Kim: We actually tried a lot of units. It’s hard to keep count how many we scrapped, but one example of a new unit is - When we came up with new units we tried to make sure that we’re either filling a gap that’s existing in Wings of Liberty or it’s a completely new thing that people aren’t really used to. So one example is, in Wings of Liberty, all the harass units in the game go for the worker line. They never go for your stack, the enemies army. So we wanted to introduce a new unit, that kinda harasses that stack, but doesn’t really function well in combat. So what we had was a type of a missile launcher unit at the factory. So this missile launcher had a weapon and had one ability on a longer cooldown, like a one minute or two minutes cooldown. You can use that ability anywhere on the map. And what it does is, it fires a missile at that location and the enemy has to move away. If not, he takes a lot of damage. So the problem with this obviously was that of course enemies will go for your peon line if you can shoot it anywhere on the map or it’s gonna go for key structures, such as Spires, Pylons powering multiple Gateways and so on. So we excluded those two things and it kinda felt weird because it’s a missile that fires, and it lands, but it does zero damage to workers, which made like no sense. So that was problematic. And the second problem was that it’s pretty much a nuke against that enemy army. So we already had that in the game. But when we were first thinking of the concept of the unit, because it’s like a missile launcher that shoots a missile, it didn’t really relate to the Ghost, but mechanically it kinda did. So those are the reasons why it got cut.
So we just have a bunch of units that we just try and that sound kinda cool on paper, but not really. So it’s really important for us to really test the units that we have in game and all the units that are here in gamescom are actually pretty good for the beta. But of course, if there are problems with those units, then we will take measures to either cut, improve or fine-tune those units during the beta.
They actually thought that was a good I idea? They had to try it to know it sucks? Facepalm.
On August 23 2012 20:01 PatouPower wrote: Seriously, what's up with Blizzard? Do they want to fuck their game the quickest way possible? Because to me it seems the entire team is composed of 10 years old kids who loved big units with super powers. Otherwise, I can't understand why they'd leave the mothership in the game. That unit is entirely against what SC has always been. Nobody likes it, nobody likes what it does (i.e. making for a long boring game where one battle is decided by one or 2 vortexes) and it's a stupid hero unit. They should try to fix late game protoss in other ways imo if they find that they don't have enough chances in late game PvZ (which is the only utility at the moment). I also think the tempest is not a very well designed unit, but I'll give it a chance in the beta.
Also, that mothership core is a flawed concept as well. How bad must you be at designing units that you need to implement that one? To me it has the same flaws as the mothership, but more in the early-mid game.
I know the beta isn't out yet, but I'm not saying these units or OP or UP at the moment; I'm just saying that most the units are badly designed and, unfortunately, this is not something you can fix by tweaking numbers.
Blizzard wants to add recall to the game, the mothership core is a way to balance this. It's a similar type of design as the queen and it gives the developers the design space to add some strategical abilities to protoss. Mothership Core energy will be a sort of resource to the protoss, just like creep spread is to the zerg. It will be something an opponent needs to keep tabs on and try to manipulate, therefore it has the potential to add a lot of decision making skill into the game.
I think it can be good design, but it depends on if Blizzard makes all of its abilities way too powerful or not. :/
Swarm Hosts are better and almost fill the same role as Broodlords, While being cheaper and coming out really damn fast.
Warhounds are super anti stalker anti tank destruction machines that will kill everything in their path.
Widow Mines are great to prevent all Oracle harass/muta/drops while forces their opponent to sit in their base even longer cause you have to move out more slowly.
Tempest is stupid, Slow damage, cost a lot comes out when it can be easily dealt with.
Mothership core now moves and could almost be used offensively when close air position. Also the cannon makes rushes mute and allow Protoss to Fast expand in every game.
Viper is a flying defiler.
Oracle could be cool, want to wait for all the entomb/cloaking field stuff to be balanced out. Feel it will be nerfed to death because Low league players won't be able to to deal with entombing their mineral lines.
Also Cloud has only made good points. I like his input please keep posting your thoughts.
On August 23 2012 19:10 Velr wrote: 1 zealot 1 stalker against 1(.5) marine 1 marauder both ... You do realise that this Protoss army is way more expensive in.. absolutely every aspect?
Blizzard seems very conservative with it's changes from WoL to Hots. Just go an check Warcraft 3 classic to TfT... That was balls to the walls.
agreed, after seeing how much tFT improved upon the already fun wc3 I had higher hopes for overhauls in this expansion. Like they changed the cost of almost everything, added heroes, units and buildings, items, complete overhaul of armour types and attack types, etc. In this expansion we get 0 new buildings and just a few (sorry but mostly boring) new units. a new tileset or two.
On August 23 2012 19:10 Velr wrote: 1 zealot 1 stalker against 1(.5) marine 1 marauder both ... You do realise that this Protoss army is way more expensive in.. absolutely every aspect?
Blizzard seems very conservative with it's changes from WoL to Hots. Just go an check Warcraft 3 classic to TfT... That was balls to the walls.
agreed, after seeing how much tFT improved upon the already fun wc3 I had higher hopes for overhauls in this expansion. Like they changed the cost of almost everything, added heroes, units and buildings, items, complete overhaul of armour types and attack types, etc. In this expansion we get 0 new buildings and just a few (sorry but mostly boring) new units. a new tileset or two.
David Kim said they specifically set out to try and not change anything except for the new units. I don't know why, maybe they felt like the game was already pretty solid. Which sounds like something David Kim would say.
On August 23 2012 19:10 Velr wrote: 1 zealot 1 stalker against 1(.5) marine 1 marauder both ... You do realise that this Protoss army is way more expensive in.. absolutely every aspect?
Blizzard seems very conservative with it's changes from WoL to Hots. Just go an check Warcraft 3 classic to TfT... That was balls to the walls.
agreed, after seeing how much tFT improved upon the already fun wc3 I had higher hopes for overhauls in this expansion. Like they changed the cost of almost everything, added heroes, units and buildings, items, complete overhaul of armour types and attack types, etc. In this expansion we get 0 new buildings and just a few (sorry but mostly boring) new units. a new tileset or two.
Yes, because SC2 seems to follow the steps of SC and not WC3, and I am quite happy with it.
Kim: We actually tried a lot of units. It’s hard to keep count how many we scrapped, but one example of a new unit is - When we came up with new units we tried to make sure that we’re either filling a gap that’s existing in Wings of Liberty or it’s a completely new thing that people aren’t really used to. So one example is, in Wings of Liberty, all the harass units in the game go for the worker line. They never go for your stack, the enemies army. So we wanted to introduce a new unit, that kinda harasses that stack, but doesn’t really function well in combat. So what we had was a type of a missile launcher unit at the factory. So this missile launcher had a weapon and had one ability on a longer cooldown, like a one minute or two minutes cooldown. You can use that ability anywhere on the map. And what it does is, it fires a missile at that location and the enemy has to move away. If not, he takes a lot of damage. So the problem with this obviously was that of course enemies will go for your peon line if you can shoot it anywhere on the map or it’s gonna go for key structures, such as Spires, Pylons powering multiple Gateways and so on. So we excluded those two things and it kinda felt weird because it’s a missile that fires, and it lands, but it does zero damage to workers, which made like no sense. So that was problematic. And the second problem was that it’s pretty much a nuke against that enemy army. So we already had that in the game. But when we were first thinking of the concept of the unit, because it’s like a missile launcher that shoots a missile, it didn’t really relate to the Ghost, but mechanically it kinda did. So those are the reasons why it got cut.
So we just have a bunch of units that we just try and that sound kinda cool on paper, but not really. So it’s really important for us to really test the units that we have in game and all the units that are here in gamescom are actually pretty good for the beta. But of course, if there are problems with those units, then we will take measures to either cut, improve or fine-tune those units during the beta.
They actually thought that was a good I idea? They had to try it to know it sucks? Facepalm.
Sorry to whine with all the whiners but ,... yep - what the fuck? "We have an idea which is kind of shit and doesn't work how we want it, so we'll adjust it and now the shit idea is usable"
I mean the idea is awful, it's just fucking awful. I swear even if I played Terran I'd hate the warhound just because it looks like such a silly unit. Why couldn't they add the spider mine thing to tanks or something? Like you build them out of tanks like interceptors? Or perhaps each tank comes with one after you research the upgrade?
Also I kind of like the new spider mine thing, except for it attacking air. I also DID think the timer was kind of interesting, just a bit of a long timer.
I have such little faith for Blizzard with the HoTS proposed changes, I feel sorry for me as a huge huge spectator and I feel actually even more sorry for the casters and players who need to play this game, it's going to be fucking Supreme Commander soon at this rate.
man when I first heard about hots I was pretty damn excited, but throughout the months and after many announcements regarding changes to the units/game I lost confidence in blizz, as they seemingly are making the game worse and not creative at all. as they already dismissed/removed most of the really interesting stuff and instead implement bullshit like reaper HP regeneration or stuff that resembles BW in some way without being even close to the awesomeness of their respective counterparts (sounds a bit awkward I know lol).
my current conclusion on the actual turn of events is I'm prolly not gonna buy it at all, since Dustin Browder and David Kim crushed my excitement with their poor design
Kim: We actually tried a lot of units. It’s hard to keep count how many we scrapped, but one example of a new unit is - When we came up with new units we tried to make sure that we’re either filling a gap that’s existing in Wings of Liberty or it’s a completely new thing that people aren’t really used to. So one example is, in Wings of Liberty, all the harass units in the game go for the worker line. They never go for your stack, the enemies army. So we wanted to introduce a new unit, that kinda harasses that stack, but doesn’t really function well in combat. So what we had was a type of a missile launcher unit at the factory. So this missile launcher had a weapon and had one ability on a longer cooldown, like a one minute or two minutes cooldown. You can use that ability anywhere on the map. And what it does is, it fires a missile at that location and the enemy has to move away. If not, he takes a lot of damage. So the problem with this obviously was that of course enemies will go for your peon line if you can shoot it anywhere on the map or it’s gonna go for key structures, such as Spires, Pylons powering multiple Gateways and so on. So we excluded those two things and it kinda felt weird because it’s a missile that fires, and it lands, but it does zero damage to workers, which made like no sense. So that was problematic. And the second problem was that it’s pretty much a nuke against that enemy army. So we already had that in the game. But when we were first thinking of the concept of the unit, because it’s like a missile launcher that shoots a missile, it didn’t really relate to the Ghost, but mechanically it kinda did. So those are the reasons why it got cut.
So we just have a bunch of units that we just try and that sound kinda cool on paper, but not really. So it’s really important for us to really test the units that we have in game and all the units that are here in gamescom are actually pretty good for the beta. But of course, if there are problems with those units, then we will take measures to either cut, improve or fine-tune those units during the beta.
They actually thought that was a good I idea? They had to try it to know it sucks? Facepalm.
I would rather Blizzard try stuff and see if it sucks, rather than just assuming that things are a bad idea. With the number of changes we have seen since the battle reports and Gamescon, it is pretty clear they are in a very fluid state of design. Experimenting with units, ideas and ways to play the game is the best way to find new units that work. As a community, we shun theory crafting about specific builds and playstyles and reward people who prove their concepts through practice and experimentation. Blizzard is doing the same thing, trying units out in practice, rather than relying on theory crafting on what would improve the game.
On August 22 2012 03:27 Yoduh wrote: I want to point out how most people making huge complaints and posting all this negativity are only focusing on one or two new units and declaring the whole expansion a dud before the beta is even out. I don't mind complaining, it makes for good feedback, but looking at the bigger picture theres a lot of things being done right with HotS. I haven't seen a single complaint against the viper, hydra speed, ultralist burrow charge or reaper upgrade. A lot of people are cool with the oracle, mothership core, and battle hellion. People are on the fence about tempest, widow mine, and swarm host but only for possibly not being powerful enough. Really the only constant complaints being made are against the warhound and general fears about continued deathball vs. deathball "a-move" gameplay.
Doesn't sound too bad for still being pre-beta! And once beta starts there will probably be a floodgate of changes, and I think a lot of people complaining that Blizzard never listens are gonna get shut up. If you can remember back to SC2:WoL beta Blizzard was making changes all the time. People forget that. Once a game is released it's different, and they become way more hesitant to make big changes, and rightfully so. But beta time is great. I don't know what kind of changes are yet to be made, but in a few months you can bet we won't be looking at the same game we see today. So to nay sayers I simply say continue criticizing and giving feedback, that's good, but the predictions about SC2 and HotS failing are just too premature for this stage of development.
Warpgate is still a stupid mechanic and it's been in the game forever. It's also a contributory factor to [i]why[i/] Protoss games largely consist of allins or deathballing.
Lol how does warpgate cause deathballs? Warpgate, if anything, would be antideathball. Sure it would increase all-ins, but you can't say deathball at all...
Either do your research on the topic or think for yourself. Warp Gate is THE contributing factor to why Protoss needs to play a deathball style. It's the root cause of all things bad with the race. Let me see if I can make a concise diagram.
Warp Gate -> Gateway units have to be weak due to Warp In's strength -> Gateway units suck -> majority of the Protoss army sucks as lone units -> Protoss units need to mesh very well or Protoss as a race will fail -> Deathball play is born.
That's a gross oversimplification. In really low numbers they can beat similar cost terran or zerg armies, either through kiting or sentries. Then in the midgame they get weak till colossi. That's not a case of being weak in small groups. Plus if you've ever watched blink stalkers v. zerg I don't think you can make a general statement that gateway units are weak.
In what universe do you see equally upgraded small Protoss armies beating small Terran armies?
Who wins 1 chargelot, 2 blinkstalkers or 3 marines 2 marauders with stim? If anything it's a very close battle but I'm almost certain that the toss wins. Or even worse for terran, 1 zealot 1 stalker against 1(.5) marine 1 marauder both completely unupgraded.
Um... 2 Marauders and 3 marines all with stim would crush 2 blink stalkers and 1 chargelot in a heartbeat. Hell, I doubt terran even needs stim.
On August 23 2012 11:12 IdrA wrote: and he still has no idea what hes doing
And that's why Blizzard should hire a progamer game design team.
They consult pro-gamers on their opinions of the game all the time, it's stupid to think they wouldn't.
In the light of not simply posting images as responses, I just want to share this small comic strip. It's what came to mind as I read this post (nothing inflammatory obviously).
I just don't think that design teams value professional input highly enough. They're looking for something shiny that's interesting and new. Which is a good thing. But sometimes that just gets in the way of game quality. Well, those are my € 0,02...
Kim: We actually tried a lot of units. It’s hard to keep count how many we scrapped, but one example of a new unit is - When we came up with new units we tried to make sure that we’re either filling a gap that’s existing in Wings of Liberty or it’s a completely new thing that people aren’t really used to. So one example is, in Wings of Liberty, all the harass units in the game go for the worker line. They never go for your stack, the enemies army. So we wanted to introduce a new unit, that kinda harasses that stack, but doesn’t really function well in combat. So what we had was a type of a missile launcher unit at the factory. So this missile launcher had a weapon and had one ability on a longer cooldown, like a one minute or two minutes cooldown. You can use that ability anywhere on the map. And what it does is, it fires a missile at that location and the enemy has to move away. If not, he takes a lot of damage. So the problem with this obviously was that of course enemies will go for your peon line if you can shoot it anywhere on the map or it’s gonna go for key structures, such as Spires, Pylons powering multiple Gateways and so on. So we excluded those two things and it kinda felt weird because it’s a missile that fires, and it lands, but it does zero damage to workers, which made like no sense. So that was problematic. And the second problem was that it’s pretty much a nuke against that enemy army. So we already had that in the game. But when we were first thinking of the concept of the unit, because it’s like a missile launcher that shoots a missile, it didn’t really relate to the Ghost, but mechanically it kinda did. So those are the reasons why it got cut.
So we just have a bunch of units that we just try and that sound kinda cool on paper, but not really. So it’s really important for us to really test the units that we have in game and all the units that are here in gamescom are actually pretty good for the beta. But of course, if there are problems with those units, then we will take measures to either cut, improve or fine-tune those units during the beta.
They actually thought that was a good I idea? They had to try it to know it sucks? Facepalm.
I would rather Blizzard try stuff and see if it sucks, rather than just assuming that things are a bad idea. With the number of changes we have seen since the battle reports and Gamescon, it is pretty clear they are in a very fluid state of design. Experimenting with units, ideas and ways to play the game is the best way to find new units that work. As a community, we shun theory crafting about specific builds and playstyles and reward people who prove their concepts through practice and experimentation. Blizzard is doing the same thing, trying units out in practice, rather than relying on theory crafting on what would improve the game.
Yeah I agree.
A lot of the things people say are gimmicks are whatever - You have to remember that in SCBW became good "accidentally".
(They said they never really intended BW to be some epic eSport game that was balanced and had solid mechanics for all three races. They just added some units and thought they were cool and somehow BW happened.)
(Of course that's what remember reading about, not sure if it was true or not. Regardless though, they made BW good on their first try which was unexpected. Also BW had few balance patches [of course the maps needed work though].)
Though I think what they did was try too hard to "solve" the tank issue in TvT (they said they added the missile launcher specifically because of TvT).
I admit that I do dislike playing TvT the most (mainly because it takes long and I want more ladder points and fast wins to increase my MMR faster >.>) but TBH I don't know if they should go through with this or not.
TvT does already have a lot of alternative ways to play (it really depends on map though, some maps are better suited for mech than others).
When HotS comes out, I can imagine playing TvT will be more fun (for me) since I dislike tank battles (playing them that is, I like watching them).
On August 23 2012 23:37 Dustin_Beaver wrote: If this is indicative of what has become of Blizzard culture, they are waaaaaaaay passed their prime.
For those who don't know about the Diablo 3 "Fuck that loser" story, a funny sendup:
I counter that with this: (Go to 4 hours, 4 minutes, and 43 seconds. Or alternatively, open the link and it will go to that spot automatically.) (Jay Wilson - "I don't know why they let me be on that team that is that good." "Every day I wait for security to show up, escort me out." "And just for them to just go 'aww, you had us fooled for 6 and a half years but we now figured it out" *Cut to scene with security guards taking Jay Wilson away moments later. Yep Jay Wilson said that in the video. Watch it if you can.)
It's sad for Jay Wilson because a lot probably don't know about that (he already explained it but he said it mainly because he really loves his team, not because he wanted to defend himself). (Of course, regardless that was unprofessional, so I acknowledge that.)
Listening to pros input is actually the worse fucking thing there is. Ask how reckful and his crew completely broke rogue and mage (and somewhat shaman too) because it benefits them.
Pro players are not designers; they can't handle statistics and numbers. They don't know whether a unit is more fun or not than your average gamers. They can only judge base on their personal feelings, emotions, and perspectives, all of which is just as bias if not more than your average gamers.
On August 22 2012 02:05 Evangelist wrote: Single target A move units (hi Warhound) are crazy easy to balance. It's a game of numbers and since there's no multiplication implicit to a Warhound deathball they scale linearly with the only limits being the quantized number of shots required to destroy a particular unit. If the problem with the Warhound is that it's too easy to A move, is the problem the Warhound itself (ie taking too many shots to kill and thus absorbing fire for higher DPS units) or is it the time of availability? Is it the sheer damage output? Does it fill a niche other units don't fill? Does it have a reason for being there?
Congratulations on not getting it *at all* This paragraph you wrote is a perfect example of Blizzard thinking, forget the *design* of the unit and focus on the numbers.
It's how the unit is used, what it's abilities are, how and what it attacks. The Warhound is the very definition of a mindless unit which auto-targets what it's intended to disperse. It requires no thinking, at all - it's only weakness is air units (of which Protoss doesn't have a huge quantity of good air to ground units)
Fiddling with numbers is meaningless when the design is wrong. I never even played more than a few hours of BW and over 2 years of watching pro games, reading this site - it's very easy to understand why some pros are disillusioned with the game. The design needs to be clever - not just even.
No offence man, but they don't employ you. They are better at designing games than you are. That's why you don't work for them.
Nearly every unit in the game is designed like I have just said. There are only a handful that aren't and they are rightly called "casters". Is the Warhound an A move unit? Of course it is. Does that mean that you just build it and send it in? Of course not - the point of the numerical adjustment is to ensure that you can't just build one unit and overwhelm an opponent at any point in the game.
Put it this way. Yes, at present the Warhound presents a significant advantage vs a meching player compared to not building them at all. In the same way as does building seige tanks does vs someone not building seige tanks. For example there are people in this thread going on about how the future of TvT will be big balls of MMM with Warhounds. Why, exactly? Did seige tanks suddenly stop vaporising marines all of a sudden. Did marines suddenly become ineffective against enemy units? Did banshees suddenly stop shooting down? Did Thors stop doing 60 damage a shot to enemy units?
The worst part of this forum is that people on this forum, because they are on this forum and ESPECIALLY if they do this for a living, assume that because they can see flaws in present game design, means they can design something that stops that. For example, half of the BW advocates on this forum are ranting about having "much stronger AoE" to punish deathballs without thinking that, hey, wait a second, what effect is that going to have on split units if suddenly all you need to do is blanket storm an area for a guaranteed army kill.
They don't see the endgame of their suggestions. The endgame of making AoE 50-100% stronger is that the entire battle is not decided by positioning or even by the better unit composition, but by who has more fucking casters to blanket more of the area with storms. This is not Brood War. The whole design of the game is faster than Brood War. The only complaint that I admit I share with the BW obsessees is the colossus - the reaver was a much more interesting unit.
The only thing that SC2 ever needs to adhere to is combined arms theory - the idea that two units of different types with different roles must always be stronger than a similar number of given units. This holds completely true in nearly every situation you can think of in Starcraft 2. Stalker Immortal vs Stalker, Marine vs Marine Tank, Zergling Baneling vs Zergling. As long as SC2 doesn't have one unit that simply overwhelms every other unit, then composition remains important and it doesn't matter whether the units are A move or not - there will always be a way to overrun those units with either superior micro or superior composition. After all, how do you explain pro terrans winning against toss deathballs when, in every single way, the toss deathball is stronger?
EPT
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