Options, Options.......

Recently after reading the thread about "the death of micro is sc2" i have come upon an idea:

The main reasoning behind blizzards choice of making sc2 slightly less micro intensive is to lower the learning curve of the game and to allow more casual players to have more fun with the main game.

However these changes have been some what controversial as it may prevent sc2 from ascending to the level that sc1 did (as a pro e-sport).

I have thought up of a possibile solution to this problem: What if players got the choice of how much or how little micro they wanted. Imagine a diffculty setting that had 3 levels on it. Easy, medium, and PRO, easy could be the least micro intensive setting with features such as auto casting for most spellcasters and automatic repairs (by scv's) along with smart cast and worker distribution systems, PRO could be used for competitive matchs and would have a micro intensity similar to that of sc1, while medium would be somewhere inbetween.

This system may allow ums only players to try out the main game and would allow all players to play competitively with eachother on their own prefered diffculty of micro.

Hopefully that made sense :thumbupunlike my in game cinematics thread)

 

Sounds good to me. At least it would end all of this pointless arguing about the game playing itself. The more customizable options, the better the gaming experience.

 

I really like that idea (being a ums/casual gamer myself) but it would be alot more balancing work to make it work because certain things that would be balanced at one setting wouldnt be balanced at other settings.

 

This would be like balancing the game three times.

It's just not a good idea to force mechanics changes to the game and especially to expect them of Blizzard.

What is more likely (and practical) is that you will simply be paired against opponents of similar skill to your own (they have relatively the same number of wins and losses as you do) just like it is done for Warcraft 3.

This is a much more efficient way of controlling the difficulty level of online play.

Now, you could have settings that said "Autocast: ON or OFF" or something like that, but I think that would just change the dynamic. If you absolutely want this option, I would suggest it only be available in UMS.

 

I agree this would create unessecary balance issues. The way I figure it is you make the game for your target audience (casual gamers). If you don't like the lack of micro don't play the game. Don't act like you are god and ask Blizzard to make the game for YOU because that ruins it for everyone

 

sounds good to me will make it more easier/hard and appeal to wider audience

 

Just play with the default settings the game comes with. There are some other important factors to determien the difference between a pro and a novice, like strategies, macro and all that.

 

It would be a good idea. Computer player gets boring by the time.
And with different difficulties you could play easy first, then normal, then hard, then super hard, then insane, then... Well you get the point

 

This doesn't sound like a good idea to me.


How would the "micro-level" setting be like?

a) You create a new user profile and it prompts you a window with the settings, which apply throughout the whole campaigns?
b) You select the "micro-level" every time you load your profile/start a game?
c) You can adjust it dynamically, like the game speed?

(What about multiplayer gameplay? low "micro-level" intensity players vs. the players with same setting, or all mixed up?)


Also, Starcraft 2 is already being made more user friendly, there will definitely be a "idle worker" icon.

I guess.

 

How excatly would you level out micro in tiers anyway? I mean micro is basically just managing and moving/using your units. So what just make it do it automatically instead to make it easier? I don't understand how this would work.

This is like communism, it may look like a good idea on paper but in reality it doesn't work out so good.

 

Casual gamers CAN be GOOD at RTS games. They don't need 12938 APM to beat other casual players online and have fun. Rather than balance the difficult settings according to micro neediness, balance it according to player preference. If you want a challenge go to a challenging server/game. I think battle.net should do a better job of creating servers for challenging all the way down to super new. Yes, some pros will be a-holes and go kill on new players, but once again, that's for battle.net to sort out.

Keep the micro learning curve to be a parabolic shape rather than a linear line that levels off at a certain point.

 

I think this is a good idea because for the pros out there wanting the classic and origional feel of SC and it also adds an option for the Novices who can't adjust so quickly. The best way to change the micro lvls would be to put it on the options menue AND NOT have it pop up everysingle time I meen whoever thought that one up wow I feel sorry for them. ANYWAYS this is deffinatly NOT like Communism I think the Russians are saying the same exact thing about Democracy.

 

This is a bad idea. I dont know why people assume SC2 is some noob friendly game that pro-gamers will be unable to excel at, and will require minimal to medium skill levels to own at. The developers have STATED that this is NOT the case, check out the following video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKKnqfmRTec&eurl=http://www.starcraft2forum.org/index.php?;tpstart=20

I am sure starcraft 2 will be noob and pro friendly. One example is the addition of the ALT key feature. Pressing ALT will display all the units/buildings on screens HP. I wouldnt expect a noob to use this, and they wouldnt have to, to still be able to play the game. While an advanced level gamer will probably have this button pressed for an entire large scale battle to save his low HP units and focus fire effectively.

Your idea may sound fun, but I can almost gaurantee it is something that will never see existence.

 

Hello, n8_j Welcom to the Forum, hope you are enjoying
God bless...

 

OK it seems some of you are a little confused about how this would work:

Lets say we begin with the "easy setting". Options would be on that would enable things such as auto cast and worker self distribution and units AI would work so as that all you would need to do is to attack move into some area and your troops will do most of the fighting for you, this option would be for those who prefer watching the battles instead of really playing them (there are people that do this).

Pro would have most of the options off and would feel nearly exactly the same as SC1.

There were several reasons why i think this would be a good idea:

1. This 'ladder" format would allow those who want to become competitive players but just can't seem to get past starcraft's micro to work their way up and in theory, get more casual players into the main game.

2. It would allow people to play on the setting that bests suits them.

Hopefully that helped :thumbup:

Again if anyone has any other ideas to add to this or thinks its not the way SC2 should go please post it, feedback on an idea is always a good thing.

Edit: Welcome to the forums n8_j

 

I think to make this work, even remotely, would be high controlled AI/UI. I realize that AI technology is hard, especially in FPS, and such is the case in RTS. There are three ways AI usually works, great at the easy stuff, either pitiful with the hard stuff or too good with the hard stuff, or they leave the hard stuff to the players. Warcraft 3 from Bliz was a good case where the AI was too good, there is a balance somewhere, and to make this work it must be found.

The AI must never overtake the player, or else it would be humoring the player with actual casting skill. The biggest case of this is WC3, if you do auto casts by hand you get killed fast and hard. If the auto-cast system overtakes player mobility, and not just the pros and vets, but even experienced players. The other case, which is unthinkable, is horribly horrible AI. In this case, the auto micro would be worthless and Bliz might as well not make it and spend time doing other things.

Finding that mid-point between auto-microing just helping out the knew player to auto-microing overtaking the experienced players I believe can work, but this would take a lot of work on Bliz's part, and if they don't have to cut back on other things I don't see why not.

 

people should play the game the way blizzard wants them to, no other game has scalable micro because its a waste of time. I'm sure UMS maps will be able to change settings like this through the map editor, so theres no need to divide the community.

 

Thanks for the Welcomes.

I understand where some of you are coming from... your stance is that an easy setting will make the game more attractive to new players who get scared off from a poor online experiences, getting yelled at by teammates and such. I understand, and I think it is still a bad idea. Player will become dependant on the system, and not grow in skill. If a player can let the computer play for him, why should he ever do it himself? For a game to be succesful online, each player has to be on equal footing. Generally, what I have found, is that new players play through campaigns first, as a campaign is not only a story mode, but a learning environment. I for one, will probably log onto battle.net the second I install this game and learn by playing others (and getting owned).

AI and auto-cast functions, while they are helpful, are just a crutch. Its better to learn to play the game.

All my opinion of course.

 

The campaign is good at teaching the tech tree and all that crap, but it can end up being misleading.
Thats the reason so many newbs build bunkers at the entrances of their bases. Yeah kerrigan's brood would attack them first, but a good player will just walk by them and kill whats inside the base.

What can be instructive in some way is UMS games.

But if you wanna be good, youll just have to go straight into melee games. Its the only way. A friend that teaches you beats everything the campaigns and the internet can do for you.

 

I voted for yes because this will be able to occur more gosu/pro/good players in the game in b.net because i'm quite sick of noob games already