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WOW. Those questions were so bad. Buffles me that people really expect useful answers when the questions feature sentences like:
I said that Zerg is not strong because widow mine is quite strong and its damage to Zerg units is the most prominent.
In my opinion, Protoss is not a stable race. Although it has high damage, it relies heavily on high-tier units and the high costs of them limit the versatility of Protoss in competitive games
SC2 is a game of "high damage and low defense", namely, the damage output in the game is too high, which makes the big battles only last for a few seconds.
wtf? I don't care about some interviewers personal opinion, those questions really don't let DK room to say anything meaningful, what the actual fuck?
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On July 26 2013 13:05 Kim Hyuna wrote:
David Kim till date still don't address the low cost of Roaches which dealt so much damage in mass.
And still NO stalkers buff since WOL days. Seriously? Not whining about balance but what the fuck? All his comments doesn't make sense. And buffing VIPER which already so strong against P which makes making colos pretty useless.
No need to buff Stalkers. The weakness of protoss is not the strength/weakness of single units but the complete set-up of the race, forcing it to be predictable and one-way'ly played. Protoss either cheese, 2-base allin or go 200/200 deathball. Only in late midgame/lategame, protoss gets to start serious harassing (mass zealot warpins, DT warpins on a regular basis, and - oh wait, that's it already. Maybe some fancy storm drops). Though I agree that there are not too many huge protoss players, it basically comes down to Rain. sOs appears to be a bit overrated and not top of the crop (hate me for this. He dropped in the ro32 of OSL (I think.)). Parting starts to do P(arting)vZ as J(aedong)vP (stellar mechanics, but no more stellar allins). Ofc we have PvProleague, but those top protosses are not really doing individual leagues. MC's times are over, Stardust winning Dreamhack was kind of an accident (hate me again, that guy is seriously hyped).
I could continue that player list. But at the time, for each race, we have at least one player trying to give that race the look of imbalance. That is Innovation(T) and Soulkey(Z). For Protoss? Didn't find any. But what if Rain wins OSL on the back of his completely, according to most people here, underbalanced standard(!!!) play? I can imagine though what happens if he loses to Bomber or Maru(/Innovation). Lots of balance cries. If he loses in the final against Innovation.. oh well. Losing vs. Innovation is not that hard. Still, nerd tears and balance cries incoming.
Edit: I'm not that good at protoss meta. So forgive me if I oversimplified that ways of harass and/or the basic ways of playing protoss. That's my understanding at this point in time.
Edit2: Long story short, what I'm saying is: Protoss is not underbalanced (maybe in a slight margin of 0.5% or so, but that's more a personal feeling). But, in the last months, there was no protoss player using the race to its full I-can-win-a-GSL/OSL potential. Remember Zerg BW days before Savior...
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Please David Kim don't give in to the constant whining, Leave Starcraft 2 Alone!!!! It's never been this balanced and fun, so don't fuck it up!
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Not a very enlightening interview, I feel this is mostly due to the horrible questions.
I'm looking forward to what they will do to the Viper, but am surprised nothing is happening to the Oracle.
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On July 26 2013 16:03 SniXSniPe wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2013 15:54 Vindicare605 wrote:On July 26 2013 15:45 Sabu113 wrote:On July 26 2013 15:40 Vindicare605 wrote:On July 26 2013 15:36 saddaromma wrote:
The game has so many glaring problems. But DK - "Ladder is balanced so its cool". I'm not sure if he is the right guy to design sc2. He did a good job but we need someone new. The pro scene is pretty balanced also at the moment. Aside from a lack of Protoss "champions" they've had very reasonable representation in HoTS pretty much across the board, foreign tournaments and Korean. You can easily blame there not being a Protoss champion on the simple fact that they don't have anyone has good as Innovation or Soulkey, I think that's where David Kim's "Protoss players need to get better" comment comes from, I don't think it's a stab at the players that play the race so much as it's an acknowledgement that there isn't a true ELITE Protoss player the way there's elite Zergs and Terrans like Innovation and Soulkey who are recognized as just being heads and shoulders above their peers. MC was better than his peers in terms of sheer control and multitasking during his peak. Limited because the race was just simply did not have the same potential and power as terran. [Puma's career might be entirely evidence of that] Rain- I don't know in what world we pretend Rain isn't at least on the level with Innovation and Soulkey/Roro/someother champion over the last 4 months. Incredible planning and multitasking. It's a cop out answer and it's not going to be much comfort to be vindicated when in a year HoTS looks like the last year of WoL. I like Rain, I think he's one of the best Protoss players in the world but I really think he's overrated and that is hard for me to say because I do know how good he is, but he isn't on the level of Innovation. I'm sorry but he just isn't. Here's a good example of the kind of Elite status I'm talking about with Innovation. You EXPECT him to win, and he dominates, his series vs Soulkey in the OSL RO8 was a textbook example of domination over an opponent and Soulkey played some of the best ZvT (in game one at least) I've ever seen except from perhaps Startale Life at his peak. Rain? Went 3-2 in a tough crazy series with Supernova who isn't even usually considered when we talk about world's top Terran players (perhaps we should?) That kind of thing you just don't see from Innovation and Soulkey, when they get paired against anyone that isn't each other the outcome is predictably one sided affairs. You can't just decide to put Rain on their level of excellence just for parity's sake, just so we can point to 3 individual players and say "oh yea those are the best at their respective races at the moment, they're the new Bisu/Flash/Jaedong" the reality just isn't consistent with that. Rain is good, but he doesn't have that Elite untouchable status right now the way Innovation does, or the way Life used to. Perhaps during his first OSL win when he dominated WCS Asia and looked unbeatable in PvT (even then MVP found a way to beat him.) he had it, and maybe he'll get back there, but he isn't there right now and hasn't been for all of HoTS. Again this is all my opinion, but that's how I interpreted what David Kim said. It isn't so much that Protoss players aren't good, but when you look at the players winning championships, and compare those guys amongst each other, it's the top Terrans and Zergs that stand out as consistently dominant. We haven't had a Protoss in that company since MC. Season 1 - Roro WCS Season 1 - Soulkey WCS Season Finals - Innovation WCS Season 2 - Innovation, Maru, Bomber, Rain IEM WCS - YoDa 2013 MLG Winter Championships - Life DH Open Stockhelm - Leenock DH Open Summer - StarDust HSC VII - Taeja 2013 MLG Spring Championships - Polt DH Open Valencia - HyuN Lets look at top 4: Season 1 - WCS Season 1 - 1 Terran, 1 Protoss, 2 Zergs WCS Season Finals - 2 Terrans, 1 Protoss, 1 Zergs WCS Season 2 - 3 Terran, 1 Protoss IEM WCS - 2 Terran, 2 Protoss MLG Winter Championships - 2 Terrans, 1 Protoss, 1 Zergs DH Open Stockhelm - 2 Protoss, 2 Zergs DH Open Summer - 2 Terran, 1 Protoss, 1 Zerg HSC VII - 1 Terran, 3 Zergs MLG Spring Championships - 1 Terran, 2 Protoss, 1 Zerg DH Open Valencia - 1 Protoss, 3 Zergs 14 Terrans, 12 Protoss, 14 Zergs So despite not having a lot of individual crowns, there is still a good representation of Protoss players in the later stages of most tournaments OVERALL.
You are thinking exaclty like blizzard.
Most of top protoss' finishers heavily utilized strategies like 4gate, dt, voidray, 2gate rush or 2 base colossi (Inca, Seed, Naniwa, Genious). Of course sometimes luck is on their side and they make it to the top, but eventually get crushed in standard game. Even the most successful protoss, MC, mostly relies on ballzy strategies with high risks.
roach/bane all-in has the same tendency, it messes up statistics enough to make it look like TvZ is balanced. Whereas more prepared players like Innovation, Flash or Bomber find no problem at holding it.
Statistics are big liars.
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On July 26 2013 14:51 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2013 12:53 larse wrote:
Q: Have you considered buffing Terran mech?
David Kim: About mech, we are thinking to make it easier to use. In fact, in WOL, TvT had a lot of mech, but in TvP and TvZ mech didn't get used much.
Overall, we are focusing on the strength and weakness of certain units. We don't have a clear plan for mech right now, but it depends on the situation in the future. Yep ... they have no intentions of "fixing mech to make it viable" and since there is no way to make the Siege Tank easier to use - except for making Siege/Unsiege instant (which would be totally terrible) - they are probably only looking at their Hellbat and Widow Mine. "Easy to use" isnt a problem of the Siege Tank, because the "problem" of using it is deciding where to put it and everything else is its power level ... Disappointing and rather disgusting to see a bunch of game designers be so absolutely biased in their opinion against parts of their own game.
Agree with this. And the last time they tried to make mech easier they gave us the Marauder 2.0
Blizzard hating mech and hiding behind never ending promises and explanations. Years of development and 4-5 months of play and they "don't have a clear plan"
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In my opionion the best way as someone said is to buff stalkers. It will make the race more stable. If its to big buff ofcourse they can make something else weaker
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This philosophy of "if it seems boring, change it" seems like a poor objective choice for a balance team. A balance team is supposed to balance stuff, not make things shooty-blowy-flashy-fun. That's Riot's job. If everybody's using a certain strategy/combination because it's just too damn good to pass up in comparison to others, that's a balance issue that the balance team should fix that also helps make the game more varied and fun. However, if the game becomes "boring" because of certain popular trends in playstyles, absolutely no changes should be made. That's not a balance issue, that's a contextual issue and forcing changes in a deceptively well-off setting will only harm the game and provoke the community.
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On July 26 2013 17:23 Walperin wrote:
In my opionion the best way as someone said is to buff stalkers. It will make the race more stable. If its to big buff ofcourse they can make something else weaker
Yeah they would have to nerf blink lol. Blink stalkers are already really good, buff stalker and don't remove/nerf blink and blink stalkers will be even more powerful.
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On July 26 2013 17:23 Walperin wrote:
In my opionion the best way as someone said is to buff stalkers. It will make the race more stable. If its to big buff ofcourse they can make something else weaker
Stalkers are very good in several toss all-ins. Meanwhile late game they are useful for certain roles, but outside of that you generally don't want to make too many of them.
Now what do you think the result is when you buff stalkers?
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This interviewer makes the Chinese scene sound like a bunch of insatiable balance whiners. Such terrible questions...
Still, pretty interesting how Kim believes that vipers are weak. They're such finicky, gimmick units... I thought that's how they were meant to be: useless without an army to support. I guess Kim won't be happy until people mass them like infestors in WoL.
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I think what I find disturbing about almost all of David Kim's interviews is the apparent disconnect between players and designers. Balance and win rates, while related, are not synonymous.
I wholeheartedly agree with a metrics driven approach to identifying balance issues. However, these interviews leave me thinking they look at win rates and, assuming it's close to 50/50, call it a day. What about other factors like average game time for each win? Variety of build orders/strategies? Would we seriously argue that a matchup was balanced if one race had to win within 15 minutes even if the overall winrate was 50/50? Would we consider a race balanced if it only had one viable strategy?
I feel that when players talk about balance, these are the types of issues they are discussing. Specifically, lack of viable strategies and unacceptably small margins for error seem to come up often. Quoting win rates as an argument completely misses the point and speaks to a huge understanding gap between player and designer.
To be fair, this interview is pretty bad but the entire line of thinking around mech speaks volumes. DK as much as admitted that mech is underpowered but has no clear plans to look at it and apparently feels no urgency to do so. This is a huge problem and it starts with the "50/50, everything must be great" outlook.
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On July 26 2013 17:37 dUTtrOACh wrote:
This interviewer makes the Chinese scene sound like a bunch of insatiable balance whiners. Such terrible questions...
[...]
Lol, my thoughts exactly. So fucking whiny :D
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He literally rates balance by using his matchmaking system that forces people to be 50/50 (though I understand that doesn't mean each matchup is 50/50 it is still kinda fucked up to use that for balance) and the top two of a major tournament? That does explain why the game is as wierd as it is in some regards.
Also I love when more drops = more entertaining in his eyes, when to me personally terran droping when going bio has become as normal and boring as terran moving to the watch tower...
In BW when you actually invested in something that gave you nothing else besides the ability to drop, so you had to consciously be like "I will drop" rather than just using the healers you build anyways, it had soooo much more excitement connected to it.
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On July 26 2013 17:50 supernovice007 wrote:
I think what I find disturbing about almost all of David Kim's interviews is the apparent disconnect between players and designers. Balance and win rates, while related, are not synonymous.
I wholeheartedly agree with a metrics driven approach to identifying balance issues. However, these interviews leave me thinking they look at win rates and, assuming it's close to 50/50, call it a day. What about other factors like average game time for each win? Variety of build orders/strategies? Would we seriously argue that a matchup was balanced if one race had to win within 15 minutes even if the overall winrate was 50/50? Would we consider a race balanced if it only had one viable strategy?
I feel that when players talk about balance, these are the types of issues they are discussing. Specifically, lack of viable strategies and unacceptably small margins for error seem to come up often. Quoting win rates as an argument completely misses the point and speaks to a huge understanding gap between player and designer.
To be fair, this interview is pretty bad but the entire line of thinking around mech speaks volumes. DK as much as admitted that mech is underpowered but has no clear plans to look at it and apparently feels no urgency to do so. This is a huge problem and it starts with the "50/50, everything must be great" outlook.
Excellent post. An example of what you said would be, if Protoss can get a 50% win rate vs Zerg by doing an Immortal/Sentry all in variation every game, the entire matchup clearly is balanced and no late game issues or any other issues and discrepancies between skill caps and skill requirements exist. Likewise, they think that if Terran can win 50% or more games by using bio units, then the matchup is balanced, and mech and whatever else sucking is completely irrelevant.
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On July 26 2013 17:50 supernovice007 wrote:
I think what I find disturbing about almost all of David Kim's interviews is the apparent disconnect between players and designers. Balance and win rates, while related, are not synonymous.
I wholeheartedly agree with a metrics driven approach to identifying balance issues. However, these interviews leave me thinking they look at win rates and, assuming it's close to 50/50, call it a day. What about other factors like average game time for each win? Variety of build orders/strategies? Would we seriously argue that a matchup was balanced if one race had to win within 15 minutes even if the overall winrate was 50/50? Would we consider a race balanced if it only had one viable strategy?
I feel that when players talk about balance, these are the types of issues they are discussing. Specifically, lack of viable strategies and unacceptably small margins for error seem to come up often. Quoting win rates as an argument completely misses the point and speaks to a huge understanding gap between player and designer.
To be fair, this interview is pretty bad but the entire line of thinking around mech speaks volumes. DK as much as admitted that mech is underpowered but has no clear plans to look at it and apparently feels no urgency to do so. This is a huge problem and it starts with the "50/50, everything must be great" outlook.
Well stated. I can't tell if the designers are aware of the fundamental problems with the game, or they're just too egotistical to admit that their approach isn't the greatest.
The heavy emphasis on unit counters and lack of microability in a lot of units is definitely something they could take a better look at.
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Why did I even scroll down? lol
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Glad to see mech isnt getting buffed. Already pissed off at playing against or with mech in TvT.
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wtf that reporter is so bias! talking like T is OP.... should atleast watch the tournament in front of him where only 4 terrans were in RO16...
i guess he is not used to WMs since the game was released 1 week ago in china
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You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.
Poor DK 
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EPT
