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Be very careful what and how you post in this topic. Think a moment before going for that reply button. If there are any SC2 vs BW posts again that aren't cosntructive and directly related to the topic issue at hand bans will be issued like candy. Make sure that if you post in this topic it adresses the issue put forth in the OP! ~Nyovne |
Hey teamliquid!
I just watched the GDC Dustin Browder did about the game design on Starcraft 2: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014488/The-Game-Design-of-STARCRAFT and I had some thoughts I thought might be of interest to someone, and some questions to discuss.
So basically, Browder talks about how they have/had 4 goals in SC2 development, it has to be Clear what's going on, Simple to understand, there has to be a high Skill level to reach and the game has to have an amount of Uncertainty. This is the first point to discuss, are these all valid? Which are most important? etc.
My thoughts, and my point, goes to the Uncertainty part of the design philosophy. In Starcraft Broodwar, there were some units (namely the Reaver and the Siege Tank) that did insane amounts of damage to the point where just one of them allowed you to A: do stuff that was previously impossible (the Siege Tank allowed you to expand, as it could kill stuff before it got close) or B: wreck the opponent absolutely silly (the Reaver drop in a mineral line killing 20+ workers, and the opponent couldn't kill it with basic units.) This is no longer the case in SC2, where it either takes more units/is a bigger investment (Baneling drops in a mineral line, which are also much more scoutable, as they don't have any range) or requires energy, as with Psi Storms or Seeker Missiles. Is this intentional? Is this better game-wise?
What I would argue is that it makes for less interesting games to watch. With harassment that is harder to scout and/or stop comes greater "ooh" factor from the crowd, i.e. it's more uncertain, and with less investment per possible damage comes more harassment (but maybe also more passive games?) The Reaver especially was an interesting units because it's missiles did not always connect, I guess the Raven Seeker Missile has taken this role, but again it is much more expensive, or happens much less. (Because of energy cost).
What are your thoughts on this?
EDIT: Not first post... I've been stalking for a while
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to a certain extent but this is mainly with zerg, as terrans can do a variety of rax plays, as well as BFH drops, while protoss can do void ray plays, dt, pressure expands
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If it happens allot then i doubt there will be much of an "ooh" factor, the rarer something is the more exciting it is.
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I think that the game is still young and there are the expansion sets to consider.
If Blizzard plans to implement more units for the multiplayer, which is obviously the case, the game will hopefully be more interesting. Not that it is already the case.
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Wasn't he talking about uncertainty mostly in regards to spectating?
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I think its about something game changing happening quickly that brings the 'ooh' factor. Reavers were awesome because a perfect reaver drop was potentially game changing if it killed a shitload of workers. The closest thing to this in sc2 is bfh drop and baneling land mines, though bfh drops arent as interesting because theyre not a big investment.
Reaver is why I've always thought the colloxin should do more damage and shoot less cause then colloxin would make battles (and potentially harassment) much more interesting
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When I think of uncertainty, I think of lack of critical information, not "is the scarab going to hit or not". And in that sense, SC2 is more uncertain than Broodwar imo.
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i think the limiting factor was the information you recieved in BW as a spectator. You didnt know what was upgrading at the forge, armor or attack? You knew the movements and unit compositions but didnt know the fine intricacies so when a perfect timing occured, it would look like something special.
whereas now in sc2, you have so much info you can tell the timing from a ways away.
Just by observations.
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On September 01 2011 07:49 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: When I think of uncertainty, I think of lack of critical information, not "is the scarab going to hit or not". And in that sense, SC2 is more uncertain than Broodwar imo.
That's what I was thinking.
SC2 has more uncertainty build order wise, and BW has more uncertainty because dragoons are stupid.
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On September 01 2011 07:57 seaofsaturn wrote:
SC2 has more uncertainty build order wise, and BW has more uncertainty because dragoons are stupid.
Bad, bad memories...
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There were programs that allowed you to see selection and what was being build in bw :3 , while obsing.
And the reaver was not what made shuttle drops so awesome. It was the wraith hitting the perfect timing to intercept the shuttle but the shuttle sneaking around. And the shuttle avoiding damage/saving the reaver. Well and also the random factor with the reaver doing damage or the scarab just going poof xD. And the fact that the terran wasn't in any position to get anti air before the shuttle + reaver is there, thanks to the imba goon push forcing you to go for tanks x3.
And for the discussion, i think they did pretty well in achieving their 4 aims. The battle net 0.2 though would have needed more rework.
I think sc2 is a pretty awesome title for spectating and playing ... my only worry is that the skill bar was set a bit to high, but thats just me having the feeling that you need 600 apim to control your army in a good way. (400 would have been enough ... talking about ingame time apm here)
Also Harassment in bw was a player concentrating on their unit, while normaly they just a clicked them and went back to building. So it looked awesome compared to the rest. While sc2 people can always micro and produce units while watching the battlefield and start microing asap again. That makes harass look less awesome. Also a clicking an army in sc2 is instant gg, so players have to always micro. But if you see better then usual micro its always super impressiv. Some recent games of select for example i was mind blown what he did with bio.
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I think the premise of your argument is incorrect.
Both Baneling drops and BFH drops are at the very least a comparable investment to a Shuttle+Reaver, required tech included. Furthermore, it's A LOT easier to make the former do huge damage, just because of the way the game works.
One thing people rarely mention when comparing SC2 and BW are the huge amounts of empty space in maps. It's difficult to even find a competitively played map that doesn't have empty space behind the mineral line. These were added to make harassment better, after Blizzard decided that they didn't like air units being fast and microable. Anyway, drops in general were WAY easier to scout in BW, just because they had to fly over normal terrain. You also couldn't just fly into someone's main mineral line, and just pick up and run away safely the moment you felt threatened. It's amazing how safe drops are in SC2, compared to how much damage they do.
Then there's also the issue of ease of execution. A baneling drop is essentially just d-clicking in a mineral line. A BFH drop consists of unloading the hellions, and then right-clicking close to workers, multiple times if necessary. Players barely even try to save their Hellions or Blings. Compare a Reaver drop, where you'd need to constantly move around your Shuttle to maintain speed, and oftentimes juggle a Reaver and another units in and out of the shuttle in order to soak things like Siege Tank shots.
What makes games less interesting to watch isn't the lack of potential damage. Both BFH and Bling drops have the potential to do huge damage, probably more than even the best scarab hits you can imagine. What makes it less interesting is the one-sidedness and ease of execution of the harassment. How does IMMVP's Hellion drop differ from a typical NA GM Terran's Hellion drop? MVP might do it at a better time, and also do something else at the same time to distract his opponent, but the drop itself looks exactly the same. There's simply not much opportunity for skillful play there, and that's why it's boring.
P.S. I think they failed pretty hard on the "Clear what's going on" part. In a large SC2 battle, you can only barely make out what is actually happening, typically. Part of it is how short they are, but the overwhelming amount of missiles, lasers, and what have you, flying around, doesn't help either.
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I think people are confusing game design with metagame shifts a lot when talking about things like this.
A nice way to describe units like the Dragoon, Reaver and Siege Tank is "they brought uncertainty and tension to battle", or an equally valid statement, "they were buggy, glitchy, broken and tempermental and the odds they did something useful were often based as much in skill as they were in dumb luck"
The reason they were became so beloved in retrospect is players used them in tandem with other units and developed unique control strategies to maximize their usefulness in certain respects and not just mitigate but even perhaps use their bugs to their own advantage. In SC2, players don't do that. In SC2 we have Blizzard supporting and patching the game often enough that those constraints and "imbas" are leveled out over time.
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On September 01 2011 08:18 FeyFey wrote: Also Harassment in bw was a player concentrating on their unit, while normaly they just a clicked them and went back to building. So it looked awesome compared to the rest. While sc2 people can always micro and produce units while watching the battlefield and start microing asap again. That makes harass look less awesome. Also a clicking an army in sc2 is instant gg, so players have to always micro. But if you see better then usual micro its always super impressiv. Some recent games of select for example i was mind blown what he did with bio.
I would like to disagree with the bolded statement; if you've seen people like Stork micro reavers, then you can tell that what they're doing is concentrating on the unit, but also managing to find time to make units while microing the shuttle. If you a-move a shuttle + reaver, you're almost definitely going to lose either or both. It's impressive not just because of the micro but because they have the multitasking to both micro AND make units at the same time.
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On September 01 2011 06:54 KraXRipper wrote: ... In Starcraft Broodwar, there were some units (namely the Reaver and the Siege Tank) that did insane amounts of damage to the point where just one of them allowed you to A: do stuff that was previously impossible (the Siege Tank allowed you to expand, as it could kill stuff before it got close) or B: wreck the opponent absolutely silly (the Reaver drop in a mineral line killing 20+ workers, and the opponent couldn't kill it with basic units.) This is no longer the case in SC2, where it either takes more units/is a bigger investment (Baneling drops in a mineral line, which are also much more scoutable, as they don't have any range) or requires energy, as with Psi Storms or Seeker Missiles. Is this intentional? Is this better game-wise? ...
Did you happen to watch any TvT games during MLG Anaheim - the one that had Boxer, MMA, and MVP? Blue Flame Hellion drops did insane damage and always got 'oooh's from the crowd. I think Artosis said that hellions got more kills that weekend than all other units.
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I'm almost positive Dustin was referring to the concept that each game is an uncertainty. The same way that anything can happen on any play in a football game. Just because a player has a large lead does not mean the game is over.
Furthermore, each game plays out uniquely. If EVERY single TvZ was 2 rax scv all- in , I'm looking at you gsl open season 2, it would be boring as shit because there is no uncertainty, " O look he's pulling his scvs... >_>"
I actually think you and Dustin share the same pov. You're saying uncertain games are more interesting. Which is exactly what Dustin was trying to achieve. Or are you saying the game is not uncertain enough? I actually think that recent BFH usage introduced TOO much uncertainty. This isn't poker, a zerg player should be able to prepare for a BFH runby and be able to deflect it, not prepare for it perfectly and lose 20 drones just cuz. That's borderline random.
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the thing about sc2 is, it's just not as fun to watch. the multitasking part of brood war was what made it exciting, watching 4 things going on at once, now it's just get maxed and A move. really upsetting, dont get me wrong, SC2 is my love, but i would love to see something new in HoTS that makes the game more exciting.
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Actually, I think the root of the problem may be this mentality that you design/play races to be the "macro race" or the "harassment race". In BW, all 3 races could play straight up macro styles effectively, and all 3 could harass, and I think this should be the case for SC2 as well. Game devs and players should not put races into a box.
Other problems lie within the actual design of certain bland units which unfortunately have to be in the game, due to them being "counters" to specific units.
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On September 01 2011 08:22 Toadvine wrote: P.S. I think they failed pretty hard on the "Clear what's going on" part. In a large SC2 battle, you can only barely make out what is actually happening, typically. Part of it is how short they are, but the overwhelming amount of missiles, lasers, and what have you, flying around, doesn't help either.
I have to agree with this. As a casual watcher, I find it hard to follow what's happening in a battle because 1. The units are clumped up too much. 2. The colors are hard to see in a mirror match 3. Battle end too quickly 4. There's too many things flying around.
If you want SC2 to be successful as spectator sport, it needs to be friendly to the casual watcher. What I've found with people around me is that battles end too quickly and are hard to follow because of the clumps of units. Another crucial blow is the fact it's hard to tell the difference between the player's units in a mirror match-up. This is a trait shared by everyone around me. In a way, this is why BW is more successful than SC2 as a eSport.
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