On December 03 2012 07:06 zmansman17 wrote: Note that the queen range was ostensibly buffed to help Zergs defend against 11/11 rax.
This is wrong. The reason given was helping Zerg vs. early Hellions where they needed none.
On December 03 2012 09:31 Hider wrote: Why do so many people rewrite history? Prequeen patch everyone went reactor hellion first (almost noone went reapers). This was a great build for terrans as you was very safe and you had map control --> zerg could not counter anything you did reactionary. Was this build a bit too strong? Probably. But Blizzard made a terrible choice by buffing queens as this made first 10-14 mins extremely boring. I remember predicint that terans probably would completely skip harassing and open siege tank --> quick 3rd. That predicting didn't turn out to be completely true as terrans went into banshee/hellion ( though it was difficult to predict that banshees could work vs mass queens...). But that opening kinda got figured out as well. Hellion openings are still okay'ish, but zerg always has fully control of the game if they no what they are doing and terran can't really harss efficiently early game which makes the game boring.
When that is said I think zerg would have been imbalanced no matter what. Infestors are strong regardless of whether zergs get an early game lead (as they do with queen buff) or doesn't.
The only actual problems with the Reactor Hellion Expand were how easily a 2-Factory Mass Hellion push could be masked as one and how prevalent the opener itself was. And even then, the opener itself played out entertainingly on both sides - Zerg had a multitude of different ways to repel the Hellions from Spine reroots to Roaches to mass speedlings. The key thing is that the spine reroots took a lot of time and attention and roaches and lings cost larvae. The Zerg economy was hindered, yes, but it was a setback from the insane brokenness that is the unhindered Zerg economy to being normal and fair.
During the opener both sides also had a lot of room to make gains with good control - if Terran was sloppy with his Hellions he could totally lose map control for a very long time, letting Zerg do whatever the please. Zerg sloppiness, well... I'm sure you're all familiar with Hellion runbys. Many people act as if the Hellion opener was a runby opener and an autowin. It was not. Proper defense made trying a runby very risky. Crying that the build was an autowin is akin to a Terran or toss crying that Zerglings are imba when they do not bother to wall in: To be laughed at, not to be taken seriously.
Back to the build, a high stakes early game lead to a long, eventful, skirmishy midgame typically of marine-tank vs. muta-ling or ling-infestor and then T trying to win against the deathball. The critical thing here is that T had much, much more time. In the old days a 14 minute Hive was greedy. Now 12 minutes is safe and standard. That is a lot of time lost for Terran in setting up production capabilities to deal with the deathball.
So, a ridiculously good metagame, usually hailed as the best one in the game, rivaling TvT. Very even winrates and a good overall feeling of sanity. A bit of blandness in opener CHOICE, not in gameplay. Only problem was an easily masked all-in, which did have a Zerg response if they knew it was coming. The Ferrarilord upgrade fixed that. The Queen patch was, in short, total overkill and completely misguided. I have no idea where Blizzard got the idea that the Hellion opener needed fixing, but I guess it is the same place the Snipe nerf, -20 HP eggs and other assorted pieces of insanity are born, where the game is a-ok and absolutely does not have hideous design problems.
I kinda agree. The opening was pretty entertaining. It was definitely a much better metagame than the current one we see now. Also I don't get how Blizzard couldn't predict this. How exactly did they think tvz openings would look like? Did they think terran would play medivac-drop play openings or wtf were they thinking as a reponds to zergs massing queens?
I generally disagree. It's not interesting to watch how zerg is contained in 2 bases while the terran goes safe quick 3rd. The games usually led to different kind of 2 bases all in or zerg's roach baneling bust too
so is no rush 13-15 minutes into one side consistantly, slowly losing
also the openers became more stagnate because of the patch (13gas obsolete)
On December 03 2012 14:36 ETisME wrote: I generally disagree. It's not interesting to watch how zerg is contained in 2 bases while the terran goes safe quick 3rd. The games usually led to different kind of 2 bases all in or zerg's roach baneling bust too
A Zerg being contained by 6 Hellions was doing so willingly, because he had the choice to make 3 Roaches to get rid of said contain.
On December 03 2012 07:06 zmansman17 wrote: Note that the queen range was ostensibly buffed to help Zergs defend against 11/11 rax.
This is wrong. The reason given was helping Zerg vs. early Hellions where they needed none.
On December 03 2012 09:31 Hider wrote: Why do so many people rewrite history? Prequeen patch everyone went reactor hellion first (almost noone went reapers). This was a great build for terrans as you was very safe and you had map control --> zerg could not counter anything you did reactionary. Was this build a bit too strong? Probably. But Blizzard made a terrible choice by buffing queens as this made first 10-14 mins extremely boring. I remember predicint that terans probably would completely skip harassing and open siege tank --> quick 3rd. That predicting didn't turn out to be completely true as terrans went into banshee/hellion ( though it was difficult to predict that banshees could work vs mass queens...). But that opening kinda got figured out as well. Hellion openings are still okay'ish, but zerg always has fully control of the game if they no what they are doing and terran can't really harss efficiently early game which makes the game boring.
When that is said I think zerg would have been imbalanced no matter what. Infestors are strong regardless of whether zergs get an early game lead (as they do with queen buff) or doesn't.
The only actual problems with the Reactor Hellion Expand were how easily a 2-Factory Mass Hellion push could be masked as one and how prevalent the opener itself was. And even then, the opener itself played out entertainingly on both sides - Zerg had a multitude of different ways to repel the Hellions from Spine reroots to Roaches to mass speedlings. The key thing is that the spine reroots took a lot of time and attention and roaches and lings cost larvae. The Zerg economy was hindered, yes, but it was a setback from the insane brokenness that is the unhindered Zerg economy to being normal and fair.
During the opener both sides also had a lot of room to make gains with good control - if Terran was sloppy with his Hellions he could totally lose map control for a very long time, letting Zerg do whatever the please. Zerg sloppiness, well... I'm sure you're all familiar with Hellion runbys. Many people act as if the Hellion opener was a runby opener and an autowin. It was not. Proper defense made trying a runby very risky. Crying that the build was an autowin is akin to a Terran or toss crying that Zerglings are imba when they do not bother to wall in: To be laughed at, not to be taken seriously.
Back to the build, a high stakes early game lead to a long, eventful, skirmishy midgame typically of marine-tank vs. muta-ling or ling-infestor and then T trying to win against the deathball. The critical thing here is that T had much, much more time. In the old days a 14 minute Hive was greedy. Now 12 minutes is safe and standard. That is a lot of time lost for Terran in setting up production capabilities to deal with the deathball.
So, a ridiculously good metagame, usually hailed as the best one in the game, rivaling TvT. Very even winrates and a good overall feeling of sanity. A bit of blandness in opener CHOICE, not in gameplay. Only problem was an easily masked all-in, which did have a Zerg response if they knew it was coming. The Ferrarilord upgrade fixed that. The Queen patch was, in short, total overkill and completely misguided. I have no idea where Blizzard got the idea that the Hellion opener needed fixing, but I guess it is the same place the Snipe nerf, -20 HP eggs and other assorted pieces of insanity are born, where the game is a-ok and absolutely does not have hideous design problems.
I kinda agree. The opening was pretty entertaining. It was definitely a much better metagame than the current one we see now. Also I don't get how Blizzard couldn't predict this. How exactly did they think tvz openings would look like? Did they think terran would play medivac-drop play openings or wtf were they thinking as a reponds to zergs massing queens?
I generally disagree. It's not interesting to watch how zerg is contained in 2 bases while the terran goes safe quick 3rd. The games usually led to different kind of 2 bases all in or zerg's roach baneling bust too
Yeah you're correct in terms of the contained part maybe being a bit too risk-free for the Terran. Everything else though, in terms of how the matchup ebbed and flowed, after that initial point is worse now imo.
I'd trade a small amount of unfairness/stagnation in openers in the early game, for a 'fairer' relation that has lead to a much, much worse matchup than before.
Also, roach allins and ling/bane allins are, if anything worse now than before in terms of risk/reward. Before Zergs were taking a calculated risk trying to break a Terran doing this, because the 3rd CC generally came a bit later, so Terran had more units on the ground. Nowadays, Terrans have to do absurdly unsafe openers if they're going down the quick 3 CC route, to try to keep up with the intense droning. This trend is often exploited, making Zerg pressures less risky what previously would be an allin for a pre-patch Zerg doesn't even have to be that big a risk to employ now.
Hell, I would trade a perfect 50/50 statistical balance in something like PvZ with the current metagame, for a 45/55% shift to favour the Zerg if Protoss had a lot more ways to differentiate themselves in terms of both skill and playstyle.
On December 03 2012 15:07 playnice wrote: So what's the word about the actual test so far? Surprise how actual feedback about the test is lacking in this thread.
its because the only noticeable (but not relevant) change was the raven hsm. the little egg health nerf did nothing.
On December 03 2012 15:18 ContactKilla wrote: Lol zerg
Regardless of whether I agree or not with your position, which I shall remain diplomatically silenced on, what is the point of posting that here?
You could either: 1. Give feedback on the test map, how it's working or whatever. 2. Have a discussion about whether it's worth even bothering with the proposed changes, either in terms of design or the numbers being wrong or whatever.
Instead you chose to type 'Lol Zerg'. Way to add to the discussion man, everyone who read that will feel enlightened and can go to bed to sleep free of worries. They'll be safe in the knowledge that their newfound knowledge, imparted by your infinite wisdom can only lead to better things tomorrow.
On December 03 2012 15:18 ContactKilla wrote: Lol zerg
Regardless of whether I agree or not with your position, which I shall remain diplomatically silenced on, what is the point of posting that here?
You could either: 1. Give feedback on the test map, how it's working or whatever. 2. Have a discussion about whether it's worth even bothering with the proposed changes, either in terms of design or the numbers being wrong or whatever.
Instead you chose to type 'Lol Zerg'. Way to add to the discussion man, everyone who read that will feel enlightened and can go to bed to sleep free of worries. They'll be safe in the knowledge that their newfound knowledge, imparted by your infinite wisdom can only lead to better things tomorrow.
I think it's a maturity thing. I'm pretty sure he knows all that, but he's choosing to state that because of frustration or something. I think, in the end, it boils down to accepting all that stuff, and going about it in whichever way you choose. In his case, he chose that.
Hell, I don't mind the concept of balance whining if it leads to productive discussion, or is a statement related to something. I mean, balance whine in an LR thread is annoying if everyone is doing it, but at least it's like 'look at that game, my guy lost, he played so well that's ridiculous'. I mean if you want my actual subjective opinion it's that Zerg is an absolute fucking joke to play against, and terrible to watch.
The mentality is actually the reason a lot of this imbalance exists. Posts that aim to discuss things reasonably, from other angles or propose other potential solutions get drowned out by stuff that adds nothing.
People who try to discuss things in this manner, will over time get disillusioned if prompting interesting angles of discussion is buried under a weight of posts that add NOTHING. Bar fixing the problems at hand, often their actual motivation for posting is to prompt discussion. Both to make other people think in a different way, but also for the back-and-forth that might make them consider the issues differently too. If the kind of discussion you want isn't possible due to spam or whatever, you'll not bother with it.
This feeds back in, Blizzard apparently read these boards, but even Blizzard's full time guys probably don't spend as much time on TL as even I do. Now imagine if the good posters aren't posting, and it's all unconstructive whine, Blizzard will themselves try to fix the community posts they actually read. Blizzard cannot sift through all the excess white noise to pick up every single potentially interesting post can they?
I mean, think about an example of this phenomenon. Consider the exact same interesting point/post, made on 3 differning forums/discussion areas.
Which would you be more likely to find the good post? There's amazing posts on the Battlenet forums about design and concepts, but SO MUCH terrible posting to sift through, that I've given up even trying to find interesting stuff on it. Youtube comments: another level of awfulness, a kind of elaborate metaphorical device to convey the idea of what hell would actually be like if it were being trapped in a messageboard.
TLDR: TeamLiquid is not a 'better' forum for discussion than other places purely because of its content, but because its signal-to-noise ratio is better. In the case of balance discussion and testing threads, this is actually bad for the game because Blizzard will struggle to find posts that they can use to make the game better, so they'll just try to address the issue either by catering to the vocal minority, or according to their own intuition.
Blizzard need a hand to balance because a lot of them don't actually understand some of the issues that we have an issue about, or why (in certain, not all cases). Constructive balance talk/design theorycrafting etc are all part of aiding this process. It's mutually beneficial too, Blizz have incentive, they'll make more money if the game's better, we'll have a better game to play.
If this concept is unclear, it's pretty TLDR though so I'll only bother if somebody actually wants an illustrative example. My example is from HoTS too a clear case of Blizzard fucking up something horribly because of a vocal minority. Something that, however unintentionally conceived on their part was GOOD design initially
tbh its just (fucking) lazy on blizzards part, for the last maybe 4 months-6 moths? they have been saying they are waiting for the meta game to change and adapt to infestors, and when they finally can no longer deny the clamor for balance change, they come out with minimal changes which do not only not fix inherent game design problems of the infestor, but also they give changes that serve nothing more than to band aid the problem till HOTS. the problem is the wound is still bleeding,HSM is a good change, but the egg chance literally changes nothing. they make claims like global statistics are balanced but they show us no proof, they expect us to take their word for it Let me see the statistics and link a source... its common procedure. As i see it, they are three major problems with the WOL: 1. Infestor is too powerful, and all-purpose unit 2. Late Game PvZ is a based on one or two key spells in an engagement, made worse by a well timed Neural Parasite which gives zerg ability to hold both keys to win 3. Siege Tanks don't control space well enough, and thus Late game T suffers
Not only is this lazy of blizzard, worse, its greedy. They know people LOVE sc2, and will spring for HOTS regardless of badly they fucked up the game design of WOL. They've left it for dead and are focusing their attention on HOTS, but its so wrong and fucked up to dedicated WOL players. Blizzard shouldnt be able to fuck up so badly and then make shit tons of money of the expansion... you cant have you cake and eat it too.
On December 03 2012 16:25 the_business_og wrote: tbh its just (fucking) lazy on blizzards part, for the last maybe 4 months-6 moths? they have been saying they are waiting for the meta game to change and adapt to infestors, and when they finally can no longer deny the clamor for balance change, they come out with minimal changes which do not only not fix inherent game design problems of the infestor, but also they give changes that serve nothing more than to band aid the problem till HOTS. the problem is the wound is still bleeding,HSM is a good change, but the egg chance literally changes nothing. they make claims like global statistics are balanced but they show us no proof, they expect us to take their word for it Let me see the statistics and link a source... its common procedure. As i see it, they are three major problems with the WOL: 1. Infestor is too powerful, and all-purpose unit 2. Late Game PvZ is a based on one or two key spells in an engagement, made worse by a well timed Neural Parasite which gives zerg ability to hold both keys to win 3. Siege Tanks don't control space well enough, and thus Late game T suffers
Not only is this lazy of blizzard, worse, its greedy. They know people LOVE sc2, and will spring for HOTS regardless of badly they fucked up the game design of WOL. They've left it for dead and are focusing their attention on HOTS, but its so wrong and fucked up to dedicated WOL players. Blizzard shouldnt be able to fuck up so badly and then make shit tons of money of the expansion... you cant have you cake and eat it too.
I don't believe it's laziness, I think it's a lack of creative and lateral thinking on Blizzard's part. Consider the problem I mentioned is actually a problem, like Blizzard can't really understand certain problems in terms of, but they know people hate certain things because they hear a lot of it about the place.
All Blizzard would have to do is hire a couple of people to do community research as a full time job, literally all they're paid to do. Their task is not to find out what people's problems are with the game, in a 'Z OP' way, but to find interesting/constructive posts regarding stuff Blizzard hadn't considered. Their sole role:
Find things that Blizz hadn't previously considered in their thinking, no matter the source. Relay/discuss this issue directly to the design team so the design team can at least try to implement certain things
You could apply this central idea to unit creation as well. Blizzard may not necessarily create a unit based on a post here, but they might think 'oh that's cool, we could work that into something'. It's a shame I can't find the post, but I remember someone's idea for like a kind of 'mech ball' that was beautiful conceptually. It kind of seemed like it 'fit' mech in terms of base design/ideas, regardless of the stats the OP had arbitrarily given it. By the way, anybody who can think of the unit I mean, PLEASE PM me, I tried for a good hour to find the thread the other day, but couldn't remember the title.
Now, let's say they find one of say, my posts and relay this to the design team. They'll maybe think my ideas/solutions are terrible, but say, that the critique I made had validity and was something they hadn't thought about.
I mean, they're not idiots, they just can't be aware of everything at once. It's probably why they always say they want to encourage multitasking/stop deathballs etc, but often get it wrong in implementation. They get that there's a problem, but they don't look at certain little things that kind of explain WHY we dislike that kind of play? It's quite hard to fix something, if you don't know the rationales that underpin peoples objections.
This is a better way to approach problem solving in pretty much every respect. I believe say, the initial small investment in a few members of staff to really, REALLY scour the depths of forums and do this, would pay off many times over.
Consider Blizzard spent a ton of money on WCS, which I loved, but in terms of the return in sales etc that they'll get from say, investing in that over making HoTS amazing? Well the latter will probably pay off more on an investment/return level.
There is just no way of fixing the Zerg vs X problem just by nerving the infestor alone. It´s not the fault of the zergs to being abusive and massing infestors it´s just their only option mid/lategame. Imagine the "old" roach hydra couruptor or muta ling bane metagame with the "get a 3 bases for free" Maps. It would be unplayable.
An idea that i personally really like is to make spinecrawlers 1 supply. It wouldn´t affect the defensive capabilities earlygame but it avoid the 2 badest situation to play/watch: Midgame zerg is behind so turtle behind 20 spines and get infestor brood or dump 50 drones into spines lategame to make pushing/basetrading impossible.
On December 03 2012 16:50 USvBleakill wrote: There is just no way of fixing the Zerg vs X problem just by nerving the infestor alone. It´s not the fault of the zergs to being abusive and massing infestors it´s just their only option mid/lategame. Imagine the "old" roach hydra couruptor or muta ling bane metagame with the "get a 3 bases for free" Maps. It would be unplayable.
This is the real reason the infestor hasn't been changed. Simply nerfing the infestor would make ZvP impossible outside of crazy cheeses. Everything apart from infestors is terrible against a colossus/stalker ball.
On December 03 2012 15:07 playnice wrote: So what's the word about the actual test so far? Surprise how actual feedback about the test is lacking in this thread.
its because the only noticeable (but not relevant) change was the raven hsm. the little egg health nerf did nothing.
Well a little elaboration would be nice but at least this tells us something. The rest of the thread here is about "Psychoanalysis of Blizzard collective mental health", "How do I spank DB's ass if I'm in charge", "I'm Mike Morhaime and here's how I'll run this shit" and "this is stupid but I'm here so I'll enjoy you not enjoying what I don't enjoy". I'm pretty sure there are other threads for that.
On December 03 2012 16:25 the_business_og wrote: tbh its just (fucking) lazy on blizzards part, for the last maybe 4 months-6 moths? they have been saying they are waiting for the meta game to change and adapt to infestors, and when they finally can no longer deny the clamor for balance change, they come out with minimal changes which do not only not fix inherent game design problems of the infestor, but also they give changes that serve nothing more than to band aid the problem till HOTS. the problem is the wound is still bleeding,HSM is a good change, but the egg chance literally changes nothing. they make claims like global statistics are balanced but they show us no proof, they expect us to take their word for it Let me see the statistics and link a source... its common procedure. As i see it, they are three major problems with the WOL: 1. Infestor is too powerful, and all-purpose unit 2. Late Game PvZ is a based on one or two key spells in an engagement, made worse by a well timed Neural Parasite which gives zerg ability to hold both keys to win 3. Siege Tanks don't control space well enough, and thus Late game T suffers
Not only is this lazy of blizzard, worse, its greedy. They know people LOVE sc2, and will spring for HOTS regardless of badly they fucked up the game design of WOL. They've left it for dead and are focusing their attention on HOTS, but its so wrong and fucked up to dedicated WOL players. Blizzard shouldnt be able to fuck up so badly and then make shit tons of money of the expansion... you cant have you cake and eat it too.
All Blizzard would have to do is hire a couple of people to do community research as a full time job, literally all they're paid to do. Their task is not to find out what people's problems are with the game, in a 'Z OP' way, but to find interesting/constructive posts regarding stuff Blizzard hadn't considered. Their sole role:
Find things that Blizz hadn't previously considered in their thinking, no matter the source. Relay/discuss this issue directly to the design team so the design team can at least try to implement certain things
It's almost as if you assume the community more often than not has any worthwhile suggestions that aren't emotion fueled, that these ideas would be superior enough to merit the money being spent to find them, that their team is incapable/they're incapable of hiring a team to come up with them, that they probably wouldn't disagree with the vast majority of suggestions either way, that they don't look at the community and are apparently missing the "gems" spawned within. I could go on.
On December 03 2012 16:25 the_business_og wrote: tbh its just (fucking) lazy on blizzards part, for the last maybe 4 months-6 moths? they have been saying they are waiting for the meta game to change and adapt to infestors, and when they finally can no longer deny the clamor for balance change, they come out with minimal changes which do not only not fix inherent game design problems of the infestor, but also they give changes that serve nothing more than to band aid the problem till HOTS. the problem is the wound is still bleeding,HSM is a good change, but the egg chance literally changes nothing. they make claims like global statistics are balanced but they show us no proof, they expect us to take their word for it Let me see the statistics and link a source... its common procedure. As i see it, they are three major problems with the WOL: 1. Infestor is too powerful, and all-purpose unit 2. Late Game PvZ is a based on one or two key spells in an engagement, made worse by a well timed Neural Parasite which gives zerg ability to hold both keys to win 3. Siege Tanks don't control space well enough, and thus Late game T suffers
Not only is this lazy of blizzard, worse, its greedy. They know people LOVE sc2, and will spring for HOTS regardless of badly they fucked up the game design of WOL. They've left it for dead and are focusing their attention on HOTS, but its so wrong and fucked up to dedicated WOL players. Blizzard shouldnt be able to fuck up so badly and then make shit tons of money of the expansion... you cant have you cake and eat it too.
All Blizzard would have to do is hire a couple of people to do community research as a full time job, literally all they're paid to do. Their task is not to find out what people's problems are with the game, in a 'Z OP' way, but to find interesting/constructive posts regarding stuff Blizzard hadn't considered. Their sole role:
Find things that Blizz hadn't previously considered in their thinking, no matter the source. Relay/discuss this issue directly to the design team so the design team can at least try to implement certain things
It's almost as if you assume the community more often than not has any worthwhile suggestions that aren't emotion fueled, that these ideas would be superior enough to merit the money being spent to find them, that their team is incapable/they're incapable of hiring a team to come up with them, that they probably wouldn't disagree with the vast majority of suggestions either way, that they don't look at the community and are apparently missing the "gems" spawned from the community. I could go on.
Blizzard apologists never get old. Wait, no, they do. And yes, there are many good ideas floating around the forums that I'd say are much better than the ones Blizzard has come up with. It's pretty plain to see they live in Fairy Tale Land with little to no connection to actual reality. And even if they didn't, outside input is damn helpful - precisely because even a small group of smart people can scarcely come up with a lot of differing points of view. You need widespread exchange of ideas for that to happen.
On December 03 2012 16:50 USvBleakill wrote: There is just no way of fixing the Zerg vs X problem just by nerving the infestor alone. It´s not the fault of the zergs to being abusive and massing infestors it´s just their only option mid/lategame. Imagine the "old" roach hydra couruptor or muta ling bane metagame with the "get a 3 bases for free" Maps. It would be unplayable.
An idea that i personally really like is to make spinecrawlers 1 supply. It wouldn´t affect the defensive capabilities earlygame but it avoid the 2 badest situation to play/watch: Midgame zerg is behind so turtle behind 20 spines and get infestor brood or dump 50 drones into spines lategame to make pushing/basetrading impossible.
The only race I don't really know well at all is Zerg. This would definitely help PvZ lategame, at least some of the more silly excesses of spine crawler numbers, by at least creating a tradeoff between a bigger army and having those spines.
However, I am worried that maybe certain intricate allins may be unstoppable with spines costing supply. I don't know if there are any that are that tight in terms of being down to 1 supply being available or unavailable. However, even a 2 rax that happens to catch an overlord luckily could maybe be unstoppable if that happened, if it supply blocked you and prevented you from spining.
On December 03 2012 16:25 the_business_og wrote: tbh its just (fucking) lazy on blizzards part, for the last maybe 4 months-6 moths? they have been saying they are waiting for the meta game to change and adapt to infestors, and when they finally can no longer deny the clamor for balance change, they come out with minimal changes which do not only not fix inherent game design problems of the infestor, but also they give changes that serve nothing more than to band aid the problem till HOTS. the problem is the wound is still bleeding,HSM is a good change, but the egg chance literally changes nothing. they make claims like global statistics are balanced but they show us no proof, they expect us to take their word for it Let me see the statistics and link a source... its common procedure. As i see it, they are three major problems with the WOL: 1. Infestor is too powerful, and all-purpose unit 2. Late Game PvZ is a based on one or two key spells in an engagement, made worse by a well timed Neural Parasite which gives zerg ability to hold both keys to win 3. Siege Tanks don't control space well enough, and thus Late game T suffers
Not only is this lazy of blizzard, worse, its greedy. They know people LOVE sc2, and will spring for HOTS regardless of badly they fucked up the game design of WOL. They've left it for dead and are focusing their attention on HOTS, but its so wrong and fucked up to dedicated WOL players. Blizzard shouldnt be able to fuck up so badly and then make shit tons of money of the expansion... you cant have you cake and eat it too.
All Blizzard would have to do is hire a couple of people to do community research as a full time job, literally all they're paid to do. Their task is not to find out what people's problems are with the game, in a 'Z OP' way, but to find interesting/constructive posts regarding stuff Blizzard hadn't considered. Their sole role:
Find things that Blizz hadn't previously considered in their thinking, no matter the source. Relay/discuss this issue directly to the design team so the design team can at least try to implement certain things
It's almost as if you assume the community more often than not has any worthwhile suggestions that aren't emotion fueled, that these ideas would be superior enough to merit the money being spent to find them, that their team is incapable/they're incapable of hiring a team to come up with them, that they probably wouldn't disagree with the vast majority of suggestions either way, that they don't look at the community and are apparently missing the "gems" spawned within. I could go on.
Dude, read my posts, especially in the strategy forums, or my [D]Threads. Please try and tell me I am biased, or emotion-fuelled based on that. A lot of people probably wouldn't know what race I even played if I didn't outright tell them.
Now explain to me why somebody, not necessarily me but somebody with my approach would necessarily be bad at producing ideas or thoughts on the game. Consider who Blizzard ARE influenced by, people like Idra who though an intelligent player has been proven time and time again to not only be biased, but also wrong on certain issues. He was 100% wrong on stubbornly sticking to Roach/Hydra/Corruptor, but equally he did identify that GhostMech comps in TvZ were potentially an issue, if Terrans started using them. Lo and behold MVP started using them and they got nerfed, so in those two examples, Idra is 50/50, but his general understanding of the game is probably a good deal higher than a value like that.
You can divorce the message from the messenger. The problem is that Blizzard are not necessarily AWARE of some of these messages, because it's hard to get their attention, and indeed feedback
Indeed, part of this is the lack of transparency. Read this thread, there are a ton of differing viewpoints relating to, not just the changes, but the process by which Blizzard are trying to fix things. Everything from Blizzard isn't going to change anything, to Blizzard are going to change a lot, potentially.
If Blizzard cleared this up better, it'd be fine in this case. We're all, when talking about what is Blizzard in terms of their plans and intentions, generally relying on conjecture. If Blizz say, came in and said 'look, chill out guys we're going to nerf the infestor, we're just testing different ideas and numbers' I guarantee you 100% that at least some of the guys bashing them, wouldn't be.
Equally, we have a vague idea of the kind of stuff on the pro corner of the HoTS forum, which is closed to non-pros. However, we have no idea beyond specific anecdotes on stuff like State of the Game as to ANY of the interactions between Blizzard and the pros.
I think you miss his point Wombat. You may believe your voice is easily differentiated from the mass of other voices on TL (and elsewhere). I'm not really sure how you can come to that point regardless, a good forum profile means shit. How is Blizzard supposed to consistently pick out the occasional pearl (if that is indeed what it is) from the mass of swine swill that is the usual balance/design offering on TL? They'd have to be masochists to do so, and those dedicated couple of personnel (poor sods) trawling through TL and other community sites would be reaching for sharp blades and rolling up their sleeves real quick.
So much of community "input" is little more than whine of the week, or moan of the month - forever changing contemptible crap. There may be, and I'm not sure about this, something for the Blizzard development team to take on board among all of that. Something they must be told for the good of the game (etc). But I find it difficult to blame them if they don't or won't.
EPT
