Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 41

QUOTE]On August 21 2011 03:18 Spicy Pepper wrote:
This isn't really about balance, but it was shut down, so I'm re-posting it here. Basically I think Blizzard needs to implement micro, anticipation and uncertainty into the game, to allow the game to scale to a wider audience.

After hearing a few points, I think Part 1 may be too much, but Part 2 for higher tech units may be more reasonable.

Where is the Uncertainty and Where is the Micro?

As a relatively new fan & spectator of video games, I have an issue with Blizzard's approach to the game. While SC2 should be a designed to be an economy focused and constantly expanding game, this shouldn't be a requirement as a fan to have had a pleasant viewing experience. ie. For the game to explode in popularity, a fan should be able to watch 1 base vs 1 base, and have been entertained on some level. Currently, the requirement for a game to be entertaining is simply too high.

Here are my thoughts on why.

I believe that balance is a major variable as Blizzard continues to improve the game to ensure it's viability, but I worry that they are underestimating that just as important to the success of SC2 as a spectator sport, is to for them to focus on viewer friendly aspects of the game.

Think about some of the most exciting moments of an RTS game.
1. scourge chase a critical shuttle as it races back to it's cannons. Will it hit?
2. scourge chasing mutas, as the player races to separate the muta ball. Which muta is targeted? Will he separate in time?
3. watching a reaver scarab chase units or workers, while the other player spreads his units to prevent damage. Also the audience is excited by the uncertainty of how much damage it will do. This additional uncertainty leads to multi-layered anticipation, followed by an extra emotional payoff/letdown.
4. micro of a shuttle with tanks, and cannons fire at the tanks, but missing due to skill of the player in unloading and loading the tanks. He dodges shot after shot, wow!
5. the anticipation of whether or not a nuke will hit. You can actually hear Day9 and DJWheat yelling omg, OMG .... ZOMG!!!!!
6. watching zerglings or zealots run in to catch a marauder drop targeting a key building. Will the building go down?
7. anticipation of marines as they unknowingly travel near some burrowed baneling. Will they step over them?

During these moments, you can actually feel the audience hold it's breathe ...
THIS UNCERTAINTY IS EXCITING TO WATCH!!!!
AND IT'S EASY TO UNDERSTAND FOR ANYONE!!!
This results in the game having more potential for a wider audience.

Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that there's a deeper aspect to the game, as guys like Artosis and Day9 break it down for us. Army position, compositions, build orders, the metagame, economy management, poking, forcing, withdrawing, etc. However requiring an appreciation of this level can forever limit potential viewership. Let's think about the most popular sport in America, football (or American football to the rest of the world, aka not soccer).

What can we learn from American football?
In football, there are openings, like SC2. Both sides of the ball get into formations, and adjust their formations depending on reads:
1. What down is it? (1st - 4th)
2. How many more yards until 1st down, or until Field Goal range (3 points), or until End Zone for touchdown (6 points with 1 or 2 more potential points)
3. What personal do they have on the field?
4. What formation are they in?
5. And what is the current metagame?
6. How much time remains?
7. What is the score?
and etc.

Then you'll see both sides of the ball adjust their formations in the few seconds before the ball is snapped. Now are they going to run the ball or pass it, and how? Let's assume they pass. In a single play, without understand any nuance of the strategy, here's what a viewer will see.

Defenders are running to get to the quarterback, while one often slips by his defender (due to a design that 95% of viewers don't understand). eg. Fans will see a linebacker (LB) chasing a quarterback (QB), as the QB looks for an open receiver. There's an uncertainty of whether or not the QB will see the LB, then if he does, whether or not he will get sacked, and if he makes the pass whether or not the receiver will catch it while another defender barrels down on him.

Also, a skillful QB can maneuver around the LB, by sidestepping him, and making the LB dive and miss. Fans love that, and fans love seeing a defender read the QB's eyes and jump and knock down the pass, or intercept it. These skillful (micro) plays can be understood by the low level fan, which is the vast majority of fans in any non-niche sport.

Even if the receiver catches the ball, he now has his own battle with his defender. As they race, and he jukes and jives around defenders trying to make them miss, as they try to crush him. The constant uncertainty plus the constant "micro battles", leads to constant excitement. This is why the NFL is so far ahead of other sports. It has a high level of overall strategy (for football nerds) pitting 11 players against 11 other player in constant micro wars (for noob friendly enjoyment). Even alot of women actually watch and enjoy football ... yes, women! How do we apply this to SC2?

Three thoughts I had to improve the game for spectators and also for players. The theme is to allow fans to actually be able to observe skill, by actually allowing the game to have more skill.

PART 1- Allow higher rate of micro for basic units. I believe this change alone would drastically improve fans' enjoyment of the game. It is also the most critical change as it allows micro to be on display early on in the game with 1 basic upgrade (ie. stim, burrow, blink/charge).

1) Slow down all projectiles.
This includes marauder shots, stalker beams, roach acid (I'm not 100% sure this is a projectile, but it should be). By slowing them down, you allow the player to see the shot fired, then react. This will allow unit vs unit micro.

2) Allow zerg to burrow micro.
Increase the speed of burrowing into the ground. Now if a stalker or marauder fires at your roach, you should be able to dodge it with burrow micro. Imagine roaches micro'ing against roaches or banelings chases drones/zerglings, while burrow micro'ing away from roach acid. However the speed of unburrowing may have to be reduced, otherwise you'll have groups of roaches unburrow, fire, and burrow away from any projectiles. Quick burrow gives a defensive advantage, while slower unburrow, allows opponents to intercept zerg offense (aka defensive advantage).

3) Allow protoss to dance - increase refresh rate of blink/charge, but reduce overall range of blink & time of charge.
Decrease the range of blink, but increase the refresh rate. Also, make charge an ability that doesn't have to target to activate (like stim) and also remove auto-cast. You should be able to activate charge to run away from projectiles, or to selectively target 1 zealot against 1 unit. Like blink, charge should also reduce it's range (or time it lasts) while getting an increased refresh rate. Basically, you want to increase the micro opportunities, but not increase the time that they cover ground, such as when traveling across the map.

In the current game, imagine 2 marauders with shells upgraded, trying to escape 3 chargelots. The marauders stim, then they do a dance of fire and sprint, while the chargelots hope to chase them down. There's zero micro currently by the protoss player, putting him at the mercy of the terran's micro. While for blink stalkers, all the micro you can really do, is blink away your 2 stalkers and hope they can outpace the 3 or 4 marauders. The protoss players has no micro in these small army battles of upgraded basic units.

If charge didn't require targeting and wasn't auto-cast default, then you could have the following scenario of skill on display. Remember the slower projectiles.
i. Chargelot vs Marauder:
In a situation when attack-targeting 1 marauder with 2 chargelots, protoss could wait to see which chargelot the marauder fires at. Protoss could charge forward the untargeted zealot with charge, which could last for a period of 3 attacks, rewarding the protoss player for good micro. The terran would have to react, by re-targeting the chargelot, to keep him at bay, saving him from the last 2 attacks.
ii. Chargelots vs burrow roaches:
Protoss could now wait to see which roaches unburrow, before activate a charge. Zerg could wait to see a group of zealots charge at a roach, then burrow that roach, while unburrowing other roaches, giving him time in between charges.
iii. Chargelots vs chargelots or blink stalkers
Red protoss charges at a blue zealot, but blue protoss sees it and charges and sprints away, dodging the charge attack. So in any chase down scenario, you could have zealots trying to chase zealots, with activating charge being key to catching or escaping. This is similar to seeing blink stalkers chase blinks stalkers, we watch one group blink in & shoot, but the opponent blinks out, before taking any hits.

4) The maximum range of projectiles should also be limited. (I'm not sure but this may already exist)
We know the stalker range is 6 (distance before the stalker fires), but we should also limit the maximum projectile range (if it's not also 6, I'm not sure). Now with slower projectiles, this allows a dancing scenario to happen between 2 units. 1 non-upgraded stalker vs 1 non-upgraded maurader should be able to do a dance. Where they can both get into a range of 6, both see each other's projectile incoming, and then both run away, dodging it. This immediately adds micro into the game, with the most basic units.

5) Don't limit this to just basic units.
In viking battles, it shouldn't just be the guy with 4 vikings always beating the guy with 3 vikings, with the only micro limited to focus fire and some positioning. If the guy with 3 vikings, lifts and lands to dodge viking shots, while sneaking in his own shots, then he should be able to win that battle.

Summarizing Part 1:
When a small army engages another small army, in the mid to late game, you should allow exciting battles to happen, giving fans more opportunities to be wowed by player skills right from the start. This adds another element of decision making. Which battle does the player prioritize to micro? Is it worth micro'ing over macro'ing? Also, these micro effects are skill minimized in large battles but not obsolete. When watching a large battle, a player chooses to engage in some micro with a portion of the units, they should be able to. So you can have 100 food vs 100 food fights comprised of only basic units, where each player is micro'ing the hell out of 10 food. Slow down projectiles!


PART 2- Allow higher tech units to be micro'd and micro'd against - eg. change Infestors and Immortals.
Once you're in the stage of the game where economy and macro has a greater impact, add higher tech units where the effectiveness of micro, still makes macro vs micro a decision point for the player. And make this micro appealing and understandable to the casual fan. When seeing a 100 food vs 100 food fight, there should be units that you can clearly see as a fan. By that I mean they should absolutely stand out when being micro'd. Here's a few suggestions.

1) Change fungal into a projectile similar to the reaver scarab.
First make it have to target a unit, and also make it have to run around other objects in the game, such as mineral patches, buildings and other units, to get to its intended target. Also, give it three distances. First it should have a target range that it will travel and explode with a hit (such as 15 range), but then it should have a target distance it will travel and explode with a miss (from 15 range to 20 range, which is key because most of the audience can't distinguish 15 range from 17 range for example, creating an extra element of uncertainty when seeing the fungal bomb explode, did it hit?), and finally a distance where it just explode in mid-travel with a miss (20 range).

In the current game, an infestor walks to it's target and a fungal happens or it doesn't. There is no suspense at all, no buildup to excitement or letdown. There is no chance at spreading a group of marines or zealots away. Making it more like the reaver scarab, opponents would be blinking stalkers into a spread away from fungal, running drone lines and spreading them while quickly searching to find and isolate the intended drone target.

2) Allow immortals to have a defensive matrix type of ability (maybe start it with or upgrade in robo-bay, but I think not).
This ability should cost around 35 shield (I picked this number, since it'll have 2 guaranteed spells with an uncertain 3rd within a short period of time) to 50 shield. It should block all incoming damage, along with EMPs. It will activate for about 1.5 seconds.

for some reference:
Stalkers fire at a rate of 1.44 seconds.
Marauder at 1.5.
Roaches at 2.0.

While immortals can tanks small to medium fights, you also want immortals to be able to tank in medium to large fights with some micro. Immortals will still have their hardened shield to limit damage to 10 shield per shot, but now the protoss has a decision point to make. He can now micro the immortal when he sees 10 roaches. If the zerg fires all 10 roaches at the immortal, the protoss player can now activate the shield, saving more damage by superior micro against a lesser skilled zerg. The zerg can counter by running his roaches up, but not targeting the immortal, faking the protoss into activating it's shield, while the roaches attack other units.

If the role of the immortal is to tank, then why not add some tanking that you can micro? Reward skill, and allow people to see it! A shell that can clearly be seen should appear around the immortals, while the roach acid, marauder shell, or stalker beams are absorbed by the shell. As shots are absorbed by the shell, it should make a nice, distinct sound effect for the fans to better appreciate.

3) Give the warp prism more life.
Force marines to actually have to decide between the warp prism and potential units being micro'd in and out. There needs to be a decision point here, which is also influenced by the warp prism micro. Bad protoss micro can make this an easy decision to go for the units, while good micro may mean we need to target the warp prism, or vice versa depending on the unit inside.

IMO, the focus of higher tier units, or at least (one ability for) one higher tier unit in each tech path should have an ability that can be micro'd to sway battles when outnumbered and have a micro-able ability of high priority in 100 food vs 100 food fights. This micro-able ability should have a level of uncertainty as to how effective it will be, and it should be something that the opponent can anticipate and micro against.

4) Make micro-able abilities like seeker missile more applicable/attainable, while passive abilities like point defense drone or auto-turrets less so.
Some of these exciting-to-fan, high-player-skill abilities are already in the game, but not prioritized.

5) Make the ghost EMP projectile more visible.
I hate not seeing anything but a bunch of exploding EMPs. Oh I guess they hit or not. Where was my foreplay? Slow it down, make it radiate like the sun if you have to, and expand the aoe range if you must, assuming players show that it is now be easier to dodge.

Summary: Micro + Anticipation + Uncertainty = Fun to Watch
That's all I have to say. gg

Edit: This isn't about balance. The game can still be and will be balanced eventually. However, if you have a high requirement to excitement ratio, then who cares if the game is balanced? You'll have a boring balanced game, that will limit it's excitement. Blizzard is going to be patching this game for years, and I personally believe they should higher prioritize the spectating aspects of the games. They shouldn't be afraid of taking 1 major step back in terms of balance, in order to take 2 leaps forward in overall enjoyment.