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Battle Aces/David Kim RTS Megathread - Page 5

Forum Index > General Games
1012 CommentsPost a Reply
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Silvanel
Profile Blog Joined March 2003
Poland4704 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-01 16:59:35
July 01 2021 16:58 GMT
#81
I would love to see someone implementing draft/customization akin to those seen in MOBA. Like You have some core units/skills/upgrades that are always in Your force and You draft some before the game the way drafts are done.

Example draft before game:
Force 1 (Terran): Picks - Ghost
Force 2 (Zerg): Picks - Banelings, Bans - Liberator
Force 1 Bans - Viper, Picks - Valkyrie
Force 2 Picks Gaurdian
And now they play with their core force + picked units/upgrades.

That way some of balance issues would be shifted towards meta. We could see different combinations of units on differnt maps and more creative player could come up with some surprise strats.
Pathetic Greta hater.
maybenexttime
Profile Blog Joined November 2006
Poland5496 Posts
July 01 2021 17:10 GMT
#82
On July 01 2021 05:47 alpenrahm wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 01 2021 04:27 Ctone23 wrote:
"That doesn't mean dumbed down or simplified," Hughes notes. "That just means lowering the barrier to entry for more people to expose them to what's great about RTS games."

Curious what that actually means. Guessing they are dumbing down the macro / automating it.


Well. Sc2's macro mechanics are artificially making the game harder. It's not a bad idea to get rid of that kind of stuff.
There were mods out there that removed mules injects and chronoboost and those work just fine. In Sc2 they just made the decision to put them in because they didn't want the BW crowd to feel like the game was too easy, with uncapped unit selection / Rallypoints / etc.

It's not so much about making the game harder for the sake of making it harder. In BW, the more ahead you were, the more you expanded and the harder it got to manage everything. This gave the opposing player opportunities to make a comeback because they had fewer things to take care of.
vOdToasT
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Sweden2870 Posts
July 01 2021 17:37 GMT
#83
On July 01 2021 21:32 Charoisaur wrote:
What's the point in making a new RTS game when the perfect RTS game already exists?


Brood War is great, but not perfect. If you put your mind and imagination to it, and really think about it, you will see ways in which it can be better. It's not flawed, but it could have even more of the good things that it has; what it touches upon can be explored further. It can be improved.
This game won't be that improvement, though (I would love to be wrong, because I myself would play and enjoy the game). There may never be an improvement. I'll believe it when I see it.
If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid* (*Or: You are stupid for losing to it, and gotta git gud)
TaKeTV
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Germany1198 Posts
July 01 2021 18:09 GMT
#84
On July 02 2021 01:38 [Phantom] wrote:
That speaks to me about a lack of understanding of why exactly Starcraft is fast.

Starcraft is fast because it's a very complex game where there are multiple things to do at any given time and it scales exponentially. The first minute or two aren't fast, but as income increases, worker count etc there are more things to do making them mid and late be much faster (see also game speed of WoL vs LotV).

As a poster on the first page said, a player can play slow and build everything slow, but there will be people who make it faster, who can make more units, who can make more buildings, faster. And thus those players will have the macro advantage.

To make Starcraft (or any RTS) slower, you literally need to dumb it down. That or make any building and unit bulding time take forever. You cannot make Starcraft slower without making it simpler.

EDIT:
On top of that, isn't the best part of sc2 micro? Marine and baneling split, loading units into medicavs vs disruptors and trying to dodge, great EMP/STORMS, Blink Micro etc. And all of those require speed. The only way to not have speed be advantageous for thos units, it's to make all units like roaches and brood lords.


I'll argue your point about micro. I do believe Starcraft 2 and its engine / gameplay speed severly results in the micro lacking. I believe a slower speed would result in better (not easier) control. Everything you would control is slower but you would be able to spend more time microing an army. Also it would decrease the chances of the armies dying within a second after a fight starts.

I always hated that about sc2.
Commentator
FFW_Rude
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France10201 Posts
July 01 2021 18:25 GMT
#85

"So what we want to do is modernize a lot of it, and make it so any gamer can play this game. And to play at a competitive level, you don't need to practice the mechanics of it for a decade; you have to be good at the strategy, or countering what you're seeing on the enemy's side. We wanted to make a real strategy game rather than one where who can click the fastest is the best player."


So a Wargame then
#1 KT Rolster fanboy. KT BEST KT ! Hail to KT playoffs Zergs ! Unofficial french translator for SlayerS_`Boxer` biography "Crazy as me".
Dangermousecatdog
Profile Joined December 2010
United Kingdom7084 Posts
July 01 2021 20:56 GMT
#86
Must resist urge to write low-effort troll posts about David Kim.

Interview is a bit odd considering back when SC2 was realeased all those years ago it was seen as a very traditional RTS at a time when the recent and successful RTS of that time were Company of Heroes and Supreme Commander, one of which has minimal base building where the focus was fighting round the map and the other with automated production and quite clever scripts like being able to set up an automatic transport system or set up an attack with units moving at different speeds spread around the map arriving at once on a distant target.

There have been many other attempts to redefine and automate tasks in RTS some of which came out around the same time as Starcraft itself like Ground Control (3D RTS with no real economy). My view on automated production is that a system like Supreme Commander is welcoming, and having systems where you have to remember to inject every 40 seconds or build depots every 25 seconds is terrible.

Why do supply depots even exist? In one sense they add an element of strategy as losing units mean you don't need to spend resources to have a larger army and to create a larger army you need to spend more, but having to make production buildings is similar to that. A lot of strategy in RTS is choosing where to spend your resources. Having depots and the like also forces to have buildings which must be protected and as they occupy an ever larger space, they become more difficult to protect. However modern mapmaking means that those are usually well protected and production and economy buildings are the usual concern, thus there is no need for such. I would welcome an RTS with no need to build additonal pylons.

It must be noted that tech buildings are a crucial part of RTS strategy as well. They become buildings to scout and search for, to proxy and fake. RTS games with no tech buildings tend to be paper thin in depth. Tech become a matter of suprise or expectation.

Talking about speed misses the point. There has to be skill involved in the game beyond just matching and countering unit compositions otherwise it become a boring game indeed. Talking about difficulty rather than barrier to entry also misses the point. A competitive game will always be hard, and doubly so if it is a team game. FPS games can be hard games with extremely high skill ceilings, but at the same time they are accessible games.
QOGQOG
Profile Joined July 2019
828 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-01 21:08:17
July 01 2021 21:07 GMT
#87
On July 02 2021 05:56 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Why do supply depots even exist? In one sense they add an element of strategy as losing units mean you don't need to spend resources to have a larger army and to create a larger army you need to spend more, but having to make production buildings is similar to that. A lot of strategy in RTS is choosing where to spend your resources. Having depots and the like also forces to have buildings which must be protected and as they occupy an ever larger space, they become more difficult to protect. However modern mapmaking means that those are usually well protected and production and economy buildings are the usual concern, thus there is no need for such. I would welcome an RTS with no need to build additonal pylons.

I think you're missing the point of supply buildings: they're a catch up mechanism. If someone loses an engagement, assuming they haven't lost a bunch of depots or whatever, they can rebuild relatively easily, without having to spend on more supply buildings. Whereas the player who won is going to have to build more in order to gain a comparable amount of units.

Take out the supply buildings and player who gets ahead will maintain the same lead on units until max out, since there's no mechanic for slowing them down.

Now, there might be a more elegant/interesting way to get the same slight rubber banding effect, but supply has been in virtually every big rts for a reason.
Sabu113
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States11044 Posts
July 01 2021 21:15 GMT
#88
I have deeply limited faith in the team that put out the war hound as a possible unit. Sc2 has a brilliant campaign. The balancing was a shitshow from day1. David Kim lead a team that didn’t respect that constraints as much as abilities makes for interesting decisions. Curious but deeply deeply suspicious of a project leaning on David Kim.
Biomine is a drunken chick who is on industrial strength amphetamines and would just grab your dick and jerk it as hard and violently as she could while screaming 'OMG FUCK ME', because she saw it in a Sasha Grey video ...-Wombat_Ni
DeepElemBlues
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States5079 Posts
July 01 2021 21:50 GMT
#89
On July 01 2021 07:39 IMSupervisor wrote:
I don't know about anyone else, but APM was not the thing that intimidated me as a new player, it's the fog of war and the complete lack of information that scared me. I also have zero desire to play a game any casual player can do well at if they just watch a meta-relevant YouTube video on what to do.

All of the great games are hard to play even when you know what to do and that's why they endure decades in an industry that is quick to forget. I really wish the focus on how to lower the barrier of entry was on how to best educate players how to play multiplayer in a stress free, non-competitive environment, not by stripping out skill differentiators until the winner is who knows the most. We could just hold a quiz show and award the winner that way if it's supposed to be all about knowing what to do.

New players suck because there is no concept of build orders, no scouting, it's all information related. When pro's can play at masters / GM level with only a mouse, the issue is not mechanics. APM is how we execute strategy; if you don't know what you're doing, you have nothing to execute and you stare at the screen = your APM is low. Teach players what to do and that all starts to go away.

I want to watch pro games and wonder "how can they do that?" in addition to "they're so smart". I want to feel like I can always improve my own game by improving myself. Endlessly. I want another RTS I can play for 10 years, just as SC2 has been my thing for the previous.

If they want the strategy to be more prominent in the game, they need to change the units/upgrades etc up more often. Imagine how much more diverse SC2 games would be if there were major re-balancing and design changes every year?

When I started playing BW again (Remastered, whatever) the biggest challenge for me was definitely adjusting to the speed of the game (APM). When I'm playing the game seems much faster than it does watching someone (Arty lol) stream or watching replays. Focusing on making workers gather, build, and units run around hurt me trying to stick to build orders / defend against the opponent's build order. A lot of getting into the groove of playing came back fairly quick but not all of it, I'm definitely nowhere near as good as when I was 16 and it makes me lol
no place i'd rather be than the satellite of love
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
July 01 2021 22:05 GMT
#90
David Kim truly had a difficult time when it came to balancing Starcraft 2. My perception as an outsider is that Dustin Browder had all of these ideas for "cool-looking units" and it was David's job to make them feel unique without being broken. That created some design constraints for him, which is generally fine, but his methodology for testing unit balance was so...mathematical. Like he'd run a test of 5 of unit A vs 5 of unit B with no micro and record the result, then with micro and record the result. Sure these tests were run with consideration of resource costs and supply and everything, but balancing in this manner feels sterile. In BW, I'm pretty sure they changed stuff based on real games played internally and observed from feedback. SC2 has the technological advantage of telemetry, which is why their race balance is so numerically close. Clearly, David isn't afraid to iterate and adjust where necessary, even when it comes to removing entire units from the game (like the Warhound).

The main difference between Rob Pardo's BW and David Kim's SC2 from what I surmise is that Pardo had no idea just how good RTS players would ultimately become, while David Kim assumes this inevitability. In BW, 1 Zealot costs the same as 2 Marines, and sure people found out early that microing 2 Marines you could beat 1 Zealot, but it required attention and micro. I'm sure if David Kim were at the helm instead, Zealots would be 80 or 90 minerals to account for this. But, this scenario only happens in a minority of cases, and generally speaking, it's fine that the possibility exists and that 1 Zealot beats 2 Marines the rest of the time. That is still acceptable balance, because these things don't happen in a vacuum.

Pardo's decision to introduce armor types created a daunting knowledge floor ("why does my 20-damage Vulture only do 5 damage to this building?"), but it created additional design flexibility that SC2's bonus damage lacks. SC2 also has many more upgrades available for its units, almost all hugely situational or specialized. Maybe I'm mischaracterizing David Kim, but from my own experiences in following SC2's development from previews at Blizzcon until the time he left the team, the game became more of a math problem rather than just a fun time. That's kind of inevitable when you have a community of min-maxers fueling that mindset, but that doesn't mean it's always a good thing to support that school of thought. David Kim did similar "design-by-committee" sessions when he posted previews of Diablo IV's "Power" mechanics, where he asked the community for feedback and then backpedaled on his design in response. That does give me pause about supporting his next game. He has the mechanical ability to develop and execute strategies at a high level (he was a grandmaster Random player, after all), and he has the mathematical prowess to balance things well, but I'm not seeing the soul that creates a game that is just plain fun to play.
Moderator
IMSupervisor
Profile Joined June 2016
Australia138 Posts
July 01 2021 22:14 GMT
#91
On July 01 2021 23:49 The_Red_Viper wrote:
RTS games usually (at least the starcraft ones 100%) are not good at making people interact with each other. By that i don't mean the usual complaint of people saying it's not social, no i mean the core gameplay itself. There is no real incentive to interact with your opponent, there is no game mechanic which kinda forces you to do so.
.


Yes exactly! This is why bio TvZ is such a great match-up for SC2. If Zerg gets left alone, they build up into an unstoppable powerhouse with their economy and creep spread. So Terran attacks and attacks and tries to slow down and/or kill the Zerg. Then at some point, Zerg gets enough Lurkers out and Terran switches gears and plays the cost efficiency game, and now it's up to Zerg now to kill the Terran before they run out of resources. When one player is forced into action to win the game, we get fireworks and the tension in the game remains pretty constant. Terran is typically a little stronger off creep and Zerg is a little faster on it, so both races can disengage and retreat (somewhat) so the player isn't overly punished just for being active on the map. Whether the speed buff of creep was designed this way on purpose or not, we'll probably never know, but it's just such a great design feature for that specific match-up.
Shuffleblade
Profile Joined February 2012
Sweden1903 Posts
July 01 2021 22:28 GMT
#92
Holy, this really makes me worried for this game. Of course I understand making rts more approachable and also perhaps dumb down some of the macro requirements. Like how they changed queens injects, making them stackable because those kinds of macro skills are wholy unfun and unnecesary. I don't mind that, the way he replies here though it seems more like taking away macro instead of simplifying macro.

So any gamer is supposed to be able to play this, and the skills required is countering what you see and strategy? You know what, that sounds like a turn based strategy game and not a real time strategy game.

Not to mention the skill of countering what you see, so they are going to turn this game into another hardcounter rock-paper-scissors thing. Yeah he is pretty much describing the opposite of what I want in every way.

This sounds so wrong to me, if its supposed to be only strategy then why not take away fog of war and remove scouting requirement. No? Well if they are removing the need to macro everyone is going to scout perfectly anyway since there is nothing else to do so might as well reveal the whole map. Scouting is balanced and interesting because it comes with lost opportunity cost of doing other things

Maybe this game has an audiance but its definitely not me
Maru, Bomber, TY, Dear, Classic, DeParture and Rogue!
ReachTheSky
Profile Joined April 2010
United States3294 Posts
July 01 2021 22:43 GMT
#93
On July 02 2021 07:14 IMSupervisor wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 01 2021 23:49 The_Red_Viper wrote:
RTS games usually (at least the starcraft ones 100%) are not good at making people interact with each other. By that i don't mean the usual complaint of people saying it's not social, no i mean the core gameplay itself. There is no real incentive to interact with your opponent, there is no game mechanic which kinda forces you to do so.
.


Yes exactly! This is why bio TvZ is such a great match-up for SC2. If Zerg gets left alone, they build up into an unstoppable powerhouse with their economy and creep spread. So Terran attacks and attacks and tries to slow down and/or kill the Zerg. Then at some point, Zerg gets enough Lurkers out and Terran switches gears and plays the cost efficiency game, and now it's up to Zerg now to kill the Terran before they run out of resources. When one player is forced into action to win the game, we get fireworks and the tension in the game remains pretty constant. Terran is typically a little stronger off creep and Zerg is a little faster on it, so both races can disengage and retreat (somewhat) so the player isn't overly punished just for being active on the map. Whether the speed buff of creep was designed this way on purpose or not, we'll probably never know, but it's just such a great design feature for that specific match-up.


Ugh bio, so tired of seeing it and bored of using it. We've had 10 years of marine marauder medivac. It's so played out and not fun.
TL+ Member
BronzeKnee
Profile Joined March 2011
United States5214 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-01 23:52:23
July 01 2021 23:08 GMT
#94
David Kim proved himself to be entirely unqualified to design or balance a game, this game will go nowhere. Riot wrote many articles and blog posts about quality game design and David Kim, almost to a T, violated nearly every principle they laid out. Starcraft 2 from a game design perspective became objectively worse. And in that time League became a massive, billion dollar E-Sport and SC2 shrank considerably. Pretty obvious who knew what they were doing.

I'll give you guys one example before I take on David Kim's newest ideas that will go nowhere:

From Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns, written long before the release of HOTS:

Power Without Gameplay
This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don’t find satisfying or don’t notice....

The problem with using a “power without gameplay” mechanic is that you tend to have to ‘over-buff’ the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it...

https://lawofgamedesign.com/2014/02/20/zileas-list-of-game-design-anti-fun-patterns/

Photon Overcharge is a classic example of power without gameplay. The various skills it took to hold all the different early one and two bases timings in WOL as Protoss were replaced by a completely over-buffed ability that required the player to click on the Mothership Core, press F, and click on a Pylon and they'd instantly hold a timing. It is the definition of power without gameplay.

The early phase of the game went out of the window, and it made Starcraft objectively worse in every way. The fact it even left a designers head laid out they were in the wrong field, and the fact it actually made the game is a sign of multiple failures at multiple levels, David Kim included.

David Kim clearly lacked the ability to recognize a good idea from a bad one. That much is abundantly clear from his time working on Starcraft.

His new idea of creating a game that isn't APM dependent but is a real time strategy game shows he learned nothing. What made Starcraft 2 exciting, popular and great was the early game. Think of all amazing games and series when Starcraft 2 was at it's peak... MC vs WhiteRa at the GSL, Idra vs Bomber at MLG, Thorzain vs MC and then Naniwa at TSL2.

These were held on tiny maps, had constant action and the game could end at any moment. Taking an expansion was risky. It was the end game units that were boring... Carriers, Broodlords, Infestors, the Mothership... the game got stale when these units came out, there wasn't much skill to show.

What did those boring units have in common? They were low APM a-move units.

Isn't that what David Kim is suggesting? That it matters more what you build, not how you use it? Because things like Blink Micro, Marine Splits, and Muta micro require high APM, so he wants to remove those because not every player can do that... but those are what made SC2 exciting to watch, and fun to play as they were difficult to master.

It was the early game and midgame that were exciting because of the micro potential of the units, and the lack of hard counters (even though Banelings hard counter Marines, Marine splitting and focus firing changed this). The more a game of SC2 dragged on, the more it became rock-paper-scissors with hard counters and the less micro potential units have. That didn't prove to be popular, it proved damning.

Just watch game 3 of Idra vs Bomber at MLG Orlando ( https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlxo9d ), incredible show of skill on both sides, until the moment Idra A-moves Broods and Infestors that simply end the game. It wasn't impressive on any account.

Going that direction with a new game is doubling down on exactly what David Kim did previously, and many think doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

I don't think David Kim is insane, he is just uneducated and ignorant. Riot provided us all the game design playbook and he never read it. And Starcraft and League are where they are today because of it.
TT1
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada9990 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-02 02:21:05
July 01 2021 23:09 GMT
#95
The only thing RTS needs is a good client for BW, everything else is just regular business cycle stuff to show short term "growth" on balance sheets. Quality isn't a priority anymore, it hasn't been for a while now. Large corporations/investors have found a profitable formula and they're maximizing their returns, that's mainly what it boils down to.

The industry is all about appealing to casuals and farming them now, rinse and repeat. That's fine tbh, people are entitled to spend their money however they want. Don't sell me your philosophy on game design though, to me that's just the beginning of the sales pitch. This industry is all about generating hype, let me see your product and I'll be (as a knowledgeable consumer) the judge of whether or not it deserves praise.

We should be rewarding quality products, not sales pitches. The industry has had it backwards for a while now (enabled by consumers, to be fair). Nothing will change as long as the money keeps pouring in though.
ab = tl(i) + tl(pc), the grand answer to every tl.net debate
ReachTheSky
Profile Joined April 2010
United States3294 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-01 23:42:40
July 01 2021 23:28 GMT
#96
On July 02 2021 08:08 BronzeKnee wrote:
David Kim proved himself to be entirely unqualified to design or balance a game, this game will go nowhere. Riot wrote many articles and blog posts about quality game design and David Kim, almost to a T, violated nearly every principle they laid out. Starcraft 2 from a game design perspective became objectively worse. And in that time League became a massive, billion dollar E-Sport and SC2 shrank considerably. Pretty obvious who knew what they were doing.

I'll give you guys one example before I take on David Kim's newest ideas that will go nowhere:

From Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns, written long before the release of HOTS:

Show nested quote +
Power Without Gameplay
This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don’t find satisfying or don’t notice....

The problem with using a “power without gameplay” mechanic is that you tend to have to ‘over-buff’ the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it...

https://lawofgamedesign.com/2014/02/20/zileas-list-of-game-design-anti-fun-patterns/

Photon Overcharge is a classic example of power without gameplay. The various skills it took to hold all the different early one and two bases timings in WOL as Protoss were replaced by a completely over-buffed ability that required the player to click on the Mothership Core, press F, and click on a Pylon and they'd instantly hold a timing. It is the definition of power without gameplay.

The early phase of the game went out of the window, and it made Starcraft objectively worse in every way. The fact it even left a designers head laid out they were in the wrong field, and the fact it actually made the game is a sign of multiple failures at multiple levels, David Kim included.

David Kim clearly lacked the ability to recognize a good idea from a bad one. That much is abundantly clear from his time working on Starcraft.

His new idea of creating a game that isn't APM dependent but is a real time strategy game shows he learned nothing. What made Starcraft 2 exciting, popular and great was the early game. Think of all amazing games and series when Starcraft 2 was at it's peak... MC vs WhiteRa at the GSL, Idra vs Bomber at MLG, Thorzain vs MC and then Naniwa at TSL2.

These were held on tiny maps, had constant action and the game could end at any moment. Taking an expansion was risky. It was the end game units that were boring... Carriers, Broodlords, Infestors, the Mothership... the game got stale when these units came out, there wasn't much skill to show.

What did those boring units have in common? They were low APM a-move units.

Isn't that what David Kim is suggesting? That it matters more what you build, not how you use it? Because things like Blink Micro, Marine Splits, and Muta micro require high APM, so he wants to remove those because not ever player can do that... but those are what made SC2 exciting to watch.

It was the early game and midgame that were exciting because of the micro potential of the units, and the lack of hard counters (even though Banelings hard counter Marines, Marine splitting and focus firing changed this). The more a game of SC2 dragged on, the more it became rock-paper-scissors with hard counters and the less micro potential units have. That didn't prove to be popular, it proved damning.

Going that direction with a new game is doubling down on exactly what David Kim did previously, and many think doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

I don't think David Kim is insane, he is just uneducated and ignorant. Riot provided us all the game design playbook and he never read it. And Starcraft and League are where they are today because of it.


Yo for real, early game micro/skirmishes is the best part to execute as a player and very entertaining to watch from a spectator perspective. There is nothing more satisfying in an rts than out microing your opponent. Things like shield batteries and the mothership core have definitely ruined this. Not to mention the stupid idiotic protoss contain builds that have spawned from the shield battery being thing. Things like recall being given to a nexus was just dumb, should have been given to the mothership to be used as an ultimate finisher late game or something instead.
TL+ Member
The_Red_Viper
Profile Blog Joined August 2013
19533 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-02 02:31:23
July 01 2021 23:39 GMT
#97
On July 02 2021 07:14 IMSupervisor wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 01 2021 23:49 The_Red_Viper wrote:
RTS games usually (at least the starcraft ones 100%) are not good at making people interact with each other. By that i don't mean the usual complaint of people saying it's not social, no i mean the core gameplay itself. There is no real incentive to interact with your opponent, there is no game mechanic which kinda forces you to do so.
.


Yes exactly! This is why bio TvZ is such a great match-up for SC2. If Zerg gets left alone, they build up into an unstoppable powerhouse with their economy and creep spread. So Terran attacks and attacks and tries to slow down and/or kill the Zerg. Then at some point, Zerg gets enough Lurkers out and Terran switches gears and plays the cost efficiency game, and now it's up to Zerg now to kill the Terran before they run out of resources. When one player is forced into action to win the game, we get fireworks and the tension in the game remains pretty constant. Terran is typically a little stronger off creep and Zerg is a little faster on it, so both races can disengage and retreat (somewhat) so the player isn't overly punished just for being active on the map. Whether the speed buff of creep was designed this way on purpose or not, we'll probably never know, but it's just such a great design feature for that specific match-up.


Oh no don't get me wrong, that is an indirect way which experienced players realize, that's not what i am talking about.
I am talking about active game mechanics which make people interact with each other, something fundamental which leads players to interactions. Say in a moba how creep waves meet in lane, and creeps being the money makers leading you to your enemy from the moment the game starts. Or like in counterstrike, where the fundamental game goal is for one side to plant a bomb on a spot where the enemy is waiting for you. Or how in battle royales there are points of interest (looting) and the map gets smaller and smaller resulting in pvp moments.

Any rts player who is somewhat experienced will try and interact with the enemy, that's fine, but david kim (and other game designers) try to make the core gameplay more appealing for a broader audience here. I haven't really seen much talk about this (imo) core problem of at least both starcraft games.
At least in my opinion pvp games are fun due to the interactions they create (now ofc there are interactions which are more fun than others), so on the macro level your game first needs to make people interact at all.
When one looks at new players they barely do so though, it's more likely they'll sit back, build their base and then one or two army fights decide the game at any particular moment (could be a zergling rush early, could be a 200/200 fight 40 minutes into the game). That's not particularly fun. It's frustrating because there is no expectation for a game, it could be literally anything, it's as if you played football (the real one!) and the game is over after 20 seconds instead of usually 90 minutes for some weird reasons, while the next game goes 40 minutes, the game after 300. I think some form of consistency of expectations are key, i think some form of mechanic which leads to meaningful interactions always is key.

With that being said, i think (that's at least how i choose to interprete these comments) they have an important goal in mind as well, decreasing the amount of clicks needed to execute the minimum requirements where we can say that someone plays the game how it is supposed to be played (not meaning perfectly, just decently). I just think that's not necessarily enough to make people want to play the game in and of itself.
IU | Sohyang || There is no God and we are his prophets | For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.” | Ignorance is the parent of fear |
lolfail9001
Profile Joined August 2013
Russian Federation40186 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-02 01:29:30
July 02 2021 01:29 GMT
#98
On July 02 2021 08:08 BronzeKnee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +

David Kim proved himself to be entirely unqualified to design or balance a game, this game will go nowhere. Riot wrote many articles and blog posts about quality game design and David Kim, almost to a T, violated nearly every principle they laid out. Starcraft 2 from a game design perspective became objectively worse. And in that time League became a massive, billion dollar E-Sport and SC2 shrank considerably. Pretty obvious who knew what they were doing.

I'll give you guys one example before I take on David Kim's newest ideas that will go nowhere:

From Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns, written long before the release of HOTS:

Power Without Gameplay
This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don’t find satisfying or don’t notice....

The problem with using a “power without gameplay” mechanic is that you tend to have to ‘over-buff’ the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it...

https://lawofgamedesign.com/2014/02/20/zileas-list-of-game-design-anti-fun-patterns/

Photon Overcharge is a classic example of power without gameplay. The various skills it took to hold all the different early one and two bases timings in WOL as Protoss were replaced by a completely over-buffed ability that required the player to click on the Mothership Core, press F, and click on a Pylon and they'd instantly hold a timing. It is the definition of power without gameplay.

The early phase of the game went out of the window, and it made Starcraft objectively worse in every way. The fact it even left a designers head laid out they were in the wrong field, and the fact it actually made the game is a sign of multiple failures at multiple levels, David Kim included.

David Kim clearly lacked the ability to recognize a good idea from a bad one. That much is abundantly clear from his time working on Starcraft.

His new idea of creating a game that isn't APM dependent but is a real time strategy game shows he learned nothing. What made Starcraft 2 exciting, popular and great was the early game. Think of all amazing games and series when Starcraft 2 was at it's peak... MC vs WhiteRa at the GSL, Idra vs Bomber at MLG, Thorzain vs MC and then Naniwa at TSL2.

These were held on tiny maps, had constant action and the game could end at any moment. Taking an expansion was risky. It was the end game units that were boring... Carriers, Broodlords, Infestors, the Mothership... the game got stale when these units came out, there wasn't much skill to show.

What did those boring units have in common? They were low APM a-move units.

Isn't that what David Kim is suggesting? That it matters more what you build, not how you use it? Because things like Blink Micro, Marine Splits, and Muta micro require high APM, so he wants to remove those because not every player can do that... but those are what made SC2 exciting to watch, and fun to play as they were difficult to master.

It was the early game and midgame that were exciting because of the micro potential of the units, and the lack of hard counters (even though Banelings hard counter Marines, Marine splitting and focus firing changed this). The more a game of SC2 dragged on, the more it became rock-paper-scissors with hard counters and the less micro potential units have. That didn't prove to be popular, it proved damning.

Just watch game 3 of Idra vs Bomber at MLG Orlando ( https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlxo9d ), incredible show of skill on both sides, until the moment Idra A-moves Broods and Infestors that simply end the game. It wasn't impressive on any account.

Going that direction with a new game is doubling down on exactly what David Kim did previously, and many think doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

I don't think David Kim is insane, he is just uneducated and ignorant. Riot provided us all the game design playbook and he never read it. And Starcraft and League are where they are today because of it.


I must say, the take that SC2 was at it's peak in early 2011 is a very hot take (even if it probably had greatest interest at the time, at least in NA).
DeMoN pulls off a Miracle and Flies to the Moon
AcrossFromTime
Profile Joined May 2020
29 Posts
July 02 2021 02:18 GMT
#99
Some of the comments here are pretty insane. On the one hand you have a game like starcraft where the player that plays the fastest will win like 95% of the time (I'm talking effective apm, not just random clicking). But then as many of you have apparently forgotten there are turn based strategy games where speed is not remotely a factor.

I see no reason why there can't be an in between game where speed only helps you up to a point. There is necessarily an inverse relationship between speed and strategy. The more import speed is the less important strategy is and vice versa.

Even within SC2 there is lots of room for reducing the importance of speed. Units left on their own could behave less retarded. Pointless "macro mechanics" could be removed. I'm not saying that SC2 should change, SC2 is fine as it is. I'm just saying that reducing the importance of speed doesn't "dumb down" the game. Having to click on hatcheries every once doesn't make SC2 a smarter game for smart people. It just makes it a fast game for fast people. which is fine! there is nothing wrong with that. But don't act like making a game where you actually have to think about what you are doing rather than perform a pre-planned build on autopilot is somehow a dumber game.
ReachTheSky
Profile Joined April 2010
United States3294 Posts
July 02 2021 05:03 GMT
#100
On July 02 2021 11:18 AcrossFromTime wrote:
Some of the comments here are pretty insane. On the one hand you have a game like starcraft where the player that plays the fastest will win like 95% of the time (I'm talking effective apm, not just random clicking). But then as many of you have apparently forgotten there are turn based strategy games where speed is not remotely a factor.

I see no reason why there can't be an in between game where speed only helps you up to a point. There is necessarily an inverse relationship between speed and strategy. The more import speed is the less important strategy is and vice versa.

Even within SC2 there is lots of room for reducing the importance of speed. Units left on their own could behave less retarded. Pointless "macro mechanics" could be removed. I'm not saying that SC2 should change, SC2 is fine as it is. I'm just saying that reducing the importance of speed doesn't "dumb down" the game. Having to click on hatcheries every once doesn't make SC2 a smarter game for smart people. It just makes it a fast game for fast people. which is fine! there is nothing wrong with that. But don't act like making a game where you actually have to think about what you are doing rather than perform a pre-planned build on autopilot is somehow a dumber game.


There is no such thing as an in between. You are either taking turns or you are doing things in real time. When you change a real time strategy game to turn based, it's no longer real time strategy. Here is my terrible attempt at an analogy....Think of it as motion, if you are not in motion, then you are stopped or still right? There is no in between, you are either moving or not.
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