Me, my dad and my uncle were watching the game this afternoon. Yes, it was football, I’m Brazilian and you are a psychic. 12 minutes into the second half our team was behind 1-0 and playing really poorly, the three of us were raging at the coach:
“Is he blind or what?”
“Just take that numbnut off the game already”
“Put Roger in, he’s better then all these maggots”
6 minutes later, another mistake and the opposing team scores again, but thankfully, their striker was in an offside position. More rage, but this time, mixed with relief. At this point we were 100% sure any 8 year old could be a better coach and have the cojones to do the substitutions.
This is when Starcraft 2 crossed my mind, today I was not only the best coach, but the best developer the game could ever have. “How can everyone else be so stupid? It’s either my way or do it the wrong way:
Three simple steps:
1) Let queens prematurely hatch the unit with the HP% based on the progression for 25 energy and sac one defender for an extra striker.
2) Let roach warren be built without the pool and let those fullbacks play was wingbacks.
3) Another spell for the corruptor that while channeling the target it won’t be able to attack or cast until it moves 14 range away from the caster and PUT ROGER IN”
Finally the trainer decided to act, made 3 totally unexpected changes within 5 minutes. That was it, last straw, we are doomed, it’s over!
Guess what? We scored, not once, TWICE.
I’m not completely clueless when it comes to football as this blog might suggest, I just have trouble with the language. I play, study and watch the sport daily, and I do it for at least 12 years now. What the coach did today was very bold and intelligent, seems obvious now, but brilliant.
Even though we spend a lot time playing starcraft, how many of us are developers? We have great ideas and some at the very high levels have the solutions, but can we fix it? People say Brazil has 190 million coaches and I will say Starcraft 2 has over 1.5m developers.
It’s fun to take the lead, we all like puzzles, we like the reward for finding the solution. All these “balance/whine” threads now seem natural to me, we just want to fix it, to use our brain wrenches. Hell, isn’t that what most of us do for living? Solve problems?
I will bash on the trainer every day until I die, can’t help it, I love the team too much to be reasonable. However, from now on, I will try to be more respectful about it, turns out, there can be 2 or 100 right answers, and if we happen to make a wrong turn, we try again.
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On August 16 2010 09:08 xMiragex wrote:
Agreed with the football part. The SC part? not so much.
I disagree. It is 100% true for soccer (yes, I did) and it is 100% true for StarCraft. We think WE know the answer to everything. We think WE would be able to do better. Unfortunately, developing a blockbuster balanced to perfection is something that many of us do not have the experience. Honestly, to think that we are somehow better than the hardworking people at Blizzard is arrogant and disrespectful.
It seems easy enough. Terran is OP. Make a patch. Bam. Unfortunately, many people who think this way often miss the details. What do we do to make the game balanced? Well, forumite #1 wants to do x and forumite #2 wants to do y. Forget about forumite #3 to #1 million, there is already enough conflict. Now there are tons and tons of ideas, some arrived through intellect, others through lesser means, none through experience. Balancing a game isn't a skill or an art, it is nothing but pure luck. Some people are saying x, do I patch it into y or wait until a new way of playing develops? Then, either I patch it and now everyone opposed to x is complaining, or I don't and everyone who wants x starts complaining. I guarantee you, if Blizzard ever buffs Zerg/nerf Terran like how everyone else wants them to, there will always be a seemingly large group of people out there who raises a storm. Some of them will be the exact same people who wanted the buff/nerf, but decided to hate it because they saw no benefit.
So lets say (because this probably won't happen) that there is enough support for forumite's proposed change. They do it. Bam, all of the sudden Zerg is now OP or still underpowered. Now everyone is pissed again. And so it continues for many many years until the imbalances are minute enough and the game is popular enough to make the imbalances forgettable.
I'm not arguing whether or not Terran/Zerg/Protoss needs a buff/nerf, I'm just trying to say that people need to calm down. The ride to a balanced game is going to be long and arduous. Being loud and obnoxious about the journey is going to do absolutely nothing. I guarantee you once the patch is finally implemented, very few people will be happy. The rest of the people will either think the patch went too far or too short.
One think I would like to see more people do is to put their money where their mouth is, and put the changes in themselves. Oh, you want Roaches to not require a pool? Their is an editor for that. You want something done? Do it themselves. The pros are switching races, what are you doing? Me? I'm just a talking idiot, don't mind me.
And please don't think I'm trying to offend anyone or try to make myself out to be better. I'm just trying to make clearer the different paths and possible paths that could be taken at this point.
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EPT
