On October 25 2011 13:20 Deshkar wrote: I think Blizzard isn't sure of an efficient way to properly discern what community maps are sufficiently popular and properly balanced, BEFORE having them up on the ladder.
While there are dozens of decent looking community maps out there, with some of them appearing to have undergone numerous revisions and some level of testings by GM players, those levels of testings are still very limited and not well-documented. How is Blizzard to discern accurately which map is sufficiently tested for all levels of play? It is a risk for them to appear to be favoring particular mapmakers or teams, picking maps that might not be in favor of the community.
Perhaps the recent TL map-making contest is a step to such an eventual goal. TL being an intermediary with MOTM-like contests to determine a map(or maps) that can be presented to Blizzard, for further examination for consideration to be placed on the ladder.
But if somebody chooses they want to play on a community map why do they need Blizzard's permission that it is sufficiently balanced for them? I think a lot of the people complaining about no community maps in the ladder don't necessarily want everyone playing the game to have to play on GSL maps for their official ladder points. They just want battlenet to help them find people of the same skill who'd also like to play on that map.
Because right now to play a community melee map without a practice partner their is no way to not get someone of random skill, and they are buried under custom maps like nexus wars so they'd be on page 100 of popularity and you'd never find anyone anyways so nobody waits to try and find anyone. If there was a 2nd map pool with whatever the tournaments want that people could chose to play on(official GSL map pool with it's own ranking page in battlenet), or you could upload any map you wanted into the ladder pool and battle net will use it if both people have the same map, or some other way to give people more choice wouldn't that be better?
So if someone wants to play on untested maps that change every day with 12 mineral patches per base and a neutral mother ship in the middle cloaking neutral destructible rocks and there is another person online who happens to want the same thing they have a way to get matched together. Wouldn't that make everybody happy and end all complaints to Blizzard about the map pool forever?
A large part of it is due to crappy custom games system Bnet has. Howeve the argument to allow for an ability to create "new custom ladders" would only result in a severe fragmentation and even greater confusion. Some would play on Ladder A B or C, and the overall pool of players would be considerable less. If there were only to be a single "custom" ladder, how do actually discern someone's ranking? He could be playing on bugged/illicit or imbalanced maps ; these players would mess up whatever ranking system this ladder uses.
If any player were allowed to upload maps onto the ladder, it would only result in a huge mess especially for the uninformed (casuals), and they would blame Blizzard for the poor quality.
While there is a good interest in having community/tournament-worthy maps be placed on the ladder, a good selection process is required to ensure quality and stability.
On October 25 2011 13:52 DiuLaSing wrote: he sounded like he wanted to balance the game based off all level of plays...even noob friendly=.= it really should be based off at the highest level...
Blizzard has to keep all skill levels in mind when balancing the game. Cause their business exists based on Bronze nubs buying their game. Without the Nubs, there is no game.
Indeed. There would be no pro's no tournaments worth 100k, no anything if they bronze-masters players did not play this game as well. Everything has to be considered. Its tough for me to understand that someone doesn't get that
I don't think anyone wants to listen to a person who would provide a link to their comment posted on another forum as a new thread containing a link to the thread they're replying to as a reference.
The idea is there, I sent it on reddit because it is easier to get noticed there. Then I provided a link for the redditors in case they don't know what I am talking about. The idea is the important thing, if you want to comment, comment on the idea.
Why provide a link to the reddit post in this thread?
The idea is not developed at all and not worth responding to in its current form. I imagine you don't have any special knowledge about designing and balancing games, about being a progamer, or about organizing communities and putting community plans into action. But if you do happen to have the relevant knowledge, then make the proposal as detailed as you possibly can before you present it. It seems that the basic problem you are trying to solve is that progamers' knowledge is a somewhat untapped resource for Blizzard's multiplayer design team. I fail to see how your idea suggests a good way to remedy the situation. It seems like you've just recently realized that this problem exists, you were instantly convinced that it actually is a significant problem that really needs to be fixed, and then you sketched out the first scheme that came to your mind. It leaves a million pitfalls and improves nothing.
Reading this comment, it came out in the voice of the principal in Billy Madison, during the final quiz component.
Theeakoz, I award you no points,and may God have mercy on your soul.
Little bit more respect for Browder after this interview. He came off positive to me and I liked it. Aside from his face being photoshopped next to rocks all the time this is my only real definition of what he is like lol.
Those were some very well thought out questions and good answers by Dustin. Great interview!
One thing I've been meaning to ask, but didn't for whatever reason when I was talking to Dustin myself for 10-15 mins at the Con, was I wonder what they'd think of having the ladder map pool change based on your league? You know, have the more advanced maps they don't want many of in their main pool to replace the simpler "worse" maps once you reach Diamond or Masters or something.
On October 25 2011 10:08 Jibba wrote: Great interview, and I appreciate a lot of Dustin's answers and especially his fear of making balance changes. Granted, they've made a ton of balance changes but I hope in the future they step back a bit and let the players develop the game more.
As for balls, part of it is simply players not having very good control but I do think a magic box (not the fake kind with mutas) would help the game out. The most common serious problem I've seen is Protosses repositioning their army and in the process, even if they're using multiple hotkeys and selecting units separately, sentries form a ball and then an EMP comes and wins the game. A magic box in that situation would allow small groups of units to keep a spread formation.
On October 25 2011 14:54 InvXXVII wrote: Can someone enlighten me as to why the carrier is being removed? The only reason I understood was because the oracle has been added?
Imo, it can be easily countered by vikings, corruptors, mass marines or blink stalkers etc. At high level play, they were rarely used and probably doesn't fit into the design with the rest the other units.
So I guess either change everything else and keep the carrier or remove the carrier and put something new in that has more viability in the protoss arsenal.
On October 25 2011 14:54 InvXXVII wrote: Can someone enlighten me as to why the carrier is being removed? The only reason I understood was because the oracle has been added?
Imo, it can be easily countered by vikings, corruptors, mass marines or blink stalkers etc. At high level play, they were rarely used and probably doesn't fit into the design with the rest the other units.
So I guess either change everything else and keep the carrier or remove the carrier and put something new in that has more viability in the protoss arsenal.
How is this new unit any different? They could have just given intercepters splash damage + bonus to light, changed build time, increased and it would be the same unit. I don't know how this new unit is now suddenly not countered by those units...
On October 25 2011 13:20 Deshkar wrote: I think Blizzard isn't sure of an efficient way to properly discern what community maps are sufficiently popular and properly balanced, BEFORE having them up on the ladder.
While there are dozens of decent looking community maps out there, with some of them appearing to have undergone numerous revisions and some level of testings by GM players, those levels of testings are still very limited and not well-documented. How is Blizzard to discern accurately which map is sufficiently tested for all levels of play? It is a risk for them to appear to be favoring particular mapmakers or teams, picking maps that might not be in favor of the community.
Perhaps the recent TL map-making contest is a step to such an eventual goal. TL being an intermediary with MOTM-like contests to determine a map(or maps) that can be presented to Blizzard, for further examination for consideration to be placed on the ladder.
But if somebody chooses they want to play on a community map why do they need Blizzard's permission that it is sufficiently balanced for them? I think a lot of the people complaining about no community maps in the ladder don't necessarily want everyone playing the game to have to play on GSL maps for their official ladder points. They just want battlenet to help them find people of the same skill who'd also like to play on that map.
Because right now to play a community melee map without a practice partner their is no way to not get someone of random skill, and they are buried under custom maps like nexus wars so they'd be on page 100 of popularity and you'd never find anyone anyways so nobody waits to try and find anyone. If there was a 2nd map pool with whatever the tournaments want that people could chose to play on(official GSL map pool with it's own ranking page in battlenet), or you could upload any map you wanted into the ladder pool and battle net will use it if both people have the same map, or some other way to give people more choice wouldn't that be better?
So if someone wants to play on untested maps that change every day with 12 mineral patches per base and a neutral mother ship in the middle cloaking neutral destructible rocks and there is another person online who happens to want the same thing they have a way to get matched together. Wouldn't that make everybody happy and end all complaints to Blizzard about the map pool forever?
A large part of it is due to crappy custom games system Bnet has. Howeve the argument to allow for an ability to create "new custom ladders" would only result in a severe fragmentation and even greater confusion. Some would play on Ladder A B or C, and the overall pool of players would be considerable less. If there were only to be a single "custom" ladder, how do actually discern someone's ranking? He could be playing on bugged/illicit or imbalanced maps ; these players would mess up whatever ranking system this ladder uses.
I wouldn't let anybody create a new custom ladder just big tournaments (who use a lot of their own custom maps, no point if its mostly the same as the blizzard ladder) and maybe big mapmaking teams like ESV or have a motm winners ladder. I'm sure GSL or MLG could get enough people playing that it wouldn't be hard to find a match especially since all the people playing in or trying to qualify for those would most likely spend all their ladder time on those instead.If nobody plays on it then it is just like a custom map nobody plays it doesn't hurt anybody. I doubt the official blizzard ladder would lose enough that the pool of players becomes to small to quickly find a match. (if they do then it is probably good all those people can now chose something they like more)
For a single custom ladder you discern someone's ranking the same way as the blizzard ladder. Blizzard would remove bugged/illicit maps (or approve that it isn't bugged before added) since it shouldn't be hard to determine if a map works ok and all the units have the same stats. Imbalanced maps can exist in any ladder even the blizzard one, except in this one people can more easily avoid maps that are imbalanced against them. If it bothers you that much you can have battlenet show what maps they have been playing and winning on in their profile page for the custom ladder and you can decide what to think of their ranking. I don't think it is necessary to let absolutely any melee map on battlenet into the custom pool they just take any from the big tournaments, mapmaking teams and contest winners like the teamliquid one would end a lot of complaining.
How many people blame blizzard if the play a custom nexus wars clone they don't like? I mean these would be labelled as community maps with credit/blame given to the author I don't think a casual choosing to play on a custom map pool over the official blizzard map pool and then blaming blizzard for not liking it instead of just going back to the blizzard map pool they liked is very likely or something to be so worried about we shouldn't do it. I'm fine with a selection process as long as it is much less strict then " is this map suitable enough for 100% of players to play on it as one of the 10 ladder maps they must play for the next year.
On October 25 2011 14:54 InvXXVII wrote: Can someone enlighten me as to why the carrier is being removed? The only reason I understood was because the oracle has been added?
Imo, it can be easily countered by vikings, corruptors, mass marines or blink stalkers etc. At high level play, they were rarely used and probably doesn't fit into the design with the rest the other units.
So I guess either change everything else and keep the carrier or remove the carrier and put something new in that has more viability in the protoss arsenal.
How is this new unit any different? They could have just given intercepters splash damage + bonus to light, changed build time, increased and it would be the same unit. I don't know how this new unit is now suddenly not countered by those units...
The tempest can actually handle mass vikings and corruptors if the opponent doesn't spread out properly, of course not against mass marines or stalkers. Adding splash to carriers would suddenly make then extremely OP (imagine carriers killing marines with that) and make the colossi irrelevant. In addition, new graphics and animation would be made and that's not a carrier anymore.
EPT
