The lack of QoL is a perk. It creates some attention pressure that forces players to be more disciplined about where they spend their attention. He had a great daily talking about this years ago. Players have a lot of things they need to spend clicks and attention/time doing.
the entire essence of the game is the lack of QoL. The horrible pathing, the ridiculously tedious macro, the limited control groups, and so much more... this is what makes the top players so amazing to watch and appreciate. Broodwar is the ultimate test of mechanical skill and multitasking that no other rts can compare to.
@@Sabu113 I think the daily you're talking about is actually a Day9 Rant, and it's my favorite. It's called "Starcraft Remastered Rant", it's on the channel. It influenced my view of game design. Games can be made deliberately accessible for a wide audience, but they don't have to be.
Part 2: Why You Should Watch Pro Brood War Matches After Trying To Play Brood War. It's so satisfying to watch high-level gameplay after knowing how difficult it is to do anything in this game.
my first fromsoft game was Dark Souls 2. After hopelessly banging my head off it for like 10 straight hours and not getting anywhere I looked up some vids on youtube and stumbled upon some speedrun vids. I SIMPLY COULD NOT CONCEPTUALISE WHAT I WAS FUCKING SEEING
I adore the philosophy behind the different soundtracks. Not so lowkey, the soundtracks of the different races are even more distinct than their respective mechanics.
I havent played starcraft in years, but I could listen to Day9 talk about starcraft all day, every day. His knowledge, passion and willingness to teach is inspiring.
Yea, Sean is pretty great. It’s easy to see the shine he presents. I wanna point out, he’s got a lot of greatness in his shadows and struggles too, from what pieces of those he has courageously brought to light.
@@Harrison-un4ub 1000 percent. Often those who spend their time making others smile have some of the hardest times being happy themselves. He’s a wonderful person and his struggles just remind us we’re all human and deserving of love.
I made the mistake of doing that this last saturday. I had to re-teach myself with their control groups and chunky controls. Also no dialogue for mission briefings tilts me almost as much as the dialogue edits.
To quote a Jewish grasshopper (deep joke right there) “Flash was not the best because he did everything the best… He did… but the real thing that set him apart was his ability to know when to stop giving attention to something and go do something else”
brood war team games and money maps are super fun if you don’t wanna 1v1 but still want these satisfying mechanics Ignore the people yelling at you in 4 languages and just do your best lmao
I resonate so hard with this. I only watched BW as a kid and I only really started with SC2. After being hardstuck master 1 player for years (5.2k peak in lotv), and kinda getting bored of the game and started BW when flash guides came out, and boy oh boy, you hit nail in the head with my horrifying experience. I really enjoy how the game plays out and how it mixed both slow and fast pace nature of the game, with there not being instant game ending damage/engage in span of split seconds, but man, if I did not have any RTS background, I would have struggled a lot. Doing a lot of basic things such as macroing takes 100-150APM minimum, while you could easily do stuff you needed to do with 1/2 of even 1/3 of that APM in SC2. Optimized macro cycle in sc2 with supply depos take around 60-80ish APM to execute with rest going into micro, but in BW, it seems to take 150+ on that alone. After managing all the chores, you still have to spend tons of APM on units to get them to maximum potential or they fight at like 40% of their capability, so it's a lot of things to ask. Stuff like tank vs dragoon, tank straight up loses to dragoon 1v1 if unmicrod and looking away, but can deal with 2-3 goons if properly microd early game is so impactful. Although I enjoy BW a lot more than SC2 now, I would not have enjoyed it at all if I at least didn't have mid-high master tier mechanics at least in sc2. New player and BW do not mix.
For some of us though, we started out with Starcraft as new players, in 1998 with the demo version. I fell in love the instant I sent the scv to mine minerals. What followed was years of fun, yet acknowledgment that I sucked, and awe at the best players. It was the first game I played online. I've always sucked and still do but always appreciated this game. And through these experiences always believed it had the highest skill ceiling.
@@Taystesouthyea same I played 1v1 online in the demo sooooo much I became obsessed. I remember challenging another kid at school to ZvZ and the match went on for over 4 hours until we called a draw. There were 3 pcs in my house so I would mercilessly crush friends in Lan parties. When I lifted my eyes from the monitor I would see the orange glow of the sun rising. I got so nasty at macro with build orders and micro that I would even take on friends 2v1 and still win. I will never forget the day I BARELY beat out a korean online and all he could say was you good lol!
One thing I've founded, as I revisit a lot of old childhood games and find new ones, is that if I played it or a similar style back then, that it will not bother me at all. If it's new to me, even if I played lots of games from the same time period, it will be absolutely insufferable
@@hellowill gonna disagree. But also agree. If you take anyone and introduce them to starcraft. You start them on SC2 and then have them play BW. You start them on BW and they will give up since it's so insanely hard
@@undrgrnd734 only if you're talking about people without attention span and/or dedication. Neither of which will succeed in SC2 _nor_ Brood War. It's not insanely hard, it's as hard as your ambitions let you. Brood War scales incredibly well with practice.
Glad to see you talking about starcraft again. Thank you so much for years ago when you did the Day9daily; not only was the information invaluable, but having someone that was consistent as a kid, in times of chaos, was much needed. I appreciate what you do so much!
I'm not good enough to get this pleasant feeling while playing RTS games, but I used to play piano, so I totally get what it's like, because you get this feeling as well, when you play a piece you know really well.
for other genres, its' like getting hard combos in fighting games and the next step is being able to counter hit off reaction AND do the combo on counter hit. I would say SC equivalent is when you can harass and macro at the same time.
it's like getting tetris brain. you hit that transcendent state where you just intuitively pick up on the rhythm of the game and it is so rewarding. you can get it in SC2 but I think it's less pronounced because the game does a lot more of the heavy lifting for you.
WOW!!! You just cleared up YEARS of confusion for me. I have watched you play, along with others, and I could NEVER understand all back and forth on the screen. (Never played, and watching a top player with no context was really messing with my head.)
I think the control limitations work in favor of game's balancing to a great deal. You can never send your entire army with a single click to a location as a death ball, you have to manage your units in smaller groups which incentivizes skirmishes spread around the map instead of one giant anticlimactic battle in the middle.
@@andrewferguson6901 Since SC2 first came out I always thought the next RTS they make should have a unit cap of 20 units (since base 10 is easier for us to think about) but 24 is also fine. I think being able to select multiple buildings like in WC3 is also an improvement. I actually think Brood War with WC3 control scheme (multiple building selection, subgroups within the unit group, multiple building management etc) would be peak.
i think it's fine to have unlimited unit selection, you just need to be aware of what mechanic you've lost, and add it in through something else, to reduce that 1 click A-move efficiency. Some possible solutions off the top of my head: Larger unit collision sizes, so balls of units have trouble shooting ahead if they're in the back. Units hate touching each other, and run away whenever they do so, reducing moving efficiency. Units having worse range, damage, or rate of fire if behind units. Long damage point after moving, so attacking units always shoot second. Etc etc. SC2's issue in my eyes was that they broadly made units to be smarter across the board. instead micro became more about reducing the damage you took from enemy action. While this kinda evens out at the top level, low level players experience terrible damage from not having enough spare attention. They've turned one mechanic that made attacking hard, into one that made not dying hard.
As someone who has being playing RTS games since i could hold on to a mouse and a keyboard, I still struggle a lot with Brood War. It's a beast of its own and even doing the most basic shit requires so much expertise. No matter how good you think you might be at RTS , Brood War will humble you....
it's like "if you think you are good at driving try to ride a wild boar, it will humble you". No. Bw is just an old ass game inheritly broken. The only reason why people play it today is a baby duck syndrome, it's absolutely atrocious from any standpoint, controls are crappy, unit AI is absolutely broken, and the worst thing it's actually badly balanced, be it between races (aka 50% of ladder is protoss because it's stronger at low levels but top is flooded with terran) or within one race (because for every race there are ton of units that are built once/decade). Ofc playing this garbage in 2024 will humble you because it's really not smth that what you are used to do and not even smth good.
@user-mt2jm7vy6i Highly subjective. The impossible to reach skill ceiling is what makes the game so entertaining both to play and to watch. On top of that, it's so well balanced that you see new strategies being developed almost every 6 months. SC2 is so easy that I was able to reach Diamond during Wings of Liberty with absolutely no competitive RTS experience. It's why they had to add so many micro intensive units in later expansions; everything else was just to simple. But yeah, subjective.
@@МихаилЧалый-щ3ж It's actually very well balanced. I wouldn't call it broken either. Games back then were pretty limited on what they could do, so it's more that experienced players knew how to get the most out of the system.
Unit AI isn't broken, it's just not very good. There's a difference. SC2 pathing is dramatically better (funny what over a decade of development can do to videogame technology), but it removes body blocking because everything moves around like a greased eel. The big consequence is you've removed something you can do in the game to make smaller army size engagements interesting. So boring was SC2 early game, they added 8 more workers to power you entirely through that phase of the game.
I will ALWAYS appreciate the teaching ways of day9. I wish I had Teachers like this is highschool who were on point with communications skills like him.
Seeing units autonomously correct their path when I make a mistake frustrates me more than them getting stuck. When qol denies me the consequences of my actions it feels like I'm the little bro with the unplugged controller.
See, you call it "the consequences of your actions", I call it "the pathfinding ai being so astoundingly stupid you'd swear it was deliberately fucking with you." It's like MtG having mana cards as a mechanic. Yes, it adds an extra dimension of depth and strategy to the game. There's also a *really good goddamn reason* that literally every other TCG in existence doesn't mess with that nonsense. You can get away with it when you're first out the gate, and in no other scenario.
I think you really hit the proverbial nail on the head with the rhythm comparison. I do latin social dancing a lot, and the reason it feels good is exactly how you described getting in the sync with the game (in dancing it's not just about the base rhythm like 1-2-3-4, but when you catch specific accents in the song to translate into movements... soo satisfying)
I get the same feeling from playing piano, but you can get it even a step higher: if you know a piece REALLY well, then you can make slight variations in your play. These variations are REALLY satisfying. I guess an equivalent in SC would be to focus just a fraction of a second longer on micro in some macro cycles.
Yes this perfectly describes why I loved playing this game. Once I figured out how to control the units well enough, playing the game became more second nature and it was so enjoyable
Blizzard - "Let's release half finished game with half-assed mechanics command and conquer did a lot better 2 years ago" People - "Omg best game ever!"
I wouldn't say it's the gratest ever made, increadibly important as it defined how a modern RTS should look like, and it's super fun to play for people who invest thousands of hours fighting the torturous mechanics, SC2 perfected the RTS mechanics imo, no other RTS can even come close to the responsiveness and speed of SC2, so no, SC1 historically incredibly important, but not even close to objectivly being the best RTS with all it's flaws
@@MerolLord Starcraft: Broodwar is by far the best game of all time. The units, the balance, the match-ups the gameplay is leaps ahead of anything else.
@@MerolLordthey are both great games and both allow for insane deep level strategies and awesome game play, even for just spectators to watch in awe as high level players push the limits of what can be done. BW is so complex and there are several wall/sealing levels that are almost impossible to break. SC2 is just so fast and at higher levels require insane amount of skill and APM, while builds are so complex. But BW is still the better game just in my opinion just for the fact it’s a 25 year old game with no new patches and somehow has managed to get fairly balanced races 25 years later. I think that the same can happen with SC2 but it all depends on the developer to find the right balance patch… kind of feel like it has changed a lot for each patch. As long as good players keep playing and we also keep watching, it won’t stop getting better.
It's definitely one of the units of all time. That being said, though, Mini did win that ASL a few years ago using Scouts in the BO7 against Rush, so maybe he just needs to pull them out more often as his good luck charm.
Starcraft 1 is that old manual transmission car that you have to know all of the quirks for to drive well. To get into third you have to kinda hold the clutch halfway. The steering is tight when you're going down a hill, but otherwise it feels loose. It took a while to learn to drive it, and it's difficult to keep it on the road sometimes, but it's also the funnest thing you've ever driven.
The unit pathfinding made me think about Day 9's Let's Learn Starcraft video of Best vs Light when Best made a massive attack sending all of his zealots across a relatively narrow bridge on Fighting Spirit. It was just SO IMPRESSIVE just to see him do something like moving a mass of units down a narrow choke. Because if he mismicro'd at all, they'd get stuck at the bridge and all of shit would die from siege tanks.
OSRS has a very similar "systems-level vibe" with its high level gameplay for practically identical reasons. Something lost through quality of life improvements is "jank", and often times that jank is adding complexity to the game that feels good for players to master. Actually, the clicking of the barracks is identical to the gear switching mechanics in OSRS. You can't just swap out entire sets at once, you have to click 6+ different pieces of gear to swap them, and the game updates every 0.6 seconds, so high performing players will practice a "one tick switch", the ability to have all of your gear swapped within one 0.6 second update cycle or game tick. Identical mouse movement techniques, zig-zag patterns, fast clicks where accuracy is super important. And these kinds of systems really do make the game feel better when you're playing at a high level. I can totally see a Brood War veteran switching to SC2 and feeling like half of the game is lost as it's effectively playing itself. A lot of the APM skill tech is automated, and a huge branch of what makes a good starcraft player just gets deleted for the sake of quality of life. Great for new players, or players with more modern sensibilities, but undoubtably rough on the players who dedicated themselves to mastering jank.
Day9 posting about brood war.. I love it. I could listen to you talk about brood war all day. I find the lack of quality of life mechanics in brood war to be the exact reason it’s a great game. I’ve never been able to enjoy new RTS because they’re too “easy”.
you need to approach playing games like playing musical instruments. You add and learn the correct (and optimized) gestures for every action u need to do in the game, and build your muscle memory like this. Recommend Hawk's F to S, pretty nice series
I’ve personally tried to get into brood war lately, but I end up doing more SC 2 games because the QoL is way better. Mainly the buildings and control groups. Also the production automatic gathering. It’s quite hard to get yourself to do all that clicking fast enough in comparison. I don’t even switch screens in SC2 while doing all my base adjustments. In BW I just get lost everywhere in the screen. Also apparently cuz I try to play offline, I often trigger a weird thing where the games get the screen tinted on darker colors until you can’t play anymore
Thing is, everything he talks about is why you should start with SC/BW. It teaches you where attention might have to go, and then when you move to SC2, you get a whole pile of brainpower freed up. The fundamentals are about the same but the amount of attention you have to spend on essentials drops off substantially. It's a mental sigh of relief and appreciation for the advancements in game design.
I've not followed competitive SC BW at all, but with the few games that you covered showing the APM is typically 400+ is all I need to know, especially that ZvZ matchup you showed How tf are humans capable of that, it's not like input spam that SC2 typically has, it's actually affecting the outcome with most of those actions
The question I'm more interested in is if the new generations of RTS games will be able to find ways to generate the same kind of satisfaction from hard earned skills without having them emerge from incredibly obnoxious lack of QoL features, or worse, mundane busy work added purely to make it more difficult.
No one wants to make a game where you need to invest thousands of hours fighting against torturous mechanics to be able to even start enjoying the game, that alone will turn most people off and will be a commercial failure, most people who still play SC1 do because they fell in love with the game in a time where QoL was not a thing in most games, and while being young with tons of time to invest in the game
I do believe its possible, on the unit side at least. You just need everything to function at a basic level for new players, but add in things you can do that increases their efficiency. Like, maybe units in bigger groups shoot and move slower, so while you can just A move and get something out of it, you can also stare at them and divide them up into squads to fight faster. Or have firing angles where they respond faster if they're looking at their target.
This is such a great explanation of why older games were great. They had many limitations or even "bad" features by today's standards, but the feeling of beating them, and then falling into those rhythms naturally, to the point the limitations no longer effect you FELT GOOD. Things were only as bad as the solution you could find for them, and that ability separated players skill level. Once you were firing on all cylinders, it feels like driving an old classic sports car.
My solution to the pathing was having each unit follow the one in front of it and daisy chaining them all together, that's also how I got around small control groups xD
Day9 is THE best person to talk about RTS ever, I have improved so much on all the RTS I played after watching some of his videos about broodwar, even though I never played SC in my life 😂
What i loved in SCBW was that attention thing, but what you didn't mention is how its a part of decision making on what you give your attention for. You have 2 vultures running around zerglings killing them. Is it better to focus on that or make sure your macro doesnt slip? During combat is it better to focus your marines spreading around not getting murdered by lurkers or is it better to focus on science vessels so they get their key spells and escape from scourges? You can either do both poorly or choose one thing and do it excellently. Even the best cant do both without missing a beat but it looks like that as their decision making is so good. Especially on the older days we used to have macro players such as oov and microplayers such as boxer. These days everyone is a bit macro heavy.
Yeah but if you get used to sc1 you can play afterwards every rts you want. Starting from the most difficult one gonna help someone develop essential rts skills like macro micro apm etc
I’m a simple gamer, I see that a new Day9 video, I see that it’s a StarCraft video. I watch and like Man brings back memories of me watching the Dailys to learn the game and beat my friends and brother 😂
I think it was Artosis who made an interesting point about the "rigidity" or of Brood War which is that it sorta adds a unique almost organic element to the game. SC2 made things a lot more user friendly, but maybe there is a point where you want it a little wonky and chaotic. The pathing can be frustrating but adds a layer of depth, units getting trapped or confused in a chaotic situation, as opposed to the robotic precision of units in SC2 that move with ultra fluidity which is very reliable/predictable. Combined with the limited number of units you can select there is a certain charm to commanding units in battle in SC1 that SC2 doesn't quite capture.
the only thing that kept me from playing sc1 for real was the wayfinding and units don't move out of the way for other units.... it will sure make you rip your hair out how horrendous this feels while playing it's a nightmare, not too mention ofc, the 12 units at once limit
The rhythm part reminds me of why I like hunter in classic wow. Only class that I think have a rhythm to it with both timing autos and moving and also timing the rotation with autos and moving. And if you are really good you can also start melee weaveing into that. Just like Brood War, Hunter feels very clunky when you are not used to it but when you learn the rhythm it feels very good.
Something that has helped me in broodwar and sc2 is a new mouse. I got a mouse with 12 customizable side buttons. One row I made into F2, F3, F4 for easy access to my camera hotkeys. Another row is 7,8,9, and 0. This is the biggest quality of life. Not only does it let me access control groups on the other side of keyboard with my thumb, but I also use it as an organization tool. I'll used the numbers on my keyboard for general army control groups, while using the ones on my mouse for special ones such as seige tanks/lurkers that I need to constantly redeploy, muta harassment groups that I want to mirco separately from the rest of my army, spellcasters, comsat stations. Basically anything that doesn't just use an A move
RTSs have improved quite a lot from when I started playing as a kid. Old Battle Realms, Command and Conquer, and Starcraft are frustrating to play when you've gotten used to the level of control you get in newer games.
Long live day9! LONG LIVE THE STARCRAFT KING! I actually prefer the pathing in brood war over sc2. It's annoying but it's better than death ball. More strategic. Like you said....once you learn how to do everything and you start flying through the various macros needed to pump out troops/econ/move army its so fun.
When SC remaster has been announced, I hoped I'd be SC1 with SC2 interface improvements, but ended up being only a 4K upscale :( I'm one of those people who are driven insane by the old UI :/
Hugo Martin talked about how the design of Doom and Doom Eternal were built not around the avoidance of pain and frustration, but around level of engagement. Starcraft Broodwar demands constant engagement, which is probably why it's so infuriating but addictive.
THANK YOU!!!!!! There are so many people who were kids when BW dropped that refuse to accept that SC2 is substantially better in terms of of gameplay experience. People nowadays want units to go where they are told to go. Having to click the bottom of a ramp 40191993847 times to get 12 dragoons to finally walk down it doesn’t make the game “better because it’s harder.” It makes the game annoying.
Day9 might've just explained why my favorite games are rhythm games like Osu, DDR, and Guitar Hero, but the games I've put the most hours into are WC2, WC3, SC1, and SC2.
Also those many obnoxious things increase the skill gap - you have more opportunities what to do better than your opponent, giving you leverage over them.
I prefer BroodWar because it presents more realistic challenge for management. The more buildings and units you have, the harder to manage. Thus every player has different sweet spot for their balance between micro and macro with their (ridiculously high) limited actions per minute, introducing to playstyle differences.
Attention as a resource is critical to all games, but it is exemplified here. Brood War could be the greatest example of ways in which games utilize attention as a resource, or better yet serve as an example as to how other games could prioritize attention as a resource.
![[Highlight] Why PvZ in Broodwar is WEIRD](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/oM3Z7FjuixU/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Highlight] Why PvZ in Broodwar is WEIRD](/img/tr.png)
![[Highlight] StarCraft Remastered Rant](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EP9F-AZezCU/mqdefault.jpg)
Brood war has so little quality of life features you cant help yourself but be impressed by the skills of the top players
The lack of QoL is a perk. It creates some attention pressure that forces players to be more disciplined about where they spend their attention. He had a great daily talking about this years ago. Players have a lot of things they need to spend clicks and attention/time doing.
the entire essence of the game is the lack of QoL. The horrible pathing, the ridiculously tedious macro, the limited control groups, and so much more... this is what makes the top players so amazing to watch and appreciate. Broodwar is the ultimate test of mechanical skill and multitasking that no other rts can compare to.
@@Sabu113 I think the daily you're talking about is actually a Day9 Rant, and it's my favorite. It's called "Starcraft Remastered Rant", it's on the channel. It influenced my view of game design. Games can be made deliberately accessible for a wide audience, but they don't have to be.
Dude, play WC2. BW miles better. WC1 was basically unplayable. You had groups of 4.
@@LegendStormcrow Not only that, but boxing units in WC1 would only select 1 unit. To get a group of 4 you have to shift-click.
Part 2: Why You Should Watch Pro Brood War Matches After Trying To Play Brood War. It's so satisfying to watch high-level gameplay after knowing how difficult it is to do anything in this game.
100% agree
exactly
this!
It's amazing....it's like watching people fly to space and dock with the ISS when I launched an Estes rocket as a 9 year old
my first fromsoft game was Dark Souls 2. After hopelessly banging my head off it for like 10 straight hours and not getting anywhere I looked up some vids on youtube and stumbled upon some speedrun vids. I SIMPLY COULD NOT CONCEPTUALISE WHAT I WAS FUCKING SEEING
3:45 OMG THAT BARRACKS TIMING... and the music matching up too *chef kiss*
he did look so cool doing that
3:09 "Why would you play this game?"
(Terran Theme 1 starts up)
"Oh yeah, that's why you play this game"
GOATed RTS soundtrack, SC2 with the OG soundtrack is very nice
Lol so true
Really glad someone else mentioned the audio, everything in the game sounds are so iconic to me, even things like the boot up sounds and menu prompts
I adore the philosophy behind the different soundtracks. Not so lowkey, the soundtracks of the different races are even more distinct than their respective mechanics.
Playing Terran in sc2 with this music is insanely satisfying
I havent played starcraft in years, but I could listen to Day9 talk about starcraft all day, every day. His knowledge, passion and willingness to teach is inspiring.
He's an incredible communicator as well
I've never played any of them and enjoy watching his vids about them :D
Good thing you’ve got YEARS of back content to listen to!
Yea, Sean is pretty great. It’s easy to see the shine he presents. I wanna point out, he’s got a lot of greatness in his shadows and struggles too, from what pieces of those he has courageously brought to light.
@@Harrison-un4ub 1000 percent. Often those who spend their time making others smile have some of the hardest times being happy themselves. He’s a wonderful person and his struggles just remind us we’re all human and deserving of love.
That barracks timing was tasty 😂
no that's his brother
@@johndoe-rq1pu I find his brother to be tasteless
@@FlokiTech That's not a nice thing to say about someone at all!
13 seconds is a Marine's build time. Big ass clock on top of the HUD. OmG He'S A wiZaRd. Love Day9 but come on lol.
@@direct278 Yeah i was going to say this.. he just knows the 13 second timing.. basic for him
Just play the N64 version to really test your resiliency.
I made the mistake of doing that this last saturday. I had to re-teach myself with their control groups and chunky controls. Also no dialogue for mission briefings tilts me almost as much as the dialogue edits.
That's like trying to run an Olympic marathon as a 78-year old man with crutches.
2 player split screen controlling the same army is actually hilarious.
To quote a Jewish grasshopper (deep joke right there)
“Flash was not the best because he did everything the best… He did… but the real thing that set him apart was his ability to know when to stop giving attention to something and go do something else”
"If you're not used to it, it will make you want to fucking die"
I have *NEVER* seen someone describe SC1 so succinctly 😂😂
brood war team games and money maps are super fun if you don’t wanna 1v1 but still want these satisfying mechanics
Ignore the people yelling at you in 4 languages and just do your best lmao
I resonate so hard with this.
I only watched BW as a kid and I only really started with SC2. After being hardstuck master 1 player for years (5.2k peak in lotv), and kinda getting bored of the game and started BW when flash guides came out, and boy oh boy, you hit nail in the head with my horrifying experience.
I really enjoy how the game plays out and how it mixed both slow and fast pace nature of the game, with there not being instant game ending damage/engage in span of split seconds, but man, if I did not have any RTS background, I would have struggled a lot.
Doing a lot of basic things such as macroing takes 100-150APM minimum, while you could easily do stuff you needed to do with 1/2 of even 1/3 of that APM in SC2. Optimized macro cycle in sc2 with supply depos take around 60-80ish APM to execute with rest going into micro, but in BW, it seems to take 150+ on that alone. After managing all the chores, you still have to spend tons of APM on units to get them to maximum potential or they fight at like 40% of their capability, so it's a lot of things to ask. Stuff like tank vs dragoon, tank straight up loses to dragoon 1v1 if unmicrod and looking away, but can deal with 2-3 goons if properly microd early game is so impactful.
Although I enjoy BW a lot more than SC2 now, I would not have enjoyed it at all if I at least didn't have mid-high master tier mechanics at least in sc2. New player and BW do not mix.
For some of us though, we started out with Starcraft as new players, in 1998 with the demo version. I fell in love the instant I sent the scv to mine minerals. What followed was years of fun, yet acknowledgment that I sucked, and awe at the best players. It was the first game I played online. I've always sucked and still do but always appreciated this game. And through these experiences always believed it had the highest skill ceiling.
@@Taystesouthyea same I played 1v1 online in the demo sooooo much I became obsessed. I remember challenging another kid at school to ZvZ and the match went on for over 4 hours until we called a draw. There were 3 pcs in my house so I would mercilessly crush friends in Lan parties. When I lifted my eyes from the monitor I would see the orange glow of the sun rising. I got so nasty at macro with build orders and micro that I would even take on friends 2v1 and still win. I will never forget the day I BARELY beat out a korean online and all he could say was you good lol!
One thing I've founded, as I revisit a lot of old childhood games and find new ones, is that if I played it or a similar style back then, that it will not bother me at all. If it's new to me, even if I played lots of games from the same time period, it will be absolutely insufferable
.... To a lesser degree, but yeah. My limit is 10 years back before it starts affecting me, but yeah.
@@HellecticMojo By that standard, half of Japanese and all of Eastern Europe's games are unplayable.
@@HellecticMojo You must hate anything "tedious."
@@HellecticMojo It was in quotation marks because it isn't always tedium. Some love fishing. I find it tedious. I like hiking. Some find it tedious.
I’ll be honest, learning brood war and then returning to StarCraft 2 was like taking weights off when sprinting
Yep. BW makes you better at SC2... but not the other way around.
I find it way more satisfying to wear weights for whatever reason. Started with SC2 though.
@@hellowill gonna disagree. But also agree.
If you take anyone and introduce them to starcraft. You start them on SC2 and then have them play BW.
You start them on BW and they will give up since it's so insanely hard
but you're sprinting indoors and not outside. SC2 is easy for the sake of easy, BroodWar has much more depth
@@undrgrnd734 only if you're talking about people without attention span and/or dedication. Neither of which will succeed in SC2 _nor_ Brood War. It's not insanely hard, it's as hard as your ambitions let you. Brood War scales incredibly well with practice.
Glad to see you talking about starcraft again. Thank you so much for years ago when you did the Day9daily; not only was the information invaluable, but having someone that was consistent as a kid, in times of chaos, was much needed. I appreciate what you do so much!
As someone who's played and followed Melee, all I can say is that I get it.
I'm not good enough to get this pleasant feeling while playing RTS games, but I used to play piano, so I totally get what it's like, because you get this feeling as well, when you play a piece you know really well.
in case you didn't know, young day9 used to play piano before encountering starcraft
for other genres, its' like getting hard combos in fighting games and the next step is being able to counter hit off reaction AND do the combo on counter hit. I would say SC equivalent is when you can harass and macro at the same time.
it's like getting tetris brain. you hit that transcendent state where you just intuitively pick up on the rhythm of the game and it is so rewarding. you can get it in SC2 but I think it's less pronounced because the game does a lot more of the heavy lifting for you.
WOW!!! You just cleared up YEARS of confusion for me. I have watched you play, along with others, and I could NEVER understand all back and forth on the screen. (Never played, and watching a top player with no context was really messing with my head.)
I think the control limitations work in favor of game's balancing to a great deal. You can never send your entire army with a single click to a location as a death ball, you have to manage your units in smaller groups which incentivizes skirmishes spread around the map instead of one giant anticlimactic battle in the middle.
this and a few other reasons, such as how units don't stack as closely as in sc2/other RTS games
Sc2 with a max group of 24 would be lit
@@andrewferguson6901 *cries in zerglings*
@@andrewferguson6901 Since SC2 first came out I always thought the next RTS they make should have a unit cap of 20 units (since base 10 is easier for us to think about) but 24 is also fine. I think being able to select multiple buildings like in WC3 is also an improvement. I actually think Brood War with WC3 control scheme (multiple building selection, subgroups within the unit group, multiple building management etc) would be peak.
i think it's fine to have unlimited unit selection, you just need to be aware of what mechanic you've lost, and add it in through something else, to reduce that 1 click A-move efficiency.
Some possible solutions off the top of my head: Larger unit collision sizes, so balls of units have trouble shooting ahead if they're in the back. Units hate touching each other, and run away whenever they do so, reducing moving efficiency. Units having worse range, damage, or rate of fire if behind units. Long damage point after moving, so attacking units always shoot second. Etc etc.
SC2's issue in my eyes was that they broadly made units to be smarter across the board. instead micro became more about reducing the damage you took from enemy action. While this kinda evens out at the top level, low level players experience terrible damage from not having enough spare attention. They've turned one mechanic that made attacking hard, into one that made not dying hard.
As someone who has being playing RTS games since i could hold on to a mouse and a keyboard, I still struggle a lot with Brood War. It's a beast of its own and even doing the most basic shit requires so much expertise. No matter how good you think you might be at RTS , Brood War will humble you....
Try Warcraft 2. Hell, find a WC 1 demo. I don't recommend buying WC1. It's unplayable for me. Control groups of 4.
it's like "if you think you are good at driving try to ride a wild boar, it will humble you".
No. Bw is just an old ass game inheritly broken. The only reason why people play it today is a baby duck syndrome, it's absolutely atrocious from any standpoint, controls are crappy, unit AI is absolutely broken, and the worst thing it's actually badly balanced, be it between races (aka 50% of ladder is protoss because it's stronger at low levels but top is flooded with terran) or within one race (because for every race there are ton of units that are built once/decade). Ofc playing this garbage in 2024 will humble you because it's really not smth that what you are used to do and not even smth good.
@user-mt2jm7vy6i Highly subjective. The impossible to reach skill ceiling is what makes the game so entertaining both to play and to watch. On top of that, it's so well balanced that you see new strategies being developed almost every 6 months.
SC2 is so easy that I was able to reach Diamond during Wings of Liberty with absolutely no competitive RTS experience. It's why they had to add so many micro intensive units in later expansions; everything else was just to simple.
But yeah, subjective.
@@МихаилЧалый-щ3ж It's actually very well balanced. I wouldn't call it broken either. Games back then were pretty limited on what they could do, so it's more that experienced players knew how to get the most out of the system.
Unit AI isn't broken, it's just not very good. There's a difference.
SC2 pathing is dramatically better (funny what over a decade of development can do to videogame technology), but it removes body blocking because everything moves around like a greased eel. The big consequence is you've removed something you can do in the game to make smaller army size engagements interesting.
So boring was SC2 early game, they added 8 more workers to power you entirely through that phase of the game.
I could listen to Day 9 talk about Starcraft for 10 hours straight. It's so satisfying he's such a good teacher.
I will ALWAYS appreciate the teaching ways of day9. I wish I had Teachers like this is highschool who were on point with communications skills like him.
There are plenty of good teachers, but theres too little time, too much stuff, and too many students, most of which aren't interested.
Seeing units autonomously correct their path when I make a mistake frustrates me more than them getting stuck. When qol denies me the consequences of my actions it feels like I'm the little bro with the unplugged controller.
See, you call it "the consequences of your actions", I call it "the pathfinding ai being so astoundingly stupid you'd swear it was deliberately fucking with you." It's like MtG having mana cards as a mechanic. Yes, it adds an extra dimension of depth and strategy to the game. There's also a *really good goddamn reason* that literally every other TCG in existence doesn't mess with that nonsense. You can get away with it when you're first out the gate, and in no other scenario.
day9 was always so knowledgeable about starcraft, refreshing to see. Missed day9+starcraft
What the actual hell... Day9 posting BW videos again? Needed to double check. What a great time to be alive!
It's his Blizzard month after Bobby Kotick left the company. He has only been talking about it for about 5 months.
I only just tuned back in as well, haven't been watching much Day9 lately because the content's been boring.
Getting in that flow state is an awesome feeling! Especially with something that's quite complicated.
Why do I love it so much when Day talks about Broodwar?
I think you really hit the proverbial nail on the head with the rhythm comparison. I do latin social dancing a lot, and the reason it feels good is exactly how you described getting in the sync with the game (in dancing it's not just about the base rhythm like 1-2-3-4, but when you catch specific accents in the song to translate into movements... soo satisfying)
SK Terran is cha cha, mech is bolero
I get the same feeling from playing piano, but you can get it even a step higher: if you know a piece REALLY well, then you can make slight variations in your play. These variations are REALLY satisfying. I guess an equivalent in SC would be to focus just a fraction of a second longer on micro in some macro cycles.
Yes this perfectly describes why I loved playing this game. Once I figured out how to control the units well enough, playing the game became more second nature and it was so enjoyable
When your worker gets stuck on other workers when issued a build command is the worst, the turret timing when mutas coming on particular
Brood war is the just best esport.
100% agree.
This is why the game is so legendary.
STARCRAFT, AND STARCRAFT:BROOD WAR FOREVER. EN TARO TASSADAR!
Blizzard - "Let's release half finished game with half-assed mechanics command and conquer did a lot better 2 years ago"
People - "Omg best game ever!"
@@Igor369 it's unreal.
En taro Adun!
I never thought of it as rhythm like that, amazing.
Day9 confirming this game is the greatest game ever made.
Really? I just see someone with Stockholm Syndrome :D
I wouldn't say it's the gratest ever made, increadibly important as it defined how a modern RTS should look like, and it's super fun to play for people who invest thousands of hours fighting the torturous mechanics, SC2 perfected the RTS mechanics imo, no other RTS can even come close to the responsiveness and speed of SC2, so no, SC1 historically incredibly important, but not even close to objectivly being the best RTS with all it's flaws
@@MerolLord Starcraft: Broodwar is by far the best game of all time. The units, the balance, the match-ups the gameplay is leaps ahead of anything else.
@@MerolLordthey are both great games and both allow for insane deep level strategies and awesome game play, even for just spectators to watch in awe as high level players push the limits of what can be done. BW is so complex and there are several wall/sealing levels that are almost impossible to break. SC2 is just so fast and at higher levels require insane amount of skill and APM, while builds are so complex. But BW is still the better game just in my opinion just for the fact it’s a 25 year old game with no new patches and somehow has managed to get fairly balanced races 25 years later. I think that the same can happen with SC2 but it all depends on the developer to find the right balance patch… kind of feel like it has changed a lot for each patch. As long as good players keep playing and we also keep watching, it won’t stop getting better.
@@MerolLordthey're both good gameplay wise but Brood War is the much better game cause the story is actually good.
Love you Day9 started starcraft broodwar back 12 years ago now in 2012 from a classmate and dear friends suggestion.
Brood War also has the dubious honour of having the scout in the game
It's definitely one of the units of all time. That being said, though, Mini did win that ASL a few years ago using Scouts in the BO7 against Rush, so maybe he just needs to pull them out more often as his good luck charm.
tbh the unit itself isn't bad, it's the fact that the cost is way too high. If you significantly reduced the cost it would be used legitimately
Supposedly, the scout used to be great. An early balance patch ruined it. If you read the Prima guide, it was even written when it was still good.
@@EB-bl6ccI highly suspect that the high price was the balance update they did. Supposedly, they used to be insane.
Scouts counters BCs really hard. So Terran never build BCs against Protoss.
And thus, the Scout is never built.
Starcraft 1 is that old manual transmission car that you have to know all of the quirks for to drive well. To get into third you have to kinda hold the clutch halfway. The steering is tight when you're going down a hill, but otherwise it feels loose. It took a while to learn to drive it, and it's difficult to keep it on the road sometimes, but it's also the funnest thing you've ever driven.
The unit pathfinding made me think about Day 9's Let's Learn Starcraft video of Best vs Light when Best made a massive attack sending all of his zealots across a relatively narrow bridge on Fighting Spirit. It was just SO IMPRESSIVE just to see him do something like moving a mass of units down a narrow choke. Because if he mismicro'd at all, they'd get stuck at the bridge and all of shit would die from siege tanks.
"Notice how I am not spamming the button"
Artosis has left the chat.
OSRS has a very similar "systems-level vibe" with its high level gameplay for practically identical reasons. Something lost through quality of life improvements is "jank", and often times that jank is adding complexity to the game that feels good for players to master. Actually, the clicking of the barracks is identical to the gear switching mechanics in OSRS. You can't just swap out entire sets at once, you have to click 6+ different pieces of gear to swap them, and the game updates every 0.6 seconds, so high performing players will practice a "one tick switch", the ability to have all of your gear swapped within one 0.6 second update cycle or game tick. Identical mouse movement techniques, zig-zag patterns, fast clicks where accuracy is super important. And these kinds of systems really do make the game feel better when you're playing at a high level.
I can totally see a Brood War veteran switching to SC2 and feeling like half of the game is lost as it's effectively playing itself. A lot of the APM skill tech is automated, and a huge branch of what makes a good starcraft player just gets deleted for the sake of quality of life. Great for new players, or players with more modern sensibilities, but undoubtably rough on the players who dedicated themselves to mastering jank.
Day9 posting about brood war.. I love it. I could listen to you talk about brood war all day.
I find the lack of quality of life mechanics in brood war to be the exact reason it’s a great game. I’ve never been able to enjoy new RTS because they’re too “easy”.
@Day9 did you mean to make your countdown of 3-2-1 as clean as possible to the beat drop at 3:45 as possible? That timing was impeccable.
God I've missed Temple so much. Do not forget about the magic boxes that Brood War had (a hint, 4 spellcasters doing the cast with 1 click).
you need to approach playing games like playing musical instruments. You add and learn the correct (and optimized) gestures for every action u need to do in the game, and build your muscle memory like this. Recommend Hawk's F to S, pretty nice series
The music of sc broodwar is permanently burned into my mind
I’ve personally tried to get into brood war lately, but I end up doing more SC 2 games because the QoL is way better. Mainly the buildings and control groups. Also the production automatic gathering. It’s quite hard to get yourself to do all that clicking fast enough in comparison. I don’t even switch screens in SC2 while doing all my base adjustments. In BW I just get lost everywhere in the screen. Also apparently cuz I try to play offline, I often trigger a weird thing where the games get the screen tinted on darker colors until you can’t play anymore
Thing is, everything he talks about is why you should start with SC/BW.
It teaches you where attention might have to go, and then when you move to SC2, you get a whole pile of brainpower freed up.
The fundamentals are about the same but the amount of attention you have to spend on essentials drops off substantially. It's a mental sigh of relief and appreciation for the advancements in game design.
Any chance we will get TvZ star craft 2 replays? Favorite match up to see
I've not followed competitive SC BW at all, but with the few games that you covered showing the APM is typically 400+ is all I need to know, especially that ZvZ matchup you showed
How tf are humans capable of that, it's not like input spam that SC2 typically has, it's actually affecting the outcome with most of those actions
2:07 holy shit that was so fast
Yeah seriously how does he do that so fast
The question I'm more interested in is if the new generations of RTS games will be able to find ways to generate the same kind of satisfaction from hard earned skills without having them emerge from incredibly obnoxious lack of QoL features, or worse, mundane busy work added purely to make it more difficult.
New RTS games don't even try. They just automate more and more of the game away. I don't think we're going to get another great RTS.
No one wants to make a game where you need to invest thousands of hours fighting against torturous mechanics to be able to even start enjoying the game, that alone will turn most people off and will be a commercial failure, most people who still play SC1 do because they fell in love with the game in a time where QoL was not a thing in most games, and while being young with tons of time to invest in the game
@@MerolLord I started with SC2 and now enjoy Brood War way more. Probably far from the normal experience though; but it is possible.
I do believe its possible, on the unit side at least. You just need everything to function at a basic level for new players, but add in things you can do that increases their efficiency. Like, maybe units in bigger groups shoot and move slower, so while you can just A move and get something out of it, you can also stare at them and divide them up into squads to fight faster. Or have firing angles where they respond faster if they're looking at their target.
I’m gonna like and comment now for the algo and come back later, day9 is a goldmine for broodwar likers such as myself
This is such a great explanation of why older games were great. They had many limitations or even "bad" features by today's standards, but the feeling of beating them, and then falling into those rhythms naturally, to the point the limitations no longer effect you FELT GOOD. Things were only as bad as the solution you could find for them, and that ability separated players skill level. Once you were firing on all cylinders, it feels like driving an old classic sports car.
My solution to the pathing was having each unit follow the one in front of it and daisy chaining them all together, that's also how I got around small control groups xD
Brood War music is on another level. This terran theme hit me RIGHT in the feels
Day9 is THE best person to talk about RTS ever, I have improved so much on all the RTS I played after watching some of his videos about broodwar, even though I never played SC in my life 😂
Play brood war so you can get crushed by Nyoken in a casual game circa 2004
This is not enough Brood War content...
I need more 1 hour ramble videos!
What i loved in SCBW was that attention thing, but what you didn't mention is how its a part of decision making on what you give your attention for.
You have 2 vultures running around zerglings killing them. Is it better to focus on that or make sure your macro doesnt slip?
During combat is it better to focus your marines spreading around not getting murdered by lurkers or is it better to focus on science vessels so they get their key spells and escape from scourges?
You can either do both poorly or choose one thing and do it excellently. Even the best cant do both without missing a beat but it looks like that as their decision making is so good. Especially on the older days we used to have macro players such as oov and microplayers such as boxer. These days everyone is a bit macro heavy.
Yeah but if you get used to sc1 you can play afterwards every rts you want. Starting from the most difficult one gonna help someone develop essential rts skills like macro micro apm etc
Woah... I haven't seen Day9 in ages. Seeing him getting old gives me perspective about myself.
This video is explains it so well why I like brood war/starcraft 1 of StarCraft 2.
Man how does he click all the barracks so fast at 4:16...
I’m a simple gamer, I see that a new Day9 video, I see that it’s a StarCraft video. I watch and like
Man brings back memories of me watching the Dailys to learn the game and beat my friends and brother 😂
I think it was Artosis who made an interesting point about the "rigidity" or of Brood War which is that it sorta adds a unique almost organic element to the game. SC2 made things a lot more user friendly, but maybe there is a point where you want it a little wonky and chaotic. The pathing can be frustrating but adds a layer of depth, units getting trapped or confused in a chaotic situation, as opposed to the robotic precision of units in SC2 that move with ultra fluidity which is very reliable/predictable. Combined with the limited number of units you can select there is a certain charm to commanding units in battle in SC1 that SC2 doesn't quite capture.
That would be Age of Empire 4. I did not enjoy AoE 4.
The killer music in the background from the game itself helps too
Never thought of an RTS giving rhythm games feels, makes sense though!
Ill never get tired of hearing Day9 explain things.
Thanks , you just convinced me to buy it all over again and replay all the campaigns. The nostalgic bug has hit hard.
I wonder if Day9 will do SC content with his brother and Artosis? That would be amazing
the only thing that kept me from playing sc1 for real was the wayfinding and units don't move out of the way for other units....
it will sure make you rip your hair out how horrendous this feels while playing
it's a nightmare, not too mention ofc, the 12 units at once limit
"A lot closer than I thought it would be" gets it even closer the 2nd time... Chad.
The rhythm part reminds me of why I like hunter in classic wow.
Only class that I think have a rhythm to it with both timing autos and moving and also timing the rotation with autos and moving.
And if you are really good you can also start melee weaveing into that.
Just like Brood War, Hunter feels very clunky when you are not used to it but when you learn the rhythm it feels very good.
Play 1v1 ladder on Broodwar and then you'll enjoy watching ASL for years to come! LOL
can confirm
Trying to play sc1 earlier this year after playing sc2 since release was ROUGH. I still got through the campaign but i wanted to die at times.
Something that has helped me in broodwar and sc2 is a new mouse. I got a mouse with 12 customizable side buttons. One row I made into F2, F3, F4 for easy access to my camera hotkeys. Another row is 7,8,9, and 0. This is the biggest quality of life. Not only does it let me access control groups on the other side of keyboard with my thumb, but I also use it as an organization tool. I'll used the numbers on my keyboard for general army control groups, while using the ones on my mouse for special ones such as seige tanks/lurkers that I need to constantly redeploy, muta harassment groups that I want to mirco separately from the rest of my army, spellcasters, comsat stations. Basically anything that doesn't just use an A move
Thats pretty good but i heard thats its forbidden in competition cause its concidered as a macro
@Kurapikaxx lol I think you might be right but I'm a llllooooonnnnnggggg ways away from being in an tournaments
I did not watch Day9 for 10 years and now he's suddenly 10 years older omg
RTSs have improved quite a lot from when I started playing as a kid. Old Battle Realms, Command and Conquer, and Starcraft are frustrating to play when you've gotten used to the level of control you get in newer games.
Selection of 12 units at once was quite an improvement in 1997. In warcraft 2 you could only select 9.
Command & Conquer had no limit though.
Long live day9! LONG LIVE THE STARCRAFT KING!
I actually prefer the pathing in brood war over sc2. It's annoying but it's better than death ball. More strategic. Like you said....once you learn how to do everything and you start flying through the various macros needed to pump out troops/econ/move army its so fun.
jesus, how does he still have barracks timing that sharp after being away for so long
No new players, it's only us now.
This is nearly the perfect game. The only thing that irritates is Dragoon pathing , it's actually so funny
Just watch ASL season 17 of yesterday, round of 4. Snow vs Soulkey. Game 3. This is art.
My absolute favorite thing used to be watching Flash play FPV
I love the DDR reference. 2 of my favorite games in one video! (I may not have p90x like Day9, but I lose my weight with DDR :p )
Has Day9 been off the grid for a while or did I just find him again? He’s THE most entertaining Esports personality imo.
If nothing else you should play it for the banger sound track
When SC remaster has been announced, I hoped I'd be SC1 with SC2 interface improvements, but ended up being only a 4K upscale :(
I'm one of those people who are driven insane by the old UI :/
Hugo Martin talked about how the design of Doom and Doom Eternal were built not around the avoidance of pain and frustration, but around level of engagement. Starcraft Broodwar demands constant engagement, which is probably why it's so infuriating but addictive.
Replaying it now I remember playing it as a kid with my dad. Don't even know how to set group commands lol
THANK YOU!!!!!! There are so many people who were kids when BW dropped that refuse to accept that SC2 is substantially better in terms of of gameplay experience. People nowadays want units to go where they are told to go. Having to click the bottom of a ramp 40191993847 times to get 12 dragoons to finally walk down it doesn’t make the game “better because it’s harder.” It makes the game annoying.
Can we have a day9 daily rant playlist? A day9 rant a day makes the doctor go away......
As someone who grew up playing brood war, sc2 was a godsend.
Day9 might've just explained why my favorite games are rhythm games like Osu, DDR, and Guitar Hero, but the games I've put the most hours into are WC2, WC3, SC1, and SC2.
the movement stuff in sc1 is a nightmare. I bought remastered and went to play it and it all hurt so much, jesus.
LEG ENHANCEMENTS VS CHARGE
Also those many obnoxious things increase the skill gap - you have more opportunities what to do better than your opponent, giving you leverage over them.
I prefer BroodWar because it presents more realistic challenge for management. The more buildings and units you have, the harder to manage. Thus every player has different sweet spot for their balance between micro and macro with their (ridiculously high) limited actions per minute, introducing to playstyle differences.
Attention as a resource is critical to all games, but it is exemplified here. Brood War could be the greatest example of ways in which games utilize attention as a resource, or better yet serve as an example as to how other games could prioritize attention as a resource.
I am looking Forward to Day9 wading into Overwatch 2 and WarCraft 1 or 2 campaign for Blizzard month.