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This reminds me of the recent Day[9] rant about Broodwar's mechanical difficulty being an integral part of what makes it a great "realtime" strategy game, and t
by hkmurakami 10y ago
This reminds me of the recent Day[9] rant about Broodwar's mechanical difficulty being an integral part of what makes it a great "realtime" strategy game, and that the mechanics are inseparable from the strategy part of the game. [1]
His analogy of taking out mechanics from Broodwar being equivalent to taking out athleticism from Football was particularly insightful.
BW AI (in its culmination) to me is what Broodwar looks like when you take out the mechanics from the game and make it 100% about strategy and the execution of said strategy. It's really fascinating to see the differences between AI play and human bounded play.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP9F-AZezCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP9F-AZezCU
- Houshalter 10y ago>taking out mechanics from Broodwar being equivalent to taking out athleticism from Football was particularly insightful. It's interesting that lots more people play video game football than actual football.
- saghm 10y agoLess risk of injury?
- lloeki 10y agoSadly cynical, but "less effort" (as in physical exertion but also regularity) is much more accurate.
- paulryanrogers 10y agoSince pros only play once a week--risk of lifelong injury included--I don't expected amateurs to do it that often. No need for cynicism. EDIT: word order
- thefalcon 10y agoI bet that a number of Brood War AI developers could still learn tricks from the Pros. Here's another Day[9] video about some of the intricacies in Brood War's mechanics, and how they came to be exploited in pro play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWvoMrYCQBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWvoMrYCQBU
- dgant 10y agoThe absence of such techniques is usually due to prioritization rather than ignorance. Most of the time the challenge is just the sheer complexity of basic decisionmaking. The author of this article did a frame-by-frame breakdown of unit attack animation timings, but "should I fight or run" is by itself still an interesting and important question. The #1 bot as I write this, Iron Bot, has Vulture micro that is in many ways better than any pro, by using frame-perfect patrol kiting.
- rorosaurus 10y agoHe's entirely right - that's what made Broodwar interesting! The 12 unit max, poor pathfinding, carrier micro to enable insta-interceptor deployment - all these mechanics contribute to the technical precision necessary to truly utilize each unit to the max.