A bit disappointed to see the discussion peter out at the release of SC2. Pro Brood War is not where it was at the time, but is still alive and well, with a much less exploitative business model, in fact. No more team houses and skeezy managers, the pro players make their money streaming these days.
Gameplay-wise, it is still in an incredible place. New builds are still being developed, not just one-off cheese builds but legitimate new approaches to matchups. Depending on matchup and player, you might watch a game where the core build hasn't changed in 15 years or a game that would be unrecognizable from 3 years ago.
Also, I would love for this guy to do a deep dive on the SC:BW approach to balance, which is map-based rather than based on traditional unit-based balance changes. This way the community is effectively able to balance the game themselves.
> Also, I would love for this guy to do a deep dive on the SC:BW approach to balance, which is map-based rather than based on traditional unit-based balance changes. This way the community is effectively able to balance the game themselves.
Yes, that it something really important that the modern landscape of competitive gaming lost and the frequency of patching increasing. Not just in BW, older fighting games, especially those arcade based ones, people found ways (which sometimes blur the lines between exploit or technique) to keep pushing the bounders. Things like Kara-cancels in 3s, were one is using a mechanic meant to facilitate the throw input to extend the range of the throw. Or wave dashing. It is wild how even character tier lists changed in the original SmashBros 64.
And also how people adapt to this meta changing discoveries, like the bisu-build in BW or when Ricki Ortiz unleashed v-cancel in sfa2!
Kara-cancels were a glitch in SF2 turned into a feature in all subsequent games, in SF3 devs added ability to kara cancel into throws, probably because of Alex being a protagonist (:
That is because I only mentioned them, didn't explain them.
Kara-cancel is a mechanic that lets you extend the range of your moves, in 3s is used for throws.
So the input for throws in 3s is lp+lk. Now, what happens if while one is trying to press the buttons at the same time they press one slighty before the other? A move will start to come out and then you can't throw because you are doing another move. To make it easier to input throws, devs made so that _any_ move can be canceled into a throw in the first 5 frames of the move. 5 frames is 5/60ths of a second.
Separate to that, some moves move the character forward. Ej. Chunli's HK. So people figured out that if you press a move that moved your character forward and then canceled that into a throw you can extend the effective range of your throw.
Mind you doing this means pressing a button 83 milliseconds before the other one. Which is of course not something you can do by thinking about it, instead you learn to position your hand in a way so that when you move it down together one finger lands before the other two. The name kara-cancels comes from the Japanese word for empty, because you are canceling a move that never came out.
Now I don't know the history, whether the mechanic was first found in 3s and then in SF2T or not, but it is an example of a mechanic intended to ease the input of something being used to expand the toolkit of a character.
V-cancel (not sure if that was the name ppl used for it, didn't play sfa2) refers to the fact that in sfa2 the number of frames to go from standing to downblock is more that the number of frames a character needs to go from standing to a low attack if the character is in v-ism. This means that if two characters are standing next to each other and one activates their v super, they have a guaranteed hit.
This was first used by Ricki Ortiz in a tournament setting in a finals and that is how it became wildly know. The story of it was documented in Sirlin's Play to Win book, which is how I learned about it. https://www.sirlin.net/ptw
I was just making a statement on depth so was not expecting a actual explanation but thank you for that. I personally have a hangout where terminology makes things seem harder than it is, I just have to dig in and learn the terms and then things fall into place.
I’m looking forward to FlaSh getting back to the top of his game and hitting the #1 spot again now that he is back from his military service. Been watching every one of the Artosis casts for the past week or so. I suck at the game but it’s always a good time watching the pros.
I’d also comment on Broodwars approach of balance by making everything overpowered (in the right circumstance) rather than nerfing anything that stood out at any point.
There were a lot of units that could single handedly turn the tide in the right scenario. Vulture mines could stop a rush in their tracks, storm could wipe an army, dark swarm could negate a dug in fortification, a reaver in a shuttle could take out all production.
It led to crazy chaos and it was an incredibly entertaining spectacle.
Most (probably all?) tournaments require you to pick your race and keep it for the whole tournament. No switching based on map or matchup. But you can pick random.
Gameplay-wise, it is still in an incredible place. New builds are still being developed, not just one-off cheese builds but legitimate new approaches to matchups. Depending on matchup and player, you might watch a game where the core build hasn't changed in 15 years or a game that would be unrecognizable from 3 years ago.
Also, I would love for this guy to do a deep dive on the SC:BW approach to balance, which is map-based rather than based on traditional unit-based balance changes. This way the community is effectively able to balance the game themselves.