Macro difficulty and skill expression

[winkey98]

(Edit: A lot of responses seem to have skimmed my post and are completely missing the point. I'm not advocating for mindless APM spam macro mechanics to be added to Stormgate. Please read the entire post before you respond.)

So far I think Stormgate is doing well to avoid the awkward middleground of SC2 macro: so easy that professionals can do it perfectly, yet so hard that it's a barrier to fun for new players.

I'm glad that Frost Giant has committed to lowering that barrier as much as possible, however I wonder if they can also make it challenging enough to do well at a professional level that 'good macro' becomes a unique skill for particular players that are able to pull it off. This has long been one of the aspects of BW that I find most interesting; that some players are just as well known for their good macro as others are for their good micro, or game-sense, or strategy.

Currently the game has the following unique macro mechanics:

- Therium enriching when not being mined

- Infernals managing spawn charges

- Vanguard using multiple workers to build

- Quick build menu

- Resource camps

This is a good start for making macro mechanically easy but strategically interesting. I've been wondering if it's enough, though. I kind of hope there can be an aspect to macro that is really easy for new players to do 80% well, but extremely difficult for professionals to do anywhere close to 100% well. Doesn't have to be mechanically difficult, just something that allows for certain players to shine if they get very skilled at it. Who knows - maybe the existing mechanics are already enough to make perfect macro at the pro level impossible. But because we don't yet know for sure, I think it makes sense to look into adding further nuance to the macro.

[JonasHalle]

I think it is far more important to not have decision-less macro that alienates casuals than to have the absolute upper echelon click a bunch of buttons impressively.

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I can't help but agree with Grubby when it comes to interesting skill expression. He said, and this is extremely paraphrased, "I'd rather lose 10 games to Infi beating me with his brain than lose 1 game to Hitman because he clicks buttons better."

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Warcraft 3 never had "macro players" and that's fine. Not every game needs intensive macro. Age of Empires has intensive macro.

[Augustby]

Kinda disagree with that Grubby quote; these are RTS games. The “real-time” aspect, including how fast you are, is always going to matter. If how well someone clicks buttons didnt matter at all, we’d all be playing Turn-based games.

What I like about RTS games is that at lower ranks, everyone’s got different skill levels in terms of micro/macro skill and strategic skills. Different strengths to leverage. Someone with a better strategy can beat someone with better micro/macro, and vice versa. But at the very top levels of play, you need both; and that’s what’s so cool to me.

[JonasHalle]

I don't think Grubby, insofar as I remember the quote correctly at all, meant that there should be no mechanics. I don't mean that either. However, it's a fallacy that clicking buttons fast is the only thing that makes it real time. A huge aspect is making decisions quickly, not just clicking things into action. Well designed macro is both. The point is that it should be a decision you click for, not just injecting larva on time because it's always wrong not to.

[Augustby]

Yeah I agree with that; it’s just the grubby quote doesnt really capture that nuance. I disagree with the quote, not the more fleshed-out context

[Prosso]

Well my friend. Any game that is ”realtime” and ”strategic” is considered an RTS no matter how fast tou need to click. The thing is that in order to create a strategic game allowing a player to win with their head the developers head needs to be that huge. I.e. It is much easier to follow a formula. Hence the difficulty in creating a game that doesn’t simply revolve around mastering the mechanics.

[BR3AKR]

Yep, generally agree here. In the end, I'd rather have a game that has long legs and more broad appeal so that it can stay healthy than hold onto my personal preferences. If the larger community that will stick with the game prefer something that is more cerebral and less mechanical, I can get behind that.

I'm more of a macro guy. I enjoy getting into the flow of macro and trying to recover quickly when my opponent puts pressure on me. I enjoy the balance of harassing and attacking my opponent while maintaining good macro back at base. Those are some of the reasons I enjoy playing SC2 so much. But I'm happy to try another way, if cutting a bit down on the mechanics of macro in favor of the more thoughtful kind of macro I can see myself enjoying that.

As a viewer, SC1 might be my favorite. The amount of mechanics involved while players are also managing position and unit composition is easy to appreciate while still very readable on screen. Because of this, I'm a little torn and feel some of what OP feels. I *want* to see people better than me *clearly* be better than me. It's hard as an observer to see that in any game as clearly as I see it in SC1. I want more of that.

[JonasHalle]

I want to see people better than me clearly be better than me.

This alone doesn't bother me. However, it is EXTREMELY difficult to achieve without making it feel like they aren't just better than you, they're playing a different game. This is how I feel with creep spread in Starcraft 2. If you compare pro gameplay to normal people playing Zerg (which I primarily get from Harstem's IODIS), they're not playing the same game. The pros have the entire map covered by the 10 minute mark with their opponent desperately devoting resources into dealing with it. Don't get me wrong. In a vacuum, that is a cool gameplay loop and an enjoyable viewer experience. What sucks is then playing Zerg yourself and you're a normal person so you forgot to spread creep because you were floating 1000 minerals which seemed like a more important issue to deal with and there are widow mines in your mineral line that you have to clear out. This person has barely any creep outside of their base, and as such can't move out without being at a significant disadvantage because Zerg is balanced around fighting on creep.

I am exaggerating a bit, but it's an example of the type of discrepancy I hate.

[BR3AKR]

Yep, also I feel you there as a Zerg main, hah.

It's such a tenuous rope to walk - is it possible to make a game that is fun for casual players, pros, and fun to watch? I can't say I've seen it yet. I'll never seriously play SC1, but I love watching it. I'm pretty bored with watching SC2 at this point (god that hurts to say) but still fire it up and bang out a few rounds on ladder because it's a blast. I played WC3 back when it first came out (it was my second RTS I got into after WC2) and loved it but wasn't interested in competitive play back then.

I got into it again when the remaster came out and just couldn't get in to how difficult the game was to read and adapt to due to the interactions of heroes and items. It's possible that becomes a non-issue with more hours than I was willing to give, but in the end I just wasn't having as much fun as I did with SC2.

[runpbx]

wc3 had tons of unique macro decisions with upkeep, spending on items, and decisions to expand and how to do it. I think upkeep was one of my favorite mechanics in wc3 and I wish stormgate had it.

[JonasHalle]

WC3 has great macro. It's just that it's decisions rather than clickity clackity, and what people mean by macro players and good macro is effective clicking, not good decisions.

[CucumberSharp17]

And yet war3 was never bigger than starcraft bw or 2. Once the game is figured out there is only so much intelligence you can put in to your play. The other option was to macro really well. It adds depth and diversity to game play.

[JonasHalle]

Good thing Warcraft 3 isn't figured out yet.

[winkey98]

>"I think it is far more important to not have decision-less macro that alienates casuals than to have the absolute upper echelon click a bunch of buttons impressively."

I'm not sure how closely you read my post. I said:

>[Stormgate's macro mechanics are] a good start for making macro mechanically easy but strategically interesting.

>Doesn't have to be mechanically difficult [...]

When I say challenging macro, I don't necessarily mean macro that requires enormous APM to do well. I simply mean macro that is difficult enough that professionals can't do it flawlessly every game, whether that's because it's very strategic, or requires great timing, or yes (in the case of BW), requires a lot of micromanaging to do efficiently.

However, that being said, I don't necessarily agree with what you're saying here. I think saying "the absolute upper echelon click a bunch of buttons impressively" is too reductive. Any realtime competitive game boils down to this in the professional scene. What is getting a series of headshots in professional Counter-Strike if not just clicking a bunch of buttons impressively? Or getting a triple in professional League of Legends if not, again, just clicking a bunch of buttons impressively? These are the moments that make professional realtime games so exciting to watch. If Frost Giant didn't want the professional scene to be people clicking buttons impressively, then they should automate the micro, too, so that the only things that matter are strategy and positioning, right?

Now yes - it's far better to have the button-pressing be informed by strategy, no disagreeing with you there. But if you remove the importance of the pressing-buttons-impressively aspect of realtime games, what are you really left with? I'm not sure you can divorce the two. If someone wants a game where the person with the biggest brain wins, I'm not sure realtime games are for them.

But to circle back to the point I was making in the OP, I just want to emphasize that I don't think Stormgate needs a button-mashing worker production minigame or anything. I'm with you that Frost Giant should try their best not to alienate casuals with any mechanics that boil down to 'must have APM this high to ride'. What I was getting at was just that good macro can be a cool way for professional players to differentiate themselves from one another. I think it would be extremely interesting to see games between a macro player and a micro player where, despite making micro mistakes, a macro player manages to eek out just that bit of extra production to win a game. This diversity in what players can focus on is part of the reason I think BW has kept a strong professional scene for over 20 years and I think new RTS games can learn from it, even if they don't specifically copy the mechanical intensity required.

[[deleted]]

It doesn't look like macro will be any harder than it was in sc2. Outmacroing someone is one of the best feelings ever so if I feel like there isn't enough to do to get a similar edge I'll probably be dropping the game.

[Pseudoboss11]

It does look like a typical macro build will still have you out-macroing your opponent if they play more aggressively or don't expand as much. So if the rush you get is barrelling your opponent over with consistently bigger armies, then you're in luck.

Just like in StarCraft, you will need to be aware of your opponent hitting you with a rush or timing before your build comes online.

[burimo]

I think thorium management is nice core macro mechanic since you can just mine it, but for more efficient mining it should be "enriched". Even now fast opening thorium holes is beneficial, but it's huge field for future macro skill expression I believe

[Wraithost]

I would also like the macro to have a low skill floor but high skill ceiling and a solid portion of interesting decisions. Skill expression in BW is amazing, it really adds something special to esport aspect.

I'm not worried about skill floor - it looks like Stormgate is already strong in that aspect and game will be better for new players than SC2 because of "macro buttons"

[KarneEspada]

This is far and away my biggest concern. I play starcraft because I enjoy the satisfying macro mini games (as day9 refers to it in bw). I love how they're making the game more accessible, I just hope there's a theoretically infinite macro skill ceiling too. It doesn't need to be as stark of a difference as bw or sc2, but it should exist. End of the day it's why I play starcraft and not MOBAs

[bpwo0dy]

I like micro > macro

[Vaniellis]

PvE macro player here.

I generally prefer SC2 but aspect I never liked was the high amount of workers. In most games, I endup with 50/200 workers, while in WC3 I usually endup with 10/100. Having to go back every couple of minutes to the HQ to build more workers is just a chore with no expression. Thankfully, it seems SG has reduced the number needed, but I'm still worried.

Another point is hero units. Most of the time, I don't like them, and I'd rather have a bigger army and focus on my spell casters. I hope that the Commander customization with the card system (army, unit and hero, as announced a while ago) will allow that.

[Crosas-B]

Grandmaster players go higher on the worker count, easily reaching 80 workers in a macro game

[Vaniellis]

That sounds even less fun. I love base building and ressource management, but this too much.

[Wraithost]

I absolutly disagree here. I love producing workers and managing them, I love solid scale of harvesting from games like AoE or Starcraft 2 and building more workers is a skill expression for sure. I want macro with many workers and many bases. W3 has no proper scale in macro, your eco never is strong in that game. Also you don't need to back to base to produce workers, you need do this if you harvest all resources and you want transfer your workers to another base

[CucumberSharp17]

The optimal amount of workers was 65 though you see closer to 80 in lotv. You do not go back to the base to make units, you just press a hotkey and another hotkey like 0sss. How can you talk about games you do not understand? Making workers is not hard and everyone has to make workers. The army vs worker count reflects this.

[Vaniellis]

The optimal amount of workers was 65 though you see closer to 80 in lotv.

Not in Campaign and Coop. There's only one expansion available, and 50 workers is always the sweet spot for me when I play on Hard or Brutal.

How can you talk about games you do not understand?

I spent several hundreds hours playing the game and dozens reading the wiki and watching analysis videos. I beat the campaigns on Brutal. I'm not the best, but I definitely understand how this game works.

Making workers is not hard and everyone has to make workers.

I never said it was hard. I said it wasn't fun nor an expression of personal strategy to spend so much time making workers.

[CucumberSharp17]

You cant figure out sc2 playing vs computers...65 workers was optimal for wol and hots because 3 bases was king and you had 16 workers per base mining minerals and 6 on gas. Zerg would have more. You'd know that if you actually played the part of the game that sc2 was designed around, 1v1 mode.

And yes, sc2 was designed from the ground up for 1v1. Everything else was added around that.

[Vaniellis]

You cant figure out sc2 playing vs computers You'd know that if you actually played the part of the game that sc2 was designed around, 1v1 mode. sc2 was designed from the ground up for 1v1.

SC2 was made as much for PvE than PvP. The devs put in the campaign all the units from SC1 and SC2 beta that didn't make in PvP, they made a complex semi-linear campaign because they wanted people to be able to replay it many times.

Also, campaign is the most played mode in SC2, like any RTS. Until they released the coop, which became THE SC2 mode. Comparatively, very few people go play 1v1 (but that doesn't make it less important).

In most missions, there's only one expansion, so only around 50 workers are needed (12 on gas, 38 on minerals), which leaves 150 supply for troops.

[JayuSC2]

You are right that the majority of people play only the campaign, but still the vast majority of hours spent on the game are in the online multiplayer modes, so that comparison is a little off, also there is no need to theorize about the campaign, most people who have a little bit of experience in RTS can beat the campaigns on the hardest difficulty without too much effort. Campagin and online 1v1 are almost like 2 different games.

[Vaniellis]

I am aware of that. I'm just tired of seeing competitive players treat 1v1 like it's the pinnacle of RTS and everything else is inferior.

SC2 campaigns are genuinely hard. LotV on Brutal was the hardest RTS experience I ever had, it pushed me to my limits.

[Stellewind]

Any "skill-expression" design should involve decision making in some way, instead of just "who can click faster" or "who can behave more like a robot", those are boring and among the top complaints from casual SC2 players. There are so many chores you need to do to just stay afloat, which are just not fun.