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On August 13 2013 17:44 Bleak wrote:
I personally think the game started to get boring once maps got bigger.
I know, I know, many people asked for bigger maps, me including. I'm not talking about Metalopolis close positions or Steppes of War. What I'm trying to say is back when maps were smaller, the games were shorter, but also most of the times, much more intense.
As the maps got bigger, all the progamers do is just expand, macro-up, get an army, attack and hope to win. Terran matchups are somewhat different than this, as they utilize harrasment from multiple locations etc. but still, it doesn't really change the whole picture.
I remember watching Sen vs. Boxer in TSL on Metalopolis, that was such an intense and fun game.
Oh, and for those talking about steep learning curve in Sc2, try Dota. 1600 hours in and I still feel like a complete noob sometimes.
The map thing was big to me as well. Of all the times Blizzard did decide to listen to the community I thought they should have held their ground more on that one. SC2 was designed for the smaller maps, even if not perfectly balanced I think the idea was(and you can see this with the mechanics and economy) that the maps would be smaller, you could do more on less bases, and the action would be more constant from the start and tier 3 units would be tough to reach. But fans didn't like that. They didn't like fast games, bunker rushes, etc. They said they wanted macro games. And now look at what we have. 3 base turtle with the same unit compositions each game. The position TvT tank that was fun to watch is done because the maps are to big to control with tanks.
Then to compensate because they made maps bigger they end up buffing things like pheonix speed, muta speed, and boost for medivacs. Those units would have been fine in their old form on smaller maps.
I started to think of some of the games from way back on maps where you were fighting over 1 gold expansion. Where getting and securing your expansion as a zerg was huge. Right now, I don't know why you even start with 5 workers and 1 base. Why not just start the game giving everyone 3 bases and 40 workers? It seems like 90% that is where we end up anyway.
I wish they would have held strong on the smaller maps, and balanced the game that way instead of giving in for the bigger maps which the game wasn't designed for. If you went back to smaller maps, with more action, get back to making zerg more "swarmier" so that they could compete on even bases so you don't have to give a free 3rd, and you will see more action that people will like instead of these long boring games where everyone just builds up for 1 engagement. You'd also see more unit variety as well.
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On August 14 2013 02:58 FLuE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 17:44 Bleak wrote:
I personally think the game started to get boring once maps got bigger.
I know, I know, many people asked for bigger maps, me including. I'm not talking about Metalopolis close positions or Steppes of War. What I'm trying to say is back when maps were smaller, the games were shorter, but also most of the times, much more intense.
As the maps got bigger, all the progamers do is just expand, macro-up, get an army, attack and hope to win. Terran matchups are somewhat different than this, as they utilize harrasment from multiple locations etc. but still, it doesn't really change the whole picture.
I remember watching Sen vs. Boxer in TSL on Metalopolis, that was such an intense and fun game.
Oh, and for those talking about steep learning curve in Sc2, try Dota. 1600 hours in and I still feel like a complete noob sometimes. The map thing was big to me as well. Of all the times Blizzard did decide to listen to the community I thought they should have held their ground more on that one. SC2 was designed for the smaller maps, even if not perfectly balanced I think the idea was(and you can see this with the mechanics and economy) that the maps would be smaller, you could do more on less bases, and the action would be more constant from the start and tier 3 units would be tough to reach. But fans didn't like that. They didn't like fast games, bunker rushes, etc. They said they wanted macro games. And now look at what we have. 3 base turtle with the same unit compositions each game. The position TvT tank that was fun to watch is done because the maps are to big to control with tanks. Then to compensate because they made maps bigger they end up buffing things like pheonix speed, muta speed, and boost for medivacs. Those units would have been fine in their old form on smaller maps. I started to think of some of the games from way back on maps where you were fighting over 1 gold expansion. Where getting and securing your expansion as a zerg was huge. Right now, I don't know why you even start with 5 workers and 1 base. Why not just start the game giving everyone 3 bases and 40 workers? It seems like 90% that is where we end up anyway. I wish they would have held strong on the smaller maps, and balanced the game that way instead of giving in for the bigger maps which the game wasn't designed for. If you went back to smaller maps, with more action, get back to making zerg more "swarmier" so that they could compete on even bases so you don't have to give a free 3rd, and you will see more action that people will like instead of these long boring games where everyone just builds up for 1 engagement. You'd also see more unit variety as well.
I still miss Xel'Naga Caverns. I even miss Scrap Station (although I wish it didn't have a backdoor and simply was a giant U instead.
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Scrap station really gave entertaining games even if it had some issues. At this point, fast action, more map control with position, etc. would be great. There is just not enough tension anymore. It is hard to get excited with such big maps everything just happens so slow.
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On August 14 2013 03:25 FLuE wrote:
Scrap station really gave entertaining games even if it had some issues. At this point, fast action, more map control with position, etc. would be great. There is just not enough tension anymore. It is hard to get excited with such big maps everything just happens so slow.
Scrap station only sucked when the rocks came down. I LOVED the big fights in the bottom while drops/air harass happened at the top.
EDIT: Also, I want more islands 
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On August 14 2013 03:35 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 03:25 FLuE wrote:
Scrap station really gave entertaining games even if it had some issues. At this point, fast action, more map control with position, etc. would be great. There is just not enough tension anymore. It is hard to get excited with such big maps everything just happens so slow. Scrap station only sucked when the rocks came down. I LOVED the big fights in the bottom while drops/air harass happened at the top. EDIT: Also, I want more islands
literally falling asleep right now watching TOD vs. Targa on this giant map. Just 2 blobs slowly walking around avoiding each other.
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The big maps are an issue in part because the economy is screwed up. Turtle + costefficiency's natural strategic-level counter - that is, the level when factions have been abstracted away - expand everywhere and throw money at the problem until it dies doesn't exist. The economy is too fast so the hard pop cap is relevant outside of pure zergtastic meatgrinder tactics, econ doesn't scale.
It gets into being so screwed up that harassment ought to be the counter to turtling - when logically it is what you do to push someone into turtling and then Sauron them, or punish someone playing Sauron style.
Small maps keep those issues from surfacing as much. Less resources, pop cap isn't reached really due to constant skirmishing, expansions used to be a bit farther apart. Expanding is more costly and actually an economic benefit and a defensive liability. In short, the game manages to work somehow.
EDIT: Map design obv. screwed up too, but as long as wtfgates and mapeditorfields exist there's jack that can be done about that.
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I agree on the size of the maps. Macro styles and making it work on smaller maps with constant aggression from the opponent is an amazing display of skill and really fun to watch, the current style of not being touched and attacking at 200 supply is pretty drawn out. From a Spectator standpoint, watching 2 big blobs avoid each other while getting to 200 supply or waiting for upgrades are really boring to watch, especially if there is no engagement or skirmish earlier in that game. Although this takes a lot of skill to execute and is a tense moment, it doesn't LOOK that way. Comparing to other games such as DoTA2 or LoL, killing creeps in the lane LOOKS more appealing and more skillful due to the fact that you are actually achieving something (last hits) while being in your opponents face.
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tbh creeping is boring as hell to me. A big part of it is that it (last hitting and esp. denying) just doesn't make any sense without an XP bar. Without it's existence, you'd want to annihilate opposing waves with extreme prejudice. It's the same problem in SC2 lategame, and in recent Street Fighter outings, where a screwed-up system design results in action that is, in and of itself, skillful but just looks horribly unnatural and just somehow wrong.
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I know they did it before but it would be interesting if they did another tournament with the old original season 1/2 maps from WoL with HotS and see how the game looked. I know the main issue that existed was Zerg always seemed to struggle to hold that 3rd when getting sieged or hit with a timing on the smaller maps. I wonder if simply lowering spine build time and making them stronger(something done in BW with sunkens that helped) coupled with some other useful tools such as SH might make it better.
I just feel like they gave up addressing balance with the game and simply just said screw it make the maps bigger people want that and didn't think through what would actually happen. It has led to boring games. It led to the infestor /BL turtle. It led to the 3 base toss ball. And it led to terran basically playing MMM with all matchups because you need the mobility. It is clear the game was designed for smaller maps and when they went bigger to many things were broken (economy, warp gates, etc.) and that in turn has hurt viewership and exciting games.
Also as far as viewership goes we dont have enough "player variety" when it comes to style of play. Everyone hated the Hyper aggressive "cheese" players, but to be honest there was a place for them in the community even if they were hated you still wanted to see if they could cheese to a win. The big maps have led us to a place where macro oriented players have an advantage and micro is disappearing because there aren't enough small engagements to let a micro player get an advantage over a macro player. Someone like boxer whose specialty was those small engagements and getting the most out of their units have disappeared and they were fun players to watch. Not saying players don't have great control now but we rarely see great micro because you can only do so much with your giant blob. Splitting marines use to be having to keep all of them alive. Now when you have 50 marines the goal is to have 10 left after the engagement. Before you use to split 20 marines and wanted to have 12 when it was all said and done left. Blink micro? It isn't individually blinking units hardly anymore, it is large blinks moving huge clumps. Zerg micro? send a few lings to die to the mines first then send the rest of the lings. Wow. People just don't see the precision anymore with this game. You want to get viewers back:
A - More variety of play style. Even if not everyone likes it, you develop more of a storyline that way. Nobody likes the cheesy player? Well you can root against him. Now we only really have macro players who also have decent micro. If you have bad macro but great micro you will struggle with the current game outside of 2 base protoss timings.
B - More variety of maps and map sizes. All the maps are to similar, and the maps don't dictate enough variation in play style. No island maps. No maps with unique shape or features. No small maps that have limited resources. You can pretty much play the same way on all maps and be relatively successful.
C - Make the caster units more valuable and more return on investment for the players with better skill. BW did this great, the caster units were really hard to use, but if you knew how they had great value. The caster units in SC2 are horrible, and lack creativity. It is fun watching players micro the caster units and pull off miracles with them, that just doesn't happen enough and mostly because the caster units suck overall.
D - Fix warpgate. This is one of the most broken things Ive ever seen in any game ever. Let me get this straight, I warp in units anywhere AND it takes less cooldown than making the units at my home base? Sign me up. The warpgate dynamic should exist in such a way that there is a trade-off between warpgate(longer cooldown but instant warp) and gateway(faster units but made at home). The best players should understand this and constantly be switching between warpgate and gateway. Maybe even keeping half as warpgates and half as gateways in late game. This would allow for warpgate units to be made stronger, less of a need for forcefields, and open the game up for protoss. This is sorta a balance thing but this feature is one of the things that breaks the game for viewers because anytime you do anything with protoss you always have to account for the fact that they can instantly warp in an army anywhere especially late game. This was meant for smaller maps, on large maps it is breaking the game. I just don't get this, why should you get less cooldown and warpin?
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Warp gates are broken inherently. The design is incompatible with a Starcraft-style game. They're just less of a problem in smaller maps. Among other hilarity it makes ambushing reinforcements impossible, completely negates the traditional tradeoffs of proxying. The front loaded production itself allows toss to get production up way, way later than T or Z could ever afford to. It's just the sort of mechanic that cliffwalking lings are - cool and super fun in single player, but a stupid, gamebreaking idea with tons of side effects for multiplayer. In short, a thing that shouldn't exist, period.
Just making them slower won't help that much. The design itself is fundamentally broken and ignores several fundamental assumptions about how this sort of game works in the first place.
A: Sorely needed, but the overarching design needs to be fixed for that to happen. It'd also help stabilize the balance. This faction's deathball is super duper strong? Well, thankfully I don't have to beat it in a deathball fight, I can Sauron him to even the odds. May still not be balanced, but will lessen the edge. Now you just don't have that option.
B: Would probably need actual terrain features and less stupidly volatile and gimmick-based Protoss to be anywhere near viable. Now terrain features are basically vision blocks and mobility blocks. Cliffs are both. You have chokes. That's it. Just having basic high ground damage reduction would split mobility advantage, vision advantage and general importance up.
High ground bushes? Great for ambushes and stuff, but easy to weed out with zerglings or marines.
Low ground canyon? Quick path, allows for ambush.
And so on and so on.
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Warp Gates are fine as a mechanic. But they're bad for not having a drawback.
Much like medivac boosters, there is no reason NOT to boost/warpgate. When you attach a drawback to an ability, you can afford to make it "broken" so long as the drawback is appropriate.
Stim, for example, is a great spell. Big drawback for HIGH gains.
Storm is a terrible example, Big drawback for medium gains.
Snipe *was* a great example. Big drawback for HIGH gains.
Fungal Growth was a terrible example. Low Drawback, Medium gains
etc...
Without either a tactical cost or a HIGH resource cost, a spell won't have the back and forth WOW feeling.
Reavers was less supply and as long a range as Colossus. They also had better splash and higher damage. They also had less weaknesses.
But reaver shots were painfully slow, cost minerals, and required physical actions to keep up. So the advantages were weighed down by the tactical and resource cost of the unit.
SC2 units need more drawbacks for bigger advantages.
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I agree that SC2 admittedly has gameplay mechanics that may undermine the game's true potential, but I don't think that this has contributed to SC2 stagnant or declining viewer base. From what I watched of TI3 there are inherent issues which make DoTA2 drag on and really detract from the excitement (I won't even get into my issues of balance and mechanics in LoL). None of these games has been able to completely encapsulate pure balance, absolutely varied gameplay, and constant excitement.
That being said, I think that the popularity of esports will swing like a pendulum. Starcraft has been around for a while and has more or less dominated esports. I think people are gravitating towards MOBAs because they're new and exciting. As long as Blizzard doesn't royally screw the NA scene with the WCS and continues to devote attention to patching the game and making it enjoyable/easy to watch, SC2 will continue to grow (although probably not as much as it once did).
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On August 14 2013 05:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Warp Gates are fine as a mechanic. But they're bad for not having a drawback.
Much like medivac boosters, there is no reason NOT to boost/warpgate. When you attach a drawback to an ability, you can afford to make it "broken" so long as the drawback is appropriate.
Stim, for example, is a great spell. Big drawback for HIGH gains.
Storm is a terrible example, Big drawback for medium gains.
Snipe *was* a great example. Big drawback for HIGH gains.
Fungal Growth was a terrible example. Low Drawback, Medium gains
etc...
Without either a tactical cost or a HIGH resource cost, a spell won't have the back and forth WOW feeling.
Reavers was less supply and as long a range as Colossus. They also had better splash and higher damage. They also had less weaknesses.
But reaver shots were painfully slow, cost minerals, and required physical actions to keep up. So the advantages were weighed down by the tactical and resource cost of the unit.
SC2 units need more drawbacks for bigger advantages.
The drawback thing is a very decent approach to improve quality of sc2.
Spells don't need drawbacks though. The only purpose of templars is to do a storm, of infestors to do fungals etc. Its like saying there should be a drawback for a hydra shooting.
But one big point of you is the warpgate mechanic. As already discussed and widely agreed on it should be part of the decision making of protoss how many warpgates he wants to use and how many usual gateways he needs. Right now warpgate only is just boring and unfair at all. E.g. warpprism + 7gate warpin + sentry drop forcefield ramp is just a big bullshit. This kind of stuff should not be able to end games, it is boring to watch and feels very undeserved. In general it would be much more exciting to see protoss vary between strategies that rely only on usual gateways, those that use a mixture and some that rely on pure warpgates. It would also require the opponents to identify what they are playing against and allow changes in unit production speed of usual gateways and warpgates. Warpgates should either be more costy in mins/gas or in time consumption, so macro style builds would go for gateways and later on use some warpgates to harrass expansions with e.g. dt warpins, zealot warpins. Early agression builds could go for earlier warpgates and so on.
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It seems like posts like this have been cropping up everywhere recently. HOWEVER, you guys are all forgetting that the business model for SC2 is COMPLETELY different from LoL/Dota 2. A game of SC2 is PAID UPFRONT versus LoL/Dota 2 which is FREE. Everyone wants the SC2 competitive scene to improve by leaps and bounds, but no one is considering whether this will MAKE BLIZZARD MORE MONEY.
WOL during release cost $60, and HOTS during release cost $40. If you are an eager SC2 gamer, you would have paid $100 to play this game. Would you pay LoL or Dota 2 $100 upfront just to play the game? Would ANYONE do so?
No matter how amazing all you guy's ideas are, there is always the MONEY BARRIER. Your ideas have to be so incredible that it will get people to pay up to $100 upfront for it.
The differing business model between Blizzard and LoL/Dota 2 results in different business strategies. Consider where ESPORTS stand in their respective business strategies:
Blizzard: loyal fanbase from previous games + strong promotion prior to game release -> people buying SC2 -> ESPORTS "community-building platform" increase loyalty of SC2 gamers -> more willing to buy other/future Blizzard games
LoL/Dota2 : ESPORTS -> attract viewers to try out FREE game -> limited gameplay entices player to spend money to expand their gameplay
As far as my limited knowledge goes, that how I see their business model in the most BASIC form. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Anyways, all you TL posters have really interesting ideas, but the key is how these ideas can be implemented into Blizzard's business model in order to generate a profit. In my SINCERE opinion, they cannot be implemented. Blizzard would have to completely change their business model and completely change their approach to utilizing esports.
Would that happen? Meh Idk :\
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Its not about 100$ if game design in its segment is well or not. LoL competes with other games of its kind like dota and that stuff.
Its not about generating money anymore. Blizzard has gotten the money already, people paid 100$ upfront for SC2+hots already. It is all about good game design and linked to this it is about blizzards reputation. After the fails of D3 blizzard can show their qualities in game design in SC2 to improve their reputation and generate future income with future products and this is what they are trying to do. But they are not very brave to rethink decisions that they have made in the past like changing fundamental things as the warpgate mechanic or forcefields.
This is not about making new people buy SC2. Its about bringing back people who bought the game already but lost interest to keep playing it. Sorry but your money argument is weak. If blizzard doesnt convince with its products anymore (see D3) they will see it in sales of future products. This topic is not at all about changing game design to make new people purchase the game!!!
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You can't force anybody to watch or play SC2.
It's a game. Games are ment to have fun. If people don't have fun in SC2, they will quit. It's just natural.
SC2 is 3 years old now, it's normal that people quit playing.
Yes, we had SC:BW 12 years long. But that was a different game in a different time! The whole game flow, the units, the other games - everything was different. Whereas SC2 is a very fast game, but also a very limited game in things you can do or things that can happen. Blizzard just designed it in that way; in my opinion SC2 is worse to watch and worse to play than SC:BW, but others may disagree. At the same time there are tons of other nice games around. And that's the reason SC2 is not SC:BW, it is a good game but just a normal game. Which will eventually die if more and more people will quit.
I think everyone knows now, SC2 will not be of the same longevity as SC:BW.
But why care what other people do? If you like SC2, just play it! Hence, some people even still play SC:BW after 15 years!
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On August 14 2013 10:36 LSN wrote:
Its not about 100$ if game design in its segment is well or not. LoL competes with other games of its kind like dota and that stuff.
Its not about generating money anymore.
umm, yes it is
Blizzard has gotten the money already, people paid 100$ upfront for SC2+hots already. It is all about good game design and linked to this it is about blizzards reputation. After the fails of D3 blizzard can show their qualities in game design in SC2 to improve their reputation and generate future income with future products and this is what they are trying to do. But they are not very brave to rethink decisions that they have made in the past like changing fundamental things as the warpgate mechanic or forcefields.
This is not about making new people buy SC2. Its about bringing back people who bought the game already but lost interest to keep playing it. Sorry but your money argument is weak. If blizzard doesnt convince with its products anymore (see D3) they will see it in sales of future products. This topic is not at all about changing game design to make new people purchase the game!!!
Ok I'm not even gonna attempt to argue with this... Perhaps I'll suggest people to read up on some fundamentals of business.
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On August 14 2013 10:47 Caladan wrote:
You can't force anybody to watch or play SC2.
It's a game. Games are ment to have fun. If people don't have fun in SC2, they will quit. It's just natural.
SC2 is 3 years old now, it's normal that people quit playing.
Yes, we had SC:BW 12 years long. But that was a different game in a different time! The whole game flow, the units, the other games - everything was different. Whereas SC2 is a very fast game, but also a very limited game in things you can do or things that can happen. Blizzard just designed it in that way; in my opinion SC2 is worse to watch and worse to play than SC:BW, but others may disagree. At the same time there are tons of other nice games around. And that's the reason SC2 is not SC:BW, it is a good game but just a normal game. Which will eventually die if more and more people will quit.
I think everyone knows now, SC2 will not be of the same longevity as SC:BW.
But why care what other people do? If you like SC2, just play it! Hence, some people even still play SC:BW after 15 years!
I actually heavily disagree with that.
I believe Starcraft 2 will last for at least 8 years or until Starcraft III comes out, because until then it is still the best RTS out there, and rather than switching to other genres I do believe that we will keep growing because we love the game.
We get it, some other people don't think it's as good as SC:BW. I'm a fan of both. But I became addicted to Starcraft II and not Starcraft Broodwar, and that is where my love is and where I hope many others' lie as well.
Even while some pros and staff members believe that SC2 didn't become the "promised child" like it was meant to be, I still believe it will end up being the greatest E-Sport of this generation. I don't think that the attention that MOBA's like LoL will last because to me they're just the passing fancy of the modern age, while Starcraft II attracts a deeper sentiment than just a game which is fun.
It's a game which we love and because of that I don't think it'll ever truly die, and even when it eventually becomes surpassed, it will still remain forever in memory much like SC:BW.
People nowadays are so defeatist, they ignore how far we've come and how we are still growing and instead point to individual faults. We've been continually growing, but it's that our growth is outshadowed by others. And I don't believe it'll stay that way.
On topic: Get your friends involved. Email sponsors and tell them thanks. Subscribe to r/starcraft and make a TL account.
Post and make cheerfulls.
Show your passion, not only to us but to the world, and this passion will light a flame much reminiscent of the torch in JFK's speech, but instead we light it for E-Sports.
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The problem is that the game is too slow paced compared to others, it's kinda of niche.
Dota, lol, CoD, etc, any time you tune in there is something happening, there is someone getting killed.
If someone who never played SC2 before decides to watch WCS finals he will be there stuck with 10 minutes of scv's collecting minerals/very passive gameplay, and most people don't have the patience for it.
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On August 14 2013 11:36 DDie wrote:
The problem is that the game is too slow paced compared to others, it's kinda of niche.
Dota, lol, CoD, etc, any time you tune in there is something happening, there is someone getting killed.
If someone who never played SC2 before decides to watch WCS finals he will be there stuck with 10 minutes of scv's collecting minerals/very passive gameplay, and most people don't have the patience for it.
That's a weak argument. In Dota and lol, (coming from a new TI3 watcher as well as a person who watches part of the korean lol scene), there are plenty of times where they are just creep killing.
There's more downtime in Moba's than Starcraft in my opinion.
I see your point, I just respectfully disagree.
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EPT
