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This is a response to the most recent community feedback update, July 31st, 2015. I want to try and analyze the logic behind the post so we can all provide better feedback to Blizzard.
We are all StarCraft fans. You. Me. Blizzard. We all love SC2 because it is a hard game. Cutting macro mechanics is an enormous sacrifice and we all know it. I am going to confidently say, none of us want to dumb-down StarCraft.
They have Heroes of the Storm. They have Hearthstone. They don't need to dumb down StarCraft.
However, I don't think we understand just how CRAZY LotV is. LotV beta testers are mostly veteran StarCraft players. We are familiar with all the units and basic mechanics and we can adapt quite easily. The fact is, the game is sped up significantly.
Let me explain just how CRAZY FAST this game is.
1) You start with 12 workers. Immediately, you are supply capped and you have a lot of money to spend.
2) Immediately, you have to make a strategic decision. Build a rax/gate/pool first or expand? How early do you do these things?
3) Not only do you have a lot of T1 options, you also have to worry about which T1 option your opponent is choosing: - Terran: marines, marauders, reapers, orbital, - Zerg: queen, lings, speed, banes, roaches - Protoss: zealot, stalker, msc, adept, sentry, warpgate
4) You have to scout! - where is my opponent? - is my opponent teching up on 1 base? - expanding? - cheesing?
5) Throw in SC2 macro-mechanics and the game speeds up even more. The moment you make an Orbital Command, your mineral collection rate jumps up. The moment you make a Queen, you can start injecting larva for a burst of units. Chronoboost is always accessible and constantly speeds up the Protoss.
This game is fast. Maybe too fast. Every player has a limited amount of multi-tasking. The speed of LotV demands so much multi-tasking that a casual player can easily feel overwhelmed, lost, or helpless.Removing #5 can relieve some of the demands and allow players to focus more on #1-4, which is arguably more interesting for viewers.
We want a hard game for esports, but we want it to be fun and accessible to the average gamer as well. Can we have our cake and eat it too? I think we can. This is my suggestion: + Show Spoiler +I definitely want to keep macro-mechanics because they raise the skill-ceiling for progamers. The way I see it, the micro game wins you the macro game, and the macro game wins you the SC2 game.
I would like to see enhanced macro-mechanics become less accessible. Make them take more time and more resources to achieve. Move them further up the tech tree.
Give players the option to never use enhanced macro-mechanics so they can dedicate their limited amount of multi-tasking on other aspects of the game.
I think this is a better way of "dumbing-down" StarCraft for new players without taking away the skill-ceiling of pro players. Ultimately, the new macro-mechanics should be objectively better in an esports scenario, given that the player has enough apm to manage it.
Example ideas for Zerg: Remove inject larva from queen. Give a research upgrade to increase larva cap at all bases. Or give all Lairs and Hives increased larva caps by default. Add a Lair upgrade to queens that allows them to inject larva.
Thanks for reading. If you learned something, check out my original series, Breaking Bad Micro. + Show Spoiler +
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So throw the game back a few steps. I have personally always hated the 12 worker start as it makes it more difficullt to scout with overlords and makes for more RNG. I heavily dislike the minerals that forces expanding (why not make expanding a strategic choice rather than something forced upon players). Personally I believe people will get bored of the shrinking amount of strategic choices once the "honeymoon"phase is over.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
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On August 01 2015 17:48 NEEDZMOAR wrote: So throw the game back a few steps. I have personally always hated the 12 worker start as it makes it more difficullt to scout with overlords and makes for more RNG. I heavily dislike the minerals that forces expanding (why not make expanding a strategic choice rather than something forced upon players). Personally I believe people will get bored of the shrinking amount of strategic choices once the "honeymoon"phase is over.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never.
It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
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On August 01 2015 18:40 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2015 17:48 NEEDZMOAR wrote: So throw the game back a few steps. I have personally always hated the 12 worker start as it makes it more difficullt to scout with overlords and makes for more RNG. I heavily dislike the minerals that forces expanding (why not make expanding a strategic choice rather than something forced upon players). Personally I believe people will get bored of the shrinking amount of strategic choices once the "honeymoon"phase is over.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never. It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy. Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep
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i personally like the fact that they are trying to make it a little easier on people to macro cause what are the 2 major reasons you lose a game? not scouting what youre opponent is doing not having the macro to keep up with unit production when defending
that being said, i also agree with the rest that starcraft does not need to be dumbed down, its supposed to be easy to learn and hard to master kind of game. and macroing is a vital part of the game mechanic... ive played broodwar before, and this autocast comes back to the zerg in BW, they autospawn larva and you need to keep up with spending those... also a lot of RTS games have the continuous build option.. as an actual option, to autospawn units you tell it too or manually build it like were used to right now...
maybe its an idea to put it in like this
Give the player the ability to autocast their macro, but make it just a bit less effectient than what you could achieve if you continuously build units yourself... (read injecting, building marines, etc etc) that way newer players have it a little easier to get into the game.. but for the rest of the higher ranked players, the game mechanics remain unchanged..
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On August 01 2015 18:44 HellHound wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2015 18:40 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 01 2015 17:48 NEEDZMOAR wrote: So throw the game back a few steps. I have personally always hated the 12 worker start as it makes it more difficullt to scout with overlords and makes for more RNG. I heavily dislike the minerals that forces expanding (why not make expanding a strategic choice rather than something forced upon players). Personally I believe people will get bored of the shrinking amount of strategic choices once the "honeymoon"phase is over.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never. It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy. Should I inject first or spread overlords to spot drops should i spread overlord or focus on injects muta harrass should I focus on hitting injects or spreading more creep The answer to each of your questions is inject. It goes so far that it may sometimes be better to eat devastating mine shots on your banelings and inject than to eat mediocre mineshots and inject 10seconds late.
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I'm kind of surprised so many people want to keep the macro mechanics. BW was a great game without any additional macro mechanics such as these SC2 has. And so many people are upset these days about "having to expand on a timer or else you are behind", but are arguing to keep macro mechanics that are "on a timer or else you are behind"?
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included?
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the question is since when the macro mechanics are "strategic decisions"?
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On August 01 2015 19:14 Spyridon wrote: I'm kind of surprised so many people want to keep the macro mechanics. BW was a great game without any additional macro mechanics such as these SC2 has. And so many people are upset these days about "having to expand on a timer or else you are behind", but are arguing to keep macro mechanics that are "on a timer or else you are behind"?
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included? They are here to artificially recreate the requirement to regularly go back to your base to macro, to emulate BW's no building groups. Which is why they should be kept, imo, however their importance should be greatly reduced : being able to follow up a failed SCV pull or 11/11 with another wave of units, thanks to MULEs, or being able to remax from 90/200 to 200/200 in one instant on four hatcheries thanks to injects is kinda dumb.
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On August 01 2015 19:25 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2015 19:14 Spyridon wrote: I'm kind of surprised so many people want to keep the macro mechanics. BW was a great game without any additional macro mechanics such as these SC2 has. And so many people are upset these days about "having to expand on a timer or else you are behind", but are arguing to keep macro mechanics that are "on a timer or else you are behind"?
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included? They are here to artificially recreate the requirement to regularly go back to your base to macro, to emulate BW's no building groups. Which is why they should be kept, imo, however their importance should be greatly reduced : being able to follow up a failed SCV pull or 11/11 with another wave of units, thanks to MULEs, or being able to remax from 90/200 to 200/200 in one instant on four hatcheries thanks to injects is kinda dumb.
The problem is without drastic changes to all the races the zerg not being able to remax quickly would be a drastic nerf to zerg since currently dealing with deathballs has always been about the remax and without that ability zerg would be weak to deathball styles (more than currently)
The short of it that Blizzard are going about it the wrong way, we need more ways of showing macro skill than producing units constantly and not getting supply blocked/using your "macro mechanic" we don't need to eliminate these and make the game even less about macro skill.
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On August 01 2015 19:29 Ovid wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2015 19:25 OtherWorld wrote:On August 01 2015 19:14 Spyridon wrote: I'm kind of surprised so many people want to keep the macro mechanics. BW was a great game without any additional macro mechanics such as these SC2 has. And so many people are upset these days about "having to expand on a timer or else you are behind", but are arguing to keep macro mechanics that are "on a timer or else you are behind"?
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included? They are here to artificially recreate the requirement to regularly go back to your base to macro, to emulate BW's no building groups. Which is why they should be kept, imo, however their importance should be greatly reduced : being able to follow up a failed SCV pull or 11/11 with another wave of units, thanks to MULEs, or being able to remax from 90/200 to 200/200 in one instant on four hatcheries thanks to injects is kinda dumb. The problem is without drastic changes to all the races the zerg not being able to remax quickly would be a drastic nerf to zerg since currently dealing with deathballs has always been about the remax and without that ability zerg would be weak to deathball styles (more than currently) The short of it that Blizzard are going about it the wrong way, we need more ways of showing macro skill than producing units constantly and not getting supply blocked/using your "macro mechanic" we don't need to eliminate these and make the game even less about macro skill. Yeah I agree on that, heavily nerfing macro mechanics cannot be done without modifying a whole lot of other things. Which is why I'm surprised that Blizzard talked about that : macro mechanics of lesser importance are going straight against their "20-minute game" goal for LotV.
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Blizz coming up with this when no almost no one complained about macro. Sure, this game is difficult, but new players have archon mode to start with, so Blizz should be focusing on the real issues the current community is having with this game. Fix the economy first, the game is way way way fast, which is not good, also, i dont like having a gun pointed at my head saying: You better start expanding right now because otherwise you die. Scouting, aggro strategies and more have been almost removed from the game, so instead of having an expansion with more features, we have one with less. Plus, Im really pissed at Blizz for not answering straight up to the community, specially the TL writers that came up with DH and more, Blizz or David Kim just went and said "We dont like it, our internal testing can back it up" Giving no more explanation. Really? Like seriously, DK admitted he does not play the game as much and he is the one we are relying on to have this new expansion? Its like if Kasparov tried to coach a Baseball team. Please, for the love of god, stop it, focus on our feedback and GOD DONT YOU DARE TOUCH THE MACRO MECHANICS!!
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it doesn't dumb down the game, it makes it less dumbed down ... instead of challenging yourself with the mechanical demands of the macro mechanics you will be more heavily challenged by an opponent also unencumbered by macro mechanic demands
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On August 01 2015 18:40 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2015 17:48 NEEDZMOAR wrote: So throw the game back a few steps. I have personally always hated the 12 worker start as it makes it more difficullt to scout with overlords and makes for more RNG. I heavily dislike the minerals that forces expanding (why not make expanding a strategic choice rather than something forced upon players). Personally I believe people will get bored of the shrinking amount of strategic choices once the "honeymoon"phase is over.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never. It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy.
Should I put a tumor down or inject, is he attacking me? do I need to save energy for transfuses? Should I use my apm on injecting or creepspreading/dealing with this push/whatever? Should I inject in the middle of this fight? Do I remember to inject on time? Will I have the multitasking enough to inject on time while fighting my opponent or is my opponent capable of beating me due to his superior mechanics and multitasking? Is this the right hatchery to inject now? if I use the tap method to keep track of my injects, where should I build my burrow/lair/OL-speed/additional queens?
these questions and many more point to various decision-making which comes from simple manual larvae inject.
Furthemore some of us find pro-games cool to watch because of their mechanical skills, as well as enjoy practicing our own.
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On August 01 2015 19:14 Spyridon wrote:
I kind of view the current macro mechanics as an artificial form of "skill", especially in Zergs case. It's basically just there to make the game more difficult, but the mechanic itself can't really be exploited strategically aside from killing the queens, so it has less depth than typical macro (actually building a structure or training a unit). If it does not add strategy to the Real Time Strategy, why are they included?
while were at it why dont our bases autobuild marines or tanks medivacs etc because hey once youve choosen your army all the building and resourcegathering are just boring mechanics to make the game difficult. Hell lets remake sc2 into microbattles where were each given a set of units after choosing our composition and then duke it out vs others. No boring macro or mechanics required just fun micro and usage of abilities.
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why don't you just flip a coin and not bother playing? these extreme arguments are nonsense... similar to how people complained automine, multiple building selection and unlimited unit selection would dumb down the game... but it still seems pretty hard to me... oh right my opponent gets those things too
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I think the only macro mechanic that comes with real decision making is Chrono Boost. You can choose which building to CB to speed up your upgrades/worker/unit production. Larva inject is never a strategic question; you want to do it and if you don't, you made a mistake (at least most of the time). Orbital Commands are kind of similar, because MULEs are generally considered better than Supply Calldowns (although not in all situations, of course). The difference there is you can choose to scan instead which is often required, and can be viewed as a strategic decision.
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On August 01 2015 18:40 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2015 17:48 NEEDZMOAR wrote: So throw the game back a few steps. I have personally always hated the 12 worker start as it makes it more difficullt to scout with overlords and makes for more RNG. I heavily dislike the minerals that forces expanding (why not make expanding a strategic choice rather than something forced upon players). Personally I believe people will get bored of the shrinking amount of strategic choices once the "honeymoon"phase is over.
Macro mechanics are important for the game to keep some of its multitasking and mechanical skillcap (which is something I personally enjoy very much both watching and playing) as well as the strategic depth it offers.
Macro mechanics add no strategic depth. When should you not inject? Never. It adds mechanical requirements and zero strategy. What about builds that relies on the extra creep queen because some will be focused on inject? Just because the action itself is only mechanical does not mean the results from the action is non strategic. Let's focus on protoss chrono for example, chrono is a major macro mechanics that help to design builds.
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Yeah but you still have to decide where to spend that extra queen, you would either attach it to inject or leave it for creep spread.
And chrono... to me it helps confuse build order design... it's harder to design any build when you have to worry about that darned annoying chrono boost multiplier variable that can attach itself to any of your (or your opponent's if they're protoss) buildings every X seconds (or X+Ei where Ei is the error casting it at exactly 50 energy on the i'th iteration).
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On August 01 2015 19:44 Steelghost wrote: Blizz coming up with this when no almost no one complained about macro. Sure, this game is difficult, but new players have archon mode to start with, so Blizz should be focusing on the real issues the current community is having with this game. Fix the economy first, the game is way way way fast, which is not good, also, i dont like having a gun pointed at my head saying: You better start expanding right now because otherwise you die. Scouting, aggro strategies and more have been almost removed from the game, so instead of having an expansion with more features, we have one with less. Plus, Im really pissed at Blizz for not answering straight up to the community, specially the TL writers that came up with DH and more, Blizz or David Kim just went and said "We dont like it, our internal testing can back it up" Giving no more explanation. Really? Like seriously, DK admitted he does not play the game as much and he is the one we are relying on to have this new expansion? Its like if Kasparov tried to coach a Baseball team. Please, for the love of god, stop it, focus on our feedback and GOD DONT YOU DARE TOUCH THE MACRO MECHANICS!!
It will be interesting to see how the macro mechanic changes change the balance of the game.
The main problem with protoss not being able to expand/defend in the early mid game is due to the amount of units terran and zerg can throw at you. Terran splitting your army apart and zerg just massing and hitting your front. Not sure what the game will look like if those changes go through.
How will zerg be able to get their eco up and running if they can't spam drones out?
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