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If the original BW hadn't been patched repeatedly to fix balance issues, no one would be playing it now. Balance problems destroy games, not just in the sense that they make certain races hard to play, but also because balance is necessary for interesting, dynamic gameplay. If you come to SC2 with the a priori assumption that balance discussions are out of bounds, you are hobbling your understanding of the game and undermining efforts to improve gameplay.
The argument of anti-imbalance crowd is that many cases of supposed imbalance turned out to merely be failures to adapt to new strategies. While that is undeniably true, it does not follow that all cases of imbalance are simply adaptive failures. We should be constantly thinking and proposing possible imbalance. We should analyzing statistically and theoretically, watching replays, proposing builds and attempting to beat them. When we discover imbalance we should declare it unequivocally.
The bottom line is that if imbalance exists, and I'm absolutely convinced it does, it's toxic to the player base, and that toxicity is compounded by the attitude toward imbalance on TL. If a player is faced with a matchup where his opponents have some sort of structural advantage, the experience of repeated losses, despite attempts to adapt and learn, is going to drive them away from the game. The life of a game is the people who play it, and particularly for a game like starcraft, every player who walks away is a tragedy, even more so if they walk away because they feel like they can't get a fair fight. Team Liquid's current approach to imbalance, where anyone who attempts to even address the possibility is insulted, demeaned, and ultimately banned, is pretty much guaranteed to drive away players.
Maybe you think that SC2 can afford the bleed, but I've seen enough games die that I'm doubtful. My guess is that many of the things popularly seen as imbalanced will be recognized as such by Blizzard and patched eventually. Blizzard is competent, if unacceptably slow (the PTR could be used to rapid-fire test balance changes, but it's not for some reason), but I have faith that they will fix the issues eventually. Hopefully.
edit: As the video in the OP points out, had 1.08 never been released, who knows what would have become of BW.
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great post.
Imbalance for most people is a build that they saw a pro do loosing against the same thing over and over again because of unit strength and counter builds EX: 4 gate vs mass marauders with upgrades the marauders will win every time. Now take that same mass marauder build and place it against a 2 gate robo build with constant immortal production. This doesn't make immortals or Marauders imbalanced it just means that players have to counter what the opponents are doing, not blindly do builds that you know.
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i think its ridicilous that i made 2xxx games with zerg and like 150 with terran and and i can beat 3k zergs with a simple marine allin (or a marauder/hellion- banshee/marine- marine/bunker- thor/marine- [insert random-]allin)but get demolished 8 out of 10 games in ZvZ. A build that even can beat the best zergs in the world with ease its a gamble every game you either can overprepare for a possible unscoutable allin and die 10 minutes later because your opponent wasnt allining you or you can underprepare and die to the allin. Yeah you can scout after you have overseers but the allin hits before that and 1 single marine can deny scouting very easy before that.
Thats what id call imbalance, it put endless effort in getting a better Zerg player and with a simple race switch i can manhandle zergs that have almost 1k points more than i have. If i had made 2xxx games with Terran and 150 with Zerg iam pretty sure id be way higher on the ladder than i am right now.
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I am very new to TL and don't post often on forums, but visit TL on a daily basis. I feel I need to post here to say, "man this is a great post". Well done to the OP for starting a thread which shows real appreciation for the game and is realistic about challenges.
I personally believe imbalances will always be in any game, there will always be a combination of circumstances that will kill you, deal with it, like the OP said, just be pragmatic about it, understand why that combo killed you and work on a mechanism/strat to defend against it.
Just look at GSL how the strats evolve every season, the pro's don't shout IMBA, they come up with a strategy that can defeat it and live with it.
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On January 08 2011 08:58 idonthinksobro wrote:
i think its ridicilous that i made 2xxx games with zerg and like 150 with terran and and i can beat 3k zergs with a simple marine allin (or a marauder/hellion- banshee/marine- marine/bunker- thor/marine- [insert random-]allin)but get demolished 8 out of 10 games in ZvZ. A build that even can beat the best zergs in the world with ease its a gamble every game you either can overprepare for a possible unscoutable allin and die 10 minutes later because your opponent wasnt allining you or you can underprepare and die to the allin. Yeah you can scout after you have overseers but the allin hits before that and 1 single marine can deny scouting very easy before that.
Thats what id call imbalance, it put endless effort in getting a better Zerg player and with a simple race switch i can manhandle zergs that have almost 1k points more than i have. If i had made 2xxx games with Terran and 150 with Zerg iam pretty sure id be way higher on the ladder than i am right now.
On January 08 2011 00:14 Siwa wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2011 23:18 Slunk wrote:
I am actually sick of people crying about crying about imbalance. I hope we do not go to the next level here. Crying about crying about crying about imbalance is not helping anyone.
I know right?
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Every time someone complains about imbalance, a kitten dies. Please think of the kittens.
/vote for this to be stickied.
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You sir deserve a medal for this post.
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I wasn't part of the competitive community when Starcraft 1 first came out, but i will never believe in a million years that people weren't raging about imbalance back then just as they are now. I was under the impression people raged about imbalanced, and then one day BW was finally balanced and everyone stopped complaining. I think that will also happen in SC2, or is that just too much to ask for? Currently we are still in the process of balancing the game, once its balanced you will no longer hear all the raging left and right.
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On January 08 2011 10:15 Disastorm wrote:
I wasn't part of the competitive community when Starcraft 1 first came out, but i will never believe in a million years that people weren't raging about imbalance back then just as they are now. I was under the impression people raged about imbalanced, and then one day BW was finally balanced and everyone stopped complaining. I think that will also happen in SC2, or is that just too much to ask for? Currently we are still in the process of balancing the game, once its balanced you will no longer hear all the raging left and right.
brood war was balanced through map making.
so was wc3:tft for a while (and then it was unbalanced because of maps).
I would argue that right now the game isnt balanced that well for the map pool.
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This thread and Day9 100 are the best things I have ever found on this forum. You deserve a medal, even though I bet people will forget your message in an hour.
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On January 07 2011 11:12 Xswordy wrote:
Very good post. Should be made sticky.
Well I vote this for the TL's Eleventh commandment.
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That's an amazing post, i just felt the need to come and say that.
A Day[9] phrase that i always go for: "I don't believe in imbalance, i believe in practice."
But i still think it is sad that people post in this very thread such as: "I agree with you on most parts but X is clearly imba" that's like the pinnacle of hipocrisy.
But anyways, you are helping the community good sir, thank you.
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Thank you SO much for the thread and effort you put into it.
This one and the "spoiler" thread made me love TL again after a long, long time.
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I like what you're saying, but it's sort of idealistic:
Essentially, we won't know if there's real imbalance until we've tried our best with what we've been given, without being psychologically handicapped by perceived imbalance, real or not. And yet, if imbalance happens to be real, the rational player should not try his or her best with what he or she has been given, and should switch race/bitch on B.net instead.
For the most part, people play for their own enjoyment, and if they are losing a very large portion of their games, a simple statement of "I don't believe in imbalance" is probably not going to make an awful experience more enjoyable.
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On January 08 2011 06:41 Ursad0n wrote:
@everyone who said I'm Terran, that's only true as of recently, when I played Zerg it was hard but I didn't feel as though I couldn't win, you just have to play smart. And the only reason I switched is because SC2 Zerg isn't (in my opinion) what Zerg should be based on BW and the lore, and I don't like the way the race operates with larvae.
funny that you think sc1 zerg's larva system is different to sc2's. and yes, you do play mostly terran, so dont try to deny/confuse people about that point. 'just have to play smart' is not a valid argument, go play 10 games as zerg now in ladder 1v1 (in any league) and come back to tell us about ' why being zerg = you have to try REALLY hard to outsmart the oppo to win'.
On January 08 2011 06:41 Ursad0n wrote:
It's an RTS game, STRATEGY wins games for the most part, only HUGE imbalances can affect that (like if probes did 5k damage or some shit) or if they gave roaches something ridiculous like 1 supply 2 armor and a billion health regen (lol jk, seriously, 2 rax marauder was an instawin against roach openings at that time, see. Strategy beats strategy)
HUGE imbalance = broken, like most of the rts out there (DoW, Civ, AoE, Myth etc), they have some units/mechanics that can be abused/exploited to get you a 100% win. Nobdy is saying sc2 is broken, it is still a well made rts (compare to most rts out there). The imbaness of what people talking about sc2 - they meant something like 'x strategy is so easily to execute but yet it is so hard to be countered'. get a practice partner to do a optimal 5-6mins marines rush on you and tell us how many times you failed to defend it even if you know it is coming.
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On January 08 2011 10:59 BurningSera wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2011 06:41 Ursad0n wrote:
@everyone who said I'm Terran, that's only true as of recently, when I played Zerg it was hard but I didn't feel as though I couldn't win, you just have to play smart. And the only reason I switched is because SC2 Zerg isn't (in my opinion) what Zerg should be based on BW and the lore, and I don't like the way the race operates with larvae. funny that you think sc1 zerg's larva system is different to sc2's. and yes, you do play mostly terran, so dont try to deny/confuse people about that point. 'just have to play smart' is not a valid argument, go play 10 games as zerg now in ladder 1v1 (in any league) and come back to tell us about ' why being zerg = you have to try REALLY hard to outsmart the oppo to win'. Show nested quote +On January 08 2011 06:41 Ursad0n wrote:
It's an RTS game, STRATEGY wins games for the most part, only HUGE imbalances can affect that (like if probes did 5k damage or some shit) or if they gave roaches something ridiculous like 1 supply 2 armor and a billion health regen (lol jk, seriously, 2 rax marauder was an instawin against roach openings at that time, see. Strategy beats strategy) HUGE imbalance = broken, like most of the rts out there (DoW, Civ, AoE, Myth etc), they have some units/mechanics that can be abused/exploited to get you a 100% win. Nobdy is saying sc2 is broken, it is still a well made rts (compare to most rts out there). The imbaness of what people talking about sc2 - they meant something like 'x strategy is so easily to execute but yet it is so hard to be countered'. get a practice partner to do a optimal 5-6mins marines rush on you and tell us how many times you failed to defend it even if you know it is coming.
I've played WELL over 10 games as Zerg on the ladder, and it's really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. And where did u get the idea that I said it differs from bw in larvae, I don't particularly care how larvae compares to BW, because I don't like the larvae mechanics in general, and I don't like the way the race operates. I don't like protoss either because it's a power race, I've always liked terran because of the balance, and in BW it was strong, and it was a challenge to learn.
Now I make my own challenges, like making up builds and perfecting them.
And I can think of a few things to try, but I don't play zerg and I don't wish to, so I won't be doing that as it isn't worth my time.
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This is the kind of post that I like to see, more time is needed before and serious judgement can be made about this game. The longer popular builds are around the more time there is to figure out how to stop them. Patience is a virtue...
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On January 08 2011 10:59 BurningSera wrote:
funny that you think sc1 zerg's larva system is different to sc2's. and yes, you do play mostly terran, so dont try to deny/confuse people about that point. 'just have to play smart' is not a valid argument, go play 10 games as zerg now in ladder 1v1 (in any league) and come back to tell us about ' why being zerg = you have to try REALLY hard to outsmart the oppo to win'.
I, on the other hand, do play Zerg, and have never found a reason I lost the game that wasn't my fault, some mistake I made or not scouting properly or just plain ol' fashioned getting tricked.
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I'm personally fine with the fact people dislike the game (for one reason or the other, be it imbalance, mechanics, map imbalance, whatever). What I'm not fine with is that everybody wants to SHARE the fact and their reasons for not liking the game with the entire community so aggressively.
If you don't like the game that much, there are so many options you can do:
1. Send Blizzard love letters with your complaints or whine on battle.net forum, you know, their OFFICIAL forums (as opposed to TL, forums that have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT).
2. Stop playing the game. Simple, no? It's horrible, imbalanced, so why not quit instead of forcing other people and most importantly ME to read a hundred of similar complaining posts a day on TL? And you are forcing us, because there's posts about that everywhere in every thread in every part of the forums. It's not like I can dodge them.
3. You could just play to improve your general RTS gameplay and mechanics. Odds are they are really, really bad (and that goes for 99.99% of players). Odds are you are losing not because of imbalance, but because you're not playing that much better than your opponent. Odds are you wouldn't do much better even in a balanced game. Getting better is one strategy that always works against everything until you get near the top / pro level. It's sort of imbalanced like that.
Instead there's this need to fill TL with daily crap about the same things over and over again. Some of us like this game, enjoy playing it and are willing to give it as much time as it needs to improve (or die out, whichever the case may be).
You're not helping the game, the community, yourself or anybody else by screaming imbalance on daily basis. We already heard it all already. And I mean ALL. Why repeat it? What's the point? Who do you think is even reading all of it?
Most of the people who complain are just using the forums to vent and scream into thin air because they lost like 5 games on ladder (that they probably weren't good enough to win in the first place).
TL is not supposed to be a place for that.
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EPT
