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On September 04 2007 11:12 CaucasianAsian wrote:
It is a known fact that Starcraft is a macro-orientated game. For instance, we focus our times timing expansions, build orders, reacting to our opponents build orders, creating the right amount and type of units, the production of supplies, or in starcraft II's case, food, building production, etc... When we take away things that make Starcraft what it is, it loses that feeling. I have not played Starcraft II, but just through all of the press, it seems as if it is being more orientated to micro. Why should a player such as the monster, cheater terran (iloveoov), give up his amazing skills so someone who just bought the game can preform in macro management in such a way that it competes with him.
Listing all the aspects of macro that make SC great that MBS/automine do not effect is certainly a logical approach to explaining why MBS/automine should not be in the game.
If you want logical arguments, I'll give you two:
1) SC2 without MBS/automine will make it a very inaccessible game compared to its brethren in the RTS genre for those who haven't been playing it for the past 9 years. Inaccessability is one of the best way to kill a game's e-sport potential, as it decreases the flow of new players into the community. Look at Quake for example. It's one of the best FPS games, yet it's losing its position in esports because the movement required to play at a decent skill level is considerably difficult to learn. For those who would point out Korea as a counterexample, SC's popularity in Korea is something of a fluke - due to the government's concentration on broadband and the high cost of computers, PC baangs became a major social activity, and since Korean law at the time banned most FPSs due to violent content, SC was one of the few (if not the only) high-quality games available to the Korean public at the time. However, this is not the case nowadays, so if SC2 continues to be as inaccessible to incoming players no esports organization outside of Korea will pick it up.
2) Blizzard taking out MBS/automine without testing it first in beta would be a very poor decision. One of the first rules of iterative game design is that you need to play the game in order to determine the affect that changes in the rules have on the dynamics of the gameplay. Therefore, there is no real way for us to determine whether MBS/automine benefits or detriments the gameplay without extensive playtesting on our part.
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"You are not thinking. You are merely being logical."
- Niels Bohr
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Different speed is a bad idea. The whole concept of being able to select different game speeds is bad. Once a casual player used to slow speed comes in interaction with BattleNet or a public LAN he will be forced by all other players to play with fastest. So why not just start with the one that all use... if there is a speed setting, all players use fastest anyway. BW showed that. Normal? Fast? No, from beginning on players created games at Fastest setting.
So just make the fastest speed the default game speed and remove the option to choose game speed altogether.
Actually, this probably also means that MBS should be either completely in (for all games, casual and competitive) or completely out... if you make UI differences, then you basically really split the game in two and make it VERY difficult for players who are not used to the other side to change their habit/timing/game feel and so on.
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Explain how different speed is bad and stop trying to speak for everyone.
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On September 05 2007 03:33 LonelyMargarita wrote:
Two things. First, something I don't think has been brought up. I've said that reducing macro with things like MBS, automine, building queuing, etc. won't hurt that much if there are other tasks (on the micro side) that are added in order to keep a player busy (or ideally, overwhelmed). The problem is, they seem to be doing the exact opposite:
1) In BW, there's no easy "hard counter" to tanks once mines are up. You need to carefully move command some zealots to drag the mines, or use very micro-intensive zealot drops while you're sending the rest of your force in. In SC2, the immortals shields kick in vs terran metal, and less micro is required.
2) In BW, splash damage is deadly if you don't carefully micro against it. A firebat can kill tons of zerglings, corsairs fry all your mutas, and lurkers annihilate marines. In SC2, Firebats are gone, as are corsairs, and we don't know about lurkers. Even archons seem to have a smaller radius based on the clips I've seen. Sure, there's the phoenix's overload, but that just requires you to move your units once, and might not be used much because of the immobility drawback. You don't have to constantly be microing mutas, making sure no two are touching each other in order to avoid splash.
3) In BW, AoE spells are very powerful, especially when your opponent is occupied with macroing. Storm has a large area of effect, and kills or leaves most zerg units with only a few hit points. Irradiate can decimate a control group of mutalisks, and even less common spells like stasis, ensnare, and plague make it beneficial to carefully space your units when you see a caster around, adding more to the micro side of the game. In SC2, storm is smaller and weaker, irradiate's gone, and stasis appears to be smaller. We don't know about zerg's spells, but given the current trends, I'd be surprised if they weren't all removed or weakened, meaning less micro required because of casters. Disruption web is also gone.
4) There are several other smaller elements that are being removed, like having to remember to train interceptors and scarabs (probably falls under macro though), the micro-intensive lockdown ability is gone, and vulture mines (hugely powerful in the hands of someone with amazing micro) are out. Small things like microing 1 vulture vs several zealots or lings were fun and could change an entire game, but sadly most of the units appear to require LESS micro than in BW. What does that mean? If we shift SC2 towards the most basic micro (moving back weak units and selective targeting), it becomes WC3 micro, but with a few less hitpoints. That's not fun micro. Fun micro mixes in controlling unit formations, dropping some units (reavers, zealots) while attacking with others from the front, casting spells, dodging splash and AoE spells, carefully using multiple control groups, and not having enough time to do it right because you have to manually select each gateway to make more units. It's somewhat frantic, but that adds a lot to the feel and the enjoyment of it. MBS, unlimited unit selection, automine, and hard counters remove or weaken most of these things, even if indirectly.
Granted there are things I'm missing. Blink can probably use a lot of micro, but I don't see it using THAT MUCH more than a goon. From blizzcon, it appears 1 cannon at each base prevents reaper raids, so that's another attempt to add micro that appears to have failed. Other units may appear to have amazing micro-intensive uses that have simply not developed yet because we haven't seen or used them enough, etc.
The second thing I wanted to mention is the claim the pro-automation side is using, saying people against automation are simply being emotional, trying to make the game suit them, and trying to make it a certain way to be the same as the game we love, BroodWar. If anything, it's the exact opposite. As you can see from reading the posts in this thread, it is the ANTI-automation side making well thought-out, concise posts. We are using logic to explain exactly how we believe MBS and other features will affect casual and competitive gaming. It is the PRO-automation side using arguments like "it'll shift it towards other things" and "we can't tell until the game's out." Well what are those other things, and why would that be an improvement? And as for waiting until the game's out, it'll be too late then. They aren't going to patch something like MBS out of the game once it's released, and I DOUBT they'd take it out if it's in the beta testing. The time to use our knowledge and experience of RTS games and features is now. A lot of it IS guessing, but we are making educated guesses based on an insane amount of combined gaming experience. Don't take features out just because you were too slow to master BW, then try to call the other side the irrational, manipulative side.
That's my two cents on the matters, and I don't think that had been mentioned.
Edit x2.
All you're doing is naming the things SC2 doesn't carry over from BW, and with that mentality of course SC2 won't satisfy you. 1 cannon per base prevents reaper raids? What? Hello mines? Autobuild interceptors will eat up minerals, and how often do you see carriers in pro games regardless? Not serious business. Lockdown was lost but now there's snipe, where ghosts will be employed to snipe templar, other ghosts, medics, god knows what the Zerg have.
We could do this all day, where we just point out things that are or are not in SC2. No matter what, these features will probably be in SC2, as they SHOULD be. The least you can do is try to offer ways of keeping the macro level on a competitive level with such a feature (ie warp gates.) If you can't, then SC2 probably isn't the game for you.
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Wow. The pro-automation side has now abandoned all logic and argumentation, and has resorted to, "it's going to be done no matter what you say; deal with it." You KNOW you've lost the debate when that's all you're left to type.
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On September 05 2007 06:45 LonelyMargarita wrote:
Wow. The pro-automation side has now abandoned all logic and argumentation, and has resorted to, "it's going to be done no matter what you say; deal with it." You KNOW you've lost the debate when that's all you're left to type.
I'm sorry you don't want to hear the truth. And to be quite honest I don't want to see auto-mining in the game, but it probably will. That's the reality of it, the UI becomes IMPROVED with each generation, it doesn't take a step backward. And really, a game having to rely on its UI for difficulty just shouldn't be so.
So yes, MBS will almost likely be in SC2. Already warp gate, interchangeable Terran addons and salvage fight to make up for this. Hell, warp gate is even more difficult to use than the current construction methods due to the fact that you have to click where they go. So please, keep using words like "pro-automation" to try and look like a TL elite. Meanwhile the rational ones will actually try and think of ways to IMPROVE a game while keeping it challenging and competitive.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On September 05 2007 05:59 Brutalisk wrote:
Different speed is a bad idea. The whole concept of being able to select different game speeds is bad. Once a casual player used to slow speed comes in interaction with BattleNet or a public LAN he will be forced by all other players to play with fastest. So why not just start with the one that all use... if there is a speed setting, all players use fastest anyway. BW showed that. Normal? Fast? No, from beginning on players created games at Fastest setting.
So just make the fastest speed the default game speed and remove the option to choose game speed altogether.
Actually, this probably also means that MBS should be either completely in (for all games, casual and competitive) or completely out... if you make UI differences, then you basically really split the game in two and make it VERY difficult for players who are not used to the other side to change their habit/timing/game feel and so on.
Ladder used to be on Fast and initially people didn't play fastest, it was added as a joke speed.
On September 05 2007 06:21 Oc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2007 03:33 LonelyMargarita wrote:
Two things. First, something I don't think has been brought up. I've said that reducing macro with things like MBS, automine, building queuing, etc. won't hurt that much if there are other tasks (on the micro side) that are added in order to keep a player busy (or ideally, overwhelmed). The problem is, they seem to be doing the exact opposite:
1) In BW, there's no easy "hard counter" to tanks once mines are up. You need to carefully move command some zealots to drag the mines, or use very micro-intensive zealot drops while you're sending the rest of your force in. In SC2, the immortals shields kick in vs terran metal, and less micro is required.
2) In BW, splash damage is deadly if you don't carefully micro against it. A firebat can kill tons of zerglings, corsairs fry all your mutas, and lurkers annihilate marines. In SC2, Firebats are gone, as are corsairs, and we don't know about lurkers. Even archons seem to have a smaller radius based on the clips I've seen. Sure, there's the phoenix's overload, but that just requires you to move your units once, and might not be used much because of the immobility drawback. You don't have to constantly be microing mutas, making sure no two are touching each other in order to avoid splash.
3) In BW, AoE spells are very powerful, especially when your opponent is occupied with macroing. Storm has a large area of effect, and kills or leaves most zerg units with only a few hit points. Irradiate can decimate a control group of mutalisks, and even less common spells like stasis, ensnare, and plague make it beneficial to carefully space your units when you see a caster around, adding more to the micro side of the game. In SC2, storm is smaller and weaker, irradiate's gone, and stasis appears to be smaller. We don't know about zerg's spells, but given the current trends, I'd be surprised if they weren't all removed or weakened, meaning less micro required because of casters. Disruption web is also gone.
4) There are several other smaller elements that are being removed, like having to remember to train interceptors and scarabs (probably falls under macro though), the micro-intensive lockdown ability is gone, and vulture mines (hugely powerful in the hands of someone with amazing micro) are out. Small things like microing 1 vulture vs several zealots or lings were fun and could change an entire game, but sadly most of the units appear to require LESS micro than in BW. What does that mean? If we shift SC2 towards the most basic micro (moving back weak units and selective targeting), it becomes WC3 micro, but with a few less hitpoints. That's not fun micro. Fun micro mixes in controlling unit formations, dropping some units (reavers, zealots) while attacking with others from the front, casting spells, dodging splash and AoE spells, carefully using multiple control groups, and not having enough time to do it right because you have to manually select each gateway to make more units. It's somewhat frantic, but that adds a lot to the feel and the enjoyment of it. MBS, unlimited unit selection, automine, and hard counters remove or weaken most of these things, even if indirectly.
Granted there are things I'm missing. Blink can probably use a lot of micro, but I don't see it using THAT MUCH more than a goon. From blizzcon, it appears 1 cannon at each base prevents reaper raids, so that's another attempt to add micro that appears to have failed. Other units may appear to have amazing micro-intensive uses that have simply not developed yet because we haven't seen or used them enough, etc.
The second thing I wanted to mention is the claim the pro-automation side is using, saying people against automation are simply being emotional, trying to make the game suit them, and trying to make it a certain way to be the same as the game we love, BroodWar. If anything, it's the exact opposite. As you can see from reading the posts in this thread, it is the ANTI-automation side making well thought-out, concise posts. We are using logic to explain exactly how we believe MBS and other features will affect casual and competitive gaming. It is the PRO-automation side using arguments like "it'll shift it towards other things" and "we can't tell until the game's out." Well what are those other things, and why would that be an improvement? And as for waiting until the game's out, it'll be too late then. They aren't going to patch something like MBS out of the game once it's released, and I DOUBT they'd take it out if it's in the beta testing. The time to use our knowledge and experience of RTS games and features is now. A lot of it IS guessing, but we are making educated guesses based on an insane amount of combined gaming experience. Don't take features out just because you were too slow to master BW, then try to call the other side the irrational, manipulative side.
That's my two cents on the matters, and I don't think that had been mentioned.
Edit x2. All you're doing is naming the things SC2 doesn't carry over from BW, and with that mentality of course SC2 won't satisfy you. 1 cannon per base prevents reaper raids? What? Hello mines? Autobuild interceptors will eat up minerals, and how often do you see carriers in pro games regardless? Not serious business. Lockdown was lost but now there's snipe, where ghosts will be employed to snipe templar, other ghosts, medics, god knows what the Zerg have. We could do this all day, where we just point out things that are or are not in SC2. No matter what, these features will probably be in SC2, as they SHOULD be. The least you can do is try to offer ways of keeping the macro level on a competitive level with such a feature (ie warp gates.) If you can't, then SC2 probably isn't the game for you.
What are you talking about? Carriers are one of the most frequent units used in PvT.
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What are you talking about? Carriers are one of the most frequent units used in PvT.
Carriers are a powerful unit against the terran yes, but does every game last until carrier tech? Regardless, main point of my post wasn't about carriers, so stop trying to pick a useless point.
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On September 05 2007 07:11 Oc wrote:Show nested quote +What are you talking about? Carriers are one of the most frequent units used in PvT. Carriers are a powerful unit against the terran yes, but does every game last until carrier tech? Regardless, main point of my post wasn't about carriers, so stop trying to pick a useless point.
It's far from a useless point. A lack of understanding of a subject means that you shouldn't be involved in an in-depth discussion about it and its sequel.
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On September 05 2007 06:45 LonelyMargarita wrote:
Wow. The pro-automation side has now abandoned all logic and argumentation, and has resorted to, "it's going to be done no matter what you say; deal with it." You KNOW you've lost the debate when that's all you're left to type.
That's rather hypocritical for you to say, considering you skipped over two reasonably thought-out points of mine. How about you address the actual "pro-automation" arguments for a change?
Edit: I'm sorry if that sounded rude, but I'm getting irritated of both sides ignoring the valid points the other side is making and nit-picking just so they can feel 'right'.
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It's far from a useless point. A lack of understanding of a subject means that you shouldn't be involved in an in-depth discussion about it and its sequel.
And I retorted that point anyways, so stop trying to rebuke my entire argument by trying to take a stab at some bad wording. You lose.
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Tasteless your the man, but this topic has been discussed already.
I love how because tasteless posted this how no one flames, but when some one like red[sparten] posts you get well, this...
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=57629
Anyway I'm going to say what I said back then which has already been brought up in this post but got not recognition in a closed thread:
On August 07 2007 20:43 houseurmusic wrote:
I think a lot of people are scared the game is going to turn how like warcraft where there wasnt much to do (as opposed to starcraft). I think Blizzard knows this and have no intentions of making a boring or slow paced game. I have a feeling from the other forums I have read that SC2 is going to be a lot faster pace then the original. If this is true, yah they are adding some things that in a sense are making the game easier, but by having less time to do these things will make the game just as hard as the original or not even harder.You also have to add in the fact that by making things easier in this aspect its going to make it a lot easier to lose your force or get your base fucked over, thus making it a more difficult game.
So mb blizzard wont have a amatuer and pro mode of the game, but if you are able to adjust the speed of the play, then that would be equivelent to your post.
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Also by making the game faster paced, and the macro easier, wouldnt this make for more room to expand? If the game ends up being faster with a lot less room for error in macro, by the 10 minute marker of a standard game starting a new expansion (assuming you already have your natural) would be easily viable. By the 15 minute marker on a bigger map a player can take quite a few expansions and easily tend to their defenses.
An example:
I'm a pretty newb BW player, your average c c- player. My zvt is good till I get to late game because its just to hard to defend all my expos with defilers while trying to build the right amount of lurkers, defilers, contantly building drones and sending them to mine all while trying to do some damage to the terran. By making all these things easier it will be easier for me to defend the few espos that I have. Now at a pro level making all these things easier will be able to manage and defend even more expansions. What if the standard play for SC2 is twice the macro of todays BW? I think that would compensate for the easier UI.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On September 05 2007 07:11 Oc wrote:Show nested quote +What are you talking about? Carriers are one of the most frequent units used in PvT. Carriers are a powerful unit against the terran yes, but does every game last until carrier tech? Regardless, main point of my post wasn't about carriers, so stop trying to pick a useless point.
Uh, carrier rushing is used a shitload, and they see lategame use in every matchup.
I was just pointing it out.
Saying "How often do you see carriers used in progames anyway" does not make sense, if you said "How often do you see queens used in progames anyway" that'd be one thing.
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If MBS is not implemented, i agree the different game speeds would do the trick to (potentially) satisfy everyone, but it will never be the case and you know why ?
Fucking everyone will end up playing on fastest cause it's fast paced, keep players on the toes, and finally everyone will enjoy it much more. That's why we don't even need MBS.
In WHICH way is it an improvement seriously ? And im sick and tired of people saying ironicaly dune interface will be better in that case. Are you fucking stupid ? It's not the solution either, everything is about balance...
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auto mining would suck so badd, yeah spamming lost its power
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Ok, so now let me make a couple of points here from the (mainly) wc3 players perspective:
1. Why the hell would auto-minig suck? It's an awesome feature that lets you handle the army and not the workers.
2. MBS is bullshit? Man, if you have different kinds of buildings under one hotkey and you have to tab through them to build stuff (and notice that you don't even see if you started producing there, you can check it by the amount of resources missing but if you want to be sure that your command actually worked you would have to select single building anyway) and (what was raised in other topic) if you have more than one building under one hotkey you don't really control which one of them is producing units.
Edit: And what if let's say you have 3 barracks under one hotkey and 2 factories under the other. You don't have much resources and you can afford and you want to produce 2 units from barracks and 1 unit from factory. How will that help? If you select factories first you will build 2 units from the factories and if you select barracks first you will produce 3 units there and won't be able to afford this 1 unit you wanted off the facts. (I know it doesn't make much sense but I hope you get my point)
3. MBS and AM being forcefully turned off in all ladder? The game would die too fast, because there wouldn't be enough people who would wish to suffer from inferior/outdated interface. Man, if you really want to control your macroing you have to do most of it manually anyway (taking into consideration 2 previous points: MBS and AM make macroing simplier but not precise, and I truly believe that at competetive level you won't be able to let yourself be imprecise and you will have to struggle more).
So please stop once for all bitching about interface improvements which don't make it all that easier but completely DIFFERENT (new game, new interface, remember? How many times and how many people have to tell you that SC2 IS NOT going to be SC:BW 2.0 FFS?).
And what the hell all this features have to do with BGH games? Even with easier macro control you will still have to expand.
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macro is a very fun part of SC, lets not take that away
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On September 05 2007 07:18 1esu wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2007 06:45 LonelyMargarita wrote:
Wow. The pro-automation side has now abandoned all logic and argumentation, and has resorted to, "it's going to be done no matter what you say; deal with it." You KNOW you've lost the debate when that's all you're left to type. That's rather hypocritical for you to say, considering you skipped over two reasonably thought-out points of mine. How about you address the actual "pro-automation" arguments for a change? Edit: I'm sorry if that sounded rude, but I'm getting irritated of both sides ignoring the valid points the other side is making and nit-picking just so they can feel 'right'.
I didn't address them because I thought everyone saw how obviously invalid they were. I guess you didn't.
1) Removing the features doesn't make it less accessible to anyone. With auto-matchmaking and variable speed settings anyone can play someone at their skill level, and you can choose the balance between micro and macro if fastest is too fast. ADDING the features SEVERELY hurts the potential for progaming, simply by weakening the skill curve. Professional sports don't just require the largest pool of potential players possible. If that were the case, minesweeper would be the biggest esport ever, and the NFL would be touch-football. Professional sports require a skill curve that makes it impossible to master, fast paced or anticipation-based action, and stand-outs that have abilities that seem inhuman to everyone but themselves. MBS doesn't lessen the pool at all, but it does weaken the learning curve and makes stand-outs like Boxer and iloveoov very unlikely.
2) Not true at all. They will have internal alpha and closed beta to test everything. They also have all the other RTS games that use MBS and automine, and all of our knowledge and experience about what features have what effect on a game to base their decisions on. Something like MBS is unlikely to be removed once it's in the beta, and I think you know that, which is why you're arguing for it to be in. I could extend your logic to more accurately say that MBS has to be out in the beta, since we've already tested it in the alpha, and both modes need some testing.
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