Interview with DB @ NASL

On July 29 2012 19:54 Grampz wrote:
I guess browder is so bald we have to just call him by his initials now

On July 29 2012 20:08 Gosi wrote:
So, anything new and worthy to hear? When ever I watch a DB interview it's just the same boring PC answers and then you just get mad when he talks about unit design and balance so you are better off not watching.

00:08 Dustin Browder, Game Director of Starcraft 2

00:14 How do you feel about the growth and success of e-sports? And what does it need to continue?
-Blown away by what's happening in Starcraft 2.
-Expected sizes of crowds of 50-60 people, maybe more in Korea.
-Kept growing, growing growing, huge venues all over the world with thousands of people watching.
-In terms of where it's going, Blizzard is in the dark. No master plan.

02:03 How close is the connection between Blizzard and the major events around the world?
-Try to make a product that's viable for them to use
-Go to events as much as possible
-Also working with them a lot for WCS

02:55 Is there a struggle between the needs of the community and the needs of the company?
-No.
-Blizzard would balance the game even if e-sports didn't exist, for fans so that when Blizzard releases a new product those fans come back for more.

04:04 Is e-sports a byproduct of Starcraft 2?
-Starcraft 2 was built for e-sports, Warcraft 3 was as well. Starcraft 2 had an advantage thanks to Brood War.
-Even some of the story elements are influenced by it.

05:23 Do you have any plans to support the community more directly?
-Lots of stuff done recently like TLMC/GSL/MLG maps into ladder, HotS battle reports with Day9.

06:38 What are your most memorable moments from the last two years of Starcraft 2?
-Nestea vs Anypro's sunken rush, they discussed something like it in ~2008 but completely forgot about that until this match.
-GSL October finals at Blizzcon crowd.

09:00 What is the Blizzard Vision for the WCS?
-Create environment for non-pros to show off and maybe become pros.
-Create tournaments in places where they aren't held as much.

10:06 Local players in the WCS
-Try to convince players who otherwise wouldn't participate to join in tournaments and find new talent

10:42 Is WCS the replacement for Blizzcon this year?
-Not the reasoning but certainly very nice bonus.

10:54 Will WCS continue after this season?
-Not sure but that's the plan.

11:07 Any hope of auto tournaments returning to battle.net?
-Absolutely, definitely on the list.
-The list is very long and Blizzard knows that.

12:01 Will we see new ranking systems implemented in battle.net?
-Ladder ranking is a Bell curve - Gold is closest to eachother in skill level, GM/master and bronze leagues are much more varied in skill level.
-Possible solutions are more subdivisions (bronze 8,9,10), this goes for GM as well. But Grand Master does exist in a way for that.
-Dustin Browder was diamond, now platinum.
-The community has gotten better and that can be very demoralizing if you don't and get demoted despite getting better.

15:04 Why hide players' true rankings?
-This is still being discussed a lot.
-Showing MMR might demoralize people even more if they hit their 'true skill cap' - which of the 2 options is worse is still being discussed.

16:22 What about better stat tracking within battle.net?
-Want it badly
-Dustin Browder plays random because he has to be unbiased.

17:34 Does Blizzard ever look to the community for inspiration?
-Yes, but infrequently and they want to do it more.

18:12 When can we play Heart of the Swarm beta?
-Very Soon.
-Number of variables like D3 and MoP patches and balance/battle.net changes that affect it.

18:45 How long will there be between beta and launch?
-3 to 6 month beta is the goal.

19:00 What about Warcraft 4?
-Later, much later. 'was gonig to say soon but that seems wrong'.
-HotS first, LoV after, lots of battle.net changes to come in as well first.
-No idea what to implement for multiplayer in LoV.

20:01 Did you ever envision the metagame developing to this point?
-Metagame does what metagame does.
-No specific metagame in mind.
-They had vague ideas toward the end of the beta like Zerg units being weaker due to the larva mechanic and the '300/200 remax'.

21:45 When you make small changes to a unit is it intended to push players in that direction?
-Never intentional. Done during beta but not for a live game.
-Community can overreact to small changes and 'overuse' a unit after buffing though sometimes the community is right and the buff is way more than anticipated
-Queen buff example, wasn't to buff Z but to give them a response to Hellions denying/controlling creep.

22:53 Thinking of the ZvP metagame, are you focusing on the 2 base dilemma faced by the Protoss players?
-Deep sigh
-More confidence in the community than in ourselves to solve things like this.
-Community can sometimes be wrong or overlooking something with tunnelvision.
-When mutas come into play, Phoenixes could be used way more even without the upgrade. 200/200 Protoss armies losing to mass muta, 'you dont have the money' doesnt work in that case.
-Community has a right to panic and they should since that leads to solutions one way or another.

24:45 How do you feel about the changes made to the Queen at this point?
-Terrans still doing runby's with hellions, and banshees and drops.
-Not 100% sure
-Everything looks balanced from ladder statistics, tournament statistics, tournament results.
-Big change but Terran had been dominating for months.
-Open to being wrong.

26:27 How do you feel about 'Ultimate Endgame', especially Infestor/Broodlord and Mothership/Archon?
-We'll see
-HotS coming up which may change that.
-Starcraft 2 isn't considered as done.
-MVP vs Squirtle, what if he yamato'd the mothership? What if he EMP'd it? Still so much potential possibilities.
-Ravens and seeker missiles against zerg, hadn't expected to see it initially. Little sloppily executed by pro standard [in that first game where he saw that used], but with more practice pros might be able to make it work.
-Pros are never done, the metagame is never finished, especially for the end game.

28:40 Final thoughts?
-You're awesome.

On July 29 2012 19:40 bhfberserk wrote:
Terran's raven control not up to par.

On July 29 2012 20:37 OrbitalPlane wrote:
so funny DB talked for 30min and basically said nothing of substance.

On July 29 2012 21:08 Rokoz wrote:

I wonder what happened to the vision that "zerg has softer max army which is easy to replenish", instead we have maxed army that most Terran and Protoss players are most afraid of.

On July 29 2012 21:26 Kaos_StarCraft wrote:
Wow whats with all the people riding DBs dick?
If only his game design was even half as good as his PR abilities.

AHAHAA "best of 8"

On July 29 2012 21:49 Wildmoon wrote:


If only designing game is as easy as posting shit. The community need to be more mature.

On July 29 2012 21:51 Black[CAT] wrote:
Please just increase the range of Seeker missile.

On July 29 2012 20:57 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:


This fucking mentality, what can I even say to that.

Always the same people saying every interview is shit and those guys never say anything of substance but the moment guys like you find the slightest thing they can take out of context or misinterpret on purpose you will do so.

E.g. the Raven "statement" in this case.

Just fuck this. There's a reason Blizzard is so cautious with interviews, they know very well how the community likes to tear them apart for everything they say.

On July 29 2012 22:12 OrbitalPlane wrote:


Why are you so mad?
I didn't criticize the interview. The questions were good and DB answered them as good as he could. If he doesn't know when the beta starts he obviously can't tell us. Nothing wrong with that.
But in the end my statement is still true. There was nothing surprising new in his answers and everything he said was already known/expected. So i informed the people that are considering watching the whole 30 minutes. If they are still interested good, if not i saved them 30 minutes.

On July 29 2012 22:18 Assirra wrote:

Saying nothing of substance and saying nothing new is completely different tough.
You made it sound like he was blabbering instead of answering the questions.

On July 29 2012 22:18 Assirra wrote:

Saying nothing of substance and saying nothing new is completely different tough.
You made it sound like he was blabbering instead of answering the questions.

so funny DB talked for 30min and basically said nothing of substance.

On July 29 2012 22:30 OrbitalPlane wrote:


What i meant to say is that there was no real specific content in his answers.
It was not my intention to say that his answers did not make any sense.
I am not a native speaker. So you say substance is the wrong word for that?

What i mean for example:

10:54 Will WCS continue after this season?
-Not sure but that's the plan.

A detailed answer would be: We are planning on doing the next wcs in February with after the launch of HOTS.
But he can't give that answer because (i assume) he doesn't have those specifics yet.

On July 29 2012 22:35 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:
Dustin Browder answers pretty much all questions.

Nothing of substance implies there's nothing you can take away from this at all.

On July 29 2012 22:37 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
But if you are talking about "no real specific content", like the kind given in that example, i'm not sure what other questions there were where he didn't give specific enough information for it to be informative.

On July 29 2012 22:43 OrbitalPlane wrote:

I never said he didn't. read my post again. I said he didn't had real new shocking details in his answers that nobody knew before.



That's exactly what i am saying. There was nothing he said that i didn't know or expected already. As a result i didn't take away a lot in watching it.



This is my whole point. I felt that way at all other questions aswell. Feel free to pick one.

On July 29 2012 22:43 OrbitalPlane wrote:

I never said he didn't. read my post again. I said he didn't had real new shocking details in his answers that nobody knew before.



That's exactly what i am saying. There was nothing he said that i didn't know or expected already. As a result i didn't take away a lot in watching it.



This is my whole point. I felt that way at all other questions aswell. Feel free to pick one.

On July 29 2012 23:00 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


It's a little confusing because it seems you are exaggerating that there is 0% substance, because you say you "didn't take away a lot in watching it", meaning that you did take away some, even if it was very little, but you also say "that's exactly what i am saying" in response to "there's nothing you can take away from this at all".

If you are exaggerating, then I don't think I need to provide any examples. I see what you are saying, that nothing was really shocking, but then again, the questions themselves weren't very shocking or unique neither. They may be interesting, but they are questions regarding things that have been discussed/mentioned before in any kind of form.

If you're not exaggerating, then there's a lot you can take away, even things such as how they still don't know when Beta will come out, WC4 is still not in development and they are not even sure if they want to work on that next, they want to improve many things including stats/ranking/etc. but they have a long list of things to work on (implying they could use a bigger team and/or these areas are actually much more difficult to work on than the community believes it to be), queen change is working as intended and the reason for the queen buff is indeed that they felt zerg didn't have enough options to stop terran from opening and containing zergs with hellions all the time, etc.

Either way, even if the information is not shocking, the questions weren't exploring new topics not already discussed decently before, and even if there was not a lot of new info, many concerns were clarified and some insight was provided regarding the way blizzard does things to address the community's concerns.

On July 29 2012 23:11 Talin wrote:
Despite all that I think about SC2 development and direction (none of it being very good in my eyes), I still can't help but like Dustin Browder.

On July 29 2012 20:37 OrbitalPlane wrote:
so funny DB talked for 30min and basically said nothing of substance.

On July 29 2012 23:14 Toadvine wrote:


He does seem like a nice, reasonable person. It's kind of unfortunate that he ended up in a position that is way out of his depth.

On July 29 2012 23:26 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:


What do you mean "way out of his depth"?

Who would you recommend as a Lead RTS Designer? I mean there may be some other guys within Blizzard, but that doesn't really matter, as they'll share a similar vision and do communicate together anyways.

And considering that other than Starcraft 2 there haven't been any great RTS lately and even less so RTS with that kind of gameplay, who's a better fit for Lead Designer?

Or is there just none? ;P

On July 29 2012 23:34 Xiphos wrote:


I would honestly just hire the original SC producers and directors.

DB belongs into a whole another universe (CnCs) and he is better off ameliorating that series. I guess what I am saying is that he changed the Terran race so drastically from its lore.

On July 29 2012 21:26 Kaos_StarCraft wrote:
Wow whats with all the people riding DBs dick?
If only his game design was even half as good as his PR abilities.

AHAHAA "best of 8"

PvZ 2 base protoss have to wait on it to see.

On July 29 2012 23:45 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:


Urgh. So because Dustin Browder has worked on other (successful) RTS titles, which actually adds to his qualification, you claim he ... I don't even really know what.

"He changed the Terran race so drastically from its lore"
What's that even supposed to mean and who says that has to do anything with his previous RTS titles he worked on in the past?
What's so drastically different within the Terran lore now and back then. Do you want all the units from BW back and have a BW2 instead of Sc2?
Also DB doesn't make the decisions all on his own, you know. And he especially doesn't have too much to say about the lore.

You sound kinda like a prick when you act like you know better where a very successful, long-time RTS developer belongs to. What qualifies you to make such a claim?

On July 29 2012 23:43 monkybone wrote:
Funny thing is that Browder is 1000 times better at balancing this game than anyone in this thread.

On July 30 2012 00:06 Rokoz wrote:


Politics are 1000 times better making political decisions than all those people who constantly criticize them.

Browder and Blizzard would have never made good games if the community wouldn't share their view despite that they are not good enough at actually balance the game.

Screw the haters, thanks for the interview!

On July 29 2012 23:34 Xiphos wrote:


I would honestly just hire the original SC producers and directors.

DB belongs into a whole another universe (CnCs) and he is better off ameliorating that series. I guess what I am saying is that he changed the Terran race so drastically from its lore.

On July 29 2012 23:34 Xiphos wrote:


I would honestly just hire the original SC producers and directors.

DB belongs into a whole another universe (CnCs) and he is better off ameliorating that series. I guess what I am saying is that he changed the Terran race so drastically from its lore.

On July 29 2012 23:26 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:


What do you mean "way out of his depth"?

Who would you recommend as a Lead RTS Designer? I mean there may be some other guys within Blizzard, but that doesn't really matter, as they'll share a similar vision and do communicate together anyways.

And considering that other than Starcraft 2 there haven't been any great RTS lately and even less so RTS with that kind of gameplay, who's a better fit for Lead Designer?

Or is there just none? ;P

On July 29 2012 23:43 monkybone wrote:
Funny thing is that Browder is 1000 times better at balancing this game than anyone in this thread.

That is actually a very difficult question, one which I don't know how to answer. It's a lot easier to criticize specific decisions the SC2 team had made, than to point out a person who could make it all work right. And yes, SC2 is a very good RTS, probably one of the best in recent memory. So in that sense, Browder has proven his qualifications. Where he is out of his depth, is as an overseer of the most competitive e-sport on the planet. When I listen to his interviews, he still seems like he's balancing C&C for a relatively small online community, and thinking in terms that would make sense there, but are woefully misplaced for SC2.

I mean, listen to him talk about Phoenix, and how maxed Protosses lose to mass Muta, and how they could've easily afforded some Phoenix with the range upgrade. That's the kind of naive counter-based thought process that would be fine for most RTSes, but for a game with as powerful of a pro community as SC2, it's just stupid and inadequate. There's a very good reason you don't see reactive Phoenix against Mutas, and the fact that Browder doesn't understand it even after 2 years of professional SC2, is, to me, more proof of how out of place he is. You can see this every time some kind of high level problem with the game gains traction in the community and he gets asked about it in an interview, and is surprised that this kind of thing even happens. See the MLG interview on Mothership vs Broodlord/Infestor for an example.

On July 30 2012 01:34 Rhodon wrote:
This was a phenomenal interview! Good work interviewers with good questions. I feel as if I am the minority here but I am very happy in the way that Dustin Browder and his team have been with SC2 also I feel as if they hold off on many major changes (ie battle.net not balance) until there next major product. I'm also very hopeful that WCS becomes as staple tournament, the true Olympics of Starcraft. My main worry about that though is who is paying for it? Who is paying for all those plane trips and hotel rooms and the such for so many players from all over the world? I hope whoever it is they make all that money back and continue to reinvest in that tournament. Also I hope the prise pool for the World Championship is absolutely gignatic (ie $100,000 or more to first place) that would be the coolest ending to the tournament.

On July 30 2012 00:03 Xiphos wrote:


A big part of me wasn't expecting a BW2 but a better game in terms of designs and innovation. To which I was greatly disappointed. Many, many units aspects of the sequel are trumped by its big brother counterpart if we are talking about the entertainment values
.
Now I'm not saying that ALL angles are badly designed. There are some unit that have plenty room for maneuverability. To list them all: Stalker's blink ability, you can certainly accomplish much with this. Sentry's forcefield: clutch when utilized right. Pheonix is a worthy replacement for Corsairs because it offers something awesome and refreshing. Moving on to Zerg, oh yeah Roaches are really cool ideas that offer great ambushes and fun factor, then You got the Creep Spread which I really think lore-wise makes sense for a Zerg to gain an advantage while on it. Onto Terran, they got a unit that COULD be built by itself and I really like how the Ghost's Nuke is faster and easier to use than BW.

But then the rest of the units are all the generic 1A ones that require little skills to control while in BW, pretty much more or less, every single facet of the game have those little intricacy listed above in SC2.

Sequels are suppose to be an improvement upon the original one, I really do hope to see that philosophy to manifest itself in SC2 in the gameplay department.

On July 30 2012 00:03 Xiphos wrote:


A big part of me wasn't expecting a BW2 but a better game in terms of designs and innovation. To which I was greatly disappointed. Many, many units aspects of the sequel are trumped by its big brother counterpart if we are talking about the entertainment values
.
Now I'm not saying that ALL angles are badly designed. There are some unit that have plenty room for maneuverability. To list them all: Stalker's blink ability, you can certainly accomplish much with this. Sentry's forcefield: clutch when utilized right. Pheonix is a worthy replacement for Corsairs because it offers something awesome and refreshing. Moving on to Zerg, oh yeah Roaches are really cool ideas that offer great ambushes and fun factor, then You got the Creep Spread which I really think lore-wise makes sense for a Zerg to gain an advantage while on it. Onto Terran, they got a unit that COULD be built by itself and I really like how the Ghost's Nuke is faster and easier to use than BW.

But then the rest of the units are all the generic 1A ones that require little skills to control while in BW, pretty much more or less, every single facet of the game have those little intricacy listed above in SC2.

Sequels are suppose to be an improvement upon the original one, I really do hope to see that philosophy to manifest itself in SC2 in the gameplay department.

On July 30 2012 01:52 Serelitz wrote:


So you like roaches but dislike generic 1A units? Roaches are pretty much THE spammable generic 1A unit. I really don't get where you're coming from except distorted nostalgia.

On July 30 2012 01:07 Wildmoon wrote:


Except the SC:BW lead designer is there at Blizzard to help him. Dustin is not alone. Rob Pardo(lead designer of SC:BW),Frank Pearce, Bob Fitch and many more. I think the SC2 team did a really good job so far but there will still be people who don't like it anyway. You can't please everyone. Everyone has his/her own opinion.:D

On July 30 2012 01:52 Serelitz wrote:


So you like roaches but dislike generic 1A units? Roaches are pretty much THE spammable generic 1A unit. I really don't get where you're coming from except distorted nostalgia.

On July 30 2012 00:53 Bagi wrote:

Chances are they couldn't do a better job at all.

I always considered BW balance more of a "happy accident" rather than a miracle of game design. Just look at how many things are completely unintentional but end up working in favor of the game, for example muta stacking.

Keep in mind, when BW was designed stuff like competitive RTS didn't even exist.

On July 30 2012 02:28 Xiphos wrote:
I said Roaches to throw a bone @ Zerg race's unit design. Otherwise, Zergs really have little to nothing of marvel with only Bannelings. You are just countering my points by...proving me right.

...

If BW was a truly 'accident', then I guess SC2 won't ever surpass itspredecessor. You can't beat luck.

On July 30 2012 02:28 Xiphos wrote:
There is an article on TL about the recreation of WarCraft. It mentioned that the design of limited control group was strategical and not because of some random chance. I wonder what other tweaks there and there were made by design.

If BW was a truly 'accident', then I guess SC2 won't ever surpass itspredecessor. You can't beat luck.

On July 30 2012 01:26 Toadvine wrote:


That is actually a very difficult question, one which I don't know how to answer. It's a lot easier to criticize specific decisions the SC2 team had made, than to point out a person who could make it all work right. And yes, SC2 is a very good RTS, probably one of the best in recent memory. So in that sense, Browder has proven his qualifications. Where he is out of his depth, is as an overseer of the most competitive e-sport on the planet. When I listen to his interviews, he still seems like he's balancing C&C for a relatively small online community, and thinking in terms that would make sense there, but are woefully misplaced for SC2.

I mean, listen to him talk about Phoenix, and how maxed Protosses lose to mass Muta, and how they could've easily afforded some Phoenix with the range upgrade. That's the kind of naive counter-based thought process that would be fine for most RTSes, but for a game with as powerful of a pro community as SC2, it's just stupid and inadequate. There's a very good reason you don't see reactive Phoenix against Mutas, and the fact that Browder doesn't understand it even after 2 years of professional SC2, is, to me, more proof of how out of place he is. You can see this every time some kind of high level problem with the game gains traction in the community and he gets asked about it in an interview, and is surprised that this kind of thing even happens. See the MLG interview on Mothership vs Broodlord/Infestor for an example.



The stuff he says is at about the level of a typical b.net forum poster. Listen to his opinion on Phoenix vs Muta again and repeat what you just said with a straight face.

On July 30 2012 02:34 Serelitz wrote:


I said it because you were being inconsistent in your own argument. If you think the problem with SC2 is its' generic 1A units that's a solid opinion but not anything that's going to change. It's exactly those fundamental mechanical differences that seperate BW and SC2.

IMO it's to make the game more accessible to less competitive players - the only reason my friends played BW at all was because it was so easy to pirate. The only other option if you're making a game focused 100% on competitiveness is to be F2P and SC2 didn't pick that business model.

On July 30 2012 02:41 Bagi wrote:

Well, just because they limited that doesn't mean that they foresaw the future metagame and balanced BW around that. I think its pretty silly to assume that BW as it is today had much to do with the original design at all.

BW and SC2 are very different in the way that they're balanced, mostly because with SC2 there is so much more feedback that didn't exist with BW. The pro scene and the balance team are constantly changing things on both sides, trying to make for the best game possible.

Ultimately the thing that made BW more "balanced" was the fact that mechanics matttered so much. You could always squeeze out wins just by having more APM and better macro than your opponent. I doubt it would be as balanced if stuff like MBS and auto-mining were added to the game. Whether you want your RTS to be based on mechanics or strategy is another thing entirely.

On July 30 2012 01:42 BoX wrote:
God damn someof you guys are so rude and vicious.

No wonder Blizz is so hesitant to communicate with you @.@

I think Browder's "wait-and-see" methodology of dealing with issues in the game is the best way to approach balance in a game that is so complex. There's so much to go through before someone can confidently say, "yes, this is broken and there is NOTHING that can be done about it."

If Blizzard implemented changes rapidly then the metagame would have no time at all to develop. Shit, half of the amazing stuff in BW was discovered because people lhad to scrounge out just that last tiny little advantage. That's how BW was balanced - over huge amounts of playtime.

BW wasn't balanced because Blizzard interfered with it constantly. SC2 is rough, still has 2 expansions to go through, and needs a lot of settling before it can be polished. IMO.

On July 29 2012 21:22 Toadvine wrote:
I can only imagine what a pro player, whose livelihood depends on the state of the game, feels when he watches an interview like this. You have my sympathies, guys.

On July 30 2012 03:02 Xiphos wrote:
I think that the thing that BW more balanced is because it was balanced upon unbalanced. Every single units have its like "omg this race is so imba!!!" but then your race have its imbalanced weapon in the repertoire to 'counter'.

On July 30 2012 02:58 CikaZombi wrote:
The muta problem he addresses here is specifically after the initial harassment comes and the Protoss stabilizes, gets his third base and the zerg is maxed on muta/ling for some time.

Now, the problem with going apeshit 3 freaking stargates and pump only pheonix is the switch to roaches that could just murder you,

but if you already have a Sgate, put down another one chrono 10 pheonix, chrono the upgrade and fucking kite and murder his 2000/2000 in mutas.

On July 29 2012 19:53 zezamer wrote:
24.50-26.30 tvz fine

On July 30 2012 03:14 Bagi wrote:

Yes, and that is exactly the "happy accident" I talked about earlier.

Imagine them suddenly giving hellions spider mines, replacing motherships with recalling arbiters, replacing fungal with plague that kills pretty much everything it touches...

Could the game be balanced after that? I think that 95% of the time it would not be. Somehow with BW all these imbalances align pretty much perfectly, and its mostly out of chance. I think balacing on imbalance is one of the hardest things you can do, especially when SC2 is much less mechanically dependant.

On July 30 2012 03:33 Xiphos wrote:


And hence we got not so exciting unit afterward.

p.s. the bolded part wouldn't actually be that bad as every single race would have their imbalances.
p.p.s. plagues don't actually kill everything it touches

On July 30 2012 03:37 Bagi wrote:

Honestly, its impossible to say at this point whether it would be "that bad" or not. I'm thinking its more likely that ridiculously OP crap would pop up rather than not.

I do know plague doesn't kill everything (or actually anything), I was just trying to go with the theme "make everything ridiculously OP".

On July 30 2012 01:42 BoX wrote:
God damn someof you guys are so rude and vicious.

No wonder Blizz is so hesitant to communicate with you @.@

I think Browder's "wait-and-see" methodology of dealing with issues in the game is the best way to approach balance in a game that is so complex. There's so much to go through before someone can confidently say, "yes, this is broken and there is NOTHING that can be done about it."

If Blizzard implemented changes rapidly then the metagame would have no time at all to develop. Shit, half of the amazing stuff in BW was discovered because people lhad to scrounge out just that last tiny little advantage. That's how BW was balanced - over huge amounts of playtime.

BW wasn't balanced because Blizzard interfered with it constantly. SC2 is rough, still has 2 expansions to go through, and needs a lot of settling before it can be polished. IMO.

On July 30 2012 03:44 Wegandi wrote:


Fungal is better than plague...why would any Zerg want that back? Those items you mentioned would be severely toned down because of the pathing in SC2 clumping so many units together. So...., if you put them in untouched, yes, it would be extremely OP for all the races. It would make fights much much quicker than they are, though a side effect of that is that positioning would become extremely important.

On July 30 2012 03:55 Bagi wrote:

You can substitute plague with dark swarm, its not really the point.

The point is that giving each race unbalanced stuff and expecting perfect balance afterwards is a little naive.

On July 30 2012 04:23 oxxo wrote:
Everything else was just the standard PR fluff. I feel like he says the exact same things for every interview.

On July 30 2012 03:14 Bagi wrote:

Yes, and that is exactly the "happy accident" I talked about earlier.

Imagine them suddenly giving hellions spider mines, replacing motherships with recalling arbiters, replacing fungal with plague that kills pretty much everything it touches...

Could the game be balanced after that? I think that 95% of the time it would not be. Somehow with BW all these imbalances align pretty much perfectly, and its mostly out of chance. I think balacing on imbalance is one of the hardest things you can do, especially when SC2 is much less mechanically dependant.

On July 30 2012 02:58 CikaZombi wrote:


How long are you people are gonna take this and similar things that have been explained a 100 times before, most frequently in the same damn thread the interview was posted out of context to prove your point and/or discredit everything DB says. Enough. Someone might actually take you seriously if he had been following his interviews closely.

The muta problem he addresses here is specifically after the initial harassment comes and the Protoss stabilizes, gets his third base and the zerg is maxed on muta/ling for some time. Now, the problem with going apeshit 3 freaking stargates and pump only pheonix is the switch to roaches that could just murder you, but if you already have a Sgate, put down another one chrono 10 pheonix, chrono the upgrade and fucking kite and murder his 2000/2000 in mutas. Slight exaggeration in this example aside, if youtry and miss the point in a time constrained interview in everything he or any other Blizzard representative says, they might as well be speaking Protoss to you because you wouldn't understand crap either way.

On July 30 2012 03:52 whatevername wrote:
BW wasnt even fundamentally balanced, we eventually balanced the game for a particular kind of map, right down to standard mineral types and distance of nats to thirds and so forth. Variation from that typically radically altered balance, and even on more standard maps there was typically 1-2 matchups that simply werent fair. Ultimately, it should be the community's job to recognize the geographical and resource advantages/disadvantages of each race and begin to create a basic balanced template for it. Realistically the game will never be balanced by strategy, but by fair and reasonable map tinkering we can do it.

On July 30 2012 04:21 larse wrote:

(2), (3) What exactly does he think protoss is going to do? No one knows, even Startale Protoss are struggling against Zerg. The carrier play doesn't work very well if it got scouted (which is very likely to be scouted). So it left Protoss no choice but to do all those mid-game timing pushes and all-ins. It's the famous phrase: "kill it before broodlord".

The problem is not that Protoss can't win against Zerg on a 50-50 basis. It's just there is only one strategy: "kill it before broodlord". How stupid is that. And Dustin Browder is talking about muta in the interview. Does he even know what's a 2-base dilemma in PvZ? Even that NASL interviewer is much more knowledgeable than DB.

On July 30 2012 05:26 OrbitalPlane wrote:


I agree on the PvZ situation.
The funny (or not so funnny) thing even if zerg doesn't scout the mass carriers they seem to win. The best example was red squritle in TSL4 on Metropolis. I thought Ret was dead because he was unware of the only air force. But then he killed the carriers without problems despite having mostly brutlords. :D
That's so shocking. Same thing a while back also on Metropolis at HSC5 Nerchio against yonghwa. Nerchio didn't scout the toss going air but roflstomped him later anway.

On July 30 2012 05:34 hunts wrote:


You mean when ret had I belive 30~ corruptors and something like 20 infestors, then he lost his army but rebuilt it because he had such a better economy than squirtle for most of the game?

On July 30 2012 05:39 Satiinifi wrote:
I guess DB is watching different tournaments than I have been watching, as far as I've seen tvz is still disgusting

On July 30 2012 05:46 Seiferz wrote:


I dunno, TvZ is pretty good these days. The good terrans are finding ways to handle it, and the bad ones aren't. At first I do think it was a little ridiculous but now I think it's in a good place.

On July 30 2012 05:46 Seiferz wrote:


I dunno, TvZ is pretty good these days. The good terrans are finding ways to handle it, and the bad ones aren't. At first I do think it was a little ridiculous but now I think it's in a good place.

On July 30 2012 05:55 Satiinifi wrote:
ok if theres 3 terrans in the world that can win games the game is balanced

On July 29 2012 23:10 OrbitalPlane wrote:


You have a lot of good points here and i understand that my first post conceived so negatively.
I think i watched every single interview with DB that is out there, and a lot of the "interesting facts" that you are listing were already answered there. They were not knew to me. =/

I said "didn't take away a lot in watching it" instead of anything, because you souldn't use those absulute statements.
Never say never because there is always one exclusion (that is absurd and that you don't realize when you say it.)


This is very well said and i should have said it in that positive way in the first place.

On July 30 2012 03:20 OrbitalPlane wrote:

Yep

This is not very accurate.
You can't go reactionary double Stargate because you straight up die against mutas. Your first 2 phoenix wont do shit if you face 10 mutas and it will get even worse. You won't be able to build enough phoenix to match the muta numbers. (I have seen that work in some few cases (when you mix it with stalkers at the beginning) but i don't think its a good/strong way of dealing with it)
Roach switches have nothing to do with it.


this sounds easy how you write it. It takes quite some time after you can afford the fleet beacon after investing in 2 Stargates. The upgrade only comes into play if the zerg refuses to tech switch in late game. And they really should imho.
I think a switch into brutlords that benefit from the ground melee upgrades (from zerglings) and the upgrades from air is the strongest answer.

-Dustin Browder was diamond, now platinum.

On July 30 2012 05:34 hunts wrote:


You mean when ret had I belive 30~ corruptors and something like 20 infestors, then he lost his army but rebuilt it because he had such a better economy than squirtle for most of the game?

On July 30 2012 23:40 OrbitalPlane wrote:


Seems like you watched a different game or through the glasses of a Zerg:
Look at 21:30:
Red has way over 20 brutlords, ~20 corruptors and ~10 infestors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcbtezDeTAY&feature=plcp

the toss has a carrier only army with a ms and a few ht's to storm.
so red basically fights with only half of his army (supply and valuewise).

Red loses less in the fight despite what you were saying. rewatch it at 21:30 ++
And if you watch at the resources before the fight red has also less banked.

(If i were mean i could say there was actually no single accurate point in your post.)

On July 31 2012 00:45 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:


Are you joking or what?

Do you really look at that engagement and think it's unfair that Zerg comes out FAR ahead?

In that fight there were only 12 Carriers, a couple HTs and the mothership. 1 Carrier was on the way to his army, but not there yet. And he had 5 more in production.

Squirtle vortexes 2 carriers as well as what seems like 75% the Interceptors. A bit later a single corrupter also moves into the vortex.
So then at that part it's roughly 18 Corrputers and some Infested Terrans fighting a mothership, a couple HTs and 10 Carriers with barely any Interceptors left.

The mothership takes a lot fire from Infested Terrans and then also dies to the Corruptors, Squirtle's Storms aren't placed all too well, some deal at least decent damage though.
And yeh of course at that part most of the carriers get taken out, although 4 can actually escape and take out the last remaining Corrupters of that battle.


If you consider this anything but a godawful engagement by Squirtle than stop arguing. Because it was just that. His Vortex basically made his Carriers close to useless.

On July 30 2012 05:26 OrbitalPlane wrote:


I agree on the PvZ situation.
The funny (or not so funnny) thing even if zerg doesn't scout the mass carriers they seem to win. The best example was red squritle in TSL4 on Metropolis. I thought Ret was dead because he was unware of the only air force. But then he killed the carriers without problems despite having mostly brutlords. :D
That's so shocking. Same thing a while back also on Metropolis at HSC5 Nerchio against yonghwa. Nerchio didn't scout the toss going air but roflstomped him later anway.

On July 29 2012 20:26 Serelitz wrote:
Transcript.





There you go.

On August 04 2012 22:15 Tuna17 wrote:
People give DB a hard time but when it comes down to it blizzard will eventually get it right because they make good games. Very excited for HotS! Hope soon means a few weeks.

On August 04 2012 16:36 Empire.Beastyqt wrote:
Anyone remembers when blizzard was trying to hire people for their balance team and requirement was to be at least diamond league?

DB has no clue what he is talking about, saying that protosses will have to figure something other then 2 base allins and they are doing it for LONG time now and thinking that terran raven micro is not good is hilarious. MKP can micro 50 marines like a boss, but he cant micro awful unit with useless spells, you tell him DB!

Thing I hate the most is when they say "if we see that change is too good or too bad for some unit we will always be happy to say we made a mistake and change it back" when in fact that would NEVER happen because blizzard would never admit they made a mistake. They would always boost or nerf another unit than reverting change they made.

Saying that HoTS will fix bl/inf is hilarious too, it can only create more imbalance with new units, first you need to fix old units in order to balance new ones.

Even tho this is like 10th interview since last patch I have feeling I was watching same interview all 10 times, every answer is same, on their "statistics" terran is still doing amazing (god knows what they are looking probably paper league), even tho there are like 20 players in GM in EU that are terrans and 10 more being their smurfs, oh blizz..

On August 04 2012 22:42 Xiphos wrote:


They made ggs. Totally abolishing their precedent philosophy that is to only release a product once quality is ensured.

On August 04 2012 16:26 NotaGoodName wrote:
So... we are letting somebody in platinum league determine balance issues?

24:45 How do you feel about the changes made to the Queen at this point?
-Terrans still doing runby's with hellions, and banshees and drops.
-Not 100% sure
-Everything looks balanced from ladder statistics, tournament statistics, tournament results.
-Big change but Terran had been dominating for months.
-Open to being wrong.

On August 04 2012 16:36 Empire.Beastyqt wrote:
Anyone remembers when blizzard was trying to hire people for their balance team and requirement was to be at least diamond league?

DB has no clue what he is talking about, saying that protosses will have to figure something other then 2 base allins and they are doing it for LONG time now and thinking that terran raven micro is not good is hilarious. MKP can micro 50 marines like a boss, but he cant micro awful unit with useless spells, you tell him DB!

Thing I hate the most is when they say "if we see that change is too good or too bad for some unit we will always be happy to say we made a mistake and change it back" when in fact that would NEVER happen because blizzard would never admit they made a mistake. They would always boost or nerf another unit than reverting change they made.

Saying that HoTS will fix bl/inf is hilarious too, it can only create more imbalance with new units, first you need to fix old units in order to balance new ones.

Even tho this is like 10th interview since last patch I have feeling I was watching same interview all 10 times, every answer is same, on their "statistics" terran is still doing amazing (god knows what they are looking probably paper league), even tho there are like 20 players in GM in EU that are terrans and 10 more being their smurfs, oh blizz..

On August 04 2012 23:46 rd wrote:


Shouldn't we be rejoicing? DB has finally concluded that allowing the meta game to play out for more than 2 months is a better idea than knee-jerk buffing/nerfing units and never giving the meta game enough time to develop.

On August 04 2012 16:36 Empire.Beastyqt wrote:
Anyone remembers when blizzard was trying to hire people for their balance team and requirement was to be at least diamond league?

DB has no clue what he is talking about, saying that protosses will have to figure something other then 2 base allins and they are doing it for LONG time now and thinking that terran raven micro is not good is hilarious. MKP can micro 50 marines like a boss, but he cant micro awful unit with useless spells, you tell him DB!

Thing I hate the most is when they say "if we see that change is too good or too bad for some unit we will always be happy to say we made a mistake and change it back" when in fact that would NEVER happen because blizzard would never admit they made a mistake. They would always boost or nerf another unit than reverting change they made.

Saying that HoTS will fix bl/inf is hilarious too, it can only create more imbalance with new units, first you need to fix old units in order to balance new ones.

Even tho this is like 10th interview since last patch I have feeling I was watching same interview all 10 times, every answer is same, on their "statistics" terran is still doing amazing (god knows what they are looking probably paper league), even tho there are like 20 players in GM in EU that are terrans and 10 more being their smurfs, oh blizz..

On August 04 2012 23:21 Plansix wrote:


Well the man has a full time job and likely works over 50-70 hours a week. Most people making video games do not have a lot of time to play them. Platinum among my group of friends is known as the working stiff league. If we expect everyone to be masters a blizzard(which is the top 2%) of the ladder, we better be willing to wait must longer for balance patches and HotS.

On August 05 2012 01:29 SupLilSon wrote:


Regardless, you'd think they would hire some people who are high skilled RTS players to balance an RTS game around the high skilled bracket. David Kim hasn't had a GM account since like season 2 and overwhelming player testimony shows that Blizz hasn't been in talks with pros like they claimed. The recent "balance" changes to the game have highlighted why you can't have a group of platinum and diamond players balancing the game for the top 5% of GM.

On August 05 2012 03:36 Plansix wrote:
Blizzard has said they talk with high level players, but have also found their points of view to be bias and only so useful. They have spoken directly with "knowledgeable observers", which I assume means people like Artosis who have a broader understanding of the game. You would be hard pressed to find anyone in the world who watches more highlevel starcraft 2 than Artosis. This should not be shocking to people, as most professional sports and their rules are controlled by people who are not professional athletes.

On August 04 2012 23:15 Plansix wrote:


That job posting was not for the balance team and did state that is had anything to do with balancing SC2 prime. Stating that the applicant be in a least diamond league is just a way to make sure that they are hiring an active player. The major skills they were looking for were, writing, the ability use the map editor and the ability to work with a team. For all we know, they could be working on Blizzard-Dota. I love how false information created by the community just becomes truth and is repeated over and over.

I found the interview to be fine. At no point did DB say that terran's raven control was sub-par. He stated that he was a Ravens and HSM used in a professional match(likely GSL) and thought it was compelling. He said that it did not look as refined as other strategies, but this was likely because the person using it does not get to that level of the game often. He was talking about how that is a problem in the late game, that most players do not get to the late game often and players do not get to practice in those situations as much as others.

On August 05 2012 03:36 Plansix wrote:


Blizzard has said they talk with high level players, but have also found their points of view to be bias and only so useful. They have spoken directly with "knowledgeable observers", which I assume means people like Artosis who have a broader understanding of the game. You would be hard pressed to find anyone in the world who watches more highlevel starcraft 2 than Artosis. This should not be shocking to people, as most professional sports and their rules are controlled by people who are not professional athletes.

Skill is not directly related to design and you will find tons of game designers who are not top teir at the games they create. Staying in GM is a huge time commitment which is why you see mostly professional players in there. You cannot expect someone working full time in the gaming industry to keep an account of that level. Also, mechanical skill can decline over time, while your game understanding of the metagame may remain on the cutting edge. Really, all game designers are inherently less skilled at the games they create than community.

On August 05 2012 07:35 SupLilSon wrote:


I'm fairly certain a lot of Artosis' "cutting-edge" game knowledge comes from him being in direct contact with current pros.