For example, as a player doing larva inject, it’s somewhat difficult for me to tell how well I’m doing in a given game. Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either. Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it, we’ve been exploring potentially cutting them or making them less important.

I don't think viewers being unable to tell a difference in esports matches has much to do with macro mechanics lacking clarity or being difficult to understand/perform.

Macro mechanics are designed at an intensity level where they're basically too difficult for 99% of the player base to pull off optimally (there's a lot more than just macro mechanics to tend for in SC2). Anybody below GM will slip up a lot or occasionally when under pressure. However, I'd argue for the top 1% macro mechanics are rather manageable in the sense that these players will not deviate very significantly from optimal play. And if you go even further and look at progamers: these are people with insane mechanics who practice and drill this stuff to the point where they rarely screw up even under intense pressure.

In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either.

Could a casual viewer easily tell that Flash was better at building workers and individually sending them to mine at every expansion in Brood War? Or that he was better and more efficient at cycling through factories and barracks while producing units?

They couldn't but the effects would become evident over time, as Flash would somehow always be able to churn out a shitload more stuff than his Terran peers. It became a part of his identity as a player. God, Ultimate Weapon, a macro machine with a bionic arm.

Early in SC2's history we had a couple players known for their macro in a similar fashion. Bomber's marines and orbitals. Nestea's overdroning macro. Idra's identity early on was based on his "BW macro". Ret's droneception. Rain's macro (later and more of a stylistic choice)? Casters during this period payed more attention to macro mechanics and emphasized them much more when casting, as the game was still relatively young and differences in performance would produce noticeable differences in the amount of units players were able to churn out.

Look at casts from 2010 and early 2011, and you'll notice the casters during that period were talking about macro mechanics, queen energy, orbital energy and chrono boosts much much more than they are today. Today you'll barely even hear a mention of queen energy or orbital energy in the context of macro. How is it a relevant thing to talk about or a relevant differentiator when every korean progamer performs at least 95% (statistic pulled out of thin air) of optimal macro play under any situation they're put under?

If one player manages to outproduce another in professional play today it's not going to be because of macro mechanics being too hard; it's pretty much always going to be because one of them killed their opponent's workers, or forced them to overcommit on producing units, or because the game in general is so hectically paced that they're forced to make a lot of decisions on imperfect or incomplete information.

I obviously don't know the exact nature of the feedback Blizzard received from Koreans when the Koreans said "LotV is too hard". I could be completely bullshitting here, but I can imagine they meant "hard" more in the sense "it's super frantically paced". In the sense that Blizzard has upped the pace of action so much that they get the feeling of gameplay being balanced on a razor thin edge, where they're not really comfortable having to make more "important game deciding decisions" in a shorter amount of time and on more incomplete information.

Somehow I doubt the koreans would say macro mechanics are "too hard" if asked directly, though I really don't know for sure. I wonder what they specifically thought was "too hard" when supplying this feedback.

Macroing is a repetitive rhythmic task for these players. I get the feeling they wouldn't be referring specifically to repetitive, rhythmic, ordered tasks such as building buildings, workers and macro mechanics as being the thing that puts LotV over the edge when compared to HotS.

Did LotV add any difficulty in that department at all?

LotV just upped the general pace of the game, and along with it the general pace at which you have to make crucial strategical and tactical decisions. Macro mechanics can't really be said to fit in under the "crucial decision making" branch. Macro mechanics are just actions that have to be performed, but that can be performed without much conscious thought. Either you nail them, or you don't. If you don't peform them, then sure, it's going to be noticeable. The problem for you Blizzard is that every progamer performs them to a degree where they're more or less irrelevant as a skill differentiator and have been so for the last 2-3 years.

Reading over this post I realize I've described macro actions in general as a form of meaningless mechanical tasks and as easy decisions. That's a surefire way to convince a game designer they're important to keep in Starcraft...

SC1 was a game where the attention placed on macro versus micro really made a large and noticeable difference. That became a part of the identity of Starcraft, and is the reason we even have macro mechanics in SC2. But despite that the balance between micro and macro actions did shift hugely in the direction of micro being more prominent and taking up the majority of a player's attention. Did it make Starcraft any easier to play? Nah, it still requires 300-400 apm just as WC3 did.

Progamers are gonna play at that speed in any competitive RTS game, because that is the limit of their physical ability. That's why I don't think removing macro mechanics has much relevance in making SC2 easier to play. It's just going to shift the balance even more in the direction of micro being the prime differentiator of skill.

So macro mechanics are suddenly removed. What happens? Professional players can now spend 20% more effort and attention on their attention on medivac harass, oracle harass, muta harass, on their army movements, on their army positioning in battles.

It just changes the nature of the game. And we all have different preferences as to what the nature of the game should be. As game designers they gotta be loving dem increases in meaningful actions though, whatever that really ends up translating to in practice.