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On March 14 2011 08:53 Sanguinarius wrote:
This is an excellent post. I also feel we are seeing changes so fast that the meta game doesn't really have a chance to develop and change. I want to see these strats play out and then see what counters fall out of the game. If we keep calling everything OP and nurfing everything, we might as well be playing Warcraft 1 where every unit is identical.
I don't think the problem is that the meta game has not the time to develop so much as it will not develop. It maybe just me, but I get the vibe that the general community has never moved beyond the Beta mentality. So long as the game is not widely beloved by upper tier old school legends, the fault is squarely on the Blizzard's shoulders. So its up to them to complain the loudest to get favorable patch results, rather then do the best with what they got.
This is not say some tweaking is needed, but I think one of the biggest Tweaks SC2 needs is in the mentalities of 90% of the playing community. If you lose a lot to something, make a note of it sure, but spending more time creating work arounds. I get the feeling though, that if a pro comments on balance, it trickles down to the average player and legitimizes mechanical complaints rather then blaming your own self for being bad.
Notice if a pro comments, it is usually after many many hours of grinding out games against top players, and it is usually a comment on a specific timing window that is being heavily abused in some fashion, where unit compositions and economic management align to create an extremely unfavorable and "imbalanced" situation. They may be able to beat it, but the resulting positions are compromised to such a degree that a similar high level opponent could easily exploit the vulnerability and earn a "cheap" win.
Contrast this to the majority of balance complaints that flatly call a whole unit imbalanced, or worse, and entire race. It is clearly more or less players venting frustration at their own faults, but the act of blaming it on Blizzard rather then the player is far too legitimized in the eyes of the community to allow for a stable meta game to develop. At least on the broad scale of things.
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To the above poster I'd just comment that even if units were :useless" in BW they all had a role. the same cant be said about SC2. What is the purpose of the reaper? To explot badly designed Blizzard terrain and look cool. What a waste! The Mothership? The carrier? Sensor towers? Ridiculous deathball pathing? They serve no purpose. This is bad design and that falls squarely on the developers who followed the flawed philosophy of a designer of bad games. And ultimately the blame lay with Blizz who I suspect is just milking SC2 for a giant name-based money grab.
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On March 13 2011 23:22 IdrA wrote:
not true at all that youll only get info on the current metagame
some z's have been saying since the beta that immortal ht compositions are just as overpowered pvz as collosus builds, and theyre just now starting to see use and success
blizzard gets 2 things from the competitive community, feedback and replays. if the standard metagame are collosus builds, for sure you're going to get more info on the standard builds than immortal/ht. as you said, only some zergs comment on immortal/ht, but every zerg will comment on collosus.
zerg issues with collosus are one of the few things i think has been out long enough for blizzard to make changes. we've gone through 5 seasons. immortal/ht has not been as widespread, and thus not as much data.
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On March 14 2011 00:30 Kazang wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Removing KA does not remove gameplay.
This and your previous thread have been centralized around this supposed issue. While you line of thinking is not "wrong" as such, it is not in line with what the design of the game is and you are looking at from the wrong perspective.
KA is mechanic that stagnates, that causes over reliance on a mechanic (warpgates) instead of using a more varied array of styles and more interesting strategies than just warp-in -> storm.
KA is not being removed because it is not balanced (although it can be argued that it is unbalanced, that is not the issue here) who was complaining about it before this? What pros thought it was grievously imbalanced? I would wager there weren't very many who thought KA was the reason they find it difficult to beat Protoss.
The KA change, and in fact the "Design" of the game is centred around being fun, entertaining and skilful.
Warp-in storm is just a dumb mechanic, dumb as in stupid, not clever. There is no thought, no planing, no strategy, no tension, no skill factor.
Where are the intrinsic unit tensions between Ghost and Templar if they are never on the field with enough energy to storm for more than 5 seconds? Where is the multipronged drop harass and skirmished based play if Drops and small attacks that take planning, time and resources to execute are stopped dead by instant warp in?
Ling run-bys? The Muta harass? Infestor harass (although HT can still feedback on warp in)?
All severely hindered by KA.
KA actually reduces the number of viable strategies and tactics that the game can offer, not the other way around.
HT on the other hand do not need to have instant storm on warp in to be viable.
Another example of this similar effect of a nerf making more strategies viable not less.
Bunker build time:
What pro, or indeed who at all is complaining the bunker builds to fast? Quite a few pros have been quite vocal about being annoyed that blizzard is in their opinion wasting their time making tiny changes such as those to the bunker.
The issue is not balance, it's more likely that bunker rushes can too easily end a game and result in that repetitive stagnation that you are keen to avoid. Bunker rushes are so good that they are pretty much always worth doing against zerg. Example July Vs Nada, Nada Bunker rushes every game.
Bunker rushes are not grievously imbalanced, but they are probably too easy and too effective for the cost/risk, making them almost mandatory, like getting siege mode for tanks, it's not overpowered it's just such a good upgrade that it is required if you want to use tanks.
A similar parallel can be drawn with the bunker, but while siege mode increases strategic variety, fast, low risk bunkers reduce it by deciding games very quickly or by simply resulting in dull and repetitive strategy.
TLDR You are not wrong, but you are looking at the "issue" from the wrong perspective, even assuming there is an "issue" in the first place negatively colours your thoughts.
Most changes are not directly related to the mythical creature "balance" but how the game actually plays.
this is a good point, but how do you know that KA is restrictive on strategies. We don't know yet because its such a new strategy. Furthermore, aren't there considerably less drastic changes that can be done instead of completely removing said strategy. You could increase the wrap-in time, or take incontrols idea of adding a cooldown to storm. so many different alternatives.
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On March 13 2011 23:22 Dommk wrote:
And same T's have been saying that the only way they can beat Zerg is by doing lame shit like Bunker rushing to block early hatcheries, or 2rax, but that isn't exactly the case either.
Probably because they haven't tried anything besides that, and when it fails or they attempt a poor unit combination which is easily countered (I don't think this exists in TvZ now that I think about it) they give up.
The fact that Terrans still do extremely well against Zerg yet have never even bothered incorporating units such as Ghosts or Ravens into their composition is pretty disgusting. Snipe, PDD, Seeker Missile are all insanely powerful yet I almost always see the same 3 units in every one of my ZvTs, because that's all they need to bother to make to win most of the time.
The same could be said for the Zerg side of the fence, but on a much smaller scale. Hydralisks are the only unit I absolutely never see in a ZvT, but for good reason. They are just awful for their cost.
Someone was actually telling me about a ZvT they saw on Idra's stream where the guy loaded up ghosts in medivacs and sent them around the map killing his Queens, drones, Overlords, and Mutas repeatedly. I honestly don't think that we are seeing even close to the full potential of how much Terran can do in the TvZ matchup. I blame it on Blizzard, because if winning TvZ wasn't as easy as making marines, tanks, and medivacs for the first 15-20 minutes of a game then the innovative Terran players would have found more creative ways to evolve this matchup. As it stands I feel like it's the most stagnant, because there are so few things that actually work for Zerg right now, which makes it extremely predictable.
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My five cents;
Buff things, instead of nerfing them.
Nerfing makes the game dull, buffing makes it more epic.
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On March 14 2011 06:03 teamsolid wrote:
Most of the stuff you listed only popped up like almost a decade into the game, so I'd just give it some time, and hope the expansions add some cool units/abilities.
All of the stuff you quoted was most definitely common knowledge well before 2008/2009 (a decade into the game). I remember doing almost every single thing listed by ~2003 (when I quit playing) because I had seen it done somewhere else or heard about it from a friend, not because I was a genius. If it was really never done until 2008 then there is no way I would have ever known about it, much less done it myself.
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I watched a random broodwar game yesterday (I suggest if you haven't, do so). The timings windows seemed to be a lot more frequent and shifted favor back and forth. Not to mention for Solid 30 minutes there was always a fight going on. Literally zero downtime for pure macro.
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On March 14 2011 00:12 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2011 23:22 Dommk wrote:Dayvi was talking to HuK on his stream and said something along the lines of "every pro thinks their race is the weakest race, I think that is a sign that we are doing a good job with balance" Kind of is really some z's have been saying since the beta that immortal ht compositions are just as overpowered pvz as collosus builds And same T's have been saying that the only way they can beat Zerg is by doing lame shit like Bunker rushing to block early hatcheries, or 2rax, but that isn't exactly the case either. results back one up and not the other
You mean like how no terrans in either GSL ro4 OR IEM top 6? Yeah zerg is OP as shit these days. Good call IdrA.
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On March 14 2011 14:08 BanelingXD wrote:
To the above poster I'd just comment that even if units were :useless" in BW they all had a role. the same cant be said about SC2. What is the purpose of the reaper? To explot badly designed Blizzard terrain and look cool. What a waste! The Mothership? The carrier? Sensor towers? Ridiculous deathball pathing? They serve no purpose. This is bad design and that falls squarely on the developers who followed the flawed philosophy of a designer of bad games. And ultimately the blame lay with Blizz who I suspect is just milking SC2 for a giant name-based money grab.
I'm pretty sure that I have seen every unit in SC2 used more frequently and to better effect than the Dark Archon, Devourer, Scout, and Valkyrie were in BW. I could count the games I've seen any of them in on one hand. Motherships are currently used a lot in PvZ lategame. Carriers are pretty rare, yes, but there were stretches they were rare in BW too (unless you're Stork). Sensor towers are great lategame as well. Part of it is the lack of macro maps that's finally being addressed.
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On March 14 2011 14:08 BanelingXD wrote:
To the above poster I'd just comment that even if units were :useless" in BW they all had a role. the same cant be said about SC2. What is the purpose of the reaper? To explot badly designed Blizzard terrain and look cool. What a waste! The Mothership? The carrier? Sensor towers? Ridiculous deathball pathing? They serve no purpose. This is bad design and that falls squarely on the developers who followed the flawed philosophy of a designer of bad games. And ultimately the blame lay with Blizz who I suspect is just milking SC2 for a giant name-based money grab.
Kinda hard to take this seriously as 50% of the things you listed have seen use in the GSL and other big tournaments. Sensor towers and motherships DO serve a purpose, reapers and carriers less so.
Also Blizzard milking SC2 for a quick money grab doesn't go well with the fact that they provide a large part of the price money of the GSL and other large tournaments.
TLDR: You seem mad about SC2 not being BW, something that's colouding you argument to the point where it's just a rant.
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How do you guys feel about the cartoonish graphics of sc2? I personally hate it. Infact every blizzard game now is going in the cartoonish direction and i cant understand why. WHY is cartoonish graphics better than real life ones? Personally i like more BW graphics (the feel of it) even tho i never played BW and just watched the proscene
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On March 15 2011 09:51 NukeD wrote:
How do you guys feel about the cartoonish graphics of sc2? I personally hate it. Infact every blizzard game now is going in the cartoonish direction and i cant understand why. WHY is cartoonish graphics better than real life ones? Personally i like more BW graphics (the feel of it) even tho i never played BW and just watched the proscene
Warcraft 1+2+3, SC and BW ALL look cartoony to me. They are sprite based so they obviously look drawn, just like every old sprite based 8-16 bit console game.
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^^ Warcraft 3 is not sprite based but of course it does look cartoony ^^
On March 15 2011 09:51 NukeD wrote:
How do you guys feel about the cartoonish graphics of sc2? I personally hate it. Infact every blizzard game now is going in the cartoonish direction and i cant understand why. WHY is cartoonish graphics better than real life ones? Personally i like more BW graphics (the feel of it) even tho i never played BW and just watched the proscene
Personally I think SC2 looks amazing in comparison to brood war. Sprites are sprites no matter how "gritty." SC2 looks kind of crappy on low graphical settings, but there's no way around that.
I don't really know why people think it looks cartoony like warcraft 3 or WoW because I don't think it does (with higher graphical settings anyway). I guess it's similar to all those complaints about Diablo 3 when they announced that they were using colors other than brown and grey.
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In my opinion there's not gonna be much change in how Zerg is played. Zerg is based around defending what your opponents are throwing at you and you're limited to 9 combat units doing so. The fact that some units hardcounter other units so hard makes it impossible to vary your playstyle - you will get destroyed if you try to. Zerg will be all about defending the one big 2 base timing push your opponent is setting up and then remaxing and attacking asap. Zerg doesn't really have anything left to be figured out. You're always reacting and only got 9 combat units.
The only thing we're about to see is T and P changing their playstyles. If the vray colossi build in ZvP wasn't so extremely easy to pull of and so hard to defend then we would see the Immortal HT (Blink)Stalker build way more often. It absolutely demolishes Zerg and has no counter. Bad news: You will have to play as good as the zerg to make to it work though.
The fact that some things are so strong really hurts other stuff, that will never be found out, because people refuse to play an appearently worse build.
I also think IdrA and Artosis said it very well when they said that the current trend so far has been nerfing stuff instead of buffing other stuff. I think nerfing things is bad. You will lose a lot of variety (reapers come in mind) and the game will get more and more fragile.
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EPT
