On March 14 2014 19:14 Sapphire.lux wrote: Warp in is very cool coming from the WP IMO, but only then. Otherwise, it has all the disadvantages pointed out in numerous threads. It should have been a WP ability, not the basic unit production mechanism.
FF is just bad, along with FG, because they are potentially game ending and micro denying, without a sensible skill ceiling (pro level). As a spectator, i never ever think "wow! how great is that P/Z player for having used FF/FG in that way!" In 2010 it was impressive yes, now you just embarrass yourself if you don't have superb FF placement. Storm and EMP can be cool in lategame because of the HT and Ghost positioning game: Having multiple HTs coming from different angles, setting traps, etc is what makes this fun. None of this is present for the Sentry and Infestor, so they are ranging from boring to infuriating for both spectators and players.
I saw this analogy yesterday, I thought it was quite apt:
Starcraft 2 is like a game that revolves around mastering three-ball juggling. It looks impressive for beginners, but is completely trivial for adapts and leaves them struggling to show something creative that is unlike anything else. There are still options to showcase skill, cool tricks that you can do, and it's quite easy to tell a beginner from an expert, but there is probably a limit to what you can set yourself apart with.
Brood War on the other hand is like five-ball juggling. It's almost the same game, but the difficulty is increased so much that even the best players can't execute everything. They will lose rhythm, occasionally mismanage their props and no two players can demonstrate exactly the same tricks.
And Dune II is like nine-ball juggling. It's so mechanically taxing that creativity, improvisation and imagination all fall on the wayside, leaving only pure technique because even the best players can't do anything with nine balls outside of barely succeeding at keeping the right pace. Another example would be turning basketball into a game of purely penalty shots, which would still reward skilled players, but would also reduce the game to one monotonous activity.
(I'm not a juggling expert, so take the numbers with a grain of salt)
And of course people will disagree on whether Brood War was simply too mechanically taxing, so much so that it became oppressive, or whether Starcraft II is not taxing enough.
Units clumping naturally - This really rewards split micro which is one of the coolest micro moments SC2 provides. If units auto spread, marine splitting vs. Banelings won't be as cool to watch.
Deathballs are what killed the game for me. Aesthetically is very very bad. + Show Spoiler +
I've been following SC2 since beta and it's difficult for me to tell what the fuck is happening in those 4 sec fights with 130 units packed in a tiny space, often times one on top of another. For battles to be fun, i have to be able to answer some simple questions, like:
How many (roughly) units are there? How are they dying and what is killing them? What and how are the players controlling (microing) the units (displaying skill)?
And of course, i have to have time to enjoy the battle. In the mess of colors that is a late game battle in SC2, it's nigh impossible to tell any of that. For a new comer, it just looks like a mess, like a 4 second explosion, not a battle. Player skill is impossible to tell by anyone save a very, very small audience that plays the game at a relatively high level. It's a mess of colors that makes me dread watching games go to late game. If it's hard for me to watch that, what about a new comer? Is that going to leave him in awe of the "fantastic" climax of this game or leave him confused and with a headache?
So yeah, deathballs or "natural unit clumping" is very hard on the eyes, greatly limits player skill display, makes fights last only a few seconds, makes players afraid to engage and so it leads to that blob A and blob B "dancing" around each other for minutes.
The first link doesn't work for me. I'll say that I also can't watch LoL because it looks a colorful mess to me, as if someone was overeager with water colors, and I felt this way about Starcraft II in the past but nowadays I have no real issues parsing the fights. I think, ideally, it still needs to be improved because the game should be accessible on first impression, but it does become somewhat acceptable once you're used to it.
My main issue is that units moving in lockstep look ridiculous to me and break immersion. I think the Brood War pathing feels a lot more natural, so I can't help but roll my eyes whenever Blizzard dwells on Starcraft 2's "superior pathfinding". How it feels in the game should be the most important of your criteria, not how it performs technically.
I like your analogy.
I just hate the way Blizzards PR works sometimes (probably their mindset in general as well though). In a sea of drawbacks, they cherry pick the one single example where unit clumping brings something positive. Or when they gave us that 2 weeks?! stats to show us how wrong we are about TvP, or Browder openly taunting EVERYONE in the scene by making statements like "the Queen patch is the best change we ever did!" in a time where the scene was literally dying due to how bad the game actually turned after that one change, i could go on an on. It's like they are thinking first and foremost about defending themselfs and pushing back any sort of criticism, instead of working together with the community for the sake of the game. This is where most of the hate comes from IMO.
They like deathballs, they like FF, FG, Colossus, stupid vision high ground adv., etc, because they are their babies, not because they are good. Admitting that all these things and more are just crap would be a massive blow to their ego as game designers so we are left with denials, cumbersome workarounds and super slow response times for obvious problems.
And the Queen change, despite upsetting the balance of the game, allowed them to eventually make changes that brought the infestor back in line with where it should have been as a spellcaster.
I don't think i understand what you mean. The game went tits up, both balance and fun factor, for almost one year and only the expansion saved it. Are you saying that was necessary in order to balance the Infestor? Like, why not nerf the unit in the many, many moths it was clear it was broken? Or why not revert the Queen change and then reintroduce it in the expansion along with an Infestor nerf? Besides, my post was in regard to Dustins comment of "the Queen change was the best bla bla" when it clearly was the worst ever for WOL. Unless you think they treated the last year of WOL as a testing ground for HOTS, in witch case the uglier and more unbalanced WOL looked, the more likely people would be to buy HOTS, but that's just ridiculous thinking of course.
He is saying that the small change of the queen range caused the a huge problem at the end of WOL, so demanding larger changes has a greater risk of ruining the game and making it worse.
That is the part that people who are demanding "big changes" forget. Those changes are just as likely to make the game worse.
On March 14 2014 22:18 Plansix wrote: He is saying that the small change of the queen range caused the a huge problem at the end of WOL, so demanding larger changes has a greater risk of ruining the game and making it worse.
That is the part that people who are demanding "big changes" forget. Those changes are just as likely to make the game worse.
That is why they should be implemented and tested in LotV beta
On March 14 2014 22:18 Plansix wrote: He is saying that the small change of the queen range caused the a huge problem at the end of WOL, so demanding larger changes has a greater risk of ruining the game and making it worse.
That is the part that people who are demanding "big changes" forget. Those changes are just as likely to make the game worse.
That is why they should be implemented and tested in LotV beta
Would have to be an insanely long beta to properly test the impacts of said changes.
On March 14 2014 22:18 Plansix wrote: He is saying that the small change of the queen range caused the a huge problem at the end of WOL, so demanding larger changes has a greater risk of ruining the game and making it worse.
That is the part that people who are demanding "big changes" forget. Those changes are just as likely to make the game worse.
That is why they should be implemented and tested in LotV beta
Would have to be an insanely long beta to properly test the impacts of said changes.
Yeah, the queen change was a very slow roll to the BLWinfestor era.
On March 14 2014 22:18 Plansix wrote: He is saying that the small change of the queen range caused the a huge problem at the end of WOL, so demanding larger changes has a greater risk of ruining the game and making it worse.
That is the part that people who are demanding "big changes" forget. Those changes are just as likely to make the game worse.
That is why they should be implemented and tested in LotV beta
Would have to be an insanely long beta to properly test the impacts of said changes.
Since it is a last Expansion and there will be no more chances to fix anything important, it should be. If it takes 1 year, let it take one year. Or the game is going to die much faster than BW did.
On March 14 2014 22:18 Plansix wrote: He is saying that the small change of the queen range caused the a huge problem at the end of WOL, so demanding larger changes has a greater risk of ruining the game and making it worse.
That is the part that people who are demanding "big changes" forget. Those changes are just as likely to make the game worse.
Ah ok, but the really big changes that some want are about the expansion, not a patch. In the years it takes them to develop this expansions and at the price they are released at, it should be enough to make changes and test the shit out of them. Like, you know, how they did in every expansion of every game, except for SC2.
Anyway, it's a useless point, because the alternative would be to never make any changes at all. There is always a risk that things might get worse, but then that is why they are game designers, to find and make changes for the better, not cower that they might get it wrong.
On March 14 2014 22:18 Plansix wrote: He is saying that the small change of the queen range caused the a huge problem at the end of WOL, so demanding larger changes has a greater risk of ruining the game and making it worse.
That is the part that people who are demanding "big changes" forget. Those changes are just as likely to make the game worse.
No, we have seen many of those changes already done with a modding tool in a custom map called Starbow. It didn't make the game worse, just different. Different in a way many people appreciate.
The change on the queen range in WoL is just a testament to that David Kim and the others doesn't know what they're doing.
On March 14 2014 22:18 Plansix wrote: He is saying that the small change of the queen range caused the a huge problem at the end of WOL, so demanding larger changes has a greater risk of ruining the game and making it worse.
That is the part that people who are demanding "big changes" forget. Those changes are just as likely to make the game worse.
That is why they should be implemented and tested in LotV beta
Would have to be an insanely long beta to properly test the impacts of said changes.
Since it is a last Expansion and there will be no more chances to fix anything important, it should be. If it takes 1 year, let it take one year. Or the game is going to die much faster than BW did.
People keep saying that and it keeps not happening. I think it will be fine if they just keep doing they they are going and building on what they have. Some changes and new units will spice things up. I would like some new structures too. But they don't need to redesign the game from the ground up.
David Kim is respecting the work of a full sized team of Blizzard guys who were hyper-focused on all aspects of balance and fun-game-play in the making of HOTS in 2012 and 2013.
That team is now disbanded and working on other projects.
DK is not going to spit in the face of all their work. DK has at his disposal a maintenance crew that is a fraction of the talent-base of the team that did all the heavy lifting to make HotS possible.
the maintenance team is never as big or as focused as the design and development team. its how all software is built and maintained, not just video game software. and it ain't changing any time soon.
therefore, DK's position about big changes is 100% reasonable.
now that every one knows DK's position on big changes they now know big changes will not occur. therefore, the next rational move is to evaluate SC2:HotS against the other RTS games available. Then, choose the best option and play that.
i've made my choice and i'm happy with it. lots of good RTS games to choose from.
On March 14 2014 23:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote: David Kim is respecting the work of a full sized team of Blizzard guys who were hyper-focused on all aspects of balance and fun-game-play in the making of HOTS in 2012 and 2013.
That team is now disbanded and working on other projects.
DK is not going to spit in the face of all their work. DK has at his disposal a maintenance crew that is a fraction of the talent-base of the team that did all the heavy lifting to make HotS possible.
the maintenance team is never as big or as focused as the design and development team. its how all software is built and maintained, not just video game software. and it ain't changing any time soon.
therefore, DK's position about big changes is 100% reasonable.
now that every one knows DK's position on big changes they now know big changes will not occur. therefore, the next rational move is to evaluate SC2:HotS against the other RTS games available. Then, choose the best option and play that.
i've made my choice and i'm happy with it. lots of good RTS games to choose from.
Sounds reasonable. Even sounds like a reasonable list. RA3 would be so much fun if the controls weren't so clunky. Still need to try CoH. Should be a pretty amazing game from what I have heard.
On March 14 2014 23:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote: David Kim is respecting the work of a full sized team of Blizzard guys who were hyper-focused on all aspects of balance and fun-game-play in the making of HOTS in 2012 and 2013.
That team is now disbanded and working on other projects.
DK is not going to spit in the face of all their work. DK has at his disposal a maintenance crew that is a fraction of the talent-base of the team that did all the heavy lifting to make HotS possible.
the maintenance team is never as big or as focused as the design and development team. its how all software is built and maintained, not just video game software. and it ain't changing any time soon.
therefore, DK's position about big changes is 100% reasonable.
now that every one knows DK's position on big changes they now know big changes will not occur. therefore, the next rational move is to evaluate SC2:HotS against the other RTS games available. Then, choose the best option and play that.
i've made my choice and i'm happy with it. lots of good RTS games to choose from.
Sounds reasonable. Even sounds like a reasonable list. RA3 would be so much fun if the controls weren't so clunky. Still need to try CoH. Should be a pretty amazing game from what I have heard.
i originally bought RA3 because of Gina Carano. she came to the ring with a huge RA3 logo on her chest
I don't understand why they are so afraid to make changes to the game? If they just let it SH turtle 1hour+ games get standard the game is going to die out sooner than later. They are basically trying to preserve what little they have left while the game dies instead of trying to actually make a better game this is so frustrating.
On March 14 2014 23:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote: David Kim is respecting the work of a full sized team of Blizzard guys who were hyper-focused on all aspects of balance and fun-game-play in the making of HOTS in 2012 and 2013.
That team is now disbanded and working on other projects.
DK is not going to spit in the face of all their work. DK has at his disposal a maintenance crew that is a fraction of the talent-base of the team that did all the heavy lifting to make HotS possible.
Yeah, DK does not want to upset the delicate filings of a game designer that has already moved on to other projects. Got to keep the original vision or else poor DB will feel insecure and disrespected. Sounds reasonable and in line with how a multi billion dollar company would work.
EDIT: they probably learned this after seing all the trauma the reset of the original Starcraft engine caused to the deves., or the years of therapy Jay Wilson needed to get back on his feet after having the game taken away from him and overhauled...Never will they spit in anyone's face again!
ultimately, Blizzard thinks Jay Wilson did a bad job and he was moved off of the D3 team. The game was completely overhauled.
Dustin Browder on the other hand was promoted to VP.
So now we know what Mike Morhaime thinks. He is happy with DB and unhappy with JW. And so, Blizzard won't drastically overhaul SC2:HotS. Now that you know this pick: ur favourite RTS game and start playing because complaining won't change anything.
or you could make ur own MOD. or if u think Blizzard arcade framework sucks and the MOD Kit for SC2 sucks you can crack open your copy of Visual C++ and Visual Studio and make ur own game.
There are 2 possible reasons for why an overhaul in LOTV is not on the books. 1)no funds 2)they like how the game works now, so there is no reason to
The second one is more likely, and what your passive aggressive post implies, but that has nothing to do with "respecting the work" or "not wanting to spit" in what face. You are either a drama queen or naive, that's why i responded with sarcasm.
On March 15 2014 00:53 Sapphire.lux wrote: There are 2 possible reasons for why an overhaul in LOTV is not on the books. 1)no funds 2)they like how the game works now, so there is no reason to
The second one is more likely, and what your passive aggressive post implies, but that has nothing to do with "respecting the work" or "not wanting to spit" in what face. You are either a drama queen or naive, that's why i responded with sarcasm.
no, i stated the facts.
ok, you're DK, a project manager working on a piece of software in mainteance mode: HotS.. .u walk into your boss's office and propose to overhaul a piece of software with a team 1/10 as big as the team who made it. this doesn't just apply to SC2:HotS, but to any piece of software that is in maintenance mode.
DK's boss will stare him down and say.. .
"we had a team 10 times this size put 10 times as much total thought and work into it and now you're going to make a drastic change?"
this happens to every project manager working on any software project.
changes are possible, but the project manager's job is on the line if he fubars something that was working.
this is why DK has the stance he does about big changes to SC2:HotS.
and if you think Blizz is going to go on a hiring spree or pull people off of other projects to overhaul its #3 revenue generator you are dreaming in technicolour.
On March 15 2014 00:53 Sapphire.lux wrote: There are 2 possible reasons for why an overhaul in LOTV is not on the books. 1)no funds 2)they like how the game works now, so there is no reason to
The second one is more likely, and what your passive aggressive post implies, but that has nothing to do with "respecting the work" or "not wanting to spit" in what face. You are either a drama queen or naive, that's why i responded with sarcasm.
no, i stated the facts.
ok, you're DK, a project manager working on a piece of software in mainteance mode: HotS.. .u walk into your boss's office and propose to overhaul a piece of software with a team 1/10 as big as the team who made it. this doesn't just apply to SC2:HotS, but to any piece of software that is in maintenance mode.
DK's boss will stare him down and say.. .
"we had a team 10 times this size put 10 times as much total thought and work into it and now you're going to make a drastic change?"
this happens to every project manager working on any software project.
changes are possible, but the project manager's job is on the line if he fubars something that was working.
this is why DK has the stance he does about big changes to SC2:HotS.
and if you think Blizz is going to go on a hiring spree or pull people off of other projects to overhaul its #3 revenue generator you are dreaming in technicolour.
You missed the "LOTV" part in my post. It's right where it says LOTV. That is not HOTS, it is LOTV.
I don't understand the point these few DK fanboys are trying to make. Can anyone explain it to me?
The only thing I understood is they are claiming HotS is OK while it is losing viewers and players all the time (which started back in WoL and only stopped at beginning of HotS)... is that it?
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq313/joelsega/Gina%20Carano/Gina_Carano_vs_Kaitlin_Young.jpg)
