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Greetings,
I've called this thread "casual balance" just so that people, at a glance, have an idea of what I want to discuss without getting overly technical. However, for the rest of the thread I will call this tiered balance. So don't get confused, its the same thing.
I've read with interest the many threads on balance in this forum over the past few weeks. Now normally, I wouldn't post a thread about balance myself. This seems kind of perverse, because I'm actually a qualifed game designer. The reason why is simply that, I really love working on games and balance, its a very difficult skill to master but everyone feels like they can do it. So generally complex points get made, ignored and the thread turns into nerd rage.
However, it seems the mods here have an iron grip and a good sense of judgement so I wanted to bring up tiered balance to see what you guys think and just as a education on the subject.
Now I'm sure your tired of my preamble already so on to the meat of the subject. I'm going to make something up so you can enter this without preconceptions as to what "the counter" is.
Imagine if you will that overlords have the ability to infest buildings. This would be silly but hear me out. So, they have this ability and it only works on terrans. The overlord has to float over the command center, some tenticles lower into it. They damage it at 50 HP/Second and once it goes red, it's an SC1 style infested building.
Now, this so far, is balanced on the competitive tier. A competitive terran will -never- allow this to happen. He will have marines out in time and he'll have that overlord shot down so fast it will not know what hit it. Zerg will be down an overlord critically early, so most good players won't even bother to try it. Later on, a single turret will prevent this from ever happening ever again.
On the casual tier, this ability is a huge cheese and it may work almost all of the time. Players with poor timings don't have defences down in time. If they do, they forget the simple things all competitive players remember to do at the same time. Like wall in/off and panic. They lose over and over and they rage all over the forums about it.
So the question is, does this ability I made up need to be changed, presuming it existed? (Lets forget that protoss exist for now).
Competitive players argue no. It's balanced, L2P, etc. All that good stuff. It can be prevented easily what is the issue? Learn to scout it, get marines, simple.
Casuals hate it, it's annoying, it's an instant-loss cheese (SC2 has plenty of these) and it's off putting. A massive arguement ensues. No-one wins, everyone is sad and worst of all, everyone thinks they are right.
The point I am trying to make is this. A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P". They will just leave because they think the game is shit and your game will die. Had they stayed, prehaps they would have become great. But they didn't because the cheese has killed the game for them early, when they are still deciding "Do I like this game?".
No hardcore fanbase is an island. You need the new blood. Once casuals are addicted to the game and -not- before, will they decide "I want to be better" and start playing hard to win. Maybe, a year down the line, one of these guys will be epic and Day[9] will be blah-blah-blahing about him being a hero. You just don't know.
So what about the problem above?
Blizzard would probably balance it by making the ability cost 200 energy and adding energy to the overlord. This delays the cheese, probably by about 30-40 seconds, giving the casuals more time to combat it. Many will see this as a mistake, because it changes a game that was "fine" before. I respectfully disagree.
When I see this change, I quickly realise that, it's not going to change competitive play, because that tier will adapt. Cheese rarely ever works against competitive players, so why even have it all (The cheese not the ability) if you can prevent it? Plus, in this example, overlords now having energy means that you could kill them with feedback. This is a change, maybe for the better, maybe not. Imagine a doomdrop being stopped with feedback. Sometimes when we elimate cheese we can create new, epic plays.
So, in conclusion I would say. Whatever the cheese is, be it void ray, reaper, cannons. I ask not that you say "L2P, L2S, etc" and just stop and think... can we keep these players without ruining the competitive game? Can we remove the cheese but keep the strategy? Can it be balanced for both tiers?
I would argue that a good balance designer can have his delicious competitive cake and have a casual player eat it and that this is what will determine if this game is still around 10 years from now. So the next time a flavour of the month cheese fills the forum, I would ask only that you think of a solution, before reaching for the L2P-bat.
Because in the end, it will make the game better for everybody if you do.
Thanks for reading.
Update:
You will find my update on this thread here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=127450¤tpage=14#265
Update #2:
Read this recent thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163417
Oh look, I totally called it in this thread, months and months ago.
Whos right now? :D. This is a Clear case of casual balance.
Q. There are opinions that the variety in choice of strategies for Terran have decreased due to the recent nerf
A. There were a lot of strategies terrans could use before scouting their opponent. We were planning to decrease the number of possible strategies because we felt they were having a negative effect, and the reaper happened to be problematic in team games so we adjusted the balance with a focus on reapers. In the case of barracks before depot, there were a lot of games that ended before it was even scouted. It didn't happen very often on the pro level, but it was becoming a problem in lower tier play. The main focus is the pro level, but our ultimate goal is for players of all levels to be able to play a fair and balanced game. Barracks first builds were too strong in that regard and created a lot of problems in low level play, which is why we made the adjustments.
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United States22154 Posts
I dont really have anything to add, I just think this is a great well though out post, now if we could get all the people raging over how "imbalanced" Terran is to read this and think, rather than rage...
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Your post relies solely on situational evidence, If you do not balance a game at the higher levels then pro players abuse certain strategies that are the most imbalanced. Causal players will not, and should not care that they lose maybe 10 games in a row to cheese, one because this is just beta, and two, winning isn't everything and you can still have fun while losing. In short balancing at higher levels of play ensures that the game is balanced to its fullest, and provides more causal players a chance to stop cheese.
Additionally no matter how much this game is balanced you cannot account for the fact that many causal players are very bad, and you should never balance for those that are bad.
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I think you make some excellent points, and I think that casual balance is an excellent thing to strive for, but I think the vast majority of cheese just comes from the way that the game flow works out. There's no reason (and it's nonsensical and ugly) to like put a restriction on, say, the construction time of a spawning pool, which means that even though it costs 200 minerals, it's still possible for any player to construct it very early. You can't really raise spawning pool cost, because that impacts competitive balance. The ability to trade away a significant portion of your economic sustainability for extremely early aggression is something that just results from the way that Starcraft works, and you can't really remove it in a natural way.
Understandably, early rush or pressure strategies tend to be very difficult for newer players to handle. Again, you can't really change stats so much in that respect, because of the ramifications they could have for competitive play. I think that this is acceptable, because of the lack of a better option. Maybe the aspiring player is going to have to take a less economic build order to hold off prevalent rushes, but I don't see a way to really change this for the better while still allowing early pressure at the competitive level (White-Ra's proxy gates are an excellent example of this).
As for mid- and late-game cheeses, like mass void ray or something like that, again, I feel that Blizzard should take steps to help out at the lower levels without significantly changing higher level play (if it is indeed balanced there). The void ray range decrease was a strong indicator of Blizzard's willingness to do something like that, though it should be noted that this does lower the void ray's power levels by a small margin.
There are other gimmick strategies too, like hidden tech to massive amounts of cloak banshees or a ridiculous amount of base-sniping speed reapers, but given Blizzard's inability to tweak too much with stats, I think that at some point, casuals aspiring to become more than that really need to take a step to improve themselves and their capabilities to the point that they can respond to the cheese effectively, since there's only so much Blizzard can do for them without changing the competitive scene.
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Good thoughts overall.
But as far as "cheesing", you are playing to win. The game ends when one person's buildings are all destroyed. If you're in a best of 5 series against someone else, and you can pull off a "cheese" to snag a win, then go for it. Of course "cheesing" can be a risky maneuver, but that's why you don't do it every game. It's based on surprising an opponent.
If there is something completely imbalanced, go ahead and fix it, but if the only problem is that people feel it's "cheese", that's not a problem because the game doesn't care about style points.
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Game should be made tailored to competitive play and casual cakes have to sit still and accept it or gtfo. So what if that casual player might be the next god of sc.
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United States12235 Posts
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.
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Sorry to use your post Morayfire, but I think it's the perfect example of the sort of "wrong" train of thought that I was trying to get you to think around.
Your post relies solely on situational evidence, If you do not balance a game at the higher levels then pro players abuse certain strategies that are the most imbalanced.
Not sure what you are trying to say about evidence here, I am making a point of theory. I never said you shouldn't balance at a high level, I simply addressed the "issue" of balancing for both, at the same time. Note that in my example, I may have actually added high level play (by adding a feedback play) while keeping the normal play (prehaps to infest an undefended expand) the same while removing the cheese (first overlord takeover).
Causal players will not, and should not care that they lose maybe 10 games in a row to cheese, one because this is just beta, and two, winning isn't everything and you can still have fun while losing.
No, no, no. This is the attitude that will cost you playerbase. Tons and tons of players will not be content to lose 10 times in a row to a cheese and continue to play your game. After a game "grows" for the first 1-2 years it is almost in perminant decline. You need to keep players in your game. This helps it grow and become epic.
Do you more fully understand my point now?
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I think i misunderstood the thread, i re-read it now and i still dont really understand what he says
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your points are correct in what you are trying to say.
however be aware that the SC2 MP is not a casual game just 4 fun. its a very competive, esport oriented one. its just not meant to be fun for everyone
its fun for the winners.
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By using the word casual 100 times that doesn't make this a small change. This changes too much in terms of defense, etc. I don't know how many ways I can say no to this proposition.
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Wasn't this the whole point of the forge nerf?
It made cannon rushing harder at lower levels while having no effect on competitive play.
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nice read. I think design priorities need to balance both fun and balance at every level, where lower (average) level play has maximum fun, and higher level play has maximum balance and interesting strategic decisionmaking. of course for both levels a "fun" and "balanced" game sort of overlap in their definitions, but there is some distinction at least.
with that sort of design philosophy I think you get a wide player base while the top players (who rise up from that base) will stay with the game for a long time.
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Edmon, you are a casual player.
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? The problem with playing a game you design too competitively is your view becomes skewed towards the strategies you use and the perferences you have.
You really need to try to be as neutral a party as possible in my humble opinion.
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Whats the purpose of this thread?
You made up an ability and then say its bad for the game?
You wouldn't say like "well football is difficult, how can we make new players shoot the ball very hard and still make the keeper be able to save a goal every now and then?"
I mean, nothing in this game is an instant win, you have to play better then your opponent, and if you lose, its because your opponent played better then you.
Now some players might not enjoy that fact, but alot of players do.
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On May 26 2010 07:49 Tropics wrote:
Wasn't this the whole point of the forge nerf?
It made cannon rushing harder at lower levels while having no effect on competitive play.
Yes, exactly this. Blizzard already knows what I've written, since undoubtedly they too have a skilled an experienced game designer (or 3) on board. Just thought I would try and explain the theory and see what people thought.
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Casual gamers, by their very industry-made definition, aren't interested in learning game mechanics and intricacies at all, so the idea that one could be the next WhiteRa or Sen is quite a stretch.
The SECOND that a casual gamer starts enjoying a game enough to the point that they want to get better at it, visit a website, post on forums like the official forums, or TL.net, BAM, they're now graduated from casual status. How often does this happen? Well, everyone who is a hardcore gamer today was probably a casual gamer at some point. Either for their first playthrough of PacMan, who then decided they want to really master the intricacies of dodging those motherfucking Ghosts and reach the next level (my brother's story). Or, years after you've been playing video games for maybe around 2-hours a week, and then suddenly found Unreal Tournament and decided to get good at it (my story).
Here's some quick questions to determine whether you're a casual gamer or not:
If you've never completed the single-player campaign of any video game, ever? You might be a redne- err, casual gamer.
If you play video games (maybe one game, multiple games, short sessions, long session) for about 2 hours a week, tops? You might be a casual gamer.
If you prefer games to be played, and completed, in about 20 minutes? You might be a casual gamer.
If you've never visited a website about a video game, read a video game magazine, or cared about the mechanics of a video game? You might be a casual gamer.
If most of your video games reside on your iPhone? You might be a casual gamer.
If the #1 game you've spent the most time on is Solitaire? You might be a casual gamer.
This is the demographic you should be thinking of when thinking of a casual gamer. Pretty much NOBODY that visits this site, is a casual gamer.
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On May 26 2010 07:28 ToT)OjKa( wrote:
get good or die hard
that's pretty to the point. I'd really only be interested in the players that go 'ah he fucking rushed me, im gonna learn how to beat that!' and stuff instead of going wah wah cheese is unfair.
Have to balance only for the highest levels cause you know shit runs down hill and money runs up and all that, i mean especially with a community like tl it wouldnt be hard to find people of a similar skill level to play with who arent going to rush you every game. And if they dont come to tl then who cares right
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I'm really confused by the OP post cause on one hand he is asking to remove easy mode (cheese) which keeps casuals around if they use it but at the same time is asking to remove it. If you truly are a balance designer for games I think you could make a more convincing post than this. If you suck use cheese to make up for the rest you suck at. If you are really good then you wouldn't need cheese to win.
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Casual refers to the mindset of being unfamiliar with Starcraft 2 and simply trying it out. Only to get ROFLstomped.
I think OP has made quite an interesting point, and that it is not a bad idea to think about it from that point of view. However, it has already been pointed out that a "casual" player does not know what is it is that killed them nor do they understand how to stop what killed them.
In Starcraft 1, it took me a good 2-3 months to learn how to play TvZ and not get utterly destroyed by Lurker/Mutalisk/Speedling rushes. A casual player most likely won't possess that level of commitment simply because they don't CARE enough.
In the end, there will always be one thing or another that will utterly destroy the casual player, so there really is no point trying to cater to that audience. The best thing Blizzard can do is to include more "tutorial" type maps/challenges and ease players into the competitive scene, which they have already done to a certain extent.
Meanwhile, I also feel that Blizzard is moving in the wrong direction with the game, and that though it may be balanced, it will never be as good and as EXCITING as Starcraft 1 unless they emphasize positioning through unit design/mechanics and base balance on micro instead of pure numbers/A-move.
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United States5162 Posts
IMO, just because you play 'casually' doesn't exempt your from using your brain to figure out strategy. I am a 'casual' player. I'm not going to be entering any tournaments anytime soon and and certainly won't be top-10 diamond either. However, I still try to get better and understand why I lost. If a player isn't willing to do that than they need to re-evaluate if they want to play competitive multiplayer.
Also, trying to balance something based on improper play is an exercise in futility. People will come up with amazingly dumb ways to do things.
If new players are getting roflstomped that's a problem with the matchmaking, not the balance.
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I disagree with this post.
Just because people lose to cheese a lot doesn't make it unbeatable even if you are casual. I think it is really the will of the player to determine if they want to get better at this game or not. Being cheesed a lot and then rage quiting the game forever is your choice. But, I think people know what the top level of play looks like and if they want to be good like top level players then they have to watch their own replays and critically analyze themselves. I have lost to cheese lots of times but that doesn't make me want to quit. I take the time to try and figure out what I could have done better to have stopped it; whether it be scout better, micro better, or adjust my build to counter it. I would say the most important thing to countering cheese is scouting it to begin with and keeping your cool.
Also you can't say that cheese doesn't work on Pro players. Because if pros were immune to cheese then you wouldn't see all the 8 rax and 5 pools in Professional Broodwar games for example.
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very interesting post, as a newbie myself never playing sc1 i find it had to adapt to the RTS way of thinking. in order to do this i watch streams, pro games, play myself etc. But the point is that losing is the best part of the game, its a complete learning experience. i agree in the sense that Blizzard doesn't or shouldn't make changes in order to accommodate the casual play( to a certain extent). I feel that if a player enjoys the game he/she will watch the replay, see how he/she can alter their build to accommodate this possible cheese. like i said its all about the learning experience. After a few games of being cheesed myself(i like to macro and think cheese is defiantly the newbs way out) i watch the replays and adjust. I think all players should apply this strategy to improve their game play.
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United States22883 Posts
Does anyone, casual or hardcore, want to play a game they don't need to improve at?
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If you don't want to try to become good, you might aswell just quit and play something else.
Much of the enjoyment of games, lies in the fact that you can get better. If you start at a point where you don't need to get better, why play?
In MMO's its the levels and the gear, in FPS its the aiming and the fast pace, in RTS its the strategy and build orders.
All a "casual gamer" needs, is something to hold his hand while he learns how to climb the rope, if he finds the rope to challenging or uninteresting, he will quit, knowing what he quit, if he enjoys it, he will play on and become better.
What you suggest is that the "casual gamer" is to like a game that isn't really the same from what everyone else plays, leaving our "casual gamer" to whine on the forums about his suddenly dropping win % when he actually stats playing the same game as everyone else.
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L2P". They will just leave because they think the game is shit and your game will die. Had they stayed, prehaps they would have become great.
This is the wrong approach.
What made BW so awesome was the fact that it was so hard to begin with. If you started the game in 2009, that you had to man up and take the rapes on iCCup if you want to improve. If you cant take it to play 300 games and go 100-200 and still keep playing, then you deserve my respect and this is why I respect everyone who is good at Broodwar.
Making everyone a winner maybe works for Hello Kitty's Fun Island, but this is Starcraft that is supposed to be competitive. If you can't take a loss than go play a game for pussies.
Balancing the game for high level play is better than taking all the fun out of it by making everyone a winner.
A good example of this seems to be the roach. At least at the armor change everyone with half a brain was fine with it. But because of the whining scrubs the roach got raped so hard that it's not longer viable in high level play. And what did we get? No roach rushes in Copper. Great.
And I know that the only reason to make it so noob friendly is money. This is kinda what your post tells me, knowing you are talking from a view of a game designer. Nobody who has the potential to become great is gonna get sick of the game because he lost to some cheese. The only reason for casual balance is money. Blizzard needs to sell the expansion packs after all.
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Yeah, OP doesn't really talk like a designer, but more like a marketer or CEO who want to sell his product to as many as possible
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this is what the placement matches are for. starcraft 2 is being made with esports in mind, and the different divisions are custom made to allow those "casual" players time to improve until they reach the level where they stop dying to nooby gimmicks.
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Somebody with that kind of attitude will find reasons not to play regardless if you balance for them or not. Also someone with that attitude certainly will never be a top player in that game.
If you are truly terrible at the game, the only motivation to keep you putting the effort in will be yourself. These so called 'casual players' (super noobs) want to play ghosts/nuke only or mass marines on their own. Its exactly because they don't want to conform to proper build orders and tactics that these 'imbalances' appear more often to them.
A game developer can only patch so much. If you balance for noobs you open the floodgates to many more problems. In my honest opinion if you like the game that much you will either find game modes your happy in or you will quit. Multiplayer balance is just a complete non issue, you balance one strategy that beats them every game if they were that terrible in the first place everything is potentially imbalanced.
Edit: What LunarC said. If your destined to get owned and quit that is the only path available to you.
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Not to mention the part that undoubtedly newer players now will rise to the top but not because they didn't bust their nuts learning the game.
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Though I do agree to lighten up on the L2P, I have to admit that anybody who quits a game after a few cheese losses, probably didn't have much a future with the game regardless, and are likely just the kind of people that hate losing. And to your example in the OP, you mentioned that with the overlord energy, they'd be able to be feedbacked, and from what we are informed, the overlord would hypothetically have 1 spell that can only be used on a terran command center, and costs 200 energy. Now protoss can 1 shot overlords with feedback. I think that even as slight a change as that 200 energy requirement might seem, it would probably change PvZ significantly in that protoss would now opt for more templar knowing they can 1 shot many overlords in sight with feedback.
Edit: unclear wording
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On May 26 2010 07:56 Myles wrote:
IMO, just because you play 'casually' doesn't exempt your from using your brain to figure out strategy. I am a 'casual' player. I'm not going to be entering any tournaments anytime soon and and certainly won't be top-10 diamond either. However, I still try to get better and understand why I lost. If a player isn't willing to do that than they need to re-evaluate if they want to play competitive multiplayer.
Also, trying to balance something based on improper play is an exercise in futility. People will come up with amazingly dumb ways to do things.
If new players are getting roflstomped that's a problem with the matchmaking, not the balance.
This is why auto-matchmaker is currently a flawed interface that only serves to separate players from interacting with other players and being forced to be slaves to its decisions. Auto-matchmaker should be an OPTION alongside making choosing your own games, imo.
You are in a good place. The goal should be to ease "casual"-minded players into more competitive mindsets and form them into players that develop their own strategies and figure out why they lost.
The kind of player you're talking about and the kind of player you are is not what we are talking about when we say "casual". We're talking about the average gamer that has never touched Starcraft 2 before and tries out competitive multiplayer without the mindset you described.
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The only reason that there even was a brood war scene in 2009 was that the game was so fun.
This is what frustrates me. People seem to believe that 'fun' and 'competitiveness' are somehow separated, with casuals on one side and hardcore on another.
I could make a perfect competitive game right now. It would rely only on skill, there would be no luck, no imbalance. Actually, someone already did; it's called Rock Paper Scissors.
All great competitive games are fun. Soccer is fun. Football is fun. Starcraft is fun.
All great competitive games take skill. Soccer takes skill. Football takes skill. Starcraft takes skill.
Ever since SC2 beta came out, I've seen otherwise reasonable people turn into fanatics. Some rage uncontrollably each time something occurs that seems to cater to the 'casual' crowd; divisions, MBS, Facebook. They see these decisions, and they feel in their hearts an attempt to take their game away from them, towards people who had never even played Brood War. They hold the old Starcraft concepts on a golden pedestal: the old micro, the old macro, the old strategic game-flow -- each change was a dagger to the heart. Then you have the new players, the WoW players, the non-gamers, the ex-gamers, who could not understand this backlash, who see in the hardcore only bitterness and malice, who characterize the complainers as inflexible cretins.
When I read these forums, it feels like I'm watching two opposing factions, dressed in the same colors, dash themselves against the rocks where they could have built a castle. I see people who have forgotten what made the original Starcraft so great -- that combination of fun and skill which took unsuspecting button-mashers, unwashed masses who had never even heard of the term 'RTS', and held them in its grip for twelve long years. But that's not what Starcraft is anymore, I guess. Instead of a joy, the game is a chore; that which Boxer played as a passion, Savior played as a job.
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I'm really tired of people using "this is just beta" as any form of argument. Despite the fact that the beta is really, really far along and the game is due to be released shortly, these people seem to be missing the whole point of a beta.
It's to find mistakes. It's to balance the game. How can you bring the "this is just beta" argument into a balance discussion, when that is EXACTLY what a beta is for?
As to the OP, thanks for an excellent and interesting read. I think you've raised a really good point. Balance does need to focus on 2 tiers of players.
I've always thought of balance as being purely for competitive play - but does Blizzard think the same way? The idea of tiered balance appeals to me, but I'm not entirely convinced Blizzard thinks this way.
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You make a good point with your overlord infestation example. It works because as you said, the use of the ability is useless in high level play. But if you look at starcraft 1, you can't touch the cheese without affecting the matchup as a whole. You can't do anything about the 4 pool rush without changing all zerg plays that involve a pool and zerglings, so pretty much all of them.
You seem to mostly bring up the element of cheese, which I absolutely think play an important part in any RTS game. As you become better and better at the game, one of the first advancements you do skillwise is learning how to deal with the simplest cheese plays. That knowledge and experience carries with you and will give you more pride than any "You have 50 victories on your account" trophy. It's a hurdle for you to overcome.
I am, however, open to the idea of making balance changes in order to cater to the lower tier of players as long as it does not affect higher tiers. It would require manyfold times more work from the balance crew, and maybe in the end risk the balance and fun of the game at the competitive level. Creating a game that is fairly balanced at all levels of skill may be too ambitious a goal.
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On May 26 2010 07:56 Myles wrote:
IMO, just because you play 'casually' doesn't exempt your from using your brain to figure out strategy. I am a 'casual' player. I'm not going to be entering any tournaments anytime soon and and certainly won't be top-10 diamond either. However, I still try to get better and understand why I lost. If a player isn't willing to do that than they need to re-evaluate if they want to play competitive multiplayer.
Also, trying to balance something based on improper play is an exercise in futility. People will come up with amazingly dumb ways to do things.
If new players are getting roflstomped that's a problem with the matchmaking, not the balance.
The fact that you're even posting here pretty much excludes you as a casual gamer.
Casual and hardcore are two extremes of the range, like left-wing and right-wing. Except its not a 50:50 split across the middle. Its more like 90% of the video game consumer-base is casual (or extremist right-wing nutjackets) and the other 10% are spread across the remainder.
I know you put quotations around the word casual, I just want to be clear. A lot of people seem to have these odd definitions of casual gamers. Like they're just gamers who can play well, but don't have the time to invest in the game. Casuals aren't even INTERESTED in playing the game well and they probably never will. They just want to blow shit up for 20 minutes, then find something else to do.
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United States5162 Posts
On May 26 2010 08:16 LunarC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 07:56 Myles wrote:
IMO, just because you play 'casually' doesn't exempt your from using your brain to figure out strategy. I am a 'casual' player. I'm not going to be entering any tournaments anytime soon and and certainly won't be top-10 diamond either. However, I still try to get better and understand why I lost. If a player isn't willing to do that than they need to re-evaluate if they want to play competitive multiplayer.
Also, trying to balance something based on improper play is an exercise in futility. People will come up with amazingly dumb ways to do things.
If new players are getting roflstomped that's a problem with the matchmaking, not the balance. This is why auto-matchmaker is currently a flawed interface that only serves to separate players from interacting with other players and being forced to be slaves to its decisions. Auto-matchmaker should be an OPTION alongside making choosing your own games, imo. You are in a good place. The goal should be to ease "casual"-minded players into more competitive mindsets and form them into players that develop their own strategies and figure out why they lost. The kind of player you're talking about and the kind of player you are is not what we are talking about when we say "casual". We're talking about the average gamer that has never touched Starcraft 2 before and tries out competitive multiplayer without the mindset you described.
Come again? How are you supposed to play competitive ladder with auto-matchmaking? Or are you talking about a non-ladder matchmaker? I think an auto-matchmaker for non-ladder games would be great actually.
Also, I think you should stop calling newbies 'casual players'. Casual players are ones who don't play all the time and might not use the very best strategies. Being a casual player doesn't make you a newb, and being a newb doesn't make you a casual player.
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QUOTING: "Casual gamers, by their very industry-made definition, aren't interested in learning game mechanics and intricacies at all, so the idea that one could be the next WhiteRa or Sen is quite a stretch."
How can someone who quits because he lost to a cheese be of the mindset of a champion. Champions have one thing they share across all disciplines: mental fortitude and the will to not give up. Hence, I disagree with the OP and I completely agree with the above quote.
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On May 26 2010 08:19 Redmark wrote:
The only reason that there even was a brood war scene in 2009 was that the game was so fun.
This is what frustrates me. People seem to believe that 'fun' and 'competitiveness' are somehow separated, with casuals on one side and hardcore on another.
I could make a perfect competitive game right now. It would rely only on skill, there would be no luck, no imbalance. Actually, someone already did; it's called Rock Paper Scissors.
All great competitive games are fun. Soccer is fun. Football is fun. Starcraft is fun.
All great competitive games take skill. Soccer takes skill. Football takes skill. Starcraft takes skill.
Ever since SC2 beta came out, I've seen otherwise reasonable people turn into fanatics. Some rage uncontrollably each time something occurs that seems to cater to the 'casual' crowd; divisions, MBS, Facebook. They see these decisions, and they feel in their hearts an attempt to take their game away from them, towards people who had never even played Brood War. They hold the old Starcraft concepts on a golden pedestal: the old micro, the old macro, the old strategic game-flow -- each change was a dagger to the heart. Then you have the new players, the WoW players, the non-gamers, the ex-gamers, who could not understand this backlash, who see in the hardcore only bitterness and malice, who characterize the complainers as inflexible cretins.
When I read these forums, it feels like I'm watching two opposing factions, dressed in the same colors, dash themselves against the rocks where they could have built a castle. I see people who have forgotten what made the original Starcraft so great -- that combination of fun and skill which took unsuspecting button-mashers, unwashed masses who had never even heard of the term 'RTS', and held them in its grip for twelve long years. But that's not what Starcraft is anymore, I guess. Instead of a joy, the game is a chore; that which Boxer played as a passion, Savior played as a job.
We are complaining because Blizzard's work is indication of their overall direction, which, given the changes that they have made, does not indicate that they are making the game any more exciting than Rock/Paper/Scissors. Hopefully they can develop the MECHANICS of units further, instead of having everything move similarly, and hopefully they can emphasize positioning and include more high-risk high-reward units to diversify army control. After all, it's diverse army control that really made Starcraft Brood War shine, on top of cool micro opportunities.
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If you take out one "cheese" strat because casual player's complaints, they will still lose to another strategy(or another "cheese") a hardcore gamer will use.
If you take out the best strategy, the hardcore gamer will just move to the second best strategy. If you keep doing this, the game will suffer and become a bland tic-tac-toe.
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On May 26 2010 07:46 Madsquare wrote:
however be aware that the SC2 MP is not a casual game just 4 fun. its a very competive, esport oriented one. its just not meant to be fun for everyone.
This.
When SC1 came out i was a 12 year old casual player. I played maybe a year of 1on1s and then moved on to custom maps ect, mostly because the whole competitive scene didn't attract me. Now it's exactly what turns me on, hence i love SC2 MP cause it's made to be competitive.
Besides, I believe matchmaking fixes this pretty well. A bronze player would rarely pull of a good cheese, even 6pool requires you have some idea of what your doing to actually close the game and win.
As a bronze player you can also mass voidrays/carriers ect and win, but i also think even bronze player can understand that they lost because of lack of scouting and reacting to information.
Dont make the casual players more stupid then they are  .
I do agree that a game can become too competitive, but imho sc2 mp is no way close to that point. Hell, these forums is flooded with post suggesting the opposite.
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Its true that there are a lot of die hard SC1 guys out there who want a copy and paste job on the sequel (for the record I never played sc1). However as stated in previous posts the impact of speed and strategy doesn't compute to some players. Mass any unit at any time A move and that player will die.
This tiered balance is actually how the game is designed on. The developers think of the counters, upgrades on a ladder as the game progresses. If there is a flaw in a player stopping them from countering strategies this is unfortunate. I understand your underlying intentions but the balance will make no impact in their decision to leave or not as they will complain against the next imbalance.
Something will surely get nerfed if only the highest skilled players can counter it. Thankfully this is how I imagine it is. Has nothing to do with being a hardcore sc1 player, balance should be one seesaw not several.
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Cheese
Competitive players lose to cheese. I get the impression you don't know how the word is used in the TL colloquial or you don't watch much competitive play.
Balance
Balance concerns should be weighted toward the highest levels of play. Balancing Starcraft II for low level play is impossible. Balancing SC2 only makes sense within a certain restrictive set of assumptions. That set of assumptions is violated by non-competitive players. Non-competitive players are usually non-aggressive, non-expansionary, and tech-oriented. You can't balance the game for that group of players.
Examples:
1) If player A goes air, player B probably isn't scouting so player B dies.
2) If player A rushes, then player B probably doesn't know how to wall, doesn't have a build order that prepares him for a rush, and doesn't know any tricks to help himself once the rush arrives. Player B loses.
3) If player A masses basic ground units and attacks at 10 minutes, player B has probably constructed a base with one of each tech structure and has not devoted much money to his army. He also hasn't scouted. Player B dies.
And so on. Balancing for these players doesn't work.
That said, I think certain allowances should be made for non-competitive players (and the good of the game in general).
Proposed Changes
The Reaper
The Reaper should be removed or completely revamped.
In TvT, it's virtually impossible to stop a proxy 8rax Reaper rush without building your own Barracks either before your supply depot or at 10/11.
The Reaper serves no combat purpose. In 1v1, you never see good players use more than maybe 1 or 2 Reapers after the game has passed the 6 minute mark. Why? They're simply not worth making. Their only purpose is harassment, and the majority of their usefulness expires before either player hits 20 supply. Reapers are fast enough and do enough damage to workers to be almost unstoppable if you are not correctly prepared before they arrive. Reapers serve no purpose other than to produce a lot of frustrating losses at worst, and require very specific anti-Reaper build orders at best.
Air
Air is a problem in general. It does too much damage and its range is too long. Both the Void Ray and the Banshee really need to be addressed. One or two of them can be sufficient to end a game, and that's a lot of potential to bestow on a single unit.
The Void Ray
The Void Ray is very mobile (with its upgrade it is ridiculously mobile). Despite the nerfs, the Void Ray is still very effective. It can easily end the game by destroying the opponent's main building. It also charges up, and once charged deals enough damage to be a threat to all the units in the game that can counter it. New players have slow reaction times so the Void Ray will easily find its full charge against a casual player. That means new players will need more anti-air to destroy the Void Ray. WIthout being able to rule out other possibilities (DTs / Robo + Warp Gate attack / Warp Gate attack) it is very likely that a new player will not have sufficient anti-air to stop even a couple Void Rays once the Void Rays have reached their full charge. The Void Ray at its current timing in its current form represents a lot of autolosses for casual players. Could the Void Ray be pushed back or modified without destroying early and mid-game Protoss? Absolutely. Should it be? Absolutely.
The Banshee
The Banshee poses an identical problem. It deals ridiculously high damage. 2 shots kill a worker. 2 shots kill a marine. Not only does it deal high damage, it has really long range. The Banshee is mobile, aerial and can cloak. Cloak is another huge problem for new players. Again, they only have so much money to spend. A lot of their resources will probably go into building ground-to-ground units like the Marauder. Then Banshees show up. They try to get anti-air but then they can't see the Banshee to shoot it. Unlike its BW counterpart, the Wraith, the Banshee in SC2 (equally priced) will tear through workers at a ridiculously fast pace. If you aren't at least somewhat prepared when a Banshee arrives, you've probably already lost the game. Wraiths could cloak, too, but it took them so long to destroy workers and army units that a cloaked Wraith or two couldn't end the game on its own. Two cloaked Banshees, unmolested, can do mortal damage really fast.
Again, can Terran do without the Banshee rush possibility - or at least have the game-ending potential of a Banshee rush somewhat mitigated? Absolutely.
Long story short, there are too many game-ending options that are too quickly available in the current SC2. It makes the game a casual player's worse nightmare and doesn't benefit the competitive player at all. Starcraft 2 would be as good or better not only for casual players but for everyone if some of the quick finishing moves were removed. Bear in mind before you respond how many other ways there are to end a Starcraft 2 game at roughly the same timing of the Void Ray / Banshee rush and how those alternatives require a completely different response. Also bear in mind that "scout" is not a sufficient reply because tech paths can easily be concealed up until the point when Banshees and Void Rays are available.
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The game needs to be fun at all levels first and foremost. This is what will sell the game for Blizzard, and it's what everyone wants when they buy the game. If the game is fine competitively but no fun, no one is going to play it anyway. The handful of people who would have an excuse to play a not-fun game--that they can win money doing so--would find no tournaments anyway.
I don't think that having the game balanced at low levels matters. It's certainly a bonus if you pull it off, because it's certainly a bit of a turn-off if, say, switching from Terran to Protoss makes most low-level players win twice as often against the same competition. But the game will survive with imbalances like that (Brood War did); some players will find T more fun than P even when they win more as P. Some players will still be better as T anyway, etc. The changes that have had the most effect on low-level play have been to make strategies that are simply not-fun for worse players to play against (voidrays and cannon rushes, and probably DTs also) not as prevalent.
(And from my experience playing with my bronze league friends, voidrays were a big problem at their level. The one game I went DTs against them in an FFA, I instantly won and it was no fun for anyone involved. There are ten players like my friends for every one like me, I'd wager).
High level balance is certainly a bonus for Blizz--they won't lose any sales by making it better balanced at a high level (most of their changes do very little for how fun the game is at lower levels, except those which are clearly aimed there, like voidray range change and the forge change), and they do stand to gain by making it more even: it makes the game better for that group of players, who are then more likely to buy future Blizz products etc.
I think Blizz has done well enough for the game to be good competitively for at least some time anyway; we see all three races doing well at high levels.
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On May 26 2010 08:30 GiveMeFace wrote:
Its true that there are a lot of die hard SC1 guys out there who want a copy and paste job on the sequel (for the record I never played sc1). However as stated in previous posts the impact of speed and strategy doesn't compute to some players. Mass any unit at any time A move and that player will die.
This tiered balance is actually how the game is designed on. The developers think of the counters, upgrades on a ladder as the game progresses. If there is a flaw in a player stopping them from countering strategies this is unfortunate. I understand your underlying intentions but the balance will make no impact in their decision to leave or not as they will complain against the next imbalance.
Something will surely get nerfed if only the highest skilled players can counter it. Thankfully this is how I imagine it is. Has nothing to do with being a hardcore sc1 player, balance should be one seesaw not several.
You should really at least watch a couple VODs in the VODs tab just to ensure that you have an idea of where all of the "sc1 fanboys" are striving for Starcraft 2 to achieve.
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See here is the thing. ALL games have their cheese, every single one of them. From Street Fighter, to Call of Duty every single one of these games have their love/hate weapons and styles.
Casual players are casual for a reason. They give up when things get rough. They quit, and move on to something that entertains them for much less work. There is NOTHING wrong with this. I've moved on from a number of games myself because it's just to much "work" for me.
It's the people who dedicate their time, resources, and knowledge to a game that makes them good. Their ability to meld everything together from little quirks, to statistical balance, and use them in their strategies.
To balance a game from the bottom up is a quick way to lose the people who have done their time, taken their bumps and learned the game because the love it. It will become a diluted mess, where you will have no variation in strategies as there will end up only being a few cookie cutter ways to play because all the "cheese" was taken out.
Cheese is risky, cheese is a gamble, and unless it's horribly broken, if it fails will usually put the initiator in a losing situation. Cheese is also what makes the game dynamic, it's the unpredictable, it's what defines if you have done your homework or not. Though no one likes it, it's part of the hook of these types of games, to get better, to strive for improvement, and become better than than your opponents.
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biddy, EVERY gamer starts as a casual...No one decides one day that tomorrow they will be a hardcore gamer. That doesn't mean that casuals will never grow, even if most don't.
this thread is asking people to open there minds.. when you look at something and go 'thats stupid' it's prob not. It may well be wrong but try to understand WHY someone would think it was a good choice...
I'm glad he posted this.
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Cool thread.
One thing I want to add in response to several comments here about "if you remove X, casuals just lose to Y" is that the way a player loses matters a lot. Nobody wants to lose to a tower rush. Losing to Battlecruisers and Thors 20 minutes into the game is a far more dignified defeat and is less likely to scare people away than losing a 2 minute game to a Cannon rush 10 times in a row.
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Casual gamers can still be competitive. They are human beings like the rest of us, you know. They're just not interested in becoming a master at it. They just want to play it and see how well they do.
I certainly agree that cheese is going to be VERY off-putting for casuals, as will good players intentionally getting themselves thrown into Bronze to farm some noobs, but what can you do? They already offer practice games with rush-preventing rocks (although, hilariously, it doesn't stop Reapers on literally ANY of the maps).
Casuals are going to end up playing against the AI, or playing with their friends, very soon after picking up the game. The ladder is most certainly not going to be their playground. If they decide to get better and work their way up? They're now graduated beyond casual gamer status. So all of the casual gamers will gravitate to the least-competitive areas of the game (AI, with friends and/or custom maps) purely because the competitive environment is frustrating, not because they're not competitive. They want to play for 20 minutes, blow shit up and feel satisfied. Not play for 20 minutes and get pissed they lost because some 'douche' attacked before the 5-minute mark.
Therefore, I don't see why on earth Blizzard are trying their damndest to create a ladder system that tries to convince people that don't want to lose, that its okay to lose. The ladder is for every type of gamer BUT casuals.
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I have watched quite a few VODS LunarC and understand why it is such a great game. I was merely pointing out that someone used it as an excuse for people wanting to uphold the idea of balancing on how a game can be played potentially (and only this way).
Not every player who wants to balance properly was solely from SC1 that is what I was trying to convey. Clearly if anything is at fault here is that if you want to jump in the deep end (competitive/lader games). Matchmaking you with too difficult opponents is clearly the area of the system which is failing.
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8748 Posts
Totally uninteresting thread. If you had real examples, you would have used them. I hope you don't present bullshit like this to your boss when you're designing a game. And if you don't, why do you think tl.net deserves it?
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Lots of great points in this thread.
I wouldn't really want to argue the samantics of what "cheese" is. I mean, it's pretty much a made up term that means different things to different people. Generally speaking, a cheese is usually a strategy (usually very early in the game) whos only counter is to know that it is coming.
If it's happening before you see it (or if you simply don't know how to deal with it) the game is terminated at that point. It's not like "you take a load of damage and limp on for 5 more minutes", I mean "the game is over, right now, you lost."
So if I were to have a cheese list I would say it would have to be:
1) Very early play.
2) Instantly fatal.
3) Only "counter" is to know it is coming, very early on.
Any kind of cloaked cheese is the perfect example. If a cloaked unit is in your base and you've not gotten any detection, you have lost instantly. One way to mitigate this cheese is with energy, you can only stay cloaked for so long, so you can do some damage but not "instantly, fatally win". But Bancheese and Wraiths differ here. Wraiths didn't do the sort of damage to allow for that instant "cheese" win, but bancheese does.
Even though both may result in a loss, a prolonged loss where you limp on for 5 minutes can be quite fun for a "casual" player. An instant trip back to the score screen is not. It creates a "wtf" or "is that it?" moment. I suppose the main point here is that you should balance cheese such that is does damage, it gives you an advantage, but it shouldn't be instantly fatal.
Top players will get all these smaller advantages and still turn it into a win (with more margin for a comeback by the other player). Casuals will get to play for longer amounts of time and explore the game more, even though they lost long ago economically.
I personnally do not think anything that occurs after 10-20 minutes could be considered a rush or cheese. There has been plenty of time by this point to have most/all of the tools you have as race and to have reacted and/or attacked to change the outcome. "Overpowered" strategies are a different topic altogether and I would feel are out of the scope of what I was trying to convey.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 26 2010 08:34 CowGoMoo wrote:
Cool thread.
One thing I want to add in response to several comments here about "if you remove X, casuals just lose to Y" is that the way a player loses matters a lot. Nobody wants to lose to a tower rush. Losing to Battlecruisers and Thors 20 minutes into the game is a far more dignified defeat and is less likely to scare people away than losing a 2 minute game to a Cannon rush 10 times in a row.
Isn't that why novice maps exist? Because that's the segment of gamers we're talking about. Casual in this context is a euphemism for novice.
Is Blizzard finally willing to come out and say they're thinking about going down the same path that led to welfare epics in WoW? Because from the business stand point, it was brilliant. It brought in over 10 million subscribers, and they can rake in a million dollars a day just by releasing non-achievement pets. So far, thankfully, they haven't gone that route but patch 13 is beginning to worry me. I hope it's just the overreliance on obsolete data that's responsible, and not a shift in philosophy.
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Cheese is really really discouraging, but i consider it an initiation into learning how to play the game properly. Most players seem to rush, all in and cheese and this is just part of online play imo.
The only thing that really bothers me about Cheese is that it restricts your BO, you are now confined to counter cheese and most of the time if you do counter it the game still ends too fast to be fun.
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On May 26 2010 09:03 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 08:34 CowGoMoo wrote:
Cool thread.
One thing I want to add in response to several comments here about "if you remove X, casuals just lose to Y" is that the way a player loses matters a lot. Nobody wants to lose to a tower rush. Losing to Battlecruisers and Thors 20 minutes into the game is a far more dignified defeat and is less likely to scare people away than losing a 2 minute game to a Cannon rush 10 times in a row. Isn't that why novice maps exist? Because that's the segment of gamers we're talking about. Casual in this context is a euphemism for novice.
Ehh not really. We were all novices the day we got the beta invite. But, we weren't casuals.
I don't think casuals are the kinds of players who want to spend an hour building a gigantic army and commencing steam-rollage. Novices to the RTS genre might want to see that, but casuals typically have like 20-30 minutes spare at any given time. They'd probably be more satisfied with quicker, faster games. They're more likely to be the 6-Pooler, than the 6-Poolee.
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You're talking about a learning curve, balance has nothing to do with this.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 26 2010 09:09 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 09:03 Jibba wrote:On May 26 2010 08:34 CowGoMoo wrote:
Cool thread.
One thing I want to add in response to several comments here about "if you remove X, casuals just lose to Y" is that the way a player loses matters a lot. Nobody wants to lose to a tower rush. Losing to Battlecruisers and Thors 20 minutes into the game is a far more dignified defeat and is less likely to scare people away than losing a 2 minute game to a Cannon rush 10 times in a row. Isn't that why novice maps exist? Because that's the segment of gamers we're talking about. Casual in this context is a euphemism for novice. Ehh not really. We were all novices the day we got the beta invite. But, we weren't casuals. I don't think casuals are the kinds of players who want to spend an hour building a gigantic army and commencing steam-rollage. Novices to the RTS genre might want to see that, but casuals typically have like 20-30 minutes spare at any given time. They'd probably be more satisfied with quicker, faster games. They're more likely to be the 6-Pooler, than the 6-Poolee. Well, I think that's what he's talking about.
TBH, if you're a casual, you might as well give 3/4 gate a try. You'll cruise through lower matchups and find that the winning is addictive, especially when you roll over your opponent. It's like AWPing in CS. Most (not all) of the people that complain about it do so because they suck with it. If they could use it, they'd learn to love abusing it like the people who do.
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It's an interesting dilemma but I think the OP wants balance that makes cheese more difficult to do.
After playing this set of preliminaries and somehow getting into gold division despite playing 5-0 (or I guess the old silver), I have noticed that the VAST VAST majority of people cheese at that level. I think that's a much bigger problem than the division between "casual" and "hardcore".
I was always a macro player, coming from the roots of C&C, I loved massing units and doing large flanks instead of funky single unit play. I feel like if I didn't have the ability to counter the lower division cheeses most of the time, I would be permanently stuck in the lower tiers and thus be constantly cheesed. Being put into that kind of situation would be extremely off putting and probably stop me from wanting to become better.
It's difficult though because cheese will always be easier to execute than long-term play. Just ask Idra. Even if you don't like him, you can't disagree that long games are harder to become proficient at compared to super early games where a couple units make all the difference. Coupled with the fact that countering cheese is all about game sense (knowing if/when/where they're cheesing) along with a good mouse hand to micro your weak little workers vs their couple fighting units, less skilled (but still competitive) players will realize that cheese gives them a much better win average than trying to play standard. This will just discourage people who enjoy playing macro, map control, and large army clashes when they don't have the APM to counter a 7 rax reaper rush.
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United States47024 Posts
It is worth pointing out that, in this light, SCBW is not a game that is balanced for casual play. Indeed, it has been consensus for a while that at lower-mid levels of play (arguably even up to some of the higher ICCup ranks), that Protoss in SCBW is mechanically less demanding than Terran and Zerg, and in a sense the "easy" race. Hell, since fast-expand play became the norm, "Protoss EZ mode" has been a recurring meme on TL.net, with a balance thread popping up once every few months (which generally ends in the thread starter being banned, given how much people like to argue about those things). None of this has hampered the game's competitive growth whatsoever.
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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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United States47024 Posts
On May 26 2010 09:52 Failsafe wrote:
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).
This is not always necessarily true, given the nature of a game with incomplete information. If the above holds true for both race A and race B, but race A has better information-gathering ability than race B, then race A will have an advantage, because it will know what race B is doing more often than race B knows what race A is doing. Given the nonsymmetric forms of information gathering (overlords, observers, burrowed units, scans, floating buildings, etc.), this is inevitably going to be the case in one or more of the race relationships. Therefore, in order to compensate for this, race B has to be stronger in other aspects (which may involve having a strategy that is still hard to beat, even when it is scouted).
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If you can't learn from your mistakes watching your replays, reading some forum to learn how to counter some strat/cheese/etc, then, just play some custom games "20 mins NO RUSH" and you will be fine, and im sure that you will have lots of fun.
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Im gonna have to really disagree because Casuals will complain for ANY reason that they lose. This type of player will just make excuses for why they suck, blame it on the game, and quit regardless. You shouldn't mess with the game to try and help casuals because for 1, they've already got a pretty good matchmaking system in place to match bad players up against each other (and bad players don't often rush and if they do then they probably do it quite poorly)
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On May 26 2010 10:00 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 09:52 Failsafe wrote:
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).
This is not always necessarily true, given the nature of a game with incomplete information. If the above holds true for both race A and race B, but race A has better information-gathering ability than race B, then race A will have an advantage, because it will know what race B is doing more often than race B knows what race A is doing. Given the nonsymmetric forms of information gathering (overlords, observers, burrowed units, scans, floating buildings, etc.), this is inevitably going to be the case in one or more of the race relationships. Therefore, in order to compensate for this, race B has to be stronger in other aspects (which may involve having a strategy that is still hard to beat, even when it is scouted).
I agree with Yango, especially if it is a "standard" build that is supposed to give a certain player the "best" chance to win. Non-standard builds usually give an immediate advantage IF NOT SCOUTED, but if you are doing the "standard" playstyle, then it doesn't REALLY matter if you are scouted.
NOTE: An mmm ball is "standard." If you can't beat it and complain that it is imba, learn to counter it (or come up with the best counter to it) before flipping a shit about it and calling it imba lmao.
NOTE 2: it might have to do with the fact that my macro might be better than yours, gold/silver level players  .
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On May 26 2010 10:03 Kyouya wrote:
If you can't learn from your mistakes watching your replays, reading some forum to learn how to counter some strat/cheese/etc, then, just play some custom games "20 mins NO RUSH" and you will be fine, and im sure that you will have lots of fun.
Or play 3v3 fastest gogogoogogogog on bnet .
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I firmly believe that if casuals continue at it, they will eventually reach the high tier of players. As such, we should only balance at that high tier and that high tier only.
If we tailor "casually balancing," where's the line drawn? Let's hyperbolate.
Take two COMPLETE noobs of equal skill duking it out. Noob playing P will have a distinct advantage vs any Z or T noob generally due to the HP of all units. Economy is secondary as both players' economies are poor, floating high, and ill-managed, so is irrelivant. What's left is that P noob is owning with his more durable units. Both noobs will surmise that all P units are OP and need hp nerf.
Because most people reading this post are not noob to this degree, we can all see the fallacy of this argument. XYZ can be done to remedy this situation. We know the solution to be XYZ because we are better players, have a better grasp about the concepts of the game, etc.
Lower ranked players will cry elitist to this argument, but this is really the reality of it.
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In any endeavour in the world, does the lazy get protection for being lazy?
The only path to success in anything is 1. the desire to succeed and 2. the effort to achieve that desire. Potential means nothing, what-ifs won't get you anywhere. The reward is there for grabs, for those who walk the walk.
If cheese is unstoppable then it will become the dominate strategy in high level play and the game can be declared broken. Until then, Cheese is stoppable and for newbies you either always cheese back, or learn to stop it.
How about the OP and supporters actually provide some examples of current SC2 cheese being OP at low levels? What's your evidence that cheese takes less skill? You think microing a reaper vs 10 probes is easy? Or does scout on your 8th peon takes too much skill to execute? If you believe your skill level is above your opponent who might cheeses, why don't you always play safe and give yourself a small economic disadvantage given your 'skill' obviously is greater than your opponent?
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Great post zomg I think you have basically summarised everything that really needs to be said on the subject.
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Or casuals and non-casuals could stop calling everything 'cheese' and learn to scout and adapt.
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After reading like 5-10 lines in, I thought this post would be an original and abstract take on a fundamental issue of balance. This is just a long example to make a point that has been made a million times. By the way, what your describing wouldn't be cheese and neither was the infest ability in BW. If the player can't find 2 marines to attack the overlord in the center of their base after they hear the warning, why shouldn't they lose? Also it wouldn't be anywhere near 50hp per second, that would be OP.
Hopefully the game is fun for new players who play against other new players...Cheese shouldn't be skill-less so that a first timer can memorize the build and win until he hits platinum/diamond. BUT..
This is a game that's supposed to be aimed at competitive RTS players and the realm of E-sports. Any feature or change that has a negative effect on the competitive side of the game should immediately be thrown out or modified. In BW, people who didn't want to learn the competitive game played money maps. That game prospered like hell and had plenty of cheese in it.
Competitive players are afraid that people like yourself(no offense) who clearly don't understand what the competitive game even is, are going to get Blizzard to make negative changes to the competitive game.
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A very nice and insightful read. I only strongly disagree on the one part :
The point I am trying to make is this. A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P"
It is highly unlikely that a player with such an attitude will ever be great. I'm pretty sure everyone feels like something is overpowered every once in a while, but what separates good players from bad ones (of many things) is the ability to suck it up and keep figuring out how to beat it. Learning how to play is a mountain of losses to overcome and climb. Losing 10 games to one strategy is nothing.
Still, I consider balancing the game on different tiers legit, as long as it doesn't hurt the competitive game, which cares about the balance the most anyway.
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I haven't read the whole thread but I saw that the OP took a lot of abuse on the first page from people with low reading comprehension.
Thank you Edmon for helping me understand a lot of what Blizzard has been doing, even if I still can't agree with it all - it's nice to have better perspective.
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Your post has some quite important game design considerations, however there are some things done in SC2 that aren't supported by your thoughts.
A good example is any sort of cheese that requires micro to be effective. If a casual newbie gets cheesed and stomped by someone that's completely out of their league, this is a problem of the matchmaking system, not of the "casual balance".
Let's take a borderline example: the VR nerfs. The VR harass strategy is one that requires micro to be effective, but that is devastating against an unsuspecting opponent. The counter to it both in PvT and PvZ is very simple: scout it, and get anti-air. (For Z it is as simple as getting more queens. T had a little more trouble with it, since marines alone wouldn't do the job perfectly, but it was still simple to fend off)
Now, the problem is that a huge chunk of the casual players focuses mainly in econ and attack; defense and intel not really being a big part of their gameplan, specially not when you'll need to sacrifice your econ, production or tech for it.
But amongst those casual players, there's also a noticeable chunk that does play better. These ones will know how to defend against it, and for this skill level upwards, it is something that adds a huge amount of depth in the gameplay, and even helps the weaker casuals, as it presents a path for getting better in the game.
So how do you balance this both for casuals and for more serious players? You make the strat harder. Mess up with its timing, make it cost more (forcing more commitment), make it more clumsy. This way those better players can use it against themselves.
Now let's see what Blizz did to the VR:
Patch 8:
- Charge levels 2 -> 3.
- Weak dmg: 2 (+4 armored) -> 5.
- Strong dmg: 8 (+16 armored) -> 10 (+15 armored).
- Armor: 1 -> 0.
- Cost: 200/150 -> 250/150.
Patch 13:
- Range: 7 -> 6.
Now, most of this seems to make sense... The charge levels nerf (with damage changes) was a good one, since it pretty much only made the unit less reliable. The cost change also only makes the strat a little harder.
However, the armor reduction pretty much meant that no matter how much effort you can put into the strat, a Zerg player that scouts it will be able to defend this. (It is also quite possible that even with 1 armor a Zerg player wouldn't be able to fend this off with no effort at all).
This coupled with the range nerf, means Terrans will be able to shut this down extremely easily as long as they get a few marines (and even casuals should be punished for going only marauders due to the nature of the unit).
So these two few changes, although good for weak and casual balance, are Very crippling for the other tiers of players. Maybe on the professional and competitive scene, some amazing VR micro can be pulled off, or enough macro to fit in some critical upgrade, and make the strat plausible. However, most certainly for the higher casual - lower serious tier (the one SC2 multiplayer seems to be aimed at for me), it is bad design. An effective strat became one that can only work when there is a gap in the player's skill level.
In a nutshell: casual balance is important, however you can't consider only a "mass of weak casual players" when doing it. There are skilled casual players too, and there are less skilled serious gamers that can fall quite close to the same tier. When balancing a game you absolutely can't consider it "op". It is op in one skill level, normal in another, etc... and should balance accordingly so that it becomes good on ALL levels. If through your balance you end up removing depth from the game for one skill tier, then you're probably doing it for more than one and effectively crippling the game.
And the problem gets worse still when the serious gamers (whatever skill) have a lot of influence in other skill levels (creating new strategies, guides, giving their opinion on the game, etc). At this point, you can't ignore them at all since they'll make the other players evolve (and thus every single player must be satisfied with the game in many skill levels). And should they be wrong in their analysis for some time (this happens quite a lot if the community is not big enough) you'll need reliable tools that can decide perfectly on key balance points.
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On May 26 2010 10:00 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 09:52 Failsafe wrote:
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).
This is not always necessarily true, given the nature of a game with incomplete information. If the above holds true for both race A and race B, but race A has better information-gathering ability than race B, then race A will have an advantage, because it will know what race B is doing more often than race B knows what race A is doing. Given the nonsymmetric forms of information gathering (overlords, observers, burrowed units, scans, floating buildings, etc.), this is inevitably going to be the case in one or more of the race relationships. Therefore, in order to compensate for this, race B has to be stronger in other aspects (which may involve having a strategy that is still hard to beat, even when it is scouted).
yeah you're right but you misunderstood what i said. all i said was that if race B has perfect information and race A doesn't, race B's winrate should converge to 50% or more.
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On May 26 2010 07:31 GMarshal wrote:
I dont really have anything to add, I just think this is a great well though out post, now if we could get all the people raging over how "imbalanced" Terran is to read this and think, rather than rage...
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!
Terran USED to be fine back when tanks didn't have the splash buff, and marauders had the 100/100 concussive shells upgrades instead of 50/50 (Its practically free now.) and then they buffed terran even more by making stim and combat shield 100/100
On Topic: Very well thought out post, if we can delay, "Cheese" While having the delayed option be a integral part of play (The overlord having energy for example) would be great, since noone would use it competitively anyway : P And would keep the casual players!!!
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On May 26 2010 10:39 gogogadgetflow wrote:
I haven't read the whole thread but I saw that the OP took a lot of abuse on the first page from people with low reading comprehension.
Thank you Edmon for helping me understand a lot of what Blizzard has been doing, even if I still can't agree with it all - it's nice to have better perspective.
Why stop at stopping cheese? To keep casual players lets make additional buttons that makes units dance to music, wave back at you, burp and take a nap! That will keep the casual players interested and will have no impact on competitive play because they, just like the changes suggested by OP has zero utility to anyone but the targeted audience! (and it must be a good change if 5% of the population is happy for 2 days, like there's no opportunity cost in introducing useless fluff rather than say... *cough* fix up battlenet 2.0)
Way to mis-appropriate events to some perceived theory! Blizzard made the changes, and people don't necessarily agree. They may be good changes in the long run or just the balance team isn't very good at it. To think Blizzard made those changes to make casuals happy is hilarious.
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While we discuss how SC2 should be balanced, it is a natural business choice to market towards the greater demographic. Having casual gamers give good reviews to their close friends may be the best advertising a gaming company can get. That alone is enough reason to assume that SC2 is already taking casual gamers into account when making balance changes and general changes to gameplay.
I really enjoyed this post because it is so true:
On May 26 2010 08:31 Failsafe wrote:
Balancing Starcraft II for low level play is impossible. [...]
Examples:
1) If player A goes air, player B probably isn't scouting so player B dies.
2) If player A rushes, then player B probably doesn't know how to wall, doesn't have a build order that prepares him for a rush, and doesn't know any tricks to help himself once the rush arrives. Player B loses.
3) If player A masses basic ground units and attacks at 10 minutes, player B has probably constructed a base with one of each tech structure and has not devoted much money to his army. He also hasn't scouted. Player B dies.
And so on. Balancing for these players doesn't work.
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The point I am trying to make is this. A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P"
This would be fine, but the league method has completely nullified this,a cheese in the Bronze league isn't going to be the same as a cheese in the gold league which isn't going to be the same the same cheese in diamond league.
At one point the Beta bugged out on my and put me at rank 86 Copper League (logged on one day and just happened to be in Copper) and I had the pleasure of grinding my rank back to Gold, what I witnessed was quite interesting to be honest. The players who tend to cheese in the lower ranks do it so poorly, they stop probe production, get supply blocked, lack of micro etc etc
Balance issues start becoming a problem when anyone can Vs. anyone, but in a tired league system where you are Vs.-ing people just as good as you (or just as bad ), it becomes so easy to overcome any cheese strategy
TL;DR No one should be losing 10 games in a row to people in your own league, Cheese or not, if you are then you certainly aren't meant for that league.
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I think there's alot of misunderstanding about the idea of a casual.. remember guys that most computer games are strategically simple and are more about playing for the flashing lights and pretty graphics.
A casual by this definition is someone who wants the game to be fun. He doesn't want to work to get better at it, or if he does, he expects that to come naturally and gradually through the game..
Think of the OP as a suggestion on how to shallow out the learning curve.
Dealing with cheese is a skill that requires knowledge of the correct reactions, and the ability to carry out those reactions quickly under pressure.
I have a friend who suicided all his scvs into 3 cannons which had been made in the back of his base, trying to kill them off. New players JUST DON'T KNOW how to deal with cheese.
As long as there are strats that new players can do, which other new players can't defend, lower leagues will be a discouraging cheese-fest, the OP is suggesting that it is important to remove this aspect from the game in order to help people get onto the first rung of the ladder.
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Actually PC games are usually a lot tougher to get into vs console gaming. Especially RTS's
*edited for clarity
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Worst come to worst, you still have the BGH no rush 30 min.
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I consider myself a casual player (generally no more than 20 games per week, no more than 10 hours spent playing per week). It was a cakewalk to reach near the top of my Platinum division. I don't practice or think I'm remotely good, so forgive me if the following sounds elitist.
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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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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I think the OP is desperately close to something real, but not quite on target. What he's talking about is asymmetric skill progression.
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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Sentient, I totally agree.
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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Balance for casual players doesn't really exist. You teach them one build and all of a sudden they can beat everyone in their division no problem. It's so random what builds strategies they are doing that even if game has one playable race it wouldn't matter much for casual.
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I agree that it may be theoretically possible to create a game that is balanced for both top players and noobs, but it would probably be nearly impossible to actually make and might not actually be worth the insane amount of effort something like that would need.
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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Casual Balance can never exist in any RTS if you want it to be balanced at high levels of play unless you make the early game options for each race extremely limited and all games converge to be long games.
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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I'll just say this.
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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I think the problem is that when people are SO bad then its not really even "balance" thats making them lose. Its just they are god-awful.
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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if a casual player buys the game hasnt the company accomplished their goal? Its not like Blizzard has some type subscription that has to keep being renewed. This catering to newbs is ridiculous. Its one thing to put meaningless shit into the game to make it difficult.....its quite another to remove things because new people complain and they werent going to be good/serious about the game anyway.
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1 interesting original post, 6 pages of retarded replies failing to understand the OP.
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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The Solution to this is to use Ladderboard or groupings between Bad - Good - Very Good - Competetive - MLG Which is what SC2 Is doing now.
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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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.
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Personally if I utterly dominate an opponent, despite what BM he may or may not display, I make sure to tell them the counter to whatever it is that beat them. Of course I doubt that many of them will take my advice because the response of lower-skill players is anger when there is a loss. The only time I get really angry at this game is when I drop and don't have a chance to prove myself, my opponent drops, or an ally in 2v2. The reason I get mad at this is because there isn't even a chance for either team to prove their skill its simply a 2v1, or an auto-win in the case of 1v1. Sure you can control both armies, but even the best players in the world can't control two armies nearly as well as they can control one. I don't think losses should be about rage it should be about what you did or didn't do in the given situation, scouting is often the cause of many lower-rank loses, if you don't know what your opponent is doing how can you adapt, its impossible.
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Heh, I just noticed that rank 100 of a division gets displayed as "Rank 1..." on the login screen. Talk about trying to keep the losers happy
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Op's post makes a lot of sense, and it seems strange that not many people seem to be able to grasp it, arguing directly with the mindset he was addressing as bad. But there is something I think needs to be taken into consideration, and I hope Edmon gets to read this, because I would like to see his thoughts on this.
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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blizzard is very conscious of the casual player
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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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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Edmon, thanks for stopping by. This is an interesting and (apparently?) contentious topic. It's a shame that most of the posts are landing under the level of the discussion. If you're railing against the OP, trust me, you are operating in the wrong framework. The point of the OP is asking how far you should go to provide fun in your game if it doesn't cost much in taking away value in other areas of fun. (I'm using fun here as a stand-in for the broader concept of why one plays a game. Lots of people here play out of competitive spirit, which is a very different kind of fun than winning BGH ffa with mass BCs.) By design the hypothetical example used poses a problem of nuance and "where to draw the line"; it's not asking whether the philosophy is categorically right or wrong.
I think it's not a great stretch, though the phrasing may not seem quite apt for everyone, to say that the reason we (those who are adamantly competitive about Starcraft) hold this game to be worthy of devotion is because winning requires both adept performance and artistry of play. The fight is dynamic, and often unpredictable, but never incomprehensible, and always exacting. A well executed match is a thing of beauty. The OP suggests that it's possible to retain this sort of gameplay while minimizing gameplay that is unfun to less competitive players. The broader implication of this design goal is to make it as easy as possible for a wide audience to fall into enjoyment of the game. The key point is that it is in the interests of diehard competitive players to have these "unsubstantiated" casual balance changes because they maintain broad support and involvement, something which is absolutely necessary for an enduring competitive scene, especially in a public sense. This is borne out in all the popular sports. Another example where design actively happens (no one "designs" soccer or basketball) with this concept very much in mind is collectible card games with professional players. These games have to be balanced razor sharp to be worth pro competition, and they need to have mass appeal to survive. Magic the Gathering has been around for more than a decade, with an ever-expanding pro scene, thanks to close adherence to the principal described in the OP.
I think the most relevant tension in the proposition is the problem of adding unpredictable interactions, or too much complexity baggage. In all fields of design, one of the fundamental principles is simplicity. By staying as simple as possible, you minimize accidental balance problems. To use the example in the OP, is feedback on overlords too strong in certain situations? Like with DT harass, which also uses the templar tech branch...? Because competitive balance depends on the ability of players to execute precisely, it's hard to imagine exactly how changes in Starcraft affect balance. I think the culture of gaming, now and moving forward, will mirror that of athletic sports; I mean to say that it favours ability and not player-coddling, so strategy and playskill can self-balance. My own opinion is actually near what the ragers are saying, but for different reasons. However, unlike the traditional sports, games are free to be molded, and the opportunity to design for particular goals shouldn't be missed.
In this sense, from the perspective of the designer role, the arrival and subsequent life of a game is almost a performance art. You can't redo Starcraft 2. Because of this, I consider it awfully shortsighted to insist it's exactly to one's own liking, unyielding to the needs of a wider audience. The last thing I want to say is that Starcraft is a robust system. Especially with the ability to patch, it seems highly unlikely you could fundamentally alter the gameplay we love, and love to win at.
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On May 26 2010 12:54 ImSkeptical wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Op's post makes a lot of sense, and it seems strange that not many people seem to be able to grasp it, arguing directly with the mindset he was addressing as bad. But there is something I think needs to be taken into consideration, and I hope Edmon gets to read this, because I would like to see his thoughts on this.
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 person 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 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 of how to think in playing a competitive game with 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.
The concern is valid, but the idea is that all this is invisible to the casual player. He doesn't even think "this is overpowered" precisely because you already "casual nerfed" it -- because the change shouldn't be relevant at higher level play, e.g. the overlord example.
Indeed these players mostly will not become strongly competitive players, but you need them to supply varying levels of interest in the game as a foundation for pro scene longevity. One in ten getting hooked for a year or two is good odds. If three in ten spend sixth months watching tournaments before they move on to something else, that's an important viewership component.
Not trying to be argumentative, just adding a couple things I wanted to touch on. 
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Casual imbalance arises when countering the 'imba' strategy requires more management than executing it. In the 'casually imbalanced' TvZ bionic, the imbalance arises from two or three unmanaged lurkers being able to take down scores of unmanaged marine medic. The imbalance arises because the sad D+ and below player can't macro and expand and harass while microing MnM, but the zerg can easily let the two lurkers sit there while managing their economy.
Easy solution (from game developers point of view?) Nerf unmicroed lurkers, buff microed lurkers. Problem solved. No damage done to competitive gameplay. In general, make both the strategy and counter-strategy require roughly the same amount of management.
Keep in mind even SC1 was built for the casual gamer, and there's not really any reason competitive gamers are entitled to special treatment.
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I think really what the OP is talking about is more how a player loses.
Hypothetical SC2 world where there's only T
Situation A) I'm brand new, doing my placements and I get reaper rushed in my first game, and die in the first 4mins. Alright, I start my second and the same thing happens, over and over for 20 games I get reaper rushed.
At this point, the player will most likely quit, since all they see is reaper rushes and has had 20 3minute games where they lose with no room to improve.
Situation B) I'm brand new, doing my placements (again TvT only) and the T macroes, as do I. Game goes on, and say its a 20, 30, 40 min match. The player that macroes better wins.
Say I even go 0-5 in my placements. I can look back on my replays and go through things like production, unit, and income tabs to see differences and see "well it was my 8 SCVs vs his 40SCVs, maybe i need to make more SCVs" or "he expoed like 5 times, maybe I will try making another base"
In situation 1 the bad player doesn't improve. Sure if he wanted to he could go onto a forum and look up how to beat the reaper rush, but most players wont do that, they will just think the game is bad and will leave.
In situation 2, the bad player had long macro games where he got to tech up, and played out games where he won / lost based on mechanics and could definitively see difference in ways to improve.
- - - - -
Cheese does not push players to improve, it pushed them to emulate or leave.
Longer games pushes players to improve, play vs people of their own skill (especially with current match making), or quit (because they aren't having fun anymore).
Really, I just see it as a difference in timing. If I lose at the 5 min mark I just get angry, if I lose at the 40 min mark then I want to know how to get better and improve my play since I played an awesome game.
Losing to reapers is frustrating... having massive BC and Thor Battles are incredibly fun.
Watch Day[9]'s daily where he watches people he knows play 2v2s. Its epic, no cheese, everyone has fun, and people learn to play better... If it was nothing but a cheese fest it would of never been a Day[9] daily.
The game needs to be fun, cheese isn't fun, epic games are.
- - - - -
Not to mention... do you really want people learning to cheese, or do you want them learning to macro... I would rather have our up and coming Idras, TLOs, and WhiteRas start their gaming career trying to improve their mechanics rather then start by improving their cheese until it doesn't work anymore and they get frustrated having to try and learn mechanics v Diamond level players...
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I'm not a big fan of balancing the game design for all "tiers of play."
A "lower tier of play," or lower level of play is a rather ambiguous phrase anyways, because there's like a million ways to be bad at the game and you can't say which particular one is worse than the other most of the time.
It's hard enough to balance the game for the supposedly highest level of play on its own, there's no point in making the job even harder.
I think the only way that the game should ever be "balanced" for the lower levels of play is through making things easier/harder to do. Like if the current phoenixes was somehow broken, then they could nerf it so that moving shot is still possible but is harder to do, then the Protoss would need more attention to be able to use his phoenixes to be as good as they are now, but when using good micro they would be no different from now... that's the only type of changes that are warranted for the lower levels of play imo, otherwise you're just trying to juggle too many things.
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As a "qualified" game designer myself I respectfully disagree. I recognize the sentiments, but think that it is exactly the kind of mentality that designs to impossible ends. Rather than go point by point I'll just state generally :
You can't effectively and optimally balance for both extreme and casual - it's for the most part a pipedream and a waste of time. What you should do, is balance for the core, and just make the game FUN for casuals. If a casual player has a host of options, and has fun executing them, you're 75% of the way there. Balance wise, as long as a casual player can think of something that he could have done to win, it doesn't really matter if he thinks everything is "completely equal". All that matters for him is there is something else , within his grasp as a casual player, he could have done better to have maybe won, and thus a reason to play again (assuming we're talking about vs. a similar skill level). It doesn't need to be balanced for casuals, it just needs to give them enough options to exploit to both have fun and understand what they can do better in the next game.
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On May 26 2010 14:03 Insanious wrote:
I think really what the OP is talking about is more how a player loses.
Hypothetical SC2 world where there's only T
Situation A) I'm brand new, doing my placements and I get reaper rushed in my first game, and die in the first 4mins. Alright, I start my second and the same thing happens, over and over for 20 games I get reaper rushed.
At this point, the player will most likely quit, since all they see is reaper rushes and has had 20 3minute games where they lose with no room to improve.
Situation B) I'm brand new, doing my placements (again TvT only) and the T macroes, as do I. Game goes on, and say its a 20, 30, 40 min match. The player that macroes better wins.
Say I even go 0-5 in my placements. I can look back on my replays and go through things like production, unit, and income tabs to see differences and see "well it was my 8 SCVs vs his 40SCVs, maybe i need to make more SCVs" or "he expoed like 5 times, maybe I will try making another base"
In situation 1 the bad player doesn't improve. Sure if he wanted to he could go onto a forum and look up how to beat the reaper rush, but most players wont do that, they will just think the game is bad and will leave.
In situation 2, the bad player had long macro games where he got to tech up, and played out games where he won / lost based on mechanics and could definitively see difference in ways to improve.
- - - - -
Cheese does not push players to improve, it pushed them to emulate or leave.
Longer games pushes players to improve, play vs people of their own skill (especially with current match making), or quit (because they aren't having fun anymore).
Really, I just see it as a difference in timing. If I lose at the 5 min mark I just get angry, if I lose at the 40 min mark then I want to know how to get better and improve my play since I played an awesome game.
Losing to reapers is frustrating... having massive BC and Thor Battles are incredibly fun.
Watch Day[9]'s daily where he watches people he knows play 2v2s. Its epic, no cheese, everyone has fun, and people learn to play better... If it was nothing but a cheese fest it would of never been a Day[9] daily.
The game needs to be fun, cheese isn't fun, epic games are.
- - - - -
Not to mention... do you really want people learning to cheese, or do you want them learning to macro... I would rather have our up and coming Idras, TLOs, and WhiteRas start their gaming career trying to improve their mechanics rather then start by improving their cheese until it doesn't work anymore and they get frustrated having to try and learn mechanics v Diamond level players...
if they emulate and fail they will figure out how to stop it and improve from there.
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On May 26 2010 14:19 Sadist wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 26 2010 14:03 Insanious wrote:
I think really what the OP is talking about is more how a player loses.
Hypothetical SC2 world where there's only T
Situation A) I'm brand new, doing my placements and I get reaper rushed in my first game, and die in the first 4mins. Alright, I start my second and the same thing happens, over and over for 20 games I get reaper rushed.
At this point, the player will most likely quit, since all they see is reaper rushes and has had 20 3minute games where they lose with no room to improve.
Situation B) I'm brand new, doing my placements (again TvT only) and the T macroes, as do I. Game goes on, and say its a 20, 30, 40 min match. The player that macroes better wins.
Say I even go 0-5 in my placements. I can look back on my replays and go through things like production, unit, and income tabs to see differences and see "well it was my 8 SCVs vs his 40SCVs, maybe i need to make more SCVs" or "he expoed like 5 times, maybe I will try making another base"
In situation 1 the bad player doesn't improve. Sure if he wanted to he could go onto a forum and look up how to beat the reaper rush, but most players wont do that, they will just think the game is bad and will leave.
In situation 2, the bad player had long macro games where he got to tech up, and played out games where he won / lost based on mechanics and could definitively see difference in ways to improve.
- - - - -
Cheese does not push players to improve, it pushed them to emulate or leave.
Longer games pushes players to improve, play vs people of their own skill (especially with current match making), or quit (because they aren't having fun anymore).
Really, I just see it as a difference in timing. If I lose at the 5 min mark I just get angry, if I lose at the 40 min mark then I want to know how to get better and improve my play since I played an awesome game.
Losing to reapers is frustrating... having massive BC and Thor Battles are incredibly fun.
Watch Day[9]'s daily where he watches people he knows play 2v2s. Its epic, no cheese, everyone has fun, and people learn to play better... If it was nothing but a cheese fest it would of never been a Day[9] daily.
The game needs to be fun, cheese isn't fun, epic games are.
- - - - -
Not to mention... do you really want people learning to cheese, or do you want them learning to macro... I would rather have our up and coming Idras, TLOs, and WhiteRas start their gaming career trying to improve their mechanics rather then start by improving their cheese until it doesn't work anymore and they get frustrated having to try and learn mechanics v Diamond level players... if they emulate and fail they will figure out how to stop it and improve from there.
and someone just missed the whole point of my post...
Look at bronze level players, ever played any? 99.999999% of the time, they just try to cheese you.
- 6 pool
- 7 rax reapers
- 9 gate chrono boost zealot
- VR rush
- Banshee rush
etc...
Why? because its all they ever experience down there. People who have learned to macro move up and away, people who only cheese either: cheese well and leave, or cheese poorly and continue to try and perfect their cheese so they can leave bronze.
Heck, in D9D #100 Day[9] talks about this mentality. How he would constantly just try and use his "trick" to win. This is what bronze level players (not all, but a lot) are trying to do.
Now, if say there was no way to cheese anyone... ever... and you HAD to macro (yes i know, a huge exageration and would make the game a lot less exciting but just an example). You would see the people with the best skills rise up, and the lower skilled players be at the bottom due to mechanics.
As well, players would continue to hone their mechanics simply due to:
- Use
- Experiencing better mechanics and emulating them
This would turn their ladder play into practice for their mechanics, which would in turn move them up the ladder as they get better.
- - - -
Now, I'm not saying (and neither is the OP) that all cheese is bad... No. It definitely has its uses (so you don't have a Z just make like 40 drones for the first 10 mins then out macro you instantly...). But it shouldn't be the end all be all of low end play.
Aggression is good:
- timing pushes
- early aggression
- drops
- nidus
- DTs
etc... all good.
What is bad is losing to something that makes the loser:
a) not want to play anymore
b) not think that he needed to play better to win
and
c) hinders the time investment in mechanics.
- - - -
Aggression is not bad, early aggression is not bad, but inhibiting a players growth is bad. So the aggression either:
a) needs to be part of an overall strat that leads to something and not an all in (6 pool v. TLO's TvZ build)
b) needs to only a tiny bit harder to defend then to execute... so that you don't end up with players quitting over reaper harass because they just don't know what to do... that with a little experimentation they can easily figure out the counter.
These plays should be a threat, should be effective, but shouldn't just shut players down that don't log onto TL to read the counter...
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I dont get what are you people are talking about. In your examples there are no casuals. There are just stupid players.
Look at chess!
How many times you can beat a guy using the exact same tactic in lets say 15 moves (i suck at chess)?
a) everytime = a dumbass with an IQ<100
b) 2-3 times till the dude gets the hang of it and its able to defend = a good player
c) 1 time and the dude gets ur tactic and is able not only to defend but to also outsmart your strategy and beat you = a very smart person
Same thing is applied to starcraft. If you get beat every time by a bancheese cloak rush and in the 3rd game (at most) it still hasnt occured to you that you should build a turret then you sir are pretty much an idiot....
Im proud to say im a casual gamer. For me casual doesnt mean idiot as some people on these forums suggest in their posts. Im casual because i play 5 games a week cuz i dont have time for more. That doesnt mean im retarded and lost 30 consecutive games to cannon/proxy gate/reaper/6pool whatever rush. That also doesnt mean Blizz has to fix any of those cheeses. Blizz must cater to the Intelligent player not the Retarded player - that would be a good way to put it.
Also to the OP. Any winning strategy done against a casual is also by a casual player. I really dont think whitera is still in bronze and proxy gates casual players.... So if you nerf the strat you win the retarded player who lost to it but lose the intelligent player who did it and can defend to it in the first place.
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OK, i think I would add one term to the conversation which has been lacking.
This term is prevalent in all CCGs (that I know of).
NPE = Negative Play Experience
No game needs these. This above all else, is the most important aspect of any game's success. Think WOW, magic the gathering etc. As much as everyone likes to bitch about WOW, it is a far more successful game than SC ever was and SCII will ever be. It isn't better, but it is more successful.
Cheese almost always leads to NPE's, games where the immediate reaction is: "WTF?? You can do that, oh my god this game is lame."
If a player has to look up a website in order to work out how to beat a cheese, it probably shouldn't be in the game. Not all players will go to that effort, especially if they have only been playing for a while and haven't got an emotional investment in the game yet. Sure after 100-200 games, they might, but after 5... If they can survive 100 games without a serious NPE, that player may be the next pro because they have developed the patience and interest. If they get cheesed in their first 5 games, SCII will appear to be a stupid game full of dumb tactics. Why would I bother making the investment of time?
The point (which has been raised already), if the cheese requires less skill than the counter then it is not good for the game. If the cheese wasn't balanced at the pro level, I'm sure everyone would be complaining, yet not being balanced at the intermediate level makes everyone whiners... way to go with double-standards...
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On May 26 2010 15:07 Insanious wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 14:19 Sadist wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 26 2010 14:03 Insanious wrote:
I think really what the OP is talking about is more how a player loses.
Hypothetical SC2 world where there's only T
Situation A) I'm brand new, doing my placements and I get reaper rushed in my first game, and die in the first 4mins. Alright, I start my second and the same thing happens, over and over for 20 games I get reaper rushed.
At this point, the player will most likely quit, since all they see is reaper rushes and has had 20 3minute games where they lose with no room to improve.
Situation B) I'm brand new, doing my placements (again TvT only) and the T macroes, as do I. Game goes on, and say its a 20, 30, 40 min match. The player that macroes better wins.
Say I even go 0-5 in my placements. I can look back on my replays and go through things like production, unit, and income tabs to see differences and see "well it was my 8 SCVs vs his 40SCVs, maybe i need to make more SCVs" or "he expoed like 5 times, maybe I will try making another base"
In situation 1 the bad player doesn't improve. Sure if he wanted to he could go onto a forum and look up how to beat the reaper rush, but most players wont do that, they will just think the game is bad and will leave.
In situation 2, the bad player had long macro games where he got to tech up, and played out games where he won / lost based on mechanics and could definitively see difference in ways to improve.
- - - - -
Cheese does not push players to improve, it pushed them to emulate or leave.
Longer games pushes players to improve, play vs people of their own skill (especially with current match making), or quit (because they aren't having fun anymore).
Really, I just see it as a difference in timing. If I lose at the 5 min mark I just get angry, if I lose at the 40 min mark then I want to know how to get better and improve my play since I played an awesome game.
Losing to reapers is frustrating... having massive BC and Thor Battles are incredibly fun.
Watch Day[9]'s daily where he watches people he knows play 2v2s. Its epic, no cheese, everyone has fun, and people learn to play better... If it was nothing but a cheese fest it would of never been a Day[9] daily.
The game needs to be fun, cheese isn't fun, epic games are.
- - - - -
Not to mention... do you really want people learning to cheese, or do you want them learning to macro... I would rather have our up and coming Idras, TLOs, and WhiteRas start their gaming career trying to improve their mechanics rather then start by improving their cheese until it doesn't work anymore and they get frustrated having to try and learn mechanics v Diamond level players... if they emulate and fail they will figure out how to stop it and improve from there. and someone just missed the whole point of my post... Look at bronze level players, ever played any? 99.999999% of the time, they just try to cheese you. - 6 pool - 7 rax reapers - 9 gate chrono boost zealot - VR rush - Banshee rush etc... Why? because its all they ever experience down there. People who have learned to macro move up and away, people who only cheese either: cheese well and leave, or cheese poorly and continue to try and perfect their cheese so they can leave bronze. Heck, in D9D #100 Day[9] talks about this mentality. How he would constantly just try and use his "trick" to win. This is what bronze level players (not all, but a lot) are trying to do. Now, if say there was no way to cheese anyone... ever... and you HAD to macro (yes i know, a huge exageration and would make the game a lot less exciting but just an example). You would see the people with the best skills rise up, and the lower skilled players be at the bottom due to mechanics. As well, players would continue to hone their mechanics simply due to: - Use - Experiencing better mechanics and emulating them This would turn their ladder play into practice for their mechanics, which would in turn move them up the ladder as they get better. - - - - Now, I'm not saying (and neither is the OP) that all cheese is bad... No. It definitely has its uses (so you don't have a Z just make like 40 drones for the first 10 mins then out macro you instantly...). But it shouldn't be the end all be all of low end play. Aggression is good: - timing pushes - early aggression - drops - nidus - DTs etc... all good. What is bad is losing to something that makes the loser: a) not want to play anymore b) not think that he needed to play better to win and c) hinders the time investment in mechanics. - - - - Aggression is not bad, early aggression is not bad, but inhibiting a players growth is bad. So the aggression either: a) needs to be part of an overall strat that leads to something and not an all in (6 pool v. TLO's TvZ build) b) needs to only a tiny bit harder to defend then to execute... so that you don't end up with players quitting over reaper harass because they just don't know what to do... that with a little experimentation they can easily figure out the counter. These plays should be a threat, should be effective, but shouldn't just shut players down that don't log onto TL to read the counter...
i could just as easily suggest someone cheesed to macro better (IE just making an expansion and pumping drones etc and just hoping you dont attack)
the argument is dumb. At low level people suck period. Everyone sucks to a degree when they start out. Casual people will quit anyway unless they have the type of personality not to quit. Theyve already bought the game so their money has been invested anyway. BW lasted for a long time even though the learning curve is hard. Theres no reason to believe SC2 wont be the same way if we leave it the fuck alone.
Also "cheese" doesnt lead to negative play experience at all. If it isnt cheese that kills you other shit will. The best way to solve this is to have people play other newbs and thats the whole point of AMM. Messing with the game isnt necessary at all. At the absolute most you could use the neutral building block to prevent rushing like they do in the practice matches.
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@sadyque so your saying you beat 7 rax reaper in 2 - 3 times while:
1) never asking for help
2) never looking up a counter
3) never seen it countered in a VoD / stream
4) not coming from an rts background (so no SC, no WC3, no C&C, no Supreme commander, etc...)
5) Being your first say 10 games
Casuals don't go to TL and look for help, they don't watch replays of other players, they don't watch streams...
I would be hard pressed to see you play say League of Legends without reading the rules or anything vs. Eve.
Eve is the worst character in the game, but DESTROYS noobs. Why? Because she can cloak and noobs don't see that you need to buy wards to uncloak Eve.
Players have enough on their mind:
- learning about items
- learning their own skills
- microing their hero
to worry about buying wards to defeat Eve.
Everyday in the league of legends forums there are posts about how OP Eve is and such... riot games said "we will remake eve, she isn't fun to play Vs. and isn't used in competative play, bad design"
Look at cheese:
- Do you see cheese in the top top top players play? NO.
- Do you see early aggression that moves into standard play? Yes
- Do you see 7 rax reaper? No
- Do you see say 11 rax reaper? Yes
- 7 rax reaper = cheese
- 11 rax reaper = agressive
If somehow reapers couldn't come out till say 10 food, without changing anything else... what would you see?
- less reaper rushes
- same play from pros...
This is a BAD fix to the problem, and should never be implemented... but its just an example of something that would leave pro play unchanged and fix lower play.
If it hurts noobs, and isn't used by pros why have it in the game?
Also "cheese" doesnt lead to negative play experience at all. If it isnt cheese that kills you other shit will. The best way to solve this is to have people play other newbs and thats the whole point of AMM. Messing with the game isnt necessary at all. At the absolute most you could use the neutral building block to prevent rushing like they do in the practice matches.
You assume a loss = NPE thats wrong...
I can have A LOT of fun losing.
But losing to cheese is NEVER fun.
Cheese is NPE, because its never fun
But losing so say, BCs and Thors vs my Ultra BLords is hella fun...
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On May 26 2010 15:33 Insanious wrote:@sadyque so your saying you beat 7 rax reaper in 2 - 3 times while: 1) never asking for help 2) never looking up a counter 3) never seen it countered in a VoD / stream 4) not coming from an rts background (so no SC, no WC3, no C&C, no Supreme commander, etc...) 5) Being your first say 10 games Casuals don't go to TL and look for help, they don't watch replays of other players, they don't watch streams... I would be hard pressed to see you play say League of Legends without reading the rules or anything vs. Eve. Eve is the worst character in the game, but DESTROYS noobs. Why? Because she can cloak and noobs don't see that you need to buy wards to uncloak Eve. Players have enough on their mind: - learning about items - learning their own skills - microing their hero to worry about buying wards to defeat Eve. Everyday in the league of legends forums there are posts about how OP Eve is and such... riot games said "we will remake eve, she isn't fun to play Vs. and isn't used in competative play, bad design" Look at cheese: - Do you see cheese in the top top top players play? NO. - Do you see early aggression that moves into standard play? Yes - Do you see 7 rax reaper? No - Do you see say 11 rax reaper? Yes - 7 rax reaper = cheese - 11 rax reaper = agressive If somehow reapers couldn't come out till say 10 food, without changing anything else... what would you see? - less reaper rushes - same play from pros... This is a BAD fix to the problem, and should never be implemented... but its just an example of something that would leave pro play unchanged and fix lower play. If it hurts noobs, and isn't used by pros why have it in the game? Show nested quote +Also "cheese" doesnt lead to negative play experience at all. If it isnt cheese that kills you other shit will. The best way to solve this is to have people play other newbs and thats the whole point of AMM. Messing with the game isnt necessary at all. At the absolute most you could use the neutral building block to prevent rushing like they do in the practice matches. You assume a loss = NPE thats wrong... I can have A LOT of fun losing. But losing to cheese is NEVER fun. Cheese is NPE, because its never fun But losing so say, BCs and Thors vs my Ultra BLords is hella fun...
for a while. Newbs have always loved lategame which is why fastest maps were always relatively popular. They want to use capital ships. Let them play amongst themselves. Dont ruin the game for them.
Like I said before, limiting strategies is stupid. Stick to AMM. People who play a few games and quit or dont know to look online dont matter much anyway. You can basically find anything on the internet today. If they cant figure out counters to cheese by looking on google its their own fault for being lazy assholes.
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United States42674 Posts
There is no place for the casual gamer in a strategy game. A strategy game is a decision making game in which good decisions are rewarded and bad decisions are punished. A casual player doesn't know the difference between the two and will make bad decisions. If you fail to punish him for this then there really isn't any strategy, it's just multiplayer sim city.
The idea that a strategy game should reward someone who doesn't know what they're doing is absurd.
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@Insanious are you saying the person doing 6 rax reaper rush dreamed up the strategy as part of their 'casual' play?
Wait, they read the build somewhere, implemented it, and found it working on lower tier players.
Now look at the ones that got cheesed and lost. Using your logic they: didn't look up strategies, just kept bang their head on the same wall again and again and wonder why the wall is so hard, and somehow they don't deserve it?
Those that cheese will quickly rise up in ranks until they are no longer competent ie their cheese fail badly. The scenario some describe where in lower leagues everyone cheese is a contradiction.
I cannot believe how many of you missed sadist's point. Have you even tried a reaper rush or cheese as you describe it? It is not the easy button, if someone makes it work, which entiles some level of multi-tasking, that someone is definately better than the one who is unable to scout/counter it. Try it then report back how easy it is to do. It is actually NOT, and only reason it works is because you are playing way worse players.
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On May 26 2010 07:26 Edmon wrote:
The point I am trying to make is this. A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P". They will just leave because they think the game is shit and your game will die. Had they stayed, prehaps they would have become great. But they didn't because the cheese has killed the game for them early, when they are still deciding "Do I like this game?".
First I'd like to say, overall good write up, but I think you have a fundamental flaw with everything cause of whats quoted. Casual players, are not really what it entails, a casual player can have any kind of mind set, if someone loses 10 games in a row and quits, then that's not really a player who is worth more than the 50$ he paid for the game. So basically you are encouraging them to make changes based upon a group that lacks the basic knowledge of the game/fundamentals. Anyone else aside from this will do something to help prevent against said cheese. A "casual" player like myself will not lose to cheese 10 games in a row because I'd have either kept playing to counter it, or found an external source to teach myself whats necessary. Pros will most definitely continue on playing after 1, possibly even 10 loses to cheese, and are then vigilant to implement the discovered rush counters into their strategy if needed. That is why this is a strategy game. Strategy is always not so apparent, sometimes you have to find the strengths and weaknesses yourself.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
The point I am trying to make is this. A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P". They will just leave because they think the game is shit and your game will die. Had they stayed, prehaps they would have become great. But they didn't because the cheese has killed the game for them early, when they are still deciding "Do I like this game?".
This is wrong. The next WhiteRa or Sen is a special type of person that wishes to improve. From the beginning. A casual player that is carefully nurtured might become a B+ on iCCup, but that's his limit, climbing higher requires pretty special traits in a character. If you have those traits, you will learn quickly and will be able to see the sugar of the game from the first match. If you don't, no amount of training will make you a grandiose player, never. You might become an equivalent of "proleague macro protoss" who is ridiculously boring to watch, but are those really needed?
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I have no intention of reading all 7 pages, so apologies if this has already been said.
@OP:
A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. I have to disagree with this. A casual player will never become the next WhiteRa. Why? Because they're casual players.
What you call a casual I call a scrub. They're players that will NEVER EVER get good because they can't accept the fact they're bad, and that silly things like 6 pool, mass roach etc etc can and WILL work over and over unless properly countered. They call those things OP, cheese, or, their favourite, "cheap". They will refuse to play against anyone who uses these strats if they can (or make up rules about using them - No Rush zero clutter anyone?) and ragequit when they're beaten by them.
Then there's the hard core crowd, or the people who "play to win". They find a game that interests them and is hard (e.g. SC:BW), and play it until they're really good at it. They don't call things that beat them cheese, or cheap. They find ways to beat it. Or they abuse it themselves. These are the kind of players that become WhiteRa's. They're the kind of players that clock 1000+ hours on a single game.
The scrubs will ALWAYS find something to whine about. You cannot please them. It's simply impossible. If it's not rushes, it's X unit is OP, or Y race is OP, or Z strategy is OP.
The hardcores are the players who are still playing when there's barley 200 people online at once. They're the crowd you want to please.
SC2 is doing the best thing you really can do, and that's letting the scrubs play against themselves, instead of putting them against good players that would smash them.
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On May 26 2010 11:53 NicolBolas wrote: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.
I actually just recently, a few weeks ago, brought up the quantified skill concept up on a Dawn of War 2 forum. However, I interpret it somewhat differently (and go from 0 to 100 xD).
Balancing for every skill level is rather impossible. Nearly always you are going to have strategies, offensive or defensive, that are more effective at a certain skill level than the counter is at that skill level. It's a basic byproduct of asymmetric factions and more (or, read: depth) as well as emphasizing skill AND strategy rather than just skill.
Anyway, this is the most idealized of idealized viewpoints, but it's useful for considering a few basic concepts:
1. It's ok for strategies to require less skill to execute than their counters at lower skill levels because of expectations of reasonable player growth.
2. A target for reasonable player growth must be defined (implicitly, encouragement for players to reach this should be enacted; challenges, leagues, group replay sessions, etc... are all steps in the right direction; it's the ultimate hope that players will look towards a league like TL)- for a game like SC2, ideal target should be at the point where dexterity becomes a serious hindrance, which seems to be Diamond league more or less (plenty of people that got in from cheesing that quickly get knocked-down, but as with TrueSkill in DoW 2, I'd allow the system at least 100 games per user to sort that out)
3. The ability of a strategy to scale with skill is just as important as the skill scaling of the counter
Putting these together, consider two players of skill 25 (out of 100). Player 1's strategy is superior at this skill level. Player 2 loses, but watches the replay, and realizes what he needs to do to counter the strategy. In doing so, he raises his his skill to 26. Skill 26 can counter this skill 25 strategy. But at first glance, this seems imbalanced, because now we see that it require sa skill 26 player to counter a skill 25 strategy. But does this hold for all skill levels, that this strategy will always require a better player to counter it?
Possibly. But it depends on three things (again, somewhat idealized, but the basic theory can be snatched out and is rather applicable)-
1. Skill Scaling Ratio. That is, the rate at which the skill of the strategy scales with its counter. So if we look at our skill 25 player's strategy, and we say that skill 25 is the lowest skill required to successfully execute the strategy (the Skill Floor), then if as skill 26 he uses this against another skill 26 player, will it work? If the skill scaling ratio is linear, then yes. Linear is pretty much 1:1. In fact, if we ever detect linear or better scaling, we need to immediately move to #2 here because we could have a serious issue. But if it scales less than linear (<1:1), then we are uncertain of the outcome of the skill 26 battle. We will need to do the math.
Consider that at skill 25, the relative skill of the countering player is actually 24.5 in relation to the strategy (relative to the skill of the opponent; thus, we are saying that the effective skill of a countering player of skill 25 is 24.5 when facing the strategy). If the counter scales at a rate of 1 then a skill 26 player using the counter will relatively be a skill 25.5 player. This would then make sense why a skill 26 countering player can beat a skill 25 executing player (relative skill of 25.5 > 25). Consider that if the strategy scales at a rate of .5 (so that a skill 26 executing player would be of relative scale 25.5- yes, the strategy would actually drop the relative skill of the player using it beyond skill 25), then at skill 26 both players will be equal. However, if the strategy scales worse (< .5) then at skill 26 and higher the countering player will win at skill 26 or higher. If the strategy scales better (> .5 but < 1) then it will take more skill levels for the two to converge. If we say that the strategy scales at a rate of .75, a battle between two skill 26 players will give us relative skill levels of 25.5 and 25.75 so the executing player will win, but when we move to skill 27 then relative skills will both be 26.5 and beyond that the counter will prevail.
2. Skill Ceiling. This is the second part of the above equation. Most strategies run into a wall at some point where skill no longer impacts them. This, my friends, is how the vast majority of cheese works, and is generally why it is considered cheese. Cheese tends to have a relatively low skill ceiling. Counters to cheese may also have relatively low skill ceilings, but typically they have higher skill floors (something I'll address a bit later). Nonetheless, once the skill ceiling is reached (generally well below the pro level for cheese) then the situation is the same for all skill levels above those ceilings. Note that just because something can be reliably countered does not mean it always will be, and that's where luck comes in.
But anyway, back to the above example. So if the skill scaling ratio is equal, then the first question is if the strategy and counter have skill ceilings. If they do, then is the skill ceiling of the strategy lower than that of the counter? If not, then we can flag the strategy as overpowered pretty immediately, since this means the strategy should never be counterable. If the skill scaling ratio is greater than linear, then we do the same. However, if we find the skill ceiling of the strategy to be lower than that of the counter, we look to see if the skill levels ever converge (specifically, because while the strategy gains relative skill at a superior rate, its counter still gains skill up until the ceiling; if the strategy stops gaining skill before the counter does, then the counter can eventually overtake the strategy unless it hits its skill ceiling before it does). If they do, then the strategy is usually fine, but we will want to check it against our skill target to make sure that it's not over it; if it is, we'll have to really consider that while the strategy is counterable, it will take players of great skill, skill that we are not confident our average player can train to without some talent or a massive time investment that goes well above and beyond what we expect, and we should consider it a potential imbalance and issue (at the same time, we'll want to look at what players at, near, below, etc... our target do- possibly they start QQing, but given a couple of weeks or a month, do they eventually raise themself to the skill they need? Do we find that most CAN do this?). We'll also want to obviously check that the convergence happens at some point below 100, so that it is humanly possible (in the real world, this is significantly tougher to verify). If the skill ceilings are equal, then by definition of the skill scaling ratio being linear or higher then the strategy will not be counterable and is a balance problem.
If the skill scaling ratio is less than linear, our concerns are similar to the above. Is the skill ceiling of the strategy lower than the counter? If yes, then does the convergence happen before/when the skill ceiling of the counter is hit? If yes, does the convergence happen below skill 100? Below our target? If those are both yeses, then great the strategy is fine. If not, we have some kind of a problem. If the skill ceilings are equal, then we just need to ensure the convergence happens before the ceiling is hit (we must also consider our target and etc). If the skill ceiling of the strategy is higher, then we have a situation like we had when the skill scaling ratio was linear or greater than linear, simply that the roles are reversed.
3. Skill Floors. These are the minimum skill levels required to successfully execute a strategy or counter. Besides from providing bases for scaling, they are also important because they convey to us when strategies and counters come into play. As well, some counters may be superior to the strategies they counter always, from the second they come into play, but their skill floors are higher than that of the strategy. For example, a skill 25 strategy may require a skill 30 counter. Note that in our previous example, skill 27 would be the skill floor the counter the skill 25 strategy that scales at .75.
We can see from those three things how we can leverage this skill quantification to spot imbalances, which is great. But what we're interested in for this thread is to decide when strategies pose a serious issue to the game. We already touched on the target and the impact of skill ceilings on that. Thus, we will discuss more the lower skill areas.
Skill floors are big for this. Cheeses tend to have lower skill floors than their counters (but as mentioned, they also tend to scale worse with skill and/or have much lower skill ceilings than their counters). For starting players, this means that immediately there are a lot of strategies that just can't be countered until a certain skill level is hit. The point of this thread is to highlight this issue. However, I think when we study the majority of cheeses that can successfully be executed at low skill levels (which is all we should be concerned about; otherwise we need to be concerned about our matchmaking system), we can find that the skill floor for countering them is not too much higher and quite achievable by all players.
As we find this, it should then become the point of our game to prepare players for this and to raise their skill levels to those floors before they hop online. Tutorials, campaigns, challenges, AI opponents, etc... can all do this. Thus, this should be our preferred solution, because not only do we subvert the issues that this thread brings up by taking this route, but we also get more players into the meat of our competitive game from the start (they can try cheeses themselves and start to develop their core game).
It might then, for example, be our goal to get players to skill 25 and we don't have to worry about any issues below there.
Now, of course, as mentioned in reality the ideal, quantified skill system breaks down. Scaling can vary and is not necessarily consistent, strategies/counters may have multiple ceilings and multiple floors, skill itself is relative and a player that learns nothing and does nothing new can actually have his/her skill drop but at the same time this may drop the skill floor for strategies and counters, players may not play up to their skill level, players may not be consistent in their skill level, etc... As well, skill itself is a composite value and in reality players are going to push specific skills in response to specific stimuli and thus two "skill 25" players are actually quite different and we might have to consider one of those players "skill 28" for using one strategy while the other is "skill 22" for the counter, before even considering the relationship between the counter and the tactic. I'm sure you guys can fill in many other realities as well.
But, the basic concepts that we feel like all players can rise to a certain level of skill and proficiency and that in order to allow that to happen our game needs to provide training of some kind to new players to rise above cheeses (or at least be able to get them to a point to where they see a light at the end of the tunnel against them- they see where they need to work to even if they can't quite reach it yet). Basically, the training our game offers determines its accessibility, rather than having our game be balanced particularly for those skill ranges. At the same time, we can determine and convey when we feel that various strategies are reasonably counterable and can determine when to instruct our player base to L2P.
The main difference between this viewpoint and that of the OP is the skill expectation. The OP wishes to emphasize all skill levels, while this post prefers to ease the learning curve through other means and emphasize achieving the highest skill level possible for most players and to focus on issues that crop up there (again though, SC2 is meant to be, or claimed to be, an eSport, and thus the foremost focus needs to be on the highest levels, because when those are thriving, videos, replays, etc... filter down and they fuel excitement for the game and can also spark improvements in lower-level play).
And for those who simply don't care to learn much at all... SC2 vanilla is not the game for them. UMS, Coop v AI, BGH, etc... might be part of the package that makes it worthwhile for them anyway though. But 1v1 MP is supposed to be competitive- there are some requirements that come with that turf.
And on a side note, it's quite notable that in Dawn of War 2, the most popular race is Space Marines. SM are the most popular race not because they are overpowered, not because most people prefer their gameplay style over that of other races, but rather simply because Space Marines are the most popular Warhammer 40,000 race and Dawn of War 2 draws a big playerbase not just on its own merits but also from fans of 40k. Many such 40k fans are what I think this thread would consider casual players. Nonetheless, many go on to become quite decent players. For such players that choose Space Marines, in online play they are immediately beset with the issue that early Tier 1 Space Marines have a very tough time against races like Orks and Tyranids which can bring serious melee threats to bear during that time frame. Dealing with this as SM has a much higher skill floor than leveraging the melee does for the other races. However, as mentioned many casuals learn to cope with this pretty quickly and adapt. This situation is, while not cheese per se, it's quite similar since the very first engagement (which typically is just a minute or two into the game, if not faster) of this can cost the SM the game (in the very apparent way that the other player gains total map control and can sit outside your base until T2 rapidly rears its head and vehicles are knocking at the SM's doorstep while the SM has no reliable AT). Nonetheless, as mentioned, most players overcome this (side note to the side note, all-melee swamping against SM converges against SMs' counter at a roughly low-mid skill level so as to become almost cheese-worthy while a balanced melee threat is generally standard play and scales well with skill on both sides and converges quite nicely at higher-level play). Different game, but similar issue and even less help with the learning curve than SC2 is planning to offer.
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This thread is REALLY starting to push my nervers.
Can we replace the words "Casual Player" with "Bad Players" in this thread? Because that is what it is, people are making casual players out to be compete idiots with no ability to improve themselves, I don't get to play this game as often as I want to but that doesn't mean I get frustrated after every game and do nothing to improve if I lose to a rush. If someone loses 10 games in a row to the same strategy without improvement to people in their own league then they are definitely over ranked and should move down a tier till they get better.
With the league system, if you are playing in Bronze/Silver/Gold then it doesn't take that much to beat people using rushes because they people doing them aren't that good either usually it's just changes in build order, different units, small things like that at such a noob level.
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I think what the OP is getting at is that if there are too many "hurdles" for new players (casuals, people lacking RTS experience, whatever you want to call them) to jump over, then they will be quickly discouraged and quit.
There are countless ways in which you can "autolose" a game of SC2, the most common of which are probably not building detection, not building anti-air and not scouting proxies or hidden buildings.
This makes it difficult for new players, because instead of learning one skill at a time, they have to learn a LOT of things at once simply to avoid losing the game instantly. "Ok I got proxied, now I need to remember to scout around my base". "Ok this time I scouted around my base, but he rushed me with DTs, now I need to remember to get detection". "This time I scouted properly, and built detection, but he expanded three times and teched to mass air, FML."
The point is that there is a pretty steep learning curve for new players before they can even begin to play the "actual" game. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I agree it's something which the game designer should keep in mind when working on a game.
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On May 26 2010 07:46 Madsquare wrote:
your points are correct in what you are trying to say.
however be aware that the SC2 MP is not a casual game just 4 fun. its a very competive, esport oriented one. its just not meant to be fun for everyone
its fun for the winners.
Except that it is meant to be fun for everyone, lol.
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Noobcakes can always eat a custom game pie.
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On May 26 2010 19:35 FuRong wrote:
There are countless ways in which you can "autolose" a game of SC2, the most common of which are probably not building detection, not building anti-air and not scouting proxies or hidden buildings.
This makes it difficult for new players, because instead of learning one skill at a time, they have to learn a LOT of things at once simply to avoid losing the game instantly. "Ok I got proxied, now I need to remember to scout around my base". "Ok this time I scouted around my base, but he rushed me with DTs, now I need to remember to get detection". "This time I scouted properly, and built detection, but he expanded three times and teched to mass air, FML."
The point is that there is a pretty steep learning curve for new players before they can even begin to play the "actual" game. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I agree it's something which the game designer should keep in mind when working on a game.
The argument for this is, because of the league system, the opponents are in exactly the same situation and although some hurdles are great over coming them in noob friendly leagues like Bronze/Silver isn't that difficult because neither side is very good.
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Well, Blizzard did mention that there will be A LOT of tutorials and stuff in the release of the game and that beta is not a demo, like some people may think.
Beta can be a double-edged sword in that respect, cause if a casual guy plays the beta and gets stomped hard over and over again, he may not even buy the game, thinking it's too hard.
As for the point OP made, I can't agree too much..
Casual players will most likely just play against other casual players, given that matchmaking isn't a fail.
So for them, there really isn't that much difference if some strats can be considered hard to beat.
Catering to the true casuals (by true casuals I mean those guys who do not care about the game and just use it to spend some time and have fun) helps sales, but it's just not a cool idea for a competitive game.
On May 26 2010 15:11 sadyque wrote:
I dont get what are you people are talking about. In your examples there are no casuals. There are just stupid players.
Look at chess!
How many times you can beat a guy using the exact same tactic in lets say 15 moves (i suck at chess)?
a) everytime = a dumbass with an IQ<100
b) 2-3 times till the dude gets the hang of it and its able to defend = a good player
c) 1 time and the dude gets ur tactic and is able not only to defend but to also outsmart your strategy and beat you = a very smart person
Same thing is applied to starcraft. If you get beat every time by a bancheese cloak rush and in the 3rd game (at most) it still hasnt occured to you that you should build a turret then you sir are pretty much an idiot....
Im proud to say im a casual gamer. For me casual doesnt mean idiot as some people on these forums suggest in their posts. Im casual because i play 5 games a week cuz i dont have time for more. That doesnt mean im retarded and lost 30 consecutive games to cannon/proxy gate/reaper/6pool whatever rush. That also doesnt mean Blizz has to fix any of those cheeses. Blizz must cater to the Intelligent player not the Retarded player - that would be a good way to put it.
Also to the OP. Any winning strategy done against a casual is also by a casual player. I really dont think whitera is still in bronze and proxy gates casual players.... So if you nerf the strat you win the retarded player who lost to it but lose the intelligent player who did it and can defend to it in the first place.
This post sums it up pretty well.
If player can't figure out how to beat something over and over again, he's most likely just cannot get the idea behind the game at all.
Use of word "retarded" is pretty harsh in that post, but I guess it's necessary
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To some extent I agree with the OP, and ideally, a game would be relatively balanced and very fun to play on the lower levels AND extremely balanced and fun to play at the higher levels.
However, his example with the Overlord exposes one problem: it makes units bland.
When you have a cool unit with a cool powerful ability, that makes for fun gameplay.One Reaver could make a difference in SC1 because it was just so powerful. DT's are fun because you can completely abuse a player if they don't have detection ready. Naturally, matches involving these units then were fun to play - the opponent had equally powerful and unique counters.
Good players know these units and counters and have the skills to use them. They can cope with 'overpowered' units because they have a slew of their own and know how to do damage with them.
(Of course, there is a point where battles just become chaotic. Imagine if storm was instakill vs bio, and then Terran used 50-range Tanks, etc. That would just be a completely random clickfest - taking it too far.)
What this meant in practice is that you had very varied army clashes. Taking out a reaverdrop was a significantly different experience from taking down DT's or just taking down a Zealot rush. You could say that the specific combination of units facing off would decide what kind of 'style' that battle would be.
Now to the bad players. If you do what you did to the Overlord to all the units, you are removing or chipping away at the essence of what makes these units cool, or at least face the risk of doing so.
One could say Reavers are hard to counter for bad players, so let's make their splash smaller and prevent them from being used in conjunction with Shuttles so easily. Result: Bad player not so often destroyed by Reaver drop, Reaver loses significant amount of coolness/fun factor.
Also, DT's are impossible to stop if you haven't got any detection. Most bad players won't have any, because they lack proper scouting. Therefore, permanently cloaked DT's are too strong against them, so let's make their cloaking a spell or duration effect, possibly researched.
Result: DT's no longer a killing unit vs bad players. DT's lose almost all of their coolness/fun factor.
You can see where I'm going with this. Naturally, the two above examples are a bit exaggerated, but like the OP stated, it's hard to put things like this into subtle terms and still have them make sense.
If you continue this trend, what will happen is that you'll end up with a unit roster that is no more varied than melee/ranged/spells. The fights will just be "Melee in front, Ranged behind, Casters in range" and the game will be perfectly balanced yet lack any sort of fun at all. Look to the state of SC2 Zerg for an example.
My opinion, as a casual player who still regularly forgets his macro while being rushed, is that new players just need to suck it up and learn. I might be one of the few that still have that competitive mindset around my ranks, but SC2 should be no different from others games in this regard.
If you pick up Quake 3, you're going to get demolished until your aim improves and you learn map control and strafejumping, period. If you start playing Counterstrike, you'd better learn where all the common defense positions are, else you get sniped over and over.
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I don't understand alot of players (from both high and low tiers) and their incessant whining about cheese and other "unstoppable" strategies. If the strategy is so unstoppable, try putting yourself in the other player's shoes and see how unstoppable it is. Thats how I found 90% to my counters to "unstoppable" stuff. When I get stopped using it, I know its stoppable. If I don't pull it off perfectly, then I obviously have something to work on in my game.
Remember Orb's infamous thread on "how to stop reaper rush"? Did we not all point and laugh at him when he was still posting there 3 months later when people already posted a solution within 3 hours of the thread being erected? Remember when he moaned about mass marauders only to find out (wait did he find out?) that one voidray could beat pure marauder rush?
Remember the week of Void Rays? Where a ton of protoss players would go fast Void Ray (b/c 90% of Terran's went mass marauders) only to fall victim to mass marine viking exactly 1 week later? Did Terran's not find like 3+ different counters to void cheese? (Reactor starport, engineering bay turrets, reactor barracks marine with stim and shield upg... etc)
Remember when roaches were imba and we found a counter to those... Oh wait Blizzard nerfed those...
Remember sentry forcefield abuse and many players just went siege tanks or air or anything that wasn't mass gateway/barracks/tier1?
Yeah... I remember all those now useless, past "unstoppable" strategies... Seriously guys. If you find something so imba that you can't beat it. Try playing with it for a while and get raped a couple times, who knows.. maybe you'll have alot of fun raping face with it. You'll figure things out alot faster that way. Instead of posting a 10 page response about shit not being balanced.
Nobody is going to help you watch replays for you and do your homework for you. You are on your own.
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Some people just want to play the game in their own pre-conceived way, and I think up to a certain point that could be encouraged. If you, say, like nukes then having a strategy where you make some marines/marauders and then get ghosts that should be a viable way to play at lower-level games. It might not be the best ever, but that's not too important.
The problem comes that your MM->Ghost strategy might never work because you'll be unable to hold off some early game zergling rush without teching to hellions (made-up example), and because the zergling rush strategy is a very popular cheese you'll lose so many games before you had the chance to use your own strategy. I think at this point Blizzard might say that while the zergling rush strategy is not overpowered, the fact it will always beat a ghost strategy, or even the fact it might be easy to pull off and hard to stop by terran in general though it could always end up failing versus a good player, is enough to justify buffing terran early-game defense, or nerfing the zergling rush.
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On May 26 2010 20:22 Mothxal wrote:
Some people just want to play the game in their own pre-conceived way, and I think up to a certain point that could be encouraged. If you, say, like nukes then having a strategy where you make some marines/marauders and then get ghosts that should be a viable way to play at lower-level games. It might not be the best ever, but that's not too important.
The problem comes that your MM->Ghost strategy might never work because you'll be unable to hold off some early game zergling rush without teching to hellions (made-up example), and because the zergling rush strategy is a very popular cheese you'll lose so many games before you had the chance to use your own strategy. I think at this point Blizzard might say that while the zergling rush strategy is not overpowered, the fact it will always beat a ghost strategy, or even the fact it might be easy to pull off and hard to stop by terran in general though it could always end up failing versus a good player, is enough to justify buffing terran early-game defense, or nerfing the zergling rush.
That is absolutely insane.. That's like saying if the Terran player always wanted to use his fast battlecruiser build and goes straight to battle cruisers but loses to zergling rushes really easily they should make battlecruisers build faster and their tech buildings build faster too... wait.. oh yeah they did that...
But that is also saying... if some noob wants to build nothing but mass probes or scvs to try and win and it always loses to zerglings they should buff probes so that its a viable strat. That type of thinking is just wacked. No offense.
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A lot of you guys are arguing semantics here. Usually in a game design sense the definition of a casual player goes something along the lines of someone who buys a game and plays it, but the level of interaction ends there.
They will never become part of an online community, at most they might look up a walkthrough or something.
In a starcraft context, these people won't even have build orders. They will in all likelihood switch over to custom maps very rapidly or only play with friends. The competitive ladder environment just isn't designed for them and will likely never make them happy.
You can convert from a casual gamer to a ladder player, but saying that such a player will ever become top of a diamond league division (not as amazing as some of the feats people are claiming they are capable of ) is pretty unrealistic, especially if they aren't willing to take a few hard knocks at the start of their learning experience.
A few people have said things along the lines of "Well this is a highly competitive e-sport, casuals should GTFO!"
This is suicide for a gaming company. End of the day, Blizzard wants to make money. A huge proportion of their profits will come from casual players, a large percentage of whom will never even log in to battlenet.
Casual gamers need to be considered in game design if a company wants to make serious profit, we've all seen how the Wii has performed. They won't take the time to learn how to play, they won't come here to learn how to beat 6 rax proxy reapers, they won't even know what the term 6 rax proxy means. If you are here and reading this, I am sorry, but you are no longer a casual gamer. That doesn't mean you don't play Starcraft 2 casually, but you are beta testing a game that isn't released yet, you have to have preordered it, registered for the beta or entered a contest somewhere to win a key. You care about this game past the moment you are playing it.
I believe this is the kind of definition the original poster was using, although we may differ on a couple of specifics.
I agree and disagree with the original post.
I agree casual gamers need to be considered overall. I disagree that they should make up a major component of any decision relating purely to ladder play.
I agree that techniques that work in low level play but are immediately shut down and punished heavily in higher level play have no place in a game competitive or not. They encourage a play style that leads to no improvement, are usually very frustrating to lose to and don't really add anything to the game, but you have to be very careful not to adversely affect higher level play. I personally think reapers are very poorly designed because they only really have any use for the first 5 minutes of the game and could use a rework. That being said 10 rax reaper -> transition to whatever is one of my favourite openings. It forces actions out of your opponent without being instant loss when they do eventually counter you. Interestingly, fast reapers work on the practice maps and are in fact more effective because you cannot be punished for getting it wrong.
I feel a bit like the original poster was using the aforementioned definition of a casual gamer, while trying to apply it to bronze league players. The two groups do not have perfect overlap and I would argue that the current casual player base would be less than 1% (maybe some non-casual gamers gave keys to casual gamers). The final casual player base will be much, much higher, but you will likely never meet any of them.
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On May 26 2010 07:44 Snowfield wrote:
I think i misunderstood the thread, i re-read it now and i still dont really understand what he says
He says that something can be balanced for good players, but really anoying for beigginers. And all good players were begginers before being good.
So having mecanism balanced for good players, but really annoying for begginers isn't a good thing.
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On May 26 2010 20:44 deadalnix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 07:44 Snowfield wrote:
I think i misunderstood the thread, i re-read it now and i still dont really understand what he says He says that something can be balanced for good players, but really anoying for beigginers. And all good players were begginers before being good. So having mecanism balanced for good players, but really annoying for begginers isn't a good thing.
that isn't what I took from it at all
what I took from it was that at low levels certain things that have no effect at higher levels from play can be wildly imbalanced when you're not very good
as such, you can change those things and have absolutely no effect on high level play, but greatly improve the experience of people who are playing at copper level
and I think the forge change is a perfect example of this, cannon rush is super imba when you're copper but sucks balls when you're actually good at the game
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Anything that detracts from the variety of strategies available in the game as well as lowers the skill ceiling, for the benefit of people who are not willing to suck it up and get better, is a bad thing. We saw what it did to WoW, there is literally no excuse to do it here, particularly when you're not trying to keep subscribers.
This nebulous idea of the 'casual' player being one that simply isn't willing to learn how to not suck and then goes and cries to Blizzard to change the game for his benefit, is one that's disgusted me for years as a WoW player and has no business infecting a non-MMO title. Hell it didn't belong in WoW in the first place but at least you can see the misguided business reasons behind appeasing such people in a subscription based game.
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On May 26 2010 21:19 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Anything that detracts from the variety of strategies available in the game as well as lowers the skill ceiling, for the benefit of people who are not willing to suck it up and get better, is a bad thing. We saw what it did to WoW, there is literally no excuse to do it here, particularly when you're not trying to keep subscribers.
This nebulous idea of the 'casual' player being one that simply isn't willing to learn how to not suck and then goes and cries to Blizzard to change the game for his benefit, is one that's disgusted me for years as a WoW player and has no business infecting a non-MMO title. Hell it didn't belong in WoW in the first place but at least you can see the misguided business reasons behind appeasing such people in a subscription based game.
TotalBiscuit sums it up pretty well (just like other posts in this thread). If you want a game to be competitive you dont make it carebear.
Competition is tough. It should be tough.
Why are we constanly moving towards leftist views? Is the new generation swifting towards communism or smth?
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Thats why I feel any strong maneuvers should be heavily execution/timing/skill based(not saying this is the case)and not just some autowin 1a unit that does tons of damage. So if you die to it, it means they had better micro or just are generally better than you.
That said, the beauty of rts is you can improve. If you care that much about losing, then get better and win. If its not worth the effort, then oh well just a loss, doesnt mean your penis is small(or does it??). It's kind of a terribly spot to be in.. if you have enough pride that losing hurts, but not enough to want to win.
I think if you casually play with people your level, they shouldnt really smash you to the point its not fun, but thats my experience of sc2 so far. Other than that, theres gonna be coop vs ai and custom maps,so I think theres plenty outside of competitive laddering for casual interests.
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excellent points. it's sad to see people even in this thread confused about that concept when you laid it out so simply.
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I strongly disagree with most of OP's point. Point isn't to balance the game for everyone but to make it fun for everyone. Balance isn't equal to fun.
Anyone who played SC1 knows that from game 1 you start having fun.
And your argument is quite flawed as you think anybody can have / wants a shot at becoming good.
What's important isn't balancing the game for the noobs, but rather make sure they have alot of fun. Balance can come into that on many accounts, but if you don't balance the game for top level then you fail. If balancing the game for top level makes lower levels not having fun, then your game is shit.
Simple as that.
Jeezzz.
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If you join the game, you have to face the consequences of the game. If you join 1v1, all the other player does all game is try to eliminate you. There is no way around that. Now of course casual players play 1v1 too, but if you are not commited to try to find out the best way to eliminate your opponent, what are you doing?
Of course many people will play 4v4 and custom games too, which is awesome. There is something for everybody.
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The OP confuses casual players with lazy players. In fact lots of people do. Its completely possible to be casual and not be a moron who loses to the same thing over and over. Lots of casual players are smart people who have rigorous jobs and just don't have time to play a lot. For them, starcraft still has a lot to offer. The amazing campaign with its huge cool factor. The occasional game with friends. The once in a while ladder challenge. The value of watching pros plays. The custom games.
The lazy player SHOULD NOT be the target of any designer. In fact this is downright disgusting. This is the whole point of your post. Person X is lazy, lets change the game so he doesnt have to learn it. "Cheese" is not cheese bc its unstoppable, its very wrongly used in this context. Cheese is a strategy that deviates from normal play in an effort to win quickly. Just like other tactical games, once you lose to it, provided you aren't lazy, you think critically about it and can beat it. Why should the lazy player NOT be the target of the designer? Because they will buy the game anyway, and they will play it for hours (even at a hardcore level, WOW is FILLED with these players) and then they will complain. Thats what they do... they complain. Just throw them achievements and downloadable content of costumes they can buy. If you want to cater to these people, fill your game with carrots on a stick... they will chase forever.
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On May 26 2010 21:00 Tropics wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 20:44 deadalnix wrote:On May 26 2010 07:44 Snowfield wrote:
I think i misunderstood the thread, i re-read it now and i still dont really understand what he says He says that something can be balanced for good players, but really anoying for beigginers. And all good players were begginers before being good. So having mecanism balanced for good players, but really annoying for begginers isn't a good thing. that isn't what I took from it at all what I took from it was that at low levels certain things that have no effect at higher levels from play can be wildly imbalanced when you're not very good as such, you can change those things and have absolutely no effect on high level play, but greatly improve the experience of people who are playing at copper level and I think the forge change is a perfect example of this, cannon rush is super imba when you're copper but sucks balls when you're actually good at the game
The forge rush was actually used to great effect in high levels on the asian server.
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I was confused by the OP.... lets just balance the game?
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if an overlord drop could would be stoped by someone feedbacking then i would definitely applaud
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lol , now we need to balance the game for bad player , balance the game for good player . balance the game for casual player and balance the game for hardcore player and pro gamer too !.
( so many name and title when in fact we are only players )
if you are bad , play other game or try to improve that all .
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I don't really get this casual balance stuff...
And others don't seem to understand competitive balance...
You can't really have casual balance without having competitive balance. Sure a newbie will die to newbie strats, that's why he's a noob. That's really irrelevant cuz he will never understand or grip what balance is nor how to play. However, competitive players are the only players truly capapble of "breaking" a game. So you really have to balance there or the game will busto.
It's really simple to me. I must be really dum.. or.. the others.
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On May 26 2010 21:42 Uthgar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 21:00 Tropics wrote:On May 26 2010 20:44 deadalnix wrote:On May 26 2010 07:44 Snowfield wrote:
I think i misunderstood the thread, i re-read it now and i still dont really understand what he says He says that something can be balanced for good players, but really anoying for beigginers. And all good players were begginers before being good. So having mecanism balanced for good players, but really annoying for begginers isn't a good thing. that isn't what I took from it at all what I took from it was that at low levels certain things that have no effect at higher levels from play can be wildly imbalanced when you're not very good as such, you can change those things and have absolutely no effect on high level play, but greatly improve the experience of people who are playing at copper level and I think the forge change is a perfect example of this, cannon rush is super imba when you're copper but sucks balls when you're actually good at the game The forge rush was actually used to great effect in high levels on the asian server.
really? was there any cannon rush outside of the pvz pylon/forge at their ramp thing? because that works pretty much just as well as ever and its the only cannon rush ive ever seen outside of desert oasis
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Sure BW is a model of Esport now, but Blizzard didn't make the game thinking we'll make a hard game for pro only. Most likely they wanted to make a fun game with the originality of 3 really distinct races.
The competitive scene came later. Hearing some people on this thread they were born progamers with a copy of BW right of the womb of their mother.
The OP say only that they may be some other factors to balance. Like easing new player into the multiplayer game. You may disagree but the answers he gets are "huhu you shitty shitty OP u retarded". Some answers aren't even about the point he try to make.
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I think the addition of MBS and automine were the casual balancers.
Now amongst casuals, it's far less about handspeed/muscle memory and more about your ability to play fast, think fast etc. I think that is the great balancer in all this.
The amazing thing I've come to love~ MBS Automine. I can't BW now cuz of it.
If I could only select 2 probes and push BP for pylon in BW too T.T
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I think a lot of these problems will be solved when the new BGH/Fastest maps come out. All the play-to-win people will go there, leaving the ladder populated largely with the play-to-learn types.
Losing to cheese play always bothers me, but I eventually learn to deal with it, and I generally take solace in the idea that the constant cheesers will probably move up to silver league at best, while I will continue to improve and eventually reach platinum/diamond. I haven't done my placements post-patch yet, but I was mid Platinum before it, and I used a friend invite key to make a second account, with which I intentionally lost all 5 placement matches.
The reason for doing so was to play in copper, where most cheeses take place. I was having trouble with some cheeses and wanted to learn to counter them. And now I have very little trouble with cheeses because I played probably something like 50 games, of which something like 45 of them were cheese plays.
But again, I think a lot of these play-to-win types who don't want to deal with actually learning the game (the type that will typically cheese) will eventually filter out once the BGH's and Fastest Maps of SC2 come out.
In response to the OP, I think there is some validity in the argument, and I think it's well worth changing lower-level play as long as it doesn't affect higher level play AND if it promotes playing to improve rather than playing to win. Otherwise, all the balance changes in the world are pointless.
While I am by no means a game designer (nor am I qualified to be anything like one), such a task seems to be difficult if not impossible.
As such, it seems the logical choice to do it the opposite way: balance high-level and try not to change lower level play too much.
Playing secretively is part of the game; you could certainly get rid of all cheese play simply by removing the fog of war. Then, everyone sees everything, and everyone is forced to win through pure mechanics. But trying to keep your opponent in the dark is a part of the game.
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Hmmm... maybe we ought to make some rough definitions:
Noobcakes players: These players have no idea. They either are not good at games in general or have no talent for RTS games. Alternatively, this might be their first few games.
Cheeseball players: These players don't really have much talent for RTS's in general. Their main prerogative is to win games. They misplace themselves in the leagues to stomp Noobcake-players.
Casual players: These players do have some idea. The probably have played other games before to a decent level of skill. They may not have played RTS games before but after playing the campaign and a few custom games against computer AI, they venture forth onto BNet. Casual players cover a broad range of skill levels.
Invested players: These players play a lot. They read up on strategies and check websites. They play as much as they can. They often dislike change to the game balance as it may upset their 'training', but can often be adaptable too. Their skill level is almost certainly above casual, but not in the pro league.
Pro Wannabes: Most of the posters on this forum (j/k). They talk tougher than they play. They probably play reasonably well and love to post L2P... they can be invested players, they can be cheeseballs.
Pros: They are mature enough to not post L2P every second post. They are good at the game and can offer valuable information about minor tweaks to top-level competetive gameplay (not major design necessarily however). It is mostly useful to have a pro's opinion. They don't have much valuable opinion about cheese, because at the pro level, cheese is generally meaningless.
The problem is, that casuals can easily turn into invested players and then into pros if the conditions are right. At the moment there is a false dichotomy being bandied around. It's not that casual players are bad, cry and quit, rather that they are inexperienced, have a 1-dimensional experience and turn their attention to more interesting pursuits. If their first experience of ladder SCII is cheeseballs, then they will get switched off SCII and go back to games they enjoy more. These may not be WOW (as so many people keep saying) but other styles of games such as FPS, or other RTS's where cheese is less prevalent.
The simple example I will give is three of my friends. Two friends played relatively normal SC games. Build/rush/drops/sneaky stuff. Sometimes I got burned, sometimes I didn't. My third friend was a cheeseball. ZvZ it was sunkens on my creep, ZvP it was 2 zealot rushes... the play was 2-dimensional and boring. Yeah I got burned the first 2 times, then I adapted. Then I got bored and I just stopped playing against that friend.
If my first foray into ladder matches were continuous cheese matches, whether I won or lost I would lose interest very quickly because frankly those games just aren't fun or interesting. Multiplayer SCII would appear to be stale cheese. That's the point. Maybe some people hate losing full stop. Well, they'll never win with the new AMM system because it essentially enforces 50% win rates. But the players you don't want to quit are the ones who play a dozen ladder matches before realising that there is no point for them to become an invested player because the game is 'as boring as shit' due to the prevalence of cheese.
All players begin as noobcakes or casual. The reason all of you invested players, cheeseballs and pro wannabes are still in the game is because your first fifty matches probably weren't all cheese-fest NPE's.
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Imagine an MMO where after level 50 you have an amazing game, very immersive and amazing. Has great PvP and would become the #1 MMO PvP eSport.
But at the same times level 1 - 50 take 5,000 hours of grind to finish, with no rewards, and PvP isn't unlocked till 50.
Hardcores will grind up to 50, will tout the amazingness of the game, and how balance at lower levels doesn't matter now that they are in the god tier, and just their PvE and PvP experiences matter since they are the pros.
While down in noob land, people are quitting left right and center, the game slowly dieing.
With no balance for low level fun, games die... No matter how much potential a player has, if they are not having fun they will not continue playing.
If you come from a non-RTS background, and are not in beta, if the game isn't fun for you,
you wont play it...
and you will tell your friends not to waste their money...
and they will tell their friends not to...
Remember in business, a happy customer will on average bring in 2 - 3 new customers, an unhappy customer will drive away 10 potential customers.
Personally, I don't think lower level play is fun. I've had to teach a few of my friends who i've given keys to how to play better so they can leave copper (which it was around). They were all going to quit the game due to how many NPEs they had down there...
and this is coming from people i've played video games with (competitively even) for from 2 to 10 years...
Low level play needs a fun boost, this might come from custom games, but well... people wont buy SC2 for custom games, they want to ladder... and unless you foster the new generation there wont be any young blood to replace the seasoned pros.
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wow the level of posting in the sc2 forum is fucking atrocious. Noobcakes? Are you kidding me?
Learn to defend zergling rushes you nitwit, or Dt rushes, or cannon rushes, it would be like me losing in 4 moves in chess and complaining after i lose to it over and over.
Being able to beat "cheeseballs" should give you a sense of accomplishment. God you guys are terrible.
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I come from a non-RTS background, and I played maybe 20 ladder matches total in the 10 years I owned Starcraft.
It's really not hard to stop early all-in crap like 6 pools, 3 gate, 8 rax, etc. I don't see what the issue is. If you keep losing to the same strategy over and over because you're doing the same thing, that's basically the paraphrased definition of insanity.
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Why should we cater to or care about players who just complain about shit instead of trying to get better at the game?
And you shouldn't say cheese is impractical in higher level play. Even progamers win with 4pool.
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On May 27 2010 00:33 Sadist wrote:
wow the level of posting in the sc2 forum is fucking atrocious. Noobcakes? Are you kidding me?
Learn to defend zergling rushes you nitwit, or Dt rushes, or cannon rushes, it would be like me losing in 4 moves in chess and complaining after i lose to it over and over.
Being able to beat "cheeseballs" should give you a sense of accomplishment. God you guys are terrible.
so are you saying that if you lose against cheese, then either your opening is not polished enough or your scouting is weak or both?
I kinda agree. (for example in pvt i allways open with 10gate, core, stalker, stalker.)
and I believe that "cheese" as itself is only a way to exploit bad scouting or unflexible openings. nothing else.
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wow the level of posting in the sc2 forum is fucking atrocious. Noobcakes? Are you kidding me?
I was just trying to be light-hearted. Calm down. Calling them noobcakes and cheeseballs makes it sound a bit more fun and kind of describes them in a slightly less, 'you suck' kind of way.
Learn to defend zergling rushes you nitwit, or Dt rushes, or cannon rushes, it would be like me losing in 4 moves in chess and complaining after i lose to it over and over.
Being able to beat "cheeseballs" should give you a sense of accomplishment. God you guys are terrible.
Ok, as this follows on to a direct quote form a term I coined, I can only interpret this comment as being directed at me. What the hell are you talking about? The above stated rushes are easy to defend, they are just boring to play against because it makes the game 1-dimensional (rush works/doesn't work... gg). The reason it doesn't give a sense of achievement is because it repetitive. Using your own analogy, it's like a 4-move mate, except there is a 6-move counter-mate. Either way I'm stuck with a 6-move game... huzzahs >_>
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Its impossible to "balance" the game for players who arent at the top. Get rid of annoying things, yes. Balance, no.
By "balancing" for lower tiers, people just mean removing certain strats from the game, nothing more, nothing less.
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On May 27 2010 00:50 Goobahfish wrote:Show nested quote +wow the level of posting in the sc2 forum is fucking atrocious. Noobcakes? Are you kidding me? I was just trying to be light-hearted. Calm down. Calling them noobcakes and cheeseballs makes it sound a bit more fun and kind of describes them in a slightly less, 'you suck' kind of way. Show nested quote +Learn to defend zergling rushes you nitwit, or Dt rushes, or cannon rushes, it would be like me losing in 4 moves in chess and complaining after i lose to it over and over.
Being able to beat "cheeseballs" should give you a sense of accomplishment. God you guys are terrible. Ok, as this follows on to a direct quote form a term I coined, I can only interpret this comment as being directed at me. What the hell are you talking about? The above stated rushes are easy to defend, they are just boring to play against because it makes the game 1-dimensional (rush works/doesn't work... gg). The reason it doesn't give a sense of achievement is because it repetitive. Using your own analogy, it's like a 4-move mate, except there is a 6-move counter-mate. Either way I'm stuck with a 6-move game... huzzahs >_>
then youll get better and play better players. Thats the entire point of the way the ladder is. What the hell is your problem.
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well for me balance on the top tier takes priority, but if you can make the game more enjoyable on the casual levels without making it unbalanced at the top tier by all means go ahead! of course for a game to even be played significantly at a top tier it needs a large base of casual/lower tier players from which the top tier players will rise from (:
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On May 27 2010 00:50 Goobahfish wrote:Show nested quote +wow the level of posting in the sc2 forum is fucking atrocious. Noobcakes? Are you kidding me? I was just trying to be light-hearted. Calm down. Calling them noobcakes and cheeseballs makes it sound a bit more fun and kind of describes them in a slightly less, 'you suck' kind of way. Show nested quote +Learn to defend zergling rushes you nitwit, or Dt rushes, or cannon rushes, it would be like me losing in 4 moves in chess and complaining after i lose to it over and over.
Being able to beat "cheeseballs" should give you a sense of accomplishment. God you guys are terrible. Ok, as this follows on to a direct quote form a term I coined, I can only interpret this comment as being directed at me. What the hell are you talking about? The above stated rushes are easy to defend, they are just boring to play against because it makes the game 1-dimensional (rush works/doesn't work... gg). The reason it doesn't give a sense of achievement is because it repetitive. Using your own analogy, it's like a 4-move mate, except there is a 6-move counter-mate. Either way I'm stuck with a 6-move game... huzzahs >_>
if this is really true (you repetatively win against cheesy openings) then your rating gets pushed up faster. with higher rating you will get better opponents who will not "cheese" you with no reason.
I never saw someone win with a cheese opening against a good player with a flexible opening and at least decent scouting.
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On May 26 2010 21:51 aka_star wrote:
I was confused by the OP.... lets just balance the game?
The point was that "balancing the game" is more complicated than... "just balancing the game."
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On May 26 2010 19:35 FuRong wrote:
I think what the OP is getting at is that if there are too many "hurdles" for new players (casuals, people lacking RTS experience, whatever you want to call them) to jump over, then they will be quickly discouraged and quit.
So let them quit, multiplayer isn't for everyone. There's plenty to do in SC2 that doesn't involve laddering. And the ladder system in SC2 is way more noob friendly than BW multiplayer is already.
BW sold what, 11 million copies? Have we really devolved this much as gamers over the last decade that this isn't good enough for Blizzard and we have to dumb it down? I'm all for making certain things easier and less tedious than they were (technology and UI's advance over time) but if a new player gets rolled by cheese then well, maybe this isn't the game for them or they should go play single player maps. If Blizz wants to fix some of that stuff fine, as long as it doesn't affect high level play. I'd just work on high level play first.
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A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P". They will just leave because they think the game is shit and your game will die.
That seems to be the motivation of the OP for suggesting his concept of 'casual balance'. I'd like to retort by suggesting that the attitude of 'I've lost to this 10 times so the game must be broken' disqualifies that person from ever being any good at this (or any) game.
As stated by various people, the best approach is to assume that the game is balanced and learn to adapt. It's the only way to improve and enjoy the game. Whining about imbalance is rarely going to impact the developers and instead stunts your own development.
tldr: l2p
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then youll get better and play better players. Thats the entire point of the way the ladder is. What the hell is your problem.
Sigh... again... calm down...
I think you might be missing the point. I am not talking about me... I am past that stage of SC development, I'm on a forum and watch replays nor have I made a single complaint about a particular strategy being OP. I know the upper level games are less cheesy. I'm talking about the perspective of new players.
The point is, that if you were new to the game and this represented your first experience of the game, it might convince you that the game wasn't worth investing time in because your first 20 ladder matches were 1-dimensional and boring, leading to the overall shrinking of the fan-base and player pool. If your opinion on their reaction is 'shutup and go away' then so be it. We can leave it at that, just think before you start posting insults please.
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On May 27 2010 00:52 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 00:50 Goobahfish wrote:wow the level of posting in the sc2 forum is fucking atrocious. Noobcakes? Are you kidding me? I was just trying to be light-hearted. Calm down. Calling them noobcakes and cheeseballs makes it sound a bit more fun and kind of describes them in a slightly less, 'you suck' kind of way. Learn to defend zergling rushes you nitwit, or Dt rushes, or cannon rushes, it would be like me losing in 4 moves in chess and complaining after i lose to it over and over.
Being able to beat "cheeseballs" should give you a sense of accomplishment. God you guys are terrible. Ok, as this follows on to a direct quote form a term I coined, I can only interpret this comment as being directed at me. What the hell are you talking about? The above stated rushes are easy to defend, they are just boring to play against because it makes the game 1-dimensional (rush works/doesn't work... gg). The reason it doesn't give a sense of achievement is because it repetitive. Using your own analogy, it's like a 4-move mate, except there is a 6-move counter-mate. Either way I'm stuck with a 6-move game... huzzahs >_> then youll get better and play better players. Thats the entire point of the way the ladder is. What the hell is your problem.
![[image loading]](http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/4053/ahhhigottakillem.gif)
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United States22883 Posts
On May 27 2010 01:04 Goobahfish wrote:Show nested quote +then youll get better and play better players. Thats the entire point of the way the ladder is. What the hell is your problem. Sigh... again... calm down... I think you might be missing the point. I am not talking about me... I am past that stage of SC development, I'm on a forum and watch replays nor have I made a single complaint about a particular strategy being OP. I know the upper level games are less cheesy. I'm talking about the perspective of new players. The point is, that if you were new to the game and this represented your first experience of the game, it might convince you that the game wasn't worth investing time in because your first 20 ladder matches were 1-dimensional and boring, leading to the overall shrinking of the fan-base and player pool. If your opinion on their reaction is 'shutup and go away' then so be it. We can leave it at that, just think before you start posting insults please.
Again, that's why there's tutorials and the novice setting. You should probably be able to get 10+ games before entering real competition, if you so choose.
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btw...
Anyone who hates cheese and likes mid level competition can always play against me in some custom games. I don't cheese, I don't like 5 minute games with one sided victories and enjoy playing for fun.
I'm sure there will be thousands of players like me once the game is actually released, no real reason to ladder if you only play a few hours a week (aka casual).
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That was really interesting, but it doesn't quite hit the mark.
On May 26 2010 07:26 Edmon wrote:
Imagine if you will that overlords have the ability to infest buildings. This would be silly but hear me out. So, they have this ability and it only works on terrans. The overlord has to float over the command center, some tenticles lower into it. They damage it at 50 HP/Second and once it goes red, it's an SC1 style infested building.
Now, this so far, is balanced on the competitive tier. A competitive terran will -never- allow this to happen. He will have marines out in time and he'll have that overlord shot down so fast it will not know what hit it. Zerg will be down an overlord critically early, so most good players won't even bother to try it. Later on, a single turret will prevent this from ever happening ever again.
On the casual tier, this ability is a huge cheese and it may work almost all of the time. Players with poor timings don't have defences down in time. If they do, they forget the simple things all competitive players remember to do at the same time. Like wall in/off and panic. They lose over and over and they rage all over the forums about it.
This is an excellent point. However, you cannot make a game both casual and competitive at the same time. When you make the game more competitive, casual players will suffer. When you make the game more casual, the competitive level will stagnate.
No hardcore fanbase is an island. You need the new blood. Once casuals are addicted to the game and -not- before, will they decide "I want to be better" and start playing hard to win. Maybe, a year down the line, one of these guys will be epic and Day[9] will be blah-blah-blahing about him being a hero. You just don't know.
I don't know about this part because from adversity, comes greatness. A player must hit rock bottom to reach new heights. There aren't as many casuals who become great as those who do it for the love of the game. You're absolutely right about the new blood though. They are necessary to advance the level of play (even by serving as cannon fodder). The major problem is... where do we draw the line? Consider this: If we could put casuals together in a single division, the person closest to playing like a pro will dominate the division. We can't move him to the pro division since he will be crushed by everyone, but we can't keep him in the casual division either. You can't really solve this problem because it is up to the casual players to overcome the barrier.
When I see this change, I quickly realise that, it's not going to change competitive play, because that tier will adapt. Cheese rarely ever works against competitive players, so why even have it all (The cheese not the ability) if you can prevent it? Plus, in this example, overlords now having energy means that you could kill them with feedback. This is a change, maybe for the better, maybe not. Imagine a doomdrop being stopped with feedback. Sometimes when we elimate cheese we can create new, epic plays.
Sometimes, it's necessary to keep cheeses in order to balance the game itself. By having the threat of cheeses, you cannot simply go for the most efficient economical build every single time. The threat of cheese is much more valuable than the actual cheese itself, since it adds more options to both the attacker and defender. Should they build more workers? Pump more units out? By keeping these lanes open, both players must also keep their cool while considering all the possibilities.
So, in conclusion I would say. Whatever the cheese is, be it void ray, reaper, cannons. I ask not that you say "L2P, L2S, etc" and just stop and think... can we keep these players without ruining the competitive game? Can we remove the cheese but keep the strategy? Can it be balanced for both tiers?
I would argue that a good balance designer can have his delicious competitive cake and have a casual player eat it and that this is what will determine if this game is still around 10 years from now. So the next time a flavour of the month cheese fills the forum, I would ask only that you think of a solution, before reaching for the L2P-bat.
Because in the end, it will make the game better for everybody if you do.
Thanks for reading.
It can't be balanced for both tiers as I mentioned in my previous comments. As for the "L2P, L2S, etc", there really isn't any better medicine than that. It's very harsh, but it is what all the better players have done. They didn't skirt around it, they guzzled that **** to play better.
Furthermore, we shouldn't underestimate the resilience of casuals. If you look at fighting games, casuals still play it, despite getting crushed by better players. Other RTS? They play it. World of WarCraft? Ugh! Despite the skill difference in StarCraft 1 and 2, they are able to survive at least in the early to mid game.
Even if they stop playing SC2 ladder, there will always be UMS... =D
<Edit: Fixed bold tags to work properly!>
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Balance on any level is easier said than done, but the OP does bring up a good point.
The success of SC2 won't only depend on how it plays on high level competition, but how well it draws lower level players as well. If SC2 is accessible on all levels then it will be universally popular.
BW was universally accepted as being perfectly balanced - and the truth is it may have been as much as it wasn't. But pros kept trying to continuously find counters for everything they encountered, because they accepted the fact that it wasn't the game was broken, it was their play.
With SC2, it's easier to throw around the word "imbalanced" because of its stage in early development. It's hard to find what really is imbalanced among the noise of everyone shouting IMBA. Imbalances do exist, but it's best to play the game knowing you can counter everything.
Morale of the story: Everything is more complicated than it seems.
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this is retarded. How do you plan on balancing a game between 2 bad players, 1 masses roaches the other masses mutas. Mutas are bullshit.
quit game forever
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Thanks for posting this Edmon!
(Too bad it's too much elitism in these forums)
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I am afraid it has little to do with elitism and more to do with unrealistic goals.
I have debated as to if I even wanted to respond to this, but it appears people simply don't get it. I am more then a little surprised that the OP claims to be a game designer and has that little grasp on the difference between a casual player and a non casual.
Simply put your example is never going to happen and here is why; The mind set between a casual player and a competitive player are completely different. A Casual player is NEVER going to become a competitive player. I think the core problem here is that most do not understand the difference between a Casual player, a new player and a competitive player. The three are not the same and there are some extremely distinct differences.
A Casual player is just that, casual. They aren't thinking in the competitive "How to I get better" mind set, they are thinking "I just want to have fun". The amount of hours you play does not dictate the type of player you are. So while you may have casual play hours due to RL obligations, if you think in a competitive mindset you are still a competitive player not a casual. I would go so far as to say there are few to no true casual players on this forum, but competitive players who have just had to accept playing casually due to other obligations.
A competitive player is constantly thinking on how to improve their game.
A new player could become casual or competitive, it simply depends on if they think "I want to have fun" or "How do I get good?".
So the real argument is does the product drive off a new player who could become competitive in your example? That question is difficult to answer because it really just depends on the individual player. If a player likes the overall game, then they are going to continue pushing to get better. If they don't they are going to move on when something else comes along. The balance you speak of is only going to be an issue on ladders, most true casual players are not going to bother with ladders. At the very least the tutorials and single player mode that we do not have here are going to up their skill sufficiently that the op example is a moot point anyhow.
I could go into a long drawn out debate as to why not catering to casual players is not going to affect this particular game, but I doubt most would read or comprehend it anyhow. Suffice to say I have been around this block more then a few times and catering balance on a casual level has always failed. There is not a single multiplayer game out that attempted to balance around casual play that survived. Every single game including WoW which is arguably one of the lowest skill demanding games out there is still balanced around the Max potential. To even attempt to argue that a game like this should be balanced around casual concerns such as suggested by the OP is simply absurd and smacks of a complete misunderstanding of gameplay balance.
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To add to the above post, the large majority of multiplayer RTS's do not truthfully support casual (playing just to have fun) gameplay. It can happen as a side outcome, but definately not as it's main objective. Because at the end of the day, the game is designed as a "you try to beat him" strategy game.
To walk a thorny road, we may cover its every inch with leather or we can make sandals.
The reason people get angry when they are cheesed, is because they are scared. They don't know how to handle it, they weren't expecting it, and it exposed a critical weakness in their playing style. Instead of seeing it as a wonderful experience that allows them to notice said weakness, and to learn from it, they get defensive and instead blame the system. Truth be told, countering cheese tactics isn't a difficult thing when you properly practice against them and be constantly weary of their possibility. And it almost always has the highest pay-off capacity for any defensive manuvere.
To those who are casual and want to just play around with units, well there's single player, and custom games. But considering that the main premise of this game is to have a competitive RTS format, the game should not be balanced to please those who are effectively too lazy, or have ego's too large to accept their losses for what they really are.
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I thought the discussion flew over everyone's head by page 6 but the last 4 pages are just fail.
If you don't understand the OP, ask for clarification. Don't derail the thread into stupid elitist nonsense.
Oh TL, what is happening to quality?
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On May 27 2010 02:39 Vexx wrote:
I thought the discussion flew over everyone's head by page 6 but the last 4 pages are just fail.
If you don't understand the OP, ask for clarification. Don't derail the thread into stupid elitist nonsense.
Oh TL, what is happening to quality?
There's plenty of good debate going on here. Don't derail it by causing an argument about derailing it.
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Your example is I know just something picked to illustrate the point but it's not a good example. You have suggested a bad game design cheese- that is it's a specific ability that messes up new players and is useless among normal players. This ability should be cut from the game.
What is called a cheese however is very variable, especially new players will call anything that causes them to lose a cheese like getting ranged goons early and microing hard vs a Terran who's trying to mechanically copy a fast siege expand build with little understanding of the necessary building blocking, unit placement and SCV blocking required to succeed. They don't understand that it's their own failure to know how to play the corner cases and extremes of strategies they see others do that causes their problem, not a problem with the game.
'Cheese' is inevitable in a game like Starcraft, and cannot and should not be cut out just because new players lose to it. A game like Starcraft means units and abilities are powerful and swingy, small things will end the game. The nature of build orders and timing means that it will inevitably be possible to concentrate these abilities before the unaware opponent is ready for that ability. Now sometimes it is necessary to nerf the cheese for all players but usually it represents the need to gain a particular understanding of the game to defeat the cheese. I've found Starcraft:BW to be unique in that techniques and builds do counter cheese quite easily, it's fantastic after suffering through the various phases of bullshit in WC3 (ZOMG Beastmaster si balanced joo just suck for however many months before they fixed it as half the ladder cheesed away).
The problem with the mindset you're suggesting is that I think it is a poor approach to game design, by taking the approach that 'this is hard for new players, we must nerf it' you remove all the edges that make the game interesting for more experienced players and you don't seek to understand more fully why something is a problem. I don't believe that new players really do struggle excessively with many strats and certainly not if they have access to information about what to do, instead they focus on the strat as being unfair because they lost to it as they weren't ready. The extent to which new players 'aren't ready' though is far more than any game could ever cater for, new players are 'no rush 15 kk?' not ready. What skill level is this imaginary new player who struggles with a given strat and still cannot deal with it when told how?
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Those posting (understandably given what site this is) have missed an important point. Blizzard are in the business of making profit, or they cease to exist, and have to appeal primarily to the largest demographic. Many of their customers will never play online against another human being (possibly most - A good reference is the 'multiplayer' game Demigod - only 23% of players ever even tried a single game online!). Of those that do play SC2 online I suspect the vast majority will have never heard of a build order and will want to play UMS or no rush maps. If they have a bad experience then they may not buy blizzards next product, so who do you think blizzard must balance for? The OP is thinking exactly as the blizzard games designers must.
You could argue that e-sports will generate more sales, but I suspect the reason blizzard are trying so hard to balance the competitive multiplayer for a tiny minority is because all the employees enjoy it so much! Not because it's a sound idea for them but because they love the game.
A pro-mod version of the game could and probably will emerge to cater for the competitive scene in any case.
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Great post... sadly it's on TL.net (My favorite source for all things SC but one of my least as far as how raging and elite alot of the community is)... so yes I agree and good luck getting flamed!
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If a game is too competitive and hard, newer players will get fed up easily, and the game will slowly die since the older people of the community move on with their lives. You have no esport.
If a game is too noob-friendly, then competition gets too easy and nobody will enjoy watching it (look at CoD4). You have no esport.
It lies in the balance. If you look at starcraft and cs1.6, both games have lasted this long because of it.
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Just to nitpick on one point I disagree with.. you say cheese doesn't affect top players. It does, they might not fall for it but they have to prepare for it.
That said, what is the real point here, are you saying blizz isn't balancing for the casual players?
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Please stop the elitism. First off, I was there on release day for Starcraft, you were still 5-7 and playing some sort of game on your SNES, possibly Chrono Trigger or some other game that was SOMEWHAT challenging... And stating it was too hard. Yes, you were one of the people that started to make companies realize people ENJOY winning, being ABLE to win, etc... There are no Ghosts 'n Goblins, or Metal Slugs anymore for this reason.
Am I saying this is a bad thing? No, I am not. Stay with me here, don't get all angry at the bearer of reality. Games, even our beloved Starcraft, have to be ACCESSIBLE by ANYONE in order to make money. Multiplayer is NO different, this is why the league system has been established and why they will work well upon release ( in theory ). The OP pointed out a great example of why balance changes are important, but so many people let this in one ear and out the other, so let's make it personal.
When you started playing competitively, what was your game of choice? Mine, although I played SC and BW for a long time, I was an FPS player and my games were Tribes, followed by CS and CSS. I was Cal-I in CSS with team.Hyper relatively early on (first season Cal-i was introduced, and I stayed there until I had to take college seriously) which made me one of the top players in a game that had hundreds of thousands, if not millions were playing so trust me, I know competitive play more than the vast majority of you can even fathom. Did I start out this way? Hell no.
I played UMS maps in Broodwar because I really didn't care how well I did in multiplayer, it wasn't my thing. I was not a competitive player and I don't think I EVER touched the ladder because RTS wasn't for me back then. I was in it for Smash TV remakes, the little RPG's, Tower Defense, you name it... I was a baller because I was so damn good at all those, clearly this made me an AWESOME Starcraft player in 2001....
Soon after I went to Korea for the World Cup with some of my closest friends, and Starcraft became more and more appealing. It was like I was introduced to this entire new world just by going to a PC Bang... After this I would go through phases, playing it, not playing it... Getting better, getting frustrated when I thought I was unstoppable... Throwing my mouse, etc. I was becoming a competitive RTS player, and you know what? I HATED everyone that had been playing ladder for as long as I SHOULD have been playing it. I got so frustrated, the game was LITERALLY inaccessible for competitive play, no one likes losing 20-30 matches in a row on the big scary b.net ladder. I gave up, played games I knew how...
I came back to BW when I became a little more mature and understanding only to love it. Most people will never come back after going through what I did, I am sure you went through it as well, and I also know I have friends enjoying SC2 that never came back to BW after trying to go through the same process I did.
Why do people like SC2 so far, casuals and competitive? Because it is accessible, and it still has a high level of complexity for those that will be taking it more seriously.
Whine all you want, you're still going to buy the game... And so are millions of others, that aren't in the 1% of the player base that are competitive.
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"I want the game designed for me and no one else" is probably a bad idea.
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You want a game that is so realistic that its almost like real life balanced? Here's a thought, live your real life...
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Actually a decent read. I'd have to agree to an extent that yes, new gamers need to play to keep the game from dwindling.
However I feel that the people who really keep the games alive are the hardcore gamer, so to me I think that balance should be more for the hardcore gamers.
Broodwar for instances has basically no real entry for casual gamers ( Most people who pick it up usually do it for ladder and bounce onto ICCUP.) yet it still strives due to it's hardcore fan base.
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Greetings everyone.
This thread got really epic really fast. I've so far managed to read every single post, but I don't have the time just yet to address the mountain of questions that have been directed at me.
But don't worry, I will sit down this weekend and write a proper response to try and include everyones discussion points and drive the topic forward.
Thank you all for taking the time to post your views.
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Me for example, i started to play starcraft in the 99 when i was 12, i love the game so much (and in these time i don't even have a PC) that i go to a cyber to play the game, i played the campaign, beat it and started to play with the ia, only to got stomped.
What was the thing i do? learned from my mistakes, i realize i dont have a solid opening, so i used the cheat to remove the fog of war, and see what the ia do, the ia even dt rush you, so i learned that opening (build order), and others (yeah i know the ia sucks but i was a totally noob).
A couple of years passed, and finally got my first PC, so i installed my beloved SC and go to battle net. What happened? i got stomped again, for "cheeses" (i dont like this term, everything is strategy), 4 pool, proxys, dt/lurker/wraith rushes, and i got discouraged? NO. I LOVE the game so much that i REALLY want to got better. So i watched the replays when i lose, to see what "strategy" my opponent used and LEARN from that.
This whole issue of "please blizz make the game balanced for the casual gamer" is bullshit, its just LAZY people who dont even put effort in a GAME they "love", its just people who wants the things easy for them. If you really love the game, and have fun with it, im pretty sure you dont complain, you will watch tons of replays, read forums, etc etc.
Jesus, in my times we dont have the awesome "liquipedia", youtube to watch all the progamers play and the girls cry for them, even an excellent community like TeamLiquid.
Sorry for my awful english.
Good Game, Good Luck & Have Fun.
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ya, theres really no excuse for sucking nowadays. Pre 1.08 there werent even replays and battlereports was one of the few sites that I can remember off the top of my head that might have any insightful guides. You were basically fucked unless you somehow got into the know with good players and had them help you a bit or at the very least got them to play you so you could see where the game was.
Even after replays DID come out you had to find replay cafes which werent always easy to find if you didnt know someone. I know one of the very first ones I went to was Cosmo's.
Liquipedia, TL, everything is sooooooomuch better than the broodwar.com days.
You cant really "balance" something for bad players anyway......because how do you define where the imbalance is anyway....when is it imbalanced or the player just simply being better. Its much more difficult to do at the low levels. Id imagine at the lower tier the skill level varies wildly (honestly who can really quantify the difference between incredibly bad players?)
Im sure people will be playing comp stomps, ums, and bgh style games anyway. So save the doom and gloom for the newbs and "casuals" since this is still the beta.
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You never balance around the people who don't know how to play the game...
If they lose to a strat that has a counter, the fix isn't to nerf the strat, it's for them to learn the counter.
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I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
I don't play DoTA/HoN/LoL but they seem to follow suit in my mind given the limitations, and roles their hero system has.
Accessible by everyone, yet it's very apparent when there's skill differences involved... And I'm sure this is how SC2 will end up, whether the 5,000 people on TL daily want it to or not.
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So many flaws with your overlord analogy, but I understand it's irrelevant of the point you're making .
I disagree nonetheless, even in your analogy, a player would have to buy that turret at their expansion and worry about it (more money to spend), a player could get the CC down to red then infest it, etc. The point I'm making is that the mere THREAT of the existance of things like the reaper cheeses and shit balances the game in itself.
For example, a Protoss can play a Terran in SC1 without DTs the entire game, but the looming threat of a DT forces Terran to buy an ebay, etc. when it could be getting something else. So merely the threat of something being there has many consequences on the balance of the game and removing things for casuals will have tons of unforeseen (and seen) negative consequences.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 27 2010 06:38 jusayO wrote:
I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
Projectile spam is enough to beat anyone that's "casual."
How is that different from something like void rays or banshees? Blizzard has already made a ton of concessions to that group, and every single person that's played both can tell you SC2 is much, much easier to get into than BW. How much further do you expect them to go?
Also, lol @ millions playing CSS and even more at being NightFall's bitch. ^^
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On May 27 2010 06:41 FabledIntegral wrote:
For example, a Protoss can play a Terran in SC1 without DTs the entire game, but the looming threat of a DT forces Terran to buy an ebay, etc. when it could be getting something else. So merely the threat of something being there has many consequences on the balance of the game and removing things for casuals will have tons of unforeseen (and seen) negative consequences.
This is 1 of the many reasons why balance is so difficult.
Related specifically to the DT example, most detectors in SC2 have a larger detect radius than they did in SC. This doesn't really hurt competitive play but it helps the noobs. /casual balance
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On May 27 2010 06:38 jusayO wrote:
I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
I don't play DoTA/HoN/LoL but they seem to follow suit in my mind given the limitations, and roles their hero system has.
Accessible by everyone, yet it's very apparent when there's skill differences involved... And I'm sure this is how SC2 will end up, whether the 5,000 people on TL daily want it to or not.
Well, SF have tiers, an broken chars, and you need time, effort and investigation some terms like pokes, frames, chains, priority, etc.
In GGPO i was able to start ST from 0 to a competitive level in 4 months, i even played "pros" like Jason Cole and Alex... (hum i forget his last name, maybe "Valle" i dont remember) why? because i love ST since i was child. And i put the time and effort to be a good player (but well, every american i played, asked me why the mexicans are so good in the fighting games).
You can say "SF" is balanced at the casual base, and i will agree with you, but in the competitive level a couple of chars are broken, how is that fair? Well... fighting games are the most broken and imbalanced. This is WHY i retired from the fighting games, EVERYONE in 3rd Strike played Ken, Yun or Chun Li, and thats is pretty BORING.
My point is, if you play SF you need to some knowledge that is "not" in the game, and you learn that playing, playing, playing, reading and studying your favorite game.
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The above example would never work in the first place because as you said no one who's decent would fall for such a tactic and therefore it has no application.
Good players all share something in common: dedication/desire to be better. You lose x amount of times and you educate yourself to get better. Casuals on the other hand, just want to have fun. Ok fine. That's why there are divisions. A copper player has the same chance of excelling as another copper player. I mean come on man.
RTS games are a whole different world from other games. That's why it's calle RTS.
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On May 27 2010 06:48 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 06:38 jusayO wrote:
I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
Projectile spam is enough to beat anyone that's "casual." How is that different from something like void rays or banshees? Blizzard has already made a ton of concessions to that group, and every single person that's played both can tell you SC2 is much, much easier to get into than BW. How much further do you expect them to go? Also, lol @ millions playing CSS and even more at being NightFall's bitch. ^^
I personally think they've gone a bit too far lately, Patch 10 is where I would have left the game if I had it my way, don't take me the wrong way... Unfortunately, I'm not everyone and neither are any of us in this thread. We've all adapted to the new changes, and have no say in the matter.
On a REAL related note, Blizzard seeming to balance and rework units due to survey responses about "Favorite" and "Least Favorite" was the most garbage thing I have ever seen.
P.S. I was never NightFall's bitch, every single time that asshole opened his mouth it was to tell some stupid story about a shooting happening outside, "hax", or how bad someone else was when he was baiting them. Don't get me started... Most annoying, obnoxious, chubby kid I ever had the displeasure of knowing. You wouldn't believe how many MSN accounts I have gone through to get him to STOP trying to get me to play again, and how many friends of mine he's contacted to get this information... Truly, the most annoying person on the internet.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 27 2010 07:04 jusayO wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 06:48 Jibba wrote:On May 27 2010 06:38 jusayO wrote:
I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
Projectile spam is enough to beat anyone that's "casual." How is that different from something like void rays or banshees? Blizzard has already made a ton of concessions to that group, and every single person that's played both can tell you SC2 is much, much easier to get into than BW. How much further do you expect them to go? Also, lol @ millions playing CSS and even more at being NightFall's bitch. ^^ I personally think they've gone a bit too far lately, Patch 10 is where I would have left the game if I had it my way, don't take me the wrong way... Unfortunately, I'm not everyone and neither are any of us in this thread. We've all adapted to the new changes, and have no say in the matter. On a REAL related note, Blizzard seeming to balance and rework units due to survey responses about "Favorite" and "Least Favorite" was the most garbage thing I have ever seen. P.S. I was never NightFall's bitch, every single time that asshole opened his mouth it was to tell some stupid story about a shooting happening outside, "hax", or how bad someone else was when he was baiting them. Don't get me started... Most annoying, obnoxious, chubby kid I ever had the displeasure of knowing. You wouldn't believe how many MSN accounts I have gone through to get him to STOP trying to get me to play again, and how many friends of mine he's contacted to get this information... Truly, the most annoying person on the internet. Ah, I think we're actually in near complete agreement then.
Haha, sorry for the low blow. He's pretty damn annoying as an outsider, and I instamuted him the few times I ended up on vent with him. I can't imagine having to listen to him for the team. ._. Then again, I had someone similar.
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On May 27 2010 06:38 jusayO wrote:
I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
I don't play DoTA/HoN/LoL but they seem to follow suit in my mind given the limitations, and roles their hero system has.
Accessible by everyone, yet it's very apparent when there's skill differences involved... And I'm sure this is how SC2 will end up, whether the 5,000 people on TL daily want it to or not.
I'm confused by your examples. You give street fighter, and say its balanced for both casuals and competitive play, and then bring up dota/HoN/LoL, which at a casual level is completely pointless to play. Dota/HoN have such a high learning curve that there is almost no point to playing casually, because you will get rolled by someone even marginally better than you, or someone who actually plays as a team.
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I understand the general point that 'if we can help out new players by a balance tweak that will not hurt competitive players in anyway, we should do it.'
There really is nothing to argue about with that. It's a straightforward and logical statement. The problem is such a scenario does not exist. Yes, the overlord ability example shows that we should balance that ability because it doesn't affect competitive players at all while it would definitely help new players. Is there really such an ability in SC2 right now that is compatible with the 'if this then that' scenario? Will there ever be a balance problem such as this? Is there right now? Will there ever be? If the answer is no, then this is an unfounded point.
If the example does not apply then the example does not justify anything but your personal point. In this case the overlord example does justify that we should help if we could, but it does not apply to SC2 right now. I may be wrong, but I don't think there will ever be an applicable example.
Someone threw in a possible example to justify your point that it is applicable. This example is the forge nerf which increases the build time in order to help new players and not affect competitive players. This example is surely applicable to current SC2 balance, but it does not realistically justify the same point. In the actual game, conversely, new players are not affected by this at all, while competitive players are. Little changes such as these rarely affect lower level games while it drastically affects high level games. To accommodate the prolonged build time, players will need to spend that money for the forge that much earlier to have protective canons or upgrades. The example states that this nerf is to prevent cannon cheese to new players. In most cases new players lose to cannon cheese because they do not see it coming. The problem here is that they lack skills such as scouting, timing, and game sense which they get through practice. If you're not going to scout the cannon cheese, you will fall for it because you won't know it until it hits you (the cannons are attacking you). How can a delay of the cheese by 10 seconds change the game at lower levels? Perhaps you will have 1 more unit to attack those cannons with? Maybe someone else can think of a justification that the delay does in fact help new players.
Either way, it still remains that such a balance change does drastically affect competitive players which is not the point the OP is trying to make. Now the question still remains whether such a balance tweak exist that fits the criteria that satisfies the point.
Edit: let me just say that all this is subjective. just as some may argue that a larger detection radius does not hurt competitive players but help noobs, other may argue that it in fact does hurt competitive players. I just keep thinking about mr. bisu with corsair dts and how dts escape overlords detection.
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I find challenging games more inviting than noobie games. I became addicted to BW because it was so impressively studied and mentally demanding.
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On May 27 2010 06:50 CowGoMoo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 06:41 FabledIntegral wrote:
For example, a Protoss can play a Terran in SC1 without DTs the entire game, but the looming threat of a DT forces Terran to buy an ebay, etc. when it could be getting something else. So merely the threat of something being there has many consequences on the balance of the game and removing things for casuals will have tons of unforeseen (and seen) negative consequences. This is 1 of the many reasons why balance is so difficult. Related specifically to the DT example, most detectors in SC2 have a larger detect radius than they did in SC. This doesn't really hurt competitive play but it helps the noobs. /casual balance
And how does it helps noobs specifically? Are they misplacing their turrets/scanner sweeps so horribly that increased range fixes their mistake? I just can't imagine scenario where this change helps noob more than good player. It makes it easier to deal with cloaked stuff for everyone.
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On May 27 2010 06:36 Shiladie wrote:
You never balance around the people who don't know how to play the game...
If they lose to a strat that has a counter, the fix isn't to nerf the strat, it's for them to learn the counter.
But this would make too much sense and would require the OP to learn the game instead of just having the game be super easy for him to win.
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On May 27 2010 06:48 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 06:38 jusayO wrote:
I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
Projectile spam is enough to beat anyone that's "casual."How is that different from something like void rays or banshees? Blizzard has already made a ton of concessions to that group, and every single person that's played both can tell you SC2 is much, much easier to get into than BW. How much further do you expect them to go? Also, lol @ millions playing CSS and even more at being NightFall's bitch. ^^
Not since SF2.
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On May 27 2010 07:11 Chriamon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 06:38 jusayO wrote:
I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
I don't play DoTA/HoN/LoL but they seem to follow suit in my mind given the limitations, and roles their hero system has.
Accessible by everyone, yet it's very apparent when there's skill differences involved... And I'm sure this is how SC2 will end up, whether the 5,000 people on TL daily want it to or not. I'm confused by your examples. You give street fighter, and say its balanced for both casuals and competitive play, and then bring up dota/HoN/LoL, which at a casual level is completely pointless to play. Dota/HoN have such a high learning curve that there is almost no point to playing casually, because you will get rolled by someone even marginally better than you, or someone who actually plays as a team.
As I said, I don't play DoTA or HoN but I have friends that do... And even the most competitive/skilled player in my real life friend base (I guess he's somewhat well known still.. Grumpy-Bear/Lews-Therin) said "it's a simple concept and functionality, with as much complexity as you want it to entail, but teammates can really hold you back." So I was just going by his description, as I am the Starcraft player, so I automatically think my game of choice outweighed his since arrogance is cool.
Apologies to players of both these games, but hopefully you see my point.
Jabba, apology accepted. My heart is forever with NERDPOLICE, unfortunately Shredder killed NP when Cal deemed he was cheating in the one game he played with us. Oh the drama that is totally the opposite of what I am now, haha.
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This post is wrong. You have to balance around the highest level of play or by definition the game is not balanced. The only reason to balance around casual play is to make money not make a good game. The only reason you state for casual balance is summed up in the following quote:
The point I am trying to make is this. A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P". They will just leave because they think the game is shit and your game will die. Had they stayed, prehaps they would have become great. But they didn't because the cheese has killed the game for them early, when they are still deciding "Do I like this game?".
This is wrong as well. Any player that quits after losing 10 times to a cheese will not become the next great player. I know it takes a lot more determination and commitment to become pro in any sport.
However, blizzard is a company and I can see why they would want to balance around the casual fan base. This seems very short sighted. In the long run I think making a quality game will generate more profit. Look at SC1, it was not balanced around casual level play and has become one of the most successful game of all time.
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I think the gist of most of the responses is that you cannot balance the game around people who dont have a strong understanding of the game.
I don't see why this OP and thread are so long winded.
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I agree with the OP to the extent that cultivating active long-term interest in the multiplayer game is a worthwhile goal. At the same time, I agree with others that Starcraft should retain its unique character: if you don't like it, other games are available.
Where I think the OP goes wrong, and consequently alienates many readers, is his analysis of the 'problem'. To quote Michael Douglas: cheese is good. Cheese works. Or something. Anyway, it adds drama and depth, and successfully scouting and beating it is both fun and rewarding. We like cheese.
However.
If the skill required to scout, identify and defend against a strategy - any strategy at any level - is vastly greater than that required to execute it, the game is broken. Everyone loses. The person executing the strategy loses because he's being trained to rely upon a crutch which will be kicked from under him when he rises in the rankings. The people facing the strategy lose because it encourages blaming the game for their losses rather than the mature, introspective approach to self-improvement for which we all strive.
Now, I'm not saying such strategies actually exist in SC2. But I would say it can often feel like they do, especially when you get hit by two or three different and savagely effective ploys in quick succession. But the answer is not, as the OP advocates, to mercilessly prune 'cheesy' strategies. The answer is to enable and drive the right kind of learning. Yes, people can come to a website like this, ask questions, post replays, savour the feeling of profound inadequacy Day9's analyses prompt in the merely human, etc etc - and at the 'enthusiast' level of play upwards that's absolutely fine. But why not join everything up? Why not build the right kind of learning right into the game itself; help more people become enthusiasts in the first place?
Here's what I'd like to see: code added to the game able to recognise specific strategies (based on data submitted by the community) and offer helpful advice (also community-sourced) to those on the losing end. "Ah, you got cannon-rushed. Here's a replay of someone spotting that and fending it off. Look at what your opponent sacrificed in terms of economy." Or: "Your opponent performed a passable/competent/expert immortal timing push. Here's what to look for in future." Or: "Your opponent was Terran. Shit happens." And so forth.
Make it so the player can browse for 'mentor packs' to install (I'm quite sure TL's would be a popular choice). Add more information to the stats screen, calling the player's attention to the things better players know are important, like becoming supply blocked, having too much money in the bank, how long it took expansions to pay for themselves and how long they remained unsaturated, how much spawn larvae/chronoboost/mule was wasted, periods when extractors had no drones assigned...
You get the idea, anyway: make sure everyone who buys the game can't help but also buy into the mentality of an SC2 enthusiast. That is all.
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Historically speaking, most PC games I can think of that had long lifespans (years) were balanced from the highest level down. Balancing the other way is a recipe for disaster because you lose all the competitive player pool. When you lose the competitive player pool, you lose tourneys, you lose talent, you lose sponsors throwing money at you to advertise THEIR gear to people they know will spend top dollar for it.
Balancing for scrubs creates a game for scrubs. This is competition. THIS IS STARCRAFT!
Edit: Please don't think I'm bashing. I was a part of a community I loved which fell apart when the developers decided the game needed to be more balanced at the lower levels. Guess what happened, three sequels, each with the community dwindling smaller and smaller because all of the hardcore guys left for something better.
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I disagree with what he says, removing cheeses would be removing a huge part of the game, my first game of SC2 I lost to DT's, I felt cheated and dissapointed, was bitter at a cloaked unit in the game and had no knowledge of revealing it (I was a Terran with plenty energy to scan...) Though I quickly realised and I would never allow something like that to happen again.
A person loses to a cheese once, maybe twice, not much more then that , if I lose to a cheese I ALWAYS look at the replay, I want to see how I could have prevented it.
Also to not balance this game for competitive play you might as well not balance it at all, if you balanced for the casual Terran would be terrible and Protoss Godlike (10 hp Marauders ), it would be like putting a 10 year old child in control and who balances for there faveourite race and units (omg I hate Reaper rush lets remove them bam).
A game like HoN/DotA also had many debate over comptitive balance over pub balance, pubs complain about stealth heroes because they never have the means to reveal it, but in competitive games of that you never see those heroes, why? Because a decent player puts in the effort and hard counters it.
All cheeses can be hard countered and a player who refuses to learn it shouldnt be playing this game and go to MW 2
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Umpteen said it well. I found it slightly humorous that many proponents on the 'casual balance' idea referred the community as elitist. What I see is an assumption that cheese takes less 'skill' or cheese is easy. Countless people in this thread has already pointed out, cheese is not in fact easy, which is why it dies in execution (but never the intent, which brings in the safe and risky builds) in higher leagues. Perhaps instead it's the proponents that are elitist in their belief that newbie's inablity to cope with cheese is not a deficiency in skill? Ie response "you only won because you rushed blah blah"
The claim that in lower leagues cheese is rampart is also a contradiction. If these people rush and are indeed successful, they will soon move to higher leagues and become incompetent. If they are stuck in the same league despite cheesing, it simply means other players in same league deal with it competently. Which begs the question maybe it's the whiner who are not skilled enough to be in the division they are in, and the solution is an even lower league.
From my experience churning out medicore games did nothing to impact one's bottom line, as the 'casual' gamers cannot tell. EA is a case in point. Comparing revenue drivers for subscription games like WoW to SC2 is like comparing apples to oranges. That people will be turned off from buying blizzard games due to 'negative' experience is far stretched. Majority of players never play online, and the cynic inside me says a game only need to be interesting for a period longer than the 'return allowed' period for retail then Blizzard already made a lock of the profit. The 'casual gamers' I know of in beta only play amongst themselves anyway.
When I first started as t, I noticed zerg can early ling rush and still transition into roach quickly. Then I found the only solution is to wall, as sim-city in SC doesn't work as well in SC2 with the auto-target mechanic of melee units and that units don't stack/bug AI and weaker miners in general. Then comes patch which increased Roach supply, and the build described earlier is less viable. I don't know if that was Blizzard's response to a perceived problem or simply I got better, but z seems to have adjusted in general.
There are many misinterpretations of the OP from both sides. The OP quoted the example of the overlord ability as something that maybe 'fun and important' to casuals but has no impact on competitive play. That is IMO just crap design and totally irrelevant. Where do you draw the line between redundant abilities just to please a specific mass(or niche?) of debatable attention span?
Then OP used some general restrictions on rush as a solution to rush. Firstly, there's insufficient evidence that rush is undesirable, and 2ndly, a restriction imposed on everyone for a specific group is crap design. Depth, skill ceiling etc are what makes an RTS long-lasting. I would fathon a guess that the 'community that died slowly' in a post above is DoW. It took on a path of successively generic and bland game mechanisms through successive expansions. The revenue didnt' suffer, but the community did. This is definately not what members of this community want.
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So pretty much make the game easier for the casuals benifit. YEP GREAT PHILOSOPHY
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1 thing to think of is simply what people find fun. Do low level players enjoy doing cheese, and playing vs it? Do high level players enjoy doing cheese and blocking it? Do spectators enjoy cheese?
Design fun gameplay 1st, for as wide crowd as you can, then worry about balancing.
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On May 27 2010 09:24 JohannesH wrote:
1 thing to think of is simply what people find fun. Do low level players enjoy doing cheese, and playing vs it? Do high level players enjoy doing cheese and blocking it? Do spectators enjoy cheese?
Design fun gameplay 1st, for as wide crowd as you can, then worry about balancing.
Have you ever seen a Proleague match involving cheese. They absolutely lose their shit over cheese.
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Why worry about balancing the game for a level where balance doesn't even matter?
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Today I explained to some noob not to make cannons and to make units instead as his base got stomped. The very next game he went straight for 4 pylon coverage with cannons. How do you balance for a crazed pyschopath?
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United States22883 Posts
On May 27 2010 07:30 L wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 06:48 Jibba wrote:On May 27 2010 06:38 jusayO wrote:
I would also like to add one more point to my response...
Street Fighter... Beloved fighting game, simple enough for your average person to play, win, play with their friends and win/lose to their hearts content. With complexity to make it one of the most competitive games we've ever seen.
Projectile spam is enough to beat anyone that's "casual."How is that different from something like void rays or banshees? Blizzard has already made a ton of concessions to that group, and every single person that's played both can tell you SC2 is much, much easier to get into than BW. How much further do you expect them to go? Also, lol @ millions playing CSS and even more at being NightFall's bitch. ^^ Not since SF2.
Uh.. against people who play without regard for improving, yes it is. Or in SFIV, you can spam lariat or tt with Abel. I'd say those are pretty much the equivalent of "cheese" against noobs in BW or SC2. Anyone can do them and consistently win until the people they're playing learn how to play properly.
On May 27 2010 09:27 terr0r wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 09:24 JohannesH wrote:
1 thing to think of is simply what people find fun. Do low level players enjoy doing cheese, and playing vs it? Do high level players enjoy doing cheese and blocking it? Do spectators enjoy cheese?
Design fun gameplay 1st, for as wide crowd as you can, then worry about balancing. Have you ever seen a Proleague match involving cheese. They absolutely lose their shit over cheese.
Obviously it's done appropriately to keep greedy players honest *coughFlashcough* but it's hard not to turn into a giddy little school girl when you see Jaedong or July kill that 6th larva.
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On May 27 2010 07:24 InRaged wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 06:50 CowGoMoo wrote:On May 27 2010 06:41 FabledIntegral wrote:
For example, a Protoss can play a Terran in SC1 without DTs the entire game, but the looming threat of a DT forces Terran to buy an ebay, etc. when it could be getting something else. So merely the threat of something being there has many consequences on the balance of the game and removing things for casuals will have tons of unforeseen (and seen) negative consequences. This is 1 of the many reasons why balance is so difficult. Related specifically to the DT example, most detectors in SC2 have a larger detect radius than they did in SC. This doesn't really hurt competitive play but it helps the noobs. /casual balance And how does it helps noobs specifically? Are they misplacing their turrets/scanner sweeps so horribly that increased range fixes their mistake? I just can't imagine scenario where this change helps noob more than good player. It makes it easier to deal with cloaked stuff for everyone.
How do you not see it? Constantly moving your overseer to stay within banshees is hard even for me, I can't imagine for the casual player. The increased range def would help. Concerning turrets, it's obviously exactly that, they don't need optimal placement to fend off shit, while in SC1 you literally used a single turret to prevent DT's and had to put it in a very good spot (enough to defend but not enough that it could get sniped).
I don't understand how this is a hard concept whatsoever...
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On May 27 2010 10:38 FabledIntegral wrote:How do you not see it? Constantly moving your overseer to stay within banshees is hard even for me, I can't imagine for the casual player. The increased range def would help. Concerning turrets, it's obviously exactly that, they don't need optimal placement to fend off shit, while in SC1 you literally used a single turret to prevent DT's and had to put it in a very good spot (enough to defend but not enough that it could get sniped).
I don't understand how this is a hard concept whatsoever...
According to Liquipedia and Liquipedia II, sight/detection of Overseer is equal to that of a sight upgraded Overlord in BW.
Evaluating that, Brood War detection for Zerg was much easier since all of your numerous Overlords did it and once you got a global upgrade they all had the radius that Overseers do now. For SC2 though, you need to worry about individually upgrading Overlords to Overseers just to detect (and the economic impact of that, which whether such players are aware of that or not they will be impacted by it) and as a result you'll have fewer detectors covering a smaller radius at any given time.
Now, the flip side to this is that I'm pretty sure that Overseers are always faster than BW Overlords no matter what (or, at least with equivalent speed upgrade status), but I'm not sure that's much consolation.
Total side note that when I first read your post and were complaining about Overseers having trouble keeping up with Banshees, for some reason I had a brain fart and thought you were talking about 2v2 and having your Overseers follow friendly air to which I was thinking, "Just right-click on them..." xD Total brain fart as well because really I was subbing in Vikings for Banshees as well for aiding Vikings w/Banshee hunting, lol (common occurrence when I play 2s with a friend of mine who plays Zerg) xD
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On May 27 2010 09:28 Zurles wrote:
Why worry about balancing the game for a level where balance doesn't even matter?
This is really the crux of the matter. At lower levels, players don't lose because of imbalance, they lose because they are bad. They could greatly improve their success through minor changes in play, while at higher levels, it takes a lot of effort for minor improvements so balance problems manifest themselves more. A bad player has never lost because of imbalance -- what fraction of bronze players even saturate their minerals?
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Interesting read, you have my axe for this one.
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OK, a few points. I think some people are a bit 'rose-tinted' glasses when it comes to BW. I love how the predominant feeling was that BW was perfectly balanced for pros. Where does this come from? I mean, pros don't play random which really throws out any kind of noise-removal for analysis. Four of the top five players are zerg...
Second, a lot of people here think their opinions matter more than they do. I'm just here for debate as the sport. Realistically, if Blizzard were going to choose between losing:
a) The pro-league hangers-on, so outraged by the dumbing down of their game they didn't actually buy the game, all ten of them ... I mean, most of you will buy the game either way and you know it.
b) The potential new customers they lose through word of mouth because 'playing online sux'.
Who do you think they should choose... Who do they think they'll choose...
This game ought to be balanced for weaker players, just as much as it is balanced for pros. As long as pros can consistently beat noobs (skill matters), each race has more than one strategy (not totally boring) and no race wins more than 55% of the time (not totally imbalanced), there will be a pro-scene...
The original poster was spot-on in his analysis (perhaps less so with his execution)... go read a game-theory textbook and then work in a company that sells things. Pity my Uni certificate didn't have game in the title, then people might arbitrarily listen... I'm qualified to be game-designer (did software + game theory + AI), I just didn't want to move country, so I do it my spare time instead... rather than program missiles...
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On May 27 2010 11:36 Sentient wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 09:28 Zurles wrote:
Why worry about balancing the game for a level where balance doesn't even matter? This is really the crux of the matter. At lower levels, players don't lose because of imbalance, they lose because they are bad. They could greatly improve their success through minor changes in play, while at higher levels, it takes a lot of effort for minor improvements so balance problems manifest themselves more. A bad player has never lost because of imbalance -- what fraction of bronze players even saturate their minerals?
It's a very bold statement to say a bad player has never lost because of imbalance... merely roaches being too cost effective in the early days might have had someone lose because of it, etc. Even if they could have played better and easily won, it doesn't mean that the imbalance didn't play a part.
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On May 27 2010 12:20 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 11:36 Sentient wrote:On May 27 2010 09:28 Zurles wrote:
Why worry about balancing the game for a level where balance doesn't even matter? This is really the crux of the matter. At lower levels, players don't lose because of imbalance, they lose because they are bad. They could greatly improve their success through minor changes in play, while at higher levels, it takes a lot of effort for minor improvements so balance problems manifest themselves more. A bad player has never lost because of imbalance -- what fraction of bronze players even saturate their minerals? It's a very bold statement to say a bad player has never lost because of imbalance... merely roaches being too cost effective in the early days might have had someone lose because of it, etc. Even if they could have played better and easily won, it doesn't mean that the imbalance didn't play a part.
Ive lost a huge number of games as zerg (I currently play random) because of the roach patch. Does it need to be fixed? I dunno yet to be honest. I just keep changing and altering my play to figure out how to make it work.
I think a massive number of these balance arguments if applied to chess would fall flat on their face. Someone can 7 move mate me? CHEESE OMG REBALANCE CHESS!
I hate whiners. (note this isnt aimed at who I quoted)
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United States22883 Posts
On May 27 2010 12:20 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 11:36 Sentient wrote:On May 27 2010 09:28 Zurles wrote:
Why worry about balancing the game for a level where balance doesn't even matter? This is really the crux of the matter. At lower levels, players don't lose because of imbalance, they lose because they are bad. They could greatly improve their success through minor changes in play, while at higher levels, it takes a lot of effort for minor improvements so balance problems manifest themselves more. A bad player has never lost because of imbalance -- what fraction of bronze players even saturate their minerals? It's a very bold statement to say a bad player has never lost because of imbalance... merely roaches being too cost effective in the early days might have had someone lose because of it, etc. Even if they could have played better and easily won, it doesn't mean that the imbalance didn't play a part.
There's no way to know, however. It's a lot harder to judge relative skill levels between bad players than it is between players at the top.
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On May 27 2010 12:31 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 12:20 FabledIntegral wrote:On May 27 2010 11:36 Sentient wrote:On May 27 2010 09:28 Zurles wrote:
Why worry about balancing the game for a level where balance doesn't even matter? This is really the crux of the matter. At lower levels, players don't lose because of imbalance, they lose because they are bad. They could greatly improve their success through minor changes in play, while at higher levels, it takes a lot of effort for minor improvements so balance problems manifest themselves more. A bad player has never lost because of imbalance -- what fraction of bronze players even saturate their minerals? It's a very bold statement to say a bad player has never lost because of imbalance... merely roaches being too cost effective in the early days might have had someone lose because of it, etc. Even if they could have played better and easily won, it doesn't mean that the imbalance didn't play a part. There's no way to know, however. It's a lot harder to judge relative skill levels between bad players than it is between players at the top.
True true, I'm just saying, to claim that no one shitty has ever lost from imbalance... even if we don't know, I don't believe you can say that...
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Theres no way you can remove all the cheeses. Cheese is after-all a strategy, it is a tactic that can be implied on starcraft because it is an RTS that requires the construction of buildings. (Dow/Coh does not require any of those, i played a bit of those games but its highly unlikely they have cheese tactics). Of course for casual gamers it will be frustrating to lose to cheese as they dont know the counter for it, but if they want to continue winning games they gotta learn how to counter it via forums/youtube. It doesnt take a player to be a pro to fight off cheese.
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I had never played Starcraft at all when i started playing SC2, and were continually losing to stuff like cloaked banshees, void ray rushes, ion cannon contains, 10pools and all that. I were angry and fuming and basically thinking the game was a cheesy piece of shit.
Enter the actual watching of replays, as well as starting to watch commentaries with tutorials, and lo and behold, I will most of the time be able to defend against that stuff.
So yeah, by all means keep an eye on the casuals while balancing, but its important to balance the game mainly after the high level players.
Learn quick or die hard.
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I think many people are misinterpreting the point.
The problem for casual isn't really the balance. It's instant die. All these thing that, if you don't plan them, you'll die instantly. Like cloaked banshee, void ray, etc . . .
I'm not sure this is possible to solve this issue without breaking the game at higher level.
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Its the risk for early death and instant death that seems to make this game great.
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On May 27 2010 19:43 Ghad wrote:Its the risk for early death and instant death that seems to make this game great.
yes, but we are not casual gamers.
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i think the definition of casual is being defined differently by a lot of different people.
I consider myself a casual gamer meaning that I play a little of a lot of different games and not getting extremely committed to a single game. At the same time, I still come to sites like this and learn some stuff and play a bit.
I will have to agree with the original poster, blizzard doesn't and shouldn't care about people who lose 1 game and quit, they were never going to enjoy it anyway, but its those cheeses that happen like 10 times in a row that make you get upset, especially when you are at the point where changing your strategy doesn't help.
I think when balancing, the designers need to think about every aspect. A minor change like 150/150 stim to 100/100 stim doesn't really affect silver level players, but it drastically affects high level play whereas a change to warpgate build time makes a huge difference to all levels of play.
In the end, I think a lot of newbies will play the campaign and hopefully will increase the average playing level of silver and that this question will become less relevant over time but for launch, it's vitally important that newbies and casuals can play without getting cheesed every game.
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On May 27 2010 19:55 deadalnix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 19:43 Ghad wrote:Its the risk for early death and instant death that seems to make this game great. yes, but we are not casual gamers.
Don't quite know what you mean by that?
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On May 27 2010 20:51 Ghad wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 19:55 deadalnix wrote:On May 27 2010 19:43 Ghad wrote:Its the risk for early death and instant death that seems to make this game great. yes, but we are not casual gamers. Don't quite know what you mean by that?
I mean that we are interested in a game which is challenging, because we are interested in becoming better. Because we sse this challenge as a way to improve ourselve. When you die by something like cloacked banshee, you decide to improve yourself, and adopt a build where you can deal with this threat and you learn how to scout the threat. And next time, when somebody will try to cheese you with a cloaked banshee, you'll be ready and you'll crush him, and more, you'll be happy because you actually improve at the game (Said like that, it seems that we maybe are pretty mentaly insane, but however, this is most of us here handle the game).
But casual game rdon't care about being good. They just want to play. So instant die is really frustrating for them. Nothing more.
So we find great the fact that we can die at any moment and give ourselve 200% to handle everything. But casual don't.
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On May 27 2010 19:33 deadalnix wrote:
The problem for casual isn't really the balance. It's instant die. All these thing that, if you don't plan them, you'll die instantly. Like cloaked banshee, void ray, etc . . .
I'm not sure this is possible to solve this issue without breaking the game at higher level.
Solving the issue doesn't have to mean stopping it happening. It's OK to let players lose, so long as 1) they also know it's OK to lose, 2) the game helps them understand why they lost and what they could do next time, and 3) no strategies are overwhelmingly simpler to execute than to recognise/defend against.
2 and 3 are more or less in Blizzard's hands (I had a couple of ideas in that respect on page 12 of this thread), but the game can help with 1, too. I think it would do wonders for player retention if the realities of the game and the matchmaking were made clear. I'm sure a lot of novice players read about how the matchmaking aims to 'challenge' them and fail to appreciate that means "it's going to try and make me lose 50% of the time, so that's what I should expect. If I'm not, then I'm in for a proper caning in a few games' time."
The moment a player grasps that 50% split is going to happen one way or another, he becomes free to define 'winning' in terms of better play on his part, rather than the outcome of any given matchup. Sure, I lost, but I remembered to use SL all game. Ok, I faltered in the mid-game but I successfully fought off his early push and caused him some problems. Cool! That strategy worked on me last time, but this time I knew he was going VR after cannoning up, and punished him for it with hydras.
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I think people are forgetting that we aren't fully testing SC2 yet, we are only testing Balance and builder (the single player game hasn't even been touched). Only hardcore players will play for balance, discriminating between games based on balance issues where-as casual gamers are in it for: lore, story, friends, variety and the cool factor etc. You should not make balance decisions based on segments of the player population that least represent the group exploring the possibilities. I agree that balance flaws will become exaggerated if you look at them through the casual players eyes and thus when you try to correct it the over-reaction will create new balance issues - something we see very commonly with Blizzard actually. Casuals don't care enough, their opinions are skin deep. You need to focus on the skilled and dedicated "hard-core" gamers to determine what the real boundaries and limitations are hopefully by emergence cause that's always cool. It is when the skilled players are having consistent problems you have to make a change because if the hardcore are frustrated/ having difficulty then you can bet your ass the casuals are running around like chickens with their heads cut off; however it should be noted that casuals spend much of their time in this state anyway. Another issue is that 1v1 battle.net ladder is innately anti casual. It is by definition competitive and if you don't foster that competition through balance at the high end then you are betraying the principles of the system to which you subscribe.
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Can a game cater to casuals, and at the same time cater to (more hardcore) gamers? If there is no thin line to walk, the game will not be as thrilling. If there is a thin line to walk, the game will be too punishing. Balance only is about getting that line to be as straight between the territories of race choice, not about the thickness of that line that needs to be walked.
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There are countless examples of games that can cater to casuals and hardcore gamers, imho.
As long as a game is easy to learn but hard to master, there should be no problem achieving that, and I think sc2 is well underway to achieving this goal.
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On May 27 2010 22:53 Ghad wrote:
There are countless examples of games that can cater to casuals and hardcore gamers, imho.
As long as a game is easy to learn but hard to master, there should be no problem achieving that, and I think sc2 is well underway to achieving this goal.
It is easy to learn basic unit stuff and that in single player. That does not mean that multiplayer won't be frustrating and unforgiving. Of course auto matchmaking should help with that to some degree, but you got to realize what the 'casual' is like and how soft the walls of their asylum cells must be.
In my opinion, custom maps an coop against computer opponents is the only way a casual can be served with a proper version of SC2.
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Perhaps blizzard should just make a seperate casual game mode that players can choose. In this game mode the player starts with some static defense.
For example, there could be 2-3 custom static defenses already laid down when the game starts, and make all of them the equal of protoss cannons for example, and for casuals who enjoy this type of play that would remove the vast majority of early game rush threats. And everyone else would just not play this mode and not worry about this change affecting their games at all.
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On May 27 2010 10:38 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 07:24 InRaged wrote:On May 27 2010 06:50 CowGoMoo wrote:On May 27 2010 06:41 FabledIntegral wrote:
For example, a Protoss can play a Terran in SC1 without DTs the entire game, but the looming threat of a DT forces Terran to buy an ebay, etc. when it could be getting something else. So merely the threat of something being there has many consequences on the balance of the game and removing things for casuals will have tons of unforeseen (and seen) negative consequences. This is 1 of the many reasons why balance is so difficult. Related specifically to the DT example, most detectors in SC2 have a larger detect radius than they did in SC. This doesn't really hurt competitive play but it helps the noobs. /casual balance And how does it helps noobs specifically? Are they misplacing their turrets/scanner sweeps so horribly that increased range fixes their mistake? I just can't imagine scenario where this change helps noob more than good player. It makes it easier to deal with cloaked stuff for everyone. How do you not see it? Constantly moving your overseer to stay within banshees is hard even for me, I can't imagine for the casual player. The increased range def would help.
Yes, it's significantly harder for the horrible player than for the average one IF both of them face same opponent. In reality though, thanks to the AMM horrible player will face another horrible player, you know, that kind who charge bunch of banshees into static defense and lose every single one of them.
You can't say that it's much harder for the worser player than for you, when you both face opponents of your own skill level, because the whole damn point of the AMM is to avoid that. That's why I don't see how this increased range is more helpful for lesser player than for skilled one.
Concerning turrets, it's obviously exactly that, they don't need optimal placement to fend off shit, while in SC1 you literally used a single turret to prevent DT's and had to put it in a very good spot (enough to defend but not enough that it could get sniped).
Once again, if optimal placement is less important in SC2 because of this change, than it's less important for everyone, not just for bad player. It's unavoidable.
You can take call down supply as a more obvious and realistic example. Yes this shit does occasionally help player who has zero Supply Timing sense (when he realizes that he can actually use it and has enough energy to fix his mistake), but at the same time it makes this skill much less important for the top player too, as a result dumbing down game for everybody.
That's because you can not take something that matters for both good and bad player, that affects gameplay for both players, and make a change to this thing that affects only one of them.
karazax, they are gonna have similar stuff - coop against computers, tutorials, practice mode with non-rushable maps e.t.c.
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I guess the best way to solve this issue is actually to listen to people complaining about micro and how it have to be improved :D
If the units are powerfull only if driven properly casual playing against casuals will not havo trouble with them.
Remeber reaver ? lurker ? vulture's mines ?
Remember when tank where actually dealing more damage in siege mode ?
These stuff cannot be used esaily and prevent from a freewin against a non skilled person.
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On May 28 2010 01:26 deadalnix wrote:
I guess the best way to solve this issue is actually to listen to people complaining about micro and how it have to be improved :D
If the units are powerfull only if driven properly casual playing against casuals will not havo trouble with them.
Remeber reaver ? lurker ? vulture's mines ?
Remember when tank where actually dealing more damage in siege mode ?
These stuff cannot be used esaily and prevent from a freewin against a non skilled person.
As far as I remember, on lower levels people have an extremely hard time fighting against/fending off lurks or sieged tanks. (while all you have to do is move into position and burrow/siege )
In general though, the first reply in this thread sums it up perfectly: get good or die hard
It works like that for every game in which you play vs other players rather than computer controlled opponents. There's a single player mode for people who don't like to get that competitive. When you play any FPS game online for the first time you'll get owned until you practice more. Some people will do better than others but if you are a newcomer any average guy will toy around with you.
I have a friend who's excited about SC2 but doesn't have a beta key. I offered him one but he declined and said he'll only get trashed and isn't that competitive. He just wants to play the single player. If you want a casual SC2 game you can play vs computers, play UMS or stick to single player.
Another good example is WoW. It's very casual, you play co-op with tons of other people, however there also is a competitive PvP environment. If you suck at it you get owned. People will often try a few arena games (competitive 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 with rankings etc) and quit because they get stomped so hard and know it's just not the way how they enjoy the game.
When playing against other people there is no such thing as 'casual balance'. People on lower levels will always complain about certain things being too good, even in mirror match ups. People who aren't interested in getting good won't be playing competitively, people who are will be seeking help at certain resources such as TL/Liquipedia/Replays/Vods/etc. and become better.
Also, I believe that in order to join the ranks of White-Ra etc. you will need to have the right spirit and mind set; a competitive one that strives to becoming a better play at all times. I don't think there's any room for casual players that somehow become great players.
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On May 27 2010 17:15 Nitron wrote:
(Dow/Coh does not require any of those, i played a bit of those games but its highly unlikely they have cheese tactics)
They have their cheeses, they just tend to not be as instant-death.
For example, in DoW 2 and CoH it's pretty tough to completely kill off someone immediately in the Annihilate sense because of the base turrets. However, in both games you bottle players in their base pretty quickly which completely denies power + ability to tech and is basically instant-win.
Anyway, I'd say that 3x Sluggas against Space Marines and possibly Chaos as well is pretty cheesy in DoW 2 if you rush your Sluggas immediately at your opponent w/out capping. Gives you the opportunity to get a couple of really fast squad kills and from that take and hold map control really easily. Same for Hormagaunt spam early. Slugga rush can be invalidated pretty easily if the Space Marine went 3x Scouts (itself an arguably cheesy build although it lacks the killing power of Sluggas and such) and/or if the Space Marine is able to get his/her squads back to base w/out taking losses.
Turret spam/crawl, suppression spam/crawl, etc... All pretty cheesy.
Main difference though is that in DoW 2 and CoH skill/experience can overcome pretty much all those relatively easily and most "cheese builds" (like 3x Sluggas) aren't inherently cheesy- it's how they're used that can make them cheesy. There also tend to be safer, more standard-play strategies that with good micro can accomplish the same objective much more safely.
But anyway, as to the actual topic, I think that Smorrie and others have hit it quite squarely on the head that competitive MP is, well, competitive. You can help new players get accustomed to the game with tutorials, challenges, good AI (for example, AI that imitates rush builds, econ builds, etc... that are actually used in MP; for example how Brood War AI will 12 Nexus or 'ling rush or etc), robust replay system, and strong community. For the latter, L2P fever has kinda swept Dawn of War 2 recently as just a single community member created a Steam Group, made a bunch of forum posts, and started a massive effort to extend a helping hand to new players and match them with experienced players, helping them learn the ropes (DoW 2 L2P Steam Group).
My own experience with friends new to RTS games who decided to give SC2 Beta a try is that once I popped them links to TL and got them hooked on the Day[9] Daily and etc, they were fine and quite a few made it to Platinum (now Diamond) with ease despite never having played an RTS game competitively before at all.
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On May 27 2010 02:01 Dekoth wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I am afraid it has little to do with elitism and more to do with unrealistic goals.
I have debated as to if I even wanted to respond to this, but it appears people simply don't get it. I am more then a little surprised that the OP claims to be a game designer and has that little grasp on the difference between a casual player and a non casual.
Simply put your example is never going to happen and here is why; The mind set between a casual player and a competitive player are completely different. A Casual player is NEVER going to become a competitive player. I think the core problem here is that most do not understand the difference between a Casual player, a new player and a competitive player. The three are not the same and there are some extremely distinct differences.
A Casual player is just that, casual. They aren't thinking in the competitive "How to I get better" mind set, they are thinking "I just want to have fun". The amount of hours you play does not dictate the type of player you are. So while you may have casual play hours due to RL obligations, if you think in a competitive mindset you are still a competitive player not a casual. I would go so far as to say there are few to no true casual players on this forum, but competitive players who have just had to accept playing casually due to other obligations.
A competitive player is constantly thinking on how to improve their game.
A new player could become casual or competitive, it simply depends on if they think "I want to have fun" or "How do I get good?".
So the real argument is does the product drive off a new player who could become competitive in your example? That question is difficult to answer because it really just depends on the individual player. If a player likes the overall game, then they are going to continue pushing to get better. If they don't they are going to move on when something else comes along. The balance you speak of is only going to be an issue on ladders, most true casual players are not going to bother with ladders. At the very least the tutorials and single player mode that we do not have here are going to up their skill sufficiently that the op example is a moot point anyhow.
I could go into a long drawn out debate as to why not catering to casual players is not going to affect this particular game, but I doubt most would read or comprehend it anyhow. Suffice to say I have been around this block more then a few times and catering balance on a casual level has always failed. There is not a single multiplayer game out that attempted to balance around casual play that survived. Every single game including WoW which is arguably one of the lowest skill demanding games out there is still balanced around the Max potential. To even attempt to argue that a game like this should be balanced around casual concerns such as suggested by the OP is simply absurd and smacks of a complete misunderstanding of gameplay balance.
(bold added) -eatthepath
I disagree with your post, but I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on why it doesn't matter in the case of SC2.
edit: Additionally, I'm glad this thread is filling out. Some really great posts, and the foreseeable not so great ones... but even the personal history rants are revealing. Looking forward to the response on the weekend.
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I think if a player is a future WhiteRa candidate, he wouldn't back off after a few early losses. He would start questioning and try to learn what he is doing wrong. And it doesn't take much logic to think 'if there are these million people playing this game and enjoying it, there has to be something wrong with me'.
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Greetings all,
I'm finally on my holidays so I now have some time to sit down and write a response to some\all of the points that people added during the week. I'm currently in norway and having to deal with a norweign keyboard so please forgive any punctionation errors .
The first and most prevaling point I want to address is the idea that a casual player cannot become a competitive player and that a competitive player would never be put off by cheese plays. However, before I address the point I need to lay some groundwork so you better understand the concept I am trying to convey.
Every person, irrespective of current skill level, has these three traits:
What I will call "Decision Factor Time":
The time this person takes to make the decision "Do I want to play this game?". For example, the decision factor time of an Broodwar Champion might be 10 seconds. They heard Starcraft 2 was coming, confimed it was true and decided to buy and play it. The end. They would make the decision on the name alone.
A top champion of Supreme Commander like Unconquerable might have a DFT of 3 days. He was the top of the game at Supreme Commander, but it will take in a few days of play to decide if Starcraft 2 is the next game for him. During this 3 day period, he may decide that Starcraft 2 is not the next RTS for him and move on. This is the sort of "ultra competitive" player that cheese play (Creating the impression the game is all about cheese and therefore is shit) can put off.
A current skill level:
A skill level that they come to the game with.
Future skill level:
A future skill level they can\will reach if they decide to stay and play the game competitively.
I strongly refute the idea that players with a current skill level of say "Bad" or "Terribad" cannot have a future skill like of "Pro" or "Ultra pro". Really, this is what makes us human, we learn, adapt and grow. If we were all doomed to be at our current skill levels forever, I'd hate to think where the human race would be by now. I would agree that skill level does not generally move while a player is still in the DFT period.
This is because they are still deciding if they like and want to be better at the game or not. If they come to the conclusion "No I don't" then they will move on, be they awesome or awful. A DFT is a deeply personnal thing. Some will make snap decisions, others could take months, but generally once that decision is made, a player will stay and play your game for a good long time (until they are bored or feel they have exhausted the product).
So, now that groundwork is laid, how does this relate to the previous debate about tiered play? Well, it's important to understand that someone's DFT will usually, extremes aside, consist of the first half or beginning of your game. Therefore, if the game has "terrible" balance or a learning cliff at the beginning of the game, you can effectively cause a decision of "No, I won't stay and play this" from players still deciding if this game is for them or not.
Had they decided yes, they may have stayed and become great, or stayed and continued to be terribad, but either way they would have stayed and caused the community to grow. That is good for you as players. After all, you need an army of terribads to fill that audience at your esports games do you not?
This is why balance at all tiers is important, because even the best players or awesome players from other games will have a DFT and can still be put off early on if the early game experience is poor. Put off enough people and the game will stagnate at the top and die. A fate I'm sure none of you want.
Now, I know a lot of people were clamouring for me to give a solid example of a cheese actually in the game and address it without damaging the "competitive game". Sadly, I kind of predict that this will now make the thread all about this cheese rather than the arching points I've made, but whatever, I'll bite.
The cheese I want to address is bancheese vs zerg. The "pro" version of this cheese is to wall off, grab two fast banches and go queen hunting. Once the queen at the expand and at the main (if zerg is fast exanding) are dead, the game is over. Hydra's generally can't make it out in time, so the only real defence is more queens (a decision you'd only make if you knew this was coming). Sadly, zerg have terribad scouting and a terran wall-off will stop low and mid skilled players from detecting this cheese is coming before it's too late.
The terran player can expand into cloak and reinforce enough to ensure any additional queens that are produced are nuked. This is a relatively risk free and easy cheese to pull off against zerg as they have a heavily delayed basic anti-air combat unit in the hydra.
So how can we address this? The basic thing to understand here is that this is a timing attack. It works because it can arrive 10-30 seconds (depending on skill level) before a single hydra can be produced. If reinforced, bancheese can also dominate small groups of hastily aquired hydras.
So, I sat down on saturday and I thought about solutions and here is what I came up with:
Banchee's now start with a single attack, on the model one of the rocket pods will be missing. Banchee's now have two upgrades at the starport tech lab instead of one. These are:
"Rocket Pod" 100m 100g +XTime
Adds an additional rocket pod to the banchee, improving damage.
"Cloak" 100m 100g +Ytime
Adds cloak to the banchee
This change would have these effects:
The two banchee push on zerg would have it's damage reduced or the push would be delayed by the rocket pod upgrade time and 100m 100g.
There is a new push available in an earlier cloak push but at half damage. I would definitely like to see how this plays out, but I suspect it will be much easier to stop than the original cheese.
The end result is the same, for 200m 200g, you have full damage, fully cloaked banchees. Therefore, the competitive or higher end will be mostly unaffected, except in cases where cloak is not aquired (is this often? data would need to be gathered to find out).
The biggest benefit of this change is that TimeX and TimeY can be controlled and adjusted in future balance changes to delay the two different pushes (cloaked and twopush) independantly until a good balance is reached.
In conclusion, I'd just like to add that I don't feel like there is a problem out there that cannot be solved by a good designer. I feel like "oh it's too complex or too deep, etc" is just an excuse made by bad designers. Once you've indentified the problem (in this case timings), there should always be a way in which things can be adjusted (and even look cool or add depth) to fix any percieved or real issues with the game.
A percieved issue can be just as deadly as a real issue, when it comes to those players still deciding if this is the game for them. This is why the void ray got hit with the nerf bat and I do feel that it was the right decision for the overall health of the game (that said, I would have tried a different balance change to preserve the end game).
Anyway, thats enough wall of text for now.
Thanks for reading.
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I don't like this example because you discuss an ability that is not even looked at by top players - they never use ever - so it has no impact and won't affect both playerbases when you change it. The problem is when something balanced in top-level play but broken in bronze league is changed to fix it at the low level but disrupt the balance at the top.
For example, DTs kill new players too easily because they are invisible and new players aren't good enough to pre-emptively get turrets, or save orbital energy (assuming they even get orbital). Balance at the lower levels dictates that DTs now take longer to build, or are only cloaked until their energy runs out, or something similar. DTs at high levels are already rarely used because they are inhibitively expensive and this change to accommodate lower ranks adversely and significantly alters competitive play at the top.
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I happen to disagree with you in this situation, with your banshee example it is very easy to stop with proper scouting by making more queens. The thing that needs to be addressed is the learning curve, to teach newer players how to do things like scout.
I believe these things are being addressed by blizzard by making tutorial like challenges that would help newer players learn and refine basic skills. So with a solution like this you don't change balance, but give newer more casual players an opportunity to better fight cheese while not disrupting higher level play.
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On May 26 2010 07:26 Edmon wrote:
The point I am trying to make is this. A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P". They will just leave because they think the game is shit and your game will die. Had they stayed, prehaps they would have become great. But they didn't because the cheese has killed the game for them early, when they are still deciding "Do I like this game?".
If you get cheese'd easily, then you need to rethink your strategy. If you can't adapt, then there's the bronze league for you.
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Sounds like you need to replace the word "casual" with "bad". The problems you're talking about are things that people should be able to adapt to in less than 10 games. If they lose 10 games straight to the same build they aren't casual, they are just bad compared to who they are losing to.
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I'm a fairly casual player, or at least a pretty bad one (fear my two-digit APM!) who landed on his arse in Copper League when he first got into the beta. I've since improved a fair bit and moved up a few leagues - not because my micro or macro have gotten much better, but almost entirely because I've learned to do two things:
1. Recognize and defend against early cheese.
2. Recognize and punish opponents who turtle and tech.
These only come with practice. You have to lose to cheese a few times before you learn to deal with it. And you have to lose to your own passivity a few times before you learn to deal with that.
For me there is absolutely no question that when it comes to questions of balance, top-level play has to come first. That's where balance actually counts, because you can isolate the properties of how the units interact when macro/micro fundamentals are no longer part of the equation because they've been nearly maxed out on both sides.
That isn't to say that casual balance shouldn't be a serious consideration; just that it ought to be of lower priority.
Where balance becomes an issue in low-level play is when it takes far, far more skill - macro, micro, timing, scouting, and game sense - to defend against an attack than it takes for someone on the offensive to pull it off.
One problem that I see in the lower leagues is that people virtually never build casters (Infestors, Ravens, Ghosts, HTs), mostly because they A-move everywhere. You even see a lot of armies that never bring Sentries along for force fields or shields. This is their loss, but it's okay to some extent because there are alternatives to these casters in terms of what they counter (e.g. scans instead of Ravens, or Colossi instead of HTs to deal with mass light units). And not having a Guardian Shield, at this level, doesn't mean you'll automatically lose. Setting aside unit compositions for moment, I think one should be able to defend against A-move attacks with A-move defence, but it should absolutely be a requirement to have good micro to counter good micro. And at some point, you have to learn to use casters to keep up. The point, though, is that the game should at least be playable while you develop different game skills layer by layer.
The best solution, I think, is to give casual players options (units, tech paths, upgrades, abilities) that are clearly suboptimal and nearly useless in high-level 1v1, but which are crutches they can fall back on to survive in the game.
For example: for an unskilled player who can't spend through the minerals in the bank, a supply drop or scan may well be a far better choice than calling down a MULE. Obviously, if that player wants to get better and tighten up on macro, he needs to wean himself off the dependency on scans for scouting, and not get supply-blocked so much. But that can be developed with time. If unskilled players die to early-game cheese all the time, they won't get much of an opportunity to learn mid-game skills like managing expansions.
Of course, this is all easier said than done.
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people arent saying bad players cant become good. They are saying quitters who quit games because something is cheesy arent good at RTS's anyway and if they quit who the hell cares. They can play UMS and single player or comp stomps
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I really don't like your first example: giving overlords energy could further change things on the pro level (maybe susceptibility to feedback will allow for easy shutdown of any overlord scouting, etc) and require you to make more and more contrived changes to compensate.
Is it really easier to add a new upgrade to the banshee, nerfing T harass instead of just asking the Z player to scout or sac an overlord if he sees a smaller army at the ramp? Making an extra queen at each hatch easily allows get to get up - I think these choices reward more active and alert play, thats all.
Similar story in sc:bw - as terran bunker rushing is considered cheese, easy to just end the game against a weaker opponent. However, at pro level a bunker rush is expected to be shut down, and the threat is just used to pull a few workers off mining and do some economic damage. Cheese IS a viable strategy, you can't just eliminate it all because weaker players don't scout and adapt their play.
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Edmon, Good thing you took your time and have posted that real game example. Cause now it's clear as day that you have absolutely no clue what are you talking about.
First of all, do you understand what you're saying?
You're saying that certain strategy (in your case Banshee rush) is imbalanced at lower tiers, because some people over there lose to it cause they don't know how to counter it and therefore it should be fixed. Holy shit, I hope I'm not the only who can't wrap his mind around over how ridiculous this argument is.
It's like saying that fork in chess shouldn't be possible because people, who never experienced it or bad enough to constantly fall to it, can't do anything to prevent it.
Or like saying that queen shouldn't move diagonally because people who don't know it can move this way or who never anticipate it moving like that are constantly getting trapped by it.
Moreover you suggest to fix Banshee in a way, that will make it useless in every game, except in a game between bad people who still don't know what to do about it.
And this
The end result is the same, for 200m 200g, you have full damage, fully cloaked banchees. Therefore, the competitive or higher end will be mostly unaffected
is just ridiculous thing to say and shows that you don't really understand how the game is played.
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On May 31 2010 02:43 InRaged wrote:
Edmon, Good thing you took your time and have posted that real game example. Cause now it's clear as day that you have absolutely no clue what are you talking about.
See, if you note, as I entirely predicted almost every post since mine has become a discussion about the banchee rush. Everyone has preconcieved ideas about what makes this rush good, bad, counterable, uncounterable, balanced, unbalanced, etc based entirely on their own experiences. I cannot defeat your experience, because you've experienced it and therefore it must be right. You cannot see outside of your own experiences, hence why I discussed something made up, to avoid this pit.
You also state quite strongly that the end result is not the same. It clearly is, if you get cloak. Do people always get cloak or not? This was something I would have to research carefully and adjust to accordingly. Lets say they don't, we could adjust rocketpod to just 50-50 and keep the delay, bringing cloak up to 150-150. Balance needs data, time, experimentation to be successful.
The zerg example is particularly potient, because players are led to believe the counter to this rush is hydras, not queens. Queens are almost seen as a drone-like unit to most casuals. So it can be some what counter intuitive to work out what you are meant to do. Especially when spore crawlers are quite unlikely to save you because they "suck" to use the terminology of the community.
Ah well, not to worry.
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I come back to this thread for one reason only: to see the average TL poster demonstrate time and time again that they suffer tunnel vision and cannot even begin to grasp a deeper consideration of game design beyond marauder is OP.
Why do you guys get so hung up on his words or examples instead of trying to appreciate his point? Take a step back and realize that the only thing you guys caught about his reply was the example he used and all you were able to do was discuss his example and not his IDEA.
Thanks for the laughs InRaged. Your post is a masterpiece of irony.
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Not every game needs to be declawed.
Look at counterstrike: You get 100hp without any means to regenerate that, single shot can kill you and if you die, you have to sit around until the round finishes. Not to mention that dying in every round punishes you by not having enough cash to buy optimal equipment. Now tell me, how a game, where you can get utterly dominated and embarrassed by the better player, is one of the most popular MP shooters of all time?
Causal players are people who don't want to get good at the game, you should never design for them as your main audience if you also aim at the hardcore crowd. Don't confuse that with making the game easily accessible: Everyone can play singleplayer, playing WoW 1-80 is piss easy etc.
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On May 31 2010 03:26 Zaphid wrote:
Not every game needs to be declawed.
Look at counterstrike: You get 100hp without any means to regenerate that, single shot can kill you and if you die, you have to sit around until the round finishes. Not to mention that dying in every round punishes you by not having enough cash to buy optimal equipment. Now tell me, how a game, where you can get utterly dominated and embarrassed by the better player, is one of the most popular MP shooters of all time?
Causal players are people who don't want to get good at the game, you should never design for them as your main audience if you also aim at the hardcore crowd. Don't confuse that with making the game easily accessible: Everyone can play singleplayer, playing WoW 1-80 is piss easy etc.
I agree that not every game needs to be declawed.
There is never any doubt in counterstrike about what you should be doing, however. Shoot the other guy first. Ironically, it's the single shot death that allows bad players to sometimes succeed, through the pure randomness of many of the guns (Outside of the Mag) and just through simple surprise and\or camping in weird places.
Sitting out in counterstrike is a weakness of the game, in a way. Players should be playing, but it is necessary for the type of experience the game is trying to create. Could this bit of the game be improved? On many servers it has been, with chat rooms and webgames, etc which you can mess with while you are dead. This has in many cases let to the growth of webcommunities who are intergrated with their CS server in this manner.
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I think a better example of this concept is the recent Forge nerf. Cannon rushes against Zerg were seen as a bit too powerful early on. This could be beaten by experienced players, but new players had big problems. The solution made it weaker, but had virtually no real impact on the higher tiers of play (correct me if I am wrong).
His point is that it makes sense to balance for all levels. The casual players having fun is as vital to long term health as hardcore players. If it isn't upsetting higher level play, or adding to it then it makes sense to balance for lower levels. I can come up with an extreme hypothetical, but I doubt it would really help.
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If you look at This and go to the challenge mode, there will be blizzard UMS made to help teach newer players basics, a better solution to the casual balance would be to just implement more scenarios like this to help newer players with common cheeses.
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a cheese that only works on newbs and doesnt affect competitive games is a design flaw. that overlord would only punish people going 14 CC, or people who dont have crisp build orders, while not requiring any skill on the zerg's end. therefore, this ability has no place in the game.
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On May 31 2010 03:13 Edmon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 02:43 InRaged wrote:
Edmon, Good thing you took your time and have posted that real game example. Cause now it's clear as day that you have absolutely no clue what are you talking about.
See, if you note, as I entirely predicted almost every post since mine has become a discussion about the banchee rush. Everyone has preconcieved ideas about what makes this rush good, bad, counterable, uncounterable, balanced, unbalanced, etc based entirely on their own experiences. I cannot defeat your experience, because you've experienced it and therefore it must be right. You cannot see outside of your own experiences, hence why I discussed something made up, to avoid this pit.
What does it even mean?
You also state quite strongly that the end result is not the same. It clearly is, if you get cloak. Do people always get cloak or not? This was something I would have to research carefully and adjust to accordingly. Lets say they don't, we could adjust rocketpod to just 50-50 and keep the delay, bringing cloak up to 150-150. Balance needs data, time, experimentation to be successful.
Result isn't quiet the same, cause you completely remove perfectly valid strategy out of the game. Why? Because some bad or new to the game people don't know how to counter it. You are suggesting to remove easily counterable strategy from a strategy game because it just works. I mean, what the hell?
The zerg example is particularly potient, because players are led to believe the counter to this rush is hydras, not queens. Queens are almost seen as a drone-like unit to most casuals. So it can be some what counter intuitive to work out what you are meant to do. Especially when spore crawlers are quite unlikely to save you because they "suck" to use the terminology of the community.
So what? It's a goddamn strategy game. The whole point of the game is figuring out how to counter your opponents strategy. You think top tier players already have whole game figured out with all counter options presented to them? No, they have to constantly think on what to do with opponents and how to exploit certain holes in their builds, and finding little timing windows is much harder than figuring out Queens can shoot air too.
On May 31 2010 03:18 Vexx wrote:
Why do you guys get so hung up on his words or examples instead of trying to appreciate his point? Take a step back and realize that the only thing you guys caught about his reply was the example he used and all you were able to do was discuss his example and not his IDEA.
Because his "idea" suggests how to improve the game and yet it doesn't have any substance to it. You can't discuss such stuff in a constructive way, ok?
He says that there's such thing as "casual balance" and the game currently lacks it. What does that mean? That means that there's certain things that in his view are imbalanced for low tier players. If he can't say what exactly those things are how are we supposed to discuss his idea? Is there anything to discuss at all in such case? Or are we supposed to just go, "oh ok something nobody knows what is broken and it's good idea to have it fixed, you're totally right"?
On May 31 2010 04:05 Gnizmo wrote:
I think a better example of this concept is the recent Forge nerf. Cannon rushes against Zerg were seen as a bit too powerful early on. This could be beaten by experienced players, but new players had big problems. The solution made it weaker, but had virtually no real impact on the higher tiers of play (correct me if I am wrong).
They fixed not regular cannon rushes (those still work fine against noobs), but cannon rushes where you block your cannons with the forge+pylon from being hit. It was unusually strong against skilled players too.
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On May 31 2010 04:05 Gnizmo wrote:
I think a better example of this concept is the recent Forge nerf. Cannon rushes against Zerg were seen as a bit too powerful early on. This could be beaten by experienced players, but new players had big problems. The solution made it weaker, but had virtually no real impact on the higher tiers of play (correct me if I am wrong).
They fixed not regular cannon rushes (those still work fine against noobs), but cannon rushes where you block your cannons with the forge+pylon from being hit. It was unusually strong against skilled players too.
i think they lowered forge health for the gateway forge rebuild pylon cheese vs terran. before, you could just build everything in their sight range, keep building pylons, and have cannons before the marines were done.
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On May 31 2010 05:02 InRaged wrote:
What does it even mean?
Imagine you bought a Toyota car. It broke down in the first month. Then you got another one and that one broke down after a month. Then a 3rd one and that one broke down after month.
Experience has taught you that Toyota's are unreliable, they could statisically be the most reliable cars on earth but you know that they aren't. You had 3 of the bastards and they all broke down on you. You cannot be told any different, because you'd had the experience so it must be true. In reality you are victim of cruel fate and random chance. But people aren't very rational, they don't see the world through stats, just personal experience. This sometimes blinds us to things that are actually true on reflection.
I think my points might be too advanced for you, no offense meant, but you might be happier in another thread.
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On May 30 2010 20:26 Edmon wrote:
Now, I know a lot of people were clamouring for me to give a solid example of a cheese actually in the game and address it without damaging the "competitive game". Sadly, I kind of predict that this will now make the thread all about this cheese rather than the arching points I've made, but whatever, I'll bite.
The cheese I want to address is bancheese vs zerg. The "pro" version of this cheese is to wall off, grab two fast banches and go queen hunting. Once the queen at the expand and at the main (if zerg is fast exanding) are dead, the game is over. Hydra's generally can't make it out in time, so the only real defence is more queens (a decision you'd only make if you knew this was coming). Sadly, zerg have terribad scouting and a terran wall-off will stop low and mid skilled players from detecting this cheese is coming before it's too late. [1]
The terran player can expand into cloak and reinforce enough to ensure any additional queens that are produced are nuked. This is a relatively risk free and easy cheese to pull off against zerg as they have a heavily delayed basic anti-air combat unit in the hydra.
So how can we address this? The basic thing to understand here is that this is a timing attack. It works because it can arrive 10-30 seconds (depending on skill level) before a single hydra can be produced. If reinforced, bancheese can also dominate small groups of hastily aquired hydras.
So, I sat down on saturday and I thought about solutions and here is what I came up with:
Banchee's now start with a single attack, on the model one of the rocket pods will be missing. Banchee's now have two upgrades at the starport tech lab instead of one. These are:
"Rocket Pod" 100m 100g +XTime
Adds an additional rocket pod to the banchee, improving damage.
"Cloak" 100m 100g +Ytime
Adds cloak to the banchee
This change would have these effects:
The two banchee push on zerg would have it's damage reduced or the push would be delayed by the rocket pod upgrade time and 100m 100g.
There is a new push available in an earlier cloak push but at half damage. I would definitely like to see how this plays out, but I suspect it will be much easier to stop than the original cheese.
The end result is the same, for 200m 200g, you have full damage, fully cloaked banchees. Therefore, the competitive or higher end will be mostly unaffected, except in cases where cloak is not aquired (is this often? data would need to be gathered to find out).
The biggest benefit of this change is that TimeX and TimeY can be controlled and adjusted in future balance changes to delay the two different pushes (cloaked and twopush) independantly until a good balance is reached. [2]
In conclusion, I'd just like to add that I don't feel like there is a problem out there that cannot be solved by a good designer. I feel like "oh it's too complex or too deep, etc" is just an excuse made by bad designers. [3]
Once you've indentified the problem (in this case timings), there should always be a way in which things can be adjusted (and even look cool or add depth) to fix any percieved or real issues with the game.
A percieved issue can be just as deadly as a real issue, when it comes to those players still deciding if this is the game for them. This is why the void ray got hit with the nerf bat and I do feel that it was the right decision for the overall health of the game (that said, I would have tried a different balance change to preserve the end game). [4]
Anyway, thats enough wall of text for now.
Thanks for reading.
Trying to make the game more casual-friendly is a sure-fire way to destroy it at high-level play, in my opinion.
I can see the logic behind this proposal, and I appreciate that you spent a great deal of time and effort in writing it and conveying your ideas. I will try to get across why I think it's just not going to work out so well. I'll use the specific examples you provided, but I'll also expand on other ideas as well.
[1] Your analysis is great and reflects exactly what lower-level players will think and see when this happens to them. However, there are many hidden subtleties at play here that come into their own at high levels.
First off, this cheese will die to other cheeses at this level of play. A Terran who plays at this level and thinks "I'm going to do my Banshee rush" will likely fall apart when a 9 Pool materializes early Zerglings into his base. In a similar manner, cheese is often fragile against other cheese.
Secondly, we are considering everything from the Zerg player's perspective. What about the Terran? Does he just insta-win against every Zerg? At some point, he will get crushed every game when he gets to the higher levels and his cheese is countered properly. What does he do then? All of his practice time went into exploring his Banshee rush build. What other options does he have against Zerg? He is in an uncertain position at this point. All of those wins he gained from his Banshee rush turned out be (almost) a waste of his time in terms of becoming a better player.
What effect will that have on the Terran player? Is he going to keep doing the Banshee rush? Think carefully about this one.
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Now back to the Zerg. Let's say he is a lower-level player and plays close to "standard" every game. "Standard" in this case means he feels like he can survive with this build. Survival is a key theme in understanding an RTS. The entire theory behind playing and watching RTS is survival. Pros do builds that allow them to "cheat" out as much economy as possible while still being able to survive. When a new player starts playing, they will very quickly learn the limits of survivability.
If someone comes into SC2 and goes 12 Hatch every game because he heard about this guy Jay Dong that does it, he will quickly learn that it is not a reasonable thing to use against every race. He may try other things. He'll find a forum somewhere where people talk about builds and certain units and tactics etc. This is how everyone starts playing an RTS. No one sits down in front of the machine all day long figuring out the game completely by themselves. Especially at lower levels, the metagame is a strong driving force for play. If your Banshee rush is popular in the lower levels, there will be lots of talk about it, even on Battlenet.
If after all of this, your Zerg player just becomes a raging mouth-foaming Banshee hater on Battlenet, there is practically nothing you could have done about it. People that focus on external causes to their losses just don't have the characteristic to play competitive games of ANY KIND.
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Now let's think about high-level play. A good player ( = a good learner) will realize (possibly after several hydra-rush attempts) that your Banshee rush cannot be stopped by Hydras. So rage on Battlenet forums what other options are there? Well the Queen attacks air, but isn't it silly to have more than 1 Queen per Hatch, especially so early on (common psychologically-driven misconception when learning the game)? Maybe it isn't as silly as 12 gas 1-basing vs. Terran every single game. At some point they will discover the magical 2 Queens > 1 Banshee formula - and after that they will have an easy time of dealing with any variant of your Banshee rush.
[2] By causing the timing of this attack to be delayed, you are having an adverse effect on high-level play. Banshee rushes are already extremely risky in high-level play. However, they come out just about the right time to make the Zerg nervous and can provide a transition to other Starport units later on (as well as have an available anti-ground unit). If you push the timetable for Banshees out later, you are just making them even less viable and are making any transitions they are involved in even less viable.
Let's look at it from another perspective, though. Say the timing was pushed back by 40 ticks. Now, pushing it back that far is going to make Banshees just completely unviable as an opening choice for Terran. This means that Zergs will have an extra 40 ticks if they suspect this coming. With that much time, they will just outright crush it when it comes, and they will be far ahead in the meantime.
But what effect does this have on the lower level players? 40 ticks is a lot to a high-level player who has tight timing, good scouting, a working understanding of the races, and a plan. But 40 ticks to a lower-level player (a player of the caliber who would conclude that rushes are "unbeatable") is practically nothing. For players who cannot properly use their time, 40 ticks might as well be 5 or 10 ticks. So these lower-level players will still likely lose to this rush if they lost to it before. Then it's back to part [1] all over again.
What about the player that is performing the Banshee rush? When he sees that his rush is moved back 40 ticks, there are three options:
a) The player is good enough to know that a 40 tick nerf to the Banshee timing is going to make it completely unviable (at their level).
b) The player is bad enough that they will read "Banshees nerfed" and never do the rush again and complain about Blizzard nerfing all the good strategies into the ground.
c) The player is bad enough that they feel practically no difference in their performance of the rush, and they keep doing it.
In all three of these situations, the game is worse off. Part b) will likely cause a metagame shift into yet another popular rush (perhaps with some other race). And we can do the process all over again using the same concepts.
[3] You're right that this is a bad argument. In fact, any number of subtle changes can be figured out by thinking as in part [2]. It just gets much much harder the more changes you make.
Let's say we toned the Banshee rush down by 40 ticks to deal with the problem. So now what happens? People switch to Zerg and do an 8 Pool --> Queen --> expansion. This is not even all-in or extremely cheesy, it is just a super-aggressive build that can transition (weakly) into more economic play.
So we go through part [1] again and push the timing back for early Zerglings. Then what? Well some other rush comes in and we push the timing back for that.
After much painstaking work, can we ever finally proof the game against low-level players being discouraged? The answer is of course: no we can't.
Timing attacks will kill any low-level player and are not difficult to learn with some practice. Then do we push back the timing attacks?
What this is going to lead to is every Zerg going 15 Hatch 16 Pool every game, and no one making attacking units until 5:00 into the game. This movement of swift attacks and cheeses farther back into the game makes those swift attacks and cheeses completely unviable so that you have to wait for the next thing in line. But all you are doing is removing the excitement and decision making from the beginning of the game.
Starcraft is an exciting experience because players can make real strategic decisions in the very first second of the game - all the way up to the end. You can't just turtle and mass every single game. Someone is bound to cheese you, either aggressively or economically. That is part of the beauty of Starcraft.
[4] A perceived issue is not as important as a real issue, unless you don't take "real issue" to mean "a problem in high-level play". The Void Ray nerf was completely expected. It outranged and outmicroed all of its counters early on against Terran even at high levels of play. The nerf to it will almost certainly not have any effect on low-level players except to change the low-level metagame because of the perception (like you were saying).
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Banshee rush might win 80% of the time in silver league or lower therefore it's imba. Where are you going to draw the line? There are a number of strategies that will be imba just because people have flaws in their mechanics and builds. What next? All we can build is rines lings and zeals and we have a 7 minute no rush rule? Starcraft is an unforgiving game and lots of people still won't play sc2 because it's too competitive for them.
I have an idea, how about blizzard fixes all the games so that we're really playing bots and they let us win 80% of the time so we all think we're flash?
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On May 31 2010 05:02 InRaged wrote:
He says that there's such thing as "casual balance" and the game currently lacks it. What does that mean? That means that there's certain things that in his view are imbalanced for low tier players. If he can't say what exactly those things are how are we supposed to discuss his idea? Is there anything to discuss at all in such case? Or are we supposed to just go, "oh ok something nobody knows what is broken and it's good idea to have it fixed, you're totally right"?
You're not very good at dealing with abstract ideas are you. This thread isn't about "thing X is broken let's fix it!" It's putting forth the idea that balancing for casuals is the best way to balance the game. This is an idea that can be discussed without concrete examples. He is trying to say that adjusting for casuals won't screw up the pros as badly as adjusting for the pros could screw up the casuals. I see what he is saying. I don't know if I agree with it, but it can be talked about without having to mention Banshees or any other unit really.
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On May 31 2010 06:58 MamiyaOtaru wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 05:02 InRaged wrote:
He says that there's such thing as "casual balance" and the game currently lacks it. What does that mean? That means that there's certain things that in his view are imbalanced for low tier players. If he can't say what exactly those things are how are we supposed to discuss his idea? Is there anything to discuss at all in such case? Or are we supposed to just go, "oh ok something nobody knows what is broken and it's good idea to have it fixed, you're totally right"? You're not very good at dealing with abstract ideas are you. This thread isn't about "thing X is broken let's fix it!" It's putting forth the idea that balancing for casuals is the best way to balance the game. This is an idea that can be discussed without concrete examples. He is trying to say that adjusting for casuals won't screw up the pros as badly as adjusting for the pros could screw up the casuals. I see what he is saying. I don't know if I agree with it, but it can be talked about without having to mention Banshees or any other unit really.
I actually believe you can do both, if you are very careful about it.
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DefMatrixUltra, you have an excellent post. I just think that prehaps you are looking at too extreme a result at each end (Viable vs Not Viable). I am looking for the balance that makes the cheese "profitable" and gives "An advantage", it's worth doing, but isn't "instantly fatal". A fine line indeed, but it's the ideal I am for .
I think your post has a lot of great points I can agree with, losing to something that has an obvious "Oh I should have done this, or I might try this next time" is a good learning experience compared to a cheese that invites a "Wtf, wtf, wtf, how do I beat that?" response. It's a fine line to be sure.
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Isn't the problem that cheeses/rushes make games good in that you don't always have a long macro game? Instead you have micro battles of small numbers of units where one blow can be deciding.
If you know it will always be a macro game it only appeals to one audience.
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On May 31 2010 06:45 Edmon wrote:
Imagine you bought a Toyota car. It broke down in the first month. Then you got another one and that one broke down after a month. Then a 3rd one and that one broke down after month.
Experience has taught you that Toyota's are unreliable, they could statisically be the most reliable cars on earth but you know that they aren't. You had 3 of the bastards and they all broke down on you. You cannot be told any different, because you'd had the experience so it must be true. In reality you are victim of cruel fate and random chance. But people aren't very rational, they don't see the world through stats, just personal experience. This sometimes blinds us to things that are actually true on reflection.
Oh I get it. It's really unfortunate that the game doesn't have replays and ways to communicate with others so players are forced to rely on their own experience exclusively.
Even more sad is that future gosu and strategy masters that gonna rival White_ra alikes are irrational, stubborn beings who can't be bothered with finding counters to the strategies they can't overcome.
On May 31 2010 06:45 Edmon wrote:
I think my points might be too advanced for you, no offense meant, but you might be happier in another thread.
Yeah, dodge my arguments, cause I'm too stupid to understand yours anyway, gj
On May 31 2010 07:12 Edmon wrote:
I think your post has a lot of great points I can agree with, losing to something that has an obvious "Oh I should have done this, or I might try this next time" is a good learning experience compared to a cheese that invites a "Wtf, wtf, wtf, how do I beat that?" response. It's a fine line to be sure.
Yup. Except it's usually being outplayed in macro war by better player that makes casuals go "wtf".
On May 31 2010 06:58 MamiyaOtaru wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 05:02 InRaged wrote:
He says that there's such thing as "casual balance" and the game currently lacks it. What does that mean? That means that there's certain things that in his view are imbalanced for low tier players. If he can't say what exactly those things are how are we supposed to discuss his idea? Is there anything to discuss at all in such case? Or are we supposed to just go, "oh ok something nobody knows what is broken and it's good idea to have it fixed, you're totally right"? You're not very good at dealing with abstract ideas are you. This thread isn't about "thing X is broken let's fix it!" It's putting forth the idea that balancing for casuals is the best way to balance the game. This is an idea that can be discussed without concrete examples. He is trying to say that adjusting for casuals won't screw up the pros as badly as adjusting for the pros could screw up the casuals. I see what he is saying. I don't know if I agree with it, but it can be talked about without having to mention Banshees or any other unit really.
I'm fine with abstract ideas. This topic is way too sensitive to be abstract though, as there's way too many awful players eager to cry imbalance on whatever stuff they had recently lost to.
Besides all what I ask for is to describe how exactly cheesy strategies ruin "casual balance" and how are they related to this balance idea at all. He seems to think that good players aren't affected by cheese, when the only difference between them and bad players is that they know better how to handle such strategies. But that doesn't mean anything at all, cause good players know better how to handle every single strategy, not limited to just cheesy ones. That's why they are good players in the first place!
All I see in this thread is an attempt to discuss removal of risky/cheesy strategies in disguise of some made up "casual balance".
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Assumptions galore in this whole thread idea:
1: Any rush takes less skill, aka "I lost to rush but I'm somehow a better player" This underpinns that there's something out of balance. My impression is simply if someone lost to any rush outright, that someone is a lesser player to begin with. Lesser players lose in a game, nothing new here.
Suggested alternative perspective: For the 'cheesed' player to use cheese as well, and see how they fare. They would either: lose just like before, or actually win a few games and move up a league or 2 until their 'cheese' gets shut down.
2: It is possible to balance on anything other than the top tier. The whole idea of balance is there's a reference point to balance against, and even to fix some perceived balance issue, there must be evidence that something is broken. At top tier, you will see dominate strategies as evidence, or win rates etc. At lower tier, the 'reference point' becomes vague. How do you define casual player, their relative skill level or to balance? The whole idea of introducing features that somehow can impact a certain skill level, whilst not another, is absurd. For any arbitary 'skill level' you've chosen, there will be those that are above or below it, and for those below the ability/feature = 'OP' and those above = 'Useless'. Comes cycle 2. The whole idea is pointless.
I am looking for the balance that makes the cheese "profitable" and gives "An advantage", it's worth doing, but isn't "instantly fatal". A fine line indeed, but it's the ideal I am for .
Isn't this exactly what cheese is at top tier anyway? By making cheese also not instantly fatal for lower levels will definately reduce their utility at top tiers. There's no win-win here, and really the line does not exist and this idea exists as an ideal.
3. Cater for the casuals somehow means something to Blizzard. Sure there's a loose connection however there's inconclusive evidence that:
Casual players who quit = revenue lost for Blizzard
Casual players who quit = loss to community, or that they would've stayed if 'casual balance' exists.
Give your Toyota example, is it in Toyota's best interest to introduce some program at prohibitive cost that somehow safeguards against 1 month failures 100% (yes, the idea is about as realistic as balance the game at all arbitary 'skill levels' of a game), because a few buyers, statistically unlucky to experienced a couple duds? So what if the few buyers had 'negative experience' and their impression of Toyota is forever tarnished?
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Russian Federation145 Posts
You're wrong about casual players improving. I'm sorry to say this, but it needs to be said: You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
In my general experience as a league admin of the American Natural Selection community, I can assure you that the players who are filtered by the frustrating game features wouldn't ever come close to succeeding in the competitive scene. I've seen it all first hand. I made the mistake of taking initiative in the dying mod to draft new teams. I helped organize the remaining American competitive NS players to teach the "casuals" how to really play the game. I would venture to say that NS is the hardest game on casuals by far, so those that stick around are the hardiest of the bunch, and yet our initiative failed. We've tried this several times, at the tournament peak even (number of registered 6man teams in CAL was >200), and failed at every turn.
It takes a lot of willpower to improve and significant talent to get to the top. Casual players don't have either by definition. If they had talent, they'd be good at the game and therefore enjoy it. (people always like what they're good at) If they were willing to improve, they wouldn't need the developers to hold their hands for them.
So how are the competitive players different? They have a different attitude about video games in general. The players who are good at one game are most likely to be good at many others. These players aren't a static property of one game. They move around and improve at games where money is present. The prize money up top is what attracts them. That's the meaning of the word professional. As of right now, StarCraft is in a league of its own when it comes to prize money. This attracts the best players such as Idra.
---
You're right if you feel that there has to be a perfect compromise, because the amount of possible compromises is nearly infinite. The chances of someone, who doesn't completely understand the criteria of one of those two sides, of finding that compromise are zero. I have a feeling that you don't completely understand the competitive side of this issue since you're not a competitive player.
Since you don't understand both sides of the compromise, it's best not to try to find it. The best course of action with any game other than SC2 is to appeal to the "casual players."
The best course of action for Blizzard is to appeal to everyone who isn't a casual. That's what the majority of people buying the box are expecting from them. That's what Blizzard is going to need to do to appease Korea. That's the market that no company except Blizzard can reasonably appeal to.
Best of luck.
P.S: Potchip,
@ 3.
Blizzard cares about casual players who stay because those who quit will likely not recommend the game to their friends. This is now in the common sense domain for any company.
(The casuals are also a much larger market than competitive players. At least this is what Blizzard thinks. Blizzard is also extremely greedy for reasons beyond me. They are faced with the choice of making a better competitive game or making more money. They are choosing the $$ option.)
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On May 31 2010 07:46 InRaged wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 06:45 Edmon wrote:
Imagine you bought a Toyota car. It broke down in the first month. Then you got another one and that one broke down after a month. Then a 3rd one and that one broke down after month.
Experience has taught you that Toyota's are unreliable, they could statisically be the most reliable cars on earth but you know that they aren't. You had 3 of the bastards and they all broke down on you. You cannot be told any different, because you'd had the experience so it must be true. In reality you are victim of cruel fate and random chance. But people aren't very rational, they don't see the world through stats, just personal experience. This sometimes blinds us to things that are actually true on reflection. Oh I get it. It's really unfortunate that the game doesn't have replays and ways to communicate with others so players are forced to rely on their own experience exclusively. Even more sad is that future gosu and strategy masters that gonna rival White_ra alikes are irrational, stubborn beings who can't be bothered with finding counters to the strategies they can't overcome. Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 06:45 Edmon wrote:
I think my points might be too advanced for you, no offense meant, but you might be happier in another thread. Yeah, dodge my arguments, cause I'm too stupid to understand yours anyway, gj Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 07:12 Edmon wrote:
I think your post has a lot of great points I can agree with, losing to something that has an obvious "Oh I should have done this, or I might try this next time" is a good learning experience compared to a cheese that invites a "Wtf, wtf, wtf, how do I beat that?" response. It's a fine line to be sure. Yup. Except it's usually being outplayed in macro war by better player that makes casuals go "wtf". Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 06:58 MamiyaOtaru wrote:On May 31 2010 05:02 InRaged wrote:
He says that there's such thing as "casual balance" and the game currently lacks it. What does that mean? That means that there's certain things that in his view are imbalanced for low tier players. If he can't say what exactly those things are how are we supposed to discuss his idea? Is there anything to discuss at all in such case? Or are we supposed to just go, "oh ok something nobody knows what is broken and it's good idea to have it fixed, you're totally right"? You're not very good at dealing with abstract ideas are you. This thread isn't about "thing X is broken let's fix it!" It's putting forth the idea that balancing for casuals is the best way to balance the game. This is an idea that can be discussed without concrete examples. He is trying to say that adjusting for casuals won't screw up the pros as badly as adjusting for the pros could screw up the casuals. I see what he is saying. I don't know if I agree with it, but it can be talked about without having to mention Banshees or any other unit really. I'm fine with abstract ideas. This topic is way too sensitive to be abstract though, as there's way too many awful players eager to cry imbalance on whatever stuff they had recently lost to. Besides all what I ask for is to describe how exactly cheesy strategies ruin "casual balance" and how are they related to this balance idea at all. He seems to think that good players aren't affected by cheese, when the only difference between them and bad players is that they know better how to handle such strategies. But that doesn't mean anything at all, cause good players know better how to handle every single strategy, not limited to just cheesy ones. That's why they are good players in the first place! All I see in this thread is an attempt to discuss removal of risky/cheesy strategies in disguise of some made up "casual balance".
What you should start doing is sending the OP a PM for a more personal clarification of what this thread is about instead of making an ass out of yourself in 3 posts straight even when MULTIPLE individuals are telling you that you're not getting it.
Please, stop posting. This thread is not about your inability to follow along.
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On May 31 2010 08:53 TheDrill wrote:
You're wrong about casual players improving. I'm sorry to say this, but it needs to be said: You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
In my general experience as a league admin of the American Natural Selection community, I can assure you that the players who are filtered by the frustrating game features wouldn't ever come close to succeeding in the competitive scene. I've seen it all first hand. I made the mistake of taking initiative in the dying mod to draft new teams. I helped organize the remaining American competitive NS players to teach the "casuals" how to really play the game. I would venture to say that NS is the hardest game on casuals by far, so those that stick around are the hardiest of the bunch, and yet our initiative failed. We've tried this several times, at the tournament peak even (number of registered 6man teams in CAL was >200), and failed at every turn.
It takes a lot of willpower to improve and significant talent to get to the top. Casual players don't have either by definition. If they had talent, they'd be good at the game and therefore enjoy it. (people always like what they're good at) If they were willing to improve, they wouldn't need the developers to hold their hands for them.
So how are the competitive players different? They have a different attitude about video games in general. The players who are good at one game are most likely to be good at many others. These players aren't a static property of one game. They move around and improve at games where money is present. The prize money up top is what attracts them. That's the meaning of the word professional. As of right now, StarCraft is in a league of its own when it comes to prize money. This attracts the best players such as Idra.
---
You're right if you feel that there has to be a perfect compromise, because the amount of possible compromises is nearly infinite. The chances of someone, who doesn't completely understand the criteria of one of those two sides, of finding that compromise are zero. I have a feeling that you don't completely understand the competitive side of this issue since you're not a competitive player.
Since you don't understand both sides of the compromise, it's best not to try to find it. The best course of action with any game other than SC2 is to appeal to the "casual players."
The best course of action for Blizzard is to appeal to everyone who isn't a casual. That's what the majority of people buying the box are expecting from them. That's what Blizzard is going to need to do to appease Korea. That's the market that no company except Blizzard can reasonably appeal to.
Best of luck.
P.S: Potchip,
@ 3.
Blizzard cares about casual players who stay because those who quit will likely not recommend the game to their friends. This is now in the common sense domain for any company.
(The casuals are also a much larger market than competitive players. At least this is what Blizzard thinks. Blizzard is also extremely greedy for reasons beyond me. They are faced with the choice of making a better competitive game or making more money. They are choosing the $$ option.)
Surprise! I'm a competitive player that excels in most of the video games I play and the frustrating experience in some games (SC2 for example) makes me uneager to continue improving or even playing the game.
For example, consider super smash brothers brawl. This is a competitive game with an abundance of local tournaments. I am very good at this game. I can compete with the best of the best. But there is an element of the game's design that discourages me from playing more or even caring about being the best: talented players can make certain characters play in a non-conventional way where they can slide across the maps very quickly while dealing dangerous amounts of damage. They avoid a straight up fight and do what I call "abuse of game mechanics."
Defeating these players is a question of focused attention and experience. I can beat them but it is not fun in the least to play against them. I have a friend who used to whoop my butt silly in the older gamecube version. He did not purchase the new wii version because of how the new characters play and detract from the good old "standard" fighting system.
I would compare this story to SC1 and SC2 where competitive players may decide not to purchase the game because of some sort of cheese. Let's say 6pool 7 reaper in 2v2 or even resource feeding in team games. These players may have the ability to become competitive but they don't find the game interesting when the first 3-5 minutes is about not getting gayed instead of just getting your game going.
All this to say that your black and white approach and "general experience" is a load of stupidity because it is very likely that many skilled players are also concerned with fun over frustration. I'm sure top WoW arena players would do just as well in Lineage 2 if they were not discouraged by the amount of XP grind in L2.
If you do reply, I hope that it has nothing to do with the semantics of casual and competitive. In case you missed it, my main point is that your opinion on "types of people" is stupid.
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Vexx, I've presented arguments. "You're not getting it" isn't a counter-argument. Please, if you can't respond to arguments constructively then don't tell me that I'm the one who's unable to follow along.
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On May 31 2010 09:56 Vexx wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 08:53 TheDrill wrote:
You're wrong about casual players improving. I'm sorry to say this, but it needs to be said: You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
In my general experience as a league admin of the American Natural Selection community, I can assure you that the players who are filtered by the frustrating game features wouldn't ever come close to succeeding in the competitive scene. I've seen it all first hand. I made the mistake of taking initiative in the dying mod to draft new teams. I helped organize the remaining American competitive NS players to teach the "casuals" how to really play the game. I would venture to say that NS is the hardest game on casuals by far, so those that stick around are the hardiest of the bunch, and yet our initiative failed. We've tried this several times, at the tournament peak even (number of registered 6man teams in CAL was >200), and failed at every turn.
It takes a lot of willpower to improve and significant talent to get to the top. Casual players don't have either by definition. If they had talent, they'd be good at the game and therefore enjoy it. (people always like what they're good at) If they were willing to improve, they wouldn't need the developers to hold their hands for them.
So how are the competitive players different? They have a different attitude about video games in general. The players who are good at one game are most likely to be good at many others. These players aren't a static property of one game. They move around and improve at games where money is present. The prize money up top is what attracts them. That's the meaning of the word professional. As of right now, StarCraft is in a league of its own when it comes to prize money. This attracts the best players such as Idra.
---
You're right if you feel that there has to be a perfect compromise, because the amount of possible compromises is nearly infinite. The chances of someone, who doesn't completely understand the criteria of one of those two sides, of finding that compromise are zero. I have a feeling that you don't completely understand the competitive side of this issue since you're not a competitive player.
Since you don't understand both sides of the compromise, it's best not to try to find it. The best course of action with any game other than SC2 is to appeal to the "casual players."
The best course of action for Blizzard is to appeal to everyone who isn't a casual. That's what the majority of people buying the box are expecting from them. That's what Blizzard is going to need to do to appease Korea. That's the market that no company except Blizzard can reasonably appeal to.
Best of luck.
P.S: Potchip,
@ 3.
Blizzard cares about casual players who stay because those who quit will likely not recommend the game to their friends. This is now in the common sense domain for any company.
(The casuals are also a much larger market than competitive players. At least this is what Blizzard thinks. Blizzard is also extremely greedy for reasons beyond me. They are faced with the choice of making a better competitive game or making more money. They are choosing the $$ option.) Surprise! I'm a competitive player that excels in most of the video games I play and the frustrating experience in some games (SC2 for example) makes me uneager to continue improving or even playing the game. For example, consider super smash brothers brawl. This is a competitive game with an abundance of local tournaments. I am very good at this game. I can compete with the best of the best. But there is an element of the game's design that discourages me from playing more or even caring about being the best: talented players can make certain characters play in a non-conventional way where they can slide across the maps very quickly while dealing dangerous amounts of damage. They avoid a straight up fight and do what I call "abuse of game mechanics." Defeating these players is a question of focused attention and experience. I can beat them but it is not fun in the least to play against them. I have a friend who used to whoop my butt silly in the older gamecube version. He did not purchase the new wii version because of how the new characters play and detract from the good old "standard" fighting system. I would compare this story to SC1 and SC2 where competitive players may decide not to purchase the game because of some sort of cheese. Let's say 6pool 7 reaper in 2v2 or even resource feeding in team games. These players may have the ability to become competitive but they don't find the game interesting when the first 3-5 minutes is about not getting gayed instead of just getting your game going. All this to say that your black and white approach and "general experience" is a load of stupidity because it is very likely that many skilled players are also concerned with fun over frustration. I'm sure top WoW arena players would do just as well in Lineage 2 if they were not discouraged by the amount of XP grind in L2. If you do reply, I hope that it has nothing to do with the semantics of casual and competitive. In case you missed it, my main point is that your opinion on "types of people" is stupid.
Woah woah woah.
Did you seriously just use 2v2 double cheese as a justification of why serious 1v1 competitive gamers wont buy SC2? Cheese in 2v2 is a different breed all together from the completely stoppable cheese in 1v1 - You cannot compare them accurately.
Explain yourself now.
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On May 31 2010 07:46 InRaged wrote:
All I see in this thread is an attempt to discuss removal of risky/cheesy strategies in disguise of some made up "casual balance".
Been reading this thread from the start and this is the entire thread in a nut shell.
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On May 31 2010 10:30 Ryhn wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 09:56 Vexx wrote:On May 31 2010 08:53 TheDrill wrote:
You're wrong about casual players improving. I'm sorry to say this, but it needs to be said: You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
In my general experience as a league admin of the American Natural Selection community, I can assure you that the players who are filtered by the frustrating game features wouldn't ever come close to succeeding in the competitive scene. I've seen it all first hand. I made the mistake of taking initiative in the dying mod to draft new teams. I helped organize the remaining American competitive NS players to teach the "casuals" how to really play the game. I would venture to say that NS is the hardest game on casuals by far, so those that stick around are the hardiest of the bunch, and yet our initiative failed. We've tried this several times, at the tournament peak even (number of registered 6man teams in CAL was >200), and failed at every turn.
It takes a lot of willpower to improve and significant talent to get to the top. Casual players don't have either by definition. If they had talent, they'd be good at the game and therefore enjoy it. (people always like what they're good at) If they were willing to improve, they wouldn't need the developers to hold their hands for them.
So how are the competitive players different? They have a different attitude about video games in general. The players who are good at one game are most likely to be good at many others. These players aren't a static property of one game. They move around and improve at games where money is present. The prize money up top is what attracts them. That's the meaning of the word professional. As of right now, StarCraft is in a league of its own when it comes to prize money. This attracts the best players such as Idra.
---
You're right if you feel that there has to be a perfect compromise, because the amount of possible compromises is nearly infinite. The chances of someone, who doesn't completely understand the criteria of one of those two sides, of finding that compromise are zero. I have a feeling that you don't completely understand the competitive side of this issue since you're not a competitive player.
Since you don't understand both sides of the compromise, it's best not to try to find it. The best course of action with any game other than SC2 is to appeal to the "casual players."
The best course of action for Blizzard is to appeal to everyone who isn't a casual. That's what the majority of people buying the box are expecting from them. That's what Blizzard is going to need to do to appease Korea. That's the market that no company except Blizzard can reasonably appeal to.
Best of luck.
P.S: Potchip,
@ 3.
Blizzard cares about casual players who stay because those who quit will likely not recommend the game to their friends. This is now in the common sense domain for any company.
(The casuals are also a much larger market than competitive players. At least this is what Blizzard thinks. Blizzard is also extremely greedy for reasons beyond me. They are faced with the choice of making a better competitive game or making more money. They are choosing the $$ option.) Surprise! I'm a competitive player that excels in most of the video games I play and the frustrating experience in some games (SC2 for example) makes me uneager to continue improving or even playing the game. For example, consider super smash brothers brawl. This is a competitive game with an abundance of local tournaments. I am very good at this game. I can compete with the best of the best. But there is an element of the game's design that discourages me from playing more or even caring about being the best: talented players can make certain characters play in a non-conventional way where they can slide across the maps very quickly while dealing dangerous amounts of damage. They avoid a straight up fight and do what I call "abuse of game mechanics." Defeating these players is a question of focused attention and experience. I can beat them but it is not fun in the least to play against them. I have a friend who used to whoop my butt silly in the older gamecube version. He did not purchase the new wii version because of how the new characters play and detract from the good old "standard" fighting system. I would compare this story to SC1 and SC2 where competitive players may decide not to purchase the game because of some sort of cheese. Let's say 6pool 7 reaper in 2v2 or even resource feeding in team games. These players may have the ability to become competitive but they don't find the game interesting when the first 3-5 minutes is about not getting gayed instead of just getting your game going. All this to say that your black and white approach and "general experience" is a load of stupidity because it is very likely that many skilled players are also concerned with fun over frustration. I'm sure top WoW arena players would do just as well in Lineage 2 if they were not discouraged by the amount of XP grind in L2. If you do reply, I hope that it has nothing to do with the semantics of casual and competitive. In case you missed it, my main point is that your opinion on "types of people" is stupid. Woah woah woah. Did you seriously just use 2v2 double cheese as a justification of why serious 1v1 competitive gamers wont buy SC2? Cheese in 2v2 is a different breed all together from the completely stoppable cheese in 1v1 - You cannot compare them accurately. Explain yourself now.
A potentially serious 1v1er might start their SC2 career in a team game where there's more room for error. That's EXACTLY what I did despite my somewhat competitive SC/WC3 experience. We know that 1v1 is the ultimate competitive arena. No one is contesting that. But you guys can't keep thinking that everyone that is going to pick up starcraft is going to be a gosu competitive player off the bat. I am very inclined to reach top of ladder (rank 2 plat patch 12) but when I started SC2 beta, I just enjoyed myself for awhile in 2v2 custom games before even trying 1v1.
The point of the discussion is game design that doesn't negatively affect top level play but also keeps the game fun at lower level play. If you can keep top level play the way it is, why not make improvements for lower level play that make it more fun and less frustrating?
Look at the lower level leagues. It's all cheese. Unbeatable or not, that's not what your average joe is expecting when they pick up a RTS. Very few RTS have you getting owned within the first 2-4 minutes of the game.
So the point is, while players are still deciding whether they are enjoying the game, it is in the best interest of the community if they have a positive experience. A good example is the forge nerf that slows down cheese but keeps higher level play intact.
I really don't know why everyone is so black and white about "a good player is going to be good and get over the hurdles." I think my previous MMO example is perfect to counter that argument. There are games I could be very good at but I choose not to play cause they don't please me.
The thread is obviously very theoritical. So theoretically, yes... games should be designed around fun at lower levels (even if that's just "less frustration) and skill and competition at higher levels.
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Vexx:
I would compare this story to SC1 and SC2 where competitive players may decide not to purchase the game because of some sort of cheese.
Vexx:
A potentially serious 1v1er might start their SC2 career in a team game where there's more room for error.
I think you're slightly confused about what kind of player you want to talk about.
So which one of these two very different players do you want to talk about? You just jumped from one to the other quite abruptly.
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On May 30 2010 21:42 deL wrote:
I don't like this example because you discuss an ability that is not even looked at by top players - they never use ever - so it has no impact and won't affect both playerbases when you change it. The problem is when something balanced in top-level play but broken in bronze league is changed to fix it at the low level but disrupt the balance at the top.
For example, DTs kill new players too easily because they are invisible and new players aren't good enough to pre-emptively get turrets, or save orbital energy (assuming they even get orbital). Balance at the lower levels dictates that DTs now take longer to build, or are only cloaked until their energy runs out, or something similar. DTs at high levels are already rarely used because they are inhibitively expensive and this change to accommodate lower ranks adversely and significantly alters competitive play at the top.
not true at all. there are a whole bunch of players that use DTs on higher level of play.
it is true that DTs are stronger than in scbw because z and t have less/more expensive detection. early DTs offer you a short window of mapcontrol+strong harassing and mid/late DTs offer you harrassing at low defended spots.
there is actually no unit that is not needed in high level play besided some lategame units that are almost never seen because they either are too weak/cost or the players have too less experience with em. and those units do not cause any problems at low level play.
if blizzard would start to nerf units/strategies that must be scouted at a given time. then the whole game would be far less interesting.
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On May 31 2010 10:54 Ryhn wrote:Vexx: Show nested quote +
I would compare this story to SC1 and SC2 where competitive players may decide not to purchase the game because of some sort of cheese.
Vexx: Show nested quote +
A potentially serious 1v1er might start their SC2 career in a team game where there's more room for error.
I think you're slightly confused about what kind of player you want to talk about. So which one of these two very different players do you want to talk about? You just jumped from one to the other quite abruptly.
Why are you guys convinced that a competitive SC2 player can't play 1v1 and 2v2? I know SC1 was all 1v1, but now there's a nice matchmaking system that is definitely going to promote 2v2 too. 1v1 will be the ultimate skill arena...
Maybe I misunderstand your point. As I understand you think that people who play 1v1 and people who play 2v2 are mutually exclusive groups?
Maybe we are not in agreement about "competitive player." I'm talking about any player who is interested in not sucking... not just 12 hour a day pros.
Regardless, I don't believe it has anything to do with my point... any player (besides people getting paid to play), may decide not to play SC because their first 3 days are not fun. As it's relevant to this thread, this may mean that developers should try as much as they can to make the game more fun at lower levels while maintaining higher level balance.
Anyways, clarify for me if I misunderstood you.
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[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 10:45 Vexx wrote:
[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 10:30 Ryhn wrote:
[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 09:56 Vexx wrote:
[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 08:53 TheDrill wrote:
Look at the lower level leagues. It's all cheese. Unbeatable or not, that's not what your average joe is expecting when they pick up a RTS. Very few RTS have you getting owned within the first 2-4 minutes of the game.
[/QUOTE]
So add in a game type that has a no attack for 6 min rule.
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[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 12:34 guitarizt wrote:
[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 10:45 Vexx wrote:
[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 10:30 Ryhn wrote:
[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 09:56 Vexx wrote:
[QUOTE]On May 31 2010 08:53 TheDrill wrote:
Look at the lower level leagues. It's all cheese. Unbeatable or not, that's not what your average joe is expecting when they pick up a RTS. Very few RTS have you getting owned within the first 2-4 minutes of the game.
[/QUOTE]
So add in a game type that has a no attack for 6 min rule.[/QUOTE]
This is a solution that has been used in some games, but really it's a bit of a cop-out to avoid having to do any real (and difficult) balance work. It wouldn't work in SC2 either, as zerg would be unfairly punished (being unable to fast expand) and terran unfairly rewarded as they could scan to see what is coming. Terrans tend to work well off of a 1 base play and can prepare a command center in advance to fly to an expand the moment the timer is up.
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I absolutely love 2vs2, and look forward to testing 3vs3. Sitting on vent playing cooperatively with a buddy gives me the good feelings from the clan days of yore.
However, it seems that arranged parties are matched against random parties, is this correct?
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On May 31 2010 09:56 Vexx wrote:For example, consider super smash brothers brawl. This is a competitive game with an abundance of local tournaments. I am very good at this game. I can compete with the best of the best. But there is an element of the game's design that discourages me from playing more or even caring about being the best: talented players can make certain characters play in a non-conventional way where they can slide across the maps very quickly while dealing dangerous amounts of damage. They avoid a straight up fight and do what I call "abuse of game mechanics."
I'm going to stop you at the "Competitive" part and ask you this:
Was Super Smash Bros Brawl designed to be a competitive game?
Answer:
No.
Brawl is designed, first and foremost, to be fun. Actually, ALL Smash Bros games have been. Any ability for Smash Bros games to function competitively is pure accident. Or whatever is left in the design tank after designing a fun game.
That items and stages other than Final Destination are the default mode of play in Smash Bros games is no accident.
Now, if you want to run with that analogy still for some reason, then we can ask, is Blizzard designing StarCraft 2 to be a competitive RTS?
I'll leave that answer to you.
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Russian Federation145 Posts
On May 31 2010 09:56 Vexx wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2010 08:53 TheDrill wrote:
You're wrong about casual players improving. I'm sorry to say this, but it needs to be said: You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
In my general experience as a league admin of the American Natural Selection community, I can assure you that the players who are filtered by the frustrating game features wouldn't ever come close to succeeding in the competitive scene. I've seen it all first hand. I made the mistake of taking initiative in the dying mod to draft new teams. I helped organize the remaining American competitive NS players to teach the "casuals" how to really play the game. I would venture to say that NS is the hardest game on casuals by far, so those that stick around are the hardiest of the bunch, and yet our initiative failed. We've tried this several times, at the tournament peak even (number of registered 6man teams in CAL was >200), and failed at every turn.
It takes a lot of willpower to improve and significant talent to get to the top. Casual players don't have either by definition. If they had talent, they'd be good at the game and therefore enjoy it. (people always like what they're good at) If they were willing to improve, they wouldn't need the developers to hold their hands for them.
So how are the competitive players different? They have a different attitude about video games in general. The players who are good at one game are most likely to be good at many others. These players aren't a static property of one game. They move around and improve at games where money is present. The prize money up top is what attracts them. That's the meaning of the word professional. As of right now, StarCraft is in a league of its own when it comes to prize money. This attracts the best players such as Idra.
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You're right if you feel that there has to be a perfect compromise, because the amount of possible compromises is nearly infinite. The chances of someone, who doesn't completely understand the criteria of one of those two sides, of finding that compromise are zero. I have a feeling that you don't completely understand the competitive side of this issue since you're not a competitive player.
Since you don't understand both sides of the compromise, it's best not to try to find it. The best course of action with any game other than SC2 is to appeal to the "casual players."
The best course of action for Blizzard is to appeal to everyone who isn't a casual. That's what the majority of people buying the box are expecting from them. That's what Blizzard is going to need to do to appease Korea. That's the market that no company except Blizzard can reasonably appeal to.
Best of luck.
P.S: Potchip,
@ 3.
Blizzard cares about casual players who stay because those who quit will likely not recommend the game to their friends. This is now in the common sense domain for any company.
(The casuals are also a much larger market than competitive players. At least this is what Blizzard thinks. Blizzard is also extremely greedy for reasons beyond me. They are faced with the choice of making a better competitive game or making more money. They are choosing the $$ option.) Surprise! I'm a competitive player that excels in most of the video games I play and the frustrating experience in some games (SC2 for example) makes me uneager to continue improving or even playing the game. For example, consider super smash brothers brawl. This is a competitive game with an abundance of local tournaments. I am very good at this game. I can compete with the best of the best. But there is an element of the game's design that discourages me from playing more or even caring about being the best: talented players can make certain characters play in a non-conventional way where they can slide across the maps very quickly while dealing dangerous amounts of damage. They avoid a straight up fight and do what I call "abuse of game mechanics." Defeating these players is a question of focused attention and experience. I can beat them but it is not fun in the least to play against them. I have a friend who used to whoop my butt silly in the older gamecube version. He did not purchase the new wii version because of how the new characters play and detract from the good old "standard" fighting system. I would compare this story to SC1 and SC2 where competitive players may decide not to purchase the game because of some sort of cheese. Let's say 6pool 7 reaper in 2v2 or even resource feeding in team games. These players may have the ability to become competitive but they don't find the game interesting when the first 3-5 minutes is about not getting gayed instead of just getting your game going. All this to say that your black and white approach and "general experience" is a load of stupidity because it is very likely that many skilled players are also concerned with fun over frustration. I'm sure top WoW arena players would do just as well in Lineage 2 if they were not discouraged by the amount of XP grind in L2. If you do reply, I hope that it has nothing to do with the semantics of casual and competitive. In case you missed it, my main point is that your opinion on "types of people" is stupid.
The semantics? I'm afraid that the only argument I have is an anecdote, but you can refer to the tl member pain user and ask him why he started playing SC2, his first strategy game, at the top10 platinum level. (guy here http://www.ensl.org/movies/9 ) And you can ask him about the attitude that good players share.
My example also doesn't carry over to console games. I have no experience with consoles or dealing with people who play console games. If you feel that the two can be compared, then your example of you being unwilling to do everything in your power to win proves that you're not a competitive player who is serious about winning.
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Wow, there is a lot of anger in this thread.
Point 1: Learning Curve
Learning curve really relates to the number of things a person needs to know before attaining particular skill levels in a game. Starcraft already has a fairly rough learning curve. Each race has 10+ units with multiple abilities. Units interract differently, those differences need to be learned.
Cheese adds another learning burden. You need to be able to counter cheese in order to play the game 'normally'. If the number of potential cheeses is 15 or so, lets assume 3 or 4 games per cheese to overcome. Game 1, get cheesed, Game 2, scout attempt counter fail, Game 3, scout attempt different counter fail, Game 4, scout refine build win. With 15 cheeses available that is 50+ games you need to play before you can actually start playing the game properly.
If the learning curve is too high, the game will fail. Chess by example has a relatively low learning curve. There are a few pieces to memorise, a few strategies to understand and only a handful of cheesy openings which are easily countered (it's not real time).
Part 2: Casual Players
Sigh... I still don't understand this iron-clad belief that casual players can't become pros. "Pros wouldn't quit if they lost." Actually, yes they would if they thought the reason they lost was the game was shit. They'd go play a game they thought was less shit and invest their potential-pro skills there. Do you think any of the top SC players would have been pros if their first experiences of SC were wholy negative and there were other options for gaming available. Why are they SC pros and not TA or CS pros... was it because SC was fun and compelling? Cheese != fun. Cheese = lame...
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The rule sets should definitely be adjusted for each division.
Bronze - No rush maps
Silver - Regular maps, slightly slower speed
Gold and up - Regular
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balance at higher levels should be the first priority
"casual level balance" is really not balance at all. If the game makes it easier for a player to do something, when the player gets to a higher level, performing the same task will be even easier. There's a million ways to write a huge paragraph about this but I'll not go there.
My main point is that "casual level balance," if such thing exists at all, is a luxury and not a necessity relative to competitive balance.
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Read this thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163417
Oh look, I totally called it in this thread, months and months ago.
Whos right now? :D. This is a Clear case of casual balance.
Q. There are opinions that the variety in choice of strategies for Terran have decreased due to the recent nerf
A. There were a lot of strategies terrans could use before scouting their opponent. We were planning to decrease the number of possible strategies because we felt they were having a negative effect, and the reaper happened to be problematic in team games so we adjusted the balance with a focus on reapers. In the case of barracks before depot, there were a lot of games that ended before it was even scouted. It didn't happen very often on the pro level, but it was becoming a problem in lower tier play. The main focus is the pro level, but our ultimate goal is for players of all levels to be able to play a fair and balanced game. Barracks first builds were too strong in that regard and created a lot of problems in low level play, which is why we made the adjustments.
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EPT
