On July 02 2014 06:06 GGzerG wrote: BroodWar was a much more difficult game to play for obvious reasons, no MBS, only 12 units max of selection, no special macro boosts like Mules, Larva inject, or Chrono boost, so the game was much more skill based, which is why I think BW would take much longer to be able to patch than SC2, because simply the game is much more difficult to play and execute.
SC2 is a much more difficult game to balance correctly, as the game has so many different gimmicky abilities and things that make the game easier for everyone(Which can be good, if BW was too hard for people to play), which in turn makes the game completely different in terms of how to balance it, SC2 and BW are both starcraft and have similarities, but SC2 is a completely different game, so in terms of how balancing goes, they can't be balanced the same....
I think Blizzard is going about the right way of patching the game in the speed in which they give te patches, but what they are doing wrong is just buffing / nerfing specific units drastically, I know this sounds extreme and crazy and Blizz has already stated they won't do this, but in LotV I think they should just make it 3D BroodWar.... There is too many units in SC2 that don't even get used, too many gimmicks, and things that encourage all in / cheese...I want Broodwar 2.0 please....
You said it yourself, SC2 and BW are 2 completely different games mechanics wise. If you translate the BW units/spells in the SC2 engine, you'll likely get something broken. Like, perfectly shooting reavers and shit. Won't solve much. Imo they need to solve the few mechanics that depart too much from good RTS fundamentals, mainly warpgates and stuff like that. There aren't broken mechanics in SC2 per say, but there are some that make the game very very difficult to balance.
Nah, not in a game like this. The balance doesnt feel good and it doesnt feel fun. Meaning, if a race wins 50% with all-ins, its pure garbage imo(Just an example, still, the game feel like to much rng overall and to many lame strategies and gamestyles.)
Further, the colossous are such a boring unit. Mech is to lame. To much hardcounters. To little micro(protoss etc) Yeah...It worked for broodwar because frankly the game had a really solid ground
The two opportunities should not be construed as being mutually exclusive. The long and patchless road of BW was for a game that had already seen much patching and had no impending expansion releases or really any attention being paid to it by Blizzard. The opportunity to work with the meta is and will always be there. I think that our balance patches tend to actually bring, and certainly attempt to bring, some diversity to viability within the game. A preference for buffing rather than nerfing would seem to exist, at least according to the rhetoric of Blizzard.
It's a dangerous game to play, looking at statistically backed racial performance disparities, and to commit yourself to a wait and see approach to balance, any more so than is already done by Blizzard. Often times, in the still fairly young history of this game, there has been some pretty imba stuff. Nobody is without the opportunity to change or respond to the meta at any given time. Refraining from balance patching seems like a reckless way to get optimistic about peoples maybe-not-even-existent opportunity to overcome something, whatever things, all the things.
Things seem okay to me as they are, and I do of course expect that the game will come to really settle into a longer overall simmer as far as patching goes. Lasting a loooong time. It will be a very kespa state of play, then, if you know what I mean.
The problem is that BW was balanced around maps being different, different maps benefitted different races for different reasons and with that it meant you could stop patching the game. SC2 has the issue of maps have to be very similar to each other due to the overall design of the races, mainly Protoss or the game just breaks. The best design decision they could do with LoTV is rebuild protoss from the ground up to be more like it's BW counterpart as currently the design limitations on maps built up around protosses over reliance on warpgate, forcefield and having a third base pidgeonholes the game into a direction it shouldn't have to be in.
BW without maps drastically changing so often wouldn't have led to the birth of so many dynastys from the various races.Just watching the episodes now, really good so far :D
Firstly, they shouldn't do "it's boring/fun to watch" patches anymore. We've seen what happens, when you fix something that isn't broken. Apart from that I think it's ok to patch, if something or a race is up/op for a long time (1 or 2 WCS seasons). Strategies develop pretty quickly nowadays. If something just seems op but isn't, people usually solve it rather quickly. If noone can find a solution in like 1 to 2 seasons, there probably is none. Then it should be patched.
I watched the two episodes in english and really enjoyed them! While the second episode was really entertaining, I think the first one was like super interesting. Seeing what people like theMarine and GoRush think about WCS, foreing scene etc was really unique.
What I find out is, that the person I mostly agree with in the show is the former WJS manager. I really liked what he said about why he thinks the foreign scene is so much behind the Korean one (in terms of skill I mean) and also I loved how they came to the same conclusion as most of us - exporting KR coaches, team-structure and practice regimen would most likely help the foreign scene (again, in terms of skill) much more then anything else!
So just wanted to say, thanks for the translations and I really look forward to the 4th episode!
I think more patches are fine, especially because LoTV will render them moot anyways with new units and strats. Also, the BW thing is indeed a little misleading. It's true that the game was played competitively for many years without a balance patch, but they balanced it with the maps put in the map pool instead. Quite simply competitive games are going to need some form of balance tweaking, and between limiting map design or balance patches I would prefer balance patches so that every map doesn't feel the same.
EPT
