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bhfberserk
Canada390 Posts
1) Mothership core for PvP. 2) Ravager and Forcefield. 3) Colossus nerf? and adding in disrupter. (This is the weirdest thing. The concept of colossus sucks, instead of fixing it, they add in disrupter and nerf the colossus?) Why not fix the core problems in this long Beta? | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
Unfortunately, the sort of micro that is encouraged on the Terran side is mindless hotkey spam, the power of Zerg A-move remains stronger than ever before, and if - dare I say it - the Ghost ability turns out to be OP in some way in some meta we haven't considered (e.g. vs BLs), Blizzard will nerf it into the ground and, if the past is any indication, best case scenario - invent some shitty band aid for Terrans to fight Ultras that will screw the game up even more, or, worst case scenario - just throw their hands in the air and hope that Terrans find some cool new mech strats. That's what happens when you invent units that literally hardcounter entire playstyles. After five years of asking, we finally got the Immortal to stop being that to mech... just to switch it out for the Ultralisk being that to bio, because there's no way this could possibly backfire? Just when you think that Blizzard is learning from their mistakes, albeit too slow and too late... they're... not? | ||
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BronzeKnee
United States5212 Posts
On June 15 2015 12:55 pure.Wasted wrote: That's what happens when you invent units that literally hardcounter entire playstyles. After five years of asking, we finally got the Immortal to stop being that to mech... just to switch it out for the Ultralisk being that to bio, because there's no way this could possibly backfire? Just when you think that Blizzard is learning from their mistakes, albeit too slow and too late... they're... not? Don't worry, we still have the Vikings to everything Protoss except Gateway units and the Immortal. Literally everything, it counters more units that it doesn't counter. That is what we call doing terrible damage to the design of the game. | ||
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Gradient
Sweden15 Posts
On June 15 2015 12:55 pure.Wasted wrote: The thing is, there is actually a good design kernel hidden beneath the mass of bad shit that is the new Ghost spell: Blizzard wants to add new dimensions to bio play, and force bio Terrans to tech into new units. At the risk of giving DK's team too much credit, there's even a warped kind of elegance to what they did, because they didn't introduce any brand new units (read: clutter) to either the Zerg or the Terran side to do it, they just repurposed two of the units they already have. Depending on the drone's attack priority, there may even be some counterplay involved. Unfortunately, the sort of micro that is encouraged on the Terran side is mindless hotkey spam, the power of Zerg A-move remains stronger than ever before, and if - dare I say it - the Ghost ability turns out to be OP in some way in some meta we haven't considered (e.g. vs BLs), Blizzard will nerf it into the ground and, if the past is any indication, best case scenario - invent some shitty band aid for Terrans to fight Ultras that will screw the game up even more, or, worst case scenario - just throw their hands in the air and hope that Terrans find some cool new mech strats. That's what happens when you invent units that literally hardcounter entire playstyles. After five years of asking, we finally got the Immortal to stop being that to mech... just to switch it out for the Ultralisk being that to bio, because there's no way this could possibly backfire? Just when you think that Blizzard is learning from their mistakes, albeit too slow and too late... they're... not? I'm okay with forcing terran to tech and going forward but with this change terran will require even more micro (while zerg a-move as you said). Now I'm a regular Diamond player and only play a couple of games a week, but I already have a pretty hard time to micro against zergs (splitting, mines, kiting, etc). And now they want me to add another unit that requires a seperare keybindgroup and requires me to single target the ultras with spells at the same time? While zerg didnt need to change a single thing? I know we mostly balance for pros but this seems like it will break lower leagues even more. Like if zerg get Ultras you better just quit the game because you already lost. | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On June 15 2015 14:24 BronzeKnee wrote: Don't worry, we still have the Vikings to everything Protoss except Gateway units and the Immortal. Literally everything, it counters more units that it doesn't counter. That is what we call doing terrible damage to the design of the game. And if we wanted Skytoss to be a valid playstyle, this would be a very serious problem. But I'm pretty sure most people agree that air playstyles are not worth encouraging in SC. Air units are slower and less responsive than ground units as a general rule (read: less microable), and they completely negate all depth that terrain adds to the game without really adding anything to make up for it. So the Viking is a badly designed anti-air unit (not quite as bad as the Corruptor, but that's not saying much), but the problem is more of a theoretical one. | ||
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BronzeKnee
United States5212 Posts
On June 15 2015 15:22 pure.Wasted wrote: And if we wanted Skytoss to be a valid playstyle, this would be a very serious problem. But I'm pretty sure most people agree that air playstyles are not worth encouraging in SC. Air units are slower and less responsive than ground units as a general rule (read: less microable), and they completely negate all depth that terrain adds to the game without really adding anything to make up for it. So the Viking is a badly designed anti-air unit (not quite as bad as the Corruptor, but that's not saying much), but the problem is more of a theoretical one. Right. If we didn't want more than half of the Protoss units in HOTS to not be hard countered by a single unit, it would be a real problem. And if we had air units that negated terrain in TvP, it would be a real problem. A unit like the Terran Dropship could really ruin positional play with it's ability to drop anywhere, and force Protoss to turtle or all-in. Right? I mean with the ability to load and just do a doom drop, it would destroy the great game of positioning out on the map we have between Protoss and Terran. It'd be especially bad if Blizzard combined the Medic and Dropship. Then bio Terrans would get access to essentially free drops, as Terran would be building Medivacs for healing already, and would be balanced around that. It would really hurt meching Terrans who want to drop too, forcing them to spend gas on Medivacs they need for Tanks and Thors, while they don't need the heal. Good thing we don't have a viable air unit in TvP. In all seriousness though, it isn't my fault Blizzard put so many air units into the game, as I agree, they are in general bad for the game. But they did, and rendering so many useless in a matchup is just bad game design. And it isn't theoretical, many units go unused in TvP because of Vikings. | ||
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JCoto
Spain574 Posts
On June 15 2015 12:41 bhfberserk wrote: For the Ghost spell, it is pretty disappointed when you think about it. This is a really bandaid fix on the Ultra vs Bio. Have to see how it plays out but right now it seems like a bandaid for sure... Like many things else... 1) Mothership core for PvP. 2) Ravager and Forcefield. 3) Colossus nerf? and adding in disrupter. (This is the weirdest thing. The concept of colossus sucks, instead of fixing it, they add in disrupter and nerf the colossus?) Why not fix the core problems in this long Beta? I think Ravager being some kind of counter to FF is not bad at all, since that would encourage more meele Ling styles (Ling Hydra, Lings with some Banes). I think the problem is that FF is what has been keeping Protoss alive for years, since otherwise, Protoss would eat fatal runbies and pushes for years, and numerical disadvantage because of weaker macro would become really really evident in fights. Having a few FF is not bad at all, but the problem is when you get 30/40 FF going for 30 seconds in a fight. IMAO Sentries need a rework to feel as a defensive unit that can actually defend something on their own, mobility or mechanics to make it micro intensive, and less dependent on FF. If they review a bit the Sentry, maybe mass FF will be discouraged. However, I don't see the problem with Ravagers being a soft counter to FF. Ravager's bile is not only a counter ability to FF, but a zoning shot that disrupts the enemy too. Ability CD and Ravager cost limits it a ton, but what's more important, Ravager bile discourages mass Sentry strategies. Because 4 biles, and you'll be flooded with Ling/Bane. And sentries don't like that. Then FF will possibly be used only on retreat maneuvers/deffensive style much more than offensive since Ravagers can also be there. And Ravager can also be used to a good effect vs Mech, (at least the original Blizzcon concept we saw) since it's bulky and big, meaning that mitigates splash damage nicely, and was meant to have high HP. Now they have removed armored tag to make it more resistant vs Mech and other strats, it might find a place. The bile is strong vs clumps and static targets. | ||
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Amestir
Netherlands2126 Posts
Also I have maybe played 10 games in the past 2 years, sorry for all who really want in <.< | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On June 15 2015 15:59 BronzeKnee wrote: In all seriousness though, it isn't my fault Blizzard put so many air units into the game, as I agree, they are in general bad for the game. But they did, and rendering so many useless in a matchup is just bad game design. And it isn't theoretical, many units go unused in TvP because of Vikings. It's not your fault at all. It's on Blizzard, as if everything else they screwed up in this game. If they want all those air units to be useful in conjunction with one another, they need to find a way to give them dynamic interplay, and some sort of relationship to the terrain they glide past. The Liberator is the unit that comes closest to looking like an air unit you want to design compositions around... aand it's Terran. Lol. Seriously, Protoss is just fucked. There's nothing concrete or coherent about the race, just a bunch of half baked ideas duct taped together by FFs, RoboBAOE, and the MSC. Now that the Liberator is a thing, I'd be all for anti-Protoss air duties being split between those two units, so long as those units are made interesting enough to deserve countering. | ||
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On June 15 2015 00:40 Hider wrote: Es I explained in my comment. If you already know the answers in answer, it really doesn't take very long time to respond to the highest quality feedback. 15-20 minute a day at most! If they have 3-4 designers working fulltime on Starcraft, this should easily be doable. Also noone is demanding that the developers read through all of the feedback, but rather the job of the community managers could be to find the best 5-20 posts a week and link them to the developers. Having 20 post forwarded to the developers is greater an interruption that you maybe think. You don't need only time to actually write a reply, you have to think about it. In most cases you can only explain why the suggestion will not be implemented. This is frustrating for both the developer and the questioner. But let's say Blizzard's SC2 team would reply to 20 community suggestions each week. There would still be the complaint that Blizzard is not listening enough, and/or that they have no clue (because they deny such brilliant suggestions.) On June 15 2015 00:40 Hider wrote: This doesn't make sense. Even assuming Blizzard has this special knowledge (which is unlikely given the responses to depth of micro and DH), that doesn't imply that they can't explain their thought proces. It happens all the time in the world that someone who knows more about a subject explains certain things to someone who knows less about the subject. Secondly, if they really had this super special knowledge, why on earth wouldn't you take advantage of it in order to (a) improve the brand-value of the company and (b) service the hardcore customers? Think about how the perception of Blizzard would change if they - just once in a while (not every day or week) wrote very detailed analysis of various design decisions. Where they went through all of the variables that impact how units should be designed. If they really had this knowledge, why wouldn't you make it apparent to the gaming world that the design employees of Blizzard/Starcraft are super brilliant? That's free advertising right there for Blizzard! On the other hand, every time we have seem David Kim make comments in the public he has either shown a lack of understanding or has made inconsistent/overly simplified arguments. That wouldn't be an issue if he and his team actually had a track-record of consistently delievering results. But that's not the case. The Blizzard development team in fact has a track-record of frequent design (and balance) errors. At the end of the day, you need to ask your self what is more likely. When someone walks like a duck and talks like a duck, why would you continue to assume he is some type of brilliant mastermind who has all these fantastic reasons for not doing something that the community just is incapable of understanding. You seem to assume that because Blizzard is an AAA company, all of its design developers are also super smart and analytical. But that's not neccesarily the case if hiring-methodology isn't focussed on acquiring and rewarding the most analytical candidates, but instead values other "qualities". A good player surely has more insight into some details of a particular match-up. What he lacks is the big picture across all leagues, all realms. Let's compare this (even though the analogy has its flaws) with a chef which has to make a meal for a group of people. He cannot make everyone 100% satisfied. The gourmets, even though they know what they like to eat, don't necessarily know how to cook. The many errors Blizzard did make show that they are willing to experiment and iterate, and to correct at least some previous mistakes. What seemed right at one point turned out to be wrong. And of course there is always one who told so. But let's be honest again, those are mostly lucky guesses. I don't see Blizzard employees as masterminds. However I can say this from personal experience: When an amateur suggests how to do something in which I have professional experience, it is in most cases wrong on so many levels. Even though it appears to be reasonable to other amateurs. They just don't know all the implications. That does not mean I consider myself brilliant or a mastermind. There is still a very, very large gap in the level of understanding an issue. | ||
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jotmang-nojem
39 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
You don't need only time to actually write a reply, you have to think about it. In most cases you can only explain why the suggestion will not be implemented. This is frustrating for both the developer and the questioner. If you need to time to think about it without immediately knowing the answer on the top of your ahead, it's actually a huge advantage that you are forced to give a reply as you - in the proces of thinking about the proper answer - learn more about game design and how its related to Starcraft. But a competent developer should know most of the answers and be able to answer within 2-3 minutes. As an example, look at my Nydus suggestion (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/482384-new-nydus-suggestion). Let's say this was forwarded to a developer. A possible answer might here be the following: Its an interesting proposal but currently we are working on making the overlord the "low risk/high reward"-harass play and the Nydus the high risk play (which is the reverse of my suggestion). This answer is very concise and respectful. The user who made the suggestion (me) feels pleasure in being recognized for the hard work, and thus future users will be motiviated to make similar somewhat detailed and constructive suggestions. At the same time it gives the user base an understanding of where Blizzard wants to take the game. There are no disadvantages with this approach. A good player surely has more insight into some details of a particular match-up. What he lacks is the big picture across all leagues, all realms. What makes you think that David Kim is better at making decisions that will make the casual target group satifised than community figures? Who do you think has the most amount of interactions with casual players? David Kim who sits behind closed door at the Blizzard HQ or people like Nathanias whom as a caster and a streamer frequently talks to casual players? Do you see any huge surveys or statistical analysis that David Kim and his colleguages are basing their design decisions off? In fact, the opposite is a ton more likely as David Kim is being critizied for making the game too frustrating for casuals. I can't think of a single example in modern times where Blizzard has demonstrated a much higher level of understanding of what casuals want than community figures. When an amateur suggests how to do something in which I have professional experience, it is in most cases wrong on so many levels. The difference between amateurs and professionals is only relevant when you can point to a specific barrier that makes sure that the professionals are more qualified. In progaming that barrier exists as you simply cannot win a tournament if your not actually good at the game. In many "IRL" jobs there is a barrier as well since you typically need to have taken an education and received good grades before you can get a job in the first place. And in order to get up in the ranks inside the company you need to have delivered consistent results. The more competition there is within the industry of similar types of companies, the more likely it is that you can only deliever results if you are actually competent. The issue with Bizzard here is that there is no such "barrier". Sc2 selling numbers aren't strongly related to how good David Kim is at his job. If he makes a design errors and that is correlated with lower viewer numbers/playing activity, he can surely convince Mike Morhaimme that the lower numbers are due to other factors (e.g. no F2P/RTS genre too hard), and Mike Morhaimme has no way of telling whether David Kim is actually a mediocre game designer or the best in the business. Imagine on the other hand, you had 10 other gaming companies all making Starcraft-clones and player-activivity/streaming numbers were strongly related to how well the game were designed. If that was the case, it would be easy to measure whether David Kim does his job well or not, and the company that ends up with the best Starcraft-clone is therefore likely to have brilliant gamedevelopers too. If you are job at your job, you would likely be fired (or demoted), and thus there would be an "automatic system" in place to make sure that professionals are more qualified than amateurs. However, there isn't this "system" in place within Blizzard's Starcraft team due to the difficulty of measuring game-designers and the lack of competion. TLDR: It doesn't make sense to think of David Kim in terms of him being a professional or having special extra knowledge. Instead, his skill level should be evaluated based on his decisions and whether he demonstrates a high level of design understanding whenever he expresses his views. Note: This doesn't imply that I think Blizzard is likely to hire idiots, but rather that they aren't neccasarily hiring the top 0.01% candidates, but instead end up with top 25%, which is relatively mediocore. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
Brood War was designed by someone with no finished education and only over one year of experience working in the games industry and DotA was designed by random modders. Game design is an art, not a science. I think your argument here is very dangerous, telling us that professionals always know better and that any involvement with outside critics is essentially futile. I'm asked to suspend my noticing of all the mistakes by Blizzard and accept they operate on a level beyond me. You've even rationalized that we should recognize their failures as proof of their success. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
Starcraft Brood War was designed by someone with no finished education and only over one year of experience working in the games industry, yet it's a better game than SCII. What's more interesting is that Starcraft1 and BW comined was developed over 2-3 years (?) I wonder how many dedicated members they had working on multiplayer design in this proces. It simply doesn't make any type of sense that a dedicated multiplayer whom only has to develop 3-4 new units every other year doesn't have time to respond to a couple of community suggestions as well. Or cannot write more detailed pieces on various design subjects in order to show the community that they know what they are doing and also allow the community to get a better understanding of where Blizzard wants to take Starcraft. The latter will help the community at making proposals that fits Blizzard design philosophy better as well. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
On June 15 2015 22:03 Hider wrote: What's more interesting is that Starcraft and Starcraft BW was developed over 2-3 years (?) I wonder how many dedicated members they had working on multiplayer design in this proces. It simply doesn't make any type of sense that a dedicated multiplayer whom only has to develop 3-4 new units every other year doesn't have time to respond to a couple of community suggestions as well. Or at least cannot write more detailed pieces on various design subjects in order to show the community that they know what they are doing and also allow the community to get a better understanding of where Blizzard wants to take Starcraft. The latter will help the community at making proposals that fits Blizzard design philosophy better as well. This is a downside to the modern industry. In my opinion the best way is as follows: you create a smaller game, kept in perpetual beta, where the developers can actually afford to experiment, respond to community concerns and implement functionality without having to sit through a gazillion meetings where they have to explain how it's worth the cost of utilizing the Q&A and Art team and how it will confuse casuals. If the game is successful they can create an AAA remake to market to a mass audience. CS:GO and DOTA2 are essentially like this. A company like ATVI could easily fund half a dozen such projects at any time. And arguably World of Warcraft and Hearthstone were already similar to this: only after they were successful did production quality scale up. I've heard quotes from Mike Morhaine saying the future of Blizzard was in smaller projects, but I'm not sure in what context he said that. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
On June 15 2015 22:18 Grumbels wrote: This is a downside to the modern industry. In my opinion the best way is as follows: you create a smaller game, kept in perpetual beta, where the developers can actually afford to experiment, respond to community concerns and implement functionality without having to sit through a gazillion meetings where they have to explain how it's worth the cost of utilizing the Q&A and Art team and how it will confuse casuals. If the game is successful they can create an AAA remake to market to a mass audience. CS:GO and DOTA2 are essentially like this. A company like ATVI could easily fund half a dozen such projects at any time. And arguably World of Warcraft and Hearthstone were already similar to this: only after they were successful did production quality scale up. I've heard quotes from Mike Morhaine saying the future of Blizzard was in smaller projects, but I'm not sure in what context he said that. Not sure it has to be an issue of modern industry. Seems more like an issue with the organizational structure that can be adressed in various ways. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
This is slightly wishful thinking, I know, but with Blizzard's brand value surely they should be able to make money off developing RTS games? Even if it's a smaller project without millions invested in art assets, cinematics and online platforms? They could honestly even just use the SC2 engine again and people wouldn't care that much probably. | ||
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Espers
United Kingdom606 Posts
need beta ladder really.. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
But how does the ability work? Does the drone move? Is it attached to the ultra? Like is it just floating above the ultra directly following it around? It might be pretty cool because the zerg players will try to shoot it down, which might make it have synergy with PDD. Or maybe Ultras can just return to their healer-queens to remove the drones. If anything, maybe the effect of -3 armor is too slight. If you're bringin' in the casters I feel like it should be like -5 or -6 armor. I dunno. I don't really understand the individual overlord transport thing. Does that mean Overlords are getting a new morph? Because I really like morphs and I would totally like another Overlord Morph. That would be my bag baby. | ||
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
On June 15 2015 20:09 pure.Wasted wrote: It's not your fault at all. It's on Blizzard, as if everything else they screwed up in this game. If they want all those air units to be useful in conjunction with one another, they need to find a way to give them dynamic interplay, and some sort of relationship to the terrain they glide past. The Liberator is the unit that comes closest to looking like an air unit you want to design compositions around... aand it's Terran. Lol. Seriously, Protoss is just fucked. There's nothing concrete or coherent about the race, just a bunch of half baked ideas duct taped together by FFs, RoboBAOE, and the MSC. Now that the Liberator is a thing, I'd be all for anti-Protoss air duties being split between those two units, so long as those units are made interesting enough to deserve countering. The original sin is still putting the goliath's anti-air attack on an air unit. It removed the entire dynamic of a more cost efficient unit having to navigate terrain versus a bunch of less cost efficient units being able to fly around. But no, Blizzard just loves hard counters. This ghost thing seems like a bandaid to the ultralisk oopsie. | ||
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