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On August 17 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 02:33 FLuE wrote:
SC2 simply didn't push the RTS genre forward. 10 years after BW and we get crap like FFs and Fungal growth. Really? That's fun to watch or use to play with? Now that I'm done with SC2, I'm wondering whether Red Alert 3 was the better game. In RA3, you had constant engagements air, land and sea. Harassment options were limitless. Nobody could turtle or you'd just tech to super weapons. The meta-game could never have been stagnant because every tech tier was important. I'd argue that RA3 was the better and more creative game, but SC2 enjoyed more support and had bigger starting competitive scene as a result of BW.
A competitive scene creates a certain pressure and it's hard to know whether the game will hold up under all this scrutiny. The problem is not whether the game has the potential for fun games, but whether you are encouraged to play that way. Using a fun harassment oriented play style is worth nothing if it dies to a basic defensive style, it might be playable but if it's not competitively viable then the game won't hold up as an e-sport. As an example, I thought WC3 was a much more fun casual game than SC2, but it wasn't a great competitive game.
I've never played RA3, I'd be interested to hear some more thoughts about why you think it could withstand this pressure.
(what's wrong with my grammar today, ugh)
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On August 17 2013 06:24 Grumbels wrote:
I've never played RA3, I'd be interested to hear some more thoughts about why you think it could withstand this pressure. Well, I think the history of SC2 has proved that almost any RTS can be made balanced with enough patches and enough community pressure. David Kim doesn't know what he's doing and being nudged this way and that way, he's muddled his way to a balanced game.
In many ways RA3 was utterly childish, e.g. there was no army supply limit so you could just spam as much shit on the screen as you had money. But most of these things could have been patched without much trouble.
I suspect the core ideas in RA3 are better for a few reasons. First of all, there's a wholly new battle space (the water) and most naval units are amphibious so they seamlessly move onto the ground and can be incorporated in general army compositions. This greatly adds to the strategic depth of the game, and the more depth a game has the more likely players are to overcome metagame hurdles when one race has the advantage.
Second, the tier 1 units gradually phase out in their importance, although they always remain useful for specialized duties (like garrisons, anti-tank and harass). General rule of thumb is the later units are always the better. (You still need mixed army composition.) This ensures you can't have a no-brainer army composition like marines and marauders that a player sticks with the entire match. Always there's a trade-off that comes with whether to tech up or not.
Third, there's "OP" special units like Tanya who can take down a base with good enough micro from the player. (Arguably the allies became too dependent on Tanya, but I think this could easily have been patched.) More action leads to more fun, fast-paced games.
Fourth, there's superweapons so any player who tries to infuriate his opponent out of the game, staying on 2 bases less than him and turtling, is likely to be unsuccessful. He won't have a way to get at your superweapon and even if you got superweapons at the same time (although if you don't fear attack you can get it earlier), his turtle can be completely destroyed in one blow and his base is smaller than yours in any case so he has more to lose.
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Ummm competetive RA3 was hilariously bad.
Mecha tengu vs mecha tengu spam...
Base walking with tesla coils...
The retarded battles over oil derricks...
Games NEVER reached tier 3...
Also, super weapons were basically never used either lmfao
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On August 17 2013 08:10 TimENT wrote:
Ummm competetive RA3 was hilariously bad.
Mecha tengu vs mecha tengu spam...
Base walking with tesla coils...
The retarded battles over oil derricks...
Games NEVER reached tier 3...
Also, super weapons were basically never used either lmfao I already admitted it was "utterly childish" in some aspects. All the things you list could have been patched. Games frequently reached tier 3.
Superweapons were rarely used, but that's because the threat of them discouraged turtle so they didn't need to be used. "Lmfao".
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On August 17 2013 07:41 GreenGringo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 06:24 Grumbels wrote:
I've never played RA3, I'd be interested to hear some more thoughts about why you think it could withstand this pressure. Well, I think the history of SC2 has proved that almost any RTS can be made balanced with enough patches and enough community pressure. David Kim doesn't know what he's doing and being nudged this way and that way, he's muddled his way to a balanced game.
The question is though what kind of a game has SC2 become ... because you can balance every game if you just reduce the ability to control to nearly zero and have random chance decide the outcome. Basically the one who makes the first mistake loses or the one who lands the first hit wins. There is hardly any strategy anymore in SC2 and its all about build orders and production management. Constant reproduction of whole armies is the bane of strategy, because resource management becomes more important then.
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On August 17 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 02:33 FLuE wrote:
SC2 simply didn't push the RTS genre forward. 10 years after BW and we get crap like FFs and Fungal growth. Really? That's fun to watch or use to play with? Now that I'm done with SC2, I'm wondering whether Red Alert 3 was the better game. In RA3, you had constant engagements air, land and sea. Harassment options were limitless. Nobody could turtle or you'd just tech to super weapons. The meta-game could never have been stagnant because every tech tier was important. I'd argue that RA3 was the better and more creative game, but SC2 enjoyed more support and had bigger starting competitive scene as a result of BW.
"Hyper-aggression" is a terrible game design, because it favors the attacker too much and thus pushes the game into a "western gun duel scenario" where the guy who pulls out his revolver first wins (unless he misses and then the other guy hits). That is not good design for a strategy. This requires near to no skill and the defender can not affect the outcome (like he cant evade Forcefields, counteract Abducts, prevent Blinks from getting into his base, ...).
Much better design is to strive for a more balanced "armored knight sword & shield duel", because you can also be good at deflecting blows and the attacker needs to overcome defenses to be able to score a hit. This requires a lot of skill and turns the end result of the game into a skill contest between two players instead of a "dart game" where the only question is if you can hit the immobile disc with some little pointy sticks.
That is the problem of SC2 and "full offensive design".
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On August 17 2013 09:59 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 17 2013 02:33 FLuE wrote:
SC2 simply didn't push the RTS genre forward. 10 years after BW and we get crap like FFs and Fungal growth. Really? That's fun to watch or use to play with? Now that I'm done with SC2, I'm wondering whether Red Alert 3 was the better game. In RA3, you had constant engagements air, land and sea. Harassment options were limitless. Nobody could turtle or you'd just tech to super weapons. The meta-game could never have been stagnant because every tech tier was important. I'd argue that RA3 was the better and more creative game, but SC2 enjoyed more support and had bigger starting competitive scene as a result of BW. "Hyper-aggression" is a terrible game design, because it favors the attacker too much and thus pushes the game into a "western gun duel scenario" where the guy who pulls out his revolver first wins (unless he misses and then the other guy hits). That is not good design for a strategy. This requires near to no skill and the defender can not affect the outcome (like he cant evade Forcefields, counteract Abducts, prevent Blinks from getting into his base, ...).Much better design is to strive for a more balanced "armored knight sword & shield duel", because you can also be good at deflecting blows and the attacker needs to overcome defenses to be able to score a hit. This requires a lot of skill and turns the end result of the game into a skill contest between two players instead of a "dart game" where the only question is if you can hit the immobile disc with some little pointy sticks.That is the problem of SC2 and "full offensive design".
What does this have to do with Balance Discussion? Shouldn't you create your own "Designated Design Discussion Thread" instead of posting repeatedly over here?
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On August 17 2013 10:11 Entirety wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 09:59 Rabiator wrote:On August 17 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 17 2013 02:33 FLuE wrote:
SC2 simply didn't push the RTS genre forward. 10 years after BW and we get crap like FFs and Fungal growth. Really? That's fun to watch or use to play with? Now that I'm done with SC2, I'm wondering whether Red Alert 3 was the better game. In RA3, you had constant engagements air, land and sea. Harassment options were limitless. Nobody could turtle or you'd just tech to super weapons. The meta-game could never have been stagnant because every tech tier was important. I'd argue that RA3 was the better and more creative game, but SC2 enjoyed more support and had bigger starting competitive scene as a result of BW. "Hyper-aggression" is a terrible game design, because it favors the attacker too much and thus pushes the game into a "western gun duel scenario" where the guy who pulls out his revolver first wins (unless he misses and then the other guy hits). That is not good design for a strategy. This requires near to no skill and the defender can not affect the outcome (like he cant evade Forcefields, counteract Abducts, prevent Blinks from getting into his base, ...).Much better design is to strive for a more balanced "armored knight sword & shield duel", because you can also be good at deflecting blows and the attacker needs to overcome defenses to be able to score a hit. This requires a lot of skill and turns the end result of the game into a skill contest between two players instead of a "dart game" where the only question is if you can hit the immobile disc with some little pointy sticks.That is the problem of SC2 and "full offensive design". What does this have to do with Balance Discussion? Shouldn't you create your own "Designated Design Discussion Thread" instead of posting repeatedly over here?
Rab is half right, a good strategy game (Chess) has such an array of possible strategems that only the luckiest guy or the most cunning can hold a championship.
RTS add two elements, army supply, logistics (via mining and production) and diverse terrain (maps, impassable terrain, which Chinese chess has).
SC2 needs MORE dynamic tactics and strategems available not less. One of the reasons why some of the "gimmicky" pros eventually lose their position to more mechanically and memomnicly superior (a pre-memorised range of BO and responses) opponents. See Huk and White-Ra
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On August 17 2013 10:11 Entirety wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 09:59 Rabiator wrote:On August 17 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 17 2013 02:33 FLuE wrote:
SC2 simply didn't push the RTS genre forward. 10 years after BW and we get crap like FFs and Fungal growth. Really? That's fun to watch or use to play with? Now that I'm done with SC2, I'm wondering whether Red Alert 3 was the better game. In RA3, you had constant engagements air, land and sea. Harassment options were limitless. Nobody could turtle or you'd just tech to super weapons. The meta-game could never have been stagnant because every tech tier was important. I'd argue that RA3 was the better and more creative game, but SC2 enjoyed more support and had bigger starting competitive scene as a result of BW. "Hyper-aggression" is a terrible game design, because it favors the attacker too much and thus pushes the game into a "western gun duel scenario" where the guy who pulls out his revolver first wins (unless he misses and then the other guy hits). That is not good design for a strategy. This requires near to no skill and the defender can not affect the outcome (like he cant evade Forcefields, counteract Abducts, prevent Blinks from getting into his base, ...).Much better design is to strive for a more balanced "armored knight sword & shield duel", because you can also be good at deflecting blows and the attacker needs to overcome defenses to be able to score a hit. This requires a lot of skill and turns the end result of the game into a skill contest between two players instead of a "dart game" where the only question is if you can hit the immobile disc with some little pointy sticks.That is the problem of SC2 and "full offensive design". What does this have to do with Balance Discussion? Shouldn't you create your own "Designated Design Discussion Thread" instead of posting repeatedly over here?
Game design affects the way in which the game can / has to be balanced. The prime example is that Forcefield and Blink are NEEDED to balance Stalkers and Zealots against Terran or Zerg mass armies. If the unit density wasnt as high[1] - a design decision - you wouldnt need those two crutches. Thats why this has a place here ... just like any other suggestion as to how Blizzard should fix their problems.
[1] Take out production speed boosts, economic speed boosts for all races, limit unit selection to 12 and add forced unit spreading to the movement system to reduce the unit density to "BW levels".
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On August 17 2013 14:33 Rabiator wrote:
Game design affects the way in which the game can / has to be balanced. The prime example is that Forcefield and Blink are NEEDED to balance Stalkers and Zealots against Terran or Zerg mass armies. If the unit density wasnt as high[1] - a design decision - you wouldnt need those two crutches. Thats why this has a place here ... just like any other suggestion as to how Blizzard should fix their problems.
[1] Take out production speed boosts, economic speed boosts for all races, limit unit selection to 12 and add forced unit spreading to the movement system to reduce the unit density to "BW levels".
I disagree, instead Blizzard should allow earlier AoE options for all races, the same way WM currently discourages ladder Zerg from "BUILD ALL THE LINGS!!!" In ZvT.
Or how Reavers in BW discouraged a Terran from going Mass Marine/Medic/Firebat (e.g.)
Suggestion:
Cheaper force fields, faster base baneling speed, T already have their WM.
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On August 17 2013 14:33 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 10:11 Entirety wrote:On August 17 2013 09:59 Rabiator wrote:On August 17 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 17 2013 02:33 FLuE wrote:
SC2 simply didn't push the RTS genre forward. 10 years after BW and we get crap like FFs and Fungal growth. Really? That's fun to watch or use to play with? Now that I'm done with SC2, I'm wondering whether Red Alert 3 was the better game. In RA3, you had constant engagements air, land and sea. Harassment options were limitless. Nobody could turtle or you'd just tech to super weapons. The meta-game could never have been stagnant because every tech tier was important. I'd argue that RA3 was the better and more creative game, but SC2 enjoyed more support and had bigger starting competitive scene as a result of BW. "Hyper-aggression" is a terrible game design, because it favors the attacker too much and thus pushes the game into a "western gun duel scenario" where the guy who pulls out his revolver first wins (unless he misses and then the other guy hits). That is not good design for a strategy. This requires near to no skill and the defender can not affect the outcome (like he cant evade Forcefields, counteract Abducts, prevent Blinks from getting into his base, ...).Much better design is to strive for a more balanced "armored knight sword & shield duel", because you can also be good at deflecting blows and the attacker needs to overcome defenses to be able to score a hit. This requires a lot of skill and turns the end result of the game into a skill contest between two players instead of a "dart game" where the only question is if you can hit the immobile disc with some little pointy sticks.That is the problem of SC2 and "full offensive design". What does this have to do with Balance Discussion? Shouldn't you create your own "Designated Design Discussion Thread" instead of posting repeatedly over here? Game design affects the way in which the game can / has to be balanced. The prime example is that Forcefield and Blink are NEEDED to balance Stalkers and Zealots against Terran or Zerg mass armies. If the unit density wasnt as high[1] - a design decision - you wouldnt need those two crutches. Thats why this has a place here ... just like any other suggestion as to how Blizzard should fix their problems. [1] Take out production speed boosts, economic speed boosts for all races, limit unit selection to 12 and add forced unit spreading to the movement system to reduce the unit density to "BW levels".
Okay, but we're in the SC2 General forum... Every single one of your posts are essentially saying "let's make SC2 just like BW" without much variation. Honestly, I firmly believe that it doesn't add much to the discussion to simply talk about how Brood War had such better design than StarCraft II. In fact, I contend that this thread has a very specific purpose:
A) Discuss current potential imbalance in any match-up
B) Discuss potential solutions
Let me summarize some of your last posts in this thread:
1) Forcefield/Blink are necessary to balance Protoss, but are bad design. We should revert back to BW army sizes.
2) SC2 is flawed because it should strive for a "sword/shield" attack/defense model.
3) SC2 is flawed due to its production/economy/strategic depth etc.
4) You admit that Forcefields are not OP but they are bad design. Then you admit that removing Forcefields are not balance decisions but game design decisions.
5) This is perhaps the only time you discuss potential imbalance. You make a vague claim that larva mechanics are too powerful lategame, but you don't really give any evidence, nor do you flesh out your point. Instead, the majority of your post discusses the impact of production boosts for the three races.
6) You discuss certain units which increase randomness.
7) Forcefields are necessary to make Gateway units worth it.
8) SC2 is more like a coinflip due to its design.
9) You note that removing all production boosts would cause Terrans to build more gas units... no real balance discussion once again.
10) You suggest a solution to a TvZ problem: Zergs should attack the Medivacs.
Now, imagine if you actually made a comment like this:
"Protoss Gateway units are too weak against Zerg, making it hard to defend a third base early. However, we cannot buff Gateway units without Forcefields becoming too strong, so I suggest that Forcefields be removed while Gateway units are stronger. This leads to better game design and Protoss will be able to take a third."
Now, this comment about game design would actually be related to the game's balance. On the other hand, your comments don't even involve balance - they merely talk about how flawed the game is because of X, Y, Z...
I'm not denying that fundamentally changing the game would affect the balance. However, you know what else affects balance? Maps. What if I wrote long posts about how all SC2 maps are shitty and encourage bad gameplay? Yes, changing maps would affect balance, but that doesn't change the fact that I would be totally off-topic! I hope I am making myself clear to you.
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Someone mentioned chess, but I think we're deluding ourselves if we're going to use chess as a model for a RTS.
Try to make SC2 like chess and you'll end up with a boring game. That's arguably what's already happened, especially in PvZ when you find a turtle-fest every game that doesn't end with a "roll-the-dice" timing attack. It isn't fun to watch and most players don't find it's fun to play.
Instead RTS should play to its strengths, and that means lots of action and harassment that rewards fast decision-making. Mechanics are going to be important and that's just the way it is.
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United States15275 Posts
On August 17 2013 14:32 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 10:11 Entirety wrote:On August 17 2013 09:59 Rabiator wrote:On August 17 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 17 2013 02:33 FLuE wrote:
SC2 simply didn't push the RTS genre forward. 10 years after BW and we get crap like FFs and Fungal growth. Really? That's fun to watch or use to play with? Now that I'm done with SC2, I'm wondering whether Red Alert 3 was the better game. In RA3, you had constant engagements air, land and sea. Harassment options were limitless. Nobody could turtle or you'd just tech to super weapons. The meta-game could never have been stagnant because every tech tier was important. I'd argue that RA3 was the better and more creative game, but SC2 enjoyed more support and had bigger starting competitive scene as a result of BW. "Hyper-aggression" is a terrible game design, because it favors the attacker too much and thus pushes the game into a "western gun duel scenario" where the guy who pulls out his revolver first wins (unless he misses and then the other guy hits). That is not good design for a strategy. This requires near to no skill and the defender can not affect the outcome (like he cant evade Forcefields, counteract Abducts, prevent Blinks from getting into his base, ...).Much better design is to strive for a more balanced "armored knight sword & shield duel", because you can also be good at deflecting blows and the attacker needs to overcome defenses to be able to score a hit. This requires a lot of skill and turns the end result of the game into a skill contest between two players instead of a "dart game" where the only question is if you can hit the immobile disc with some little pointy sticks.That is the problem of SC2 and "full offensive design". What does this have to do with Balance Discussion? Shouldn't you create your own "Designated Design Discussion Thread" instead of posting repeatedly over here? Rab is half right, a good strategy game (Chess) has such an array of possible strategems that only the luckiest guy or the most cunning can hold a championship. RTS add two elements, army supply, logistics (via mining and production) and diverse terrain (maps, impassable terrain, which Chinese chess has). SC2 needs MORE dynamic tactics and strategems available not less. One of the reasons why some of the "gimmicky" pros eventually lose their position to more mechanically and memomnicly superior (a pre-memorised range of BO and responses) opponents. See Huk and White-Ra
A RTS game adds imperfect information as well.
Are we seriously using HuK and White-Ra as an indication that this game is skewed? It's not like they were ever geniuses hindered by the faults of SC2 in the first place.
On August 17 2013 21:18 GreenGringo wrote:
Someone mentioned chess, but I think we're deluding ourselves if we're going to use chess as a model for a RTS.
Try to make SC2 like chess and you'll end up with a boring game. That's arguably what's already happened, especially in PvZ when you find a turtle-fest every game that doesn't end with a "roll-the-dice" timing attack. It isn't fun to watch and most players don't find it's fun to play.
Instead RTS should play to its strengths, and that means lots of action and harassment that rewards fast decision-making. Mechanics are going to be important and that's just the way it is.
I think the introduction of the mothership core simultaneously discouraged and encouraged protoss players to play safe in PvZ. The matchup itself can be considered more interesting simply because Protoss has access to more opening build orders and more chances at aggression, but it's also worse due to less commitment on attacks and much easier base defense. It doesn't address the poor scaling of gateway units throughout a game or how Protoss design inevitably centers on gas-heavy power units instead of building off their core units.
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4713 Posts
Perhaps we should open another thread where we talk strictly about design so we can focus the discussion here strictly on balance, though unfortunately the two are tied together in a lot of ways, so not deviating into one or another will always be difficult.
I think SC2 has probably proven at this point that it can be balanced, however we still don't seem to be happy, because the overall design of the game just feels wrong at some points or just simply unfair. There are some design decisions that are just very polarizing in their effect on the game, they may simply be too strong or too weak and it is extraordinarily difficult to nail the right balance.
Examples of this we have plenty of; tanks, swarm hosts, battlecruisers, carriers, they are all very, very weak in small numbers but they are just exponentially stronger once they reach a certain critical mass, this is a problem of design more then numbers as any tweak to numbers would just swing the pendulum too much in one direction or another, and the design fault lies not only with the unit itself it could be result of repercussions from the core design of the game.
Not to say balance discussions are useless, they have their place (so long as it doesn't degenerate into hostility), but it just feels like right now we should be talking more about just core or specific design issues.
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4713 Posts
Hm, disappointing, but I can understand why the mods and TL staff wouldn't want to have to deal with that, the balance discussion already seems to raise quite a lot of "heated" arguments.
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Keep in mind that if you were to ask TL if they would like to have a Designated Balance Discussion Thread they would not want to allow it. This thread exists because someone asked Chill, who is a moderator with a lot of history here, but is also kind of outside the general 'TL command structure'.
And while you could say that a design thread would devolve into BWvsSC2 discussion, you could use the same argument to claim that a balance thread would devolve into balance whining. I think there is interesting discussion here, not every post avoids direct balance whining, but I don't think this thread is somehow a blemish on TL's resume.
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On August 17 2013 14:44 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 14:33 Rabiator wrote:
Game design affects the way in which the game can / has to be balanced. The prime example is that Forcefield and Blink are NEEDED to balance Stalkers and Zealots against Terran or Zerg mass armies. If the unit density wasnt as high[1] - a design decision - you wouldnt need those two crutches. Thats why this has a place here ... just like any other suggestion as to how Blizzard should fix their problems.
[1] Take out production speed boosts, economic speed boosts for all races, limit unit selection to 12 and add forced unit spreading to the movement system to reduce the unit density to "BW levels". I disagree, instead Blizzard should allow earlier AoE options for all races, the same way WM currently discourages ladder Zerg from "BUILD ALL THE LINGS!!!" In ZvT. Or how Reavers in BW discouraged a Terran from going Mass Marine/Medic/Firebat (e.g.) Suggestion: Cheaper force fields, faster base baneling speed, T already have their WM.
I am just watching TLO vs uzer in WCS Europe and uzer had a clump of Roaches that was dense enough to two-shot a hatchery. That is far too much IMO, being able to kill a main building in a few seconds. Efficient AoE units would seem to be a solution, BUT you can still mass them with the SC2 general game mechanics. There simply is no intention to prevent this massing of units by Blizzard ... and I think Dustin Browder said something like "the players want the deathball" in one of the interviews in China last year.
On August 17 2013 14:59 Entirety wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2013 14:33 Rabiator wrote:On August 17 2013 10:11 Entirety wrote:On August 17 2013 09:59 Rabiator wrote:On August 17 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 17 2013 02:33 FLuE wrote:
SC2 simply didn't push the RTS genre forward. 10 years after BW and we get crap like FFs and Fungal growth. Really? That's fun to watch or use to play with? Now that I'm done with SC2, I'm wondering whether Red Alert 3 was the better game. In RA3, you had constant engagements air, land and sea. Harassment options were limitless. Nobody could turtle or you'd just tech to super weapons. The meta-game could never have been stagnant because every tech tier was important. I'd argue that RA3 was the better and more creative game, but SC2 enjoyed more support and had bigger starting competitive scene as a result of BW. "Hyper-aggression" is a terrible game design, because it favors the attacker too much and thus pushes the game into a "western gun duel scenario" where the guy who pulls out his revolver first wins (unless he misses and then the other guy hits). That is not good design for a strategy. This requires near to no skill and the defender can not affect the outcome (like he cant evade Forcefields, counteract Abducts, prevent Blinks from getting into his base, ...).Much better design is to strive for a more balanced "armored knight sword & shield duel", because you can also be good at deflecting blows and the attacker needs to overcome defenses to be able to score a hit. This requires a lot of skill and turns the end result of the game into a skill contest between two players instead of a "dart game" where the only question is if you can hit the immobile disc with some little pointy sticks.That is the problem of SC2 and "full offensive design". What does this have to do with Balance Discussion? Shouldn't you create your own "Designated Design Discussion Thread" instead of posting repeatedly over here? Game design affects the way in which the game can / has to be balanced. The prime example is that Forcefield and Blink are NEEDED to balance Stalkers and Zealots against Terran or Zerg mass armies. If the unit density wasnt as high[1] - a design decision - you wouldnt need those two crutches. Thats why this has a place here ... just like any other suggestion as to how Blizzard should fix their problems. [1] Take out production speed boosts, economic speed boosts for all races, limit unit selection to 12 and add forced unit spreading to the movement system to reduce the unit density to "BW levels". Okay, but we're in the SC2 General forum... Every single one of your posts are essentially saying "let's make SC2 just like BW" without much variation. Honestly, I firmly believe that it doesn't add much to the discussion to simply talk about how Brood War had such better design than StarCraft II. In fact, I contend that this thread has a very specific purpose: A) Discuss current potential imbalance in any match-up B) Discuss potential solutions Let me summarize some of your last posts in this thread: 1) Forcefield/Blink are necessary to balance Protoss, but are bad design. We should revert back to BW army sizes. 2) SC2 is flawed because it should strive for a "sword/shield" attack/defense model. 3) SC2 is flawed due to its production/economy/strategic depth etc. 4) You admit that Forcefields are not OP but they are bad design. Then you admit that removing Forcefields are not balance decisions but game design decisions. 5) This is perhaps the only time you discuss potential imbalance. You make a vague claim that larva mechanics are too powerful lategame, but you don't really give any evidence, nor do you flesh out your point. Instead, the majority of your post discusses the impact of production boosts for the three races. 6) You discuss certain units which increase randomness. 7) Forcefields are necessary to make Gateway units worth it. 8) SC2 is more like a coinflip due to its design. 9) You note that removing all production boosts would cause Terrans to build more gas units... no real balance discussion once again. 10) You suggest a solution to a TvZ problem: Zergs should attack the Medivacs. Now, imagine if you actually made a comment like this: "Protoss Gateway units are too weak against Zerg, making it hard to defend a third base early. However, we cannot buff Gateway units without Forcefields becoming too strong, so I suggest that Forcefields be removed while Gateway units are stronger. This leads to better game design and Protoss will be able to take a third." Now, this comment about game design would actually be related to the game's balance. On the other hand, your comments don't even involve balance - they merely talk about how flawed the game is because of X, Y, Z... I'm not denying that fundamentally changing the game would affect the balance. However, you know what else affects balance? Maps. What if I wrote long posts about how all SC2 maps are shitty and encourage bad gameplay? Yes, changing maps would affect balance, but that doesn't change the fact that I would be totally off-topic! I hope I am making myself clear to you.
The big question: Do you disagree with me or are my reasoning wrong? If yes then please say where you disagree with my reasoning. So far you are only arguing that I am posting in the wrong thread and I disagree. My posts are made to find ways to make balancing a) easier and b) far less necessary. Just think about the units in BW and compare them to the units in SC2; you might find that some of the old units were extremely powerful and bordering on the OP. That was TOTALLY FINE
You are far too focused on matchups and units while I am looking at the bad stuff that is irrelevant of many units or specific matchups. Unit density is simply a math question and fairly obvious. Marines are small and thus stack tighter than Stalkers and consequently they have a much higher dps per area. At low numbers however the matchup is fair and balanced. Tell me why this isnt a problem ...
Now, imagine if you actually made a comment like this:
"Protoss Gateway units are too weak against Zerg, making it hard to defend a third base early. However, we cannot buff Gateway units without Forcefields becoming too strong, so I suggest that Forcefields be removed while Gateway units are stronger. This leads to better game design and Protoss will be able to take a third."
Now, this comment about game design would actually be related to the game's balance. On the other hand, your comments don't even involve balance - they merely talk about how flawed the game is because of X, Y, Z...
That is quite a silly comment to make and I would never say something like that, because it should be obvious that Stalkers and other Gateway units would become far too strong if they were buffed because the balance between Gateway units and the other races is FINE AT LOW NUMBERS. Gateway units are already super strong when you have a lot of them and Blizzard had to add a special unit modification (Hellbat) to try and counter Zealots cleaning up Terrans too easily late game. Making them - or Stalkers - stronger is simply silly. You might want to think about the term "critical number" and what it means ... and if it is good or bad. Start with the definition and its implications ... This is again a "general mechanic" which causes problems for game balance and which makes it more complicated than it needs to be.
At the core of my reasoning is the idea that the units in SC2 are fine as they are and problems are caused only by the ability to mass them and use them far too efficiently. Just think about the original Infestor / Fungal. What was really the problem? One Fungal? Not really. Chaining lots of them because the Zerg had 25+ Infestors was. The same is true for the usual "Marines vs Stalkers" example ... if you have 3 Marines vs 1 Stalker the fight is about even due to the ability to kite the Marines, the larger hit point pool of the Stalker and the ability to make use of shield regeneration. That becomes irrelevant when numbers are increasing too much because units die far too fast. The conclusion is that SC2 would be better off if it made "concentrating units in one spot" HARDER instead of easier. This would add a bonus for a defender to equalize some of the advantages for the attacker in the game. A defenders advantage has been sorely missing from SC2 since forever.
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The big issue I have with Blizzards devs is that they have failed to learn from BW design. Its not about making the game more like BW because "BW was better" but because SC2 design is flawed in principle. The whole unit concentration and the examples I give - all SC2 units - should make that abundantly clear. Thus the whole thing is about "SC2 balance is negatively affected by its general design" ... and BW just gives the examples of why it would be better in a different way and that it works with different general settings.
It should be fairly obvious that greater speed always comes at the price of losing control and a core design concept of SC2 is hyper aggression. If you want to drive around a corner in a car you are slowing down (unless you are slow enough already) instead of accelerating. Too much loss of control - due to higher speed - results in chance taking over ... which ends up with a coinflip game and I dont think anyone wants SC2 to turn into that.
Design affects balance and thus a separate thread is not really a good idea. This also is the GENERAL balance discussion thread, so IMO it is the right place to talk about how the general design affects the balance of the game.
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I have said this before. Marine stalker is not meant to be even in higher numbers.
The clump up more dps argument you use every time is pointless because the game has designed it to have different scaling power level.
This is why marine clumping up dealing massive damage doesn't mean anything when other Protoss units come to play, colossus and storm.
Discussing about this has nothing to do with balance because bw and sc2 are very different game and comparing the two is like comparing football against rugby.
There may be flaws in design but it doesn't matter. This thread is meant to find solution and discuss about ways that blizzard can do to fix it.
Everything you stated as a solution is completely pointless and not going to happen.
so how about stop repeating your points and try to understand sc2 instead
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Some people think that a casual plastic surgery is all we need to make this patient(SC2) better-looking, and other people argue that broken bones must be fixed first, while Rabiator claims that every organ of the body must be replaced by that of the doner(BW) through organ transplantation. That's how I read this thread.
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EPT
