On August 03 2015 04:27 jpg06051992 wrote: The more I play Beta the more I am seriously despising this 12 worker thing, ZvZ is just auto ling bling wars hatch first is borderline unviable and it's just AGGRESSION right from the get go.
This isn't how Starcraft is played, defensive macro openings need to be viable for aggressive choices to be interesting at all.
It's time to start tinkering with starting worker numbers, I think going down to 10 or even 8 would be sooo much better. The pace of the early game needs to SLOOOW DOWN.
Hatch first is perfectly viable in lotv, if you're having problems then it's on you. 12 workers doesn't auto mean it has to be ling bling wars and even if it did, you can still play defensive and macro, hell you can even go gasless still.
I personally dislike the 12 worker start. I liked the ramping up from 6 workers into what turns into the mid game. I don't think it's boring. I see it as the beginning of the pendulum swinging.
In my opinion, I just view the macro mechanics more as "doing battle against the game" rather than "doing battle against your opponent". At least in Zergs case (been a Zerg player the entire SC2 life span).
I mean I understand the whole argument where "you have to decide where to spend your APM", but that will be the case regardless..? There will just be less APM dedicated to macro mechanics, and more to the actual player vs player aspects.
In a competitive game, the player vs player interaction is what matters anyway. All flaws in the BW UI design that made macro harder were due to the day and age of the game, unlike SC2's implementation of these mechanics, where the game design is intentionally to make things harder without player vs player interaction? Why artificially make the game harder? That is a step back, not forward.
On August 03 2015 04:27 jpg06051992 wrote: The more I play Beta the more I am seriously despising this 12 worker thing, ZvZ is just auto ling bling wars hatch first is borderline unviable and it's just AGGRESSION right from the get go.
This isn't how Starcraft is played, defensive macro openings need to be viable for aggressive choices to be interesting at all.
It's time to start tinkering with starting worker numbers, I think going down to 10 or even 8 would be sooo much better. The pace of the early game needs to SLOOOW DOWN.
On August 01 2015 19:44 Steelghost wrote: Blizz coming up with this when no almost no one complained about macro. Sure, this game is difficult, but new players have archon mode to start with, so Blizz should be focusing on the real issues the current community is having with this game. Fix the economy first, the game is way way way fast, which is not good, also, i dont like having a gun pointed at my head saying: You better start expanding right now because otherwise you die. Scouting, aggro strategies and more have been almost removed from the game, so instead of having an expansion with more features, we have one with less. Plus, Im really pissed at Blizz for not answering straight up to the community, specially the TL writers that came up with DH and more, Blizz or David Kim just went and said "We dont like it, our internal testing can back it up" Giving no more explanation. Really? Like seriously, DK admitted he does not play the game as much and he is the one we are relying on to have this new expansion? Its like if Kasparov tried to coach a Baseball team. Please, for the love of god, stop it, focus on our feedback and GOD DONT YOU DARE TOUCH THE MACRO MECHANICS!!
It will be interesting to see how the macro mechanic changes change the balance of the game.
The main problem with protoss not being able to expand/defend in the early mid game is due to the amount of units terran and zerg can throw at you. Terran splitting your army apart and zerg just massing and hitting your front. Not sure what the game will look like if those changes go through.
How will zerg be able to get their eco up and running if they can't spam drones out?
For this to work you will have to completely rebalance zerg units.
Remax is a legit part of zerg gameplay.
I'd like to hear blizzard talk about how they are going to balance the game after making a change like this.
On August 03 2015 04:27 jpg06051992 wrote: The more I play Beta the more I am seriously despising this 12 worker thing, ZvZ is just auto ling bling wars hatch first is borderline unviable and it's just AGGRESSION right from the get go.
This isn't how Starcraft is played, defensive macro openings need to be viable for aggressive choices to be interesting at all.
It's time to start tinkering with starting worker numbers, I think going down to 10 or even 8 would be sooo much better. The pace of the early game needs to SLOOOW DOWN.
I agree, I say test 8-9 worker start.
I feel like they might scale it back to at least 10 at some point. The tempest originally had 22 range after all.
Thanks for the post. Definitely agree that LotV is too fast and it is really important to remember that the proposed marco change is for LotV not HotS... Move macro mechanics up the tech tree is an interesting idea. I don't know how big a balance impact they will have but sure it will help to slow down early game a little.
On August 01 2015 17:48 NEEDZMOAR wrote: So throw the game back a few steps. I have personally always hated the 12 worker start as it makes it more difficullt to scout with overlords and makes for more RNG. I heavily dislike the minerals that forces expanding (why not make expanding a strategic choice rather than something forced upon players). Personally I believe people will get bored of the shrinking amount of strategic choices once the "honeymoon"phase is over.
This is all true, and it's really sad for SC2. LOTV is going to be the worst game of the SC2 series.
The 12 worker start is an attempt by Blizzard to speed up the early game. But why does it need to be sped up? Because it is boring right? But why is it boring?
Because Blizzard ruined the early game when they released HOTS. The MSC, cheap and easy to build Reapers, Widow Mines, enhanced Queens, faster Overlords, free Hallucination scouts, ect... the result of these new features (I realize some of those changes were made at the end of WOL) is that they reduced the amount of viable aggressive strategies early. Scouting and making reads took real skill in WOL, real commitment. It is so much easier in HOTS, and that greatly weakens aggressive strategies and forces more people into standard games. The MSC, enhanced Queens, Widow Mines, ect do exactly the same, stifling early aggression.
So without many decent early aggressive strategies left, everyone macroed. And the early game got boring. Even when people did an all-in it was hellishly predictable (oh look, another Blink all-in PvT...). Where is the strategy?
So now their fix it is just to skip the early game entirely because Blizzard couldn't balance it? What the hell? Why didn't they just reverse some of the changes that made early aggressive strategies terrible? The worst part about trying to skip the early game is that Blizzard is actually reintroducing aggression and messing with scout timings as Namhcir so nicely pointed out for us on this forum: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/490921-is-cheese-too-strong-due-to-economy
Blizzard is starting with a new slate instead of learning from their mistakes. And thus we are about to embark on same journey of failed Blizzard balancing, where they continue strip out of the strategy of the game; only this time it is in favor of ever increasing micro.
TheDwf warned us Blizzard would do this, speed up the game so much that it contracted skill.
And so, here we are, thinking about cutting macro mechanics so we can micro units more. The macro mechanics add strategic elements to the game. Is this still even a strategy game? Do you make strategic decisions anymore (you certainly don't when it comes to expanding, and the number of build orders that are viable is downright laughable when compared to WOL), or just micro?