EPT[Bcon] Questions For Dustin Browder - Page 13
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lunchrush
United States138 Posts
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windsupernova
Mexico5280 Posts
On October 21 2011 01:38 bgx wrote: I started to wrote the question and explaining it, and it became kinda too big, the shorter version is under spoiler. Are XelNaga towers a necessary evil? + Show Spoiler [long version] + Xelnaga towers are key elements of current competetive gameplay. They give huge vision and encourage control over them. However they seem to weaken and sometimes completely disable a possible guerrilla tactics used to gain advantage or make a significant comeback. Thats a huge drawback in certain area we could call an army presence on the map. Because of towers an aggressor's main army is generally safe from flanks, also many counter attack routes are already covered by the vision of the tower. You get the idea. Towers discourage more "risky" play that can cought an opponent of guard, sudden baneling attacks, deploying bling mines, suprise fungals/forcefields/emps, shortcut drops (through middle of the map) etc. Do you remember yo Wouldnt be the game more fun and dynamic if player had to actually constatly micro his army to not fell into a trap? Many times we can see a typical stagnation when each players army dont move, because there is no need for it the one who posses control towers knows he can be either dropped from sides or he can lose control the towers but still have time to react. If we would remove towers so there is no central point of battlefield but rather more expo/choke essential battles the game would get much more strategical. Units such as ravens (with some tweaks) would be actually useful in tvz. Where terran can actually win games not only based on the fact he killed X drones but because he was capable of capitalizing on opponents mistake and sneak control group of marines (Idra vs Marineking Tal darim altar, Stephano vs Boxer Shakuras) Will we ever see SC2 competetive play without the TLDR version (and more controversial  )Towers seem to discourage potential exciting army movements on the map like we see in Brood War,also they seem to restrict players into certain mindsets of not having separate groups of units on the map because Towers are capable of zoning out their potential positions, players are also discouraged or unable to use certain guerrilla/ambush strategies because of it. Is lack of tower-less maps dictated by certain mechanic imbalances in Match ups like Terran needing to sacrifice his economy for scans and Protoss having deadly proxy pylon warp-gate mechanic also creep being much stronger than it is without towers? Will we ever see SC2 competitive play without the If you like the general idea you can word this question however you like, shorten or add something. But that is more of a map designer issue than a general game issue. Same with destructible rocks. I mean talking solely about tournament maps there is no obligation to use those tools when designing the map. Blizzard have no control over how people make maps man. You can argue about their maps, but the Xelnaga towers and destructible rocks are up to the map maker to decide if they use them or not. Removing Xelnaga towers and destructible rocks from the game would just lead to map makers having less tools to work with | ||
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Reborn8u
United States1761 Posts
Fungal and EMP don't require research, why does Storm when it has a longer tech tree just to get HT? Will they release race winrates for just GM? What priority does pro play have in making balance decisions? You've said previously that you want MM to be viable in every match up, do you hold this same disposition for mass gateway play in every matchup? Terran gets bunkers which they can salvage and only need a barracks, zerg gets spine crawlers which they can move and only needs a spawning pool, any chance in HOTS that protoss will get a defensive structure that only requires a gateway (like a shield battery)? Why do they think terran has been winning the most, with a solid margin, in pro play since release? Why do all of their ladder maps have a natural without a choke, a 3rd on low ground, destructible rocks to delay expansions, {large air space, cliffs, or sight blockers that make defending the main more difficult}, are they intentionally designing the maps to punish macro and expanding faster than your opponent? Why are the team maps so cheese oriented, they often have huge ramps, back doors to your main or split your team up to make defending each other difficult? Why does a stalker that costs 125/50 have less dps than a 50 mineral unstimmed marine? Terran has sensor towers (which they barely use) zerg has creep tumors, will we see protoss getting anything to grant vast fields of map vision in HOTS? Have they tried laddering as each race on ladder or do they just play random, which IMO doesn't give them the full feel of playing each race? Are they looking at Broodlords, and Ghosts in terms of balance and their affect on play? Many games are epic, back and forth, very close matches, until these units come out. What is the most problematic unit for them to fix right now in terms of balance? What are the most common complaints they are hearing about balance from pro's right now? Right now there is an unspoken agreement among Pro terran players to not use the 1/1/1 (and it's many powerful variations) on ladder, in order to deny protoss practice against it. They are saving it for easy wins in tournament play. Do they intend to directly address the 1/1/1 in PvT or do they think it is balanced? Will they look at removing the delay after a stalker fires, so they can stutter step? Have they ever considered balancing the game through the map pool instead of patches? (like in pro BW) | ||
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sagefreke
United States241 Posts
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ZAiNs
United Kingdom6525 Posts
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
- Shit Custom Map system - Refusal to use custom maps in ladder | ||
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RinconH
United States512 Posts
Also: Will HOTS try to increase the potential for positional advantages in any way? | ||
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Probe1
United States17920 Posts
No no I'm kidding. I'm just kidding careful with that hammer Eugene! Ask them why they can consider the game to be balanced enough for professionally competitive play but at the same time make statements along the lines of "Terran is already very polished". To me, this implies Zerg and Protoss are unfinished or unpolished. If one race is better designed than the others, isn't that fundamentally broken? I am upset by the nonchalant way that was sad and I would like further discourse on what they are doing to rectify the problem (IF they still think it exists) and if only Zerg will be given a shine job and Protoss will have to wait until LotV. That really pissed me off when they said that. | ||
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Shiladie
Canada1631 Posts
people are repeatedly asking EXACTLY what was said not to ask in the OP, makes me sad. A few more questions I thought of in addition to the ones I posted earlier so this isn't just a useless post: There are a number of units that have a very boring feel about them, roach, marauder, hydralisk, corruptor and even colossus to a degree. What do you feel can or needs to be done to make these units more dynamic to use or fight against? Neural Parasite has seen almost as many changes as the bunker since the beginning of the beta. (comedic tone of voice: ) First of all, who's idea was it to not allow it to be used on massive?! with it's fragile nature it's never been a spell used by lower or mid level players outside of novelty. With the range reduction we have stopped seeing it at all in higher level games due to the ease with which infestors can be picked off when they need to be that close. With this information I cannot imagine your design team is happy with the current state of this ability and I want to know whether there are any plans to drastically change/replace this ability either in an upcoming patch or in HotS | ||
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vojnik
Macedonia923 Posts
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amazingxkcd
GRAND OLD AMERICA16375 Posts
On October 21 2011 01:46 Shiladie wrote: wow, this thread has a lot of horrible questions, I hope kenniget can pull good ones out from this mess... people are repeatedly asking EXACTLY what was said not to ask in the OP, makes me sad. A few more questions I thought of in addition to the ones I posted earlier so this isn't just a useless post: There are a number of units that have a very boring feel about them, roach, marauder, hydralisk, corruptor and even colossus to a degree. What do you feel can or needs to be done to make these units more dynamic to use or fight against? Neural Parasite has seen almost as many changes as the bunker since the beginning of the beta. (comedic tone of voice  First of all, who's idea was it to not allow it to be used on massive?! with it's fragile nature it's never been a spell used by lower or mid level players outside of novelty. With the range reduction we have stopped seeing it at all in higher level games due to the ease with which infestors can be picked off when they need to be that close. With this information I cannot imagine your design team is happy with the current state of this ability and I want to know whether there are any plans to drastically change/replace this ability either in an upcoming patch or in HotSwell my clumping question could actually completely balance everything | ||
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Shiladie
Canada1631 Posts
On October 21 2011 01:44 ZAiNs wrote: Have you considered playing around with Warpgate and Gateway timings in order to make Warpgate-->Gateway ever viable? I think it'd be really cool if you could maybe save 5 seconds of build time overall if you: warp-in Zealot; Warpgate-->Gateway; build Zealot; Gateway-->Warpgate; warp-in Zealot; etc. It would be something difficult and minor enough for it to likely only be used to in very crisp and precise builds and will also give Protoss a small defenders advantage early game. Hopefully that was clear enough and you can phrase it better. wasn't warpgate twisting possible in a beta stage at some point and they changed the timings to remove it due to not wanting that level of management being needed to be competitive at the high level? | ||
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Hambone636
United States62 Posts
Why the ghost doesn't have a counter Why terran can make any combo of every unit off of 1 base and win .... 1-1-1 builds When does he plan to nerf terran ... GSL shows them to be crazy OP Bring medics back - and lose the medivac - go back to normal dropships Why is the hydralisk a joke Why are the corrupter and overseer such awful units Why does protoss not have a reliable tech path in Stargate - void/pheonix are gimmicky units | ||
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grappasc
Belgium86 Posts
(I don't need an answer to all the things I list here, but just to give an idea of what I mean with "feel in gameplay": map presence, unit statistics, types of abilities, tech speed, army composition & purpose & size, active/passive play, hard counter units as opposed to other solutions, building usage, access to information, economy growth, tactical preferences(combat), stuff like this ) ... I guess it's a too long question and would require a too long answer. initially I figured it would tell a lot about the direction he's taking the game to and how he thinks of it. | ||
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bgx
Poland6595 Posts
On October 21 2011 01:42 windsupernova wrote: But that is more of a map designer issue than a general game issue. Same with destructible rocks. I mean talking solely about tournament maps there is no obligation to use those tools when designing the map. Blizzard have no control over how people make maps man. You can argue about their maps, but the Xelnaga towers and destructible rocks are up to the map maker to decide if they use them or not. Removing Xelnaga towers and destructible rocks from the game would just lead to map makers having less tools to work with But current game design isnt accepting it, scans arent free like it was in broodwar, banelings carry to much reward for the risk involved (imgaine 10 banelings rolling into terran who suddenly wanted to macro in his base). Yes i know the decision is up to mapmakers but the game was obviously made in mind that they are neccesity. I need to kinda reword my question  | ||
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AnalThermometer
Vatican City State334 Posts
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woob
United Kingdom1322 Posts
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Fandango
291 Posts
With Starcraft 2 being the sequel to a game that was heavily lauded for its viability as a professional tournament game, you guys knew from the start that it was going to be scrutinised heavily from this perspective and therefore had to approach design decisions with that in mind. In previous years, the most successful of the pro tournament games of the various genres (CS/MvC2/Quake/DOTA) have been new properties (ironically except for Warcraft I guess) where while there has been a focus on multiplayer, the resulting high level play and balance have been largely emergent properties, usually supplemented by relatively subtle patching and map design changes. My question is this: do you think that approaching game design with the appeasement of the professional gaming community in mind actively prohibits making games which are genuinely innovative in the space in order to fit with players expectations based off existing successful properties in the genre? | ||
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nimbus99
Canada194 Posts
On October 21 2011 01:43 Reborn8u wrote: Terran gets bunkers which they can salvage and only need a barracks, zerg gets spine crawlers which they can move and only needs a spawning pool, any chance in HOTS that protoss will get a defensive structure that only requires a gateway (like a shield battery)? cannons? i dont get what your saying, yeh you have to build a forge which is not a unit building structure, but u can use it late game and cannons are probably the best static d early game. EDIT: you can use forge late game for upgrades* | ||
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0neder
United States3733 Posts
1b: Many fans feel that the races are too similar at tier 1.5 with respect to the Roach, Stalker, and Marauder. Unless zerglings are present, battles between races seem to have the same number of units on each side. Are you open to giving a zerg 1 supply unit (maybe Roach/Hydra/New) to maximize the feel of the few strong units vs the huge swarm? 2. Does the development team understand the code and related micro techniques behind BW units such as the Vulture, Mutalisk, etc that allows for a heightened skill ceiling? Are there any intentions of adjusting programming code to allow for crisper micro that is more impressive for spectators and more rewarding for top level players? 3. Many fans miss the impact of a deeper high ground advantage, and the increased ability it gave map makers to adjust balance issues and create back and forth games where a far-off expansion could be defended/stalled without needing an entire army to be close by at the beginning of the engagement. Are you open to implementing such a mechanic in the 'final version' of competitive Starcraft 2? | ||
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