On December 17 2010 01:19 Chronald wrote:I posted this on the Battle.net Forums and wanted to share with you guys to see what you think.
OP :
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/1536476340PS: The part about people who read "these forums" is talking about b.net forums obviously.
Greetings,
I have never been one to post on these forums, yet I do lurk here quite often. This post is a culmination of many things that I have been upset about and angry with since the release of Starcraft 2. Namely, nerfs, patches, and whining (NPW from here on out). First I want to preamble with a little bit about myself. I have been gaming since the SNES, and have been competitive at games like Super Smash Brothers, Mario Kart (yes there are tournaments), Counter Strike, WoW, and Starcraft. Clearly the console games don't get patched like PC games, so they don't really factor into this discussion.
I want to bring to the reader's attention the horrible side-effects of NPW. NPW drastically dumbs down games. When players and forum posters complain about "oh MULEs are OP" or "Hydras are UP" it only bottlenecks the player's thinking. If you are an eSports fan than you know who SlayerSBoxeR is. BoxeR isn't famous for winning all of his championships. He is famous for HOW he did it. BoxeR took the struggling Terran race of the early 2000s and rocketed the Terran to the best race, hands down. This didn't happen because he whined to Blizzard for some kind of buff, it isn't because he started playing right after some major patch. It is because he ACCEPTED THE GAME THE WAY IT WAS. That's right, he didn't complain about imbalance, he didn't post stupid ass thread on teamliquid or battle.net. Instead he MADE IT WORK. He FOUND A WAY TO WIN. These are the major mental steps that I want to highlight.
Players that bottlenecks themselves with NPW do nothing beneficial for themselves. In fact I would go as far to say that they put a timer on their ability to play. Players who fall victim to NPW don't want to play until the patch comes out, don't want to practice "some stupid UP race". Would SlayerSBoxeR do that? Hell no. Players and fans need to pull their heads out of their own asses, and trust the Blizzard knows what they are doing. PLUS, if any of these complainers were ACTUALLY GOOD, they would know that the true imbalance in this game right now is Blizzard's shitty ass maps (yes every single map they have made, sucks, hard, except maaaaybe Shakuras, but even then..).
What I am trying to display is how community effort to get games patched or aspects nerfed never satisfies anyone. Only the people who are positively affected by the change are happy, and in Starcraft that is less than 30%, unless you play Terran. Basically, by nerfing the game once, Blizzard is forced to nerf it again. Look at what has happened to WoW. When WoW came out it was a hardcore, awesome ass MMORPG, kicked EQ2 and DaoC in the ass. Clearly there were some balance issues in vanilla WoW (rogues could backstab with swords in the early days) so they HAD to patch those to make sure people still played. But after years of player's NPW-ing the game is completely different and boring. Raids don't present the mental challenge they used to, the game is completely based on numbers not skill. Skill does show up in PvP, and I think that is why Blizzard is pushing PvP so much hard these days. However, I would go so far as to say that without as much NPW from the community, WoW would still be the fucking awesome, 40man raiding, world PvP-ing behemoth that is was. (Disclaimer: I have played WoW on and off from release. I have had each class at max level, either 60/70/80. I refuse to play cataclysm due to RL, and lack of interest.)
But now we look at RTS games. The difference with an RTS game is that NPW does NOTHING TO MAKE THEM BETTER. Starcraft 2 is a 90% balanced game imo, +/- 5%, and this means that the patches that need to happen are small, and not paradigm shifting. So many posters ask for "MULE nerfs" or "Fast Hydras" or whatever the fuck, and this is stuuuuupid. Completely changing the role of a unit would knock the carefully placed balances off their rockers. This game has been in the making for TEN+ FUCKING YEARS. I think Blizzard knows what role they want units to fill.
The driving theme of this post is to encourage members of the community to not post about what they want Blizzard to change, or how Blizzard has fucked up. I want to see a community like Brood War's, where players devise new strategies with the pieces they are given. I don't remember who said it, Nony I think, on the State of the Game Podcast, Starcraft 2 is a intelligence-limited game. Players have to find out what their opponents are doing. THAT IS THE FUCKING POINT. Blizzard shouldn't have to hold your hand, and say, "Look your opponent is making hydras, this means that you should build collosus." Frankly, Blizzard is too nice to most of the posters here. I feel like these are complain-boards, where under-skilled players go to NPW about the game. If you hit a plateau in your play, it isn't Blizzard's job to help you through it, it is yours. When you buy a chess set, the toy store doesn't come to your house every day to play with you, you have to practice on your own.
Maybe people who bought SC2 didn't realize that they would actually have to be accountable for their skill. I think a lot of new-age WoW players who are used to well-fare epics and stupid badge gear have bought SC2 thinking that they can be the best without ever thinking about what the game is. SC2 isn't your normal online game, its competitive, its fast, its completely on you. Losing in SC2 is much worse than dying in WoW or dying in CS, because death there doesn't lose you the entire game. Maybe in certain situations, but most of the time it doesn't. You have a team to rely on, resurrections to work with. SC2 doesn't have that, if you fuck up, you fucked up, that's it.
Perhaps I am ranting, perhaps I'm not. But I think that people are completely un-aware of what they are doing the community. This game will never last if people only focus on what is bad. There are so many fucking awesome things about SC2 compared to BW. Multiple Building Select O_O I can't wait to see Jaedong or Flash play SC2 so they don't have to use 90% of their godly APM for macro. Same with unit selections. People, grow up and stop whining. Blizzard has made a game that should, and will ( I feel ), be the best PC game of all time.
By whining and complaining for Blizzard to nerf or patch the game you take away from the value of the game. You make it seem that Blizzard hasn't done anything right, and that the game is bad. THIS GAME IS NOT BAD PERIOD. Blizzard - IMO you should ban everyone who complains for a nerf or patch unless you ask them.
NPW makes games not fun, it makes it not fun to be a part of the community that drives the game. And sadly, it is this community that eSports relies upon. If you want to see eSports go under the bus, then please keep posting stupid NPW threads, but don't say I didn't warn you when you get flamed into the ground. If you really want to be the best, and enjoy playing SC2, use your brain, think, be creative, and think outside the box. Maybe you will be the one to invent the new Reaver Drop or the new Vulture micro. Who knows, the game is there waiting for us to unlock it's mysteries, but instead we want them explicitly thrown in our face. Don't do this, a fine game is like a fine wine, there are so many layers and intricacies that drinking it once simply won't do. You have to peel away the layers of flavor and musk in order to find the true beauty of the wine. Wine, like Starcraft, is a fickle lover, she does not reveal her secrets to anyone, you must deem yourself worthy of understanding her secrets, but once you do, no one can stop you.
To summarize, STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING, STOP FUCKING WHINING, AND PLAY THE FUCKING GAME.
EPT
