I would like to throw out a change to the Disruptor, curious what you all think? I do not like the idea of Disruptors being invincible while activated, but they cost so much and to just lose them in a blink of the eye...well... sucks.... I also think this makes them a balancing nightmare. How do you find the right area of effect and damage vs cost/supply without being so detrimental if they just die?
What if when activated their speed increases similarly, they are not invincible(maybe shield increase when activated?) but when they are killed they split into 2 smaller disruptors with less hp/shield and deal less damage. If killed while activated the 2 smaller ones would still be active and deal their damage as well as continue on their last command?.
Not only would this be pretty cool, well I think so anyway, but would increase the micro potential of both players(im sure David Kim would love) as well as giving some sort of insurance for the protoss player that spent a bunch of resources and army supply. I also think this will be good for both pros and new players because right now it seems to just rek noobs but pros can out micro it. With my idea it will give the pro some insurance and the new player can at least kill it and not have something invincible come at them over and over. If its a shit idea I'll own up to it, but it seems worth a try, what do you think?
On July 12 2015 15:58 stuchiu wrote: Those who like increased map diversity think about this.
Among the 130 best games of all tie. 93 of them were played on standard maps.
you can't isolate single maps like that, you have to consider a pool of 7 maps at a time. while perhaps the majority of maps at any time should be standard, a map pool of entirely standard maps can be monotonous, since players can just use the same standardized builds, tactics, etc. on every map.
imo at least 2-3 maps at any given time should have some sort of experimental or game changing feature to shake up the meta a little. since these types of maps tend to be "figured out" more quickly, they can simply be rotated out of the pool more quickly as well, which also has the advantage of allowing more experimental ideas in total to be tested. then if some of these ideas work out well, mapmakers can start incorporating them into standard maps.
also, that statistic is very misleading. since the majority of maps in the history of sc2 have been standard, and non-standard maps are more likely to be vetoed, then the majority of all games will have been played on standard maps, not only the best games.
agreeable, which also makes it weird there's an inclusion of 4 non-standard maps at a single time. and yes, those numbers on their own don't really say anything.
On July 12 2015 16:39 avilo wrote: These new maps are not about "adaptation." They are objectively bad for the gameplay of SC2 itself, most maps back rocks, more than 1 entrance to natural...etc. It's like season 1 blistering sands and worse.
People need to speak up so blizzard will get decent maps in this pool. All the current maps are all purposely designed to not allow mech play, which is really disappointing seeing as how not every pro game should be bio imo.
it's not just mech play, almost any form of defensive style generally under performs on more aggressive "non-standard" maps.
I'm not sure about objectively bad, I'm of the opinion some features don't belong in a ladder pool for gameplay reasons, but I gues you get funny coin-flips for the viewers.
which brings me to the next point, I doubt speaking up to Blizzard does anything, just look at inferno pools. the whole thing has been discussed plenty of times, Blizzard just does what they want, if that sinks their ship so be it.
On July 12 2015 16:54 stuchiu wrote: Entire Map Pool from 2010 to 2014. (taken from GSL)
Non-Standard Maps: Blistering Sands • Desert Oasis • Scrap Station • Steppes of War • Xel'Naga Caverns • Kulas Ravine • Lost Temple • • Delta Quadrant Jungle Basin • Crossfire SE • Terminus RE • Crevasse Dual Sight Xel'Naga Fortress Calm Before the Storm Metropolis Atlantis Spaceship ESV Ohana • GSL Abyssal City KeSPA Neo Planet S GSL Icarus • DF Atlas • GSL Red City Alterzim Stronghold • Daedalus Point Habitation Station Heavy Rain Yeonsu Waystation Deadwing Foxtrot Nimbus Total: 33
Metalopolis Shakuras Plateau Tal'Darim Altar Bel'Shir Beach Antiga Shipyard Cloud Kingdom Daybreak Entombed Valley GSL Bel'Shir Vestige Whirlwind GSL Akilon Flats • GSL Star Station • Frost Polar Night Overgrowth Merry Go Round King Sejong Station Catellena Total Maps: 18
There have actually been more non-standard maps than standard maps.I'm not advocating a completely standard map pool, but the argument new maps means more unique builds is not necessarily an argument for it being a better map or better gameplay.
these numbers still don't say a whole lot to me, and I don't think there's any realistic way of measuring entertainment value on maps.
On July 12 2015 16:57 -NegativeZero- wrote: i'm not talking about this season's maps specifically, more of maps as a whole and for the future. it's unfortunate that a couple of maps one time have completely killed a lot of people's desire for experimental maps in general, since there are plenty of untested mapping ideas that have the potential to improve the game.
however, a big problem is that experimental maps currently have NO WAY of being tested for balance and gameplay, for several reasons: -blizz insists on using the same 7 map pool for literally everything including ladder and all WCS events -progamers consider any practice not done on the official tournament map pool a waste of time -the mapmaking community is too small and generally not proficient enough at the game to give maps proper testing -everyone else just plays ladder (see problem 1)
so you're left with 2 sub-optimal solutions: 1) keep filling the pool with daybreak/overgrowth clones with no innovation 2) throw some untested maps right into WCS/ladder and see what happens
i'm obviously biased since i'm a mapmaker, but despite the risks i'd go for option 2 just for the sake of avoiding staleness.
note: option 2 would be far less of a problem if the map pool rotated more frequently, as broken maps could be replaced very quickly, but blizzard's current system gives most maps in general a far longer lifespan than they really should have.
On July 12 2015 16:54 stuchiu wrote: I'm not advocating a completely standard map pool, but the argument new maps means more unique builds is not necessarily an argument for it being a better map or better gameplay.
of course not, it's a crapshoot. but it could be a better map or better gameplay, so you get rid of the ones that aren't and reuse ideas from the ones that are. see above for how to improve the system.
yeah, all these issues are not really helping, but I disagree with this being the right thing to do, to me there seem to be plenty alternatives.
On July 12 2015 17:29 stuchiu wrote: The problem with rotation is a ack of refinement. Antiga/Akilon/WW were in the map pool forever and they were usually stale, but because they were in their forever players got so good at those maps that we got games like Gumiho vs MMA, Gumiho vs Losira, Ryung vs Flash,, DRG vs Ryung, etc.
I think at least 1-2 of the really good maps (I'd say something like Cloud Kingdom pre-HotS/Whirlwind/ WoL TDA/ Frost/KSS post SH nerf) should be allowed to stay in the pool for a longer period of time while you constantly put the other maps on rotation.
would be nice if maps weren't locked to WCS seasons and didn't have a locked 4/7 rotation every 3months resulting in an average lifespan of half a year for 6/7 maps.
as for some maps staying longer, I think some of these already did long overstay their welcome, KSS has been in professional play for well over a year time.
Metalopolis Shakuras Plateau Tal'Darim Altar Bel'Shir Beach Antiga Shipyard Cloud Kingdom Daybreak Entombed Valley GSL Bel'Shir Vestige Whirlwind GSL Akilon Flats • GSL Star Station • Frost Polar Night Overgrowth Merry Go Round King Sejong Station Catellena Total Maps: 18
There have actually been more non-standard maps than standard maps.I'm not advocating a completely standard map pool, but the argument new maps means more unique builds is not necessarily an argument for it being a better map or better gameplay.
I don't think your list of standard vs non-standard maps is correct. It seems bizarre to class Ohana as a non-standard map, particularly during the era it was around. Moreover it fails to consider what was considered standard when the map was around. Dual Sight may not be standard in this meta, but I would definitely argue it is more a standard map than non-standard.
Secondly, even with your categorization these maps had a significant effect on shaping the meta. Ohana being an example of influencing PvZ via soul train, Yeonsu pushing blink builds to the limit and so on.
Lastly, you concede that you want a varied pool (if not in this post, in other posts) yet
On July 12 2015 15:58 stuchiu wrote: Those who like increased map diversity think about this.
Among the 130 best games of all tie. 93 of them were played on standard maps.
The point is map diversity is inherently a good thing to develop diversity in strategies which allows truly phenomenal games to happen. When Metropolis was around no one gave two shits about long macro games (barring an exceptional few) because the over exposure to macro games meant that particular play style wasn't as exciting as it would have been on another map.
Then again you also know my opinion on a casual vs competitive map pool and a standard vs non-standard balance on those
On July 12 2015 16:39 avilo wrote: These new maps are not about "adaptation." They are objectively bad for the gameplay of SC2 itself, most maps back rocks, more than 1 entrance to natural...etc. It's like season 1 blistering sands and worse.
People need to speak up so blizzard will get decent maps in this pool. All the current maps are all purposely designed to not allow mech play, which is really disappointing seeing as how not every pro game should be bio imo.
So far as LotV is concerned, the game should be balanced on as varied a map pool as possible to maximise the number of viable features that can be used on maps in the future. As such having that diversity now is vital to achieve that goal, and it's also important for issues like the weakness of mech on those maps to be highlighted (and hopefully addressed)
But so far as HotS is concerned, equally as not every progame should be bio not every map should need to support mech (or mech without an intermedia bio push). That said in TvZ mech looks viable on 3/4 of the maps (I'm not sure about Moonlight, which is the only map I haven't seen mech played on) while TvP I can't really comment on.
Disregarding maps for having backdoors and multiple entrances to the natural 'because it sends the game back to season 1' ignores the fact that (a) we understand how to manipulate these features much better now (b) races have more tools than they did in WoL to account for the features (e.g. Nexus cannon).
Zerg is doing alright. Would love the ravager looked at, but honestly the unit isn't that interesting compared to alternatives. Only thing I'm worried about is the usefulness/existance of peripheral upgrades/units (swarmhost / caustic spray).
On July 14 2015 00:31 Qwyn wrote: Zerg is doing alright. Would love the ravager looked at, but honestly the unit isn't that interesting compared to alternatives. Only thing I'm worried about is the usefulness/existance of peripheral upgrades/units (swarmhost / caustic spray).
I wouldn't mind if some units were tailored to be useful in some specific matchup or other. We have a lot of units and I feel like having each unit have some sort of potential in each MU but not necessarily be used everywhere would stop the units from treading on each others' toes.
Kinda like in BW TvP: Marines are good in earlygame to defend and maybe for some light pokes, but eventually you need to go into mech because bio gets destroyed by storms and reavers. However bio does well in lategame TvZ once you add in vessels, so it's used there.
We already have a bit of that in SC2 - for example, you don't see hydras in ZvT, or skytoss in midgame PvT, while the potential is there to make it happen (in the latter case, Grubby's Phoenix Colossus style, for instance). But when there's glaring balance issues with the Void Ray or the Hydralisk, it's a lot easier to look at just 1 or 2 critical matchups rather than all 3.
Or you know, DK could give us some of that map diversity and balance the game that way.
I'm really getting tired of reading David Kim's comments.
He talks about an unstoppable PvZ all-in in very vague terms, as if he doesn't want people to abuse it. But then goes on to say it isn't broken... yet... probably.
Well the only way you're gonna find out is to share this said all-in and have people abuse the heck out of it. Why are you trying to hide it? It is immature, and goes directly against the openness Blizzard states it wants to have with the community.
But I'll tell you why he was intentionally vague and his post lacked any details: because he knows it might be the next 4 Gate or 1-1-1. He knew that sometimes people could stop those all-ins, but it was often because the aggressor made a mistake or the defender had superior micro.
So he doesn't want to let everyone know what it is because he doesn't want people to abuse it. And that is because he probably can't balance it.
Openness is sharing, sharing opinions and ideas about why it might be too strong, sharing possible counters, and sharing changes that could improve the defense against or reduce the potency of the all-in.
Why isn't Blizzard speaking directly to us with specific statements? Sadly, they mastered the paragraph of fluff that says nothing long ago. You could literally sum up most of his paragraphs in a single line.
On July 11 2015 03:25 Sapphire.lux wrote: I don't really understand the Cyclone damage changes. With more dmg vs ground after upgrades, will mass Cyclone not be the go to composition for mid-late game mech? If so, this is rubbish! Mech is about the Tank and support, not mass mobile units.
The obvious solution to this problem is to make it damage specific. Make the Cyclone good versus Light units, so it specifically counters Zealots for Mech (this could allow for a change to Hellbats), but not good versus armored units (like Stalkers), so Tank support is required.
Blizzard just bungled the whole thing for Mech with HOTS. They should have done what I said, and not implemented the Hellbat and instead brought back the Warhound but made it counter light units with high damage slow attacks (so Hellions and Tanks would still be the counter to mass Ling/Bane) to battle Zealots (but be countered by Marauders, Roaches, Stalkers, ect) and give it powerful anti-air capability. Then allow Hellions to place a Flaming Betty's from the campaign to further battle light units and you've got yourself a working Mech composition.
On July 14 2015 00:31 Qwyn wrote: Zerg is doing alright. Would love the ravager looked at, but honestly the unit isn't that interesting compared to alternatives. Only thing I'm worried about is the usefulness/existance of peripheral upgrades/units (swarmhost / caustic spray).
I wouldn't mind if some units were tailored to be useful in some specific matchup or other. We have a lot of units and I feel like having each unit have some sort of potential in each MU but not necessarily be used everywhere would stop the units from treading on each others' toes.
Kinda like in BW TvP: Marines are good in earlygame to defend and maybe for some light pokes, but eventually you need to go into mech because bio gets destroyed by storms and reavers. However bio does well in lategame TvZ once you add in vessels, so it's used there.
We already have a bit of that in SC2 - for example, you don't see hydras in ZvT, or skytoss in midgame PvT, while the potential is there to make it happen (in the latter case, Grubby's Phoenix Colossus style, for instance). But when there's glaring balance issues with the Void Ray or the Hydralisk, it's a lot easier to look at just 1 or 2 critical matchups rather than all 3.
Or you know, DK could give us some of that map diversity and balance the game that way.
The best map composition is 4 standard 3 different, this caters for literally everything. You have people that don't like map gimmicks or slight map imbalances for races and they can just veto the 3 different maps, maps don't affect "casual" or lower league players since they're not playing at a level where map imbalances really count for much, map imbalances probably only come into play around low-mid masters or perhaps even higher. For progamers who have to play these maps Bo3 is the norm up to RO4 when it turns to BO5 they can pick one of the different maps and pull out a interesting pocket strat.
Bearing in mind that sort of high ground plateu were in BW also see
14m18s if link doesn't get time right My point is standard maps produce standard play which is usually all good assuming even levels of play, but maps with different features do have a place and produce some of the best games.
TL;DR 4 Normal Standard Maps 3 Different (Gimmickish) maps.
On July 14 2015 01:22 BronzeKnee wrote: I'm really getting tired of reading David Kim's comments.
He talks about an unstoppable PvZ all-in in very vague terms, as if he doesn't want people to abuse it. But then goes on to say it isn't broken... yet... probably.
Well the only way you're gonna find out is to share this said all-in and have people abuse the heck out of it. Why are you trying to hide it? It is immature, and goes directly against the openness Blizzard states it wants to have with the community.
But I'll tell you why he was intentionally vague and his post lacked any details: because he knows it might be the next 4 Gate or 1-1-1. He knew that sometimes people could stop those all-ins, but it was often because the aggressor made a mistake or the defender had superior micro.
So he doesn't want to let everyone know what it is because he doesn't want people to abuse it. And that is because he probably can't balance it.
Openness is sharing, sharing opinions and ideas about why it might be too strong, sharing possible counters, and sharing changes that could improve the defense against or reduce the potency of the all-in.
Are you talking about the 4 gate adept build? Or another? Because 4 gate adept is beatable.
On July 14 2015 00:31 Qwyn wrote: Zerg is doing alright. Would love the ravager looked at, but honestly the unit isn't that interesting compared to alternatives. Only thing I'm worried about is the usefulness/existance of peripheral upgrades/units (swarmhost / caustic spray).
I wouldn't mind if some units were tailored to be useful in some specific matchup or other. We have a lot of units and I feel like having each unit have some sort of potential in each MU but not necessarily be used everywhere would stop the units from treading on each others' toes.
Kinda like in BW TvP: Marines are good in earlygame to defend and maybe for some light pokes, but eventually you need to go into mech because bio gets destroyed by storms and reavers. However bio does well in lategame TvZ once you add in vessels, so it's used there.
We already have a bit of that in SC2 - for example, you don't see hydras in ZvT, or skytoss in midgame PvT, while the potential is there to make it happen (in the latter case, Grubby's Phoenix Colossus style, for instance). But when there's glaring balance issues with the Void Ray or the Hydralisk, it's a lot easier to look at just 1 or 2 critical matchups rather than all 3.
Or you know, DK could give us some of that map diversity and balance the game that way.
The best map composition is 4 standard 3 different, this caters for literally everything. You have people that don't like map gimmicks or slight map imbalances for races and they can just veto the 3 different maps, maps don't affect "casual" or lower league players since they're not playing at a level where map imbalances really count for much, map imbalances probably only come into play around low-mid masters or perhaps even higher. For progamers who have to play these maps Bo3 is the norm up to RO4 when it turns to BO5 they can pick one of the different maps and pull out a interesting pocket strat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYH1L4DreXc Bearing in mind that sort of high ground plateu were in BW also see https://youtu.be/CLSlqG9f4AQ?t=14m18s 14m18s if link doesn't get time right My point is standard maps produce standard play which is usually all good assuming even levels of play, but maps with different features do have a place and produce some of the best games.
TL;DR 4 Normal Standard Maps 3 Different (Gimmickish) maps.
On July 14 2015 01:22 BronzeKnee wrote: I'm really getting tired of reading David Kim's comments.
He talks about an unstoppable PvZ all-in in very vague terms, as if he doesn't want people to abuse it. But then goes on to say it isn't broken... yet... probably.
Well the only way you're gonna find out is to share this said all-in and have people abuse the heck out of it. Why are you trying to hide it? It is immature, and goes directly against the openness Blizzard states it wants to have with the community.
But I'll tell you why he was intentionally vague and his post lacked any details: because he knows it might be the next 4 Gate or 1-1-1. He knew that sometimes people could stop those all-ins, but it was often because the aggressor made a mistake or the defender had superior micro.
So he doesn't want to let everyone know what it is because he doesn't want people to abuse it. And that is because he probably can't balance it.
Openness is sharing, sharing opinions and ideas about why it might be too strong, sharing possible counters, and sharing changes that could improve the defense against or reduce the potency of the all-in.
Are you talking about the 4 gate adept build? Or another? Because 4 gate adept is beatable.
But I'm saying the standard of maps changes and should change. For example the main now has to be partially isolated from the rest of the map to combat Blink Stalkers because of the way Blink Stalker all-ins became a go-to strategy in 2013. It doesn't have to change quickly, but some of the "better" features of the non-standard 3 should work into a future map pool as part of the standard 4.
On July 14 2015 00:31 Qwyn wrote: Zerg is doing alright. Would love the ravager looked at, but honestly the unit isn't that interesting compared to alternatives. Only thing I'm worried about is the usefulness/existance of peripheral upgrades/units (swarmhost / caustic spray).
I wouldn't mind if some units were tailored to be useful in some specific matchup or other. We have a lot of units and I feel like having each unit have some sort of potential in each MU but not necessarily be used everywhere would stop the units from treading on each others' toes.
Kinda like in BW TvP: Marines are good in earlygame to defend and maybe for some light pokes, but eventually you need to go into mech because bio gets destroyed by storms and reavers. However bio does well in lategame TvZ once you add in vessels, so it's used there.
We already have a bit of that in SC2 - for example, you don't see hydras in ZvT, or skytoss in midgame PvT, while the potential is there to make it happen (in the latter case, Grubby's Phoenix Colossus style, for instance). But when there's glaring balance issues with the Void Ray or the Hydralisk, it's a lot easier to look at just 1 or 2 critical matchups rather than all 3.
Or you know, DK could give us some of that map diversity and balance the game that way.
The best map composition is 4 standard 3 different, this caters for literally everything. You have people that don't like map gimmicks or slight map imbalances for races and they can just veto the 3 different maps, maps don't affect "casual" or lower league players since they're not playing at a level where map imbalances really count for much, map imbalances probably only come into play around low-mid masters or perhaps even higher. For progamers who have to play these maps Bo3 is the norm up to RO4 when it turns to BO5 they can pick one of the different maps and pull out a interesting pocket strat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYH1L4DreXc Bearing in mind that sort of high ground plateu were in BW also see https://youtu.be/CLSlqG9f4AQ?t=14m18s 14m18s if link doesn't get time right My point is standard maps produce standard play which is usually all good assuming even levels of play, but maps with different features do have a place and produce some of the best games.
TL;DR 4 Normal Standard Maps 3 Different (Gimmickish) maps.
On July 14 2015 01:22 BronzeKnee wrote: I'm really getting tired of reading David Kim's comments.
He talks about an unstoppable PvZ all-in in very vague terms, as if he doesn't want people to abuse it. But then goes on to say it isn't broken... yet... probably.
Well the only way you're gonna find out is to share this said all-in and have people abuse the heck out of it. Why are you trying to hide it? It is immature, and goes directly against the openness Blizzard states it wants to have with the community.
But I'll tell you why he was intentionally vague and his post lacked any details: because he knows it might be the next 4 Gate or 1-1-1. He knew that sometimes people could stop those all-ins, but it was often because the aggressor made a mistake or the defender had superior micro.
So he doesn't want to let everyone know what it is because he doesn't want people to abuse it. And that is because he probably can't balance it.
Openness is sharing, sharing opinions and ideas about why it might be too strong, sharing possible counters, and sharing changes that could improve the defense against or reduce the potency of the all-in.
Are you talking about the 4 gate adept build? Or another? Because 4 gate adept is beatable.
But I'm saying the standard of maps changes and should change. For example the main now has to be partially isolated from the rest of the map to combat Blink Stalkers because of the way Blink Stalker all-ins became a go-to strategy in 2013. It doesn't have to change quickly, but some of the "better" features of the non-standard 3 should work into a future map pool as part of the standard 4.
If maps were discussed and voted through by map makers/progamers I would be fine with making finer changes on the standard maps but the fact that blizzard are the ones in control making a blanket statement of 4 standard maps and 3 stranger ones allows a map pool to not be infected with racial dominance or a particular all in. Not that I'm putting blizzard down, but progamers have more hours put into this game and usually a better understand because of that, and I'm 90% sure that the map makers have more hours put into map making than the internal ones.
On July 14 2015 00:31 Qwyn wrote: Zerg is doing alright. Would love the ravager looked at, but honestly the unit isn't that interesting compared to alternatives. Only thing I'm worried about is the usefulness/existance of peripheral upgrades/units (swarmhost / caustic spray).
I wouldn't mind if some units were tailored to be useful in some specific matchup or other. We have a lot of units and I feel like having each unit have some sort of potential in each MU but not necessarily be used everywhere would stop the units from treading on each others' toes.
Kinda like in BW TvP: Marines are good in earlygame to defend and maybe for some light pokes, but eventually you need to go into mech because bio gets destroyed by storms and reavers. However bio does well in lategame TvZ once you add in vessels, so it's used there.
We already have a bit of that in SC2 - for example, you don't see hydras in ZvT, or skytoss in midgame PvT, while the potential is there to make it happen (in the latter case, Grubby's Phoenix Colossus style, for instance). But when there's glaring balance issues with the Void Ray or the Hydralisk, it's a lot easier to look at just 1 or 2 critical matchups rather than all 3.
Or you know, DK could give us some of that map diversity and balance the game that way.
The best map composition is 4 standard 3 different, this caters for literally everything. You have people that don't like map gimmicks or slight map imbalances for races and they can just veto the 3 different maps, maps don't affect "casual" or lower league players since they're not playing at a level where map imbalances really count for much, map imbalances probably only come into play around low-mid masters or perhaps even higher. For progamers who have to play these maps Bo3 is the norm up to RO4 when it turns to BO5 they can pick one of the different maps and pull out a interesting pocket strat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYH1L4DreXc Bearing in mind that sort of high ground plateu were in BW also see https://youtu.be/CLSlqG9f4AQ?t=14m18s 14m18s if link doesn't get time right My point is standard maps produce standard play which is usually all good assuming even levels of play, but maps with different features do have a place and produce some of the best games.
TL;DR 4 Normal Standard Maps 3 Different (Gimmickish) maps.
On July 14 2015 01:22 BronzeKnee wrote: I'm really getting tired of reading David Kim's comments.
He talks about an unstoppable PvZ all-in in very vague terms, as if he doesn't want people to abuse it. But then goes on to say it isn't broken... yet... probably.
Well the only way you're gonna find out is to share this said all-in and have people abuse the heck out of it. Why are you trying to hide it? It is immature, and goes directly against the openness Blizzard states it wants to have with the community.
But I'll tell you why he was intentionally vague and his post lacked any details: because he knows it might be the next 4 Gate or 1-1-1. He knew that sometimes people could stop those all-ins, but it was often because the aggressor made a mistake or the defender had superior micro.
So he doesn't want to let everyone know what it is because he doesn't want people to abuse it. And that is because he probably can't balance it.
Openness is sharing, sharing opinions and ideas about why it might be too strong, sharing possible counters, and sharing changes that could improve the defense against or reduce the potency of the all-in.
Are you talking about the 4 gate adept build? Or another? Because 4 gate adept is beatable.
But I'm saying the standard of maps changes and should change. For example the main now has to be partially isolated from the rest of the map to combat Blink Stalkers because of the way Blink Stalker all-ins became a go-to strategy in 2013. It doesn't have to change quickly, but some of the "better" features of the non-standard 3 should work into a future map pool as part of the standard 4.
If maps were discussed and voted through by map makers/progamers I would be fine with making finer changes on the standard maps but the fact that blizzard are the ones in control making a blanket statement of 4 standard maps and 3 stranger ones allows a map pool to not be infected with racial dominance or a particular all in. Not that I'm putting blizzard down, but progamers have more hours put into this game and usually a better understand because of that, and I'm 90% sure that the map makers have more hours put into map making than the internal ones.
I think the in-house mapmakers do their best, or at least I wouldn't see a reason why they don't, but there's a lot less feedback in that environment than, for example, on TL. You have the experienced mapmakers who have had wide community support critique new mapmakers, a Q&A thread for up and coming maps, a group of volunteer number crunchers who volunteer their time to test out mining efficiency, positional imbalances, etc. and all of this is done by virtually anyone on TL who has the time, knowhow and enthusiasm. With Blizzard they have a lot of experienced people who put a lot more hours in than the average TL volunteer (though maybe some of the mapmaking teams put in almost as many or more hours per person, at any rate I can't say for sure), but ultimately the pool is down to all Blizz employees on the SC2 team.
I just really, really want to know what DK has in store for the map pool. On one hand it makes sense what they're doing currently - a map pool of ~7 maps that players of all skill levels can ladder on, as well as WCS can run on. So a ladder player can in theory do well in WCS, instead of having ladder be full of Python and Destination long after the pros stopped playing on those maps. But it would be cool to encourage either non-WCS or minor WCS tournaments to do either older maps (like GSL) or community sponsored maps and mix it up. Or have more TL-hosted tourneys where TLers submit their maps to a group of experienced mapmakers and pros like you said, and have the winning 5/7 used as the map pool for that tournament.
On July 14 2015 00:31 Qwyn wrote: Zerg is doing alright. Would love the ravager looked at, but honestly the unit isn't that interesting compared to alternatives. Only thing I'm worried about is the usefulness/existance of peripheral upgrades/units (swarmhost / caustic spray).
I wouldn't mind if some units were tailored to be useful in some specific matchup or other. We have a lot of units and I feel like having each unit have some sort of potential in each MU but not necessarily be used everywhere would stop the units from treading on each others' toes.
Kinda like in BW TvP: Marines are good in earlygame to defend and maybe for some light pokes, but eventually you need to go into mech because bio gets destroyed by storms and reavers. However bio does well in lategame TvZ once you add in vessels, so it's used there.
We already have a bit of that in SC2 - for example, you don't see hydras in ZvT, or skytoss in midgame PvT, while the potential is there to make it happen (in the latter case, Grubby's Phoenix Colossus style, for instance). But when there's glaring balance issues with the Void Ray or the Hydralisk, it's a lot easier to look at just 1 or 2 critical matchups rather than all 3.
Or you know, DK could give us some of that map diversity and balance the game that way.
The best map composition is 4 standard 3 different, this caters for literally everything. You have people that don't like map gimmicks or slight map imbalances for races and they can just veto the 3 different maps, maps don't affect "casual" or lower league players since they're not playing at a level where map imbalances really count for much, map imbalances probably only come into play around low-mid masters or perhaps even higher. For progamers who have to play these maps Bo3 is the norm up to RO4 when it turns to BO5 they can pick one of the different maps and pull out a interesting pocket strat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYH1L4DreXc Bearing in mind that sort of high ground plateu were in BW also see https://youtu.be/CLSlqG9f4AQ?t=14m18s 14m18s if link doesn't get time right My point is standard maps produce standard play which is usually all good assuming even levels of play, but maps with different features do have a place and produce some of the best games.
TL;DR 4 Normal Standard Maps 3 Different (Gimmickish) maps.
On July 14 2015 01:22 BronzeKnee wrote: I'm really getting tired of reading David Kim's comments.
He talks about an unstoppable PvZ all-in in very vague terms, as if he doesn't want people to abuse it. But then goes on to say it isn't broken... yet... probably.
Well the only way you're gonna find out is to share this said all-in and have people abuse the heck out of it. Why are you trying to hide it? It is immature, and goes directly against the openness Blizzard states it wants to have with the community.
But I'll tell you why he was intentionally vague and his post lacked any details: because he knows it might be the next 4 Gate or 1-1-1. He knew that sometimes people could stop those all-ins, but it was often because the aggressor made a mistake or the defender had superior micro.
So he doesn't want to let everyone know what it is because he doesn't want people to abuse it. And that is because he probably can't balance it.
Openness is sharing, sharing opinions and ideas about why it might be too strong, sharing possible counters, and sharing changes that could improve the defense against or reduce the potency of the all-in.
Are you talking about the 4 gate adept build? Or another? Because 4 gate adept is beatable.
But I'm saying the standard of maps changes and should change. For example the main now has to be partially isolated from the rest of the map to combat Blink Stalkers because of the way Blink Stalker all-ins became a go-to strategy in 2013. It doesn't have to change quickly, but some of the "better" features of the non-standard 3 should work into a future map pool as part of the standard 4.
If maps were discussed and voted through by map makers/progamers I would be fine with making finer changes on the standard maps but the fact that blizzard are the ones in control making a blanket statement of 4 standard maps and 3 stranger ones allows a map pool to not be infected with racial dominance or a particular all in. Not that I'm putting blizzard down, but progamers have more hours put into this game and usually a better understand because of that, and I'm 90% sure that the map makers have more hours put into map making than the internal ones.
I think the in-house mapmakers do their best, or at least I wouldn't see a reason why they don't, but there's a lot less feedback in that environment than, for example, on TL. You have the experienced mapmakers who have had wide community support critique new mapmakers, a Q&A thread for up and coming maps, a group of volunteer number crunchers who volunteer their time to test out mining efficiency, positional imbalances, etc. and all of this is done by virtually anyone on TL who has the time, knowhow and enthusiasm. With Blizzard they have a lot of experienced people who put a lot more hours in than the average TL volunteer (though maybe some of the mapmaking teams put in almost as many or more hours per person, at any rate I can't say for sure), but ultimately the pool is down to all Blizz employees on the SC2 team.
I just really, really want to know what DK has in store for the map pool. On one hand it makes sense what they're doing currently - a map pool of ~7 maps that players of all skill levels can ladder on, as well as WCS can run on. So a ladder player can in theory do well in WCS, instead of having ladder be full of Python and Destination long after the pros stopped playing on those maps. But it would be cool to encourage either non-WCS or minor WCS tournaments to do either older maps (like GSL) or community sponsored maps and mix it up. Or have more TL-hosted tourneys where TLers submit their maps to a group of experienced mapmakers and pros like you said, and have the winning 5/7 used as the map pool for that tournament.
I somewhat doubt that, the people are shifted from project to project the fulltime sc2 team is very small. The blizzard map makers are not putting in the same hours as the community ones since map making for sure isn't their solo role. When it's said that DK is the best player in the blizzard team and that archon mode partly came about because they needed to group two people together to test vs him fairly (he recently said he was at best low-mid masters now) it's pretty safe to say that our community members have probably played more games and thus have better knowledge of the game.
On July 14 2015 02:18 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I think the in-house mapmakers do their best, or at least I wouldn't see a reason why they don't, but there's a lot less feedback in that environment than, for example, on TL. You have the experienced mapmakers who have had wide community support critique new mapmakers, a Q&A thread for up and coming maps, a group of volunteer number crunchers who volunteer their time to test out mining efficiency, positional imbalances, etc. and all of this is done by virtually anyone on TL who has the time, knowhow and enthusiasm. With Blizzard they have a lot of experienced people who put a lot more hours in than the average TL volunteer (though maybe some of the mapmaking teams put in almost as many or more hours per person, at any rate I can't say for sure), but ultimately the pool is down to all Blizz employees on the SC2 team.
I just really, really want to know what DK has in store for the map pool. On one hand it makes sense what they're doing currently - a map pool of ~7 maps that players of all skill levels can ladder on, as well as WCS can run on. So a ladder player can in theory do well in WCS, instead of having ladder be full of Python and Destination long after the pros stopped playing on those maps. But it would be cool to encourage either non-WCS or minor WCS tournaments to do either older maps (like GSL) or community sponsored maps and mix it up. Or have more TL-hosted tourneys where TLers submit their maps to a group of experienced mapmakers and pros like you said, and have the winning 5/7 used as the map pool for that tournament.
Yeah we do our best and share lots of feedback between eachother, but you are severely overestimating the ammount of testing, it often comes down to the mapmaker playing vs some AI's or letting AI's battle, sometimes no testing at all, because nobody ever plays anything outside of ladder, nor does anyone want to do map testing.
from what I understand they're dead-set on what they want to do as always and I CBA to do anything preventing them from putting their own house on fire when they outcast any help.
On July 14 2015 02:18 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I think the in-house mapmakers do their best, or at least I wouldn't see a reason why they don't, but there's a lot less feedback in that environment than, for example, on TL. You have the experienced mapmakers who have had wide community support critique new mapmakers, a Q&A thread for up and coming maps, a group of volunteer number crunchers who volunteer their time to test out mining efficiency, positional imbalances, etc. and all of this is done by virtually anyone on TL who has the time, knowhow and enthusiasm. With Blizzard they have a lot of experienced people who put a lot more hours in than the average TL volunteer (though maybe some of the mapmaking teams put in almost as many or more hours per person, at any rate I can't say for sure), but ultimately the pool is down to all Blizz employees on the SC2 team.
I just really, really want to know what DK has in store for the map pool. On one hand it makes sense what they're doing currently - a map pool of ~7 maps that players of all skill levels can ladder on, as well as WCS can run on. So a ladder player can in theory do well in WCS, instead of having ladder be full of Python and Destination long after the pros stopped playing on those maps. But it would be cool to encourage either non-WCS or minor WCS tournaments to do either older maps (like GSL) or community sponsored maps and mix it up. Or have more TL-hosted tourneys where TLers submit their maps to a group of experienced mapmakers and pros like you said, and have the winning 5/7 used as the map pool for that tournament.
Yeah we do our best and share lots of feedback between eachother, but you are severely overestimating the ammount of testing, it often comes down to the mapmaker playing vs some AI's or letting AI's battle, sometimes no testing at all, because nobody ever plays anything outside of ladder, nor does anyone want to do map testing.
from what I understand they're dead-set on what they want to do as always and I CBA to do anything preventing them from putting their own house on fire when they outcast any help.
We yelled a bunch and got feedback threads. And all sorts of stuff over the last five years added because the community suggested it. With enough pressure we can change that if we really want to.
EPT
