So the new patch changes have arrived and we can all see that they mirror exactly a good majority of suggestions found here on TL forums. I believe these forums, as the official place for Starcraft 2 professional play represent the best place for Blizzard's feedback.
The moderators are doing a good job in keeping the forums not littered with the crap we see on blizz forums and the trolling to a minimum. So, its clear: Blizzard is using these forums to get feedback for their game.
If we look at the changes done in patch 13 we can see all of them addressing concerns stated over and over again on these forums.
Ultralisks get owned by FF: Now massive units destroy FF Zerg Has no Anti-Armored Unit: Ultras are anti-armored Infested Terrans are bad: Infestor has a new spell Omg nerf Void-Rays: Void Rays are now nerfed Omg Terran don't win tournaments: Here, cheaper upgrades
Ok, so this is all fine and dandy, but at the end of the day, we notice that while all the issues above were real concerns, the solutions Blizz took and implemented arent really the most optimal. Just to mention a few:
* The main issue with Ultras was not FF or their damage but their size and survivability against anti-armored units - Completely overlooked. * Even though Void-Ray against terran is a OP strategy in Silver League, doesnt mean the overall range nerf was necessary. * Even though infestor's Infested Terrans was a bad spell, replacing it with Frenzy, a spell that is a single unit buff is again pretty questionable. As is the newest version of Corruption. (This isnt W3, we dont have super strong units which we need to buff. Stacraft is more about masses of units, so give us mass-spells please)
So the conclusion I am drawing is that, even if Blizzard is listening to what we say, the most vocal majority giving back feedback has pretty much no clue about how to give feedback or about the biggest concerns about the game.
This is it. The game is going to be released in a couple months and if we, as a community are unable to identify the major issues with the game and provide correct feedback, the game's dynamics are going to be second grade, at best. Blizzard has a lot of pressure on them. SC1 was sucessful because they were not listening to so many biased feedback and balanced the game inside the vision of their competent designers. Sc2 has a lot of baggage, and the pressure to provide something as epic is weighing down on their shoulders.
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.
More importantly: if you are a 1000 rating silver league player, rocking a whopping 45APM, please abstain yourself from your retarded "this is OP/UP" forum posts, and suggestions about the game. If this is all we provide to blizzard as feedback, then we shouldnt be surprised about the way the game is advancing. One thing is clear, if a game-designer is listening to fans, the game is going down-hill: look at WoW.
Note: I am only a 1300 plat player and I admit to be clueless about what needs and doesnt need to be changed in the game. I just have the feeling that the game, and especially Zerg is heading in a bad way.
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:
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.
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.
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.
How Blizzard explained the buffs to infantry research cost completely confused me. I really have no clue why Terran infantry needs to be stronger.
Well, I don't really know what you're getting at. I think there are employees at Blizzard that are doing nothing but watching the SC2 competitive play very closely. They've even linked VODs of TLO on on the official SC2 Twitter account. I don't see why you think Blizzard only needs feedback from a certain group of players, instead of all of them. I think you are saying that feedback from lower skilled players and confusion are mutual inclusive. People posting in the strategy forums should adhere to SC2 Beta Strategy Forum Guidelines. As long as they do that, the input seems worthwhile to me.
there's been people of all skill levels whining about their pet problem in sc2 since this thing started. frankly i don't think anyone here has any idea how to design a game and if blizzard listens to any of us, this game is screwed.
think about it. people bitched and moaned about 'roach fests', now that the roach got nerfed people are whining about pretty much every way in which it got nerfed and are basically asking for it to be like it was when the beta first launched. every single change blizzard makes is the worst thing to ever happen, and that last 'worst thing' they did? well they had it right then, they should go back to that.
I think there is a problem here. I am not saying your wrong and that some of these nerfs are wrong or what ever. I dont know what should be done or what should not be done, and I will never claim to. But the power of the good gamers is not to know what is balanced or not, their power is to see what is good and abuse it. That is what makes them good players.
They see the system and try to take advantage of it as much as they can. So I dont know if they are the right people to go around. Asking, sure maybe a nerf hits their beloved build but they will either make a new powerful build or change their build to match.
I really think it is to early to call anything overpowered like Necrosjef does, cos there is still so much innovation that can be done.
good players speaking out isnt gonna change anything, theres a real problem with blizzards balance team, or their goals in balancing. its clear they dont even watch high level games, much less listen to high level players or understand whats going on in those games. some of the justifications for the last few patches have been utterly ridiculous. twice theyve mentioned ultralisk's performance in zvz to justify changes. ultralisks have never, ever, been built in a competitive zvz.
i think the vast majority of their changes are based solely on statistics. would explain why theyre so slow to notice it when one race is overpowered early and the other late, as its an obvious problem but it doesnt really show up in win rates if it cancels out. also explains why their patches lag behind the actual balance issues. ya, top players figured out right away that terran was overpowered after patch 12, but it takes a while for that to trickle down through the ranks and affect the overall win rates.
On May 21 2010 18:59 baeracaed wrote: I think you are saying that feedback from lower skilled players and confusion are mutual inclusive.
I think what he is saying is that feedback from lower skilled players is less than worthless.
I agree with him.
Feedback might be worthless but considering also winrates in copper/bronze is definitely not worthless. Blizzard has to balance the game so that it's playable and fun for players of all skill levels and low skill players (the HUGE majority) will leave the game if they are totally crushed in their bronze matchups even if the game is balanced at plat level...
I didn't really care about the cost of the stim pack upgrade + shield upgrades for marines, but reducing the cost... I don't really see why they would need to..
Also, I am 2040 platinum terran player, but I really think void rays need to be nerfed (I still need to play on patch 13 to see how the change affects the gameplay). If I were at 1600 platinum and complaining about void rays, then maybe I should learn some build orders, but I've tried a lot, and although gretorp's ghost build works vs void rays, terran users shouldn't be forced to only use one build for the matchup...the 1rack/1fact/1starport into vikings is like 10~15 seconds too slow.
I'm interested in the changes in patch 13. I still think something should be changed about phoenixes. Perhaps make them research the gravitation thing, but have higher attack damage to air units (so it's more of a anti air unit)
On May 10 2010 23:15 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: this threadpage is so disgusting. never thought sc2 would make TL so much worse in such a short time. dont even wanna think about what will happen after release...
balance discussion seems to bring the worst out in people no matter what. i mean we are in beta. we are lightyears away from having a balanced game. and still people sit on their high horse and flame evryone who even thinks about doubting the balance of their race. i expect that from bnet forums but on TL i thought this would never be that bad.
watched the vods yesterday . as many stated finals were very disappointing in many ways but the rest was great :>
Yes this is beta, let's just ignore talking about balance because everything will somehow magically sort itself out lightyears into the future.
This is what beta's are for. Discussing balance. This is how you proceed into that future you're talking about. Only one being flamed in this thread is the idiot claiming you can 1base mutaling vs toss as some sort of standard strategy. Other than that there's somewhat of a consensus about there being a "problem".
Quite frankly, there are too many lazy morons sitting on their asses this beta using the "future" argument. During the wc3 beta you had top players actually sit and think about the game and give lengthy constructive feedback. This beta top players for some reason decided Blizzard are good enough to sort everything out by themselves while they sit on their asses and play without providing any feedback whatsoever.
Only top players I've seen make an effort are basically the Liquid' guys in their front page editorials. Other than that no one seems to care enough to bother. Of course the game will stay crappy.
I agree. The problem with ultras isn't actually that they're bad. Hell they already rape armored units, no need for +dmg vs armored.
The problem is actually getting to a point where it's safe to transition into ultras.
Bottom line: Building ultras is not safe, ever. There's an underlying problem Blizzard isn't getting. Everything can't be fixed by merely buffing or nerfing a unit.
I'm gonna work on a macro mechanics thread as soon as my exams are over. But tbh, I don't actually think Blizzard will listen. Their philosophy seems to be that their game's foundaments are strong, and all it needs are some tweaks to unit stats.
On May 21 2010 19:08 stalife wrote: I didn't really care about the cost of the stim pack upgrade + shield upgrades for marines, but reducing the cost... I don't really see why they would need to..
Also, I am 2040 platinum terran player, but I really think void rays need to be nerfed (I still need to play on patch 13 to see how the change affects the gameplay). If I were at 1600 platinum and complaining about void rays, then maybe I should learn some build orders, but I've tried a lot, and although gretorp's ghost build works vs void rays, terran users shouldn't be forced to only use one build for the matchup...the 1rack/1fact/1starport into vikings is like 10~15 seconds too slow.
I'm interested in the changes in patch 13. I still think something should be changed about phoenixes. Perhaps make them research the gravitation thing, but have higher attack damage to air units (so it's more of a anti air unit)
It's really not, the 1/1/1 will always work unless you're doing it wrong, plus terran can open thor as another alternative.
as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
i also agree that this isnt wc3... as a 6+ year wc3 veteran i was disappointed to see faerie fire (corruptor's new spell) and bloodlust (frenzy) implemented... these were clearly wc3 style spells and should remain in that relm.. the only single-target spells that really existed in sc1 were lockdown and yamato, which were understandable.. however... wtf is frenzy? can u really imagine that a zerg unit would cast a spell on another zerg unit to make it blood-lusted in real starcraft lore? that's ridiculous... also. infested terrans shouldn't rise from the ground (skeletons in wc3) or drop from the sky (skeletons from wc3).. the only way infested terrans should exist is if they came out of an infested cc or barracks... maybe implement infested zealots .. that'd make it cool too... or the ability to infest actual units instead of throwing these ridiculous egg things..
wc3 mechanics were a nice bring-over (hotkeys mbs automine etc) but wc3 spells are a no-no in the sc2 universe... i hope someone from blizz comes across my post.. b/c this is important... serously.. blood-lusted ultralisks is the last thing we need...
It's really not, the 1/1/1 will always work unless you're doing it wrong, plus terran can open thor as another alternative.
Because Thor is obviously so much faster than Viking, right. Not even to mention that Thor is pretty bad against Void Rays.
Zerg still can't do shit against mech Terran, Terran does still get buffed despite being about the best race in the game, we get cool WoW skills which are only useful for Ultralisks and don't even make them run fucking faster which would be what's actually needed and Ultras get pointless buffs.
I'm sure some of their employees frequent many Starcraft related websites and forums. But I would say that if you really want to get noticed post on the Blizzard beta forums. They will definitely read those often. They also do their own testing as well and they do play their game so I'm sure they arrive at many of the same conclusions as the people who post here regularly.
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
On May 21 2010 19:05 IdrA wrote: good players speaking out isnt gonna change anything, theres a real problem with blizzards balance team, or their goals in balancing. its clear they dont even watch high level games, much less listen to high level players or understand whats going on in those games. some of the justifications for the last few patches have been utterly ridiculous. twice theyve mentioned ultralisk's performance in zvz to justify changes. ultralisks have never, ever, been built in a competitive zvz.
i think the vast majority of their changes are based solely on statistics. would explain why theyre so slow to notice it when one race is overpowered early and the other late, as its an obvious problem but it doesnt really show up in win rates if it cancels out. also explains why their patches lag behind the actual balance issues. ya, top players figured out right away that terran was overpowered after patch 12, but it takes a while for that to trickle down through the ranks and affect the overall win rates.
Yeah, you are right - from our point of view only balance that matters is "competetive level" balance. However, even average noob deserves to have fun and balanced games so Blizz is really trying to please both pros and noobs. We should not forget that there are players beside "hardcore gamers" and some of them may some day become hardcore gamers - but only if something will make them want to play SC2, if the game will be unplayable at lower levels there will be very few new players in the scene and scene will slowly die - very many people quit SC1 because 4/5 pool and zealot rushes were very hard to deal with for weak players
if players are unable or unwilling to learn how to deal with things like that they arent gonna end up being competitive players at all. if you have to give them a crutch to keep them moving theyre just gonna keep going till they hit people who are legitly better and then give up anyway.
1v1's are not meant for people who are competitive but lack skill or work ethic. you're either playing for the fun of it and stick to ums/money maps/dont care if you win, or you're playing to win in which case its your responsibility to learn how to win, given an equal footing. an absolute equal footing, not an equal footing for people with 50 apm and below.
If you look through the threads on these forums you can probably find someone complaining about anything.. Anyway, did you ever consider the complaints and the problems blizzard notices will tend to coincide?
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
oh please.. its not that hard to learn how to build stuff that shoots air against voidrays.. im sorry that according to u a vast majority of battle.net are brain-dead one-dimentional thinkers though..
but if the silvers have it their way i guess we'd be seeing games like supreme commander..where every race is a slight modification of each other instead of havng complete set of different attributes..
go ahead though, having a noob-friendly balanced game won't make silvers any better than they are... itll just make the game easier to a-move.. nobody wants that
SC2 will be just like WoW in the patch aspect. It will have flavour of the week patches and their balance team is a huge giant nerf/buff bat unable to do anything that requires precision. But at least I can look forward to a new game each month after release.
Off course nobody wants that, but nobody wants a game only balanced and fun at platinium level either. That's what good balacing also means : fun and balanced gameplay at all skills levels. But then again, the whole balancing patches thing is a huge failure until now..
I think it's safe to assume that if Blizzard reads forums like these, and I'm sure they do, they are perfectly able to differentiate between a well thought-out argument about game balance/mechanics or whatever and some kid crying about his favorite unit getting nerfed. But it's not only silly to suggest they should ignore the less skilled players because it is them who pay for the production of the game. It is also silly because if the game was only balanced at the top level, but if you let two beginners or amateurs play each other, the beginner terran will always own the beginner zerg or protoss, the game balance would clearly be broken. For example, when the noob who gets the void ray always beats the noob who doesn't and there's no way to counter the void ray at that skill level, something about the void ray must be changed. People with similar skill levels should on average yield similar results with all three races, everything else is imbalance.
On a side note, I also don't know where tomorrow's pros are supposed to come from if no one gives a shit about whether the game works for beginners at all.
There are several Blizzard employees that are posting here, and even Dustin Browder has said in an interview that they read TL, so trying to come up with circumstantial evidence to prove they read these forums for feedback is kind of funny.
It's actually in developers' interests to purposefully introduce overpowered/underpowered dynamics, particularly when they are trying to achieve the sort of progress that was made in, say, SC:BW; in a much shorter period of time.
I could be way off on this, but by way of an example, - by introducing Void Rays with a slightly longer range than they feel is balanced, they could encourage use of that unit and speed up the development and discovery of counters. If none are found, then a decision can be made. If some or many are found, they can also apply changes based on that.
This is probably stating the obvious, I know, but it just seems that a lot of people are not quite understanding what it means to take part in such early stages of development of a competitive game, let alone in the Beta Phase.
On the subject of competitive-level balancing: There simply is no argument to be had here. It's clearly the most logical, most effective and only way to balance a competitive game.
I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
you guys are clearly missing the point... in the scenario that voidrays won every game at a certain skill level.. those protosses would be promoted to a skill level where it'd only work 50% of the time until u reached a hire level where u hav to actually mix up your strategies and use more than one-strat wonders... balancing at the top level works b/c anything below will be promoted until they start losing...
meanwhile those silver players that lose to intial voidray players will still be winning half their games
^That doesn't work because there are 3 matchups, not 1. The player will be consistently winning the imba matchup and, as rating increases, begin losing their other matchups, balancing out their rating but continuing to have a skewed win percentage in the imbalanced matchup. Not only that, it would skew the distribution of races.. lower the level of skill it takes to achieve higher ranks.. basically your theory is dumb.
I really can't imagine Blizz balancing based on complains they saw. No knowledgeable person gives a complaining noob a serious listen. It's much more likely they use statistics to balance. Void Rays were way overpowered on certain maps, even for top level terrans.. I don't think it's a noob outcry thing.
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
Totally agree
People really need to stop with the ''Only 2000+ plat players get an opinion'. It's possible to balance at all levels, and have gameplay scale well.
The vast majority of players are not super skilled. If <100apm players consistently dominate other <100apm players with void rays over thousands of games then there's a problem with void rays.
If starcraft is going to make it big outside of Asia it needs to cater well to players all of skills. If it turns into an elitist circlejerk then people will go back to playing games they actually find fun. Blizzard clearly got the memo so it's time the players work it out too.
On May 21 2010 19:33 EnderSC wrote: I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
At low skill levels, just because there is a strategy you cannot beat, does not mean there is something wrong with the game that needs to be changed. It means there is something wrong with you, and your play style/build order. Learn to counter it and it will be ok.
This is exacly the welfare epics syndrome, seen in WoW. Fans whine that they need epics too, Blizz gives them epics.
We don't need welfare balance in this game. Nor do we need, useless gimmicky abilities/units.
Sc2 and battle.net forums upon release will reek like an abattoir full of retarded children; they look up to blizzard screaming Nerf plz and he will wisper back.
On May 21 2010 19:33 EnderSC wrote: I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
if you care about winning everything that is effective is frusterating. its frusterating as hell when protoss uses forcefield or makes collosus' or does a warp gate rush. on any level. thats not gonna change. silver players are in silver because they dont find a way to deal with it, and theyre gonna stay there cuz even if you fix everything they complain about theyre just gonna run into another wall.
I don't like what you say about silver league players not having a say. The game is for everyone not for pros only and everybody has a right to their opinion.
On May 21 2010 19:33 EnderSC wrote: I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
There's a lot of ways to look at that though.
You say you want this game to be fun to play. Does that mean that it's not fun to play now? If it is fun, what's the problem? If not, then why not?
Is it not fun for you because you don't like to lose? Are you losing because you can't be bothered to learn, concoct, or execute the correct counters?
Is it not fun for you because you are abusing a broken (for the sake of argument) mechanic that makes winning less satisfying/fun?
Only one of the above questions is related to balance. It is also the least likely scenario.
On May 21 2010 19:40 beakermimi wrote: I don't like what you say about silver league players not having a say. The game is for everyone not for pros only and everybody has a right to their opinion.
not when you're forming opinions based off of skewed perspectives. ya the game is hard when you're bad at it. shocker.
On May 21 2010 19:23 IdrA wrote: if players are unable or unwilling to learn how to deal with things like that they arent gonna end up being competitive players at all. if you have to give them a crutch to keep them moving theyre just gonna keep going till they hit people who are legitly better and then give up anyway.
1v1's are not meant for people who are competitive but lack skill or work ethic. you're either playing for the fun of it and stick to ums/money maps/dont care if you win, or you're playing to win in which case its your responsibility to learn how to win, given an equal footing. an absolute equal footing, not an equal footing for people with 50 apm and below.
On May 21 2010 18:59 baeracaed wrote: Well, I don't really know what you're getting at. I think there are employees at Blizzard that are doing nothing but watching the SC2 competitive play very closely. They've even linked VODs of TLO on on the official SC2 Twitter account. I don't see why you think Blizzard only needs feedback from a certain group of players, instead of all of them. I think you are saying that feedback from lower skilled players and confusion are mutual inclusive. People posting in the strategy forums should adhere to SC2 Beta Strategy Forum Guidelines. As long as they do that, the input seems worthwhile to me.
Low level play is always different from the top. Because the players at the top have better control and better game knowledge different strategies work and different types of play are stronger.
Its something that cannot be denied.
If your playing in anything but the top of the game then your probably just a casual player and you have no place having the game balanced for you. For the most part if you learned how to play the game then the things you want balanced wouldnt need to be fixed where as at the top level its a lot harder to magically fix your own problems.
On May 21 2010 19:33 EnderSC wrote: I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
if you care about winning everything that is effective is frusterating. its frusterating as hell when protoss uses forcefield or makes collosus' or does a warp gate rush. on any level. thats not gonna change. silver players are in silver because they dont find a way to deal with it, and theyre gonna stay there cuz even if you fix everything they complain about theyre just gonna run into another wall.
I have to disagree, silver players are silver because they have insanely bad macro. I played zerg, from silver to gold and compete for lower platinum and only recently have i actually had to think strategy rather than simply out produce my opponent.
On May 21 2010 19:33 jtype wrote: It's actually in developers' interests to purposefully introduce overpowered/underpowered dynamics, particularly when they are trying to achieve the sort of progress that was made in, say, SC:BW; in a much shorter period of time.
I could be way off on this, but by way of an example, - by introducing Void Rays with a slightly longer range than they feel is balanced, they could encourage use of that unit and speed up the development and discovery of counters. If none are found, then a decision can be made. If some or many are found, they can also apply changes based on that.
This is probably stating the obvious, I know, but it just seems that a lot of people are not quite understanding what it means to take part in such early stages of development of a competitive game, let alone in the Beta Phase.
On the subject of competitive-level balancing: There simply is no argument to be had here. It's clearly the most logical, most effective and only way to balance a competitive game.
Sc2 and battle.net forums upon release especially will reek like an abattoir full of retarded children; they look up to blizzard screaming Nerf plz and he will wisper back.
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
Totally agree
People really need to stop with the ''Only 2000+ plat players get an opinion'. It's possible to balance at all levels, and have gameplay scale well.
The vast majority of players are not super skilled. If <100apm players consistently dominate other <100apm players with void rays over thousands of games then there's a problem with void rays.
If starcraft is going to make it big outside of Asia it needs to cater well to players all of skills. If it turns into an elitist circlejerk then people will go back to playing games they actually find fun. Blizzard clearly got the memo so it's time the players work it out too.
like i said... if void rays won that often they'd be promoted to a high enough level where they'd lose.. after thousands of games they'd get there for sure.. whats the point of ladder then? why not just make Sims MMORPG in Space and have it appeal to 1 billion people instead of 300 million?
if the game wants to be competetive... ie: not end up like EA Command and Conquer franchise which is a complete failure and wants to live up to SC1 name (which is what they want and why they took so effing long to push this shit out) then it will and should be balanced according to top-tier players.. its only a matter of time that they realize this.. if they dont... hello Command and Conquer 5.. the failure of SC2...
On May 21 2010 19:40 beakermimi wrote: I don't like what you say about silver league players not having a say. The game is for everyone not for pros only and everybody has a right to their opinion.
not when you're forming opinions based off of skewed perspectives. ya the game is hard when you're bad at it. shocker.
But since we have this wonderfull matchmaking thing, when you're bad at it, you're playing against players also bad at it. If for example, a vast majority of protoss are losing often against terran at copper level despite the matchmaking, then you definitely have a balance problem and you need to fix it without breaking the balance for higher levels..
On May 21 2010 19:33 EnderSC wrote: I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
if you care about winning everything that is effective is frusterating. its frusterating as hell when protoss uses forcefield or makes collosus' or does a warp gate rush. on any level. thats not gonna change. silver players are in silver because they dont find a way to deal with it, and theyre gonna stay there cuz even if you fix everything they complain about theyre just gonna run into another wall.
I have to disagree, silver players are silver because they have insanely bad macro. I played zerg, from silver to gold and compete for lower platinum and only recently have i actually had to think strategy rather than simply out produce my opponent.
having bad macro is just one of the things causing them to be unable to deal with this stuff, and improving their macro is one way around it. he can dick around with void rays all he wants if you can still outproduce him.
The highest ranked players, at least from EU and America, are also among the most biased because as extremly competitive players they're the most interested in winning, denying their own strengths and blaming their loses on imaginary imbalances.
If you think about balance for a second - who is in the best position to be abusing imbalances in the game? Is it not the highest level players? Wont they be the very best at making the most of abusive tactics and builds?
Who would pull off a better cheese build - a copper league player or a platinum league player? Who's going to get more wins with that build? Who is more likely to mess up and have it countered?
Who is the better player to take into consideration when balancing that issue?
On May 21 2010 19:33 EnderSC wrote: I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
if you care about winning everything that is effective is frusterating. its frusterating as hell when protoss uses forcefield or makes collosus' or does a warp gate rush. on any level. thats not gonna change. silver players are in silver because they dont find a way to deal with it, and theyre gonna stay there cuz even if you fix everything they complain about theyre just gonna run into another wall.
I have to disagree, silver players are silver because they have insanely bad macro. I played zerg, from silver to gold and compete for lower platinum and only recently have i actually had to think strategy rather than simply out produce my opponent.
having bad macro is just one of the things causing them to be unable to deal with this stuff, and improving their macro is one way around it. he can dick around with void rays all he wants if you can still outproduce him.
Its like leveling up your wow character, if all the stats suck you can choose any road to improvement :D
On May 21 2010 19:33 EnderSC wrote: I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
if you care about winning everything that is effective is frusterating. its frusterating as hell when protoss uses forcefield or makes collosus' or does a warp gate rush. on any level. thats not gonna change. silver players are in silver because they dont find a way to deal with it, and theyre gonna stay there cuz even if you fix everything they complain about theyre just gonna run into another wall.
I have to disagree, silver players are silver because they have insanely bad macro. I played zerg, from silver to gold and compete for lower platinum and only recently have i actually had to think strategy rather than simply out produce my opponent.
im sure the reason why a silver player is in his league is relative (some have bad macro, some have retarded attacking/decision making... and some only know how to all-in 4 gate or VR rush... oh wait cancel that last one i forgot u can be 1900+ plat toss with that)
Having a powerful unit combo that has to be countered with a specific set of actions, even if it's beatable, limits options.. So you tell me no one used ultras in ZvZ - why should this be an accepted fact of ZvZ? It is better to strive for as much freedom for unit choice as possible
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
On May 21 2010 19:40 beakermimi wrote: I don't like what you say about silver league players not having a say. The game is for everyone not for pros only and everybody has a right to their opinion.
not when you're forming opinions based off of skewed perspectives. ya the game is hard when you're bad at it. shocker.
But since we have this wonderfull matchmaking thing, when you're bad at it, you're playing against players also bad at it. If for example, a vast majority of protoss are losing often against terran at copper level despite the matchmaking, then you definitely have a balance problem and you need to fix it without breaking the balance for higher levels..
why? if you can balance it for good players then the matchup is fair. its not like something superhuman is required, they just need to get better. if they want to win, if they want to be good at the game, they actually have to get good at the game. it seems incredibly stupid to me to be hung up on winning and at the same time demand that blizzard make the game easier for you.
On May 21 2010 19:23 IdrA wrote: if players are unable or unwilling to learn how to deal with things like that they arent gonna end up being competitive players at all. if you have to give them a crutch to keep them moving theyre just gonna keep going till they hit people who are legitly better and then give up anyway.
1v1's are not meant for people who are competitive but lack skill or work ethic. you're either playing for the fun of it and stick to ums/money maps/dont care if you win, or you're playing to win in which case its your responsibility to learn how to win, given an equal footing. an absolute equal footing, not an equal footing for people with 50 apm and below.
I don't want to put words in IdrA's mouth but balance is balance. If the game is balanced at competitive level then its automatically balanced at lower levels too.
Thanks for speaking out IdrA. You might not think it helps and Blizzard might not listen to you but at the very least it vindicates alot of other players who are saying Terran is overpowered and getting shouted down by mass noobs screaming about Voidray.
On May 21 2010 19:47 IdrA wrote: it seems incredibly stupid to me to be hung up on winning and at the same time demand that blizzard make the game easier for you.
I think that pretty much sums it up really. You can't have it both ways.
@Bane_ - It's not elitism; it's game development logic.
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
Isn't that exactly how BW is aswell? Loads of random crappy builds work at the D level, but try em at B-A and you'll get demolished most likely. This is nothing new. No one's ever cried out that's imbalanced, except for the random "p imba" stuff. BW is NOT balanced at all levels. I think that business went pretty darn well, too.
And dont give me the crap they're different games. It's still the same thing.
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
Totally agree
People really need to stop with the ''Only 2000+ plat players get an opinion'. It's possible to balance at all levels, and have gameplay scale well.
The vast majority of players are not super skilled. If <100apm players consistently dominate other <100apm players with void rays over thousands of games then there's a problem with void rays.
If starcraft is going to make it big outside of Asia it needs to cater well to players all of skills. If it turns into an elitist circlejerk then people will go back to playing games they actually find fun. Blizzard clearly got the memo so it's time the players work it out too.
like i said... if void rays won that often they'd be promoted to a high enough level where they'd lose.. after thousands of games they'd get there for sure.. whats the point of ladder then? why not just make Sims MMORPG in Space and have it appeal to 1 billion people instead of 300 million?
if the game wants to be competetive... ie: not end up like EA Command and Conquer franchise which is a complete failure and wants to live up to SC1 name (which is what they want and why they took so effing long to push this shit out) then it will and should be balanced according to top-tier players.. its only a matter of time that they realize this.. if they dont... hello Command and Conquer 5.. the failure of SC2...
So you would have no problem with masses of mid-level players whose rank is solely based on the void ray and who have higher win ratios than equally skilled zerg and terran players just because of the void ray? Wouldn't that stink to you at all? Isn't the ranking supposed to reflect skill?
On May 21 2010 19:45 jtype wrote: If you think about balance for a second - who is in the best position to be abusing imbalances in the game? Is it not the highest level players? Wont they be the very best at making the most of abusive tactics and builds?
Who would pull off a better cheese build - a copper league player or a platinum league player? Who's going to get more wins with that build? Who is more likely to mess up and have it countered?
Who is the better player to take into consideration when balancing that issue?
You don't see the point. Highest level players won't even notice the low level imbalance because it will not be used. For example, if you are playing ZvP on inci zone or steppes of war in copper right now, I'm pretty sure the zerg will 6 pool like 80% of the time. And you will not ever notice this fact at plat level because it will simply not happen since 6 pool is so easy to counter for high lvl player that the zerg player won't ruin his economy to do it. Now, if 6pooling wins the game too much for copper level players then blizzard has a problem because it's absolutely not fun and frustrating for p/t players and they will leave because they are casual players who don't want to learn, they just want to have fun (yeah it's a videogame). So blizzard needs to find a way to make this specific strat manageable for copper players without impacting higher level play. That's it.
On May 21 2010 18:43 okrane wrote: More importantly: if you are a 1000 rating silver league player, rocking a whopping 45APM, please abstain yourself from your retarded "this is OP/UP" forum posts, and suggestions about the game. If this is all we provide to blizzard as feedback, then we shouldnt be surprised about the way the game is advancing. One thing is clear, if a game-designer is listening to fans, the game is going down-hill: look at WoW.
That is wrong. A lot of people here tend to forget that it's the aim of Blizzard (and a logical aim at that one) to make the game balanced at all skill levels. While this is most certainly almost impossible, Blizzard needs feedback as much from low-level players as they need it from High-Level players. I also do not think that the guys at Blizz are stupid enough to see a post where someone playing in Silver League says "OMG, Colossi to be destroyed by AA is totally unfair, REMOVE!" and they will head this direction. But surely, if a lot of Silver League Players complain about a certain strategy/unit/whatever being WAY to OP in their skill level, that is something Blizz will want to do something about. And I know that competetive thinking players tend to forget the lower skill levels, since I myself have the problem, but you need to remember that overall playability has to be given first, otherwise a lot of new players won't like the game, and it will lead to less popularity and maybe less talent since there are less people playing.
I also think that a lot of people seeing the Patch-Notes and instantly writing OMG BAAAAAAD or OMG OP! don't realize that things need to be put to test before you can say anything. SC2 has way too many dependencies as that you can decide after 5 mins of reading a patch note that it is good or bad. The guys doing the patches know full well that certain things might not work out the way they intended, so they will just patch again. This instant whining or praising is always a little funny to me.
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.
This thread was absolutely needed. The last patches have just turned the game downhill IMO. The ridiculous phoenix "move-shot", the nerf on void ray range, as well as Blizzard's undying desire to keep the current high ground mechanic is killing the need for tactics and micro.
So many of the "OP" units were not OP at all with proper micro/defence. More and more so, SC2 is becoming a game of bland units that counter other bland units with simple a+move commands. The "big blob vs big blob" accusation has become more and more true as the beta has progressed.
If Blizzard is serious about making SC2 into an e-sport, they need to make the game actually exciting. There are two big "WOW" factors that BW had and SC2 lacks, and would do well to incorporate: 1. SC2 is missing seemingly abusive/OP/game-winning skills and units like Psi Storm/stop-lurkers/Plaaaaguuu/DTs. 2. SC2 is missing the potential for insane micro/unit control like muta micro, m&m micro against lurkers, mine drags, stasis on the ramp, etc.
On May 21 2010 19:45 jtype wrote: If you think about balance for a second - who is in the best position to be abusing imbalances in the game? Is it not the highest level players? Wont they be the very best at making the most of abusive tactics and builds?
Who would pull off a better cheese build - a copper league player or a platinum league player? Who's going to get more wins with that build? Who is more likely to mess up and have it countered?
Who is the better player to take into consideration when balancing that issue?
You don't see the point. Highest level players won't even notice the low level imbalance because it will not be used. For example, if you are playing ZvP on inci zone or steppes of war in copper right now, I'm pretty sure the zerg will 6 pool like 80% of the time. And you will not ever notice this fact at plat level because it will simply not happen since 6 pool is so easy to counter for high lvl player that the zerg player won't ruin his economy to do it. Now, if 6pooling wins the game too much for copper level players then blizzard has a problem because it's absolutely not fun and frustrating for p/t players and they will leave because they are casual players who don't want to learn, they just want to have fun (yeah it's a videogame). So blizzard needs to find a way to make this specific strat manageable for copper players without impacting higher level play. That's it.
Interestingly, 6Pool is one of the easiest cheeses to counter, considering the worker auto-surround mechanic now in SC2. Admittedly, many low-level players may not know that they can just a-move their workers and win, but that's not a balance issue, that's an awareness and experience issue.
"Low Level Balance Issues" AREN'T balance issues. They are skill/experience/knowledge issues.
On May 21 2010 18:43 okrane wrote: More importantly: if you are a 1000 rating silver league player, rocking a whopping 45APM, please abstain yourself from your retarded "this is OP/UP" forum posts, and suggestions about the game. If this is all we provide to blizzard as feedback, then we shouldnt be surprised about the way the game is advancing. One thing is clear, if a game-designer is listening to fans, the game is going down-hill: look at WoW.
That is wrong. A lot of people here tend to forget that it's the aim of Blizzard (and a logical aim at that one) to make the game balanced at all skill levels. While this is most certainly almost impossible, Blizzard needs feedback as much from low-level players as they need it from High-Level players. I also do not think that the guys at Blizz are stupid enough to see a post where someone playing in Silver League says "OMG, Colossi to be destroyed by AA is totally unfair, REMOVE!" and they will head this direction. But surely, if a lot of Silver League Players complain about a certain strategy/unit/whatever being WAY to OP in their skill level, that is something Blizz will want to do something about. And I know that competetive thinking players tend to forget the lower skill levels, since I myself have the problem, but you need to remember that overall playability has to be given first, otherwise a lot of new players won't like the game, and it will lead to less popularity and maybe less talent since there are less people playing.
I also think that a lot of people seeing the Patch-Notes and instantly writing OMG BAAAAAAD or OMG OP! don't realize that things need to be put to test before you can say anything. SC2 has way too many dependencies as that you can decide after 5 mins of reading a patch note that it is good or bad. The guys doing the patches know full well that certain things might not work out the way they intended, so they will just patch again. This instant whining or praising is always a little funny to me.
Just stop talking. I don't want to be mean but if its balanced in Plat then its balanced in all other skill levels too. There is no 2 tier balance.
On May 21 2010 19:49 Bane_ wrote: Three cheers for elitism!
It's not elitism. Void rays were not impossible to deal with. Therefore, your average silver player could deal with it too - learn from the better and get better.
Some BOs will always be imbalanced on the low levels - that's not because the game / unit(s) is (are) imbalanced, just simply because some BOs are simply easier to execute than to defend against. And that's impossible to change.
What's next? Omg, P can produce units so fast, my silver level macro can't keep up! They better increase the cooldown on Warp Gate production 'cause P is clearly OP!
Sheesh.
Quoting jtype: "Low Level Balance Issues" AREN'T balance issues. They are skill/experience/knowledge issues."
Exactly. I know it's hard to force down people's throats (therefore Blizzard trying to avoid it somehow ever since the first alpha builds / interviews), but that's just how it is. You either try to make it happen, or will have a second rate e-sport game that's only an e-sport because of the marketing pushing it from behind - and will die out the second sponsors jump elsewhere. Maybe that's Blizzard's intention, I don't know. I sure hope not.
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
Totally agree
People really need to stop with the ''Only 2000+ plat players get an opinion'. It's possible to balance at all levels, and have gameplay scale well.
The vast majority of players are not super skilled. If <100apm players consistently dominate other <100apm players with void rays over thousands of games then there's a problem with void rays.
If starcraft is going to make it big outside of Asia it needs to cater well to players all of skills. If it turns into an elitist circlejerk then people will go back to playing games they actually find fun. Blizzard clearly got the memo so it's time the players work it out too.
like i said... if void rays won that often they'd be promoted to a high enough level where they'd lose.. after thousands of games they'd get there for sure.. whats the point of ladder then? why not just make Sims MMORPG in Space and have it appeal to 1 billion people instead of 300 million?
if the game wants to be competetive... ie: not end up like EA Command and Conquer franchise which is a complete failure and wants to live up to SC1 name (which is what they want and why they took so effing long to push this shit out) then it will and should be balanced according to top-tier players.. its only a matter of time that they realize this.. if they dont... hello Command and Conquer 5.. the failure of SC2...
Well my point is that it's possible to balance things at the top while keeping things balanced at the bottom. Don't you think it's a problem that there exists a unit which is not particularly hard to build and carries you easily into ranks which you don't deserve to be in? No unit should be so powerful that you need to 100apm to beat a player with 45apm using said unit.
And while i agree that the later C&C games were terribad it's hard to deny that they had great success in the west. Unlike the archaic SC1 which was pretty much confined to Asia + the diehards on teamliquid.
simply put: you don't balance chess for those who can't tell the difference between white and black do you? you teach them how to tell the difference... you don't give white an extra 2 pawns just because they are losing at the copper league level..
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
Totally agree
People really need to stop with the ''Only 2000+ plat players get an opinion'. It's possible to balance at all levels, and have gameplay scale well.
The vast majority of players are not super skilled. If <100apm players consistently dominate other <100apm players with void rays over thousands of games then there's a problem with void rays.
If starcraft is going to make it big outside of Asia it needs to cater well to players all of skills. If it turns into an elitist circlejerk then people will go back to playing games they actually find fun. Blizzard clearly got the memo so it's time the players work it out too.
Its IMPOSSIBLE to balance at all levels. Most people who buy SC2 are going to be playing UMS maps and BGH (There is nothing wrong with this btw) with their friends. If you wanna play competitive 1v1 then guess what? PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE and never stop. You don't have fun in competitive 1v1s? Thats fine, its totally acceptable to play UMS and BGH all day. But just because you want to have a easier time winning in 1v1s does not mean that balance at the top levels should be disrupted or changed because newbies have problems winning against certain strategies.
What I am basically saying is that if you want to play competitively you better be prepared to lose and lose A LOT. Newbies are actually a lot luckier now that the beta is out because its so much easier for them to find people of their skill level. I started playing Brood War a year and a half ago and got ripped to shreds on iccup. I literally lost over a 100 games in a row to 3 gate zealot. Trust me when I say that you have no idea what really is a dominating strategy at lower levels of play until you play zerg against 3 gate zealot.
On May 21 2010 19:33 EnderSC wrote: I don't agree. I am a bronzy silver noob and i want this game to be fun to play; so i'd like blizzard to listen to me when i get frustrated by something as far as i'm not the only one complaining. (not that personally have ever given any whinning feedback but you all get the point)
The aim for blizzard is to sell the game a lot, so they have to please the mass croud ( the so-called newbies screaming unfairnesses) They need to listen carefully to the new players and their dislikes in order to create a large and happy community that will potentially follow (and pay to watch) the proscene.
Moreover the progamers will eventually figure things out to try win any match up, and patches can always be made at any point in time if there is any real unbalance, any BO impossible to counter.
A lot of people have quoted my post so i would add some toughts.
I would like to say first that the game is very fun to play atm for me, and i don't get frustrated about anything in particular other than my lack of microskills when i lose.
My post was about what Blizzard strategy should (imho) be. If i was a designer i will gather all the information and see what is the most frustrating for the average player in order to fix that.
Example: The Voidray. It's a pain in the ass for every newby. The protoss gets promotions until they reach the league that has enough skills to counter voidray but the newby stays in the low league getting voidrays in the face. He gets frustrated and lounches counterstrike to calm down...
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.
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
So yeah, you have this build which works everytime against 95% of lower players but the top 5% of players have the skill to counter it and then to proceed to win the game and you're gonna tell the 95% of lower players : "it's balanced, learn to play." ? Trust me, it's not a good way to run a business... They have to find a way to make the game balanced for all levels without requiring copper players to "learn to play" to have fun. Because they won't. They will just leave the game.
Isn't that exactly how BW is aswell? Loads of random crappy builds work at the D level, but try em at B-A and you'll get demolished most likely. This is nothing new. No one's ever cried out that's imbalanced, except for the random "p imba" stuff. BW is NOT balanced at all levels. I think that business went pretty darn well, too.
And dont give me the crap they're different games. It's still the same thing.
There's also the fact that in BW at lower levels of play, Protoss is significantly easier to have success with due to the fact that the mechanical demand of playing Protoss at, say, a D+ level is less than that of playing Terran at a D+ level.
On May 21 2010 19:08 Piy wrote: Why they actually gave terran a buff and didn't give zerg a counter to mech perplexes me....
People need to realize that patches take a LONG time to be put together, tested, approved, localized etc.
2 weeks ago everyone thought void rays were fucking bullshit and terran couldn't win... so Blizzard nerfs them.
Of course it turns out they weren't quite as unbeatable as previously thought, but at the time the patch was put together, they couldn't know that.
which is the reason why i support top-down balancing rather than balancing based on the cries of 10 million silver players who didn't bother to put in the effort (watch replays or experiment) to learn how to beat it...
sorry silver-terrans but if u want to build marauder every game u are going to lose to things that beat it...
My post was about what Blizzard strategy should (imho) be. If i was a designer i will gather all the information and see what is the most frustrating for the average player in order to fix that.
Uhmmm why? Blizzard is doing something that almost no one else has done before and make a competitive esport game. Appealing to the average player would be a wrong way to achieve there goal.
On May 21 2010 19:08 Piy wrote: Why they actually gave terran a buff and didn't give zerg a counter to mech perplexes me....
People need to realize that patches take a LONG time to be put together, tested, approved, localized etc.
2 weeks ago everyone thought void rays were fucking bullshit and terran couldn't win... so Blizzard nerfs them.
Of course it turns out they weren't quite as unbeatable as previously thought, but at the time the patch was put together, they couldn't know that.
Maybe we can agree on that the way Blizzard is doing this ain't really optimal? I really felt that they didn't give enough time to play around with patches in order to figure out optimal builds / counters to the changed / buffed / "imba" things.
For example: Despite being a 2k+ plat player after every database wipe so far, I still suck at using VRs. Yet, after the change (and after experimenting using them vs T) I auto-won the majority of my games effortlessly. I thought that was dumb. Lately, especially in Patch 12 I've met quite a lot of people who dealt with it cleanly, so VRs became about what you do after them, instead of just "LOLIMMACHARGED MA LAZORZ, BETTER ALT Q Q NOW". I really think that was an interesting development of a simple BO -> counter -> BO follow-up battle, and now it gets butchered.
On May 21 2010 19:08 Piy wrote: Why they actually gave terran a buff and didn't give zerg a counter to mech perplexes me....
People need to realize that patches take a LONG time to be put together, tested, approved, localized etc.
2 weeks ago everyone thought void rays were fucking bullshit and terran couldn't win... so Blizzard nerfs them.
Of course it turns out they weren't quite as unbeatable as previously thought, but at the time the patch was put together, they couldn't know that.
By that logic then by the end of beta phase 1 then Terran will be nerfed into oblivion. Unfortunately though I think most players will have already switched to Terran
Does anyone know why they boosted Marines? Marines are actually better than people think they are. And now the MMM army gets completed with stimpack a lot earlier.
On May 21 2010 18:43 okrane wrote: More importantly: if you are a 1000 rating silver league player, rocking a whopping 45APM, please abstain yourself from your retarded "this is OP/UP" forum posts, and suggestions about the game. If this is all we provide to blizzard as feedback, then we shouldnt be surprised about the way the game is advancing. One thing is clear, if a game-designer is listening to fans, the game is going down-hill: look at WoW.
That is wrong. A lot of people here tend to forget that it's the aim of Blizzard (and a logical aim at that one) to make the game balanced at all skill levels. While this is most certainly almost impossible, Blizzard needs feedback as much from low-level players as they need it from High-Level players. I also do not think that the guys at Blizz are stupid enough to see a post where someone playing in Silver League says "OMG, Colossi to be destroyed by AA is totally unfair, REMOVE!" and they will head this direction. But surely, if a lot of Silver League Players complain about a certain strategy/unit/whatever being WAY to OP in their skill level, that is something Blizz will want to do something about. And I know that competetive thinking players tend to forget the lower skill levels, since I myself have the problem, but you need to remember that overall playability has to be given first, otherwise a lot of new players won't like the game, and it will lead to less popularity and maybe less talent since there are less people playing.
I also think that a lot of people seeing the Patch-Notes and instantly writing OMG BAAAAAAD or OMG OP! don't realize that things need to be put to test before you can say anything. SC2 has way too many dependencies as that you can decide after 5 mins of reading a patch note that it is good or bad. The guys doing the patches know full well that certain things might not work out the way they intended, so they will just patch again. This instant whining or praising is always a little funny to me.
Just stop talking. I don't want to be mean but if its balanced in Plat then its balanced in all other skill levels too. There is no 2 tier balance.
This is not true, Platinum Players might be capable of doing way more precise timings, better micro and macro and faster adaption to a situation compared to a lower level player. And there will always be some strategies which are easier to execute than to stop, which doesn't make them overpowered per se (since for example if you can stop them, you might be at a huge advantage) but it'll make a difference if you're in a silver league match with one player executing the strat and one player trying to defend or in a platinum league match. If the strategy forgives more errors by the executing player than by the defending one, in platinum play-levels, this will not be so much of a big deal, as players in general will make a lot less errors, but in silverleague, this strategy can be maybe too hard to stop for the defending player.
I don't know if I did well enough with the example, but I think you can get the gist of what I'm trying to say.
Where is the in game example of blizzard balancing for noobs, anyway? Void Rays? Blizzard stated all skill levels were having problems against Void Rays ..
i dont think the people advocating lower-level players getting their balance see the ramifications this has on top-tier players...
nerfing voidrays makes it a less viable option in top-tier therefore making every game the same.. rush fast collosus instead of mixing it up... every startegy you take away from the protoss means less excitement and functionality..... if protoss can't have voidrays i say cloak banshees should go too.. now that we're at it we should jsut have a mass ground game (no air) and u can just go mass tank marauder every game.. yeah.. very low-tier balanced .. yay and fun right?
On May 21 2010 18:43 okrane wrote: More importantly: if you are a 1000 rating silver league player, rocking a whopping 45APM, please abstain yourself from your retarded "this is OP/UP" forum posts, and suggestions about the game. If this is all we provide to blizzard as feedback, then we shouldnt be surprised about the way the game is advancing. One thing is clear, if a game-designer is listening to fans, the game is going down-hill: look at WoW.
That is wrong. A lot of people here tend to forget that it's the aim of Blizzard (and a logical aim at that one) to make the game balanced at all skill levels. While this is most certainly almost impossible, Blizzard needs feedback as much from low-level players as they need it from High-Level players. I also do not think that the guys at Blizz are stupid enough to see a post where someone playing in Silver League says "OMG, Colossi to be destroyed by AA is totally unfair, REMOVE!" and they will head this direction. But surely, if a lot of Silver League Players complain about a certain strategy/unit/whatever being WAY to OP in their skill level, that is something Blizz will want to do something about. And I know that competetive thinking players tend to forget the lower skill levels, since I myself have the problem, but you need to remember that overall playability has to be given first, otherwise a lot of new players won't like the game, and it will lead to less popularity and maybe less talent since there are less people playing.
I also think that a lot of people seeing the Patch-Notes and instantly writing OMG BAAAAAAD or OMG OP! don't realize that things need to be put to test before you can say anything. SC2 has way too many dependencies as that you can decide after 5 mins of reading a patch note that it is good or bad. The guys doing the patches know full well that certain things might not work out the way they intended, so they will just patch again. This instant whining or praising is always a little funny to me.
Just stop talking. I don't want to be mean but if its balanced in Plat then its balanced in all other skill levels too. There is no 2 tier balance.
This is not true, Platinum Players might be capable of doing way more precise timings, better micro and macro and faster adaption to a situation compared to a lower level player. And there will always be some strategies which are easier to execute than to stop, which doesn't make them overpowered per se (since for example if you can stop them, you might be at a huge advantage) but it'll make a difference if you're in a silver league match with one player executing the strat and one player trying to defend or in a platinum league match. If the strategy forgives more errors by the executing player than by the defending one, in platinum play-levels, this will not be so much of a big deal, as players in general will make a lot less errors, but in silverleague, this strategy can be maybe too hard to stop for the defending player.
I don't know if I did well enough with the example, but I think you can get the gist of what I'm trying to say.
well then you have to practice at defending.
theyre not going to cater to terrible players because its silly to. clearly rushing to dark templar is easier than getting proper engineering bay timing while expanding at the same time. but you either deal with it or get out.
you have to pick one. either practice enough to deal with stuff or dont.
Where is the in game example of blizzard balancing for noobs, anyway? Void Rays? Blizzard stated all skill levels were having problems against Void Rays ..
And In the Last "State of the Game"-podcast Cauthon Luck ranted pretty strongly about his Problems with Void Rays. Just to throw in a Pro Name
would you rather have a game where its 50% win ratios for every matchup that exists for 10 million silver players and at the same time have 40% terran 50% zerg and 10% protoss at the pro scene or the other way around?
how would it feel to know that your favourite race is completely balanced on the bottom but know that if u want to go pro you'll never make it? lol
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.
blizzard is clearly reading these forums WAAAY TOO MUCH
my thoughts from the official patch thread:
the only problem with the blizzards patching method that i see is that they listen to the community TOO MUCH. they dont let the game grow and develop cause they patch stuff the moment some noob cries imbalance cause he lost due to his shitty skills and now wants some way to help mend his ego.
On May 21 2010 19:47 IdrA wrote: it seems incredibly stupid to me to be hung up on winning and at the same time demand that blizzard make the game easier for you.
I think that pretty much sums it up really. You can't have it both ways.
@Bane_ - It's not elitism; it's game development logic.
I just question the assertion that all players beyond a certain ratings threshold will have a valid contribution to make in terms of deciding what is and isn't balanced. Does every 'top' platinum player have a complete grasp of the game, an ability to see past their own race and their own limits as a player to assess whether a unit/strategy is imbalanced? I'm not convinced. Equally so, someone could be mired down in the silver or bronze divisions and be a mechanically dreadful player, yet due to watching endless replays and tournament level matches they might have a far more complete understanding of the game than those in the higher divisions.
Blizzard are perfectly capable of filtering through everyone's feedback and making the changes they deem best for the game, it may not always be exactly in line what the esports community want, but perhaps the community are not always best placed to assess what impacts any changes will have (2 supply roaches being labelled an 'overnerf' for example...Artosis's doom and gloom article and talk of pros jumping ship to other races in a nice knee jerk reaction, yet when it comes down to it the zerg are still enjoying a huge presence in the final stages of recent tournaments).
"Low Level Balance Issues AREN'T balance issues. They are skill/experience/knowledge issues."
You could say that the exact same problem affects high level balance issues also. All through the beta people have seemed to think they are much further along in their understanding of the game than they really are, turning their intellect towards trying to find ways to change 'the' game as opposed to doing their utmost to change 'their' game to try and surmount the challenges they face.
On May 21 2010 20:15 Paramore wrote: would you rather have a game where its 50% win ratios for every matchup that exists for 10 million silver players and at the same time have 40% terran 50% zerg and 10% protoss at the pro scene or the other way around?
how would it feel to know that your favourite race is completely balanced on the bottom but know that if u want to go pro you'll never make it? lol
I would like for the player who plays better to win regardless of which race they pick.
It's worth remembering that SC2 1v1s on the ladder are competitive. You need to do whatever you can to win. If you feel that the game isn't fun/balanced at low levels, you need to find a way to deal with it. This is the nature of competition.
Being a good player isn't just about having less skill (multi-tasking, apm, reactions, micro, macro), it's also about your attitude, emotional strength, experience, knowledge too. What a low-level player perceives as an imbalance may not be. Losing to a DT rush, a low-level player might think, "man, how do I deal with these DTs in my base, they just kill everything and can avoid my scans by splitting up/running away?". That player may never learn to counter them effectively, always thinking them imbalanced. How could Blizzard possibly balance a game for that mentality? A higher-level player would instead think, "how can I tell when DTs are coming? How can I prepare for them? What can I do to prevent the toss from getting them in the first place?"
So you can see how what people perceive as imbalance is just a lack of knowledge, experience or the wrong mentality.
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.
haha the amount of QQ after every patch is unbelievable. You guys should just chill, if u're right about the balance it will get fixed eventually, if u're wrong then we're on the right path aren't we :D. I, for one will open a new bottle of champagne to never have to dedicate 100% of my efforts in tvp to counter those damn lazers. Protosses will have to starts proxying gateways 100% of the time now, as opposed to the standard 33/33/33 cannon gateway voidray rush they were doing before :D will make it alot easier to prepare against!
Where is the in game example of blizzard balancing for noobs, anyway? Void Rays? Blizzard stated all skill levels were having problems against Void Rays ..
And In the Last "State of the Game"-podcast Cauthon Luck ranted pretty strongly about his Problems with Void Rays. Just to throw in a Pro Name
maka in his interview also said that VR's are broken
Clearly blizzard is doing it wrong... Democracy is not always the best solution, listening to random threads and imbalance whining, nerf petitions isn't going to get the game better but the opposite. Protoss is getting too weak, because patch after patch every unit is being nerfed. Terran is overly strong already but is being buffed more and more. Now zerg gained some new abilities, but the effect of them will most likely result in Z>P imbalance but won't address directly ZvT issues. So at the end of the day T>Z>P, period.
On May 21 2010 19:47 IdrA wrote: it seems incredibly stupid to me to be hung up on winning and at the same time demand that blizzard make the game easier for you.
I think that pretty much sums it up really. You can't have it both ways.
@Bane_ - It's not elitism; it's game development logic.
I just question the assertion that all players beyond a certain ratings threshold will have a valid contribution to make in terms of deciding what is and isn't balanced. Does every 'top' platinum player have a complete grasp of the game, an ability to see past their own race and their own limits as a player to assess whether a unit/strategy is imbalanced? I'm not convinced.
No, they don't necessarily have more valid opinions on the subject. But, as I said earlier, top level players are the ones who are the most capable of exploiting imbalances in the game and therefore should be the most catered for when considering such balance.
Also, do you honestly think that if you took a sample of copper league players and plat league players, you would find more accurate knowledge and more experience about the game in the copper league? Quite the opposite. The amount of games that the top level players have to play to maintain their skill and rank have to count for something.
I think, what blizz did with terran was great! The only problem is, that the other races (P and Z, lol) need to be on that power level too. Terran is the most fun race to play imho, so maybe making Z and P stronger (and zerg still more diverse) in the right way would have the same effect... Don't nerf T, buff Z and P!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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....
I've already changed so easy to win now, just not rewarding. Shame it has to be this way
On May 21 2010 19:08 Piy wrote: Why they actually gave terran a buff and didn't give zerg a counter to mech perplexes me....
People need to realize that patches take a LONG time to be put together, tested, approved, localized etc.
2 weeks ago everyone thought void rays were fucking bullshit and terran couldn't win... so Blizzard nerfs them.
Of course it turns out they weren't quite as unbeatable as previously thought, but at the time the patch was put together, they couldn't know that.
which is the reason why i support top-down balancing rather than balancing based on the cries of 10 million silver players who didn't bother to put in the effort (watch replays or experiment) to learn how to beat it...
sorry silver-terrans but if u want to build marauder every game u are going to lose to things that beat it...
Well, most top players I talked to thought the same, but it doesn't seem like void rays are as big of a problem now - just a week or two later and without any patch to nerf them.
My point is more that even though some changes they make are just bad, sometimes they only appear bad because they listened to complaints but it took a long time to actually implement them (because patches don't materialize out of thin air and take time to plan and implement).
Well we pretty much suggested every idea for SC2 possible and impossible. Is it so hard to believe like 1/100th of the suggestions got implemented (I'm not even exaggerating we probably had like over 3k suggestions in this forum)? Did anyone say nerf Ultra's hp? I'm sure Blizzard has looked at TL.net forums, but blizzard suggestion forums had most of suggestions in TL.net anyway.
To The OP: I'm sure its not "OMFG!!! Blizzard is ONLY getting their feedback Team Liquid and our posts *GEEK SMIRK* so all of you people posting about legitimate problems stop please, and DONT help the beta out" Quite as much as your trying to sound it out to be
as your trying to imply that only low-level players have been having these problems, meanwhile if you've looked at Zerg Vs Terran when Terran goes FE into mech while maintaining drops + harass on the Z early game, it was almost impossible to defeat the terran at the point after they got 4-5 tanks up to defend, with a thor, and some hellion, and mined out some gas for enough for ~3-4 thors, ~10 vikings, ~20 tanks, ~20 hellions, as you had to be of a much higher skill level and inquire alot of drops as the Zerg player, which barely ever worked in the end actually
Yet, the balences came for MAINLY the reasons that: Blizzard analyzes these forums MAYBE for a couple suggestions (as well as OTHER forums)
BUT: Blizzard also analyzes the play of high-level players as well. The balences come due to the fact that: A) Zerg needed a good way to deal with mech, and now with production harass + antiarmored unit, they can. B) Zerg's spells were not used quite much at all, and now they will be used more (Although the +25% thing reminds me of a WC3 spell pretty much, using % based, etc) C) Terran could not get their upgrades out quick enough to defend agasint a protoss push (should be easier now) and D) Ultralisks had little to no use before agasint Protoss due to forcefields, and agasint Terran due to marauders slowing them down on their way there (even though they only have 450 HP and were squishy before, now against a Mech build, getting ~7-8 would be an amazing idea, to tank most of the seige's AOE, as well as to get some devastating hits of their own in)
By the way, your only 1300 plat, so dont think of yourself as a "top player" either.. T.T I'm sorry, its first thing in the morning, and this post really angered me with the completely biased opinion you had D:
And how is Zerg headed in a bad direction? The ONLY real harass they had from standard openings was mid-game, to get mutas (in which, anywhere from 1 thor early, to 3 thors a bit later can kill FLOCKS of mutas tryign to harass, with some streamlined turrets) As for now, they actually have other means of Harassment...
How is Zerg headed in a bad direction, when before 1 spell was NEVER used by the infestor, as it simply could not get close enough to the enemy mineral line to do any damage?
I think that Zerg will be MUCH more diverse with this patch.
I think people need to remember it's still in beta so why not make these seemingly 'drastic' changes before release? It's a good testing ground for finding out what works and what doesnt. Hopefully after release the patching process will get streamlined and allow for some metagame to develop before overhauling units and abilities.
On May 21 2010 21:42 Orzabal wrote: I am only Gold 1v1 player and I think Idra is right.
It is not about elitism. It is about balance, and to make it, you need to use information from those ou know the game. Top players are those people.
Yes. Balance should be a concern for top level play. If would be nice if some topics/blogs about the game balance, would be made more visible inside this comunity.
I am talking about rational posts, from top players, with replays, argumentation and everything, proving that something is good/bad. There should be more highlights from people who actually know this game
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
i also agree that this isnt wc3... as a 6+ year wc3 veteran i was disappointed to see faerie fire (corruptor's new spell) and bloodlust (frenzy) implemented... these were clearly wc3 style spells and should remain in that relm.. the only single-target spells that really existed in sc1 were lockdown and yamato, which were understandable.. however... wtf is frenzy? can u really imagine that a zerg unit would cast a spell on another zerg unit to make it blood-lusted in real starcraft lore? that's ridiculous... also. infested terrans shouldn't rise from the ground (skeletons in wc3) or drop from the sky (skeletons from wc3).. the only way infested terrans should exist is if they came out of an infested cc or barracks... maybe implement infested zealots .. that'd make it cool too... or the ability to infest actual units instead of throwing these ridiculous egg things..
wc3 mechanics were a nice bring-over (hotkeys mbs automine etc) but wc3 spells are a no-no in the sc2 universe... i hope someone from blizz comes across my post.. b/c this is important... serously.. blood-lusted ultralisks is the last thing we need...
Agreed. This is a big problem. Spells in wc3 have no place in sc2. I really hope Blizzard will not continue on this path.
Wait, void rays got nerfed? I don't believe anyone here on the top level has been screaming for viod ray nerfs, they're actually pretty decent right now.
On the other note, to make a game competitive and exciting to watch, it needs to be hard. Can't just nerf everything that requires too much apm so silver players don't have to learn the proper way, difficult way, to deal with something.
feels good when i said to myself void ray had quite too strong harass capability, ultra got owned by ff thats why nobody use them, infestor to get a new spell and infested terran to move to the overseer. maybe im just lucky but it really does feel like blizzard reads our posts more than we know :p
i might just start trying my good ol' fe in tvp just because of the huge buffs to it this patch edit: ill most definitely start doing that since it got buffed more than any other bo in this patch xD
I'm usually quite harsh towards Blizzard when it comes to SC2 but it really is a near impossible task to make a fun and balanced game.
You only have to look at BW to see that it takes a lot of time for players to figure out just a small aspect of the game, this stuff takes years not one week. If Blizzard had continually balance patched BW instead of stopping, players/map-makers would never have had the chance to figure out how to get around "imbalances".
It's a good thing Blizzard doesn't listen to the crowd's every whim, because the crowd knows a lot less than they think they do.
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.
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.
Im not speaking as though im great but you say that m&m&m is too strong against protoss and i do agree that in most cases it is. but i also feel that sentries and high templar are a good counter.
thors are pretty OP though, they should probably require more gas to make
On May 21 2010 22:14 Nytefish wrote: I'm usually quite harsh towards Blizzard when it comes to SC2 but it really is a near impossible task to make a fun and balanced game.
You only have to look at BW to see that it takes a lot of time for players to figure out just a small aspect of the game, this stuff takes years not one week. If Blizzard had continually balance patched BW instead of stopping, players/map-makers would never have had the chance to figure out how to get around "imbalances".
It's a good thing Blizzard doesn't listen to the crowd's every whim, because the crowd knows a lot less than they think they do.
And on the notion of maps... is it really a shock that mech Terran destroys Zerg on small maps with lots of choke points?
If they read the forums, then why didnt they change the way ultra moves? It is the sole and biggest issue that ultras have. Solving it will automatically make ultras viable. Also, where are the t3 upgrades?
On May 21 2010 19:23 IdrA wrote: if players are unable or unwilling to learn how to deal with things like that they arent gonna end up being competitive players at all. if you have to give them a crutch to keep them moving theyre just gonna keep going till they hit people who are legitly better and then give up anyway.
1v1's are not meant for people who are competitive but lack skill or work ethic. you're either playing for the fun of it and stick to ums/money maps/dont care if you win, or you're playing to win in which case its your responsibility to learn how to win, given an equal footing. an absolute equal footing, not an equal footing for people with 50 apm and below.
For once I couldn't agree with Idra more. Bad players may be the majority of the people who end up buying sc2 but unless the drive for changes comes from the best the game won't be any good. You can't build a game on the principle that a player should be fine doing whatever the fuck he wants. If you have no idea what you're doing or like making up your own weird builds then that'd be awesome for you but there wouldn't be any strategy involved.
The only way strategic decisions can have any meaning is if there are wrong decisions. The existence of wrong decisions will always cause stupid players to make wrong decisions because they're stupid. You can pity them for their strategic ignorance but you shouldn't try to change the game to make people less stupid.
On May 21 2010 21:37 BigDates wrote: D) Ultralisks had little to no use before agasint Protoss due to forcefields, and agasint Terran due to marauders slowing them down on their way there (even though they only have 450 HP and were squishy before, now against a Mech build, getting ~7-8 would be an amazing idea, to tank most of the seige's AOE, as well as to get some devastating hits of their own in).
Ultras werent slowed by marauders. Ultras were getting interrupted by any zergling/baneling and couldnt get to the target and lacked the speed, while dying to stimmed marauders anyways.
I think people will experiment a bit and then find out that ultras are still crap and have to be dropped in enemies base. It will be just like before, get hydra and now some overseers...
While I'd love to think that pros know everything about game balance, that simply is not the case. They only experience a small sliver of the gamespace too. Obviously they know more than noobs about the game, but the whole direction of this thread is a bit irksome.
Yes, they might read this forum. All the changes could be interpreted from the various BNet forums.
I fully agree with OP. As with WoW, the casual players (ahem noobs mostly) were all crying about stupid stuff that could've been solved by Blizzard with the phrase "Fuck off and learn to play, we'll the make the game, okay?"
Same thing happened to SC2, we suddenly see a MASSIVE influx of new players (ahem again noobs mostly) who don't like stuff that can be easily fixed by playing a bit more and getting better(Better understanding of strategy, better macro, whatever). Instead, they stop playing and trying to win and go to online forums to cry about it there.
And that ladies and gentlemen, is fucking disgusting.
I remember seeing a thread about someone who wanted to have freshly new-built units automatically assigned to a controlgroup...
I also remember everyone and their mom making OP's about how THEY would improve the game by adding stupid units and spells. Some of those post were okay sure, but most of them consisted out of childish ignorant ideas and plans. Seriously how many threads have we seen that are just like this? They also always start with "Ok, I'm just a copper/silver player but wouldn't it be cool to BLABLABLABLA". I mean seriously???
The only people in this thread defending all these ridiculous buff/nerfs are most likely kids that couldnt even break 2k arena rating with a druid on their team in WoW.
Go back to your horrible game and leave Starcraft alone. This is one of the very last games where skill actually matters, and its about to die.
I also remember everyone and their mom making OP's about how THEY would improve the game by adding stupid units and spells. Some of those post were okay sure, but most of them consisted out of ignorant ideas and plans. Seriously how many threads have we seen that are just like this? They also always start with "Ok, I'm just a copper/silver player but wouldn't it be cool to BLABLABLABLA". I mean seriously???
Sure. Just because some fundamental of the game are flawed. It will not be fixed by a special ability or a little unit tweak. It's also why patches like we see (add hp to this unit, change de fire rate of this one, etc . . .) will never fix the issue.
On May 21 2010 21:06 Farahgrim wrote: 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.
A Dragoon deals 10 to small and 20 to large A Marauder deals 10 to light and 20 to armored
Just imagine how broken would BW be if Dragoons dealt 10 + 10 large(and +5 vs medium), you know that's dealing 200% damage!
Now, let's add the less effective armor upgrades on top of this huge difference!
+2 Dragoon attack vs 2 armor marine Dragoon damage: 24, 50% vs small Damage dealt to the marine (24 - 2) * 50% = 11 damage
Clearly the armor upgrades in BW are better, right?
If you think Marauders or Immortals or whatever deal too much damage for their cost, then the problem is that they deal too much damage for their cost, it doesn't have anything to do with the attack/armor type system in any way, shape or form, just as if Dragoons in BW dealt 50 damage per hit that wouldn't mean the attack/armor system in BW is somehow at fault or needs a fix.
Really, how do you expect the Blizzard team to take criticism seriously, when it's often completely uninformed and straight up wrong?
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.
As far as I know Blizzard uses weighed feedback. Meaning, feedback from 1 platinum player counts for much more than say, 3 bronze players (ofc I don't have their numbers, but I think this is how they work).
Well, if you don't like the game, don't play the game, if Blizzard gives you a game that doesn't meet your standards then go back to play Broodwar, there you have a well balanced game.
I didn't read the whole thread but I would like to point out, that some of the changes came right out of the state of the game podcast >> or maybe that was just me :O If anyone else listened to it ? I believe Cluck(lol) mentioned reducing void ray range and artosis said something about ultra's breaking forcefields. So I am pretty sure blizzard doesn't take ALL there balancing stuff from scrubs
Well, another patch and another "Blizzard is retarded" thread. I predict, as is the norm for these threads, for it to die out in 2-3 days as people get used to the changes.
EDIT: Terran upgrade buff does seem excessive, so actually I could see that still being talked about in the time between this patch and the next. I'm a Terran player also btw, and not even platinum! OMG and I'm saying something about my race that was buffed might be excessive!? Damn those noobs(me), damn them all to hell for telling blizzard what to do...
On May 21 2010 22:07 Count9 wrote: Wait, void rays got nerfed? I don't believe anyone here on the top level has been screaming for viod ray nerfs, they're actually pretty decent right now.
On the other note, to make a game competitive and exciting to watch, it needs to be hard. Can't just nerf everything that requires too much apm so silver players don't have to learn the proper way, difficult way, to deal with something.
I would say that the situation were exactly the opposite. The state of the voidray meant that it was pretty much countered by unit composition only which is why so many terrans felt the need to start going marine/ghost opener in every single game. Just to shut down ONE unit. Or why so many terrans felt the need to get a blind viking out of the first starport regardless of seeing voidrays being built or not. In patch 13, the voidray is still as strong as it was before when with other units, it is a bit more vulnerable right now when two of them goes of on their own to pick an entire base apart but most importantly, a terran is now actually capable of utilizing micro early on in a game where previously it was barely even an option.
If Blizzard is reading these forums, you have to wonder about their reading comprehension skills. I'm not sure where anyone said Ultras needed a damage buff. Or that they were kited by Marauders.
I'm glad though that they are fixing this the smart way by adding yet another requirement for the Ultra to somewhat work but not really. On top of its 2 expensive upgrades and necessary hive tech.
Couldn't read through all the comments but I completely agree with general idea that Blizzard is missing the problem in the root and if they are in fact listening to lower rank players (even if I happen to be gold I still don't think I know enough to judge) - that's not the right way to go.
For a simple reason, higher level players can do things which lower tiers can't and they work for them. If you get skilled enough to do them - you're gonna lose the problem. It's a typical learning curve, can't make all things easy, otherwise game becomes ridiculous.
But subjectively now: - I don't get the idea with Ultralisks, I don't like the health nerf due to their susceptability to anti-armor which other races have plenty. I never use Ultras actually and doesn't feel I'm gonna now either, better get more of something else. - Adding abilities to Overseers do make them more usable (I'm a zerg player). - Massive units destroying fields is a good thing, even logical from realistic point of view. - Frenzy is ridiculous, it doesn't suit the game any way - not that it's gonna be really worth unless put on a few hydras fighting air units, imho. I was playing WC3 from it's beta, but not for years after that, and such spells/abilities don't suit StarCraft. - Void Ray range nerf is ok, for me as a zerg it doesn't really help much except it gets a bit more shots on itself before engaging queen/spore and after deciding to leave the fight. Basically more damage in some occasions. And I see how it helps terrans, it's actually a lot more nerfed vs terrans which already had means to stop them compared to zergs worthless investments in excess queens or spores.
Overall I would like Blizzard to listen to players, but 80% of their decisions should go based on objective information from highest level of players. Not the ones who don't want to learn but want things to be easy.
If blizz wants to make the game more noob-friendly, they should start by publishing high money maps where beginners can have all the fun they want (and even integrate those into the list of ladder maps for the lower leagues).
I don't see why they should upset the game's global balance just because there are guys out there who don't want to learn how to pull off a proper counter to something and yell "IMBA!!!".
Edit: what I still can't understand is why they would buff terran infantry ?!!? Blizz, while you're at it, why not implement town portal for terrans as well 0.o ?!?!?
On May 21 2010 19:23 IdrA wrote: if players are unable or unwilling to learn how to deal with things like that they arent gonna end up being competitive players at all. if you have to give them a crutch to keep them moving theyre just gonna keep going till they hit people who are legitly better and then give up anyway.
1v1's are not meant for people who are competitive but lack skill or work ethic. you're either playing for the fun of it and stick to ums/money maps/dont care if you win, or you're playing to win in which case its your responsibility to learn how to win, given an equal footing. an absolute equal footing, not an equal footing for people with 50 apm and below.
I don't want to put words in IdrA's mouth but balance is balance. If the game is balanced at competitive level then its automatically balanced at lower levels too.
This is an extreme logical fallacy. An ability that takes a large amount of skill to evade but not to use (psionic storm in some cases) will be balanced at pro level but extremely overpowered at lower skill levels.
On May 21 2010 22:51 shlomo wrote: If Blizzard is reading these forums, you have to wonder about their reading comprehension skills. I'm not sure where anyone said Ultras needed a damage buff. Or that they were kited by Marauders.
I couldn't agree more. Where are all the supposedly cries from low level players that reflect the current patch changes?
If they read the forums, they couldn't have missed the massive thread about ZvT mech where players from all divisions almost unanimously have agreed that this match-up is very hard to beat as Zerg. I can't seem to find all these whine threads from lower-level players they are talking about.
With that said, of course the top players should have more to say, as the balance should be between potential, not relative ability.
On May 21 2010 19:08 stalife wrote: I didn't really care about the cost of the stim pack upgrade + shield upgrades for marines, but reducing the cost... I don't really see why they would need to..
Also, I am 2040 platinum terran player, but I really think void rays need to be nerfed (I still need to play on patch 13 to see how the change affects the gameplay). If I were at 1600 platinum and complaining about void rays, then maybe I should learn some build orders, but I've tried a lot, and although gretorp's ghost build works vs void rays, terran users shouldn't be forced to only use one build for the matchup...the 1rack/1fact/1starport into vikings is like 10~15 seconds too slow.
I'm interested in the changes in patch 13. I still think something should be changed about phoenixes. Perhaps make them research the gravitation thing, but have higher attack damage to air units (so it's more of a anti air unit)
how come a terran player says something like the 1rack/1fact/1starport into vikings is like 10~15 seconds too slow ??? maybe u add here how many seconds gate/core/stalker is too slow compared to reaper ?
Earlier in the thread one person mentioned maps. For example TvZ mech is powerful because a lot of the maps are cramped and choked. Similarly void rays are more powerful on maps with tiny air-rush distances (scrap station, desert oasis). In SC1 there are no longer any patches, instead the metagame is changed by the map makers. When Zerg is too powerful they reduce the number of maps with an easy third gas. When Terran is overpowered they make the map more open to make flanking easier. (Terrain mechanics in SC2 is a whole other discussion).
When the full version is released we will have many new maps, and the ones that become popular for highlevel competition will be the ones that have the most balanced winrates at high level strategies.
This will not solve all the issues (such as rock paper scissor imbalances which balance out in win percentages, or some of the deeper gameplay aspects like should an ultra break a forcefield) but it will iron out some of the racially defined problems. As well, lower level players will play maps (ahem Python) which make lower level gaming more balanced (like Blizzards anti-rush friendly novice maps)).
Maps can help balance the game at diferrent levels, because the 1v1 user has/will have the ability to choose which map to play on. In this way it will selfbalance as all people play maps where they think they have a better chance of winning with their race (see SC1 Proleague e.g. Battle Royale). (Again diversity of strategy is a whole other discussion).
Just wanted to add another angle which we haven't seen the evolution of in the beta thus far.
* Even though infestor's Infested Terrans was a bad spell, replacing it with Frenzy, a spell that is a single unit buff is again pretty questionable. As is the newest version of Corruption. (This isnt W3, we dont have super strong units which we need to buff. Stacraft is more about masses of units, so give us mass-spells please)
I don't know who decided anything under 'Platinum 1700' was noob, but that really isn't the case. I'd say anyone in mid-Gold and up is no longer a noob, while not all of the people this rank and up may be truly good players, they certainly know enough of the basics of the game to determine if Ultralisk get pwned by armored. (By the way it was high Silver / Gold players that were complaining most about Ultras).
And to add to that, maps can be made which allow the execution of new strategies whilst still maintaining balance* at a high level (think outsider, triathlon).
*When I say balance I am talking about an even winrate.
I think its funny that when people talk about theory craft and new build orders or strats being viable on this forum its only a matter of time before someone asks for replay's to prove whether their theory is worth a damn or not. Which is the way it should be, because obviously not all situations are as black and white as we sometimes believe...
...but when it comes to complaining about Blizzards choice of game balance every theory crafter and his mother knows that his changes will make the game perfect and that Blizzard is PANDERING TO TEH NOOBZ! with each new patch.
If you really feel that stongly about this game then don't complain on this forum like some spoiled child, go make a constructive post on the Blizzard forums and let them know. Maybe you'll give them an idea or two...
Also, remember that for Blizzard SC2 isn't just their favorite video game, or hobby, its their job. They have a lot invested in SC2 as a competitive E-Sport, and you can bet your ass they want this game to be as balanced as possible, while appealing to the widest game audience as possible, while still being as competitive as possible. And remember that this is still Beta, so just chill and have no doubts that SC2 will be an awesome game!
On May 21 2010 19:14 Paramore wrote: as a 2150 plat player i suprisingly agree with this post.. alot of the fixes were derived from lower-tier player whining and that is not the way to address problems... problems should only be addressed if they existed in higher tier play..
i also agree that this isnt wc3... as a 6+ year wc3 veteran i was disappointed to see faerie fire (corruptor's new spell) and bloodlust (frenzy) implemented... these were clearly wc3 style spells and should remain in that relm.. the only single-target spells that really existed in sc1 were lockdown and yamato, which were understandable.. however... wtf is frenzy? can u really imagine that a zerg unit would cast a spell on another zerg unit to make it blood-lusted in real starcraft lore? that's ridiculous... also. infested terrans shouldn't rise from the ground (skeletons in wc3) or drop from the sky (skeletons from wc3).. the only way infested terrans should exist is if they came out of an infested cc or barracks... maybe implement infested zealots .. that'd make it cool too... or the ability to infest actual units instead of throwing these ridiculous egg things..
wc3 mechanics were a nice bring-over (hotkeys mbs automine etc) but wc3 spells are a no-no in the sc2 universe... i hope someone from blizz comes across my post.. b/c this is important... serously.. blood-lusted ultralisks is the last thing we need...
.....................
and parasite
and defense matrix
and hallucination
and feedback
and optical flare
and mind control
the relative efficacy of these spells is not under investigation, though. merely pointing out that brood war had tons of single target spells.
So why should Blizzard actually listen to 2000+ platinum players? They are such a small minority and will probably still play the game anyway.
70% of all players will play in the new big bronce leagues so Blizzard should definitly make shure that Starcraft 2 will offer fun and balanced 50 APM games - everything above is just the cherry on the cake.
That doesn't mean they should actually listen to noobs. They should listen to anybody. Every single player ist biased - even random players.
On May 21 2010 19:23 IdrA wrote: if players are unable or unwilling to learn how to deal with things like that they arent gonna end up being competitive players at all. if you have to give them a crutch to keep them moving theyre just gonna keep going till they hit people who are legitly better and then give up anyway.
1v1's are not meant for people who are competitive but lack skill or work ethic. you're either playing for the fun of it and stick to ums/money maps/dont care if you win, or you're playing to win in which case its your responsibility to learn how to win, given an equal footing. an absolute equal footing, not an equal footing for people with 50 apm and below.
Have to agree here. This whole "please everybody" business is stupid in theory, let alone in practice. Blizzard is in the business of making a competitive "esport" RTS. There's no room for making the game easy for noobs or anybody else. They've got the wrong balance team working for them if easy to learn - hard to master is what they hope to achieve this round.
I do think there are some red flags in the way Blizzard is handling this beta. But then again, there have been red flags from Blizzard ever since they release burning crusade. These situation reports are a joke. Think about it: do you want a summary from blizzard about the changes they have already made or would you prefer an open dialogue about what they need to consider next?
While the game is great, I have to admit that this has been the worst beta I've ever been in. At least the game is stable/doesn't crash. But the dev-community interaction is 0/10.
It's easy to say something like "50% winrate at all skill levels, we're all set!" But then if the game is flipping coins, who cares? The game isn't fun!
Some of you are also saying that everything will be balanced as long as it's balanced for the pros. This isn't true. A lot of people recognized in SC:BW that Protoss had a shallower learning curve than Terrans, you know, 1a2a3a4a and all that.
That said, I'm not sure I agree with balancing everything for people at all skill levels. By balancing it for all skill levels you're limiting what the pros can do at the highest skill levels. Can you imagine how Terran play would change in BW if they made Terran "easier"?
Frozen also has a point about patches in the pipeline. If that is indeed the case I think the issue is more about patches coming too frequently than anything else.
Finally, what the heck. Zerg spells are all over the place now, I thought they were completely fine except for infested Terran. Now I have beefs with infested terran, frenzy, corrupter corruption, and the new overseer corruption. Seriously, why is infested terran still in the game? Couldn't they have come up with a better solution to the ultralisk problem than adding a stupid spammable single target buff ability? Heck, why not make the stupid thing autocast and then we can just admit right now that we're playing some kind of Starcraft/Warcraft hybrid. Why does the infester even need a third spell?
What concerns me most with the patch is not that the game will not be balanced. It's just that I wonder if melee games will be "Starcrafty" enough for me. I don't like frenzy, and harassing overseers with those two abilities is just like what the crap is going on with this game.
Those of you complaining about the void ray nerf, should listen to the state of the game podcast. When discussing the voidray, cathonluck and day 9 agreed that a small nerf should be given to it, and im paraphrasing: "such as reducing the range by 1 so vikings are more useful". Theres your high level player wanting a nerf, so ya..
On May 21 2010 19:05 IdrA wrote: good players speaking out isnt gonna change anything, theres a real problem with blizzards balance team, or their goals in balancing. its clear they dont even watch high level games, much less listen to high level players or understand whats going on in those games. some of the justifications for the last few patches have been utterly ridiculous. twice theyve mentioned ultralisk's performance in zvz to justify changes. ultralisks have never, ever, been built in a competitive zvz.
...
Yearrgg... How many times does it need to be posted that Blizzard has their own internal system that they have teams of people playing all kinds of strategies on that we don't know about? Of course there's no ultralisk in zvz on the beta servers because we were still on a patch where they were riddled with issues. Internally, they'd be doing everything they could to tweak them and probably ordering their employees to use them in all matchups, so YES there were ultralisks in plenty of zvz so they could notice those issues and correct them BEFORE they were live to the public.
Even Day9, a player I really respect made a similar comment about this (np nerf against ultra in zvz), why are people so naive to Blizzard's development process?
On May 21 2010 19:05 IdrA wrote: good players speaking out isnt gonna change anything, theres a real problem with blizzards balance team, or their goals in balancing. its clear they dont even watch high level games, much less listen to high level players or understand whats going on in those games. some of the justifications for the last few patches have been utterly ridiculous. twice theyve mentioned ultralisk's performance in zvz to justify changes. ultralisks have never, ever, been built in a competitive zvz.
...
Yearrgg... How many times does it need to be posted that Blizzard has their own internal system that they have teams of people playing all kinds of strategies on that we don't know about? Of course there's no ultralisk in zvz on the beta servers because we were still on a patch where they were riddled with issues. Internally, they'd be doing everything they could to tweak them and probably ordering their employees to use them in all matchups, so YES there were ultralisks in plenty of zvz so they could notice those issues and correct them BEFORE they were live to the public.
Even Day9, a player I really respect made a similar comment about this (np nerf against ultra in zvz), why are people so naive to Blizzard's development process?
Do you not know who Idra is or do you seriously believe you know more about the disconnect between high level players/play and Blizzard's balance team?
On May 21 2010 19:05 IdrA wrote: good players speaking out isnt gonna change anything, theres a real problem with blizzards balance team, or their goals in balancing. its clear they dont even watch high level games, much less listen to high level players or understand whats going on in those games. some of the justifications for the last few patches have been utterly ridiculous. twice theyve mentioned ultralisk's performance in zvz to justify changes. ultralisks have never, ever, been built in a competitive zvz.
...
Yearrgg... How many times does it need to be posted that Blizzard has their own internal system that they have teams of people playing all kinds of strategies on that we don't know about? Of course there's no ultralisk in zvz on the beta servers because we were still on a patch where they were riddled with issues. Internally, they'd be doing everything they could to tweak them and probably ordering their employees to use them in all matchups, so YES there were ultralisks in plenty of zvz so they could notice those issues and correct them BEFORE they were live to the public.
Even Day9, a player I really respect made a similar comment about this (np nerf against ultra in zvz), why are people so naive to Blizzard's development process?
Do you not know who Idra is or do you seriously believe you know more about the disconnect between high level players/play and Blizzard's balance team?
I know who IdrA is and I'm a huge fan of him and his play.. I wholeheartedly agree he's the best zerg player on the public servers.
And no, I don't know think I know more about the disconnect, but I do know more about the development process as a software developer myself. But my argument is that it doesn't take much knowledge to know there's an entirely different game that's being played internally. It's more frustrating when a player I really like, like IdrA shows this naiveness thinking blizzard are all reading forums, and watching beta play all day trying to guess what type of changes they should make without tweaking things internally first.
One more point, this would be a direct question to IdrA and those players who believe Blizzard should put more of their attention on top level players in the beta:
As a top player in Patch 12, would you take your own comments when you were playing Patch 1 as sound balancing advice? I mean if there were 2 servers available, one Patch 12 and one Patch 1, and you played on both, would you take your Patch 1 balancing advice into consideration for Patch 12?
Of course not, because Patch 12 is very different from Patch 1, so why would you playing Patch 12 put much focus on what the very best Patch 1 player would say? It'd be more productive to focus on what a skilled, but maybe not top, player would say about Patch 12.
On May 22 2010 00:03 shin ken wrote: So why should Blizzard actually listen to 2000+ platinum players? They are such a small minority and will probably still play the game anyway.
70% of all players will play in the new big bronce leagues so Blizzard should definitly make shure that Starcraft 2 will offer fun and balanced 50 APM games - everything above is just the cherry on the cake.
That doesn't mean they should actually listen to noobs. They should listen to anybody. Every single player ist biased - even random players.
The game is always balanced for anything below Silver. All you have to do is build units and A move and you win. It doesn't matter what race you are or what you build. That's why you shouldn't listen to Bronze about balance! They don't build units and don't understand why they lost!
Blizzard should balance for noobs first and pros second. Not because pro balance isn't important, but because both are important and it's easier to get things right for noobs with good basics, then balance for pros by altering stuff that noobs can't or won't use anyway. Basically once the game is balanced for noobs you can balance for pros by making changes that only affect players with high APM or good timing etc.
edit: Note by "noobs" I mean average players, not the worst guy in copper.
On May 22 2010 00:47 gravity wrote: Blizzard should balance for noobs first and pros second. Not because pro balance isn't important, but because both are important and it's easier to get things right for noobs with good basics, then balance for pros by altering stuff that noobs can't or won't use anyway. Basically once the game is balanced for noobs you can balance for pros by making changes that only affect players with high APM or good timing etc.
edit: Note by "noobs" I mean average players, not the worst guy in copper.
Ok, that's great... but the game is already balanced for noobs. Balanced = better player wins. Noob games = whoever builds units wins. Now lets focus on pro balance.
On May 22 2010 00:47 gravity wrote: Blizzard should balance for noobs first and pros second. Not because pro balance isn't important, but because both are important and it's easier to get things right for noobs with good basics, then balance for pros by altering stuff that noobs can't or won't use anyway. Basically once the game is balanced for noobs you can balance for pros by making changes that only affect players with high APM or good timing etc.
edit: Note by "noobs" I mean average players, not the worst guy in copper.
Ok, that's great... but the game is already balanced for noobs. Balanced = better player wins. Noob games = whoever builds units wins. Now lets focus on pro balance.
Like I said, when I say noobs I mean average, not retarded. I doubt the game is necessarily balanced at the average level. Void rays at least are clearly overpowered at that level and apparently borderline overpowered for pros too.
On May 22 2010 00:47 gravity wrote: Blizzard should balance for noobs first and pros second. Not because pro balance isn't important, but because both are important and it's easier to get things right for noobs with good basics, then balance for pros by altering stuff that noobs can't or won't use anyway. Basically once the game is balanced for noobs you can balance for pros by making changes that only affect players with high APM or good timing etc.
It isn't even possible to "balance" a game on lower levels. There is no way to reach any solid conclusions. Random bursts of decent play decide games on that level, completely ignoring any imbalances.
And even if a game were balanced at low levels, there is no way to fix top level balance without touching low level play.
On May 22 2010 00:47 gravity wrote: Blizzard should balance for noobs first and pros second. Not because pro balance isn't important, but because both are important and it's easier to get things right for noobs with good basics, then balance for pros by altering stuff that noobs can't or won't use anyway. Basically once the game is balanced for noobs you can balance for pros by making changes that only affect players with high APM or good timing etc.
It isn't even possible to "balance" a game on lower levels. There is no way to reach any solid conclusions. Random bursts of decent play decide games on that level, completely ignoring any imbalances.
The same argument applies to any level of play since no-one is perfect - at any level you have to look at stats, not individual games.
And even if a game were balanced at low levels, there is no way to fix top level balance without touching low level play.
There are ways to fix high levels with minimal impact on low levels. For example, if Z was too weak at pro level but fine for average players, one change might be to make muta micro more powerful/possible. This would buff pro Z's but average players wouldn't have good enough micro/APM to really take advantage of it.
I feel like Blizzard should list poll options on their potential changes to certain units and ask the high level players what they believe is a good change to the game rather than just guessing what change would be good and implementing it in patch #__. Obviously, the Ultralisk is a very underused unit (if at all), and just trying to implement small changes by randomly buffing random stats isn't really solving the problem.
On May 22 2010 00:59 cHaNg-sTa wrote: I feel like Blizzard should list poll options on their potential changes to certain units and ask the high level players what they believe is a good change to the game rather than just guessing what change would be good and implementing it in patch #__. Obviously, the Ultralisk is a very underused unit (if at all), and just trying to implement small changes by randomly buffing random stats isn't really solving the problem.
One danger with this could be bias towards whatever is currently the most popular race at high level. Also, not all high level player's opinions are equally useful - some are more thoughtful/creative and hence more likely to spot issues, others just do the latest strats with good mechanics and timing.
I'm going to lock this. It's a nice sentiment but theres a few things we should get into perspective here.
When we say Blizzard reads these forums, we are talking about Blizzard employees in general (theres a lot of them, and they are cool dudes). I dont think David Kim is sitting down over lunch to hear scrubbers complaining about void ray range. Like Idra said, A LOT of the balance decisions seem to be statistically based - it's not "bad", it just takes way longer for them to target issues that pro players have been complaining about for 3+ weeks.
EPT
