EPTAn idea on noob friendlyness of SC2 - Page 5
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Equinox_kr
United States7395 Posts
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MindpLay-
40 Posts
I played both sc and wc3 and imo easy interface would be bad for the sc feel of gameplay. Ofc it can be improved some, it already is with groupings adding and removing units more easily for more interesting defensive micro ( like in wc3). But removing the fast pro moves like good psy storms, irridiates and stuff would totally change the idea, and in that fashion making it more like wc3. This is something that we'd all agree with we dont want? If u haven't played both games u can rationalize it all you want, but u just CANT know Also i read a lot of bs, like, why tennis with a 200kg racket? Nobody would ofc. What u fail to see is that mousespeed and micromanagement is like a good forehand serve with tennis. Btw is tennis a rts game... since there's only a limited amount of strat u can't really compare them | ||
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oshibori_probe
United States2932 Posts
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Apoptosis
United States78 Posts
If you happen to be massing hydralisks, it may be quite easy to have all your production buildings queue'd to 5, and then its a matter of a single hotkey. However chances are, assuming the game is properly balanced, if all you're doing is simply massing hydras at a point in the game where that one keystroke summons up a large number of buildings, chances are you're probably going to get screwed over by that decision as find yourself facing a varied selection of well microed units; as you're engaged by marauding Colossi, High Templar casting storm, mass stasis via forcefields, etc etc, you may find that you were better off being a bit more involved with your macro. Mass production with a single thought, with the right timing, rather than a torrent of keyclicks isn't necessarily a bad thing. With that thought-to-action gap in playability shrinking, and certain aspects of controlling the game become that much more streamlined, the stars of the game will really get a chance to shine. The games become less mechanical and more strategic, allowing gamers, average and professional to concentrate less on clicking factories and gateways, more on choosing appropriate timing, raiding and creating expansions, stashing that ace up their sleeves, fighting intense battles on multiple fronts, dropping, attacking, defending, expanding, and making those bold moves that bring home the game. A great general is distinguished by ability of his mind to cope with a variety of dangers on multiple fronts, developing the perfect strategies, knowing and anticipating the moves of his enemy, and taking the right risks in the right situations; not by his elite phone skills, being able to call up every factory, barn, and workshop in his national area to make sure things are a'crackin. This is gonna be a game to enjoy. | ||
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aW]Nevermind
Venezuela73 Posts
On August 08 2007 18:11 FreeSoul wrote: As interface improves, gamers across the board are given more fluid control of their forces in SC2. The correspondence between player thought and in-game action improves, giving players more efficient control of their units and more exacting options for production and general gameplay. If you happen to be massing hydralisks, it may be quite easy to have all your production buildings queue'd to 5, and then its a matter of a skill hotkey. However chances are, assuming the game is properly balanced, if all you're doing is simply massing hydras at a point in the game where that one keystroke summons up a large number of buildings, chances are you're probably going to get screwed over by that decision as find yourself facing a varied selection of well microed units; as you're engaged by marauding Colossi, High Templar casting storm, mass stasis via forcefields, etc etc, you may find that you were better off being a bit more involved with your macro. Mass production with a single thought, with the right timing, rather than a torrent of keyclicks isn't necessarily a bad thing. With that thought-to-action gap in playability shrinking, and certain aspects of controlling the game become that much more streamlined, the stars of the game will really get a chance to shine. The games become less mechanical and more strategic, allowing gamers, average and professional to concentrate less on clicking factories and gateways, more on choosing appropriate timing, raiding and creating expansions, stashing that ace up their sleeves, fighting intense battles on multiple fronts, dropping, attacking, defending, expanding, and making those bold moves that bring home the game. A great general is distinguished by ability of his mind to cope with a variety of dangers on multiple fronts, developing the perfect strategies, knowing and anticipating the moves of his enemy, and taking the right risks in the right situations; not by his elite phone skills, being able to call up every factory, barn, and workshop in his national area to make sure things are a'crackin. This is gonna be a game to enjoy. This guy couldn't say it better. | ||
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Markus
Canada11 Posts
On August 08 2007 11:26 Brutalisk wrote: And while it is true that it does take more skill with an unfriendly UI, it's a very "boring" or "dumb" skill. Macroing is really the most basic thing to do in a RTS and I don't see why it would be better to be forced to hit 10 keys plus mouse movement plus mouse clicking for producing 10 zealots out of 10 gates instead of just 2 keys (select all gates + select Zealot). It just slows you down, even progamers. Even for progamers, the game is so "hard" that they can't control 2 or 3 attacks properly because of all the shit you have to do in the meantime. Even progamers lose many units stupidly due to micro mistakes because they had to macro at that time. Does that look cool when you watch it? No... for spectators micro is much "cooler". Amen. I can't believe all the SC fanboys who think difficulty of UI = real skill. I have played many many RTS's, and the ones that require the least amount of skill are the ones that early units are slow and/or do no significant damage. CnC3, AoE3, WC3 come to mind. The game that required the most skill of all the games I've played (including SC) was a clone of Age of Kings called SWGB. This is because all units were quick and brutal, and something that countered something else was extremely brutal to it. You would have battles over 4-6 different areas all at once, because a small group of anything could do serious damage to your econ. Like Brutalisk said even pros of SC can't control more than 2-3 attacks and that is because of the gimped UI of SC. Having a good UI doesn't mean a game will be noob friendly. Having a game where you send your army into a fight, can go get a pop, and nothing has died yet, makes a game noob friendly. | ||
NonY
8748 Posts
On August 08 2007 18:11 FreeSoul wrote: ...A great general is distinguished by ability of his mind to cope with a variety of dangers on multiple fronts, developing the perfect strategies, knowing and anticipating the moves of his enemy, and taking the right risks in the right situations... Macromanagement is one of the fronts on which a player is challenged. Taking it out of the game makes for one less arena with which a player can distinguish himself. There was professional BW for years and iloveoov was still able to unlock the secrets of macro that had been hiding from players for so long and amaze crowds with his ability to produce numbers of units previously thought impossible. These secrets include keeping all production facilities in constant use without ever queuing up extra units as well as regularly telling newly-built peons to gather minerals. Nowadays, such concepts and all that go into making them practical are widely known and yet players still cannot have perfect macro in games. Macro remains an area in which a player can choose to risk his time in order to get results. Anticipating whether you'll need to micro your units can determine whether you have the time to invest in making your macro better. Planning out your strategy is essential -- if your opponent constantly attacks you, it is more difficult to reap the full benefit of mass expansion and mass production facility since you cannot give it the attention it requires. Even if SC2 stays true to BW and lets macro remain as much of a challenge and skill as it ought to be, that does not mean that every game of SC2 will be heavily macro-based. Maps can solve balance and trends in style of play. Maps can be designed so that expansion is difficult and minerals are limited and so macro remains relatively simple and other skills are required to win the game. But if you edit the game of SC2 itself so that macro is not an issue on any map, then you take away one of the most sublime, omnipresent, and strategically deep aspects of BW from SC2 for good. | ||
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Sudyn
United States744 Posts
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NonY
8748 Posts
However, this thread isn't about just macro, but rather about an overall "newbifying" of the challenge of BW. My main point about ensuring that a certain number of player mistakes remains in the game still stands. The pressure of proper execution in BW is so strong that knowing a strategy and being able to execute it are two very different things. SC2 players should not be able to execute their strategies any easier than BW players are able to. I don't know what the developers of SC2 want their players to be focusing on most of the time, so I can't say for sure that making macro easier or micro easier are actually bad things. It could be that they will greatly reward battles on multiple fronts or that they expect micro moves to be much more complex than in BW, or anything else. But the same challenge must exist. We've only been given news about SC2 that indicate difficult BW things becoming easy SC2 things and we have heard nothing about what great challenges lie ahead in SC2. As long as the strategically-best moves are also impossible to master, even with 10 years time of playing the game 40 hours per week, then SC2 will be fine. | ||
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TheOvermind77
United States923 Posts
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Apoptosis
United States78 Posts
On August 08 2007 18:32 NonY[rC] wrote: Macromanagement is one of the fronts on which a player is challenged. Taking it out of the game makes for one less arena with which a player can distinguish himself. There was professional BW for years and iloveoov was still able to unlock the secrets of macro that had been hiding from players for so long and amaze crowds with his ability to produce numbers of units previously thought impossible. These secrets include keeping all production facilities in constant use without ever queuing up extra units as well as regularly telling newly-built peons to gather minerals. Nowadays, such concepts and all that go into making them practical are widely known and yet players still cannot have perfect macro in games. Macro remains an area in which a player can choose to risk his time in order to get results. Anticipating whether you'll need to micro your units can determine whether you have the time to invest in making your macro better. Planning out your strategy is essential -- if your opponent constantly attacks you, it is more difficult to reap the full benefit of mass expansion and mass production facility since you cannot give it the attention it requires. Even if SC2 stays true to BW and lets macro remain as much of a challenge and skill as it ought to be, that does not mean that every game of SC2 will be heavily macro-based. Maps can solve balance and trends in style of play. Maps can be designed so that expansion is difficult and minerals are limited and so macro remains relatively simple and other skills are required to win the game. But if you edit the game of SC2 itself so that macro is not an issue on any map, then you take away one of the most sublime, omnipresent, and strategically deep aspects of BW from SC2 for good. I certainly agree with your thoughts on macromanagement, it is certainly one of the fronts that present great opportunity to keen players. That said, I do not believe SC2 cuts low on macromanagement to any substantial degree. What it cuts down on are interface-based roadblocks, superflous problems that arise not necessarily from strategic consideration, but rather from what is, despite our great love and affection for it, is an outdated system of interface. While one can certainly make an arguement that doing certain things that we had to in Brood War to keep the game flowing, such as assigning new probes to minerals or having to race through your production buildings, executing click after click, keystroke after keytroke requires presence of mind on top of mechanical ability in order to execute well, which is a part of great RTS gameplay, periodically checking your Nexi or Command Centers to move those idle probes, or individually clicking building by building are, by modern standards of RTS gameplay, more akin to banal tasks such as taking out the trash, washing the dishes, or doing laundry than they are what makes Brood War such a high-flying excursion into mind games and strategy. They are more about mechanics than actual thoughtful and skillful manipulation of units, analytical gameplay, daring, and strategy. That said, I don't think Brood War would be Brood War without those things. They are an integral part of SC1 gameplay and in the theater of Brood War, are part of what distinguishes the pros from the lightweights. However, I welcome such interface streamlining for StarCraft 2, considering the game is being designed with these things already in mind. And it is being done for a reason, that being that removing the "busywork" as it would be considered in a 2007 game, or indeed, knowing Blizzard, '08, '09, will indeed impact gameplay. Since the game is being designed with this in mind, players will find that they will have to push the envelope even further if they want to be successful in their games; Unique strategies, psychological gameplay, amazing feats of army control and in-battle micromanagement. Blizzard isn't removing Macro, it's removing the busywork involved with an older interface, albeit one we have come to accept for what it is and appreciate greatly. If anything, it can be said that Macro will be pushed into even higher gear, there's no excuse now for not having your production in tip-top shape and absolute maximum capacity every moment for a high level player now. When it comes down to the ropes, this is a new game and the StarCraft series is venturing into new territory. Simplicity is best when it comes to interface, let's make up for the ease of use of the interface by the complexity of the game itself. You won't find yourself want of things to do in this game, without a doubt. | ||
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KH1031
United States862 Posts
On August 08 2007 18:54 NonY[rC] wrote: I don't know what the developers of SC2 want their players to be focusing on most of the time, so I can't say for sure that making macro easier or micro easier are actually bad things. It could be that they will greatly reward battles on multiple fronts or that they expect micro moves to be much more complex than in BW, or anything else. But the same challenge must exist. We've only been given news about SC2 that indicate difficult BW things becoming easy SC2 things and we have heard nothing about what great challenges lie ahead in SC2. As long as the strategically-best moves are also impossible to master, even with 10 years time of playing the game 40 hours per week, then SC2 will be fine... that's what i have in my mind as well - Amen to that On August 08 2007 12:01 InRaged wrote: That was said thousand times. Gameplay of wc3 has nothing to do with it's UI. Believe it or not, with sc:bw interface wc3 will be even more slow paced and spectacular, than it's now. I think the point here is if you have warcraft3 interface implemented in sc, not the other way around. I also intented to stay on topic and argued how noob friendly interface in sc2 will not help contrast skill level, especially when it is a high level competition. - I believe you may have misunderstood my post or have taken it out of context. In my humble opinion, the level of macro/micro in sc right now is what contrasts the difference between a good player and a great player (along with game sense and timing, of course), and that is essential. And if sc2 is going to implement some sort of EZ macro/micro interface - whether it be unlimited unit/building selection, autocast/single cast when all casters are selected, etc - they ought to work on some other area where the skill level can easily be contrasted. At the moment, I could not think of anything else that would serve such purpose. I believe that blizzard will not only make sc2 a great game to play, but it will also be a long lasting spectator game. | ||
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oshibori_probe
United States2932 Posts
What does blizzard have to gain from making an old fashioned game? | ||
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InRaged
1047 Posts
On August 08 2007 19:01 KH1031 wrote: I think the point here is if you have warcraft3 interface implemented in sc, not the other way around. The point is no matter which interface you implement how spectacular/competitive will game be depends on many factors but interface | ||
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KH1031
United States862 Posts
On August 08 2007 19:25 InRaged wrote: The point is no matter which interface you implement how spectacular/competitive will game be depends on many factors but interface While I certainly respect your position and appreciate your prompt response, I find it hard to agree that the interface is not a factor of how (as quoted from you) spectacular/competitive a game would be. I'd ask for you to perhaps elaborate a bit on your viewpoint, otherwise this is becoming a moot discussion. | ||
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houseurmusic
United States544 Posts
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SirKibbleX
United States479 Posts
In most scenarios in Brood War, a given unit is, at all times, about a second away from death. When a marine takes 2 shots from a vulture or 8 shots from a pair of rapidly-attacking zerglings to kill it, players have little time to react. Micromanagement goes from being an option to a necessity when units are as fragile as they are in Starcraft. The predictability of attacks (not a damage range, but a precise, knowable value) also leads to some strategic decision-making. Upgrades (don\'t forget armor!) are an extremely significant part of the game. Perhaps these are some reasons why pros find Warcraft 3 lacking? Think about it: in Warcraft 3, the average units have several hundred HP, and yet they typically do less than 30 damage. Usually it takes upwards of 30 hits to kill a unit. This gives players a tremendous amount of time to react, and causes players to give less consideration to their units. Though units in WC3 may be \'more valuable\' as armies are smaller, in Starcraft the low cost but high offensive value of any survivng unit gives their survival a high priority. This leads me to the \'new protoss\' and the \'new terrans.\' Perhaps I\'m not alone in finding the Colossi, Warp Rays, Mothership, and Immortals counter-productive? What\'s terran offense going to consist of if Immortal dominate the battlefield? Perhaps new dynamics may alleviate my concern, but I just don\'t want the high survivability of these units to mean that players will cease making rapid, split-second decisions to save their assets. Terran\'s likewise need to be concerned: the new siege tanks are supposedly tougher, the Thor\'s and Viking\'s appear to be powerful tankers, and Battlecruisers newfound ability to rapidly engage multiple targets simultaneously may prove difficult to balance. In all these things, however, I think giving more power to players to macromanage with ease will be a necessity of building the game\'s fanbase into places outside Korea. Supreme Commander came, for a while to be a popular game in my town amonst many of my friends. \"You wanna play SC tonight?\" got really annoying when I was constantly playing StarCraft, not Supreme Commander, all and watching VODs of Korean superstars. The sell of SupCom? Macromanagement made easy. Though a relatively slow-paced game, SupCom had its rush strategies and its econ boomers and its tech-turtles. One could place an unlimited queue of units on a building, rally units into patrols, rally units into groups of a given size, which would then attack en masse, rally dropship patterns to pick up units fresh from factories and deliver them to the frontline. All while players would be busy searching for a hole in the enemy defenses: a weakness against artillary, a lack of anti-air or anti-cloaking systems, a system of reactors placed close together for increased efficiency, but likely to chain-react and destroy one another... the list goes on. Eventually stalemated games could be broken wide by \'high-tech experimental units\' massive laser-wielding spiders or nuclear-tipped cannons, submarine aircraft carriers, or nuclear missiles. What did I learn from this game? Maybe I should rethink what UI\'s can and can\'t to give players creative freedom. I think one key point is that \"Articles of User-Interfacing\" should only be simplified in aspects that relate to one\'s own play. For example, having auto-mining, rally points, and mass-building selection helps YOU; that to say, it doesn\'t directly hurt your opponent. The line is crossed when automation begins to affect your enemy. Auto-casting irradiate on enemy spellcasters or psionic storms on masses of enemies is patently absurd and would only throw the game into imbalance. If you ask me, however, mass-lockdown on one unit is a crippling newb mistake, and one which would require a bit of compromise and careful thought. I would suggest a system that makes hotkeying the units easier, but not necessarily the act. For example, one could have a hotkey that casts a spell for all selected units, and one that casts the spell for the tabbed unit (a la WC3, although some of you will disagree with my direction already). Imagine, rather than selecting severals ghosts and having to accurately shift-deselect units, hit L, and then accurately click on another unit, rinse repeat, one could simply hit L, click an enemy unit (or Q if you\'d prefer a hotkey single-shot alternative) hit tab, rinse repeat. Slightly simpler, but a 3-imput system has 25% less action required, lowering the hoop through which all players must jump. And what\'s the cost? Pro players will hit 3 hotkeys instead of four. Damn that breaks the game completely. How about a group-composition option? If you have a ghost amongst a group of MnM, could you just hit L with the group selected and still get the Lockdown? I think this would be a fair system. Either way, I\'m convinced after all the phenomenal games they\'ve made, they\'ve learned not to balance the races before they finalize and balance the UI. If they change one, they\'ll be very quick to balance the other, but I know not all of you are concerned with balance, but more wiht the pacing and feel of a multiplayer game as heralded and significant as Starcaft II. Some of us may need to be willing to take sides however. I\'m convinced that Starcraft II\'s UI simplicity may be inversely proportional to the magnitude of difference between beginner and professional players, something which I think is important in the creation of E-Sports, and all of sporting in general. | ||
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InRaged
1047 Posts
On August 08 2007 19:33 KH1031 wrote: While I certainly respect your position and appreciate your prompt response, I find it hard to agree that the interface is not a factor of how (as quoted from you) spectacular/competitive a game would be. I'd ask for you to perhaps elaborate a bit on your viewpoint, otherwise this is becoming a moot discussion. I elaborated that already in post you cut down for one sentence. And Blacklizard did it fine in his post right after mine. Btw look at the video there http://teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=53339 That's possible because of game mechanics, not interface. Oh, and may be that will give you idea what skilled players will do with their free from fighting with interface time. This stuff much harder, much spectacular than clicking through factories/gateways. But clicking on factories much more important, you know.. | ||
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Lukeeze[zR]
Switzerland6838 Posts
On August 08 2007 17:28 oshibori_probe wrote: seriously most of you guys that bitch about sc2 being to easy are ignorant fucktards QFT F T | ||
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sc0rchedst0rm
Ireland176 Posts
Still, this is Starcraft 2 we're talking about here. It all seems a little worrying now when we haven't really had a chance to try it out, but I'm sure it will feel right. I believe! Heh, I can see plenty of reasonable arguments both for and against simplifying the UI and whatever, and my take on it is this. You can simplify the UI as much as you want, because at the end of the day all that automation is going to come back and bite you in the ass. Automining? Sure, it'll mean the end of peons idling from the moment they are made, but don't tell me that it'll be better than doing it yourself. Grouped production buildings? I can see how this will make things a LOT easier in a lot of ways, but having to do it the "old fashioned way" makes you think more about what you're doing, and surely thats the guts of a strategy game; thinking? You've already got it to a certain extent with Zerg being able to mass produce units by selecting all Larvae with control click and making 12 units at once? Is this really any better than the Terran/Protoss methods? I don't think so, anyway. I find when doing things this way with Zerg it's all too easy to build massed unit armies, whereas with Terran or Protoss having to go to each Barracks/Factory/Gateway/whatever, regardless of how quickly I'm doing it, makes me think more about the composition of my army and usually yields better results. I don't know, maybe all these things come down to my newbishness and I'm doing it "wrong" anyway. I welcome all the little UI tweaks and enhancements, but I imagine it'll only make a difference for true n00bs and money mappers for pumping out giant armies with minimal effort. Real gosu players are so quick with their macro anyway, there'll probably be little difference. And, anyway, I find all the hard graft of macroing serves the extra purpose of warming up the fingers in time for those do or die micro moments. So, I my proposal is this: The new UI features and whatever will make macro easier, but not redundant. I imagine that it'll still be done in similar fashion as it is done with BW by a lot of people, if only as a hand excersise. BUT the real strength of the new UI will be that macro will no longer have to be a stumbling block when the time comes for intense micro. So REALLY, just by doing this to macro, Blizzard are improving micro. Macro and Micro will have a better working relationship if you will. You'll macro hard when you can, and micro hard when you have to, without one interfering with the other to the same extent. So I say, keep up the good work Blizzard! - Disclaimer: I am still a newb, and I admit this readily. Therefore, my opinion is possibly based on stuff that is catagorically incorrect, or just plain wrong. After all, it is just my opinion. Please remember this before you flame me. | ||
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