TeamLiquid's Kennigit sat down with Dustin Browder, to talk balance, Heart of the Swarm, design philsophy, and more.
TL interviews Dustin Browder at Blizzcon
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Waxangel
United States32550 Posts
TeamLiquid's Kennigit sat down with Dustin Browder, to talk balance, Heart of the Swarm, design philsophy, and more. | ||
Dodgin
Canada39254 Posts
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10159 Posts
This time he's weearing the terran shirt | ||
Zlasher
United States9129 Posts
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boesthius
United States11637 Posts
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WightyCity
Canada887 Posts
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XRaDiiX
Canada1730 Posts
I just hope that this unit is gonna be decent ... Zerg really needs a robust unit and Swarm host is supposed to be good for Map Control. DustinBrowder said himself in the demonstration video for the swarm host ; its used for slow methodical pushes *Wearing down the opponent* Kinda funny how him Dustin Browder and Mike Morhaine both wear Terran Shirts. | ||
Zozo
Brazil2579 Posts
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hordeau
United States157 Posts
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skatbone
United States1005 Posts
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Taesis
Canada51 Posts
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KhAmun
United States1005 Posts
Interviews with DB are always really interesting, as sometimes it's tough to gauge how much he actually knows... | ||
DeltruS
Canada2214 Posts
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Daralii
United States16991 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:27 hordeau wrote: Why not just chop out kennigit entirely in the video and zoom in on that sexy bald head? My eyes automatically go to the terran patch he always wears. >_> | ||
ReturnStroke
United States801 Posts
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Dreamwalker91
Sweden8 Posts
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Vindicare605
United States15749 Posts
It's interviews like these that make me glad that people like DB are the ones balancing the game. Their reserved and calculated approach I think is the best chance we have at getting a game that's balanced and still fun years from now. | ||
Bartimaeus
United States67 Posts
To start on Browder: Negative: His shirt is a Terran shirt. Awesome lol. He talks about ways the Replicator would be removed (one of them already being in the alpha play [no massive]) . . . before its even in the game. He says the drawback of Terran is that you are . . . too complete? too good? This is, imo, a little ridiculous as even the person who designed Terran can't find a drawback to the race - as he is the one who should know the race better than any other. His inability to find a strong flaw is astounding and revealing. He's saying that he doesn't want to fix the pathfinder because he believes it will still be ball-on-ball action, just slightly smaller - his option is to take food out of the balls, which is essentially doing the same thing - making the balls smaller? He's crossing his fingers and saying "Maybe!" when he's talking about a unit (Swarm Host) he's going to throw into this game that will affect the income of many pros in varying ways. He dismisses the option of Lan by saying that it is a lot of work for them - not by saying that it would affect them negatively financially. I'd wish that he chose the other option because saying that it will be hard for them to do is almost taunting us, saying that he just doesn't want to work on it. Positive: I'm glad that he could at least admit that the map issue was a problem instead of just dismissing it like the question about the drawback of playing Terran. I liked that he admits that he realizes the gravity of his decisions (later in the cast, after the Swarm host finger crossing). I'm happy that he admits that some problems exist, such as PvT in Korea. Overall the person interviewing Browder was flawless, and I'm disappointed with Browder's responses on a majority of the issues he spoke on. | ||
Goibon
New Zealand8185 Posts
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Guardian1972
United States40 Posts
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Scufo
United States136 Posts
His answers were all pretty reasonable, and I like that he said if you want Brood War, you should play Brood War. | ||
Elite__
Canada976 Posts
ty for the interview great questions :D | ||
AwfulPlayer
249 Posts
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Carbonthief
United States289 Posts
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Ksi
357 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:34 Bartimaeus wrote: Whoah whoah whoah . . . his shirt is a Terran shirt. Kinda makes you chuckle, doesn't it? | ||
Leargle
United States173 Posts
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shindigs
United States4795 Posts
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
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renox
United States48 Posts
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ffadicted
United States3545 Posts
Great interview guys, great job kennigit, certainly a lot of interesting answers. I'm really looking forward to beta, I'm still not convinced any any of the new units except the viper | ||
Thewildfish
United States113 Posts
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Holgerius
Sweden16951 Posts
Browder is a really nice guy, good interview. ^__^ | ||
barrykp
Ireland174 Posts
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phathom321
United States1730 Posts
No LAN though ;_; | ||
Wunder
United Kingdom2950 Posts
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supraWman
Germany453 Posts
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Herr Wilhelm
Chile170 Posts
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Talin
Montenegro10532 Posts
Too bad it doesn't matter much when Blizzard wants to sell an expansion regardless of it resetting the game completely. -_- | ||
Haiq343
United States2548 Posts
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booshtv
United States30 Posts
Thanks Kennigit, great and well-targeted questions. | ||
Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
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nunez
Norway4003 Posts
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Mattchew
United States5684 Posts
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Apollo_Shards
1210 Posts
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Faggatron
United Kingdom65 Posts
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ZeromuS
Canada13372 Posts
I really hope we can see lan or a lan like environment for tournaments some day. | ||
Secret05
United States342 Posts
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monkh
United Kingdom568 Posts
great interview tho | ||
Zozo
Brazil2579 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:44 Mattchew wrote: posts 19+ min vid at 9:09 and theres like 10 posts before 9:29... people must speed watch or something Subscribe to TL on youtube! | ||
masterbreti
Korea (South)2711 Posts
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darthfoley
United States7999 Posts
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JoeAWESOME
Sweden1080 Posts
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[Tribes]
Canada61 Posts
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FreudianTrip
Switzerland1983 Posts
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Uhnno
Netherlands288 Posts
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NonY
8716 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:42 Talin wrote: "If we were to sit here and carefully analyze the metagame, we would add nothing" <- Dustin Browder making perfect sense. Too bad it doesn't matter much when Blizzard wants to sell an expansion regardless of it resetting the game completely. -_- The game isn't complete. I'd rather them do this with an expansion than try to do it little by little. | ||
Yoshi Kirishima
United States10159 Posts
However, I wonder how he would have responded if Kenningit would have been brave enough to ( but at the same time, act rudely ) say that sure, it is bad to have pros play on partially completed competitive maps from the community, but that most of them are better than any blizzard ladder map. (I'm not trying to insult Kenningit, i would not want to feel that pushy either, i think Kenningit already felt like he was pushing it without trying to state outright we want community maps in the ladder since blizz maps mostly suck) I'm guessing Dustin would just say they need those "bad" maps too for the lower level players, and that's why there's veto . | ||
evoli
United States333 Posts
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Ksi
357 Posts
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Goibon
New Zealand8185 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:47 FreudianTrip wrote: I couldn't stop concentrating on Dustin Browders beard. Is there anyway to pixelate it C.O.P.S style so I can listen to it? On October 25 2011 09:27 hordeau wrote: Why not just chop out kennigit entirely in the video and zoom in on that sexy bald head? I was alternating between both the beard and the chrome dome. This man has a fantastic head. | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
With a pro gamer in their team or 3 from each race, they will be much more comfortable doing stuff and I'm sure the community will like it a lot more. Hopefully they'll take our suggestions into action and we'll see some really good thing come out of this new expansion. Thank you. | ||
NonY
8716 Posts
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Shelke14
Canada6655 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:47 Uhnno wrote: Dodged the LAN question like a boss. Was expected though, but still I wouldn't say he dodged it at all. He made it perfectly clear that there is no way lan is possible for the mass industry because the whole backbone of SC2 is through online. The only way to add Lan would be to rewrite the entire system from the ground up and I can assure you that Blizzard would never spend that kind of money to complete a task that has a chance to lose them even more money. BUT. He did state that they are looking into doing something for tournaments and have even been brain storming a few ideas on how they can help. So what I got from it is, they know there is a problem with major tournaments running into lag and they are attempting to address it. | ||
Pixilated
United States82 Posts
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Orphen
United States101 Posts
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HeavenS
Colombia2259 Posts
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Daralii
United States16991 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:40 Torte de Lini wrote: Is it just me or does Kennigit look a bit like Buble? He sorta looks like the child of Artosis and Voldemort. | ||
blade55555
United States17423 Posts
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ZeromuS
Canada13372 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:51 Daralii wrote: He sorta looks like the child of Artosis and Voldemort. With a wonderful Ottawa Valley accent. | ||
l)arkMagic
United States1 Post
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FreudianTrip
Switzerland1983 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:51 Daralii wrote: He sorta looks like the child of Artosis and Voldemort. Please, the mans hair is far too beautiful for that comparison. You should do L'oreal adverts Kennigit. | ||
bnanaPEEL
Canada138 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:50 Liquid`Tyler wrote: Also I think pros will fix the ball of death problem, at least for the esports scene. It is used even when it's not optimal. As players get better, it will be seen less. Lets hope.. Good work Kennigit! | ||
WArped
United Kingdom4845 Posts
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DrGreen
Poland708 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:51 Orphen wrote: that was a very great interview, Browder cares But he doesnt really care about LAN for big tournaments >< I doubt it will be made before LotV | ||
MorroW
Sweden3522 Posts
i think we really need to stop ask them about lan tho, its starting to get annoying ive really gained alot respect for blizzard lately as they explained more about how they go about balance things makes really much sense. its like they started with a stone and now they shaped it, they cant make it larger so they start off with a new and bigger stone to shape. the process might take a while and im sure the game will be more imbalanced the first few months but the end result is gonna be even more awesome On October 25 2011 09:50 Liquid`Tyler wrote: Also I think pros will fix the ball of death problem, at least for the esports scene. It is used even when it's not optimal. As players get better, it will be seen less. its true | ||
Zidane
United States1683 Posts
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Lucko
United States48 Posts
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Porcelina
United Kingdom3249 Posts
It even made me like Browder a lot more. Which I had not anticipated in any way. It was a nice insight to what is going on and what is not going on. And thank you for keeping the trolling to a minimum. <3 | ||
Soulriser
United States192 Posts
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SigmaoctanusIV
United States3313 Posts
Awesome interview you got Dustin Browder to say balls like 40 times | ||
Pyre
United States1940 Posts
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DeltruS
Canada2214 Posts
Whenever he got to a question that was really important to the community, he just downplayed it, and then eventually just said "no". I really hate how they do that. Companies like Valve acknowledge what the community wants and implements them even though their games (dota 2 for example) are in alpha. Still, thanks DB for the interview. I enjoyed it. | ||
nvs.
Canada3609 Posts
I love how he 100% seriously deadpans the bunker response. | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
We vote and chose pros to do this for us and they do it for a period of time and then new candidates and then we vote again, we can also give them some benefits for doing this for the community. | ||
FlukyS
Ireland485 Posts
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SoKHo
Korea (South)1081 Posts
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9931 Posts
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caradoc
Canada3022 Posts
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Zarahtra
Iceland4053 Posts
Still not happy about the last answer, sounds like horrible coding to be honest, if anything and everything is connected together through bnet and can't work unless you have bnet like server. Hope they do find some way to implement lan, even if fx. the computers still have to be connected to bnet(to prevent piracy), just not having the games being played through it, would help a lot. Also not happy about the map answer, but it really seemed like he didn't understand the question. | ||
Oreo7
United States1647 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:50 Liquid`Tyler wrote: Also I think pros will fix the ball of death problem, at least for the esports scene. It is used even when it's not optimal. As players get better, it will be seen less. Yeah, where some people see this as sc2 being bad I think the pathing raises the skill ceiling here. Their so much splash in sc2 a well spread army will almost always fare better than a clump. | ||
ampson
United States2355 Posts
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WArped
United Kingdom4845 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:58 Theeakoz wrote: 'They need pros in their team! I know I said it before, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how much better the game would be with a bunch of community-picked reasonable pro gamers visiting blizzard's balance office every weak and turning in their reports. We vote and chose pros to do this for us and they do it for a period of time and then new candidates and then we vote again, we can also give them some benefits for doing this for the community. They do use pros. I know Sen is often contributing to balance discussion at Blizzard; anyway the game is almost as balanced as you can make WoL without adding new units, maybe a few tiny exceptions. | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/lnt62/from_what_i_saw_on_the_tl_interview_with_dustin/ User was warned for this post | ||
The Void
Germany428 Posts
i'm proud to be here so often :D | ||
slappy
United States1271 Posts
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Petninja
United States159 Posts
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Revelatus
United States183 Posts
Seems like we give Blizzard too much credit for the things they decide to do with the game. Like he said, they aren't really looking to affect the metagame with a lot of the changes they make, they are just coming up with random ideas that they think would be cool. That's all good and everything, but it seems like the community knows more about their game than they do, yet they for the most part, refuse to listen to what the community has to say. I don't really know what my point is because I loved the video and I am grateful for Kennigit's efforts, but I can't help but criticize Blizzard when I see companies like Riot and Valve doing a much better job at relating to their communities. The worst part is, those companies have far inferior games I guess it just serves as a good example of how a great product can't necessarily make up for poor (well not poor, but relatively worse) customer service. Oh well, sorry for rambling but great work! | ||
dct
Poland6 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:04 Theeakoz wrote: Guys I have a solution, go read it and if you like it upvote it http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/lnt62/from_what_i_saw_on_the_tl_interview_with_dustin/ This is already a job of community managers. | ||
Kafkaesk
Germany140 Posts
I never saw any lag or connection issues during a GSL match, but plenty on other tournaments. I wonder if they use a special GSL tournament server for those matches, and if yes, why not making those available for other major tournaments too? | ||
Ganjamaster
Argentina475 Posts
I find it hard to believe the balance team didn't take into account the change in Terran detection due to pretty much every zerg unit being able to burrow and move though. | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:03 WArped wrote: ' They do use pros. I know Sen is often contributing to balance discussion at Blizzard; anyway the game is almost as balanced as you can make WoL without adding new units, maybe a few tiny exceptions. They do? But are the pros really have this responsibility as a side job? If they were to take it as a serious responsibility that they have to accomplish because of getting picked by the community balance side of things would be much better . | ||
ironchef
Canada1350 Posts
Nice interview and question choice. | ||
Matkap
Spain627 Posts
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windsupernova
Mexico5280 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
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. | ||
FreudianTrip
Switzerland1983 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:04 Theeakoz wrote: Guys I have a solution, go read it and if you like it upvote it http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/lnt62/from_what_i_saw_on_the_tl_interview_with_dustin/ While it's a totally revolutionary idea (/sarcasm) it doesn't even work very well. Having worked in the HoN community, (where they had a super secret forum for pros to balance whine) I've seen how badly it fails. | ||
GumThief
Canada284 Posts
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Magic_Mike
United States542 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:07 Matkap wrote: Well wasn't David Kim a progamer? No. | ||
Mirosuu
England283 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:57 Pyre wrote: Good interview, worries me how clueless they act on stuff. How can you not think about how the game changes adding new units. Only adding because they are cool scares me. Yes they can be tweaked but by how much? I hope they do come up with something for the map problem. Lol at him wearing a terran shirt and not coming up with a downside to terran. You don't understand how design processes work. A lot of time is spent on throwing an idea that the community can then use in a public beta, and then the design/balance team can then go "hey this affects terran's x and y units in a way that is imbalanced and is being abused". They then have not only a unit to work with, but they then have live testers and problems with the unit that they can then deal with. If it causes too many problems, they cut the unit. It's EXACTLY what DB was saying... And I agree with him 100%. He speaks very well and very soundly of the processes they use. | ||
R1CH
Netherlands10340 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:06 Kafkaesk wrote: Can somebody tell me if GSL is running on Battle.net? I never saw any lag or connection issues during a GSL match, but plenty on other tournaments. I wonder if they use a special GSL tournament server for those matches, and if yes, why not making those available for other major tournaments too? I believe it is. South Korea has way more advanced internet infrastructure than the US though and is much geographically smaller, so there are less things that can go wrong regarding latency / loss. | ||
S2Lunar
1051 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:04 Theeakoz wrote: Guys I have a solution, go read it and if you like it upvote it http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/lnt62/from_what_i_saw_on_the_tl_interview_with_dustin/ Progamers frequently give Blizzard feedback... i remember them talking with Sen not too long ago. | ||
Naughty
United States114 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:06 Kafkaesk wrote: Can somebody tell me if GSL is running on Battle.net? I never saw any lag or connection issues during a GSL match, but plenty on other tournaments. I wonder if they use a special GSL tournament server for those matches, and if yes, why not making those available for other major tournaments too? The internet is FAR more stable in Korea compared to the rest of the world. | ||
DarkPlasmaBall
United States42254 Posts
Kennigit, great interview! Riiiiiight? Riiiiight! | ||
Snorkle
United States1648 Posts
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Petninja
United States159 Posts
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Revelatus
United States183 Posts
I was actually surprised to see how Blizzard created so many great innovations between the release of Broodwar and the development and release of War 3, yet very few of those innovations were used as inspiration for SC2 design. | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:08 FreudianTrip wrote: While it's a totally revolutionary idea (/sarcasm) it doesn't even work very well. Having worked in the HoN community, (where they had a super secret forum for pros to balance whine) I've seen how badly it fails. What you're saying is the opposite of what my idea is, I said 3 pros community picked openly do this repeatedly withing a certain time frame, you're talking about some secreft forum but that's not what I said... also I said the picked pros are like senators, they have a certain period where they do this and then the community picks a new representative. | ||
bkrow
Australia8532 Posts
Overall great! On October 25 2011 10:12 Theeakoz wrote: What you're saying is the opposite of what my idea is, I said 3 pros community picked openly do this repeatedly withing a certain time frame, you're talking about some secreft forum but that's not what I said... also I said the picked pros are like senators, they have a certain period where they do this and then the community picks a new representative. To be honest i didn't get the impression that they are afraid to do anything - more that according to their analysis the game is incredibly close to balanced and the slightest adjustment could cause huge problems. As to the inclusion of pros - i am fairly certain they receive pro feedback; we do not need it to be a public process with community member nominations - it is just to much of a parade. As much as everyone complains they seem to do a pretty good job. | ||
Gamegene
United States8308 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:11 Naughty wrote: The internet is FAR more stable in Korea compared to the rest of the world. best system in the world no joke. | ||
Hurricane
United States3939 Posts
I'm not impressed with browder or blizzard though =[ riiiiiiiight. | ||
Ciraxis
Australia400 Posts
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AutomatonOmega
United States706 Posts
Kennigit: Pro-cess, pro-cess pro-cess. Browder: Prawcess, prawcess prawcess prawcess. Good interview! | ||
Node
United States2159 Posts
On October 22 2011 05:02 Node wrote: One of the most brilliant characteristics of fights in Brood War was the way space on the map was controlled. Units such as siege tanks, spider mines, lurkers, and arbiters emphasized this control of space, and led to battles that could range across entire maps. Look at nearly any Terran game in Brood War, and the tank line that inevitably stretched for miles. In SC2, one of the primary criticisms is the way battles often come down to "ball vs ball", instead of these epic fights over large swaths of space. Is there any desire to bring back this old style of battle, and if so, what is being done to do so? I got my questions answered. :D Thanks TL! | ||
DrGreen
Poland708 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:12 Revelatus wrote: To speak towards the pathing issues, they could do something similar to the formation toggle that War 3 had. You can choose to let your army act as it does now, clumping up into a tight ball, or you could toggle on the formation option for that control group and the units would keep a reasonable spread from each other as they move around the map, staying in formation. I was actually surprised to see how Blizzard created so many great innovations between the release of Broodwar and the development and release of War 3, yet very few of those innovations were used as inspiration for SC2 design. That would make banelings/storm/colosi/any splash dmg useless. Not having that raises skill ceiling of the game a lot. | ||
Mabius
Canada323 Posts
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Vandroy
Sweden155 Posts
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aZealot
New Zealand5447 Posts
DB seems to have a clear view of what he and his team are doing, and although people may disagree with it, I think this interview, among others, shows that it's not incompetency but competency based on a different set of metrics allied to a clear passion for what they are doing with the game and with gaming in general. And this, of course, is fair enough. Respect to DB and his team. Also, DB sure has a killer beard. As a dome head myself, I am envious - although that beard would sure require some regular grooming. Thanks again kennigit. | ||
Clank
United States548 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:54 MorroW wrote: perfect interview, i wish it could be longer filled with more awesome questions i think we really need to stop ask them about lan tho, its starting to get annoying ive really gained alot respect for blizzard lately as they explained more about how they go about balance things makes really much sense. its like they started with a stone and now they shaped it, they cant make it larger so they start off with a new and bigger stone to shape. the process might take a while and im sure the game will be more imbalanced the first few months but the end result is gonna be even more awesome its true I like the rock analogy a lot, pretty much a perfect way of saying it. Blizzard couldn't fix the bigger holes in the game during WoL, because of the possible repercussions it could cause. Hopefully some pros will take the time to play the HotS beta, even if it means sacrificing some WoL practice, which would be where the money is at. | ||
AutomatonOmega
United States706 Posts
Unfortunately, the answer that came left me unsatisfied. 'You want to control several screens of space? Play BW! It's a great game!' | ||
ShadowWolf
United States197 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:12 Theeakoz wrote: What you're saying is the opposite of what my idea is, I said 3 pros community picked openly do this repeatedly withing a certain time frame, you're talking about some secreft forum but that's not what I said... also I said the picked pros are like senators, they have a certain period where they do this and then the community picks a new representative. This implies the pros are both qualified to theorycraft on situations it's possible they've never actually encountered, have the time to consider all the various possibilities that would be involved in a potential change or fix Blizzard is considering, and, lastly, would make their recommendations without bias. This is a classic example of saying someone should do X is a lot easier than someone actually doing X. | ||
AxelTVx
Canada916 Posts
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FryktSkyene
United States1327 Posts
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NonY
8716 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:04 Theeakoz wrote: Guys I have a solution, go read it and if you like it upvote it http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/lnt62/from_what_i_saw_on_the_tl_interview_with_dustin/ 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. | ||
lowercase
Canada1047 Posts
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bkrow
Australia8532 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:19 AxelTVx wrote: ......... DB'S responses just made me facepalm so much..... How can you be so clueles.... Please elaborate because i was actually quite impressed with the interview; as were a lot of people in this thread including pros and community members alike. | ||
Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:53 DrGreen wrote: But he doesnt really care about LAN for big tournaments >< I doubt it will be made before LotV It won't be made until people stop buying the game basically, and and that point, there's no point in them putting resources in it, unless it's a huge e-sports. GOM came out and said they had like 53 million viewers. Most of these are probably going to buy the new expansion, right? Atleast to play the campaign or something. If you implement LAN, alot of people who are not hard core at all and just watch because it's entertaining or whatever are going to DL it and just play single player. It also wouldn't surprise me at all if there are like cracked servers that you can sign into as well. A friend told me that's happening a little in world of warcraft atleast. 'Private servers' that you don't have to pay to get on etc. That's my bet atleast. Keep it a big E-sport until it gets BW status, and then with a little luck.. Otherwise it was an awesome interview! I really liked it. | ||
FeiLing
Germany428 Posts
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hitpoint
United States1511 Posts
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FreudianTrip
Switzerland1983 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:20 lowercase wrote: Great interview, but I still don't have a lot of faith in Browder. I think he's living in a developer's bubble of statistics and models, but I don't think he really pays much attention to the anecdotal balance opinions of the community. Plus, he plays Terran and thinks the game is balanced... Did you just say about balance, ignore statistics listen to anecdotal evidence...? Really? | ||
peekn
United States1152 Posts
Thanks for the interview and thanks for uploading!! TL is the best zomg... | ||
dcsoda
United States583 Posts
You can't really predict what strategies will evolve with the number of people playing this game. I love the idea of putting stuff in that they find cool. What else do you want them to do? | ||
Eschaton
United States1245 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:40 ffadicted wrote: It's a terran shirt cuz of wings of liberty lol some ppl Great interview guys, great job kennigit, certainly a lot of interesting answers. I'm really looking forward to beta, I'm still not convinced any any of the new units except the viper Well no, actually, this event is for Heart of The Swarm, a Zerg-focused expansion (although they are getting the fewest new units). ZERG SHIRT OR SHENANIGANS, BROWDER | ||
Fleebenworth
463 Posts
On a side note am I the only one who has noticed how frequently they seem to qualify any discussion of the replicant with "if it even makes it into the game"? Perhaps I am a bit too cynical but it really makes me wonder what percentage of this stuff they just came up with to have something interesting to show at blizzcon. | ||
Finskie
Sweden412 Posts
two things bugged the shit out of me. his abuse of the word "right" and that he seem to have a reverse sunglass-tan. in terms of his responses and the questions, i think kennigit did a very good job even thought dustin kind of jumped ahead and didnt let him finish the questions. also rofl about the maps. | ||
TedJustice
Canada1324 Posts
Good interview though. | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:20 Liquid`Tyler wrote: 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. | ||
p1cKLes
United States342 Posts
I wish we could get this type of Q&A with Blizzard more often. I think it would go along way to calming the community and minimize some of the over reactions. | ||
shawster
Canada2485 Posts
he may sidestep a little bit but he's pretty good with giving a straight answer. you can tell by the interview that he's a smart guy and i really don't get the hate that he's are getting. blizzard is doing such a good job at balancing and they're balancing especially for the pros. i can't think of another game where they put in as much effort as they do to balance especially for top level play. the strongest and best part of dustin browders balancing philosophy is to not take uneducated opinions from the community. that takes balls and that is good for the game. #1 rule guys, dustin browder knows more about balancing than you. | ||
p1cKLes
United States342 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:40 shindigs wrote: I agree, I thought this was real interesting...I like his discussion over the Creep Tumors. Really interesting how something that started out with negative feedback turn into something very definitive of Zerg. Someone mentioned they liked Dustin Browder. I agree... seemed real down to earth and gave some very straight and intelligent answers. Did he side step some stuff, yes, but at the end of the day he works for a highly secretive company and has to be careful with what he says. | ||
FryktSkyene
United States1327 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:25 Theeakoz wrote: 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 don't you just copy n paste why you typed on reddit, and then at the bottom provide a link to it... | ||
nekuodah
England2409 Posts
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Stijx
United States804 Posts
And I laughed a little bit when he said "I wish we got the bunker right quicker", and then realized it wasn't a joke. Also, how are people posting that they loved the interview, or that it was a great interview, five minutes after it was posted... It's a nineteen minute interview :/ | ||
lowercase
Canada1047 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:24 FreudianTrip wrote: Did you just say about balance, ignore statistics listen to anecdotal evidence...? Really? Yes, really. If your stats aren't matching up with real-world evidence, you may need to re-evaluate your statistical methods. This is quite common in science. It's pure hubris if you put complete faith in your model and discount the public who can, if you listen, tell you a thing or two you may have missed. | ||
1Eris1
United States5797 Posts
They have no idea if +1 immortal range is going to do anything or flip the game upside down, because frankly there are only so many of them and they're not all pros. Also really liked the "Anything can be dropped. Were not even in beta yet." I hope some of the idiots saying VIPER OP, ORACLE USELESS, remember that, because right now they are just focusing on basic ideas and concepts. Honestly if HoTS is realeased exactly like it is now, I will eat my foot. | ||
Versita
Canada1032 Posts
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Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:27 FryktSkyene wrote: Why don't you just copy n paste why you typed on reddit, and then at the bottom provide a link to it... I didn't completely understand what you asked me to do here, but I guess I can copy the text and post it on this thread I have done it already, but here I'll do it again. "They need 3 community picked legitimate pros in their balance team that turn in their reports every week. 3, one from each race. They work a part time online as representatives. The community picks new ones after a certain period of time. We vote and chose pros then they represent for a period of time, and then, new pros will become candidates and we vote again. We can also give them some benefits for doing this for the community." I did my part, thought it was an applicable and legit idea that was good the future of e-sports... | ||
Shiori
3815 Posts
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ghrur
United States3785 Posts
Aside: Kennigit is sexy. :3 | ||
shawster
Canada2485 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:29 lowercase wrote: Yes, really. If your stats aren't matching up with real-world evidence, you may need to re-evaluate your statistical methods. This is quite common in science. It's pure hubris if you put complete faith in your model and discount the public who can, if you listen, tell you a thing or two you may have missed. the problem is that the amount of people who actually know what they're talking about in the sc2 community is sooo low, and they already get opinions from the special people who are intelligent and knowledgeable enough to critique the game. when you say "community" im getting a feel that you want DB to listen to what people like you are saying. your sc2 resume and credentials are not good enough. sorry buddy if he took advice from every person the game would suck. | ||
Mereel
Germany895 Posts
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Dodgin
Canada39254 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:32 Shiori wrote: his dodging one the LAN question was pretty funny. otherwise, this improved my opinion of DB a bit. I no longer thing he's actively trying to screw up the game. I just think he's inexperienced and doesn't know what he's doing now. either that or DK is pulling more strings. He didn't dodge the question at all. | ||
S2Lunar
1051 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:32 Shiori wrote: his dodging one the LAN question was pretty funny. otherwise, this improved my opinion of DB a bit. I no longer thing he's actively trying to screw up the game. I just think he's inexperienced and doesn't know what he's doing now. either that or DK is pulling more strings. Obviously he doesn't know what hes doing, and you would make a much much better designer because you are so experienced in such fields. | ||
Probe1
United States17920 Posts
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the_wiz4rd
Canada79 Posts
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:57 DeltruS wrote: I don't really like how:
How do you determine if the map is "better"? You may think it looks better, or prefer how they use rocks, but many times map preference is just that, preference. For example, plenty of maps get a chance on GSL, and many maps there end up being vetoed for balance concerns. [*]He said that the game can't change its pathing, and that they are adding new units to get players to split up units. People in plat-mid diamond can't even split their units, and AOE is extremely strong. We don't even see how bad AOE damage is in pro games because the pros have already adapted to the crazy imba-ness of AoE, so they can side-step it. He's talking about splitting up units for different attack paths. If AoE gets to the point where turtling gets too strong, as long as it isn't very mobile, you would be able to out econ your opponent anyways. It's just something lower skilled players would have to deal with. [*]He says that LAN isn't coming because it is too much work, when there is a community made LAN that can't be used in tournaments because of Blizzard. Whatever, I don't really care as long as they can set up a server with 100 ms default ping so it is similar to practice conditions. It is too much work to turn it into a product. For something they're not even thrilled about in the first place, adding in the infrastructure to support a professional interface both online and offline is a lot of work. Can I as a novice programmer create apps for simple, personal use? Yes, but it sure as hell isn't something I can sell to a customer. Whenever he got to a question that was really important to the community, he just downplayed it, and then eventually just said "no". I really hate how they do that. Companies like Valve acknowledge what the community wants and implements them even though their games (dota 2 for example) are in alpha. Still, thanks DB for the interview. I enjoyed it. If you think this is the case, then go play DotA 2 and TF2. Nobody is bending your arm to pay attention to their response to the community. You obviously care enough about what they've done already with that same attitude to buy and participate in the SC2 community, but by all means go worship Valve if you think their approach produces better games. | ||
Draconicfire
Canada2562 Posts
Good interview though, I find these types of interviews really interesting. | ||
aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:32 Shiori wrote: his dodging one the LAN question was pretty funny. otherwise, this improved my opinion of DB a bit. I no longer thing he's actively trying to screw up the game. I just think he's inexperienced and doesn't know what he's doing now. either that or DK is pulling more strings. Dodging? He pretty much shot it down vehemently until it was made clear it was about bringing a B.Net alternative to big tournaments (that wasn't LAN). | ||
PDizzle
Denmark1754 Posts
no lan, no surprise =( | ||
marcelluspye
United States155 Posts
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Shelke14
Canada6655 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:32 Shiori wrote: his dodging one the LAN question was pretty funny. otherwise, this improved my opinion of DB a bit. I no longer thing he's actively trying to screw up the game. I just think he's inexperienced and doesn't know what he's doing now. either that or DK is pulling more strings. I think you might want to rewatch that part.. There was no dodging there. | ||
pzea469
United States1520 Posts
Please TL, Make a ProMod already. | ||
eMbAh
Denmark40 Posts
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NonY
8716 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:25 Theeakoz wrote: 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. | ||
FreudianTrip
Switzerland1983 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:12 Theeakoz wrote: What you're saying is the opposite of what my idea is, I said 3 pros community picked openly do this repeatedly withing a certain time frame, you're talking about some secreft forum but that's not what I said... also I said the picked pros are like senators, they have a certain period where they do this and then the community picks a new representative. I can't wait to see the Negative attack ads. I really want to write one out now but I don't want to give some pro shit. It would have been hilarious though I tells ya. | ||
Sprouter
United States1724 Posts
I'm surprised that Browder hadn't heard about the community maps dilemma. I really feel that the map making community is kind of riding on the back of the rest SC2 community to do all of the heavy lifting for them. If they really want their maps to be played they need to go out and coordinate that themselves. Just throwing them out there and being like "hey we have new maps! come out and play!" obviously isn't working. | ||
Integra
Sweden5626 Posts
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homer001
493 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:38 Draconicfire wrote: Oh God. He says "Right" more than JP says "Sean". Good interview though, I find these types of interviews really interesting. haha, guess i wasn't the only one that noticed it | ||
envisioN .
United States552 Posts
I don't care if they put in LAN support for the general public, I just want tournaments to be able to run without a hitch due to Internet problems. If they could do something for tournaments to prevent lag I would be SO happy. | ||
Kimaker
United States2131 Posts
"...right? right."- Dustin Browder | ||
FreudianTrip
Switzerland1983 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:15 Ciraxis wrote: Don't know why Browder gets all the hate in the community. I think he's trying his best and that's what's important. Mainly because people know his name, it was the same as Bill Roper, guy was considered a god because he was the vocal side of the D2 team, then he went and did Hellgate and everyone said he didn't have a clue. People pretty much ignore that there's teams around these people. | ||
Nazza
Australia1654 Posts
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Horse...falcon
United States1851 Posts
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Shelke14
Canada6655 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:43 Kimaker wrote: Very nice interview. While I don't agree with everything Browder has to say on balance, his hearts definitely in the right place and over the past year the team working on WoL has proven that they can balance a game given some time. "...right? right."- Dustin Browder You're exactly right! We do just have to give it some time. If it was easy to just make a completely brand new game and balance it perfect, they would have just done that. It's so fucking hard to do this because of the way mining minerals, damage output and adding in each individual person doing unique things. They are trying to make the game as complete as possible while not just copy and pasting BW. Good luck DB, I'm sure the end product of HotS will be good. | ||
Deshkar
Singapore1244 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:40 pzea469 wrote: I don't hate Dustin. I like the guy. But he isn't taking the game in the direction that a lot of us would like it to go. Death balls, and just units balling up, even when not at 200, just looks and feels off. No real highground advantage. No real micro. Things that add real depth to the game. And i'm sick of hearing that I can go play broodwar. I know I can. Just because adding things like this to fix Starcraft 2 would bring it closer to how broodwar was, doesn't mean it shouldn't be added. So I think it's best to stop asking for these things. It's obvious that the only way to play this dream game that I have in my head, of SC2 with real micro that fans can see, powerful spells and abilities that cause suspense for viewers, and interesting units is for the community to make it ourselves. SC2 is a great game, but it just isn't my dream game, like bw was while I played that. Please TL, Make a ProMod already. I think balling is getting less obvious now compared to early in SC2. With how effective AoEs are against clumped up unit and more incoming like the Shredder, Tempest and Dark Swarm spell; progamers will increasingly strive to spread units out further. It is like how dustin browder commented on Zerg creep spread, as well as how people didn't spread Marines against Banelings in the beginning. I have a feeling as the game evolves, more APM will be placed into constantly spreading units out while maintaining formation and/or controlling multiple smaller balls for multiple harass/drops/attacks. I look forward to see the game grow and how progamers will take the current micro/APM expectations even higher. | ||
Shelke14
Canada6655 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:44 Nazza wrote: Kennigit completely owning Dbro. :D As much as I love Kennigit, could you explain how he "owned" DB? I'm kinda confused with that statement and it just seems trollish. DB couldn't have answered those questions any better and did a beyond excellent job from most PR people who just avoid tough questions. | ||
lowercase
Canada1047 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:40 pzea469 wrote: I don't hate Dustin. I like the guy. But he isn't taking the game in the direction that a lot of us would like it to go. Death balls, and just units balling up, even when not at 200, just looks and feels off. No real highground advantage. No real micro. Things that add real depth to the game. And i'm sick of hearing that I can go play broodwar. I know I can. Just because adding things like this to fix Starcraft 2 would bring it closer to how broodwar was, doesn't mean it shouldn't be added. So I think it's best to stop asking for these things. It's obvious that the only way to play this dream game that I have in my head, of SC2 with real micro that fans can see, powerful spells and abilities that cause suspense for viewers, and interesting units is for the community to make it ourselves. SC2 is a great game, but it just isn't my dream game, like bw was while I played that. Please TL, Make a ProMod already. I also agree that the balance team is a bit schizophrenic: on the one hand they want to make "tiny changes" and let the community balance the game over time, but then they go and nerf all sorts of interesting strategies (e.g.: archon toilet, high-ground warp-in, speed rays, chain fungals, etc, etc) because they "aren't what they expected players to do." BW was great because all the abilities were crazy and OP, it's what made the game dynamic and exciting. Watching two deathballs 1a into eachother where whoever gets the best EMPs off wins is hardly enjoyable. | ||
OminouS
Sweden1343 Posts
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DNA61289
United States665 Posts
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Antares777
United States1971 Posts
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Bagi
Germany6799 Posts
Its like people can't think for themselves and just play the "DB is the enemy and anything he says is wrong"-shtick. | ||
LovE-
United States1963 Posts
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Deshkar
Singapore1244 Posts
It is evident that they're aware of most of the issues in their current games, and are actively working to better their game while adhering to company's guidelines. | ||
Ruyguy
Canada988 Posts
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Champi
1422 Posts
i was also impressed with dustin acknowledging the map issue, and seeming intrigued and concerned, however i skeptical as to whether or not they plan on taking some action on it now that they are undeniably aware of it as a problem | ||
FrOsTyy
United States125 Posts
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yuchunyang
United States53 Posts
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AutomatonOmega
United States706 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:20 Liquid`Tyler wrote: 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. ROFL As to the interview: Yeah I was a little unsettled by the terran shirt too. | ||
Bobster
Germany3075 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:06 Kafkaesk wrote: Can somebody tell me if GSL is running on Battle.net? I never saw any lag or connection issues during a GSL match, but plenty on other tournaments. I wonder if they use a special GSL tournament server for those matches, and if yes, why not making those available for other major tournaments too? GSL is running on Battle.net. There have been delays, players being dropped and lag issues. Rare (probably due to the excellent internet they're able to run in SK and the studio in particular), but it does happen. I do remember one match in Open 2 (or GSTL1?) that had close to a 45-minute break because they couldn't get it to run reliably. The GSL producer is very good immediately cutting away to the casters when a pause is about to be made. | ||
On_Slaught
United States12190 Posts
Solid interview. | ||
Hikari
1914 Posts
At least Dustin Browder gave us a slightly more technical answer as to why there is no lan, right? Still, what terrible terrible Someone should have asked Blizzard to implement a "melee map of the month" feature, where the winner (through votes) have a chance to be included into the blizzard ladder, right? | ||
ElemUnit
United States38 Posts
Definitely appreciate the effort put in from both sides(The community + DB himself) | ||
phiinix
United States1169 Posts
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Alpino
Brazil4390 Posts
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FreudianTrip
Switzerland1983 Posts
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Stringy
United States127 Posts
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Oktyabr
Singapore2234 Posts
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Funguuuuu
United States198 Posts
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Kdog3wa
Sweden40 Posts
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:02 Zarahtra wrote: Nice interview. Never really understood all the hate Dustin gets, seems like a pretty awesome guy. Still not happy about the last answer, sounds like horrible coding to be honest, if anything and everything is connected together through bnet and can't work unless you have bnet like server. Hope they do find some way to implement lan, even if fx. the computers still have to be connected to bnet(to prevent piracy), just not having the games being played through it, would help a lot. Also not happy about the map answer, but it really seemed like he didn't understand the question. What they could rather easily do without changing any of their architecture at all is to just send a local battle.net server to every major event. That way they gain all the control they want and we get to play games locally at tournaments. This is how it is done in WoW-arena and I think Quake Live does something similar too. | ||
Neurosis
United States893 Posts
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UniversalMind
United States326 Posts
other wise great interview and props for not getting p'ed when he started yawning and interrupting you, I would have snapped | ||
pzea469
United States1520 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:50 lowercase wrote: I also agree that the balance team is a bit schizophrenic: on the one hand they want to make "tiny changes" and let the community balance the game over time, but then they go and nerf all sorts of interesting strategies (e.g.: archon toilet, high-ground warp-in, speed rays, chain fungals, etc, etc) because they "aren't what they expected players to do." BW was great because all the abilities were crazy and OP, it's what made the game dynamic and exciting. Watching two deathballs 1a into eachother where whoever gets the best EMPs off wins is hardly enjoyable. Yeah, their biggest mistake was balancing the game lol. I mean if you look back, sc2 had a lot of interesting ideas that I was really excited about. But they nerfed it all to oblivion. The roach was once an interesting unit with high speed regeneration. But they made it a massable unit and took the ability away from it unless burrowed. Then the baneling used to be interesting because it was big seemed powerful, but they nerfed that too. I was so excited when i tried to use one baneling at a mineral line, thinking how awsome it's going to be, but it didn't kill a single probe. The infestor had a sweet ability once. It would shoot a parasite at a marine or marauder, and then the marine or marauder would explode after a few seconds, killing all the infantry units near it. They played a game infront of people while using this ability and people screamed. It was awesome, required the opponent to micro, and you didn't know what was going to happen. Suspense. But they removed it, and now we have boring fungal. It's just too forgiving. Storm strength nerfed heavily. People think splash is strong now? Look at bw, splash would straight up kill your whole army if you had them clumped, and the game worked. But on top of nerfing, they removed visible micro actions that make us go wow. Reaver drops are gone. This was difficult and seeing a pro do it was different than seeing your hot shot friend do it. Dragoons going just far enough, then hold position as the mine pops up and the goons take it out without a scratch. Dragging mines into enemies.... :D Medic walls, taking out a lurker with 3 marines, catching sairs with scourge, seigeing your tanks perfectly, hold position lurkers.... I could really go on forever. All that while macroing. In sc2, all that's left is strategy, macro and casting spells. The micro/magic is not there. | ||
GypsyBeast
Canada630 Posts
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andiCR
Costa Rica2273 Posts
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dtvu
Australia687 Posts
At the moment all three races are very similar in that the all have high HP and high damage and highly expensive units: Protoss (colossi, Immortals, Void Rays), Terran (Tanks, Thors, BCs, Banshee), Zerg (Roach, Ultralisk, Broodlord). They all have lower cost, but faster units (although protoss a bit more expensive here). In addition, all have fast units and the number of spells/abilities are quite similar. Zerg no longer have to make more hatchery due to queens and larva injection, so all three race can play evenly on same number of bases. So for me only the mechanics and the look of the races are different, but they all feel the same in terms strength - thus the death ball vs death ball we see all the time. | ||
FinBenton
Finland870 Posts
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Jayrod
1820 Posts
I thought it was pretty interesting that about the map making question that he didnt seem to understand why no one was playing on the community made maps. I know at least for me if im searching for a high level map to play on I have to really dig for it... It'd be nice if there was a better way to organize the map search screen. I know on NA theres been like 4 versions of xel naga caverns and 4 shattered temples on the front page, then not even another ladder map to be found. It really really sucks if you wanna get in some practice games or play an off-race... theres really almost no way to do it unless you want one of those two maps. | ||
mason84m
5 Posts
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Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:41 Liquid`Tyler wrote: 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. You're mostly right, appreciate your sense of logic. I should have thought and researched more on the subject... well, pro gamers are not designers after all. | ||
Falling
Canada10944 Posts
I wondering if the Protoss deathballs will be solved when Terran and Zerg get's more positional tools (shredder and Swarm Hosts (maybe). Because one of the things that forced Protoss to be everywhere was the power of the slow push and having to clear mines/ protect against vulture harass. Maybe next time magic box for ground armies could be broached with him. Because I think the concept of magic boxes doesn't conflict with Blizzard's philosophy of not going backwards and yet still allows the troops to spread out more. As for tournament LAN... maybe by the Protoss expansion, if we really want it? I suspect it'll require a massive brown-out in Korea leading to dropped internet during a GSL finals for Blizzard to finally get into gear on this one. | ||
Ouga
Finland645 Posts
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Archerylady
277 Posts
The infestor had a sweet ability once. It would shoot a parasite at a marine or marauder, and then the marine or marauder would explode after a few seconds, killing all the infantry units near it. Wow didn't know about this. That actually sounds great. I imagine watching a pro scramble to select the individual marine, stim it, and run it out. Why would they remove this and replace it with boring fungal? A bronze league noob can't micro the parasited marine in time, but the bronze league noob can't dodge a fungal either, since it's impossible to dodge. Why Blizzard, why? | ||
seupac
Canada148 Posts
agree! pros would much rather hang out in searing crater i would love to see the veto statistics for that map | ||
Crais
Canada2136 Posts
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AnachronisticAnarchy
United States2957 Posts
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andrewnguyener
United States548 Posts
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MajorityofOne
Canada2506 Posts
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tabbott26
United Kingdom379 Posts
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happyness
United States2400 Posts
On October 25 2011 11:16 Ouga wrote: Well, that sounds like we're not getting LAN -_- getting that much of a direct response from him. Would've been cool if he said what exactly is the problem - definately not the amount of work put into coding it, so guess it has to be antipiracy agenda? That has to be it. I don't know why blizzard isn't clear on that because I would be better with that answer then just saying "no lan". But whatever I like Browder's attitude on the expansion though, with them having their priority in making HotS interesting rather than balanced at this point. | ||
Yoshi Kirishima
United States10159 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:04 Theeakoz wrote: Guys I have a solution, go read it and if you like it upvote it http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/lnt62/from_what_i_saw_on_the_tl_interview_with_dustin/ Sorry but this is a horrible idea. Btw Blizzard pretty much already did this idea, but even better. It's called David Kim playing Random. | ||
Bonkarooni
United States383 Posts
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densha
United States797 Posts
I like the idea of beefing up map control, although I didn't really get a sense that Protoss will have something quite as specific as the Shredder or Swarm Host. Even the Viper's Dark Cloud ability is basically a ground control spell when it comes down to it and I think that's exactly what Zerg needs. Terran is great already and they're on exactly the right track for Zerg, so I honestly think that HotS will be an amazing expansion IF they can get Protoss right. | ||
Myles
United States5162 Posts
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sOvrn
United States678 Posts
10/10 Thanks for the content! | ||
NoS-Craig
Australia3080 Posts
The questions where good and you where very polite and not being a jerk about Balance and other issues. Dustins answers where also very good in my opinion, I would love to give tournys their very own lan or something like that. | ||
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Al Bundy
7257 Posts
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MrDudeMan
Canada973 Posts
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Meteora.GB
Canada2479 Posts
I like their approach with just trying to throw units in and see what happens. A lot of developers tend to be afraid of changing the formula up too much that their sequels tend to add little over on top of what they've established. You need to take some risks as a game developer. | ||
1oo
Portugal876 Posts
You even talked about my most concern on sc2, the route pathing with the blobs, too bad it wont get "fixed". | ||
FeUerFlieGe
United States1193 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:34 Bartimaeus wrote: First of all: mad props to the interviewer - that guy's questions were spot on and addressed many prominent issues without provoking Browder or bringing up balance too often. He did a great job and I'd love to see more interviews from him. To start on Browder: Negative: His shirt is a Terran shirt. Awesome lol. He talks about ways the Replicator would be removed (one of them already being in the alpha play [no massive]) . . . before its even in the game. He says the drawback of Terran is that you are . . . too complete? too good? This is, imo, a little ridiculous as even the person who designed Terran can't find a drawback to the race - as he is the one who should know the race better than any other. His inability to find a strong flaw is astounding and revealing. He's saying that he doesn't want to fix the pathfinder because he believes it will still be ball-on-ball action, just slightly smaller - his option is to take food out of the balls, which is essentially doing the same thing - making the balls smaller? He's crossing his fingers and saying "Maybe!" when he's talking about a unit (Swarm Host) he's going to throw into this game that will affect the income of many pros in varying ways. He dismisses the option of Lan by saying that it is a lot of work for them - not by saying that it would affect them negatively financially. I'd wish that he chose the other option because saying that it will be hard for them to do is almost taunting us, saying that he just doesn't want to work on it. Positive: I'm glad that he could at least admit that the map issue was a problem instead of just dismissing it like the question about the drawback of playing Terran. I liked that he admits that he realizes the gravity of his decisions (later in the cast, after the Swarm host finger crossing). I'm happy that he admits that some problems exist, such as PvT in Korea. Overall the person interviewing Browder was flawless, and I'm disappointed with Browder's responses on a majority of the issues he spoke on. Haha he is wearing a terran shirt! That's so ironic. But about the pathfinding: The pathfinding in BW kind of sucked, that's why there were no big balls of units going against other big balls of units because it was much more effective to spread your units so they didn't get hung up on one another. The SC2 pathfinding is pretty smart in most cases, so it's able to effectively move units in a big ball. Dustin doesn't want to have to dumb down the pathfinding to fix the issue, so they have looked for alternative ways to deal with it. | ||
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:53 DrGreen wrote: But he doesnt really care about LAN for big tournaments >< I doubt it will be made before LotV He does care, but they are making the expansion, D3 and an expansion for WoW. There is a lot going on at Blizzard. | ||
FreudianTrip
Switzerland1983 Posts
On October 25 2011 11:15 Theeakoz wrote: You're mostly right, appreciate your sense of logic. I should have thought and researched more on the subject... well, pro gamers are not designers after all. You've literally just jumped from one extreme to the other. | ||
ThaZenith
Canada3116 Posts
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dapierow
Serbia1316 Posts
Map Control (Swarmhost,Shredder) No more 200-200 army battles, and more emphesis on whole map battles and whole map defense/offense(Oracle(Stop mining), Viper(Make battle Melee only), Warhound(dominate mass thor/collosus, maybe even VoidRays?)) So i mean they might be introducing some good one thing that pissed me off was the "go play broodwar reference" When blizzard fuckin is trying to get rid of it in tournaments and when several OS's dont let you play it and blizzard wont do anything about it, they are trying to kill BW, so wdf blizzard were suppossed to play BW against computer(hard)??? | ||
Kring
Portugal70 Posts
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DeltruS
Canada2214 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:36 aksfjh wrote: How do you determine if the map is "better"? You may think it looks better, or prefer how they use rocks, but many times map preference is just that, preference. For example, plenty of maps get a chance on GSL, and many maps there end up being vetoed for balance concerns. He's talking about splitting up units for different attack paths. If AoE gets to the point where turtling gets too strong, as long as it isn't very mobile, you would be able to out econ your opponent anyways. It's just something lower skilled players would have to deal with. It is too much work to turn it into a product. For something they're not even thrilled about in the first place, adding in the infrastructure to support a professional interface both online and offline is a lot of work. Can I as a novice programmer create apps for simple, personal use? Yes, but it sure as hell isn't something I can sell to a customer. If you think this is the case, then go play DotA 2 and TF2. Nobody is bending your arm to pay attention to their response to the community. You obviously care enough about what they've done already with that same attitude to buy and participate in the SC2 community, but by all means go worship Valve if you think their approach produces better games. I consider many community made maps to be better because they actually receive testing from pros and are analyzed by teams which have been making maps for years. By not accepting the community maps they are removing all motivation for mapmakers to make good maps and are also creating a divide between tournaments and ladder. They should at least create a system where pros can directly influence how a map is made. Your last point is pretty bad. They are different games, and I can play both. Why should the customer have to make a compromise? The concept of supply and demand doesn't work here; if Blizzard decides to only provide some features, it won't die out or get forced to change due to other people switching to different games. Blizzard has a monopoly on good RTS games, so it is only the player base that gets screwed if they make a bad decision. They always say that they take in feedback, but I haven't seen them implement any of the things that are really important to the community, other than their chat channels. | ||
paddyz
Ireland628 Posts
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Peleus
Australia420 Posts
A lot more respect for Dustin Browder also, really friendly well articulated answers to all the questions. I enjoy watching these things so much that I'm wondering if anyone can link other Browder interviews discussing multiplay heart of the swarm? I know there is a Q&A on youtube from Blizzcon, but I'm not aware of any others like this awesome interview (or if they exist). Can anyone perhaps post some links? Cheers. | ||
Shield
Bulgaria4824 Posts
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Noro
Canada991 Posts
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AdroiT
United States77 Posts
I've seen a lot of comments where it seems like the posters don't understand the development process that Blizzard uses. DB seems to have explained it pretty clearly. The fact that they come up with cool ideas first, and balance them second shouldn't be so scary. It's their process, and seems to be working just fine. It allows creativity in the process. I think SC2 is an amazing game and they are only refining their process to design with HotS, sounds good to me. Quote me here: The announced new units will be much different than the released version. It's all a part of the process. | ||
ReaperX
Hong Kong1758 Posts
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sevia
United States954 Posts
The parts about the design process were really interesting. I hope that HotS goes through a lot of changes until we find something that really sets it up to be a great expansion. | ||
ZenithM
France15952 Posts
Edit: Riiight? | ||
Cyber_Cheese
Australia3615 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:26 Zozo wrote: Very nice interview, I was hoping you would ask about tournaments removing close spawns and adding that supply depot near the ramps. 20 minutes well spent, thanks! Yeah shame on the close spawn not getting asked :/ As for the ladder maps thing... Interesting to try to turn it back on us, I wonder how accurate that assessment is, completely objectively. | ||
socommaster123
United States578 Posts
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:57 AutomatonOmega wrote: Yeah I was a little unsettled by the terran shirt too. The Terran shirt was the Wings of Liberty team shirt. In a year or so they'll all be wearing Zerg shirts. | ||
magnaflow
Canada1521 Posts
On October 25 2011 11:39 Plansix wrote: He does care, but they are making the expansion, D3 and an expansion for WoW. There is a lot going on at Blizzard. Ya. I assume this last year Diablo 3 has taken up alot of resources. I get the feeling that Blizzard has a much bigger plan for SC2 and D3. Release SC2 , Bnet may not be the best but it will suffice for now. Switch focus to D3, finish product, fine tune, release. Switch focus to Bnet 2.0. Add some improvements and Throw around some ideas of how to make it profitable through micro transactions, social services, mini games through map editiors, etc etc. While I love to jump on the hate Blizzard band wagon, you have to admit that they are looking at everything as one entity. WoW, D3, SC2 and eventually Their new project. Where we are players are really only looking at one game, and what is being done with the one game we play. I dunno, just my thoughts | ||
MrDudeMan
Canada973 Posts
On October 25 2011 11:47 DeltruS wrote: I consider many community made maps to be better because they actually receive testing from pros and are analyzed by teams which have been making maps for years. By not accepting the community maps they are removing all motivation for mapmakers to make good maps and are also creating a divide between tournaments and ladder. They should at least create a system where pros can directly influence how a map is made. Your last point is pretty bad. They are different games, and I can play both. Why should the customer have to make a compromise? The concept of supply and demand doesn't work here; if Blizzard decides to only provide some features, it won't die out or get forced to change due to other people switching to different games. Blizzard has a monopoly on good RTS games, so it is only the player base that gets screwed if they make a bad decision. They always say that they take in feedback, but I haven't seen them implement any of the things that are really important to the community, other than their chat channels. I don't really think he downplays his answer when he says "no", I think he was just answering a question that he has been asked hundreds of times. At least in this interview he goes on to state that adding in LAN is just not doable because it would require a heavy change in infrastructure. Also, I guess you could consider Valve more accommodating to their community, but really, valve and blizzard are more similar than you think. These "accommodations" you refer to involve what? Making their game free to play because they realized they would make more money on micro transactions? Steam and Battle.net operate very similarly, all the games you purchase on steam you don't really own, you are just renting them for the duration of your account, similar to SC2. And blizzard does take feed back from the community, they just act rather slowly. It is much harder balancing starcraft 2 then you believe. Aside from being unable to predict how balance changes will impact the metagame, blizzard is also unable to tell whether there is truly imbalance or whether its just the metagame evolving. One thing that is awful about the SC2 community (all 3 races) is that we are too quick to call imbalance, and do not even take into account metagame shifts (for example the answer to the protoss deathball was neural parasite, even though NP was not buffed in any way, it was just discovered because of increased infestor use). | ||
ketomai
United States2789 Posts
I don't watch many interviews/presentations by DB, but this one showed his passion for the game and what he does. Overall the interview was pretty interesting, especially seeing their balance mindset. Everything that comes out of TL is really well done. Whether it be super serious business kennigit or troll hot_bid, all of it is entertaining. Props TL staff! | ||
MShaw006
United States74 Posts
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Kal_rA
United States2925 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:44 Faggatron wrote: No lan, but I'm at least glad that the reason seems to be that it will require rewriting the entire game, rather than just bli$$$$$$$ trying to stop pirates by punishing everyone else. Sounds like a load of crap to me.. Just an excuse.. Blizz is rich enough to get it done. They just like the control and I've come to accept it. Besides the 'bunker' part it was a pretty decent interview.Kennigit is awesome! | ||
Wafflelisk
Canada1061 Posts
But seriously, I love how frank he is. | ||
Whole
United States6046 Posts
However, it was very insightful to see what he had to say about the new units. They're basically brand new and can be deleted or changed dramatically. It should prove to be an interesting beta, but I'm concerned about ESPORTS during the HOTS beta. It seems that tournaments will either change to HOTS beta for a very crazy game or stay WoL and testing on HOTS will be limited. I suppose having a temporary imbalanced ESPORTS scene won't be too bad because most players are secured by teams/contracts so they won't need to worry about winning as much. I'm on the fence about his solution to the deathball. I like the approach to remove food from the deathball, but I don't see that being an entirely satisfactory solution. They'll either have to make the "non-deathball" units really good, or find another way to discourage deathballs. I hope they consider making it dangerous to clump up (due to splash, spells, ect.) because a spread and micro intensive deathball vs deathball with "non-deathball" harass units could possibly make SC2 on par or even harder than BW with a bigger emphasis on big-army micro rather than economy. | ||
Futarchy
Singapore59 Posts
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Endymion
United States3701 Posts
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turnip
United States193 Posts
As far as I can tell, the only reasons top pros ladder are PR, metagame scouting and streaming revenue. Without being able to play "real" practice games on ladder, laddering can't be taken too seriously. | ||
MenSol[ZerO]
Canada1134 Posts
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CravenRaven
Australia114 Posts
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Johnny_Vegas
United States239 Posts
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DeltruS
Canada2214 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:07 MrDudeMan wrote: I don't really think he downplays his answer when he says "no", I think he was just answering a question that he has been asked hundreds of times. At least in this interview he goes on to state that adding in LAN is just not doable because it would require a heavy change in infrastructure. Also, I guess you could consider Valve more accommodating to their community, but really, valve and blizzard are more similar than you think. These "accommodations" you refer to involve what? Making their game free to play because they realized they would make more money on micro transactions? Steam and Battle.net operate very similarly, all the games you purchase on steam you don't really own, you are just renting them for the duration of your account, similar to SC2. And blizzard does take feed back from the community, they just act rather slowly. It is much harder balancing starcraft 2 then you believe. Aside from being unable to predict how balance changes will impact the metagame, blizzard is also unable to tell whether there is truly imbalance or whether its just the metagame evolving. One thing that is awful about the SC2 community (all 3 races) is that we are too quick to call imbalance, and do not even take into account metagame shifts (for example the answer to the protoss deathball was neural parasite, even though NP was not buffed in any way, it was just discovered because of increased infestor use). I wasn't talking about balancing or LAN. I agree with you, I just think that they could do better if they were more responsive to the community. For example, close positions is universally agreed to be bad for the game, and yet we are still dealing with it a year later. There are maps like delta quadrant too that are plainly bad for zerg at all levels. That is only maps. They also haven't allowed us to play cross region, name change, clan support etc. I see things like this every day. I don't want to be too whiny, I just don't agree with some of their perspectives. | ||
Trict
Canada182 Posts
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zev318
Canada4305 Posts
On October 25 2011 11:56 Cyber_Cheese wrote: Yeah shame on the close spawn not getting asked :/ As for the ladder maps thing... Interesting to try to turn it back on us, I wonder how accurate that assessment is, completely objectively. when dustin said "we owe it to you to have a balanced game", i was hoping kennigit would have chimed in with "so why close spawns?" and then point to sen getting owned by RNG twice in his match vs MVP. | ||
alphafuzard
United States1610 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:15 Endymion wrote: It's obvious to me that the design team has been told by higher ups in blizzard/their mother corporation to not add lan, dustin seemed annoyed by the question, I'm sure a lot of the design team aren't happy with taking the flak from the tournament lag. I got the same impression Also, I kind of facepalmed when he couldn't think of a way to have community made maps involved.....like....maybe....put them into the ladder.....or something crazy like that. Edit: Also, I wish they would consider increasing unit collision size to make armies less clumpy. I'm sure it would have to be tested, but I don't think it would impede pathing to any serious degree. | ||
ETisME
12083 Posts
Lan is/will be one of the biggest barrier for SC2 to grow | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
On October 25 2011 11:41 FreudianTrip wrote: You've literally just jumped from one extreme to the other. LOL no that's just how it sounds... I'm somewhere in the middle now :D | ||
RogerChillingworth
2710 Posts
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MarkyO
United States20 Posts
"NOOO... I DON'T SEE LAN COMING" It's like when you're trying desperately to get back with your x-gf. "Can you please give me a ... " "No.. I don't see it happening" "But what if" "No.. It's too complicated." "But I can..." "I just don't see it happening." | ||
quaffle
United States249 Posts
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ahw
Canada1099 Posts
I'm kind of bothered by the overall defensiveness by the guy, as he comes across like some of these questions are personal attacks. But at the same time he's got to deal with the starcraft community, so its understandable. the map-making question seemed to go over his head and the root problem of where the ladder maps are coming from didn't really get touched. i'm actually happy with the new units in trying to un-blob the game. gimping the patching has always been a terrible idea because it makes the game less accessible and it forces a handicap. if the new additions are mostly map-control and harassing units, then hopefully we'll see smaller armies in multiple locations instead. shredder, recall on nexus are two good ideas that come to mind. | ||
Lexpar
1813 Posts
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dredd276
United States80 Posts
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Pinnacle55
Singapore173 Posts
Community Maps can't just be put into the ladder overnight - half of the maps are untested and may prove to be even MORE unbalanced than Delta Quadrant. Would you pay money to play on a map that's ultra imbalanced and that Blizzard has no say on? Like say, for example, a map that was high ground on only one half and low ground on the other half? That's like saying, "Here, play on this arcade machine. Oh by the way, I'm not sure what the Control Setup is like and I can't change it. Too bad." It's a terrible compromise. If you say, "Well, take only the maps that are good!", then how do you decide what's good or not? Where do you draw the line? What's a good number of bases? 10? 12? You can never know, and there will never be a definitive way that we can ascertain the basis of a good map. Blizzard is already taking the initiative and hosting tournaments like the TL Mapmaking Competition, and this is already a good step in the right direction. Sure, it isn't a giant leap or anything like that, but I wouldn't want to fault Blizzard for treading carefully at this point. | ||
Fishriot
United States621 Posts
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aethereality
Canada62 Posts
Honestly, to the people saying that they are careless with the balance process, specifically: + Show Spoiler + On October 25 2011 09:34 Bartimaeus wrote: First of all: mad props to the interviewer - that guy's questions were spot on and addressed many prominent issues without provoking Browder or bringing up balance too often. He did a great job and I'd love to see more interviews from him. To start on Browder: Negative: His shirt is a Terran shirt. Awesome lol. He talks about ways the Replicator would be removed (one of them already being in the alpha play [no massive]) . . . before its even in the game. He says the drawback of Terran is that you are . . . too complete? too good? This is, imo, a little ridiculous as even the person who designed Terran can't find a drawback to the race - as he is the one who should know the race better than any other. His inability to find a strong flaw is astounding and revealing. He's saying that he doesn't want to fix the pathfinder because he believes it will still be ball-on-ball action, just slightly smaller - his option is to take food out of the balls, which is essentially doing the same thing - making the balls smaller? He's crossing his fingers and saying "Maybe!" when he's talking about a unit (Swarm Host) he's going to throw into this game that will affect the income of many pros in varying ways. He dismisses the option of Lan by saying that it is a lot of work for them - not by saying that it would affect them negatively financially. I'd wish that he chose the other option because saying that it will be hard for them to do is almost taunting us, saying that he just doesn't want to work on it. Positive: I'm glad that he could at least admit that the map issue was a problem instead of just dismissing it like the question about the drawback of playing Terran. I liked that he admits that he realizes the gravity of his decisions (later in the cast, after the Swarm host finger crossing). I'm happy that he admits that some problems exist, such as PvT in Korea. Overall the person interviewing Browder was flawless, and I'm disappointed with Browder's responses on a majority of the issues he spoke on. How do you think they come up with units in the first place? You can't magically and instantly know whether or not a unit is balanced. That's just the nature of game design; there absolutely will be flaws in units, but as Mr. Browder stated, they will be fixed through the balance design process. That's why he mentioned the HotS beta (even the WoL beta) as a method for them to fix balance issues without affecting peoples' finances. You have to remember, as well, that Blizzard is a business, not a charity. I'd like to think that Mr. Browder has an idea about what he is doing, as the C&C series is awesome, and we all love SC2 (don't you?). As far as his comments on the metagame go, I think he is mostly right. Even most pros will agree that the game is quite balanced, and people below top masters (including me, I am gold as hell) have no right to comment on it, for the reasons that we've all read a thousand times over. I am certainly glad that their design philosophy is more along the lines of "add it and see if it works" than "I don't think it'll work, so let's leave that out". As the famous Ms. Frizzle always said, "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!" Honestly, I think balance comes less from the design of the units themselves, and more from professional players at the highest level producing valid strategies using the tools they are given. I have faith in Blizzard to continue improving the game that we all hold so dearly. | ||
slam
United States923 Posts
Anyone else pickup dusty's tendency to say "riiiiiiight" to the extent where you no longer payed attention to the interview and just waited in anticipation for the next riiiiiight? | ||
Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:26 alphafuzard wrote: Also, I kind of facepalmed when he couldn't think of a way to have community made maps involved.....like....maybe....put them into the ladder.....or something crazy like that. But that's not what he said he wasn't able to think of. In fact, he pointed out that at least one map that originated in the community (probably referring to Tal'darim Altar) has been added to the ladder pool. What he was unable to answer was how to encourage professional play on unfinished maps to help finish them, when an obviously unfinished map wouldn't be appropriate for the ladder. I know there are some people who will point to various features of the ladder maps to dispute whether they're "finished," but obviously they're not going to put a community map in the map pool specifically to facilitate further development of the map. | ||
BleaK_
Norway593 Posts
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Takkara
United States2503 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:46 Lysenko wrote: But that's not what he said he wasn't able to think of. In fact, he pointed out that at least one map that originated in the community (probably referring to Tal'darim Altar) has been added to the ladder pool. What he was unable to answer was how to encourage professional play on unfinished maps to help finish them, when an obviously unfinished map wouldn't be appropriate for the ladder. I know there are some people who will point to various features of the ladder maps to dispute whether they're "finished," but obviously they're not going to put a community map in the map pool specifically to facilitate further development of the map. Yeah, exactly. They won't take an unfinished map onto the ladder because the author won't have the ability to edit it when it's already added to the ladder. Perhaps one way around this issue is to allow people to use regular match-making for custom maps so they can get "balanced" opponents on custom maps. | ||
NoobSkills
United States1499 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:15 Endymion wrote: It's obvious to me that the design team has been told by higher ups in blizzard/their mother corporation to not add lan, dustin seemed annoyed by the question, I'm sure a lot of the design team aren't happy with taking the flak from the tournament lag. What would interest me is the amount of money that Blizzard gets from tournaments that have the prize pool over 5000. With that amount of money is that enough to just put in LAN because the money earned by tournaments outweighs the cost of piracy? I also don't like some of their philosophies about the game as well, but this post seems to be more about the LAN now. | ||
svefnleysi
Iceland623 Posts
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Kurr
Canada2338 Posts
He has the right idea about unit design (except the fucking Thor). Take something that looks fun and throw it in a beta. No other way to truly test it. | ||
Itsmedudeman
United States19229 Posts
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Zato-1
Chile4253 Posts
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Fanatic-Templar
Canada5811 Posts
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NB
Netherlands12045 Posts
DB dodging skill: 20/10... Holy shit they hired this guy mainly for interview, not for design the freaking game x(.... | ||
Daralii
United States16991 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:09 NB wrote: question: 10/10 DB dodging skill: 20/10... Holy shit they hired this guy mainly for interview, not for design the freaking game x(.... Well it's hard to ask good questions when you're distracted by his glowing head and majestic beard. | ||
Toastmold
Canada207 Posts
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styrn00b
41 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:45 slam wrote: "well i think the swarm host might do some of that..... riiiiiiiiight" Anyone else pickup dusty's tendency to say "riiiiiiight" to the extent where you no longer payed attention to the interview and just waited in anticipation for the next riiiiiight? I tried to ignore this in the beginning, but it just got worse and worse. I was wondering about the outcome if you'd have a drinking game based on how many times he said right during this interview. | ||
AzurewinD
United States569 Posts
Kennigit was extremely well-spoken and articulate with his questions. Really phrased them in a non-accusatory manner and instead came from the perspective of "So how do we fix this issue?". As a result, it brought up some really interesting discussion and insight on how the situation looks from the dev perspective. I didn't agree with a several things Browder said, and it seems like there are some issues he has straight up blinders on over, but overall he gave the idea that he's an intelligent guy who is aware and cognizant of the major concerns. | ||
Deshkar
Singapore1244 Posts
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. | ||
Drygioni
Japan379 Posts
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theBizness
United States696 Posts
TLDR: right, right, right, right, right, right, right, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight? | ||
BinxyBrown
United States230 Posts
Am I on that level? no, would I mind if they balanced that way? no, that would be awesome to me if I could watch the game and not wonder who the better player was at the end or if they just won because of their race. | ||
ZombiesOMG
United States282 Posts
I just got the feel from this that they really do have E-Sports best interests(and in combination, blizzard's best interests) at heart. Browder makes a great point in that, if they heavily considered every scenario, and every strategic nuance, when creating a new unit or ability for HotS, nothing would get done. I can see that, and I respect the fact that despite knowing there will be huge backlash to changes, they're doing things to change the game forever anyhow. That's what we all want. We want new units, new toys. We want new abilities, and more fun stuff to play with. This is a really difficult game they're playing by changing the status quo so drastically, but it needs to be done. It falls on us, really. It's our game, and what I get from the panels, the interviews, the flexibility based on feedback . . . they want to make the game for US! It's good for them, fun for us, and good for the pro scene. Let's keep an open mind to new choices, and realize that we have a good amount of say in what comes down the pipe(and what stays for the long haul.) Especially with another beta on the horizon. Coming from a design background, knowing that Blizz operates on a constant iteration philosophy is really comforting. | ||
coolcor
520 Posts
On October 25 2011 11:37 FeUerFlieGe wrote: Haha he is wearing a terran shirt! That's so ironic. But about the pathfinding: The pathfinding in BW kind of sucked, that's why there were no big balls of units going against other big balls of units because it was much more effective to spread your units so they didn't get hung up on one another. The SC2 pathfinding is pretty smart in most cases, so it's able to effectively move units in a big ball. Dustin doesn't want to have to dumb down the pathfinding to fix the issue, so they have looked for alternative ways to deal with it. But why is everyone sure it is impossible to have the units spread out more and good pathfinding? Isn't bad pathfinding generally units taking the long way to get where you clicked or getting stuck and not going there at all? Can't you have the units good at taking the shortest path to get somewhere, but stay more spread out on the way and once they get there instead of always going into a perfect ball with no room between them? | ||
ZidaneTribal
United States2800 Posts
hidden intentions | ||
Rodiel3
France1158 Posts
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JawHun
United States151 Posts
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mlspmatt
Canada404 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:33 Daralii wrote: My eyes automatically go to the terran patch he always wears. >_> Yessss - The confederacy pulling strings and getting Browder as the designer of SC2 was quite a coup. The Terran race has done well with our man at the helm, and Kim as well on balance - Balance, Wha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Its balanced alright, TERRAN WINS EVERYTHING! Ha Ha Ha Ha Now, if these two would just stop wearing our T-Shirts, and stop drawing attention to themselves - we can continue our dominance. As it should be. | ||
Kelethius
Canada187 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:42 Talin wrote: "If we were to sit here and carefully analyze the metagame, we would add nothing" <- Dustin Browder making perfect sense. Too bad it doesn't matter much when Blizzard wants to sell an expansion regardless of it resetting the game completely. -_- QFT | ||
Raiznhell
Canada786 Posts
Just look at how Code S became filled with Terran in the first place. Because Code A got stacked with Good players that belonged in Code S like MMA, Ganzi, Mvp and Bomber to name a few. They all climbed their way into Code S however due to the flaw of up and downs not all the bad players were routed out. But now look at Code A full of Zerg and Protoss who are all going to make their shot for Code S and is now also getting refilled by more Protoss and Zerg specifically 4 foreigner Protoss and Zerg players and what do you think is going to happen? Code S may start to balance out or even become dry of Terrans. People Jump on the hate train way too fast and never have patience. Look at MLG Orlando, IEM, IPL and now the Korean Weekly. All going to have Protoss and Zerg Champions and not even have Terran make it to the finals. No good Terrans some have said? WHAT? PuMA, Bomber, TheSTC, forGG (who's playing fantastically) Taeja? all not good Terrans? Get outta here. Another thing to touch on is look at BW. 99% of players would argue that BW is almost completely balanced and is the most balanced game in the world involving 3+race/faction differential. Yet still....guess what Terran is pretty damn dominant. Protoss and Zergs catch their time every now and then but for the most part you would see Fantasy or Flash or going way back BoxeR, NaDa, OOV even lesser Terrans like Midas dominate a ton. There was a point in BW where Terran literally seemed unbeatable until eventually someone who figure one little thing out. Yet in SC2 everyone points to Terran being imba when the only real Tournament Terran is seeing a lot of success in is Code S which again is only Terran heavy due to Code A being filled with Z and P right now and a flawed up and down system. I guarantee you that is a player in SC2 loses a game in the current state it's because he deserved to and he could have won had he played better. | ||
Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:27 ZidaneTribal wrote: i think kennegit shaked dustin browder's hand with the hand he coughed into hidden intentions dude i totally did - so gross rofl. SORRY DUSTIN! Thanks for the positive feedback all. | ||
Twistacles
Canada1327 Posts
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mlspmatt
Canada404 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:45 Raiznhell wrote: Honestly there's too much whining about Terran specifically. Like honestly aside from Code S no other tournament is very Terran heavy AT ALL. Also nobody points to the fact that Code S has a lot of issues with routing bad players out of Code S and getting good players in. The whole tournament system pre-Ro16 is entirely flawed. Just look at how Code S became filled with Terran in the first place. Because Code A got stacked with Good players that belonged in Code S like MMA, Ganzi, Mvp and Bomber to name a few. They all climbed their way into Code S however due to the flaw of up and downs not all the bad players were routed out. But now look at Code A full of Zerg and Protoss who are all going to make their shot for Code S and is now also getting refilled by more Protoss and Zerg specifically 4 foreigner Protoss and Zerg players and what do you think is going to happen? Code S may start to balance out or even become dry of Terrans. People Jump on the hate train way too fast and never have patience. Look at MLG Orlando, IEM, IPL and now the Korean Weekly. All going to have Protoss and Zerg Champions and not even have Terran make it to the finals. No good Terrans some have said? WHAT? PuMA, Bomber, TheSTC, forGG (who's playing fantastically) Taeja? all not good Terrans? Get outta here. Another thing to touch on is look at BW. 99% of players would argue that BW is almost completely balanced and is the most balanced game in the world involving 3+race/faction differential. Yet still....guess what Terran is pretty damn dominant. Protoss and Zergs catch their time every now and then but for the most part you would see Fantasy or Flash or going way back BoxeR, NaDa, OOV even lesser Terrans like Midas dominate a ton. There was a point in BW where Terran literally seemed unbeatable until eventually someone who figure one little thing out. Yet in SC2 everyone points to Terran being imba when the only real Tournament Terran is seeing a lot of success in is Code S which again is only Terran heavy due to Code A being filled with Z and P right now and a flawed up and down system. I guarantee you that is a player in SC2 loses a game in the current state it's because he deserved to and he could have won had he played better. Agreed. Too much balance whining. Terran had their time in the sun, but its coming to an end. I don't know why people don't give any thought to the fact there might be more talent playing Terran at that ultra small top 20-30 players. MVP, MMA, Bomber, Puma, ect.... Theres a lot of excellent players playing Terran and that is contributing to the Terran edge in Code 'S' Korea. | ||
Deshkar
Singapore1244 Posts
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DiuLaSing
Hong Kong225 Posts
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DrakanSilva
Chile932 Posts
I was expecting something like this, I really hope to see more dustin browder talking to the community. It keeps amusing me how fast he talks, I met him on Blizzard campus for the Latinamerican Invitational (by massive luck, he was walking around when nobody was there) and for those who think that it was scripted, that is just him talking. That guy have a factory of ideas going around his head all day long, I think that's why he have to say "right" all the time, to make sure, to himself, that he really caught the idea that he was receiving. I love blizzard, starcraft 2 & the smart communities :D. On October 25 2011 13:23 BinxyBrown wrote: I think blizzard needs to stop worrying about lower leveled players and just make a good game, it really bothers me that he kept mentioning diamond level players like they are good or matter for balance, the system enforces a 50% win rate until you are too good for that to apply, they should just balance for the players who actually take the game seriously. Am I on that level? no, would I mind if they balanced that way? no, that would be awesome to me if I could watch the game and not wonder who the better player was at the end or if they just won because of their race. I'm sorry to say but there isn't a company in the world that would make a game better only for the 2% + 200 top players of their clients. And I don't know what you understood from the interview but for me its very clear, lings, marines, ultras, dt's, templars and all those units are easy to use even if you are a noob. The difference between a pro and a noob is not using or not using a unit is about pushing the potential of that unit to it's limit, by having good micro, micro while macro, mixing it with other units in your army, etc. And your opinion obviously doesn't gather the 98% of the players playing SC2 that aren't on Master / GM. So yeah I agree with dustin when he says that they should also balance the game taking into consideration diamond and below players. | ||
Terrifyer
United States338 Posts
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PH
United States6173 Posts
It gives me hope. | ||
dartoo
India2889 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:45 slam wrote: "well i think the swarm host might do some of that..... riiiiiiiiight" Anyone else pickup dusty's tendency to say "riiiiiiight" to the extent where you no longer payed attention to the interview and just waited in anticipation for the next riiiiiight? LOL I was thinking the same thing. that riiiiight needs to become a meme. Anyway, that was a really good interview, you need to do more kennigit! I kind agree that pathfinding/selection shouldnt go backwards, but then that was a part of what made bw so much fun to watch and play. dont really know what the solution to it is, and the shredder, is just going to make battles smaller, not grand like bw battles.It's a tough problem to solve. | ||
mlspmatt
Canada404 Posts
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. | ||
VirgilSC2
United States6151 Posts
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Louuster
Canada2869 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:26 coolcor wrote: But why is everyone sure it is impossible to have the units spread out more and good pathfinding? Isn't bad pathfinding generally units taking the long way to get where you clicked or getting stuck and not going there at all? Can't you have the units good at taking the shortest path to get somewhere, but stay more spread out on the way and once they get there instead of always going into a perfect ball with no room between them? Its because in BW the pathfinding wasnt as good so units would get stuck on each other. This combined with the 12 units per control groups meant that it was actually rather rare to have all your units together. Lets say you had 2 group of zealots and 2 groups of dragoons. Move commanding all 4 groups to the same spot meant that half of the units would wander around not going where you told them to go. So naturally you would move them to different spots at the same area, which naturally spread them out more. In short, the old 1a2a3a is now just 1a with 50 units, which is where the good pathfinding causes the ball problem. | ||
Thrasymachus725
Canada527 Posts
Dustin was answering a question about how to get the pros to play on the pro maps and tournament maps and Kennigit was asking if they would consider adding tournament maps to the ladder. They were on completely different pages. I dunno if that was lack of clarity in the question, or what. I have done a few interviews in my time, so I do know how complicated questions can get muddled up, so no harm done. Just saying, I don't think people should take Dustins "answer" as his respons to Kennigits question. Excellent interview, and I agreed with just about everything said there. I like the whole "Go play Brood War" thing. I LOVE the whole "throw stuff cool stuff in, and see what results" philosophy. I am glad they balance the game for everyone to some degree. I love the whole "NO GODDAM LAN AND STOP ASKING" thing. Maybe people will stop asking now that he has said a firm hard no... LOL of course they won't. He has said no thousands of time before, but the poor guy KEEPS getting this question shoved down his throat. LAY OFF THE LAN. GJ Dusty and Kenny. | ||
Deshkar
Singapore1244 Posts
I believe initially Code S were fairly equal in racial distribution, yet Code A had a large number of Terrans for quite a bit, however it took awhile for those Terrans to slowly diffuse into Code S. The format of the GSL on the short-mid term basis doesn't allow for much turn over of players/races with the changes only being seen on the long term. Right now we're seeing more and more Protoss and Zerg in Code A as well as entering the Up & Downs, given a bit more time and perhaps (if necessary) a very minor small balance patch, we would see slightly better racial equality in Code S. On the other hand, we have seen non Terrans like Stephano, IdrA and Huk perform well in recent non GSL tournaments. I have also recalled seeing various non Terran foreigners take down some Kr Terrans throughout the multitude of tournaments we had recently. On the whole non-Terrans have shown success against Korean Terrans to some extent greater than Korean non-Terrans, could the Koreans culture of choosing/preferring Terrans as a race be a significant factor in the current situation? One must also consider that the format of the GSL could lend strength to the Terran dominance, and not just due to race being op/superior as a whole? The GSL single Bo3 in Code A/S, and Bo1 present in group/up&down stages, plays to the Terrans' strength of being difficult to scout, resilience and ability to quickly switch to a variety of deadly cheese. Even in ESV Korean weekly Tournament, I do believe the finals is a PvP between Squirtle and Tassadar, with the 3rd/4th place match a ZvZ between Bboongbbong and Sirius. Terran dominance is still not as strong/clear. While I neither disagree nor agree that Terrans might be slightly stronger and/or that the Koreans as a whole might be slightly better than EU/NA players, I feel that the Terran dominance is not as prevalent outside the GSL even with the presence of other Korean Terrans. Perhaps the GSL really needs to rethink and rework its system? | ||
SKaysc
United States305 Posts
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Deshkar
Singapore1244 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:59 VirgilSC2 wrote: I think it might be safe to say Daybreak and Bel'shir are playtested enough to make it into ladder, and some of the ESV Maps get a good amount of play in the Korean Weekly to build a solid foundation. I agree for Daybreak, but I think Bel'Shir might require a lil more testing, it has been frequently downvoted in GSL and there have been recent revisions to the map (high ground near main and the like) due to the unfavorable results in certain MU , PvZ I believe? I think the main problem that Blizzard is having is a lack of an avenue to discern where to actually liaise with to determine which map is sufficiently popular/play-tested. Should they support ESV? iCJug? or TPW? or just the GSL? Personally I like the recent TL-Mapmaking contest and hope it becomes a regular and fully Blizzard-supported event. I think it is a great start with the selection process, and a small invite-only tournament to hard test the finalists. | ||
tomatriedes
New Zealand5356 Posts
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flanksteak
Canada246 Posts
One thing I hadn't considered was that the design team is getting better at balancing/tweaking the game. I'm all for letting players figure out the game before major changes are made - but likewise, sometimes something is so clearly broken that it should be fixed immediately. Hopefully as the team gets better at identifying issues they'll know the correct route to take. Another thing, he went at length to explain why certain units would be cut from the game ("tooltip gets too large"). The general feeling is that sometimes a unit just doesn't fit into the game without lots of specific conditions/changes. Personally I think the warp-in mechanic is a good example - granted it's a gameplay element, but it has affected so many aspects of protoss just to make it fit. (Khaydarin removal, fixing 4gate timings, can't warp in at ramp, smaller pylon radius); however, it's such a core mechanic to protoss that they just couldn't remove it entirely. Anyway, good stuff. Riiiiiiight? | ||
lizzard_warish
589 Posts
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-orb-
United States5770 Posts
Ever. + Show Spoiler + single tear | ||
coolcor
520 Posts
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? | ||
KaosCow
Australia9 Posts
The questions were good. Kennigit's manner and presentation were excellent, as well as the choice for a quiet setting. I would love to see more interviews in the future. | ||
VashTS
United States1675 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Riiiiiiight? | ||
enemy2010
Germany1972 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:59 mlspmatt wrote: 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. I was thinking about this point, too. And I dont think that Blizzard has to balance the game to ALL levels of skill. I think they should balance it for the pros and higher levels of play. Because the "noobs" will follow this balance, cause there is not this huge understanding of the game like the pros have. And if you have a balanced game for the pros, the game itself is balanced even to the tiniest bit. And so you end up with a very very balanced game. And thats good for the noobs as well. | ||
0neder
United States3733 Posts
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0neder
United States3733 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:36 ahw wrote: cool interview! I'm kind of bothered by the overall defensiveness by the guy, as he comes across like some of these questions are personal attacks. But at the same time he's got to deal with the starcraft community, so its understandable. the map-making question seemed to go over his head and the root problem of where the ladder maps are coming from didn't really get touched. i'm actually happy with the new units in trying to un-blob the game. gimping the patching has always been a terrible idea because it makes the game less accessible and it forces a handicap. if the new additions are mostly map-control and harassing units, then hopefully we'll see smaller armies in multiple locations instead. shredder, recall on nexus are two good ideas that come to mind. You'll never see smaller armies when you can select everything and there are no gaps between them and you have a widescreen. | ||
Deshkar
Singapore1244 Posts
On October 25 2011 14:23 coolcor wrote: 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. | ||
galtdunn
United States977 Posts
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mrtomjones
Canada4020 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:59 mlspmatt wrote: 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 | ||
stroggos
New Zealand1543 Posts
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Techno
1900 Posts
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biamila
Canada335 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:41 Liquid`Tyler wrote: 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. | ||
Shorty90
Germany154 Posts
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Zooper31
United States5710 Posts
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InvXXVII
Canada242 Posts
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Gary Oak
Canada2381 Posts
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. | ||
Kroml
Turkey308 Posts
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Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
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IronMonocle
Canada142 Posts
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Techno
1900 Posts
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. Patrol, son! TAKE NOTES! | ||
Dazer
239 Posts
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. | ||
HydraLF
Hong Kong626 Posts
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Ryder.
1117 Posts
On October 25 2011 15:00 Dazer wrote: 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... | ||
coolcor
520 Posts
On October 25 2011 14:32 Deshkar wrote: 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. | ||
Dazer
239 Posts
On October 25 2011 15:03 Ryder. wrote: 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. | ||
herberckl
Germany117 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:59 SoKHo wrote: He says "righttttt??" very often lol So what? Quentin Tarantino does that too and hes a fking genius! | ||
Dubzex
United States6994 Posts
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itkovian
United States1763 Posts
Overall, very well spoken guy and he seemed very logical in his responses. Kennigit was also great | ||
Nabes
Canada1800 Posts
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LimeNade
United States2125 Posts
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Pesto
United States121 Posts
I'm not sure I understand why people keep going after the "death ball" as if it is a design flaw rather than an issue of micro limitations. You do NOT (or shouldn't) see balls at highest level play. Spread your marines, put your HTs in a prism, drop, flanking from 3x angles with lings is what wins vs. siege tanks...etc. you didn't see the same thing in BW because of poor pathing and limited control groups. That was a WEAKNESS in the design of the game. If you are A-moving all your units at your enemy, that is YOUR problem, not the game's... | ||
Kroml
Turkey308 Posts
On October 25 2011 14:43 biamila wrote: 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. he is practicing law on the forum, specifically "debating opposing ideas" during college downtime and undercover of forum discussion :p but yeah felt sorry for the guy, he eventually surrendered | ||
Perseverance
Japan2800 Posts
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GhostFall
United States830 Posts
The themes of the race is what made Starcraft feel like Starcraft. This GOES a loonnnnnng way to explain why we have people claiming the game feels less and less like a Starcraft game. Obviously, we're expecting different units, but the fact they don't care about the themes of the race means the path that Starcraft 2 is going to take is really worrying. | ||
Warble
137 Posts
Shed a lot of light on the new units and some of their balance decisions, including omissions. Also good to hear they're actively trying to address the death ball problem. | ||
Let it Raine
Canada1245 Posts
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Kroml
Turkey308 Posts
On October 25 2011 15:31 Perseverance wrote: Why not make LAN and license it out to big tournament hosts..................? GSL MLG IPL Etc... I think what Blizzard is also afraid of "LAN for tournaments" is the current state of illegal coding-cracking and all sorts of stuff. I am not a programmer or a computer engineer but even I can see that if you put something on the market and you think you are protecting it 100% (ps3 is an example), pirates are always finding a way to break it. So I can image about an amazing e-sports game, lusted long time to be with LAN support so everyone could play in internet cafes etc. (sc2), in some tournament, some way, being reached by a pirate and copied and distributed. There you have the current biggest strategy game with LAN support and cracked. So, Blizzard's only ensurance is getting all the info from B.net. Until they find a secure way to make this game playable in the tournaments through LAN, but also rendering it useless if it is once cracked or copied, we won't see Tournament LAN neither. | ||
Bread779
United States27 Posts
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Hokay
United States738 Posts
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tomatriedes
New Zealand5356 Posts
On October 25 2011 14:36 mrtomjones wrote: 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 Balance should be prioritized at the very highest level because on the ladder matchmaking makes balance basically irrelevant and lower level players don't play in tournaments where it actually matters. If you're balancing for the highest level of the game you'll end up with the best balance anyway because the players are playing at much closer to the true potential of the race. | ||
DoX.)
Singapore6164 Posts
On October 25 2011 15:40 Kroml. wrote: I think what Blizzard is also afraid of "LAN for tournaments" is the current state of illegal coding-cracking and all sorts of stuff. I am not a programmer or a computer engineer but even I can see that if you put something on the market and you think you are protecting it 100% (ps3 is an example), pirates are always finding a way to break it. So I can image about an amazing e-sports game, lusted long time to be with LAN support so everyone could play in internet cafes etc. (sc2), in some tournament, some way, being reached by a pirate and copied and distributed. There you have the current biggest strategy game with LAN support and cracked. So, Blizzard's only ensurance is getting all the info from B.net. Until they find a secure way to make this game playable in the tournaments through LAN, but also rendering it useless if it is once cracked or copied, we won't see Tournament LAN neither. Not only that you have all the pros practicing on battle net, so they get used to battle net latency, then they go to a tournament with LAN settings and their play gets all kinds of screwed. | ||
Dazer
239 Posts
On October 25 2011 15:32 GhostFall wrote: Soooo is anyone else kinda disappointed in the answers at 8:40. The themes of the race is what made Starcraft feel like Starcraft. This GOES a loonnnnnng way to explain why we have people claiming the game feels less and less like a Starcraft game. Obviously, we're expecting different units, but the fact they don't care about the themes of the race means the path that Starcraft 2 is going to take is really worrying. Keep in mind that Starcraft 2 is different from Starcraft Brood War. Theme for each race will develop on its own as they create new units and mechanics for starcraft 2. As long as they keep each race different from each other I'm sure theme will emerge. Just don't expect the theme and characteristic of each races to be the same as Starcraft Brood War because I don't think that's the designers approach to game design. | ||
jmbthirteen
United States10734 Posts
Good interview though. Always seems like Browder gives good interviews. Good questions too Kennigit. Very informative watch. | ||
Cuiu
Germany410 Posts
thx Kennigit. but its soooo short i wish you had more time | ||
Sabu113
United States11034 Posts
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papaz
Sweden4149 Posts
They are gonna add a bunch of new units/make balance changes up to the point where it is a new game. What if the game we end up with in LoTV is worse the previous versions in terms of gameplay/metagame. Will they consider adding/removing units or are they done with those aspects and will focus only on tweaks on what is in the game. | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
On October 25 2011 15:28 Kroml. wrote: he is practicing law on the forum, specifically "debating opposing ideas" during college downtime and undercover of forum discussion :p but yeah felt sorry for the guy, he eventually surrendered haha it was fun debating... | ||
LXR
357 Posts
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tyrless
United States485 Posts
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Belha
Italy2850 Posts
Is really sad to hear som kind of dislike from Browder to the bw comparision, specially i hate when he says that "balls" battle (compared to the "lines" from bw) will not change almost ever, despite some new harass tactics : ( Besides that kind of hate (which imo is a very important issue), i like the other thoughts. | ||
MilesTeg
France1271 Posts
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Zlasher
United States9129 Posts
The next comment is, and its not Starcraft reltaed, but how will the always-live connection to battlenet work with Diablo, we've seen Starcraft servers go down on occassion, especially in beta and early release, how can that NOT happen in Diablo, and how will that NOT fuck everything up, especially with people playing hell mode and beyond where if they die, its completely permanently game over for them. Those are my two biggest concerns for Blizzard. | ||
Nemireck
Canada1875 Posts
On October 25 2011 11:41 FreudianTrip wrote: You've literally just jumped from one extreme to the other. He's obviously a teenager man, that's what they do. | ||
Osmoses
Sweden5302 Posts
When he started talking about units he regretted and he said "for example" I soooo wanted him to say colossus :p | ||
PraiseB
Australia135 Posts
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SedativeDev
Slovenia316 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:45 Raiznhell wrote: Honestly there's too much whining about Terran specifically. Like honestly aside from Code S no other tournament is very Terran heavy AT ALL. Also nobody points to the fact that Code S has a lot of issues with routing bad players out of Code S and getting good players in. The whole tournament system pre-Ro16 is entirely flawed. Just look at how Code S became filled with Terran in the first place. Because Code A got stacked with Good players that belonged in Code S like MMA, Ganzi, Mvp and Bomber to name a few. They all climbed their way into Code S however due to the flaw of up and downs not all the bad players were routed out. But now look at Code A full of Zerg and Protoss who are all going to make their shot for Code S and is now also getting refilled by more Protoss and Zerg specifically 4 foreigner Protoss and Zerg players and what do you think is going to happen? Code S may start to balance out or even become dry of Terrans. People Jump on the hate train way too fast and never have patience. Look at MLG Orlando, IEM, IPL and now the Korean Weekly. All going to have Protoss and Zerg Champions and not even have Terran make it to the finals. No good Terrans some have said? WHAT? PuMA, Bomber, TheSTC, forGG (who's playing fantastically) Taeja? all not good Terrans? Get outta here. Another thing to touch on is look at BW. 99% of players would argue that BW is almost completely balanced and is the most balanced game in the world involving 3+race/faction differential. Yet still....guess what Terran is pretty damn dominant. Protoss and Zergs catch their time every now and then but for the most part you would see Fantasy or Flash or going way back BoxeR, NaDa, OOV even lesser Terrans like Midas dominate a ton. There was a point in BW where Terran literally seemed unbeatable until eventually someone who figure one little thing out. Yet in SC2 everyone points to Terran being imba when the only real Tournament Terran is seeing a lot of success in is Code S which again is only Terran heavy due to Code A being filled with Z and P right now and a flawed up and down system. I guarantee you that is a player in SC2 loses a game in the current state it's because he deserved to and he could have won had he played better. Best answer in this thread which is filled with whiners. In all thread i read latelly all u hear is OP that OP this, even on HOTS when the game is even not in the beta stages lol. omg. People need to f..k the calm down. If u loose a game that doesn't mean that its broken. I got that feeling that all posters on TL are fricking top GM and knows all aspects of game. All of this is getting boring. Just play the game. I even saw posts like how can LAN be so tough to implement if we have hacked LAN version. The most stuped post... If u are developer at blizzard (worked on b.net adn sc2) i apologise for calling ur post stupid... On interview: I think the DB answered all questions in good an honest way. Don't hate the guy just because its hipster thing to do. His answers are allways filled with enthusiasm and wilingness to explain why the things are how they are. | ||
El_Deuz
Mexico71 Posts
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Madera
Sweden2672 Posts
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weedhydra
28 Posts
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Wildsound
United Kingdom144 Posts
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AnxiousHippo
Australia1451 Posts
"Riiiiight?" | ||
dubRa
2165 Posts
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Gotmog
Serbia899 Posts
however, 1st question should've been, "how dare you sit there in a Terran shirt ?!" :D | ||
TheKefka
Croatia11752 Posts
It's kinda funny hearing Browder talk about missed opportunitys and lessons learned and than throwing out these ridisculose new units at blizzcon.I hope it was just for the "wow" factor and to get people to talk about the expansion. Other than that I still don't know how to feel about,and I wish you would have forced the issue even more in the interview;balancing the game for everyone,from bronze to GM.I understand it in a way but if dropping shreders into a mineral line is "the thing to do" in bronze,than well if you get killed by it 10 times you are bound to learn some leason from it and learn or think about how to handle it. If I could talk to him I would have drawn a parallel with WoW or D3 where they openly say that they don't balance the game for anything except around the max lvl cap.I don't see why this is so different,but instead of a "max lvl" in sc2 the balance improves the more you climb up the ladder and this is why I think their design philosophy is flawed because they are essentially taking the hard lessons learned,that makes you improve,away from players by trying to dumb down the game as much as possible for lower leagues.I know ladder is already a scarry experiance for many people but I'm not sure if I would believe anyone that says to me that they play 1v1 and are not trying to get better in the process. | ||
m0ck
4194 Posts
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Polygamy
Austria1114 Posts
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gulati
United States2241 Posts
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SelectStaR
United Kingdom129 Posts
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Toadvine
Poland2234 Posts
I also don't like his way of dealing with the "deathball" problem. You should do that by introducing more harassment opportunities and units that work well in small numbers, so having all your shit in one place actually becomes a bad idea. Not by designing units that CAN'T be used in an army, like Shredders or Oracles. On October 25 2011 13:45 Raiznhell wrote: Honestly there's too much whining about Terran specifically. Like honestly aside from Code S no other tournament is very Terran heavy AT ALL. Also nobody points to the fact that Code S has a lot of issues with routing bad players out of Code S and getting good players in. The whole tournament system pre-Ro16 is entirely flawed. Just look at how Code S became filled with Terran in the first place. Because Code A got stacked with Good players that belonged in Code S like MMA, Ganzi, Mvp and Bomber to name a few. They all climbed their way into Code S however due to the flaw of up and downs not all the bad players were routed out. But now look at Code A full of Zerg and Protoss who are all going to make their shot for Code S and is now also getting refilled by more Protoss and Zerg specifically 4 foreigner Protoss and Zerg players and what do you think is going to happen? Code S may start to balance out or even become dry of Terrans. People Jump on the hate train way too fast and never have patience. Look at MLG Orlando, IEM, IPL and now the Korean Weekly. All going to have Protoss and Zerg Champions and not even have Terran make it to the finals. No good Terrans some have said? WHAT? PuMA, Bomber, TheSTC, forGG (who's playing fantastically) Taeja? all not good Terrans? Get outta here. Another thing to touch on is look at BW. 99% of players would argue that BW is almost completely balanced and is the most balanced game in the world involving 3+race/faction differential. Yet still....guess what Terran is pretty damn dominant. Protoss and Zergs catch their time every now and then but for the most part you would see Fantasy or Flash or going way back BoxeR, NaDa, OOV even lesser Terrans like Midas dominate a ton. There was a point in BW where Terran literally seemed unbeatable until eventually someone who figure one little thing out. Yet in SC2 everyone points to Terran being imba when the only real Tournament Terran is seeing a lot of success in is Code S which again is only Terran heavy due to Code A being filled with Z and P right now and a flawed up and down system. I guarantee you that is a player in SC2 loses a game in the current state it's because he deserved to and he could have won had he played better. I read stuff like this, and I marvel at how good the human mind is at lying to itself. You probably really believe this to be sound reasoning, which is a bit depressing. But hey, anything is better than admitting that Terran is too good, because that would hurt the precious egos of Terran players who lose to Zerg and Protoss on the ladder. I mean, come on. There are 19 Terrans in Code S because "there just happened to be awesome Terran players in Code A"? I guess you're one of the people who believe that there are 15 top5 Terrans in Code S, and that they all deserve their spots because of how amazing they are. I don't even especially think ZvT is especially imbalanced, although it's way easier for an inferior Terran to beat a better Zerg than vice versa. However, to think Protoss is fine from their results in major tournaments and from watching how the games play out requires an amazing amount of denial. I mean, wow, Protoss actually got Top2 in a tournament with no good ZvPer, and with most of the PvTs having one player cheese or just do retarded crap (like Bomber's "hidden expo" vs Sase on Shakuras or MKP's "24 Marines with no upgrades and 0 bunkers vs 6 Gate"). Awesome. All the while, even with all the "new Protoss hopes" in Code A, we still have 5 Protoss in Code S next season, and that's only because of MC getting a spot from Orlando. And bringing up BW as an analogy is just so disingenuous. BW had long periods of one race dominating a given matchup, yes, but it wasn't just one race on top of everything constantly. BW winrate graphs have nice sinusoid shapes for almost all the matchups, while the SC2 graph only consistently shows one thing - Terran on top. | ||
Keitzer
United States2509 Posts
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Turbo.Tactics
Germany675 Posts
<3 Kennigit! | ||
Robinsa
Japan1333 Posts
That being said, I HATE blizzard for not implementing LAN. The "its so hard to do" stuff is just bullshit and we all know it. | ||
Stiluz
Norway688 Posts
My only complaint is the map pool... He says community maps and the like often are more like near-finished maps, but that doesn't take away from the fact that many of the ladder maps are bad (Searing) or not fun at all (Nerazim). Surely it should be possible to add a few more GSL/MLG maps and a few more vetoes. Would it be confusing for the Bronze player that just got into SC2? ... Maybe. But how about having all the big maps/GSL/MLG maps vetoed by default? There could be a warning saying that these maps are for more experienced players, or something like that. I don't have a lot of practice partners, so ladder is my only way to play alot. At least I'd like the opportunity to play the cool maps I see the pros play on in tournaments. | ||
iky43210
United States2099 Posts
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aZealot
New Zealand5447 Posts
On October 25 2011 15:32 GhostFall wrote: Soooo is anyone else kinda disappointed in the answers at 8:40. The themes of the race is what made Starcraft feel like Starcraft. This GOES a loonnnnnng way to explain why we have people claiming the game feels less and less like a Starcraft game. Obviously, we're expecting different units, but the fact they don't care about the themes of the race means the path that Starcraft 2 is going to take is really worrying. Yeah, this is true. I felt this with WOL and think it will only get worse in HOTS (at least as things currently stand). I feel that Protoss is becoming less and less Protoss, and by extension the game is becoming less the Starcraft I used to know. But if that is the case, I will simply stop playing and move on to other things. The game, who knows, may be better for it. I just won't want to be a part of it. | ||
pred470r
Bulgaria3265 Posts
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TheyCallMePops
United States81 Posts
On October 25 2011 10:36 aksfjh wrote: If you think this is the case, then go play DotA 2 and TF2. Nobody is bending your arm to pay attention to their response to the community. You obviously care enough about what they've done already with that same attitude to buy and participate in the SC2 community, but by all means go worship Valve if you think their approach produces better games. This is an awful way to take a comparison about two companies policies out of hand. All he's asking for is the same care and consideration towards their communities that Valve provides. Valve's main goal in creating their games is providing the tools that will allow for the best end-user experience, to the point where they bend over backwards to do so. This simply isn't the case with Blizzard, who instead design a system that is inherently worse than their previous attempts ("Battle.net 0.2", as it has been dubbed by some) and then don't include some very basic and, in the opinions of many fans and pro-gamers alike, necessary functions (like LAN play, at least for tournaments). Sure, Blizzard has their reasons, but for many they are not good enough and people see the differences in the way companies handle their games, the feedback they receive, and ultimately, their fanbases. Comparing two companies and the way that they handle their eSports scene isn't wrong, and telling someone to "go play another game if you don't like it" seems to be a childish way to handle the situation. Competition is what inspires improvements, and we see this theory in practice in the way that tournaments are handled and the care taken to facilitate the pros and the fans. The comparisons that are drawn between two companies that both have games that are very entrenched in the eSports scene is only natural, and should be taken into consideration, not simply passed off as fanboy-ism or what-have-you. | ||
ALPINA
3791 Posts
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Micket
United Kingdom2163 Posts
On October 25 2011 18:11 Toadvine wrote: Well, at least Browder's sincere in the "you should go back to Brood War if you don't like this" statements, always nice to see the PR bullshit dropped for a bit. Still, it's really worrying that he doesn't see any major problems with the current design of the game. Both Protoss and Zerg look like ticking time-bombs, with Protoss having the possibility to be completely awful come HotS, and Zerg being insanely oveprowered with their new stuff. I also don't like his way of dealing with the "deathball" problem. You should do that by introducing more harassment opportunities and units that work well in small numbers, so having all your shit in one place actually becomes a bad idea. Not by designing units that CAN'T be used in an army, like Shredders or Oracles. I read stuff like this, and I marvel at how good the human mind is at lying to itself. You probably really believe this to be sound reasoning, which is a bit depressing. But hey, anything is better than admitting that Terran is too good, because that would hurt the precious egos of Terran players who lose to Zerg and Protoss on the ladder. I mean, come on. There are 19 Terrans in Code S because "there just happened to be awesome Terran players in Code A"? I guess you're one of the people who believe that there are 15 top5 Terrans in Code S, and that they all deserve their spots because of how amazing they are. I don't even especially think ZvT is especially imbalanced, although it's way easier for an inferior Terran to beat a better Zerg than vice versa. However, to think Protoss is fine from their results in major tournaments and from watching how the games play out requires an amazing amount of denial. I mean, wow, Protoss actually got Top2 in a tournament with no good ZvPer, and with most of the PvTs having one player cheese or just do retarded crap (like Bomber's "hidden expo" vs Sase on Shakuras or MKP's "24 Marines with no upgrades and 0 bunkers vs 6 Gate"). Awesome. All the while, even with all the "new Protoss hopes" in Code A, we still have 5 Protoss in Code S next season, and that's only because of MC getting a spot from Orlando. And bringing up BW as an analogy is just so disingenuous. BW had long periods of one race dominating a given matchup, yes, but it wasn't just one race on top of everything constantly. BW winrate graphs have nice sinusoid shapes for almost all the matchups, while the SC2 graph only consistently shows one thing - Terran on top. Adding to this, those that say Terran is dominant in BW are deluding themselves. True, the bonjwas are mostly Terran, but thats like saying Zerg is dominant because NesTea is a good player. If you look at PL statistics, it is 49%, 50%, 51% winrate, for T, Z, P respectively. That's pretty amazing if you ask me. Outside of Flash and Fantasy, Terrans aren't nearly as good and actually, there are a ton of Zergs who are really good and are better than the majority of Terran players. | ||
m0ck
4194 Posts
On October 25 2011 18:43 Micket wrote: Adding to this, those that say Terran is dominant in BW are deluding themselves. True, the bonjwas are mostly Terran, but thats like saying Zerg is dominant because NesTea is a good player. If you look at PL statistics, it is 49%, 50%, 51% winrate, for T, Z, P respectively. That's pretty amazing if you ask me. Outside of Flash and Fantasy, Terrans aren't nearly as good and actually, there are a ton of Zergs who are really good and are better than the majority of Terran players. This cannot be said enough: outside korea there has been no indication of protoss being the weaker race. | ||
Spitmode
Germany1510 Posts
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Striding Strider
United Kingdom787 Posts
On October 25 2011 15:32 GhostFall wrote: Soooo is anyone else kinda disappointed in the answers at 8:40. The themes of the race is what made Starcraft feel like Starcraft. This GOES a loonnnnnng way to explain why we have people claiming the game feels less and less like a Starcraft game. Obviously, we're expecting different units, but the fact they don't care about the themes of the race means the path that Starcraft 2 is going to take is really worrying. Yes. | ||
Gorguts
Canada254 Posts
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TheyCallMePops
United States81 Posts
An interesting thing to note is that when they showed the Swarm Host unit they said it was "very zerg-y", but then DB goes ahead and says that any race themes are simply perceived and not really backed by Blizzard. Seems a bit contradictory don't you think...? DB seems to make a lot of sense though, but that response in particular seemed very... odd to me. | ||
Splunge
Germany925 Posts
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RogerX
New Zealand3180 Posts
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pezit
Sweden302 Posts
Amazing interview by kennegit, asking the hard questions and not just sucking up. | ||
Audio
United States60 Posts
EDIT: great interview though, I mean the questions you asked basically affirmed my suspicions that blizzard is clueless.... | ||
Zeon0
Austria2995 Posts
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Toadvine
Poland2234 Posts
On October 25 2011 18:50 m0ck wrote: This cannot be said enough: outside korea there has been no indication of protoss being the weaker race. No indication of Protoss being the weaker race outside Korea in BW? o.O In SC2 there's less and less of a division between "outside Korea" and "inside Korea" as more and more Korean players travel to international events, and more and more foreigners move to Korea to train and compete in GSL. And it's not like Protoss is doing especially well in foreign tournaments anyway. Even at Orlando like half the Top8 are Korean Terrans. | ||
Unas84
Netherlands62 Posts
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Macabre
United States1262 Posts
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enzym
Germany1034 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:57 Pyre wrote: Good interview, worries me how clueless they act on stuff. How can you not think about how the game changes adding new units. Only adding because they are cool scares me. Yes they can be tweaked but by how much? On October 25 2011 11:12 dtvu wrote: Great Interview Kennigit. Dustin Browder sounds earnest in his attempts to make SC2 a great game. I think his points regarding the need to change the theme of each race with addition of new units to be lazy. For me Protoss should always be expensive, strong, highly technologically advanced; Terran is hard hitting, medium cost, defensive oriented; while zerg are fast, cheap and in large numbers. I agree with these posts, and what Dustin expressed in the interview is what worries me most about the direction of StarCraft. He said the following: 9:33 "You know, we don't think of the races as really tightly themed... If themes emerge, so be it." 9:53 "There's no way to add a new unit to this game without changing it, right? The race will change. It must change if we add any new units. If you want exactly the same game, please go play Brood War... By the very nature of changing units we will change the nature of the race." 10:23 "We are not as worried about specific character for the race. That's not what we're trying to do." I appreciate the honesty here, but I have numerous problems with this understanding. If races don't have a specific theme and feel to them, then what are they other than a name? What makes StarCraft other than the names in it? It loses its character. It becomes dumbed down, an empty shell. Just like dtvu said: Zerg used to be these creepy, evil aliens, but they changed into being just bug like and very superficially disgusting with WoL. They feel less alien and more like 'just bugs'. Less sinister and more like fancy toys. It changes not only the nature of the race, but the perceived atmosphere of the setting of the entire game itself. For my next criticism I would like to agree with dtvu again. Where is the reasoning demanding that the addition of new units must necessarily change the nature and concept of the race? Is that not what artists are there for - to ensure that new content does not break with the concepts and lore that was previously there? I, too, think that Blizzard is being lazy here. Of course the gameplay must change. That's uncontested. It's the purpose of new units. It keeps the content interesting if any great enough lack of interest justifies it and gives the developer better arguments to convince customers to continue to buy expansions. But the same cannot be said for the atmosphere of the game itself. They're killing their own universe, and that's fine, if that's what they want to do. But I prefer not only some consistency in setting, but I also prefer xenos over children's toys. The ease with which Blizzard seems to be able to completely disregard where their stories came from worries and disappoints me. This realization isn't entirely new, however. People have started to notice it as early as in WC3. It persisted through WoW (where countless elements of lore have been retconned for convenience as well) and has now been introduced into StarCraft, too. I just wish they'd handle their stories with more devotion and care instead of discarding them so easily. Asking people to go play Brood War instead does not address the issue, being an easy cop-out just as disregarding game history is an easy way to churn out new content. On another matter, some people have mentioned the Devs wearing Terran-shirts, proposing this as an indicator and reasoning behind balance decisions. I'd like to offer an alternative explanation. Maybe they're just wearing these because they are a Terran corporation, made up of human employees. Seriously guys, there is the possibility that it is just a t-shirt. ^^ | ||
XsebT
Denmark2980 Posts
I especially liked the bit with: "Please go play brood war, coz it's awesome" - Dustin Browder. Of course the quote is taken a little out of context, but I actually admire that they're trying to make a new game. And considering how many people who like it, they're certainly not doing a bad job at it. | ||
Hider
Denmark9242 Posts
Besides from that, Dustin Browder just seems like he is kinda unstructured in the way, that he has a lot of ideas, and think, "hey that could be cool, lets do that". Instead of trying to theoretize the potential drawbacks, and analyze it more indepthly. And if your profession is "starcraft 2 design", you should be able to that. But the kidna problem is that he just doesn't seem to really have a good grasp on what good design is. The only thing he seem to care about, is whether bad players can use the unit as well, but there are a lot more factors that decides whether the design is good or bad, and IMO Blizzard needs to define the factors that define good good design, and pull every unit through that list, before they add them to the expansion. If they do this intelligently, the beta of HOTS will mostly be a "balance-beta". What will happen instead, is that a lot of units will be taken out of the game, and other readded over the next months untill release, because Dustin Browder did not work systhematically (and test the units through the "good design"-conditions/definitions). And no, I dont they really have a well throught out definition of good design, because if they had so they would most likely have presented them for the community. Now they are just saying that they want to add cool units. Someone else mentioned that they did not like that Dustin Browder did not have an idea for how each race should be played, and I agree with that. I feel that each race should be kinda special in the way that "Terran immobile, but strong if well positioned". "Zerg mobile, weak/cheap units". "Toss, mediocore mobile, lots of microable units like storm"." But the problem with toss is that microable skills (like blink) doesn't make entertaining games in it self. There needs to be more than that, and their plan for toss just doesn't seem very well throught out unfortunately. | ||
Steglich
Denmark282 Posts
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Grettin
42379 Posts
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EaryKing
Bulgaria158 Posts
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Twinmold
Sweden238 Posts
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ImustnotfeaR
United Kingdom154 Posts
thankyou for the creep tumors, the reason i picked zerg! you are a bald don | ||
zYwi3c
Poland1811 Posts
We love you Kennigit. | ||
Paladia
802 Posts
To return to the question, he says he wished every race was like that. However, he doesn't have to wish, as he is in charge, he can just make it happen. | ||
Dectilon
Sweden50 Posts
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Pipeline
Sweden1673 Posts
Great interview! I got to say Im very worried about the state of zerg and protoss coming in to HOTS. I feel like zergs will have huge issues where they are all easy countered by terran. I dont like that burrow tech is becoming vital and how easy and fast terrans can counter it. Doing run-by strats will not work when you give terrans shredders (please remove them asap). It feels super weird that the two races with the least amount of units (zerg and protoss) get one or two removed and terran stays the same. As the situation is with PvT I feel its very weird and awkward by blizzard to remove the only real solid unit protoss have (Zealot), by buffing helions to some crazy shit transformer. I really don't get that. It feels again like terran is suppose to have the most units, the most army supply and the counter to everything. What stands out as the worst decision made by Browder and his team is the replicator. Who thought it was a good idea? That the counter to ghosts late game is for protoss to replicate ghosts to EMP the terrans ghosts first? Is the same logic applied to Infestors and NP? Is the counter to mass ghost late game for zerg to NP a ghost to EMP his ghost buddies to stop the massive snipes of broodlords, ultralisks, overseers, mutalisk and infestors? I don't like being negative, but I cant help to feel awfully frustrated atm. | ||
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
I really hope they get a fix on the ball vs ball problem. More importance on positioning and holding ground. | ||
Blizzard_torments_me
Romania199 Posts
On October 25 2011 20:01 Pipeline wrote: Thanks Kennigit. Great interview! I got to say Im very worried about the state of zerg and protoss coming in to HOTS. I feel like zergs will have huge issues where they are all easy countered by terran. I dont like that burrow tech is becoming vital and how easy and fast terrans can counter it. Doing run-by strats will not work when you give terrans shredders (please remove them asap). It feels super weird that the two races with the least amount of units (zerg and protoss) get one or two removed and terran stays the same. As the situation is with PvT I feel its very weird and awkward by blizzard to remove the only real solid unit protoss have (Zealot), by buffing helions to some crazy shit transformer. I really don't get that. It feels again like terran is suppose to have the most units, the most army supply and the counter to everything. What stands out as the worst decision made by Browder and his team is the replicator. Who thought it was a good idea? That the counter to ghosts late game is for protoss to replicate ghosts to EMP the terrans ghosts first? Is the same logic applied to Infestors and NP? Is the counter to mass ghost late game for zerg to NP a ghost to EMP his ghost buddies to stop the massive snipes of broodlords, ultralisks, overseers, mutalisk and infestors? I don't like being negative, but I cant help to feel awfully frustrated atm. Stop whining you hypocrite, Zerg has the most powerful lategame atm. Ghost's are useless against ling baneling, if you'd actually get a support army for those broodlords and not make mostly broodlords you'd roll any ghost composition in late game. User was warned for this post | ||
Noocta
France12574 Posts
It's sad that Blizzard made the game require battlenet in his very inside code tho. If lobby need to get maps from battlenet, and lobby need to be support by battlenet, i don't think they will ever give us LAN now. | ||
hugman
Sweden4644 Posts
Even when he acknowledges problems he doesn't commit to addressing them | ||
grappasc
Belgium86 Posts
"we got feedback for instance frequently during beta that when we changed the roach, you know umm, foodcost that we've ruined the race. now zerg were not numerous. right, they had a big unit. I was like well you know, there's no way to add a new unit to this game without changing it. the race will change. it must change, if we add any new units and if you want the exact same game, please go play broodwar. it's awesome, right? but we are by the very nature of changing the units, we will change the nature of the race. so in the case of WoL we felt like the zerg felt massable, because you would hit with 200 food, but because you could save a billion larva, you could hit with 200 food again a few, you know 35 to 45 seconds later and that felt like the zerg to us. but we're not as worried about a specific character for the race. that's not what we're trying to do. in terms of, I think, I think what the real feedback is I'm getting out of what you're saying is the terrans feel like they got too much stuff, which is fair enough. like I kinda wish all the races felt like they had too much stuff, instead of just the terrans." what a load of crap. you can keep within a theme and make hundreds of units without changing the theme. but ok, so race character doesn't matter to you. ok, I guess that explains why we have this super cool unit called roamaraulker. if that's their approach to designing this game, sc2 won't survive competition. a skin theme is not enough. grey vs brown vs yellow. the game feels average in design if the races don't have an identity beyond a color and a couple macro mechanics you still struggle to balance. you're just making cool units? that's so disappointing. that's like the mentality of an 8-year-old. would it really be that hard to make a 1 food unit for zerg, remove the roach etc... bs. they're just lazy. they showed early builds of starcraft 2 and roach was originally a melee unit. it still looks like one. they're lazy. "...money, money, money..." | ||
Eufouria
United Kingdom4425 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:40 Torte de Lini wrote: Is it just me or does Kennigit look a bit like Buble? WOAH WOAH WOAH! So you think all Canadians look the same? | ||
dragonsuper
Liechtenstein222 Posts
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sib-pelle
Sweden162 Posts
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rd
United States2586 Posts
On October 25 2011 18:54 Gorguts wrote: Well about the "Go back to broodwar" stuff, i don't think he was trying to be a jerk or anything. it's just that there is no way to fix that. if they made the AI worse on purpose there'd be a billion complaints. He also speaks of taking risks and bringing in new changes while receiving complaints, that ultimately die down when everyone gets over it and adjusts. There are ways to fix it, but for some reason he has a fetish with AoE. Units ball up, AoE is extremely effective. Protoss now have a T3 flying colossus to match their colossus. | ||
Mirosuu
England283 Posts
On October 25 2011 12:10 sGs.Kal_rA wrote: Sounds like a load of crap to me.. Just an excuse.. Blizz is rich enough to get it done. They just like the control and I've come to accept it. Besides the 'bunker' part it was a pretty decent interview.Kennigit is awesome! What? Why would you spend all that money, to re-write the whole game for LAN support when even when it's finished, you may be losing money from the game. It doesn't make any logical sense to even consider it, so I'm happy to just get over it. You should too. | ||
bLah.
Croatia497 Posts
So he'll say things like "you're ahead of us in tactics etc, we just create units etc", which of course isn't true. They have balance team, they take feedback from pros and rest of the scene. It's just that balancing process is pretty hard and some design changes even small can make huge difference in game. | ||
Ynyienae
United States58 Posts
I was going along nicely with him until the LAN question came up. Why can't they make a Tourney version for MLG and IPL and whoever, and charge them 50k for the service for a year? Or a one time fee per expansion? Makes me sad for esports | ||
IMABUNNEH
United Kingdom1062 Posts
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The99
United States5 Posts
Do people not understand that the balancing games is a ridiculously hard task? I mean you guys act like terran has been the dominant race from the beginning till now. Each race has had its time on the top. Give the guy a break. He gives his honest answers and I would hope people would respect the fact that for the most part he doesn't bullshit you. As the lead game designer he needs to take into consideration all types of players not just the very top. I had no idea that the success of the game solely relies on the very top echelon of players. Blizzard is a company that makes games. If they are making a profit obviously they are doing something right. I would go as far as to argue that as long as they are making profits they have the gamers' best interest in mind. When the hell did people suddenly have the expectation that companies should be selfless bodies held to some kind of virtuous standard. I mean damn guys, stop to think for a moment what kinds of motivations Browder has for his actions and thought processes before you just judge him based on your own biases. | ||
Blasterion
China10272 Posts
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thesideshow
930 Posts
On Oct 25 2011 11:22 enzym wrote: I appreciate the honesty here, but I have numerous problems with this understanding. If races don't have a specific theme and feel to them, then what are they other than a name? What makes StarCraft other than the names in it? It loses its character. It becomes dumbed down, an empty shell. Just like dtvu said: Zerg used to be these creepy, evil aliens, but they changed into being just bug like and very superficially disgusting with WoL. They feel less alien and more like 'just bugs'. Less sinister and more like fancy toys. It changes not only the nature of the race, but the perceived atmosphere of the setting of the entire game itself. I think he was referring to theme not in a aesthetic or atmospheric sense, but in gameplay sense. They design cool units, put them in, and if a metagame-ish theme appears, so be it. I'm sure the art designers attempt to make the zerg units look as creepy and evil as possible. Whether or not they succeeded is a different story. | ||
thesideshow
930 Posts
On Oct 25 2011 13:04<span style='color:#d20000'> (14 min)</span> Ynyienae wrote: Felt like this was one of the better interviews of Dustin Browder I've seen. Nice job Kennigit and TL. I was going along nicely with him until the LAN question came up. Why can't they make a Tourney version for MLG and IPL and whoever, and charge them 50k for the service for a year? Or a one time fee per expansion? Makes me sad for esports Because someone will get their hands on it and put it on torrents. | ||
labbe
Sweden1456 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:45 Raiznhell wrote: Honestly there's too much whining about Terran specifically. Like honestly aside from Code S no other tournament is very Terran heavy AT ALL. Also nobody points to the fact that Code S has a lot of issues with routing bad players out of Code S and getting good players in. The whole tournament system pre-Ro16 is entirely flawed. Just look at how Code S became filled with Terran in the first place. Because Code A got stacked with Good players that belonged in Code S like MMA, Ganzi, Mvp and Bomber to name a few. They all climbed their way into Code S however due to the flaw of up and downs not all the bad players were routed out. But now look at Code A full of Zerg and Protoss who are all going to make their shot for Code S and is now also getting refilled by more Protoss and Zerg specifically 4 foreigner Protoss and Zerg players and what do you think is going to happen? Code S may start to balance out or even become dry of Terrans. People Jump on the hate train way too fast and never have patience. Look at MLG Orlando, IEM, IPL and now the Korean Weekly. All going to have Protoss and Zerg Champions and not even have Terran make it to the finals. No good Terrans some have said? WHAT? PuMA, Bomber, TheSTC, forGG (who's playing fantastically) Taeja? all not good Terrans? Get outta here. Another thing to touch on is look at BW. 99% of players would argue that BW is almost completely balanced and is the most balanced game in the world involving 3+race/faction differential. Yet still....guess what Terran is pretty damn dominant. Protoss and Zergs catch their time every now and then but for the most part you would see Fantasy or Flash or going way back BoxeR, NaDa, OOV even lesser Terrans like Midas dominate a ton. There was a point in BW where Terran literally seemed unbeatable until eventually someone who figure one little thing out. Yet in SC2 everyone points to Terran being imba when the only real Tournament Terran is seeing a lot of success in is Code S which again is only Terran heavy due to Code A being filled with Z and P right now and a flawed up and down system. I guarantee you that is a player in SC2 loses a game in the current state it's because he deserved to and he could have won had he played better. I love you. | ||
rockslave
Brazil318 Posts
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Achaia
United States643 Posts
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Dommk
Australia4865 Posts
On October 25 2011 20:22 hugman wrote: Very disappointing answers =( Even when he acknowledges problems he doesn't commit to addressing them That is standard Blizzard speak. Same with Valve | ||
Dispersion
Korea (South)504 Posts
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mindjames
Israel320 Posts
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dmg7
101 Posts
On October 25 2011 21:11 The99 wrote: I don't post much at all... but hearing people post about Browder making terran "imba" because of his own bias towards that race are fucking stupid (it's the truth). Terran t-shirts that the staff are wearing as evidence of this, really?!?!? Do people not understand that the balancing games is a ridiculously hard task? I mean you guys act like terran has been the dominant race from the beginning till now. Each race has had its time on the top. Give the guy a break. He gives his honest answers and I would hope people would respect the fact that for the most part he doesn't bullshit you. As the lead game designer he needs to take into consideration all types of players not just the very top. I had no idea that the success of the game solely relies on the very top echelon of players. Blizzard is a company that makes games. If they are making a profit obviously they are doing something right. I would go as far as to argue that as long as they are making profits they have the gamers' best interest in mind. When the hell did people suddenly have the expectation that companies should be selfless bodies held to some kind of virtuous standard. I mean damn guys, stop to think for a moment what kinds of motivations Browder has for his actions and thought processes before you just judge him based on your own biases. If all you're posts are as well written as this then I think I'd marry you | ||
JmCw
Germany68 Posts
On October 25 2011 21:04 Ynyienae wrote:. I was going along nicely with him until the LAN question came up. Why can't they make a Tourney version for MLG and IPL and whoever, and charge them 50k for the service for a year? Or a one time fee per expansion? Makes me sad for esports Probably because this LAN version would be leaked and then everyone could use it. | ||
IamPryda
United States1186 Posts
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Zorgaz
Sweden2951 Posts
Hopefully we also get better maps in the future.... Sad about LAN T_T | ||
Calvin[Deck]
Denmark88 Posts
On October 25 2011 19:10 Toadvine wrote: No indication of Protoss being the weaker race outside Korea in BW? o.O In SC2 there's less and less of a division between "outside Korea" and "inside Korea" as more and more Korean players travel to international events, and more and more foreigners move to Korea to train and compete in GSL. And it's not like Protoss is doing especially well in foreign tournaments anyway. Even at Orlando like half the Top8 are Korean Terrans. I cannot understand why people want to use so much time and energy on balance discussions. Its like everyone want to justify that their race is weaker so they have something to put it on when they loose. The game is quite well balanced op to mid masters on all servers, and if you are below that you can always blame yourself for loosing, not game balance. And even if you are top masters, and the game is not balanced, then look at it as a challenge and try to make some builds to shift the metagame, instead of going to the forums and start endless discussions. | ||
cYaN
Norway3322 Posts
So here I am, the average starcraft player/spectator, watching one set of maps and playing on another. That decreases my interest in both to be honest. I can't play on what the pros play on? I can't watch the pros play on what I play on? Obviously I'm going a bit further than the situation is today because there's quite a few crossovers, but still. My ideal solution would be that blizzard accepted the situation and put in maps that have been tried in tournaments after a full gsl of it or 2mlgs or something. Keep in mind we never got the msl/osl/pl maps straight away either. Always took a bit of time and it would be fine if it took a bit more here, but this is getting silly. At this point the GSL has 9 maps. 2 are current ladder maps, 2 are old ladder maps. 5 are maps I've never played because I only play ladder. If I counted wrong.. doesn't matter. MLG is a little closer to the ladder, but still far enough off that it's not great. I WANT TO PLAY ON THE SAME MAPS I WATCH THE PROS PLAY. At least more or less. Easily fixable, no downside. I'm actually starting to think this is my biggest issue with sc2 at the moment. | ||
golensky
Ukraine3 Posts
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Carnac
Germany / USA16648 Posts
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simansh
257 Posts
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TedJustice
Canada1324 Posts
On October 25 2011 22:48 simansh wrote: How could they 'do something for tournaments' but not make lan work for everyone else. he says something about maps comings down from the server, but how would that be any different from tournaments? I like hes at least being honest like "Sorry no LAN", but still it feels like he doesn't actually say the real reason which is money. That's why I wish someone would bring up the LAN hack to them. Right now pirates have LAN and we don't. | ||
Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
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Cyborgryna
Germany12 Posts
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Bodzilla
Australia472 Posts
it's one thing to ask a guy some questions that need long thought out intelligent answers, but it's another thing to have passive aggressive questions thrown at you for over 20 minutes. I know you guys just went solely off what the community wanted, but maybe so less hardball questions, instead of roasting him answers. i mean the man built a brilliant game, he deserves some credit :/ | ||
TheHova
United Kingdom2612 Posts
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Tyree
1508 Posts
No point in asking about LAN, its just wasting time and being a bit obtuse since Blizzard has said, numerous times, that they will not put LAN in the game. They have a good reason (otherwise they would have put it in), and no they do not have to reveal to the community why, they dont owe them a answer. Do trust that they arent withholding LAN for "shits n giggles", ergo they arent trolling the community, Diablo 3 wont have LAN either. They arent doing it to shit on Starcraft fans. | ||
Coal
Sweden1535 Posts
'' Will do'' Really Dustin? | ||
Jampackedeon
United States2053 Posts
Also, Browder was right, though, that spreading creep has turned out to be an AWESOME mechanic. I absolutely love creep tumors, overlord creep and the new effects of Nydus creep. It's such an amazing idea to bring to an RTS that I really can't imagine anyone other than Blizzard being able to come up with it. | ||
Senx
Sweden5901 Posts
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Zorgaz
Sweden2951 Posts
Just make P/Z as versatile as T without removing T's versatility seems like a good idea. Tired of people saying T has too many options instead of P/Z having to few ^^. | ||
Chernobyl
Brazil143 Posts
A interview with Goliath!!! | ||
TheHova
United Kingdom2612 Posts
On October 25 2011 23:06 Coal wrote: ''Have a great weekend'' '' Will do'' Really Dustin? What's wrong with that ? | ||
K_osss
United States113 Posts
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Pandinus
Sweden29 Posts
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Assirra
Belgium4169 Posts
On October 25 2011 23:06 Coal wrote: ''Have a great weekend'' '' Will do'' Really Dustin? Wow, i heard about nitpicking but here i don't even see what is wrong... | ||
Ventil
Sweden414 Posts
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BlitzerSC
Italy8800 Posts
On October 25 2011 23:36 Assirra wrote: Wow, i heard about nitpicking but here i don't even see what is wrong... "Will do" it's what the BC says when you move it. edit: Well, now that i think about it, most of the terran units say that. | ||
Assirra
Belgium4169 Posts
On October 25 2011 23:39 BlitzerSC wrote: "Will do" it's what the BC says when you move it. edit: Well, now that i think about it, most of the terran units say that. Or its just him talking? is he supposed to say "blarerjlkfjddsf" (zerg language) cause its a HoTS focused blizzcon? | ||
Perfect
United States322 Posts
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Shirolol
England504 Posts
On October 25 2011 23:06 Coal wrote: ''Have a great weekend'' '' Will do'' Really Dustin? Really what? You are angry at him for confirming he will in fact have a great weekend? Are you angry because he might actually only have an average weekend or god forbid just a good weekend? No fucking clue. The interview didn't live up to my expectations though honestly, was just like all the normal interviews with a few pokes about some problems with the game at the moment - not the grilling I was hoping/expecting. | ||
Senx
Sweden5901 Posts
On October 25 2011 23:49 Shirolol wrote: Really what? You are angry at him for confirming he will in fact have a great weekend? Are you angry because he might actually only have an average weekend or god forbid just a good weekend? No fucking clue. The interview didn't live up to my expectations though honestly, was just like all the normal interviews with a few pokes about some problems with the game at the moment - not the grilling I was hoping/expecting. Or he was hinting at being polite and saying "you too?" .. | ||
ELA
Denmark4608 Posts
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bendez
Canada283 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:34 Bartimaeus wrote: First of all: mad props to the interviewer - that guy's questions were spot on and addressed many prominent issues without provoking Browder or bringing up balance too often. He did a great job and I'd love to see more interviews from him. To start on Browder: Negative: His shirt is a Terran shirt. Awesome lol. He talks about ways the Replicator would be removed (one of them already being in the alpha play [no massive]) . . . before its even in the game. He says the drawback of Terran is that you are . . . too complete? too good? This is, imo, a little ridiculous as even the person who designed Terran can't find a drawback to the race - as he is the one who should know the race better than any other. His inability to find a strong flaw is astounding and revealing. He's saying that he doesn't want to fix the pathfinder because he believes it will still be ball-on-ball action, just slightly smaller - his option is to take food out of the balls, which is essentially doing the same thing - making the balls smaller? He's crossing his fingers and saying "Maybe!" when he's talking about a unit (Swarm Host) he's going to throw into this game that will affect the income of many pros in varying ways. He dismisses the option of Lan by saying that it is a lot of work for them - not by saying that it would affect them negatively financially. I'd wish that he chose the other option because saying that it will be hard for them to do is almost taunting us, saying that he just doesn't want to work on it. THANK you I was just about to say that. | ||
mark05
Canada807 Posts
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conz
United Kingdom163 Posts
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MegaFonzie
Australia1084 Posts
Do you really have a problem with that? He addresses his claim when he says he'd rather a race have too many options than not enough. He has stated time and time again that they feel Terran is close to a 'complete' race, but the answer isn't to remove options, rather hopefully give them to other races. Whether you think they did or didn't address this with the proposed HotS changes is a different matter and a matter of opinion. Time will most likely tell. | ||
MCDayC
United Kingdom14464 Posts
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Kerm
France467 Posts
And to the nitpickers/haters out there ... nah nothing. Just get over that LAN thing, come on. | ||
Achaia
United States643 Posts
On October 26 2011 00:06 Caz. wrote: Do you really have a problem with that? He addresses his claim when he says he'd rather a race have too many options than not enough. He has stated time and time again that they feel Terran is close to a 'complete' race, but the answer isn't to remove options, rather hopefully give them to other races. Whether you think they did or didn't address this with the proposed HotS changes is a different matter and a matter of opinion. Time will most likely tell. Isn't a race being "complete" in SC2 a bad thing? I mean each race is supposed to have it's own difficulties that make them different. With Zerg I think most people would agree that the difficulty is walking the fine line between building army units and economy units, one small miss-step in that tight rope walk whether it's because of bad scouting or timing can cost you the game. With Protoss it seems to be more about map position in engagements and having the right unit combination in your death ball to deal with opponents. With Terrans it seems like their options are literally limitless with no drawbacks to most of them. I dunno, that's at least my perception of it but I'm far from the top tier of SC2 players. The point being, if one race is "complete" then it seems that either that race needs some options removed so they have similar limitations to the other races (not specifically like theirs because obviously each race is different but a racially defining weakness) or the other races need to be improved to be equally as "complete". | ||
PassiveAce
United States18069 Posts
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KULA_u
Switzerland107 Posts
Edit: really sick of bowder excuses for lan, map and stupid unit design. also the "we just put in sometihing cool and look how it works" is really not something that I expect from a game that is in this stage. I really think they should look at BW again and look how things work there and how they could make things more interesting. | ||
kickinhead
Switzerland2069 Posts
- How can he not know how heavily the community is engaged in making Maps, testing them out, organizing tournaments with the new Maps etc. I thought ICCUP had reached out to Blizzard several times and did exactly what Browder said was a necessary effort by the community to further improve the Maps, but he seemed like he had no clue about that. - Also, there shouldn't be such a problem coming up with ways to better the Mappool and make Mapmaking and playing on those Maps more attractive: Why not make community-contests where ppl vote on Maps and the best one gets into the new season Ladder-Mappool? Or rotate Maps from Korea into the Mappool faster; I mean - they do Test their Maps before they make it into the GSL. It's all there; Blizzard just needs to take whats given to them! | ||
Honeybadger
United States821 Posts
Get a life. Jesus. It's not even in beta. They don't owe you (or anyone else) shit, and here they are, working their asses off to put as much cool shit into the game that they're hoping will do nothing but make it better. And all you can do is act like juvenile, angry little nerdlings. They listen to feedback, they make meaningful changes, Browder is clearly a smart guy, and if some of you would get out of your basements for once, you'd realize that. The only other person from the gaming community that I respect as much as Browder is Gabe Newell. That dude actually responds to all ten thousand emails he gets when a new game comes out. I'd buy both of those guys a beer in a heartbeat (though maybe a light beer for gabe :D ) On October 26 2011 00:41 kickinhead wrote: I actually liked this Interview of Dustin Browder, cuz often, he kinda sounds like he has absolutely no clue, but this time, there was only 1 thing that completely baffled me: - How can he not know how heavily the community is engaged in making Maps, testing them out, organizing tournaments with the new Maps etc. I thought ICCUP had reached out to Blizzard several times and did exactly what Browder said was a necessary effort by the community to further improve the Maps, but he seemed like he had no clue about that. - Also, there shouldn't be such a problem coming up with ways to better the Mappool and make Mapmaking and playing on those Maps more attractive: Why not make community-contests where ppl vote on Maps and the best one gets into the new season Ladder-Mappool? Or rotate Maps from Korea into the Mappool faster; I mean - they do Test their Maps before they make it into the GSL. It's all there; Blizzard just needs to take whats given to them! Seriously? All he did was acknowledge immediately that the problem was fascinating and that he was really interested in it, but clearly said he didn't know how to answer it. All he could do is tell us the CURRENT theory they follow. But I have a sneaking suspicion, based on the enthusiasm he approached the idea with, that we might see something come of it. | ||
Theeakoz
United States1114 Posts
On October 25 2011 16:50 Nemireck wrote: He's obviously a teenager man, that's what they do. Right... well I as a teenager was so stubborn I never agreed even if I knew I was wrong. | ||
secretary bird
447 Posts
On October 26 2011 00:18 Achaia wrote: Isn't a race being "complete" in SC2 a bad thing? I mean each race is supposed to have it's own difficulties that make them different. With Zerg I think most people would agree that the difficulty is walking the fine line between building army units and economy units, one small miss-step in that tight rope walk whether it's because of bad scouting or timing can cost you the game. With Protoss it seems to be more about map position in engagements and having the right unit combination in your death ball to deal with opponents. With Terrans it seems like their options are literally limitless with no drawbacks to most of them. I dunno, that's at least my perception of it but I'm far from the top tier of SC2 players. The point being, if one race is "complete" then it seems that either that race needs some options removed so they have similar limitations to the other races (not specifically like theirs because obviously each race is different but a racially defining weakness) or the other races need to be improved to be equally as "complete". So you dont need a good engagement or the right units with terran too? You could walk into a choke against Colossi with no Vikings and you're fine? Isnt building drones or units also a huge advantage for Zergs? I dont see your point at all. | ||
hugman
Sweden4644 Posts
On October 25 2011 22:48 simansh wrote: How could they 'do something for tournaments' but not make lan work for everyone else. he says something about maps comings down from the server, but how would that be any different from tournaments? I like hes at least being honest like "Sorry no LAN", but still it feels like he doesn't actually say the real reason which is money. Locally hosted servers, like for WoW | ||
Proko
United States1022 Posts
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Kerm
France467 Posts
Did not even knew that that was existing for WoW, but yeah that would be pretty much all that is needed to fix the tournament issues without going to LAN mode. And money is a good reason not to implement LAN btw. SCII costs millions to devellop AND millions to support, you gotta find those somewhere. | ||
NeThZOR
South Africa7387 Posts
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Shollef
Sweden40 Posts
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xsevR
United States324 Posts
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debasers
737 Posts
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Chewbacca.
United States3633 Posts
I was at the 17:00 minute marker and I moved my cursor down to see how much more was left and I was very disappointed to see I was almost done. :-( | ||
T0fuuu
Australia2275 Posts
Pretty bold but i am sure he has his orders and if the company does not want lan and has no interest in implementing if then he has to follow it. For map maps. He sees the troubles mapmakers have and understands that battlenet 2.0 is inadequate for what they need. But he cant do anything about it because the ladder map pool has to be somewhat final and not be heavily adjusted weekly. They are open to using gsl maps in their pool. | ||
HeavenResign
United States702 Posts
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Erik.TheRed
United States1655 Posts
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Ansinjunger
United States2451 Posts
It's both sad and typical that there are so many complaints, especially about LAN. Dustin Browder is not a lawyer and probably not heavily involved in making financial decisions (except with how potential customers perceive he's doing his job of designing the game). In other words, he is not the right guy from whom to demand LAN. That seems pretty clear to me now, after reading some actual good comments and pondering myself. If the complainers out there cannot see that Blizzard is at least coming around a little to your vision of how the game should be, and be just a little bit grateful, just remember that + Show Spoiler + Harry used a shovel to bury Dobby. | ||
Ysellian
Netherlands9029 Posts
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No_Roo
United States905 Posts
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Vexas
United States98 Posts
I love that Dustin proved to actually be relatively open and talked very "normally" in my opinion. There was some obvious moments where he was trying to stay away from the subject (Terran as mentioned in some of the earlier posts) but for the most part he seemed like he wanted to be as honest as he could be about all the questions asked. Also I think the questions about maps that were thrown at him largely affected the decision to remove maps in Season 4 as well as make the correct fixes on some of the older maps (Metal and ST) Good job all around and Blizzard just keeps on making me happy! Gl and Hf! | ||
Dragar
United Kingdom971 Posts
On October 25 2011 21:11 The99 wrote: I mean you guys act like terran has been the dominant race from the beginning till now. While the rest of your post was awesome, I want you to seriously think about why people act like this. Could it be, perhaps, that Terran has indeed been widely perceived as the dominant race since release? | ||
rift
1819 Posts
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Zaphid
Czech Republic1860 Posts
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freetgy
1720 Posts
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blackone
Germany1314 Posts
On October 26 2011 03:00 Dragar wrote: While the rest of your post was awesome, I want you to seriously think about why people act like this. Could it be, perhaps, that Terran has indeed been widely perceived as the dominant race since release? While it may be that Terran has been dominant almost always, it was definitely not "widely perceived" as the dominant race since release. Around TSL the whole community was filled with rage about how UNBELIEVABLY overpowered Protoss was. | ||
Emporio
United States3069 Posts
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muzzy
United States640 Posts
I can't believe people honestly think this guy is intentionally making "his" race better. Ya, it's his job that's pulling him in a fat salary and he is secretly going "Oh I need to make my race easier so I and my Terran brothers can win more". Get real. Maybe Browder finds it easier to design for Terran, might just be his style, but it's definitely not a conscious decision to make one race better than the others. That's why I refuse to call it bias. I genuinely think he wants the game to be as interesting, fun and balanced as possible for all races. That's really hard to do, and it's arguable whether Browder and the rest of Blizz are doing it right, but it's certainly not some kind of Terran conspiracy. And for you guys complaining about how Browder puts emphasis on making units accessible to new players/low skill players- Remember, this is a business. StarCraft is not a game for Blizzard, it is a livelihood. They take home their paychecks and support their families based upon the sales of this game. They can take all of these hardcore suggestions and make BroodWar 2.0, but if it's only going to sell to existing fans or hardcore RTS players, they won't turn as good of a profit. Like it or not, that's the way it works. Same goes for no LAN. Sure it sucks, and yes they need to implement some system for large tourneys, but I completely understand and support no LAN in SC2. Let's face it, people pirate games if they can be pirated. If SC2 had LAN, there would be massive communities setup all over running Hamachi servers and custom ladders (hmm, sounds like another famous RTS you all may have played...) and Blizzard wouldn't be collecting a dime from any of it. More and more games don't include LAN now, not just Blizz. Don't blame the developers, blame the pirates. It's too costly for the devs to spend all their time fighting piracy when they can just say "Screw it, you get a crippled game if you pirate it". | ||
Tumor
Austria192 Posts
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Kal_rA
United States2925 Posts
On October 25 2011 21:01 Mirosuu wrote: What? Why would you spend all that money, to re-write the whole game for LAN support when even when it's finished, you may be losing money from the game. It doesn't make any logical sense to even consider it, so I'm happy to just get over it. You should too. If you naive enough to believe that blizzard would lose millions in adding LAN support you must be joking. Sure they have to re-write a lot of their code, but if they wrote it correctly (which I am willing to bet they did) it should be a fairly straight forward process. They can add it. But they just don't want their game pirated or any private servers set up like iccup. They want everything to go through battlenet. It's been discussed over a million times, but for SC2 to succeed 100% as an esports you need LAN. Reasons are obvious so I'm not gonna go out and list them.. Browder said hes always 'looking for opportunities'. It's been over a year from release. With all the brilliant minds at blizzard and in the community forms I'm sure at least a dozen good solutions have cropped up to fix this problem. Yet they won't act on it. Whatever... And I did say I'm over it... I put that text in bold just for you. | ||
freetgy
1720 Posts
On October 26 2011 03:37 muzzy wrote: At first I thought people were kind of joking about Browder being "Terran biased", but I see a lot of you are actually serious. I can't believe people honestly think this guy is intentionally making "his" race better. Ya, it's his job that's pulling him in a fat salary and he is secretly going "Oh I need to make my race easier so I and my Terran brothers can win more". Get real. Maybe Browder finds it easier to design for Terran, might just be his style, but it's definitely not a conscious decision to make one race better than the others. That's why I refuse to call it bias you may be right, it is quite obvious that terran even when they are so well rounded up get even more holes fixed, while protoss looks almost the same, with the same problems all together untouched. who every is responsible for balancing protoss definitly sux, instead of putting a stabilising element into the race get more gimmicky things (replicant, oracle) while the problems of earlygame scouting & detection is still as big of a problem as always. playing protoss needs to become less coinflippy, by giving solid options instead of luckbased. | ||
nvs.
Canada3609 Posts
On October 26 2011 03:22 blackone wrote: While it may be that Terran has been dominant almost always, it was definitely not "widely perceived" as the dominant race since release. Around TSL the whole community was filled with rage about how UNBELIEVABLY overpowered Protoss was. This was released right at release. They had it right from the beginning! | ||
Sm3agol
United States2055 Posts
On October 25 2011 21:37 Dommk wrote: That is standard Blizzard speak. Same with Valve No. That is just pure standard PR speak. | ||
AySz88
United States83 Posts
Isn't it just standard, period? If they'd thought of a solution they could commit to, it wouldn't be a problem for very much longer, right? :p Seeing the problem is part of the battle out of the way, at least. | ||
Mista_Masta
Netherlands557 Posts
I also like how he's openly wearing a Terran shirt going into this interview :-D | ||
Greenhit
United States200 Posts
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Greenhit
United States200 Posts
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Deadeight
United Kingdom1629 Posts
He struck me as super capable, great answers. | ||
Bourne
United Kingdom152 Posts
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Blacklizard
United States1194 Posts
I'm still blown away that they think Khaydarin Amulet was "so bad" at the time they yanked it. It was an anti-ball option for harass. Seems like killing it was catering to the casual player too much, IMO. | ||
NuKedUFirst
Canada3139 Posts
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rezoacken
Canada2719 Posts
Overall I'm satisfied with most of his response. I'm only disappointed about his answer to ball vs ball fights. I really wish there was more plan to fight this which is my only complain about SC2 personaly. I understand they can't dumb down the pathfinding. Still I believe there are options: bigger food caps (250, 300), bigger units, more health, etc... | ||
Brotocol
243 Posts
One could make the argument that having varying AI difficulty levels involves "making worse versions of the AI." But it's okay, because the desired end effect is that we want different difficulty levels. I don't see why they won't even work on the clumping... | ||
TSL-Lore
United States412 Posts
On October 26 2011 00:35 KULA_u wrote: WHY can't they make the pathfinding "worse"? (dynamic movmeent is not really worse, it's more realistic and actually a lot better because Balls and AoE are not as ridiculous) Edit: really sick of bowder excuses for lan, map and stupid unit design. also the "we just put in sometihing cool and look how it works" is really not something that I expect from a game that is in this stage. I really think they should look at BW again and look how things work there and how they could make things more interesting. I totally agree with this, the way things move in this game now is way less realistic. Just imagine a group of 20 marines doing their stupid move-shoot-move-shoot ball formation in real life. Do soldiers in the army move that way? Perfect consistency, speed, and efficiency? It just doesn't look right. They need to find a way to put in dynamic movement, and encourage the "awesome mile long line of siege lines.. 200/200 armies clashing extending 2,3 even 4 screens long" that kennegit was talking about. Oh the nostalgia... | ||
Incognoto
France10234 Posts
Interesting interview. | ||
RoMGraViTy
United States314 Posts
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Reptilia
Chile913 Posts
thank you very much. | ||
ThirdDegree
United States329 Posts
Great interview. I also wouldn't be surprised to see LAN, but not until some time after all the expansions are out. | ||
danl9rm
United States3111 Posts
Also, I didn't realize before that Kennigit was so pro. | ||
Sighstorm
Netherlands116 Posts
Dustin is the way a designer should be... He's honest, noting is set in stone and he seems to get inspiration from every question he's been asked. I like. | ||
A x i o M
United States78 Posts
On October 25 2011 09:34 Bartimaeus wrote: First of all: mad props to the interviewer - that guy's questions were spot on and addressed many prominent issues without provoking Browder or bringing up balance too often. He did a great job and I'd love to see more interviews from him. To start on Browder: Negative: His shirt is a Terran shirt. Awesome lol. He talks about ways the Replicator would be removed (one of them already being in the alpha play [no massive]) . . . before its even in the game. He says the drawback of Terran is that you are . . . too complete? too good? This is, imo, a little ridiculous as even the person who designed Terran can't find a drawback to the race - as he is the one who should know the race better than any other. His inability to find a strong flaw is astounding and revealing. He's saying that he doesn't want to fix the pathfinder because he believes it will still be ball-on-ball action, just slightly smaller - his option is to take food out of the balls, which is essentially doing the same thing - making the balls smaller? He's crossing his fingers and saying "Maybe!" when he's talking about a unit (Swarm Host) he's going to throw into this game that will affect the income of many pros in varying ways. He dismisses the option of Lan by saying that it is a lot of work for them - not by saying that it would affect them negatively financially. I'd wish that he chose the other option because saying that it will be hard for them to do is almost taunting us, saying that he just doesn't want to work on it. Positive: I'm glad that he could at least admit that the map issue was a problem instead of just dismissing it like the question about the drawback of playing Terran. I liked that he admits that he realizes the gravity of his decisions (later in the cast, after the Swarm host finger crossing). I'm happy that he admits that some problems exist, such as PvT in Korea. Overall the person interviewing Browder was flawless, and I'm disappointed with Browder's responses on a majority of the issues he spoke on. Calm down. It was a perfectly fine interview. No need to nitpick every single flaw in it. | ||
nohbrows
United States653 Posts
I think that he did not quite understand the map question, as Kennigit posed it. But he wasn't afraid to be stumped, which I liked. And it made an impact no doubt. Season 4 got a new map pool! (metals back ). As for the LAN question. Yeah not having LAN sucks for tournaments. Browder is aware of it. But the way he said that it would take too much work implementing LAN made me think that the "work" he was talking about wasn't exactly coding work, but more like, "convince excecutives to implement LAN" work. IDk that's just how i took it. Great interview! Loved the professionalism and atmosphere of the whole thing. Hope there is more of this kind of stuff in the future. | ||
Beren
United States514 Posts
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ZAiNs
United Kingdom6525 Posts
On October 26 2011 10:26 Beren wrote: Amazing interview. I enjoyed how candid he was and didn't try to fluff anything up. The Lan answer was disappointing but atleast we know. Well the LAN answer was from Blizzard higher-ups, not him . | ||
Assirra
Belgium4169 Posts
On October 26 2011 10:30 ZAiNs wrote: Well the LAN answer was from Blizzard higher-ups, not him . I wonder why developers even bother to give interviews anymore, it seems a lot of people don't even seem to believe them no matter what they say... | ||
Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
On October 25 2011 13:59 mlspmatt wrote: 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. Second. A good game is easy to learn, but takes a lifetime to master. See chess, poker and Go. eSports require an audience (herp) so mass appeal is critical. In other words, if all a player can understand and execute is stim marine timing all-in initially, we should not make it unviable at ANY level, because guess what, this player (and many like him) got the idea for a stim marine all in from watching a pro game, watching a friend do it or hearing/reading about it. A good community never stops the flow of new blood. | ||
FaZe
Canada472 Posts
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TheNessman
United States4158 Posts
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DisaFear
Australia4074 Posts
Pro guy | ||
Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
As a writer, it is highly insulting and disrespectful to take an establish canon and shit on it. A design perspective of "what is cool" is excellent start when developing a new franchise of intellectual property. Some of the most legendary IP are character driven/constrained. Lord of the Rings trilogy, Old Testament Exodus, Harry Potter, etc All world changes are the result of decisions based on what those characters perceived. The Urukhai would never have been bred to challenge the world of elf, dwarf and man, if Saruman felt the current Orc abilities were sufficient. Same with Lord Voldemort, etc. The design team must ask themselves, "what would I, one of the many defense contractors on Tarsonis present to Emperor Mensk to win that multi-billion credit contract?". "What strains must I, the swarm, acquire and/or evolve now that Kerrigan is gone?" "What must I, Chief of the design tribe of Shakuras, do to once again see the sun rise over Auir?" Do this and history dictates that SC universe will reach the legendary status of Starwars, LotR and Harry Potter. Or continue the current direction of "What cool and lore doesn't matter, we'll just design around that shit" and be a forgotten footnote like the Battletech Universe, TA Universe, Masters of Orion series and many others that fell to mediocrity. | ||
Mehukannu
Finland421 Posts
On October 26 2011 13:25 Hattori_Hanzo wrote: I also think the design team are idiots. As a writer, it is highly insulting and disrespectful to take an establish canon and shit on it. A design perspective of "what is cool" is excellent start when developing a new franchise of intellectual property. Some of the most legendary IP are character driven/constrained. Lord of the Rings trilogy, Old Testament Exodus, Harry Potter, etc All world changes are the result of decisions based on what those characters perceived. The Urukhai would never have been bred to challenge the world of elf, dwarf and man, if Saruman felt the current Orc abilities were sufficient. Same with Lord Voldemort, etc. The design team must ask themselves, "what would I, one of the many defense contractors on Tarsonis present to Emperor Mensk to win that multi-billion credit contract?". "What strains must I, the swarm, acquire and/or evolve now that Kerrigan is gone?" "What must I, Chief of the design tribe of Shakuras, do to once again see the sun rise over Auir?" Do this and history dictates that SC universe will reach the legendary status of Starwars, LotR and Harry Potter. Or continue the current direction of "What cool and lore doesn't matter, we'll just design around that shit" and be a forgotten footnote like the Battletech Universe, TA Universe, Masters of Orion series and many others that fell to mediocrity. That is great and all, but Blizzard is making a game for e-sports not any story driven game like planescape to make the starcraft universe bigger. | ||
IPA
United States3206 Posts
On October 26 2011 13:25 Hattori_Hanzo wrote: I also think the design team are idiots. As a writer, it is highly insulting and disrespectful to take an establish canon and shit on it. A design perspective of "what is cool" is excellent start when developing a new franchise of intellectual property. Some of the most legendary IP are character driven/constrained. Lord of the Rings trilogy, Old Testament Exodus, Harry Potter, etc All world changes are the result of decisions based on what those characters perceived. The Urukhai would never have been bred to challenge the world of elf, dwarf and man, if Saruman felt the current Orc abilities were sufficient. Same with Lord Voldemort, etc. The design team must ask themselves, "what would I, one of the many defense contractors on Tarsonis present to Emperor Mensk to win that multi-billion credit contract?". "What strains must I, the swarm, acquire and/or evolve now that Kerrigan is gone?" "What must I, Chief of the design tribe of Shakuras, do to once again see the sun rise over Auir?" Do this and history dictates that SC universe will reach the legendary status of Starwars, LotR and Harry Potter. Or continue the current direction of "What cool and lore doesn't matter, we'll just design around that shit" and be a forgotten footnote like the Battletech Universe, TA Universe, Masters of Orion series and many others that fell to mediocrity. While I understand your point, I think I speak for the vast majority of the competitive community when I say "I could care less about lore." | ||
emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
On October 26 2011 12:52 TheNessman wrote: i can't believe OVERSEERS are the unit he calls out to be OP. wow. omg, some people really don't listen to what is being said. He didn't say they were OP, he was saying that the unit was fundamentally flawed because it gives you food and has spells. Therefore they couldn't make the spells do anything without breaking the game, he was saying that to make the Overseer a good unit, it would be fundamentally OP. Therefore they removed it because it was flawed design. | ||
Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
On October 26 2011 13:41 Mehukannu wrote: That is great and all, but Blizzard is making a game for e-sports not any story driven game like planescape to make the starcraft universe bigger. There's no need to sacrifice story for e-sports. A great example is Warhammer 40K interestingly enough given Blizzard's shared history (Blizzard built SC engine to pitch to Games Workshop). There are many competitions that are story driven, the Marathon race is another one. It began to commemorate the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek messenger. Who legend states that he was sent from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon (in which he had just fought), which took place in August or September, 490 BC.] It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping and burst into the assembly, exclaiming "Νενικήκαμεν" (Nenikékamen, 'We have won.') before collapsing and dying." -See wikipedia | ||
Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
On October 26 2011 13:44 IPA wrote: While I understand your point, I think I speak for the vast majority of the competitive community when I say "I could care less about lore." Of course, you don't. That's none of your business, why should you care? The Dustin could introduce space cardboxes unit for the Terran and you'd still play it if it was fun enough, no? Your paycheck does not come from the faithfulness to the lore. The designer's job does. How far will SC2 go if it starts feeling, looking and playing like any other RTS on the market. There goes Blizzard's competitive advantage. Lore gives anything a sense of depth, purpose. If I called you a someone who wastes his time playing games compared to IPA, son of Peter, aspires to be a professional gamer, has yet to win any major tournament but is a force to be reckoned with, you suddenly became interesting. And suddenly, you're hot property. | ||
Highways
Australia6098 Posts
The first half of the interview was generic questions like "what are your processes", "what have you learnt".... Would've preferred hard questions like: - Do you think warpgates broke Protss (refer to TL post) - Why are some powerful spells a passive ability (eg. concussive shells) - How do you plan on increasing the skill ceiling with HotS | ||
Velr
Switzerland10419 Posts
On October 26 2011 17:11 Highways wrote: Good interview but could've been much better. Was expecting Kennigit to show some hard hitting journalism, but DB got off with such easy questions. The first half of the interview was generic questions like "what are your processes", "what have you learnt".... Would've preferred hard questions like: - Do you think warpgates broke Protss (refer to TL post) - Why are some powerful spells a passive ability (eg. concussive shells) - How do you plan on increasing the skill ceiling with HotS I can answer all of them: 1: You don't like it? Go play SC/BW hurrdurrderp. 2: Go play SC/BW if you don't like autocast hurrdurrderp.... 3: Lol, you really think we want that? | ||
skipgamer
Australia701 Posts
I'm sure it took some balls for Browder to say some of the things he did (re: deathballs, or that they are not actually that in tune with the metagame when designing new things) other than that the answers were basically what was expected. It's a good reminder really that Blizzard are only human, and while there's hundreds of thousands of screaming fanboy's making posts about how this is broken, or that is not good enough, or how we need this or that... They are doing their best to add new exciting things while keeping the game as balanced as possible. | ||
Johanaz
Denmark363 Posts
- we really needed that. -Kinda shocking to see Dustin Browders response! Seems like he wasn´t aware that there even is a serious map making community. | ||
althaz
Australia1001 Posts
This is a great interview and it's really good to see Dustin off-stage, seeming more like a regular dude and less like a colossal douche . ♥ 2 Kenniget & DB | ||
grappasc
Belgium86 Posts
On October 26 2011 13:44 IPA wrote: While I understand your point, I think I speak for the vast majority of the competitive community when I say "I could care less about lore." I assume you meant to say "couldn't"? in that case you're probably right and it makes me a little sad. any crap will sell as long as it's flashy enough. same thing with movies, music, clothes, technology, anything really. I sort of expected more from blizzard, but I guess I was wrong. I mean they already raped the warcraft universe in wow. it's just that their older games just felt so good... | ||
Sweetfrost
Sweden211 Posts
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QueueQueue
Canada1000 Posts
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Mehukannu
Finland421 Posts
On October 26 2011 14:16 Hattori_Hanzo wrote: There's no need to sacrifice story for e-sports. A great example is Warhammer 40K interestingly enough given Blizzard's shared history (Blizzard built SC engine to pitch to Games Workshop). There are many competitions that are story driven, the Marathon race is another one. It began to commemorate the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek messenger. Who legend states that he was sent from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon (in which he had just fought), which took place in August or September, 490 BC.] It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping and burst into the assembly, exclaiming "Νενικήκαμεν" (Nenikékamen, 'We have won.') before collapsing and dying." -See wikipedia Fair enough, but you can already see that blizzard really is not focusing on the story. Even their team consist of about 10 people from what I have heard, which all of them are focusing to make the game competitive and the story in WOL isn't all that great either, but still it's a trilogy so, I guess I can't really judge it by looking 1/3 of the whole story. Yeah, I remember that legend about Pheidippides when my teacher told the legend about him when I was at elementary school. To think someone can run such a long distance without resting at all. Truly, that is a an inspiration to us all. | ||
Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
Calling the design team idiots because of your personal opinion that story should have priority over gameplay is very much indefensible and ruins your point though. Yes, we should try to have the races be designed so that they fit the theme, but you generalize and claim a great story could have people be interested in an e-sports strategy game. (??) | ||
Sirot
48 Posts
I agree with the mentality of having to take risks and make seemingly rash decisions. Once you begin adding units, the balance that they achieved in WoL is going to be shot. Might as well try to fix structural problems and add cool new things at that point. | ||
Zeroxk
Norway1244 Posts
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
On October 27 2011 17:15 Zeroxk wrote: Gameplay should take precedent over story in all videogames, you can enjoy a game with good gameplay and weak story but it's not nearly so in the opposite case. Either way videogames have never been know for very good stories Plenty of amazing video games have weak gameplay but a great story. You take just as much an extreme as Hattori_Hanzo where he says that story has to take priority over gameplay, by claiming the exact opposite. Isn't a more realistic alternative that there are trade-offs between gameplay and story that need not always exist, but are sometimes inevitable and that in such a case it's more of a judgement call what side to pick, all depending on the exact situation, the projected audience, your goals and personal backgrounds as game designers? That said, this is more for games in general. The exact story doesn't matter so much for Starcraft II multiplayer. Maybe for the single player campaign, but not for the e-sports aspect of it. Creating solid gameplay here is so important that the trade-off between it and story becomes so one-sided you might as well say that story becomes irrelevant, as long as units still seem like they fit a certain race. Players do enjoy the differences and themes that belong to a specific race after all, often that's why they play it, but it's still a one-sided trade off I do think. | ||
enzym
Germany1034 Posts
On October 27 2011 23:57 Grumbels wrote: @Plenty of amazing video games have weak gameplay but a great story. You take just as much an extreme as Hattori_Hanzo where he says that story has to take priority over gameplay, by claiming the exact opposite. Isn't a more realistic alternative that there are trade-offs between gameplay and story that need not always exist, but are sometimes inevitable and that in such a case it's more of a judgement call what side to pick, all depending on the exact situation, the projected audience, your goals and personal backgrounds as game designers? That said, this is more for games in general. The exact story doesn't matter so much for Starcraft II multiplayer. Maybe for the single player campaign, but not for the e-sports aspect of it. Creating solid gameplay here is so important that the trade-off between it and story becomes so one-sided you might as well say that story becomes irrelevant, as long as units still seem like they fit a certain race. Players do enjoy the differences and themes that belong to a specific race after all, often that's why they play it, but it's still a one-sided trade off I do think. This is where some people see problems. TT1 takes it one step further and even says that this is not only true for races, but that there is a specific theme of gameplay that defines StarCraft and that Blizzard is stepping further and further away from it as time goes on. Which begs the question, why call it StarCraft if only the names remain the same? The obvious answer is for marketing purposes, but should that answer really satisfy StarCraft fans, as opposed to people who don't care about the content as long as it plays well? We know that the people at Blizzard are intelligent individuals, professionals who know how to do their job. But we question their motives, whether they are aligned to our own. And we question them based on what I quoted earlier in the thread + Show Spoiler + On October 25 2011 19:22 enzym wrote: I agree with these posts, and what Dustin expressed in the interview is what worries me most about the direction of StarCraft. He said the following: 9:33 "You know, we don't think of the races as really tightly themed... If themes emerge, so be it." 9:53 "There's no way to add a new unit to this game without changing it, right? The race will change. It must change if we add any new units. If you want exactly the same game, please go play Brood War... By the very nature of changing units we will change the nature of the race." 10:23 "We are not as worried about specific character for the race. That's not what we're trying to do." and things like this + Show Spoiler + On October 25 2011 22:35 dump wrote: The art in this game isn't going to improve. Spontaneity is one thing, but the artists' persistent mediocrity is pretty shocking. They give you an idea of their design process. It sounds like something out of a high school group project. "Here's a great picture of everything you love about terran: it's got fire, it's got a huge cannon, rocket missiles, laser explosions..." "...kinda let everybody contribute to it a little bit so they have some ownership." "We just wanted something cool, we didn't know exactly what it did, just hey, awesome robotic technomagical looking protoss thing... there was no role for it basically in the army, so every time the designers would be like 'hey we're gonna put in this flyer or this caster', I'd be like 'oh dude, c'mon, use this one'... and so finally there's a role for it in the Heart of Swarm expansion; here's a final model." "Now I'd like to say we spent a lot of time on it, there was this huge deliberation and we were very smart about it, but it took about five minutes and we were like, yeah that looks cool, ship it." "It's a robotic unit so we don't need to worry too much about the cockpit or the seating in it or how it all works... I mean, we try to be somewhat form follows function, but this guy just looks cool, like, 'screw it, he looks cool, put him in there'... basically his role, he'll see any other unit on the battlefield and turn into it." | ||
FenneK
France1231 Posts
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
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