EPTqxc's thoughts: The Removal of Macro Mechanics - Page 4
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16200 Posts
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Tenks
United States3104 Posts
On August 25 2015 02:44 AKAvg wrote: I personally agree with pretty much everything. "The problem is that macro is the gateway to the rest of the game. Without good macro, you can’t experience a substantial part of what Starcraft offers. Micro, strategic decisions, tech switches and mind games all take a back seat to just ‘produce as much stuff as possible’ until you get close to optimal macro." When you think that the "stuff league" is gold and below and that's roughly 60% of the player base, feels weird to call SC2 an RTS. The learning curve for Sc2 is very high and I do think that's one of the main issue with it's popularity overall. I think even the gateway is higher than Gold. I was Masters in WoL and Diamond (sometimes Master -- usually Diamond) in HotS and it still felt like the game was completely won and lost on macro. That is why mostly every Terran player around the skill level has one build they perform and aren't completely concerned with the other player's build. It is a simple "catch all" build because 9/10 if you lose it is because you screwed up your macro somewhere. | ||
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MaestroSC
United States2073 Posts
I am SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY to see Blizzard taking steps into turning LotV into something better. Wings of Liberty was fun and exciting because it was new, but there were still giant design flaws people were hoping to see "well.. Starcraft became much more balanced with the release of Brood War..im sure well see the same thing with HotS"... but HotS design.. ugh. There is no need to beat a dead horse regarding Hots... Just REALLY want to emphasize how ecstatic I am that they are making bold moves, and really attempting to make the game better. Not just sticking with it going "No! They players are wrong! this game is perfect!" The macro mechanics were always a stupid gimmick, that proved Blizzard design team didnt understand what makes a competitive RTS enjoyable... Nobody enjoyed SCBW for over a decade because there was "no downtime" or it rushed to max armies at a much faster rate... in fact BW building was probably less than half the speed that you could reach 200/200 in SC2... what made BW great, was it was a combination of control AND strategy! For the last 2 iterations of SC2 it has been.. the same BO vs the same BO, and whoever had better mechanics won..because every game devolved into the same thing. When they implemented more starting workers.. i thought it was a nail in the coffin.. further cementing the fact that Blizzard thinks what makes the game more exciting is getting to 200 v 200 supply as fast as possible... The truth is..with the beginning and mid game slower.. you actually open up a LOT more opportunities for plays.. In HotS and WoL.. if you went for harass instead of fast 3 bases.. u just lost because every game devolved into a race to 200 supply.. By slowing down the midgame and early game... people will be able to take more chances, get out on the map, and without focusing all of their screentime on macro mechanics..they can actually control their units on the map, to be effective with them... All I want to see now... is Blizzard acknowledgement that warpgate technology is terrible design. It makes no sense... the tradeoff SHOULD have always logically been... "Create from Gateway to be faster... create from warpgate to be able to place on the map where you reinforce from." And let you switch back and forth between gateway and warpgate... Gateway production into Warpgate tech for a push... reinforce during push... switch back to gateway to continue normal production. Alright im just ranting now... hopefully we see more dramatic changes from Blizzard for LotV... | ||
NonY
8748 Posts
On August 25 2015 02:34 Ensiferum8 wrote: because qxc's macro is bad, so for him, only micro and strategy is what you need to be qualified a good player. But of course, if something in which he was really good was made way easier, he would complain much more. Hes just bias Even if you're correctly classifying qxc's playstyle, I think a selfish competitive player with that style would want obvious macro tasks to stay in the game because they're the lowest hanging fruit for improving win rate. If he loses games because he spends too much time trying to harass with 10 reapers at the 30 minute mark, then I think that's a rather easy adjustment to make in order to turn losses into wins. You can argue that people who have mastered a skill want it to stay in because their mastery of it wins them games. You can argue that people who are bad at a skill want it to stay in the game because it's the lowest hanging fruit. And that seems like a draw where you go nowhere. However, you can rate skills based on their complexity, with the macro mechanics currently being discussed being conspicuously NOT complex, as opposed to something like the skill of improvising timing attacks, which is really complex. So you put skills on a spectrum of complexity. If it is really complex, then the people who already mastered it would want it to stay relevant to competitive play. The less complex, the more it favors people who haven't taken advantage of it yet. So competitive players who currently suck at macro should actually want it more because they've already mastered the more complex parts of the game and it'd only take some disciplined practice of the basics to reach the next level of play. But the way a lot of top players approach the game isn't really competitive. Most pros don't behave in a way to maximize win rate. They have ways that they like to play the game and they limit themselves by these "stylistic" choices and then proceed to try to maximize the win rate of the handicapped form of themselves. If a micro and harass-oriented player watches a replay of a loss and sees a micro mistake that, if corrected, could have won the game, but also sees a macro mistake that could be corrected to win the game, they don't even stop to think which mistake is easier to more consistently correct and therefore result in a higher win rate overall, they just focus on the thing they want to focus on, micro. Once upon a time when I was good at StarCraft and was really hard pressed to figure out how to increase my win rate, when looking at a loss I always asked myself "what was the thing that is easiest to change to turn this loss into a win?" and worked on that. But other players have a vision of how to win games and they see losses as the result of not perfectly living up to what was envisioned. So there's no change in focus from a loss. Sometimes there isn't time to go back to the drawing board, like when you have a Proleague game coming up, so it's understandable. You've already made your plan and you're scrambling to execute it as well as possible by the deadline. But as a general rule there's widespread misbehavior by pros in their practice. | ||
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flanksteak
Canada246 Posts
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gneGne
Netherlands697 Posts
User was warned for this post | ||
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Pontius Pirate
United States1557 Posts
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Footler
United States560 Posts
On August 24 2015 23:46 qxc wrote:Starcraft’s greatest strengths have always lied in interesting unit design This is what I've always felt. Insane micro maneuvers/plays is the most fun thing to execute as a player as well as the most exciting thing to spectate. Also, this argument to go play War3/LoL/etc for micro is honestly the worst argument anyone could ever make. The difference between micro in War3, LoL, SC2 and BW is quite different. This change is somewhat aiming to make the micro more BW like. I personally find War3 micro to be incedibly boring and LoL never appealed to me. | ||
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
On August 25 2015 01:10 Tenks wrote: I think QXC and I are of a pretty like mind here. Going forward SC2 needs to be a game more about player vs player interactions than about player vs self. The skill cap in LotV going forward will not be lowered with removal of macro mechanics it will instead be shifted. I also believe removing the macro mechanics increases the skill floor. SC2 was almost impossible to "get into" because you have to spend at least 50 games just trying to formulate any semblance of an internal clock for when to go back to base and macro mechanic. Because even if you win a game you know for a fact the only reason you won is because the opponent was just plain worse than you. Rarely (as a Diamond player) did I ever get the feeling of "Cool! I really outplayed that guy!" it was always a feeling of "God I played like trash that guy must be terrible because I know I'm terrible." Personally I'd like to see them tweak the game going forward with the idea of macro mechanics removed. LotV is not even close to perfect with the removal of the mechanics. But I *like* the direction. This is a big point. Back in the WoL days I'd always open Stargate in PvP just because even if I lost slightly more or there were less pro builds that I could do with the given meta, I'd feel great when my phoenix micro would help me take care of his army and I really felt like it was my good micro winning me games instead of my bad macro losing me games. | ||
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Haighstrom
United Kingdom194 Posts
On August 24 2015 23:46 qxc wrote: The problem is that macro is the gateway to the rest of the game. If you believe macro is what stops Starcraft being the best it can be, then logically you must support far far deeper mechanical simplifications than the ones Blizzard has introduced with these changes. You talk as though without this one mechanical requirement (per race), players can now just jump right in and enjoy the game. But Starcraft will always be a min/max game of precision. Simple build orders are baffling for new players, up to specific timings being something everyone below masters struggles with. Most of my friends who gave up in the lower leagues said they didn't like the game because it was too "rigid": this complaint referred to build orders, not mechanics. My point is that learning "strategy" at the lower levels is just as "mindless" and "boring" as learning timing-based mechanics. (9 pylon, 12 gate, 15 gas, 16 pylon, 18 cyber, ...) Starcraft will always be a game that's too hard and too rigid for most people who want to just pick up a game and play it. With this firmly in mind, I advocate that a harder more multitask-focussed game, with a wider range of macro, micro, and strategic thinking skills, which can be selected for priority based on preference with comparable end results, is what helps more players differentiate themselves in different ways, and that makes the game more interesting to both play and to watch. Once you're already in the mindset that learning things through repetition is bad or boring, Starcraft is already lost to you. | ||
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PVJ
Hungary5211 Posts
Also, people complained about how HotS was only minor balance tweaks compared to vanilla and they want baby steps. Obviously the people aren't the same but it's still sad to see this collective schizophrenia. | ||
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gillon
Sweden1578 Posts
On August 25 2015 02:32 Whitewing wrote: I very much happen to agree with what qxc said here. Most important to me is the slowdown of economic development, which I believe was necessary for healthy gameplay to develop. The important thing is that this doesn't trivialize macro, and there's enough else to do that if you've got plenty of APM, you can make use of it. It's one skill out of many in Starcraft. Imagine a player who is exceptional at producing units and has fantastic macro mechanics.... but he only makes marines and doesn't micro them at all, and tends to lose a lot because they just a-move and die. Would that player qualify as being good at the game? He probably wouldn't even qualify as a diamond player. That's relevant just looking at my response, but if you look at who I responded to he seems to feel as if macro should be a nonfactor. | ||
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QSpec
United States23 Posts
On August 25 2015 01:08 Ignorant prodigy wrote: A micro orientated player wants more focus on micro.. is anyone surprised? The reason qxc like these changes is because it helps bring down players in areas he’s deficient I don’t use hotkeys.. so I say blizzard removes them so everyone comes down to my level… It is completely unfair and disingenuous to think that a top tier player looks at things from only under their racial biases. They have a long term investment in the health of the game, and most (all?) would like to see the game succeed and potentially grow. That will only happen if the game is balanced and interesting. You should give better players the benefit of the doubt even if you completely disagree with him. He's approaching it from a different and (arguably) more knowledgeable position than you or me, and so what he says should be weighed. Feel free to add your own opinion, it looks like QXC has even responded to those that have disagreed with him, but coming at him as if he is biased simply because you disagree with him cheapens your position and your opinion. This is exactly what should be happening with a beta change this large. Try it out, formulate opinion, and discuss said opinion. | ||
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Tenks
United States3104 Posts
On August 25 2015 03:23 Haighstrom wrote: Most of my friends who gave up in the lower leagues said they didn't like the game because it was too "rigid": this complaint referred to build orders, not mechanics. My point is that learning "strategy" at the lower levels is just as "mindless" and "boring" as learning timing-based mechanics. (9 pylon, 12 gate, 15 gas, 16 pylon, 18 cyber, ...) Blizzard is somewhat trying to address this in LotV. They're trying to make a variety of compositions viable for each race. They're trying to give a larger emphasis on small-scale skirmish and harass so you aren't just sitting at your base waiting for the next depot to be built and just macroing out units until you finally have a force capable of being on the map. So to that end what I'd like to see more in LotV is individual games are decided more on your interactions with your opponent than interactions within yourself. So if you did a really good job with your Reaper harass this game you can point back and be like "I did really well here and this won me the game." And less "I had 20 marines and 2 dropships out 10 seconds earlier than usual and that won me the game." At least I believe that is the theory. Once LotV settles down and gets figured out by the pros who don't need to play HotS as their livelihood maybe it won't hold true. | ||
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Sogetsu
514 Posts
At some point you will blindly build defenses and try to kill your enemy's workers in order to win wihotut any army engagement. Harass should be an option, not a game ending damage situation like it is right now, and was like that before too, but it was like that to "counter" the Macro Mechanics that are now gone... | ||
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fluidrone
France1478 Posts
His post was eloquently honest and well put, I disagree with the change (I'd like more areas/avenues of gameplay, never less) but I thought he made some good points regarding people who are getting in the game (people whom I have nothing in common with). | ||
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Isarios
United States153 Posts
I feel like posting only the westerner sentiment presents a very very biased attitude to Starcraft as a holistic combination of macro and "decision-making" and micro. Please can we get more Korean Code S opinions? | ||
BluemoonSC
SoCal8907 Posts
On August 25 2015 03:27 PVJ wrote: I remember that when SCtoo came everyone complained about the extra macro mechanics that felt unnecessary when compared to BW. And so now everyone misses these once they finally got rid of it. Also, people complained about how HotS was only minor balance tweaks compared to vanilla and they want baby steps. Obviously the people aren't the same but it's still sad to see this collective schizophrenia. so do i, but people began to enjoy how difficult the game was as a result of having them in the game. what they fail to realize is the additional complexities of the game. instead of macroing up and playing passive, you've got to get aggro on your opponent. if someone says that they're bored, its probably because they're playing a boring style  | ||
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Shuffleblade
Sweden1903 Posts
Macro impress me but not just calling mules, people have name dropped Bomber a lot in this thread. You guys seriously think Bomber was so much better than everyone else just because he could call down mules crisply? There are a hundred other reasons his macro shined and those are still in the game. In regards to soO I agree its the player that this will hit the hardest. | ||
Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
On August 25 2015 04:14 Isarios wrote: I feel like the Westerners always try and harp big on the ultimate-ness of strategy and decision making without considering how much more powerful the Koreans are with their macro. There's a HUGE different in the same game scenarios within WCS and Code S. A lot of games in WCS end fast with GGs because either the cheeser or the cheesie don't have the macro to get out of the game predicament. Also, micro does not tend to impress everyone. A lot of people want to see the inexplicable ability of Koreans to just mass produce under duress. That to me is amazing. I don't care how much sweet little sick micro trick people do to assure their wavering egos that they aren't strictly worse players than Korean players are. I feel like posting only the westerner sentiment presents a very very biased attitude to Starcraft as a holistic combination of macro and "decision-making" and micro. Please can we get more Korean Code S opinions? I hate to break it to you, but the Koreans are also much better tactically, strategically, and have better decision making. They aren't winning solely because their macro is better. Good foreigners can keep up with the macro of the korean pros in the early to early-mid game no problem, yet they still find themselves falling behind and being outplayed. Foreigners are worse than Koreans at pretty much everything in the game, not just the macro. The idea that Koreans beat foreigners solely off of mechanics is a myth. Analyze the games and replays and it becomes pretty clear that their decision making is just on another level. | ||
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