What I don't understand, or rather what I don't agree with is why Starcraft II is so popular in comparison to other solid RTS titles. It's unquestionably the most polished and balanced, as well as the challenging and most skillful. Yes, everyone knows that. But does that really make it the most enjoyable, interesting and exciting? What I've noticed as a recurring theme when Starcraft II players defend their most cherished game, is when I draw comparisons to other RTS games they tend to reply with something along the lines of these two things. On one side you've got:
- There is so much more skill to Starcraft.
- Those games are easy in comparison.
- The community is enormous.
- The balance in perfect.
Typically Micro management in Starcraft is to do with the more technical micro, the actions per minute (APM) one can employ in engagements such as multitasking and managing different units. For example in a Terran verse Zerg encounter this will typically involve Marine splitting and kiting to minimise the area of effect of the Banelings or Fungal Growth, whilst Siege Tank manually targetting the more potent banelings, whilst ensuring the Medivacs are healing the damaged marines, whilst trying to land an EMP on the Infestors to neutralise their energy.
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| Show us how it's done. |
That's the exciting and intense part. The bit where everyone gets out of their seat in suspense of "Who's going to win this engagement? Holy s**t his micro was epic! Wow did you see that marine split?" But in Starcraft, this is actually a small part of the game, such insignificance compared to its more fundamental elements. Managing and growing an economy, constant production of the combat troops, workers, production buildings, upgrades, population cap. All of your micro and APM is futile if your outplayed in this aspect. But wouldn't it make more sense for an RTS game to have more focus on these fun epic engagements and micro of the players instead of economy and base management. No one sits there getting giddy over how intense it is that the Korean dude has an extra base and two more barracks than the other Korean.
The other RTS game I'm going to talk here about is Generals; it's actually quite similar in nature to Starcraft. Build buildings, harvest resources from fixed resource nodes, build military, fight over resource nodes and map control to win. Yes yes, all that stuff. But where the two games differ is from the focus of macro over to the engagements themselves. Building your army and expanding your economy in Generals is simple, from a strategic perspective as well as a technical perspective. Where the depth lies, is the units and engagements themselves. All the quirky unit traits, abilities, tactics and synergies that you have to utilise for success.
Earlier before I mentioned that the micro in Starcraft is always rather technical and requiring a high APM to execute. It can often be the same in Generals, but typically it comes down to a more tactical and creative approach. A classic example of micro in Generals is abusing the really slow turn rate of the Overlord Tank's Gatling Cannon. This can be achieved by sending in an air unit or calling in a spy drone from the rear to be automatically targeted by it, just as the rocket troops are about to get within range from the front. By the time the Gatling cannon retargets them, the rocket troops have already dealt a significant amount of damage and perhaps even destroying it. Normally the Gatling cannon would just gun down all the infantry in seconds. Not particularly hard to do, but requires a bit of creativity and quick thinking.
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| Unit Blocking. |
Generals is a much more gated economy, meaning the economy is regulated at a much shorter amount of time. For comparison, in Starcraft it takes about 8 minutes to build enough workers to optimally harvest a resource node compared to the 30 seconds of Generals. The impact this has is that Micromanagement is only rewarding, and only beneficial, when units are expensive relative to the income rate of the game. So provided the gameplay elements themselves are designed to have all have various quirky tricks and characteristics that can be done with them (or to them), then you actually need small armies in order for those tricks to have meaning and to be rewarding. The quality of micromanagement is directly proportional to the size of the army you are controlling, and the size of armies in Generals is naturally regulated by the gated economy. The economy in Generals is far more consistent, losing 3 Battlemaster Tanks for nothing would have a significant impact at any stage of the game. In Starcraft being down 10 Marines at 5 minutes in will likely result in a swift defeat, compared to losing 10 Marines at 20 minutes being of very little concern.
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| China will grow larger! |
The impact this actually has in terms of the gameplay means that all unit engagements and encounters hold more meaning. The constant tension of combat because the outcome is going to cause a bigger result, delicate control to maximize the damage of a unit and the measures and effort one might go to in order to desperately try and keep a single unit alive. With Starcraft, the majority of the time you don't even get to see sick micro because the players are too occupied with their economy and production. Interacting and controlling units is much more stimulating than managing a base.
The pace of Generals is also much faster, and it's a much more active and less passive play style compared to Starcraft. Typically in the beginning of the game there is a long build up until players actually start interacting with each other. Depending on the matchup, you tend to get your natural expansion at around 3:00 minutes. Also about the same time you send a worker to scout the enemies, but it's not so much actually scouting and reacting as it is just checking to make sure your opponent isn't going to all in you, and when you check that he isn't you then proceed to keep doing the exact same opening you've been doing the past 20 times in the matchup. After your natural expansion you start building a combination between more workers, production structures, troops, population cap structures and begin upgrades until more or less at the 10:00 minute mark the armies will meet for either a big skirmish that is determined in a matter of seconds or after scouting the enemies force deciding to disengage. If any form of major engagements happen before 5:00 it is typically regarded as "Cheese" and frowned upon for being some sort of all-in gamble strategy that inhibits the player too much if it fails.
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| I'm not sure who would honestly say they actively enjoy watching a Zerg do nothing but build drones for the first 8 minutes of every game. |
The bottom line is, I think Starcraft II is over rated and gets way too much attention. I feel this is mainly the result of Blizzard's reputation. People buy and play Blizzard games just because they're Blizzard games, they're always top notch quality. I sure never doubted myself frantically picking up my copy of Starcraft II the day it came out. Then as a result of the huge community, people stick with it. At least that's the only reason I got so into Starcraft II despite not enjoying it as much, because it was the only RTS game people cared about both on a local and international level. There was a smaller response and prestige from "Guys guys, I just hit top 50 in the world in C&C Red Alert 3!" then there is to hitting Masters League, one of the many thousands around the world. Starcraft II is popular because it's popular. I think it's quite unfair, that even if Starcraft II was actually a completely terrible game it still would have sold more copies then Generals or Company of Heroes did just because it was the sequel to Starcraft 1, and made by Blizzard.
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| Or perhaps this is why. |
The other side of the coin though, as to Starcraft 1 and 2's success is because of the enormous and unmatched skill requirements and how demanding the game is. I can understand why that makes it so popular amongst the pro gamers who make their living out of playing and competing. But I don't think that's any reason for us mere mortals to get so into an E-sport. For all those people who say they prefer Starcraft for it's insane skill requirements and it being the most challenging, my response is if you really want the most skilful and demanding RTS game possible, which requires a remarkable amount of APM and talent from the player... Then go play Warcraft 1 with it's lack of mechanics, using a ball mouse and reducing the monitors brightness to 15%. You're missing the point. It's Real Time Strategy, not Real Time Execution.
