SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

**x5_Namakaye** · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 2:37 AM

I think everyones right tbh, blizzard has a lot of work to do but we're also being retarded. Also, loved the ending!

Another · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 2:46 AM

i love playing and watching the game. agree with stuff here, and yeah the GSL finals was new play at a higher level, MVP and life both brought new strats and builds to the table. and rain, he has been playing the game for not very long at all, he doesnt do anything wacky different in PvT, but its just a higher level of play and multi task, he has shown new ways to execute, and brilliant decision making and game knowledge in all protoss match ups. And the more kespa players improve, the more we will see stuff like this. i wish HotS woudlnt come out for 2 years or so, the game atm is still so young and theres so much improvment and new strategys/styles of play to come out.

and on the LoL/dota2 stuff, MOBAs are succcesfful because they appeal to the low level gamers, the casual people more, while sc2 appeals to the more hardcore gamers, and provides a much higher level of gameplay, both are good models, and they will both co-exist.

**nGenLight** · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 3:30 AM

"Today I 7 pooled a Korean GM Protoss. I killed just 2 probes initially and didn't even get past his wallin. I still won the game in the mid-game. Tell me that isn't "coming back from being behind"

Brag blog in disguise!

Very good points, unless of course you are STARTALE-PARTING and how he feels about PvZ.

I"M SO ******** SHIT AT THIS GAME. I ******** HATE LOSING. WHY DOES THE WORLD HAVE OTHER (SO FCUKING MANY) SMARTER AND HARDER WORKING PEOPLE. GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!

jayaiwhy · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 5:42 AM

I wrote a whole bunch of text but I'm just gonna keep it simple

-Add different game modes and cosmetics
-Attract more casual gamers and keep the existing players happy
-Make money
-Grow the industry
-Make everyone happy.

**mGGNemesis** · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 8:29 AM

This blog makes me smile :P

UHF · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 8:37 AM

Generally it's got nothing to do with competitive play, how much skill you have or even the sameness of game-play.

There are people that don't have fun playing Starcraft 2 anymore. The currect lack of substance in the HotS Beta, along with the lack of communication from Blizzard, was enough to drive a community action.

There are two groups of people involved in this. Both are passionate about the game, however one group still enjoys playing while the other doesn't.

iM SundeR · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 11:26 AM

I don't get how bringing casuals in through Arcade games is at all relevant, it's one of the things that pisses me off most about this ignorance campaign run by Root that is just one big farce to allow Destiny to switch to LoL without making it seem like he failed at anything.

BW was not popular because of UMS, it just shared the same interface. It's like saying that MSN Messenger was popular because you could play Minesweeper, or ICQ was popular because of the Whiteboard feature. It doesn't make much sense.

If we follow this line of reasoning Dota is the reason that WC3 lasted so long, in truth it probably contributed to it's death. People who are playing Arcade games now are doing so because they want to play Nexus Wars. If there was Nexus Wars being broadcasted on the GSL then maybe they might tune in.

I know that this line of reasoning isn't bullet-proof but it still holds sway. Think of Battle.net and the Arcade system is a glorified Xbox Live or something like that. When you put your disc in your Xbox to play Assassin's Creed, does the Xbox Live interface where you can download demos or free games, make you want to play Assassin's Creed more? Or is it all just part of the same entertainment system?

I can understand that Arcade games are a gateway into the ladder system or watching streams, but it's just as much a gateway as seeing a StarCraft II advertisement on a billboard or seeing a news story on Gamestop.

The main problem is that our generation of casual gamers have lost respect and admiration for the pro-gamers of today, at least in SC2. In BW, there was a certain magic or allure surrounding the top pro-gamers, because your average casual simply could NOT replicate what they were doing in the game. There was no way. In SC2, your average top diamond and master league players (who are still casual players), can replicate certain in-game situations (such as lolol i can mech, haer haer infestor/spine/broodlord, haerhaer 8gate norobo), so therefore there is this misconception in the atmosphere that what the pro-gamers are doing is simply playing in an evolved version of these situations. This is simply not the case. It's not worth going in to why, and if you believe otherwise than it is very naive of you. If it really bothers you and you think this is wrong, bug one of the tippity top players in SEA for a conversation about exactly how they approach each matchup, the timings and thought processes involved.

So what does it take to change this? Sure, you can add units that require a higher skill cap, more micro with a higher pay-off, but this isn't going to change anything. It's an attitude within this generation of gamers. There is a very small minority of SC2 fans that genuinely respect the skill of the highest pro-gamers, but the rest simply don't. This is the biggest problem that a game like SC2 has to overcome if it wants to survive, because as previously stated in this thread, DOTA2/LoL simply do not have the skill cap of SC2, so the ace in SC2's sleeve is that the game is downright the most difficult RTS (including MOBA) on the market for a long time to come.

Demosthenes · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 11:37 AM

Sc2Sea, beacon of hope.

Yep, that's what i'm choosing to take away from this.

Meatex · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 11:55 AM

if all the drama gets blizzard to make bnet not suck so much arse then it would have been worth it.
Thing is the initial instigating points were not even directed at game play - it was bnet 2.0 is shit which pretty much everyone agrees to
Others who want to whinge about blah blah blah OP or LoL is better lol have simply twisted the argument

**PiG** · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 12:15 PM

@meatex yep and they're the ones driving me so crazy! So many people across all the media have twisted it into the most nonsensical complaints!

@jayaiwhy yeah man totes agree on those points destiny made, no reason not to have them in the game! I just hate all the retards it riled up complaining about random stuff

@UHF I don't know about the whole "lack of substance in the beta" thing. I absolutely agree about the lack of communication from Blizzard though! What I've come to realise is that IMO HoTs is going to be amazing (for gameplay, I doubt UI will be fixed). All of these new units that so blatantly overlap such as Swarm host and mothership core are REPLACEMENTS! Apparently Dustin Browder and D-Kim admitted that they want to remove/Hugely change some of the existing units in WoL but first they're going to adjust the new units to their liking. If we knew this from day one we might not have been so mad at them introducing a tier 2- broodlord to the zerg arsenal.

Basically the Beta though is just a Beta. It's purely for Blizzard to test it and get it right and I think they're doing it right. The only downside is it would be best if it was completely closed off from the public as we're used to any "new unit" or any changes being permanent and get mad when they seem incomplete. In this case they really aren't. D-Kim purposefully making certain stuff OP so that it speeds up the process of people learning how to use/counter each unit (he told us this at Gamecom HoTs Gameplay Discussion).

Also for the people who've complained saying... "look, I used to play a lot but because my friends stopped playing as the custom game system sucked, I'm way less interested..." shit I'm all for it. I just hate when it goes off topic into people going "OMG THE GAMEPLAY IS SO LACKING" and its like... well ... an expansion is about to come out... why could you possibly want to talk about this now. It's like there's just this massive complaining lack in faith in Blizzard I'm guessing due to D3 being a let-down. Personally the last game Blizzard released that I cared about was Frozen Throne in like 2002-2003 and it was fantastic, so I guess maybe I just have a lot more faith than everyone else. WoL was a huge success.

I'm happy I got some good responses here from people's personal views. UHF I was wondering where do you personally stand, in those who still enjoy the game or those who don't? I actually hope it's in the category of those who don't because if so I'd like to ask, what do you think would make you want to play more? Is it all game-play related or simply to do with Blizzard's support of the game and custom game UI etc being sub-par?

RuineD · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 2:21 PM

The issue isn't that the game is boring and repetitive. It's that the game isn't attractive to casual players compared to games such as LoL and DotA. I think you've used Destiny in the wrong context here - whilst he personally believes the game is getting boring, much of the shitstorm is about his belief that the game is going to slowly die - not because of repetitive gameplay, but because its just not as fun for casual players to play this game when they can go **** around on LoL for an hour and enjoy themselves.

It's been evident since the beginning of SC2 that there is a massive skill gap between Koreans and Foreigners, bar a few who are able to compete at just as high a level - for example Naniwa/Stephano/Nerchio even. With the introduction of Kespa players its unlikely that the foreign scene will ever catch up.

But that's not the issue. The issue is that the game isn't attractive to a casual player. A player in bronze probably doesn't care that the Kespa players are dominating the foreign scene and thus there's no point trying to get good at the game. That bronze player probably just wants to come online and **** around for a bit just to have some fun. I mean that is generally how I feel about the game lately. I don't care about the pro scene so much any more as I'll never attain that level. But I do believe that the game is slowly declining because it's just not as appealing as something like LoL or DotA.

Meatex · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 2:37 PM

the system was there for sc2 to be a lot more successful both as a competitive e-sport and also casual friendly game via custom maps cause the editor is fairly versatile
However blizzard fell short mainly due to interface and battle.net and being too reluctant to engage honestly with the community

My friend was a big fan of RTS games but sc2 made him frustrated cause he would lose a lot and not understand why - the 1v1 side of things isn't for casuals and I don't think anyone wants it to be. Maybe if he had more incentives to try and learn to be better he would have lasted longer (like unlockable skins or stuff)
But I was telling him about the drama recently and told him about destiny and his points etc and do you know what he said?
"There are customs maps?"
Yup he played the game for several months and never new of the existence of mafia, nexus wars, marine arena etc. Like no idea so when I told him about the customs he wanted to get together some friends and do sc2 customs night
I couldn't believe that he thought sc2 was campaign, teams and 1v1 and that shows you how bad the interface is

fur · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 3:22 PM

A damned fine blog post. So much so, that a mere comment could not satisfy me and I went and wrote my own in response

**Dingobloo** · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 3:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RuineD

But that's not the issue. The issue is that the game isn't attractive to a casual player. A player in bronze probably doesn't care that the Kespa players are dominating the foreign scene and thus there's no point trying to get good at the game. That bronze player probably just wants to come online and **** around for a bit just to have some fun. I mean that is generally how I feel about the game lately. I don't care about the pro scene so much any more as I'll never attain that level. But I do believe that the game is slowly declining because it's just not as appealing as something like LoL or DotA.

I don't feel like this is as difficult to overcome as people seem to think. There is plenty of room to **** around in an SC2 team game or Monobattle, and personally I prefer SC2 team games over LoL/DotA for a ton of reasons: Game length is much more life friendly, The fact that leavers don't entirely ruin an SC2 game, the crazy ways in which an SC2 game can get out of control (base trades, crazy strategies, cheeses) and the fact that most people are too busy playing to be really that BM. They have some in built advantages but I think most of it related to gameplay at least is overblown.

I always have to ground this discussion in my own experiences because I have 2 groups of about 4-5 friends that I occasionally want to play Starcraft with but all of them have gotten a few games into starter edition and not played again but who play LoL or Dota 2 respectively every couple of nights. For me this isn't hypothetical thing about stream numbers or killing eSports, it's literally the difference between me playing a game every night that I enjoy, and playing one that I don't enjoy as much.

It usually comes down to some interrelated set of issues, they don't give it enough time to know if they'll like it because the starter addition is extremely limited and to play properly requires them to put down $60, they're not going to do that because none of their friends play and they don't know if they'll like it because they haven't put enough time into it, and none of THEIR friends want to play it because none of their friends play and they don't want to pay $60 for something they don't know if they'll enjoy.

I like the way that Valve put it best, a customer can be worth more than just the money they put down up front for a game, if that person engages someone that otherwise would not have played for them, or their friends, or their friends friends, to put down even a small amount of money, then that's a win for them, and is much more valuable than the hypothetical lost sale because the person would have never got involved in the first place. SC2 is almost living proof of that. I'm not worried about SC2 suddenly going away in a competitive capacity, or about it being a bad game, but I'm definitely worried about SC2 staying still while other games pass it by and suddenly not having a chance in hell to convince my friends to play it.

RuineD · Mon, 29th-Oct-2012, 6:33 PM

@Dingobloo
I agree with you - what you say about other games overtaking SC2 while we are left at a standstill. But think of it this way - you play LoL or DotA and you have approx 100? heroes to choose from. There's always something new to do. Eventually in SC2 you play enough games under each race that it gets boring. And when it get's boring you don't have that good of an option to do something else. Sure there's a few custom games which can be played, but what happens when those custom games get boring? If we compare to Brood War you can pick from thousands of use map settings games, and then be able to expect people to join because it's so much easier - you don't have that with SC2.

I don't think it's to do with money, I think it's to do with the interface and how the game is viewed. SC2 elitists view the game as the most skillbased game around at the moment, but skillbased doesn't necessary bring in fans. Being Grandmaster isn't going to matter too much to a player who plays SC2 3 times a week to play monobattles or Cannon Defense (if it existed in SC2 that is). Being Grandmaster to a player who plays 10 games of 1v1 a day, however, is much more appealing. Blizzard has accentuated this, that when you play SC2 your ultimate goal should be to get better at the game and get ranked highly, rather than to have fun.