Karune posts regarding PC, Batch 53, and YouTube (09/25/09)

[n00bonicPlague]

First, just a few things to add.

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There are two main things about the OC and its mechanics that make it functionally sound:
— at least two competing macro mechanics
— a high degree of rarity
The former makes it a much more natural balance, as macro will be competing primarily with other macro. The latter discourages abuse and causes player to think a bit more carefully about what they use the energy for. Both the Obelisk and the Queen lack this. Fix this, and many of our problems will be solved (not all of them of course).

Last I heard, each hatchery can only hold a max of 7 larvae, and once a hatchery has at least 3 it will stop automatically spawning larvae. This makes a huge difference in when to cast Spawn Larvae, as it would nearly always be best to wait until the hatchery reaches 3. (Obviously, there would be some cases where you would need to take all that you can get instantaneously.) However, if this has changed, then please elaborate on how it works now. I thought I heard something about hatcheries auto-spawning 7 after the first Spawn Larvae was used on it.

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Now for the main part.

My issue isn't really micro vs macro as much as it is thought vs attention. Part of what frustrates me about SC is that the game is already "figured out" and that all you have to do is hyper-rehearse a few strategies and boom you're ready to go pro. Outside the occasional unrehearsed click, there is very little deep mental work required during the live game. Now don't get me wrong — I understand the high importance of attention and whatnot (I get very impatient and bored when trying to play a TBS game). It's just that I observe the proportion between thought (proactive mental strain) and attention (reactive mental strain) to be......for lack of better words......imbalanced.

There is a lack of fluctuating creativity during the actual playing of the game. General gameplay lacks a large enough "mystery" factor. Personally, I don't like knowing exactly what the player is going to — no, has to do next. Being able to see that the game is won or lost 5 minutes before it's actually over completely blows.

This is where giving the player macro mechanics that are very thought heavy comes in. Instead of more of the attention-oriented, "OMG I NEED FIVE DARK TEMPLAR RIGHT NOW OR I WILL LOSE!!!" why not more of the thought-oriented, "Hmm......I could build 5 DTs, but...meh, that's too predictable......oh, how about this..."? That's why I suggested the "gas -> minerals" and "minerals -> gas" mechanics. Players could essentially "trade in" the excess of one in order to make up for the lack of another. Being able to do this would widen the possible strategies in the game and would encourage players to actively change-up their gameplay.



Edit: In case you didn't notice, my vocabulary is lacking, as I lack the initiative to find another word that lacks not in the lackless replication of the meaning of lack.


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[Norfindel]

@Norfindel:

Your reply is very well thought out but holds one point to reconsider.

Can you look at that point from the perspective of the entire scope of skill instead of the pro gamers? Imagine it as it could be approached by each league as an ability/skill to master. I'd like to hear your reply with that to think about.

Thanks. The problem was that "their ex-progamer felt it was too easy to macro" (textual Blizzard words). Casual players had no problem, because their macro and micro suck already, so they won't hit any skill ceiling.

Worse, as casual player's micro blows, the macro mechanics will encourage them camping, massing an army of their favorite units (probably Marines & Marauders, Zerglings & Hydralisks, Zealots + Stalkers), and attack-moving against the enemy, which is far easier for them than micro, scout, etc.

Being able to get resources faster from one base also discourages expanding a little.

.

[Gifted]

Thanks for clarifying. So your largest concern about this is the lack of positive effect on the skill ceiling then? (Per your perception?)

[ArcherofAiur]

Nicol, after that long post with much effort put into it you should only expect one thing.

Archer to lead up with a question of some sort which leads to another thing

Or

Archer replying to one part of your post (and it could be rhetorical).

And then we all ride the pony express to the start of the argument once again. Because we all know Archer loves to learn about macro!

Actually, I am waiting patiently for Gifteds responce to Nicol because I felt he raised many good points.

[Gifted]

Yeah, that was discouraging when I lost it. I'll admit that many of his comments are actually him showing that he misunderstands my points more than anything. I'll be sure to elaborate/explain when I get a chance, but I got dirty diapers to change and kid's to play with this morning ^_^

[Norfindel]

Thanks for clarifying. So your largest concern about this is the lack of positive effect on the skill ceiling then? (Per your perception?)

I have several concerns, in order of importance:
1- Balance.
2- The mechanics are dumbed-down spells. No spell had ever been so dumb as to allowing it to be casted only on a fixed target inside your base.
3- They will make no difference for a progamer. A newb can find it difficult to do, or even not worth the effort, but for a progamer, it's too easy. I think all progamers will use the macro mechanics, not only the macroers, and that it will have so little impact on their micro as to be meaningless.

[Santrega]

I have several concerns, in order of importance:
1- Balance.
2- The mechanics are dumbed-down spells. No spell had ever been so dumb as to allowing it to be casted only on a fixed target inside your base.
3- They will make no difference for a progamer. A newb can find it difficult to do, or even not worth the effort, but for a progamer, it's too easy. I think all progamers will use the macro mechanics, not only the macroers, and that it will have so little impact on their micro as to be meaningless.

1 - I dont see a problem here.
2 - It's a spell with a purpose, that purpose is to increase resource harvesting... How can they make a spell which is for the purpose of increasing resource harvesting and have it be used somewhere other than near resources?
3 - It will make a difference.

Say these mechanics weren't at all in the game. Pro's will never, ever have to worry about their resources outside of during attacks. They wont have to do anything except build workers through hotkeys, and expand, then maybe 2-3 times a game they need to go back to their base to take workers to send to those expansions. Macro in this case is officially just building units through hotkeys, and picking buildings.

Okay, so if its just building units and buildings, then there must be some difficulty in building units and buildings right? Well there isnt..

Building Units
MBS makes it extremely easy to build units, using tab + hotkeys, you can put all of your buildings in hotkey 1, and just tab through them all in cycles. You think its going to be easy for progammers with the macro mechanics? Think about a timer to cycle through your production of units without macro mechanics, it will be much easier. At least with the macro mechanics you'd have to worry about two different timers, because if you use just one there is a higher likelihood to forgetting to do the other one. With two timers, theres more of a likelihood that you'll still do something wrong, even being a pro gamer. Pro's still make mistakes, the only difference is in there games 1 mistake can cost the game, while lesser players can get away with many more mistakes.

Building Buildings
So if building units is not difficult, then building buildings must be difficult... I mean, do we really want all of the skill to be from managing your units alone? Sure, its fun to manage your units... But, do we really want micro to be the only skill area in the game?

To make a long story short, its not difficult to build buildings. You now have queue's for your buildings. So, you really dont even have to worry about that as much anymore. In starcraft after a building is built, you have to go back to your base and do something with that worker. You either send it to gather, or you put it back to work building another building. This happens at the very least 20-50 times a game in sc.

Consider that gone with building queues. So, we took out the difficulty of gathering resources, the difficulty of making workers, and the difficulty of building units and buildings. Whats left?

Micro

Okay, so Micro is where the skill must be in the game, as clearly MACRO is no more without macro mechanics to create some sort of skill and at least some sort of diversion from micro.

Harassment

Harassment is a key strategy in starcraft. The point is to slow the opponents economy enough to gain an advantage. This worked very well in starcraft, as it was difficult to make workers and get them back to work while managing the fight as well. So, if they got a bunch of your workers, you had to multi-task your brains out to get back into the game. You had to fight off attacks, and you had to bring your economy back to life at the same time.

Without the macro mechanics, its as simple as pressing 1 sssssssss

With the macro mechanics, the killing of workers, or even time delay of workers not harvesting causes an exponential effect for each race.

Terran - Kill their mules and some scv's and they lose their boost, and they lose some time, giving you the ability to gain ground in the economy. They have to spend time worrying about when they can get enough energy to call down a mule, and do the easy 1sssss. However, in this situation at least your opponent can gain a resource harvesting advantage at that very second, allowing them to create enough production to attack and do damage. This damage causes you as a player to rebuild, adding to your multi-tasking. It's a bit harder to pick off the Orbital command, giving terran a bit of an advantage over the other races.

A break in taking advantage of the mules + time lost harvesting at a location + SCV rebuild cost + Opponents use of macro mechanic = Significant advantage.

Zerg - Kill drones, make zerg use their extra production to remake the drones, rather than making an attack force. Additional drones will cost extra resources, and thus hurting zerg both financially, and in unit production. You can also kill the queens, hurting them even more by making them rebuild the queen...

Same formula as above, time lost harvesting + drone rebuild cost + larva used for remaking drones + opponents use of macro mechanic = Significant advantage.

Protoss - Kill charged probes, and make the protoss spend some time rebuilding its work force and they lose X amount of time in resource harvesting. Kill the obelisk... Say using a certain D8 charge, for one example?
This brings you back to your base to rebuild the obelisk you lost.

Time lost taking advantage of PC + Time lost harvesting + Probe cost + opponents use of macro mechanics = significant advantage

Without macro mechanics the formula becomes:
Time lost + Cost of workers + Opponents regular harvesting = much smaller advantage

Abilities

So, if without macro mechanics, harassment means much less in the game than in starcraft, because of the difficulty of getting back on your feet, then it must be made up here in abilities.

Smartcasting... This makes it easier to use abilities...

Instead of having to nervously jump from unit to unit and cast abilities, or just have a group already selected and cast those abilities wildly at the same time, now you can send off several casts with a few taps of keys and a few clicks, Effortlessly, and much more effectively.

While it does take skill to use abilities in the right way, with not having to worry about getting the actual act of casting figured out, it will be much easier to learn to put the abilities in the best and most effective spot.

Unit Movement

Seriously.. this is the last thing in the game after breaking it down... Unit movement must take some serious skill, otherwise we have just several easy area's to learn and master.

So, what happened here?

Well, improved pathing and AI makes some movement pretty unnecessary... Units will move in to the absolute best position to maximize attacks, so the only thing you are left with doing is moving units back and forth, and casting abilities. You don't need to put them in a position to be better, you just have to send them to a spot and they will do it on their own.


Conclusion
This is not an argument against the improvements in the game, only the seclusion of new mechanics meant to add some level of difficulty to your own playing of the game. If the game alone was just simply sending mass armies constantly at your enemy, it would get boring pretty fast, and become more of a coin toss of who will win the game. The coin toss comes from who best mixed units up, created the most effective units, and sent those units to the right location at the right time. I believe those decisions are pretty insignificant and if that is all that is involved in the game, it will not come anywhere close to having people playing it in 5 years, let alone 10.

The game needs to be difficult to play, to some degree, but you shouldnt have to fight the interface. Repetition is part of the game. Do people argue in FPS that they have to keep running down the same hallway to kill their opponent on a map? Do people argue that they have to keep moving pieces the same way every time they play chess? Do people complain that they are forced to give the ball to the best player on the team in sports games, in order to win?

Repetition and knowing what you are good at, and what you are not good at is part of every game. The only way to get better at the game, is by repeatedly doing things the right way. If you don't like repetition, you wont be a competitive player, and thus the macro mechanics really have no effect on you whatsoever.

If you think there is a difference between repeatedly making workers when they are killed, or repeatedly rebuilding buildings, or using the same build order every game and having to cast an ability constantly throughout the game, then at no point will any argument at any point sway you in a different direction. However, to call the macro mechanics meaningless and having little impact, well then, I implore to to show me what area of skill in the game is not so obvious that anyone will be able to play it and master it in Sc2.

If anyone can master it, it wont be a sport, and it will only live long enough for a new game just as easy with better graphics and new ideas to come out.

[Nicol Bolas]

It's funny how nobody answered this part of my post:

"Every argument that can be made against SBS in favor of MBS can be made against PC in favor of an Obelisk that simply radiates a permanent AoE field"

That's a very crucial point.

The main argument against SBS is the poor interface. That it's obvious what the player wants to do with their buildings, so let them do it. Selecting multiple buildings and pressing the build key means he wants one of those units built in the build queue that is emptiest. Simple and obvious.

Well, it's equally obvious what a player wants to do with PC (cast it over area X every time this is possible), so let them do it. Pressing the "Obelisk PC field" button means that the Obelisk will radiate a permanent field around itself (or at the target location, whichever you prefer) that does what PC does now. Again, simple and obvious.

This even goes back to one of the very first posts that ArcherofAiur made on these forums. His ideas for "macro mechanics" were to do away with workers entirely and have something that was almost exactly analogus to it, except it required you to come back to your base to target a particular mineral patch. Zerg Hatcheries built tentacles, but the user had to target a mineral patch, just like a worker from SC1.

I even found the old thread. His response when confronted with this was:

Macro gameplay must not appear to be busy work (appear being a key word since every aspect of a game could on some level be viewed as a chore….cough wow). In drafting these mechanics I did eschew decision making features. Adding too many aspects to a mechanic tends to make it overly complex which was why I tried to make these proposals as streamlined and intuitive as possible. However a better solution may be to tweak these to include a more dynamic, decision oriented style. It’s a fine line to walk between mundane (pure automining) and convoluted (current gas mechanic).

(emphasis added.)

And thus at last we have come full circle. Really, really full circle.

Abilities should not be the next thing in SC3's automation bucket. If a macro mechanic can be automated with no ill effects on the game (unless it's use draws on irreplaceable resources), it should. And thus a proper macro mechanic that requires regular updating is not something that can be can be automated.

2 - It's a spell with a purpose, that purpose is to increase resource harvesting... How can they make a spell which is for the purpose of increasing resource harvesting and have it be used somewhere other than near resources?

Having a purpose does not mean it isn't dumbed down. As to your question... maybe the lack of an answer tells you that:

1: Making abilities to increase resource harvesting is fundamentally wrong.

2: How resource harvesting works in StarCraft automatically does not lend itself to intelligent resource mechanics.

3 - It will make a difference.

Stating something as fact doesn't make it so. It is a verifiable fact that SBS requires more actions than any of the macro mechanics. SBS requires 2 actions per unit constructed. PC, Spawn Larva, and Mules all require exactly and only 2.

Any player who can handle SBS can handle these things without problems. And players that could only half-handle SBS will handle these with no problems. So you've still got a lowered skill ceiling compared to SC1.

Harassment

All of these harassment effects can be gained without the "regularly returning to your base" part of the macro mechanics. Queens that nest on Hatcheries to give a permanent increase can be attacked. Obelisks that provide a permanent AoE buff can be attacked. Mules that draw energy directly from an OCC to survive can be attacked and killed.

All you have shown is that having external parts of one's economy is useful during harassment. Which we already knew, as this is the principle difference between a worker-based economy and a resource-node style economy.

You think its going to be easy for progammers with the macro mechanics? Think about a timer to cycle through your production of units without macro mechanics, it will be much easier. At least with the macro mechanics you'd have to worry about two different timers, because if you use just one there is a higher likelihood to forgetting to do the other one. With two timers, theres more of a likelihood that you'll still do something wrong, even being a pro gamer. Pro's still make mistakes, the only difference is in there games 1 mistake can cost the game, while lesser players can get away with many more mistakes.

I don't buy it. SBS still requires much more complicated timers (different units have different build speeds, etc) than these macro mechanics add. So it's still substantially simpler.

[ArcherofAiur]

Originally Posted by ArcherofAiur
Macro gameplay must not appear to be busy work (appear being a key word since every aspect of a game could on some level be viewed as a chore….cough wow). In drafting these mechanics I did eschew decision making features. Adding too many aspects to a mechanic tends to make it overly complex which was why I tried to make these proposals as streamlined and intuitive as possible. However a better solution may be to tweak these to include a more dynamic, decision oriented style. It’s a fine line to walk between mundane (pure automining) and convoluted (current gas mechanic).

It funny how relevant that statement was to our current situation.

"Every argument that can be made against SBS in favor of MBS can be made against PC in favor of an Obelisk that simply radiates a permanent AoE field"

Id like to change this to

"Every argument that can be made against Manual Mining in favor of AM can be made against MULE in favor of a OC with rally points."

[Nicol Bolas]

"Every argument that can be made against Manual Mining in favor of AM can be made against MULE in favor of an Orbital Command with rally points."

Two problems with that:

1: Except that we discussed that and found that it's not true. Build workers takes money, which once spent will never come back. You spent 50 of the map's entire supply of minerals. Energy is an infinitely renewable resource.

This on top of all of the other differences previously stated (that minerals can be used for other things, etc) proves that this statement is false.

2: Nobody's asking for a Mule with autocast. Note that my version of the "automatic" Mule was that the unit absorbed energy from the OCC that produced it. So it doesn't need to be auto-cast; you just cast it once.

Can you come up with some logic to show that my original statement is not true?