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from my point of view, the new Blizzard team (the one lead by Dustin Browder) had 2 choices :
1 - to make a game that much resembles the original one
2 - to make a completely new game that is different in gameplay mechanics and ony coincides in lore with sc1
Now this is a dillema since hardcore sc1 bw fans will shout that sc2 does not have the similar characteristics as sc1. If they make it look more and more like sc1, the critics will say it is just sc1 with better graphics and new units.
What i like the most in sc2 is exactly the fact that decision making is the most important part of the game. Micro is, of course, important here still, but starcraft2 need a fresh feeling to it. I know hardcore sc1 fans need a clone but this is starcraft, not starwars. Give it time, you will adjust to it.
Maybe the time you used bashing up the keyboard and mouse with, let's admit it, an outdated UI, now you can do something useful.
As for the dancing units, i liked the feature also. But it seemed like an exploit that progamers discovered, like glitching units through minerals and buildings.
What is wrong with units waiting for the animation to shoot ?
The image you have from starcraft1 is clouding your judgement of how a game should look and feel like.
If a dragoon can spawn over a cliff just because all spawn points near the gateway are taken, then it's okay and is even a pimpest play because you successfully exploited the engine, but since now if a gateway is surrounded by other buildings, the units won't spawn. This seems logical to me and now i realise the sc1 approach to the matter was wrong.
You mentioned muta stacking, but why should you only be able to stack mutas when you select another unit within that group? Why select just 12 units at once? why why why why why
I really like the idea where, in this game, the crucial thing is the army composition.
Why ?
I tell you why. This is a RTS. Real Time Strategy.
This is not a clickfest, not guitar hero, not super mario brothers, not mortal kombat.
It shouldn't be about spamming some random command to get an advantage over your opponent. At least this is my opinion. Sc2 put the S in the RTS, so to say.
While sc1 bw is a GREAT game, don't get me wrong i love it, Blizzard should maybe remake it with 3d graphics. But SC2 must be a new game of it's own, with it's flaws, strengths and gameplay.mechanics.
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I'm not trying to be mean, but SC2 is a different game, there is micro but you seem to be blind to it. I personally love the new SC and people feel butthurt because it's not SC:BW with better graphics, and that is more of a personal problem.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 27 2010 10:18 LaLuSh wrote:I have tried plexa. Can you please show this off in a VOD? From what I gather it only looks like it has a moving shot because it's gliding. You can even glide backwards. While it is possible to fire without coming to a stop or decelerating (although it's very difficult and often requires you to be moving in a straight line), it is not possible to change your direction or issue any move command while the aircraft is gliding. It pretty much means you have to anticipate the optimal gliding pattern before engaging, and there's no chance to change your mind. I have tried it based on your description, but I can't get it to work in a "non defective" manner (meaning it contained all of the flaws in the paragraphs above). I think you'll have to show us how you do it. No I agree with all your points. It's really difficult to pull off, and even if you pull it off, I honestly cannot see any reasonable application of it. The best I've been able to do is shoot at a 90 degree angle which is far from optimal. It's the same reason this only works for units with accel/deccel and not units like the hellion which start and stop.
Also, I have a massive hunch that a good portion of the bugs we exploited in BW are the results of the magic boxes. The magic boxes give clumping, no auto-surround, mutalisk stacking etc.
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On April 27 2010 08:32 LaLuSh wrote:
Blizzard design philosophy pre Dustin Browder-era
“Let’s design a great engine and worry about units, graphics and art later. Hell, let’s even throw a game in the trash bin and recode it from scratch if people think it sucks.”
Blizzard design philosophy post Dustin Browder
“Hey guys let’s design awesome, cool and unique units and worry about the game and balance afterwards. We can always fix that. Sure people will think the game has flaws, but balance and time will sort that out”
LOOOOOOL. So true. But i refuse to believe Blizzard went "SCREW MOVING SHOTS" > <
edit: but man... the user-made video was really really terrible and painful to watch
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Wow, apparently I missed the part about Bowder being from the CnC people, who thought it was a good idea to let him anywhere near beloved games ever again?
More on topic, excellent article. I think the key point for blizz (which has already been articulated) is that if they actually want this to be a lasting esport game noobs need to suck. Anyone can execute a build order, what do you think a 4x game is? I dont want a RT4X I want an RTS (though Sins wasnt a bad game).
Frankly, the noobs SHOULD feel like they have to fight to get their units to do what they want them to.
edit: oh, and the bit about breaking the game lore... ya, I could stomach all this if it didnt seem to me like every science advisor to every single race was a complete idiot.
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Well a lot of strategy comes from unit positioning, ie micro. Macro is obviously a huge part of it but micro should play an equally important role if not more so in a true rts. If you just keep pumping units for the win it really isn't a strategy game it's more of a turtle and spam game really.
The article makes a lot of valid points and I really like them, especially since it's asking SC2 to be more like SC1 only in terms of mechanics. A lot of hardcore sc1 gamers call for sc2 to be a sc1 remake, and that's truly not what sc2 is suppose to be. But, tbh there are a lot of things designers can learn from sc1, as this article points out attack-moving technique in particular. If Blizzard indeed wants SC2 to have as big of a e-sport influence as SC1 did, then they will definitely have to pay attention to what works and don't work.
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On April 27 2010 09:16 JadeFist wrote:
Incredible article. I agree that SC2 is not so much about skill, but rather about strategic planning.
That may be great for some people, but I find it really frustrating that I simply lose due to my build order, even though I am far mechanically superior to my opponent.
I thought you summed it up really well when you said that weaker armies simply cannot engage stronger armies, no matter how the units are controlled on either side.
I'm already playing more BW than SC2 these days after getting my beta key a week ago lol.
Isn't strategic thinking a skill also? One that is quite important to a Real Time Strategy game?
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On April 27 2010 10:10 Bane_ wrote:This pretty much crushes the whole premise of the thread no? :o
lol funny,
this thread seems more like an angry rant from somebody who just wants SC2 to be brood war only with better graphics... anyways i do not agree with you and it would be stupid for blizzard to model everything EXACTLY LIKE BW
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On April 27 2010 10:26 chongu wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2010 08:32 LaLuSh wrote:
Blizzard design philosophy pre Dustin Browder-era
“Let’s design a great engine and worry about units, graphics and art later. Hell, let’s even throw a game in the trash bin and recode it from scratch if people think it sucks.”
Blizzard design philosophy post Dustin Browder
“Hey guys let’s design awesome, cool and unique units and worry about the game and balance afterwards. We can always fix that. Sure people will think the game has flaws, but balance and time will sort that out”
LOOOOOOL. So true. But i refuse to believe Blizzard went "SCREW MOVING SHOTS" > < edit: but man... the user-made video was really really terrible and painful to watch
I honestly think that the design philosophies were the same though :p. In fact, we know for a fact that the philosophy the OP presented is wrong, because they first felt that the units weren't cool or unique enough, then they figured in order to make them cool, they needed a brand new engine.]
That really detracts from the point :/
On April 27 2010 10:29 PanzerDragoon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2010 09:16 JadeFist wrote:
Incredible article. I agree that SC2 is not so much about skill, but rather about strategic planning.
That may be great for some people, but I find it really frustrating that I simply lose due to my build order, even though I am far mechanically superior to my opponent.
I thought you summed it up really well when you said that weaker armies simply cannot engage stronger armies, no matter how the units are controlled on either side.
I'm already playing more BW than SC2 these days after getting my beta key a week ago lol. Isn't strategic thinking a skill also? One that is quite important to a Real Time Strategy game?
Nobody has successfully made a strategy game centering on strategic thinking since chess and Go though :/. Not "includes strategic elements", but a pure strategy game. Almost impossible to balance with dynamic elements like different sides. Starcraft 2 won't it.
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On April 27 2010 10:19 PanzerDragoon wrote:
Haven't there already been multiple games completely disproving the "no micro"
Reaper games, Nony's amazing Phoenix usage, Thor drop and pops, Hellion harass and flanks, etc?
You spent a whole lot of words to basically say SC2 and BW have different movement mechanics. I don't think you proved anything about how it "killed micro" just because you can't micro Mutas the same way anymore.
I don't think you are capable of comprehending what high level micro is. Pretty much any player above silver league can micro just as effectively as a top sc2 foreigner in every example you described. There is no learning curve, and there is no skill ceiling. The only reason players like Nony standout (he just ran around the map with phoenixes for christ's sake) is because they have ridiculous apm and they have more time to micro, not that their micro is overly superior, like it can be in Warcraft 3 or SC:BW. Lalush is 100% right that there is no micro, too many people that are objecting this are interpreting his statement literally. He just means it's so simplistic and easy that there is no skill separation. Every player is going to eventually have perfect micro in this game.
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Interesting read, though I feel like it comes down to this:
Make SC2 SC1 with new graphics.
We hear this time and time again and it really is getting annoying. Here is one huge problem you have:
BW has been out for YEARS! This game has been out forever, and of course every little detail in the game has been gleaned over as well as mastered. The game's bugs and so on make the game what it is, and those common glitches have been incorporated into game play.
As David Sirlin says (of game psychology, pro fighting game player), a game needs time to develop into what it is. What may seem imbalanced now in 6 months could look like the old ineffective crap than what people are doing today. He has several examples of where competitive games evolve through time, one of which being Starcraft. Another is Warcraft 3. These games evolve because players play with the system they have and game play evolves to incorporate everything because people are playing to win. It's very rarely something is imbalanced or weak unless there is an unfair advantage to the loser or winner.
Hypothetically, would you argue about game mechanics if the game didn't have "Starcraft" on it? If the game was called anything else, like Dawn of War 3 or something you wouldn't have the same gripes as if it's called Starcraft. However because it has "Starcraft" in the name and because it is made by "Blizzard" you expect it to play like something else also with "Starcraft" in the name.
Look at recent games that have attack move in them:
1) Homeworld 1-2 (about the same time release), they had to have attack move otherwise the game won't work
2) Sins of a Solar Empire: Same as above
3) CnC 3; horrible online competitive play
4) Dawn of War, DoW 2: Acclaimed for new game mechanics, but still ends up falling short in both pro scene and in popularity.
5) Battleships Forever. Honestly a fun game, but mostly a bleh bleh game made for fun.
Even with these points there are things I agree with:
-Stop super big damage/armor types. They limit the amount of functional units in the game.
-Micro should play a bigger role: Listening to day9 I can see that the concave of ranged units is more important than controlling the units themselves (even though it is part of control). Coming from Warcraft 3 where unit control was EVERYTHING the it is really a different type of micro . In this smaller groups are usually weaker than larger groups.
-If Hellions had moving shot you would have to also remove the splash damage.
-Corruptors are retarded. Bring back scourge please =D
-The new design philosophy of Blizz is making their games into money machines and not into amazing games like SC originally was.
I think that's it.
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On April 27 2010 09:25 Liquid`NonY wrote:
Pretty much disagree with almost everything lalush is saying. The only thing I feel partial toward is that flying units should have a true "moving shot" rather than a "gliding shot." That's a good point. But a ton of the conclusions and ideas surrounding this core idea are pretty bad.
Best post in this thread
there's no way you could really allow a moving mutalisk shot in this game though, with the ability to have as many as you want it'd just be too powerful.
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On April 27 2010 10:29 PanzerDragoon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2010 09:16 JadeFist wrote:
Incredible article. I agree that SC2 is not so much about skill, but rather about strategic planning.
That may be great for some people, but I find it really frustrating that I simply lose due to my build order, even though I am far mechanically superior to my opponent.
I thought you summed it up really well when you said that weaker armies simply cannot engage stronger armies, no matter how the units are controlled on either side.
I'm already playing more BW than SC2 these days after getting my beta key a week ago lol. Isn't strategic thinking a skill also? One that is quite important to a Real Time Strategy game?
It is a skill, but the mechanical skill and ability to micromanage and multitask better than your opponent could often give you an advantage or even win a game in SC:BW. This is what made that game great, the skill ceiling was truly infinite. This is less viable in SC2 as its mostly about army size and army composition before micro or multitasking.
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I'm like 99% sure I've seen Vikings do moving shot air-air in a VOD and I know for a fact Banshees can pretty much move and shoot. This is a lot of unnecessary worrying at this point :\
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Restrictions breed creativity.
The OP (except when it meanders) does a good job of describing the difference between 'moving' and 'gliding' shot, and the relative prevalence of these attack types between BW and SC2. However, the post is predicated upon an assumption that comes up a lot in these types of discussions. While this assumption seems reasonable, I am not convinced that it accurately represents the full picture of things.
That assumption is this: putting 'more' control of the units in the hands of players makes for a better and more skilled game.
Indeed, the more 'perfectly' one is able to control a unit, the more advantage a skilled player is going to have controlling these units, compared to a less skilled player. All else being equal, increasing opportunity for meaningful application of skill to affect the game is very important.
I would argue, though, that not all else is equal; in particular, a player with perfect control over his units has fewer interesting strategic decisions to make compared to a player without perfect control over his units. I will try to use the Mutalisk from BW as an example, because it was perhaps the best example of having perfect control over 11 units at once. But with perfect mechanics, one never needed to worry about giving the mutalisks any particular order. It didn't matter what the opponent was doing, or would do in response; the mutalisks could turn away instantly, after which they could go back in for another shot. There does not necessarily need to be any further decision making beyond "is it safe to give this order right now". The decision tree is not deep.
The OP even brings up this very issue:
On April 27 2010 08:32 LaLuSh wrote:
A proper moving shot mechanic in conjunction with perfect maneuverability allows the corsair to turn 180° in the opposite direction as soon as it feels threatened (despite the corsair being a unit with one of the slower turning animations in sc).
With gliding shot, one has to consider all the ways in which the opponent can respond while your units are unresponsive during their attack animation. To me, needing this decision creates far more interesting gameplay. Of course, at the same time, this is restricting the set of possibilities of what you can do with your units. It's a trade off, and ultimately I think it's a good one. I think SC2 still has a lot of opportunities for advantageous unit control. Having too little control is obviously detrimental to creating a deep game, but I hope I've been able to argue that perfect control is also detrimental in its own way.
Above all, though, I hope this serves to show that both BW and SC2 are incredibly complex and chaotic (in the technical sense of the term) and that there are not necessarily any linear or even monotonic relations between aspects of gameplay (such as 'perfect' unit control) and various measures of final game quality.
I hope I've made myself sufficiently clear.
P.S. "Restrictions breed creativity", for those who are wondering, is a favourite phrase of Mark Rosewater, designer for Magic: The Gathering.
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On April 27 2010 10:24 MindRush wrote:
f
I really like the idea where, in this game, the crucial thing is the army composition.
Why ?
I tell you why. This is a RTS. Real Time Strategy.
This is not a clickfest, not guitar hero, not super mario brothers, not mortal kombat.
It shouldn't be about spamming some random command to get an advantage over your opponent. At least this is my opinion. Sc2 put the S in the RTS, so to say.
This. I just don't understand how it is so absolutely critical that you have to be a twitch FPS-style gamer with ultra fast reflexes to be good at a real time STRATEGY game. Microing is great and all, but the op is just far far exaggerating a small aspect of the game.
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United States1719 Posts
pretty bold article. I do agree, however, mutas will not do moving shot for the love of their lives. On the other hand, I do use hydras to move-> hold ->move -> hold so they fire at the same rate as if they were stationary but move intermittently. Some parts of the article just come off as whiny and bitter, and sometimes erudite, but I do agree with the main points that increased movement speed with decreased attack cooldown animation length in general will result in a better SC2. Beware of taking potshots at Dustin Browder and Blizzard though; taking cheapshots at him like you did in the anecdote involving his beard will not make your argument any more convincing.
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Restrictions breed creativity.
Just as the OP attempts to reduce a complex issue into a reducible statement, you do to, and its clear that it simply isn't reducible like that.
A better statement would be "A well designed mixture of restriction and creative freedom creates dynamic play". The OP argues that they're are to many restrictions as far as Micro goes, and not enough in other areas.
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what an incredible article, lalush.
some serious props, you've put alot of work and i hope it gets plenty of attention.
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Thanks for the article and your thoughts.
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