EPT[D] What is Macro? A look at SC2 - Page 2
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lololol
5198 Posts
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geno
United States1404 Posts
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
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geno
United States1404 Posts
Post count and quality aren't always correlated, but I think post count and dedication are. Someone on the forums who has thousands of posts clearly have a vested interest in the continued success of the community. Thats not to say all people with lower post counts don't, of course, but it is easy to make that assumption. I'm personally quite invested in the community. The success of progaming is vital to me, as its one of the few things I can follow with any regularity and keep coming back for more. What I'm trying to say is, that you are correct that post count shouldn't qualify an argument, but it is still important. Its probably funny seeing that from someone with 30 (now 31!) posts though, lol. | ||
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Mammoth
United Kingdom49 Posts
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parkin
1082 Posts
more of everything. | ||
p4NDemik
United States13896 Posts
On March 12 2008 14:34 geno wrote: For the Oov thing, I think we can agree to disagree. I'm not going to come out and say that the progamers of today have the same skill of those of yesteryear, but I certainly don't think the time passage has been defined by massive bounds in skill. I instead believe that most of the changes progaming has achieved are due heavily to innovative changes in gaming style, whether it was the switch to high expansion play (for all three races - Oov's 3rd base, Savior's 3Hatch build, and of course Bisu Build), or innovative unit usage and game strategies (vulture and wraith revolution, and most of the builds in current use that were never seen in 02). Progaming has developed a lot, and certainly macro has been a part of that, but I don't think it was the biggest development. If you compare Oov's early 3base play to the late game 3base play of those before him, I'm not entirely sure you would see considerably better unit production and straight up macro. Oov was just able to do it earlier. I was reading FConnectionUK's "Return of the Subtitle" thread and I saw some excerpts from conversations between YellOw and TheMarine that he translated. I thought they really have a lot to say about how far progamers' skills have come. Granted YellOw and TheMarine both had their primes come and go by the time Oov started to dominate the scene, but the progression that they talk about in progaming is one that continued past Oov's time and is really pushing the limits of this game. Anyways, these guys know their stuff, and how highly they regard today's progamers is really something to be noted: Segments of TheMarine's Stimpack Interview Translation I thought was interesting Yell0w: When I watch Flash play the game, without pretense, I'm amazed. Simply amazing. I've never seen anyone who can manage the eco as well as he does. Every eco falls into perfect timing. PERFECT timing. Not only that, it seems like he's spending all his eco, yet he always have spare mineral to expand more... That really is breathtaking to watch. Is he really calculating all the timing? Or is this by his sense? TheMarine: I think it's both; he calculates as much as he can, but he relies on his sense as well. In Starcraft, having good sense is the best Yell0w: To be honest, I don't watch any other progamers play. Not at all. But recently, I watched the game between Flash and Jaedong... And I saw how Jaedong played. Holy cow! (giggles) TheMarine: Yes, I know. I thought to myself, you can't get ANY better than THAT! Yell0w: Goodness... H e i s c r a z y! TheMarine: Watching him play, I tell that to myself everyday! Yell0w: In any given circumstance, he reads them all. He's not just good at playing the game... He knows how to win the game. What I mean by that is, he has a way to win even in the most desperate situation. He's not just GREAT at game (like the rest of the progamers), he KNOWS how to WIN the game. From the start to finish, everything he does is to WIN the game, heck, I don't even know how to describe this! Watching him play, upsets me. Even in my PRIME time, was I THAT good? Casting doubt to myself. Even with Jaedong's skill, win is not guaranteed, then how about me? Depressing... Perhaps this is the reason my passion to win collapsed...(nervous laugh) TheMarine: It's amazing that zerg is able to fight so well against Terran at SUCH high level Yell0w: Flash was up against Jaedong several times recently TheMarine: 3 series! Yell0w: When I see Flash practice in our practice house, it is like a new experience. This kid is crazy. Crazyyyyy! Everyone admits his spectacular skill. TheMarine: In practice house, it seems like Flash would NEVER lose to ANYONE Yell0w: I kept telling him that he already won. There's no way you will lose with the skill you have. And he responded in a cute fashion, "Fine then, I'll beat Jaedong easily and advance, ok?" I told him "I have complete faith in you! Go! Go win your games!" (Thumbs up) He later came back that day... "Hyung... Sorry..." Yell0w + TheMarine: LoL Yell0w: So I watched the game. Yes, Flash made mistakes he never makes, but still! He played extremely well! EVEN THEN, Jaedong's play stands out. Mutalisks cutting off here and there nonstop. Defiler coming out at the perfect timing, dark swarn here and there. I told myself... he is a MACHINE. He does EVERYTHING at once. He doesn't lack anything at all. ------------------------------ Yell0w: IF old progamer at his PRIME come to play right now, he would fail. The game level has enhanced so much since then. Yell0w: At my prime time, I thought I was THE best. There can't be any more improvement from this point on. Just look at my APM. Yet time continued to flow and now I ask myself, if I was to come today from the past with my skills at the prime time, will I be successful? Skills have evolved once more again... TheMarine: I agree, there was a BIG skill improvement again and again. As of late, Offense AND defense are both a must at the same time. TheMarine: Isn't that amusing if you think about it? In our prime time, we felt that... with every effort we moved our hands at the fastest speed we thought was possible. We concluded that our hands cannot be any faster than this. Especially at my time, the reason why I was most successful was only because my hands were the fastest. Back then 100 apm was the average, if fast, then low 200. However, I maintain low to mid 300 apms. Then XelloS and Nada's appearance pushed the limit to mid - high 300 apm. I thought THAT was the true limit. Anything above that was humanly impossible. The end. The end of multitask, the end of micro, the end of macro. That was the impression I had... But now, just look at Bisu... Jaedong... their apm? OVER 400. What's more amusing? All their teammates claim that all their movements are required movements. (Not spam) And I have nothing to say to that... Note how YellOw regards that every element of Flash's eco (macro) falls into PERFECT timing. Yes, he used that expletive when referring to that element of his macro. Then he goes on to say that he's "spending all of his eco," yet he still has the timing down for expansions, etc. Both former pros then go on to continue to rave about Flash and Jaedong in such a manner that really gives one the impression that these two are unimaginably good at this game, they can't even put it into words to fully describe it. So then the fear is, do certain UI changes bring on the possibility of having more people that can reach this sort of level of talent? Because if you can have even more than just a few people be this good, then their skill isn't as special, not as thrilling, and that is where all the worries lie. Anyways this stuff was too good not to try and bring it to your attention geno, for the time being, I'm trying to stay away from this whole Macro/MBS/Auto-mine debate because after certain TL.net interviews with certain SC2 head honchos, I feel that this game is in the right hands. But yeah, thats YellOw talking up there!!! PERFECT he says! Flash really is a prodigious talent, that's for sure. | ||
Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
What is macro? As i laid out in my oov article, its not just unit production and comprising the following elements;
Strong macro players tend to be able to hold their expansions better and know when to cut workers to maximise their unit production. This is the case with Pusan and Oov. Actually, as pusan developed he tended to use reavers and dark templar more frequently to delay his opponent and using his faster expansions he would always appear to have way too many units. How does MBS affect macro? Let's examine each task;
Up until circa 2006 macro became more about utilising cash than expanding. Players already understood how to build bases at the right time thus the difference in macro basically game down to good mechanics. Because, after all, the production side of things is purely mechanics not sense oriented at all. Thus after about 5~ years of truly competitive gaming macro was reduced to unit production differences. It should be noted, that this was 8 years after bw so its quite a long time. Obviously, there will be some sort of proscene for SCII and it will be a highly competitive game. For the first 3~5 years MBS isn't going to affect the game dramatically. Sure it will be 'easier' to play but that won't turn into results immediately. There will be new timings and what not, learning how to first capitalise on earlier expansions rather than mechanics then later add in the mechanics to fine tune AFTER 3~5 years. Now, with no mechanics really necessary then perfect macro will be par for progamers in about 5 years. Whereas we are still refining starcraft macro today. Perhaps maps will change timings etc, i dont know... but i do know that MBS will reduce the time it takes to reach the pinnacle. What makes a winning gamer? Obviously, game sense - making the right decisions is SO important in starcraft. Even if you have a large economic advantage (Darkelf) you can still lose by making terrible decisions to a player who is just waiting for a window to exploit (oov). Macro and Micro can be thought of as tools that you use during the game to try get an advantage somehow. But the right decision making and tactics are the paths to true victory which are complemented by Macro and Micro. How will MBS affect game sense? A lot, actually. Whereas micro and macro were tools to aid you in making the right tactical decisions now you will (especially as time goes on) macro will be less and less prevalent as a tool as it will quickly approach a uniform standard. Thus this EMPHASIZES game sense above all other qualities even more. In Starcraft, this still holds true - except there is a larger tolerance at lower levels for making bad decisions. In SCII there will be LESS tolerance for such errors. This means a couple things. After awhile when people have become competent at using MBS to macro, it means the game is HARDER for noobs to get in to. Because an experienced player will always be able to exploit their weaknesses as they will have a very strong tactical base compared to the noob. Seeing as the noob still has to adjust to macro as well, there is simply no hope for him. Perhaps this is counter intuitive to what MBS is trying to achieve, i don't know, but it certainly won't affect your lives until a most things have been standardized. However, as a consequence, progaming in particular approaches razor thin error margins. Currently, a truly top teir pro can afford to make minor errors against lesser progamers in the area of tactics (see Stork vs Flash @ bluestorm from the OSL group stage) but still come out okay one way or another. But in SCII, it means that as there is less to differentiate the progamers meaning that even a slight error in tactics could decide an entire game making every matchup like ZvZ - where the tiniest infinitesimal mistake can ultimately cost you the game. | ||
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glassmazarin
Sweden158 Posts
In BW, as soon as you have more production buildings than your hotkeys could manage, you HAVE to go to your base and "manually" build units, and you have to send your scvs from your CCs to the minerals. With MBS and automine, I can just use my hotkeys for unit production (dont need to go back to the base), build SCVs at 5 bases (never need to look inside those bases), I can even shift-build supply depots if I want to! (not sure how effective that is tho). The only real reasons when I want to look at my base is when adding infrastructure (which will go away late game, full tech, 200 supply and as many production buildings as my economy can manage). This will damage the game in some ways: Players automatically gain much higher map awareness This applies to all levels. Being "sneaky" with attacks will be much harder to do since the opponent can focus more time on the minimap and scouting and such. Players can focus all (almost >.< ) their attention on microing their units When i watch Boxer pull of some dropship micro move it totally blows me away. When I watch Grubby microing his Blademaster i go "meh".. The reason behind all this? Boxer pulls his shit AT THE SAME TIME as doing LOADS of other stuff, else he would get smashed by the opponents macro! To see perfect micro on one of those unit micro maps out there is not very exciting at all, cause "anyone" can pull it off really. More production buildings and a higher economy in SC2 does not make macro harder! In BW, adding 4 Factories mean more clicking and more time managing your unit production. Expoing mean producing SCVs and sending them to minerals at one more location. With MBS and automine I can have all CCs binded to one key, all Factories to other keys (in some nice ratios) and it will be just as easy managing 5 bases as one base. Lastly, I want to say that MBS will never be a liability in reality because you always have the choice of not using it, i.e just double click your hotkey and manually get the unit mix you want. | ||
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pyrogenetix
China5098 Posts
anyway good write up | ||
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p4NDemik
United States13896 Posts
And yes, that mere thought of watching pro games knowing the margin of error is as thin for every matchup as it is in ZvZ right now sends shudders up my spines. | ||
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lololol
5198 Posts
Btw, I love playing ZvZ, it's so fast and such an adrenaline rush, although watching it is not nearly as exciting, because it's just 2 units, no spells and just harrasment and maybe one big battle at the end. | ||
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Southlight
United States11768 Posts
On March 14 2008 00:53 lololol wrote: Actually having "razor thin error margins" sounds like the games will be really exciting to watch with virtually perfect play with constant battles and spells flying. I would have to agree here. It means the level of play itself will, by necessity, become higher. At least, that's the hope. Anyways, beyond that, I need to think before I can respond <3 Slow thinkers for the winnnnnnn except in actually playing Starcraft lulz. | ||
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On March 13 2008 21:27 []p4NDemik[] wrote: Honestly, i'm on the fence for MBS - but thank you Plexa, your logic there is so clear and to the point, I'd hope anyone trying to explain why MBS is worrying to people that care about the pro scene would cite the points you make.  On March 14 2008 00:53 lololol wrote: Not ever matchup will be so intense like ZvZ due to the fundamental features of each race; TvT will still be slow and PvP will be in the middle (no comment about the others yet). But games will be more unpredictable as a result, atleast for awhile after things are standardised. Actually having "razor thin error margins" sounds like the games will be really exciting to watch with virtually perfect play with constant battles and spells flying. Btw, I love playing ZvZ, it's so fast and such an adrenaline rush, although watching it is not nearly as exciting, because it's just 2 units, no spells and just harrasment and maybe one big battle at the end. | ||
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Meh
Sweden458 Posts
You're all working for me. | ||
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HyoSang
United States194 Posts
To me this means that SC2 progames will consist of more battles on more fronts, with attacking and defending occurring simultaneously, at faster rates, and with higher levels of complexity. I think that the new direction of macro control greatly effects the relationship between micro vs macro in SC2. | ||
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Showtime!
Canada2938 Posts
You do realize when you say, "I don't want to turn this into another MBS thread", you are in fact doing the opposite right? :/ Can we all just get along? Bloody unlikely. Case in point and I know many of you have heard this before: the SC diehards played the demos and many of them keep telling you it plays/feels just like SC only a bit different. If they were to release the BETA today there would be some problems with the MBS side of things. I assure you of that. Good thing they aren't. *** Plexa made a lot of good points in the article he wrote but you have to keep things in proper context. It is easy to misinterpret something and it could come off as fuzzy. With that said here's a condensed version of what led to Oov's success in simple English. Read it. Do what you want with it, but most importantly understand the true meaning behind his success. The reason Oov was so dominate was because of two things: 1) game sense - it was all about his timing of expoing and he always seemed to be one step ahead of the competition. This isn't debatable. 2) macro - 1 rax to FE anyone? Boxer gave him the big push. In order to beat the man who brought him up he would have to find a way to beat the pioneer of terran strategy and what better way then overwhelm him? This is a problem unto itself with the current status of pro gaming. New strategies aren't as frequent anymore and over a certain amount of time players will develop this game sense (things start to become mechanical, or what some would call mundane). I look forward to what Dustin comes up. | ||
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bp1696
United States288 Posts
On March 12 2008 09:53 fusionsdf wrote: While game sense is valuable (I personally consider it seperately from macro, but whatever), dont you think after watching 100 replays you will be able to figure out cc timing and factory timing? People make a bigger deal of this than it merits. You dont have to be a progamer to know when to get a forge first pvz in sc.....Timing can be learned far easier than multitasking. If that were true, then Nada would never lose. Timing in general for the early builds is quite easy to memorize and use. However, adapting to the play of others, and adapting the timing of your attacks to coincide with their weakest times is not nearly so easy, and that is what people mean by game sense. multitasking represents a physical barrier and as such is an active challenge. base timing is a passive challenge, once it is understood, it requires little effort. So I don't think you can say that base timing is as hard as multitasking. I dont think you can say that you have to play 13 hours a day to figure it out. I dont think you can say that it would be impossible to learn/copy from progamers by watching replays and light play. In short, I don't think you can say it is a big a skill differentiator as multitasking. The idea is the MBS allows you time for other kinds of multi-tasking. True multi-tasking should revolve around conducting multiple armies and multiple battlefronts at the same time. Limiting that multi-tasking ability due to an artificial barrier on selecting buildings decreases the watchability and entertainment value of SC. For example in pro games, do the commentators spend a lot of time watching the buildings and waiting for units to come out? No, the spend their time watching battles, which would occur more frequently and in multiple areas more easily if MBS were included. ummmm.... what? mbs means you can select every single hatchery on the map and hotkey it to one key. automining means you dont have to watch the drones. smart rally means you can have all your units rally to one spot if you want. so what is the problem again? Think about an example: let's say you have 5 hatches total. 3 in your base, and 2 expos. At the 2 expos, you want drones, and at the 3 in your base, you want fighting units. If you use MBS, there is the liability that you produce the wrong kind of unit at a particular location. Why does this matter since they all rally to the same point? Because LARVAE are a precious resource, and if you use them up producing the wrong kind of unit, you will have to wait before you can make the correct kind of unit at that spot. This puts you slightly behind your opponent, now. While these might cause some skill differentiation among amateurs, do you really think its going to do the same among progamers? Again, on the pro level, they can use their speed now to fight multiple battlefronts, to harass more effectively, and to scout, rather than spending seconds clicking on every one of their 15 factories in the middle of a battle. Multi-tasking is hard, regardless of what activity you do. MBS, however, while getting rid of some of the energy devoted to producing units, allows for more entertaining multi-tasking. In other words, if I can focus on 3 things at a time, I would rather focus on 3 different battles, than 2 battles and 1 equivalent of producing units. | ||
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Seelys
France104 Posts
As a game watcher, while I'm impressed with flawless multitasking, I'd enjoy to see more tactical variations, with multitasking devoted around fight situations : defense and counterattack at the same time, 2-3 simultaneous exmpansion raids, etc. Granted, all extreme BW player skills won't translate directly into SC2, but top playstyles have always been evolving along the years. Eventually what we use to call "macro" will take a new shape. | ||
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eChoWns
Germany168 Posts
So all of you dont fear SCII it will stress you just like your beloved predecessor | ||
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