Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 16

[QUOTE]On August 16 2011 22:22 Teiwaz wrote:
[QUOTE]On August 16 2011 09:54 TENTHST wrote:
I literally just posted this on the Blizzard forums a minute ago:


I want to talk about StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. However before I do, I think it prudent to give a bit of history about my relationship with the StarCraft dynasty.

I started playing StarCraft 1 about a month after its release in 1998. I wasn't particularly attracted to it right off the bat, and, as a result, I played it casually - excited exclusively by 3v3s, 4v4s and money-maps. However the introduction of BroodWar really sparked my interest in 1v1, and I began playing seriously in early 1999 as a Random player. I used to scrim with players like box, Rekrule, ScoliosisVictem, AngryLlama, as well as play the aberrant pick-up game found in X17, motel, cake, op aafrog, etc.

I embarked upon the ladder system in the year 2000, and worked my way up and down with little long-term success. However, as the months passed, and my ladder ranking remained stagnate, I found both Terran macro and Terran micro increasingly difficult - especially using "Mech" versus Protoss - and decided I was not good enough to compete as a Random player. I soon settled on Zerg, which is the race I played until 2004-2005 when my excitement for BroodWar began to wane. The reason I bring this up is because I want to make it clear that I played all three races in a competitive 1v1 setting, and I can say objectively that Terran was, without a doubt, the most demanding, and the least forgiving. Knowing the extreme difficulty of Terran made players like Boxer or Flash seem that much more amazing, and, as a result, kept my attention on the professional BroodWar scene for years to come.


The release of StarCraft 2 was an exciting day for me. I had been waiting nearly a decade and was anxious to find out what new and amazing units the geniuses at Blizzard had invented. After the install and a few hours messing around in multiplayer, I have to admit that I was the tiniest bit disappointed that so many units were recycled from BroodWar. Granted they had somewhat different roles to fill, but the ideas were the same, and, therefore bland. I was however very happy with the macro changes; thing like the raising and lowering of Supply Depots, the warp-in mechanic, the Creep-spread mechanic, hot-keying 255 units into a single group, multiple building selection, etc. Things just seemed easier. I rationalized this conflict by saying "well, I guess this is just a refined version of BroodWar" and eventually convinced myself that I was happy with my long-awaited purchase.

I jumped face first into ladder playing as Random. Initially I found my competition very soft, and was promoted into Diamond League within a few days. While in Diamond I continued to play Random until the announcement that a new league, called Master League, would be created for the top 2% of players on each server. About three weeks before Master League was implemented, I figured it was time to pick. While I loved the macro ease of Terran (one of my biggest problems with BroodWar Terran), and the warp-mechanic of Protoss, the Baneling and Creep Tumor were what solidified my choice as Zerg. I was promoted into Master League on the first day of its creation and ended Season 1 with 3400 points, and Season 2 with 1500 points.


As of today I have over 4000 league games played - roughly 500 as Terran, 500 as Protoss and 3000 as Zerg. I have come to some conclusions in that time that I want to share. There are a lot of things in this game that just "don't feel right". Of course I could list cost versus efficacy for each unit, or limitations that certain races have that others don't, but that would take many, many pages.

One simple example of this inadequacy is the Roach. The Roach just doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the Zerg arsenal. Even the name "Roach" isn't Zerg-worthy. Zerg has all kinds of -lisks and -lings, but then there is this unit that is named after something that scuttles under the refrigerator when I flip the light switch in my kitchen. I understand Blizzard wanted Hydralisks to fill a very specific role, and as a result left Zerg with a gap in utility, but it seems like the Roach was a last-second addition that was purely for equalizing Zerg's offensive capabilities in the early-game. And because Zerg has such weak supplementary units, the Roach (just like the recently-buffed Infestor) has replaced the need for other units. It, just as the Infestor, has become a "do-all" unit, and arguably the core of a Zerg army. After all, you could technically go Roach/Infestor in every match-up and be reasonably safe against most compositions.

Another great example of this is the Colossus. This is something I like to call a "vanity" unit. That is, its role is not as important as its "coolness" effect. I imagine the Blizzard design team sitting around the brain-storming-table in 2009 thinking about a "AMFG LAZER BEAMS" unit to replace the Reaver and, thus, appeal to the new player base. So what we have now is a BroodWar Reaver that has had all of its micro-intensive requirements removed, but balanced out by a reduction in killing efficiency. A properly microed Reaver in BroodWar was a horrifying unit to fight; a properly microed Colossus in StarCraft 2 is only a mild threat, for which players usually have premade tech structures for producing counters (Terran already has a Reactor'd Starport in Terran versus Protoss, and Zerg usually has a Spire in Zerg versus Protoss, so to counter the Colossus a Terran presses "V" instead of "D", and a Zerg presses "C" instead of "T"). A Reaver in BroodWar was slow-moving, very fragile and required a constant cycling of Scarabs. It was a hard unit to control and was only really effective if the user had impeccable multi-tasking and Dropship control. But now in StarCraft 2, the Colossus is easily manageable and has reduced consequences for poor micro, meaning the difference between LiquidHuk controlling a Colossus and me controlling a Colossus is nearly indistinguishable to the viewer.


Anyone who played BroodWar for an extended period of time will confidently agree that the multi-tasking and general strategy requirements for StarCraft 2 have a much lower standard for success - that is to say, the sequel was made considerably easier and more forgiving. In StarCraft 2, when you lose a building while researching an upgrade, your money is returned; when you warp-in a Stalker too close to battle and it dies, not only are you refunded the money, but your Warp-Gate cycle is reset. Siege Tanks and Banelings have "Smart-Targeting", Marines have "Smart-Fire", and there are friendly little reminders when your M.U.L.E., larva inject or Chronoboost cycles are complete. This is a far cry from the ruthless days of BroodWar, when every action had consequence, and the more actions you could execute, the less mistakes you would make. Old-school professional players like Flash, Jaedong, Boxer, Yellow and Elky had, on top of many other skills, astounding A.P.M.; not just the spamming-control-groups-A.P.M. that everyone does, but numbers upward of 250 well into a 40-minute game. Now, in StarCraft 2, we have pro players like White Ra, Goody, Sjow and Thorzain who hover in the mid-100s, yet remain successful at the highest levels.


Why would Blizzard make their sequel easier? Why not make it as hard, if not harder to play? Are people getting stupider, or less comfortable on a keyboard? Of course not. If anything, gamers are getting smarter and more capable on a keyboard. So what gives?
There are several reasons why Blizzard would opt for a less demanding game, but the key factor is the attraction of a new customer base. One of the major reasons why competitive BroodWar didn't really flourish in the North Americas was because of the strangle-hold the Korean pro-gaming scene already had secured on the market, and, subsequently, how much of a skill-discrepancy existed.

No, this isn't a racial superiority thing, or even a cultural thing, but rather an issue of funding - that is, the rewards that a Korean professional gamer could earn versus that of a North American were far from comparable. As Dustin Browder said in his recent interview, this phenomenon can simply be explained by time spent practicing because a Korean pro-gamer could actually support himself solely on StarCraft tournament earnings, whereas a North American or European could not.


So Blizzard, in an attempt to create the next new "e-sport", designed a game where the top level was a much more practical and attainable goal. The professional gamer no longer needs to practice 12 hours a day to remain competitive, and this makes the lower tier players recognize that upward mobility is quite achievable.

The beauty of this marketing dynamic is that it also allows a much larger pool of players at the bottom to feel like they are skilled, and thus, be more inspired to continue queuing up games. Now instead of 1000-player ranking divisions, we have 100. Now instead of a traditional scholastic grading system like A, B+ or C-, we have leagues like Platinum, Bronze and Gold (where Gold league represents your standing at roughly the 50th percentile...). And this is not even to mention the biggest fluff feature of them all, the hidden M.M.R modifier; a secret ranking system designed to find suitable opponents while not damaging our fragile gaming egos.

Aspects of Battle.net 2.0 like Facebook/Twitter integration, lack of a L.A.N. system, "Real I.D." friendships and only one-account-per-game-copy are all in a consolidated effort to distinguish you as an individual, and to discourage "faceless" gaming. Furthermore, Battle.net 2.0 is chock full of easily possible achievements, a showcase for said achievements, a plethora of portraits to individualize your account, and even a non-loss record for any league lower than Master. In fact, only a few months ago Blizzard decided to lower the M.M.R threshold for promotion into Master League - no doubt to satisfy the thousands of frustrated "high Diamond players" that continuously complained on the Battle.net forums. The point of all of these features is to reinforce the idea that you are a unique and beautiful snowflake, instead of a mere number on the global ranking ladder of over a million players. StarCraft 2 has become a celebration of mediocrity, instead of a pedestal for brilliance.


I guess my major issue with StarCraft 2 is the overall ease of play combined with players not being punished for mistakes. Of course certain micro-intensive scenarios still exist, but there has been a severe simplification of both strategy and macro-management. While I think that all races got touched by the EZ-wand, I feel as if Terran got the majority of the coddling. Terran in BroodWar was unbelievably fragile, but, at the same time very strong when balanced by the user. Terran in StarCraft 2 seems very obtuse and monotonous, and has a variety of features that just should never exist in a competitive Real-Time Strategy game. No, I'm not necessarily just talking about units strengths and/or their counters, I'm talking about the forgiving nature of the race's strategy and macro. It seems to me that Blizzard intentionally made Terran more user-friendly, or, to be blunt, "noob-friendly".


But why would Blizzard make 1 race easier than the other 2? Wouldn't that affect their reputation for making such amazing Real-Time Strategy games?

Yes, of course it would. Unfortunately, that doesn't matter. Let's look at this from a business perspective (specifically Blizzard's perspective):

Blizzard knows that the BroodWar player market is already locked up. They don't need to go out of their way to appeal to the group of customers that has been anxiously awaiting the release of StarCraft 2 for nearly a decade. If you played Protoss in BroodWar, you would probably continue to play Protoss in StarCraft 2, just as if you played Zerg in BroodWar, you would probably continue to play Zerg in StarCraft 2. Blizzard's goal was to create a new pool of users by appealing to the low-work/high-reward mentality. The target market for Blizzard was the fresh generation of F.P.S. gamers; the masses of teenagers who had limited attention spans and a much higher regard for instant gratification. And because this first installment of StarCraft 2 is the Terran expansion, and Terran is the campaign race (the race that a gamer who had never once played an R.T.S. game would play), it would make perfect logical sense that Terran is the race that is the most forgiving.


In what specific ways is StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty "Terran favored"?


- The availability of "Supply Drop": I am literally astounded that a feature like this was included in the multiplayer experience. Yea, it was cool in the campaign, along with self-healing Siege Tanks and Refineries that mine themselves, but managing food for your army is one of the most fundamental skill-sets in any competitive strategy game. This is clearly a band-aid feature; one designed purely to keep an inferior player on equal footing with his opponent. In all objectivity, I cannot possibly think of any reasonable justification for the existence of "Supply Drop" other than for retroactively helping a player catch up in macro if he/she has failed to produce food properly.


- The existence of "Smart-Fire" and "Smart-Targeting": While I have given these two features similar names, I can assure you that they are quite different. I will start with "smart-targeting". As you may or may not know, units in this game are given a hidden "targeting priority", so that the A.I. may selectively fire on units that have been ranked as a bigger threat. The most perverse example of this is the Siege Tank, which will target an Infestor or High Templar over a Roach or Stalker, even if there are 90 Roaches and only 1 Infestor in its range. Confused? After its initial volley on the forward units, the Siege Tank will fire on the unit that has been given the highest targeting priority. This means that if a player runs a ball of Zealots and a few High Templar into a Terran stronghold, the Terran player is not forced to manually target the High Templar before they Storm his marines, because the Siege Tanks will automatically target the High Templars for him. Combined with a bonus damage to Armored units, and subsequent splash, it makes the Siege Tank a highly cost-effective unit that requires no micro management other than siege placement. This feature also exists in Banelings, which, when move-commanded, will not detonate on a non-light unit unless told to do so. Additionally, "Smart-Fire" is another feature intended to remove micro-oriented tasks from the user. I am sure most of you have heard about it, but in case you haven't, here it is: Any unit that does not have a visible projectile animation when firing (read: Marines, Siege Tanks, Thor's ground attack and Immortals), will never fire 1 extra, unnecessary shot to kill an enemy unit. That means that when left alone, these units (coincidentally 75% of which are Terran units) will never over-kill, therefore maximizing the amount of damage they can deal in the shortest time possible.


- The existence of "Auto-Repair": Another noob-friendly mechanic that has no place in a competitive Real-Time Strategy game. I don't remember a lot of BroodWar Terran players complaining that it was too hard to right-click on a unit you want to have repaired. However in StarCraft 2, a Terran player can send his army of Thors or Battlecruisers into an engagement with a flock of S.C.V.s not only tagged to the units, but also set to auto-repair, and be free to continue macro-related tasks at his base. This also goes hand-in-hand with Terran being "cheese-proof", as so many have said, because 1 or 2 Marines combined with self-healing S.C.V.s can hold off every kind of early aggression. Additionally, this is an issue when harassing a Terran wall. In BroodWar, when you told your S.C.V.s to repair a structure under attack, and that structure was healed to its maximum health, the S.C.V. would cease repairing unless re-issued the command. In StarCraft 2, the Terran player can leave a group of S.C.V.s idle at his wall set to auto-repair, and literally forget about it for the rest of the game.


- Most Terran units have similar, or the same, move-speeds: Yea, of course there are the Hellions or Reapers with Nitro-pack that are quite fast, but those are harassing units, and supposed to be fast. And yea, of course, there are Battlecruisers and Thors which move at 1.88 (the same as High Templar), or Siege Tanks that don't move at all when sieged, but those are specialty units, and never made en masse. What I'm referring to is the basic army composition units; units that the Terran player is going to make most often in various match-ups, but specifically the composition used against Protoss. Since all of Terran's units are ranged, there is never an issue of one unit not being within attacking range of a target. What this facilitates is the ability for the user to use 1 control group for his entire army, because the units will stay relatively close when given a single move command. Here is a list of Terran units and their respective move-speeds:

1) Marine - 2.25
2) Marauder - 2.25
3) Unsieged Siege Tank - 2.25
4) Medivac - 2.5
5) Ghost - 2.25
6) Raven - 2.25
7) Thor - 1.88
8) Viking in air - 2.75
9) Banshee - 2.75

Notice how most of the core units have move speeds between 2.25 and 2.75? This means the Terran player can have a 1 army hot-key of Marines/Marauders/Medivacs/Ghosts/Tanks/Viking (a typical composition when playing versus Protoss), and tab through categories, without ever having to worry about a single unit type reaching the battle before the rest of the group.

Now let's take a look at the core units for a basic Protoss and Zerg army:

1) Zealot with Charge- 2.75
2) Stalker - 2.95
3) Sentry - 2.25
4) High Templar - 1.88
5) Colossus - 2.25
6) Immortal - 2.25
7) Dark Templar - 2.81
8) Phoenix - 4.25
9) Void Ray - 2.25

Notice a much greater variation when compared to Terran? The core units have a much wider range of speeds. If a Protoss player has a unit composition of Zealot/Stalker/Sentry/Immortal, he has to carefully manipulate his various units so that the Immortals are not stuck dancing around behind the Stalkers, or the melee-attack Zealots are in the front tanking damage as they are intended to do, or the Sentrys are in range of casting Force Fields during an engagement.

This is an even bigger issue with Zerg, because most of Zerg's core units are either melee units or have poor range, and need to appropriate positioning to maximize efficacy. The following move-speeds are all off-Creep:

1) Speedling - 2.95
2) Baneling without speed - 2.5
3) Roach with speed - 3.0
4) Infestor - 2.25
5) Mutalisk - 3.75
6) Hydralisk - 2.25
7) Ultralisk - 2.95
8) Broodlord - 1.41

Zerg seems to have the greatest variation in unit speed of all of the races. I agree that this is most certainly an advantage in the sense that a lot of Zerg's units are very fast, but it is also a disadvantage in the sense that a Zerg player is required to have multiple control-groups for a standard army. So while the difference in the unit move-speeds of the three races are not drastic, having a generalized 2.25 move-speed for Terran reduces the need for good positioning and micro-management, while Protoss or Zerg are required to micro to make sure that all of their units are being used efficiently.


- The idea of salvageable Bunkers: Again, another issue on which there has been great debate since the release of this game a year ago. In fact, there was so much raucous on the forums and in the professional scene about free Bunkers that Blizzard took a step toward acknowledging that there shouldn't be anything in StarCraft 2 that is no-risk/high-reward. I understand that the idea of static defense differs with Terran, when compared to the other two races, because it requires offensive units to be effective, but that doesn't change the fundamental idea in R.T.S. games that you should be punished for bad decisions. I guess I should be happy that at least Terran loses at least a tiny bit of resources for a bunker now, but still 25 minerals is far from game-changing. Once again, I don't remember Terran players in BroodWar complaining about Bunkers costing 100 minerals.


- The low-gas/high-mineral costs of Terran: I think we can all agree that Vespene Gas is a far more coveted and valuable resource than Minerals. On most maps there is a ~2.5 : 1 ratio of minerals-to-gas available to be mined. This is not including the rate at which you can mine, because that would clutter this post up with non-essential math. The issue here is that gas is more valuable and, overall, Terran has considerably lower gas-costs than Protoss or Zerg. Now this is not necessarily the case in Terran versus Terran, but it is clearly the case in Terran versus either Protoss or Zerg. Often times I see, in both my games in mid-Master League as well as higher-level games, a Terran in the late game with a surplus of gas and a paucity of minerals. Conversely, I rarely see a Protoss or Zerg player in the late game with an abundance of gas. I think this is because the Terran army is so "mineral efficient", while the Protoss and Zerg army is so "mineral inefficient".
The standard army composition for Terran versus Protoss is heavy Marine (0 gas), Marauder (25 gas), Medivac (100 gas), Ghost (100 gas) and Viking (75 gas). That is, a Terran player is massing these units that cost very little gas, and therefore can be massed more quickly. Now the Protoss player is massing the following units versus Terran in a standard army: Zealot (0 gas), Stalker (50 gas), Sentry (100 gas), Immortal (100 gas), Colossus (200 gas), or Templar tech, which is even more gas-intensive when combined with the Gateway units. As you can see, the Protoss army requires much more gas to be on equal-footing with his Terran opponent.
Additionally, the standard army composition for Terran versus Zerg is heavy Marine (0 gas), Medivac (100 gas), Siege Tank (125 gas), while Zerg needs several Banelings (25 gas a piece and are disposable) to counter the Marines, and Mutalisks (100 gas) en masse to counter the Siege Tanks. I will not even mention the Hellion since the issue of it only costing minerals has been all over the Blizzard forums since its abusive potential was illustrated at MLG Anaheim a few weeks ago.


- The past, and current, 1v1 ladder map-pool: It is quite obvious that the majority of the 1v1 ladder map-pool has been in Terrans favor (at least when fighting Zerg), since the release of this game. We started with maps like Kulas Ravine, Steppes of War and Delta Quadrant, only to be introduced to Backwater Gulch, Slag Pits, Antiga Shipyard and Searing Crater. And those are just the blatantly Terran-favored maps; we still have several other maps with favorable chokes for a Marine/Siege Tank composition (Typhon Peaks and Abyssal Caverns), as well as others with a plethora of rocks and close spawns a mere 15 seconds from each other. Sure, Zerg has been given a few Zerg-favored maps (Tal'darim Altar and Metalopolis), but with only 3 vetos allowed, Zerg is pigeonholed into playing on maps with no reaction time, and limited areas in which to engage. Even with tournament maps such as Crevasse and Terminus RE, which have been engineered to be more-favorable to Zerg than Blizzard's ladder pool, Terran has been dominating Zerg since the inception of competitive StarCraft 2 tournaments in August of 2010. The link to the winrates can be found here: [url=http://i.imgur.com/uaVuw.png]http://i.imgur.com/uaVuw.png[/url]. Last month was the first time in the past year that Zerg came even close to Terran in terms of win rates, but it now appears to be sliding back to its default position of Terran dominance.


- Terran's "generalized" strategy and macro: I think one of the most problematic issues with Terran is it's "do-all" units actually really are "do-all". Because the units are all ranged, and most have anti-air capabilities, you could not scout, blindly make a combination of a few units, and be not only safe from every opening but be cost effective in the engagement. Or, as MarineKingPrime showed us all for 6 months, a Terran player could literally mass Marines in every match-up and still have a viable army well into the mid-game. The only time a mass-Marine build is threatened is when there are several Protoss tier 3 units, or Infestors, in play. For some reason, the counter to mass Marines is always a combination of very gas-heavy units. On top of this blind-building of units, Terran actually has the most luxurious macro because it is the only race that can queue units in all of its production facilities. This allows Terran to spend the most time looking at the field of the three races, and the least amount of time bouncing around their base on macro-related tasks. Aside from planting Supply Depots and dropping M.U.L.E.s, there is literally no reason a Terran should ever need to look away from a battle.


- The lack of a cool-down period on M.U.L.E.s: Players have been complaining about this for a year now. And this is another band-aid feature similar to "Supply Drop" designed purely to allow a player to catch-up if he has fallen behind on macro. While the Terran economy is based around the M.U.L.E to be comparable to their Zerg and Protoss counterparts, it is not a necessity. So while the Protoss player has to remain vigilant with their Chronoboosting in order to minimize a unit's production or upgrade timing, and the Zerg player has to remain cognizant of their larva injects so as to maximize the amount of units they can produce from each Hatchery, a Terran player can forget about "Muling" for several minutes, but then catch-up by dropping 5 or 6 on a freshly secured base.


The following is an interview with StarCraft 2's lead balance designer, Dustin Browder. The link can be found here: [url=http://www.gamespot.com/news/6325853/starcraft-ii-heart-of-the-swarm-qanda-with-dustin-browder]http://www.gamespot.com/news/6325853/starcraft-ii-heart-of-the-swarm-qanda-with-dustin-browder[/url]

"There's currently a concern with the Zerg Infestor's power fungal growth. I still hear a lot of complaints about the Zerg still not being strong enough, as well as Terrans still being too flexible. The latter's the most persistent one for the longest time. That's almost a design flaw not a balance flaw. We just have too many good units in that race. It's hard to cut units in that race and say, 'I know you have a lot of good units, but we're killing two because [your race] is too good.' (laughs) That's not going to work. And it's not fun to go, 'Hey, you know that unit that was fun and useful? Well, we ruined it, so now your race is balanced.' That feels terrible too. Those are some of the hot areas I've heard.

It's a lengthy process from deciding which balances we want to do to the point where it got live in the community. We've done nerfs to the bunkers and the rushes are no longer in the game by the time the patch goes live. We're like, 'Do we need this? Eh…alright, let's just put in what we thought was good at the time and just go with it.' The dynamics change so quickly that sometimes it's hard for us to keep up. The fans are still learning so much from the game and figuring out what works. I don't know how much balanced the game is six months from now to a year, but our internal members that checked the win/loss percentage in all regions are very positive except for Grandmaster Korea, which shows an advantage to Terran.

However, we've heard from Korean pro gamers and casual players that this is more of a cultural issue than anything else. Part of the factor is that Terrans do the easiest early-game rushes and they're the most defendable against them too; Koreans do the most rushing when compared to the rest of the world. But I don't know; it could all be lies. It could be, 'Oh, it's broken, but [the dev team] did not know that yet.' The Europeans, the Americans, and the Chinese haven't figured it out yet."


In the end, and aside from my complaints, I think Blizzard did what they set out to do: create a game that appeals to the regular gamer, and allows for a lot more flexibility in gameplay. And after reading Dustin Browder's most recent interview, I am honestly filled with confidence that the Blizzard development team has a good idea about what is wrong, and also how to fix the glaring issues. Unfortunately, I fear that we may have to wait for Heart of the Swarm for any significant change.


Thank you for reading this essay. [/QUOTE]