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this blog was brought on by http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=305672
In this the most interesting thing to me was people thinking that sc2 would detract players if its interface was worse because the barrier of entry was too high.
I find this far fetched, an intuitive control system does not lead to a multiplayer games popularity. Ill be using examples mainly from the fps genre to support my feelings.
Fps games are what i have the most experience in. The barriers of entry for fps games are extremely easy for control, wasd to move, aim to shoot, switch weapons with number keys. The control scheme is so simple, anyone can do the basics. So where does a game get hurt from "barrier of entry" well its most often the games potential for huge skill disparity.
Quake 3, if you have ever played it, has a small elite community of players, possibly the most skilled overall community in terms of active players in the fps genre. But quake 3 is a pretty simple game, it doesn't have any weird aiming mechanics like CS or any complex and unintuitive weapons like tf2. Guns shoot straight and control are intuitive. So what drove all the players out? well, bad players got destroyed, in quake, if someone is better, you know it. In CA or CTF, entire games can be won by just one really really good player. You literally feel helpless against another player, and the skill disparity can increase almost more than any other game, this pushes away casual and less dedicated players.
Compare this to call of duty, its weapons system is less intuitive overall, every weapon has tons of options you even have complex load outs and perks to add further complexity to the base control system. What's the most popular mode? hardcore, reason, it takes away every element of mechanical skill in the game, the fastest guns kill in 2 shots, anybody can kill anybody by spraying bullets down a hallway. The ability to be above and beyond casuals is reduced so much that it's hard to post big scores on servers where the average player has trouble aiming.
I'm also going to use TF2 as an example, the majority of the community plays on maps or modes that limit players ability to be above and beyond others. They play the maps of orange x, dustbowl, and 2fort, they reduce spawn time to make it damn near impossible for either team to win unless you have a couple standouts in skill compared to the other team. The community actively takes steps to go on maps so that differences in skill are mitigated or never developed.
continually i find that it is not the barrier of entry imposed by the games interface that cause a barrier of entry, but more the games ability to differentiate yourself from others.
This is found continually in hard games with easy modes. money maps and team games were extremely popular in BW's heyday, far more than 1v1, reason seems to be that players wanted games where skill mattered less.
SC2's control system is incredibly unintuitive, hotkeys, control groups, and remembering a strict build order and tons of stuff to do? from a control point of view for a new player that's a mountain of intimidation, but you see that sc2 1v1 is pretty popular overall compared to other 1v1 games. I think some of sc2's success has actually come from the ladder system, it makes the barrier of entry lower in that you you will face people you can beat pretty reliably, that is sc2s redeeming feature in a 1v1 environment. Compare this to quake where it could take months to find people that you could go the distance with. Fighting games have the exact same problems as starcraft, but the reliable ranking system of SF4 and MVC3 and decently sized player base allowed the community to become somewhat stable and active once the casuals left.
What does this mean? it means that increasing complexity of the game often has almost nothing to do with how popular it is or how many active players there are, you just need to get them in a place where they can win some games and start to learn and not have their ego crushed, the ladder system lets this happen, Ive never seen a 1v1 game without a ladder system or ranking system turn out with vibrant communities with a whole host of skill levels like sc2 community and the fighting game community have. So we shouldn't worry about a game getting harder from a mechanical point of view, the blizzards amazing ladder system protects new players coming into the game from those barriers initially.
If people have other takes, please share them.
 
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On January 27 2012 01:34 r_con wrote:
I'm also going to use TF2 as an example, the majority of the community plays on maps or modes that limit players ability to be above and beyond others. They play the maps of orange x, dustbowl, and 2fort, they reduce spawn time to make it damn near impossible for either team to win unless you have a couple standouts in skill compared to the other team. The community actively takes steps to go on maps so that differences in skill are mitigated or never developed.
What does "to go on maps" mean?
The community is not orange,dust,2fort btw.
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On January 27 2012 02:02 thoraxe wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2012 01:34 r_con wrote:
I'm also going to use TF2 as an example, the majority of the community plays on maps or modes that limit players ability to be above and beyond others. They play the maps of orange x, dustbowl, and 2fort, they reduce spawn time to make it damn near impossible for either team to win unless you have a couple standouts in skill compared to the other team. The community actively takes steps to go on maps so that differences in skill are mitigated or never developed.
What does "to go on maps" mean? The community is not orange,dust,2fort btw.
http://steampowered.com/status/tf2/public_graphs/totaltimeplayedserverhours.png
top 7 maps are prone to extreme stalemates in pub settings/ while the top 3 are even worst
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This blog has a good point. The SC2 community is somewhat unique in my experience in that people readily admit that they are "bad" or in a lower league.
The nice thing about the ladder system and of 1v1s intrinsically is that you don't run into the problem where other players are mad at you for being bad at the game. There's no teammates that will chide you for your performance and your opponents don't really have any grounds to call you "bad" since they are matched to your skill level by the ladder.
I think you're right then that complexity does not affect how popular SC2 is, but I still think it would be bad to impose artificial complexity, such as a 12 unit selection limit. You say the controls are complex, but they are also as simple and as powerful as they could possibly be given the rules of the game. If you make the controls more difficult than they need to be then I think players will be driven away.
Other ways of increasing the games complexity, such as more complex units and more ways to gain advantage through micro, would be a good way to increase the skill-cap of the game and also not drive away casual players.
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On January 27 2012 02:23 castled wrote:
I think you're right then that complexity does not affect how popular SC2 is, but I still think it would be bad to impose artificial complexity, such as a 12 unit selection limit. You say the controls are complex, but they are also as simple and as powerful as they could possibly be given the rules of the game. If you make the controls more difficult than they need to be then I think players will be driven away.
I agree, artificial complexity is bad, unless it gives the game more strategic depth. Having to manually build workers, for an example is a complexity blizzard could have easily removed to make sc2 more noob friendly, but then that removes an entire tree of strategic decisionmaking for the player (should I continue to build workers to gain a long term advantage? Or should I cut workers for a quick army/tech advantage?).
Having only 12 workers in a group was more of an annoyance in bw than anything else, same with the lack of automining. It didn't give you any more decisions to make than sc2 does now, it was just another menial task to do every x seconds.
Anyway, I think you are onto something OP, The ladder system despite all it's faults does a very good job at making sure everyone has a fair chance of winning and losing every game they play. I'm very grateful for it and I hope it keeps the bronzies playing.
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And there lies the distinction between games and esports. I don't think many people's idea of fun is investing hours and hours of learning only to be destroyed by someone else better.
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It really comes down to 1v1 vs Team mechanics, I think.
MMORPGs, for example, are increasingly watered down and easy to grasp. Why? Well, they want a large amount of casual gamers to be able to come together and work together inside the game. This is because working with people is inherently challenging, so if the game is also challenging, it's twice as much on your plate.
In starcraft 2, and even Quake to some extent, You're expected to rely on yourself and that's it. Without the social burdens of teamwork, there is room for more mechanical game challenge. The game itself can be harder, because the barrier to entry is about the same as team-based games.
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To the OP:
I think both your post and the post you are responding is point to one simple thing: in order for a game to be played, it has to be fun.
The post discussing about making the game harder that you link to argues the more fun a game is, the more it will be played and the more it is played, the more likely it is to be enjoyed in other ways (e.g. watching professionals play), but fundamentally both of you are arguing that in order for the game to maintain a large fan base, it has to fundamentally be fun.
The post you link to is simply noting that certain interface design choices are more fun than others. Many of the ideas that blizzard and other RTSes implemented (smart casting, better pathfinding, target priority, hell even old things like attack-moving.) are things that make the game more fun for the average player. Does anyone actually enjoy playing a game where you have to fight the interface to accomplish what they want? The people who master such difficult interfaces may, partially because they are better at doing those tasks and know it [and like to rub it in other people's faces], but for anyone trying to get into the game for the first time it becomes a barrier to fun. Barriers to fun don't sell games.
You are attacking the same problem from a different angle: for an average player, how do you make competition fun? Games with huge skill gaps, where you have expert players matched against novices and the novices get absolutely and repeated destroyed are not fun for the novice. If it happens a few times, ok. If it happens repeatedly, which is likely in small and unmanaged communities, it drives players away.
As your post mentioned players have already implemented different ways in different games (e.g. moneymaps in BW) to solve this competition issue on their own. These solutions either raise the skill floor, lower the skill cap, or change the slope of the skill gradient to help even the playing field. People do this in order to enjoy the game they are playing; to make the games they play relatively close and relatively fair. No one enjoys getting shut out so hard that never felt they had a chance. What is the point of playing the game in such cases? The laddering system blizzard implemented helps to avoid this phenomenon, and does it in a way that does not affect game mechanics. That is why SC2, in it's 1v1 form doesn't need things like moneymaps as much as BW did.
Ultimately, how many people play a game is defined by one thing: how fun is that game.
For most [casual] players, SC2, relatively to BW, is a more fun game to play. It is easier to execute what you want to do and the matchmaking system helps you find people you stand a real chance of beating. This is what blizzard was going for, they are a company in the business of developing and selling games.
I think it is hard to disagree with the fact that for many [but not all] people, SC2 is more accessible and thus more fun.
The natural extension for this argument always seems to be:
Do these design decisions also make the game a better spectator sport?
What is up for debate is:
1) Does having a larger casual player base translate into more fans for professional SC2?
I think intuitively most people would say yes, but it's really hard to determine what tangible benefit more casual players translates into, not just in a moment in time, but over the lifetime of the game as a professional, spectator sport.
2) Does accommodating the casual player cause issues for the professional scene?
Most of the arguments related to this talk about a 'skill ceiling'. I think what they really mean is a 'skill gradient'. I think fundamentally, both BW and SC2 have impossibly high skill ceilings, what is important is the 'skill gradient'.
To illustrate what I mean let's define two skill levels: great and awesome. Let’s assume awesome is better than great, and that awesome takes a certain amount of talent/practice/etc. over great to achieve.
The question is, what kind of win rate do you want between a great player and an awesome player?
If awesome always wins, then the skill gradient is very, very high. Skill is the only thing that matters.
If awesome wins 80% of all games against great, then the graidient is high.
If awesome wins 70% of all games against great, then the skill gradient is moderate.
If awesome wins 60% of all games against great, then the skill gradient is low.
People argue in the case of a low skill gradient, improvements in skill are not rewarded enough.
From a spectator point of view, if the skill gradient is too high, then spectators will always be able to tell who wins a match before it starts, and there is no tension. If the gradient is too low, spectators feel that there isn't enough difference between 'amateurs' and 'pros', or between regular pros and exceptionally skilled/hardworking pros and aren't wowed by them.
SC2 and BW both have impossibly high skill ceilings, but SC2 appears to have a lower skill gradient than BW. I don't think you can really argue with that. A side effect of the better interface and more fun design is a lower skill gradient. If that makes SC2 a worse spectator sport or not (e.g. the skill gradient is now TOO low), is again a matter up for debate.
Part of the problem is people conflate two things: how does SC2 perform as a GAME meant to be played by many people and as a SPECTATOR SPORT, meant to be viewed by spectators as professionals play. The argument the post you link to discussing game difficulty makes is that here is that by being a more fun GAME, it helps the SPECTATOR SPORT aspects as a net positive by providing more viewership. The two of you have different positions on what makes it a better GAME: the post you link to thinks more intuitive controls help the game be more fun, you think that the ability to play people of about equal skill level and win makes the game more fun.
I think you are both right, as far as making a game more fun.
I still don't know where I stand as far as what makes a better spectator sport
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I'm not sure if I follow all of your examples... (mainly form not having played a few of those games). But I do agree on the main point. It's the quality/level of opponents that you face that make the game. Doesn't matter if the game is as simple as pressing two buttons; if I'm always paired against an opponent that I can beat (or one that can beat me) the game won't be fun. For all the faults and complaints about the ladder system, it does a very good job of keeping you playing vs people you can beat.
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Interesting points but people might have other things in mind with barrier of entry as well.
If you for example look at sc2 viewers from Blizzards point of view it should mostly be about some form of marketing. Let's use the people that try sc2 after watching some husky videos on youtube(assuming that happens). Dare I guess that a big majority of those(both those that tried with a guest accounts or bought it) don't end up playing a lot of starcraft.
If I'm right, why is it like that?
There are likely several factors, like all variations of ladder fear etc. But a part of it is probably that whatever cool things that made them want to play turned out to be locked behind not being able to make the game do what they want to do.
I've played so much RTS in the past(since I'm like 4000 years old) that I didn't fall in that trap myself. I knew it would be a long struggle(still is) to make the game do what I want before I bought it. But it's probably a major factor for why everyone I know never really got into playing sc2(the other main factor seem to be ladder fear).
It's gotten to the point that I'm avoiding to talk about the sc2 pro scene with a friend I used to play RTS with late 90s because I don't want to "ruin it" for him in case I want him to pick up sc2 to 2v2 with me.
Is that entry barrier a problem? I think it's a big problem. Can or should it be different? I don't know.
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On January 27 2012 03:55 Akta wrote:
Interesting points but people might have other things in mind with barrier of entry as well.
If you for example look at sc2 viewers from Blizzards point of view it should mostly be about some form of marketing. Let's use the people that try sc2 after watching some husky videos on youtube(assuming that happens). Dare I guess that a big majority of those(both those that tried with a guest accounts or bought it) don't end up playing a lot of starcraft.
If I'm right, why is it like that?
There are likely several factors, like all variations of ladder fear etc. But a part of it is probably that whatever cool things that made them want to play turned out to be locked behind not being able to make the game do what they want to do.
I've played so much RTS in the past(since I'm like 4000 years old) that I didn't fall in that trap myself. I knew it would be a long struggle(still is) to make the game do what I want before I bought it. But it's probably a major factor for why everyone I know never really got into playing sc2(the other main factor seem to be ladder fear).
It's gotten to the point that I'm avoiding to talk about the sc2 pro scene with a friend I used to play RTS with late 90s because I don't want to "ruin it" for him in case I want him to pick up sc2 to 2v2 with me.
Is that entry barrier a problem? I think it's a big problem. Can or should it be different? I don't know.
What got me into broodwar was actually watching boxer highlights on youtube, and stuff like muta micro intrigued the hell out of me. When I tried to go into Iccup and play people, it wasn't the insane mechanics or anything like that, it was the lack of opponents to learn from, I usually have quite good tenacity when it comes to games, but I didn't know anyone in the community, I didn't know where to start. When i eventually got a game on iccup i was quickly crushed, then I had to look for another hour or so to get crushed again. I could have all the drive in the world, but it would have taken me forever to go from person who didn't really play RTS to someone who could even compete at at the D level, just because of the lack of opponents. I have no adversion to getting crushed, starting quake late in its life cycle gets you used to being crushed. Now if BW had a find match button, and i could get a game.
The thing is, cool shit that is done, is hard, EVERYONE is gonna have that problem. mvc3, so many people saw awesome combos that they wanted to do bought the game and quit when they figured out that they take practice and dedication. Hard games will ALWAYS have this barrier. Most players can't get around the execution problems in ANY game, so i don't see how a technique being a little harder is gonna matter when you are playing against people that are just as bad as you. You don't see fighting game players not playing at lower levels when they can't execute clockworks doom combos. They stop playing when they stop having fun with the game, and that usually happens when they get their ass smashed in continually, not when they can't do ghost splits with high Templar. I just see these really hard execution barriers in the fighting game genre and it doesn't really affect anyone except for people that play the game for a month to 2 months regardless, cause most of them don't even have the patience to learn how to reliably shoryuken, how are they gonna have the patience and motivation to learn a tight 1-2 frame links.?
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I think you're wrong about Battle.Net 2.0's ladder system. From a hindsight perspective it can be argued that building Battle.Net around the ladder system is a failure, not a success.
Here's why: you've already made the point that the vast majority of people like to play games for fun, and for a large majority of these people fun does not equate to challenge. The vast majority of Brood War players played customs and melee, not ladder. On the other hand, the main purpose of the ladder is to have challenge be the centerpiece, to create a ranking system where one can compare one's own skill with the skill of everyone else. So by making ladder the centerpiece, Blizzard is catering to the hardcore minority and alienating the vast majority of casual SC2 players.
The original reason why Blizzard built the ladder system as the centerpiece (the first thing you see when clicking on the "multiplayer" tab on Battle.Net) is because they wanted to sell the game as an e-sport, and hoped to maintain control over tournaments and rankings through their ladder system. However, they failed at this. You can listen to earlier episodes of State of the Game and hear the players bashing Blizzard's inability to maintain control over tournament qualifications and how it was such a bad idea that Blizzcon 2010 invitationals came from ladder rankings and not something else.
Finally, you can already see Blizzard moving away from having ladder be the centerpiece of Battle.Net by catering more to the spectator and casual players. The News feature updates players on the latest tournament news (for spectators) and the upcoming HotS will feature some kind of market place tool for user-generated, custom map content.
This is all not to say that the ladder system isn't amazing, but the fact that Blizzard decided to have it as the centerpiece of Battle.Net was a mistake, and Blizzard already realizes this.
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On January 27 2012 02:54 Delwack wrote:
To the OP:
I think both your post and the post you are responding is point to one simple thing: in order for a game to be played, it has to be fun.
The post discussing about making the game harder that you link to argues the more fun a game is, the more it will be played and the more it is played, the more likely it is to be enjoyed in other ways (e.g. watching professionals play), but fundamentally both of you are arguing that in order for the game to maintain a large fan base, it has to fundamentally be fun.
The post you link to is simply noting that certain interface design choices are more fun than others. Many of the ideas that blizzard and other RTSes implemented (smart casting, better pathfinding, target priority, hell even old things like attack-moving.) are things that make the game more fun for the average player. Does anyone actually enjoy playing a game where you have to fight the interface to accomplish what they want? The people who master such difficult interfaces may, partially because they are better at doing those tasks and know it [and like to rub it in other people's faces], but for anyone trying to get into the game for the first time it becomes a barrier to fun. Barriers to fun don't sell games.
You are attacking the same problem from a different angle: for an average player, how do you make competition fun? Games with huge skill gaps, where you have expert players matched against novices and the novices get absolutely and repeated destroyed are not fun for the novice. If it happens a few times, ok. If it happens repeatedly, which is likely in small and unmanaged communities, it drives players away.
As your post mentioned players have already implemented different ways in different games (e.g. moneymaps in BW) to solve this competition issue on their own. These solutions either raise the skill floor, lower the skill cap, or change the slope of the skill gradient to help even the playing field. People do this in order to enjoy the game they are playing; to make the games they play relatively close and relatively fair. No one enjoys getting shut out so hard that never felt they had a chance. What is the point of playing the game in such cases? The laddering system blizzard implemented helps to avoid this phenomenon, and does it in a way that does not affect game mechanics. That is why SC2, in it's 1v1 form doesn't need things like moneymaps as much as BW did.
Ultimately, how many people play a game is defined by one thing: how fun is that game.
For most [casual] players, SC2, relatively to BW, is a more fun game to play. It is easier to execute what you want to do and the matchmaking system helps you find people you stand a real chance of beating. This is what blizzard was going for, they are a company in the business of developing and selling games.
I think it is hard to disagree with the fact that for many [but not all] people, SC2 is more accessible and thus more fun.
The natural extension for this argument always seems to be:
Do these design decisions also make the game a better spectator sport?
What is up for debate is:
1) Does having a larger casual player base translate into more fans for professional SC2?
I think intuitively most people would say yes, but it's really hard to determine what tangible benefit more casual players translates into, not just in a moment in time, but over the lifetime of the game as a professional, spectator sport.
2) Does accommodating the casual player cause issues for the professional scene?
Most of the arguments related to this talk about a 'skill ceiling'. I think what they really mean is a 'skill gradient'. I think fundamentally, both BW and SC2 have impossibly high skill ceilings, what is important is the 'skill gradient'.
To illustrate what I mean let's define two skill levels: great and awesome. Let’s assume awesome is better than great, and that awesome takes a certain amount of talent/practice/etc. over great to achieve.
The question is, what kind of win rate do you want between a great player and an awesome player?
If awesome always wins, then the skill gradient is very, very high. Skill is the only thing that matters.
If awesome wins 80% of all games against great, then the graidient is high.
If awesome wins 70% of all games against great, then the skill gradient is moderate.
If awesome wins 60% of all games against great, then the skill gradient is low.
People argue in the case of a low skill gradient, improvements in skill are not rewarded enough.
From a spectator point of view, if the skill gradient is too high, then spectators will always be able to tell who wins a match before it starts, and there is no tension. If the gradient is too low, spectators feel that there isn't enough difference between 'amateurs' and 'pros', or between regular pros and exceptionally skilled/hardworking pros and aren't wowed by them.
SC2 and BW both have impossibly high skill ceilings, but SC2 appears to have a lower skill gradient than BW. I don't think you can really argue with that. A side effect of the better interface and more fun design is a lower skill gradient. If that makes SC2 a worse spectator sport or not (e.g. the skill gradient is now TOO low), is again a matter up for debate.
Part of the problem is people conflate two things: how does SC2 perform as a GAME meant to be played by many people and as a SPECTATOR SPORT, meant to be viewed by spectators as professionals play. The argument the post you link to discussing game difficulty makes is that here is that by being a more fun GAME, it helps the SPECTATOR SPORT aspects as a net positive by providing more viewership. The two of you have different positions on what makes it a better GAME: the post you link to thinks more intuitive controls help the game be more fun, you think that the ability to play people of about equal skill level and win makes the game more fun.
I think you are both right, as far as making a game more fun.
I still don't know where I stand as far as what makes a better spectator sport
great post
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On January 27 2012 05:22 Newbistic wrote:
I think you're wrong about Battle.Net 2.0's ladder system. From a hindsight perspective it can be argued that building Battle.Net around the ladder system is a failure, not a success.
Here's why: you've already made the point that the vast majority of people like to play games for fun, and for a large majority of these people fun does not equate to challenge. The vast majority of Brood War players played customs and melee, not ladder. On the other hand, the main purpose of the ladder is to have challenge be the centerpiece, to create a ranking system where one can compare one's own skill with the skill of everyone else. So by making ladder the centerpiece, Blizzard is catering to the hardcore minority and alienating the vast majority of casual SC2 players.
The original reason why Blizzard built the ladder system as the centerpiece (the first thing you see when clicking on the "multiplayer" tab on Battle.Net) is because they wanted to sell the game as an e-sport, and hoped to maintain control over tournaments and rankings through their ladder system. However, they failed at this. You can listen to earlier episodes of State of the Game and hear the players bashing Blizzard's inability to maintain control over tournament qualifications and how it was such a bad idea that Blizzcon 2010 invitationals came from ladder rankings and not something else.
Finally, you can already see Blizzard moving away from having ladder be the centerpiece of Battle.Net by catering more to the spectator and casual players. The News feature updates players on the latest tournament news (for spectators) and the upcoming HotS will feature some kind of market place tool for user-generated, custom map content.
This is all not to say that the ladder system isn't amazing, but the fact that Blizzard decided to have it as the centerpiece of Battle.Net was a mistake, and Blizzard already realizes this.
No, the ladder system is a success in what it does, without the ladder systems convenience and accuracy of finding good opponents 1v1 would be a lot weaker overall. it seems like you are talking more about its terrible custom games system. Ladder is a success, a big one, the custom game system however, is a failure.
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On January 27 2012 04:51 r_con wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2012 03:55 Akta wrote:
Interesting points but people might have other things in mind with barrier of entry as well.
If you for example look at sc2 viewers from Blizzards point of view it should mostly be about some form of marketing. Let's use the people that try sc2 after watching some husky videos on youtube(assuming that happens). Dare I guess that a big majority of those(both those that tried with a guest accounts or bought it) don't end up playing a lot of starcraft.
If I'm right, why is it like that?
There are likely several factors, like all variations of ladder fear etc. But a part of it is probably that whatever cool things that made them want to play turned out to be locked behind not being able to make the game do what they want to do.
I've played so much RTS in the past(since I'm like 4000 years old) that I didn't fall in that trap myself. I knew it would be a long struggle(still is) to make the game do what I want before I bought it. But it's probably a major factor for why everyone I know never really got into playing sc2(the other main factor seem to be ladder fear).
It's gotten to the point that I'm avoiding to talk about the sc2 pro scene with a friend I used to play RTS with late 90s because I don't want to "ruin it" for him in case I want him to pick up sc2 to 2v2 with me.
Is that entry barrier a problem? I think it's a big problem. Can or should it be different? I don't know. What got me into broodwar was actually watching boxer highlights on youtube, and stuff like muta micro intrigued the hell out of me. When I tried to go into Iccup and play people, it wasn't the insane mechanics or anything like that, it was the lack of opponents to learn from, I usually have quite good tenacity when it comes to games, but I didn't know anyone in the community, I didn't know where to start. When i eventually got a game on iccup i was quickly crushed, then I had to look for another hour or so to get crushed again. I could have all the drive in the world, but it would have taken me forever to go from person who didn't really play RTS to someone who could even compete at at the D level, just because of the lack of opponents. I have no adversion to getting crushed, starting quake late in its life cycle gets you used to being crushed. Now if BW had a find match button, and i could get a game. The thing is, cool shit that is done, is hard, EVERYONE is gonna have that problem. mvc3, so many people saw awesome combos that they wanted to do bought the game and quit when they figured out that they take practice and dedication. Hard games will ALWAYS have this barrier. Most players can't get around the execution problems in ANY game, so i don't see how a technique being a little harder is gonna matter when you are playing against people that are just as bad as you. You don't see fighting game players not playing at lower levels when they can't execute clockworks doom combos. They stop playing when they stop having fun with the game, and that usually happens when they get their ass smashed in continually, not when they can't do ghost splits with high Templar. I just see these really hard execution barriers in the fighting game genre and it doesn't really affect anyone except for people that play the game for a month to 2 months regardless, cause most of them don't even have the patience to learn how to reliably shoryuken, how are they gonna have the patience and motivation to learn a tight 1-2 frame links.? Agree completely that always getting crushed is a bigger problem for casual players, I can add many examples to yours. Medal of honor was great fun for burning an hour here and there for example but eventually there were mostly more hardcore players left and casually playing it wasn't very enjoyable anymore, you explained why very well already. Or when AoE2 came out, I somehow didn't manage to lose 1 single non ffa game in like 2 months(except a custom 2v2 map vs the map creators) playing very casually until "win" guides started to pop up everywhere. Then figuring things out wasn't the main divider anymore and just thinking about the game at work wasn't enough to feel you were the shit anymore, as usual with RTS games.
Sc2 is great that way, anyone can buy it and play vs other newbies. The entry barrier problem I brought up seem to be more about how people get introduced to the game. If they get hooked by looking at pro games they seem go into it with ideas of what they want to do. Like that they think there are better ways to place the siege tanks, that unit mix X should be better vs X than X and so on.
Then when they actually try the game all that stuff suddenly seems to be out of reach and they see the long mechanical learning curve as an extremely non fun barrier they need to get past before the fun begins.
Like I said, I think every single person I know that tried sc2 more or less gave me that impression. The other part, that I already mentioned as well, is the ladder fear or whatever. It's like a catch 22, the "casual" players seem to love the part that means they will get matched with somewhat equally skilled players while at the same time having a hard time with the fact that the results mean something, IE their ranking.
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