Day[9]'s Musings - Game Design - Baseballs vs Frisbees

[5598713]

Osu!



[SeemsGoodRadioTV]

Calvinball, right?

[IceHarmony]

this is really cool topic since i want to go into game desing, it made me think about making units more interesting....

their is one thing he forgets, frisbees can get struck by the wind, and that makes you fail and their was nothing you could do about it and thats worse than having a baseball that can work most of the time, this makes less frustration, more eqality, and thus, a fairer game, but it just means that it can feel more stale, so you have to balance that out...

[Kassidar]

it's actually 255 units, not infinite unit selection

[SnoweyMan111]

@Kassidar That's over the unit cap though. But cannons and such are boxed with units simultaneously mby? I'm actually unsure.

[RazacGaming]

42 years agao WDF?

[wangabo123]

I like playing with frisbees too :)

[R3DT1D3]

I think the biggest problem is there are so few things in SC2 that you HAVE to micro against. As a Terran player, banelings and storms are really the only things show huge returns on micro. In BW, you have things like spider mines, irradiate, lurkers, reavers, storms, defiler spells, etc. There was so much more you had to have a minimum skill to achieve that every engagement was a real challenge instead of A-move (doesn't really matter if you limit the number of units selected) and force comp.

[boredudez]

@R3DT1D3

Yes from a Terran's perspective. thats what makes them so imba

[xAddicted2]

As much as having the player become the AI sounds like a degenerate step in competitive gaming, it is precisely because the player assumes complete control that a person's skill can be measured in terms of how much control they retain over their units and base. BW is much more than just button mashing though. SC2 gained it strategy from BW, poking, harassment, just simple troop movements and feints are all from BW. The units in sc2 seem so uninspired too. Rock paper scissors hard counters.

[RiddlePhishStix]

Day[9] doesn't know what forehands and backhands are lol.

[Nemesis000000]

That is a brilliant analogy.

[MrHav1k]

So games are becoming easier and easier?

OF COURSE. I've seen this happening for years and its killed console gaming Call of Duty has single handedly killed the FPS genre. The reason I even got into sc2 in the first place was because shooters like Halo Reach got dumbed down to the point of being torturous to play.

[mrsoultwister]

@MrHav1k totaly agree, the whole military shooter genre took the amazing fluidity of player movement you had in quake or unreal and the amount of time it took to master it and just went with the whole "if you move your aim gets worse, so just best if you stop moving"

same goes for powerups, they force you to move fast, they introduce alot of strategy where you f.e. line up red armor and mega to make sure you can get one if you're being dominated

none of the cods, cs etc. have this

[mrsoultwister]

@MrHav1k the game designers just said "here, you have everything you'd want from the beginning just go an aim at stuff", while in quake f.e. your aim is actually irrelevant to a certain point when it comes to duel matches, it's all about controling the map, you need expert timing and the skill to get to the powerups fast or play defensively if needed, AND THEN you'll also need to aim well

[curtsher11]

Playing Goldeneye with Pistols on license to kill comes to mind after this talk.

[tanekki]

It's quite simple. The SC version would be something like:

You are rewarded for beeing smarter than your units (so that when you control them, they do better).

In SCBW the unit AI is pretty retarded compared to SC2 => loads of stuff to do much better than the AI.

In SC2 there is less you can do => less impact from skill.

Same goes for other games, like CS vs modern shooters like CoD, where you can no longer properly learn spray patterns because guns are simply better.

[boxiness]

IMO BW > SC2 from a game design perspective. But I am optimistic. I think it is possible to dumb down certain aspects of the game to appeal to a wider audience and STILL raise the skill ceiling provided there is enough complexity within the game elsewhere, such as making units with more interesting handling behaviors as day9 has mentioned.

Example to follow.

[boxiness]

@boxiness

As an example, we could introduce this mechanic to muta control: if a muta group is controlled to change direction constantly, they will temporarily gain a boost in agility as well as top speed (much like how insects must warm up their bodies to become more agile). This allows high apm players to further increase the effectiveness of the mutas, and allow for specific builds like a tech rush to muta harrass. Low apm players will still find mutas effective without the speed boost.

[boxiness]

Totally agree. I used to be a zerg micro player who relied on my lurker ling and muta micro to win games. One of my broodwar games involved microing 3 lurkers and some lings to kill a fast expand terran, with something like 35 marine medic deaths (my opponent rage quit). Since SC2 I was never able to achieve the same effectveness with my units and that's something I really miss.

[n4pster1337]

It is mainly micro. Micro was important in sc1 cuz the controls and AI were shit. In sc2 it's no longer important. Just look at whiteRa and his phlegmatic moves. Warcraft 3 was way more micro intense and thus much more entertaining to watch (in fights, that is).

[Krutchtacular]

You're spot on. Game designers are destroying the skill ceiling. Take Halo as a perfect example. In Halo 1 you had shot leading, small hitboxes, and fast strafing. In Reach you can hardly strafe, your shot fires randomly with bloom, and the hitboxes are huge. You can only be good by outpositioning people, the actually shooting skill isn't as prominent.

[visiluth]

Absolutely spot on. And unfortunately the movie industry has gone the same way. When James Bond with his little PPK pistol needed a sequel the great the coporate greed machine decided that two sub machine guns firing at the same time was what the public needed to see to keep interest. Clearly missing the point of the subtle cool style of the originals. SC2 is like the twin smg's that can never match the class of simple SC1 ppk genius.

[AlcestemoliereS]

Day9 you got forehand and backhand mixed up!

[Protoster]

I understand the 12 unit selection argument, but I for one could never get into sc1 because that exact fact made the game very frustrating for me.

[DissentingCalm]

as a player who was an A- zerg in bw...i know exactly how you feel. it's kinda why it's hard for a lot of bw players to maintain motivation in sc2 ~_~

[228zip]

An example of what you brought up at 14:30 is Prince of Persia 06. They streamlined a lot of the elements and in the end, the platforming feels like some kind of QTE.

Essentially, it's "Press X to not die". You don't feel like you're controlling the character. He's doing things on his own and regularly needs to make sure you didn't fall asleep during the onrails platform sequence, so bang! Press X or die!

[TheWillydizzle]

The reason you cannot make your units 9x as effective in SC2 is not because they are less like frisbees than in broodwar, it is because the 1x line is so much higher in sc2. The AI and pathing of units is much better. From the man who always makes fun of the dragoon's AI you should have realized this.

[jamag689]

Spoiler: Frisbees win!

[hatestreets]

q3 was revolutionary in movement physics... day9 i like you even more now...

[austrooo]

Next time I have a discussion about BW vs SC2 with someone, I'll just save myself the effort and link them to this vid. Pretty much mirrors everything that I would touch on. Thank you, and brilliant analogies by the way.

[warlockskz]

Game Design 101 with Professor 9.

[Stingray5892]

Sean this is the reason for the "1x", and that is that game designers DUMB DOWN the games because now there are KIDS playing these games and they feel the need to make it playable for them which then ruins the game of that aspect of achieving that "9x" goal because they feel that is makes it equal for all players. To be honest Skyrim did the same thing.

[Danceofmasks]

@Stingray5892

That's not exactly true.

In the past, kids played games. Nowadays, the demographic for games has gone up in age, so it's not a kids factor.

It is the mainstream factor.

For the same reason pop music is often braindead, or popular books (*cough* twilight) are trash, stuff that has mass market appeal tends to NOT REQUIRE above average intelligence.

That's why the dumbing down exists.

You had to be niche, smart(ish), and masochistic to play broodwar for years.

Not so SC2.

[ilovetechnoization]

@Stingray5892 dude you are my new friend, people dont say this enough

[Apollys]

You got forehands and backhands backwards T.T

But I'm glad you bring up the awesomeness of frisbee. Truly the most amazing sport in existence.

[NewAgeEagles]

@Apollys im glad someone mentioned it, me and my gf ae both ultimate players and were cringing when he was giving the talk on the different throws

[FLABREZU]

Completely agree. I miss vultures so much. :(

[Joshua1112111]

Baseball=Zealot..... Frisbee=Sentry.....

PROTOSS FTW xD

[catscratch1980]

It's definitely a skill cap thing, and as an old Quake 3 player I feel it a lot. The FPS genre is basically dead to me.

The issue with it that I have though is that accessibility and an artificially lowered skill cap are NOT the same thing, and there should be ways of making a game more accessible while retaining enough of a skill ceiling to let experienced players shine. Fighting games do this well with tutorials and trial modes to let people learn execution - other genres need to pick it up.

[burneden]

@catscratch1980 aye, I feel recently with games the lack of tutorials. The great thing about in depth tutorials is that it allows you as a dev to create a steep learning curve. W/o them you force the player to jump in and explore with a gentle slope that wont frustrate them out of playing it.

[201pulse]

Dat math...

[Transplanar]

The topics you touch on are known in the industry as "skill ceiling" of a game and accessibility of games. It makes a lot of sense for competitive games to have a high skill ceiling, to retain players longer & encourage them to get better. On the other hand, video game companies always want to make more money, and thus want to attract more people, so they shoot for making their games more accessible to a larger audience and minimize frustration. If they can't do both, they go for the latter.

[KyoOwnsYou]

Go is awesome! :D

[Superbsoup]

Way to switch the backhand/forehands day[9]...

[TheWillydizzle]

Something that would make the game more interesting in a cleaner way would be to take away one of the base balls and force a defensive and offensive element

[tetracycloide]

The reality is that the controls in Broodwar were equal parts technically limited and poorly designed and part of the 'skill' in playing the game was overcoming these limitations. It's less that the ceiling is lower as much as you don't start out in a giant pit from the word go. I mean in Broodwar if you box Dragoons and say 'go attack' some of them literally do stop and have a picnic on the way there (sometimes more than once) and that's not the '1x line.'

[Secretsofsociety]

@tetracycloide Yeah you are right. Most of it is dealing with bad pathing so you have to babysit the units and what not. I do think the idea of squad control vs deathball control is interesting though. I think this is evolving in sc2 very slowly and I think heart of the swarm is going to change this a lot with the addition of units with more options(except protoss which imo is getting screwed).

[ockegheim]

@tetracycloide I remember going back to Brood War after Warcraft III and thinking the interface felt relatively clunky. But also Brood War has been around nearly unchanged for ten years now- you probably need years of work to get up to 9x. Lately I’ve seen battles in pro matches where to me the unit composition looks like it favours X, but then Y somehow wins. Maybe this is some Xx (X times) play developing (or maybe I can't spot a good unit composition!)

[xAddicted2]

@tetracycloide its not just that the UI or the AI was bad. MBS and automine existed at the time of BW alrdy. The raw difficulty of controlling everything made it that much more impressive BECAUSE u knew how hard it was to do what pros do. JD mutas, fantasy vultures, bisu's sairs and goons. With pros now stressing mass multitasking as a display of skill, it just goes back to BW mechanics, stretching the limits of how many things a person can do and how well they can do said task.

[xAddicted2]

@tetracycloide I have yet to see any1 in sc2 pull off anything as visually exciting as nada marines or genius tactics like savior's back stabs and hold lurkers. I don't think that the ceiling is lower more so that the floor has been raised at the detriment of innovation of strategy. Everything in sc2 is just so easy to do that there is no push to find ways to make them better. Think about PvZ since beta...deathball after deathball. y? because it is relatively easy to pull off and it works.

[KieranMacGough]

Baseball can be thrown along 2 axis (height, distance). A Frisbee adds and extra axis (left/right). Also, a Baseball is stuck on it's path from the start. A Frisbee can change direction during it's path. :)

[simonknokler1]

@KieranMacGough curve ball^? i see your point anyway

[LuchiW]

When Day9 asked what we could think of to make the game more interesting i thought:

Oiled up asians in bikinis that would run around on the field like mobile obstacles. I haven't decided if you will get plus or minus score for hitting them yet. I think that if we do this it will make it into the next summer olymipcs.

[Secretsofsociety]

@LuchiW I wouldn't be surprised if this was already a japanese game show

[Nicoyutub]

you'd love Dark Souls and Demon's Souls

[hellfigter12345]

SO IN ENGLISH.... GAMES ARE MORE CASUAL=(

[thexstupidxlamb]

I delight in having insightful, engaging conversations with people. However, I'm so busy that I often go days without this. These videos, because of how entertaining and enlightening they (and you!) are, just exactly reflect a great discussion -- despite the fact that the viewer (me!) isn't even saying anything back!

I don't want you to have to commit to these and pull things out of nowhere to talk about. But I hope Day9 Musings happen again every so often. THANK YOU(!!) so much for this!

[TNRBoat]

baseball = CoD, frisbee = SC

[Briandotcom0]

@15:52 its not infinite, only 255. try going mass ling, you have to 1-a 2-a.

[TsuDohNimh2e]

DAY[9] TED TALK IS NEEDED

[HDErikBlog]

Baseball sucks :P

[mikenordo]

He's a frisbee nerd; that totally makes sense.

[lokel337]

bW > Sc2

[MrAltReality]

The fun has been doubled!

[dpk828]

@penguinofnarsil, tbh it can just boil down to every unit being stronger offensively or defensively. Like the only reason muta in brood war had so much more "physicality" than sc2 is because they were just a lot stronger. Just that fact alone creates a larger risk and larger reward possibilities which create more dynamic play because there is more incentive to have better micro/strategies/positioning/e­tc which ends up also creating incentive to constantly have more solid and reactive play/macro~

[chepakazohl]

daynine.

do you have sex?

maannnnnnnnnnnnnn.......u need a GOOD vagina)

[LeonPowalski1]

so, ocarina of time is the best ever

[LoLcommentaries]

sounds like a restatement of the old complexity vs depth argument

[darkstorm161]

Someone: "Hey, what do you do as a hobby?"

Me: "I play Day[9]-Frisbee all the time!"

[max19731978]

what about the boomerang?

[Penguinofnarsil]

Interesting, somewhat similar to comments I've heard before, but he didn't really address the question I've had, which is what characteristics give a unit the kind of physicality that Day9 talked about?

[OneGuy6578]

Day[9] I love everything you do but a backhand, is when you show the back of your hand, and forehand (or flick) is the front, you gone mixed them up :(

[ZealousShad]

You'd be an excellent pick for a TED talk

[Zaxomio]

@ZealousShad so im not the only one that knows about TED on youtube thought everyone were just mini incontrols

[10Kernel01]

Go is my favourite game of all time -- it leaves Starcraft in the dust. Thanks for the shout-out!

[cking636]

Motherfucking CALVINBALL!!!!

[Aeig]

Disc Golf is AWESOME!!!!!! Thought I'd throw that out there =)

[lxie27]

You like twitchy games?

You must've LOVED Amnesia then right? :3

[dennypwnsall]

this is why i root for KTflash, because even though he has a maxed army, his control makes them 5-7x against someone whose 3-4x with a maxed army. u cant help but hope he wins

[Dryltd]

Go is awesome! Makes you think about game theory.

[mrtretre100]

Day9, you mixed up forehands and backhands at 7:46

[mann0311]

@mrtretre100 in ultimate frisbee i believe that sean had it correct in the orientation, ik what you mean that's what i thought the first time.

[mrtretre100]

@mann0311 i'm assuming you are trolling, but he did get it mixed up.

Source: I play college ultimate frisbee

[Sapreme]

"You never box zealot and go attack, but they just accidentally stop, sit down have a picnic"

Zealots, never. But dragoon? Sometimes.

[WindJesterGames]

@Sapreme ROFLOL

[meliseeff]

@Sapreme lol! dragoons love to party more than anything, really...

[ThatAwkardGuy]

love the hammer



[44rol]

Yeah protoss can win desparate battles with sentries but i think other race need something like that.

[guitarnublet]

This is so weird Sean. I've been watching you for so long, and actually exposing part of your mind makes me feel like I know you. Hell, I even call you by your first name. But you have not the slightest clue who I am :D

[wikfos]

@guitarnublet what if you lived right next door to him without knowing it?

[aortizisawsome]

i just watched the weirdest car commercial evar

[mindbreaker194]

GO is fucking aewsome!

[AsianStyled]

I agree, Starcraft 2 unit control does suck, balls.

[Kl3tAS]

@AsianStyled That's not what he said.

[HauntinHorror]

Professor Nine.

[Saktoth]

Try playing a game like Zero-K. It has physically modeled projectiles that you can actually dodge with your units, or put an obstacle between you and the enemy to block line of fire. There is unit acceleration, turret traverse and turning speeds so you have to worry not just about unit position, but about momentum, unit facing and turret facing. There is heaps of scope here to make a game complex to control, without making it 'control badly'.

[kraetyz]

That was a good lecture. :)

[Jackiefishhhhhh]

You Should really check put shogun 2 it is so epic ! check my channel out if you wanna see what it is like :)

[APSprime]

quake 3. good game

[tntouch]

I miss crosair, reavers, lurkers, defiler, firebats, and vultures. Those are the units with physicality. Love the frisbee analogy. Don't mind some of the people that don't understand the analogy.

[xAlienx]

Anyone that played Halo 1, this can also be used perfectly to describe the change of the Halo series as it has evolved.

[StarcraftProspector]

dude im so gonna buy a frisbee after part 3

[Muggizz]

Best analogy ever!

[JeffWatersRules]

I immagined the field but all I saw was a Zerg favoured map

[TheRug53]

This video really sums up how I feel about gaming in general nowadays. The way you compare Brood War to SC2 is really similar to the PvP aspect of Cataclysm to WOTLK / BC. <3 u day9

[Teh4Saken1]

IMO, the ai in sc2 is too helpful, i mean it's a brilliant ai, having to not surround anything by spamming click behind the unit... the ai in sc1 was still good but the human aspect of "i want this fucking thing to die now!" and the amount of effort required to control even the most retarded of units (fucking dragoons :L). The limitations in sc1 brought out amazing games, i mean with the boxing of only 12 units in a group meant you had to have more attention to your army instead of this box / 1a

[Teh4Saken1]

@Teh4Saken1 woops didnt finish my sentence *After dragoon part* "improved the effectiveness of the unit"

[freezewindow1]

14:50 well thats right with zealots, but what about dragoons?

[barneysixx]

i really think protoss is retarded

the design is so flawed and unimaginative

first of all, the synergy with micro vs micro with spellcasters is fucked with the force fields because you cant micro against it

its boring to watch someone hit f a bunch of times and see roaches gets stuck

second is tier 3 units especially collosus

its so fucking bland and too effective that protoss can just turtle and get a deathball and it becomes a death vs deathball clump battles

theres no real micro required

[freezewindow1]

@barneysixx well even if there's no micro required you would be even better IF you micro.

i would call planting forcefields at the right location micro, btw.

tier 3 units are meant to be powerful.

watch some good toss pros.

[sf9ersfan33]

@barneysixx Force fields meet burrow micro. Observers to spot burroow meet drop overlords to transport roaches out of forcefields. Stop crying. Less QQ, more pew-pew

[UkammakU]

I'm honestly a bit surprised by this segment. I dont much agree with what sean said here at all. The frisbee/baseball analogy was awful. you can throw a ball in a million different ways, and someone like a professional pitcher no doubt has many techniques to tweak how the ball is thrown. I see where day was trying to go with the comparison, but it doesn't fit the example.

As far as sc2 units lacking a physicality, personally I feel like every unit(see: most units) in the game has their own feel

[MrStriicken]

@UkammakU I agree with your end point upon Sc2 but I haven't played really long enough to have a great enough opinion. On your saying the frisbee/baseball analogy was awful I disagree. I believe Sean was going for the many different possibilities and motions that you can have when throwing a frisbee as compared to throwing a baseball. Yes, there are multiple pitches and pitcher may throw changing the motion but it is the same motion every single time. The movement range of the ball is smaller

[FinTheDew]

Day[9] should talk about SOPA

[HyvelTjuven]

@FinTheDew He should, he really should.

[klebics]

There is a program called "Crazystones" used on the KGS Go Servers that is consistently ranked as 4th Dan. Watched its replays...that comp is a BEAST

[3512435124]

jesus christ damnit, day 9. i've been trying to put into words why i loved sc1 so much more than sc2, and you finally did it. frisbees ftw

[3512435124]

in starcraft 2, i can have my entire 200/200 max pop army and my entire base on 1 hotkey

[blountknight]

I feel like the firsbee analogy, favors the pro gamer more than the common gamer. Which by default makes me think your saying you dislike the common gamer. Which of course is your day9 veiwers.....ya not sure you wanted to go there.

[GosuGosuPlacement]

@blountknight i play sc1 a lot and i can tell you im no pro gamer but can still get extra use out of units that in a regular situation would be worthless, in sc2 i feal that if i ever get behind unless my oponent messes up i am doomed to be forever behind. but is sc1 with a little flick of the wrist i can come out on top where otherwise i would be doomed to fail

[Ragath87]

Great talk Day9! You explained things very well here, but I must admit that I'm not really liking your analogy at the end. I would say it's not so much that they lowered the skill ceiling, but more like they gave you a chair to stand on.

[GunSlinger092]

Day9 is a Beatmania IIDX player as well?! VERY NICE! It's hard to find a fellow IIDX player nowadays.

[Blaxot]

@GunSlinger092 Where can I download it for PC?

[IAmBadatStarcraft]

Hell, my zealots have sat down and had a picnic. But it was pvz anyway, so it's not like I was going to win :P

[Algameon]

Why is there allways a FUAAAAAAAAAA in the URL bar?

[weidenkuh13]

But Sean, what about the not-so-good-players who cant manage to throw a frisbee, but instead throw baseballs and enjoy the game? In Sc2 terms the gold vs grandmaster players

[UndeadPizzaGuy]

While you have good points, you are drastically overestimating unit capabilities in BW. Units in SC2 are far more ergonomic, and will do what you tell them to. This causes the game to be based on decision making and strategy, whereas in BW your units have a high variance in performance, causing battles where it was about who made more control related mistakes, rather than who was actually playing an intelligent game. SC2 invokes more thought and can be analysed much more deeply.

[phantom420o]

Heart of the Swarm will fuck shit up more Day9

they will try to solve the problem you talk about not by improving rules but adding more shit for the fucking casuals.( me included fuck muta harass and marauder rushes)

[TheMegaSheep]

Actually, if you watch some more low-level games of SC2, you can tell how much micro/unit control affects the outcome of a battle. The problem is that when two really good players face off against each other, their skill levels and tactics they use will be very similar, which leads to decisions like unit composition being more important in these high-level games. This is just my opinion though.

[Legolomaniak]

i could see day9 doing TED talks

[PneumothoraxSC2]

Sean, you better be at Dreamhack Summer, I'ma bring a Frisbee and we're gonna play :3

[thoeezheeah]

day9 u play ultimate frisbee? you're a girl

[moleman124]

Be awesome if all units had a 2nd attack mode you could switch between. I.e offense/defense .. or ground/air attck or DD/Aoe or Melee/Ranged etc Each with a pro n con.

[Foozoo2230]

ive been yelling at my fucking baseball for 5mins and voidrays are still more obedient...

[Felix0XiviX]

Day[9]. if you are doing something different you should record yourself beasting it on Text Twist XD

[UraharaShoten]

Some very interesting food for thought! You're a very good speaker. For some reason, this almost felt like i was in a classroom, and you were the proffessor, and i learned a great lesson. I hope you make more videos like this in the future!

[darkstorm161]

@UraharaShoten Yes! Another wonderful lecture by Prof. Plott of the subject: "random and intersting things that come to my mind"

[slavouno]

10th?

[toki119]

Beatmania is pretty hardcore...I demand a Day9 arcade Beatmania video!

[rm04ever]

if only day9 Organize his thoughts before speaking....

[history797]

NICE VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY WITH GUYS AND GIRLS 

[123dosbos]

day 9 likes apm intensive games no wonder he loves SC1 and SC2

[glopv2]

i have five fingers

[MrNeelix31]

4th i felt obliged :D



[claye777]

3rd? lol yay me..

[Mattoren1]

the best :)

[drybonesslayer]

1ST OMG ADSGHADUISHDUISGHSUI