EPTIt's going to take time... - Page 2
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drkcid
Spain196 Posts
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On November 21 2012 02:31 BronzeKnee wrote: Fact is, Blizzard doesn't understand the game, evidenced by the ever changing roll that Warhounds, Tempests and Oracles have had.. If you could make clear points, you would not have to resort to such "facts". Just because you don't understand Blizzards thoughts behind it doesn't mean that they don't understand it. It just means that you don't understand what a team of highly professional and experienced game developers had in mind. Take a field of any profession, let it be music theory or geological field trip. There will be A LOT were you don't understand the reasoning, even though you are able to hear music and to see a geological conglomeration of sediments. On November 21 2012 02:31 BronzeKnee wrote: Now it isn't all bad, some new units are great and enhance the game. But given the fact Blizzard took way too long to make simple changes in WOL to address the imbalance (we just recently got ramp blockers in HOTS, how long did it take them to figure this out, how long was the community asking for it, how long did tournaments use them?) . Another "fact". Ladder play is not tournament play. You also cannot just bring something into the game because it sounds good. If you ever had something to do with the development of a larger software project, you know what you do when you have a working solution. You don't just add something or change something. It has to be well thought-out. You need to consider future implications. One false step in the project can cost you A LOT in the future. There is a reason why everything is so slow: You need to document all changes and need to make sure that they don't do any harm. In the software development, a fast solution often is a costly solution which sooner or later requires large part to be replaced by newly written code. | ||
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wcr.4fun
Belgium686 Posts
On November 22 2012 01:30 [F_]aths wrote: If you could make clear points, you would not have to resort to such "facts". Just because you don't understand Blizzards thoughts behind it doesn't mean that they don't understand it. It just means that you don't understand what a team of highly professional and experienced game developers had in mind. Take a field of any profession, let it be music theory or geological field trip. There will be A LOT were you don't understand the reasoning, even though you are able to hear music and to see a geological conglomeration of sediments. Another "fact". Ladder play is not tournament play. You also cannot just bring something into the game because it sounds good. If you ever had something to do with the development of a larger software project, you know what you do when you have a working solution. You don't just add something or change something. It has to be well thought-out. You need to consider future implications. One false step in the project can cost you A LOT in the future. There is a reason why everything is so slow: You need to document all changes and need to make sure that they don't do any harm. lmao. Your bullshit-injector must have been on overdrive while writing that post. | ||
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gingerfluffmuff
Austria4570 Posts
On November 22 2012 01:30 [F_]aths wrote: If you could make clear points, you would not have to resort to such "facts". Just because you don't understand Blizzards thoughts behind it doesn't mean that they don't understand it. It just means that you don't understand what a team of highly professional and experienced game developers had in mind. Take a field of any profession, let it be music theory or geological field trip. There will be A LOT were you don't understand the reasoning, even though you are able to hear music and to see a geological conglomeration of sediments. Another "fact". Ladder play is not tournament play. You also cannot just bring something into the game because it sounds good. If you ever had something to do with the development of a larger software project, you know what you do when you have a working solution. You don't just add something or change something. It has to be well thought-out. You need to consider future implications. One false step in the project can cost you A LOT in the future. There is a reason why everything is so slow: You need to document all changes and need to make sure that they don't do any harm. In the software development, a fast solution often is a costly solution which sooner or later requires large part to be replaced by newly written code. Mate, you need to chill. Game developing isnt rocket science, the frame for sc2 exists since BW. Blizz is also part of Acti, which is a company with shareholders to please, thats the main reason why sc2 is split in 3 parts i guess. There were valid points mentioned: 1) It seems too many on TL that Blizz has no clear vision for the races, so random units/upg are tested. 2) The lacking map pool and changes in the maps (like removing rocks, adding depots) done by premier leagues (GSL/MLG) --> The ladder is used to get better and compare with other people. It doesnt make sense that i cant use the same builds/maps showed by the pros. | ||
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emc
United States3088 Posts
On November 21 2012 04:47 HeeroFX wrote: True, but should it really take 7+ years to balance a game? You could agrue that Street fighter is balanced when they come out. Why can't the game be ready to play when it comes out? street fighter has never been fully balanced and it will never be. SSF4 Tournament Ed. is probably the closest balanced game they've made but still has it's flaws. SFxT was a complete dog, it's horribly unbalanced. SSF4 was also pretty bad, SF4 was even worse, it took them 3 SF4 games to finally get it right, how is that any different from 3 sc2 games? SF3, SF Alpha, even SF2 was imbalanced, and this is coming from a person who has played fighting games since I was a kid and followed the scene. No game is ever balanced on release, it took several dozen versions of Counter-Strike to finally get it right, and it took years and years to do so. Dota/LoL is an ever changing game, there will probably never be a version of those games that don't have changes for a year. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On November 22 2012 01:30 [F_]aths wrote: If you could make clear points, you would not have to resort to such "facts". Just because you don't understand Blizzards thoughts behind it doesn't mean that they don't understand it. It just means that you don't understand what a team of highly professional and experienced game developers had in mind. Take a field of any profession, let it be music theory or geological field trip. There will be A LOT were you don't understand the reasoning, even though you are able to hear music and to see a geological conglomeration of sediments. Rofl ... clear points have been given soooo many times already and yet Blizzard ignores them. Here are a few of my favorites: 1. Deathball sucks and is caused by tight unit movement, unlimited unit selection and an increased production speed (compared to BW) .... fix is easy: remove production boosts, limit unit selection and force-spread units while moving. I think Blizzard even agreed on not liking the deathball either and yet Browder says "players want to clump up their units". 2. The asymmetric distribution of production speed boosts is the reason why certain races have advantages at certain "timings". The easiest example are all the Protoss timings which usually start after Warp Gate research is done and the X Warp Gates have been built. It is a terrible idea to have a "structural imbalance" in the general mechanics, because they have to fix this through the units. In addition it seems a stupid idea to claim to be wanting to make mech viable while the core unit of that strategy is NOT affected by any production speed boost. Fixing this is easy again: remove the production speed boosts AND the economic speed boosts (thus removing the MULE, which has been the reason why we dont have any maps with gold minerals anymore AND which has been complained about for a long time). 3. Unit balancing is different according to the number of units involved. "2 Marines vs. 1 Zealot" is a different balance from "20 Marines vs. 10 Zealots" or "50 Marines vs. 25 Zealots" and this is the core mathematical reason why unit cluming is terrible and should be removed ASAP! With "less clumping" the variation in the balance isnt as big, which makes the general stats of the units less important. We have seen that in the "local overpoweredness" of the Siege Tank in BW for example; it didnt really matter that the attack was strong, but in SC2 that kind of attack would be terrible and would have to be balanced precisely and with extreme care. On November 22 2012 01:30 [F_]aths wrote: Another "fact". Ladder play is not tournament play. You also cannot just bring something into the game because it sounds good. If you ever had something to do with the development of a larger software project, you know what you do when you have a working solution. You don't just add something or change something. It has to be well thought-out. You need to consider future implications. One false step in the project can cost you A LOT in the future. There is a reason why everything is so slow: You need to document all changes and need to make sure that they don't do any harm. In the software development, a fast solution often is a costly solution which sooner or later requires large part to be replaced by newly written code. Rofl ... they arent programming the game anymore. That work has been done for years. They are simply adding in some new units and that shouldnt take weeks and weeks of programming. The biggest problem is adding in units which DONT SUCK. In the end the game is supposed to be an "eSports game" and because of this even Blizzard needs to respect the tournament organizations like GSL and MLG and they should use their maps on the ladder. For a new expansion they should stick to known maps, because it doesnt make sense that players have to try out new units AND new maps at the same time. That's really stupid to vary two things at the same time when you are testing something and only after the community complained did they add a few known maps to the HotS map pool. | ||
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Artisian
United States115 Posts
"So the Marines and Tanks are spread out pretty well... Now obviously if all these Siege Tanks and Marines were packed up tightly... there is no way this Hellion/Warhound army could push this line." Thanks David Kim, we'll form our Tanks and Marines into a deathball now so we can combat the Hellion/Warhound deathball. TvT will be so much better now without positional play. That's not what I heard him say, I heard him say that tank-marine would be better when positioned at a choke instead of in open field, and I suspect he meant packed tightly in range of that entrance. You completely cut out the choke bit, which is one of the key features and important points of any map. The idea isn't more clumped armies, the idea is that positioning wont let you just draw lines across the map wherever you want, you need to use the terrain. The point davie was trying to make was that TvT would have a new style that could combat the old in open field, but would have trouble pushing choke points. Blizzard doesn't hate positional play, but they do hate stalemates. Stalemates are bad for the game, they cause stagnation and boring matches. The option to break siege lines that aren't controlling a choke would do exactly that for TvT. I'd argue that even the replicant was a plausible fix to protoss's rigid tech tree in the mid game, it would have definitely made stargate and templar tech switches easier and safer. Blizzard might not always have the best ideas, nobody does, but what they think up is always innovative and plausibly effective if you just look for what they want to fix. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On November 22 2012 02:40 Artisian wrote: Blizzard doesn't hate positional play, but they do hate stalemates. Stalemates are bad for the game, they cause stagnation and boring matches. The option to break siege lines that aren't controlling a choke would do exactly that for TvT. One of the most interesting games I have ever seen was a TvP in BW, where the Terran had a reeeeaaaallly deep siege line with turrets, sieged tanks and goliaths. That lasted for some time while the Protoss tried to break out. Eventually he managed it, but all the time there was this tension of "will he be able to do it?" Stalemates are only boring if nothing happens and if you have "full army vs. full army" as your core design concept no one will start a skirmish, because that would be too risky. In BW with its limited concentration of units that worked well enough, so the conclusion is easy ... get rid of the tight concentration of units and you can easily have positional play. | ||
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On November 22 2012 02:13 gingerfluffmuff wrote: Mate, you need to chill. Game developing isnt rocket science, the frame for sc2 exists since BW. Blizz is also part of Acti, which is a company with shareholders to please, thats the main reason why sc2 is split in 3 parts i guess. There were valid points mentioned: 1) It seems too many on TL that Blizz has no clear vision for the races, so random units/upg are tested. 2) The lacking map pool and changes in the maps (like removing rocks, adding depots) done by premier leagues (GSL/MLG) --> The ladder is used to get better and compare with other people. It doesnt make sense that i cant use the same builds/maps showed by the pros. What appears random to us can be the process of a thorough, well reasoned debate within the team. How can you tell the difference? Do you actually think they approach the game like a schoolwork project and try out random things? Tournaments are for the few pros. The ladder has to be attractive for all players. Things like neutral depots make the game more complicated. That doesn't mean that they don't belong to ladder, but it is a factor which has to be considered. The pros of course cannot really prepare for tournaments with ladder play but the ladder is not intended to do that anyway. | ||
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On November 22 2012 02:40 Rabiator wrote: Rofl ... clear points have been given soooo many times already and yet Blizzard ignores them. Here are a few of my favorites: 1. Deathball sucks and is caused by tight unit movement, unlimited unit selection and an increased production speed (compared to BW) .... fix is easy: remove production boosts, limit unit selection and force-spread units while moving. I think Blizzard even agreed on not liking the deathball either and yet Browder says "players want to clump up their units". Most players want to build a ball of death, DB is right, because it makes it easier to focus damage. However a deathball lowers the viewer's experience at it is hard to follow the action. That means there is nuance here, it is not just "deathball sucks". Instead we have pros and cons. Spells with AOE damage force unit splitting for optimal play which involves skill. Foxer rose to fame with unit control. Limited unit selection is maybe applauded by some pros and even some casual gamers. But do you think that you can sell an RTS in this time with a limited unit selection count? While mechanically easier than BW, SC2 is still mechanically demanding on pro level, at least compared to competing esports games like LoL. Regarding RTS, there isn't even a competing game right now. Blizzard must have made at least some things right. On November 22 2012 02:40 Rabiator wrote:2. The asymmetric distribution of production speed boosts is the reason why certain races have advantages at certain "timings". The easiest example are all the Protoss timings which usually start after Warp Gate research is done and the X Warp Gates have been built. It is a terrible idea to have a "structural imbalance" in the general mechanics, because they have to fix this through the units. In addition it seems a stupid idea to claim to be wanting to make mech viable while the core unit of that strategy is NOT affected by any production speed boost. Fixing this is easy again: remove the production speed boosts AND the economic speed boosts (thus removing the MULE, which has been the reason why we dont have any maps with gold minerals anymore AND which has been complained about for a long time). If you can see so easy fixes I really wonder why you don't work in the industry. Did it ever occur to you that the fix is maybe not as easy as you think? Local imbalance and the favor of certain timings for certain build orders for each race allows the races to be actually different. While this gameplay mechanic also causes some troubles like timings which are easy to execute and hard to defend, it doesn't mean that the game as a whole would be better off without it. I am not certain about the right way. I don't think though that you can be certain either, even if you act as if you are certain. On November 22 2012 02:40 Rabiator wrote:3. Unit balancing is different according to the number of units involved. "2 Marines vs. 1 Zealot" is a different balance from "20 Marines vs. 10 Zealots" or "50 Marines vs. 25 Zealots" and this is the core mathematical reason why unit cluming is terrible and should be removed ASAP! With "less clumping" the variation in the balance isnt as big, which makes the general stats of the units less important. We have seen that in the "local overpoweredness" of the Siege Tank in BW for example; it didnt really matter that the attack was strong, but in SC2 that kind of attack would be terrible and would have to be balanced precisely and with extreme care. What exactly does this point prove? That it plays different compared to BW? You don't remove "ASAP" things if the game as a whole works more or less. You take carefully steps in the right direction or you risk to mess up the entire game. People make a living off an esports career right now. A responsible action is to not make "ASAP" changes. On November 22 2012 02:40 Rabiator wrote: Rofl ... they arent programming the game anymore. That work has been done for years. They are simply adding in some new units and that shouldnt take weeks and weeks of programming. The biggest problem is adding in units which DONT SUCK. In the end the game is supposed to be an "eSports game" and because of this even Blizzard needs to respect the tournament organizations like GSL and MLG and they should use their maps on the ladder. For a new expansion they should stick to known maps, because it doesnt make sense that players have to try out new units AND new maps at the same time. That's really stupid to vary two things at the same time when you are testing something and only after the community complained did they add a few known maps to the HotS map pool. Your roffeling shows that you didn't understood the point of my comparison. It also shows that you don't have experience with larger software projects and that you consider changes much easier than they actually are. If I am wrong and you are in fact a genius, please do go into the industry. | ||
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gingerfluffmuff
Austria4570 Posts
On November 22 2012 03:09 [F_]aths wrote: What appears random to us can be the process of a thorough, well reasoned debate within the team. How can you tell the difference? Do you actually think they approach the game like a schoolwork project and try out random things? Tournaments are for the few pros. The ladder has to be attractive for all players. Things like neutral depots make the game more complicated. That doesn't mean that they don't belong to ladder, but it is a factor which has to be considered. The pros of course cannot really prepare for tournaments with ladder play but the ladder is not intended to do that anyway. Its nice for you to defend Blizz, but you neither got any proof that the changes are not random (more or less). My Economical Standpoint(is this even an english word): Do the absolut minimum to not drive all players away, so that the expansions are going to sell. Say "we are working on the balance" and hype the expansion. I would do the same if i would be CEO, cause i wouldnt give a shit about posters like you and me. Being pylon/bunker - walled in aint so funny, i wouldnt call the games attractive. I hope your not playing zerg, saying stuff like this would make me believe your are chopping wood in wood league. Quite pointless our discussion is i guess, at least we are gaining posts. | ||
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Glorfindel21
France51 Posts
I will gladly read anyone here that would write something really solid about the nature of balance and establish a clear theory. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On November 22 2012 03:35 gingerfluffmuff wrote: Its nice for you to defend Blizz, but you neither got any proof that the changes are not random (more or less). It's more likely that they aren't, though. They have a team of professionals who have access to just about every stat there is, and have to spend their days developing ideas for the game. Part of it(an important one) is being able to admit a change was wrong, scrapping it, and trying again, see the mothership core. The point is, though it may seem like they're a bunch of drooling idiots to frustrated people like you, they've been doing more and more to suggest that this isn't the case. On November 22 2012 03:35 gingerfluffmuff wrote:My Economical Standpoint(is this even an english word): Do the absolut minimum to not drive all players away, so that the expansions are going to sell. Say "we are working on the balance" and hype the expansion. I would do the same if i would be CEO, cause i wouldnt give a shit about posters like you and me. Being pylon/bunker - walled in aint so funny, i wouldnt call the games attractive. I hope your not playing zerg, saying stuff like this would make me believe your are chopping wood in wood league. Quite pointless our discussion is i guess, at least we are gaining posts. The point of a beta is not to "work on balance", it's to focus the design of the game, to get a clear idea of how new units and abilities will affect the game, and tweak or remove certain things where necessary, until the game plays differently and better. Balance is much simpler by comparison, and can wait until release. The new units have been balanced to the point where they're all usable, but they've undergone design changes more times than they have balance. Also, work on your damn grammar please. Slight imperfections are one thing, but that first sentence was painful to read, flat out. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On November 22 2012 03:23 [F_]aths wrote: Most players want to build a ball of death, DB is right, because it makes it easier to focus damage. However a deathball lowers the viewer's experience at it is hard to follow the action. That means there is nuance here, it is not just "deathball sucks". Instead we have pros and cons. Spells with AOE damage force unit splitting for optimal play which involves skill. Foxer rose to fame with unit control. Limited unit selection is maybe applauded by some pros and even some casual gamers. But do you think that you can sell an RTS in this time with a limited unit selection count? While mechanically easier than BW, SC2 is still mechanically demanding on pro level, at least compared to competing esports games like LoL. Regarding RTS, there isn't even a competing game right now. Blizzard must have made at least some things right. Rofl????? They dont NEED to make much right, because it was a long expected sequel to a game with many many fans. Sure, they could have screwed up as much as Duke Nukem Forever, but due to the big fan community this game will be played even if it is less than perfect. There are nuances you know and SC2 has flaws in its design. One piece of wisdom I have learned in my life: You can sell DIRT if you advertise it correctly. In this case you just need Dustin to come out and explain to the players why unlimited unit selection is bad ... and in a sense he has already agreed to that by saying something like "split units are better for the viewer". A limited unit selection is also better for casuals, because you dont lose all your units if you make a mistake and can learn from that in the same game. No casual can split his Marines against a clump of Banelings rolling towards him .... which is an a-move every casual can do and putting them into one big group makes it even easier. On November 22 2012 03:23 [F_]aths wrote: If you can see so easy fixes I really wonder why you don't work in the industry. Did it ever occur to you that the fix is maybe not as easy as you think? Local imbalance and the favor of certain timings for certain build orders for each race allows the races to be actually different. While this gameplay mechanic also causes some troubles like timings which are easy to execute and hard to defend, it doesn't mean that the game as a whole would be better off without it. I am not certain about the right way. I don't think though that you can be certain either, even if you act as if you are certain. Stop that stupid "if you are so smart why dont you work in the industry" argument, which is just an attempt to intimidate or discourage the one you are supposedly arguing with. If you think you found a flaw in my arguments then please say so, but stop saying "I don't think though that you can be certain either". Either argue with my reasoning or shut up. On November 22 2012 03:23 [F_]aths wrote: What exactly does this point prove? That it plays different compared to BW? You don't remove "ASAP" things if the game as a whole works more or less. You take carefully steps in the right direction or you risk to mess up the entire game. People make a living off an esports career right now. A responsible action is to not make "ASAP" changes. Well if you find a problem - which I believe I have - AND you have already scheduled your release date - which they have - AND if the change would totally change the gameplay you kinda have to do things ASAP to be done before the release of the expansion ... easy logic I would say. Starcraft 2 can be easily compared to BW and once you do you see that the newer game has problems which the older didnt have and then the solution is easy enough to see. That comparison and the long eSports tradition is a resource which they *should be* using, but they are not. If you have to ask what my "2X Marines vs. X Zealots" example means then you havent tried to understand it. If you have just 2 Marines and 1 Zealot came along to try and kill them they would have to run away for a bit and then shoot the Zealot, but it would take a lot of work from the player to keep them alive. If you do that for a larger group the Zealots have a smaller chance of winning, simply because the number of Marines is soo big that they can kill a few Zealots before they reach the Marines and then continue to kill them faster than the Marines would die, because more Marines can shoot the one line of Zealots which can attack them. It has something to do with the mathematical fact that the "group dps" is higher if your clump gets bigger and this continues to rise. This is so big that the Zealots die before taking too many swings themselves, which they can do a lot, when its just 2 Marines fighting a single Zealot. The size of the clumps is so big that they make expensive units - like Siege Tanks or Colossi or Thors - rather worthless and those expensive units just die too fast. Just look at a clump of Roaches "fleeing" from a group of Stalkers ... and if you have enough Roaches they can simply turn around and one-shot a Stalker. Thats stupid. On November 22 2012 03:23 [F_]aths wrote: Your roffeling shows that you didn't understood the point of my comparison. It also shows that you don't have experience with larger software projects and that you consider changes much easier than they actually are. If I am wrong and you are in fact a genius, please do go into the industry. You DONT NEED programming or software project experience to have ideas. Thats for programmers to organize. Hence the "rofls", because you keep sticking to this irrelevant argument. I dont work there, because it would be in the US and because they didnt ask me AND because I dont care for it. If Dustin sent me an email tomorrow I could advise him, but I doubt that will happen, so what is the point you are trying to make? It is also easier to see the problems and the right way if you are NOT part of the ongoing daily process, because then you get sucked up into the details and lose the view of the "big picture". My points above about the general problems - which they totally ignore so far - should show that easily. | ||
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Steelo_Rivers
United States1968 Posts
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wcr.4fun
Belgium686 Posts
On November 22 2012 07:25 LgNKami wrote: People dont understand that it took years to balance Vanilla SC (well... the balance for vanilla WAS bw. lol) and BW. I feel like people are expecting Sc2 to be perfect off the bat and HotS to follow suit. It just doesnt work that way. People need to stop and just give it some time. Considering there is another expansion coming out, I don't see sc2 being balanced anytime soon. It may be "close" to being balanced after LotV comes out but even then thats wishful thinking as its going to have to take cooperation from both Blizzard and the Mapmakers to make a decent game, not 1 or the other. sc vanilla only "existed for a year" and bw's last balancing patch was 1.08.. | ||
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GARcher
Canada294 Posts
On November 22 2012 07:25 LgNKami wrote: People dont understand that it took years to balance Vanilla SC (well... the balance for vanilla WAS bw. lol) and BW. I feel like people are expecting Sc2 to be perfect off the bat and HotS to follow suit. It just doesnt work that way. People need to stop and just give it some time. Considering there is another expansion coming out, I don't see sc2 being balanced anytime soon. It may be "close" to being balanced after LotV comes out but even then thats wishful thinking as its going to have to take cooperation from both Blizzard and the Mapmakers to make a decent game, not 1 or the other. The mapmakers are having problems because of the stupid ideas for units blizzard is putting out. It is a vicious cycle. | ||
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Treeborne
United States4 Posts
When you have so many people playing the game at an extremely high level, it's impossible as a designer to completely predict how different elements will interact with one another. Think about when we saw MKP first split his marines against mass banelings in the GSL. It was breathtaking and spectacular because nobody foresaw that occurring. Dustin even later commented that all the designers were shocked because none of them thought marines could be used in that way. Or to think even farther back, remember when julyzerg first popularized muta stacking? That fundamentally changed the way BW was played and was so groundbreaking that Kespa even debated on whether to ban its usage. So when Blizzard introduces a unit or ability in beta, it's because they want to see what the community can make of it and not because it's something they believe is complete in its design. That's the entire point of having a beta. That's not to say they just toss random ideas in and leave everything else in the hands of the players, but they do understand that every change that they make has farther reaching consequences than they could possibly imagine. Which also legitimizes their slow and minor patch approach. Why patch something that is just unexplored, not broken? TL;DR: In the end, human ingenuity and desire to succeed is what ultimately balances a game and not the rules laid out by the game designers. So before we go around hurling insults and pointing fingers, lets just give the game time (as the OP has pointed out) and let Blizzard and the players go to work. | ||
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EienShinwa
United States655 Posts
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Jimbo77
139 Posts
WoL and HotS are dead children. | ||
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