EPTWhy MBS Is Essential To a Competitive SC2 - Page 26
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koryano321
United States309 Posts
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IdrA
United States11541 Posts
On September 30 2007 07:44 orangedude wrote: And let's say Blizzard was reading this post right now. You think they would ever take it seriously with quotes like this? There's a difference between constructive criticism and feedback that they can take into consideration and just plain negativity/cynicism that doesn't help anyone. A good post on the other hand would be like Tasteless' post. He takes into account both sides of the issue and demonstrates in great detail why he believes MBS should be removed from the game to preserve the current pro-scene. Anyone reading that can actually learn something from it. your post is more insulting to them than his was. you're basically implying they would ignore well thought out, meaningful arguments just because some random guy hurt their feelings. it was unecessary, but whatever. its a forum, you're gonna have to take the bad with the good. | ||
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orangedude
Canada220 Posts
On September 30 2007 07:46 koryano321 wrote: lost temple is balanceD??? since when???? i thought it was advantageous for fucking terran, the other races cant fucking expand with a terran drop on their gay expansion cliff. impossible to break through the defense in a frontal assulat, forced to wait for terran to move out from their gay ledge with tanks shooting down on their army. when protoss is at 12, and terran is at 3, tell me its balanced when RIGHT WHEN PROTSS EXITS BASE, THEY ARE HIT BY TANKS BECAUSE OF THAT GAY LEDGE EXTENDING TO THEIR ENTRANCe. on a competitive level, people DO NOT play LT nemore, it is casually played, it is a fun map, it is still popular, but it is in NO WAY balanced. Oh come on, it was one of the more balanced maps in the past. Yes, I'm fully aware that they don't use it ANYMORE, because they made better maps. Notice how LT was used in WCG and several important tournies back in the day. If it was as utterly imbalanced as you state, it never would've reached the popularity that it had. On September 30 2007 07:51 IdrA wrote: your post is more insulting to them than his was. you're basically implying they would ignore well thought out, meaningful arguments just because some random guy hurt their feelings. it was unecessary, but whatever. its a forum, you're gonna have to take the bad with the good. I insulted them? Well thought-out, meaningful? Are you kidding me? A 5-line rant is meaningful criticism now? Okay..... That's why the bad gets ignored, understand? | ||
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SpiritoftheTunA
United States20903 Posts
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IdrA
United States11541 Posts
On September 30 2007 08:05 orangedude wrote: Oh come on, it was one of the more balanced maps in the past. Yes, I'm fully aware that they don't use it ANYMORE, because they made better maps. Notice how LT was used in WCG and several important tournies back in the day. If it was as utterly imbalanced as you state, it never would've reached the popularity that it had. I insulted them? Well thought-out, meaningful? Are you kidding me? A 5-line rant with obvious false statements is meaningful criticism now? Okay..... That's why the bad gets ignored, understand? obviously they would ignore posts like his, that goes without saying your post implied they would ignore the rest of the thread when they saw quotes like his. "And let's say Blizzard was reading this post right now. You think they would ever take it seriously with quotes like this?" and if you did mean that, then what i said still applies. if you didnt, i misunderstood you. | ||
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orangedude
Canada220 Posts
EDIT: Yes Idra, I was referring to just that one post (never said thread). That's why I even said they would definitely consider a well-reasoned post like Tasteless and others. | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
On September 30 2007 08:11 IdrA wrote: obviously they would ignore posts like his, that goes without saying your post implied they would ignore the rest of the thread when they saw quotes like his. "And let's say Blizzard was reading this post right now. You think they would ever take it seriously with quotes like this?" and if you did mean that, then what i said still applies. if you didnt, i misunderstood you. I believe he meant the individual post, not the entire thread.  Crikey, ninja edit by OD! | ||
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IdrA
United States11541 Posts
of course theyre going to ignore a post like that, theres no content to it. your post seemed irrelevant if it didnt apply to the rest of the thread. yes, alot of the balancing was through the map makers, professional map makers did not appear very long after the first progaming leagues, and at that point the game was so un-refined, strategically and mechanically, that balance was much less of an issue. balance is a massive issue now because the players have everything so fine-tuned that any little imbalance in the map/game becomes very magnified, but back when everyone was still trying to figure out what worked and what didnt, game imbalance wasnt nearly as apparent. | ||
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Aphelion
United States2720 Posts
On September 30 2007 08:17 orangedude wrote: So Tuna, you are saying that the Korean map makers who came in after SC became extremely popular throughout the country and worldwide and SC was well known as the most balanced RTS ever made, is all because of their efforts? Yes, like I said map-makers did make maps to fix certain racial imbalances that existed, but that's only after-the-fact tweaking that built off of an incredible base that was already given to them in SC. Ask any person about their opinions of SC compared to any other RTS out there, and chances are they will say SC is far better balanced than the others. This is regardless of whether they have ever touched a Korean/WCG league map or not. It's not just by luck. BW and patches were all produced by Blizzard. But if you really believe so, then I can't change your opinion. EDIT: Yes Idra, I was referring to just that one post (never said thread). That's why I even said they would definitely consider a well-reasoned post like Tasteless and others. I deleted my previous post about this because I promised myself not to get into a flame war, but LonelyMargarita was exactly right. Blizzard really had no idea how to balance the game. Ever take a look at the strategic advice they gave on their battle.net website? Or every map besides LT? Only a few were actually playable. And they had absolutely NO CLUE that TvP was going to turn out largely metal based, or that muta ling would be the end all be all of ZvZ. BW being balanced was a function of the later patches coming out, korean mapmakers and happy chance. Vanilla SC is horrifically imbalanced. Any case, something relating to macro / micro balanced simply cannot be fixed by patches or mapmaking. Its something built into the interface. Blizzard HAS to get the balance of macro / micro right before the launch. And having little gee-whiz things like warpgates and different building addons aren't going to do it. It needs to be something very core, very basic which needs to be constantly performed. Make SC2 too easy, and watch competitive gaming die in 1-2 years. And no amount of noob fanbases will stop that. | ||
Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
On September 30 2007 07:46 koryano321 wrote: lost temple is balanceD??? since when???? i thought it was advantageous for fucking terran, the other races cant fucking expand with a terran drop on their gay expansion cliff. impossible to break through the defense in a frontal assulat, forced to wait for terran to move out from their gay ledge with tanks shooting down on their army. when protoss is at 12, and terran is at 3, tell me its balanced when RIGHT WHEN PROTSS EXITS BASE, THEY ARE HIT BY TANKS BECAUSE OF THAT GAY LEDGE EXTENDING TO THEIR ENTRANCe. on a competitive level, people DO NOT play LT nemore, it is casually played, it is a fun map, it is still popular, but it is in NO WAY balanced. The modern iterations of lost temple are more or less balanced. The original lost temple has serious positional imbalances, unlike the modern ones where they are very minor. | ||
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orangedude
Canada220 Posts
On September 30 2007 08:33 Aphelion wrote: I deleted my previous post about this because I promised myself not to get into a flame war, but LonelyMargarita was exactly right. Blizzard really had no idea how to balance the game. Ever take a look at the strategic advice they gave on their battle.net website? Or every map besides LT? Only a few were actually playable. And they had absolutely NO CLUE that TvP was going to turn out largely metal based, or that muta ling would be the end all be all of ZvZ. BW being balanced was a function of the later patches coming out, korean mapmakers and happy chance. Vanilla SC is horrifically imbalanced. Any case, something relating to macro / micro balanced simply cannot be fixed by patches or mapmaking. Its something built into the interface. Blizzard HAS to get the balance of macro / micro right before the launch. And having little gee-whiz things like warpgates and different building addons aren't going to do it. It needs to be something very core, very basic which needs to be constantly performed. Make SC2 too easy, and watch competitive gaming die in 1-2 years. And no amount of noob fanbases will stop that. Let me ask you this then. Do you think SC (before pro-league maps) is more balanced than say C&C or any other RTS out there (with unique races)? Because I remember nearly every review out there for praising the three completely unique yet intricately balanced races in Starcraft. Broodwar and the patches were only further refinements to the basic game. Of course the evolution of all the specific unit combinations and game metatypes of the various racial matchups in the mature game couldn't have been forseen by Blizzard (there's just too many factors involved). I don't think they set out with the goal of Terran making only tanks + vults vs Protoss, because they would want more strategies to be viable. But for various reasons this is how it turned out, and yet you still have an interesting and balanced matchup. The mutaling in ZvZ is one of the few failures in balancing that resulted in a somewhat strategically stale matchup, but again it's due to many reasons that are quite complex. I'm sure Blizzard would have thought that hydra/lurk is the perfect counter or at least had a fighting chance, but alas timing, harassment, and other intricacies prevent this from being possible. Now look at the PvZ matchup. All the different viable strategies that could be used by the P or the Z definitely had to be built in by Blizzard. Nearly every unit from both races fits into specific roles (templars, reavers, lurkers, defilers, ultralisks, etc) just as Blizzard had intended them. No map maker could've made these unit mixes work. Only careful balancing through design and patching could've made this match-up the way it is today. I think it's totally unfair to deny that Blizzard had a large part to do with the incredible balance that SC enjoys now. The patches were all released by them, and they also had no idea that SC would become as competitive as it is today when they were first designing it. However, now that they have 10 years of experience and have seen what works and what doesn't, and they actually have pro-gamers to test for them it's a whole new ball game. Even their lead balancer is a former SC pro-gamer so I will give them the benefit of the doubt. You can be less optimistic if you want, but you have to give them some credit for the successes of SC. On your second point, I've agreed with this sentiment that Blizzard is responsible for perfecting this balance, and only time will tell if they can achieve it. Keep in mind that we've only played an early pre-alpha build of SC2 for a few hours (remember how much SC changed from its alpha build?). It's just that removing MBS causes a ton of unpleasant side effects in a game released today (e.g. poor reviews, negative word of mouth, frustrated noobs, etc; see Armies of Exigo), so I'm not convinced that it's the best way to resolve this issue (although it's definitely the easiest way). | ||
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InRaged
1047 Posts
I'll respond to the Idra's post after sleep... probably | ||
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IdrA
United States11541 Posts
On September 30 2007 12:07 InRaged wrote: Aphelion, LonelyMargarita said Blizz has no idea how to balance. Would he say "had" that could be discussed but he rather insulted than anything else. Now Blizz has huge experience they hadn't while making starcraft, it has very experienced RTS Player at the core of balance team and won't hesitate to get pro-gamers to help refining game, so hearing Blizzard has no idea how to balance from someone who never worked at the game balancing -- I can apologise to LonelyMargarita if he did, but I don't think so -- is pretty disgusting. I'll respond to the Idra's post after sleep... probably no offense to pillars or anything, i know he has a great reputation in rts gaming and whatnot, but he quit playing bw professionally a _long_ time ago. having him on the staff is certainly a big benefit but its not a guarantee that the game will come out balanced. | ||
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Aphelion
United States2720 Posts
On September 30 2007 09:14 orangedude wrote: It's just that removing MBS causes a ton of unpleasant side effects in a game released today (e.g. poor reviews, negative word of mouth, frustrated noobs, etc; see Armies of Exigo)). I don't even consider those huge problems. In fact, I don't consider some of them problems at all. Armies of Exigo is a moot point. SC2 already has a million times more hype and name going for it than Armies of Exigo ever had. Its like how a shitty movie sequel will sell even if it sucks. Starcraft 2 isn't; so make it the best progaming game it can possibly be. And for that to happen, remove MBS. To take the movie analogy a further, compare Starcraft to Star Wars. BW is like episodes 4-6. Adding MBS to SC2 is like George Lucas adding fancy computer animation and Jar Jar Binks to the prequels. Don't sacrifice long term gameplay for a few month-long playing noobs and to wow the retarded reviewers. | ||
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EGLzGaMeR
United States1867 Posts
well said~ | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
On September 30 2007 12:16 Aphelion wrote: I don't even consider those huge problems. In fact, I don't consider some of them problems at all. Armies of Exigo is a moot point. SC2 already has a million times more hype and name going for it than Armies of Exigo ever had. Its like how a shitty movie sequel will sell even if it sucks. Starcraft 2 isn't; so make it the best progaming game it can possibly be. And for that to happen, remove MBS. To take the movie analogy a further, compare Starcraft to Star Wars. BW is like episodes 4-6. Adding MBS to SC2 is like George Lucas adding fancy computer animation and Jar Jar Binks to the prequels. Don't sacrifice long term gameplay for a few month-long playing noobs and to wow the retarded reviewers. So what you're saying is that you're fine with the long-term SC2 competitive community remaining at roughly the same size as the SC community, with mostly the same people, regardless of what effect that might have on its marketability to e-sports organizations that aim towards a more mainstream market? And furthermore, do you believe that anyone who thinks that retaining the SC interface is a bad idea, regardless of their experience in other RTSs, would never become competitive players in the first place? Because if you retain the interface by kicking out common features of all RTS games, like MBS, automine, and smartcasting, you're alienating the vast majority of new players, whether they're new to the RTS genre or well experienced in contemporary RTSs. And that's a large portion of the long-term SC2 competitive community you're willing to give up in order to assert beliefs that you can't prove on its effect on the feature-complete SC2 gameplay (mainly because a feature-complete SC2 doesn't exist right now). Sorry if I seemed harsh, but this is how multiplayer games work, and SC2 is no exception to the rule. Hype alone doesn't make a competitive community, but gameplay and smooth learning curves do. For an example of a game that remained mostly the same through its sequel and didn't flourish like everyone expected, take Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142. The latter's mechanics were so similar to the former's that veterans totally dominated everyone else, and then went back to Battlefield 2, killing 2142's e-sport potential. | ||
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Aphelion
United States2720 Posts
And I don't think that all pro-MBS people are newbs, but people who hold on to the idea that not having MBS would ruin the game for them, and that there is "no skill in mass clicking", yes those people cannot be good at a game like SC. Furthermore, I can't prove anything, other than from personal experience, from good gamers playing SC, and from people like Tasteless testing out SC2. But that is really as good as it gets at this point. Its disingenous to suggest that I can't comment "on a feature complete SC2". After all, for there to be a feature complete SC2, it takes people commenting and balancing an incomplete game. Anti-MBS people don't have the onus to prove anything anyways - we have the best game ever made without MBS, with established gosus affirming their anti-MBS position. Its you pro-MBS people that have to prove something. List one game with MBS that is better than BW. Go on, the ball is in your court. | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
people who hold on to the idea that not having MBS would ruin the game for them, and that there is "no skill in mass clicking", yes those people cannot be good at a game like SC. I don't think it's as much as not having MBS ruins the game, it's more that a large portion of the initial competitive community will have 5-9 years of experience on new players, and thus the barriers of entry into the competitive community will be (imho) excessively high for most potential competitive players. By feature-complete, I mean at the very least an SC2 with Zerg in it, and all of the currently-planned units and abilities functional. In other words, a version worthy of an early closed beta run. List one game with MBS that is better than BW. You know perfectly well I can't, but it's not because of MBS: it's because no other RTS has the gameplay balance developed from years of patches (which didn't affect the interface, as you said) that SC does, mostly because those developers work under publishers who will only allow them X number of changes. Blizzard is its own publisher, and thus has no one to answer to. The only game even close to the balance of SC is, naturally, WC3, Blizzard's other RTS. And while it is very popular in its own right, its inferiority to SC is due to intrinsic factors of its core gameplay, such as heroes, creeps, high-HP units, etc., not necessarily because of its interface. Anti-MBS people don't have the onus to prove anything anyways - we have the best game ever made without MBS, with established gosus affirming their anti-MBS position. Again, Quake 4 had Quake 3, the best game with strafe jumping, and established players who were against bunnyhopping like Painkiller offered. And what happened? Only Quake players ended up playing Quake 4 competitively, despite all the hype, and when they went back to Quake 3, the Q4 competitive scene was crippled. (I think WSVG was the last major e-sports organization that supported Q4 professional play) | ||
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Aphelion
United States2720 Posts
On September 30 2007 13:36 1esu wrote: You know perfectly well I can't, but it's not because of MBS: it's because no other RTS has the gameplay balance developed from years of patches (which didn't affect the interface, as you said) that SC does, mostly because those developers work under publishers who will only allow them X number of changes. Blizzard is its own publisher, and thus has no one to answer to. The only game even close to the balance of SC is, naturally, WC3, Blizzard's other RTS. And while it is very popular in its own right, its inferiority to SC is due to intrinsic factors of its core gameplay, such as heroes, creeps, high-HP units, etc., not necessarily because of its interface. That is your own speculation. We claim that MBS is bad, and we have the record of history on our side. We have experienced players, some of the best foreign players, to weigh in on the subject. We have people who have played as much SC2 as you can without being part of the Blizzard team. We gave out concrete, in game examples of what made SC so fun because it has no MBS. You have conjecture and guesswork against a backdrop of failed games. Your very argument, appealing to noobs who won't play without MBS, evinces a type of non-competitive attitude which is completely against what took BW to because the biggest professional video scene and the only kind of its type in Korea. You suggest that Starcraft II will somehow suffer from bad reviews and lack of sales, and that the best RTS out there (9 years after its release !) is somehow accountable for reviewers who evidently never played RTS at any good level. You want SC2 to adhere to a standard set by far inferior games, and that the SC community (built up by years of dedication and work to such and old game!) be wrecked in order to appease those who never appreciated it in its first place. You know it as well as I - SC2 will kill the foreign community of SC. If you going to take away the only game of its kind, the sequel damn well live up to some standards. You would dilute it for the possibility of attracting a few fair-weather noobs. Forgive me if I don't find your argument appealing. | ||
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TheShizno
United States112 Posts
If blizzard takes the MBS out of competitive gameplay(as in tournaments and ladder etc.), but makes it possible to implement MBS with the editor using triggers, then the newbs that find normal starcraft macro gameplay too difficult could play UMS starcraft with MBS, or possibly a SC2 version of DotA, after all, many people I know got WC3 just for DotA. Also, if it's possible to make MBS in sc2 with triggers, and assuming MBS is not part of the default UI, then the UMS map makers would be happy too, as certain custom maps play better with MBS. And, those who are serious about playing to win in sc2 would play normal games, instead of MBS games. I'd say the biggest flaw in my suggestion would probably be whether or not it would actually be possible to make MBS triggerable. | ||
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