|
It seems clear to me, looking at the various unit selection from WoL, that Blizzard was focused on exactly one thing in SC2's multiplayer development: balance. And that's something that we as a community encouraged, since that was often what BW players would say about SC1: it's a very balanced game.
It's not wrong to make the game balanced of course. But Blizzard seemed to take to it with such a fervent passion that they ignored other things.
The reason the Colossus exists as it does is because the original Colossus (single-target, with rapid-fire attacks) wasn't working out, and the Protoss needed some AoE out of the Robo facility. So they re-purposed a unit that was never intended to be an AoE machine into an AoE machine. Why? Because it made the game more balanced.
Nevermind that it had other consequences; Blizzard was only interested in a change if it made the game more balanced.
Blizzard seems to be coming around to a different mentality with HotS now. And that's what gives me some sense of optimism for it's development.
First, there was getting rid of the Warhound. Now this was a terrible unit on paper, and by all rights Blizzard should have scrapped it long before they even gave it a finished model, let alone released it in Beta. But Blizzard did something they've never done before: scrapped a unit during beta.
Oh, in WoL's beta, they said that they would be willing to cut units. But they never did. 6 months of beta, and the only unit that gained substantial changes was the Mothership. Most other units got some damage tweaks; the second biggest change was the Roach's food cost. Other than that, just some number fiddling.
Indeed, if you look at the history of SC2's development, from December of 2008 to ship in 2010, they cut exactly one unit: the Lurker. That's over a year with more-or-less the same build with stat tweaks. Sure, they also added 3 macro mechanics in that time (Spawn Larva predates 2008, but Proton Charge was the original Protoss macro mechanic. And it was garbage), but they didn't remove or add any units at all.
It is obvious from looking at this that Blizzard was confident in this build. They felt that everything was pretty close to what they wanted; it just needed some fine tuning.
In HotS, it's very clear that they're willing to kill units entirely if they're not doing their job. The Warhound was the first casualty, being killed off entirely. But it's not the only one.
Blizzard has been surprisingly willing to radically change units if they're not up to snuff. The Widow Mine and the Oracle both have had substantial modifications, and the Tempest is a very different unit from what it used to be. Blizzard seems more-or-less content with the Zerg side of things for the time being.
The thing that makes me most optimistic is the Widow Mine. This is a unit that has "broken" written all over it: 160 damage, with AoE, cloaked, can attack cloaked targets, etc. And people have been very vocal about it, saying that it needs a nerf.
They haven't done it. Indeed, they instead buffed other things (faster detection to all races) instead of nerfing the Widow Mine.
That's something that almost never happened in SC2's development. And it's the harder way to deal with these sorts of problems. Nerfing the obviously broken thing is the easiest way to ensure that the game is balanced.
So Blizzard not nerfing the obviously broken thing shows that balance isn't priority #1 for them anymore. They still want balance; they're just not going to sacrifice gameplay and race diversity to get it anymore.
|
I haven't played the beta yet, but I agree that I feel Blizzard should be more focused on increasing how interesting the game is rather than just making it balanced. Sure, it could be balanced, but if its balanced because there is zero variety, what is the point of playing?
Of course, the game still needs to be reasonably balanced, otherwise its not fun just losing in interesting ways :D
|
On November 03 2012 12:30 Antimatterz wrote:
I haven't played the beta yet, but I agree that I feel Blizzard should be more focused on increasing how interesting the game is rather than just making it balanced. Sure, it could be balanced, but if its balanced because there is zero variety, what is the point of playing?
Of course, the game still needs to be reasonably balanced, otherwise its not fun just losing in interesting ways :D
balance is important, buti dont think it's as important as dynamic, cool, interesting strategies, when the build is still in beta. balance takes a longass time to come to, since strats, tactics, new ways to use units, etc all need to be discovered before something can truly be 'balanced.' it's still in beta, the game is so young, if suddenly, people are owning it up with widow mines, who's to say that there isn't a good strategy to counter that? it just hasn't been found yet.
|
gameplay design and balance is important, but there are glaring issues with SC2 that hold it back from making it more interesting game to spectate
colossus should be removed and replaced with the Reaver. the change makes PvP instantly more interesting and there are more strategic options for Protoss using the Reaver in vT and vZ matchups. unfortunately, considering this change hasn't already been made in HotS, I seriously doubt Blizzard wants to rebalance Protoss matchups for the Reaver to make Protoss a more interesting race to watch.
the other unit that is making SC2 stale for spectating is the Infestor. the Infestor as a ubiquitous, all purpose is making watching Zerg matchups an all too familiar experience of watching hordes of Infestors trading cost efficient energy for enemy units that cost gas & minerals. a change to fungal growth to something like 50% less damage to air units and possibly a slow instead of root would better balance the risk/reward of the Infestor and turn it into more of a specific support unit than an all around must have unit.
I'm honestly repeating what others have said and have been saying though. it's up to Blizzard to make SC2 a better game and I hope the new HotS units & changes can transform SC2 like BW did for SC1, but we're not going to really see how much of an impact it has until HotS is released and strategies have been churned out and tested.
|
NicolBolas, I agree with you. The design of HOTS is looking pretty good at the moment with most of the new units and spells being interesting additions to the game. I just hope that soon they can begin tweaking the WOL units as well. udgnim is right to point out the infestor as a stale, all-purpose unit. If zerg can be retooled to rely less on the infestor and hive tech in general and return to stronger lair tech based armies I think HOTS could be a great game. I'm cautiously optimistic.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
