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> the core series focused too heavily on maximizing the experience for esports, and that spoiled the genre for the mid-range gamers that were its bread and butt

> the core series focused too heavily on maximizing the experience for esports, and that spoiled the genre for the mid-range gamers that were its bread and butter. Out of curiosity, in what ways in particular did they do this?

kyralis 7y ago
Personally, I felt this way about SC2 as compared to SC1. I think one of the largest changes I noticed was an increase in the hardness of counters as well as an increase in the APM necessary to properly wield certain units. For the first point, in SC1, if I had suboptimal army composition against my opponent, I would likely lose any battles that ensued unless my tactics were quite superior- but I'd likely due some damage in the process, at least. In contrast, in SC2, it always felt like a failure to properly anticipate army makeup would frequently lead to completely lopsided battles where my force might be completely annihilated without doing measurable damage to the opponent. This was aggravated by the second point. I'm not a professional player and my APM has never been amazing, and I'm fine with that. But the more complex required army composition put a higher emphasis on APM and in-battle tactics, especially with heterogenous forces and units, like blink stalkers, that really benefit from very high levels of micro. I'll be the first to admit that, when watching replays, the things that skilled players could pull off in SC2 was pretty amazing to see- but that didn't really help my playing experience. There result was a game that felt significantly more frustrating than SC1, even if my win/loss ratio wasn't actually all that different.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  That's an interesting view of the situation. I don't think I've ever seen someone say that APM requirements are higher in SC2. Notable enormous APM sinks in SC1 are the unit selection cap, the inability to give orders to multiple factories at a time, and the inability to make workers rally to the mineral line. Whether the counters are harder, I don't have enough knowledge to say.
  - sanderjd 7y ago
    Those are different uses of APM than what the parent is talking about. The unit selection cap is kind of a similar thing, but in practice, selecting an entire giant army and attacking with them all toward the same target at once is not competitive. So even without the unit selection cap, to win battles at high levels (even platinum and definetely diamond when I was playing) requires controlling small groups of different units in the right way. It does seem like you can get away with lower average APM for macro, but peak APM during key battles may have more of an impact. But I didn't play enough SC1 to really compare, I just mean that it is at least plausible based on my experience with SC2.
    - detaro 7y ago
      On the other hand, design changes like special attacks like Psionic Storm only triggering for one of the selected units reduced required battle APM in SC2 too. (In SC1, if you had a group of units selected and triggered one of those attacks, all selected units would cast on that location, so you had to select a single one, cast, individually select the next one, cast, ... if you didn't want to waste your charges)
- invalidOrTaken 7y ago
  I think a significant cause of this has been the simplistic/restrictivee definition of "macro" as "economy." There are other simple/powerful concepts that give a bigger bang for buck---stance, position, etc.
- Pxtl 7y ago
  I never got into sc2, but didn't they get rid of muta stacks and dancing dragoons? The silly "can move during weapon cooldown" mechanic of sc1 imho was disastrous for extreme micro requirements as it meant that units could back off in between firing while the unit AI just wants to stand and fight, meaning even the simplest battle requires extreme micro.
SalimoS 7y ago
What I can think of : I remember playing vs my friend a single game of c&c 3 tiberium wars for a 3 hours but seeing starcraft 2 the game end in 15 min in the esports.
- dleslie 7y ago
  I had epic total annihilation LAN parties that would last all day.
bsder 7y ago
Everything in SC2 is about the RUSH. Turtlers are not welcome. I put SC2 down and never picked it back up after playing the third timed mission in a row. Supreme Commander dealt with this by having genuinely large maps and resource flow rather than a fixed amount of resources. If you tried to "rush" someone or go after their resources, you generally ran into units a level higher and got annhilated.
- temporaryvector 7y ago
  RTS as a genre has always favored aggressive play. Even in games that tried to favor defense, like SupCom, turtlers are stills not welcome, and higher level players start aggression quite early. Rarely will a rush downright end the game, but pulling one off correctly will generally put you ahead. I don't think any RTS game will be able to deal with this naturally, only by adding rules like NR20 or even NR40 can you avoid early aggression and turtle in peace, and even then the winning strategy will always be to expand as aggressively as possible and to defend with units instead of static defenses.
- empath75 7y ago
  You can turtle in Starcraft and people do it all the time. People don’t want to play long online games though, so they don’t set up maps with enough resources to play for hours.

kyralis 7y ago

Personally, I felt this way about SC2 as compared to SC1. I think one of the largest changes I noticed was an increase in the hardness of counters as well as an increase in the APM necessary to properly wield certain units. For the first point, in SC1, if I had suboptimal army composition against my opponent, I would likely lose any battles that ensued unless my tactics were quite superior- but I'd likely due some damage in the process, at least. In contrast, in SC2, it always felt like a failure to properly anticipate army makeup would frequently lead to completely lopsided battles where my force might be completely annihilated without doing measurable damage to the opponent. This was aggravated by the second point. I'm not a professional player and my APM has never been amazing, and I'm fine with that. But the more complex required army composition put a higher emphasis on APM and in-battle tactics, especially with heterogenous forces and units, like blink stalkers, that really benefit from very high levels of micro. I'll be the first to admit that, when watching replays, the things that skilled players could pull off in SC2 was pretty amazing to see- but that didn't really help my playing experience. There result was a game that felt significantly more frustrating than SC1, even if my win/loss ratio wasn't actually all that different.

Dylan16807 7y ago
That's an interesting view of the situation. I don't think I've ever seen someone say that APM requirements are higher in SC2. Notable enormous APM sinks in SC1 are the unit selection cap, the inability to give orders to multiple factories at a time, and the inability to make workers rally to the mineral line. Whether the counters are harder, I don't have enough knowledge to say.
- sanderjd 7y ago
  Those are different uses of APM than what the parent is talking about. The unit selection cap is kind of a similar thing, but in practice, selecting an entire giant army and attacking with them all toward the same target at once is not competitive. So even without the unit selection cap, to win battles at high levels (even platinum and definetely diamond when I was playing) requires controlling small groups of different units in the right way. It does seem like you can get away with lower average APM for macro, but peak APM during key battles may have more of an impact. But I didn't play enough SC1 to really compare, I just mean that it is at least plausible based on my experience with SC2.
  - detaro 7y ago
    On the other hand, design changes like special attacks like Psionic Storm only triggering for one of the selected units reduced required battle APM in SC2 too. (In SC1, if you had a group of units selected and triggered one of those attacks, all selected units would cast on that location, so you had to select a single one, cast, individually select the next one, cast, ... if you didn't want to waste your charges)
invalidOrTaken 7y ago
I think a significant cause of this has been the simplistic/restrictivee definition of "macro" as "economy." There are other simple/powerful concepts that give a bigger bang for buck---stance, position, etc.
Pxtl 7y ago
I never got into sc2, but didn't they get rid of muta stacks and dancing dragoons? The silly "can move during weapon cooldown" mechanic of sc1 imho was disastrous for extreme micro requirements as it meant that units could back off in between firing while the unit AI just wants to stand and fight, meaning even the simplest battle requires extreme micro.

SalimoS 7y ago

What I can think of : I remember playing vs my friend a single game of c&c 3 tiberium wars for a 3 hours but seeing starcraft 2 the game end in 15 min in the esports.

dleslie 7y ago
I had epic total annihilation LAN parties that would last all day.

bsder 7y ago

Everything in SC2 is about the RUSH. Turtlers are not welcome. I put SC2 down and never picked it back up after playing the third timed mission in a row. Supreme Commander dealt with this by having genuinely large maps and resource flow rather than a fixed amount of resources. If you tried to "rush" someone or go after their resources, you generally ran into units a level higher and got annhilated.

temporaryvector 7y ago
RTS as a genre has always favored aggressive play. Even in games that tried to favor defense, like SupCom, turtlers are stills not welcome, and higher level players start aggression quite early. Rarely will a rush downright end the game, but pulling one off correctly will generally put you ahead. I don't think any RTS game will be able to deal with this naturally, only by adding rules like NR20 or even NR40 can you avoid early aggression and turtle in peace, and even then the winning strategy will always be to expand as aggressively as possible and to defend with units instead of static defenses.
empath75 7y ago
You can turtle in Starcraft and people do it all the time. People don’t want to play long online games though, so they don’t set up maps with enough resources to play for hours.