EPTOneGoal: A better SC2 [Project Hub] - Page 44
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moskonia
Israel1448 Posts
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purakushi
United States3300 Posts
On March 22 2013 11:15 Doominator10 wrote: I once tried swapping a BW factory and starport between the machine shop and control tower. Then I facepalmed. Haha, this made me smile. I have done that, too. >_< -- Hm, yeah. I'd also like to know the goal of OneGoal now that HotS is out. I was not expecting so many changes with OneGoal. I originally thought OneGoal was going to be sent or shown to Blizzard somehow so they can take a good look at what could be improved; however, with all of the many changes to units/etc, I feel it would be even less likely they change anything, as when you guys are changing around the unit designs, you have to make them synergize, too (so, it would have to be an all or nothing sort of change for Blizzard, which would be totally out of the question). With my SC2Pro (though, an update is long overdue), I am trying to keep it as close to SC2 as possible while addressing the largest issues with the game (which, IMHO, are less so the units themselves). The hardest part is that I want to change so many things about SC2, too. It is difficult to stop changing things, but if I continued, it would no longer be SC2. It would be a standalone game/mod not a demonstration of what can be improved upon in SC2. | ||
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PineapplePizza
United States749 Posts
On March 22 2013 11:34 moskonia wrote: Is this project even worth something after how HotS is looking? Because unlike WoL which was full of deathballs, HotS looks much more mobile, so I doubt most people are frustrated from the game. And if so, why don't you guys move to a different project that does not want to replace normal SC2, but create a different kind of game (not RTS) HotS is looking much better than WoL, but I'm really thinking it'll go stale a LOT quicker than expected. The game will keep a lot of its current yummy 2011 feel, but the variety is not going to be there. There are a few things that people will most definitely bring up around the end of HotS: 1.) Mech 2.) The economy cap 3.) Terrain advantages 4.) Almost everything about Protoss It's pretty obvious that there's something missing in Blizzard's perspective of the game. The above points have been brought up before, but they never see the issue, even after they "look into it". It's likely that, unless the devs can be returned to our dimension, the pro-scene will try to release some sort of promod one year after Legacy of the Void. It's not certain how well that will work out. | ||
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purakushi
United States3300 Posts
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moskonia
Israel1448 Posts
I just hate this arrogance where even after seeing that the game is much better you prefer to think it will still fail and die because you don't want it to be as good as it is. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
On March 22 2013 16:42 moskonia wrote: Are you kidding me? You are so condescending, its like you already seen everything and you know all, well to me your words are mostly whine, "everything about Protoss"? Seriously that is really supportive of your argument. The game looks like it will have a fantastic future and If you've seen the games at IEM and MLG you can see how the game is awesome, the best example is Innovation versus Flash on Whirwind, if you don't think a game like that can last while something like this in this thread can you are just fooling yourself. I just hate this arrogance where even after seeing that the game is much better you prefer to think it will still fail and die because you don't want it to be as good as it is. Basically anything that has happened with HOTS has been easily predictable (speed medis leading to entertaining games - who didn't see that one comming?). I don't know why MLG would change anything. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
There are a few things that people will most definitely bring up around the end of HotS: 2.) The economy cap Im no longer convinced the economy needs a big rehual in order to get rid of the deathball. But huge changes are definitely needed for Onegoal. During the last month I discoved that any mod which attempts to "solve the deathball problem" needs to make changes in the below two areas. 1) Buff harass units efficiency (this can be done by forcing players to split them self thinner through FRB or by buffing speed medivacs as HOTS has done). 2) Give each race a few ways to defend certain locations very cost effiicent (this likely require some high ground advantage or just very very good defensive units --> like OP siege tanks) My biggest problem with Onegoal currently is that harass units aren't buffed. What is important as a game designer is to find ways where harass units gets so good while harassing that most people consider them OP. On the other hand any change must not lead to stronger deathball-situations and they must not be too unforgiven (as blue flame hellions were back in the days where they would punish an opponent too hard for a making a split second mistake). So everytime a game designer considers whether something will be OP or not, he should always ask him self whether that change/suggestion will make harassplay stronger and/or if it will lead to stronger deathball play. The worst case scenario of overbuffing a harassbased unit is that we will see a shitton of multitasking. Speed medivacs is a great of example of my point as it has resulted in alot more mulitasking, even though they are probably a bit OP atm But other races needs similar stuff. I would suggest to experiment with ways on how to make overlord drops/nydus play a lot stronger as a form of harassing while not making them better at allining. What abut warp tech - Is there a way to nerf that as a means to defending an oponent harassing it, but buffing it as a way to harass technique (through warp prism). If Onegoal has any intention og making the game less deathball'ish those kind of questions (and solutions) needs to be asked over and over. It is my impression that Onegoal has focussed (almost too much) on unit design it self and thought that as long as units are well designed in an isolated perspective, then everything will work out well. I disagree with that methodology, and I think a "bigger-picture" view is needed. A couple of weeks ago I told itwhospeaks that I didn't feel like harass play was very strong in the midgame in tvp when the terran goes mech. In HOTS I think it is stronger as hellbats are very good there. Do not mistaken me, hellbats definitely needed a nerf in Onegoal as tanks are stronger, however nerfing hellbats and not compensating terrans with anything else (in terms of harassoriented buffs) isn't the correct approach. Itwhospeaks then told me that you could combine ravens/helliions and widow mines in order to harass a base, and while I can see that as a theoretical potential solutions which could be viable in some circumstances, this is just way way too complicated. I think his approach is wrong here - The harass player shouldn't have to send ravens out on the map in order to harass an opponent. Harass play must be a lot easier and less risky. I think that everytime you take an approach where you nerf the opponents harass options (compared to the state of HOTS was) then it will incentivize both playerrs to play more deathball'ish. Rather give each player 10 different harassmethods where some of them are borderline OP, than just 1-2 weak'ish harassbased methods. So I would advice the Onegoal crew to consider how they can redesign/change every single unit in the game in order to make them stronger as harass units. Whether it will complicate matters or lead to OP situations shouldn't be a high concern atm. As it is right now, I have to admit that Onegoal isn't a signifcant better mod than HOTS. Obivously if Blizzard is goanna "learn" from Onegoal, then Onegoal needs to create signifcantly more exciting games than it currently produces. | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
Patch 3 is being finalized as we speak along with some huge visual and audio upgrades to the game experience thanks to HotS. We have rolled back a number of our changes to make it more in line with what HotS has succeeded in. Along with some more aggressive design. For example, we are no longer holding back on removing units. The following units are being removed and replaced in Patch 3: Corruptor Diamondback Thor We produced a ton of cool pieces of design during the duration of this project. And since Design Patch 2, we have started stripping out the fat. A lot of our design was moba like, with lots of rules and utilities and kits surrounding a unit. SC2 has more pieces to work with, meaning that each unit needs to be sleeker and simpler in its design, and its complexity is derived from the complexity of unit compositions and the times that those units are out on the field relative to one another. Hider will be pleased. We are redesigning units like the Roach, Oracle, Colossus, and Reaper to be viable harassment options throughout a game. Thus far things are looking really good. | ||
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Spaceboy
United Kingdom220 Posts
On March 22 2013 09:22 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: We have some stuff in the works for the overall economy. Making workers dumber solves some issues, but doesn't really feel good or right for a modern game. One of the biggest lessons we have learned thus far is priority. And ultimately it is that for an esport to succeed or even be viable, Professional needs are secondary to spectator and casual player needs. If it isn't a spectacle or accessible, you don't have an audience and your scene either dies or is marginalized by a competitor that does your job better (See League of Legends.) I'd like to query this assertion. Not that I disagree per se it's more that I'd argue that it's mostly the case that professional needs and spectator needs overlap almost entirely. As I see it pros are generally looking for a higher skill ceiling as it gives them more room to improve (which is fun) and to express themselves/set themselves apart from people who aren't as good. Spectators are, I don't think it's unfair to say, primarily looking to be wowed by the pros' skill.. to see something they couldn't do themselves which reflects the hours of practice and rigorous selection processes that pros go through. Now obviously there are issues such as the clarity of what's going on in game that are going to be more important to spectators than pros (who obviously will just learn anything unintuitive through those many practice hours) but I can't think of many issues where the needs of pro/spectators would actually come into conflict. It strikes me that I may be playing devil's advocate against a position you haven't actually taken so forgive me if I ramble on at cross purposes a bit! In terms of casual players I feel like it may be a dangerous road to sacrifice design concepts that might prove significantly positive to the pros/spectators in favour of in some way attempting to cater to casual players. The reason why I say this is that in my view RTSes are pretty much inherently alienating to casual players.. there's always going to be a big barrier to entry in terms of required knowledge with regard to learning the tech tree, the interactions of all the units, all the different abilities etc.. and when you've learnt the basic nuts and bolts of the game there's always going to be a most optimal way of achieving any given thing in the game, which as a casual player you won't know. I feel like far and away the best remedy to these first problems is having as good a tutorial/introduction to the world of competitive play as possible within the game itself (which thankfully Blizzard is belatedly attempting to fix with Hots). I can only imagine how awful the experience must have been for casual players (I'm going to take the liberty of defining a casual player as someone who wouldn't look for resources external to the game itself in order to play it) trying to play WoL having worked their way through the campaign. There was really nothing there for them, they just got set adrift in a world of possible build orders/unit combinations without even a basic tooltip pointing them in the direction of making workers and spending their money... no wonder the majority of them just felt lost, left the game and never looked back. As such I'd argue that anyone who stands any chance of playing an RTS for any length of time at all.. is bound to have to put in some work in the process (which almost rules out casual play entirely) so, given that this is the case, shouldn't the priority be above all to have the best game possible waiting for them when they've put that work in? Another reason casual players are in my opinion unlikely to ever flock to an RTS in their droves is that people in general simply don't like losing and even with the greatest matchmaking in the world (or should I say especially with the greatest matchmaking in the world) you're going to end up on average losing as much as you win... and given that it's a 1v1 game.. it's going to be your fault.. and you're not going to like it. You need only search for "ladder anxiety" on TL/Reddit for a plethora of evidence to this point.. and I'd argue that most of the people posting on said sites fall beyond what we should consider a casual player anyway. Now again things can be done to ease this problem; unranked play, improvement and emphasis of the social features of the game (such that winning is less important), more emphasis put on team games etc... but they all fall beyond the scope of actual in game design. In fact I can't think of any potential examples (maybe because I'm unimaginative) where an actual game design feature would be positive for pros/spectators but somehow toxic to casuals. The only broad issues I can even imagine are say where a certain game mechanic is considered too unforgiving. As in you make one mistake and it costs you the whole game..which is undeniably off-putting for casual players.. but isn't it just as bad for pros/spectators? Don't we all want to see multiple points throughout the game determine the winner, pros so that they can better express their skill (and reduce performance variance/randomness) and spectators because it means more back and forth games? Anyway I'm probably just beating up a straw man here so I'll move on. If you have any examples you can think of where you as designers would have to favour casuals over pros I'd be interested to hear where this actually comes up. This is a bit of a rant, but it is important that it is said. Browder says that LoL doesn't directly compete with SC2; but that is questionable given things like player experience and unit skins, both of which are directly imported from MOBAs like league and Dota 2. If SC2 is to survive, OneGoal or no, the community needs to be ok with the game having a low skill floor and along with a high skill ceiling. For better and worse, the success and influence of games in our society is measured by their commercial prowess. If the pillars of our community truly want to see another decade of Starcraft, compromises must be made to bring in a larger group of aspiring players/viewers. League has changed the rules, and ultimately, I don't think the old models are sustainable. Why should I pay 100+ bucks for a game that sounds intimidating and punishing as hell, when I can just play the free rotation of League of Legends? Hell, you aren't treated like a real player in SC until you buy the damn thing; league makes no distinction between paying players and free-to-play players. Ultimately, even though I feel that traditional Moba economies are inherently toxic, they are marketed and designed in a fashion that allows them to be accessible and convenient, giving them the edge. They have a huge market advantage over traditional boxstore style AAA games like SC2. In Short, the BroodWar approach doesn't work anymore in today's market. Balance and positive dynamics were maintained by sheer difficulty, and while it is pure in some sense, it isn't viable or sustainable. Starcraft has succeeded not only because of its solid quality, but of the lack of competent competitors. That era of unquestioned dominance ended with League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth. Note that the Traditionalist HoN lost to the aggressively low skill floor design of LoL. Dota 2, which has enjoyed a 100+% increase in viewership in recent months is still dwarfed by League. The school of hard knocks has competition and it will lose period. Other ways have to be determined. No one wants to play Dune, and in the global market, only a few more want to play SCBW or Dota classic. They are arcane and obtuse and ornery experiences, and nostalgia often overlooks the fundamental flaws in the mechanics of those games. In short, we have some ideas about how to make the economy less snowbally, but making workers dumb is not the answer, and never will be unless the game market and the emergent culture change in some fundamental way. I'm afraid I don't quite understand this point. Are you suggesting that dumber workers would in some way make the game less casual friendly? I mean we're not talking about a lack of auto-mining here are we? I mean it's just stupid inefficiently mining workers right? If so how does that detract from the casual experience.. I mean isn't it fundamentally the same as playing with the workers we have now from a casual point of view? You make your workers, they go mine and you forget about them.. (is it possible there's some added complexity whereby you can somehow micro your workers to make them more efficient or something that I'm just totally ignorant of as I never played broodwar?) Now obviously there's going to be a greater burden of knowledge/depth to the game where people who want to optimise their play will have to learn about distributing their workers between bases etc.. but isn't that what any change you make to the economic system is aiming for in the first place? Perhaps you're saying that it will just be unpleasant for casual players to see their workers moronically bimbling about and feel like something is wrong with the game or their own play? We tried doing grandiose things for patch 3's look at macro mechanics. We made no less than fifteen versions for the three races, and most of them were awful. The others either competed against existing elements to the game that were straight up better or were so convoluted they weren't accessible to a viewer or player. One thing everyone could agree on was that Spawn Larva was a bad macro mechanic because it was like the classic BW "dumb worker" macro mechanic. It is a rote behavior that requires no decision making specially or temporally, unlike Chrono boost, which may be the best macro mechanic in any RTS to date. We have removed Spawn Larva and granted the Queen an ability to spawn larva in a way that rewards spacially and or temporally aware decision-making. The full Patch 3 List is being compiled and will be released alongside our HotS port release. Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuun! I'm not sure if I'm more excited or nervous about seeing what you guys have come up with :D I have to say I was kinda operating under the lazy assumption that to tone down the snowballing nature of zerg you'd just end up having 2-3 larvae pop off from an inject instead of 4. Sooo couple thoughts: Obviously this along with the economic changes (to a far greater extent than the unit changes) will mean a much greater divergence from standard HotS than previously, how are you guys feeling about that? Won't it be the case that the game will become so far removed from standard that the idea of having Blizzard pick and choose elements they like piecemeal will become ever more remote? Or maybe not, I mean I guess a tier 1.5 hydra is still a tier 1.5 hydra.. but it might mean that in terms of balancing any radical changes like that there'll be reduced benefit that Blizzard can draw from the project given that everything you do will be set up within an entirely different framework. I'm slightly worried that having something as fundamentally different as a reworking of Spawn Larva (which is after all the primary cornerstone of playing zerg mechanically in WoL/HotS) might act as a barrier that stops people trying out the mod. I mean there's a lot of amazing ideas in OneGoal which I think would pique people's interest.. but it's certainly an easier sell if they know that they go into it fully loaded with basic macro mechanics already established. I guess for this to be a factor it depends what you guys are actually aiming for with the mod, are you particularly interested in trying to form a playerbase around it? Or is it just something you want to get out there as a design challenge/proof of concept and when you reach a point where you feel it's done you can just move on and not care if it's used or not? I mean from my own perspective I do like the idea that I can happily devote time to playing OneGoal and it won't detract from my basic HotS mechanics should I want to play that as well.. or in practice kinda be forced to play it while waiting for someone to show up who wants to play OneGoal. Those mild concerns aside (none of which I think should actually constrain you from making a cool design choice in my opinion).. you're absolutely right about Spawn Larva being a totally uninspiring rote mechanic! I'd actually never thought about it before (as I wasn't paying attention at all during the development of SC2 and only showed up after release). It's almost exactly analogous to having a button in the top corner of the screen that you have to click once every 30 seconds or you get a Game Over screen :D As such I look forward to having zergy fun with a new core mechanic that's a little more interesting... although holy cow is it ever going to be hard to get balanced! It's funny you should bring up Chrono Boost being a paradigm of macro goodness, given your previous mention of spectators/casuals being prioritised over pros, as it strikes me as a fairly potent example of something that maybe goes against that. I mean it's really powerful and adds a lot of depth and decision making to the game.. but from a spectator/casual viewpoint.. man that's a super boring ability. It only becomes interesting if you have a strong understanding of its effect on the overall pacing of builds and thus the game itself... whereas something like mules/scans/calldown for terran seems a bit flashier and more intuitive to someone with less extensive game knowledge. Ha ha.. ok I'll just peter out here, can't believe I ended up writing so much, damnit it's just a really interesting project! I wonder if anyone will actually read all of this :D | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On March 23 2013 11:48 Spaceboy wrote: Another reason casual players are in my opinion unlikely to ever flock to an RTS in their droves is that people in general simply don't like losing and even with the greatest matchmaking in the world (or should I say especially with the greatest matchmaking in the world) you're going to end up on average losing as much as you win... and given that it's a 1v1 game.. Just out of curiosity, is it a 1v1 game? Does it have to be? Would it still be Starcraft if it was centered around team play? | ||
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Goldfish
2230 Posts
Note that the Traditionalist HoN lost to the aggressively low skill floor design of LoL. Dota 2, which has enjoyed a 100+% increase in viewership in recent months is still dwarfed by League. The school of hard knocks has competition and it will lose period. Other ways have to be determined. No one wants to play Dune, and in the global market, only a few more want to play SCBW or Dota classic. They are arcane and obtuse and ornery experiences, and nostalgia often overlooks the fundamental flaws in the mechanics of those games. I'm not sure about that. HoN was originally a buy to play game (it only went F2P in 2011 AFAIK). LoL was F2P 2009. LoL was also marketed to the Dota audience much earlier than HoN. LoL was made by Guinsoo himself (who made DotA All Stars, he did come up with the recipe system and very fancy unit spells, instead of just the basic "WC3 ones" in the first DotA by Eul). Guisnoo wasn't really known notoriety back then (he was held in high regard back then, before the whole LoL vs Dota), and many Dota players were interested in Guinsoo's new work (League of Legends). HoN didn't get to take advantage of that. (I forgot when but around 2008-2009, I remember Guinsoo marketed LoL in the dota-allstars forums, and everyone was just glad to see Guinsoo back since he seemed missing. This is also why Icefrog actually moved and made a new site to playdota.) Anyway, that's why LoL had an edge over HoN - It was from Guinsoo and advertised to Dota players earlier, and it was F2P 2 years earlier than HoN. LoL might also have more "carrot on the stick" incentives than HoN had. I wouldn't be surprised if Dota 2 becomes more popular than LoL once it goes F2P (the only reason Dota 2 isn't as popular as LoL now is probably the fact that it's still in beta and not advertised as F2P yet). No one wants to play Dune, and in the global market, only a few more want to play SCBW or Dota classic. Dota 2 is basically DotA All Stars (if you mean that by DotA classic) with better graphics. I mean, you can say the courier being easier to use and the shop menu being easier to use lowers the skill ceiling/floor a bit but barely. Dota 2 is like if SC2 was BW with better graphics. Anyway, not sure on the general direction of the skill floor/skill ceiling discussion by everyone (I just read some parts of it). Here are my own thoughts though. What makes LoL or even Dota 2 more popular (or any game, SP games included) is that it's a more fun game than SC, and it has a bit more variety too (thanks to the massive amount of hero choices). I can have fun with HotS easily by doing weird or non-optimal builds (I like doing 2 base nuke all ins for example which actually do get countered fairly frequently but when I do pull it off, it's satisfying) but to play optimal, it generally involves only a series of set plays (fortunately in HotS, it's better... it's not like WoL where as Protoss, you have to do this against Zerg every game for example). (It's also why I play Random, I honestly find it fun to be able to take advantage of all 3 races because it allows more fun things to do. This is also why I was/am disappointed Vortex was completely changed, then completely removed from HotS, instead of just being nerfed since I liked Archon Toilets.) Now, in Dota 2 what makes it fun (even despite all the rage by pubbers while losing; yes losing isn't fun in Dota 2 either) is that trying things out is actually really fun. It has a variety of play. In SC2, if all you could do to win (not play for fun, but to win) is do one or two builds, over and over, then it's not fun. If you lose, then you think, well I guess I'll do this build again and hope I win. Build variation also doesn't provide that much extra fun (for example, making less drones vs making more drones as "variation" hardly sounds exciting). So, the simplest way to make SC2 (and any game more appealing) is to make it more fun, at all stages of the game. Not only that (but again) allow more ways to win in the game and more ways to play. This is what I think MOBAs do well, they're fun at all stages of the game and there is plenty of variety. Now, BW may lack variety in the build order and unit composition department but what BW did well is that there are multiple ways to win (sometimes enough that picking an non-optimal build order doesn't matter). Idra said this before - what made BW great was that there were several ways to win in in BW compared to SC2. Artosis complained about players who only won games off of Mutalisk micro alone (not understanding RTS mechanics), but I think that is actually a good thing (in the sense they have their own way of playing and still winning). It allows more variety of play which adds more fun. I say in BW, the skill ceiling is potentially similar to the skill ceiling in SC2. What's different is that the "skill room" is wider in BW than in SC2. An analogy is BW is like Chess boxing while SC2 is boxing "or" chess by itself (but not both). The skill ceiling is potentially the same but the skill room is different (bigger in BW). In Chess boxing, you can win as long as you can dominate in either chess or boxing, if you can do both that's great. If you're not good at chess but good at boxing, you may still have a chance to win (for example). (I use "skill room" instead of skill ceiling because using skill ceiling alone may be deceiving and may not shed light on the potential problems of a game. Technically, you can say the skill ceiling of Chess Boxing is higher than chess or boxing individually but saying skill room to focus on the fact that there are multiple ways to win is easier to understand IMO.) In SC2, there aren't as many fancy stuff you can do with units (like dancing mutalisks and wraith) in SC2 as in BW. SC2 has expanded the number of units and BOs though (especially with HotS) but on the other hand, it decreases what you can do with the units you have (lack of ability to micro units like they were in BW). If skill ceiling and skill floor determined whether a game was popular or not, no one would play BW (yes, kind of a strawman argument and yes I know SC1BW existed at a time where there was not much competition in games but there was still plenty of games out there). Also the fact that BW is #6 played in Korea at PC Bangs (even higher than the "easier" SC2 which is 11th, and only because of HotS) further shows that skill ceiling and skill floor shouldn't be focused on as much as making the game fun (overall, at all stages). Someone said this on the NS2/unknown worlds forums before but "Fun should come before balance or else we'd be flipping coins instead of playing games". I mimic that too. I mean in terms of units, not all units should be balanced and imbalanced units (as long as they have their fun uses) shouldn't be removed IMO. Spells included too. (This is just in response to something Dustin Browder said, especially when it was in regards to removing the Carrier. As for OneGoal removing units, if they were boring units and didn't add anything to the game, I can agree that the unit can be removed.) Overall, I definitely think the focus on skill ceiling and skill floor (easy to play and easy to learn) to make a game more popular is misleading (especially in Korea, when BW is still more popular than SC2 itself). A game could be popular and hard to be play as long as the person is having fun playing it (bonus points if there is carrot on a stick incentives). On March 23 2013 13:23 Archerofaiur wrote: Just out of curiosity, is it a 1v1 game? Does it have to be? Would it still be Starcraft if it was centered around team play? I disagree with that too. It's true, team games are more attractive than 1v1s but there is a huge downside of team games over 1v1 games - the fact that you can't control how much you win or lose (as easily) as 1v1. (Spoilered to make post not take up too much space.) + Show Spoiler + I am actually really frustrated when I play games 5v5 games like Dota mainly because no matter how good you are, you can't win the game based on that. Even professional players (single queue that is, playing with randoms) like Dendi can't maintain a higher win rate than 50% on pubs (or so I heard, I might be wrong on this - I just remember reading a topic on playdota about it) (also I know Dota 2 has an MMR too but in SC2, some people can manage to have 70-80% win rate, a lot of #1 Grand Masters for example). I prefer 1v1 games like SC2 because I can affect how much I win or lose (I'm sure this applies for a decent amount too). Besides that, 1v1 games aren't necessarily a lost cause: Card games (like MTG) are played by casual players and hardcore alike (MTG can be a serious competitive game, with $40k prize tournaments and plenty of consistent top players). Though MTG is more of a metagame type of game (most of winning or losing comes from not actually playing the game but just deck building and understanding current trends right now). I can also see people argue MTG is a turn based game (that and it is actually isn't that popular, it's popular but no LoL or Dota of course). Besides that fighting games are fairly popular among console players and it's a 1v1 game (some are really face paced). I wouldn't be surprised (considering the attitude of pubbers these days >.>) if they add a true, serious 1v1 mode to Dota or LoL (not mid only, maybe you control 3 heroes at once and all lanes are fully open, try to make it be a competitive as 5v5 Dota), that the mode itself could probably be more popular than 5v5 Dota (I play on pubs and it seems like only 1-2 players actually bring their friends to play with them, most of the time it's just playing with randoms). | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
I did not expect such a response. Spaceboy, I am going to refer you to some videos that sort of address your points. They are articulated far better than I have managed. I will answer in depth when Patch 3 is live. | ||
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MNdakota
United States512 Posts
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Spaceboy
United Kingdom220 Posts
On March 23 2013 16:16 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: O.O I did not expect such a response. Spaceboy, I am going to refer you to some videos that sort of address your points. They are articulated far better than I have managed. I will answer in depth when Patch 3 is live. Coolio, I look forward to it! Don't feel beholden to respond to everything I wrote though, in retrospect I fear I may in fact be totally mental and have written a totally unreasonable amount! :D On March 23 2013 09:02 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: ~ For example, we are no longer holding back on removing units. The following units are being removed and replaced in Patch 3: Corruptor Diamondback Thor ~ Ha ha, the poor poor corruptor... it finally gets to be an interesting unit and is almost immediately cut! I kinda liked the concepts for the corruptor/diamondback but haven't played enough to actually experience them in game so I don't know how they turned out. I can totally see however that the game might have been getting a bit swamped with active abilities so I'll totally reserve judgement until the next patch is fully revealed. On March 23 2013 22:53 MNdakota wrote: Fear the wall of text! Do not fear the wall of text it is friendly! :D | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
On March 24 2013 04:11 Spaceboy wrote: Coolio, I look forward to it! Don't feel beholden to respond to everything I wrote though, in retrospect I fear I may in fact be totally mental and have written a totally unreasonable amount! :D Ha ha, the poor poor corruptor... it finally gets to be an interesting unit and is almost immediately cut! I kinda liked the concepts for the corruptor/diamondback but haven't played enough to actually experience them in game so I don't know how they turned out. I can totally see however that the game might have been getting a bit swamped with active abilities so I'll totally reserve judgement until the next patch is fully revealed. These guys...these guys know what is up. As for the Corruptor, our decision is based on a substantial amount of testing including GM games. The ability was interesting, but it was clunky and ultimately was attached to a unit that didn't behave like a standard zerg unit. The Corruptor is a victim of the rampant damage inflation in SC2 where large damage bonuses and efficient unit pathing allows for armies to dish out huge amounts of damage in a short time. The Corroptor is a vanilla unit that was balanced around this dynamic. Unfortunately, while elegant, it kind of behaves like a Protoss unit, something that just sort of slams into its enemies, and when combined with stacking larva, well, its a problem. We are replacing it with a fast and mobile flying unit that hatches two at a time. It will have less than 100 HP and will function sort of like a flying Zergling/Devourer. It will also have a fast burrow, allowing it to ambush drops and survive non-detection encounters. | ||
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Spaceboy
United Kingdom220 Posts
On March 24 2013 06:00 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKGDealc3eE These guys...these guys know what is up. As for the Corruptor, our decision is based on a substantial amount of testing including GM games. The ability was interesting, but it was clunky and ultimately was attached to a unit that didn't behave like a standard zerg unit. The Corruptor is a victim of the rampant damage inflation in SC2 where large damage bonuses and efficient unit pathing allows for armies to dish out huge amounts of damage in a short time. The Corroptor is a vanilla unit that was balanced around this dynamic. Unfortunately, while elegant, it kind of behaves like a Protoss unit, something that just sort of slams into its enemies, and when combined with stacking larva, well, its a problem. We are replacing it with a fast and mobile flying unit that hatches two at a time. It will have less than 100 HP and will function sort of like a flying Zergling/Devourer. It will also have a fast burrow, allowing it to ambush drops and survive non-detection encounters. Holy cow, you had me at flying zerglings! Screw the corruptor :D Also thanks for the video link, I had a sneaking suspicion it would be something from Extra Credits, they are indeed pretty awesome! On a totally unrelated topic: In light of the awesome MLG games primarily brought about by the buffing of harassment options in HotS (specifically super medivacs) I had a couple ideas I'd like to throw out there for maybe buffing zerg in this department. I heard Stephano say in an interview that he'd prefer to see zerg harass buffed rather than see medivacs nerfed and I find the idea pretty appealing, I mean while mutas are undeniably awesome I think the game would benefit from zerg having better harassment tools when playing a non-spire style. As such I'd love to see some tweaking carried out to nydus, drops or possibly both. I think everyone has always wanted to see more nydus play in the game (yet bafflingly it has been untouched by blizzard since WoL beta), it's just an inherently kickass concept goshdarnit! I've heard people argue for either a removal of the nydus scream or making them tougher so that they're less easily denied by a quick worker pull.. but I feel like there's really solid reasons for those weaknesses to avoid potentially overpowered early game all-ins. What I've always really wanted to see implemented (and what I hope OneGoal would be a great way to test) is to simply remove the gas element from the cost of building a nydus exit. At 200/0 instead of 100/100 I think nydus in mid/late game would be a super viable harassment choice for zerg as a way of dumping excess minerals into harass.. much as protoss does with zealot warp-ins all over the map. At that point in the game gas is super precious and the cost of having a nydus denied on multiple occasions is just too harmful to a zerg for most players to contemplate. However if there's only the 200 sunken gas cost of the network itself.. then a high APM player with a mineral bank could potentially be attempting to throw down new exits for the rest of the game. That may sound, and indeed prove to be, super overpowered.. it might make no difference at all.. but I'd really love to see it tried out and just see what happens. With regard to drops; Stephano said he'd like to see these be quicker (in terms of overlord speed) I'm assuming so that they're less trivial to defend and less of a sunken cost (as you might actually be able to do damage with your drop and then leave without everything being dead). While I like this concept I also really like the change that Blizzard made in HotS of having Pneumatized Carapace at hatch tech, it allows players to make an early investment in scouting if they want to play safe and allows the game to be less dice-rolly as a result. However, any increase to overlord speed at this early stage of the game would probably be overkill. So what I propose is that an additional boost to overlord speed be added to Ventral Sacs that would stack with that given from Pneumatized Carapace to give drop-ready overlords with a greater speed than we currently see. What this greater speed would be would be down to you balance whiz-kids to work out.. but I think a good place to start might be the speed of an unboosted medivac? Anywho just some thoughts, do these seem reasonable to anyone else or would they be totally broken? | ||
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Agorth
United States5 Posts
 oddly enough the replacement for the corrupter sounds similar to the scourge in that it spawns 2 per egg and is cheap for an air unit while being fast and mobile. what were your guys thoughts on the scourge? was it outdated or didn't fit in with the current swarm? how useful do tier 1 units like the zergling, zealot and marine feel in the late game? does the siege tank have enough firepower to keep someone from simply A-moving through the siege line to victory? sorry for the rapid fire questions but i must inquire to sate my damned curiosity! | ||
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Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
On March 24 2013 08:52 Spaceboy wrote: Holy cow, you had me at flying zerglings! Screw the corruptor :D Also thanks for the video link, I had a sneaking suspicion it would be something from Extra Credits, they are indeed pretty awesome! On a totally unrelated topic: In light of the awesome MLG games primarily brought about by the buffing of harassment options in HotS (specifically super medivacs) I had a couple ideas I'd like to throw out there for maybe buffing zerg in this department. I heard Stephano say in an interview that he'd prefer to see zerg harass buffed rather than see medivacs nerfed and I find the idea pretty appealing, I mean while mutas are undeniably awesome I think the game would benefit from zerg having better harassment tools when playing a non-spire style. As such I'd love to see some tweaking carried out to nydus, drops or possibly both. I think everyone has always wanted to see more nydus play in the game (yet bafflingly it has been untouched by blizzard since WoL beta), it's just an inherently kickass concept goshdarnit! I've heard people argue for either a removal of the nydus scream or making them tougher so that they're less easily denied by a quick worker pull.. but I feel like there's really solid reasons for those weaknesses to avoid potentially overpowered early game all-ins. What I've always really wanted to see implemented (and what I hope OneGoal would be a great way to test) is to simply remove the gas element from the cost of building a nydus exit. At 200/0 instead of 100/100 I think nydus in mid/late game would be a super viable harassment choice for zerg as a way of dumping excess minerals into harass.. much as protoss does with zealot warp-ins all over the map. At that point in the game gas is super precious and the cost of having a nydus denied on multiple occasions is just too harmful to a zerg for most players to contemplate. However if there's only the 200 sunken gas cost of the network itself.. then a high APM player with a mineral bank could potentially be attempting to throw down new exits for the rest of the game. That may sound, and indeed prove to be, super overpowered.. it might make no difference at all.. but I'd really love to see it tried out and just see what happens. With regard to drops; Stephano said he'd like to see these be quicker (in terms of overlord speed) I'm assuming so that they're less trivial to defend and less of a sunken cost (as you might actually be able to do damage with your drop and then leave without everything being dead). While I like this concept I also really like the change that Blizzard made in HotS of having Pneumatized Carapace at hatch tech, it allows players to make an early investment in scouting if they want to play safe and allows the game to be less dice-rolly as a result. However, any increase to overlord speed at this early stage of the game would probably be overkill. So what I propose is that an additional boost to overlord speed be added to Ventral Sacs that would stack with that given from Pneumatized Carapace to give drop-ready overlords with a greater speed than we currently see. What this greater speed would be would be down to you balance whiz-kids to work out.. but I think a good place to start might be the speed of an unboosted medivac? Anywho just some thoughts, do these seem reasonable to anyone else or would they be totally broken? I kinda like these ideas. Maybe it will lead to imbalanced situatuations, but honestly that is not very important. In my opinion it is alot more important to try and push the game into a more multitaskbased direction rather than to make deathballs vs deathballs more exciting. Reworking the corrupter over and over is largely irrelevant in terms of creating exciting multitaskbased games. The same thing applies to whether the thor, the diamondback or the goliath is used as the mech anti-air unit. As I said in my previous post buffing harassbased units should have a much larger priority and nydus's and overlord drops could use some changes. I have previously suggested a supply cap on nydus network as it will allow two things; 1) Make it less all'insh. 2) It can now be considerable cheaper. For instance if there is a 30 supply cap on the network the cost can be reduced to something like 25/25 or 50/0. But I don't think Onegoal should just stop there. Every little thing which makes harassbased play less efficient should be reworked. Static structures are in my opinion very problematic as they can stalemale a game if the opinion uses his mineral bank on them. Static structures should be a bit of help against harassbased play, but it shouldn't counter it. If your opponent chooses to harass you then multitasking should be required for you to counter his harassment play. Preemptive turret/spinecrawler/cannons must never be the primary way to counter harassments. Like putting a turret ring around your base is so counterproductive in terms of creating exciting gameplay, and cannons deals with a mech players harassment options with too efficiently. I do believe some changes are needed in that regard and for instance I suggested to make turrets cost gas rather than just minerals as this will increase the opportunity cost of massing them. Further thoughts regarding the strategy of Onegoal I've considered whether I should just keep my mouth shut, because honestly this isn't my problem and I know the crew has used a lot of time on the mod. I know from personal experience that receiving negative criticism isn't nice when spent so much time on a project, but at this point I can't help my self, and as the crew is in the proces of making huge changes to the mod by removing units, I think its now or never for the Onegoal team to take it in the right direction... When the Onegoal project originally started out it had a goal of "showing" Blizzard how redesigns of some units could make the game better. To obtain that goal, Onegoal could choose between two paths; 1) Making the best possible mod/game by redesign the game completely and adding/removing units. 2) Choose to only redesign the most problematic units (such as fungal growth and maybe EMP) and give harassment units small buffs in order to make the game slightly more multitaskbased. The advantage of following path 1 is that they will be able to show Blizzards employees extremely entertaining games, and in that regard Blizzard could be inspired in their development of the next expansion (Legacy of the Void). The drawback is that the mod would feel very different from HOTS, which means that Blizzard won't be able to implement any of the stuff in any HOTS patches and could scare away possible new players (as it would feel too difference from HOTS). The advantage of path 2 is that it will feel very similarly to HOTS, and it is possible that Blizzard may incorporate some of Onegoal's ideas in patches to HOTS (best case scenario). On the other hand, the changes may be so insignificant that it will be difficult to convince players to play the mod as there is no effective match making system. And without a decent amount of players playing the mod the likelyhood of quality games being played is very small. At this point, I honestly can't say for sure which path the crew decided to follow. I've had discussions with Itwhospeaks where he implied that they followed path 2, but on the other hand the removal of the thor/diamondback, Hydra-roach switch. Immortal at gateway etc. are huge changes and makes the playing experience feel very different from HOTS. So to me it feels like they have followed some kind of middlepath where they obtain zero of the advantages from the two pathes, but all of the disadvantages. The game feels very different from HOTS, but the deathball is still there. The playerbase as a consequence of that isn't large enough and too few quality games are therefore being produced. IMO it was a mistake to bring in the diamondback and redesign the thor even though I liked the unit design of the diamond back a lot. But it simply made terran feel very very different from HOTS terran, and how can Blizzard "learn" from your project when you have completely changed how the game works? At this point I feel like you guys need to make a decision on which path to follow. If you want to follow path 2, then bring back the sc2-thor as a replacement for the diamondback. Get rid of the immortal at gateway and buff the stalker slightly instead and keep the sentry at gateway. If on the other hand you think path 2 is a mistake, then you need to try and create the best possible mod. This means that arguments such as "that is too complicated", "we can't do that because Blizzard will never implement that" .... etc. are invalid arguments when discussing which units to put into the game. Instead you should try to focus on how Legacy of the Void should like. If your sucessful then Blizzard can use your unit designs as an inspiriation. | ||
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Agorth
United States5 Posts
But I don't think Onegoal should just stop there. Every little thing which makes harassbased play less efficient should be reworked. Static structures are in my opinion very problematic as they can stalemale a game if the opinion uses his mineral bank on them. Static structures should be a bit of help against harassbased play, but it shouldn't counter it. If your opponent chooses to harass you then multitasking should be required for you to counter his harassment play. Preemptive turret/spinecrawler/cannons must never be the primary way to counter harassments. Like putting a turret ring around your base is so counterproductive in terms of creating exciting gameplay, and cannons deals with a mech players harassment options with too efficiently. I do believe some changes are needed in that regard and for instance I suggested to make turrets cost gas rather than just minerals as this will increase the opportunity cost of massing them. hider i agree that harassment options should be improved upon but static defenses are fine in my opinion, if somebody decides to put a ring of missile turrets around his/her main base it leaves me that much farther ahead in resources and makes him that much easier to box in. static defenses are costly to set up and good anti air is cheaper and far more mobile in most cases, however static defenses do counter light/early harassment but tend to become inefficient fairly quickly as the game goes on. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9341 Posts
On March 25 2013 00:21 Agorth wrote: hider i agree that harassment options should be improved upon but static defenses are fine in my opinion, if somebody decides to put a ring of missile turrets around his/her main base it leaves me that much farther ahead in resources and makes him that much easier to box in. static defenses are costly to set up and good anti air is cheaper and far more mobile in most cases, however static defenses do counter light/early harassment but tend to become inefficient fairly quickly as the game goes on. I disagree - Because I believe that strategies/tactics which makes for shitty games shouldn't be a viable option, and unfortunately getting a lot of turrets is. Some times increasing the number of options isn't great design. Like lets say for example we could have awesome gameplay 100% of the time (scenario A) or we could have awesome gameplay 50% of the time and broodlord infestor vs broodlord infestor the remaining 50% of the time (scenario B). I obivously desire scenario A, because we don't want the boring alternative to ever happen. And nothing good ever comes out of an opponent getting a lot of static defenses. In every single scenario thinkable that is boring gameplay, thus we should think of ways to prevent that ever happening. Great design also involves not making boring strategies a viable option. In BW massing turrets wasn't really viable as your mineral income was lower due to not having mules. | ||
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