EPTThen, there would be more crippling disappointment. I think this is fairly normal, though. Filthy casuals are learning what us hardcore nerds have known for years: video games are really difficult to master, and even harder to play against other people. Every game I play has whining people saying how OP this and that is, and how the game's parent company is 'ruining' it. I'm very certain if people played StarCraft: Brood War on a large-scale, even in this day, people would rage about how the game is broken fundamentally. Inevitably, there would be really bad threads by casual fans coming up with ways to 'fix' the game that wasn't broken.
So what I'm saying is: I don't know how to 'fix' SC2. At this point, I think the fanbase is too cynical and toxic for the game to really recover its image unless LotV is really good.
But I got some beef already.
I don't know if the current incarnation of Blizzard Inc. is trying to create a game that is more like Brood War, or is trying to create something different. I can't know their intentions, but I do know that fans complained that the play in SC2 had become too static; it was basically the same stuff over and over again mixed with some infuriating all-ins. Part of the problem came from terrible, terrible damage, and part of it came from three-base play.
Three-base play is where you develop the optimal economy on three bases to max your army, do your one or two engagements, then win or lose. You can do the same thing in Brood War, actually. The difference (in my humble opinion) is that in Brood War, if you take a fourth base against other person's three, and defend their attack, then you will have a slightly better economy. In SC2, if you take a fourth base, that investment will leave you with too few units and your opponents' timing attack will kill you, so you have to play positioning games until you're close to being maxed.
In Brood War, if you have a huge economy, like six bases or something, you have a ton of income, so you can add on a bunch of production facilities, and regenerate your army so that every time you trade units, you are able to regrow your army faster than they can until they can't force a trade and crumble. That's why having a lot of bases is awesome.
In Legacy of the Void, the economy change is supposed to address fans cries for games that encourage players to take more bases and throw out the meta-game of having one or two really big fights that decide the whole game. So if Blizzard's intention was to make the game more like Brood War, they did the complete opposite by some terrible April Fool's prank gone wrong.
You see, in Brood War, the optimal worker count is way less than in SC2. The reason is that the workers mine minerals slower and
The economy growth in SC2 makes it possible - if you hold off harassment attempts - to quickly pile up a big production infrastructure on three bases and max out your army really fast. Legacy of the Void has changed this by reducing the amount of minerals per patch, so that the bases will mine out quicker, not allowing a player to sit on three bases for long. My problem with that is this:
- In Brood War, you want to get 6 bases because it will give you a ton of economy and production
- In LotV, you have to get 6 bases because you don't want to run out of money
This feature doesn't really give players many options. It also seems to penalize players for not taking bases, rather than rewarding them for taking bases. My suggestion, if I were in charge of the whole StarCraft world (that'd be scary), would not be to reduce the amount of minerals per patch, but reduce the rate by which workers actually harvest minerals. This would mean each base would reach an optimal worker count at 2 or so per mineral, and the player could produce extra workers to maynard to a fourth base if they wanted to expand, - or - cut workers and go for a timing attack.
The current pace at which economy and production occur in SC2 (again, just in my opinion) allow a player to reach a 'critical mass' of a particular unit or unit composition faster than an opposing player can react to it. By 'react', I don't mean their actual dexterity, I mean their in-game limitations. Sometimes, by the time a player can scout and identify their opponent doing something, it's too late to adjust their tech tree, or place the appropriate production facilities, and winning becomes almost impossible.
Anyhow, a bit earlier, I asked "So, are the fans just whiny bitches, or is there some legitimate gripe to be had here?" and actually would say it's both. There are lots of whiny people who have no idea how to express themselves appropriately who play games. I feel like a lot of companies, including Activision and Blizzard, mistreat their fans because they know the fans will just take it. And it's not just Blizzard. Other companies do it as well. Everything is geared towards maximizing the profit for Blizzard, even if it means you get a rushed product and you have to kick and scream to get small things changed over the course of years. That's absolutely wrong.
I think SC2 fans have been mistreated terribly. I mean, Blizzard isn't beating you with a stick like an angry drunken step-dad, but you're still getting boned.
- You have no LAN
This was implemented, I'm convinced, so that no foreign pro-gaming countries could host a tournament without Blizzard's approval. If any company or organization hosted a major tournament not sanctioned by Blizzard, they would be instantly shut off from the server. LAN support would be easy to implement, but Blizzard doesn't want to deal with another pre-SC2 Kespa. This spoils the fun for everyone, so even minor stuff like 50$ tours can't proceed because battle.net goes down and there is no LAN or alternate servers.
- You own nothing.
You don't actually own a copy of SC2. You paid for the privilege to play. Blizzard can take away your ability to play SC2 at any time. This got a bit better with the arcade being open to play for free, but you still have nothing that is yours. With SC1, you got a disc, and as long as you and a friend both had a disc, you could both play whenever you wanted.
- You have no say
If there is an overpowered unit (think infestors in WoL) Blizzard will ignore the problem as long as possible. Once you've paid for their product, there's not much more money they can milk out of you from that particular title, and will only make changes so the game won't suck so bad that it scares away potential late-buyers or makes players pause to buy sequels. Now that LotV is out, I don't see any reason to add any patches or updates for balance purposes past first six months or so.
In conclusion, Blizzard is an abusive significant-other that doesn't understand you, and is using you for your money, and it hurts me when I see you get back into that relationship over and over and keep getting hurt. It hurts me to see you getting hurt like that, and you deserve better than that.
Think about it.
p.s. - Blizzard, get your shit together
