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On May 21 2010 20:24 mOnion wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2010 20:20 TeWy wrote:On May 21 2010 19:59 mOnion wrote:On May 21 2010 19:54 TeWy wrote:On May 21 2010 19:46 mOnion wrote:
im really digging the "im terrible but i deserve a vote" argument thats popping up because its HILARIOUSLY stupid.
you should balance the game from the top down. if you balance it at the stronger level, then that balance will trickle down. both bad players wont be able to do their respective strats/whatever.
as opposed to making it balanced competitively but ALSO noob friendly which is just too much to try and tackle, its asking too much and is nearly impossible I think. just silly to think about.
if you wanna be good then get good, otherwise dont expect to get the most out of the game with no effort But the most terrible players are also the most sincere, while the best players are among the most biased. Of course the high level balance should be a priority, but it's not by asking the pro zerg and pro terran what they think of the ZvT MU that you will find who is ahead in this MU. You need neutral players and observers, and with a few exceptions these people can only be Blizzard employees. uh what? the most terrible players are the ones posting the "omg imba qq halp" threads that have been closed over and over while the best players have been posting the well thought out and hyper discussed threads with actual content. Idk if you read the most recent Programers interviews, but for instance pro Zergs say that Terran is on good hands unbeatable and that the the roach's supply change make it almost impossible for Zerg to beat Terran mech, while on the other hands Terrans believe that muta harass transitionning into mass expands and zerglings/banelings is an unbeatable strat and that banelings should be nerfed. Both camps will use their wide knowledge of the game to complexify their opinions and make it seems like the most plausible one, but in the end, these players are only complaining about strats that they want to beat more easily. On the other hand truely bad players will lose to some ridiculous stuffs but wouldn't say it is imba because they know how they suck. Sure a couple of arrogant noobs might try to express their opinions but statistically the casual players are the least likely to care about the balance of the game. The irony of the story is thar the vast majority of the players who do care about the balance wants it to be on their side, no one really gives a **** about perfect balance except neutral spectators/people. your one example really cant compare to the, literally, hundreds that i have. and your assumption that people only care about their race is also pretty farfetch'd, as if there arent random players or people who actually care.
Actually I might have simplified my point too much, the high ranked players do in fact care about the balance, except that their ego manages to convince themselves that their race is the weakest.
I'm obviously talking about general "trend", absolutely not denying that they are a lot of high ranked players who are very interested in a well balanced game but they're indistinguishable from the other high ranked whiners, that's my point.
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i really hope the patching slows down // stops completely after launch, to give the game time to develop. really not fond of the idea of huge balance changes every few weekS
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The reason why pro players won't say "Oh this is imba, nerf it plox" is because the game aren't fully explored yet, people are still coming up with new strategies and solutions.
People should try to find a way around what they are having problems with beating instead of saying that it's imba (i believe i just took this from one of Day9's casts  )
I don't like saying something is imba but forcefield abuse WAS imba, protoss players cry about that they can't do anything and terran is imba etc etc. But then why is Tester the best player on asia(probably in the world too as hes korean) whom plays Protoss, he have said Terran is imba but hes probably biased like the rest of the Protoss players but still. All the top players in Korea are Protoss.
The Void ray nerf wasn't really needed in the latest patch and ultralisks needed a size change aswell not only cool new abilities.
Now that i think of it, Void rays was tearing apart terrans before (i don't know about after) the patch and terrans (afaik) didn't cry too much about it. People might theorize that it takes more to block a void ray attack then executing it but that's just not a valid argument as something as simple as marines can take down void rays.
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If they read this forum, maybe they should read some thread about the micro . . .
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On May 21 2010 20:30 TeWy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2010 20:24 mOnion wrote:On May 21 2010 20:20 TeWy wrote:On May 21 2010 19:59 mOnion wrote:On May 21 2010 19:54 TeWy wrote:On May 21 2010 19:46 mOnion wrote:
im really digging the "im terrible but i deserve a vote" argument thats popping up because its HILARIOUSLY stupid.
you should balance the game from the top down. if you balance it at the stronger level, then that balance will trickle down. both bad players wont be able to do their respective strats/whatever.
as opposed to making it balanced competitively but ALSO noob friendly which is just too much to try and tackle, its asking too much and is nearly impossible I think. just silly to think about.
if you wanna be good then get good, otherwise dont expect to get the most out of the game with no effort But the most terrible players are also the most sincere, while the best players are among the most biased. Of course the high level balance should be a priority, but it's not by asking the pro zerg and pro terran what they think of the ZvT MU that you will find who is ahead in this MU. You need neutral players and observers, and with a few exceptions these people can only be Blizzard employees. uh what? the most terrible players are the ones posting the "omg imba qq halp" threads that have been closed over and over while the best players have been posting the well thought out and hyper discussed threads with actual content. Idk if you read the most recent Programers interviews, but for instance pro Zergs say that Terran is on good hands unbeatable and that the the roach's supply change make it almost impossible for Zerg to beat Terran mech, while on the other hands Terrans believe that muta harass transitionning into mass expands and zerglings/banelings is an unbeatable strat and that banelings should be nerfed. Both camps will use their wide knowledge of the game to complexify their opinions and make it seems like the most plausible one, but in the end, these players are only complaining about strats that they want to beat more easily. On the other hand truely bad players will lose to some ridiculous stuffs but wouldn't say it is imba because they know how they suck. Sure a couple of arrogant noobs might try to express their opinions but statistically the casual players are the least likely to care about the balance of the game. The irony of the story is thar the vast majority of the players who do care about the balance wants it to be on their side, no one really gives a **** about perfect balance except neutral spectators/people. your one example really cant compare to the, literally, hundreds that i have. and your assumption that people only care about their race is also pretty farfetch'd, as if there arent random players or people who actually care. Actually I might have simplified my point too much, the high ranked players do in fact care about the balance, except that their ego manages to convince themselves that their race is the weakest. I'm obviously talking about general "trend", absolutely not denying that they are a lot of high ranked players who are very interested in a well balanced game but they're indistinguishable from the other high ranked whiners, that's my point.
High ranked whiners are much more useful than noobie whiners because a high ranker whiner can actually come up with a legitimate argument. Low rankers say X is imbalanced, fix it! Higher ranked whiners come up with much better reasons and arguements for their points, with legitimate suggestions for improvement that are typically much more thought out. How can you expect somone who isn't even able to play the game properly to find errors in a games balance? The biggest factor in noobs losing games is whether or not the other player is better than them.
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It is literally impossible for any RTS to be balanced at every skill level (unless it is a mirror match-up). I wonder if you actually read what you wrote beforehand.
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I have to agree with the 'listen to the better players' pov, and I say that as one of the worse players. If you're continually losing to something and it has a legitimate counter, it shouldn't be nerfed. You just have to watch the replay and learn from your mistakes. Largely, the reason that you don't see better players suggesting nerfs is because they're too busy figuring out a way to counter.
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I think what OP means is that if Blizz nerfs/buffs aspects of the games derived from feedback from lower-level play then the nerfs/buffs are redundant,obsolete. From what I am perceiving from OP, he is saying that Blizz should only get feedback from higher-level play because they are more skillful in the game and that allows them to use each unit to their best potential.
If nerfs/buffs were distributed based on lower-tier play then "obsolete" nerfs/buffs could be made. Say a unit was thought to be overpowered by lower player. Now what comes to question is whether this lower-level player has used the unit to its full potential. He/she might believe so but they might not have the capacity to do so compared to high-level players.
This logic follows the consensus that you want changes to be decided by/influenced by more suitable candidates. Fellow Americans, and possibly foreigners can relate to this with America's 44th President and its previous.
I read an earlier post that made a valid statement that the majority of players are lower-level players and they make up more of the publice and they are the ones who provide more support to Blizz. So Blizz is justified in adhereing to their needs.
In response I would like to say that this is a game and to get the best results from a game you have to use the best feedback. If Blizzard makes changes based on lower-level play then the patches will just go in circles; the patches will be a reoccurring attempt to fix a balance issue, that was not originally an issue to higher-level players, made by the previous patch; the patches will play ring-around-the-rosie with you.
Now it doesn't mean lower-level players are useless it just means it is more efficient to balance issues with better results. It's like an engineer constructing a bridge; you would want him to use the most accurate calculations possible to build this bridge; you certainly would not want him to use calculations from 5th graders. [I'm not saying all 5th graders won't be able to do calculations important to bridge building, or they aren't capable, I am saying the majority won't know.]
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It's safe to say you guys know more then Blizzard about their own game. Congrats on being so friggin amazing!
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On May 21 2010 20:46 ccdnl wrote:
I think what OP means is that if Blizz nerfs/buffs aspects of the games derived from feedback from lower-level play then the nerfs/buffs are redundant,obsolete. From what I am perceiving from OP, he is saying that Blizz should only get feedback from higher-level play because they are more skillful in the game and that allows them to use each unit to their best potential.
If nerfs/buffs were distributed based on lower-tier play then "obsolete" nerfs/buffs could be made. Say a unit was thought to be overpowered by lower player. Now what comes to question is whether this lower-level player has used the unit to its full potential. He/she might believe so but they might not have the capacity to do so compared to high-level players.
This logic follows the consensus that you want changes to be decided made by more suitable, intelligent candidates. Fellow Americans, and possibly foreigners can relate to this with America's 44th President and its previous.
I read an earlier post that made a valid statement that the majority of players are lower-level players and they make up more of the publice and they are the ones who provide more support to Blizz. So Blizz is justified in adhereing to their needs.
In response I would like to say that this is a game and to get the best results from a game you have to use the best feedback. If Blizzard makes changes based on lower-level play then the patches will just go in circles; the patches will be a reoccurring attempt to fix a balance issue, that was not originally an issue to higher-level players, made by the previous patch; the patches will play ring-around-the-rosie with you.
Now it doesn't mean lower-level players are useless it just means it is more efficient to balance issues with better results. It's like an engineer constructing a bridge; you would want him to use the most accurate calculations possible to build this bridge; you certainly would not want him to use calculations from 5th graders. [I'm not saying all 5th graders won't be able to do calculations important to bridge building, or they aren't capable, I am saying the majority won't know.]
Good post.
I like the 5th grader analogy. Pretty much spot on.
The problem with the internet though is that there is no idea to tell who is the '5th grader' and who is the qualified engineer.
Really all of this isn't anyones fault except for Blizzard. They are making changes based on the wrong information and it can only really be blamed on them for collecting the wrong information and then using it.
Can't blame noobs for bitching but you can blame Blizzard for listening.
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On May 21 2010 20:50 Emon_ wrote:
It's safe to say you guys know more then Blizzard about their own game. Congrats on being so friggin amazing!
Not really an achievement, Blizzard are stupid.
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On May 21 2010 20:50 Emon_ wrote:
It's safe to say you guys know more then Blizzard about their own game. Congrats on being so friggin amazing!
SC1 is the perfect example and this site's been dedicated to that since ages. What's the irony about?
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On May 21 2010 20:51 Necrosjef wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2010 20:50 Emon_ wrote:
It's safe to say you guys know more then Blizzard about their own game. Congrats on being so friggin amazing! Not really an achievement, Blizzard are stupid.
This obnoxiously arrogant attitude is exactly what needs to end. Blizzard isn't stupid. It's not like there's some clear, easy-to-understand unified message coming from this forum that they can implement word-for-word and magically solve all of the game's problems. They try their best to draw on the feedback they get, look at how it compares/contrasts with the statistics available to their balance team, and make changes based on that. Plus, Blizzard is a large corporation where voices of individuals, however correct or important we think they might be, can get lost.
Everyone needs to be more patient and tolerant. As a bonus, it'll help your blood pressure. That doesn't mean don't express your opinion, it just means don't act like the sky is falling the from instant you see each new set of patch notes 'til the time you see the next set.
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Everyone with any sense knows that a game should be balanced from the top down.
That should always be the first priority. Making it fun for lower level players is also a great thing, but is incredibly difficult to do alongside balance, and should be second priority.
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On May 21 2010 20:40 StarStruck wrote:
It is literally impossible for any RTS to be balanced at every skill level (unless it is a mirror match-up). I wonder if you actually read what you wrote beforehand.
Perfect balance is humanly impossible at any skill level when you have units and races and diverse as these. I don't really see your point. Doesn't mean games developers everywhere should stop trying. You can minimise imbalances until someone finds a new one.
Some units are just poorly designed, easy enough for low level players to exploit but only counterable at the top level. While i don't agree with the way blizzard fixes things I like that they acknowledge there is a problem and are at least willing to try different things in the beta stage.
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On May 21 2010 18:50 Necrosjef wrote:I'm a 1600 Plat Player Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not in your post. I'm going to bite anyway. Terran are horrendously overpowered and need a major nerf instead of 'even more buffs'. They win plenty of tournaments, infact I can only think of 1 tournament Terran hasn't won since patch 12 was released. Blizzard are not listening to the top players regarding balance and they seem to be listening to the majority of players(noobs) who are screaming. The voidray change is a perfect example of this. Voidray is/was a perfectly resonable unit. The counter for terran was relatively simple and easy to pull off. Noobs whined, not its nerfed. The real issues that Blizzard has to address in this game are. 1. Terran mech is too strong against Zerg 2. Terran m&m&m+g is too strong against protoss There are other issues but those two are like the elephants in the room at the moment and until they are addressed then I don't see alot of competitions in SC2 that involve Protoss and Zerg players having a chance to win them. Edit: Show nested quote +On May 21 2010 18:43 okrane wrote:
This is a call to all pro players out there. It is you who should be giving out the most feedback, its your voice that needs to be heard. I am talking about the 2000+ platinum players who have a good macro/micro and understanding of the game. Your opinions about what should and should not be changed should be heard on these forums, not the ideas of all the scrubs who have no clue.
Can't really agree more with this statement. If we really want changes we need people like TLO, Dimaga, Nazgul, Idra etc. to say what needs to be done. At the moment noobs are picking and choosing what changes suit them because no one who is really good is giving any feedback or making any posts at all. MorroW is the only one I know of who has came out and said "Terran needs a Nerf, thor is too strong" all of the other pros have stayed quiet while SC2 gets raped.
Couldnt agree more with you! Terran needs a big nerf ASAP, or the whole world will change to T....
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I think blizzard goes about designing game play in a fundamentally wrong way and it has me quite concerned. When blizzard sat down to make the game it is understandable that they wanted to make unique units who had awesome and cool abilities. The problem with many of these abilities even though they might seem cool on paper is that from an RTS-perspective as well as a spectator perspective it makes for bad play. Some examples of this would be
The marauder's slow ability because because of it there is little point trying to use an inferior army to harrass a superior army. If you do, you can be sure to lose many units regardless of your micro or the opponent's lack there off. I
Planetary Fortress: Even though T chooses to sacrifice income for strong defense it is a bad conceptual design because it effectively(yet again) nullifies the opponent's ability to harrass you. It means you can leave your base without having to fear being stabbed in the back by mass weak units like zerglings and so on.
Force Field is another example of a bad design from a conceptual standpoint. The ability makes for bad RTS aswell, because FF is indestructible and can be used in ways that the opponent can do absolutely nothing about. Good FF users can funnel your entire army into small spaces or mess up their unit AI and just rape it without you being able to do anything about it. What makes it even worse is that it can ofc also block ramps and narrow paths, effectively creating unbreakable walls at chokes, yet again making a race safe vs backstab and run-by and so on. Combined with the warp-in mechanics of protoss and the low cost of sentries P can effectively wall off his choke almost indefinietly.
The infestor is a similar problem from a conceptual point of view. Fungal growth is an awesome ability that for sure can deal terrible, terrible damage to the enemy, but the ability is insta-hit and once used it is uncounterable. The units hit can't move and can't shoot. They can do nothing. This makes for bad play: unit abilties should never be uncounterable.
Another example of bad design is the Raven's seeker missile. An ability who's only couter is to RUN AWAY from the battle has little place in a competitive rts. Now, granted, this is from a z player's perspective, and I am ranked at 1800 platinum so I am not a sc2-guru and I might be missing something.
Another thing that makes the game hard to balance is the damage/Armor system. In broodwar you had different damage types (explosive, concussive, normal and so on) and these did different damage to different unit sizes (Small, medium, large). The common denominator for the damage types though, were that at most they could do 100% damage vs a unit. Explosive would do 100% damage vs large units for example). This system was fairly simple and worked perfectly well. It made it easy to balance the units within the game. It also made armor upgrade on par with attack upgrade. In sc2, you have units doing bonus damage vs certain armor types instead. This makes it so that units can do more than 100% damage (Marauder do 10 + 10 damage vs heavy armor and so on) and that makes armor as an upgrade alot less viable than attack. Anyway, I am getting sidetracked so I will round this up.
It is important to note(For the sake of my own ego) that I do not consider any of these units particularly imbalanced within the game itself: I just question the design for them in the first place. I particularly question units having inherited slow abilities and the like, but a close second is the different races' abilities to nullify harrassment. If blizzard wants to make a game that is fun, competiive and long lasting, then they should rethink their conceptual designs for the game.I want the game to be a worthy successor to Broodwar, the best game ever made, I want the game to be in the very least just as competitive and demanding, and I want it to take over the E-sports torch now carried by Broodwar. My apologies if this was a rant, and my further apologies if I in some way annoyed anyone by this post.
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I hope that by release, the frequency of balance patches will drop down to a level so that the player base has enough time to work out all the subtleties of the current build before having to adapt to a new one.
Perhaps patch 12 was actually completely balanced, but we'll never know because we only had a week or two to play with it.
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Needs to be more time between patches, currently they're fixing stuff the player base has 'fixed' themselves just by playing the game. With time, I'm sure the top players will find ways to better fight against whatever is 'OP' currently and it will filter down the leagues to balance whatever match up is deemed imbalanced. For example a tweet from Artosis - "late game vs mech is almost playable with my current strats, early can be hard." He, and other top players, are asking for buffs/nerfs for ZvT, but apparently changing strats are helping. Surely with time the situation will improve even more? Guess we will never find out because it will just get patched weeks after the 'imbalance' is discovered rather than months.
Also I think any patches that do happen should focus on buffing underused units rather than nerfing dominant stuff. This is more 'fun' for all levels of play and still promotes variety. There should be a few months between these patches though.
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imo blizzard probably looks at more forums than just TL. no offense people, so in later years dont go around saying, "oh yeah my post here actually changed the game!"
and christ... farahgrim shut up. you know jack about game design so stop pretending you know better than blizzard. in fact if dustin hadnt said that stuff about the way they designed it, none of us would have even thought otherwise. and and if blizzard people are reading this, than hi.
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