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On October 31 2009 07:24 Gnarg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2009 03:38 ix wrote: - How do you know their team isn't experienced enough? This is the conclusion to my belief that they're using gimmicks too much, if they were sufficiently experienced at designing competitive games they would understand the danger of gimmicks and have avoided them. Another thing that leads me to believe this is the Thor. They are emotionally attached to it and obviously want it in while it lacks a role. That's terrible game design. The role comes first, you fill it with something that fits, you don't make something you like then figure out where to put it. You make some good points, but I just can't take you seriously when you are this arrogant. Seriously fix that attitude. Your work on some random quake 3 mod I have never heard of doesnt impress me nearly enough that you can make these kind of claims about blizzard. Either back up your claims with some respectable history and experience of your own or lose the attitude.
Any respectable person in game design will tell you that role comes first.
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On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: OK some things I'd like to see addressed:
- Why is Blink more of a gimmick than, let's say, the Lurker being unable to fire unless it's burrowed? Or than cliff-jumping? Or than the reaver having to build his ammunition? Or than the siege tank having to switch between siege and tank mode? Because Blink is new. The original Starcraft was perfect, you see. It was just right. Don't you dare compare the gimmick that is Blink to the gameplay-defining elements of SC1!
Because this is the internet, I feel this is necessary: Yes, I was being sarcastic just now.
On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: - Do you think the BC, Archon or Ultralisk were added for different reasons in SC1 than the reasons they added the Thor to SC2? I would imagine all four of the above units were added for the simple reason that they "were cool". Actually, I do think the Thor was added to SC2 for a different reason: 1. With the removal of the Goliath, Terrans needed a new anti-air, ground-based unit. 2. With the inclusion of the "Massive" unit tag, the devs probably felt the Terrans could also use a ground-based Massive unit (like the Colossus for the Protoss and the Ultralisk for the Zerg). This has actual gameplay implications- for instance, the Phoenix cannot lift units with the Massive tag with its Graviton Beam. 3. A huge robot could be cool.
Given these reasons, they wanted the Thor to exist. They probably weren't quite so sure what they wanted it to actually do (I remember it was originally an "assault" unit, made for spearheading attacks on enemy bases, that its weakness was its slow turning speed, etc), but they're getting there.
On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: NE: Mountain giants Chimaeras (somewhat) Hippos (somewhat)
Every hero is used at least sometimes, in some matchups. The Priestess of the Moon and Keeper of the Grove don't see a whole lot of action.
On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: HU: Uh... None? All heroes are usable even if the Paladin is somewhat rare and only vs UD (I think). Blood Mage is the least-used hero here.
On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: Orc: Taurens are kinda rare I guess. Headhunters
All heroes are used even though the Farseer is kinda rarer these days, and the TC is mostly used vs Talons I think. Headhunters aren't all that rare, you see them quite a bit against Undead players who go for Destroyers or Banshees w/ Possession. The Shaman, Witch Doctor and Tauren units are very rarely used. All the Orc heroes get to see some degree of action.
On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: UD: Necros are quite rare I suppose.
The dreadlord doesn't see much use. This is about right :p
On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: Terran: Ghost Valkyries (were near completely unused up until last year~) BCs (somewhat rare) Agreed.
On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: Protoss: Scout Dark Archon (seems to becoming somewhat less rare these days) Agreed.
On October 31 2009 10:14 FrozenArbiter wrote: Zerg: Queen (less rare recently) Infested Terran I'd add the the Devourer to that list, and give a CBNC mention to the Guardian.
All in all, I like how Starcraft plays out much better in terms of unit choices, unit counters, etc. Synergy between different units is a good thing. In Starcraft, if a Terran player masses nothing but tanks, a Protoss player will run him over with Zealots, while a Zerg will do so with Mutas. If a Zerg player masses nothing but Zerglings, a Terran player will roast him with Firebats and a Protoss player will melt them with Archons. If a Protoss player masses nothing but Carriers, a Zerg player can counter that with a combination of Plague, Ensnare and Scourge, and a Terran player will... uh... let me get back to you on that one.
I guess the unit that was meant to counter the Carrier is the Ghost, but most Terran players don't use 'em because they're such a bother to manage. Still, there's many more situations in WC3 where just massing units of one type is extremely effective:
- NE goes mass Talons against Orc. This is so effective, it's actually the standard NE strategy in this matchup.
- UD goes mass gargoyles against NE.
- Human goes mass towers consistently.
- Orc goes mass Raiders against anything and everything.
Heroes and spell immunity make this problem worse. As a human player, if you see your Elf opponent go Warden / Panda for instance, making any unit other than Spellbreakers is futile, because only spell-immune units stand a chance of surviving the spells of those two heroes- regardless of which units the NE makes.
WC3 is still a competitive game that requires a lot of skill to play at the very top level. I just wish army compositions involved less massing and more diversity.
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Sweden33719 Posts
The Priestess of the Moon and Keeper of the Grove don't see a whole lot of action.
Yeah but they have some matchup specific use so I didn't feel they were in the category of say, scouts or the dreadlord.
IE KotG is reasonably popular vs Orc when doing a huntress build, and the Potm sees some use in Ne vs Ne mirror.
Blood Mage is the least-used hero here. Well, Roh-Jin Wook (aka Michael) has been using it a ton lately so I'm hoping it will become popular Super fun hero.
Also I agree with what you say about DoTTs, they make me hate orc vs ne (that, and Spirit Link, meaning nothing dies...). HU vs Orc is a sweet matchup at least (priests, sorcs, breakers, mortars).
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Intentional derailment?? The topic is clearly about SC2 development on gameplay and the above posts are talking about matchups in WC3 O_o
On-Topic: I can live with SC2 having a couple of "fuck you" units (aka ceremony)
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Sweden33719 Posts
Well the OP talks about WC3 having un-used units and set tech patterns...
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OK, I've read through most of the thread and I'll add a point: SC:BW is full of hack rules. The fact is that they work. EMP was created to hack the PvT imbalance (imagine a heavy Archon army walking up to tanks without EMP to help... *ouch*), Scourge were created as a pure hack to not allow air units to smash through Zerg defenses and help secure the Zerg superior mobility, D-Web, mutalisk stacking, etc, etc, etc. The beauty of it is that it manages to balance them very well. Sure, DAs, Scouts, Zerg big-air and Queens, Ghosts, Valks and BCs are rarely used, but still, overall, the beauty is that the hack-imbalances are what give it all of it's character as opposed to Red Alert (which was released at that time more or less) which tries to be as standardized as possible.
I trust the Blizzard crew to manage to balance stuff out relatively well. In fact, I think that given a chance, they can do a better job than the original. It will not be the same game, for sure. But considering that the original game was insanely complex and with all kinds of weird stuff compared to the competition at the time, there is no reason to believe that they will fail. WC3 is perhaps their least balanced game in the last 15 years, during which they canceled a game that was ready because they were not pleased with it (WA, the plot of which went into WC3). Do you understand how insane that record is?
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
Many seem to be oblivious that there is serious math behind RTS design and its balance, the tweaking, the trial and error that happens afterward is to offset human creativity, rule exceptions, bugs and their abuse..
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It is not always obvious what is a gimmick rule and what's pure, especially when a game is new you are throwing a lot of rules into the whole. Those rules then start to interact and you strip out bad ones, the rules that become simple and general are pure rules, gimmick rules perpetuate special cases and knock-on effects. I have described what a gimmick rule is: it is a special case rule that makes a part of the gameplay respond in the way the designer wants without using the main existing rules. Then it is usually observed that the nature of this rule creates further rules to govern its interactions.
The new macro mechanics (not to start a debate on their worth) are the perfect example of a hack rule. It's a new rule added on top of the pure rules of economy to get a specific function (the return of a link between action investment and economy after the change to user interface of autorally). So we have a designer aim and bolt on rules to get the behaviour wanted rather than using the pure rules of worker number, mineral return etc that already exist.
Detection is a pure rule in SC: it is governed by the same rules in every case, it's one of the basic parts of SC, every race has permutations of its use. If someone showed you a new detection interaction unit it would be a simple explanation as to how it works, compare that to describing the new maco mechanics: every single one requires individual explanation at length. This is another indication that a rule is a poor and probably gimmicky one: that it takes a long time to describe its interactions and they are set by the rule rather than being the logical consequence of interaction between existing simple rules.
The shallowness and simplicity of WC3: let's walk through all of the tech paths for Orc in Solo. The matchup almost doesn't matter.
Hero: Blademaster - there is no almost no variation in 1st hero choice, BM first is best. 1 Barracks - there is no variation, you will get a barracks, you will not get any more barracks. No consideration of 2 rax as the strategy is never viable. Shop - you might consider shop before starting tech 2 or after but the vast majority of the time it's taken before. You'll certainly have the shop soon after starting tech 2 otherwise so very little meaningful variation. Tier 2: 2nd hero is the only real choice that exists, do you choose Shadow Hunter or Tauren Chieftain? This depends on the race and opponent's heroes plus how you feel like playing. Get Beastiary for Raiders with Ensnare and a Kodo. Get Spirit Lodge for Spirit Walkers with spirit link and the dispel ability. Maybe get 1 Troll mage thing for Watcher Ward.
The timing of the tech choices hardly varies at all, the only real difference being successful harassment at tier 2 of your tier 2 tech buildings by your opponent as you try to construct them.
Stay at tier 2, do not get tier 3, do not make wyverns, shamans, tauren etc. You will have a grunt/raider army with maybe one Kodo and 2-3 Spirit walkers, staying at 50 food most of the time to restock town portals and heal potions etc, then leap to 80 food for the final big fight. This is how most solo games go, corner cases like adding those troll spear troops are pretty rare. Every race has a matchup build, there is very little reference to what the opponent does and knowing your opponent's build doesn't create any metagame choice of a counter build as it usually does in SC (and yet again- I am not the mindless SC fan some of you want to paint me as, I am an FPS player who then played WC3 for many years and have only fairly recently started playing SC, it's a very good game but I don't think the Sun shines out of it nor Blizzard). Other races sometimes have more options but it's very limited and not really based on what the opponent does, NE vs Orc has 2 major builds DH/Beastmaster into either mass Druid of the Claw or mass Druid of the Talon. The Beastmaster solo hero build has pretty much fallen out of favour.
IE KotG is reasonably popular vs Orc when doing a huntress build
That's pretty much fallen out of favour, the KotG is so vulnerable to the Blademaster windwalking, DH is a stronger opening.
Other than Scout which is just rubbish and sucks because it lacks a role, Corsair took its role more effectively nearly all the rarely used SC units are role specific and do get used for that role, the WC3 unused units do have roles but the game is stuck in single build paths so they are not worth making ever or nearly never. When was the last Ghost? Last week in Boxer vs Killer. I'm watching the epic Stork vs GGPlay right now which had plenty of Devourers used.
This is the build order for every matchup. There's one choice in it and the whole of tier 3 is almost irrelevant to competitive games. TFT didn't fix WC3's issues, that it required a massive overhaul and still failed to create a meaningful system of countering and set of builds available illustrate how broken the game design is. They added further bad choices such as Orbs that flatten the strategic choices available, now melee heroes make going fast air much less effective than it should be, medium armour on towers so they are not properly countered by siege units leading to abusive cheeses such as the Human tier 2 tower push (army + towers, not the scrub hidden towers push) that can be extremely had to fight out of, with workers able to repair towers faster than siege units hurt them. Another stupidity was the design of anti-casters which were made so viable and massable in many cases that they don't just counter, they pre-counter, rendering Shamans' tier 3 abilities usually countered by tier 2 units that have already been built anyway, hence Shamans never even being made in the first place.
I didn't attack Blink nor even mention it in the original piece, I have said what the issue will be with it but some of you are strawmanning me as if I laid into it. Why aren't Lurkers a gimmick? What are the pieces that make up the lurker ability? Burrow. The rule for lurkers is that they must burrow to attack, it's just an inversion of the normal burrow rule. That's a normal way to use a core rule, burrow already existed and explaining the lurker rules hardly takes any time at all.
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On November 01 2009 08:32 ix wrote: Klockan3: Yes but flying units had to be heavily balanced on that basis, the difference with Stalkers is that they're also an army backbone unit so you're caught between the balancing needs of super mobility and of a main army unit. This balance isn't hard, just make them balanced with blink in mind and you got the same interesting thing as with terrans early game. Marines sucks till you get the upgrades, stim and medics is if anything just a "gimmick" but it is so loved that you wouldn't dare say anything bad about it. A unit don't need to be super effective the moment you can build it but being able to build it before it peaks gives more strategical options.
Also mutas was a main army unit and they had uber mobility, better than stalkers will have since blink have a cooldown.
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8748 Posts
I agree with FA's assessment that this is a tough topic to discuss without access to even the beta.
This thread: an uneducated hypothesis that can't be tested so it's endlessly speculated.
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On November 02 2009 03:57 Liquid`NonY wrote: I agree with FA's assessment that this is a tough topic to discuss without access to even the beta.
This thread: an uneducated hypothesis that can't be tested so it's endlessly speculated. Yep. After reading the title and the first paragraph of the OP, I just stopped reading. The debate is pointless.
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If the point that the OP had was that having more and more special situation rules makes the game "harder" to balance, than yes, i agree. However, like a lot of the posters here, i agree also that SC:BW was filled with these special situation rules. The game doesn't have to be 100% to the letter balanced to be a decade long hit. The game is continually being rebalanced with patches and new map pools. What blizzard wants is a game that will be fun to play, fun to watch, and has a very high skill ceiling, which translates to future pro play. Even though people will be somewhat miffed because of initial changes from SC: BW, i think these changes will be adopted to be 'standard.'
The game is meant to be part furious action and part strategy. You have players like Jaedong who are mechanically superior and dominate most of the time, but lose because of strategic choices, and players like Stork, who aren't as fast, but because of timing and build orders are successful for a very very long time. It's the stuff that makes stars, and ultimately the stars will drive the popularity of the game just like in sports.
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Vatican City State491 Posts
On October 31 2009 06:45 ix wrote:I didn't say the Thor has gimmicks, I mean it IS a gimmick. Units are logical combinations of the abilities provided by the core rules that create roles for units. For example the siege tank is high range, AOE and damage with a long reload, if you are considering combinations of abilities you will come up with this although probably not the very clever limitation mechanism of siege. It has a role and it has a simple set of abilities that lead to it fulfilling the role. The Thor had a planned role and some complicated design elements to try to fulfill that role that didn't work. Now they seem to be trying to create a role to place the unit in rather than having a role that is suggested by the game and needs filling. Again in maths terms- I think of gameplay rather like some of the tools used in population genetics, one of which is phase planes, a three dimensional surface. We use those to create something called a fitness landscape, this is basically what you get by looking at the Earth's surface from above, hills, valleys and so on. A unit is a peak in the landscape of the core rules of interaction, a place where the combination of certain choices makes sense. A zergling is a simple combination of low cost, low health with high damage and movement. It creates so much depth from such simple elements.
I absolutely agree with ix. It seems that blizzard made some units/spells and tries to put them in game at all costs, instead of putting standard "core rules" units, like low cost zerglings, or high damage and range, but slow tanks etc. Like it all not, starcraft is a lot like mathematics and one could probably try to calculate a "perfect" game. Of course this is very, very hard due to the fact that the game is played by humans who made mistakes and simple luck (my units are put in spot A, while enemy randomly attacks spot B). I think game balancing should be done a bit at the metagame level; all the starcraft spells are mostly damage spells, there are very few "gimmicks".
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On October 31 2009 10:20 Captain Peabody wrote: Nice post. Unfortunately, you don't know what you're talking about.
This.
The problem with separating 'gimmicks' from otherwise 'core' mechanics is the distinction is entirely subjective in the case of a game that is so built around thematics in the first place (humans vs. some advanced technology aliens vs. some advanced genetic lifeform aliens).
As others have already said, when BW first came out, medics and lurkers and so on were definitely gimmicks. Try to go back in time and imagine the first time you see this, and imagine how much it ruins the nature of the original game. In hindsight, things like medics and lurkers were awesome additions, though. The thing is: those gimmicks provide for a lot of diversity in gameplay.
The same goes in general for pretty much anything that will appear in SC2 and the expansions.
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A medic is minus mana, plus health. That's a simple interaction built on core rules, all spells cost mana for a benefit, this benefit is a gain to a very standard trait. A lurker is an inversion of the standard burrow rule, again simple and built on existing parts.
An example of a hack to the rules in SC (because some of you seem determined that I am just an SC fanboy and can't handle differences in SC2) is that Reavers AOE (area of effect) doesn't do any damage to friendlies while siege tank attacks do. A 'pure application' of splash rules would be one rule across the board, we see that siege tanks and mines do damage to friendlies but many AOE units do not. This can lead to an improved game although I think reavers damaging friendlies would have been fine, then perhaps they wouldn't have had to mess up the Scarab pathing AI, an example of balancing via hacking rules instead of core rules.
So there you have an example of how I'd apply what I'm talking about to SC: I'd have balanced Reavers by making the AOE damage everything and left the Scarab pathing AI alone. I know SC is now beyond changing but it would have been the superior approach to balance through clean, simple rules than the messy method Blizzard used.
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On November 02 2009 07:45 ix wrote: An example of a hack to the rules in SC (because some of you seem determined that I am just an SC fanboy and can't handle differences in SC2).
Actually I think the overwhelming opinion in this thread is no one cares. You're theorycrafting on a game in alpha in an attempt to flaunt your sick Quake 3 modding credentials and see walls of text you've written.
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On November 02 2009 07:45 ix wrote: A medic is minus mana, plus health. That's a simple interaction built on core rules, all spells cost mana for a benefit, this benefit is a gain to a very standard trait. A lurker is an inversion of the standard burrow rule, again simple and built on existing parts.
An example of a hack to the rules in SC (because some of you seem determined that I am just an SC fanboy and can't handle differences in SC2) is that Reavers AOE (area of effect) doesn't do any damage to friendlies while siege tank attacks do. A 'pure application' of splash rules would be one rule across the board, we see that siege tanks and mines do damage to friendlies but many AOE units do not. This can lead to an improved game although I think reavers damaging friendlies would have been fine, then perhaps they wouldn't have had to mess up the Scarab pathing AI, an example of balancing via hacking rules instead of core rules.
So there you have an example of how I'd apply what I'm talking about to SC: I'd have balanced Reavers by making the AOE damage everything and left the Scarab pathing AI alone. I know SC is now beyond changing but it would have been the superior approach to balance through clean, simple rules than the messy method Blizzard used. Wow this is just terrible. Actually shouldn't siege tanks be the exception to the rule here? Archon splash, reaver splash, and lurker splash don't have friendly fire because they would absolutely destroy their own armies. Terran can get away with it because their entire arsenal is ranged. I'm glad you didn't work on SC:BW if you want to make reavers kill their own zealots for the sake of following made-up "rules" instead of focusing on good gameplay and balance.
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On November 02 2009 09:34 Tsagacity wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2009 07:45 ix wrote: A medic is minus mana, plus health. That's a simple interaction built on core rules, all spells cost mana for a benefit, this benefit is a gain to a very standard trait. A lurker is an inversion of the standard burrow rule, again simple and built on existing parts.
An example of a hack to the rules in SC (because some of you seem determined that I am just an SC fanboy and can't handle differences in SC2) is that Reavers AOE (area of effect) doesn't do any damage to friendlies while siege tank attacks do. A 'pure application' of splash rules would be one rule across the board, we see that siege tanks and mines do damage to friendlies but many AOE units do not. This can lead to an improved game although I think reavers damaging friendlies would have been fine, then perhaps they wouldn't have had to mess up the Scarab pathing AI, an example of balancing via hacking rules instead of core rules.
So there you have an example of how I'd apply what I'm talking about to SC: I'd have balanced Reavers by making the AOE damage everything and left the Scarab pathing AI alone. I know SC is now beyond changing but it would have been the superior approach to balance through clean, simple rules than the messy method Blizzard used. Wow this is just terrible. Actually shouldn't siege tanks be the exception to the rule here? Archon splash, reaver splash, and lurker splash don't have friendly fire because they would absolutely destroy their own armies. Terran can get away with it because their entire arsenal is ranged. I'm glad you didn't work on SC:BW if you want to make reavers kill their own zealots for the sake of following made-up "rules" instead of focusing on good gameplay and balance.
It doesn't matter what an exception to the rule is. Far and foremost is the concept of splash damage within the game. Now based on that, a few units are given this ability. You even stated yourself that lurkers/reavers/archons do not work with friendly fire because they would destroy their own army. So on top of the core-rule for splash damage you apply a hack-rule as exception exactly for those specific units you mentioned yourself. This is obviously a good thing because it enables you to have splash damage in the game and on top diversifying the unit pool without unbalancing it the entire game. Hack rules are not necessarily bad.
People are too hung up on what is or isn't a core/gimmick/hack-rule. The most important message ix is trying to convey is that a lot of units in SC2 have attributes/abilities which no longer revolve around core-rules of the game. So you need to implement hack-rules for each unit and its abilities, and on top of that counter-hack-rules to balance it out against the other races. You endlessly stack rules on top of each other which don't even interact with core-rules anymore. A hack rule isn't anything rare at all. There are plenty of hack/gimmick-rules necessary just to make the core-rules function across the board. It is very easy to see that having an entire stack of hack-rules just to make something work which was a hack-rule to begin with will be very messy.
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I'd like to point out that even behaviors that same label as hack-rules or gimmicks do in fact stem from core rule interaction. For instance, regarding blink and marauder slow, they interact with a unit's place on the map and a unit's movement speed, both of which are very basic attributes. They are exceptional but they really don't require a new rulebook or a lengthy explanation.
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