It doesn't help when the cut out the entire early game to force shorter games (better for viewership). It propels the game into mid game instantly, which leaves no opportunity to punish greed. Traditionally, RTS games were based on the rush, defend, boom idea which was essentially rock/paper/scissors. It makes it more like a poker game where you can bluff, or counter. If Serral insists on playing greedy and you have perfected a rush, the rush should work.
@@Matthew-uv6gl early-mid game-late game was also clearly defined, and late game is a rarity. It should be earned as you survived through early and mid game. Not rushing straight to the late game.
I like how they are talking about the audience, instead of just the players--- because, despite the players getting the money, and doing the playing--- the audience is the only thing that we really NEED for this to continue.
Plenty of people have been saying this for well over a decade about SC2, sadly falling on deaf ears. The right way to do it is to make a game super fun for everyone (casuals and viewers included), and the esports side will develop naturally. They tried to ignore fun and instead force the esports/balance side, and the result is a stale game that slowly dies.
@@EB-bl6cc They made mistakes a long the way but they had some good intentions. The 12 worker start was definitely to get players out of what most players thought to be the boring early game. They also reduced all minerals to force more rapid expansions. Games were indeed a lot more fun to play that way. The whole pros taking over balance, I think that was more post 2018 when the last real patch by devs happened that gave us shield batteries.
Yeah, as a casual watcher of casting games on youtube. There are videos that pop out and starts ok and hope something happen and after a while the matches feel the same over and over and makes me less likely to finish watching the entire video regardless of being a Bo3 or Bo5. Some casters do their best to make the commentary entertaining enough to hang around and see what they come up with. Which this leads me to, I rather watch viewer submitted games or stuff like Florencio Files because they are so out of the ordinary and I have much more fun watching any of that instead of pro matches.
Gamere (customers) can tell you something is wrong and roughly point to where. But they are not good at pointing out exactly what or how to solve it. Ghost was a broken unit for years but people didn't talk about it until recently when terran pros started to take advantage of it.
And this happened very recently, and was allegedly impossible according to this video. I think they are just off. Maybe they want to see more early game variation, fine, but they completely mischaracterized their complaint.
In SC1 you have spells like Dark swarm, Plague, stasis etc. That would be straight up imba in SC2 and thats problem of sc2. Sc2 plays it safe with everything and on top of that 2 spawn maps, in general small maps, 12 workers, units clunked together, no misses shots from units and other random events.
Yes, but funnily sc1 is balanced because its bad interface. Its hard to control units, so it automatically basically balances those skills. Because everything requires so much micro, it means using these powerful spells also means that micro potential is out of some other area, like economy. Sc2 everything is just automated so there is no tradeoff in anything.
I like that the late game is so OP. It pressures the players to end it before OP units are out. And watching two OP unit types go at it can be fun, like science vessels and defilers for example
There is stasis in SC2.... Artosis would argue that Defilers are already imbalanced in SC1. Although win rates don't back that up. Zerg is the least represented in the top 16 teams every year if you add them all up. Terran is actually the most.
@@AntiDoctor-cx2jd Nah. Lets just jump straight to no workers and free minerals. Why not? If I could pick one worker count to NOT change to it would be 6. We don't need every old build developed suddenly back in the game. Shake it up and lets get new builds and new timings.
@@TomThompson no, it eventually goes negative (lol). For the slow people: You eventually decide to stop, and then decide which number was best. If you are extremely dumb, you might not be able to figure that out. You're the guy who would crash the car in the lake because the directions said to, and then realize you misunderstood the directions (when somebody explains it to you)
As someone who started in bronze back in 2010 and has been GM for many years now I agree with a lot of what you guys said. I had the most fun playing SC2 when I was in platinum league. Simply because I didn't know what to expect from my opponent and also couldn't rely on my own "perfect" execution to win regardless. In GM, pretty much every game is the same. Standard build vs standard build and the guy with better mechanics wins. Don't get me wrong GM games can be insanely fun with all the action going on but it feels less like a strategy game and more like a speed competition.
I don't know how you think being bad at the game makes it more fun. It has to be the exact opposite. People in platinum(equivalent to gold back then) still think 1 base all ins are legit, and because the opponent usually is bad at scouting or whatever it's still is very powerful. Just a little higher at Diamond and timing attacks two base all ins decides EVERY game. I've played against terran as protoss probably like 40 to 50 times this recent weeks and probably 2 times only the game went to the late game.
@@33shin33 The fun part also comes from improving. When you lose to something stupid, improve and win against it the next times, it feels very rewarding. I'm pretty much hard-stuck in mid gm and it feels like whatever I do I won't improve. In plat, I had lots of room to improve so you could see the skill increase clearly. Now, all I can do is grind games and hope my mechanics get 0.1% better over time. If there were more volatility in high level games I'd have more options to explore, other than just grining for mechanics.
@@Kilo_Alpha_Delta Yeah, I guess a game not being very popular decreases hackers, cause hackers don't have the motivation to work on the hacks, right?
@@AntiDoctor-cx2jd Yeah the game has gotten progressively worse since WOL. That was when the game was at its best and we actually had interesting maps and more dynamic play. Nowadays 3 base is the new 1 base and early game is dead.
Games that are solvable (low volatility) need to have so many potential options that it's hard to know what the optimal option is in every state. IE Chess and Go With a game like starcraft, where there are technically "more game states" but tactically limited, there does need to be more variance to keep the game interesting. IE card games. Artosis is definitely on point.
True. Eventually if you stretch the comparison it's like playing tic tac toe. The game is solved. I solved it as a kid for fun. Then I realized you could guarantee win if there is a mistake and never lose. If both players know the best options then it's always a draw. It's not interesting then.
Adding RNG to a game can raise its skill ceiling by rewarding players who excel at adapting to unpredictable outcomes. The ability to adjust on the fly to events beyond their control becomes a key factor in skill differentiation. However, the impact of RNG depends on its implementation, so the specific type of RNG used must also be carefully considered.
I’m not sure randomness (build orders or game rng) is the best way to do it. Volatility can be increased by adding more sharp edges. Scarabs and spider mines are good examples.
SC2 doesn’t have volatility like 50% missed-shots to high ground like SCBW. Also no randomness like scarab shots. Also A LOT of cheeses died with the recent changes having 12 workers from the get go.
To be fair, not having random RNG bs is a good thing imho. Mixed about the 12 workers though. On one hand I get why it was changed to 12. It makes matches much faster from the get go, but I do miss some cheeky cheeze strats.
I was incredibly disappointed coming back to SC2 to finding this was an actual change... game was never the same. Early game is non existent basically.
@@atifarshad7624Having thoughtfully designed RNG is a hallmark of many great games like Magic the Gathering and Poker. It brings players "off book" to use a chess term, so there's always an element of fresh and interesting decision-making as well as new aspects of the bluffing and information game. Occasionally, it all comes together to make incredible interactions that are rare and unique. For example, map spawn locations are semi-random and they add so much to the game when it comes to dynamics. Of course, it's incredibly easy to get this wrong, but on the other hand, getting it right is the hallmark of a great game designer.
I think having 4 player maps would bring some of those back on their own. Having to scout multiple locations, having more spots to proxy, sacrificing worker time, all this would make rushes a lot more deadly. Maybe not enough, but still, maybe good enough.
Shouldn't know how many workers you're going to spawn with till the game starts, (each players gets the same amount) haha--- so you gotta make a gut shot decision when you realize its going to be a high or low income game. Could you imagine the excitement at the start of each match?
It could also be tweaked for different maps. Like there could be 8, 10, and 12 start maps, with corresponding different avenues for map designers to take. Sort of like clay, grass, and hard court in tennis.
I've been watching some competitive Red Alert 2 recently, and what they do could be tried in SC2. They have tournaments where the players can change their faction before every map. That one change makes a massive difference. Here are some of the effects I have noticed: - unbalanced and wacky maps can be played in tournaments - best players don't become unbeatable unless they become the best in every single map and every single matchup - it's easier to counter meta strategies by switching to an uncommon faction choice for a map All of this means that each game of a tournament can look very different and it's exciting to watch. No idea what would happen if SC2 player could change race before every map but I think that could be interesting.
Have to say, HotS was for me personally the best time of my SC2 life. It had imbalance sure, but it was fun. I felt there were so many possibilities to play the game. sure TvZ was mostly Marine Push vs LBM, but i enjoyed it. Catalena was such a fun and challenging map.
I think one of the main reasons Serral has such a big winrate is scouting. Zerg is fundamentally the easiest race to scout with. First: they have overlords, that you can float in the corners of the map and above line of sight blockers. Second: zerglings. If you watch how Serral plays, he has zerglings covering most of the map. You can't slip almost anything past him. And when Serral has all the information he doesn't lose. You can't do the same for example with protoss, because zealots are so expensive and slow.
Yes and no. They have very good scouting, however the thing is that Zerg players have optimized their play to the point where it almost does not matter what the other guy does as Queens counter everything early on. I say this because Serral DID play a Maphack match against Harstem where Harstem had Maphack and Serral still won. But you are right, their map control is by far the best, especially with the creep tumors.
I think that the poker aspect of starcraft with scouting and bluffing is the most enjoyable part for the audience. More hidden information = better audience experience.
The problem with that in SC2 is things are too deadly. If you don't scout an oracle, 1 unit!!!, and it just hits vs no defense you lose the game instantly. Therefore you MUST be able to know about it or you cannot survive. Same with many other attacks. If you look at broodwar, even if you don't scout a DT rush, it still takes minutes for you to die to it, and that means you can still do stuff, block some ramp, retreat to some static d, etc. It's still very bad for you, but not completely 100% over.
14:00 NOT having people who's lives depend on the game BALANCING the game is a tremendous point and something I've been thinking constantly like..WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS!? LOL Get ALL PROS OFF THE BALANCE COUNCIL
If you think the game should be designed for the audience, sure. But should it be designed for the audience, aka for viewership, or should it be designed for the players?
@@LazyMaybe it's funny because it is just like sc2's bad rock-paper-scissors design. Volatility brings viewership, viewership brings players, players want less volatility. Audience loves the game but it is unbalanced -> no pro players, noone to watch. Pro players balance the game until it isn't fun anymore -> no audience. No audience -> no tournaments, nothing for the players to fight for. Best chicken and egg problem ever right? The game should be designed for FUN. Once it's fun you think about balance. When you have fun and balance you will get audience and players. Neither of these groups actually know how to design that.
I think artosis is right that volatility is more fun for viewers. I don't think so much for gamers though. Having all the tools to win and its not random why you lost makes the game more rewarding to play. Happy has a 90%+ winrate in warcraft 3. Imo its also about the age of the game and the knowledge base. There is no way to fix this without fucking up the whole player base. You'd just get everyone mad. Starcraft has always patched for competitive. Most people play the game to iterate without random things happening. Even the cheese is based on non-random things happening. This whole video is asking for reasons to complain about shitty patches where things are impossible to beat. They fix it now they're mad. How about just play mods or create mod tournaments 🤦🏿♂️?
6 was so much better. Either do that or raise the starting supply by 2. The only option, beyond something like 15/15/15, is to build a depot/pylon/overlord immediately after starting your first worker. Not only does that limit you, it limits what you have to wonder what your opponent is up to.
6 workers is so overrated. Yeah, there were a few rush builds like 6 pool and proxy gates you could do, but it was almost entirely cheese builds. I remember the days of "I'll open 2 gate proxy in PvP and hope the other guy doesn't scout it in time." It was a real brain dead strategy, but it could beat GMs quite regularly. 12 workers leads to better games.
Damn, this second guy isn't even important enough to include in the title. Artosis/Artosis' editor is doing him so dirty. No name in the description and description says "Do you agree with MY take" not 'our' take. I don't watch SC2, I just wanted to peek in. I don't watch the streams and only really watch Artosis and Tasteless, I don't know who he is and I'm like 8 minutes in without knowing his name. I'll edit when I learn his name from the video Edit: Never did. Guess he's some SC2 player. I've been meaning to give some old SC2 tournaments a try
I couldn't quite place my finger on why but recently I've been watching less SC2, and I think this video just sorta explained to me why. (Aside from the fact that it's no longer Tastosis, but it wasn't the only reason, lol).
REALLY great talk! SC2 has skewed too much towards safe mechanical play, leading to lots of same-y games and with low volatility. Many games are moving in a similar direction as SC2 unfortunately, where they listen to the pros and "balance" the game in a way that makes the game TOO consistent, too samey, removing fun moments and potential for big plays. Players with some of the most exciting playstyles like sOs have been pushed out. Smash Ultimate for example has removed any slightly interesting stages for very same-y layouts, and this has drastically reduced the enjoyability of spectating the game, as well as reduces character variety and counterpick strategies. Few biggest points that I think would drastically improve SC2 gameplay variety and complexity, and increase both player and viewer enjoyment: *1) They should take this opportunity in time to shake things up and decrease worker start from 12 to 9* Worker start of 6 is too many steps back; lots of games would end due to build order loss back then, having 12 workers start is something that helped increase early variety because you could now choose 2 of the 3: tech, econ, army, instead of just 1. I think a 9 worker start would be a good middleground that would be enough to bring back some 1 base play as well as 3-5 player maps. However, it is absolutely true that the very initial build order variety has decreased due to the 12 worker start. With minerals reaching optimal saturation so quickly, there is very little variation in gas timings for aggressive 1 base plays or fast tech builds. This also makes scouting your build way too easy as you guys mentioned. Back then you had to scout multiple times to confirm not just the 1st gas timing but 2nd gas timing, and if they're pulling workers off or not etc. *2) Bring back 3-5 player maps* These 3-5 player maps did something that was REALLY good for the game: allow gameplay to be more spread out across the map and for smaller skirmishes to happen similar to BW. Remember Tal'Darim Alter? While arguably a little too big, it made for a lot of exciting memorable games that were back and forth. You couldn't just win a big fight and choke out the opponent easily, because they could have bases in another corner of the map with production structures and economy there. And most importantly, these maps allowed these far away expansion choices to have defensive features like natural ramps and main chokes! Something that SC2 2 player maps are sorely lacking compared to BW maps. You can cost effectively defend these areas with small fortified positions and a few units; they can still break it but you'd at least trade efficiently, thus encouraging both players to split their armies apart more. With far expansions having defensive features that can make them more appealing than simply taking the next closest base to you, expansion paths become much less linear. This results in attack paths, reinforcement paths, and all that to become WAY more complex in SC2 than just "my side vs your side". This also reduces the amount of games ending in 1 base trade, because you have more bases and production spread out across the map. Some of the most exciting and memorable games of SC2 have been games where players were able to spread out their bases and production in different corners of the map, leading the flow of a game to become much more unpredictable: "are they going to be able to stabilize and go from left vs right to splitting the map top vs bottom??" The strongest concern against bringing back 3-5 player maps is is "Protoss will die to Zergling rush if they don't scout in time". Ok, then send out 2 workers if you want to avoid that risk? Even in WoL/HotS with 6 worker start, they would do that. Surely you can send out a 2nd worker now that you start with 12 workers. *3) As mentioned in point #2, make maps that have more far away expo options because they have some defensive features that your closer bases may not* Currently in SC2, maps keep having these wide open ramps and easily attackable bases in the late game, when moving your entire army as a deathball and jamming it through a choke is already easy. The philosophy is that they want late game bases to be harder to defend so that it doesn't lead to passive turtling. However this is a mistake as it simply leads to players taking predictable expansions nearby, and the optimal way to defend that is to keep your army grouped up in 1 spot. In BW, far expos often have narrow chokes, making the game pace slow down and increasing the amount of methodical play and tactics needed to dismantle the fortified positions. While the pace is "slowed down", the gameplay becomes more exciting and back and forth, and leads to more chances of comebacks. In SC2, the closest thing it has equivalent to this is giving far away risky expos gold minerals or high yield gas, giving some incentive to spreading our your expos. Indeed, many of these maps lead to interesting games. Only in the last couple TLMC did we finally start seeing maps experiment with far expansion choices with TINY chokes. And basically none of them won or got put into the map pool. Golden Wall is the ONLY map I can think of that had some far away bases with more defensive features. For example, the top left and top right corner bases are difficult to access by your opponent, giving you time to intercept their forces. Also, the upper middle bases are on high ground with small ramps, allowing you to fortify it as a forward position to launch attacks from and reinforce your army. These kinds of bases need to be more common in SC2 maps.
I would like to challenge a bit your arguments, since it’s a core feature of theorycrafying I believe. I have been enjoying SC2 since 2010 both from a player and a viewer point of view, and I enjoy it way more today than I ever did (even though nostalgia hit on many great memories): I think the core of sc2 is that it’s a hard game and it’s always super impressive to see consistency from top players while I see myself struggling on many aspect of the games when playing it (for instance, on paper/theorycrafting everything seems figured out and easy to imply whereas when you are actually playing the game you realise it’s not the case at all…) That’s if for the context, here are my thoughts: -Is it the current state of balance that pushed out players like sOs? Or is it the fact that patches have been reduced, leading to longer periods of time on a same patch so it becomes figured out and that unique/surprising build orders get figured out/scouted more easily?To me, take any patch sOs was winning on with « special » strategies, if you let the game in this exact same patch for a longer period of time, sOs couldn’t win anymore with the same strategies as the counter would be figured out at one point. 1) Scouting is different, but I can’t say it is easier today than it was on 6 workers: the fact the you end up saturating your economy faster makes it harder to actually scout if you are getting all-ined or not (from my player perspective, how many time can I get tricked into thinking the opponent is going macro and then get brutally all-ined). 2) >2 players maps adds randomness, and potentials of « freewin » / « freeloose » depending on if you managed to scout your opponent fast enough or not. I think there is 0 fun in basing my strategy on this random aspect allowed by >2 players maps (rather doing a coinflip to decide the winner at this point) or in watching a pro basing it’s gameplay on that (like back in 2010-2011 I already thought it was ridiculous that Moon decided to 6 pool on the last game of a DH finals against Huk, that was just a cointoss game…) 2 players maps don’t prevent your point though, they can just be wider 2 players maps with more expansions. Yet I dislike Taldarim Altar example: we are comparing way different metas, and it doesn’t seem to me that you can defend properly a macro game with your units being on a single spot in the current map pool: they are so many (and deadly) options to attack the opponent on multiple fronts (drops with medivac speed, nydus, prism…) In the current meta, if you don’t see the opponent sieging its tanks or lurkers it’s a guaranteed loss of a base, which can’t be allowed to be defended with your army in a single spot without map awareness. There are also so many units that can destroy one mineral line in a few seconds that you can’t just keep you entire army on a single spot when going for a macro game (3-4 bases at least). Regarding the fact that a Toss should send 2 probes for scouting feels terrible. Already, when playing vs a Random player it feels awful to send your scouting worker earlier to check for the opponent race. One worker makes for a big difference the lower the economy is (so combining this with point #1 doesn’t feel great). And the overall problem is: why would one player have to send two workers to scout for a strategy that could potentially be used by the opponent, while the opponent can decide to just macro properly and already be having an economic advantage because of the map design? 3) I think comparing sc2 to bw is tricky because even though the cover of the book looks the same (same races, similar units…) the core mechanics are way more differentand it is rarely brought up in talks that compare sc2 and bw. Is this the map design that allows BW to have a slower pace and more comeback potential? Or is it the fact that in Sc2 you can f2 a click to move your entire army in less than a second, while in BW you can only select 12 units at a time, have to manage the rough pathing, and get your camera back to each of your buildings to produce your army since you cannot control group your buildings? Regarding comeback potentials, I feel like this argument always… comes back in balance discussions while I don’t see the problem in having one player loosing because of a mistake. Game is hard, that’s it: -should we allow a boxer that got knocked down more recovering time so the boxer have a higher chance of bouncing back from it and winning the match for higher spectacle? -when a racing car goes off the track on the first lap of a 60 laps race, should we slow the other cars so this one could make up for its hardly punitive little mistake? -I don’t see why it could be a problem to have a very punitive sc2 gameplay, when pro matches are played in bo5/bo7
I have to disagree with most of these talking points. I think the balance council taken as a whole, has created what is currently the most balanced state of the game it ever has been in. I don't know what kind of rose tinted glasses RT and Ret have on, but I have actually went back and watched some old WoL tournament games recently+. Most of them are incredibly boring and very low level by today's standards. Don't just pick out epic moments of SC2 history, actually look at what the average tournament game was like. The 6 worker start does have an impact on 1 base all ins, but those were already incredibly rare by the time the 12 worker change took place. What it did in effect was just skip the first 5 minutes of routine worker production, which was a good change. Also keep in mind medivac boost became a thing because drops were so incredibly easy to counter that most Terrans just didn't bother and resorted to a 3 base Innovation style rally push to kill the Zerg's 4th. It just seems really bizarre to call out the balance council as the source of SC2 woes when the meta for WoL and HoTS was pure garbage. BL infestor into the sunset and the HoTS swarm host created snail paced games that were so bad that even someone like Firecake was able to do well. As a side note, BW also has the exact same people in the tournaments all the time; though there is some variance in where they place. This isn't to say that SC2 doesn't have engagement problems, and some of what was suggested here is worth revisiting. 3-4 player maps might be a good thing to reintroduce into the scene. If I wanted to think of something to really shake things up, I would put destructible rocks at every base location but the natural. This would make expanding take much more effort to do, and would create attack opportunities. If I wanted to be extra spicy, there could also be destructible rocks even at the natural, but with far less HP than the rocks at further bases. This could bring back some one base play, open up the options for more tech builds. If you wanted, you could make it so that the destructible rocks reappear if the Nexus/CC/Hatch gets killed, making sniping those structures much more valuable by increasing the amount of time it takes to get that expansion back online. I realize that Zerg would be most affected by this kind of change, and that there would need to be additional balancing to counteract this.
Agreed. Tough as you said, there is something to the idea/discussion overall, even if i think too 6 workers sucked and the past balance used to be really bad.
SC2 was a significantly better game when it came out imo, wings of liberty was amazing. The pacing of the game was way better, and the maps actually felt like starcraft. Looked like an actual war taking place on the planets you go to in the campaign. Now its just stupid neon lined clean colorful hex shaped esport crap. Brood War still makes maps that look like starcraft, so what the fuck is SC2's problem? HoTS was a good xpac but not quite as good, and then LoTV just ruined it and i haven't played since other than finishing the campaign.
Interesting thoughts, but I disagree with the main point. I enjoy watching the best of the best (Serral) dominate. Though more diversity in play should definitely be viable and encouraged.
Nah, the players wouldn't want to go back to the old worker count, it'd the most unpopular change in the history of the game, also a lot more boring to watch
@@RancorSnp I argue the opposite, the game is very streamlined vs the old worker count. Diversity in the game is never a bad thing and bringing back the old early game would allow for that. every game should have a lead into the big events. Increasing tension in the early game would make the longer games feel better and more rewarding. In fact the majority of players I played with including myself stopped playing as much with the change. Build orders are less impactful, all ins are less interesting, Fe isnt a consideration but a must - because you have such a rapid push into a midgame
@@Figgy20000 might be a symptom of a similar problem. Fact is we dont have a early game anymore and it removes player agency just like only having 2player maps. Games need RNG and skill comes from the player limiting that RNG through their skill and knowledge. In other words you need chaos in your games. Its not fun when there is no RNG you cant overcome, and its not fun when you have no options to play the game my problem with going just adding 3-4 player maps back to the pool doesnt fix the problems with game diversity but only exacerbates the current problems with the economy of the game
The primary issue here is that the game is mapped out because there is no randomization in the starting game state. This is why Magnus Carlsen thinks Fischer Random Chess will play a big role in chess in the future.
Fischer Random is so much fun, and it focuses on core fundamentals over memorizing openings. Even playing against someone better, in classical chess I can often lose in 10 moves because I didn't memorize the openings. At least in Fischer Random that can't happen
Your comment is 100% wrong, completely unrelated, and flat out incorrect. There is a game where game start was randomized, it's called AoE 3. Is AoE 3 the absolute best esport game of all time? Second Magnus promote chess960 to limit the effectiveness of preparation, do SC2 players hire other sc2 players to makes an opening repertoire for them? No? Then it has absolutely nothing to do with SC2.
People keep calling what they want randomness but you absolutely do not want pure, random chance in a competitive game. You want variety, you want differences
@@menohomo7716 We're talking about taking a good game and adding randomness to it. (Chess, SC2) Comparing it to a bad game with a lot of randomness like AoE3 proves nothing. Pro gamer houses usually had 1 great player who would practice and come up new builds and everyone in that team would optimize the build for their #1 player. Magnus would've played the world champ match if it was faster time control too, not because it limits preparation but it lends to a better viewing experience and more volatility in results due to mistakes.
@@menohomo7716 chill? You’re confusing a necessary with a sufficient condition in your logic my friend. it is 100% good game design theory to randomize starting game states if you want your game to remain fun, fresh, and replayable, which of course doesn’t come close to making the game great even if this is basically a minimum requirement for games being made in 2024 (always exceptions, of course). And by the way Reynor paid Lambo to do pretty much exactly that, and has said publicly that it was a significant reason he won Katowice.
It feels like SC2 prioritizes skill over having fun. Over the years, slowly, randomness has been taken out because its probably seen as "unfair/unfun" by people whom are absolute gods at the game, so the average reddit user. But as a viewer, nothing was more fun than seeing Leenock fast expand to a gold base and the game devolving into chaos, or the classic Huk hallucinations. Expansions in random corners of the map. Its like if basketball only did free throws to decide the winner, or if hockey only did a shootout. Of course we want to see the best players win and the games to be slugfests, but you can't deny it was exciting (in pro games) as soon as that probe moved from base, especially on 4 player maps. Having that rock paper scissors of "hey its a 4 player map i can probably get away with being greedy", but the terran is building 2 rax in the middle of the map.
Idk why you equate randomness to fun. it's equally if not more frustrating when your shit doesnt work just coz the RNG decided that you are not having fun today.
What people like to watch is skill, not randomness... RNG has exactly 0 place in SC2. Even the random movement of a building SCV should be removed. Michael Schumacher had close to 100 wins in Formula 1... it would be insane to ask for randomized cars. That would actually drive away the very best players, when skill is no longer the main deciding factor of who wins.
Leave SC2 alone don't let fans turn into Rainbow Siege which is ruined btw (used to be amazing not even the same game anymore). Just need to make SC3 instead if you want something different
While I absolutely think something like a WoL-era league would be cool… I do worry that it would take no time at all before we’re back to watching loads of of brood lord/infestor games on Daybreak. 😂
I have played Starcraft 2 nearly incessantly from launch day up to around februrary 2023 then stopped and haven't touched it since. I've been masters league since WoL, and in and out of low GM throughout LotV. I 100% agree that it just feels like there isn't any room for variation in game play anymore. There's like 2 or 3 different openings per matchup that if you aren't doing, you are behind. The game just feels like it mindlessly funnels you into the mid-late game where the first player to win a decisive engagement snowballs.
You can't have fun maps because the massive terran imbalances abuse all the map details. Just think, what is the obstacle to map making? Terran siege positions mostly. Or terran ability to fly buildings. Or Terran drops, or Terran ability to turtle. So this is the "poison" and I agree you could have fun maps, but you'd have to balance the races and let terran lose for a while until they get good enough to build a raven.
Back when Beasty played SC2, he was all the time banging the drum to ignore the balance council, and just make crazy changes and have things fall where they may.
Does anyone else remember Has running through the 2018 WCS Valencia to the grand finals? I still go back to watch him play better and better players, and watching every caster (except Artosis) lose their minds. It was SO fun. I want that back.
Sc2 had structural problems from the beginning. It is very easy to create blobs of units and macro 50 marines at the same time. Also terran have way too many OP units. The only way for Protoss and Zerg to compete is with splash damage.
12 workers means there is no early game. Pushes are too weak, so the only interaction in the mid-game is harass. 200 supply max armies in the late game means we have the same comps game after game. Bring back 6 workers, make pushes much stronger and worker harass secondary, and make it a rare game that gets to 200/200 rather than the norm.
Balance can be awful. Reminds me of Diablo3 where all builds feel equal and pigeon holed. Eventually you gravitate towards the mechanically easier build because they are balanced to be roughly equally powerful.
Truer words have never been spoken. I basically stopped watching SC2 when they did the worker change. I watch a game from time to time but it's just not interesting unfortunately. BW 100%.
When LotV was in beta, Team Liquid engineered a new economy where mineral income per base scaled logarithmically per worker as it is in Brood War. IMO not adopting that design (and keeping 6 workers) was the greatest mistake Blizzard ever made (next to medivac boost, lol). In addition to the great suggestions in the video I'd also like to follow through on a suggestion from Day9 and raise the supply cap to 300. Games with 200 supply just feel so stale.
Video game players in general don't like random dice rolls in competitive video games. It's also a reason why Esports will never be as popular as IRL sports. All the random elements are taken out of the physics of the game world. No such thing is possible in the real world. It's a reason why video games become stale after time and professional sports still attract millions of viewers.
1 - There needs to be 1 new big late game unit for each race, 1 caster for each race, 1 new air unit for each race(it's called Starcraft for some reason not 12poolcraft). 2 - Workers should be redesigned, have a little bit more HP. (an upgrade maybe?). Bigger on the screen, slower when carrying minerals, flammable when carrying gas and explode when destroyed. Races should be able to boost their economy in some way, a new building that builds a secondary new more powerful worker for each race. They should bring back to 6 workers, but workers should carry a bunch of more minerals like 10 or 15. 3 - Patches should hit MORE OFTEN. Why are you so afraid? 4 - Early game units should be nerfed just a little bit, Zealots, Marines, Zerglings. 5 - Rework these stupid units for the sake of fun please: Widow Mines, Lurkers, Tempest. 6 - Make Upgrades a little bit more expensive, up till lv 4 upgrades, make them complete faster. 7 - Cannons SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO HIT BUILDINGS
Add randomly generated maps (of course, still symmetrical, with wallable natural etc.). That would make it harder to execute perfectly, and it would open up for some unorthodox play.
One of my favourite things about Age of Empires 2 is random maps. However it doesn't suit SC2, as different factions take advantage of the map better than others. Like imagine a map generating with several chokes and two safe bases and all the other bases very open. You can already picture in your mind which faction can best take advantage of that. I'd day just let the ground of maps go to the edge of the map every now and again.
@@Unormalism I do agree that SC2 does require quite specific map designs to be fair. However, these constraints can be built in to the map generation algorithm. Defining the full set of constraints would require a fair bit of theorizing. It's of course possible SC2 is too finicky to generate fair maps that are also interesting and diverse.
I completely agree that the balance counsel or whatever they are called are profoundly biased and are directly responsible for the stagnation of sc2 and overall decline of interest. As long as they maintain total control of the game's balance and direction SC will remain arrested in its development, resulting in a dead game. It's really unfortunate how they have strangled the enjoyment out of the game in favor of extremely predictable outcomes.
Saying that the more skilled player always winning is a bad thing is the dumbest take I have ever heard in my entire life. THE BETTER PLAYER SHOULD WIN EVERY TIME??!!? WHAT??!!? People will always have ups and downs, primes and slouches. Wtf is that take?!?
If they're always going to win then what's the point in watching the match? You know who's going to win. Every build and every play is mapped out, color by numbers. They explain it in the video: the problem isn't that the best player wins. It's that the game is so stale and predictable that it's not fun to play or watch because it's 80-90% predictable.
@adammccraw7379 What's the point of watching the Olympics? The fastest man will always win. I understand the need for variance in build order and strategy, but we should always want the best player to take home the trophy.
The way that Dota 2 is balanced is imo the best in competitive gaming. Led by a visionary (icefrog) who's made the game his life's work and has a strong idea of what the game shouls be. Every major patch changes the game a huge amount and keeps things feeling super fresh, even when pros bitch and moan. I think the key difference with SC2 is audience unfortunately. The game isnt pulling in enough $$$ for blizzard to care, so it feels like its perpetually on life support with even the biggest patches consisting of small tweaks. Makes me sad
I think this is very bad and unsustainable logic. A great game needs no patches ever. Look at the Brood War, Rocket League or any super smash bros title. Those games are not getting boring any time soon. If developers stop patching mobas, players might realize just how soulless those games. Without dopamine one might get from suddenly playing a new character or discovering a new mechanic, people will stop playing.
The biggest thing I notice as a viewer is really the lack of build order variety in certain match ups. Oh it's a PvZ and a stargate oracle crazy. I absolutely agree SC2 needs a shake up. However I can also see how huge sweeping changes while interesting for a moment could lead to a wildly unbalanced game and that the balance council might not really be able to deal with that.
Mhm this is a hard one. While the current balance (except Protoss not winning Tournaments) does have a certain beauty, you see streamers skipping the start of a game as audiences dislike it. I do agree with the opionions in this video but not sure how to do it. Do not wanna end up with another infestor era as well. Current Balance council has some good ideas but seems to be against Protoss. Simply removing perfect scoutability would give fresh air. Maybe make overlords slower, observers easier to see or something…
As someone who is brand new to SC2 I found learning about starting worker count increasing from 6 to 12 was the really weird shock I feel playing SC2 compared to other RTS games. Absolutely no down time at the start of the game to warm up, get into rhythm, etc. makes learning the game a lot more stressful
Baseball had this problem and a few years ago banned certain defenses and added the pitch clock to add more randomness into the game. NBA made rule changes around the shot clock, NHL removed certain rules to open up the game. Why shouldn't SC2 or Broodwar to the same?
We want the skill ceiling to be high in our RTS, but when someone demonstrates they're more skillful than the rest, then it's a problem. I don't say you make the game unpredictable to the point a transcendent talent blends into the crowd.
The shake up Sc2 needs is already in the game. All of the "Subfactions" of each race that are available in Co-op need to be available in Ladder instead of just the 3, even if its a separate rank system.
A lot of players think it's the clicks that stand between RTS and mainstream success, and developers seem to agree. All strategy and tactics are implemented through mechanical input. No amount of game awareness, knowledge, or attention management, will help you if you lack mechanical aptitude. Having improved mechanics opens more doors for you strategically and tactically. You can literally do more of the game. This is rewarding and exciting. New options open up to you. You become more aware of the totality of the game. Lowering the barriers to this only serves to weaken its appeal and cheapens the success of it. Watching someone do the seemingly impossible is what makes esports awe-inspiring. Having games that can end at sudden moments makes them engaging spectacles. You get those things by placing impossible mechanical demands on the player and removing the safety nets. When you are the player, it's equal parts frustration and satisfaction. The important thing is that it's emotional. I want to see more self-expression. Undo some of the QoL features and see what happens. "Every click should be a strategical decision" makes the game a thought experiment, not a skill contest. Let the theorists argue on Reddit and let the players express themselves through impossible adversity.
Well SC2 fits that description. Nobody has perfect bink stalker micro, or macro and scouting and spellcasting in the late game. ITs just not possible, you can see what can be done with infinite speed when bots play...
And im not sure i agree. Turn based strategy is a solid niche , of which im a part of and there is no fast clicking, only thinking. Games like Interstellar Genesis, Dominus Galaxia, Xcom are great and take most of my gameing time. The problem is for starters, thats its to slow to be enjoyable by mass viewers. Second I dont know how viable it would be for esports, becasue what works for you even if you play 1000 times a game, and discover new nuances, might not work for esports when the game is played bilions of time, and everything is known.
A bit like F1 needs making more interesting (by turning on sprinklers at random - yes i know the safety concerns) - add a weather feature, which could slow the map, reduce vision, whatever .... just have it so you don't know when it's happening. Could happen in the first 10 seconds (screwing up builds) or just at a timing push.
Love this video. SC2 has been STALE for a VERY long time. Unfortunately the balance council won't revert to the original economy, the way the game was DESIGNED
I miss cheese so much. My favourite tournament was the one where Has cheesed his way to the finals and came extremely close to killing Serral in each game. Such a crowd pleaser.
At least there are balance changes being done roughly twice a year for versus! For co-op we have nothing! I know co-op is not so interesting to watch and nobody can earn from playing it, but the fact is - more people play co-op than versus! I spent a lot of time thinking of what to change, doing several videos on my channel, discussing with guys on my stream and on Reddit and come to a pretty good conclusion what to do in the next patch, but it's very hard to find people with technical expertise and willingness to do it! Volunteers and sponsors are always welcome!
yes you are correct , sc2 needs to change the worker count around more , have more than the same fucking 2 player map copy/pasted 8 times for every season , and revert the resource node reduction change
A wild idea; add inflation to the game. Based on your supply usage over the last x minutes in the game you have a certain inflation on the prices of units. Inflation also is affected by the supply you lose ...
I have a lot of fun watching uThermal videos and his crazy builds bring back that random factor. I know is not againt pro players so is easier. But give me glimpse of what a more crazy balance SC2 would look.
I also play WC3. What I notice as a big difference, is sometimes I lose in WC3, and I don't really know what I should have done differently, or how I should have played to win the game. A total mistery ... Meanwhile in SC2, it's always obvious how you could have theoretically to win, or why you lost the game. It's not so interesting to me to "improve" at a game, where I know basically everything I need to practice to "git gud", and there is very little strategical theorizing or speculations regarding what changes you need to make as a player to improve. That's a bit vague, but that's my take on why the game is not as exciting.
I don't this is actually true, just a perception. If you are mentioning an individual player to criticize the game, your argument is a fail. The fact that Serral is winning a lot, ok, but nobody else is a dominant 2nd or 3rd. How many multi-time world champions are there? 1? Maybe 2? Maybe there is a lack of volatility in styles (other than Dark) but the outcomes are very much up in the air. I'm not against the suggestions, but it would be to flair up the playstyles/early game not the winrates. Also terran is so OP, when anything is weird, it skews it pretty hard towards terran, which makes fun maps a major problem. They really need to let terran just lose until they build a raven. So terran always makes the finals because their race is so broken, and they always play the same because they don't have the skill to mix it up, so the counter play is also the same. Artosis is probably right about taking opinions. Both from pros and fans, I'm the only fan with a brain.
Greedy playstyle can't even be called greedy if it's safe
Greedy eco beats aggression and defense so everyone plays greedy, stale meta.
It doesn't help when the cut out the entire early game to force shorter games (better for viewership). It propels the game into mid game instantly, which leaves no opportunity to punish greed.
Traditionally, RTS games were based on the rush, defend, boom idea which was essentially rock/paper/scissors. It makes it more like a poker game where you can bluff, or counter. If Serral insists on playing greedy and you have perfected a rush, the rush should work.
@@Matthew-uv6gl early-mid game-late game was also clearly defined, and late game is a rarity. It should be earned as you survived through early and mid game. Not rushing straight to the late game.
@@planetary-rendez-vous then do a solid early timing attack and beat "Everybody"
@@SteveB-nx2uo timing attack is literally mid game gameplay, what u on about? which is standard af
I like how they are talking about the audience, instead of just the players--- because, despite the players getting the money, and doing the playing--- the audience is the only thing that we really NEED for this to continue.
Audience would love big Mother Ship casting Archon Toilet! 😂
Plenty of people have been saying this for well over a decade about SC2, sadly falling on deaf ears. The right way to do it is to make a game super fun for everyone (casuals and viewers included), and the esports side will develop naturally. They tried to ignore fun and instead force the esports/balance side, and the result is a stale game that slowly dies.
@@EB-bl6cc They made mistakes a long the way but they had some good intentions.
The 12 worker start was definitely to get players out of what most players thought to be the boring early game. They also reduced all minerals to force more rapid expansions. Games were indeed a lot more fun to play that way.
The whole pros taking over balance, I think that was more post 2018 when the last real patch by devs happened that gave us shield batteries.
Good intentions are not a flex. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Yeah, as a casual watcher of casting games on youtube. There are videos that pop out and starts ok and hope something happen and after a while the matches feel the same over and over and makes me less likely to finish watching the entire video regardless of being a Bo3 or Bo5. Some casters do their best to make the commentary entertaining enough to hang around and see what they come up with.
Which this leads me to, I rather watch viewer submitted games or stuff like Florencio Files because they are so out of the ordinary and I have much more fun watching any of that instead of pro matches.
Have always been in the '12-worker start was a mistake'-camp, thanks for putting this out.
It's like that saying, if you let gamers design a game, they will optimize the fun out of it.
See: DCSS
100%
*pro gamers
@@EB-bl6ccnah, all gamers. Most people dont understand why they are having fun, even if they are very opinionated about it.
Gamere (customers) can tell you something is wrong and roughly point to where. But they are not good at pointing out exactly what or how to solve it.
Ghost was a broken unit for years but people didn't talk about it until recently when terran pros started to take advantage of it.
Just bought Brood War recently. God damn is this game hard. Respekt.
buying brood war is crazy
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠🦨🦨🦨🦨
@@TerekFilms3Remastered version?
Lol. Good luck. One of the hardest competitive/casual games ever made.
You think brood war is hard try KkNd
Why you gotta blaspheme to get your point across?
The most hype time in sc2 in the past 10 years was oliverias run to win the world championship as the underdog. We need more of that
We just did with Clem pwning serral
And this happened very recently, and was allegedly impossible according to this video. I think they are just off. Maybe they want to see more early game variation, fine, but they completely mischaracterized their complaint.
In SC1 you have spells like Dark swarm, Plague, stasis etc. That would be straight up imba in SC2 and thats problem of sc2. Sc2 plays it safe with everything and on top of that 2 spawn maps, in general small maps, 12 workers, units clunked together, no misses shots from units and other random events.
It all stems from design decisions made by Blizzard during the development of StarCraft II, like good pathfinding.
Finally! I'm not the only one that thinks this!
Yes, but funnily sc1 is balanced because its bad interface. Its hard to control units, so it automatically basically balances those skills. Because everything requires so much micro, it means using these powerful spells also means that micro potential is out of some other area, like economy. Sc2 everything is just automated so there is no tradeoff in anything.
I like that the late game is so OP. It pressures the players to end it before OP units are out. And watching two OP unit types go at it can be fun, like science vessels and defilers for example
There is stasis in SC2.... Artosis would argue that Defilers are already imbalanced in SC1. Although win rates don't back that up. Zerg is the least represented in the top 16 teams every year if you add them all up. Terran is actually the most.
Bring back the 6 worker start. Commentators are good enough to fill time if both players macro.
yeah, and there are numbers between 6 and 12 too. They should schedule it that each year the worker count drops by 1 going forward.
@@AntiDoctor-cx2jd Nah. Lets just jump straight to no workers and free minerals. Why not? If I could pick one worker count to NOT change to it would be 6. We don't need every old build developed suddenly back in the game. Shake it up and lets get new builds and new timings.
@@TomThompson Me - push for not setting it to 6. You - Wrong because it shouldn't be 6. ok....
@@AntiDoctor-cx2jd You: let's lower by one every year. Me: that ends up at zero. You: math hard.
@@TomThompson no, it eventually goes negative (lol). For the slow people: You eventually decide to stop, and then decide which number was best. If you are extremely dumb, you might not be able to figure that out. You're the guy who would crash the car in the lake because the directions said to, and then realize you misunderstood the directions (when somebody explains it to you)
As someone who started in bronze back in 2010 and has been GM for many years now I agree with a lot of what you guys said. I had the most fun playing SC2 when I was in platinum league. Simply because I didn't know what to expect from my opponent and also couldn't rely on my own "perfect" execution to win regardless. In GM, pretty much every game is the same. Standard build vs standard build and the guy with better mechanics wins. Don't get me wrong GM games can be insanely fun with all the action going on but it feels less like a strategy game and more like a speed competition.
this is why my friend quit and why i eventually couldn't keep playing
i still watch, but i'm enjoying actually playing aom...
I don't know how you think being bad at the game makes it more fun. It has to be the exact opposite. People in platinum(equivalent to gold back then) still think 1 base all ins are legit, and because the opponent usually is bad at scouting or whatever it's still is very powerful. Just a little higher at Diamond and timing attacks two base all ins decides EVERY game. I've played against terran as protoss probably like 40 to 50 times this recent weeks and probably 2 times only the game went to the late game.
@@33shin33 The fun part also comes from improving. When you lose to something stupid, improve and win against it the next times, it feels very rewarding. I'm pretty much hard-stuck in mid gm and it feels like whatever I do I won't improve. In plat, I had lots of room to improve so you could see the skill increase clearly. Now, all I can do is grind games and hope my mechanics get 0.1% better over time. If there were more volatility in high level games I'd have more options to explore, other than just grining for mechanics.
@@vmgNarra I think you gave a very good explanation. Thanks a lot!
Its hard to do a shakeup when theres no actual development effort from Blizzards side
If microsoft gets bought out by Disney, that will fix it! (and now the joke is over)
There isn't any from the mapmakers either. BW is balanced by maps while SC2 has stagnated into very boring and identical maps for years.
@@Kilo_Alpha_Delta Yeah, I guess a game not being very popular decreases hackers, cause hackers don't have the motivation to work on the hacks, right?
@@Kilo_Alpha_Delta This is true. Terran race is so OP when anything is a little different on the map that you just can't have quirky maps.
@@AntiDoctor-cx2jd Yeah the game has gotten progressively worse since WOL. That was when the game was at its best and we actually had interesting maps and more dynamic play. Nowadays 3 base is the new 1 base and early game is dead.
Games that are solvable (low volatility) need to have so many potential options that it's hard to know what the optimal option is in every state. IE Chess and Go
With a game like starcraft, where there are technically "more game states" but tactically limited, there does need to be more variance to keep the game interesting. IE card games.
Artosis is definitely on point.
True. Eventually if you stretch the comparison it's like playing tic tac toe. The game is solved. I solved it as a kid for fun. Then I realized you could guarantee win if there is a mistake and never lose. If both players know the best options then it's always a draw. It's not interesting then.
@@planetary-rendez-vousexactly! Nah that was a good comparison
100% agreed. There used to be diverse strategies in HoTS for protoss, but ppl complained and they removed all of it.
Adding RNG to a game can raise its skill ceiling by rewarding players who excel at adapting to unpredictable outcomes. The ability to adjust on the fly to events beyond their control becomes a key factor in skill differentiation. However, the impact of RNG depends on its implementation, so the specific type of RNG used must also be carefully considered.
It also lowers the skill ceiling in the moments where you just kinda get lucky.
I’m not sure randomness (build orders or game rng) is the best way to do it. Volatility can be increased by adding more sharp edges. Scarabs and spider mines are good examples.
@@neonmarblerust The game doesn't require more "you didn't look for .01 seconds to bad lost half of your army" type of units
SC2 doesn’t have volatility like 50% missed-shots to high ground like SCBW. Also no randomness like scarab shots.
Also A LOT of cheeses died with the recent changes having 12 workers from the get go.
Six pool, proxy gateway, proxy Thor, banshee rush... So much went away, I will always miss 6 supply start.
To be fair, not having random RNG bs is a good thing imho.
Mixed about the 12 workers though. On one hand I get why it was changed to 12. It makes matches much faster from the get go, but I do miss some cheeky cheeze strats.
I was incredibly disappointed coming back to SC2 to finding this was an actual change... game was never the same.
Early game is non existent basically.
@@atifarshad7624Having thoughtfully designed RNG is a hallmark of many great games like Magic the Gathering and Poker. It brings players "off book" to use a chess term, so there's always an element of fresh and interesting decision-making as well as new aspects of the bluffing and information game. Occasionally, it all comes together to make incredible interactions that are rare and unique. For example, map spawn locations are semi-random and they add so much to the game when it comes to dynamics. Of course, it's incredibly easy to get this wrong, but on the other hand, getting it right is the hallmark of a great game designer.
I think having 4 player maps would bring some of those back on their own.
Having to scout multiple locations, having more spots to proxy, sacrificing worker time, all this would make rushes a lot more deadly.
Maybe not enough, but still, maybe good enough.
Shouldn't know how many workers you're going to spawn with till the game starts, (each players gets the same amount) haha--- so you gotta make a gut shot decision when you realize its going to be a high or low income game. Could you imagine the excitement at the start of each match?
Random between 6-12 could be fun but then zerg get too big advantage when they get high
It could also be tweaked for different maps. Like there could be 8, 10, and 12 start maps, with corresponding different avenues for map designers to take. Sort of like clay, grass, and hard court in tennis.
I thought the same thing! Kinda like chess960 :)
You can make high/low income game by reducing the number of mineral patches on the main base
I've been watching some competitive Red Alert 2 recently, and what they do could be tried in SC2.
They have tournaments where the players can change their faction before every map. That one change makes a massive difference.
Here are some of the effects I have noticed:
- unbalanced and wacky maps can be played in tournaments
- best players don't become unbeatable unless they become the best in every single map and every single matchup
- it's easier to counter meta strategies by switching to an uncommon faction choice for a map
All of this means that each game of a tournament can look very different and it's exciting to watch.
No idea what would happen if SC2 player could change race before every map but I think that could be interesting.
Have to say, HotS was for me personally the best time of my SC2 life. It had imbalance sure, but it was fun. I felt there were so many possibilities to play the game. sure TvZ was mostly Marine Push vs LBM, but i enjoyed it. Catalena was such a fun and challenging map.
The octopus map was great I agree!
I spend so much time trying to make my muta ling bling core with 10 swarmhost as siege option work 😂
yup, HoTS > LotV
I think one of the main reasons Serral has such a big winrate is scouting. Zerg is fundamentally the easiest race to scout with. First: they have overlords, that you can float in the corners of the map and above line of sight blockers. Second: zerglings. If you watch how Serral plays, he has zerglings covering most of the map. You can't slip almost anything past him. And when Serral has all the information he doesn't lose. You can't do the same for example with protoss, because zealots are so expensive and slow.
creep spread as well
Yes and no. They have very good scouting, however the thing is that Zerg players have optimized their play to the point where it almost does not matter what the other guy does as Queens counter everything early on.
I say this because Serral DID play a Maphack match against Harstem where Harstem had Maphack and Serral still won.
But you are right, their map control is by far the best, especially with the creep tumors.
@@shadowpriest2574 Zerg early game is not an RTS, it's a single player game at that point, like tetris.
well Protoss in the next patch got some more scouting options, with Hallucination Phoenix or Probes
It's easiest to scout as terran. You have early reaper and later scans and sensor towers.
I think that the poker aspect of starcraft with scouting and bluffing is the most enjoyable part for the audience.
More hidden information = better audience experience.
Yeah I think it's no surprise that Protoss, the race with the least map vision and also the easiest to read, is the most inconsistent race.
And then Terrans arrive with magical SCAN!
That is super easy and cheap to get...
@@mz5805 yeah, and somehow terrans think their race is the hardest to scout with. Maybe it is if you are a lot worse than your opponents.
The problem with that in SC2 is things are too deadly. If you don't scout an oracle, 1 unit!!!, and it just hits vs no defense you lose the game instantly. Therefore you MUST be able to know about it or you cannot survive. Same with many other attacks.
If you look at broodwar, even if you don't scout a DT rush, it still takes minutes for you to die to it, and that means you can still do stuff, block some ramp, retreat to some static d, etc. It's still very bad for you, but not completely 100% over.
14:00 NOT having people who's lives depend on the game BALANCING the game is a tremendous point and something I've been thinking constantly like..WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS!? LOL Get ALL PROS OFF THE BALANCE COUNCIL
Most obvious conflict of interest in history.
Honestly just let the casters do changes. They know what the audience likes.
If you think the game should be designed for the audience, sure. But should it be designed for the audience, aka for viewership, or should it be designed for the players?
@@LazyMaybe it's funny because it is just like sc2's bad rock-paper-scissors design. Volatility brings viewership, viewership brings players, players want less volatility.
Audience loves the game but it is unbalanced -> no pro players, noone to watch. Pro players balance the game until it isn't fun anymore -> no audience. No audience -> no tournaments, nothing for the players to fight for. Best chicken and egg problem ever right?
The game should be designed for FUN. Once it's fun you think about balance. When you have fun and balance you will get audience and players. Neither of these groups actually know how to design that.
I think artosis is right that volatility is more fun for viewers. I don't think so much for gamers though. Having all the tools to win and its not random why you lost makes the game more rewarding to play. Happy has a 90%+ winrate in warcraft 3. Imo its also about the age of the game and the knowledge base. There is no way to fix this without fucking up the whole player base. You'd just get everyone mad. Starcraft has always patched for competitive. Most people play the game to iterate without random things happening. Even the cheese is based on non-random things happening. This whole video is asking for reasons to complain about shitty patches where things are impossible to beat. They fix it now they're mad. How about just play mods or create mod tournaments 🤦🏿♂️?
If workers go back to 6 I would totally come back to the game and play +50 hours per week lol
6 was so much better. Either do that or raise the starting supply by 2. The only option, beyond something like 15/15/15, is to build a depot/pylon/overlord immediately after starting your first worker. Not only does that limit you, it limits what you have to wonder what your opponent is up to.
I've been saying this for years. They killed builds, decisions, and risk reward plays by increasing the worker count
Totally agree
6 workers is so overrated. Yeah, there were a few rush builds like 6 pool and proxy gates you could do, but it was almost entirely cheese builds.
I remember the days of "I'll open 2 gate proxy in PvP and hope the other guy doesn't scout it in time." It was a real brain dead strategy, but it could beat GMs quite regularly.
12 workers leads to better games.
It was really not as good as people romanticize. Mostly it was just slow starts and greedier openers.
Damn, this second guy isn't even important enough to include in the title. Artosis/Artosis' editor is doing him so dirty. No name in the description and description says "Do you agree with MY take" not 'our' take. I don't watch SC2, I just wanted to peek in. I don't watch the streams and only really watch Artosis and Tasteless, I don't know who he is and I'm like 8 minutes in without knowing his name. I'll edit when I learn his name from the video
Edit: Never did. Guess he's some SC2 player. I've been meaning to give some old SC2 tournaments a try
its jake bro
@maxjk1143 Thank you lol
I couldn't quite place my finger on why but recently I've been watching less SC2, and I think this video just sorta explained to me why. (Aside from the fact that it's no longer Tastosis, but it wasn't the only reason, lol).
REALLY great talk!
SC2 has skewed too much towards safe mechanical play, leading to lots of same-y games and with low volatility.
Many games are moving in a similar direction as SC2 unfortunately, where they listen to the pros and "balance" the game in a way that makes the game TOO consistent, too samey, removing fun moments and potential for big plays. Players with some of the most exciting playstyles like sOs have been pushed out.
Smash Ultimate for example has removed any slightly interesting stages for very same-y layouts, and this has drastically reduced the enjoyability of spectating the game, as well as reduces character variety and counterpick strategies.
Few biggest points that I think would drastically improve SC2 gameplay variety and complexity, and increase both player and viewer enjoyment:
*1) They should take this opportunity in time to shake things up and decrease worker start from 12 to 9*
Worker start of 6 is too many steps back; lots of games would end due to build order loss back then, having 12 workers start is something that helped increase early variety because you could now choose 2 of the 3: tech, econ, army, instead of just 1. I think a 9 worker start would be a good middleground that would be enough to bring back some 1 base play as well as 3-5 player maps.
However, it is absolutely true that the very initial build order variety has decreased due to the 12 worker start. With minerals reaching optimal saturation so quickly, there is very little variation in gas timings for aggressive 1 base plays or fast tech builds. This also makes scouting your build way too easy as you guys mentioned. Back then you had to scout multiple times to confirm not just the 1st gas timing but 2nd gas timing, and if they're pulling workers off or not etc.
*2) Bring back 3-5 player maps*
These 3-5 player maps did something that was REALLY good for the game: allow gameplay to be more spread out across the map and for smaller skirmishes to happen similar to BW.
Remember Tal'Darim Alter? While arguably a little too big, it made for a lot of exciting memorable games that were back and forth. You couldn't just win a big fight and choke out the opponent easily, because they could have bases in another corner of the map with production structures and economy there.
And most importantly, these maps allowed these far away expansion choices to have defensive features like natural ramps and main chokes! Something that SC2 2 player maps are sorely lacking compared to BW maps. You can cost effectively defend these areas with small fortified positions and a few units; they can still break it but you'd at least trade efficiently, thus encouraging both players to split their armies apart more.
With far expansions having defensive features that can make them more appealing than simply taking the next closest base to you, expansion paths become much less linear. This results in attack paths, reinforcement paths, and all that to become WAY more complex in SC2 than just "my side vs your side".
This also reduces the amount of games ending in 1 base trade, because you have more bases and production spread out across the map.
Some of the most exciting and memorable games of SC2 have been games where players were able to spread out their bases and production in different corners of the map, leading the flow of a game to become much more unpredictable: "are they going to be able to stabilize and go from left vs right to splitting the map top vs bottom??"
The strongest concern against bringing back 3-5 player maps is is "Protoss will die to Zergling rush if they don't scout in time".
Ok, then send out 2 workers if you want to avoid that risk? Even in WoL/HotS with 6 worker start, they would do that. Surely you can send out a 2nd worker now that you start with 12 workers.
*3) As mentioned in point #2, make maps that have more far away expo options because they have some defensive features that your closer bases may not*
Currently in SC2, maps keep having these wide open ramps and easily attackable bases in the late game, when moving your entire army as a deathball and jamming it through a choke is already easy. The philosophy is that they want late game bases to be harder to defend so that it doesn't lead to passive turtling. However this is a mistake as it simply leads to players taking predictable expansions nearby, and the optimal way to defend that is to keep your army grouped up in 1 spot.
In BW, far expos often have narrow chokes, making the game pace slow down and increasing the amount of methodical play and tactics needed to dismantle the fortified positions.
While the pace is "slowed down", the gameplay becomes more exciting and back and forth, and leads to more chances of comebacks.
In SC2, the closest thing it has equivalent to this is giving far away risky expos gold minerals or high yield gas, giving some incentive to spreading our your expos. Indeed, many of these maps lead to interesting games.
Only in the last couple TLMC did we finally start seeing maps experiment with far expansion choices with TINY chokes. And basically none of them won or got put into the map pool.
Golden Wall is the ONLY map I can think of that had some far away bases with more defensive features. For example, the top left and top right corner bases are difficult to access by your opponent, giving you time to intercept their forces. Also, the upper middle bases are on high ground with small ramps, allowing you to fortify it as a forward position to launch attacks from and reinforce your army. These kinds of bases need to be more common in SC2 maps.
I would like to challenge a bit your arguments, since it’s a core feature of theorycrafying I believe.
I have been enjoying SC2 since 2010 both from a player and a viewer point of view, and I enjoy it way more today than I ever did (even though nostalgia hit on many great memories): I think the core of sc2 is that it’s a hard game and it’s always super impressive to see consistency from top players while I see myself struggling on many aspect of the games when playing it (for instance, on paper/theorycrafting everything seems figured out and easy to imply whereas when you are actually playing the game you realise it’s not the case at all…)
That’s if for the context, here are my thoughts:
-Is it the current state of balance that pushed out players like sOs? Or is it the fact that patches have been reduced, leading to longer periods of time on a same patch so it becomes figured out and that unique/surprising build orders get figured out/scouted more easily?To me, take any patch sOs was winning on with « special » strategies, if you let the game in this exact same patch for a longer period of time, sOs couldn’t win anymore with the same strategies as the counter would be figured out at one point.
1) Scouting is different, but I can’t say it is easier today than it was on 6 workers: the fact the you end up saturating your economy faster makes it harder to actually scout if you are getting all-ined or not (from my player perspective, how many time can I get tricked into thinking the opponent is going macro and then get brutally all-ined).
2) >2 players maps adds randomness, and potentials of « freewin » / « freeloose » depending on if you managed to scout your opponent fast enough or not. I think there is 0 fun in basing my strategy on this random aspect allowed by >2 players maps (rather doing a coinflip to decide the winner at this point) or in watching a pro basing it’s gameplay on that (like back in 2010-2011 I already thought it was ridiculous that Moon decided to 6 pool on the last game of a DH finals against Huk, that was just a cointoss game…)
2 players maps don’t prevent your point though, they can just be wider 2 players maps with more expansions. Yet I dislike Taldarim Altar example: we are comparing way different metas, and it doesn’t seem to me that you can defend properly a macro game with your units being on a single spot in the current map pool: they are so many (and deadly) options to attack the opponent on multiple fronts (drops with medivac speed, nydus, prism…) In the current meta, if you don’t see the opponent sieging its tanks or lurkers it’s a guaranteed loss of a base, which can’t be allowed to be defended with your army in a single spot without map awareness. There are also so many units that can destroy one mineral line in a few seconds that you can’t just keep you entire army on a single spot when going for a macro game (3-4 bases at least).
Regarding the fact that a Toss should send 2 probes for scouting feels terrible. Already, when playing vs a Random player it feels awful to send your scouting worker earlier to check for the opponent race. One worker makes for a big difference the lower the economy is (so combining this with point #1 doesn’t feel great). And the overall problem is: why would one player have to send two workers to scout for a strategy that could potentially be used by the opponent, while the opponent can decide to just macro properly and already be having an economic advantage because of the map design?
3) I think comparing sc2 to bw is tricky because even though the cover of the book looks the same (same races, similar units…) the core mechanics are way more differentand it is rarely brought up in talks that compare sc2 and bw. Is this the map design that allows BW to have a slower pace and more comeback potential? Or is it the fact that in Sc2 you can f2 a click to move your entire army in less than a second, while in BW you can only select 12 units at a time, have to manage the rough pathing, and get your camera back to each of your buildings to produce your army since you cannot control group your buildings?
Regarding comeback potentials, I feel like this argument always… comes back in balance discussions while I don’t see the problem in having one player loosing because of a mistake. Game is hard, that’s it:
-should we allow a boxer that got knocked down more recovering time so the boxer have a higher chance of bouncing back from it and winning the match for higher spectacle?
-when a racing car goes off the track on the first lap of a 60 laps race, should we slow the other cars so this one could make up for its hardly punitive little mistake?
-I don’t see why it could be a problem to have a very punitive sc2 gameplay, when pro matches are played in bo5/bo7
I have to disagree with most of these talking points. I think the balance council taken as a whole, has created what is currently the most balanced state of the game it ever has been in. I don't know what kind of rose tinted glasses RT and Ret have on, but I have actually went back and watched some old WoL tournament games recently+. Most of them are incredibly boring and very low level by today's standards. Don't just pick out epic moments of SC2 history, actually look at what the average tournament game was like. The 6 worker start does have an impact on 1 base all ins, but those were already incredibly rare by the time the 12 worker change took place. What it did in effect was just skip the first 5 minutes of routine worker production, which was a good change. Also keep in mind medivac boost became a thing because drops were so incredibly easy to counter that most Terrans just didn't bother and resorted to a 3 base Innovation style rally push to kill the Zerg's 4th.
It just seems really bizarre to call out the balance council as the source of SC2 woes when the meta for WoL and HoTS was pure garbage. BL infestor into the sunset and the HoTS swarm host created snail paced games that were so bad that even someone like Firecake was able to do well. As a side note, BW also has the exact same people in the tournaments all the time; though there is some variance in where they place.
This isn't to say that SC2 doesn't have engagement problems, and some of what was suggested here is worth revisiting. 3-4 player maps might be a good thing to reintroduce into the scene. If I wanted to think of something to really shake things up, I would put destructible rocks at every base location but the natural. This would make expanding take much more effort to do, and would create attack opportunities. If I wanted to be extra spicy, there could also be destructible rocks even at the natural, but with far less HP than the rocks at further bases. This could bring back some one base play, open up the options for more tech builds. If you wanted, you could make it so that the destructible rocks reappear if the Nexus/CC/Hatch gets killed, making sniping those structures much more valuable by increasing the amount of time it takes to get that expansion back online. I realize that Zerg would be most affected by this kind of change, and that there would need to be additional balancing to counteract this.
Nobody cares if s game is balanced if it's not cool and fun
Finally a reasonable take.
Agreed. Tough as you said, there is something to the idea/discussion overall, even if i think too 6 workers sucked and the past balance used to be really bad.
Fully agreed, would love to be bigger patches or increased variance in StarCraft.
I miss creative and new strategies
>says there's no devs left to make new Starcraft at Blizzard
>entire video is them asking for more Starcraft from blizzard
haha
SC2 was a significantly better game when it came out imo, wings of liberty was amazing. The pacing of the game was way better, and the maps actually felt like starcraft. Looked like an actual war taking place on the planets you go to in the campaign. Now its just stupid neon lined clean colorful hex shaped esport crap. Brood War still makes maps that look like starcraft, so what the fuck is SC2's problem? HoTS was a good xpac but not quite as good, and then LoTV just ruined it and i haven't played since other than finishing the campaign.
Great video. Love the quote from Jake at the end 'Ultimately eSports are for viewing, not playing'.
Interesting thoughts, but I disagree with the main point. I enjoy watching the best of the best (Serral) dominate. Though more diversity in play should definitely be viable and encouraged.
FINALLY SOMEONE AGREES THAT THE WORKER CHANGE WAS THE WORST THING FOR SC2
Nah, the players wouldn't want to go back to the old worker count, it'd the most unpopular change in the history of the game, also a lot more boring to watch
@@RancorSnp I argue the opposite, the game is very streamlined vs the old worker count.
Diversity in the game is never a bad thing and bringing back the old early game would allow for that.
every game should have a lead into the big events. Increasing tension in the early game would make the longer games feel better and more rewarding.
In fact the majority of players I played with including myself stopped playing as much with the change. Build orders are less impactful, all ins are less interesting, Fe isnt a consideration but a must - because you have such a rapid push into a midgame
Naw, switching to only 2 player maps was the worst idea of all time. Go back to different sized 3-4 player maps for half the pool
@@Figgy20000 might be a symptom of a similar problem. Fact is we dont have a early game anymore and it removes player agency just like only having 2player maps. Games need RNG and skill comes from the player limiting that RNG through their skill and knowledge. In other words you need chaos in your games. Its not fun when there is no RNG you cant overcome, and its not fun when you have no options to play the game
my problem with going just adding 3-4 player maps back to the pool doesnt fix the problems with game diversity but only exacerbates the current problems with the economy of the game
@@RancorSnp You have no understanding of the game dynamics whatsoever
The primary issue here is that the game is mapped out because there is no randomization in the starting game state. This is why Magnus Carlsen thinks Fischer Random Chess will play a big role in chess in the future.
Fischer Random is so much fun, and it focuses on core fundamentals over memorizing openings.
Even playing against someone better, in classical chess I can often lose in 10 moves because I didn't memorize the openings. At least in Fischer Random that can't happen
Your comment is 100% wrong, completely unrelated, and flat out incorrect. There is a game where game start was randomized, it's called AoE 3. Is AoE 3 the absolute best esport game of all time? Second Magnus promote chess960 to limit the effectiveness of preparation, do SC2 players hire other sc2 players to makes an opening repertoire for them? No? Then it has absolutely nothing to do with SC2.
People keep calling what they want randomness but you absolutely do not want pure, random chance in a competitive game. You want variety, you want differences
@@menohomo7716 We're talking about taking a good game and adding randomness to it. (Chess, SC2) Comparing it to a bad game with a lot of randomness like AoE3 proves nothing. Pro gamer houses usually had 1 great player who would practice and come up new builds and everyone in that team would optimize the build for their #1 player. Magnus would've played the world champ match if it was faster time control too, not because it limits preparation but it lends to a better viewing experience and more volatility in results due to mistakes.
@@menohomo7716 chill? You’re confusing a necessary with a sufficient condition in your logic my friend. it is 100% good game design theory to randomize starting game states if you want your game to remain fun, fresh, and replayable, which of course doesn’t come close to making the game great even if this is basically a minimum requirement for games being made in 2024 (always exceptions, of course). And by the way Reynor paid Lambo to do pretty much exactly that, and has said publicly that it was a significant reason he won Katowice.
Making workers behave more like brood war could also be fun - less obvious on what's the optimal worker count per base
artosis for president
make sc2 great again
sadly woke "blizzard" don't give shiett! about anything now, they only here for cash grab
It feels like SC2 prioritizes skill over having fun. Over the years, slowly, randomness has been taken out because its probably seen as "unfair/unfun" by people whom are absolute gods at the game, so the average reddit user. But as a viewer, nothing was more fun than seeing Leenock fast expand to a gold base and the game devolving into chaos, or the classic Huk hallucinations. Expansions in random corners of the map. Its like if basketball only did free throws to decide the winner, or if hockey only did a shootout. Of course we want to see the best players win and the games to be slugfests, but you can't deny it was exciting (in pro games) as soon as that probe moved from base, especially on 4 player maps. Having that rock paper scissors of "hey its a 4 player map i can probably get away with being greedy", but the terran is building 2 rax in the middle of the map.
Idk why you equate randomness to fun. it's equally if not more frustrating when your shit doesnt work just coz the RNG decided that you are not having fun today.
Someone host a WOL tourny now!
What people like to watch is skill, not randomness... RNG has exactly 0 place in SC2. Even the random movement of a building SCV should be removed.
Michael Schumacher had close to 100 wins in Formula 1... it would be insane to ask for randomized cars. That would actually drive away the very best players, when skill is no longer the main deciding factor of who wins.
Leave SC2 alone don't let fans turn into Rainbow Siege which is ruined btw (used to be amazing not even the same game anymore). Just need to make SC3 instead if you want something different
You could fix a lot of this with procedurally generated random maps. $O$ would come back and win every 100K tournament.
While I absolutely think something like a WoL-era league would be cool… I do worry that it would take no time at all before we’re back to watching loads of of brood lord/infestor games on Daybreak. 😂
I have played Starcraft 2 nearly incessantly from launch day up to around februrary 2023 then stopped and haven't touched it since. I've been masters league since WoL, and in and out of low GM throughout LotV. I 100% agree that it just feels like there isn't any room for variation in game play anymore. There's like 2 or 3 different openings per matchup that if you aren't doing, you are behind. The game just feels like it mindlessly funnels you into the mid-late game where the first player to win a decisive engagement snowballs.
You can't have fun maps because the massive terran imbalances abuse all the map details. Just think, what is the obstacle to map making? Terran siege positions mostly. Or terran ability to fly buildings. Or Terran drops, or Terran ability to turtle. So this is the "poison" and I agree you could have fun maps, but you'd have to balance the races and let terran lose for a while until they get good enough to build a raven.
Back when Beasty played SC2, he was all the time banging the drum to ignore the balance council, and just make crazy changes and have things fall where they may.
Queen Supply.
1 Queen per Hatch.
So... for those of us who don't know, who is the other guy?
An aspiring SC2 pro. Jake, I think, can’t remember his alias
Does anyone else remember Has running through the 2018 WCS Valencia to the grand finals? I still go back to watch him play better and better players, and watching every caster (except Artosis) lose their minds. It was SO fun. I want that back.
One of the reasons sOs was so much fun to watch
would love to see a Wol league
I agree with that. bring back the 4 and 3 position maps should be a great idea.
Sc2 had structural problems from the beginning. It is very easy to create blobs of units and macro 50 marines at the same time. Also terran have way too many OP units. The only way for Protoss and Zerg to compete is with splash damage.
And they constantly nerf protoss splash lol
@@Anko88888 and they also constantly nerf zerg just in general
Man im getting In-Depth flashbacks.... Bring back me favourite format 🥲
Worker increase was just a direct buff to zerg which was borderline broken even before it
12 workers means there is no early game. Pushes are too weak, so the only interaction in the mid-game is harass. 200 supply max armies in the late game means we have the same comps game after game.
Bring back 6 workers, make pushes much stronger and worker harass secondary, and make it a rare game that gets to 200/200 rather than the norm.
Balance can be awful. Reminds me of Diablo3 where all builds feel equal and pigeon holed. Eventually you gravitate towards the mechanically easier build because they are balanced to be roughly equally powerful.
Truer words have never been spoken. I basically stopped watching SC2 when they did the worker change. I watch a game from time to time but it's just not interesting unfortunately. BW 100%.
game came out in 2010 we need a new fucking game
When LotV was in beta, Team Liquid engineered a new economy where mineral income per base scaled logarithmically per worker as it is in Brood War. IMO not adopting that design (and keeping 6 workers) was the greatest mistake Blizzard ever made (next to medivac boost, lol).
In addition to the great suggestions in the video I'd also like to follow through on a suggestion from Day9 and raise the supply cap to 300. Games with 200 supply just feel so stale.
Video game players in general don't like random dice rolls in competitive video games. It's also a reason why Esports will never be as popular as IRL sports. All the random elements are taken out of the physics of the game world. No such thing is possible in the real world. It's a reason why video games become stale after time and professional sports still attract millions of viewers.
did blizz literally give infested terrans anti air rockets or am i just imagining things
That hasn’t been around for several years now
@@johnwrath3612 im just saying at one time they really thought zerg needed that
at one time they thought siege tanks should be picked up by medivacs while in siege mode
their solution to Zerg's bad late game anti air options was to let them summon super turrets, yes
@@chloesmith4065 lol yep that was really dumb
1 - There needs to be 1 new big late game unit for each race, 1 caster for each race, 1 new air unit for each race(it's called Starcraft for some reason not 12poolcraft).
2 - Workers should be redesigned, have a little bit more HP. (an upgrade maybe?). Bigger on the screen, slower when carrying minerals, flammable when carrying gas and explode when destroyed. Races should be able to boost their economy in some way, a new building that builds a secondary new more powerful worker for each race. They should bring back to 6 workers, but workers should carry a bunch of more minerals like 10 or 15.
3 - Patches should hit MORE OFTEN. Why are you so afraid?
4 - Early game units should be nerfed just a little bit, Zealots, Marines, Zerglings.
5 - Rework these stupid units for the sake of fun please: Widow Mines, Lurkers, Tempest.
6 - Make Upgrades a little bit more expensive, up till lv 4 upgrades, make them complete faster.
7 - Cannons SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO HIT BUILDINGS
Add randomly generated maps (of course, still symmetrical, with wallable natural etc.). That would make it harder to execute perfectly, and it would open up for some unorthodox play.
One of my favourite things about Age of Empires 2 is random maps. However it doesn't suit SC2, as different factions take advantage of the map better than others. Like imagine a map generating with several chokes and two safe bases and all the other bases very open. You can already picture in your mind which faction can best take advantage of that.
I'd day just let the ground of maps go to the edge of the map every now and again.
@@Unormalism I do agree that SC2 does require quite specific map designs to be fair. However, these constraints can be built in to the map generation algorithm. Defining the full set of constraints would require a fair bit of theorizing. It's of course possible SC2 is too finicky to generate fair maps that are also interesting and diverse.
I completely agree that the balance counsel or whatever they are called are profoundly biased and are directly responsible for the stagnation of sc2 and overall decline of interest. As long as they maintain total control of the game's balance and direction SC will remain arrested in its development, resulting in a dead game. It's really unfortunate how they have strangled the enjoyment out of the game in favor of extremely predictable outcomes.
I support the shake-up ! Whatever that entails (Larger maps or balance tweaks).
Saying that the more skilled player always winning is a bad thing is the dumbest take I have ever heard in my entire life. THE BETTER PLAYER SHOULD WIN EVERY TIME??!!? WHAT??!!? People will always have ups and downs, primes and slouches. Wtf is that take?!?
If they're always going to win then what's the point in watching the match? You know who's going to win. Every build and every play is mapped out, color by numbers. They explain it in the video: the problem isn't that the best player wins. It's that the game is so stale and predictable that it's not fun to play or watch because it's 80-90% predictable.
@adammccraw7379 What's the point of watching the Olympics? The fastest man will always win. I understand the need for variance in build order and strategy, but we should always want the best player to take home the trophy.
Its just silly how much they babied zerg through sc2 lotv
I disagree, i like when the best player wins
And I like it that sc2 will never surpass BW
What SC2 needs is Tastosis the Casting Archon live in studio with live viewer chat.
This is the most important video on sc2, really hope blizzard watches this
The way that Dota 2 is balanced is imo the best in competitive gaming. Led by a visionary (icefrog) who's made the game his life's work and has a strong idea of what the game shouls be.
Every major patch changes the game a huge amount and keeps things feeling super fresh, even when pros bitch and moan.
I think the key difference with SC2 is audience unfortunately. The game isnt pulling in enough $$$ for blizzard to care, so it feels like its perpetually on life support with even the biggest patches consisting of small tweaks.
Makes me sad
I think this is very bad and unsustainable logic. A great game needs no patches ever. Look at the Brood War, Rocket League or any super smash bros title. Those games are not getting boring any time soon.
If developers stop patching mobas, players might realize just how soulless those games. Without dopamine one might get from suddenly playing a new character or discovering a new mechanic, people will stop playing.
Icefrog doesn't work on Dota anymore. Not for a few years
Dota balance has been horrible for years
Arty wants more randomness. Make the building not build like happens to artosis. Then he will switch to sc2 ;)
Lol artosis your math aint mathin bro ahahahaha
4 player maps were great. I remember sending my whole army to the wrong location and realizing his army just reached my base, gg wp.
The biggest thing I notice as a viewer is really the lack of build order variety in certain match ups. Oh it's a PvZ and a stargate oracle crazy. I absolutely agree SC2 needs a shake up. However I can also see how huge sweeping changes while interesting for a moment could lead to a wildly unbalanced game and that the balance council might not really be able to deal with that.
Protoss has no openers viable against Zerg at the top level except adepts into Oracle. Sadly.
Mhm this is a hard one. While the current balance (except Protoss not winning Tournaments) does have a certain beauty, you see streamers skipping the start of a game as audiences dislike it.
I do agree with the opionions in this video but not sure how to do it. Do not wanna end up with another infestor era as well. Current Balance council has some good ideas but seems to be against Protoss. Simply removing perfect scoutability would give fresh air. Maybe make overlords slower, observers easier to see or something…
As someone who is brand new to SC2 I found learning about starting worker count increasing from 6 to 12 was the really weird shock I feel playing SC2 compared to other RTS games. Absolutely no down time at the start of the game to warm up, get into rhythm, etc. makes learning the game a lot more stressful
Baseball had this problem and a few years ago banned certain defenses and added the pitch clock to add more randomness into the game. NBA made rule changes around the shot clock, NHL removed certain rules to open up the game. Why shouldn't SC2 or Broodwar to the same?
We want the skill ceiling to be high in our RTS, but when someone demonstrates they're more skillful than the rest, then it's a problem. I don't say you make the game unpredictable to the point a transcendent talent blends into the crowd.
i agree volatility makes things more exciting. it's why i loved for,mula 1 when a lot of cars retired, you were on edge until the end
The shake up Sc2 needs is already in the game. All of the "Subfactions" of each race that are available in Co-op need to be available in Ladder instead of just the 3, even if its a separate rank system.
quake mentioned WOOOOOOO play defrag :)
A lot of players think it's the clicks that stand between RTS and mainstream success, and developers seem to agree.
All strategy and tactics are implemented through mechanical input. No amount of game awareness, knowledge, or attention management, will help you if you lack mechanical aptitude.
Having improved mechanics opens more doors for you strategically and tactically. You can literally do more of the game. This is rewarding and exciting. New options open up to you. You become more aware of the totality of the game. Lowering the barriers to this only serves to weaken its appeal and cheapens the success of it.
Watching someone do the seemingly impossible is what makes esports awe-inspiring. Having games that can end at sudden moments makes them engaging spectacles. You get those things by placing impossible mechanical demands on the player and removing the safety nets. When you are the player, it's equal parts frustration and satisfaction. The important thing is that it's emotional.
I want to see more self-expression. Undo some of the QoL features and see what happens. "Every click should be a strategical decision" makes the game a thought experiment, not a skill contest. Let the theorists argue on Reddit and let the players express themselves through impossible adversity.
Not all devs agree!
Well SC2 fits that description. Nobody has perfect bink stalker micro, or macro and scouting and spellcasting in the late game. ITs just not possible, you can see what can be done with infinite speed when bots play...
And im not sure i agree. Turn based strategy is a solid niche , of which im a part of and there is no fast clicking, only thinking. Games like Interstellar Genesis, Dominus Galaxia, Xcom are great and take most of my gameing time. The problem is for starters, thats its to slow to be enjoyable by mass viewers. Second I dont know how viable it would be for esports, becasue what works for you even if you play 1000 times a game, and discover new nuances, might not work for esports when the game is played bilions of time, and everything is known.
That Lysol container behind Jake's shoulder looks like it's boiling, but I think it's just aliasing.
A bit like F1 needs making more interesting (by turning on sprinklers at random - yes i know the safety concerns) - add a weather feature, which could slow the map, reduce vision, whatever .... just have it so you don't know when it's happening. Could happen in the first 10 seconds (screwing up builds) or just at a timing push.
Love this video. SC2 has been STALE for a VERY long time. Unfortunately the balance council won't revert to the original economy, the way the game was DESIGNED
I miss cheese so much. My favourite tournament was the one where Has cheesed his way to the finals and came extremely close to killing Serral in each game. Such a crowd pleaser.
Totally agree on worker change, bring back 6 worker start.
Making it more like Brood War would be an improvement.
it would, but SC2 fans and designers will never ever admit that lol
At least there are balance changes being done roughly twice a year for versus! For co-op we have nothing! I know co-op is not so interesting to watch and nobody can earn from playing it, but the fact is - more people play co-op than versus! I spent a lot of time thinking of what to change, doing several videos on my channel, discussing with guys on my stream and on Reddit and come to a pretty good conclusion what to do in the next patch, but it's very hard to find people with technical expertise and willingness to do it! Volunteers and sponsors are always welcome!
yes you are correct , sc2 needs to change the worker count around more , have more than the same fucking 2 player map copy/pasted 8 times for every season , and revert the resource node reduction change
going back to wins of liberty with all current units would be so sick!! I like the idea
A wild idea; add inflation to the game. Based on your supply usage over the last x minutes in the game you have a certain inflation on the prices of units. Inflation also is affected by the supply you lose ...
I have a lot of fun watching uThermal videos and his crazy builds bring back that random factor. I know is not againt pro players so is easier. But give me glimpse of what a more crazy balance SC2 would look.
Variance should be a feature, it makes for exciting moments as a viewer, and as a player as well.
100% Agree. The problem with this also becomes that pros below top 3 becomes boring to watch because you know they will not make it anyway.
I also play WC3.
What I notice as a big difference, is sometimes I lose in WC3, and I don't really know what I should have done differently, or how I should have played to win the game. A total mistery ...
Meanwhile in SC2, it's always obvious how you could have theoretically to win, or why you lost the game.
It's not so interesting to me to "improve" at a game, where I know basically everything I need to practice to "git gud", and there is very little strategical theorizing or speculations regarding what changes you need to make as a player to improve. That's a bit vague, but that's my take on why the game is not as exciting.
I don't this is actually true, just a perception. If you are mentioning an individual player to criticize the game, your argument is a fail. The fact that Serral is winning a lot, ok, but nobody else is a dominant 2nd or 3rd. How many multi-time world champions are there? 1? Maybe 2? Maybe there is a lack of volatility in styles (other than Dark) but the outcomes are very much up in the air. I'm not against the suggestions, but it would be to flair up the playstyles/early game not the winrates. Also terran is so OP, when anything is weird, it skews it pretty hard towards terran, which makes fun maps a major problem. They really need to let terran just lose until they build a raven. So terran always makes the finals because their race is so broken, and they always play the same because they don't have the skill to mix it up, so the counter play is also the same. Artosis is probably right about taking opinions. Both from pros and fans, I'm the only fan with a brain.
Basically make starcraft 2 more like what ARtosis complains against non stop on his stream.
Totally agree that we need to take chances on Imba units and builds. Generally agree with other points as well.
"May the best player win"
Artosis: "No"
There is a Ty Cobb book on the shelf! How is nobody talking about this!?!?!?