(T/N : Editted it to include a second interview which talks a bit more about Heart of the Swarm)
(More T/N : Due to much rages, I'm including this line so more people will remember the fact that this interview is a translated interview, and above that, I have no guarantees about the grasp of English that the original interviewers had when they talked to Dustin or when his answers were translated. If there's still rage after taking this into account, feel free I guess )
At Blizzard's 20th anniversary, game.163.com sent out an interview team to interview some of the executives and leaders of Blizzard. The following is the interview between the team and Dustin Browder, the Leader Designer of Starcraft 2 at Blizzard.
This first part of the interview was conducted on 27 April.
Thank you Mister Dustin for this exclusive interview with game.163.com. As we all know, Starcraft 2 is a competitive game, an eSport. As a result, balance is especially important. However, some of the top players from Korea, like Nestea and fruitdealer, complain that the Zerg race is very weak. What does Blizzard have to say about this?
Dustin : There is a chance they might be right, but most of the time, our views on balance have to be supported by data, As of now, from the data that we have, we are unable to support the view that the Zerg race is very weak.
In the Grandmaster Leagues and Master Leagues of the various battlenet regions in the world, the win ratios of all 3 races are between 50-55%. If we look at any one region, Protoss might be the top race one week, but they could also very well be overtaken by Terran the following week. These patterns might also show up differently in different regions. Therefore, based on the data that we have, we do not agree that there is a problem with the balance of the game.
Furthermore, you have to understand that the players of the different races are saying different things about the situation. Terran players are also complaining that Terran is hard to play. Similarly, Protoss players are also complaining about their own race. We do not acknowledge that there are signs of imbalance in the game. Our view is that the balance situation in the game is quite good as of now.
Apart from balance, the situation where one unit counters another unit is quite serious. This makes it very hard to stage a comeback in games. In Starcraft 1, players could make comebacks through the use of various strategies or through some other means. However, it is very difficult to do make combacks in Starcraft 2. What do you think about this issue? (T/N : I have no idea how one unit type countering another unit type makes staging comebacks hard, but that's what it seems to say in the article. Perhaps someone could explain it, or look at the original article and see what it really is talking about and translate it better than me.)
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
I've watched quite a number of tournaments. We have lots of situations where player A wins the first game, and player B comes back to win the second game. Within the games themselves, we also see the advantage keep swinging from one player to another. This shows that the state of Starcraft 2 is not that one sided. Perhaps, the situation in these tournaments are not completely accurate, but from what I see now in the top tournaments, unit counters are actually quite relative. (T/N : I have a feeling this paragraph was translated pretty badly, but I translated it to the best of my abilities. If anyone can do a better job with this question, please don't be shy to contribute.)
For example, let's look at a situation where we have banelings fighting against marines. If they were to just clash against each other without any micro, the banelings will definitely kill off a lot of marines. However, if the marines have stim, I believe you can use micro to come out ahead in the engagement. Let's look at another situation, where we have banshees against marines. In a straight up fight, the marines will definitely win the fight. Yet, if the banshee has cloak, the situation would be different. Let's look at yet another situation, marauders against stalkers. If both sides a-move, clearly the marauder will win. However, if the stalker has blink, and uses blink well, the situation might turn out different as well.
Regarding Blizzard All-Stars, can Blizzard reveal any more details about it?
Dustin : (Dustin starts laughing at the mention of All-Stars) As of now, we are unable to reveal anything more. There is a lot of balancing we need to do, and a lot of details that we are still working on. In addition to carrying the name of Blizzard, this map also carries with it the name of DOTA, and because of that, we will definitely remain true to our reputation. Until we feel that the map is perfect enough, we won't be revealing any information about it.
What I can reveal though, is that we are in the process of fleshing out the details and contents, as well as testing the balance of the map.
Does Blizzard have any future plans regarding custom maps and ladder maps?
Dustin : As far as custom maps go, it will just be the few that we have for now. For ladder maps however, the plan is that every season will have new maps, and each season will last for about 3 months.
For example, we released quite a number of maps for 1v1 for season 2 which just started. In that case, we might release more 3v3 or 4v4 maps in season 3. The more popular maps will then be kept in the map pool.
Taking another example, there is also a possibility we might see some maps from season 3 reappearing in season 7 or something like that.
Chinese players are grumbling that they are unable to buy a full retail copy (T/N : They have to pay a montly fee to "rent" the game), and Asian players are grumbling that they are unable to get a Collector's Edition of the game. Are there plans to release the Collector's Edition in Asia when Heart of the Swarm comes out?
Dustin : Firstly, I'm not the right person to answer this question. Someone from the marketing or sales department would probably be able to answer this question more accurately.
Furthermore, we are unable to reveal much regarding this, but we can assure you that we are looking into this problem and listening to the views of the players. We are very open and receptive to the comments by the players, and we are going to start looking into the situation regarding this issue.
Is Blizzard going to add a clan system into battlenet? If there is going to be a clan system, what benefits can we expect from it?
Dustin : We have heard about this idea, and it is definitely something we want to do. Perhaps, players would be able to have their clan tag in their names while playing, or we might be able to have clan wars. However, we do not have a specific plan or timing to go into this, and we are unable to give you any specific details. Only one thing can be sure, that this is the direction we want to head towards in the future.
One final question. Starcraft 2 has amazing CG. Can it be made into a movie?
Dustin : We are happy and proud to be able to hear such good comments about it, but I do not know of any plans to do that.
In the end, we are still a game company. There is about 40 minutes of CG in Wings of Liberty, and that already took up quite a substantial amount of time. That being said, we will be putting in even more effort in producing the CG for Heart of the Swarm.
This is the second part of the interview, conducted on 28 April.
Thank you Mister Dustin for this exclusive interview from game.163.com. The topic on everyone's mind has much to do with Heart of the Swarm. Blizzard is going to release part of the storymode of Heart of the Swarm for testing in May. Are you able to reveal any new elements or details or contents in Heart of the Swarm now?
Dustin : We are currently working very hard in creating Heart of the Swarm, but as of now, there is no confirmed information that we can give you. The only thing we can say is that Heart of the Swarm will differ from Wings of Liberty in many many different areas. Much of Heart of the Swarm will be talking about the story of Sarah Kerrigan, and many things will be happening to her, and she might be attacked quite a number of times too.
Wow. That's not a good thing for Sarah Kerrigan fans!
Dustin : Haha, I guess you could say that. However, it allows the story and the character of Sarah Kerrigan to be more fully developed.
In the website for Blizzcon this year, Sarah Kerrigan appears in a "purified" state. Will she be appearing in this state in Heart of the Swarm?
Dustin : She's changed a lot. You should know if you've played Wings of Liberty before. At the end of Wings of Liberty, she underwent many changes due to the artifact. Her character and how she appears will undergo many changes, and we might see many different versions of Sarah Kerrigan. However, the final image can only be finalised and confirmed at the release of Heart of the Swarm.
This year, Polo went to Korea to deal with the issue of intellectual property rights with Kespa. As a result, both parties entered into a lawsuit. After that, GomTV chose to return their rights for Starcraft 1 to Blizzard. Does this mean that Blizzard will continue to maintain this attitude with regards to intellectual property right? (T/N : Sorry. Another tough question to translate because I do not know too much about the situation.)
Dustin : Yes. In fact, I specifically went to Korea to deal with the intellectual property rights of Starcraft 1. There's one thing I want to say here. GomTV and Blizzard has a very tight and solid relationship. Both parties will do their best to create a top environment for Starcraft 2 as an eSport. Even though Starcraft 1 is still going on, we will still be placing more emphasis on Starcraft 2. This will be our main focus from here on.
Finally, can you say something to the players in China?
Dustin : We are very grateful and thankful to the players from China. I hope the players will enjoy this game and be able to really invest themselves into it. We have many amazing plans in the future, including Heart of the Swarm and many programs like Battlenet (T/N : Need some help here. Don't quite understand the Chinese)
I hope the Chinese players will continue to support Starcraft 2, and continue giving us their support and feedback.
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
His Banshee vs Marines example is equally bad. Using cloak is 'micro'? It's just an ability. If he had have said "with good banshee control you can overcome any number of marines" it would have made sense.
It's honestly scary that he still doesn't understand what micro actually is.
Thanks for the translation, this interview is one of the better ones.
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
Thanks for the translation, this interview is one of the better ones.
It was such a good question (regarding the difficulty of staging a comeback), but Browder just dances around it by talking about micro. Disappointing. It scares me a little that they won't address this major issue.
Chinese players are grumbling that they are unable to buy a full retail copy (T/N : They have to pay a montly fee "rent" the game), and Asian players are grumbling that they are unable to get a Collector's Edition of the game. Are there plans to release the Collector's Edition in Asia when Heart of the Swarm comes out?
Dustin : Firstly, I'm not the right person to answer this question. Someone from the marketing or sales department would probably be able to answer this question more accurately.
Furthermore, we are unable to reveal much regarding this, but we can assure you that we are looking into this problem and listening to the views of the players. We are very open and receptive to the comments by the players, and we are going to start looking into the situation regarding this issue.
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
His Banshee vs Marines example is equally bad. Using cloak is 'micro'? It's just an ability. If he had have said "with good banshee control you can overcome any number of marines" it would have made sense.
It's honestly scary that he still doesn't understand what micro actually is.
Thanks for the translation, this interview is one of the better ones.
What, did you actually expect him to acknowledge his team's shortcomings when it was brought up in an interview?
We do not acknowledge that there are signs of imbalance in the game. Our view is that the balance situation in the game is quite good as of now.
Wow.
I think hes right...any imbalance can be removed by figuring out how to sidestep them.If you can't then there is seriously something wrong and they need to patch that.
I thought first "well he's a game designer not the balance guru" then thought about that for about a minute until I realized how retarded that was.
This guy basically designed the game but can't even make a semi-decent comparison between two units? Not that it matters as what he says is bullocks. Units hard counter too much in SC2 compared to SC1 and he have no answer to why that is and doesn't want to understand.
On April 28 2011 23:14 Weirdkid wrote: Haha you might want to note that that question/answer was particularly difficult to translate, so there might be some problems with the translation.
That was done to the best of my abilities though, and as far as I understand it, that's a correct translation. I might be wrong
It looks like you did a good job. The interviewer's had some really great questions too. I wish other interviewers asked questions like those. They always end up being something pointless like "When will we get more achievements?"
game.163.com has earned my respect
Some of the answers are just so disappointing to read though.
On April 28 2011 23:18 R3N wrote: I thought first "well he's a game designer not the balance guru" then thought about that for about a minute until I realized how retarded that was.
This guy basically designed the game but can't even make a semi-decent comparison between two units? Not that it matters as what he says is bullocks. Units hard counter too much in SC2 compared to SC1 and he have no answer to why that is and doesn't want to understand.
SC2 doesn't have hard unit counters. If it did there would lots more swings and comebacks. Hard counters are what creates comeback situations....
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
Agreed, I wanted to just quote that and say "WAT".
I feel like a lot of people have pointed out in SC1 you could win a game against a inferior opponent with the crappiest army composition but in SC2 if you make the wrong composition and/or your opponent has the just right composition there's very little you could do to win the battle or game. That's been my experience too at least.
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
His Banshee vs Marines example is equally bad. Using cloak is 'micro'? It's just an ability. If he had have said "with good banshee control you can overcome any number of marines" it would have made sense.
It's honestly scary that he still doesn't understand what micro actually is.
Thanks for the translation, this interview is one of the better ones.
What, did you actually expect him to acknowledge his team's shortcomings when it was brought up in an interview?
Yeah, something like:
We know there are some issues with some units being too much of a hard counter to others. We are working hard on making micro more rewarding for players for Heart of the Swarm. Banelings vs Marines are a good example of what we want to aim for.
The team is also fine with Zerglings being able to kill High Templars and will not be making any adjustments here.
I would have been pretty happy with that response.
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
Thanks for the translation, this interview is one of the better ones.
It was such a good question (regarding the difficulty of staging a comeback), but Browder just dances around it by talking about micro. Disappointing. It scares me a little that they won't address this major issue.
Imho the major issue is that people seem to think there is a major issue here. At every stage of SC2s lifespan there have been development through playerskill. Every day. Yet at every point in time there are people with the strong belief that there are "major issues" that must be solved through changes in the actual game.
If you compare to just a couple of months ago how there was big battles and then GG, to how it looks now with tenious harass and quite often comebacks.
The question was answered very well. Unit counters are alot stronger in SC1, but yet people percieve SC2 unit "counters" are extremly strong. The longer we'll play this game the looser this term will be for sure, as it did in BW.
--
Anyway thanks for the translations and the interview! Let the hordes of crying noobs commence...
On April 28 2011 23:18 R3N wrote: I thought first "well he's a game designer not the balance guru" then thought about that for about a minute until I realized how retarded that was.
This guy basically designed the game but can't even make a semi-decent comparison between two units? Not that it matters as what he says is bullocks. Units hard counter too much in SC2 compared to SC1 and he have no answer to why that is and doesn't want to understand.
SC2 doesn't have hard unit counters. If it did there would lots more swings and comebacks. Hard counters are what creates comeback situations....
No, it's more like units that can hard counter with amazing micro, or die immediately with bad micro (ex. the reaver, sc1 templar, defiler) create comebacks. Also, if the units take a long time to make and are REALLY expensive, that makes it much more interesting. I feel like every unit in SC2 varies from pretty bad to pretty good, and pretty cheap to kinda expensive. Every unit just feels "average-ish"
Furthermore, you have to understand that the players of the different races are saying different things about the situation. Terran players are also complaining that Terran is hard to play. Similarly, Protoss players are also complaining about their own race. We do not acknowledge that there are signs of imbalance in the game. Our view is that the balance situation in the game is quite good as of now.
If everyone is bitching then the game is pretty balanced. That actually sort of makes sense.
40 minutes of CG? Really? Did they include the portrait art in that or something? I distinctly remember there being very little CG and I was disappointed by it.
Also, those balance comments make me want to smash something =(
Dustin has no clue what he is talking about when he talks about balance or units (he manages to say stupid stuff in each interview). He should also answer those with "it is better to direct that question to the balance department".
Yay to future clan system (although by his words they do not even know when to fit implementing that so probably at least a year before we see something like that).
Yay about map pool being changed regularly (hopefully we do not see stupid maps like Steps of War back).
Yay about the movie, but I would have loved if they asked about making a live action movie, not CGI one. Something in the range of Starship Troopers (in budget) but in SC universe would be a great movie to watch.
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
Thanks for the translation, this interview is one of the better ones.
It was such a good question (regarding the difficulty of staging a comeback), but Browder just dances around it by talking about micro. Disappointing. It scares me a little that they won't address this major issue.
Imho the major issue is that people seem to think there is a major issue here. At every stage of SC2s lifespan there have been development through playerskill. Every day. Yet at every point in time there are people with the strong belief that there are "major issues" that must be solved through changes in the actual game.
If you compare to just a couple of months ago how there was big battles and then GG, to how it looks now with tenious harass and quite often comebacks.
The question was answered very well. Unit counters are alot stronger in SC1, but yet people percieve SC2 unit "counters" are extremly strong. The longer we'll play this game the looser this term will be for sure, as it did in BW.
--
Anyway thanks for the translations and the interview! Let the hordes of crying noobs commence...
You're right dood. It isn't deathball vs deathball anymore... Watch a SC1 game (even from 4-5 years ago) and it is much more spread out, exciting, action packed, and with more comebacks.
On April 28 2011 23:23 infinity2k9 wrote: It has harder unit counters than BW for sure. Vultures vs Dragoons anyone?
If a group of vultures attack moves into a group of Dragoons also attack moving then yes you are correct.
The difference is that a group of well controlled Vultures planting mines in the right spots and flanking the Dragoons will win. On the other hand the opposing player with Dragoons can also micro his face off - defusing mines, spreading out and pulling back weak Dragoons.
It becomes a battle of who has better control rather than who has the better army composition. The winner is always the better player.
How exactly do you do the same thing when it is Thor vs Immortal?
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
His Banshee vs Marines example is equally bad. Using cloak is 'micro'? It's just an ability. If he had have said "with good banshee control you can overcome any number of marines" it would have made sense.
It's honestly scary that he still doesn't understand what micro actually is.
Thanks for the translation, this interview is one of the better ones.
Let's look at yet another situation, marauders against stalkers. If both sides a-move, clearly the marauder will win. However, if the stalker has blink, and uses blink well, the situation might turn out different as well.
hahaahahaha..... did you ppl ever see that stalker blink conter MARAders with stim pack :D....Hard conters (like in wc3 tft) remuve abylity of comeback that is truth....becous of that sc1 was so epic game....becous every unite have it purpes in every part of game and newer becamed usles...
only way to solwe that problem is by nerfing splash unites and staf like stim pack(everything that do to much dps and can move)
On April 28 2011 23:25 Beef Noodles wrote: No, it's more like units that can hard counter with amazing micro, or die immediately with bad micro (ex. the reaver, sc1 templar, defiler) create comebacks.
Right, so you agree that hard counters are what creates comebacks. You just want those hard counters accessible via micro, yes?
As you mention by your examples, most of these cases are down to casters - they're a unit type that can be awesome or terribad. SC2 has this too, great spell usage changes games. It probably does have less, but that's in no small part because it's simply less developed. SC didn't have all those micro tricks since release! That said I agree SC2 could use a couple more casters around.
Also, if the units take a long time to make and are REALLY expensive, that makes it much more interesting. I feel like every unit in SC2 varies from pretty bad to pretty good, and pretty cheap to kinda expensive. Every unit just feels "average-ish"
So first SC2 is the game with hard counters, now SC2 is the game where every unit is average and BW is the game where units are amazing at one thing and shit at another - aka they hard counter? Make up your mind.
Furthermore, you have to understand that the players of the different races are saying different things about the situation. Terran players are also complaining that Terran is hard to play. Similarly, Protoss players are also complaining about their own race. We do not acknowledge that there are signs of imbalance in the game. Our view is that the balance situation in the game is quite good as of now.
If everyone is bitching then the game is pretty balanced. That actually sort of makes sense.
Sure, but Zergs are complaining about not having a way to beat a lategame Protoss, and the response to that is usually that there might be a way and Zergs should keep trying. Dustin over here though doesn't even seem to recognize that lategame ZvP is pretty L-O-L atm.
That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
hahahaa.......what?
Either way I was wondering what kind of statistical data they use for the 50-55% winratio among the races, I mean do they leave mirror matches out?And doesn't the Bnet matchmaking system pretty much drive you to the 50%?Therefore the game will always look balanced?
i dont think he was making a comparsion, he was asked, why does the game have hardcounters, then he was basically like, O really ? and then proceeded to give examples where 'supposedly" hardcounters can be countered by either micro or using abilities..................
The interview was pretty good, i do not understand why the QQ from it. The part where he said
"Dustin : There is a chance they might be right, but most of the time, our views on balance have to be supported by data, As of now, from the data that we have, we are unable to support the view that the Zerg race is very weak. "
is very important to note. It might seem that zerg is gimped to some, but from my interpreting of this, hes trying to say that the Results on ladder games do not show imbalance.
On April 28 2011 23:25 Beef Noodles wrote: No, it's more like units that can hard counter with amazing micro, or die immediately with bad micro (ex. the reaver, sc1 templar, defiler) create comebacks.
Right, so you agree that hard counters are what creates comebacks. You just want those hard counters accessible via micro, yes?
As you mention by your examples, most of these cases are down to casters - they're a unit type that can be awesome or terribad. SC2 has this too, great spell usage changes games. It probably does have less, but that's in no small part because it's simply less developed. SC didn't have all those micro tricks since release! That said I agree SC2 could use a couple more casters around.
Also, if the units take a long time to make and are REALLY expensive, that makes it much more interesting. I feel like every unit in SC2 varies from pretty bad to pretty good, and pretty cheap to kinda expensive. Every unit just feels "average-ish"
So first SC2 is the game with hard counters, now SC2 is the game where every unit is average and BW is the game where units are amazing at one thing and shit at another - aka they hard counter? Make up your mind.
Oh I wasn't trying to argue, and I was just saying that having hard counters that don't die easily (the collosus) makes games kind of boring and hard to comeback from. I think SC2 has hard counters, but not in creative ways (if that makes since). They are all average health, average damage, ranged units (for the most part). It doesn't allow for crazy razor thin micro battles. I agree with you, I was just saying its better when the hard counters are glass cannons.
hmm i think people are getting the wrong idea of "the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in sc1." in bw certain matchups you could only make 1 or 2 unit types at most stages of the game until late game, where sc2 has more options. entire units didnt get made in broodwar.... scouts valkries firebats queens etc etc. or if you look at zvz the most basic match-up for both sc1 had basically zerglings and mutalisks, where sc2 has zerglings, banelings, mutas, roaches, hydras, infestors, queens... etc etc. theres just more options early on in sc2. granted people make a good point of dragoons vs vultures but thats something that took a few years to find out, who knows maybe marines could someday always come on top vs banelings.... oh wait.
In no universe do blink stalkers kill maruaders what the fuck rofl. In extreme cases where the protoss is 3-3 and the terran is 0-0, maybe...but equal armies nope.
The Starcraft II community must excommunicate Dustin Browder from humanity because he is clearly some devilish fiend from outer space.
On April 28 2011 23:35 Kipsate wrote: Either way I was wondering what kind of statistical data they use for the 50-55% winratio among the races, I mean do they leave mirror matches out?And doesn't the Bnet matchmaking system pretty much drive you to the 50%?Therefore the game will always look balanced?
The matchmaker pushes you to an overall winrate of 50%, yes. If a race consistently wins a matchup too much, their winrates will become lopsided - they'll win the other non-mirror less. So in the usual PvZ example, if that matchup is broken, then Protoss should be "inflating" their MMR by killing lots of Zergs, but conversely having a really poor PvT winrate. Of course, it's not the only thing you want to look at. That result could also be caused by PvT being Terran favored.
Anyway, occasionally I can see where the guy is coming from. Just wish they'd look more at the high level gameplay, and much less on raw statistics and unit abilities.
bw has just more comeback because it requires more skill. if someone with more skill is at a disadvantage, that person can come back from the situation. I think dustin is talking about comebacks in multiple games. win one game, lose another sort of thing.
also, its more difficult to micro effectively in sc2 IMO since your units don't move retarded like in SC2. bw units sometimes lag behind so dmg doesn't come that fast.
sc2 has a good number of splash dmg so I don't think deathball vs deathball is not a problem. sc2 is just more complicated in countering battles since there's more variety in army(like someone said, no one goes pure lings/muta).
On April 28 2011 23:37 Beef Noodles wrote: Oh I wasn't trying to argue, and I was just saying that having hard counters that don't die easily (the collosus) makes games kind of boring and hard to comeback from. I think SC2 has hard counters, but not in creative ways (if that makes since). They are all average health, average damage, ranged units (for the most part). It doesn't allow for crazy razor thin micro battles. I agree with you, I was just saying its better when the hard counters are glass cannons.
Well I'm not sure how you can say that TBH. Colossus doesn't die easily? They're total garbage against everything but a clumped up army of small units. They die to anything flying, or any of the "big" units - thors, ultras etc.
I understand what you're saying about uncreative counters, but a lot of those creative counters that BW has have been developed over the years. They certainly aren't obvious. At the start of SC, vultures WERE useless because of dragoons - to use the classic example. In fact Terran in general were considered crap...
On April 28 2011 23:41 WniO wrote: hmm i think people are getting the wrong idea of "the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in sc1." in bw certain matchups you could only make 1 or 2 unit types at most stages of the game until late game, where sc2 has more options. entire units didnt get made in broodwar.... scouts valkries firebats queens etc etc. or if you look at zvz the most basic match-up for both sc1 had basically zerglings and mutalisks, where sc2 has zerglings, banelings, mutas, roaches, hydras, infestors, queens... etc etc. theres just more options early on in sc2. granted people make a good point of dragoons vs vultures but thats something that took a few years to find out, who knows maybe marines could someday always come on top vs banelings.... oh wait.
Sorry but you are wrong... Pretty much all units get used in BW.
Firebats are very common in TvZ as part of the bio ball. Valkyries are fairly common in TvZ mech builds if zerg goes Mutas. Queens are seeing huge use in both ZvZ and ZvT against mech. + Show Spoiler +
Just today in the MSL, Jaedong had around 20 Queens Broodling a huge tank line to death, it was spectacular.
The only unit you are right about is the Scout which is pretty much just a BM unit. But, what would BW be without the Royal Stove?
I don't mean to attack you or anything but I had to point those things out.
I agree with you that that more options is pretty much always better. The issue I have is that although there are more units to choose from, those units have less options in regards to control which doesn't make them as fun to use.
Seems like the translation between the one that conducted the interview and Dustin Browder was very poor. Most of the questions and answers made little to no sense at all.
I suggest people wait for better interviews, that should be coming in the next few weeks.
lol..... this shows that dustin dont give a .... abouth as hi made game to make plenty of many of as... ofc that is point but lol man i have no respect for him what a joke....
only thing that now keep game alive and making game bether is comunity they simply act like they dont give a sh.... about it....i think the IDRA and some pro players will made 10 times better game then this ppl hire... lol :D
Let's look at yet another situation, marauders against stalkers. If both sides a-move, clearly the marauder will win. However, if the stalker has blink, and uses blink well, the situation might turn out different as well.
if dustin think that blink stalker should conter maraders then nerf stim pack and that will maby hepend....
but simply all conters that he mentioned simply they dont exist comeback with hard conters in game simply dont work.....sry (if they nerf masive dps from game conter will exists but now not gona hepen)
On April 28 2011 23:18 R3N wrote: I thought first "well he's a game designer not the balance guru" then thought about that for about a minute until I realized how retarded that was.
This guy basically designed the game but can't even make a semi-decent comparison between two units? Not that it matters as what he says is bullocks. Units hard counter too much in SC2 compared to SC1 and he have no answer to why that is and doesn't want to understand.
SC2 doesn't have hard unit counters. If it did there would lots more swings and comebacks. Hard counters are what creates comeback situations....
YES, this what I was thinking too, and I don't get why people are upset regarding this point of the interview.
On May 12 2009 07:49 Aylear wrote: (...) And I want the designer who was brought in from Command & Conquer to be kept under close surveillance.
2009, bitches.
This is pretty much what I expected. This interview doesn't give me much hope for top level balance. The lead designer simply doesn't understand half the stuff the hardcore community is clamouring for, or he's a terrible, terrible PR guy.
Balance pretty good out of statistics - which is obviously correct - why should they care about every senseless whining? As long as they have no huge imbalance in the game, they need to switch nothing They actually watch tournaments ... if you look at all tournaments, you cannot see the huge imbalances everywhere for one race.
BW actually HAS harder unit counters. Am I the only one who played BW after Sc2? It's ridicolous in some cases as noob.
On May 12 2009 07:49 Aylear wrote: (...) And I want the designer who was brought in from Command & Conquer to be kept under close surveillance.
2009, bitches.
This is pretty much what I expected. This interview doesn't give me much hope for top level balance. The lead designer simply doesn't understand half the stuff the hardcore community is clamouring for, or he's a terrible, terrible PR guy.
Well, we do have David Kim, who is actually in charge of the balance of the game.
On April 28 2011 23:41 WniO wrote: hmm i think people are getting the wrong idea of "the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in sc1." in bw certain matchups you could only make 1 or 2 unit types at most stages of the game until late game, where sc2 has more options. entire units didnt get made in broodwar.... scouts valkries firebats queens etc etc. or if you look at zvz the most basic match-up for both sc1 had basically zerglings and mutalisks, where sc2 has zerglings, banelings, mutas, roaches, hydras, infestors, queens... etc etc. theres just more options early on in sc2. granted people make a good point of dragoons vs vultures but thats something that took a few years to find out, who knows maybe marines could someday always come on top vs banelings.... oh wait.
Sorry but you are wrong... Pretty much all units get used in BW.
Firebats are very common in TvZ as part of the bio ball. Valkyries are fairly common in TvZ mech builds if zerg goes Mutas. Queens are seeing huge use in both ZvZ and ZvT against mech. + Show Spoiler +
Just today in the MSL, Jaedong had around 20 Queens Broodling a huge tank line to death, it was spectacular.
The only unit you are right about is the Scout which is pretty much just a BM unit. But, what would BW be without the Royal Stove?
I don't mean to attack you or anything but I had to point those things out.
I agree with you that that more options is pretty much always better. The issue I have is that although there are more units to choose from, those units have less options in regards to control which doesn't make them as fun to use.
SC2 needs more fun!
I am a advid BW fan but you are wrong on a couple of points, Queens in ZvZ are as common as Hive ZvZ pretty much, and we all know how common Hive ZvZs are. Queens are however becoming more common in ZvT mech, in fact so common that it might be a revolution. Valkyries are NOT common in TvZ at all unless one goes the Fantasy build, usually valkyries are a nogo due to their vurtnablity to scourge and their explosive damage., they are however used in TvT whenever both players decide to go wraith. Firebats are common in TvZ though, due to their ability to sunken break and kill zerglings quickly.
Either way, not the place to discuss it.
So about the statistical data being used, does anyone know what sample size they use?Diamond and up?Platinum and up?Masters and up?
People at Blizzard are pretty ignorant it seems, good thing I changed from Zerg to Protoss few days ago. By-by frustration and random stupid losses all the time ( diamond leaque)
On April 28 2011 23:51 Kare wrote: His answers made no sense at all to me.
Seriously...
Sounds like he does not know that it is even possible to micro units. The only micro is blink micro and cloak "micro" LOL. Just wow..
If they won't put some really cool micro abilites for all races (zerg especially) and micro intensive units in HoS I am not going to waste my money on that expansion for sure.
On April 28 2011 23:51 Kare wrote: His answers made no sense at all to me.
Seriously...
Sounds like he does not know that it is even possible to micro units. The only micro is blink micro and cloak "micro" LOL. Just wow..
If they won't put some really cool micro abilites for all races (zerg especially) and micro intensive units in HoS I am not going to waste my money on that expansion for sure.
This whole interview is pretty much lost in translation. That's why the answers aren't making much sense.
I agree with him 100% on balance. Everyone was complaining like crazy about Protoss being OP--but Protoss are getting their asses kicked all over the place right now in GSL (both Code S and Code A). That's been true throughout the entire history of the game. Terran were considered OP at the start, but a Terran didn't win a GSL until 4 months in--while Zerg, the "UP" race, won the first 2 GSLs, and has looked very capable so far in the current one. Balance is damn good.
As for unit counters, he's right in the sense that SC2 unit compositions tend to be more diverse than in BW, where several matchup were dominated by 2-3 different kinds of units on each side. On the other hand, I disagree with him about micro--I think the SC2 micro ceiling is much higher than we've currently seen, but at the moment its not as good as BW (though it is developing nicely).
At this point, I think the focus should be much more on players developing new strats, and on developing better and better maps, than it should be on balance changes.
On April 29 2011 00:03 Kipsate wrote: So about the statistical data being used, does anyone know what sample size they use?Diamond and up?Platinum and up?Masters and up?
They look at all levels because they want all levels to be at least reasonably balanced. Would be bad for the game if new players couldn't win if they picked the wrong race.
In the past when they mentioned these stats it was usually diamond, dunno about now with masters/gm existing.
I wonder where they get their balance data though? Since the matchmaking system pretty much ensures you'll have around a 50% record unless you are the ultimate gosu, if zerg has a problem against T and P it wouldn't really show in any data.
On April 29 2011 00:09 MilesTeg wrote: I wonder where they get their balance data though? Since the matchmaking system pretty much ensures you'll have around a 50% record unless you are the ultimate gosu, if zerg has a problem against T and P it wouldn't really show in any data.
Yes it would. Why do people keep saying this? It's not complicated :/
The 50% is your overall record, you don't have seperate MMR for each matchup :/
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
I just lost faith in Starcraft 2 ever becoming as good a game as Brood War
Why does everyone complain about balance and unit countering and then compare SC2 to SC1? Their unit interfaces are completely different - multiple building select, large hotkey groups, smartcasting and better pathing all lead to the superior player being better able to press the advantage where necessary. The reason battles were more spread out in SC1 was because the players lacked the tools necessary to keep their armies tight and well controlled (with the exception of air).
I'm willing to bet that multiplayer SC1 on the SC2 engine would lead to swarm and deathball tactics, with harass thrown in - just like SC2!
Yes it would. Why do people keep saying this? It's not complicated :/
The 50% is your overall record, you don't have seperate MMR for each matchup :/
This. Especially in Grandmasters, where MMR breaks down (at a certain point, if you're good enough, there's no way the system can stabilize you at 50% win percentage because it will run out of people good enough to beat you--but this only occurs in grandmaster), cross-race matchup data is actually pretty useful, if enough games are played--which due to the nature of ladder, they are.
On April 29 2011 00:07 awesomoecalypse wrote: I agree with him 100% on balance. Everyone was complaining like crazy about Protoss being OP--but Protoss are getting their asses kicked all over the place right now in GSL (both Code S and Code A). That's been true throughout the entire history of the game. Terran were considered OP at the start, but a Terran didn't win a GSL until 4 months in--while Zerg, the "UP" race, won the first 2 GSLs, and has looked very capable so far in the current one. Balance is damn good.
It's really funny to read guys like you who explain all balance with GSLs. Terrans won much more tourneys than any other race from the release date, but they didn't win GSL for 4 months so yeah it explains everything. Lol did you even believe what you just said?
On April 29 2011 00:09 MilesTeg wrote: I wonder where they get their balance data though? Since the matchmaking system pretty much ensures you'll have around a 50% record unless you are the ultimate gosu, if zerg has a problem against T and P it wouldn't really show in any data.
It's 50% out of all matches, disregarding matchups.
For example, lets say a T player plays 30 games. 10 TvTs. 10 TvZs. 10 TvPs.
He wins 5 out of his 10 TvTs. He only wins 2 out of his 10 TvZs. He wins 8 out of his 10 TvPs.
Overall, his win/loss ratio against everything is going to be 50%. However, he only achieves this ratio because of his high TvP ratio balancing out his low TvZ ratio.
As someone said before, imbalance in a certain matchup can be deduced by seeing many people having higher win rates in that matchup yet having lower win rates in others.
For all the idiots complaining about "lolz, they use bronze balance, DB should be flogged for not listening to players who are extremely biased!". It is clearly stated in the interview that the statistics they have looked at are from GM/Masters level, and that they also follow tournaments. + Show Spoiler +
On April 28 2011 22:57 Weirdkid wrote:In the Grandmaster Leagues and Master Leagues of the various battlenet regions in the world, the win ratios of all 3 races are between 50-55%.
On April 29 2011 00:12 Robellicose wrote: Why does everyone complain about balance and unit countering and then compare SC2 to SC1? Their unit interfaces are completely different - multiple building select, large hotkey groups, smartcasting and better pathing all lead to the superior player being better able to press the advantage where necessary. The reason battles were more spread out in SC1 was because the players lacked the tools necessary to keep their armies tight and well controlled (with the exception of air).
I'm willing to bet that multiplayer SC1 on the SC2 engine would lead to swarm and deathball tactics, with harass thrown in - just like SC2!
The thing is, "swarm/deathball" is actually really, really nonoptimal in a lot of cases. Against Toss AOE, or an Infestor-heavy Zerg composition since the FG buff, or a well-positioned tank line...the last thing you want to do is clump in a huge ball.
This is a big part of what makes me think we've barely scratched the surface of SC2 micro. We still have pro level players doing stuff like putting a bioball in one control group, flying their vikings right over them, and then directly engaging a Colossus-heavy force.
Marine-baneling is the start of advanced SC2 micro, but it is far from the end. In a few years, people will be expertly spreading units against all kinds of AOE, Protoss will be individually blinking Stalkers out of danger (ala Blink rushing) only they'll be doing it in massive army engagements, Terrans will be expertly manuevering Hellions to set up perfect shots (the way they do in mineral harass) only they'll be doing it in army engagements while controlling the rest of their force as well...
We've already seen all of these things, here and there. But no one is doing them consistently, no one has come close to mastering them. The players we think of as good now will seem laughable in a few years when people have begun to really figure out the game.
Every Blizzard/DB interview thread goes the same. Whining and shock from what they say. It's not like they suddenly changed their stance. It's always been like this.
Another ho-hum response on battle.net improvements. Despite being out for essentially an entire year now, Battle.net 2.0 still provides less features than most online game lobbies of games released 10 years ago.
I'm still eagerly anticipating a Clan system for SC2, and Browder's answer is the typical Blizzard "We're working on it. Soon.", which in essence means jack all, and is highly unlikely to be seen for at least the next 2-3 years.
It's really funny to read guys like you who explain all balance with GSLs. Terrans won much more tourneys than any other race from the release date, but they didn't win GSL for 4 months so yeah it explains everything. Lol did you even believe what you just said?
Its not GSLs, its every tournament. Different races have gone through various patches of dominance, but there's never been a time when one race one everything, or one race was incapable of winning. Even at their most UP, Zergs have won their fair share. Even when they were bitching all over the place, Protoss could win. And in contrast, even when people were lolling about Terran early game, or Zerg macro, or Protoss deathballs...every race has always been beatable.
The game is not figured out. At all. Every time we think it is, someone comes along and says, "hey, what if we open with several queeens, and forego gas..." and then you have the Spanishiwa build changing the metagame. Or someone says, "wait, Void + Colossus seems a lot better than people give it credit for..." and ZvP lategame utterly changes.
Shit like this happens every couple weeks. But people are so ridiculously impatient. If one month goes where a race racks up a lot of wins or a lot of losses, the balance complaints set in. People take anecdotal evidence, combine it with a whinging inability to admit their losses are their own damn fault, and cry "imba" at the drop of a hat.
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
lost all the faith in that game, he doesnt even know what players mean by micro and phoenix "move shot" change keeps me convinced that their design team isnt better ...
as a side note: Im seriously getting tired of all the butthurt protoss players trying to convince people in every topic that they arent OP
On April 29 2011 00:12 Robellicose wrote: Why does everyone complain about balance and unit countering and then compare SC2 to SC1? Their unit interfaces are completely different - multiple building select, large hotkey groups, smartcasting and better pathing all lead to the superior player being better able to press the advantage where necessary. The reason battles were more spread out in SC1 was because the players lacked the tools necessary to keep their armies tight and well controlled (with the exception of air).
I'm willing to bet that multiplayer SC1 on the SC2 engine would lead to swarm and deathball tactics, with harass thrown in - just like SC2!
It wasn't a lack of tools, the reason units spread out better in BW was a combination of two things. One being that the game used A* pathing on a hex-grid (wiki). The other being that having a spread out army (to an extent) was an advantage.
I actually don't know what pathing algorithm is used in SC2 but it is a big factor in causing death balls. In many situations it becomes a disadvantage to spread your units out because the AI does a better job and because of how the units are designed. Again, problems caused because the pathing algorithm is possibly too good.
There is no doubt that it's a huge achievement getting such a good pathing system running in real time.
Is it really enhancing gameplay though? Other RTS games still use A* pathing and do a much better job than Brood War (yet avoid "death balls") simply because there are more cpu cycles available these days.
It's a really interesting topic. I think a good compromise can be found in between the two pathing systems. Unfortunately I don't know if Blizzard will ever consider changing pathing because of how much effort it took to implement and how much of a technical achievement it was.
On April 29 2011 00:12 Robellicose wrote: Why does everyone complain about balance and unit countering and then compare SC2 to SC1? Their unit interfaces are completely different - multiple building select, large hotkey groups, smartcasting and better pathing all lead to the superior player being better able to press the advantage where necessary. The reason battles were more spread out in SC1 was because the players lacked the tools necessary to keep their armies tight and well controlled (with the exception of air).
I'm willing to bet that multiplayer SC1 on the SC2 engine would lead to swarm and deathball tactics, with harass thrown in - just like SC2!
It wasn't a lack of tools, the reason units spread out better in BW was a combination of two things. One being that the game used A* pathing on a hex-grid (wiki). The other being that having a spread out army (to an extent) was an advantage.
I actually don't know what pathing algorithm is used in SC2 but it is a big factor in causing death balls. In many situations it becomes a disadvantage to spread your units out because the AI does a better job and because of how the units are designed. Again, problems caused becaused the pathing algorithm is just so good.
There is no doubt that it's a huge achievement getting such a good pathing system running in real time.
Is it really enhancing gameplay though? Other RTS games still use A* pathing and do a much better job than Brood War (yet avoid "death balls") simply because there are more cpu cycles available these days.
It's a really interesting topic. I think a good compromise can be found in between the two pathing systems. Unfortunately I don't know if Blizzard will ever consider changing pathing because of how much effort it took to implement and how much of a technical achievement it was.
If you look at company of heroes they use swarm AI and perfect pathing, and still maintain spread out units. The problem is the design itself, Blizz thought it would be really cool to have units move in schools, rather than a more realistic ad-hoc formation.
On April 29 2011 00:21 Cocoabean wrote: Another ho-hum response on battle.net improvements. Despite being out for essentially an entire year now, Battle.net 2.0 still provides less features than most online game lobbies of games released 10 years ago.
I'm still eagerly anticipating a Clan system for SC2, and Browder's answer is the typical Blizzard "We're working on it. Soon.", which in essence means jack all, and is highly unlikely to be seen for at least the next 2-3 years.
People complained about the map pool, custom games system, and chat channels.
The map pool has gotten changed for the better.
The custom game system also has experienced change. Though it's still a flawed system, Blizzard at least implemented some new features to compensate for the flaws.
Despite previously claiming that chat channels were near useless and officially declining to include them in B.net 2.0, countless complaints had forced Blizzard to implement the bare-bones system that we have now despite their previous stance.
In addition, Blizzard has at least attempted to spruce up the ladder by creating Masters and Grandmasters league as well as include custom icons based on rank.
B.net 2.0 is still a very unfinished interface, yet Blizzard is at least making some progress in improving it. A lot can still be added in the upcoming year, and it's entirely possible that the final product will be worlds better than what we have now.
On April 29 2011 00:12 Robellicose wrote: Why does everyone complain about balance and unit countering and then compare SC2 to SC1? Their unit interfaces are completely different - multiple building select, large hotkey groups, smartcasting and better pathing all lead to the superior player being better able to press the advantage where necessary. The reason battles were more spread out in SC1 was because the players lacked the tools necessary to keep their armies tight and well controlled (with the exception of air).
I'm willing to bet that multiplayer SC1 on the SC2 engine would lead to swarm and deathball tactics, with harass thrown in - just like SC2!
It wasn't a lack of tools, the reason units spread out better in BW was a combination of two things. One being that the game used A* pathing on a hex-grid (wiki). The other being that having a spread out army (to an extent) was an advantage.
I actually don't know what pathing algorithm is used in SC2 but it is a big factor in causing death balls. In many situations it becomes a disadvantage to spread your units out because the AI does a better job and because of how the units are designed. Again, problems caused becaused the pathing algorithm is just so good.
There is no doubt that it's a huge achievement getting such a good pathing system running in real time.
Is it really enhancing gameplay though? Other RTS games still use A* pathing and do a much better job than Brood War (yet avoid "death balls") simply because there are more cpu cycles available these days.
It's a really interesting topic. I think a good compromise can be found in between the two pathing systems. Unfortunately I don't know if Blizzard will ever consider changing pathing because of how much effort it took to implement and how much of a technical achievement it was.
If you look at company of heroes they use swarm AI and perfect pathing, and still maintain spread out units. The problem is the design itself, Blizz thought it would be really cool to have units move in schools, rather than a more realistic ad-hoc formation.
Ah, cool. I haven't seen that thread yet. I was wrong about some things but not too far off. I also didn't know CoH used a similar algorithm. The fact it didn't annoy me when I played it means they did a good job haha.
Still a really interesting read and basically confirmed what I thought was wrong with the pathing in SC2. I'm not completely mad yay.
I really find it hard to believe that ZvP stats at diamond and above are in the 50-55% range. If you want to have somewhat meaningful stats about the game you gotta ignore the inferior leagues where the concept of balance is very different : It's more about what is easier/harder to master than about was is deeply imbalanced and almost impossible to overcome no matter the skill of the players (granted their opponents are in the same skill range).
I feel the 200/200 deathball issue kinda fits into that 2nd category ... Time will tell but Blizz is very wrong if they think they can ignore the pros opinion just because there's pros and thus have a financial interest in the balance issues. They may be partial sometimes, but they are also the ones that have the deepest understanding of the game's mechanics.
The more I read, the madder I got "Looking into Clan system"?!?!?!?! I'd be fine with the current system if we could change our names over and over, but for people to pay $50 just to change their clan tag is ridiculous... They'll probably release paid name changes and expect us to change our name everything we want to be in a different clan -_-
This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
If he honestly believes this... There is no way I am getting Heart of the Swarm.
The Templar vs Zergling analogy is so ridiculous and out of place I just don't even know what to say. Comparing a T1 unit to a T3 caster? You can use the same example in SC2 and get the same outcome. What the hell.
Thanks for the translation, this interview is one of the better ones.
It was such a good question (regarding the difficulty of staging a comeback), but Browder just dances around it by talking about micro. Disappointing. It scares me a little that they won't address this major issue.
Imho the major issue is that people seem to think there is a major issue here. At every stage of SC2s lifespan there have been development through playerskill. Every day. Yet at every point in time there are people with the strong belief that there are "major issues" that must be solved through changes in the actual game.
If you compare to just a couple of months ago how there was big battles and then GG, to how it looks now with tenious harass and quite often comebacks.
The question was answered very well. Unit counters are alot stronger in SC1, but yet people percieve SC2 unit "counters" are extremly strong. The longer we'll play this game the looser this term will be for sure, as it did in BW.
--
Anyway thanks for the translations and the interview! Let the hordes of crying noobs commence...
You're right dood. It isn't deathball vs deathball anymore... Watch a SC1 game (even from 4-5 years ago) and it is much more spread out, exciting, action packed, and with more comebacks.
Why would you compare it to a game which, even if you look at games 5 years ago, had been out for like 8 years, when starcraft 2 has been out for slightly more than a year including the beta.
On April 29 2011 00:21 Cocoabean wrote: Another ho-hum response on battle.net improvements. Despite being out for essentially an entire year now, Battle.net 2.0 still provides less features than most online game lobbies of games released 10 years ago.
I'm still eagerly anticipating a Clan system for SC2, and Browder's answer is the typical Blizzard "We're working on it. Soon.", which in essence means jack all, and is highly unlikely to be seen for at least the next 2-3 years.
People complained about the map pool, custom games system, and chat channels.
The map pool has gotten changed for the better.
The custom game system also has experienced change. Though it's still a flawed system, Blizzard at least implemented some new features to compensate for the flaws.
Despite previously claiming that chat channels were near useless and officially declining to include them in B.net 2.0, countless complaints had forced Blizzard to implement the bare-bones system that we have now despite their previous stance.
In addition, Blizzard has at least attempted to spruce up the ladder by creating Masters and Grandmasters league as well as include custom icons based on rank.
B.net 2.0 is still a very unfinished interface, yet Blizzard is at least making some progress in improving it. A lot can still be added in the upcoming year, and it's entirely possible that the final product will be worlds better than what we have now.
Theyve been working on bnet for like 2 years now, and the finished product we got was basically a fraction of a more functional one implemented in 1999. There's absolutely no excuse for bnet to have been that terrible, and for them to release something lacking the most basic features found in almost all other games. Just doesn't make sense, wtf was the bnet design team doing in the long time sc2 was being developed? I can't think of any other respectable game company that's released something this incomplete and said "w/e we'll patch it at some point in a year and half or something". No chat channels, clan system, lan, xrealm play, shared replay viewing, etc.
Yes Blizzard improved the map pool but that's not really saying much considering it used near unplayable. They're still not listening to the community's demands to the extent they should be. GSL maps....why is there only one map added? The other ones are clearly excellent maps and have produced amazing games. On top of that why modify a great map made my professional designers by adding needless adjustments like destructible rocks the entire community has grown sick of.
I guess its silly to get mad cause what's done is done. Still, I'd like to see Blizzard actually have some sense of how to prioritize their tasks. They give us like 5 different custom game interface changes and stupid decals no one cares about and flashier stat things when watching replays, yet a year after beta still haven't addressed the most crucial features that should really have been there since the beginning.
Just two basic things: being able to watch replays with other people and a simple clan feature. Why aren't these being immediately addressed? It's ridiculous
thanks for the posting (and please put source at the top next time, i just realize that i can read the original page after i am done XD)!
wow. just wow. i am not sure it is confidence or arrogance in dustin's answer. i mean, i doubt that even blizz themselves cant say that scbw is a perfectly balance and yet he claimed that sc2 is more balanced than scbw O.O. if i was the interviewer i would immediately ask, 'how many games have you play with each races on ladder?'. or randomly throw him a question of asking how do you deal with MMM with zerg. just to let him show us that he knows nothing about the game.
i will defo buy the rest of the expansions(i am a collector and wanna see the ending ). but HotS will help me to decide whether should i put more time to play mp of this game or not.
On April 29 2011 00:20 Piski wrote: Every Blizzard/DB interview thread goes the same. Whining and shock from what they say. It's not like they suddenly changed their stance. It's always been like this.
This, the moment I saw Dustin Bowder I knew an immense nerd rage would come.
About his 2 "controversial" answers:
-About Micro and hardcounters: He is right but man, he gave some horrible examples. Sure some counters like Marauder vs Roach/Stalker seem pretty one sided but he is right in that good micro can sometimes overcome stuff like that. Actually I don't remember anyone using Blink Micro vs Marauders hmmmmmm.
-About Balance: Well, since they have more data than any of us, most of the rage comes from gut reaction vs data. And yeah he is right in that how people perceive balance and how Pros complain about their race can change a lot in little time.Remember when the Bioball>All? Or how about when Protoss were considered the worst race according to GSL?About pros complaining about their race, MVP,Boxer,idra,Nesstea, Fruitdealer, MC have complained about their race so far.
And honestly what did people expected from his answers? "Yeah you are right, the game is extremely broken. Better go back and play BW"
Am I the only one who saw the interviewer as extremely biased with his questions? But I guess this kind of questions give you hits
As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
... erm... ya... you serious?
also looks like no clan support till expansion or whatever..
interview makes me sad
but ofcourse thanks for posting/translating it! :>
Hm, I actually kind of agree with him when I think about it. The problem, and what makes it seem like SC2 is just full of hardcounters, is probably a couple of specific units rather than the game as a whole... I.E critical mass colossus - you either have a shitton of vikings or corruptors and you win, or you dont and you lose...
Or immortal vs tanks/ultras.
The clan support answer is a bit lol, I really dont understand how they can answer it like it was the first time it was brought up.
On April 29 2011 00:45 ChApFoU wrote: I really find it hard to believe that ZvP stats at diamond and above are in the 50-55% range. If you want to have somewhat meaningful stats about the game you gotta ignore the inferior leagues where the concept of balance is very different : It's more about what is easier/harder to master than about was is deeply imbalanced and almost impossible to overcome no matter the skill of the players (granted their opponents are in the same skill range).
I feel the 200/200 deathball issue kinda fits into that 2nd category ... Time will tell but Blizz is very wrong if they think they can ignore the pros opinion just because there's pros and thus have a financial interest in the balance issues. They may be partial sometimes, but they are also the ones that have the deepest understanding of the game's mechanics.
Sure but the pros also have conflicting opinions. Which pros do they have to listen to? The loudest? The ones who complain the most? The most succesful?
They keep in touch with pros all the time with survey form and also e-mails/bnet. But they can't make impulsive. Browder said that he thinks that there might be imbalanced in some matchup but if the data does not support it, there is nothing he can't do. And of course he does not mean data in bronze-diamond when he considers the pro scene. Despite what we think, the dude is not a complete idiot.
Thanks for translating, it's always interesting to read the designers' point of view. I think that even if the gamers do not agree with them, the designers' opinion is invaluable. I believe that players need to understand these guys look at this game through the eyes of designers; they see things that may elude to the players (and vice versa).
(...) but from what I see now in the top tournaments, unit counters are actually quite relative.
Well I agree with him, just take a look at banelings vs. marines, Zerglings vs. Hellions, or even Mutalisks vs. Thors. Anyway I believe that once the player's micro will be high enough then we will be able to draw conclusions.
On April 29 2011 00:45 ChApFoU wrote: I really find it hard to believe that ZvP stats at diamond and above are in the 50-55% range. If you want to have somewhat meaningful stats about the game you gotta ignore the inferior leagues where the concept of balance is very different : It's more about what is easier/harder to master than about was is deeply imbalanced and almost impossible to overcome no matter the skill of the players (granted their opponents are in the same skill range).
I feel the 200/200 deathball issue kinda fits into that 2nd category ... Time will tell but Blizz is very wrong if they think they can ignore the pros opinion just because there's pros and thus have a financial interest in the balance issues. They may be partial sometimes, but they are also the ones that have the deepest understanding of the game's mechanics.
Sure but the pros also have conflicting opinions. Which pros do they have to listen to? The loudest? The ones who complain the most? The most succesful?
They keep in touch with pros all the time with survey form and also e-mails/bnet. But they can't make impulsive. Browder said that he thinks that there might be imbalanced in some matchup but if the data does not support it, there is nothing he can't do. And of course he does not mean data in bronze-diamond when he considers the pro scene. Despite what we think, the dude is not a complete idiot.
He's an idiot on several things but I agree this isn't one of them. I believe ZvP is broken but when I look at stats recently (in nasl and gom for example) they just don't seem to support it to the extent I feel it's there. Just from that I can understand why theyre cautious to implement balance changes. Also from what I hear they do a fairly good job of consulting pros. like I remember yesterday on Sheth's stream he said dayvie (david kim) had just asked him to play on the PTR to test some of the 1.3.3 patches. On top of that we just got an infestor buff. I don't think infestors are good in ZvP at all but it would still be silly to say theres an imbalance without letting this patch play out more. As incontrol pointed out on state of the game, a few months ago Protoss was the weakest race. They still get nerfed twice, and now theyre the strongest O-o
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
Also I see a lot of people arguing about counters and hard counters. For the sake of this forum, please remember Day9's teachings. Even Dustin seemed like "wtf" when the interviewers asked him that question about counters.
On April 29 2011 00:02 gnutz wrote: It makes all sense for me.
Balance pretty good out of statistics - which is obviously correct - why should they care about every senseless whining? As long as they have no huge imbalance in the game, they need to switch nothing They actually watch tournaments ... if you look at all tournaments, you cannot see the huge imbalances everywhere for one race.
BW actually HAS harder unit counters. Am I the only one who played BW after Sc2? It's ridicolous in some cases as noob.
you dont see huge imbalance in tournaments? really? i do. and i played random @ 3400 master league up until a few months ago. did you see july get steamrolled by mc in the finals lasts season? MC 4-1d the best zerg player in the world - made him look like a chump. i could not have possibly imagined a more one-sided series.
how could you, or browder, actually say the game is perfectly balanced when zerg has been consistently under-performing in tournaments since october. and no i dont want to hear about nestea or fruitdealer, because those players were from a very small group of zergs who even made it into code S.
look at NASL, TSL, GSL over the past months and what do you see? zerg has roughly a 20% representation in those upper tier brackets, but browder and the rest of the dev. team are ignoring that and using ladder race appropriation as hard data that the game is balanced???
On April 28 2011 23:35 Kipsate wrote: Either way I was wondering what kind of statistical data they use for the 50-55% winratio among the races, I mean do they leave mirror matches out?And doesn't the Bnet matchmaking system pretty much drive you to the 50%?Therefore the game will always look balanced?
The matchmaker pushes you to an overall winrate of 50%, yes. If a race consistently wins a matchup too much, their winrates will become lopsided - they'll win the other non-mirror less. So in the usual PvZ example, if that matchup is broken, then Protoss should be "inflating" their MMR by killing lots of Zergs, but conversely having a really poor PvT winrate. Of course, it's not the only thing you want to look at. That result could also be caused by PvT being Terran favored.
This is wrong, Blizzard's stats are adjusted for the effect the matchmaking has. They showed how the math worked last blizzcon if I recall correctly.
And geeh, what's wrong with you people, I thought we had gotten over the Dustin Browder hate a while ago. He pretty much can't answer a question related to Brood War without people attacking him. Bio play wasn't viable in TvP, queens are hardly viable in Zv anything (maybe they're used occasionally nowadays, but do you want to wait 6 years before the game has developed that far?), scouts aren't useful, valkyries and ghosts don't see much use either, in fact neither do devourers and guardians. I think if you look at the unit balance, then in some ways sc2 is in a better place than sc1.
Comebacks are about micro potential of certain units, I guess, about the ability to do risky things and through amazing execution pull them off. Those require a lot of skill and understanding of the game, so I'm not sure it's already a definite problem, as players might still develop more of them. I guess units like the colossi do make this annoying, but still, it's just unfair to compare immortals v tanks with vultures vs dragoons, when you could also compare them to marines vs banelings.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
He's probably talking about new units being implemented in the expansion packs.
Furthermore, you have to understand that the players of the different races are saying different things about the situation. Terran players are also complaining that Terran is hard to play. Similarly, Protoss players are also complaining about their own race. We do not acknowledge that there are signs of imbalance in the game. Our view is that the balance situation in the game is quite good as of now.
If everyone is bitching then the game is pretty balanced. That actually sort of makes sense.
Sure, but Zergs are complaining about not having a way to beat a lategame Protoss, and the response to that is usually that there might be a way and Zergs should keep trying. Dustin over here though doesn't even seem to recognize that lategame ZvP is pretty L-O-L atm.
That's because it's not, it's pretty much completely balanced. Everytime I see a zerg die to protoss without infestors, I facepalm as hard as I do when a protoss dies to mass MMM without splash damage.
Great interview, I agree with everything he said.
On April 29 2011 01:13 TENTHST wrote:
you dont see huge imbalance in tournaments? really? i do. and i played random @ 3400 master league up until a few months ago. did you see july get steamrolled by mc in the finals lasts season? MC 4-1d the best zerg player in the world - made him look like a chump. i could not have possibly imagined a more one-sided series.
You answered your own question. MC beat july. Not protoss beat zerg lol
On April 29 2011 01:13 TENTHST wrote: how could you, or browder, actually say the game is perfectly balanced when zerg has been consistently under-performing in tournaments since october. and no i dont want to hear about nestea or fruitdealer, because those players were from a very small group of zergs who even made it into code S.
look at NASL, TSL, GSL over the past months and what do you see? zerg has roughly a 20% representation in those upper tier brackets, but browder and the rest of the dev. team are ignoring that and using ladder race appropriation as hard data that the game is balanced???
WTF.
Might want to check the results of GSL may (both A and S) before you start whining. I'm pretty convinced you don't even watch pro games with comments like this lol
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
On April 29 2011 00:02 gnutz wrote: It makes all sense for me.
Balance pretty good out of statistics - which is obviously correct - why should they care about every senseless whining? As long as they have no huge imbalance in the game, they need to switch nothing They actually watch tournaments ... if you look at all tournaments, you cannot see the huge imbalances everywhere for one race.
BW actually HAS harder unit counters. Am I the only one who played BW after Sc2? It's ridicolous in some cases as noob.
you dont see huge imbalance in tournaments? really? i do. and i played random @ 3400 master league up until a few months ago. did you see july get steamrolled by mc in the finals lasts season? MC 4-1d the best zerg player in the world - made him look like a chump. i could not have possibly imagined a more one-sided series.
Good job. You looked at one tournament and judge balance based off the score? Have you ever watched the OSL/MSL finals before? There have been numerous occasions of 3-0 victories, but that doesn't mean BW is unbalanced. The game changes so much and so quickly that whoever comes up with a new working strategy will have a bigger advantage than in BW because standard play still needs to be tweaked and felt out. Do you not remember GOM Open 2 where Fruitdealer won? Yeah, 4-1. Does that mean zerg was OP? Of course not. The game is just as volatile as it has been for the past few months. The best zerg in the world does NOT have to have a 50% ratio with the best P and best T player to mean a balanced game.
Concepts in the game are balanced. Blings beat marines. Stim Marines beat Blings. Speed+ Blings eat on creep eat stim marines. Micro is where you can pick apart and split your marines to not let all or any of them die to blings. Micro then again is pinching the terran and not letting 4 blings blow up 2 marines.
The part that isn't balanced is "Numbers" thats why you see build times tweaked, damage tweaked, ranges tweaked. You won't see hydras go off hatch tech. You won't see marauders learn to shoot up. You will see marauders damage get changed and maybe hydra cost/hp change. Build times and warp in cooldowns will be tweaked, but the lurker won't be added. The concepts will stay the same, the only thing not "100% balanced" is the numbers.
edit: just removed the whole sc:bw/sc2 micro comparison, obviously it falls on deaf stubborn ears.
TLO vs Rainbow last night shows Micro is alive, - TLO's marines vs Rainbows marines and hellions - beautiful, watching that i've forgiven him from going from r->t again :D
On April 28 2011 23:23 infinity2k9 wrote: It has harder unit counters than BW for sure. Vultures vs Dragoons anyone?
If a group of vultures attack moves into a group of Dragoons also attack moving then yes you are correct.
The difference is that a group of well controlled Vultures planting mines in the right spots and flanking the Dragoons will win. On the other hand the opposing player with Dragoons can also micro his face off - defusing mines, spreading out and pulling back weak Dragoons.
It becomes a battle of who has better control rather than who has the better army composition. The winner is always the better player.
How exactly do you do the same thing when it is Thor vs Immortal?
Uh yeah. That is the point i was making. It's a soft counter... SC2 has harder counters than that. By far. You can't overcome a direct counter with micro in SC2 in almost any situation.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
Since when did people get this attitude? The game has been out an entire year and you're response is just 'wait till it gets better'? This makes no sense. We are playing and watching the game right now. It's fair to criticize when the lead designer makes such weird comments, because if he is saying these things then its unlikely to change in any expansions.
On April 28 2011 23:23 infinity2k9 wrote: It has harder unit counters than BW for sure. Vultures vs Dragoons anyone?
If a group of vultures attack moves into a group of Dragoons also attack moving then yes you are correct.
The difference is that a group of well controlled Vultures planting mines in the right spots and flanking the Dragoons will win. On the other hand the opposing player with Dragoons can also micro his face off - defusing mines, spreading out and pulling back weak Dragoons.
It becomes a battle of who has better control rather than who has the better army composition. The winner is always the better player.
How exactly do you do the same thing when it is Thor vs Immortal?
Uh yeah. That is the point i was making. It's a soft counter... SC2 has harder counters than that. By far. You can't overcome a direct counter with micro in SC2 in almost any situation.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
On April 29 2011 01:15 TheResidentEvil wrote: GLAD to see the data saying zerg is no UP. Data always trump loud mouths like idra.
funny you leave out nestea, losira, most pro gamers in korea when taking shots at zerg players.
I said like idra. i dont know what koreans say. they speak korean. If they are like idra, then sure lump them in there too. Data always better than bias opinions.
On April 28 2011 23:41 WniO wrote: hmm i think people are getting the wrong idea of "the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in sc1." in bw certain matchups you could only make 1 or 2 unit types at most stages of the game until late game, where sc2 has more options. entire units didnt get made in broodwar.... scouts valkries firebats queens etc etc. or if you look at zvz the most basic match-up for both sc1 had basically zerglings and mutalisks, where sc2 has zerglings, banelings, mutas, roaches, hydras, infestors, queens... etc etc. theres just more options early on in sc2. granted people make a good point of dragoons vs vultures but thats something that took a few years to find out, who knows maybe marines could someday always come on top vs banelings.... oh wait.
Have you ever even played Brood War? Firebats, queens, and Valkyries all have uses. You see Firebats in every non mech ZvT, You see queens in practicably every modern Mech ZvT. Valkaries are used vs mutas and mass wratih.
Also SC2 ZvZ Zergings/baneling is not a viable unit comp past 8 minutes into the game. Mutas are a complete joke in ZvZ and have been for sometime. Queens are a macro unit and I don't really see anyone going 10+ queens in ZvZ and winning. So you are left with Roach/Hydra(both are ranged with no really interesting abilities that can be used in battle) and Infestors. I find it funny that you list all the units that have been used in ZvZ even though how rare while ignoring all of the units made in SC1 that were rare. If I wanna just start listing off all the units that can be used in SC1 ZvZ just like you did with SC2 ZvZ I have, Zerglings, hydra, lurkers, defilers, mutas, devourers, ultras, scourge. From the way you formulated your arguments and pick and choosed I really can only interpret that your post is hilariously biased.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
Much of Heart of the Swarm will be talking about the story of Sarah Kerrigan, and many things will be happening to her, and she might be attacked quite a number of times too.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
Then you read wrong...they won't be
uhhh of course they will.Its an expansion there are always new units in expansions.
hahaha did you ever see that thor 250 mm canons kill imortall ?
also i didnt see stim pack maraders vs blink stalkers ( in dustin story this 2 should be equal metchup) that stalkers conter maraders....
i yust dont like that dustin dont admit that his game now atm have plenty of problems...
if blink stalkers shoud be = stimed maraders / than dustin made that to work... simply it dosnt work now....
now game go this way for terrans everything is abouth steam pack....
for zergs everything is abouth fungl and banglings....
and for toss everything is abouth colloss and (now nerfed High templars)
masive dps need to be nerfed in my opinion simply becous game will have comebacks ...
simply if stimed MMM kill toss army that is gg for toss... if zerg fungell Marines and do good with banglings that is gg for terran... if toss live to made big army and come with 5 colloss blink stalkers and charg zealots that is gg for terran....or zerg....sry for my ENG
I dont like how he talked about win% to determine balance, if anything that just proves that the matchmaking system works Just my oinion on it though Nice interview
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
Then you read wrong...they won't be
uhhh of course they will.Its an expansion there are always new units in expansions.
I remember they said in an interview like a month ago that adding new units would make the game feel too clustered so they won;t be doing it in multiplayer. I'll see if i can find the interview
On April 29 2011 02:04 Lingy wrote: I dont like how he talked about win% to determine balance, if anything that just proves that the matchmaking system works Just my oinion on it though Nice interview
If you watched the Blizzcon panels, they have solid data on equivalent level MMRs and win-rates for match ups, adjusted to ignore the 50% ladder matchmaking. They use that data, not the ladder working, to make their decisions, among many other things. They know the ladder matchmaking works, and they know how to ignore it.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
Then you read wrong...they won't be
uhhh of course they will.Its an expansion there are always new units in expansions.
I remember they said in an interview like a month ago that adding new units would make the game feel too clustered so they won;t be doing it in multiplayer. I'll see if i can find the interview
From what I understand, they will remove units as they add more units to the game in order to keep things from becoming too cluttered.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
Then you read wrong...they won't be
uhhh of course they will.Its an expansion there are always new units in expansions.
I remember they said in an interview like a month ago that adding new units would make the game feel too clustered so they won;t be doing it in multiplayer. I'll see if i can find the interview
They said that there would be some new 'single player only units' in HOTS, stuff like that bunker thing.
But that isn't the same as saying the expansions won't have new units. They obviously will, don't even try to convince yourself they won't.
Lol? Counters in BW were so much softer than in SC2. I was always one to more or less be on the dev's side hoping they'd fix things up and never really had a problem with Browder before, but the answer to that first question has made me lose all hope.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
Then you read wrong...they won't be
uhhh of course they will.Its an expansion there are always new units in expansions.
I remember they said in an interview like a month ago that adding new units would make the game feel too clustered so they won;t be doing it in multiplayer. I'll see if i can find the interview
They said that there would be some new 'single player only units' in HOTS, stuff like that bunker thing.
But that isn't the same as saying the expansions won't have new units. They obviously will, don't even try to convince yourself they won't.
Well single player is kind of irrelevant atm, we're just talking about multiplayer.
But you can imagine we do have some challenges ahead of us. We don't want to just add another three units to the game for this expansion, three units to the game for the next expansion. That would be a very bloated game for us at that point and the chances that some of those units would be duplicates of other units that already exist in the game in one form or another would be extremely high. So we're looking at the different solutions. We don't know for sure yet, but there will definitely be fixes and changes and various improvements to the multiplayer experience.
The implication seems to be that adding new units would make the game too clustered, bloated, etc. Of course they might end up modifying units or adding an ability or perhaps replacing a unit, you never know, but I highly doubt they'll do what brood war did and take the complete game and add more stuff to it. Besides, WoL is definitely a more complete game than Starcraft 1 pre- BW was.
So kerrigan will be attacked? Gee, I never saw that coming in a game that revolves around intergalactic space war.
To be fair, she probably deserves it. Imagine the hatemail she got when the artifact got her back to human and all the people that followed her blog and twitter were left without updates for like 5 years. There ought to be some lunatics that would be out to kill her for her non-updating.
The interview doesn't include THAT much news, but I'm very excited that there will be more CG in HotS .
I want to make 2 points for those upset by this interview: * dustin speaks English only I would guess, so this would have been translated and then back translated. This opens up even more opportunity for change in the tone and meaning. So don't take any specific lines so harshly.
* I am Protoss and I think Zerg are UP, but the very fact that July can reach the finals, and that we have 2 Zerg champs, indicates that the game isn't totally FUBAR. Yes there's probably room for improvement, Zerg are v hard to play, but it's not impossible to win as them.
On April 29 2011 01:50 Azarkon wrote: Well, if we're going to go by what pro players say...
Idra (Z): Zerg is underpowered
Nestea (Z): Zerg is underpowered
FruitDealer (Z): Zerg is underpowered
MC (P): Zerg is not underpowered
MVP (T): Terran is underpowered
Tyler (P): Protoss is not overpowered
Incontrol (P): Protoss doesn't seem to be overpowered?
IIRC, that's what I've read so far.
Yeah players not going to say their race is OP, but I am sure most of protoss pros gonna agree that PvZ is toss favoured
Not anymore until Zerg figure out how to use their Infestor. I've been watching IdrA's stream recently and his style has changed to very heavy infestor. And I have seen the success from it in both ZvT and ZvP, basically just infestor + broodlords = autowin in ZvT, roaches, lings in early game vs Protoss or infestor for FG in late game.
On April 29 2011 02:04 Lingy wrote: I dont like how he talked about win% to determine balance, if anything that just proves that the matchmaking system works Just my oinion on it though Nice interview
What should he do? Go to every LR on TL and hear the QQ from Zerg and Terran to determine the balance ?
Whatever his methods or views about designing Starcraft 2 may be, I don't care. When I see this guy smiling, it makes me chuckle for minutes. He looks soooo funny and cheerful in his photos. He's a cool guy and doing his best imo.
On April 29 2011 00:45 ChApFoU wrote: I really find it hard to believe that ZvP stats at diamond and above are in the 50-55% range. If you want to have somewhat meaningful stats about the game you gotta ignore the inferior leagues where the concept of balance is very different : It's more about what is easier/harder to master than about was is deeply imbalanced and almost impossible to overcome no matter the skill of the players (granted their opponents are in the same skill range).
I feel the 200/200 deathball issue kinda fits into that 2nd category ... Time will tell but Blizz is very wrong if they think they can ignore the pros opinion just because there's pros and thus have a financial interest in the balance issues. They may be partial sometimes, but they are also the ones that have the deepest understanding of the game's mechanics.
Sure but the pros also have conflicting opinions. Which pros do they have to listen to? The loudest? The ones who complain the most? The most succesful?
They keep in touch with pros all the time with survey form and also e-mails/bnet. But they can't make impulsive. Browder said that he thinks that there might be imbalanced in some matchup but if the data does not support it, there is nothing he can't do. And of course he does not mean data in bronze-diamond when he considers the pro scene. Despite what we think, the dude is not a complete idiot.
He's an idiot on several things but I agree this isn't one of them. I believe ZvP is broken but when I look at stats recently (in nasl and gom for example) they just don't seem to support it to the extent I feel it's there. Just from that I can understand why theyre cautious to implement balance changes. Also from what I hear they do a fairly good job of consulting pros. like I remember yesterday on Sheth's stream he said dayvie (david kim) had just asked him to play on the PTR to test some of the 1.3.3 patches. On top of that we just got an infestor buff. I don't think infestors are good in ZvP at all but it would still be silly to say theres an imbalance without letting this patch play out more. As incontrol pointed out on state of the game, a few months ago Protoss was the weakest race. They still get nerfed twice, and now theyre the strongest O-o
Zergs do win games, but they still don't have an answer for the Protoss lategame. If you don't secure a game winning advantage in the midgame, or before, then your chances of winning fall off a cliff.
On April 28 2011 22:57 Weirdkid wrote: As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
He can't be serious.
It's true what he says.
I don't know what you all think, but please play some games of BW ^^
Seriously, SC2 had way more extreme hard counters than BW. In BW all (maybe I've missed some exception) counters are entirely control (micro) dependent - in SC2 they are not, save for a couple of exceptions, such as Marines vs. Banelings.
Control based counters =/= hard counters. Most of the counters in SC2 work like in Age of Empires series, pikes >cavalry, cavalry > archers, etc. That's what hard counters are. BW is completely different.
Much of Heart of the Swarm will be talking about the story of Sarah Kerrigan, and many things will be happening to her, and she might be attacked quite a number of times too.
Oh no! :O
How dare Blizzard ruin my diplomacy sim!! GG Blizzard, GG
I'm glad the SC2 team is looking at balance and tournaments on a regular basis and they seem to be looking forward to the future rather than the short-term only. For all the shit Browder gets, he seems like an intelligent and calculated man.
On April 29 2011 04:26 hmunkey wrote: I'm glad the SC2 team is looking at balance and tournaments on a regular basis and they seem to be looking forward to the future rather than the short-term only. For all the shit Browder gets, he seems like an intelligent and calculated man.
Well its certainly nice that they do that. But I dont think hes making a good read on the subjects of hard counters and balance. Thats a shame.
On April 28 2011 22:57 Weirdkid wrote: As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
He can't be serious.
It's true what he says.
I don't know what you all think, but please play some games of BW ^^
Seriously, SC2 had way more extreme hard counters than BW. In BW all (maybe I've missed some exception) counters are entirely control (micro) dependent - in SC2 they are not, save for a couple of exceptions, such as Marines vs. Banelings.
What, praytell, do you think the difference is between BW and SC2's damage systems? SC2 renamed the armor and damage types and presented it in a different way, nothing more.
Control based counters =/= hard counters. Most of the counters in SC2 work like in Age of Empires series, pikes >cavalry, cavalry > archers, etc. That's what hard counters are. BW is completely different.
So is SC2. SC2's system is nothing at all like AOE. AOE had cheap units (no gold cost, vs gold cost for the thing they countered) with massive bonuses to the unit they countered. SC2 has...units that are better against armored than non-armored, or better against light than not. They're a world apart.
I'm guessing you didn't play AOE much to come up with that one :D
On April 29 2011 04:45 Sky.Technique wrote: You guys do realize this was poorly translated, right? And that's why the answers are a tad...off? No? Ok, just continue the rage.
On April 29 2011 04:45 Sky.Technique wrote: You guys do realize this was poorly translated, right? And that's why the answers are a tad...off? No? Ok, just continue the rage.
No amount of translation is going to change the facts. DBro feels that sc2 has less hard counters than sc1. This little statement, regardless of how you dress it up, is enough to send most of TL into a fit of nerd rage. Then he also mentioned soft counter, and marauder vs stalker in the same sentence.
On April 28 2011 22:57 Weirdkid wrote: As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
He can't be serious.
It's true what he says.
I don't know what you all think, but please play some games of BW ^^
Seriously, SC2 had way more extreme hard counters than BW. In BW all (maybe I've missed some exception) counters are entirely control (micro) dependent - in SC2 they are not, save for a couple of exceptions, such as Marines vs. Banelings.
What, praytell, do you think the difference is between BW and SC2's damage systems? SC2 renamed the armor and damage types and presented it in a different way, nothing more.
Control based counters =/= hard counters. Most of the counters in SC2 work like in Age of Empires series, pikes >cavalry, cavalry > archers, etc. That's what hard counters are. BW is completely different.
So is SC2. SC2's system is nothing at all like AOE. AOE had cheap units (no gold cost, vs gold cost for the thing they countered) with massive bonuses to the unit they countered. SC2 has...units that are better against armored than non-armored, or better against light than not. They're a world apart.
I'm guessing you didn't play AOE much to come up with that one :D
It's not necessarily the difference between the damage systems. It's mostly unit design. It doesn't matter why the game works the way it work if you don't even acknowledge the problem (talking about Blizzard here; and I can't say with 100% certainty what exactly causes the problem either).
As for the AoE example. First of all, it was an exaggeration. Second of all, I wasn't talking about how the counter system works in both games (i.e. massive damage bonus vs. countered units in case of AoE), but simply the fact that the game works that way. Play 1 makes unit A, player 2 counters with unit B, player A counters that unit with unit C, and so on. This is why there's so much emphasis being put on having the correct unit composition in SC2.
AoE and SC2 are worlds apart in terms of methods used to produce such type of gameplay/counters, but they're very similar in terms of results (gameplay). In both games you're trying to get the right combination of rock, paper and scrissors, so to speak, and counter with more paper if the opponent invests too much into rock.
BW is completely different. What composition of units you use is not nearly as important as how you use those units (both in terms of tactics and micro).
edit: As Slugamoo (sp?) said, while the relationship between Marines and Banelings in sc2 is unique to only a couple of units, pretty much all counters work that way in BW. If you compare BW, SC2 and AoE in terms of counters, SC2 is definitely much closer to AoE than BW.
This is one of those threads where I'm just really disappointed by most of the community's responses.. This is a translated interview, don't take it as some sort of clear statement of Blizzard's current view on the game. What you should take from translated interviews like this are details like seasons being 3 months, new maps every season, or the little info on heart of the swarm.
I feel embarrassed as a StarCraft player when I see responses from the community like this . Reminds me of the childish/whiny communities of other games.
On April 29 2011 04:45 Sky.Technique wrote: You guys do realize this was poorly translated, right? And that's why the answers are a tad...off? No? Ok, just continue the rage.
No amount of translation is going to change the facts. DBro feels that sc2 has less hard counters than sc1. This little statement, regardless of how you dress it up, is enough to send most of TL into a fit of nerd rage. Then he also mentioned soft counter, and marauder vs stalker in the same sentence.
You would be surprise how much a mistranslation can change the original message. I suggest you hold your rage a few more weeks until we have interviews being fully conducted in English.
On April 28 2011 22:57 Weirdkid wrote: As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
He can't be serious.
It's true what he says.
I don't know what you all think, but please play some games of BW ^^
Seriously, SC2 had way more extreme hard counters than BW. In BW all (maybe I've missed some exception) counters are entirely control (micro) dependent - in SC2 they are not, save for a couple of exceptions, such as Marines vs. Banelings.
What, praytell, do you think the difference is between BW and SC2's damage systems? SC2 renamed the armor and damage types and presented it in a different way, nothing more.
Control based counters =/= hard counters. Most of the counters in SC2 work like in Age of Empires series, pikes >cavalry, cavalry > archers, etc. That's what hard counters are. BW is completely different.
So is SC2. SC2's system is nothing at all like AOE. AOE had cheap units (no gold cost, vs gold cost for the thing they countered) with massive bonuses to the unit they countered. SC2 has...units that are better against armored than non-armored, or better against light than not. They're a world apart.
I'm guessing you didn't play AOE much to come up with that one :D
Shields take 100% of the damage they recieve in Brood War, for example a vulture deals concussive damage against a dragoon(Large unit typ) so it deals only 25% of the damage on his health, however a vulture will deal 100% damage (20 damage) to the dragoon until his shields are depleted. Pretty big difference really.
Even with imperfect translations (which I am quite thankful for btw), I can still see that Dustin Browder actually knows what he's talking about. I could sit here and defend his thought processes on the more contentious points, but that wouldn't really accomplish anything I expect. All of this DB bashing is really unnecessary and quite fallacious. I'm glad he sticks to data, and his examples were chosen with good reasons.
It's absolutely ridiculous that so many people really think they actually intimately understand the potentials of this game.
I may not be the best at execution, but my strategical theory projections (both micro and macro) is one of my brain's strengths (I have even been studying since early beta). If I know anything, then I know that yall haven't seen half of what can happen. I can tell that Dustin Browder also knows this quite well.
On April 29 2011 00:23 awesomoecalypse wrote:lots of intelligent things
Just wanted to thank you for giving a little bit of perspective in this thread. SC2 hasn't even been released for 12 months yet and all people can do is bitch. There hasn't even been one expansion. The game will change. New units will be implemented. And the metagame a year from now won't look like the metagame does currently. It's fine to think constructively about how weak some things are, but to think you know enough about the game now to say definitively that it's horribly imbalanced (a position lots of people in this thread seem to take) is absurd.
New units won't be implemented
New units will be implemented at expansions, I don't remember ever reading that this wasn't the case, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard themselfs said they would/could do that, I'm not sure where you got that information.
Then you read wrong...they won't be
uhhh of course they will.Its an expansion there are always new units in expansions.
I remember they said in an interview like a month ago that adding new units would make the game feel too clustered so they won;t be doing it in multiplayer. I'll see if i can find the interview
From what I understand, they will remove units as they add more units to the game in order to keep things from becoming too cluttered.
I actually doubt that, unpopular units such as the colossus and the immortal play very significant roles in all match-ups and so while replacing them is possible, it would require a lot of re-balancing. However, I don't know what approach Blizzard will take with moving on to the expansion: it might be so that they will have a very long beta, and even after the beta the professional leagues will still have the ability to play with pre-HotS balance and units. At the same time there will be small tournaments to test the waters for HotS and then there will be a grace period and finally everyone will be playing the same version again. I think that's wise, but if you look at what Blizzard has done in the past, they've pretty much disowned their legacy versions for competitive play. When The Frozen Throne was released, it included a bunch of changes that only made sense with the new units added, but were still implemented also for Reign of Chaos. Result was that RoC was less playable than before, so you pretty much had to change to TFT.
If they take the first approach, then there's time to replace units and severely change the game, but if they're going to hold a super-big tournament with a 100.000$ price pool the day after release, then it's just not feasible if they want the winner of that to matter in any way.
Inb4 nerds rage at browder for knowing sc2 better than them.
Oh too late.
Really though. Every single person here complaining about balance has zero fucking clue including some of the dumbest theory crafting of all time. ("oh. Oh, hard counters, my race still up, can't win except if I do pressure, blah blah")
Oh wait, browder has stats that show incredible win loss margin indicators of balance. But he's still wrong.
Oh wait browder consults grandmaster players, and disregards bias statements. But he's still wrong.
Oh wait, browder keeps track of all high level tournaments to scout for unusual win loss rates or op/broken strategies, and finds none.. But he's still wrong.
Everyone should stop mashing on this dude. Because as far as I've seen now, balance actually IS incredibly robust right now. And I'm going to send the guy flowers and a box of chocolates, thanking him for dedicating this portion of his life to balancing a beautiful game, whilst not letting trolls dumb him down win their utterly stupid theorycraft. (yes offense intended)
....hmm you can see state of game by looking at patch 1.3.3 i finaliy whont to tell that blizzard make great patch and take guts tu make it....
but there is 2 meny things that also need to get changed and i dont know whay are they w8ting...
simply TvZ boring to whatch (also like 4gate) bnalgings fungell mass mass mass marines....boring...
TvP also mass MMM to end of game...boring....there is no tech svichs or something...from t1 to t2...
only to me is PvZ interesting to whatch becous from beginging there is a lot of cool bettles... problem is only when Protoss get mass unites (colloss) and game go to late game...then P probully win....
there is a plenty of staf tu do...sry of my ENG...
On April 29 2011 05:30 andrewwiggin wrote: Lol wow
Inb4 nerds rage at browder for knowing sc2 better than them.
Oh too late.
Really though. Every single person here complaining about balance has zero fucking clue including some of the dumbest theory crafting of all time. ("oh. Oh, hard counters, my race still up, can't win except if I do pressure, blah blah")
Oh wait, browder has stats that show incredible win loss margin indicators of balance. But he's still wrong.
Oh wait browder consults grandmaster players, and disregards bias statements. But he's still wrong.
Oh wait, browder keeps track of all high level tournaments to scout for unusual win loss rates or op/broken strategies, and finds none.. But he's still wrong.
Everyone should stop mashing on this dude. Because as far as I've seen now, balance actually IS incredibly robust right now. And I'm going to send the guy flowers and a box of chocolates, thanking him for dedicating this portion of his life to balancing a beautiful game, whilst not letting trolls dumb him down win their utterly stupid theorycraft. (yes offense intended)
Yeah
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
No
Time and time again Browder has proven that he and his team knows jack shit about SC1 and balancing in general. I wouldn't put too much faith in the Blizzard balancing team.
dustin dont know abouth balance and look at C&C 4 what a stupide game just lol....
balancing is one thing but there is one more thing to add : and that is game entertaming to whatch....
look at TvZ maby is 50/50 cance of wining (balanced) but terran have 12 unites (also zerg 2 ) and we see mass stimed marines vs zerglings banglins and mutas every game... that is so boring that i cant explain...
but entertament is also balance thing... exemple : terran is now all around stim and marines do all jobs thay can....(almoust everything) (and if you whatch mass marines every game where is strategy in it and also balance ?)
so make more usfull unites and game will be more fun to whatch imidiatly...
nerf stim buff tenks buff thor speed nerf banglings speed...colloss dps ...and game will be more fun to whatch and be more balanced... sry of my ENG....
On April 29 2011 06:36 thebole1 wrote: dustin dont know abouth balance and look at C&C 4 what a stupide game just lol....
balancing is one thing but there is one more thing to add : and that is game entertaming to whatch....
look at TvZ maby is 50/50 cance of wining (balanced) but terran have 12 unites (also zerg 2 ) and we see mass stimed marines vs zerglings banglins and mutas every game... that is so boring that i cant explain...
but entertament is also balance thing... exemple : terran is now all around stim and marines do all jobs thay can....(almoust everything) (and if you whatch mass marines every game where is strategy in it and also balance ?)
so make more usfull unites and game will be more fun to whatch imidiatly...
nerf stim buff tenks buff thor speed nerf banglings speed...colloss dps ...and game will be more fun to whatch and be more balanced... sry of my ENG....
i just talked to blizzard on the phone and they want you on the balance team asap
On April 29 2011 06:36 thebole1 wrote: dustin dont know abouth balance and look at C&C 4 what a stupide game just lol....
balancing is one thing but there is one more thing to add : and that is game entertaming to whatch....
look at TvZ maby is 50/50 cance of wining (balanced) but terran have 12 unites (also zerg 2 ) and we see mass stimed marines vs zerglings banglins and mutas every game... that is so boring that i cant explain...
but entertament is also balance thing... exemple : terran is now all around stim and marines do all jobs thay can....(almoust everything) (and if you whatch mass marines every game where is strategy in it and also balance ?)
so make more usfull unites and game will be more fun to whatch imidiatly...
nerf stim buff tenks buff thor speed nerf banglings speed...colloss dps ...and game will be more fun to whatch and be more balanced... sry of my ENG....
People should get their timelines right...
Dustin LEFT after working on BFME1. BFME2, C&C3, RA3, and C&C4 were all made by a completely separate team, and Browder took absolutely no part in their development since he was at Blizzard since 2005.
Man, I can't believe they don't even have a timetable for clan support in Bnet. Clan support and tournament support should have come with the thing at release. It would be such an easy thing to do to add a huge amount of usefulness to Bnet.
If he actually believes that overcoming a unit counter with good control happens more in SC2 than in BW, then I honestly dread for the future of this game. I can only hope he was just trying to bullshit himself out of a difficult question, or the translation is off in some respect.
As for balance - Am I the only person who sees the problem with making a statistical argument based on games played on the current ladder maps? I mean, they already admitted that the maps aren't meant for competitive play, so why do they use the data for balancing? Do they really think games played on close position whatever, on Slag Pits, Scrap Station, and so forth, give meaningful input as to the state of the game? I don't get it.
i just talked to blizzard on the phone and they want you on the balance team asap
hahahah i hope they listen to comunity simply we keep their games alive...also they patch it after...
games are made for as and all expirianced players can recenise what is mising in new game as this or some other...i played wc3 tft a litle sc1 bw..(before sc2 come out) and i hope it would be at list good as bw...
but simply look at pro lvl of game...hard conters eat this game (wc3 also have hard conters and some unite becomed usles ....but sc1unites from begining to end have some purpes and that is what made that game epic..)
On April 29 2011 04:55 Befree wrote: This is one of those threads where I'm just really disappointed by most of the community's responses.. This is a translated interview, don't take it as some sort of clear statement of Blizzard's current view on the game. What you should take from translated interviews like this are details like seasons being 3 months, new maps every season, or the little info on heart of the swarm.
I feel embarrassed as a StarCraft player when I see responses from the community like this . Reminds me of the childish/whiny communities of other games.
Thank you for translating this, though!
This pretty much sums up how I feel about a lot of the comments
On April 29 2011 01:50 Azarkon wrote: Well, if we're going to go by what pro players say...
Idra (Z): Zerg is underpowered
Nestea (Z): Zerg is underpowered
FruitDealer (Z): Zerg is underpowered
MC (P): Zerg is not underpowered
MVP (T): Terran is underpowered
Tyler (P): Protoss is not overpowered
Incontrol (P): Protoss doesn't seem to be overpowered?
IIRC, that's what I've read so far.
If we go by what head coaches who are also pro players say:
Every single one said Zerg is weak. From the Artosis interviews with IM, Slayers, oGs, etc.
I dunno though. Did just a while ago everyone think Protoss was in a weak spot? Then suddenly a few NERFS later Protoss is "op". I think the game is still a bit new to throw out generalizations. I could be totally wrong, but just going on previous experience.
He definitely dodged the IMBA question. He brought up how every grandmaster across each region has similar win ratio. Well.. of course they're gonna have similar win ratio, if one of them had 40% win ratio, they're not gonna be in Grandmasters.
Also, that micro analogy is just laughable. You can tell Dustin didn't really want to answer some of these questions straight on.
Two players play a game of Starcraft 2. One player is named Allen. The other player is named Charlie. When they play, their resulting win ratio against each other will be a function of two variables:
- Each player's skill - Each player's race strength
Let's let Allens's skill = "A" and his race strength = "B" Let's let Charlie's skill = "C" and his race strength = "D"
After playing a long series of games, each player won exactly 50% of their games.
If we conclude from these games that AB = CD, then it must follow that:
1) A = C, Therefore Allen and Charlie have equal skill. 2) B = D, Therefore, Allen and Charlie's races are equally balanced.
Poll: True or False?
Both statements are false. (22)
92%
Both statements are true. (2)
8%
Statement 1 is true only. (0)
0%
Statement 2 is true only. (0)
0%
24 total votes
Your vote: True or False?
(Vote): Statement 1 is true only. (Vote): Statement 2 is true only. (Vote): Both statements are true. (Vote): Both statements are false.
Two players play a game of Starcraft 2. One player is named Allen. The other player is named Charlie. When they play, their resulting win ratio against each other will be a function of two variables:
- Each player's skill - Each player's race strength
Let's let Allens's skill = "A" and his race strength = "B" Let's let Charlie's skill = "C" and his race strength = "D"
After playing a long series of games, each player won exactly 50% of their games.
If we conclude from these games that AB = CD, then it must follow that:
1) A = C, Therefore Allen and Charlie have equal skill. 2) B = D, Therefore, Allen and Charlie's races are equally balanced.
Poll: True or False?
Both statements are false. (22)
92%
Both statements are true. (2)
8%
Statement 1 is true only. (0)
0%
Statement 2 is true only. (0)
0%
24 total votes
Your vote: True or False?
(Vote): Statement 1 is true only. (Vote): Statement 2 is true only. (Vote): Both statements are true. (Vote): Both statements are false.
If you're trying to imply zerg has a 50% win rate because zerg players are simply better at the game, no dice. In the example in the poll, both statements are false because it is possible that B>D but there remains a 50% winrate because C>A. However were we to change A to mean all protoss players and C to mean all zerg players, it becomes statistically very unlikely that C>A because of the size of the sample pool. We can safely make the assumption that in terms of skill A is roughly equal to C, an assumption we cannot make when A and C are 2 people only.
Two players play a game of Starcraft 2. One player is named Allen. The other player is named Charlie. When they play, their resulting win ratio against each other will be a function of two variables:
- Each player's skill - Each player's race strength
Let's let Allens's skill = "A" and his race strength = "B" Let's let Charlie's skill = "C" and his race strength = "D"
After playing a long series of games, each player won exactly 50% of their games.
If we conclude from these games that AB = CD, then it must follow that:
1) A = C, Therefore Allen and Charlie have equal skill. 2) B = D, Therefore, Allen and Charlie's races are equally balanced.
Poll: True or False?
Both statements are false. (22)
92%
Both statements are true. (2)
8%
Statement 1 is true only. (0)
0%
Statement 2 is true only. (0)
0%
24 total votes
Your vote: True or False?
(Vote): Statement 1 is true only. (Vote): Statement 2 is true only. (Vote): Both statements are true. (Vote): Both statements are false.
Even though AB=CD, if A=2, B=0.5, C=1, and D=1 the equation would be 2(0.5)=1(1). The result is 1=1. In this case, AB=CD, but A=/=C and B=/=D. Basically this is a variation of "All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares."
On topic, this interview was almost certainly mistranslated. Don't take anything for a fact.
Two players play a game of Starcraft 2. One player is named Allen. The other player is named Charlie. When they play, their resulting win ratio against each other will be a function of two variables:
- Each player's skill - Each player's race strength
Let's let Allens's skill = "A" and his race strength = "B" Let's let Charlie's skill = "C" and his race strength = "D"
After playing a long series of games, each player won exactly 50% of their games.
If we conclude from these games that AB = CD, then it must follow that:
1) A = C, Therefore Allen and Charlie have equal skill. 2) B = D, Therefore, Allen and Charlie's races are equally balanced.
Poll: True or False?
Both statements are false. (22)
92%
Both statements are true. (2)
8%
Statement 1 is true only. (0)
0%
Statement 2 is true only. (0)
0%
24 total votes
Your vote: True or False?
(Vote): Statement 1 is true only. (Vote): Statement 2 is true only. (Vote): Both statements are true. (Vote): Both statements are false.
If you're trying to imply zerg has a 50% win rate because zerg players are simply better at the game, no dice. In the example in the poll, both statements are false because it is possible that B>D but there remains a 50% winrate because C>A. However were we to change A to mean all protoss players and C to mean all zerg players, it becomes statistically very unlikely that C>A because of the size of the sample pool. We can safely make the assumption that in terms of skill A is roughly equal to C, an assumption we cannot make when A and C are 2 people only.
What you fail to realize is that blizzard takes into account a player's "skill" when matchmaking, but that skill assessment is based primarily on the players win/loss rate relative to his opponents. So there is in fact no way to determine the actual skill of ANY player when you are using a loaded die as your basis for comparison.
Allen and Charlie could play the game forever, you will never be able to determine which has more skill and which race is stronger. It is simply impossible to solve for two variables in a single equation like that. That's the point I am trying to make.
The people who are more likely to reach an approximation of skill, and therefore balance, are the ones who do not take a purely mathematical approach to a matchup and instead look at subjective factors, like multi-tasking, macro, strategic decisions, etc. It's impossible to make progress relying on win rate numbers.
And on a side note I don't think it is too far-fetched to claim that a population of one race will be more skilled than another. For example, players who are new to RTS and starting on the campaign will be more likely to choose Terran. I know for a fact the majority of TLer's are Zerg players also. Maybe because people recognize in Broodwar the things that makes a player particularly good, such as strong macro, scouting, and reactive play, all of which form the foundation for the Zerg race.
Do people who actually play this game actually believe that control of armies doesn't materially affect the outcome on a routine basis? There are of course certain unit compositions and styles which are easier to control than others, but that is true of every game. The easier to control styles will predominate in early periods of a game's existence. But the harder to play styles are often also stronger, and will predominate in the long run. This is not guaranteed, unfortunately, but no one has enough information yet to say that it is assuredly not the case either.
I think unit interactions in SC2 are pretty complicated in a lot of cases, certainly common ones anyway. TvZ is almost all army control now and PvZ is getting there. Pure stalker is supposed to lose to roach hydra, but can win with good micro. Good burrow movement micro can do a lot to deal with force fields, as well as the benefits of using tactical baneling drops in combat. Otherwise, the prevalence of multi-prong attacks in ZvP recently shows that the same units are being used in different ways strategically and producing different results. Infestors are also a great example of a unit that can either turn the course of a battle in your favor or completely fail with bad micro and they are being used extensively in all Zerg match-ups now.
I just think some people have a tendency to complain, and oddly these people are not usually those who have a reason to complain about anything, making them all the more unbearable to listen to. This is an interview that has been translated twice (from English to Mandarin and back to English) and yet still people erupt into some kind of misplaced righteous indignation that makes no sense whatsoever.
I can't wait to see Day9s positive spin on this interview and a 'trust blizzard' pep talk, lol.
The problem is they are focusing too much on the ladder. To even consider master league in balance discussion is a joke. I'm a master level player and I'd lose to any sponsored pro 9/10 times regardless of races. The skill gap is massive between masters and the highest level.
Not to mention many high level players use ladder as practice or to try builds leading to silly loses etc. They need to pay more attention to high level tournaments by actually watching the games play out, not simply looking at the results.
I honestly can't imagine why Blizz even put Browder in charge in balancing the game. All the CnC and LotR games that he was involved in are so freaking inbalanced, it only got bettter once he left EA LA and CnC3:Tiberium Wars was a fcuk ton better than the previous ones.
On April 28 2011 23:23 infinity2k9 wrote: It has harder unit counters than BW for sure. Vultures vs Dragoons anyone?
If a group of vultures attack moves into a group of Dragoons also attack moving then yes you are correct.
The difference is that a group of well controlled Vultures planting mines in the right spots and flanking the Dragoons will win. On the other hand the opposing player with Dragoons can also micro his face off - defusing mines, spreading out and pulling back weak Dragoons.
It becomes a battle of who has better control rather than who has the better army composition. The winner is always the better player.
How exactly do you do the same thing when it is Thor vs Immortal?
Uh yeah. That is the point i was making. It's a soft counter... SC2 has harder counters than that. By far. You can't overcome a direct counter with micro in SC2 in almost any situation.
Ah.. My apologies. I completely mis-read what you were saying.
Still, at least I managed to explain what you meant for people who didn't know
Also, for the people constantly bringing up balance, this isn't something to be worried about. The game is fairly balanced.
The problem I have with these interview answers is how Dustin Browder clearly does not understand what micro is. We had the same problem in beta where he had to have the difference between macro and micro explained to him (perhaps someone else knows where this interview is, I couldn't find it).
Ideally the units in the game have enough depth that players can overcome any minor imbalance with skilled unit control. This is one area where it is really important to use Brood War as an example because it does such a fantastic job about it.
I am not saying that SC2 has none of this. Some units are well designed. Unfortunately a lot aren't which results in boring units.
When the lead game designer doesn't understand what micro is how are things supposed to improve without giving very direct feedback?
It really bothers me how underdeveloped Bnet is and how little Blizzard seem to care. It's as if they have absolutely nobody working on improving the service at all. We are nearing 1 year since launch and it's still inferior to War3 bnet in my opinion.
Let's look at yet another situation, marauders against stalkers. If both sides a-move, clearly the marauder will win. However, if the stalker has blink, and uses blink well, the situation might turn out different as well.
Does he play this game at all? Marauders with stim rape blink stalkers so badly it doesn't matter what sort of gosu micro you have.
On April 29 2011 09:26 Rashid wrote: I honestly can't imagine why Blizz even put Browder in charge in balancing the game. All the CnC and LotR games that he was involved in are so freaking inbalanced, it only got bettter once he left EA LA and CnC3:Tiberium Wars was a fcuk ton better than the previous ones.
David Kim is in charge of the balance department of Starcraft 2 development, not Dustin Browder.
On April 29 2011 09:26 Rashid wrote: I honestly can't imagine why Blizz even put Browder in charge in balancing the game. All the CnC and LotR games that he was involved in are so freaking inbalanced, it only got bettter once he left EA LA and CnC3:Tiberium Wars was a fcuk ton better than the previous ones.
David Kim is in charge of the balance department of Starcraft 2 development, not Dustin Browder.
Dustin Browder is on the Balance team along side David Kim and a few other guys. David Kim is simply the best player on the balance team.
HHAHAHAHAH Dustin : i would like to see blink stalker kill stimed maraders or at list to be equal bettle... so made it ... nerf steam power and it will hepend :D
i siriysly think they dont play game at all..... and artifact was x naga not from protoss :D
They put so much emphasis on SC2 succeeding as an esport yet clan support, integrated tournament system - even a competent custom game system seems to be nowhere on the time table.
Let's look at yet another situation, marauders against stalkers. If both sides a-move, clearly the marauder will win. However, if the stalker has blink, and uses blink well, the situation might turn out different as well.
Does he play this game at all? Marauders with stim rape blink stalkers so badly it doesn't matter what sort of gosu micro you have.
I coulda sworn in past interviews that clan support was really close or was supposed to be in the last patch theoretically. But it seemed to have drifted into nothing and never spoken of again. And now it seems like it is not even close and just an idea for enhancements.
Also, unit micro in sc2 is nowhere near sc1....ughhhhh.
I find that the community is reacting in the worst possible way to this. Browder is a good dude, and we are lucky we even get the amount of answers from blizzard that we get. I also think that anybody below grand masters complaining about balance is a complete waste of time. If you are losing at your level, there is almost certainly something that you can do better. Let the pros and the balance team balance the game, they know a heck of a lot more than you do. Also, the game should probably not be compared to SC1, which has been out with new strategies developing for over 10 years, when sc2 is but a year old. Honestly, if you think you can do the job better than browder, you would probably make whatever race you chose to play imba to the extreme. He considers everything, and does the best he can. The amount of hate coming from the community makes me kind of embarrassed to even be a part of it.
On April 29 2011 09:57 floor exercise wrote: It really bothers me how underdeveloped Bnet is and how little Blizzard seem to care. It's as if they have absolutely nobody working on improving the service at all. We are nearing 1 year since launch and it's still inferior to War3 bnet in my opinion.
I'm not sure i agree with that. It was way more difficult to host games in wc3, pretty sure the majority of players couldn't though i might be wrong about that. Also people complaining about milliseconds of lag in sc2 have never played wc3 over bnet I would guess lol. That being said wc3's clan support was actually........ existent, really disappointing to see that they haven't even made an effort on that
On April 29 2011 09:57 floor exercise wrote: It really bothers me how underdeveloped Bnet is and how little Blizzard seem to care. It's as if they have absolutely nobody working on improving the service at all. We are nearing 1 year since launch and it's still inferior to War3 bnet in my opinion.
I'm not sure i agree with that. It was way more difficult to host games in wc3, pretty sure the majority of players couldn't though i might be wrong about that. Also people complaining about milliseconds of lag in sc2 have never played wc3 over bnet I would guess lol. That being said wc3's clan support was actually........ existent, really disappointing to see that they haven't even made an effort on that
Well, I do not know about ladder games cause I played dota for 3-4 years. But over the years many programs came out but manily listchecker was used where it eliminated the lag between custom games to nothing. Their is a new cant think of name that allows you to reconnect to games you drop from also.
On the hosting matter, it was very simple to fix if you knew how to use google or a friend who knew how to do it. You just had to open your ports on your router and modem to allows in-comming connections in wc3.
On April 28 2011 23:23 infinity2k9 wrote: It has harder unit counters than BW for sure. Vultures vs Dragoons anyone?
If a group of vultures attack moves into a group of Dragoons also attack moving then yes you are correct.
The difference is that a group of well controlled Vultures planting mines in the right spots and flanking the Dragoons will win. On the other hand the opposing player with Dragoons can also micro his face off - defusing mines, spreading out and pulling back weak Dragoons.
It becomes a battle of who has better control rather than who has the better army composition. The winner is always the better player.
How exactly do you do the same thing when it is Thor vs Immortal?
This is simply a lie. If it was true why would flash ever build tanks? Apparently the better player always wins with vultures vs goons, yet he makes tanks? Is it because he doesn't know?
The sole reason terrans make tanks is to beat goons. You simply ain't going to win with vultures vs goons without an army advantage or a big blunder from the toss. Just because you can see mostly vultures in early pushes that rely on hitting when toss has fewer units, doesn't mean that vultures are actually even vs goons and it's all about control.
Let's look at yet another situation, marauders against stalkers. If both sides a-move, clearly the marauder will win. However, if the stalker has blink, and uses blink well, the situation might turn out different as well.
Does he play this game at all? Marauders with stim rape blink stalkers so badly it doesn't matter what sort of gosu micro you have.
lol where did he say stimmed marauders...
read again.
It's pretty much a given considering blink will probably be finished later than stim which is one of the key upgrades to terran unless you forget to research it.
On April 29 2011 11:26 mango_destroyer wrote: I coulda sworn in past interviews that clan support was really close or was supposed to be in the last patch theoretically.
The Battle.net 2 and the Starcraft 2 team are not the same. Browder's the game director for the Starcraft 2 team, but clan support is in the other team's area.
On April 28 2011 23:18 Yaotzin wrote: Uhoh Zerg QQ incoming. Nothing really surprising in there. Is that the first confirmation of ~3months per ladder season?
They said before that seasons would be shorter than the first one so it was expected this length I think
she underwent many changes due to the Protoss artifact
Wasnt it a xelnaga artifact?
Oops sorry my bad. The original article only says artifact, and somehow I wrote Protoss artifact. Thanks for pointing it out!
I feel a bit sad at all the negative comments though.
Thanks for the translation nice to hear this straight from the man himself; i suppose all the zergs will argue that his views on balance are a well-thought out troll. Then again, i imagine the data doesn't lie.
I would also prefer the clan system to be at least on the list of things to do.
Wow, TL community needs to get off its high horse. I honestly can not believe some of the comments I am reading. SC2 is a fantastic game. If you guys think you can make a better game, then please show us.
That being said, I agree with a lot of what Dustin said. What did you guys expect, for him to not defend the game he worked so hard on?
Get over yourselves, stop blaming balance. Think about it, if everyone is bitching about balance, doesnt it mean that the game is balanced?
On April 28 2011 23:23 infinity2k9 wrote: It has harder unit counters than BW for sure. Vultures vs Dragoons anyone?
If a group of vultures attack moves into a group of Dragoons also attack moving then yes you are correct.
The difference is that a group of well controlled Vultures planting mines in the right spots and flanking the Dragoons will win. On the other hand the opposing player with Dragoons can also micro his face off - defusing mines, spreading out and pulling back weak Dragoons.
It becomes a battle of who has better control rather than who has the better army composition. The winner is always the better player.
How exactly do you do the same thing when it is Thor vs Immortal?
This is simply a lie. If it was true why would flash ever build tanks? Apparently the better player always wins with vultures vs goons, yet he makes tanks? Is it because he doesn't know?
The sole reason terrans make tanks is to beat goons. You simply ain't going to win with vultures vs goons without an army advantage or a big blunder from the toss. Just because you can see mostly vultures in early pushes that rely on hitting when toss has fewer units, doesn't mean that vultures are actually even vs goons and it's all about control.
That isn't really what I was trying to make a point about so I don't understand your argument, sorry. I didn't say anything about never using tanks.
It was just a very specific example of Vultures vs Dragoons. With good Vulture control you can overcome a group of Dragoons. With good Dragoon control you can overcome a group of well controlled Vultures. The winner is always the better player because it comes down to skill.
It was a simple explanation of how good unit design can make battles much more dynamic. Hopefully so that people understand even if they have not played Brood War.
I love that he didn't acknowledge balance complaints. The games evolving way too fast for anyone to say that. Protoss are a critically endangered species in the GSL despite the whining, Zergs are learning ways to be both crazy aggressive and have a ridiculous economy in ZvP and ZvT, and Terrans are learning that they don't have to stick to the same 3 unit composition in any particular matchup.
Makes me happy that they're taking a far more measured approach than those in the community would have them do.
The balance comments coming from Dustin simply enrage me. Always, in every interview he says something that reveals how much he lacks knowledge of high level play and how he hasn't watched professional broodwar. Yet he keeps on making comparison on how SC2 is better just because he is "entitled" to and because "he can". It really makes wanna smash something.
And all this coming from the guy who invented to apocalypse tank in Red alert2, the unit that countered everything in the game.
I'd rather be left in the dark on what blizzard thinks about their game or what is their reasoning behind balance changes, because every friggin time I'm blown away on how clueless they are about their own creation.
On April 29 2011 19:37 kasumimi wrote: The balance comments coming from Dustin simply enrage me. Always, in every interview he says something that reveals how much he lacks knowledge of high level play and how he hasn't watched professional broodwar. Yet he keeps on making comparison on how SC2 is better just because he is "entitled" to and because "he can". It really makes wanna smash something.
And all this coming from the guy who invented to apocalypse tank in Red alert2, the unit that countered everything in the game.
I'd rather be left in the dark on what blizzard thinks about their game or what is their reasoning behind balance changes, because every friggin time I'm blown away on how clueless they are about their own creation.
exactly how i feel.
i dont have a problem with the game developers who doesnt understand their game in pros play but blatantly saying 'sc2 is more balanced than scbw' is pure ignorance (since nobody can make that claim with 100% evidence backup). how can you completely ignore all the tournaments results which zergs are so underperforming since launch. if their target is to MERELY make sure the ladder is 'balanced', then why the hell they keep mention that 'we care about esport'.
somehow i remember the original creators of scbw are a bunch of gamers who loves games so much (and they are probably high up in blizzard management level now), these developers for sc2 simply dont have that kind of passion and hearts for the game.
In the Grandmaster Leagues and Master Leagues of the various battlenet regions in the world, the win ratios of all 3 races are between 50-55%. If we look at any one region, Protoss might be the top race one week, but they could also very well be overtaken by Terran the following week. These patterns might also show up differently in different regions. Therefore, based on the data that we have, we do not agree that there is a problem with the balance of the game.
Flawed method for determining balance... They must already know this. I have a friend who got in GM league doing nothing but 1 base all in's and he's helping determine the balance of the game? >.<
i finaly figured out what blizzard made of this game....
and that is bettle of upgreads (and not strategy)
simple exemple : maraders withouth stim should die from blink stalkers... or ? stimed maraders should kill blinked stalkers ....or should be equal ?
or stimed marines should kill banglings without speed...and banglings kill stimed marines when they get speed upgread....or should be equal cance of kiling ?
or if terran get stim you need at list 1 colloss to conter em...
i dont know i agree that upgreads is cool but i think then if i have charge + bling stalkers that should be = to stimed MMM... or yust MM...but it isnt....
i dont know now i figure out in what direction they are thinking but i like more bw stile + they can add upgread in that stile of playing... simply now mass dps like stim pack colloss and banglings i think is hurting game....(simply almoust no skill in it yust atc atc atc :D)
I'm sorry, but I'm not getting where people are seeing that he said "SC2 is more balanced than SCBW" like many have claimed. Maybe someone can enlighten me
Thank you Mister Dustin for this exclusive interview with game.163.com. As we all know, Starcraft 2 is a competitive game, an eSport. As a result, balance is especially important. However, some of the top players from Korea, like Nestea and fruitdealer, complain that the Zerg race is very weak. What does Blizzard have to say about this?
Dustin : There is a chance they might be right, but most of the time, our views on balance have to be supported by data, As of now, from the data that we have, we are unable to support the view that the Zerg race is very weak.
In the Grandmaster Leagues and Master Leagues of the various battlenet regions in the world, the win ratios of all 3 races are between 50-55%. If we look at any one region, Protoss might be the top race one week, but they could also very well be overtaken by Terran the following week. These patterns might also show up differently in different regions. Therefore, based on the data that we have, we do not agree that there is a problem with the balance of the game.
Furthermore, you have to understand that the players of the different races are saying different things about the situation. Terran players are also complaining that Terran is hard to play. Similarly, Protoss players are also complaining about their own race. We do not acknowledge that there are signs of imbalance in the game. Our view is that the balance situation in the game is quite good as of now.
On April 29 2011 20:07 BurningSera wrote:i dont have a problem with the game developers who doesnt understand their game in pros play but blatantly saying 'sc2 is more balanced than scbw' is pure ignorance (since nobody can make that claim with 100% evidence backup). how can you completely ignore all the tournaments results which zergs are so underperforming since launch. if their target is to MERELY make sure the ladder is 'balanced', then why the hell they keep mention that 'we care about esport'.
Well, it is double-translated, so who knows the exact wording, or whether he said something slightly different.
And, just in terms of "unit roles," the statement might be defensible if one thinks about it not in terms of micro roles but the number of viable unit comps per matchup and the harder counter system making the specific composition of units in your army much more important to deal with specific threats than in SC1. For example, in BW TvP, Tank/Vulture was so effective against pretty much all ground units that Terran rarely if ever transitioned out of it (save to get Goliaths to counter anti-air, and adding Science Vessels later game for EMP/detection); whereas in SC2 TvP, there are certainly much more viable unit comps and strats for Terran to go.
But yeah, I'm not sure that I agree that the balance between unit comp and micro is "better"; it's certainly "more balanced" than SC1, where micro dominated to a greater extent over specific unit comps...but I think SC2 could stand a little more micro, myself.
But, again, twice-translated interview, off-the-cuff comment in response to a question translated from Chinese. I still have a lot of faith in Dustin Browder, and I wish him the best; people bashing him and openly insulting him don't know what the kark they're talking about. Enjoy the game his enthusiasm and hard work made for you, then turn around and call him the devil? S'not cool.
I am absolutely disgusted with the spoiled brats here lashing out at Browder. He leads a team that created an amazing game that we all play religiously... and you kids whine like there is no tomorrow. Of course he isn't going to trash his own project in an interview. Why don't one of you whiners go create a better game for us please? I'd love to bitch about how awful it is in between games on it.
We should be happy that we live in an age where updates and patches can be so easily applied. Can't patch my NES. They clearly know more about what they are doing than any of you do, and are striving to perfect the game. That's why they are zillionaires and you are not.
the reason i think they went for the templar and not the colossus (even though everyone hates the colossus) is that it's much harder to balance.
i would argue, and people might disagree, that it might be easier to balance the rate of storm rather than colossi DPS
but i think the more important reason is that protoss is very sensitive to colossi timings in almost every matchup. PvT you need colossi to hold, PvZ you need it to be aggressive unless you imba FF 6 gate, PvP well... you know the story there. even before 1.3 templar was completely late game, and thats where colossi mattered less anyway
i'd like storm to be buffed PvP though, if storm did more double-triple damage to shields or something, then you have storm doing something to the tune of 125 damage and it making a dent . i'd also like to see hte radius of effect be 2 (consistent with other spellcasters in that tier) but that might be too much to ask for
On April 28 2011 23:23 infinity2k9 wrote: It has harder unit counters than BW for sure. Vultures vs Dragoons anyone?
If a group of vultures attack moves into a group of Dragoons also attack moving then yes you are correct.
The difference is that a group of well controlled Vultures planting mines in the right spots and flanking the Dragoons will win. On the other hand the opposing player with Dragoons can also micro his face off - defusing mines, spreading out and pulling back weak Dragoons.
It becomes a battle of who has better control rather than who has the better army composition. The winner is always the better player.
How exactly do you do the same thing when it is Thor vs Immortal?
This is simply a lie. If it was true why would flash ever build tanks? Apparently the better player always wins with vultures vs goons, yet he makes tanks? Is it because he doesn't know?
The sole reason terrans make tanks is to beat goons. You simply ain't going to win with vultures vs goons without an army advantage or a big blunder from the toss. Just because you can see mostly vultures in early pushes that rely on hitting when toss has fewer units, doesn't mean that vultures are actually even vs goons and it's all about control.
That isn't really what I was trying to make a point about so I don't understand your argument, sorry. I didn't say anything about never using tanks.
It was just a very specific example of Vultures vs Dragoons. With good Vulture control you can overcome a group of Dragoons. With good Dragoon control you can overcome a group of well controlled Vultures. The winner is always the better player because it comes down to skill.
It was a simple explanation of how good unit design can make battles much more dynamic. Hopefully so that people understand even if they have not played Brood War.
So you don't understand what was your own point? "The winner is always the better player because it comes down to skill" is a lie. In order for that to be true vultures have to be even vs goons, while in fact they are obviously weaker. I even explained why is it so obvious in my previous post. Just because you can make them suck less vs goons with good control doesn't mean it isn't about "who has the better army composition" or that "the better player always wins" in such an enagement.
On April 28 2011 23:28 -Archangel- wrote: Dustin has no clue what he is talking about when he talks about balance or units (he manages to say stupid stuff in each interview). He should also answer those with "it is better to direct that question to the balance department".
The balance team consists of Dayvie, Browder and Matt Cooper. I'm curious to see what their statistical analysis would find about BW, because I'm almost certain it's a terrible system for establishing top level balance.
On April 29 2011 11:54 ampson wrote: If you are losing at your level, there is almost certainly something that you can do better. Let the pros and the balance team balance the game, they know a heck of a lot more than you do.
Here's the problem with this statement, the balance team is not just balanced off pros. He said in the interview that they're relying on metrics from the masters and GM ladder, which means their entire data set is incredibly flawed. Even if you look at BW, winning as Protoss is easier than the other races but once you get to the top, things even out. If you were to balance based on the top 1,000 P players' win %, you'd end up nerfing the race and they'd be shit at the A/S class level.
we do not have a specific plan or timing to go into this, and we are unable to give you any specific details. Only one thing can be sure, that this is the direction we want to head towards in the future.
Just how hard is it to integrate clan feature into the game? Just how hard is it to allow people to watch replays together with the host controlling speed? Aren't these two features pretty much unanimously wanted by the fans? It pisses me off that they've been saying "oh yeah, we will bring that into the game sometime later" since all the way back in beta and they're still saying the exactly same thing 9 months into release.
Dustin: This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit.
I've watched quite a number of tournaments. We have lots of situations where player A wins the first game, and player B comes back to win the second game. Within the games themselves, we also see the advantage keep swinging from one player to another. This shows that the state of Starcraft 2 is not that one sided. Perhaps, the situation in these tournaments are not completely accurate, but from what I see now in the top tournaments, unit counters are actually quite relative.
For example, let's look at a situation where we have banelings fighting against marines. If they were to just clash against each other without any micro, the banelings will definitely kill off a lot of marines. However, if the marines have stim, I believe you can use micro to come out ahead in the engagement. Let's look at another situation, where we have banshees against marines. In a straight up fight, the marines will definitely win the fight. Yet, if the banshee has cloak, the situation would be different. Let's look at yet another situation, marauders against stalkers. If both sides a-move, clearly the marauder will win. However, if the stalker has blink, and uses blink well, the situation might turn out different as well.
These are some of the most absurd statements I've ever heard about BW and SC2. It's unfathomable how he is the lead designer. There is also no sort of logic in his player A/B statement. I don't understand how winning a game a piece and swinging advantages relates to unit counters at all. It only relates to mistakes, if anything.
Everyone should read this. It's quite unbelievable.
On April 28 2011 23:28 -Archangel- wrote: Dustin has no clue what he is talking about when he talks about balance or units (he manages to say stupid stuff in each interview). He should also answer those with "it is better to direct that question to the balance department".
The balance team consists of Dayvie, Browder and Matt Cooper. I'm curious to see what their statistical analysis would find about BW, because I'm almost certain it's a terrible system for establishing top level balance.
On April 29 2011 11:54 ampson wrote: If you are losing at your level, there is almost certainly something that you can do better. Let the pros and the balance team balance the game, they know a heck of a lot more than you do.
Here's the problem with this statement, the balance team is not just balanced off pros. He said in the interview that they're relying on metrics from the masters and GM ladder, which means their entire data set is incredibly flawed. Even if you look at BW, winning as Protoss is easier than the other races but once you get to the top, things even out. If you were to balance based on the top 1,000 P players' win %, you'd end up nerfing the race and they'd be shit at the A/S class level.
I remember an old thread with data about pro BW win % and protoss was statistically the worst race, because of PvZ(they did have a small advantage in PvT), until Bisu showed up + maps with more easily wallable nats, then toss actually had a bit of an advantage in both matchups.
you can't just look at overall win-loss ratios as a way to claim the game is balanced. lets look at the win-loss for when PvZs reach the late game against a collosus deathball. a balanced game should allow any race to win (each player having equal levels of skill) at any stage of the game. no race should be able to win just because they get to the late game.
I feel it makes sense to make small nerfs/buffs until win %tages even out, and then give space for play to develop. The game is still far too young to be making any sort of comments on balance as the proscene is still quite weak.
Logically, it makes sense to keep up with the metagaming every quarter or so to keep most of the customer/competitive base happy, and then work on from there.
However, Browder does not even seem to know how his game plays out. That is the problem, and it isn't about balance. If you didn't tell me who made those statements, my first guess would be a random gold league player.
It's incredibly disheartening to hear Browder say balance is fine based on Master League win percentages. They need to paying so much attention to the very top level of pro play and it's incredibly annoying that they aren't basically at all. I wanted at least a question about PvZ or the difficulty of killing a Protoss army. And then he goes on to talk about how unit micro changes the outcome of battles like the interviewer represents Gold League players whining about banelings. I don't even think he understands the cognitive dissonance there.
On April 28 2011 23:28 -Archangel- wrote: Dustin has no clue what he is talking about when he talks about balance or units (he manages to say stupid stuff in each interview). He should also answer those with "it is better to direct that question to the balance department".
The balance team consists of Dayvie, Browder and Matt Cooper. I'm curious to see what their statistical analysis would find about BW, because I'm almost certain it's a terrible system for establishing top level balance.
On April 29 2011 11:54 ampson wrote: If you are losing at your level, there is almost certainly something that you can do better. Let the pros and the balance team balance the game, they know a heck of a lot more than you do.
Here's the problem with this statement, the balance team is not just balanced off pros. He said in the interview that they're relying on metrics from the masters and GM ladder, which means their entire data set is incredibly flawed. Even if you look at BW, winning as Protoss is easier than the other races but once you get to the top, things even out. If you were to balance based on the top 1,000 P players' win %, you'd end up nerfing the race and they'd be shit at the A/S class level.
Just a note, Blizzard's balance goals do not necessarily revolve around pro play. Pro play often skews skill differentials because whereas it might be much easier to play one race at the top level than another, pro play itself would tend to mask this discrepancy because the only pros surviving at the top level would be those who possess the skill to play their respective races. Only by taking into account the number of pros who play a race can you start accounting for skill differentials, but then that factor can be significantly confounded by preference.
By focusing on the masters and GM ladder, it's possible that what they're really looking to do is to maintain the perception of balance at the level most above average players play. In other words, they're saying, "holding the level of skill constant at the tier of good ladder players, are Z, P, and T doing equally well?" Such a balance scheme would skew balance at the pro level in favor of balance at the more accessible levels on ladder which, frankly, is not very representative of pro play because people use ladder for practice more than they do for competition and many pro players do not do much laddering in the first place.
Whether you agree with this decision is a different issue, but keep in mind that Blizzard's focus is not necessarily in eSports, but in making their games enjoyable for "the masses."
I don't know of any blink micro that beats marauders, never seen it. Maybe he means FF so you only have to fight half of them or you can run from them before they rotflstomp you.
i would like to see blinked stalkers kill maraders....i hope they i will see it... but only way is by nerfing stim pack....stim pack all in are to strog agenst toss and if zerg dont have banglings that will also be case with em two...
On April 28 2011 23:23 infinity2k9 wrote: It has harder unit counters than BW for sure. Vultures vs Dragoons anyone?
If a group of vultures attack moves into a group of Dragoons also attack moving then yes you are correct.
The difference is that a group of well controlled Vultures planting mines in the right spots and flanking the Dragoons will win. On the other hand the opposing player with Dragoons can also micro his face off - defusing mines, spreading out and pulling back weak Dragoons.
It becomes a battle of who has better control rather than who has the better army composition. The winner is always the better player.
How exactly do you do the same thing when it is Thor vs Immortal?
This is simply a lie. If it was true why would flash ever build tanks? Apparently the better player always wins with vultures vs goons, yet he makes tanks? Is it because he doesn't know?
The sole reason terrans make tanks is to beat goons. You simply ain't going to win with vultures vs goons without an army advantage or a big blunder from the toss. Just because you can see mostly vultures in early pushes that rely on hitting when toss has fewer units, doesn't mean that vultures are actually even vs goons and it's all about control.
That isn't really what I was trying to make a point about so I don't understand your argument, sorry. I didn't say anything about never using tanks.
It was just a very specific example of Vultures vs Dragoons. With good Vulture control you can overcome a group of Dragoons. With good Dragoon control you can overcome a group of well controlled Vultures. The winner is always the better player because it comes down to skill.
It was a simple explanation of how good unit design can make battles much more dynamic. Hopefully so that people understand even if they have not played Brood War.
So you don't understand what was your own point? "The winner is always the better player because it comes down to skill" is a lie. In order for that to be true vultures have to be even vs goons, while in fact they are obviously weaker. I even explained why is it so obvious in my previous post. Just because you can make them suck less vs goons with good control doesn't mean it isn't about "who has the better army composition" or that "the better player always wins" in such an enagement.
Of course army composition matters. I never claimed it didn't. Again, my example was kept very simple by only including 2 units. You could write an essay on the role of each unit in BW TvP and how each could be used to effect the outcome of a battle in a different way. It's a huge topic.
When units are well designed the ensuing battle is more exciting because the outcome is uncertain.
Army composition is given too much emphasis in SC2. The units need to be redesigned to reward better army control, positioning and micro. As a result SC2 will be more fun to play and watch.
On April 30 2011 05:16 thebole1 wrote: i would like to see blinked stalkers kill maraders....i hope they i will see it... but only way is by nerfing stim pack....stim pack all in are to strog agenst toss and if zerg dont have banglings that will also be case with em two...
In this case, he's actually right - if you Blink to dodge the first volley, and Blink again to dodge the last one (ie Blink while the projectile is in mid air) you can actually win 1 vs 1 (and 2 vs 2, but my micro is not good enough to test it solo beyond this) with the Blink Stalkers, even without an upgrade advantage (ie even upgrades).
Thanks for the translation, not sure what the rage is about. Seems rather childish to me, but, meh. I can't wait for HoTS, going to be great to play with the new units and have more strats to use as a random player :D
It think he's right about balance, I think he dodged the comebacks question, so I will completely disregard that ridiculous answer. I expect more from the lead developer of a game on a leading game company.
The comeback question was a great one, and I think there's actually an issue here, and not so much on the balance thing. The problem is once a big battle occurs, most of the time the victor of that battle just A-moves and rolls to win the game. There's very few examples of games in which micro and good decision making have been able to reverse the inevitable. Actually only 2 I can think of right now:
-NaDa vs Drewbie was it??: NaDa is hard pressed and has lost most engagements, but realizes his enemy's main is vulnerable and proceeds to doom drop and own. Amazing stuff
-MC vs Thorzain game 4: At one point thorzain has the larger army, and has lots of energy on his ghosts. Awesome feedbacks make MC able to crush Thorzain even when at a disadvantage. Next battle, Thorzain crushes an overwhelming collossi/immortal army by ghost cloaking and EMPing, great stuff.
I think, the correct answer is maps, not units. Small, straightforward maps with no key defense points make comebacks impossible to stage. Larger maps, with winding paths and key defense points available to all races make comebacks possible. Also, adding units that exert area control, such as lurkers and reavers did on BW, make it possible to stage heroic defenses against overwhelming odds. Units that make expansions dissapear such as marauders, go against this,
All in all, terrible answer by Browder. I'm unimpressed.
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
And I don't see why games just like that are not posible in SC2. The reaver holding off a stream of hydra would basically be 3 sentries + 1 colossus frying off legions of zerg, and the second game is a stalker and probes holding off a bunch of marines.
What's funny is that those games are barely 3 years old. So you are comparing the skill level of a 9 year old game at the time with the skill level of a one year old game.
There will be plenty of games just like those to in SC2 soon enough, then I hope that all the whining can stop, but I doubt it.
On April 28 2011 22:57 Weirdkid wrote:In the Grandmaster Leagues and Master Leagues of the various battlenet regions in the world, the win ratios of all 3 races are between 50-55%.
.... Does he realize that his game's matchmaking system basically guarantees that will be true regardless of any balance issues? That the game can be cripplingly imbalanced and the system will simply put Zerg players of very high skill against Terran and Protoss players of low skill and everyone will have around 50% win/loss?
The relevant statistics he should be exploring is race representation in the top 200, and in tournament semi-finals and finals. And last I heard, Zerg was grievously underperforming, consistently.
I don't know why I read interviews with Dustin Browder... they always severely disappoint me. I can't believe he came up with the zergling templar example... really? That's obviously not the only thing that stands out but I won't rant here... very disappointing.
Dustin if you read this. Please look up what a stargate first against Zerg does for a Zerg. Three pheonixes and a voidray and youre all good. It forces the zerg to withdraw its mapcontrol and it picks off its queens and also forces 4 spore crawlers at each base to effectively defend. This force strategy is way to powerful and zerg cant respond effectively in any way.
Hydra response = Colussuss. Spire response = Gateway army and a Spire takes too long to build you can never recover properly with larva injects if you pick this route.
Bowder is 100% correct about the balance and the countering nature being more prevalent in SC1. You see it from time to time, but at these early stages of the game its alot of people finding strategies that require various critical masses and then their opponents learning to deal with that critical mass. The players are forcing the extremes in SC2 more than in BW because SC2 isnt developed yet. Hell, zerg players are still trying to engage vastly superior protoss balls head to head instead of doing constant multi-pronged aggression. That's starting to change, but when it becomes the norm to have alot of shit going on all over the place seemingly at the same time like in BW, the "counter-based" play we see now will fade away.
On May 01 2011 05:09 Olsson wrote: Dustin if you read this. Please look up what a stargate first against Zerg does for a Zerg. Three pheonixes and a voidray and youre all good. It forces the zerg to withdraw its mapcontrol and it picks off its queens and also forces 4 spore crawlers at each base to effectively defend. This force strategy is way to powerful and zerg cant respond effectively in any way.
Hydra response = Colussuss. Spire response = Gateway army and a Spire takes too long to build you can never recover properly with larva injects if you pick this route.
On April 28 2011 22:57 Weirdkid wrote:In the Grandmaster Leagues and Master Leagues of the various battlenet regions in the world, the win ratios of all 3 races are between 50-55%.
.... Does he realize that his game's matchmaking system basically guarantees that will be true regardless of any balance issues? That the game can be cripplingly imbalanced and the system will simply put Zerg players of very high skill against Terran and Protoss players of low skill and everyone will have around 50% win/loss?
The relevant statistics he should be exploring is race representation in the top 200, and in tournament semi-finals and finals. And last I heard, Zerg was grievously underperforming, consistently.
They aren't though, look at some of the more thorough statistics threads floating around. Protoss actually has the lowest win % across the grandmasters, but nearly even with zerg. Terrans are winning about 2% higher rate than protoss and zerg in those leagues. There are more protoss PLAYERS but its proportional to the amount of people that play the race. In fact, Zerg is the most disproportionate with them having represenation in the higher leagues that is much higher % than the % of people who play the race. The tournament results are extremely even as well when you factor in the % of people that choose each race and GSL May round of 8 is probably the most balanced composition yet.
Its so cute when zerg players all think the players they get matched up against at their MMR have to be worse players than them. Some guy in my masters division was telling me he was going to switch races beginning season 2, did a bunch of a custom games at the end of season 1 to go from Zerg to Protoss because he thought it was going to be so easy. I checked his profile a couple weeks in and he was 1 win 23 losses. I checked it again the following week and he had been demoted to diamond. All the races are hard and its really easy to take that for granted when you've been studying the same race for an entire year.
Wow, talk about a guy who is out of touch with reality.
" Within the games themselves, we also see the advantage keep swinging from one player to another. This shows that the state of Starcraft 2 is not that one sided."
Not sure what games he's watching, but usually whenever someone has a clear advantage, they keep it until they win.
sc2 is only an esports because sc1 was an esports. sc2 was forced to become an esports because so much money was pumped in, unlike sc1 which grew out of a genuine interest in the game by the general public.
you can already tell that sc2's game designers are totally out of touch with what makes a rts a spectator sport and more importantly, a complex, balanced rts. sc2 should not be an esports until it is a better game that rewards skilled players better and punishes less skilled people more. but people will ride the sc2 bandwagon and convince themselves that sc2 is a true esports platform. well, i think this interview speaks for itself with regards to whether sc2 is able to become a game that even remotely matches sc1 in its esports sportability.
On April 28 2011 22:57 Weirdkid wrote:In the Grandmaster Leagues and Master Leagues of the various battlenet regions in the world, the win ratios of all 3 races are between 50-55%.
.... Does he realize that his game's matchmaking system basically guarantees that will be true regardless of any balance issues? That the game can be cripplingly imbalanced and the system will simply put Zerg players of very high skill against Terran and Protoss players of low skill and everyone will have around 50% win/loss?
Nah, they don't realize that. You're so smart that you've been able to think of this while all those Blizzard people don't understand it.
If you watch the Blizzcon interviews, they've explained that they got a mathematician who's in charge of adjusting the stats to remove the MM system bias. They even showed the exact formula they use.
On May 01 2011 05:01 xza wrote: aaaaand thats what you get when you have someone from C&C to balance sc2
And that's the type of comment you get when someone doesn't know the difference between game design and game balance.
Browder's job is to think up and/or choose from a whole lot of cool ideas. His job was essentially done when the game hit retail.
David Kim's job is to make those cool ideas fair for everyone. His job is ongoing, that's why you have patches with timings, costs, and numbers being continually adjusted.
Asking Dustin Browder to comment on balance is like asking the company chef to comment on the art style. You'll get an interesting answer, but if you read too much into it it's more your failure than theirs.
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
And I don't see why games just like that are not posible in SC2. The reaver holding off a stream of hydra would basically be 3 sentries + 1 colossus frying off legions of zerg, and the second game is a stalker and probes holding off a bunch of marines.
What's funny is that those games are barely 3 years old. So you are comparing the skill level of a 9 year old game at the time with the skill level of a one year old game.
There will be plenty of games just like those to in SC2 soon enough, then I hope that all the whining can stop, but I doubt it.
If I ever see a player control a lone stalker and get more than 24 kills and defeat an scv marine all in into victory, I will quit SC2 forever.
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
And I don't see why games just like that are not posible in SC2. The reaver holding off a stream of hydra would basically be 3 sentries + 1 colossus frying off legions of zerg, and the second game is a stalker and probes holding off a bunch of marines.
What's funny is that those games are barely 3 years old. So you are comparing the skill level of a 9 year old game at the time with the skill level of a one year old game.
There will be plenty of games just like those to in SC2 soon enough, then I hope that all the whining can stop, but I doubt it.
If I ever see a player control a lone stalker and get more than 24 kills and defeat an scv marine all in into victory, I will quit SC2 forever.
Better start looking into what you'll do after SC2 ^_~
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
And I don't see why games just like that are not posible in SC2. The reaver holding off a stream of hydra would basically be 3 sentries + 1 colossus frying off legions of zerg, and the second game is a stalker and probes holding off a bunch of marines.
What's funny is that those games are barely 3 years old. So you are comparing the skill level of a 9 year old game at the time with the skill level of a one year old game.
There will be plenty of games just like those to in SC2 soon enough, then I hope that all the whining can stop, but I doubt it.
If I ever see a player control a lone stalker and get more than 24 kills and defeat an scv marine all in into victory, I will quit SC2 forever.
If I make a youtube video of me against my friends in this situation and myself winning with the hero stalker, will you quit?
On May 01 2011 05:01 xza wrote: aaaaand thats what you get when you have someone from C&C to balance sc2
And that's the type of comment you get when someone doesn't know the difference between game design and game balance.
Browder's job is to think up and/or choose from a whole lot of cool ideas. His job was essentially done when the game hit retail.
David Kim's job is to make those cool ideas fair for everyone. His job is ongoing, that's why you have patches with timings, costs, and numbers being continually adjusted.
Asking Dustin Browder to comment on balance is like asking the company chef to comment on the art style. You'll get an interesting answer, but if you read too much into it it's more your failure than theirs.
Doesn't change the fact that his answer regarding micro, unit counters and the lack of comebacks in comparison to BW is severely lacking. As a game designer he should be extremely knowledgable when it comes to those gameplay aspects if he wants to design a competitive RTS. ;;
Doesn't change the fact that his answer regarding micro, unit counters and the lack of comebacks in comparison to BW is severely lacking. As a game designer he should be extremely knowledgable when it comes to those gameplay aspects if he wants to design a competitive RTS. ;;
Can you elaborate? It may also just be the translation; small intricacies in detail and tone and etc. may not have been maintained. To me he gave some of the best examples where units can counter another but where micro plays a huge role. Unless that is not what you mean.
Btw, thanks for the interviews! really love blizz interviews haha, want to know more
His examples were quite ridiculous. Stalkers never beat Stimmed Marauders in a real game. Claiming they do is akin to saying in BW a single Marine can counter a dozen Lurkers given good enough micro. Comparing a t3 caster to a t1 unit is quite absurd and is not any different from the BW equivalent anyway. Saying using Cloak with Banshees is "micro" shows he still has no idea what micro actually is (sure, he might call Marine splitting "micro," but this isn't a guessing game).
I'll just quote some of my posts from WCReplays.
As Slugamoo from TL put it (more or less), SC2 has Marines vs. Banelings, while in BW pretty much all counters work like Marines vs. Banelings in SC2. Save for a couple of exceptions, SC2 is all about making the right mix of rock, paper and scissors to counter your opponent's mix of rock, paper and scissors.
Not going to get into any pointless discussion. The fact is that Browder was completely wrong when saying that counters are much harder in BW. In BW you can overcome the vast majority of counters with micro and change the outcome of battles by 180 degrees. In SC2 it's the opposite - in case of most counters micro has little to no effect. In other words, Marines vs. Banelings in SC2 is an anomaly (talking about the current situation), whereas in BW the equivalent is the norm, with but a couple of exceptions. It's irrelevant how you want to label those two types of counter systems.
As for SC2 hardcounters, I'd say e.g. Immortals vs. Tanks and Marauders (with stim) vs. Stalker (in practice, because in theory, a single Marine with detection could kill an infinite amount of Lurkers, but that'd be reduction ad absurdum) fit that description. I could find much more of them, but that's really besides the point. What I was getting at is that micro in BW counter system/unit design plays a HUGE role compared to SC2 (and if you think otherwise, I advise watching some more BW), where it, in most cases, merely compliments having the right unit composition.
Like I said, Marines vs. Banelings or even Mutas vs. Thors (even though I personally find it laughable to call that "micro") sort of interaction is rare in SC2, while in BW it's the norm. Browder in this interview claimed it's the opposite and he's blatantly wrong.
I guess we disagree to what degree micro matters in SC2. I'd say having the right composition in SC2 is ~70% of success, while the remaining ~30% is micro - that's in case of most unit counters. In BW it's the other way around - ~30% of success is having the right units and the rest depends on how well you and your opponent control their respective armies.
Also a small clarification. The comparison to AoC was a deliberate exaggeration, same for the rock, paper, scissors analogy. My point was that the main theme behind composing SC2 armies is having a counter to each unit in the opponent's army (I make Tanks, you make Immortals, you make Immortals, I make Marines/Ghosts, and so on).
Personally, I believe that SC2 would really benefit from having more unit relationships like the one between Marines and Banelings (as far as I'm concerned, all unit "counters" should work that way). Unfortunately, that's not likely gonna happen since Browder actually believes that's already the case, moreso than in BW. I used to have respect for him, but with every interview with him I read, I realize how much of a ignorant fool he actually is. He claimed to have analyzed BW for over a year, so he has to be pretty dumb to make stupid claims like that. ;/
Case in point, SC2 commentators hardly ever discuss micro in batttles, they strongly emphasize the unit composition, though. When the battle starts, it's usually "so much damage!!!" or "what a great concave."
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
And I don't see why games just like that are not posible in SC2. The reaver holding off a stream of hydra would basically be 3 sentries + 1 colossus frying off legions of zerg, and the second game is a stalker and probes holding off a bunch of marines.
What's funny is that those games are barely 3 years old. So you are comparing the skill level of a 9 year old game at the time with the skill level of a one year old game.
There will be plenty of games just like those to in SC2 soon enough, then I hope that all the whining can stop, but I doubt it.
If I ever see a player control a lone stalker and get more than 24 kills and defeat an scv marine all in into victory, I will quit SC2 forever.
If I make a youtube video of me against my friends in this situation and myself winning with the hero stalker, will you quit?
Has to be a GSL game, although if you give me a replay and it looks legit I guess I will take a brief break
Its pretty much impossible because Protoss doesn't have shield batteries or goon range. In this situation I can just put down a bunker and your stalker can't kill it, also against 12 marines (like in the vod) I can't corner your stalker as easily if you have shield battery.
Not only that but if you even can pop a stalker in time, you could probably get a sentry out instead and use forcefield. Unfortunately you would then not end up with any action that is of the least bit exciting.
And if it sounds like I'm going off topic, its exactly these kinds of mechanics which allow for comebacks through skill. The reason I disagree with balance between unit encounters is that the examples involve like someone suggested zealot reaver vs hydra is the same as sentry forcefield vs roach.
Unfortunately forcefields mean the balance between micro encounters is completely imbalanced. If I land good forcefields, you cannot do anything except run away until the forcefields disappear and then try again. Where as the reaver vs hydra example shows that it is all going to comedown to the players skill at that exact moment.
Dustin : That is actually not the case. This situation where one unit counters another unit is not as serious as it was in Starcraft 1. Let's say we have a templar fighting a zergling, and the templar always loses. That's a situation where we really see one unit countering another unit. As of now, the balance between unit-counters and micro is better than in Starcraft 1.
And I don't see why games just like that are not posible in SC2. The reaver holding off a stream of hydra would basically be 3 sentries + 1 colossus frying off legions of zerg, and the second game is a stalker and probes holding off a bunch of marines.
What's funny is that those games are barely 3 years old. So you are comparing the skill level of a 9 year old game at the time with the skill level of a one year old game.
There will be plenty of games just like those to in SC2 soon enough, then I hope that all the whining can stop, but I doubt it.
If I ever see a player control a lone stalker and get more than 24 kills and defeat an scv marine all in into victory, I will quit SC2 forever.
If I make a youtube video of me against my friends in this situation and myself winning with the hero stalker, will you quit?
Has to be a GSL game, although if you give me a replay and it looks legit I guess I will take a brief break
Its pretty much impossible because Protoss doesn't have shield batteries or goon range. In this situation I can just put down a bunker and your stalker can't kill it, also against 12 marines (like in the vod) I can't corner your stalker as easily if you have shield battery.
Not only that but if you even can pop a stalker in time, you could probably get a sentry out instead and use forcefield. Unfortunately you would then not end up with any action that is of the least bit exciting.
And if it sounds like I'm going off topic, its exactly these kinds of mechanics which allow for comebacks through skill. The reason I disagree with balance between unit encounters is that the examples involve like someone suggested zealot reaver vs hydra is the same as sentry forcefield vs roach.
Unfortunately forcefields mean the balance between micro encounters is completely imbalanced. If I land good forcefields, you cannot do anything except run away until the forcefields disappear and then try again. Where as the reaver vs hydra example shows that it is all going to comedown to the players skill at that exact moment.
You can bait the forcefields. You can burrow under forcefields. You can medivac load/unload over forcefields.
On April 28 2011 23:18 R3N wrote: I thought first "well he's a game designer not the balance guru" then thought about that for about a minute until I realized how retarded that was.
This guy basically designed the game but can't even make a semi-decent comparison between two units? Not that it matters as what he says is bullocks. Units hard counter too much in SC2 compared to SC1 and he have no answer to why that is and doesn't want to understand.
SC2 doesn't have hard unit counters. If it did there would lots more swings and comebacks. Hard counters are what creates comeback situations....
People that discuss hard counters are pretty ignorant of actual games in my opinion. If you think a zealot plugging a wall in ZvP will hold off a zergling attack 100% of the time you've never seen me ram 30 zerglings against a wall until the zealot dies and a unending stream of lings are rallied to your door. Sure one on one a zealot can kill a ling, even four. But starcraft is about positioning, tactics, strategy, micro and finally macro/counters. Not just build A to beat B so C can beat A.