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On January 26 2017 02:26 Jae Zedong wrote:
Personally I think the one good thing that came out of SC2 is that it broke the glass ceiling for balance discussions. Back in 2009 even mentioning balance was like saying the earth was flat. The gospel was that "the game is perfectly balanced, git gud lololol" and noone would discuss it.
I'm happy we're finally at a point where we realize that Blizzard aren't infallible. And there's a difference between acknowledning balance issues (that objectively exist) and suggesting they should be "fixed". Because "fixing" something always leads to unintended consequences and I personally wouldn't trust Blizzard with that.
The problem is precisely that Blizzard is not infallible. Look at how aggressively they morph the meta in Overwatch by patching for balance. Meanwhile, BroodWar hasn't seen a single balance patch through several generations of meta game. I'm not claiming that the game is perfectly balanced, but it does seem pretty damn good at the moment and there are sure to be unintended consequences of any changes regardless of their good intentions. The game as it is has a stunning diversity of viable strategy and playstyles. Even though it's not perfect, it's a difficult task to try and improve it without making it worse by accident.
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Why is the discussion about this so damn hostile?
I wanna see compatibility issues solved and official anti-hack, sure, you can use launchers and stuff but an actual official launcher would make the game so much more accessible.
And the sprite and bullet limit increased.
Add it to the bnet launcher and include a anti-hack package that is invisible to the user.
What about a widescreen patch? I think a HD remake or something would impact the micro and change the game to much, but to made it widescreen like some version already do?
I would like to see some small balance changes as well, but very very limited.
A +1 range buff for Scouts, vision as well as weapons, seems appropriate to me. It is still a crazy expensive, slow building unit with limited use but a bit stronger in its limited role.
But what do I know, I suck at this game.
I can also see the argument for queens starting off with just slightly more energy, or making the energy upgrade slightly stronger. But like just like 5 to 10 energy or so.
But that is more about it just being fun to see, the constant balance patches in SC2 just feels silly to me. You don't constantly change the rules in regular sports.
This is why most e-sports just feel pointless to me and BW feels so fantastic. It has been the same game for basically 10 years and that is what makes the players interesting, not the game itself.
But I get kinda sad to see people wanting Blizzard to stay away, sure, I am still pissed at them for crushing BW just to try and market SC2, but to see their support for the game is important for the regrowth imo.
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On January 26 2017 03:11 PiSan wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2017 02:26 Jae Zedong wrote:
Personally I think the one good thing that came out of SC2 is that it broke the glass ceiling for balance discussions. Back in 2009 even mentioning balance was like saying the earth was flat. The gospel was that "the game is perfectly balanced, git gud lololol" and noone would discuss it.
I'm happy we're finally at a point where we realize that Blizzard aren't infallible. And there's a difference between acknowledning balance issues (that objectively exist) and suggesting they should be "fixed". Because "fixing" something always leads to unintended consequences and I personally wouldn't trust Blizzard with that. The problem is precisely that Blizzard is not infallible. Look at how aggressively they morph the meta in Overwatch by patching for balance. Meanwhile, BroodWar hasn't seen a single balance patch through several generations of meta game. I'm not claiming that the game is perfectly balanced, but it does seem pretty damn good at the moment and there are sure to be unintended consequences of any changes regardless of their good intentions. The game as it is has a stunning diversity of viable strategy and playstyles. Even though it's not perfect, it's a difficult task to try and improve it without making it worse by accident.
Yes, exactly. And we also have to realize that the relative balance in BW is not entirely due to Blizzard, much of it is due to ingenious players and exploits discovered long after the last balance patch. Imagine if muta stacking wasn't possible, then ZvT would probably be nowhere near balanced. The relative balance of BW is a lucky accident that probably shouldn't be prodded too much. Would be cool to see a UMS map that buffs all the underused units slightly though.
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Imagine if muta stacking wasn't possible, then ZvT would probably be nowhere near balanced. The relative balance of BW is a lucky accident that probably shouldn't be prodded too much.
Zergs would have simply found some other way to deal with terrans.
The same thing about balance. The developers made the game relatively balanced, the rest was up to players to exploit different stuff and to find effective strategies and counters.
It's not really an accident. It's the natural outcome, quite a determined one.
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On January 26 2017 03:55 shall_burn wrote:Show nested quote +
Imagine if muta stacking wasn't possible, then ZvT would probably be nowhere near balanced. The relative balance of BW is a lucky accident that probably shouldn't be prodded too much.
Zergs would have simply found some other way to deal with terrans. The same thing about balance. The developers made the game relatively balanced, the rest was up to players to exploit different stuff and to find effective strategies and counters. It's not really an accident. It's the natural outcome, quite a determined one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity
This is basically creationist thinking. "On the first day the gods created the perfect balance, perfectly predicting the meta 15 years in advance, hurr durr". That simply isn't the case. Brood War is the best game ever and has almost perfect balance, but that wasn't inevitable. A variety of factors, some random, conspired to make it so. Can't we just be happy with our little serendipity instead of lulling ourselves into the false belief that the same guys who flip flopped on the Bunker in SC2 a hundred times conceived the perfect balance half a generation ago?
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Honestly, it's not the players who would've made the game more balanced. It would be the mapmakers.
And yeah, Blizz might make a really shitty balance patch. I don't think that means we shouldn't discuss any balance patch ideas whatsoever.
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Smartest thing to do would be to make it available and well playable on modern system with a good B.net support and a ladder. That's it. Maybe automining and 5-6 scv start, might help ... but i am not sure if and how this change might affect the balance. And affecting the balance for this game would be a terrible mistake.
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On January 26 2017 04:27 Xeln4g4 wrote:
Maybe automining and 5-6 scv start
DONT. EVEN. DARE!
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This is basically creationist thinking. "On the first day the gods created the perfect balance, perfectly predicting the meta 15 years in advance, hurr durr". That simply isn't the case. Brood War is the best game ever and has almost perfect balance, but that wasn't inevitable. A variety of factors, some random, conspired to make it so. Can't we just be happy with our little serendipity instead of lulling ourselves into the false belief that the same guys who flip flopped on the Bunker in SC2 a hundred times conceived the perfect balance half a generation ago?
You might want to re-read my message, as I have made the same point, the only difference is that I don't see any coincedence in the fact that the game is balanced. Many things were not intended by the developers. And I did not say that they predicted meta, etc. By relatively balanced I meant the original escalation from weak but cheap units to strong but costly, the ease of expanding and gaining map control too. The rest was wrought by players, mapmackers (a very valid point from the above poster) and time. Given the time, everything levells. This happens to many other games.
I might have made myself unclear with the previous post. Can't see any other reason for your having misunderstood me.
Hope it's got better this time.
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On January 26 2017 02:26 Jae Zedong wrote:
Personally I think the one good thing that came out of SC2 is that it broke the glass ceiling for balance discussions. Back in 2009 even mentioning balance was like saying the earth was flat. The gospel was that "the game is perfectly balanced, git gud lololol" and noone would discuss it.
I'm happy we're finally at a point where we realize that Blizzard aren't infallible. And there's a difference between acknowledning balance issues (that objectively exist) and suggesting they should be "fixed". Because "fixing" something always leads to unintended consequences and I personally wouldn't trust Blizzard with that.
It's the one bad thing that came out of SC2.
the constant balance-whining is what is hurting the game(s) the most and continuously drives away players with its toxicity.
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On January 26 2017 02:40 neobowman wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2017 02:18 Antisocialmunky wrote:
Maybe we should just have the mods change this to the Balance Whine thread. I think SCII had a stickied one for WoL.
I don't care about balance or whatever because its mostly an issue of maps these days, but I'm sick of every thread turning into a balance whine thread. There seems to be a social stigma in the Brood War community about discussing balance changes. I think it's come half from acceptance that Blizz won't be balance changing and half from balance change threads usually devolving into poorly thought out arguments. I don't think it should be something avoided. If people are rational and open to ideas then it can lead to a lot of good discussion.
there's no stigma about it. Perception just is that the game is balanced very well and balancing via maps, like Kespa did, makes a lot more sense then changing anything else. You see, the game ran on a fine balance all these years, you'd need to have pretty good arguments why there would be any indication for change.
And then there's people being sceptical about suggested balance changes from casual players. When you're not into competitive broodwar (like playing ICCup or fish) it's actually hard to make make correct assesments about balance. Not targeting that at you or anybody specific tho.
good example from my mind (and somewhere in this thread) is a post where the user argues that Scout's shouldn't be buffed because Protoss is to dominant on "air maps"
When i read that i couldn't help but think that the poster of that comes from a very casual PoV, since it's nobody really plays island maps in competitive 1v1 or 2v2 anymore. Since 2006 or something.
And while i think it's fine to look at the game from a casual PoV, that PoV shouldn't be the judgement point for balance in competitive games, especially when we talk about televised korean Starleagues on the highest level.
If anybody has enough understanding about the game to talk balance, it's those ex pro gamers anyway and nobody on Teamliquid.
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On January 26 2017 05:39 Cele wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2017 02:40 neobowman wrote:On January 26 2017 02:18 Antisocialmunky wrote:
Maybe we should just have the mods change this to the Balance Whine thread. I think SCII had a stickied one for WoL.
I don't care about balance or whatever because its mostly an issue of maps these days, but I'm sick of every thread turning into a balance whine thread. There seems to be a social stigma in the Brood War community about discussing balance changes. I think it's come half from acceptance that Blizz won't be balance changing and half from balance change threads usually devolving into poorly thought out arguments. I don't think it should be something avoided. If people are rational and open to ideas then it can lead to a lot of good discussion. there's no stigma about it. Perception just is that the game is balanced very well and balancing via maps, like Kespa did, makes a lot more sense then changing anything else. You see, the game ran on a fine balance all these years, you'd need to have pretty good arguments why there would be any indication for change. And then there's people being sceptical about suggested balance changes from casual players. When you're not into competitive broodwar (like playing ICCup or fish) it's actually hard to make make correct assesments about balance. Not targeting that at you or anybody specific tho. good example from my mind (and somewhere in this thread) is a post where the user argues that Scout's shouldn't be buffed because Protoss is to dominant on "air maps" When i read that i couldn't help but think that the poster of that comes from a very casual PoV, since it's nobody really plays island maps in competitive 1v1 or 2v2 anymore. Since 2006 or something. And while i think it's fine to look at the game from a casual PoV, that PoV shouldn't be the judgement point for balance in competitive games, especially when we talk about televised korean Starleagues on the highest level. If anybody has enough understanding about the game to talk balance, it's those ex pro gamers anyway and nobody on Teamliquid.
You don't think Jaedong or Flash have TL accounts?
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On January 25 2017 17:48 Jealous wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2017 17:05 [[Starlight]] wrote:On January 25 2017 16:53 Jealous wrote:On January 25 2017 16:08 [[Starlight]] wrote:On January 25 2017 15:57 Jealous wrote:On January 25 2017 12:33 [[Starlight]] wrote:On January 25 2017 09:47 xboi209 wrote:On January 25 2017 07:47 [[Starlight]] wrote:On January 25 2017 07:16 xboi209 wrote:On January 25 2017 06:59 ICanFlyLow wrote:
[quote]
i prefer sc or starcraft, i didnt even know what BW meant when i first heard it Unfortunately, "SC" or "Starcraft" refers to StarCraft 2 by default nowadays. With the SC2 scene starting to go downhill (pro teams disbanding, etc.) while BW is reviving, that's a lot less true than it was say five years ago. And certainly in Korea, BW never stopped being the default Starcraft. To me (and I suspect many others), Starcraft 2 = Starcraft 2 or SC2, that's it, no other umbrella names for it really... and of course there are the major release references (WoL, HotS, LotV). BroodWar = BroodWar, BW, or Starcraft. 'Starcraft 1' just sounds odd, and it's actually kind of annoying when certain casters like Tastosis use the term repeatedly, for whatever reason. Original SC, without the BW expansion = Vanilla SC or Vanilla Starcraft. Which almost no one plays, so the terminology there isn't really a big deal. Well, outside of BW dominated communities and even outside of Starcraft communities, I really doubt most people will think of BW instead of SC2 when someone says "Starcraft". Koreans would probably find that assertion amusing. "Outside of BW dominated communities." aka an entire nation. Yes, outside an entire nation, multiple servers and communities. Which is the point xboi was trying to make, I think. You're looking for "i.e." btw. Nope... aka stands for 'also known as'. Last I heard, South Korea was an entire nation... though I do hope they and the North reunify someday. On top of being an entire nation, they're almost 50% of BW game sales, and the overwhelming portion of the pro scene/its current equivalent. Don't think we can really label them as 'just another community'... they kind of ARE the scene, to a large extent. And I'm sure xboi is articulate enough to not need an interpreter. But thanks for your input. I quote: "Outside of BW dominated communities." You say: "Also known as an entire nation." That barely makes sense. Please revise.
Well, I know second languages can be difficult (and I certainly can't speak Russian), but go back and read it again... obviously I was reinforcing my comment prior about Korea. Which again, is an entire nation. The point was, to categorize it as merely a 'community' is a bit off... it's much more than that. But, if you wish to talk about just the SC-playing portion of Korea as a community, then it's not just another SC community, is is THE SC community. So what it thinks of when ppl say 'Starcraft' is not just a passing curiosity, of equal weight with, say, what the Madagascar SC community thinks when ppl say 'Starcraft' (no offense to Madagascar).
I also understand how you could've missed that aka stands for 'also known as', but that's no reason to go full grammar-nazi and rage out, yes?
I am failing to understand how you're failing to understand that OUTSIDE means NOT INCLUDING. Ask the average layman about StarCraft, and they will most likely think of StarCraft 2, OUTSIDE of Korea, TL:BW section, fish, ICCup, your friends, etc. How is this eluding you?
The 'average layman' doesn't *even know what Starcraft is*, as RTS gamers are a fairly small minority of the general public in most nations... though not in Korea, where the average person might actually be aware of Starcraft, due to its long-standing off-the-charts popularity there, TV channels that were dedicated to it, etc.. That was my point, and one you keep missing, for some odd reason.
Yes, I know he is [articulate].
Then why do you keep angrily interjecting, as if he desperately needed an interpreter? He does not, Xboi is a smart guy.
In summation, what exactly is it that has triggered you so? Why are you upset? And if you stop and think about it... should you be? 
Calm down, have a beer, and relax. Life is not that bad.
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"On the first day the gods created the perfect balance, perfectly predicting the meta 15 years in advance, hurr durr"
You seriously think if the meta is balanced, the game is balanced? Far from the truth. Meta changes all the time pretty much.
What needs to be balanced IS THE GAME, the units to each other, the mineral income. The races to each other.
Thats what balance is, not the meta.
So yes, blizzard did a good job back then, i seriously doubt current blizzard if they release a balance/design patch it would be a good one, they would crash this game down to every little bit and then after 5years they say "congratulation"
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On January 26 2017 01:39 sabas123 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2017 01:23 Cele wrote:On January 25 2017 22:29 sabas123 wrote:On January 25 2017 19:04 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:On January 25 2017 18:56 toriak wrote:
@eonzerg
but its not a pro game lol imo Scout is not a bad unit,i think everyone just ignored this unit.i mean i discovered last year there was an upgrade speed for scouts watching Lancerx stream... i did see Bisu beating fengzi with the same strat ,scout reaver,bisu using it like we zergs use muta. I remember Shuttle raping Sziky with some wierd pure Scout strat, it seemed really good. i can rape D- with uncloaked ghosts, doesn't prove anything. Even between very good foreigners like Sziky and ex pro's like shutle is still a vast difference. Well it was Sziky at his peak form back then when he had an decent win rate vs ex pros,
Didn't Sziky get raped by Sea with an all-Goliaths build? I seem to remember that.
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On January 26 2017 02:40 neobowman wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2017 02:18 Antisocialmunky wrote:
Maybe we should just have the mods change this to the Balance Whine thread. I think SCII had a stickied one for WoL.
I don't care about balance or whatever because its mostly an issue of maps these days, but I'm sick of every thread turning into a balance whine thread. There seems to be a social stigma in the Brood War community about discussing balance changes. I think it's come half from acceptance that Blizz won't be balance changing and half from balance change threads usually devolving into poorly thought out arguments. I don't think it should be something avoided. If people are rational and open to ideas then it can lead to a lot of good discussion.
Balance is just fun to talk about, even though I doubt Bliz is going to do anything there.
The discussions do tend to go off the rails though, due to several kinds of unhelpful posters:
1- The guy who can't even accept that a balance discussion is going on and gets mad, aka "Shut up you idiots, BALANCE IS PERFECT, SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP, YAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
2- The guy who can't even accept that a balance discussion is going on and decides to troll, aka "Durr hurr, I think tanks should have 10000 hp and shoot nukes, hurr hurr, me so funny and clever and original, no one has made jokes like this before, derp derp derp."
3- The person who offers earnest but obviously bad, game-breaking balance ideas, such as, well... name one. Bad, not well-thought out balance suggestions are everywhere.
4- The guy who might actually have good balance ideas but thinks his ideas are the ONLY good ones, and argues in an angry, non-constructive way with everyone else until they (he hopes) roll over and accept him as the second coming of Rob Pardo or whoever.
So, you can get why some ppl hate balance discussions so much. But, they are still interesting, and some ppl do have good ideas... that will likely never be implemented.
Still fun to talk about even so. 
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Its not really a stigma against balance discussion. Its a stigma against unsubstantiated balance criticism from players who aren't highly skilled (no offense) and complain about unit stats without factoring in anything else (seriously, I saw a SCV HP buff request wut). The skill cap of BW is very high and the units have a lot of potential depending on...
Build Order - Certain units are very effective at certain things at certain points in the game.
- The ability to go fast DTs against Terran. If the Terran figures it out and builds their turrets correctly or get their scan up, then DTs aren't as OP. How do you balance something so polarizing? You would probably just kill the build entirely which changes the meta which buffs Terran immensely if they just need to turret against fast Reaver harass instead. There are specific turret layouts that you do against Reavers vs DTs so screwing with early DTs makes it so Terran doesn't have to try and figure out which turret layout to use. This buffs Terran immensely because now they don't have to scout for the type of harass all because you touch the DT.
Player micro skill - Unit balance depends a lot on player skill with them.
- Uncontrolled vultures suck, microed vultures kill infinity slow lings. To balance the thing, you would have to figure out an expected value of Vulture Micro skill which varies widely. You'd probably just assume worst case and make the unit weak sauce.
Map features - Terrain features buff certain units
- Cliffs buff carriers vs terran, distant naturals with space behind the minerals buffs mutas vs terran, open maps punish mech pushes in TvP
If you balance for the map pool, then you have fruit of the month balancing like early WoL era (they had tiny crappy maps and Blizzard refused to put out large maps until Taldarim Altar). Remember when balance changes became obsolete because we didn't have destructible rocks in our huge mains (cheese), air rush distances were tiny (Banshee nerfs), maps got bigger (Barracks requires supply nerf), the nerf to 4 Gate (maps got bigger). How much of the early balance problems were just because of the maps?
"Soul" of the Unit - We don't want people to tell us what the unit is.
BW unit identity is based on how people figured out how to use it. The most egregious thing that Blizzard did in SCII was tell people what a unit was. Remember how they kept nerfing the Thor because it was a good unit? Remember how everything mech related got nerfed into the ground because Blizzard wanted MMM in every match up? Remember how the ghost became trash tier when people started teching them for snipe? Remember when they killed the Vortex even when it was the only thing that made Broodlord infestor TvP watchable? Yeah, we don't want some idiot game dev at Blizzard to ruin the units because they had some sort of narrow vision. BW units have personality because of what they can do, not what the developers intended the units to do.
On top of this, most of the fans of BW saw how Blizzard crammed how the game should be played down our throats in SCII. Given how much potential BW units have and the huge range of effectiveness they have, the balancing is extremely difficult.
For example: take the Scout range thing someone mentioned in this thread as an example. That doesn't change anything. Do you know what scouts do? They kill capital ships. Does anyone use capital ships vs P? No. Why? Because scouts DESTROY THEM HARD. You don't see scouts because they are REALLY GOOD AT WHAT THEY DO. Therefore no one in their right mind builds capital ships because they are so good. So what do you do if you want to see scouts? Buff BCs so they can't get feedback'd or are otherwise viable in TvP, make maps that encourage Sair-Reaver so you see huge Devourer vs Scout battles in ZvP (Go watch the Stork vs Fake Yellow). Of course this also buffs Dark Archons so you might not see scouts because Dark Archons are even scarier vs BC's. This would of course require comp changes to include EMP and so forth.
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YES YES YES YES YES
Time to make ZvT fair again
Please make this happen.
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EPT
