EPTBefore : assumption that DK and balance team were chicken that won't take any risk to fix the game .
After : certitude that DK and balance team are chicken that won't take any risk to fix the game.
David Kim reddit Q&A transcript - Page 12
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klup
France612 Posts
Before : assumption that DK and balance team were chicken that won't take any risk to fix the game . After : certitude that DK and balance team are chicken that won't take any risk to fix the game. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On March 13 2014 21:35 reapsen wrote: What worries me the most and not just after reading this Q&A is that Blizzard is emitting the impression of beeing almost utter clueless of the direction they want to develop the game. I was very active in both beta phases of WoL and HotS and the amount and severeness of changes they performed during both beta phases left me with the impression, that they are just doing a "trial-and-error" approach and have absolutely no solid plan how they want the game to pan out. Just take a step back and look at units like the oracle or the whole debacle with the warhound or look again at the HotS Promotion-Panel Videos from Blizzcon 2011. To completely rework most new units or even cut them alltogether in a beta phase just blows my mind on so many levels. In my opinion they should have had a plan or at least a rough roadmap before the release of wings of liberty about the races in their final state, but from what i read they most certainly don't have that. It leaves the impression, they are sitting in their meetings throwing ideas around about what can be changed and put in or left out, but what really seems to be missing is a mastermind game engineer who has a vision, of how the races should work, what units fullfill which roles and which mechanics make for an exciting gameplay. I agree with this. Though i didnt really understand what you meant with To completely rework most new units or even cut them alltogether in a beta phase just blows my mind on so many levels. But you dont have to answer that, i agreed on the bolded parts so your point got across | ||
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Boonbag
France3318 Posts
why do you cry ? they've been saying they wont do any major change to their game for as long i can remember edit : also, and i m certainly wrong on this, but did you ever consider they don't have the manforce to make any drastic core change to the game ? (as in the number of people assigned to work on the sc2 team) | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
You know, stuff where he could actually say something meaningful. Instead we get those "are there big chances coming, tell us everything about your companies secrets please". "Why don't you redesign the game in a patch" bullshit questions that have been asked before and are vague as shit. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On March 13 2014 22:02 Big J wrote: Btw the real sad story is how the most stupid questions get upvoted on reddit. There were reasonable questions like about Mech TvP, what he thinks about Immortal allins in ZvP, what about the one or other specific unit. You know, stuff where he could actually say something meaningful. Instead we get those "are there big chances coming, tell us everything about your companies secrets please". "Why don't you redesign the game in a patch" bullshit questions that have been asked before and are vague as shit. Agreed. The fact that he was asked the same questions as last time is a bummer. I would have liked to see someone beyond "are you guys getting rid of warpgate and force field yet?" | ||
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pretensile
135 Posts
Blizzard: Come participate in our AMA! Community: Blizzard claims to listen to us, but never does nothing. Blizzard: Removes shredder and warhound from the game. Community: Blizzard always plays it safe, refuses to ever make sweeping changes to the game. Blizzard: See above. Community: We want SC2 to be more like Broodwar! Blizzard: And how many times did we make sweeping patches to Broodwar? Community: It's all David Kim's fault. He has no idea how to make a game. Blizzard: But David Kim isn't even part of the design team; he's just a balancer of existing units. I'm all for constructive criticism, but clearly the community has a very short-term memory and doesn't even know the proper party to issue concerns to (Browder and Co.). What's worse is that I often hear a lot of people complaining that Blizzard "ruins the game by issuing too many patches," which prevents the metagame from settling and players from developing strategies. This suggests to me that a lot of times even the community is pretty confused and inconsistent about exactly what they want. | ||
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Nauseam
Sweden191 Posts
On March 13 2014 22:07 Plansix wrote: Agreed. The fact that he was asked the same questions as last time is a bummer. I would have liked to see someone beyond "are you guys getting rid of warpgate and force field yet?" Those questions are a lot more important than asking about some random all-in from Toss. | ||
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reapsen
Germany559 Posts
On March 13 2014 21:46 Foxxan wrote: Though i didnt really understand what you meant with But you dont have to answer that, i agreed on the bolded parts so your point got across I am a software engineer myself and getting a piece of software in a beta test, typically means it is full-featured and you want to test the technical aspects, i.e. if its bug-free, if it sustains higher loads and maybe have a few adjustments (hotfixes) on your features based on customer feedback. If you transfer this over to starcraft, which is also nothing else but a piece of software, the beta phase (especially the HotS) Beta showed complete removals of units (warhound), complete reworking of units (oracle, widow mine, mothership core, ... ) and the changes/removal of spells and abilities (ultraliks charge fore example) which are integral feature changes. That should not be part of a beta! It just emitts what i mentioned in the previous post, that there is no plan or vision what the game in its final state should look like. Publishing videos on your own convention (Blizzcon 2011) and then have almost none of the promoted changes in the final product is just another indicator that they have no inherent clue how to design the multiplayer part and all the results come from the trial-and-error approach. I speculate that they pursue design-ideas almost entirely on the "awesomeness-factor" rather if they fit the global plan/vision of how the game should be in its final state. By the way, i really would like to express that i think, that the game is technically crafted well from a software engineering standpoint. In this regard Blizzard always delivers flawless products. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On March 13 2014 22:09 Nauseam wrote: Those questions are a lot more important than asking about some random all-in from Toss. I would argue that questions about warp gate and force fields are the least important questions than can be asked. We know the answers. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On March 13 2014 22:09 Nauseam wrote: Those questions are a lot more important than asking about some random all-in from Toss. I dont care if they are more important to you personally. They dont yield anything. It's a waste of time to ask a firm about it's secrets... | ||
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Tyrhanius
France947 Posts
If you look at LOL/Dota2, they patch heroes, release new one. Each new season brings a new meta, different ways to play, and it's what keep players on the game, and make the game popular. But on SC2 we have a minor patch each 3 months. And they don't bring new ways to play or make them more entertaining. And if you look at HOTS patch history they have nearly only nerf OP stuff. They only add no real content to the game, making the number of viewers to decrease, but they take very long to patch some broken stuff. They act like they don't want to recognize something is too strong or they've made a mistake, so they let the thing a lot of time ("we wait the players learn to play to see if it needs a change"). And after they're blocked. Deathball toss are too strong, but Zerg has learn the only way to deal with it is to never engage it, and slowly kill it with SH. same with the new mech (due to DK's buff of raven/tank/banshee). So they say the game are too long and sometimes boring, but if they nerf SH, they would crush balance because zerg wouldn't be able to win in late. So they can't really nerf SH now, beacause they haven't fixed the issue of lategame Toss when we have reported them. Or DK makes 3-6 months to fix something obviously imbalance. Is it some nerf players wasn't asking for months he made ? Hellbats drops, WM, buff ghost, MSC nerf, etc... All the things he has done is waiting the longer he can before making something which has to be done, or make insignifiant change, or broken one's("hey it would be could if oracle are as fast as a mutalisk and kill a mineral line just when you press a touch"). | ||
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the_best33
3 Posts
On March 13 2014 18:26 MagnuMizer wrote: Wtf are you saying? David Kim is a genius in my opinion... He's always one step ahead of everyone here it seems. I've always agreed with DK and will continue to do so unless i see changes in the game that are retarded (for example like changing the core mechanics/gameplay). So far this game is awesome and i've been playing it very happily since the start of WoL. I tried Starbow and its a fun game, but i feel like there are a lot of people who just want the same feeling they had when they played BW, and Starbow is the closest they can get to that.. But then there are people like me, the modern SC2 player, who doesn't give a fuck about a dead game like BW.. Its old, and its out.. and SC2 is the new shit.. So deal with it and stop living in the past! Shoutout to David Kim! You're awesome! Keep doing what you're doing! exactly my opinion. although sometimes there are little problems in the game (SHs, TvP), he's always working on fixing them. and to the people who think warpgate and forcefields are bad design: while sometimes it can be frustrating to deal with forcefields, they really make protoss feel fun and unique. imagine protoss without forcefields and warpgate but with stronger gateway units (like so many people suggest). they would be very similar to terran and would have even less micro potential than now. the thing i most like about the game is that you have three races that are completely different. removing warpgate and forcefield would just destroy the protoss race and they would lose all their uniqueness. | ||
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Nauseam
Sweden191 Posts
On March 13 2014 22:13 Big J wrote: I dont care if they are more important to you personally. They dont yield anything. It's a waste of time to ask a firm about it's secrets... And I don't care if you think changing some numbers on some units is important because it makes one random Toss all-in out of a thousand less strong. Why even have an AMA if he can't answer any questions of substantial value? And besides, he did answer about their "secrets" although he answers like a politician. I find it pretty obvious from his answers that Blizzard thinks most of the core mechanics in SC2 are in a good state. Also, he said they won't risk changing anything fundamental unless it's "absolutely amazing" which means they won't change anything at all. So no, those questions were not a waste of time. | ||
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Spaylz
Japan1743 Posts
On March 13 2014 14:04 superpanda27 wrote: Man HeroesotS is a bad way to call that game... just call it Heroes, HEotS, or something else :/ And how do you know there's no WC4 coming? They are a multi-team game development studio. They are working on Project Titan (if its in development), WoW expansions, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Legacy of the Void. Nothing says they will not eventually go back to the Warcraft RTS roots. When they go back to the development of another RTS, they have to go back in with another business model so that it stays with the current gaming trends. Blizzard has already bent SC2 as much as they can currently by making it "free-to-play" as much as possible without going against their business plan. Probably when WoW has run its course and makes way for whatever Project Titan is, probably by 2016 or 2017, and LotV is out, people will probably hear news about a WC4 possibly being developed. I am an absolute huge fan of WC3, and I don't believe for a second WC4 is coming (at least not until the next decade). It simply makes no sense on a business standpoint for Blizzard. They already have SC2 as a RTS, and WoW is still going strong. They've stated they have 3 expansions planned out for WoW, which is 3 to 6 years. LotV is set to release this or next year (?) and will keep drawing attention for a while. If they were to release or even work on WC4, it would be after SC2 is done and starts going (more) downhill. But even by the time that happens (which I suspect won't be too long from after LotV's release), WoW will still be there. The new expansion, Warlords of Draenor, is probably going to be released roughly at the same time as LotV. Again, they said they have 2 o 3 more expansions already lined up for WoW. For WC4 to ever come, they need to either wrap up the WoW part of the storyline, or do some kind of weird alternate time line with the game. It's a shame too, because I personally think MMOs are not suited for proper story telling. You only need to take a look at the lore since the beginning of WoW to see that it has decayed quite a bit from the quality we had back in RoC/TFT (albeit after WotLK, but still, now we have light-space ships, villains coming back to life left and right, good guys turning into villains, etc...). There is still some hope, as they could always start a new franchise altogether, which is what they are doing with their new MMO, Titan. That means we could see a new RTS inspired from the mechanics of WC3, but in another universe. I personally wouldn't be against it, so long as Blizzard does a good job. Sadly, I don't think Blizzard is really the same, and I personally believe WC3 was a stroke of genius they won't ever be able to reproduce. Blizzard cut its teeth in the RTS genre, so in all fairness, I do have troubles imagining them giving up on the genre, but I think it will be a long while before we get a new title. It's also fairly possible that they'd decide to partially give up on it and focus on the current "evolution" of the RTS genre: MOBAs. Heroes of the Storm is yet another game that's coming, and it certainly has the potential to be more popular than SC2 if done right. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
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S1eth
Austria221 Posts
On March 13 2014 22:14 Tyrhanius wrote: The problem is DK try to do as few changes as possible. But patchs are not important just for balance. Patchs are what increase the lengthtime of the game. If you look at LOL/Dota2, they patch heroes, release new one. Each new season brings a new meta, different ways to play, and it's what keep players on the game, and make the game popular. But on SC2 we have a minor patch each 3 months. And they don't bring new ways to play or make them more entertaining. And if you look at HOTS patch history they have nearly only nerf OP stuff. They only add no real content to the game, making the number of viewers to decrease, but they take very long to patch some broken stuff. They act like they don't want to recognize something is too strong or they've made a mistake, so they let the thing a lot of time ("we wait the players learn to play to see if it needs a change"). And after they're blocked. Deathball toss are too strong, but Zerg has learn the only way to deal with it is to never engage it, and slowly kill it with SH. same with the new mech (due to DK's buff of raven/tank/banshee). So they say the game are too long and sometimes boring, but if they nerf SH, they would crush balance because zerg wouldn't be able to win in late. So they can't really nerf SH now, beacause they haven't fixed the issue of lategame Toss when we have reported them. Or DK makes 3-6 months to fix something obviously imbalance. Is it some nerf players wasn't asking for months he made ? Hellbats drops, WM, buff ghost, MSC nerf, etc... All the things he has done is waiting the longer he can before making something which has to be done, or make insignifiant change, or broken one's("hey it would be could if oracle are as fast as a mutalisk and kill a mineral line just when you press a touch"). If you could stop comparing a boxed copy RTS game with free-to-play MOBA games and could point out an RTS game maker that does a better job at patching/expanding their games than Blizzard does, that's be nice. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On March 13 2014 22:43 S1eth wrote: If you could stop comparing a boxed copy RTS game with free-to-play MOBA games and could point out an RTS game maker that does a better job at patching/expanding their games than Blizzard does, that's be nice. Why? No point cuz every rts we have are bad | ||
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lolmanpro
Finland11 Posts
On March 13 2014 22:10 reapsen wrote: I am a software engineer myself and getting a piece of software in a beta test, typically means it is full-featured and you want to test the technical aspects, i.e. if its bug-free, if it sustains higher loads and maybe have a few adjustments (hotfixes) on your features based on customer feedback. If you transfer this over to starcraft, which is also nothing else but a piece of software, the beta phase (especially the HotS) Beta showed complete removals of units (warhound), complete reworking of units (oracle, widow mine, mothership core, ... ) and the changes/removal of spells and abilities (ultraliks charge fore example) which are integral feature changes. That should not be part of a beta! It just emitts what i mentioned in the previous post, that there is no plan or vision what the game in its final state should look like. Publishing videos on your own convention (Blizzcon 2011) and then have almost none of the promoted changes in the final product is just another indicator that they have no inherent clue how to design the multiplayer part and all the results come from the trial-and-error approach. I speculate that they pursue design-ideas almost entirely on the "awesomeness-factor" rather if they fit the global plan/vision of how the game should be in its final state. By the way, i really would like to express that i think, that the game is technically crafted well from a software engineering standpoint. In this regard Blizzard always delivers flawless products. I agree, Blizzard is absolutely clueless when it comes to designing a multiplayer game. They just have no idea what they are doing, and whenever they make a change it's just something they randomly made up. No instead they should program a perfectly thought out game inside their studio and not release it until it's utterly complete and final form, that's how great multiplayer games are made, unlike all the multiplayer game failures like Starcraft 2 that Blizzard usually release. You should send them your ideas along with your CV, a great "software engineer" like you might just be what Blizzard need to be able to finally make good multiplayer games again. | ||
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theacox
United States38 Posts
Look at d3, complete fundamental changes to it, and wow changed major design gameplay aspects almost every patch. WC3 had a better b-net interface then sc2, which still lacks a social feel. We STILL have no player *NAMED* custom game lobbies. It is the only way to see the arcade really grow. People like to choose from a list of things that are active. Change arcade open games list to the way UMS worked in BW or WC3. Honestly the biggest thing they could do to grow the player base. | ||
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