(This is the 6th and final part in a series on the multiplayer changes announced for Legacy of the Void at BlizzCon)

Over the last 5 posts, I have covered a lot of topics around Legacy of the Void (LotV), and they ranged from excited to skeptical and analytical to fanboy-ish. What I want to end on, however, is just a simple point: let’s stay supportive and positive.

There was a lot of excitement right around the announcement, and we need to keep that energy going as much as we can through release. As we get more details about the game, we are going to digger deeper into the changes, and any change will have both pros and cons. Given how experimental things are at this point, however, I don’t want us to get overwhelmingly focused on the negative.

As Blizzard changes things, not everything will work, but it’s important that they have the mandate from the community to try things. We do joke about things like “Daed Gaem” and complain about balance, but there is some underlying feeling that things can improve, and LotV is Blizzard’s chance to fix that. If we back away when we get more details about how much damage a certain unit does or how weak a certain race looks, then the natural reaction is to drift back to the norm, which is the game that we currently have.

Furthermore, it is natural that the changes will drift towards being less radical over time. Blizzard believes strongly in slow, progressive changes towards a stable game, and the game is only get to get more “normal” over time. Ideas rarely get crazier than initial creation and brainstorming, and I would be surprised for something really big to happen now that Blizzard has already announced a feature set.

Given this natural progression, I think we should be pushing to keep changes to see how they evolve and not allow ourselves to revert back to old thinking, whether that’s HotS or Brood War. If we think this game needs a shake-up, we should be behind everything Blizzard does, and hopefully they will hit on the right things. Stay excited. Big things are ahead.

(This is part 5 in a series on the multiplayer changes announced for Legacy of the Void at BlizzCon)

These days, I play more team games than 1v1. Since my friends and I have gotten weekly StarCraft going, it has been my most reliable way of staying in the game. We mostly play 3v3s and 4v4s, and after over a year of it, I have to admit: it isn’t great. There are a few problems and why Legacy of the Void (LotV) isn’t helping.

Current problems with team games

First, the skill gap is rough. Although the total hours of StarCraft played over the past 1 1/2 years is very close across all of the players, the skill gap hasn’t narrowed much. Unfortunately, StarCraft does require deliberate practice and learning, and for most people, it isn’t worth it. As much as we try to make it friendly, it’s tough for the less talented players to stick through it.

Second, harassment and prepared cheese can destroy less talented players. We have seen a lot of strange builds, but the unfortunate part is that they still work. Mass Reapers are devastating because even if 2 of the 4 people on the team can prepare for it, there’s someone who is vulnerable, and while we’re trying to protect them to make sure that they can play a full game and not instantly lose all of their workers, our opponents can macro up to crush us in the mid-game. Banshees, Oracles, and any other harassment is just as bad. Unfortunately LotV makes all of this worse as Blizzard is deliberately strengthening harassment and aggression, which barely gives us an opportunity to develop.

Third, big maps rarely have enough bases. It’s lucky to find a map that gives everyone a chance to get up to 3 bases, which can be critical because a lot of games end up with critical players mining out. This is unfortunate because more talented players tend to need to carry the team, and short of asking for donations (which is an attempt to balance, but can be crippling for less experienced players), it is rough to sustain a long, interesting game. Again, LotV makes this even worse by decreasing the resources at each base. Given the apparent limitations on the size of the map, it means that big games just can’t go that long.

Fourth, I’m not sure how Blizzard has and tries to balance for big team games. This is not to say that I think the game is unbalanced, but the permutations of strategies means that there’s more to prepare for, and again, it’s hard to make less talented players learn the hard way, which still hasn’t worked (for us) in over a year of playing.

The path forward

And despite all of that, I think StarCraft is a fabulous game, and we still have managed to sustain our group for this long. Although Blizzard hasn’t explicitly thrown team games under the bus, I think they have decided to de-prioritize it. The issue is that StarCraft doesn’t naturally extend to more than 2 players. Although the gameplay affords it and the technology exists, it isn’t necessarily desirable and suffers when the game is designed for 1v1.

So instead of trying to fix it, they’re introducing new modes for bigger games, and I’m very excited for them because they really address the needs of casual players.

Archon Mode

Archon mode allows 2 players to play as 1 by controlling shared units. Although I never made the connection, this is what I have wanted in StarCraft 2 for a very long time: team melee.

Team melee was a mode back in Brood War that allowed several players to control the same units. It was a blast, and one of the greatest games of StarCraft I played have every played was a 2v2v1 team melee game. There are a few reasons why I think it works better than team games.

First, it’s balanced and allows us to use  units and play like Blizzard intended. They design and balance for 1v1, and if we can get back to that point with multiple players, it will work.

Second, it’s a great way to teach and carry less talented players. StarCraft is an overwhelming game, and typical mistakes for less talented players is not reacting fast enough or knowing what the response is. Archon mode allows a more talented player to drive when things get dicey, and they can maintain other tasks (e.g. macro) so that the less talented player can improve.

Third, it encourages communication. One of the best parts of team games is talking to friends, but unfortunately, the discussion tends to be more talented players yelling at less talented players to do things and complain about them not doing something. That should be out of the door as archon mode is naturally more cooperative. They can strategize together without being mired by mechanical issues.

I hope Blizzard allows for asymmetric teams (e.g. 2v1) and archon mode FFA (e.g. 2v2v2). That flexibility may seem small, but it’s a huge help.

Allied Commander

The details here are sketchy, but it sounds good to me. Allied commander sounds like Halo’s firefight, or Left 2 Die, where players can play cooperatively against some objective. I think the interest in a co-op campaign (google for it) indicates how much people want this. Although not all of my friends have gotten into multiplayer, everyone seems to enjoy the campaign, and being able to share that experience sounds really nice.

Again, it depends on the details, but I’m glad to see Blizzard trying this out and putting it as a major mode. Even if they don’t get it right the first time, it’s a big opportunity for development in the future.

Conclusion

Laddering 1v1 is really scary. Even laddering 2v2 is scary. StarCraft is just a really hard game, and so far, StarCraft hasn’t been well-designed for bigger games that build a social and more casual experience for engaging the larger community. Rather than trying to fix the existing modes, I think Blizzard is making a great move by developing new modes for this purpose. I hope it works to keep people in the game!

(This is part 3 in a series on the multiplayer changes announced for Legacy of the Void at BlizzCon)

(Disclaimer: this post is kind of a wet towel, and I swear I’m really excited about LotV and believe we should stay positive as a community to be supportive of Blizzard’s willingness to try things out)

StarCraft 2 has always had interesting tension between micro and macro*. On the one hand, everyone loves micro: most highlight videos and “aww snap” moments come from expert control of specific units. On the other hand, most players will tell you that the best way to get better is to improve your macro and focus on probes and pylons, probes and pylons, probes and pylons. Of course, both are necessary skills, but it is strange when the aspects of a game that attract players are different from the most important aspects of it.

StarCraft has always leaned towards macro: that’s one of the big ways that WarCraft distinguished itself from StarCraft on a gameplay level. Despite that, Blizzard has targeted a few ways to increase the importance of micro to make the game more dynamic in Legacy of the Void (LotV). Those goals are listed here, so I won’t repeat them verbatim. I do, however, have a big question: does the community really want more aggression and micro?

Conceptually, I think the changes are nice. I love mechanics that require both players to do something. To borrow from another game, one of my favorite Magic: the Gathering cards is Blackmail. It is, in fact, not particularly potent discard, but both sides have to think from the others’ perspective, and both have a choice, where most discard either allows only 1 of the 2 players to make the choice. It’s more interactive than just being subject to whatever is coming at you. Having counter-micro opportunities against Ravagers or Disruptors is cool.

And from an esports and professional level, I think it sounds good, too, but it may not really be desirable. Micro makes for good highlights. With Heart of the Swarm (HotS), we have seen some of the most egregiously drawn out games as players prove that they’re willing to wait it out if it means they can win. Micro can break some of the long stalemates that we hate watching because things get boring because no one is encouraged to be aggressive, but will players go for it?

For the larger player base that only plays casually, however, I think we have also seen a tendency towards wanting more stable games. We used to have maps like Tal’Darim Altar, which had big chokes that were hard to defend (specifically PvP), and players hated it. Very small maps also encourage early game aggression, and we moved towards bigger maps. Early ZvZ strategies were endless streams of Zerglings and Banelings running across the map, and that was always considered too much of a “coin-flip”.

The general issue with a bias towards aggression and splashy effects is that the results can be volatile, and although a Widow Mine shot killing 20 workers makes a great gif, but it probably caused a rage quit. Requiring defensive micro can be intimidating: players are already taxed on multitasking, and knowing they can constantly lose in an instant to a mismicro can make anyone paranoid.

One of their goals in the game is to “differentiate player skill better”, but I am concerned that this might not actually be attractive to most players. One cause of ladder anxiety is that rankings directly reflect a player’s ability, and it’s hard for a lot of players to want to “test” themselves while playing a game for fun. One of the hardest obstacles to overcome is dealing with Oracles killing minerals lines, 2 Reapers at the beginning of the game, or a Baneling landmine destroying an army. Once a player is frazzled, everything else falls apart. It feels awful, and we blame the other player for having no skill in using cheesy strategies.

When players win on micro and harassment, they feel smug. When players lose on micro, they feel cheated. But when players win and lose in big macro battles, it feels epic. And having played those long games, I have never been bored. Even when a game looks static, I’m still playing as fast as possible trying to keep production up and move my army around. I am very conscious of trying to add more micro to my game by mixing in more drops or keeping Zerglings on the map, but I don’t have space to micro.

To recap, I am concerned about Blizzard putting all of their marbles behind more action and micro. Although it may make for more exciting pro games, I wonder whether most players are truly capable of and willing to play in a more intensive game. But to qualify all of my skepticism above, I am extremely excited for the changes and look forward to Blizzard shaking things up. All of the thoughts above are all suppositions about a community, and I’m hopeful that LotV can keep the player base engaged!

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*Just to clarify for the possibly uninitiated, micro and macro refer to 2 types of actions that players make during a game. Macro refers to actions to build up economy or army, such as making workers, building units, and avoid supply blocks. Micro refers to control of specific units to do things, such as killing workers with Banshees, splitting Marines, or casting spells with High Templar.

(This is part 2 in a series on the multiplayer changes announced for Legacy of the Void at BlizzCon)

Since my initial post, Blizzard put together a blog post summarizing the multiplayer changes in Legacy of the Void (LotV), and they look good. Hopefully it isn’t a surprise for anyone following the LotV news closely, though it is nice to see the numbers. Sadly, I don’t understand the game quite well enough to make anything of them directly.

I’m pretty excited about all of the new units. The Herc, Cyclone, and Ravager were all well-featured in the showmatches. The Lurker is quite the Brood War favorite, and the Disruptor seems like a bigger, badder, Protosser Baneling. The mounds of changes to existing units as well help to re-align the strengths and characteristics of existing units for more dynamic play as well.

What I am most excited for, however, is just having more stuff. I’m not too worried about the details of the changes because those will get figured out. What I would like is a sufficiently complex game that leads to a long series of choices, both within a game and in the meta-game. And the best way to encourage these pivots is diversity of choices.

As a connoisseur of build orders, there is a lot of detail and refine to be had, but if you really think about it, the different matchups aren’t so dynamic. HotS gave Terran new toys for TvZ, but most games still come down to Marine splits versus Muta-Ling-Baneling attacks, even if there are a few mine dodges. Mech still isn’t very popular in TvP. The Immortal-Sentry push still works in PvZ. Of course there are alternatives, but the game doesn’t feel like it has had many dramatic changes or revolutions in strategies.

If you believe it, there are a lot of reasons for it. Perhaps it’s the system of hard counters that StarCraft 2 has. When certain units are intended to counter other units, players don’t really have a choice because there is only 1 optimal response. Maybe it’s a lack of creativity on the part of the players. Or maybe I’m just wrong about the lack of changes in the meta-game.

Or maybe there just isn’t enough stuff in the game. Every new unit significantly increases the complexity of the game as a whole because that unit can interact with every other unit. Overall, the space of possible strategies is much larger. When confronted with some strategy in a game, there are more possible responses. And the meta-game can change more rapidly as we explore the space more.

This does make Blizzard’s job harder in keeping things balanced, but I think their incremental approach is consistent with more complexity as well. Many of their patches fit into 2 approaches. First, they will sometime buff units to give them greater prominence for players. With a more dynamic meta, this shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s not problematic to me. Second, they will nerf units that nullifies other units or otherwise exerts a large influence on the meta. These are also good changes in encouraging diversity in the game.

In that sense, Blizzard isn’t trying to control and carefully craft a set of interactions within StarCraft, nor should they. If Blizzard can design a game to anticipate all possibilities within it, then it’s probably boring because an entire community will quickly master the strategy of the game. That still of course leaves the mechanics, but StarCraft thrives because of its combination of strategic and mechanical talent required. Instead, Blizzard should (and I believe, is) provide the basic constituents of a rich ecosystem for players to explore. They can intercede when something looks or feels wrong, but how the scene develops is unknown.

So I hope Blizzard keeps as much in as possible. If StarCraft is to survive for years to come, it’s going to need to stay fresh, and the best way is to design it beyond our current comprehension. Build in good micro mechanics, but more importantly, provide a lot of them. As a community, we will learn which ones are useful in different circumstances. However, if the changes are few, we can’t use the pieces that aren’t provided. The diversity of options can make StarCraft rich and enduring.

One more thing: here’s maxilicious’s first impressions of LotV. If you’re not reading TerranCraft, you are missing out because it is definitely one of the best StarCraft analysis blogs out there. Don’t waste your time on my ramblings, and go check out his work!