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Canada10904 Posts
@Qwyn I actually hadn't really thought of auto-rally in terms of time constraints, harass, and psychologically messing up your opponent. Bu it is so true.
If you can fluster the big macro player, by sheer weight of micro the player that got behind in macro can claw their way into an advantage not only by killing workers, but also by them not being able to damage control properly and having new workers just sit idly. The automation eliminates part of the macro negative impact created from the player getting flustered.
Edit. Oh yeah, I just read something like this today on the SC2 Broodwar map thread. They were talking about economy not snowballing so fast because there is just more and more stuff to take care of which allows a weaker player to come from behind. Huh. I need to think about this a bit more.
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Yeah I like to put it in terms of one's "mechanical baseline..." The relative difficulty of all the different actions which encompass the basic macro cycle and whatnot. All your other actions are going to be layered on top of that.
It's really fascinating, and only after you think about it a lot do you realize just how much auto-mine removes.
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On January 08 2013 14:18 Qwyn wrote: I'd say it's because they are evaluating their audience the wrong way. They misjudge the core of their audience. They need to re-evaluate where they stand. Who they develop for. I think you are misjudging the core of their audience. It isnt the few hardcore players who want BW with new graphics. It is the large group of casual players, and they do want auto-mine, more than 12 units selection, etc. (Before I bought SC2 I first made sure with a friend that such stupid limitations werent in it).
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On January 08 2013 16:22 Sissors wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 14:18 Qwyn wrote: I'd say it's because they are evaluating their audience the wrong way. They misjudge the core of their audience. They need to re-evaluate where they stand. Who they develop for. I think you are misjudging the core of their audience. It isnt the few hardcore players who want BW with new graphics. It is the large group of casual players, and they do want auto-mine, more than 12 units selection, etc. (Before I bought SC2 I first made sure with a friend that such stupid limitations werent in it).
Those limitations didn't have to be in the original SC either. They were there for a reason. To make the game more difficult. If we had to focus more on shit in our base then people wouldn't be able to take such massive advantages so early. People would also be able to come from behind much more easily due to a few nifty drops or micro tricks because the entire game wouldn't be a 15 minute wait into a 200/200 army battle of boring 3 seconds lazor deaths.
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On January 08 2013 16:26 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 16:22 Sissors wrote:On January 08 2013 14:18 Qwyn wrote: I'd say it's because they are evaluating their audience the wrong way. They misjudge the core of their audience. They need to re-evaluate where they stand. Who they develop for. I think you are misjudging the core of their audience. It isnt the few hardcore players who want BW with new graphics. It is the large group of casual players, and they do want auto-mine, more than 12 units selection, etc. (Before I bought SC2 I first made sure with a friend that such stupid limitations werent in it). Those limitations didn't have to be in the original SC either. They were there for a reason. To make the game more difficult. If we had to focus more on shit in our base then people wouldn't be able to take such massive advantages so early. People would also be able to come from behind much more easily due to a few nifty drops or micro tricks because the entire game wouldn't be a 15 minute wait into a 200/200 army battle of boring 3 seconds lazor deaths.
Actually, the only thing which is quite boring is the ability for zerg and toss to add producing units to their army group. This shoudlnt be possible. Zaelots are warping ? You have to wait for the end to select them. Same for zerg eggs. You should only be able at to set rally points.
For everything else, the game is cool mechanicaly (perhaps too much larvaes stocked in the hatcheries... But this is game design - the way for zerg to beat other armies is to use 2 armies)
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I think HoTS is unnecessary. They can just patch the new stuff in. I don't get why they need to release an expansion for a couple new units, some graphic patches and some other stuff. It's not a new game. It's the same game, with a little more content. That's the only reason I'm against it, too much fuss about it.
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On January 08 2013 16:48 Gihi wrote: I think HoTS is unnecessary. They can just patch the new stuff in. I don't get why they need to release an expansion for a couple new units, some graphic patches and some other stuff. It's not a new game. It's the same game, with a little more content. That's the only reason I'm against it, too much fuss about it. thats actually the definition of an expansion, hots is not starcraft3
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On January 08 2013 16:26 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 16:22 Sissors wrote:On January 08 2013 14:18 Qwyn wrote: I'd say it's because they are evaluating their audience the wrong way. They misjudge the core of their audience. They need to re-evaluate where they stand. Who they develop for. I think you are misjudging the core of their audience. It isnt the few hardcore players who want BW with new graphics. It is the large group of casual players, and they do want auto-mine, more than 12 units selection, etc. (Before I bought SC2 I first made sure with a friend that such stupid limitations werent in it). Those limitations didn't have to be in the original SC either. They were there for a reason. To make the game more difficult. If we had to focus more on shit in our base then people wouldn't be able to take such massive advantages so early. People would also be able to come from behind much more easily due to a few nifty drops or micro tricks because the entire game wouldn't be a 15 minute wait into a 200/200 army battle of boring 3 seconds lazor deaths. Have original SC developers explained this at some point, or are you just assuming what their reasoning was? If there is an explanation, I would like to see the source as it would be a very interesting read.
If the latter, I could assume that the unit selection cap was just so they would have room to show all the unit icons at the bottom of the screen without having to implement multiple pages, the lack of auto mine was because they didn't think of it or didn't consider it important enough to implement, and same for lack of smart-casting.
For me personally, the automated stuff is a big part of what makes SC2 so much more fun to play than BW. Macro is still by no means easy to perfect, but it also isn't so hard as to consume all of my actions if i'm on 3 bases. I get to spend more of my time controlling my army in multiple places and microing battles. Even with the automated stuff, my macro does slip hardcore if I'm doing something really micro intensive (e.g. hellion/banshee with separate banshees at different mineral lines), and I'm a mid-Masters player. The game is challenging and fun to play. Going back and trying to play BW again, I find the game challenging and frustrating to play, as I feel like I'm battling the interface and terrible unit pathing just to do the most basic things.
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On January 09 2013 00:20 JDub wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 16:26 Infernal_dream wrote:On January 08 2013 16:22 Sissors wrote:On January 08 2013 14:18 Qwyn wrote: I'd say it's because they are evaluating their audience the wrong way. They misjudge the core of their audience. They need to re-evaluate where they stand. Who they develop for. I think you are misjudging the core of their audience. It isnt the few hardcore players who want BW with new graphics. It is the large group of casual players, and they do want auto-mine, more than 12 units selection, etc. (Before I bought SC2 I first made sure with a friend that such stupid limitations werent in it). Those limitations didn't have to be in the original SC either. They were there for a reason. To make the game more difficult. If we had to focus more on shit in our base then people wouldn't be able to take such massive advantages so early. People would also be able to come from behind much more easily due to a few nifty drops or micro tricks because the entire game wouldn't be a 15 minute wait into a 200/200 army battle of boring 3 seconds lazor deaths. Have original SC developers explained this at some point, or are you just assuming what their reasoning was? If there is an explanation, I would like to see the source as it would be a very interesting read. If the latter, I could assume that the unit selection cap was just so they would have room to show all the unit icons at the bottom of the screen without having to implement multiple pages, the lack of auto mine was because they didn't think of it or didn't consider it important enough to implement, and same for lack of smart-casting. For me personally, the automated stuff is a big part of what makes SC2 so much more fun to play than BW. Macro is still by no means easy to perfect, but it also isn't so hard as to consume all of my actions if i'm on 3 bases. I get to spend more of my time controlling my army in multiple places and microing battles. Even with the automated stuff, my macro does slip hardcore if I'm doing something really micro intensive (e.g. hellion/banshee with separate banshees at different mineral lines), and I'm a mid-Masters player. The game is challenging and fun to play. Going back and trying to play BW again, I find the game challenging and frustrating to play, as I feel like I'm battling the interface and terrible unit pathing just to do the most basic things.
Indeed sir. The sc2 macrosystem is better than the bw, which is way too difficult for newcommers. People who think that you can't get a high skill cap by just reworking units + the economy are very very uncreative / lack of visionarity.
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Canada10904 Posts
@JDub
Patrick Wyatt- Lead Designer for Warcraft 1 and 2 and "led the development efforts for Starcraft." Code of Honour: The Making of Warcraft Part 1
Later in the development process, and after many design arguments between team-members, we decided to allow players to select only four units at a time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending them into the fray all at once. We later increased this number to nine in Warcraft II. Command and Conquer, the spiritual successor to Dune 2, didn’t have any upper bound on the number of units that could be selected. It’s worth another article to talk about the design ramifications, for sure.
@Hider What about larva injects and creep spread? How easy are Zerg macro-mechanics for beginners really?
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@Falling
Thank you. Patrick Wyatt's blog posts about Warcraft / Starcraft are indeed very interesting reads.
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On January 08 2013 15:32 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 11:15 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. You could at least give an example of some of the thing they did right with sc2? By every mistake possible, I mean every unit they changed from BW, they messed up. Only exception (to be fair) is the blink stalker. I dont think the Blink Stalker is a well designed unit either. Sure it looks good on paper, but the consequences of such a unit are not listed on that paper and the consequences are that positional play is circumvented by this. Of course you could already do such circumventing in BW through the use of Recall, but that requires another unit with energy AND it isnt something which you can "mass easily" as Blink Stalkers. So you could do assassination moves and base poking with a recall assault but not a full scale attack with your whole (or rather most of it) army. So basically the Arbiter-recall has been replaced by a masseable unit skill and that isnt a good thing, because it made it too easy to use sneaky tactics.
the great thing about this unit is that it makes it possible to abuse immobililty. Due to the economy problem of starcraft though, it is often too easy to defend your expansions as your not spread out enough.
However, the unit itself is an improvement over the dragoon in my opinion.
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On January 09 2013 03:46 Falling wrote:@JDub Patrick Wyatt- Lead Designer for Warcraft 1 and 2 and "led the development efforts for Starcraft." Code of Honour: The Making of Warcraft Part 1Show nested quote +Later in the development process, and after many design arguments between team-members, we decided to allow players to select only four units at a time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending them into the fray all at once. We later increased this number to nine in Warcraft II. Command and Conquer, the spiritual successor to Dune 2, didn’t have any upper bound on the number of units that could be selected. It’s worth another article to talk about the design ramifications, for sure. @Hider What about larva injects and creep spread? How easy are Zerg macro-mechanics for beginners really?
Well I think compared to no MBS and worker no automining that zerg is still easier. But to be honest I think larva inject and creep spread shouldn't be mechanically difficult actually. I am a fan of taking starcraft in the direction where macro isn't mechanically difficut. Rather its about making intelligent decisions (rather than mindless clicking). Instead, I want unit contorl to have a lot alot more potential than what Sc2 currently offers (and even more potential than what any of the sc2bw,starbow,onegoal mods offer, or even BW it self).
This would give us the same skillcap as there was a in BW. But instead of players focussing on doing boring stuff, we would see them focus on doing awesome stuff that is entertaining for the spectators, and we would clearly be able to seperate great players from world class players.
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On January 09 2013 05:11 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 15:32 Rabiator wrote:On January 08 2013 11:15 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. You could at least give an example of some of the thing they did right with sc2? By every mistake possible, I mean every unit they changed from BW, they messed up. Only exception (to be fair) is the blink stalker. I dont think the Blink Stalker is a well designed unit either. Sure it looks good on paper, but the consequences of such a unit are not listed on that paper and the consequences are that positional play is circumvented by this. Of course you could already do such circumventing in BW through the use of Recall, but that requires another unit with energy AND it isnt something which you can "mass easily" as Blink Stalkers. So you could do assassination moves and base poking with a recall assault but not a full scale attack with your whole (or rather most of it) army. So basically the Arbiter-recall has been replaced by a masseable unit skill and that isnt a good thing, because it made it too easy to use sneaky tactics. the great thing about this unit is that it makes it possible to abuse immobililty. Due to the economy problem of starcraft though, it is often too easy to defend your expansions as your not spread out enough. However, the unit itself is an improvement over the dragoon in my opinion.
The problem with blink is that a blink itself is inherently overpowered. People always like to cite mobas even though it's a completely different genre, but you can go to a moba person who knows what he's talking about and ask what he thinks are the most overpowered mechanics in a moba and the answer would probably include: Blinks, stuns and mass teleports.
Blinks in general are just a "overpowered" mechanic. You can get away from any situation by just blinking away, or "blink" into any advantageous position you want. In mobas it works because you can at least silence the person trying to blink, or have "Radiance" in dota 2 to prevent people from blinking. It's just not the same with stalkers. Maybe it could be balanced that when the stalkers got hit it would add a 3 sec cooldown to blink or something. Plus, stalker blink is one of the reason stalkers are so weak. There are a lot of ways we could make blink balanced and more interesting in the current iteration of the game, that's for sure.
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On January 08 2013 18:21 Rider517 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2013 16:48 Gihi wrote: I think HoTS is unnecessary. They can just patch the new stuff in. I don't get why they need to release an expansion for a couple new units, some graphic patches and some other stuff. It's not a new game. It's the same game, with a little more content. That's the only reason I'm against it, too much fuss about it. thats actually the definition of an expansion, hots is not starcraft3 and thanks god for this, i hope that SC3 will truly stand his name...
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On January 09 2013 05:30 KamikazeDurrrp wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2013 05:11 Hider wrote:On January 08 2013 15:32 Rabiator wrote:On January 08 2013 11:15 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 18:34 [F_]aths wrote:On January 07 2013 03:07 Hider wrote:On January 07 2013 02:45 Dynamitekid wrote: Even though i think SC2 is an average game, we still have the protoss expansion left to make things right. To answer your question, i do not think HOTS is worth the price. I disagree, sc2 is a great game; but the success is not related to the skills of the design team, which basically have made every mistake possible in their development of the game. Rather its a success because its based on BW, which is a "can't fail formula" While there were and still are some issues, it is far from being "every mistake possible". In fact, Wol is so good that the remaining minor issues are noticable at all. If if would be enough to follow the BW style, other companies could have made a big RTS title, too. But no-one did. Either there were not interested to get a share of the esports part in the RTS sector or is isn't as easy as it looks. You could at least give an example of some of the thing they did right with sc2? By every mistake possible, I mean every unit they changed from BW, they messed up. Only exception (to be fair) is the blink stalker. I dont think the Blink Stalker is a well designed unit either. Sure it looks good on paper, but the consequences of such a unit are not listed on that paper and the consequences are that positional play is circumvented by this. Of course you could already do such circumventing in BW through the use of Recall, but that requires another unit with energy AND it isnt something which you can "mass easily" as Blink Stalkers. So you could do assassination moves and base poking with a recall assault but not a full scale attack with your whole (or rather most of it) army. So basically the Arbiter-recall has been replaced by a masseable unit skill and that isnt a good thing, because it made it too easy to use sneaky tactics. the great thing about this unit is that it makes it possible to abuse immobililty. Due to the economy problem of starcraft though, it is often too easy to defend your expansions as your not spread out enough. However, the unit itself is an improvement over the dragoon in my opinion. The problem with blink is that a blink itself is inherently overpowered. People always like to cite mobas even though it's a completely different genre, but you can go to a moba person who knows what he's talking about and ask what he thinks are the most overpowered mechanics in a moba and the answer would probably include: Blinks, stuns and mass teleports. Blinks in general are just a "overpowered" mechanic. You can get away from any situation by just blinking away, or "blink" into any advantageous position you want. In mobas it works because you can at least silence the person trying to blink, or have "Radiance" in dota 2 to prevent people from blinking. It's just not the same with stalkers. Maybe it could be balanced that when the stalkers got hit it would add a 3 sec cooldown to blink or something. Plus, stalker blink is one of the reason stalkers are so weak. There are a lot of ways we could make blink balanced and more interesting in the current iteration of the game, that's for sure.
As a terran player I have never faced a situation where I thought it was stupid that protoss could get away by blinking. Possibly its because blink stalkers aren't that good vs terran. Against zergs (with a different fungal) it could be different of course.
But I don't have anything against making the stalkers weak, and give them a role as an harassoriented unit as onegoal seems to intend.
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I thought so and therefore i'm playing beta with a pre-ordered beta key. I have four reasons for buying the game: 1. The campaign. 2. The improved gameplay. 3. A better rejuvenated arcade/custom game scene. 4. The affordable price in relationship to the service that HotS will deliver.
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On January 09 2013 07:43 archonOOid wrote: I thought so and therefore i'm playing beta with a pre-ordered beta key. I have four reasons for buying the game: 1. The campaign. 2. The improved gameplay. 3. A better rejuvenated arcade/custom game scene. 4. The affordable price in relationship to the service that HotS will deliver.
What about the arcade/custom game scene do you like? I noticed very little difference in the beta and it still seems as awful as ever.
I'm still on the fence, if the game shipped in the version it is today, I wouldn't buy it. I still have hope (perhaps naively) that blizzard will fundamentally change the way SC2 plays from a design perspective. Outside of a few players, I can barely watch sc2 anymore because it is such stale gameplay. I never had that problem in SC2 or even War3.
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I'm probably the minority here but I will be buying it for the lore and singleplayer. I love it.
Granted, it's not as great as Brood war and vanilla Sc1 campaign, but it expands on a world I really enjoy playing. That alone is worth it for me.
As for the multiplayer stuff well... depends on what you would assume important to buyit...
Is it fun? not really. At least, not right now with the broken stuff. Is it better than wings of liberty? well, the new units definitely arentperfect but overall, yes.
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If you still enjoy what WoL is then I'm sure the addition of a few things would make sense if you enjoy the game. Although I think Blizzard has made Gold in the past and still makes "good" games, I'm personally holding off because I don't like where they have gone from BroodWar, and the second reason is that when it comes between releasing quality or making more money, and Blizzard feel they directly confront eachother, I find more and more Blizzard leans towards making a profit.
And while thats what business is for, I just don't feel the compassion for there games when I play them so I guess the only way i can speak to them is my $.
Since it includes some of the reasons were argueing the point, I just want to comment on a couple posts I read, statements that were made without highlighting anyone.
Reading some of the posts I get the feeling that alot of WoL players newer to the SC realm think that alot of BroodWar players not impressed with Wol are stuck in the past and don't realize how the managable macro systems are superior and give you more time to "Micro" and focus paying attention to the battles. I'm gonna challenge this with a few statements.
I played alot of games in the past that I don't rememeber whatsoever and were terrible, BroodWar being older does not make it worse or a worse design. ( lots of people still playin chess)
If all these new features have improved the game and made Micro more interesting and intense, then why are the BroodWar battles more microintensive, longer and more interesting to watch? Why is there more going on? why is there 1000 more turnouts and options for players? Why was the gameplay and strategies from being Garbage to being a master way more varried?
You know what i think it was, because alot of things that happened in BroodWar were a complete mistake. Blizzard Designed SC2 with very specific goals and timings for the units and while it's still skillful to master, it feels alot more like taking a bow and shooting at the center of a target untill you get it exactly right everytime. They accomplished what they wanted and it created a very narrow game.
Even Broodwar was more casual friendly, considering when I met my gf and showed it to her I'd come home from work and watch her waiting the computers out on an 8 player ffa playing an RTS and she didn't even know what that was, playing an ugly game 10 years after release, and I was on my 3'rd or 4'th copy because I'd lose discs and always remember that game come back and play it. :D
Even playing comps in SC2 is stressful because there dead dumb or they push you into the streamlined gameplay in which "starcraft 2" is sopposed to be played.
If I play a protoss in gold, plat, diamond or masters I'm pretty sure for example i can recognize one of the few builds and its varients and the only difference is which one is doing it better and is slightly better at multitasking.
And what was worse was waching some of my online friends get super serious about the game destroy me over and over for being creative and trying to find new strats against them, then waching them play an obs game and walking like 11 infestors to there death and maybe casting 2 fungals. . . . . With Micro that doesn't doens't resemble anything that BroodWar was because they have 0 unit control, so they win the game off flooding production that can't be touched without certain key strategies because of ramps no vision and force walls and block offs, and people talk about the intense sc2 micro? Even the SC2 End Game Micro doens't even closely match with WC3, that game was really about some good army micro and casting abilities.
It's not about insulting anyone, I just don't get the comparison I never have. They Both have a Blizzard stamp on the box and are obviously made by completely different teams of people.
So since blizzard is steering away from changing any real core gameplay elements and army compositions or punishing deathballs, and BroodWar turned SC upside down changed the whole scene in an amazing way, I just feel like Blizzard isn't really pushing the envelope here and is kinda taking the easy road again and trying to turn a profit as I originally stated.
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