Blizzard: Out of touch? - Page 29

On June 14 2011 01:36 Rabiator wrote:

The way I see it is not as a miscommunication, but rather as a misconception of the game. Starcraft 2 doesnt seem to be intended as an RTS but rather as an RTAS (real time action-focused strategy game), where the emphasis is on ACTION and less about strategy. Thus the death balls and the unlimited unit selection and the tiny Blizzard maps were born. They WANT RUSHES, because they follow the stupid motto that more explosions are better for the game. All this focus on action and speed makes the game more volatile and this is not a good thing, but the Blizzard designers think it is necessary to cater to todays generation of gamers who cant focus on a 25 minute macro game. Well you play how you are taught to play the game and if you are taught to play "casual" you will become a casual gamer ... thats how they are "balancing" the game for WoW. Sadly they are forgetting that SC2 isnt Wow and that the "eSport SC2" wont be kept interesting by tons of casuals, but rather by the progamers. These need reliability of their success chances though and a volatile game doesnt offer reliability.

IdrA has complained a lot of times about imbalance and has gotten a lot of slack for saying "Player X shouldnt be beaten by a worse player" and this is the sign of this volatility.
An example: Terrans are supposed to be able to turtle and defend well, but how much chance of survival does any of their buildings have against a decently sized Protoss death ball? Well a Planetary Fortress survives for about 5 seconds unless it is repaired by 25 SCVs full time and those can be blocked from their job easily by Forcefields or die to Colossi. Does the PF kill a significant amount of the attacking army? Not really, so it almost doesnt seem worth it.
Another example: How long does it take eight Marauders with Stim to take down a Nexus? Far less time than it takes for any defense force to arrive.
Yet another example: How can a Terran keep his Planetary Fortress alive against 50 Banelings being rightclicked on it? Only with a decent amount of Sige Tanks. Usually these are elsewhere, because 1-2 sieged Tanks dont really make a difference anymore.
The stupidest example of them all: How much chance of winning does the Zerg have with a Terran on close ground spawn on Metalopolis? The change from "automatic loss" to "winnable game" depending upon the spawn position really makes the volatility evident. Sadly the opposite is also true ... if the maps get HUGE there is almost nothing Protoss and Terran can do to Zerg to stop them from getting their economy rolling and thereafter crushing the opponents with waves of units. This is a problem which is created by the volatility of the macro mechanics. A lot of nerfs had to be introduced to make close spawns work, while a longer rush distance would have worked just as well ...

There are lots of examples how the "improvements" made from SC1 to SC2 have made the game more volatile and thus harder to balance AND harder to play consistently on. Volatile games are just unforgiving and if you make a tiny mistake you could lose it all in the blink of an eye. That isnt a good design philosophy IMO.

Since there are more units in a typical engagement in SC2 there is a much greater need for good balance. Blizzard would make a wise decision if they removed some of these new mechanics which increase the volatility of games. A few thoughts I had on this topic:

• Add the dynamic unit movement to the game AND increase the distance between Colossi. Reason: It looks more natural, it will give opportunities to the players for more micro and it reduces the "attacking dps per square" for such problematic units as Colossi.
  
• To offset the "defensive bonus" of the dynamic unit movement all area effect attacks (Siege Tank, Psi Storm, EMP, Seeker Missile, Fungal Growth, Colossus, Thor AA, ?(not Forcefield)) have to be increased in efficiency. These effects "had to be nerfed" too much to take the tight unit formations into account or they would have been dominating the game, but with the addition of dynamic unit movement the choice is left to the player AND HIS MICRO SKILLS again ... try to bunch your units for maximum dps per attack square OR go for an open formation to minimize the losses from area attacks. This would give skilled players another advantage to "micro their units" just like Terrans already have to do against Banelings ... but there isnt any need for Zerg to do the same.
  
• I would suggest to have a maximum limit of "24 supply" in each control group. Reason: This forces casual players to learn to multitask and that is a good thing. It also prevents the huge death balls from being too easy to manage and thus too effective.
  
• Make defensive structures tougher / more viable. Reason: Defensive structures are the only way to defend against unexpected types of attacks and they should be able to "pull their weight". I am not asking for turrets to be built in 5 seconds and having 1000 hit points, but they need to not die in a few seconds like they do to the tight attacking formations now. Most good players will get mobile units to attack and not want to waste their resources on defensive structures, so it should be ok to toughen them a bit if you want to play differently.
  
• Remove / seriously nerf Reactors, MULE, Larva inject and chronoboost. Reason: These mechanics speed up the unit production to the point of being able to "flick a switch" and surprise the opponent with a totally different unit combination which he hasnt prepared a "counter" for.
  
• Remove Stim from Marauders but give back the ability to slow even massive units. Reason: It is too easy to snipe buildings with 1-2 Medivacs full of Marauders AND there is no point in slowing small units. If Marauders cant run away from faster units they are endangered a lot more and this should offset the snare on the Ultralisks ... that way the decision would be in the hands of the players and their skill to use the units again (drop microing Marauders to slow Ultralisks ?). Nerfing Marauder slow for units XYZ takes the choice out of the hands of the players.
  
• Either add some cheap ability to units with expensive spells (Thor, BC) so they can "defend themselves" from Feedback OR remove their energy (at least until the ability is researched!). Reason: Having to EMP your own forces just to not have that vulnerability is just stupid design and it lets the High Templar "counter" too many terran units with an instant ability. Zerg dont have that problem, but imagine what would happen if Broodlords had to purchase their Broodlings or Ultralisks a charge attack with Energy ...
  
• Get rid of the idea of "counter units". Reason: A unit which is designed to counter a specific other unit often misses a purpose if these other units are dead on the other side and is otherwise dull (Corruptor anyone?). Stick to creating units because you had a funky idea.

I dont presume to have found the philosophers stone, but there are things which make it harder to balance the game than it could be and these are in the general design / design concept of the game.