EPTBlizzard: Out of touch? - Page 30
| Forum Index > SC2 General |
|
Seide
United States831 Posts
| ||
|
Dommk
Australia4865 Posts
On June 14 2011 02:33 zawk9 wrote: Your probably not blind, but upon re-reading them both the LSPrime and Sen quotes do indirectly criticize them. LSPrime criticizes their decision to add rocks/the abusable low ground cliff to Tal Darim Altar. Sen criticized close positions and how strong he feels cheese is in the game. In my experience lots of pros also complain about the volatility in the game.. even on these very forums. I don't presume to speak for them because I'm as awful at this game as I was at BW, but saying "nobody who talks to blizzard criticizes them" doesn't seem particularly true. Sen was complaining more about the state of the game, now how they are developing it. In a recent interview, he said that close positions too hard against Terran, but didn't mention Protoss, if you had asked him 6months ago he most likely would have said both. That is a meta game thing. But that doesn't mean there aren't Zergs who like close position play, the ladder is meant for everyone, Tournaments use their own maps which people are fine with. The 1gas half base third was done because of the current Meta-game, a change especially made for tournament play. They are criticizing Blizzard for not wanting to make changes that suit the current meta game, which isn't something they should be doing really... But in terms of how they are actually developing the game--how they are taking feedback and the reasoning behind the changes they make--how many people who are in active contact with Blizzard actually dislike they way they are handling things? I've yet to see anyone come out and complain. When Browder mentions that "uncertainty" when going into battles and mentions he liked that "there are things someone can do to swing the battle", I have to disagree, that because of how strong aoe is and how units clump, it actually takes away from this uncertainty, as units simply die too quick for someone to do those things that can swing the battle. You often find it is because of the very same reason that players are actually able to swing the battle. Catching Colossus, avoiding Storms/EMPs, landing great EMPs/Storms, getting great position with Colossus vs drawing them off guard. When you have units like the Marauder and the Marine, which have (per supply) double/triple the DPS of a Stalker, the only way you can actually swing a battle in your favor is with AOE | ||
|
Serashin
235 Posts
On June 14 2011 02:29 Dommk wrote: Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see anyone in this thread or in the original post that talks to Blizzard actually criticizing them. I criticize them in displaying balance rosters that end up at arround 50 % when their system is made for not being able to a individual player going below 50 % unless he just leaves every game . wich do just a low percent of players , if you check Terran winratios for some players at top with 80-90 % it becomes more clear however i know how they can abuse their race even more to end up just losing if every move of the toss is a blind counter that allows you instant to get into the production line of a terran. I also criticize them in not being able to realize math errors that allowed terran not to lose even when protoss had voidray speed same applies for zerg they were ever able to deal with it. as for the kal darim amulet it wasnt a auto win neither against terran just because they spam units with low health doesnt mean u cant deal with it not to mention that bunkers and spreading protects you from damage and allows you time to breath ( bunker aswell as PF ).as for using this against zerg it was ever a eco matter sure it was easier to use ur excess gas in time but not "imba" aswell. Banshee for example is something u can build by making a 200 /100 building and skip its useage and use ur banshees extreemly strong you cant do effitiently a 1/1/1 zerg or protoss now you may be able to compare it to a DT rush wish also uses a mid tier building and u often survive however if you are prepared initial dt tech puts toss way to much behind as for the terran matter u can go every game banshee even if they know its comming it often causes damage and they never die + u have all time the option to kill this low health observer to have a short time of a unvulerable unit. if you check scan for that matter its the only thing in the game wich u cant protect urself from it no matter how hard u try u cant even base tactics arround OC sniping since they are very easy to safe and even to think about sniping theese to get rid of scans is dumb if you check the math facts how you may able to do so. speed factors also play a gigantic role in this game wich affects balance. if you see a toss moving out with units u know with their movement speed you are able to react to it with other races having faster stuff. this applies also to retreat situations and chase situations all time protoss has the worse cards. blizzards maths arent tested to the micro limit wich is why some stuff gets to ridicilous cost effective aswell a terran with a ramp and a bunker is more cost effective then a sentry if you might wanna compare ultimate 1 base defense whereas a t3 unit aka thor walks over it and a sentry costing 100 gas ur bunker just costs u what u have anyway more on 1 base due the mule income. so all in all and even more i can critizise about how they manage their intel gathering intel useage and apllying changes and for the fun factor if you ever played a toss on a high level u see that the versatilness of this race aka if you ever use other tech it has to much risks wich cost you instant the game a terran can freely chose his tech in most cases fun of toss with their units need to have succesrate aswell if you cant succed with your low choices and some of them like halucination are a detection gamble wich add 0 dps its just nothing u can rely on in most situations. also a great funfact is if you never checked in the unit counter tab from blizzard and play it yourself out you see in much cases laughable errors. There is just to much to criticize to get more near balanace while adding more fun rather then making patches wich just remove functions and removing functions is no different then removing fun.Just say me how much fun or creativity it created for the players to remove Void Ray speed ? | ||
|
zawk9
United States427 Posts
On June 14 2011 02:48 Dommk wrote: Sen was complaining more about the state of the game, now how they are developing it. I'm not actually talking about "criticizing game development" when I mention Sen complaining about Close Positions.. I specifically mentioned someone who criticized the way blizzard is handling a certain aspect of their game.. which you essentially said never happened. He also complained about how strong cheese is and how easy it is to transition out of. That is an example someone in contact with blizzard complaining about an issue with the game design. I can state with some confidence that he's certainly not the only one. The 1gas half base third was done because of the current Meta-game, a change especially made for tournament play. They are criticizing Blizzard for not wanting to make changes that suit the current meta game, which isn't something they should be doing really... Why not? Part of balancing a game is changing maps to suit the current metagame. Regular map updates to suit the metagame are one of the primary reasons BW looks as balanced as it does. If blizzard is going to be doing the job of making a balanced game than they should be using map balancing for the metagame as one of the tools at their disposal. Obviously blizzard doesn't feel they need to change maps to suit the current metagame because "its confusing", but theirs a sizable difference between what they won't do and what they actually shouldn't. But in terms of how they are actually developing the game--how they are taking feedback and the reasoning behind the changes they make--how many people who are in active contact with Blizzard actually dislike they way they are handling things? I've yet to see anyone come out and complain. How many people in the community does Blizzard actively consult about game design? I'd imagine any people they actually do contact about this would have a rather significant amount of constructive criticism and feedback for them... seeing as it comes with the particular job description. For that matter why should "being in active contact" with blizzard matter when it comes to being able to criticize the way they handle game design anyway? Shouldn't anyone with some expertise or personal experience in the area ought to be able to speak their mind and have the opinion count as much as someone with a similar background who happens to have a personal line with David Kim? | ||
|
betaV1.25
425 Posts
Did you guys actually see the last mlg? what more of prove do you need that SCII is alot more popular then BW has ever been out side of korea? do you actually think they could pull that off with a shitty game? User was warned for this post | ||
|
Trumpstyle
Sweden114 Posts
| ||
|
SolidusR
United States217 Posts
| ||
tree.hugger
Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
On June 14 2011 00:10 Yaotzin wrote: Are you suggesting they replace crap like DQ with crap like Testbug? On the one hand they need to leave things alone to allow innovation, on the other they need to change the maps the community doesn't like...tough position :0 You misread my point. I have two arguments. The first, which I spent that post laying out, is that if what we're only interested in is balance, than map design is a better source of that. So yes, I'd like to see more aggressive map making, and I think that Blizzard clearly does not understand the importance of map design, based on their past actions. In regards to gameplay, I think it's much better to largely leave things alone. This is largely the formula for how BW developed and I think Sc2 could easily succeed along the same path. The community is much better at balancing a game than is Blizzard. If Blizzard had actually paid attention to BW, they would know better how to facilitate and how to get out of the way, I think. It's a two way street, and it's not easy either; but I'm still fairly confident that Blizzard is in the weeds. Corsair is an obvious counter to mutas... This brings me to my second point, which I barely hinted at in that bigger post. But I think this is the meat of the OP's complaint. I think he's afraid (as am I, and likely any fan coming from BW) that balance in Sc2 won't be dynamic enough, because Blizzard isn't designing units correctly, and is taking a lot of the built-in limitations out of the game. This may or may not be the case, and furthermore, I don't know enough to speak to this, and I don't have any evidence either way, so I'm going to avoid really talking about it. But my nugget of an example was about how the corsair and science vessel (and archon) became counters to the mutalisk. They only truly became the serious counters that they did because the way mutalisks were used in 2006 with the discovery of modern muta micro. After stacking your mutas, they become much much more vulnerable to corsairs and archons, and science vessel irradiate. It got to the point where one science vessel effectively shuts down muta harass, simply because the threat of an irradiate destroying the whole flock becomes too strong. Nothing like that in Sc2. That's all I'm going to say about the second issue. On June 14 2011 03:12 betaV1.25 wrote: The OP is speaking from the position of a fan, which is a curious one that you appear to not understand. He is not easily satisfied, because he knows things could be even better. As a community, we need more people like the OP, and less people who accept what is given to them without comment, thought, or constructive criticism. So many many tears in this topic about ... nothing... just another thread that is plain wrong. OP has no insight in running a company, is blind for the stuff that does go right and i suspect suffers from pms. Did you guys actually see the last mlg? what more of prove do you need that SCII is alot more popular then BW has ever been out side of korea? do you actually think they could pull that off with a shitty game? | ||
|
Spawkuring
United States755 Posts
On June 14 2011 03:38 SolidusR wrote: SC2 is a better game than most people give it credit for. That being said, the comment made by Browder about going back to BW if you don't like SC2 really irritates me. It's the best argument that can be made for the design team's ego issues. The correct response is not to tell people to go back to BW if they like particular features, but rather to understand how to integrate the best parts of BW into SC2, making it the best RTS possible to date. Unit pathing adjustments are an excellent example, people don't want BW pathing but they do miss the way units respected each others' space. Perhaps in SC2 units could still respect the space of other units without getting stuck everywhere and walking all over the map when they encounter an obstacle without constant micro. This zero sum take-it-or-leave-it approach is debilitating for the positive growth of the game. It is indicative of an overly sensitive design team which is increasingly running out of explanations for the small number of fixable but unrefined aspects of SC2 gameplay. I agree completely. Only an idiot would say that SC2 is shitty or bad, but I do have a problem with people being overly defensive about it. SC2 isn't perfect, and there's nothing wrong with pointing that out and proposing ways to change it. But I do hate how people practically jump you every time you criticize the game at all. Yes, I can understand that some complaints are just cheap balance whines, and that some people should stop bashing Dustin Browder mindlessly, but none of those things mean that we should just ignore all the valid complaints that are buried beneath the rough. I also see nothing wrong with taking the best parts of BW and integrating them into SC2, because I SEVERELY doubt that a casual's decision to buy SC2 is going to be based on it having clumped unit pathing or not (most RTSs these days actually spread units out, like CoH). Hell, the public at large already sees the game as SC1 in 3D, so I really don't know why people are so obsessed with trying to shake that notion when it's pretty much impossible to do without overhauling the game (which these same people are often against doing, lol). | ||
|
Dystisis
Norway713 Posts
Colossus is rather boring. But most of all, it is the current strategies employed that are boring. | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States44257 Posts
Furthermore, if you've been paying any attention to the evolution of SC2 so far, you'd notice that the game has been approaching a more balanced ratio overall for 1v1. I really couldn't disagree more with the OP. Just because Blizzard doesn't want to patch, buff, or nerf, every single idea that people come up with doesn't mean they're *out of touch* with everyone. It would destroy the game to change everything for no legitimate reason, and at least Blizzard is honest with us. Your premises and arguments are clearly flawed, and even your random facts are just plain ridiculous. Roaches, marauders, and immortals are the SC2 versions of dragoons? Umm... not even close. None of them can attack air, none of them have famously terrible pathing, and they each have unique abilities (burrow move, concussive shells, hardened shields). So if your argument was that those three units were ranged units that happened to cost a little gas... then okay. So I guess stalkers, hydralisks, and tanks are dragoons too! You're grasping at straws, and I don't see it going anywhere useful. If you think certain units are boring, then go make your own game with cooler versions of them -.-' Or just wait until the expansions come out. | ||
|
kentarre
United States28 Posts
The Blizzard ladder is their own official ladder. They can operate it in whatever fashion that they want to. They never laid claim that it was the end-all-be-all ladder in the world. They have their own guidelines for adding maps to the ladder, why not allow them to have Tal'darim Altar molded to fit those guidelines? In fact they didn't have to necessarily reach out to the creator for their opinions and discussion regarding balancing of the map. We've seen from legal cases and fine print that they indeed own all intellectual property of the game, including map creations (until the Map Store is official anyways). The fact they went out and discussed this with the creator was good respect on their part. Just the same as why GOM introduced its own custom GSL maps and why MLG instituted their own customized versions of existing maps. Each organization wanted to do things differently, so why not allow maps to be customized for each tournament or ladder? | ||
|
r_con
United States824 Posts
On June 14 2011 03:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Blizzard gets feedback from multiple outlets, including the pro-gamers, their own forums, and all the statistics they collect. And they take it very seriously. And, quite frankly, they know a heck of a lot more about their game than Sen does. Furthermore, if you've been paying any attention to the evolution of SC2 so far, you'd notice that the game has been approaching a more balanced ratio overall for 1v1. I really couldn't disagree more with the OP. Just because Blizzard doesn't want to patch, buff, or nerf, every single idea that people come up with doesn't mean they're *out of touch* with everyone. It would destroy the game to change everything for no legitimate reason, and at least Blizzard is honest with us. Your premises and arguments are clearly flawed, and even your random facts are just plain ridiculous. Roaches, marauders, and immortals are the SC2 versions of dragoons? Umm... not even close. None of them can attack air, none of them have famously terrible pathing, and they each have unique abilities (burrow move, concussive shells, hardened shields). So if your argument was that those three units were ranged units that happened to cost a little gas... then okay. You're grasping at straws, and I don't see it going anywhere useful. How about we wait until the expansions come out? And if you think certain units are boring, then go make your own game with cooler versions of them -.-' I agree with you. But i think the concept of just an overall solid unit should be exclusive to one race. The marauder and the stalker and roach are just great "meat" units. The problem is that they closely overlap due to there health. a Roach feels like a marauder, and a marauder feels like a stalker. But if you compare say, hydras to dragoons, or vultures to roaches, they are way different. What i think we are essentially saying is that the units overlap in overall feel too much. In broodwar, the only good ranged high health, pretty good against everything unit was the dragoon. Now zerg and terran have that kind of unit too(not exactly the same of course). | ||
|
Two_DoWn
United States13684 Posts
On June 14 2011 02:48 Seide wrote: When Browder mentions that "uncertainty" when going into battles and mentions he liked that "there are things someone can do to swing the battle", I have to disagree, that because of how strong aoe is and how units clump, it actually takes away from this uncertainty, as units simply die too quick for someone to do those things that can swing the battle. Uncertainty was how well you could psi storm, dodge emps, put clumps of tanks in stasis, and all across 2 or 3 screens of units. Now its just "let me slam my ball into yours and see who wins." The only uncertainty is because you cant actually tell how many units there are in a given space because all balls look the same. Uncertainty is good when it derives from micro. Its shit when it comes from visual misrepresentation. | ||
|
karpo
Sweden1998 Posts
On June 14 2011 04:14 Two_DoWn wrote: Uncertainty was how well you could psi storm, dodge emps, put clumps of tanks in stasis, and all across 2 or 3 screens of units. Now its just "let me slam my ball into yours and see who wins." The only uncertainty is because you cant actually tell how many units there are in a given space because all balls look the same. Uncertainty is good when it derives from micro. Its shit when it comes from visual misrepresentation. Let me slam my ball into your and see who wins might be true in regular low rank ladder matches. It's not really true in actual high end tournaments. Why to people so often resort to hyperbole and exaggerations when they want to argue a point on these forums? | ||
|
Yaotzin
South Africa4280 Posts
On June 14 2011 03:43 tree.hugger wrote: You misread my point. I have two arguments. The first, which I spent that post laying out, is that if what we're only interested in is balance, than map design is a better source of that. So yes, I'd like to see more aggressive map making, and I think that Blizzard clearly does not understand the importance of map design, based on their past actions. Well, I agree on the importance of maps, but I'm not sure Blizzard can reasonably be much more aggressive with map changes. Most of ladder probably isn't very interested in having to learn new maps every other month. I feel like letting GSL and such introduce new maps then have a slower filter into the ladder is a reasonable compromise. Not that it's perfect, garbage like DQ/Slag/close positions should disappear immediately, but overall it's OK. The other reason I'm slightly against aggressive map changes is because I feel like people have very limited understanding - for now - of what makes a map favor a race. Look at something like Crossfire. Intuition - mine included - says it's a Terran paradise (and a Protoss one in ZvP). Actual evidence says otherwise. Or Tal'Darim these days actually favoring Terran a bit in TvP! That makes it rather difficult to decide what to include, to achieve an overall balance. In regards to gameplay, I think it's much better to largely leave things alone. This is largely the formula for how BW developed and I think Sc2 could easily succeed along the same path. The community is much better at balancing a game than is Blizzard. If Blizzard had actually paid attention to BW, they would know better how to facilitate and how to get out of the way, I think. It's a two way street, and it's not easy either; but I'm still fairly confident that Blizzard is in the weeds. I agree, and it seems Blizzard are roughly at that point. From what they say it seems they feel everything is about OK and aren't really going to do much more until HOTS. | ||
|
FordQuality
Canada17 Posts
On June 14 2011 03:12 betaV1.25 wrote: So many many tears in this topic about ... nothing... just another thread that is plain wrong. OP has no insight in running a company, is blind for the stuff that does go right and i suspect suffers from pms. Did you guys actually see the last mlg? what more of prove do you need that SCII is alot more popular then BW has ever been out side of korea? do you actually think they could pull that off with a shitty game? Wait? the thread is wrong why? explain please. sc2 being popular has nothing to do with the game being balanced and the fans that showed up at mlg and watch the streams I'm sure would agree that the game needs to be balanced badly in various aspects of the game. | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States44257 Posts
On June 14 2011 04:08 r_con wrote: I agree with you. But i think the concept of just an overall solid unit should be exclusive to one race. The marauder and the stalker and roach are just great "meat" units. The problem is that they closely overlap due to there health. a Roach feels like a marauder, and a marauder feels like a stalker. But if you compare say, hydras to dragoons, or vultures to roaches, they are way different. What i think we are essentially saying is that the units overlap in overall feel too much. In broodwar, the only good ranged high health, pretty good against everything unit was the dragoon. Now zerg and terran have that kind of unit too(not exactly the same of course). What you've posited is that there exists a single trio of units that has a similar feel to them. In other words, that there is one Zerg unit that kind of feels like one Terran unit, and that both kind of feel like a Protoss unit. Roach ~ Marauder ~ Stalker. 1. First off, I would be worried if this were the norm for the races. In other words, if pretty much every Terran unit matched each Zerg and Protoss unit. I think it's quite obvious that this isn't the case. In fact, Blizzard has said over and over again that they make sure that there isn't an equivalent of each unit for each niche or mirror unit to match. And yet the match-up statistics show that the game is relatively balanced in 1v1. I think that's rather amazing. 2. Secondly, I actually reject your claim that Roach ~ Marauder ~ Stalker. I see a match only in cost. The differences? -Marauders counter the other two straight up. -The multiple abilities of each: burrow-move vs. stim and concussive vs. blink and air attack. Very different indeed. 3. We see a lot of variation in 1v1 games. If we only saw pure marauders out of Terran players, or all Protosses going pure stalkers, then we'd have a problem. What we see instead is a variety of builds (which does undoubtedly change as the metagame shifts), so I really don't see problems here. Some units are used more than others, true. But that doesn't imply that we need this thread to bash Blizzard in the way the OP is. It certainly doesn't mean Blizzard is *out of touch*. | ||
|
JustTray
127 Posts
On June 14 2011 01:44 CecilSunkure wrote: Like I said, I'm pretty happy with what has happened so far from Blizzard's end, but I didn't say they couldn't improve. I really think most decisions they made to their 1v1 map pool were made with the idea in mind that newer players cannot be alienated, and lower level players cannot be lost and confused. They just don't cater to the high level community heavily in that regard. I think they should, as it's a damn ladder map pool, but I'm sure their decision has currently fulfilled whatever goals they had for it. Also, I've never thought that map makers at Blizzard knew what they were doing. My experience tells me that the majority of maps are made from level designers that don't understand competitive play, and the ones put into map pool go through the test team and David Kim, neither of which should be nearly as competent as the teams of people creating BW maps. So it's expected (at least to me) that they'll be lacking, and Blizzard knows this as well. They seem to just be hoping that the competitive community will just make their own maps for tournaments, while they can keep their current ladder map pool design in affect in order to achieve whatever goals they are striving for in doing so. I think the overall way BW was constructed simply made it less prone to a lot of headaches people have nowadays in SC2. Better pathing, more efficient AI, easier spell casting, multi-building select, infinite selection cap, all of these things make the game more prone to annoying shit than back in Brood War. For example compare the Templar Psi Storm from the two games. SC2's obviously has less DPS (yes I know this is apple's to orange's), and the same goes for most AoE attacks from BW to SC2. Take a look at Plague --> Fungal Growth. You have to make spells, abilities, and some units in general a lot less effective due to fundamental differences between the games. So I don't really think it's fair to say BW's design was better, when I think that BW was just less prone to the headaches caused by today due to the vast differences between the two situations of BW and SC2. You also have to realize that BW was released for how long before it got to its current state? SC2 is an infant compared to that timespan. Give it some good hard time (assuming Blizzard lets the dust settle so we can figure shit out, and lets skilled and external groups handle map making moreso than now). This isn't directly related to your post, but I wanted to point out that your post have been very good. They should implement some basic formations. Perhaps 4 different formations that will place your selected hotkey in a predefined arrangement based on strategical impact. A game called Myth back in the day had this, and it was awesome. It was a preset army RTS where each army was equal and SC2 could really help the OPness of AoE if they had much easier formation control. | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States44257 Posts
On June 13 2011 12:12 jsdk wrote: I think what bothers me the most is their mentality of "we'll fix balance in the expansion." I seem to remember a community manager saying that he couldn't believe that people would think that they would have an imbalanced game until an expansion was released. He wrongly thought Blizzard was still the same company. The problem with that is that they can't know exactly what's imbalanced (or not) unless they openly communicate to the pros, instead of telling them to wait a year for some magical fix that might happen. And then guess what? Not everything is fixed because they keep shrugging people off, and then "wait until the next expansion..." Fantastic. I think what bothers me the most is that people whine about Blizzard when they don't care to pay attention to what Blizzard has actually been doing. They don't put off fixing balance. They have been fixing balance. The statistics show that the game has been getting more and more balanced. Furthermore, they've been talking to pros, looking at forums, looking at their own statistics, and playing the game themselves, ever since the beta. They've been using every possible form of input and feedback available, which is why the game is very, very close to balanced at the moment. | ||
| ||
