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On July 26 2013 18:14 acrimoneyius wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Or I think they know from experience with WoL (since they clearly didn't learn with BW) that the metagame itself fixes a lot of perceived balance problems on its own.
You can't just put out a balance patch every 2 months to force the metagame to shift (unless it's to fix something specific that's broken like Helbats in TvT or Mutalisks in ZvZ), you have to let it happen on its own or else you end up with what we had in WoL.
The players can't just petition Blizzard every time they think a match up isn't how they want it to be played, there's a responsibility of the players also to push the metagame in new directions, to discover new strategies and ways to approach every match up.
There's a responsibility on tournaments to adopt new maps that ALLOW for new strategies to be played.
There's a whole slew of things that come into play before you start tweaking the balance on units if you want to shift how the metagame plays out. Blizzard is doing the responsible thing and in my mind the correct thing by leaving the metagame alone so it can evolve on its own.
In other words. The game's balance is good, don't fuck with it. Let the players figure out new strategies on their own.
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It seems like there are fewer top Protoss players out there, at least fewer than Terran and Zerg.
Haha, this sounds a little funny: "At least fewer than the only other races that exist."
I would guess it's meant to be It seems like there are few top Protoss players out there, at least fewer than Terran and Zerg, hence the second part of the statement in order to point out it's more of a comparison, rather than saying there are simply very few of them.
He seems to completely fail to understand that there is a huge difference between the effects of "longer battles" and "longer games".
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On July 26 2013 17:17 saddaromma wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2013 16:03 SniXSniPe wrote: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.
you are saying P and Z cheeses and rely alot on allins in order to win while terrans always play standard macro and never cheeses/allin(3base scv allin vs P, proxy raxes,2 base mass blueflamehellion, anyone?)?? i think its almost the same ratio, so u cant say it messes up the statistic...
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There's something i have been wondering since HoTS launch.
Why protoss do go Skytoss PvZ OR GW units? Why they don't add one by one and slowly some voids in their comp like Terran did in TvZ with Banshee/mech? No a whine or criticizm. I'm just thinking it could be really cool.
For the toss part, i really think something like reintroducing the building who bring shield back and increases shield regeneration could lead to muuuuuuuuuch more harrassement-based toss play. Some litlle tweaks like that. And for oracle bringing a big spell that could stop one building from working during X sec (static D) and combining revelation and the other detection spell.
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On July 26 2013 18:36 MTAC wrote:
There's something i have been wondering since HoTS launch.
Why protoss do go Skytoss PvZ OR GW units? Why they don't add one by one and slowly some voids in their comp like Terran did in TvZ with Banshee/mech? No a whine or criticizm. I'm just thinking it could be really cool.
For the toss part, i really think something like reintroducing the building who bring shield back and increases shield regeneration could lead to muuuuuuuuuch more harrassement-based toss play. Some litlle tweaks like that. And for oracle bringing a big spell that could stop one building from working during X sec (static D) and combining revelation and the other detection spell.
I'm pretty sure they removed that anti-static defense spell because it made Void Ray all ins too strong.
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On July 26 2013 18:31 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2013 18:14 acrimoneyius wrote: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. Or I think they know from experience with WoL (since they clearly didn't learn with BW) that the metagame itself fixes a lot of perceived balance problems on its own. You can't just put out a balance patch every 2 months to force the metagame to shift (unless it's to fix something specific that's broken like Helbats in TvT or Mutalisks in ZvZ), you have to let it happen on its own or else you end up with what we had in WoL. The players can't just petition Blizzard every time they think a match up isn't how they want it to be played, there's a responsibility of the players also to push the metagame in new directions, to discover new strategies and ways to approach every match up. There's a responsibility on tournaments to adopt new maps that ALLOW for new strategies to be played. There's a whole slew of things that come into play before you start tweaking the balance on units if you want to shift how the metagame plays out. Blizzard is doing the responsible thing and in my mind the correct thing by leaving the metagame alone so it can evolve on its own. In other words. The game's balance is good, don't fuck with it. Let the players figure out new strategies on their own.
Balance isn't as important as unit design and mechanics. BW was only able to have huge meta game shifts because of how much mileage you could get out of units through micro. SC2's engine doesn't allow for that high degree of control between units, and is more focused on unit counters.
For that reason alone, you can't just wait for the game to solve itself. Your logic of "let players figure it out" only works if you put SC2 in a vacuum.
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I hope they will adress MECH Play and start to care about it instead of just lying arround all the time... 
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The problem with Protoss is that you have to be so DAMN innovative with your builds, look at Naniwa for example, everytime he goes to an event he has some nice new builds prepared (talking especially about his pvz), but once you get figured out as a Toss, well it just goes downhill.
Terran and Zerg are much better because you can play standard all games with going MMM and whatever comp you want as zerg, and rely on your harass and multitask since your units are cheap and good.
I really wish something will be done in LoTv.
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My problem with balance right now is the lack of diversity. If you let the meta fix itself it will be stuck forever and there wont be any variation in builds/play.
TvP is always bio, never mech. It is interesting to watch and there is a lot of micro going on in highlevel play, but it always comes down to SCV pulls or storm/emp battles.
We never see one base play, we never see mech, we never see skytoss. It would be so much better if all of that was somewhat viable.
Look at Tvt: bio, mech, marinetank, tank viking, skyterran, there are many ways to play the matchup and that makes it great to wtch and never boring (unless it is tankchess )
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On July 26 2013 14:27 Reborn8u wrote:
Great questions. I like things straight forward. I kind of feel like David Kim gave somewhat shallow answers to a some of the questions.
Anyway, as a terran player in HOTS, this is my opinion on protoss.....
I think an issue with protoss, is the race just doesn't really have any "safe standard play". If the opponent figures out what the protoss players strategy is early, the protoss dies, on the other side, if it goes unscouted or unpredicted, the protoss player has a very good chance at success. Protoss doesn't really seem to have builds that hold up versus anything and allow for adjustments as the game progresses, aka standard play.
This is SPOT ON.
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On July 26 2013 18:38 acrimoneyius wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2013 18:31 Vindicare605 wrote:On July 26 2013 18:14 acrimoneyius wrote: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. Or I think they know from experience with WoL (since they clearly didn't learn with BW) that the metagame itself fixes a lot of perceived balance problems on its own. You can't just put out a balance patch every 2 months to force the metagame to shift (unless it's to fix something specific that's broken like Helbats in TvT or Mutalisks in ZvZ), you have to let it happen on its own or else you end up with what we had in WoL. The players can't just petition Blizzard every time they think a match up isn't how they want it to be played, there's a responsibility of the players also to push the metagame in new directions, to discover new strategies and ways to approach every match up. There's a responsibility on tournaments to adopt new maps that ALLOW for new strategies to be played. There's a whole slew of things that come into play before you start tweaking the balance on units if you want to shift how the metagame plays out. Blizzard is doing the responsible thing and in my mind the correct thing by leaving the metagame alone so it can evolve on its own. In other words. The game's balance is good, don't fuck with it. Let the players figure out new strategies on their own. Balance isn't as important as unit design and mechanics. BW was only able to have huge meta game shifts because of how much mileage you could get out of units through micro. SC2's engine doesn't allow for that high degree of control between units, and is more focused on unit counters. For that reason alone, you can't just wait for the game to solve itself. Your logic of "let players figure it out" only works if you put SC2 in a vacuum.
If that's how you feel then you should just quit arguing about balance now because what you want is a full on fucking game rework.
How likely do you think that is that we're going to have one of those in the middle of a WCS season? It isn't going to happen and you're being totally unreasonable if you think otherwise.
If you want to argue core mechanic debates I'm actually on your side, I think there's a lot of things that can be improved on SC2's core mechanics. But you're not in the right place trashing David Kim in this thread for not saying something like "yea I think in the next patch we're going to go back and take a look at Warp Gate tech" because it ISN'T freaking happening.
Let's look at what we do know. SC2 for all of its flaws DOES have an ever evolving metagame, stuff can emerge that no one sees coming that radically changes how the game is played. Perfect example? MVP's Double Armory Hellion/Banshee Mech build.
When it came onto the field it completely revamped for quite a while the way the match up played and won him an IEM and almost a GSL before Zerg could figure out how best to handle it.
Same core game mechanics, completely different metagame. Zerg had a brand new standard meta they had to prepare for and Terrans had a whole slew of additional openings and timings to work with.
You can't look at me and tell me that the same won't happen in the next 2 months with SC2. You aren't a pro player, and you can't see into the future.
Rather than run the risk of Blizzard screwing something up or giving us another Infestor or Queen patch, I'm happy letting them keep everything where it is. The game is exciting to watch, it's fun to play and the tournament results are some of the most balanced they've ever been. If the core game mechanics aren't where you and I want them well then that's on us to talk about it for LOTV, but not for a balance patch.
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I'm pretty sure they removed that anti-static defense spell because it made Void Ray all ins too strong.
That could be tweaked easily. Ovi speedbuff in hatch-tech have been implemented after the removal of this spell. Queens and spores should suffice for defense if played well. And why not a buff in Queen AA. (and/or hydra, and/or make the SH a weak-scourge-splash launcher).
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To be fair the SC2 team have done a great job balancing SC2. Imagine how hard it is to balance, and think how great they've made it. All races have a few means to harass (some are stronger than others, sure) and all classes can relatively open, in a relaxing manner, macro orientated. Does anyone truly think there is a balance issue with SC2? Sure it sucks to see some Zergs lose to a lucky widow mine shot, but that's just RNG. You could arguably say that RNG influences a lot of SC2 games.
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On July 26 2013 18:47 MTAC wrote:Show nested quote +I'm pretty sure they removed that anti-static defense spell because it made Void Ray all ins too strong. That could be tweaked easily. Ovi speedbuff in hatch-tech have been implemented after the removal of this spell. Queens and spores should suffice for defense if played well. And why not a buff in Queen AA. (and/or hydra, and/or make the SH a weak-scourge-splash launcher).
Do you even realize what you're saying here? You're now proposing we make 3-4 potentially completely imbalanced changes just so you can see something cool with the Oracle?
Ever stop to consider what giving queens better AA does to TvZ where the terran is entirely dependent upon Medivacs and drop play? How about SH scourge splash launchers completely fucking destroying the current Void Ray/Collosus comp where Void rays being one of the few units Protoss actually uses to COUNTER Swarm Host heavy play right now.
It isn't a simple thing, you have 9 match ups to consider and you have to see every possible way a change could be abused before you implement it.
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As TLO said in his AMA, Protoss needs a complete redesign of the race. If they were to do that, most other problems would go away as well. We wouldn't see swarm hosts or overpowered hellbats, they're all stupid units to counter protoss units. Forcefields/inability to lose units or you lose the game/the snowball effect of protoss makes sc2 so much worse than brood war 
I really hope they do something really drastic to protoss in LotV
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The amount of balance whine in this thread is crazy lol
Basically, we don't see the direct "we're gonna buff/nerf this" comments, besides Viper, only vague answers.
Looks like David Kim is baiting TL forums really hard 
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On July 26 2013 19:19 sd_andeh wrote:As TLO said in his AMA, Protoss needs a complete redesign of the race. If they were to do that, most other problems would go away as well. We wouldn't see swarm hosts or overpowered hellbats, they're all stupid units to counter protoss units. Forcefields/inability to lose units or you lose the game/the snowball effect of protoss makes sc2 so much worse than brood war I really hope they do something really drastic to protoss in LotV
There was a major post back in the day, about re-design of Protoss for HotS[swap sentries with immortals, remove colossi, make citadel of... uhm, twilight be the pre-req for stalkers], but then they gave up since the change would be too big for this expansion.
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I just don't think they have no idea what to do with mech.
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EPT
