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It is interesting you two say that, because I personally think SC2 is extremly hard to follow if you don't know the game. Especially LoL is super-easy to get into, because most of the time there isn't much going on and the guy with the bigger number wins against the one with the smaller number.
SC2 especially has the problem, that it is often not "army vs. army", but "eco harass vs. defend" or "eco harass vs. eco harass". That makes it difficult to understand and also not that interesting. "So you promised me cybernetic robots fighting against Marines on crack, but somehow this entire thing is dropping mines into tiny robots and angry guys charging into other guys?"
Not even the supply are super-clear, because 150 Supply Zerg, Protoss or Terran mean entirely different things. I think WC3 was, in that regard, much easier to follow, just because the action was usually were the hero(es) is/are.
And it gets even more complicated when you want to get new player in, because (if they don't play the campaign first) they usually get overwhelmed...and even in teamgames they are basically "alone". LoL on the other hand was super-easy to get into, just play someone, stay on your lane and try to avoid getting hit - done, first experiences earned.
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I think it's hard to overstate the impact of what I'll call the "Idra effect." Idra was huge for the game. He was American, he had a personality, he was willing to play the bad guy, he was super-active in the scene, he had a "signature playstyle" where he was supposedly this machine-like god of zerg macro, he had rivalries, he made you care. Problem is that past the EXTREMELY early days he was never really competitive.
What we got is a lot of:
-- Non-Koreans not being remotely competitive at the highest levels for the first several years of SC2 -- even the NA and EU regions were dominated by Koreans like Polt and Hydra who were essentially "slumming it." A HUGE storyline at the beginning of SC2 was supposed to be "South Korea vs. the world," with the world actually having a chance this time behind players like Idra, and that just didn't happen even a little bit for years.
-- Korean players with distinct playstyles and more flamboyant personalities (e.g. MKP) have always been few and far between -- same goes with true rivalries like MVP vs. MKP
-- Even when foreigners started to break into the very top of the game, they weren't super-involved with the scene, didn't have big personalities or super distinct playstyles -- Scarlett would maybe be the exception there
-- Imagine where we'd be if semi-pros like Rotti, ToD, Pig, or DeMuslim were consistently winning tournaments or coming close -- I think the scene would be entirely different.
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On August 20 2023 06:30 Balnazza wrote:
It is interesting you two say that, because I personally think SC2 is extremly hard to follow if you don't know the game. Especially LoL is super-easy to get into, because most of the time there isn't much going on and the guy with the bigger number wins against the one with the smaller number.
SC2 especially has the problem, that it is often not "army vs. army", but "eco harass vs. defend" or "eco harass vs. eco harass". That makes it difficult to understand and also not that interesting. "So you promised me cybernetic robots fighting against Marines on crack, but somehow this entire thing is dropping mines into tiny robots and angry guys charging into other guys?"
Not even the supply are super-clear, because 150 Supply Zerg, Protoss or Terran mean entirely different things. I think WC3 was, in that regard, much easier to follow, just because the action was usually were the hero(es) is/are.
And it gets even more complicated when you want to get new player in, because (if they don't play the campaign first) they usually get overwhelmed...and even in teamgames they are basically "alone". LoL on the other hand was super-easy to get into, just play someone, stay on your lane and try to avoid getting hit - done, first experiences earned.
I don't play LoL and I find it impossible to watch. There's over a hundred different characters, and each has multiple abilities and different interchangeable items, so whenever there's a fight going on there's just a bunch of crazy particle effects going off everywhere and I can't tell who just caused the purple explosion, or what the purple explosion even did to to the enemy it hit, etc.
Overall it's a very "video gamey" game that operates by a bunch of fairly unintuitive rules that exist solely for gameplay purposes - if you know its history I think you can definitely feel that a lot of the mechanics were cobbled together from another game.
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On August 20 2023 14:52 ScrappyRabbit wrote:
I think it's hard to overstate the impact of what I'll call the "Idra effect." Idra was huge for the game. He was American, he had a personality, he was willing to play the bad guy, he was super-active in the scene, he had a "signature playstyle" where he was supposedly this machine-like god of zerg macro, he had rivalries, he made you care. Problem is that past the EXTREMELY early days he was never really competitive.
What we got is a lot of:
-- Non-Koreans not being remotely competitive at the highest levels for the first several years of SC2 -- even the NA and EU regions were dominated by Koreans like Polt and Hydra who were essentially "slumming it." A HUGE storyline at the beginning of SC2 was supposed to be "South Korea vs. the world," with the world actually having a chance this time behind players like Idra, and that just didn't happen even a little bit for years.
-- Korean players with distinct playstyles and more flamboyant personalities (e.g. MKP) have always been few and far between -- same goes with true rivalries like MVP vs. MKP
-- Even when foreigners started to break into the very top of the game, they weren't super-involved with the scene, didn't have big personalities or super distinct playstyles -- Scarlett would maybe be the exception there
-- Imagine where we'd be if semi-pros like Rotti, ToD, Pig, or DeMuslim were consistently winning tournaments or coming close -- I think the scene would be entirely different.
So I guess Stephano was playing Call of Duty during that time?
He was crushing the European scene throughout WOL (excluding beta), a dominant player in most international tournaments (one of the players with the most winnings of any nationality on WOL) and a threat to the top Korean players.
He had a nonchalance and a personality that set him apart, in addition to a playstyle that had a lasting influence on the meta, especially in PVZ. His stream was peaking at 20k viewers, even though we were in the early days of streaming on justin.tv.
Idra was light years behind Stephano and beyond comparison in every way.
I agree, however, that the US/EU have long lacked standard-bearers and players to admire and that didnt make anything easy for Sc2 start.
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Literally when I hit post I was like "oh shoot, I forgot to talk about Stephano." Definitely a huge personality and was great for the game, 100% had a signature playstyle, those "legends" spots at Gamers8 weren't easily handed out. I would say his post-EG career was a bit of a disappointment -- I remember EG had this whole video about the "EG curse" that ended with them announcing Stephano joining the team (hence ending the curse) -- and he kinda didn't do much after he joined EG.
Again, not a guy who was super-involved with the "scene," but the scene is mostly English-speaking, which is super-restrictive when you think about it. (I mean, at least that's what I think it is, but admittedly I only speak English.)
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On August 20 2023 18:25 -NegativeZero- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2023 06:30 Balnazza wrote:
It is interesting you two say that, because I personally think SC2 is extremly hard to follow if you don't know the game. Especially LoL is super-easy to get into, because most of the time there isn't much going on and the guy with the bigger number wins against the one with the smaller number.
SC2 especially has the problem, that it is often not "army vs. army", but "eco harass vs. defend" or "eco harass vs. eco harass". That makes it difficult to understand and also not that interesting. "So you promised me cybernetic robots fighting against Marines on crack, but somehow this entire thing is dropping mines into tiny robots and angry guys charging into other guys?"
Not even the supply are super-clear, because 150 Supply Zerg, Protoss or Terran mean entirely different things. I think WC3 was, in that regard, much easier to follow, just because the action was usually were the hero(es) is/are.
And it gets even more complicated when you want to get new player in, because (if they don't play the campaign first) they usually get overwhelmed...and even in teamgames they are basically "alone". LoL on the other hand was super-easy to get into, just play someone, stay on your lane and try to avoid getting hit - done, first experiences earned.
I don't play LoL and I find it impossible to watch. There's over a hundred different characters, and each has multiple abilities and different interchangeable items, so whenever there's a fight going on there's just a bunch of crazy particle effects going off everywhere and I can't tell who just caused the purple explosion, or what the purple explosion even did to to the enemy it hit, etc. Overall it's a very "video gamey" game that operates by a bunch of fairly unintuitive rules that exist solely for gameplay purposes - if you know its history I think you can definitely feel that a lot of the mechanics were cobbled together from another game.
Of course you don't fully grasp LoL (or DotA for that matter) after watching it for a few games. You won't know each champ by name and you don't understand every ability, but it is easy enough to get a general grasp. SC2 on the other hand, atleast that is my feeling, gets too technical too fast and you can't really appreciate it.
Storylines btw are another huge thing on which I would agree. SC2 already has it a bit harder, because I think people are easier attached to teams than individual players, so being a Singleplayer game is a handicap. But (to make another LoL comparison) even though EU also is constantly crushed by Korea and China, Riot (or rather the LEC) made a big effort to develop EU into an interesting region, with storylines, stakes and just overall fun. People are invested into these things.
If you switch back to SC2, for the most part was EU as the probably most important region viewer-wise dominated by koreans who just couldn't cut it in Korea and a general depressing feeling of korean-elitism. I feel like we often didn't appreciate some storylines, because we always added "but it doesn't matter because there will be a korean who crushes it", instead of just enjoying it.
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On August 20 2023 06:30 Balnazza wrote:
It is interesting you two say that, because I personally think SC2 is extremly hard to follow if you don't know the game. Especially LoL is super-easy to get into, because most of the time there isn't much going on and the guy with the bigger number wins against the one with the smaller number.
SC2 especially has the problem, that it is often not "army vs. army", but "eco harass vs. defend" or "eco harass vs. eco harass". That makes it difficult to understand and also not that interesting. "So you promised me cybernetic robots fighting against Marines on crack, but somehow this entire thing is dropping mines into tiny robots and angry guys charging into other guys?"
Not even the supply are super-clear, because 150 Supply Zerg, Protoss or Terran mean entirely different things. I think WC3 was, in that regard, much easier to follow, just because the action was usually were the hero(es) is/are.
And it gets even more complicated when you want to get new player in, because (if they don't play the campaign first) they usually get overwhelmed...and even in teamgames they are basically "alone". LoL on the other hand was super-easy to get into, just play someone, stay on your lane and try to avoid getting hit - done, first experiences earned.
Disagree hard. I played LoL a bit (not much, couple dozen games) but still have absolutely zero idea what's going on when watching games.
In sc2 when I had a similar amount of games played, I had a much easier time following games, because it's really not hard to understand "bigger army = good" or "losing 10 resource-harvesting units = bad" or "having more bases = good"
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On August 20 2023 21:48 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2023 06:30 Balnazza wrote:
It is interesting you two say that, because I personally think SC2 is extremly hard to follow if you don't know the game. Especially LoL is super-easy to get into, because most of the time there isn't much going on and the guy with the bigger number wins against the one with the smaller number.
SC2 especially has the problem, that it is often not "army vs. army", but "eco harass vs. defend" or "eco harass vs. eco harass". That makes it difficult to understand and also not that interesting. "So you promised me cybernetic robots fighting against Marines on crack, but somehow this entire thing is dropping mines into tiny robots and angry guys charging into other guys?"
Not even the supply are super-clear, because 150 Supply Zerg, Protoss or Terran mean entirely different things. I think WC3 was, in that regard, much easier to follow, just because the action was usually were the hero(es) is/are.
And it gets even more complicated when you want to get new player in, because (if they don't play the campaign first) they usually get overwhelmed...and even in teamgames they are basically "alone". LoL on the other hand was super-easy to get into, just play someone, stay on your lane and try to avoid getting hit - done, first experiences earned.
Disagree hard. I played LoL a bit (not much, couple dozen games) but still have absolutely zero idea what's going on when watching games. In sc2 when I had a similar amount of games played, I had a much easier time following games, because it's really not hard to understand "bigger army = good" or "losing 10 resource-harvesting units = bad"
SC2 just has a lot fewer abilities and units as well, where as in league you have over 100 hundred champions with 3-4 abilities each, not to mention skins which change the animation and looks of champions making it further confusing.
I watched the LCK finals this morning, and even having played league and being ranked diamond back in 2014 (haven't played since then, and watched very little of it), I had a hard time following it because of all the new shit since then. Obviously it's just my personal experience, but I am definitely convinced SC2, with the fewer units, abilities, and just 3 races, is easier to follow.
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LotV>WoL>HotS
WoL was a really good game, but slowly it worsened over time from switching its design philosophy and them doing knee-jerk reaction patches. HotS was the worst, though it had really good meta games at times. When LotV launched, you could see the new design philosophy in full effect (in a positive manner), but it is a really different game and I empathize with people who loved SC2 at launch and now they cannot recognize the same game anymore. Maybe the answer is to just play WoL, or play LotV on Faster speed. For instance, a problem instantly recognized in SC2 was the Terrible, terrible damage. And I think this stems from them thinking people would play the game on Normal speed, but players choosing Fastest instead. But it's not like they took the criticism to heart. WoL was actually not that bad, but in LotV we have Oracles, Widow Mines, Disruptors, Cyclones, Biles, Locusts killing Nexi, Medivac Boost, Adepts, Faster Charge Zealot, Anti-armour missile and so many speed buffs (Mutas, BL's, Void Rays, Corruptors, Reapers and many more). So it's not like they tried to slow down the game, they sped it up a lot.
So I see two ways you could make the perfect Starcraft, one is to just keep iterating LotV and tune down some of the most egregious offenders of mobility creep. And the other way would be to use the more slow Starcraft, use WoL as the template and introduce many of the LotV mechanics and units, but gating them appropiately behind additional buildings and upgrades to keep the slower pace of WoL.
That's another thing that really increases the speed of LotV, is the sheer amount of units and upgrades in the game, but them not introducing new buildings, and even in many of the patches, we have often seen upgrades getting cheaper and making everything more affordable, which just means that you have to be ready for everyhing earlier. And it makes scouting especially hard, because you can scout a Star Gate and it can mean Phoenix, Void Ray, Oracle. Then you can scout a Fleet Beacon and it can mean Mothership, Carrier or Tempest. In this example you can see what the Star Gate is producing, but lets say that you couldn't. Or lets just use the Robo bay as an example instead. It's just stupid how hard it is to know what the opponent is doing in LotV, even as the observer/replay watcher.
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Whoever mentioned Broodlord infestor really brought back some nightmarish memories that should have been left forgotten.
Even though it probably wasn't the main reason why SC2 lost out to MOBAs, but I had a feeling that it probably drove alot of people away who never returned for Hots or Lotv.
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United States1923 Posts
The mental gymnastics people go through to justify StarCraft II's relative lack of popularity (and yet it has been the most popular competitive RTS for 13 years now) other than the fact that RTS as a genre just isn't as popular as it once was and South Koreans, by and large, preferred Brood War never ceases to amaze me.
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On August 21 2023 03:19 Mizenhauer wrote:
The mental gymnastics people go through to justify StarCraft II's relative lack of popularity (and yet it has been the most popular competitive RTS for 13 years now) other than the fact that RTS as a genre just isn't as popular as it once was and South Koreans, by and large, preferred Brood War never ceases to amaze me.
This, it's head and shoulders above any other RTS on the scene right now especially competitively. RTS is, and always has been niche, the popularity that BW had with the South Koreans was a combo of many things, it was lightning in a bottle.
The fact that there is still multi-thousand dollar prize pools and weekly tournaments is a testament to SC2's longevity and good design. People just like to cry about everything, the same people that cried about Protoss being the weakest race at the top of BW ladder (which they were) are by and large still watching the game if they truly enjoy BW, same with SC2.
No Protoss isn't as strong as Zerg and Terran at the top of the food chain, they weren't in BW either and it's still the greatest RTS ever made.
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On August 21 2023 00:30 ejozl wrote:
LotV>WoL>HotS i dont totally disagree, but LOTV changed a few things from HOTS that were and still are disastrous. the fact that you have to wall your ramp in PvP and have a practiced pylon block response to adept openers or you literally just lose is stupid, and the fact that it also enables cannon rushes that only work because they abuse the wall is also bad. i know these things aren't "broken" and are defendable, but it creates a totally unnecessary and excessive dimension of defensive knowledge for even casual-level competitive play
the mass queen meta, another painful shitshow, is also possible specifically because of LOTV economy dictating extremely fast 3 base for zerg. these aren't the worst things in the world, and the game is still very good, but i do miss certain things about how HOTS worked
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It's all the more frustrating that the MOBAs aren't balanced at all and that SC2 doesn't lack much to be the best (plus balance is fair enought)
Community could do the job but because the ladder will never be implemented in the mods then LOTV is probably the last version of the game... Instead of asking funds to viewers, community should invest in a new patch where ladder would be in option in the best mods.
To me a professionnal team could make the job into a SC 1.5 only if there s a ladder.
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Northern Ireland26779 Posts
On August 21 2023 03:19 Mizenhauer wrote:
The mental gymnastics people go through to justify StarCraft II's relative lack of popularity (and yet it has been the most popular competitive RTS for 13 years now) other than the fact that RTS as a genre just isn't as popular as it once was and South Koreans, by and large, preferred Brood War never ceases to amaze me.
Yeah that kind of perspective is pretty important to keep in mind, that said mistakes were also made over the years that could have seen that niche be slightly bigger than it is. I mean a niche online game now is still going to be bigger overall in absolute terms than even huge games of the late 90s/early 00s given the ubiquity of internet and more gamers overall than ever before with more ways to play than ever before.
I mean I like jazz for example, it’s never going to return to being one of the biggest mainstream genres in popular music anytime soon.
Ah to have your two favourite genres be 1v1 focused RTS games and arena shooters… Picked em well!
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United States1923 Posts
On August 22 2023 01:51 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2023 03:19 Mizenhauer wrote:
The mental gymnastics people go through to justify StarCraft II's relative lack of popularity (and yet it has been the most popular competitive RTS for 13 years now) other than the fact that RTS as a genre just isn't as popular as it once was and South Koreans, by and large, preferred Brood War never ceases to amaze me. Yeah that kind of perspective is pretty important to keep in mind, that said mistakes were also made over the years that could have seen that niche be slightly bigger than it is. I mean a niche online game now is still going to be bigger overall in absolute terms than even huge games of the late 90s/early 00s given the ubiquity of internet and more gamers overall than ever before with more ways to play than ever before. I mean I like jazz for example, it’s never going to return to being one of the biggest mainstream genres in popular music anytime soon. Ah to have your two favourite genres be 1v1 focused RTS games and arena shooters… Picked em well!
As far as "mistakes" go, I think everyone has their own list of issues. Personally, I would have never released LotV. I still believe the LotV eco caused the majority of the problems people have with the game to this day, but I'm just a maniac who liked a comparatively suppressed economy that didn't allow you to make unlimited queens while also spreading creep, teching and producing army units/workers (and, more importantly, liked watching Mech vs Zerg on Terraform). So feel free to call me an out of touch idiot.
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On August 22 2023 02:04 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2023 01:51 WombaT wrote:On August 21 2023 03:19 Mizenhauer wrote:
The mental gymnastics people go through to justify StarCraft II's relative lack of popularity (and yet it has been the most popular competitive RTS for 13 years now) other than the fact that RTS as a genre just isn't as popular as it once was and South Koreans, by and large, preferred Brood War never ceases to amaze me. Yeah that kind of perspective is pretty important to keep in mind, that said mistakes were also made over the years that could have seen that niche be slightly bigger than it is. I mean a niche online game now is still going to be bigger overall in absolute terms than even huge games of the late 90s/early 00s given the ubiquity of internet and more gamers overall than ever before with more ways to play than ever before. I mean I like jazz for example, it’s never going to return to being one of the biggest mainstream genres in popular music anytime soon. Ah to have your two favourite genres be 1v1 focused RTS games and arena shooters… Picked em well! As far as "mistakes" go, I think everyone has their own list of issues. Personally, I would have never released LotV. I still believe the LotV eco caused the majority of the problems people have with the game to this day, but I'm just a maniac who liked a comparatively suppressed economy that didn't allow you to make unlimited queens while also spreading creep, teching and producing army units/workers (and, more importantly, liked watching Mech vs Zerg on Terraform). So feel free to call me an out of touch idiot.
EXACTLY, everyone has a different vision how the game should be, that's what I'm thinking every time I'm reading through one of those threads.
That's the fundamental issue I have with those "If Blizzard did xy the game would be in a better place" posts - NO, that's bullshit - if Blizzard implemented the changes you specifically (as in the person complaining) wanted to see, some people would like it more and others less. There isn't a consensus on which changes would make the game better.
The assumption that one random TL poster has figured out what changes sc2 would need to become more popular is absolutely ridicolous.
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Strategy means choices but for example, Zerg can inject and spawn tumors relatively free.
There are better solutions in strategy games when you avoid conditionnal mecanism or constraint, and that s the case of injection/tumors. If you want to inject in a hatchery you have to wait approximately 30 seconds, whih is a constraint and not revelant of strategy. BTW, it s easy to understand that Queens could evolved to units able to inject advanced units (higher cost in mana for example, taking account a cumulative number of eggs and less eggs per hatchery ~ 19 , or depends of the tech idk)..
There are not so many tweaks do-able, and it needs a ladder which would be attractive for players
And i m pretty sure there s few examples which can be found to prove that the game has a lot of potential, like the come back of infested terrans.
Vote for Infested Terrans come bacK !!!!!!
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EPT
