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On April 08 2015 03:08 KrazyTrumpet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 02:27 OtherWorld wrote:On April 07 2015 07:07 BillGates wrote:On April 07 2015 06:08 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote:
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno... I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense. In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point! Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively. Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too. On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote:
I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10. Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though. What the literal !@#$%^&*. They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening. I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&*
Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer.
They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold.
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On April 08 2015 03:58 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 03:08 KrazyTrumpet wrote:On April 08 2015 02:27 OtherWorld wrote:On April 07 2015 07:07 BillGates wrote:On April 07 2015 06:08 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote:
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno... I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense. In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point! Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively. Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too. On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote:
I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10. Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though. What the literal !@#$%^&*. They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening. I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&* Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer. They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold.
I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
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On April 08 2015 04:07 cheekymonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 03:58 Hider wrote:On April 08 2015 03:08 KrazyTrumpet wrote:On April 08 2015 02:27 OtherWorld wrote:On April 07 2015 07:07 BillGates wrote:On April 07 2015 06:08 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote:
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno... I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense. In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point! Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively. Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too. On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote:
I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10. Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though. What the literal !@#$%^&*. They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening. I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&* Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer. They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold. I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
It's about design and therefore unit interactions and a solid economy. Balancing comes after that.
Blizzard is too afraid to change things drastically though, for whatever reason (not enough people working on sc2?)
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On April 08 2015 04:07 cheekymonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 03:58 Hider wrote:On April 08 2015 03:08 KrazyTrumpet wrote:On April 08 2015 02:27 OtherWorld wrote:On April 07 2015 07:07 BillGates wrote:On April 07 2015 06:08 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote:
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno... I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense. In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point! Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively. Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too. On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote:
I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10. Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though. What the literal !@#$%^&*. They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening. I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&* Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer. They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold. I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
And your basing that comment out of no merit what so ever. You think that because Blizzard hasn't done X, then noone else can do X
But if you look at Blizzards balance track-record over the last couple of years. Its actually not very good. Fungal Growth was delayed forever based on MVP beating random foreigners.
Widow Mine nerfs based on the expectation that terrans would mix in Siege Tanks was flawed logic. This isn't just about being smart in hindsight. The mistakes were blatantly obvious back then as well (and if you go back in time you find my comments as well predicting exactly what would happen). And please don't give credit for 50/50 win/rates. Its not hard to buff units when one race has a low win/rate.
But anyway, people make mistakes, and the point here isn't about balance but about being ambitious with reoverhauling the game. Lots and lots of changes are needed and Blizzard isn't doing alot here. So I am very curous if you could tell me how the developers at blizzard spent 8 hours a day. It took them over a month to come up with the current Adept idea....
This is what I would have expected would have happened during alpha:
9AM: Two developers test the new Adept the programmer and model-designers have finished. They spend 1 hour in the unit tester/editor playing out various scenarios and tweak balance numbers (so no Warhound issue should have occured)
10AM-12AM: They play some actual games with the Adept and discover that it feels a bit bland with little outmicro potential. 12AM-1PM: They discuss new ideas and come to the conclusion that the Adept needs to be more focussed on the shadow-concept (or maybe they come to another conclusion, thats not the point).
1PM:1:30M: They change the Shadow-concept to allow for more outplaying
1:30PM-2PM: They balance the new Adept in the unit-tester and make sure micro interactions are fun.
2PM-5PM: They play some games with the new Adept and discover that its quite awesome (hopefully).
That's how I would imagine one workday for 2 developers should have gone (if the proces was effective). Finding out that something is totally wrong shouldn't take months (or a beta) but a couple of hours in internal testing.
But obviously they accomplished more in the above scenario than Blizzard did over an entire month, so something is very off. But you tell me.
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On April 08 2015 04:07 cheekymonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 03:58 Hider wrote:On April 08 2015 03:08 KrazyTrumpet wrote:On April 08 2015 02:27 OtherWorld wrote:On April 07 2015 07:07 BillGates wrote:On April 07 2015 06:08 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote:
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno... I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense. In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point! Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively. Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too. On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote:
I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10. Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though. What the literal !@#$%^&*. They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening. I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&* Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer. They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold. I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
It's not that hard. It can't be that hard, otherwise blizzard's approach of randomly throwing out values that work at their superlowlevel of early alpha-stage play and then tweaking them over the course of a few months wouldn't be working that well.
Given that their perception of balance is that it is enough for races to be balanced against each other completely disregarding that units can be absolutely mindblowingly broken in every single way when compared one to another it really cannot be hard.
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Warhounds and Hercs were two units that Blizzard actually removed from the game after publicly showing them. Do you really believe that Blizzard hasn't privately been testing all kinds of crazy ideas? The ones we see are the few that haven't totally broken the game or been pointless.
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On April 08 2015 04:07 cheekymonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 03:58 Hider wrote:On April 08 2015 03:08 KrazyTrumpet wrote:On April 08 2015 02:27 OtherWorld wrote:On April 07 2015 07:07 BillGates wrote:On April 07 2015 06:08 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote:
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno... I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense. In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point! Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively. Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too. On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote:
I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10. Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though. What the literal !@#$%^&*. They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening. I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&* Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer. They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold. I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
Good thing, because balance is probably the least important things behing economy, game design, unit interactions, etc etc. This paradigm of balance that a lot of people seem obsessed with is ridiculous, and sadly having an "open-closed" beta with mass broadcasting and hype doesn't help that.
On April 08 2015 04:30 alexanderzero wrote:
Warhounds and Hercs were two units that Blizzard actually removed from the game after publicly showing them. Do you really believe that Blizzard hasn't privately been testing all kinds of crazy ideas? The ones we see are the few that haven't totally broken the game or been pointless.
If their internal testing wasn't good enough to prevent Daedalus 1.0 from becoming a pro map, then I seriously doubt the abilities of their internal testings.
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On April 08 2015 04:30 alexanderzero wrote:
Warhounds and Hercs were two units that Blizzard actually removed from the game after publicly showing them. Do you really believe that Blizzard hasn't privately been testing all kinds of crazy ideas? The ones we see are the few that haven't totally broken the game or been pointless.
Actually the Warhound was in the beta! It proceeded alpha stages.
If we look at another "bold idea" (read: its not, its just dumb), Blizzard had 5 months since Blizzcon to test the new Nydus. I wonder how anyone during the alpha stages thought that this Nydus was fun? Should it take more than 1 single game to realize the idea was dumb and should be scrapped?
Yesterday I watched Morrow lose to a Nydus and I thought.... Hmm maybe there is a better way. So I went into the editor. Clicked on the Nydus and figured out which stats determined its behaviour. 30 minutes later I had implemented a redeisgned version of the Nydus that adds for a very new playstyle and more multitasking:
(http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/482384-new-nydus-suggestion)
I think Blizzards methodology is completely off here. They are not assessing what could happen to interactions or the gameplay if X, Y or Z were changed.
Rather it seems that they are more like:" Hmm hardened shield hardcounters mech" "hmmmmmm .... --> 5 years after --> Less tell our model-designers to add a press a button ability on the Immortal but let's not actually try and test whether it adds more micro or whether it maintains the current strenght of the unit. (I don't think the nerf to the Immortal was intentional).
Blizzard designers does one thing well and that is identifying unit roles, however, there is something wrong with the proces afterwards. And I am very curious what exactly is happening internally.
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On April 08 2015 04:44 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 04:30 alexanderzero wrote:
Warhounds and Hercs were two units that Blizzard actually removed from the game after publicly showing them. Do you really believe that Blizzard hasn't privately been testing all kinds of crazy ideas? The ones we see are the few that haven't totally broken the game or been pointless. Warhound was in the actual beta!!! How on earth does a unit that can amove eveyrthing cost effecitvely end up in the actual beta???? There is something completely wrong with Blizzards methodology here. Now lets look at the Nydus suggestion I presented here and compare it to Blizzards: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/482384-new-nydus-suggestionBlizzard had 5 months since Blizzcon to test their Nydus version. In theory, I always thought their idea was bad, but during the internal testing they never even realized it them selves? How is that possible. Now yesterday I watched Morrow lose to a Nydus and I thought.... Hmm maybe there is a better way. So I went into the editor. Clicked on the Nydus and figured out which stats determined its behaviour. 30 minutes later I had already implemented a playable version of the Nydus into the map. Blizzard isn't testing ideas properly. Thats the issue. They are not assessing what could happen to interactions if X, Y or Z were changed. Rather it seems that they are more like:" Hmm hardened shield hardcounters mech" "hmmmmmm .... --> 5 years after --> Less tell our model-designers to add a press a button ability on the Immoral, but let's not actually try and test whether it adds more micro or whether it maintains the current strenght of the balance.
Yeah, I really think they don't have any methodology besides playtesting the alpha-product as a whole. At least that's what it feels like. They follow a guide to unit creation:
"must use an armor tag; must use damage point; must use all standard commands like hold/stop/patrol; must have a certain size at minimum/maximum"
Then they just fuck together some damage and health values that create certain relations "disruptor must oneshot all lowtier units; lowtier unit with most health=roach; here have 150damage" and that seems to be it. Everything else is balanced via playtesting and if a unit starts with 100k dps in their tests they wouldn't even notice. They'd only notice when everyone tells them the unit is fucked up, so they tune down the health by 10points and viola, finished is our oracle, such a fun unit!
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They'd only notice when everyone tells them the unit is fucked up, so they tune down the health by 10points and viola, finished is our oracle, such a fun unit!
Funny fact: Dustin Browder has actually stated that one of the reasons they couldn't look at the economy in HOTS was because they were busy working on the Oracle. Good to know they are spending their time efficiently.
Yeah, I really think they don't have any methodology besides playtesting the alpha-product as a whole. At least that's what it feels like. They follow a guide to unit creation:
But besides their methodology being off, sometimes playtesting isn't harder than "is this fun or not?" If something isn't fun it probably shouldn't be part of the Blizzcon video or the beta. This is why I look at the Oracle, Swarm Hosts or Nydus. I always found those units boring and awfull immediately. So even if some of the Blizzard guys had a theory that this new Nydus would be awesome, shouldn't someone just say to him "dude we tried it, its lame, lets scrap it and just buff overlord drops for now untill we come up with something better".
But generally I do think gamedesigners with no credentials (besides having a job) gets too much credit. I once asked a Heroes of the Storm developer in an AMA on his thought on why the movement speed and cast range of abilites had been reduced. I explained how I saw the implications (they were very severe- reducing counterplay), and his response was simply nonsense. The only way to interpret that was that he hadn't even thought once about the implications.
I believe he is a former Sc2-developer, and it demonstrates that these developers aren't that competent.
Game developers aren't like jobs where you first need to school for 5 years to make sure they have solid theoretical experiecne -->Work their way up the top by constantly being reevaluted.
As a game developer your in a field where you know more than your boss (CEO of blizzard), so the boss can't even properly assess whether your doing a good enough job and thats my theory to why we see such inefficiency in gamedesign at Blizzard.
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On April 07 2015 20:01 timchen1017 wrote:
BillGates, actually the problem is not really about how good you are, or what you can or cannot do. The problem is what you find interesting to watch.
Suppose the UI is messed up, so it needs say 500 APM to place those force fields, or land those storms. According to your argument, now you find the game vastly more enjoyable, because those things are no longer doable by any casual players.
But now probably the player that can move his mouse as fast and as accurate as possible will win. Provided that he can type fast, too. If you are interested in those things, I suggest you watching some typing contest instead.
Seriously, if you are not interested in any strategy aspects of the game, watch something else.
That is like saying if we break every footballer's legs there is still different skill to make someone better over the next. Sure, but that skill is so much lower now, if the skill ceiling with legs was 100, without legs is 10.
I mean you could say the lottery requires skill as well, that is not really true.
If SC1 has 100 skill ceiling, SC2 and the latest LOTV has something like 40% skill ceiling, less than half.
As far as strategy is just memorizing a simple build order, there is nothing there that requires intelligence. I mean every RTS player is imagining himself having 200IQ and not winning is only because of the "Archaic" UI, otherwise with his 200IQ he would beat everyone.
Let me break it to you, RTS games have very very little to do with IQ, The skill ceiling has always been the micro and macro, just like you can have a talented footballer, but he actually needs to practice every day to actually be good.
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On April 08 2015 04:56 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +They'd only notice when everyone tells them the unit is fucked up, so they tune down the health by 10points and viola, finished is our oracle, such a fun unit! Funny fact: Dustin Browder has actually stated that one of the reasons they couldn't look at the economy in HOTS was because they were busy working on the Oracle. Good to know they are spending their time efficiently. Show nested quote +
Yeah, I really think they don't have any methodology besides playtesting the alpha-product as a whole. At least that's what it feels like. They follow a guide to unit creation:
But besides their methodology being off, sometimes playtesting isn't harder than "is this fun or not?" If something isn't fun it probably shouldn't be part of the Blizzcon video or the beta. This is why I look at the Oracle, Swarm Hosts or Nydus. I always found those units boring and awfull immediately. So even if some of the Blizzard guys had a theory that this new Nydus would be awesome, shouldn't someone just say to him "dude we tried it, its lame, lets scrap it and just buff overlord drops for now untill we come up with something better". But generally I do think gamedesigners with no credentials (besides having a job) gets too much credit. I remember asking the Heroes of the Storm developer in an AMA on his thought on the consequences of reducing movement speed and cast range of abilites. I always found the consequecnes very severe as it reduced the juking potential, but his response was absolute nonsene. And I believe he is a former Sc2-developer, and it just goes on to show that many of these developers really do not understand which variables impact interactions.
I feel like many of those guys have had their time (e.g. Dustin Browder provided us with some very fun unit and game designs back in his CnC days) but are very disconnected from actually playing the game on a higher level.
It's a fast moving industry and what was state of the art 10years ago simply isn't anymore these days. It bugs me when they sound like your average gold league b.net forum guy when they talk about progamers: "we were amazed by how they used our units", while guys like Jakatak are out there not being paid a dime while knowing 3times more about the game after one day of playtesting than the actualy lead designer.
It's not the 90s anymore, you don't accidently create a popular esports title. You are the master of your game or you are left with a niche of hardcore fans.
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It's a fast moving industry and what was state of the art 10years ago simply isn't anymore these days. It bugs me when they sound like your average gold league b.net forum guy when they talk about progamers: "we were amazed by how they used our units", while guys like Jakatak are out there not being paid a dime while knowing 3times more about the game after one day of playtesting than the actualy lead designer.
A bit off topic, but after I heard the interview with David Kim on why they implemened Archon mode, I couldn't help thinking he didn't tell the entire truth. He said that they used it to improve the quality of their internal testings so they could match the level of progamers. But instead I kept thinking that the real reason it was added was to make sure two of the other developers combined could play at low master-level so they could have have decent games against David Kim.
But obviously you don't need to be a super high level player to be a solid developer, but it really doesn't hurt. Either that or you should be a master in the editor and know all of the variables. It definitely did surprise me when Jakataks video inspired them to change the scan range. Didn't they know about that variable before? Or why didn't they never question why Stalkers could only sometimes amove Widow Mines?
It's not the 90s anymore, you don't accidently create a popular esports title. You are the master of your game or you are left with a niche of hardcore fans.
But...but.but.... BW was created by chance. It wasn't intended to be an esport and by logic you are therefore wrong.
/S
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This thread has devolved into an ignorant circle jerk. Apparently you don't have to be smart to be on of the world's top RTS players. Is that a joke?
EDIT: Oh its BillGates again. Can someone please ban this troll?
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I hate to say this, but Blizzard's apparent success in occasionally creating 50/50/50 values for the non-mirror match-ups tells us not that Blizzard is competent at balancing, but rather that balancing might not be all that difficult if even Blizzard is capable of it.
I never know how many people at Blizzard are actually working on SC2 multiplayer design and balance full-time and whether it represents Blizzard's top talent. I do know that David Kim works as balance designer for the Heroes team as well and that he's also responsible for single player balance. Furthermore, given his set of responsibilities it should not be impossible to find him giving an intelligent answer about game design in an interview. I don't buy the argument that he's consistently saying meaningless things because that's Blizzard's policy, it seems more likely he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
We can always concede that Blizzard might be motivated by obscure business concerns and that this explains all their game design decisions, but I don't know. The fact that they can't give intelligible answers to questions asked by LaLush or Decemberscalm or Hider tells me they don't know. The fact they had to be informed by Jakatak about scan range (and damage point?) tells me the same. The fact they mentioned they were experimenting with a global 50% attack speed reduction.. etc.
This will sound elitist, but most game designers are hacks with little education and talent, kind of like music record producers that create Britney Spears albums and such.
I used to think in 2010 that Starcraft 2 was a very big deal, the new game of the future that would unite everyone and do for the rest of the world what BW did for Korea, only it would be even better. Given my expectations it's just sad to be stuck with Blizzard because they are not capable of delivering. In the future I'll make sure to never trust a for-profit organisation again.
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Jesus christ this escalated quickly. Sry but all your "blizzard is so incompetent" posts are posts i would expect at /r/starcraftcirclejerk.
most game designers are hacks with little education and talent
Yeah i am sure that's the case...
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I never know how many people at Blizzard are actually working on SC2 multiplayer design and balance full-time and whether it represents Blizzard's top talent. I do know that David Kim works as balance designer for the Heroes team as well and that he's also responsible for single player balance. Furthermore, given his set of responsibilities it should not be impossible to find him giving an intelligent answer about game design in an interview. I don't buy the argument that he's consistently saying meaningless things because that's Blizzard's policy, it seems more likely he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
It actually is a good point. If you had this super intelligent developer-team who knew alot more about gamedesign than anyone realized, wouldn't you make that apparent? Wouldn't you write very detailed articles/videos explaining everything. Yes that would take time, but it would also function as an advertising/credibility tool. People would link to the article and say "hey these starcraft developers are so intelligent". It just doesn't make sense that you would downplay all the time with simple arguments.
It just makes more sense to me that when someone sounds like a duck, has a track-record like a duck, and continues to act like a duck, then he probably is a duck. No reason to believe in authority here.
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On April 08 2015 05:50 The_Red_Viper wrote:Jesus christ this escalated quickly. Sry but all your "blizzard is so incompetent" posts are posts i would expect at /r/starcraftcirclejerk. Yeah i am sure that's the case...
I know it sounds very cruel, but if you think about it it's quite obvious. Most games have very familiar stories and are based on existing tropes, with game design based on a million previous games. It's not like the past anymore, when you had to create new genres and come up with actual new designs. Nowadays your job is to appeal to the market, not to have some sort of artistic independence. Furthermore, in virtually every single instance where I followed game design (examples being World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Planetary Annihilation) I could see just really uninspiring decision making by people that honestly couldn't really do better. There were also game designers I liked. For World of Warcraft I liked most of the designers, but the writing was atrocious, for example. The Starcraft 2 writing is similarly bad and over the years they had too many unforced errors in the game design department.
On April 08 2015 05:58 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +I never know how many people at Blizzard are actually working on SC2 multiplayer design and balance full-time and whether it represents Blizzard's top talent. I do know that David Kim works as balance designer for the Heroes team as well and that he's also responsible for single player balance. Furthermore, given his set of responsibilities it should not be impossible to find him giving an intelligent answer about game design in an interview. I don't buy the argument that he's consistently saying meaningless things because that's Blizzard's policy, it seems more likely he just doesn't know what he's talking about. It actually is a good point. If you really had this super intelligent developer-team who knew alot more about gamedesign than anyone realized, wouldn't you make that apparent? Wouldn't you write very detailed articles explaining everything. Yes that would take time, but it would also function as an advertising/credibility tool. People would link to the article and say "hey these starcraft developers are so intelligent". It just doesn't make sense that you would downplay all the time with simple arguments.
This did actually happen in WoW, you had developers constantly answering questions on forums and engaging with the community. But you'll note that in WoW business incentives lined up to force the developers to care, so more was asked of them and they had to rise up to the challenge. That's quite different from Starcraft 2 where the developers largely seek to remain elusive and dodge community questions and seemingly no one knows who's actually working on the game and in what capacity.
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On April 08 2015 05:12 BillGates wrote:
That is like saying if we break every footballer's legs there is still different skill to make someone better over the next. Sure, but that skill is so much lower now, if the skill ceiling with legs was 100, without legs is 10.
I mean you could say the lottery requires skill as well, that is not really true.
If SC1 has 100 skill ceiling, SC2 and the latest LOTV has something like 40% skill ceiling, less than half.
As far as strategy is just memorizing a simple build order, there is nothing there that requires intelligence. I mean every RTS player is imagining himself having 200IQ and not winning is only because of the "Archaic" UI, otherwise with his 200IQ he would beat everyone.
Let me break it to you, RTS games have very very little to do with IQ, The skill ceiling has always been the micro and macro, just like you can have a talented footballer, but he actually needs to practice every day to actually be good.
Again, I think your arguments show fundamentally how you value mechanical aspects of the game and neglect strategical ones. I would suggest you to watch real sports instead, like tennis or boxing for 1v1, where there is strategy, but physicality plays a much much more important role.
I do agree with you, if all that strategy is to memorize a simple build order, there is nothing intelligent about it. But knowing a build order is just the beginning, instead of the end. In fact, it is precisely because of the difficulty to micro and macro correctly such that people already win lots and lots of games with just a fixed build order. In my opinion that is something that should be fixed, instead of the other way around.
For example, how do you design an effective build order out from vacuum, or against a particular build? How much positioning and micro are required for a specific build to work? And these are just things to think about when preparing for the game. In the midst of a game, there are decisions to be made from situations outside of your intended build. Maybe your opponent throws something unexpected to you. Maybe you took a bad engagement. Or you took an unexpectedly good one. Maybe your worker line is interrupted and you need crisis management. Apparently all these questions are out of your concern as you only play the game to perfect your so-called micro and macro, which individually look easy to you without artificially decrease their effectiveness through messing up the UI.
I am interested in one thing though. What do you think that determines the outcome of professional games then, if you don't think there's that much strategy, and micro and macro are too easy? Pure chance?
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I want to defend TheDwf's post, since it has come under some criticism.
Time exists as a dimension to many parts of the game, and it's important to establish this framing: that in general if you contract time, you lose something of your ability to react or respond to your opponent's actions. Maybe this is vague, but I think that TheDwf was talking in prophetic terms: that Blizzard foolishly ignored a fundamental rule and will have to pay the consequences.
And everyone knows that prophets have to take some artistic license with their words. :p
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EPT
