Disclaimer: I'm going to word this as carefully as possible, as I don't want this thread to come across as incendiary or caustic. For the record: I like Starcraft, Starcraft 2, and Blizzard in general. Oh, and I'm an avid watcher of Pro games (<3 casters Husky / Totalbiscuit)
TL;DR: Starcraft 2 hasn't been an actual "game" since the Beta. It's my personal belief that strategy games should be about immediate feedback and intuition, rather than an excel spreadsheet with moving pictures. The ultimate RTS would be perfectly randomized in its units and terrain, but perfectly balanced due to the magic of mathematics.
-
Flashback to the SCII Beta: you downloaded the game (or not, if you were unlucky enough to not get an invite), fired it up, and clicked go. The match starts. Were you thinking about build orders yet? Of course not, because it would be ridiculous to think about build orders in a beta!
What you did is this: you read the tooltips, you thought about the possible uses for units like the Reaper or the Baneling or the Viking or the Void Ray. You then said, "hey, I can sneak around my opponents backside with the Reaper and snipe a few workers!" Remember when you first warped in units at a proxy pylon? Wasn't that fun? Tada! Strategy via intuition.
I'm reminded of this after talking to my best friend; my best friend talks a lot of smackabout everything. Including Starcraft 2, a game he has never picked up. I want to destroy him (and I will). He says he just has a "sense" for RTS games. I reply that "you don't win in Starcraft with intuition, it's a science."
Does anyone else see the problem? Starcraft stops being a game as soon as you start thinking of the most efficient way to play it. It becomes a rote memorization of what to do and when to do it. Obviously the professionals will want to (and must) play the game the most efficient way, but why the hell does everyone else want to (it's how our brains are made: we need to melt everything into a science, which is not bad)? Some people make livings off of this game, and they are brilliant. Others just play a game.
Playing the SC2BW mod againand Brood War itselfmade me realize how many options a new player has: Reavers! Arbiters! Goliaths and Lurkers and Valkyries oh my! (Let me be clear about one thing: this isn't nostalgia talking, as I barely have experience in either game; not to mention the original came out when I was, like, 3) Watch two new players play the original and tell me they don't have more fun discovering strategies instead of memorizing them. I get demolished in Brood War! I get demolished in SC2! Who cares! My Zealot bomb took out your vulture gang!
To sum up (and I think I've covered my ass enough to say this): Starcraft is not a game if you want to win online.
-
At the highest levels of play, SC is a lifestyle. You are no longer the starry-eyed gamer performing a Reaver drop for the first time and thinking how awesome it is to blow up 5 SCVs at once. You are a spartan warrior bean-counting your minerals. And that's fine! But I've always enjoyed watching the pro player's tactics and maneuvers moreso than their builds. Case in point: Idra vs Kiwikaki, game 5 of the IPL tournament. For the final 10 minutes or so, Idra just out manuevers his opponent with drops in his main, backstabs, feints, and has Kiwikaki running around in circles. That's the mark of a good strategy gamer (or it should be). That's what gamers should be emulating: the actual raw battlefield sense.
The math shouldn't even be involved in games. Period. Because it's not actual war. The name of the game is in the namesake (which is "game" if you've been keeping score at home). Intuition should be at the forefront and common sense.
Simply put: the gamer should see and react to what's given to him.
--
(The rest of this post is about my view of a perfect RTS, and if you don't care, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't read it.)
As of today I am 27-27, my best record in any online strategy game (second best would be 25-25 in WCIII) ever. I suck at this game, to be frank (and to beat any elitist jerks to the punch).
So what would be the perfect RTSrather, what would my perfect RTS be? Well, it couldn't be boiled down to a science, most importantly. Which means that everything would have to be randomized. Randomized units, randomized terrain, abilities, maybe even mechanics.
It would have to follow a simple rock-papers-scissors formula (uh, maybe mech>infantry>naval>air) but with enough deviation on both sides to make it interesting, like the difference between 2 zerglings and a marine.
Obviously the math would have to balance out for the game to balance out.
And just like the Beta, the two (or more) players would read the tooltips, look at their units, and decide intuitively what to do. There would be imbalances (on both sides, I'd imagine); or maybe, if the math was perfect, there wouldn'tbut I think those two players would have a blast, wouldn't you? No one would make money out of it, but it'd be one hell of a [i]game[/i].
-
The reason I posted this here is to ask the mod community: would my vision of an RTS be achievable within the SC2 editor? It'd be a tough endeavor to say the least. Maybe it's just a pipe dream? I don't know. But that's why I'm here! :)
it is possible but if you hate maths you will hate the balistics you can put into missile movers. As for triggers that can become more like computer programming.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
I think it would be killer - if not impossible - to make randomized terrain. There are simply some things you cannot change on the fly (In-game) so you'd just have to settle with lots and lots and lots of maps. (Or terrain different that that of a standard game)
TL;DR: Starcraft 2 hasn't been an actual "game" since the Beta. It's my personal belief that strategy games should be about immediate feedback and intuition, rather than an excel spreadsheet with moving pictures. The ultimate RTS would be perfectly randomized in its units and terrain, but perfectly balanced due to the magic of mathematics.
You should probably give Civilization 4 or 5 a try :P It has randomized terrain and bases all battles off probability.
I'm not sure what the poster wants to say, tbh. Aside from the fact that posts like these lose their worth because every few months one person will come out and go "Is this whole thing we're doing actually good?" or "Is SC2 actually balanced?" or "Is mapping worth it with a popularity system like this?", this OP makes very few points for his argument? All he's saying is that Starcraft is based on pure number crunching and that it's not a proper game because it's not intuitive. I see no arguments supporting this statement? And without arguments, it's easy to counter it by simply stating that it's not true as progames do very little actually mathematics and a lot more refining alongside original play we see out of folks like TLO.
I think i feel kinda the same. I dont play SCII anymore. Just Funmaps. The only reason why i bought the game!
I dont have the feeling to play a game when playing Starcraft. Its not the same to play FIFA or any Shooter or any Game wich have nice funny gameplay.
SCII is just winning! Always the same pocedures. I am bored of the first 5 minutes ingame always and always again and Strategies to destroy enemys effizient and unfair, kill the ecoline, gj gg, ...
SCII is not a game! I tell this since moths to my mates they ask why i wont play sc. I better play any Singleplayergames than SCII cause i wann play a game. Focus on "PLAY"!!! and not win. To loose a round Fifa, Battlefield, Dota, TOCA is ok. I played and lost, was more or less fun. But i have no Fun in SCII except winning!
i dont play rank games any more i ONLY play custom , ( anything that i like )
and SC1 was WORST btw : protoss = Carrier , or you lost , Terren = BC or you lost ... same BS
but ill give you an idea of intuition in SC2:
you start making voids , ill maass stalkers , you make carriers ill mass voids , you make reapers , ill make 1 cannon near my probes . Every thing in sc2 , and i mean EVERYTHING has a counter . and the fact that you KNOW what most people make . its alot easyer to counter them.
hows that for Intuition.. ive seen a pro RUSH a MOTHERSHIP!! i mean come on who does that?? but guess what! HE WON!! why cause the otehr guy dint expect to see a mother ship in 10min.
get your imagination rolling and you can have alot of fun!!! evan mroe in sc2 then sc1.
So to finish it up: Is Starcraft 2 Too Much of a Science? , HELL NO!!! do you lack imagination? HELLL YES!!
So wait, your 'argument' for the point that Starcraft 2 is too scientific is the fact that a competitive game ultimately always revolves around who wins?
"Firing a gun is a binary choice. You either pull the trigger, or you don't."
So wait, your 'argument' for the point that Starcraft 2 is too
scientific is the fact that a competitive game ultimately always
revolves around who wins?
"Firing a gun is a binary choice. You either pull the trigger, or you
don't."
@Selfcreation: Go
Your argument is so... let's just say, 'flawed', that I'm not even going
to bother.
you need to have yoru sad face turned upside down , does anything from you ever come out positive?
You just made a post about how terrible SC2 melee is, how imbalanced it is and how it's all about countering and no fun, and then you ask if *I* ever say anything positive? I'm attempting a proper discussion and am defending a goddamn game that I play for my fun. Duh. There's plenty of positive that comes out from me, I'm just not a fan of bandwagons and mindless yelling.
You just made a post about how terrible SC2 melee is, how imbalanced it
is and how it's all about countering and no fun, and then you ask if *I*
ever say anything positive? I'm attempting a proper discussion and am
defending a goddamn game that I play for my fun. Duh. There's plenty of
positive that comes out from me, I'm just not a fan of bandwagons and
mindless yelling.
well first of all i dint insolt sc2 , i think the fact that every thing has a counter makes it GOOD!! and FUN! meaning you can do alot more then what some people think ( witch makes it FUN!! ) like rushing a Mother ship ,
and im not doing mindless yelling im mearly giving my opignion on this General chat forum! the only bad thing is the fact that you need to be quick on doign what your doing , but every single game is like that evan real life! , first one to pull the trigger normaly wins ,unless you have body armor.. LOL!
I agree. The game is supposed to be fun, but instead it is something you have to over-analyze in order to win.
Instead of playing it more casually, people now have to compete with everyone else on a ladder for the majority of normal games. They become more competitive when there is something at stake (in this case, online rank) and thats when all of these strategies, build orders and counters (etc) need to be memorized so you can win. On top of that, you have to be fast enough to react to any situation and be on the ball the whole game.
I did play normal games on the beta for a brief period of time and haven't played any since then. I actually hate playing normal games because of all the stress from them. There is a lot you have to worry about during the game and all of the things that you need to do know beforehand just to give you a chance at winning.
Don't get me wrong. I don't play to win, I play to have fun. However, if you make a mistake, then you'll probably lose the game. All that effort to get that far is wasted.
I have played some custom games with friends which turned out to be melee maps (despite being labeled as custom). I still managed to lose in them every time and absolutely hated them.
The worst part was when my army and main base is killed and then the next 20 minutes is spent trying to rebuild, expanding all over the map only for each base to be destroyed within minutes of it's construction.
Like mentioned earlier, I still don't understand this complaint. You're COMPETING against other players. No shit that you lose if another player wins. That's the whole idea of competing? If you really just want to eff around, then simply do so? You'll go on a losing streak for 10-20 games, end up in the Bronze league, and will start winning games with your mass Raven or Spinecrawler-push techniques. There's nobody forcing you to do the 'science' for melee games (which for a large part is refining tbh, and for another part is being creative and a tactician), you just shouldn't expect to beat people who *do* do this 'science'.
I agree with Mozared. I have many reasons I like SC2 not the least of which is being able to play online; that being said, I have not played that much online since I have been absorbed with getting all the achievements in single-player.
I find that like chess - or real war, Starcraft is both a game of improvisation and tactical calculation. There will be common gambits that come and go to win, but overall the balance of the game - something I think Blizzard works pretty hard at - seems to me to be very fair. SC2 never seemed to me a game in which you can win all the time; if you want that, try something else, since this is probably not the game for you.
Fortunately if you grow tired of the game, you can pick it back up later and find that you may appreciate and enjoy it for other reasons than you used to.
I'm not sure what op is trying to say. It sounds like he's talking about all games in general. Isn't that the point of competitive gaming to learn how to do it the most efficient. I don't think any game is really meant to not have strategies that are learned. Look at real war, they learn strategies and apply them depending on the battlefield. Although now a days it's not as obvious compared to the 19th century but it still happens. Even civilization you probably use a simple generic opener strategy which is planned out and thought. You wouldn't be any good if you didn't think what should I do in this situation.
The randomness of starcraft is from countering strategies. If you gain no intel you are doomed to lose.
It sounded like he was saying the game isn't random enough or people need to stop learning strategies.
To be very good (not pro) in sc2 you dont need a superior intelligence. You need to memorize a decent BO and some follow ups, counters to other BOs and unit counters.
That's why i play many custom games. In a (good) new custom game there is a totally new situation. I have to ask myself what is good (or even overpowered) in that custom map. I have to THINK about that game and not just recall 95% of what i am doing of the last 200 games.
@jeeeehon: Maybe you should try the map "The Final Frontier", there is much randomization from game to game. (Although i would prefer to see the exact results of a research before i start it.)
(Originally posted on the team liquid forums)
Disclaimer: I'm going to word this as carefully as possible, as I don't want this thread to come across as incendiary or caustic. For the record: I like Starcraft, Starcraft 2, and Blizzard in general. Oh, and I'm an avid watcher of Pro games (<3 casters Husky / Totalbiscuit)
TL;DR: Starcraft 2 hasn't been an actual "game" since the Beta. It's my personal belief that strategy games should be about immediate feedback and intuition, rather than an excel spreadsheet with moving pictures. The ultimate RTS would be perfectly randomized in its units and terrain, but perfectly balanced due to the magic of mathematics.
-Flashback to the SCII Beta: you downloaded the game (or not, if you were unlucky enough to not get an invite), fired it up, and clicked go. The match starts. Were you thinking about build orders yet? Of course not, because it would be ridiculous to think about build orders in a beta!
What you did is this: you read the tooltips, you thought about the possible uses for units like the Reaper or the Baneling or the Viking or the Void Ray. You then said, "hey, I can sneak around my opponents backside with the Reaper and snipe a few workers!" Remember when you first warped in units at a proxy pylon? Wasn't that fun? Tada! Strategy via intuition.
I'm reminded of this after talking to my best friend; my best friend talks a lot of smack
about everything. Including Starcraft 2, a game he has never picked up. I want to destroy him (and I will). He says he just has a "sense" for RTS games. I reply that "you don't win in Starcraft with intuition, it's a science."Does anyone else see the problem? Starcraft stops being a game as soon as you start thinking of the most efficient way to play it. It becomes a rote memorization of what to do and when to do it. Obviously the professionals will want to (and must) play the game the most efficient way, but why the hell does everyone else want to (it's how our brains are made: we need to melt everything into a science, which is not bad)? Some people make livings off of this game, and they are brilliant. Others just play a game.
Playing the SC2BW mod again
and Brood War itselfmade me realize how many options a new player has: Reavers! Arbiters! Goliaths and Lurkers and Valkyries oh my! (Let me be clear about one thing: this isn't nostalgia talking, as I barely have experience in either game; not to mention the original came out when I was, like, 3) Watch two new players play the original and tell me they don't have more fun discovering strategies instead of memorizing them. I get demolished in Brood War! I get demolished in SC2! Who cares! My Zealot bomb took out your vulture gang!To sum up (and I think I've covered my ass enough to say this): Starcraft is not a game if you want to win online.
-At the highest levels of play, SC is a lifestyle. You are no longer the starry-eyed gamer performing a Reaver drop for the first time and thinking how awesome it is to blow up 5 SCVs at once. You are a spartan warrior bean-counting your minerals. And that's fine! But I've always enjoyed watching the pro player's tactics and maneuvers moreso than their builds. Case in point: Idra vs Kiwikaki, game 5 of the IPL tournament. For the final 10 minutes or so, Idra just out manuevers his opponent with drops in his main, backstabs, feints, and has Kiwikaki running around in circles. That's the mark of a good strategy gamer (or it should be). That's what gamers should be emulating: the actual raw battlefield sense.
The math shouldn't even be involved in games. Period. Because it's not actual war. The name of the game is in the namesake (which is "game" if you've been keeping score at home). Intuition should be at the forefront and common sense.
Simply put: the gamer should see and react to what's given to him.
--(The rest of this post is about my view of a perfect RTS, and if you don't care, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't read it.)
As of today I am 27-27, my best record in any online strategy game (second best would be 25-25 in WCIII) ever. I suck at this game, to be frank (and to beat any elitist jerks to the punch).
So what would be the perfect RTS
rather, what would my perfect RTS be? Well, it couldn't be boiled down to a science, most importantly. Which means that everything would have to be randomized. Randomized units, randomized terrain, abilities, maybe even mechanics.It would have to follow a simple rock-papers-scissors formula (uh, maybe mech>infantry>naval>air) but with enough deviation on both sides to make it interesting, like the difference between 2 zerglings and a marine.
Obviously the math would have to balance out for the game to balance out.
And just like the Beta, the two (or more) players would read the tooltips, look at their units, and decide intuitively what to do. There would be imbalances (on both sides, I'd imagine); or maybe, if the math was perfect, there wouldn't
but I think those two players would have a blast, wouldn't you? No one would make money out of it, but it'd be one hell of a [i]game[/i].-The reason I posted this here is to ask the mod community: would my vision of an RTS be achievable within the SC2 editor? It'd be a tough endeavor to say the least. Maybe it's just a pipe dream? I don't know. But that's why I'm here! :)
it is possible but if you hate maths you will hate the balistics you can put into missile movers. As for triggers that can become more like computer programming.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
I think it would be killer - if not impossible - to make randomized terrain. There are simply some things you cannot change on the fly (In-game) so you'd just have to settle with lots and lots and lots of maps. (Or terrain different that that of a standard game)
You should probably give Civilization 4 or 5 a try :P It has randomized terrain and bases all battles off probability.
I'm not sure what the poster wants to say, tbh. Aside from the fact that posts like these lose their worth because every few months one person will come out and go "Is this whole thing we're doing actually good?" or "Is SC2 actually balanced?" or "Is mapping worth it with a popularity system like this?", this OP makes very few points for his argument? All he's saying is that Starcraft is based on pure number crunching and that it's not a proper game because it's not intuitive. I see no arguments supporting this statement? And without arguments, it's easy to counter it by simply stating that it's not true as progames do very little actually mathematics and a lot more refining alongside original play we see out of folks like TLO.
I think i feel kinda the same. I dont play SCII anymore. Just Funmaps. The only reason why i bought the game! I dont have the feeling to play a game when playing Starcraft. Its not the same to play FIFA or any Shooter or any Game wich have nice funny gameplay. SCII is just winning! Always the same pocedures. I am bored of the first 5 minutes ingame always and always again and Strategies to destroy enemys effizient and unfair, kill the ecoline, gj gg, ...
SCII is not a game! I tell this since moths to my mates they ask why i wont play sc. I better play any Singleplayergames than SCII cause i wann play a game. Focus on "PLAY"!!! and not win. To loose a round Fifa, Battlefield, Dota, TOCA is ok. I played and lost, was more or less fun. But i have no Fun in SCII except winning!
i dont play rank games any more i ONLY play custom , ( anything that i like )
and SC1 was WORST btw : protoss = Carrier , or you lost , Terren = BC or you lost ... same BS
but ill give you an idea of intuition in SC2:
you start making voids , ill maass stalkers , you make carriers ill mass voids , you make reapers , ill make 1 cannon near my probes . Every thing in sc2 , and i mean EVERYTHING has a counter . and the fact that you KNOW what most people make . its alot easyer to counter them.
hows that for Intuition.. ive seen a pro RUSH a MOTHERSHIP!! i mean come on who does that?? but guess what! HE WON!! why cause the otehr guy dint expect to see a mother ship in 10min.
get your imagination rolling and you can have alot of fun!!! evan mroe in sc2 then sc1.
So to finish it up: Is Starcraft 2 Too Much of a Science? , HELL NO!!! do you lack imagination? HELLL YES!!
@playlessNamer: Go
So wait, your 'argument' for the point that Starcraft 2 is too scientific is the fact that a competitive game ultimately always revolves around who wins?
"Firing a gun is a binary choice. You either pull the trigger, or you don't."
@Selfcreation: Go
Your argument is so... let's just say, 'flawed', that I'm not even going to bother.
you need to have yoru sad face turned upside down , does anything from you ever come out positive?
@Selfcreation: Go
You just made a post about how terrible SC2 melee is, how imbalanced it is and how it's all about countering and no fun, and then you ask if *I* ever say anything positive? I'm attempting a proper discussion and am defending a goddamn game that I play for my fun. Duh. There's plenty of positive that comes out from me, I'm just not a fan of bandwagons and mindless yelling.
well first of all i dint insolt sc2 , i think the fact that every thing has a counter makes it GOOD!! and FUN! meaning you can do alot more then what some people think ( witch makes it FUN!! ) like rushing a Mother ship ,
and im not doing mindless yelling im mearly giving my opignion on this General chat forum! the only bad thing is the fact that you need to be quick on doign what your doing , but every single game is like that evan real life! , first one to pull the trigger normaly wins ,unless you have body armor.. LOL!
Ah, I see, you're right - I completely mistook your post.
@jeeeeohn: Go
I agree. The game is supposed to be fun, but instead it is something you have to over-analyze in order to win.
Instead of playing it more casually, people now have to compete with everyone else on a ladder for the majority of normal games. They become more competitive when there is something at stake (in this case, online rank) and thats when all of these strategies, build orders and counters (etc) need to be memorized so you can win. On top of that, you have to be fast enough to react to any situation and be on the ball the whole game.
I did play normal games on the beta for a brief period of time and haven't played any since then. I actually hate playing normal games because of all the stress from them. There is a lot you have to worry about during the game and all of the things that you need to do know beforehand just to give you a chance at winning.
Don't get me wrong. I don't play to win, I play to have fun. However, if you make a mistake, then you'll probably lose the game. All that effort to get that far is wasted.
I think I will stick to custom games.
you guys are aware you can play CUSTOM melee maps right? and most people their are NOT pros and it is casual?? witch allows for more fun.
@Selfcreation: Go
I have played some custom games with friends which turned out to be melee maps (despite being labeled as custom). I still managed to lose in them every time and absolutely hated them.
The worst part was when my army and main base is killed and then the next 20 minutes is spent trying to rebuild, expanding all over the map only for each base to be destroyed within minutes of it's construction.
seriously?? i never losse in custom melee , lol. or its very rare , when the random Pro joins it .
@VoidPotato: Go
Like mentioned earlier, I still don't understand this complaint. You're COMPETING against other players. No shit that you lose if another player wins. That's the whole idea of competing? If you really just want to eff around, then simply do so? You'll go on a losing streak for 10-20 games, end up in the Bronze league, and will start winning games with your mass Raven or Spinecrawler-push techniques. There's nobody forcing you to do the 'science' for melee games (which for a large part is refining tbh, and for another part is being creative and a tactician), you just shouldn't expect to beat people who *do* do this 'science'.
I agree with Mozared. I have many reasons I like SC2 not the least of which is being able to play online; that being said, I have not played that much online since I have been absorbed with getting all the achievements in single-player.
I find that like chess - or real war, Starcraft is both a game of improvisation and tactical calculation. There will be common gambits that come and go to win, but overall the balance of the game - something I think Blizzard works pretty hard at - seems to me to be very fair. SC2 never seemed to me a game in which you can win all the time; if you want that, try something else, since this is probably not the game for you.
Fortunately if you grow tired of the game, you can pick it back up later and find that you may appreciate and enjoy it for other reasons than you used to.
I'm not sure what op is trying to say. It sounds like he's talking about all games in general. Isn't that the point of competitive gaming to learn how to do it the most efficient. I don't think any game is really meant to not have strategies that are learned. Look at real war, they learn strategies and apply them depending on the battlefield. Although now a days it's not as obvious compared to the 19th century but it still happens. Even civilization you probably use a simple generic opener strategy which is planned out and thought. You wouldn't be any good if you didn't think what should I do in this situation.
The randomness of starcraft is from countering strategies. If you gain no intel you are doomed to lose.
It sounded like he was saying the game isn't random enough or people need to stop learning strategies.
To be very good (not pro) in sc2 you dont need a superior intelligence. You need to memorize a decent BO and some follow ups, counters to other BOs and unit counters.
That's why i play many custom games. In a (good) new custom game there is a totally new situation. I have to ask myself what is good (or even overpowered) in that custom map. I have to THINK about that game and not just recall 95% of what i am doing of the last 200 games.
@jeeeehon: Maybe you should try the map "The Final Frontier", there is much randomization from game to game. (Although i would prefer to see the exact results of a research before i start it.)