On December 28 2015 05:15 nanaoei wrote: i am primarily a solo ladder player in sc:bw, though i haven't picked it up in the last year or more. when i hear people saying that they dislike the game (which i haven't, personally) i think about the idea and consequently think about the current influx of players.
perhaps the current playerbase is older. expectations created from word of mouth and recommendations to play whether they're direct or indirect. they're small but important committments of figuring out how to make things work. resolution, fixes, connecting to servers, finding games (like the OP mentions). i would have worries that it's difficult to find chill players to talk and play with. people who are relatable (skill or otherwise) and truthfully won't find you overbearing to play/chat with. actually, i'm projecting some of my own concerns despite having played the game for many many years and being on iccup practice teams, ladder fiending on fish, and all that fine jazz.
if i were a newbie, it'd be very daunting and i haven't even stepped into the game yet at this point.
but for people to absolutely detest the game. like within your gut you hate it. burn it with fire, w/e. i don't understand.
but my advice is to find a mentor who you like listening to and become an open vessel for advice, because there's a lot you can gain (enjoyment incl.) from playing a storied game like sc:bw. i remember going into all sorts of freestyle presentations deciding to share all things starcraft with a class that probably had no idea that it was the title to a game. it was embarassing but fulfilling. it was like a product i believed in, even if it was all a little naive. in my opinion (although i don't do it currently) you need to find people to laugh and play with. you know, people who -get- it. this is last generation's game and it shows sometimes, but there are a lot of hidden charms--especially for people who love clutch stuff and min/maxing.
Somewhere along "third party website," "high barrier of entry," and "requires minimum level of dexterity" is where people get frustrated the most.
On December 27 2015 15:28 Thieving Magpie wrote: Telling people they have to read a forum in order to make sense of a game is the opposite of transparency.
The reason SC1 and BW is good is because the story of the campaign is good, and it gives you enough practice to click around the game. That way, when you log on to Bnet, you have some idea what you're expected to do.
The fact that you have to go through paragraphs to explain to people how a scarab is shot is evidence that BW is too opaque. This is not necessarily bad, no need to become defensive about people pointing it out.
to be fair, the reaver/scarabs are easily one of the most complex unit/mechanic in the game compared to a lot of other units which are pretty straight forward to understand how they work.
On December 27 2015 15:28 Thieving Magpie wrote: Telling people they have to read a forum in order to make sense of a game is the opposite of transparency.
The reason SC1 and BW is good is because the story of the campaign is good, and it gives you enough practice to click around the game. That way, when you log on to Bnet, you have some idea what you're expected to do.
The fact that you have to go through paragraphs to explain to people how a scarab is shot is evidence that BW is too opaque. This is not necessarily bad, no need to become defensive about people pointing it out.
to be fair, the reaver/scarabs are easily one of the most complex unit/mechanic in the game compared to a lot of other units which are pretty straight forward to understand how they work.
Like I said, its not bad to be opaque. Looking at chess pieces without reading a book/thread/teacher is not intuitive. Football is intuitive once you're told "don't use your hands" and basketball is intuitive when you're told you can't walk around while holding the ball, nor kick it. But NFL football is not intuitive at all.
On December 27 2015 15:28 Thieving Magpie wrote: Telling people they have to read a forum in order to make sense of a game is the opposite of transparency.
The reason SC1 and BW is good is because the story of the campaign is good, and it gives you enough practice to click around the game. That way, when you log on to Bnet, you have some idea what you're expected to do.
The fact that you have to go through paragraphs to explain to people how a scarab is shot is evidence that BW is too opaque. This is not necessarily bad, no need to become defensive about people pointing it out.
Telling people they have to read a forum in order to get better at a game is no different than getting a teacher/coach/training partner in real life. No one picks up a soccer ball and instantly understands team dynamics, how to apply curve to the ball, or how to do a rainbow. No one picks up a football and understands the hundreds of possible team plays, how to throw or kick the football properly. No one goes to the first day of class ready to take the final, they have to read a book, listen to lectures, etc. I could go on but you get the idea.
The reason SC1 and BW are good is because the dice fell in such a manner that near-perfect racial balance was achieved between non-homogenous races. Compare this to WC2 where the two races are practically identical but everyone knows Orcs are stronger than Humans because of Bloodlust. This unique equilibrium, combined with the mechanical demands of macro and micro that have an impossibly high ceiling, and with the burgeoning Korean tech and economic scene in the 90's/00's led this game to become highly competitive and therefore thoroughly explored and understood. Because of this, the amount of information gathered and the reasons behind the perfection and viability of certain builds can only be understood through research. No one plays the campaign and comes up with Forge Fast Expand vs. Zerg. However, this is not a matter of transparency. All of the elements of pro play can be explained in a clear way that utilizes knowledge you get in the campaign, or can pull from single player play. A Forge under a Gateway makes a tight wall (this is the only place where I will admit there is a requirement for trial-and-error, because without that or research you will not know that buildings leave a certain amount of space on either side despite being forced into a box grid). Cannons are good against Zerglings, but only when they aren't exposed. Corsairs do AoE damage and are good against air units, and they move fast. When Zealots get +1, they can kill Zerglings who have 0 carapace in 1 hit less. That's simple math. All of these things are intuitive, or at least can be learned from basic play or logic. Combining them all into one cohesive build that has been perfected through thousands of hours of play and explained in a single A4 sheet is no different than hiring a tutor to explain to you how to solve a calculus problem. You know what math is, but you need someone to explain to you the higher echelons of it. Because let's face it, people aren't complaining about not being able to complete the campaign (although I get the impression that many of the people in this thread haven't even touched it, because they think that Marines don't have a shooting animation or whatever). They are complaining about not being able to compete with people who have some of this knowledge, from being taught by VODs, replays, and forums. A trained athlete will beat your average chump in his sport of choice the majority of the time.
I don't have to go through paragraphs to explain how a Scarab works. I go through paragraphs of hypothetical situations to illustrate how to use Scarabs effectively, why this is effective, and why they were doing it wrong in the past. I can explain how Scarabs work in one sentence:
Reavers fire Scarabs which home in on their ground-based enemy if they are readily accessible, dealing AoE damage on impact or expiring if they do not connect with their target after x time.
This seems like common sense to me. Seems like something you'd learn in the campaign. However, some people don't understand why shooting a Scarab at a wall might make the Scarab not work, or why a Scarab has a hard time hitting a moving target, despite all of these things being logical and potentially understood through playing the campaign, as you said. Show me a game where shooting a homing missile at a wall still nets you a kill, and I'll show you a bad/unrealistic game.
The reason I proffer defense is because these people make complaints about aspects of the game as if they are game-breaking, as if they are the reason these people quit playing this game. What's more hilarious is that they make these complaints on the very forum that they can search and read to get answers to their qualms. Instead of spending 2 minutes writing a post about how Scarabs are stupid, they could spend those 2 minutes searching and realize that in fact it is them as a player that is lacking, not the Scarab. I see it as a cop-out, an excuse to give up when the going gets tough. If people meet a wall, a problem, and say "fuck that, that's bullshit," and quit without putting any effort into investigating the issue or improving their understanding/play, those people aren't credible sources on what is or what is not in this game. Hundreds of thousands of people have overcome Scarab gripes, because they had a different attitude about it. I'm not here to give pats on the backs of quitters and tell them that they are right, that it is bullshit, that it is unfair. Because it isn't.
On December 28 2015 09:40 Thieving Magpie wrote: Somewhere along "third party website," "high barrier of entry," and "requires minimum level of dexterity" is where people get frustrated the most.
This is the truth. People are too used to having their diapers changed throughout a videogame nowadays. For example:
It tells you what buttons to press, in a fighting game. Granted this is a "cutscene" of sorts, but look at how COOL it is. Just pressing 3-4 buttons every 15 seconds makes it look like you've accomplished insanely complex combinations when really this guy doesn't even 4 star every exchange (and he died earlier in the video, btw; still gets 2.3 million views on YouTube and feels like a champ). In order to win the final exchange all he had to do was spam B faster than the computer's ~100 BPM. Congratulations, you beat Sasuke on hard mode.
This is similar to certain FPS games where dogs jump on your neck and the game tells you to spam E or whatever in order to get it off. You're being baby-sat through the experience. They don't want anyone to die not knowing why they died or how to not die. The dog is more or less irrelevant as a result, maybe does 5% damage when you don't shoot it in time.
This concept is further extrapolated to SC2 where units move fluidly and unrealistically over terrain and ergonomically in large balls. This is part of the reason why people have such a hard time moving from SC2 to BW; they have gotten pampered with unrealistically good AI/army movement, and now they expect it in other games as well.
Obviously, casual gaming is the biggest criminal here. Having oversaturated the gaming market with easy, low-risk low-skill high-reward games, it has diluted people's willingness to struggle, suffer, and study a game. My mom said once, "Why does it have to be so hard? Games are supposed to be fun," about a different game. This is the mentality.
Basically, people are casuals and tried a game that is not intended for casual players, got crushed and then complain about it on forums without knowing hardly anything about the game. That's why I defend.
On December 27 2015 15:28 Thieving Magpie wrote: Telling people they have to read a forum in order to make sense of a game is the opposite of transparency.
The reason SC1 and BW is good is because the story of the campaign is good, and it gives you enough practice to click around the game. That way, when you log on to Bnet, you have some idea what you're expected to do.
The fact that you have to go through paragraphs to explain to people how a scarab is shot is evidence that BW is too opaque. This is not necessarily bad, no need to become defensive about people pointing it out.
to be fair, the reaver/scarabs are easily one of the most complex unit/mechanic in the game compared to a lot of other units which are pretty straight forward to understand how they work.
Like I said, its not bad to be opaque. Looking at chess pieces without reading a book/thread/teacher is not intuitive. Football is intuitive once you're told "don't use your hands" and basketball is intuitive when you're told you can't walk around while holding the ball, nor kick it. But NFL football is not intuitive at all.
Kicking a ball is intuitive. But if you've only kicked a ball and have had no outside influences, as you seem to desire, and decided to join your local soccer club, you will look like a fool. You have to know how to pass, leading pass, cross, not be off-sides, not pass off-sides, to stay in your area and not just chase the ball but at the same time know when to move up and back, when to pick a man, so on and so forth. Nothing at a competitive level is intuitive, until you train it to be so through practice and experience. Why should competitive StarCraft be any different?
If they want to play 1v1 computer, they probably have the luxury of placing their Reaver wherever they goddamn well please. If they want to play 1v1 ICCup, they need to realize they have to learn something about the game before trying to be competitive at it, not complain on forums that it's bugged or whatever. Imagine if you joined a high school team and had that mentality. Let's assume that due to the circumstances you are allowed to be on the field (small school, let's say). You play against the enemy team, but for 10 minutes all you do is chase the ball down, because all you've ever done is play with yourself and kick the ball so that is what you will do. Coach takes you off and tells you you're playing like an idiot. "But I don't understand, I'm supposed to kick the ball! This is stupid, I quit," vs. "Coach, what can I do to get better?"
It's the mentality.
EDIT: The goal of golf, Nascar, and sprinting might be intuitive, but its acquisition is not. Have you ever tried to do a line drive in golf? You're not Happy Gilmore, you won't get it on your first or tenth or hundredth try; that number might decrease if someone teaches you proper form. Nascar? Tell me when constantly switching gears, pumping the brakes, navigating a track with a dozen other cars, knowing when to take a pitstop, and a multitude of other factors become intuitive. Surely it's not on your first practice lap. Sprints are close, but have you ever used a starting block? Granted I was young when I ran track, but jumping off the blocks was not the easiest thing in the world to grasp; it felt clumsy and forced. Then you get into breathing patterns, knee height, stride length vs. speed. As I said, nothing at a competitive level is intuitive until you've learned it and practiced it.
On December 19 2015 11:01 11cc wrote: That is totally possible btw, unlike 1+1=3
How can you say that with a straight face?
Obviously, any game is a zero sum game. For every winner you need a loser. Now that I think about it, I should have realized that a statement like this isn't intuitive to everyone. There's quite some inferior intellects out there, if you are a top intellect yourself. Only when I tried to write it down I actually realized it is not an easy problem to explain or to offer a proof. Maybe someone will come along that has more patience and can explain it to you.
Let me prove you wrong.
=======
Let's say that we have 10000 games played by 100 different players playing 100 games each.
We start by assuming that 51 players win 51 games each (i.e. they have a 51% win ratio)
==> This is 2601 victories.
The same 51 players lose 49 games each.
==> This is 2499 losses.
We have 49 players left, and they need to provide 2399 victories and 2501 losses so that we get 10000 games played with 5000 victories and 5000 losses.
47 players win 49 games each (i.e. they have a 49% win ratio)
==> This is 2303 victories.
The same 47 players lose 51 games each
==> This is 2397 losses
2 players win 48 games each (i.e. they have a 48% win ratio)
==> This is 96 victories.
The same 2 players lose 52 games each.
==> This is 104 losses.
=======
All of this adds up to 104+96+2397+2303+2499+2601=10000 games, 2601+2303+96=5000 victories, and 2499+2397+104=5000 losses.
Thus we have a situation with 51 players having a 51% win ratio, 47 players with a 49% win ratio and 2 players with a 48% win ratio, disproving your statement.
On December 27 2015 06:02 ProMeTheus112 wrote: so people do disagree about the scarab being a little broken! personally, if it was up to me I would make a change like this to the scarab : let it go through units and move towards center of target, as soon as it collides with any ennemy unit, explode slightly smaller AoE
because even if you can manipulate it and overcome its defects etc, there is still quite a bit of luck involved in how big of a hit you get / whether you get a hit at all, and I personally don't like that. Also I think when it gets really good hits it is sometimes too strong. just my opinion though, still like them reavers!
When in doubt, don't change anything. This is exactly what was so good about BW, and what's caused problems in SC2. Blizzard wouldn't come out to nerf flavor-of-the-month strategies, even if they looked unbeatable (like the Bisu build and Fantasy's mech TvZ did for a while. There were others, but they were all before I started watching). There were patches, but they were very infrequent and usually very minor.
The game was what it was, and if there was some ridiculous strategy that looked imbalanced, it was the players' job to figure it out.
This man speaks the truth. Nowadays developers are too eager to patch (because community crying). Anyone who played LoL knows how the music goes: pros start abusing a champ = champ gets nerfed = pros find the next champ to abuse. No depth can develop because the game changes so fast people are still figuring things out. Altough that's not why SC2 is bad, it sure is a bad trend in e-sports.
I actually strongly/completely agree with this. I just happen to have this fantasy in my head, or this question, because it seems to be "impossible" to make a better game than BW, can BW itself be improved ? What are its flaws or limitations ? With more than a decade of play since the last patch, can we not think of how to make the game even deeper and more diverse with a bunch of changes ? I think they are interesting questions, even if the answers can be dangerous and bad. I believe that, if you give BW a bunch of changes mainly to some numbers, it should be possible to make more different strategies viable and to see units/upgrades we almost never see in game being used.
A better game than BW is possible, but it should be a new RTS. In order to improve upon BW, we would have to change so many things that it wouldn't be recognizable as the same game any more, because changing one thing causes a new problem, which needs its own fix, which causes a new problem, which needs its own fix.
I think that the successor to Brood War should have:
- More races
- More units
- More tech paths, both for the core of your army, like bio and mech, and for which support units to get, like the choice between arbiters and carriers in PvT.
- Micro in new ways. Abilities that have more interesting chronological and spatial aspects. Let's not settle for only a square which does damage over time - instead, we can have, for example, a circle which grows over time, and when re activated, causes damage to units inside. Also, normal attacks that have new properties. For example: unit auto attacks that can be dodged, and that will hit the first enemy that they come in to contact with, allowing players to block them with fodder units. All of the cool things about BW should still be here - we can still have things like psionic storm, for example. But we should have more than that in addition.
- Macro in new ways. Zerg is unique because of hatcheries and larvae. Terran and Protoss also have minor but significant differences. Let's develop this further. For example, we can have a race which can only build one unit at a time. With more money, they instead build more expensive units. They could also have a unit which is expensive in money but comes out extremely fast, functioning as a money dump. (Later on in the game they could gain the ability to build 2 or 3 units at a time).
- An economy that doesn't run out. Instead, the game should become more volatile, harder to control, and offense favoured with time to the eventual point of absurdity, to force matches to end. Bases could mine out, to allow for contains and starvation strategies, but return much later in the game. The point is that having a hard resource / time limit on games in un hype in my opinion.
- An endgame that takes longer to reach. There should be more levels of technology to unlock, and the last one should be very rarely reached.
- Maxing out should be slower, and rarer. The initial limit can be 200, but it should be possible to increase that limit by spending a lot of money. Again, it's about making the end game take more time to reach.
A game like this will never be made with commercial interests, because the market for people who are willing to put in effort in to an unforgiving game is too small. Our best bet is a programming and animating team which is
- Passionate about Brood War style RTS - Intelligent / Knowledgeable enough to pull it off - Funded by philanthropists
It is, however, possible to make money by selling two games in one, one of which would be this game. If one game is a single player game with a good story, and the other one is this balls to the walls multi player game, then it could be profitable. WarCraft III proved this. Casual gamers played single player and custom games. Only a few played the normal multi player game. But it did sell well.
I'm not in a hurry, though. I think that we can wait until Brood War is dead. Brood War is just fine.
^ Hard to call it a "successor" to Brood War when it is so drastically different. I can't envision that stuff in Brood War at all. As you said, it'd just be a completely different game, no need to tie it with Brood War in any way besides genre. Some of the stuff you proposed sounds interesting, and some I'd never ever want to see in an RTS. That just goes to show how hard it is to make a game like Brood War.
On December 27 2015 06:02 ProMeTheus112 wrote: so people do disagree about the scarab being a little broken! personally, if it was up to me I would make a change like this to the scarab : let it go through units and move towards center of target, as soon as it collides with any ennemy unit, explode slightly smaller AoE
because even if you can manipulate it and overcome its defects etc, there is still quite a bit of luck involved in how big of a hit you get / whether you get a hit at all, and I personally don't like that. Also I think when it gets really good hits it is sometimes too strong. just my opinion though, still like them reavers!
When in doubt, don't change anything. This is exactly what was so good about BW, and what's caused problems in SC2. Blizzard wouldn't come out to nerf flavor-of-the-month strategies, even if they looked unbeatable (like the Bisu build and Fantasy's mech TvZ did for a while. There were others, but they were all before I started watching). There were patches, but they were very infrequent and usually very minor.
The game was what it was, and if there was some ridiculous strategy that looked imbalanced, it was the players' job to figure it out.
This man speaks the truth. Nowadays developers are too eager to patch (because community crying). Anyone who played LoL knows how the music goes: pros start abusing a champ = champ gets nerfed = pros find the next champ to abuse. No depth can develop because the game changes so fast people are still figuring things out. Altough that's not why SC2 is bad, it sure is a bad trend in e-sports.
I actually strongly/completely agree with this. I just happen to have this fantasy in my head, or this question, because it seems to be "impossible" to make a better game than BW, can BW itself be improved ? What are its flaws or limitations ? With more than a decade of play since the last patch, can we not think of how to make the game even deeper and more diverse with a bunch of changes ? I think they are interesting questions, even if the answers can be dangerous and bad. I believe that, if you give BW a bunch of changes mainly to some numbers, it should be possible to make more different strategies viable and to see units/upgrades we almost never see in game being used.
A better game than BW is possible, but it should be a new RTS.
I think that the successor to Brood War should have:
- More races
- More units
It is, however, possible to make money by selling two games in one, one of which would be this game. If one game is a single player game with a good story, and the other one is this balls to the walls multi player game, then it could be profitable. WarCraft III proved this. Casual gamers played single player and custom games. Only a few played the normal multi player game. But it did sell well.
I'm not in a hurry, though. I think that we can wait until Brood War is dead. Brood War is just fine.
Adding more units and more races would make balance an absolute nightmare. Each new race and unit would make it a giant clusterfuck to balance.
And I dont think your WC3 idea holds up, Warcraft III sold significantly less than Starcraft. With RTS being less and less popular, I can't see such an idea being that profitable when you could use the same resources to make a game in a popular genre and easier to balance. Most genres over the last 20 years have sold more, more, and more. The cost to make the games has also increased with that. RTS is one of those genres that hasn't actually grown at all when it comes to sales, which is telling of the genre.
I dont see it happening in our lifetime.
Ultimately who would make it? There's not a single person or team you can trust to make it reliably, and even if it was really good, RTS isn't really popular so would a competitive community stick around? Looking at RTSes on Steam...even the ones that are released in the last 2 years.... not gonna happen.
A big problem which can also be seen in this thread is the at least partial prevalence of an elitist attitude in the oldschool BW players. If the prevalent reaction to any complaint is some variation of "git gud scrub" or "l2p", a lot of players will simply decide to play another game instead. Which is probably not want you want, because if you want to keep on playing the game, you will need to make it attractive to new players, or you will have to deal with an ever shrinking playerbase, which once it falls under some critical level means you will have problems finding people to play with.
As someone who is not an oldschool BW player, i notice a lot of very archaic mechanics in the game. Now, the people who have played BW for 15+ years are used to them and even justify them as reasonable, as can be seen by Jealous in this thread. I am still not entirely convinced that that is not just some sort of Stockholm syndrome where you dealt with the weird shit for so long that you think it is actually a good idea.
Maybe i am too casual for BW, but then i think most people who haven't played BW for ages are. To me, artificial barriers that stand between what i want units to do and what they actually do are just annoying, not some genius idea to display my leet APM. If i tell my units to go somewhere, i would like them to go there, instead of walking around in circles because they are stupid. Sure, i can combat that by telling them how to go there in exactly the specific way they like, which is way more complicated. To an oldschool BW player this might be mechanical complexity. To someone who is new to the game, it is just annoying archaic bad programming. If i want to build 5 tanks, why do i have to tell each factory to build one one after another?
Maybe i am getting to old, but there are already enough stressful things for me to take care of during the game without it actively trying to misinterpret my orders and making me state them in a very specific way.
A big problem is also that apperently the game simply isn't a lot of fun before you get good at it, which is highly problematic as it makes it unlikely for people like me to actually be interested in getting good at it.
Of course, the simple answer is "Git gud", which makes you happy as you have established that you are now more hardcore than i am. It also means that soon, you will have problems finding new players to play. And a ladder system that requires everyone to crush a buttload of noobs at the start of a season is the last thing you want if you want to ever find new players. There are ladder systems that are a lot better at providing even matchups to everyone.
As much as you might hate it, if you want BW to continue, you need to attract new players. And telling everyone that they are scrubs and they need to be better, then it will be fun, but first they need to lose 100+ games, will make most of them quit and just play something else. Being an elitist gatekeeper only letting in the "worthy" will not benefit you in the long run.
You are right Simberto and I agree with you about the "git gud" syndrome as a shortcut answer to concerns about mechanics. I would add however, that with these mechanics it depends what we are talking about exactly. For example, building 5 tanks from factories, or probes not automining, that stuff could be improved by allowing facts in 1 group or automining like SC2 (even AoE2 has automine), and the consequences for BW would be positive. 12 unit max selection is a bit hard to defend nowadays, but I think it's not really such a big deal for any seasoned RTS player to make some control groups, plus it does hold the not-insignificant advantage of always having the unit-squares interface easy to read and use at the bottom. We all know though even at high level sometimes it's difficult to rely on control groups in some situations and then not being able to select more than 12 units can actually be a problem due to the sheer speed needed. But it's not a huge problem, many times you pretty much need not to select more than 12 units at a time to give different orders, and as we know it's not fair at all to judge the game on such things not mentioning the good, that you don't find in any other game (including mechanically).
About the pathfinding, OK there are a few pathfinding bugs that are annoying like you said (though most of the pathfinding bugs are easy to get around, just click a few more times to get down a choke or hit stop if your goon stops responding, that's about it? most of the rest is just regular micro with a good collision/movement system that makes it possible to block/hamper units movements and getting in range or targetting things or spreading/positioning your forces can be done in multiple ways), but the thing is that it's not fair to focus on these flaws (which can be called "archaïc" as they pretty much are), because aside from that, the pathfinding and mechanics of battles in BW are actually... the best that you can find in any RTS (Warcraft 3 mechanics are very close and I would say in some ways a perfection of that system = without the bugs though there is I think less variety in types of movements), and they are a huge reason for the depth and quality of the game.
So it's kind of hard to know how to reply to someone who criticizes it harshly, without acknowledging the qualities of the game that is lacked by other games such as SC2 because they oversimplified some mechanics. We must recognize what are actually flaws in BW, how bad they really are (how easy or not it is to get around them and the consequences at low and high level of play), and how good the rest really is. And when you talk or reply to someone especially on a forum you are not sure what they are trying to convey so we must try to keep an open mind and not necessarily assume they're trying to trash BW unfairly on purpose
On December 29 2015 23:24 Simberto wrote: A big problem which can also be seen in this thread is the at least partial prevalence of an elitist attitude in the oldschool BW players. If the prevalent reaction to any complaint is some variation of "git gud scrub" or "l2p", a lot of players will simply decide to play another game instead. Which is probably not want you want, because if you want to keep on playing the game, you will need to make it attractive to new players, or you will have to deal with an ever shrinking playerbase, which once it falls under some critical level means you will have problems finding people to play with.
As someone who is not an oldschool BW player, i notice a lot of very archaic mechanics in the game. Now, the people who have played BW for 15+ years are used to them and even justify them as reasonable, as can be seen by Jealous in this thread. I am still not entirely convinced that that is not just some sort of Stockholm syndrome where you dealt with the weird shit for so long that you think it is actually a good idea.
Maybe i am too casual for BW, but then i think most people who haven't played BW for ages are. To me, artificial barriers that stand between what i want units to do and what they actually do are just annoying, not some genius idea to display my leet APM. If i tell my units to go somewhere, i would like them to go there, instead of walking around in circles because they are stupid. Sure, i can combat that by telling them how to go there in exactly the specific way they like, which is way more complicated. To an oldschool BW player this might be mechanical complexity. To someone who is new to the game, it is just annoying archaic bad programming. If i want to build 5 tanks, why do i have to tell each factory to build one one after another?
Maybe i am getting to old, but there are already enough stressful things for me to take care of during the game without it actively trying to misinterpret my orders and making me state them in a very specific way.
A big problem is also that apperently the game simply isn't a lot of fun before you get good at it, which is highly problematic as it makes it unlikely for people like me to actually be interested in getting good at it.
Of course, the simple answer is "Git gud", which makes you happy as you have established that you are now more hardcore than i am. It also means that soon, you will have problems finding new players to play. And a ladder system that requires everyone to crush a buttload of noobs at the start of a season is the last thing you want if you want to ever find new players. There are ladder systems that are a lot better at providing even matchups to everyone.
As much as you might hate it, if you want BW to continue, you need to attract new players. And telling everyone that they are scrubs and they need to be better, then it will be fun, but first they need to lose 100+ games, will make most of them quit and just play something else. Being an elitist gatekeeper only letting in the "worthy" will not benefit you in the long run.
I understand where you're coming from but you have to appreciate a few things. First your example of the 5 factories is not a particularly good one. In SC2 you also have to press T (or whatever hotkey you use) 5 times to make 5 tanks. You can indeed select all 5 factories at once, on the other hand they butchered the UI so bad that the information of whether or not your factories are building something is a small white square at the bottom of the screen. You'd expect more from a modern game.
The pathfinding is really retarded sometimes, granted. Only change I'd make is when you tell units to go somewhere impossible (blocked by other units, buildings or terrain) they would get as close as possible to the destination and stop, instead of running around like morons. Everything else I think it's fine.
The thing you're missing though, in the words of Day9, is that BW is an inefficiency engine, meaning it's trying to fuck you up the entire time, and your job is to not let it. That's part of what makes a good **real time** strategy game. If you make it so everything repetitive is automatic then might as well make it turn based. Why not make it so production buildings have a switch where you can tell it to just build a specific unit continuously? So you don't have to macro anymore. I'm sure a lot of players are bummed that they have to keep making units over and over, this would certainly make them more interested in playing. You could automatize the larva injection in SC2 as well, or the building scarabs in BW. Certainly would help the slower players. The thing is there are already games made for those people, games like Civ 5 or Chess.
Some people, like myself, enjoy the mechanical challenge. I've got an above average hand-eye coordination and am naturally attracted to games where this skill can give me an edge. I understand there are lots of people that don't, but that doesn't make me a nostalgic stockholm syndrom blind fanboy. It's just the way it is.
On December 29 2015 13:15 Jealous wrote: ^ Hard to call it a "successor" to Brood War when it is so drastically different. I can't envision that stuff in Brood War at all. As you said, it'd just be a completely different game, no need to tie it with Brood War in any way besides genre. Some of the stuff you proposed sounds interesting, and some I'd never ever want to see in an RTS. That just goes to show how hard it is to make a game like Brood War.
i think a "successor" to broodwar will build on the mechanics that made BW so amazing, being the scarcity of time for players in each game (and having to allocate APM/attention). SC2 and broodwar are basically different genres because they're so different in this regard..
I think it's been said a million times, but 12 unit max selection was a design decision, not a limitation. You might disagree with it, but the game was made for a different demographic and for a different purpose.
I really like Brood War and the way it plays; There's really very few things I'd change. The things I'd change are thing like make resource gathering more consistent so it's easier to make maps (left vs right geyser issues; the more severe mineral pathing issues). I would probably fix the glitch that freezes a unit until you hit stop (seems to happen almost exclusively with marines and dragoons when issuing certain commands very rapidly). I would fix the stack bug that sometimes makes units glitch on top of each other on a ramp. I would probably say you shouldn't be able to make a lurker perma cloaked using an arbiter even though it never comes up in a real game.
So mostly things that are just annoying bugs or obviously not correct. But things like units getting confused around a Terran wall-in, while not intuitive, add strategic depth to the game that need not be removed. Not being able to multi select buildings adds a dimension of depth to the game where you can spend a lot of time thinking about good building placement.
I would potentially say the ability to dictate what side of the building your unit appears on is a worthy improvement that SC2 had, again for the reason of creating balanced maps being easier.
Stuff that messes with core gameplay is dumb though. I don't at all mind that vultures can shoot backwards, or that units occasionally get lost, or that getting your army up a ramp requires your attention. I think those are all cool aspects of the game that players utilize in interesting and creative ways, and many of them play a good part in the balance of the game. Same with inconsistent unit and building sizes and the way they make walls. Yes it's confusing to the person who has played only 20 games of StarCraft and doesn't know why their wall doesn't work. But it's one of those elements in StarCraft that is fun to learn about, and what ultimately really satisfies so many StarCraft nerds the world over; you're rewarded for studying and analysing the game, playing what's different. You also have plenty of opportunity to avoid the things you're less clear on. Learning that supply depot over barracks is ling tight, but barracks over supply depot is not is not anymore arcane and weird than learning marines lose ten hp for using stim packs, or siege tanks will splash damage your allied units but lurkers won't, or every unit has it's own special damage type and the only way to learn them is by looking at the manual. Or that units always prioritize military units over peons, or any number of random things that make up the rules of a game which is beloved for its complexity and depth, its wow factor of "I didn't know you could do that!" where even people who've been playing for ten years will be surprised its possible to select a type of unit by its wire-frame, or hit space to see the last transmission. You don't need to know every rule to have fun and enjoy the game, that's kind of what makes video games cool for a lot of people. Just discover as you play.
Of all games, StarCraft was not one you learn and then move onto the next one because you've mastered it. The fact that there's always something to learn, and there isn't only one way to improve like just to be faster and make less mistakes, is a virtue. When you just know something your opponent doesn't, and they know something you don't, it's really a satisfying dynamic that creates individual play styles at all levels. I can think of very few games I can say that about, let alone when they've been around so long. Muta stack with magic boxes being discovered after like 6 years of professional play is one hilarious and wonderful example. Muta micro vs scourge another really interesting, but to the novice confusing and difficult, development that happened way into Brood War's life. And also a crowd pleaser, due to the technical proficiency required even of pros to do it consistently. Try explaining the chinese triangle method to someone who has played for five years, and it's still confusing and mystical. Something to try to get good at.
Man I could rant forever about Brood War. Modernize it to be easier to master and memorise the ins and outs, and it's just not Brood War anymore. I really don't think that means its inaccessible, it just means someone playing for 3 months is not likely to beat someone whose played 2 years, or 2 years vs someone who played for 6 years. And like... why do you expect that. You don't think 1dan can beat 9dan, 9dan can beat 3p. 900 rating can beat 1400. 1400 can beat 2200. The dedication to get to those levels is measured in years and decades. That's why it doesn't sound that weird when BW is given the honour of being compared to such games. I want to be able to coordinate a giant army, keep macro running, think about strategy, and keep track of what my opponent is doing. I want to be able to plan 10 moves ahead. Okay, it's not easy, and you need to memorise a lot of weird little things to have any hope of doing it. If you're not a nerd you probably won't have fun. Intellectual games were made for nerds.
On December 29 2015 23:24 Simberto wrote: A big problem which can also be seen in this thread is the at least partial prevalence of an elitist attitude in the oldschool BW players. If the prevalent reaction to any complaint is some variation of "git gud scrub" or "l2p", a lot of players will simply decide to play another game instead. Which is probably not want you want, because if you want to keep on playing the game, you will need to make it attractive to new players, or you will have to deal with an ever shrinking playerbase, which once it falls under some critical level means you will have problems finding people to play with.
As someone who is not an oldschool BW player, i notice a lot of very archaic mechanics in the game. Now, the people who have played BW for 15+ years are used to them and even justify them as reasonable, as can be seen by Jealous in this thread. I am still not entirely convinced that that is not just some sort of Stockholm syndrome where you dealt with the weird shit for so long that you think it is actually a good idea.
Maybe i am too casual for BW, but then i think most people who haven't played BW for ages are. To me, artificial barriers that stand between what i want units to do and what they actually do are just annoying, not some genius idea to display my leet APM. If i tell my units to go somewhere, i would like them to go there, instead of walking around in circles because they are stupid. Sure, i can combat that by telling them how to go there in exactly the specific way they like, which is way more complicated. To an oldschool BW player this might be mechanical complexity. To someone who is new to the game, it is just annoying archaic bad programming. If i want to build 5 tanks, why do i have to tell each factory to build one one after another?
Maybe i am getting to old, but there are already enough stressful things for me to take care of during the game without it actively trying to misinterpret my orders and making me state them in a very specific way.
A big problem is also that apperently the game simply isn't a lot of fun before you get good at it, which is highly problematic as it makes it unlikely for people like me to actually be interested in getting good at it.
Of course, the simple answer is "Git gud", which makes you happy as you have established that you are now more hardcore than i am. It also means that soon, you will have problems finding new players to play. And a ladder system that requires everyone to crush a buttload of noobs at the start of a season is the last thing you want if you want to ever find new players. There are ladder systems that are a lot better at providing even matchups to everyone.
As much as you might hate it, if you want BW to continue, you need to attract new players. And telling everyone that they are scrubs and they need to be better, then it will be fun, but first they need to lose 100+ games, will make most of them quit and just play something else. Being an elitist gatekeeper only letting in the "worthy" will not benefit you in the long run.
I understand where you're coming from but you have to appreciate a few things. First your example of the 5 factories is not a particularly good one. In SC2 you also have to press T (or whatever hotkey you use) 5 times to make 5 tanks. You can indeed select all 5 factories at once, on the other hand they butchered the UI so bad that the information of whether or not your factories are building something is a small white square at the bottom of the screen. You'd expect more from a modern game.
The pathfinding is really retarded sometimes, granted. Only change I'd make is when you tell units to go somewhere impossible (blocked by other units, buildings or terrain) they would get as close as possible to the destination and stop, instead of running around like morons. Everything else I think it's fine.
The thing you're missing though, in the words of Day9, is that BW is an inefficiency engine, meaning it's trying to fuck you up the entire time, and your job is to not let it. That's part of what makes a good **real time** strategy game. If you make it so everything repetitive is automatic then might as well make it turn based. Why not make it so production buildings have a switch where you can tell it to just build a specific unit continuously? So you don't have to macro anymore. I'm sure a lot of players are bummed that they have to keep making units over and over, this would certainly make them more interested in playing. You could automatize the larva injection in SC2 as well, or the building scarabs in BW. Certainly would help the slower players. The thing is there are already games made for those people, games like Civ 5 or Chess.
Some people, like myself, enjoy the mechanical challenge. I've got an above average hand-eye coordination and am naturally attracted to games where this skill can give me an edge. I understand there are lots of people that don't, but that doesn't make me a nostalgic stockholm syndrom blind fanboy. It's just the way it is.
Ok, i guess in that case the main problem (for me) is that that concept simply does not appeal to me. I dislike the idea of artificial mechanical barriers, to me the ideal interface is one where i think about what i want to happen, and then it happens, making the whole thing about the quality of the decisions as opposed of my trained capability of not fucking up large amounts of different things at once. I hate being in a situation where i know what the correct response to a given situation is, but i can't make the game do it in time due to interface constraints.
This is also the first time if have heard of BW being talked about like that, usually the discussions are about the depth of strategy and so on, with the mechanics basically being something you need to deal with to reach that juicy core of strategy below it, as opposed to the main meat of the game being the mechanics and the struggle with a computer just reacting very weirdly to inputs so you have to learn many very specific things to do at once in an "inefficiency engine"
I still think that it is possible to have a game that is based on real time decision making and adapting your strategy to the changing situation without putting artifical APM wasters in the way of it to fuel your "inefficiency engine". To me, a lot of the BW style mechanics are something that is in the way of the fun of the game, which would be thinking about strategies, but apparently to you those (to me) annoying useless interface complexities are what you actually want.
On December 27 2015 15:28 Thieving Magpie wrote: Telling people they have to read a forum in order to make sense of a game is the opposite of transparency.
The reason SC1 and BW is good is because the story of the campaign is good, and it gives you enough practice to click around the game. That way, when you log on to Bnet, you have some idea what you're expected to do.
The fact that you have to go through paragraphs to explain to people how a scarab is shot is evidence that BW is too opaque. This is not necessarily bad, no need to become defensive about people pointing it out.
Telling people they have to read a forum in order to get better at a game is no different than getting a teacher/coach/training partner in real life. No one picks up a soccer ball and instantly understands team dynamics, how to apply curve to the ball, or how to do a rainbow. No one picks up a football and understands the hundreds of possible team plays, how to throw or kick the football properly. No one goes to the first day of class ready to take the final, they have to read a book, listen to lectures, etc. I could go on but you get the idea.
The reason SC1 and BW are good is because the dice fell in such a manner that near-perfect racial balance was achieved between non-homogenous races. Compare this to WC2 where the two races are practically identical but everyone knows Orcs are stronger than Humans because of Bloodlust. This unique equilibrium, combined with the mechanical demands of macro and micro that have an impossibly high ceiling, and with the burgeoning Korean tech and economic scene in the 90's/00's led this game to become highly competitive and therefore thoroughly explored and understood. Because of this, the amount of information gathered and the reasons behind the perfection and viability of certain builds can only be understood through research. No one plays the campaign and comes up with Forge Fast Expand vs. Zerg. However, this is not a matter of transparency. All of the elements of pro play can be explained in a clear way that utilizes knowledge you get in the campaign, or can pull from single player play. A Forge under a Gateway makes a tight wall (this is the only place where I will admit there is a requirement for trial-and-error, because without that or research you will not know that buildings leave a certain amount of space on either side despite being forced into a box grid). Cannons are good against Zerglings, but only when they aren't exposed. Corsairs do AoE damage and are good against air units, and they move fast. When Zealots get +1, they can kill Zerglings who have 0 carapace in 1 hit less. That's simple math. All of these things are intuitive, or at least can be learned from basic play or logic. Combining them all into one cohesive build that has been perfected through thousands of hours of play and explained in a single A4 sheet is no different than hiring a tutor to explain to you how to solve a calculus problem. You know what math is, but you need someone to explain to you the higher echelons of it. Because let's face it, people aren't complaining about not being able to complete the campaign (although I get the impression that many of the people in this thread haven't even touched it, because they think that Marines don't have a shooting animation or whatever). They are complaining about not being able to compete with people who have some of this knowledge, from being taught by VODs, replays, and forums. A trained athlete will beat your average chump in his sport of choice the majority of the time.
I don't have to go through paragraphs to explain how a Scarab works. I go through paragraphs of hypothetical situations to illustrate how to use Scarabs effectively, why this is effective, and why they were doing it wrong in the past. I can explain how Scarabs work in one sentence:
Reavers fire Scarabs which home in on their ground-based enemy if they are readily accessible, dealing AoE damage on impact or expiring if they do not connect with their target after x time.
This seems like common sense to me. Seems like something you'd learn in the campaign. However, some people don't understand why shooting a Scarab at a wall might make the Scarab not work, or why a Scarab has a hard time hitting a moving target, despite all of these things being logical and potentially understood through playing the campaign, as you said. Show me a game where shooting a homing missile at a wall still nets you a kill, and I'll show you a bad/unrealistic game.
The reason I proffer defense is because these people make complaints about aspects of the game as if they are game-breaking, as if they are the reason these people quit playing this game. What's more hilarious is that they make these complaints on the very forum that they can search and read to get answers to their qualms. Instead of spending 2 minutes writing a post about how Scarabs are stupid, they could spend those 2 minutes searching and realize that in fact it is them as a player that is lacking, not the Scarab. I see it as a cop-out, an excuse to give up when the going gets tough. If people meet a wall, a problem, and say "fuck that, that's bullshit," and quit without putting any effort into investigating the issue or improving their understanding/play, those people aren't credible sources on what is or what is not in this game. Hundreds of thousands of people have overcome Scarab gripes, because they had a different attitude about it. I'm not here to give pats on the backs of quitters and tell them that they are right, that it is bullshit, that it is unfair. Because it isn't.
On December 28 2015 09:40 Thieving Magpie wrote: Somewhere along "third party website," "high barrier of entry," and "requires minimum level of dexterity" is where people get frustrated the most.
This is the truth. People are too used to having their diapers changed throughout a videogame nowadays. For example:
It tells you what buttons to press, in a fighting game. Granted this is a "cutscene" of sorts, but look at how COOL it is. Just pressing 3-4 buttons every 15 seconds makes it look like you've accomplished insanely complex combinations when really this guy doesn't even 4 star every exchange (and he died earlier in the video, btw; still gets 2.3 million views on YouTube and feels like a champ). In order to win the final exchange all he had to do was spam B faster than the computer's ~100 BPM. Congratulations, you beat Sasuke on hard mode.
This is similar to certain FPS games where dogs jump on your neck and the game tells you to spam E or whatever in order to get it off. You're being baby-sat through the experience. They don't want anyone to die not knowing why they died or how to not die. The dog is more or less irrelevant as a result, maybe does 5% damage when you don't shoot it in time.
This concept is further extrapolated to SC2 where units move fluidly and unrealistically over terrain and ergonomically in large balls. This is part of the reason why people have such a hard time moving from SC2 to BW; they have gotten pampered with unrealistically good AI/army movement, and now they expect it in other games as well.
Obviously, casual gaming is the biggest criminal here. Having oversaturated the gaming market with easy, low-risk low-skill high-reward games, it has diluted people's willingness to struggle, suffer, and study a game. My mom said once, "Why does it have to be so hard? Games are supposed to be fun," about a different game. This is the mentality.
Basically, people are casuals and tried a game that is not intended for casual players, got crushed and then complain about it on forums without knowing hardly anything about the game. That's why I defend.
On December 27 2015 15:28 Thieving Magpie wrote: Telling people they have to read a forum in order to make sense of a game is the opposite of transparency.
The reason SC1 and BW is good is because the story of the campaign is good, and it gives you enough practice to click around the game. That way, when you log on to Bnet, you have some idea what you're expected to do.
The fact that you have to go through paragraphs to explain to people how a scarab is shot is evidence that BW is too opaque. This is not necessarily bad, no need to become defensive about people pointing it out.
to be fair, the reaver/scarabs are easily one of the most complex unit/mechanic in the game compared to a lot of other units which are pretty straight forward to understand how they work.
Like I said, its not bad to be opaque. Looking at chess pieces without reading a book/thread/teacher is not intuitive. Football is intuitive once you're told "don't use your hands" and basketball is intuitive when you're told you can't walk around while holding the ball, nor kick it. But NFL football is not intuitive at all.
Kicking a ball is intuitive. But if you've only kicked a ball and have had no outside influences, as you seem to desire, and decided to join your local soccer club, you will look like a fool. You have to know how to pass, leading pass, cross, not be off-sides, not pass off-sides, to stay in your area and not just chase the ball but at the same time know when to move up and back, when to pick a man, so on and so forth. Nothing at a competitive level is intuitive, until you train it to be so through practice and experience. Why should competitive StarCraft be any different?
If they want to play 1v1 computer, they probably have the luxury of placing their Reaver wherever they goddamn well please. If they want to play 1v1 ICCup, they need to realize they have to learn something about the game before trying to be competitive at it, not complain on forums that it's bugged or whatever. Imagine if you joined a high school team and had that mentality. Let's assume that due to the circumstances you are allowed to be on the field (small school, let's say). You play against the enemy team, but for 10 minutes all you do is chase the ball down, because all you've ever done is play with yourself and kick the ball so that is what you will do. Coach takes you off and tells you you're playing like an idiot. "But I don't understand, I'm supposed to kick the ball! This is stupid, I quit," vs. "Coach, what can I do to get better?"
It's the mentality.
EDIT: The goal of golf, Nascar, and sprinting might be intuitive, but its acquisition is not. Have you ever tried to do a line drive in golf? You're not Happy Gilmore, you won't get it on your first or tenth or hundredth try; that number might decrease if someone teaches you proper form. Nascar? Tell me when constantly switching gears, pumping the brakes, navigating a track with a dozen other cars, knowing when to take a pitstop, and a multitude of other factors become intuitive. Surely it's not on your first practice lap. Sprints are close, but have you ever used a starting block? Granted I was young when I ran track, but jumping off the blocks was not the easiest thing in the world to grasp; it felt clumsy and forced. Then you get into breathing patterns, knee height, stride length vs. speed. As I said, nothing at a competitive level is intuitive until you've learned it and practiced it.
You don't have to explain yourself to me. As I said, it doesn't really matter how transparent the game is.
But do know that being transparent is not about how easy a game is to master. Golf is intuitive because it's just about hitting balls really far into a tiny hole. Sure you don't master *how* to do it, but you could figure out a lot on your own without a teacher. With nascar it's easy to see that all you have to do is drive in circles for hours on end--the details such as put stops, wind resistance, clutch control, etc... Those are things you can master once you're playing the game. That's what is meant by transparency.
Workers don't mine when they're made--why? You can select many units, but only one building--why? Etc...
Those aren't "bad" aspects of the game--but it's definitely a question I've had to answer and argue over when introducing the game to others.
Why is my unit stuck between pylons? "He only gets out on that side of the gateway, you should have put your pylons somewhere else"
What does creep do? "Nothing" But it's everywhere. "I know, ignore it"
Etc...
People don't really ask these questions in SC2. Because a lot of what other games do, SC2 does as well. The questions in SC2 is "what unit does well against that? What should I make? Etc..."
Could SC2 be more user friendly? Yeah, it could be clash of clans. The point is, you don't have to defend BW's honor if people don't like it.
On December 29 2015 23:24 Simberto wrote: A big problem which can also be seen in this thread is the at least partial prevalence of an elitist attitude in the oldschool BW players. If the prevalent reaction to any complaint is some variation of "git gud scrub" or "l2p", a lot of players will simply decide to play another game instead. Which is probably not want you want, because if you want to keep on playing the game, you will need to make it attractive to new players, or you will have to deal with an ever shrinking playerbase, which once it falls under some critical level means you will have problems finding people to play with.
As someone who is not an oldschool BW player, i notice a lot of very archaic mechanics in the game. Now, the people who have played BW for 15+ years are used to them and even justify them as reasonable, as can be seen by Jealous in this thread. I am still not entirely convinced that that is not just some sort of Stockholm syndrome where you dealt with the weird shit for so long that you think it is actually a good idea.
Maybe i am too casual for BW, but then i think most people who haven't played BW for ages are. To me, artificial barriers that stand between what i want units to do and what they actually do are just annoying, not some genius idea to display my leet APM. If i tell my units to go somewhere, i would like them to go there, instead of walking around in circles because they are stupid. Sure, i can combat that by telling them how to go there in exactly the specific way they like, which is way more complicated. To an oldschool BW player this might be mechanical complexity. To someone who is new to the game, it is just annoying archaic bad programming. If i want to build 5 tanks, why do i have to tell each factory to build one one after another?
Maybe i am getting to old, but there are already enough stressful things for me to take care of during the game without it actively trying to misinterpret my orders and making me state them in a very specific way.
A big problem is also that apperently the game simply isn't a lot of fun before you get good at it, which is highly problematic as it makes it unlikely for people like me to actually be interested in getting good at it.
Of course, the simple answer is "Git gud", which makes you happy as you have established that you are now more hardcore than i am. It also means that soon, you will have problems finding new players to play. And a ladder system that requires everyone to crush a buttload of noobs at the start of a season is the last thing you want if you want to ever find new players. There are ladder systems that are a lot better at providing even matchups to everyone.
As much as you might hate it, if you want BW to continue, you need to attract new players. And telling everyone that they are scrubs and they need to be better, then it will be fun, but first they need to lose 100+ games, will make most of them quit and just play something else. Being an elitist gatekeeper only letting in the "worthy" will not benefit you in the long run.
I understand where you're coming from but you have to appreciate a few things. First your example of the 5 factories is not a particularly good one. In SC2 you also have to press T (or whatever hotkey you use) 5 times to make 5 tanks. You can indeed select all 5 factories at once, on the other hand they butchered the UI so bad that the information of whether or not your factories are building something is a small white square at the bottom of the screen. You'd expect more from a modern game.
The pathfinding is really retarded sometimes, granted. Only change I'd make is when you tell units to go somewhere impossible (blocked by other units, buildings or terrain) they would get as close as possible to the destination and stop, instead of running around like morons. Everything else I think it's fine.
The thing you're missing though, in the words of Day9, is that BW is an inefficiency engine, meaning it's trying to fuck you up the entire time, and your job is to not let it. That's part of what makes a good **real time** strategy game. If you make it so everything repetitive is automatic then might as well make it turn based. Why not make it so production buildings have a switch where you can tell it to just build a specific unit continuously? So you don't have to macro anymore. I'm sure a lot of players are bummed that they have to keep making units over and over, this would certainly make them more interested in playing. You could automatize the larva injection in SC2 as well, or the building scarabs in BW. Certainly would help the slower players. The thing is there are already games made for those people, games like Civ 5 or Chess.
Some people, like myself, enjoy the mechanical challenge. I've got an above average hand-eye coordination and am naturally attracted to games where this skill can give me an edge. I understand there are lots of people that don't, but that doesn't make me a nostalgic stockholm syndrom blind fanboy. It's just the way it is.
Ok, i guess in that case the main problem (for me) is that that concept simply does not appeal to me. I dislike the idea of artificial mechanical barriers, to me the ideal interface is one where i think about what i want to happen, and then it happens, making the whole thing about the quality of the decisions as opposed of my trained capability of not fucking up large amounts of different things at once. I hate being in a situation where i know what the correct response to a given situation is, but i can't make the game do it in time due to interface constraints.
This is also the first time if have heard of BW being talked about like that, usually the discussions are about the depth of strategy and so on, with the mechanics basically being something you need to deal with to reach that juicy core of strategy below it, as opposed to the main meat of the game being the mechanics and the struggle with a computer just reacting very weirdly to inputs so you have to learn many very specific things to do at once in an "inefficiency engine"
I still think that it is possible to have a game that is based on real time decision making and adapting your strategy to the changing situation without putting artifical APM wasters in the way of it to fuel your "inefficiency engine". To me, a lot of the BW style mechanics are something that is in the way of the fun of the game, which would be thinking about strategies, but apparently to you those (to me) annoying useless interface complexities are what you actually want.
You throw the word "artificial" around like there's some other kind of "APM wasters". Everything is artificial; it's a scale that can be balanced based on what kind of a game you want. On one side you have turn-based games, which don't require any mechanical skill and on other side, you have something like Warcraft 2, which have a lot of mechanical demands (and yes, there are still people who play and enjoy Warcraft 2). Saying you prefer one kind of an "APM waster" (larva injection in SC2) over another (telling workers to mine minerals manually in BW) is pretty much meaningless. BW has a good balance between mechanical demands and "wanting things to happen, and then they happen", which millions of people have enjoyed and loved. It's obvious you prefer something that's leaning more towards the turn-based games and with less mechanical demands, but that is highly subjective matter and doesn't answer the question "which way is better?".
On December 29 2015 23:24 Simberto wrote: A big problem which can also be seen in this thread is the at least partial prevalence of an elitist attitude in the oldschool BW players. If the prevalent reaction to any complaint is some variation of "git gud scrub" or "l2p", a lot of players will simply decide to play another game instead. Which is probably not want you want, because if you want to keep on playing the game, you will need to make it attractive to new players, or you will have to deal with an ever shrinking playerbase, which once it falls under some critical level means you will have problems finding people to play with.
As someone who is not an oldschool BW player, i notice a lot of very archaic mechanics in the game. Now, the people who have played BW for 15+ years are used to them and even justify them as reasonable, as can be seen by Jealous in this thread. I am still not entirely convinced that that is not just some sort of Stockholm syndrome where you dealt with the weird shit for so long that you think it is actually a good idea.
Maybe i am too casual for BW, but then i think most people who haven't played BW for ages are. To me, artificial barriers that stand between what i want units to do and what they actually do are just annoying, not some genius idea to display my leet APM. If i tell my units to go somewhere, i would like them to go there, instead of walking around in circles because they are stupid. Sure, i can combat that by telling them how to go there in exactly the specific way they like, which is way more complicated. To an oldschool BW player this might be mechanical complexity. To someone who is new to the game, it is just annoying archaic bad programming. If i want to build 5 tanks, why do i have to tell each factory to build one one after another?
Maybe i am getting to old, but there are already enough stressful things for me to take care of during the game without it actively trying to misinterpret my orders and making me state them in a very specific way.
A big problem is also that apperently the game simply isn't a lot of fun before you get good at it, which is highly problematic as it makes it unlikely for people like me to actually be interested in getting good at it.
Of course, the simple answer is "Git gud", which makes you happy as you have established that you are now more hardcore than i am. It also means that soon, you will have problems finding new players to play. And a ladder system that requires everyone to crush a buttload of noobs at the start of a season is the last thing you want if you want to ever find new players. There are ladder systems that are a lot better at providing even matchups to everyone.
As much as you might hate it, if you want BW to continue, you need to attract new players. And telling everyone that they are scrubs and they need to be better, then it will be fun, but first they need to lose 100+ games, will make most of them quit and just play something else. Being an elitist gatekeeper only letting in the "worthy" will not benefit you in the long run.
I understand where you're coming from but you have to appreciate a few things. First your example of the 5 factories is not a particularly good one. In SC2 you also have to press T (or whatever hotkey you use) 5 times to make 5 tanks. You can indeed select all 5 factories at once, on the other hand they butchered the UI so bad that the information of whether or not your factories are building something is a small white square at the bottom of the screen. You'd expect more from a modern game.
The pathfinding is really retarded sometimes, granted. Only change I'd make is when you tell units to go somewhere impossible (blocked by other units, buildings or terrain) they would get as close as possible to the destination and stop, instead of running around like morons. Everything else I think it's fine.
The thing you're missing though, in the words of Day9, is that BW is an inefficiency engine, meaning it's trying to fuck you up the entire time, and your job is to not let it. That's part of what makes a good **real time** strategy game. If you make it so everything repetitive is automatic then might as well make it turn based. Why not make it so production buildings have a switch where you can tell it to just build a specific unit continuously? So you don't have to macro anymore. I'm sure a lot of players are bummed that they have to keep making units over and over, this would certainly make them more interested in playing. You could automatize the larva injection in SC2 as well, or the building scarabs in BW. Certainly would help the slower players. The thing is there are already games made for those people, games like Civ 5 or Chess.
Some people, like myself, enjoy the mechanical challenge. I've got an above average hand-eye coordination and am naturally attracted to games where this skill can give me an edge. I understand there are lots of people that don't, but that doesn't make me a nostalgic stockholm syndrom blind fanboy. It's just the way it is.
Ok, i guess in that case the main problem (for me) is that that concept simply does not appeal to me. I dislike the idea of artificial mechanical barriers, to me the ideal interface is one where i think about what i want to happen, and then it happens, making the whole thing about the quality of the decisions as opposed of my trained capability of not fucking up large amounts of different things at once. I hate being in a situation where i know what the correct response to a given situation is, but i can't make the game do it in time due to interface constraints.
This is also the first time if have heard of BW being talked about like that, usually the discussions are about the depth of strategy and so on, with the mechanics basically being something you need to deal with to reach that juicy core of strategy below it, as opposed to the main meat of the game being the mechanics and the struggle with a computer just reacting very weirdly to inputs so you have to learn many very specific things to do at once in an "inefficiency engine"
I still think that it is possible to have a game that is based on real time decision making and adapting your strategy to the changing situation without putting artifical APM wasters in the way of it to fuel your "inefficiency engine". To me, a lot of the BW style mechanics are something that is in the way of the fun of the game, which would be thinking about strategies, but apparently to you those (to me) annoying useless interface complexities are what you actually want.
You throw the word "artificial" around like there's some other kind of "APM wasters". Everything is artificial; it's a scale that can be balanced based on what kind of a game you want. On one side you have turn-based games, which don't require any mechanical skill and on other side, you have something like Warcraft 2, which have a lot of mechanical demands (and yes, there are still people who play and enjoy Warcraft 2). Saying you prefer one kind of an "APM waster" (larva injection in SC2) over another (telling workers to mine minerals manually in BW) is pretty much meaningless. BW has a good balance between mechanical demands and "wanting things to happen, and then they happen", which millions of people have enjoyed and loved. It's obvious you prefer something that's leaning more towards the turn-based games and with less mechanical demands, but that is highly subjective matter and doesn't answer the question "which way is better?".
Just for context: most complaints by new players about SC2 is that it's too mechanically demanding for non-strategy decisions and they want those thing more automated--like injects, supply, etc...
It's only SC2 elites who talk down to new players that they just need to inject better and not get supply blocked.
On December 30 2015 01:58 Thieving Magpie wrote: Workers don't mine when they're made--why? You can select many units, but only one building--why? Etc...
Those aren't "bad" aspects of the game--but it's definitely a question I've had to answer and argue over when introducing the game to others.
Why is my unit stuck between pylons? "He only gets out on that side of the gateway, you should have put your pylons somewhere else"
What does creep do? "Nothing" But it's everywhere. "I know, ignore it"
Etc...
People don't really ask these questions in SC2. Because a lot of what other games do, SC2 does as well. The questions in SC2 is "what unit does well against that? What should I make? Etc..."
Could SC2 be more user friendly? Yeah, it could be clash of clans. The point is, you don't have to defend BW's honor if people don't like it.
I'm just cherry-picking here but not all your examples are true. Workers don't mine when they are made is true for every unit and pretty intuitive: No unit does anything without your command. It's as easy as that. Creep does let you build buildings as a zerg and prevents the enemy from building buildings so it does something. It even teaches you that in the campaign if I remember correctly.
Not arguing against anything you said, just correcting a few things.
On December 30 2015 01:58 Thieving Magpie wrote: Workers don't mine when they're made--why? You can select many units, but only one building--why? Etc...
Those aren't "bad" aspects of the game--but it's definitely a question I've had to answer and argue over when introducing the game to others.
Why is my unit stuck between pylons? "He only gets out on that side of the gateway, you should have put your pylons somewhere else"
What does creep do? "Nothing" But it's everywhere. "I know, ignore it"
Etc...
People don't really ask these questions in SC2. Because a lot of what other games do, SC2 does as well. The questions in SC2 is "what unit does well against that? What should I make? Etc..."
Could SC2 be more user friendly? Yeah, it could be clash of clans. The point is, you don't have to defend BW's honor if people don't like it.
I'm just cherry-picking here but not all your examples are true. Workers don't mine when they are made is true for every unit and pretty intuitive: No unit does anything without your command. It's as easy as that. Creep does let you build buildings as a zerg and prevents the enemy from building buildings so it does something. It even teaches you that in the campaign if I remember correctly.
Not arguing against anything you said, just correcting a few things.
The worker thing is actually a societal issue. C&C, Dune 2, Warcraft 3, age of empires, etc... All of them have some automation in regards to those things. Which is why I usually have to answer it.
They'd say things like "but harvesters just mine if something is nearby, the minerals are right there."
Creep is usually discussed as being like concrete slabs that don't speed up movement. They just assume that if buildings need them that that means units need them too.
It's not really about the specific issues, just on what I actually get asked. It's about the broader space inhabited by the game, and not the game itself.
On December 29 2015 23:24 Simberto wrote: A big problem which can also be seen in this thread is the at least partial prevalence of an elitist attitude in the oldschool BW players. If the prevalent reaction to any complaint is some variation of "git gud scrub" or "l2p", a lot of players will simply decide to play another game instead. Which is probably not want you want, because if you want to keep on playing the game, you will need to make it attractive to new players, or you will have to deal with an ever shrinking playerbase, which once it falls under some critical level means you will have problems finding people to play with.
As someone who is not an oldschool BW player, i notice a lot of very archaic mechanics in the game. Now, the people who have played BW for 15+ years are used to them and even justify them as reasonable, as can be seen by Jealous in this thread. I am still not entirely convinced that that is not just some sort of Stockholm syndrome where you dealt with the weird shit for so long that you think it is actually a good idea.
Maybe i am too casual for BW, but then i think most people who haven't played BW for ages are. To me, artificial barriers that stand between what i want units to do and what they actually do are just annoying, not some genius idea to display my leet APM. If i tell my units to go somewhere, i would like them to go there, instead of walking around in circles because they are stupid. Sure, i can combat that by telling them how to go there in exactly the specific way they like, which is way more complicated. To an oldschool BW player this might be mechanical complexity. To someone who is new to the game, it is just annoying archaic bad programming. If i want to build 5 tanks, why do i have to tell each factory to build one one after another?
Maybe i am getting to old, but there are already enough stressful things for me to take care of during the game without it actively trying to misinterpret my orders and making me state them in a very specific way.
A big problem is also that apperently the game simply isn't a lot of fun before you get good at it, which is highly problematic as it makes it unlikely for people like me to actually be interested in getting good at it.
Of course, the simple answer is "Git gud", which makes you happy as you have established that you are now more hardcore than i am. It also means that soon, you will have problems finding new players to play. And a ladder system that requires everyone to crush a buttload of noobs at the start of a season is the last thing you want if you want to ever find new players. There are ladder systems that are a lot better at providing even matchups to everyone.
As much as you might hate it, if you want BW to continue, you need to attract new players. And telling everyone that they are scrubs and they need to be better, then it will be fun, but first they need to lose 100+ games, will make most of them quit and just play something else. Being an elitist gatekeeper only letting in the "worthy" will not benefit you in the long run.
I understand where you're coming from but you have to appreciate a few things. First your example of the 5 factories is not a particularly good one. In SC2 you also have to press T (or whatever hotkey you use) 5 times to make 5 tanks. You can indeed select all 5 factories at once, on the other hand they butchered the UI so bad that the information of whether or not your factories are building something is a small white square at the bottom of the screen. You'd expect more from a modern game.
The pathfinding is really retarded sometimes, granted. Only change I'd make is when you tell units to go somewhere impossible (blocked by other units, buildings or terrain) they would get as close as possible to the destination and stop, instead of running around like morons. Everything else I think it's fine.
The thing you're missing though, in the words of Day9, is that BW is an inefficiency engine, meaning it's trying to fuck you up the entire time, and your job is to not let it. That's part of what makes a good **real time** strategy game. If you make it so everything repetitive is automatic then might as well make it turn based. Why not make it so production buildings have a switch where you can tell it to just build a specific unit continuously? So you don't have to macro anymore. I'm sure a lot of players are bummed that they have to keep making units over and over, this would certainly make them more interested in playing. You could automatize the larva injection in SC2 as well, or the building scarabs in BW. Certainly would help the slower players. The thing is there are already games made for those people, games like Civ 5 or Chess.
Some people, like myself, enjoy the mechanical challenge. I've got an above average hand-eye coordination and am naturally attracted to games where this skill can give me an edge. I understand there are lots of people that don't, but that doesn't make me a nostalgic stockholm syndrom blind fanboy. It's just the way it is.
Ok, i guess in that case the main problem (for me) is that that concept simply does not appeal to me. I dislike the idea of artificial mechanical barriers, to me the ideal interface is one where i think about what i want to happen, and then it happens, making the whole thing about the quality of the decisions as opposed of my trained capability of not fucking up large amounts of different things at once. I hate being in a situation where i know what the correct response to a given situation is, but i can't make the game do it in time due to interface constraints.
This is also the first time if have heard of BW being talked about like that, usually the discussions are about the depth of strategy and so on, with the mechanics basically being something you need to deal with to reach that juicy core of strategy below it, as opposed to the main meat of the game being the mechanics and the struggle with a computer just reacting very weirdly to inputs so you have to learn many very specific things to do at once in an "inefficiency engine"
I still think that it is possible to have a game that is based on real time decision making and adapting your strategy to the changing situation without putting artifical APM wasters in the way of it to fuel your "inefficiency engine". To me, a lot of the BW style mechanics are something that is in the way of the fun of the game, which would be thinking about strategies, but apparently to you those (to me) annoying useless interface complexities are what you actually want.
You throw the word "artificial" around like there's some other kind of "APM wasters". Everything is artificial; it's a scale that can be balanced based on what kind of a game you want. On one side you have turn-based games, which don't require any mechanical skill and on other side, you have something like Warcraft 2, which have a lot of mechanical demands (and yes, there are still people who play and enjoy Warcraft 2). Saying you prefer one kind of an "APM waster" (larva injection in SC2) over another (telling workers to mine minerals manually in BW) is pretty much meaningless. BW has a good balance between mechanical demands and "wanting things to happen, and then they happen", which millions of people have enjoyed and loved. It's obvious you prefer something that's leaning more towards the turn-based games and with less mechanical demands, but that is highly subjective matter and doesn't answer the question "which way is better?".
I absolutely agree that stuff like larva injection also falls under the category of "artificial APM wasters". I would also never try to tell people that they are incorrect when they enjoy a game, that is obviously a very silly statement.
I guess i might have a slight problem with the mislabelling here, because with such a focus on the mechanics BW according to your explanation BW is (for everyone but a few people at the very top) less of a "strategy" game and more of an "APM game", while most of the discussion is about strategy, and few people talk about the mechanical parts of the game. I still wonder how many people really enjoy the APM part of the game, and how many just see it as something they have to deal with to get to the "strategy" part.
But my main point was never to criticize people for enjoying BW. People enjoy a great many things that i don't find enjoyable, and i probably also enjoy a lot of things that other people don't find enjoyable. People are different, and there does not appear to be an objective criterium to decide that something is "fun", and neither should there be a fun police that decides what you are allowed to enjoy.
What i wanted to criticize was the elitist attitude that answers to every problem a beginner of the game has with "Well you need to get good, then it is fun, you should suffer like i did and lose your first 100 games, that is the way things are supposed to go, are you not as hardcore as i am?" That is a very good way to drive new people away, which is for reasons that i am not quite clear upon is often a behaviour that groups in nerdy hobbies (I am not using this term negatively, all of my hobbies are nerdy) have.
I have observed similar behaviour from tabletop roleplayers, where some groups seem to like to drive others away or put them through ridicule, apparently because they think they are not worthy enough or some other stupid thing. This is utterly inexplicable to me, it is so much fun to introduce someone new to a hobby you enjoy, and it hurts those hobbies a lot.