Assign Queen to Hatchery

[Aldrius]

There is this misconception that harder is a bad thing.

It isn't a misconception. It's a subjective opinion. But honestly, I kind of question why you'd enjoy having less options when playing the game...

That if Blizzard is making you click when you dont have to then they must have just forgot to "fix" it.

Didn't I just refute that?

It's not that they forgot. They just didn't bother. It's not that big a deal... it'd be convenient, but it doesn't make a huge difference. Certainly not as much as multiple-building selection versus. single-building selection does.

If anything, clicking once and getting one unit is more intuitive when playing. It's certainly much more stream-lined than quickly having to shift-click away the buildings you don't want producing units.

[Krikkitone]

There is this misconception that harder is a bad thing. That clicking when there could be a way that requires less clicking is bad.

It is, the issue is if the shortcut would cause more trouble by making the design more complex... as you mentioned they could put in a command that was 'make Hellions 30 sec from now' or 'make Hellions when I have more than 420 minerals'
But those would be needlessly complicated and prone to error, when it would be simpler to just let the player click when the Important benchmarks were reached.


Finally your example is a good one
Decision=I want to sacrifice X minerals, Y supply, and Z factory time for 4 Hellions (don't have the stats with me)
Action linked to it=Factory hotkey, hhhh (the action may consist of multiple clicks, but those clicks are all performed 'at once')


The "Spawn Larva" is not a decision.. what are you sacrificing,
Queen energy? (So far that has not proven to be useful for Much of anything else... maybe 1 Creep tumor/game)
Hatchery time? (the only thing spawning larva blocks the hatchery from doing is another Queen Spawn Larva)


If Spawn Larva was stackable, then at least you'd be sacrificing Larva later for Larva now (waiting for a tech building to come out or some overlords)
You would also be making a decision about Which Hatchery to put the Larva on, as opposed to 'the open one' you could put all the larva on your main, your natural or one of your expansions.

Essentially what the current mechanism does is turn the Queen into a Zerg "Reactor"...
it can swap from 1 Hatchery to the next.
it doubles the production rate.
you can only use 1 Queen per Hatchery.

The important differences
1. the Reactor doesn't have an Attack
2. there is no "Hatchery Tech Lab" alternative
3. The reactor doesn't have to be "Reactivated" constantly.. you only have to do something when you swap it to another building.
4. The Reactor helps production of only one group of units at a time (and is limited to very few units)


Compare to the "Protoss Reactor" ie Chronoboost
Swap from 1 Building to the next
Only 1 Chronoboost per building
Increases production rate
only helps with one type of unit/upgrade at a time

Important differences
1. Reactors only cost 50 min 50 gas, a Chronobooster (Nexus) costs 400 minerals
2. there is no "Chronoboost Tech Lab" alternative* unless you count the tech boost
3. The reactor doesn't have to be "Reactivated" constantly.. you only have to do something when you swap it to another building.
4. The Reactor and is limited to very few units, and can't do techs


So the Chronoboost has many of the same problems as the Queen, but
... It is not Spammable, you can't build 1 Nexus for every Production building you willl have
So that chronoboost energy is a scarce resource that needs to be spent strategically.

The Reactor on the other hand has
Reactor v. Tech Lab decision
and
no "Reactivating" necessary, once you build the Reactor, it stays active until you swap it.

Queen energy is not a scarce resource... a Queen only costs 150 minerals... BUT
that is not worthwhile for a Creep Tumor maker/slow moving Healer
it is always worthwhile for a "Hatchery Reactor" so that is what you have, Queens sitting at the Hatchery, only doing that.

[SlickR]

But see that's not how I feel about it at all. When I hear the sound I press the key combination. I don't see how much more mechanical you can get.

Oh yes, I forgot the AI is now playing the game for us.
We just need to press a key and the magic will happen.

This is stupid, Blizzard should remove the AI making the queen put larvae on the closest hatchery.

I already hate the fact, that AI thinks its smarter than me and controlling my units. Too often has my worker or zealot or whatever gone wandering and.or chasing a scv or something.

Well congratulations, congratulations to all who wanted AI to play the game for them, you are now one step closer to just sitting at your chair and watching computers compete instead of you.

Next target: First person shooters. Lets all whine so much that the AI is going to control the movement and shooting for us, it already is correcting the shooting in most FPS console game, so the first step is made, now just follows the easier path to get FPS to play themselfs.

So in a way, we would pay 60 euros to watch movies.

So sign me up for the future of lazy, do nothing, think not. Better watch WALL-E to get ready for our future.

[Nicol Bolas]

There is this misconception that harder is a bad thing. That clicking when there could be a way that requires less clicking is bad.

That's not a "misconception"; that's reality. That's the interface deliberately interfering with what the player wants to do.

Would Super Mario Bros be harder if jump was on Select rather than A? Yes. Would it be a better game for that? Of course not. It's too hard to press a direction, run, and jump simultaneously because human beings do not come equipped with three thumbs.

A well-designed interface lubricates the play experience, allowing the player to communicate effectively with the game and translating the player's actions into in-game actions efficiently. A poorly-designed interface does the opposite.

If you want to have the player return to their base frequently in an RTS game, and have a well-designed interface, then the tasks for which they will return to their base frequently for must not be automatable. Spawn Larva is automatable, and therefore it is not a well-designed interface.

This is stupid, Blizzard should remove the AI making the queen put larvae on the closest hatchery.

To be fair, you are correct. If it is Blizzard's intention to have automatable mechanics that are not properly automated (and thus having a poor interface), then they should make sure that other, actually good parts, of the interface do not allow the player to essentially work around their design goal.

Or you know, it could be poetic justice for Blizzard, who decided to break good game design principles in one area, to have the more intelligent parts of their game defeat the bad game design they shoehorned in.

I already hate the fact, that AI thinks its smarter than me and controlling my units. Too often has my worker or zealot or whatever gone wandering and.or chasing a scv or something.

That happened a lot in SC1. When idling, most units will attack enemy units they see.

[ArcherofAiur]

Would Super Mario Bros be harder if jump was on Select rather than A? Yes. Would it be a better game for that?

Tell me Nicol. Why does Super Mario Bros not have autojump like zelda? Shouldnt they have fixed this "problem"?

Ill tell you why Super Mario doesnt have autojump. Because the player manually jumping IS the game. In the same way Starcraft is a game of timing challenges. Manualy managing Spawn Larva IS the game.

A well-designed interface lubricates the play experience,

Im sorry but can someone please put this in there sig

[Caliban113]

I'm sure you lucky Beta people have already explored this, but there really isn't something similar to what was mentioned in the post below? - Can you choose SL and then apply it to a (hotkeyed) building in the command card? Sorry, have not played yet, but it just seems that this would have been addressed.

http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3003

[Aldrius]

Ill tell you why Super Mario doesnt have autojump. Because the player manually jumping IS the game. In the same way Starcraft is a game of timing challenges.

No, but see, that's the thing. In a mario game, the jumping and moving is what the player wants to tell Mario to do. Everything in-between the player deciding to jump and the jumping itself should be as stream-lined and easy as possible. So it's FUN and not cumbersome. So the buttons are easy to press and memorize. Figuring out the controller is a very quick, brief part of the actual game.

Now, if you want another example, take the Adventure game genre. When they switched from Text Parser to the Icon interface. Some people complained that the icon interface didn't give them as many options and choices as the text parser did.

When Jane Jensen took the icon interface and made it more multifaceted. So that you had more icons and could do more different things (i.e. instead of just an 'action' icon, there was an individual icon for push, pick-up, use and open.) And those people who didn't like the change, liked this. They weren't complaining that they didn't have to type out every command. They were complaining that they didn't have as many options in the game world as they did before.

Same thing is happening here. The interface got more streamlined and easy, but people complain that it takes the decision-making out of base management. Right now, Blizzard is trying to make the interface more intuitive for base management. Not trying to eat up the TIME it takes for somebody to manage their base, actually make it so that you need to make decisions and choices related to their base.

Spawn larvae doesn't do that. Orbital Command does. Chrono-boost does. The Queen even does to a certain extent. But Spawn Larvae does not.

Manualy managing Spawn Larva IS the game.

Except you're not 'managing' spawn larvae. There's next to nothing TO manage. And I'm saying this as somebody who LIKES the Queen.

Honestly, thinking about it, Mutate Larvae was a way better ability. In theory anyway. And it actually probably took more APM than spawn larvae does. (Can't use the 'select larvae' thing to select them, seeing as how they're units separate from the hatchery itself.)

[Nicol Bolas]

Tell me Nicol. Why does Super Mario Bros not have autojump like zelda? Shouldnt they have fixed this "problem"?

Because it doesn't make sense. Where and when to jump isn't just the difference between life and death. It's how you go from one path to another. How would auto jump know that you wanted to jump up to that platform? How would auto jump know that you wanted to fly up and explore one area over another?

In short: it isn't automated because it can't be. Because automating it removes meaningful choice from the game.

Manualy managing Spawn Larva IS the game.

That's not a game; that's pressing a button every X seconds. Simon has more right to be called a a game than that.

[ArcherofAiur]

It absolutly is a game. Its a timing challenge. Tell me have you ever played a game called multitask?

[Todie]

Im sorry but can someone please put this in there sig

i just might... though i like my current sig, this is just so truthful!

That's not a "misconception"; that's reality. That's the interface deliberately interfering with what the player wants to do.

Would Super Mario Bros be harder if jump was on Select rather than A? Yes. Would it be a better game for that? Of course not. It's too hard to press a direction, run, and jump simultaneously because human beings do not come equipped with three thumbs.

A well-designed interface lubricates the play experience, allowing the player to communicate effectively with the game and translating the player's actions into in-game actions efficiently. A poorly-designed interface does the opposite.

If you want to have the player return to their base frequently in an RTS game, and have a well-designed interface, then the tasks for which they will return to their base frequently for must not be automatable. Spawn Larva is automatable, and therefore it is not a well-designed interface.

this. thank you.. i felt teh need to verbalize these thoughts recently, but failed to muster the effort.