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I don't like Brood War as a game, both to play and to watch. I much preferred Starcraft 2 over the original, but unfortunately the esports scene died for it. In

I don't like Brood War as a game, both to play and to watch. I much preferred Starcraft 2 over the original, but unfortunately the esports scene died for it. In any case, RTS games just don't seem like good games for humanity, it's very easy to get repetitive stress injuries from them at high APM play.

bombcar 3y ago
Starcraft I esports were really really carried by the commentators; without people like Day9 knowing what was going on, and explaining it to me, I'd never have a chance of following along.
- oreally 3y ago
  Nah any game with enough variance and complexity will do that.
Kranar 3y ago
Starcraft 2 kind of ruined what made Brood War special and turned the RTS genre into a kind of rock paper scissors where the computer does most of the work. It was almost certainly unintentional but in Brood War the game is soooooo mechanically challenging that you have to make very careful decisions about whether you want a big army that's dumb and hard to control but can outnumber your opponent, or a small army that's smart and can be used for very efficient tactics. As a human you simply can not have it all and so you have to constantly make very difficult and creative tradeoffs. You can set up cool tactical positions, have way more opportunities for multipronged attacks, and also you can retreat if you think an engagement won't go favorably. In SC2, the game became a lot more streamlined and automated so you as a player don't really get to express your play style as much as in Brood War. The game kind of has a very blunt set of rules about what counters what and as a player your job is to focus mostly on macro/economy, scouting, and unit production, you build up a kind of death ball army and then send it into a battle that lasts under a minute and whoever wins, wins. Another annoying aspect of SC2 that's a consequence of how automated the game is, is that it is also often very cheesy, where an opponent can rush out an army that's very easy for the computer to control but the defender has to click like crazy to defend it. I'm fairly high level in SC2 (top 4%), and I can literally tell an opponent I'm going to "cannon rush" them, which is a cheesy strategy that has a very specific defense. I can even tell my opponent what that defense is, and they will still lose to it because the defender needs to click like crazy to defend it while I can let the computer basically do almost all of the work for me. The same goes for a bunch of other cheesy strategies where you rush out a small number of units that the computer has an easy time controlling for you, and force your opponent to have to literally engage in very awkward and precise hand gestures in order to defend the attack, and the vast majority of people simply don't know or care to learn to move their hands that way.

bombcar 3y ago

Starcraft I esports were really really carried by the commentators; without people like Day9 knowing what was going on, and explaining it to me, I'd never have a chance of following along.

oreally 3y ago
Nah any game with enough variance and complexity will do that.

Kranar 3y ago

Starcraft 2 kind of ruined what made Brood War special and turned the RTS genre into a kind of rock paper scissors where the computer does most of the work. It was almost certainly unintentional but in Brood War the game is soooooo mechanically challenging that you have to make very careful decisions about whether you want a big army that's dumb and hard to control but can outnumber your opponent, or a small army that's smart and can be used for very efficient tactics. As a human you simply can not have it all and so you have to constantly make very difficult and creative tradeoffs. You can set up cool tactical positions, have way more opportunities for multipronged attacks, and also you can retreat if you think an engagement won't go favorably. In SC2, the game became a lot more streamlined and automated so you as a player don't really get to express your play style as much as in Brood War. The game kind of has a very blunt set of rules about what counters what and as a player your job is to focus mostly on macro/economy, scouting, and unit production, you build up a kind of death ball army and then send it into a battle that lasts under a minute and whoever wins, wins. Another annoying aspect of SC2 that's a consequence of how automated the game is, is that it is also often very cheesy, where an opponent can rush out an army that's very easy for the computer to control but the defender has to click like crazy to defend it. I'm fairly high level in SC2 (top 4%), and I can literally tell an opponent I'm going to "cannon rush" them, which is a cheesy strategy that has a very specific defense. I can even tell my opponent what that defense is, and they will still lose to it because the defender needs to click like crazy to defend it while I can let the computer basically do almost all of the work for me. The same goes for a bunch of other cheesy strategies where you rush out a small number of units that the computer has an easy time controlling for you, and force your opponent to have to literally engage in very awkward and precise hand gestures in order to defend the attack, and the vast majority of people simply don't know or care to learn to move their hands that way.