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In the last days/weeks, the balance discussion is resonating a lot within SC2 community. Granted, those concerns are valid a lot of times - it's already bad when even protoss players like myself are admitting some things are too strong. People are often confusing balance and design though. Blink stalker all in seems to be a strong strategy, which probably needs to be nerfed. But there are also complaints about playing vs protoss deathball - which is a design problem. Same can be said about swarm hosts - while those units are probably not too strong, they are just not designed well for a spectator focused game. MSC is unit, that was made to address design issues with protoss early game defense - but it evolved into a strong supporter of allins and pushes. (Personally I still don't understand why they didn't keep it as in beta - bound to a nexus with original recall, imo was much better.)
Anyway, let's talk design. Let's talk abut some design decisions that, if changed, could actually help and make the game less frustrating (although probably harder) to play and more importantly (at least for me) a better experience to spectate. Let's see every race and then some overall design choices. These are all my personal concerns, although I feel like a lot of people in community share them. I aim to explain WHY I arrived to those conclusions and also HOW the changes could improve the game.
Terrans are first. First, because there's probably not much to talk about - terran is a well designed race, with (more or less) well designed units. Maybe some of them are not as interesting as their BW counterparts (hellions/vultures) or not as good (thor/golliath). That's up to every individual though, some people may like the SC2 units, some people may like BW units more, that's fine. Overall though, most units in terran arsenal seem to be designed well enough.
Zergs are a little bit different beasts. Most of their units are pretty well designed and those that were not, changed to the better in HotS (infestors). There are still several problems though. The biggest one - swarm host (and to a much lesser extent Brood Lords). Units spawning free units. We all know what it leads to - turtle games where no player can kill the other one. Brood lords are the same, just easier to kill. How do you fix this? You don't - you make a better unit. We can only hope they will do so in LotV. The lesser problem (but still a problem) are corruptors - not interesting to play, not interesting to watch. Unit only good for countering collosi and to support mutas/BLs in air battles. I don't think there is real need to change them (not before swarm hosts, anyway) but either making them more risk/reward (less hp/armor, more damage??) or just more interesting (some new ability?) would be nice. Zergs in general lack a strong anti air option, so maybe play with corrupters in that way.
Protoss now. Protoss is a mess. It is frustrating to play against, but often it is even more frustrating to play as. No one would be happier than protoss players to get rid of deathballs, forcefields etc. Unfortunately the race was designed to be played that way. It is a clear cause and effect scenario. Allow me to illustrate.
Cause: Warp Gate -> Consequence: Much weaker GW units as it would be too OP.
Cause: Weaker GW units -> early game weaker than other races (=added sentries, MSC); late game units need to be stronger than other races to be balanced (=added colossus); tanks now too strong before t3 (=added immortal, unit solely designed to counter siege tank play. Unfortunately so good at it's job, that tanks are now completely not an option in the matchup).
The problem is - even though warp gate IS the core problem with protoss design, it would be stupid to get rid of it. It is just too awesome of a mechanic - this mechanic is the sole reason I chose to play protoss (in my naivity I thought it would encourage multitasking based play, while the opposite is true). So how to fix it? I personally LOVE what Starbow did with warp gate - moved to the higher tech tier AND introduce a drawback to it. The units made with warpgates are made slower than the GW units, but can be warped anywhere on map with warp prism/pylon. I think that is awesome design and it is just too bad players are not using it too much in Starbow, because things like arbiter recalls to 4th while you warp in into the main are very strong. Anyway, fix warp gate. Buff GW units. Remove MSC, sentry. Now oracle can get recall instead of that stupid beam of death. Collosus and immortal can be removed and all those units can be replaced with other units that are less frustrating to play. Mech suddenly viable in TvP. Most importantly - protoss now doesn't have to turtle/deathball all game every game, but can also be played with multitasking/harass style of AND map makers don't have to build all the maps around forcefields and easy to take 3rd bases because otherwise protoss insta loses (see Daedalus).
And that leads me to the last part of the article - the overall design problems. In here I would like to mention 2 things. The macro mechanics (mule, chrono, inject) and economy. The macro mechanics are kinda OK, but they could be more. Since the SC2 macro is much easier than BW macro, almost every pro can have macro close to perfection. Design team smartly realized, that there needs to be some mechanic that would keep players occupied when macroing and some sort of 'back to base' mechanic. Hence the mule/chrono/inject. The problem I have with these is that they cost too much and last too long. If it would be required, in order to have perfect macro, to use those mechanics much more, it could help separate the macro monster players from your average pro macro. Right now it is hard to even get an advantage by having perfect macro, because your opponent most probably has something close to perfect. Imo it would be nice if those pros could be separated a little bit more.
And finally, the economy. There is one very bad design flaw in the economy - and that is it doesn't reward expanding beyond 3 mining bases. That's what is encouraging the turtle based style of play the most. It is very easy to defend all 3 bases at once, so it is very discouraging to attack before maxed. So the only choice remaining is also to be turtling until 200/200, then 1 clash of armies and who wins the battle wins the war. Obviously it is not ALWAYS like that, but it is a lot of times. If the economy would reward expanding more (meaning 60 workers on 5 bases >> 60 workers on 3 bases), there would suddenly be another choice. While one of the players would be turtling to the ultimate, 'unbeatable' army, the second one could say 'Ok, fuck you, let me take 5 bases here and needle you to death with many more of my cheaper units, cause I can do it as I have more income than you.' The russian army style - NAS MNOGO. That would also open an opportunity for the turtling player, to harass with his cheap units (let's pretend it is terran mech turtling, so hellions) to do runbys and kill workers, as it is much more difficult to defend 5 bases then it is to defend 3. The economy is imo the biggest design flaw of SC2 atm and I am slowly losing hope it will get changed in LotV.
Please, do not take this the same way as balance whine. I am currently not whining, but trying to raise criticism (and in some cases maybe even constructive one). The reason is simple. I love SC2, but at the same time I think it could be SO MUCH better. That's what I am trying to say with this post...
  
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United States4883 Posts
I'm really surprised you didn't mention the overreliance of Terran on the marine and how bio single-handedly shuts down all other composition options because it's so much better than the alternatives. Marines are seriously the reason why Terran has been playing every game with the same 3 units since the beginning of time. Also, the ability to tech straight up the tech tree instantly forces factory and starport units to be weaker than they would otherwise be (an oversight of the techlab/reactor additions in SC2). I'm just saying that Terran is as flawed as the other races, don't leave them out of it lol.
Also, in terms of macro mechanics, I think it's fair to give Zerg credit: there is a HUGE difference between a GM Zerg doing injects, creep spread, and spending larva compared to a Code S Korean. In terms of macro, Zerg is by far the most difficult to get exactly right, and as a result, we see a pretty huge difference between players. Chronoboost and MULEs....not so much.
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You should not be slowly losing hope, you should have already given up a long time ago because it will take too many resources to redesign the game and this can never be worth it for blizzard. Starcraft 2 is an old game by now.
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There are people who like the SC2 protoss, Arthur for one, who wouldn't even want to stream other race because he only likes protoss.
Coming from a SC2 only player, I don't mind it as well, even though I share a few hate against protoss as well.
I think it's a bit misleading to call GW unit being too weak due to warp gate etcetc.
Rather than a design problem, I call it a characteristic.
The playing experience with all 3 races for SC2 felt fundamentally different and is mostly because of warp ins.
I have said this before and I will repeat it here again:
Protoss is pretty much the only race that can allow different style player to play out the race.
You have:
Parting who is extremely solid in all stages of the game, with strong all ins but also with an aggressive playstyle.
Rain who is almost only good at macro games and is a beast at that. (and is a heavy robo player with obs everywhere on the map)
MC, the amazing 2 base all in player.
sOs with his triple stargate skytoss style with a sprinkle of cheese mix in it.
Hero with his more multi-tasking and creative players (usually phoenix in PvZ, storm drops in PvT)
I also disagree with you on the economy.
Personally I don't think the issue is that more bases =/= more economy, bigger bank players always can trade and want to trade more as we see from almost all the games and more bases = more bank.
The problem only exists when the deathball on 3 base is so very hard to break.
But it's also a bit wrong to think that these deathballs are producable on 3 bases.
Most often these unstoppable deathball, like skyterran, is a result of mining out of main, maintaining a 3 base economy by grabbing the 4th.
going back to WoL ZvP, Zerg can win one base as long as they got out the invincible deathball (kinda)
Therefore the problem is actually the power of these unbeatale deathballs and not really economy.
Or going back even further, back before infestor patch, ZvP was all about not letting Toss get a 3rd or the deathball happens and you will lose even with 5 base economy with a mega huge bank because you just won't have an army mustered up in time to defend the push.
I think in general, it is more due to the lack of ways to break down the defense of the turtling player and leads to them just trying to get a strong deathball and keep trading in that way.
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Looking at the fact that there is not a single newer game out there that got it's design right, this might be some kind of "disease". No idea what could have caused that shift though (when in doubt always blame the casuals though, lol).
And don't point to Dota, that game is broken as fuck without bans (and even then sometimes --> looking at you Alch).
My theory is that the fact that game developers started to listen to the communities of their respective games (as paradox as that sounds) ruined many games. Hell BW would probably be shit if Blizzard patched that game according to OMG IMBA calls (Lurker whine anyone?).
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On February 03 2014 02:25 ETisME wrote:
I also disagree with you on the economy.
Personally I don't think the issue is that more bases =/= more economy, bigger bank players always can trade and want to trade more as we see from almost all the games and more bases = more bank.
You forgot one important variable, which is the amount of workers. Obviously, more bases equals more economy - but in order to stay competitive, you produce about 60-70 workers per game, not more. The issue is, 60 workers on 5 bases is teh same mining as 60 workers on 3 bases, which leads to players not wanting to take more bases until their main one goes out of minerals.
On February 03 2014 02:25 ETisME wrote:
The problem only exists when the deathball on 3 base is so very hard to break.
Nah, that is actually good. Deathballs are supposed to not be broken easily. As you say, problem is they cannot be broken at all in some cases and game doesn't give you options to brake them. One of those options could be provided by having the economy as I said - while having same amount of workers and therefore also same supply of army, you can trade much more cheaper units than the guy with deathball, something you cannot do in SC2 nowadays as the only counter to deathball is to get your own deathball.
On February 03 2014 02:25 ETisME wrote:
But it's also a bit wrong to think that these deathballs are producable on 3 bases.
Most often these unstoppable deathball, like skyterran, is a result of mining out of main, maintaining a 3 base economy by grabbing the 4th.
So we are still on 3 mining bases, eh?
On February 03 2014 02:25 ETisME wrote:
Or going back even further, back before infestor patch, ZvP was all about not letting Toss get a 3rd or the deathball happens and you will lose even with 5 base economy with a mega huge bank because you just won't have an army mustered up in time to defend the push.
Yeah, and that's exactly what is the economy problem I am talking about all the time. If the economy was better, you would be the one killing his bases with runbies, while still throwing enough cheap units on him in order to slow his push down. For reference, watch BW PvT. It worked exactly like that - while terran was slowly pushing across the map with his tank/golliath/vulture deathball, protoss was recalling units into terran bases while throwing speedlots/goons/storm on the push to force him to siege up, slow him down and eventually destroy that one push - while terran had very little left at home because of recalls/runbies.
On February 03 2014 02:25 ETisME wrote:
I think in general, it is more due to the lack of ways to break down the defense of the turtling player and leads to them just trying to get a strong deathball and keep trading in that way.
Yes, and that's exactly what the redesigned economy would allow. More options.
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Gateway units are weak? No. Protoss a mess? Maybe. But not because of WG.
There is little new here. It's been done many many times over ad infinitum ad nauseum.
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I won't do quote cuz I am gonna sleep soon and quoting takes too much time :p
My point about "3 base is actually not 3 base economy" is this:
You actually mined your main, and securing a 4th only to maintain the 3 base economy (or if you get an earlier 4th, it will be even better since you get 8 gas).
You can't, for example, mine 3 bases and produce a max upgraded skyterran.
You need initial 3 bases at start to produce an optimal mech, while slowly transitioning into sky terran with the 4th (now 3rd mining base) set up.
You can't achieve unstoppable deathball with just a 3 base economy.
Or let me put it this way, it's all about relative timing, like many starcraft strategies etc are.
If the Terran's forth is late, it will only get harder for terran to defend because it will get out upgraded and tech'd. (without BC, the skyterran can still be beaten)
75 workers on 3 bases is not the same as 75 workers on 5 bases.
5 base player have access to 10 gas if needed.
Skyterran requires 8 gas running total if you want to produce non stop sky units.
Players always want to get more base, it's only because how difficult it is to secure new bases that they aren't doing it.
This is why terran also build lot of macro CCs and OCs ready to land once it is safe to do so.
Having more cheaper units throwing at the turlting player won't help.
Swarmhost is completely based upon that design, endless swarm of free units to break down a turtling player.
But around 8 tanks can shut down infinite amount of locusts and actually encourages more turtling.
It's all about lacking an option to trade, you can run maybe 40 roaches and kill not even one tank if the terran position well enough.
And really stop with the BW comparison, there are just far too many differences between two games.
in SC2, the "unbeatale" sky deathball is not killable with your BW options such as recall because of how mobile it is, how strong the deathball is and how cost efficient it is, and just in general, how the game is played out.
In BW, the terran has to push out with mech?
in TvZ hots, you can play a complete defensive turtling style, as we saw from the reality game.
Recall won't have done anything if the sky terran isn't planning to move out, you delay nothing but only trade inefficiently.
Or let me put it this way.
Skyterran can fly a CC with it's fleet, turtle and snipe units with yamato and HsM until the whole map is mined out.
that is how cost efficient it is.
But if we go to other usual TvZ, bio mine vs ling baneling muta, the player with more mining base (equal or more base than zerg or zerg having 2 more base than terran) usually wins.
Same with every other normal games in other matchups.
redesigned economy would work, of cause.
It would also change everything we have so far in SC2. HotS changes and unit design are all based upon what WoL offered
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
I expected this to be a blog about Comic Sans.
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On February 03 2014 03:45 itsjustatank wrote:
I expected this to be a blog about Comic Sans.
Probably would have been more conducive to improving SC2.
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
Yeah, hopefully Comic Sans is Blizzard's next choice for subtitle and dialogue text in the next expansion, because it accurately represents the level of quality exhibited by their writers and plot line developers.
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United States4883 Posts
On February 03 2014 04:41 itsjustatank wrote:
Yeah, hopefully Comic Sans is Blizzard's next choice for subtitle and dialogue text in the next expansion, because it accurately represents the level of quality exhibited by their writers and plot line developers.
I approve of this message.
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Estonia4644 Posts
On February 03 2014 03:45 itsjustatank wrote:
I expected this to be a blog about Comic Sans.
ya this is not the design i was looking to talk about
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On February 03 2014 02:44 RageCommodore wrote:
Looking at the fact that there is not a single newer game out there that got it's design right, this might be some kind of "disease". No idea what could have caused that shift though (when in doubt always blame the casuals though, lol).
And don't point to Dota, that game is broken as fuck without bans (and even then sometimes --> looking at you Alch).
I think Dota has got design right. People say that in Dota since everything is broken, it's balanced. I don't think it's given in to casuals the way other games have. And just because there are hero imbalances, doesn't mean the overall design is flawed. If the only flaw you can point to is that some heroes just get played a little too much, then that's pretty good balance. Those types of things get addressed in relatively frequent balance patches anyway, and the patches in my opinion have been pretty effective. Otherwise, I think you're comparing Dota's balance to some ideal that has never existed.
On February 03 2014 02:44 RageCommodore wrote:
My theory is that the fact that game developers started to listen to the communities of their respective games (as paradox as that sounds) ruined many games. Hell BW would probably be shit if Blizzard patched that game according to OMG IMBA calls (Lurker whine anyone?).
I think Dota is just an example that supports your theory.
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Thank god you didn't mention Apple products!
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EPT
