Take the switch from Counter-Strike to Call of Duty, when competitive gamers were handed an amazing new game and promptly modded it to be exactly like Counter-Strike. Show me an eSport, and I’ll show you its fringe of vocal nerds who can’t see the big picture. And also, internally, I think that’s an area we’re very split on right now.” “We see positives and negatives in either direction.
“The data is very split,” said StarCraft II's Design Producer Tim Ismay.
#Starcraft 2 game loops game design series#
If a game is a series of interesting choices, how valuable is a mechanic with only one viable choice?Īt the core of the disagreement is whether or not you think it’s fair to build a dependence on a particular skill set for one release and one expansion, only to make it irrelevant for the final sprint. And no matter what your actions per minute (APM), early game Chrono Boost should only be used for probes. I’ll concede that point, though it’s mostly applicable to high level play. So those sorts of things I think add a lot to the game, and I think inject could stand to be more like that.” If they see a Chrono Boost on a forge, they’ll think you’re probably heading a bit more for the late game. If someone comes in and sees the Chrono Boost on the Cybernetics Core, they have a pretty big idea that there’s going to be units coming. “I think because you see where it is, it has a big impact on scouting. “I think Chrono Boost gets sold short a little bit,” he told me. As Technical Designer Aron Kirkpatrick pointed out to me, this does have some value. At higher levels of play you’ll see Chrono used for tech research or gateways in the mid-game and beyond. Spitting on a hive is the equivalent of saying, “Do you want more things?” To which the answer is, “Yes, I’ll have that every time it’s available, cheers.”Īnd then there’s the Chrono Boost, which is pretty much exclusively used for probes.
That leaves a somewhat strategic choice between MULEs and scanning. Supply depots are best forgotten – wasting energy on a supply depot is a sign that you didn’t plan properly. StarCraft II’s macro mechanics slowly ramp up as the game goes on, and only the best players rein in their military from biting off more than their economy can chew.Įxcept, for this magic number to work, the choices need to be viable – and StarCraft II's macro choices are mostly rendered obsolete by the meta, meaning they only add to the game mechanically, not strategically. Too many fires to put out, and it seems impenetrably hard and stressful. We can define a fun number of options because our brains can only handle so much. Too few, and players always choose the dominant path. Too many viable options, and the choice becomes meaningless. But within each decision, as its own entity, there should be a certain number of viable options to make it interesting. Slow-paced or turn-based games like Civ will naturally give you many options to consider. There are exceptions, of course, and no choices are made in a vacuum. In fact, designers have expanded on it with hard science – we now know how many choices a player should be making at any given time. The definition of a ‘game’ has broadened in the last decade, yet Meier’s quote persists as a succinct truism. Sid Meier, of Civilization fame, is quoted as saying, “A game is a series of interesting choices.” Twenty seconds in the chair, and already delegating.
“But wait, General,” you say, “Aren’t there, like… People for that? Or can’t we automate it?” And if it comes to it – may God help us – there’s the polka-dot button.” “As our operation grows, you’ll need that orange button, too. “And every thirty seconds, you’ll have to push this red button.” Wait, what? Why? “Push it so our supply chains are at maximum efficiency,” says the good General. “This is your command console”, says General Buzzcut, who copped some pushback for this but he believed in you, dammit. You sit in a big red velvet chair, surrounded by Minority Report screens. In your fantasy, you shouldn’t have to deal with the mundane. But the armed forces have to deal with all that boring stuff, like logistics. Deep in the heart of every RTS player is the Ender’s Game fantasy, where you’ve proven yourself such a damn good commander that the armed forces want to use your brilliance.
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