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Netherlands4511 Posts
So today while watching proleague (which I do everyday because it's awesome), I said something in twitch chat:
I been playing this game for 14 years my only concern is the quality of the starcraft product and the RTS game gerne overall - SC2 is *** and im not afraid to say that, unlike all the fake people who just ride hype trains and monetize their personalities.
It ended up on reddit for some reason, I don't expect anyone to really care what I say except for those who follow me but I did wanna share some of my thoughts:
As a progamer, it is very difficult to speak about the game. Because I compete in tournaments, play everyday, am always worried about the next qualifier or team match, and recently, lots of losses happening. It's very easy to get frustated and whine about balance, or anything you can find really to feel better about yourself after you've failed. This is something I've done before and do to this day, despite knowing it's detrimental to being a succesfull progamer. So sometimes I'll be harsher than I should be. Come to me at the right time and I can tell you all about how horrible this game is 
I obviously don't think StarCraft is shit. I love StarCraft more than most people because this game has literally shaped my life in the most impactfull way possible, the way I make a living. Almost all of my actions in the past 5 years have been StarCraft related in some way shape or form. I owe very much to StarCraft and still play it every single day, with joy. I realize that being a progamer in a videogame is a great honor and it's amazing to be able to play games and somehow people care about your performance and get enjoyment out of seeing you do well. Of course results come into the equasions as well, but I want to leave my personal progaming carreer out of this blog. I just want to express my joy to this day playing this game. I still have moments where Im proud of a move I did, or embarassment if something failed and trying to achieve perfection is something that still motivates me.
Watching proleague has been a great joy for me the past week. Back when I was a semi-professional BW player (meaning I made about 400 euros a month on the side for playing SC) I used to watch proleague everyday. Now I get to see all of these people I used to enjoy watching play SC:BW so much, play SC2 combined with so many other great players that it's been nothing but exciting.
Since my comment did infact say SC2 was shit I have to explain why I feel that way sometimes.
Almost every ZvP has been swarmhost/static D/Brood lord/infestor vs Airtoss with templars and collosus.
There was the Reality/Hydra mech game on Star Station too.
It made me sad having to watch my favourite players play these type of games, that I play on an almost daily basis. Infact ever since Starcraft came out, people have complained about deathballs, some of the mechanics of the units, and how it overall feels to play Starcraft 2 and these kind of games. I still enjoy watching it, because they do it better than I do and I can always learn from watching great players. But there are a lot of people who don't watch games to learn, they watch for pure entertainment. Starcraft 2 has a lot of exciting moments, it really does well in that regard, but some core elements, that lead to undivserse, predictable, undynamic games are still not being adressed.
Last year Blizzard came in with WCS, exploded the scene. Ever since then they made great steps in communicating with the community about WCS, and greatly improved their system. There was a Q&A on Team Liquid, and the people at blizzard seem very in touch with the community as they are always seen at tournaments. 2014 in my opinion looks to be a great year whereas tournament structure, production, quality of overall broadcast and calendar are concerned. A lot of people dissvoled from the scene, it's more compact but much more structurized and hopefully recognizeable for fans. WCS EU has proved to be amazing show last year, GSL is back, Proleague production value is true the roof and they will soon have Moonglade casting!
There are a lot of things I'm really excited about. NASL seems to still have not learned anything from last year. There are professional gamers who devote their life to this game and the qualifier is this messed up - it's almost unbelievable. They do host great live events though, and some day they will learn how to properly run qualifiers. If they provide more shows like the one in Toronto last year all will be forgiven.
It really feels to me like the scene is ready for a fresh start, with a supportive blizzard, less mouths to feed, less hype, just people enjoying watching StarCraft 2. With the ammount of interest, and exposure Starcraft 2 still generates, My hope is going into this next chapter of StarCraft that the community also gets more feedback on the game/balance front. I believe that with a few small changes, a lot of the 'less enjoyable' aspescts of SC2 can easily be fixed, and with an expansion pack ahead, it gives so much oppurtunity to still develop this game. I don't believe there will be an alternative on the 'RTS' front in the next couple of years so this is what I'm hoping for.
In warcraft 3, undead was almost unplayable and Orc was overpowered forever - nothing was done.
In WoL, there was very little communication.Problems in gameplay were obvious to the community for a very very long time before adressed, it took 1,5 years to do something about infestors.
HotS started out promising. The overal dynamic of the game is improved upon, the units are fun to use and have great diversity.
I get the feeling Blizzard wants good things with eSports. It's okay that there are problems with the game. It's incredibly hard to design a game like this. The thing that would make me most happy is the feeling that those problems are being 'worked on', and right now Blizzard doesn't give me that feeling. They give me the feeling they care about WCS which is great because it gives me an oppurtunity, but I'm really hoping they will change this going into 2014. If we're all watching a ridiculously stupid swarmhost / spore / viper game or the terran or protoss equivalent even a little tweet from @StarCraft saying this is silly would go a long way. The feeling that we're not alone this and there is still a desire or to improve upon things.
I talk on skype everyday with friends and other progamers about the things that are silly about the game. For hours and hours we theorize about what could be better how, balance whining barely comes into it, as long as noone just lost a game. I imagine the people in the kespa houses and kespa teams do the same. People who have been in this industry for 15 years with all the expertize required, and plenty of investment into the Starcraft name and Legacy that you have to assume that there must be lots of goodwill to improve the game to help make it bigger in Korea - as long as there are 1 or 2 'Bomber - Scarlett' (ok maybe thats too much that game was sick) or similar type matches a week, I think it will still be appreciated and loved. Since Blizzard does seem to care about SC2:Hots esports, that might be the most frustating feeling.
We can see that they are trying, new maps are being introduced, there is way more communication on all fronts with IEM, DH, NASL, etc. The IPL Staff got hired to do something for Blizzard Esports... The whole community is watching games, talking about this and that, when destiny will get gm, or what new show incontrol be on etc. etc. But the progamers are playing the game day in day out, and are ignored. Noone is talking to them, noone is answering our questions, if you're american you're lucky if you managed to sign up for WCS qualifiers and not be removed by the time it starts. They came out with a set of terrible maps, and still want to improve mech - (??????)
I don't even really know who has any influence on these kind of things but I would love to see someone like David Kim take more of a role like Kim Phan has been doing for WCS. Very much in touch with the community and that leads to a much better product in the end. Which will in turn be better for WCS, Blizzard, Esports and of course all of us that love this game!
In the meanwhile, I will keep enjoying playing this game no matter what and deal with the problems I see to the best of my abilities or use them to my advantadge (even though I will curse at them and call them shit after a loss), as that is the best attitude to have as a progamer.
Hopefully see you in 2014 ^_^
 
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So... do you have any suggestions how to fix the stuff Blizzard should adress in game balance?
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I don't know how any Zerg can watch those games and say, "That's the race I want play."
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Netherlands4511 Posts
On January 08 2014 06:21 wingpawn wrote:
So... do you have any suggestions how to fix the stuff Blizzard should adress in game balance?
That only matters if the right people would listen. I also don't think progamers should be involved in those kind of discussions, but coaches or ex progamers can be extremely usefull resources. Imagine the possiblities - even something as little as a Skype chat with someone from blizzard and 3 or 4 experienced people - then community feedback, etc. So much could be done on this front with so little, in my opinion
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It seems like Blizzard doesn't really have the experience or even the right incentives to deal with these issues. It would be an interesting experiment to turn over balancing and even more basic unit mechanics to tournament organizers. Basically let them figure out which mods create the most interesting gameplay the way Kespa figured out what types of maps create the most interesting games.
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Great read, thanks for posting a detailled elaboration on your statement. I have one question though.
On January 08 2014 06:11 Liquid`Ret wrote:My hope is going into this next chapter of StarCraft that the community also gets more feedback on the game/balance front. I believe that with a few small changes, a lot of the 'less enjoyable' aspescts of SC2 can easily be fixed, and with an expansion pack ahead, it gives so much oppurtunity to still develop this game. I don't believe there will be an alternative on the 'RTS' front in the next couple of years so this is what I'm hoping for.
I see almost every pro-player have opinion on what is bad / boring / overpowered / underpowered and everyone is very good at pointing out in what way exactly. However, I see almost no one coming up with a solution for the problems they see themselves. You constantly say yourself that you've been playing this game for 14 years, why don't you suggest changes yourself. If you can get a lot of attention saying that this game is shit, I'm sure you can get a lot of attention explaining why this game is shit and make a change.
On January 08 2014 06:11 Liquid`Ret wrote:
It really feels to me like the scene is ready for a fresh start, with a supportive blizzard, less mouths to feed, less hype, just people enjoying watching StarCraft 2.
I couldn't agree more with this part. Lets just enjoy watching some StarCraft 2.
Goodluck in 2014 Jos!
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I really REALLY don't understand why all the old top foreigners don't come back and play BroodWar... SC2 isn't going to get any better. If you don't love the game by now, you're not gonna wake up tomorrow and go "Wow, this game is great today!". Yeah, they could move to some shitty MOBA game, because there is a bit of money in that arena, but BroodWar is where the love is.
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It might sounds weird but what SC2 lacks the most is a long term busines model that makes money for Activision/Blizzard.
SC 2 is an "old" game, you spend 50 bucks on it and play it as long as you want but it competeds in a world with LoL, World of Tanks and DOTA2 that are F2P and have a constant stream of content. Riot and Valve have a big motivation to make their games better every day because it makes money for them and thats the most important thing.
I can imagine that in a "big" company like Blizzard this conversation is possible: DK: Hey manager guy we have some amazing ideas to make the game great, we need 50.000$ for coding and testing. Manager: Thats cool and how does it make money for my next financial report? DK: Well... it doesnt do that but it makes Swarmhosts less boring.
The modern customer just works differently and wants more of constant stream of new things even if they are dumb as the 100th hero that is exacly the same as number 27. or a new hat thats green instead of yellow.
F2P would not work in my opinion for SC2 because there aren´t enough things you could sell without destroying the core of the game.
Personally i think an option besides F2P is some sort of Premium like COD or Battlefield has. Some sort of you pay 10$ a month and get something like
- Portrais
- Models
- Observing laddergames directly (The player could get a part of the money from Blizzard, with an option to deny the viewing)
- MMR resets
- Early access to whatever
- maybe some sort of testrealm were Blizzard (or even the community) can throw changes into, test them or just have fun with. So some sort of public editor for dummies.
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I personally thought it was exciting to see the reality/hydra game. It was a game between 2 powerful deathball armies, similar to like fights like how transformers fight (or pacific rim). Giant robots destroying ugly monsters!
It was a change of pace and at times I kept looking at hydra's face to see no emotion displayed whatsoever even when he lost his corruptor broodlord army to HSM. I think this type of static defence play will evolve even more in the future so that we will see some really delicate balancing going on (like a chess match right before everything explodes and all the pieces die in 10 turns).
Adding mech buffs has really given terrans the ultimate diversity between aggression (bio) and defence (mech) and I am excited to see both styles and everything in between this up coming year.
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To those asking Ret for more concrete examples of how to fix these problems.
The fixes would involve blowing up the utter fundamentals of Starcraft 2: unit movement, spell mechanics, heavy AI changes, complete economy overhauls, tech tree overhauls, interface overhauls and more. As Micro_Jackson said far better, the entire business model, outside of the game, is desperately outdated, especially when you consider we have another $40 expansion to come. People certainly do spend more than $40 on F2P games (I know I have) but as a single upfront payment for a game, the potential market shrinks.
These changes will never take place and can not take place. Those that played through beta and saw these issues coming down the track hoped that Blizzard would listen to feedback. I watched SC2 rabidly throughout Wings and it got stale, very very stale. . And here we are, a year into HoTS and not a single change of any great significance has taken place. Battlenet2.0 is still (again) in need of fundamental change. I'm just happy the BW scene in Korea has picked up again.
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United Kingdom1381 Posts
I think the biggest problem is that Blizzard are trying to navigate between the mechanically demanding 1v1 game that the pros want and a flashy fun social game that appeals to the majority.
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It's a little defeatist to think that streamlined controls are an end-all of good RTS game design. While I agree the unit movement, better worker pathing, and other such things are what make SC2... unique... from BW, I don't buy that we have to go back to control schemes from 1998 to get back the dynamic game we love. Sure some things probably need to improve/change (like the linear economy), but there are tons of things Blizzard can do both on the business model and game play that would make huge strides forward without having to revert some of the modern niceties that help new players get into the game.
Part of it really just comes down to Blizzard listening to players like MorroW and Nony talk about the game. Rather than dismissing their comments in favor of accessibility Blizzard needs to double down their efforts to find solutions or replacement mechanics of the problems they talk about.
Business model wise Blizzard just needs to copy DotA2 in many respects. In game tournament streaming (and ticket sales) alone would go a long way to giving SC2 a lasting business model.
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Netherlands4511 Posts
On January 08 2014 07:23 Logo wrote:
It's a little defeatist to think that streamlined controls are an end-all of good RTS game design. While I agree the unit movement, better worker pathing, and other such things are what make SC2... unique... from BW, I don't buy that we have to go back to control schemes from 1998 to get back the dynamic game we love. Sure some things probably need to improve/change (like the linear economy), but there are tons of things Blizzard can do both on the business model and game play that would make huge strides forward without having to revert some of the modern niceties that help new players get into the game.
I really agree with this, and nowadays there is more and more a feeling of blizzard and the community working together, I don't see why it couldn't be achieved!
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I'm glad you wrote this post, Ret. It is a really healthy explanation of what a large segment of the community has been feeling, without balance whine, without rage. Just a calm, cool, collected explanation of what is wrong.
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On January 08 2014 06:21 wingpawn wrote:
So... do you have any suggestions how to fix the stuff Blizzard should adress in game balance?
It's been discussed ad nauseam, hundreds if not thousands of pages written. This is not the place for a 500 page game design tutorial.
For me it's the combination of incomprehensible design decisions, an apparent inability or unwillingness to learn from mistakes/understand given feedback and an almost total lack of communication. I have no idea if any senior developer on the SC2 team is even aware of what is being discussed, or if they are being told by a choir of yes men that everything about the game is awesome all day long. The sheer stubbornness being displayed in regards to certain aspects of the game is both baffling and infuriating.
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that was a piece nice article, ty!
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I think the problem is very clear, now that we are more than 3 years after SC2's launch: David Kim MUST be fired.
He's a nice guy and all, but he is clearly not the one for the job. Look at the flaws we see in the game and you'll have to agree with me.
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Really nice article Ret, i really love starcraft but i hate how blizzard takes balance/design stuff sooooooooooo damn slowly. if we want to have the best game ever, blizzard needs to invest more money and time into that. But we dont know if they will ever change that mindset and we dont know what is keeping blizzard out of a more proactive stance towards game design and balance of the game like all this new companies like Riot or even guys like IceFrog with Dota.
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EPT
