I have returned: StarCraft II

[Julian]

But overcoming bad pathing is micro!

/rolleyes

[Gredival]

Skill will just go to different things. There is no way you will eventually have a group of people who just play the game exactly perfectly as there is no where left for skill to be applied.

Well this was djWheat's point. He argued that everyone would need to wait for Legacy of the Void to come out so tha there was no more "new shit" that could come out. Until that point it would be impossible to balance properly in the way Brood War was able to fix Starcraft 1. He said at that point, more mechanics could be incorporated through battle units that would raise the skill ceiling even with the removal of things like auto-mining.

IdrA conceded that it was possible this could happen, but he argued that integration of elements such as smart casting indicate that isn't where Blizzard wants to go. It's not merely about integrating mechanics elsewhere, it's about removing "pure mechanics" completely because that's not an aspect of gaming that most enjoy.

IdrA's argument is that while this makes the game more successful, it makes it a poorer e-Sport. When you get into the upper tiers of competition, mastery of elements that can only be attained by brute practice/muscle memory are what helps to create a high skill-ceiling which in turn distinguishes it as an e-Sport where talent/practice really shine through. That's why he said he doesn't think anyone will ever be as successful and dominant at SC2 as Flash is with SC1.

I think it's important to recognize the distinction here. This is about evaluating SC2 purely from the professional level where you would be expected to practice pure mechanics like manual mining, and controlling retarded Dragoon pathing. I don't think anyone here would want to see manual mining put back in, but it undoubtedly would widen the gap between us and professional level players.

Take Elfi for example. He's been moderately successful in recent tournaments despite a pretty low APM. There's no way I think he could be as successful at BW as he is at SC2 where his APM would limit his ability to perform pure mechanics like mining. I doubt he would be able to micro forcefield adequately in battle without smart casting.

And I think that's what IdrA is really getting at. In SC2 there is a much greater volatility, much greater chance for the underdog to win, because the skill set necessary to play at a high level is smaller.

While you can say that no one is at the skill ceiling because in any given game there are mistakes, the range of mistakes you can make is far more constrained. And that normally helps the worse player because all the small mistakes in SC1 that would add up (like not setting workers to mine, missed Psi-storms) are taken out.

[Salodin]

I see where Idra is coming from, but does it really make you more "skilled" because you can go back and set your workers to mine because they're too stupid to do it themselves? I think that makes for more of a boring game then the dynamic one we have now where peoples attention is in the battle and strategy going behind every decision, not "oh no he missed his opportunity to feedback the drop because he was moving his workers to mineral patches".

[Gryffes]

My problem with that approach is it merely makes it mechanically more challenging, I'd prefer if it were strategically more challenging.

[Kaylia]

God I hate these arguments, "BROKEN THINGS MAKE THE GAME BETTER"

No, they don't. They just make it broken. Just because players learned to operate around the broken bits doesn't mean they shouldn't be fixed. It's the same stupid argument diehard dota-allstars players make.

If I give my units a command, they should follow it, not herpderp into the nearest wall and give up on all movement. Or walk straight into enemy fire when they could instead fire from outside range.


I couldn't play BW anymore after WoL came out, the sheer difference in unit command retardedness was too much. Being able to control a ball as a single unit and know that it wasn't going to break into little derpified chunks all over the map is too nice.

I think you're confusing two things.

-Broken mechanics make the game harder to play
-Broken mechanics are [not] fun to deal with (or make the game [worse] better)

The implications of each statement are very different. I don't think anyone want to go back to SC1 at this point (unlike many other games that are played competitively), but that doesn't make the discussion about high end gameplay invalid.

[quannum]

it reminds me of when people complain about FFXI being turned into ez mode, the "xp needed to 75" and the various COP changes. the people who did it before the change whine about "the old way" and the new people will be newbs because the didn't do it "the old way", people facing it for the first time will more likely say "why wasn't it like this in the first place?" The advantage being that the new way gives you more time to explore alternative strategies or move on to the new stuff..

"the old way" scbw's mechanics, selection groups, pathing etc and
the new way being sc2's mechanics, selection groups, pathing etc

[Bweigelt]

it reminds me of when people complain about FFXI being turned into ez mode, the "xp needed to 75" and the various COP changes. the people who did it before the change whine about "the old way" and the new people will be newbs because the didn't do it "the old way", people facing it for the first time will more likely say "why wasn't it like this in the first place?" The advantage being that the new way gives you more time to explore alternative strategies or move on to the new stuff..

"the old way" scbw's mechanics, selection groups, pathing etc and
the new way being sc2's mechanics, selection groups, pathing etc

Destiny said it best, they all just Nostalgiafags.

[Gredival]

My problem with that approach is it merely makes it mechanically more challenging, I'd prefer if it were strategically more challenging.

Actually IdrA had a really good point on this. He agreed a strategically more challenging game is better. The problem is that this is a game of imperfect information and the best methods of scouting to obtain that information come too late to stop early aggression or at significant cost (sacrificing an Overlord that 1 Marine can kill, sometimes before you get any information; scans at the cost of Mules; fast robo bay for observers can leave you vulnerable early). This means there is too much volatility to be able to rely on strategy favoring the better player.

That's why IdrA often claims that while practice is still necessary, the need to practice in SC2 isn't comparable to Brood War. There's more of a significant chance you lose through randomness, and the lack of pure mechanical elements makes it harder for the player to make up for a deficit by just being more sound. Thus why IdrA will often say someone is bad even when he loses. Comparatively, he didn't top-flight BW players bad when he lost because in most cases he knew it's because they won through being mechanically superior.

There needs to be some function in the game which rewards that sort of mechanical APM where hardcore Korean style practicing pays off. It doesn't necessarily have to be by removing smart casting or automine, but it has to be there or else you will get lower APM players like Elfi who can get by through pure timing execution rather than having good solid mechanical skills.

The problem is that introducing any such elements would frustrate the majority of gamers who aren't practicing to try learn the muscle memory to do things well. It would only be to raise the skill ceiling for a very small amount of players. The chances are Blizzard is willing to accept the volatility of the e-Sports scene rather than have most people hate playing SC2.

[Blarg]

but it has to be there or else you will get lower APM players like Elfi who can get by through pure timing execution rather than having good solid mechanical skills.

I think in the one recent tournament where Idra rematched and beat Elfi he said he did it by taking advantage of the low APM by just attacking in a few places at once. It was also funny to watch Sjow vs Elfi in ROG where Elfi managed to get 4 zealots to completely destroy a mineral line while a battle was happening and Sjow didn't notice for at least 30 seconds. I guess the low APM people can just compensate by turtling until maxed to minimize the potential for them to be pulled in a bunch of directions at once.

[Blarg]

So when I play zerg is there a way to see what units are being produced aside from clicking on the eggs? Sometimes I think I have built an overlord but then realize I didn't, so I build some more, and then realize... no wait I did build overlords and now I have a billion of them. I tried clicking on the eggs to see if I do have one building but when I'm getting attacked I don't have time to do that.

Also, is there a way to cancel building something without killing the larvae? If I misclick building something I want to cancel it (like I would playing terran if I build a reaper instead of a marauder or something) but I'm pretty sure that kills my larvae and I'd have probably been better off just letting it build.

[Bweigelt]

Actually IdrA had a really good point on this. He agreed a strategically more challenging game is better. The problem is that this is a game of imperfect information and the best methods of scouting to obtain that information come too late to stop early aggression or at significant cost (sacrificing an Overlord that 1 Marine can kill, sometimes before you get any information; scans at the cost of Mules; fast robo bay for observers can leave you vulnerable early). This means there is too much volatility to be able to rely on strategy favoring the better player.

That's why IdrA often claims that while practice is still necessary, the need to practice in SC2 isn't comparable to Brood War. There's more of a significant chance you lose through randomness, and the lack of pure mechanical elements makes it harder for the player to make up for a deficit by just being more sound. Thus why IdrA will often say someone is bad even when he loses. Comparatively, he didn't top-flight BW players bad when he lost because in most cases he knew it's because they won through being mechanically superior.

There needs to be some function in the game which rewards that sort of mechanical APM where hardcore Korean style practicing pays off. It doesn't necessarily have to be by removing smart casting or automine, but it has to be there or else you will get lower APM players like Elfi who can get by through pure timing execution rather than having good solid mechanical skills.

The problem is that introducing any such elements would frustrate the majority of gamers who aren't practicing to try learn the muscle memory to do things well. It would only be to raise the skill ceiling for a very small amount of players. The chances are Blizzard is willing to accept the volatility of the e-Sports scene rather than have most people hate playing SC2.

I would just like to point out that IdrA behaved the exact same way in BW that he does in SC2 and constantly berated players that beat him including the Korean BW pro's. He's constantly bitched about balance in BW as well and blamed a lot of his losses on that. Nothing has changed with him. Also this talk that APM should be the determining factor in how good you are didn't hold true in BW either. There were plenty of pro's with ridiculous APM that couldn't do what Flash and Jaedong do because they couldn't apply it properly, which is the same as what we see in SC2 and why some lower APM players are able to succeed.

[Salodin]

Actually IdrA had a really good point on this. He agreed a strategically more challenging game is better. The problem is that this is a game of imperfect information and the best methods of scouting to obtain that information come too late to stop early aggression or at significant cost (sacrificing an Overlord that 1 Marine can kill, sometimes before you get any information; scans at the cost of Mules; fast robo bay for observers can leave you vulnerable early). This means there is too much volatility to be able to rely on strategy favoring the better player.

That's why IdrA often claims that while practice is still necessary, the need to practice in SC2 isn't comparable to Brood War. There's more of a significant chance you lose through randomness, and the lack of pure mechanical elements makes it harder for the player to make up for a deficit by just being more sound. Thus why IdrA will often say someone is bad even when he loses. Comparatively, he didn't top-flight BW players bad when he lost because in most cases he knew it's because they won through being mechanically superior.

There needs to be some function in the game which rewards that sort of mechanical APM where hardcore Korean style practicing pays off. It doesn't necessarily have to be by removing smart casting or automine, but it has to be there or else you will get lower APM players like Elfi who can get by through pure timing execution rather than having good solid mechanical skills.

The problem is that introducing any such elements would frustrate the majority of gamers who aren't practicing to try learn the muscle memory to do things well. It would only be to raise the skill ceiling for a very small amount of players. The chances are Blizzard is willing to accept the volatility of the e-Sports scene rather than have most people hate playing SC2.

A lot of that is balancing issues though, which we already agreed can't be really discussed until the last expansion comes out and they focus on balancing the final game. And elfi has shown before that even with his low apm, he can still pull off some solid wins.

And on that Idra v Elfi match, it's not poor mechanics on elfi, it's solid strategy from Idra.

[Gredival]

I would just like to point out that IdrA behaved the exact same way in BW that he does in SC2 and constantly berated players that beat him including the Korean BW pro's. He's constantly bitched about balance in BW as well and blamed a lot of his losses on that. Nothing has changed with him.

Actually there was a reason it says specifically "top flight." During some show when he was called out about BM he went through and defended every player he called bad as being bad (Drewbie, TT1, Cruncher...) Someone pointed out HuK and he pointed out that he stopped calling HuK bad after HuK started to develop, and that even before HuK went to EG he used HuK as his example of how Protoss should be played during SotG when he debated iNcontroL about Protoss being too weak. He claimed specifically that if you looked at his SC1 history yes he was BM there too, but he never insulted "top flight" pros just like how he has never insulted MVP, Nestea, etc.

If you want to fact check go ahead, but even reading Rek's anti-IdrA dumps on TL, IdrAseems to have avoided BMing anyone considered legitimately top tier.

Also this talk that APM should be the determining factor in how good you are didn't hold true in BW either. There were plenty of pro's with ridiculous APM that couldn't do what Flash and Jaedong do because they couldn't apply it properly, which is the same as what we see in SC2 and why some lower APM players are able to succeed.

No one's saying Flash and Jaedong are the best simply because they have the highest APM. But look at the other side of the spectrum.

Do you think Elfi could achieve the level of success he can right now if SC2 had more APM reliant mechanics like BW? We're talking about someone whose APM is not just out of the top tier, but is legitimately considered low. It's only around 100. The fact is that the less he has to manage mechanically, the better it is for him given his APM. By removing those elements it allows him to focus on simple execution and timing rather than multitasking. His weakness is covered up by automated mechanics.

Do you think Flash and Jaedong would have been as dominant with 100 APM instead of 300-400?

[Maguspk]

There's a difference between something making the game harder and it being 'good or bad'. You guys are just acting irrationally to my statements, never did I say one or the other is 'better' but it's very clear that BW took more skill (e.g. APM, muscle memory, practice, etc.) to achieve competitive results within the community. Arguing otherwise would require examples.

The example of not having 'perfect' micro/macro is not valid because that is an unrealistic goal. Especially since every player exihibits them. In Brood War there was a clear difference between players who could manage large armies and who couldn't, or players who could mange 4 bases and who couldn't. In SC2 that line is much thinner and only requires a working knowledge of control groups and does not require as much APM or practice. Everything is just 'easier'. Don't take offense to that, it's just fact.

Kaylia gets it by the way.


Oddly enough injecting hatcheries is a pretty good skill-related mechanic albeit somewhat tedious. Nearly no player does it well enough but doing it well is well within possibility with enough practice. Players like Nestea come close and only fall off near the end game.

So when I play zerg is there a way to see what units are being produced aside from clicking on the eggs? Sometimes I think I have built an overlord but then realize I didn't, so I build some more, and then realize... no wait I did build overlords and now I have a billion of them. I tried clicking on the eggs to see if I do have one building but when I'm getting attacked I don't have time to do that.

Also, is there a way to cancel building something without killing the larvae? If I misclick building something I want to cancel it (like I would playing terran if I build a reaper instead of a marauder or something) but I'm pretty sure that kills my larvae and I'd have probably been better off just letting it build.

There isn't a way to see besides clicking eggs that I know of, try to keep a mental record.

Cancelling kills the larva, no way to get around that.

[Bweigelt]

Actually there was a reason it says specifically "top flight." During some show when he was called out about BM he went through and defended every player he called bad as being bad (Drewbie, TT1, Cruncher...) Someone pointed out HuK and he pointed out that he stopped calling HuK bad after HuK started to develop, and that even before HuK went to EG he used HuK as his example of how Protoss should be played during SotG when he debated iNcontroL about Protoss being too weak. He claimed specifically that if you looked at his SC1 history yes he was BM there too, but he never insulted "top flight" pros just like how he has never insulted MVP, Nestea, etc.

If you want to fact check go ahead, but even reading Rek's anti-IdrA dumps on TL, IdrAseems to have avoided BMing anyone considered legitimately top tier.



No one's saying Flash and Jaedong are the best simply because they have the highest APM. But look at the other side of the spectrum.

Do you think Elfi could achieve the level of success he can right now if SC2 had more APM reliant mechanics like BW? We're talking about someone whose APM is not just out of the top tier, but is legitimately considered low. It's only around 100. The fact is that the less he has to manage mechanically, the better it is for him given his APM. By removing those elements it allows him to focus on simple execution and timing rather than multitasking. His weakness is covered up by automated mechanics.

Do you think Flash and Jaedong would have been as dominant with 100 APM instead of 300-400?

Would Flash and Jaedong be as dominant with 100 APM no, but no one in the SC2 scene is dominant with 100 APM either. Elfi had couple good tourney showings he didn't win the GSL three times. Nestea and MVP have had no issues distinguishing themselves from the rest of the field so far in SC2 . I don't get where all this is coming from the SC2 scene has been incredibly stable with the top players constantly pulling away from the field. Of the 11 GSL's so far there have been only five different winners (obviously looking only at the open tourneys and code S) Fruitdealer, Nestea, MC, MVP, and MMA. That's not a lot of variance when you consider how new the game is.

EDIT: Look I'm not saying SC2 isn't easier to play than BW, of course it is. What I'm saying is the idea that the good players will not be able to distinguish themselves because the skill cap is too low is ridiculous, especially when we've already seen evidence that they can distinguish themselves.

[geno]

Do you think Elfi could achieve the level of success he can right now if SC2 had more APM reliant mechanics like BW? We're talking about someone whose APM is not just out of the top tier, but is legitimately considered low. It's only around 100. The fact is that the less he has to manage mechanically, the better it is for him given his APM. By removing those elements it allows him to focus on simple execution and timing rather than multitasking. His weakness is covered up by automated mechanics.

Do you think Flash and Jaedong would have been as dominant with 100 APM instead of 300-400?

To be fair, Elfi is a pretty peculiar example because most of his recent success has come from the one legitimately broken matchup in the game, PvP. This is pretty much the only matchup where it is still more or less standard to 1-base every game. And when you are only one basing, having strong macro or multitasking just aren't as important as executing your timing and microing your ass off. Win or lose, the game ends there, and no player really has an opportunity to show off true multitasking and mechanical skill. So it seems quite silly to compare a 1-matchup sniper in the first year of SC2 to the greatest all around players in BWs 13th. And even if you do, how well do you think Efli could stand up to an MVP or Nestea, let's say the lite-SC2 versions of flash and jaedong? Although he may win a game or two here or there (which could be said for 1-base timing players in BW too), he is not going to be the dominant player.

And although PvP may fall into that category of lower necessary mechanical skill at the moment, I don't think this is necessarily true for the rest of the game either. This is evidenced by the plethora of extremely long games that pop up all the time in the other matchups. I feel like you can pretty much always benefit from having higher APM the later the game goes on, so long as you are using it effectively. BW had a lot of poor functionality that people had to get around while still playing the game, but that doesn't mean they were ever at a shortage of things they could be doing. We occasionally saw BW pros try to micro two groups of mutalisks and though they were rarely able to do so well (much less do so while macroing well), it was still pretty amazing to see. There is no reason SC2 pros shouldn't be pushing their limits the same way.

The game is only a year old and is still waiting on the first expansion, I legitimately believe that as the game progresses we are going to see a vastly different gameplay experience in the future. Unit control, army positioning, flanking, and I'd say above all else, harassment will all benefit strongly from a new cut of faster players that have the APM to spare. And I think you'll be able to see very easily how big of a difference it will make to have such superior mechanical control and multitasking in longer games. Even with a bit less time necessary for four core parts of the game (worker mining, unit production, army control and caster control), there is still always something more you can be doing and chances are, there will always be someone who can do it better. Anyone who doesn't believe this, go watch liquid`hero (#1 GM korean) play, he often shows what having a very high APM can do for you in this game.

edit: I'm also not saying SC2 isn't an easier game to play (it certainly is more intuitive), I just think the idea of a skill-ceiling is ridiculous. BW didn't have a skill ceiling, the only true ceilings were those of human potential and those were broken every year with more practice and more time. There is no reason this shouldn't be true for SC2 as well, there is just way too much fine control in the game for anyone to think there could be a perfectly played game. Relative to what we've seen, we'll occasionally see exceptionally well played games, but no one is even close to what is truly possible imo.

[Gredival]

No one been on all day cause of Skyrim sadface.

[Salodin]

I was just on for a few, but gf is over so i can't stay on any more =(

[Lhyet]

Yesterday during about 3 hours of play I matched up against at least 50% Protoss. As PvP is currently my worst matchup this meant I lost quite alot of games.
I had a look around for other strats to try and came across what looks like a very fun 2gate stargate with Phoenix harrass/pressure. It´s very micro intensive so that's good practice for me.
So I play a few hours today... and not a single PvP. I love Battle Net ¬¬

In better news: I made Gold league on my EU account! From a Bronze who'd never played SC before to Gold in 3.5 months is something I'm quite proud of~
Now to do it on NA account. I'm matching against only Golds so it's very soon.

[Salodin]

2gate - stargate? Wouldn't you just get curb stomped by an all in 4-gate with stalkers?