Flicky Profile Blog Joined December 2008 England 2273 Posts Last Edited: 2010-08-15 16:41:35 #1

flicky gives a rather angry view at observing in this guide about not being terrible at this important feature of viewing Starcraft.



Back at a LAN in February, we were watching a Brood War grudge match: two of the UK’s best players pitted in a 1v1 while another is obsing the game for us as we watch on the bigger screen. Eyes glued to the game we see all the action, all the tech, everything. Someone suddenly said “Man, you’re really good at observing.” He’s right, everyone knows he is.



Like many of you, there are several things that bug me about current livestreams when it comes to casting and commentary. Finding commentators that don’t seem to know anything or are boring and uninterested in the game is annoying, however, I understand that being a commentator isn’t quite as easy as it looks so I occasionally give them the benefit of the doubt. Besides, it seems many of them are beyond help…



There is something else on these streams that is even worse. If a commentator is bad, I can just mute them and watch the game, no problem there. If the observing is terrible though, then what can I do? Either yell at my screen for them to check for a Fusion Core, or just give up and close the stream. There are a few casters that I don’t watch for the sole reason that their observing is terrible.



So what can be done? All I can think of is make a post that will teach you guys how to observe so that you can not only get the most out of your replays, but so that when you tune into a cast, you can actually see what’s going on.



Why is this important?

If you didn’t figure it out from above, it’s SO important. Missing something in a game is so detrimental to understanding a game. Could you imagine watching a Football game where the goalkeeper ran up field, but they ignored it. What would your reaction be if suddenly a player intercepted the ball and scored from 70 metres away?



Now think about this, Football is very simple, so let’s make it more complicated. How about watching some friends play chess, but ¼ of the board is completely ignored. How are you going to follow the game properly? You can’t. Bam, two mind-blowing analogies for you there.



So you know why it’s important. Have you watched a Korean Brood War game? Have you ever stopped and realised how good the observers are? They almost never miss a thing. On top of that, have you ever watched a Korean Brood War game where the casters are also in game observing? No you haven’t. It’s a hell of a lot easier to cast when someone else is working the observing for you. If you are a serious caster, I would suggest that you get someone to exclusively obs games for you. If they're listening to you, they can always pick up on what you're saying if you're wondering something.



The Basics

In my perfect world, there would a few things you must know before you’re even allowed to observe a game and they’re as follows:





Remember this bitches.



Hotkeys and Tabs: You want to see the income tab? Press I. You want to see production? D. You want to see Resources? Damn, what’s the hotkey? “No worries, I’ll just click the drop down box and select” HELL NO YOU WON’T. You think your viewers want to see you stop following the game so that you can open a green box that covers part of the screen then scroll down slowly because you’ve forgotten the alphabet until you get to Resources. Hell no we don’t. It’s dumb, stop it.



If you want to see a FP view, then press 1 or 2. The player on the left side of the loading screen will always be 1, the player on the right will always be 2. Did you forget this? Look down the list on the tabs. The first on the list is 1, the second is 2 and so on. Remember this. As for FP Camera, I wouldn't suggest that. Only use FP view to see what they can see, not to follow them. Do you ever get more game information from watching a player's FP view in a cast? Not really and it's a pain in the ass to follow it while watching through a stream.



Production: You know what the most important of the drop down box is? “Hey, let’s check his APM! Woah, he’s got 200!” Wow! I don’t give a crap! You’re going to put the tab on production at all times except perhaps for a few seconds to check something else, then back to production. Your other option is keeping it shut, but you better not miss anything. You think I care more about how close the income is, or what’s being built? It’s the latter by far. If you’re observing for a commentator who sucks, the Production tab is where I can look to fill in the gaps for you. My suggestion is, if you’re obsing for someone else and they say “let’s take a look at income” you leave them to do it on their machine and leave the production tab open for those who care. You’re allowed to look at resources in battles. Not army though, that’s just confusing. For the casters reading: "Wow, look at that income!". No, tell me what the income is. I didn't join the stream to have you tell me what to do.



How to find Lost units: “O Noes, where’s his banshee gone?!”. Any competent player will hotkey the units they’re harassing with. If you can’t work the minimap, click one of his units, look along the hotkey list on the UI, double click the group with the harassing unit on it and bam, you’re looking at it. Go you.



Health Bars

I don't like these being on while watching. I'd rather watch marines fighting zerglings than bars decreasing. If I wanted that, I'd play WoW (am I right?). If you want to see how alive units are, select them. It's really not that important to know how quickly the bars are decreasing. I can tell how fast something dies when I can see that it's exploded into blood.





This is just a small fight and the bars are in the way. You know what it looks like with lings attacking?



Be a Referee: I don’t care what the other dumb observers are saying and I don’t want to see their dumb pings. Be a referee and rise above that mess. It’s usually something dumb about how lame Ravens are or how gay someone is. While we're at it, set yourself to DND or Offline or something. I don't care what your fans want to tell you. It's usually dumb anyway.



Watch the minimap: The minimap is where most of your attention should be. I suggest your focus should be 70% minimap, 10% tabs, 20% actual screen. If there’s a key fight on, follow it, if there’s two zerglings hitting probes, we know how this will end, go back to looking at the minimap. If you see a new Blue Square show up, click on it, show everyone. If you see a moving red dot, go look at it. If you see a bunch of units standing around doing nothing on your screen, that’s it, we don’t care anymore. Move away so your caster doesn’t make some rubbish joke like “OH HEY I GUESS THOSE MARAUDERS R JUST CHILLING OUT LOL.”



Use the main Box

If lings are hitting rocks, select the rocks. Look! There's a countdown for when the rocks will die right there! So smart. Something being built? Do the same. Something else needs clicking? Click it. Just don't forget about the rocks. If a fight is almost over and you can work out who the victor will be, select his remaining units so we can see the extent of the damage he takes before winning. In the mean time, look at bases or production, then move back to see what the next step of the attack is.





OMG WHAT THIS, LET’S ZOOM IN AND IGNORE GAME. LET'S HIGHLIGHT IT TOO



Zooming in and out, rotating etc

Don't do this. Really. I'll give you one occasion when you're allowed to do it. If there are units behind something and their position is super important or something important is happening and rotating will help you see them, then do it. If there's a cute critter and you zoom in, you're terrible at observing. No-one cares about the critter to the extent that they need to see it that close, especially when there's important stuff going on. The same thing with armies. As for zooming in on battles? Oh that's a great idea, oh wait, one player is microing. Shame we can't see it but boy does this marine look cool up close! RATTTATATATATATAT. Restricting your field of vision is dumb while playing and it's dumb while observing.



Camera Movement

There are several ways to move the camera. You can click the mini map to instantly move to an area of the map. You can slide the mouse to the sides of the screen for a jerky and fast pan. You can use the keyboard for a smoother, more accurate pan. You can use the middle mouse button for a smooth, but limited pan or you can follow a moving unit by clicking on the portrait and holding down to follow it. Remember this also centres on the unit. NEVER EVER pan back to the base or to a unit that is far away. Click the map anything you want to go look at a base or group of units. Only Pan if you're following something moving or trying to show off h.o.w.f.a.r.a.w.a.y something is. As for following units and fights, I'll leave that up to you.



Getting tricky now...

I'm going to be honest, this is only under another header because some of you might have trouble following the previous basic advice. If that's the case, give up here:



Timing

This is tougher, because it requires you to actually be decent at the game. As a good observer, you should know where to look and when. If you know the build's timings, you can go back to the base at the right time. This will help clarify your theory and help establish what is going on. It will also help you understand when the action will start. If something is late, keep checking up on it. This not only helps the viewers work out the build, but also makes it clear how unusual this build is. Even the most mediocre caster will be able to figure out that the Lair is late if you keep looking at it.



Mouse Movements

This isn't necessarily complex, but it's more something to keep in mind. Keep your mouse smooth and slow. Use drag boxes sparingly and only to explicitly show space on something. Don't rapidly circle a unit or anything. If you want to draw attention to something, a simple, slow 360 rotation will do. I don't need to watch a mouse flip out all over the screen because he's made an error. If an upgrade is missing, do the same. Clicking upgrades "for" a player is ok I suppose. I've also seen people try and spam APM while obsing. No. Just no. Keep it simple an slow if you're using the mouse. I don't want to have to dart my eyes around the screen to follow it.



Watching Fights

This is something you'll have to figure out: How much of a fight should you watch? This is hard to say. You could easily watch a whole fight, but is it that important? Not always. If the fight will decide the game, you might want watch it all. If you're sure it will be a short skirmish, you can watch all of it to help give an idea of how the defence/offence balance is working. If it's a long fight and you see something important going on, elsewhere, go look at that too. I've lost count of the times I've seen someone stare at a huge fight then as the fight is over go back to a player's base to find out there was a drop that destroyed everything. Continue to watch the mini-map as much as possible. Looking at the base or incoming reinforcements can help immensely when trying to show who is favoured in a fight.





Well that's all I got for now, but you can be sure I'll be right back here next time I see dumb observing:



Credits: I'd like to thank all the shitty casters and observers that helped me write this article. Your inspiration is unintended but oh so powerful. Also thanks to that newspaper for being called the observer.





Next step, go pro Back at a LAN in February, we were watching a Brood War grudge match: two of the UK’s best players pitted in a 1v1 while another is obsing the game for us as we watch on the bigger screen. Eyes glued to the game we see all the action, all the tech, everything. Someone suddenly said “Man, you’re really good at observing.” He’s right, everyone knows he is.Like many of you, there are several things that bug me about current livestreams when it comes to casting and commentary. Finding commentators that don’t seem to know anything or are boring and uninterested in the game is annoying, however, I understand that being a commentator isn’t quite as easy as it looks so I occasionally give them the benefit of the doubt. Besides, it seems many of them are beyond help…There is something else on these streams that is even worse. If a commentator is bad, I can just mute them and watch the game, no problem there. If the observing is terrible though, then what can I do? Either yell at my screen for them to check for a Fusion Core, or just give up and close the stream. There are a few casters that I don’t watch for the sole reason that their observing is terrible.So what can be done? All I can think of is make a post that will teach you guys how to observe so that you can not only get the most out of your replays, but so that when you tune into a cast, you can actually see what’s going on.If you didn’t figure it out from above, it’s SO important. Missing something in a game is so detrimental to understanding a game. Could you imagine watching a Football game where the goalkeeper ran up field, but they ignored it. What would your reaction be if suddenly a player intercepted the ball and scored from 70 metres away?Now think about this, Football is very simple, so let’s make it more complicated. How about watching some friends play chess, but ¼ of the board is completely ignored. How are you going to follow the game properly? You can’t. Bam, two mind-blowing analogies for you there.So you know why it’s important. Have you watched a Korean Brood War game? Have you ever stopped and realised how good the observers are? They almost never miss a thing. On top of that, have you ever watched a Korean Brood War game where the casters are also in game observing? No you haven’t. It’s a hell of a lot easier to cast when someone else is working the observing for you. If you are a serious caster, I would suggest that you get someone to exclusively obs games for you. If they're listening to you, they can always pick up on what you're saying if you're wondering something.In my perfect world, there would a few things you must know before you’re even allowed to observe a game and they’re as follows:: You want to see the income tab? Press I. You want to see production? D. You want to see Resources? Damn, what’s the hotkey? “No worries, I’ll just click the drop down box and select” HELL NO YOU WON’T. You think your viewers want to see you stop following the game so that you can open a green box that covers part of the screen then scroll down slowly because you’ve forgotten the alphabet until you get to Resources. Hell no we don’t. It’s dumb, stop it.If you want to see a FP view, then press 1 or 2. The player on the left side of the loading screen will always be 1, the player on the right will always be 2. Did you forget this? Look down the list on the tabs. The first on the list is 1, the second is 2 and so on. Remember this. As for FP Camera, I wouldn't suggest that. Only use FP view to see what they can see, not to follow them. Do you ever get more game information from watching a player's FP view in a cast? Not really and it's a pain in the ass to follow it while watching through a stream.: You know what the most important of the drop down box is? “Hey, let’s check his APM! Woah, he’s got 200!” Wow! I don’t give a crap! You’re going to put the tab on production at all times except perhaps for a few seconds to check something else, then back to production. Your other option is keeping it shut, but you better not miss anything. You think I care more about how close the income is, or what’s being built? It’s the latter by far. If you’re observing for a commentator who sucks, the Production tab is where I can look to fill in the gaps for you. My suggestion is, if you’re obsing for someone else and they say “let’s take a look at income” you leave them to do it on their machine and leave the production tab open for those who care. You’re allowed to look at resources in battles. Not army though, that’s just confusing. For the casters reading: "Wow, look at that income!". No, tell me what the income is. I didn't join the stream to have you tell me what to do.: “O Noes, where’s his banshee gone?!”. Any competent player will hotkey the units they’re harassing with. If you can’t work the minimap, click one of his units, look along the hotkey list on the UI, double click the group with the harassing unit on it and bam, you’re looking at it. Go you.I don't like these being on while watching. I'd rather watch marines fighting zerglings than bars decreasing. If I wanted that, I'd play WoW (am I right?). If you want to see how alive units are, select them. It's really not that important to know how quickly the bars are decreasing. I can tell how fast something dies when I can see that it's exploded into blood.: I don’t care what the other dumb observers are saying and I don’t want to see their dumb pings. Be a referee and rise above that mess. It’s usually something dumb about how lame Ravens are or how gay someone is. While we're at it, set yourself to DND or Offline or something. I don't care what your fans want to tell you. It's usually dumb anyway.: The minimap is where most of your attention should be. I suggest your focus should be 70% minimap, 10% tabs, 20% actual screen. If there’s a key fight on, follow it, if there’s two zerglings hitting probes, we know how this will end, go back to looking at the minimap. If you see a new Blue Square show up, click on it, show everyone. If you see a moving red dot, go look at it. If you see a bunch of units standing around doing nothing on your screen, that’s it, we don’t care anymore. Move away so your caster doesn’t make some rubbish joke like “OH HEY I GUESS THOSE MARAUDERS R JUST CHILLING OUT LOL.”If lings are hitting rocks, select the rocks. Look! There's a countdown for when the rocks will die right there! So smart. Something being built? Do the same. Something else needs clicking? Click it. Just don't forget about the rocks. If a fight is almost over and you can work out who the victor will be, select his remaining units so we can see the extent of the damage he takes before winning. In the mean time, look at bases or production, then move back to see what the next step of the attack is.Don't do this. Really. I'll give you one occasion when you're allowed to do it. If there are units behind something and their position is super important or something important is happening and rotating will help you see them, then do it. If there's a cute critter and you zoom in, you're terrible at observing. No-one cares about the critter to the extent that they need to see it that close, especially when there's important stuff going on. The same thing with armies. As for zooming in on battles? Oh that's a great idea, oh wait, one player is microing. Shame we can't see it but boy does this marine look cool up close! RATTTATATATATATAT. Restricting your field of vision is dumb while playing and it's dumb while observing.There are several ways to move the camera. You can click the mini map to instantly move to an area of the map. You can slide the mouse to the sides of the screen for a jerky and fast pan. You can use the keyboard for a smoother, more accurate pan. You can use the middle mouse button for a smooth, but limited pan or you can follow a moving unit by clicking on the portrait and holding down to follow it. Remember this also centres on the unit. NEVER EVER pan back to the base or to a unit that is far away. Click the map anything you want to go look at a base or group of units. Only Pan if you're following something moving or trying to show off h.o.w.f.a.r.a.w.a.y something is. As for following units and fights, I'll leave that up to you.I'm going to be honest, this is only under another header because some of you might have trouble following the previous basic advice. If that's the case, give up here:This is tougher, because it requires you to actually be decent at the game. As a good observer, you should know where to look and when. If you know the build's timings, you can go back to the base at the right time. This will help clarify your theory and help establish what is going on. It will also help you understand when the action will start. If something is late, keep checking up on it. This not only helps the viewers work out the build, but also makes it clear how unusual this build is. Even the most mediocre caster will be able to figure out that the Lair is late if you keep looking at it.This isn't necessarily complex, but it's more something to keep in mind. Keep your mouse smooth and slow. Use drag boxes sparingly and only to explicitly show space on something. Don't rapidly circle a unit or anything. If you want to draw attention to something, a simple, slow 360 rotation will do. I don't need to watch a mouse flip out all over the screen because he's made an error. If an upgrade is missing, do the same. Clicking upgrades "for" a player is ok I suppose. I've also seen people try and spam APM while obsing. No. Just no. Keep it simple an slow if you're using the mouse. I don't want to have to dart my eyes around the screen to follow it.This is something you'll have to figure out: How much of a fight should you watch? This is hard to say. You could easily watch a whole fight, but is it that important? Not always. If the fight will decide the game, you might want watch it all. If you're sure it will be a short skirmish, you can watch all of it to help give an idea of how the defence/offence balance is working. If it's a long fight and you see something important going on, elsewhere, go look at that too. I've lost count of the times I've seen someone stare at a huge fight then as the fight is over go back to a player's base to find out there was a drop that destroyed everything. Continue to watch the mini-map as much as possible. Looking at the base or incoming reinforcements can help immensely when trying to show who is favoured in a fight.Well that's all I got for now, but you can be sure I'll be right back here next time I see dumb observing:Credits: I'd like to thank all the shitty casters and observers that helped me write this article. Your inspiration is unintended but oh so powerful. Also thanks to that newspaper for being called the observer. Liquipedia "I was seriously looking for a black guy" - MrHoon