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I think I remember reading somewhere that the creators of SB were against the force field. Personally, I think force field was horrible for SC2 and it's one of the reasons I stopped playing. I hope that they never implement the force field into this mod. Or any ability remotely like it.
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On February 09 2014 13:04 Foxxan wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2014 12:50 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 12:23 Foxxan wrote:On February 09 2014 09:47 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 09:29 bearhug wrote:
I believe the design a RTS game like SC2 should follow some reasonable and universal rules. In contrary, if the developer design/balance the game based on
1. this is cool;
2 we like the design of xxx.
3. we don't like seeing ...
4. we believe Force Fields are a very unique ability...
5. we want to encourage people to use xxx unit
7. this will make the game more interesting... .....
you already know the result... Yeah, the result is Starcraft 1. "Cool", "unique" and "interesting" is what made Blizzard break out from the universal "rule" of symmetrical design. It's also what made Warcraft 3 a vastly different, but still successful, game than all of its predecessors. Even if you don't like what's in SC2, you'd have to be a complete fool to think repeating the exact same formulas is even close to a smart idea. Wc3 is a completely different rts game. So there are obviously another set of rules for that rts style So i dont get what u mean either with your last sentence Hahahaha..."obviously". Yeah, I guess hindsight makes everything obvious, doesn't it? Wc3 invented that type of RTS, there were no "rules" before it. And when the game was announced, there were a shit ton of people who denouncing it before they even played it because "it wasn't like Wc2 or SC:BW" and "RTS isn't RPG", and so on. And I guess hindsight made them "obviously" wrong. If you want amazing games to be made, then you need developers who will innovate and do things because "it seems cool". Doesnt matter who invented that style or when. The relevant part is it is a different rts style, thats a fact. And with that fact, we know there are other logics to it. 'Shitton' of people who denouncing it. Ye, obviously people do that, thats how mankind works, we have opinions on everything and we decide if its good or bad without knowing shit about it. You can still innovate even with the universal rules.
"Different RTS style". AKA, they broke the rules and it worked, so the rules were total crock to begin with.
But this is silly to begin with, because all this comes down to is BW fanboys trying to make everything more like BW...wrapping it up in some talk about "universal rules" doesn't make it any less annoying.
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@wolfinthesheep, you gotta establish some kind of baselines for any work to be successful.
Some examples (only a few):
-Designing around a certain mapsize is very problematic when suddenly you think it's cool to allow mechanics that ignore mapsize - you will be left playing balance catch up as a result of that, and very constrained in what is and isn't allowed in your map design for example (sc1 had arbiter recall and nydus, but those were very lategame and very expensive/hard to pull off - compare it to warpgates and, to a lesser extent, sc2 nydus).
-Same goes with incorporating certain types of terrain intended to provide a specific function (eg chokepoint, inaccessible high ground, open flat terrain, wide corridor) and, at the same time, certain abilities that effectively change the function of terrain or circumvent terrain (colossi, blink stalkers, reapers, forcefield, whatever I forget). Think about the kind of effect these abilities have on the variability of army compositions that are effective in particular maps more than others - the protoss deathball is never changing, is it?
-If you're gonna introduce units that are exponentially more useful in a mass vs mass scenario or units that hardcounter harass, you better have the mass vs mass scenario as a design goal and not a result of the cool units. If you really wanted many skirmishes around the map, introducing the colossus or giving concussive shells to the marauder isn't a particularly wise idea, for example.
Innovation is great, as long as you got some fundamental design goals in mind that aren't disrupted by introducing 'cool' elements. I don't know how the sc2 team worked - they've been defending the results of their design choices, such as prevalence of ballfights, so maybe they just executed their vision - this is a very good thing, no matter our personal opinion. But simply going off and being 'innovative' and 'cool' and hoping the stuff you threw at the wall sticks is no way to develop a game, especially a competitive one.
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On February 09 2014 13:10 tehredbanditt wrote:
I think I remember reading somewhere that the creators of SB were against the force field. Personally, I think force field was horrible for SC2 and it's one of the reasons I stopped playing. I hope that they never implement the force field into this mod. Or any ability remotely like it.
But isn't the primary reason why forcefield was bad was because if you are caught in it, then its GG? So why don't we make it so that you can break them down? Seems that it might have tons of counter-micro involved much like Storm Dodging and Marine Stutter stepping in that it will be spectacular when it works.
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On February 09 2014 13:15 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2014 13:04 Foxxan wrote:On February 09 2014 12:50 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 12:23 Foxxan wrote:On February 09 2014 09:47 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 09:29 bearhug wrote:
I believe the design a RTS game like SC2 should follow some reasonable and universal rules. In contrary, if the developer design/balance the game based on
1. this is cool;
2 we like the design of xxx.
3. we don't like seeing ...
4. we believe Force Fields are a very unique ability...
5. we want to encourage people to use xxx unit
7. this will make the game more interesting... .....
you already know the result... Yeah, the result is Starcraft 1. "Cool", "unique" and "interesting" is what made Blizzard break out from the universal "rule" of symmetrical design. It's also what made Warcraft 3 a vastly different, but still successful, game than all of its predecessors. Even if you don't like what's in SC2, you'd have to be a complete fool to think repeating the exact same formulas is even close to a smart idea. Wc3 is a completely different rts game. So there are obviously another set of rules for that rts style So i dont get what u mean either with your last sentence Hahahaha..."obviously". Yeah, I guess hindsight makes everything obvious, doesn't it? Wc3 invented that type of RTS, there were no "rules" before it. And when the game was announced, there were a shit ton of people who denouncing it before they even played it because "it wasn't like Wc2 or SC:BW" and "RTS isn't RPG", and so on. And I guess hindsight made them "obviously" wrong. If you want amazing games to be made, then you need developers who will innovate and do things because "it seems cool". Doesnt matter who invented that style or when. The relevant part is it is a different rts style, thats a fact. And with that fact, we know there are other logics to it. 'Shitton' of people who denouncing it. Ye, obviously people do that, thats how mankind works, we have opinions on everything and we decide if its good or bad without knowing shit about it. You can still innovate even with the universal rules. "Different RTS style". AKA, they broke the rules and it worked, so the rules were total crock to begin with. But this is silly to begin with, because all this comes down to is BW fanboys trying to make everything more like BW...wrapping it up in some talk about "universal rules" doesn't make it any less annoying.
I thought assaulting people by calling them fools is not welcomed in this forum. No ban so far?
You clearly misunderstood, most likely because of your inability to comprehend. There is a difference between having NO design rules and having DIFFERENT design rules.
Just like different countries may have different laws. One may have certain preference between them. But that's not important. The important part is they all have laws! And that is light years better than anything without laws! Apparently, a decent person like to live in a country founded based on laws and you don't.
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On February 09 2014 13:50 Taguchi wrote:
@wolfinthesheep, you gotta establish some kind of baselines for any work to be successful.
Some examples (only a few):
-Designing around a certain mapsize is very problematic when suddenly you think it's cool to allow mechanics that ignore mapsize - you will be left playing balance catch up as a result of that, and very constrained in what is and isn't allowed in your map design for example (sc1 had arbiter recall and nydus, but those were very lategame and very expensive/hard to pull off - compare it to warpgates and, to a lesser extent, sc2 nydus).
-Same goes with incorporating certain types of terrain intended to provide a specific function (eg chokepoint, inaccessible high ground, open flat terrain, wide corridor) and, at the same time, certain abilities that effectively change the function of terrain or circumvent terrain (colossi, blink stalkers, reapers, forcefield, whatever I forget). Think about the kind of effect these abilities have on the variability of army compositions that are effective in particular maps more than others - the protoss deathball is never changing, is it?
-If you're gonna introduce units that are exponentially more useful in a mass vs mass scenario or units that hardcounter harass, you better have the mass vs mass scenario as a design goal and not a result of the cool units. If you really wanted many skirmishes around the map, introducing the colossus or giving concussive shells to the marauder isn't a particularly wise idea, for example.
Innovation is great, as long as you got some fundamental design goals in mind that aren't disrupted by introducing 'cool' elements. I don't know how the sc2 team worked - they've been defending the results of their design choices, such as prevalence of ballfights, so maybe they just executed their vision - this is a very good thing, no matter our personal opinion. But simply going off and being 'innovative' and 'cool' and hoping the stuff you threw at the wall sticks is no way to develop a game, especially a competitive one.
Your first two are basically rules after-the-fact. Sure, once a game is out and you know the design, you can say what maps need to look like for the game to function. But you can't say "all RTSes need chokepoints and high ground mechanics", or even "Game maps must be constrained to this". Hell, you can't even say "RTSes must have unit travel constraints".
The older C&Cs, Age of Empires, etc. certainly didn't care about terrain or chokepoints. And I know there are some Sci-Fi RTSes out there that allow warps all across the map.
And sure, throwing darts on a board isn't very good for game design, but many of the best games of all time came from "Here's a cool idea, let's make it work". Even StarCraft 1 came from that kind of mindset; no one cared about a completely balanced game, because no one played seriously enough for it to matter. They just made an RTS with 3 distinct races, and that was something brand new and exciting.
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On February 09 2014 12:26 bnanaPEEL wrote:I tried looking this up before posting and couldn't find so; is there a live list of pros that are currently streaming Starbow? Much appreciated 
check the op of the thread .. there are mass amount of youtube channels and stream that casts starbow ..
finding a live stream for starbow is hard .. although there are a lot of recorded games.
the known pro's who play this are Ax.Heart , Ax.Crank, BeastQT , Major and a lot more
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@Bug
BGH (atleast on america server, havent tried eu)
Some minerals are behind some other minerals...It fucks up all workers.
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On February 09 2014 14:37 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2014 13:50 Taguchi wrote:
@wolfinthesheep, you gotta establish some kind of baselines for any work to be successful.
Some examples (only a few):
-Designing around a certain mapsize is very problematic when suddenly you think it's cool to allow mechanics that ignore mapsize - you will be left playing balance catch up as a result of that, and very constrained in what is and isn't allowed in your map design for example (sc1 had arbiter recall and nydus, but those were very lategame and very expensive/hard to pull off - compare it to warpgates and, to a lesser extent, sc2 nydus).
-Same goes with incorporating certain types of terrain intended to provide a specific function (eg chokepoint, inaccessible high ground, open flat terrain, wide corridor) and, at the same time, certain abilities that effectively change the function of terrain or circumvent terrain (colossi, blink stalkers, reapers, forcefield, whatever I forget). Think about the kind of effect these abilities have on the variability of army compositions that are effective in particular maps more than others - the protoss deathball is never changing, is it?
-If you're gonna introduce units that are exponentially more useful in a mass vs mass scenario or units that hardcounter harass, you better have the mass vs mass scenario as a design goal and not a result of the cool units. If you really wanted many skirmishes around the map, introducing the colossus or giving concussive shells to the marauder isn't a particularly wise idea, for example.
Innovation is great, as long as you got some fundamental design goals in mind that aren't disrupted by introducing 'cool' elements. I don't know how the sc2 team worked - they've been defending the results of their design choices, such as prevalence of ballfights, so maybe they just executed their vision - this is a very good thing, no matter our personal opinion. But simply going off and being 'innovative' and 'cool' and hoping the stuff you threw at the wall sticks is no way to develop a game, especially a competitive one. Your first two are basically rules after-the-fact. Sure, once a game is out and you know the design, you can say what maps need to look like for the game to function. But you can't say "all RTSes need chokepoints and high ground mechanics", or even "Game maps must be constrained to this". Hell, you can't even say "RTSes must have unit travel constraints". The older C&Cs, Age of Empires, etc. certainly didn't care about terrain or chokepoints. And I know there are some Sci-Fi RTSes out there that allow warps all across the map. And sure, throwing darts on a board isn't very good for game design, but many of the best games of all time came from "Here's a cool idea, let's make it work". Even StarCraft 1 came from that kind of mindset; no one cared about a completely balanced game, because no one played seriously enough for it to matter. They just made an RTS with 3 distinct races, and that was something brand new and exciting.
Yeah thats how proffesional video game designers do their work. Get real dude.
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On February 09 2014 17:40 Foxxan wrote:
@Bug
BGH (atleast on america server, havent tried eu)
Some minerals are behind some other minerals...It fucks up all workers.
It was like that in BW. 
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I give a design Idea: Blizz gave the ff in the beginning of early alpha WOL to the stalker. Might be an interesting implementation in sbow. However overall I am against ff.
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On February 09 2014 13:10 tehredbanditt wrote:
I think I remember reading somewhere that the creators of SB were against the force field. Personally, I think force field was horrible for SC2 and it's one of the reasons I stopped playing. I hope that they never implement the force field into this mod. Or any ability remotely like it. word fuck stasis field
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On February 09 2014 19:03 NukeD wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2014 14:37 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 13:50 Taguchi wrote:
@wolfinthesheep, you gotta establish some kind of baselines for any work to be successful.
Some examples (only a few):
-Designing around a certain mapsize is very problematic when suddenly you think it's cool to allow mechanics that ignore mapsize - you will be left playing balance catch up as a result of that, and very constrained in what is and isn't allowed in your map design for example (sc1 had arbiter recall and nydus, but those were very lategame and very expensive/hard to pull off - compare it to warpgates and, to a lesser extent, sc2 nydus).
-Same goes with incorporating certain types of terrain intended to provide a specific function (eg chokepoint, inaccessible high ground, open flat terrain, wide corridor) and, at the same time, certain abilities that effectively change the function of terrain or circumvent terrain (colossi, blink stalkers, reapers, forcefield, whatever I forget). Think about the kind of effect these abilities have on the variability of army compositions that are effective in particular maps more than others - the protoss deathball is never changing, is it?
-If you're gonna introduce units that are exponentially more useful in a mass vs mass scenario or units that hardcounter harass, you better have the mass vs mass scenario as a design goal and not a result of the cool units. If you really wanted many skirmishes around the map, introducing the colossus or giving concussive shells to the marauder isn't a particularly wise idea, for example.
Innovation is great, as long as you got some fundamental design goals in mind that aren't disrupted by introducing 'cool' elements. I don't know how the sc2 team worked - they've been defending the results of their design choices, such as prevalence of ballfights, so maybe they just executed their vision - this is a very good thing, no matter our personal opinion. But simply going off and being 'innovative' and 'cool' and hoping the stuff you threw at the wall sticks is no way to develop a game, especially a competitive one. Your first two are basically rules after-the-fact. Sure, once a game is out and you know the design, you can say what maps need to look like for the game to function. But you can't say "all RTSes need chokepoints and high ground mechanics", or even "Game maps must be constrained to this". Hell, you can't even say "RTSes must have unit travel constraints". The older C&Cs, Age of Empires, etc. certainly didn't care about terrain or chokepoints. And I know there are some Sci-Fi RTSes out there that allow warps all across the map. And sure, throwing darts on a board isn't very good for game design, but many of the best games of all time came from "Here's a cool idea, let's make it work". Even StarCraft 1 came from that kind of mindset; no one cared about a completely balanced game, because no one played seriously enough for it to matter. They just made an RTS with 3 distinct races, and that was something brand new and exciting. Yeah thats how proffesional video game designers do their work. Get real dude.
Eh, yes that's how they do it. What's your problem?
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That's how Blizzard does it and at the very least they're a professional video game design studio.
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Well back in the 90's things were much different. Now it's more about throwing more money and manhours at the same rehashed formula.
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On February 09 2014 22:13 S1eth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2014 19:03 NukeD wrote:On February 09 2014 14:37 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 13:50 Taguchi wrote:
@wolfinthesheep, you gotta establish some kind of baselines for any work to be successful.
Some examples (only a few):
-Designing around a certain mapsize is very problematic when suddenly you think it's cool to allow mechanics that ignore mapsize - you will be left playing balance catch up as a result of that, and very constrained in what is and isn't allowed in your map design for example (sc1 had arbiter recall and nydus, but those were very lategame and very expensive/hard to pull off - compare it to warpgates and, to a lesser extent, sc2 nydus).
-Same goes with incorporating certain types of terrain intended to provide a specific function (eg chokepoint, inaccessible high ground, open flat terrain, wide corridor) and, at the same time, certain abilities that effectively change the function of terrain or circumvent terrain (colossi, blink stalkers, reapers, forcefield, whatever I forget). Think about the kind of effect these abilities have on the variability of army compositions that are effective in particular maps more than others - the protoss deathball is never changing, is it?
-If you're gonna introduce units that are exponentially more useful in a mass vs mass scenario or units that hardcounter harass, you better have the mass vs mass scenario as a design goal and not a result of the cool units. If you really wanted many skirmishes around the map, introducing the colossus or giving concussive shells to the marauder isn't a particularly wise idea, for example.
Innovation is great, as long as you got some fundamental design goals in mind that aren't disrupted by introducing 'cool' elements. I don't know how the sc2 team worked - they've been defending the results of their design choices, such as prevalence of ballfights, so maybe they just executed their vision - this is a very good thing, no matter our personal opinion. But simply going off and being 'innovative' and 'cool' and hoping the stuff you threw at the wall sticks is no way to develop a game, especially a competitive one. Your first two are basically rules after-the-fact. Sure, once a game is out and you know the design, you can say what maps need to look like for the game to function. But you can't say "all RTSes need chokepoints and high ground mechanics", or even "Game maps must be constrained to this". Hell, you can't even say "RTSes must have unit travel constraints". The older C&Cs, Age of Empires, etc. certainly didn't care about terrain or chokepoints. And I know there are some Sci-Fi RTSes out there that allow warps all across the map. And sure, throwing darts on a board isn't very good for game design, but many of the best games of all time came from "Here's a cool idea, let's make it work". Even StarCraft 1 came from that kind of mindset; no one cared about a completely balanced game, because no one played seriously enough for it to matter. They just made an RTS with 3 distinct races, and that was something brand new and exciting. Yeah thats how proffesional video game designers do their work. Get real dude. Eh, yes that's how they do it. What's your problem?
His last post kind of makes sense but the thought process over his last few posts and the overall conclusion is what I was comentating against. If you are a designer you make certain rules you will follow later on,, and if you want to implement anything "cool" you should do it by the rules you made earlier. He is making it sound like these guys get paid just to throw out random ideas haphazardly. The result sometimes does seem like it tho.
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On February 09 2014 23:41 NukeD wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2014 22:13 S1eth wrote:On February 09 2014 19:03 NukeD wrote:On February 09 2014 14:37 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 13:50 Taguchi wrote:
@wolfinthesheep, you gotta establish some kind of baselines for any work to be successful.
Some examples (only a few):
-Designing around a certain mapsize is very problematic when suddenly you think it's cool to allow mechanics that ignore mapsize - you will be left playing balance catch up as a result of that, and very constrained in what is and isn't allowed in your map design for example (sc1 had arbiter recall and nydus, but those were very lategame and very expensive/hard to pull off - compare it to warpgates and, to a lesser extent, sc2 nydus).
-Same goes with incorporating certain types of terrain intended to provide a specific function (eg chokepoint, inaccessible high ground, open flat terrain, wide corridor) and, at the same time, certain abilities that effectively change the function of terrain or circumvent terrain (colossi, blink stalkers, reapers, forcefield, whatever I forget). Think about the kind of effect these abilities have on the variability of army compositions that are effective in particular maps more than others - the protoss deathball is never changing, is it?
-If you're gonna introduce units that are exponentially more useful in a mass vs mass scenario or units that hardcounter harass, you better have the mass vs mass scenario as a design goal and not a result of the cool units. If you really wanted many skirmishes around the map, introducing the colossus or giving concussive shells to the marauder isn't a particularly wise idea, for example.
Innovation is great, as long as you got some fundamental design goals in mind that aren't disrupted by introducing 'cool' elements. I don't know how the sc2 team worked - they've been defending the results of their design choices, such as prevalence of ballfights, so maybe they just executed their vision - this is a very good thing, no matter our personal opinion. But simply going off and being 'innovative' and 'cool' and hoping the stuff you threw at the wall sticks is no way to develop a game, especially a competitive one. Your first two are basically rules after-the-fact. Sure, once a game is out and you know the design, you can say what maps need to look like for the game to function. But you can't say "all RTSes need chokepoints and high ground mechanics", or even "Game maps must be constrained to this". Hell, you can't even say "RTSes must have unit travel constraints". The older C&Cs, Age of Empires, etc. certainly didn't care about terrain or chokepoints. And I know there are some Sci-Fi RTSes out there that allow warps all across the map. And sure, throwing darts on a board isn't very good for game design, but many of the best games of all time came from "Here's a cool idea, let's make it work". Even StarCraft 1 came from that kind of mindset; no one cared about a completely balanced game, because no one played seriously enough for it to matter. They just made an RTS with 3 distinct races, and that was something brand new and exciting. Yeah thats how proffesional video game designers do their work. Get real dude. Eh, yes that's how they do it. What's your problem? His last post kind of makes sense but the thought process over his last few posts and the overall conclusion is what I was comentating against. If you are a designer you make certain rules you will follow later on,, and if you want to implement anything "cool" you should do it by the rules you made earlier. He is making it sound like these guys get paid just to throw out random ideas haphazardly. The result sometimes does seem like it tho.
You need to set a few rules that define what the engine is supposed to be able to do, so that development doesn't go in a completely different direction. It takes until month/years(?) after you have been able to test your original vision to see if things work out the way they were planned.
Just thinking about SC2. The game was originally designed with fast paced action in mind (all kinds of cheeses and very early aggression) on very small maps. Things such as warpgape were never a problem on maps the size of Steps of War. Now, over the years, maps have become larger and larger, everyone expects to be able to safely take a third (aggression nerfed, queen buff, MSC, etc.).
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Northern Ireland26795 Posts
On February 10 2014 01:50 S1eth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2014 23:41 NukeD wrote:On February 09 2014 22:13 S1eth wrote:On February 09 2014 19:03 NukeD wrote:On February 09 2014 14:37 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 13:50 Taguchi wrote:
@wolfinthesheep, you gotta establish some kind of baselines for any work to be successful.
Some examples (only a few):
-Designing around a certain mapsize is very problematic when suddenly you think it's cool to allow mechanics that ignore mapsize - you will be left playing balance catch up as a result of that, and very constrained in what is and isn't allowed in your map design for example (sc1 had arbiter recall and nydus, but those were very lategame and very expensive/hard to pull off - compare it to warpgates and, to a lesser extent, sc2 nydus).
-Same goes with incorporating certain types of terrain intended to provide a specific function (eg chokepoint, inaccessible high ground, open flat terrain, wide corridor) and, at the same time, certain abilities that effectively change the function of terrain or circumvent terrain (colossi, blink stalkers, reapers, forcefield, whatever I forget). Think about the kind of effect these abilities have on the variability of army compositions that are effective in particular maps more than others - the protoss deathball is never changing, is it?
-If you're gonna introduce units that are exponentially more useful in a mass vs mass scenario or units that hardcounter harass, you better have the mass vs mass scenario as a design goal and not a result of the cool units. If you really wanted many skirmishes around the map, introducing the colossus or giving concussive shells to the marauder isn't a particularly wise idea, for example.
Innovation is great, as long as you got some fundamental design goals in mind that aren't disrupted by introducing 'cool' elements. I don't know how the sc2 team worked - they've been defending the results of their design choices, such as prevalence of ballfights, so maybe they just executed their vision - this is a very good thing, no matter our personal opinion. But simply going off and being 'innovative' and 'cool' and hoping the stuff you threw at the wall sticks is no way to develop a game, especially a competitive one. Your first two are basically rules after-the-fact. Sure, once a game is out and you know the design, you can say what maps need to look like for the game to function. But you can't say "all RTSes need chokepoints and high ground mechanics", or even "Game maps must be constrained to this". Hell, you can't even say "RTSes must have unit travel constraints". The older C&Cs, Age of Empires, etc. certainly didn't care about terrain or chokepoints. And I know there are some Sci-Fi RTSes out there that allow warps all across the map. And sure, throwing darts on a board isn't very good for game design, but many of the best games of all time came from "Here's a cool idea, let's make it work". Even StarCraft 1 came from that kind of mindset; no one cared about a completely balanced game, because no one played seriously enough for it to matter. They just made an RTS with 3 distinct races, and that was something brand new and exciting. Yeah thats how proffesional video game designers do their work. Get real dude. Eh, yes that's how they do it. What's your problem? His last post kind of makes sense but the thought process over his last few posts and the overall conclusion is what I was comentating against. If you are a designer you make certain rules you will follow later on,, and if you want to implement anything "cool" you should do it by the rules you made earlier. He is making it sound like these guys get paid just to throw out random ideas haphazardly. The result sometimes does seem like it tho. You need to set a few rules that define what the engine is supposed to be able to do, so that development doesn't go in a completely different direction. It takes until month/years(?) after you have been able to test your original vision to see if things work out the way they were planned. Just thinking about SC2. The game was originally designed with fast paced action in mind (all kinds of cheeses and very early aggression) on very small maps. Things such as warpgape were never a problem on maps the size of Steps of War. Now, over the years, maps have become larger and larger, everyone expects to be able to safely take a third (aggression nerfed, queen buff, MSC, etc.).
I'll see if I can dig it out, but essentially this. I recall David Kim and Dustin Browder saying that they intended for a fast-paced game, with most games over in the 15 minute range or so, just can't find the interview at present.
Now that's all and well as their intent, but they've gradually been attempting to move away from that to enable 'macro games' and split up deathballs. Regardless how you view the levels of their success in that endeavour, they are starting from a base design containing many units that were created with the fast-paced 'terrible terrible damage' intent in mind. It's no wonder it's proven so difficult to tweak things at this stage
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On February 09 2014 23:41 NukeD wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2014 22:13 S1eth wrote:On February 09 2014 19:03 NukeD wrote:On February 09 2014 14:37 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 09 2014 13:50 Taguchi wrote:
@wolfinthesheep, you gotta establish some kind of baselines for any work to be successful.
Some examples (only a few):
-Designing around a certain mapsize is very problematic when suddenly you think it's cool to allow mechanics that ignore mapsize - you will be left playing balance catch up as a result of that, and very constrained in what is and isn't allowed in your map design for example (sc1 had arbiter recall and nydus, but those were very lategame and very expensive/hard to pull off - compare it to warpgates and, to a lesser extent, sc2 nydus).
-Same goes with incorporating certain types of terrain intended to provide a specific function (eg chokepoint, inaccessible high ground, open flat terrain, wide corridor) and, at the same time, certain abilities that effectively change the function of terrain or circumvent terrain (colossi, blink stalkers, reapers, forcefield, whatever I forget). Think about the kind of effect these abilities have on the variability of army compositions that are effective in particular maps more than others - the protoss deathball is never changing, is it?
-If you're gonna introduce units that are exponentially more useful in a mass vs mass scenario or units that hardcounter harass, you better have the mass vs mass scenario as a design goal and not a result of the cool units. If you really wanted many skirmishes around the map, introducing the colossus or giving concussive shells to the marauder isn't a particularly wise idea, for example.
Innovation is great, as long as you got some fundamental design goals in mind that aren't disrupted by introducing 'cool' elements. I don't know how the sc2 team worked - they've been defending the results of their design choices, such as prevalence of ballfights, so maybe they just executed their vision - this is a very good thing, no matter our personal opinion. But simply going off and being 'innovative' and 'cool' and hoping the stuff you threw at the wall sticks is no way to develop a game, especially a competitive one. Your first two are basically rules after-the-fact. Sure, once a game is out and you know the design, you can say what maps need to look like for the game to function. But you can't say "all RTSes need chokepoints and high ground mechanics", or even "Game maps must be constrained to this". Hell, you can't even say "RTSes must have unit travel constraints". The older C&Cs, Age of Empires, etc. certainly didn't care about terrain or chokepoints. And I know there are some Sci-Fi RTSes out there that allow warps all across the map. And sure, throwing darts on a board isn't very good for game design, but many of the best games of all time came from "Here's a cool idea, let's make it work". Even StarCraft 1 came from that kind of mindset; no one cared about a completely balanced game, because no one played seriously enough for it to matter. They just made an RTS with 3 distinct races, and that was something brand new and exciting. Yeah thats how proffesional video game designers do their work. Get real dude. Eh, yes that's how they do it. What's your problem? His last post kind of makes sense but the thought process over his last few posts and the overall conclusion is what I was comentating against. If you are a designer you make certain rules you will follow later on,, and if you want to implement anything "cool" you should do it by the rules you made earlier. He is making it sound like these guys get paid just to throw out random ideas haphazardly. The result sometimes does seem like it tho.
Actually I've recently visited David Kim's office. NO desk, chair, or computer, just a giant dartboard with an image of every unit in the game. Colored darts lay strewn about haphazardly, blue darts for buffs, red for nerfs, and a single white one strangely labeled "free units".When I saw a blue dart buried in the tail of a hydra that day, I knew there would be problems.
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EPT
