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Dear Blizzard,
Please do not introduce the Auto Macro Boosters Patch yet! I feel that the game needs at least ONE balance Patch with the current form of Macro Boosters Removed. We haven't had a chance to see what the game could really be like in it's current form.
I don't get to play a lot, but I was really enjoying SC2 with the Macro Boosters Removed.
I am trying not to be overly negative about the proposed changes. I would just like the opportunity to see if the Community would be happy with a game balanced without Macro Boosters.
For example, Terran seems to be nerfed the hardest by losing mining from MULEs. Perhaps a buff to the mining rate of SCVs? Or give a "Call-down Suppy Depot" spell. Might be bad ideas, I don't know. But, please try something before giving up on the Removal option.
Agree or disagree?
Thanks.
Original posting on Battle.net:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18706414502
EDIT: Here is the link to the proposed changes from Blizzard: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18704214130
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Anything that remotely makes sense as long as it doesn't include autocasts.
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Agree, autocast is bad for this game and i wonder if scv's can get a mining buff as you say or some sort of wonky ability like a mining frenzy but then the machinery overcharges and the scv gets stunned or something like that, just ideas tho.
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I don't know if this is the thread for it, but can someone explain to me why they hate auto-cast specifically? [PkF] Wire, you've been vocal on the subject. I mean it's obviously a difficult question what degree of automation should exist in a game like Starcraft – on the one side you are making the game less tedious and reducing the barrier to entry, and on the other side you're reducing the means players have to differentiate themselves based on skill. At the one extreme, you have a Starcraft where you have to individually tell workers to mine, then when they finish individually tell them to return, and send them back to mine again – very skill based, but not very fun. On the other end, you have Bibbit's drunken premonition which has no means for differentiation based on skill at all (and probably isn't very fun either).
Now Blizzard is taking a step in the automated direction by removing macro mechanics, but most people's objection doesn't seem to be to moving in that direction. People who hate auto-cast usually suggest something like having the hatchery generate more larvae natively, or having spawn larva be a channeled ability instead of a one-time cast. Both these solutions are just as automated, and players have just as few opportunities to differentiate themselves by channeling the ability (or particularly when they don't have to do anything for the larvae, and they just spawn natively on the hatchery).
So what's wrong with auto-cast specifically?
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agreed. The recent patch and adjustment really lack any foresight and desire to balance anything...
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On August 30 2015 01:43 ChristianS wrote:I don't know if this is the thread for it, but can someone explain to me why they hate auto-cast specifically? [PkF] Wire, you've been vocal on the subject. I mean it's obviously a difficult question what degree of automation should exist in a game like Starcraft – on the one side you are making the game less tedious and reducing the barrier to entry, and on the other side you're reducing the means players have to differentiate themselves based on skill. At the one extreme, you have a Starcraft where you have to individually tell workers to mine, then when they finish individually tell them to return, and send them back to mine again – very skill based, but not very fun. On the other end, you have Bibbit's drunken premonition which has no means for differentiation based on skill at all (and probably isn't very fun either). Now Blizzard is taking a step in the automated direction by removing macro mechanics, but most people's objection doesn't seem to be to moving in that direction. People who hate auto-cast usually suggest something like having the hatchery generate more larvae natively, or having spawn larva be a channeled ability instead of a one-time cast. Both these solutions are just as automated, and players have just as few opportunities to differentiate themselves by channeling the ability (or particularly when they don't have to do anything for the larvae, and they just spawn natively on the hatchery). So what's wrong with auto-cast specifically? Mainly that there's an ability that isnt needed, because it only amplifies something that's already there and is always on, so why not amplify what is getting amplified by the ability anyways and get rid of redundancy?
That being said, inject creates the possibilities of queen-snipes, chronoboost gives scouting options and allows players to shift their production focus and mule with radius might give us more flying cities with everything that's part of it. So I wouldnt say that they are necessarily all redundant.
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On August 30 2015 02:01 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2015 01:43 ChristianS wrote:I don't know if this is the thread for it, but can someone explain to me why they hate auto-cast specifically? [PkF] Wire, you've been vocal on the subject. I mean it's obviously a difficult question what degree of automation should exist in a game like Starcraft – on the one side you are making the game less tedious and reducing the barrier to entry, and on the other side you're reducing the means players have to differentiate themselves based on skill. At the one extreme, you have a Starcraft where you have to individually tell workers to mine, then when they finish individually tell them to return, and send them back to mine again – very skill based, but not very fun. On the other end, you have Bibbit's drunken premonition which has no means for differentiation based on skill at all (and probably isn't very fun either). Now Blizzard is taking a step in the automated direction by removing macro mechanics, but most people's objection doesn't seem to be to moving in that direction. People who hate auto-cast usually suggest something like having the hatchery generate more larvae natively, or having spawn larva be a channeled ability instead of a one-time cast. Both these solutions are just as automated, and players have just as few opportunities to differentiate themselves by channeling the ability (or particularly when they don't have to do anything for the larvae, and they just spawn natively on the hatchery). So what's wrong with auto-cast specifically? Mainly that there's an ability that isnt needed, because it only amplifies something that's already there and is always on, so why not amplify what is getting amplified by the ability anyways and get rid of redundancy? That being said, inject creates the possibilities of queen-snipes, chronoboost gives scouting options and allows players to shift their production focus and mule with radius might give us more flying cities with everything that's part of it. So I wouldnt say that they are necessarily all redundant. See, I don't think people are just mad about redundancy. For one thing auto-cast spawn larva isn't functionally identical to a hatchery with higher spawn rate – you have to make a 150 mineral, 2 supply investment that requires spawning pool to increase your larvae spawning. And for another, if it were just redundant I doubt people could get so worked up about it. It's like they think auto-cast anything is some kind of cardinal sin of RTS or something.
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On August 30 2015 01:43 ChristianS wrote: I don't know if this is the thread for it, but can someone explain to me why they hate auto-cast specifically?
Not to get off topic. But, I am not saying that I hate auto-cast. I am just wanting Blizzard to explore balancing around zero Macro Boosters first.
There is limited time since release is this year after all.
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On August 30 2015 01:43 ChristianS wrote:
Now Blizzard is taking a step in the automated direction by removing macro mechanics, but most people's objection doesn't seem to be to moving in that direction. People who hate auto-cast usually suggest something like having the hatchery generate more larvae natively, or having spawn larva be a channeled ability instead of a one-time cast. Both these solutions are just as automated, and players have just as few opportunities to differentiate themselves by channeling the ability (or particularly when they don't have to do anything for the larvae, and they just spawn natively on the hatchery).
So what's wrong with auto-cast specifically?
Autocast is a half assed way to design abilities. If an ability is on autocast why have the ability in the first place? The need for autocast can be circumvented by passive abilities, rebalancing the cost/stats of the units etc. There are probably dozens of ways to do this.
Auto-cast on the other hand says "well, we can't be arsed to crunch the numbers to make this work". Inherently, if there is an ability on auto-cast there's a button in the game which is not required. Healing is probably the only ability where I see the advantage of having an autocast instead of some other way to do it. Even that could be reworked probably. ;<
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On August 30 2015 02:18 CheRRyKiTTy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2015 01:43 ChristianS wrote:
Now Blizzard is taking a step in the automated direction by removing macro mechanics, but most people's objection doesn't seem to be to moving in that direction. People who hate auto-cast usually suggest something like having the hatchery generate more larvae natively, or having spawn larva be a channeled ability instead of a one-time cast. Both these solutions are just as automated, and players have just as few opportunities to differentiate themselves by channeling the ability (or particularly when they don't have to do anything for the larvae, and they just spawn natively on the hatchery).
So what's wrong with auto-cast specifically? Autocast is a half assed way to design abilities. If an ability is on autocast why have the ability in the first place? The need for autocast can be circumvented by passive abilities, rebalancing the cost/stats of the units etc. There are probably dozens of ways to do this. Auto-cast on the other hand says "well, we can't be arsed to crunch the numbers to make this work". Inherently, if there is an ability on auto-cast there's a button in the game which is not required. Healing is probably the only ability where I see the advantage of having an autocast instead of some other way to do it. Even that could be reworked probably. ;< But what situation would be functionally identical to an autocast spawn larvae (other than manual spawn larvae, which just brings the issue back to how much automation should there be)? If you raise the spawn rate on larvae natively to the hatch, then you don't get the strategic choice of making a 150 mineral, 2 supply unit that can raise your larvae. You could give queens some goofy passive that raises the larva spawn rate on hatches nearby, but that would be sort of bizarre, and I don't see why that's preferable. It gives the queens a bunch of extra energy to work with, so its a buff. Is there a reason we wanna buff queens?
If SC2 has been designed around macro boosters, and Blizzard wants to take away the tedium of all those clicks, the simplest and most obvious solution would seem to be to make those boosters auto-cast. Maybe with a lot of work you could instead rebalance the game around those boosters not existing, but why would that even be better?
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I feel happy about the middleground and it's for sure gonna be alot easier to balance for Blizzard which leaves room&time for more meaningful endeavours. Of course, I will lose some "I do injects well" advantage, but I don't mind losing this chore. The added bonus is that the only booster i find broken is nerfed in a way that makes it harder to operate off 22 workers (mules).
On August 30 2015 02:18 CheRRyKiTTy wrote:
If an ability is on autocast why have the ability in the first place?
Why not? Redesign into passive ability and it's likely gonna do the same thing (increase larva count) and it was changed for 0 gains outside of some perceiving it as better design. If they spend time on other stuff instead, i wouldn't mind.
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I have to say, I think most of the people opposed to auto-cast are just old fogeys who can't stand the notion of automation in their precious RTS. The autocast Queen serves a distinct role from a Hatchery with faster spawn time, as well as channeled Chronoboost serving a different role from casted chronoboost.
Admittedly, I'm not really sure how the autocast Mule on a cooldown improves the game. I'm ready to be convinced, but I get the sense that that idea will require a bit more redesigning.
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buff SCV health and give them the "faster building" ability (like peasants from wc3). then you can remove the auto-cast stuff...
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On August 30 2015 02:44 SHODAN wrote: buff SCV health and give them the "faster building" ability (like peasants from wc3). then you can remove the auto-cast stuff...
I would have been way happier to see this in the update.
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I keep hearing "anything buy autocast". Isn't autocast already present in the game? If you really believe this change shouldn't go through, then we should take autocast off zealot legs? Wonder how many people want that to remain, but the game would be harder having to use it manually, the same justification for not wanting MMs autocast.
Stop looking at autocast as the problem, this change is just the same as removal of macro mechanics completely, whilst giving a slight acceleration to the current macro. The macro is too slow for Terran at the moment, it's easy enough to go for more gas orientated builds but taking a third or mixing in bio/hellions is much harder. A slight boost to economy would definitely help rectify this and help the pace of the game feel more consistent with the new starting economy. I assume the same must be partially true for protoss with Chrono on nexux, and Zerg with 3 Larva opposed to 2.
Starting to wonder how many people stating their opinions have even played to a semi decent level, and have even played the beta.
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On August 30 2015 02:50 AgamemnonSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2015 02:44 SHODAN wrote: buff SCV health and give them the "faster building" ability (like peasants from wc3). then you can remove the auto-cast stuff... I would have been way happier to see this in the update.
The problem I see with that is Terran build times have the potential to become accelerated, which, similar to Chrono, can be extremely tricky to balance.
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Blizzard's new proposed changes look very good. I approve of them.
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On August 30 2015 02:42 Pontius Pirate wrote: I have to say, I think most of the people opposed to auto-cast are just old fogeys who can't stand the notion of automation in their precious RTS. The autocast Queen serves a distinct role from a Hatchery with faster spawn time, as well as channeled Chronoboost serving a different role from casted chronoboost.
Admittedly, I'm not really sure how the autocast Mule on a cooldown improves the game. I'm ready to be convinced, but I get the sense that that idea will require a bit more redesigning.
Mb the idea is that people fly around their cluster of orbitals to land them near an expansion. I dont see any other reason to implement the mule range limit. If they buff orbital's speed, we might see this happen.
Aside from that i agree, orbitals could just add a constant amount of minerals/min or increase mining rate/orbital (similar to the war2 main-building upgrade but stacking) for more or less the same effect. With the weaker mule it's prolly not worth sniping anyways.
Tbh the thing i like the least is the autocast Queen, because I dont see anything that changes compared to a passive ability. I just dont see what I'm supposed to do with auto-cast mana-less inject, aside from maybe microing my Queen back to where I want her to be after every inject, which cant be the goal of a change that's about reducing redundant and uninteresting micro.
The cool change would be Queens spawning larvae themselves and reducing egg armor. That might be to close to warpin though.
On August 30 2015 02:06 AgamemnonSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2015 01:43 ChristianS wrote: I don't know if this is the thread for it, but can someone explain to me why they hate auto-cast specifically? Not to get off topic. But, I am not saying that I hate auto-cast. I am just wanting Blizzard to explore balancing around zero Macro Boosters first. There is limited time since release is this year after all. Now I'm interested. Since you seem to think that in the limited time it would be better to test no macro mechanics more in depth, I assume you dont care much about the auto-cast vs non-auto-cast discussion but prefer the different game feeling? Where is that coming from? Got to say that I haven't seen a game since the no-macro mechanics patch.
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Hugs and kisses to ChristianS especially and also Pontius Pirate in this thread, very agreeable statements.
I want to empathize this because it's a more obscure point that is very important but often overlooked:
On August 30 2015 02:30 ChristianS wrote: If SC2 has been designed around macro boosters, and Blizzard wants to take away the tedium of all those clicks, the simplest and most obvious solution would seem to be to make those boosters auto-cast. Maybe with a lot of work you could instead rebalance the game around those boosters not existing, but why would that even be better?
Development is an insanely time consuming process even with a large team in a top tier company. With how much is already changing in LoTV, to say something like "Auto-cast on the other hand says "well, we can't be arsed to crunch the numbers to make this work"." is a gross statement. To rebalance the macro mechanics of the game into new passive effects would be a large time investment beyond crunching a few numbers, and it would also halt further changes and development in other areas since the base of the game would be getting reworked. Also when messing too much with the base mechanics, it's much more likely to result in more issues that will require more time invested, often many times over in an unpredictable way.
The intelligent option they are pursuing is to tweak the existing mechanics as lightly as possible in order to maintain the originally developed balance while still accomplishing their goal of removing the click investment of using them. As a result, the few abilities involved cast themselves. It's easy to look at that completely on the surface as an "effortless", "lazy", "bandaid" solution, but the reality is it's definitely the best option in the right direction from a developer standpoint and sure as shit isn't anything along the lines of a "lazy" decision.
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The queen is perhaps the most bizarre unit I have seen in an RTS. The inject is redundant... their defensive abilities are clunky and weird. They're slow, fat, can transfuse ... How strange of a unit... I don't like them in the game. They slow army comps down in the late game tremendously. I would prefer the queen be reworked completely, larvae inject removed, hatch larvae spawn increased, and maybe change the queen into something that... makes sense? It's just a weird, weird unit I can't even pinpoint what its purpose is.
Take away inject, give it defensive abilities, maybe an increased attack, maybe a tunneling ability. Maybe make it lay down tumors one time directly instead of forces us to continuously spread them.
Just adjust larvae with hatch spawn time.
The MULE is stupid too. especially now that it's separated from the calldown supply & scan energy. It is now completely pointless. Chrono boost is a decent idea problem is I want the other 2 mechanics gone. Please just get rid of these things and design the game well. We don't need tension with choosing between hatch and the queen, who cares about queens? Placing macro hatches is more interesting than choosing to build a queen.
Queen should be built for defense, creep spread, transfuse, things like this. .
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