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)
nice write up, enjoy the class u guys are fucking lucky
Sirlin:
"I have exposed many fallacies here"
should say "I have espoused many opinions here." but more importantly
"while your screen is viewing mining, you could mine faster. While you screen is viewing units building, they could build faster. Or alternatively, if you view the first couple seconds of a unit being built, it gets some sort of bonus."
cool idea but it would still reward the guy with high APM who can go to 3+ bases and queue up his units every 20 seconds or so. although I guess if you make him keep the screen there a few seconds to get the bonus, his speed would no longer be as big an advantage. Only problem is that most RTS players would hate the idea of doing nothing for a whole second, let alone multiple seconds. They would complain that the game is too slow.
@ everyone:
here are some of the problems we will have to fix in building a solution to sirlin's perceived problem:
1. RTS players hate sitting around and doing nothing.
We should shoot for making sure this never happens for a whole second, or else a lot of RTS players will play the game once, and then shelve it and tell every other RTS player that the game has been "dumbed down for noobs" (unless of course alienating those RTS players is acceptable).
2. making a more efficient interface doesn't mean a faster opponent stops being rewarded for additional useful actions all the way to infinity.
The difficulty is "can you limit maximum useful APM (lets call it MUAPM i am sick of typing all that) without alienating most RTS players?" if you don't mind alienating those players (the game is imaginary, so there is no need for it to appeal to anyone I suppose), than how do you keep the game feeling "fast"
3. you need to retain the trade-off of doing one thing means not doing another.
This is a big deal. If you limit MUAPM by having so few things for a player to do at once, then the player will just do EVERYTHING with no need to decide which task is more critical. we should think carefully about how this element of triage will remain in the game.
"unless it's the degenerative case where this bonus is so good you can't look at battles"
I don't see why you couldn't give a screen bonus to your army.
Sirlin:
I want to start off by stating that you do bring some good arguments to the table. You should probably give some thought to the people arguing against you. I completely see where you are coming from and if I didn't play Starcraft, I don't think I'd be able to appreciate the UI. I'd find it diminishing to the game's overall strategic purpose.
The best argument against this train of thought is that it is not a strategy game, it is a real time strategy game. Actions are unlimited. You can make as many moves as you wish, unlike with turn-based games. If you can move faster power to you. You seem to be under the misconception that you cannot raise your apm if you train. It's like fighting in the MMA. Sure you can work on training your muscles, but it does not guarantee you victory of the fight. You still must fight intelligently and outclass your opponent.
The main point that you seem to be making is that having high APM would make you a god. This is untrue. A player: Nada - is often praised for his high apm. He is a good player, but he loses. He loses quite a bit now, there are other players with lower apm who are plainly better players than him.
The "cumbersome" UI adds some depth by forcing you to control your fighting army in as few moves as you can. While being forced to return to build reinforcements or controlling your offensive harrassment happening simultaneously. In as few moves as possible.
Your argument that click speed locks certain people out of the game really makes no sense. What's to say that some people are incapable of deep strategic mental thought? There must be limits both ways.
Your points of view are logical, Sirlin. Still, the more I play Starcraft the more it seems like the macro and the attention diverting is an integral part of what Starcraft is. I'm not saying that you can't make a good RTS game with an accessable UI. But the limiting UI is a part of Starcraft. You have to decide how you want to spend your limited amount of actions. You don't like how many you have? Get to work and start lifing those weights or whatever you need to do. [You can train and train to be able to control the whole war perfectly, but at the end you still have to make a choice of what you wish to tend to first.]
I'm not saying this as part of my argument, but you should give the game a real try. Play the game for a while, actually spend time studying it and trying to reach some semi-competitive ranks.
A comical counter to your "3 templars in a group" argument would be that they are doing what you told them to do. Three storms to one coordinate.
"it is still guilty of being more difficult to use than a modern game ought to be."
No one says this about basketball D:
Does anyone contend that the hoop is unnecessarily narrow, forcing people into hours of mindless shooting practice rather than allowing them to focus on the strategies of what play to run, when to cut and what defense to use?
Being good at an RTS is knowing what to do, and being able to do it fast. Too many posts here seem to be arguing to make everything easier to do, so the game is solely about knowing what to do. The result of such an effort, were it implemented, would not be Starcraft.
Sirlin, you may want to read the posts by Rekrul at
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=86501¤tpage=14
He used to be a professional gamer in South Korea and then switched over to play Poker professionally and has a huge inside knowledge on StarCraft pro-gaming and knows many of the pro-gamers personally, his opinion weights a ton in the StarCraft scene and has a totally different look on the case, maybe you two can work out a solution to this?
steve: I really have exposed many fallacies here. I don't even mean "proving" my point about APM, I mean exposing arguments as not valid arguments. I will continue that later in this very comment.
NoAPM: We all know it's a real-time strategy game. That does not imply that more actions should be more powerful all the way up to infinity. A game with maximum useful APM that also requires you to play very fast is also a "real-time strategy game" but would have more strategy than an unbounded one.
Also, you're trying to have something both ways. Is APM super important or isn't it? You give an example of a player with relatively low APM, but that's like giving an example of a basketball player with relatively low height. Does that prove that height isn't important in basketball? No. It's obviously important due to the nature of the game, as is APM to StarCraaft. Surely you agree with this by telling me to improve my own APM (admitting that it's highly important).
Straw-man argument: claiming that I say you can't improve your APM. Of course you can. I never said otherwise. I'm saying that I have no interest in developing cake baking skills, tennis ball juggling skills, or APM skills when they should not be so highly rewarded in a "strategy" game.
Regarding what grouped templars should do, I assume your comment is just a cutesy joke. We all know what the player wanted in that situation. He wants to be able to move templars around in a group, but cast only 1 storm when needed. I know this, you know it, Blizzard knows it too when they made Warcraft3 interface.
MamiyaOtaru: Uh, we'd all say that if basketball were supposed to be a strategy game instead of a lowly physical sport. I don't care about baking cakes, juggling tennis balls, or putting basketballs into small rings. Those are not skills we care about in a competitive strategy video game.
diwqdiqidjeja: Considering Rekrul's response is an ad hominem attack and a straw man argument in the very same post, I don't see why I should care about his response. StarCraft player defends overemphasis on APM, news at 11. The straw man argument he uses is that I supposedly propose taking all the dexterity out of the game. We heard the same arguments about making special moves easier in Street Fighter. "There will be nothing left!" Actually, there was a lot left (all the good stuff with less bad stuff) and the same is true here. The bad stuff is people playing at 400APM getting advantage over those playing at 300APM (why is this rewarded so highly in a "strategy" game?). And as usual I remind everyone that I still propose the game be played at a fast speed, that micro still be there, etc. There's no need for a sky-is-falling straw man saying that less emphasis on APM means the game is entirely about memorization.
He also doesn't seem to understand that removing non-strategic elements of a strategy game smartens it up, not dumbs it down.
I just read more of that thread. Personal attacks, personal attacks, and personal attacks. Also some lies about kongai, and more lies about me deleting posts. Does not reflect well on that site. Stick to substantive arguments.
Maybe the worst post of all is maybenexttime on this page: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=86501¤tpage=12
Every single think he said is a straw man argument.
1) Execution in SF is just a formality (debatable), ergo execution in SC is just a formality too. (Wrong cause and effect. Execution is a barrier to strategy generally. SF is only one example. SC is another.)
2) Execution in SC is mindless, there's no skill involved. (Never said this. What I said is that SC's interface has clicks that don't contribute to strategy. Blizzard reduced many of these clicksin War3, but of course that game has lots of problems other than that so it looks bad to even bring up, I know. In any case, I did not say what he said I said.)
3) Time is not a resource, being faster should not be an advantage in a Real Time Strategy game. (Never said. Obviously time is a resource, I've said that probably 10 times in this very thread.)
4) Players with worse mechanics are not able to overcome those with better mechanics in StarCraft; better "strategist" should always win vs. worse "strategist" regardless of mechanics. (Way oversimplified to the point of not being what I said at all.)
Next there's "Sirlin fails to realize that those who excell at StarCraft at any level are most of the time players who have good execution ALONGSIDE good "strategy.""
I don't fail to realize that at all. It's plainly obvious that execution + strategy = ability to win. How much does each component contribute is the question. I think less execution (dear straw man arguers: not none) with a better interface would make the skill tests make more sense for the "strategy" genre.
Very disappointing to see a starcraft website willfully misunderstand a discussion about the game, and then manufacture fake arguments I never said so they can be shot down.
@Zelc: How embarrassing.
I think one core issue is the relative value Players attach to mental and physical "skill". SC allowed to some degree to substitute physical for mental skill or should I say APM for "Strategy".
Example: Peons in SC when build don´t directly start harvesting resources - they have to be told. This means a faster/more APM player gains a strategical advantage (more "real" resources), Economy isn´t solely based upon strategical desicions like when or how to expand. There are others like some Unit matchups which effectivness relys more than reasonable (In my opinion) on player "skill/speed/APM"
I don´t have a problem with letting APM decide Tactical situations - that is more like 5 Marines vs. 5 Marines. Even some leeway is fine, so that a Strategically inferior Player can "even the odds" a bit. (Most obvious Strategic advantage: More units, imagine 7 Marines vs. 5 Marines)
But the more powerfull APM is the less important Strategy becomes, it´s only natural. No matter what, the game WILL require a mixture of Strategy and APM (if only because it´s realtime).
There are some People that argue that APM should be the more deciding factor (since you can look up Strategy at Gamefaqs anyway).
Others want it to be equal.
But I´m in favour of letting Strategy dominate Handspeed. That means that I can win engagements with superior (for that matchup) Units even if the Enemy is better at controling his units (like maybe dodging, ability usage)
That means that I can have the economic advantage with a better expansion strategy (Timing, "maynarding"...)
even if my enemy is better at "babysitting" his peons (telling them what to do).
Man, you should totally apply for a job at Blizzard since you're so good at game design.
Edited by Sirlin: Your comment is intended as a condescending, veiled personal attack. Way to keep the level of discourse up.
I agree with unentschieden completely and that INCLUDES the part about the guy microing his 5 marines to beat the other guy's 5 marines. (Straw man arguers will have a tough time with that one, best pretend I didn't say it.) That's an example of dexterity that has a place, where each click really is a decision, where your clever moves can make you come out ahead.
Likewise, making peons mine is a great example of the opposite. Not a strategic decision, you'd want them to start mining every time anyway (you'd be able to override) and it's giving an advantage to fast clicks with no strategy component at all. It's also boring on top of all that. Apparently Blizzard agrees with these two examples because it sounds like StarCraft 2 does have the same mirco in a case of 5 marines vs 5 marines and it doesn't have the APM tax on mining.
There's nothing strategic about microing 5 marines.
"@ everyone:
here are some of the problems we will have to fix in building a solution to sirlin's perceived problem:
1. RTS players hate sitting around and doing nothing. We should shoot for making sure this never happens for a whole second.
-- Ever played C&C3? That game is all action, start to finish, yet it has a much lower MUAPM than Starcraft.
"2. making a more efficient interface doesn't mean a faster opponent stops being rewarded for additional useful actions all the way to infinity.
The difficulty is "can you limit maximum useful APM (lets call it MUAPM i am sick of typing all that) without alienating most RTS players?" if you don't mind alienating those players, than how do you keep the game feeling fast?"
-- Again, take a look at C&C3. It seriously outpaces Starcraft - nearly all games are 15 minutes or less. C&C3 limits MUAPM by limiting income, giving players a good UI, encouraging rush tactics, and focusing on unit warfare. The way it maintains its speed is by making everything fast and cheap to produce, pretty much the exact opposite of Warcraft 3. I don't believe this treatment would be right for Starcraft 2, but it is proof that a fast-paced game with limited MUAPM is possible.
3. you need to retain the trade-off of doing one thing means not doing another.
-- Attention splitting doesn't have to come from the UI - it can come from the actions of other players. Multi-front combat, basebuilding during battle, and mechanics like flanking are productive, fun uses of APM which was formerly squandered on yesteryear's interface.
Overall, good reads - especially the posts of some of the APM defenders, like Zelc.
the physical skill and manuevers is what makes it interesting to watch. i can watch two random idiots play tennis and be bored, or i can watch federer/nadal and be blown away by their physical abilities. so, in order for a game to be enjoyable as a spectator, there has to be a high skill ceiling. i dont agree with implementing arbitrary shit like a dumb UI to increase this skill gap, however. it is worth noting that sc's shitty ui has made it so the game has an exceptionally high skill ceiling which has forced the game to constantly evolve.
Sirlin, what ladder rank have you achieved on a modern Starcraft ladder?
I really respect your opinions with regards to street fighter because I know you're a good player in that, but how about Starcraft?
How are you really qualified to talk about what is mindless and what isn't if you haven't learned it yourself truly?
This isn't an ad hominem attack, rather, I think you should perhaps try reaching something like D+ on ICCUP. You will likely change your opinion on what entails mindless clicks in starcraft if you do. Really.
asdf: please list some clicks in StarCraft that are more than necessary to achieve what the player meant to do. This should be easy and I'm sure you can do it. If you can't name any, then other posters will name several for you. I'm surprised this is an issue because I didn't realize it was actually debated. Me being D+ or A or F isn't going to change the nature of clicks.
asdf also please give me your rank at Dune 2. That's the game with so much APM tax through bad UI that it's hard to even attack with 5 units. Surely you can't form an opinion about that game unless you are one of the best players at it, right? And if you did form an opinion, it wouldn't be a valid one unless you were one of the best players, right?
There are some things that you really do have to be one of the best players to answer. For example, if I said "I think Seige tanks should cost fewer minerals," that would take a deep mastery of the game even begin to claim that. (Note that I am not actually claiming it.) Other things about a game are clear from inspection. For example, it's clear that it takes more clicks to make all your peons mine than it would if it took no clicks. So there really are things you can say about a game without being a top player.
Another example is Pokemon, not the CCG but the turn-based battle system. It has a 17x17 chart of resistances. To really experience the strategy of the game, you must internalize that chart and understand it without needing to look it up every time. If you do, the game has pretty good strategy. Do you need to be a top player, or even a player at all, of Pokemon to realize that a 17x17 chart that you have to memorize is a pretty bad idea? It's bad by inspection. Playing the game certainly could lead to you loving the game and enjoying the deep strategy, but it wouldn't change the plain fact that the game has a 17x17 chart. Without winning even a single Pokemon tournament, I said that this chart was overly complicated and should be redesigned and I did redesign it. It's called Kongai at Kongregate.com.
Some things are evident and I think I'm only talking about those things here. I have not made any claims about unit balance or other issues that only a pro player should comment on.
Hey guys,
I played starcraft a bit but it was hard so I stopped playing. I guess that is not useful information.
Well uh I guess one thing here is whether you consider Starcraft to be closer to Guitar Hero or to Chess. If you think that Starcraft is basically Guitar Hero but you have to play two guitars at once, then you would prefer that there is no maximum limit to useful APM. On the other hand, if you think Starcraft is Chess, you would prefer a maximum limit on useful APM that is very low.
How about a maximum useful APM limit that is in between? That is like, crazy, dude. But I think it could work. Bad players would not achieve the maximum useful APM because they would need to think about what to do too much and their brain would explode. Good players would not be hobbled by it because they would have non-explosive brains.
Sirlin:
I think you've made a mistake in reading my post. I cited a player who's APM was praised for being an alltime HIGHEST. He still loses games, quite often now.
"Is APM super important or isn't it?" No, it is not SUPER important. Having the higher apm is not a win. It is just a part of your game that can help you out in some situations. I tell you to improve your own APM in the case that you are not satisfied with it. It's just an extra resource, there are diminishing returns on it, also.
"The bad stuff is people playing at 400APM getting advantage over those playing at 300APM (why is this rewarded so highly in a "strategy" game?)."
Diminishing returns render this 100apm advantage quite minute.
"Straw-man argument: claiming that I say you can't improve your APM. Of course you can. I never said otherwise. I'm saying that I have no interest in developing cake baking skills, tennis ball juggling skills, or APM skills when they should not be so highly rewarded in a "strategy" game."
Again, they aren't as extremely highly rewarding as you think they are after a certain point. It's a "real-time strategy" game. Think of it as a turn based game without a limit on how many turns you can take. Just how fast you limit yourself to doing them. In Starcraft with so many things to be done, you can never play the perfect game.
Who knows, maybe you can even use your high-tier yomi to get the jump on someone when it is about to be time for them to build units at their base. Every little bit helps.
garcia is kind of joking but kind of not. Would be interesting to see responses to what he said.
NoAPM, oh I did misread that, you're right. While I fully accept that playing fast enough to make lots of fast decisions is what the game is about, surely even you would agree that there are clicks that don't have strategy, they are just extra clicks in the interface that could be removed with no loss of decision. So wouldn't you fix that if you made a new RTS?
Also, your idea to "think about it as if it's turn based, but you can take as many turns as you can" is right. Yeah I do think of it that way. What I'm saying is that that is the problem. It's not a problem if the game is closer to Guitar Hero, as garcia asked, but it is a problem if it's closer to Chess. If as many usless clicks as possible were dropped, and if you were able to make decisions very fast, then that is enough to make a great strategy game that happens in real time. Do you really want your strategy game to slide toward Guitar Hero by allowing you to play not just fast...but unboundedly fast? Forcing a race to the top of APM?
Does unbounded APM increase the strategy as compared to bounded (but high) MUAPM? I think that is the one question that sums up this entire thread. It's very hard to believe the answer to that is yes. But it's very easy to believe the answer is "not at all, but I prefer more of a Guitar Hero element."
What you forget Sirlin, is that APM is a reflection of your mental speed, and not the other way around. It's only your capabilitiy of multitasking, that is, planning out your moves before the time arrives, that limits how fast you can go(400 apm is nowhere near what a human is physically capable of).
Your mind decides what your fingers are going to do, your finger carry out the decision that your mind thought out. How is that not strategy?
As mentioned, the SC UI is very basic compared to some of the finer UI we have in other RTS, where we have MBS, and workers that automatically go mining as soon as they are produced. Some consider the UI a bad outdated thing, that makes you do redundant actions that the AI should be able to do. That's what the discussion is all about for the upcoming SC2.