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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
It is also about diversity and choice. Removing options and limiting choice is the easiest way to achieve balance with respect to win rates, but this damages the game and makes it shallow. If armor and megahealth power-ups were removed from Quake 3, would it be simpler to build "balanced" maps? Probably it would, but the gameplay would lose a whole dimension.
Starcraft 2 balance team is headstrong and cowardly. They care too much about their cute win rate charts because that is what makes them look competent in the eyes of their superiors.
But even though the win rates in most of the match-ups are close to 50%, I would argue that the balance that they have achieved so far is bogus. Still, they are too afraid of losing it to try and make some fresh, creative balance decisions that would advance the game forward instead of limiting it further.
They have never managed to balance reapers, instead they virtually removed the unit altogether and called it balance. They couldn't find a way to fix barracks-first builds, so they have just thrown that option away. They have never managed to make neural parasite work, it was either too good or too bad, so they settled with the "too bad" version. They have simply removed the void ray speed upgrade because it was too strong, but now they have added a poorly thought-out phoenix upgrade.
They still don't know what to do with the thor's cannons ability. Right now thors only have energy to be able to get feedbacked. Is that really a proper balance decision? What about Raven's HSM? Why not try to make it work, or replace it with something better?
They have not even tried to make carriers useful. Instead, they are planning to just throw away one of the most recognizable and impressive units in Starcraft.
I just wish they stopped for a moment and thought really hard about what makes Starcraft Starcraft. Surely it is not just a nice "50%" figure.
 
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Balance is about only looking at winrates and stats that make whichever race you play look weakest. Or at least, thats what it means on TL.
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What Blizzard is doing to SC2 is like changing those 3 uneven broken bottles that Penn Jillette masterfully juggle into a pair of boring, lame, Oranges. I mean, look at BW, it's far from balanced yet it's actually balanced and 'why is that?'.
It's because of the players. Players balances the game. People with talent will form any piece of mud into a majestic art.
Let me give you a firm example.
Back then, Savior was The Resident Bonjwa, A zerg, who toppled any would-be protoss like they were some free punching bag in the Leagues. Bisu came and changed it all. Now, if you followed PL, you'll notice that most, if not all, zergs can't reach Hive-Tech to obtain cracklings and swarms. They resort to all-in builds like Hydra-busts and I don't think I've ever seen a game this season that the zerg won in a decent fashion, except for Jaedong. While the Protoss has been hammering down on zerg like they're Jesus Christ on the Cross.
Players balances the game.
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I agree with your points except the Ravens HSM. That shit got buffed and is very useful in TvT and TvZ. Right now the best way of dealing with late game zerg army seems to be thor viking seige tank HSM. Snipe should go back to what it was and reduced vs massive and take out the scroll wheel snipe.
But yeah I agree every unit should be viable, while making the game as balanced as possible. Wasting a unit as cool as the reaper sucks, blizzard sees it as a late game harass and leave unit such as the blink stalker. However, its a waste of supply and build time is too long. Terran also has better harassment options with medivac drops. Reaper would be a cool unit as an early game timing harass unit. Hit the front with marine hellion or something while microing some reapers in the back on a map like Antiga shipyard would be a cool/fun strat to play/watch. On the other hand BW had such units that weren't exactly viable either, such as the scout.
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I totally agree with you. The ghost nerf is another example. I would use snipe even in 2v2 3v3. Now the snipe use is limited for a couple of units.
I hate blizzard idea that every role must be limited. They could have added some more variety for zerg but instead they just take some from terran. They should give more options to the races they think are "weaker". If terrans look stronger is just because they have so many options to play, better players will use this options to "exploit their better-ness" like Barrin said.
I would love it if someone like you worked at Blizzard.
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The other thing that I think is completely fucked up is how everyone keeps clinging to the "Terran OP" bandwagon.... Nerfed in every single patch and now this ghost nerf is coming despite the fact that the two terran gods fell in the round of 8 in code S this year as well as a final that is a PvZ.
Balance for terrans is a joke now, you have to be heads and shoulder better at the game than your opponent to win. And as such, when you lose, its to some typical BS that takes no skill to pull off and literally a billion APM to defend. I'm worried about HotS....
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5/5 Very well said.
It seems like they are taking a more open minded approach to unit design in HoTS, hopefully we get a better game than we have now. But I'm quite worried that the game is only going to be a collection of "gimmick" and "counter" units and the strategic depth and that we have come to expect from Blizzard RTS's is going to be missing.
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The core of the problem is that the game needs to have 3 distinct races. If you give P an early game answer to mass rax speed reaper, then you make the race less Protossy. If you give Z and P an early game cliff jumping unit, then the races lose their unique identities.
T has all these early harass options that the other races don't have. But if you make changes such that Z is allowed to get drops as early as T gets drops, then you blur the distinction between the races.
I do think that the best way to help make irrelevant units relevant again is to patch in more +range/+energy/spell research upgrades.
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On February 23 2012 23:47 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 23:40 CaptainCrush wrote:
The other thing that I think is completely fucked up is how everyone keeps clinging to the "Terran OP" bandwagon.... Nerfed in every single patch and now this ghost nerf is coming despite the fact that the two terran gods fell in the round of 8 in code S this year as well as a final that is a PvZ.
Balance for terrans is a joke now, you have to be heads and shoulder better at the game than your opponent to win. And as such, when you lose, its to some typical BS that takes no skill to pull off and literally a billion APM to defend. I'm worried about HotS.... Or you can just do one of a hundred hard to distinguish and hard to defend 111 all-ins. Trolololol.
I'm not trolling, and you did actually prove my point perfectly. You are one of these guys who is constantly crying about terrans. Then Blizz "listens" to the community and forces the races into the same specific build and same specific battle over and over. I swear I'm not even sure if they play the game themselves anymore. This latest patch was even implemented without PTR! The game is losing its value because of repetitive limitations, unnecessary nerfs, and for me the need to be light years better than my opponent as a platinum terran. I love the game but its starting to become unplayable for me 
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Hydra: Never Balanced
Muta: Never Balanced
Hellion: Nerfed but could probably use a few more tweaks
Ghost: Nerfed and will never be balanced because "its too good" according to blizzard
Battlecruiser: Never Balanced
Mothership: Never Balanced
Carrier: Forgotten
So from what I see, this is how it goes. Blizzard tends to nerf units that they think are too good, buff the units that they think are bad, and push aside units that are to troublesome to balance because people never use the anyway (IMO if blizzard fixed the carrier, im sure it would be used in a legitimate fashion.)
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An example of a good balance blizz did was the immortal range fix. Immortals now can be used in both late game armies as well as timing attacks in all 3 matchups. Coming from where they were before where it was, defend 4 gate, only get while robo bay is completing.
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No, this is all wrong. What you want is variety, and that's fine; but the game is pretty well balanced right now. Your complaint is like saying Brood War was not balanced because the Scout was (mostly) useless; that makes no sense. I would also prefer a situation where units like Reapers had a legitimate role and where the implementation of Strike Cannons wasn't so poor... but guess what? Blizzard stated that they don't like it either, and are fixing that for HotS- giving Reapers a way to heal themselves instead of their anti-building attack, and making the Thor more like the Mothership. To me, that is the ideal solution- it fixes the problem and doesn't muck up the game balance in the process.
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On February 24 2012 00:56 Zato-1 wrote:
No, this is all wrong. What you want is variety, and that's fine; but the game is pretty well balanced right now. Your complaint is like saying Brood War was not balanced because the Scout was (mostly) useless; that makes no sense. I would also prefer a situation where units like Reapers had a legitimate role and where the implementation of Strike Cannons wasn't so poor... but guess what? Blizzard stated that they don't like it either, and are fixing that for HotS- giving Reapers a way to heal themselves instead of their anti-building attack, and making the Thor more like the Mothership. To me, that is the ideal solution- it fixes the problem and doesn't muck up the game balance in the process.
But when is HotS coming out? They never give an ETA on things like that and they also said that alot of the changes that they discussed at blizzcon were not set in stone. Until HotS comes out and proves its weight in gold, terran players are going to continue to complain because our races is HAS to be the same build EVERY game unless its TvT. If we dont go MMM w/ vikings vs toss with a few ghosts its a loss. If you dont go marine tank vs zerg, its a loss. and If you dont do some type of early aggression in TvT, the game will be a 120 minute staredown until someone becomes impatient and a-moves into death.
You can always try something new as terran, but dont let it get too popular or blizz will catch a whiff and spike it till its flat.
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On February 24 2012 01:01 AeroEffect wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 00:56 Zato-1 wrote:
No, this is all wrong. What you want is variety, and that's fine; but the game is pretty well balanced right now. Your complaint is like saying Brood War was not balanced because the Scout was (mostly) useless; that makes no sense. I would also prefer a situation where units like Reapers had a legitimate role and where the implementation of Strike Cannons wasn't so poor... but guess what? Blizzard stated that they don't like it either, and are fixing that for HotS- giving Reapers a way to heal themselves instead of their anti-building attack, and making the Thor more like the Mothership. To me, that is the ideal solution- it fixes the problem and doesn't muck up the game balance in the process. But when is HotS coming out? They never give an ETA on things like that and they also said that alot of the changes that they discussed at blizzcon were not set in stone. Until HotS comes out and proves its weight in gold, terran players are going to continue to complain because our races is HAS to be the same build EVERY game unless its TvT. If we dont go MMM w/ vikings vs toss with a few ghosts its a loss. If you dont go marine tank vs zerg, its a loss. and If you dont do some type of early aggression in TvT, the game will be a 120 minute staredown until someone becomes impatient and a-moves into death. You can always try something new as terran, but dont let it get too popular or blizz will catch a whiff and spike it till its flat.
Yeah. Except for banshee rushes. And the 1-1-1 vs. Protoss. And Hellion drops vs. Protoss. And Hellion-Marauder attacks vs. Zerg. And the cArn build. And Thor rushes vs. Protoss. And PDDs vs. Stalkers.
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On February 24 2012 01:22 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 01:01 AeroEffect wrote:On February 24 2012 00:56 Zato-1 wrote:
No, this is all wrong. What you want is variety, and that's fine; but the game is pretty well balanced right now. Your complaint is like saying Brood War was not balanced because the Scout was (mostly) useless; that makes no sense. I would also prefer a situation where units like Reapers had a legitimate role and where the implementation of Strike Cannons wasn't so poor... but guess what? Blizzard stated that they don't like it either, and are fixing that for HotS- giving Reapers a way to heal themselves instead of their anti-building attack, and making the Thor more like the Mothership. To me, that is the ideal solution- it fixes the problem and doesn't muck up the game balance in the process. But when is HotS coming out? They never give an ETA on things like that and they also said that alot of the changes that they discussed at blizzcon were not set in stone. Until HotS comes out and proves its weight in gold, terran players are going to continue to complain because our races is HAS to be the same build EVERY game unless its TvT. If we dont go MMM w/ vikings vs toss with a few ghosts its a loss. If you dont go marine tank vs zerg, its a loss. and If you dont do some type of early aggression in TvT, the game will be a 120 minute staredown until someone becomes impatient and a-moves into death. You can always try something new as terran, but dont let it get too popular or blizz will catch a whiff and spike it till its flat. Yeah. Except for banshee rushes. And the 1-1-1 vs. Protoss. And Hellion drops vs. Protoss. And Hellion-Marauder attacks vs. Zerg. And the cArn build. And Thor rushes vs. Protoss. And PDDs vs. Stalkers.
Every single one of those things have been nerfed except for PDD, which doesn't really fit into the description anyways.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
On February 24 2012 00:56 Zato-1 wrote:
No, this is all wrong. What you want is variety, and that's fine; but the game is pretty well balanced right now. Your complaint is like saying Brood War was not balanced because the Scout was (mostly) useless; that makes no sense. I would also prefer a situation where units like Reapers had a legitimate role and where the implementation of Strike Cannons wasn't so poor... but guess what? Blizzard stated that they don't like it either, and are fixing that for HotS- giving Reapers a way to heal themselves instead of their anti-building attack, and making the Thor more like the Mothership. To me, that is the ideal solution- it fixes the problem and doesn't muck up the game balance in the process.
HotS is 2 years away, WoL is 2 years old and there are simply too many units/abilities that are broken or just don't fit for a mature game. In my opinion, this makes breaking the balance somewhat worth it to deal with the stagnation.
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On February 23 2012 23:40 CaptainCrush wrote:
The other thing that I think is completely fucked up is how everyone keeps clinging to the "Terran OP" bandwagon....
I hate when people say that. Everyone uses that phrase for all of the races.
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On February 24 2012 01:48 TBone- wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 23:40 CaptainCrush wrote:
The other thing that I think is completely fucked up is how everyone keeps clinging to the "Terran OP" bandwagon.... I hate when people say that. Everyone uses that phrase for all of the races.
That is true, but terran is the race that people call OP the most, often because of racial representations in tournaments, etc.
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At the end of the day, when there are millions of dollars flowing through the competitive aspect of Starcraft, the only pertinent figure is a nice 50% bottom-line.
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On February 24 2012 01:46 Random() wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 00:56 Zato-1 wrote:
No, this is all wrong. What you want is variety, and that's fine; but the game is pretty well balanced right now. Your complaint is like saying Brood War was not balanced because the Scout was (mostly) useless; that makes no sense. I would also prefer a situation where units like Reapers had a legitimate role and where the implementation of Strike Cannons wasn't so poor... but guess what? Blizzard stated that they don't like it either, and are fixing that for HotS- giving Reapers a way to heal themselves instead of their anti-building attack, and making the Thor more like the Mothership. To me, that is the ideal solution- it fixes the problem and doesn't muck up the game balance in the process. HotS is 2 years away, WoL is 2 years old and there are simply too many units/abilities that are broken or just don't fit for a mature game. In my opinion, this makes breaking the balance somewhat worth it to deal with the stagnation.
As far as we know, HotS will be a 2012 release, meaning at most 10 months away.
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On February 24 2012 03:08 DYEAlabaster wrote:
At the end of the day, when there are millions of dollars flowing through the competitive aspect of Starcraft, the only pertinent figure is a nice 50% bottom-line.
In the long run, if you focus on the wrong things, your mediocre game will stagnate and fall apart as the tenuous community gets bored and moves on to other games with different philosophies.
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On February 24 2012 03:04 Demonhunter04 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 01:48 TBone- wrote:On February 23 2012 23:40 CaptainCrush wrote:
The other thing that I think is completely fucked up is how everyone keeps clinging to the "Terran OP" bandwagon.... I hate when people say that. Everyone uses that phrase for all of the races. That is true, but terran is the race that people call OP the most, often because of racial representations in tournaments, etc.
How many Terrans have been winning lately? I don't think its bad play. 5/5 for this OP. One of the best I've read in a long time.
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EPT
