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I think OP is on to something. Only problem I see however is how a change for casual player skews the competitive arena by allowing skilled players to just abuse advantages and abuse supposed "imbalanced" tactics. The Koreans are the best example of a group of players who just maximized the effectiveness and skill of the game.
Still, despite this problem, I still think that casual balance is definitely something that should be aimed for, as most of SC2 players aren't going to be INCREDIBLY competitive. You can complain all you want that competitive play is skewed....but hey. That's just why balancing a game is so hard. You have to appeal to two focus groups that are incredibly different in terms of skill, play time...etc.
Moral of the story?
Quit your bitching. Blizzard's trying its best.
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what game do you work for? cuz i'd like to avoid it. seriously you take a really pointless obvious point and try to make a whole self-important issue out of it. talk about lacking in the ability to see the crux of the matter. sc2 needs to be balanced at the top for esports. sc2 needs to be fun for the masses since it is a game for the masses also. balance or 'tiered balance' does not equate to fun. all you did is you just made up an un-fun ability.
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The thing is, copper players won't know to pull these things off.
How many new players think up an early reaper build on their own? Even if they do, they will soon move out of copper since they are winning games.
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I think casual players will be drawn to the game more once it comes out and there's co-op vs ai, as well as ums maps for them to play with. Then some may start to play the actual game, or play the actual game occasionally.
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Aren't there novice maps to discourage land cheesing?
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Is there any good competitive game that is balanced at all levels without some huge luck factor thrown in? I'm trying to think of one but I can't.
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This is a great post OP. Shake some sense into the people here.
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On May 26 2010 09:34 guitarizt wrote: Is there any good competitive game that is balanced at all levels without some huge luck factor thrown in? I'm trying to think of one but I can't. most FPS are balanced at all skill levels Most RTS are not balanced at ANY level unless units are identical on all sides and even then some units are just "the unit to build" since they overpower everything else. RTS are just difficult due to their complexity.
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nice post. I totaly aggre with you. Blizzard should not balance his game with the casual gamer. Maybe he should ask to the good player ( in them barem) to know what is good and with is a little bit unbalance.
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I am neither a casual player, nor a competitive one. I am a game designer who happened to amble past. Though, I don't mind being called a casual player, I certainly won't deny the charge. How does my status as a player affect the point that I make as a designer?
Being a casual gamer influences your thoughts through being biased. StarCraft is a competitive game. FaceBook games are casual games. StarCraft is being made to be an e-sports game, it already has a reputation for competitive play. Just look how many tournaments there are for beta. Casual games are for lunch breaks, designed to be easy and quick. Although you do have some points, you can't treat one like the other because they are most definitely not.
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Well thought out. It doesn't surprise me that this has clearly gone over some people's heads. There is definitely a pro-bias on this forum from my readings.
As to the content, the main issue with this is whether the relative complexity of the game scales evenly from noob to pro. In otherwords, is the simplicity of the offensive strategies and their counters of equivalent difficulty or is it skewed. If it is skewed in favour of the defence, there is little or no problem as the user of the strategy will need to be a higher skill level (and win justifiably). Alternatively (like reaper vs protoss), the skill to use the 'cheese' is lower than the skill required to defend and it means cheesers are rewarded more than their more 'skilled' peers because they are using a strategy with a much more intensive counter... hopefully someone will realise this...
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The threat of cheese is what keeps your enemy in check. Yes, at higher levels the players will fall for it less because they scout, but the threat still keeps them honest. Without cheese, players would just play extremely greedy every single game and there would be no pressure.
So you say that if overlords could infest terran buildings, that the pros would just build a turret and the problem would be solved. Your mistake is that you assume that this "alleviates" the problem for the pros because they make it a routine every game to prevent this. However, building a few turrets DOES cost them minerals. Which in turn, eats into other things such as money for your expansion and your resources towards an army, as well as your general APM.
Cheese forces you to either:
A. Do the absolute best job you can scouting so you can walk that thin line between protecting yourself from it and overreacting and wasting resources.
B. Play a safe and conservative "standard" build because you need to be ready for anything. This happens when you can't scout as much as you'd like to.
So what we have are 2 very important game play changes that result from being able to cheese someone.
1. Gives leverage against greedy opponents. Even if you decide you are going to cheese before scouting them, if they go greedy and you punish them for it, the metagame changes. Overall players will be more reluctant to skimp on defense because of the "fear of being cheesed". This is especially important when you BO5 someone.
2. Rewards the player with better scouting and better understanding of the game. Scouting is the easier part, it's reading your opponents build and reacting to it that takes skill and wisdom.
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On May 26 2010 09:37 MeruFM wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 09:34 guitarizt wrote: Is there any good competitive game that is balanced at all levels without some huge luck factor thrown in? I'm trying to think of one but I can't. most FPS are balanced at all skill levels Most RTS are not balanced at ANY level unless units are identical on all sides and even then some units are just "the unit to build" since they overpower everything else. RTS are just difficult due to their complexity.
I think you're basically right but the term "balance" that everyone keeps slinging around is definitely a useful concept as it applies to RTS games. If, for instance, Drones had 5 HP there would be a serious balance problem.
In a game theoretic sense, it's impossible for there to be an optimal strategy for an RTS game. You can't develop an action to address every possible action your opponent could make. That said, we do develop quasi-optimal strategies for RTS games and these quasi-optimal strategies are where "balance" makes sense.
There are two important senses where this is true:
If race A performs a particular build race B should be able to beat that strategy more than 50% of the time if race B knows what race A is doing (given excellent players of equal skill).
Race A vs race B, the results should converge to parity (given excellent players of equal skill).
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As a casual gamer, the only thing that attracts me in RTS is to know why I lost and do better the next time vs the same situation.
Now, the OP should define 'fun' and 'casual' concepts. Because fun is quite relative and so subjective imho. And your definition of FUN for casuals should certainly NOT be absolute or your next designed games will fail no doubt (in the theory that you are a game designer).
Now the only point I truely hope is that blizzard will adjust the balancing toward competitive scene and not the opposite. Otherwise, I will not see what I can really improve on, simply. Casuals are not labo rats with no brain but people that can EVOLVE.
This would change the nature of the game, as it is a matter of degrees.
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I don't see cheese that way...only all in ling rushes in BW... >_<
All cheeses are relatively simple to stop in SC2, even if you don't scout, especially at low levels. If you are playing low matches then you will for sure have the opportunity to come back in the game. Of course, don't tell this to the people who lost 30 SCVs to my 2 banshees (as well as a large number of marines) the other day... that was rather pitiful and happened TWICE lmao.
Also, don't tell this to the donks in plat who cheese people in silver and say "get out of the platinum ranks, cuz you suck really bad"... this also happened to me the other day. Along with an offensive gg, its completely uncalled for to say ANYTHING like that to ANYONE, especially considering that the matches pit people from different playing levels together, even something as different as silver and platinum. The sad thing about that game is that I should have won it lmao... and he's badmouthing me for sucking. How about he shuts up and figures out why I almost beat him, since if he claims that I "sucked so bad," why did he almost lose to me? It says something about said unnamed person >.>... bm people really annoy me (except for Idra, he's so bm its hilarious XD).
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As someone that bought the original SC the day it came out, I find the op absurd. Spawning pools were 150 mins when SC came out. Everyone got rushed like crazy. The game wouldn't have lasted a year if what you say is true. SC has had a steep learning curve from day one. The first time you step into the multiplayer mode you should get your ass handed to you. That's StarCraft.
If you play the campaign, play vs some ais, think you know what you are doing, log in, get crushed, cry and quit then SC isn't the game for you. If you get crushed and keep coming back for more, if losing makes you more competitive and engages you mentally, if you love to improve at something with no ceiling in sight... then you might be the next Sen or White-Ra.
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8748 Posts
On May 26 2010 09:37 MeruFM wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 09:34 guitarizt wrote: Is there any good competitive game that is balanced at all levels without some huge luck factor thrown in? I'm trying to think of one but I can't. most FPS are balanced at all skill levels Balance between what?
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Basically the problem is, that it is much easier to learn to cheese than learn to block cheeses.
On May 26 2010 09:57 mucker wrote: As someone that bought the original SC the day it came out, I find the op absurd. Spawning pools were 150 mins when SC came out. Everyone got rushed like crazy. The game wouldn't have lasted a year if what you say is true. SC has had a steep learning curve from day one. The first time you step into the multiplayer mode you should get your ass handed to you. That's StarCraft. And because of that you still might hear people (who tried it only then) saying that SC is all about teh ZERG RUSH
Certainly it put off a lot of people.
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On May 26 2010 09:37 MeruFM wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 09:34 guitarizt wrote: Is there any good competitive game that is balanced at all levels without some huge luck factor thrown in? I'm trying to think of one but I can't. most FPS are balanced at all skill levels. I don't know what you mean by "most" FPS, but the number one competitive FPS - Quake live - is clearly not balanced at all skill levels, since at low level it's all about rocket spam
On May 26 2010 09:35 Zombo Joe wrote: This is a great post OP. Shake some sense into the people here. Shake some sense into yourself. The OP has *zero* substance. Discussing it is akin discussing conspiracy theories - it's the path through quagmire of "what ifs" that leads nowhere.
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We don't need to cater to newbies that much. They need to get over themselves and learn how to play the game. We all had to do it. Why should they be any different?
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