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So Blizzard said they are going to add artificial tasks for people to do in their base to speed up macro. So terran gets the mule, protoss get the dark pylon, and zerg get the queen. In general, I dislike the concept of artificial things to do at the base because they seem unnatural and not fun. What is the logic of making peons start mining automatically but then just go back and replace that task with something else? These mining aids seem like a gimmick, just like the dual gas alternation, which was, thankfully, removed. They are just a pointless way to waste people's time that does not really accomplish anything to make the game deeper or more fun. If you want mining to not be too easy, just leave it the way it was in BW. Don't take a step forward and then a step back because you get cold feet half way out the door.
With the exception of the queen, the new mining speed-ups do not make the race more unique or introduce new strategies because the other race has it too, and you really don't have an option as to whether or not to do it. Another menial task is really all it is.
The queen, while far more interesting, does suffer from the same syndrome imo. It looks cool and has other abilities, but as far as its macro-enhancing ability goes, all it boils down to is blizzard decided that one hatchery is going to produce as much larva as 2.5 BW hatcheries, but you just need to go back to you base and click it occasionally for it to do that. The deep, game-altering decision, that made the news article and made the whole concept sound game-altering is not the queen or the spawn larva task--that task is menial and boring. The real game-altering change the is larva production rate per hatchery. Again, if you want to change larva production rate, do that, but don't introduce a boring menial task just because you feel you need to replace a task you removed. If that's your issue, then don't remove the original task.
You could argue that I am just saying that because I am used to the way BW is an am just resistant to change, but I really don't think that's the case. I simply believe that the new macro tasks are unnecessarily convoluted and artificial, just as the failed gas mechanic. What makes more sense to you if you want macro to be a bit harder, just leaving worker production the way it was in BW or making worker management easier, but then feeling bad about it and introducing an artificial handicap that needs to be overcome (workers not mining fast enough for toss and terran and needing constant speeding up and hatcheries not producing larva at their maximum speed and needing speeding up/)? It seems that in making SC2, the team forgets the beauty of simplicity and goes for inelegant convoluted fixes to perceived problems.
I am curious to hear what you guys think on this issue.
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I think the new way is more interresting than the old one. I really cant talk about it before ive tried it though. I find it to be a nice compromise between bad/old interface and new interface with easier mechanics, i think this is the only way to make it work for everyone and i find it rather neat. I think you problem is that you look at the game too much like BW. Its not BW its a new game.
And wait for the beta before talking about these things becourse we dont know what its like using it. Ive only heard good things about the new macro mechanics from people who have tried SC2.
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On September 04 2009 01:31 Kong John wrote: Ive only heard good things about the new macro mechanics from people who have tried SC2.
Really , I've only read bad things so far.
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Hmm. I'm glad you used the word 'gimmick' because that's what they seem like to me.
Hopefully I'm wrong.
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I pretty much agree wuth the OP. It all comes down to which method is the most fun and good for competition
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United States12180 Posts
They're not fun because they're artificial. The systems are either robotic (like the Obelisk) or so versatile as to be overpowered (like the Queen). Neither of these makes for a very fun player experience. I suppose that with the inclusion of automine that they needed to add some reason for the player to return to his mineral line periodically, but there have to be more genuinely strategic ways for them to do that which don't feel like a chore.
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I agree, the only one that seems like a decent idea would be Zerg's Queen with the larvae mechanic. The rest are so uninspired and boring. -_-
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On September 04 2009 02:04 Excalibur_Z wrote: They're not fun because they're artificial. The systems are either robotic (like the Obelisk) or so versatile as to be overpowered (like the Queen). Neither of these makes for a very fun player experience. I suppose that with the inclusion of automine that they needed to add some reason for the player to return to his mineral line periodically, but there have to be more genuinely strategic ways for them to do that which don't feel like a chore.
-you need players to come back to there base and complete a task
-completing task leads to increased minerals and units
-task must be used often
-said task needs to involve decision making in when and where you use it
Therefore you need an aspect of mining and unit production that is complicated enough to involve decision making. Warp-In does this by coupling unit production with transport.
So be careful what you wish for. The natural progression of this idea means that you will find yourself having to return to base often AND make decisions regarding how and where you mine/make units. For instance do you really want to have to choose between casting it on Hatchery A or Hatchery B based on how much of factor X each hatchery has?
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Phex at least in your post, equaling the queen to the production of 2.5 brood war hatcheries you forget to acknowledge that the queen itself is not a hatchery. Its a unit that costs 50% of the cost of a hatchery, and has significantly less hp. Its a worthwhile early game target which balanced correctly can significantly affect the variation in protoss and terran build orders depending on their early game strategy, and hence is a very unique addition to the new Starcraft. I only suggest it seems like you don't recognise this because while you acknowledge the Queen is different you still lumped it in with the other more 'menial' macro mechanics
The real game-altering change the is larva production rate per hatchery. Again, if you want to change larva production rate, do that, but don't introduce a boring menial task just because you feel you need to replace a task you removed. If that's your issue, then don't remove the original task.
Furthermore, since the obelisk, and the mule are as well a target-able building and unit respectively, perhaps your better to rethink your issue with these mechanics in light of the punishment a player can suffer when an opponent delays his macro at any point in the game by specifically striking these targets. An obelisk presumably doesn't have a 0 second warp-in time, and a mule is sacrificed recon.
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SC didn't have those mechanics (automining, MBS), because they were simply technologically impossible at that time. Which incidentally transformed SC into what it is now, I agree..
However, modern RTSs have standarts.. Companies cannot ignore the possibility to improve the UI and intentionally make the game harder.. SC had some UI improvements too.For example, some patches ago you couldn't rally your buildings before they were actually finished building. Now you can.
I might as well say that we should remove hold position, rally points, Shift+F2/F3/F4 to make SC even harder..
I mean, I would prefer the current system, but what can you do
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Good post OP.
I think the main reason for the convoluted nature of the current Macro Mechanics is that they are trying to "please everyone". In doing so I think it is probable that they are just going to annoy everyone.
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I always thought these gimmicks would be stupid. Its like they took what SC is known for (micro/macro) and just shat on it and go "Hey look, you can macro these stuff too! nevermind that it's fucking stupid and rewards the users with one click every xx seconds for the ones that remember the bonus minerals because THAT IS SKILL. THEY'LL LOVE IT"
This isn't SC. I mine shit to make shit to kill shit. Nothing was wrong with that...
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Strip away unnecessary clicks and all the sudden SC doesn't have all that much actual strategy.
I still think SC1 is one of history's greatest accidents. The fact that it is so balanced and interesting at high levels, that is.
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On September 04 2009 02:44 MidKnight wrote: SC didn't have those mechanics (automining, MBS), because they were simply technologically impossible at that time. Which incidentally transformed SC into what it is now, I agree..
However, modern RTSs have standarts.. Companies cannot ignore the possibility to improve the UI and intentionally make the game harder.. SC had some UI improvements too.For example, some patches ago you couldn't rally your buildings before they were actually finished building. Now you can.
What short memories we seem to have. A year ago, everyone around here was up in arms about MBS and automining removing the need to do anything physical besides micro, and they added the gas mechanic, and then later the Queen/Obelisk/MULE. Now people are complaining about the Queen/Obelisk/MULE for being tedious? Admittedly, one does need to use them to be competitive, but one doesn't need to use them to play at the most basic level, which is the case with StarCraft's UI. I have no problems with StarCraft's UI, but I know it has turned off a lot of people because of what is necessary for even basic play.
That being said, it does still feel like Blizzard still does not fully understand the difference between multitasking demand adding the need for actions(e.g. Warp-In) and tedious handicaps that do nothing but force button presses (e.g. the MBS compensation of one button press per built unit).
On September 04 2009 02:44 MidKnight wrote:I might as well say that we should remove ...shift+F2/F3/F4 to make SC even harder..
It's funny you should say that, because shift+F2/F3/F4 have been removed, at least for the time being. I've heard conflicting reports on their eventual inclusion. Some have told me that it will be included in a later build, and others have said that it will never return because the F-keys are used for SP heroes. Hopefully it is the former, as the latter made me facepalm.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 04 2009 02:44 MidKnight wrote: I might as well say that we should remove hold position, rally points, Shift+F2/F3/F4 to make SC even harder.. Flawed analogy. We're not trying to find one extreme or another, but to find a balance, one which was achieved by Starcraft. The ideal is that at all levels of play, one should need to improve BOTH mechanics AND strategy to move to the next level of play. You shouldn't be able to purely game-sense your way from C to C+, and you shouldn't just be able to mechanics your way from C to C+. You need to improve both.
On September 04 2009 03:03 Shadowfury333 wrote: What short memories we seem to have. A year ago, everyone around here was up in arms about MBS and automining removing the need to do anything physical besides micro, and they added the gas mechanic, and then later the Queen/Obelisk/MULE. Now people are complaining about the Queen/Obelisk/MULE for being tedious? Admittedly, one does need to use them to be competitive, but one doesn't need to use them to play at the most basic level, which is the case with StarCraft's UI. I have no problems with StarCraft's UI, but I know it has turned off a lot of people because of what is necessary for even basic play.
The argument isn't that the macro mechanics are too tedious, but that functionally, they are merely replacing manual mining, and in the process feel more clunky and artificial. They're not *better* than manual mining because they achieve the same outcome (player who is attentive to his base gathers more), and in terms of the flavor of the game, they're more awkward.
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On September 04 2009 02:33 Tyrvili wrote:Phex at least in your post, equaling the queen to the production of 2.5 brood war hatcheries you forget to acknowledge that the queen itself is not a hatchery. Its a unit that costs 50% of the cost of a hatchery, and has significantly less hp. Its a worthwhile early game target which balanced correctly can significantly affect the variation in protoss and terran build orders depending on their early game strategy, and hence is a very unique addition to the new Starcraft. I only suggest it seems like you don't recognise this because while you acknowledge the Queen is different you still lumped it in with the other more 'menial' macro mechanics Show nested quote +The real game-altering change the is larva production rate per hatchery. Again, if you want to change larva production rate, do that, but don't introduce a boring menial task just because you feel you need to replace a task you removed. If that's your issue, then don't remove the original task. Furthermore, since the obelisk, and the mule are as well a target-able building and unit respectively, perhaps your better to rethink your issue with these mechanics in light of the punishment a player can suffer when an opponent delays his macro at any point in the game by specifically striking these targets. An obelisk presumably doesn't have a 0 second warp-in time, and a mule is sacrificed recon.
From reading the news article, it seemed to me that the only practical use of queen was constant larva pump. It also had use in scaring off the enemy overlord and limited assistance in base defense, but all that was overshadowed by the fact that, in order to play z well, you needed to come back to your base every 30 seconds to cast the next instance of larva injection. As a result, while the queen itself may have other uses, there is still the artificial mechanic of coming back to your base every 30 seconds to click on the queen and click on the hatchery in order to keep making the larva at maximum possible rate. It would be like having to come back to factory add-on every 30 minutes and clicking on it and then clicking "make siege tank parts" button in order for the addon to continue enabling siege tank production. So yes, the queen does have other uses, but that does not reduce the importance of the fact that the main aspect of the unit is having to click on your hatchery every 30 sec to make sure it produces larva as it should.
As far as destroying the mule and the dark pylon, killing a major unit or building near the command center or nexus isn't so easy as to be practical often. And when accomplished, a new pylon can be built in about 20 seconds, and a new mule cast as soon as you have sufficient energy. Combine hard to get to and easy replacement of just one unit or building, and good old peon harassment looks like a far more viable option due to ease of killing peons and the fact that it's harder to replace a number of peons than one pylon or one mule.
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On September 04 2009 03:07 TheYango wrote:The argument isn't that the macro mechanics are too tedious, but that functionally, they are merely replacing manual mining, and in the process feel more clunky and artificial. They're not *better* than manual mining because they achieve the same outcome (player who is attentive to his base gathers more), and in terms of the flavor of the game, they're more awkward.
Fair enough, but I recall the removal of manual mining was a huge cause of uproar, or at least controversy. As well, despite the outcome of using both manual mining and the new macro mechanics is the same, the outcome of not using either is worse for manual mining (i.e. idle workers) than not using macro mechanics (i.e. slower/fewer workers, but they still mine). As such, there is a slightly shallower learning curve for total newbies.
However, as you say, for those of us who do play SC regularly, it does feel at least as tedious. At least in SC you would have more bases to jump between. In this you just go back to whichever base has a Queen/Obelisk/Upgraded CC, and use the mechanic there. You also have fewer bases to choose from, as expansion becomes moot, if not suicidal, with the new mechanics.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 04 2009 03:23 Shadowfury333 wrote: As well, despite the outcome of using both manual mining and the new macro mechanics is the same, the outcome of not using either is worse for manual mining (i.e. idle workers) than not using macro mechanics (i.e. slower/fewer workers, but they still mine). As such, there is a slightly shallower learning curve for total newbies. Be careful with the word choice there. *Learning* to send workers to mine is fairly simple, and using the macro mechanics is slightly less intuitive, because its an extra building/unit to build and an extra ability to read, whereas workers are there anyway. I think what you're trying to say is that idle workers are less forgiving of mistakes than the macro mechanics.
What's more, that statement might not actually be true. Idle workers SEEM more punishing because there's a real difference there you can grasp (workers sitting around, whereas the differential in forgetting to activate the MULE or dark pylon is less visible), but whether it's more or less punishing depends entirely on how the numbers work out. If forgetting to send workers to mine loses you 40 minerals a minute, but forgetting to MULE loses you 80, the MULE becomes the less forgiving mechanic for newbie players. Neither mechanic can be called more forgiving without a detailed comparison of the numbers.
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I would argue that the old macro tasks in SC1 are more unnecessary, but aren't viewed as such because they are the standard. The macro mechanics give macro to SC2 in a way that's at least modern and kind of interesting, rather than archaic and clumsy.
I wonder if people complained this much about how driving their vehicles became less "pure" and more "casual", when they got to stop turning a crank in order to start their cars...
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United States47024 Posts
On September 04 2009 03:37 EximoSua wrote: I would argue that the old macro tasks in SC1 are more unnecessary, but aren't viewed as such because they are the standard. The macro mechanics give macro to SC2 in a way that's at least modern and kind of interesting, rather than archaic and clumsy. Novelty should not be included purely for the sake of novelty, especially in the case of something this delicate for a game that is meant for e-sports play. The thing is, the FUNCTION of the macro mechanics is the EXACT SAME as manual mining (forces players to look at their base and perform actions to increase gathering). As such, there are no obvious benefits to them over manual mining. However, there are obvious downsides to them:
1) They make people unhappy (sounds silly, I know, but given the response here, it's at least somewhat true).
2) They introduce extra variables which, while not impacting how the player plays, creates room for more potential bugs and imbalances. Manual mining is simple to balance. It's symmetrical for all 3 races, and there's no numbers involved. By contrast, the macro mechanics have very obviously become a huge balance nightmare (see Hot_Bid's most recent news article). Why create all that extra trouble?
3) (sort of related to 2) they take time and effort away from other areas of the game that could be developed. To create these 3 mechanics they need to spend a bunch of man-hours creating art, animations, and code for something that could functionally be reproduced by deleting a couple functions in the worker AI.
I honestly don't care about whether mining will be manual or automatic. What I DO care about is the fact that this is a clumsy "fake" manual mining scheme. If they want manual mining, commit to it. If they want automining, commit to it. Don't find some clunky middle ground that wastes time to make, and leaves nobody happy.
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