EPTInterview of David Kim about Balance in IEM - Page 23
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25995 Posts
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kasumimi
Greece460 Posts
On July 29 2013 14:53 ETisME wrote: would you really expect blizzard to change anything this big? They balanced and designed the units to function at this pacing of the game. HOTS was the perfect opportunity to change fundamental flaws in game design, which is exactly what blizzard did when TFT (the frozen throne WAR3 expansion) came. Hero design, armor types, unit design, damage types, buildings, race fundamentals, economy, everything was drastically changed, towards the best. But the changes is HOTS were, like everything else, underwhelming. They didn't even bother changing the in-game timer... Saying that "people are use to playing like this" is not even an argument at this point. It's just a poorly labeled excuse to avoid addressing critical issues. Or it's indirectly admitting that "we are happy with SC2 as it is now, there is no reason to change anything". Take a look at how LoL's lead designers address issues and how they interact with the community. The difference with Blizzard's people is light years away. SC2 is on autopilot and these people know it. We are three years in and it's clear It will never become an esport of BWs or LoL's caliber; and this is what personally hurts the most. | ||
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saddaromma
1129 Posts
On July 29 2013 13:32 Shinta) wrote: This is SC2 man.... More so than just changing armor and damage, the game speed should be changed too, if you want to make it more like BW/WC3. Seriously though, complaining about this is to complain about SC2 as a game. Why do you support it if you don't like the way it's played? Games can already potentially last long enough. Whether or not players want to play out long games is their choice. Forcing longer battles will end up destroying peoples macro if you keep the game speed this fast, thus it'll create a new skill cap and help ruin late games. The question is one of many terrible questions written by someone who is bad at writing up interview questions. The answer is very fitting, and tries to solve the question as much as possible without just completely disregarding it like he wants to. You know something is wrong with the game when people discuss more balance/design than strategy and execution. It used to be other way around in BW. Int'view questions are good, they're direct and precise so that developers can't just go around and around, which anyways, DK somehow managed to do. so many DK fans out here, cant understand why people admire him, he didn't do anything spectacular other than a game which barely lives to its name. | ||
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Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
On July 29 2013 17:02 kasumimi wrote: HOTS was the perfect opportunity to change fundamental flaws in game design, which is exactly what blizzard did when TFT (the frozen throne WAR3 expansion) came. Hero design, armor types, unit design, damage types, buildings, race fundamentals, economy, everything was drastically changed, towards the best. But the changes is HOTS were, like everything else, underwhelming. They didn't even bother changing the in-game timer... Saying that "people are use to playing like this" is not even an argument at this point. It's just a poorly labeled excuse to avoid addressing critical issues. Or it's indirectly admitting that "we are happy with SC2 as it is now, there is no reason to change anything". Take a look at how LoL's lead designers address issues and how they interact with the community. The difference with Blizzard's people is light years away. SC2 is on autopilot and these people know it. We are three years in and it's clear It will never become an esport of BWs or LoL's caliber; and this is what personally hurts the most. Completely agree with this and it baffles me to see so many people rate HOTS so high. The fundamental difference from WOL is actually that they fixed the damn Infestor so the game opened up. Many people seem to think of WOL of just that last few months or so, when Blizz was the one that broke the game with the Queen change and then refused for a long time to fix the Infestor. Most of the HOTS multiplayer was designed in the BETA anyway, so there is so much they could do in a few weeks. The question is what the fuck were they doing in the 2 years of development, single player? | ||
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Cricketer12
United States13990 Posts
On July 26 2013 13:00 Kim Hyuna wrote: David Kim is an idiot. We already seen TOP protoss players playing inside KR. And almost zero success in taking one major title here in KR. Isn't  PartinG, Rain, First, MC etc top Protoss players? I don't see any NEW upcoming top protoss coming near.And, Stardust is playing against Foreigner and not TOP Z/T players from KR. And his win against JD is nothing HUGE because JD is known for his weakness in PvZ. What an idiot again. Isn't that what Protossers has been doing? It's either turtle up for one fucking push or 2 base all in. Oracle? It's a shit unit. Obviously he hates Protoss since WOL days. Ya, hes the most terran biased guy out there, and he runs balence...he admit his bias early on in WoL but now will deny any claim of the sort | ||
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Deleted User 137586
7859 Posts
On July 29 2013 18:54 Cricketer12 wrote: Ya, hes the most terran biased guy out there, and he runs balence...he admit his bias early on in WoL but now will deny any claim of the sort That title goes to Avilo. | ||
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stille_nacht
United States34 Posts
- ladder winrate means nothing to me. you balance a game at its highest levels, not at its "we aren't good at this game" levels. this is the basic concept of "competetive balance" - viper isn't weak, it totally marginalized mech in tvz, it counter collosus in pvz - if, theoretically, the widow mine is overpowered, it is clearly best to nerf it. widow mines are not used in tvt. widow mines are used infrequently in tvp, and even then, mostly as drop harass, not as their main use (map control) vs. zerg. Why in the world would you buff something for zerg when it could affect zvz, zvt, and zvp. - on another note, for the interviewer, why would someone want everything to be slowed down? high damage relative to defense promotes skillful play? you can't mess up or not pay attention? Of course, you can overdo it (if everything killed everything in one hit). david kim is actually correct in promoting back and forth rather than whatever prolonged things questioner had in mind. But what's weird here is they seem to be misunderstanding things: I agree that protoss has gotten more stable but: - Instability had nothing to do with reliance on high tier units, at least, not directly. the instability of protoss, at its root, was the existence of the force-field ability. + Show Spoiler + -Because of forcefield, and to a LESSER extent warp-ins, all available early units must either be melee or extremely weak in straight-up confrontations. the ability to cut up the opponents army, create artificial chokes, and to cover retreats, is, frankly, broken as hell in the early mid game. that is why six marines can beat 2 stalkers straight up. that is why, cost-for-cost, stalkers and sentries are a joke compared to almost any standard unit (roach, marine, marauder, hellbat, zergling). - Why then, does toss never push out when they are theoretically balanced to fight with forcefield aid? because forcefields run out. Once forcefields run out, toss can easily be crushed if the opponent is not already functionally dead. - This is why early-mid toss was so weak in WoL, because if sentries could be picked off, or just avoided, toss had a lot of difficulty securing bases/ defending all-ins. - Furthermore, protoss must rely on later tech if they want to kill an enemy who knows what is happenign in-game. Outside of all-ins, it is wholly unlikely that any protoss can push through the map without some sort of late game splash. -The standard "protoss death-ball" was created by this reliance on later tech. All the damage comes from splash units like collosus and templar (and also archons). These units must be grouped into a deathball because they are really squishy relative to cost. They must be squishy not because of forcefield, but simply because you cant make a long range high dps splash, and then make it really tanky... that's just basic rts - Because of forcefield, there is a tremendous variation in the way things may go. Because depending on how well you hit your forcefields, you may get stomped and look like a scrub, or you may make your opponent look like a scrub because none of your stuff died. This variation is usually at one pole or the other, because the middle ground is a lot thinner. Because early-mid units must be squishy/low damage compared to cost. Because of forcefield. - oracle is a corner all-in unit that you mix in later for the revelation ability. warp prism harass is nice, isn't super significant early-mid due to its high costs. warp prism help make mid-late game more interesting. -The mothership core is responsible for making protoss more stable, i am extremely weird-ed out by david kim not mentioning it, since it is essentially a patch up job for of all the flaws forcefield creates. + Show Spoiler + - Its friggin tailor-made for the issues forcefield creates, it was the one thing i was actually like "oh, design actually understand starcraft, ty david kim" - So forcefield makes it impossible to do early game pressure, pokes, harass. It makes it necessary for units not to be able to really take straight up fights in early-mid game. So you make a magic button that can teleport them back to your base after you harass a bit. No more getting all your stuff killed for being on the map. - So the inherent squishiness of the high units make a deathball necessary, which in turn makes it difficult to deal with attacks on multiple fronts/ counterattacks with parts of an opponents army. So you make a magic button that can teleport units to another besieged base. - So because of your weak units it's difficult to stave off massive drops/ all-ins. So you make a magic button that turns your nexus into a giant photon cannon. This, in turn, allows people to open phoenix with relative impunity, further adding skill to pvz I do actually agree with his statement about there not being many good protoss. Because there aren't. The only protoss i consider good at macro games (which is a more consistent way to win than all-in games if that needs to be stated) are Rain and Parting, and lately Parting has been underperforming. Compare this to the legions of zerg (soulkey, symbol, hyun, roro etc. etc.) and terran (innovation, flash, bomber, supernova, etc.) that can be considered good at macro/are all-around solid. There are actually quite a few up-and coming macro monsters though (jangbi, first spring to mind), so i think this should fix itself pretty soon. Whether the MS core fixed things, or peopleare finally escaping an all-in mentality that was started by MC, i don't know | ||
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SarcasmMonster
3136 Posts
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Snowbear
Korea (South)1925 Posts
On July 29 2013 18:54 Cricketer12 wrote: Ya, hes the most terran biased guy out there, and he runs balence...he admit his bias early on in WoL but now will deny any claim of the sort Yeah!!! He is so terran biased that he let terran be the weakest race for a whole year (end of WOL). So biased!! | ||
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Daswollvieh
5553 Posts
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BronzeKnee
United States5217 Posts
On July 30 2013 01:21 Daswollvieh wrote: Judging from this thread, a lot of people would be happier if they stopped playing SC2. What´s keeping them? The lack of a better competitive RTS. Now I'm going to see if I can make Gold IV in LOL... | ||
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BeyondCtrL
Sweden642 Posts
On July 28 2013 08:16 Beakyboo wrote: I feel like some of their justifications for balance don't really work. Maybe protoss achieves a pretty balanced win rate on ladder, and maybe even in high level tournaments, but I don't think that's really the whole picture. You win 50% of the time flipping coins, but you can't be consistent doing it, and it feels to me like every match up with protoss is a lot closer to flipping coins than the ones without. It might be "balanced" but it's just hard for protoss to play all around builds that will carry a great player through a tournament. Protoss feels like it's got to commit a lot more to a particular tech and playstyle than zerg and terran. It feels like every match up involving protoss is super precarious, where the entire game comes down to singular decisions/engagements, rather than a back and forth dynamic. Unit composition is also much more a determining factor in match ups with protoss. Maybe these aren't balance issues, but it's just gripes I have as an observer. The race frustrates me. Blizzard is too focused on win rates rather than improving the dynamic of the game. I think this is a well simplified and raw explanation of what currently plagues Protoss players at the top. Once they run out of gimmicky or surprising tactics they simply crumble. If you are lucky and play a lot of PvP through the tournament then your chances of winning is highest (interestingly enough most Protoss champions did go through a lot of PvP) because you can reveal a lot less what you have planned in the other MUs. Another point is that I feel like we have come full circle, in a sense, pertaining the design of the game. David Kim talks about the statistics, but as with Infestor/BL it's much more than statistics alone. We have come full circle again because the game designers are once again stuck on extracting balance entirely from statistics and that balance alone is the measure of a fun game; a topic that was vociferously and consistently present on these forums a year ago. Did they have a moment where they actually learned something, or was it something forced out of community pressure? The way they are discussing the issue leads me to believe it's the former, despite their utterances assuring us otherwise. Does a tournament format, including scheduling and bo's, affect the results? Can an extended shift or overhaul in format alter the distribution of win rates? These are questions I would like to see discussed more frequently and included in statistical analysis. Do we see a certain race win more consistently when a tournament is of a certain format? If so, why? My own thoughts around this is that longer series are detrimental to Protoss players, and I think the logic in this becomes more clear when looking at over all tournament formats and results combined with the gimmick/surprise based design of Protoss. The strength of Protoss play is actually eroded and undermined by it. As a tournament progresses it is typical that the later rounds have larger best of's. Simply put: Protoss has the clearest advantage in a bo1, but as a series extends to a bo3 and beyond there is significant impact in results. A typical final will have either a bo5 or bo7. Plenty of Protoss have reached a final, but not many have won and fewer still have lost in a close series. Once a Protoss reaches a final he will have revealed so much by that time that any surprises or gimmicks that can catch an opponent truly off guard are very minimal. My conclusion is that if David Kim and et al. continue to adamantly refuse design changes for Protoss we will continue to see a shortage of Protoss champions. The way tournaments are formatted and the way the race is designed inherently interact and produce a disadvantage for the Protoss player. So what is better to change at this point? In my mind the answer is clearly to change the design of the race. Of course it's nice to have races with different styles which encourage variety, yet we are seeing the opposite since the variety is actually diminished because of the aforementioned issue. Variety needs to be emergent, it should not be forced out by strict design. All races should have core mechanics that are stable and are entirely playable on that basis, i.e safe and standard macro play and the variety in play should be rewarded when a player takes advantage of the small things that encourage a certain style. Protoss power units are so ridiculous when it comes to abilities and power, compared to the core units, that it's no longer an encouragement to play a certain style but instead it's an obligation without alternatives. | ||
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PinkFairyLuv
6 Posts
On July 30 2013 01:25 BronzeKnee wrote: The lack of a better competitive RTS. Now I'm going to see if I can make Gold IV in LOL... Exactly, if there was a better rts with a growing scene, I would switch in an instant. | ||
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Cirqueenflex
499 Posts
On July 29 2013 17:02 kasumimi wrote: HOTS was the perfect opportunity to change fundamental flaws in game design, which is exactly what blizzard did when TFT (the frozen throne WAR3 expansion) came. Hero design, armor types, unit design, damage types, buildings, race fundamentals, economy, everything was drastically changed, towards the best. But the changes is HOTS were, like everything else, underwhelming. They didn't even bother changing the in-game timer... Saying that "people are use to playing like this" is not even an argument at this point. It's just a poorly labeled excuse to avoid addressing critical issues. Or it's indirectly admitting that "we are happy with SC2 as it is now, there is no reason to change anything". Take a look at how LoL's lead designers address issues and how they interact with the community. The difference with Blizzard's people is light years away. SC2 is on autopilot and these people know it. We are three years in and it's clear It will never become an esport of BWs or LoL's caliber; and this is what personally hurts the most. - at least on EUW and other forums there is basically no interaction with the lead designers, it is just NA - the bug report section on the other forums is pretty dead as well - they abuse their user base by installing a software called "Pando Media Booster" on installing the game, which basically turns your computer into a seedbox to reduce their own server load for people downloading the game. It is completely unnecessary and can be deinstalled right after LoL got installed, by they won't tell you and it is not like there wouldn't be plenty of large changes to the game necessary: - they are stuck with adobe air, which is horrific - even the ability design is not consistent throughout the game, which gives a ton of trouble every time they try to implement something new, as they have to rework a lot of the old stuff. Many of the abilities are coded badly as well. To give an example, Amumus ultimate being two abilities (damage and pseudo-stunned), of which only the first one triggers spell shields. His bandage toss, apparently having a different hitbox than the actual toss (so you sometimes get super long range bandage tosses when the ability hits, but the bandage animation has not yet cought up while the opponent uses a movement ability). Or a more recent example, the marks helping to aim Zyras Grasping Roots (a champion that came out nearly exactly one year ago) are two different entities, aim at different targets (one in a line, the other at a point) and if I recall correctly one disappears once you level up the ability to the max. And those are just few of the obvious problems (interactions with champions who have after-life abilities allowing for double kills would be another one). The game mostly is a scrap pile, held together with a lot of tape and some glitter to make it look shiny. - I won't even go into balance here (global abilities, champions such as Zed...) no, LoL is not better than SC2. It is cool that on the NA forums the designers communicate with the community, but I still honestly believe that SC2 is a better produced game, even though it is way off what one would wish for. While Protoss design still is lacking, I do admire the balance of the game even though the design of the races is SO different. | ||
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BronzeKnee
United States5217 Posts
On July 30 2013 01:28 BeyondCtrL wrote: I think this is a well simplified and raw explanation of what currently plagues Protoss players at the top. Once they run out of gimmicky or surprising tactics they simply crumble. If you are lucky and play PvP through the tournament a lot then your chances are highest (interestingly enough most Protoss champions did go through a lot of PvP) because you can reveal a lot less what you have planned in the other MUs. Another point is that I feel like we have come full circle, in a sense, pertaining the design of the game. David Kim talks about the statistics, but as with Infestor/BL it's much more than statistics alone. We have come full circle again because the game designers are once again stuck on extracting balance entirely from statistics and that balance alone is the measure of a fun game; a topic that was vociferously and consistently present on these forums a year ago. Did they have a moment where they actually learned something, or was it something forced out of community pressure? The way they are discussing the issue leads me to believe it's the former, despite their utterances assuring us otherwise. Does a tournament format, including scheduling and bo's, affect the results? Can an extended shift or overhaul in format alter the distribution of win rates? These are questions I would like to see discussed more frequently and included in statistical analysis. Do we see a certain race win more consistently when a tournament is of a certain format? If so, why? My own thoughts around this is that longer series are detrimental to Protoss players, and I think the logic in this becomes more clear when looking at over all tournament formats and results combined with the gimmick/surprise based design of Protoss. The strength of Protoss play is actually eroded and undermined by it. As a tournament progresses it is typical that the later rounds have larger best of's. Simply put: Protoss has the clearest advantage in a bo1, but as a series extends to a bo3 and beyond there is significant impact in results. A typical final will have either a bo5 or bo7. Plenty of Protoss have reached a final, but not many have won and fewer still have lost in a close series. Once a Protoss reaches a final he will have revealed so much by that time that any surprises or gimmicks that can catch an opponent truly off guard are very minimal. My conclusion is that if David Kim and et al. continue to adamantly refuse design changes for Protoss we will continue to see a shortage of Protoss champions. The way tournaments are formatted and the way the race is designed inherently interact and produce a disadvantage for the Protoss player. So what is better to change at this point? In my mind the answer is clearly to change the design of the race. Of course it's nice to have races with different styles which encourage variety, yet we are seeing the opposite since the variety is actually diminished because of the aforementioned issue. Variety needs to be emergent, it should not forced by design. All races should have core mechanics that are stable and are entirely playable on that basis, i.e safe and standard macro play and the variety in play should be rewarded when a player takes advantage of the small things that encourage a certain style. This is so true, and well put. Yet many refuse to believe or don't understand it. MC won a GSL Championship 6 gating July. Seed won his Championship with a Warp Prism 4 Gate all-in over MC. When Parting was on top, it was because he was Soul Training Zerg after Zerg when Zerg was the dominant race. Naniwa 4 Gated his way to an MLG championship. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Shiori
3815 Posts
On July 30 2013 01:31 BronzeKnee wrote: This is so true, and well put. Yet many refuse to believe or don't understand it. MC won a GSL Championship 6 gating July. Seed won his Championship with a Warp Prism 4 Gate all-in over MC. When Parting was on top, it was because he was Soul Training Zerg after Zerg when Zerg was the dominant race. Naniwa 4 Gated his way to an MLG championship. Sorta an exaggeration. Yes, MC's championships were 2base all-ins. Seed took down players like Taeja in macro games though. Him allinning in PvP isn't really indicative of much at all, since PvP didn't really stabilize until Rain came along. Parting's PvT was also amazing in macro style, hence the "Parting Storms" and such. Yeah, he Soul Trained, but everyone knew that Zerg was imba back then anyway so it doesn't say much about Protoss as a whole (Terrans were getting stomped pretty badly as well). | ||
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saddaromma
1129 Posts
On July 30 2013 01:41 Shiori wrote: Sorta an exaggeration. Yes, MC's championships were 2base all-ins. Seed took down players like Taeja in macro games though. Him allinning in PvP isn't really indicative of much at all, since PvP didn't really stabilize until Rain came along. Parting's PvT was also amazing in macro style, hence the "Parting Storms" and such. Yeah, he Soul Trained, but everyone knew that Zerg was imba back then anyway so it doesn't say much about Protoss as a whole (Terrans were getting stomped pretty badly as well). But you can't deny most of them used lots of coin-flippy strats to win something, at least 50% of their games. Which is not an indication of protoss doing ok. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On July 30 2013 02:11 saddaromma wrote: But you can't deny most of them used lots of coin-flippy strats to win something, at least 50% of their games. Which is not an indication of protoss doing ok. They are also high level GSL winners and players, who play their opponent, not some standard ladder match. Also, the matches cited are all from WoL, so they don't really matter for current balance. | ||
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phodacbiet
United States1740 Posts
On July 29 2013 17:32 Sapphire.lux wrote: Completely agree with this and it baffles me to see so many people rate HOTS so high. The fundamental difference from WOL is actually that they fixed the damn Infestor so the game opened up. Many people seem to think of WOL of just that last few months or so, when Blizz was the one that broke the game with the Queen change and then refused for a long time to fix the Infestor. Most of the HOTS multiplayer was designed in the BETA anyway, so there is so much they could do in a few weeks. The question is what the fuck were they doing in the 2 years of development, single player? It's because WoL was so bad that people were just praying for things to get better, which it did.. a little bit, so everyone was like OMG BLIZZ FIXED IT. When in fact bnet is still terrible and the game still has a lot of designed flaws (im looking at you protoss, yes we know your race was badly designed =( don't worry, itll get better in lotv.. maybe). | ||
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