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thedeadhaji
39473 Posts
Old thread has been vaulted.
We've noticed things started to become a bit rowdy in the past thread. The SC2 forum mods may be making the rules a bit more well defined in the near future, so keep an eye out for that. For now the stated guidelines in the op will remain identical to the previous thread.
In the words of our beloved longtime moderator, ToKoreaWithLove
The MBS discussion thread
This is the last MBS thread you will ever see. We are remaking it as an official thread because quite honestly the previous ones became quite large and quite damaged by spam, stupidity, and useless arguing.
This will be heavily moderated. We will accept no rulebreaking, we will delete posts that don't follow the rules, and we will swing the mean 'ol ban hammer. We will tell you to back off if your clearly don't know what you are talking about. Too harsh? Go somewhere else.
When all is said and done we want this to be a meaningfull thread about something we are all concerned or enthusistic about. We want YOUR opinion, your arguments, your enthusiasm, your fears and your concerns about how this will change the gameplay we all love.
Rules:
1. Educate yourself. If you don't know something, find out. Search, read our articles or find out otherwise. Many of our members are knowledgeable, and if they make a point you don't understand, admit your lack of said knowledge and fix it.
2. Stay ON TOPIC. (!!! !! !! 111 !!!). This thread is meant for MBS discussions, nothing else. Nobody gives a rat's ass about misspelling or your gamei score 200 years ago. If you have something good to say, say it. One-liners or funny remarks does not belong in this thread. A good idea is to state your stance on the matter in your post.
3. Be civil. Insult other members in any way and you are gone.
4. Be smart. Think about your own post, check if it has been said before. When replying to someone else's post - make sure you know what his/hers post is about, that you understand it, and that your disagreement, agreement or addition is properly worded and shows your opinion clearly.
5. Constructive criticism. You are allowed to tell other posters that they are wrong. Criticism should be allowed in any discussion, but it should be done nicely, and you are expected to back up your claims.
6. No polls. I've already read two posts today where forum users (not this forum) admits to making multiple votes on our last poll on this matter. Polls can not be trusted, and should be avoided
7. For the purpose of discussion in this thread, the term "Macro" takes the meaning given to it by StarCraft players. It means "Economy and Production Management", not whatever you think it should mean.
Old MBS threads Why MBS Is Essential To a Competitive SC2 Let's imagine SC1 with MBS MBS suggestions and UI ideas Competitive play issues Multiple building selection [D] MBS Discussion
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Ok, I'll start this ball rolling again.
MBS will not help the game as a spectator sport.
Starcraft as we all know, is a massive e-sport in Korea. Part of the reason for this, is that a very large number of koreans play starcraft, and nothing is more fun than watching 2 of the best players in the world in a given field that you are interested in duke it out.
The reason why you want to watch the best play however is due to the fact that you are seeing something that you yourself cannot replicate. When you go to a basketball match, you want to see slam dunks three point shots, brilliant layups etc. You want to watch, because its mind blowing to see people doing things that is just soo far above your skill level.
My first stumble apon the starcraft proleague came when I was playing warcraft 3 competatively. I clicked a link to WCG, and found the website. I started watching warcraft 3 games, but I didnt see anything that I thought was worth watching. Then I noticed starcraft (a game I had played money maps on for a couple of years) and figured id give that a watch (Foru and Anytime 2004 cybergames, what an awsome first game to see). It blew my mind. How were these players able to acomplish what I was watching? They seemed to be in control of everything and I still feel this same feeling today when watching proleagues.
This was the major thing that warcraft 3 does not have and why I find it to be a very boring game to watch. Because what I see the warcraft 3 players do, I can replicate. The only thing that they have over me, is their game knowledge, the knowledge of what to do and when to do it. Everything that I was seeing on screen however, I could do myself.
When you go to watch any competition, you want to see the people who are better at you, and noticiably so. You dont want to see people who have only subtle differences between yourself, you wanna see the person who if you had a game against, would destroy you like a bug.
MBS, Smartcast, Automine. These are all things which lower the skill level in starcraft. When you go to watch the best play starcraft, suddenly what they are doing is no longer all that impressive. The average player will be able to replicate 90% of the game. The only thing which sets players apart is their game knowledge. And this is not very interesting to watch.
Now of course people are going to argue, who cares about watching. But sponsers require people to see their marketing. Without spectators, there would be no sponsers, without sponsers there wouldn't be progamers and teams that could support themselves on just their ability to play a computer game. Watching starcraft is also a fun byproduct of a game like starcraft and would also help starcraft 2 if it could do the same.
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
I think that MBS might actually increase the entertainment of games. Just for the fact that you will see massive battles faster. These battles keep normal people like me and as Fen said the ones that can't replicate there movements interested. The only downside would be the complete destruction of macro but what could be the beginning of some very good micro games.
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Not again.
Battles might 'seem' faster, but there will be too many focal points for the commentators and spectators alike which will make the game HARD TO FOLLOW and it's possible you will miss many key actions. You would need an automatic multi-screen/split-screen feature with strong AI to know when to go into it (this would be a forced perspective obviously), that would be the only way if you were to watch it in replay mode so the spectator doesn't miss any of the action.
Micro games? Please, it will take a lot more control to win the big battles but with MBS it will allow players to replenish their fallen heroes quicker and you'd get one never-ending big battle.
This is a question of 'game flow' and it isn't eye pleasing.
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@Fen
I'm going to give a rebuttal to your argument, but it's going to be from the perspective of Western progaming. SC is already well entrenched in Korea, but SC2 is an opportunity to expand the scope of the franchise as a mainstream e-sport into the rest of the world, so I feel it should be the focus of any discussion regarding the e-sports market for SC2. Furthermore, as your argument solely concerned the e-sports market for SC2, so shall my rebuttal, so for the time being I'm not addressing concerns of the effects of the interface changes on the competitiveness of the gameplay.
As you stated, spectators are critical to the success of any e-sport, and usually the largest subgroup within those spectators are people who play the game competitively. Therefore, the question when considering how we can expand SC2 as an e-sport should be "How can we increase the number of people who play the game competitively?"
Let's look at the most obvious group of potential competitive players: the SC veterans. The competitive spirit that drove these players to struggle through one of the most difficult environments in competitive gaming will virtually ensure their participation in the SC2 competitive community regardless of interface changes, unless the game is so horribly uncompetitive that they are forced back to BW.
Secondly, there are the Warcraft 3 players, and players of other RTS games. The interface changes currently in SC2 are intended to make the transition into SC2 very smooth for these players, allowing them to compete with the SC veterans without being immediately crushed by the latter's superiority in static mechanical skill, i.e. macro mechanics. Note that they still may be crushed by superiority in strategy, mental skills such as timing and prediction, and dynamic mechanical skills, i.e. micro; however, players of other RTS games tend to value these skills more than static mechanical skill, and as such will be much less likely to be disencouraged from competitive play by being beaten through the use of the former as opposed to the use of the latter. A good AMM system will reduce the frequency of such beatdowns, but they are inevitable at the gap between the best non-veterans and the veterans. Rolling back the interface changes may alienate quite a few of these players from competitive play, but many will still stick it out despite the inevitable perception that the preservation of the old interface was done to appeal to the SC veterans.
The final and most often ignored group are the cross-genre players, or players who normally play games of other genres but will be drawn to SC2 because of the franchise's, and Blizzard's, reputation. Just like SC was the first, or one of the first, RTS games that SC veterans played, so too will SC2 be one of the first RTS games for many people from this group. RTS games are one of the least played genres of games, simply because the very nature of the gameplay gives RTS games a more difficult learning curve than their counterparts in other genres. For example, multitasking is a skill largely unique to the RTS genre, with the exception of competitive deathmatch FPS games. Therefore, it is especially important that the learning curve be as smooth as possible for these newcomers to the genre, so as to maximize the potential for these players to advance into the competitive community. For all their theoretical faults, MBS and the other interface changes definitely make the learning curve of an already difficult-to-pick-up genre considerably easier.
But why is there a need to expand the competitive community, you might ask. Well, it's almost painfully obvious that the Western SC community as it now stands is insufficient to support an e-sport. If graphics is all that is holding SC back from becoming a popular e-sport outside of Korea, then once Project Revolution (SC in the WC3 engine as accurately as possible) is released we should immediately see SC rise to e-sports status in the West.
(to be finished in 8 hours, stupid work)
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
To be honest, I don't see MBS ruining SC2 in any way. While it might simplify the game for lower-echelon players somewhat, after analyzing my own games I might say that unit production, while it is important, does not take even a significant amount of my time when playing.
Let's take the resource (human actions) and see how it is being spent.
1) Microing armies. Quite much the most attention-demanding aspect. In some games (and in some MU's) you are allowed to sit with your army and do nothing, however, in most games, especially late-game, your army is always on the move even when not engaged in any sort of fight. You move your army around the map to deny the opponent a complete understanding of your strength, you also always want to get a good position. On large maps with complex terrain this involves constant movement by a faster army to create a weakness in the slower army's position and to get a good flank, while the slower army moves around to anticipate and block those flanks. This is what takes the most action resource definetely.
2) Base management. Note that it is NOT production. Base management involves constructing your buildings, getting cannons, getting psi generators. All this stuff requires very much mouse movement that needs to be executed with precision AND on the same time it involves moving your hand across the keyboard (while 1a2a3a stuff doesn't require it) AND also screen movement. While base management also contributes to "macro APM", I'm trying to make a point that it requires much more time than production itself. So, MBS won't affect macro in it's whole drastically - it will only simplify one aspect of it, and that aspect is not the most time-demanding.
3) Production. F2 click Z click D etc doesn't take that much time. With good production facility layouts it's actually the easiest aspect of macro since it's so easy to do without thought. MBS will reduce the time load on this even further, but, methaphorically speaking, the difference between 1 and 2 is not that significant in comparison to 100. Yet MBS will make rallying much easier, but I think it's actually a good thing because rallying 10+ gates is ridiculously hard in SC. And MBS essentially removes control over what unit mix you build (you don't want all your factories to make tanks), so a player who controls manually will have an edge.
4) Non-action time-demanding stuff. It actually takes a lot of time. You spend your time looking at the minimap, thinking (yes, the less you think, the higher your speed is, this is why people learn build orders, mind automation is crucial), evaluating army strength etc. This is the fourth eater, and again, I think it takes more time than production.
However, there's also a nice point that at the highest level, everything counts. If two players play a perfect and very intense game, the one who forgets to rally his probes to mine and lets three of them stand by the nexus is likely to be at a disadvantage. The more things are automated, the less subtle things will decide the game. Probably a bad thing, so, while MBS's effect is not nearly as drastic as most people try to make it look like, it is still there and Blizzard should better try to make some tasks that compensate for this. Yes, mundane tasks are somewhat boring. But at the highest competition levels, the player must work to get his win, not only outthink or outmicro his opponent. Winning in SC is a hard work that involves doing a lot of things that are very mundane, boring and make little sense, but that's why it's so good.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On December 16 2007 01:41 1esu wrote: @Fen
I'm going to give a rebuttal to your argument, but it's going to be from the perspective of Western progaming. SC is already well entrenched in Korea, but SC2 is an opportunity to expand the scope of the franchise as a mainstream e-sport into the rest of the world, so I feel it should be the focus of any discussion regarding the e-sports market for SC2. Furthermore, as your argument solely concerned the e-sports market for SC2, so shall my rebuttal, so for the time being I'm not addressing concerns of the effects of the interface changes on the competitiveness of the gameplay.
As you stated, spectators are critical to the success of any e-sport, and usually the largest subgroup within those spectators are people who play the game competitively. Therefore, the question when considering how we can expand SC2 as an e-sport should be "How can we increase the number of people who play the game competitively?"
Let's look at the most obvious group of potential competitive players: the SC veterans. The competitive spirit that drove these players to struggle through one of the most difficult environments in competitive gaming will virtually ensure their participation in the SC2 competitive community regardless of interface changes, unless the game is so horribly uncompetitive that they are forced back to BW.
Secondly, there are the Warcraft 3 players, and players of other RTS games. The interface changes currently in SC2 are intended to make the transition into SC2 very smooth for these players, allowing them to compete with the SC veterans without being immediately crushed by the latter's superiority in static mechanical skill, i.e. macro mechanics. Note that they still may be crushed by superiority in strategy, mental skills such as timing and prediction, and dynamic mechanical skills, i.e. micro; however, players of other RTS games tend to value these skills more than static mechanical skill, and as such will be much less likely to be disencouraged from competitive play by being beaten through the use of the former as opposed to the use of the latter. A good AMM system will reduce the frequency of such beatdowns, but they are inevitable at the gap between the best non-veterans and the veterans. Rolling back the interface changes may alienate quite a few of these players from competitive play, but many will still stick it out despite the inevitable perception that the preservation of the old interface was done to appeal to the SC veterans.
The final and most often ignored group are the cross-genre players, or players who normally play games of other genres but will be drawn to SC2 because of the franchise's, and Blizzard's, reputation. Just like SC was the first, or one of the first, RTS games that SC veterans played, so too will SC2 be one of the first RTS games for many people from this group. RTS games are one of the least played genres of games, simply because the very nature of the gameplay gives RTS games a more difficult learning curve than their counterparts in other genres. For example, multitasking is a skill largely unique to the RTS genre, with the exception of competitive deathmatch FPS games. Therefore, it is especially important that the learning curve be as smooth as possible for these newcomers to the genre, so as to maximize the potential for these players to advance into the competitive community. For all their theoretical faults, MBS and the other interface changes definitely make the learning curve of an already difficult-to-pick-up genre considerably easier.
But why is there a need to expand the competitive community, you might ask. Well, it's almost painfully obvious that the Western SC community as it now stands is insufficient to support an e-sport. If graphics is all that is holding SC back from becoming a popular e-sport outside of Korea, then once Project Revolution (SC in the WC3 engine as accurately as possible) is released we should immediately see SC rise to e-sports status in the West.
(to be finished in 8 hours, stupid work)
1stly the SC and war3 community far surpass the size of all other rts communities combined, don't forget most other rts communities are game switching players; they just pick up the newest rts game that's out and play it. If the concern is that war3 players wont be able to pick up the game without being frustrated by a SBS system, then blizzard should implement training modes for macro to help them adapt. Macro, the very concept MBS will damage, is essential to starcraft being incredible at the competitive level. We must also have a high skill ceiling to keep the game from becoming redundant, MBS does not steer the game in that direction.
The western SC community is easily large enough to fund an esports scene. Unfortunately the esports scene in the western front is run by old white men who know nothing about esports at all (trust me, i've met them). Koreans are light years ahead in the esports industry so they're using games that have hardcore sport like qualities. Western esports industries simply pick up the newest games that come out and use them despite their almost invisible communities--no wonder esports isn't bigger here yet.
Any player who wishes to play this game competitively but would give up for something as minor as SBS would quit for many other challenging reasons. The vast majority of people who absolutely need MBS wont be playing competitively at all. For those people MBS should be available as a feature for non competitive play.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On December 16 2007 03:01 BluzMan wrote: To be honest, I don't see MBS ruining SC2 in any way. While it might simplify the game for lower-echelon players somewhat, after analyzing my own games I might say that unit production, while it is important, does not take even a significant amount of my time when playing.
Let's take the resource (human actions) and see how it is being spent.
1) Microing armies. Quite much the most attention-demanding aspect. In some games (and in some MU's) you are allowed to sit with your army and do nothing, however, in most games, especially late-game, your army is always on the move even when not engaged in any sort of fight. You move your army around the map to deny the opponent a complete understanding of your strength, you also always want to get a good position. On large maps with complex terrain this involves constant movement by a faster army to create a weakness in the slower army's position and to get a good flank, while the slower army moves around to anticipate and block those flanks. This is what takes the most action resource definetely.
2) Base management. Note that it is NOT production. Base management involves constructing your buildings, getting cannons, getting psi generators. All this stuff requires very much mouse movement that needs to be executed with precision AND on the same time it involves moving your hand across the keyboard (while 1a2a3a stuff doesn't require it) AND also screen movement. While base management also contributes to "macro APM", I'm trying to make a point that it requires much more time than production itself. So, MBS won't affect macro in it's whole drastically - it will only simplify one aspect of it, and that aspect is not the most time-demanding.
3) Production. F2 click Z click D etc doesn't take that much time. With good production facility layouts it's actually the easiest aspect of macro since it's so easy to do without thought. MBS will reduce the time load on this even further, but, methaphorically speaking, the difference between 1 and 2 is not that significant in comparison to 100. Yet MBS will make rallying much easier, but I think it's actually a good thing because rallying 10+ gates is ridiculously hard in SC. And MBS essentially removes control over what unit mix you build (you don't want all your factories to make tanks), so a player who controls manually will have an edge.
4) Non-action time-demanding stuff. It actually takes a lot of time. You spend your time looking at the minimap, thinking (yes, the less you think, the higher your speed is, this is why people learn build orders, mind automation is crucial), evaluating army strength etc. This is the fourth eater, and again, I think it takes more time than production.
However, there's also a nice point that at the highest level, everything counts. If two players play a perfect and very intense game, the one who forgets to rally his probes to mine and lets three of them stand by the nexus is likely to be at a disadvantage. The more things are automated, the less subtle things will decide the game. Probably a bad thing, so, while MBS's effect is not nearly as drastic as most people try to make it look like, it is still there and Blizzard should better try to make some tasks that compensate for this. Yes, mundane tasks are somewhat boring. But at the highest competition levels, the player must work to get his win, not only outthink or outmicro his opponent. Winning in SC is a hard work that involves doing a lot of things that are very mundane, boring and make little sense, but that's why it's so good.
1) players don't necessarily micro their armies around the map endlessly. Granted there are instances where games involve a lot of unit movement, this is not warcraft 3 where players are directly rewarded for doing so. In many matchups, such as PvT or TvZ both players are not engaging each other for long periods of time (there are some exceptions).
2) it's simply not true to say that 'base management' takes up more time than unit production. do you really believe that making pylons and finishing your tech tree takes up more actions than making all your units? further more 'base management' takes up almost no thinking time at all since most players have those actions, like the order of their tech tree, pre-scripted in their minds. MBS dosn't affect macro in it's whole, it just makes it MUCH easier. Then you add auto mining and half or our macro game is gone.
3) Yes a good player will still have an edge, just less of an edge.
4) I don't see how any of that keeps the game competitive like the original SC was.
I think the general concern is not the low level games, it's the high level games. The ones everyone will be watching and studying. We need it to be complex and challenging, speed must be rewarded.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
Well, that is all from a protoss viewpoint.
A launch of a production cycle takes about 2-3 seconds, a production cycle is about 25-30 seconds for toss, so it's not large amount. I'm not talking about heavy megamacro games with 30+ gates, they just don't happen often enough. In a typical game that lasts for around 15 minutes, you'll be having 12 gates max, they all can fit one screen, it is quite easy.
At the same time, adding those gates in time requires you to pre-launch probes to the building site, follow their move (possibly either moving the screen or minimap-clicking the building site), build, take them back. For protoss, cannoning expos while multitasking is a HUGE bitch, probably the most time-consuming task along with mass-rallying and probe cloning on transfers. And I strongly disagree that base management can be mind-automated, as soon as you start adapting, you start thinking about it. Again, not an issue for macro-fest passive games where you can formulate your BO for like 10 minutes, but those don't hold too much spectator value anyway.
Well, dunno, maybe it's only me, but I seldom find any difficulties multitasking with just army micro + making units, it gets hard when I'm trying to develop my base at the same time, composing like 70% of my macro mistakes. But I'm not a pro so my judgement doesn't hold too much value. This thread is for opinions though, here is mine.
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Now I know why they closed the other thread: ty for pointing that shit out. The guy doesn't know what he is talking about. We've known that for a while. It looks like he is shooting blank bullets into the air with every chance he gets. Cognitive dissonance doesn't work in this scenario. Anti-MBS players aren't one game gurus. You want to study their minds/behavior then use the studies I spoke about before. Many of us have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm sorry to say, but having unlimited MBS doesn't work. I've played one too many crappy MBS RTS games to know this. They aren't as compelling to watch or enjoyable to play. You want to create a game with everlasting fanfare you would be best to avoid it.
Okay I'm officially done.
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
Just thought of something else!
If MBS was introduced then they would balance it out by making build times longer, might happen, might not.
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On December 16 2007 08:37 Showtime! wrote: Now I know why they closed the other thread: ty for pointing that shit out. The guy doesn't know what he is talking about. We've known that for a while. It looks like he is shooting blank bullets into the air with every chance he gets. Cognitive dissonance doesn't work in this scenario. Anti-MBS players aren't one game gurus. You want to study their minds/behavior then use the studies I spoke about before. Many of us have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm sorry to say, but having unlimited MBS doesn't work. I've played one too many crappy MBS RTS games to know this. They aren't as compelling to watch or enjoyable to play. You want to create a game with everlasting fanfare you would be best to avoid it.
Okay I'm officially done.
The problem is, the games were crappy not because of MBS, but because of the teams behind these games were waaay far behind Blizzard.
Blizzard made a game with
A: Heroes B: Neutral units C: Items D: Shops E: 4 Races F: MBS G: Very basic economy H: Autorally/Automine/Autocast/AutomatedMatchmaking/AlmostAutomicro
work well enough to become a worldwide popular E-Sport. I think MBS alone is BY FAR an easier challenge.
Pointing out simply something. Not agreeing on a point certainly doesn't mean somebody doesn't know anything. I agree that not all Anti-MBS people are coming from the same point, though.
Putting the blame on a single mechanic for the weakness of ALL other games is a bad idea. Even more so when it's known anybody decent won't always use MBS, because sometime certain unit mixes are required.
On December 16 2007 11:08 Spenguin wrote: Just thought of something else!
If MBS was introduced then they would balance it out by making build times longer, might happen, might not.
That might be an idea, but I am against it, for the simple reason it would break the flow of the game.
I'd rather have minerals rolling in faster and food limit up than build times down.
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On December 16 2007 12:08 BlackSphinx wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2007 08:37 Showtime! wrote: Now I know why they closed the other thread: ty for pointing that shit out. The guy doesn't know what he is talking about. We've known that for a while. It looks like he is shooting blank bullets into the air with every chance he gets. Cognitive dissonance doesn't work in this scenario. Anti-MBS players aren't one game gurus. You want to study their minds/behavior then use the studies I spoke about before. Many of us have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm sorry to say, but having unlimited MBS doesn't work. I've played one too many crappy MBS RTS games to know this. They aren't as compelling to watch or enjoyable to play. You want to create a game with everlasting fanfare you would be best to avoid it.
Okay I'm officially done. The problem is, the games were crappy not because of MBS, but because of the teams behind these games were waaay far behind Blizzard. Blizzard made a game with A: Heroes B: Neutral units C: Items D: Shops E: 4 Races F: MBS G: Very basic economy H: Autorally/Automine/Autocast/AutomatedMatchmaking/AlmostAutomicro work well enough to become a worldwide popular E-Sport. I think MBS alone is BY FAR an easier challenge. Pointing out simply something. Not agreeing on a point certainly doesn't mean somebody doesn't know anything. I agree that not all Anti-MBS people are coming from the same point, though. Putting the blame on a single mechanic for the weakness of ALL other games is a bad idea. Even more so when it's known anybody decent won't always use MBS, because sometime certain unit mixes are required. Show nested quote +On December 16 2007 11:08 Spenguin wrote: Just thought of something else!
If MBS was introduced then they would balance it out by making build times longer, might happen, might not. That might be an idea, but I am against it, for the simple reason it would break the flow of the game. I'd rather have minerals rolling in faster and food limit up than build times down.
That game you refer too is also being held up as a exemplar for ALL that we do not want SC2 to be, and is a game which failed to fill Starcraft's shoes in Korea, despite great efforts to promote it on the part of the TV channels.
"Warcraft 3 is the best game Blizzard ever made. Starcraft is the art made by God through Blizzard for all gamers." - random poster on Chinese boards.
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@Tasteless
First off, thanks for giving such a high-quality response. I was going to address some of them in the rest of the OP, but just to make sure you see it I'll also respond directly.
Any player who wishes to play this game competitively but would give up for something as minor as SBS would quit for many other challenging reasons. The vast majority of people who absolutely need MBS wont be playing competitively at all. For those people MBS should be available as a feature for non competitive play.
SBS by itself isn't the reason a player would give up; after all, SC had SBS, and obviously a large number of people didn't give it up because of it. The problem is that if SC2 has SBS, there will be an informal caste of players who start off several man-years ahead of everyone else in regards to macro-mechanical skill due to their experience with an interface design element that has been largely ignored by the rest of the RTS industry for the past decade. Players from this caste will likely crush anyone who has less experience with these 'unique' mechanics, simply by outproducing them. Since the primary differentiation in skill in these one-sided games is unique to the SBS interface, it is easy for the non-caste player to blame their crushing defeat on the interface and not their lack of skill.
And the non-caste player blaming their lack of skill in macro mechanics on the game, not themselves, is the crucial point - the caste player may be superior to the non-caste player in other areas of skill (such as micro, timing, base management, etc.), but those skills are present in other contemporaries in the RTS genre, and therefore it is much less likely that the player would blame the game for their lack of skill in those areas. The more the player is allowed to blame the game for their losses, the less likely the competitive community will retain those players in the long term, regardless of their competitive spirit.
All I will say about MBS/SBS modes, aside from the already-addressed balancing issues, is that if the informal caste is bad for competitive player retention, formalizing such a caste makes the problem even worse, especially when trying to form an e-sport spectator base. Players will want to watch the same game they play, which is why you don't see a ton of BGH players becoming SC-progaming addicts, or 1.6 players fervently watching CS:S matches. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I think if you polled TL you'd find many more melee players than BGH players.
The western SC community is easily large enough to fund an esports scene. Unfortunately the esports scene in the western front is run by old white men who know nothing about esports at all (trust me, i've met them). Koreans are light years ahead in the esports industry so they're using games that have hardcore sport like qualities. Western esports industries simply pick up the newest games that come out and use them despite their almost invisible communities--no wonder esports isn't bigger here yet.
First off, there's a major difference between the way Korean e-sports and Western e-sports are organized: the former follows a stable, league-based format in which the organization (usually the broadcaster or a team of broadcasters) supports the event and individual sponsors support the teams/players, whereas the latter follows an unstable, tournament-based format where the sponsors support the event, and the players are left to their own means of support. Recently, the CGS has moved in the direction of Korea with their North American league, but there are still many vestiges of the Western approach, with the sponsors (including the broadcasting organization) supporting all the costs of the event and players, and the rest of the CGS acting much like a Western e-sports tournament.
Because of this difference in format, and because gaming is considerably less entrenched in Western culture than in Korea, there are two good reasons why the West has not picked up SC:
1) RTS games in general are a difficult genre to broadcast, as a spectator's comprehension of the match requires a great deal of outside knowledge about the game being shown, knowledge that is not easy to impart in a short period of time. CS has troubles with spectators being disoriented due to a lack of knowledge about the map (which has been solved to some extent with CGS's wide-angle fixed-camera style, although the first-person views are lost); people who want to watch and understand SC must know all of the units, all the buildings, the map, the general 'feel' of the MU, etc. Shoutcasting can only help so much. Korea doesn't have this problem because so many people have played SC that many of the viewers come into a match already knowing this information. Even WoW, the worst game in the history of e-sports from a spectatability perspective, sees airtime in the West because so many people play the game that the broadcaster doesn't really need to explain every little detail in order for most of the viewers to understand what is going on. The same goes for WC3, as it has a large enough proportion of players (at least in Germany) sufficiently familiar with melee to justify the lack of basic explanations. SC, on the other hand, AFAIK (and I could be wrong, but this is the impression I get) has a much lower number of melee players than WC3 does.
Therefore, the first reason why SC doesn't get much airtime in the West is that the gameplay is difficult to explain via broadcast, and the proportion of the SC community familiar enough with modern-style melee is not sufficient to justify lacking such an explanation.
2) The way e-sports is organized in the West results in many organizations competing for sponsors to fund their events, which gives the sponsors considerable creative control. Unfortunately, the nature of many of these sponsors limit an organization's options when considering games to run in their event. Here's a list of the sponsor types from most limiting to least limiting:
- Game Publishers (e.g. Sierra, EA) - Console Manufacturers (e.g. Microsoft) - PC Hardware Manufacturers (e.g. Dell, nVidia, Creative) - PC Peripheral Manufacturers (e.g. Razer) - Marketing-Directed Companies (e.g. Samsung, KTF, Mountain Dew, Lecaf, Boost Mobile, Shinhan Bank, SK Telecom) - Broadcasting Companies (OnGameNet, MBCGame, GomTV, Daum, DirecTV, CJ)
First, the bad sponsors. Obviously, a game publisher is the worst since you're limited to games published by your sponsor; this is why CPL ran Fear (published by Sierra) and World in Conflict this year, the former of which probably has the smallest competitive community of any game that has e-sports status, and the latter of which was still in beta at the time of the announcement. A bit better is a console manufacturer, which limits you to games that are available for the console; this hasn't been so bad for the West, since the Xbox 360 is currently the only next-gen system with a serious e-sports quality console game lineup, but has led to games like DoA4 being selected by way of being the only decent online fighter available for the console (not that it didn't end up being a good move in retrospect, as the high spectatability of DoA4 has really helped carry CGS). PC hardware manufacturers allow you more options, as there is a wider variety of games on PCs than any specific console; but in their case you are restricted to games that show off the quality of their products they are paying to show off in your event, which is why Quake 3 got phased out, SC is given barely any airtime, and the CS community is being forced into a transition from 1.6 to Source, despite the larger popularity of the former.
Now, the good sponsors. While PC peripheral manufacturers limit you to PC games, showing off the quality of their product(s) doesn't require fancy graphics. Companies interested in targeting the market segment attracted to e-sports are the core of the most successful e-sports ventures do date, whether its Shinhan Bank sponsoring the OSLs and now Proleague to its massive benefit as hordes of young adults new to the world of finance rush to their doors, or Mountain Dew and Pringles trying to get that 'cool factor', or any of the myriad of mobile phone companies sponsoring Starcraft teams (and WCG, for that matter) in order to attract customers, because their only requirement is that the games selected be as popular as possible. Broadcasting companies even more so, since their source of profit is the viewers; because of this, they alone have the incentive to have a role in directly managing the event since they get the most direct profit from a well-organized e-sport franchise.
If you look at these sponsor types and look at the companies currently sponsoring current Western e-sports events, you'll see the second reason SC isn't popular in the Western scene - there's simply little incentive for most of the major sponsors (which happen to be in the first group, with the possible exception of CGS, which is balanced between the two) to support it.
Phew. That was longer than I intended to write. Now to sleep for 6 hours until my 9 1/2 hour shift tomorrow...never work retail during the holidays, even if it's to save money for Guildhall.
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Until I have a playable game in front of me I stand behind the following
1) The implementation of MBS will only lead to a more interesting game overall, sacrificing one level of mechanics with the return of creating a more diverse array of potential strategies. 2) The implementation of MBS will have absolutely no effect on skill gaps in professional gaming. The advantages of MBS will, however, have a profound effect on low-mid skill level gameplay, which I think is what a lot of members of TL are really afraid of.
To summarize my previous statements in the first thread:
MBS only affects one component of macro, the actual physical component. MBS will not suddenly grant poor players godlike macro - if they slam 10 zealots into 10 gates then what the hell were those 8 gates doing not producing anything and what the hell did you have 1000 minerals racked up in the first place? A player with an acceptable level of Starcraft macro is still going to have a huge advantage as they will be spending their income right as soon as it comes in. Furthermore, in the implementation of MBS in Warcraft 3 (and every other game I can think of) the way it operates is that it issues a queue order in every building in the sequence you have them grouped. So, if your first 3 gates in a group of 5 are producing zealots, you have 200 minerals, another 2 zealots get queued in gate 1 and 2 instead of filling the empty gate. Due to the wildly fluctuating nature of mineral flow and this means that hotkeying small groups of gateways will be viable, but going 1z is going to be an extremely inefficent manner of production unless you have a very low APM, which means you are probably going to get outmicroed anyway.
Also, to get the full benefit of MBS you'd need all your structures operating in sync, which will cost you a few seconds of training time. At the pro level, I do not think those extra few seconds are going to be justify using MBS until late game scenarios. Due to the nature of MBS, It is possible that MBS will lead to even greater refinement of build orders. In the former scenario, it's one thing if you have a bunch of idle gates when you MBS the production, HOWEVER, to have them in sync would be another thing if you had a rigorous build order that allowed you to produce 10 gate zeals with constant MBS production, with proper probe production to time the building of your 11th gate and econ to support it to stay in sync. This is hardly a bad thing in my view. 10 gate zealots is probably a little extreme, but it still stands that build orders tend to lose signficance past the early game.
With the physical component of macro removed, this frees up more time for micro and the possibility to multitask battles on an unprecedented number of fronts. The physical aspect of macro is very flat and has a theoretically attainable ceiling where all your resources are constantly used up. The physical aspect of micro has limitless depth, and, at least for me, the wow factor of SC does not come from overwhelming the opponent with a macro victory, but watching players pull off extraordinary micro-based victories. There are a finite number of actions required for perfect macro; there are an infinite number of actions required for perfect micro.
I don't want to dwell too much on this, but Warcraft 3 is not a good example of what happens when you make a micro based RTS. Units in War3 have very high durability and the nature of the experience system means that the death of a single unit gives your opponent a huge advantage. Starcraft micro is a completely different, and superior beast - death is inevitable in the first few seconds of any decently sized battle. It is very rare to win a game without losing a single combat unit somewhere along the line. The effect of MBS on War3 is absolutely neglibile because MBS or no MBS the game has NO macro whatsoever to speak of - you start with enough workers to fully saturate your primary resource, and a combination of upkeep and the high durability of units means that not only is securing even one expansion extremely difficult, once your supply count gets too high you're no longer truly benefiting from the expansion at all. This is why war3 players do not expand until their main is about to completely run out of gold, and the consequences of not mining for a while are laughably insignficant compared to the game-losing effect it has in SC, in war3 all it means that you can't replace your units if they die (which may take a long time). Playing Warcraft 3 is like playing PvP on slow speed with gas and mineral costs reversed and a 50 supply cap. Also, the first unit you produce is tassadar with ten times the base regeneration of a normal toss unit. Looks like I ended up dwelling on this quite a bit.
I must admit the multitasking issue of MBS is somewhat concerning to me and if I am wrong about there being some superior aspect of gameplay that can replace multitasking freed up by simpler macro then I have no issue with MBS being a toggle, or only producing one unit for every hotkey pressed. I could care less if this splits the community, the community is already split over bgh/fastest/korea/ums maps and the respective groups will probably end up carrying their map style over to SC2 after they get bored of the stock gameplay.
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Ok there is something that is being overlooked here. Smartcasting aside, progamers are already at the limits of micro in starcraft. In a big battle, they dont go back to their base unless they have a window of time where it is possible. Due to the nature of starcraft, units die fast. Battles only go on for a matter of seconds. During those seconds, progamers are using 100% of their APM on micro. MBS is not going to increase their micro, they are already microing at the max that they will be able to. So if your main point is "MBS will increase the amount/level of micro" then you are totally wrong. MBS will have almost no effect on the quality or amount of micro that will be seen in battles.
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On December 16 2007 12:38 Aphelion wrote: That game you refer too is also being held up as a exemplar for ALL that we do not want SC2 to be, and is a game which failed to fill Starcraft's shoes in Korea, despite great efforts to promote it on the part of the TV channels.
"Warcraft 3 is the best game Blizzard ever made. Starcraft is the art made by God through Blizzard for all gamers." - random poster on Chinese boards.
I said Blizzard managed to make it work, not that it was a better game, or a game that was to be copied for SC2. Please do not put words in my mouth (indirectly)
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On December 16 2007 15:44 Fen wrote: Ok there is something that is being overlooked here. Smartcasting aside, progamers are already at the limits of micro in starcraft. In a big battle, they dont go back to their base unless they have a window of time where it is possible. Due to the nature of starcraft, units die fast. Battles only go on for a matter of seconds. During those seconds, progamers are using 100% of their APM on micro. MBS is not going to increase their micro, they are already microing at the max that they will be able to. So if your main point is "MBS will increase the amount/level of micro" then you are totally wrong. MBS will have almost no effect on the quality or amount of micro that will be seen in battles. It's not 200/200 TvP battles in the middle of the map smash your whole army together micro battles I'm thinking about, I'm thinking more about the increased viablity of attacking in 2+ places at once. If you didn't have to juggle building units and microing your army, is it unreasonable to believe the end result would be that you could do a better job of juggling multiple battles instead? I have seen a few Bisu fpvods where he does go back to his base in the middle of a battle, is he the rule or the exception here, or am i just completely failing to catch that he has a safe window of opportunity to do so?
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I go back to base in the middle of every battle if I can. I decide whether it's safe enough or not through calculating the possible extra-damage done to my units because I won't control them anymore for seconds, then I know if I can go back to base and do some stuff - which is not building depots but producing units, of course. I also decide how much time I invest into macro, sometimes 1 seconds sometimes 3 to 5, all depending on my calculation. Sometimes I also keep watching the battle on the minimap to make sure if things go right. In TvZ this is a lot harder than in TvP since TvZ uses weaker units which increases the chance of losing units unneccessarily. Lets say I invest only 1 second into macro, then I go back checking the situation and managing some units, now I can decide to go back to base once more. I repeat from the beginning.
This behaviour is normal to progamers and they do it at least two times better than me. No argument here, I just wanted to describe how that scenario looks like in competition.
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