On January 24 2012 16:22 Koshi wrote: Mechanical it should be a bit harder. Something simple like a 25 food cap on selection and removing MBS would be a great step. This is ofcourse not balanced in WoL but should be something Blizzard should consider for HotS imo.
Why though? I mean if you think of it, how much depth does the the fact that you have to bind and use 3 hotkeys instead of one adds to our strategy game? 1a 2a 3a instead of 1a? I get being nostalgic about BW, but I really see no reason for a change like this. If I have to use 3 keys to create a worker instead of 1... would that make the game better?
-How would you like it if they changed the creep tumor spread system? Instead of having to click the new tumor and place it further, in HotS the creep tumor just automatically on cooldown spawns towards a point that you can decide on in the start and can be manually changed if needed. This feels unnatural not?
The game is far from played perfectly, but simple things like automine, MBS and mass unit selection can be added to the game and the pro's and master players will still be able to execute the same builds, perform at the same level, but will have a bigger reward for their practice.
There is a big misconception that extra "needless" clicks bring out worse timings/gameplay. I am certain that all the pro players who practice +8 hours a day can execute the same timings, build orders or strategies if they didn't have automine/MBS/1a. These "needless" clicks would bring much joy to casual gamers as well. People don't understand how great it is to have to click every building to make a unit. How much more beautiful an army moves if you can only select a limited amount at the time. Simply because they never had to do it. Like I said, what if tomorrow creep spread was automatic, would you like it?
On January 24 2012 06:59 sereniity wrote: The reason that the Code S winners MVP, NesTea, MC etc don't win as much as the BW top does (Flash, Jaedong etc) is pretty simple.
The BW pros are playing a game where every build is figured out, they've had enough time to practice the game to be near the absolute skillcap, they barely have any holes in their play.
The SC2 pros are playing a game where not nearly every build nor playstyle has been figured out, they haven't had enough time with the game to actually reach anywhere near the skillcap nor tighten up every hole in their gameplay. You constantly see new cheese builds coming from the top, new macro openings and the such which can make even top players lose due to them not knowing the existence of that build.
Once everything like that is figured out in SC2 and the top pros have spent enough time mastering Marine Macro, triple pronged drops and not losing to something as silly as a ling runby while their depot isn't up then you'll see those top players winning consistently vs lesser opponents.
The fact that people expect the very top of the SC2 players to win every single game surprises me, this game is still relatively new and there's alot of things that can still catch the top players off-guard, this isn't because of bad game-design, it's because shit needs to get figured out and pros needs to get better.
Please don't tell me MVP, NesTea and MC have reached the skillcap of SC2. They're damn good but I still see bad marine splitting from MVP time to time (and by bad I mean not perfect as it should be at that lvl). I still see NesTea making bad decisions and not microing perfectly (almost every pro sacrifices their infestors mindlessly every time they try to fungal for example) and I still see MC simply not playing at his best from time to time.
The fact that people point fingers at the GAME SC2 rather than it's players is funny though...
Does this game need to get harder? No, not really. The level it is right now is fine imo, give it time and we'll see how it plays out in a year.
You know, that "BW players had 10 years to figure out..." comment actually means that before BW (and competitive RTS) took hold in Korea, the concepts of macro, micro, timings, expansions and how they affect the game, strategy and army movement etc. weren't known at all. It was built from nothing. That's why Boxer, even in its top form, won't take a game off current game's monsters like Flash. So SC2 is already built on these concepts so its improvement has been much faster.
I'm sorry but I'm following a lot more BW compared to SC2 nowadays and I'm noticing that there are inherent problems with how WOL works. Due to MBS and ease of macro, it is impossible to come back if you lose the main deathball battle. The clumping mechanic and smarter unit ai means a lot more firepower available, and splash damage is all the deal in big battles. Units just die too damn fast before you can do anything (and sometimes you literallly cannot do anything, force fields and fungals) Smartcast removes the skill of good caster use (carpet storms and carpet emps with a few clicks). There are many very poorly designed units that are just a-move (colossus,roach,marauder) Interesting units like Reaver which require and reward good control are absent. Sentry and Blink Stalkers are really the only units that reward good control through forcefield usage and blink micro. Battles end far too quickly to allow an efficient retreat or micro that makes a big difference.
There are subtle but really nice ways in how BW units function. Take Reaver. It hits like a freight train (100 unupgraded and 125 upgraded damage) and with a splash. Yet it is probably the slowest unit in the entire game, so you cannot just take it, a-move and cross your fingers. You need a fast way to transport it to the battle, and Shuttle provides that. Shuttle is fast, but it is prone to be sniped by your enemy, so you need to control it well, because if you fail, you not only lose it but also the precious Reaver inside. Plus the lost opportunity for harrassment and extra firepower for your army. You can take a deathball with Colossi and Stalkers with a few sentries and just a-move across the map, and the only thing you need to do is good forcefields that honestly aren't that hard to execute, and protecting your Colossii, which the stalkers can take care of. But this isn't an interesting interaction between these units, it is just basic stuff, a unit covering another. A Shuttle brings a whole new depth into how you can use a Reaver. SC2 lacks that interaction. A Colossi harrass does nothing but make your opponent laugh, its whole function is to provide firepower in a major engagement.
Warp Prism could be interesting if Warp-in mechanic was exclusive only to Warp Prism's energy area but due to Pylons giving the same effect, they aren't as interesting as they could be. Still, it's a great idea and it deserves an applaud, but it could have been much better.
Get this: There isn't much more if anything left to figure out in WOL. HOTS will bring its own dynamics and then there will be a period of learning, just like it happened last year with WOL. But for WOL, the progress is pretty much over unless Blizzard introduces a major change through a patch. I personally honestly believe the biggest problem of WOL is how Protoss is designed. TvZ being arguably the best matchup in the game closely followed by TvT shows this clearly.
very nice post mate.
I agree with pretty much everyting in there.
Actually reaver - scarab mechanic is even more complex, even if somehow you let reaver into your mineral line you can still dodge or block the scarab till it expires, if opponent landed his reaver in bad spot this reaver may aswell not make a single kill, or only leave with 1 digit kill counter. There is mechanic of execution and counter-execution, and scarab is a pinnacle of it. It is physical object not capable of phasing through buildings and units, if you pick wrong target, and your opponents makes a wall of units blocking scarab it will do nothing. Now collosus, it shoots and your stuff dies. Thats it, you can only preemptively counter it, but there is no, "how i deal with it now, oh i didnt make corrupot/viking gg". And we are not talking even about spider mines, turrets, dt/mine correlation, vulture, lurker, defiler. Hell even 10 zergling used at a proper time can win you game, because all the tools are available (high dps zergling and dark swarm), decision and micro can win you a game. Leaving everything on the matter of if he scout or not, is just bringing binary style game with more metagame, counter feel but less tactic. Both are valid, but one is clearly more spectator friendly.
Collosus is the pinnacle of i need to see this or im dead soonish, its like carriers but carriers... you know the rest. Because forgg lately gets to much shit ill show you this.
the game was not over when forgg pushed with his brilliant build, in fact it was on razer's edge for almost 10 min, now see it remembering the interaction of scarab. How he dodges it, or faints his moves, this is the power struggle not build order win scenario. Its like equivalent of 1/1/1 where BW marines are as bad as tanks in tvp but this build alone justified it. Its timing attack precisely executed and masked. Kal couldnt see it coming with his observer because forgg had turret ring around his base, also he never showed more than 4 marines till later stage, when it was sure he is going for this.
On January 23 2012 21:17 mvtaylor wrote: I wish people would stop making Brood War out to be the utter pinnacle of everything that SC2 can in no way ever compare to.
Let's think of a few other reasons besides "skill cap" and "difficulty" that BW isn't as popular...
Gaming was not as popular back when BW was released as it is now, I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying gaming has become more mainstream between BW and SC2. Second to that I don't remember any occasions, ever, where people have en masse gone out and bought a game that was released ten years ago. As an extra to that I don't think people these days are too enthralled by a game whose graphics look so utterly dated.
Yes starcraft players may understand what's going on and be able to get more from it but a casual person looking at BW is going to think, wow, this hasn't aged well.
Now, on to the "lack of skill" in SC2... BW has been out for a decade, that has given the game so much time to develop and become what it is today. SC2 has had nowhere near as much time but even then you only need to compare the games from GSL open seasons to the Blizzard Cup and GSL November finals to see how far the game has advanced in that relatively short time.
Being able to have your whole army on one hotkey may make one big battle easier but it still doesn't make multitasking easier. You still see players who are able to handle three or four engagements at once (such as MVP dropping multiple places simultaneously while fighting) be able to come out ahead of those who aren't able to multitask so well.
Given more time the skill shown in SC2 will only get higher and higher and until someone plays a 40 minute or so "perfect" game I don't think people can talk of a cap. Yes BW is "harder" due to no auto mining and 12 units to a hotkey max but it's also harder as it's been out for so long and has had strategies developed for it so completely. It's not like cheese and build order wins don't exist only in SC2...
On January 24 2012 16:22 Koshi wrote: Mechanical it should be a bit harder. Something simple like a 25 food cap on selection and removing MBS would be a great step. This is ofcourse not balanced in WoL but should be something Blizzard should consider for HotS imo.
Why though? I mean if you think of it, how much depth does the the fact that you have to bind and use 3 hotkeys instead of one adds to our strategy game? 1a 2a 3a instead of 1a? I get being nostalgic about BW, but I really see no reason for a change like this. If I have to use 3 keys to create a worker instead of 1... would that make the game better?
-How would you like it if they changed the creep tumor spread system? Instead of having to click the new tumor and place it further, in HotS the creep tumor just automatically on cooldown spawns towards a point that you can decide on in the start and can be manually changed if needed. This feels unnatural not?
The game is far from played perfectly, but simple things like automine, MBS and mass unit selection can be added to the game and the pro's and master players will still be able to execute the same builds, perform at the same level, but will have a bigger reward for their practice.
There is a big misconception that extra "needless" clicks bring out worse timings/gameplay. I am certain that all the pro players who practice +8 hours a day can execute the same timings, build orders or strategies if they didn't have automine/MBS/1a. These "needless" clicks would bring much joy to casual gamers as well. People don't understand how great it is to have to click every building to make a unit. How much more beautiful an army moves if you can only select a limited amount at the time. Simply because they never had to do it. Like I said, what if tomorrow creep spread was automatic, would you like it?
yeah, give me more of that stuff. I want that. I also don't want to click a thousand times to build a thousand zerglings, when I would much rather sit there and micro another roach drop, burrow another infestor in my opponents base, contaminate a factory and think about wether I should go mutas right now. I would love to have this game more decision- and "additional micro/multitasking"(like blink and drops; army movement)-based, instead of macro- and "make things do what they should do anyways"(making my units attack, selecting my units and making them move etc.)-micro based.
On January 24 2012 06:59 sereniity wrote: The reason that the Code S winners MVP, NesTea, MC etc don't win as much as the BW top does (Flash, Jaedong etc) is pretty simple.
The BW pros are playing a game where every build is figured out, they've had enough time to practice the game to be near the absolute skillcap, they barely have any holes in their play.
The SC2 pros are playing a game where not nearly every build nor playstyle has been figured out, they haven't had enough time with the game to actually reach anywhere near the skillcap nor tighten up every hole in their gameplay. You constantly see new cheese builds coming from the top, new macro openings and the such which can make even top players lose due to them not knowing the existence of that build.
Once everything like that is figured out in SC2 and the top pros have spent enough time mastering Marine Macro, triple pronged drops and not losing to something as silly as a ling runby while their depot isn't up then you'll see those top players winning consistently vs lesser opponents.
The fact that people expect the very top of the SC2 players to win every single game surprises me, this game is still relatively new and there's alot of things that can still catch the top players off-guard, this isn't because of bad game-design, it's because shit needs to get figured out and pros needs to get better.
Please don't tell me MVP, NesTea and MC have reached the skillcap of SC2. They're damn good but I still see bad marine splitting from MVP time to time (and by bad I mean not perfect as it should be at that lvl). I still see NesTea making bad decisions and not microing perfectly (almost every pro sacrifices their infestors mindlessly every time they try to fungal for example) and I still see MC simply not playing at his best from time to time.
The fact that people point fingers at the GAME SC2 rather than it's players is funny though...
Does this game need to get harder? No, not really. The level it is right now is fine imo, give it time and we'll see how it plays out in a year.
You know, that "BW players had 10 years to figure out..." comment actually means that before BW (and competitive RTS) took hold in Korea, the concepts of macro, micro, timings, expansions and how they affect the game, strategy and army movement etc. weren't known at all. It was built from nothing. That's why Boxer, even in its top form, won't take a game off current game's monsters like Flash. So SC2 is already built on these concepts so its improvement has been much faster.
I'm sorry but I'm following a lot more BW compared to SC2 nowadays and I'm noticing that there are inherent problems with how WOL works. Due to MBS and ease of macro, it is impossible to come back if you lose the main deathball battle. The clumping mechanic and smarter unit ai means a lot more firepower available, and splash damage is all the deal in big battles. Units just die too damn fast before you can do anything (and sometimes you literallly cannot do anything, force fields and fungals) Smartcast removes the skill of good caster use (carpet storms and carpet emps with a few clicks). There are many very poorly designed units that are just a-move (colossus,roach,marauder) Interesting units like Reaver which require and reward good control are absent. Sentry and Blink Stalkers are really the only units that reward good control through forcefield usage and blink micro. Battles end far too quickly to allow an efficient retreat or micro that makes a big difference.
There are subtle but really nice ways in how BW units function. Take Reaver. It hits like a freight train (100 unupgraded and 125 upgraded damage) and with a splash. Yet it is probably the slowest unit in the entire game, so you cannot just take it, a-move and cross your fingers. You need a fast way to transport it to the battle, and Shuttle provides that. Shuttle is fast, but it is prone to be sniped by your enemy, so you need to control it well, because if you fail, you not only lose it but also the precious Reaver inside. Plus the lost opportunity for harrassment and extra firepower for your army. You can take a deathball with Colossi and Stalkers with a few sentries and just a-move across the map, and the only thing you need to do is good forcefields that honestly aren't that hard to execute, and protecting your Colossii, which the stalkers can take care of. But this isn't an interesting interaction between these units, it is just basic stuff, a unit covering another. A Shuttle brings a whole new depth into how you can use a Reaver. SC2 lacks that interaction. A Colossi harrass does nothing but make your opponent laugh, its whole function is to provide firepower in a major engagement.
Warp Prism could be interesting if Warp-in mechanic was exclusive only to Warp Prism's energy area but due to Pylons giving the same effect, they aren't as interesting as they could be. Still, it's a great idea and it deserves an applaud, but it could have been much better.
Get this: There isn't much more if anything left to figure out in WOL. HOTS will bring its own dynamics and then there will be a period of learning, just like it happened last year with WOL. But for WOL, the progress is pretty much over unless Blizzard introduces a major change through a patch. I personally honestly believe the biggest problem of WOL is how Protoss is designed. TvZ being arguably the best matchup in the game closely followed by TvT shows this clearly.
Have to completely disagree with the bolded part except possibly "expansions". I played a lot more age of empires than starcraft back then and I don't really remember what words that were used but I'd say people were generally very aware of concepts like "macro", timings, transitions, unit compositions, "micro" etc almost right away in AoE. Late game build orders and timings weren't very refined but didn't take many weeks before you couldn't win without a somewhat optimized early-mid game(btw you could be in mid game 35 mins in in AoE).
On January 24 2012 19:23 Tobberoth wrote: It means that focusing on learning macro meant more in BW. In SC2, you can at least get to gold/plat just by learning to macro well. In BW, the difference is way bigger. All you really have to learn to macro well as terran in SC2 is to hotkey your CCs, make sure they are building workers. Hotkey all your unit procuding structures on one key, make sure they are constantly producing. Make supply depots. Make bases. It's actually ridiculously easy. In BW, you have to constantly make workers AND go back and set them to mine, on each base. You have to make sure you were building out of all your unit producing structures, which means actually clicking on them, which forced you to use base cameras to have a chance. The bad AI made sure you couldn't just rally them to where you needed them.
All of this together made "learn to macro" a concept far more important than it currently is in SC2. The macro mechanics was a good addition to make this less so, perfect queen usage is ridiculously hard to achieve, chrono boost can be hard to keep useful, and MULEs... are still a ridiculously easy mechanic, but still.
When people ask for auto-mine and such to be removed, they don't do it because they love looking at their workers... they do it because they want the skill cap back, that good players didn't just do good strategies and awesome micro... they did this while constantly macroing in a sense which doesn't exist in SC2.
If macroing is so easy to learn in SC2, then why do pros still not have perfect macro? Why do we see pro players missing scv's, occasionally getting supply blocked, occasionally having idle rax, dropping 5 mules at once, etc.?
Yes, macro in SC2 is way, way easier than BW. But, I tried going back to BW and playing some single player, and quickly found that the lack of auto-mine and MBS actually made the game way less fun to play (coming from someone who played BW casually -- think BGH -- and is a mid-masters player in SC2). I had to focus 100% just to be able to macro off a couple bases, and then found it near impossible just to move my army around the way i wanted to (1click 2click 3click 4click 5click, now all the units are running in random directions, better do it again). If SC2 had come out with BW mechanics, it would just not be as fun to play as it is now.
For those of you asking for more micro-intensive units, I can see where you are coming from. For those of you asking for the removal of MBS, auto-mine, smart-cast, etc, all I can say is: NO!
I also think unless it was for some kind of psychology experiment, polls like the one on OP should be changed. It has 2 options for the game getting harder, and one option for staying same level. How can it be of any use? It's just to mislead whoever sees it and is uneducated to notice the fail.
In reference to the game being harder...I think that having more spellcaster oriented units or more of blink type unit abilities would be a solid way to go. As for making it like brood war (no auto mining, smaller unit grouping etc...) that would be a very wrong way to go and I can definitely see a large portion of the casual SC2 community leaving the game. Why? because at the end of the day, starcraft is a game. It is meant to be fun and realistically, no matter how seriously you may ladder, only a small portion of the starcraft 2 community will ever go pro. The reason I started playing starcraft 2 is because of its accessibility. I like the fact that i'm more worried about strategy and positioning than i am about making sure my worker gets to the correct mineral patch. I still have to keep building workers and pylons and structures, but the fact that i'm not worried about the lack of auto mining is a relief and allows me to enjoy the game much more. I'm not saying that it has to be a completely childish experience, but there has to be a balance. I tried going back to brood war a few times and just realized how annoying it had become after playing sc2 for so long. For those people that miss the brood war mechanics, don't worry, brood war is still there. However, i'm really hoping that blizzard doesn't see the need to let starcraft 2 devolve into it's predecessor.
I think that there is a way to make both parties happy.
Have a game be easy to learn/play but hard to master.
Easy to learn and play means, having a clean, easy to use interface, auto-mining, smart cast, good pathfinding etc. Hard to master, means having nuances like macro abilities, Larva Inject, MULEs, Chronoboost etc.
In my opinion SC2 is almost there. The game is easy to pick up and play by almost anyone due to the interface that doesn't conspire to kill you. However it is hard to master because there are lots of little things you need to learn to be succesful, like injecting corectly every single time, spreading creep, managing Chronoboost, droping mules, and than multi-prong attacks, macro, pre-battle micro and in battle micro, timings etc.
The only thing I think SC2 lacks really is more macro abilities like LI, MULEs and Chrono, that reward players for using them optimaly every single time.
In my opinion dumbing the game down just for the sake of making it harder is not the way to go. BW was hard to master because of the technical limitations of the time, while I still need to give credit where its due, and I do admit BW was one of the greatest RTS of all time, I must repeat that, there are more elegant, more modern and way more rewarding ways to make the game hard at the highest level, but easy to play and pick up at the lower levels.
It is vital however that a game captures all these aspects in the right amount. SC2 could just use a tad more hard to master.
BW was not hard to master only because of the outdated interface, but also because has a very deep gameplay, forces you to think where positioning your lurk, where positioning your mine ecc... , and has units that require insanely good micro, and not only because of the retard pathfinding, but because they are well designed units, instead of boring a-move, like colossus...
i would love some ui enhancements. more information for the players can only result in higher game-play for all.
i also wish there was more information available to players. such as: - separate rally point for workers - how many workers you currently have. - a timer (larva inject/mule style) for chronoboost. - a timer on warpgates (same style as above, in the selection bar). - range being displayed on all spellcasters (some show range, some dont. be consistent). - idle creep tumor button - attack/rally points - a button you can press that drops 1 unit from your army (for ling/baneling micro, and transfering workers to each mineral patch/gas) - even if you can click on your main building and have it show you your income. - resource/unit counting station position above minimap - option of hiding hitpoint bars of full/health allied units - fix ultralisk pathing (imo all massive units should push non-massive allied units out of the way) - stalker warpin size should actually reflect the size of the unit
because these suggestions provide for you to spend mroe APM in your army, i wish that they would remove or change the micro inhibiting things such as: - concussion shells (imo necesary vs zealot, but i think concussion should only affect bio) - fungal should slow, not stun - FF.. not sure how to fix this without ruining game. at the very least, EMP should kill FF. also queen should be morphable (lurker style) into a massive queen. - pylon should not power high ground.
lil off topic, but i think the following abilities would add some interestin depth to the game: - such as allowing medivacs ability to burn energy in order to move faster - allow carriers to attack while moving - allowing creep to spread faster if you have a lair, and even faster than that if you have a hive. - combining upgrades such as: ( overlord speed/drop), (observer/prism speed), (neosteel/bunker upgrade) - allowing terran to upgrade their tech lab/reactor to those things from the campaign (require armory plus cost 50/50 on top of reactor/tech lab cost).
BW is only prohibitively difficult if you want to be competitive. If not, anyone can enjoy it. Even if they remade BW with the easier features of unlimited building selection and auto-mining, there is still so much room for skill that the game will be interesting to watch and play.
I'm a bit of a BW fanboy, and personally prefer BW to SC2, but I can see how SC2 is an improvement in some ways.
Three things that SC2 does better than BW. (imo of course) 1: Simplified macro mechanics. (auto-mining, unlimited unit/building selection) 2: Improved matchmaking. Finding a game of BW with an opponent who is at your skill level can be difficult. iccup doesn't really match you up that well, and everyone there at this point is far too good for a new player to have a chance against. 3: Graphics. These seem to matter to a lot of people. I die a little bit inside every time I read a "I tried to play BW but the graphics made my eyes bleed" comment.
Of these, I think 2 is the most important, although I might be underestimating 3 (I love playing games with older graphics, and often don't care for the new; SC2 is fine, but as an example of old > new I'd claim WarCraft2 > WC3 graphics-wise).
Really, if BW had nice graphics and a good matchmaking system (so you played against people with roughly your mechanical ability) the game would be a lot of fun for many more people. It doesn't matter how hard it is to macro properly, if your opponent is only able to macro at the same level as you. Thus I believe that a BW ladder system similar to SC2's would immediately make BW "playable" for a lot of people.
I guess this might have been off-topic. Sorry ><
TLDR: The difficulty of a game doesn't really matter at a casual level. As long as the opponent can execute things about as well as you can, it should be the strategic (or compositional ><) play that determines the winner. Making the game harder will not detract from the enjoyment of the casual players, as long as the added difficulty isn't seen as unnecessary busywork.
Don't really see the purpose of this thread, it's not like Blizzard will listen to the ideas in this thread. (unless they suddenly decide to care about the community)
It's a really bad idea to suggest removing any of the UI improvements that SC2 has over BW. The problems with SC2 has nothing to do with the UI and making the UI needlessly cumbersome would not improve the game in any way.
The problems with the game in terms of a lack of difficulty (or rather, a lack of room for skilled players to put their skills into use) are entirely due to the design philosophy of the game. Things like "a-move friendly" (Blizzard's own phraseology) late game units should not be in the game, neither should explicit hardcounter units like Immortals or marauders. And, apart from zerg, HOTS seems to be moving very much in the wrong direction in that regard, with units like the Battle Hellion and Tempest.
On January 25 2012 05:49 PatieNce_ wrote: Don't really see the purpose of this thread, it's not like Blizzard will listen to the ideas in this thread. (unless they suddenly decide to care about the community)
What a waste of time.
To follow that up, what types of challenges do you face when trying to balance the needs of the casual player versus the rage of hardcore players like in the progaming community. You had mentioned the macro mechanics being a big one.
DB: Sure that's definitely a big one – it's a place where we feel we can definitely do better but it then does break other systems. You know a great example I love reading on Teamliquid and elsewhere were not so much that you guys were missing clicks – some people said that and I didn't agree with that – but that we were missing the difference between a macro player and a micro player. That we were destroying the sense of style of the player. I could be playing a micro game and you could be playing a macro game with both the same race, and we are still playing a very different game from one another. And when I saw that I was like “Ohh!” I was opening my eyes like “Thanks! THERE IT IS! That's great! That's genius! That's exactly what we need to try to accomplish”.
Why can't everyone have fun trying to get Browder to shout about how genius their ideas are? It sounds like he's implying a team liquid poster got the macro mechanics added so I don't think you can say it's impossible.
Why is discussing starcraft design on a starcraft discussion forum so offensive to you even if blizzard never sees it?
Most of the comments on this thread are some of the dumbest comments I've ever read.
Sure, this game is mechanically easier than BW, but it's for a good fucking reason. If you take most of the mechanical training out of Starcraft, then what's left is strategy, i'd like to see strategy improve more than someone's mechanical ability. One of the reasons why people are finding it easier to watch SC2 is because half the time we aren't oggling at someone's ability to macro. Most of the time we're watching their strategies shape and take place in the game.
THE CONS What are the cons of being easy to play? For the sake of professionals, it is almost heartwrenching. Lets face it, the game has a much higher luck rewarding system than BW, and we have seen many top players fall to lesser ones based on just that. The skill ceiling is not as high (yet, in WoL) which puts starcraft in a bad light when being regarded as a sport. If you don't have to work hard to reach the top, then starcraft as a sport looks a bit... 'iffy'.
Ugh....I see this negative reference to "luck" way too often. Get over it plz. This is not the thing that makes the game "easier". So flowing from this logic, poker is therefore an easy game right? Perhaps they should institute a rule where players play with their cards up to eliminate all the guesswork. So dumb.
On January 25 2012 05:49 PatieNce_ wrote: Don't really see the purpose of this thread, it's not like Blizzard will listen to the ideas in this thread. (unless they suddenly decide to care about the community)
To follow that up, what types of challenges do you face when trying to balance the needs of the casual player versus the rage of hardcore players like in the progaming community. You had mentioned the macro mechanics being a big one.
DB: Sure that's definitely a big one – it's a place where we feel we can definitely do better but it then does break other systems. You know a great example I love reading on Teamliquid and elsewhere were not so much that you guys were missing clicks – some people said that and I didn't agree with that – but that we were missing the difference between a macro player and a micro player. That we were destroying the sense of style of the player. I could be playing a micro game and you could be playing a macro game with both the same race, and we are still playing a very different game from one another. And when I saw that I was like “Ohh!” I was opening my eyes like “Thanks! THERE IT IS! That's great! That's genius! That's exactly what we need to try to accomplish”.
Why can't everyone have fun trying to get Browder to shout about how genius their ideas are? It sounds like he's implying a team liquid poster got the macro mechanics added so I don't think you can say it's impossible.
Why is discussing starcraft design on a starcraft discussion forum so offensive to you even if blizzard never sees it?
Actually made me smile when I read the first part of the last line.. It's not offensive to me at all, I just think it's a waste of time.
& about that interview you linked... "“The benefit you guys bring to the game, the passion and knowledge this community brings has been a huge benefit working on the game. It's had a huge influence and I think it has made the game a lot better."
Guess that's why I'm still playing bw & sc2 has a pile of dust on it nowadays.
Anyways, have fun discussing, I'll just finish my sandwich.
I would not say the ease of use of the game is the reason why it has grown so big in the western scene, I would rather say it was by hype and speculation throughout Beta and release. Also a big reason why the game got big was the custom game system from the previous games where a giant majority of people only played for the custom games, but so far in SC2 the custom game system is atrocious and has a lot that needs to be fixed.
Of course the game should be harder and more skill based the games would be more exciting to myself, and lower level players can play in lower level leagues (what the hell is wrong with that if you don't want to put in time then you will not be as good as someone who puts in more time than you.) I do not care about statistics or results or oh my god a certain few players or whatever always beat foreigners or are in Code S. I believe that the game needs to be redesigned on multiple levels, I do not like watching blob vs. blob matchups I prefer watching something that actually takes abstract strategy and has methodical placement of units and such. I hope HoS and LoV add better design to the aspects the game is currently lacking.
EPT
