EPTCasual Balance - Updated May 30 - Page 6
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DarkwindHK
Hong Kong343 Posts
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Sentient
United States437 Posts
The players in the lower leagues are not there because they are "casual", they are there because they are bad. They are bad at everything about the game. They will be bad no matter what you do, and you can't balance for badness. They use build orders that cut their production by 50% or more, and they don't care. They just want to build an army and A-move to victory, and they want whoever has the better army composition to win. They live in a fantasy world where the best strategizer wins; they put all the emphasis on "strategy" and forget about the "time" in RTS, all the while never learning what the strategic elements of the game actually are. They aren't interested in balance, and they don't play the game to win. Again, you can't balance for that. Blizzard could certainly make a game more appealing to these people, but it would be a bad game for bad players. A healthy competitive scene will produce a more appealing game in the long run. | ||
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phyvo
United States5635 Posts
On May 26 2010 07:41 Excalibur_Z wrote: Something that I think you may be glossing over is the history of SC and BW. There are always "unstoppable cheeses" and some are so egregious that they cause players to quit the game. Mass Hydras were unstoppable. Mass Zeals were unstoppable. The Muta rush was unstoppable. The Reaver drop was unstoppable. Mass Carriers were unstoppable. Corsairs were unstoppable. The DT rush was unstoppable. The Lurker rush was unstoppable. In each phase, a lot of players quit the game because "bullshit cheese" was ruining the fun. They either went to play UMS maps or moved on to another game entirely. That is just the nature of a casual player. I should know, I've tried to train dozens of players on gaining a competitive mindset. In most cases, even "catering to the casuals" by balancing it for them won't affect their decision. In fact, it's arguable that War3's anti-harassment, anti-rush functions did nothing to stave off the gradual exodus from that game. Then it's not rushes that kill you, it's containment, or it's map control, or it's tech, or anything really -- there are a myriad of reasons. I think you need to approach the situation from a broader perspective. The skill levels of players range from extremely skilled to absolutely terrible. There is no way to please everyone. Some players will lose to gimmick strats and give up, and some will stick around and try and discover a counter themselves, while others will investigate forums or replays for possible solutions. Probably the best post in here to be honest. If anything I'm more worried about Blizzard overbalancing the game than underbalancing it, and honestly people will always find stupid ways to lose no matter what you do. Balance is not the way to address this barring something that completely breaks the game for everyone except the pros. | ||
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NicolBolas
United States1388 Posts
Let's simplify the discussion and say that skill at a game is a single, quantifiable value. And let's say that the skill ceiling (the point at which no more skill is possible) is 50. If you have a 50 skill Zerg and a 50 skill Terran, we would reasonably expect a Best of 7 series to come out 4:3, or thereabouts. If you have these players play Bo7's daily for a month, you would expect about a 50:50 win-rate. If you get a 60:40 ZvT winrate, you would consider that reasonable evidence that the game is imbalanced, yes? Let's do the same thing, only we have a 5 skill Z vs. a 5 skill T. Give them daily Bo7 series for a month. Should this be 50:50 for a balanced game? Or more to the point, is it wrong for there to be a 40:60 result for this skill level? I would argue that it is OK, with qualification. Because simply not all wins and losses are the same. Sometimes you lose a game and feel like you were so close to winning. If only you had done X a little better, or maybe added a few Y units to your army, you'd have beaten him. This kind of loss makes you want to play again. Similarly, there are those wins that feel so good, when everything barely worked out right, you held off the early game pressure with two Zerglings left, and finally took him down after a pitched battle. These are the games that make you want to play again. More importantly, these are the games that make you want to get better. The losses are close enough that you can easily make corrections and adjustments without a lot of time investment. And the victories validate your previous adjustments and reinforce your decision making. And sometimes you get face-stomped. Sometimes you get bent over a table where unmentionable things are perpetrated upon your vital anatomy. Sometimes you're playing a game and nothing you do seems to work. Every decision you make goes increasingly more wrong until you're finally put out of your misery. Or maybe it doesn't even get that far; maybe an unstoppable number of units appears in your base well before you have anything to deal with them. The form doesn't matter. These are the games that make you want to never play again. They do nothing for your play unless you spend lots of time studying the games. The winner is having certain play reinforced, but that play may not help them against higher skilled opponents; this freezes them in their skill zone. The loser isn't getting close enough for them to even understand how to correct it without outside help or intense study. If at skill 5, there is a sufficiently low winrate (say, 10  0) in ZvT, then what you have is quite likely a lot of the latter kinds of games rather than the former. That is going to suppress players from learning anything more about the game, on both ends. The Terran isn't improving his play in any meaningful way; he's just executing the optimal strategy. The Zerg can't improve his play because he's getting face-stomped.However, if it's a 40:60 ratio, then it's pushing both players to get better. This indicates that the games are more likely the former kind that help both players get better, rather than facestomps. The key is not necessarily for all skill levels to be perfectly balanced within themselves. The key is to make sure that the quality of play is sufficient at each skill rank, so that nobody feels that they're getting constantly facestomped by the same strategy over and over again. That feeling helps nether the person being stomped nor the face-stomper. I would say that many rush builds in SC1 qualified as this. It takes so much less skill to execute a rush than to stop one. Learning to execute a rush requires only a quick Liquipedia search; stopping one requires a lot more effort. And given some of the changes Blizzard is making (the Forge build time change is probably the most obvious), it seems fairly clear that they understand these principles. | ||
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Niten
United States598 Posts
I think edmon is absolutely right that there needs to be new blood, but I also agree with Sentient's post that whether they're casual or new or whatever, they're in lower leagues and lose because they're just bad at the game. I don't really know what the solution is, but from my own experience I know that I'm one of these bad players and that I don't want the game balanced for me. I already feel like there are many tools available to me in sc2: Commentated VODs Replay Packs Strategy Forum FPV Streams Blizz's challenges (not available now but will be!) I guess I'm just saying that the focus shouldn't be on balancing for casuals, but instead on diversifying the tools and means by which they can learn and improve their game. For a solution to the problem, I'd say to expand upon those means and tools. | ||
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CagedMind
United States506 Posts
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Disastorm
United States922 Posts
However I don't agree with balancing a game for noobs IF it involves imbalancing something that was previously balanced. In other words youd have to drastically change the game for each change since you wouldn't be able to simply decrease HP or increase attack, since that would imbalance something that was previously balanced. | ||
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Adeeler
United Kingdom764 Posts
At 'lower' levels of play certain races are easier to learn and play effectively thus the balance simply does not exist in that sense. All that separates the races is the learning curve to effectiveness rate. For P the rate is fast at first and you can effective quickly as the race has less army size with more power. For T its quite fast also but more difficult then handling P. And for Z its medium to slow to start with because of the nature of the other races early game options against them. After the initial learning curves come to the 1st plateau in curves it pretty much should be expected to have like for like time in practice to skill improvement. At the highest levels other factors take over in game balance and maps and mind games and things are usually very close. ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/BqDIg.png) It sounds like the OP wants an early game for zerg but sadly blizzard don't want early game swings for zerg in any fashion due to the hydra tech placement and the removal of lurker & muta micro. Its a different game and all that and each race must deal with how its been changed and stick with there race or change for seemingly greener pastures. | ||
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Sets
United States59 Posts
Cheese is another way of calling it the 'Fool's Mate" or "Scholar's Mate" in chess. Starcraft is like chess where you have to move your units where ever you like and the real consequence is where you moved them and how you use your units. If you ever get cheese, without even looking at your reply, I can tell you didn't know what will happen due to because you dont' have scouting or you don't have the timing. There are counters to everything in this game. If you lose, well it's basically you don't know what to really do. It doesn't mean you should complain about how imbalance it is. You just need to play smarter or faster. The game was made like this for a reason. Making games too easy usually makes high skilled players just laugh at the game and leave to where a game can suit their challenges. | ||
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Tinithor
United States1552 Posts
I mean if 1 person has a SEMBLANCE of an idea of what to do and the other person doesn't, well then the first person will (and should in my opinion) win. You can't balance for the worst people cause balance doesn't concern them, nothing is done optimally enough for it to be "imbalanced" and they could easily improve if they just went and learned 1 actual build order. But if they don't even put that much effort in to try and get better, why should you rebalance the game for them? | ||
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Sadist
United States7291 Posts
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Vexx
United States462 Posts
I wonder if your post wasn't inspired by the current discussions about MMORPGs on other forums and how they NEED to please the casual/new player or they will fail due to the natural population decline. I wonder what you think OP. Blizzard is trying to design a competitive RTS. With the way the game is currently designed (fail once and die), I can't help but feel that there's little hope for the casual gamer as far as melee is concerned (obviously, more people plays UMS in Blizz's games than melee). | ||
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L6-636536
United States94 Posts
Bad Group tends to be noobs Who dont know what Cheese is play the game for fun or just suck period occasionally you'll be bad but there will always be worse and omghowisthisreal bad. Good Will be the group that learned or sought some answers or just figured it out and can play the game competantly Very Good Can Play the game Competantly but not enough to do it competatively Competative and MLG will be the group that plays the game for the win not to have fun because competition gets them off and the feel of a deserved 'GG' keeps them going. This is why you have Placements and this is why Placements Work Because it doesnt matter how much you win or lose you always go up or down a bracket where you belong. This is Casual Balance. As for reducing correcting or removing Cheese it should always be balanced for the MLG and Competative Gamers because they're the ones who care and are effected the most this in turn trickles down to players in the lower bracketts because it reduces the stress of these imbalances on them thus making the game more fun for all Otherwise. Every noob and his mom will cannon rush or rush for VR's or this cheese or that cheese. | ||
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MythicalMage
1360 Posts
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SichuanPanda
Canada1542 Posts
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Bibdy
United States3481 Posts
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ImSkeptical
Australia51 Posts
The underlying assumption, is that the casual gamer, will get 'addicted' and progress to the play to win mindset, one where the concept of balance is just viewed as a mental obstacle to one's own improvement. But does this really happen? This is only personal conjecture, but hopefully it's somewhat compelling if not entirely empirical. By focusing balance to deal with these kind of cheeses, what develops is a kind of psychology where, if you're having trouble with a strategy, what you do is wait for blizzard to fix it. You don't try to get better, you just go, hey, this is 'overpowered' and will be nerfed in the future. Every time I lose to it, its not a real loss. I'm simply going to whine, and then when it gets nerfed the game will be perfect. But its never going to be perfect because someone just figures out another rush, another cheese. Why? Because without certain fundamentals, specifically scouting and solid macro to give you relative timings, as a player you will always have trouble with cheese and all-ins. I don't think a player will develop these skills over time if they are in the mindset where things are 'overpowered'. So though the sentiment is nice, I don't think balancing on both levels can work. 'Casual' players, if they don't have the willpower or insight on how to think in playing a competitive game of the complexity of Starcraft, are not going to develop it gradually over time, especially not if it seems to be 'fixed' by an external force. They just need to develop a certain level of maturity or openmindness that doesn't really come from directly playing the game. | ||
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alphafuzard
United States1610 Posts
auto mine, mbs, even novice maps that make it more difficult to rush just look at some of the more recent changes, like the nerf to the forge to make cannon rushing more difficult. | ||
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
On May 26 2010 12:38 MythicalMage wrote: I love how people think that the majority of the people buying starcraft 2 are pro-gamers, or even competitive or decent players. Even pro players start out with low level strategies like ling rush or what have you. Blizzard has to appeal to everyone. If they put out a game, of this high profile, and it was only fun/interesting for the pro's then Blizzard's shareholders would get rathe upset. The game needs to be balanced, and, more importantly, fun for everyone. I agree that sc2 must be fun for everyone but it doesn't necessarily have to be balanced at the lower levels. If we hypothetically quantify skill and players A and B are both at skill 10, and that A will win 70% of the time, it doesn't mean the game's going to fail. It means that, given enough incentive (i.e. fun), player B will want to get better at the game and increase to skill 12 where he can go toe to toe with player A. I feel like the situation described above is true for sc1 where TvZ is rather difficult at low/mid levels of play. Terran is a race that requires a lot of multitasking by nature which lower level players simply do not have. Ever try to micro a big marine medic army to dodge lurkers and dark swarms while making units nonstop at your base? It's really really hard. That doesn't mean that people don't play Terran at all. There's plenty of people who picked up Terran and became very good. | ||
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danbel1005
United States1319 Posts
On May 26 2010 07:28 ToT)OjKa( wrote: get good or die hard Indeed, die hard oh wait I meant GET GOOD  | ||
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