This is a response to the most recent community feedback update, July 31st, 2015. I want to try and analyze the logic behind the post so we can all provide better feedback to Blizzard.
We are all StarCraft fans. You. Me. Blizzard. We all love SC2 because it is a hard game. Cutting macro mechanics is an enormous sacrifice and we all know it. I am going to confidently say, none of us want to dumb-down StarCraft.
They have Heroes of the Storm. They have Hearthstone. They don't need to dumb down StarCraft.
However, I don't think we understand just how CRAZY LotV is. LotV beta testers are mostly veteran StarCraft players. We are familiar with all the units and basic mechanics and we can adapt quite easily. The fact is, the game is sped up significantly.
Let me explain just how CRAZY FAST this game is.
1) You start with 12 workers. Immediately, you are supply capped and you have a lot of money to spend.
2) Immediately, you have to make a strategic decision. Build a rax/gate/pool first or expand? How early do you do these things?
3) Not only do you have a lot of T1 options, you also have to worry about which T1 option your opponent is choosing: - Terran: marines, marauders, reapers, orbital, - Zerg: queen, lings, speed, banes, roaches - Protoss: zealot, stalker, msc, adept, sentry, warpgate
4) You have to scout! - where is my opponent? - is my opponent teching up on 1 base? - expanding? - cheesing?
5) Throw in SC2 macro-mechanics and the game speeds up even more. The moment you make an Orbital Command, your mineral collection rate jumps up. The moment you make a Queen, you can start injecting larva for a burst of units. Chronoboost is always accessible and constantly speeds up the Protoss.
This game is fast. Maybe too fast. Every player has a limited amount of multi-tasking. The speed of LotV demands so much multi-tasking that a casual player can easily feel overwhelmed, lost, or helpless.Removing #5 can relieve some of the demands and allow players to focus more on #1-4, which is arguably more interesting for viewers.
We want a hard game for esports, but we want it to be fun and accessible to the average gamer as well. Can we have our cake and eat it too? I think we can. This is my suggestion: + Show Spoiler +
I definitely want to keep macro-mechanics because they raise the skill-ceiling for progamers. The way I see it, the micro game wins you the macro game, and the macro game wins you the SC2 game.
I would like to see enhanced macro-mechanics become less accessible. Make them take more time and more resources to achieve. Move them further up the tech tree.
Give players the option to never use enhanced macro-mechanics so they can dedicate their limited amount of multi-tasking on other aspects of the game.
I think this is a better way of "dumbing-down" StarCraft for new players without taking away the skill-ceiling of pro players. Ultimately, the new macro-mechanics should be objectively better in an esports scenario, given that the player has enough apm to manage it.
Example ideas for Zerg: Remove inject larva from queen. Give a research upgrade to increase larva cap at all bases. Or give all Lairs and Hives increased larva caps by default. Add a Lair upgrade to queens that allows them to inject larva.
Thanks for reading. If you learned something, check out my original series, Breaking Bad Micro. + Show Spoiler +
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep
i personally like the fact that they are trying to make it a little easier on people to macro cause what are the 2 major reasons you lose a game? not scouting what youre opponent is doing not having the macro to keep up with unit production when defending
that being said, i also agree with the rest that starcraft does not need to be dumbed down, its supposed to be easy to learn and hard to master kind of game. and macroing is a vital part of the game mechanic... ive played broodwar before, and this autocast comes back to the zerg in BW, they autospawn larva and you need to keep up with spending those... also a lot of RTS games have the continuous build option.. as an actual option, to autospawn units you tell it too or manually build it like were used to right now...
maybe its an idea to put it in like this
Give the player the ability to autocast their macro, but make it just a bit less effectient than what you could achieve if you continuously build units yourself... (read injecting, building marines, etc etc) that way newer players have it a little easier to get into the game.. but for the rest of the higher ranked players, the game mechanics remain unchanged..
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep
The answer to each of your questions is inject. It goes so far that it may sometimes be better to eat devastating mine shots on your banelings and inject than to eat mediocre mineshots and inject 10seconds late.
I'm kind of surprised so many people want to keep the macro mechanics. BW was a great game without any additional macro mechanics such as these SC2 has. And so many people are upset these days about "having to expand on a timer or else you are behind", but are arguing to keep macro mechanics that are "on a timer or else you are behind"?
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included?
On August 01 2015 19:14 Spyridon wrote: I'm kind of surprised so many people want to keep the macro mechanics. BW was a great game without any additional macro mechanics such as these SC2 has. And so many people are upset these days about "having to expand on a timer or else you are behind", but are arguing to keep macro mechanics that are "on a timer or else you are behind"?
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included?
They are here to artificially recreate the requirement to regularly go back to your base to macro, to emulate BW's no building groups. Which is why they should be kept, imo, however their importance should be greatly reduced : being able to follow up a failed SCV pull or 11/11 with another wave of units, thanks to MULEs, or being able to remax from 90/200 to 200/200 in one instant on four hatcheries thanks to injects is kinda dumb.
On August 01 2015 19:14 Spyridon wrote: I'm kind of surprised so many people want to keep the macro mechanics. BW was a great game without any additional macro mechanics such as these SC2 has. And so many people are upset these days about "having to expand on a timer or else you are behind", but are arguing to keep macro mechanics that are "on a timer or else you are behind"?
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included?
They are here to artificially recreate the requirement to regularly go back to your base to macro, to emulate BW's no building groups. Which is why they should be kept, imo, however their importance should be greatly reduced : being able to follow up a failed SCV pull or 11/11 with another wave of units, thanks to MULEs, or being able to remax from 90/200 to 200/200 in one instant on four hatcheries thanks to injects is kinda dumb.
The problem is without drastic changes to all the races the zerg not being able to remax quickly would be a drastic nerf to zerg since currently dealing with deathballs has always been about the remax and without that ability zerg would be weak to deathball styles (more than currently)
The short of it that Blizzard are going about it the wrong way, we need more ways of showing macro skill than producing units constantly and not getting supply blocked/using your "macro mechanic" we don't need to eliminate these and make the game even less about macro skill.
On August 01 2015 19:14 Spyridon wrote: I'm kind of surprised so many people want to keep the macro mechanics. BW was a great game without any additional macro mechanics such as these SC2 has. And so many people are upset these days about "having to expand on a timer or else you are behind", but are arguing to keep macro mechanics that are "on a timer or else you are behind"?
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included?
They are here to artificially recreate the requirement to regularly go back to your base to macro, to emulate BW's no building groups. Which is why they should be kept, imo, however their importance should be greatly reduced : being able to follow up a failed SCV pull or 11/11 with another wave of units, thanks to MULEs, or being able to remax from 90/200 to 200/200 in one instant on four hatcheries thanks to injects is kinda dumb.
The problem is without drastic changes to all the races the zerg not being able to remax quickly would be a drastic nerf to zerg since currently dealing with deathballs has always been about the remax and without that ability zerg would be weak to deathball styles (more than currently)
The short of it that Blizzard are going about it the wrong way, we need more ways of showing macro skill than producing units constantly and not getting supply blocked/using your "macro mechanic" we don't need to eliminate these and make the game even less about macro skill.
Yeah I agree on that, heavily nerfing macro mechanics cannot be done without modifying a whole lot of other things. Which is why I'm surprised that Blizzard talked about that : macro mechanics of lesser importance are going straight against their "20-minute game" goal for LotV.
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 doesn't dumb down the game, it makes it less dumbed down ... instead of challenging yourself with the mechanical demands of the macro mechanics you will be more heavily challenged by an opponent also unencumbered by macro mechanic demands
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I put a tumor down or inject, is he attacking me? do I need to save energy for transfuses? Should I use my apm on injecting or creepspreading/dealing with this push/whatever? Should I inject in the middle of this fight? Do I remember to inject on time? Will I have the multitasking enough to inject on time while fighting my opponent or is my opponent capable of beating me due to his superior mechanics and multitasking? Is this the right hatchery to inject now? if I use the tap method to keep track of my injects, where should I build my burrow/lair/OL-speed/additional queens?
these questions and many more point to various decision-making which comes from simple manual larvae inject.
Furthemore some of us find pro-games cool to watch because of their mechanical skills, as well as enjoy practicing our own.
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included?
while were at it why dont our bases autobuild marines or tanks medivacs etc because hey once youve choosen your army all the building and resourcegathering are just boring mechanics to make the game difficult. Hell lets remake sc2 into microbattles where were each given a set of units after choosing our composition and then duke it out vs others. No boring macro or mechanics required just fun micro and usage of abilities.
why don't you just flip a coin and not bother playing? these extreme arguments are nonsense... similar to how people complained automine, multiple building selection and unlimited unit selection would dumb down the game... but it still seems pretty hard to me... oh right my opponent gets those things too
I think the only macro mechanic that comes with real decision making is Chrono Boost. You can choose which building to CB to speed up your upgrades/worker/unit production. Larva inject is never a strategic question; you want to do it and if you don't, you made a mistake (at least most of the time). Orbital Commands are kind of similar, because MULEs are generally considered better than Supply Calldowns (although not in all situations, of course). The difference there is you can choose to scan instead which is often required, and can be viewed as a strategic decision.
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
What about builds that relies on the extra creep queen because some will be focused on inject? Just because the action itself is only mechanical does not mean the results from the action is non strategic. Let's focus on protoss chrono for example, chrono is a major macro mechanics that help to design builds.
Yeah but you still have to decide where to spend that extra queen, you would either attach it to inject or leave it for creep spread.
And chrono... to me it helps confuse build order design... it's harder to design any build when you have to worry about that darned annoying chrono boost multiplier variable that can attach itself to any of your (or your opponent's if they're protoss) buildings every X seconds (or X+Ei where Ei is the error casting it at exactly 50 energy on the i'th iteration).
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?
On August 01 2015 22:54 mishimaBeef wrote: why don't you just flip a coin and not bother playing? these extreme arguments are nonsense... similar to how people complained automine, multiple building selection and unlimited unit selection would dumb down the game... but it still seems pretty hard to me... oh right my opponent gets those things too
Claiming that theres no strategy involved in Larva inject is to me extreme nonsense.
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep
If you don't inject regularly at higher levels you lose, plain and simple. You can't delay your mechanic like terran or protoss, zerg has been balanced around high level zergs getting nearly every inject down perfectly, because those were the games that made an imbalance look biggest. The inject has only ever been a mechanical addition with no strategy involved, if you miss it, you fall behind in drones in the early game, or army units in the early or mid game. A missed inject can completely screw any chances of making or defending a timing attack. Only time it doesn't matter as much is late game, where timings don't have to be perfect, but most of the game the decision making you indicated isn't present, it's really just, "I have to drop what I'm doing and nail these injects every 40 seconds".
there's about as much strategy in the *execution* of a larva inject as there is in the execution of a command telling a fresh worker to go mine minerals
the *decision* whether to larva inject or spread creep, as far as i can tell is still going to be in the game
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep
If you don't inject regularly at higher levels you lose, plain and simple. You can't delay your mechanic like terran or protoss, zerg has been balanced around high level zergs getting nearly every inject down perfectly, because those were the games that made an imbalance look biggest. The inject has only ever been a mechanical addition with no strategy involved, if you miss it, you fall behind in drones in the early game, or army units in the early or mid game. A missed inject can completely screw any chances of making or defending a timing attack. Only time it doesn't matter as much is late game, where timings don't have to be perfect, but most of the game the decision making you indicated isn't present, it's really just, "I have to drop what I'm doing and nail these injects every 40 seconds".
Not true, in plenty of builds you dont inject every 25th energy, just as you dont chrono the same thing with every build.
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep
If you don't inject regularly at higher levels you lose, plain and simple. You can't delay your mechanic like terran or protoss, zerg has been balanced around high level zergs getting nearly every inject down perfectly, because those were the games that made an imbalance look biggest. The inject has only ever been a mechanical addition with no strategy involved, if you miss it, you fall behind in drones in the early game, or army units in the early or mid game. A missed inject can completely screw any chances of making or defending a timing attack. Only time it doesn't matter as much is late game, where timings don't have to be perfect, but most of the game the decision making you indicated isn't present, it's really just, "I have to drop what I'm doing and nail these injects every 40 seconds".
Even among the extreme top zergs there are no zergs who don't miss injects (soO/Dark are the closest to perfect) It's not because they forget about them but because looking away for the 0.5 sec it takes them could make them lose the game.
On August 01 2015 23:49 mishimaBeef wrote: there's about as much strategy in the *execution* of a larva inject as there is in the execution of a command telling a fresh worker to go mine minerals
the *decision* whether to larva inject or spread creep, as far as i can tell is still going to be in the game
wat There is no strategy in the execution of anything execution falls under tactics AKA doing things right.
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep
The answer to each of your questions is inject. It goes so far that it may sometimes be better to eat devastating mine shots on your banelings and inject than to eat mediocre mineshots and inject 10seconds late.
I'm afraid these people are right. If you have unlimited APM, larva inject is not strategic. It is always, always better to hit every inject. Larva injects only becomes "strategic" when you do not have enough APM to dedicate to doing everything.
Even if you do not have enough APM, 9/10 times you should focus on macro. Here is an example.
You harass your opponent with a reaper and kill 2 workers. However, you forgot to make workers at home and you have 2 bases. Depending on how long you spent your time micro-ing your reaper, you could've missed making 2-4 workers. You would be better off focusing on macro.
However, there is strategic decisions being made for mules and chronoboost because there are other options. For Zerg players, these options also exist (transfuse, creep tumour). The solution is to make extra queens so these options are irrelevant. You can do them all.
On August 02 2015 00:09 cywinr wrote:However, there is strategic decisions being made for mules and chronoboost because there are other options. For Zerg players, these options also exist (transfuse, creep tumour). The solution is to make extra queens so these options are irrelevant. You can do them all.
It is a decision in the early game. Making an extra queen requires resources you could have put into two drones instead.
I really hope they don't outright remove macro mechanics from the game.
Sniping queens is a strategic choice, especially when considering whether the Zerg's strategy is larva-heavy (the Zerg player needs to realise this as well and take precautions accordingly, rebuild lost queens). Chronoboost is strategic in being able to prioritise different options (tech/economy/units). Choosing between scan and mules is strategic, even for the opponent in case of invisible units. Removing mules could completely eliminate DTs from PvT (they already rarely work) and change all of Terran's interactions with invisible/burrowed units.
Should it be toned down? Maybe. I find myself overwhelmed by Zerg injects on many bases, but I'm also not a very good multi-tasker in general. In terms of viewer-experience, I usually only closely follow injects/larvae counts when either a ling-heavy strategy is employed or the intention is to remax after losing the entire army. Other than that I would somewhat agree that macro mechanics aren't necessarily that visible to the viewer, but I'm not sure that is enough of a reason to remove them or deemphasize them heavily. Lots of small things are only visible when looked at closely.
I'm so tired of every game developer being hellbent on making their games easier. That crap butchered Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, and even the Soul series. Starcraft was the ONE game that didn't cater to scrubs, and now they want to make it even easier, even though they made SC2 far easier than BW?
Scrubs have every other game on the market, let us have SC2.
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
That's an interesting comment.
When should I not inject?
Well, when I'm playing against a FFE, I'll sac my second inject from my second queen to drop a tumour. Why? The creep connecting the natural to third helps defend any all in immensely. At the same time, if I'm doing a timing, I want that inject.
Hell, during a normal game you always have to decide if you want to inject, or watch you army/mutas/whatever. In the late game, your extra hatcheries actually make up for late injects. You have to decide if you need to larva at any given moment, because transitioning into the late game is rough for zerg. If you blindly move your mutas across the map, and go inject, you're probably going to lose half your mutas.
I will agree that for maybe the first 10 minutes (hots), injects are more-or-less a no question ability. After that, it's more of a "can I get away with putting my attention to injects?".
That said, there are pros that have flawless injects regardless - and they shine because of it. Similar to how scarlett's creep spread gave her such huge advantages in her games. At the same time, you have people like Stephano who can forgo injects for insane engagements later in the game, and it will prove them the victor.
I firmly believe inject is a pretty deep ability that has a huge subtle affect to the game, at any level where muscle memory starts to take effect. (Around gold league?)
On August 01 2015 18:40 paralleluniverse wrote: Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
Not true. There are a number of builds that require a decision between putting down a creep tumor early on or injecting. An extra inject during those timings gives you larvae that you can't spend for approximately 30 seconds. This is based off of HOTS timings that I know really well, but I know from playing LOTV, too, that there are some points where it's the same.
The problem with Inject is 1. it is not spammable (unlike MULE or Chronoboost) 2. Queen energy has limited other uses (Creep tumors are good, but not too many are necessary/useful... it becomes more a matter of timing the tumor spread).. they are necessary at some points, but not at enough points
So I'd suggest Inject only takes 5 seconds to produce larva Costs 50 energy produces 2-5 larva (balance)
And a Hatchery can only have a max of 3-8 larva (instead of 19)
So queens are used for rapid remaxing instead of continuous production...ie queen energy is where you store larva.
So Queen macro would be inject.. build inject build inject build when you have extra resources... otherwise you just use hatcheries.
Not to dumb down the game, but by removing the mechanic, the game will become easier to balance across all levels of play
However, If they do so, I think they need to add something else to the game. I am not sure what.... something that will allow top level pros to differentiate themselves from the semi-pros, who are better than diamond scrubs like myself etc.
maybe they could make different "mechanics" which give you benefits, but not in a direct engagement kind of way. example could be zerg has creep tumors which gives them more vision. The tumors could come from the hatchery not the queen.
Terran has Scanning
protoss could have hallucinate moved to the nexus.
These mechanics could be gained as an upgrade. hence, high level players can use them to be highly effective and will be needed to play at the highest level, lower level players can ignore this and still have a good time.
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.
This thread makes a good point, but such changes will basicaly reset SC2 development so far. Blizz will have to start balacing the game from the beggining again, seeing if the worker production is balanced between races and etc, and then moving to balance every aspect of the matches. It would take so long to do this and in don't think they want or even can do it.
Also, lowering the worker count will only cause like 1 minute delay in game. As it develops, people will have to expand fast and take care of all expos the same way. And then what? Increase the mineral count again and go back to boring turtle games?
I don't think there's a solution for this. SC2 engine is just too modern to be like BW, where the game is slow paced but hard to execute.
I don't understand why every single task in sc2 has to be highly strategic. I would agree that it might be a good idea to slow down the macro as a whole, but removing mechanics is a thing i don't want for starcraft.
Let's remove worker production as well. Bases automatically produce workers until they are capped. You can call me a troll for this but this hatred on the Macro game all of the sudden is making me sick, and I can just see blizzard flushing this game down the toilet with this suggestion.
Starcraft 2 is addicting because it is very difficult. I will never understand why Blizzard makes such great games, and they feel the need to dumb it down after its huge success. They did the same thing with World of Warcraft after the second expansion and lost half of their subscribers as a result. People like a challenge, and if you are advocating for the removal of Inject you are a bad player, be offended and play devils advocate all you want but it's the truth. I'm a Diamond Zerg and I love looking at my replays and knowing that I had Macrod a bit better I would have beat that Masters player.
I have loved Legacy, the 12 worker thing has been great in my opinion, the caster units are becoming a bit numerous but I haven't minded them to much. This move to remove Injects has nothing to do with watching Pro players and seeing how well they are injecting, it's to dumb down this game in an attempt to make it appeal to lesser players. It's a bad move and it's going to cost this game a big percentage of it's loyal fan base.
On August 03 2015 05:49 L3x_Luthor wrote: if you are advocating for the removal of Inject you are a bad player, be offended and play devils advocate all you want but it's the truth.
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.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep
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?