|
On August 11 2013 18:45 Ghanburighan wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 18:43 Foxxan wrote:On August 11 2013 04:41 RaFox17 wrote:On August 11 2013 04:03 chatuka wrote:On August 11 2013 03:55 Salient wrote:
This is one of the most balanced RTS games ever made, and the races have totally different mechanics. That's a huge accomplishment. People complain way too much. You don't lose ladder games due to imbalance. You lose ladder games because you failed to scout, got supply blocked, tried something risky, messed up your micro, failed to tech switch in response to your opponent's changing composition, etc. This thread is ridiculous. i don't buy your argument. The game has design flaws where many units are unusable due to its stats and its innefficient ability to be productive. The Terran has several units that need a slight buff to its stats. There needs to be more dynamic action where sneak attacks, speed merchants causing havoc, as well as just goliaths at end games that just become a wrecking ball to the opponent. That is not happening, that fault lays directly to David Kim. I mean, i bet I could design the game better than David Kim, and I don't even get paid by Blizzard to do so. If you truly thinks so then go ahead and give us a detailed plan to fix the game. (please don´t make it simply about buffing terran) Why should he do that? To proof it toyou that he could do it? I could also design this game better than what they have done already It's because when you make empty claims like "I could also design this game better than what they have done already" without proof then you sound like an idiot. That's why we asked for substantial comments.
Oh come on ... Blizzard made a really pisspoor job when they designed SC2 and they are unwilling to correct the big mistakes. Consequently they have to keep going down their path of absurdly stupid unit design and then force them into the game by making specialized changes.
It isnt hard to design an RTS (which SC2 isnt really anymore due to the gigantic importance of economy and production over actual unit placement and control) that is better than SC2. All you have to do is start at BW and then improve on it ... and "improving" includes a kind of quality control where you actually check if anything new actually makes the game better.
The classic example for improvements from BW to SC2 is "unlimited unit selection". This is usually thought of as an advancement due to better technology, but I seriously doubt that the technology in 98 was forcing those limitations. They just thought a dozen units was an acceptable number of units to represent with small pictures in the UI. What are the consequences of unlimited unit selection? (listed with + / - to assign them "better" and "worse" judgements)
(+) Sure enough you can control your whole army easier, but is 1a really that much easier than 1a2a3a4a ? I dont believe it and thus it only gets a "minor improvement".
- The total dps of your closely clumped army increases. This is BAD because it lowers the response time for the defender to "less than a second". This is really one of the reasons why lower level players with longer response time wont have as much fun playing the game: their army will be gone because they were looking elsewhere and took too long to switch back to the action.
- Clumped up armies allow for critical numbers to exist. Critical numbers are really bad, because they increase the efficiency of a bunch of units to a pont where they become more efficient than just a few units of that type. Thus the unit has TWO LEVELS OF BALANCE and that is really bad to have in the game because you only balance units for one level. In BW there was critical numbers as well, but they were possible only for flying units (primarily Mutalisks) and they got balanced by the necessary micro and certain hard to use skills (Psi Storm, Irradiate, Plague) which could make it really risky to clump up your units this much. SC2 does not have those corrective measures, because it would counter the desired effect of mass battles; AoE has been nerfed a lot so it doesnt counter the tightly clumped armies which Dustin told us is what we wanted ...
Honestly ... its not difficult to design a game that is better than SC2
1. Keep it FUN for players of all levels instead of balancing it around the "trained monkeys" who are playing it professionally.
2. Keep the importance of production and economy LOW to keep the focus of the game on UNITS.
3. Keep STRATEGY in the game and dont replace it by action.
4. Dont automate everthing to keep the players busy. Make them WORK TO WIN and not WIN BECAUSE THE DEFENDER WASNT LOOKING. Defense must be easier than offense!
5. Add in "nifty skills and tricks" to unhinge / circumvent defense but keep those things non-stackable.
6. Keep your EGO out of balance discussions and try to make every unit viable! It isnt you the stupid developer that should "shape the game" but the players instead. Leave the choice to them ... and give them lots of choices.
Blizzard really failed in many ways, but the most glaring one is that they made bad choices years and years ago and they are unwilling to correct them even if it becomes clear how bad they are. They are also stuck in their cubicles and never look at the game "from the outside" or with an objective perspective.
|
Rabiator, note that you made substantial arguments hence you already passed my little litmus test that you quoted. It's not that I agree with your points (god knows I won't engage in an argument with you, knowing your posting habits) but you at least give the basis for a discussion of the topic.
|
Limited unit selection is unfair to Zerg players who have to control up to hundreds of units, creating another balance issue (how is that "balanced for everyone" if 95% of players can use no more than 2 control groups?), so it's a tough choice either way. Blizzard just went the easier way, and I don't think it is a problem per se until 200/200 armies are out - which is probably the main flaw of the game and has more to do with absurdly high income and production rate*. Maybe a selection limited BY SUPPLY is the way to go.
*I wonder what would happen to the game if vespene geysers were limited to 1500gas instead of 2500. We would probably see a lot more expansions.
|
On August 11 2013 19:17 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 18:45 Ghanburighan wrote:On August 11 2013 18:43 Foxxan wrote:On August 11 2013 04:41 RaFox17 wrote:On August 11 2013 04:03 chatuka wrote:On August 11 2013 03:55 Salient wrote:
This is one of the most balanced RTS games ever made, and the races have totally different mechanics. That's a huge accomplishment. People complain way too much. You don't lose ladder games due to imbalance. You lose ladder games because you failed to scout, got supply blocked, tried something risky, messed up your micro, failed to tech switch in response to your opponent's changing composition, etc. This thread is ridiculous. i don't buy your argument. The game has design flaws where many units are unusable due to its stats and its innefficient ability to be productive. The Terran has several units that need a slight buff to its stats. There needs to be more dynamic action where sneak attacks, speed merchants causing havoc, as well as just goliaths at end games that just become a wrecking ball to the opponent. That is not happening, that fault lays directly to David Kim. I mean, i bet I could design the game better than David Kim, and I don't even get paid by Blizzard to do so. If you truly thinks so then go ahead and give us a detailed plan to fix the game. (please don´t make it simply about buffing terran) Why should he do that? To proof it toyou that he could do it? I could also design this game better than what they have done already It's because when you make empty claims like "I could also design this game better than what they have done already" without proof then you sound like an idiot. That's why we asked for substantial comments. Oh come on ... Blizzard made a really pisspoor job when they designed SC2 and they are unwilling to correct the big mistakes. Consequently they have to keep going down their path of absurdly stupid unit design and then force them into the game by making specialized changes. It isnt hard to design an RTS (which SC2 isnt really anymore due to the gigantic importance of economy and production over actual unit placement and control) that is better than SC2. All you have to do is start at BW and then improve on it ... and "improving" includes a kind of quality control where you actually check if anything new actually makes the game better. The classic example for improvements from BW to SC2 is "unlimited unit selection". This is usually thought of as an advancement due to better technology, but I seriously doubt that the technology in 98 was forcing those limitations. They just thought a dozen units was an acceptable number of units to represent with small pictures in the UI. What are the consequences of unlimited unit selection? (listed with + / - to assign them "better" and "worse" judgements) (+) Sure enough you can control your whole army easier, but is 1a really that much easier than 1a2a3a4a ? I dont believe it and thus it only gets a "minor improvement". - The total dps of your closely clumped army increases. This is BAD because it lowers the response time for the defender to "less than a second". This is really one of the reasons why lower level players with longer response time wont have as much fun playing the game: their army will be gone because they were looking elsewhere and took too long to switch back to the action. - Clumped up armies allow for critical numbers to exist. Critical numbers are really bad, because they increase the efficiency of a bunch of units to a pont where they become more efficient than just a few units of that type. Thus the unit has TWO LEVELS OF BALANCE and that is really bad to have in the game because you only balance units for one level. In BW there was critical numbers as well, but they were possible only for flying units (primarily Mutalisks) and they got balanced by the necessary micro and certain hard to use skills (Psi Storm, Irradiate, Plague) which could make it really risky to clump up your units this much. SC2 does not have those corrective measures, because it would counter the desired effect of mass battles; AoE has been nerfed a lot so it doesnt counter the tightly clumped armies which Dustin told us is what we wanted ... Honestly ... its not difficult to design a game that is better than SC2 1. Keep it FUN for players of all levels instead of balancing it around the "trained monkeys" who are playing it professionally. 2. Keep the importance of production and economy LOW to keep the focus of the game on UNITS. 3. Keep STRATEGY in the game and dont replace it by action. 4. Dont automate everthing to keep the players busy. Make them WORK TO WIN and not WIN BECAUSE THE DEFENDER WASNT LOOKING. Defense must be easier than offense! 5. Add in "nifty skills and tricks" to unhinge / circumvent defense but keep those things non-stackable. 6. Keep your EGO out of balance discussions and try to make every unit viable! It isnt you the stupid developer that should "shape the game" but the players instead. Leave the choice to them ... and give them lots of choices. Blizzard really failed in many ways, but the most glaring one is that they made bad choices years and years ago and they are unwilling to correct them even if it becomes clear how bad they are. They are also stuck in their cubicles and never look at the game "from the outside" or with an objective perspective.
Lol, you talk about EGO? You who think it is easy to make game game with 3 balanced races with different units where all units are viable? I would really like to see you do that.
|
On August 11 2013 20:18 vthree wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 19:17 Rabiator wrote:On August 11 2013 18:45 Ghanburighan wrote:On August 11 2013 18:43 Foxxan wrote:On August 11 2013 04:41 RaFox17 wrote:On August 11 2013 04:03 chatuka wrote:On August 11 2013 03:55 Salient wrote:
This is one of the most balanced RTS games ever made, and the races have totally different mechanics. That's a huge accomplishment. People complain way too much. You don't lose ladder games due to imbalance. You lose ladder games because you failed to scout, got supply blocked, tried something risky, messed up your micro, failed to tech switch in response to your opponent's changing composition, etc. This thread is ridiculous. i don't buy your argument. The game has design flaws where many units are unusable due to its stats and its innefficient ability to be productive. The Terran has several units that need a slight buff to its stats. There needs to be more dynamic action where sneak attacks, speed merchants causing havoc, as well as just goliaths at end games that just become a wrecking ball to the opponent. That is not happening, that fault lays directly to David Kim. I mean, i bet I could design the game better than David Kim, and I don't even get paid by Blizzard to do so. If you truly thinks so then go ahead and give us a detailed plan to fix the game. (please don´t make it simply about buffing terran) Why should he do that? To proof it toyou that he could do it? I could also design this game better than what they have done already It's because when you make empty claims like "I could also design this game better than what they have done already" without proof then you sound like an idiot. That's why we asked for substantial comments. Oh come on ... Blizzard made a really pisspoor job when they designed SC2 and they are unwilling to correct the big mistakes. Consequently they have to keep going down their path of absurdly stupid unit design and then force them into the game by making specialized changes. It isnt hard to design an RTS (which SC2 isnt really anymore due to the gigantic importance of economy and production over actual unit placement and control) that is better than SC2. All you have to do is start at BW and then improve on it ... and "improving" includes a kind of quality control where you actually check if anything new actually makes the game better. The classic example for improvements from BW to SC2 is "unlimited unit selection". This is usually thought of as an advancement due to better technology, but I seriously doubt that the technology in 98 was forcing those limitations. They just thought a dozen units was an acceptable number of units to represent with small pictures in the UI. What are the consequences of unlimited unit selection? (listed with + / - to assign them "better" and "worse" judgements) (+) Sure enough you can control your whole army easier, but is 1a really that much easier than 1a2a3a4a ? I dont believe it and thus it only gets a "minor improvement". - The total dps of your closely clumped army increases. This is BAD because it lowers the response time for the defender to "less than a second". This is really one of the reasons why lower level players with longer response time wont have as much fun playing the game: their army will be gone because they were looking elsewhere and took too long to switch back to the action. - Clumped up armies allow for critical numbers to exist. Critical numbers are really bad, because they increase the efficiency of a bunch of units to a pont where they become more efficient than just a few units of that type. Thus the unit has TWO LEVELS OF BALANCE and that is really bad to have in the game because you only balance units for one level. In BW there was critical numbers as well, but they were possible only for flying units (primarily Mutalisks) and they got balanced by the necessary micro and certain hard to use skills (Psi Storm, Irradiate, Plague) which could make it really risky to clump up your units this much. SC2 does not have those corrective measures, because it would counter the desired effect of mass battles; AoE has been nerfed a lot so it doesnt counter the tightly clumped armies which Dustin told us is what we wanted ... Honestly ... its not difficult to design a game that is better than SC2 1. Keep it FUN for players of all levels instead of balancing it around the "trained monkeys" who are playing it professionally. 2. Keep the importance of production and economy LOW to keep the focus of the game on UNITS. 3. Keep STRATEGY in the game and dont replace it by action. 4. Dont automate everthing to keep the players busy. Make them WORK TO WIN and not WIN BECAUSE THE DEFENDER WASNT LOOKING. Defense must be easier than offense! 5. Add in "nifty skills and tricks" to unhinge / circumvent defense but keep those things non-stackable. 6. Keep your EGO out of balance discussions and try to make every unit viable! It isnt you the stupid developer that should "shape the game" but the players instead. Leave the choice to them ... and give them lots of choices. Blizzard really failed in many ways, but the most glaring one is that they made bad choices years and years ago and they are unwilling to correct them even if it becomes clear how bad they are. They are also stuck in their cubicles and never look at the game "from the outside" or with an objective perspective. Lol, you talk about EGO? You who think it is easy to make game game with 3 balanced races with different units where all units are viable? I would really like to see you do that.
Come on ... BW is a good place to start and all you have to do is improve A LITTLE and add a new unit or two.
The way I would do it would be to have a "fixed number of unit slots" taken from BW (to keep the game nice and simple) and then add "sidegrade units" which you had to choose to replace a unit from the standard set. That way you keep the number of units low, so balancing isnt going to be too much of a hassle (imagine adding another spellcaster to SC2 and then having to nerf the new spells because they synergize too well with the spells from another caster). This system would allow them to add an "infinite" amount of new units, because every new one would be a sidegrade to an old one and would have to replace it if you wanted to use it.
With this setting you could have tournaments set in "BW time" or ones set in "SC2 time" or "the future" or you leave the choice to the players and force them to make choices before the game begins and the opponent wouldnt know if you had Reapers to scout or Medics to heal before encountering them in game. The ability to add in new units regularly would keep the game fresh for a much longer time ... which is an advantage games like LoL have over SC2.
Additionally you could even have mods where you branch out and play with units from a totally different universe like Warhammer 40k (Terrans get replaced by Orcs with funky ramshackle buildings, Protoss are Eldar and Zerg become chaos or tyranids in one form or another). Obviously lots of the stuff in Starcraft has been "strongly inspired" by the Warhammer 40k universe already ...
It isnt rocket science and all you need is some imagination ...
In case it wasnt clear from what I said: I wouldnt change the core game mechanics apart from making slight improvements to unit pathing (getting rid of buggy pathing, adding more directions than 8, automine), but everything else (the buildings, the 12 unit selection limit) would stay the same. Destructible terrain is a neat addition too, which mapmakers have put into BW maps for a long time already and giving it a correct outfit wouldnt hurt.
The core point of my criticism is ... if you are unwilling to learn from the past (i.e. compare SC2 to BW and honestly look for screw-ups in development) you are inventing the wheel all over again. Just remember to invent it finally and dont get bogged down over the color.
-------
Another point where Blizzard screwed up is the fact that they attempt to make the game "faster" by increasing production speed and economy. Well they should have realized that "faster" also means "more unstable balance" and that "slower" is actually easier to balance and easier to play for low skill players. It is only todays kids - you know the type with the attention span of a goldfish (which really is 3 seconds) - which screwms for more action, but Blizzard is big enough to train their own fans to be better ... propaganda really works after all.
|
On August 11 2013 17:09 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 03:52 Sated wrote:On August 11 2013 03:10 ETisME wrote:I just want to ask if people really enjoying hots more than wol I was watching some videos of the wol (say this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-2gYARv58g)so far I don't think I have seen more than 2 hots games that are upto there. (other than TvP which is mostly the same as it was in wol imo) Just look at the unit composition diversities, the instant marine spliting, the caught unsiege omg moment, I even miss the old vortex archon toilet moment. Watching broodlord infestors win is mostly boring but watching broodlord infestors getting beaten is amazing because how hard it was to beat it. I think hots should have been balanced based upon this path rather than making the composition completely not viable. I enjoyed WoL a lot more, but I'm starting to think that a lot of it is to do with the maps. If I could play on maps like Ohana and Cloud Kingdom then I'd be a lot happier than I am with the current map pool. I miss Xel'Naga Towers that are actually useful. I miss maps that aren't ridiculously huge for no apparent reason. I miss maps with 9 tile RAMPED chokes at the natural. Even maps like Shakuras, oh how I miss them. Large maps don't suit me T_T On August 11 2013 03:40 MockHamill wrote:
I really hope Blizzard does something to even out TvP below pro level.
The best boost would be something that helps lower league players without strengthening the current go-to strat of pro players. Since Tanks are almost dead in pro-level TvP why not make them do bonus damage against shields? It would probably still not be as good as bio in Pro level TvP since bio become really strong when you have 250+ APM but it would be help the matchup become more fair at non-pro level. Yeah, the WCS KR finals were really one-sided in favour of the Protoss. Something really needs to be done! >_> agree. Im not the biggest fan of the mappool too. all of them seem overly large and cant find a good middle ground between being able to control terraim and being able to attack. I miss cloud kingdoms middle highground :-(
Shakuras Plateau (MMA vs DRG game 7) for ever in my heart.
Its gonna be interesting to see how the next maps are going to be i think, the last maps almost all were the bigger he better, i'd like to see som smaller maps aswell which dont end up in 4 base 200/200 no rush games. A lot of people are complaining about how P rolls T in the late game, with smaller maps and engagements arround 140ish supply this could solve the issue(assuming there is one)
|
United Kingdom12022 Posts
On August 11 2013 19:01 aZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 18:36 Qikz wrote:On August 11 2013 17:20 aZealot wrote:
I concur. The map pool is a little wanting, and I miss CK and Ohana too. We need a couple more smaller maps in the rotation.
Why? They were in the pool far too long and every single game on both of them played out exactly the same. We need less maps like bel'shir vestige that has been around for ages and more dynamic map pools. Did they? The only one I can remember playing out the same was PvZ (Immo/Sentry all day every day). I might concede Ohana, but I do miss CK. Something about that map was cool. Both playing it and watching games on it. It would have been interesting to see how CK (and Ohana) played out in HOTS. But, really, it's more that I miss having more smaller maps.
CK and Daybreak were both played out in HoTS and they both ended up leading to terribly boring games. Ohana would've been even worse.
You can have small maps, but having maps as narrow as Daybreak and Ohana just makes for terrible, terrible games. After about 3 months of watching Daybreak/Cloud Kingdom and Ohana you could predict exactly what was going to happen on every single map. Maybe it's just because there were very few different unit comps in WoL, but tournament map pools can't stagnate like that ever again. If they do, the game will die and I'm not kidding about this.
New maps can force new strategies and interesting plays as long as the map design asks for it. Tournaments outside of Proleague still suck at this as mostly, every map is pretty much the same with no +/- features against anything in the actual game. There's no maps that discourage bio, there's no maps that discourage anything and it's pretty stupid. That won't change with the current game balance based entirely around bio I understand, but the map pool needs to be diverse and constantly changing to test the players chance to adapt to new situations, strategies and thought processes.
I'm not taking away from MVP and Nestea's 3/4 GSL wins but the map pool was pretty much the same the entire way through and that's really, really bad for a strategy game like SC2. Look at BW, the only map that ever stayed in the pool for a huge, huge amount off time was Fighting Spirit and that was your "standard map" in BW, we have about 4 of those in the pool in SC2 currently and they're all 2P maps which makes it even worse.
Having 4 base per corner in a 4P map is another problem we currently have as nobody ever needs to leave their own corner of the map. Where's the maps that force defensive positioning? Where's the maps that encourage army movement? They just simply don't exist in SC2 tournaments. You might as well just sit everything in a blob in your corner of the map as there's literally no reason to spread out and IMO that sucks.
|
i don't even want to think about the ridiculous stomps we would see every zvt on smaller maps.
|
On August 11 2013 20:10 Big G wrote:
Limited unit selection is unfair to Zerg players who have to control up to hundreds of units, creating another balance issue (how is that "balanced for everyone" if 95% of players can use no more than 2 control groups?), so it's a tough choice either way. Blizzard just went the easier way, and I don't think it is a problem per se until 200/200 armies are out - which is probably the main flaw of the game and has more to do with absurdly high income and production rate*.
It's not unfair at all, don't be ridiculous. Zerg had to control a lot more units in BW too and competed just fine. I played Zerg for years and never had a problem with it. It was just part of playing the race.
|
On August 11 2013 19:17 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 18:45 Ghanburighan wrote:On August 11 2013 18:43 Foxxan wrote:On August 11 2013 04:41 RaFox17 wrote:On August 11 2013 04:03 chatuka wrote:On August 11 2013 03:55 Salient wrote:
This is one of the most balanced RTS games ever made, and the races have totally different mechanics. That's a huge accomplishment. People complain way too much. You don't lose ladder games due to imbalance. You lose ladder games because you failed to scout, got supply blocked, tried something risky, messed up your micro, failed to tech switch in response to your opponent's changing composition, etc. This thread is ridiculous. i don't buy your argument. The game has design flaws where many units are unusable due to its stats and its innefficient ability to be productive. The Terran has several units that need a slight buff to its stats. There needs to be more dynamic action where sneak attacks, speed merchants causing havoc, as well as just goliaths at end games that just become a wrecking ball to the opponent. That is not happening, that fault lays directly to David Kim. I mean, i bet I could design the game better than David Kim, and I don't even get paid by Blizzard to do so. If you truly thinks so then go ahead and give us a detailed plan to fix the game. (please don´t make it simply about buffing terran) Why should he do that? To proof it toyou that he could do it? I could also design this game better than what they have done already It's because when you make empty claims like "I could also design this game better than what they have done already" without proof then you sound like an idiot. That's why we asked for substantial comments. Oh come on ... Blizzard made a really pisspoor job when they designed SC2 and they are unwilling to correct the big mistakes. Consequently they have to keep going down their path of absurdly stupid unit design and then force them into the game by making specialized changes. It isnt hard to design an RTS (which SC2 isnt really anymore due to the gigantic importance of economy and production over actual unit placement and control) that is better than SC2. All you have to do is start at BW and then improve on it ... and "improving" includes a kind of quality control where you actually check if anything new actually makes the game better. The classic example for improvements from BW to SC2 is "unlimited unit selection". This is usually thought of as an advancement due to better technology, but I seriously doubt that the technology in 98 was forcing those limitations. They just thought a dozen units was an acceptable number of units to represent with small pictures in the UI. What are the consequences of unlimited unit selection? (listed with + / - to assign them "better" and "worse" judgements) (+) Sure enough you can control your whole army easier, but is 1a really that much easier than 1a2a3a4a ? I dont believe it and thus it only gets a "minor improvement". - The total dps of your closely clumped army increases. This is BAD because it lowers the response time for the defender to "less than a second". This is really one of the reasons why lower level players with longer response time wont have as much fun playing the game: their army will be gone because they were looking elsewhere and took too long to switch back to the action. - Clumped up armies allow for critical numbers to exist. Critical numbers are really bad, because they increase the efficiency of a bunch of units to a pont where they become more efficient than just a few units of that type. Thus the unit has TWO LEVELS OF BALANCE and that is really bad to have in the game because you only balance units for one level. In BW there was critical numbers as well, but they were possible only for flying units (primarily Mutalisks) and they got balanced by the necessary micro and certain hard to use skills (Psi Storm, Irradiate, Plague) which could make it really risky to clump up your units this much. SC2 does not have those corrective measures, because it would counter the desired effect of mass battles; AoE has been nerfed a lot so it doesnt counter the tightly clumped armies which Dustin told us is what we wanted ... Honestly ... its not difficult to design a game that is better than SC2 1. Keep it FUN for players of all levels instead of balancing it around the "trained monkeys" who are playing it professionally. 2. Keep the importance of production and economy LOW to keep the focus of the game on UNITS. 3. Keep STRATEGY in the game and dont replace it by action. 4. Dont automate everthing to keep the players busy. Make them WORK TO WIN and not WIN BECAUSE THE DEFENDER WASNT LOOKING. Defense must be easier than offense! 5. Add in "nifty skills and tricks" to unhinge / circumvent defense but keep those things non-stackable. 6. Keep your EGO out of balance discussions and try to make every unit viable! It isnt you the stupid developer that should "shape the game" but the players instead. Leave the choice to them ... and give them lots of choices. Blizzard really failed in many ways, but the most glaring one is that they made bad choices years and years ago and they are unwilling to correct them even if it becomes clear how bad they are. They are also stuck in their cubicles and never look at the game "from the outside" or with an objective perspective.
Keep in mind that a lot of people complain that the game isn't an rts, because it's too much about mechanics , and not enough about strategy. Now if you listen to pros, they complain the game is too much about strategy and not enough about mechanics. I would argue that most players would hate only having twelve units in one selection. I really think 1a is about 5 times easier than 1a2a3a4a5a, especially as a problem me as a low player kept running into in war3 (also 12 units only) was it took me quite some time to create the control groups as i always managed to box many units into more than one control group.
And sometimes it can be useful to see WHY they did something. I can see that more than twelve units per control group is appealing to new/casual players, it decreases mechanics and lets me think more about the game. So imo unclumping units would have to be done in a different way (totally possible and I agree with you that it needs doing, but it is only an opinion, not the absolute truth)
Another aspect of Clumping, is that Dustin Browder stated, that he never thought people would want to play in a passive way, so i guess this design was also to make small engagements easier to handle (it was in an interview about the map pool at the start of WoL), so the design probably never counted on full 200/200 engagements happening.
On game speed, lets see why they would make it so high. After decreasing mechanical skill to make it more appealing to knew players, they need to add something, to a) appeal to BW players and b) make the game hard to master.
Again there are many other ways to do this, but calling this decision unlogical is wrong (In MY opinion). On paper especially, it sounds plausible, make great players have to pull things of more quickly, than your average player. Again I agree with you that it has turned out to be impossible even for pros to micro in large battles as they are over too quickly, but on paper its a valid assumption.
Generally though instead of yelling that everything they have done is absolutely terrible, try seeing WHY they would do something. Most of the time there will be some logic, even if it's only on paper and not very practical. Also keep in mind that the Game Design was done early and just count in that they will not just throw that out of the window. (common you are human if you worked hard on something and someone comes to you and says "That's shit it's rubbish do it like this!" would you really listen to them? I mean especially after you have sold over a Million copies? really?)
Adding new things might be more of a possibility or at least phrasing them better than "This is Shit"
On Balance it is hard to say the game is badly balanced. Every race is doing well somewhere, and all of them seem to be winning some tournaments or at least making finals.
OFF TOPIC: On a side note, what made BW more "strategic" compared to sc2? Wasn't BW all about mechanics? (aka if you had Flash play a really inferior build against a mediocre Foreigner, wouldn't he still have won?
|
On August 12 2013 00:21 forsooth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 20:10 Big G wrote:
Limited unit selection is unfair to Zerg players who have to control up to hundreds of units, creating another balance issue (how is that "balanced for everyone" if 95% of players can use no more than 2 control groups?), so it's a tough choice either way. Blizzard just went the easier way, and I don't think it is a problem per se until 200/200 armies are out - which is probably the main flaw of the game and has more to do with absurdly high income and production rate*. It's not unfair at all, don't be ridiculous. Zerg had to control a lot more units in BW too and competed just fine. I played Zerg for years and never had a problem with it. It was just part of playing the race.
lol you completely miss my point. I said that BW limited unit selection has its flaws because creates disparity between the "swarm" and other races / styles of play, and between pros and lower level players - since one of the core arguments of Rabiator is "balanced for everyone" (which I agree with, btw, but I don't think it was the case for BW). In a sense, it is a limit to game design, thus it can't be copy/pasted in a new game just because it somewhat worked in BW. Back then 200/200 armies were harder to reach and harder to control due to pathing and spacing, so the comparison in a vacuum doesn't make sense. Maybe, just maybe, we should first focus onto why 200/200 is so easy to produce; if unit clumping and dps and economy were a bit lowered, maybe we would see more skirmishes throughout the match regardless of unit selection.
I then proceeded to say that a selection limited BY SUPPLY - which is already implemented in the interface btw, just look at cargo size - is probably more flexible.
If you're really convinced that designing an RTS is as easy as "take BW and add some stuff" then go ahead and do it. 
Edit: oh, I should add that some of us who were teenagers in 1998 remember that "limited unit selection" was considered "archaic" by many reviewers, even back then.
|
does anyone have an explanation for why terrans are underrepresented in every GM league?
|
On August 11 2013 19:17 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 18:45 Ghanburighan wrote:On August 11 2013 18:43 Foxxan wrote:On August 11 2013 04:41 RaFox17 wrote:On August 11 2013 04:03 chatuka wrote:On August 11 2013 03:55 Salient wrote:
This is one of the most balanced RTS games ever made, and the races have totally different mechanics. That's a huge accomplishment. People complain way too much. You don't lose ladder games due to imbalance. You lose ladder games because you failed to scout, got supply blocked, tried something risky, messed up your micro, failed to tech switch in response to your opponent's changing composition, etc. This thread is ridiculous. i don't buy your argument. The game has design flaws where many units are unusable due to its stats and its innefficient ability to be productive. The Terran has several units that need a slight buff to its stats. There needs to be more dynamic action where sneak attacks, speed merchants causing havoc, as well as just goliaths at end games that just become a wrecking ball to the opponent. That is not happening, that fault lays directly to David Kim. I mean, i bet I could design the game better than David Kim, and I don't even get paid by Blizzard to do so. If you truly thinks so then go ahead and give us a detailed plan to fix the game. (please don´t make it simply about buffing terran) Why should he do that? To proof it toyou that he could do it? I could also design this game better than what they have done already It's because when you make empty claims like "I could also design this game better than what they have done already" without proof then you sound like an idiot. That's why we asked for substantial comments. Oh come on ... Blizzard made a really pisspoor job when they designed SC2 and they are unwilling to correct the big mistakes. Consequently they have to keep going down their path of absurdly stupid unit design and then force them into the game by making specialized changes. It isnt hard to design an RTS (which SC2 isnt really anymore due to the gigantic importance of economy and production over actual unit placement and control) that is better than SC2. All you have to do is start at BW and then improve on it ... and "improving" includes a kind of quality control where you actually check if anything new actually makes the game better. The classic example for improvements from BW to SC2 is "unlimited unit selection". This is usually thought of as an advancement due to better technology, but I seriously doubt that the technology in 98 was forcing those limitations. They just thought a dozen units was an acceptable number of units to represent with small pictures in the UI. What are the consequences of unlimited unit selection? (listed with + / - to assign them "better" and "worse" judgements) (+) Sure enough you can control your whole army easier, but is 1a really that much easier than 1a2a3a4a ? I dont believe it and thus it only gets a "minor improvement". - The total dps of your closely clumped army increases. This is BAD because it lowers the response time for the defender to "less than a second". This is really one of the reasons why lower level players with longer response time wont have as much fun playing the game: their army will be gone because they were looking elsewhere and took too long to switch back to the action. - Clumped up armies allow for critical numbers to exist. Critical numbers are really bad, because they increase the efficiency of a bunch of units to a pont where they become more efficient than just a few units of that type. Thus the unit has TWO LEVELS OF BALANCE and that is really bad to have in the game because you only balance units for one level. In BW there was critical numbers as well, but they were possible only for flying units (primarily Mutalisks) and they got balanced by the necessary micro and certain hard to use skills (Psi Storm, Irradiate, Plague) which could make it really risky to clump up your units this much. SC2 does not have those corrective measures, because it would counter the desired effect of mass battles; AoE has been nerfed a lot so it doesnt counter the tightly clumped armies which Dustin told us is what we wanted ... Honestly ... its not difficult to design a game that is better than SC2 1. Keep it FUN for players of all levels instead of balancing it around the "trained monkeys" who are playing it professionally. 2. Keep the importance of production and economy LOW to keep the focus of the game on UNITS. 3. Keep STRATEGY in the game and dont replace it by action. 4. Dont automate everthing to keep the players busy. Make them WORK TO WIN and not WIN BECAUSE THE DEFENDER WASNT LOOKING. Defense must be easier than offense! 5. Add in "nifty skills and tricks" to unhinge / circumvent defense but keep those things non-stackable. 6. Keep your EGO out of balance discussions and try to make every unit viable! It isnt you the stupid developer that should "shape the game" but the players instead. Leave the choice to them ... and give them lots of choices. Blizzard really failed in many ways, but the most glaring one is that they made bad choices years and years ago and they are unwilling to correct them even if it becomes clear how bad they are. They are also stuck in their cubicles and never look at the game "from the outside" or with an objective perspective.
So... warcraft 3?
EDIT:
BTW, you cite BW as a shining example of strategy high, mechanics low. But BW mechanics were really high. WC3 is almost exactly what you describe, but most people that play RTS games dont think too highly of WC3.
|
On August 12 2013 02:29 beg wrote:
does anyone have an explanation for why terrans are underrepresented in every GM league?
less gm level players playing terran.
nobody wants to play the humans.
|
On August 12 2013 02:46 willstertben wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2013 02:29 beg wrote:
does anyone have an explanation for why terrans are underrepresented in every GM league? less gm level players playing terran. nobody wants to play the humans. Whoa. Are you implying there are actually people playing these races? Settle down.
|
On August 11 2013 23:33 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 19:01 aZealot wrote:On August 11 2013 18:36 Qikz wrote:On August 11 2013 17:20 aZealot wrote:
I concur. The map pool is a little wanting, and I miss CK and Ohana too. We need a couple more smaller maps in the rotation.
Why? They were in the pool far too long and every single game on both of them played out exactly the same. We need less maps like bel'shir vestige that has been around for ages and more dynamic map pools. Did they? The only one I can remember playing out the same was PvZ (Immo/Sentry all day every day). I might concede Ohana, but I do miss CK. Something about that map was cool. Both playing it and watching games on it. It would have been interesting to see how CK (and Ohana) played out in HOTS. But, really, it's more that I miss having more smaller maps. CK and Daybreak were both played out in HoTS and they both ended up leading to terribly boring games. Ohana would've been even worse. You can have small maps, but having maps as narrow as Daybreak and Ohana just makes for terrible, terrible games. After about 3 months of watching Daybreak/Cloud Kingdom and Ohana you could predict exactly what was going to happen on every single map. Maybe it's just because there were very few different unit comps in WoL, but tournament map pools can't stagnate like that ever again. If they do, the game will die and I'm not kidding about this. New maps can force new strategies and interesting plays as long as the map design asks for it. Tournaments outside of Proleague still suck at this as mostly, every map is pretty much the same with no +/- features against anything in the actual game. There's no maps that discourage bio, there's no maps that discourage anything and it's pretty stupid. That won't change with the current game balance based entirely around bio I understand, but the map pool needs to be diverse and constantly changing to test the players chance to adapt to new situations, strategies and thought processes. I'm not taking away from MVP and Nestea's 3/4 GSL wins but the map pool was pretty much the same the entire way through and that's really, really bad for a strategy game like SC2. Look at BW, the only map that ever stayed in the pool for a huge, huge amount off time was Fighting Spirit and that was your "standard map" in BW, we have about 4 of those in the pool in SC2 currently and they're all 2P maps which makes it even worse. Having 4 base per corner in a 4P map is another problem we currently have as nobody ever needs to leave their own corner of the map. Where's the maps that force defensive positioning? Where's the maps that encourage army movement? They just simply don't exist in SC2 tournaments. You might as well just sit everything in a blob in your corner of the map as there's literally no reason to spread out and IMO that sucks.
Yeah, I forgot that CK and Ohana figured in the early pool at the start of HOTS. But, the game had hardly developed at that point - it was still quite WOL-esque. You make some good points, though. Maybe they would have played out as you say? I guess I am a little nostalgic with regard to those maps (CK especially) as I played and watched a number of good games on those maps. And, so far, I have little real affection for any of the current ladder maps.
I do agree with your larger point though. The map pool could use a shake-up. And having large maps with large resource concentrations is an incentive to passive play - of the worst kind. Hopefully that will change and we will have new different maps in the pool as the game develops and the year goes on. These things take time.
|
On August 11 2013 19:17 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 18:45 Ghanburighan wrote:On August 11 2013 18:43 Foxxan wrote:On August 11 2013 04:41 RaFox17 wrote:On August 11 2013 04:03 chatuka wrote:On August 11 2013 03:55 Salient wrote:
This is one of the most balanced RTS games ever made, and the races have totally different mechanics. That's a huge accomplishment. People complain way too much. You don't lose ladder games due to imbalance. You lose ladder games because you failed to scout, got supply blocked, tried something risky, messed up your micro, failed to tech switch in response to your opponent's changing composition, etc. This thread is ridiculous. i don't buy your argument. The game has design flaws where many units are unusable due to its stats and its innefficient ability to be productive. The Terran has several units that need a slight buff to its stats. There needs to be more dynamic action where sneak attacks, speed merchants causing havoc, as well as just goliaths at end games that just become a wrecking ball to the opponent. That is not happening, that fault lays directly to David Kim. I mean, i bet I could design the game better than David Kim, and I don't even get paid by Blizzard to do so. If you truly thinks so then go ahead and give us a detailed plan to fix the game. (please don´t make it simply about buffing terran) Why should he do that? To proof it toyou that he could do it? I could also design this game better than what they have done already It's because when you make empty claims like "I could also design this game better than what they have done already" without proof then you sound like an idiot. That's why we asked for substantial comments. The classic example for improvements from BW to SC2 is "unlimited unit selection". This is usually thought of as an advancement due to better technology, but I seriously doubt that the technology in 98 was forcing those limitations. They just thought a dozen units was an acceptable number of units to represent with small pictures in the UI. What are the consequences of unlimited unit selection? (listed with + / - to assign them "better" and "worse" judgements)
The biggest CPU sink in BW times by FAR was pathfinding. Limiting unit selection was absolutely a technology decision to keep the game running smoothly. If 60 units were given a move order at the same time, it would not on the hardware of the day.
Honestly ... its not difficult to design a game that is better than SC2
1. Keep it FUN for players of all levels instead of balancing it around the "trained monkeys" who are playing it professionally.
2. Keep the importance of production and economy LOW to keep the focus of the game on UNITS.
3. Keep STRATEGY in the game and dont replace it by action.
4. Dont automate everthing to keep the players busy. Make them WORK TO WIN and not WIN BECAUSE THE DEFENDER WASNT LOOKING. Defense must be easier than offense!
5. Add in "nifty skills and tricks" to unhinge / circumvent defense but keep those things non-stackable.
6. Keep your EGO out of balance discussions and try to make every unit viable! It isnt you the stupid developer that should "shape the game" but the players instead. Leave the choice to them ... and give them lots of choices.
I really can't elucidate the amount of nonsense here. It can be paraphrased as 'It's not hard at all to make a game better than SC2. All you have to do is make it perfect in every aspect'.
Except for "Dont automate everthing to keep the players busy. Make them WORK TO WIN and not WIN BECAUSE THE DEFENDER WASNT LOOKING."
More mechanic-only tasks (aka chores) divert attention even more, causing more 'wasn't looking' army deaths.
Blizzard really failed in many ways, but the most glaring one is that they made bad choices years and years ago and they are unwilling to correct them even if it becomes clear how bad they are. They are also stuck in their cubicles and never look at the game "from the outside" or with an objective perspective.
They really failed, their biggest mistake was making a lot of bad decisions? What the hell are you even talking about?
The only part of the game you've even described is that controlling your units is too easy, and there's not enough decision-less chores.
How would adding both of these make a better game? Don't just describe qualities of the game you want (more strategy, less coin-flippy), tell me how these would make a better game.
|
On August 12 2013 06:50 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 19:17 Rabiator wrote:On August 11 2013 18:45 Ghanburighan wrote:On August 11 2013 18:43 Foxxan wrote:On August 11 2013 04:41 RaFox17 wrote:On August 11 2013 04:03 chatuka wrote:On August 11 2013 03:55 Salient wrote:
This is one of the most balanced RTS games ever made, and the races have totally different mechanics. That's a huge accomplishment. People complain way too much. You don't lose ladder games due to imbalance. You lose ladder games because you failed to scout, got supply blocked, tried something risky, messed up your micro, failed to tech switch in response to your opponent's changing composition, etc. This thread is ridiculous. i don't buy your argument. The game has design flaws where many units are unusable due to its stats and its innefficient ability to be productive. The Terran has several units that need a slight buff to its stats. There needs to be more dynamic action where sneak attacks, speed merchants causing havoc, as well as just goliaths at end games that just become a wrecking ball to the opponent. That is not happening, that fault lays directly to David Kim. I mean, i bet I could design the game better than David Kim, and I don't even get paid by Blizzard to do so. If you truly thinks so then go ahead and give us a detailed plan to fix the game. (please don´t make it simply about buffing terran) Why should he do that? To proof it toyou that he could do it? I could also design this game better than what they have done already It's because when you make empty claims like "I could also design this game better than what they have done already" without proof then you sound like an idiot. That's why we asked for substantial comments. The classic example for improvements from BW to SC2 is "unlimited unit selection". This is usually thought of as an advancement due to better technology, but I seriously doubt that the technology in 98 was forcing those limitations. They just thought a dozen units was an acceptable number of units to represent with small pictures in the UI. What are the consequences of unlimited unit selection? (listed with + / - to assign them "better" and "worse" judgements) The biggest CPU sink in BW times by FAR was pathfinding. Limiting unit selection was absolutely a technology decision to keep the game running smoothly. If 60 units were given a move order at the same time, it would not on the hardware of the day.
not according to Patrick Wyatt.
While selecting and controlling one hundred units at a time demonstrated terrible weaknesses in the simple path-finding algorithm I had implemented, after I got the basic algorithms working I nevertheless spent hours selecting units and dispatching game units to destinations around the map instead of writing more code; it was the coolest feature I had ever created in my programming career up to that time!
Later in the development process, and after many design arguments between team-members, we decided to allow players to select only four units at a time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending them into the fray all at once. We later increased this number to nine in Warcraft II. Command and Conquer, the spiritual successor to Dune 2, didn’t have any upper bound on the number of units that could be selected. It’s worth another article to talk about the design ramifications, for sure.
http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1
|
On August 12 2013 08:21 Mindcrime wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2013 06:50 fdsdfg wrote:On August 11 2013 19:17 Rabiator wrote:On August 11 2013 18:45 Ghanburighan wrote:On August 11 2013 18:43 Foxxan wrote:On August 11 2013 04:41 RaFox17 wrote:On August 11 2013 04:03 chatuka wrote:On August 11 2013 03:55 Salient wrote:
This is one of the most balanced RTS games ever made, and the races have totally different mechanics. That's a huge accomplishment. People complain way too much. You don't lose ladder games due to imbalance. You lose ladder games because you failed to scout, got supply blocked, tried something risky, messed up your micro, failed to tech switch in response to your opponent's changing composition, etc. This thread is ridiculous. i don't buy your argument. The game has design flaws where many units are unusable due to its stats and its innefficient ability to be productive. The Terran has several units that need a slight buff to its stats. There needs to be more dynamic action where sneak attacks, speed merchants causing havoc, as well as just goliaths at end games that just become a wrecking ball to the opponent. That is not happening, that fault lays directly to David Kim. I mean, i bet I could design the game better than David Kim, and I don't even get paid by Blizzard to do so. If you truly thinks so then go ahead and give us a detailed plan to fix the game. (please don´t make it simply about buffing terran) Why should he do that? To proof it toyou that he could do it? I could also design this game better than what they have done already It's because when you make empty claims like "I could also design this game better than what they have done already" without proof then you sound like an idiot. That's why we asked for substantial comments. The classic example for improvements from BW to SC2 is "unlimited unit selection". This is usually thought of as an advancement due to better technology, but I seriously doubt that the technology in 98 was forcing those limitations. They just thought a dozen units was an acceptable number of units to represent with small pictures in the UI. What are the consequences of unlimited unit selection? (listed with + / - to assign them "better" and "worse" judgements) The biggest CPU sink in BW times by FAR was pathfinding. Limiting unit selection was absolutely a technology decision to keep the game running smoothly. If 60 units were given a move order at the same time, it would not on the hardware of the day. not according to Patrick Wyatt. Show nested quote +While selecting and controlling one hundred units at a time demonstrated terrible weaknesses in the simple path-finding algorithm I had implemented, after I got the basic algorithms working I nevertheless spent hours selecting units and dispatching game units to destinations around the map instead of writing more code; it was the coolest feature I had ever created in my programming career up to that time!
Later in the development process, and after many design arguments between team-members, we decided to allow players to select only four units at a time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending them into the fray all at once. We later increased this number to nine in Warcraft II. Command and Conquer, the spiritual successor to Dune 2, didn’t have any upper bound on the number of units that could be selected. It’s worth another article to talk about the design ramifications, for sure. http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1
Well, those other games were able to select unlimited units. But their pathfinding didn't allow the units to go where you wanted them to go. You still needed to spend a fuckton of time to tactical deployment.
I actually think that it was a very clever and calculated move by blizzard, as they did not "just" use selection limits. At the same time they introduced control groups, and many, many new control options to make it much easier to deploy/control groups of units.
They were able to sell a lot of inventions, because people needed them to overcome limited selection while unsolveable pathing problems of those times became less relevant, due to the forced focus on movement through limited unit selection.
Also, keep in mind that Warcraft (unlike Dune 2 or CnC) always tried to give the feel of playing an RPG with many characters, while CnC and Dune wanted to simulate massive war scenarios. So I would be careful transfering those arguments to Starcraft which did not try to emulate this feeling. It's much more likely that blizzard just tried to stick to the mechanics the best-selling game (War2) up to that point had introduced (and hadn't the critics eaten the first starcraft version alive which caused blizzard to completely overwork everything, we would have ended up with an Orcs in Space - cashcow instead of the beginning of esports).
![[image loading]](http://www.google.at/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&docid=hw14M0fZIs6bKM&tbnid=46Ehu3jVFESviM:&ved=0CAUQjBwwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sirlin.net%2Fstorage%2Fpost-images%2Fstarcraft_alpha.png%3F__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION%3D1233298726667&ei=7SUIUoL1Hsiu4ATht4GoBQ&psig=AFQjCNEW4MctFnxFv9y5BCJXxMU8bAgPzg&ust=1376352109557999)
|
United States7483 Posts
On August 11 2013 19:17 Rabiator wrote:
Honestly ... its not difficult to design a game that is better than SC2
1. Keep it FUN for players of all levels instead of balancing it around the "trained monkeys" who are playing it professionally.
2. Keep the importance of production and economy LOW to keep the focus of the game on UNITS.
3. Keep STRATEGY in the game and dont replace it by action.
4. Dont automate everthing to keep the players busy. Make them WORK TO WIN and not WIN BECAUSE THE DEFENDER WASNT LOOKING. Defense must be easier than offense!
5. Add in "nifty skills and tricks" to unhinge / circumvent defense but keep those things non-stackable.
6. Keep your EGO out of balance discussions and try to make every unit viable! It isnt you the stupid developer that should "shape the game" but the players instead. Leave the choice to them ... and give them lots of choices.
Blizzard really failed in many ways, but the most glaring one is that they made bad choices years and years ago and they are unwilling to correct them even if it becomes clear how bad they are. They are also stuck in their cubicles and never look at the game "from the outside" or with an objective perspective.
I couldn't disagree with points 1 and 2 more, 3 is a strawman, this game is nothing but strategy and tactics. 4 is a strawman as well, and a non-sequitur as well (how do you get to defense must be easier than offense from things being automated?) 5 is completely unnecessary and it already exists in a more strategic fashion. 6 has nothing to do with game design, this is a classic logical fallacy (ad-hominem). You're attacking the designer instead of the design.
1. Games should be balanced entirely around the top level of play exclusively because that's the level at which competition occurs. If you do it any other way, you don't have an E-Sport quality game: professional games will always favor the side that is overpowered and the game gets dull real fast at nothing but mirror matches. At lower levels, balance is irrelevant: skill varies widely and a player could just plain get better at a particular skill and overcome any balance problem they previously faced. Also, game balance is mostly irrelevant to the fun of casuals.
2. Production and economy is a major focus of any successful game because it's how you create stategic decisions. Attack timings become significantly less meaningful if there isn't a major focus on economy, because you take away or drastically weaken the option for players to focus on economic development. You take away economic timings and tricks to create smooth timings and gain an edge in build orders. An example would be Naniwa becoming the first progamer to really make use of a 15 supply timing to take both assimilators and put 2 workers on each in pro games in order to optimize gas and mineral income for his builds. If economy isn't a major focus, the game becomes exclusively about tech paths and unit production decisions. This gets dull quickly because each race will exclusively make their best unit combination, as no race will have a timing: it's virtually impossible to play greedy if economy isn't important. Ever think the old WoL PvZ was dull because zerg just went up to super fast 3 base into infestor broodlord and protoss did either a 2 base all-in or a 3 base all-in or turtle for 50 minutes with mothership with no fighting? Yeah, imagine that, but there are no 2 or 3 base all-ins, because you can't decide to focus on army to punish your opponent focusing on economy, and push out for a timing if your opponent will not focus on economy if that decision sucks.
3. This statement is a strawman: action in the game occurs as a result of strategic decisions. It either occurs because the players choose for it to (a strategic decision) or because they don't (also a strategic decision). Every decision you make in the game is either tactical (a method you employ to accomplish a short term goal) or strategic (an overall plan). If you meant don't let tactics override strategy, that's also a strawman and misrepresenting the game: tactics will always be important and they should be, but you literally can't override strategy with tactics: strategy is your gameplan. Your strategy might be 'make marines and micro them' but that's still a strategy.
4. Defense is easier than offense. Static defense is strong early on, rally points are closer on defense, and it takes time for the attacker to cross the map. Warp gates negate this a little bit, but not entirely (still takes a lot more time to get the big strong toss units across the map), and defenders have high ground and so forth. Maybe it isn't as much better as you want it to be, but you are misrepresenting this. Argue for a better defenders advantage than there currently exists, don't argue for a defender's advantage as if there is none.
5. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. What is the reaper's cliff jumping feature if not an ability to bypass a defense (terrain defense)? How about flying harass units like an oracle, phoenix, or a mutalisk? Siege tanks to outrange defenders? Cloaked harass units like the banshee or dark templar? What are these if not features units possess to defeat defenses and deal damage?
6. Players frequently suck ass at designing and balancing games, as evidenced by your entire argument. At the end of the day, it's the developer's game, and you play it because you like it or you don't. Rather than making an issue out of their ego or their faults and screw ups, make good points and maybe they'll listen to you. But frankly, your points suck ass and you don't seem to know what you're talking about, so that'd be why they aren't listening to you and people who espouse the same points.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
