"Fix" Game Speeds in HoTS & LoTV

[Kimera757]

3) You won't have to set the game speed of the campaign or some custom map that you try to "fastest" before you start playing. Halfway thru the campaign it turns out I was only playing at "fast".

I disagree. If someone wants to play a campaign at a different speed, let them.

Speed only "matters" when playing on the ladder, and I believe that (outside of the Practice League, at least) everyone plays at the same speed.

Names could be changed, though. There's no point of having almost everyone playing at faster than "normal" speed. It's no longer normal.

[Gradius]

I disagree. If someone wants to play a campaign at a different speed, let them.

Speed only "matters" when playing on the ladder, and I believe that (outside of the Practice League, at least) everyone plays at the same speed.

Names could be changed, though. There's no point of having almost everyone playing at faster than "normal" speed. It's no longer normal.

Again, I don't care if the option is in the campaign. I'll update the OP & title to not cause any more confusion.

My only problem in the campaign is that the option is hidden away in the gameplay tab where it only appears when you're in a mission. What if I wanted to play at the fastest speed for achievement purposes? Raising the speed up a notch can shave 3 hrs off total play time. Same thing if I wanted to play slower.

What exactly is good about the current system? Even an "override game speed to x when possible" option would be solid.

[Alex06]

I hate playing on anything below fastest.

EDIT: Do achievements verify game speed for time, or is it real time? Because then someone could get an achievement much more easily if they're on fastest...

[Todie]

i genuinely like having the option of playing a melee game on a speed slower than fastest. it effectively simulates playing the game faster and being more able to multitask. there are so many tactical intricacies that get lost to lower level players because executing them is too taxing on multitasking or micromanagement and causing too big holes in macro.

... you might say, we can see that amazing happen at the hands of the pro's, but really, why remove the option of playing a slow-mo game? its not hurting anyone.

of course, i agree that standard ladder game speed should be labelled Normal, not fastest, and its seconds should actually match with reality.. to avoid too much vconfsion, MP might make do with just one slower speed setting.

[Peanutbutter]

Alright, when I said "Who honestly plays on different speeds?" do you think it was meant to be rhetorical or something? I thought it was clear I didn't know anybody who used this feature, yet you were mainly more interested in calling me a douche than in helping find a better solution or bringing new info to the table.

I see. I must have misunderstood it.

Yes I've already looked at that and mentioned it repeatedly throughout this thread:

"The "slow" versions of maps completely fell off the popular game rating after people stopped accidentally clicking on them when they were added"

Christ it seems like you don't read anything I write.

I do read what you write. I just don't believe, that the slow versions of various maps fell of the popular games tab, just cause people stopped accidentally clicking on them.

I've never accidentally clicked a map that I didn't want to play on. And for a map to show up within the first few pages of the popular games tab, thousands of people must play on them ( Please correct me if I'm wrong ). I doubt that that many people accidentally clicked on a map they didn't want to play....

Anyway, I feel like further discussion of this topic is pointless, since it's more about personal preferences. I've already expressed my opinions, and you have expressed yours.

Peace.

[Zero]

*Grows tired of watching and jumps in.*

On the issue of the multiplayer game speed, I think we still should have options. Could we have less? Sure, why not? I'm wondering if we could adjust them according to the AI difficulty settings: Casual, Normal, Fast (Hard) and Insane. Just an idea.

If not, then that's ok. If things were to stay similar to how they are now, I agree that it would be an improvement to make the present "Faster" game speed the "Normal" speed. You can't make Fastest the new Normal unless you were to provide an even greater speed than that. But Faster/Fastest do happen to be far more popular overall in terms of game speed on multiplayer, so it should be reasonable that one of those ought to be the normal/default setting. I wouldn't take away a slower speed for players that prefer to play or learn that way.

[TheEconomist]

All this feature does for me is make me have to change it every time I want to load a map and have some fun. Damn this feature straight to Hell. If it's going to be there, it should be so transparent that I don't even know about it.

I doubt that that many people accidentally clicked on a map they didn't want to play....

Haha! If only that were the only problem.

I've probably contributed 500 hits to slower versions of maps simply because it defaulted to that. When I 'Create Game' it defaults to 'Fast'. Being in a hurry to get in-game and just relax, I forget to change it. I'm sure thousands and thousands of people do this as well, hence, why you'll find the less popular maps have 'Fast' as their most popular version.

[Lupino]

Again, APM, spell durations, the in-game clock and build times are all out of whack because of this stupid system. What about a 20 minute game that is only 14 minutes? It's just dumb. If people don't think that this is important enough to change I can't really convince anybody. The game speeds don't have to be removed, I only suggested it because it seemed like the simplest solution for Blizzard to implement and one that de-cluttered the game by removing a feature I thought nobody used. How is having five different speeds good game design? Especially when the normal setting happens to be the one nobody uses.

Then it's not really a 20 minute game, is it? All those things you mention are only "out of whack" if you are switching frequently between time settings or unable to translate the units involved into real measurements of time. If you only play on one setting, then you don't have to worry that much about in-game speed's relation to reality for obvious reasons.

Alright, when I said "Who honestly plays on different speeds?" do you think it was meant to be rhetorical or something? I thought it was clear I didn't know anybody who used this feature, yet you were mainly more interested in calling me a douche than in helping find a better solution or bringing new info to the table.

Yet clearly people are responding saying that they do play on different speeds, or at least know people who do, so making generalizations like nobody plays on normal setting is false.

Yes it would be low on the priority if you ignore all my other arguments. Can we stop it with this Bill O' Reilly crap of splicing my sentences and ignoring everything else

Sir, I will kindly ask you to not insult me by comparing me to that "person" Anyways, I haven't been ignoring any of your arguments, indeed if anything you've been snipping more of my argument in your response than I have yours, but that's irrelevant now.

I always love non-starcraft strawman examples. Speeds are not really analogous to difficulty levels.

Yes, they are. If the game is moving faster you have less time to react, if you have less time to react then completing tasks is more difficult than if you had more time. Besides which, the point you seemed to have missed is that, like pointed out in the example, this is a minor problem at best, hardly worthy of getting on the forums to complain about much less petitioning the game-makers to change it.

[Asfastasican]

Blizzard will never do it, and if they somehow magically do it for the sake of fan service, it's because the company isn't really Blizzard anymore. It's a company that was Blizzard and then had turned into a slow-to-adapt MMO cash cow. I still think Blizzard is still Blizzard, it's just bloated and now has forgiving deadlines.

The very most BASIC game design principles of Blizzard Entertainment contain a few gems that basically say "Don't restrict the player" and "Give the player freedom." Go ask Rob Pardo and some of the old timers if they regret adding a number of worthless features, maps and modes in their legacy games. If any of them bother to reply or even remember the topics you bring to discussion, they will gladly say "Nope!"

Starcraft 2 can feel like a relic in its own right, simply because it's does try its best not to fix what wasn't broken with the first game. Game speeds aren't broken. They won't fix it. Why? Well pros don't care if they are there and some single player minded casual players do use it. That's about that.

[Gradius]

Then it's not really a 20 minute game, is it? All those things you mention are only "out of whack" if you are switching frequently between time settings or unable to translate the units involved into real measurements of time. If you only play on one setting, then you don't have to worry that much about in-game speed's relation to reality for obvious reasons.

Nobody is switching speeds. I'm referring to the fact that faster is faster than real-time (normal). Yes obviously it can be converted, but nobody does that since it's too much effort to multiply anything by 1.395. Maybe when casters say "he pushed out at 5 minutes" it could actually mean that. Maybe the in-game timer on the bottom left, or the replay timer on the bottom right, could be useful for training or discussion outside of the replay? Or maybe build times or spell durations on tooltips could be labeled with non-arbitrary times? But god forbid we should do anything to improve the game.

Yet clearly people are responding saying that they do play on different speeds, or at least know people who do, so making generalizations like nobody plays on normal setting is false.

And I was supposed to know that before I started the thread how? It's a generalization if I make a statement, not if I ask "who honestly plays on different speeds?" Just stop plz.

Yes, they are. If the game is moving faster you have less time to react, if you have less time to react then completing tasks is more difficult than if you had more time.

Obviously, but that's where the similarities start & end. The point you seem to have missed is that the difficulty setting in your strawman example would correspond to the mission difficulty in SC2, not the game speed. That's the setting people pick for difficulty, and I'm not suggesting that brutal be made the default option for the campaign. So again, I'd really appreciate if we could cut down on the non-starcraft strawman scenarios.

Besides which, the point you seemed to have missed is that, like pointed out in the example, this is a minor problem at best, hardly worthy of getting on the forums to complain about much less petitioning the game-makers to change it.

I have to wonder if you've ever watched a replay or a starcraft cast. Again, if you feel this is all a minor issue and you like having nonsensical statistics, that's your prerogative. But you have yet to provide any evidence that casual players who like melee don't care about APM or the arbitrary times for everything, or that these game speeds don't cause problems for people like tychus described. You've got a long way to go before establishing that any of the problems I or others have listed are "minor".

Your method of argumentation in this thread basically boils down to denying that any problems people have are worth addressing, a champion argument.

Game speeds aren't broken. They won't fix it. Why? Well pros don't care if they are there

The pros do actually care about the messed up timer, though they can deal with it. But I agree Blizzard probably won't touch this feature anyway.