StarCraft: Remastered

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

You haven't dismantled a single thing. You've simply repeated that you want to suck tranny feminazi cock, or as you prefer to call it in more PC language; "make games more accessible to new players." What you don't realise is that "new players" just means people who don't like RTSes and will never like RTSes no matter what you do. Anybody who might actually enjoy a game/genre (any game/genre) will overcome whatever "barrier to entry" exists (especially one this small) as though it was either barely there or wasn't one to begin with.

But let's remain on this train of thought for a moment: We saw all sorts of things that were done to make the genre easier to handle for new players after CnC3 (and RA3, to a lesser extent) failed to become the Starcraft Killer™ esport that EA wanted, despite being on its own a fairly decent game. So what'd we get in response to this lack of Korean esports money? DoW2 (if you tried to play more than the campaign), Supcom2... and CnC4. Once again, fuck new players. Your only obligation to them (at least in an established franchise) is to make the tutorial good enough to give players a decent grasp of the core mechanics when they're done, and to make tooltips that provide relevant information, as that benefits everyone. If they don't like your game because of something as simple as not being able to control more than 12 units, then I can absolutely guarantee you now that they wouldn't have bought your new game because this mechanic was "simplified" for them.
Like really, no developer would ever listen to "that bullshit?" Well then maybe that's exactly why traditional RTSes are basically dead on the market aside from one or two recent "worthy offerings" like Deserts of Kharak and possibly the upcoming DoW3 (we'll see). Really, tell me, friend-o, because I really want to know. Who is the shit businessman here? 1996 Blizzard who made a difficult to master RTS which has stayed on Korean television for like 20 years (it's still on by the way, there's currently a major televised tournament), or 2009 Relic who made one of their greatest franchises into a moba that nobody plays anymore except to re-run its campaign?

And don't even bring up SC2 being successful with people who'd never played Brood War (and still haven't) despite not having a selection limit.
It was successful in spite of this. This is due to the game being the 13-year long awaited sequel to a globally beloved franchise, that most gamers (at the time) at least knew about by its relationship with WoW's developer even if they'd never personally played it. Ontop of that, there's the fact that it already had a pretty much guaranteed billion-dollar esports scene (which is starting to slow down now) simply by its relationship with Brood War. If that game had a different name or Starcraft didn't have the enduring popularity and success that it did, I can absolutely guarantee you now that it'd be up there with those other three garbage games I mentioned as a franchise-wrecking popamole piece of shit, and very few people would even remember it right now.

It's not that "changing a game" is bad. Whether or not change is fundamentally bad is not what this is about and is a stupid argument anyway. What I want is not to have CnC clones for the rest of eternity. What I want is to go forwards in a direction that caters to people who actually play games, not people who don't. It's okay to trim dead weight if its widely agreed upon that this is what it is (see: developers saying that HW1's fuel system was a shit mechanic that they didn't even like at the time, and so they didn't replicate it in HWRM), but Starcraft 2's streamlining is a very clear point of contention in the franchise's community especially now that Brood War is regaining in professional popularity.

How exactly would removing the selection limit influence skill cap (not entry skill barrier)?

It should be blatantly obvious to anybody who isn't deliberately being obtuse that any change you make to the latter invariably influences the former. Skill cap vs barrier to entry is a direct variation equation. You simply cannot do something to one without affecting the other, especially not in the RTS genre.

I'll answer your question though.

Anything that causes a game require more manual effort in order to play will raise the skill limit. Your maxed out 200 supply army (especially if you're Terran and it's a mech army) requires a significantly greater level of skill at control and coordination in order to use if you can't fit every single one of those units into the same control group. This goes double when we take that army out of a vacuum and assume you're micromanaging your base/economy at the same time as paying attention to it. Micro IN GENERAL requires more concentration on behalf of the player. If you for some bizarre reason still think that this part of the game doesn't actually require a large enough amount of skill at the game that you simply can't ignore it then I just have to again call you a cuck and/or shill that has never played or watched Brood War at any respectable level.
Seriously, get rid of the control limit and we don't see bullshit "this player is OP pls nerf" antics like Jaedong controlling two 12-stacks of mutas at the same time. I.E, a feat that no other player has achieved, at least not on television. In Starcraft 2 (which he did play) the only reason I think he'd really want to split a single stack of 24 mutas to do that again is if he wants to kill something with AOE splash and +damage vs light, which is futile because of the game's shitty rock paper scissors design but that's not what this argument is about.

Have you considered that the selection limit is only problematic in Brood War due to its 10/10 GOTY mid-90s RTS unit pathing? Getting dragoons or goliaths to do just about anything is like pulling teeth and the only reason pros make it look easy is because they're literally at a level of skill that you can't reach unless you're Asian. Allowing me to control 255 of them at once would probably make things worse rather than better.
The improved pathing in Warcraft 3 over Starcraft (still admittedly not great, but there was nothing as hilarious as the dragoon) didn't have any real adverse effects on its skill ceiling. It's even regarded at its highest level of play as one of the most difficult "micromanagement" RTSes ever made and that's something that unit control directly affects. Fixing unit pathing would lower the barrier to entry, but not enough to have a noticeable enough impact on the skill ceiling to need a trigger warning for franchise veterans.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

See SC2 vs. SC1. SC2 is boring to watch as everyone simply deathballs their army and runs into each other. Even after two expansions and a huge number of balance attempts Blizzard hasn't really been able to fix this issue.

They actually made it worse in 2016 as Banelings vs Widow mines vs Storm/Disruptors meta became pretty much dominant. Basically, all army compositions boil down to over-micro high damage dealers units with tonns of cannon fodder. There's rarely any strategy to it, and you can see this very same approach tried every pro game out of all Bo7 matches. Retarded shit tbh


The latest patch seems to have added some changes to TvZ, though.

 

[thesheeep]

Well, first of all, a brofist to you for actually putting out arguments here.
I honestly expected you to just insult me, now I'm actually forced to write something.

What you don't realise is that "new players" just means people who don't like RTSes and will never like RTSes no matter what you do. Anybody who might actually enjoy a game/genre (any game/genre) will overcome whatever "barrier to entry" exists (especially one this small) as though it was either barely there or wasn't one to begin with.

Now this is something that I'd never agree with.
Of course, people who know that they don't like RTS games will never do so. But people who might like RTS games or are simply unsure about them, those are the ones that a lower entry barrier might convince to actually give it a try. I would say most gamers not playing RTS games either never tried or tried maybe once and were driven away by the high entry barrier. If you think this makes them shit players to begin with, we got another thing to disagree on.

Now, this selection limit is just one aspect that can be changed to lower the entry barrier, no doubt.

Like really, no developer would ever listen to "that bullshit?" Well then maybe that's exactly why traditional RTSes are basically dead on the market aside from one or two recent "worthy offerings" like Deserts of Kharak and possibly the upcoming DoW3 (we'll see). Really, tell me, friend-o, because I really want to know. Who is the shit businessman here? 1996 Blizzard who made a difficult to master RTS which has stayed on Korean television for like 20 years (it's still on by the way, there's currently a major televised tournament), or 2009 Relic who made one of their greatest franchises into a moba that nobody plays anymore except to re-run its campaign?

Honestly, I think you are way too focused on the multiplayer aspect here. I am absolutely convinced that the actual number of people competing in leagues is significantly smaller than people who just bought the game, maybe played the campaign (if there even is one), maybe some skirmish and then just stopped because the game offered nothing more for them to enjoy. What is happening in the market is that developers are catering to the smaller PvP crowd instead of putting up additional motivation for the much larger part, which could be an actual co-op campaign (not a crappy one like that C&C3 thing, please) or even something totally new like splitting up base management/combat and having it taken care of by different people.
The possibilities to try out new things are endless, yet everyone is catering to that small online PvP community.
I know, it is because of the potential of massive $$$ behind esports, but come on, the rest of the gaming industry works without serious esports as well. And so could a RTS game without explicit PvP focus.

So far, the very few tries of doing something different in the genre were not rewarded with success because they had a pretty bad execution. It had nothing to do with them daring to do something new and different. Anyone remembering Maelstrom?

Uhm... back to the argument, though.

And don't even bring up SC2 being successful with people who'd never played Brood War (and still haven't) despite not having a selection limit.
It was successful in spite of this.

You could as well say WC3 was successful despite having a selection limit. Pretty much impossible to prove either.
Honestly, I think that one mechanic does not make or break any game. All of Blizzard's games are successful because it is Blizzard. All of their games are high quality (even if you dislike something, you gotta admit if it is produced well - like D3).

It should be blatantly obvious to anybody who isn't deliberately being obtuse that any change you make to the latter invariably influences the former. Skill cap vs barrier to entry is a direct variation equation. You simply cannot do something to one without affecting the other, especially not in the RTS genre.

Of course you can. Rather easily, even.
Take all those trading card games like MTG, Hearthstone and whatnot. Pretty much all of them have a very low entry barrier. Yet the skill cap is vastly different in those games (it is extremely high in Magic, and far lower in Hearthstone).
The reason for that is that complexity in those games is something that is "unlocked" with player skill.
I'll get to the RTS/selection limit specifics below...

Anything that causes a game require more manual effort in order to play will raise the skill limit. Your maxed out 200 supply army (especially if you're Terran and it's a mech army) requires a significantly greater level of skill at control and coordination in order to use if you can't fit every single one of those units into the same control group. This goes double when we take that army out of a vacuum and assume you're micromanaging your base/economy at the same time as paying attention to it. Micro IN GENERAL requires more concentration on behalf of the player. If you for some bizarre reason still think that this part of the game doesn't actually require a large enough amount of skill at the game that you simply can't ignore it then I just have to again call you a cuck and/or shill that has never played or watched Brood War at any respectable level.

No!
The problem here is your "require".
Of course, microing in general requires more concentration on behalf of the player, and of course a player who is good at it will always beat another player that is worse. This is one of the skills that separate the better from the worse players. Just to make it clear that we're definitely on the same line about that.
But: Why the requirement?
Why do you need to enforce a selection limit if it is worthwhile to split up your army anyway? If your army would be in peril if you had just one single bulk, while the opponent - better at microing - surrounds and thus beats you. In such a scenario, there would be absolutely no reason to enforce an artificial selection limit because splitting up would happen on its own.

You are giving a good counter-example yourself:

Seriously, get rid of the control limit and we don't see bullshit "this player is OP pls nerf" antics like Jaedong controlling two 12-stacks of mutas at the same time. I.E, a feat that no other player has achieved, at least not on television. In Starcraft 2 (which he did play) the only reason I think he'd really want to split a single stack of 24 mutas to do that again is if he wants to kill something with AOE splash and +damage vs light, which is futile because of the game's shitty rock paper scissors design but that's not what this argument is about.

So in the case of SC2, splitting up an army is generally not worthwhile because the mechanics of the game do not reward it well. Let's just assume that - I agree, but it is indeed not what this is about.
Honestly: That just makes SC2 a game with a lower skill cap to begin with. Selection limit or not.
It simply is not worthwhile to split up too much.
Adding a selection limit would do nothing except being a bother as you'd still move the (now more) groups around pretty much in the same way, now just requiring a key press more. Yes, this would increase the skill cap, but only marginally so and what is more important: completely artificially, as the mechanics themselves give no incentive for this. It's like suddenly requiring soccer players to only turn around to their right.

Here is the essence:
In a game where splitting up and microing well makes sense on its own, there is no requirement for an artificial limit.
Thus, the entry barrier to the game could be lowered by imposing less restrictions upon the player.
The skill cap, however, remains practically unchanged either way since limiting your own selections still is a de facto requirement for playing at the highest levels.

This also gets back to my point of complexity coming with player skill rather than being artificially imposed upon players from the get-go.

What about something like this:
Imagine being able to just disable the selection limit as an option, in a campaign or online.
Voilà, people could play with or without it, as they prefer instead of being enforced either way.
And in the end, it might be a requirement for league play if the people responsible think that would be a good idea.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

people who might like RTS games or are simply unsure about them, those are the ones that a lower entry barrier might convince to actually give it a try.

Nope. If they haven't exhausted the 90s Golden Age of Real Time Strategy™ by now, they won't ever be RTS fans no matter what you do for them. There are plenty of older games from that area that are far easier than Starcraft and provide a reasonable entry level. One that comes to mind is AoE2. I refuse to accept that lowering the bar even further than that for them will make anything better and there's really nothing you can say to convince me of it. All of your arguments still rely on the concept that appealing to these people is a really great idea and so we're probably never going to agree on anything unless I can convince you that that's stupid.
The only argument I could possibly be persuaded of if it was presented well was if you did it for younger people who weren't able to play these games when they came out. At the time though, I was 3 years old when Brood War came out and I'd started playing it when I was around 7-9. Kids shouldn't be deprived of challenging games because they "just weren't there at the time, man." I mean people mock Bethesda for making their games into banalshitforkids every day on this forum, so there's your challenge.

Honestly, I think you are way too focused on the multiplayer aspect here. I am absolutely convinced that the actual number of people competing in leagues is significantly smaller than people who just bought the game, maybe played the campaign (if there even is one), maybe some skirmish and then just stopped because the game offered nothing more for them to enjoy. What is happening in the market is that developers are catering to the smaller PvP crowd instead of putting up additional motivation for the much larger part, which could be an actual co-op campaign (not a crappy one like that C&C3 thing, please) or even something totally new like splitting up base management/combat and having it taken care of by different people.
The possibilities to try out new things are endless, yet everyone is catering to that small online PvP community.
I know, it is because of the potential of massive $$$ behind esports, but come on, the rest of the gaming industry works without serious esports as well. And so could a RTS game without explicit PvP focus.

Of course that number of competitive gamers is smaller than those other people. The reason I'm fixated on esports and competitive play for this genre, is because who is it that really continues to play games in this genre long after they're out? The people who keep playing Deserts of Kharak despite everybody agreeing the campaign is short and boring and the modding scene being dead on arrival, are the people who're playing in the Artefact Cup tournaments.
If you add more relaxed co-op modes (i.e starcraft 2) that still isn't really going to attract people who weren't already interested in playing or at least buying your game otherwise since they're paying full price to play 1/4-1/3 of the game's content. Even then you can still implement these things without telling the veterans that your studio would prefer to gobble up tranny feminazi cock. There's also the problem of what happens when all of your game's PvE content inevitably runs out of flare for those people. Look at DoW2's last stand mode, because that's the same dustbin that SC2's co-op is eventually gonna end up in. Relic even tried doing what Blizzard is doing now which is adding more heroes and more levels to it. The pro-gamers have a meta to keep up with and the "content" technically changing all of the time with new players entering and leaving the leagues (providing new challenges, since everybody has a different playstyle to try and wrestle with), so those people only get bored and stop playing when they become worn out, find a better game to dedicate that time to, or have real life things that matter more.

If every single RTS wants to have Starcraft 2's map editor and arcade (which is something I'm not opposed to, by the way) ontop of the co-op modes, lowering the entry level is pretty much still only ever going to give you short term sales gains. In a world where we assume game devs are businessmen who only give a shit about moving units no pun intended, then I guess streamlining your shit to attract non-gamers is just fine for them. Is it fine for the genre as a whole? I don't think so. Even then, I have absolutely no reason to believe that this will actually increase any sales if you continue to market it as a hardcore RTS.

Of course you can. Rather easily, even.
Take all those trading card games like MTG, Hearthstone and whatnot. Pretty much all of them have a very low entry barrier. Yet the skill cap is vastly different in those games (it is extremely high in Magic, and far lower in Hearthstone).
The reason for that is that complexity in those games is something that is "unlocked" with player skill.

I'm still right, because if we're going to continue with the "direct variation equation" analogy, trading card games have a very different value for "k", one that's significantly closer to zero than the one RTSes have.

The problem here is your "require".

That's not a problem at all and this point can effectively be dismissed. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a mechanic "requiring" the skill of the player to work with and the very notion that there is is just absurd. This really just sounds to me like what Manatee said before: "Seems you are actually upset that newbies with 20 hours in SC1 can't play in the same league as pros with 2000 hours."

If you think my own example from SC2 is a good counter-argument, you're wrong and/or misreading what I said. Splitting your army is beneficial in Brood War because if you're a better player capable of controlling more stuff at once, you can divide your opponent's attention to the point that he can't concentrate on all of your attacks across a wide front and simply buckles. It's not because the game doesn't have rock paper scissors units that wreck light flyers like the Thor (at least in WoL). Get rid of the selection limit and the wide front disappears because it becomes far more efficient for your blob of hydras, lurkers, and defilers to just chase the protoss gateway ball around the map, since if he engages small parts of your army as you move them in individually for a surround and not the whole thing at once, he'll just kill it, and if you move a small part of your army around to attack his base, he'll just kill your now weaker main army, base race your strike force, and win.
If you think Brood War will still be the same game but with less "artificial restrictions" you're just wrong and there's nothing else to it. Starcraft r̤̗͕ͅ ̼̜̪̄ͅe̼̲̘͖͚̖͙ͦͥ̂̋͌ͪ ̳q͉͍̫̆̌́͑̆̓ ̻̤̽̇̋̓ͨu̫̪̞̹̭̫̰̿͂͐̐̽ͨ̈́i̬͂́̈͒ͣ ͒̐r̮̻̲͕̖̭̜i̜̯͙̘͍̔ͪ̾̌ ̠̬͙̦n̫̅̊͆̄͒ ̠̞͓̻͎ͦͧͭ͐̍g̲͕̋ͤͧ̂ͬ̿ as much manual effort as it does is part of the reason why the game is so dynamic and fun to watch/play. Streamline the mechanics and you damage the formula (as we have seen with SC2), not strengthen it.

Hell, to go with the unit I originally pointed out... If Jaedong could fit more than 12 mutas onto a single control group in Brood War he wouldn't have lost a single game in his entire career. I can guarantee it.

 

[Average Manatee]

Nope. If they haven't exhausted the 90s Golden Age of Real Time Strategy™ by now, they won't ever be RTS fans no matter what you do for them. There are plenty of older games from that area that are far easier than Starcraft and provide a reasonable entry level. One that comes to mind is AoE2.

tbh I consider AoE2 unplayable due to how units move, but then I'm casual scum. Only RTS I'm aware of where you can order your units to go one way and they immediately turn around.

Red Alert 2 is what I would consider the prototypical RTS entry game to be.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Now that I think about it you're probably right. One thing I hated about aoe2 is it had unit control and pathing that felt even worse than sc1 somehow.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's also one of the worst games in the "we give you unit stats but they are useless because every unit has huge hidden modifies vs. everything" realm. And all the different civs having different looking versions of the same units and buildings gets confusing fast.

Yeah, not a great entry game IMO.

 

[thesheeep]

If you add more relaxed co-op modes (i.e starcraft 2) that still isn't really going to attract people who weren't already interested in playing or at least buying your game otherwise since they're paying full price to play 1/4-1/3 of the game's content. Even then you can still implement these things without telling the veterans that your studio would prefer to gobble up tranny feminazi cock. There's also the problem of what happens when all of your game's PvE content inevitably runs out of flare for those people. Look at DoW2's last stand mode, because that's the same dustbin that SC2's co-op is eventually gonna end up in. Relic even tried doing what Blizzard is doing now which is adding more heroes and more levels to it.

Honestly, SC2s co-op is of the too little, too late category, IMO. I stopped following the game after the Zerg expansion because the story was so over the top I just didn't enjoy it. And when I read the Protoss campaign was even worse, I didn't even buy to try it out...
I'm talking about true co-op gameplay, and a game designed around it from the get-go.
BattleForge came pretty close to a good example, and it survived for many years with its rather unique mix of RTS and card gameplay. And co-op in that game was just as fun as competing every once in a while.

The pro-gamers have a meta to keep up with and the "content" technically changing all of the time with new players entering and leaving the leagues (providing new challenges, since everybody has a different playstyle to try and wrestle with), so those people only get bored and stop playing when they become worn out, find a better game to dedicate that time to, or have real life things that matter more.

Which is fine. A game does not need to have everlasting appeal. Some of the best games I've played I played once or twice and I'm not planning to replay soon.

I'm not asking to change games like SC1 or SC2, let them have their $$$ leagues. That's cool.
What I am so pissed about is everyone trying to get a piece of the same cake instead of going into a new direction.
Especially in a genre so "small" as RTS it would be important to try out new things. But really, I'm just repeating myself here and most people probably agree anyway, just disagreeing on what new things should be tried out.

I'm still right, because if we're going to continue with the "direct variation equation" analogy, trading card games have a very different value for "k", one that's significantly closer to zero than the one RTSes have.

Another point where we'll just continue to disagree.
You are convinced that skill entry barrier and cap are closely related and one cannot be changed without affecting the other, while I am sure of the exact opposite (at least for the mechanic discussed here).
There are mechanics that influence both, sure. But selection limit is not one of them.

If you think Brood War will still be the same game but with less "artificial restrictions" you're just wrong and there's nothing else to it. Starcraft r̤̗͕ͅ ̼̜̪̄ͅe̼̲̘͖͚̖͙ͦͥ̂̋͌ͪ ̳q͉͍̫̆̌́͑̆̓ ̻̤̽̇̋̓ͨu̫̪̞̹̭̫̰̿͂͐̐̽ͨ̈́i̬͂́̈͒ͣ ͒̐r̮̻̲͕̖̭̜i̜̯͙̘͍̔ͪ̾̌ ̠̬͙̦n̫̅̊͆̄͒ ̠̞͓̻͎ͦͧͭ͐̍g̲͕̋ͤͧ̂ͬ̿ as much manual effort as it does is part of the reason why the game is so dynamic and fun to watch/play. Streamline the mechanics and you damage the formula (as we have seen with SC2), not strengthen it.

Hell, to go with the unit I originally pointed out... If Jaedong could fit more than 12 mutas onto a single control group in Brood War he wouldn't have lost a single game in his entire career. I can guarantee it.

How does this *not* prove my point?
It simply means that the mechanics in SC do not give incentive enough on their own to split up more, thus such an artificial limit is imposed.
Which you think is a great thing, because it increases the challenge, while I think it is a bad thing because it is completely artificial, just a workaround for underlying design issues.

Besides, if it is as you said and it would be more efficient to just make one big bulk of units, and not splitting them, then why would Jaedong not just have one big bulk consisting of more control groups? Let's be reasonable here: "Select group A, send to X, select group B, send to same X" is not more difficult to pull off for a pro than just "Select group A, send to X". Even a player as mediocre as me can pull that off.
This is not the skill that separates good players from mediocre ones.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Jaedong is the best Zerg player in the entire game. Any mention of him has far more to do with the fact that his mechanics with his race are practically perfect and less to do with any aspect of the game not favouring complexity in strategy or tactics. Him being able to win every match with nothing but mutas in a scenario where he can control like 255 of them at once (starcraft 2 still has a selection cap, it's just so high you won't hit it unless you make 400 zerglings) has more to do with his muta micro being literally godly and less to do with the game's mechanics not favouring the usage of anything else. This is a player who can kill missile turrets and range-upgraded goliaths whilst barely taking any hits just because he's fast enough and has mastered the attack ranges and timings of the units (an incredibly difficult feat).
But even then, what I said before is clearly hyperbole. If he seriously went for nothing but mutas and didn't make any other attacking units, the other player would just attack him with his army before he could reach critical mass and destroy him.

Anyway, who cares if selection limits are an artificial restriction? It being an artificial restriction has absolutely fuck all, diddly, nada, nothing to do with an argument about whether or not it makes the game require more skill to play. I mean if that's why you're upset then all I have to say is that artificial restrictions are not a negative thing for an RTS, because traditional RTSes have been some of the most gamey games ever made and yet they are still good (most of them). You've completely failed to convince me of your view that the selection limit in games where it exists has no effect on the skill requirement for them, because every single argument you have given against it just speaks of either a lack of any real understanding of the game that this thread is mostly talking about (Starcraft), or you just deliberately being obtuse and arguing the counter-point because I called you a cuck earlier.
Yes, there are definitely blobs on the map, but if you don't think that the player better at controlling his multi control group army, spellcasters and all, will (or shouldn't be able to) always beat a player worse at controlling his multi control group army, because it apparently there's no real difference in the amount of skill or finesse that you need to move your army around in a tactically sensible manner compared to if you could fit everything into one group, you're frankly just a complete idiot who, I repeat, is a cuck and/or shill who has never watched or played Brood War at any respectable level. What asinine bullshit are you going to tell me next? That the game would require just as much skill if you didn't have to build supply depots anymore, and didn't have to balance your build-orders around supply as a result because supply is an artificial restriction?
If you don't want artificial restrictions go play a simulator like WarGame or something.

Your major issue here (the part that makes you a colossal faggot who should never about skill in just about any real-time game, not just RTSes) which seems to be causing so much contention here is that you completely disregard any implied requirement for physical coordination and endurance ontop of mechanical understanding and tactical awareness, as being a horrible and artificial restriction and not "real" skill. Well guess what, that's exactly what Starcraft requires for you to be good at it. Starcraft is a primarily mechanical game that requires more manual input than almost any other RTS ever made. If you're actually honestly being sincere in this discussion, then it really just sounds like you're upset because newbies with 20 hours of playtime aren't capable of beating Flash or, for that matter, any other pro who's practised and built his muscle memory up enough to have ~300APM.
I mean if I'm right about that (which I am), then this is basically you:

Hey guys being able to twitch aim in FPSes isn't a real skill and not being able to instantly home in on the target's head is an artificial restriction. We should just add aimbots to all of them so that the only thing the player has to be able to do is click his mouse button at the tactically appropriate time. The skill ceiling would stay exactly where it is whilst the entry barrier would lower!

And I chose to ignore it when you originally said it, but you said before that...

The reason for that is that complexity in those games is something that is "unlocked" with player skill.

You think the complexity in Starcraft's gameplay isn't unlocked by high skill levels? Have you like... ever watched Starcraft? Ever? There've been some pretty damn tricky and complicated plays even just in the current league that's on TV that you simply wouldn't be able to achieve if you weren't at that level of skill at the game.

Seriously all that I can say about games like BattleForge is that I don't regard any of the examples in that particular RTS subgenre of almost-mobas as true RTSes. They're all practically one graphical downgrade from being console/mobile games. If casual hogwash like BattleForge is what you want for the future of the genre instead of aforementioned "worthy offerings" like Deserts of Kharak, then frankly I'm done talking to you. Have fun playing Dotawatch of Legends With Basebuilding*™ and Commandable Creeps™ you philistine.

 

[thesheeep]

I begin to think you are willingly trying to get me completely wrong.

I even agreed with most of the things you wrote there, yet you keep on blathering about points I was never even making.
How, after all those walls of text, you can still think that I "disregard any implied requirement for physical coordination and endurance ontop of mechanical understanding and tactical awareness" is... I don't even.
My whole point is that this exact implied requirement makes the addition of an artificial one unnecessary.

Just look:

The reason for that is that complexity in those games is something that is "unlocked" with player skill.

You think the complexity in Starcraft's gameplay isn't unlocked by high skill levels?

Okay, please, someone who isn't me or Rhodok confirm that I never even remotely said something that could be understood that way.

This is the weirdest argument of all time and I think we should stop it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The problem is that the entry skill barrier (which is not skill cap) is so high that most gamers don't even bother firing up or buying these games.

What the fuck is this shit? Are you talking about multiplayer? Obviously there's no entry level for newbies after almost 20 fucking years. I don't see how that is relevant to anything though.

 

[thesheeep]

Lyric Suite
I was talking about new RTS games, not Starcraft specifically.

 

[Archibald]

This discussion is kinda retarded. You can beat SC campaigns without using control groups so its not like existence of them makes game unplayable for casuals. In tournament environment? Sure, unlikely that you'll go past first-second round without using them, but its completely different topic if tournament environment should be casual-friendly or not. I'd say not, because from spectator's perspective games are more interesting when you see things that you couldn't do yourself.

 

[Icewater]

Strategy games should be about strategy, not microshit. Koreans took a mediocre base-building RTS and elevated it to the level of a sport because they're an insane and ridiculous people. SC2 kinda flopped because most people aren't fucking Korean-crazy. Blizzard would have been far better off focusing on stuff like coop but hey gotta get dat esports crowd.

 

[Maggot]

Do you guys use default hotkeys for RTS? I want to finally git gud at RTS after being a custom games/scenario babby but don't know how people juggle all the control groups efficiently.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Can you even change Brood War's hotkeys? If so I've never had to.

 

[Makabb]

I played Brood War multiplayer back in the day, apart from occasional fog of war hackers, it was very fun

 

[Grotesque]

According to the sources they only change the resolution and some of the UI. Not much to fuck up there.

But I want revamped intros like this one!

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

According to the sources they only change the resolution and some of the UI. Not much to fuck up there.

But I want revamped intros like this one!

That's BG1 intro, wtf.

 

[Grunker]

According to the sources they only change the resolution and some of the UI. Not much to fuck up there.

But I want revamped intros like this one!

I'm gonna use a mod to turn the intros back into their older, sinister versions if I ever switch to EE

 

[agris]

According to the sources they only change the resolution and some of the UI. Not much to fuck up there.

But I want revamped intros like this one!

I'm gonna use a mod to turn the intros back into their older, sinister versions if I ever switch to EE

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/55573-mod-bgee-classic-movies/

 

[Grunker]

Yes, that's the mod I was refering to

 

[Icewater]

According to the sources they only change the resolution and some of the UI. Not much to fuck up there.

But I want revamped intros like this one!

I'm gonna use a mod to turn the intros back into their older, sinister versions if I ever switch to EE

That original intro scared the hell out of me as a kid. The new one is just lame by comparison. No appreciation for good aesthetics whatsoever. For the same reason, many modern games have far superior graphical fidelity but inferior, boring artistic styles.

 

[Grunker]

I had to apologize to my uncle and aunt for showing the intro to my 6-year-old cousing once because he got nightmares

 

[ArchAngel]

According to the sources they only change the resolution and some of the UI. Not much to fuck up there.

But I want revamped intros like this one!

I'm gonna use a mod to turn the intros back into their older, sinister versions if I ever switch to EE

That original intro scared the hell out of me as a kid. The new one is just lame by comparison. No appreciation for good aesthetics whatsoever. For the same reason, many modern games have far superior graphical fidelity but inferior, boring artistic styles.

Fly movie scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, but when I watched it later it was just lame. Go get a brain.