, let's say, "f5", switching to "subgroup" mode. Now you can assign your scourges to any number keys that you want. Then you press "f5" again and it switches back to "control group" mode and you can go back to controlling your other units and buildings with the keys that you assigned to them. Now whenever you need to "clone" the Scourges you press 3 then f5 and then 1 attack, 2 attack, 3 attack, etc... And you could do the same for Ghosts, High Templars, Science Vessels, etc, etc...
edit: This would also be interesting to use for controling buildings.
edit: And it doesn't have to work exactly like this, it was just an example of how it could work. I'm sure Blizzard can make it a more refined system with interesting features.
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On August 14 2007 22:13 fuglyfrog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2007 20:09 Tiptup wrote:
If spellcasters get "smartcasting" (where the computer decides the best spellcaster to cast a spell for us), then, by that logic, other units should also get similar computer control. For instance, Scourge #1 should automatically avoid targets (when attack-moving) that are already being targeted by enough other Scourge to kill that target, but if some of those Scourge die before reaching their target the computer control system should automatically give Scourge #1 an order to attack the target which it was previously told to avoid.
Smartcasting is not fun to me. Why don't they simply design a streamlined system for cloning and forget about smartcasting? That would make more sense to me. I enjoy having that control and it does take skill. This is a great idea! It would make micro more accessable while still taking considerable mechanical skill and letting the player have control over the units (no computer making decisions). If we want to convince Blizzard to not use smart-casting this is what we should be advocating. Here's how I think it could work: There would be a key that when pressed it switches between "control group" and "subgroup". When you have a control group set up, you can then press this key and the number keys now become available to make and use subgroups within this control group. For example: You make a control group of 12 Scourges at "3". While you have this group selected you press, let's say, "f5", switching to "subgroup" mode. Now you can assign your scourges to any number keys that you want. Then you press "f5" again and it switches back to "control group" mode and you can go back to controling your other units and buildings with the keys that you assigned to them. Now whenever you need to "clone" scourges you press 3 then f5 and then 1 attack, 2 attack, 3 attack, etc... And you could do the same for Ghosts, High Templars, Science Vessells, etc, etc...
I really like this idea. F5 seems a little far away, but yeah, it would be like hotkeying 1 unit to a number, but having 100 numbered hotkeys. Still requires a degree of speed and precision, and the computer isnt doing the work for you.
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On August 14 2007 22:13 fuglyfrog wrote:
Here's how I think it could work: There would be a key that when pressed it switches between "control group" and "subgroup". When you have a control group set up, you can then press this key and the number keys now become available to make and use subgroups within this control group.
For example: You make a control group of 12 Scourges at "3". While you have this group selected you press, let's say, "f5", switching to "subgroup" mode. Now you can assign your scourges to any number keys that you want. Then you press "f5" again and it switches back to "control group" mode and you can go back to controling your other units and buildings with the keys that you assigned to them. Now whenever you need to "clone" scourges you press 3 then f5 and then 1 attack, 2 attack, 3 attack, etc... And you could do the same for Ghosts, High Templars, Science Vessells, etc, etc...
I like it. It's an in-depth system that manages not to be too complicated, and it allows for greater control while still maintaining the level of skill required, and that's what matters. Nice idea.
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On August 14 2007 21:59 H_ wrote:
Which is where we (finally) get back on topic. SC2 is removing the emphasis on this 'amazing use of units' by allowing simple cloning. This is the final time I'm reiterating it. Obviously I'm not going to convince you, and you're not going to convince me.
Amazing use of units will still be there and will still be great to watch and will still feel good to execute, it just isnt required anymore for certain units to be worth it.
And internal balance wasnt good for starcraft, if they perfect that in starcraft 2 they have already added a ton of skill depth to the game that simply were lacking in starcraft. Sure, smartcast wont do it all on its own, but it surely will help together with every other change blizzard does to the game.
But anyhow, i have already won this battle since blizzard wont under any circumstances go back to a less userfriendly UI. They make games that are easy to play but have a ton of depth, making a game harder to play is against the whole concept of blizzard.
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Only reason micro works in SC and WC3 is because of the auto-AI of units. That is flawed.
If the UI is flawed and needs to be improved for SCII, why not the auto-AI as well?
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On August 14 2007 22:35 BlackStar wrote:
Only reason micro works in SC and WC3 is because of the auto-AI of units. That is flawed.
If the UI is flawed and needs to be improved for SCII, why not the auto-AI as well?
Beacuse it removes more than it adds? It removes control from the player, and makes the units do things the player didnt tell them to do. The current UI improvements still requires the player to click for things to happen, he have to click to produce units, he have to click to cast spells, he have to click to move. Nothing is automated, every action made is decided by the player still.
Same as a toggle on buildings that would make it autoque units, it would remove player control over that feature and not make the game easier since in a game with limited resources it could kill the economy for you if you arent catious about it.
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