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I disagree with SC2 being too easy. There is a huge differentiation between skill and strategy. I believe an RTS should be based on STRATEGY more so than blind skill like fast clicking and fast movements.

Quote by Kimera757

7. Hold fire button cloaked units.

SC1 required you to select a lurker and an overlord at the same time and press the hold position button in order to simulate the hold fire command.

That's a glitch, not a deliberate part of the game.

Thanks for picking and chooseing parts of my post to quote. I obviously said it was a glitch.

Quote by TheGreenMachine

Hold fire button cloaked units.

SC1 required you to select a lurker and an overlord at the same time and press the hold position button in order to simulate the hold fire command. Im not sure if other cloaked units in SC1 had the ability to hold fire. In SC2 there is a hold fire command for cloaked units including the lurkers. I realize the ability to hold fire was just a "glitch" found long after the game came out but it is part of current competitive play.

I know SC1 interface was out dated but it got played more because it was hard to play a perfect game. The challenge is what brought so many to play SC1 competitively. Some things are due for update, but we know health bars made micro in WC3 so much easier to not lose units. Healthbars in SC2, im not letting you kill a single one of my stalkers unless you 1 shot them. Many people think WC3 is boring compared to starcraft because units dont die nearly as often. Macro is very easy and Micro is whats important. SC2 is going save you time macroing compared to SC1, pros still managed to micro pretty damn well despite the large requirement of time spent macro'ing. What are pros going to do now that they dont have to macro so hard? Answer is they will just micro more...that doesnt sound as interesting to me.

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Quote by ShadowDestroyer

I disagree with SC2 being too easy. There is a huge differentiation between skill and strategy. I believe an RTS should be based on STRATEGY more so than blind skill like fast clicking and fast movements.

RTS stands for real time strategy meaning you have to spend your time effectively. Fast clicking and fast movements come with it. As for "blind skill" it isn't even close to being blind. These guys handle strategy ONTOP of playing fast. That makes it all the more impressive.

Quote by dale

Quote by Dreadwave

How is taking mechanics from other (inferior) RTS and putting them into SC2 adding anything new?

Everything you listed reduces micro to pressing a single button at the right time, pretty much every RTS that failed as an e-sport had almost no real micro, only this single button 'micro'. Pressing a button at the right time has a much lower skill ceiling than doing the manual micro you have to do in SC/WC3.

You have a correlation - causation fallacy going on.

Also, formation is not something that directly affects the micro in SC2 -- you can't micro a letter-formation and hold that position while moving. That's the thing with the current micro'ing -- there are some serious limits, and let's face it, [b[it's really not all that deep in terms of gameplay. [/b]

You missed the point, most other RTS sucking as competitive games is not intregal to my argument.

In SC/WC3/SC2 the only limit is how fast and accurate you can manually influence your units, this has a practically unreachable skillceiling. All the stuff you listed can be done by pressing a few keys, something you can get right by accident, the skill ceiling on this is really low and it has zero depth, you either do it right or don't, there are no degrees of success/failures.

Meaningful micro has many degrees of success/failure, if you just attackmove mnm into lurkers they all die, but if you spread them somewhat you might kill some, if you spread them really well you might even kill all the lurkers with minimal losses even though lurkers hardcounter marines on paper. That's skill differentiation, compare that to having a spread button; you either press it or you don't, success or failure no real inbetweens. Singlebutton 'micro' creates RPS-style interactions between units where you either press the correct or the wrong button, kind of like a quicktime event.

So you really have no idea what you are talking about, which your sig already predicted, SupCom2 rofl.

Quote by ShadowDestroyer

I disagree with SC2 being too easy. There is a huge differentiation between skill and strategy. I believe an RTS should be based on STRATEGY more so than blind skill like fast clicking and fast movements.

STRATEGY, eh? Why are you ignoring the REAL TIME part of RTS? As long as a game is not turnbased being fast matters a lot, especially if both players have a similar level of strategic understanding. So you either get with the program or move over to the TURNBASED strategy aisle.

Quote by dale

Also, formation is not something that directly affects the micro in SC2 -- you can't micro a letter-formation and hold that position while moving. That's the thing with the current micro'ing -- there are some serious limits, and let's face it, it's really not all that deep in terms of gameplay.

Zerglings holding letter Q formation
It looks like it has to do with when you tell them to move/attack somewhere, if the target position is close enough the units will bunch together. If it is far away they will stay in formation. If they hit boundaries in their environment like ramps they will probably lose formation. Also I heard a while ago that mutalisks will be able to be stacked with constant movement in SC2 without the overlord trick.

No it just means that there is no more bull. I mean auto mine and all that stuff should have been in the first one. Hotkeying units in 12's was rigged for the protoss and messed up the zerg (can anyone say crackling army using up 1 2 3 4 and 5 for the defiler?).

Pathfinding? I can't tell you how many times I've lost a key caster thanks to the pathetic pathfinding, or found my drone going halfway across the map because the ramp to the enemy base was blocked off. Or how about the time you tried to move 2 ultralisks or more up a ramp? dear god they went everywhere!

Smart casting is probably gonna be a bigger pain. Why? Because the pros can't simultaneously cast 6 psi storms in one shot, leveling an entire army. Now they have to do it one at a time and even though they have more precision it allows the enemy to bail out.

All the changes were for the better and just because some silly mechanics got fixed doesn't mean it's better. It's like asking if pacman will become easy because a special dot glitch was fixed. It just changes things up, that's all.

Quote by TheGreenMachine

we know health bars made micro in WC3 so much easier to not lose units. Healthbars in SC2, im not letting you kill a single one of my stalkers unless you 1 shot them. Many people think WC3 is boring compared to starcraft because units dont die nearly as often.

Is that the reasoning behind this post? Because units won't die nearly as often? Only when someone exhibits good micro will their units not die as often- which is the very skill Blizzard is trying to promote.
Your whole argument rotates around the fact that in Sc1 micro is harder which therefor makes games 'more exciting' because your units die quicker... Hmm.

EDIT:

Quote by Mr-Trib

Smart casting is probably gonna be a bigger pain. Why? Because the pros can't simultaneously cast 6 psi storms in one shot, leveling an entire army. Now they have to do it one at a time and even though they have more precision it allows the enemy to bail out.

... Some people need to play more than just Sc1 in order to understand how these changes will work. Not only am I sure they'll have a CNTRL or ALT modifier that allows you to issue command to all units, but if you just repeatedly tap the hotkey, each unit will still easily perform the ability.

Will SC2 be easier? Perhaps. Slightly.

Will SC2 be too easy? I think that's the most important question and for a number of reasons I think the answer is no. A lot of the things that were stated as making SC2 "easier" are things that were just annoying in the original (rally points are terrific, IMO). I'm no SC pro, so these things will certainly make my game easier. I'm grateful for that. But I still expect to get completely worked by the pro gamers who are able to take it one step further. There is still an incredibly high, if not unreachable, ceiling on how good someone can get. a few things to make things easier for newer players doesn't automatically make a game easy mode.

@Dreadwave Why do you even bother with such a weak and flawed reply? You do realize every RTS has micro where you can move each unit individually and they don't die from one hit? You do realize hitting keys on a keyboard count as APM, right? Same shit as clicking a mouse button. Spreading through a one button click doesn't win anything -- it's a formation. Your opponent would have the same ability. You still can micro out of the formation. It doesn't equal success or failure because you haven't killed anything. Some would even call it strategy. God, I hate doing this kind of debate. It's basically me correcting someone's assumptions. And you wonder why I don't get into these more often...

"All the stuff you listed can be done by pressing a few keys, something you can get right by accident" <--- Accident? If that's your reasoning, then you can accidentally do a lot of things in the game! Like accidentally getting yourself killed. Don't even bother if you're going to write dribble like that.

"You missed the point, most other RTS sucking as competitive games is not intregal to my argument."

You didn't have a point. It was utter bullshit. You sir, fail.


@thegreenmachine Yeah, I was thinking of something more solid, something that would hold it's course...

Quote by THoR

EDIT:

Quote by Mr-Trib

Smart casting is probably gonna be a bigger pain. Why? Because the pros can't simultaneously cast 6 psi storms in one shot, leveling an entire army. Now they have to do it one at a time and even though they have more precision it allows the enemy to bail out.

... Some people need to play more than just Sc1 in order to understand how these changes will work. Not only am I sure they'll have a CNTRL or ALT modifier that allows you to issue command to all units, but if you just repeatedly tap the hotkey, each unit will still easily perform the ability.

So you're saying they will allow non-smart casting? Sick...

And Well Smart casting might make it easier but who knows. But from what I've seen, 6 high templar can kill anything. with less than 320ish hp in no time.

TheGreenMachi I think this is a great overview and well thought out post! I agree with nearly everything in it, except your concern that SC2 will to easy for to many people to play. I think someone said it best, ALL of these points you are making are true, and will help the majority of people to rise to say a mid level skill ability rather rapidly...however, the high level players will be defined by their ability to perfect and use the new mechanics better than the majority which will take mastery over time.

I might add to your suggestions in your last points two areas that I feel will be very huge in how SC2 compares to SC1.

1st: High Ground Advantage!!! I wrote a post on this topic http://www.sc2armory.com/forums/topic/9749 Simply put, I feel the blind view of units on lower ground HUGELY impacts and give strategic advantage to ranged units placed on high ground. Obviously, we've all seen pros do classic tank siege drops on upper ground above resource lines, HOWEVER I feel SC2 will take this two a whole new level. The famous phrase "A hill to die on" will become a reality worth dying for in SC2 with the strategic advantage that High Ground gives units!

2nd: Each races new unique game mechanics that have been added to them.
Protoss have the "Warp-in" ability now which has near infinite potential for pwning!!! :)
Terran's have a lot of heavy hitting power once again in their bio builds, cheaper nukes (but more expensive Ghosts), and ranged units of power! :) Apparently they really are going to be good at turtling now better than ever.
Lastly, the Zerg have been buffed with their 30% speed increase on creep, Queens can make creep highways via new creep tumors, as well as Overlord spread creep abilities which might lead to tremendous late game nightmares for their opponents. :) The most significant boost to the Zerg is the Queen's new "Spawn Larva" ability. Team Liquid posted an article after playing SC2 at Blizcon 2009 about just how powerful it was and I've gotta say I think the Zerg look more menacing than ever before! SWARM!!!

I'm sorry but this whole discussion basically comes down to wanting a buggy, clunky game that supposedly "demands more skill" over a more fluid, stream lined game that may require SLIGHTLY less.

As for myself I totally disagree with people claiming SC2 will require less skill due to it's UI enhancements. It's not like there is a skill cap with SC's cap set higher than SC2's. There is no skill limit guys. You don't reach a certain point then have nothing to do for several second. There is always something to do.

If you watch any BR it becomes clear you can ALWAYS improve your macro/micro. Watch David Kim dance his Stalkers out of enemy firing range with Blink, not losing any. Then watch Matt Cooper playing Protss and sit there and let them all die. The skill level difference is very noticeable. Not only that, but even David Kim could micro his stalkers better. Maybe he could be dancing his Stalkers while queuing more units, or scouting, or who knows what.

Not only that game was sped up for a reason. Sure things are easier with MBS and smart casting, but the games gonna go so much quicker. That means resources coming in fast, more units needing to be made, more battles, etc.

Lastly everyone keeps complaining about 255 unit selection. I don't see the big deal. Go ahead and select 100+ units and send them all in. Then watch as they all get clogged up in chokes or the slower ones fall behind while the faster ones run up to die alone. It doesn't matter how good the pathing is, this kind of stuff will still happen. Meanwhile the player with 4-5 control groups will be picking off enemies left and right and all around be playing a much better game.

Quote By Deathleech

As for myself I totally disagree with people claiming SC2 will require less skill due to it's UI enhancements. It's not like there is a skill cap with SC's cap set higher than SC2's. There is no skill limit guys. You don't reach a certain point then have nothing to do for several second. There is always something to do.

I disagree as well. THis game is not as 'easy' as it looks, talking about and watching a game being played is in no way the same as playing the game.

I think most you are going to get a real reality check when Beta is out. Timing and good micro/ macro is still needed. A lot of the mechanics are new will take time to learn to use and to perfect. I will be losing a great deal of game while I pick up these new mechanics. Blizzard games have a way of humbling even the most advanced of players.

It had better not be easy, or it will be no fun.

All the points listed so far by the original poster are nessecary changes Blizzard needed to be doing in my opinion. Truly, I don't think that SC2 is going to be too easy for people to master; after all bulk of the game aspects require some sort of skill, as opposed to games like CNC3 where you can relax with 40 APM.

many in this thread is actually thinking user friendly = easy.

Just because you make a game non user friendly doesnt mean the game itself is challenging but playing it is.

Just take chess as an example. Very simple rules to keep track of and hardly needs expensive equipment/tools/phsyical attributes such as strength to move pieces etc. A very user friendly game, easy to pick up and play. Just apply the simple rules. You can be 10 years old or 80 years old to play it.

Would you call chess an easy game?

SC1 is just not user friendly. The UI mechanics are crap and obsolote. Don't think for a sec just because you have infinite unit selection and bunch of other UI improvements you are going to play on a pro level.