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David Kim Blizzcon Interview about balance - Page 4

Forum Index > Community News and Headlines
188 CommentsPost a Reply
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Ganondorf
Profile Joined April 2010
Italy600 Posts
October 24 2010 16:28 GMT
#61
On October 24 2010 22:13 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 24 2010 22:11 Boundless wrote:
What makes me angry is that he says "There were a lot of strategies that Terrans could go before the patch. The reaper became problematic in team games, so we adjusted the balance with a focus on reapers. In the case of barracks before depot, there were a lot of games that ended before it was even scouted. It didn't happen very often on the pro level, but it was becoming a problem in lower tier play. The main focus is the pro level, but our ultimate goal is for players of all levels to be able to play a fair and balanced game. Barracks first builds were too strong in that regard and created a lot of problems in low level play, which is why we made the adjustments."

If your main focus is the PRO level, and you make adjustments based on LOW level data, then they will create new imbalances when they propagate up to the PRO level. Does anyone else see this huge glaring problem with their balance philosophy, or is it just me?

Honestly, if your input on the supply depot before barracks issue comes from random bronze league noobs playing 4v4's and saying "OMG LETS BUILD MASS VOIDRAYS LOLOLOL KTHXBAI", you're clearly going to get bad balance when professionals play your changes.


I have a feeling an order came from the top to do this, and even though David Kim did not like it, he was forced to go along with it.


He could leave like it happened in the past with other devs. The devs that originally worked at warcraft and starcraft are no longer working at Blizzard for some reason. This was just a stupid thing to do, depot before rax because low level players complain, make a post on all blizzard forums and mainsite explaining how to scout cheese instead of screwing the game up for everyone. Disappointed they didn't talk at all about TvZ.
Sanguinarius
Profile Joined January 2010
United States3427 Posts
October 24 2010 16:29 GMT
#62
He is very well spoken. Excellent interview.
Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others -Heart of Darkness
cmgillett
Profile Joined March 2010
United States335 Posts
October 24 2010 16:34 GMT
#63
Nice, very glad David Kim is a part of the balancing squad.
StarSense
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
206 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-24 16:39:47
October 24 2010 16:34 GMT
#64
- Blizzard plans to use the Master/Grand Master League for Blizzard tournaments. They will, obviously, use ladder maps.

- David Kim mentions that tournaments should start creating their own maps. These maps would not be intended for ladder play, which he says should promote a "variety" of playstyles.

Ladder could become a poor way to practice for third-party tournaments, but the only way to do well in the M/GM leagues. Top players would have to make decisions on where to spend their attention, as it is too time-consuming and inefficient to practice a large pool of maps at once. The highest leagues of the ladder could suffer if some top players don't participate. New players will have to grind their way up to the highest online leagues using a different set of maps than those they would practice for most major events, which would only be available through custom games.

Blizzard, please do not fracture the esports community through a mappool that is not unified in ladder and outside tournaments.
Techno
Profile Joined June 2010
1900 Posts
October 24 2010 16:36 GMT
#65
Overall a excellent interview.
I trust David Kim with my free time.
Hell, its awesome to LOSE to nukes!
Thurokiir
Profile Joined June 2010
United States779 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-24 16:43:34
October 24 2010 16:38 GMT
#66
Q. Are there any plans to buff terran in the next patch?
A. We are looking at PvT and High Templar's Psionic Storm. It's only been a week after patch, so we are still analyzing how it is affecting gameplay.

What.

What.

Ghosts are just not a big enough counter? Emp / Snipe range extends further than feedback/storm range.

I'm sorry, as it stands there is more a good protoss has to do in order to win against a hardcore bio ball, they need to control the map, flank it, draw it away from the tanks, worry about stim timing, do FF splits, micro colossus away so they dont get insta popped by four wayward marauders.

Much less worrying about 1-2 ghosts that can and often handle the problem of HT's before they even become an issue.

Anyone Crying over the research time of Storm/Khaydarin probably has poor macro and forgets to use Chrono, because when I get Storm/Amulet it goes by pretty fast. Also get templar the moment the temple finishes the warp so you have storms ready by the time the research finishes. A lot of the time in replays you see people warping them in when storm is finished researching.

Also: lol @ the people in this thread complaining about HT's being OverPowered when we haven't seen a single american pro use them. SUDDENLY NOW they are overpowered =/.

Tahts halo dont worry
Crisium
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States1618 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-24 17:04:09
October 24 2010 17:02 GMT
#67
As a T player, I would be saddened to see Psi Storm nerfed. I always found it honorable to die under a blanket of storms rather than kiting colossus. I almost always incorporate Ghosts anyway.

If the problem is instant storm, then maybe the "spawn with 75 energy for HTs" could be reworked into "Psi Storm costs only 65 energy". You could not instant Storm. Yet the amount of time you have to wait for two storms after you spawn is rather similar (wait for another 75 as it is, wait for 80 under my proposition). It would also give incentive to spawn your HTs early and preemptively, especially because at 65 energy per storm you could fit 3 from a full 200 energy HT.

There is no rule saying that every spell in the game has to be a multiple of 25. I wish Blizzard could wake up and realize this. I'm not saying that have to follow my exact suggestion, but a little creativity can go a long way.
Broodwar and Stork forever! List of BW players with most Ro16, Ro8: http://tinyurl.com/BWRo16-Ro8
Endalay
Profile Joined October 2010
Latvia12 Posts
October 24 2010 17:02 GMT
#68
As bratOk said on his stream - Problem about ghosts they are too slow - if blizzards add movingspeed to ghosts a bit they'll be fine.
Barook
Profile Joined July 2010
Germany143 Posts
October 24 2010 17:03 GMT
#69
Overall, I can agree with most parts of the interview as they make alot of sense, although I wish they would make rare units like Carriers more useful because they're fun to watch.

Stim isn't the problem in the TvP early game, Marauders with Concussive Shells are. However, it looks like they're still not getting it. Taken from the David Kim interview in the other thread:

Q. Anything about patching Marauders?

A. Marauder is one of the units that we are looking at through various data, and we think that we nerfed them indirectly in the recent patch through nerfing Medivacs. We don't think Marauders are, either unit stat wise or statistics-wise, strong, but we are continuing to check the feedback. So, if we find any special overpoweredness, we are willing to provide a solution. For now, we are watching.


Also lol'ed at that part:
Q: Are you going to buff Terran?
A: Let's nerf Protoss!
"Blink is pretty good, it helps your Stalkers to die quicker."
dartoo
Profile Joined May 2010
India2889 Posts
October 24 2010 17:03 GMT
#70
Decrease the size of the thor again? It will look a lot less epic, I remember how it looked like a baby thor after the size change in beta. It will start to look like a slightly bigger scv
mkfk1
Profile Joined April 2010
United Kingdom153 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-24 17:11:21
October 24 2010 17:08 GMT
#71
On October 25 2010 01:24 Techno wrote:
I think the problem with psy storm is this: If a terran player EMP's all the HT's before a single storm gets off, and he warps them into archons, the archons will likely warp in before the terran player kills all the zealots by stop-shoot micro. The battle is winnable by either race.
However, if the terran player does not EMP all the high templars before a storm gets off, the battle will be tipped in protoss's favor big time.

Show nested quote +
Are you kidding me? They say terran has a slight adventage and then they want to nerf protoss?? WTF?

I'm a Terran player and I agree with Blizzard. When I play against protoss, I feel like I have to go bio because of the prominence of 3 gate robo. When I go bio, if I don't end the game early, I feel like I am fucked.

My problem is collossus though. I know that I have to attack when there is 1 collossus, because then it will easily be sniped and the protoss army will be weaker. If I do nail that timing, I will likely suffer heavy losses, but also win the battle. I will have an advantage that i can turn into a win by constantly attacking with squads of 8 marauders. However, if I dont attack when there is 2+ collossus. I will likely lose the battle if the protoss is able to keep his collossus on the correct side of his zealots. I often lose against protoss when I feel like I don't deserve to lose.

If blizzard hadnt said anything about TvP I wouldn't have either, because I feel like with practise I can overcome nearly any problems.
/QUOTE]
Show nested quote +

Heck, even stim-moving your units out of the way works OK

No man, it doesnt.



The fact that you want to kill protoss player early instead of feeling it comfortable through out the game is the reason why the game itself is not balance. David Kim said so himself, it is not a good thing when one race have advantage early and the other at late game. What you see common is terran player wanting to end the game fast, and the protoss players dragging it out for those HT and colossus counts. I generally agree with david kim analysis of PVT. But if he plan to nerf storm, dont be surprise that he also consider nerfing terran early game as well to make PVT more balanced from early to late game.
Samhax
Profile Joined August 2010
1054 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-24 17:18:27
October 24 2010 17:17 GMT
#72
I wonder if make stim research require a factory can fix the problem with early PvT issue. But for solving the problem with the PvT end game i have no idea...
TheMonkeyMon
Profile Joined September 2010
United States119 Posts
October 24 2010 17:18 GMT
#73
I'm just shocked there was a question about banshees. People thought they were OP?
Grummler
Profile Joined May 2010
Germany743 Posts
October 24 2010 17:19 GMT
#74
On October 24 2010 22:06 oZii wrote:
There is no problem with Psionic Storm terran has the counter which is ghosts but for some reason they dont use that often.


Because you need to emp every single high templar to be EVEN with the Protoss. If you miss some, you lose.

Just in case:
I know early game marine/marauder and also early midgame with medivacs is very strong, but thats not the point. Ghosts are no real solution to lategame protoss armies with upgraded high templars.

Thats why some pros that dont use them at all.

On the other hand, i really think buffing the ghost would be plain bad. Because earlygame mass stim marine+some ghosts is already way to strong. Balancing TvP is no easy task. Maybe they should nerf the marauders a little bit and make battlecruisers more viable lategame (no energy, speed upgrade, i dont know).

But TvZ and PvZ has also be taken into account, what makes balancing this "earlygame T>P, lategame P>T"-problem even harder.
workers, supply, money, workers, supply, money, workers, ...
citi.zen
Profile Joined April 2009
2509 Posts
October 24 2010 17:21 GMT
#75
On October 25 2010 01:24 Techno wrote:
I think the problem with psy storm is this: If a terran player EMP's all the HT's before a single storm gets off, and he warps them into archons, the archons will likely warp in before the terran player kills all the zealots by stop-shoot micro. The battle is winnable by either race.
However, if the terran player does not EMP all the high templars before a storm gets off, the battle will be tipped in protoss's favor big time.

Show nested quote +
Are you kidding me? They say terran has a slight adventage and then they want to nerf protoss?? WTF?

I'm a Terran player and I agree with Blizzard. When I play against protoss, I feel like I have to go bio because of the prominence of 3 gate robo. When I go bio, if I don't end the game early, I feel like I am fucked.

My problem is collossus though. I know that I have to attack when there is 1 collossus, because then it will easily be sniped and the protoss army will be weaker. If I do nail that timing, I will likely suffer heavy losses, but also win the battle. I will have an advantage that i can turn into a win by constantly attacking with squads of 8 marauders. However, if I dont attack when there is 2+ collossus. I will likely lose the battle if the protoss is able to keep his collossus on the correct side of his zealots. I often lose against protoss when I feel like I don't deserve to lose.

If blizzard hadnt said anything about TvP I wouldn't have either, because I feel like with practise I can overcome nearly any problems.
Show nested quote +

Heck, even stim-moving your units out of the way works OK

No man, it doesnt.

Vikings hard counter colosi, so colosi are more of a transitional unit. Vikings are also not bad at expo harass. The stalker is the only P AA unit, and as I mentioned before (and was explained by kcdc in a dedicated thread) stalkers don't exactly scale well so you won't want to make many of them, making those vikings even stronger. And yes, moving units out of the storm's way works fine - in BW bio was dead if you stormed it.
Aut viam inveniam, aut faciam.
Spoh
Profile Joined March 2007
United States57 Posts
October 24 2010 17:39 GMT
#76
A good read. Thanks for the translation.
KiriStarcraft
Profile Joined September 2010
United States6 Posts
October 24 2010 17:43 GMT
#77
Ugh ZvT is not even now.... Terran is completely at a disadvantage, we need some korean to show us how to TvZ now or something because i cant win any of my ZvT's T_T
junemermaid
Profile Joined September 2006
United States981 Posts
October 24 2010 18:02 GMT
#78
Wonder what they're thinking for with the banshee. Maybe a rate of fire increase?
the UMP says YER OUT
adeezy
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1428 Posts
October 24 2010 18:04 GMT
#79
Blizzard knows what they are doing. Whiners really need to just chill out. lol
I asked my friend how the ratio at a party was, he replied. "Let's just say for every guy there was two dudes."
Fontong
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States6454 Posts
October 24 2010 18:27 GMT
#80
Q. Is balance the reason why there are no island maps in SC2?
A. You don't get fun games on island maps. That, and we intentionally included no island maps because it's so early after launch. If there are new units in the expansions that allow island maps to be fun (**to watch, probably) we will release island maps later.


Did they take back the comment that there would be no new units in the expansions? I could have sworn that the expansions would have no new multiplayer content.
[SECRET FONT] "Dragoon bunker"
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