Interface should not be a hinderance to deep gameplay. Tricky execution =! having your fingers chopped off. sdl;fkkl;lgsdflhk;sf;flkgj;sljsk;l
Game Design: Mind vs Execution - Page 5
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Megrim
Australia60 Posts
Interface should not be a hinderance to deep gameplay. Tricky execution =! having your fingers chopped off. sdl;fkkl;lgsdflhk;sf;flkgj;sljsk;l | ||
Showtime!
Canada2938 Posts
SC:BW is like playing the piano. Are you an artist, or no? ^^ Love.Zelduck, you are a waste of time and space. Look at all my posts in this thread. Then ask yourself who broke down the cookie cutter/mentality aspect clearer and better. Then you can comeback here and begin to argue. Raging stupidity at its finest. Thhhhaaanhk yooouu. maybenexttime said it best (note where it came): On December 01 2008 23:35 maybenexttime wrote: I've read this thread and most of it is bullshit. Uninformed people stating their ignorant opinions about StarCraft based on their experience with fighting games and F level StarCraft. ;; This is one of the most useless threads in the SC2 section that I've seen in a while. Congrats Zelduck you truly know your stuff. That guy is no expert in RTS; leave the different genres alone. | ||
dcttr66
United States555 Posts
true, alot of people specialize in one thing and may ignore other things that they could do, such as playing games, they may only play one game and ignore others...but that's not what everyone does. if it was it would be really hard for game developers to come up with original ideas. they wouldn't have previous games to inspire them or they wouldn't test their new game that they are making, haha. so let the player play street fighter and starcraft and accept that he might be quite good at both. and if you need an example, i think there was a starcraft player or two who moved to korea for starcraft and then took up poker. he was good at both, you see. edit: hmm i don't like that poker is hotlinking some random poker site. haha oh well... edit2: oh i thought i was agreeing with above post until i started reading everything he said..haha. anyway i am agreeing with OP which i suppose will get me flamed but whatever. | ||
Senix
Germany149 Posts
On December 02 2008 01:06 Velr wrote: Sindril maybe a smart guy... But he is also a carebear. He does not like hard games. He does not like games that give you a penalty for losing/dying/failing. He does not like controlls that you have to learn. This mindset works for *some* genres but totally fails in others. The problem is, if you think a bit about that I come to the following: At first i thought: Penalty needs to be there to make the game exciting. Then I came up with this: You don't need a penalty, the game just has to be exciting. And now I think I cracked the issue: Whitout a proper difficulty/penalty the game will lose a lot of replay value and in the long run it won't animate you to *replay* the game. This is not the issue for a casual gamer, he will play a game 1 time and then throw it away. But if you want to make a game for the *hardcore* audience then you want to have a hard difficult and the with that coming penaltys for *failing*. See... Sindril actually hates Ninja-Gaiden for the exact reason many people absoluetly love it and carebears hate it (unforgiving, hard but exciting). It's the same with *to easy* mechanics. If you don't see yourself improving, you will lose interest. Starcraft lives that long because everyone is constantly improving his game the more he plays, it drags you in because you feel that you can get better and you actually see how you are getting better... Be it due to sheer Mechanics, better strategy or just being able to freestyle your game more and more and actually faring better with it than following Build Order X like a lemming.. Your never really *there*... That last part is something that I think Sindril don't gets. He has the noble thought that games should be decided on a strategic level alone but if this would be the case he should develop some round based Street Fighter or RTS. Then you can talk about pure strategy. Mechanics are VERY important to games. Being *fast* is a key aspect to SC/BW, it also is to WC3, it also is to Street Fighter, Smash Brothers or whatever game you play competetive. If you take away this the game will end up being very accesible and also very boring. You end up with some game that does not have the strategic dept of a pure round based game and totally lacks the speed/controll-focus of games like Starcraft/Street Fighter/Tekken whatever... I was never a *fast* player... I hated and still hate spam clicking, I was and I am the epitome of the player you would call *efficient* clicker. I for sure won most of my games due to strategy, tactics and gamesense, not due to my Mechanics (they weren't that bad, but it really showed in my ZvT were Mechanics/Micro is really, really important. My ZvP on the other side was really good because that MU does require not exactly the same skillset). I could wrap up top 100 WC3 Classic just due to gamesense until the strategys got *standartisized* (Masscaster vs Massdryads vs Guhls) and I lost interest. I never had a real standart Strategy I just seemed to knew better what will work than most of the other *news* because that’s what I was: A newb that just understood the game a little better than 99% of the others... But replays crush such an advantage in a few weaks/months (boy, I havte replays :p). The changes in Macro from SC2 will benefit my style of play, I probably will be the better SC2 player than I ever was at SC/BW (if I play enough)... BUT I don't know if these changes will make the game better or worse. Speed is totally underrated by most players, it's one of the deciding factors when it comes to an RTS... REAL-TIME !!!! Strategy.. It's not.. Strategy Whitout Rounds/Turns. On December 02 2008 01:14 Ki_Do wrote: Easy to learn hard to master. ok The evolution should not be: Even easier to learn, hard to master. But: Easy to Learn, Even Harder to master if things follow this way "Even easier to learn, hard to master." it will get so fucking easy to master the games that, warning same old argument again + Show Spoiler + sc3,sc4,sc5 will be about voice commands , tactical action only, maybe without buildings but with reinforcements onlyT.T, or maybe u download it to ur brain and think about it to play, or auto-everything from an infinite queue of everything to automatic unit movement to give u time to overview ur strategies again, and much much more shit to make things even easier and take out tension from the game This is exactly what I am thinking. Execution is a major part of competition. Imagine every average player being able to have near perfect macro in midgame or pulling off full parry of Chuns super into combo for the win when you have no life left. That are the things that make the game exiting and those moments are remembered. | ||
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Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
On December 02 2008 21:41 Showtime! wrote: Here's one Megrim, SC:BW is like playing the piano. Are you an artist, or no? ^^ Love.Zelduck, you are a waste of time and space. Look at all my posts in this thread. Then ask yourself who broke down the cookie cutter/mentality aspect clearer and better. Then you can comeback here and begin to argue. Raging stupidity at its finest. Thhhhaaanhk yooouu. maybenexttime said it best (note where it came): This is one of the most useless threads in the SC2 section that I've seen in a while. Congrats Zelduck you truly know your stuff. That guy is no expert in RTS; leave the different genres alone. ... I have seriously read your comments in this thread thrice now just to make sure I'm not missing something but no, you really are being an irrational asshole in this thread. 2 day ban, come back when you can argue without insulting someone for absolutely no good reason. | ||
Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
Even though Sirlin is a Fighting game enthusiast he writes game independently and you will recognize his points in any proscene, even in SC:BW or "real sports". Here is the list he made of "Traits of a Gold Medallist:" • Familiarity with tournaments • Deep knowledge of the game at hand • Love of the game • Mental Toughness • Mental attitude toward winning, losing, improving • Technical skill (usually dexterity) • Adaptability • Knowledge/ability in other games of that genre • Yomi • Appraisal Technical skill is 1 out of 10 here and I find it really, really hard to believe that Technical skill is more important in Real Time Strategy compared to Fighting Games. Technical skill will be tested in SC2 anyway: Blink, Ghost snipe (especially each other), Viking up and down to name just a fraction. What I would like a RTS to put emphasis on would be Yomi, Adaptability and Appraisal (just picking my favourite 3, the others are also important). | ||
maybenexttime
Poland5411 Posts
I've also pointed out my objections to Sirlin's train of thought regarding mechanic etc. - most of his misconceptions are due to his ignorance/lack of understanding of SC on competitive level. On a side note, his reasoning is pretty similar to that of Dan the gaming journalist's. I'll write more when I finish reading all posts. ^^ | ||
Love.Zelduck
United States170 Posts
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
On December 03 2008 01:01 maybenexttime wrote: We're talking about being goood/skilled at a game, and not being a champion material, though. So some of these point are irrelevant. I´m really curious where you draw the line. Whyt would be irrelevant to a "non-champion but still competative?" On December 03 2008 01:01 maybenexttime wrote: I've also pointed out my objections to Sirlin's train of thought regarding mechanic etc. - most of his misconceptions are due to his ignorance/lack of understanding of SC on competitive level. That doesn´t matter for the point we are arguing. It´s not like we are talking about SC:BW patches, but about the aproach to competative gameplay in a new RTS. You are letting your SC:BW experience narrow your vision. We can´t and shouldn´t compare everything to a game that was maintained for 10 years to one thats not even Beta - we´d just cripple the creative process. If there is anything Blizzard knows how to do it´s polish. They would have good reasons to change something. | ||
NatsuTerran
United States364 Posts
On December 02 2008 10:41 FrozenArbiter wrote: Easy to learn means it's easy to learn the basics. It is easy to learn the basics of SC. Microing marines (well) vs lurkers is not the basics. Easy to learn, hard to master is pretty much the same as the phrase "An hour to learn, a lifetime to master".. A phrase that has been applied to everything from Chess, to Go, to Poker. The examples you bring up ALL belong to the "master" part of the statement. It takes something like 30 minutes to learn all the rules you need to start playing Go, maybe even less to start playing Chess. The time it takes to pick up the absolute basics needed to play a game of SC are somewhere in that area, depending on what you choose to include (as unlike chess or go, SC doesn't have a ruleset you have to learn before playing, so you have to make some judgement calls on what constitutes the necessary basics). At least to me, the many different creep patterns, the hero choices (since only a few of them are actually competitively viable as a starting hero - and only one or maybe two of their spells are likely to be viable as a first spell) and so on makes WC3 quite a daunting experience (if you are trying to actually learn how to play, not just randomly playing). Your quote about Wc3 being hard to learn fits the same bill as my micro examples in SC. You say "if you are actually trying to learn how to play" which means for SC actually learning build orders and not buying what you want. You talk about the viability of heroes, which goes hand in hand with the viability of micro in SC. Also, I really think people give strategy in SC more credit than it deserves. Everyone who plays this game uses very similar and sometimes identical builds to pro's. This is obviously due to replays and videos, so I fail to see how it is absurd when I say it is easy to learn from a video. Strategy in this game, the way I see it only comes into play in bo5's where you mix the builds up to play mindgames with opponents. I don't see your choice of build mattering in a bo1 game besides taking map into consideration. Tactics, on the other hand, involves terrain useage and micro. As well as practices such as seige pushing along a wall to avoid flanking. I really don't see a lot of thought going into these actions. The more you play, the more common sense it should become. So what exactly is all this strategy that I hear people going on and on about? I gave you my definition, now what is yours? | ||
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Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
On December 02 2008 23:15 dcttr66 wrote: well i do agree that you can't just take a demographic of people, like let's say a bunch of people that play fighting games, and just group them all into a group that is a bunch of flunkies at starcraft...even if that just means they're below average or whatever that means. true, alot of people specialize in one thing and may ignore other things that they could do, such as playing games, they may only play one game and ignore others...but that's not what everyone does. if it was it would be really hard for game developers to come up with original ideas. they wouldn't have previous games to inspire them or they wouldn't test their new game that they are making, haha. so let the player play street fighter and starcraft and accept that he might be quite good at both. and if you need an example, i think there was a starcraft player or two who moved to korea for starcraft and then took up poker. he was good at both, you see. edit: hmm i don't like that poker is hotlinking some random poker site. haha oh well... edit2: oh i thought i was agreeing with above post until i started reading everything he said..haha. anyway i am agreeing with OP which i suppose will get me flamed but whatever. If you read Sirlin's book you'll see that he isn't very good at starcraft (I think he says so himself, I don't remember exactly). It's still a good book tho ![]() And yes, you are right, many SC players have moved on to poker - such as Grrrr.., Elky, Smuft, Rekrul, Nazgul and many, many others. Oh and the poker hotlink is not a random site, it's TL.net's sister site, Liquidpoker.net ![]() | ||
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Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
On December 03 2008 02:16 NatsuTerran wrote: Your quote about Wc3 being hard to learn fits the same bill as my micro examples in SC. You say "if you are actually trying to learn how to play" which means for SC actually learning build orders and not buying what you want. You talk about the viability of heroes, which goes hand in hand with the viability of micro in SC. Also, I really think people give strategy in SC more credit than it deserves. Everyone who plays this game uses very similar and sometimes identical builds to pro's. This is obviously due to replays and videos, so I fail to see how it is absurd when I say it is easy to learn from a video. Strategy in this game, the way I see it only comes into play in bo5's where you mix the builds up to play mindgames with opponents. I don't see your choice of build mattering in a bo1 game besides taking map into consideration. Tactics, on the other hand, involves terrain useage and micro. As well as practices such as seige pushing along a wall to avoid flanking. I really don't see a lot of thought going into these actions. The more you play, the more common sense it should become. So what exactly is all this strategy that I hear people going on and on about? I gave you my definition, now what is yours? First of all, I don't think the examples I listed are at all analogous to the micro moves you mentioned. WC3 has its own set of micro maneuvers that are *much* more similiar. Second, my entire point is that I think build orders (or well, openings) are *harder to learn* in WC3 - I don't mean they are deeper or anything, but there's a higher entrance step, since you have a lot more variables you have to get right immediately. And I can't see what you mean when you say hero viability goes hand in hand with micro viability -one is purely knowledge while the other is 90% execution. I think WC3 has more of these things that you need to know before you can start playing/start playing without feeling completely lost. Your micro example is more like learning how to, I dunno, pathing-block enemy units to get kills, or something like that - not really essential in the beginning. I don't think either game is particularly hard to learn (IE both fit the "easy to learn, hard to master" bill), just that WC3 probably has the higher entrance step in terms of information to assimiliate. As for your second part - how is it different from chess then? People can copy the pros, watch "replays" etc. I don't think doing that without actually playing + thinking about it is going to improve your strategy. Also, you seem to only talk about early game strategy, maybe my definitions are off but aren't all large scale decisions you make strategy? I'm not saying SC is "strategy only" but I think it's selling the game short if you think "watching some youtube videos" is going to be enough - you have to put in effort to understand why the build is used, how exactly you use it and what you can expect vs various other openings at various other stages of the game.. I'm pretty sleepy right now but I hope this came out okay. | ||
NatsuTerran
United States364 Posts
I don't have a lot of chess experience, but aren't the first 10-15 moves of any given opening the same every time? Similar to SC build orders following supply you would move certain pieces at certain turns. After that the game branches like in SC. And then the main reason that the top chess players remain top is because of the immense amount of meta game experience they have. The chess model is one that seems to be the ideal or golden standard for what a lot of you guys want SC2 to become. I don't have a problem with that per say, it's just a style of game I don't particularly enjoy. By no means am I a stupid player who hates strategy, I just enjoy a game in which I can improve on visibly, something concrete. So my ideal model for many competitive games is something like ping pong, where you take time learning all these difficult strokes and serves and you can visibly see improvement as you pour hours into it. In this sense neither side of these arguments are wrong, we just enjoy two different sides of the yin yang that make up many games. | ||
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Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
![]() + For SC2 you still do have a significant amount of execution anyway.. | ||
Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
That is like saying that SC has a poor earlygame because everyone has only 3 choices: Terran, Zerg or Protoss. Chess is a very "meta" game, almost everyone knows the rules and "serious" players have memorized the most common openings (along with the reasons WHY they are common). You can´t exactly win in chess by playing the game well, it´s more that you have to play your opponent. A bit like rock, paper, scissors expect that there is no luck involved. If you could already tell the next 10-15 moves of your enemy there would be no excuse for loosing - even if it´s "just" the beginning, actually especially then. | ||
.risingdragoon
United States3021 Posts
I've spoken to Sirlin, the guy doesn't know starcraft. He thinks Blizzard is responsible for modern macro in SC. Quoting him doesn't arguing for or against the presence of automated behavior in the game, it argues for ignorance of what makes high-level starcraft not just competitive, but also spectator-worthy. Street Fighter, for all its layers of counters, is not gonna fill stadiums. I'll leave you to wonder why this is. To me, the level of multitasking in itself is worthy of spectator appreciation. Reduce it, and you cheapen every aspect of the game from playing to winning. | ||
Shadowfury333
Canada314 Posts
Besides, the early game is really standard, it's the midgame and lategame where things get really interesting (save for cheesy builds and responses). A lot of what makes that part interesting is execution and adaptation (assuming consistent scouting). That's where the strategy comes in. | ||
ParasitJonte
Sweden1768 Posts
But for me (and I'll assume everybody else here) starcraft is not only about strategy. It's about practice, knowledge and keeping your tounge in your mouth while you execute perfect micro in the midst of macroing like crazy. And while doing this you have to think about strategy. I don't know if it should be necessary to have 300+ APM. I also think there's room for more strategical thinking in starcraft. But ever since falling in love with starcraft I have a very made up mind about how an RTS should be. What it should feel like. And every time me and my friends (who don't SC) play a new RTS I'm always the best player, simply because I know how to play RTS; what they're all about. It shouldn't be overly complicated for no reason. Example: I wouldn't want to have to press in a keyboard combination (ctrl+shift+a+d for example) just to fire off a storm. I've been pro many of the simplifications that SC2 has implemented. One of them is auto-mining. I just think of that as tedious. In general I am pro to many of the suggestions and changes that remove annoying repetitive tasks. - Selecting a newly built probe and sending it to a mineral is one of them. - Carefully placing my storms is not one of them. | ||
ParasitJonte
Sweden1768 Posts
Again difference between turn-based and RTS is that in chess it really doesn't matter in what way you move your pieces from one square to another (i.e if your hand is shaking or not...). I don't even think they should be brought up at all. They're not relevant. Especially chess as it's not a hidden-info game. | ||
exeprime
United Kingdom643 Posts
After all, lots of much more important macro aspects will still be there - putting down buildings / positioning them, getting expansions, transferring workers, researching upgrades, etc MBS will just mean more free hotkeys for troops, and automine... I doubt it will be anywhere near as relevant as everyone thinks it will be. | ||
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