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Dustin Browder Interview - April 12 - Page 11

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Half
Profile Joined March 2010
United States2554 Posts
April 14 2010 00:35 GMT
#201
On April 14 2010 08:12 zizzefex wrote:
Btw if some of you clueless people who think you can make a good game by making 'cool units without any regards to balance'..... download Battleforge. It's free and it sucks (yet another bad EA game).

The graphic designers literally make the units, with completely no regard to current/future balance. They draw/create new units, they puts random stats on them with no regard to balance. There is literally 5 useable units per civilization and only 2 that are good... out of like 50... because there is absolutely no regard to balance at all when they create units! So many overlap and so many are completely worthless. And every expansion they come out with 20-30 units per civ... which the graphic designers created without any regard to balance... most of which are completely useless and leaving you thinking wtf!

But hey... it sells copies.


lol nobody said to make cool units without any regard to balance. We said make cool units first, then balance, not make balanced units first, then terribly boring game later.
Too Busy to Troll!
fatduck
Profile Joined April 2010
United States148 Posts
April 14 2010 02:01 GMT
#202
I'm still trying to figure out how a philosophy of "cool units" leads to "no lurkers" :<
good sir, you appear to be somewhat lacking in intelligence. please refrain from posting until this is remedied, since it renders your opinions slightly less than correct and has a tendency to irritate more informed forum-goers
Wintermute
Profile Joined March 2010
United States427 Posts
April 14 2010 02:07 GMT
#203
On April 14 2010 11:01 fatduck wrote:
I'm still trying to figure out how a philosophy of "cool units" leads to "no lurkers" :<


Because in order to add "cool units" you have to remove perfect units.
Don't let me say this, but you're no worse than me; it's crazy.
Karas
Profile Joined March 2010
United States230 Posts
April 14 2010 02:42 GMT
#204
On April 14 2010 11:01 fatduck wrote:
I'm still trying to figure out how a philosophy of "cool units" leads to "no lurkers" :<


Reality is you have to have some out with the old, in with the new.

People are complaining that teh units are getting less cool in the name of balance.....I say welcome to a beta everyone.

In the alpha version of SC, did you know that marines had the infested terran's suicide ability? That's right, every marine was its own baneling! How cool is that!

It was very cool, and imbalanced, so they took it out. Some ideas work out well, other don't.
_awake_
Profile Joined August 2007
196 Posts
April 14 2010 02:50 GMT
#205
thats the alpha of SC1. there's been lots of mention about units that don't have a function in SC2. i don't see any of them taken out because the team is so engrossed with the 'cool' units. why can't people see that the people working on the game aren't the same as the original SC/BW team? not everything will proceed the same way. you can't pretend blizzard will magically fix unit roles and imbalances just because they did it for the original SC.
Spawkuring
Profile Joined July 2008
United States755 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-14 03:11:00
April 14 2010 03:09 GMT
#206
On April 14 2010 11:50 _awake_ wrote:why can't people see that the people working on the game aren't the same as the original SC/BW team?


Because the people who made SC/BW weren't some super-geniuses with 300 IQs and brains of god-like perfection. They were just passionate gamers making a fun game because it's what they love. Let's be honest here: Starcraft's success was in many ways a fluke. Nobody ever expected it to get as big as it did, and while Blizzard had a huge hand in it by balance and design, most of what made Starcraft successful was that many of its quirks, kinks, and flaws just happened to fall into place by a combination of luck and community effort.

Blizzard is going to do everything they can to make this game a success too, but I really don't see why they MUST have *insert random person here* to make it good. You guys keeping bringing up the "old Blizzard team", but do any of you even know who those people are? Do you even know what their names are, or what specific contributions they made to the game, or if they even exist? I just think it's funny that the "legendary old SC team" keeps getting mentioned when I doubt anybody has the slightest clue what the SC1 development process was even like other than "alpha looked bad, then it got better". Never mind the fact that many of SC1's developers are still working at Blizzard, but apparently they don't count for some arbitrary reason.

I suppose the point is that people need to stop mudslinging at the developers. It's not going to help in anyway, and it's unnecessary. SC2 is still in beta, and it's got not one, but two expansions in the horizon to better improve the game. Even at its flawed state, it's still miles ahead of any other RTS, and there's plenty of opportunities for change. Personal attacks achieve nothing.
LunarC
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States1186 Posts
April 14 2010 03:24 GMT
#207
All the design team needed to do is to create overarching goals that would make for a good, complex, strategically deep RTS game. Things like making sure that races retained their identities while allowing for interesting unit synergy, things like making sure that macro mechanics meant investments rather than spammable abilities, and making sure that all units be balanced around micro and army control.

You know, the elements the make Starcraft 1 one of the most entertaining competitive games to watch and one of the most competitive games to play.
REEBUH!!!
sk`
Profile Joined November 2008
Japan442 Posts
April 14 2010 04:42 GMT
#208
Although I work in overall planning now, I've done competitive balance work and I have to say a few of his statements scare me. If I'm reading it right, they didn't think about the overall objective of each unit, race, etc. and just built some cool stuff and wanted to see how it'd play out?
Uh, really!?

He even used the word "hope" in relation to this. Hope is not a strategy. If you go in with no plan your results will show it. To me, this proves the Roach-born problems the game has suffered and Blizzard's inability to overcome them though these patches.

I can't speak for SC:BW, only those people can, but when I look at the original, I sense a strong purpose between each race and thus the unit's purpose to match that. Granted, in the original there are some weird units that don't fit, but I highly doubt it was because they threw a bunch of cool units at a wall to see which stuck.
www.pureesports.com
BanelingXD
Profile Joined April 2010
130 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-14 06:31:29
April 14 2010 06:24 GMT
#209
Browder is the man that ruined Starcraft.

"We didn't have a plan"

FAIL

edit: Looks like more nerfs for Toss are on the horizon too. Guess they won't get any AA till their expansion. Browder sucks.
0 harvesters, 2700 minerals per minute. Mules are totally balanced!
FusionCutter
Profile Joined October 2004
Canada974 Posts
April 14 2010 06:37 GMT
#210
Well. All the original people who worked on SC1 have long gone. Of course the game will have a different flavor.
Eury
Profile Joined December 2008
Sweden1126 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-14 06:51:13
April 14 2010 06:49 GMT
#211
Can the admins start moderating this thread?

Half the people that worked on Starcraft is still at Blizzard. Seriously, people should be banned for posting outright lies.
sk`
Profile Joined November 2008
Japan442 Posts
April 14 2010 07:12 GMT
#212
Eury:
Aside from Blizzard posting themselves, nobody has perfect facts. This site is already borderline elitist... banning people for that seems a little harsh. More importantly, shouldn't the read confirm things ahead of just casually believing everything they take in?
www.pureesports.com
Mora
Profile Blog Joined October 2002
Canada5235 Posts
April 14 2010 07:14 GMT
#213
On April 13 2010 18:01 TerranUp16 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 13 2010 09:36 Falling wrote:Balancing is easy- just have your corresponding/ mirrored units on either side- like pretty much any other RTS- Warcraft II- Elven Rangers vs Troll Beserkers- one has a slight range advantage in range, the other in damage and healing. But basically the same unit with different art. Age of Empires, you have exact same units on either side, but some tech paths are denied. What's hard is balancing un-mirrored units. So the starting point has to be creativity, not balance.

Their method of going in all directions, having 18 units for the zerg and then trimming it down is simply how the creative process works. The sky is the limit for new ideas, churn them out and see how they works. Once you have the ideas, you can start trimming out the bad ideas/ unworkable ideas. It's the same for pretty much any creative process from writing to art. Ideas first, then revision and editing.

I really don't have a problem with Browder's comments at all.


Eh... You're taking a very specific example and then generalizing it. That is, you're taking the example of where developers want to have a sizable amount of very easily balanceable factions- they don't care too much about the factions being unique and in some ways they don't even want them to be too unique because they want players to be able to keep track of the differences- and then you're saying that is the *only* alternative to Dustin Browder's proposal for designing RTS factions/units. That's rather far from the truth.

The more common starting point for a game that aspires to have a few unique races is to determine defining characteristics of each race- what makes them different and in what ways do they/should they feel unique? This process does generally involve having some basic concept of a generic race that perhaps one of your races will fulfill or perhaps none of them will, but either way this generic race has the basics of what all of your races can have in a rather plain fashion. This race is never detailed, but the broad view of it, the economic methodologies, basic unit requirements, basic tech requirements, etc... are glossed over. From this base, creating your races is an additive, subtractive, and substitutional process.

This is just one method, but we can explore where it leads us for a bit. Taking StarCraft, we can see that all races share the same, basic economic model where there are two types of resources on the map and expensive, command structures allow harvesters/workers to return those resources for usage. In their harvesting roles, the workers are identical. However, workers can also construct buildings, and here they diverge, giving each race a different feel. Drones' sacrificing of themselves to construct structures is offset by their production methodology which allows them to be produced more rapidly (alternately, the sacrificing of Drones offsets Zerg's production methodology to minimize their immediate potential to gain an undue economic advantage). Along parallel lines, Zerg's pruduction is streamlined to their command structures (Hatcheries) to minimize the amount of Drones they need to sacrifice to produce units and tech up. Chicken and egg scenario (shrug). Meanwhile, Terran and Protoss workers have their own construction quirks to further racial identity.

Looking at the first tier of combat units we have Zerglings, Zealots, and Marines. All three are very different but fill the same initial role of being the first combat units out the door, requiring no gas to produce. Terrans prove very different here because their starting combat unit is ranged and it immediately begins to establish their identity as having copious glass cannons (the Medic was added in Brood War to extend the utility of these particular glass cannons beyond the early game). Also noteworthy is that the SCV's extra health was not only to cover for that the SCV was the only worker that needed to remain alive throughout a structure's construction in order to complete, but also because Terrans have no access to a melee combat unit until the Firebat (which requires gas) and by amping the SCV's (non-free-regenerable) health it can be used as necessary to protect the glass cannon Marines at the expense of not being used to mine/construct (so we can already see that the increased health SCVs have is synergistic in three ways- whether this actually happened by chance or by design we don't care because if we're looking at actually designing the Terrans, these are racial identity questions that we want to ask and solve- we want to ask, "How should our workers for this race construct buildings? Should workers for this race be more or less viable in combat than workers of another race? How does this race handle hp regeneration, and knowing that how do we want this unit to handle hp regen?"). With the Zergling, we get a more "standard" starting unit that is melee, cheap, and relatively weak. However, we see that this fits the Zerg race well because it produces quickly and is nicely massable and thus uniquely fills our requirements for the race's starting combat unit. And finally we have the Zealot, which to fulfill the racial vision for the Protoss needs to be expensive but powerful, so it ends up costing twice as much as the "generic" unit here but it has quite a bit more durability and attack power than its cousins. It's quite notable that we could consider a Zealot to be an expensive, suped-up Zergling to which many here will reel with horror again, but that's all it really is when we look at its stats, but when we put those stats in context we find it to be a rather wholly different unit. However, it's not particularly "cool" or overwhelmingly "unique", it just fulfills a role for the Protoss army in a "Protss-y" manner.

We could go through all of the units in StarCraft, but that would be a rather long post

It may be a bit more helpful though to take a brief look at a completely different game. Dawn of War 2 (oh no, more squeals of horror!) homoginizes its races a fair bit more than StarCraft does as DoW 2 (Dawn of War 2) seeks to streamline the macro components of its game mechanics, leaving all races with rather identical macro mechanics and tech trees. This rather harshly simplifies the more overarching elements of racial identity that StarCraft draws from, and thus much more emphasis is placed on the units (on a side note, I will say that DoW 2 has nowhere near the macro depth of SC or SC2, but the macro depth it does have is sufficient for its purposes- the lack of base-building is not much of an issue as it makes up for it in other ways and it does specifically put more emphasis on micro than macro as well as much of its macro resulting from micro)- and the setting is the Warhammer 40,000 universe, so the races really do need to feel and play very differently for the game to have any chance of successfully representing its source material.

DoW 2 solves its problems by keeping a loose structure for the units of all of its races, to the point where Relic really doesn't seem to care that the Predator Tank is more or less present in Space Marines, Orks, and Chaos Space Marines. The loose structure provides a base for balance, as well as base for Relic to craft the method in which each race fulfills its roles. Space Marines have no T1 melee unit (I consider Assault Space Marines T1.5 because they require a sizable amount of power; for those not familiar with DoW 2, power functions somewhat similar to Vespene as the secondary resource that plays a big role in teching and sustaining advanced units) but they compensate for this with a very durable T1 staple ranged unit (Tactical Space Marines) and a fast T1 support ranged unit that can be upgraded to provide substantial microable counters to melee units (Shotguns and/or frag grenades). On the other hand, Orks have a pretty standard T1 set-up with two staple units, the melee Sluggas and ranged Shootas. Sluggas get their twist by being extremely powerful and durable in melee combat and being rather cheaply reinforcable, and they're downright deadly in numbers. Shootas on the other hand are pretty weak ranged units, but in large numbers and well-upgraded they can be dangerous (rarely ever a threat to Tactical Space Marines though) to many units from many races- they represent the wonky kinda glass cannon side of Orks despite that cannon isn't super powerful with enough of them it could be just powerful enough maybe while Sluggas are the more durable, in-your-face side.

However, the remaining three races have a similar T1 set-up, as Eldar have Guardians and Banshees (ranged and melee respectively), while Tyranids have Hormagaunts and Termagaunts (melee and ranged respectively), and Chaos have Heretics and Chaos Space Marines (melee and ranged respectively). The cost differences between these are far less drastic than the cost differences between Zerglings and Zealots, but nonetheless Hormagaunts control, feel, and are used much differently than Ork Sluggas, proving quite less durable but more lethal when they are in a winning battle. Howling Banshees for Eldar are similar in this respect, but more able to stand and fight yet being more expensive and glass cannon-y. The only two unit sets that really feel at all similar are Shootas and Termagaunts and Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines- the latter two are obvious but while they start similarly, they diverge a fair bit in the later game while Shootas and Termagaunts tend to differ a fair bit less on a unit level but diverge more on a racial level as other units and race elements (for example the very powerful Nob leaders that can be added to Shoota squads while Termagaunts rely on ranged synapse to provide this buff; this reflects Orks as still being a somewhat mass-y race but being stronger than Tyranids individually while the Tyranids rely more on thier hive/swarm style) combine to diverge them.

The core of the above point though about DoW 2 is that when looking at even the most basic units, they're all very similar in role, but they nonetheless *feel* different and further the uniqueness of their race.

And the point of all of that in relation to StarCraft 2 is that units do not need to be any less unique because they began their lives as just roles for a faction rather than as completely "unique and awesome units". When starting from the basis of the role, we pretty much know that a unit is going to work, and that it's just a matter of tweaking and tuning that particular unit to feel unique and different and to further the race's identity in a balanced way.

Now, it is also noteworthy that Blizzard's method of creating units first and then slapping them into the races and putting them through a trial by fire can produce the same results, and perhaps even better results because you may find that you can get away with some unique concepts that through a more traditional, "safer" development model you would have discarded. The key though is that you have to commit to this, "shotgun design", as NicolBolas I believe put it. For it to work, you need to accept that it's only a little better than using Random Sort on a list (for those who don't know what that is, imagine that you have all 26 letters of the alphabet in a line but they're out of order and you need to sort them so that they are in the proper order; with Random Sort, you basically just move a random letter to the first slot, another random letter to the second slot from the remaining letters, etc... until every slot has gotten its random letter; you then check it and if you sorted correctly then woohoo you're done; if not you do it again; Random Sort could potentially sort the letters properly the very first time it's run... or it could be run an infinite number of times and never work because it's completely random; shotgun design is slightly better than Random Sort because you are bringing some foreknowledge into your design and that will influence what you do, but it's still not nearly as consistent as coming in with a proper plan; however, like with Random Sort, it could work the very first time you try it or it could take thousands of tries to get it right), and you need to stick with it. If something isn't working, you have to be prepared to completely scrap it and try again.

The problem, again as others in this thread have recognized, is that Blizzard is not really following this method of design. They are putting firing limits on their shotgun and restricting its targets. For some reason or another, they are marking various units as "safe" and are focusing in on trying to balance those units rather than just scrapping them and trying a completely new design. Some balancing is fine and even necessary, but we're literally seeing units such as the Roach, Marauder, Thor, Mothership, etc... being completely transformed in the balancing process. They're really not the same units anymore, and yet in the process of being transformed, they haven't really been crafted to be "unique" or "awesome" either. Instead they've lost a lot of their "uniqueness" and "awesomeness" and this is why, when you're going to be doing a lot of balancing like this, you don't necessarily want the units to be "unique" and "awesome" to start with because it's much easier to add those elements in after the core elements of the units have been balanced. However, as mentioned, Blizzard's design style is *supposed* to sidestep this because the second a unit starts receiving major revisions, it should be completely redesigned and overhauled from the ground-up.

On top of Blizzard haivng taken a liking to the Thor, Mothership, Roach, Marauder, etc... they also seem to be struggling with an identity crisis of trying to make SC2 appear different from SC1 as much as they possibly can without making it too different. This is leading them to plant their heals on issues such as the Hydralisk being in T2 instead of T1/T1.5, which in turn is forcing them to cram what had been a unique unit into a void left by the Hydralisk, to fulfill a decent set of its roles despite that the Hydralisk still exists. Imo, moving the Hydralisk back down to T1.5 and rebalancing it for that as well (for the inevitable complaint about Hellions, consider that you'll be able to get more Hydralisks out earlier and that if you don't over-clump your Hydralisks and that if you leverage Hydralisks' range to force Hellions to move into range of Spine Crawlers in order to attack your Hydralisks [and you consider Spine Crawlers' ability to... crawl... so they can temporarily block ramps as necessary] I think you'll find that you can micro your way out of Hellion harass which I think is what we wall really want since that makes the game more entertaining to watch and more entertaining to play), and then moving Roaches up to T2 and rebalancing them for a less-massable role there would allow Roaches to resume many of their "unique" and "awesome" design elements, but Blizzard seems to refuse doing this and instead is intent on nerfing Roaches into a proper, massable T1/T1.5 role that is completely not what they were originally designed for.


excellent, excellent post.
Happiness only real when shared.
Eury
Profile Joined December 2008
Sweden1126 Posts
April 14 2010 07:17 GMT
#214
On April 14 2010 16:12 sk` wrote:
Eury:
Aside from Blizzard posting themselves, nobody has perfect facts. This site is already borderline elitist... banning people for that seems a little harsh. More importantly, shouldn't the read confirm things ahead of just casually believing everything they take in?


You go to mobygames, check the credits for Starcraft 1, then you check where they work today. People are posting bullshit and lies out of sheer hatred. Why they are still on this forum when they apparently hate the game and those that created it I don't know.
furymonkey
Profile Joined December 2008
New Zealand1587 Posts
April 14 2010 07:22 GMT
#215
On April 14 2010 11:50 _awake_ wrote:why can't people see that the people working on the game aren't the same as the original SC/BW team?


Remember Bill Roper?

Taken from wiki
Roper served as a Vice President of Blizzard North and was a Director of Blizzard Entertainment from 1994 - 2003. He oversaw and managed all external projects, coordinated internal development teams, and headed Blizzard's project oversight teams where he was instrumental in shaping the direction of the company's games.

Bill Roper worked directly on numerous million-selling games in varied producer positions and played a key role in the success of the Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo franchises


He left Blizzard and co-founded the Flagship Studio, which made the game Hellgate: London. Many Diablo fans had high hope for that game, however the game turned out to be a major failure, even Bill himself admits that.

What I am trying to say here is, talent itself isn't enough. Not only you will need alot of talented developers, producers. You also need the support and the backing of the whole company, the boards, the publisher. A good working enviroument will encourage high productivity, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go check out Blizzard HQ's photos. There are also other factors involved but I think the most important thing is, they love what they do, and flexible enough to try new things.
Leenock the Punisher
sk`
Profile Joined November 2008
Japan442 Posts
April 14 2010 07:30 GMT
#216
Fury:
Well... that's exactly my point... talent is meaningless if it is proceeding without a plan. Best ship in the world won't reach its port without a map.

Browler's interview indicates they left without a map. This explains a lot of what's wrong with the game. If they really want SC2 to surpass SC:BW, then they should bring it back to zero, make the map, and then sail again. I'm willing to wait... so far the beta has yet to light me on fire and I end up playing more SC:BW each night.
www.pureesports.com
Falling
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada11349 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-14 08:01:52
April 14 2010 07:31 GMT
#217
On April 14 2010 15:24 BanelingXD wrote:
Browder is the man that ruined Starcraft.

"We didn't have a plan"

FAIL

edit: Looks like more nerfs for Toss are on the horizon too. Guess they won't get any AA till their expansion. Browder sucks.


Ruined Starcraft? Really? Are you in Beta? Maybe it's not perfect and it's not Brood War level yet, but it's a darn fun game that requires macro, micro and strategic thinking. Hardly a game that's been 'ruined' single handedly by one guy, much less Browder.


On April 14 2010 12:24 LunarC wrote:
All the design team needed to do is to create overarching goals that would make for a good, complex, strategically deep RTS game. Things like making sure that races retained their identities while allowing for interesting unit synergy, things like making sure that macro mechanics meant investments rather than spammable abilities, and making sure that all units be balanced around micro and army control.

You know, the elements the make Starcraft 1 one of the most entertaining competitive games to watch and one of the most competitive games to play.


The bolded part has come up a few times by different people as though Blizzard completely threw out the 'feel' of the three races when they went to the unit drawing board. Does anyone really think that? All three races are quite distinct and as far as I can tell retain their original identity.

I actually think Blizzard had more goals than just limitless creativity- only Browder didn't mention them because the focus was on the creativity. But I don't think his strong statement "So it was never our intention specifically to do anything exactly with the races. Our goal was to make the units as interesting as possible and as different from one another as we possibly could." Necessarily excludes other factors. Obviously the Zerg do not have any robotic technology- this is a limit. But it's a limit that is not at all mentioned. In fact we could freak out and say that because they never intended to do anything specific with the races, therefore Blizzard was planning to make the Zerg go robotics. He didn't mention it, so they weren't doing it. I see it as a summary of the creative process, not an exhaustive detailing of exactly how they came up with their units.

In addition, I think they did have roles in mind when making their 'cool' units. The Broodlord is quite clearly a long range bomber, the Sentry a low tier caster. Sometimes the role changes. Sometimes the role is difficult to find (Thor). You could argue that some should be axed. But part of the Beta is also making sure the units actually function in their distinctive roles.
Moderator"In Trump We Trust," says the Golden Goat of Mars Lago. Have faith and believe! Trump moves in mysterious ways. Like the wind he blows where he pleases...
Eury
Profile Joined December 2008
Sweden1126 Posts
April 14 2010 07:38 GMT
#218
On April 14 2010 16:30 sk` wrote:
Fury:
Well... that's exactly my point... talent is meaningless if it is proceeding without a plan. Best ship in the world won't reach its port without a map.

Browler's interview indicates they left without a map. This explains a lot of what's wrong with the game. If they really want SC2 to surpass SC:BW, then they should bring it back to zero, make the map, and then sail again. I'm willing to wait... so far the beta has yet to light me on fire and I end up playing more SC:BW each night.


A game can't be for everyone. Not everyone switched over to Starcraft from Warcraft 2 either. Maybe you are one of those people.

And you are dumb if you think they have no clue about what they are doing. Blizzard design around fun and game play. They do things over and over again until its right. That's what they have done in SC 2, and that's how they have always operate. They never have used some kind of a master plan that says exactly this is how the game will be X years into the future.
sk`
Profile Joined November 2008
Japan442 Posts
April 14 2010 07:50 GMT
#219
Eury:
I can only go by what he's said in that interview, which he clearly says, they had no initial plan.

As a developer, I have nothing but respect for Blizzard... and I do have faith in SC2... but... yeah, moving on.

You can never predict how things will pan out; however, that has nothing to do with your original plan (at least, for something like an RS). Those minor things can be addressed in patches (and are). However, the concept of "Zerg should play like N, in order for them to behave like N they will need units like X,Y, and Z. Units like X,Y, and Z will have balance issues if P,Q, and R, therefore..." and it goes on and on.

But, patching your way to happiness isn't a solution. It is wonderful for people who love a game and stick to it (folks like us), but for the laymen, the first impression is everything. If you want SC2 to be huge, it needs legs without excessive patching.

In short, the "Roach" thread highlights the problem. A cool unit was made, which created a balance problem, thus units to counter it were needed; however, those too created balance problems and the cycle continues. Had the team started with "Zerg should behave like N and thus need unit X." It wouldn't have been the same.

For example, in BW did anyone every say, "Man, if only Zerg had a short-mid range meat shield unit named after an insect." Hu? No. Effectively, they had that in the Ultra, bringing it down to T1.5 does what for the race?

SC2 has no shortage of examples like that and they all stem from the same point. No plan. Throw it at the wall and see what sticks...
www.pureesports.com
Eury
Profile Joined December 2008
Sweden1126 Posts
April 14 2010 08:03 GMT
#220
SK, If you are really a developer you would know that you can't create a project without any planning or plans. It's just not possible.

What Browder means is that they don't plan that every race should have X amount of units, and the specific units should be exactly what they planned beforehand. They aren't very rigid when it comes to game design, hence the reason why they are very inefficient when it comes to time and it takes years before they have a product. But this is how they have always worked, even with Starcraft.

Starcraft 2 is already fantastic, and might already be better than Brood War. I know for one that I can't never go back, and if they released the game today I wouldn't really mind. Of course there is still work to be done, but I'm confident that they will get there. You see not everyone feels the same about Starcraft 2 as you.
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