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I don't post on Team Liquid very often. Why? To put it simply, Team Liquid has always been more about making yourself better at the game, than making the game better. And I respect that.
But now with LotV on the horizon, Team Liquid has become a place where we can actually discuss making the game better. And so I am here.
------------------------ Team Liquid, your focus is wrong. Horribly wrong.
Let's be real, there are far more damaging problems this game faces than the clicks required to inject larva or mule.
In fact, macro mechanics changes were never about the clicks. It was never about casuals wanting less clicks and hardcore wanting more clicks. It was about the economic implications of less larva and so. Less larva banking would mean linear rather than burst zerg production, meaning you could have less tech switching, meaning certain zerg units could be rebalanced without the mass tech switch problem. But I digress.
And QXC, I'm looking at you with your updates. Your points are good. But they are a distraction. A distraction from the real issues. And with less than two months on the beta, we cannot afford to have distractions.
-------------- The real issue with this game. Fun.
Starcraft is a war game at its core. You are an intelligent, resourceful general, dueling with an opposing general of equal caliber. You extract resources, create armies, and fight across the map. That is Starcraft. That is a boy's dream game. That is why we love the game. That is fun.
There are increasing amounts of frustrations added in WoL, HotS, and LotV.
And, there are ways to make the game more fun that were not implemented.
------------- How to make the game less frustrating
Let me address this with a stupidly simple Problem/Solution format. I will save you from the theory I was originally going to write up. At this point writing theory is not very useful.
Oh, and this addresses frustrations across all skill levels. I am a masters Terran, and I know that Starcraft players love their elitism, but you must empathize with lower league players. They are new players. You may think mass reaper is no big deal, but to a silver league player? Everyone has to start somewhere. There is no masters league, without silver league.
1. Oracles obliterate your worker line unless you have an exact defense. This pisses off casuals and hardcores alike, and even GSL level players have a hard time. Solution: Oracles lose pulsar beam, and become an arbiter-like support utility unit.
2. Medivac boost can straight up kill you, or neuter your economy. Solution: Heavily nerf or remove medivac boost.
3. Widow mines murder workers. They are also cloaked when burrowed. Solution: Widow mines copy spider mines. They no longer target workers.
4. Speed mutalisks are so strong that they prompted the design team to create the Tempest and the Liberator and the spore crawler +bio buff to combat them. Practical Solution: Remove the speed from mutalisks.
Ideal Solution: Also rework larva mechanics so mutalisk production is streamlined rather than a burst of 30 mutalisks at once.
5. Reapers are a stupid earlygame only unit that can snowball out of control. They are terrifying in lower leagues. Solution: Remove their attack. Do what you will with their grenade, it doesn't matter.
6. Banshees are an invisible worker murdering air-to-ground nightmare that has plagued the TvT matchup since 2010. They are stronger in LotV. They are terrifying in lower leagues. Solution: Banshees can no longer cloak.
7. Hellions and hellbats have hard countered light units and workers since 2010. Practical solution: Ideal solution: Make them single target, or less overbearing, like the vulture.
8. The cannon rush. Solution: I don't have a solution, sorry.
9. Dark templar that can be warped in anywhere, in any number. Solution: I don't have a solution, sorry.
10. Protoss coinflips. Solution: This will be solved if the above are implemented.
11. Zerg tech switching into units that require different, specific counters. Ultralisks v. Broodlords v. Mutalisks for example. Solution: Larva must be linear. Hatcheries should not be able to bank massive amounts of larva.
12. Terran ultra harassment. Solution: This will be solved if the above are implemented.
These are the main issues. There are many more that I have not included. As you can see, some problematic recurring themes are such: - invisibility - untouchable air units that shoot down - requires specific counters too early in the game ----------- How to make the game more fun I am running out of time, so I'll make this brief. In order of importance.
1. Make Zerg the swarm again.
2. Air units should be relegated to a supporting role. Definitely not a strong air-to-ground role.
3. Terrain should matter again. Fighting over terrain, over paths of terrain, etc. Like in BW. This is partially achieved with weaker air units.
4. Armor should not be a weakness. Anti armored units should be toned down. Marauder/Immortal/Roach trifecta since WoL beta.
5. Units should be more core. Less moba style abilities. This way terrain and fighting will be more traditional. Adept shade is the definition of gimmicky. Make its model bigger, and make it function similar to a dragoon.
etc. All I have time for right now. Discuss.
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There we go. The Fun Police has arrived (or the Fun Judge).
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On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote: I am running out of time, so I'll make this brief. In order of importance.
1. Make Zerg the swarm again.
2. Air units should be relegated to a supporting role. Definitely not a strong air-to-ground role.
3. Terrain should matter again. Fighting over terrain, over paths of terrain, etc. Like in BW. This is partially achieved with weaker air units.
4. Armor should not be a weakness. Anti armored units should be toned down. Marauder/Immortal/Roach trifecta since WoL beta.
5. Units should be more core. Less moba style abilities. This way terrain and fighting will be more traditional. Adept shade is the definition of gimmicky. Make its model bigger, and make it function similar to a dragoon.
etc. All I have time for right now. Discuss.
Strangely, I agree with every single thing here and the overall idea of your post. But only like two of your balance changes make any sense to me. For instance: You really think reapers should be nerfed? I think they're a fantastic unit that serve a purpose in every matchup, but don't break anything.
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I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game.
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8. The cannon rush. Solution: I don't have a solution, sorry.
9. Dark templar that can be warped in anywhere, in any number. Solution: I don't have a solution, sorry.
10. Protoss coinflips. Solution: This will be solved if the above are implemented.
wat?
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On September 26 2015 07:19 hitpoint wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote: I am running out of time, so I'll make this brief. In order of importance.
1. Make Zerg the swarm again.
2. Air units should be relegated to a supporting role. Definitely not a strong air-to-ground role.
3. Terrain should matter again. Fighting over terrain, over paths of terrain, etc. Like in BW. This is partially achieved with weaker air units.
4. Armor should not be a weakness. Anti armored units should be toned down. Marauder/Immortal/Roach trifecta since WoL beta.
5. Units should be more core. Less moba style abilities. This way terrain and fighting will be more traditional. Adept shade is the definition of gimmicky. Make its model bigger, and make it function similar to a dragoon.
etc. All I have time for right now. Discuss. Strangely, I agree with every single thing here and the overall idea of your post. But only like two of your balance changes make any sense to me. For instance: You really think reapers should be nerfed? I think they're a fantastic unit that serve a purpose in every matchup, but don't break anything. I smurf a bit in the lower leagues, and mass reaper/voidray/cannon rush openings are incredibly popular. You have to think from the perspective of someone who just got the game, then gets reaper rushed. They're almost like ground oracles, when someone gets more than two of them.
But what exactly is the point of a reaper? From my perspective, its more of a scouting tool than anything else. Using the same argument for the oracle, if it's primarily a scouting/utility tool, then why does it need an attack?
Another analogy. People using the MSC to scout. That's perfectly fine, but what if the MSC also 2shotted workers? Is that really necessary?
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And with less than two months on the beta, we cannot afford to have distractions.
It doesn't matter. The design phase is over. It's about balancing the current state so tournaments like Dreamhack won't be an imbalanced mess.
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Korea (South)1936 Posts
I'm having fun with this game still.
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Korea (South)1936 Posts
On September 26 2015 07:26 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:19 hitpoint wrote:On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote: I am running out of time, so I'll make this brief. In order of importance.
1. Make Zerg the swarm again.
2. Air units should be relegated to a supporting role. Definitely not a strong air-to-ground role.
3. Terrain should matter again. Fighting over terrain, over paths of terrain, etc. Like in BW. This is partially achieved with weaker air units.
4. Armor should not be a weakness. Anti armored units should be toned down. Marauder/Immortal/Roach trifecta since WoL beta.
5. Units should be more core. Less moba style abilities. This way terrain and fighting will be more traditional. Adept shade is the definition of gimmicky. Make its model bigger, and make it function similar to a dragoon.
etc. All I have time for right now. Discuss. Strangely, I agree with every single thing here and the overall idea of your post. But only like two of your balance changes make any sense to me. For instance: You really think reapers should be nerfed? I think they're a fantastic unit that serve a purpose in every matchup, but don't break anything. I smurf a bit in the lower leagues, and mass reaper/voidray/cannon rush openings are incredibly popular. You have to think from the perspective of someone who just got the game, then gets reaper rushed. They're almost like ground oracles, when someone gets more than two of them. But what exactly is the point of a reaper? From my perspective, its more of a scouting tool than anything else. Using the same argument for the oracle, if it's primarily a scouting/utility tool, then why does it need an attack? Another analogy. People using the MSC to scout. That's perfectly fine, but what if the MSC also 2shotted workers? Is that really necessary?
So you're the worst kind of person on ladder?
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On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game.
You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here.
But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game.
The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW.
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On September 26 2015 07:28 Chaggi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:26 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:19 hitpoint wrote:On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote: I am running out of time, so I'll make this brief. In order of importance.
1. Make Zerg the swarm again.
2. Air units should be relegated to a supporting role. Definitely not a strong air-to-ground role.
3. Terrain should matter again. Fighting over terrain, over paths of terrain, etc. Like in BW. This is partially achieved with weaker air units.
4. Armor should not be a weakness. Anti armored units should be toned down. Marauder/Immortal/Roach trifecta since WoL beta.
5. Units should be more core. Less moba style abilities. This way terrain and fighting will be more traditional. Adept shade is the definition of gimmicky. Make its model bigger, and make it function similar to a dragoon.
etc. All I have time for right now. Discuss. Strangely, I agree with every single thing here and the overall idea of your post. But only like two of your balance changes make any sense to me. For instance: You really think reapers should be nerfed? I think they're a fantastic unit that serve a purpose in every matchup, but don't break anything. I smurf a bit in the lower leagues, and mass reaper/voidray/cannon rush openings are incredibly popular. You have to think from the perspective of someone who just got the game, then gets reaper rushed. They're almost like ground oracles, when someone gets more than two of them. But what exactly is the point of a reaper? From my perspective, its more of a scouting tool than anything else. Using the same argument for the oracle, if it's primarily a scouting/utility tool, then why does it need an attack? Another analogy. People using the MSC to scout. That's perfectly fine, but what if the MSC also 2shotted workers? Is that really necessary? So you're the worst kind of person on ladder?
It was during the Blink/Oracle/DT coinflip era. Oh I made turrets he was going blink, I lose to stalkers. Oh I made bunkers instead of turrets, I lose to DTs. Of course I wasn't enjoying laddering.
It's also why I'm making this post.
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Here is the ultimate solution to make the game more fun:
Change your mindset.
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So this looks like basically a massive list of balance whine backed up by the justification that you personally don't find these things fun.
The reason that the threads that you're "calling out" are more productive is that they actually have arguments to engage with and discuss, rather than just plopping "I don't find this game fun. Discuss." into the middle of the general forum. Many people do find the game fun, and it's arrogant to assume that Blizzard; professional game designers, aren't considering whether or not their game is fun.
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On September 26 2015 07:27 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote + And with less than two months on the beta, we cannot afford to have distractions. It doesn't matter. The design phase is over. It's about balancing the current state so tournaments like Dreamhack won't be an imbalanced mess.
I know. But I really love this game and hate to see it go down this route...
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Dude, what are u trying to achieve 1,5 months before release? Even tho u are right, u are no realist.
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Korea (South)1936 Posts
On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW.
HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong.
This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change.
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On September 26 2015 07:35 Yonnua wrote: So this looks like basically a massive list of balance whine backed up by the justification that you personally don't find these things fun.
The reason that the threads that you're "calling out" are more productive is that they actually have arguments to engage with and discuss, rather than just plopping "I don't find this game fun. Discuss." into the middle of the general forum. Many people do find the game fun, and it's arrogant to assume that Blizzard; professional game designers, aren't considering whether or not their game is fun. 1. I've played all three races. I admit the things I do as Terran such as mine drop are highly frustrating for the other player. Does that sound like balance whine to you?
2. This is the standard Team Liquid response. "Don't like it? Don't play it! Who cares if player numbers have been on a decline from BW -> WoL -> HotS -> LotV"
3. My arguments are based around the assumption that the overemphasis on game ending harassment, the coinflippy nature of Protoss, the mass tech switching nature of Zerg, and the hyperharass Terran are frustrating.
I didn't say the game wasn't fun.
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On September 26 2015 07:37 Phaenoman wrote: Dude, what are u trying to achieve 1,5 months before release? Even tho u are right, u are no realist.
At the beginning of the beta I remember people saying "Dont worry its just the beta everything's gonna be better at release"
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On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change.
First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game.
Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games.
HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular.
LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch.
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On September 26 2015 07:34 CheddarToss wrote: Here is the ultimate solution to make the game more fun:
Change your mindset.
And this is the ultimate problem with team liquid.
"Don't like it? Too bad."
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here come the Sc2 elitists. Better take cover.
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+ Show Spoiler +I am running out of time, so I'll make this brief. In order of importance.
1. Make Zerg the swarm again.
2. Air units should be relegated to a supporting role. Definitely not a strong air-to-ground role.
3. Terrain should matter again. Fighting over terrain, over paths of terrain, etc. Like in BW. This is partially achieved with weaker air units.
4. Armor should not be a weakness. Anti armored units should be toned down. Marauder/Immortal/Roach trifecta since WoL beta.
5. Units should be more core. Less moba style abilities. This way terrain and fighting will be more traditional. Adept shade is the definition of gimmicky. Make its model bigger, and make it function similar to a dragoon.
etc. All I have time for right now. Discuss.
I agree with these points too, the ideas about changing other units are silly though
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On September 26 2015 07:26 MrInocence wrote: [I smurf a bit in the lower leagues, and mass reaper/voidray/cannon rush openings are incredibly popular. You have to think from the perspective of someone who just got the game, then gets reaper rushed. They're almost like ground oracles, when someone gets more than two of them.
But what exactly is the point of a reaper? From my perspective, its more of a scouting tool than anything else. Using the same argument for the oracle, if it's primarily a scouting/utility tool, then why does it need an attack?
Another analogy. People using the MSC to scout. That's perfectly fine, but what if the MSC also 2shotted workers? Is that really necessary?
It needs an attack because if the opposition is not required to invest in defense, you are behind in economy or tech.
Not saying the design is good, i agree this very extreme result of not having proper defense against oracle or widow mine is not so fun. But removing the attack kills their viability at the timing.
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On September 26 2015 08:04 timchen1017 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:26 MrInocence wrote: [I smurf a bit in the lower leagues, and mass reaper/voidray/cannon rush openings are incredibly popular. You have to think from the perspective of someone who just got the game, then gets reaper rushed. They're almost like ground oracles, when someone gets more than two of them.
But what exactly is the point of a reaper? From my perspective, its more of a scouting tool than anything else. Using the same argument for the oracle, if it's primarily a scouting/utility tool, then why does it need an attack?
Another analogy. People using the MSC to scout. That's perfectly fine, but what if the MSC also 2shotted workers? Is that really necessary? It needs an attack because if the opposition is not required to invest in defense, you are behind in economy or tech. Not saying the design is good, i agree this very extreme result of not having proper defense against oracle or widow mine is not so fun. But removing the attack kills their viability at the timing.
There is always the middle ground of giving the oracle/reaper a weaker attack. However I'm in favor of removing the attack and making them focus on their utility and support potential.
Like imagine if observers had a little beam attack. Is that really necessary?
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On September 26 2015 08:12 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 08:04 timchen1017 wrote:On September 26 2015 07:26 MrInocence wrote: [I smurf a bit in the lower leagues, and mass reaper/voidray/cannon rush openings are incredibly popular. You have to think from the perspective of someone who just got the game, then gets reaper rushed. They're almost like ground oracles, when someone gets more than two of them.
But what exactly is the point of a reaper? From my perspective, its more of a scouting tool than anything else. Using the same argument for the oracle, if it's primarily a scouting/utility tool, then why does it need an attack?
Another analogy. People using the MSC to scout. That's perfectly fine, but what if the MSC also 2shotted workers? Is that really necessary? It needs an attack because if the opposition is not required to invest in defense, you are behind in economy or tech. Not saying the design is good, i agree this very extreme result of not having proper defense against oracle or widow mine is not so fun. But removing the attack kills their viability at the timing. There is always the middle ground of giving the oracle/reaper a weaker attack. However I'm in favor of removing the attack and making them focus on their utility and support potential. Like imagine if observers had a little beam attack. Is that really necessary?
I guess I still don't see what's wrong with their current attack. It's really, really weak, and at least gives them some meaningful micro potential in the early game. I think you'll find that a purely scouting unit is much worse design when you think about it.
I think you're saying that low level players die to reaper cheese? I think you'll find that low level players can die to pretty much anything in the right circumstance. They are nowhere near as strong as oracles in any regard.
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On September 26 2015 08:34 hitpoint wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 08:12 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 08:04 timchen1017 wrote:On September 26 2015 07:26 MrInocence wrote: [I smurf a bit in the lower leagues, and mass reaper/voidray/cannon rush openings are incredibly popular. You have to think from the perspective of someone who just got the game, then gets reaper rushed. They're almost like ground oracles, when someone gets more than two of them.
But what exactly is the point of a reaper? From my perspective, its more of a scouting tool than anything else. Using the same argument for the oracle, if it's primarily a scouting/utility tool, then why does it need an attack?
Another analogy. People using the MSC to scout. That's perfectly fine, but what if the MSC also 2shotted workers? Is that really necessary? It needs an attack because if the opposition is not required to invest in defense, you are behind in economy or tech. Not saying the design is good, i agree this very extreme result of not having proper defense against oracle or widow mine is not so fun. But removing the attack kills their viability at the timing. There is always the middle ground of giving the oracle/reaper a weaker attack. However I'm in favor of removing the attack and making them focus on their utility and support potential. Like imagine if observers had a little beam attack. Is that really necessary? I guess I still don't see what's wrong with their current attack. It's really, really weak, and at least gives them some meaningful micro potential in the early game. I think you'll find that a purely scouting unit is much worse design when you think about it. I think you're saying that low level players die to reaper cheese? I think you'll find that low level players can die to pretty much anything in the right circumstance. They are nowhere near as strong as oracles in any regard.
Bleh I guess the analogy is mass reaper for a bronze player is like proxy oracle for a masters.
But seeing as how TL is made of mostly semi-casual (ranking and improving) , semi-hard core (masters?), hard core (tries to hit top masters/gm), and professional players (gm), only the things that affect them matter.
Filter's thread only touches upon what is frustrating at the very top of the ladder.
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On September 26 2015 07:45 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:37 Phaenoman wrote: Dude, what are u trying to achieve 1,5 months before release? Even tho u are right, u are no realist. At the beginning of the beta I remember people saying "Dont worry its just the beta everything's gonna be better at release" We are not at the beginning. What kind of argument is that? U will not change anything with that request.
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On September 26 2015 08:57 Phaenoman wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:45 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:37 Phaenoman wrote: Dude, what are u trying to achieve 1,5 months before release? Even tho u are right, u are no realist. At the beginning of the beta I remember people saying "Dont worry its just the beta everything's gonna be better at release" We are not at the beginning. What kind of argument is that? U will not change anything with that request.
I'm not buying the game. Only two of my friends bought HotS, they were plat Z and diamond P in WoL, neither of them continued laddering in HotS, and I'm pretty sure neither of them will buy LotV. I'm sure all of Team liquid will buy it, but that is their choice.
It's not about the money, it's about voting with my wallet. Frankly disappointed with SCII and especially LotV for all the reasons stated in the thread. And for people saying 40$ is worth it for the campaign alone, then why make a damn multiplayer mode in the first place?
So you're right. I'm not going to change anything with this request. It's just wishful thinking.
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Starcraft is always going to be frustrating. It's just inherent in the game. You could tweak individual units or abilities to make them individually less frustrating, sure. But it's still going to be a game of limited information, which is stressful - and you're going to lose to things you didn't see coming. It's always going to be a game of multi-tasking, which is stressful - and you're going to mis-allocate your attention and lose because of it. Even more fundamentally, starcraft is a game where you spend anywhere from 5 - 45 minutes making a beautiful sandcastle only to have someone come and try to kick it over.
I'm not going to pretend that the game is perfect or that there aren't changes I at least want to see tried out. But I think the ones you propose are waaaaaay too extreme and basically short-sighted.
If you remove pulsar beam, no one will make oracles. If you remove reaper attack, no one will make reapers. If you remove Banshee cloak, no one will make banshees. If you remove hellion/hellbat AOE, no one will make them.
If these units are too strong, or kill workers too fast, why not just reduce their damage? (Or even give workers more health) There's no reason to basically remove them from the game.
I'm not going to pretend that I haven't been frustrated by drops, or mutas, or dark templar. But, the game needs them. Maybe some individual units are too strong or too weak, but without these harassment units people will be forced into the turtle->deathball->one giant fight thing every game, and you can't tell me that's fun.
TL;DR The game is literally always going to be frustrating. That doesn't mean it can't be improved, but it's not productive to dream about broad, sweeping changes meant to remove frustration.
And this is the ultimate problem with team liquid.
"Don't like it? Too bad."
I think it's more the problem with posting proposed changes to the game on a fan site that has no power to implement said changes (outside of user mods).
The culture is (probably, I might be making this up) from the brood war days, when the game wasn't being regularly patched and you literally just had to deal with it.
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On September 26 2015 09:23 Cold Warpgates wrote:Starcraft is always going to be frustrating. It's just inherent in the game. You could tweak individual units or abilities to make them individually less frustrating, sure. But it's still going to be a game of limited information, which is stressful - and you're going to lose to things you didn't see coming. It's always going to be a game of multi-tasking, which is stressful - and you're going to mis-allocate your attention and lose because of it. Even more fundamentally, starcraft is a game where you spend anywhere from 5 - 45 minutes making a beautiful sandcastle only to have someone come and try to kick it over. I'm not going to pretend that the game is perfect or that there aren't changes I at least want to see tried out. But I think the ones you propose are waaaaaay too extreme and basically short-sighted. If you remove pulsar beam, no one will make oracles. If you remove reaper attack, no one will make reapers. If you remove Banshee cloak, no one will make banshees. If you remove hellion/hellbat AOE, no one will make them. If these units are too strong, or kill workers too fast, why not just reduce their damage? (Or even give workers more health) There's no reason to basically remove them from the game. I'm not going to pretend that I haven't been frustrated by drops, or mutas, or dark templar. But, the game needs them. Maybe some individual units are too strong or too weak, but without these harassment units people will be forced into the turtle->deathball->one giant fight thing every game, and you can't tell me that's fun. TL;DR The game is literally always going to be frustrating. That doesn't mean it can't be improved, but it's not productive to dream about broad, sweeping changes meant to remove frustration. Show nested quote +And this is the ultimate problem with team liquid.
"Don't like it? Too bad." I think it's more the problem with posting proposed changes to the game on a fan site that has no power to implement said changes (outside of user mods). The culture is (probably, I might be making this up) from the brood war days, when the game wasn't being regularly patched and you literally just had to deal with it.
Just making it less stressful. And there's only fifteen or so units per race. Individual unit changes mean a lot. For example, do you remember the Firecake vs Mana swarmhost spore forest vs deathball tempest era? The change to the swarmhost seriously saved HotS from a slow death by swarmhost.
Actually oracles are a pretty good unit even when they do little to no damage. If I were lead designer, I'd remove the attack completely and make the oracle cheaper and solely for scouting, stasis ward, and revelation.
For reapers, they might get one lucky worker kill in HotS pro games. Hardly consequential. But their effect is devastating in the lower leagues. Maybe decrease their damage. But I would honestly just remove the attack and keep it for scouting only.
Without harassment units players are forced to "turtle->deathball->giant fight"? Players still do that with harassment units, they just suicide in and try to kill as many worker as possible to make the enemy deathball smaller. And that's a major problem with SCII, the deathballing.
Deathballing is caused by a lot of different compounding is - unit clumping - you only ever need 3 bases, so why spread out your forces? - harassment by air circumvents everything anyway, so there's no need to spread out forces and control ground - on the same vein, terrain means very little and controlling ground and attack path means nothing because most damage comes in the form of air based harass. - some units work best clumped together in one ball etc etc
About the posting on fan site thing, I post on bnet forums (yes yes we complain all the time), and they just don't listen to our feedback. At all.
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On September 26 2015 07:49 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change. First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game. Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games. HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular. LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch.
Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play?
Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now.
I never understood people who wanted economy, game play or anything to be more like brood war, THIS ISN'T BROOD WAR GUYS IT'S STARCRAFT 2, play it or leave it. If I wanted to play brood war I know where to find it.
I don't wanna play a game with all the changes you brought up and anyone who loves SC2 doesn't want those changes either.
EDIT: You can't keep up with the game and you want Blizzard to make it super easy, no cloak units, any unit that is fast gets nerfed so it's in slow motion, harass units are useleses, etc. that's a shittier version of SC2. People from Blizzard aren't dumb, they understand game is becoming even harder in Legacy which is why they are introducing Archon mode, grab a friend and enjoy the game.
At the end of the day, games are supposed to be for fun, if you don't enjoy it play something more casual and don't stress about it.
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On September 26 2015 07:34 CheddarToss wrote: Here is the ultimate solution to make the game more fun:
Change your mindset.
Dude, you should try playing 42 pick up.
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On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:
Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play?
did that, never regretted it.
Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now.
true BW never was as popular as sc2 is right now. But it's still the best RTS out there right now, coz it's not a thing of the past.
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I like the general sentiment but not really any of the balance changes. I'm frankly a little confused by your ideas.
And WoL had way more players than BW, not sure what you're talking about there. What numbers are you comparing? Hell, that's when TeamLiquid exploded.
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On September 26 2015 09:58 Cele wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:
Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? did that, never regretted it. Show nested quote + Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now.
true BW never was as popular as sc2 is right now. But it's still the best RTS out there right now, coz it's not a thing of the past.
That is your opinion and opinion of the 5% people in the whole Starcraft community, you are free to play whatever you like.
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On September 26 2015 10:00 Beastyqt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 09:58 Cele wrote:On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:
Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? did that, never regretted it. Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now.
true BW never was as popular as sc2 is right now. But it's still the best RTS out there right now, coz it's not a thing of the past. That is your opinion and opinion of the 5% people in the whole Starcraft community, you are free to play whatever you like.
don't get me wrong, your opinion if fine, but don't present it like an irrevocable fact that "Sc2 is the best RTS out there", who could make such a statement?
And tbh there is no "Starcraft community" as such in my opinion. There's a Broodwar and a Starcraft 2 community, they overlap here and there but are two different scenes. It's like saying "the ballsports community thinks soccer is the best game out there" when football fans disagree. Sc2 fans think it's the best game out there, that much is true, but that's kinda obvious and self referential.
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On September 26 2015 10:06 Cele wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 10:00 Beastyqt wrote:On September 26 2015 09:58 Cele wrote:On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:
Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? did that, never regretted it. Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now.
true BW never was as popular as sc2 is right now. But it's still the best RTS out there right now, coz it's not a thing of the past. That is your opinion and opinion of the 5% people in the whole Starcraft community, you are free to play whatever you like. don't get me wrong, your opinion if fine, but don't present it like an irrevocable fact that "Sc2 is the best RTS out there", who could make such a statement. And rtbh there is no "Starcraft community" as such in my opinion. There's a Broodwar and a Starcraft 2 community, they overlap here and there but are two different scenes. It's like saying "the ballsports community thinks soccer is the best game out there" when football fans disagree.
I said it based on viewership and player base, but like I said one game can be best for you and other game can be best for me.
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On September 26 2015 10:10 Beastyqt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 10:06 Cele wrote:On September 26 2015 10:00 Beastyqt wrote:On September 26 2015 09:58 Cele wrote:On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:
Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? did that, never regretted it. Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now.
true BW never was as popular as sc2 is right now. But it's still the best RTS out there right now, coz it's not a thing of the past. That is your opinion and opinion of the 5% people in the whole Starcraft community, you are free to play whatever you like. don't get me wrong, your opinion if fine, but don't present it like an irrevocable fact that "Sc2 is the best RTS out there", who could make such a statement. And rtbh there is no "Starcraft community" as such in my opinion. There's a Broodwar and a Starcraft 2 community, they overlap here and there but are two different scenes. It's like saying "the ballsports community thinks soccer is the best game out there" when football fans disagree. I said it based on viewership and player base, but like I said one game can be best for you and other game can be best for me.
sure, no issues with that :>
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I have quite a few friends I've tried and tried to get to play SC2, and they just don't enjoy it. That said, none of the issues that you brought up are what keep them from playing.
Yeah, a cannon rush can be frustrating. But lower level players tend to see it as something they recognize, and something interesting. Unprepared for DT's end the game, but games don't last that long- its not that big of a deal to start the next one.
What I see that keeps players from enjoying the game, is a lack of feeling in control. They're flustered by all the things they have to do, and never have a moment to sit back a figure out a gameplan for how to fix it. As soon as one problem is addressed, you realize 3 more have been neglected. But that very same thing is what I, and many others, LOVE about SC2. I have to put 100% of my mechanical ability, and 100% of my strategic ability, and even that isn't good enough.
Thats where archon mode can save the day. My friends and I have had a blast playing archon mode, because they can go out and focus on doing one thing right, while I manage all the little things. That's what will keep the lower-league community playing.
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It doesn't matter any more, like some other people said.
Starcraft 2 had it's chance and lost it. Enjoy the two or three months that it regains some viewers and players after launch, but after that it's going to way of Brood War.
And having stated this, I want to disclose that I don't pretend to know the answers to fixing the game, or to have "great ideas", but I know that Blizzard didn't fix the game in the time that was given, and they certainly didn't give any of the community ideas any serious thought. Just goes to show what self-destructive egomaniacs work on the SC2 team.
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i like every point you made especially in "How to make the game less frustrating" but the SC2 Development team wants to go in the opposite direction in favor of even more Gimmicks like speedboost for medivacs, healing mutas, adept shades, pickupable siege tanks, droppable roaches at 3minutes into the game etc, you wont get what you want, not in this game. either accept it and play it or go back to broodwar cuz it aint happening no matter how much we want it
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Reason fun gets lost in the game is beause people get caught up into trying to move up a league or be better...well that requires work and it can be frustrating sometimes. Quit worrying about getting better and it will be more fun again.
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On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:49 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change. First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game. Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games. HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular. LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch. Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now. I never understood people who wanted economy, game play or anything to be more like brood war, THIS ISN'T BROOD WAR GUYS IT'S STARCRAFT 2, play it or leave it. If I wanted to play brood war I know where to find it. I don't wanna play a game with all the changes you brought up and anyone who loves SC2 doesn't want those changes either. EDIT: You can't keep up with the game and you want Blizzard to make it super easy, no cloak units, any unit that is fast gets nerfed so it's in slow motion, harass units are useleses, etc. that's a shittier version of SC2. People from Blizzard aren't dumb, they understand game is becoming even harder in Legacy which is why they are introducing Archon mode, grab a friend and enjoy the game. At the end of the day, games are supposed to be for fun, if you don't enjoy it play something more casual and don't stress about it.
I'm gonna skip the BW popularity discussion because it doesn't really matter now in 2015.
But just one thing. This has nothing to do with easy or difficult. An easy game can be good or bad. A difficult game can be good or bad too. NOTHING to do with difficulty.
There are things just missing from SCII because of op flying harass. For example, land routes and controlling terrain does not really matter. Prism bypass terrain, speedvacs can run through turrets, mutalisks bypass terrain.
So instead of a game where you are controlling area and fighting across the map for good attack paths and such, you are just shift queuing drop ships all over the place. Harasscraft, legacy of the dropship.
Where is the army movement? Where are the flanks? Where is the outmaneuvering? Where is creating three different squads of units and engaging on three different fronts? Where are the siege tank lines? Instead, you have one big blob of units and maybe 1 medivac or 1 prism flying around killing workers.
Then the harass is so strong that you can't even move out-- the best bet is just sit on a big army on 3 bases and defend defend defend, and send your own little harass deathships in to kill his workers. Then you trade killing workers, and whoever kills more wins.
This has nothing to do with easy or hard, casual or hardcore. Do you want armies fighting armies? Or workers running from harass specific units? Just look at the HotS and LotV cinematic. Is the cool part of the game killing workers with oracles? Maybe they should've shown that in the cinematic, just an oracle killing workers and widow mines killing workers.
But no, they showed the giant Zerg army fighting a Terran marine tank army. They showed a zealots and high templar fighting zerglings and hydralisks.
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I'm gonna skip the BW popularity discussion because it doesn't really matter now in 2015.
The quick answer is SC2 1v1, outside Korea, is/was much more popular than BW 1v1.
The long answer involves a discussion of how customs made BW popular, and standalone, downloadable F2P games reduced demand for those customs. And then you'll go into Bnet 1.0 interface being better than Bnet 2.0, etc.
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On September 26 2015 11:24 jalstar wrote:Show nested quote +I'm gonna skip the BW popularity discussion because it doesn't really matter now in 2015. The quick answer is SC2 1v1, outside Korea, is/was much more popular than BW 1v1. The long answer involves a discussion of how customs made BW popular, and standalone, downloadable F2P games reduced demand for those customs. And then you'll go into Bnet 1.0 interface being better than Bnet 2.0, etc.
Also the thing about BW creating esports and redefining video games.
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On September 26 2015 11:27 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 11:24 jalstar wrote:I'm gonna skip the BW popularity discussion because it doesn't really matter now in 2015. The quick answer is SC2 1v1, outside Korea, is/was much more popular than BW 1v1. The long answer involves a discussion of how customs made BW popular, and standalone, downloadable F2P games reduced demand for those customs. And then you'll go into Bnet 1.0 interface being better than Bnet 2.0, etc. Also the thing about BW creating esports and redefining video games.
yeah that answer was already given. Keep in mind too, BW didn't have "esports" right of the bat as Sc2 did, hyped by it's persona's and supported by Blizzard. Esport was a thing that slowly was build up by the fans until the game was picked up by the KeSpa. In the foreigner scene the competetive always relied and still relies on the dedication of staff members, organizers and fans who make stuff happen. Naturally, the comparison falls short, because the means of popularization and involvement of the player base were so much different when Broodwar started.
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I don't really understand why people don't want to be more inviting to beginners. Games are usually built bottom up. Here is a good example: chess. Simple, easy to understand, set rules, can be taught to a person in day, kids get interested, kids practice, kids become pro, introduce new ideas to game.
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this is not truth about anything this is just your feelings.
people talk about numerical things and tangible things because it is visible and quantifiable for all people to see. feeling is not easy. what is fun and what is frustrating is futile discussion
this thread is just people's feelings and frustrations and sadness; it is not anything new to forum it is not discussion just your narcissism replies and others lol
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@My_Fake
That's just how the starcraft community is. It's also why I try to avoid Team Liquid, that kind of attitude is accepted and encouraged here.
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On September 26 2015 12:00 My_Fake_Plastic_Luv wrote: I don't really understand why people don't want to be more inviting to beginners. Games are usually built bottom up. Here is a good example: chess. Simple, easy to understand, set rules, can be taught to a person in day, kids get interested, kids practice, kids become pro, introduce new ideas to game.
This is how League of Legends got popular and Blizzard tried to replicate its success with Heroes of the Storm.
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I am very competitive, so when I see someone kill me hard on ladder it only inspires me to work hard and beat them. This was true back in wc3 when I first started RTS, and it is even more true for sc2. Sc2 is a competitive game, perhaps the most competitive game ever made (tied with chess?). I don't think you can ever change that, nor should you. But things like Archon mode and better clan support, an arcade that functions, etc. Nice channel system all go into the casual experience. The Archon mode seems especially popular and I like very much how that is shaping up.. But no, I don't think these things can be removed from the game nor should they necessarily. Even broodwar was very deadly with things like lurkers, 4 pool, bunker rush... broodwar felt very deadly all around, to me. I was a noob the few times I played it but I got that impression
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On September 26 2015 11:19 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:On September 26 2015 07:49 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change. First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game. Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games. HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular. LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch. Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now. I never understood people who wanted economy, game play or anything to be more like brood war, THIS ISN'T BROOD WAR GUYS IT'S STARCRAFT 2, play it or leave it. If I wanted to play brood war I know where to find it. I don't wanna play a game with all the changes you brought up and anyone who loves SC2 doesn't want those changes either. EDIT: You can't keep up with the game and you want Blizzard to make it super easy, no cloak units, any unit that is fast gets nerfed so it's in slow motion, harass units are useleses, etc. that's a shittier version of SC2. People from Blizzard aren't dumb, they understand game is becoming even harder in Legacy which is why they are introducing Archon mode, grab a friend and enjoy the game. At the end of the day, games are supposed to be for fun, if you don't enjoy it play something more casual and don't stress about it. I'm gonna skip the BW popularity discussion because it doesn't really matter now in 2015. But just one thing. This has nothing to do with easy or difficult. An easy game can be good or bad. A difficult game can be good or bad too. NOTHING to do with difficulty. There are things just missing from SCII because of op flying harass. For example, land routes and controlling terrain does not really matter. Prism bypass terrain, speedvacs can run through turrets, mutalisks bypass terrain. So instead of a game where you are controlling area and fighting across the map for good attack paths and such, you are just shift queuing drop ships all over the place. Harasscraft, legacy of the dropship. Where is the army movement? Where are the flanks? Where is the outmaneuvering? Where is creating three different squads of units and engaging on three different fronts? Where are the siege tank lines? Instead, you have one big blob of units and maybe 1 medivac or 1 prism flying around killing workers. Then the harass is so strong that you can't even move out-- the best bet is just sit on a big army on 3 bases and defend defend defend, and send your own little harass deathships in to kill his workers. Then you trade killing workers, and whoever kills more wins. This has nothing to do with easy or hard, casual or hardcore. Do you want armies fighting armies? Or workers running from harass specific units? Just look at the HotS and LotV cinematic. Is the cool part of the game killing workers with oracles? Maybe they should've shown that in the cinematic, just an oracle killing workers and widow mines killing workers. But no, they showed the giant Zerg army fighting a Terran marine tank army. They showed a zealots and high templar fighting zerglings and hydralisks.
First you complain that "it's one big blob of units" and then you say "in trailer there's huge zerg vs protoss army!!", so you complain about it and you want it at same time.. ?
What you are describing with drops and workers being killed and you can't leave base only happens in lower leagues, there isn't a game against any unit where I feel "oh shit I can't move out ever", just wait 20sec make a turret and you can leave your base.
If I wanted slow, boring, position based game I'd play some turn based game instead. I don't understand why is it so hard to realize that if you don't like the game you can just play something you like, Blizzard will NEVER change the game the way you are asking and you are just making arguments for no reason.
Where's the siege tank lines? - In every TvT match. Where is the army movement? - In every single game. Where are the flanks? - In every single ZvX game. Where is the outmaneuvering? - Counter attacks are happening all the time. Where is creating three different squads of units and engaging on three different fronts? - In every LotV game, but you probably don't even have it installed or otherwise you would know this.
Do you want armies fighting armies? Or workers running from harass specific units? - There's an arcade game called "Desert Strike", you have income and people can't kill your workers and you can mass units, maybe you would enjoy playing that instead 1v1 ladder.
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On September 26 2015 12:13 MrInocence wrote: @My_Fake
That's just how the starcraft community is. It's also why I try to avoid Team Liquid, that kind of attitude is accepted and encouraged here.
Well now you simply sound like a troll. You created this post ostensibly to engage with the TL community, yet here you suggest that you'd rather avoid this community. Were you "try[ing] to avoid Team Liquid" when you posted this? I'm not going to try and take this thread seriously anymore.
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On September 26 2015 12:13 MrInocence wrote: @My_Fake
That's just how the starcraft community is. It's also why I try to avoid Team Liquid, that kind of attitude is accepted and encouraged here.
Can you show me the exact posts where the TL community said bringing in new people was actively a bad idea?
The problem is that you are framing your subjective opinions as capitalized 'Truth', like the truth hasn't been stated before until you came.
I agreed with some of your thoughts and making the new player experience as inviting as possible is obviously the intention of the devs. But if you are saying that units like the banshee or reaper, that I consider fun, that I find rewarding to learn to play against, are unhealthy to the game... then you and the rest of us that you think are antagonizing you ("why I try to avoid Team Liquid" like a passive-aggressive literal child) are simply not compatible on the same spectrum of fun.
Maybe learn some humility and back up our points with evidence instead of offering solutions to problems that aren't real. You might rally up enough support to push for something.
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There are few things I could agree with, but overall I disagree with your post, SC2 should remain competitive as it is, people not wanting to play at pro level should have different, meaningful ladder to separate them from "tryhards" who will do anything possible in the game to make the game frustrating to you. Perhaps that's what unranked tried to be but somehow it fails to work as intended I think, because people still want to be ranked even if it means bronze. I wouldn't be encouraged to play if I was stuck in bronze for months, I'd be curious to see a poll why people leave the game and don't play multiplayer anymore.
Frustration wise, that's the goal in every multiplayer/competitive game, especially in StarCraft - to win by taking chances to win from your opponent within boundaries of the game itself making him "frustrated" and leave the game.
In my opinion - and probably I'm not alone - LotV does a great job so far at being "less frustrating" than HotS by making the battles last longer, giving you a lot more chances and time to micro, to back up and regroup. The games are overall more exciting and more action packed as Blizzard said they tried. And on top of that, there are a lot less chances to lose by a single mistake, like moving into an army instead of attack-moving and losing your entire fighting potential.
What would taking out the Oracle , removing Medivac boost and reducing speed of Mutalisks give to the game? To never have an option to harass, by giving the defending player a lot more chances to scout and deny it completely? Should StarCraft really be all about head-on fights?
Following that logic, maybe the game should have set, balanced amount of units from the start, tight lanes with no option to sneak into the base. Maybe then Blizzard could get some of the precious 12 year old viewers to pump up the viewer count on Twitch to make the game "relevant" again.
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On September 26 2015 14:41 RoieTRS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 12:13 MrInocence wrote: @My_Fake
That's just how the starcraft community is. It's also why I try to avoid Team Liquid, that kind of attitude is accepted and encouraged here. Can you show me the exact posts where the TL community said bringing in new people was actively a bad idea? The problem is that you are framing your subjective opinions as capitalized 'Truth', like the truth hasn't been stated before until you came. I agreed with some of your thoughts and making the new player experience as inviting as possible is obviously the intention of the devs. But if you are saying that units like the banshee or reaper, that I consider fun, that I find rewarding to learn to play against, are unhealthy to the game... then you and the rest of us that you think are antagonizing you ("why I try to avoid Team Liquid" like a passive-aggressive literal child) are simply not compatible on the same spectrum of fun. Maybe learn some humility and back up our points with evidence instead of offering solutions to problems that aren't real. You might rally up enough support to push for something.
1. Bringing in new people? Just read beastyqt above you. It says something along the lines of "Don't like it? Don't play it. Try tug-of-war arcade game or another rts instead. Starcraft is a hard game for hardcore gamers. WoL medivacs and mutalisks are super casual and easy. If you want a casual game go play Desert Strike."
That's the attitude of a vast majority of Team Liquid. Doesn't seem very friendly to new people.
2. Subjective opinions on oracles and widow mines and larva banks and warpgate etc etc? Lots of people had subjective opinions about swarmhosts too. About colossus deathball. Maybe you thought those were fun as well. But it looks like blizzard agreed with those subjective views, that swarmhost spore forests were not fun, and that colossus deathballs were not fun. Look at what happened to those units in LotV.
3. If you want evidence that there are problems and the game is struggling, just look at sales numbers for WoL compared to HotS. Look at twitch viewership. When LotV comes out, look at LotV sales numbers. The November release date is obviously rushed before the game is ready, to meet quarterly expectations and the holiday season.
4. If anyone needs a lesson in humility, it's the elitists here that hate on "casuals".
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On September 26 2015 14:03 skatbone wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 12:13 MrInocence wrote: @My_Fake
That's just how the starcraft community is. It's also why I try to avoid Team Liquid, that kind of attitude is accepted and encouraged here. Well now you simply sound like a troll. You created this post ostensibly to engage with the TL community, yet here you suggest that you'd rather avoid this community. Were you "try[ing] to avoid Team Liquid" when you posted this? I'm not going to try and take this thread seriously anymore. I joined TL five years ago and have been on here very very seldomly, only when I have something to share or when I want to learn. I don't like the elitest attitude here, so I avoid it.
Now it seems like the lead designers, David Kim and friends, have hinted in the LotV community updates that they weigh teamliquid and pro opinions over pretty much everyone else's. They basically told the bnet forum community to go * themselves.
I'm not a pro, so I have to resort to making threads on here like Filter to make an impact.
I know it's a futile effort, but whatever. Least I can do is try. Let's see how LotV does. Initial sales, active playerbase after the initial hype, and twitch viewership.
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On September 26 2015 16:00 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 14:41 RoieTRS wrote:On September 26 2015 12:13 MrInocence wrote: @My_Fake
That's just how the starcraft community is. It's also why I try to avoid Team Liquid, that kind of attitude is accepted and encouraged here. Can you show me the exact posts where the TL community said bringing in new people was actively a bad idea? The problem is that you are framing your subjective opinions as capitalized 'Truth', like the truth hasn't been stated before until you came. I agreed with some of your thoughts and making the new player experience as inviting as possible is obviously the intention of the devs. But if you are saying that units like the banshee or reaper, that I consider fun, that I find rewarding to learn to play against, are unhealthy to the game... then you and the rest of us that you think are antagonizing you ("why I try to avoid Team Liquid" like a passive-aggressive literal child) are simply not compatible on the same spectrum of fun. Maybe learn some humility and back up our points with evidence instead of offering solutions to problems that aren't real. You might rally up enough support to push for something. 1. Bringing in new people? Just read beastyqt above you. It says something along the lines of "Don't like it? Don't play it. Try tug-of-war arcade game or another rts instead. Starcraft is a hard game for hardcore gamers. WoL medivacs and mutalisks are super casual and easy. If you want a casual game go play Desert Strike." That's the attitude of a vast majority of Team Liquid. Doesn't seem very friendly to new people. 2. Subjective opinions on oracles and widow mines and larva banks and warpgate etc etc? Lots of people had subjective opinions about swarmhosts too. About colossus deathball. Maybe you thought those were fun as well. But it looks like blizzard agreed with those subjective views, that swarmhost spore forests were not fun, and that colossus deathballs were not fun. Look at what happened to those units in LotV. 3. If you want evidence that there are problems and the game is struggling, just look at sales numbers for WoL compared to HotS. Look at twitch viewership. When LotV comes out, look at LotV sales numbers. The November release date is obviously rushed before the game is ready, to meet quarterly expectations and the holiday season. 4. If anyone needs a lesson in humility, it's the elitists here that hate on "casuals".
I think you missed the point entirely of beastyqt's post. We aren't saying no new players. We're saying SC2 is geared towards a certain gamer. It has a target audience, and that audience is one rarely targeted in today's market. We're simply saying, if you aren't within that audience, you aren't who the game is for. Simple as that. I'd even exaggerate that point to say- We're a small audience that often gets ignored. Let us at least have this one.
As far as the diminishing player base, it happens. VERY few games are even played as long as SC2 has, regardless of expansions. We had a good run, and we're not stopping anytime soon- the latest WCS showed us that. In fact, our size is what makes us great. We're passionate, dedicated, and closely knit.
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On September 26 2015 11:19 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:On September 26 2015 07:49 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change. First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game. Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games. HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular. LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch. Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now. I never understood people who wanted economy, game play or anything to be more like brood war, THIS ISN'T BROOD WAR GUYS IT'S STARCRAFT 2, play it or leave it. If I wanted to play brood war I know where to find it. I don't wanna play a game with all the changes you brought up and anyone who loves SC2 doesn't want those changes either. EDIT: You can't keep up with the game and you want Blizzard to make it super easy, no cloak units, any unit that is fast gets nerfed so it's in slow motion, harass units are useleses, etc. that's a shittier version of SC2. People from Blizzard aren't dumb, they understand game is becoming even harder in Legacy which is why they are introducing Archon mode, grab a friend and enjoy the game. At the end of the day, games are supposed to be for fun, if you don't enjoy it play something more casual and don't stress about it. I'm gonna skip the BW popularity discussion because it doesn't really matter now in 2015. But just one thing. This has nothing to do with easy or difficult. An easy game can be good or bad. A difficult game can be good or bad too. NOTHING to do with difficulty. There are things just missing from SCII because of op flying harass. For example, land routes and controlling terrain does not really matter. Prism bypass terrain, speedvacs can run through turrets, mutalisks bypass terrain. So instead of a game where you are controlling area and fighting across the map for good attack paths and such, you are just shift queuing drop ships all over the place. Harasscraft, legacy of the dropship. Where is the army movement? Where are the flanks? Where is the outmaneuvering? Where is creating three different squads of units and engaging on three different fronts? Where are the siege tank lines? Instead, you have one big blob of units and maybe 1 medivac or 1 prism flying around killing workers. Then the harass is so strong that you can't even move out-- the best bet is just sit on a big army on 3 bases and defend defend defend, and send your own little harass deathships in to kill his workers. Then you trade killing workers, and whoever kills more wins. This has nothing to do with easy or hard, casual or hardcore. Do you want armies fighting armies? Or workers running from harass specific units? Just look at the HotS and LotV cinematic. Is the cool part of the game killing workers with oracles? Maybe they should've shown that in the cinematic, just an oracle killing workers and widow mines killing workers. But no, they showed the giant Zerg army fighting a Terran marine tank army. They showed a zealots and high templar fighting zerglings and hydralisks. If this is how you understand the game you should play the game more.
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Don't like it don't play it. SC2 is not for scrubs, and hard counter units and turtle games are fun. Those 90% of players that left just have no sense of fun, including that noob called FruitDealer.
We don't need numbers to keep the game relevant. It's just a matter of GSL lowering it's quality to mobile and then more people will sub. And streamers can get a part time job to keep their income.
Long life SC2.
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All these kind of discussion annoy the hell out of me because of people failing to understand basic concepts relating to game design and when a well known, helpful and strong player like beastyqt tries to explain the response is that isn't helpful to beginners. I have seen similar things where pros would take the time to post tips and get ignored because apparently the pros and beginners are playing different games.
I won't try bashing my head against a wall too much and put some factual points supported by simple examples and people can feel free to ignore them, bash me and keep on whining or not as they see fit.
1. different types of games appeal to different people eg. if you like a game there will be many people who do not, accept this and accept that a game simply may not be for you even if you like some aspects
2. within genres there are sub genres and different takes on those in turn eg. Company of Heroes is also an RTS but some may hate it and love SC2 and vise versa. Each RTS will try to differentiate itself from others by focusing on different things ie CoH focused on unit positioning and maneuvering. *as a side note LotV seems like it wants to take some cues from this style of RTS with less macro and more focus on micro of units and whether you think that is good or bad (pro tip its actually neither it will just make LotV a different kind of RTS) you need to understand that you are arguing for the game to changed into something more to your liking and if it were to happen others would be put off. Things you cite as bad/not fun etc are the aspect I do find fun
3. It's not the game its may be you eg. some things that can be said to be frustrating and negatively impact the game are things like bugs or features that reasonably should exist but do not and make life difficult (i'm thinking of when there were no chat channels in the game) while things like getting frustrated at a build you haven't learned to deal with yet are more on you and are by definition part of competitive gaming. Take out the possibility for that to happen and you end up with a super boring game, in my opinion at least, where only one strategy can happen.
Ultimately your suggestions take away choice and options from players which is what defines the S in RTS I don't go on the Gran Turismo forums (its a racing sim game) and complain that the game is too realistic to be fun and should lower the realism to be more appealing to noobs because for one its not a valid argument and secondly there are already racing games that are exactly what I want so I go and enjoy those instead. And while i'm sure there are fans of GT that mock players like me I don't care because im too busy having fun playing a game more suited to my tastes
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Maybe you right, but in any matchup, in any league, you can get solutions for every situation and get better. You're bronze protoss, and reaper killing all your mineral line? dont do fast expand, boost few stalkers, get 100 energy on MSC and it's allright.... Oracle is hurting your bronze SCV/DRONE's....Stay on 1 base, get spore/turret , get marines/2-3 queens, then expand safely... when you get mechanics to expand and defend from this easy things you promote...
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On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. Master players and above are like 5% of total playerbase. If blizzard cares about lots of people playing they should care a bit less about you. But their overwhelming focus on the 5% has been killing the game slowly for years. Games like LoL and Dota2 have shown that even for esports it is more worthy to focus on most of the playerbase
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this post is just so meh
ban all harassment from game.. so we just have macro turtle. what you say is very biased as well, you are terran and cant deal with zerg tech switch and protoss harassment,
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i have the ultimate solution for you: Starbow Its a mod with new Units, untis removed and other changes from the community. So its from the community for community!
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It's going to be good, but it's not going to be great until the next expansion. That's just how it goes. Make the best of it for the next 2 years. Then we might see real improvement.
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Just play my mod, it has pretty much everything you ask for.
OK, ad times is over. Carry on, carry on!
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The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
since wol sc2 goes bad way. Yeah. Blizz goes for wtf-ability-units. They done a lot of "lot of clics" casts rather than tactical aoe like swarm/plague/irradiate/emp in bw or strategic single-target spell like lock-on/parasite/broodlings etc. Yeah, armored units are weaker units than no-any-text-units. Atm game is hard because it's full of hard to execute moments like intensive micro (terran), mass non-tactical, but must-have-to-be-activated abilities (toss) and just f2 zergs, but needed to spread creep and the hardest(lol) macro-mech injects. Too many things all (pros too) must do to just play a standart game. And all fail. And the winner is who fail some less.
Why just not make game complex of basics oportunities? The skill will be summary of how players deal with basics, how they combine them, how they dust them etc. Like in bw. Pretty simple units, w/o lots of abilities, but well stat-designed and balanced. Casters must be tactical aoe weapon - more like to disable, support large numbers of units or to disable infrastucture, not "8 snipes to kill 4 ht" or "30 clicks to 30 infesteds". Less hard-counters by ttx (vs armored/vs light/vs... etc), more tactical counters (mass low hp mmm < aoe lurkers < range of tanks < air-to-ground muta < aa marines < ...etc). Remove superior air-to-ground damage, make air more scouty, more mobile: like vikings into banshee+goliath combo with ability to land and harass. Etc. It will be much better for all.
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b-b--b-b-b-b-b-bbut if every other unit doesnt have a gimmick or an activatable ability how can it be fun to use them!
I also absolutely hate the design shift from BW to lotv.. There are too many units, too many units with activatable abilities etc
but that's no longer the opinion of the majority of RTS players, so what can you do, rip
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Agree with many things
Especially mines not targeting workers is a 100% must have! Really wondering why blizzard can't see and change such things by themselves. They probably haven't regognized that games randomly end when T drops 2-4 mines on P on progaming level. I bet this is what ppl expect to see when watching GSL.
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On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase.
The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating
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On September 26 2015 11:27 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 11:24 jalstar wrote:I'm gonna skip the BW popularity discussion because it doesn't really matter now in 2015. The quick answer is SC2 1v1, outside Korea, is/was much more popular than BW 1v1. The long answer involves a discussion of how customs made BW popular, and standalone, downloadable F2P games reduced demand for those customs. And then you'll go into Bnet 1.0 interface being better than Bnet 2.0, etc. Also the thing about BW creating esports and redefining video games.
lol, eSports was inevitable with or without BW. the big heavy lifter in Canada for eSports was EA NHL '94 Hockey... not Brood War. esports was also gonna happen with or without EA NHL 94 Hockey though.
technological improvements in the platforms of video games gave rise to esports... that is the root cause.. not 1 particular game. as technology improved a wave of fun and watchable games arrived in the 90s. no one is going to want to watch a Pong tournament.
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I liked some of your points, specifically the beginning when you said people focus too much on clicks and not the economical effects on macro mechanics. After that though, I almost thought the post was a parody there was so much whine and attempts at removing harrass from the game. Reapers? Come on man lol.
You can remove everything frustrating as you see fit but something new will always pop up and frustrate you because there can never be 2 winners in a game of Starcraft. Overcoming this frustration is what makes starcraft so amazing in the first place.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
You can remove everything frustrating as you see fit but something new will always pop up and frustrate you because there can never be 2 winners in a game of Starcraft. Overcoming this frustration is what makes starcraft so amazing in the first place. in other games you can lose or win too, but u get fun while playing them. In sc2 u get fun only if u win - there is no fun in game itself. It's realy frustrating.
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Man, with that tone at the beginning I was thinking I wasn't gonna like it. But I like it. Good changes, harassment is too strong and not fun at lower levels. Too many hard-counter designs. Seems like the macro boosters should be right up here with 'em. They're unfun apm sinks imo.
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if macro boosters remain in the game then harassment must be strong in order to make it a viable strategy to use during a reasonable percentage of the games you play.
if they remove macro boosters then harassment options must be nerfed for all races.
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Great post @ OP. These could have been my words. I agree with everything you wrote.
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On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote: and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase.
don't try to go down the money road. ATVI will make so little off of this game they are more concerned about protecting their brand than the tiny amount of cash this game will generate.
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On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating
You ever think way down the road, maybe a couple years, LOTV slowly dies out and then the community just takes the aspects of it they like and changes what they don't like (a mod like yours or starbow) at it eventually catches on and a legit scene builds around that?
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating Do you realize that big part of sold copies are played just in single player? Because I will buy LotV no matter what, I want the single player and if the MP is bad then I just won't play it.
It would be nice if all people here accepted the truth - SC2 is not about MP only. In fact I dare to say it;s more about SP than MP. So yeah, the game will have good selling numbers, because campaign. Deal with it.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On September 26 2015 11:19 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:On September 26 2015 07:49 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change. First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game. Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games. HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular. LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch. Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now. I never understood people who wanted economy, game play or anything to be more like brood war, THIS ISN'T BROOD WAR GUYS IT'S STARCRAFT 2, play it or leave it. If I wanted to play brood war I know where to find it. I don't wanna play a game with all the changes you brought up and anyone who loves SC2 doesn't want those changes either. EDIT: You can't keep up with the game and you want Blizzard to make it super easy, no cloak units, any unit that is fast gets nerfed so it's in slow motion, harass units are useleses, etc. that's a shittier version of SC2. People from Blizzard aren't dumb, they understand game is becoming even harder in Legacy which is why they are introducing Archon mode, grab a friend and enjoy the game. At the end of the day, games are supposed to be for fun, if you don't enjoy it play something more casual and don't stress about it. Where is the army movement? Where are the flanks? Where is the outmaneuvering? Where is creating three different squads of units and engaging on three different fronts? Where are the siege tank lines? Instead, you have one big blob of units and maybe 1 medivac or 1 prism flying around killing workers. .
Are you and I watching the same game? On a professional level, this sweeping generalization of SC2 has not held true for years.
If you're talking about a casual, 'playable' level, then you must understand that it is very nearly impossible for low-level players to accomplish intense multi-pronged play. Low-level players damn sure didn't play out four battles across six bases in Brood War, either. I understand what you're frustrated about and agree to some extent, but faulty assumptions and offensive generalizations really avail you nothing.
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On September 27 2015 00:28 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating You ever think way down the road, maybe a couple years, LOTV slowly dies out and then the community just takes the aspects of it they like and changes what they don't like (a mod like yours or starbow) at it eventually catches on and a legit scene builds around that?
Sigaty stated they are supporting SC2 for another 10 years and willing to make big major changes to the game post release. With all the support Sigaty kept talking about its clear WCS is going to be around a long long time....more than "a couple years".
GL trying to supersede SC2 if Blizzard supports the game the way Sigaty is promising.
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On September 27 2015 00:28 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating You ever think way down the road, maybe a couple years, LOTV slowly dies out and then the community just takes the aspects of it they like and changes what they don't like (a mod like yours or starbow) at it eventually catches on and a legit scene builds around that? If you talk about a pro scene with tournaments and all, no. But there is no need for such thing. For instance, to my knowledge there is no SC1 or DotA 1 scene left outside of Asia, yet you can still find games quickly on BNet. No need for sponsors, streams, tournaments and all the e-fame/prestige fuss to enjoy a game. The only thing needed to maintain activity is a good custom games system so that players can find other players quickly within the client (especially for team games). Then the natural diversity of tastes will do some work and voilà.
(Also LotV's player base will shrink a lot faster than "a couple of years". In a matter of months I'm ready to bet that so many players will flee from the stressful rhythm + glaring balance issues + sheer unforgiveness + arid/frustrating gameplay combo.)
On September 27 2015 01:18 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating Do you realize that big part of sold copies are played just in single player? Because I will buy LotV no matter what, I want the single player and if the MP is bad then I just won't play it. It would be nice if all people here accepted the truth - SC2 is not about MP only. In fact I dare to say it;s more about SP than MP. So yeah, the game will have good selling numbers, because campaign. Deal with it. Do you realize there is no contradiction between what we said? Don't try to sound smart to state the obvious
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On September 27 2015 02:12 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2015 00:28 ShambhalaWar wrote:On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating You ever think way down the road, maybe a couple years, LOTV slowly dies out and then the community just takes the aspects of it they like and changes what they don't like (a mod like yours or starbow) at it eventually catches on and a legit scene builds around that? If you talk about a pro scene with tournaments and all, no. But there is no need for such thing. For instance, to my knowledge there is no SC1 or DotA 1 scene left outside of Asia, yet you can still find games quickly on BNet. No need for sponsors, streams, tournaments and all the e-fame/prestige fuss to enjoy a game. The only thing needed to maintain activity is a good custom games system so that players can find other players quickly within the client (especially for team games). Then the natural diversity of tastes will do some work and voilà. (Also LotV's player base will shrink a lot faster than "a couple of years". In a matter of months I'm ready to bet that so many players will flee from the stressful rhythm + glaring balance issues + sheer unforgiveness + arid/frustrating gameplay combo.) Show nested quote +On September 27 2015 01:18 deacon.frost wrote:On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating Do you realize that big part of sold copies are played just in single player? Because I will buy LotV no matter what, I want the single player and if the MP is bad then I just won't play it. It would be nice if all people here accepted the truth - SC2 is not about MP only. In fact I dare to say it;s more about SP than MP. So yeah, the game will have good selling numbers, because campaign. Deal with it. Do you realize there is no contradiction between what we said? Don't try to sound smart to state the obvious It sounded to me that you implied that good selling number are based on MP. If I misunderstood you then accept my apology.
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On September 26 2015 17:21 TedBurtle wrote: Maybe you right, but in any matchup, in any league, you can get solutions for every situation and get better. You're bronze protoss, and reaper killing all your mineral line? dont do fast expand, boost few stalkers, get 100 energy on MSC and it's allright.... Oracle is hurting your bronze SCV/DRONE's....Stay on 1 base, get spore/turret , get marines/2-3 queens, then expand safely... when you get mechanics to expand and defend from this easy things you promote...
Do people here fail to understand that there are skill levels under the top of masters/gm?
So players have to devote thousands of hours, as I have, perfecting build orders and learning counters before they can even get to enjoy the game?
And that's what we have in TL... the people who actually devoted those thousands of hours despite many many frustrations. Myself included. I've played this game for five years now.
But you have to empathize with lower league, newer players. This game should not only be for the people who choose to devote thousands of hours and years to learn the game. However, the Team Liquid community is predominately made of people who have spent thousands of hours to learn the game.
With my reaper and other QoL improvements to lower leagues, I am trying to tone back the excessive power certain units have in the lower leagues, without compromising pro level play.
You cannot design a game for professional players only, and flip off the rest of the playerbase, telling them to L2P before they can have fun.
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On September 27 2015 02:29 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2015 02:12 TheDwf wrote:On September 27 2015 00:28 ShambhalaWar wrote:On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating You ever think way down the road, maybe a couple years, LOTV slowly dies out and then the community just takes the aspects of it they like and changes what they don't like (a mod like yours or starbow) at it eventually catches on and a legit scene builds around that? If you talk about a pro scene with tournaments and all, no. But there is no need for such thing. For instance, to my knowledge there is no SC1 or DotA 1 scene left outside of Asia, yet you can still find games quickly on BNet. No need for sponsors, streams, tournaments and all the e-fame/prestige fuss to enjoy a game. The only thing needed to maintain activity is a good custom games system so that players can find other players quickly within the client (especially for team games). Then the natural diversity of tastes will do some work and voilà. (Also LotV's player base will shrink a lot faster than "a couple of years". In a matter of months I'm ready to bet that so many players will flee from the stressful rhythm + glaring balance issues + sheer unforgiveness + arid/frustrating gameplay combo.) On September 27 2015 01:18 deacon.frost wrote:On September 26 2015 22:42 TheDwf wrote:On September 26 2015 19:00 rockslave wrote: The problem with mods is that they are very inconvenient to play. You have small player bases and there's no matchmaking, it's really hard to be evenly matched.
If I could switch my SC2 version to Starbow in options, then just hit the matchmaker, I'd probably switch. In fact, if I could switch it to "Brood War with MBS", I wouldn't even think.
And yes, that's my opinion. Yup. Which is why your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to endlessly e-riot until Blizzard concedes a decent custom games system instead of the current abomination. Because what you or the OP expect, you won't get it from the Blizzsters—who are very happy with the way LotV shapes up, and will sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of how unplayable the game will be on the long term for most of the playerbase. The sure thing is that mods will be the only kind of place where you can get the kind of gameplay described in the OP, so better campaign to have a viable environment for them to develop. Plus, it's better than those endless ideological debates/flame wars on forums. I mean, was there ever someone who was convinced by arguments from the other side anyway? The proof of the pudding is in the eating Do you realize that big part of sold copies are played just in single player? Because I will buy LotV no matter what, I want the single player and if the MP is bad then I just won't play it. It would be nice if all people here accepted the truth - SC2 is not about MP only. In fact I dare to say it;s more about SP than MP. So yeah, the game will have good selling numbers, because campaign. Deal with it. Do you realize there is no contradiction between what we said? Don't try to sound smart to state the obvious It sounded to me that you implied that good selling number are based on MP. If I misunderstood you then accept my apology.
If blizzard really wanted to reap from Starcraft's MP, it can simply look at other MP based games and copy their revenue models. The boxed game expansion pack revenue model is a way to make money off campaigns, not excellent multiplayer.
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On September 26 2015 23:54 i_am_Nite wrote:Show nested quote +You can remove everything frustrating as you see fit but something new will always pop up and frustrate you because there can never be 2 winners in a game of Starcraft. Overcoming this frustration is what makes starcraft so amazing in the first place. in other games you can lose or win too, but u get fun while playing them. In sc2 u get fun only if u win - there is no fun in game itself. It's realy frustrating.
A little exaggerated, but this is what we're trying to say.
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On September 27 2015 01:43 Zealously wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 11:19 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:On September 26 2015 07:49 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change. First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game. Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games. HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular. LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch. Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now. I never understood people who wanted economy, game play or anything to be more like brood war, THIS ISN'T BROOD WAR GUYS IT'S STARCRAFT 2, play it or leave it. If I wanted to play brood war I know where to find it. I don't wanna play a game with all the changes you brought up and anyone who loves SC2 doesn't want those changes either. EDIT: You can't keep up with the game and you want Blizzard to make it super easy, no cloak units, any unit that is fast gets nerfed so it's in slow motion, harass units are useleses, etc. that's a shittier version of SC2. People from Blizzard aren't dumb, they understand game is becoming even harder in Legacy which is why they are introducing Archon mode, grab a friend and enjoy the game. At the end of the day, games are supposed to be for fun, if you don't enjoy it play something more casual and don't stress about it. Where is the army movement? Where are the flanks? Where is the outmaneuvering? Where is creating three different squads of units and engaging on three different fronts? Where are the siege tank lines? Instead, you have one big blob of units and maybe 1 medivac or 1 prism flying around killing workers. . Are you and I watching the same game? On a professional level, this sweeping generalization of SC2 has not held true for years. If you're talking about a casual, 'playable' level, then you must understand that it is very nearly impossible for low-level players to accomplish intense multi-pronged play. Low-level players damn sure didn't play out four battles across six bases in Brood War, either. I understand what you're frustrated about and agree to some extent, but faulty assumptions and offensive generalizations really avail you nothing. Short answer is land routes, controlling land, paths of reinforcement, and chunks of army are not that important because 1. harass is super strong 2. most common forms of harass come through the air, completely ignoring land
Multi pronged-- The prongs are seldomly chunks of army, that need to move by land to get into an aggressive position. The prongs are now mostly harass-ships, or doom drops.
In the end terrain, fighting over land, finding reinforcement paths, etc doesn't really matter when 1. killing workers as fast as possible is the name of the game 2. nearly everything good at killing workers is fast and flying.
Now from WoL -> HotS -> LotV, harass and air have been power creeping to incredible levels.
WoL: medivacs, warpgate, Hots: oracle, mine, speed boost, speed muta LotV: Tank pickup, prism range and warpin speed, SH, Liberator, adept shade (we asked for a damn core unit, not a phase shifting protoss reaper)
TL;DR Harass is overshadowing army movement and positioning. Most of that movement is now for anticipating and deflecting harass, not to take ground or secure areas. Most harass is now speedy and from the air, exacerbating the problem.
i.e. Armies fly swatting dropships vs. Armies fighting other armies
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On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change.
BW was nowhere near as frustrating as SC2. I never smashed my desk or slammed a door after playing BW for hours. I can't say the same for SC2.
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I definitely disagree with the idea of slowing mutalisks down. I could however understand large damage nerfs to the Mutalisk, Oracle, and Liberator, at least vs light units, and removal of speed boost on medivac.
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Thank you for your opinion and effort to improve SC2.
I have to respectfully disagree with you. All of your points is about specific aspects of the game which can be frustrating sometimes, but that doesn't make the game less fun. Being frustrated because of x unit or y strategy is understandable, but that frustration equating to less fun is only from your point of view. These aspects aren't fun if you don't know how to deal with it, but that doesn't mean there are zero means of handling them.
Blizzard built solutions to all the aspects of frustration you listed, and no doubt you already know and utilize some of them. The true fun comes from realizing/learning the solutions.
Your truths aren't absolute, they are only true to yourself and others. I find them untrue.
This is only my opinion, and you can disagree as I have disagreed with you. If you wish, you can agree to disagree, and we can end this discussion. Or you can reply with a reasonable comment, and I will make an effort to continue the discussion.
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Fun is subjective, the kind of game you want to make isn't Starcraft. There should be frustrating moments.
If people are too frustrated to play 1v1, removing Cloaked Banshees or Oracles isn't going to change that. There will just be new frustrations to whatever you die to instead. That's ok though, the game can be successful without the majority of the playerbase focusing on competitive 1v1 at first.
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Welp, everyone has their own opinion. I don't agree with OP, I enjoy starcraft both as a spectator and as a player. I guess that's why I don't get all the LotV change threads etc......
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I get it, OP. I do! You're suggesting radical changes that will just shift the frustration to other things--essentially, your suggestions would break the game in unforeseeable ways, and then another you--or you again--would post this same exact thread with another list.
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?36671 Posts
On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote: Team Liquid, your focus is wrong. Horribly wrong.
On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote: You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site.
On September 26 2015 07:51 MrInocence wrote: And this is the ultimate problem with team liquid.
"Don't like it? Too bad."
On September 26 2015 08:54 MrInocence wrote: But seeing as how TL is made of mostly semi-casual (ranking and improving) , semi-hard core (masters?), hard core (tries to hit top masters/gm), and professional players (gm), only the things that affect them matter.
On September 26 2015 12:13 MrInocence wrote: @My_Fake
That's just how the starcraft community is. It's also why I try to avoid Team Liquid, that kind of attitude is accepted and encouraged here.
On September 26 2015 16:00 MrInocence wrote: That's the attitude of a vast majority of Team Liquid. Doesn't seem very friendly to new people.
On September 26 2015 16:19 MrInocence wrote: I joined TL five years ago and have been on here very very seldomly, only when I have something to share or when I want to learn. I don't like the elitest attitude here, so I avoid it.
On September 27 2015 02:32 MrInocence wrote: And that's what we have in TL... the people who actually devoted those thousands of hours despite many many frustrations. Myself included. I've played this game for five years now.
Confirmed. The Team Liquid community is fucking awesome. <3
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On September 27 2015 01:43 Zealously wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 11:19 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 09:50 Beastyqt wrote:On September 26 2015 07:49 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:41 Chaggi wrote:On September 26 2015 07:30 MrInocence wrote:On September 26 2015 07:22 Charoisaur wrote: I can't speak about others but I have WAY more fun with sc2 than with any other game. And that's not just since I made master league. even when I started playing as a silver scrub I had so much fun with the game that I hardly played anything else anymore. Maybe the problem is with you and not with the game. You are also posting on Teamliquid, of course you must like the game to be reviewing the game's fan site. I'm not trying to be condescending, I love the game too. That's why I'm here. But think for a moment about the casuals or even semi serious players who were turned off because of oracles, DTs, mines, banshees, etc. Obviously they are not on teamliquid. They might not have even bought the game. The numbers don't lie. HotS has less players than WoL. WoL has less players than BW. HotS has less players than WoL but I doubt it's cause of the game play. It's probably cause LoL and DoTA and CS came around and were amazing. WoL had stupid amounts of hype to it and it was the biggest esport till about 2011. I'm not sure if BW had more players than WoL either but BW was by far, a more frustrating game than WoL so you're just wrong. This is just stupid though. The logic that if the game was easier people would play it means nothing when SC in particular has a high skill cap. If you remove all of those things, there are still going to be things for people to whine about and nothing is going to change. First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game. Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games. HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular. LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch. Here's solution to all your problems: go back to playing brood war, sc2 =/= brood war. If you dislike it as much as you do and you wan't to change it to brood war, why bother? Just go install SC1 and play? Brood War was more popular? Are you joking? The only place Brood War was popular was Korea, while now Starcraft II is popular in most countries and it is the best RTS there is right now. I never understood people who wanted economy, game play or anything to be more like brood war, THIS ISN'T BROOD WAR GUYS IT'S STARCRAFT 2, play it or leave it. If I wanted to play brood war I know where to find it. I don't wanna play a game with all the changes you brought up and anyone who loves SC2 doesn't want those changes either. EDIT: You can't keep up with the game and you want Blizzard to make it super easy, no cloak units, any unit that is fast gets nerfed so it's in slow motion, harass units are useleses, etc. that's a shittier version of SC2. People from Blizzard aren't dumb, they understand game is becoming even harder in Legacy which is why they are introducing Archon mode, grab a friend and enjoy the game. At the end of the day, games are supposed to be for fun, if you don't enjoy it play something more casual and don't stress about it. Where is the army movement? Where are the flanks? Where is the outmaneuvering? Where is creating three different squads of units and engaging on three different fronts? Where are the siege tank lines? Instead, you have one big blob of units and maybe 1 medivac or 1 prism flying around killing workers. . Are you and I watching the same game? On a professional level, this sweeping generalization of SC2 has not held true for years. If you're talking about a casual, 'playable' level, then you must understand that it is very nearly impossible for low-level players to accomplish intense multi-pronged play. Low-level players damn sure didn't play out four battles across six bases in Brood War, either. I understand what you're frustrated about and agree to some extent, but faulty assumptions and offensive generalizations really avail you nothing. I pre-ordered as soon as it was available, because I know I'm going to have fun enough for my money's worth on the campaign. But I do wish that I had more fun with the multiplayer. I don't agree with all of his points, and I agree with almost none of his solutions, but I do feel that he's half right about his accusations. There are a lot of ways that I can end up losing a game or an engagement that just doesn't feel fun, and that's a problem that feels like it's gotten worse in HotS than WoL, and worse in what I've played of LotV than HotS.
I don't agree with his implications that radical changes need to be made, or even that any units need to be removed. But if WMs didn't 1-shot Drones and Probes with splash, the times that a Terran manages to clear out an entire mineral line wouldn't feel so insultingly unfair. I'd feel like I'm being given a fair shot at counterplay if it takes more than one mistake to receive "terrible terrible damage". 2-shotting workers seems fair. 1-shotting, no.
Oracles are very frustrating to lose against, and they can completely lock down certain playstyles in a really ugly way. They wouldn't need to have their attack removed, but I think it's pretty clear that it destroys things way too fast. Once again, moving to a number of shots required to kill workers that is higher than the current state of affairs seems wise. Especially important is that they don't slaughter Marines like they do. Almost all of these complaints can be dealt with by implementing measured, reasonable changes.
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You all forget two important things: 1. Over half of the people who buy any version of Starcraft, buy it for the campaign only. 2. Many more people played customs in BW than they did ladder.
I think the biggest mistake with SC2 was they did not treat Arcade seriously at the start and lost their playerbase. It's too late to save it now, the players have all gone to LoL just like me
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There is only one way to make something fun.
Tell your audience a narrative, tell them who they are in that narrative, and only allow them to do things that help push that narrative.
Example:
You are an individual warrior in a large scale battle. => MOBA You are a general guiding your armies to war => Chess
Spending thousands of words talking about balance is just stupid overall when the discussion should be about fun.
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SC is losing players because there are so many other great games out there; competition is fierce.
BTW I disagree with most of the proposed changes and wanted to voice that.
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On September 27 2015 06:20 Ansibled wrote: Fun is subjective, the kind of game you want to make isn't Starcraft. There should be frustrating moments.
If people are too frustrated to play 1v1, removing Cloaked Banshees or Oracles isn't going to change that. There will just be new frustrations to whatever you die to instead. That's ok though, the game can be successful without the majority of the playerbase focusing on competitive 1v1 at first. No--fun isn't subjective, it's normative. While not necessarily bound to the natural laws that arise from human nature, they are partially contingent on them, and accurate generalities can be created about what is and is not good game design, likewise what is and is not fun.
Games, properly designed, strive to create as enjoyable, deep, and least frustrating gameplay possible. Indeed, shallow and frustrating often coincide, and enjoyable is the antithesis of frustration.
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On September 27 2015 11:01 Jaedrik wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2015 06:20 Ansibled wrote: Fun is subjective, the kind of game you want to make isn't Starcraft. There should be frustrating moments.
If people are too frustrated to play 1v1, removing Cloaked Banshees or Oracles isn't going to change that. There will just be new frustrations to whatever you die to instead. That's ok though, the game can be successful without the majority of the playerbase focusing on competitive 1v1 at first. No--fun isn't subjective, it's normative. While not necessarily bound to the natural laws that arise from human nature, they are partially contingent on them, and accurate generalities can be created about what is and is not good game design, likewise what is and is not fun. Games, properly designed, strive to create as enjoyable, deep, and least frustrating gameplay possible. Indeed, shallow and frustrating often coincide, and enjoyable is the antithesis of frustration.
Fun is subjective.
As all emotions are subjective.
Love, fear, etc...
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Opening a thread by telling me you normally don't contribute to TL, then telling me that TL is wrong, when you obviously aren't contributing to do anything about it...
Dunno. just rubbed me the wrong way. Its like "STAAHP LIKING WHAT I DON"T LIKE"
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Isn't fun and frustration goes hand in hand (to a certain degree).
I use to suck at ZvT bio play but after being frustrated from losing for so long, i finally figured out the right way to play against it and now it is become more fun.
I ain't to say the game is far from balance. And what's Blizzard making changes to LOTV sometimes you are like, wait where's that coming from?...
If ppl complain about SC as being too hard and then go and play LOL/DOTA or CS and they like it, that's fine. We are entitled to play any games we want. Those games are also not easy to pick up. It might not be as click intensive as SC (at the highest level) but don't tell me they are easy to pick up like candy crush. Maybe CS you can camp and then win a game every now and then.
For newbies, if they wanna have a fun game, just load up 4v4 or do some mono battles. Those are always hilarious. But 1v1 is really where your skills really shines and really the frustration takes place as you learn the game and become better at it.
I wouldn't say TL as an elistist group...perhaps more like a community who is making an effort to become a better player. Yes, it might not be 'fun' all the time but definitely it is rewarding for me when I am becoming a better player.
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On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote: ... There are increasing amounts of frustrations added in WoL, HotS, and LotV.
You should have stopped here, because you hit the nail on the head and your suggestions afterwards just distract from it.
HOTS and LOTV are very poor games when it comes to game design. The Widow is a terribly thought out unit that has a psychological impact on the other player that forces a style of safe play that is bad for an action game ("there may be Widow Mines and they do so much damage that I cannot advance until I can see them"). The number of units they hit do is also unpredictable. The result is players win or lose games based on interactions that cannot be reliably repeated.
And that is awful.
As other games have moved to clarify interactions and remove unpredictability so true skill can show, SC2 has moved in the opposite direction, muddying the waters and increasingly adding unpredictable elements to the game.
The frustrations that come from units like the Widow Mine, and the slew of hard counters (like the Viper and Immortal) and poorly balanced units (like the Adept) really make the game a mess. If you read and study game design SC2 breaks so many rules, just like C&C did, and that should surprise no one since Browder was at the helm, and David Kim has no idea what he is doing.
A good place to start learning about game design, for those interested, is the design blogs from the Riot, such as this one: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417
Using some of the concepts illustrated there, you'll see that the Widow Mine and many of the recent SC2 changes in general creates a strong feeling of anti-fun and are unreliable, which has resulted in a big net loss of players (including me) while LoL has done the opposite. And the number of false choices in SC2 is laughable. The game is a mess.
It is actually quite a ridiculous game now, where Blizzard has replaced early game pushes from armies with early game harassment. They are similar in that they can both end the game. They differ in the fact that the former is actually battle between two armies, while the other is a ridiculous micro scenario that doesn't resemble a battle, but feels a lot like an Aiur Chef match.
And that is very sad, because I loved SC2 more than any other game.
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On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote:
1. Oracles obliterate your worker line unless you have an exact defense. This pisses off casuals and hardcores alike, and even GSL level players have a hard time. Solution: Oracles lose pulsar beam, and become an arbiter-like support utility unit.
2. Medivac boost can straight up kill you, or neuter your economy. Solution: Heavily nerf or remove medivac boost.
3. Widow mines murder workers. They are also cloaked when burrowed. Solution: Widow mines copy spider mines. They no longer target workers.
4. Speed mutalisks are so strong that they prompted the design team to create the Tempest and the Liberator and the spore crawler +bio buff to combat them. Practical Solution: Remove the speed from mutalisks.
Ideal Solution: Also rework larva mechanics so mutalisk production is streamlined rather than a burst of 30 mutalisks at once.
5. Reapers are a stupid earlygame only unit that can snowball out of control. They are terrifying in lower leagues. Solution: Remove their attack. Do what you will with their grenade, it doesn't matter.
6. Banshees are an invisible worker murdering air-to-ground nightmare that has plagued the TvT matchup since 2010. They are stronger in LotV. They are terrifying in lower leagues. Solution: Banshees can no longer cloak.
7. Hellions and hellbats have hard countered light units and workers since 2010. Practical solution: Ideal solution: Make them single target, or less overbearing, like the vulture.
8. The cannon rush. Solution: I don't have a solution, sorry.
9. Dark templar that can be warped in anywhere, in any number. Solution: I don't have a solution, sorry.
10. Protoss coinflips. Solution: This will be solved if the above are implemented.
11. Zerg tech switching into units that require different, specific counters. Ultralisks v. Broodlords v. Mutalisks for example. Solution: Larva must be linear. Hatcheries should not be able to bank massive amounts of larva.
12. Terran ultra harassment. Solution: This will be solved if the above are implemented.
These are the main issues. There are many more that I have not included. As you can see, some problematic recurring themes are such: - invisibility - untouchable air units that shoot down - requires specific counters too early in the game ----------- How to make the game more fun I am running out of time, so I'll make this brief. In order of importance.
1. Make Zerg the swarm again.
2. Air units should be relegated to a supporting role. Definitely not a strong air-to-ground role.
3. Terrain should matter again. Fighting over terrain, over paths of terrain, etc. Like in BW. This is partially achieved with weaker air units.
4. Armor should not be a weakness. Anti armored units should be toned down. Marauder/Immortal/Roach trifecta since WoL beta.
5. Units should be more core. Less moba style abilities. This way terrain and fighting will be more traditional. Adept shade is the definition of gimmicky. Make its model bigger, and make it function similar to a dragoon.
etc. All I have time for right now. Discuss.
You will allways have this kind of problems in an rts. It is grounded in the game itself. Ive never encountered a single rts where this wasnt a problem. The list you make isnt close to the truth. Anything in an rts can end games. In bw it was even more visible than in sc2. In bw we could kill an opponent with just one worker.
Many of your points have simple answers. The answer to oracle/dts for example is just a turret or a spore (in your games it doesnt matter if you waste resource on 3 turrets). It is simple as that. But in an rts there are so many possibilities it takes a long time for a new player to learn all this stuff and this can be a frustrating experience.
Some of your solutions make the game worse. Mutas are an harassment tool (zerg hasnt many) and you want to make them slower? For what are they good after that? Imagine a world without wm. We would have no answers to mass chargelots and mass banelings and to some extent to mass mutas, to oracles etc. Hell we wont have mmm vs muta bane ling which is the most fun strategy. Wms are very versatile. Imagine we have no oracle protoss could not open up with stargate (back to only robo builds). You see many of your points have added more fun to the game than frustration.
When i ve played bw the first time i was extremly frustrated but the drive to win games stopped me from giving up. The hardcore 1x1 experience will allways be for people who have the drive to compete, to improve and to win.
EDIT: Also some of your points are wrong. You just allways look at a single part of the game but name it a as a complete such as in bw were air units weak. They werent! Air units get strong from stacking. Its like having 20 units at one single point. Every unit fires at the same time at the same unit. That is the strength of air. Voidrays are strong because of that. Mutas too. In bw you could even stack the health of mutas. Thats not possible anymore. Sorry but i cant believe you that you are a master. You dont talk like that.
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On September 27 2015 14:11 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote: ... There are increasing amounts of frustrations added in WoL, HotS, and LotV.
You should have stopped here, because you hit the nail on the head and your suggestions afterwards just distract from it. HOTS and LOTV are very poor games when it comes to game design. The Widow is a terribly thought out unit that has a psychological impact on the other player that forces a style of safe play that is bad for an action game ("there may be Widow Mines and they do so much damage that I cannot advance until I can see them"). The number of units they hit do is also unpredictable. The result is players win or lose games based on interactions that cannot be reliably repeated.And that is awful. As other games have moved to clarify interactions and remove unpredictability so true skill can show, SC2 has moved in the opposite direction, muddying the waters and increasingly adding unpredictable elements to the game.The frustrations that come from units like the Widow Mine, and the slew of hard counters (like the Viper and Immortal) and poorly balanced units (like the Adept) really make the game a mess. If you read and study game design SC2 breaks so many rules, just like C&C did, and that should surprise no one since Browder was at the helm, and David Kim has no idea what he is doing. A good place to start learning about game design, for those interested, is the design blogs from the Riot, such as this one: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417Using some of the concepts illustrated there, you'll see that the Widow Mine and many of the recent SC2 changes in general creates a strong feeling of anti-fun and are unreliable, which has resulted in a big net loss of players (including me) while LoL has done the opposite. And the number of false choices in SC2 is laughable. The game is a mess. It is actually quite a ridiculous game now, where Blizzard has replaced early game pushes from armies with early game harassment. They are similar in that they can both end the game. They differ in the fact that the former is actually battle between two armies, while the other is a ridiculous micro scenario that doesn't resemble a battle, but feels a lot like an Aiur Chef match. And that is very sad, because I loved SC2 more than any other game.
I think this is more a difference in design style, rather than simply poor design choices.
Riot builds their game around design choices similar to say, a slot machine. They focus on big, perceptive aspects, rather than subtle balance aspects. They would much rather have a player FEEL rewarded for something simple, than actually reward the player in the end. The result is a shallow, but addicting game.
SC2, and the team behind it, focus more on the end result of game. They focus on punishing small misplays. They never GIVE the player a reward, but rather allow the player to set their own goals and rewards. The result is a much more complex game, with much larger achievements for the actual player- but one that requires much more commitment.
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If you will all bear with me for a few moments, I'd like to give an example of my own experience in trying to enjoy SC2. I've played SC2 since the beginning, playing zerg for most of WOL and HOTS.
Back in the day, I used to grind for hours on the ladder, trying to improve my game, figure out what to do vs terran hellion harrass and protoss colosus deathballs. I would watch pro games, youtube videos, you name it, absorbing information and clawing my way up the ladder WOL. All that time, whenever all my drones were roasted because I wasn't paying attention for one second as hellions drove by my army, or when my 12 minute roach max couldn't contend with the colosus sentry stalker deathball, I would tell myself, if only I played better, I would have won that game. If I had just hit that one extra inject, or maybe engaged that army at another angle, make the correct units at the right time, that game would have been mine.
When I finally reached masters league after countless hours of play, I realized that what I had been trying to do was not play a game of strategy, but play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Every action I took was a reaction to an opponent's play where the consequence of a non-perfect response cost me the game. SC2 became not a game of strategy where I could use my creativity and playstyle to defeat an opponent, but a game where I just responded right or wrong and I won or lost my game accordingly. There was so little room for deviation that I could no longer express myself in my play. I think this lack of self expression was what cost me the fun in the end, and this all relates back to the game-ending (disproportionate consequence of action-reaction) nature of the unit designs in the game.
On a related note, as a person who likes to think of himself as being methodical and precise, I tried playing the game a different way in an attempt to find the fun again. I had just starting playing again after a few months absence, and I picked up playing terran, but with a twist --> I relearned all my hotkeys using the core to optimize my macro in the hopes of overwhelming my opponents with more units, and thereby (in my mind) completely bypassing the strategic aspect of the game (or lack thereof, see above).
I did this for a few months, with what I would consider to be great success since I had never really played terran except in the campaigns before this. I made so much more stuff than my opponents that I managed to reach high diamond/ low masters in HOTS in less than 6 months, starting in bronze league! In the end though, my enjoyment faded just like before when I realized that making more stuff and crashing it into my opponent still wasn't fun for me (can't say I didn't try though!). There was little to no decision making on my part, just pressing buttons with more precision and focus than the other guy.
tldr: Played zerg in wol and hots, couldn't find strategic self expression because of rock, paper, scissors unit design and quit. Came back as terran, played with a completely different mindset by primarily relying on optimized macro to win, still could not express self in game. Fail.
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On September 27 2015 16:05 Nimrod.519 wrote: If you will all bear with me for a few moments, I'd like to give an example of my own experience in trying to enjoy SC2. I've played SC2 since the beginning, playing zerg for most of WOL and HOTS.
Back in the day, I used to grind for hours on the ladder, trying to improve my game, figure out what to do vs terran hellion harrass and protoss colosus deathballs. I would watch pro games, youtube videos, you name it, absorbing information and clawing my way up the ladder WOL. All that time, whenever all my drones were roasted because I wasn't paying attention for one second as hellions drove by my army, or when my 12 minute roach max couldn't contend with the colosus sentry stalker deathball, I would tell myself, if only I played better, I would have won that game. If I had just hit that one extra inject, or maybe engaged that army at another angle, make the correct units at the right time, that game would have been mine.
When I finally reached masters league after countless hours of play, I realized that what I had been trying to do was not play a game of strategy, but play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Every action I took was a reaction to an opponent's play where the consequence of a non-perfect response cost me the game. SC2 became not a game of strategy where I could use my creativity and playstyle to defeat an opponent, but a game where I just responded right or wrong and I won or lost my game accordingly. There was so little room for deviation that I could no longer express myself in my play. I think this lack of self expression was what cost me the fun in the end, and this all relates back to the game-ending (disproportionate consequence of action-reaction) nature of the unit designs in the game.
On a related note, as a person who likes to think of himself as being methodical and precise, I tried playing the game a different way in an attempt to find the fun again. I had just starting playing again after a few months absence, and I picked up playing terran, but with a twist --> I relearned all my hotkeys using the core to optimize my macro in the hopes of overwhelming my opponents with more units, and thereby (in my mind) completely bypassing the strategic aspect of the game (or lack thereof, see above).
I did this for a few months, with what I would consider to be great success since I had never really played terran except in the campaigns before this. I made so much more stuff than my opponents that I managed to reach high diamond/ low masters in HOTS in less than 6 months, starting in bronze league! In the end though, my enjoyment faded just like before when I realized that making more stuff and crashing it into my opponent still wasn't fun for me (can't say I didn't try though!). There was little to no decision making on my part, just pressing buttons with more precision and focus than the other guy.
tldr: Played zerg in wol and hots, couldn't find strategic self expression because of rock, paper, scissors unit design and quit. Came back as terran, played with a completely different mindset by primarily relying on optimized macro to win, still could not express self in game. Fail. This is the kind of attitude that I don't understand and probably never will. I think it comes from watching too much professional play and assuming that you need to play the same, and then basing your decisions off those of pros.
Starcraft is what you make of it. If you want to play a style where you need to memorize a bunch of specific responses and then execute them, then you can do that. If you don't want to play like that, then don't play like that. Consider that there are only a few optimal responses, but there are many, many viable and decent ways to play the game, which emphasize different aspects of your play. It sounds like you were trying to play reactive zerg, and didnt' like it. Then you tried to play macro terran, and didn't like it. There are many perfectly reasonable things you can do that are not those 2. Sure, they may not be best for improving, but if you play the game for fun, why do you really care?
This game is not inherently rock-paper-scissors, in any way. There are few builds and plays (DT, oracle, and that's about it) that are actually fundamentally binary. Everything else relies mostly on mechanics and decision making. Lower-leaguers (which you aren't) often watch pro-level starcraft and assume that the game works in terms of counters and responses and counters to the counters, but they are really just deluding themselves, because that's not how the game works. Starcraft is fundamentally a strategy game and if you lack strategy in your games it's because you aren't recognizing it or are ignoring it.
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Ummm, you write as if TL community as this unified mob of people, everyone heartily agreeing with each other, while you are the single rebel able to see the light. I feel that you are asking for hostility, which will confirm your view of TL. TL, while heavily biased towards higher skill level compared to the average sc2-owner, is very heterogeneous and there are a bunch of people that regularly push of thinking of the lower level players, and like you complains that people don't take the lower leagues into account enough. Indeed, you notice that many posters (presumably part of the "TL community") agree with what you are saying. You wouldn't know of course, as you don't hang around here much. But feel free to make up assumptions about what everyone TL thinks anyway. And yes, whether you want it or not, you are very much part of the TL community. Even more so now with this post, and you are contributing with your part of the heterogeneity.
Anyway, just saying that the hostility you get is mainly due to your own tone in how you enter this discussion. You could have said the same thing perfectly well without bashing this "TL community" that isn't really represented by any single person, but is the sum of all the different types of posters. Which probably would have given you
That said, I agree with your general direction, that it is incredibly important that the game is fun to play for the newbs. (I've argued similar points in other threads in fact.) It is important that there is a good top-level game-play as well for the e-sports, which will help bring in new players. But it should be possible to get both.
I don't really agree with your approach of removing frustrating things. Or well, I'm not convinced it'll work. What is frustrating on the receiving end is often great fun for the other. Performing oracle harass is great fun, as is mass reapers at lower levels, as is medivac drops, etc. If we remove everything that can feel frustrating to defend, I fear we risk removing a lot of the things that are fun too.
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Brood war was, and still is frustrating to me on ICCUP because I've played the games a ton and I still suck at it. Doesn't mean I don't like the game anymore. Forget fun, remember *working* mechanics.
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On September 27 2015 16:42 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2015 16:05 Nimrod.519 wrote: If you will all bear with me for a few moments, I'd like to give an example of my own experience in trying to enjoy SC2. I've played SC2 since the beginning, playing zerg for most of WOL and HOTS.
Back in the day, I used to grind for hours on the ladder, trying to improve my game, figure out what to do vs terran hellion harrass and protoss colosus deathballs. I would watch pro games, youtube videos, you name it, absorbing information and clawing my way up the ladder WOL. All that time, whenever all my drones were roasted because I wasn't paying attention for one second as hellions drove by my army, or when my 12 minute roach max couldn't contend with the colosus sentry stalker deathball, I would tell myself, if only I played better, I would have won that game. If I had just hit that one extra inject, or maybe engaged that army at another angle, make the correct units at the right time, that game would have been mine.
When I finally reached masters league after countless hours of play, I realized that what I had been trying to do was not play a game of strategy, but play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Every action I took was a reaction to an opponent's play where the consequence of a non-perfect response cost me the game. SC2 became not a game of strategy where I could use my creativity and playstyle to defeat an opponent, but a game where I just responded right or wrong and I won or lost my game accordingly. There was so little room for deviation that I could no longer express myself in my play. I think this lack of self expression was what cost me the fun in the end, and this all relates back to the game-ending (disproportionate consequence of action-reaction) nature of the unit designs in the game.
On a related note, as a person who likes to think of himself as being methodical and precise, I tried playing the game a different way in an attempt to find the fun again. I had just starting playing again after a few months absence, and I picked up playing terran, but with a twist --> I relearned all my hotkeys using the core to optimize my macro in the hopes of overwhelming my opponents with more units, and thereby (in my mind) completely bypassing the strategic aspect of the game (or lack thereof, see above).
I did this for a few months, with what I would consider to be great success since I had never really played terran except in the campaigns before this. I made so much more stuff than my opponents that I managed to reach high diamond/ low masters in HOTS in less than 6 months, starting in bronze league! In the end though, my enjoyment faded just like before when I realized that making more stuff and crashing it into my opponent still wasn't fun for me (can't say I didn't try though!). There was little to no decision making on my part, just pressing buttons with more precision and focus than the other guy.
tldr: Played zerg in wol and hots, couldn't find strategic self expression because of rock, paper, scissors unit design and quit. Came back as terran, played with a completely different mindset by primarily relying on optimized macro to win, still could not express self in game. Fail. This is the kind of attitude that I don't understand and probably never will. I think it comes from watching too much professional play and assuming that you need to play the same, and then basing your decisions off those of pros. Starcraft is what you make of it. If you want to play a style where you need to memorize a bunch of specific responses and then execute them, then you can do that. If you don't want to play like that, then don't play like that. Consider that there are only a few optimal responses, but there are many, many viable and decent ways to play the game, which emphasize different aspects of your play. It sounds like you were trying to play reactive zerg, and didnt' like it. Then you tried to play macro terran, and didn't like it. There are many perfectly reasonable things you can do that are not those 2. Sure, they may not be best for improving, but if you play the game for fun, why do you really care? This game is not inherently rock-paper-scissors, in any way. There are few builds and plays (DT, oracle, and that's about it) that are actually fundamentally binary. Everything else relies mostly on mechanics and decision making. Lower-leaguers (which you aren't) often watch pro-level starcraft and assume that the game works in terms of counters and responses and counters to the counters, but they are really just deluding themselves, because that's not how the game works. Starcraft is fundamentally a strategy game and if you lack strategy in your games it's because you aren't recognizing it or are ignoring it.
I can see why you might think that I wasn't having fun by forcing myself to play a certain way because of the way I wrote that post, but the fact was that I also tried to play own style for a while (which I didn't include for the sake of brevity @_@). I guess it was mostly implied above, that when I played in my own way that it was an even less rewarding experience, since I could practically never win a game. Now you might say, hey, it's not always about winning. True. But isn't it at least sometimes about winning? When you do your own thing and lose waaaayyy more than when you play "optimally", would you not feel that you weren't being rewarded for your play?
I don't believe I am erroneously attributing this to the way units were designed in SC2 (there are countless threads about this aspect of the game on TL, not just this one).
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On September 27 2015 15:34 Draddition wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2015 14:11 BronzeKnee wrote:On September 26 2015 07:09 MrInocence wrote: ... There are increasing amounts of frustrations added in WoL, HotS, and LotV.
You should have stopped here, because you hit the nail on the head and your suggestions afterwards just distract from it. HOTS and LOTV are very poor games when it comes to game design. The Widow is a terribly thought out unit that has a psychological impact on the other player that forces a style of safe play that is bad for an action game ("there may be Widow Mines and they do so much damage that I cannot advance until I can see them"). The number of units they hit do is also unpredictable. The result is players win or lose games based on interactions that cannot be reliably repeated.And that is awful. As other games have moved to clarify interactions and remove unpredictability so true skill can show, SC2 has moved in the opposite direction, muddying the waters and increasingly adding unpredictable elements to the game.The frustrations that come from units like the Widow Mine, and the slew of hard counters (like the Viper and Immortal) and poorly balanced units (like the Adept) really make the game a mess. If you read and study game design SC2 breaks so many rules, just like C&C did, and that should surprise no one since Browder was at the helm, and David Kim has no idea what he is doing. A good place to start learning about game design, for those interested, is the design blogs from the Riot, such as this one: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417Using some of the concepts illustrated there, you'll see that the Widow Mine and many of the recent SC2 changes in general creates a strong feeling of anti-fun and are unreliable, which has resulted in a big net loss of players (including me) while LoL has done the opposite. And the number of false choices in SC2 is laughable. The game is a mess. It is actually quite a ridiculous game now, where Blizzard has replaced early game pushes from armies with early game harassment. They are similar in that they can both end the game. They differ in the fact that the former is actually battle between two armies, while the other is a ridiculous micro scenario that doesn't resemble a battle, but feels a lot like an Aiur Chef match. And that is very sad, because I loved SC2 more than any other game. I think this is more a difference in design style, rather than simply poor design choices. Riot builds their game around design choices similar to say, a slot machine. They focus on big, perceptive aspects, rather than subtle balance aspects. They would much rather have a player FEEL rewarded for something simple, than actually reward the player in the end. The result is a shallow, but addicting game. SC2, and the team behind it, focus more on the end result of game. They focus on punishing small misplays. They never GIVE the player a reward, but rather allow the player to set their own goals and rewards. The result is a much more complex game, with much larger achievements for the actual player- but one that requires much more commitment.
I don't think you understand what I said. My issues isn't the "design style" is the game design itself. It designed very poorly. Please take the time to read the game design article from Riot in the link I posted above and you'll understand what I mean. SC2 is filled with false choices. That isn't a design style, it is a design mistake. The fact that Mech wasn't viable in most matchups through most of the history of SC2 (I can't speak for LOTV today, I'm not following it) wasn't some kind of "style", it was because the game was terribly designed and presented a false choice.
SC2 has no discernible design style anyway, and is trending ever more into strange territory with MOBA like abilities. LoL is unapologetic in what it is. It hides nothing. I don't think that LoL/DOTA are addicting, I think they are fun. As was said, fun is normative, not subjective.
I do understand that deep achievement of doing something great in SC2, of making it to masters or Grandmasters, or winning tournaments for money, I competed hard in WOL. The thing is, you can have both. You can have a game that is actually well designed and have that deep sense of achievement and depth of skill.
It existed to a great extent back in 2011 with SC2, exists with BW, and can exist again with LOTV.
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On September 27 2015 16:05 Nimrod.519 wrote: If you will all bear with me for a few moments, I'd like to give an example of my own experience in trying to enjoy SC2. I've played SC2 since the beginning, playing zerg for most of WOL and HOTS.
Back in the day, I used to grind for hours on the ladder, trying to improve my game, figure out what to do vs terran hellion harrass and protoss colosus deathballs. I would watch pro games, youtube videos, you name it, absorbing information and clawing my way up the ladder WOL. All that time, whenever all my drones were roasted because I wasn't paying attention for one second as hellions drove by my army, or when my 12 minute roach max couldn't contend with the colosus sentry stalker deathball, I would tell myself, if only I played better, I would have won that game. If I had just hit that one extra inject, or maybe engaged that army at another angle, make the correct units at the right time, that game would have been mine.
When I finally reached masters league after countless hours of play, I realized that what I had been trying to do was not play a game of strategy, but play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Every action I took was a reaction to an opponent's play where the consequence of a non-perfect response cost me the game. SC2 became not a game of strategy where I could use my creativity and playstyle to defeat an opponent, but a game where I just responded right or wrong and I won or lost my game accordingly. There was so little room for deviation that I could no longer express myself in my play. I think this lack of self expression was what cost me the fun in the end, and this all relates back to the game-ending (disproportionate consequence of action-reaction) nature of the unit designs in the game.
On a related note, as a person who likes to think of himself as being methodical and precise, I tried playing the game a different way in an attempt to find the fun again. I had just starting playing again after a few months absence, and I picked up playing terran, but with a twist --> I relearned all my hotkeys using the core to optimize my macro in the hopes of overwhelming my opponents with more units, and thereby (in my mind) completely bypassing the strategic aspect of the game (or lack thereof, see above).
I did this for a few months, with what I would consider to be great success since I had never really played terran except in the campaigns before this. I made so much more stuff than my opponents that I managed to reach high diamond/ low masters in HOTS in less than 6 months, starting in bronze league! In the end though, my enjoyment faded just like before when I realized that making more stuff and crashing it into my opponent still wasn't fun for me (can't say I didn't try though!). There was little to no decision making on my part, just pressing buttons with more precision and focus than the other guy.
tldr: Played zerg in wol and hots, couldn't find strategic self expression because of rock, paper, scissors unit design and quit. Came back as terran, played with a completely different mindset by primarily relying on optimized macro to win, still could not express self in game. Fail. Could you please elaborate on what "strategy" and "strategic self expression" means? I can't understand what you are looking for in a game and just feel like we haven't played the same game called SC2.
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Great writeup. Love all your ideas.
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Isn't fun and frustration goes hand in hand (to a certain degree).
I don't think so. I think that a well-designed game will make interactions that are fun no matter the outcome. Sure you still prefer winning, but if you had a back-and-fourth engagement with lots of counterplay opportunites + ways to demonstrate skill --> I think you can find it fun without it being a frustrating experience.
It's important to remember that the whole multiplayer-focussed gaming industry is not that old yet, and I believe that in 15-20 years people are going to look back at some of the designs of current multiplayer games with despair. Because alot of gamedesigners currently don't know what they are doing and I see so much potential for the multiplayer games to be a lot more fun when gaming companies start to hire more competent personel or when the current employeed gets more experience.
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I feel like most of the things OP mentions are valid fun 'ruiners'. But Blizzard insists on keeping them in game because they think it adds some spectating value to SC2.
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To be honest I used to play Terran. I love Mech with Tanks and would mech in every match up. In LOTV the changes really did not favor what I wanted out of Terran. While I wanted to build tanks and smash nerds in the face, Terran became the mobile pew pew race with crap tons of micro race.
SO I SWITCHED RACES
Now I play Zerg in LOTV and I love it. With Lurkers and Ravegers and the faster economy.
My 2 cents, try the other races. If you still don't like the game, then you can quit
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On September 28 2015 01:12 HellHound wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2015 16:05 Nimrod.519 wrote: If you will all bear with me for a few moments, I'd like to give an example of my own experience in trying to enjoy SC2. I've played SC2 since the beginning, playing zerg for most of WOL and HOTS.
Back in the day, I used to grind for hours on the ladder, trying to improve my game, figure out what to do vs terran hellion harrass and protoss colosus deathballs. I would watch pro games, youtube videos, you name it, absorbing information and clawing my way up the ladder WOL. All that time, whenever all my drones were roasted because I wasn't paying attention for one second as hellions drove by my army, or when my 12 minute roach max couldn't contend with the colosus sentry stalker deathball, I would tell myself, if only I played better, I would have won that game. If I had just hit that one extra inject, or maybe engaged that army at another angle, make the correct units at the right time, that game would have been mine.
When I finally reached masters league after countless hours of play, I realized that what I had been trying to do was not play a game of strategy, but play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Every action I took was a reaction to an opponent's play where the consequence of a non-perfect response cost me the game. SC2 became not a game of strategy where I could use my creativity and playstyle to defeat an opponent, but a game where I just responded right or wrong and I won or lost my game accordingly. There was so little room for deviation that I could no longer express myself in my play. I think this lack of self expression was what cost me the fun in the end, and this all relates back to the game-ending (disproportionate consequence of action-reaction) nature of the unit designs in the game.
On a related note, as a person who likes to think of himself as being methodical and precise, I tried playing the game a different way in an attempt to find the fun again. I had just starting playing again after a few months absence, and I picked up playing terran, but with a twist --> I relearned all my hotkeys using the core to optimize my macro in the hopes of overwhelming my opponents with more units, and thereby (in my mind) completely bypassing the strategic aspect of the game (or lack thereof, see above).
I did this for a few months, with what I would consider to be great success since I had never really played terran except in the campaigns before this. I made so much more stuff than my opponents that I managed to reach high diamond/ low masters in HOTS in less than 6 months, starting in bronze league! In the end though, my enjoyment faded just like before when I realized that making more stuff and crashing it into my opponent still wasn't fun for me (can't say I didn't try though!). There was little to no decision making on my part, just pressing buttons with more precision and focus than the other guy.
tldr: Played zerg in wol and hots, couldn't find strategic self expression because of rock, paper, scissors unit design and quit. Came back as terran, played with a completely different mindset by primarily relying on optimized macro to win, still could not express self in game. Fail. Could you please elaborate on what "strategy" and "strategic self expression" means? I can't understand what you are looking for in a game and just feel like we haven't played the same game called SC2.
To me, strategy is devising a solution to solve a problem, as a means of defeating your opponent. Self expression in this context is to be able to devise your own solution. In the case of SC2, at higher levels of play, if you do not follow a certain pattern of play, you have a much lower chance of winning a game. This pattern restricts what I am or am not able to do. What I am looking for is to be able to use different ways that I feel are best in solving a problem (this is the self-expression part), but I cannot do that if I want to win. Does this better explain what I mean for strategy and strategic self expression?
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On September 27 2015 17:35 Cascade wrote:Ummm, you write as if TL community as this unified mob of people, everyone heartily agreeing with each other, while you are the single rebel able to see the light. I feel that you are asking for hostility, which will confirm your view of TL. TL, while heavily biased towards higher skill level compared to the average sc2-owner, is very heterogeneous and there are a bunch of people that regularly push of thinking of the lower level players, and like you complains that people don't take the lower leagues into account enough. Indeed, you notice that many posters (presumably part of the "TL community") agree with what you are saying. You wouldn't know of course, as you don't hang around here much. But feel free to make up assumptions about what everyone TL thinks anyway. And yes, whether you want it or not, you are very much part of the TL community. Even more so now with this post, and you are contributing with your part of the heterogeneity. Anyway, just saying that the hostility you get is mainly due to your own tone in how you enter this discussion. You could have said the same thing perfectly well without bashing this "TL community" that isn't really represented by any single person, but is the sum of all the different types of posters. Which probably would have given you That said, I agree with your general direction, that it is incredibly important that the game is fun to play for the newbs. (I've argued similar points in other threads in fact.) It is important that there is a good top-level game-play as well for the e-sports, which will help bring in new players. But it should be possible to get both. I don't really agree with your approach of removing frustrating things. Or well, I'm not convinced it'll work. What is frustrating on the receiving end is often great fun for the other. Performing oracle harass is great fun, as is mass reapers at lower levels, as is medivac drops, etc. If we remove everything that can feel frustrating to defend, I fear we risk removing a lot of the things that are fun too. On the last point about removing frustrating things also removes fun,
This is my argument. Basically the gist is by toning down flying harass and other super strong harass, terrain and army movement and engagement becomes more important.
You cannot stop an oracle by controlling ground. You cannot stop a medivac drop by controlling ground. They just fly by and don't care about your terrain control.
However, you can stop a ling runby by controlling ground. You can stop a few siege tanks from rolling up and sieging your 3rd base by controlling that area. So your opponent will fight with you over terrain. That, I think, is much cooler than just dropship swatting all game. Current harass defense is like trying to kill a mosquito, even if you kill it it's just an annoyance gone, not anything rewarding.
tl;dr if you remove michael bay style harass, ok some fun is gone but more fun is added because terrain matters again, army movement matters again, paths of attack matter again. I think thats way more cool than michael bay harass or just a generic dropship/prism/muta trying to avoid the antiair and sneaking into a base.
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On September 27 2015 16:05 Nimrod.519 wrote: When I finally reached masters league after countless hours of play, I realized that what I had been trying to do was not play a game of strategy, but play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Every action I took was a reaction to an opponent's play where the consequence of a non-perfect response cost me the game. SC2 became not a game of strategy where I could use my creativity and playstyle to defeat an opponent, but a game where I just responded right or wrong and I won or lost my game accordingly. There was so little room for deviation that I could no longer express myself in my play. I think this lack of self expression was what cost me the fun in the end, and this all relates back to the game-ending (disproportionate consequence of action-reaction) nature of the unit designs in the game.
Um...if you are reacting to your opponents play are you not playing strategically? Scissors paper rock is a game where you make decisions without knowing your opponents decision. You do know and you are making decisions based on what your opponent is doing.
Do you mean that there's no variation from the standard? That there is a correct response to everything you see and therefore there's nothing to choose? You feel like you don't have a choice because you see and you respond? Hate to tell you but that is basically every competitive sport out there. You made masters league. The top players in the world.
In a competitive environment this will always be the case. Pick any sport, do you see teams throw new game changing ideas every week? No you don't. The rules for basketball doesn't say you have to have your 5 players positioned in a certain way, it has been worked out over the years that this is the best way to have your team set up. Baseball doesn't dictate how you should lay out your field. Even MOBAs at the competitive level, you have certain line ups and roles that are required to make a team and the higher your rank, the less new strategies and ideas you will see.
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I've read the whole topic and want to add my two cents — I'm a noob player, playing against harder AI at the moment, I haven't yet played multiplayer matches (I suppose you should play multiplayer when you're able to beat the hardest AI easily so it's not interesting anymore), And I should say, the game IS fun with all this harassment units, different tech options and a certain degree of unpredictability - what your opponent will throw at you next?
The game IS hard, and it is made for hardcore players, it's also very demanding in terms of concentration and mental energy you have to commit to control all the units and bases, especially in multiplayer, but you can always play the campaign once again, or play against AI at your current skill level, So you may try different strategies and try your own play style. It's simple - play as you want and see if it works.
Of all things in SC2 matchmaking I really dislike just one - it's manual spawn larva for zerg, it's my favourite race, but I switched to terran since I couldn't keep up with all the injects — this ability took my apms which are already quite low (38), so I had less time to micro my army and to macro my economy. MULEs are so much easier and I feel that's unfair to novice zerg players. Of course you can build macro hatcheries, but that's quite an investment that will certainly put you behind in the game.
SC2 has something common with poker - you should try to "read" your opponent to succeed and invest your apms in scouting, so you could come up with a good strategy. And of course you should have higher APM to beat better players — what's your brilliant strategy worth if you don't have enough time to implement it? Starcraft is a very exciting game and it'also quite exhausting. So when I just want to relax a little I play a turn-based strategy, thankfully there's a lot of decent ones nowdays.
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On September 28 2015 23:32 furling wrote: I've read the whole topic and want to add my two cents — I'm a noob player, playing against harder AI at the moment, I haven't yet played multiplayer matches (I suppose you should play multiplayer when you're able to beat the hardest AI easily so it's not interesting anymore), And I should say, the game IS fun with all this harassment units, different tech options and a certain degree of unpredictability - what your opponent will throw at you next?
The game IS hard, and it is made for hardcore players, it's also very demanding in terms of concentration and mental energy you have to commit to control all the units and bases, especially in multiplayer, but you can always play the campaign once again, or play against AI at your current skill level, So you may try different strategies and try your own play style. It's simple - play as you want and see if it works.
Of all things in SC2 matchmaking I really dislike just one - it's manual spawn larva for zerg, it's my favourite race, but I switched to terran since I couldn't keep up with all the injects — this ability took my apms which are already quite low (38), so I had less time to micro my army and to macro my economy. MULEs are so much easier and I feel that's unfair to novice zerg players. Of course you can build macro hatcheries, but that's quite an investment that will certainly put you behind in the game.
SC2 has something common with poker - you should try to "read" your opponent to succeed and invest your apms in scouting, so you could come up with a good strategy. And of course you should have higher APM to beat better players — what's your brilliant strategy worth if you don't have enough time to implement it? Starcraft is a very exciting game and it'also quite exhausting. So when I just want to relax a little I play a turn-based strategy, thankfully there's a lot of decent ones nowdays. MULEing isn't analogous to injecting. The races are different, and arguments like this really just ignore that and try and equate them. For example, I could equally say Zerg has it easier than Terran because they don't have to build production as heavily or because they don't have to go back to build supply depots.
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Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading.
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On September 28 2015 23:53 Ansibled wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2015 23:32 furling wrote: I've read the whole topic and want to add my two cents — I'm a noob player, playing against harder AI at the moment, I haven't yet played multiplayer matches (I suppose you should play multiplayer when you're able to beat the hardest AI easily so it's not interesting anymore), And I should say, the game IS fun with all this harassment units, different tech options and a certain degree of unpredictability - what your opponent will throw at you next?
The game IS hard, and it is made for hardcore players, it's also very demanding in terms of concentration and mental energy you have to commit to control all the units and bases, especially in multiplayer, but you can always play the campaign once again, or play against AI at your current skill level, So you may try different strategies and try your own play style. It's simple - play as you want and see if it works.
Of all things in SC2 matchmaking I really dislike just one - it's manual spawn larva for zerg, it's my favourite race, but I switched to terran since I couldn't keep up with all the injects — this ability took my apms which are already quite low (38), so I had less time to micro my army and to macro my economy. MULEs are so much easier and I feel that's unfair to novice zerg players. Of course you can build macro hatcheries, but that's quite an investment that will certainly put you behind in the game.
SC2 has something common with poker - you should try to "read" your opponent to succeed and invest your apms in scouting, so you could come up with a good strategy. And of course you should have higher APM to beat better players — what's your brilliant strategy worth if you don't have enough time to implement it? Starcraft is a very exciting game and it'also quite exhausting. So when I just want to relax a little I play a turn-based strategy, thankfully there's a lot of decent ones nowdays. MULEing isn't analogous to injecting. The races are different, and arguments like this really just ignore that and try and equate them. For example, I could equally say Zerg has it easier than Terran because they don't have to build production as heavily or because they don't have to go back to build supply depots.
Yes, that is true, but at the end of the day, it's APM that matters a lot at the novice level (in my experience), and as a zerg player you have more things to worry about, injects being the most frustrating one. As a terran, if you missed a supply cap, you can call down additional supply from orbital command, or grab several workers and shift-build more depots (also barraks, factories etc) simultaneously, both these things do not require your continuous attention as injects do. And if you missed calling a mule, you can just call two in a row, or spend energy elsewhere. As a zerg you have to constantly check if your queens have enough energy and if they are in position to do an inject or you'll have smaller army, which is not at all great.
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Just have to say I agree with the direction u're going here, the sc2 multiplayer design team over the years trying to cater to the old guard and the elitist have done a disservice to the SC universe, instead of moving with the times it got too many things stuck in the past and as such couldn't incorporate the new age players, instead of having a booming community it has a community of people who have been playing SC since the original one which can only decay. The problems are now becoming apparent even tho the signs were all there since WoL.
Now the community has been trained to think a RTS needs to have intensive macro to be fun, and that skill is about how fast u can move your hands even tho that means high level play is all about factory work. Learn how to do your job and repeat it until you can do it faster than everybody else.
In the current gaming world most of this views are unacceptable, most games now are small breadth and very deep, easy to learn, extremely hard to master. SC has stayed in the past with it's extremely hard do learn policy, most players cannot see how deep the game is because they didn't put hundreds of hours into getting their macro up to par.
All this falls in deaf ears because people are stuck in a mentality of "This is what I learned and I'm not willing to loose it."
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On September 28 2015 23:53 Ansibled wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2015 23:32 furling wrote: I've read the whole topic and want to add my two cents — I'm a noob player, playing against harder AI at the moment, I haven't yet played multiplayer matches (I suppose you should play multiplayer when you're able to beat the hardest AI easily so it's not interesting anymore), And I should say, the game IS fun with all this harassment units, different tech options and a certain degree of unpredictability - what your opponent will throw at you next?
The game IS hard, and it is made for hardcore players, it's also very demanding in terms of concentration and mental energy you have to commit to control all the units and bases, especially in multiplayer, but you can always play the campaign once again, or play against AI at your current skill level, So you may try different strategies and try your own play style. It's simple - play as you want and see if it works.
Of all things in SC2 matchmaking I really dislike just one - it's manual spawn larva for zerg, it's my favourite race, but I switched to terran since I couldn't keep up with all the injects — this ability took my apms which are already quite low (38), so I had less time to micro my army and to macro my economy. MULEs are so much easier and I feel that's unfair to novice zerg players. Of course you can build macro hatcheries, but that's quite an investment that will certainly put you behind in the game.
SC2 has something common with poker - you should try to "read" your opponent to succeed and invest your apms in scouting, so you could come up with a good strategy. And of course you should have higher APM to beat better players — what's your brilliant strategy worth if you don't have enough time to implement it? Starcraft is a very exciting game and it'also quite exhausting. So when I just want to relax a little I play a turn-based strategy, thankfully there's a lot of decent ones nowdays. MULEing isn't analogous to injecting. The races are different, and arguments like this really just ignore that and try and equate them. For example, I could equally say Zerg has it easier than Terran because they don't have to build production as heavily or because they don't have to go back to build supply depots. That's not the point. What he says can be summed up as:
(1) The game is too fast (2) The game doesn't allow you enough to allocate your attention the way you want (3) The game is too unforgiving
With the silly campaigns for more automation everywhere, I always savour the fact that SC2 is much more newbie-unfriendly than his predecessor despite the fact that you had so much more to do by yourself in SC1. The difference is:
(1) You had more time to play (economy was not booming as fast, battles happened on a smaller scale and were not as brutal). (2) The margin of error was larger since (a) on average, less was at stake and (b) you could fall back on stronger defensive positions (attacking and immediately exploiting a lead was much harder). Your position in the game didn't degrade as fast as in SC2, where you can lose in a matter of seconds to various things. (3) The fact that you were required everywhere made it so that players could play their strengths and choose what part of the game they wanted to focus on. Mr. Macro could spend all his time in his base (and barely bother to watch fights! something absolutely unimaginable in SC2 for certain compositions), Mr. Harass could allocate his attention to his raids, Mr. Lategame could slowly develop towards his high tech composition, etc. In SC2 the game decides too much for you how you will play, which results in a repetitive and arid gameplay where players are limited and cannot play their true style/are pidgeon-holed into certain openings and patterns, etc.
Many things in SC2 should be conceived as little bonus which add up rather than absolute requirements that make you lose if you fail to perform them at level X or Y. Same for macro boosters, all it takes is a 50-60% nerf in efficiency and voilà... All their negative effects are suddenly gone and high(er) level players can still use them while low level players can focus on base management or unit control if they want. Instead of that, people who barely reach one effective action per second are immediately rushed into the action, with said action being more violent than ever... Nonsense.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
lotv beta was about very interesting changes: 12 workers less minerals in fields
reduce attack speed of units (too hard for blizz to rebalance it, they cant fix broodlords in wol and sh in hots in time)
removing macro mechanics (too hard for blizz to tweak terrans a bit lol)
so, lotv is going to be hots with 12 workers and lots of "new" units with moba-like abilities.
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On September 29 2015 00:31 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2015 23:53 Ansibled wrote:On September 28 2015 23:32 furling wrote: I've read the whole topic and want to add my two cents — I'm a noob player, playing against harder AI at the moment, I haven't yet played multiplayer matches (I suppose you should play multiplayer when you're able to beat the hardest AI easily so it's not interesting anymore), And I should say, the game IS fun with all this harassment units, different tech options and a certain degree of unpredictability - what your opponent will throw at you next?
The game IS hard, and it is made for hardcore players, it's also very demanding in terms of concentration and mental energy you have to commit to control all the units and bases, especially in multiplayer, but you can always play the campaign once again, or play against AI at your current skill level, So you may try different strategies and try your own play style. It's simple - play as you want and see if it works.
Of all things in SC2 matchmaking I really dislike just one - it's manual spawn larva for zerg, it's my favourite race, but I switched to terran since I couldn't keep up with all the injects — this ability took my apms which are already quite low (38), so I had less time to micro my army and to macro my economy. MULEs are so much easier and I feel that's unfair to novice zerg players. Of course you can build macro hatcheries, but that's quite an investment that will certainly put you behind in the game.
SC2 has something common with poker - you should try to "read" your opponent to succeed and invest your apms in scouting, so you could come up with a good strategy. And of course you should have higher APM to beat better players — what's your brilliant strategy worth if you don't have enough time to implement it? Starcraft is a very exciting game and it'also quite exhausting. So when I just want to relax a little I play a turn-based strategy, thankfully there's a lot of decent ones nowdays. MULEing isn't analogous to injecting. The races are different, and arguments like this really just ignore that and try and equate them. For example, I could equally say Zerg has it easier than Terran because they don't have to build production as heavily or because they don't have to go back to build supply depots. That's not the point. What he says can be summed up as: (1) The game is too fast (2) The game doesn't allow you enough to allocate your attention the way you want (3) The game is too unforgiving With the silly campaigns for more automation everywhere, I always savour the fact that SC2 is much more newbie-unfriendly than his predecessor despite the fact that you had so much more to do by yourself in SC1. The difference is: (1) You had more time to play (economy was not booming as fast, battles happened on a smaller scale and were not as brutal). (2) The margin of error was larger since (a) on average, less was at stake and (b) you could fall back on stronger defensive positions (attacking and immediately exploiting a lead was much harder). Your position in the game didn't degrade as fast as in SC2, where you can lose in a matter of seconds to various things. (3) The fact that you were required everywhere made it so that players could play their strengths and choose what part of the game they wanted to focus on. Mr. Macro could spend all his time in his base (and barely bother to watch fights! something absolutely unimaginable in SC2 for certain compositions), Mr. Harass could allocate his attention to his raids, Mr. Lategame could slowly develop towards his high tech composition, etc. In SC2 the game decides too much for you how you will play, which results in a repetitive and arid gameplay where players are limited and cannot play their true style/are pidgeon-holed into certain openings and patterns, etc. Many things in SC2 should be conceived as little bonus which add up rather than absolute requirements that make you lose if you fail to perform them at level X or Y. Same for macro boosters, all it takes is a 50-60% nerf in efficiency and voilà... All their negative effects are suddenly gone and high(er) level players can still use them while low level players can focus on base management or unit control if they want. Instead of that, people who barely reach one effective action per second are immediately rushed into the action, with said action being more violent than ever... Nonsense.
Brilliant reply and a great sum up of why the game is a miserable experience. Could not have said it any better. I keep wondering how the design went so far off track to reach this place.
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There's only so much hand holding you can to do grab lower players, and I am actually happy with that. If lower skilled people can't first get into Starcraft cause it is too hard, that is fine by me they can learn to love it by watching it instead. Though widow mines are not very noob friendly, they can be very entertaining to watch and might inspire a lower level player to start playing and learn the game.
Following a Riot design blog and dummifying the game to increase the beginner player base and pool is not something that will make Starcraft 2 a better Esport, it's what made LoL one of the most popular games there is. But that is based on the design of their hero system and it being a team game, making it much more forgiving to new players, but those designs are not what made it a successful Esport, and what makes it a successful Esport will be different than what makes SC2 a good Esport, and thank god for that.
While, yes I do think LOTV is a mess right now and a lot of balance needs to be sorted out and fixed. I still have a lot of fun with it, and I know that is in part because I have the experience to pull off things in it that newer players wouldn't be able to. And I think that is perfectly okay, I like that SC2 rewards the time you put into it, and that it isn't just a game you can pick up and play. Starcraft doesn't need to emulate LoL to be a good Esport, it needs to be a platform for the very best decision makers and players to showcase their skill in a game with a high skill ceiling and millions of possibilities.
Also OP I bet you would have hated reaver drops in BW if you think drop harass is too annoying
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This is the dumbest thread on Team Liquid. I was waiting for the sarcasm tag because I thought this post was mocking the community for whining too much, but then I realized OP was serious.
Starcraft is, first and foremost, a strategy game. If you remove all of the tools that exist to punish greed or mistakes with detection and defense, then what are you left with? Just a game where players are separated by their mechanics only.
I happen to think all of those things make the game more fun, for the most part. God forbid a player ever has to think about what their opponent is doing.
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On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading.
As a novice game designer I would have to agree with most of your points, and that is a very saddening experience. I have also played Starcraft for countless of hours and reached GM multiple times, my motivation to play was not that I wanted that awesome starcraft experience with cool moments and that awesome feeling good games give you. Starcraft gave me that feeling of a competitive environment where you could truly test your skill versus an opponent. This however does not last forever as competing for the sake of competing is not very rewarding, the only sense of fun the game gave me was when I finally beat that protoss all inner or that cheesy zerg. I was happy not because the game was fun, but that I could finally beat all of the bullshit thrown at my face. It was the feeling of competition that made me push through the bullshit to hopefully reach green pastures and once you got there you realized the green pastures were at best grey. It just never became a fun experience.
Looking at a game like Heroes of the Storm, a game which is currently skyrocketing in popularity, a game which requires very little skill and has a low skill ceiling, a game opposite of starcraft 2. This game is gaining so much momentum because its very rewarding to play. This is because of in game rewards, something starcraft 2 doesn't have. These rewards are not gold and buying heroes, it is landing that skillshot and getting that sweet impact sound or getting that nice level up animation. In heroes I do not care as much about winning since the gameplay is very rewarding. Comparing heroes and starcraft would be like comparing Mario and I wanna be the guy and looking at which one is more popular, the game who makes people feel awesome from playing or the game that you can only get enjoyment out of if you master it and finally beat all of the bullshit that is thrown towards you.
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On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading.
Not to shit on your point, but I have the suspicion that you are really bad at this game.
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On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading.
game is dead because rts isn't fun except for a vanishingly small amount of people. i think rts exists in this weird space like roguelikes, where there's a lot of extremely unforgiving aspects that define what an rts is and removing them creates these weird rts-lites (mobas) that are more forgiving and casual friendly. it's like comparing nethack/dcss to binding of isaac or rogue legacy; the base game is too hardcore for 99% of players and they won't be able to enjoy it without totally changing what the game's about
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On September 29 2015 02:00 bjornkavist wrote: There's only so much hand holding you can to do grab lower players, and I am actually happy with that. If lower skilled people can't first get into Starcraft cause it is too hard, that is fine by me they can learn to love it by watching it instead. Though widow mines are not very noob friendly, they can be very entertaining to watch and might inspire a lower level player to start playing and learn the game. Uh? No one is going to start playing the game because they saw a Widow Mine shot on some stream. If the game is too frustrating, people won't drop by the streams. They will simply leave.
Following a Riot design blog and dummifying the game to increase the beginner player base and pool is not something that will make Starcraft 2 a better Esport (1) SC2 doesn't need to become a better esport, it needs to be a better game. The game comes before the esport and players are more important than spectators. If your player base collapses, so will stream numbers since those who watch are primilarily those who play. (2) There is no need to dumb down the game to make it more friendly for low level players! Things like slowing down the pace of the game, removing hardcounters or increasing the chances to come back from a deficit can benefit both low and high level players.
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I don't really go for the circle jerk that Sc2 is too hardcore for most gamers and thus why it doesn't have as big a player base as some of the hugely popular games. I just think it's a combination of RTS being pretty unpopular right now, Sc2 not exactly being all it can be and team based games being where the e-sports scene is focused on atm.
When people going for the casual vote on why Sc2 is not lining up with LoL's numbers people start to bring up BW. Shit, UMS provided me more fun than the dodgy arcade section. I will agree that was something better for casuals for sure, but as for the main game, well I think some people have been smoking a bit too much of the good old stuff since their last session with BW. I don't think I need to go into details, but that game is definitely not casual friendly and much less so than Sc2. A great game for people who invest a lot of time into, and a great pro scene it once had.
The "make it easy" crowd also talk about needing breakneck speed in order to play Sc2. Like what level are we talking about reaching here? Because when I last played you could get pretty damn high up in masters whilst hovering somewhere around the 100apm mark. Whilst you won't be fucking with Innovation with that apm you will be able to compete with the vast, vast majority of players if you play solid in general such as making good decisions, controlling armies well and taking good trades. Another casual apologist argument is the need to strictly follow the meta which restricts strategies and fun. In a 1v1 game for most levels of the play the meta doesn't even have to be something a player acknowledges.
Just bad arguments in general from people who are only going to play a 1v1 RTS title for a little while before moving onto a Moba or another team based game where they can blame their team-mates for losses. Blizzard recently dropped a super casual game that played right into the "make it easy" camp, and that game is a non-event for a Blizz title. Definitely areas where Blizz can improve Sc2, no doubt, and I hope they do even though I doubt I will be playing.
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On September 29 2015 03:17 TheDwf wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 29 2015 02:00 bjornkavist wrote: There's only so much hand holding you can to do grab lower players, and I am actually happy with that. If lower skilled people can't first get into Starcraft cause it is too hard, that is fine by me they can learn to love it by watching it instead. Though widow mines are not very noob friendly, they can be very entertaining to watch and might inspire a lower level player to start playing and learn the game. Uh? No one is going to start playing the game because they saw a Widow Mine shot on some stream. If the game is too frustrating, people won't drop by the streams. They will simply leave. Show nested quote +Following a Riot design blog and dummifying the game to increase the beginner player base and pool is not something that will make Starcraft 2 a better Esport (1) SC2 doesn't need to become a better esport, it needs to be a better game. The game comes before the esport and players are more important than spectators. If your player base collapses, so will stream numbers since those who watch are primilarily those who play. (2) There is no need to dumb down the game to make it more friendly for low level players! Things like slowing down the pace of the game, removing hardcounters or increasing the chances to come back from a deficit can benefit both low and high level players.
I can agree with those points and a lot of the points you made in your previous post, but I don't think making the game easier will make it a better game like a lot of the things the OP suggests. Also I legitimately had a friend get into playing SC2, Terran specifically from watching someone use widow mines on stream lol
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8. The cannon rush. Solution: I don't have a solution, sorry.
ez.
forge requires gateway.
There's no goddamn reason to have forge first builds. just remove it and balance protoss early game to be able to defend ling rushes.
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I respect your opinion OP. The thing is as platinum noob I wouldn´t want to play a game with those changes you propose. I really enjoy the way TvZ plays (from both sides btw)....I can completely see why the game isn´t fun for some people. At the end of the day you would be ruining the game for the people that are actually playing it in hope for a possibly not even existing crowd. Not every game needs to be easy or beginner friendly.
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On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading.
It's not just that. The game was not that beginner friendly at 2010 either, however there was a scene which was fun to follow, with many personalities and different tournaments etc. The thing is, Blizzard (WCS), community's obsession with Koreans, and people who spent way too much money (looking at IPL and NASL here) killed NA scene, which in my opinion made the game fun for most. I don't give a rats ass anymore and don't watch the game anymore, as Korean #24 or some foreigner I haven't heard at all won another tournament, game quality is important but as Destiny put it so nicely some time ago, can a layman like me recognize the subtle differences between the best and very-best players? I watched to be entertained, and SC2 delivered this back then.
The scene was fun, EG Team House was fun, MLG was fun I stayed up late for hours to watch that, Idra was loads of fun whether you loved or hated him, State of the Game, Inside the Game (Goatlust anyone) and all of that was LOADS of fun. There was a spirit, an identity to the scene. Koreans were cool because they played strong, but they were not the only important thing for me. I never even got to masters, but I enjoyed watching it until late 2012.
The game and its mechanics may be flawed, but this does not prevent it from being entertaining to watch, and that is not attained solely by the game's characteristics. The scene we had was amazing and that 2-3 year period I had so much fun following the scene, even though I was still terrible at the game.
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On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading.
Dramatic but stupid as fuck. Dota and LOL aren't fun in my opinion and SC2 is, but you don't see me shitting up their forums with another ded game post.
Please move onto greener pastures as fast as you can. RTS isn't for you
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On September 29 2015 04:37 Bleak wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading. It's not just that. The game was not that beginner friendly at 2010 either, however there was a scene which was fun to follow, with many personalities and different tournaments etc. The thing is, Blizzard (WCS), community's obsession with Koreans, and people who spent way too much money (looking at IPL and NASL here) killed NA scene, which in my opinion made the game fun for most. I don't give a rats ass anymore and don't watch the game anymore, as Korean #24 or some foreigner I haven't heard at all won another tournament, game quality is important but as Destiny put it so nicely some time ago, can a layman like me recognize the subtle differences between the best and very-best players? I watched to be entertained, and SC2 delivered this back then. The scene was fun, EG Team House was fun, MLG was fun I stayed up late for hours to watch that, Idra was loads of fun whether you loved or hated him, State of the Game, Inside the Game (Goatlust anyone) and all of that was LOADS of fun. There was a spirit, an identity to the scene. Koreans were cool because they played strong, but they were not the only important thing for me. I never even got to masters, but I enjoyed watching it until late 2012. The game and its mechanics may be flawed, but this does not prevent it from being entertaining to watch, and that is not attained solely by the game's characteristics. The scene we had was amazing and that 2-3 year period I had so much fun following the scene, even though I was still terrible at the game.
Please don't confuse your lack of enjoyment for the non-existence of it.
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The value of mechanical and strategic skills don't appear to be balanced very well in Starcraft 2.
Since I'm just a diamond player, it costs me quite a lot of attention to perform army maneuvers at the expense of my macro. The value of macro makes me feel less like a general, and more like a peon (a very important peon, but still) going around sweeping and maintaining the base.
This isn't to say that I'm unhappy with Starcraft 2 macro. I enjoy the challenge of it. I just wish I could also enjoy the position and maneuvering aspect of Starcraft - just a little more.
+ Show Spoiler +ps. Watching Polt's stream, I know there's still a lot more fun for me to explore. So my current perspective might change. I love when Polt uses small positional advantages like the layout of a base to trade effective engagements. But that doesn't seem to happen often enough.
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I can't believe this shitty thread has 8 pages.
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I think the absurd strength of harass (and its current low-risk, high-reward implementation) is something that should have been talked about much more in beta since the beginning, and is still a really big problem for the game.. so I can't call this thread shitty, even if I don't agree with all the OP's points.
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On September 26 2015 07:51 MrInocence wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 07:34 CheddarToss wrote: Here is the ultimate solution to make the game more fun:
Change your mindset. And this is the ultimate problem with team liquid. "Don't like it? Too bad." I quit posting on here a while ago due to this. People on here are so emotional. They'd rather try to make you seem like the problem rather than the game they claim to love so much.
On September 26 2015 07:34 CheddarToss wrote: Here is the ultimate solution to make the game more fun:
Change your mindset. You serious? The game is not fun. I spent years trying to get people to play this game as well as trying to play it myself (former gm terran) and this game is just not fun. What's fun about losing to harassment? Why should I have to literally follow another players build order, all the way down to a T, just to survive rather than just playing the game? I understand, pro players deal with it, but do you know why? Because they have to. It's not an option, unless they want to go an take up another career. Logically, the game just doesn't make sense.
Everyone has their own definition of fun. Some people find building a deathball and clicking around a lot just to have the game decided by one engagement fun, the majority doesn't. Some people enjoy building oracles/reapers and destroying someones worker line just because their unit/units (reapers typically get around when only a few, if any, units are around), and some do not. I loved Starcraft back in the old WoL days, you know, before the queen buff when you could actually harass zerg. Now toss and zerg have ways of basically defending any early game harassment that isn't a hard commitment with either an attack move or a click of the button. A lot of veterans don't understand the game from newer player standpoints. Some people just like to drink a 40 and enjoy a fun game, not lose because they don't know how to defend an air unit that can basically 2 shot any early game units in the game. Idk, maybe I'm being the emotional one by saying all of this but, I feel I'm being completely rational about it. There should be no reason why you have to follow build orders created by someone else in order to play the game. If that's the case, why not just build robots and have them just counter build each other all game until the other dies in one fight 45 minutes in.
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On September 29 2015 04:59 Zealously wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2015 04:37 Bleak wrote:On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading. It's not just that. The game was not that beginner friendly at 2010 either, however there was a scene which was fun to follow, with many personalities and different tournaments etc. The thing is, Blizzard (WCS), community's obsession with Koreans, and people who spent way too much money (looking at IPL and NASL here) killed NA scene, which in my opinion made the game fun for most. I don't give a rats ass anymore and don't watch the game anymore, as Korean #24 or some foreigner I haven't heard at all won another tournament, game quality is important but as Destiny put it so nicely some time ago, can a layman like me recognize the subtle differences between the best and very-best players? I watched to be entertained, and SC2 delivered this back then. The scene was fun, EG Team House was fun, MLG was fun I stayed up late for hours to watch that, Idra was loads of fun whether you loved or hated him, State of the Game, Inside the Game (Goatlust anyone) and all of that was LOADS of fun. There was a spirit, an identity to the scene. Koreans were cool because they played strong, but they were not the only important thing for me. I never even got to masters, but I enjoyed watching it until late 2012. The game and its mechanics may be flawed, but this does not prevent it from being entertaining to watch, and that is not attained solely by the game's characteristics. The scene we had was amazing and that 2-3 year period I had so much fun following the scene, even though I was still terrible at the game. Please don't confuse your lack of enjoyment for the non-existence of it.
True, I was just stating my perspective.
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Starcraft is a certain type of game. Some people are going to enjoy playing it, others are not. I think that's wonderful. Brood War was twice as hard and twice as unforgiving, and the Western esports community was basically nonexistent, but I still had loads of fun watching Korean-language broadcasts at ungodly hours with a few dozen people on Teamliquid, and then playing against the computer over and over again. Even if SC2 gets every bit as small as that, and even if it gets every bit as hard and frustrating as BW was (which is basically impossible), I'll still be having fun with it.
If other people prefer to play other games, more power to them. I have no need whatsoever for the game I play and watch to be the most popular game or the most popular Esport.
But the simple fact is, I have had fun with Starcraft for a long time, and just because you don't have fun with it doesn't mean you have the right to change the core of what it is just to make yourself feel better.
If you don't find Starcraft fun, then play other games. Don't screw with mine.
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On September 29 2015 10:09 Captain Peabody wrote: Starcraft is a certain type of game. Some people are going to enjoy playing it, others are not. I think that's wonderful. Brood War was twice as hard and twice as unforgiving, and the Western esports community was basically nonexistent, but I still had loads of fun watching Korean-language broadcasts at ungodly hours with a few dozen people on Teamliquid, and then playing against the computer over and over again. Even if SC2 gets every bit as small as that, and even if it gets every bit as hard and frustrating as BW was (which is basically impossible), I'll still be having fun with it.
If other people prefer to play other games, more power to them. I have no need whatsoever for the game I play and watch to be the most popular game or the most popular Esport.
But the simple fact is, I have had fun with Starcraft for a long time, and just because you don't have fun with it doesn't mean you have the right to change the core of what it is just to make yourself feel better.
If you don't find Starcraft fun, then play other games. Don't screw with mine.
The TL users should ask themselves if the game they are "designing" would have articles such as this (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/495027-the-fresh-prince-of-jin-air) written about it.
The funniest part of all this is that the same people complaining here are the ones cheering and excited in LR threads. Go figure.
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It's incredible how OP manages to mix very valid points and ridiculously bad ones.
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On September 29 2015 10:39 Tiaraju9 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2015 10:09 Captain Peabody wrote: Starcraft is a certain type of game. Some people are going to enjoy playing it, others are not. I think that's wonderful. Brood War was twice as hard and twice as unforgiving, and the Western esports community was basically nonexistent, but I still had loads of fun watching Korean-language broadcasts at ungodly hours with a few dozen people on Teamliquid, and then playing against the computer over and over again. Even if SC2 gets every bit as small as that, and even if it gets every bit as hard and frustrating as BW was (which is basically impossible), I'll still be having fun with it.
If other people prefer to play other games, more power to them. I have no need whatsoever for the game I play and watch to be the most popular game or the most popular Esport.
But the simple fact is, I have had fun with Starcraft for a long time, and just because you don't have fun with it doesn't mean you have the right to change the core of what it is just to make yourself feel better.
If you don't find Starcraft fun, then play other games. Don't screw with mine. The TL users should ask themselves if the game they are "designing" would have articles such as this (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/495027-the-fresh-prince-of-jin-air) written about it. The funniest part of all this is that the same people complaining here are the ones cheering and excited in LR threads. Go figure.
Why is that funny, ironic or even surprising? The people who are passionate about SC2 are complaining because they want it to be better than it is.
Those that don't care always wonder why the people that do care want change. That is always the state of affairs in any given situation.
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On September 28 2015 16:32 Dracover wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2015 16:05 Nimrod.519 wrote: When I finally reached masters league after countless hours of play, I realized that what I had been trying to do was not play a game of strategy, but play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Every action I took was a reaction to an opponent's play where the consequence of a non-perfect response cost me the game. SC2 became not a game of strategy where I could use my creativity and playstyle to defeat an opponent, but a game where I just responded right or wrong and I won or lost my game accordingly. There was so little room for deviation that I could no longer express myself in my play. I think this lack of self expression was what cost me the fun in the end, and this all relates back to the game-ending (disproportionate consequence of action-reaction) nature of the unit designs in the game.
Um...if you are reacting to your opponents play are you not playing strategically? Scissors paper rock is a game where you make decisions without knowing your opponents decision. You do know and you are making decisions based on what your opponent is doing. Do you mean that there's no variation from the standard? That there is a correct response to everything you see and therefore there's nothing to choose? You feel like you don't have a choice because you see and you respond? Hate to tell you but that is basically every competitive sport out there. You made masters league. The top players in the world. In a competitive environment this will always be the case. Pick any sport, do you see teams throw new game changing ideas every week? No you don't. The rules for basketball doesn't say you have to have your 5 players positioned in a certain way, it has been worked out over the years that this is the best way to have your team set up. Baseball doesn't dictate how you should lay out your field. Even MOBAs at the competitive level, you have certain line ups and roles that are required to make a team and the higher your rank, the less new strategies and ideas you will see.
I think you have the right of it when you said that there is no variation from the standard, that is what I meant. However, I completely disagree with your point on seeing less new strategies and ideas the higher you go in a competitive sport. That is how you differentiate yourself from other players and teams. In this game, playing different is not rewarding, and that I feel is the problem.
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On September 29 2015 04:59 Zealously wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2015 04:37 Bleak wrote:On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading. It's not just that. The game was not that beginner friendly at 2010 either, however there was a scene which was fun to follow, with many personalities and different tournaments etc. The thing is, Blizzard (WCS), community's obsession with Koreans, and people who spent way too much money (looking at IPL and NASL here) killed NA scene, which in my opinion made the game fun for most. I don't give a rats ass anymore and don't watch the game anymore, as Korean #24 or some foreigner I haven't heard at all won another tournament, game quality is important but as Destiny put it so nicely some time ago, can a layman like me recognize the subtle differences between the best and very-best players? I watched to be entertained, and SC2 delivered this back then. The scene was fun, EG Team House was fun, MLG was fun I stayed up late for hours to watch that, Idra was loads of fun whether you loved or hated him, State of the Game, Inside the Game (Goatlust anyone) and all of that was LOADS of fun. There was a spirit, an identity to the scene. Koreans were cool because they played strong, but they were not the only important thing for me. I never even got to masters, but I enjoyed watching it until late 2012. The game and its mechanics may be flawed, but this does not prevent it from being entertaining to watch, and that is not attained solely by the game's characteristics. The scene we had was amazing and that 2-3 year period I had so much fun following the scene, even though I was still terrible at the game. Please don't confuse your lack of enjoyment for the non-existence of it.
I think it would be more fair to qualify your statement as well if you are going to qualify someone else's:
Please don't confuse your lack of enjoyment for the non-existence of it for me.
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On September 29 2015 11:34 Nimrod.519 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2015 16:32 Dracover wrote:On September 27 2015 16:05 Nimrod.519 wrote: When I finally reached masters league after countless hours of play, I realized that what I had been trying to do was not play a game of strategy, but play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Every action I took was a reaction to an opponent's play where the consequence of a non-perfect response cost me the game. SC2 became not a game of strategy where I could use my creativity and playstyle to defeat an opponent, but a game where I just responded right or wrong and I won or lost my game accordingly. There was so little room for deviation that I could no longer express myself in my play. I think this lack of self expression was what cost me the fun in the end, and this all relates back to the game-ending (disproportionate consequence of action-reaction) nature of the unit designs in the game.
Um...if you are reacting to your opponents play are you not playing strategically? Scissors paper rock is a game where you make decisions without knowing your opponents decision. You do know and you are making decisions based on what your opponent is doing. Do you mean that there's no variation from the standard? That there is a correct response to everything you see and therefore there's nothing to choose? You feel like you don't have a choice because you see and you respond? Hate to tell you but that is basically every competitive sport out there. You made masters league. The top players in the world. In a competitive environment this will always be the case. Pick any sport, do you see teams throw new game changing ideas every week? No you don't. The rules for basketball doesn't say you have to have your 5 players positioned in a certain way, it has been worked out over the years that this is the best way to have your team set up. Baseball doesn't dictate how you should lay out your field. Even MOBAs at the competitive level, you have certain line ups and roles that are required to make a team and the higher your rank, the less new strategies and ideas you will see. I think you have the right of it when you said that there is no variation from the standard, that is what I meant. However, I completely disagree with your point on seeing less new strategies and ideas the higher you go in a competitive sport. That is how you differentiate yourself from other players and teams. In this game, playing different is not rewarding, and that I feel is the problem.
Can you provide some examples of games where playing different is rewarding?
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On September 29 2015 11:36 Nimrod.519 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2015 04:59 Zealously wrote:On September 29 2015 04:37 Bleak wrote:On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: Lets all relax here and realize the truth. This game is done. Its over. Dead. Kaput.
It doesnt take a prophet to realize that almost nobody will be playing it in about 2 years time, so lets just all learn the hard lesson that in order to make a successful game it mustnt be an esport or a watcher friendly game, or a high skill requiring game, it just has to be fun enough to a beginner so that he will want to invest time into it.
This game is not such a thing. It s a soulcrushing chain of sad experiences until you reach the mechanical skills in order for the strategy and your decisions in game to actually matter. All while being taxing on your eyes,hands and mental health.
If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
And here is where sc2 has utterly failed. The baggage of broodwar has charged this game with preconceived heavy requirements of needed skill, tight balance as well as esports viablility. Encumbring burdens for such inexperienced game designers which made them totally forget that above all you just need to make the game fun for your average or nooby player.
As this game will continue its inevitable demise towards its death 2 years from now, lets all take a moment to leave aside our elitism and just recognise that this game never had that magical appeal that great games truly have. Having achieved this personally, moving on to greener pastures has never been easier.
Thanks for reading. It's not just that. The game was not that beginner friendly at 2010 either, however there was a scene which was fun to follow, with many personalities and different tournaments etc. The thing is, Blizzard (WCS), community's obsession with Koreans, and people who spent way too much money (looking at IPL and NASL here) killed NA scene, which in my opinion made the game fun for most. I don't give a rats ass anymore and don't watch the game anymore, as Korean #24 or some foreigner I haven't heard at all won another tournament, game quality is important but as Destiny put it so nicely some time ago, can a layman like me recognize the subtle differences between the best and very-best players? I watched to be entertained, and SC2 delivered this back then. The scene was fun, EG Team House was fun, MLG was fun I stayed up late for hours to watch that, Idra was loads of fun whether you loved or hated him, State of the Game, Inside the Game (Goatlust anyone) and all of that was LOADS of fun. There was a spirit, an identity to the scene. Koreans were cool because they played strong, but they were not the only important thing for me. I never even got to masters, but I enjoyed watching it until late 2012. The game and its mechanics may be flawed, but this does not prevent it from being entertaining to watch, and that is not attained solely by the game's characteristics. The scene we had was amazing and that 2-3 year period I had so much fun following the scene, even though I was still terrible at the game. Please don't confuse your lack of enjoyment for the non-existence of it. I think it would be more fair to qualify your statement as well if you are going to qualify someone else's: Please don't confuse your lack of enjoyment for the non-existence of it for me.
No, actually, Zealously's qualification is fair enough already. Whether Zealously enjoys the game or not is immaterial to the fact that Bleak presented a poor argument.
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On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
I'll just let you know that nothing is more boring than a 50+ min LoL game when your team is slowly losing and you can't do shit about that and can't quit. 1 fucking hour literally thrown out of my life and it happens ~30% of games. That's from a noob perspective. During these times i wish my mineral lines were oblitirated with wms. I dream of it.
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On September 29 2015 14:25 insitelol wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2015 00:04 Kranyum wrote: If we learned anything from the massively successful games of past years Dota and Lol we realise that the sole recipe of success is that these games are a fucking blast, ESPECIALLY for the noobs. Its not about balamce or about the needed skill cap in order to play a class, its simply about the fact that on avarage a game is a very positive experience that leaves you wanting for more.
I'll just let you know that nothing is more boring than a 50+ min LoL game when your team is slowly losing and you can't do shit about that and can't quit. 1 fucking hour literally thrown out of my life and it happens ~30% of games. That's from a noob perspective. During these times i wish my mineral lines were oblitirated with wms. I dream of it.
I don't disagree with you in the sense that there are of course frustrating experiences in every game. This is why I used the term "on average".
However the growth of one game shows that newbies tend to stick around to playing it while the demise of the other show that people are more likely to quit.
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On September 29 2015 16:41 Kranyum wrote: However the growth of one game shows that newbies tend to stick around to playing it while the demise of the other show that people are more likely to quit.
That only proves a fact that people tend to like different things. The growth of the game (or any other thing: music genre, movie, social activity w/e) shows that it appeals to MOST people. Every1 loves soccer, only few play chess. Why on earth would you call it a problem?
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On September 29 2015 17:10 insitelol wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2015 16:41 Kranyum wrote: However the growth of one game shows that newbies tend to stick around to playing it while the demise of the other show that people are more likely to quit. That only proves a fact that people tend to like different things. The growth of the game (or any other thing: music genre, movie, social activity w/e) shows that it appeals to MOST people. Every1 loves soccer, only few play chess. Why on earth would you call it a problem?
+ Show Spoiler +Its not exactly what i am saying. Chess might be a smaller game than soccer, but even chess has a constant streAm of new players entering the gAme each year. Sc2 has more players quitting than new ones coming in. The expansions might bring a few back but what happens when they will stop releasing the expansions?
Low numbers is a problem because:
1. Viewer numbers directly correlate with money generated which overall leads to the longevity of the game.
2. The competitive aspect of the game is strictly related to how many people care about it. Would you or anyone strive to be the best at a game like Age of Empires 1 - it is after all an RTS game with all the basic aspects of macro and micro in there to be a competitive game. Yet, nobody practices to get better at aoe1.
3. Ultimately, the smaller your niche game is, the less likely you will find people to play with. In 2 years when most of our friends have quit and match queues will be of 30 minutes will it actually matter that i still love it?
edited: Im not saying its a problem to be a niche game. Chess is a stable game in terms of players and a good niche at that. The problem is that Sc2 player numbers will not remain stable, it will decline because the game is not fun. And decline leads to death.
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On September 29 2015 17:10 insitelol wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2015 16:41 Kranyum wrote: However the growth of one game shows that newbies tend to stick around to playing it while the demise of the other show that people are more likely to quit. That only proves a fact that people tend to like different things. The growth of the game (or any other thing: music genre, movie, social activity w/e) shows that it appeals to MOST people. Every1 loves soccer, only few play chess. Why on earth would you call it a problem?
More people like pop music than other music, does that make pop music better than other music, or does it make pop music just different than other music.
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Some of these ideas would definitely make the game less stressful.
Reapers don't need to attack workers or other units (unless I'm missing something related to early game defense, but that's probably something they could find a way around anyway), their main purpose is just scouting after all. I think it would be fine to take away their ability to attack units, but perhaps reduce their cost in return. Or maybe give them another ability, although it's mostly a scouting unit anyway. They could even make it really cheap and make it come out instantly with a single click once your orbital command finishes (e.g. "call down reaper", but not allow a player to make more than one at a time, so you have to remain active with it), that way there'd be no problem defending in the early game if you made one.
Oracles and widow mines can do too much damage at times. Making the oracle more of a utility unit is interesting. I'm not sure if removing their attack is a good thing, but maybe giving it a cooldown that prevents players from killing tons of workers would be a good thing. Like having to briefly charge up in place before each attack or something, but making that cost a resonable amount of energy so that you can't abuse it... I don't know.
There are definitely a lot of things worth considering. But realistically speaking, Blizzard has ignored many of the most reasonable sugestions, so asking them to consider redesigning certain units at this point is pointless.
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On September 29 2015 23:23 Kranyum wrote: Im not saying its a problem to be a niche game. Chess is a stable game in terms of players and a good niche at that. The problem is that Sc2 player numbers will not remain stable, it will decline because the game is not fun. And decline leads to death. Yes, but your statement about Sc2 declining is an exaggeration. Both online and viewership numbers are stable throughout the years, only volatile during expansions releases.
On September 30 2015 12:41 Thieving Magpie wrote: More people like pop music than other music, does that make pop music better than other music, or does it make pop music just different than other music. Not sure i get ur idea on this one. Concepts of "good" and "bad" are purely subjective. So yes, judging from your point of view pop music is good for people that listen to it, though is may be bad for others.
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War3 was fun, but had the demanding task of micro between 3 heroes, your army, items, etc.
The difficulty that RTS style brought caused a lot of people to quit.
Then DOTA came out and you could control 1 hero. This was so easy for many people. Now you could finally play War3, but with the ease of only micromanaging 1 hero instead of 3 + army.
The fact is that SC2 is very laborious and people will leave because of that.
All of the points made by OP require fast mechanical responses. So, just like War3 most will leave RTS for something easier. To relax while they play games with their friends.
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^ this guy hit the nail on the head. "...most will leave RTS for something easier. To relax while they play games with their friends."
i say this at least once a day about team games to the few lan center buddies that understand it all.
most importantly, we don't want this game to sacrifice that it is not quite so "kick back with your friends" even in team setups. it is difficult to do things in this game because you can literally do anything you want. we are progressing in a manner that sacrifices some of that freedom for a perceived "accessibility" that is like a "can't catch the dragon" scenario. this game is and should forever be something that is very difficult at the higher ends. making the lower ends somehow less difficult while keeping the higher end difficulties does nothing to attract the players that do not even understand that you can deselect "your" unit. some do not even understand the concept of "unit". their champion is all they know. why aren't they called legends? and why aren't the dota heroes called defenders? at least dota has deselect and units and miss chance uphill too... oh wait... sorry, i digress.
we do not need to lower ourselves to attract these lesser players. new players are important and indeed should have a somewhat nurturing learning environment. this game, however is a learning by way of trial and error... and speedlings... and mutalisks. players will join if they see the core community as vibrant about the state of their most beloved game as ever. we will rave from the mountaintop about this game and i will spam it at the lan center for all to see. i can't do that right now. not in HotS, not in starbow, not broodwar, not LotV... i can't play because i can't see what the future intends for starcraft overall...
the state of starcraft is in such a flux for one major reason. every time we see these updates, it becomes more clear that the team is approaching their deadline. their pace will be increasing toward release. the disruptor model is nice with it's new voice. this means it is definitely in the game, and at this point will not be replaced by the reaver. the reaver is not the reason, don't worry. the issue is that the ONLY thing this dev team is bound to is their production code of "... one of our core philosophies on SC2 design is if the change isn't completely amazing, we prefer not to do it."; "...in general we believe the smallest changes possible that have the biggest impacts are the better designs in SC2" that's from a reddit AMA, and there are similar ones. so you're saying that if the change doesn't really have a huge impact, it's not worth it? a change is only a better design if it has a big impact? how does this even allow them to make a real change? i'm not a game developer, but if starbow can be what it is, then LotV should blow it out of the water. the game has science vessels and irradiate and arbiters... not mothership core, but still has boosters, and not on autocast...
+ Show Spoiler +
you cannot expect the community to grow if the core remaining members are not enthused about the fine details within the patch notes (i realize that is not only TL, reddit, b.net forums, etc.). the game isn't all that terrible, but it is faster, and even less forgiving now. it is even more micro intensive. protoss from HotS to LotV will receive 5 more activated abilites. 3 of them are on commonly used units within the main army. protoss always had an issue taking a third and beyond, which is game-ending to fail. no real attempts have been made here except the few recent warp-ins and pylon overcharge (which is easily used offensively now...). while we see images of a shield battery in the background of the "engineer's manual" preview, we hear not a word about this concept for multiplayer. what the hell else while be in campaign that can help protoss take an expansion besides the despised mothership core? they caved on the lurker after 5 years and a failed replacement, maybe they will give us the shield battery and lockdown/maelstrom 6 months after release? i doubt it.
my point is that we are to receive core units, but one is a harass unit, and the other replaces the colossus. our other core units, the immortal, grabs another ability, this time so essential it gets autocast; and the stalker hasn't been touched. minor changes in the stalkers stats must not be an exciting enough change i guess. a small change to stalker damage or toughness, at least in the later stages of the game, could do wonders for defending overall... but nothing has even been attempted, as if the stalker is fine like it is. its not just the stalker, but their direction. where are we going with this? are we going to release very similar to this?
their ideas for this expansion's main multiplayer could be so much more if they would just try actual drastic things. it bothers me that they patch this beta so slowly. we should see a new build every week with well over 4 new units for each race (most could be the already existent models like corsair, goliath, sci vessel, lurker, oh wait), miss chance uphill, many old abilities that are constantly tweaked, economy rate changes with minor tweaks to see if the different numbers work better, and the list could go on. we have only seen this new economy get a minor cap increase to its resource per base cap. the only other economic change is the starting point. so little, er, zero public testing has been done with the other economies, so little was done with no macro boosters, which was a beautiful thing to play for some odd reason imo. they new boosters aren't the worst thing, but they are much more like a supreme commander kind of RTS. see my above comments... trial and error... and speedlings.
the solutions still lie in brood war imo. there are roles that are missing still. i have harked on this so i'll just reiterate. search there for the missing roles, like lockdown, maelstrom, irradiate (FOR TERRAN, NOT ZERG), scourge, devourer's role, etc.
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I just can`t resist in attending this discussion. Firstly, i`m a noob. I play high gold for 4 seasons with the perspective max for low platin. That`s it - i got used to it. And the reason that many people complain about hots and lotv is exactly this : they didn`t accept the fact they aren`t masters Let`s face the truth - it`s difficult but necessary. We are not pro-players - at least not in our mass and we will never be. It`s very hard to accept - that you will play years in a game, dedicate thousends of hours of your time and the result won`t be visible. Because other players like you develop too - and the game is becoming even harder - I remeber when I start playing 2 years ago - bronze was really funny - people have 20 apm and build few units in first 10 minutes Now I play in silver at the moment and the average apm is 60-70 and most of people rush with a considerable army in 7-8 minute of the game. You will say it`s not funny any more But it is - I love SC2 - because of this rush because from my 30-40 apm 2 years ago I reached 120-130 - and this is my limit - I`m 36 and play only 2-3 games a day so I`ll rather be worse than better. But the fun of the game is, in my opinion, in this fact - that you have to engage all your abilities and skills to maintain the level of play - micro and macro - it is like a trans - i`m literally exhausted after my 2 matches in a row. And this is it. I`m afraid not many people will share this enthusiasm and its obvious it has to be like this. And as a noob I can give only one recommendation for Blizzard. As most of us will remain low-skilled casual players with great ambitions please change ranking system. I play Hearthstone and every day I have reward for playing - why in Starcraft its not possible ? why can`t we have 25 levels league - where you play only with your skill mate or only one ranking higher or lower - it would eliminate all this complaining about bad match making. so remove mmr - introduce 25 league levels with legendary league too for pros and every league level can have its own portrait and give of course special bonus for advancing - maybe for example gold elements at buildings at some level ? or animations as a reward ? it all works in other game and this is what noobs expect - we will lose most of time and win only seldom so if we win give us a reward - something real. and one other thing - please add easy way to remove a unit from a control group - it happens all the time that my probe is mixed with army and I have to create control groups again - sometimes in the middle of the battle ! don`t understand why it wasn`t solved earlier. That`s all. gg
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On September 30 2015 18:13 SCHRECKEN111 wrote: please add easy way to remove a unit from a control group - it happens all the time that my probe is mixed with army and I have to create control groups again - sometimes in the middle of the battle ! don`t understand why it wasn`t solved earlier. That`s all. gg
Hey! There was a new group of hotkeys added, they are named add and take away, if you change your standard hotkeys to use these instead, then you can click on the probe and put it into another controll group and it will be removed. If you only play 1v1 it is the better setup overall imo, it might ruins archon mode though.
You could also always just shift+click on the probe when selectin your army and then you have all units but the probe selected, now hit ctrl-number to remake the controll group, I think that was the way I used to do it.
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On September 30 2015 16:52 loft wrote: War3 was fun, but had the demanding task of micro between 3 heroes, your army, items, etc.
The difficulty that RTS style brought caused a lot of people to quit.
Then DOTA came out and you could control 1 hero. This was so easy for many people. Now you could finally play War3, but with the ease of only micromanaging 1 hero instead of 3 + army.
The fact is that SC2 is very laborious and people will leave because of that.
All of the points made by OP require fast mechanical responses. So, just like War3 most will leave RTS for something easier. To relax while they play games with their friends. pretty much this. the reason sc2 isn't popular is not because some in-game intricacies and how one unit or another works. it's because the entire rts genre isn't popular anymore since the new generations have so many alternative genres that are much easier to play and get into. rts games are hard to play compared to mobas, mmos and shooters. BW and WC3 had huge success because they were the best games of their time and had little competition in terms of games with a proper competitive scene. as far as being fun goes, it's not even close. there's nothing fun about building 60 workers, staring in fear at a dark map, getting supply blocked every minute for hundreds of games until you get out of wood league and get the hang of the game. nobody wants to go through that when they can download dota for free , pick one hero, go kill shit immediately and not lose the game the instant they make a mistake.
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The only one I agreed with was 10. Protoss coinflips.
The game shouldn't be auto-lose on a 4 player map if you scout them last.
Personally the solution to this I would like to see is that your opponent's exact starting position shown at the beginning.
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It's funny how people seem to be supportive of these weird changes, I can only image what kind of royal bashing blizzard would receive if they implemented any single one of them.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
try to play supcom:fa for a week guyz, then try sc2 again. You will learn sc2 isn't that good at macro and global strategy (over map), resourse managment etc. Also, there are great shift-managment in supcom (you can edit or remove actions you shifted in middle of shift query). Currently sc2 is just "build some buildings"+ harass or be harassed + micro and mustactivateable abilities. And it cost tons of apm to execute. It's uncomfortable. Any missclick or missplay goes to punish you itself, if not by opponent. It's frustrating. Also, sc2 needs great map awareness and reaction to prevent die from few-second oracles/mines/hellions/lingruns overkills. Or lose you army in 2-3 sec storm. Etc.
I'm agree with: 1. harass too strong and gamble (if you defence - it's useless, if not - you behind or alrdy lose); 2. air forces too strong, and no enough mobile (mostly about terran); Look at bw - air must be mobile, scouty and fragile, but be able to dodge aa with maneurs. 3. macrobooster must be removed; They are musthave so there no realy need in them ingame (sounds fun, but truth). There are no choice play in musthave things. 4. too many wtf-doing units. WTF? Is it intertaining for new viewers? Hah, ofc no. Are they fun to play? Maybe. To play against them? Mostly no. 5. too many "hardcounters" (also 4. is part of 5.). Units must counter each other mostly economicly (outnumbered) and tacticaly (outrange, faster movement, fly, etc). Currently all game is like moba. 1-1. With 300 apm
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17 year blizzard veteran. Protoss-only player. Masters League.
How to fix the game from Master League, Protoss-only veteran.
- Remove warpgate - Rebalance gateway units
This will fix balance to SC2, and this will allow party games to be more fun. Remember BGH from BW? You can't play that in SC2 because of warpgates.
Former mapmaker on WarpGates, old thread well worth the read, as you can see I've known about this issue since many years ago...and it still hasn't been addressed. www.teamliquid.net
As a mapmaker I can tell you that warp-in ruins a lot of concepts~
Apart from that it obviously has numerous negative effects on actual gameplay. Would be happy if it was lategame tech or only worked at Warp-Prisms and the normal/early game production would be from normal Gateways.
I understand this game very well from a 1v1 perspective while also the old fun party matches of BW, and I thought SC2 could recreate all that under the new engine, but warpgates ruined big map distances. I can defend almost any early attack with a single pylon as a protoss partner.
- That's just not fair in a game like SC2, it ruins map making possibility AND game balance - Is it worth it to keep this in the game for the sake of ruining balance and handicapping map-making balance?
Highly suggest this thread from 2012 for a perspective on why Removing Warpgates would fix the balance of the game, shoutout to SuzyQuark!.
I hear a lot of suggestions from Diamond and below players, I wish you guys understood the game better, this is really the issue here. Please get the word out to blizzard.
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United Kingdom20158 Posts
I was enjoying the post until you decided to remove the attacks from the reaper and oracle while nerfing the crap out of mutalisk speed, medivac boost, removing banshee cloak potential (banshees are already never used against protoss in favor of Liberators), removing the defining feature of the hellion/hellbat (splash anti-light attack), etc. The mindset seemed alright until it turned into a bunch of gold league "i don't like this style of gameplay so remove it" remarks
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On October 04 2015 02:39 deadmau wrote:17 year blizzard veteran. Protoss-only player. Masters League. How to fix the game from Master League, Protoss-only veteran. - Remove warpgate - Rebalance gateway units This will fix balance to SC2, and this will allow party games to be more fun. Remember BGH from BW? You can't play that in SC2 because of warpgates. Former mapmaker on WarpGates, old thread well worth the read, as you can see I've known about this issue since many years ago...and it still hasn't been addressed. www.teamliquid.netShow nested quote +As a mapmaker I can tell you that warp-in ruins a lot of concepts~
Apart from that it obviously has numerous negative effects on actual gameplay. Would be happy if it was lategame tech or only worked at Warp-Prisms and the normal/early game production would be from normal Gateways. I understand this game very well from a 1v1 perspective while also the old fun party matches of BW, and I thought SC2 could recreate all that under the new engine, but warpgates ruined big map distances. I can defend almost any early attack with a single pylon as a protoss partner. - That's just not fair in a game like SC2, it ruins map making possibility AND game balance - Is it worth it to keep this in the game for the sake of ruining balance and handicapping map-making balance? Highly suggest this thread from 2012 for a perspective on why Removing Warpgates would fix the balance of the game, shoutout to SuzyQuark!.
I hear a lot of suggestions from Diamond and below players, I wish you guys understood the game better, this is really the issue here. Please get the word out to blizzard.
It's funny, most of the major limiting factors of maps consist of protoss abilities. Warpgate, blink and forcefields prevent so many types of maps/map features that we could make otherwise. The only non-protoss thing that strongly affects maps is speedlings.
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Starcraft is not about fun. It's about being as difficult and intricate as possible so that when I say, "I play Starcraft," people think I'm smarter than them. It's certainly not about esports, because the most popular sports are simpler and enjoyed by all. Starcraft is a contest to master in lieu of enjoyment and real productivity.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
sc2 is not about how good players are, but who of them less missplays. It's not fun for an advanced viewer and most of players who get it. But some players think they are awesome no matter at what level they play. Also sc2 is hard to understand for new players and noobie viewers - macro is'n simple enough with macro-mechs and limit-cost-effectivness. And fights and micro isn't simple too - it's full of "who do it first" and "scisors-paper-rock" moves. Not fun too.
dota, lol, cs is hard enough at pro level, but players enjoy it because this hardness is complex of simple things. They can learn them, dust them, understand them and combine them into something larger. Sc2 just full of already hard mechanics which can't be separated into smaller ones: split, mass casts, macro-mechs, etc. You need to dust them before u get understanding of matchup or all game yourself.
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On October 04 2015 10:40 MrBarryObama wrote: Starcraft is not about fun. It's about being as difficult and intricate as possible so that when I say, "I play Starcraft," people think I'm smarter than them. It's certainly not about esports, because the most popular sports are simpler and enjoyed by all. Starcraft is a contest to master in lieu of enjoyment and real productivity. Why not? I enjoy watching Starcraft more than other esports precisely because it is more difficult and intricate, so the players' actions are more impressive.
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This is pure gold. Excellent write up.
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I still can't understand how an unit such as the oracle is in the game. Your op rushes an oracle, you didnt rush a turret? GG. I mean, you should be able to micro your way out of bad situations, like a skilled CS GO player can win a round in a 3vs1 scenario. But against oracles, there's no microing against an oracle rush. You just straight up die. A meaningless win for one and a frustrating loss for the other. And that's just one out of many examples.
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On October 04 2015 10:40 MrBarryObama wrote: Starcraft is not about fun. It's about being as difficult and intricate as possible so that when I say, "I play Starcraft," people think I'm smarter than them. It's certainly not about esports, because the most popular sports are simpler and enjoyed by all. Starcraft is a contest to master in lieu of enjoyment and real productivity.
Bravo sir!
Just...
Bravo
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On October 04 2015 12:53 ( bush wrote: I still can't understand how an unit such as the oracle is in the game. Your op rushes an oracle, you didnt rush a turret? GG. I mean, you should be able to micro your way out of bad situations, like a skilled CS GO player can win a round in a 3vs1 scenario. But against oracles, there's no microing against an oracle rush. You just straight up die. A meaningless win for one and a frustrating loss for the other. And that's just one out of many examples.
Blizz tried making a spellcaster harass unit for Protoss.
The players asked for it to do damage instead of slow mineral intake.
Blizz listened to the players.
The players got punished by getting what they asked for.
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On October 04 2015 13:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 12:53 ( bush wrote: I still can't understand how an unit such as the oracle is in the game. Your op rushes an oracle, you didnt rush a turret? GG. I mean, you should be able to micro your way out of bad situations, like a skilled CS GO player can win a round in a 3vs1 scenario. But against oracles, there's no microing against an oracle rush. You just straight up die. A meaningless win for one and a frustrating loss for the other. And that's just one out of many examples. Blizz tried making a spellcaster harass unit for Protoss. The players asked for it to do damage instead of slow mineral intake. Blizz listened to the players. The players got punished by getting what they asked for.
I am not quite sure if you are serious or not
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On October 04 2015 10:40 MrBarryObama wrote: Starcraft is not about fun. It's about being as difficult and intricate as possible so that when I say, "I play Starcraft," people think I'm smarter than them. It's certainly not about esports, because the most popular sports are simpler and enjoyed by all. Starcraft is a contest to master in lieu of enjoyment and real productivity.
wut? I hope that's sarcasm because such commentary is beyond delusional.
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On October 04 2015 13:27 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 13:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 04 2015 12:53 ( bush wrote: I still can't understand how an unit such as the oracle is in the game. Your op rushes an oracle, you didnt rush a turret? GG. I mean, you should be able to micro your way out of bad situations, like a skilled CS GO player can win a round in a 3vs1 scenario. But against oracles, there's no microing against an oracle rush. You just straight up die. A meaningless win for one and a frustrating loss for the other. And that's just one out of many examples. Blizz tried making a spellcaster harass unit for Protoss. The players asked for it to do damage instead of slow mineral intake. Blizz listened to the players. The players got punished by getting what they asked for. I am not quite sure if you are serious or not
A little bit of both. If you recall, the Oracle's initial design was *specifically* that it didn't deal any kind damage. It was meant to be a mobile spell caster that annoyed hampered the opponent's efficiency at the cost of APM. Players asked for it to actually deal damage and not just turn off minerals. So we have the Oracle of today. ( bush was asking who would design the Oracle we have today. The answer is players--since Blizz's actual Oracle design was the opposite of what it is today.
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On October 04 2015 15:08 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 13:27 The_Red_Viper wrote:On October 04 2015 13:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On October 04 2015 12:53 ( bush wrote: I still can't understand how an unit such as the oracle is in the game. Your op rushes an oracle, you didnt rush a turret? GG. I mean, you should be able to micro your way out of bad situations, like a skilled CS GO player can win a round in a 3vs1 scenario. But against oracles, there's no microing against an oracle rush. You just straight up die. A meaningless win for one and a frustrating loss for the other. And that's just one out of many examples. Blizz tried making a spellcaster harass unit for Protoss. The players asked for it to do damage instead of slow mineral intake. Blizz listened to the players. The players got punished by getting what they asked for. I am not quite sure if you are serious or not A little bit of both. If you recall, the Oracle's initial design was *specifically* that it didn't deal any kind damage. It was meant to be a mobile spell caster that annoyed hampered the opponent's efficiency at the cost of APM. Players asked for it to actually deal damage and not just turn off minerals. So we have the Oracle of today. ( bush was asking who would design the Oracle we have today. The answer is players--since Blizz's actual Oracle design was the opposite of what it is today. Well yeah i remember these mineral forcefields. I am just not sure if people asked for "after 5 seconds there are no workers anymore" dmg :D
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To be honest tho, those mineral bubbles were the most embarasing piece of game design I've seen.
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On October 04 2015 16:25 NukeD wrote: To be honest tho, those mineral bubbles were the most embarasing piece of game design I've seen.
Why? Although unsuccessful blizzard was trying to create non-worker income harassment.
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Underwhelming post - what a bunch of bullshit. I cant even believe Teamliquid lets it stand as it is -_-
Why not remove every threat from the game or to your economy and armies all together? The game balance needs to be balanced for the highest level and will always be balanced on the highest level if it supposed to be an eSports title. Casuals are important for the game but its not important that every casual can master the game. Thats why they are casuals. They can have fun in different aspects of the game.
As a casual in other shit , you can enjoy watching and being in awe of what the top notch progamers can do. When you see INnoVation defend its front door while also fighting of a warpprism dt warpin in the back. You cant do it - it might be frustrating for you but realisticly spoken - you cannot balance mistakes.
Casuals will always be weak in some aspects or all aspects of the game. There is no way to balance out a person not building a turret, not sliding his workers or simply not using the tools the game provides. There is no SOLUTION to being bad. Its not bad or wrong to not be good at the game, but please step away from wanting to FORCE BALANCE for your level.
Also - your suggestions are really terrible.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
On October 04 2015 16:53 NarutO wrote:As a casual in other shit , you can enjoy watching and being in awe of what the top notch progamers can do. When you see INnoVation defend its front door while also fighting of a warpprism dt warpin in the back. You cant do it - it might be frustrating for you but realisticly spoken - you cannot balance mistakes.
Casuals will always be weak in some aspects or all aspects of the game. There is no way to balance out a person not building a turret, not sliding his workers or simply not using the tools the game provides. There is no SOLUTION to being bad. Its not bad or wrong to not be good at the game, but please step away from wanting to FORCE BALANCE for your level. no need to balance players. Just balance the game. And design it to be fun and playable for anyone, not only for 24/7 ones. Players mostly prefer to have fun rather than being a pro.
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On October 04 2015 18:53 i_am_Nite wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 16:53 NarutO wrote:As a casual in other shit , you can enjoy watching and being in awe of what the top notch progamers can do. When you see INnoVation defend its front door while also fighting of a warpprism dt warpin in the back. You cant do it - it might be frustrating for you but realisticly spoken - you cannot balance mistakes.
Casuals will always be weak in some aspects or all aspects of the game. There is no way to balance out a person not building a turret, not sliding his workers or simply not using the tools the game provides. There is no SOLUTION to being bad. Its not bad or wrong to not be good at the game, but please step away from wanting to FORCE BALANCE for your level. no need to balance players. Just balance the game. And design it to be fun and playable for anyone, not only for 24/7 ones.
People fail to realize _balance for everyone_ means balance at the highest level. If tools for aggressor and defender are provided and you can defend with equal effort to the attacker or in some cases a little more or less effort due to either defenders advantage or maybe an allin - it is balanced.
If on a certain level the strategy is too strong its due to the lack of abilities of the opposing player. You cannot 'balance' that. Thats why balance needs to be at highest level. Fun comes from being GOOD at it. 1 versus 1 games are often times frustrating and not super fun because its competition, its hard and it needs to be like that. The fun comes from getting better, being better. Its a learning experience.
Like... a lot in life. If you play table tennis and lose all the time its no real fun either; humans dont enjoy losing, they enjoy winning. Ofcourse you can also lose a game and have fun but its true for Starcraft 2 as well. Do I have fun getting cheesed and screwed? No. But I can lose a macro game and have fun in it even though I prefer the win. If you get the impression it is imbalanced its your mindset that is holding you back , not balance. In case of the beta right now that might be true as far as balance issues go , but for HOTS you can look at the highest level and you will always be able to tell that the loss comes from your mistakes. That is not elitist opinion, that is a matter of fact. A master level player will always capable of doing more, defending more or making more use of something compared to a gold league level player and that player will always feel like something is not fair even though he simply treats it wrong.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
look at sc1 or other cybersport games - they was FUN at 1st, and then when ppl like to play it - comes tourneys and appear pro-players. And then games just balanced around fixes what is broken.
So FUN > Balance at any level. And currently there are no fun in sc2 but lots of frustration. There are no pros (koreans too) who dont missplays every game for many times.
No need for game to be hard to compete - you must chellenge other players rather than the game. Game must be just a tool to play with others. And as any other tool - it must be handy and with no frills (macro mechs is).
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On October 04 2015 19:21 i_am_Nite wrote: look at sc1 or other cybersport games - they was FUN at 1st, and then when ppl like to play it - comes tourneys and appear pro-players. And then games just balanced around fixes what is broken.
So FUN > Balance at any level. And currently there are no fun in sc2 but lots of frustration. There are no pros (koreans too) who dont missplays every game for many times.
Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED. Thats why it was more fun. I played broodwar for 10 years and was professional in it. It was really frustrating to lose, but you always KNEW why you lost. It felt different from Starcraft 2 - DUE TO BALANCE.
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United Kingdom20158 Posts
On October 04 2015 11:00 i_am_Nite wrote: sc2 is not about how good players are, but who of them less missplays. It's not fun for an advanced viewer and most of players who get it. But some players think they are awesome no matter at what level they play. Also sc2 is hard to understand for new players and noobie viewers - macro is'n simple enough with macro-mechs and limit-cost-effectivness. And fights and micro isn't simple too - it's full of "who do it first" and "scisors-paper-rock" moves. Not fun too.
dota, lol, cs is hard enough at pro level, but players enjoy it because this hardness is complex of simple things. They can learn them, dust them, understand them and combine them into something larger. Sc2 just full of already hard mechanics which can't be separated into smaller ones: split, mass casts, macro-mechs, etc. You need to dust them before u get understanding of matchup or all game yourself.
LoL is actually the game where i see the most people by far complaining about the game being relatively easy and winning teams "throwing" games. It's mostly just the dunning-kruger effect
Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED
BW was less balanced than sc2 in many ways and that balance came through map adjustment and no patches changing any unit or stat for a decade of high level play. Should we have been playing WOL all of this time with nothing but map changes in order to simulate this? I don't think so.
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Russian Federation66 Posts
On October 04 2015 19:23 NarutO wrote: Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED. Thats why it was more fun. I played broodwar for 10 years and was professional in it. It was really frustrating to lose, but you always KNEW why you lost. It felt different from Starcraft 2 - DUE TO BALANCE. maybe it requires more apm, but it was easer to play. It was about how many u CAN DO while sc2 is how many U MISS. Bw was hard by it's UI and it's complex macroing (coz of ui), while sc2 comes with much friendly UI and pathing but the temp of the game, hard counters, game-ending harass, extreme economic with fast 200/200, few-second battles - it's full of out of control things.
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On October 04 2015 19:45 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 11:00 i_am_Nite wrote: sc2 is not about how good players are, but who of them less missplays. It's not fun for an advanced viewer and most of players who get it. But some players think they are awesome no matter at what level they play. Also sc2 is hard to understand for new players and noobie viewers - macro is'n simple enough with macro-mechs and limit-cost-effectivness. And fights and micro isn't simple too - it's full of "who do it first" and "scisors-paper-rock" moves. Not fun too.
dota, lol, cs is hard enough at pro level, but players enjoy it because this hardness is complex of simple things. They can learn them, dust them, understand them and combine them into something larger. Sc2 just full of already hard mechanics which can't be separated into smaller ones: split, mass casts, macro-mechs, etc. You need to dust them before u get understanding of matchup or all game yourself. LoL is actually the game where i see the most people by far complaining about the game being relatively easy and winning teams "throwing" games. It's mostly just the dunning-kruger effect Show nested quote +Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED BW was less balanced than sc2 in many ways and that balance came through map adjustment and no patches changing any unit or stat for a decade of high level play. Should we have been playing WOL all of this time with nothing but map changes in order to simulate this? I don't think so.
Imbalances on both sides made the balance as well as you pointed out the maps. So overall Broodwar was the more balanced game.
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On October 04 2015 20:08 i_am_Nite wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 19:23 NarutO wrote: Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED. Thats why it was more fun. I played broodwar for 10 years and was professional in it. It was really frustrating to lose, but you always KNEW why you lost. It felt different from Starcraft 2 - DUE TO BALANCE. maybe it requires more apm, but it was easer to play. It was about how many u CAN DO while sc2 is how many U MISS. Bw was hard by it's UI and it's complex macroing (coz of ui), while sc2 comes with much friendly UI and pathing but the temp of the game, hard counters, game-ending harass, extreme economic with fast 200/200, few-second battles - it's full of out of control things.
Broodwar was a shit ton harder to play. All of the named stuff for Starcraft 2 makes it easier to play. You could have perfect macro and multitasking in broodwar was well, but you needed to do a lot more for it. If I want to spend 1000 minerals in Sc2 - I select my buildings with 1 key and build - in broodwar I select every building individually and build the unit.
I agree that hard counters and the faster pace of the game make for situations that are very unforgiving - those are not fun but they wont be changed without completely reworking the game.
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On October 04 2015 20:08 i_am_Nite wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 19:23 NarutO wrote: Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED. Thats why it was more fun. I played broodwar for 10 years and was professional in it. It was really frustrating to lose, but you always KNEW why you lost. It felt different from Starcraft 2 - DUE TO BALANCE. maybe it requires more apm, but it was easer to play. It was about how many u CAN DO while sc2 is how many U MISS. Bw was hard by it's UI and it's complex macroing (coz of ui), while sc2 comes with much friendly UI and pathing but the temp of the game, hard counters, game-ending harass, extreme economic with fast 200/200, few-second battles - it's full of out of control things. Which, precisely, doesn't make SC2 harder to play, but simply untameable/volatile
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United Kingdom20158 Posts
On October 04 2015 20:13 NarutO wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 19:45 Cyro wrote:On October 04 2015 11:00 i_am_Nite wrote: sc2 is not about how good players are, but who of them less missplays. It's not fun for an advanced viewer and most of players who get it. But some players think they are awesome no matter at what level they play. Also sc2 is hard to understand for new players and noobie viewers - macro is'n simple enough with macro-mechs and limit-cost-effectivness. And fights and micro isn't simple too - it's full of "who do it first" and "scisors-paper-rock" moves. Not fun too.
dota, lol, cs is hard enough at pro level, but players enjoy it because this hardness is complex of simple things. They can learn them, dust them, understand them and combine them into something larger. Sc2 just full of already hard mechanics which can't be separated into smaller ones: split, mass casts, macro-mechs, etc. You need to dust them before u get understanding of matchup or all game yourself. LoL is actually the game where i see the most people by far complaining about the game being relatively easy and winning teams "throwing" games. It's mostly just the dunning-kruger effect Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED BW was less balanced than sc2 in many ways and that balance came through map adjustment and no patches changing any unit or stat for a decade of high level play. Should we have been playing WOL all of this time with nothing but map changes in order to simulate this? I don't think so. Imbalances on both sides made the balance as well as you pointed out the maps. So overall Broodwar was the more balanced game.
Not in every way and again as said, because it wasn't patched for a decade. If you want a game that isn't patched for a decade, Starcraft 2 can't recreate that feeling until probably 2022-ish~
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I like your intro OP and much of your post, totally agree with you on the larva thing, hellion firebat thing, and generally about your suggestion for simplifying units by removing an ability. They made too many "hero" units in SC2 which have potential to deal massive damage if you let it just.. reach the require situation & range. They tend to break the game unless you hard counter them. This simplifies the game instead of making it more complex. Simplifying units makes the game more complex, and if they are well designed, with fine tuning on their movement and all characteristics, they then assume a more complex role, they will adapt to situations because they are not tailored to just "fire their laser" in that situation where they break the game. And situations last a while and can be resolved many different ways with different things. That's what starcraft really is.
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On October 04 2015 20:15 NarutO wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 20:08 i_am_Nite wrote:On October 04 2015 19:23 NarutO wrote: Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED. Thats why it was more fun. I played broodwar for 10 years and was professional in it. It was really frustrating to lose, but you always KNEW why you lost. It felt different from Starcraft 2 - DUE TO BALANCE. maybe it requires more apm, but it was easer to play. It was about how many u CAN DO while sc2 is how many U MISS. Bw was hard by it's UI and it's complex macroing (coz of ui), while sc2 comes with much friendly UI and pathing but the temp of the game, hard counters, game-ending harass, extreme economic with fast 200/200, few-second battles - it's full of out of control things. Broodwar was a shit ton harder to play. All of the named stuff for Starcraft 2 makes it easier to play. You could have perfect macro and multitasking in broodwar was well, but you needed to do a lot more for it. If I want to spend 1000 minerals in Sc2 - I select my buildings with 1 key and build - in broodwar I select every building individually and build the unit. I agree that hard counters and the faster pace of the game make for situations that are very unforgiving - those are not fun but they wont be changed without completely reworking the game. Yeah brood war being easier to play than SC2, that's just funny. Not quite, it is way harder and more complex. SC2's main point of difficulty is knowledge of hard timing attacks & counters. In Bw there is more creativity, harder and more complex micro and macro. You have to keep thinking a lot more while you play, instead of follow the usual plan up to the last detail including how many of which unit at which second. It is not like that, it always depends on what happens in this particular match you are playing, you must change details, and of course that is harder and more fun, it's not just fixed knowledge execution. It is faster paced because there is generally more things going on on the map at a time or on a larger area and battles last longer so your attention is constantly demanded kind of everywhere, that's the main reason why you need more APM. I'm drawing this a bit hard against SC2, I know SC2 has some of those characteristics Starcraft has it is not zero but it is much less than is usually said I think, and they happen a lot more rarely in games whereas it is all the time in Starcraft. When I played SC2 I stopped when I realized every single game of it I played was less good than every single game I play in Starcraft. (I was in Master league, I'm about a B in Starcraft).
Tbh I think in Brood War if we would add building selection & production in groups like Starcraft 2 and also automine, it would save some time and make it just a bit more practical while not making the game much easier. I don't have any problem at all with group building select & prod in Starcraft 2, or automine, and I would say neither with being able to group all army in 1 group. Cause like OP said I really agree with that, its not about how many clicks but having a lot of clicks which are also decisions. If I hit 5Z6Z7Z8Z to produce 4 zealots I have made the same decision than if I hit 5ZZZZ so the latter system is better. It does not bring any limitation. Useless key hits go away. They should patch this into bw. The rest of the game is very hard anyway so we would just those extra little seconds on other things, and it would allow macroing out of more than 4-5 gates in mid game from a distance better and keep managing other things better... it won't make us suddenly be perfect. If anything being allowed time to think as well is definitely a good thing lawl. We have to remember they patched the rally point for buildings being doable with just right click instead of R + left click like 10 years after the game came out. This was a good change, it is a useless key hit. For pretty much the same reason I vouch for automine completely. Also I think the reason why 1A works too well in Starcraft 2 is because of the weak positional/movement game. If you implement 1A in Starcraft "noobs" will stop having headaches trying to move their army, and better players will still want to select smaller groups for positioning and for being able to select individual units in the UI at the bottom (so they would want to keep a 12~16 max group so as to have big enough squares to see & click fast at the bottom).
I don't believe Starcraft 2 has any chance of recovering of all the design faults it had from the start, and also I don't believe that Blizzard will ever be able to make great games again, they are a machine that responds to producers/shareholders now and all the skills are long gone, so it can't be a Starcraft 3. So, I think to play and improve Brood War... or some other game, or a Starcraft 3 if a skilled team is allowed to take the "rights" ^^
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On October 04 2015 23:37 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 20:15 NarutO wrote:On October 04 2015 20:08 i_am_Nite wrote:On October 04 2015 19:23 NarutO wrote: Broodwar was WAY harder compared to Starcraft 2. It was simply MORE BALANCED. Thats why it was more fun. I played broodwar for 10 years and was professional in it. It was really frustrating to lose, but you always KNEW why you lost. It felt different from Starcraft 2 - DUE TO BALANCE. maybe it requires more apm, but it was easer to play. It was about how many u CAN DO while sc2 is how many U MISS. Bw was hard by it's UI and it's complex macroing (coz of ui), while sc2 comes with much friendly UI and pathing but the temp of the game, hard counters, game-ending harass, extreme economic with fast 200/200, few-second battles - it's full of out of control things. Broodwar was a shit ton harder to play. All of the named stuff for Starcraft 2 makes it easier to play. You could have perfect macro and multitasking in broodwar was well, but you needed to do a lot more for it. If I want to spend 1000 minerals in Sc2 - I select my buildings with 1 key and build - in broodwar I select every building individually and build the unit. I agree that hard counters and the faster pace of the game make for situations that are very unforgiving - those are not fun but they wont be changed without completely reworking the game. Yeah brood war being easier to play than SC2, that's just funny. Not quite, it is way harder and more complex. SC2's main point of difficulty is knowledge of hard timing attacks & counters. In Bw there is more creativity, harder and more complex micro and macro. You have to keep thinking a lot more while you play, instead of follow the usual plan up to the last detail including how many of which unit at which second. It is not like that, it always depends on what happens in this particular match you are playing, you must change details, and of course that is harder and more fun, it's not just fixed knowledge execution. It is faster paced because there is generally more things going on on the map at a time or on a larger area and battles last longer so your attention is constantly demanded kind of everywhere, that's the main reason why you need more APM. I'm drawing this a bit hard against SC2, I know SC2 has some of those characteristics Starcraft has it is not zero but it is much less than is usually said I think, and they happen a lot more rarely in games whereas it is all the time in Starcraft. When I played SC2 I stopped when I realized every single game of it I played was less good than every single game I play in Starcraft. (I was in Master league, I'm about a B in Starcraft). Tbh I think in Brood War if we would add building selection & production in groups like Starcraft 2 and also automine, it would save some time and make it just a bit more practical while not making the game much easier. I don't have any problem at all with group building select & prod in Starcraft 2, or automine, and I would say neither with being able to group all army in 1 group. Cause like OP said I really agree with that, its not about how many clicks but having a lot of clicks which are also decisions. If I hit 5Z6Z7Z8Z to produce 4 zealots I have made the same decision than if I hit 5ZZZZ so the latter system is better. It does not bring any limitation. Useless key hits go away. They should patch this into bw. The rest of the game is very hard anyway so we would just those extra little seconds on other things, and it would allow macroing out of more than 4-5 gates in mid game from a distance better and keep managing other things better... it won't make us suddenly be perfect. If anything being allowed time to think as well is definitely a good thing lawl. We have to remember they patched the rally point for buildings being doable with just right click instead of R + left click like 10 years after the game came out. This was a good change, it is a useless key hit. For pretty much the same reason I vouch for automine completely. Also I think the reason why 1A works too well in Starcraft 2 is because of the weak positional/movement game. If you implement 1A in Starcraft "noobs" will stop having headaches trying to move their army, and better players will still want to select smaller groups for positioning and for being able to select individual units in the UI at the bottom (so they would want to keep a 12~16 max group so as to have big enough squares to see & click fast at the bottom). I don't believe Starcraft 2 has any chance of recovering of all the design faults it had from the start, and also I don't believe that Blizzard will ever be able to make great games again, they are a machine that responds to producers/shareholders now and all the skills are long gone, so it can't be a Starcraft 3. So, I think to play and improve Brood War... or some other game, or a Starcraft 3 if a skilled team is allowed to take the "rights" ^^
Actually, the reason BW was "balanced" was because it was hard for most players to actually be able to use units effectively. Bad designed got covered up by bad UI. So what if unit A was imba vs unit B, you'll never get to the critical mass where it matters anyway so yolo.
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[B]Actually, the reason BW was "balanced" was because it was hard for most players to actually be able to use units effectively. Bad designed got covered up by bad UI. So what if unit A was imba vs unit B, you'll never get to the critical mass where it matters anyway so yolo. Funny^^ it is not true, you can have very good control of your army in bw. I could see the argument that in some cases control is a bit too hard for the game's own good, but not to that point. Specifically T can have it really hard on control sometimes with M&M (+ tanks + vessels + vultures, omg) it seems to me, TvZ seems somewhat nightmarish to me for this. As P I think control is totally manageable except maybe sometimes it feels too hard to manage spider mines with zealots sometimes (trying to prevent clumps of zeals to be hit by a single mine when engaging). Or placing a canon in the middle of probes can be quite annoying lol and you need to often. Critical mass doesn't mean as much in bw because positioning counters mass effectively, and there is no such hard counters viable as A > B;; armies almost never rely on only one unit and the purpose of one unit is almost never just to counter one of the other army's unit, they have more complex roles.
BW's balance is not perfect, from my P point of view I would say : PvZ slightly favors Z; and ZvZ is way too simple (I'd call it broken).
Also in ZvT the standard muta harass at start is way too common (that's actually because control of muta owns too much, so you see there is room for very very accurate control there^^)
But mostly the game is very well balanced, PvZ still provides plenty of possibilities, it's a great matchup just a little bit too hard for P to win I feel. Maybe there is a 5-10% favor for Z there.
Also wish there was a little bit more room for T to use M&M&Firebat in TvP but with templar's storm just can't see room for this in midgame, it is very rare. Generally there are a few units that it feels you see a bit too rarely in some matchups and its a shame. But overall the balance is rather solid. Only ZvZ's balance is not, if that makes sense.
I say this, even though I am not the best player at control. I've got ok control, can be very good in small army situations but sometimes a bit meh in large army situations. But a lot of the time I feel it is my fault and no the game's, because I am not very fast (I play on 160-200 apm approx, and sometimes I'm not that effective with these actions, could do more better with same apm). I'm still a good player because I am a bit more focused on thinking, game running.
(ok reaver's scarabs are broken)
PS : I remember Boxer saying this at one point in an interview, he said bw's balance is fine, if it was up to him he would only just maybe make zealot a little bit weaker and dragoon a little bit stronger. His opinion!
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