There has been a lot of arguing about SC2's skill cap being much lower than BW's. There are a bunch of reasons for why, which I won't discuss, but there is one which gets overlooked quite frequently - smart casting. For those of you that didn't play Brood War, the casting mechanic didn't allow for players to cast spells evenly. If you had 5 templar selected and stormed an area, ALL of them stormed the same area. Casting overlapped, because back in the day, the AI didn't allow for smart casting.
this was pretty much impossible
The thing is, this feature, or lack of, shaped BW into the game it is now, with huge distinctions in skill. Watching progamer protoss' storm in BW was awe inspiring. It showed speed, it showed precision, it showed anticipation all at the same time. I couldn't even dream of my storms being as good as Reach's 'psychic' storms. In sc2, I can say with confidence my storms are just as good as Tester's or oGsMC's. Blanket storms simply don't have the same meaning anymore because they're so easy to use.
I used to scream like this
Protoss is the obvious example here because they were pretty reliant on psi storm, but the other races were also centered around precise, fast spell casting that was very difficult to use at full potential. Zergs with defilers, Terran when they needed EMP or irradiates. What was cool about no smart casting was that it allowed overpowered spells to be overpowered because they were hard to use. It also created an area of mastery that was difficult and noticeable between skill levels.
another clip for emphasis
But proot, smart casting doesn't create any problems, it just lets newer players enjoy the game! Actually, it is creating problems, and it will more create problems in the future development of the game. Late game PvT is seeing the effects of smart casting in full force. Amulet high templars are practically unstoppable at later stages when protoss tech is unleashed. They prevent terran's from making an assault without getting decimated as they move across the map. Protoss can throw pockets of forces with a high templar, force a stim, cause hundreds of points of damage and then just assault the weakened army if it keeps trying to move forward. Amulet high templar are like having mobile, practically instant PFs in a single unit as far as deterrents go.
and cause massive amounts of rage
There is a greater future problem with smartcasting. Many of us forget this is the first chapter of SC2. More units will be added, and long time favorites like the defiler and science vessel will most likely return...but they will be ridiculously imbalanced if they keep the abilities they had in BW. Blanket plagues, perfect dark swarms, fully irradiated armies will all be possible for the average player. These spells will have to be toned down significantly and lose the OOMPH they had. Psi storm has been nerfed a couple times already, and there is STILL talk bout modifying it even more. The hunter seeker missile is another example - it was nerfed because it was too powerful with multiple smartcasts and now it's practically useless. In SC2, you can't add a plague or an irradiate, these spells will flat out break the match-ups in later stages of the game.
Look at the trend of spells smart casting has created in the current game. There are amazing spells and there are boring, generic, underpowered spells present throughout the game. Blizzard can't introduce more interesting spells for fear of causing immediate balance issues. This problem is two-fold, some spells pretty much require smart casting to use properly such as forcefield, snipe and infested terrans. Compare these to the spells in BW. Every caster had AMAZING abilities...except for spawn broodling.
"fuck you"
So what's the solution? How can Blizzard change smart casting without breaking the game. There are two pretty straightforward and simple solutions that can be added that would probably improve the game and its skill cap significantly.
1) Have spells that cost more than 50 energy obey BW's spell casting mechanics. For example, EMPing or storming using a group of casters instead of individual selection would cause all the units in that group to overlap their spells in the same area. This prevents spells that require smart casting from being affected, like the ones I mentioned earlier. Spells like Yamato would need a small group selected for taking out a building like a nexus.
this instead of this
2) Blizzard could assign certain spells a sort of "super spell" status. This would prevent it from being smart cast, and would overlap if used in a group. For example, if storm was put into this "super spell" status, templars in a group that were asked to storm would overlap the spell. This would basically accomplish the same thing as option 1, but would bring public opinion into the picture(whether that's a good or bad thing).
I loved SC and I love SC2. I want SC2 to thrive and live as long as BW did, but it's obvious more skill needs to be added to the game for its longevity in E-sports. One of the easiest and most effective ways to do this is a change to how spell casting works.
TLDR: smart casting needs to be looked into because it decreases skill cap, makes spells less interesting and may hurt the future development of this game.
I would be fine with smart casting being removed, it is soo easy for protoss players to blanket storm. Pretty much forces a tech change on T if they go marines. Atleast Collosus were beatable by vikings. Storm with HT spread is way strong.
I agree, I haven't read the whole post yet but I wanna tell you that you dont need embed links, just post the link to the youtube video and it will embed :3.
i opened this expecting a debate about day9 versus husky or something.
i dont think you should implement something just because it makes it "harder." smart casting is fine. multi-select allows for you to reposition your whole army much easier.
Ever think some of us LIKE to listen to smart casters? So many casters are sooo dumb... I only listen to the smart ones because I'm actually intelligent.
I support this, protoss storming in BW (especially pvz and not as much in pvt) required a certain degree of skill, predicting and carpeting makes or breaks the the battle and often adds another level of depth.
But this would cause another issue on the zergs side because I often viewed BW pvz as where the protoss has to aim good storms to win where the zerg can just a-move the hydras/ling+ultras in.
This is a huge exaggeration but could also be a point to consider.
Basically, what do you want this game to be about? Do you want it to be about mechanical skill? Do you want it to be street fighter? Or do you want it to be a strategy game?
Personally I like street fighter but if I wanted to play street fighter, I would play street fighter instead of Starcraft.
Yes, making storm, emp, fungal etc. would make this game so much more awesome. I would totally love it. Obligatory poll:
Poll: Smartcasting
Smartcasting is fine - This is a different game (159)
65%
I would keep it on some spells(ie. force fields, etc.) but storm, emp.. should be like bw (53)
22%
It ruins the game, everything should be as in BW (32)
13%
244 total votes
Your vote: Smartcasting
(Vote): It ruins the game, everything should be as in BW (Vote): I would keep it on some spells(ie. force fields, etc.) but storm, emp.. should be like bw (Vote): Smartcasting is fine - This is a different game
I can see you clearly put a lot of work into this. However, you're still wrong. Ignoring the fact that this is just "Why BW is better than SC2" whine #1938 and "I can't spread my units or EMP HT's fast enough" whine #889. It is not a bad thing. Your main complaint seems to be "Skill cap is too low", Yet the whole point of this article is how Pro-gamers had to have amazing APM to do storms like you see in SC2... and they did... and it looked the same... Also, you neglected to mention how much WORSE the storms in SC2 are than BW. In BW, you could stack 2, had about double the Surface area, and they did 125 damage instead of 75.
Nobody will ever reach the ultimate skill cap.....
Let me repeat never........
SC2 players will get close,
but there willl always be a little bit better of play.
Smart casting is cool because if you get a ton of HT's you shouldnt have to click and split 5 million times. Yea its cool that pros can do it but cmon we do not need a debate here.
Lets say blizz sees this thread and goes okay sure well remove smart casting, tell me how protoss is gona micro split HT's and get the neccesary storms off on mobile bio(your vids are on immobile siege tanks btw) before getting emped?? Wouldnt work too well.
Did you see Kas vs I think it was WhiteRa in a HomerJ Sennheiser Cup? Kas was able to micro his bio away, even before the storms landed. He danced around all the time, predicted, where the next storms will go and moved his units clever. Its really not impossible to make storms much less strong.
I think, that the difference of "skill" between Brood War and SC2 will show up in other parts of the game in the future. If you dont use your APM and brain for hardoce casting, you will use it on micro, macro or something. The skill will be needed, but in another way.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9328/stormss.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080315093253/starcraft/images/d/d7/U-Queen.gif)
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