Official State of the Game Podcast Thread - Page 2698

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PineapplePizza

United States749 Posts

May 18 2013 23:29 GMT

#53941

On May 19 2013 08:21 TigerKarl wrote:

Show nested quote +

He lives of these videos. More videos means more financial support by viewership.

Real Talk has episodes which are pretty much all 50+ minutes long (2GD's episode is 3 hours O_O).

You eat an ad every 30 minutes or so, shown by the yellow blips on the duration bar below the video.

Reborn8u

United States1761 Posts

May 19 2013 01:32 GMT

#53942

On May 19 2013 01:06 Baum wrote:

Show nested quote +

Your post is just blatant whining to be honest. Sentries and the MSC are worth the investment not just to scout your opponent so you would build them in any case. Protoss is not struggling because of the lack of scouting.

It's the "blind period" protoss has in every matchup that I dislike. Protoss scouting is good, but the timing of it is too late, especially after an FFE. The opponent knowing exactly how greedy they can be, while protoss has to take risks to be greedy and has to invest in defense even if the opponent has no intention of attacking is a fundamental and far reaching issue. I stopped playing protoss before hots btw, I play terran now, this hasn't changed my opinion on this.

Almtom

Sweden132 Posts

May 19 2013 13:29 GMT

#53943

Amazing having incontrol back at SOTG!

nam nam

Sweden4672 Posts

May 19 2013 13:39 GMT

#53944

On May 19 2013 08:29 Ooshmagoosh wrote:

Show nested quote +

Real Talk has episodes which are pretty much all 50+ minutes long (2GD's episode is 3 hours O_O).

You eat an ad every 30 minutes or so, shown by the yellow blips on the duration bar below the video.

There's a lot of reasons why you upload in 30 minute segments. It process faster, uploads faster and in turn is less of a bitch when the YouTube upload screws up and less people watch hour long videos, having an equal amount of ads is irrelevant.

Rabiator

Germany3948 Posts

May 19 2013 14:58 GMT

#53945

On May 19 2013 01:53 CrueltY wrote:

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I would be interested to see a Protoss that hallucinated immortals to fake an immo-sentry timing, to get a zerg to overeact. I've been talking about it with a couple of friends, and thought it would be an interesting little idea. Especially if you were able to make it difficult for the zerg to know you took a 3rd.

On the subject of scouting, I think there is more to scouting then simply the effectiveness of the various scouting methods. If there were not grey areas in which certain unusual builds could be executed, that could remove game variety as builds become considered 'unviable'. The fact that some things are difficult to scout, and effort has to be made to deny scouting, makes for interesting player interaction.

With the Mothership Core and the mass recall this third base could be anywhere on the map, which is great on 4-player maps. As long as you keep your MSC alive and well energized you should be able to keep your third somewhat safe. In most pro games the "side corner bases" are never really scouted until the late game and they could be safer to take because of this (just dont let a train of workers be caught in the transfer ... getting a shuttle to do it sneakily seems wise IMO and Terrans and Protoss will most likely have one).

---

On May 19 2013 07:51 iNcontroL wrote:
btw you guys have been very reasonable when discussing this past episode <3 ty ! And sorry for being pessimistic haha , glad you all mostly enjoyed the discussion!

Well I still think that Blizzards focus on FULL OFFENSE is wrong, because it will eventually result in random games with the one who does the Hellbat drop first winning. + Show Spoiler +

I usually compare this focus on offense to driving a car, which is only safe up to a certain speed and after that the chance of an accident increases. Race drivers can go faster, but they arent the only ones supposed to "drive the game" ...

That will not be a battle of skill anymore and the enjoyment of constant drop harrassment will wear off eventually (as it has for big deathball battles which were fun to watch in the beginning too).

I also believe that exclusively focusing on "matchup balance at professional level" is wrong, because pros have much quicker reactions than casuals than casuals and this will ruin the fun of playing the game for the non-professionals. It is a game and should be about the fun of playing it first and foremost instead of about competition or watching it.

There is no point in complaining about these things since Blizzard thinks they are right and complaining wont change a thing ... no matter how logical the argument is (because designing the game to be playable for fun doesnt exclude pro balance or fun watching).

tokinho

United States792 Posts

May 19 2013 19:18 GMT

#53946

On May 18 2013 22:01 Tsubbi wrote:
the only part that really threw me off was when he stated a 55% winrate in a matchup is ok as long as its fun, people might not realize how far the balance is off in that case

maybe hes talking about fluctuating winpercentages around 50% and outliers of up to 55% are fine as long as things change, but constant 55% for one race is very imbalanced

post queen buff in wol for example had average winrates of 55% in zvt ín favor of zerg until hots was released and we all know what this causes to racial distribution in tournaments etc

The problem as i stated in my post is that toss tends to have winrates around 40% vs terran. http://www.gomtv.net/records/index.gom?searchType=3&race=P&vsrace=T&season=2013&leaguetype=0&leagueid=0&gamever=ALL&mapid=0.

So I definitely feel like PvT still needs tweaking.

mawno

Sweden114 Posts

May 19 2013 21:56 GMT

#53947

Best SOTG episode so far. Great discussion and David Kim is really good at what he does.

Emzeeshady

Canada4203 Posts

May 19 2013 22:55 GMT

#53948

--- Nuked ---

Merany

France890 Posts

May 20 2013 18:56 GMT

#53949

Finally had the time to watch the show and I thought it was extremely interesting. Some people might think DK is doing a poor job but this guy obviously knows what he is talking about. Good questions and good answers, thank you JP!

Goldfish

2230 Posts

May 22 2013 03:39 GMT

#53950

I like Incontrol mentioning ZvZ in SC2 and BW again.

Here is an article detailing using Mutalisk in BW (and another one for Mutalisk against Scourge).

In terms of things like I think (if added back) would make SC2 rival BW (or be better), it's the ability to micro like in BW (Mutalisk Micro) and the Reaver.

However, an important thing to note in terms of micro in SC2 and BW (David Kim mentions microing against Banelings, for example, being something harder which is somewhat true) - BW Micro was easier to do (at all levels) "but" it still had a huge skill ceiling and the possibilities were endless.

Also another important thing about BW micro (compared to SC2), is that BW's had a lot of micro where you were the one who "initiated and started the fight" or "you're active with the micro against the player" rather than SC2 which is mostly just "reactive micro" (you split against banelings). That's very important and is what makes the microing in BW easier to learn and more rewarding (because you can micro at any time in BW, but in SC2, you just micro against your opponents banelings, for example).

Microing Mutalisk or Wraiths (like Mutalisks) is something the player initiates rather than reacts to.

In SC2, a lot of microing is all reactive (wait for the opposing enemy to do something, then do it) which (IMO) isn't as fun as you are the one who initiates with micro in BW.

In BW, microing Mutalisks can done really easily but yet the potential to do better was there because you can constantly micro your Mutalisk all the time (even if you weren't being attacked or attacking).

There was many incentives to get better at microing Mutalisk (again, you can start fights with your microing) and you can slowly see your progress getting better.

As you can see, that's one huge advantage BW has in terms of micro over SC2 - again that BW's micro was both active "you can do it at any time, and you can initiate with it" rather than the mostly "reactive" (you just react to what your opponent is doing against you) that SC2 has.

Not only that, a lot of micro in SC2 aren't really fancy (you just split marines vs baneling) and the fancy ones (like getting widow mines to stop firing), the effort:reward ratio for microing (and whether it's worth it to micro) isn't as good. (The effort put in making Widow Mines hold fire is usually outweighed by the fact you'll have to expend most of your attention and focus on that widow mine to keep it from firing; though I do like that mechanic but it's just that it's not a practical or usable one in most cases compared to BW micro tricks.)

In SC2, a lot of microing is all reactive (wait for the opposing enemy to do something, then do it) which (IMO) isn't as fun as you are the one who initiates with micro in BW.

Splitting marines, being careful against banelings, etc... they're are all reactive micro where you have to micro against what your opponent is doing.

In terms of a comparison, I think a good comparison is fighting games.

Lets take street fighter for example - Anyone can do a fireball once they learn the button combinations. Microing Mutalisks is kind of like learning how to do a Hadoken. Not very hard to learn and it feels rewarding.

Now that you learn how to do a fireball, you want to learn how you can attack opponents with it. It's an active "you start the fight" skill that you can learn. In SC2 most micro and tricks you can do are all very reactive and defensive.

_____________________________

In terms of engine and how to add back, there isn't a way to mimic things "exactly" (and some things may not be intuitive like stacking air units in BW compared to SC2) but there is a way to mimic that specific style of play.

There is a map called "How to detect if a unit is facing a target before attacking (unprotected)" (here is my post) (under custom games, not arcade) which tries to do something that sort of replicates it and it kind of works (not as well). Basically, when you attack a target (while the Mutalisk is moving at near it's max speed or higher) while the Mutalisk is facing the direction of the target (whether by manually moving it with move command or target it directly), the Mutalisk will attack without much delay and also gain a temporarily speed boost. Also the Mutalisk can turn instantly (sort of, though this is the only real triggered part besides stacking) if you give it a command to move a direction manually (like in BW basically) but they still have a turning rate when auto attacking. Using Patrol (well something I want to implement later which can be done with triggers) will instantly turn the Mutalisk (without any delay) to any targets behind it so it can also gain it's speed boost using patrol micro (I do have something in place where it gives you a buff).

Edit - The distinction between BW micro (which had a lot of active and initiative and offensive micro potential) and SC2's micro (which is mostly just reactive, you split marines against banelings, you're careful against banelings with zerglings, etc) is an important thing to note. It greatly changes how the game feels.

Edit 2 - Also in terms of David Kim's response to the Carrier question (pro level players can't show off much more than just high level ladder players), I disagree with what he says that just because you can't micro the Carrier much, that they aren't really looking too much into buffing or changing the Carrier (and I think that's an odd response too because Carriers are certainly more microable than the Colossus, Immortals, Void Rays, and Zealots which are really common). Also there is still a strategy element in SC2 too (where the unit's micro potential doesn't matter but a player manages to find a good use and incorporate an underused unit in their strategies to win).

When the Mothership first came out, everyone liked to see it because they wanted to see how the Protoss player would do a strategy revolving around a Mothership. The finals between MVP vs Squirtle where MVP massed Battlecruisers at the end (then Squirtle countered with a Mothership + an Archon Toilet) was really exciting. I agree that not all units should be in the game but I think they should still have good potential and some underused units should still be looked into.

Edit 3 - Besides the above points, I agree with David Kim and I have always liked him

. He always has good arguments for certain things too (like for example, asymmetrical game design if a race has a harder time with doing a specific thing that another race has an easier time doing, then it's okay as long as the difficulty is made up in other areas).

Also I agree with that if a unit's sole purpose is just to (colossus for example) invoke and encourage micro and a variety of unit composition from the opposing player (vikings for colossus, etc) then that's not a bad unit (though I still would like the Reaver back >.>).

Finally I also agree with fun (as spectator or player) should come first before balance, as "fun" (and excitement from watching a game) is more important for the success/life for a game (of course balance should be done as much as possible as long as it doesn't stagnant the game). I think a good way of putting it is if a match up is 50:50 but way boring to watch, they should take a risk (that may unbalance the game a bit) to make the game more fun to play and watch (again, they can balance after they figured out a good place for the game).