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On September 29 2011 06:46 tuho12345 wrote:
For example look at 1/1/1 vs Toss before. I mean all you need is a build order and follow it on time. No way you could lose it even you're diamond or gold league. Just need to hit it on time. I think lower league need balance too.
Lower leagues balance themselves by getting better. 3 roach rush had a small period where it crushed any and all 3 gate expanding toss on the ladder. A solution was found, and it just as quickly disappeared.
The marine/tank/banshee all-in is a more complicated problem. An obvious, feasible solution hasn't been found yet. It'll continue to dominate until it's found. It's how the ladder works. You can still crush it by executing at a superior level than your opponent.
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It's difficult to balance a game for players who are lacking in knowledge, mechanics, game sense, or even just skill. A game company like Blizzard can't possibly take into account every potential reason for meta-imbalance at the lower levels, so attempting to balance a game like StarCraft II at this level of play is impractical.
You cannot balance a game at a medium / low skill level because there are simply too many variables to balance.
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On September 29 2011 06:58 VirgilSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 06:47 imbecile wrote:On September 29 2011 06:26 VirgilSC2 wrote:On September 29 2011 06:14 imbecile wrote:On September 29 2011 05:48 VirgilSC2 wrote:
Stop comparing your games to pro level balance, that's the whole point of this thread. And my point was, that if there are vastly different success rates in the different matchups, that is a sign of imbalance on any level. Because I'm not suddenly a worse player when I'm playing against another race. The macro and mechanics, which are supposedly the predominant factors of player skill, are the same. If my skill is more than enough for ZvZ and ZvT, but not nearly enough for ZvP in my league, then I consider that an imbalance. Either I'm stupid and use builds that are just flat out bad, which could be the case, but they are not that different from pro builds that I see on streams, and at the lower levels it is just mechanics that matters anyway. Or we indeed have an imbalance at that level. How else would you call it? This thread is not here to discuss whether the game is currently balanced or not, take your complaints elsewhere. Discussing balance without examples seem kinda pointless to me. Could have used any other combination of matchups to show you that balance is a valid concept on all levels. I just find it more honest to use personal experiences as examples. This thread is not to discuss whether the game is currently balanced or not, take your complaints elsewhere.
Apparently you didn't understand what I'm writing. This was not at all about whether the game is balanced or not. It is about what that concept of balance means in this game and in the context of laddering.
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On September 22 2011 06:34 YumYumGranola wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2011 06:31 Shaetan wrote:On September 22 2011 06:29 YumYumGranola wrote:On September 22 2011 06:27 Shaetan wrote:On September 22 2011 06:18 YumYumGranola wrote:
the fact is that almost every single spectator of SC2 events is also a player. If there's anything that dissuades new players it has a negative affect on new spectators which hurts the feasibility foreign tournaments and therefore the entire foreign scene. This is not true. Well I certainly don't know any... Well then by jove it must be true! Lol fair enough, although you're equally guilty unless you have some knowledge or evidence that you're not declaring.
There's this place called korea....they have 2 tv stations devoted to....something. Can't quite think of it.
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On September 29 2011 06:14 imbecile wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 05:48 VirgilSC2 wrote:
Stop comparing your games to pro level balance, that's the whole point of this thread. And my point was, that if there are vastly different success rates in the different matchups, that is a sign of imbalance on any level. Because I'm not suddenly a worse player when I'm playing against another race. The macro and mechanics, which are supposedly the predominant factors of player skill, are the same. If my skill is more than enough for ZvZ and ZvT, but not nearly enough for ZvP in my league, then I consider that an imbalance. Either I'm stupid and use builds that are just flat out bad, which could be the case, but they are not that different from pro builds that I see on streams, and at the lower levels it is just mechanics that matters anyway. Or we indeed have an imbalance at that level. How else would you call it?
I see where you're going but still don't agree. Macro and mechanics may be (some of the) predominant factors in determining player skill but yours is so far behind say, Nestea, that the same limitations do not apply. Even if the mechanics for zerg are harder than for protoss at your level, Nestea would not be able to switch to protoss and suddenly literally never lose.
The question of the OP seems to be basically would we accept it if a race was provably easier at lower levels of play (like so many fucking pissed off zergs are when they die to my hellion push...), to which I say yes I would accept that completely.
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In my opinion it is already the case that SC2 is only (quite) balanced at Pro Level. It just doesn't get noticed too much because of Blizzard's matchmaking system. Most people don't bother trying out every race in ladder I'd assume and thus take the league they're in as their "skill level".
Some examples of more or less heavy imbalances on lower levels IMHO:
- Extremely low level players(Bronze/Silver/Gold) struggle with the basic mechanics of the zerg race and thus get rolled by protoss and terrans who might be 'worse' players in comparison.
- However, once you have mastered the basic mechanics of the zerg race, you have a luxury other races don't have - you don't need very refined builds. You can basically go forever with one opening for each matchup. Furthermore you can get very far in certain matchups by just building a single unit. Roach only vs Protoss comes to my mind. You could say that once you've gotten the hang of the mechanics the strategic aspect doesn't become a burden as quickly as with the other races. The result is that you might win against 'better' terran or protoss players by simply outmacroing them.
- Extremely low level terrans regularly steamroll arguably 'better' protoss players with early stim pushes. There are certain scenarios where you basically can't do anything about it if you cannot use force fields efficiently.
- However, once protoss players have reached a level where they control sentries well enough to defend against early stim aggression, the tables turn. Suddenly the terran players faces an extremely strong 3 colossi attack, which can be basically a-moved by protoss. The result is that terrans might lose to 'worse' protoss players.
So far this has led to a lot of whining, but I don't know of any cases that caused someone to lose his interest in the game entirely all of a sudden. Even most low level players are probably aware that some of the balance issues they face only affect their level of play. Maybe you are a bit too concerned about this whole "different level balance" dilemma?
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On September 29 2011 07:51 The KY wrote:
The question of the OP seems to be basically would we accept it if a race was provably easier at lower levels of play (like so many fucking pissed off zergs are when they die to my hellion push...), to which I say yes I would accept that completely.
I accept that too ... to a degree. Blizzard have their range of win percentages at which they consider a matchup balanced. They don't want to exceed 60% basically. I wouldn't even have a problem with losing 70-80% of a matchup for a while and also would be ok if that was the case throughout the board.
It's just that I have won exactly one ZvP in the last 3 weeks, and that win was a messy close affair. All the while I rarely lose in the other two matchups and only if I really make big blatant mistakes early. This is something I consider a problem. Something I need to fix primarily myself for sure. But I got the impression that this experience is not that uncommon in the lower leagues.
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On September 29 2011 06:14 imbecile wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 05:48 VirgilSC2 wrote:
Stop comparing your games to pro level balance, that's the whole point of this thread. And my point was, that if there are vastly different success rates in the different matchups, that is a sign of imbalance on any level. Because I'm not suddenly a worse player when I'm playing against another race. The macro and mechanics, which are supposedly the predominant factors of player skill, are the same. If my skill is more than enough for ZvZ and ZvT, but not nearly enough for ZvP in my league, then I consider that an imbalance. Either I'm stupid and use builds that are just flat out bad, which could be the case, but they are not that different from pro builds that I see on streams, and at the lower levels it is just mechanics that matters anyway. Or we indeed have an imbalance at that level. How else would you call it?
I would disagree, good mechanics is definitely important but if i don't fully grasp the subtleties of a MU, such as the way the different units interact, how their relationships change over time with upgrades, army size, or adding in other units to the comp. If i don't know the timings of how these relationship's change, or how i can take advantages, or mitigate disadvantages like through micro techniques or tactics. I believe that each MU is complicated enough and distinct enough that you can be bad at 1 MU and good at others. I believe this carries for all leagues as well, just the mistakes get fewer and become over smaller things the higher you get.
Like im a pretty defensive minded Z player, as such I'm good at vT since i can take a macro advantage and win in the late game. but i sucked horribly at vP since i just felt really uncomfortable attacking a P, usually letting em get up a deathball freely and kill me in the late game or doing a really bad attack and killing myself. learning more of the timings aspect of P army size and tech has help immensely with this. while my mechanics are still improving it was not the main reason i started to do better in that MU, ironing out my game plan did.
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On September 29 2011 10:29 TangJuice wrote:
I would disagree, good mechanics is definitely important but if i don't fully grasp the subtleties of a MU, such as the way the different units interact, how their relationships change over time with upgrades, army size, or adding in other units to the comp. If i don't know the timings of how these relationship's change, or how i can take advantages, or mitigate disadvantages like through micro techniques or tactics. I believe that each MU is complicated enough and distinct enough that you can be bad at 1 MU and good at others. I believe this carries for all leagues as well, just the mistakes get fewer and become over smaller things the higher you get.
Like im a pretty defensive minded Z player, as such I'm good at vT since i can take a macro advantage and win in the late game. but i sucked horribly at vP since i just felt really uncomfortable attacking a P, usually letting em get up a deathball freely and kill me in the late game or doing a really bad attack and killing myself. learning more of the timings aspect of P army size and tech has help immensely with this. while my mechanics are still improving it was not the main reason i started to do better in that MU, ironing out my game plan did.
There is some truth to that. I know how to engage a terran army of any composition, sometimes I screw it up, but my macro is good enough to pull me out again. I also know how to outmaneuver and harass zergs if I happen to be behind after the early game.
I simply don't know how to fight a protoss army of any composition. I scout lots of stalkers and go infestor ling with some spine crawlers ... and he still just walks right over me. The first attack of a protoss player usually ends the game or at least decides it. Doesn't matter when and with what composition, but most of the time it is the 2 base colossus ball. And because I don't know how to engage I can't put on any pressure either.
Now how is that relevant to this thread? It just seems to me that Zergs need to learn how to react to different builds and the different timings of protoss a lot earlier than protoss need to do that for zerg. It is supposed to be the reactive race after all. If a zerg wants to get past platinum he has to learn this. But there are quite a few protoss that got into GM without having to do that, just having 2-3 builds, picking one in the early game and executing it well. And it seems now at the very top level in Korea (where picking a build and executing it well is the way of life, almost the only way of life) protoss players seem to have arrived at the bump that zergs need to overcome much earlier.
That means how the balance plays out at the lower levels has actually quite a bit of influence on how it plays out at the higher levels. Because the balance dynamics in the lower levels determine to a major part how the different races learn and improve and play their game.
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It astounds me people waste such large amounts of time to write novels like the OP here. You want Blizzard to balance each league individually? You really think that's a good idea? You sound like a BW elitist who prefers BW to SC2 but still plays SC2.
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On September 29 2011 06:46 Zaphid wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2011 06:34 dragonsuper wrote:
there's only one reality. Blizzard doesn't want ESPORTS like we do.
Because a game should last 2/3 years so we can buy the next game after that.
If a game goes on indefinitely they don't make money from it.
that's why they want to kill BW and that's why they will kill SC2 when it will be time for SC3 and so on.
They don't want something perfect because if it's already perfect why buying the next chapter ? Your tinfoil hat is malfunctioning again man. Blizzard is well known for releasing new games for their franchises every single year, am I right ?
Hi and welcome to Blizzard post-Activision. Google anything involving World of Warcraft and Bobby Kotick and you will find ample raging from that community on this subject.
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On September 29 2011 01:54 cLutZ wrote:
Void Rays and Reapers were ruined because of "balancing for lower levels"...so I'm against it.
Void Rays were nerfed because of MakaPrime, Reapers were nerfed due to Five Rax Reaper.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On September 29 2011 13:42 l3iRdMaN wrote:
It astounds me people waste such large amounts of time to write novels like the OP here. You want Blizzard to balance each league individually? You really think that's a good idea? You sound like a BW elitist who prefers BW to SC2 but still plays SC2.
Wait what? I read the OP a while back and just scanned it again now and he doesn't say that. He mostly presented an idea of how balancing can be done so that lower level players don't have to deal with any imbalances at their level. He cited BW as evidence to show how the imbalance at the lowest level affected the game(much easier time and higher level with P than T).
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This thread is stupid and I am not afraid to tell it out loud.
StarCraft is like a skyscraper where each individual floor is a skill level. If the building designers plan the building with the goal to make it as high as they can without it falling down then they will make one tall functional building (= extremely high level of play). Also, if the building has the 100th floor that means it also has the 99 rest.
BUT, if the designers plan the building with the goal to make each individual floor stand on it's own and have a different construction plan just to make attendants happy then the building will most likely fall before it reaches the 100th floor and nobody will be happy.
SO, to translate for the slow people and/or terrans following this thread:
If the game is perfectly balanced at the highest level of play (100th floor) than non of you (99 other floors) can complain about the game instability. So shut up and learn to play because there is not one thing that a bronze player can whine about and others can't correct for him.
If you lose in lower leagues it's you, not the game. If you lose in GSL you have the right to question the game, and still.
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If the game is balanced at the highest level of play it's balanced at the lowest level. Nobody should determine balance in the lower leagues because their play is very flawed.
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People saying that bw is a balanced and sc2 is imbalanced need to take a long hard look at bw. Jangbi gets a starleague individual title, the first protoss in what? 3 years and nobody bats an eye cos they just assume the game is balanced since protoss can win sometimes. Now we have had 10 gsls in a space of a year with 2 protoss victories and now protoss winrates are down for (OMG) 60 days. And all of a sudden browder is the devil and doesnt know what the fuck he is doing so SC2 is doomed proffessionally.
Let the game develop before we start running off about imbalance. Honestly if in 5 years it turns out that terran has won the most gsls and tourneys are people going to mouth off that sc2 terran is just imbalanced? Cos it wont be that different to scbw where terran still has the most individual title leagues and numbers at 26-13.
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If you look at the SQ thread you can see the fairly big skill gap between Masters and GM. There's even a skill gap between GM and Idra. (lol) Any changes for balance should be directed at and tested by the pros. I honestly can't see how a bunch of plat noobs like myself playing on ptr helps at all.
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I think most people on TL will say balance for the highest level because most people who come to this site either watch a lot of pro games or aim to get there themselves or both.
Player A and Player B are about the same skill level but A plays zerg and B plays protoss, protoss is easier to play so B is one league above A. Does it matter? I can't see how it does because they're both playing close games and trying to improve, the game doesn't get more fun because you're in a higher league.
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On September 22 2011 06:18 YumYumGranola wrote:Now I'm sure higher level players will read this and roll eyes and angrily think " l2p n00bs", but please keep this in mind while you read this, if the general SC2 scene dies down you'll end up just being the person who's really good at something nobody cares about.
Thank you, quoted for truth. This is what all the master players who look at the lower leagues and casual players with contempt don't seem to get. Consider football - it isn't just the world championships, it's also boys playing in the backyard. Not only do they make it the big cultural phenomenon that it is, they also might become world champions themselves some day. No reason to verbally shit on them all the time.
Concerning balance I think Blizzard cares a lot about the masses for marketing reasons, so they definitely won't let the game become too imba at lower levels. As you say, having a perfect balance at all levels is impossible, but Blizz will do their best to come at close as possible because it's in their best interest. People who say the game should be balanced exclusively with regard to the pro level are dreaming. This isn't reality and never will be.
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for me. if balance exists at the top. then it is entertaining to watch.
i don't have much time to play much. so as a spectator. i just enjoy watching the beauty of the pros.
so i think that balance should at least exist for the top.
On September 29 2011 15:35 T0fuuu wrote:
People saying that bw is a balanced and sc2 is imbalanced need to take a long hard look at bw. Jangbi gets a starleague individual title, the first protoss in what? 3 years and nobody bats an eye cos they just assume the game is balanced since protoss can win sometimes. Now we have had 10 gsls in a space of a year with 2 protoss victories and now protoss winrates are down for (OMG) 60 days. And all of a sudden browder is the devil and doesnt know what the fuck he is doing so SC2 is doomed proffessionally.
Let the game develop before we start running off about imbalance. Honestly if in 5 years it turns out that terran has won the most gsls and tourneys are people going to mouth off that sc2 terran is just imbalanced? Cos it wont be that different to scbw where terran still has the most individual title leagues and numbers at 26-13.
hm. interesting for me cause my friends always tease me for playing protoss, "the easy race".
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EPT
