The skills of starcraft, the ways we balanced it.

I played many computer games. Starcraft is the game that captured my heart for one very simple reason: there is no limit on the skill of the game. The evolution of strategies and player skill at the highest level never stop progressing for the past 14 years. Starcraft is not just another game, it is an intellectual challenge on the highest level of game theory.(The study of strategic decision making)

What is skill in starcraft
There are three categories: Mechanics, strategic planning, and game decision making. Each one of these skill set has their own learning curve, each game are won and lost by clashing of these skills.
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Mechanics of the game of starcraft refers to the player’s efficiency in using the keyboard and mouse to perform what they want to do in the game, which includes in game multitasking. Imagine if we are able to connect our brain directly to the computer, where the program can interpret our thoughts and then perform in game actions accordingly, everybody would have perfect mechanics.

Strategic planning is the game plan on how to defeat the opponent. There are huge difference on how refine a game plan is when comparing amateur players to professional players. In general, for amateurs they have general ideas on what objective they want to do, when and how they are going to accomplish them. For professional players, their builds are very refined, they constantly benchmark the build during practice down to the exactly second as to when they are suppose to build one of their buildings, and how much supply they can have.

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Game decision making has two aspects, first one is what players refer to as meta-gaming, in a war of metagaming both players are trying to get the upper hand by picking the right strategy to use in the upcoming game. A lot of the games are decided before the game even started. For example, a 15 command center opening will have a very difficult time dealing with an aggressive 6pool. The other aspect is the skill in how player adapt to different situation within the limit of the strategy they applied in the beginning of the game. This skill is best described by the legendary martial artist Bruce Lee. “If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”

Balance of starcraft

starcraft can not be balanced based on skills of the players. Starcraft has a steep learning curve, and the learning curve for each race is different there are nine matchups that utilize different set of viable strategies. It’s hard enough to find balance in RTS but to control the learning curves of 3 different games (races) this complicated to be similar is pretty much impossible.

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For example, the recent trend in pvz favors the FFE--> immortal/sentry timing attack designed to cripple/kill the zerg who’s doing a Stephano style of 3 base, 6 minute gas 7 minute roach warren. The timing in which the protoss would attack is to hit before zerg is fully droned up, with 8+ sentries and 2-3 immortals supported by a following warp prism for reinforcements. The execution from the protoss’ side after verifying the 3rd base from the zerg is all about hitting force fields to trap roaches/lings, warp in pylons at home after warping in reinforcements during battle via the warp prism. The execution from the zerg’s side first need to verify all 4 gases are taken, the robotic facility is built and no early 3rd is being built. at that point, the zerg will need to prepare a group of 12 or so zerglings waiting outside of the protoss’ base. The objective is to bait force field by diving in and out of the attacking protoss army. While the zerg player is microing on the frontline, he has to continuously managing his own base, build more units, overlords, upgrades, inject larva and set up a flanking attack from multiple sides to engage the protoss by the time the protoss make it to the zerg’s base. If the zerg player were to falter on anyone of these tasks the game will be lost. It is no exaggeration point out that the zerg needs to develop further in the skill curve than the protoss player in this case. It is completely reasonable for the zerg player to feel it is unfair in this case. However, the fact that through practice the zerg player can improve and overcome this protoss strategy signifies that given enough time the players will solve the seemingly imbalanced situation with no balance change.

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Maps are a major part of balancing of starcraft. Because maps dictates what strategies are viable and what strategies are not. Starcraft: Brood War for example relied on map to balance according to the contemporary trend of strategies for over 10 years. Let’s take lost temple for example. Terran dominates on that map because there is a cliff on the natural expansion of each starting location. Terran can drop tanks marines scvs build bunkers and turrets to not only deny the expansion but effectively control the choke of the other player. Map makers realize that terran was abusing this feature in the map, the solution is to eliminate any cliffs overlooking both the choke and natural expansion of a starting location. another imbalanced situation solved with no balance change.

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Balance change should be the last option, when a seemingly imbalanced situation raises, the players should be the the first line of problem solving by figuring out a way to overcome the situation be it improving in mechanics or designing new strategies. Then if at the highest skill level this still is a problem then the map makers should try to design the maps in ways that helps with the situation. Finally if the best players playing on maps that are released by the most talented map makers still having the same problem, then it’s time for a balance change to step in. One classic example of this would be IM.MVP’s ghost snipe abuse vs zerg, where he was able to use one unit type to win against every unit composition the zerg has. And since ghost is effective on any terrain, the map makers are powerless to deal with it. Hence, the correct decision is to balance change the ghost snipe ability.

The skills of starcraft, the ways we balanced it.

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