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First off I'd like to state this is mostly likely not what you think it is going to be. I'm going to start off by stating my experience here. My name is Raelcun and I like to watch starcraft. Playing starcraft is fun but I love love love to watch good players play it. This is partially why I am a commentator, I want to share this excitement with others and help them enjoy the games more.
I have watched hundreds of games of Starcraft 2 in and out of tournaments, games with something on the line and just practice games between two good players. I have seen A LOT of games in Starcraft 2 and over this time I have come to a conclusion.
The balance in Starcraft 2 seems good, but the maps suck
Let me clarify this before people rage endlessly. Brood War maps were imbalanced too but there was a good selection of maps that were imbalanced towards the different races so that as a whole the map pools were mostly balanced. Right now most of Blizzard maps seem to be constructed with the same couple of building blocks, and as a whole this has lead to the same types of maps over and over with different faces.
Right now theres a lot of whining about Terran imbalance and I think this isn't really anything to do with Terran imbalance as a race, but the fact that the majority of the maps in the map pool are very easily exploited by Terrans. These are the conclusions I've come to.
- Unsafe expansions which have multiple entrances make it hard for zerg and protoss to expand quickly against terrans.
There is no real safe expansion in the map pool, Blistering sands itself is safe but if you are guarding that your backdoor is open. Steppes of War has a side entrance by the rocks which you have to expend extra effort to cover. The two new maps have horrendously open exapansions, and a back expansion that is easily punished by cliffs.
LT is one of the safest expansions out there but can be taken down by thor/tank drops easily. Terrans on the current map pool with the use of hellions, reapers, thor/tank drops are able to punish the other races the most for taking early expansions while they delay their expansion until siege or merely expand while you are defending their harassment.
- Xel'Naga watch towers that are anywhere near central locations or major chokepoints on the map will favor Terran. The ability to grant siege tanks their full range by sitting next to a watch tower is very powerful. We've seen this proven many many times on Lost Temple and Metalopolis, what makes it worse are the fact that these watch towers are in defensible locations as well. There are chokepoints nearby that will force an army to constrict while hitting them the 4 walls on LT, the small cliff on Metal and Kulas ravine. Central watch towers make the middle of the map if it is not completely open a tank playground.
Xel'Naga watch towers as a whole are an interesting feature and I would not like to see them go even though map makers are experimenting with making maps that do not include them I think they have a lot of potential. But placing them in key locations next to choke points really has to stop, if they're near key map chokepoints make them vulnerable and hard to hold. Not like, Metal, Kulas, Blistering, but more like the watch towers on Desert Oasis.
- Large main bases many times with a lot of area for reapers to jump up in are good for terrans as well. They have sensor towers and are not bothered by HUGE main bases as they can be forewarned before a drop comes in, but a simple 4 marauder drop into one of the barren corners of your base can result in losing important buildings. The large size of the bases on most maps means reapers can get in easily and in order to defend against drops stupid amounts of static anti air are needed. This can also be beneficial to Zerg but that brings me around to the next point.
- We've figured out a lot about what makes a map a terran map, but we still have not figured out solidly what makes a map a protoss map or a zerg map. Until we can figure out what map features that solidly favor a zerg or a protoss it's hard to balance out the terran features on a map by giving it protoss and zerg features.
That brings me to my major point, I believe the balance as in racial balance is at a good point right now players are able to overcome the maps by extreme levels of play but overall we're seeing high Terran statistics because the maps are favoring Terran and the play level on the Ladder isnt quite as high.
My proposal on how to fix this is we need the map making community to try and do their best to purposely make zerg and protoss favored maps and have good players play on them.
"Wait doesn't this make it worse?" You are prone to ask, in the short term yes but in the long term it will allow us to figure out what map features will make a map good for zerg and protoss and when we are able to combine these features with the terran features that we already know then maybe we can come up with some more truly all around balanced maps.
Map making is still in it's infancy and I believe Starcraft 2 will not continue to grow as a whole until we can fix this and get better maps out for the community, we run the danger of hitting stagnation if the maps never evolve and change. That was one of the key features of Brood War was a constantly changing and evolving map pool, the map makers constantly pushing the bounds of what is balanced and what is not. There were some pretty famous examples ie Gorky Park, Demon Forest. But we learned from those mistakes so right now I propose we intentionally try and create some of those disaster maps so we can learn from them.
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Agree on the maps criticisms.
However, why does everything have to be an open letter? 
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Cuz it makes a good title and I'm not completely set on my ideas where people are free to add to it and make it better.
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I'm surprised someone had to write this! Haha. It's pretty clear that the game will explode with more depth and undiscovered "overpowered" strategies once the maps get a bit more technical and large. It looks like Blizzard doesn't want large technical maps for the official ladder, but I can't wait to see some great large maps in tournaments.
EDIT:
Also you have to look at what each race excels at to find how to make maps more imbalanced for them.
Protoss - Warp Gates
Zerg - Easily defendable expansions and large spaces where creep can be spread for easy surrounds.
I'd bet Protoss would be really good on Island maps with Warp Prisms allowing for easy reinforcements and quick movements.
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Pretty interesting insight on the situation. I wish Blizzard was more open to player made maps for ladder, but they seem to want to keep the maps from being "too sophisticated".
Hopefully Blizzard will think up some good ideas. I really want some diversity though. They seem to be making even more open natural maps, which are absolutely impossible to defend for zerg, or for a protoss in a FE situation. (without 5 cannons)
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Things that are Terran friendly:
-chokes,
-small ramps,
-high ground over choke or an expo,
-small maps. (tanks can cover more playable area)
I think Terrans should have some desert(chokes,high grounds are RARE) maps to deal with... They'd need to adapt too.
They can already. Put depots over mineral line so Zerglings can't come it,burrow(depots) them when out of danger,done. Making Bunkers in crucial positions would be more rewarding and not only for one attack. (chokes,on high ground,near ramps)
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Very interesting take on the whole balance debate. As always you explain your ideas well. I definitely think we need to explore new features for maps and I hope the map making community can do that and the rest of us can help in any way possible.
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On August 03 2010 06:16 Takkara wrote:
I'm surprised someone had to write this! Haha. It's pretty clear that the game will explode with more depth and undiscovered "overpowered" strategies once the maps get a bit more technical and large. It looks like Blizzard doesn't want large technical maps for the official ladder, but I can't wait to see some great large maps in tournaments.
the current maps are just as "technical and large" as the majority of brood war pro maps
that is not the problem imo
what i don't like is the patterns in maps that blizzard has forced upon the community. the game has been balanced around these gimmicky, mediocre maps, and now the patterns that they follow have consequently become the standard
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Personally, I think Zerg does okay in some of the wide-open maps, while Protoss gets the short stick. For example, the new map, Delta Quadrant and Desert Oasis are next to unplayable for Protoss in a PvZ because all-in speedlings are just too ridiculously powerful. It is impossible for Protoss to expand against any competent Zerg who just keeps sending in speedlings into the mineral line. Protoss is forced to defend (usually unsuccessfully) while Zerg can mass expand everywhere.
I really don't care about having large macro maps anymore. I just want non-bullshit maps that aren't horribly imbalanced.
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Definitely going to agree with you here Raelcun.
Terran unit structure makes it relatively easy to abuse. Reapers are an early cliff walking unit so towers can easily be defended with them / provide vision where other races wouldn't be able to see til later in the game (kulas and some others). Many times I feel like I have to get Templars so quickly against terran and drop pylons all over "my side of the map" just so I can get vision in time for a warpin and feedback / stalker. I figure losing randomly placed 100 mineral pylons is better than losing a important tech building or possible drone / nexus stim death in 4 seconds.
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Yeah, I actually agree, most things can already be beaten in theoretical situations overcoming any slight imbalances, but the maps do stack it up a bit.
That being said, the game is still in a pretty good place right now, people claim T is the strongest, and Z the weakest, but
+ Show Spoiler +Idra won the final vs Tester
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i agree with this and i think as maps begin to get larger (to BW sized maps) people will actually be able to abuse terran immobility more. right now on most ladder maps a mid-game mech army can seige and clamp down half the map which is probably the ONLY reason why it's viable.
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BTW. This thread is:
HOW TO BALANCE SC2 AND NOT TO MAKE CHANGES IN RACES.
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I would like to see map statistics, any way of doing so?
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Low ground main, with easy to defend naturals could screw with the 1 basing turtle terrans that eventually expand when they got a handful of tanks. However, this could backfire with early reaper plays(unless they aren't attached). ><. Larger maps with more open spaces and less landable cliffs every bloody place where there are minerals would be nice too.
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Blizzard has the statistics locked away in a secure vault somewhere in an unspecified location so that they may choose to release them randomly when it suits whatever purpose they like.
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Agree with this - though as a Protoss player I still think Terran have the coolest units. (Reapers and Hellions are just too awesome, seriously). But I don't think the game is unbalanced and I definitely agree with you that the maps seem to be more of an issue than actual game balance.
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On August 03 2010 06:37 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
Blizzard has the statistics locked away in a secure vault somewhere in an unspecified location so that they may choose to release them randomly when it suits whatever purpose they like.
You're wrong. Zeratul locked them in his crystal... That's why Raynor is so shocked.
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On August 03 2010 06:40 Kurumi wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 06:37 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
Blizzard has the statistics locked away in a secure vault somewhere in an unspecified location so that they may choose to release them randomly when it suits whatever purpose they like. You're wrong. Zeratul locked them in his crystal... That's why Raynor is so shocked.
I loled nice one, but anyways the problem with statistics is you can make them suit whatever purpose you like as I said. If you see that terran is winning a majority on every map there are two conclusions:
1) Terran is fucking imba
2) The maps are bad
and people are just as likely to come to both conclusions which causes ragestorms while people argue about it endlessly.
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I choose 2)
When playing beta I always was like:
Why the maps are so small... I watched some BW games and there were a LOT of expos.. maps were big.. sometimes there were even THREE routes to one base. Look now.. Blistering Sands. Small,2 ways to go to Your enemy. North and South.
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EPT
