UC Berkeley Starcraft Class, Week 1
Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 9:45PM 
A screenshot of how StarCraft looked early in development.Tonight I attended the much-talked-about StarCraft class at UC Berkeley as an observer. (Insert StarCraft joke about Observers.)
The main lecturer is the young Alan Feng. Mr. Feng is a physics student who says he's been playing StarCraft "for 2.5 years, 6 months on the pro level." He also had help leading the class from a guy named Yosh (I forget his real name, but I call people by their chosen names anyway), and a third guy who I only remember as Mumbling Guy. I would call Feng by his gaming name too, but I forgot what it was because he only said it once.
Feng and Yosh are an interesting contrast. Feng is endearingly highfalutin while Yosh is an old-timer (StarCraft-wise) who tells the young-uns how it used to be. Feng began the class this way:
There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.
There are not more than five primary colors, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen.
There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.
In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack: the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.
--Sun Tzu
And he added:
In Starcraft, there are only three races, but more gameplay remaining than can be explored.
There was then a long stretch of administrative debris about notecards we were to turn in, about what percentage of the final grade the homework is worth, and other such banalities. Notably though, 40% of the final grade comes from the final project where students must attempt to make a new contribution to the StarCraft community in the form of an analysis of some part of the game. These final papers will be public and subject to peer review--no doubt incredibly merciless peer review, given the tone of most gaming communities.
Feng then gave us a short history lesson about the release of StarCraft. It was announced in 1995, though it didn't release until 1997. Feng showed us graphs and stats of how many people had computers back then, what power they were, how many had internet access, and so on. His point was that StarCraft had a dramatically larger chance for success in 1997 than it did in 1995, so their delay was fortuitous.
As an aside, I'll point out that this involved Microsoft Powerpoint slides. One student asked if the slides would be available and Feng said no, that the slides don't contain anything useful except pictures anyway. That's an interesting statement and he's right. I hope presenters will learn that Powerpoint slides are a generally terrible way of conveying information. Especially if they have terrible typography and blocky graphs as these did. (Apple Keynote can at least look nice.) But whatever, let's move on.
Yosh then gave us 20 or 25 minutes of reminiscing about the history of the best StarCraft players. Almost everyone he mentioned is Korean, of course. I felt I had something in common with Yosh as he told us he's been playing and following his game for 10 years now, competing in tournaments and trying to improve.
He explained how various players evolved or changed the game. Boxer's initial dominance gave hope for Terran players in the early days. In fact, when asked who in the room is a Terran player because of Boxer, several students raised their hands. (Nerdy joke: is Boxer overpowered in every game?) Apparently Boxer went to the army for 2 years, and although he didn't get to play as much there, he still did play and the army cadets created a special army StarCraft team, just so he could keep playing. When he returned to the game, he made up for his generally weaker game by becoming much more bold, and pulling off insane strategies that no one else would use, like a fake base in the middle of the map.
Yosh told us about the personalities of several players. One of them he said never smiles or frowns or makes any expression at all...except for the one in the picture he showed us. Another has bravado, another was extremely effeminate. Some were known for their micro-management skills, others for their creativity, others for their consistency. One top player is called "cheater Terran" because he always seems to have more units than you'd think he'd be able to at any given time. It seems that "every gaming community is a weird mirror image of every other gaming community."
After this walk down memory lane of Korean Starcraft champions, Yosh let Feng take over for the last leg of the lecture. Feng talked about the different kinds of resources in the game. There are raw resources, which he defines as those that the Starcraft game construct knows about. Minerals, gas, population limit, creep/pylon fields, energy (for casting psionic storm, etc). There are also physical resources, which he defines as things outside the game that exist in the physical world (perhaps a misnomer?). These are things like attention (arguably the most important one in StarCraft), APM: actions per minute (arguably the one that a supposed strategy game should NOT focus on at all), physical endurance, state of mind, knowledge of the game, analysis, etc. I asked him to add yomi to the list, the ability to read the opponent's mind. He did not know the term, but I had earlier given him my book, so I'm sure he will soon. Yes he said, ability to read the opponent is another resource to draw on that exists outside the game construct.
Then there are what Feng calls transformational resources. These are things you convert raw or physical resources into other resources. The most common one is simply your "army." You use your APM (clicking speed skills) along with minerals and gas and time, and you convert all that into units that compose your army. That army is capable of taking over territory or killing enemy units or defending a new expansions, etc.
Feng's point here is a good one. He's trying to get the students to think of the game as a big collection of resources and your decisions are about how to shift those resources around. It's easy to overlook how many resources are really involved in a decision, and if you overlook some, you aren't understanding the real implications of your decision. For example, if your population limit is 131/131, what do you do? As it stands, you cannot build more units. Should you build pylons? That means spending minerals and time. Should you attack with units you already have? That means spending units and possibly more of your attention resource. How long will it take the units to attack and trade with the enemy units? Did you scout enough to know what you'll be up against and what important thing you could attack?
Another example he gave was using raw resources to cover for a lack of physical resources. If you have very bad reaction time and you know this, then you are aware that in a surprise attack on your peons (resource gatherers), you might lose more than you really should. It might be worth it to spend minerals to build some cannons back there so that less depends on your slower reaction time. It's a tradeoff that might be worth it depending on your particular play skills.
The last example he gave was that of defending a choke point. If you control a choke point and put some cannons near it, but the enemy does not attack there, what have you spent and what have you gained? You spent time and minerals of course, but Feng was saying we shouldn't be so hasty in saying that we gained nothing. We did gain some resources here. If there is a pylon there, we increased our population limit. We also have vision to that part of the map. That means we have slightly better overall information about where the enemy is (or isn't, in this case). We prevented the enemy from scouting here, so the enemy has a slightly worse mental picture of the map. We control some territory that might not otherwise control (whatever is behind the choke point). So really there are a lot of resources to consider here, even in this very simple example where no one even attacked anyone.
And that was it for week one. A class about StarCraft at UC Berkeley.
--Sirlin
Reader Comments (238)
Why does everyone here talk about Chess as if its the best game ever made? Chess has an infinitely lower number of possible moves (to achieve sound victory) than a game like Go (Wei Qi) does, which is why they were able to make a computer play Chess better than any human could... and that was ages ago when computers sucked. Chess is a deep game, but stop referring to it like it's some sort of ancient God.
I would argue that a Starcraft super computer WITHOUT map hack using absolutely 100% of the resources mined would still lose to good Starcraft players.
Great post as always but I disagree with some of the points made! I was thinking about making a new thread somewhere else (because my post won't be about star-craft) but I decided to post here cause this post will get the most views here. Also, this post is going to be kinda on the weird side with lots of fighting game examples, so i'd advise the practical non fighting game playing people to skip it.
First point of discussion. Weather or not (actions per minute/difficulty of combo's tactics) add to game depth/fun factor. I'm going to play the role of devils advocate.
I remember when i was coming up in gaming, I once asked some wise older friend why the rush down style works in fighting games. He said "the most important thing in fighting games, is to realize, accept, and work around the human limits of consciousness and skill. What he meant at the time, was that humans can't read your mind and counter everything you do, it only seems like they can. If you keep attacking, eventually your opponent will mess up. After awhile, by adapting this principle, I made a little function in my head to describe his philosophy in fighting games.
Imagine a line graph, the x coordinate is actions per minute, and y graph is the difficulty of a tactic. For example, zangiefs pile driver might be described as x 0 y 5, and jump kick into a tick pile driver would be x 2 y 10. Now, as the x coordinate increases, the y coordinate decreases. The more complex actions your opponent has to perform before his complicated tactic, the less likely they will be able to perform complex skillful tactics. So if a lot has been happening in the match, he is less likely to perform the skillful tactic, or mess up while trying to perform the tactic. Conversly, if 5 seconds are left in the match (lots of time has passed) but both sides have been playing defensively, and haven't done much, then all skillful tactics are just as easy to perform
An example of that principle is punishing ken's jab dragon punch. Punishing that move is very difficult, but most people can punish it rather easily after a little practice with moves like RH sweep, or big combos. However, when a fight gets intense and fast, i'd say 50 percent of the time, people are too late punishing it with conventional sweeps, and get hit by another dp. I used to get pissed off by this fact, but then i watched a few japanese match vids, and noticed that at slow moments, the players would punish with trip, or big combo, but during fast moments, they'd use a much easier tactic which yields less reward, such as ryu's cr. feirce or standing light kick. After awhile, I also noticed players would sometimes do one of those easier moves to make it seem like they're vulnerable, or the match is going to fast, and then would rush down. Tricky!!
An example that pertains to HDR remix would be this. Say I'm Ryu fighting against a zangief player in vanilla ST. He's been throwing me all day. Around midway into a match with lots of action, if he jumps at me to do a tick throw. I jump forward, at the last possible second right before he hits me. His jump kick hits, but he can't tick throw because I fall far back. Usually the zangief player, in that situation, tries to jump kick tick throw again. The second time I block. 90 percent of the time, the zangief player misses his SPD attempt because it's too hard to perform. The first time it would have connected, but not the second time. In HDR remix this tactic doesn't work at all cause the new SPD is way easier. I don't really mind, because I'm a more offensive player anyway, but many people do use and abuse that style of tactic in fighting games, and they can't do it as much any more.
So in starcraft, if you believed in the effectiveness of the function i proposed, then you'd be a more offensive attacker. If you attack them, and they have to work harder than you, more actions per minute, you triumph even if they kill more of your units than you do. Mental fatigue if you will. Also, they can't use more intense micro management building styles. I'm not a starcraft player so my gaming lingo sucks lol sorry SC players. In fighting games, complicated tactics work much better in slow moments than fast moments. Also, players who use controlled slow setups for complicated tactics are much more successful than players who use complicated tactics in reactionary positions, and constantly many times while rushing down.
my second point addresses why hard to play characters are attractive to some players for reasons other than them actually being good or bad compared to other characters. The way I see it, in fighting games, learning how to be good with a character is an investment. You spend lots of time playing in practice mode, against friends, so that you're really good with the character. If you have a lot of free time, you can learn more characters, and if you only have a little, you play primarily one or two characters.
Now, in real life, I read quite a bit about many topics. One topic I've been reading a lot about recently if finance and investing. One characteristic of a lot of good investors, I always found interesting, is that high barriers of entry, for a business, makes it very attractive for investors like warren buffet. For example, if you're a computer company, and one of your assets costs a trillion dollars, but you're only making a little profit every year, very few competitors are likely to come your way. Competition is bad in most business because it lowers the price and makes you work harder. Also, high barrier to entry companies are more likely to be bought out by bigger raiding companies for a profit. investors like that.
In fighting games, I've noticed investors (also known as players lol) behave a little bit differently than most other people. For example, instead of picking characters with styles they like "sim for zoning or magneto for rush down) or characters they've liked in the past, they usually pick 1) characters everyone else plays, so they don't have to spend as much time learning by themselves or 2) characters nobody else plays. For option 2, they do this because there opponents have a much harder time fighting against tactics they haven't prepared for, and don't know how to stop.
Now, if a character is easy to use, and there's not that big of a barrier to entry (time wise), most likely the character will be very popular. And even not, the top players can play them in training mode for 10 minutes, and figure out all the important tactics. However, if a character takes lots of practice and training, they'll most likely be less popular, and the overall information level on fighting with and against the character will be much more low. Also, there won't be as many videos of said characters, and message board tactics about this character. The opponent, has to think for themselves instead of getting advice. Now consider gamers that want to go against the grain and be different, they could learn 6 easy characters that nobody plays, and if they win, other people will simply spend 5 minutes playing the easy characters, and beat the gamer. However, if the character is hard to play, the gamer will get a much bigger reward for their investment and win a lot. Hard to use characters are generally not very good in the big scheme of things, but win just as much as any other character, for reasons mentioned.
my third point. In old games like ST or Starcraft, tournaments and competitions always seem fresh and exciting. For example, last ST tournament I went to, people were geeked up and excited cause some low tier player was coming. For the most part, this is because the new characters and tactics are new because they were physically impossible to perform -without practice-before. Or, other people didn't have the time to practice the new tactics. The low tier player is special and unique. In a game where every character was easy to use, something this would never happen after the game had been out for awhile. Some gaming companies, try to keep their games fresh artificially by releasing characters on a schedule. They make it so the whole game isn't available in the begining. I think that is stupid. Let things develop naturally
An interesting example of this point, can be seen with magneto in mvc2 and yun in third strike. For a long time, in theory, these were the best characters of their games. People often had discussions of weather these characters could ever reach their true potential. In the beginning they definetely didn't, and even now it's still debatable. It seemed like the mcap community was split between people who thought it was impossible to play magneto at the highest levels because it's not humanly possible, and those that believed it. I think that added a cool element to matches between dreamers and practical people. I enjoyed watching quite a bit. It also kept the scene really fresh
.
ehhh, i've got a couple of other points, but this post is long enough. I'm curious, do any of those points apply to starcraft?
asdf: There _are_ mindless clicks in Starcraft. Consider, for example, a 5 hatch hydralisk build. You've already made the strategic decision, and now the execution requires 15 keypresses every 20 game-seconds (or every game-minute, if you can afford to wait for all 3 larvae to appear). This also costs you half of your hotkeys, reducing your ability to control your army.
Compare to a system more like Warcraft 3, where you could select all of your unit producing buildings in one group. Let's also give zerg the ability to queue units. Now, the keystroke tax has dropped to 2 keypresses every 20-game seconds, (or less if you can afford longer queues)
Tallying that up, that means the interface has demanded a 650% tax on your execution; you spend 45 keystrokes per game-minute navigating the interface, when 6 should do. (And a game-minute is significantly shorter than a real minute, at typical game speeds)
Late game, pumping from 14 hatcheries? The demands are much greater, because you are forced to focus on your base to use at least 4 of those hatcheries, and use the mouse. Furthermore, you have to grab 100+ units (that's 9+ control groups) every couple of game-minutes to give them orders. All this leaves very little time to actually pay attention to battles. While I did enjoy being able to produce/order so many units, and enjoyed randomizing what type of army my opponent will have to deal with every other minute, I always lamented the fact I simply didn't have the time to effectively participate in battles, and take tactical action.
I picked this example because it had the most significant impact on my gameplay; there are lots of other ones.
APM IS NOT A TAX, IT'S A SKILL. DEAL WITH IT.
So sick of reading the same garbage arguments against apm over and over...
There's a reason why Warcraft 3 sucks compared to Starcraft. Starcraft is what it is, and it makes for a damn good game. In the late game, when you are pumping from 14 hatcheries, actually managing those hatcheries and still managing your army is a great feat. Attention as a resource in Starcraft can be divided any which way you please. As asdf said, getting rid of all the attention that base management requires would turn micromanagement into the "norm" which doesn't necessarily make it more fun or better to watch.
ASDF:
"You talk about pointless actions, but in Starcraft there are NO SUCH ACTIONS. You have to think to do every action. Sure, with less actions, Starcraft would still be a competitive game with a lot of depth, more depth than 99% of other games. But it would still have less depth."
I think you're confusing meaningless decisions with meaningless actions. There are no meaningless decisions in Starcraft. The number of zealots and dragoons you choose to queue up at any given time is a decision. The clicks you need to do it is an action. If there are extra clicks and keystrokes involved in executing the decisions, then those actions are meaningless, because they do not affect the overall decision.
An in-game example from my previous post:
Building three zealots in SC1 is:
"F2 - click gateway - z - click gateway - z - click gateway - z - move screen to next destination"
That is assuming you have F2 bound to the screen where the gateways are, but you probably do.
It requires 4 keystrokes, 3 movements of the mouse between gateways, 3 clicks of the mouse on gateways, and 1 movement of the mouse to move the screen to your next destination.
Bulidng three zealots in SC2, with MBS, is:
"0 - z - z - z"
That is assuming you have 0 bound to three gateways, which you probably do (maybe not 0, but some hotkey is bound to them). That is four keystrokes, no movement of the mouse necessary. It cuts out the 4 mouse movements and 3 clicks of the mouse that is required using the SC1 method.
Now, in SC2, you could forgo MBS and just use the old SC1 method to build three zealots. But why would you? The method you use to build three zealots changes, but the results you get from it are still the same. The decision to build three zealots is the same; the hoops you have to go through to get that thought from your brain to the game code is just diferent.
I disagree with the idea that every click, keystroke, and mouse movement is a decision. Every click, keystroke, and mouse movement, especially specific clumps of actions like "0zzz", represent the execution of a decision. You never think "I am going to go to my gateways, click on them one at a time, and then hit z while I have each one selected." You think "I am going to build three zealots," and then jump through the hoops that are required in the building of three zealots. In that way, the hoop is meaningless; it is the decision that spurs you to jump through the hoop that is meaningful.
Again, the only way I could see the hoop becoming meaningful is if both players know it is a difficult hoop to jump through, and the players have the ability to put their opponents in a situation where they are forced to jump through it. For example, in ST2, if Zangeif gets Ryu in a throw loop that Ryu must DP reversal out of, the winning strategy for Ryu is clear; do a DP reversal. The move is obviously easily defeated by the DP reversal strategy. The part that makes this strategy a winning move for Zangeif is that Zangeif knows that Ryu will only get the DP reversal off a certain percentage of the time. Most of the time Zangeif will complete his throw for very good damage, and a smaller percentage of the time Ryu will DP reversal, but for less damage. Zangeif will generally win overall with this move. The DP reversal hoop is so hard to jump through that it becomes an actual strategy for Zangief to put his opponent in situations where he is forced to jump through that hoop or lose.
I don't think this applies to the majority of actions in SC1, especially the ones I covered above with zealot production. Every player must go through similar motions to make units, and unit production is not a decision the other player is going to force you into but instead a routine, essential part of the game. Maybe the opponent will dictate what units you are producing and in which numbers, but not the fact that you are producing units to begin with.
The only way I could see a high MUAPM requirement being strategically interesting in a game is if there are viable strategies that can force your opponent to play at an APM that is beyond his actual ability; again, the hoop is only interesting if we can make a viable strategy out of forcing our opponent to jump through it. Assaulting your opponents ability to perform a dexterity stunt seems to be an interesting wrinkle in games that turn certain strategies that would otherwise be sure-fail into competitively viable moves. However, even if you feel that an RTS game must have an MUAPM as high as Starcraft's in order for these kinds of strategies to be possible, then it's irrational to demand that a certain chunk of APM should be created by difficulty in executing your decisions; in other words, there's no reason to demand that a larger-than-necessary chunk of your APM be made up of the actions involved in executing your decisions. It'd be much better to raise the MUAPM by increasing the number of decisions the player faces per time frame.
I'll let some leeway to the people who are saying physical disadvantages in sports can be interesting. It seems to me that they can be, but only under certain circumtsances, where one team has to change or implement something new into their strategy in order to adapt to the limitations that the other team's physical advantages inflict. For example, take the Hack-a-Shaq: the Detroit Pistons (amongst other teams) beat the LA Lakers, at the time featuring the giant center Shaq, in the 2004 NBA finals. The Pistons were mostly athletic players, while Shaq was a lumbering giant. The Lakers should have had a huge advantage in that, every time they got to the ball to Shaq on offense, he could have easily reached over the heads of the Pistons defenders and essentially use his height and size to gently drop the basketball into the basket. The flaw in Shaq's game, however, was that he was a very poor free-throw shooter. The Pistons decided to employ a strategy that entailed comitting a personal foul against Shaq every time he got his hands on the basketball. If Shaq went to the free throw line, he would only make about 40% of his freethrows: that's an average of .8 points every time he was fouled. However, trying to actually defend Shaq without fouling would probably result in much worse numbers, probably around 1.5 points every time Shaq got the ball on offense (75% success rate). Using this strategy the Pistons used up all their spare personal fouls (each player gets thrown out of the game on their 6th personal foul) on fouling Shaq whenever he got the ball. Players that barely got playing time would be inserted into the game with the sole intention of having six more fouls to foul Shaq with. The trade-off is that the Pistons had to be very careful about accidentally fouling other players, because they needed to keep all those fouls to use againts Shaq. The Pistons went on to win the 2004 NBA Finals against the Lakers using this strategy, as fouling Shaq cut down the team's average points per offensive possession immensely. That, to me, seems like an intresting wrinkle in overall basketball strategy created by physical differences between players and their strategic reactions to it.
Sirlin,
You make some valid arguments regarding mechanical requirements. However, I believe you're mistaken about some things.
Actions Per Minute
I. Requirements versus Rhythm
It's been said already in the thread that not every click is a useful one. That is half true, depending on the subject player. A 200-APM player is more likely to have less "useless" clicks, while a 400-APM player is more likely to have a greater number of "useless" clicks. Depending on the progression of the game, the number of "useless" clicks decreases, theoretically benefiting the faster player by virtue of greater multitasking capability. However, there is another aspect which hasn't yet been covered, and that is player rhythm. High-level players believe that artificially increasing their APM makes them more likely to respond faster than if they only performed at their required speed. That is, with practice, it is easier for someone to remain at 400 APM through rhythm clicking (or "practice" clicking) over the course of a game with regards to responding to in-game events than to raise and lower it as the game demands.
This phenomenon can be seen even in Warcraft 3, which has much lighter APM requirements due to a more intuitive UI and reduced emphasis on large unit numbers and base management. Players still "spam click" to be at the top of their rhythm for the duration of the game.
II. Demand
You make a fair argument in favor of multiple building selection and automining. It can be argued that the challenge of macromanagement is not necessarily its physical requirement, but its mental one. That is, even if the actual requirements for macromanagement are eased, it doesn't matter how easy it is if a player forgets to produce more units or is otherwise preoccupied. That is a very good point, one that I hadn't considered. The actual APM demand for base management is relatively little compared to unit management.
However, a side effect of this is visual. In Starcraft, if you have 12 Factories, the only way to produce from all twelve is to center your view (by pressing the control group hotkey twice) on one of the Factories, then manually click on each one and issue a production order. This means that the player has to consciously leave his units unattended for a brief period while these production orders are issued. With a multiple building selection system implemented, the player can issue orders to any number of production facilities without diverting attention from his primary focus (usually his units). Therefore, there is less of a risk of producing units.
III. Action Management
Players must make conscious decisions regarding their actions (with "rhythm clicking" mentioned above as an aftereffect). This argument is less about APM per se and more about speed and multitasking (the two are not always interchangeable as mentioned in Section I). The faster a player is than his opponent, the more he can exploit that speed advantage with attacks on multiple fronts, expanding to another resource node while attacking, or increased efficiency with spellcasters.
StarCraft vs. Street Fighter
The Street Fighter comparison falls short because so many factors in SF are static -- particularly framerate and the fact that a player controls a single character. This dictates the absolute maximum frequency of input commands, thereby enforcing a player speed cap. Section III above does not translate well to SF because there are fewer ways to exploit a speed advantage. That is, a faster player is not allowed additional attacks per strike just by virtue of his speed alone. By contrast, attacks on multiple fronts are possible in Starcraft, and a slower opponent may not be able to withstand it if he is incapable of multitasking as quickly as the attacker.
Additionally, in SF, there are arguably greater negative consequences for performing an action because each action requires a commitment. That is, though almost any action can be performed at any time, initiating a 20-frame move means that your character is incapable of initiating any further action for 20 frames. This doesn't translate well to Starcraft because those 20 frames of "downtime" can be compensated for elsewhere.
I hope you continue to check out these classes and provide additional counterpoints. The debate is interesting to me.
I love the discussion going on here, it seems to have risen above base pandering to personal preference. However, I don't like some of the arguments falling too far on either side.
@ Sports Analogies, "Physical" Skill proponents:
Games which everyone loves to play AND watch are the most fun, I couldn't agree more. However, I don't think that they should be only competitive on the highest level for those who are naturally gifted in some quantifiable skill, nor do I think that's what captivates an audience. Sure, watching [favorite athlete] do [some impossible physical feat] is astounding to watch. We have SportsCenter for that though. Why do we watch live competitions though? What makes them exciting? For me, at least, its to see the ebb and flow, the progression of the game, and this is much more of a strategic element in my mind. A great soldier with great aim may win a battle, but it takes a great mind to plan and react to emerge the victor of the war. We are all human, after all, even the greatest of athletes, and none of us can overpower every opponent with our physical abilities.
Did Boise State win (strongly arguably) the greatest college football game of our generation by being better athletes? My estimation, and I think most would agree, is no, they did not. Their win was one of pure cunning, and I think I side with Sirlin on this point: a game of the mind is exponentially more interesting to study, more enjoyable to play, and more exciting to watch than one of that strongly favors quantifiable ability.
@ Reduction/Removal of "Ability" (APM etc.)
No game would be a game without some kind of ability factoring into the execution of strategy. Screwing up also makes a game interesting, and having an ability that increases your success rate in executing your favorite strategy adds the element of wonder in performance that makes a game more than just an exercise in theory of "best strategy".
"Did Boise State win (strongly arguably) the greatest college football game of our generation by being better athletes? My estimation, and I think most would agree, is no, they did not. Their win was one of pure cunning, and I think I side with Sirlin on this point: a game of the mind is exponentially more interesting to study, more enjoyable to play, and more exciting to watch than one of that strongly favors quantifiable ability."
I see your point, but I think you're a little off. Boise State's players aren't exactly the JV variety. Those guys are really good athletes. Physically speaking, they still had to be be close to the level of Alabama's, or else they would've been manhandled.
In sports, the level of athletic ability and physical prowess of championship teams are generally close to the same for both sides. You rarely ever get a David vs. Goliath in that sense. What makes for a good championship game, like the end of Super Bowl XLIII, was the adjustments teams make and how the games are planned out. You're right, it's the internal aspect that makes the game compelling; nobody would want to see a match between NFL players vs. high school players, because physicality alone will win the match. But when the physical differences are close to minimal, as they were on Sunday, you have to rely on scheming, adjustments, determination, and precision.
StarCraft, and football, are great to play and watch because you can't rely on one skill and one strategy to take it to the top. You have to make adjustments, be prepared, and have the physical skills to do win. Whether you want APM to be 10, 20, or 50% of the equation, that's not so important to me, but I think the game is well served so long as it has a tangible effect on the game. Otherwise, to me it's just not StarCraft, it's another game altogether.
"There's a reason why Warcraft 3 sucks compared to Starcraft."
Not to take the discussion off on a tangent but I don't think that has to do with the army sizes, at least to me it doesn't. WC3 fails on other levels: creeping, slow expo making economy uninteresting, fail low-med-high upkeep, fail hero system/balance, and most importantly above anything else one of the steepest slippery slopes in any RTS ever. Beyond expensive units with slow produce time making the typical slippery slope of losing units worse you're punished in two other ways on top of that (give opponent xp and hurts your ability to creep). Most RTS games have a pretty bad slippery slope. WC3 has more of a slippery free-fall.... with rocks at the bottom.
Jack, my comment here is just to illustrate the circles we're going in.
"Would Starcraft 3 (the one where we start the game by juggling tennis balls in order to get additional resources) be the same without the tennis ball juggling? No, it wouldn't be as fun to watch. It would reduce the number of skills in the game and we'd see players without able to juggle ANY tennis balls take up the top ranks! It just wouldn't be Starcraft 3-With-Tennis-Ball-Juggling to me anymore."
Right, it wouldn't. The people who care about watching would be disappointed and kicked to the curb as they rightfully should be, and they'd be replaced with people who find the actual strategy of the game interesting. Yes it would reduce the number of skills in the game by excluding one that we don't care about (why does juggling tennis balls matter in a "strategy" game?) And yes it wouldn't be SC3-w/-Tennis-Balls anymore, it would be something better.
Same goes for Chess With Baking A Cake in the middle of the match. If we remove that, we'll lose the audience of people who want to watch baking cakes (why are we their servants when we can attract a more legit audience for a strategy game like Chess?) and we'll reduce the number of skills. Chess players who aren't good at baking cakes can make it to the finals! Right, of course they can, that is the correct state of affairs for the universe. And it wouldn't be the same game, it would be a better one.
SC3-Tennis-Ball without juggling tennis balls would still have tons of skills involved in it, more than enough to make it thoroughly interesting to play and watch. Chess without baking cakes also has plenty of strategy left. Street Fighter with easier special moves--despite the many claims to the contrary at the beginning of the project--has turned out to be just as interesting (if not MORE interesting) than Street Fighter with artificially difficult moves. LIkewise, I continue to be surprised by what a low opinion many StarCraft players seem to have of their own game, that giving it a better interface (ideally one directly connected to your brain) would somehow make the game bad. Is StarCraft actually inherently terrible, but by separating the player from the game with a very inefficient interface, it becomes good? I don't think so. I think the game is so varied and offers so much chance for creativity and strategy that the thing underneath the interface is GREAT and we need to remove the UI barriers to that thing, rather than build more games that have them.
I'm not saying all that to mock you. I'm pointing out that it's just going in circles to say things like "wouldn't be the same game" (yeah I know) or wouldn't test the same skills (yeah I know, let's test skills that should matter, not juggling or cake baking or click speed). The main argument I see here that isn't circular is: "I prefer to play a game that tests click speed a lot." Ok that's a preference, and you might ask yourself why you want that in a "strategy" game, or if you mind me renaming the genre, but ok.
Probably the most hazy and confusing area are the arguments that go like this: "I actually don't care about APM for its own sake at all. I only care about keeping lots of decisions in the game, about making sure we test attention-splitting, and about keeping the gameplay generally fast. We need UNBOUNDED MAXIMUM USEFUL APM TO DO THAT." I put that last sentence in all caps because it's the crazy one that's wrong. It does not follow logically from what came before it. The rest of that quote is entirely reasonable and designers who think hard enough could meet all those requirements without making an intentionally bad interface that invites you to click more than necessary and that practically never stops rewarding you as your click speed goes up to 200 APM, 300 APM, 400 APM.
Here's something for the more serious high-APM apologists to consider:
Dune 2, for those who are not aware, has potentially the worst interface of any RTS game ever created. It was, for its time, a pretty good game, but playing it could be painful. There were no group selections, no queues, and to issue a move or attack order you had to manually click a move/attack button and then click a location/target. There were other major shortcomings in its interface, but these will give you an idea of how much effort was required to perform simple tasks.
So the hypothetical question is this: If 1000 Korean fangirls would scream in delight when a professional Dune 2 player managed the very arduous task of simultaneously ordering 5 units to attack the same target, would you, like the fangirls, be impressed?
Keep in mind that, if you try to tell this Dune 2 player that he didn't really accomplish anything of value, he will make all of the arguments made thus far to defend his feat. And if you side with theDune 2 player, saying that he did accomplish something of value by simultaneously ordering 5 units to attack the same target, would his accomplishment still have value if it did not require such a high APM?
It's not really a serious question; I'm just trying to get one side to see how the other side views its arguments.
Damn! Lots of long posts...............I did read thru them all and found myself agreeing with the readers almost 100 %. Although, for what it's worth...........i thought my post was the best *chuckles*. Does anyone disagree with the three main points of my last post
1) The overall depth of a game is improved with tactics that are physically difficult to perform. You can limit your opponents options, by enticing/forcing him to perform more actions per minute, which basically prevents him from doing harder tactics afterward. This actually promotes more strategy than less.
2) Characters that are difficult to use, actually increase character variety in high level tournaments. Look at low tier characters that win in tournaments, usually they're hard to use low tier characters instead of easy to use low tier characters. *my initial post explains why*
3) Competitive game tournaments remain more fresh, and are more interesting over the long haul, if technical dexterity is rewarded in the game engine. Lots of examples of this, but an easy one to reference is cvs2's lifespan. In the begining n groove dominated, when people had access to the game on home console, a groove, which takes more dexterity, started winning more.
"Unfortunately, it will remain only an academic topic, because I've heard StarCraft 2 will continue the tradition of requiring high APM to compete. That actually sounds pretty boring to me and very disappointing because I bet the game will be A+ in every other area."
I don't know where you are hearing this from. Based on what I've heard, Starcraft 2 will be adding a lot of modern interface conveniences that will significantly reduce APM requirements. Multiple building select and automine are two prevalent examples of this.
As for the issue itself, I completely agree with you that a game which has a lower APM requirement (to play competitively) but still maintains rich strategy is superior to a game with a higher APM requirement. Starcraft right now is the paradigm of a game with a very high APM requirement. However I think that you have to be careful with condemning it too much for this. One of the reasons why Starcraft is arguably the best RTS game, and unarguably the one played at the highest level of skill, is that it provides so much individual control to a player. This individual control over every particular adds a lot of nuances that add to strategic depth and richness. However this comes at the cost of an APM requirement to manage these particulars. Many people condemn starcraft for its complicated resource system (building so many workers at so many expansions and managing them takes a lot of effort). In fact looking at modern RTS games, the resource systems are very simplified compared to Starcraft. However the APMS required to manage this complex resource gathering system also add strategic richness. Want to make a timing push as Terran precisely when your attack/defense upgrades reach 2 and 1 respectively? There is a mathematically optimum time to stop SCV production to maximize the size of your army when the push takes place. Going for a one factory expand build against protoss? Depending on if you are relying on vulture mines, or siege mode tanks for defense, you can transfer SCVs on and off of gas gathering to minerals in order to optimize for these different decisions. Removing the complex resource gathering system would certainly decrease APMs, but it would also remove these strategic decisions that help make starcraft nuanced.
Thus it is important to be very careful. In contrast multiple building select is a fairly uncontroversial example of something that would decrease APMs but not strategy, and thus is a good thing.
Some people here seem to be talking about APM as though it is a centerpiece of StarCraft. APM is a by-product of skill, not a tax or prerequisite.
Selecting 12 factories and producing 9 vultures/3 tanks in a split second is not some prized skill that only progamers have. Any gamer with basic dexterity is physically capable of clicking quickly and accurately. Perhaps they can't do it nearly as fast, but that hardly matters. This example is complex and rare, and does little to differentiate players.
What does differentiate players in SC is their ability to MULTITASK. A player needs to make decisions while they are in the middle of clicking everywhere. To multitask well, you need intense concentration, quick thinking, and lots of practice.
StarCraft is the most competitive video game in the world because, like all RTS games, it combines complexity with speed. Why isn't, say, Red Alert as competitive? It favors only certain builds and certain units, has smaller armies, and doesn't have major race/faction distinctions. Why isn't WC3 nearly as competitive? Upkeep means less expanding, unit cap keeps armies small, and units are less fragile. Why are all fighting games less competitive? You only control 1 unit, decisions are simpler, and choices are limited.
Although what I say here has probably been mentioned more than a few times, I still would like to contribute my views. I think a real good point has been brought up in these comments; that accessibility to the competitive gaming enviroment is a personal preference. I have to agree with asdf. Starcraft is a much easier game to just pick up and play than any Street Fighter. As 'easy' as HD Remix is, it's still nonetheless a fact that many players cannot execute fireballs/dragonpunches proficiently which hinders their play whereas in a game like Starcraft, all you do is point and click. Being able to do qcf and dragonpunch motions is not part of my daily routine, but pointing/clicking is because I use a computer. If strategy and mind-reading is what a player is after in a competitive game, then he/she should look toward turn-based games wherein dexterity and speed are not so much a factor. But if he/she is after that special combination of adrenaline rush, dexterity, strategy and tactics then there are the myriad of RTS's, Fighting Games, even FPS's (which is extremely on the adrenaline/dexterity side). But alas, it is a personal preference and game developers should understand the audience they are marketing to and take note.
as an aside: if I were to make an analogy of a fighting game to starcraft, I'd say Smash Brothers comes the closest to the same representation. Moves in Smash are VERY simple, just a direction and a button like how building, moving, and attacking in starcraft are VERY simple, just move the mouse and click. This is as opposed to street fighter, where an important maneuver such as the dragonpunch requires a degree of proficiency. But it has to be said, SSBM at the high levels is not for the faint of heart (some techniques in ssbm can require up to 20 inputs within a second) similar to SF's, but imo, smash brothers and starcraft are games that are much easier to pick up and play than Street Fighter simply because of the ease of entry.
I'd like to see APM-apologists try to respond to Phantom's post. His Dune 2 example is asking: "if bad interface is good for an RTS, then is worse interface even better?"
Intangiblz: does anyone disagree with your points? Um, of course. Your first point is that making things physically hard increases the depth of a game. Of course it doesn't it decreases the depth by artificially locking out players from playing the real game, why would it? Your next point I guess I have no comment on. Your third point is that a game with physically hard stuff in it is somehow more interesting for a long period of time. I don't think so, nor is it really interesting to begin with. Chess, Go, Magic: The Gathering, Scrabble, are all competitive games that have been played a long time and no one cares about physically hard stuff to do in them. Adding physical barriers does not make a game more interesting for a long time.
Jeff: I don't see how your first point relates to any of this. If your point is that Street Fighter would be better with even easier commands, then I would agree though is neither here nor there. It certainly isn't some kind of justification for an RTS with unbounded maximum useful APM. Also note that in Street Fighter, it's often good to do nothing even at the highest level of tournament play. In StarCraft, it's good to play at 400 APM at the highest level of tournament play. Which sounds more accessible?
Furthermore Jeff, I think it's very important that we reject your other claim. That's the one that sets up a false dichotomy between fast, adrenaline rush games and games of strategy and mind-reading. Street Fighter has both. A new version of Street Fighter with even easier controls would also have both. A new theoretical version of Starcraft with a great interface could also have both. It's not like the only choices are A) turn-based mindreading game with strategy or B) unbounded maximum APM game.
As I've tried to say over and over in these comments, you can have a fast game that has lots of decisions with time pressure and creates an adrenaline rush while at the same time making sure that APM is not valued when it gets too high. So playing "fast" is the level the game expects of you and playing "400 APM" offers no advantage over merely "fast". You would have strategy, time pressure, adrenaline rushes, and it would help remove the undesirable effect of rewarding APM more than its fair share.
Now I'll quote part of my own previous comment again because you're taking the side I mentioned there:
"I actually don't care about APM for its own sake at all. I only care about keeping lots of decisions in the game, about making sure we test attention-splitting, and about keeping the gameplay generally fast. We need UNBOUNDED MAXIMUM USEFUL APM TO DO THAT." I put that last sentence in all caps because it's the crazy one that's wrong. It does not follow logically from what came before it.
"So the hypothetical question is this: If 1000 Korean fangirls would scream in delight when a professional Dune 2 player managed the very arduous task of simultaneously ordering 5 units to attack the same target, would you, like the fangirls, be impressed?"
_______________________________________
Your question seems a bit silly. If I understood how difficult and complicated his attack was, of course I would be impressed. In starcraft, the people watching obviously have an understanding of how the game works, so what impresses them, you might not even notice.
Are you familiar with starcraft?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=F3IbwjeCx6U
If so, you're probably pretty impressed with that clip, which is basically some of the best usage of that spell ever seen. If you don't really know what's going on, you probably aren't impressed.
That review was quite nice. I hope there are more reviews for the following weeks. I am quite interested in how the calculus part is explained in relation to SC. I believe this course deserves the media attention it gets and I hope people get more understanding about how serious SC is and that this course is not about playing games instead of studying.
Thanks for the report.
Ah, the lovely mind vs. dexterity discussion again. Don't ever give up, Sirlin! Neither will I!
What do the APM enthousiasts think of Advance Wars? I haven't read all posts, so maybe I missed that, but I did pick up that some found Chess boring. Maybe turn-based isn't fast enough, but I think Sirlin's proposal of a maximum clicks per minute would make the game much more inviting (at least for me, a guy who wish he could play Starcraft at high level on a laptop sans mouse)
I like Phantom's question about Dune 2 (and other games with unnecessary difficult interface).
I will admit that certain games have alot of flair because players can do amazing tricks (take for example the Slam Dunk contest, or Daigo's parry counter against Justin Wong in Street Fighter 3), but I honestly believe that the best plays are the ones where players make mind-blowing choices (like Justin Wong's Cyclops
comeback versus Yipes or Lasker-Thomas 1912).
Anyhow, thanks for the Berkeley report, I'm looking forward to any others in the future!