On November 20 2012 23:31 MavivaM wrote:Good interview, very good questions, very... ehr, interesting answers.
I'd really like to know what was passing trough your mind when hearing them, Monk: personally I would have raged hard, but I won't ever be an interviewer, luckly enough!
If my impression is correct you can be a sneaky individual, especially considering Parting's issue.
But maybe it's just my impression, it's up to you to confirm or not.
About Dustin... I don't know, seriously: on one side apparently I fail to realise that balancing is harder than what I expect and that he must be an intelligent guy (and we cannot judge someone we don't know with some interviews on the internet), but on the other side his approach always leaves me speechless.
It's not his political approach when answering, it's the fact that he doesn't even consider some things as a problem, at all.
I'm pretty sure that up until now he didn't even have an idea about the issue you point out at around 03:54, nor he did paid particular attention to the maps except for their overall dimensions.
I also don't think he has a real idea about the progamers scene, if we exclude the important matches in GSL and semifnals/finals all around, nor he has even played a game as a zerg against a won-won-won.
About statistics, the issue is way more complex: oftentimes we don't take many things in consideration, such as the players' openings in every game... I can see why Dustin is taking it slow.
But as always, the real issue stays around: there are units who can change the match despite the opponents' skill, like Morrow and a moltitude of users already pointed out in the past.
The mothership and the infestors are finally being targeted (?), the sentry instead is obviously and conveniently ignored.
Browder talks about "baiting FFs", as it could work, for example, against good proplayers who are committing to an all-in.
Not buying it.
On the good side of things I like his talking about design instead of balancing for HoTS: issues like the sentry one have to be prevented instead of being solved, since I don't see any hint about Blizzard fixing it.
We can hope, at least, that the expansion won't bring other design problem as well.
It's a good step in the right direction, at least.
The correction on the zerg side look strange, at least regarding neural parasyte.
Nothing is really said about the infested terran and while fungal is slightly broken (at least imo) we have still to realise that's the only way zerg can limit the forcefield hellfest.
I can't still see why a slow effect instead of a complete freeze wouldn't work, especially considering that not all battles are on creep.
The projectile animation seems more than reasonable, not being able to freeze/slow warp prisms or medivacs is absolute bullshit.
Again, great interview even if it leaves me with a bad feeling overall
EPT
