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Most progamers disagree with making Starcraft mechanics easier. Huk/Desrow/Morrow/TLO think mechanics should stay as hard as they currently are.
I think they disaggree because they lack experience about how the game is for casualgamers.
I play Starcraft at grandmasterlevel, but I also coached alot of beginners (bronze-gold). This means I kinda know the situation of both sides. The casual-side and the hardcore-side.
Sometimes I really do wonder why you would ever want to play starcraft below diamondleague. I honestly think starcraft is boring as fuck in the lower leagues.
From bronze-platnum starcraft is literally one thing: Macro, macro, macro! Build stuff and overrun your opponent. No micro, no descicion making, no strategy! When I coach those leagues I just sit there and teach them the MCL (mental checklist aka Workerproduction, Unitproduction, Supplyblock etc.)
I think this is the reason why starcraft isn't that popular. The mechanics prevent the casualplayers from experience the whole beauty of Starcraft.
If there's one thing I noticed about Starcraft in my carrer it's this: "The better you get at Starcraft - the more fun it is".
Most games in bronze-plat are pretty boring. Sometimes you get cheesed (which is the almost the only strategical part for casualplayers), but most of the time both players macro, and the player with better mechanics wins very onesided. Maybe 1 game out of 20 there's actually a really fun and close game.
The higher the level the more exciting the games get. At around highmaster mmr everybody has pretty decent mechanics. At this point pretty much EVERY SINGLE GAME is fun, close and exciting. Micro/Descicion Making/Strategie have become a huge part of the game.
And it doesn't stop there. Once 2 players truely mastered the SC2 mechanics every single game is an absolute masterpiece and a pure firework of awesomeness. Pretty much every highlevel KR game is just something I would call art.
Starcraft is the best and most wonderful game ever created once you mastered it's mechanics. Lowering boring macro mechanics is an awesome idea from blizzard because it allowes players faster and easier access to the beauty of starcraft.
LotV got so much harder than HotS. It's way more micro and multitasking intense. Starcraft will definetly not be to easy if Blizzard makes macro/mechanics a little easier.
I honestly think Starcraft would be alot more fun (especially for casualplayers) and that the game could get very popular again if blizzard changes the macromechanics.
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I think all of the reasons you itemize are exactly why blizzard is considering reducing macro mechanics impact on the game. That said, I think keeping it the way it is, is the best option for the quality of the game. This is what keeps the skill celling so high. StarCraft 2 is already less differentiated than BroodWar was at the highest levels, but is still far more distinct that we can expect from most games. I would prefer it stay that way, or become more distinct, rather than go the other way. I want someone who is truly on another level (ala Flash, Savior, Nada in their day) to truly be able to dominate the scene. This is what creates legacies and creates awesome stories.
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I agree. I'm in gold right now. I enjoy macro to some extent (not enough to protest removing it) but the fun of the game for me has been doing things that aren't in the meta. I hate blink stalkers but I love HT's and Oracles and Warp Prisms, so that's the units I end up using. One of my absolute favorite things in LotV is kiting with the Warp Prism (hell I'd preorder the game if they just gave me a warp prism and immortal every campaign mission/match and told me to go to town), and it's annoying pulling off some sick micro, thinking "Maybe this can get me into platinum", and then whoops no I'm behind on my warp cycles, my upgrades are late, my nexus is full of energy.
I'm not saying take out macro because it's an integral part of the game. But if I'm all-inning, as a low level player whose APM is limited, having the difference between a good 2 base all-in and a bad 2 base all-in be whether or not I'm chronoboosting my warp gates to get my units out faster while I'm already warping them in and moving them around to make sure they don't get surrounded is frustrating to no end.
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If you are bad in HOTS, i don't see how you will find LOTV any harder. Sure you have to expand faster but if you are in the lower leagues, you won't notice the diff.
The problem is what 'boring' mechanic you want to remove? Is it making buildings, getting more supplies, auto Mule drops, Chrono, larvae inject? Making these changes will have a big impact tot he game.
Unfortnately I don't have a better idea for this other than cont to play and become better. Changing the 'boring' mechanics will ultimately change the fundamental game as a RTS as a whole.
Maybe another way is for lower league to use a slower game speed.
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Mamba those players also have coached in the past...
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Auto-injecting with a delay of 5-10 seconds mean you only get some increased efficiency from macroing hard there. Or decrease their effectiveness to the point where it's not worth it until plat/diamond to use them.
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Mamba those players also have coached in the past...
Sure they do coachings here and then. But they are progamers and most of them just play the game competitive.
I helped players for a very long time on www.starcraftschule.de (german side) via coachings and replay analyses. This side is entirely built around helping new players to get into the game. And of course also helping older players that are stuck in bronze-gold.
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The only foreseeable result of cutting macro is making all three races homogeneous and losing their uniqueness. In the new economy system, players will still focus on mining, expanding and production, but after the "final frontal engagement" will be the real end of the game. If you lose your main forces, there will be zero chance of comeback.
My thought is, if they really want to give the players an easy and "fun" way to gather resources, they should set up some neutral creatures or destructible objects on the map like it was in Warcraft III, rewarding anyone who destroys them first with a fair amount of minerals and/or gas. Getting those resources is risky because your base would be vulnerable without defense and your forces could be caught up during the fight with those neutral creatures.
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then playing in high level or watching pro would be boring to.. easier game = less rewarding feeling.
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On August 05 2015 11:51 shin_toss wrote: then playing in high level or watching pro would be boring to.. easier game = less rewarding feeling.
And the game would die very soon when all the "funs" are depleted.
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On August 05 2015 11:51 shin_toss wrote: then playing in high level or watching pro would be boring to.. easier game = less rewarding feeling. In what way? People playing LotV are complaining about having too much shit to micro. All of the new units - adept, ravager, lurker, cyclone, liberator, disruptor - require some sort of specialized control. By lightening up the load on the more under-the-hood stuff, players have the room to control these units, and more plays with warp prisms, vipers, oracles, medivac/tanks, and so on.
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Yes it requires a lot of micro. which Imo it shouldn't. I believe that 50% macro 50% micro is what LotV should be.
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On August 05 2015 12:41 shin_toss wrote: Yes it requires a lot of micro. which Imo it shouldn't. I believe that 50% macro 50% micro is what LotV should be.
Nevertheless you must keep up your production line with your enemy's all the time. Without that, no amount of micro can save you.
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On August 05 2015 10:10 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I agree. I'm in gold right now. I enjoy macro to some extent (not enough to protest removing it) but the fun of the game for me has been doing things that aren't in the meta. I hate blink stalkers but I love HT's and Oracles and Warp Prisms, so that's the units I end up using. One of my absolute favorite things in LotV is kiting with the Warp Prism (hell I'd preorder the game if they just gave me a warp prism and immortal every campaign mission/match and told me to go to town), and it's annoying pulling off some sick micro, thinking "Maybe this can get me into platinum", and then whoops no I'm behind on my warp cycles, my upgrades are late, my nexus is full of energy.
I'm not saying take out macro because it's an integral part of the game. But if I'm all-inning, as a low level player whose APM is limited, having the difference between a good 2 base all-in and a bad 2 base all-in be whether or not I'm chronoboosting my warp gates to get my units out faster while I'm already warping them in and moving them around to make sure they don't get surrounded is frustrating to no end.
So you play more.
Being bad (no offense) is not a reason to remove such an essential part of the game. Starcraft hooks me because it's challenging. I've been stuck in Gold for quite a while in the past, so I played and played, now I am a high diamond and my goal is Masters.
I'm also a Zerg, inject can be very difficult but it's what makes my race unique. This whole "It's pointless/boring/unfun to inject" argument is ridiculous because there are plenty of other aggravations in the game that are still very essential.
Making drones isn't fun, nor is getting supply blocked, so should we remove those mechanics too? Blizzard is walking a line right now that could greatly cost them a lot of fans. They did the same thing to World of Warcraft, they made it 10X more casual, which made it 10x more easy, and as a result 10x less interesting. Starcraft 2 is addicting because it's so hard. When you finally get that promotion to the next rank you can truly pat yourself on the back because you earned it.
Please don't take this away Bliz.
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Casual players are casual anyways, they aren't the core users, and they arent the players that will be playing for a long period of time -- they are casual. Casual gamers jump to whatever game is hot and popular, they dont stick around long. It's not worth catering to the casual player.
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I think it would also do a boatload for player retention too to be honest. If you take my situation, I played hard for 3 years, over 3000 games, high diamond for 9 seasons although I could never quite crack masters (this was with ebbs and flows in my commitments as I was at university at the time), even though I practised and did reasonably well against masters players, even if I could never crack a 50/50 win rate. At that point the game was fun and tense, I felt like I had command of an army, solid enough mechanics, I could multi-task drops, time things well and control the map. I fell down in places, like if my opponent was also very good at those things, defending multiple places was always harder than attacking them.
Fast forward to now, I don't play much and I don't want to play much but I still want to pop on every now and then at the weekends for a game or two because its a great game but I suck so hard now, and not in ways which motivate me to improve. I forget to do the boring multitasking like building units consistently in the mid game or forgetting my upgrades. I can't multitask drops or multi-pronged attacks as well but that's ok, it doesn't feel like as much of a problem, I imagine this is what it must be like to return to a sport you loved in your 20s when you're now in your 60s, you're slow and shit and your body doesn't want to do what you know you want to do.
If that's the game people want then that's fine, I'll play single player and get on with my life, Dark Souls scratches those hardcore itches these days and doesn't demand the same level of mechanical finesse from its players.
I genuinely don't believe that heavily reducing macro mechanics would make the game less interesting at a pro level either, we aren't in a place where players regularly split armies into 2-3 decent sized clumps and micro both super efficiently, it does happen a bit but its mainly a main army + drops / small worker killing forces rather than a genuinely split army trying to hit two places at once. There is a lot to do in SC2 with just your units.
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On August 05 2015 10:00 Mamba wrote:"The better you get at Starcraft - the more fun it is". Couldn't agree more.
HOTS mechanics are fine but in LOTV everything is harder. To actually experience the game to the extent where your decision making is mostly meaningful; it's not mostly meaningful at a low level, it's a battle of mechanics, you have to play at least at a HOTS-master level. For this reason I support simplifying mechanics in LOTV.
I'm a HOTS high diamond / LOTV 300 wins / WOL mid master player and that's my 2 cents.
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Can't we just stop with those "Hey I am X, I am relevant because I'm GM/made ro128 in an MLG once/played a pro on stream that time, and here's my opinion about LOTV/Protoss/sc2/macro mechanics"-threads ?
Especially since this kind of talk could very well take place in like 3 other, already existing threads...
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Russian Federation93 Posts
No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years.
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On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder.
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To OP: Can't +1 more, exactly my thoughts.
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On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. The thing is, I want to play a game that I enjoy not one that's popular.
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On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder.
A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics.
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On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. I do understand your point and I agree that that's the way balance should be done. But this does not means that the game cannot become "easy to play, hard to master" at the same time. My point is that first of all Starcraft 2 must be a good game that people enjoy to play, then to become a e-sport, not the other way around. It just feels weird that so many posts from Blizzard and communities figures (TL writers included) are about the top notch pro players' games and viewer experience instead of how the game itself feels like to majority, normal players, who may not as vocal in communities as hardcore players.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics.
There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players.
Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!!
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The game need more casual players and not stressful mechanics.
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I don't understand this whole discussion. The point of LotV was to increase the skill ceilling, so better players have an easier time differentiating themselves. Simplifying the game even more will make the game more like the Nexus Wars arcade map. Can't argue over taste, but I think if you think that's fun, you understand the game on the same level as your mechanics are.
On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!!
You argue that lowering the mechanical skill ceilling makes the game more fun for lower level players, which means that lower level players will be watching the game more often. Instead of a counterargument, I will ask you: what makes you so certain that an SC2 with a lower skill ceilling means more people will watch the game?
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On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!!
This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500.
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I don't mind the game being harder, make it more visible and impactful. what's the point of on time macro-ing if viewers won't notice?
The only viewer friendly macro mechanics is queen creep spread.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 19:47 Bojas wrote:I don't understand this whole discussion. The point of LotV was to increase the skill ceilling, so better players have an easier time differentiating themselves. Simplifying the game even more will make the game more like the Nexus Wars arcade map. Can't argue over taste, but I think if you think that's fun, you understand the game on the same level as your mechanics are. Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! You argue that lowering the mechanical skill ceilling makes the game more fun for lower level players, which means that lower level players will be watching the game more often. Instead of a counterargument, I will ask you: what makes you so certain that an SC2 with a lower skill ceilling means more people will watch the game?
Lower level players will not be watching the game more often. The same percentage of gamers (both casual and hardcore) will watch tournaments. More gamers we have -> more viewers we have.
And here is some facts:
We have 593 GM players and 7714 Master league players (US+EU+KR/TW). 8307 hardcore players total. We also have 141656 players in Diamond or lower league. 149963 Players total. 15% of them will probably watch Blizzcon finals = 22494.
Let's make starcraft twice harder -> twice more interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice less interesting for Diamond and lower league players:
We will end with 16614 hardcore players and 70828 casual players. 87442 players total. 13116 viewers.
Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players:
We will end with 4154 hardcore players and 283312 casual players. 287466 players total. 43120 viewers.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 20:04 Linear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500.
Very impressive numbers. For 2010. TI5 prize pool is bigger than all StarCraft 2 tournaments since the release of the game together.
When there is no tournaments running, Starcraft has less viewers than minecraft or World of Tanks. Minecraft, Carl!
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If a player doesn't enjoy the macro mechanics of their race they are free to change, the choice exists every game. I enjoy the game being more about multitasking and mechanics, because their should be more than one way to differentiate yourself from your peers regardless of the playing level you are at.
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On August 05 2015 20:44 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 20:04 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500. Very impressive numbers. For 2010. TI5 prize pool is bigger than all StarCraft 2 tournaments since the release of the game together. When there is no tournaments running, Starcraft has less viewers than minecraft or World of Tanks. Minecraft, Carl!
WCS wasn't even around in 2010, the numbers are from the current prizes in 2015 feel free to work it out. TI5 prize pool isn't fair to compare to SC2 since the money invested into the tournament is crowd funded, anyway why does the amount of money on offer even matter, do people play the game because if they became number #1 in the world they're rich? I've noticed SC2 actually have more stream watchers recently, with people like Demuslim/Naniwa and other popular players streaming more regularly the viewership is climbing back up, as Incontrol has said many times before why do we need to be the biggest and best? SC2 is sustainable has a core viewerbase/playerbase that's not going anywhere why are we worried?
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I could not have put it any better than the OP.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 20:56 Linear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 20:44 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:04 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500. Very impressive numbers. For 2010. TI5 prize pool is bigger than all StarCraft 2 tournaments since the release of the game together. When there is no tournaments running, Starcraft has less viewers than minecraft or World of Tanks. Minecraft, Carl! WCS wasn't even around in 2010, the numbers are from the current prizes in 2015 feel free to work it out. TI5 prize pool isn't fair to compare to SC2 since the money invested into the tournament is crowd funded, anyway why does the amount of money on offer even matter, do people play the game because if they became number #1 in the world they're rich? I've noticed SC2 actually have more stream watchers recently, with people like Demuslim/Naniwa and other popular players streaming more regularly the viewership is climbing back up, as Incontrol has said many times before why do we need to be the biggest and best? SC2 is sustainable has a core viewerbase/playerbase that's not going anywhere why are we worried? That was sarcasm. 1.5m in a year is just not "doing very well" nowadays. If you don't want Starcraft to be the biggest and best, there is no point discussing anymore. We just want the opposite things.
P.S. There is no such thing as sustainable core which is not going anywhere. If you don't develop, you degrade and die.
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On August 05 2015 11:46 TedCruz2016 wrote: The only foreseeable result of cutting macro is making all three races homogeneous and losing their uniqueness.
The macro mechanics are what makes the races unique?
On August 05 2015 14:17 L3x_Luthor wrote: This whole "It's pointless/boring/unfun to inject" argument is ridiculous because there are plenty of other aggravations in the game that are still very essential.
It's ridiculous to want pointless/boring/unfun things to be removed? SC2 is not supposed to be meaningful/fun? Would it be a bad thing if blizz removed ALL the aggravations and just left the fun bits?
Do people really feel like that only thing stopping them from hitting the "skill ceiling" is the macro mechanics?
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Half-jokingly - I have seen this discussion already, when Rovio introduced power-ups in Angry Birds and true players were mad because the game was made easier, dumber, more accessible to casuals who cannot flick birds with the correct angle...
Jokes aside, I doubt that removing macro mechanics will achieve the declared goal. It would be dramatically hard for Starcraft to dethrone LoL, DOTA2 or CS:GO in terms of viewership and popularity - even if the mechanics are removed, automated or otherwise simplified - because it would still be just an attempt to force the design of RTS game to make it more eye-catching. This will not be enough. The viewers will still have to understand the relationships between the units, the remaining (and gruesome in LotV) macro requirements, just to marginally enjoy the game.
Let's face it - we fell in love in a difficult game. Even if we want everybody to watch it, sponsor the tournaments and pro careers, this will not happen. RTS as a genre have been disappearing from the market for a reason.
I have always seen Starcraft as an e-sport equivalent of snooker. A mechanically and strategically demanding game, which is not accessible to the general public (steep learning curve), not particularly flashy (a basketball slam dunk vs. a great ball pot in snooker vs. perfect marine splitting - which will be the most appealing for the public?) and not as easy to understand as the most popular sports (football vs. snooker; compare FPS like CS:GO vs. RTS).
Sticking to the snooker analogy: let's widen the pockets in the table and allow players to pot two red balls in a row. This would surely decrease the entry barriers for new players, widen the playerbase and subsequently the viewerbase and so on and so on? Well, no. It would make snooker easier for pros, but the average Joe still wouldn't be able to pot more than two balls in a row or plan a break without some serious practice. And it wouldn't make snooker as popular as basketball or football.
By the way, as a plat/diamond player (casually casual, 80-90 APM, at most 10-15 games a week), I find LotV difficult as hell. I often fail to use macro mechanics just because there is so much to think about and not enough muscle memory to do it (still trying to figure out new unit skills). And I'm starting to like it that way, trying to climb up from aggresive one-base play (mass adepts, anyone?) to more macro-oriented strategies. Removing macro mechanics right now wouldn't change much from my perspective - instead of failing to use them, I just wouldn't have the chance to use them. But it would surely take away some room for improvement and differentiation between me and other players.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 21:38 corydoras wrote: Half-jokingly - I have seen this discussion already, when Rovio introduced power-ups in Angry Birds and true players were mad because the game was made easier, dumber, more accessible to casuals who cannot flick birds with the correct angle...
Jokes aside, I doubt that removing macro mechanics will achieve the declared goal. It would be dramatically hard for Starcraft to dethrone LoL, DOTA2 or CS:GO in terms of viewership and popularity - even if the mechanics are removed, automated or otherwise simplified - because it would still be just an attempt to force the design of RTS game to make it more eye-catching. This will not be enough. The viewers will still have to understand the relationships between the units, the remaining (and gruesome in LotV) macro requirements, just to marginally enjoy the game.
Let's face it - we fell in love in a difficult game. Even if we want everybody to watch it, sponsor the tournaments and pro careers, this will not happen. RTS as a genre have been disappearing from the market for a reason.
I have always seen Starcraft as an e-sport equivalent of snooker. A mechanically and strategically demanding game, which is not accessible to the general public (steep learning curve), not particularly flashy (a basketball slam dunk vs. a great ball pot in snooker vs. perfect marine splitting - which will be the most appealing for the public?) and not as easy to understand as the most popular sports (football vs. snooker; compare FPS like CS:GO vs. RTS).
Sticking to the snooker analogy: let's widen the pockets in the table and allow players to pot two red balls in a row. This would surely decrease the entry barriers for new players, widen the playerbase and subsequently the viewerbase and so on and so on? Well, no. It would make snooker easier for pros, but the average Joe still wouldn't be able to pot more than two balls in a row or plan a break without some serious practice. And it wouldn't make snooker as popular as basketball or football.
By the way, as a plat/diamond player (casually casual, 80-90 APM, at most 10-15 games a week), I find LotV difficult as hell. I often fail to use macro mechanics just because there is so much to think about and not enough muscle memory to do it (still trying to figure out new unit skills). And I'm starting to like it that way, trying to climb up from aggresive one-base play (mass adepts, anyone?) to more macro-oriented strategies. Removing macro mechanics right now wouldn't change much from my perspective - instead of failing to use them, I just wouldn't have the chance to use them. But it would surely take away some room for improvement and differentiation between me and other players.
Making macro mechanics easier will just transfer the game from ((You vs Macro) vs (Me vs Macro)) to (You vs Me). It would not make the game easier. Your opponent must be the only factor that should make the game easier/harder for you.
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Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV.
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On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. The game is as hard as your opponent.
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On August 05 2015 21:31 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 20:56 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 20:44 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:04 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500. Very impressive numbers. For 2010. TI5 prize pool is bigger than all StarCraft 2 tournaments since the release of the game together. When there is no tournaments running, Starcraft has less viewers than minecraft or World of Tanks. Minecraft, Carl! WCS wasn't even around in 2010, the numbers are from the current prizes in 2015 feel free to work it out. TI5 prize pool isn't fair to compare to SC2 since the money invested into the tournament is crowd funded, anyway why does the amount of money on offer even matter, do people play the game because if they became number #1 in the world they're rich? I've noticed SC2 actually have more stream watchers recently, with people like Demuslim/Naniwa and other popular players streaming more regularly the viewership is climbing back up, as Incontrol has said many times before why do we need to be the biggest and best? SC2 is sustainable has a core viewerbase/playerbase that's not going anywhere why are we worried? That was sarcasm. 1.5m in a year is just not "doing very well" nowadays. If you don't want Starcraft to be the biggest and best, there is no point discussing anymore. We just want the opposite things. P.S. There is no such thing as sustainable core which is not going anywhere. If you don't develop, you degrade and die. http://www.esportsearnings.com/games Look at this link, we're 3rd in tournament earnings the ones above SC2 rely on micro transactions to increase their prizepool. I would love SC2 to be the biggest and the best, but catering to a perceived casual audience at the detriment of gameplay when we already have a strong community and tournament scene is a moronic direction to take. Broodwar has had no gameplay input (besides mapmakers) pretty much since it's inception, it's still got a solid viewerbase/playerbase even though it has a direct successor. + Show Spoiler +On a side note, whenever someone says "That was sarcasm" it invariable wasn't.
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On August 05 2015 20:34 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 19:47 Bojas wrote:I don't understand this whole discussion. The point of LotV was to increase the skill ceilling, so better players have an easier time differentiating themselves. Simplifying the game even more will make the game more like the Nexus Wars arcade map. Can't argue over taste, but I think if you think that's fun, you understand the game on the same level as your mechanics are. On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! You argue that lowering the mechanical skill ceilling makes the game more fun for lower level players, which means that lower level players will be watching the game more often. Instead of a counterargument, I will ask you: what makes you so certain that an SC2 with a lower skill ceilling means more people will watch the game? Lower level players will not be watching the game more often. The same percentage of gamers (both casual and hardcore) will watch tournaments. More gamers we have -> more viewers we have. And here is some facts: We have 593 GM players and 7714 Master league players (US+EU+KR/TW). 8307 hardcore players total. We also have 141656 players in Diamond or lower league. 149963 Players total. 15% of them will probably watch Blizzcon finals = 22494. Let's make starcraft twice harder -> twice more interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice less interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 16614 hardcore players and 70828 casual players. 87442 players total. 13116 viewers. Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 4154 hardcore players and 283312 casual players. 287466 players total. 43120 viewers. That's not an answer to my question. All you posted are current numbers, a made up conversion rate and no thoughts about non-players watching SC2.
See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch.
"Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players"
I don't think this is true at all. What makes a simpler game more interesting to watch?
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On August 05 2015 20:34 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 19:47 Bojas wrote:I don't understand this whole discussion. The point of LotV was to increase the skill ceilling, so better players have an easier time differentiating themselves. Simplifying the game even more will make the game more like the Nexus Wars arcade map. Can't argue over taste, but I think if you think that's fun, you understand the game on the same level as your mechanics are. On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! You argue that lowering the mechanical skill ceilling makes the game more fun for lower level players, which means that lower level players will be watching the game more often. Instead of a counterargument, I will ask you: what makes you so certain that an SC2 with a lower skill ceilling means more people will watch the game? Lower level players will not be watching the game more often. The same percentage of gamers (both casual and hardcore) will watch tournaments. More gamers we have -> more viewers we have. And here is some facts: We have 593 GM players and 7714 Master league players (US+EU+KR/TW). 8307 hardcore players total. We also have 141656 players in Diamond or lower league. 149963 Players total. 15% of them will probably watch Blizzcon finals = 22494. Let's make starcraft twice harder -> twice more interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice less interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 16614 hardcore players and 70828 casual players. 87442 players total. 13116 viewers. Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 4154 hardcore players and 283312 casual players. 287466 players total. 43120 viewers.
Why did you use the Blizzcon finals viewer numbers they actually exist, all SC2 streaming numbers are on fuzic.nl. 155,435 is the peak viewer number for the 2014 WCS SC2 finals.
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The fact that macro decides if a low level player wins or not doesn't mean he won't micro his units or come up with a strategy. Of course its an improvement if they win with all the skills involved in the game but most people, specially in lower leagues come up with their builds and unit compositions for the fun of it.
Its actually nice to play whatever unit composition you like since macro matters the most.
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Top koreans in Code S are losing due to silly decisions. But their mechanics are great so let's praise them!
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On August 05 2015 21:59 Bojas wrote: See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch.
Should the game be made harder? It would be very easy to come up with more tasks to players that would only be designed to make the game harder. E.g. currently a unit is produced after you click one button on the building. Shouldn't we introduce a mechanic that forces you to spend more time to produce units? Say you only pay half of the resources to start production of a unit but the progress bar just stops halfway and then you have to go to the specific production building/egg and click on a "continue production" button and pay the other half of the cost. That would definitely raise the skill ceiling by a ton, especially if you cannot smart command it on all your production facilities but you have to find the specific one that is halted at the moment. Or say we want more attention on units that aren't on your screen. Like, I want to make this zergling runby more skilldependend. We could easily introduce a mechanic that forces you to spend more attention on harassing, e.g by removing the idle-attack stance. A unit won't attack unless specifically told at least to be on attack move. Your medivac gets unloaded in the enemy mineral line, the zerglings get move commanded to the enemy mineral line, the warp in of zealots finish - but you also need to tell them to attack now. This would obviously distinguish better players even more from worse players.
So my counter-question to those who are against making macro mechanics easier with the sole reasoning that it helps distinguish players: have we just randomly found the sweet spot with current SC2 in which the game cannot be improved anymore with harder/easier mechanics? And if not and the game should be even harder, wouldn't that justify mechanics as I outlined above, because they very well fullfill the only reasoning you give for keeping the current macro mechanics.
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On August 05 2015 22:19 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:59 Bojas wrote: See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch. So my counter-question to those who are against making macro mechanics easier with the sole reasoning that it helps distinguish players: have we just randomly found the sweet spot with current SC2 in which the game cannot be improved anymore with harder/easier mechanics? You are correct on that there is a balance between a (theoretical) game full of mundane tasks and a game where everything is automated.
As for the sweet spot, my personal opinion is that we are close to it, but I wouldn't mind it being made a bit more BW-esque. I would NOT enjoy it being more simpler, in fact I think I would quit if it became as simple as Queens being able to auto-inject.
But this isn't even about me, you guys are almost saying that SC2 would be saved if it became simpler mechanically. I'm still wondering if that's true.
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
Lowering mechanics is not a good way to solve thep roblem. Change the speed of the game.
You know, remove the unforgivingness of the game. You look away from your army for a second - BOOM! Half is vaporized. You look away from a mini-map for a second - BAM! Mine killed 6 workers/Oracle killed 10 of them. And so on.
Blizzard needs to make the game slower so it is not that hectic and unforgiving.
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I don't think people want to purposely lower the skill ceiling. The point is to lower the skill floor. Inject is a mechanic that getting into it, is actually super demanding, it takes research and knowledge of how other people have done it before and which way best suits you. I've played the game since WoL beta and have only briefly touched on off racing as Zerg, one of the biggest gaps for me to actually get to play the race is to overcome this freaking Inject method and make it muscle memory.
LotV is overall harder than HotS, EVEN with removed macro boosters. Why not remove some skill floor, so that we can add other stuff to raise the skill ceiling that does not fuck over the lower leagues.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 21:59 Bojas wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 20:34 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 19:47 Bojas wrote:I don't understand this whole discussion. The point of LotV was to increase the skill ceilling, so better players have an easier time differentiating themselves. Simplifying the game even more will make the game more like the Nexus Wars arcade map. Can't argue over taste, but I think if you think that's fun, you understand the game on the same level as your mechanics are. On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! You argue that lowering the mechanical skill ceilling makes the game more fun for lower level players, which means that lower level players will be watching the game more often. Instead of a counterargument, I will ask you: what makes you so certain that an SC2 with a lower skill ceilling means more people will watch the game? Lower level players will not be watching the game more often. The same percentage of gamers (both casual and hardcore) will watch tournaments. More gamers we have -> more viewers we have. And here is some facts: We have 593 GM players and 7714 Master league players (US+EU+KR/TW). 8307 hardcore players total. We also have 141656 players in Diamond or lower league. 149963 Players total. 15% of them will probably watch Blizzcon finals = 22494. Let's make starcraft twice harder -> twice more interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice less interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 16614 hardcore players and 70828 casual players. 87442 players total. 13116 viewers. Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 4154 hardcore players and 283312 casual players. 287466 players total. 43120 viewers. That's not an answer to my question. All you posted are current numbers, a made up conversion rate and no thoughts about non-players watching SC2. See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch. "Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players"
I don't think this is true at all. What makes a simpler game more interesting to watch?
Simpler game will have more PvP interactions with micro and strategy decisions rather than boring macro mechanics handling.
If you think that viewers count has nothing to do with players count - prove it. Because it is so obvious for me that I can't even explain it to you. Show me any example when 1000 players game constantly has more viewers than 5000 players game.
And non-players doesn't give a fuck about macro mechanics. They just want to see a beautiful fights. There was literally 0 times when crowd goes "oooOOOAAAAA" when someone has never missed an injection or cronoboost for 10 minutes of game.
Simplifying the game mechanics will not make it easier to win. It will just give you more time to take actions against your opponent instead of building supply buildings or handling your queens. It is very easy to move chess figures. Go win Magnus Carlsen because the difference between how you can pick up and move pieces of wood is 0.
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Simpler game will have more PvP interactions with micro and strategy decisions rather than boring macro mechanics handling.
Yes, because the macro skill required for PvP is very high and removing macro mechanics will suddenly make PvP fun. (/s)
If you think that viewers count has nothing to do with players count - prove it. Because it is so obvious for me that I can't even explain it to you. Show me any example when 1000 players game constantly has more viewers than 5000 players game.
I have never said that there's no correlation between playerbase and the viewer count for events.
And non-players doesn't give a fuck about macro mechanics. They just want to see a beautiful fights. There was literally 0 times when crowd goes "oooOOOAAAAA" when someone has never missed an injection or cronoboost for 10 minutes of game.
Simplifying the game mechanics will not make it easier to win. It will just give you more time to take actions against your opponent instead of building supply buildings or handling your queens. It is very easy to move chess figures. Go win Magnus Carlsen because the difference between how you can pick up and move pieces of wood is 0.
I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about and resort to making silly comparisons.
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On August 05 2015 21:48 Big J wrote: Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV.
this, in sc/bw there are no mules, chronos etc. and its still hard to play.
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On August 05 2015 22:57 Bojas wrote:Show nested quote +Simpler game will have more PvP interactions with micro and strategy decisions rather than boring macro mechanics handling. Yes, because the macro skill required for PvP is very high and removing macro mechanics will suddenly make PvP fun. (/s) Show nested quote +If you think that viewers count has nothing to do with players count - prove it. Because it is so obvious for me that I can't even explain it to you. Show me any example when 1000 players game constantly has more viewers than 5000 players game. I have never said that there's no correlation between playerbase and the viewer count for events. Show nested quote +And non-players doesn't give a fuck about macro mechanics. They just want to see a beautiful fights. There was literally 0 times when crowd goes "oooOOOAAAAA" when someone has never missed an injection or cronoboost for 10 minutes of game.
Simplifying the game mechanics will not make it easier to win. It will just give you more time to take actions against your opponent instead of building supply buildings or handling your queens. It is very easy to move chess figures. Go win Magnus Carlsen because the difference between how you can pick up and move pieces of wood is 0. I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about and resort to making silly comparisons.
Playerbase and viewcount is a chicken and a egg scenario, there's no reason in talking about perceived adjustments to increase a viewercount/playerbase the only discussion that makes sense is what the best move for gameplay.
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On August 05 2015 22:35 Bojas wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 22:19 Big J wrote:On August 05 2015 21:59 Bojas wrote: See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch. So my counter-question to those who are against making macro mechanics easier with the sole reasoning that it helps distinguish players: have we just randomly found the sweet spot with current SC2 in which the game cannot be improved anymore with harder/easier mechanics? You are correct on that there is a balance between a (theoretical) game full of mundane tasks and a game where everything is automated. As for the sweet spot, my personal opinion is that we are close to it, but I wouldn't mind it being made a bit more BW-esque. I would NOT enjoy it being more simpler, in fact I think I would quit if it became as simple as Queens being able to auto-inject. But this isn't even about me, you guys are almost saying that SC2 would be saved if it became simpler mechanically. I'm still wondering if that's true.
I don't think you can "save" SC2. SC2 is not going to be the topdog ever again:
On August 05 2015 21:48 Big J wrote: Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV.
But in terms of mechanics let's take a look at the popular blizzard RTS games:
Starcraft:Broodwar - surpassed in popularity by the Big Game Hunters mod, a Starcraft mod/map that heavily takes away from the need to manage macro. You are left with the big posterboy combats and the cool unit/strategical choices of the original play. Warcraft 3 - surpassed in popularity by the mod DotA that took away the need to manage production/economy (which were very crippled in the game to begin with) and left you only with the (extended) hero part of the game. You are left with hero developing and microing similar to the original game. Starcraft 2 - surpassed in popularity by mods like Nexus Wars and Desert Strike that take away from the need to macro (and micro) units. You are left with strategic choices similar to the original game.
I think the pattern I want to outline is quite clear. Blizzard has been very good at creating popular RTS games, but their most popular forms have always been the ones that got rid of a good part of the "necessary soloplay mechanics" and kept the combat micromanagement or strategic interactions that people actually loved the most in the original game. Again, SC2 could not get there even if blizzard wanted to. But SC2 can take a few babysteps away from the mechanics that you just do without a real strategic or microdepending interaction and the macromechanics are some of the most prominent ones here. It won't make the game noobfriendly, but it caters in the direction "the best starcraft possible" in my opinion.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 22:57 Bojas wrote: Yes, because the macro skill required for PvP is very high and removing macro mechanics will suddenly make PvP fun. (/s) If I have 150 apm, I have to spend 120 of them on macro mechanics and there is only 30 left for PvP. I want it to be otherwise. I want to think about how should I win my opponent. Not about not missing injections or not having a supply block.
On August 05 2015 22:57 Bojas wrote: I have never said that there's no correlation between playerbase and the viewer count for events. So you should understand that the game must be more friendly for casual players. Because 95% of all players in all games are casuals. And there is 0 fun being a casual player in starcraft.
On August 05 2015 22:57 Bojas wrote: I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about and resort to making silly comparisons. Best argument ever.
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Bisutopia19035 Posts
On August 05 2015 23:07 Schakal111 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:48 Big J wrote: Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV. this, in sc/bw there are no mules, chronos etc. and its still hard to play. There is no MBS and automining in BW. Therefore there are still things to macro constantly. It's a tradeoff so your argument doesn't stick.
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I think the brood war example is being used to show that 'macro boosters' don't define the character of the game. Despite that, brood war did have an insane amount of mechanical difficulties in the user interface, but I still don't think this defines the character of the game.
I can argue that my opponent's blink micro poses me a mechanical difficulty because I have to react to it with a high degree of precision.
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On August 05 2015 14:24 NKexquisite wrote: Casual players are casual anyways, they aren't the core users, and they arent the players that will be playing for a long period of time -- they are casual. Casual gamers jump to whatever game is hot and popular, they dont stick around long. It's not worth catering to the casual player. Wrong. Casual players kept SC1 alive as long as they did. This is why all the way to the release of SC2 you could find a whole slew of UMS games on East.
Casual players are and always will be the lifeblood of any game that wants to become or remain successful.
On August 05 2015 14:17 L3x_Luthor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 10:10 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I agree. I'm in gold right now. I enjoy macro to some extent (not enough to protest removing it) but the fun of the game for me has been doing things that aren't in the meta. I hate blink stalkers but I love HT's and Oracles and Warp Prisms, so that's the units I end up using. One of my absolute favorite things in LotV is kiting with the Warp Prism (hell I'd preorder the game if they just gave me a warp prism and immortal every campaign mission/match and told me to go to town), and it's annoying pulling off some sick micro, thinking "Maybe this can get me into platinum", and then whoops no I'm behind on my warp cycles, my upgrades are late, my nexus is full of energy.
I'm not saying take out macro because it's an integral part of the game. But if I'm all-inning, as a low level player whose APM is limited, having the difference between a good 2 base all-in and a bad 2 base all-in be whether or not I'm chronoboosting my warp gates to get my units out faster while I'm already warping them in and moving them around to make sure they don't get surrounded is frustrating to no end. So you play more. Being bad (no offense) is not a reason to remove such an essential part of the game. Starcraft hooks me because it's challenging. I've been stuck in Gold for quite a while in the past, so I played and played, now I am a high diamond and my goal is Masters. I'm also a Zerg, inject can be very difficult but it's what makes my race unique. This whole "It's pointless/boring/unfun to inject" argument is ridiculous because there are plenty of other aggravations in the game that are still very essential. Making drones isn't fun, nor is getting supply blocked, so should we remove those mechanics too? Blizzard is walking a line right now that could greatly cost them a lot of fans. They did the same thing to World of Warcraft, they made it 10X more casual, which made it 10x more easy, and as a result 10x less interesting. Starcraft 2 is addicting because it's so hard. When you finally get that promotion to the next rank you can truly pat yourself on the back because you earned it. Please don't take this away Bliz. There's no fun in playing more. I'm not saying Blizz should put me in GM to not hurt my feelings, but I have no incentive after losing game after game after game simply because I'm not chronoing my gates between microing my units or after I work my ass off to dismantle a Zerg army chunk by chunk whoops he remaxed and is back at 200/200.
WoW was done in such a way that my dead grandma could easily get to level 90 if I sat her in front of a computer. We're not advocating that. We're advocating simplifying macro in exchange for faster micro. It's like trying to make QWOP a boxing game. At some point if you want better control of the boxer's arms, you'll need to simplify the QWOP part - not remove it entirely, but make it easier to manage so the players can actually box and not throw right hook after right hook because they're too busy with the footwork.
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Making macro mechanics easier (less punishing) would make the game more focused on micro which could be a good thing. I think they should remain in some form but less punishing and be more of a "you did something good here is a reward" type of thing, of course on pro level this will still mean you have to do them.
However, currently, I don't think the unit interactions in the game is solid enough for it to work out as intended. I fear that it will be just turbovacs, mutas and warp prisms flying around sperm jerking apm while you dance back and fourth with your units without any real strategic choices to do, other than I need unit x to counter unit y. I don't know.. maybe I am rambling but I feel like removing macro mechanics at this point would decrease strategic options, especially in conjunction with the new economy.
-edit Maybe give the other races something similar to chronoboost instead for mules/injects to so they can tailor their styles better?
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Its always funny to hear the same people.
"Starcraft 2 is awful compared to broodwar, blizzard should really fix this dying game with big changes" "ROFL Remove macro mechanics is worst idea ever, KEEP THE GAME AS IT IS OR IM OUT."
please, youre just embarrasing.
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On August 05 2015 23:40 Gullis wrote: Making macro mechanics easier (less punishing) would make the game more focused on micro which could be a good thing. I think they should remain in some form but less punishing and be more of a "you did something good here is a reward" type of thing, of course on pro level this will still mean you have to do them.
However, currently, I don't think the unit interactions in the game is solid enough for it to work out as intended. I fear that it will be just turbovacs, mutas and warp prisms flying around sperm jerking apm while you dance back and fourth with your units without any real strategic choices to do, other than I need unit x to counter unit y. I don't know.. maybe I am rambling but I feel like removing macro mechanics at this point would decrease strategic options, especially in conjunction with the new economy. Players will find ways around it. Maybe using ravagers against tank drops, ling splitting vs disruptors... Remember that we've got a long way to go with balance as well, Blizz has definitely told us they want to change things that they haven't changed, and there might be more on the table (like what we find for them as well)
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On August 05 2015 23:42 weikor wrote: Its always funny to hear the same people.
"Starcraft 2 is awful compared to broodwar, blizzard should really fix this dying game with big changes" "ROFL Remove macro mechanics is worst idea ever, KEEP THE GAME AS IT IS OR IM OUT."
please, youre just embarrasing.
2 sides to the coin, all of us saying that we dislike this change don't understand how anyone can't see how this is bad for the game. I'm willing to bet that the majority of people in favor of removing the macro mechanics are below a masters level. I'm yet to have heard a pro player agree with these changes.
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On August 05 2015 23:48 Linear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 23:42 weikor wrote: Its always funny to hear the same people.
"Starcraft 2 is awful compared to broodwar, blizzard should really fix this dying game with big changes" "ROFL Remove macro mechanics is worst idea ever, KEEP THE GAME AS IT IS OR IM OUT."
please, youre just embarrasing. 2 sides to the coin, all of us saying that we dislike this change don't understand how anyone can't see how this is bad for the game. I'm willing to bet that the majority of people in favor of removing the macro mechanics are below a masters level. I'm yet to have heard a pro player agree with these changes. The majority of people who play Starcraft are also below masters level.
Also, an actual analysis with the macro-removed mod: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/491742-new-macro-good
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On August 05 2015 21:50 Linear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:31 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:56 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 20:44 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:04 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500. Very impressive numbers. For 2010. TI5 prize pool is bigger than all StarCraft 2 tournaments since the release of the game together. When there is no tournaments running, Starcraft has less viewers than minecraft or World of Tanks. Minecraft, Carl! WCS wasn't even around in 2010, the numbers are from the current prizes in 2015 feel free to work it out. TI5 prize pool isn't fair to compare to SC2 since the money invested into the tournament is crowd funded, anyway why does the amount of money on offer even matter, do people play the game because if they became number #1 in the world they're rich? I've noticed SC2 actually have more stream watchers recently, with people like Demuslim/Naniwa and other popular players streaming more regularly the viewership is climbing back up, as Incontrol has said many times before why do we need to be the biggest and best? SC2 is sustainable has a core viewerbase/playerbase that's not going anywhere why are we worried? That was sarcasm. 1.5m in a year is just not "doing very well" nowadays. If you don't want Starcraft to be the biggest and best, there is no point discussing anymore. We just want the opposite things. P.S. There is no such thing as sustainable core which is not going anywhere. If you don't develop, you degrade and die. http://www.esportsearnings.com/gamesLook at this link, we're 3rd in tournament earnings the ones above SC2 rely on micro transactions to increase their prizepool. I would love SC2 to be the biggest and the best, but catering to a perceived casual audience at the detriment of gameplay when we already have a strong community and tournament scene is a moronic direction to take. Broodwar has had no gameplay input (besides mapmakers) pretty much since it's inception, it's still got a solid viewerbase/playerbase even though it has a direct successor. + Show Spoiler +On a side note, whenever someone says "That was sarcasm" it invariable wasn't.
Man, why do you think Blizzard keeps injecting so much money into WCS despite the declining viewercount? Could it be because they want to sustain a strong competitive scene at least until the final installment of SC2 and expect a return on investment through LOTV sales? What do you think happens once they're done selling LOTV copies and viewership stays at an abysmal level? Do you think they'll keep throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the window ad vitam eternam?
Macro boosters do not benefit gameplay, they are is detrimental to it. They add nothing to the game and are so punishing you have to spend most of your attention on them instead of scouting, thinking, adapting and microing. It is making SC2 less strategic, less fun and more mechanical. Right now the game is 90% mechanics and 10% strategy. Now if you want the game to be an APM competition, that's fine but I don't understand why anyone would think that is a good thing.
@ OP: thanks for the solid post.
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On August 05 2015 23:53 nTzzzz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:50 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 21:31 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:56 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 20:44 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:04 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500. Very impressive numbers. For 2010. TI5 prize pool is bigger than all StarCraft 2 tournaments since the release of the game together. When there is no tournaments running, Starcraft has less viewers than minecraft or World of Tanks. Minecraft, Carl! WCS wasn't even around in 2010, the numbers are from the current prizes in 2015 feel free to work it out. TI5 prize pool isn't fair to compare to SC2 since the money invested into the tournament is crowd funded, anyway why does the amount of money on offer even matter, do people play the game because if they became number #1 in the world they're rich? I've noticed SC2 actually have more stream watchers recently, with people like Demuslim/Naniwa and other popular players streaming more regularly the viewership is climbing back up, as Incontrol has said many times before why do we need to be the biggest and best? SC2 is sustainable has a core viewerbase/playerbase that's not going anywhere why are we worried? That was sarcasm. 1.5m in a year is just not "doing very well" nowadays. If you don't want Starcraft to be the biggest and best, there is no point discussing anymore. We just want the opposite things. P.S. There is no such thing as sustainable core which is not going anywhere. If you don't develop, you degrade and die. http://www.esportsearnings.com/gamesLook at this link, we're 3rd in tournament earnings the ones above SC2 rely on micro transactions to increase their prizepool. I would love SC2 to be the biggest and the best, but catering to a perceived casual audience at the detriment of gameplay when we already have a strong community and tournament scene is a moronic direction to take. Broodwar has had no gameplay input (besides mapmakers) pretty much since it's inception, it's still got a solid viewerbase/playerbase even though it has a direct successor. + Show Spoiler +On a side note, whenever someone says "That was sarcasm" it invariable wasn't. Man, why do you think Blizzard keeps injecting so much money into WCS despite the declining viewercount? Could it be because they want to sustain a strong competitive scene at least until the final installment of SC2 and expect a return on investment through LOTV sales? What do you think happens once they're done selling LOTV copies and viewership stays at an abysmal level? Do you think they'll keep throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the window ad vitam eternam? Macro boosters do not benefit gameplay, they are is detrimental to it. They add nothing to the game and are so punishing you have to spend most of your attention on them instead of scouting, thinking, adapting and microing. It is making SC2 less strategic, less fun and more mechanical. Right now the game is 90% mechanics and 10% strategy. Now if you want the game to be an APM competition, that's fine but I don't understand why anyone would think that is a good thing. @ OP: thanks for the solid post. Should I start a thread to discuss strategic depth of SC2? You guys are making it sound like SC2 is like chess, but I think most high-level players agree that besides mechanics(macro and micro and multitasking) the game is a lot about coinflips and (lucky) positioning.
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Yeah.. absolutely... Trust throwing the game by totally blundering his positioning and moving across the map after gaining a proper advantage against Bomber... that was totally either a coinflip or somehow related to luck... yeah this is Code S by the way.
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I dont know... I quited SC2 because it was too easy.
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How many GSL u win before that?
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On August 05 2015 23:42 weikor wrote: Its always funny to hear the same people.
"Starcraft 2 is awful compared to broodwar, blizzard should really fix this dying game with big changes" "ROFL Remove macro mechanics is worst idea ever, KEEP THE GAME AS IT IS OR IM OUT."
please, youre just embarrasing.
Im guessing thats people like me. Well, its ok, everyone can have their game :D.
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Removing macro mechanics would slow down the game progress and add more strategic depth in terms of how to invest your resources imo. Having such powerful macroboosters makes acquiring them a must and actually lowers your choices.
For every race, it artificially boosts a races capabilities in areas where they are strong, hence, forcing a nerf in the contribution of those strengths coming from units themselves.
For example, Chronoboost makes it take a lot less time to produce a really potent deathball. At the same time, Protoss units are nerfed so that the deathball strength does not become out of hand.
Zerg already has a really strong flexibility in larva selection. Inject amplifies this strength strongly. At the same time, Zerg units are nerfed so that their remax capabilities do not become overpowered.
Same thing with Terran and economic flexibility. In return for being able to enjoy much greater freedom in terms of when to take their expands, and then be able to rapidly mine with mules, they have the least flexibility in production and the most fragile units when their opponents decide to take a defined engagement.
Once Blizzard decide they want to 'mend' the imposed weaknesses of each of the races they do so with really wonky and extreme units such as the SH, WM and Disruptor.
Imo, scale back/remove macroboosters, scale back extreme units such as those mentioned above, buff core units, bigger blinding cloud, storm, stronger siege tanks, stronger immortals, hell, why doesn't Terran have irradiate anymore?
We don't need an adept that makes zealots feel like a slow fatass with toothpicks.
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On August 06 2015 00:08 TokO wrote: Removing macro mechanics would slow down the game progress and add more strategic depth in terms of how to invest your resources imo. Having such powerful macroboosters makes acquiring them a must and actually lowers your choices.
For every race, it artificially boosts a races capabilities in areas where they are strong, hence, forcing a nerf in the contribution of those strengths coming from units themselves.
For example, Chronoboost makes it take a lot less time to produce a really potent deathball. At the same time, Protoss units are nerfed so that the deathball strength does not become out of hand.
Zerg already has a really strong flexibility in larva selection. Inject amplifies this strength strongly. At the same time, Zerg units are nerfed so that their remax capabilities do not become overpowered.
Same thing with Terran and economic flexibility. In return for being able to enjoy much greater freedom in terms of when to take their expands, and then be able to rapidly mine with mules, they have the least flexibility in production and the most fragile units when their opponents decide to take a defined engagement.
Once Blizzard decide they want to 'mend' the imposed weaknesses of each of the races they do so with really wonky and extreme units such as the SH, WM and Disruptor.
Imo, scale back/remove macroboosters, scale back extreme units such as those mentioned above, buff core units, bigger blinding cloud, storm, stronger siege tanks, stronger immortals, hell, why doesn't Terran have irradiate anymore?
We don't need an adept that makes zealots feel like a slow fatass with toothpicks. You bring up a good point with Zerg - it's partially the reason that two of the biggest massable units have 2 supply. With a bit of stats tinkering and weaker remaxes, 1 supply roach (and 2/3 supply ravager) might just be feasible.
Regarding Irradiate - Zerg has it now!
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Everyone keeps talking about sc2 being a dead game, but yesterday morning I had pro league, this morning I had GSL , tomorrow is starleague, this week until sunday I have IEM. If that's a dead game, then it's fine by me, I have SC2 content almost everyday.
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On August 05 2015 23:53 nTzzzz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:50 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 21:31 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:56 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 20:44 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:04 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500. Very impressive numbers. For 2010. TI5 prize pool is bigger than all StarCraft 2 tournaments since the release of the game together. When there is no tournaments running, Starcraft has less viewers than minecraft or World of Tanks. Minecraft, Carl! WCS wasn't even around in 2010, the numbers are from the current prizes in 2015 feel free to work it out. TI5 prize pool isn't fair to compare to SC2 since the money invested into the tournament is crowd funded, anyway why does the amount of money on offer even matter, do people play the game because if they became number #1 in the world they're rich? I've noticed SC2 actually have more stream watchers recently, with people like Demuslim/Naniwa and other popular players streaming more regularly the viewership is climbing back up, as Incontrol has said many times before why do we need to be the biggest and best? SC2 is sustainable has a core viewerbase/playerbase that's not going anywhere why are we worried? That was sarcasm. 1.5m in a year is just not "doing very well" nowadays. If you don't want Starcraft to be the biggest and best, there is no point discussing anymore. We just want the opposite things. P.S. There is no such thing as sustainable core which is not going anywhere. If you don't develop, you degrade and die. http://www.esportsearnings.com/gamesLook at this link, we're 3rd in tournament earnings the ones above SC2 rely on micro transactions to increase their prizepool. I would love SC2 to be the biggest and the best, but catering to a perceived casual audience at the detriment of gameplay when we already have a strong community and tournament scene is a moronic direction to take. Broodwar has had no gameplay input (besides mapmakers) pretty much since it's inception, it's still got a solid viewerbase/playerbase even though it has a direct successor. + Show Spoiler +On a side note, whenever someone says "That was sarcasm" it invariable wasn't. Man, why do you think Blizzard keeps injecting so much money into WCS despite the declining viewercount? Could it be because they want to sustain a strong competitive scene at least until the final installment of SC2 and expect a return on investment through LOTV sales? What do you think happens once they're done selling LOTV copies and viewership stays at an abysmal level? Do you think they'll keep throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the window ad vitam eternam? Macro boosters do not benefit gameplay, they are is detrimental to it. They add nothing to the game and are so punishing you have to spend most of your attention on them instead of scouting, thinking, adapting and microing. It is making SC2 less strategic, less fun and more mechanical. Right now the game is 90% mechanics and 10% strategy. Now if you want the game to be an APM competition, that's fine but I don't understand why anyone would think that is a good thing. @ OP: thanks for the solid post.
Tournament viewer count has remained stable for many years now, the only viewer count that has changed are the streamers, and with more personalities streaming more regularly (Demuslim/Naniwa) the viewercount has increased, even smaller personalities like LowkoTV have jumped up in viewers in recent times. I advocate macro mechanics, not macro boosters, I'm fine with them being scaled down or adapted (in the case of the mule) I just don't advocate making them non-existent or automatic.
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On August 06 2015 00:10 Vanadiel wrote: Everyone keeps talking about sc2 being a dead game, but yesterday morning I had pro league, this morning I had GSL , tomorrow is starleague, this week until sunday I have IEM. If that's a dead game, then it's fine by me, I have SC2 content almost everyday. SC2 won't die until at the very least SC3 comes out. And even then it'll have its players.
We're not leaving anytime soon.
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On August 06 2015 00:10 Vanadiel wrote: Everyone keeps talking about sc2 being a dead game, but yesterday morning I had pro league, this morning I had GSL , tomorrow is starleague, this week until sunday I have IEM. If that's a dead game, then it's fine by me, I have SC2 content almost everyday.
Yeah it's great but even Code S games still have strategic blunders... hmm players must be spending much more time practicing mechanics and not so much refining dynamic strategy and decision making...
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On August 06 2015 00:10 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 06 2015 00:08 TokO wrote: Removing macro mechanics would slow down the game progress and add more strategic depth in terms of how to invest your resources imo. Having such powerful macroboosters makes acquiring them a must and actually lowers your choices.
For every race, it artificially boosts a races capabilities in areas where they are strong, hence, forcing a nerf in the contribution of those strengths coming from units themselves.
For example, Chronoboost makes it take a lot less time to produce a really potent deathball. At the same time, Protoss units are nerfed so that the deathball strength does not become out of hand.
Zerg already has a really strong flexibility in larva selection. Inject amplifies this strength strongly. At the same time, Zerg units are nerfed so that their remax capabilities do not become overpowered.
Same thing with Terran and economic flexibility. In return for being able to enjoy much greater freedom in terms of when to take their expands, and then be able to rapidly mine with mules, they have the least flexibility in production and the most fragile units when their opponents decide to take a defined engagement.
Once Blizzard decide they want to 'mend' the imposed weaknesses of each of the races they do so with really wonky and extreme units such as the SH, WM and Disruptor.
Imo, scale back/remove macroboosters, scale back extreme units such as those mentioned above, buff core units, bigger blinding cloud, storm, stronger siege tanks, stronger immortals, hell, why doesn't Terran have irradiate anymore?
We don't need an adept that makes zealots feel like a slow fatass with toothpicks. You bring up a good point with Zerg - it's partially the reason that two of the biggest massable units have 2 supply. With a bit of stats tinkering and weaker remaxes, 1 supply roach (and 2/3 supply ravager) might just be feasible. Regarding Irradiate - Zerg has it now!
Definitely a lot of bad things went on with Zerg in SC2 from SC1. I think the point I'm trying to make with respect to macro boosters isn't that it's a problem that zerg has good remax. The remax is good, and should be strong. But I don't want to see it be possible because of inject, because inject is simply a context-free energy-based mechanic, which means that the zerg had to do it and that there was no strategic choice in whether not to. What would be much cooler was seeing the difference between a zerg who built a lot of extra hatcheries, gambling on a critical remax, versus the zerg who sustained themselves on a lower hatchery count relying on unit control and casters. Because there would always be the investment choice.
EDIT: Yeah, I just think it's stupid that when Irradiate was such a critical and iconic component of BW TvZ and then they lose it in SC2.
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On August 06 2015 00:29 TokO wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2015 00:10 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 06 2015 00:08 TokO wrote: Removing macro mechanics would slow down the game progress and add more strategic depth in terms of how to invest your resources imo. Having such powerful macroboosters makes acquiring them a must and actually lowers your choices.
For every race, it artificially boosts a races capabilities in areas where they are strong, hence, forcing a nerf in the contribution of those strengths coming from units themselves.
For example, Chronoboost makes it take a lot less time to produce a really potent deathball. At the same time, Protoss units are nerfed so that the deathball strength does not become out of hand.
Zerg already has a really strong flexibility in larva selection. Inject amplifies this strength strongly. At the same time, Zerg units are nerfed so that their remax capabilities do not become overpowered.
Same thing with Terran and economic flexibility. In return for being able to enjoy much greater freedom in terms of when to take their expands, and then be able to rapidly mine with mules, they have the least flexibility in production and the most fragile units when their opponents decide to take a defined engagement.
Once Blizzard decide they want to 'mend' the imposed weaknesses of each of the races they do so with really wonky and extreme units such as the SH, WM and Disruptor.
Imo, scale back/remove macroboosters, scale back extreme units such as those mentioned above, buff core units, bigger blinding cloud, storm, stronger siege tanks, stronger immortals, hell, why doesn't Terran have irradiate anymore?
We don't need an adept that makes zealots feel like a slow fatass with toothpicks. You bring up a good point with Zerg - it's partially the reason that two of the biggest massable units have 2 supply. With a bit of stats tinkering and weaker remaxes, 1 supply roach (and 2/3 supply ravager) might just be feasible. Regarding Irradiate - Zerg has it now! Definitely a lot of bad things went on with Zerg in SC2 from SC1. I think the point I'm trying to make with respect to macro boosters isn't that it's a problem that zerg has good remax. The remax is good, and should be strong. But I don't want to see it be possible because of inject, because inject is simply a context-free energy-based mechanic, which means that the zerg had to do it and that there was no strategic choice in whether not to. What would be much cooler was seeing the difference between a zerg who built a lot of extra hatcheries, gambling on a critical remax, versus the zerg who sustained themselves on a lower hatchery count relying on unit control and casters. Because there would always be the investment choice. That's what I had in mind. Like especially as a Protoss when you're maxed you don't trade too well against another maxed race, especially PvT. So you take the losing fight but have 20 warp gates behind it so you're virtually fighting at 240/200 instead of 200/200.
So we could see the same with Zerg. Instead of holding at 19 larva per hatch, we could see macro hatches go down at the nat/more expansions for gas, and then have 50+ larva ready to go.
EDIT: And yeah I feel you. I miss the old Mind Control too, Neural Parasite doesn't do it any sort of justice whatsoever.
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On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft. If this were even remotely true, CoD would be the biggest Esport in the world. It's not as simple as "easier game = more $$$ and viewers" and it never has been. Quit trying simplify the problem by simplifying the answer. The problem is a big mixture of a lot of things, like not being free to play and being part of a genre that isn't trending at the moment to name a couple. It is not a simple issue. If it was, Blizzard would have made the simple fix by now.
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Bisutopia19035 Posts
Guys, bring the discussion back on track or expect the hammer. Thank you.
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On August 05 2015 23:15 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 23:07 Schakal111 wrote:On August 05 2015 21:48 Big J wrote: Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV. this, in sc/bw there are no mules, chronos etc. and its still hard to play. There is no MBS and automining in BW. Therefore there are still things to macro constantly. It's a tradeoff so your argument doesn't stick.
ya ur right i think about it after my last post... anyway i dont like the macro mechanics and sc2 is still hard to master without chrono, larva etc.
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On August 06 2015 00:10 Vanadiel wrote: Everyone keeps talking about sc2 being a dead game, but yesterday morning I had pro league, this morning I had GSL , tomorrow is starleague, this week until sunday I have IEM. If that's a dead game, then it's fine by me, I have SC2 content almost everyday.
Just cause the game is around now doesn't mean it will be around later. If this game doesn't have a large base then wcs support will slowly disappear, and big tournaments like dreamhack, iem, and gsl will follow. Because why spend money and time on a game with a small base, that's shrinking over time, when there are alternatives with currently humongous presence and a bright future in terms of growth.
Of course I enjoy the moment, but with current outlook we can't say with certainty that gsl or wcs will be around in 2017
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On August 06 2015 00:12 mishimaBeef wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2015 00:10 Vanadiel wrote: Everyone keeps talking about sc2 being a dead game, but yesterday morning I had pro league, this morning I had GSL , tomorrow is starleague, this week until sunday I have IEM. If that's a dead game, then it's fine by me, I have SC2 content almost everyday. Yeah it's great but even Code S games still have strategic blunders... hmm players must be spending much more time practicing mechanics and not so much refining dynamic strategy and decision making...
Yes, and that is part of what makes Starcraft such an amazing game, the way that very high level player like classic, Innovation or Dark are better in this game because no matter how much they face build that tried to disrupt their macro they still keep it perfect is amazing.
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Who cares if they have perfect macro if they are blundering in strategy. It's a lot more intuitive to have a clear and visible strategy play out rather than blunders but "great macro though".
And this is Code S... losing games from strategic blunders! Even if the mechanics were easier, they'd be losing for the same reason!
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Bisutopia19035 Posts
On August 06 2015 00:41 Schakal111 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 23:15 BisuDagger wrote:On August 05 2015 23:07 Schakal111 wrote:On August 05 2015 21:48 Big J wrote: Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV. this, in sc/bw there are no mules, chronos etc. and its still hard to play. There is no MBS and automining in BW. Therefore there are still things to macro constantly. It's a tradeoff so your argument doesn't stick. ya ur right i think about it after my last post... anyway i dont like the macro mechanics and sc2 is still hard to master without chrono, larva etc. Just so you know, I actually had your exact thought. I was trying to walk through BW comparisons to see if I could talk myself out of my defense in keeping the abilities. I ultimately don't care if they are removed as long as there are still clear cut macro mechanics that can define a player. So that may mean something new has to be introduced. Mid-Late game macro and unit+upgrade+ability+expansion selection are really important things that a player who is amazing at this should have an edge on their opponent.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 06 2015 00:35 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft. If this were even remotely true, CoD would be the biggest Esport in the world. It's not as simple as "easier game = more $$$ and viewers" and it never has been. Quit trying simplify the problem by simplifying the answer. The problem is a big mixture of a lot of things, like not being free to play and being part of a genre that isn't trending at the moment to name a couple. It is not a simple issue. If it was, Blizzard would have made the simple fix by now. CoD is not a competitive game. It has never been positioned as a Cybersport. Of cause it is not so simple. We are talking about equal quality AAA products which are designed to create a competitive cybersport scene.
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Don't get me wrong, I LOVE making buildings, choosing the right comp, building units, creating workers, the balance between building / attacking / defending. If anyone tried to automate any of those things, I'd throw a fit.
That being said, there's only so much repetition I can take;
If I could make the game less imbalanced and tedious by removing chrono, mules and inject, id vote for that. If I could make it so I didn't have to mindlessly shift click every single building to a hotkey, id vote for that. If I could make the first three camera positions start at the bases, id vote for that.
I don't think changing any of these things makes the game less impressive. I've never watched or played a single game where I was impressed by the inject mechanic ending the game early because the tech switches are impossible to match, or that mules won a game with an unfair advantage, or that clicking the same cybercore 5 times in a row just to get warp-gate came across as good design. Never been in awe that a pro player bound a building to a hotkey, never been excited when the same camera position was set up at the same spot at the beginning of every single game.
Literally zero games were this was impressive to me, but hundreds of games were this felt like a chore and painfully redundant.
I don't know what is so great about doing tedious crap over and over, why the game has to be as redundant as possible or people consider it "dumbed down." I think the opposite, I think these things the way they are now make the game really dumb, changing them would make it smarter.
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I think Archon Mode is already a perfect solution for lower level players to learn the game. They can practice what they saw from professional games with the aid of other person, and even contribute new strategies and ideas that potentially also apply in formal games. They can switch between the Macro/Micro role anytime, micro the engagements together, and the learning process is more fun than before. I hope Blizzard adds some in-game rewards and more promotions towards Archon Mode so that players feel "it's okay" and not embarrassing to play Archon Mode. Unlike MOBAs that you can keep the game fresh anytime by simply adding new heroes/abilities, the effects by updating the map pool is quite limited, excepts Blizzard is planning add some fancy maps like those in Heroes of the Storm that comes with new mechanics. StarCraft relies on its depth in both Macro and Micro to keep the game challenging for players.
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They can practice what they saw from professional games with the aid of other person
Can they? I think alot of new players do not neccesarily know any other peple who play the game, but just want to try it out by them selves. Like if it was mandatory to due que in League of Legends (soloq que didn't exist) I am sure that game would also be a ton less succesful.
And from my experience, playing archon mode with strangers isn't a good experience.
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On August 06 2015 06:00 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +They can practice what they saw from professional games with the aid of other person Can they? I think alot of new players do not neccesarily know any other peple who play the game, but just want to try it out by them selves. Like if it was mandatory to due que in League of Legends (soloq que didn't exist) I am sure that game would also be a ton less succesful. And from my experience, playing archon mode with strangers isn't a good experience. I don't know, I feel like a lot of people get into these games by word of mouth or because their friend(s) play it. Like LoL isn't really that fun when you aren't playing with any friends either. It's still a great game, but a lot is stripped from the experience.
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(Preface - This is from the perspective as a Zerg player, and other races macro mechanics are different)
I do not understand why people feel the game is more "challenging" competitively with macro mechanics. I don't really call that a "challenge", it's just emulating the feeling of the bad bad UI/interface/hotkey controls that BW had. Except it's a weird mechanic, because this is INTENTIONALLY making the game repetitive and redundant just to keep up... The design does not make sense and I'm shocked so many people support this???....
In my honest opinion it was a bad idea to add these macro mechanics in the first place. It's a step back to try to emulate bad controls, and any mechanics in a competitive game should be competitive mechanics against the other player.
These macro mechanics are playing against the GAME, rather than playing against your OPPONENT. A fatal flaw in the game design of a game that's supposedly designed for the competitive level. Your opponent will usually have no idea how your doing on your macro mechanics, and can't effectively use these mechanics against their opponent. They do not encourage competitiveness at all, and therefore I do not believe they fit in competitive game design.
The game will still be just as difficult for pro players, instead of using their APM on macro it will be used elsewhere, and the APM will be COMPETITIVE vs the OPPONENT, rather than wasted APM competing vs the CPU.
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There are 3 distinct changes proposed: removing/changing injects, removing/changing mules, removing/changing chrono. Each change has different pros and cons. Each change will affect the respective race in a different way.
We should stop discussing those changes as if the macro mechanics are the same thing for the 3 races.
Injects: Some people think too much larvae is the problem, while others think its the requirement to click the inject button (or none, or both). 2 very distict issues that must be adressed in a different way. I think the extra larvae is what deffines zerg, tech switches and massive numbers. Zerg will have to be reworked completely. Im against reducing larvae production. However, Im ok with automated inject (though i prefer the way it is). I personally like the APM and attention required to inject larvae and spread creep, but i can see how its an issue for newcomers.
Chrono: This opens a world of possibility for protoss. Boost economy, tech or production. I think protoss will be more stuck in the same builds after the game is figured out a bit, if chrono is removed or nerfed. Bad chrono usage (or lack of) is also not as punishing as bad creep spread or missed injects (at least mid-late game). I think chrono should remain untouched.
Mule: Removing mules implies some really hard work to balance terran, since its not only a nerf but also a change in the mineral/gas ratio. If we also want bio to remain viable some changes to bunker build times won't do. An efficiency reduction will have the same effect but of course to a lesser extent. I think auto cast on mules (with the option to toggle on/off) is a better idea.
The cons of the macro mechanics cannot justify reworking and rebalancing each race completely, and that would be required if the mechanics are simply removed.. Changes to macro mechanics shoudn't be too impactful unless we want another game instead of a sequel.
Even if the current macro mechanics are bad, removing them is not a solution as things might get worse instead. But the nerfs proposed by blizzard are reasonable enough to be tested imo.
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On August 06 2015 07:03 Superbanana wrote: There are 3 distinct changes proposed: removing/changing injects, removing/changing mules, removing/changing chrono. Each change has different pros and cons. Each change will affect the respective race in a different way.
We should stop discussing those changes as if the macro mechanics are the same thing for the 3 races.
Injects: Some people think too much larvae is the problem, while others think its the requirement to click the inject button (or none, or both). 2 very distict issues that must be adressed in a different way. I think the extra larvae is what deffines zerg, tech switches and massive numbers. Zerg will have to be reworked completely. Im against reducing larvae production. However, Im ok with automated inject (though i prefer the way it is). I personally like the APM and attention required to inject larvae and spread creep, but i can see how its an issue for newcomers.
Chrono: This opens a world of possibility for protoss. Boost economy, tech or production. I think protoss will be more stuck in the same builds after the game is figured out a bit, if chrono is removed or nerfed. Bad chrono usage (or lack of) is also not as punishing as bad creep spread or missed injects (at least mid-late game). I think chrono should remain untouched.
Mule: Removing mules implies some really hard work to balance terran, since its not only a nerf but also a change in the mineral/gas ratio. If we also want bio to remain viable some changes to bunker build times won't do. An efficiency reduction will have the same effect but of course to a lesser extent. I think auto cast on mules (with the option to toggle on/off) is a better idea.
The cons of the macro mechanics cannot justify reworking and rebalancing each race completely, and that would be required if the mechanics are simply removed.. Changes to macro mechanics shoudn't be too impactful unless we want another game instead of a sequel.
Even if the current macro mechanics are bad, removing them is not a solution as things might get worse instead. But the nerfs proposed by blizzard are reasonable enough to be tested imo.
As a Zerg player, I believe spreading creep should stay in game. But injects? For reasons I explained above, I do not believe they are a good thing for the game design of SC. Artificially making the game harder with "vs CPU" elements, rather than "vs Player" elements, is silly.
If we really need any mechanics to keep the game "hard" after removing them (which I highly doubt...), then replace those mechanics with something competitive, that leads to mind games or strategic decisions that can be exploited. Not some repetitive action you have to do against the CPU that can not be exploited (or even monitored/scouted really) by the opponent in some form...
The only mechanic I think that adds some real positive decision making to the strategic gameplay is Protoss. But even that can not be exploited, it is merely something Protoss needs to do in order to succeed right now. Gives them a lot of options though, which is positive. More positive than the other races mechanics, at least.
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I want them cut. Not only is it additional clicks but it clutters a player's mind. I would rather see players have the mental clarity to play the game like an expert strategist than to have to cycle through their mind to finish the cyclical checklist of tasks.
Artificial macro boosters have no place cluttering the already high demand of pristine macro in addition to the many other aspects required of high level play.
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On August 06 2015 07:09 mishimaBeef wrote: I want them cut. Not only is it additional clicks but it clutters a player's mind. I would rather see players have the mental clarity to play the game like an expert strategist than to have to cycle through their mind to finish the cyclical checklist of tasks.
Artificial macro boosters have no place cluttering the already high demand of pristine macro in addition to the many other aspects required of high level play.
Very refreshing to see someone else that agrees that these macro mechanics feel "artificial". Vs CPU does not feel like real skill-based gameplay in a competitive game. Needs to be something more interactable and exploitable by opponents.
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On August 06 2015 07:06 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2015 07:03 Superbanana wrote: There are 3 distinct changes proposed: removing/changing injects, removing/changing mules, removing/changing chrono. Each change has different pros and cons. Each change will affect the respective race in a different way.
We should stop discussing those changes as if the macro mechanics are the same thing for the 3 races.
Injects: Some people think too much larvae is the problem, while others think its the requirement to click the inject button (or none, or both). 2 very distict issues that must be adressed in a different way. I think the extra larvae is what deffines zerg, tech switches and massive numbers. Zerg will have to be reworked completely. Im against reducing larvae production. However, Im ok with automated inject (though i prefer the way it is). I personally like the APM and attention required to inject larvae and spread creep, but i can see how its an issue for newcomers.
Chrono: This opens a world of possibility for protoss. Boost economy, tech or production. I think protoss will be more stuck in the same builds after the game is figured out a bit, if chrono is removed or nerfed. Bad chrono usage (or lack of) is also not as punishing as bad creep spread or missed injects (at least mid-late game). I think chrono should remain untouched.
Mule: Removing mules implies some really hard work to balance terran, since its not only a nerf but also a change in the mineral/gas ratio. If we also want bio to remain viable some changes to bunker build times won't do. An efficiency reduction will have the same effect but of course to a lesser extent. I think auto cast on mules (with the option to toggle on/off) is a better idea.
The cons of the macro mechanics cannot justify reworking and rebalancing each race completely, and that would be required if the mechanics are simply removed.. Changes to macro mechanics shoudn't be too impactful unless we want another game instead of a sequel.
Even if the current macro mechanics are bad, removing them is not a solution as things might get worse instead. But the nerfs proposed by blizzard are reasonable enough to be tested imo. As a Zerg player, I believe spreading creep should stay in game. But injects? For reasons I explained above, I do not believe they are a good thing for the game design of SC. Artificially making the game harder with "vs CPU" elements, rather than "vs Player" elements, is silly. If we really need any mechanics to keep the game "hard" after removing them (which I highly doubt...), then replace those mechanics with something competitive, that leads to mind games or strategic decisions that can be exploited. Not some repetitive action you have to do against the CPU that can not be exploited (or even monitored/scouted really) by the opponent in some form... The only mechanic I think that adds some real positive decision making to the strategic gameplay is Protoss. But even that can not be exploited, it is merely something Protoss needs to do in order to succeed right now. Gives them a lot of options though, which is positive. More positive than the other races mechanics, at least.
I never said the mechanics shouldn't be removed to keep the game "hard". I like manual injects because i like the multitask between micro and macro, cycle process included. I did mentioned its merely subjective tho.
Chrono boost is exploited, you seen to agree with it.
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I think some people misconstrue the theory that the game's innate mechanics must be simplified/streamlined to appeal to a casual audience on the pure basis of viewership.
I can watch my brother play as Protoss and beat an easy AI by just building shit loads of cannons and doing nothing for 45 minutes before steamrolling the easy AI with 6 units (basically, he dicks around not knowing what the hell to do).
It's quite another thing to watch two giants of the best SC2 league in the world go toe-to-toe in a nail-biting best of 7.
My point is, one of the reasons why BW and SC2 appeal to viewers is the skill that the players portray and utilise in their games. If everyone could do what they could, there'd be less interest in it as a whole, because their skill set and abilities would be mainstream samey, not exciting and clutch.
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I don't like that the most trained neural pathways trump proper cognitive reasoning during a game. It's like at the highest level of brood war you have to be at like elite level of reaction timing, how much strategy besides the strategy ingrained in your neural pathways can you really come up with?
Like 1+2 = ? Easy because you have trained all your life. But if I present you with a tactical scenario that you have never seen before you will default to your un-innovative but insane-reaction-speed habits because that is overpowered even if your solution is pretty bad when mechanics aren't overpowered.
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On August 06 2015 07:03 Superbanana wrote: There are 3 distinct changes proposed: removing/changing injects, removing/changing mules, removing/changing chrono. Each change has different pros and cons. Each change will affect the respective race in a different way.
We should stop discussing those changes as if the macro mechanics are the same thing for the 3 races.
Injects: Some people think too much larvae is the problem, while others think its the requirement to click the inject button (or none, or both). 2 very distict issues that must be adressed in a different way. I think the extra larvae is what deffines zerg, tech switches and massive numbers. Zerg will have to be reworked completely. Im against reducing larvae production. However, Im ok with automated inject (though i prefer the way it is). I personally like the APM and attention required to inject larvae and spread creep, but i can see how its an issue for newcomers.
Chrono: This opens a world of possibility for protoss. Boost economy, tech or production. I think protoss will be more stuck in the same builds after the game is figured out a bit, if chrono is removed or nerfed. Bad chrono usage (or lack of) is also not as punishing as bad creep spread or missed injects (at least mid-late game). I think chrono should remain untouched.
Mule: Removing mules implies some really hard work to balance terran, since its not only a nerf but also a change in the mineral/gas ratio. If we also want bio to remain viable some changes to bunker build times won't do. An efficiency reduction will have the same effect but of course to a lesser extent. I think auto cast on mules (with the option to toggle on/off) is a better idea.
The cons of the macro mechanics cannot justify reworking and rebalancing each race completely, and that would be required if the mechanics are simply removed.. Changes to macro mechanics shoudn't be too impactful unless we want another game instead of a sequel.
Even if the current macro mechanics are bad, removing them is not a solution as things might get worse instead. But the nerfs proposed by blizzard are reasonable enough to be tested imo.
I agree that the removal of each one of the mechanics have distinct implications, however, I disagree that they are so distinct that they cannot be discussed as similar mechanics. Between MULE, Chronoboost and Inject Larva, they are all energy based spells that are so invaluable to which their usage is a necessity rather than a strategic choice. In addition, they are largely context-free, at least at most levels, 99% of the time, injecting is the optimal use of your action, 99% spending your chrono is the optimal way to play Protoss, etc. There is no strategic use of the energy, investing in the Queen or Orbital is mandatory regardless of the game regardless of strategy. (In contrast to other energy abilities from units, whom are context specific, e.g. for combat or for scouting in the case of sentry).
I also wrote in an earlier post that every implementation of macrobooster had to come along with nerfs in a races core strengths to prevent imbalance. And then the gimmicky units needed to address those nerfs, e.g. frequently debated forcefields.
I think reworking and rebalancing each race completely is justified (and it would be required), given the sentiments of the community and pro players. If you don't think it's impactful read the OP in other thread removing macro mechanics=good?!. Obviously it's highly doubtful that Blizzard would be willing to go to such lengths.
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Progamers will always push the game all the way to its limits. That's their job. Regardless of the "difficulty of the macro mechanics". Make the "macro mechanics easier" and you will still see outrageous and awesome pro games. That's a fact, as they say in the North.
Blizzard has a tough job in that (a) you need to sell the game, and have revenue that justifies expenses, and (b) maintain or enhance the level of the eSport they've facilitated.
Making the game "easier" for casual players might be the wrong way to look at it, because they are essentially required to balance the game around pro or near-pro-level play. And let's face it: pros have different marines than us scrubs, lol. Focusing on making the matches more fun for casual players is probably a more realistic approach, and this can be done almost entirely with matchmaking.
I realize this is an anecdote, but I've a friend who loves games. Love them. He is an epic gamer with a gigantic collection. Loves RTS, TBS--the whole strategy genre, really. He dislikes multiplayer SC2. He's watched a few matches. He's given it a go, but strongly dislikes the "APM burden" as he calls it. Interesting perspective, right? *shrugs*
Focus on matchmaking, because the game will never feel balanced for casual players, because it literally can't be.
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Artificially making the game harder with "vs CPU" elements, rather than "vs Player" elements, is silly.
Totally agree with this. The current mechanics are not exciting to watch or play, they're tedious. Just because something is fulfilling a role in game now does not mean it is the best option. I can't wait to see a version without these mechanics to see what the pros do with that additional APM they can now use on other tasks, especially seeing as LOTV has more expansions and harass.
It may be that these mechanics are replaced with different ones, but as they currently stand I'm not convinced anyone is really defending these mechanics, I think they're just defending a high skill ceiling with lots of multitasking. These mechanics leaving doesn't mean those things go, it means those things shift to other tasks and roles. And people may be right, maybe that leaves the game with more micro than macro for a small while, but that can always be addressed once we've seen this change. Either way, the current mechanics are not interesting and changing things up is a welcome.
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I wholly agree, but as zerg, the strat sort of waits until low masters, since it's still macro through diamond, with a few scouting/runby tidbits.
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On August 05 2015 14:24 NKexquisite wrote: Casual players are casual anyways, they aren't the core users, and they arent the players that will be playing for a long period of time -- they are casual. Casual gamers jump to whatever game is hot and popular, they dont stick around long. It's not worth catering to the casual player.
so much thisss
Who said that SC needs to be #1 game #1 viewers?..it doesn't need to be on the top of esports to be enjoyable. There are lots of other more unpopular games with their own community and having fun. some people want to make it casual just for the sake of viewership and new players, but it wouldn't make sense since if it even happens bec its too diff from Starcraft anymore. Players (core players) should be given the highest priority than the viewers. Thousands of people enjoyed playing BW as casual and competitive so its not an excuse that SC2 mechanics are hard. If a person doesn't like the game for what it is then he should not play it. simple as that.
Me: tried playing MOBA.. always got bored since its just not my cup of tea, then I stopped playing it, I didn't complain to Valve to make it like the way i want it. Hopefully this would be the case for other sc2 players. It's not elitism when people r disagree making it easy, itsjust people want to enjoy the game the way it is
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Sorry OP, but you are wrong.
Weaker players are boring because they are weaker. Their skill is low so it limits what they can do, therefore it's boring for you to observe.
When I was new, SC was way more fun, even though I was terrible. The better players get, the more bored and tired they get because they are grinding tough opponents and doing the same strategies over and over and over, because at a high level there is little margin for error or fancy plays.
SC2 is dying largely because of MOBA type games. Big team games, freshly added heroes etc
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I disagree with the the thread writer. The better you get at SC2, the more boring it is. Repeating the same things over and over every match. Dying to build orders, cheese and maphackers all day long.
And truth is that SC2 will never be a micro focused game, the hard counter system doesn't allow that. Units will aways die to it's counter units no matter how good you are.
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On August 05 2015 10:00 Mamba wrote: LotV got so much harder than HotS. It's way more micro and multitasking intense. Starcraft will definetly not be to easy if Blizzard makes macro/mechanics a little easier.
And this what bothers me. We traded macro mechanics (which influence decision making and therefore strategy) for micro.
So we traded strategy for unit control.
If you want to control units, there are plenty of games that allow you to just do that. But this is a strategy game.
SC2 isn't dying because of MOBAs. DOTA was out in force long before SC2 came out. SC2 is having difficult because the game is less fun to play than it used to be, and that is because Blizzard is forcing the game.
On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
The way attract casual players isn't to make the game easy, it is to make it fun!
WOL in it's heyday, 2011, was a really fun game, way more than HOTS is today. Units and abilities like Fungal Growth, Vortex, Photon Overcharge, Abduct, Widow Mines and other garbage ideas made SC2 less fun to play. The scene then shrank and people stopped playing, but we know what we need to do to go back.
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Casual players enjoy obstacles. To attract casuals, the game has to be fun. LOTV has more gambits and ways to punish macro plays. For the macro mechanics, rather than remove them I want zergs to be able to make up for missed injects - such as with a double inject, popping off 6 larva; or, for protoss, a double boosted chrono giving a 75 percent speed increased. It's when your queens are full on energy and you're left wondering what to do with it you begin feeling out of place. Fix that, you don't have to mess up the macro mechanics for higher levels.
Also... fix the arcade. That's where the casuals go the most.
It'd be nice if, in chat and clan channels, players had direct communication and interaction with players from other blizzard games. Like... design an underlying chat interface for all blizzard games, with clan support. This way mixing and diversity takes place, and clans will be vibrant. Probably players will end up playing a wide variety of Blizzard games as well; fix the arcade and this could revitalize Sc2 to a wide audience.
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On August 06 2015 12:52 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 10:00 Mamba wrote: LotV got so much harder than HotS. It's way more micro and multitasking intense. Starcraft will definetly not be to easy if Blizzard makes macro/mechanics a little easier.
And this what bothers me. We traded macro mechanics (which influence decision making and therefore strategy) for micro.So we traded strategy for unit control.If you want to control units, there are plenty of games that allow you to just do that. But this is a strategy game. SC2 isn't dying because of MOBAs. DOTA was out in force long before SC2 came out. SC2 is having difficult because the game is less fun to play than it used to be, and that is because Blizzard is forcing the game. Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
The way attract casual players isn't to make the game easy, it is to make it fun!WOL in it's heyday, 2011, was a really fun game, way more than HOTS is today. Units and abilities like Fungal Growth, Vortex, Photon Overcharge, Abduct, Widow Mines and other garbage ideas made SC2 less fun to play. The scene then shrank and people stopped playing, but we know what we need to do to go back.
Guess you didn't play Brood War at all. Strategy, Micro (unit control), Macro, etc.. was all there. How popular and competitive was it? Pretty damn much, I mean hell, it's still played to this day at a high level and still an active pro scene.
Did casuals play? Yes they did, and you knew who they were. "Fastest Map Possible", D- to C- ranked players in ICCup/PGTour and a plethora of UMS games.
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On August 06 2015 12:31 xTJx wrote: I disagree with the the thread writer. The better you get at SC2, the more boring it is. Repeating the same things over and over every match. Dying to build orders, cheese and maphackers all day long.
And truth is that SC2 will never be a micro focused game, the hard counter system doesn't allow that. Units will aways die to it's counter units no matter how good you are. What hard counter system are you talking about? Except with some notable exceptions (immortal>tank) any standard army can compete perfectly well against another standard army in a matchup. Generally games are players building relatively similar armies to all games in the matchup and winning by either micro, macro, or positioning. There are very few hard counters in this game that can't be overcome by good play.
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Personally I want to be able to focus my mind of decision making instead of "doing chores". I think it would be nice if there was an auto-cast option for larva inject, or dropping mules, or chrono-boosting what is in production. Obviously this would require some testing and maybe my idea is shit, but it could potentially be win-win for everyone involved in SC2.
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I actually posted in the other thread talking about this issue, but I figured what's on my mind right now is still the same so this is a bit of copy and paste.
Just to start off with my experience level, I have hit NA masters in 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s for the first 19 ladder seasons in a row.
Well, this is certainly an interesting discussion, and I must respectfully state that as my opinion, the toning down or even removing of macro mechanics will indeed be a good thing for the game. Times have changed a lot and we've all grown up with a whole new set of priorities over learning a game inside and out. Nowadays, the number one factor to "is a game worth my time?" is accessibility. Can I jump right in and realistically play with the tools I am given as effectively as I can without being hampered by not being the best a technical mechanic? If I can never be good at that one particular mechanic, even though I know the game inside and out, it just won't be fun to play.
Way back in 2003, Warcraft III introduced MBS and, to a lesser extent, improved waypointing (command queueing). I absolutely loved that feature and ever since the beginning, I was saying, "If they brought this feature to Brood War, that game would be so much more enjoyable to play." Back in SC1, you had to click each building individually to build your units. And if you played Terran, if your SCV is already constructing a building you can't shift command it to go back to minerals, but you could if you were fast enough to shift command constructing a building and returning to minerals. Even back then, I really never got the "ooh" and "ahh" factor about that.
The fun of StarCraft 1 was always the micro battles and strategic positioning, but if you weren't good at the keeping your production rolling, then there really isn't a getting to the micro and strategy part. And in the end, it's not fun because there's no strategic alternative to maximizing your production. And that part is why every single one (yes, really every single one) of my friends except for myself quit playing competitive StarCraft.
I dabbled in a little bit of League of Legends as well. I've seen pro matches and watched Worlds live one time. The fun part about League of Legends is, not to sound like a broken record, the team fights and strategic positioning. But I am not good at the technical aspect of last hitting. I'll always misjudge how much life a creep has, try to auto it, and find out I left it alive with 3 HP and my minion gets the killing blow, leaving me with no gold. The punishment goes double when you fail to last hit a cannon minion. To miss something like that is like missing your larva injects. And because of that, you're down that amount of gold for the rest of the game. There really is no strategic alternative to missing CS outside of flat out killing the opposing hero, which is no small feat. The frustrating part of that is knowing, "You fell behind, but not because you were outplayed by the other player. Now you have to suffer a disadvantage for the rest of the freaking game."
Pro players in League of Legends are capable of last hitting every single minion in each wave in high stakes matches, easily hitting over 100 CS by the 10 minute mark. They have the timings, their attacks, and movements down to a science. And because of that, my enjoyment of LoL has been utterly destroyed. I cannot emulate their actions vs the lane creeps because you have to be so damn precise. It really is all or nothing when it comes to last-hitting. I cannot last hit for crap, and I do not care to improve myself at it because it doesn't even bring any valuable real-world lessons to it either. And so I do not play League of Legends anymore.
On a side note, Heroes of the Storm is an amazing game because there are so many strategic alternatives to each situation in the game. It's easy to jump into the game and adapt and change your playstyle on the fly. And most importantly, you aren't held back by not being good at PvE.
And going to StarCraft 2, I've had many aspiring zerg friends from the beginning of Wings of Liberty. As an experienced StarCraft veteran, I can easily teach my friends strategy and the flow of the game. But they'll never be good at continuously larva injectinvg, and thus they can't reach the strategy part of the game because they're held back by that one technical mechanic. And so they do not play StarCraft 2 anymore. It's as simple as that.
Now, speaking for myself, I play random race (and hit masters 18 times in a row playing random ), but if I were to main a race, I would not pick zerg. To miss a larva inject is just simply too punishing compared to missing chrono boost and MULE. And it just sucks to lose games knowing you messed up not against the other player, but against yourself. Again, there's no strategical recourse to missing an inject. All you're doing as a zerg is playing from behind. Why should you honestly be that punished just for missing a simple task? And if you win a game vs a zerg and find out they were stockpiling tons of resources but screwed up their larva injects, that victory would feel hollow.
Even if the macro mechanics were totally gutted, I believe the game would still be reasonably difficult, yet rewarding and FUN to play. Games are most fun when you can get your buddies IRL hooked and see them enjoying it and discussing it. I love StarCraft 2 to death because I have played the full 17 years (20 years if you wanna go even further back to Warcraft 2). I am capable of the nuanced mechanics required to play effectively, but all my friends are not even though they enjoy the franchise. So they do not play.
I commend Blizzard's gaming philosophy of making things as accessible as possible to newcomers. I would be enjoying StarCraft 2 to its fullest if my friends were actively playing and discussing it. StarCraft 2 is still my absolute favorite game in the world. It deserves more players, and by making it where getting to the fun part of the game easier is a step that I see will make leaps and bounds.
Thank you for reading this humble gamer's post.
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On August 06 2015 12:52 BronzeKnee wrote:
And this what bothers me. We traded macro mechanics (which influence decision making and therefore strategy) for micro.
So we traded strategy for unit control.
Remember when units didn't need abilities in order to be micro'd ? Good times.......
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While I still have horrible creep-spread, my injects are not that bad. I still would be okay with a cut or decreased auto-cast larvae injection.
One reason is the zerg fantasy. I want to infest the whole map, the whole planet. With injects, I don't really need macro hatcheries.
And there is the other side: I would be glad to sacrifice or lessen the injects, if I get rid of Terran mules. They can sit back and mule the crap out of the base.
And there is the side mentioned by the OP. Imagine you show Starcraft to a new player and have to tell him "You don't just have to build workers and units, you also have to do this repetitive macro management task or the opponent will own you every time."
The longer I think about it, the more I like the idea to overwork or cut the macro mechanics. While some decision making and some strategic depth is lost, the net gain is worth is.
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I think there's a big big BIG difference between enjoying watching a game and playing it. With this level of macro, the game is really fun to watch, but very hard to get your hands onto. That scares away new players and makes the number of active players sink. Is it better to have a fun game to watch or a fun game to play even at the low-mid levels? What do you think?
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On August 06 2015 12:52 BronzeKnee wrote: And this what bothers me. We traded macro mechanics (which influence decision making and therefore strategy) for micro.
So we traded strategy for unit control.
Macro =/= strategy. One of the arguments against the macro mechanics is that there isn't much strategy involved - they are just a mechanical barrier to playing the game.
If you want to control units, there are plenty of games that allow you to just do that. But this is a strategy game.
Are you suggesting that controlling units is not the focus of SC2? I have to disagree if you are. For me, controlling units is the most significant aspect to the game.
The way attract casual players isn't to make the game easy, it is to make it fun!
Removing the macro mechanics will not make the game easy. The skill cap is higher than any human will ever achieve. It will, however, make the game more fun.
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The better you get at Starcraft - the more fun it is that's a sad opinion
Casuals player always want to be able to do the same as proplayers without spending 10 hours a day to practice. A pro broodwar game will be more interesting to watch than a pro sc2 game because the skill cap is so huge that even zergling control can be impressive I fear that killing macro will also kill a part of sc2 that is required to stay a good game.
Macro =/= strategy. Ever heard of KT_Flash ?
what??
- If you want to control units, there are plenty of games that allow you to just do that. But this is a strategy game. - Are you suggesting that controlling units is not the focus of SC2? I have to disagree if you are. For me, controlling units is the most significant aspect to the game.
So is this a troll topic?
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go play turn-based strategy games. by definition "real time" means that the game is supposed to revolve around simultaneous macro and micro, hence difficult mechanics.
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On August 08 2015 19:46 Cazimirbzh wrote: Ever heard of KT_Flash ? what??
I was saying that you cannot use those two words - "macro" and "strategy" interchangeably.
I agree that focusing on macro tasks can be a strategy, and that there are strategies that exist that are so called "macro strategies", but macro does not represent the entirety of "strategy", and the macro mechanics do not represent the entirety of macro. Removing the macro mechanics does not mean trading strategy for unit control.
One of the arguments against the macro mechanics is that there isn't much strategy involved - they are just a mechanical barrier to playing the game.
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random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right?
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On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right?
fuck i hit quote instead of edit again, sigh
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On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right?
We're still months from release, so there's still plenty of time to tweak things.
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I personally believe that they should remove some of the dumbed down mechanics, like auto worker mining from rally points and put a cap on unit selection. Broodwar was fun to me because I had to constantly maintaining everything
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On August 08 2015 20:44 Quineotio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right? We're still months from release, so there's still plenty of time to tweak things. yeah but it would require tweaking of very basic things, and there is absolutely no way whatsoever such fundamental changes and alterations would be percieved as fair or balanced with just a year of estimated beta (at the absolute most) left and such a low amount of high level players play-testing actively and seriously
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On August 08 2015 20:48 DanceSC wrote: I personally believe that they should remove some of the dumbed down mechanics, like auto worker mining from rally points and put a cap on unit selection. Broodwar was fun to me because I had to constantly maintaining everything Yeah, at the very least they have to add a macro mechanic to zerg if they intend to completely automate the only big one they have
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On August 08 2015 20:50 Aocowns wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 20:44 Quineotio wrote:On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right? We're still months from release, so there's still plenty of time to tweak things. yeah but it would require tweaking of very basic things, and there is absolutely no way whatsoever such fundamental changes and alterations would be percieved as fair or balanced with just a year of estimated beta (at the absolute most) left and such a low amount of high level players play-testing actively and seriously
I don't think you can predict what will happen. If you haven't read G3n's post ("New Macro = Good!?") about his experiences without the macro mechanics I recommend it: www.teamliquid.net
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I enjoyed levelling Zerg from bronze up to platinum the most, specifically because I got to work only on my macro (nowadays in diamond it's oh I misclicked my banelings once in ZvZ, gg)
Micro is boring to me: my favourite bit of micro is when i jump back to my base to do my injects and creep spread, thinking "man, my opponent is probably just focussing on the fight, so even if he wins this one, I'm going to win the next one".
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On August 08 2015 20:52 Aocowns wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 20:48 DanceSC wrote: I personally believe that they should remove some of the dumbed down mechanics, like auto worker mining from rally points and put a cap on unit selection. Broodwar was fun to me because I had to constantly maintaining everything Yeah, at the very least they have to add a macro mechanic to zerg if they intend to completely automate the only big one they have
Do you feel that the only thing holding you back from controlling the game perfectly is the macro mechanics?
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On August 08 2015 20:58 Quineotio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 20:52 Aocowns wrote:On August 08 2015 20:48 DanceSC wrote: I personally believe that they should remove some of the dumbed down mechanics, like auto worker mining from rally points and put a cap on unit selection. Broodwar was fun to me because I had to constantly maintaining everything Yeah, at the very least they have to add a macro mechanic to zerg if they intend to completely automate the only big one they have Do you feel that the only thing holding you back from controlling the game perfectly is the macro mechanics? absolutely not, im just in the boat where i want my mechanical strength to account for as much as my composition choices and strategical choices. For that to be possible there needs to be macro mechanics that can be performed to much greater effect in a great player
I mean im pretty much completely new to the macro mechanics debate so there are plenty of points i havent read up on and shit
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On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right?
Balance is out of the window anyways currently. There are many problem areas that most likely will need a tweak or two, just because of the new units and the 12worker start and other protoss changes (and the ones that are to come). It's the perfect time to throw this in when changes need to be made eventually anyways.
To your specific concerns: Zerg loses 30% of their unit production in the early game (and also later on but then it's probably easier to overcome). Terran just lols and drops a supply depot instead of a mule, which is less value but a far, far, far smaller nerf to their tempo. And they are already profiting from the 12worker start in that department. Chrono is probably a much bigger problem because it makes certain strategies - in particular +1zealots vs zerg or double upgrade vs terran - a lot weaker or plainly unplayable. Though there may already be replacements (adepts for the anti-zergling).
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On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right?
Isn't this exactly the direction in which we want the game to move? Ideally, the baseline mechanical requirement for each of the races is roughly the same, regardless of macrobooster design implemented. This means that the game, disregarding player versus player interactions, is roughly the same difficulty for the two players. Now, this does not mean that the game becomes holistically "easier", if you take away macroboosters, but you're merely shifting the attention to the player versus player interactions. The difficulty of the game becomes relatively more dependent on how well you can exploit your opponent, or how good the opponent is good at exploiting your weaknesses, and less about how well you did your homework in terms of injecting well or mule'ing well.
There's a lot of nuance and benefit to be had from preparation in terms of worker-supply-command structures, building positioning and tech-army-economy aspects of the game. I think most starcraft 2 players forget how much complexity that is in the base Starcraft game that they think that once macroboosters are taken away, the game is completely dumbed down. It's not.
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United Kingdom10443 Posts
I think it's interesting that Blizzard have said that the zerg macro mechanic isn't "fun"
I personally love the flow of quickly moving through my bases and injecting all of them, seeing my queen energy low and thinking "god that was pro as fuck, i'm just like Life". Performing something difficult on the same level as the pro players is fun and rewarding for me.
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On August 08 2015 21:10 TokO wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right? Isn't this exactly the direction in which we want the game to move? Ideally, the baseline mechanical requirement for each of the races is roughly the same, regardless of macrobooster design implemented. This means that the game, disregarding player versus player interactions, is roughly the same difficulty for the two players. Now, this does not mean that the game becomes holistically "easier", if you take away macroboosters, but you're merely shifting the attention to the player versus player interactions. The difficulty of the game becomes relatively more dependent on how well you can exploit your opponent, or how good the opponent is good at exploiting your weaknesses, and less about how well you did your homework in terms of injecting well or mule'ing well. There's a lot of nuance and benefit to be had from preparation in terms of worker-supply-command structures, building positioning and tech-army-economy aspects of the game. I think most starcraft 2 players forget how much complexity that is in the base Starcraft game that they think that once macroboosters are taken away, the game is completely dumbed down. It's not.
I do agree with you, but I think his point is that protoss and terran have to queue up a lot more shit in their bases than zerg and it's balanced out by zerg having to inject so frequently. And I'm not sure he is right, I'm forgetting to put down my roach warren all the time hehe. And Protoss queing up stuff is already a thousand times easier than terran with queuing back workers and shit and then putting down addons for every building imo. Also the amount of upgrades and buildings zerg needs is a bit underrated I think. The spending in infrastructure are quite similar for zerg unless the game goes really late and Terrans/Protoss start techswitching.
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On August 08 2015 21:10 TokO wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right? Isn't this exactly the direction in which we want the game to move? Ideally, the baseline mechanical requirement for each of the races is roughly the same, regardless of macrobooster design implemented. This means that the game, disregarding player versus player interactions, is roughly the same difficulty for the two players. Now, this does not mean that the game becomes holistically "easier", if you take away macroboosters, but you're merely shifting the attention to the player versus player interactions. The difficulty of the game becomes relatively more dependent on how well you can exploit your opponent, or how good the opponent is good at exploiting your weaknesses, and less about how well you did your homework in terms of injecting well or mule'ing well. There's a lot of nuance and benefit to be had from preparation in terms of worker-supply-command structures, building positioning and tech-army-economy aspects of the game. I think most starcraft 2 players forget how much complexity that is in the base Starcraft game that they think that once macroboosters are taken away, the game is completely dumbed down. It's not. for the specific part you bolded, that would pretty much only apply to zergs though, right? The mechanical requirement for all races wouldnt be the same, it would be much easier for zerg
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On August 08 2015 21:15 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 21:10 TokO wrote:On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right? Isn't this exactly the direction in which we want the game to move? Ideally, the baseline mechanical requirement for each of the races is roughly the same, regardless of macrobooster design implemented. This means that the game, disregarding player versus player interactions, is roughly the same difficulty for the two players. Now, this does not mean that the game becomes holistically "easier", if you take away macroboosters, but you're merely shifting the attention to the player versus player interactions. The difficulty of the game becomes relatively more dependent on how well you can exploit your opponent, or how good the opponent is good at exploiting your weaknesses, and less about how well you did your homework in terms of injecting well or mule'ing well. There's a lot of nuance and benefit to be had from preparation in terms of worker-supply-command structures, building positioning and tech-army-economy aspects of the game. I think most starcraft 2 players forget how much complexity that is in the base Starcraft game that they think that once macroboosters are taken away, the game is completely dumbed down. It's not. I do agree with you, but I think his point is that protoss and terran have to queue up a lot more shit in their bases than zerg and it's balanced out by zerg having to inject so frequently. And I'm not sure he is right, I'm forgetting to put down my roach warren all the time hehe. And Protoss queing up stuff is already a thousand times easier than terran with queuing back workers and shit and then putting down addons for every building imo. Also the amount of upgrades and buildings zerg needs is a bit underrated I think. The spending in infrastructure are quite similar for zerg unless the game goes really late and Terrans/Protoss start techswitching. Yeah something like this I think. In a high pace game, it would be much much harder for protoss and terran, especially terran, to stay on top of macro and army control compared to the zerg, who can pretty much focus solely on army control. + army control for zerg will be made so much easier with the alt-control group thing
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Yeah, but it wouldn't be the case if Zerg (who didn't have inject) wasn't stacking up larva on their hatcheries, they would have to keep building to spend their resources.
To be honest, I don't mind the macroboosters objectively on the argument of difficulty. The really bad thing is how it influences unit design. For example, zerg units being weaker to avoid remax being op, core gateway units being weaker to avoid chronoboosted warpgate pushes being op. And then the wonky design alleviating those weaknesses (forcefields and MSC for example). I wouldn't mind the game progressing a lot slower if it means I can have robust core units.
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On August 08 2015 21:25 Aocowns wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 21:15 Big J wrote:On August 08 2015 21:10 TokO wrote:On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right? Isn't this exactly the direction in which we want the game to move? Ideally, the baseline mechanical requirement for each of the races is roughly the same, regardless of macrobooster design implemented. This means that the game, disregarding player versus player interactions, is roughly the same difficulty for the two players. Now, this does not mean that the game becomes holistically "easier", if you take away macroboosters, but you're merely shifting the attention to the player versus player interactions. The difficulty of the game becomes relatively more dependent on how well you can exploit your opponent, or how good the opponent is good at exploiting your weaknesses, and less about how well you did your homework in terms of injecting well or mule'ing well. There's a lot of nuance and benefit to be had from preparation in terms of worker-supply-command structures, building positioning and tech-army-economy aspects of the game. I think most starcraft 2 players forget how much complexity that is in the base Starcraft game that they think that once macroboosters are taken away, the game is completely dumbed down. It's not. I do agree with you, but I think his point is that protoss and terran have to queue up a lot more shit in their bases than zerg and it's balanced out by zerg having to inject so frequently. And I'm not sure he is right, I'm forgetting to put down my roach warren all the time hehe. And Protoss queing up stuff is already a thousand times easier than terran with queuing back workers and shit and then putting down addons for every building imo. Also the amount of upgrades and buildings zerg needs is a bit underrated I think. The spending in infrastructure are quite similar for zerg unless the game goes really late and Terrans/Protoss start techswitching. Yeah something like this I think. In a high pace game, it would be much much harder for protoss and terran, especially terran, to stay on top of macro and army control compared to the zerg, who can pretty much focus solely on army control. + army control for zerg will be made so much easier with the alt-control group thing
I mean, you are basically voicing the same concern as the "soO mechanics"-article of stuchiu. It's something that I'm not sure of how big of an effect it has, especially on the highest levels. I think this would be very much a problem on the bottom of the ladder if zergs just have a lot more production, but at the top? Meh, we see quite good injects when it matters anyways. That's a bit of nounces I think, especially since injects have already been semiautomated to hitting some keyboard & mouse-combos with backspace/location hotkey-tricks that don't force you to really be exact or anything. Just to remember clicking those keys every X-seconds. So it is not like zerg really "looks back to the base" by injecting. They just go on an "idle"-mechanics check every 40seconds.
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On August 08 2015 21:05 Aocowns wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 20:58 Quineotio wrote:On August 08 2015 20:52 Aocowns wrote:On August 08 2015 20:48 DanceSC wrote: I personally believe that they should remove some of the dumbed down mechanics, like auto worker mining from rally points and put a cap on unit selection. Broodwar was fun to me because I had to constantly maintaining everything Yeah, at the very least they have to add a macro mechanic to zerg if they intend to completely automate the only big one they have Do you feel that the only thing holding you back from controlling the game perfectly is the macro mechanics? absolutely not, im just in the boat where i want my mechanical strength to account for as much as my composition choices and strategical choices. For that to be possible there needs to be macro mechanics that can be performed to much greater effect in a great player
So you feel that without the macro mechanics, macro will be too easy, and better players will not be able to differentiate themselves?
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On August 08 2015 21:30 Quineotio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 21:05 Aocowns wrote:On August 08 2015 20:58 Quineotio wrote:On August 08 2015 20:52 Aocowns wrote:On August 08 2015 20:48 DanceSC wrote: I personally believe that they should remove some of the dumbed down mechanics, like auto worker mining from rally points and put a cap on unit selection. Broodwar was fun to me because I had to constantly maintaining everything Yeah, at the very least they have to add a macro mechanic to zerg if they intend to completely automate the only big one they have Do you feel that the only thing holding you back from controlling the game perfectly is the macro mechanics? absolutely not, im just in the boat where i want my mechanical strength to account for as much as my composition choices and strategical choices. For that to be possible there needs to be macro mechanics that can be performed to much greater effect in a great player So you feel that without the macro mechanics, macro will be too easy, and better players will not be able to differentiate themselves? I'm speaking strictly of zergs here. I dont think zergs will ever be classified as real macro monsters
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On August 08 2015 21:30 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 21:25 Aocowns wrote:On August 08 2015 21:15 Big J wrote:On August 08 2015 21:10 TokO wrote:On August 08 2015 20:34 Aocowns wrote: random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right? Isn't this exactly the direction in which we want the game to move? Ideally, the baseline mechanical requirement for each of the races is roughly the same, regardless of macrobooster design implemented. This means that the game, disregarding player versus player interactions, is roughly the same difficulty for the two players. Now, this does not mean that the game becomes holistically "easier", if you take away macroboosters, but you're merely shifting the attention to the player versus player interactions. The difficulty of the game becomes relatively more dependent on how well you can exploit your opponent, or how good the opponent is good at exploiting your weaknesses, and less about how well you did your homework in terms of injecting well or mule'ing well. There's a lot of nuance and benefit to be had from preparation in terms of worker-supply-command structures, building positioning and tech-army-economy aspects of the game. I think most starcraft 2 players forget how much complexity that is in the base Starcraft game that they think that once macroboosters are taken away, the game is completely dumbed down. It's not. I do agree with you, but I think his point is that protoss and terran have to queue up a lot more shit in their bases than zerg and it's balanced out by zerg having to inject so frequently. And I'm not sure he is right, I'm forgetting to put down my roach warren all the time hehe. And Protoss queing up stuff is already a thousand times easier than terran with queuing back workers and shit and then putting down addons for every building imo. Also the amount of upgrades and buildings zerg needs is a bit underrated I think. The spending in infrastructure are quite similar for zerg unless the game goes really late and Terrans/Protoss start techswitching. Yeah something like this I think. In a high pace game, it would be much much harder for protoss and terran, especially terran, to stay on top of macro and army control compared to the zerg, who can pretty much focus solely on army control. + army control for zerg will be made so much easier with the alt-control group thing I mean, you are basically voicing the same concern as the "soO mechanics"-article of stuchiu. It's something that I'm not sure of how big of an effect it has, especially on the highest levels. I think this would be very much a problem on the bottom of the ladder if zergs just have a lot more production, but at the top? Meh, we see quite good injects when it matters anyways. That's a bit of nounces I think, especially since injects have already been semiautomated to hitting some keyboard & mouse-combos with backspace/location hotkey-tricks that don't force you to really be exact or anything. Just to remember clicking those keys every X-seconds. So it is not like zerg really "looks back to the base" by injecting. They just go on an "idle"-mechanics check every 40seconds. Inject definitely isnt the greatest idea to ever hit SC, but essentially my initial reaction was that there needs to be *something* zergs have to do as well. Injecting feels zergy and is kinda fun in a way. After reading up on arguments for both sides im honestly content with just sitting back and letting more educated and dedicated people take the reins, lol
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I suck at this game. Nevertheless, I enjoy macro a lot. More than this, chronoboosting is one of the things that makes macroing for me more fun rather than less so, because it feels like a tangible boost I get just by paying a little bit of attention. At the level I play at, it feels more like a bonus than a chore.
I also don't see how removing the macro mechanics would ever lead to a situation where mechanics wouldn't be the most important thing at lower levels. SC2 is never going to be a "strategy game" like a few people want it to be. It's a game where mechanics are really important, and that's never going to change.
One of the things that the macro mechanics do, however, is to actually simplify macroing to a degree. Rather than having to build tons of extra hatcheries (a thing I never remotely got the hang of in SC1), I can just click a button on my queen to get more larvae. Even if only do it occasionally, it makes macroing a lot easier for me. Likewise, as a Terran, instead of having to expand a ton and constantly monitor my income, I can press a button to get more minerals. Even if I don't do it nearly as often as I should, every time I press that button, I get a reward that would otherwise take a lot more effort on my part to get. Likewise, chronoboost (which I think is the best of the mechanics) rewards me for paying attention to the important things in my base. Do I want psi storm to finish faster? Press a button. Do I want that zealot to finish faster? Press a button. Do I want more probes? Press a button.
I'm not remotely convinced that removing macro mechanics would be easier on casuals. From where I'm standing, it might actually make the game harder for them.
There might indeed be a benefit to reducing the amount of power that that button press gives you, which would mean that casuals wouldn't be 'punished' as much for dealing with it haphazardly. But macro mechanics fundamentally are simplifications of macro, not complications. It's important not to overlook this.
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Stop trying to make 1v1 ladder more "casual" friendly. Just fucking stop. 1v1 ladder is not, and should never have been, intended for your casual gamer crowd. That's what team games and Arcade is for.
One of StarCraft's BIGGEST problems is this stupid emphasis on 1v1 needing to be for "everyone". It's not. It's for your ultra competitive, hardcore crowd. All of us ladder baddies still want to watch the pros duke it out in tournaments, but don't take away game mechanics for the sake of appealing to us. Focus more on Arcade and team games, the two biggest reasons people still played Brood War for years beyond it's release.
I'm so aggravated by all the changes made to LotV in the last couple months and it really just makes me sad.
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On August 09 2015 02:38 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Stop trying to make 1v1 ladder more "casual" friendly. Just fucking stop. 1v1 ladder is not, and should never have been, intended for your casual gamer crowd. That's what team games and Arcade is for.
One of StarCraft's BIGGEST problems is this stupid emphasis on 1v1 needing to be for "everyone". It's not. It's for your ultra competitive, hardcore crowd. All of us ladder baddies still want to watch the pros duke it out in tournaments, but don't take away game mechanics for the sake of appealing to us. Focus more on Arcade and team games, the two biggest reasons people still played Brood War for years beyond it's release.
I'm so aggravated by all the changes made to LotV in the last couple months and it really just makes me sad.
I don't think that arguement is any valid. I don't want to play a different game in the Arcade. That's not Starcraft, I can as well open up WC3 for that or plainly play a different game. If they wouldn't want to have people play starcraft they could just make a different game to begin with...
And teamgames are just as competitive. I have no clue why you think they aren't. If you don't want to play them competitively that's your own spirit but that's the exact same thing for 1v1 and every other game on this planet. That's just your own choice to fuck around and has nothing to do with teamgames "being for casuals". If anything they are even more competitive by concept because the best way to play them is with a practice partner that you have to train with for teamplay additionally to the normal strategy/mechanics training. And if you are a "casual" I guess the last thing you want is to make your playtime dependend on someone else's availability.
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On August 09 2015 02:53 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2015 02:38 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Stop trying to make 1v1 ladder more "casual" friendly. Just fucking stop. 1v1 ladder is not, and should never have been, intended for your casual gamer crowd. That's what team games and Arcade is for.
One of StarCraft's BIGGEST problems is this stupid emphasis on 1v1 needing to be for "everyone". It's not. It's for your ultra competitive, hardcore crowd. All of us ladder baddies still want to watch the pros duke it out in tournaments, but don't take away game mechanics for the sake of appealing to us. Focus more on Arcade and team games, the two biggest reasons people still played Brood War for years beyond it's release.
I'm so aggravated by all the changes made to LotV in the last couple months and it really just makes me sad. I don't think that arguement is any valid. I don't want to play a different game in the Arcade. That's not Starcraft, I can as well open up WC3 for that or plainly play a different game. If they wouldn't want to have people play starcraft they could just make a different game to begin with... And teamgames are just as competitive. I have no clue why you think they aren't. If you don't want to play them competitively that's your own spirit but that's the exact same thing for 1v1 and every other game on this planet. That's just your own choice to fuck around and has nothing to do with teamgames "being for casuals". If anything they are even more competitive by concept because the best way to play them is with a practice partner that you have to train with for teamplay additionally to the normal strategy/mechanics training. And if you are a "casual" I guess the last thing you want is to make your playtime dependend on someone else's availability.
And I don't want to play this watered down ZOMG ACTION AND ABILITIES EVERYWHERRREEEEEEEE shitty economy command & conquer style "starcraft"
If you want to play STARCRAFT, then you suck it up and learn and get better at all the mechanics.
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SC2 being so mechanically easy is why SC2 isn't a good game. It's why it doesn't have the same "magic" as BW.
It's also why C level progammers can occasionally take games off of S+ class progammers which was something unheard of in BW. Since mechanics are so normalized and easy to be perfect at it turns the high levels into build order coin flips sometimes, and not actual displays of raw skill.
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On August 09 2015 03:20 DemigodcelpH wrote: SC2 being so mechanically easy is why SC2 isn't a good game. It's why it doesn't have the same "magic" as BW.
It's also why C level progammers can occasionally take games off of S+ class progammers which was something unheard of in BW. Since mechanics are so normalized and easy to be perfect at it turns the high levels into build order coin flips sometimes, and not actual displays of raw skill.
+1
Sadly people dont see the magic that was Brood War.
Did SC2 do something that was to say "re-inventive"? Sure.
Is LOTV doing the same thing? Sure.
Sadly, the community has shown constant demand for specific BW features/mechanics but the business model isn't projected to do that.
Maybe in another 5 years when a new "envision" needs to sprout, we will see a HD Remake of Brood War.
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People don't like RTS multiplayer. That is the problem, not difficulty of mechanics.
The issue is that it is not a team game. If they lose, it is all their own fault. No room to rationalize it away.
RTS is dead. You can make it easy or hard or anything in between; it won't matter. These people don't even know if they are experiencing too much macro or too little micro or strategy or positioning. All they know is that they don't like it.
Also, SC2 is mechanically easy. So if this would be the solution to RTS, why hasn't SC2 solved it? RTS has only declined among casuals. Tons of casuals worldwide played SC and many more in Korea up until the release of SC2.
Go read some reviews of Starcraft when it was released, and real-time was a novelty(well it wasn't anymore at that point, but it used to be), and see what magazines/websites wrote about the multiplayer. You'd be surprised.
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Removing those macro mechanics won't really make things easier. People don't like SC2 because it simply isn't that fun at lower leagues, you have to be in a practice attitude and not in a "game" attitude and believe me when I say that removing chronoboost or mules or larva injects will actually do nothing but make that practice a bit more boring with less things to feel good about improving.
The main problem is the very high dps and very mobile armies that barely give a new player any time to react. Bio is extremely mobile with very high speed. The new Terran mech is also very mobile with very high speed units. Zergs have muta, lings and baneling that are all quite mobile while roaches aren't anywhere near "slow". Protoss have their offensive warp gates (they will be gone now) and some high damage burst units (disruptor, early oracle). So what happens to new players who mostly play reactively and have awareness issues? They just have no fun at all.
All this very high speed and very imba damage is not fitting for an RTS. This shouldn't be an "action" paced game. Sadly however, Blizzard is just doing the opposite of slowing it down or making it less about "who masses units better". The lurker was a unit in the right direction however when you factor in the cyclone and the liberator you really start wondering what the heck is their "end game" when it comes to design.
In all honesty, I really think we have a shot by making this game better using mods. I hope the community can come up with a unified mod that substitute for Blizzard crappy design and I have big hopes for this because the community does seem to know what it wants.
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On August 09 2015 03:12 mishimaBeef wrote: shitty economy? Yeah, I despise this half-patch model.
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You don't need hardcore macro to be decent... You can enjoy the game on bronze !
By the way the archon mod is a good thing. But it's pretty stupid to create archon mod for casual, and then remove macro...
Personnally, when i watch progamer vod, what's impress me the most is their macro, and their ability to keep macroing while harassing.
Lowering macro mecanism, will just make me the game less enjoyable to watch and to play.
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On August 09 2015 06:26 Tyrhanius wrote: You don't need hardcore macro to be decent... You can enjoy the game on bronze !
By the way the archon mod is a good thing. But it's pretty stupid to create archon mod for casual, and then remove macro...
Personnally, when i watch progamer vod, what's impress me the most is their macro, and their ability to keep macroing while harassing.
Lowering macro mecanism, will just make me the game less enjoyable to watch and to play.
All the little things like macro mechanics may not seem like much individually, but when you add them all up it makes a big difference. It's mastering all the little things that separates the good from the great players.
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I'm just quite unhappy to see that the game will come out in 2015. I don't think the proposed macro changes are good even though i agree when they say that since the game will be more taxating due to the need of constantly expanding, they might have to make something a bit easier. Now, making inject automatic is too much, just increasing the cooldown (and improve effectiveness?) of the abilities would be enough if they really wanted to make macro easier and favour more micro action. Also I'm quite positive most people who want inject removed are pretty terrible at the game.
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On August 09 2015 09:29 Karpfen wrote: Also I'm quite positive most people who want inject removed are pretty terrible at the game.
Master Z since WOL, Master T 1 season, Diamond in lotv with random without watching others play it. Do I exceed 'terrible'?
I support the removal. It's silly busywork.
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One of the resources in the game is attention. This will be a huge buff for Z imo as they will have more time to focus on other things. But maybe zerg will be nerfed a bit due to not having a lot of lava now. Which is very sad. You might not see zerg take a fight then instantly remax as much as they did in WoL and Hots, and that was one of they coolest parts of zerg.
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On August 08 2015 20:27 Quineotio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2015 19:46 Cazimirbzh wrote:Macro =/= strategy. Ever heard of KT_Flash ? what?? I was saying that you cannot use those two words - "macro" and "strategy" interchangeably. I agree that focusing on macro tasks can be a strategy, and that there are strategies that exist that are so called "macro strategies", but macro does not represent the entirety of "strategy", and the macro mechanics do not represent the entirety of macro. Removing the macro mechanics does not mean trading strategy for unit control. One of the arguments against the macro mechanics is that there isn't much strategy involved - they are just a mechanical barrier to playing the game. I know i knwon However i think you underestimate the important of strategy that current macro mechnics can provide. Aso Even if i supported removal at the beginning as they're making balance impossible to do it now will be a another nail in the sc2 coffin :S
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LOTV=Warcraft 4
Its good to try it out and see how it goes. Thats the point of beta
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On August 09 2015 10:18 Za7oX wrote: One of the resources in the game is attention. This will be a huge buff for Z imo as they will have more time to focus on other things. But maybe zerg will be nerfed a bit due to not having a lot of lava now. Which is very sad. You might not see zerg take a fight then instantly remax as much as they did in WoL and Hots, and that was one of they coolest parts of zerg.
You will for sure be able to, the difference is you can't rely on 4 hatcheries to do it. Now zerg will need to invest more in production a few extra macro hatcheries, which they did in BW as well late game.
This changes a lot and I think it's a change for the better, of course there will need to be rebalancing but I can already envision the happiness knowing that I kill all of a Terran's scv's and he can't just mule up late game .
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Sc2 isn't going to be casual just because injects, mules, and chrono are gone. Stop acting like drama queens the game is already very fast paced and these mechanics don't add value to the game strategically or skill wise
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There is already too easy mechanics in this game, koreans are very close in skill mechanically. Please don't remove the last bit of skill from the game.. Broodwar was so amazing because pro's themselves couldn't even play perfect so there was more room to outplay your opponent.
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On August 09 2015 11:27 covetousrat wrote: LOTV=Warcraft 4
Team Grubby incoming hype!!!
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On August 09 2015 15:28 mCon.Hephaistas wrote: There is already too easy mechanics in this game, koreans are very close in skill mechanically. Please don't remove the last bit of skill from the game.. Broodwar was so amazing because pro's themselves couldn't even play perfect so there was more room to outplay your opponent. Good thing LotV is harder.
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SC2 should give up on trying to please casuals and focus on its hardcore fanbase. People won't come back / suddenly become interested just because you cut down injects and MULEs. SC2 won't be the number 1 e-sports, but it can be the best game, and that's what they should focus on instead of trying to please "viewers" and "casuals". Success of the game should be a side effect of its quality.
That being said, I'm totally fine with experimentation on cutting down macro mechanics. That could indeed fit LotV quite well. But I want to stop reading bullshit like "too hard to understand for viewers" or "not obvious enough" in community updates, that really sets my teeth on edge. SC2 is a hard, complex and rewarding game, it should not try to copy other more succesful games. People would be playing soccer with chess pieces nowadays with that mentality.
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Why do people keep saying this making the game easier and is that is going to be casuals and all that, have they actually played LotV?
You have to constantly expand and maynarde your workers. You have to defend more bases much earlier Theres tons (TONS) more harras and agressive options Everything is fast as fuck
I would agree removing the mechanics would make the game much easier in HotS, where everything is slower, third are rarely taken (in the zerg case 4th) before the 10 min mark unless its a really greedy build, harass is less strong and you usually have to chose between macro or agression, you can stay in 3 bases pretty much an entire millennia.
In LotV by the 10 min mark you already have a third, have some type of harras going, have to defend enemy harass, have a lot of production already and your main is already starting to mine out (at least half patches).
So yeah doing this HotS would definitely would make the game easier.
But LotV? LotV is a whole different beast.
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On August 12 2015 21:45 [PkF] Wire wrote: SC2 should give up on trying to please casuals and focus on its hardcore fanbase. People won't come back / suddenly become interested just because you cut down injects and MULEs. SC2 won't be the number 1 e-sports, but it can be the best game, and that's what they should focus on instead of trying to please "viewers" and "casuals". Success of the game should be a side effect of its quality.
That being said, I'm totally fine with experimentation on cutting down macro mechanics. That could indeed fit LotV quite well. But I want to stop reading bullshit like "too hard to understand for viewers" or "not obvious enough" in community updates, that really sets my teeth on edge. SC2 is a hard, complex and rewarding game, it should not try to copy other more succesful games. People would be playing soccer with chess pieces nowadays with that mentality. except the success of the game is anything but a side effect of it's quality and all your suggestions would bring sc2 to esport bankruptcy. blizzard needs the games they create to generate income else they're not worth creating. the game won't do that with 20k hardcore master league players, it will do that with 20 million bronze league scrubs that have fun playing it, follow the pro scene, the streams and throw money at tournaments. ur idea of how it should look is an elitist's utopia that will kill the game fast and bring it to the same exact state that wc3 is in now. 8-9 k players on battle.net, couple other thousands on wc3arena and that's it. meanwhile, mobas, shooters and card games will still be making endless trunks of money cuz their target audience isn't limited to snide elitist assholes.
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lol at people thinking the game will become easier with macro mechanics removed.
Macro will become less frustrating, but the overall game will stay just as hard.
Think about this. Archon mode has shown us that you can use 2 progamers controlling a race, and you will be significantly stronger.
Lets put it in theoretical numbers.
Starcraft skill has a cap of 500 actions Korean progamers can reach a skill of 300 actions
Right now, he is spending 200 on macro and 100 on control and decisions Later he will be spending 150 on macro and 150 on control and decisions.
Overall, he is still equally as advantaged over a master player with 200
the game does not get easier if you are not at the skillcap
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On August 12 2015 21:45 [PkF] Wire wrote: SC2 should give up on trying to please casuals and focus on its hardcore fanbase. People won't come back / suddenly become interested just because you cut down injects and MULEs. SC2 won't be the number 1 e-sports, but it can be the best game, and that's what they should focus on instead of trying to please "viewers" and "casuals". Success of the game should be a side effect of its quality.
That being said, I'm totally fine with experimentation on cutting down macro mechanics. That could indeed fit LotV quite well. But I want to stop reading bullshit like "too hard to understand for viewers" or "not obvious enough" in community updates, that really sets my teeth on edge. SC2 is a hard, complex and rewarding game, it should not try to copy other more succesful games. People would be playing soccer with chess pieces nowadays with that mentality.
^ A whole lot of no.
The term "casual" has become so pejorative in this community, it drives me batty. Try this: every time you want to use the word "casual" use the word "customer", or "fan" instead, or even "viewer". Try it.
"Blizzard should top trying to please their customers." --HA!
"Blizzard should really stop trying to enhance fans' enjoyment of the game." --HA!
"Blizzard should stop trying to entertain their viewers at spectator events." --HA!
Believe me, you really, really need and want the "casuals". It's kinda the whole point of it all.
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You said it yourself: Making the game funier fo casual players. It makes the game less fun for professionals (more boring). If there are no pros, there wont be a professional sc2 scene. Thats a fact.
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On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years.
If the game is too easy, Pros will be bored of it and retire (its already happening, since the game is too easy). In that case, no amount of casual gamers will make the scen survive, as they will not want to watch other casual players play.
Your statement assumes that pros are there only for the money. If thats the case, they would be working in a different field.
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On August 13 2015 03:09 iloveav wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote: No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft. More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years. If the game is too easy, Pros will be bored of it and retire (its already happening, since the game is too easy). In that case, no amount of casual gamers will make the scen survive, as they will not want to watch other casual players play. Your statement assumes that pros are there only for the money. If thats the case, they would be working in a different field.
And yours that these changes make the game too easy and boring.
2 pros using a single army and managing a single base already have a hard time doing all the necesary actions to play at a "near perfect level" what makes you think that the game is going to be any easier if they are just doing away with a few actions? The game is not going to turn into Nexus Wars because of this.
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On August 13 2015 03:05 iloveav wrote: You said it yourself: Making the game funier fo casual players. It makes the game less fun for professionals (more boring). If there are no pros, there wont be a professional sc2 scene. Thats a fact.
you mean like league of legends has no professionals?
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I played BW a lot back in the day and i never even knew there was a community or what macro was. As long as the opponent is just as bad as you and the units in play are interesting, that's all it matters. I even have friends that treat SC2 the same. The thing that makes people stop playing or whine that macro is hard, are the ones that want to be considered good, but are not willing to learn. I blame the league system.
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On August 13 2015 21:43 Sapphire.lux wrote: I played BW a lot back in the day and i never even knew there was a community or what macro was. As long as the opponent is just as bad as you and the units in play are interesting, that's all it matters. I even have friends that treat SC2 the same. The thing that makes people stop playing or whine that macro is hard, are the ones that want to be considered good, but are not willing to learn. I blame the league system.
Well said, except for maybe that last bit.
"Macro" just means "non-army stuff", basically.
1995, back in the Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness days, I remember revolutionizing our local multiplayer scene--once you actually got the multiplayer to work, which was almost impossible. My friends couldn't figure out why I was unbeatable, and it was because I realized you could build additional Town Halls near other gold mines! Ha. Who woulda thunk. And of course I kept this secret, lol.
There was no way to know to do this. No pro scene. No ladder. No bnet. No articles on how to play multiplayer. Nothing.
Ugh ... kinda weird to think I built my 1 rax Grunt Expansion twenty years ago ... whoa.
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I'm "terrible" and "bad" lol I still love playing the game in Bronze league. Waiting for Wood league... ^_^ haha The game is fun in any league. Of course it wouldn't be fun or exciting for a GM level player in Bronze-Platinum. Thanks for clearing that up Mamba....
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Starcraft skill has a cap of 500 actions Korean progamers can reach a skill of 300 actions
Right now, he is spending 200 on macro and 100 on control and decisions Later he will be spending 150 on macro and 150 on control and decisions.
Overall, he is still equally as advantaged over a master player with 200
the game does not get easier if you are not at the skillcap
/THIS
I think I will just wait for the next Patch to see what it's like to play without Inject. Mechanics like Creep will still apply. But I liked injecting.
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On August 13 2015 02:21 TimeSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2015 21:45 [PkF] Wire wrote: SC2 should give up on trying to please casuals and focus on its hardcore fanbase. People won't come back / suddenly become interested just because you cut down injects and MULEs. SC2 won't be the number 1 e-sports, but it can be the best game, and that's what they should focus on instead of trying to please "viewers" and "casuals". Success of the game should be a side effect of its quality.
That being said, I'm totally fine with experimentation on cutting down macro mechanics. That could indeed fit LotV quite well. But I want to stop reading bullshit like "too hard to understand for viewers" or "not obvious enough" in community updates, that really sets my teeth on edge. SC2 is a hard, complex and rewarding game, it should not try to copy other more succesful games. People would be playing soccer with chess pieces nowadays with that mentality. ^ A whole lot of no. The term "casual" has become so pejorative in this community, it drives me batty. Try this: every time you want to use the word "casual" use the word "customer", or "fan" instead, or even "viewer". Try it. "Blizzard should top trying to please their customers." --HA! "Blizzard should really stop trying to enhance fans' enjoyment of the game." --HA! "Blizzard should stop trying to entertain their viewers at spectator events." --HA! Believe me, you really, really need and want the "casuals". It's kinda the whole point of it all. Or better! Let's do it with "rainbow-puking dragons".
"Blizzard should stop trying to please their rainbow-puking dragons."--HA!
"Blizzard should really stop trying to enhance rainbow-puking dragons' enjoyment of the game."--HA!
"Blizzard should stop trying to entertain their rainbow-puking dragons' enjoyment of the game."--HA!
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On August 12 2015 21:45 [PkF] Wire wrote: SC2 should give up on trying to please casuals and focus on its hardcore fanbase. People won't come back / suddenly become interested just because you cut down injects and MULEs.
Only if they want the game to dwindle and die slowly and LotV to be a financial failure (which could be discouraging to Blizzard developing a Starcraft 3, should one ever come out in the distant future).
Blizzard fans might give the new expansion a shot if only for the campaign, and might stick around if they give multiplayer a chance and find that it isn't insanely difficult to learn and if they can play Archon mode with friends (who may be experienced and help them along). That would be fantastic.
Practically every game that has focused only on pleasing the hardcore players at the expense of casuals has crashed horribly. There's no reason to think SC2 will be different.
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On August 13 2015 03:09 iloveav wrote: If the game is too easy, Pros will be bored of it and retire (its already happening, since the game is too easy). In that case, no amount of casual gamers will make the scen survive, as they will not want to watch other casual players play.
Your statement assumes that pros are there only for the money. If thats the case, they would be working in a different field.
This is nonsense. You think players are quitting and going to Heroes/LoL/DotA because SC2 is too easy and those games are harder?
Maybe it has to do with the fact that those games sell out sports arenas and soccer stadiums, while SC2 can't fill a convention center stage. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you can make more money by splitting the top prize of DotA's International one time than you could by winning this season's WCS 40 times. Pros love the game for the game, but money does talk, especially when it's that loud.
And do you know how that much money gets into those games? CASUALS. There are Pros no matter how simple or APM-intensive a game is, and casuals will always pay to watch them. We need to court the casual player, not look down our nose at them as unworthy of our game due to its current difficulty.
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On August 14 2015 03:58 Karpfen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2015 02:21 TimeSpiral wrote:On August 12 2015 21:45 [PkF] Wire wrote: SC2 should give up on trying to please casuals and focus on its hardcore fanbase. People won't come back / suddenly become interested just because you cut down injects and MULEs. SC2 won't be the number 1 e-sports, but it can be the best game, and that's what they should focus on instead of trying to please "viewers" and "casuals". Success of the game should be a side effect of its quality.
That being said, I'm totally fine with experimentation on cutting down macro mechanics. That could indeed fit LotV quite well. But I want to stop reading bullshit like "too hard to understand for viewers" or "not obvious enough" in community updates, that really sets my teeth on edge. SC2 is a hard, complex and rewarding game, it should not try to copy other more succesful games. People would be playing soccer with chess pieces nowadays with that mentality. ^ A whole lot of no. The term "casual" has become so pejorative in this community, it drives me batty. Try this: every time you want to use the word "casual" use the word "customer", or "fan" instead, or even "viewer". Try it. "Blizzard should top trying to please their customers." --HA! "Blizzard should really stop trying to enhance fans' enjoyment of the game." --HA! "Blizzard should stop trying to entertain their viewers at spectator events." --HA! Believe me, you really, really need and want the "casuals". It's kinda the whole point of it all. Or better! Let's do it with "rainbow-puking dragons". "Blizzard should stop trying to please their rainbow-puking dragons."--HA! "Blizzard should really stop trying to enhance rainbow-puking dragons' enjoyment of the game."--HA! "Blizzard should stop trying to entertain their rainbow-puking dragons' enjoyment of the game."--HA! you're trying too hard
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Maybe it has to do with the fact that those games sell out sports arenas and soccer stadiums, while SC2 can't fill a convention center stage. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you can make more money by splitting the top prize of DotA's International one time than you could by winning this season's WCS 40 times. Pros love the game for the game, but money does talk, especially when it's that loud.
/THIS
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On August 14 2015 06:20 ROOTFayth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 03:58 Karpfen wrote:On August 13 2015 02:21 TimeSpiral wrote:On August 12 2015 21:45 [PkF] Wire wrote: SC2 should give up on trying to please casuals and focus on its hardcore fanbase. People won't come back / suddenly become interested just because you cut down injects and MULEs. SC2 won't be the number 1 e-sports, but it can be the best game, and that's what they should focus on instead of trying to please "viewers" and "casuals". Success of the game should be a side effect of its quality.
That being said, I'm totally fine with experimentation on cutting down macro mechanics. That could indeed fit LotV quite well. But I want to stop reading bullshit like "too hard to understand for viewers" or "not obvious enough" in community updates, that really sets my teeth on edge. SC2 is a hard, complex and rewarding game, it should not try to copy other more succesful games. People would be playing soccer with chess pieces nowadays with that mentality. ^ A whole lot of no. The term "casual" has become so pejorative in this community, it drives me batty. Try this: every time you want to use the word "casual" use the word "customer", or "fan" instead, or even "viewer". Try it. "Blizzard should top trying to please their customers." --HA! "Blizzard should really stop trying to enhance fans' enjoyment of the game." --HA! "Blizzard should stop trying to entertain their viewers at spectator events." --HA! Believe me, you really, really need and want the "casuals". It's kinda the whole point of it all. Or better! Let's do it with "rainbow-puking dragons". "Blizzard should stop trying to please their rainbow-puking dragons."--HA! "Blizzard should really stop trying to enhance rainbow-puking dragons' enjoyment of the game."--HA! "Blizzard should stop trying to entertain their rainbow-puking dragons' enjoyment of the game."--HA! you're trying too hard
But at least he used the hyphen correctly in his compound modifier. There's that.
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This game isn't becoming casual. This game is far from casual. Macro can be more aggressively simplified like auto build workers and it'll still be the most competitive game aroubd
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Im just going to throw out there that it ISN'T all about ladder.
You don't need a massive ladder base to be popular. If my memory serves me right, casuals and alot of them don't care about ladder because theyll be playing all sorts of custom games with friends. Same thing with warcraft 3 and SC:BW. I mean I must've spent way more time playing custom games with friends in WC3 than ladder games (even though I had the many icons including the spellbreaker one woot^^)
Its like saying all the soccer fans in the world, who watch the sport all have decent soccer skills according to some of the posters here.
What makes the game popular are basically: 1) Awesome single player campaign 2) Very simple and social multiplayer interface 3) Loads of custom games where its easy to find, create and play 4) A ladder system for the serious 5) Interesting ingame content (unit relationships, strategy etc)
If the game content is good and hits most of the points above, casuals will play the game regardless. Esports based on that game is just an icying on the cake imo. I know some of you don't like BW comparisons but just think about the following points.
Awesome as hell single player campaign that some people still go back and play to this day (so many cool characters!). Simple and easy multiplayer interface that was ahead of the curve back in the day. Many many custom games that catered toward many groups of casuals and even the serious during ladder breaks. Interesting ingame dynamics that literally took esports to a whole new level because the skill ceiling was so huge. If they had a proper ladder system incoporated in BNET it also would've been huge.
SC2 lacks so many of those. A love story between the queen of blades and jim raynor(what?)? BNET 0.2(where am i??)? deathablls (99% of the reasons why one lost = **** BS)? Im going to make customs games.. what is this arcade junk?? just link the dots. It has come a long way and things have improved but I doubt this game could last mere 5 years on its own without future expansions of some sort just to jump start the franchise.
Edit - Oh and imho lowering the skill ceiling in ladder is a bad bad thing because it limits the proscene. The "wow" factor will not be there. No one will truly be dominant due it being too hard to differentiate ones skills against others.
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