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Contrary to the common sense I would like to argue that removal of macro mechanics does not make the game easier to play. Yes, the mechanical skill check has been removed, but all around people are failing to see the big picture, which has made the game actually harder to play in my opinion than the other way around.
Due to the maxing out being infinitely more harder in LotV than HotS the preservation of units has become a lot more important. Before sending thousands of minerals worth of hellions around the map on suicide missions was a great move, you didn't really lose anything by doing it. Now these units are going to be missing from the most important battles of the game if you do not control them well enough. Where as you can't really impact the opponents usage of macro mechanics that much during the game now there is added value in microing your units better and committing to smarter harass.
If the choice is between mastering mechanical clicking and actually playing the game better from the tactical/strategical point of view, I think we should go for the latter.
Now the tech switches and keeping up with what your opponent is doing are also way more important, because you can't simply instantly remax out of thousand production facilities on the minerals you have banked since you hit 200/200. I think understanding the game better, and being able to figure out what your opponent is doing is harder than mastering mechanical clicking.
As such I conclude that the macro mechanics should not be brought back in a half-assed way that lowers the skill ceiling all around the game. There is no more mechanical skill requirement and the units will be less valuable again. -> Worst of both worlds for many of the RTS fans in a long run in my opinion.
P.S The current build makes the game better for inexperienced e-sports viewers. Resource collection rate based on two variables number of bases and number of workers is much easier to follow than a myriad MULE HAMMER econ. (Ie. it is easier to understand who is winning the game)
No more deathball means there are less non-sensical sacrificial units that do not impact the result of the game if they die. (Hey, that guy has lost 30 hellions during the game, but now he won the game because it all came to one 200 vs 200 stand off. I don't understaaaaaand).
Unit preservation being more important means also that the harass has become slightly more riskier and has more impact on the game. This is easier to understand from the viewer POV.
As the Starcraft 2 viewership has declined from the days of glory I can see the value of making the game easier to follow. I wouldn't want to play or watch a game where I don't have the smallest understanding of why somebody won the game. These changes to the core of the game just might be enough to persuade more players to watch and try the game.
-CheRRy
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Sadly, Blizzard will treat this the same way they treated DH.
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U are claiming "Removal of Macro lowers skill ceiling - Myth", but
1. 70% of ur post is about that macro mechanics are not required anymore due to other stuff (micro, etc) and how this affects the viewership
2. U cannot say it is a myth, cuz it's not. If the absence of something does not make a difference, than that means it is basically "nothing". But adding this "nothing" leads to a harder game, which means that this "nothing" basically has a value. In other words: Having MM will always increase the skill ceiling, cuz u will have more to do. NOT having it will decrease it. Simple as that.
Thus it makes the game easier to play. However the core point is that the game has become harder overall. But saying the removal of MM will not affect the skill ceiling is simply not true.
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The removal of macro makes zerg ridiculously easy to play and makes them so forgiving.
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On August 30 2015 20:22 Phaenoman wrote: U are claiming "Removal of Macro lowers skill ceiling - Myth", but
1. 70% of ur post is about that macro mechanics are not required anymore due to other stuff (micro, etc) and how this affects the viewership
2. U cannot say it is a myth, cuz it's not. If the absence of something does not make a difference, than that means it is basically "nothing". But adding this "nothing" leads to a harder game, which means that this "nothing" has basically a value. In other words: Having MM will always increase the skillceiling, cuz u will have more to do. NOT having it will decrease it. Simple as that.
Thus it makes the game easier to play. However the core point is that the game has become harder overall. But saying the removal of MM will not affect the skill ceilling is simply not true.
You are not following my post. I am arguing that the lower economy will make the decision making harder and the microing so much less unforgiving that the actual skill ceiling is higher without macro boosters because unlike macro boosters, the preservation of units / decision making is affected by your opponents micro and decision making.
You would be right if we scaled economy to match the lack of macro boosters, but currently we are strictly speaking about what kind of impact the removal of macro boosters had on the actual gameplay. The game would be of course harder if we scaled the economy to the current level with macro boosters INCLUDED, but here the change is more dynamical. The loss of economy impacts other areas of the game so much that I believe the actual skill ceiling is higher even tho the mechanical requirements were lowered.
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for me i would sooner see some micro boss controlling 2 sets of vacs (or insert army type here) . .x 4, over different areas of the map than do what happening now, not missing their mechanic, enabling them to power out a composition and then move it as one across the map. Oh look, mines either bigger than yours or more effective. of course there are micro moves which happen but hey even i can cntrl click my corruptors to target the colls . .wow.
Id like to see the player that plays the game I THINK blizzard envisions. Little areas of, fighting, harassment, call it what you will. Its happened against me a few times this beta, when i say few i mean like 3. Then im like . . if everyone played like this . . id probably quit as its much easier to ball an army and send it across the map and at this stage of life i really havent the time. Oh wait, but macro mechanics made this a really hard game. Well, considering the above i dont think looking at an area and pressing 2 buttons every 17 seconds or so is harder than that. Lets face it, you could just runa beep timer while you play and u would never miss. (im sure most people are doing this anyway but we dont say these things out loud do we)
can we stop with the whining for a while. we are in beta, let them try things out. for me its a welcome refresh rather than in hots atm everyone is doing the same push, same everything. I lose a bit of excitement a bit when i hear oh, hes doing build x, build y this is build z. To me this isnt strategy, becuase my strategy now for this game is to meet it with X. Lets not forget, they did create the game. Does everyone forget this. Blizzard will deliver a great game like they do time and time again.
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Macro mechanics are : - part of what makes the three races so different to play - a way to catch up so that worker loss isn't a death sentence
In the case of the inject and the chronoboost, I agree that the spells HAVE to be casted. There's no choice. So give people a choice, don't cut the macro mechanics.
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On August 30 2015 20:40 CheRRyKiTTy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2015 20:22 Phaenoman wrote: U are claiming "Removal of Macro lowers skill ceiling - Myth", but
1. 70% of ur post is about that macro mechanics are not required anymore due to other stuff (micro, etc) and how this affects the viewership
2. U cannot say it is a myth, cuz it's not. If the absence of something does not make a difference, than that means it is basically "nothing". But adding this "nothing" leads to a harder game, which means that this "nothing" has basically a value. In other words: Having MM will always increase the skillceiling, cuz u will have more to do. NOT having it will decrease it. Simple as that.
Thus it makes the game easier to play. However the core point is that the game has become harder overall. But saying the removal of MM will not affect the skill ceilling is simply not true. You are not following my post. I am arguing that the lower economy will make the decision making harder and the microing so much less unforgiving that the actual skill ceiling is higher without macro boosters because unlike macro boosters, the preservation of units / decision making is affected by your opponents micro and decision making. You would be right if we scaled economy to match the lack of macro boosters, but currently we are strictly speaking about what kind of impact the removal of macro boosters had on the actual gameplay. The game would be of course harder if we scaled the economy to the current level with macro boosters INCLUDED, but here the change is more dynamical. The loss of economy impacts other areas of the game so much that I believe the actual skill ceiling is higher even tho the mechanical requirements were lowered. OK now I think I understand what u are trying to tell. I was not talking about the economy boosting part of the mechanics, rather the decision making and the mechanical requirements they add. Tho I do know that Mule, Chrono and Inject do include boosting as well (what I do not enjoy very much)
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On August 30 2015 20:34 Zee94 wrote: The removal of macro makes zerg ridiculously easy to play and makes them so forgiving.
Thanks to the retarded auto inject. Remove that and they are in the same place with T and P.
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On August 30 2015 20:53 JackONeill wrote: Macro mechanics are : - part of what makes the three races so different to play - a way to catch up so that worker loss isn't a death sentence
In the case of the inject and the chronoboost, I agree that the spells HAVE to be casted. There's no choice. So give people a choice, don't cut the macro mechanics.
-The three races are sufficiently different to play without macro boosters. Broodwar did not have macro boosters and no one can argue that the races were too similar to play.
-The way to catch up is also the way to power out a deathball, which is inherently bad for the game. The game is more interesting if there are other ways to catch up. Tho, I think the harass needs to be toned down a little so that it's not actually that game ending. Maybe a buff to worker health would be required for the current build.
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On August 30 2015 20:53 JackONeill wrote: Macro mechanics are : - part of what makes the three races so different to play - a way to catch up so that worker loss isn't a death sentence
In the case of the inject and the chronoboost, I agree that the spells HAVE to be casted. There's no choice. So give people a choice, don't cut the macro mechanics.
-Races should not be unique based on the economy. It should be on their tech and units. Not how their economy works.
-The idea of mass worker kills comes from the retarded OP worker harassment methods. Such as the Oracles and WM. Also the fact that bases requires 16+6 worker to saturate minerals means a lot of workers will be at a single base. If we made them around 8-10+6 workers at each base, that damage will be reduced in total as it will be easier to remake them. One other issue (guess no one else seeing it as issue) is the 2 gases per base makes 6 workers to optimize it. I hope one day 2 workers to saturate the gas gets tested. The main point of this is to reduce the # of workers per base, thus each harass attack won't lead to 20+ worker death when there is no macro mechanics to cover for your lack of skill to protect them.
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BW-style economy and weaker warp gate are very good for the game. However, auto-inject on queens makes their macro incredibly easy and the skill ceiling on economy and base management, especially for zerg, needs to be increased.
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I think you are mixing two different things. The nerf of macro-mechanics, which indeed makes the game less forgiving and for which I think most people are open to, and the casualisation of the game by making these macro mechanics autocast.
Nothing would prevent Blizzard to nerfs inject the way they did, i.e. less larva per inject, but without auto-cast abilities.
Starcarft is a game of balance between macro mechanics and micro mechanics. Since they added new units and new abilities that force you to micro more, to keep the game at the same level of difficulty they remove macro mechanics. But by doing that, they destroy the balance between micro and macro, especially for Zerg player, for which the macro management has been made ridiculously easy.
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I'm still stunned there's even a debate about this. Everyone agrees macro mechanics could be IMPROVED, particularly by adding better choices between alternative uses for the same energy, more like terran has with MULE and scan. However removing them entirely is an overaggressive and pointless move while automating them..... that just brings sick to my mouth.
The lategame issues can likewise be resolved just by tweaking or replacing the mechanics rather than removing them. Consider for example the effects of a SCV move speed AoE spell rather than a MULE.
You would still require workers on minerals lategame to receive this buff (thus helping the current terran lategame problems), the movement speed coupled with how mining works would not scale beyond a maximum cap allowing it to be balanced effectively just on the moment modifier. Unlike the current MULE it could not be spammed out in one go, it could be used as a defensive ability to help workers escape from drops etc.
This is just one suggestion of the sort of thing I mean. Find ways to make macro mechanics better, don't remove them.
As for protoss, chrono and its timing reliance, I think it's more to do with warp gate and protoss' super fast teching layout than chrono, chrono just exacerbates the effects of the existing design layout. Removing chrono probably would make protoss less "cheesy", however that is due to protoss being structured as a "cheesy" race initially and chrono boost helping them push this to further extremes.
If protoss had slightly slower tech and a more stable setup of gateway units and early tech units it would allow chrono to be implemented without an issue, fixing a bunch of other issues in the process like the MSC reliance etc.
Add in all the usual points about warpin being inferior to normal production for mass production of units, warp gate not just being superior to gateways in all regards and warp gate being an alternative slower production with the "deep strike" advantage.
Adding more choice to the game while preserving balance should always be the goal. The game really doesn't have a balance issue, it's lacking choice if anything. That's why this move is the wrong direction.
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People here are once again confusing the skill floor with the skill ceiling. The recent LotV changes have lowered the skill floor but have not lowered the skill ceiling one bit. It's just that you have to apply your APM towards micro and not just macro.
I've been watching Starcraft for around 5 years, and most of the casters point out good micro more often than good macro. Remember when the mutalisk magic box trick was discovered and Thors suddenly became much weaker against them? That micro trick had a comparatively smaller impact on the game than the perfect injects and superior macro of pro players, but they were a more obvious sign of skill than the more impactful injects.
The point is that macro is disproportionately powerful in SC2 compared to micro. Back in the old days of RTS, when SC had competition from C&C and AoE, there were three main strategies in RTS: Rush, Boom, and Tech. Rushing involves attacking early and often. Booming involves building up your economy in order to outproduce your enemy. Teching involves quickly climbing the tech tree to overwhelm your opponent with superior units. In SC2, Rush and Tech strategies are universally referred to as all-in in SC2, when they are considered valid strategies in other RTS games. On the other hand, Boom is called standard play in SC2.
For DotA players, Rush/Boom/Tech is analogous to Gank/Push/Farm. Remember when the only viable strategy in DotA was Push (*cough* Admiral Bulldog *cough*)? This is how unhealthy the HotS metagame is right now.
I love how I am not forced to immediately expand just to keep up with my enemy. I like to attack early, deal some damage, then go on from there. In HotS, early aggression was so weak that you would almost always lose to "standard play." I like how the RTS strategy trinity is balanced once again.
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On August 30 2015 22:49 Eternal Dalek wrote: People here are once again confusing the skill floor with the skill ceiling. The recent LotV changes have lowered the skill floor but have not lowered the skill ceiling one bit. It's just that you have to apply your APM towards micro and not just macro. I disagree. I think the decision making has become more complex due to the added value of units. Further more I argue that the more complex decision making is making the skill ceiling higher than it used to be with higher economy.
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Bisutopia19033 Posts
The macro mechanical skill ceiling is lowered. As long as the word mechanical is used this is uncontroversial. Any discussion with the mechanics portion ignored is just an opinion piece and you are allowed to feel the way you do.
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On August 31 2015 00:56 CheRRyKiTTy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2015 22:49 Eternal Dalek wrote: People here are once again confusing the skill floor with the skill ceiling. The recent LotV changes have lowered the skill floor but have not lowered the skill ceiling one bit. It's just that you have to apply your APM towards micro and not just macro. I disagree. I think the decision making has become more complex due to the added value of units. Further more I argue that the more complex decision making is making the skill ceiling higher than it used to be with higher economy. I don't understand why you're disagreeing with me. I said that the skill ceiling hasn't been lowered, only the skill floor. If something hasn't been reduced or lowered, then it either stayed the same value or actually increased. Therefore, you disagreeing with me makes no sense; we're actually in agreement with each other.
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United Kingdom20157 Posts
On August 30 2015 21:03 WrathSCII wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2015 20:34 Zee94 wrote: The removal of macro makes zerg ridiculously easy to play and makes them so forgiving. Thanks to the retarded auto inject. Remove that and they are in the same place with T and P.
They're re-buffing inject without removing auto inject.
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It does lower the skill ceiling - and here's why. You are right that the removal of the macro boosters puts more emphasis on micro and decision making. The thing is, micro and decision making still existed in the previous iterations of SCII, but macro ALSO existed. That is to say, while now you must have masterful micro and decision making (perhaps slightly more so than before) - before you had to have masterful micro, decision making AND macro. The removal of one skill does put more emphasis on the other two, but it also removes an entire category from the game (without opening up other areas to compensate). At the top level of play, the minutia of each area becomes more and more important. The player who makes slightly less mistakes will usually win. Now you only have 2 categories to mess up in, instead of 3.
Think about it mathematically. Let's say A is Macro, B is Micro and C is Decision making. Let's say that having perfect skill in a category is a rating of 1.
Formula for overall skill with macro:
A+B+C 3
Removing one of these (macro) we get:
B+C 2
The maximum skill you can have is still 1 (perfect), but you only have to be perfect in two categories. Someone with perfect micro and decision making is suddenly a perfect player, even if their macro is shit (this is an oversimplification, but you get the drift). B and C are now both weighted more, certainly, (50% of score instead of 33.33%) but the highest skill ceiling is now easier to obtain. People who rely exclusively on macro are SOL, but most top players excel in all 3 of these categories.
Skill ceiling lowered.
Edit: Added more conclusion.
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