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United States9925 Posts
What's up TL,
Disclaimer: Before I start, this is not to incite an SC2 vs BW heated discussion. This is my personal thoughts and how my views of SC2 have changed.
When SC2 came out, as a die-hard BW player and fan, I shunned the game, as many others have, and still do today. I hated any competition that would impact the success and longevity of (in my opinion) the best RTS game created. For the next 4 1/2 years, I would hate on SC2 to all my SC friends and talk shit about the game. I hated it. Mechanically, the game was much too lenient for me. It was too easy to macro, one of the most important skills back in BW. The better AI, I love retarded goons herp derping around. Overall, the game just did not suit me. I gave the game a try, borrowed a friend's account to play some, but the same empty feelings remained of what could have been a better SC2.
Enter two newly created friends by the names of Sean and Chingsung. I met them when they needed a 3rd for GP San Jose (my previous blog will talk all about that), and we got to learn more about each other. They too played Starcraft, and while they do not have the best of mechanics (Gold/Plat Terran and Plat Protoss respectively), they had a love for the game which I could never understand. So I challenged their beliefs and why they would play a game which was only a former shell of its more successful counterpart (because let's face it, BW in relative terms was and is more successful than SC2). And they countered my arguments. And slowly but surely, I began to develop some respect for the game.
Here is what I learned: SC2 is actually a much different game than face value offers. While they are both the same big picture, macro a big army, harass here and there, take smart engagements and win the game blah blah, they do not share the same style of play. Mechanics are much less emphasized, where even top pros have an EAPM of roughly mid 200s. In BW, these numbers would be more in the high 300s. This allows a much lower MECHANICAL skill ceiling for players, allowing more to enter the competitive scene.
Game making decisions and understanding of the game itself plays a much more vital role. In BW, you could have the best macro in the world and as long as you knew the most basic unit comp, you could win a majority of your games. SC2, on the other hand, demands precise knowledge of what units to make during what portions of the game and how to accumulate a value advantage over time. So in a nutshell, SC2 has the following of "Brains over Brawn" where Brains is game knowledge and decision making, while Brawn is your macro ability.
The accumulation of this information spawned an epiphany. Why do a vast majority of amazing BW players not do so well in SC2? Why do genius players like Life, Rain, Parting, MC all do so damn well in this game. Why do players like Flash, Bisu, Stork fail to ultimately succeed in this game where they completely dominated the scene in BW? Because of knowledge. Ex-BW pros do not have that level of ingenuity that can be seen from the current SC2 S-class players.
Once again, this post was not designed to incite argument, nor was it to attempt to even change your opinion. Of course, I still love BW much more than SC2, but I was able to accept the game for what it is, rather than for what it isn't.
I hope this was an enjoyable read for you. Thank you, and leave what you thought of my wall of text.
-FlaShFTW
  
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TLADT24920 Posts
I thought it was already known that the main focus between the two games was less on macro and more on other tasks though I disagree with most of your other statements. BW has the higher mechanical ceiling (not really debatable lol) and on par or higher decision making skills required (imo).
What I'll give you is this: SCII has a larger focus on unit composition than BW did. It has to do with the whole hard counter aspect. In BW, you do have some standard unit compositions and can still have some hard counters aka plague on marines is crazy brutal late game but you have much less of them and you have the tools to deal with them. In SCII, once you have played enough of the game, you come to realize that while there are some interesting and unique games out there, there are far too few of them and hard counters reign supreme.
A game that comes to mind is one that CJ.hero played on some snow map against a Zerg a long time back. I wish I can remember the tournament but anyways, hero came back from some 100+ supply deficit after the Zerg stuck to only roaches while he massed immortals and forcefields and the wrap prism won the game eventually. Did the zerg make a mistake sticking to that composition? yes but it was also due to the nature of hard counters that hero won that (not to dismiss the micro and decisions that he made). I know there's lots of other examples but I haven't watched SCII in ages to think of some (too boring for me now).
All matchups have the same unit composition used with changes based on scouting information which was important since a sudden change in SCII can be your death. An example is late game zerg (5-6 base). With the spawn larva mechanics and a spire, you can spawn out a ton of mutalisks to catch your opponent offguard. I know Jaedong used to do this in his 2013 games when I watching him fail in the finals of every single tournament minus ASUS ;; lol.
Anyways, had more but took them out. This is already too long and I don't want to start a BW vs SCII crazy discussion thread lol so I'll leave it at this: As someone who loved SCII a lot on release and dropped every other game for it (my passion lasted for all of WoL into some HoTS), I feel like the game is missing something. I think it's become too stale (for me at least). The game can still be fun if you haven't been exposed to the RTS genre or to do crazy strategies with some friends but once you get to a certain point, games play out the exact same way and the enjoyment factors disappears.
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On February 17 2015 06:37 BigFan wrote:
Anyways, had more but took them out. This is already too long and I don't want to start a BW vs SCII crazy discussion thread lol so I'll leave it at this: As someone who loved SCII a lot on release and dropped every other game for it (my passion lasted for all of WoL into some HoTS), I feel like the game is missing something. I think it's become too stale (for me at least). The game can still be fun if you haven't been exposed to the RTS genre or to do crazy strategies with some friends but once you get to a certain point, games play out the exact same way and the enjoyment factors disappears.
It is especially the last part that is so important. In BW I had the feeling that the more I understood the game, the more I realised how little I understand the game. The deeper you get into it you find something new. Look at BW now: It is still evolving right now. In Sc2 it seems the opposite. The deeper you get into it, the more you realise how much more simple constructed it becomes. Which is such a shame because the fundamentals of sc2 have much potential.
I used to play WoL alot (which was awesome) and quit in the HOTS beta, because I saw every unit as a bandaid fix to existing problems. (IMO) Every unit was a failed attempt to bring BW units back without actually bringing them back out of Blizz pride. I will come back for LotV though.
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United States9925 Posts
On February 17 2015 07:16 404AlphaSquad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2015 06:37 BigFan wrote:
Anyways, had more but took them out. This is already too long and I don't want to start a BW vs SCII crazy discussion thread lol so I'll leave it at this: As someone who loved SCII a lot on release and dropped every other game for it (my passion lasted for all of WoL into some HoTS), I feel like the game is missing something. I think it's become too stale (for me at least). The game can still be fun if you haven't been exposed to the RTS genre or to do crazy strategies with some friends but once you get to a certain point, games play out the exact same way and the enjoyment factors disappears. It is especially the last part that is so important. In BW I had the feeling that the more I understood the game, the more I realised how little I understand the game. The deeper you get into it you find something new. Look at BW now: It is still evolving right now. In Sc2 it seems the opposite. The deeper you get into it, the more you realise how much more simple constructed it becomes. Which is such a shame because the fundamentals of sc2 have much potential. I used to play WoL alot (which was awesome) and quit in the HOTS beta, because I saw every unit as a bandaid fix to existing problems. (IMO) Every unit was a failed attempt to bring BW units back without actually bringing them back out of Blizz pride. I will come back for LotV though.
i agree completely, that hots is a fake version of brood war (swarm hosts as lurkers) that attempts to bring back some things like space control, but ultimately fails to do so.
i do; however, want to make a point about how deep you can go into bw vs sc2. at face value, bw is the same unit comps all the time with no real changes (except for cheese). TvT/P was mech, TvZ was bio -> mech. PvT/P was gateway -> arbiters. PvZ was HT/sairs. ZvZ was muta, ZvT/P was muta/lurker (some hydra) and late game defilers + ultras. sc2 i think does a better job to make sure people aren't continuously building the same unit over and over again. they make sure unit comps matter and players should prioritize scouting for such things at a high level.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On February 17 2015 07:16 404AlphaSquad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2015 06:37 BigFan wrote:
Anyways, had more but took them out. This is already too long and I don't want to start a BW vs SCII crazy discussion thread lol so I'll leave it at this: As someone who loved SCII a lot on release and dropped every other game for it (my passion lasted for all of WoL into some HoTS), I feel like the game is missing something. I think it's become too stale (for me at least). The game can still be fun if you haven't been exposed to the RTS genre or to do crazy strategies with some friends but once you get to a certain point, games play out the exact same way and the enjoyment factors disappears. It is especially the last part that is so important. In BW I had the feeling that the more I understood the game, the more I realised how little I understand the game. The deeper you get into it you find something new. Look at BW now: It is still evolving right now. In Sc2 it seems the opposite. The deeper you get into it, the more you realise how much more simple constructed it becomes. Which is such a shame because the fundamentals of sc2 have much potential. I used to play WoL alot (which was awesome) and quit in the HOTS beta, because I saw every unit as a bandaid fix to existing problems. (IMO) Every unit was a failed attempt to bring BW units back without actually bringing them back out of Blizz pride. I will come back for LotV though.
Well, it's possible that I just burned out from playing and watching a lot of tourneys. Odd part of that (and why I don't think it's the case) is that I went back and tried to play some games/watch some tourneys several times over the years and in both cases, I found myself wondering what I was doing. I'll start the first game, play for 5-10 minutes then after finishing the game, exit completely. The only SCII tournaments/games that I saw in recent times were the PL finals which KT won (was up and decided to see if anything changed, nope) and Flash's first tournament win (I just managed to hit the right timing to see the series lol).
With BW, there's still so much to learn and knowing that I'm limited by my mechanics means that I have a focus and I can still play for a long time. Many strategies open up once you get the necessary APM and mechanics to pull them off so you can always look forward to that. Anyways, I'll probably try the game again when LoTV comes out (I think) but I'm not expecting Blizzard to do much at this point.
On February 17 2015 08:22 FlaShFTW wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2015 07:16 404AlphaSquad wrote:On February 17 2015 06:37 BigFan wrote:
Anyways, had more but took them out. This is already too long and I don't want to start a BW vs SCII crazy discussion thread lol so I'll leave it at this: As someone who loved SCII a lot on release and dropped every other game for it (my passion lasted for all of WoL into some HoTS), I feel like the game is missing something. I think it's become too stale (for me at least). The game can still be fun if you haven't been exposed to the RTS genre or to do crazy strategies with some friends but once you get to a certain point, games play out the exact same way and the enjoyment factors disappears. It is especially the last part that is so important. In BW I had the feeling that the more I understood the game, the more I realised how little I understand the game. The deeper you get into it you find something new. Look at BW now: It is still evolving right now. In Sc2 it seems the opposite. The deeper you get into it, the more you realise how much more simple constructed it becomes. Which is such a shame because the fundamentals of sc2 have much potential. I used to play WoL alot (which was awesome) and quit in the HOTS beta, because I saw every unit as a bandaid fix to existing problems. (IMO) Every unit was a failed attempt to bring BW units back without actually bringing them back out of Blizz pride. I will come back for LotV though. i agree completely, that hots is a fake version of brood war (swarm hosts as lurkers) that attempts to bring back some things like space control, but ultimately fails to do so. i do; however, want to make a point about how deep you can go into bw vs sc2. at face value, bw is the same unit comps all the time with no real changes (except for cheese). TvT/P was mech, TvZ was bio -> mech. PvT/P was gateway -> arbiters. PvZ was HT/sairs. ZvZ was muta, ZvT/P was muta/lurker (some hydra) and late game defilers + ultras. sc2 i think does a better job to make sure people aren't continuously building the same unit over and over again. they make sure unit comps matter and players should prioritize scouting for such things at a high level.
hehe are you sure you played BW? I'll give you that TvT/P are more mech oriented though just because it's mech doesn't mean it's the same style. If you watched the recent SSL finals, you would realize what I mean by that. I had a chuckle at your TvZ statement. Well, how about I list *some* of what I've tried in TvZ so far: 2 rax SCV all in, 3 rax all in, 1 rax FE (my favourite build), 2 rax cc, 1 factory expand, 2 factory (cc or not depends if I can win outright or not), 14 cc (best in a BoX series), 2 port, 1-1-1 or 1 rax FE into valkyries and many different variations. Even in TvP, I've played with pure bio and biomech though it gets a lot harder once they get to storm or reavers but it's doable. Try doing that against protoss going colossus. I guarantee you that your marines (remember, there are no beefy units like marauders in BW) will just melt away in record time.
As for the bolded part, I'm not sure what to tell you. My suggestion is that you actually play the game a decent amount and try some different builds to see what you come to. It's easy to say that it tries to make the players change their composition but that's not the reality of the situation I'm afraid. I think what's happening here is that because you were so anti-SCII, you never played much of the game so all of a sudden, after talking to your friends, it dawned on you that maybe you weren't completely fair to the game which is fair. As for the scouting thing, yes, you need scouting but that's a result of the dps system they have in place. An an example, if you don't scout the choo choo train (lol), you will lose as Zerg (almost guaranteed). In BW, players became so good at reading the situation (gas timings, worker scout, delayed zerglings etc...) that even without scouting further, they could guess what the opponent is up to.
ps: I'm not saying SCII can't have some deepness to it but to say that it focuses on getting players to change their unit composition is well, misguided. Kind of the bottom line of my post above ^
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I think Bisu, Stork and, to a lesser extent, Flash failing is mostly to do with a loss of drive and age. They're all past their prime (hands and minds do get slightly slower - which is killer in a field measured in ms) and have climbed the mountain in another game. To say those 3 aren't RTS geniuses and lack ingenuity compared to the modern crop of SC2 stars is plain ignorant. They weren't just mechanical beasts and each redefined BW in their own ways. The successful sc2 players are just younger/extremely motivated and many also had a head start.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
Too lazy to post it all again, but the difficulty of SC2 comes down to speed of thought. The speed of the game—a result of unit speed, turning speed, more clumping, smarter AI, higher damage, etc—is very punishing. You have to make decisions faster, perform actions faster, micro faster, etc. It's a degree of difficulty not often discussed. I believe Artosis understands this when he posted that he didn't want slower battles in SC2. Again, skill ceilings are irrelevant; what is important is the functional skill floor to become a pro. Both games have similar skill floors.
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For someone that claims they despise and bad-mouths the game, you put forth a very objective view of the game. I do agree with what you say, it reminds me of when I moved from DoTa -> LoL -> HotS. The games became mechanically easier to play as I moved along however that's not to say that winning became easier, it meant that I had to focus on other things.
Excellent blog. Would read again.
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United States9925 Posts
On February 17 2015 15:08 Dakkas wrote:
For someone that claims they despise and bad-mouths the game, you put forth a very objective view of the game. I do agree with what you say, it reminds me of when I moved from DoTa -> LoL -> HotS. The games became mechanically easier to play as I moved along however that's not to say that winning became easier, it meant that I had to focus on other things.
Excellent blog. Would read again.
i used to. anyone who played SC2 in high school, all i told them was, "shit game, 1v1 me brood war, the real game and see how well you do trash". anyone who thought sc2 was a better game, i would just point them to the epicness that was BW and be like, yeah, i rest my case. it was a hard journey to make me fully appreciate sc2 for what it is but i got there.
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I dunno about the "BW is mechanically harder, SC2 is about thinking and anallyzing" argument. I know that it makes a lot of sense at first sight, but INnoVation/Bogus said himself in an interview that he was more successful at SC2 than BW because his superior mechanics allowed him to compensate for his game-analysis weaknesses more easily in SC2 than in BW.
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Glad you're happy and respectful, however your points seem to be based on a severe lack of knowledge -.-
I played SC2 for more than half a year almost everyday and stopped. The units had bad design and were designed around hard counters, so of course they always had to change their unit composition. In BW it isn't as necessary because units weren't hard counters (not as much) because it's more about HOW you use it: 10 marines can kill 4 lurkers or 2 lurkers can kill 20 marines depending on how you use it.
bio vs muta ling appears normal superficially but there are actually so many different ways to do it and it is so deep I don't even know where it ends.
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There was an excellent post in the elephant in the room thread, that argued that (one of the) the reason(s) for the lack of kespa quality after the switch was the life cycle of players. Assuming every player reaches his peak at some point, they will still try to hold on to a certain level (probably based on experience) to still perform as well as they can, given they're on their return. A change of games speeds up that after-peak process. This is of course very player dependent, and does not explain all of it. Because there are differences between the games, there may be different skill sets involved as well. The problem is that due to the first process, any estimation of the second will get extremely noisy.
Although it's good to view sc2 as a game in it's own right, i disagree with almost every assessment of bw in your post.
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Italy12246 Posts
In BW I had the feeling that the more I understood the game, the more I realised how little I understand the game. The deeper you get into it you find something new. Look at BW now: It is still evolving right now. In Sc2 it seems the opposite. The deeper you get into it, the more you realise how much more simple constructed it becomes.
I don't agree with this; in fact, sc2 has evolved a -lot- over the last few years. This is a recap of the evolution of PvT in the past two years that i wrote a while ago for an article: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/467544-partings-pvt-the-big-boy-build#2.1 . Since i wrote that article, the matchup has changed even further, with phoenix/colossus becoming more popular, while terran openers are played completely differently than even a few months ago (players now like committing hardcore to mine drops, sending out 3-4 medivacs instead of just one like they used to). SC2's interface allows spectators to spot these adjustments much more easily than BW's does, so watching the two is actually a very different experience.
I also don't agree with all the discussion of hardcounters; it's really only relevant in PvZ (which is also the worst sc2 matchup imo). Even something as simple as vikings vs colossi isn't a hard counter, just like goliaths vs carriers isn't. Massing vikings now isn't even the only way for Terrans to deal with colossi; lots of players prefer to add mines instead, split their army in at least 2 groups and play extremely aggressively while the colossus count is low.
That said, good blog. Imo BW is probably the better spectator game, because it can lead to so many amazing interactions and situation that SC2 doesn't have, but SC2 is better for the average player because it's more accessible. When i play BW i feel that me and my 150apm are completely helpless, while in SC2 it's at least passable.
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Some interesting opinions in this blog, glad I stopped by.
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On February 17 2015 05:46 FlaShFTW wrote:
Game making decisions and understanding of the game itself plays a much more vital role. In BW, you could have the best macro in the world and as long as you knew the most basic unit comp, you could win a majority of your games. SC2, on the other hand, demands precise knowledge of what units to make during what portions of the game and how to accumulate a value advantage over time. So in a nutshell, SC2 has the following of "Brains over Brawn" where Brains is game knowledge and decision making, while Brawn is your macro ability.
I don't really understand this line of thinking and I don't think that I ever will. The idea that "oh, macro is easier in SC2 so therefore there must be more thinking involved" just baffles me.
I lost to people in BW where I had better macro, mechanics, etc. but they would make tactical decisions and outsmarted me and won. I had a good friend who was a Terran player.. he was much better than me, he could out macro me easily, but I still remember the very first time I beat him. It wasn't because I outplayed him mechanically, it was because I made very smart tactical decisions, chose my engagements very wisely, and was able to come out with a win. Heck, look at White-Ra. I pick him because I watched hundreds of his replays. His macro was pretty poor compared to others at his level, especially the Koreans that he played against nonstop, but he had amazing decision-making and always seemed to win fights where it didn't seem he had the right to.
I have no problem with you liking SC2 but, even if it's not intended, this argument has always seemed as a putdown to BW to me. I think people who don't understand how much thinking is required probably haven't played BW at a very high level.
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The main thing that puzzles me here is that even 4 years into SC2 people still repeat how it is mechanically easier. That's just not true, period. It is indeed much easier for a "non-pro", it is much easier to start playing and start doing interesting stuff. But at the top level it's fucking damn difficult and many pros say that over and over again, but apparently nobody listens. The very fast battles and high DPS mean that it is extremely difficult to do meaningful in-battle micro, but that doesn't make the game easier to master but harder! We constantly see top players "failing" - not that anyone would do it better, but we see that even the top beasts like Inno aren't fast enough to do everything that they could in a battle, during multi-prong aggression, etc. Yes, there are much more people who macro basically flawlessly but that doesn't mean there aren't other aspects of the game that make it extremely mechanically demanding. The distribution of difficulty is just different from BW and it is in some sense harder to see.
I played BW a lot, but on a very, very low level. Back then I had no idea about "esports", I didn't know that people play it for competition, I didn't know that there are guides, strategies, build orders and that macro matters a lot, I didn't really use much hotkeys and most of the time we didn't even play on the fastest speed, because I considered it stupid. So while I am a total BW scrub and haven't played for years, I know the game, I know all units and abilities etc... When I came through SC2 to esports, I tried to watch some BW to see if I will like it more, as everyone says it's so much superior - I even asked here in some thread and got good recommendations and watched some games - but it never caught on for me. It was kind of a nice novelty, a strange thing to watch, but I felt no need to watch anymore BW. SC2 entertains me just so much more - that doesn't mean that this is the case for everyone, but I wish people just gave it the chance.
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On February 17 2015 20:29 opisska wrote:
I played BW a lot, but on a very, very low level. Back then I had no idea about "esports", I didn't know that people play it for competition, I didn't know that there are guides, strategies, build orders and that macro matters a lot, I didn't really use much hotkeys and most of the time we didn't even play on the fastest speed, because I considered it stupid. So while I am a total BW scrub and haven't played for years, I know the game, I know all units and abilities etc... When I came through SC2 to esports, I tried to watch some BW to see if I will like it more, as everyone says it's so much superior - I even asked here in some thread and got good recommendations and watched some games - but it never caught on for me. It was kind of a nice novelty, a strange thing to watch, but I felt no need to watch anymore BW. SC2 entertains me just so much more - that doesn't mean that this is the case for everyone, but I wish people just gave it the chance.
It's natural to appreciate what you understand
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thanlk you for being FlaShFTW
+ Show Spoiler +
will read all thread when out of work <3
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Seems to me at least that SC2 is more punishing for mistakes than BW because of the smarter AI, clumping, deathballing and hard counter system. If you aren't immediately reacting to what your opponent is doing, expect your army to take the disadvantage very soon and lose at a huge margin of loss compared to your opponent. Brood War engagements are slower paced, mostly soft-counters, spread out units and a dumber AI which allows for an army to not immediately get demolished because they were caught off guard or had the wrong units at the wrong time. Also the inclusion of more slow/root spells compared to BW which are more common and easier to access in the tech tree. Compare rarely used or very situational spells like Ensnare, Lockdown, Malestrom and Stasis except for PvT, to SC2's heavy focus on Concussive Shells, Fungal Growth and Forcefields which makes a slightly bad engagement really really bad because retreating is near impossible or comes at a large loss regardless. While BW is certainly far more mechanically challenging, I felt that the better player could usually make a bad engagement work out in their favour while SC2 is more a battle of decisions and composition.
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Japan11285 Posts
On February 18 2015 00:05 PhoenixVoid wrote:
Seems to me at least that SC2 is more punishing for mistakes than BW because of the smarter AI, clumping, deathballing and hard counter system. If you aren't immediately reacting to what your opponent is doing, expect your army to take the disadvantage very soon and lose at a huge margin of loss compared to your opponent. Brood War engagements are slower paced, mostly soft-counters, spread out units and a dumber AI which allows for an army to not immediately get demolished because they were caught off guard or had the wrong units at the wrong time. Also the inclusion of more slow/root spells compared to BW which are more common and easier to access in the tech tree. Compare rarely used or very situational spells like Ensnare, Lockdown, Malestrom and Stasis except for PvT, to SC2's heavy focus on Concussive Shells, Fungal Growth and Forcefields which makes a slightly bad engagement really really bad because retreating is near impossible or comes at a large loss regardless. While BW is certainly far more mechanically challenging, I felt that the better player could usually make a bad engagement work out in their favour while SC2 is more a battle of decisions and composition.
This is one of the more enlightening posts I've seen on the subject.
The only thing I disagree but only partly, is with pacing. The fact is there are only a few elite people ( YellOw,  IriS,  Daezang, Kingdom, NaDa, and a recent example would be Ssak's TvT vs Last at Shin Peaks) who can do fast-paced aggression because of the difficulty of setting up positions quickly and timing builds to get critical mass. But from the few sc2 games I've seen, yes the pacing is indeed quicker.
IMO, the reason for all the intricacies in engagements is that an army will kill an opposing army with little casualties to the former due to inferior control or positioning. I mean you can have the same number and composition as Stork but still suicide everything to tanks because of poor engagement control.
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EPT
