Macro Mechanics Discussion Thread

[Nicol Bolas]

The point is that Warp-In has a whole bunch of "needless clicking".

This is an irrelevant point. The argument against PC is that it is all needless clicking and no decision making. Once you actually have decision making, how many actions it takes to enact is negotiable.

I said that crazy part is that your focusing on one needless obelisk click and ignoring 10 needless warp-in clicks.

It's not about how many needless clicks there are. It's about the mechanics that require these clicks. Again, stop diverting the subject from the important point: that PC has no decision making.

ArcherofAiur is trying to keep the discussion away from decision making and focusing on something else. Don't let him.

[DemolitionSquid]

How is this still going on? Didn't I say last word?

[ArcherofAiur]

Once you actually have decision making, how many actions it takes to enact is negotiable.

Another made up rule.

[Norfindel]

Um I dont think your complaint is that it is too hard. I said that crazy part is that your focusing on one needless obelisk click and ignoring 10 needless warp-in clicks.

Because with the Obelisk there isn't any reason for the clicks to begin with, it's totally superfluous as manual mining was before. It's just a boring metagame bribe for the player, that is designed with the only purpose of taking attention away in the simplest way.

With Warp-in, you have a lot of tactical choices, so the use of the ability is meaningful to begin with, and the per-unit click at least gives you the chance of carefully positioning every of your warping units, which can be useful to separate your units, and avoid splash attacks while they're warping-in. Also, the clicks are used in the place you want to focus your attention, anyways.

A difficult to execute mechanic that seems justified and offers choices will be accepted easier than a difficult to execute mechanic that could as well be automated and lacks choices. For example: if the Protoss can design a device that makes the Probes mine faster and has the power to be continuously active with no ill effects of any kind, there's absolutely no justification for this device to have a manual switch, it would be continuously activated, thus the mechanic is metagame, because it only works at the player level. The same for MULEs and Spawn Larva. Spawn Larva is most blatantly obvious: if the Zerg can spawn larvae at an increased rate, they will.

With Warp-in, the choices about what units to build and where to put them cannot be automatically done, and the fact that the Warpgates could benefit from training queues and rally points is easier to forgive, because it's a tradeoff: you can convert the building to a Gateway again, recovering the rally and queues. On top of that, using Warpgates is probably a lot less cumbersome than SBS production, so it's perceived as an improvement.

To resume: Warp-in offers extra tactical choices, and you decide when to use it, while the macro mechanics don't offer any choices and must be used all the time. Maybe Warp-in has some superfluous clicks and arbitrary limitations, but with the macro mechanics, the mechanic itself is superfluous and arbitrary.

EDIT:
There's a problem with rally points for Warp-in: if you can set the rally to every place you have Psi Power, what happends when you lose power there, or just the destination isn't valid anymore for any reason? Where does the rally go? This has it's own share of problems that were likely analyzed by Blizzard a lot of time ago.

[ArcherofAiur]

As long as you guys are doing it Im gonna make a new rule too.

As long as a mechanic with needless clicks allows the player to make more decision making later on then it is a priori good.

And now we can keep our Queen.

EDIT:
There's a problem with rally points for Warp-in: if you can set the rally to every place you have Psi Power, what happends when you lose power there, or just the destination isn't valid anymore for any reason? Where does the rally go? This has it's own share of problems that were likely analyzed by Blizzard a lot of time ago.

The rally point would go away. But go ahead and make a rule about how you cant have something where rally points can go away and then ill point out rallying to units or dropship and then youll come up with a rule about....

Remember, decide what you want to believe first. Then make rules saying it has to be true. Its the same tactic DSquid used. He looked at Proton Charge and noticed that casting it on 7 probes was more powerful then casting it on 2 probes. He didnt like Proton Charge in the first place so he (consciously or unconsciouly) decided to argue that it was inherently overpowered. Afterall that sounds allot more scientific and indisputable than "I dont like the obelisk". So he started makeing rules and equations, graphs etc. People pointed out that this was wrong so he invented terms (like variable mechanic) where the definition by his definition meant the thing he was talking about was whatever he wanted the conclusion to be.

I want to make one thing clear. This isnt logic and math. Its a bastardization of logic and math used to further an arguement agenda. And the real sad part is that this isnt just confined to this thread or this forum. Its rampant in the real world as well. As a small example from my life you read enough research papers and you develop a sense of whats real and whats not. Science isn't what the lay person thinks it is and people can unfortunately take advantage of that.

[Norfindel]

One mechanic introducing new tactical choices and another one completely lacking all choice isn't different enough for you? That's the difference between Warp-in and PC.

Of course, Warp-in could use fewer keypresses, it's not a completely transparent interface, but still, it's way better than PC, because if you remove all superfluous keypressing from Warp-in, you still have a mechanic, while if you remove all superfluous keypressing from PC, you are left with nothing.

[DemolitionSquid]

Its the same tactic DSquid used.

Lie. I confronted every single issue one at a time in an unbiased manner. You have never once put up a single point of proof of your position, only attacked the credibility of others ad hominem. You fight like a Scientologist and its disgraceful.

He looked at Proton Charge and noticed that casting it on 7 probes was more powerful then casting it on 2 probes. He didn't like Proton Charge in the first place so he (consciously or unconsciously) decided to argue that it was inherently overpowered

Another lie. I have never said PC was inherently overpowered. I have many times said it will fluctuate between overpowered and underpowered states and thus cannot be balanced. At no point did I randomly dislike PC and invent reasons why. I immediately saw that it appeared unbalanced and then decided to do quantifiable, reproducible testing to confirm or deny my hypothesis. It turned out my hypothesis was right.

You, on the other hand, have provided no evidence whatsoever in any form, math or otherwise, that PC can be balanced.

After all that sounds allot more scientific and indisputable than "I don't like the obelisk". So he started making rules and equations, graphs etc. People pointed out that this was wrong so he invented terms (like variable mechanic) where the definition by his definition meant the thing he was talking about was whatever he wanted the conclusion to be.

Lie #3. Variable is a real word. Look it up in the goddamn dictionary. And even IF I did fudge my data to get the conclusion I wanted, you yet again have no proof.

You have constantly tried to use semantics to validate your posts, and accusing me of the same is hypocritical and shallow. You have done nothing but provide logical fallacies and inaccurate comparisons, all of which have consistently been debunked. You have ignored concrete data and attempted to use opinion as fact. You refuse to clarify or address multiple issues at a time.

I want to make one thing clear. This isn't logic and math. Its a bastardization of logic and math used to further an argument agenda. And the real sad part is that this isn't just confined to this thread or this forum. Its rampant in the real world as well. As a small example from my life you read enough research papers and you develop a sense of whats real and whats not. Science isn't what the lay person thinks it is and people can unfortunately take advantage of that.

A 4th lie. You have consistently proven to have no concept of proper logic, for example trying to compare auto-mine to PC when the clear comparison was auto-mine to manual mining.

You have ultimately failed to produce evidence of any kind on your position. Thus in turn, I say you are incredible (that is, you lack credit or believability), dishonest, deceitful, and as usual, full of shit.

[Nicol Bolas]

Another made up rule.

The argument has always been against mechanics that have no decision making. Thus, you cannot use an "argument against mechanics that have no decision making" against a mechanic that does have decision making. You have to use a different argument.

It's not a "made up rule;" it's simple logic based on actually understanding someone else's position, rather than deliberately misinterpreting it as you have for 90+ pages now.

One mechanic introducing new tactical choices and another one completely lacking all choice isn't different enough for you? That's the difference between Warp-in and PC.

His argument is essentially that mechanics that have no decision making are better than mechanics that do have decision making. That is, thinking is bad.

[pure.Wasted]

Still waiting for you to tell me which of the steps in my thought process had the mistake in it, Archer. You can pretend to not see one post, but I'll keep writing this, and you can't pretend to not see them all.

[ArcherofAiur]

Still waiting for you to tell me which of the steps in my thought process had the mistake in it, Archer. You can pretend to not see one post, but I'll keep writing this, and you can't pretend to not see them all.

Its not a step. Its the whole idea of using math for that purpose. Its the same thing with DSquid wanting me to provide concrete mathemtacal "proof" or Nicol wanting his logic dichotomy. You are playing make believe science/philosophy/mathmatics and none of you realize how stupid that is.

Oh and Demo you know very well that you started out your complaints saying it was overpowered and only later shifted. Kind of like Nicol with his "no actions a computer could do" dichotomy.

The argument has always been against mechanics that have no decision making.

Your missing the point. The point is that the "no mechanic can not have decision making" rule is made up. ANd whenever you need to you just make up another rule. For instance if Warp-In has the same needless clicking but you really dont want to deal with that you just make up a rule saying "if a mechanic has [something that warp-in has] than it is allowed to have [something that warp-in and PC share in common]."