CatZ · @ROOTCatZ
20th May 2017 from TwitLonger
On my current lack of motivation to play SC2 + Potential solutions
I love StarCraft, but lately I've lost motivation to play the game. A lot of my struggle stems from how stale the game feels to me + that I have little/nothing to wait for / look forward as far as gameplay/multiplayer is concerned.
I really wish SC2 adopted policies to keep the game fresh as time progresses, to me, the most interesting part of most games I play is figuring things out, creating consistent strategies and following through on logical thought patterns to find unique approaches and answers to the game, the competitive aspect is very important to me as well, not because I strive to be the best, I really don't, but more because I feel a greater sense of reward stress-testing these strategies at a competitive level, rather than stomping noobs or Ai with them, from which i'd get 0 sense of reward because ANY strategy would work under those circumstances.
StarCraft 2 and David Kim prior to leaving seem to have had, generally speaking, a design philosophy to strive towards and try to achieve "perfect" balance. I do not think this was a good approach, perfect balance is imo -unattainable- and I think "good enough" balance seems relatively easy to get given the stability of win rates throughout StarCraft history or even the blatantly bugged / broken Brood War has good balance in spite of many things being unintended. "Balance" is incredibly relative, but it's not only relative to cost or stats on units / buildings, it heavily fluctuates with thought and ideas and with the "current metagame which is much of just that (ideas/consensus of what is "good"). People figuring out counters to things and new strategies, it's rare that balance is dictated by 1 or 2 units, but whenever it is the case it should be relatively easy to adjust, like with the adept at LOTV release.
I was hopeful for David Kim's departure to open up for a change in these design philosophies and to adopt more successful ones, implementing change at a larger scale on a more regular basis, like Dota 2 or League of Legends do, and like we as a game have done on a few occasions, sadly, large change in our world seems to be reserved for new expansions and we've ran out of those, this kills my motivation as someone who likes exploring, creating and diversifying, it limits my abilities and skill-set and the more repetitive the game gets for me, the less fun I have, I am not a fan of iteration, bores the living crap out of me. I'm an explorer who's been walking around the same area for too long and can't seem to find anything new or exciting in it.
Just as a note, LOTV is my favorite iteration of SC2 thus far, the problem is I've played the game to death now, so I basically only get excited when there's a new map pool (this last one was cool / different, btw). I've struggled to renew my interest, in the past I did it by taking breaks, but I JUST took a 1 month break to get Legend in HS and shortly after being back I am already bored again.
I have a stream/subscribers and a team based around StarCraft, which don't get me wrong - is my favorite game and thus I feel a sense of duty to them and to myself to try and keep on keeping on, but this mentality has come to do more harm than good, I can't keep telling myself that I am enjoying something that I am not.
So what to do?
I have been very sad about even considering to stop playing SC2. I think I found an answer that at least for now satisfies me on most fronts. I'm switching race to either Terran or Protoss at least for a short while (maybe a month) and see how it goes from there / how I feel. The idea is that i'll be able to explore / form an understanding of either race / learn and create new strategies to satisfy my wants. I am relative to my Z level, bad at both races (Diamond) and as I am not keen on iteration, I never learned or thought much about being efficient in setting up hotkeys or learning mechanical patterns to aid my thought in taking shape in game until just yesterday when I played Terran. Well I had fun playing sc2 yesterday as T, and I think my rate of improvement will be fairly quick as my hands and head sync up on the subconsciously driven actions (muscle memory) that I for now have to pay close attention to. Strategy/ complex decisions will not be taking center stage in my play until I am a bit better. I'll still be playing other games I enjoy, and hell if // when I feel like playing Zerg I definitely will. This fix might be just a bandaid, I think Zerg is the race that suits me and my playstyle / approach best and the one that I'd enjoy most, but I'm willing to give it a shot while holding hope that something will change as far as design philosophies pertaining large change + renewing interest in multiplayer.
Anyhow, what do you guys think, should I (temporarily?) switch to Terran or Protoss?