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"For this week’s update, we wanted to talk to you guys about the big topics that came up during the recent community summit event. The event began with Mike welcoming everyone, and before we get into specific topics, we wanted to relay something he said—that the goal of StarCraft II is not necessarily about making the most widely played game out there, but it is to make the best game that we can. The designers on our team thought this was a really simple yet super clear way to describe our main goal with StarCraft II as we continue to work on Legacy of the Void—make plans for the future of StarCraft II beyond that—and wanted to share with everyone. Now, on to some of the event highlights from our point of view!
Overall Summit Thoughts
The community summit was an awesome event for many reasons:
- Many of the big topics that were on our minds were also on yours, so it was reassuring to feel aligned with pros, casters, influencers, and the general community on what’s important around the world. That said, we can always do better and will keep challenging ourselves here.
- Though we discuss regional issues often, it was a good opportunity for the Korea crowd to hear viewpoints from the non-Korea side, and vice versa. It was also a great opportunity to have some of the core members of our game team interact, helping us get a better view of the big picture.
- The summit provided a valuable chance to get into more details on and have a more of a discussion than is possible in forum posts and on message boards, which can move slowly and can sometimes come across as one-side. We definitely want this type of back-and-forth interaction, but due to us mostly communicating in text, that’s always a challenge.
- Having everyone experience more clearly that there are always opposing sides and multiple viewpoints on topics. This is sometime our team is exposed to a lot due to the nature of our job, but it was cool to have an even bigger crowd of people see that things that are supposedly set in stone and things that are viewed as “everyone agrees with X” or “everyone knows this is how it is” aren’t necessarily so clear cut.
- We are so grateful that this group of people was willing to take the time to visit in-person and share their feedback on our direction. Many of them traveled a great distance, and every single one of them contributed to our thinking in a meaningful way—we sincerely appreciate it.
- Finally, it was just fun to be around so many people from all around the world who love StarCraft II as much as we do.
As our community team also pointed out, there will be more of these events in the future with a wider range of pros, casters, influencers, and members of the community, and we’re definitely looking forward to them as well.
Game Difficulty Discussion
As many of us on the team expected, this proved to be a tough topic. We knew going in there would be clear disagreements, as we’ve been seeing in many places—including individual pro feedback—that the majority of the Korean community disagrees with our goals for Void, while many outside of Korea strongly agree with our direction.
As many of you already know, these are the main goals that our team has for Legacy of the Void:
- More action, less down time.
- More micro on both sides in engagements.
- New ways to show off skill.
- Make the game more difficult for pros.
- Make the game more approachable to regular players through new features such as Archon Mode and Allied Commanders.
This was easily the biggest topic for the members of the Korean community at this event, and after many discussions with lots of different groups of people, we came out of the conversation with some new angles to potentially approach what we’re doing: Instead of just making the game more difficult for pros across the board, we wanted to also take some passes at exactly where we want the game to be more difficult and where we want to make the game easier. With this line of thought, and when discussing specific areas of focus, we came out with some key takeaways:
- Approaching Void’s difficulty isn’t as simple as just saying things like “every unit add and change needs to make the game easier” or “every unit add has to have clear micro/hardcore add to make the game way more difficult to master.” It really depends on a case-by-case basis.
- For example: New Terran/Zerg units are a bit easier to use than Protoss because Protoss is currently the slightly easier race to master.
- We will explore internally if there are areas of the game require a lot of skill, but don’t show off well, and consider whether these can be simplified.
- For example: Creep tumor spreading well is super-easy to spot and notice as the opponent playing against it. However, with spawn larva, it’s very difficult to know if a player is doing well.
- Even if we make LotV X% easier, due to the nature of StarCraft II, it will never be the most instantly accessible or easy-to-master game out there. Our focus should be on making sure new players have the necessarily tools and steps they need to become part of the community. Going more into detail:
- While a new player might not think the SC2 1v1 experience appears inherently accessible, its rich complexity is a part of what makes it so intriguing—and ultimately engaging.
- We can do a better job making the transition for brand-new players easier. For example, I’m completely new to RTSs or SC2. In Void, maybe the flow for getting me into 1v1 looks something like this: Play the campaign; move on to Allied Commanders; try out Training Mode; play some team games with my favorite ally from Allied commanders; try out Archon Mode; and then try 1v1.
- We’re not saying that everyone interested in playing SC2 needs to eventually move into 1v1—obviously, we anticipate some Void players will be drawn solely to Allied Commanders, while others will live in team games for years, and that’s great. However, we can make it easier for those interested in every part of SC2 to make the leap from the most accessible part to the most hardcore part—by making it happen in smaller steps.
While we know there aren’t really any solutions in this update, we thought it’d be valuable to share some of the topics we’ll be looking into in more detail in the future. These are challenging issues to address, and we don’t expect any of these big topics to have an easy or quick fix. But we’ll be taking the time, resources, and analysis necessary to really dig into the details around these areas, and your focused, and specific feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support, and hopefully you found our perspective on the summit valuable.
We’ve also talked a lot about various popular Protoss topics such as Force Fields, Warp Gates, and Gateway unit strength, but this post has already gone on too long—so we’ll leave that for next week’s update.
In our next update, we’ll be discussing the Protoss in Legacy of the Void more in-depth, so stay tuned!"
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Not really sure what to take from that. It's not very concrete, but I guess that's because it's hard to be concrete about these sorts of things. So the big one to take away from this is of course; HELL YEAH THANKS FOR THE UPDATES AND I'M GONNA READ THEM ALL!
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Because I am a masochist, I'm going to choose to read "we know that Protoss still needs a TON of work" into that update.
In all seriousness, I'm very glad to hear that Blizz went into the summit with an open mind. Also these updates are still the best thing ever.
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I'm REALLY liking these constant updates. Blizz is finally asking themselves the right questions about what makes Starcraft a fun, interesting and challenging game.
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On the topic of easy to play, I think one of the core importances is that when a player builds a unit for its core purpose, the unit should fullfill that purpose without needing too much control.
The part where micro and skill scaling come in should be to get more efficiency out of what the unit does or use the units abilities and movement and attacks in creative new ways.
One example I like to bring up in that spirit is the ravager corrosive bile shot. A low level player may not have the skill to get the shots of very often and fast enough in a combat, because he has to cycle through selections. But the core idea why anyone would make a ravager is that you use that shot on your opponent's units as often as possible. This is where the unit becomes very hard to implement in your gameplay if you are new, as without the shot, the ravager always ends up a worse choice than easier to use units like zerglings, roaches or hydralisks.
Hence, the pure application of the shot onto your opponent's army should be made easier than it is now for lower level players, otherwise they won't draw any use out of that unit.
While the usage of the shot to deny forcefields, to zone out opponents by prediciting movement, to find better targets and possibly other applications is the part where the unit should scale depending on skill.
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Honestly the main thing I feel the game needs right now, is a collosus rework. Gateways, forcefields, is fine.. Collosus are just boring and lame, and now even weak to the point of useless.. Give us some alternate source of long range AOE.. Honestly, the Liberator ground dmg woulda been amazing on a collosus type unit! (not as powerful but that mechanic of stationary area chosen dmg dealing)
I'm still hesitant Blizzard knows how to make this game as great as its potential is (after DH today, it has amazing moments, reminds me why I love this game) but its a step in the right direction.
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I feel like there is some misunderstanding of what Koreans disagree and non-Koreans agree about in Blizzard's goals for LotV. Neither side agrees with Blizzard's implementation, and I feel that is what the issue is.
We need clarification and a particular precision in words to see what exactly is agreed/disagreed.
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On July 18 2015 07:58 Big J wrote:
On the topic of easy to play, I think one of the core importances is that when a player builds a unit for its core purpose, the unit should fullfill that purpose without needing too much control.
The part where micro and skill scaling come in should be to get more efficiency out of what the unit does or use the units abilities and movement and attacks in creative new ways.
One example I like to bring up in that spirit is the ravager corrosive bile shot. A low level player may not have the skill to get the shots of very often and fast enough in a combat, because he has to cycle through selections. But the core idea why anyone would make a ravager is that you use that shot on your opponent's units as often as possible. This is where the unit becomes very hard to implement in your gameplay if you are new, as without the shot, the ravager always ends up a worse choice than easier to use units like zerglings, roaches or hydralisks.
Hence, the pure application of the shot onto your opponent's army should be made easier than it is now for lower level players, otherwise they won't draw any use out of that unit.
While the usage of the shot to deny forcefields, to zone out opponents by prediciting movement, to find better targets and possibly other applications is the part where the unit should scale depending on skill.
What about Marines vs Banelings? That is the fundamental unit relationship of TvZ, and if you can't split Marines because you're new, the Marine will always lose to the Baneling.
And yet Marine vs Baneling is at the heart of what makes TvZ one of the best MUs in the game.
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On July 18 2015 08:23 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2015 07:58 Big J wrote:
On the topic of easy to play, I think one of the core importances is that when a player builds a unit for its core purpose, the unit should fullfill that purpose without needing too much control.
The part where micro and skill scaling come in should be to get more efficiency out of what the unit does or use the units abilities and movement and attacks in creative new ways.
One example I like to bring up in that spirit is the ravager corrosive bile shot. A low level player may not have the skill to get the shots of very often and fast enough in a combat, because he has to cycle through selections. But the core idea why anyone would make a ravager is that you use that shot on your opponent's units as often as possible. This is where the unit becomes very hard to implement in your gameplay if you are new, as without the shot, the ravager always ends up a worse choice than easier to use units like zerglings, roaches or hydralisks.
Hence, the pure application of the shot onto your opponent's army should be made easier than it is now for lower level players, otherwise they won't draw any use out of that unit.
While the usage of the shot to deny forcefields, to zone out opponents by prediciting movement, to find better targets and possibly other applications is the part where the unit should scale depending on skill. What about Marines vs Banelings? That is the fundamental unit relationship of TvZ, and if you can't split Marines because you're new, the Marine will always lose to the Baneling. And yet Marine vs Baneling is at the heart of what makes TvZ one of the best MUs in the game.
Unless you build WMs and throw this back to the zerg.
He'll either play around it or lose a pack of units each shot.
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More micro on both sides in engagements.
New ways to show off skill.
Make the game more difficult for pros.
His kinda saying the exact same thing here.
Also he indirectly verifies my theory that he doens't know what his job is. His primary goal should be to make it more fun to play. No it doesn't matter if you make it "more difficult for pro's" if becomes less fun for the 99%. And no you can't just tell them to play Allied Commander or whatever if they actually want to play a competitive RTS 1v1.This shows a very unnuanced understanding of his target groups.
But if its unfun to spam Immortal shield and die to build-order losses, that's hurtful to the succes of the game.
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I'm happy Blizzard is being very proactive about updates, Fix the clan / group issues please!
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On July 18 2015 08:39 AKAvg wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2015 08:23 pure.Wasted wrote:On July 18 2015 07:58 Big J wrote:
On the topic of easy to play, I think one of the core importances is that when a player builds a unit for its core purpose, the unit should fullfill that purpose without needing too much control.
The part where micro and skill scaling come in should be to get more efficiency out of what the unit does or use the units abilities and movement and attacks in creative new ways.
One example I like to bring up in that spirit is the ravager corrosive bile shot. A low level player may not have the skill to get the shots of very often and fast enough in a combat, because he has to cycle through selections. But the core idea why anyone would make a ravager is that you use that shot on your opponent's units as often as possible. This is where the unit becomes very hard to implement in your gameplay if you are new, as without the shot, the ravager always ends up a worse choice than easier to use units like zerglings, roaches or hydralisks.
Hence, the pure application of the shot onto your opponent's army should be made easier than it is now for lower level players, otherwise they won't draw any use out of that unit.
While the usage of the shot to deny forcefields, to zone out opponents by prediciting movement, to find better targets and possibly other applications is the part where the unit should scale depending on skill. What about Marines vs Banelings? That is the fundamental unit relationship of TvZ, and if you can't split Marines because you're new, the Marine will always lose to the Baneling. And yet Marine vs Baneling is at the heart of what makes TvZ one of the best MUs in the game. Unless you build WMs and throw this back to the zerg. He'll either play around it or lose a pack of units each shot.
I wasn't implying that the relationship is one-sided. I'm just saying that if the Ravager's high skill floor is a problem, then what do we make of the Marine being the core Terran unit in every Terran MU?
The problem isn't having a high skill floor, it's having a selectively high skill floor, where A-moving as a wood league Protoss army is a lot easier than countering that Protoss army with wood league Corrosive Bile. Raise the skill floor all over the place and all new players will suck proportionately.
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On July 18 2015 08:23 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2015 07:58 Big J wrote:
On the topic of easy to play, I think one of the core importances is that when a player builds a unit for its core purpose, the unit should fullfill that purpose without needing too much control.
The part where micro and skill scaling come in should be to get more efficiency out of what the unit does or use the units abilities and movement and attacks in creative new ways.
One example I like to bring up in that spirit is the ravager corrosive bile shot. A low level player may not have the skill to get the shots of very often and fast enough in a combat, because he has to cycle through selections. But the core idea why anyone would make a ravager is that you use that shot on your opponent's units as often as possible. This is where the unit becomes very hard to implement in your gameplay if you are new, as without the shot, the ravager always ends up a worse choice than easier to use units like zerglings, roaches or hydralisks.
Hence, the pure application of the shot onto your opponent's army should be made easier than it is now for lower level players, otherwise they won't draw any use out of that unit.
While the usage of the shot to deny forcefields, to zone out opponents by prediciting movement, to find better targets and possibly other applications is the part where the unit should scale depending on skill. What about Marines vs Banelings? That is the fundamental unit relationship of TvZ, and if you can't split Marines because you're new, the Marine will always lose to the Baneling. And yet Marine vs Baneling is at the heart of what makes TvZ one of the best MUs in the game.
I'm talking about unit functionality, not who-counters-who without extra control. Does the marine attack on its own? Yes, so it does what you built it for. Functionally that's it. It has one purpose, which is fire its weapon as often as it can. That's what it does without control, great.
The part where micro and skill scaling come in should be to get more efficiency out of what the unit does or use the units abilities and movement and attacks in creative new ways.
That's what you can do with the marine against the baneling in the form of spliting and kiting to make its core (and only) functionality - attacking enemies - more efficient.
Now take the ravager as comparison. Does the ravager do what you made it for? Well, no, because noone ever gets ravagers with the main purpose of just having it attack with its weapon attack. You always want to spam the corrosive bile ability, that's just how it is designed with the low cooldown and without energy cost.
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Nice to hear Blizzard's interpretation of the event; I'd also like to hear from some of the participants, if they had similar experiences and what they learned.
As for difficulty, the thing I am most worried about is complexity creep. Elegant games have simple rules/abilities but complex and subtle interactions, whereas games with tons of spells/abilities/gimmicks are just cluttered and, imo, offputting to newcomers.
Example: Marine vs Baneling, both units are simple enough, but to win the fight either player must understand and leverage the units' respective strengths and weaknesses; and the fight could be close or a blowout. Compare this to the bad old days of Brood Lord/Infestor, or Swarm Hosts - spells, units, and abilities flying every which way but not compelling gameplay at all - the game could be decided in a single fungal or neural in the first case, or only with grinding inexorability in the second.
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Such a tease Dayvie  . Can't wait for the next update and see where Protoss is headed in LotV!
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Hopefully next week's message will have more actionable items, but it's nice to know that they're learning stuff from our resident pro-gamers.
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On July 18 2015 08:58 Big J wrote:
Now take the ravager as comparison. Does the ravager do what you made it for? Well, no, because noone ever gets ravagers with the main purpose of just having it attack with its weapon attack. You always want to spam the corrosive bile ability, that's just how it is designed with the low cooldown and without energy cost.
O.K, I'm starting to understand. Just to make sure we're on the same page, what's your take on Disruptors (disregarding their invulnerability)?
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On July 18 2015 08:51 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +More micro on both sides in engagements.
New ways to show off skill.
Make the game more difficult for pros. His kinda saying the exact same thing here. Also he indirectly verifies my theory that he doens't know what his job is. His primary goal should be to make it more fun to play. No it doesn't matter if you make it "more difficult for pro's" if becomes less fun for the 99%. And no you can't just tell them to play Allied Commander or whatever if they actually want to play a competitive RTS 1v1.This shows a very unnuanced understanding of his target groups. But if its unfun to spam Immortal shield and die to build-order losses, that's hurtful to the succes of the game.
Making the game more difficult for pros does not mean it will be less fun for 99%. 90% will still suck and will be nowhere near the skill ceiling anyway, doesn't matter how hard the game is at the top. For the competitive scene this is a great idea imo. It could actually mean the return of Bonjwas, if a top pro is able to distinguish himself more from other pros than right now in HotS. They just have to be careful not to raise the skill floor too much, but they are aware of that.
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On July 18 2015 08:07 purakushi wrote:
I feel like there is some misunderstanding of what Koreans disagree and non-Koreans agree about in Blizzard's goals for LotV. Neither side agrees with Blizzard's implementation, and I feel that is what the issue is.
It is a good practice to speak for yourself instead of other people.
The more time I spend playing the LOTV beta I am really enjoying it. The games feel like a tug of war, back and forth... rather than I got my third sniped, now I'm infinitely behind and I'm just waiting for them to push so I can die. I just played two games and at multiple times in the games it looked like either side could win.
*Also for the record, losing in LOTV doesn't feel like total shit where I wanted to break my keyboard in half (the main reason I stopped playing hots was cause it generally felt bad to lose).
On July 18 2015 09:08 Musicus wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2015 08:51 Hider wrote:More micro on both sides in engagements.
New ways to show off skill.
Make the game more difficult for pros. His kinda saying the exact same thing here.
Also he indirectly verifies my theory that he doens't know what his job is. His primary goal should be to make it more fun to play. No it doesn't matter if you make it "more difficult for pro's" if becomes less fun for the 99%. And no you can't just tell them to play Allied Commander or whatever if they actually want to play a competitive RTS 1v1.This shows a very unnuanced understanding of his target groups.
But if its unfun to spam Immortal shield and die to build-order losses, that's hurtful to the succes of the game. Making the game more difficult for pros does not mean it will be less fun for 99%. 90% will still suck and will be nowhere near the skill ceiling anyway, doesn't matter how hard the game is at the top. For the competitive scene this is a great idea imo. It could actually mean the return of Bonjwas, if a top pro is able to distinguish himself more from other pros than right now in HotS. They just have to be careful not to raise the skill floor too much, but they are aware of that.
It's interesting though, I thought pros playing archon mode kind of demonstrates that they haven't really come close to the skill ceiling for sc2 (I could be wrong here, maybe they are close)? Either way its an interesting point you make.
The updates are really amazing. With weekly updates it feels like a real conversation between devs and players, the entire atmosphere of these talks has shifted since these updates.
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Liberator + Hellbat push is to powerfull
6 time in a row and nothing stopped that.
Just an Armory that unlocks the ground mode for Liberators with no research is to good + the hellbat push who is already very powerful by itself.
There is also no reason to make siege tanks now with the exception of harassing in the early game.
I feel that Terran Mech havent be discovered much and buffing it was the wrong way for Blizz to see more mech play.
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EPT
