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Having followed SC2 closely since before beta was released, I have watched the constant ebb and flow of "Imba" cries as it has cycled around from race to race. From the GomTvT days, to full Zerg finals in everything, to all Protoss all day. I do believe that always will one race be considered “imbalanced,” by the general player-populace, and by the pro-players whose outcries convinced them of such.
Since the official release of WoL, there have been (36) release-level (non-beta) patches [Official Patch Log] , (12) of which have had explicit balance changes (this doesn’t count ‘bug-fixes’ or hidden nerfs that changed unit behavior, which actually affected the balance also, ala PDD not lasering Broodlings from Broodlords). These explicit balance changes have each severely affected the swing of Race Win %s, both at the pro level, and for standard ladder games. Think: Void-Ray Speed/Damage, Bunker Build Time, Khaydarin Amulet, Blue-flame hellion damage, Queen Range, Archon Toilet, Reaper speed, Bunker build time, Fungal Damage/Projectile, Immortal Range, Overseer Cost/Speed, Snipe Damage, etc.
Yet, despite these changes, the balance still swings around unpredictably as new strategies are figured out, as existing strategies are made more efficient and executed more expertly, as new Korean pros figure out amazing things to do with unit compositions.
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One wonders: What if no balance changes were ever made? What if all the same “IMBASHIT,” “broken-race” still existed, while mechanics of units were simply adjusted/fixed (e.g. targeting preferences, carrier movement, larvae spawn locations), and map design was more heavily emphasized? Would we still see that ebb-flow of balance between the races without forcing its hand? Would new strategies like Bisu’s Corsair/DT arise after 10 years of the game, and then themselves be figured out and have counterplay?
The low-masters players of today could beat the GSL champions of yesteryear, and yet, the drastic balance changes of yesteryear were based on that level of play that we now know to be ‘basic.’
I guess I could understand the argument that sometimes, a balance change MUST be imposed, because something really is broken, but this could only be after a SIGNIFICANT amount of time (years) has gone by, and nothing arises naturally to correct it, or if that broken element is resulting in greater than 80% win rates, consistently for months. Even then I would propose a strategy of changing a stat on the single affected unit for a month, then changing it back to see if the new adjustments in playstyle/mindset have fixed the issue on their own. If not, ok, change it forward one more time. But a cycle of balance adjustments must be better than one-and-done. Change one thing, change the previous one back.
It is inherently a moot question, but I tend to think that ‘Balance’ would have eased itself out, relying upon the ingenuinity of players, strategists, and teams/coaches to innovate, optimize & perfect execution, scouting, and timings. True, the only productive aspect to my point here could be to see what would happen with a reversion of all balance changes, both on the ladder and in a competitive environment (similar to StarBow I guess, but without the BW elements), but I know it’s doubtful that may ever happen.
I guess the only other appeal would be to take an even slower, less drastic pace to balance changes. Let the pros and Idra and the community cry for a season or two, and then once its figured out naturally, let their opponents cry for a season or two, and on the cycle continues. Strategies won’t be deleted, they’ll just be figured out and therefore less viable. Upgrades won’t be removed, they will just be realized not as useful as once thought, and other upgrades prioritized instead. Balance will be restored to the universe, but not by the nerfhammer, rather by skill and genius.
Actually, despite popular belief, I do think that Blizzard and David Kim are tending more toward the light-handed approach, although I believe it could be yet a little lighter handed still. Let the drastic stuff come at expansion time. Minor, minute, highly-infrequent adjustments otherwise.
  
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The StarCraft II conspiracy is real, David is out for your money, no one is safe, not even the children.
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Tons of games end up being imbalanced forever
Just waiting is not a magical solution
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The only reason balancing through map design worked was because of the Proleague format. You can't have that crap in 1v1 Ladder system.
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Yet, despite these changes, the balance still swings around unpredictably as new strategies are figured out
Racial distribution among tournament winners is more even now than it was in the past. So are the statistical win rates.
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On January 25 2014 05:09 vOdToasT wrote:Show nested quote +Yet, despite these changes, the balance still swings around unpredictably as new strategies are figured out Racial distribution among tournament winners is more even now than it was in the past. So are the statistical win rates.
Not really. Koreans still win everything and once in a while a few Europeans earn prize money. Barely any Americans though :-(
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The race that has the meta advantage gets to be the most creative, because the other races have to work around the problems that they encounter when playing the race, while the advantaged race is free to try new stuff.
Who are we to decide that one should have such advantage until maps or strategies fix it because he happened to choose the right race at the beginning of the game? If something is broken, it should be fixed. There's really no good reason to go against this idea.
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"The low-masters players of today could beat the GSL champions of yesteryear, and yet, the drastic balance changes of yesteryear were based on that level of play that we now know to be ‘basic.’"
This is nice to think of. I'm almost sure any GM level player from todays could win one early GSL, the very first ones (of course, considering he was in front of his time in metagame and strategies, not because he is the most skilled).
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On January 25 2014 05:26 Nebuchad wrote:
The race that has the meta advantage gets to be the most creative, because the other races have to work around the problems that they encounter when playing the race, while the advantaged race is free to try new stuff.
Who are we to decide that one should have such advantage until maps or strategies fix it because he happened to choose the right race at the beginning of the game? If something is broken, it should be fixed. There's really no good reason to go against this idea.
Because forced changes require constant intervention and an overall less stable game. Both races in a match have equal opportunities to be creative. Even if one has the advantage because of a certain mechanic, there are creative new ways to use the mechanic while there can be creative new ways to either confront the mechanic or circumnavigate it.
For example if a marine push vs z is overpowered, the zerg can choose to either turtle better, be agressive earlier to control the flow of the game, or absorb it while taking minimal damage and doing something else with the resources.
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check out wc3 TFT if you want to see how that theory turned out. they used community made maps and had perhaps two important balance changes for the whole lifespan of the game. eventually one race dominated the entire tournament scene once the balance patches stopped coming.
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One big factor about balance not taken in account is the players themselves
Take terrans. Despite them being underwhelming in numbers last year, they still took home incredible amount of 1# spots.
There is a natural balance coming from when lets say you have 10t 10z 10p, lets say the balance is in heavily favor for T and Z.
But after a while we have only 13t 13z and 4p. While P are less than before, these P are the best of the best and win their matches over 50% which makes the overall race vs race balance look balanced.
You had the fact in BW that protoss won by far the least medals, yet players stuck to P. Because you still had P players that could reach over 50%.
Even if a 100players struggle with a race and have sub 50% winrate, if one player has over 50% then that proves that the race IS balanced. It just it requires abnormal skill or is only suitable for an incredibly specific player. But the race is till ''balanced'', however of course it sure as hell ain't balanced in a designed sense.
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I would still be using amulet as a gas dump and only making zealots and probes
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On January 25 2014 05:58 Najda wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2014 05:26 Nebuchad wrote:
The race that has the meta advantage gets to be the most creative, because the other races have to work around the problems that they encounter when playing the race, while the advantaged race is free to try new stuff.
Who are we to decide that one should have such advantage until maps or strategies fix it because he happened to choose the right race at the beginning of the game? If something is broken, it should be fixed. There's really no good reason to go against this idea. Because forced changes require constant intervention and an overall less stable game. Both races in a match have equal opportunities to be creative. Even if one has the advantage because of a certain mechanic, there are creative new ways to use the mechanic while there can be creative new ways to either confront the mechanic or circumnavigate it. For example if a marine push vs z is overpowered, the zerg can choose to either turtle better, be agressive earlier to control the flow of the game, or absorb it while taking minimal damage and doing something else with the resources.
So the zerg has to deal with that specific thing (in a creative way if he wants to), and the terran gets to do whatever he damn pleases (in a creative way if he wants to). I'm not sure how you think that contradicts what I've said (or how you think it's fair, for that matter).
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On January 25 2014 05:22 Kuni wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2014 05:09 vOdToasT wrote:Yet, despite these changes, the balance still swings around unpredictably as new strategies are figured out Racial distribution among tournament winners is more even now than it was in the past. So are the statistical win rates. Not really. Koreans still win everything and once in a while a few Europeans earn prize money. Barely any Americans though :-(
I obviously meant between Terran, Zerg, and Protoss
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Let's look at this in-depth for a second. If no balance changes were ever made to the game since Wings, we'd probably see:
- Viable Mech/Biomech vs Protoss - Siege Tanks would have done 60 damage instead of 50 to Armored and 35 to everything else. This would have made them viable versus Chargelots, Stalkers and Archons.
- No Zerg dominance. The metagame would have likely developed around Blue Flame Hellions in TvZ and Zergs would have wised up to stopping effective Hellion drop harassment eventually instead of a blanket nerf occurring after SlayerS players dominate MLG Columbus 2011.
- Zerg having very strong midgame timings through 1 supply Roaches. The "imba shit" like 60 damage Siege Tanks, Khaydarin Amulet, Immortals warped in from Warp Gates, Void Rays with 3 levels of attack and speed, Banshees with splash, etc. would have balanced this out.
- A varied map pool. Blizzard maps wouldn't have been popular but community-made maps would have and the map pool would have been greatly varied.
- Lower degree of deathballing. With much more powerful Siege Tanks, Khaydarin Amulet, constant threat of blue flame hellion runbys, constant threat of bunker aggression, etc. Positional play would have been amazing to watch unfold and would have become a necessity to defend from certain "imba shit" like pre-nerf blue flame hellion drops or Blink harassment.
- The scene would have likely still declined since 2012 assuming we reach a period of racial dominance at that point but since it took just one nonsensical patch (raising Queen range from 3 to 5) to do that, I have a feeling the metagame would have developed beautifully and winrates would have been highly balanced until at least 2014 - 2015. There's still the issue that KeSPA were blocked from entering the SC2 scene by Blizzard.
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On January 25 2014 07:44 Clbull wrote:Let's look at this in-depth for a second. If no balance changes were ever made to the game since Wings, we'd probably see: - Viable Mech/Biomech vs Protoss - Siege Tanks would have done 60 damage instead of 50 to Armored and 35 to everything else. This would have made them viable versus Chargelots, Stalkers and Archons.
- No Zerg dominance. The metagame would have likely developed around Blue Flame Hellions in TvZ and Zergs would have wised up to stopping effective Hellion drop harassment eventually instead of a blanket nerf occurring after SlayerS players dominate MLG Columbus 2011.
- Zerg having very strong midgame timings through 1 supply Roaches. The "imba shit" like 60 damage Siege Tanks, Khaydarin Amulet, Immortals warped in from Warp Gates, Void Rays with 3 levels of attack and speed, Banshees with splash, etc. would have balanced this out.
- A varied map pool. Blizzard maps wouldn't have been popular but community-made maps would have and the map pool would have been greatly varied.
- Lower degree of deathballing. With much more powerful Siege Tanks, Khaydarin Amulet, constant threat of blue flame hellion runbys, constant threat of bunker aggression, etc. Positional play would have been amazing to watch unfold and would have become a necessity to defend from certain "imba shit" like pre-nerf blue flame hellion drops or Blink harassment.
- The scene would have likely still declined since 2012 assuming we reach a period of racial dominance at that point but since it took just one nonsensical patch (raising Queen range from 3 to 5) to do that, I have a feeling the metagame would have developed beautifully and winrates would have been highly balanced until at least 2014 - 2015. There's still the issue that KeSPA were blocked from entering the SC2 scene by Blizzard.
They should have tried to balance the game without altogether removing certain features. Keep the imba shit, keep it imba, just give the other races new things to deal with them, or make very very slight nerfs (like the psionic storm nerf in Brood War. It was just a tiny little bit of damage. Psionic Storm was still used in the same way after the nerf. Same with the transport nerf. Reavers were still used in shuttles the same way as before).
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terran would have won 95%+ of wol tournaments, zerg was only winning at the beginning because there was so much to learn the skill/knowledge gap between players was pretty big.
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On January 25 2014 08:36 sibs wrote:
terran would have won 95%+ of wol tournaments, zerg was only winning at the beginning because there was so much to learn the skill/knowledge gap between players was pretty big.
Protoss would have won a little bit, too. Although it was T favoured, P could still win if they got to late game, with khaydarin amulet and so on. It was probably P favoured in the late game, to be honest. TvZ, on other hand, was massively in favour of Terran, with critical mass un nerfed Siege Tanks, and ghosts with snipe countering everything.
Edit: Not to mention Protoss shat on Zerg just as much as Terran did, assuming the players knew what to abuse
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Could someone please make a custom map reverting all the balance changes? That would be interesting to play on. I'm noob at map editor so I can't T_T
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What would have happened if no balance changes had been made from release? Honest answer is no-one really knows.
I think at least a couple of things would have had to be patched or tweaked, such as Khaydarin Amulet. But, I agree with you that most of the game from WOL on should have been left well alone. I wrote a similar blog, but from another angle a while ago. You may find it interesting: Hayek, Knowledge and SC2
I think (or believe, rather) that the game and the community would have been better off for a light hand from Blizzard.
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EPT
