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On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:
OK now you're just making zero sense. "Less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations?" What? Have you ever tried controlling a 200/200 army with 12 limit selection? It's not just an APM sink. The limited unit selection added a strategic depth to the game as already mentioned before in the thread, not to mention it raised the skill ceiling.
They are the same thing lol.
Sigh...
So in SC1 to move 96 units must click 8 times. In SC2 you must click once.
In SC1, you can decide to click 8 times in the same location, or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is high, but not excessive.
In SC2, you can decide to click 1 time in the same location or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is the same as SC1 + 7 APM, not to mention wasted control groups. In SC2 it may be more sensible to invest that 7 APM in other macro elements (spreading creep, drops, raids etc) rather than positioning micro.
So in SC1, the positioning micro is effectively cheaper as the opportunity cost is lower. That is my point.
On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:
I'm really laughing at this one. Even if "base unit effectiveness in SC1" is 0.15, that number doesn't mean shit by itself because it's a constant that's imposed on all players. What's important is the CHANGE between bad control => good control which you yourself admitted is a factor of 10 increase compared with SC2 which is a factor of 1.5. This is exactly one of the flaws of SC2 atm.
It does mean 'shit' when comparing games, which is the point I am driving at. Much of the apparent differences between SC1 and SC2 derive from the need to fight the engine. This difficulty has been taken away in SC2 which has the result of levelling the playing-field some-what. Whether this is a bad thing is questionable. It may be bad for the pro-circuit although pros tend to beat noobs fairly easily... What would be a better indication of real problems would be if the 'top-pros' group was highly variable.
Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default
* I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining
* I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing
* I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth.
By this approach one could argue that limiting control groups to 4 would add more depth. Perhaps reducing the number of control groups would too. Requiring players to path units manually would also add this kind of 'depth'.
The real argument with merit in this thread is that by making some aspects more intelligent, certain abilities become 'obviously' overpowered at all levels of play. Hence the reduction in AOE splash radii etc. In BW, these units would be OP, it is simply the interface that balances them out rather than the raw numbers.
However because pro 'interface use' negate the balance provided, some units become more OP, making the game more twitch and causing more 'sudden shifts' in the game which is 'good for spectating' but doesn't actually constitute strategic depth, merely the illusion of it.
On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:They are the same thing lol.
They have similar results...
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Why everybody always state Blizzard should know this or that, or anything... It's not like its a unique guy. Most of the staff that funded Blizzard in the early days are gone now: diablo, warcraft, starcraft! So current employees Blizzard does not know anything about their past games. Even if there are, what make you thing that their voice can be heard ? As a proof, what is the game designed by the current esport designer ?
Also, keep in mind that the team involved in developing sc2 from the ground is probably not at the same size now. It's not like they can change the whole engin or anything now. A team has been set up for a price, the game has been sold. End of story. We are luck enough that they still have left some people to tweak things for us. Most people now on the team are focusing on extensions, and it's not to rebuild to game from the ground up. I can assure you that. Even if the developers were willing to, it is not them who have to money and can make that kind of decision.
If you want to have the perfect RTS with the whole knowledge of BW, I see 2 options:
1. Building an OpenSource RTS.
2. Pray that Blizzard integrate more functionality in their Editor that will allow us to do it ourself. The possibilities of the Map Editor is sublime, but limited to a map! We can't mod the game with tweaks that will affect everything without reapplying everything to each map. Or we can't affect the physics of the units. And that is a plague.
In any of theses cases, the number of people who will want to tweaks things will be too high and will divide the community, regarding the kind of game they want, or even the choices to apply to achieve this goal.
We already are lucky to have a strong, unified community to promote esport. It is a good thing that balance changes or game designs are not in the hands of everybody.
It is just that they have the wrong people.
The best scenario for me would be to have some community representatives involved into the game developement, with a strong weight. Without thinking of choosing some, I don't even think it's going to happend anytime soon.
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+ Show Spoiler +On January 09 2012 21:21 Goobahfish wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:
OK now you're just making zero sense. "Less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations?" What? Have you ever tried controlling a 200/200 army with 12 limit selection? It's not just an APM sink. The limited unit selection added a strategic depth to the game as already mentioned before in the thread, not to mention it raised the skill ceiling.
They are the same thing lol. Sigh... So in SC1 to move 96 units must click 8 times. In SC2 you must click once. In SC1, you can decide to click 8 times in the same location, or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is high, but not excessive. In SC2, you can decide to click 1 time in the same location or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is the same as SC1 + 7 APM, not to mention wasted control groups. In SC2 it may be more sensible to invest that 7 APM in other macro elements (spreading creep, drops, raids etc) rather than positioning micro. So in SC1, the positioning micro is effectively cheaper as the opportunity cost is lower. That is my point. Show nested quote +On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:
I'm really laughing at this one. Even if "base unit effectiveness in SC1" is 0.15, that number doesn't mean shit by itself because it's a constant that's imposed on all players. What's important is the CHANGE between bad control => good control which you yourself admitted is a factor of 10 increase compared with SC2 which is a factor of 1.5. This is exactly one of the flaws of SC2 atm. It does mean 'shit' when comparing games, which is the point I am driving at. Much of the apparent differences between SC1 and SC2 derive from the need to fight the engine. This difficulty has been taken away in SC2 which has the result of levelling the playing-field some-what. Whether this is a bad thing is questionable. It may be bad for the pro-circuit although pros tend to beat noobs fairly easily... What would be a better indication of real problems would be if the 'top-pros' group was highly variable. Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining * I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing * I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth. By this approach one could argue that limiting control groups to 4 would add more depth. Perhaps reducing the number of control groups would too. Requiring players to path units manually would also add this kind of 'depth'. The real argument with merit in this thread is that by making some aspects more intelligent, certain abilities become 'obviously' overpowered at all levels of play. Hence the reduction in AOE splash radii etc. In BW, these units would be OP, it is simply the interface that balances them out rather than the raw numbers. However because pro 'interface use' negate the balance provided, some units become more OP, making the game more twitch and causing more 'sudden shifts' in the game which is 'good for spectating' but doesn't actually constitute strategic depth, merely the illusion of it. They have similar results...
First, APM cost is NOT opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is why players will not utilize these "advanced" micro techniques very much. Think about it: If you can get 90% effectiveness from your army by simply using 1 control group, why would you bother using 8x as much APM to get that extra 10%, when that 8x APM will give you more rewards by doing multi-pronged attacks, more macro, etc?
And writer is absolutely correct.
+ Show Spoiler +On January 09 2012 21:25 Merlimoo wrote:
Why everybody always state Blizzard should know this or that, or anything... It's not like its a unique guy. Most of the staff that funded Blizzard in the early days are gone now: diablo, warcraft, starcraft! So current employees Blizzard does not know anything about their past games. Even if there are, what make you thing that their voice can be heard ? As a proof, what is the game designed by the current esport designer ?
Also, keep in mind that the team involved in developing sc2 from the ground is probably not at the same size now. It's not like they can change the whole engin or anything now. A team has been set up for a price, the game has been sold. End of story. We are luck enough that they still have left some people to tweak things for us. Most people now on the team are focusing on extensions, and it's not to rebuild to game from the ground up. I can assure you that. Even if the developers were willing to, it is not them who have to money and can make that kind of decision.
If you want to have the perfect RTS with the whole knowledge of BW, I see 2 options:
1. Building an OpenSource RTS.
2. Pray that Blizzard integrate more functionality in their Editor that will allow us to do it ourself. The possibilities of the Map Editor is sublime, but limited to a map! We can't mod the game with tweaks that will affect everything without reapplying everything to each map. Or we can't affect the physics of the units. And that is a plague.
In any of theses cases, the number of people who will want to tweaks things will be too high and will divide the community, regarding the kind of game they want, or even the choices to apply to achieve this goal.
We already are lucky to have a strong, unified community to promote esport. It is a good thing that balance changes or game designs are not in the hands of everybody.
It is just that they have the wrong people.
The best scenario for me would be to have some community representatives involved into the game developement, with a strong weight. Without thinking of choosing some, I don't even think it's going to happend anytime soon.
Most of the cost of development is cutscenes, graphics, and engine. Balancing and design work is, from a man-hours perspective, easy. That being said, they've created an editor so convoluted that it is borderline unusable. Have you tried working with the thing? My god, it's so complicated to do the simplest tasks. No wonder nobody has utilized the functionality to create their own RTS.
I actually was working on a project over the summer to implement an RTS version of Master of Orion 2 with the Starcraft 2 engine. It was one of the most frustrating things I've ever attempted and I just gave up because it took a day of reading to do one new thing. Compared to the warcraft 3 editor, which was pretty damn powerful as is, the starcraft 2 editor is garbage.
A rant that's slightly out of place, but feels so good to say...
Oh, and you can create mod packages that can be used by multiple maps. I believe SC2BW uses this functionality. Probably one of the few good features of the SC2 editor.
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Quote:
+ Show Spoiler +On January 09 2012 21:36 EternaLLegacy wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On January 09 2012 21:21 Goobahfish wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:
OK now you're just making zero sense. "Less APM cost in moving them to more elegant locations?" What? Have you ever tried controlling a 200/200 army with 12 limit selection? It's not just an APM sink. The limited unit selection added a strategic depth to the game as already mentioned before in the thread, not to mention it raised the skill ceiling.
They are the same thing lol. Sigh... So in SC1 to move 96 units must click 8 times. In SC2 you must click once. In SC1, you can decide to click 8 times in the same location, or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is high, but not excessive. In SC2, you can decide to click 1 time in the same location or alternatively, 8 times in 'smart' locations. The cost from going from a standard location to a 'smart' location is the same as SC1 + 7 APM, not to mention wasted control groups. In SC2 it may be more sensible to invest that 7 APM in other macro elements (spreading creep, drops, raids etc) rather than positioning micro. So in SC1, the positioning micro is effectively cheaper as the opportunity cost is lower. That is my point. Show nested quote +On January 09 2012 19:09 writer22816 wrote:
I'm really laughing at this one. Even if "base unit effectiveness in SC1" is 0.15, that number doesn't mean shit by itself because it's a constant that's imposed on all players. What's important is the CHANGE between bad control => good control which you yourself admitted is a factor of 10 increase compared with SC2 which is a factor of 1.5. This is exactly one of the flaws of SC2 atm. It does mean 'shit' when comparing games, which is the point I am driving at. Much of the apparent differences between SC1 and SC2 derive from the need to fight the engine. This difficulty has been taken away in SC2 which has the result of levelling the playing-field some-what. Whether this is a bad thing is questionable. It may be bad for the pro-circuit although pros tend to beat noobs fairly easily... What would be a better indication of real problems would be if the 'top-pros' group was highly variable. Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default * I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining * I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing * I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth. By this approach one could argue that limiting control groups to 4 would add more depth. Perhaps reducing the number of control groups would too. Requiring players to path units manually would also add this kind of 'depth'. The real argument with merit in this thread is that by making some aspects more intelligent, certain abilities become 'obviously' overpowered at all levels of play. Hence the reduction in AOE splash radii etc. In BW, these units would be OP, it is simply the interface that balances them out rather than the raw numbers. However because pro 'interface use' negate the balance provided, some units become more OP, making the game more twitch and causing more 'sudden shifts' in the game which is 'good for spectating' but doesn't actually constitute strategic depth, merely the illusion of it. They have similar results... First, APM cost is NOT opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is why players will not utilize these "advanced" micro techniques very much. Think about it: If you can get 90% effectiveness from your army by simply using 1 control group, why would you bother using 8x as much APM to get that extra 10%, when that 8x APM will give you more rewards by doing multi-pronged attacks, more macro, etc? And writer is absolutely correct. + Show Spoiler +On January 09 2012 21:25 Merlimoo wrote:
Why everybody always state Blizzard should know this or that, or anything... It's not like its a unique guy. Most of the staff that funded Blizzard in the early days are gone now: diablo, warcraft, starcraft! So current employees Blizzard does not know anything about their past games. Even if there are, what make you thing that their voice can be heard ? As a proof, what is the game designed by the current esport designer ?
Also, keep in mind that the team involved in developing sc2 from the ground is probably not at the same size now. It's not like they can change the whole engin or anything now. A team has been set up for a price, the game has been sold. End of story. We are luck enough that they still have left some people to tweak things for us. Most people now on the team are focusing on extensions, and it's not to rebuild to game from the ground up. I can assure you that. Even if the developers were willing to, it is not them who have to money and can make that kind of decision.
If you want to have the perfect RTS with the whole knowledge of BW, I see 2 options:
1. Building an OpenSource RTS.
2. Pray that Blizzard integrate more functionality in their Editor that will allow us to do it ourself. The possibilities of the Map Editor is sublime, but limited to a map! We can't mod the game with tweaks that will affect everything without reapplying everything to each map. Or we can't affect the physics of the units. And that is a plague.
In any of theses cases, the number of people who will want to tweaks things will be too high and will divide the community, regarding the kind of game they want, or even the choices to apply to achieve this goal.
We already are lucky to have a strong, unified community to promote esport. It is a good thing that balance changes or game designs are not in the hands of everybody.
It is just that they have the wrong people.
The best scenario for me would be to have some community representatives involved into the game developement, with a strong weight. Without thinking of choosing some, I don't even think it's going to happend anytime soon. Most of the cost of development is cutscenes, graphics, and engine. Balancing and design work is, from a man-hours perspective, easy. That being said, they've created an editor so convoluted that it is borderline unusable. Have you tried working with the thing? My god, it's so complicated to do the simplest tasks. No wonder nobody has utilized the functionality to create their own RTS. I actually was working on a project over the summer to implement an RTS version of Master of Orion 2 with the Starcraft 2 engine. It was one of the most frustrating things I've ever attempted and I just gave up because it took a day of reading to do one new thing. Compared to the warcraft 3 editor, which was pretty damn powerful as is, the starcraft 2 editor is garbage. A rant that's slightly out of place, but feels so good to say... Oh, and you can create mod packages that can be used by multiple maps. I believe SC2BW uses this functionality. Probably one of the few good features of the SC2 editor. + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +
Ok thanks. I didn't knew that.
But the main point remain unchanged.
I don't think their is any kind a capitalisation over design knowledge at Blizzard. Some people complain about the physics of units that has been changed between BW and SC2. I don't even think that this was done on purpose.
Having the Blizzard and the Starcraft franchise has the advantage of grouping people and making a big community, and the disavantage of letting a private company decide everything within their constraints: rentability, politics, career oportunities, etc.
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On January 09 2012 21:21 Goobahfish wrote:
Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default
* I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining
* I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing
* I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
First of all, you will not lose by default if you have these problems. You will only lose if you are worse at these things than your opponent is. So you played a few games of BW and lost because your mechanics were worse than your opponent's; doesn't mean the game needs to be changed.
Second, it is precisely these difficulties that make BW so impressive to watch. It is so impressive seeing beast macro, impressive 200/200 army control, Jangbi storms, etc in BW. Not so in SC2.
On January 09 2012 21:21 Goobahfish wrote:
The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of talk of 'strategic depth' on this forum which I think is not properly understood. Things like No Multiple-Building-Selection, No Automining, Control Group limits etc don't really add to strategic depth.
See this is the thing that annoys me the most. SC2 players who have never watched BW will say things like "BW is just a button mashing game", "BW is all about who can click faster", "there is no strategic depth" etc. They characterize BW as a game where players are spending all their APM fighting the interface and don't have any to spare for tactics and strategy. If you take the time to watch professional BW you will see that nothing could be further from the truth. That is why many people including me are so worried by the SC2 interface changes. Yes we know telling your workers to mine and building from one factory at a time isn't strategic depth. MBS, automine, smart casting etc free up players' apm....to do what exactly? There was no lack of strategy in BW. Why change something that will only lower the skill ceiling?
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On January 09 2012 21:21 Goobahfish wrote:
Look at all the things in SC1 which could make a player lose by default
* I am not good at building and rallying workers to mine consistently -> I lose -> Automining
* I am not good at controlling more than 3 control groups in combat -> I cannot possibly play zerg -> Unlimited selection & Better pathing
* I am not good at microing spell-casters individually -> I lose -> Smart-casting
Lets look at all the things in SC2 which could make a player lose by default
* I am not good at building workers so sometimes my economy fails because I dont have enough miners -> I lose -> have a button that produces workers out of every cc or nexus until i tell it stop, after all building workers is really just wasting apm
*I am not good at spreading marines it is too hard -> banelings are killing all of my units wtf can't play TvZ -> I lose -> why not have auto-micro where my marines automatically split so banelings dont kill me?
*I am not good at selecting where to place my storms -> I lose -> ai automatically storms in areas that are most clumped instead of having to do it manually
You may be thinking oh wow thats stupid because then i'm not accomplishing these feats myself.
Well, I can't speak for all players, but for some thats exactly how they feel. We don't want smart cast because it cheapens the experience, it ruins the thrill of executing perfect storms and watching dozens of tanks explode. we like 12 unit movement because it we're doing it ourselves, our way, moving the units and positioning them manually. When we win a battle, the game AI is so terrible we have to manage and position our units ourselves. In BW, you're in a way, overcoming the restraints of the game to achieve your own victory, not the game's. In BW every victory was your own, and the game couldn't have done better.
But in SC2 doing the above things feels so cheap.
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I dont know if people can truly discuss mechanics when the top level starcraft2 pro's don't have perfect mechanics. I think this thread will have more validity on the day that Nestea never misses an inject or when a player never goes above 300 mins.
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The reason I do not understand with the BW vs SC2 argument is that BW is a outdated game. Looking only at game design, it is really crappy. Units had awful AI, only 12 units per control group, and even workers couldn't auto mine. Simply put, if Blizzard released BW with better graphics today, it would be slammed for being a crappy game.
Mechanics such as MBS and unlimited size in control groups is something that we such be excited about. No longer is as much APM spent on macro, forcing the players to have better control of their armies. Yes this does make it lean more to Warcraft 3 style of play, where the heavy emphasis is on army control. Though many people may feel this is boring and people think that it leads to the inferior player winning. However, the game is still young. SC2 has only been out for a year and a half, many things have been discovered and things have been patched. I am looking forward to seeing more exciting play by professionals down the road, where engagements don't become ball A vs ball B. but more about positioning and smaller skirmishes for important locations such as xel'naga watch towers.
SC2 has tons of potential, but it is often overlooked by people who have been used to the handycap imposed on them by BW's UI. imagine if Flash or Jeadong didn't have to spent so much effort on Macro, but could focus on every single multiple battle happening around the map! That kind of play, where there are multiple smaller battles happening almost simultaneously that really gives me nerd chills.
I don't understand why people think that Brood War is such a higher class game than SC2, when you have to fight with the AI and UI the entire time playing it. What I am trying to say I guess, is instead of disowning SC2 for its improvements in game design, welcome them and try to find new and exciting ways to utilize them for your benefit.
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On January 09 2012 23:40 T.BonePickens wrote:
The reason I do not understand with the BW vs SC2 argument is that BW is a outdated game. Looking only at game design, it is really crappy. Units had awful AI, only 12 units per control group, and even workers couldn't auto mine. Simply put, if Blizzard released BW with better graphics today, it would be slammed for being a crappy game.
Mechanics such as MBS and unlimited size in control groups is something that we such be excited about. No longer is as much APM spent on macro, forcing the players to have better control of their armies. Yes this does make it lean more to Warcraft 3 style of play, where the heavy emphasis is on army control. Though many people may feel this is boring and people think that it leads to the inferior player winning. However, the game is still young. SC2 has only been out for a year and a half, many things have been discovered and things have been patched. I am looking forward to seeing more exciting play by professionals down the road, where engagements don't become ball A vs ball B. but more about positioning and smaller skirmishes for important locations such as xel'naga watch towers.
SC2 has tons of potential, but it is often overlooked by people who have been used to the handycap imposed on them by BW's UI. imagine if Flash or Jeadong didn't have to spent so much effort on Macro, but could focus on every single multiple battle happening around the map! That kind of play, where there are multiple smaller battles happening almost simultaneously that really gives me nerd chills.
I don't understand why people think that Brood War is such a higher class game than SC2, when you have to fight with the AI and UI the entire time playing it. What I am trying to say I guess, is instead of disowning SC2 for its improvements in game design, welcome them and try to find new and exciting ways to utilize them for your benefit.
Well I like your approach you are taking here , First there is a thread created to criticising my AWESOME (Sc2) game , so in counter response , I take revenge by calling broodwar a bad game ? Oh really ?
You say bw is a bad game and you blame on bad design , well like you said , LOOKING at the game design , nice choice of word here , let's do an interpretation , Possible interpretation 1 : Oh I see , ugly units , not cool , don't look bad ass not 3d , in conclusion bad game and design , Interpretation 2 : I didn't play broodwar before , so let's try poking fun at it and label it having bad game design , because that's what everyone is doing .Do you want me to go further ?
The fact that blizzard didn't even have the guts to release a difficult game like broodwar counter's your argument that the game will be bad . Are you nostradamus ? Can I predict that shares will go down tomorrow ? Well it's like saying if warcraft 2 is release today with updated graphics and retain the same mechanics . It will be bad by today's standard . I can play the same game with you .
In response to the game is still young , yes it's young but can you put it in the same light as vanilla starcraft did ? Let me answer that for you , vanilla and broodwar had 10 years of history of evolution and game changing play style and strategy , no longer do we see people trying to play 1 base any more for like 20 minutes than only take an expansion in broodwar . Same can be said for sc2 , Naturally Sc2 being the "supposed " successor of broodwar , strategies were brought over to sc2 , You don't see people staying on 1 base any more for like 20 minutes just like broodwar in it's early days .
Muta harassment to keep your opponents busy in base , while you take another expansion , Protoss in sc2 also are taking much faster expansion in PvZ by using http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Forge_Fast_Expansion_(vs._Zerg) . Can you truly say that Sc2 is naturally a blank slate not tainted with previous broodwar knowledge brought in to the game ?.
Here's another interesting argument that most sc2 people like to bring up , Flash and Jaedong are too busy fighting the user interface and their apm is wasted because they are merely just spamming keyboards and button mashing to win . So might as well come to sc2 because we focus more on the "STRATEGY" . You see , son they have already been doing what you already are suggesting in broodwar , they are already spending their apm efficiently , getting upgrades , taking an expansion , doing that muta dance , microing that mnm , making more units , macroing all at the same time .
Now let's just say they play sc2 , what are they going to do with their free up apm ? Suppressed their boredom by sending their first group of units to death ? Jaedong not being able to do his speciality , Is muta micro is effective as it is in bw ? If it's not Jaedong loses another advantage he had previously in broodwar . Sure you can argue that sc2 has made everything easy and accessible, than let me ask you , how is that going to help pro players like jaedong gain any advantage over his opponent . When everything is accessible and strategy capable of being pull of by any tom dick and harry, when what you can do I also can do because the low level entry of mechanics ?.
You say you are looking forward to looking at engagement not being in blob vs blob format , I can tell you it's not happening until blizzard fixed that problem them selves , units will auto clump naturally if you put all your units under 1 hot key and right click at a direction . So Jaedong and Flash moving to sc2 isn't going to magically make units un-clump themselves .
SC2 has tons of potential, but it is often overlooked by people who have been used to the handycap imposed on them by BW's UI. imagine if Flash or Jeadong didn't have to spent so much effort on Macro, but could focus on every single multiple battle happening around the map! That kind of play, where there are multiple smaller battles happening almost simultaneously that really gives me nerd chills.
You haven't been watching broodwar at all , am I right ? , if you did you wouldn't have come out with such a uninformed opinion of the game that I have been watching for like 10 years ago ? . Let me tell you , I won't accept change just for the sake because sc2 " seems" to have potential . I gave it a try , didn't like the graphics at all , I disliked the way that my siege tank has turn to the sissy side , I hated the idea that I can't make medics anymore from my barracks and I dislike the idea that the medivac's once dead my marines are going to be "Screaming " Whose in charge HERE " .
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On January 09 2012 21:36 EternaLLegacy wrote:
First, APM cost is NOT opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is why players will not utilize these "advanced" micro techniques very much. Think about it: If you can get 90% effectiveness from your army by simply using 1 control group, why would you bother using 8x as much APM to get that extra 10%, when that 8x APM will give you more rewards by doing multi-pronged attacks, more macro, etc?
And writer is absolutely correct.
Is this disagree with what I said? I'm a bit confused.
On January 09 2012 22:52 writer22816 wrote:
First of all, you will not lose by default if you have these problems. You will only lose if you are worse at these things than your opponent is. So you played a few games of BW and lost because your mechanics were worse than your opponent's; doesn't mean the game needs to be changed.
Second, it is precisely these difficulties that make BW so impressive to watch. It is so impressive seeing beast macro, impressive 200/200 army control, Jangbi storms, etc in BW. Not so in SC2.
True, you don't lose by default, but they are essentially unnecessary skill requirements. Any programmer (not pro-gamer) will realise this. Why force a player to make 3 clicks per worker when they can use 1. Then those 2 clicks can be used for more 'strategy' stuff. Unfortunately it turns out BW & SC2 aren't actually that deep strategically. BW seems more deep because of the UI issues, but in reality it is not.
It is true that it is impressive to watch, but again that is more in your head than behind your eyes so to speak. It is impressive from an academic perspective, but actually watching the game doesn't directly reveal this. You're overlaying it on top of what you see.
On January 09 2012 22:52 writer22816 wrote:
See this is the thing that annoys me the most. SC2 players who have never watched BW will say things like "BW is just a button mashing game", "BW is all about who can click faster", "there is no strategic depth" etc. They characterize BW as a game where players are spending all their APM fighting the interface and don't have any to spare for tactics and strategy. If you take the time to watch professional BW you will see that nothing could be further from the truth. That is why many people including me are so worried by the SC2 interface changes. Yes we know telling your workers to mine and building from one factory at a time isn't strategic depth. MBS, automine, smart casting etc free up players' apm....to do what exactly? There was no lack of strategy in BW. Why change something that will only lower the skill ceiling?
You are making some generalisations here... e.g. I have watched BW games. There is strategic depth in that game. Maybe even slightly more than SC2 depending on your definitions. However, a lot more of Broodwar APM is sunk in MBS, Worker-Rallying, Worker Splitting and other tasks which don't really add much to the strategic game. While these skills are theoretically impressive, they aren't interesting to watch other than in a peripheral way (I can't believe he's doing all these things at once!) as opposed to (OMG did you see that worker rally!).
One of the big things with BW is that because there is so much 'wasted' activity, each player makes far more errors giving more opportunities to take advantage of such errors. This can add to the viewer value by shifting the game from strategy to twitch. Perhaps more entertaining to some, but not to others.
On January 09 2012 22:59 whatusername wrote:
Lets look at all the things in SC2 which could make a player lose by default
* I am not good at building workers so sometimes my economy fails because I dont have enough miners -> I lose -> have a button that produces workers out of every cc or nexus until i tell it stop, after all building workers is really just wasting apm
*I am not good at spreading marines it is too hard -> banelings are killing all of my units wtf can't play TvZ -> I lose -> why not have auto-micro where my marines automatically split so banelings dont kill me?
*I am not good at selecting where to place my storms -> I lose -> ai automatically storms in areas that are most clumped instead of having to do it manually
You may be thinking oh wow thats stupid because then i'm not accomplishing these feats myself.
Well, I can't speak for all players, but for some thats exactly how they feel. We don't want smart cast because it cheapens the experience, it ruins the thrill of executing perfect storms and watching dozens of tanks explode. we like 12 unit movement because it we're doing it ourselves, our way, moving the units and positioning them manually. When we win a battle, the game AI is so terrible we have to manage and position our units ourselves. In BW, you're in a way, overcoming the restraints of the game to achieve your own victory, not the game's. In BW every victory was your own, and the game couldn't have done better.
But in SC2 doing the above things feels so cheap.
I think the main difference between my examples is that having automated splitting/automated storms might reduce strategic depth. Storming not on units to discourage an advance is a good example. I understand the argument 'why not automate everything', but I think there is a big difference between smart-casting/automining/group-size and automating other aspects of the game such as unit spliting.
Mostly, I think that first group don't detract from strategy particularly. There are exceptions. Some times I would like to select 8 infestors and in a few clicks have mass-dumped their eggs (SC1 control would be superior in some circumstances). But largely, these mechanic changes don't detract from strategy.
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I only agree with lack of defenders advantage since you can manually control the other issues you feel are lacking.More succintly as it pertains to "defenders advantage' is lack of ability to control your space as a whole in this game which differed from BW and I think expansion will go a long way to addressing. So I wouldnt worry about that either.
The major issue that you missed is removing micro entirely with spells like FG and FF do which never should exist in a RTS.
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I just wanted to give an update that I am currently writing Part 2: Unit Design and I expect to be done by the end of the day. I'm making this part as BW vs SC2 independent as possible since it seems to stir the pot too much, and it's even more in depth and significantly longer than this article. It turns out there's a lot to say!
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On January 10 2012 23:20 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I just wanted to give an update that I am currently writing Part 2: Unit Design and I expect to be done by the end of the day. I'm making this part as BW vs SC2 independent as possible since it seems to stir the pot too much, and it's even more in depth and significantly longer than this article. It turns out there's a lot to say!
I can't wait to see the finish product  .
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There is no point arguing with someone who has no experience with BW if you are going to talk about BW vs SC2 mechanics/strategy/etc.
And by experience I don't mean "yeah I played the campaign in 98" or "hurh, I played tons of MONEY MAPZ with my cousin".
So, please, just ignore those who clearly have never experienced BW if you are going to talk about BW subjects.
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I don't agree with you on many of these points. I do think BW is in many aspects a better game then SC2 but I think there are other reasons for that then the ones you said.
In game design clarity is a very important concept as it allows people to plan more. SC2's 'noob friendly' mechanics like unlimited unit selection and units balling up more is imo not bad and actually improve the strategic depth of the game. What tactics you follow is more based on which units are good in which situations not so much on rediculous stuff like how the pathing or pop count of the unit is. In BW controlling tons of lings is hard simply because they require more control groups, that is just a completely rediculous concept in my opinion. Likewise the terrible pathing of dragoons or funky fizzles of reavers impact the game in a way they shouldn't as strategically it doesn't make sense. The clumping up in a ball is not bad either, in fact pro play see's much more unit splitting then it did before already and this is actually a great thing. Given how easy it is to ball up the units having a good split becomes much less random, in BW the exact configuration of your units is much more the result of part luck and skill which is just not good.
The part where BW is much better then SC2 still imo is the skill ceiling, there are simply more things to do at any time that really benefit your play making the players differentiate in skill more. The different aspects also allow for more distinct styles to develop among the players. In sc2 the skill ceiling is too low for the pro's imo which means that the random effects of the game play too big of an role, you can especially see this is in GSL where a huge proportion of the game comes down to build order wins something which doesn't happen as much in BW I believe.
The 'solution' to sc2 therefore is also just simple imo, heighten the skillceiling making it easier for the top players to differentiate while at the same time reduce the effect of the random effects a bit. Put more specifically, there need to be more skill intensive units (that are viable) or existing units need to be made more skill intensive. At the same time scouting should be made easier / more effective or scouting should matter less. Zerg is already very skill intensive as it is so is mostly fine but need to have access to better scouting (the amount of zerg losses to random allins is staggering.. almost every top TvZ and PvZ revolves around it) and needs a slightly better endgame i think (so zerg actually wins when they get 6 bases superquickly instead of sometimes still losing to stuff like ghosts or mothership). Protoss needs more skill intensive harass options, their playstyle revolves way too much around defending till reaching some critical army size/tech and moving out, warp prism buff was a move in the good direction but more is needed like this. Finally terran needs to get more interesting abilities for mech (like spider mine) if blizz ever intents to buff that style to mainstream viability again, mech vs anything is just to boring from a spectator point of view (even though it's quite skill intensive to play).
Many of the aspects blizz already knows about and they are working on for HOTS, I just hope they will alter some of the idea's they have now as they are not great. Specifically the changes they have in mind for protoss and terran just suck at the moment (P will still lack a cool harass unit and T mech will still be be boring), zerg's fixes seem awesome though.
tl;dr the flaws of this game are not in the core mechanics/workings of the game but in small design flaws of the races, most specifically the general difficulty of scouting in this game and the lack of interesting harass.
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The point about unit formations and high ground advantage I can get on board with. It would add more strategic elements to gameplay.
The whole unit cap selection thing is overblown though. It seems that BW nostalgia has people clamoring for SC2 to just be a BW port. Hardcapping unit selection is not just bad for newer/casual players, but limiting player options in general is just a bad idea. The better approach is to have incentives in the game that encourage multiple unit groups/splitting of forces, which goes back to the whole unit formation point. For example if unit formations were adjusted to be more spread out it might make controlling a very large army in one control group very ineffective.
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United States2931 Posts
On January 11 2012 00:11 fabiano wrote:
There is no point arguing with someone who has no experience with BW if you are going to talk about BW vs SC2 mechanics/strategy/etc.
And by experience I don't mean "yeah I played the campaign in 98" or "hurh, I played tons of MONEY MAPZ with my cousin".
So, please, just ignore those who clearly have never experienced BW if you are going to talk about BW subjects.
Vouch this.
There is too many people who seem to think BW mechanics > Sc2 mechanics, therefore Sc2 strategy > BW strategy.
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Agree and Disagree. While this thread is nothing new, I think that SC:BW vs SC2 (that's blatantly what this discussion is) leaves out a critical stepping stone: WC3. Many of the interface/gameplay enhancements (automining, unlimited control groups, etc.) were first introduced in WC3, and at the time, they were what made me switch over from SC:BW instantly.
For a casual player with limited apm, a lot of SC:BW's focus was on macro, hotkeying, unit selection etc. The genius of WC3 wasn't necessarily that it fixed and automated a lot of SC:BW's interface flaws, its that it used this automation to shift the focus of the game to micro. Considering the dumbed down mechanics, WC3 still had a nearly unlimited skill ceiling for pros to differentiate themselves from casuals. A myriad of strategies were available because the depth of unit control, items, and maps. The game had great casual appeal (at least in my view) because even the newest players were spending their time controlling their hero and fighting, rather than fighting the UI.
I understand what SC2 was trying to do... find a sweet spot between WC3 and SC:BW. The problem is SC2 has no heroes, creeps, or battles that last more than 30 seconds, and the unit/macro abilities are what's left to make gameplay interesting. All i can say is that it worked to some extent: I genuinely like using chronoboost, blink, forcefield, storm and phoenix micro as a protoss player. What I think is missing most is the opportunity for game changing micro, and the interaction between abilities/units... oh yeah and armies that spread apart a little so you can tell what you're looking at
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4713 Posts
What I said at the begining of the thread and sadly, a lot of people seem to have missed/ignored, is that SC2 doesn't have to force some artificialy large skill cap by using a bad interface. While I agree that, seeing the BW pros being able to overcome the shortcomings of the interface is spectacular and it does require a ton of skill, I see this model of game design as out dated.
Yes the best of the best in BW did get to such a high level of mechanics that they could still macro and had time for strategic thought and to fight, however it still doesn't change the fact that a lot of their APM and mechanics where used to fight the interface.
SC2 brought one innovation in the right direction, Larva Injects, Creep Tumors, MULEs and Chrono boosts. The correct and timly use of these abilities defines great players in SC2, think of how impresive it is when you see players spread creep across half a map by the 10 min mark, of players that consistently have 0 energy on their queens. We are starting to see this becoming the norm.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, imagine if there where more macro abilities like these, that when managed corectly provide tactical/strategical advantages, like better/faster unit production, better resource gathering, faster travel etc. Yes it is an APM sink, but it is a strategic one, when you spread creep you do so to better your defensive and offensive powers, you raise your armies mobility, when you inject larva you maximize the ammount of units you'll be able to produce. Now that, to me is infinetly times better then having to individually select every building to build units or having to manually make workers mine.
And, last but not least, people are ignoring the fact that, as players improve more and more and their APM raises they can and will take advantage of the easier macro we have now in SC2 (if it stays that way), to dedicate more APM to army movement/positioning and attacks. If you thought 2-3 attacks at a time was impresive, imagine people being able to conduct 3-6 attacks at a time and control them well while macro-ing at home. That is the freedom that the current system provides, and I've yet to see many SC2 players to reach such a level.
So, while many people consider the skill cap in SC2 to be too low, perhaps we have mearly not yet reached the highest level of play. I really don't fear for SC2, I believe there is still a lot of room for players to improve in multiple ways, maybe some time in 2-3 years we will start to get glimpses of the true potential of players playing near perfect, then you'll see a real separation of the cream of the crop players from the average.
My conclusion is that, BW was and still is a great game, but some parts of it are out-dated, like the interface, the AI and some of the controls. I think the way forward for RTS games is to make as many units as possible micro friendly, to encourage a lot of skill based encounters, and to make macro more strategic by adding various powers that optimize macro and separate the best of the best fromt he rest.
And I don't think SC2 is a bad game, since it is still very young and players still have tons to learn and optimize, SC2 already brought some innovations and it can only get better from here on.
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Nice Post and good read. I also feelt that that sc2 is missing something. Not in every game played but in the most of it.
I remember a game between TLO (T) and Sheth (Z) on tal´darim in wich TLO pulled of some ridiculous strategy. The game was totaly chaotic, battles all over the place, mistakes and blunders on both sides, but it was so exciting to watch and i almost could swear i was watching a broodwar game. Maybe you are right with your points, but i really hope sc2 will look like sc:bw in future.
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