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I didn't put this in the MBS thread because quite frankly, I don't think it belongs there. If a mod disagrees feel free to close it.
Warning: This shit is pretty fucking long.
With the recent news article posted by TL staffer and SC2 progamer LastRomantic, my passion for defeating pro-MBSers everywhere has been rekindled. This is a crash course on why macro is a fundamental pillar of BW and consequently SC2.
Understanding and appreciating macro.
There are two general aspects of BW: mental and physical, better generalized as grand strategy and mechanics. Grand strategy (path to winning) as a generalized catagory can be separated into two subcatagories: strategy(decision making) and tactics(the art of engagement), mechanics also can be separated into two subcatagories: macro(resource management) and micro(unit control). Mechanics are a way to execute your grand strategy. Even at it's most fundamental level, you can see what makes BW BW. The yin and yang, the give and take, the balance. You can be the world's greatest tactician but in BW that means nothing if you cannot execute your tactics, likewise, you can be the greatest strategist and it will mean nothing if you cannot carry your strategies out.
Before we get confused here let me explain what strategy and tactics are. Tactics is the simpler of the two, it's the art of engagement, or how you seek to break your opponent by physically overpowering him. Strategy is much harder to define because it is a much more abstract concept. - Consider this example: you are playing a straight up player, you know that when he plays straight up he is a solid player so you decide to play more unconventionally by relying on drops / harassment to slowly wither him down.
In this case, your decision to play a certain style would be what is considered a strategy, because you know it will give you an inherent advantage. The style of play, however, would be considered a tactic. Strategy is the reasoning behind every move you make, tactics are a way to achieve the move.
Now, here's the hard part, let's explain macro and micro. Micro is the simpler of the two, which means, in essence, the ability to make your units do what you want them to, physically outplay you opponent. Macro, in this case, is the more abstract concept. - Consider this example: You've just won a small but important battle by flanking your opponent and instead of making taking an expansion and playing for a longer game, you decide to upgrade to prepare for a timing push.
In this case, the action of upgrading instead of expanding to prepare for a timing push is a strategic macro decision and winning the battle by flanking was a tactical micro victory. There's a reason I mirrored these paragraphs, it's because, as you can see, macro is intertwined with strategy and micro with tactics.
Unit production and macro, as it stands.
Now that I've discussed how the mental and physical coexist on a more abstract level. Let's bring it down to what we can call "tangible": unit production. Unit production is the most important aspect of both macro AND micro, but because we physically see it as resource management, we simplify it to macro. For clarification purposes, I will refer to it as unit production and macro will be used as above. Unit production is the knot that ties strategy together with tactics and macro together with micro.- Consider this example: As a Protoss you are playing a Zerg that is well known for a strong 3 hatch muta opening, in an effort to nullify his advantage over your weaker standard play, you open with 2 stargates after fast expanding and proceed to lay down two well timed robo's and begin to break down you opponent with harassment.
Your decision of opening with a certain playstyle that will give you an advantage is the strategy, the unit combination itself is the tactic. The action(s) of going FE, two gate sair, two robo to gain an advantage is the macro, using these units to break down your opponent is the micro.
As you can see, without unit production, strategy cannot translate into tactics and macro cannot translate to micro, there is no connection. Again, there is a much more "tangible" level of understanding to this. Unit production is a both a tactical strategy and a micro of macro. Again, I must point to the give and take that is so very important in BW. In each and every single game we play – tens, maybe hundreds of times a game – we make a decision whether to expand / produce units / upgrade or micro. Expanding or upgrading is done relatively few times during a game, but unit production is done thoroughly without, and is therefore the majority of strategic macro. This is then, the eternal debate of whether to micro or macro. This is the most prevalent tactical strategy - the micro of macro in BW. Microing takes strategy, tactics, and speed. Macro takes strategy, tactics, and speed. Yet somehow, some people consider one to be more relevant than the other.
Why people consider MBS to be redundant: macro is against human nature.
When we play BW we enter a certain state of mind. The computer is no longer a computer, but an extension of yourself from which you can execute strategies. We are the Protoss Executor, the Terran Magistrate, or the Zerg Cerebrate, but we are still human. As humans we are hard-wired to deal with the most immediate threat first. What is more immediate, units dying or losing due to delayed unit production? The answer is obvious. By eliminating the need to tear yourself from instinct and multitask, you are eliminating a strategic decision and therefore a key strategic element of the game.
The UI is not a limitation.
As far as the average player goes, the UI is NOT a limitation in terms of macro. The average number of late-game production buildings is not extraordinarily great in comparison with the total number of actions required in BW. Let's say you have 8 buildings, click each one and press a letter on the keyboard. Was it really that hard? Did it require lightening speed? Of course it didn't, it doesn't require you to be faster than say, setting off 8 storms during a massive PvZ battle. Yet people argue that one is redundant and one is not. It's understandable that certain people enjoy micro more than macro and that they don't want SC2 to be a carbon copy of BW. The latter has already been proven false. Addressing the former stipulation, let me just say, thinking this way is not the BW or competitive mindset. I don't enjoy something, therefore I want it out. The reason you don't enjoy or appreciate something like macro is because either you are bad at it and/or you don't understand it. Of course you don't get the immediate satisfaction of saving your units and killing your opponents, but does that mean unit production should a core element of the game taken out and diluted?
The problem with MBS.
I guess this is what it all comes down to right?
MBS takes away the need to multitask both mentally and physically. It takes away the tactical strategy of macroing over micro or microing over macro. The need to make this decision on a frequent basis and, more often than not, in a frantic frenzy makes it the connection between the mental and physical aspects of the game. With MBS the balance between mental and physical, grand strategy and mechanics, strategy and tactics, and macro and micro are all completely thrown off and pro-MBSers seem to not care or not understand.
tl;dr: fucking read it.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
NOOOO WHAT HAVE YOU DONE...HERE THEY COME!!! ~Dives for Cover~
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United States20661 Posts
MBS is an issue
but I think Blizzard will fix it.
don't worry!
edit: that being said, I agree with your posts.
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CA10828 Posts
On March 26 2008 17:50 Kennigit wrote:
NOOOO WHAT HAVE YOU DONE...HERE THEY COME!!! ~Dives for Cover~
lolll
6/5 would read again.
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Well, that was the most poetic message about MSB I've ever read.
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Great post well structured and makes perfect sense. I'd still like MBS thanks, because I suck. Don't mind you having the option to turn it off though.
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Very nice post. The formatting's just as good as the ideas.
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
Nice read, I agree and disagree, first I don't think there should be MBS but I want SCII not a revamped BW with the same mechanics.
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Indeed, well put.
I belive that Blizzard will solve this somehow though. Remember we're still in Alpha, and BETA will hopefully make this game into a competitive well worthy followup to BW.
What will happen after X patches is that it'll be fine tuned and hopefully we'll see some really great balance, and divinity that we see in BW right now.
I have faith atleast.
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Well there are two issues with your opinion:
- first, nothing prove that the actual balance between macro and micro is good. Even above that, nothing prove that the balance between all the strategic decisions you can make is good. As it stands now, I think it's not. As it stands now, macro is not anymore a strategic decision, macro has become a pure click fest and that's the real issue: you don't need to think anymore: a protoss that has trained himself to mechanically click 1z2d3z4d5z etc is more efficient that a protoss that really take the time to think what he is going to do. Speed clicking is way more efficient that thinking; I can't count the number of games I have seen where the guy who was takiing smart and advanced strategic decision lost to the guy who concentrates on the most basic strategic decision: clicking to make more units.
So MBS is not a way to decrease the importance of strategic decision, it's a way to increase the value of the most interesting ones.
-Secondly, how could you make a post on MBS and then say that "the UI is NOT a limitation in terms of macro". If the UI is not a limitation then changing it should have no real impact. There is obviously an issue of speed here. People doesn't want the strategic aspect of macro to be taken out; they complain that they don't have the time to macro to a point they have to renounce to macro strategy. I like the strategic aspect of the game: when the player decide to cut worker production, why and when he decide to push or to expand, what unit did he decide to use and what decision and sacrifice has he made so that those units are avalaible. I don't like to see all those subtle decisions shadowed by how fast you can click on building. When I go on chessbase.com and look at a game of Fischer, I'm amazed; I know i would never come close to his level but I found it amazing. when I look at a game of a 400 apm progamer i'm rarely amazed, and I still know i would never come close to his level. The two are highly skilled, but the skills required in the first case are more interesting; if MBS allow SC2 to favour this kind of skills, I'm all for it.
Some says that broodwar is still evolving and that a good sign. On the contrary I find that broodwar evolved extremly slowly. How many years does it take to play defiler in zvt? Maybe because progamers had to train X hours a day to get used to click click click rather than to think. How can you look at progamer who have to do a lot a useless spamming just to "keep" the rythm so that they are able to click when necessary and say there are not a UI problem? How can you say that there are not a UI issue when some people trains 10 hours a day and are still not able to use efficiently spell such as feedback, by lack of time, even though it quite cost effective?
Units production has it stands now is too time consuming; and it detracts to much to both the strategic and the tactic decisions you can make in this game. Less robots, more thinker, thanks in advance.
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I thought this was going to be long? Anyway, I agree with it. MBS actually makes SC2 2.5D in terms of gameplay while at the same time leveling the playing field in terms of macro skill. Both bad. Only argument in favour is that people expect an easy convenient UI just because other games have it as well. And that the players want to feel powerful and skilled, even when they are not; the game should make them skilled. But that is bad for a competitive game while good for a single player game; not everyone can be the hero in multiplayer like you can in single player.
Anyway, MBS is supposed to be added for the least skilled SC, or SC2 players. Very low level games are boring. If there is a difference in skill the lesser player will always get outmacroed, not outmicroed. If the players are equal in skill it will often be a very long passive game.
Maybe I should just post a replay because it seems you people forgot how total beginners actually play. MBS will not make their games more interesting and strategic.
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Amen. I hate seeing people argue pro-MBS. It is so annoying. Some people can argue it well, and I understand what they are saying... but if I see one more person go "OMG U JUST WANT LOTZ OF CLICKING IN SC2. STOP BEING HARDCORE" I will kill myself 
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This thread delivers, on a side note, Blizzard should state that this game is made for clicking and those WoW and DotA slowpokes can take a dive to hell. Even if it is or not true at least it will make them shut the fuck up. 
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Good post. By taking a step back, analyzing the problem from a broader perspective and presenting it in a thorough and coherent post, you've managed to make more sense than most.
However, while your aim seems to be to communicate why MBS is wrong and why we all should think so, your lack of nuance certainly hurts your cause. I will not bother commenting on every facet of your wonderful post. Instead, I will quote just this sentence [feel free to criticize me for quoting out of context].
On March 26 2008 17:45 mahnini wrote:
The reason you don't enjoy or appreciate something like macro is because either you are bad at it and/or you don't understand it.
It could be argued that this sentence alone demonstrates your ignorance towards the "pro MBS"-side, to the point where everything else you write can be invalidated simply by appealing to your ignorance. After all, what would be the point of arguing with someone who is convinced that there is only one singular solution to a specific issue, and that everyone who thinks otherwise lack understanding of the issue.
To further strengthen this argument, let's take your sentence and replace "macro" with something else. Let's take take something which might be hard to understand, hard to perform and is just as manly as macroing in BW. Let's take figure skating.
The reason you don't enjoy or appreciate something like figure skating is because either you are bad at it and/o you don't understand it.
Surely, there are some things that I do not appreciate, nor do I enjoy all things. But to say that this is due to my lack of understanding, or my inability perform, would be to simplify it too much.
Now, I wouldn't argue this point quite as aggressively. There are redeeming factors, which would make the argument presented above seem too harsh. One such factor is "the StarCraft feel".
We could go on for ages discussing game mechanics and UI-improvements, talk about how the inclusion or exclusion of this or that feature would make the game so much worse or better, but were all the arguments fail is in not addressing the underlying issue - "the StarCraft feel".
All StarCraft players have their own perception of what StarCraft is (this is what I call "the StarCraft feel") and we want the sequel to recapture that feeling. For some, the act of physically carrying out your macro decisions was a very important feeling to the game play, for others it wasn't. The problem when discussing issues like MBS is that we're not really arguing about which features we want to be added to make benefit the glorious game of starcraft. We're discussing which features must or cannot be added in order for StarCraft II to capture our personal "feel" of StarCraft. Since that feeling if personal, this is an argument which will be hard to win for either "side".
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That was a very well written post. I couldn't possibly disagree with most of the OP, but thats partially because you've said said very little to disagree with. You spent far more time prefacing and defining than you did explaining just how MBS would do what you claim it would do. The only real point of contention is the final paragraph (as far as I'm concerned, but thats because I agree with your words on UI limitation). Also you really do classify the pro-MBS position in such a negative light; not all MBS supporters care only for their personal wants and not for the future of the game. Many do care - they simply disagree fundamentally with what makes Starcraft such a good game.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't really disagree with you overall anyways. I'm certainly not any more pro-MBS than I am anti-MBS. You could say I'm reserving judgement, but that would paint me as an escapist. In reality, I don't believe anyone should be able to so concretely make such heavy claims.
I do think the issue is more complex than you are making it at times. First of all, I believe the real problem area is not the core MBS system, but instead MBS with hotkeys. That is a somewhat important distinction to make if you are trying to really isolate, or "boil down" the problem. Your post would be somewhat contradictory if you felt MBS without hotkeys to be damaging, due largely in part to your views on the level of limitation in the UI; if 8 clicks is really not especially important in a game between 400APM players and 5z6d7t0p is 8 clicks, then is that the real problem with MBS? Not really. And even if it did require fewer clicks (I prefer the term actions), they should still be insignificant if 8 are (except of course the difference between 0 and 1, which is a matter of decision making and not mechanics) What is important is the amount of attention those 8 actions draw; if the player can perform the 8 (or fewer) without moving their screen from their army, they will not only be able to achieve the same macro result as full base attention, but they will do so with significantly stronger micro response.
And so, the real problem is in fact being able to macro while watching your army (not necessarily managing - people do seem to forget that if you want to micro your army, you will still need to either sacrifice unit production actions or wait until you finish a round). If you are able to watch your army, you will be better informed about when is important enough to sacrifice macro for micro. You will also have more time to decide exactly how to respond to current threats because the actual actions of macro will be reflex and muscle memory in high level play. This is significantly less sacrifice than was necessary for macro in SC1 which means a different feeling game; a different micro to macro balance if you will. This is of course only bad if people are striving for a game with the exact same balance as Starcraft - which I will go ahead and assume (and agree with while I'm at it).
Another important distinction to make, especially when considering non tournament/league play, is that multitasking is still required with MBS. Players will need to decide when to stop moving their army, to stop dancing their marines, dragoonsstalkers, and mutalisks, and when to macro. This is a mental aspect of macro that seems to often be ignored, but is especially important with low to mid skill players. Remembering to macro, or more likely, deciding its worth your time to macro, is a learned skill. Noobies picking up SC2 will most certainly not have it and thus not have perfect macro by far. This mental obstacle of deciding to build units instead of control units is still there with MBS; just because you can macro up with a few hotkey presses does not mean it is always wise to do so at a specific moment. People will therefore still have to make that decision - to control the army or to macro. Noobies will undoubtedly always decide to control the army because most will forget about macro like they did with SC1. Mid level players can still make poor decisions about when to macro - occasionally controlling their army when doing so was fairly fruitless or deciding to macro when micro could have saved them the game.
So from this I'll go ahead and make the (probably controversial) claim that MBS will not be nearly as significant a factor in the average game as it might be in high-level play (assuming it is game-changing in high level play of course). High skilled players will not find themselves up against noobies with the similar army size; just like in Starcraft 1 they will find their opponent with a few units in their base after they roll over the main army. Its really the professional level that we should all be interested in anyways; this is in fact primarily a progaming site. For this reason, I do not think MBS supporters should be bringing up the argument of "an easier game for noobs", but at the same time, I don't believe anti-MBS should be bringing up the "noob with perfect macro."
In the end, I am still somewhat concerned with MBS, if only for how it will affect the micro to macro balance in SC2. I'm not convinced it will ruin the game, nor am I convinced it will even make a bad game. I'm more concerned with how the game will view as a spectator. I don't believe a micro heavy game makes for great spectating, simply because high skill players will almost always be able to do more than the observer can watch, at least in a game with a unit cap as high as Starcraft. In SC1, the importance of macro gave the observer plenty of time to watch an entertaining, but not overflowing game. Also important in Starcraft were the roles of mind games in each match: feints, baiting, etc. But they were reasonable enough both in complexity and in quantity for the observer to pick up on; I'm sure few people watching their first game of Warcraft 3 will catch more than a fraction of the back and forth between the players. While mind games can be entertaining, I believe there is a certainly a limit for good entertainment.
Unlike you, I come out of my post without a concrete statement about MBS. I cannot say that MBS is game-ruining, but I cannot say it will not be an important change either. There are two things that I can conclude though.
The first is a resounding: Wait for beta!. Any conjecture we make back and forth are largely based on theory. There is of course some anecdotal evidence to be heard from the testimonies of LR and semioldguy, but its far from conclusive as I'm sure anyone should agree. In practice, things are often quite different than our thought experiments dictate them to be. In addition to this, high level play has yet to be examined by the community, which I think should be especially important to the minds of progaming addicts like myself. Even when beta does roll around, it will be quite some time before the game has been analyzed to a point even nearly resembling what progaming is today. So theory is of course still important, but I don't believe its enough to condemn MBS before its been given its chance.
My second conclusion has been said many times: have some faith in Blizzard. This issue is likely just as, if not more important to them than it is to us. As I've said in a previous post, Blizzard is known for not being afraid to make very fundamental changes during a Beta, and I wouldn't be the least surprised if methods of unit production was one such change. I'm sure they will make a fantastic game when all is said and done, and in general, people need to not worry as much.
edit: To the poster above me: Certainly he used a bit of bit of a straw man fallacy, but its no reason to discredit the entirety of his post. Few people would have bothered to put as much effort in to a post, and I think that such action should be encouraged. One can overlook fairly minor statements like that when they are not crucial to his argument.
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Hi
My name is sam
i am a D- player but i am still anti-mbs please don't generalise all newbs to be pro mbs
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On March 26 2008 17:50 Kennigit wrote:
NOOOO WHAT HAVE YOU DONE...HERE THEY COME!!! ~Dives for Cover~
Awesome it's not too late to dive for cover as well ... this thread hasn't reached epic proportions yet haha
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On March 26 2008 18:48 Agone wrote:
Well there are two issues with your opinion:
- first, nothing prove that the actual balance between macro and micro is good. Even above that, nothing prove that the balance between all the strategic decisions you can make is good. As it stands now, I think it's not. As it stands now, macro is not anymore a strategic decision, macro has become a pure click fest and that's the real issue: you don't need to think anymore: a protoss that has trained himself to mechanically click 1z2d3z4d5z etc is more efficient that a protoss that really take the time to think what he is going to do. Speed clicking is way more efficient that thinking; I can't count the number of games I have seen where the guy who was takiing smart and advanced strategic decision lost to the guy who concentrates on the most basic strategic decision: clicking to make more units.
So MBS is not a way to decrease the importance of strategic decision, it's a way to increase the value of the most interesting ones.
-Secondly, how could you make a post on MBS and then say that "the UI is NOT a limitation in terms of macro". If the UI is not a limitation then changing it should have no real impact. There is obviously an issue of speed here. People doesn't want the strategic aspect of macro to be taken out; they complain that they don't have the time to macro to a point they have to renounce to macro strategy. I like the strategic aspect of the game: when the player decide to cut worker production, why and when he decide to push or to expand, what unit did he decide to use and what decision and sacrifice has he made so that those units are avalaible. I don't like to see all those subtle decisions shadowed by how fast you can click on building. When I go on chessbase.com and look at a game of Fischer, I'm amazed; I know i would never come close to his level but I found it amazing. when I look at a game of a 400 apm progamer i'm rarely amazed, and I still know i would never come close to his level. The two are highly skilled, but the skills required in the first case are more interesting; if MBS allow SC2 to favour this kind of skills, I'm all for it.
Some says that broodwar is still evolving and that a good sign. On the contrary I find that broodwar evolved extremly slowly. How many years does it take to play defiler in zvt? Maybe because progamers had to train X hours a day to get used to click click click rather than to think. How can you look at progamer who have to do a lot a useless spamming just to "keep" the rythm so that they are able to click when necessary and say there are not a UI problem? How can you say that there are not a UI issue when some people trains 10 hours a day and are still not able to use efficiently spell such as feedback, by lack of time, even though it quite cost effective?
Units production has it stands now is too time consuming; and it detracts to much to both the strategic and the tactic decisions you can make in this game. Less robots, more thinker, thanks in advance.
every aspect of your post is just wrong, im not even going to expound on why because I felt i was losing intelligence as i read this post, but all I can is almost every example you give has nothing to do with if there is MBS in the game or not
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well written
people need to realize that speed matters. that's all you gotta think about.
-speed-matters-
-speed-matters-
-speed-matters-
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got to 'this post is very long' and stopped reading
mbs is going to be in, no matter what we do
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EPT
