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Magic boxing and "weird movement" of Dragoons is what separated the n00bs from the pros. Spending hours of practice inside of Starcraft, memorizing the size of

Magic boxing and "weird movement" of Dragoons is what separated the n00bs from the pros. Spending hours of practice inside of Starcraft, memorizing the size of the magic box *IS* Starcraft:BW. IMO, its hellish kinds of unfun and I personally won't be subjecting myself to it today. (Though when I was younger, I had the pretense that I could get good enough at it and/or respected through this skill). Then sitting in Starcraft practice maps / UMS games to master each of these mouse-movements and finger-dexterity to be able to play at a competent level... nahhhhhh. Starcraft:BW is absolutely too much of a twitch-game, and too much strategy relies upon wonky micro-details that IMO, its a surprise that we ever called it a strategy game. Its closer to a mouse-driven fighting game, honestly. If you fix this wonky movement, you simply don't have Starcraft: Brood War anymore. Its so fundamental to the meta, and the mechanic is fundamental to Muta-harassment, Dragoon Dancing, Psi Storm micro, etc. etc. that its literally the core element of combat. ---------------- That's the primary difference between Dragoons (SC:BW) and Stalkers (SC2). Stalkers are smooth and easy to move (and also have a bit of blink-micro). Dragoons need the player to memorize the size of the magic-box to "Dragoon Dance" and effectively enter combat. ---------- I appreciate the engine-rewrite to SC2. There are *OTHER* problems Blizzard/Activision had that caused SC2 to collapse. But fixing the movement/magic boxing so that it was easier to have units move together and flock together is a *GOOD* thing. But there needed to be more deathball mitigations. Too many games turned into boring deathballs.

proc0 3y ago
Interesting. I knew about the difficulties of the micro in BW but didn't think it would be the defining feature of the game like that. Maybe those elements can still be "fixed" while keeping the balance of the races, with same units and tech trees. At the very least I think it could be worked around in order to let new players enjoy the game as well, and maybe ramp up to using those advanced techniques. I think fighting games like Tekken, Street Fighter are good examples here. Tekken has largely remained the same game, with the same moves, with new features built on top. Every sequel is expected to maintain this transfer of the core "rules" (not necessarily mechanics) such that players can master their Tekken skills over decades. Also, you have SF6 adding a new "assisted" controls for new players. This allows a stepping stone for players to later reach the harder controls which are equivalent to the 300 APM micros in SC. RTS has to make a comeback. It's like a better version of chess, if only game companies would innovate the genre in that direction.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9vJx3KJ49k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9vJx3KJ49k Magic Box micro is more obvious once you see it. Its a simple concept, but implementation (IE: memorizing the size) is the difficult part. --------- Muta-harass forces "Big magic box" by adding a burrowed zergling (or Overlord in early game) to your 12-group of Mutalisks. That is, 11-mutalisks + 1x slow (or burrowed) unit "outside the magic box". This means every click you do collapses in to a single point. Dragoon-dancing is "little-magic box", allowing dragoons to walk and shoot in synchronously (like how the High Templar shot Psi Storm together at the beginning of this Youtube video).

proc0 3y ago

Interesting. I knew about the difficulties of the micro in BW but didn't think it would be the defining feature of the game like that. Maybe those elements can still be "fixed" while keeping the balance of the races, with same units and tech trees. At the very least I think it could be worked around in order to let new players enjoy the game as well, and maybe ramp up to using those advanced techniques. I think fighting games like Tekken, Street Fighter are good examples here. Tekken has largely remained the same game, with the same moves, with new features built on top. Every sequel is expected to maintain this transfer of the core "rules" (not necessarily mechanics) such that players can master their Tekken skills over decades. Also, you have SF6 adding a new "assisted" controls for new players. This allows a stepping stone for players to later reach the harder controls which are equivalent to the 300 APM micros in SC. RTS has to make a comeback. It's like a better version of chess, if only game companies would innovate the genre in that direction.

dragontamer 3y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9vJx3KJ49k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9vJx3KJ49k Magic Box micro is more obvious once you see it. Its a simple concept, but implementation (IE: memorizing the size) is the difficult part. --------- Muta-harass forces "Big magic box" by adding a burrowed zergling (or Overlord in early game) to your 12-group of Mutalisks. That is, 11-mutalisks + 1x slow (or burrowed) unit "outside the magic box". This means every click you do collapses in to a single point. Dragoon-dancing is "little-magic box", allowing dragoons to walk and shoot in synchronously (like how the High Templar shot Psi Storm together at the beginning of this Youtube video).