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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 a

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.

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.