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On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks.
On January 07 2013 18:29 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 03:01 musai wrote:On January 07 2013 02:47 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. Average games don't score 93 on metacritics and sell in millions while being a fullprice PC game. lol metacritics, no one would score WOL at 93 right now unless it was campaign only - where no one cares I care about the campaign, this already is more than "no one". Regarding esports viability, Wol seems to be not only the biggest, but in fact the only RTS which is played. Considering that there are other RTS games out there, but none of it really big in esports, Wol seems to be above average for me. Of course, Wol isn't perfect and Hots will not make SC2 perfect. People please stop being reasonable.
Blizzard is the lasiest and most incompetent game company evar!!!1111 (exept every other game company making RTS).
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On January 07 2013 19:37 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 18:29 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:01 musai wrote:On January 07 2013 02:47 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. Average games don't score 93 on metacritics and sell in millions while being a fullprice PC game. lol metacritics, no one would score WOL at 93 right now unless it was campaign only - where no one cares I care about the campaign, this already is more than "no one". Regarding esports viability, Wol seems to be not only the biggest, but in fact the only RTS which is played. Considering that there are other RTS games out there, but none of it really big in esports, Wol seems to be above average for me. Of course, Wol isn't perfect and Hots will not make SC2 perfect. People please stop being reasonable. Blizzard is the lasiest and most incompetent game company evar!!!1111 (exept every other game company making RTS).
An interesting discussion. I think that, for people who point to bw as an example of all that an rts should be (I favor this position myself), it is easy to lose sight of the fact that even broodwar had several very important flaws. The one dimensionality of Terran matchups, for instance. TvZ was the only matchup that really allowed for both bio and mech play (with mech being a bit less strong). In TvP and TvT bio was more or less suicide. ZvZ was also something of a clusterfuck in bw, it had exciting micro but was very strategically predictable and overly simplistic (zergling vs zergling until one guy gets muta) in everything but the late game. Granted, ZvZ is still not the most dynamic matchup in SC2, but it is still an improvement on the days where 2 units would carry you through 80% of all your ZvZs.
The ui was also extremely limiting, and the fact that so many people gripe about wanting to bring back limited united selection and remove MBS+automine, shows how deep the strain of brood war conservatism runs. SC2 has made great improvements on all the areas I just listed, and perhaps most importantly, has even shown a flash of brilliance by making a new, supremely dynamic and strategical TvT with room for so many different playstyles and soft counters, such that no one strategy is dominant. Virtually every terran unit can be used effectively at some point in TvT and most of them continue to have utility even into the late game. If anything in sc2 gives one hope for the future, it should be this matchup.
However, by the same token, 'SC2 does not = BW' is far too easy of an argument to use in order to slap down legitimately good ideas that happen to resemble brood war. Dodgeable aoe, moving shot, toning down marauder/roaches/immortals to reduce hard counters, changing worker mining AI to promote more expansions, less 'clumpy' unit movement, making creep and warpgate less powerful in exchange for stronger basic units, etc. Concepts these would improve sc2's gameplay vastly. However, they are only concepts, they don't have to have the exact implementation that we're familiar with from broodwar.
Consider the argument that reavers are better than colossus. Yeah, that could be dimissed as old timers bitching in a fit of bw nostalgia. Or it could be seen as advocating a replacement/reworking of the colossus: a completely new unit, unlike reavers OR colossus which nevertheless stays true to the formula of powerful aoe which both requires micro to use well, and allows the enemy to micro to dodge a lot of the damage. The colossus is one of the iconic 1a deathball units of sc2 and fixing it is almost a no brainer, but I feel blizzard will never do so, because they are satisfied with adding 'counters' like the viper. This has been their design approach for a long time now - they want units to be flashy, powerful within a given context (terrible damage), and fit within their system of hard counters. Whether the unit is skillful/micro intensive or not is almost irrelevant to the equation. This is part of what gives rise to terrible counter vs counter, deathball vs deathball play where you can't "stall out" an enemy with micro at all due to every viable unit being extremely mobile and good offensively (TvP).
Point is, they don't need to recreate brood war to fix these problems, they just need to learn from it. You don't have to re use units to master the concepts that made them cool in the first place.
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im getting it for the cinematics and for new units to mess around with - thats about it, i have low expectations - oh and new textures for the units to run on and hover over
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On January 07 2013 23:05 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 19:37 naastyOne wrote:On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. On January 07 2013 18:29 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:01 musai wrote:On January 07 2013 02:47 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. Average games don't score 93 on metacritics and sell in millions while being a fullprice PC game. lol metacritics, no one would score WOL at 93 right now unless it was campaign only - where no one cares I care about the campaign, this already is more than "no one". Regarding esports viability, Wol seems to be not only the biggest, but in fact the only RTS which is played. Considering that there are other RTS games out there, but none of it really big in esports, Wol seems to be above average for me. Of course, Wol isn't perfect and Hots will not make SC2 perfect. People please stop being reasonable. Blizzard is the lasiest and most incompetent game company evar!!!1111 (exept every other game company making RTS). An interesting discussion. I think that, for people who point to bw as an example of all that an rts should be (I favor this position myself), it is easy to lose sight of the fact that even broodwar had several very important flaws. The one dimensionality of Terran matchups, for instance. TvZ was the only matchup that really allowed for both bio and mech play (with mech being a bit less strong). In TvP and TvT bio was more or less suicide. ZvZ was also something of a clusterfuck in bw, it had exciting micro but was very strategically predictable and overly simplistic (zergling vs zergling until one guy gets muta) in everything but the late game. Granted, ZvZ is still not the most dynamic matchup in SC2, but it is still an improvement on the days where 2 units would carry you through 80% of all your ZvZs. The ui was also extremely limiting, and the fact that so many people gripe about wanting to bring back limited united selection and remove MBS+automine, shows how deep the strain of brood war conservatism runs. SC2 has made great improvements on all the areas I just listed, and perhaps most importantly, has even shown a flash of brilliance by making a new, supremely dynamic and strategical TvT with room for so many different playstyles and soft counters, such that no one strategy is dominant. Virtually every terran unit can be used effectively at some point in TvT and most of them continue to have utility even into the late game. If anything in sc2 gives one hope for the future, it should be this matchup. However, by the same token, 'SC2 does not = BW' is far too easy of an argument to use in order to slap down legitimately good ideas that happen to resemble brood war. Dodgeable aoe, moving shot, toning down marauder/roaches/immortals to reduce hard counters, changing worker mining AI to promote more expansions, less 'clumpy' unit movement, making creep and warpgate less powerful in exchange for stronger basic units, etc. Concepts these would improve sc2's gameplay vastly. However, they are only concepts, they don't have to have the exact implementation that we're familiar with from broodwar. Consider the argument that reavers are better than colossus. Yeah, that could be dimissed as old timers bitching in a fit of bw nostalgia. Or it could be seen as advocating a replacement/reworking of the colossus: a completely new unit, unlike reavers OR colossus which nevertheless stays true to the formula of powerful aoe which both requires micro to use well, and allows the enemy to micro to dodge a lot of the damage. The colossus is one of the iconic 1a deathball units of sc2 and fixing it is almost a no brainer, but I feel blizzard will never do so, because they are satisfied with adding 'counters' like the viper. This has been their design approach for a long time now - they want units to be flashy, powerful within a given context (terrible damage), and fit within their system of hard counters. Whether the unit is skillful/micro intensive or not is almost irrelevant to the equation. This is part of what gives rise to terrible counter vs counter, deathball vs deathball play where you can't "stall out" an enemy with micro at all due to every viable unit being extremely mobile and good offensively (TvP). Point is, they don't need to recreate brood war to fix these problems, they just need to learn from it. You don't have to re use units to master the concepts that made them cool in the first place. Well, frankly the only undogable AOE that would benefit from ability to doge i can think about in SC2 is fungal, and they do that in HOTS.
I do not like the idea that regress the game to BW state, like worker AI, marauder/roach/immo nerfs, and for love of god leave warpgate, creap, injects, Mules, and reactors/tech labs alone.
Colosus is perfectly fine unit, not every unit need to be microed. You have High templars Stalker blink and sentries, and you can micro individual colosus back from air attack/move on clifs, so if you want to make Colosus more microable, the micro needs to be reduced somewhere. Colosus forses compositional play, too much AA, or too few AA, you need to eyeball just right. If anything, archon is way worse in that reguard. What is less interesting than Chargelot-Archon 1a? In PvP, it is all about positional colosus in WOL, just like terran vs terran in BW. in HOTS Tempest adreses that entirely.
By the way, BW had deathball vs deathball, TvP bamely, the mech ball vs zelot-dragoon-arbiter, with later protos massing out on carriers, so really it is not about ball vs ball, as much as how do balls collide.
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On January 08 2013 05:07 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 23:05 Zahir wrote:On January 07 2013 19:37 naastyOne wrote:On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. On January 07 2013 18:29 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:01 musai wrote:On January 07 2013 02:47 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. Average games don't score 93 on metacritics and sell in millions while being a fullprice PC game. lol metacritics, no one would score WOL at 93 right now unless it was campaign only - where no one cares I care about the campaign, this already is more than "no one". Regarding esports viability, Wol seems to be not only the biggest, but in fact the only RTS which is played. Considering that there are other RTS games out there, but none of it really big in esports, Wol seems to be above average for me. Of course, Wol isn't perfect and Hots will not make SC2 perfect. People please stop being reasonable. Blizzard is the lasiest and most incompetent game company evar!!!1111 (exept every other game company making RTS). An interesting discussion. I think that, for people who point to bw as an example of all that an rts should be (I favor this position myself), it is easy to lose sight of the fact that even broodwar had several very important flaws. The one dimensionality of Terran matchups, for instance. TvZ was the only matchup that really allowed for both bio and mech play (with mech being a bit less strong). In TvP and TvT bio was more or less suicide. ZvZ was also something of a clusterfuck in bw, it had exciting micro but was very strategically predictable and overly simplistic (zergling vs zergling until one guy gets muta) in everything but the late game. Granted, ZvZ is still not the most dynamic matchup in SC2, but it is still an improvement on the days where 2 units would carry you through 80% of all your ZvZs. The ui was also extremely limiting, and the fact that so many people gripe about wanting to bring back limited united selection and remove MBS+automine, shows how deep the strain of brood war conservatism runs. SC2 has made great improvements on all the areas I just listed, and perhaps most importantly, has even shown a flash of brilliance by making a new, supremely dynamic and strategical TvT with room for so many different playstyles and soft counters, such that no one strategy is dominant. Virtually every terran unit can be used effectively at some point in TvT and most of them continue to have utility even into the late game. If anything in sc2 gives one hope for the future, it should be this matchup. However, by the same token, 'SC2 does not = BW' is far too easy of an argument to use in order to slap down legitimately good ideas that happen to resemble brood war. Dodgeable aoe, moving shot, toning down marauder/roaches/immortals to reduce hard counters, changing worker mining AI to promote more expansions, less 'clumpy' unit movement, making creep and warpgate less powerful in exchange for stronger basic units, etc. Concepts these would improve sc2's gameplay vastly. However, they are only concepts, they don't have to have the exact implementation that we're familiar with from broodwar. Consider the argument that reavers are better than colossus. Yeah, that could be dimissed as old timers bitching in a fit of bw nostalgia. Or it could be seen as advocating a replacement/reworking of the colossus: a completely new unit, unlike reavers OR colossus which nevertheless stays true to the formula of powerful aoe which both requires micro to use well, and allows the enemy to micro to dodge a lot of the damage. The colossus is one of the iconic 1a deathball units of sc2 and fixing it is almost a no brainer, but I feel blizzard will never do so, because they are satisfied with adding 'counters' like the viper. This has been their design approach for a long time now - they want units to be flashy, powerful within a given context (terrible damage), and fit within their system of hard counters. Whether the unit is skillful/micro intensive or not is almost irrelevant to the equation. This is part of what gives rise to terrible counter vs counter, deathball vs deathball play where you can't "stall out" an enemy with micro at all due to every viable unit being extremely mobile and good offensively (TvP). Point is, they don't need to recreate brood war to fix these problems, they just need to learn from it. You don't have to re use units to master the concepts that made them cool in the first place. Well, frankly the only undogable AOE that would benefit from ability to doge i can think about in SC2 is fungal, and they do that in HOTS. I do not like the idea that regress the game to BW state, like worker AI, marauder/roach/immo nerfs, and for love of god leave warpgate, creap, injects, Mules, and reactors/tech labs alone. Colosus is perfectly fine unit, not every unit need to be microed. You have High templars Stalker blink and sentries, and you can micro individual colosus back from air attack/move on clifs, so if you want to make Colosus more microable, the micro needs to be reduced somewhere. Colosus forses compositional play, too much AA, or too few AA, you need to eyeball just right. If anything, archon is way worse in that reguard. What is less interesting than Chargelot-Archon 1a? In PvP, it is all about positional colosus in WOL, just like terran vs terran in BW. in HOTS Tempest adreses that entirely. By the way, BW had deathball vs deathball, TvP bamely, the mech ball vs zelot-dragoon-arbiter, with later protos massing out on carriers, so really it is not about ball vs ball, as much as how do balls collide.
The point is, BW has a lot more depth to their matchups than SC2 does. You guys can argue all you want about BW having the exact same idea that SC2 uses, that they use the same deathballs all the time, they use 90% of the same micro, etc, but I challenge you to show me that SC2 requires a deeper understanding of strategy than BW does.
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On January 08 2013 08:06 imBLIND wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 05:07 naastyOne wrote:On January 07 2013 23:05 Zahir wrote:On January 07 2013 19:37 naastyOne wrote:On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. On January 07 2013 18:29 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:01 musai wrote:On January 07 2013 02:47 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. Average games don't score 93 on metacritics and sell in millions while being a fullprice PC game. lol metacritics, no one would score WOL at 93 right now unless it was campaign only - where no one cares I care about the campaign, this already is more than "no one". Regarding esports viability, Wol seems to be not only the biggest, but in fact the only RTS which is played. Considering that there are other RTS games out there, but none of it really big in esports, Wol seems to be above average for me. Of course, Wol isn't perfect and Hots will not make SC2 perfect. People please stop being reasonable. Blizzard is the lasiest and most incompetent game company evar!!!1111 (exept every other game company making RTS). An interesting discussion. I think that, for people who point to bw as an example of all that an rts should be (I favor this position myself), it is easy to lose sight of the fact that even broodwar had several very important flaws. The one dimensionality of Terran matchups, for instance. TvZ was the only matchup that really allowed for both bio and mech play (with mech being a bit less strong). In TvP and TvT bio was more or less suicide. ZvZ was also something of a clusterfuck in bw, it had exciting micro but was very strategically predictable and overly simplistic (zergling vs zergling until one guy gets muta) in everything but the late game. Granted, ZvZ is still not the most dynamic matchup in SC2, but it is still an improvement on the days where 2 units would carry you through 80% of all your ZvZs. The ui was also extremely limiting, and the fact that so many people gripe about wanting to bring back limited united selection and remove MBS+automine, shows how deep the strain of brood war conservatism runs. SC2 has made great improvements on all the areas I just listed, and perhaps most importantly, has even shown a flash of brilliance by making a new, supremely dynamic and strategical TvT with room for so many different playstyles and soft counters, such that no one strategy is dominant. Virtually every terran unit can be used effectively at some point in TvT and most of them continue to have utility even into the late game. If anything in sc2 gives one hope for the future, it should be this matchup. However, by the same token, 'SC2 does not = BW' is far too easy of an argument to use in order to slap down legitimately good ideas that happen to resemble brood war. Dodgeable aoe, moving shot, toning down marauder/roaches/immortals to reduce hard counters, changing worker mining AI to promote more expansions, less 'clumpy' unit movement, making creep and warpgate less powerful in exchange for stronger basic units, etc. Concepts these would improve sc2's gameplay vastly. However, they are only concepts, they don't have to have the exact implementation that we're familiar with from broodwar. Consider the argument that reavers are better than colossus. Yeah, that could be dimissed as old timers bitching in a fit of bw nostalgia. Or it could be seen as advocating a replacement/reworking of the colossus: a completely new unit, unlike reavers OR colossus which nevertheless stays true to the formula of powerful aoe which both requires micro to use well, and allows the enemy to micro to dodge a lot of the damage. The colossus is one of the iconic 1a deathball units of sc2 and fixing it is almost a no brainer, but I feel blizzard will never do so, because they are satisfied with adding 'counters' like the viper. This has been their design approach for a long time now - they want units to be flashy, powerful within a given context (terrible damage), and fit within their system of hard counters. Whether the unit is skillful/micro intensive or not is almost irrelevant to the equation. This is part of what gives rise to terrible counter vs counter, deathball vs deathball play where you can't "stall out" an enemy with micro at all due to every viable unit being extremely mobile and good offensively (TvP). Point is, they don't need to recreate brood war to fix these problems, they just need to learn from it. You don't have to re use units to master the concepts that made them cool in the first place. Well, frankly the only undogable AOE that would benefit from ability to doge i can think about in SC2 is fungal, and they do that in HOTS. I do not like the idea that regress the game to BW state, like worker AI, marauder/roach/immo nerfs, and for love of god leave warpgate, creap, injects, Mules, and reactors/tech labs alone. Colosus is perfectly fine unit, not every unit need to be microed. You have High templars Stalker blink and sentries, and you can micro individual colosus back from air attack/move on clifs, so if you want to make Colosus more microable, the micro needs to be reduced somewhere. Colosus forses compositional play, too much AA, or too few AA, you need to eyeball just right. If anything, archon is way worse in that reguard. What is less interesting than Chargelot-Archon 1a? In PvP, it is all about positional colosus in WOL, just like terran vs terran in BW. in HOTS Tempest adreses that entirely. By the way, BW had deathball vs deathball, TvP bamely, the mech ball vs zelot-dragoon-arbiter, with later protos massing out on carriers, so really it is not about ball vs ball, as much as how do balls collide. The point is, BW has a lot more depth to their matchups than SC2 does. You guys can argue all you want about BW having the exact same idea that SC2 uses, that they use the same deathballs all the time, they use 90% of the same micro, etc, but I challenge you to show me that SC2 requires a deeper understanding of strategy than BW does. Considering the SC2 has more potential plays, it does indeed require you to know longer variant tree. Or you may want to define your "challenge" better.
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On January 08 2013 09:52 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 08:06 imBLIND wrote:On January 08 2013 05:07 naastyOne wrote:On January 07 2013 23:05 Zahir wrote:On January 07 2013 19:37 naastyOne wrote:On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. On January 07 2013 18:29 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:01 musai wrote:On January 07 2013 02:47 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. Average games don't score 93 on metacritics and sell in millions while being a fullprice PC game. lol metacritics, no one would score WOL at 93 right now unless it was campaign only - where no one cares I care about the campaign, this already is more than "no one". Regarding esports viability, Wol seems to be not only the biggest, but in fact the only RTS which is played. Considering that there are other RTS games out there, but none of it really big in esports, Wol seems to be above average for me. Of course, Wol isn't perfect and Hots will not make SC2 perfect. People please stop being reasonable. Blizzard is the lasiest and most incompetent game company evar!!!1111 (exept every other game company making RTS). An interesting discussion. I think that, for people who point to bw as an example of all that an rts should be (I favor this position myself), it is easy to lose sight of the fact that even broodwar had several very important flaws. The one dimensionality of Terran matchups, for instance. TvZ was the only matchup that really allowed for both bio and mech play (with mech being a bit less strong). In TvP and TvT bio was more or less suicide. ZvZ was also something of a clusterfuck in bw, it had exciting micro but was very strategically predictable and overly simplistic (zergling vs zergling until one guy gets muta) in everything but the late game. Granted, ZvZ is still not the most dynamic matchup in SC2, but it is still an improvement on the days where 2 units would carry you through 80% of all your ZvZs. The ui was also extremely limiting, and the fact that so many people gripe about wanting to bring back limited united selection and remove MBS+automine, shows how deep the strain of brood war conservatism runs. SC2 has made great improvements on all the areas I just listed, and perhaps most importantly, has even shown a flash of brilliance by making a new, supremely dynamic and strategical TvT with room for so many different playstyles and soft counters, such that no one strategy is dominant. Virtually every terran unit can be used effectively at some point in TvT and most of them continue to have utility even into the late game. If anything in sc2 gives one hope for the future, it should be this matchup. However, by the same token, 'SC2 does not = BW' is far too easy of an argument to use in order to slap down legitimately good ideas that happen to resemble brood war. Dodgeable aoe, moving shot, toning down marauder/roaches/immortals to reduce hard counters, changing worker mining AI to promote more expansions, less 'clumpy' unit movement, making creep and warpgate less powerful in exchange for stronger basic units, etc. Concepts these would improve sc2's gameplay vastly. However, they are only concepts, they don't have to have the exact implementation that we're familiar with from broodwar. Consider the argument that reavers are better than colossus. Yeah, that could be dimissed as old timers bitching in a fit of bw nostalgia. Or it could be seen as advocating a replacement/reworking of the colossus: a completely new unit, unlike reavers OR colossus which nevertheless stays true to the formula of powerful aoe which both requires micro to use well, and allows the enemy to micro to dodge a lot of the damage. The colossus is one of the iconic 1a deathball units of sc2 and fixing it is almost a no brainer, but I feel blizzard will never do so, because they are satisfied with adding 'counters' like the viper. This has been their design approach for a long time now - they want units to be flashy, powerful within a given context (terrible damage), and fit within their system of hard counters. Whether the unit is skillful/micro intensive or not is almost irrelevant to the equation. This is part of what gives rise to terrible counter vs counter, deathball vs deathball play where you can't "stall out" an enemy with micro at all due to every viable unit being extremely mobile and good offensively (TvP). Point is, they don't need to recreate brood war to fix these problems, they just need to learn from it. You don't have to re use units to master the concepts that made them cool in the first place. Well, frankly the only undogable AOE that would benefit from ability to doge i can think about in SC2 is fungal, and they do that in HOTS. I do not like the idea that regress the game to BW state, like worker AI, marauder/roach/immo nerfs, and for love of god leave warpgate, creap, injects, Mules, and reactors/tech labs alone. Colosus is perfectly fine unit, not every unit need to be microed. You have High templars Stalker blink and sentries, and you can micro individual colosus back from air attack/move on clifs, so if you want to make Colosus more microable, the micro needs to be reduced somewhere. Colosus forses compositional play, too much AA, or too few AA, you need to eyeball just right. If anything, archon is way worse in that reguard. What is less interesting than Chargelot-Archon 1a? In PvP, it is all about positional colosus in WOL, just like terran vs terran in BW. in HOTS Tempest adreses that entirely. By the way, BW had deathball vs deathball, TvP bamely, the mech ball vs zelot-dragoon-arbiter, with later protos massing out on carriers, so really it is not about ball vs ball, as much as how do balls collide. The point is, BW has a lot more depth to their matchups than SC2 does. You guys can argue all you want about BW having the exact same idea that SC2 uses, that they use the same deathballs all the time, they use 90% of the same micro, etc, but I challenge you to show me that SC2 requires a deeper understanding of strategy than BW does. Considering the SC2 has more potential plays, it does indeed require you to know longer variant tree. Or you may want to define your "challenge" better.
i.e, think of any positive gameplay changes that Blizzard has done for SC2, and I'll show you how anything you think of is a detriment to the success of SC2. Don't get me wrong, I wish SC2 was better than BW. I would be okay if SC2 didn't meet my high expectations. It's just that this game resembles the terrible C&C franchise so much that I'm getting pissed off at Blizzard for ruining the most anticipated RTS game.
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On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks.
You could at least give an example of some of the thing they did right with sc2?
By every mistake possible, I mean every unit they changed from BW, they messed up. Only exception (to be fair) is the blink stalker.
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Don' t crap where you eat!! Of course it (will) worth it.
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On January 08 2013 10:52 imBLIND wrote: i.e, think of any positive gameplay changes that Blizzard has done for SC2, and I'll show you how anything you think of is a detriment to the success of SC2. Don't get me wrong, I wish SC2 was better than BW. I would be okay if SC2 didn't meet my high expectations. It's just that this game resembles the terrible C&C franchise so much that I'm getting pissed off at Blizzard for ruining the most anticipated RTS game.
There was a lot of lamentation over the loss of "strategy" in favor of frenzied button mashing in 2006-2008 or something on this forum. I think one of the now-mostly-absent mods (liquid`drone?) cited the emphasis on mechanics as the reason for why he hadn't been playing as much as he used to.
Browder and friends failed to deliver because they fucked up the core mechanics of the game, and replaced fan-favorite units with broken junk, all for the sake of "originality". The thing is, they should still receive some credit for trying to fix some stale / silly bits from BW to try and expand the strategy:
- ZvZ being an awful 8 minute coinflip that a large majority of players simply dodge
- Barracks units being largely useless outside of TvZ
- Nukes causing Flash to lose won games, because they cost too damn much and take up 6 supply and comsat slots
- TvT / TvP having an overwhelming emphasis on tanks, and a tendency towards passiveness from the Terran (outside of a few timing attacks)
- The Scout having no other role than to parade around like the Prince of the Skies and taunt a broken enemy
Yeah, the implementation wasn't too pretty with WoL (mech is dead, lurkers are gone) but still...
It wouldn't hurt to try out HotS. It's definitely going to be better than WoL, and at least it will be good fun for a few months while people try out the new stuff. There's also that little chance that Blizzard will realize some of the issues they've been skirting around need to be addressed...ugh
Also, I never really played C&C multi, and I can't really find good videos of tourneys...what went wrong with that game? Even incontrol talks about that O_o
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Well in my mind, when people talk about the design differences between SC2 and BW and what Blizzard should take from BW, the key things for me are those choices which alter the mechanical baseline.
There are a lot of people who argue that not having MBS is a bad thing, and that it is nothing more than a UI restriction. Well, for the sake of modern game design, I'll cede that argument. Modern game designers are not going to result to something as primitive as single building selection. It would alienate too many people.
Yet it is important to differentiate between conscious design decisions and those required/highly expected of a modern RTS environment.
Here are some changes which were made CONSCIOUSLY by the developers. All have the effect of lowering the mechanical baseline of SC2.
1. Auto-rally. (I would regard this as a design decision rather than a highly expected/required change SPECIFICALLY because of SC2's predecessor rather than general RTS trends). . 2. Smart cast. 3. Clump pathing (smart pathing). 4. Lack of twitch unit control. 5. Macro mechanics. 6. Spells which prevent micro, rather than promote it, blanket spells with instantaneous effect. 7. Smart mining (workers do not wander and mine efficiently). 8. Unit supply cost. 9. Greater effective saturation (leading to lower army supply).
OF THESE, auto-rally really is the biggest change. It is the largest component of the mechanical baseline, and has the greatest effect on gameplay. Why is harassment so much less effective (disregarding map design/racial design)?
Because in BW, harassment and psychological games have an important purpose. By harassing another player, you place a mental burden upon him. The more stressed the opponent is, the more likely that his macro cycle is to fray. Without good discipline, he will forget to rally workers. They will begin to accumulate idly. There is a huge loss of potential resources. In turn, he will fall further and further behind. And in the late game, when both players are stretched across the map, it becomes more and more difficult to manage one's mechanical baseline, as he must send workers to mine individually from multiple bases. Thus, there is a tradeoff between macroing and aggression/unit posturing. Mechanical prowess and mental discipline become two very important factors.
Sending workers to mine is a decision which has a monumental impact on the outcome of the game. Without it, much of the psychological and mechanical components of SCII are nulled. A player only has to focus on WHERE all workers go to mine, not on sending each worker to mine individually. The economic disadvantage in forgetting workers to mine is NOT compounded. Players will not be as stressed mechanically or mentally due to the lower baseline. Hence, harassment, aggression and mind games lose much of their effectiveness.
NOW, the second greatest change is the introduction of smart mining behavior. This has the effect of imposing a pseudo 3 base economic ceiling (in that there is no major mineral-based advantage to be had in holding more than 3 mining bases, because the increased income is not worth the reduction in army supply).
The management of total bases in the late game becomes much less about maximizing one's advantage through a 4th+ base, and more about using the additional GAS achieved through a 4th/5th base to create the most efficient composition possible. This is because the advantage gained through SHEER NUMBERS (from a primarily mineral-based composition) is negated by higher unit supply cost as well as the tight clump pathing mechanism (in addition to the scalability of power units). Beyond a 3rd base, expansions will only be used to create power compositions, instead of achieving victory through sheer numbers of units and overrunning the opponent.
Less incentive to expand? Players are not as spread out. Harassment is less effective (in addition to having less consequences). Players are not stretched further and further mechanically as the game goes on (we often see the OPPOSITE happen as players focus only on managing their power compositions).
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On January 08 2013 12:55 Qwyn wrote: Well in my mind, when people talk about the design differences between SC2 and BW and what Blizzard should take from BW, the key things for me are those choices which alter the mechanical baseline.
There are a lot of people who argue that not having MBS is a bad thing, and that it is nothing more than a UI restriction. Well, for the sake of modern game design, I'll cede that argument. Modern game designers are not going to result to something as primitive as single building selection. It would alienate too many people.
Yet it is important to differentiate between conscious design decisions and those required/highly expected of a modern RTS environment.
Here are some changes which were made CONSCIOUSLY by the developers. All have the effect of lowering the mechanical baseline of SC2.
1. Auto-rally. (I would regard this as a design decision rather than a highly expected/required change SPECIFICALLY because of SC2's predecessor rather than general RTS trends). . 2. Smart cast. 3. Clump pathing (smart pathing). 4. Lack of twitch unit control. 5. Macro mechanics. 6. Spells which prevent micro, rather than promote it, blanket spells with instantaneous effect. 7. Smart mining (workers do not wander and mine efficiently). 8. Unit supply cost. 9. Greater effective saturation (leading to lower army supply).
OF THESE, auto-rally really is the biggest change. It is the largest component of the mechanical baseline, and has the greatest effect on gameplay. Why is harassment so much less effective (disregarding map design/racial design)?
Because in BW, harassment and psychological games have an important purpose. By harassing another player, you place a mental burden upon him. The more stressed the opponent is, the more likely that his macro cycle is to fray. Without good discipline, he will forget to rally workers. They will begin to accumulate idly. There is a huge loss of potential resources. In turn, he will fall further and further behind. And in the late game, when both players are stretched across the map, it becomes more and more difficult to manage one's mechanical baseline, as he must send workers to mine individually from multiple bases. Thus, there is a tradeoff between macroing and aggression/unit posturing. Mechanical prowess and mental discipline become two very important factors.
Sending workers to mine is a decision which has a monumental impact on the outcome of the game. Without it, much of the psychological and mechanical components of SCII are nulled. A player only has to focus on WHERE all workers go to mine, not on sending each worker to mine individually. The economic disadvantage in forgetting workers to mine is NOT compounded. Players will not be as stressed mechanically or mentally due to the lower baseline. Hence, harassment, aggression and mind games lose much of their effectiveness.
NOW, the second greatest change is the introduction of smart mining behavior. This has the effect of imposing a pseudo 3 base economic ceiling (in that there is no major mineral-based advantage to be had in holding more than 3 mining bases, because the increased income is not worth the reduction in army supply).
The management of total bases in the late game becomes much less about maximizing one's advantage through a 4th+ base, and more about using the additional GAS achieved through a 4th/5th base to create the most efficient composition possible. This is because the advantage gained through SHEER NUMBERS (from a primarily mineral-based composition) is negated by higher unit supply cost as well as the tight clump pathing mechanism (in addition to the scalability of power units). Beyond a 3rd base, expansions will only be used to create power compositions, instead of achieving victory through sheer numbers of units and overrunning the opponent.
Less incentive to expand? Players are not as spread out. Harassment is less effective (in addition to having less consequences). Players are not stretched further and further mechanically as the game goes on (we often see the OPPOSITE happen as players focus only on managing their power compositions).
You mean like maelstrom?
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On January 08 2013 13:37 Neneu wrote:You mean like maelstrom?
Or Stasis...or lockdown...
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On January 08 2013 13:37 Neneu wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 12:55 Qwyn wrote: Well in my mind, when people talk about the design differences between SC2 and BW and what Blizzard should take from BW, the key things for me are those choices which alter the mechanical baseline.
There are a lot of people who argue that not having MBS is a bad thing, and that it is nothing more than a UI restriction. Well, for the sake of modern game design, I'll cede that argument. Modern game designers are not going to result to something as primitive as single building selection. It would alienate too many people.
Yet it is important to differentiate between conscious design decisions and those required/highly expected of a modern RTS environment.
Here are some changes which were made CONSCIOUSLY by the developers. All have the effect of lowering the mechanical baseline of SC2.
1. Auto-rally. (I would regard this as a design decision rather than a highly expected/required change SPECIFICALLY because of SC2's predecessor rather than general RTS trends). . 2. Smart cast. 3. Clump pathing (smart pathing). 4. Lack of twitch unit control. 5. Macro mechanics. 6. Spells which prevent micro, rather than promote it, blanket spells with instantaneous effect. 7. Smart mining (workers do not wander and mine efficiently). 8. Unit supply cost. 9. Greater effective saturation (leading to lower army supply).
OF THESE, auto-rally really is the biggest change. It is the largest component of the mechanical baseline, and has the greatest effect on gameplay. Why is harassment so much less effective (disregarding map design/racial design)?
Because in BW, harassment and psychological games have an important purpose. By harassing another player, you place a mental burden upon him. The more stressed the opponent is, the more likely that his macro cycle is to fray. Without good discipline, he will forget to rally workers. They will begin to accumulate idly. There is a huge loss of potential resources. In turn, he will fall further and further behind. And in the late game, when both players are stretched across the map, it becomes more and more difficult to manage one's mechanical baseline, as he must send workers to mine individually from multiple bases. Thus, there is a tradeoff between macroing and aggression/unit posturing. Mechanical prowess and mental discipline become two very important factors.
Sending workers to mine is a decision which has a monumental impact on the outcome of the game. Without it, much of the psychological and mechanical components of SCII are nulled. A player only has to focus on WHERE all workers go to mine, not on sending each worker to mine individually. The economic disadvantage in forgetting workers to mine is NOT compounded. Players will not be as stressed mechanically or mentally due to the lower baseline. Hence, harassment, aggression and mind games lose much of their effectiveness.
NOW, the second greatest change is the introduction of smart mining behavior. This has the effect of imposing a pseudo 3 base economic ceiling (in that there is no major mineral-based advantage to be had in holding more than 3 mining bases, because the increased income is not worth the reduction in army supply).
The management of total bases in the late game becomes much less about maximizing one's advantage through a 4th+ base, and more about using the additional GAS achieved through a 4th/5th base to create the most efficient composition possible. This is because the advantage gained through SHEER NUMBERS (from a primarily mineral-based composition) is negated by higher unit supply cost as well as the tight clump pathing mechanism (in addition to the scalability of power units). Beyond a 3rd base, expansions will only be used to create power compositions, instead of achieving victory through sheer numbers of units and overrunning the opponent.
Less incentive to expand? Players are not as spread out. Harassment is less effective (in addition to having less consequences). Players are not stretched further and further mechanically as the game goes on (we often see the OPPOSITE happen as players focus only on managing their power compositions).
You mean like maelstrom?
There's a major difference between a relatively obscure spell on a 250/200 unit which has no real use except in BW PvZ and the ease accessibility provided by units such as the sentry, the infestor, the ghost (while not as limiting of an issue, blanket EMPs combined with a good arc are deadly and spell immediate death to P).
Although I should have specified by stating the "ease of accessibility" part...
You are throwing out a random argument. Instead of disagreeing with one of the many items on that list (which can be revised), why don't you address the CORE of my argument (the part I spent several paragraphs writing -_-). It's rather irritating seeing you try to argue against my opinions with a one liner.
The key is EASE of accessibility. Cost. Application. These are all factors. These (SC2) spells are not SITUATIONAL. They're all purpose.
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Say what you will in BW vs SC2, they are NOT the same game and WILL NEVER BE!
It's not blizzards fault, it's the industry that has changed. Insant gratification has become norm to sell games. You can't sell a Contra remake because people will just find it too hard and move on. Back in the day, games were meant to be challenging to the small community who played games. There was little money in the industy, and people who played the games wanted to be challenged.
Now however there is a fuck tonne of money in the gaming industy. To make money, you have to reduct the difficulty levels to appeal to more people. It's unfortunate, but that's just how it is. HotS will sell well, but even with the changes it still won't appeal to the mass audience blizzard feel presured into pleasing.
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On January 08 2013 14:06 OptimusYale wrote: Say what you will in BW vs SC2, they are NOT the same game and WILL NEVER BE!
It's not blizzards fault, it's the industry that has changed. Insant gratification has become norm to sell games. You can't sell a Contra remake because people will just find it too hard and move on. Back in the day, games were meant to be challenging to the small community who played games. There was little money in the industy, and people who played the games wanted to be challenged.
Now however there is a fuck tonne of money in the gaming industy. To make money, you have to reduct the difficulty levels to appeal to more people. It's unfortunate, but that's just how it is. HotS will sell well, but even with the changes it still won't appeal to the mass audience blizzard feel presured into pleasing.
That is definitely true.
It would take a different sort of team in order to make an RTS game that hardcore players and non-casuals would appreciate.
They would have to have some other motivation besides "money." Or at least, that wouldn't be their primary motivation. Not if they want to make their game as accessible as possible.
Instant gratification may be the "norm..." but RTS games generally attract a different type of crowd. What keeps people coming back to one game for years? Difficulty. A sense of power, of mastery, of definite standing...of improvement and the rewards OF improvement.
SC1 evolved into the game that it is because all focus, passion, drive was funneled into the 1v1 hardcore experience and the community that spawned/evolved around it.
Since developers have iterated to the point where the core concepts which drove SC1 to be such a great game have been lost, making such a game today would be a deliberate process.
Things like no auto-mine, a soft-core unit cap (18-24) would be CONSCIOUS decisions. Making the game more difficult would have to be done on PURPOSE.
What you said is ironic. If developers feel forced to make games easier to appeal to more people...then why WOULDN'T it appeal to the mass audience Blizzard feels pressured into pleasing?
I'd say it's because they are evaluating their audience the wrong way. They misjudge the core of their audience. They need to re-evaluate where they stand. Who they develop for.
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+ Show Spoiler +On January 08 2013 10:52 imBLIND wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 09:52 naastyOne wrote:On January 08 2013 08:06 imBLIND wrote:On January 08 2013 05:07 naastyOne wrote:On January 07 2013 23:05 Zahir wrote:On January 07 2013 19:37 naastyOne wrote:On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. On January 07 2013 18:29 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:01 musai wrote:On January 07 2013 02:47 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. Average games don't score 93 on metacritics and sell in millions while being a fullprice PC game. lol metacritics, no one would score WOL at 93 right now unless it was campaign only - where no one cares I care about the campaign, this already is more than "no one". Regarding esports viability, Wol seems to be not only the biggest, but in fact the only RTS which is played. Considering that there are other RTS games out there, but none of it really big in esports, Wol seems to be above average for me. Of course, Wol isn't perfect and Hots will not make SC2 perfect. People please stop being reasonable. Blizzard is the lasiest and most incompetent game company evar!!!1111 (exept every other game company making RTS). An interesting discussion. I think that, for people who point to bw as an example of all that an rts should be (I favor this position myself), it is easy to lose sight of the fact that even broodwar had several very important flaws. The one dimensionality of Terran matchups, for instance. TvZ was the only matchup that really allowed for both bio and mech play (with mech being a bit less strong). In TvP and TvT bio was more or less suicide. ZvZ was also something of a clusterfuck in bw, it had exciting micro but was very strategically predictable and overly simplistic (zergling vs zergling until one guy gets muta) in everything but the late game. Granted, ZvZ is still not the most dynamic matchup in SC2, but it is still an improvement on the days where 2 units would carry you through 80% of all your ZvZs. The ui was also extremely limiting, and the fact that so many people gripe about wanting to bring back limited united selection and remove MBS+automine, shows how deep the strain of brood war conservatism runs. SC2 has made great improvements on all the areas I just listed, and perhaps most importantly, has even shown a flash of brilliance by making a new, supremely dynamic and strategical TvT with room for so many different playstyles and soft counters, such that no one strategy is dominant. Virtually every terran unit can be used effectively at some point in TvT and most of them continue to have utility even into the late game. If anything in sc2 gives one hope for the future, it should be this matchup. However, by the same token, 'SC2 does not = BW' is far too easy of an argument to use in order to slap down legitimately good ideas that happen to resemble brood war. Dodgeable aoe, moving shot, toning down marauder/roaches/immortals to reduce hard counters, changing worker mining AI to promote more expansions, less 'clumpy' unit movement, making creep and warpgate less powerful in exchange for stronger basic units, etc. Concepts these would improve sc2's gameplay vastly. However, they are only concepts, they don't have to have the exact implementation that we're familiar with from broodwar. Consider the argument that reavers are better than colossus. Yeah, that could be dimissed as old timers bitching in a fit of bw nostalgia. Or it could be seen as advocating a replacement/reworking of the colossus: a completely new unit, unlike reavers OR colossus which nevertheless stays true to the formula of powerful aoe which both requires micro to use well, and allows the enemy to micro to dodge a lot of the damage. The colossus is one of the iconic 1a deathball units of sc2 and fixing it is almost a no brainer, but I feel blizzard will never do so, because they are satisfied with adding 'counters' like the viper. This has been their design approach for a long time now - they want units to be flashy, powerful within a given context (terrible damage), and fit within their system of hard counters. Whether the unit is skillful/micro intensive or not is almost irrelevant to the equation. This is part of what gives rise to terrible counter vs counter, deathball vs deathball play where you can't "stall out" an enemy with micro at all due to every viable unit being extremely mobile and good offensively (TvP). Point is, they don't need to recreate brood war to fix these problems, they just need to learn from it. You don't have to re use units to master the concepts that made them cool in the first place. Well, frankly the only undogable AOE that would benefit from ability to doge i can think about in SC2 is fungal, and they do that in HOTS. I do not like the idea that regress the game to BW state, like worker AI, marauder/roach/immo nerfs, and for love of god leave warpgate, creap, injects, Mules, and reactors/tech labs alone. Colosus is perfectly fine unit, not every unit need to be microed. You have High templars Stalker blink and sentries, and you can micro individual colosus back from air attack/move on clifs, so if you want to make Colosus more microable, the micro needs to be reduced somewhere. Colosus forses compositional play, too much AA, or too few AA, you need to eyeball just right. If anything, archon is way worse in that reguard. What is less interesting than Chargelot-Archon 1a? In PvP, it is all about positional colosus in WOL, just like terran vs terran in BW. in HOTS Tempest adreses that entirely. By the way, BW had deathball vs deathball, TvP bamely, the mech ball vs zelot-dragoon-arbiter, with later protos massing out on carriers, so really it is not about ball vs ball, as much as how do balls collide. The point is, BW has a lot more depth to their matchups than SC2 does. You guys can argue all you want about BW having the exact same idea that SC2 uses, that they use the same deathballs all the time, they use 90% of the same micro, etc, but I challenge you to show me that SC2 requires a deeper understanding of strategy than BW does. Considering the SC2 has more potential plays, it does indeed require you to know longer variant tree. Or you may want to define your "challenge" better. i.e, think of any positive gameplay changes that Blizzard has done for SC2, and I'll show you how anything you think of is a detriment to the success of SC2. Don't get me wrong, I wish SC2 was better than BW. I would be okay if SC2 didn't meet my high expectations. It's just that this game resembles the terrible C&C franchise so much that I'm getting pissed off at Blizzard for ruining the most anticipated RTS game.
Dustin Browder was on the C&C team lol~
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On January 08 2013 14:18 Qwyn wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 14:06 OptimusYale wrote: Say what you will in BW vs SC2, they are NOT the same game and WILL NEVER BE!
It's not blizzards fault, it's the industry that has changed. Insant gratification has become norm to sell games. You can't sell a Contra remake because people will just find it too hard and move on. Back in the day, games were meant to be challenging to the small community who played games. There was little money in the industy, and people who played the games wanted to be challenged.
Now however there is a fuck tonne of money in the gaming industy. To make money, you have to reduct the difficulty levels to appeal to more people. It's unfortunate, but that's just how it is. HotS will sell well, but even with the changes it still won't appeal to the mass audience blizzard feel presured into pleasing.
That is definitely true. It would take a different sort of team in order to make an RTS game that hardcore players and non-casuals would appreciate. They would have to have some other motivation besides "money." Or at least, that wouldn't be their primary motivation. Not if they want to make their game as accessible as possible. Instant gratification may be the "norm..." but RTS games generally attract a different type of crowd. What keeps people coming back to one game for years? Difficulty. A sense of power, of mastery, of definite standing...of improvement and the rewards OF improvement. SC1 evolved into the game that it is because all focus, passion, drive was funneled into the 1v1 hardcore experience and the community that spawned/evolved around it. Since developers have iterated to the point where the core concepts which drove SC1 to be such a great game have been lost, making such a game today would be a deliberate process. Things like no auto-mine, a soft-core unit cap (18-24) would be CONSCIOUS decisions. Making the game more difficult would have to be done on PURPOSE. What you said is ironic. If developers feel forced to make games easier to appeal to more people...then why WOULDN'T it appeal to the mass audience Blizzard feels pressured into pleasing? I'd say it's because they are evaluating their audience the wrong way. They misjudge the core of their audience. They need to re-evaluate where they stand. Who they develop for.
Which is exactly the reason why Blizzard should make a casual mode with all the current features + some extra noob help like auto-build shit and unlimited money maps and such, ALONG with some professional/different ladder mode where they strip the game down further; no mbs, no auto mine, limited unit selection, reduced AI influence, and allow units to have unique micro techniques, not the same kiting and spreading bullshit everyone does. I don't think the people who started off playing SC2 understand what it was like to surround dragoons with spider mines, muta micro 30 marines to death, have 8 marines kill 3 lurkers, to manually blanket storm an entire army...everything epic you see from the korean professionals...none of it made even the slightest appearance in SC2.
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On January 08 2013 11:15 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. You could at least give an example of some of the thing they did right with sc2? By every mistake possible, I mean every unit they changed from BW, they messed up. Only exception (to be fair) is the blink stalker. I dont think the Blink Stalker is a well designed unit either. Sure it looks good on paper, but the consequences of such a unit are not listed on that paper and the consequences are that positional play is circumvented by this. Of course you could already do such circumventing in BW through the use of Recall, but that requires another unit with energy AND it isnt something which you can "mass easily" as Blink Stalkers. So you could do assassination moves and base poking with a recall assault but not a full scale attack with your whole (or rather most of it) army. So basically the Arbiter-recall has been replaced by a masseable unit skill and that isnt a good thing, because it made it too easy to use sneaky tactics.
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