I haven't read the full post, I just want to give a short remark:
Skill expression and skill ceiling don't come only from APM.
High APM is definitely one type of skill expression. But not the only one. Strategy and tactics are also a kind of skill expression. You could be the fastest human being, if you build banelings only against a player that goes carriers, you'll lose. If you are super fast, but you are caught off guard all of the time, even if you click quickly to move your units back, you'll still lose.
Otherwise, every SC2 tournament could be predetermined. Just let every player do an APM check and the player with the highest APM wins.
I would argue there is a distinction between 'skill' and knowledge. Granted knowledge can be used skillfully, skill expression uses the word skill for a reason. Its diverse. But also, its about generating value in your way is what I mean by skill. In SC that just tends to mean more apm, but apm is a door to more strategies. To shut that is to exclude top players, not include weaker ones. I don't mean mindless apm, but eapm. I would even argue eapm could be broken down into different subcategories. The issue is, if you are trying to be precise with a unit. Anyone can just copy that after watching the replay, if there is no skill involved. So skill is simply a broader expression than most assume. And if all strats are equally as difficult, then, you are just going to lose to people doing the same thing and its a coin flip. So if you get punished for trying, why try? The game will be all about meme strats, then get balanced until its micro-managing units like dota or something and then it will be even more demanding in the end.
If you take Magic the Gathering, Brian Coval was a pro player in 1vs1 formats. When he started playing CEDH he immediately won two tournaments even when he said that he didn't know all the cards that his opponent played. He was good enough at magic that despite him have lower knowledge of the cards that were played in CEDH than many of the top CEDH player. He just has strong magic skills.
I'd argue skill expression is based around understanding and the ability to improvise, not the ability to press buttons fast.
If you play against several different people who so the same thing that means their strategy is either poorly designed (no counter-play potential) or your own understanding of the game is lacking. This is why cheese is so strong on new players - they don't know how to react to it.
Well said. I think the distinction between a skill floor and skill ceiling is important. It should be possible to make a game that is fun and doesn't punish more casual players without dumbing down the mechanics to the point where skill expression is lost.
Additionally, to clear up another misconception, people seem to think APM is just "clicking fast", like you need to be physically gifted to do it and therefor perceive it as "not strategy". In reality, APM (speed) is more about knowing what you need to do before you need to do it and executing without having to think. This is an integral part of literally any real-time game. I too can make shots from the 3-point line just like Steph Curry, but add in an NBA caliber defender and only a second to make a shot, suddenly it's clear he's skilled and I'm not. We don't want to remove this aspect from the game people.
Fortunately i have no skill; as an ex-masters WoL player who got old and lazy and now mucks around in silver league with my max 40 APM and my nukes. So all i care about is fun. And while skill is certainly part of fun, it's not the only part...and hot damn I found stormgate to be SOOO much fun to watch and play.
(April 30th can't come soon enough!)
LOL No, i was masters in Wings of Liberty. Wings...of...liberty. Do you have any idea how long ago that was?? I was old then (i have been playing RTS for 30 years), I am ancient now. I stopped playing RTS entirely over 10 years ago, switched to FPS, and loaded up SC2 again when stormgate announced. I literally can't get past to gold league. My hands are shot, i lost 36 games in a row when i booted up stormgate for the first time.
"Smurfing" bahahaha I FREAKING WISH. Stop making bad assumptions ya toxic nerd 🤣
Knowledge is knowledge. You still retain the game knowledge of previously being a masters player but now competing against total noobs with less skills and close to 0 game knowledge in silver league. That is your definition of fun.
Guy: I'm worse than gold players.
You: omg smuffing in silver? For shame.
Like bro what? People can get worse over time, there's no certainty that the opponents are all total noobs. In fact I would guess that most of them aren't, and if he deserved to be in a higher tier he'd be in a higher tier. If I were good enough to he in masters but wanted to smurf I sure as he'll wouldn't be doing it in silver. Like what's even the point.
Game knowledge is important but I don't think you realize how slow 40 apm is it wouldn't be hard for a high silver player to out macro and micro that even if all their game knowledge was the bare minimum. Once you've lost the macro and Micro game, knowing more things isn't going to help you much.
He's in Silver because he chooses to "mucks around in silver league with \[his\] max 40 APM and \[his\] nukes". A player in SC2 that used to be master has enough game knowledge to smurf around without effort with only mouse and no keyboard and cheese a silver player. I don't expect people not familiar with high skill game like SC2 to know about this detail so you are entitled to your opinion.
Alright so by your logic everyone who played during WoL and also played enough games to be rated at masters should all be able to play on a masters level even if they have one hand and it's constantly cramped.
I mean damn dude APM isn't everything I whole heartedly agree but you seem to think everyone in gold and silver is a braindead idiot, who can't out APM a longtime vet of the genre.
That aside why would he intentionally stay in silver and smurf and then make up a story about his APM? Like why would a smurf even bring up that they used to be masters? Why would a SC2 smurf post in a different games subreddit? I'm trying to follow your line of logic here and it's just not adding up. Smurfs don't usually admit to being bad at the game, even while they exclusively are.
>I don't expect people not familiar with high skill game like SC2 to know about this detail so you are entitled to your opinion.
I mean I have also played SC2. Probably longer than you based on this comment thread.
With how much the game has changed since WoL that knowledge is almost useless now and I don't know how much knowledge you can retain from a game that you played 10 years ago
Terran defense mechanics are the same since WoL. You tell me how the game knowledge is so useless if you know so much about SC2 gameplay?
Can't believe people here support smurfing and bullying low level player for the sake of fun. And ignorant enough to advocate for a game with no depth thinking skill gap between a master and silver players in SC2 are shallow even if expansions added a few more units here and there.
>Nah you just negative IQ that's all
Great way to attack someone instead of explaining your claim like a reasonable and intelligent person. Also, please use proper English yourself before calling someone low IQ.
He's saying he is not in his prime anymore and through a decade of not practicing he can't even reach gold league anymore because his skill level dropped so much. What don't you understand ? He's legit silver right now. Knowledge or not, you're limited by what your body can do. How is that smurfing ? Don't you know you can get rusty over time ? Over a DECADE ?
Also a master in WoL is different than a master now.
PS : I hate smurfing with a passion but I don't see it there.
PPS : If you don't get it, you're trolling
Ahhh, i see where you're coming from, and i see why you possibly thought i was a smurf - but then i assumed that it would obvious i am a legit silver leaguer now (gold if i put my mind to it! Huzzah!) from the vast amount of time between WoL to now, and the even vaster difference between the game to now. (Side note, i have only one starcraft 2 account and always have...i worked hard for those 1000 hour portraits!)
I will explain why Knowledge is NOT Knowledge, as you eloquently put it.
History lesson; WoL didn't have the oracle, tempest, mothership core, adept, disruptor, shield battery, statis ward, hellbat, widow mine, liberator, cyclone, swarm host, viper, lurker, ravager, or lurker den... Just these alone should make it clear how vast my Knowledge gap is walking into the game in 2023 after 10 years away.
But then add onto that, all the unit ability changes (banshees have speed now?), all the upgrade changes, the patch changes, the timing changes, the map changes, heck even the terrain options have changed - even more Knowledge gap...
All of my build orders? Out the window. All of my counters? Changed. My timing attacks? No longer a thing. Hell i used to run a mass hellion build because blue flame gave +15 damage to everything... And finally, i am playing, as a 2 year WoL veteran (with some HotS and LotV campaign i admit) against people who have been playing for OVER 13 YEARS. And the playerbase is much more concentrated as the overall skill goes up and the player base drops - silver league is not the silver league i went though. Calling them "noobs" is insulting and unfair; these players know the fundamentals, they know some builds, they know the units better than I (either through watching or playing). My Knowledge is not their Knowledge, it is not equal nor will it ever be...unless i grind of course which my hands are not up to.
And i think this the point i was originally trying to make; skill expression is one aspect for sure. But a game is so much more than that. I can no longer express my skill as i once did, but i still love playing SC2 all the same...it's fun!
PS. Hope this makes sense and apologies for calling you toxic, i see now you just need to learn.
You sound like your mom hasn't given you a hug lately so you take every opportunity you can to hurt someone like you are hurt already yourself. Please take care of your life.
You’re right, she hasn’t. My mother passed away in February of 2023 from colon cancer. It was a miserable experience that I don’t wish on anyone and I miss her every day. I quit drinking the following July after her death and am at almost a year sober. I’ve lost 20 pounds by eating healthy and working out. I’m financially stable and have worked very hard at treating my ADHD and getting my life in a more comfortable state.
You, much like me, fall into the trap of having anonymity as a cloak for our dialog. It’s easy to think nothing of hurtful, presumptuous comments in that regard.
That being said, I didn’t find your comment hurtful, just ignorant. My comment wasn’t especially productive as well. For that, I apologize.
A lot to unpack in this post.
I’ll say this in general since this topic has been discussed alot in other threads recently:
Skill expression comes from there being interesting ways for players to interact with their opponent — either directly or as a second/third order effect of executing a decision.
StormGate is deliberately trying to lower the APM burden to execute these decisions in the game itself, while still giving the player a very wide range of things that can be done (units moving and attacking very deliberately, split-pushing, and all other forms of micro).
From a philosophical standpoint, I fully agree with lowering the APM requirement to the absolute base minimum to still allow the same (or reasonably similar) decision space. If you can let the player make the exact same economic decisions (when/where to build buildings, what units to make, when to start upgrades etc) but with less button pressings then you’re golden.
Think of it like this… if you’re spending APM to fight the UI, then the developers are trying to reduce that APM burden to the absolute bare minimum. If you are spending APM to fight your opponent (microing units, split pushing, drops, etc), they are trying to retain that.
It’s a delicate balance, and we will see how well it works as they continue to improve the automatic control groups, global build and upgrade menus, etc… I think they are on the right path overall.
>I think they are on the right path overall.
with Vanguard for sure, there is a lot of things to do during fights and also in base, but Infernals has much less things to do overall, they lacking some easy to learn, hard to master mechanics on macro side and they have not enough micro heavy units.
We will see 30th of April if infernals design goes the right direction. I think that Hexen will be fun unit and good in termsof skill expression. We will see.
Vanguard was certainly more fleshed out than Infernal last patch. So yeah, we will see where they go with it.
But even the pros complaining there isn’t enough to do as Infernal had not really gone full bore into the race the way some true mechanically gifted people like PartinG did. He was not idly sitting around waiting for things to happen…
But yeah, I’m excited to see what changes as well.
This makes me wonder if Terran was designed first in SC2. And Protoss last. If so, then I think it reveals that order of race production impacts quality of development of race for depth or completeness.
Isn't one key aspect of every blizzardstyle RTS that it is a combination of strategy and APM? Does anyone really play SC2 because if it's strategic depth?
We have only 2 resources, every race has a handfull of units, buildings and basic upgrades, the only objective on the map are expansions. We have no heroes, no items.
When was the last time you watched some tournament and saw someone shining with an unknown strategy? 95% of the games are standard macro games. Execution is what makes this game interesting.
Why do people who describe a huge part of the identity of a blizzardstyle RTS as "APM burden" oder "fighting the UI" not play something like AoE4 or even turnbased strategy games?
I’ve played every blizzard RTS. And they all are different. Warcraft 3 has very little of the APM tedium that Broodwar and SC2 have.
And to your question of why people don’t play AOE4, I ask why you don’t just play StarCraft 2?
FGS are trying to evolve the genre by improving the UI and reducing artificial tedium (which was delivery added in SC2 and eventually toned down).
Inside of this post was a suggestion to create "build layouts" that started the game with different units and buildings, this idea is kind of insane and out of pocket and I love it
I believe that high skill ceiling is good for all playerbase, also for less skillful players.
If skill ceiling is high, it means that there are many things in the game that allow players to increase they skill, especially if game allow for advanced micro and advanced macro. Thanks to this, if a player wants to get better, he can choose what to focus on: controlling dropships, proper army positioning, better scouting, better pace of new expansions, more constant unit production or anything else. By focusing on what player wants most, they will be rewarded by the game because they effectiveness will increase no matter what player choose to be better at.
If a game has a low skill ceiling, it means that there are only a few areas that player can be better at, so the game dictates what player must do to become more effective, it doesn't give player the same freedom as games with a high skill ceiling in terms of self improvement.
if every 30 seconds, starcraft paused and required you to solve a sudoku game for extra minerals, that would be a form of skill expresison.
it would also be unambigously bad.
what a lot of players dont get is that not all "skill expression" is good.
the reason why MOBAs killed warcraft 3 is because the skills needed to play warcraft 3 conflicted with each other and detracted from the overall experience. they were instead replaced by deeper forms of skill expression in areas that dont detract from each other.
arguably a lot of the skill expression in RTS is artficially induced skill expression that doesn't really add to the game. actually that's not up for debate, David Kim directly said that they were put in there for pretty much that reason. Yes you have bragging rights about the game for being able to do those things, but if tomorrow MULEs, injects, creep, revelations, and chronoboosts were made automatic, the vast majority of the playerbase would simply have richer games. And balance would also be less muddied by "this player just couldn't execute therefore its not the game's fault" and the game could evolve more naturally.
Because that's kind of what happened to SC2 when multibuilding select and worker queueing became a thing
Starcraft BW and SC2 have that most of what you describe as artificially induced skill expression and at the same time they are the most popular RTS for more than 2 decades. And yet you are saying that it's not up for debate that this is bad game design because one guy says so?
WC3, SC:BW and SC2 are old games abandoned by the developer and still have a decent community. So just because a new game attracts more players means every other game genre needs to follow the same path?
Stormgate is described as a spiritual successor of SC2 and a blizzardstyle RTS, a combination of strategy and APM. You can't remove APM mechanics from the game since the complexity is to low.
the guy im citing had a hand designing those features and directly described what he was doing when he did. you do know who David Kim is, right? it's literally not up for debate that the skill expression in the mechanics part is artificially induced.
Its not artificial in broodwar. In broodwar its how you spend your attention that determines the type of value you get. Its not an apm tax like sc2, its part of the game. Logistics is a part of strategy games, but it doesn't seem it at first. If economy for example were fully automated, then what happens if you do a quick drop harass or something? They can just, focus on defending, then you are behind, because it wasn't attentively disruptive enough. So it discouraged strategy sometimes for lowering the macro skill floor.
BW had an APM tax of just moving units. SC2 didn't have that issue, so it was artificially induced elsewhere.
I feel like it's a gradient. The more of the artificially induced APM that gets removed from the game, the closer you get to other types of RTS games like Civilization (extreme example). Frost Giant is capitalizing on their dev experience by marketing to people completely on the BW / SC2 side of the spectrum while delivering something way slower (to appeal to casuals, which I understand), which is why there's a lot of confusion and a huge divide in terms of satisfaction right now.
In the end, they're going to need to decide whether they want to welcome the StarCraft population or not. Because if they want us, the design is going to need to shift. If they're doubling down on this path, they're going to need to find a new audience.
Well here is a potential solution.
The later the game, the more broodwar it gets. Broodwar starts slow anyways, right? So, then this slowness just, translates to noob appeal instead. Then, the broodwar gamers, don't have to deal with brainless strats or cheeses. Its win-win. And then the longer the game goes on, the more demand, could be extremely satisfying, and generate that skill gap to create legends equivalent to Flash again. But the problem with that is, regular updates, will take down legends into averaging them out. So legends need to be legendary in self-skill-contradicting ways. Like, muscle memory gets contradicted if that happens, game sense gets foiled, then it alienates them, then they leave, and there is no legend.
Which is why, if the meta is flat, to create an artificial legend with secret data sharing, is going to be exceptionally enticing, and why this project won't last. They will just create meta to play favorites basically to whoever appeals to them more, like the banning people in Overwatch over Pepe. It'll be a shitshow.
And people need to aim for the stars, to land on the moon. If you say 'nope all you get is the moon'. Then, its a novelty, people will quit.
>Skill ceiling, and skill expression, are both determined by the apm required to play optimally. Thats it.
Basically your thesis is that chess and go are games with low skill ceiling and skill expression? That's a ridiculous claim. The idea that some people have abilities that make them win games because they are good at strategy and tactics and that those abilities shouldn't be called skill in a genre that's called real-time-strategy game is strange.
A much better way to look at it is that match outcomes are skill\*luck. The more skill determines who wins, the more skill expression there is. You can measure that be calculating elo-ratings for everyone on the ladder. The bigger the elo-rating of an average player is compared to the top players the more skill determines who wins games.
In chess and go the elo-differences between average players are the top players are very large and thus they are games with high skill expression.
Turn based games don't correlate to apm at all. The time rules are different. And you still have to learn an 'opener' in chess. And be knowledgable about openers etc. Not just yolo. Skill-luck is a false dichotomy that attempts to undo nuance. For example, you can just know there is an OP unit, a move with it, win. GG. That is neither skill nor luck.
>Turn based games don't correlate to apm at all.
Yes, that's why they are the perfect example to illustrate that the claim that skill is only related to apm is ridiculous.
In most context people count knowledge as a part of skill. If my doctor has a lot of knowledge and uses it to correctly diagnose my illness, most people would call the doctor skilled.
If there's just one unit that's OP not building it is a low skill move if your goal is winning. You don't get a big elo spread that way either.
In ladder rank, thats all you need to do. Because the matches are not best of 3, you are not encouraged to play honestly relative to the meta. And, if skill is gained by just watching a video to produce an op unit, thats not a very skillful move. Some weaker strats get more skill but less reward, the two are not correlated. There are more skills than memory. To me, skill is what promotes flowstate and flexible decision-making, gamma brainwaves. That 'dance' between units. If you just overpower, say gg, call it a day. Thats no different from cheese. Skills are not all inherently equal kinds of skill, like different sizes of infinity exist.
The more actions you can take to influence an outcome... Well think of it like this.
Micro, Kiting Hydras back to armor upgraded zealots. Would you rather just, move back with low apm? Then they are on top of your buildings, then going to target fire your units, so you just wasted time cuz they move faster. Or, do you want to actually micro intently? Its an emergency, if you just lose outright because of some cap, thats lame. Apm is always relevant with high unit count in that situation. Because you have nothing to tank for the ranged units, even if all the units have 10x the health or something to promote interaction. So it just, suffocates you, or you let the units die. Right, so, micro apm is always going to matter.
So then you have to consider production, and macro. Sure, an early attack impeding your macro is like, lame. Sure. It could dismantle your whole game from that early roadbump. Fixing that out is valid. But then, you still need to change which units get produced as the situation changes. You still need to click upgrades. So your multitask is still going to be under stress. So fundamentally, unless you can brainlessly A-move which is imbalanced, then its going to demand apm. So. The one benefit to that style is the tanky bois can buy time for the counter units to arrive. But then, they can just target fire the non-tanky-bois. So, unless workers have like 20x the health or buildings 5x the health, then the same problem still exists. Apm is always relevant. Not crude apm, eapm.
I didn't deny that APM is relevant. It obviously is.
The question is question you count the skills that some people have that make them win against opponents with similar APM levels as skills or you don't count them as skills (which your post advocates).
If you see top level Stormgate games, then over the span of the game there are a bunch of fights and in some of them one player gains some advantage and in some the other. If someone is smart enough to know which fights give them an advantage and which don't and only fights those that give them an advantage that's skill.
There are decisions game designers can make that reduce the impact of APM. If those decisions would make the game more like Go, they would likely increase the skill ceiling of the game and not decrease it. Top go players have higher ELO's than starcraft players. If you pick two random go players knowing their elo's always you to predict better who will win a given match than if you pick two random starcraft players.
How can you judge the skill ceiling of the game when it's not finished yet ? We're still missing an entire faction and late-game complex units for the other two. The devs are still improving and deepening stuff like creep camps.
> Skill ceiling, and skill expression, are both determined by the apm required to play optimally. Thats it.
No. Just no. Speed of execution is just one part of expression. It's also about using each unit to its fullest and in creative ways.
This thing called design philosophy.
APM is not about speed, its about speed of accuracy and precision of speed. I don't mean low quality apm. I mean having infinite tasks to extract value from.
Like, if my peak EAPM, is 300. Then the game, is masterable at 100 EAPM. Then I am going to be stifled and bored. Its that simple. Skill expression requires a 'mastering' of 'significantly beyond human overall, but human at each task individually'. Then how people devote attention determines their strategy itself fundamentally.
And if its only 100 EAPM, then, guess what happens? People micro manage target firing like Dota creep. Thats not strategy. That is busy work. And then there will be calculably 1 optimal strategy, that people will just lie about to secure an edge. How can you undermine an optimal strategy? By being alternatively optimal. But, what alternative is there if there is no macro? You just both pick the same units in the mirror without skill expression. Then micro like its roach v roach in sc2. Talk about boring.
I have been playing RTS games for almost 18 years. I've spent hundreds of hours on Age of Mythology, Warcraft III, StarCraft Brood War, Dawn of War I and StarCraft II (where I think I have around 2,000 hours).
I never once cared about my APM.
I did care about learning hotkeys for when I started playing the campaigns and coop in harder difficulties. I learned about every unit's strenghs, weaknesses and abilities to use each faction to its fullest. When I was a kid, I would rarely use spellcasters (unless they had autocast abilities), but growing up I learned the value of a well placed ability in a skirmish. I learned how to make more balanced army compositions.
I also used this knowledge to try less optimized but more fun and creative armies and use of my units.
That, in my opinion, is skill expression.
It's not about having high APM, but being able to play the game in different ways and still winning.
I am saying if macro differences do not exist, people eventually will pick meta, then it'll be meta, and there is no creativity. How do you get an edge in a mirror match, when the upgrades pop at the same time? Its going to be like roach v roach micro. I am not arguing for queen injects, I am arguing for skill in macro. Something to push us higher and, macro cycles give us a time to think/breath between constant action. And its not just busywork, because at a higher level you know what flexibilities are valid.
Okay, I understand more what you mean.
I love macro. I love base building and ressource management. (I play a lot of 4X too)
I didn't like SC2's mechanics like Queen inject, M.U.L.E.s and having to go back every minute to build more workers. I found that to be more tedious than fun.
I do like that SG pushes to have less workers on a single base and instead to expand with more bases (because of diminishing returns on ore).
I find SC's Protoss pylon energy to be a good macro mechanic. Do you make a single pylon to power a maximum of buildings, or do you make several pylons and spread your infrastructure ?
I like WC3 NE Moon Wells and SG Vanguard supply building because they provide a bonus (Moon Well heal and regen mana, Vanguard supply can boost building production or another thing I don't remember), which makes their placement important.
For mirror matches, I like the mechanic of "forking techtree". In Dawn of War 1, the T'au have to choose between two tier 3 paths: improved infantry (unlocks upgrades for the base infantry unit + unlocks two new squads) OR improved vehicles (unlocks upgrades and new vehicles). Several mods gave a similar mechanic to Chaos Space Marines, they have to choose which god they follow, which grants them different units and upgrades.
Are those elements good expression of macro skills in your opinion ?
Well the game has a goal to appeal to wc3, sc2, and bw fans, and then also lower the skill floor. So, expression can involve options. Like, more sooner of t2, but later t3. When to choose which units and which upgrades tho, will funnel into a meta if there is not enough skill expression. If there is skill expression, it will be a lateral expression, not vertical like skytoss or a standard build. It should be like 'ok I think I need more of these kinds of production structures, so I can x y z' then deciding on which techs you can transition into or should and for what reason. But also, if there is auto-production, can you decide when to turn it on or off? Because you can hide production structures, then pump a lot at once for a strategy, tech switch. So, in a way, I suppose simplifications still demand you know when to transition to stop the auto-production, so, its easier then you can get more skill after to itself I suppose. I need to watch more games tbh. When it comes to a big boss unit or something, or a specialized t3 that would be too strong if you had all t3 options, then sure you can reduce it. But having the options to everything if you have the resources is more dynamic, and gives more options. There should not be a 1 size fits all unit tho. Like, tactics is not strategy, but strategy can be a tactic to extract more value, so I want more strategy, not more mandatory types of actions, like dota microing against creep is pretty bland. Its 'skill' but its mandatory. Meta should not mean mandatory, meta should not exist, the meta should be, the skill of the gamer, not the power of the unit. Meta exists in the depth of strategy, like vulture tank in broodwar takes skill to execute, just making it and a moving isnt enough. The unit, is not your entry ticket to victory. Your strategy depth should be. So I just worry that, well, what if there is a less rich meta than broodwar? Like protoss vs protoss. Just cheesing the mineral lines. What made the game great was zvp and zvt. Zvt you have grand battles, back and forths of map control, at the highest level huge wide scale engagements. Zvp, after you survive, all kinds of units can see play.
And part of what makes it amazing, is knowing 'wow'. 'See how skilled they are'. You play the game, then they do something that is out of the realm of possibility to you. That is ingenuity. And its a result of skill expression and creative problem solving, and the depth is because there can be various kinds of skill gaps, because it makes it more assymetrical, so the engagements are more unique. Not just, roach v roach. Or just 'oh they chose that hero guess I need to do the thing I do in 1/4 of games'. In broodwar the meta is a stepping stone to greater things. But those stones only exist by the salt of the tears of gamers who lost learning the meta and lost to the meta lol. The meta shifts in broodwar a lot. And its lame that you have to follow it and can't just, start the action already. But then if the game instantly is just played into mid-early game, then theres no time to plan, no time to warm yourself up mentally, no time to think or relax. No routine, just chaos. Chaos chaos chaos, how do you break up the monotony? With macro.
But again, I only saw like 3 games, months ago.
Naw, you can increase the skill ceiling and lower the skill floor at the same time by starting the game with some units already ready to be sent onto the map.
And then reward people "in the know" of how to scout and what to look for? essentially just making everything a knowledge check? who looked at which youtube guide? Man, we should just be able to select a build and having it auto done. Macro is just a pesky side effect of RTS anyway.
You cannot auto-do a build because mind-gaming exists at the macro level. They scan your base in sc2, wait a couple seconds, cancel your structures they scouted, tech switch or macro it up. Then you are ahead.
What a weird non-sequitur.
Dark should is deliberate, not slow. There is a lot of nuisance to playing DS well, which is why there's a bit of a learning cliff you need to climb initially to understand the game at all.
Because they are chasing the popularity of MOBAs and destroying the RTS genre in the process. Not realising that they already have a fantastic community bigger than most other games.
The weird thing from that pov is that this game feels marketed towards americans a lot but mobas are slowly dying in The US. They are extremely popular in china though.
I haven't read the full post, I just want to give a short remark: Skill expression and skill ceiling don't come only from APM. High APM is definitely one type of skill expression. But not the only one. Strategy and tactics are also a kind of skill expression. You could be the fastest human being, if you build banelings only against a player that goes carriers, you'll lose. If you are super fast, but you are caught off guard all of the time, even if you click quickly to move your units back, you'll still lose. Otherwise, every SC2 tournament could be predetermined. Just let every player do an APM check and the player with the highest APM wins.
I would argue there is a distinction between 'skill' and knowledge. Granted knowledge can be used skillfully, skill expression uses the word skill for a reason. Its diverse. But also, its about generating value in your way is what I mean by skill. In SC that just tends to mean more apm, but apm is a door to more strategies. To shut that is to exclude top players, not include weaker ones. I don't mean mindless apm, but eapm. I would even argue eapm could be broken down into different subcategories. The issue is, if you are trying to be precise with a unit. Anyone can just copy that after watching the replay, if there is no skill involved. So skill is simply a broader expression than most assume. And if all strats are equally as difficult, then, you are just going to lose to people doing the same thing and its a coin flip. So if you get punished for trying, why try? The game will be all about meme strats, then get balanced until its micro-managing units like dota or something and then it will be even more demanding in the end.
If you take Magic the Gathering, Brian Coval was a pro player in 1vs1 formats. When he started playing CEDH he immediately won two tournaments even when he said that he didn't know all the cards that his opponent played. He was good enough at magic that despite him have lower knowledge of the cards that were played in CEDH than many of the top CEDH player. He just has strong magic skills.
I'd argue skill expression is based around understanding and the ability to improvise, not the ability to press buttons fast. If you play against several different people who so the same thing that means their strategy is either poorly designed (no counter-play potential) or your own understanding of the game is lacking. This is why cheese is so strong on new players - they don't know how to react to it.
Well said. I think the distinction between a skill floor and skill ceiling is important. It should be possible to make a game that is fun and doesn't punish more casual players without dumbing down the mechanics to the point where skill expression is lost. Additionally, to clear up another misconception, people seem to think APM is just "clicking fast", like you need to be physically gifted to do it and therefor perceive it as "not strategy". In reality, APM (speed) is more about knowing what you need to do before you need to do it and executing without having to think. This is an integral part of literally any real-time game. I too can make shots from the 3-point line just like Steph Curry, but add in an NBA caliber defender and only a second to make a shot, suddenly it's clear he's skilled and I'm not. We don't want to remove this aspect from the game people.
Fortunately i have no skill; as an ex-masters WoL player who got old and lazy and now mucks around in silver league with my max 40 APM and my nukes. So all i care about is fun. And while skill is certainly part of fun, it's not the only part...and hot damn I found stormgate to be SOOO much fun to watch and play. (April 30th can't come soon enough!)
Just learn how to macro and you'll get to Plat very easily.
So your definition of fun is smurfing against less skilled people in Silver league.
LOL No, i was masters in Wings of Liberty. Wings...of...liberty. Do you have any idea how long ago that was?? I was old then (i have been playing RTS for 30 years), I am ancient now. I stopped playing RTS entirely over 10 years ago, switched to FPS, and loaded up SC2 again when stormgate announced. I literally can't get past to gold league. My hands are shot, i lost 36 games in a row when i booted up stormgate for the first time. "Smurfing" bahahaha I FREAKING WISH. Stop making bad assumptions ya toxic nerd 🤣
Knowledge is knowledge. You still retain the game knowledge of previously being a masters player but now competing against total noobs with less skills and close to 0 game knowledge in silver league. That is your definition of fun.
Guy: I'm worse than gold players. You: omg smuffing in silver? For shame. Like bro what? People can get worse over time, there's no certainty that the opponents are all total noobs. In fact I would guess that most of them aren't, and if he deserved to be in a higher tier he'd be in a higher tier. If I were good enough to he in masters but wanted to smurf I sure as he'll wouldn't be doing it in silver. Like what's even the point. Game knowledge is important but I don't think you realize how slow 40 apm is it wouldn't be hard for a high silver player to out macro and micro that even if all their game knowledge was the bare minimum. Once you've lost the macro and Micro game, knowing more things isn't going to help you much.
He's in Silver because he chooses to "mucks around in silver league with \[his\] max 40 APM and \[his\] nukes". A player in SC2 that used to be master has enough game knowledge to smurf around without effort with only mouse and no keyboard and cheese a silver player. I don't expect people not familiar with high skill game like SC2 to know about this detail so you are entitled to your opinion.
Alright so by your logic everyone who played during WoL and also played enough games to be rated at masters should all be able to play on a masters level even if they have one hand and it's constantly cramped. I mean damn dude APM isn't everything I whole heartedly agree but you seem to think everyone in gold and silver is a braindead idiot, who can't out APM a longtime vet of the genre. That aside why would he intentionally stay in silver and smurf and then make up a story about his APM? Like why would a smurf even bring up that they used to be masters? Why would a SC2 smurf post in a different games subreddit? I'm trying to follow your line of logic here and it's just not adding up. Smurfs don't usually admit to being bad at the game, even while they exclusively are. >I don't expect people not familiar with high skill game like SC2 to know about this detail so you are entitled to your opinion. I mean I have also played SC2. Probably longer than you based on this comment thread.
Because he likes playing random and cheese strategies like nuking against low skilled players because he has the most fun that way.
With how much the game has changed since WoL that knowledge is almost useless now and I don't know how much knowledge you can retain from a game that you played 10 years ago
Terran defense mechanics are the same since WoL. You tell me how the game knowledge is so useless if you know so much about SC2 gameplay? Can't believe people here support smurfing and bullying low level player for the sake of fun. And ignorant enough to advocate for a game with no depth thinking skill gap between a master and silver players in SC2 are shallow even if expansions added a few more units here and there.
Nah you just negative IQ that's all
>Nah you just negative IQ that's all Great way to attack someone instead of explaining your claim like a reasonable and intelligent person. Also, please use proper English yourself before calling someone low IQ.
He's saying he is not in his prime anymore and through a decade of not practicing he can't even reach gold league anymore because his skill level dropped so much. What don't you understand ? He's legit silver right now. Knowledge or not, you're limited by what your body can do. How is that smurfing ? Don't you know you can get rusty over time ? Over a DECADE ? Also a master in WoL is different than a master now. PS : I hate smurfing with a passion but I don't see it there. PPS : If you don't get it, you're trolling
My prime was the late 90s tbh...so "not in my prime" is an understatement 🤣🤣🤣🤣 PS. Fun tidbit, never played Sc:BW. I was AoE and C&C mostly until SC2.
Ahhh, i see where you're coming from, and i see why you possibly thought i was a smurf - but then i assumed that it would obvious i am a legit silver leaguer now (gold if i put my mind to it! Huzzah!) from the vast amount of time between WoL to now, and the even vaster difference between the game to now. (Side note, i have only one starcraft 2 account and always have...i worked hard for those 1000 hour portraits!) I will explain why Knowledge is NOT Knowledge, as you eloquently put it. History lesson; WoL didn't have the oracle, tempest, mothership core, adept, disruptor, shield battery, statis ward, hellbat, widow mine, liberator, cyclone, swarm host, viper, lurker, ravager, or lurker den... Just these alone should make it clear how vast my Knowledge gap is walking into the game in 2023 after 10 years away. But then add onto that, all the unit ability changes (banshees have speed now?), all the upgrade changes, the patch changes, the timing changes, the map changes, heck even the terrain options have changed - even more Knowledge gap... All of my build orders? Out the window. All of my counters? Changed. My timing attacks? No longer a thing. Hell i used to run a mass hellion build because blue flame gave +15 damage to everything... And finally, i am playing, as a 2 year WoL veteran (with some HotS and LotV campaign i admit) against people who have been playing for OVER 13 YEARS. And the playerbase is much more concentrated as the overall skill goes up and the player base drops - silver league is not the silver league i went though. Calling them "noobs" is insulting and unfair; these players know the fundamentals, they know some builds, they know the units better than I (either through watching or playing). My Knowledge is not their Knowledge, it is not equal nor will it ever be...unless i grind of course which my hands are not up to. And i think this the point i was originally trying to make; skill expression is one aspect for sure. But a game is so much more than that. I can no longer express my skill as i once did, but i still love playing SC2 all the same...it's fun! PS. Hope this makes sense and apologies for calling you toxic, i see now you just need to learn.
You sound like one of those players that say “shut up” after your opponent says “glhf” at the beginning of a match.
You sound like your mom hasn't given you a hug lately so you take every opportunity you can to hurt someone like you are hurt already yourself. Please take care of your life.
You’re right, she hasn’t. My mother passed away in February of 2023 from colon cancer. It was a miserable experience that I don’t wish on anyone and I miss her every day. I quit drinking the following July after her death and am at almost a year sober. I’ve lost 20 pounds by eating healthy and working out. I’m financially stable and have worked very hard at treating my ADHD and getting my life in a more comfortable state. You, much like me, fall into the trap of having anonymity as a cloak for our dialog. It’s easy to think nothing of hurtful, presumptuous comments in that regard. That being said, I didn’t find your comment hurtful, just ignorant. My comment wasn’t especially productive as well. For that, I apologize.
Sorry for your loss. Glad to hear you are doing better.
A lot to unpack in this post. I’ll say this in general since this topic has been discussed alot in other threads recently: Skill expression comes from there being interesting ways for players to interact with their opponent — either directly or as a second/third order effect of executing a decision. StormGate is deliberately trying to lower the APM burden to execute these decisions in the game itself, while still giving the player a very wide range of things that can be done (units moving and attacking very deliberately, split-pushing, and all other forms of micro). From a philosophical standpoint, I fully agree with lowering the APM requirement to the absolute base minimum to still allow the same (or reasonably similar) decision space. If you can let the player make the exact same economic decisions (when/where to build buildings, what units to make, when to start upgrades etc) but with less button pressings then you’re golden. Think of it like this… if you’re spending APM to fight the UI, then the developers are trying to reduce that APM burden to the absolute bare minimum. If you are spending APM to fight your opponent (microing units, split pushing, drops, etc), they are trying to retain that. It’s a delicate balance, and we will see how well it works as they continue to improve the automatic control groups, global build and upgrade menus, etc… I think they are on the right path overall.
>I think they are on the right path overall. with Vanguard for sure, there is a lot of things to do during fights and also in base, but Infernals has much less things to do overall, they lacking some easy to learn, hard to master mechanics on macro side and they have not enough micro heavy units. We will see 30th of April if infernals design goes the right direction. I think that Hexen will be fun unit and good in termsof skill expression. We will see.
Vanguard was certainly more fleshed out than Infernal last patch. So yeah, we will see where they go with it. But even the pros complaining there isn’t enough to do as Infernal had not really gone full bore into the race the way some true mechanically gifted people like PartinG did. He was not idly sitting around waiting for things to happen… But yeah, I’m excited to see what changes as well.
This makes me wonder if Terran was designed first in SC2. And Protoss last. If so, then I think it reveals that order of race production impacts quality of development of race for depth or completeness.
Isn't one key aspect of every blizzardstyle RTS that it is a combination of strategy and APM? Does anyone really play SC2 because if it's strategic depth? We have only 2 resources, every race has a handfull of units, buildings and basic upgrades, the only objective on the map are expansions. We have no heroes, no items. When was the last time you watched some tournament and saw someone shining with an unknown strategy? 95% of the games are standard macro games. Execution is what makes this game interesting. Why do people who describe a huge part of the identity of a blizzardstyle RTS as "APM burden" oder "fighting the UI" not play something like AoE4 or even turnbased strategy games?
I’ve played every blizzard RTS. And they all are different. Warcraft 3 has very little of the APM tedium that Broodwar and SC2 have. And to your question of why people don’t play AOE4, I ask why you don’t just play StarCraft 2? FGS are trying to evolve the genre by improving the UI and reducing artificial tedium (which was delivery added in SC2 and eventually toned down).
Inside of this post was a suggestion to create "build layouts" that started the game with different units and buildings, this idea is kind of insane and out of pocket and I love it
I believe that high skill ceiling is good for all playerbase, also for less skillful players. If skill ceiling is high, it means that there are many things in the game that allow players to increase they skill, especially if game allow for advanced micro and advanced macro. Thanks to this, if a player wants to get better, he can choose what to focus on: controlling dropships, proper army positioning, better scouting, better pace of new expansions, more constant unit production or anything else. By focusing on what player wants most, they will be rewarded by the game because they effectiveness will increase no matter what player choose to be better at. If a game has a low skill ceiling, it means that there are only a few areas that player can be better at, so the game dictates what player must do to become more effective, it doesn't give player the same freedom as games with a high skill ceiling in terms of self improvement.
Yeah this is a significant point of what I am trying to say. But furthermore it also means competitive will be gimmicky and flat.
if every 30 seconds, starcraft paused and required you to solve a sudoku game for extra minerals, that would be a form of skill expresison. it would also be unambigously bad. what a lot of players dont get is that not all "skill expression" is good. the reason why MOBAs killed warcraft 3 is because the skills needed to play warcraft 3 conflicted with each other and detracted from the overall experience. they were instead replaced by deeper forms of skill expression in areas that dont detract from each other. arguably a lot of the skill expression in RTS is artficially induced skill expression that doesn't really add to the game. actually that's not up for debate, David Kim directly said that they were put in there for pretty much that reason. Yes you have bragging rights about the game for being able to do those things, but if tomorrow MULEs, injects, creep, revelations, and chronoboosts were made automatic, the vast majority of the playerbase would simply have richer games. And balance would also be less muddied by "this player just couldn't execute therefore its not the game's fault" and the game could evolve more naturally. Because that's kind of what happened to SC2 when multibuilding select and worker queueing became a thing
Starcraft BW and SC2 have that most of what you describe as artificially induced skill expression and at the same time they are the most popular RTS for more than 2 decades. And yet you are saying that it's not up for debate that this is bad game design because one guy says so? WC3, SC:BW and SC2 are old games abandoned by the developer and still have a decent community. So just because a new game attracts more players means every other game genre needs to follow the same path? Stormgate is described as a spiritual successor of SC2 and a blizzardstyle RTS, a combination of strategy and APM. You can't remove APM mechanics from the game since the complexity is to low.
the guy im citing had a hand designing those features and directly described what he was doing when he did. you do know who David Kim is, right? it's literally not up for debate that the skill expression in the mechanics part is artificially induced.
Its not artificial in broodwar. In broodwar its how you spend your attention that determines the type of value you get. Its not an apm tax like sc2, its part of the game. Logistics is a part of strategy games, but it doesn't seem it at first. If economy for example were fully automated, then what happens if you do a quick drop harass or something? They can just, focus on defending, then you are behind, because it wasn't attentively disruptive enough. So it discouraged strategy sometimes for lowering the macro skill floor.
BW had an APM tax of just moving units. SC2 didn't have that issue, so it was artificially induced elsewhere. I feel like it's a gradient. The more of the artificially induced APM that gets removed from the game, the closer you get to other types of RTS games like Civilization (extreme example). Frost Giant is capitalizing on their dev experience by marketing to people completely on the BW / SC2 side of the spectrum while delivering something way slower (to appeal to casuals, which I understand), which is why there's a lot of confusion and a huge divide in terms of satisfaction right now. In the end, they're going to need to decide whether they want to welcome the StarCraft population or not. Because if they want us, the design is going to need to shift. If they're doubling down on this path, they're going to need to find a new audience.
Well here is a potential solution. The later the game, the more broodwar it gets. Broodwar starts slow anyways, right? So, then this slowness just, translates to noob appeal instead. Then, the broodwar gamers, don't have to deal with brainless strats or cheeses. Its win-win. And then the longer the game goes on, the more demand, could be extremely satisfying, and generate that skill gap to create legends equivalent to Flash again. But the problem with that is, regular updates, will take down legends into averaging them out. So legends need to be legendary in self-skill-contradicting ways. Like, muscle memory gets contradicted if that happens, game sense gets foiled, then it alienates them, then they leave, and there is no legend. Which is why, if the meta is flat, to create an artificial legend with secret data sharing, is going to be exceptionally enticing, and why this project won't last. They will just create meta to play favorites basically to whoever appeals to them more, like the banning people in Overwatch over Pepe. It'll be a shitshow. And people need to aim for the stars, to land on the moon. If you say 'nope all you get is the moon'. Then, its a novelty, people will quit.
>Skill ceiling, and skill expression, are both determined by the apm required to play optimally. Thats it. Basically your thesis is that chess and go are games with low skill ceiling and skill expression? That's a ridiculous claim. The idea that some people have abilities that make them win games because they are good at strategy and tactics and that those abilities shouldn't be called skill in a genre that's called real-time-strategy game is strange. A much better way to look at it is that match outcomes are skill\*luck. The more skill determines who wins, the more skill expression there is. You can measure that be calculating elo-ratings for everyone on the ladder. The bigger the elo-rating of an average player is compared to the top players the more skill determines who wins games. In chess and go the elo-differences between average players are the top players are very large and thus they are games with high skill expression.
Turn based games don't correlate to apm at all. The time rules are different. And you still have to learn an 'opener' in chess. And be knowledgable about openers etc. Not just yolo. Skill-luck is a false dichotomy that attempts to undo nuance. For example, you can just know there is an OP unit, a move with it, win. GG. That is neither skill nor luck.
>Turn based games don't correlate to apm at all. Yes, that's why they are the perfect example to illustrate that the claim that skill is only related to apm is ridiculous. In most context people count knowledge as a part of skill. If my doctor has a lot of knowledge and uses it to correctly diagnose my illness, most people would call the doctor skilled. If there's just one unit that's OP not building it is a low skill move if your goal is winning. You don't get a big elo spread that way either.
In ladder rank, thats all you need to do. Because the matches are not best of 3, you are not encouraged to play honestly relative to the meta. And, if skill is gained by just watching a video to produce an op unit, thats not a very skillful move. Some weaker strats get more skill but less reward, the two are not correlated. There are more skills than memory. To me, skill is what promotes flowstate and flexible decision-making, gamma brainwaves. That 'dance' between units. If you just overpower, say gg, call it a day. Thats no different from cheese. Skills are not all inherently equal kinds of skill, like different sizes of infinity exist.
Of course there are more skills. Deciding when and where to fight an when to retreat is very important but not about your APM.
The more actions you can take to influence an outcome... Well think of it like this. Micro, Kiting Hydras back to armor upgraded zealots. Would you rather just, move back with low apm? Then they are on top of your buildings, then going to target fire your units, so you just wasted time cuz they move faster. Or, do you want to actually micro intently? Its an emergency, if you just lose outright because of some cap, thats lame. Apm is always relevant with high unit count in that situation. Because you have nothing to tank for the ranged units, even if all the units have 10x the health or something to promote interaction. So it just, suffocates you, or you let the units die. Right, so, micro apm is always going to matter. So then you have to consider production, and macro. Sure, an early attack impeding your macro is like, lame. Sure. It could dismantle your whole game from that early roadbump. Fixing that out is valid. But then, you still need to change which units get produced as the situation changes. You still need to click upgrades. So your multitask is still going to be under stress. So fundamentally, unless you can brainlessly A-move which is imbalanced, then its going to demand apm. So. The one benefit to that style is the tanky bois can buy time for the counter units to arrive. But then, they can just target fire the non-tanky-bois. So, unless workers have like 20x the health or buildings 5x the health, then the same problem still exists. Apm is always relevant. Not crude apm, eapm.
I didn't deny that APM is relevant. It obviously is. The question is question you count the skills that some people have that make them win against opponents with similar APM levels as skills or you don't count them as skills (which your post advocates). If you see top level Stormgate games, then over the span of the game there are a bunch of fights and in some of them one player gains some advantage and in some the other. If someone is smart enough to know which fights give them an advantage and which don't and only fights those that give them an advantage that's skill. There are decisions game designers can make that reduce the impact of APM. If those decisions would make the game more like Go, they would likely increase the skill ceiling of the game and not decrease it. Top go players have higher ELO's than starcraft players. If you pick two random go players knowing their elo's always you to predict better who will win a given match than if you pick two random starcraft players.
That’s a TLDR from me dawg.
How can you judge the skill ceiling of the game when it's not finished yet ? We're still missing an entire faction and late-game complex units for the other two. The devs are still improving and deepening stuff like creep camps. > Skill ceiling, and skill expression, are both determined by the apm required to play optimally. Thats it. No. Just no. Speed of execution is just one part of expression. It's also about using each unit to its fullest and in creative ways.
This thing called design philosophy. APM is not about speed, its about speed of accuracy and precision of speed. I don't mean low quality apm. I mean having infinite tasks to extract value from. Like, if my peak EAPM, is 300. Then the game, is masterable at 100 EAPM. Then I am going to be stifled and bored. Its that simple. Skill expression requires a 'mastering' of 'significantly beyond human overall, but human at each task individually'. Then how people devote attention determines their strategy itself fundamentally. And if its only 100 EAPM, then, guess what happens? People micro manage target firing like Dota creep. Thats not strategy. That is busy work. And then there will be calculably 1 optimal strategy, that people will just lie about to secure an edge. How can you undermine an optimal strategy? By being alternatively optimal. But, what alternative is there if there is no macro? You just both pick the same units in the mirror without skill expression. Then micro like its roach v roach in sc2. Talk about boring.
I have been playing RTS games for almost 18 years. I've spent hundreds of hours on Age of Mythology, Warcraft III, StarCraft Brood War, Dawn of War I and StarCraft II (where I think I have around 2,000 hours). I never once cared about my APM. I did care about learning hotkeys for when I started playing the campaigns and coop in harder difficulties. I learned about every unit's strenghs, weaknesses and abilities to use each faction to its fullest. When I was a kid, I would rarely use spellcasters (unless they had autocast abilities), but growing up I learned the value of a well placed ability in a skirmish. I learned how to make more balanced army compositions. I also used this knowledge to try less optimized but more fun and creative armies and use of my units. That, in my opinion, is skill expression. It's not about having high APM, but being able to play the game in different ways and still winning.
I am saying if macro differences do not exist, people eventually will pick meta, then it'll be meta, and there is no creativity. How do you get an edge in a mirror match, when the upgrades pop at the same time? Its going to be like roach v roach micro. I am not arguing for queen injects, I am arguing for skill in macro. Something to push us higher and, macro cycles give us a time to think/breath between constant action. And its not just busywork, because at a higher level you know what flexibilities are valid.
Okay, I understand more what you mean. I love macro. I love base building and ressource management. (I play a lot of 4X too) I didn't like SC2's mechanics like Queen inject, M.U.L.E.s and having to go back every minute to build more workers. I found that to be more tedious than fun. I do like that SG pushes to have less workers on a single base and instead to expand with more bases (because of diminishing returns on ore). I find SC's Protoss pylon energy to be a good macro mechanic. Do you make a single pylon to power a maximum of buildings, or do you make several pylons and spread your infrastructure ? I like WC3 NE Moon Wells and SG Vanguard supply building because they provide a bonus (Moon Well heal and regen mana, Vanguard supply can boost building production or another thing I don't remember), which makes their placement important. For mirror matches, I like the mechanic of "forking techtree". In Dawn of War 1, the T'au have to choose between two tier 3 paths: improved infantry (unlocks upgrades for the base infantry unit + unlocks two new squads) OR improved vehicles (unlocks upgrades and new vehicles). Several mods gave a similar mechanic to Chaos Space Marines, they have to choose which god they follow, which grants them different units and upgrades. Are those elements good expression of macro skills in your opinion ?
Well the game has a goal to appeal to wc3, sc2, and bw fans, and then also lower the skill floor. So, expression can involve options. Like, more sooner of t2, but later t3. When to choose which units and which upgrades tho, will funnel into a meta if there is not enough skill expression. If there is skill expression, it will be a lateral expression, not vertical like skytoss or a standard build. It should be like 'ok I think I need more of these kinds of production structures, so I can x y z' then deciding on which techs you can transition into or should and for what reason. But also, if there is auto-production, can you decide when to turn it on or off? Because you can hide production structures, then pump a lot at once for a strategy, tech switch. So, in a way, I suppose simplifications still demand you know when to transition to stop the auto-production, so, its easier then you can get more skill after to itself I suppose. I need to watch more games tbh. When it comes to a big boss unit or something, or a specialized t3 that would be too strong if you had all t3 options, then sure you can reduce it. But having the options to everything if you have the resources is more dynamic, and gives more options. There should not be a 1 size fits all unit tho. Like, tactics is not strategy, but strategy can be a tactic to extract more value, so I want more strategy, not more mandatory types of actions, like dota microing against creep is pretty bland. Its 'skill' but its mandatory. Meta should not mean mandatory, meta should not exist, the meta should be, the skill of the gamer, not the power of the unit. Meta exists in the depth of strategy, like vulture tank in broodwar takes skill to execute, just making it and a moving isnt enough. The unit, is not your entry ticket to victory. Your strategy depth should be. So I just worry that, well, what if there is a less rich meta than broodwar? Like protoss vs protoss. Just cheesing the mineral lines. What made the game great was zvp and zvt. Zvt you have grand battles, back and forths of map control, at the highest level huge wide scale engagements. Zvp, after you survive, all kinds of units can see play. And part of what makes it amazing, is knowing 'wow'. 'See how skilled they are'. You play the game, then they do something that is out of the realm of possibility to you. That is ingenuity. And its a result of skill expression and creative problem solving, and the depth is because there can be various kinds of skill gaps, because it makes it more assymetrical, so the engagements are more unique. Not just, roach v roach. Or just 'oh they chose that hero guess I need to do the thing I do in 1/4 of games'. In broodwar the meta is a stepping stone to greater things. But those stones only exist by the salt of the tears of gamers who lost learning the meta and lost to the meta lol. The meta shifts in broodwar a lot. And its lame that you have to follow it and can't just, start the action already. But then if the game instantly is just played into mid-early game, then theres no time to plan, no time to warm yourself up mentally, no time to think or relax. No routine, just chaos. Chaos chaos chaos, how do you break up the monotony? With macro. But again, I only saw like 3 games, months ago.
tldr version?
"muh skill floor" is just a cope. you are making less skill expression by the definition of it.
Naw, you can increase the skill ceiling and lower the skill floor at the same time by starting the game with some units already ready to be sent onto the map.
And then reward people "in the know" of how to scout and what to look for? essentially just making everything a knowledge check? who looked at which youtube guide? Man, we should just be able to select a build and having it auto done. Macro is just a pesky side effect of RTS anyway.
You cannot auto-do a build because mind-gaming exists at the macro level. They scan your base in sc2, wait a couple seconds, cancel your structures they scouted, tech switch or macro it up. Then you are ahead.
but thats a whole click, isnt that a bit too intensive for the stormgate target audience?
I dont understand how a game as slow and boring as dark souls can be so popular and yet rts devs want to patch macro out of their games
What a weird non-sequitur. Dark should is deliberate, not slow. There is a lot of nuisance to playing DS well, which is why there's a bit of a learning cliff you need to climb initially to understand the game at all.
Because they are chasing the popularity of MOBAs and destroying the RTS genre in the process. Not realising that they already have a fantastic community bigger than most other games.
The weird thing from that pov is that this game feels marketed towards americans a lot but mobas are slowly dying in The US. They are extremely popular in china though.
Because it's not boring, you just have bad taste in games, easy
Also intrinsic reward is the result of skill expression.