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On July 30 2013 02:24 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 02:06 willstertben wrote:On July 30 2013 00:19 Nebuchad wrote:On July 29 2013 19:23 SsDrKosS wrote:People! Is there a thread talking about design in team liquid? I got gradually bored with the current gameplays. I'm not saying that starcraft 2 is a wreck, but it could have been better. I thought the problem was rooted in balance but now I realise that is a secondary issue. But as time passes and watching the pro games, I realised some problems (esp terran and protoss) and this guy in bnet raised fairly reasonable point (I didn't know that he was that famous though :D) http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9561436447 I sort of stopped reading at the point where he said WoL was a better game... this is a matter of opinion and some people (including me) genuinely think WOL was a better game. everything people hated about wol (50 min turtle fest, deathballs, strength of allins, coinflip factor, bad balance) is still there and in most cases even worse. Are we watching the same game? I don't see Zerg turtling every single P/TvZ to an unbeatable Infestor/BL/Spine/Spore/Queen composition that just kills everything. I don't see Protoss players Soul Training literally every PvZ in order to break even. I don't see Terran players playing as greedily as physically possible (even allowing themselves to be all-inned) in order to offset the Queen buff which made early pressure not worthwhile. Seriously, there's no matchup that isn't better than it was at the end of WoL. Maybe TvT? But other than that, not one matchup is worse. Show nested quote +really don't understand why anyone would think hots is better, but i'll try to respect your opinion, cause in the end that's what it's about when discussing what's a better game. Because HotS killed most of the utterly retarded/boring stuff in WoL (Infestor/BL, Soul Train, warp on high ground) and gave people actual aggressive options that aren't all-in and that promote actually doing something in the midgame. The only matchup that still has some problems in this regard is PvT, which is pretty much identical to WoL but even more passive. PvZ is worlds better, even if it still sucks, because nobody goes Infestor/BL anymore (thank the fucking Starcraft gods).
Well to be honest, in HoTS it seems in ZvT that it tends to the kind of game where you either cheese in ZvT to punish blindly a greedy build from terran or die to the unstoppable bio mines push if the terran went for a 3CC build (at the very top level of course). I'm afraid that the widow mine, in this particular match up, tends to be the new infestor and that all ZvT will tend to this strategy and won't evolve very much unless some patch come someday.
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On July 30 2013 05:53 willstertben wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On July 30 2013 03:52 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 03:00 willstertben wrote:On July 30 2013 02:24 Shiori wrote:On July 30 2013 02:06 willstertben wrote:On July 30 2013 00:19 Nebuchad wrote:On July 29 2013 19:23 SsDrKosS wrote:People! Is there a thread talking about design in team liquid? I got gradually bored with the current gameplays. I'm not saying that starcraft 2 is a wreck, but it could have been better. I thought the problem was rooted in balance but now I realise that is a secondary issue. But as time passes and watching the pro games, I realised some problems (esp terran and protoss) and this guy in bnet raised fairly reasonable point (I didn't know that he was that famous though :D) http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9561436447 I sort of stopped reading at the point where he said WoL was a better game... this is a matter of opinion and some people (including me) genuinely think WOL was a better game. everything people hated about wol (50 min turtle fest, deathballs, strength of allins, coinflip factor, bad balance) is still there and in most cases even worse. Are we watching the same game? I don't see Zerg turtling every single P/TvZ to an unbeatable Infestor/BL/Spine/Spore/Queen composition that just kills everything. I don't see Protoss players Soul Training literally every PvZ in order to break even. I don't see Terran players playing as greedily as physically possible (even allowing themselves to be all-inned) in order to offset the Queen buff which made early pressure not worthwhile. Seriously, there's no matchup that isn't better than it was at the end of WoL. Maybe TvT? But other than that, not one matchup is worse. really don't understand why anyone would think hots is better, but i'll try to respect your opinion, cause in the end that's what it's about when discussing what's a better game. Because HotS killed most of the utterly retarded/boring stuff in WoL (Infestor/BL, Soul Train, warp on high ground) and gave people actual aggressive options that aren't all-in and that promote actually doing something in the midgame. The only matchup that still has some problems in this regard is PvT, which is pretty much identical to WoL but even more passive. PvZ is worlds better, even if it still sucks, because nobody goes Infestor/BL anymore (thank the fucking Starcraft gods). turtle issues: zergs turtling EVEN HARDER with swarm hosts vs protoss (explain to me why you like swarm host turtle bullshit more than infestor bl turtle bullshit please. infestor bl at least required micro on the zerg part, swarm hosts require none). Because SH/Viper isn't every single game, because it requires (some) skill to get to, and because Protoss players actually have macro options (Stargate, for example) unlike in WoL. Show nested quote +zergs are FORCED to hardcore turtle vs terran with never leaving base vs terran without roach bling allin
harassing is impossible for zerg thanks to turrets and pf (AWFUL idea, whoever actually put this thing in the game should never work on a rts again) Both Turrets and PFs were in WoL, so.. Show nested quote +zerg leaves his base before 500 spines spores and huge bank? terran drops zerg lost. Sounds like the Zerg player in question is blind (i.e. doesn't spread creep/overlords/take map control ever) and has the reaction time of a potato. Against whom? Zerg? You can't really "turtle" with Air/HT unless your opponent lets you, since the composition takes forever to get to and because it's pretty weak until you hit a large number of units. Um...economic strats still exist...? No shit. Show nested quote +soul train:
soul train still exists in many versions and is even stronger cause MSC, and terran has a build similar to it in 3 bases 65 scv marine rally Ya no. The current Soul Train isn't a soul train at all. It's just an MSC all-in that hits a bit later. It's far worse than WoL one because Hydras are fucking amazing. If you actually watch HotS you'd see that only Stardust ever wins with this build regularly, and he doesn't play top Zergs anyway. FFS, Jaedong beat him like last weak, and Jaedong sucks at ZvP. Show nested quote +pvt is exactly the same shit matchup it was in WOL except protoss now is 100% unbreakable early game and has way more allins/cheeses. PvT was pretty balanced in WoL. Dunno what you're complaining about. Yeah, the early game has problems (and it did in WoL, too) but the style of play isn't that awful. Show nested quote +also:
late game protoss and terran are now unattackable for zerg cause bl arent viable and everything else can't attack into building walls (outside of swarm hosts) Well what the fuck do you expect? You do realize that in WoL, Zerg could trade literally for free once they got enough Infestors/BLs, right? Like there was actually nothing a Protoss player could do at all against it. Show nested quote +late game protoss armies are now straight up unbeatable for zerg without mass SH turtle and spine support cause there is no counter to void rays + ht, therefore FORCING zerg to allin before ht or hardcore turtle SH bullshit. Umm...Void/HT max takes forever to get to, and as long as you open with some sort of reasonably flexible midgame, you can punish Protoss players trying to take 8 minute thirds with 1 Gateway, a Stalker, and a Void Ray. Furthermore, you don't need to turtle to get SH/Viper if the Protoss has had time to get fucking mass VR/HT (both of which are expensive as fuck and require totally separate production and upgrades). You have all the time in the world. Plus, at least HT/VR vs SH/Viper requires the players to do something (Feedback vs Abduct vs manuvering locusts vs not losing HTs to locusts etc.) rather than Infestor BL which was like close your eyes, spam Fungal and IT, and then go AFK. Short of getting Vortexed, there was no way to lose in that kind of situation. Show nested quote +65 scv marine rally is NOT possible to hold as zerg without suffering critical damage when terran does it correctly.
No True Scotsman. You can't just say a strategy is impossible to hold and then react to examples of it being held as "well that wasn't the strategy being done properly." Show nested quote +also why is it so wrong that some top end foreigners should be favorites vs low tier koreans? some of them still are/should be. There was a point in WoL where no Protoss player in the world could win a macro game against any number of foreigner Zergs (i.e. not just Scarlett and Stephano). your tone is way too aggressive for me to want to talk to you. so i'll keep it as short and, considering your rudeness, direct as possible: you talk a load of shit.
Um, these things are all true... I don't think you know what you're talking about.
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On July 29 2013 18:38 Ghanburighan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2013 18:17 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 29 2013 18:13 pt wrote:On July 29 2013 18:12 Sissors wrote:On July 29 2013 18:10 pt wrote:On July 29 2013 17:49 Sissors wrote:On July 29 2013 17:44 blade55555 wrote:On July 29 2013 03:01 Thruth wrote:On July 29 2013 02:52 GhostOwl wrote:On July 29 2013 01:00 Sissors wrote:
[quote]
We have had roughly 50 pages here of zerg complaining widow mines are fine for the top 16 players or so, but for every 'normal' player they were impossible to counter. And now suddenly the zerg are complaining that only the top 16 are relevant? (Roughly, might be top 8).
Tbh they were correct the first time. Of course balance for the top of Code S is important, since it gives us enjoyable games to watch. However if the balance for everyone else is horrible, then it is nice they have good balance in code S, but there is no one to watch them, so also no one will pay them to play.
And quite frankly for me personal, I enjoy watching pro gamers, but my primary entertainment from SC2 is playing it. If balance is so broken it is not fun anymore for me to play, I also won't be watching pro games. I'm not Zerg and I wasn't in those discussions. If you're going to quit playing & watching just because the game becomes more balanced, then by all means, feel free to quit. No one is going to miss you. And SC is gonna lose even more fans. The thing he's talking about is, game should be balanced at every level possible so diamond scrubs can enjoy playing and watching balanced pro scene. The game is balanced at diamond level. The reason they lose isn't because of balance, they lose because they need to improve on x part of their play. If it's balanced at pro level, then the games balanced below, they just need to improve. So why shouldn't pros just suck it up and improve if they lose? It isn't like they are anywhere near the theoretical potential of a race. they are the closest. besides, that's a pretty fallacious argument... No telling one group they should just improve, while telling another group the game should be adjusted for them, without a proper reason for the difference, is a fallacious argument. diamond players lack basic skills. they are just learning the game. I thought that was gold league and below... I'm diamond, the game absolutely should not be balanced around my <100 APM and random BO's where I forget stuff all the time.
By that logic, grenades should be removed and the need to reload be removed in team vs team FPS because I forget stuff all the time too.
Or when I lose my queen because I didn't see the knight coming because I was too engrossed about protecting my pawn.
There should be a cut off for skill groups around to balance for consideration.
I feel balancing the game from diamond and up is fair.
Edit: clarity
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On July 30 2013 12:39 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2013 18:38 Ghanburighan wrote:On July 29 2013 18:17 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 29 2013 18:13 pt wrote:On July 29 2013 18:12 Sissors wrote:On July 29 2013 18:10 pt wrote:On July 29 2013 17:49 Sissors wrote:On July 29 2013 17:44 blade55555 wrote:On July 29 2013 03:01 Thruth wrote:On July 29 2013 02:52 GhostOwl wrote:
[quote]
I'm not Zerg and I wasn't in those discussions. If you're going to quit playing & watching just because the game becomes more balanced, then by all means, feel free to quit. No one is going to miss you. And SC is gonna lose even more fans. The thing he's talking about is, game should be balanced at every level possible so diamond scrubs can enjoy playing and watching balanced pro scene. The game is balanced at diamond level. The reason they lose isn't because of balance, they lose because they need to improve on x part of their play. If it's balanced at pro level, then the games balanced below, they just need to improve. So why shouldn't pros just suck it up and improve if they lose? It isn't like they are anywhere near the theoretical potential of a race. they are the closest. besides, that's a pretty fallacious argument... No telling one group they should just improve, while telling another group the game should be adjusted for them, without a proper reason for the difference, is a fallacious argument. diamond players lack basic skills. they are just learning the game. I thought that was gold league and below... I'm diamond, the game absolutely should not be balanced around my <100 APM and random BO's where I forget stuff all the time. By that logic, grenades should be removed and the need to reload be removed in team vs team FPS because I forget stuff all the time too. Or when I lose my queen because I didn't see the knight coming because I was too engrossed about protecting my pawn. There should be a cut off for skill groups around to balance for consideration. I feel balancing the game from diamond and up is fair. Edit: clarity
The problem with Blizzards design concept for SC2 is that they make using units VERY EASY. Smartcast and unlimited unit selection make things rather easy to use. As a consequence there isnt the potential to "use units better than your opponent". The general mechanics - unlimited unit selection and tight movement - rather turn the whole thing around because they require players to be able to use a unit ability to make a unit balanced. Stalkers without Blink and/or Forcefield are as good as dead, because both Marines and Zerglings will kill them easily.
Balancing the game for anyone other than the lowest levels does mean you are selling an imbalanced game. That is kinda behaving like an arrogant asshole IMO, because you declare the lowest level players not worthy of consideration.
The skill increase for higher level players should come from them being able to use units better and to implement this you need to make using units HARD instead of EASY. That is the reason why BW is better than SC2 ... using units was hard, although it probably wasnt intentional. To make SC2 truly great they need to add some limitations which make using units rather hard ... force unit spreading while moving BUT including micro ability to clump them up is one way and a unit selection limit is another part and the removal of smartcast (for all or only some spells) would be a third option.
A big part of why SC2 is really badly designed is the tight unit movement which concentrates firepower and thus maximizes dps and minimizes the reaction time of the defender. This is done on purpose, because Blizzard thinks that "more deaths = more action = better game" ... which isnt the case. A low reaction time is a good thing for an action shooter, but it is a terrible thing for a strategy game where planning should be more important than pure reflexes.
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Northern Ireland23858 Posts
Rabiator you really should just copy/paste your past posts, they're all pretty similar  I do admire your persistence in articulating them without getting pissed off, I long ago gave into frustration.
These have been an issue with the game for a pretty significant/vocal section of the community. I think it's certainly I'd like to see experimented with, as to whether the chances of it happening are high or not, there's value in continuing to lobby for it.
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Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
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On July 30 2013 14:18 Rhaegal wrote:
Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
The only one of them which should raise eyebrows is polt v revival. Even that's iffy. Byul vs foreigner, and bomber vs his worst matchup.
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On July 30 2013 14:24 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 14:18 Rhaegal wrote:
Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
The only one of them which should raise eyebrows is polt v revival. Even that's iffy. Byul vs foreigner, and bomber vs his worst matchup.
Multiple people in this thread have claimed that TvZ is "heavily" Terran favored.
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On July 30 2013 14:31 Rhaegal wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 14:24 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:18 Rhaegal wrote:
Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
The only one of them which should raise eyebrows is polt v revival. Even that's iffy. Byul vs foreigner, and bomber vs his worst matchup. Multiple people in this thread have claimed that TvZ is "heavily" Terran favored.
They're exaggerating a bit, but that still doesn't mean major should beat byul lol.
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On July 30 2013 14:40 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 14:31 Rhaegal wrote:On July 30 2013 14:24 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:18 Rhaegal wrote:
Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
The only one of them which should raise eyebrows is polt v revival. Even that's iffy. Byul vs foreigner, and bomber vs his worst matchup. Multiple people in this thread have claimed that TvZ is "heavily" Terran favored. They're exaggerating a bit, but that still doesn't mean major should beat byul lol.
That's what I've been saying the whole time, balance should not be about ratios or statistics, but actual responses to counter an action, e.g. Knight first moves have specific counters if you spot them early enough. Same, mass ling/bling should have counters for them if early enough both mechanically and compositionally.
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Austria24417 Posts
You should all listen to Artosis' "Grilled" interview. He knows more about this game than any of us do and he's right in saying that balance has to exist at the absolute top level. The game should not be balanced around the mistakes and incapabilities of diamond, hell even masters and HELL even non-korean server GM players. The absolute top has to be balanced enough so that the better player wins. Does that make the game frustrating for lower league players? Maybe. But wouldn't making units harder to use, mechanics harder to express, etc. as Rabiator constantly tries to push onto us, do the exact same thing? Yeah, it would. In fact, more people would stop having fun with this game because it'd be too hard for them. SC2 is already hard as fuck. The only game I can think of that is more demanding is Brood War. Was BW balanced at lower levels? No it wasn't. Protoss in BW was easier mechanically. Was BW balanced at the very very top? Balanced enough for the best players of each race to dominate, yes.
This whole argument about BW vs SC2 is getting so boring it's incredible. If the game doesn't live up to your standards then ffs, play BW. It's an amazing game. But please stop constantly coming to an SC2 balance thread and telling us what's wrong with a game that a lot of people (me included) absolutely love.
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On July 30 2013 16:32 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 14:40 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:31 Rhaegal wrote:On July 30 2013 14:24 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:18 Rhaegal wrote:
Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
The only one of them which should raise eyebrows is polt v revival. Even that's iffy. Byul vs foreigner, and bomber vs his worst matchup. Multiple people in this thread have claimed that TvZ is "heavily" Terran favored. They're exaggerating a bit, but that still doesn't mean major should beat byul lol. That's what I've been saying the whole time, balance should not be about ratios or statistics, but actual responses to counter an action, e.g. Knight first moves have specific counters if you spot them early enough. Same, mass ling/bling should have counters for them if early enough both mechanically and compositionally.
People have been saying that 4m counters way too much, and doesn't really have a counter at all. Which is what a lot of the balance complaints are coming from.
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On July 30 2013 13:22 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 12:39 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 29 2013 18:38 Ghanburighan wrote:On July 29 2013 18:17 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 29 2013 18:13 pt wrote:On July 29 2013 18:12 Sissors wrote:On July 29 2013 18:10 pt wrote:On July 29 2013 17:49 Sissors wrote:On July 29 2013 17:44 blade55555 wrote:On July 29 2013 03:01 Thruth wrote:
[quote]
And SC is gonna lose even more fans. The thing he's talking about is, game should be balanced at every level possible so diamond scrubs can enjoy playing and watching balanced pro scene. The game is balanced at diamond level. The reason they lose isn't because of balance, they lose because they need to improve on x part of their play. If it's balanced at pro level, then the games balanced below, they just need to improve. So why shouldn't pros just suck it up and improve if they lose? It isn't like they are anywhere near the theoretical potential of a race. they are the closest. besides, that's a pretty fallacious argument... No telling one group they should just improve, while telling another group the game should be adjusted for them, without a proper reason for the difference, is a fallacious argument. diamond players lack basic skills. they are just learning the game. I thought that was gold league and below... I'm diamond, the game absolutely should not be balanced around my <100 APM and random BO's where I forget stuff all the time. By that logic, grenades should be removed and the need to reload be removed in team vs team FPS because I forget stuff all the time too. Or when I lose my queen because I didn't see the knight coming because I was too engrossed about protecting my pawn. There should be a cut off for skill groups around to balance for consideration. I feel balancing the game from diamond and up is fair. Edit: clarity The problem with Blizzards design concept for SC2 is that they make using units VERY EASY. Smartcast and unlimited unit selection make things rather easy to use. As a consequence there isnt the potential to "use units better than your opponent". The general mechanics - unlimited unit selection and tight movement - rather turn the whole thing around because they require players to be able to use a unit ability to make a unit balanced. Stalkers without Blink and/or Forcefield are as good as dead, because both Marines and Zerglings will kill them easily. Balancing the game for anyone other than the lowest levels does mean you are selling an imbalanced game. That is kinda behaving like an arrogant asshole IMO, because you declare the lowest level players not worthy of consideration. The skill increase for higher level players should come from them being able to use units better and to implement this you need to make using units HARD instead of EASY. That is the reason why BW is better than SC2 ... using units was hard, although it probably wasnt intentional. To make SC2 truly great they need to add some limitations which make using units rather hard ... force unit spreading while moving BUT including micro ability to clump them up is one way and a unit selection limit is another part and the removal of smartcast (for all or only some spells) would be a third option. A big part of why SC2 is really badly designed is the tight unit movement which concentrates firepower and thus maximizes dps and minimizes the reaction time of the defender. This is done on purpose, because Blizzard thinks that "more deaths = more action = better game" ... which isnt the case. A low reaction time is a good thing for an action shooter, but it is a terrible thing for a strategy game where planning should be more important than pure reflexes.
I don´t get the point of "Harder to use = better" (and i´m ignoring the fact that you just can not sell a game in 2013 with limited unit selection).
Look at Chess, it has no mechanical "skill" required at all. Its just unfair to blame Blizzard that SC2 is badly designed because of things they never wanted to do. They didn't want to make a BW remake, they wanted to speed SC up, modernize it and bring it to modern game standards. And to be honest they succeeded SC2 is not perfect (as BW wasn´t perfect) and maybe not anybody's taste but still a very good RTS game if not the best in modern times.
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Northern Ireland23858 Posts
On July 30 2013 16:45 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 16:32 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 30 2013 14:40 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:31 Rhaegal wrote:On July 30 2013 14:24 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:18 Rhaegal wrote:
Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
The only one of them which should raise eyebrows is polt v revival. Even that's iffy. Byul vs foreigner, and bomber vs his worst matchup. Multiple people in this thread have claimed that TvZ is "heavily" Terran favored. They're exaggerating a bit, but that still doesn't mean major should beat byul lol. That's what I've been saying the whole time, balance should not be about ratios or statistics, but actual responses to counter an action, e.g. Knight first moves have specific counters if you spot them early enough. Same, mass ling/bling should have counters for them if early enough both mechanically and compositionally. People have been saying that 4m counters way too much, and doesn't really have a counter at all. Which is what a lot of the balance complaints are coming from.
So much of the game's issues that people complain about have their roots elsewhere. Fast, microable units that out-DPS everything in the game pretty much and get healed. They have the capacity to outperform the other races counterparts to massive degrees if they're controlled well, so hence Protoss need an AoE unit of doom like the Collosus, Zerg needed the ridiculous WoL-era fungal etc.
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On July 30 2013 17:18 USvBleakill wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 13:22 Rabiator wrote:On July 30 2013 12:39 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 29 2013 18:38 Ghanburighan wrote:On July 29 2013 18:17 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 29 2013 18:13 pt wrote:On July 29 2013 18:12 Sissors wrote:On July 29 2013 18:10 pt wrote:On July 29 2013 17:49 Sissors wrote:On July 29 2013 17:44 blade55555 wrote:
[quote]
The game is balanced at diamond level. The reason they lose isn't because of balance, they lose because they need to improve on x part of their play. If it's balanced at pro level, then the games balanced below, they just need to improve. So why shouldn't pros just suck it up and improve if they lose? It isn't like they are anywhere near the theoretical potential of a race. they are the closest. besides, that's a pretty fallacious argument... No telling one group they should just improve, while telling another group the game should be adjusted for them, without a proper reason for the difference, is a fallacious argument. diamond players lack basic skills. they are just learning the game. I thought that was gold league and below... I'm diamond, the game absolutely should not be balanced around my <100 APM and random BO's where I forget stuff all the time. By that logic, grenades should be removed and the need to reload be removed in team vs team FPS because I forget stuff all the time too. Or when I lose my queen because I didn't see the knight coming because I was too engrossed about protecting my pawn. There should be a cut off for skill groups around to balance for consideration. I feel balancing the game from diamond and up is fair. Edit: clarity The problem with Blizzards design concept for SC2 is that they make using units VERY EASY. Smartcast and unlimited unit selection make things rather easy to use. As a consequence there isnt the potential to "use units better than your opponent". The general mechanics - unlimited unit selection and tight movement - rather turn the whole thing around because they require players to be able to use a unit ability to make a unit balanced. Stalkers without Blink and/or Forcefield are as good as dead, because both Marines and Zerglings will kill them easily. Balancing the game for anyone other than the lowest levels does mean you are selling an imbalanced game. That is kinda behaving like an arrogant asshole IMO, because you declare the lowest level players not worthy of consideration. The skill increase for higher level players should come from them being able to use units better and to implement this you need to make using units HARD instead of EASY. That is the reason why BW is better than SC2 ... using units was hard, although it probably wasnt intentional. To make SC2 truly great they need to add some limitations which make using units rather hard ... force unit spreading while moving BUT including micro ability to clump them up is one way and a unit selection limit is another part and the removal of smartcast (for all or only some spells) would be a third option. A big part of why SC2 is really badly designed is the tight unit movement which concentrates firepower and thus maximizes dps and minimizes the reaction time of the defender. This is done on purpose, because Blizzard thinks that "more deaths = more action = better game" ... which isnt the case. A low reaction time is a good thing for an action shooter, but it is a terrible thing for a strategy game where planning should be more important than pure reflexes. I don´t get the point of "Harder to use = better" (and i´m ignoring the fact that you just can not sell a game in 2013 with limited unit selection). Look at Chess, it has no mechanical "skill" required at all. Its just unfair to blame Blizzard that SC2 is badly designed because of things they never wanted to do. They didn't want to make a BW remake, they wanted to speed SC up, modernize it and bring it to modern game standards. And to be honest they succeeded SC2 is not perfect (as BW wasn´t perfect) and maybe not anybody's taste but still a very good RTS game if not the best in modern times.
It also has absolutely horrible design choices which 3 years down the track still haven't been fixed. The excuse of 'this is the best there is' really doesn't hold water when other companies are doing right by there fan base and succeeding. The starcraft 2 franchise has gone from breaking 150k+ concurrent viewers, and I believe even 200k+ down to 20k. There is legitimate concerns to be had over the game, and while I don't agree with mechanical skill being necessary a whole heap of other things need to be addressed.
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Northern Ireland23858 Posts
@Bleakill I don't get what is 'modern' about deathballs and large-scale engagements ending in the blink of an eye.
By all means UI alterations, certain mechanics being more automated etc. 'Terrible terrible damage' is not antiquated, not modern but it's a conscious design decision that has nothing to do with time or how other games play.
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On July 30 2013 17:21 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 16:45 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 16:32 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 30 2013 14:40 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:31 Rhaegal wrote:On July 30 2013 14:24 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:18 Rhaegal wrote:
Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
The only one of them which should raise eyebrows is polt v revival. Even that's iffy. Byul vs foreigner, and bomber vs his worst matchup. Multiple people in this thread have claimed that TvZ is "heavily" Terran favored. They're exaggerating a bit, but that still doesn't mean major should beat byul lol. That's what I've been saying the whole time, balance should not be about ratios or statistics, but actual responses to counter an action, e.g. Knight first moves have specific counters if you spot them early enough. Same, mass ling/bling should have counters for them if early enough both mechanically and compositionally. People have been saying that 4m counters way too much, and doesn't really have a counter at all. Which is what a lot of the balance complaints are coming from. So much of the game's issues that people complain about have their roots elsewhere. Fast, microable units that out-DPS everything in the game pretty much and get healed. They have the capacity to outperform the other races counterparts to massive degrees if they're controlled well, so hence Protoss need an AoE unit of doom like the Collosus, Zerg needed the ridiculous WoL-era fungal etc.
I completely agree. It's like they designed terran first then when they tested it against protoss and zerg their thought process was something like "Well this pressure is fucking stupid, better make something to match it" and came up with fungal, forcefields and collosus.
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Northern Ireland23858 Posts
On July 30 2013 17:26 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2013 17:21 Wombat_NI wrote:On July 30 2013 16:45 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 16:32 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:On July 30 2013 14:40 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:31 Rhaegal wrote:On July 30 2013 14:24 bo1b wrote:On July 30 2013 14:18 Rhaegal wrote:
Weird. Didn't see any Zergs post in here when Life 4-2'd Bomber, or Revival 3-2'd Polt, or Byul 2-0'd Major...
The only one of them which should raise eyebrows is polt v revival. Even that's iffy. Byul vs foreigner, and bomber vs his worst matchup. Multiple people in this thread have claimed that TvZ is "heavily" Terran favored. They're exaggerating a bit, but that still doesn't mean major should beat byul lol. That's what I've been saying the whole time, balance should not be about ratios or statistics, but actual responses to counter an action, e.g. Knight first moves have specific counters if you spot them early enough. Same, mass ling/bling should have counters for them if early enough both mechanically and compositionally. People have been saying that 4m counters way too much, and doesn't really have a counter at all. Which is what a lot of the balance complaints are coming from. So much of the game's issues that people complain about have their roots elsewhere. Fast, microable units that out-DPS everything in the game pretty much and get healed. They have the capacity to outperform the other races counterparts to massive degrees if they're controlled well, so hence Protoss need an AoE unit of doom like the Collosus, Zerg needed the ridiculous WoL-era fungal etc. I completely agree. It's like they designed terran first then when they tested it against protoss and zerg their thought process was something like "Well this pressure is fucking stupid, better make something to match it" and came up with fungal, forcefields and collosus.
It's the biggest oft-repeated fallacy in Starcraft 2 that Terran is 'well-designed'.
I hate the refusal to look at how races inter-relate when looking at these things. Protoss get so much shit for being boring, but it's not just the problem with that race specifically, often the race has to have certain crutches to compete with certain problematic design choices that the other races benefit from.
Zerg units, fast, can be bulk produced. Protoss turtles because the benefits of sharking around the map in the early/midgame is far outweighed by the massive risk of getting surrounded, missing forcefields and dying, so Protoss tutle. MsC does mitigate this a bit in HoTS at least.
Terran bio > unsupported gateway units outside of allin timings, Protoss AoE units even this out = Protoss play pretty defensively until their tech kicks in, and the balance swings.
This is not to say that Protoss is well-designed, but many of the faults with the race are also due to what the other races are capable of.
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I for my part can only name two 'balance breaking' people in Terran vs Zerg. INnoVation and Flash. They use biomine very well, but the statement at the very top, that the mine is the new infestor? Don't be ridiculous. Go and point out good Terrans with biomine outside of Korea? I mean excellent biomine Terrans? I can't, I doubt you can.
If you saw Lucifron struggle with it even with an insane advantage you know its hard to use. I can point out 'hundrets' (if there even are) of pro Terrans below highest level that don't even come close to dominate with biomine, not to mention they splash their own units. Best example of a debacle mine would be forGG blowing up all his medivacs. The mine in itself, while possibly needing a tweak is a completely perfect designed unit. It increases engagement difficulty for both sides. The Terran cannot simply rely on having lucky hits, but would need to micro and switch targets to get good hits as he will lack 'fighting supply' (mines are 2 supply) and the Zerg has to minimize or nullify the mines. Both actions require micro and awareness, the mine can be powerful in hands of someone very skilled with or useles or even devastating towards the Terran.
Zergs can engage from multiple angles, especially in defensive stances or spread out which makes it harder to get good mine connections, but instead of actually working something out, we see a lot of complaints. I can still remember the Infestor/Broodlord time, when Terrans tried 3-4 month to get into another style, try other unit combinations and approaches of the game to no effect in the end, because infestor/broodlord was - in the stages of the game you could get it because you were basically untouchable - nearly impossible to counter, because you could never fight it cost efficient.
Outside of Air-TErran or mass-raven support there was no answer and the very lategame army couldn't be achieved because you had to constantly put aggression to at least slow Zerg down. Also, Broodlord / Infestor was relatively easy to control to begin with, so it allowed way inferior players to beat better ones once reaching that stage.
Biomine starts off relatively slow (especially the parade push in INnoVations Style) so you could detonate and kill mines before they reach a really threatening mass. I am Terran so all I say will be dismissed as bullshit, but I believe the mine in itself is not overpowered, but a well designed unit that could use a bit of tweaking at best. Zergs need to figure out better ways to engage because there's the chance for it, it just wasn't neccessary before now.
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Northern Ireland23858 Posts
On July 30 2013 17:38 NarutO wrote:
I for my part can only name two 'balance breaking' people in Terran vs Zerg. INnoVation and Flash. They use biomine very well, but the statement at the very top, that the mine is the new infestor? Don't be ridiculous. Go and point out good Terrans with biomine outside of Korea? I mean excellent biomine Terrans? I can't, I doubt you can.
If you saw Lucifron struggle with it even with an insane advantage you know its hard to use. I can point out 'hundrets' (if there even are) of pro Terrans below highest level that don't even come close to dominate with biomine, not to mention they splash their own units. Best example of a debacle mine would be forGG blowing up all his medivacs. The mine in itself, while possibly needing a tweak is a completely perfect designed unit. It increases engagement difficulty for both sides. The Terran cannot simply rely on having lucky hits, but would need to micro and switch targets to get good hits as he will lack 'fighting supply' (mines are 2 supply) and the Zerg has to minimize or nullify the mines. Both actions require micro and awareness, the mine can be powerful in hands of someone very skilled with or useles or even devastating towards the Terran.
Zergs can engage from multiple angles, especially in defensive stances or spread out which makes it harder to get good mine connections, but instead of actually working something out, we see a lot of complaints. I can still remember the Infestor/Broodlord time, when Terrans tried 3-4 month to get into another style, try other unit combinations and approaches of the game to no effect in the end, because infestor/broodlord was - in the stages of the game you could get it because you were basically untouchable - nearly impossible to counter, because you could never fight it cost efficient.
Outside of Air-TErran or mass-raven support there was no answer and the very lategame army couldn't be achieved because you had to constantly put aggression to at least slow Zerg down. Also, Broodlord / Infestor was relatively easy to control to begin with, so it allowed way inferior players to beat better ones once reaching that stage.
Biomine starts off relatively slow (especially the parade push in INnoVations Style) so you could detonate and kill mines before they reach a really threatening mass. I am Terran so all I say will be dismissed as bullshit, but I believe the mine in itself is not overpowered, but a well designed unit that could use a bit of tweaking at best. Zergs need to figure out better ways to engage because there's the chance for it, it just wasn't neccessary before now.
Nah that's a pretty reasonable assessment.
Marine/Tank I prefer over Biomine play, I just enjoyed that style. I don't really like the lack of control over mines, detonations seem a bit too volatile when the critical mass gets hit (i.e Zergs can't pull single-lings to force detonations with reliable results).
I don't know, I personally hate bio/mine, but I do know it's hard to execute.
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