Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 354

On August 13 2012 07:31 Stratos_speAr wrote:


The fundamental design concept of Warp Gates creates a massive problem for Protoss.

At the core of its philosophy, the Protoss race is supposed to be few but strong. However, if you can warp in strong units across the map in no time at all, then obviously the race is going to be stupidly overpowered. Just think if Dragoons and fast Zealots from BW were able to be warped in across the map. This has forced Blizzard to heavily nerf individual Protoss units, but to keep the race as a whole powerful enough, these units synergize very well together. This all culminates in an incredibly boring race that can only fight in a deathball; we're seeing T and Z split their armies more in matchups that don't involve P, but any matchup with P just results in massive deathballs and boring games. It all just goes straight back to the Warp Gate; it's a fantastic idea that's really cool, but it's an absolute disaster for balance.

On August 13 2012 07:40 monkybone wrote:



Can't tell if balance whine or nonsensical BW nostalgia.

On August 13 2012 07:58 Orek wrote:
I don't think this is a realistic way to balance at this point because game is so established today after 2 years.

But, what if warpgate cooldown was LONGER than gateway build time instead of "shorter" which is how it is today.

Right now, warpgate cuts build time by 10sec for any of the gateway units. This + addition of warp-in means that gateway is worse in every aspect.

Stalker warp-in cooldown 32sec
Stalker gateway buildtime 42sec
IF scenario......................52sec or something?

Sacrificing build time in favor of having warp-in could have added some dynamics to the game rather than current gateway=obsolete once warpgate is researched.

Ever since I realized 2 years ago that warpgate had shorter build time than gateway, I have always thought of this.
Again, I don't think this should go into the game now. This is just "what if" scenario which I believe would have been easier to balance.

On August 13 2012 08:06 monkybone wrote:
People should just understand that Protoss is designed around the warp gate. The existence of the gateway and its mechanics are set up purely for early game balance reasons. Every aspect of the warp gate is better, even the gameplay aspect of it. All I see here are butthurt BW nostalgists and balance whiners who don't know what to whine about anymore so they pick something as silly as one of the most fundamental features if starcraft.

What's next? Reactors are too good, and Terrans should be awarded for choosing to have no add-ons?

On June 19 2012 21:29 Coffee Zombie wrote:
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/the-core-gameplay/



This is an interesting blog post. Very, very interesting actually. Extremely good, too. Many games nowadays feel pretty bad because they're built on things that are not fundamental to playing a game. Much of this is just focusing on the how instead of the why, though. People make stuff instead of gameplay, and if gameplay is made, people tend to focus on elaborate systems instead. If both are avoided, the ugly problem of overt simplicity for it's own sake can rear it's head. But really, building a solid foundation and then expanding on it is very good.

A few brilliant examples from Starcraft 2, as examples of very simple, but very interesting things:

Farms: Terran and Zerg farms are very interesting contraptions. The zerg farm, called an Overlord is actually a flying unit instead of a building and can thus be used to scout (it can also later be upgraded into a makeshift dropship. Cheap and massable due to not consuming population cap, but slow), while the Terran farm (Supply Depot) can lower itself to the ground so it can be walked over. This is extremely useful in building walls on chokepoints near your base.

Point-based armour system: The presence of this alone creates an actual difference between the cannon and the machine gun. While the machine gun may deal great damage, armour rapidly kills off it's effectiveness. Far less so for the cannon. A percentage-based armour system needs attack types because it mostly cares about the DPS.

No-nonsense units with different numbers: This is one readily underestimated thing in modern RTS unit design. Consider the Marine and the Zergling. Both deal about equivalent (and quite high) damage with quick weak attacks, making them bad against heavy armour. The Zerglings come in two-packs, and move very fast, but attack only in melee. Meanwhile, the Marine has more HP and shoots at range (it is also marginally better against armoured targets). These kinds of traits readily synergize with the very basic traits of the species' different farms, allowing Zerg great map control (the ability to have a lot of map vision and the ability to project force around the map), while the Marines' range and Terran's natural wall-offs trivially fend off the Zerg. The range also allows Marines who find good places to hole up in to achieve 300-esque feats of endurance and slaughter.

The different character of the races is easily evident with such simple things as these, and they are also very interesting and versatile. Yet they also do one very important thing: All these traits respect the fundamental character of an RTS game: That of troop production and movement, which allow for rough simulations of real-life strategy.

The racial traits of the Protoss are, in contrast, designed to completely circumvent these basic kinds of rules. In an RTS, troop production is usually done in steps such that:
1. The player orders the unit
2. The unit's cost is paid.
3. The unit is produced, forcing the player to wait.
4. The unit is ready and emerges from the production facility, heading for the battlefield.

The Protoss process works differently. They have a mechanic called the Warp Gate which allows them to produce their units directly at any Pylon (the name of the Protoss farm) they have on the map. The Warp-in process works like so:
1. The player orders the unit.
2. The unit's cost is paid.
3. The unit emerges at the chosen Pylon.
4. The Warpgate goes on cooldown, forcing the player to wait.

This sounds like a simple adjustment but serves to undermine a great number of the natural dynamics arising from the game's foundations:
1. Protoss reinforcements are completed much faster. They can get units immediately when getting free population cap whether due to a new farm or units dying. The Terran and Zerg have to wait half a minute for their units to even come out.
1b. This means that an even army trade favours the Protoss because he has units out first. If you win narrowly you may not even have the advantage, let alone a large one.
2. The Protoss player can build his unit-producing structures later because the first unit comes out immediately. As we all know, time is man- I mean money.
3. The natural concepts of reinforcement times and resulting defender's advantage (based on which basic tenets of strategy work) cease to apply to a great extent. Regardless of how far the Protoss opponent's base is, his troops are at your door immediately and you cannot intercept his reinforcements by way of ambush. You, conversely, are bound by these basic rules of strategy.
4. The system is ridiculously efficient. Normally these kinds of abilities require taking insane risks like placing your production structures near the enemy base (called proxying them). Protoss needs a single Pylon. This is an insanely cheap cost (100 minerals for Pylon, 150 for a single production facility, 50 for a Worker/Marine or a pair of Zerglings), and has none of the other traditional disadvantages like having no production in your home base.

The mechanic is interesting, and feels cool, yes, but a simple examination exposes all kinds of problems. These can somewhat be masked away by balance tweaks like making Protoss units weak (which was done but leads to another host of problems) but the core issues are still there and will inevitably rear their ugly head somewhere.
The reason I chose this example is to highlight two things:
First, how a certain sense of rules to be respected is necessary for things to make sense and the players to have expectations. In this case, the Warp Gate tramples on established rules of how the game works at a very fundamental level.
The second one is to highlight how antagonistic multiplayer raises the bar for the cool stuff to be included. Imagine Kirby Wii as a competitive more than co-operational game, like a race to the finish for example. Kirby himself may be broken, but him being super cool does not limit the other characters' ability to be cool to a great degree at all. It's still a big bummer but not a complete catastrophe.
In a game where the players are direct enemies, however, it is a catastrophe because what you can do very drastically affects what your opponent is allowed to do. It is not enough for the unit to be cool and fun to use - it also has to be fun or interesting to face. Numbers tweaks are possible but in the end the fundamental nature of the inclusion should be "right". This is something I feel Blizzard is nowadays very much slipping on*.

*If they were ever good at it in the first place - as far as I know, the Frozen Throne expansion was directed by a WarCraft 3 pro or a similar outsider who basically went "goddamnit let me fix your game" and included things with a very distinct gameplay job to fulfill instead of just making cool stuff up and including it (Blizz's admitted MO with Heart of the Swarm). The game is still broken, balance-wise, to the point where a famous Undead pro just picked Orc against Orc. Starcraft: Brood War's famed balance is in large part a result of saner unit designs combined with professional Korean mapmakers and the near-inhuman effort and work ethic of the progamers from said country. An argument could be made that Blizzard was only ever really good in the art direction and general content department, where they have been very clearly slipping as of late (Exhibits #1, #2, #3)

On August 13 2012 08:06 monkybone wrote:
People should just understand that Protoss is designed around the warp gate. The existence of the gateway and its mechanics are set up purely for early game balance reasons. Every aspect of the warp gate is better, even the gameplay aspect of it. All I see here are butthurt BW nostalgists and balance whiners who don't know what to whine about anymore so they pick something as silly as one of the most fundamental features if starcraft.

What's next? Reactors are too good, and Terrans should be awarded for choosing to have no add-ons?

On August 09 2012 06:18 Orek wrote:
It is neither creep range nor raven speed that is the most significant thing in this balance testing.

It is the "Queen will stay 5 range forever" hidden(?) message from Blizzard that is the most important content you take away from the post.

If I were to write summary of the Blizzard post, that would be it.

On August 13 2012 08:33 tskarzyn wrote:
Think of what the game could be without warpgate. PvT would be constant streams of units running across the map which opens up new dynamics like cutting off reinforcements, gateway all ins would most likely disappear, defender's advantage will actually matter, one battle wont determine the winner of the game (oh you lost your army? proxy zlot warp in GG!") PvT and PvZ would have so much more back and forth, and they could start to rebalance the game by nerfing Zerg late game and possibly nerfing terran bio.

Almost forgot- PvP would be watchable!

On August 13 2012 09:45 Orek wrote:



I agree with your post, especially the bolded part.

I honestly think that unlimited units selection is playing a big role in this ez a-move syndrome. Call me nostalgic, but in BW, you could select only 12 units at a time, and this made the skill cap soooooooooooooo much higher than SC2. Army you 1a with today required 1a2a3a4a5a6a commands. Therefore, 1a2a3a core army, 4a5a flank, and 6a counter attack army seperation had almost same number of commands to execute as 1a2a3a4a5a6a deathball style push. In SC2, army seperation requires so many more commands and skill, so people choose deathball especially in lower leagues.

Also, any GM/master can copy top SC2 pro builds somewhat decently because mechanics is easy enough with auto worker rally and nearly unlimited unit selection. On the contrary, I once heard that it took 2 pro B-teamers to copy Jaedong play because Jaedong played that fast/good. In my view, BW was considered "balanced" because skill mattered so much that slight build/race imbalance could be overcome by skill. As for SC2, balance discussion never ends because execution of the builds is so much easier that slight imbalance cannot be overcome by skill,and build vs build matters so much more than skill vs skill.

By making a game that is easier for us noobs to play, Blizzard made this game so hard to balance. I wouldn't go as far to say we should revert auto worker rally or have 12 max unit selection. But maybe like 24 max unit selection = 1 page worth might be good? Then, I could see many players below gold quit playing entirely because it is just too difficult to play, but as a game that tests your skill, I don't think it is a bad change. Having to use only 3 hotkeys for your army even at pro level is insanely easy game design. Limiting maximum unit selection would wipe out 2 things from ladder:1a strategy and lower league players. Tough call because lower leaguers like us are the majority. When 150APM becomes minimum requirement to execute a build, then we would see more entertaining games from pros. It's just that you cannot do it on ladder with your master level skill.