I know that many people have talked about balance before (ZOMG PROTOSS OP) but hear me out!
Next week's discussion on the Star Hangshow (a SC2 centered talk show on OGN) is this:
Should SC2 keep receiving patches to help balance the game or do you think that it should be up to the players to come up with new strategies and "beat" the game?
For example, in Broodwar, after patch 1.08 in 2001 (I think?) the game never changed and it was up to the players to create innovative ways to beat their opponents. But lately, it seems that SC2 just keeps getting patched whenever Blizzard hears cries from the community.
I would like to hear from the foreign community (YOU GUYS!) what you think about that? Do you think that the game should just be left alone so that pro players can figure things out for themselves or do you think that constant patching is helpful?
I'm a supporter of no more balance patches. It messes with builds too much, rendering some solid ones redundant forcing not only the race affected to change, but the other races to change also. Constant meta game shifts like this end up making the meta never truly settle, leading to what we see now, with players crying OP about every little thing that has not been figured out just yet.
Sure Terran is struggling just now, but if NO more patches are applied and we look back in say 12 months from now, I would be willing to bet a fair amount that Terran players somehow figure something out that is highly effective against what we struggle against just now. Same for the other two races of course.
In short: I don't think the game is so unbalanced that it is in dire need of patching. However the strategies and especially the metagame are stagnating. Too much imo. I think there are changes to made to core mechanics, and that the devs should focus on LotV right now. Till then I think we may come up with cool maps or even a new strategy. But I think variety is held up by game design not balance
On July 02 2014 00:26 Faust852 wrote: We should return to a point where all match up where equally balanced (right before WM nerf) and leave the game at this state forever.
I pretty much agree with this. One more patch to change all the common complaints (such as oracle speed being buffed for no reason) and then leave it as it is as long as match ups are equally balanced.
The Game will change a lot when "Legacy of the Void" is released anyways. I think Blizzard should make some patches until LotV comes out, but after that they should stop and let players develop new strategies. In BW there were times when one race dominated but players developed new strategies and the game and the meta always changed wihtout any balance patches.
Yes it should. No balance patches gave us Boxer, NaDa, Oov, SaviOr, Bisu, FlaSh, Jaedong.
But it is really hard to do. Why you may ask ? Because this game (heart of the swarm) will die in one/two years. What ? Dead game ? no not really. But Legacy of the Void.
I think the no patch thing can be achieved when we know there will not be a new game after this.
We won't have an inovator in 2years of a game.
Brood War live since 15years. 2001 is 1998,1999,2000,2001 => 4 years. (well BW is 99 i think). So we will say 3 years with patch and after that untouched.
WoL 2010-2013 (then died because HotS) 3years (more 2years and 10months) HotS 2013-2015(?) then will die LotV 2015(?)-????? now the game will live on.
How can you left untouched a game that will last a few years ? I would love that they don't touch the game. But i don't know if it's just possible.
WoL and HotS are Starcraft Vanilla. LotV will be BW.
Honestly, what's the point of patching anyway when LoTV will make HoTS extinct. The counter is terrans currently. On the opposite end they could just over patch to remain balance until then too but that'd also suck. I think the majority of gamers should be more angry there is no LoTV release date which means even if HoTS becomes stable the process completely repeats itself and the patching game starts over.
On July 02 2014 00:38 BisuDagger wrote: Honestly, what's the point of patching anyway when LoTV will make HoTS extinct. The counter is terrans currently. On the opposite end they could just over patch to remain balance until then too but that'd also suck. I think the majority of gamers should be more angry there is no LoTV release date which means even if HoTS becomes stable the process complete repeats itself and the patching game starts over.
On July 02 2014 00:38 BisuDagger wrote: Honestly, what's the point of patching anyway when LoTV will make HoTS extinct. The counter is terrans currently. On the opposite end they could just over patch to remain balance until then too but that'd also suck. I think the majority of gamers should be more angry there is no LoTV release date which means even if HoTS becomes stable the process complete repeats itself and the patching game starts over.
Or in short... This post. Yeah.
I read yours after my post. We were so on the same page haha.
On July 02 2014 00:26 Faust852 wrote: We should return to a point where all match up where equally balanced (right before WM nerf) and leave the game at this state forever.
This. The game felt great at that point. Should just leave it alone and wait for LoTV like Rude and Bisudagger suggested.
I think they have a last attempt at balancing the game with LotV and then they should leave the game as it will be.
Also BW was pretty much a happy accident for Blizzard, as I dont think they were making money out of it after 2000/2001 so why bother with patching whereas with SC2 they still need to sell their tourneys.
I would like to see one or at most two balance patches a year. I really like what Valve have been doing with Dota2, not many balance patches but every now and then things gets shaken up completely. Then again SC2 is a completely different beast..
Honestly I don't think it really matter in the end if Blizzard went out and said: "After LotV we are not going to release any balance patch unless theres a sever game breaking strategy." Blizzard likes to buff units but later alter them to making them useless, also the units getting the buffs gets abused heavily making a already limited game in terms of strategy even more so.
I feel that the biggest reason why BW was viable without patches is that it was so damn hard that skill could prevail over almost anything. The sheer micro and macro power of the best players would ensure they always won even with a poor unit composition or build mis-read.
The same cannot be said of SC2 where even a lowly masters player can gamble on one of a dozen difficult to scout all-ins and get a free win over a vastly superior opponent with a bit of luck.
Leaving a game to fend for itself necessitates that its design is in a "good" (although not necessarily balanced) place. I do not feel like leaving the game as is will allow it to produce better or more fun games than it has in the past.
In fact, I'm sure the majority of people will agree that right now the games being played are in general less interesting than they have been.
Regardless, claiming that BW had no patches is a tricky falsehood, because in reality it was getting extremely frequent and regular patches by the way of new maps.
A single map has just as much (or perhaps even more) influence on win rates than a single balance patch does. I could go into the editor right now and make a map that had a 95%+ win rate for any race of my choosing - the games would just be incredibly stupid.
Just look back a few weeks - Blizzard implemented the blink "nerf" by way of maps and not a patch. Pretending BW went a decade without patches is nothing more than a twisting of reality...
On July 02 2014 00:44 TwiggyWan wrote: I think they have a last attempt at balancing the game with LotV and then they should leave the game as it will be.
Also BW was pretty much a happy accident for Blizzard, as I dont think they were making money out of it after 2000/2001 so why bother with patching whereas with SC2 they still need to sell their tourneys.
BW sold like 2millions copies in KR after 2000 if i recall
Wow, thanks so much guys! I understand that LotV is coming soon (WHEN?!) but the idea of maps heavily influencing game play and stagnant meta is interesting. Why were BW players able to be more innovative, do you think?
On July 02 2014 00:44 r691175002 wrote: I feel that the biggest reason why BW was viable without patches is that it was so damn hard that skill could prevail over almost anything. The sheer micro and macro power of the best players would ensure they always won even with a poor unit composition or build mis-read.
No my friend. Lots of innovations came from Macro. Like Reach and macro protoss, Oov and macro terran, SaviOr redefined the matchup by builds and tactics. Bisu refined openings. It was not a sheer micro Boxer did however. Strategy and micro.
The same cannot be said of SC2 where even a lowly masters player can gamble on one of a dozen difficult to scout all-ins and get a free win over a vastly superior opponent with a bit of luck.
You can 4 pool a B player on iCcup (it's master equivalent right ? Or as it changed ?) if he done 14CC you would kill him as well. Allin worked in BW too.
Leaving a game to fend for itself necessitates that its design is in a "good" (although not necessarily balanced) place. I do not feel like leaving the game as is will allow it to produce better or more fun games than it has in the past.
In fact, I'm sure the majority of people will agree that right now the games being played are in general less interesting than they have been.
Well the design of BW was not good in a sense that you had so much tricks that came from bug (drone drilling fe :p) It depends on so much thing. Look at Flash vs Bbyong in SanDISK tournament. You can still have exiting games.
Regardless, claiming that BW had no patches is a tricky falsehood, because in reality it was getting extremely frequent and regular patches by the way of new maps.
A single map has just as much (or perhaps even more) influence on win rates than a single balance patch does. I could go into the editor right now and make a map that had a 95%+ win rate for any race of my choosing - the games would just be incredibly stupid.
BW had no patch from Blizzard (it's the question asked by the OP) but you are right. Map maker balanced things. (Hello Zerg players ! I heard you liked Longinus :p).
On July 02 2014 00:38 BisuDagger wrote: Honestly, what's the point of patching anyway when LoTV will make HoTS extinct. The counter is terrans currently. On the opposite end they could just over patch to remain balance until then too but that'd also suck. I think the majority of gamers should be more angry there is no LoTV release date which means even if HoTS becomes stable the process complete repeats itself and the patching game starts over.
Or in short... This post. Yeah.
I read yours after my post. We were so on the same page haha.
I ninja'd you for a time. give me a cookie now. I typed Bisu in my post.
in BW the game was decided in several fights and engages, which enabled various decision-making. Already in SC2 u have to counter the opponent and hope for this to work, or else it will lose the game.
Blizzard proved that they have become incompetent with patching the game propperly. Leaving the fundamental issues of SC2 aside, the game currently is only designed by the massive community cries. early WOL Blizzard patched the game alot because zerg players cried their hearts out on tl and their forums (rightfully so). Sometimes when the game was seemingly balanced they come up with weird patches for example the queen rage. Alot what helped making BW balanced was the maps KESPA published in the BW era. Alot could have already been solved with maps. We could go from there, if there wasnt the problem that protoss units ruin mapdesign entirely. But tbh I believe the game needs to be reworked massively, starting with the macro mechanics and an economy system that doesnt allow to turtle on 3 bases. BW was way superior in economy because 60 workers on 6 bases=more income than having 60 workers on 3 bases BW. IN sc2 there is nearly no difference at all, which makes it stupid to expand over 3 bases except for gas or the advantage of having it set up already. Also some of the designchoices for protoss makes the race really weird and hard to balance. But whatever, Blizz currently thinks that they do a great job, so they will keep making bad patches to satisfy the needs of the whiners instead the needs of competetive players, who earn their money with this game.
On July 02 2014 00:50 lilsusie wrote: Wow, thanks so much guys! I understand that LotV is coming soon (WHEN?!) but the idea of maps heavily influencing game play and stagnant meta is interesting. Why were BW players able to be more innovative, do you think?
The map argument shouldn't even be in discussion until patching is over. You have 5+ distinct active maps in the pool all offering different forms of strategy. The major issue is that no one complains over map imbalance anymore like in WoL. The reason here is that balances issues lie so clearly outside of map design that not enough people are even focus in on map influence.
That being said, I'll discuss maps anyway. Maps do have a clear advantage in brood war all the way up to 2012 the last year of BW 1.0 era. This year the maps became protoss favored. Fantasy loses back to back OSLs to Jangbi, but the map selection influence is highly debatable there. The blaring reference should be seen in the final pre hybrid proleague that April. Flash was sent out for the ace match on a clearly protoss favored map and Bisu ended up toppling him.
Now here's the trick. Many complained map imbalance played a role in his lost and maybe stats should have been sent out, but Flash only lost two games that season to protoss and 3 losses total iirc which means the whole map issue was avoidable during regular game selection and in ace matches he just clearly was the best and could not lose. So that's the most recent map balance discussion in Brood War kespa era.
On July 02 2014 00:26 Faust852 wrote: We should return to a point where all match up where equally balanced (right before WM nerf) and leave the game at this state forever.
Wait, what? All match ups balanced before the WM nerf? That's not remotely accurate
Reporter: what do you think is the biggest problem with SC2?
iloveoov: "I have played all blizzard games with the exception of WC3. In WoW, there was a character called the Warlock. He could win 2:1 and 3:1. But blizzard kept releasing balance patches. WoW has 10 classes but I saw as blizzard kept releasing buffs and nerfs. So what ended up happening was, people started playing Warlock when it was powerful but soon jumped to Hunter when that was proven to be powerful. One day I awoke to see that they were also doing the same thing to SC2."
Reporter: I think you're referring to something other than balance.
iloveoov: "Let's compare the two games; In SC1, they only released bug patches and was relatively untouched for ten years. We would do starleagues where at times there would only be one or two protosses. Terrans would occupy more than half the pool. If David Kim were there at that time he would have buffed protoss. That would have meant that we would have been without the exciting and awe-inspiring play of Bisu's prime. Protoss was the minority race and difficult. Thus, its play was given birth to by players like Reach and Nal_Ra. To be frank, I think it is David Kim who creates the winner when it is the gamer who must create the game. It doesn't matter what I say though; the truth is David Kim will keep on tweaking the game. I don't know what his true motives are. Is it to create a 5:5:5 of balance? I truly do not know."
I don't quite see the point of not tweaking anything with an expansion coming, but after that, maybe that philosophy will work. However, the units for all races, especially non-terran, need to be more rewarding of skill and less of winning fights with, how that post put it, half the colossi hitting a refinery.
On July 02 2014 00:26 Faust852 wrote: We should return to a point where all match up where equally balanced (right before WM nerf) and leave the game at this state forever.
Wait, what? All match ups balanced before the WM nerf? That's not remotely accurate
Oh wait, your icon explains everything.
Statistically it was more balanced than now = bad patch of Blizz b
On July 02 2014 00:26 Faust852 wrote: We should return to a point where all match up where equally balanced (right before WM nerf) and leave the game at this state forever.
I'd have loved that to be done long ago but with that stupid "three expansions" things you can't. I hope what you describe will happen quite quickly after LotV release though, like no more than a year or two after.
On July 02 2014 00:50 lilsusie wrote: Wow, thanks so much guys! I understand that LotV is coming soon (WHEN?!) but the idea of maps heavily influencing game play and stagnant meta is interesting. Why were BW players able to be more innovative, do you think?
I feel the core difference comes down to the difficulty of the game.
Tasks we take for granted today were incredibly challenging in BW. Something as basic as changing rally points - a one click operation in SC2 - took multiple camera hotkeys and several seconds of 300+ APM madness. Just walking your army across the map could be a challenge, as anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves herding dragoons will tell you.
Not only did you have to deal with all that crap, but workers needed to be individually told which patch to mine, you could only select one production building at a time, and you could only select 12 units at once. Macroing in BW often takes more APM than an entire game of SC2
Now I can't say that I think that is good design, but in Brood War you needed an immense amount of skill just to make the game do what you wanted. I haven't even talked about what it was like to play against another opponent, and the extent to which micro would influence the outcome of battles.
In SC2, the challenge lies in far more volatile areas. Things like reading your opponent and selecting a build order can decide the game before you even scout, and a single bad fight is an instant loss. What I'm trying to say here, is that in BW, building an army and walking it across the map was hard enough that the best players could transcend balance with mechanics alone. Flash, Bisu, Jaedong, and others were dominating for years because of that.
Hop on over to SC2 land and we have literally never seen a Protoss dominate for more than one or two tournaments, or a couple months if they are lucky. You hit a mechanical ceiling and there is no way to further differentiate yourself. The closest thing we have to someone whose mechanics transcend balance was MVP and now Taeja (The only Terran to have won anything for nearly a year) and I think many people will agree that the way mechanical skill can draw more out of the race is very Brood War like.
If we move back to the question, why we see less innovation in SC2, I think its just because it is so much easier to innovate. In brood war, only a handful of players were good enough at the game to even consider innovating, and communication wasn't as prevalent.
In SC2 we can have thousands of games played within two hours of the balance patch, build orders and videos up on youtube, players and casters analyzing every line of the patch notes, and a 100 page thread on team liquid. And the skill ceiling is lower.
A problem that has been bugging me for some time now:
Is there such a thing as an official definition of balance?
Many people believe the game to be balanced when a vs b has a 50% winrate over a large enough number of games (lets say 4 000)
But if i would tell you in this scenario that the 50% winrate happends because a wins all games ending before 12 min and b wins all games above 12 mins would you still call that balanced. Most likely not.
Therefore what is the "balance" we are talking about. If balance is 50% winrate than this is an extremely flawed concept of balance. But what does it mean otherwise?
Another point entirely about patching:
I see a trend that towards the later stages of an expansion, many forms of aggression get figured out. As Zerg is most likely the race defending early pressures this could explain zergs increasing winratios towards the end of expos. Now we patch the game to open up more attack paths and more pressures because Z winrates go up to high.
Does this not mean we are punishing zerg players for having become better at the game than they previously were? - Thats again a very flawed concept of balance imo. This also implies, that even before there was no balance and zerg was potentially to strong - it only took some time to unlock the "potential" and gain enough experience to be able to adjust to the pressures...
On July 02 2014 00:30 Genesis_443 wrote: I'm a supporter of no more balance patches. It messes with builds too much, rendering some solid ones redundant forcing not only the race affected to change, but the other races to change also. Constant meta game shifts like this end up making the meta never truly settle, leading to what we see now, with players crying OP about every little thing that has not been figured out just yet.
Sure Terran is struggling just now, but if NO more patches are applied and we look back in say 12 months from now, I would be willing to bet a fair amount that Terran players somehow figure something out that is highly effective against what we struggle against just now. Same for the other two races of course.
You mean retire/race switch? Because the current state of the game is nowhere near balanced and Terran has little to no room left for experimenting, as Terran has been using the exact same style for 4 years, with the exception of having to pidgeonhole their builds even more against P/Z cheeses.
I'd say one thing to bigB, stop claiming the game is balanced while you release a "balance patch" every season claiming it's for "more game diversity" and that the game is currently not statistically balanced.
I think HotS should receive a patch or 2 until LotV, but they must be done carefully and not mid season. LotV should be a stable game, with few patches (much, much less than HotS), spread apart. So maybe a minor patch in each 3 or 4 months until the game is completely stable. Overall the game should be left for the players to adapt, but the game is far from the final version since there is an expansion coming up, so a few patches are natural.
On July 02 2014 00:26 Faust852 wrote: We should return to a point where all match up where equally balanced (right before WM nerf) and leave the game at this state forever.
Wait, what? All match ups balanced before the WM nerf? That's not remotely accurate
Oh wait, your icon explains everything.
Stats 5 month before the WM nerf TvZ :
July 50,43% August 51,92% September 48,02% October 51,46% November 50,43%
But oh, I read your post history, and it explains everything.
On July 02 2014 00:50 lilsusie wrote: Wow, thanks so much guys! I understand that LotV is coming soon (WHEN?!) but the idea of maps heavily influencing game play and stagnant meta is interesting. Why were BW players able to be more innovative, do you think?
I feel the core difference comes down to the difficulty of the game.
Tasks we take for granted today were incredibly challenging in BW. Something as basic as changing rally points - a one click operation in SC2 - took multiple camera hotkeys and several seconds of 300+ APM madness. Just walking your army across the map could be a challenge, as anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves herding dragoons will tell you.
Not only did you have to deal with all that crap, but workers needed to be individually told which patch to mine, you could only select one production building at a time, and you could only select 12 units at once. Macroing in BW often takes more APM than an entire game of SC2
Now I can't say that I think that is good design, but in Brood War you needed an immense amount of skill just to make the game do what you wanted. I haven't even talked about what it was like to play against another opponent, and the extent to which micro would influence the outcome of battles.
In SC2, the challenge lies in far more volatile areas. Things like reading your opponent and selecting a build order can decide the game before you even scout, and a single bad fight is an instant loss. What I'm trying to say here, is that in BW, building an army and walking it across the map was hard enough that the best players could transcend balance with mechanics alone. Flash, Bisu, Jaedong, and others were dominating for years because of that.
Hop on over to SC2 land and we have literally never seen a Protoss dominate for more than one or two tournaments, or a couple months if they are lucky. You hit a mechanical ceiling and there is no way to further differentiate yourself. The closest thing we have to someone whose mechanics transcend balance was MVP and now Taeja (The only Terran to have won anything for nearly a year) and I think many people will agree that the way mechanical skill can draw more out of the race is very Brood War like.
If we move back to the question, why we see less innovation in SC2, I think its just because it is so much easier to innovate. In brood war, only a handful of players were good enough at the game to even consider innovating, and communication wasn't as prevalent.
In SC2 we can have thousands of games played within two hours of the balance patch, build orders and videos up on youtube, players and casters analyzing every line of the patch notes, and a 100 page thread on team liquid. And the skill ceiling is lower.
I completely agree with you. On top of that, you have the ease of reinforcement factor (together with no selection limit) which can easily snowball with one lost fight to the point where you cannot recover from it anymore. Not to mention that the games, outside of pro games, are often much shorter and decided much faster (unless there are swarm hosts involved) with one lost fight because there is simply no way to recover from them.
The fact is, balance concerns in broodwar were overcome by the amount of potential multitasking you could do, while in starcraft2 there is much less to be concerned about, which narrows down the possible chances of you being ahead of your opponent. Just playing BW with no player interaction (playing the game, not against the opponent) took enough multitasking to keep you busy most of the time. Fastforward to sc2, you are more concerned about what your opponent is doing because you simply have more than enough time to think about it. Playing the game itself is easier, playing against your opponent becomes more volatile. Not to mention you are also much more limited by what you can do in every matchup because of the hard countering system.
For me, the pace of the game is simply too fast and I don't get the feel of "RTS" as I do from other games (like age of empires). It just feels like an action game to me. There is no build-up, you can easily reach supply cap in 13-15 ingame minutes which is even faster in real time.
It doesn't really matter to me if HotS keeps getting patched (it'll eventually stop when LotV comes out anyway), because LotV is what's going to eventually matter. In LotV, we'll have new units and abilities, and so patches will be inevitable (and necessary) for a while. Hopefully we'll reach a point, 1-3 years after LotV comes out, where we have fewer and fewer patches with fewer and fewer changes. They'll just kind of fade off, and then we'll be left to the good ol' meta game
On July 02 2014 01:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: It doesn't really matter to me if HotS keeps getting patched (it'll eventually stop when LotV comes out anyway), because LotV is what's going to eventually matter. In LotV, we'll have new units and abilities, and so patches will be inevitable (and necessary) for a while. Hopefully we'll reach a point, 1-3 years after LotV comes out, where we have fewer and fewer patches with fewer and fewer changes. They'll just kind of fade off, and then we'll be left to the good ol' meta game
I think HotS should be kept alive and interesting to sustain players. If hots die before the release of LotV, Lot will be stillborn
I'm for the following approach: Frequent feedback from the balance team what they think about the state of the game. Like every 2weeks on Friday. Those can be tiny and look like this: We are currently not seeing any huge problems. The matchup XvY has been looking slightly in Xs favor for some time now and we will be watching anything balance related carefully. We will keep you updated about this matter in 2weeks.
If there have been heavy imbalances for more than 2-3 such updates, start testing very small changes (e.g. 5-10% higher/lower firerate on a unit; 10% costreduction on a unit etc.) for 1-2 such updates. If the issue still remains and the changes look OK, implement them and keep on watching whether the issue goes away for 2-3 such updates. For smaller imbalances, same approach with a longer periode before things get tested (like 4-6 such updates).
I'm a big fan of balance updates for the following reasons: - The game is always going to be imbalanced in some way. Maybe someone, somewhere, somewhen will figure out something. But it's not good to have a year without Terrans in the GSL until they figured out that they could have done *strategy X*. And noone guarantees that it will happen. Same goes for maps. Maybe the will help, maybe not. - Small updates on balance implemented on underused units makes those units perform better, eventually leading to more diversity. - Small updates keep the metagame fresh. You always have something new to play with or to figure out how to play against. - You have a guarantee that you are not left alone with bigger issues, aka BL/Infestor (again, a phase of the game in which blizzard decided to "let players figure it out")
If you balance even less frequently as blizzard has done with HotS, builds that get perfected later, e.g. MsC/blink will not get adressed. Which in this example has led to a very restriced mapdesign as bandaid solution, and anything that steps out of that (like King Sejong Station) is already on the border to imbalance.
On July 02 2014 01:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: It doesn't really matter to me if HotS keeps getting patched (it'll eventually stop when LotV comes out anyway), because LotV is what's going to eventually matter. In LotV, we'll have new units and abilities, and so patches will be inevitable (and necessary) for a while. Hopefully we'll reach a point, 1-3 years after LotV comes out, where we have fewer and fewer patches with fewer and fewer changes. They'll just kind of fade off, and then we'll be left to the good ol' meta game
I think HotS should be kept alive and interesting to sustain players. If hots die before the release of LotV, Lot will be stillborn
That's true; what I meant is that new HotS patches *after* LotV comes out are irrelevant to me and almost everyone. I think Blizzard would focus only on LotV anyway (in the same way that they left WoL when HotS came out).
Gonna fly back to Anaheim and picket BlizzHQ to stop trying to patch the game and just let it stew. Change the maps up every now and then, but stop changing the rules of the game every time players are just starting to figure the old ones out.
Who's with me?! Must have epic signs to picket with.
Balance updates by Blizzard tend to be very straightforward. To take some of the example buffs/nerfs:
- Mothership Core vision decreased from 14 to 9 - Widow Mine splash damage increased from 40 to 40 +40 shields
These are somewhat one-dimensional changes that are designed to address really specific issues. Although in practice, it would take a lot of time in order to find a new, optimized build that can really take advantage of these changes, on an overarching, strategic level, the changes don't require much thinking. The Mothersip Core vision change means that blink-allins are harder. And the Widow Mine changes means that mines are more effective vs all Protoss units, addressing only that one matchup.
Balance changes through maps are much more interesting. It gives an opportunity for players who are more cerebral, but not necessarily mechanically the strongest, to shine. When you give a group of players a weird map, maybe one with, god forbid, island bases or rocks (which can be pretty terrible, to be fair), they'll probably hate it, but sooner or later they'll have to figure something out.
For example, there was Daedalus Point. It was a terrible map, and was completely imbalanced PvZ, but there was the one game, Ruin vs Sleep (I think), where there was some innovation on the map. Then shortly afterwards it was retired, rest in piece, but it did make for a really interesting spectator experience, and I'm sure it was a Eureka moment for the players that theorycrafted it.
The issue is that since ladder is based off of Blizzard's set map pool, it's hard for players that aren't in team houses to get practice on those maps, and in a way it's a balance update specific to a league or a tournament. But the positive side to this is that it's really easily reversible.
At last year's Red Bull Battleground in New York, one of the maps was Cloud Kingdom, a Wings of Liberty map that had been retired. I thought it was really cool and some of the players had some interesting builds that weren't typical on other maps. I don't necessarily know if it was enjoyable to play them, but it was to watch. Since there's not as much practice infrastructure in the foreign scene, it seems like every other map is still a Daybreak clone.
The last thing that is most appealing about map changes is that a new map affects all 6 matchups in some shape or form. The game can be molded into something that the league/players/viewers want, and it doesn't have to go in the direction that Blizzard necessarily wants. On a personal level, when I read balance changes, I'm never very enthusiastic about them, because it seems like the balance team is trying to mold the game into a very specific way. And it's never very clear what is the overarching end goal of balance updates, whether they're going for 50/50 in all matchups, or they're trying to address gameplay issues such as one race overpowering another completely in early or late game, or trying to introduce new strategies (they kind of spent a weird amount of effort trying to make mech viable). I liked the idea of Brood War kind of developing organically, and having these big names like Bisu and he-who-must-not-be-named (sAviOr) pulling through these difficult times for each race. Seeing Starcraft II develop so rigidly under Blizzard's close eye felt really artificial, and almost took a lot away from the greatness of its players.
On July 02 2014 00:38 BisuDagger wrote: Honestly, what's the point of patching anyway when LoTV will make HoTS extinct. The counter is terrans currently. On the opposite end they could just over patch to remain balance until then too but that'd also suck. I think the majority of gamers should be more angry there is no LoTV release date which means even if HoTS becomes stable the process completely repeats itself and the patching game starts over.
Balancing the game so the most dynamic and interesting to watch race (in my opinion, I'm sure shared even with Zerg and Toss players) is still present will ensure SC2 doesn't hemorrhage viewership prior to LotV and never recover.
On July 02 2014 00:38 BisuDagger wrote: Honestly, what's the point of patching anyway when LoTV will make HoTS extinct. The counter is terrans currently. On the opposite end they could just over patch to remain balance until then too but that'd also suck. I think the majority of gamers should be more angry there is no LoTV release date which means even if HoTS becomes stable the process completely repeats itself and the patching game starts over.
Balancing the game so the most dynamic and interesting to watch race (in my opinion, I'm sure shared even with Zerg and Toss players) is still present will ensure SC2 doesn't hemorrhage viewership prior to LotV and never recover.
Zerg is pretty well represented already though. But just because Terran isnt as interesting to watch (imo, I'm sure shared even with Terran and Toss players) I think it still deserves to have equal chances of winning.
I strongly think that blizzard needs to wait at least a year before publishing any balance patches. Across the board (through all of Starcraft), we still see Terran with the most premiere wins, and just because there's a "drought" of Terran victories (which there's not..i.e. Taeja winning back-to-back tournies and Polt taking two 2nd places at MLG and RedBull) doesn't mean that they are underpowered, which so many claim to believe. I feel it's more the maps that need to be focused on, these large maps are changing the game of starcraft. If we look at early SC2 maps we see much smaller rush distances and less spawning locations that focused more on positional maneuvering rather than just seeing who can macro harder and get the larger army. The best way to "balance" the game is through the maps, just as BW did.
On July 02 2014 04:07 FlowOfIdeas wrote:Across the board (through all of Starcraft), we still see Terran with the most premiere wins, and just because there's a "drought" of Terran victories (which there's not..i.e. Taeja winning back-to-back tournies and Polt taking two 2nd places at MLG and RedBull) doesn't mean that they are underpowered, which so many claim to believe.
Furthermore, Terran went something like 9 months without a premiere tournament win. Prior to this occurrence, no race has ever gone more than three months without a premiere tournament win, even when in terrible shape otherwise.
The truth is that although we know it seems like Terran was in bad shape, the closer you look at the numbers, the more you realize how ridiculous it actually was. This year has been vastly more "imbalanced" than any previous period by every measure.
This has a real impact on professional players. This year is still in its early stages, so 2014 might not be as bad as 2011, but the first six months have been unprecedented in their ridiculous one sidedness. If we rewind a month ago to before Taejas wins, Protoss would have won almost four times more money than Terran this year.
Also note that even if we go back to the beginning of SC2, Terran has still won the least money (although I would attribute that to poor foreigner showings).
Now this is all backward looking data, and has no relevance to the current state of the game, but your statements are outright false.
Patching obviously broken things is good in my opinion (I.E the pre nerf fungal, arguably the immortal all in (lol @ mc vs stephano g4), the old 1 1 1) but the problems of sc2 are tied to core design that they are not willing to change, so the little tweaks to unit help to balance the winrates but don't fix the actual game problems. This has been talked to death, but in my opinion sc2 problems can't be changed by unit balance patches, and broodwar didn't have those (economic/race mechanics + abilities such as forcefields) so you can't really compare the two games.
On July 02 2014 04:07 FlowOfIdeas wrote:Across the board (through all of Starcraft), we still see Terran with the most premiere wins, and just because there's a "drought" of Terran victories (which there's not..i.e. Taeja winning back-to-back tournies and Polt taking two 2nd places at MLG and RedBull) doesn't mean that they are underpowered, which so many claim to believe.
Furthermore, Terran went something like 9 months without a premiere tournament win. Prior to this occurrence, no race has ever gone more than three months without a premiere tournament win, even when in terrible shape otherwise.
The truth is that although we know it seems like Terran was in bad shape, the closer you look at the numbers, the more you realize how ridiculous it actually was. This year has been vastly more "imbalanced" than any previous period by every measure.
This has a real impact on professional players. This year is still in its early stages, so 2014 might not be as bad as 2011, but the first six months have been unprecedented in their ridiculous one sidedness. If we rewind a month ago to before Taejas wins, Protoss would have won almost four times more money than Terran this year.
Also note that even if we go back to the beginning of SC2, Terran has still won the least money (although I would attribute that to poor foreigner showings).
Now this is all backward looking data, and has no relevance to the current state of the game, but your statements are outright false.
That image you linked is for winnings, not straight up wins. Go on liquidpedia and count the NUMBER of premiere wins that Terran, Zerg, and Protoss have throughout the history of Sc2. Terran has far more. So, it's ok they are not winning every tournament right now (even though they still are). Plus, Taeja won Dreamhack Winter on November 30h, 2013, so I'm not sure wher you got your "9 months" from.
On July 02 2014 00:50 lilsusie wrote: Wow, thanks so much guys! I understand that LotV is coming soon (WHEN?!) but the idea of maps heavily influencing game play and stagnant meta is interesting. Why were BW players able to be more innovative, do you think?
Were I to venture a guess on that, LotV won't be out until HotS is out (assuming they're using the same devs), and then they'll have to get back into the dev process for SC2, so I'm gonna guess at least 2 years from now.
Yes, but the lack of diversity in SC2 pretty much requires constant patching to keep the game less not-fresh. Players in SC2 do not nearly have as many things to differentiate themselves in the game as they did in BW. Sure, we may have balance (i.e. 50%'s), but that does not mean the gameplay is fun to watch.
If Protoss can only play with all-ins and wins 50% of the time, that's not a good game.
That and maps make a huge difference. Regardless, the most important thing is the fun of the game -- balance only consists of very little of that.
Blizzard should be "balancing" the player's abilities to play each race. Make the units/races more difficult to use but more rewarding, so that only the better players get the "buff". Changes to the game should only be made to make it more fun, dynamic, and spectator-friendly. Units need to feel different and important.
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....
In my opinion, this game can't become more "balanced" through patches by now. PvZ matchup is fine. The core issue is Terran: Terran is weak for sure now, but any attempt to buff Terran a lot may lead to Terran OP, while buff a little would make no sense. Terran in sc2 is too difficult to use(compare to other races), while more difficult to expert. Except buff Terran ridiculously much, most players(both amateur and pro) will be still struggling, while only a few Terran elitists may dominate most tournaments.
Terran needs to be redesigned from basic concept: Make Terran easier to use and expert. Only with this blizzard can adjust balance without worrying any buffs would make Terran elitists too op.
I've always been in favor of letting players figure things out. I myself believe things always change in the long run. Go back and look at the "great play" we had back in those first few GSLs. Any old wc3 players? BW or even dota players? Remember how those games evolved and changed? Yes, there were patches but I'm just making a point. If people practiced half as hard as they complained and cried we would all be better off. I myself enjoy the struggle, the climb. Starcraft is incredibly more complex than what most people think and imo, it's not figured out yet.
I honestly like the idea of having Terran weaker than the other races at the highest level. I mean, puny humans vs hive mind powerful creatures and technologically advanced aliens? They don't stand a chance.
On July 02 2014 11:27 ZenithM wrote: I honestly like the idea of having Terran weaker than the other races at the highest level. I mean, puny humans vs hive mind powerful creatures and technologically advanced aliens? They don't stand a chance.
What else have they discussed on it? I loved the BW clips. >< Saw some Heroes, too. Also, great job to you in them!
Would be awesome if you could somehow bring up Starbow. Maybe get the Korean scene interested in a BW-style mod for SC2. Refer to games played by Axiom-Acer for the best plays, in general.
I think leave the game unpatched as possible is not really working out. It feels like it stands still.
Maybe it would be better to keep a undiscovered "gray zone" due patches in the game. Like give units new abilities and cancel/change old ones. There is a lot of space which isn't used at the moment, the forums are full of suggestions and Blizzard themself have for sure many ideas after making games for now 20years or something.
Starcraft 2 was always most amazing when the players had to catch up with the new stuff they got.
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....
Finally someone gets it! All these people talking about leaving the game as it is, just like BroodWar, fail to see that it was easier for players to overcome balance issues in BroodWar, through superior macro or unit control. In SC2, those things are quite easy to do at the top level, so top players can't gain that much of an edge in those areas.
What SC2 needs is game design changes, but Blizzard is never going to do that, and I understand them, it's too much of a pain, and there really isn't that much incentive for them to do it. So only expect movement speed/damage/armour buffs/nerfs from now on, and don't act surprised when that's the only thing they do.
The game needs patches. Doing nothing design-wise is merely hoping that everything will turn out ok. You cannot reasonably assume that things will balance out eventually, if you also assume that the game is not figured out, yet. Because you might as well end up in a million different imbalanced situations.
As for the BW example, there was imbalance for a long time and, yes people figured the game more out than it was probably intended by design (bugs) and it turned out alright. But that was also partly coincidence, not design.
I think sc2 definitely needs some amount of patching and balancing, and not exclusively through maps, because the game itself is less flexible than BW is.
Blizzard's basic approach in HotS of just having minor changes and letting things develop is really nice; i think they could do a better job in deciding what to change though.
On July 02 2014 18:33 Daswollvieh wrote: The game needs patches. Doing nothing design-wise is merely hoping that everything will turn out ok. You cannot reasonably assume that things will balance out eventually, if you also assume that the game is not figured out, yet. Because you might as well end up in a million different imbalanced situations.
As for the BW example, there was imbalance for a long time and, yes people figured the game more out than it was probably intended by design (bugs) and it turned out alright. But that was also partly coincidence, not design.
And partly tournaments using Protoss favored maps in fall to make up for the slight imbalance on regular maps and have Protoss win once in a while.
On July 02 2014 00:32 Damnight wrote: In short: I don't think the game is so unbalanced that it is in dire need of patching. However the strategies and especially the metagame are stagnating. Too much imo. I think there are changes to made to core mechanics, and that the devs should focus on LotV right now. Till then I think we may come up with cool maps or even a new strategy. But I think variety is held up by game design not balance
I agree with this. Base mechanics are not good enough and have not been from the start. Hopefully LotV will use some ideas from Starbow and improve Sc2 base mechanics.
On July 02 2014 00:32 Damnight wrote: In short: I don't think the game is so unbalanced that it is in dire need of patching. However the strategies and especially the metagame are stagnating. Too much imo. I think there are changes to made to core mechanics, and that the devs should focus on LotV right now. Till then I think we may come up with cool maps or even a new strategy. But I think variety is held up by game design not balance
I agree with this. Base mechanics are not good enough and have not been from the start. Hopefully LotV will use some ideas from Starbow and improve Sc2 base mechanics.
I think variety is held up by balance. You cant vary your compositions if one strategy is clearly favores over another.
On July 02 2014 00:38 FFW_Rude wrote: Yes it should. No balance patches gave us Boxer, NaDa, Oov, SaviOr, Bisu, FlaSh, Jaedong.
But it is really hard to do. Why you may ask ? Because this game (heart of the swarm) will die in one/two years. What ? Dead game ? no not really. But Legacy of the Void.
I think the no patch thing can be achieved when we know there will not be a new game after this.
We won't have an inovator in 2years of a game.
Brood War live since 15years. 2001 is 1998,1999,2000,2001 => 4 years. (well BW is 99 i think). So we will say 3 years with patch and after that untouched.
WoL 2010-2013 (then died because HotS) 3years (more 2years and 10months) HotS 2013-2015(?) then will die LotV 2015(?)-????? now the game will live on.
How can you left untouched a game that will last a few years ? I would love that they don't touch the game. But i don't know if it's just possible.
WoL and HotS are Starcraft Vanilla. LotV will be BW.
I think HotS was Brood War...but then Blizzard made changes when, IMO, none were really needed. People complained about all the hell bats, but IMO the game was ludicrously exciting to watch amd incredibly fun to play. I was playing random then. Now, I just play Protoss as I struggle to win with Terran (although my win-rate vs Toss is ok, I frequently feel quite helpless) and although I don't hate ZvT, ZvP is boring to play and just not fun for me (statistically my best matchup though).
On July 02 2014 19:22 kottbullar wrote: All sc2 needs atm is increased supply cap IMO. That should solve many of the problems that the game currently has.
I think we ll have to wait for LotV before Blizzard lets the game develop. But I wish they would let it as is after that, just like for BW.
Then again, as it was already said, BW was much more demanding and additionally it lacked the concept of hardcounter. You could almost always win with superior control. So it was more flexible in that regard. SC2 is more set in stone and unless we see a dramatic game design change in LotV I don't think it can achieve what BW did...
Still, to fully answer your question, I think Blizzard should let players alone for a while to see what happens.
On July 02 2014 19:22 kottbullar wrote: All sc2 needs atm is increased supply cap IMO. That should solve many of the problems that the game currently has.
how is that supposed to help the game?
what SC2 needs is more dinamic between units... lets take as example TvP in BW...
You cant just mass marine vs Protoss because 1Zealot can kill 3Marines if Terran doesnt control them... in Sc2 1 Marine can kill 1Zealot...
There was a dinamic when you where doing Dragoon without range vs Marines in BW that was really exicting to watch until Dragon range was completed and then tanks would join the fight... and dragoons has to retreat until they are 2dragons vs 1tank and then... they had to retreat again because of mines...
you dont get that back and forth at the begening of matches like in BW that was really good and micro wise...
On July 02 2014 00:38 BisuDagger wrote: Honestly, what's the point of patching anyway when LoTV will make HoTS extinct. The counter is terrans currently. On the opposite end they could just over patch to remain balance until then too but that'd also suck. I think the majority of gamers should be more angry there is no LoTV release date which means even if HoTS becomes stable the process completely repeats itself and the patching game starts over.
Blizzard has no reason to give you guys a release date. That would just get you more mad when it gets pushed back. It's not like you guys don't know how they work, lol.
On July 02 2014 19:10 endy wrote: Balance the game with maps.
Other issues are inherent to the game's design and small tweaks in stats won't fix them.
Hold on let me jump in right here, I do a lot of mapmaking work and maps simply aren't allowed to balance the game. you want half bases? no says blizzard, you want mineral only bases? no says blizzard, many things mapmakers want to try will never make it into ladder and therefor maps can't balance this game.
On July 02 2014 19:22 kottbullar wrote: All sc2 needs atm is increased supply cap IMO. That should solve many of the problems that the game currently has.
Kappa
On July 02 2014 20:28 SC2BF3Love wrote: in Sc2 1 Marine can kill 1Zealot...
what game are you playing?
let's get serious. i agree with the people that are saying maps need to be accepted as a tool to balance the game. also blizzard should be open for innovations in ladder maps, like 19Meavis93 said. still, right now i'd like some small tweaks (concerning terran, read zpcraft, some stuff dwarf supposes there is nice, like the stimm buff). that being said, we need some serious game-mechanic changes for LotV, i guess there are enough upposed already in this thread. on the other side, please don't wait for it, gonna take at least 2 years for it to be released. when LotV is released, hopefully we're gonna have 2 years of stabilizing (mind that a foreigner was able to win an OSL in the first two years of BW, so you gotta ignore these first two years anyway) and then good old meta. i doubt that the basic design of sc2 makes revolutionzing and innovating meta impossible like some ppl proposed.
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.
On September 04 2014 10:26 ZombieFrog wrote: 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.
Who knows how much Blizzard will even devote resources to LOTV as starcraft is not as profitable or a priority vs their other projects like FTP games with cash grab shops. The way Blizzard developers have been balancing all their games, is based on what looks cool, it's really stupid, all of their star developers left the company.
Blizzard has a trend right now, devs in every single one of their games are making 1 thing stronger than another and seem to change it every few months. I honestly rather see fewer balance patches with Starcraft just because of their developer trends when it comes to balance.
Doing stuff like "lets make a unit faster because it may look cool" is the kind of stuff David Kim was doing with Protoss. Rather see less patches...I'm sure Korean pros are getting sick and tired of constant random updates to the game
I hope and pray that LoTV will just be a DLC campaign where they can do all the fancy things they want (imba units/spells etc). Leave the current multiplayer as it is. The latest corrective patch (2.1.3) is stable and sustainable, IMO.
On September 03 2014 05:10 Ammanas wrote: 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!
Still holding out hope for more translated episodes.
On September 02 2014 23:51 Lunareste wrote: Does this mean OGN is going to be broadcasting Starcraft again soon?
LoveTV Starleague, believe <3
I don't think so:
Reserving the right studio is also what's currently causing the "delay" - as the organizer sOoL calls it, despite there never being any set date to begin with. Three commentators will bring you this epic action, two being already confirmed and the third being either an Afreeca BJ or someone else (work in progress).
On July 02 2014 04:19 Nimix wrote: Patching obviously broken things is good in my opinion (I.E the pre nerf fungal, arguably the immortal all in (lol @ mc vs stephano g4), the old 1 1 1) but the problems of sc2 are tied to core design that they are not willing to change, so the little tweaks to unit help to balance the winrates but don't fix the actual game problems. This has been talked to death, but in my opinion sc2 problems can't be changed by unit balance patches, and broodwar didn't have those (economic/race mechanics + abilities such as forcefields) so you can't really compare the two games.
This is the closest post I could find to what I think.
SC2 fundamental problems are with the pathing the MBS, automine stuff. all together, it makes the game very bland with no dynamics at all. If the game were left unpatched for years, the build orders would become stale and never change. Things would be optimized and there would be very little variance within MU.
In BW you could control space and build more dynamic sim cities, and the micro tricks made the units scale with the skill of the player. Most things in SC2 are just a vanilla ball of doom that walks around trumping the other player if you have more.
I agree that the fundamental problems with SC2, being stale build orders and deathball combat are temporarily masked by constantly changing unit stats and "balancing" the game. If they left it alone, the drab nature of SC2 would be all too apparent.
1) I think in general (or at least me) have hopes for LOTV, not for the new content per se, but because they think that HOTS isnt really 'patchable' anymore. Blizzard has had similar buff/nerf patchines since WOL, and only minor change have occurred to the overall gameplay (yes we dont have certain builds anymore (bl/infestor), but we still have deathball).
2) I think map-balancing is more for the serious gamers than the casual gamers, and its hard for observers to understand map balancing when they're casual gamers/just observers. Heck, i liked scrap station! seeing stupid air stuff and odd strategies was amusing as a watcher. My understanding of a map is only when TL writers decide to analyse the maps and i pretend to be knowledgeable to friends later on
The truth is, sc2 has fucked up design. No amount of patches or time will fix it. The game needs major overhaul when Lotv comes out.
BW was a masterpiece, you can't draw parallels to it. Its like saying Van Gogh didn't use pencils, we are not gonna use them too, then our pictures will be as good as his.
On September 19 2014 11:01 KeksX wrote: Swarm Hosts should be removed and replaced by Lurkers.
Just kidding. I think the game should be left alone for a while, but we should experiment much more with maps!
You might be kidding but I would love for that to happen if workable.
The main reason I'm kidding is that I simply do not believe that Blizzard will ever do a redesign of the game or do "crazy" stuff like that. I believe they will only do minor patches and for that reason, I think we should shift focus to maps because at this point it's our best bet to fundamentally change at least somehing to make it better.
So yeah, while I'd love to see changes like Lurker-like units being introduced and so on, realistically I don't think Blizzard will do anything like that.
IMO Patches should only be released to make the game more fun, if it's in a bad place. Otherwise we need the players to innovate and overcome balance, the rest we have maps for.
On September 30 2014 18:18 ejozl wrote: IMO Patches should only be released to make the game more fun, if it's in a bad place. Otherwise we need the players to innovate and overcome balance, the rest we have maps for.
If one side is losing pretty harshly, the game is not going to be a lot of fun for them.
okay here's my perspective on this, having played RTS for many years since a little kid, in sc2 since the start, having played some broodwar and a rich experience in mapmaking.
many times I see the argument that maps can fix balance, but this is far from the truth, the only thing you can do with maps is swing them in favour of a specific strategy that gives freewins, the problems are fundamental.
200/200 is one such problem, but far from the biggest, maxing out is part of the game, the problem lies in what the supply is and does, it can easily be fixed by redistributing supply values across units.
next is the problem of passive turtling, only 2 match-ups escape this due to their nature of design, that being an objective/condition for pushing out. in the TvZ match-up terran has to constantly hinder creep to avoid zerg map dominance and an advantage. the other match-up that escapes this is TvP, where the terran is forced to do damage or suffer the consequences of their inferior but more mobile units. the comparison to broodwar would be expansions, that was the condition for moving out and capturing space, but the lack of positional units such as a powerfull siegetank/minefields or lurkers/dark swarm or gateway/templar armys and later arbiters makes capturing and holding terrain non-existant, save for the match-up's where tanks are still relevant.
deathballing, nothing is more boring than one big stack of firepower vs another and engagements that end in seconds, and a large contributor to deathballing is the ability to select this entire ball in one go, either limited selection groups or alternative unit movement is necessary to alleviate this problem.
then there is also the issue of constant unit compositions, there are few units that are very all-round and a lot that are very situational, this is somewhat good RTS design, but the problem is the lack of flexibility in compositions, partly due to infrastructure and upgrades, and that units are overly focused on their specific purpose, being almost useless in other situations, aka immortals vs armoured units, ghost vs spellcasters etc.
from a map design perspective, there is little you can do, you have to allow the game to be playable in a balanced manner, and you can somewhat promote pushing out through watchtowers, primary examples of this would be the praised maps ohana, cloud kingdom and daybreak, which all had a watchtower on each side of the map as a constant objective to give a slight advantage, expansion patterns and spacial design can only be tweaked very little without balance issues blowing out of proportion.
I might have forgot something but so far this is my observation on the problems sc2 is facing, many of these have been fixed in brood war by what seems like a happy little accident, sc2 does not necessarily have to deal with these problems by solving them in the exact same manner brood-war did, but personally see little solutions.
Wish they'd rethink how they balance the game When a race is struggling, buff stuff they can't use rather than the few things they use. Patching like it is now leads to such a stale game.
On September 30 2014 18:18 ejozl wrote: IMO Patches should only be released to make the game more fun, if it's in a bad place. Otherwise we need the players to innovate and overcome balance, the rest we have maps for.
If one side is losing pretty harshly, the game is not going to be a lot of fun for them.
Past Protoss dominance over Terran was due to Blink maps. We knew it was due to Blink maps. We knew that maps like Polar Night and Frost and Heavy Rain had wide-open cliffs into the main that put Terran at a disadvantage when trying to hold against a highly mobile Blink Stalker army. There was no need for a patch but we got one anyway anyway, and that patch has actually ended up ruining the diversity of the match-up by eradicating Templar openings. If Blizzard had sorted out the map-pool sooner then all would've been fine. The map-pool did a lot more to stop Blink all-ins than the MSC and Mine changes did and anyone who thinks otherwise is lying to themselves.
That's just your opinion. Mine is that: We still don't have the same kind of maps around these days. If blizzard would finally sort out blink-balance, we could give mapmakers some more freedom back to create interesting map features. Also opening blink and rather quickly having storm available off of the same tech path was part of the problem imo. The mine patch(es), as much as I hate them for cutting variety in TvP did actually help with the balance.
Equally, current Terran strength against Protoss is mostly due to the maps. If you look at maps like Catallena, Merry Go Round, Nimbus and Foxtrot Labs (maps that all display Terran dominance in TvP) you will see that they share similar features. They have multiple drop paths that make it difficult/impossible to have enough Observer coverage to properly deflect drops. They have exposed third bases that cause Protoss to be more spread out than a Blink Stalker/Colossus composition (the composition Protoss is forced into due to the Mine patch) is truly capable of being. They also tend to have easy scouting paths into the main for Reapers that make surprising the Terran very difficult. We again do not need a patch and I hope we don't get one (unless all it does is revert said Mine patch), we just need a more standard set of maps.
Yeah, those maps are pretty good for Terran against Protoss. Though that's not all there is to be said, tbh. All the maps are having better Terran winrates in the last months, e.g. KSS is 55% T>P in the last 3months. And others like Overgrowth are NOW (read after the patches) decently balanced.
Look at Overgrowth. Look at Bel'Shir Vestige. Look at King Sejong Station Very standard 2P maps without any extreme features. Looking at win-rates for all match-ups we can see that they are all within 5% of 50% (except TvZ on KSS but that's only barely above 55%). At least 4 out of the 7 maps should be standard maps like this; it shouldn't be the case that we have as many wonky 3P maps as we have standard maps in the map pool.
That's the whole problem. Maps have been tinkered with to the extremes to make up for failed balance. I mean, you are talking about map features like a base being 4squares more open or 5seconds further from the natural and then go on to argue how that's too much for Protoss to deal with realistically. And winrates on those maps show that you are right. In my opinion, the correct response here is to fix balance so that Protoss can deal with those bagatelles. Not to make every map have the same 3rd base.
On September 30 2014 18:50 nkr wrote: Wish they'd rethink how they balance the game When a race is struggling, buff stuff they can't use rather than the few things they use. Patching like it is now leads to such a stale game.
This I can fully agree with. There is no reason to not throw out a patch tomorrow that buffs Carriers. Or add +vs shields to tanks. Etc.
There are units that aren't really used at all (looking at you carrier) or are so pigeonholed that they don't get used outside a very specific comp vs another specific comp. Wouldn't hurt for patches to address these imo. I know every game has units like this.. but if we can patch them into relevancy why wouldn't you want to? Adds diversity right there.
We still don't have the same kind of maps around these days. If blizzard would finally sort out blink-balance, we could give mapmakers some more freedom back to create interesting map features.
What do expansive cliff-faces offer to the game other than making Blink really powerful? Why should Blizzard bend over backwards to accommodate such maps when they don't give us anything drastically different or interesting? They don't offer anything else to the game unless you consider the viability of multiple-Barracks Reaper builds as important. Maybe have one in the map-pool for the sake of variety (Terran players can veto it if they want), but don't have a map-pool consisting entirely of such maps.
It makes blink really useful outside of blink allins, e.g. for harassment purposes against Swarm Hosts. It allows for elevator pushing. It allows for highgrounds protecting the pathes/bases below them. (e.g. protect your third from your main by cliffwalking colossi, positioning tanks there or having stalkers blinking down). These sorts of cliffs have had al sorts of interesting strategic value since the days of Metalopolis/Shattered Temple/Shakuras. Not to mention that it forces a mapmaker to waste space around a base for no purpose. It's not an accident that Cloud Kingdom or Heavy Rain or Yeonsu could keep the rush distances short, while allowing for macro play. Those maps used space very efficiently while still being small.
That's the whole problem. Maps have been tinkered with to the extremes to make up for failed balance. I mean, you are talking about map features like a base being 4squares more open or 5seconds further from the natural and then go on to argue how that's too much for Protoss to deal with realistically. And winrates on those maps show that you are right. In my opinion, the correct response here is to fix balance so that Protoss can deal with those bagatelles. Not to make every map have the same 3rd base.
The problem is if the map-pool contains more extreme/wonky/interesting maps than standard maps then you can't judge balance properly because the maps are influencing balance more than unit design is, which leads to bad unit design changes like the Widow Mine change.
You want Blizzard to "fix balance", but Blizzard cannot possible know what they need to fix with map-pools like those we've had recently. Why? Because the maps are so fucking shit that any conclusions drawn from them are completely meaningless.
Yeonsu was in no way an experimental map. Heavy Rain was completely standard. Cloud Kingdom defined standard. Polar Night allowed for play as standard as could be, despite it's experimental backdoor setup. Frost might have been the best 4p map that we ever had (until the WM nerf at least), the first one that made a very standard mirrored setup work on all spawn combinations. None of those maps was experimental. For 3years we never had a problem with these kinds of maps. The introduction of the Mothership Core broke blink rushes in comparison to WoL. That's the thing that changed. Not maps.
What I want is that the game should be patched/designed to be more robust towards these kinds of differences in maps. That whole part that you bolded is exactly what I want to avoid. But since I know I'm talking to someone who calls a map broken if his Nexus Canon cannot reach over his wall-in, despite admitting that it's in no way needed balancewise, I'm gonna stop here.
None of those maps was experimental. For 3years we never had a problem with these kinds of maps. The introduction of the Mothership Core broke blink rushes in comparison to WoL. That's the thing that changed. Not maps.
Your whole post is acting as if Blink Stalker all-ins weren't also strong in WoL, which is cute given that 4 Gate Blink/Obs all-ins were actually incredibly strong on any map with an exposed cliff-face. Maps specifically mentioned in that guide include Cloud Kingdom.
That's plainly not true and you know that it is a strawman. Not once did I write (or think) that blink allins weren't strong. All I wrote is that they weren't a balance problem before the MsC.
Not to mention that it forces a mapmaker to waste space around a base for no purpose. It's not an accident that Cloud Kingdom or Heavy Rain or Yeonsu could keep the rush distances short, while allowing for macro play. Those maps used space very efficiently while still being small.
Ohana seemed to manage to have a long cliff-face without it all being completely exposed to Blink Stalker play. Elevator play, Blink harassment etc. were all still possible using the small amount of space available for such things, but the map didn't cater to full on all-ins using said space. Nor was the "space wasted" to prevent Blink bring broken as significant as you'd like to make out.
You could very well blink allin on Ohana. Given how exposed the ramp is, the map would have probably played out very similar to Yeonsu in the age of 14sight MsC.
I'm not saying that it is impossible to use space properly with that. But it's another piece in the puzzle that dictates how you have to setup bases, for no other reason as to prevent one specific rush in one matchup.
I think that the underlying problem that has persisted since the WoL Beta is that the 3 races are fundamentally imbalanced. If we ever had a time where the game was well balanced at each skill strata, then Blizz could relax and let the game evolve on it's own.
But Terran's micro can be overwhelmingly powerful. Zerg macro (queens) and lack of infrastructure costs make them always ahead. Storms, mobile siege units, free permanent cloak, and ridiculous DPS all across the board make Protoss the ultimate A-move race.
The fact is that these advantages and disadvantages wreck the balance of the game differently at different skill levels. For instance, as soon as Z learns how to hit injects at anywhere they boost up out of Bronze and into silver and gold whereas Terrans are stuck there until they learn how to split constantly in every single engagement (miss one and you just lost the game). On the other end of the spectrum [namely the Korean side] Top kespa Terrans and their god-like micro (while still macroing like beasts) prove to be worlds more powerful than P and Z who do not get as high of a benefit from highly skilled and consistent micro.
We will never have a fair game as long as Terrans are balanced with correct micro being a given and are the only race that has to deal with friendly fire (storm doesn't really count), zergs don't have to spend any money on infrastructure (or units SH have to go. come on...) in order to flood the map with whatever unit they choose at the drop of a hat. And protoss have such overwhelming dps advantages and a 't' button that can selectively erase an opponent's units from the map.
Simply put: if the game were ever balanced then blizz could have just relaxed and let things unfold naturally.
Based on my win-rate and the amount of whining I received using that build, I'd say that it was most definitely a problem. Some of the Terran posts in the thread I posted are testament to that. The only reason it wasn't a massive problem is because it wasn't something that became popular until the very end of WoL, but the fact that it was becoming popular towards the end of WoL meant that it was picked up on very quickly during the early stages of HotS. The MSC made 4 Gate Blink all-ins stronger and there's no denying that (especially during the beta when the MSC was also capable of granting detection) but pretending as if a large cliff-face isn't brilliant for Blink all-ins in the absence of the MSC is an absolute fallacy.
You're really good at this strawman stuff, aren't you. I didn't say that a large cliff isn't brilliant for blink all-ins. But instead of having maps with no cliffs - where blink is unuseable and little cliffs - where blink is strong
it would be better for the game to have maps with no cliffs - where blink is unuseable little cliffs - where blink might be possible, but weak large cliffs - where blink is good
Blink all-ins are all about mobility because in a straight up fight Stalkers are trash. On maps like Ohana, where there is only one place to get up into the opponent's main, it is very hard to exploit the mobility of Blink Stalkers. This is why Ohana was always seen as one of the maps were Blink openings were bad in PvP.
I'm not talking PvP.
No matter how the units are balanced, there will always be a standard set-up of bases that produces the most balanced win-rates. This is unavoidable. We already know how the units are balanced and we know that Blizzard is loathe to change them, so making bad maps (relative to current unit design) and then demanding Blizzard fix the game so that those maps are usable is completely backwards.
You got it backwards. First blizzard should fix the units. Then we create the maps. Noone demands bad maps to be used.
And no, there is not just one standard possible. We can play a decent TvZ on Yeonsu and another one on Overgrowth. The first one allowing for all forms of cutsie elevator stuff, the other one allowing for all forms of turtle play. We just cannot do the same in TvP. So obviously, it is possible to have more loose standards than we currently have by fixing certain strategies instead of limiting mapmaking.
personally i like the fact thatr things get changed and overhauled it makes you think about the game a bit more. i like the idea of a flavour of the month, like hydras get a .2% increase in dps, or some other thing to force play out of those units, forever making you think about thr game and the kind of composition you are going to have to go for. . . . but like you say just keeping it at a state you have more or less everyone agreeing its balanced is also good
People seem to have misunderstood what TheMarine said in this show about Mobas having more micro "combinations."
He meant that the amount of combinations of heroes means there is unique micro for an infinite number of situations. Every 5 hero comp vs 5 hero comp will have ridiculously different ways you have to micro vs the other team because of the different abilities which adds a lot of depth to team fights and a lot of things to consider.
When you look at SC2 right now, a lot of the time it's going to be exactly the same micro in every single situation. You kite back. You 1A your deathball.
There isn't that depth of micro like in current Moba team fights or like there was in brood war where 10 vultures vs 10 dragoons could end up with either player being the victor.
10 vultures vs 10 dragoons, both players could actually win that depending on who micromanaged better with spider mine surrounds or dragoon kiting/target firing. In SC2, look at hellion vs stalker. It's a very bad hard counter system that was discussed a hell of a lot more on teamliquid when SC2 was first released.
10 hellions just will never ever win versus the 10 stalkers - there is no micro opportunity there, it's just a matter of "oh, he made this unit, and my unit doesn't counter it, i cannot win this ever."
So yah...if blizzard is willing to tweak things like the hard counter system to produce more unique micro scenarios and such...that level of micro could come back. But with the way blizzard balances, they will never do this because they are very stuck in one set way of doing things and unwilling to change things imo.
Just looking at patches, they are too afraid to break the game in any way shape or form or experiment. The SC2 community really has to push blizzard to do things like this, otherwise they will never ever get implemented, let alone even tested on the test server.
Based on my win-rate and the amount of whining I received using that build, I'd say that it was most definitely a problem. Some of the Terran posts in the thread I posted are testament to that. The only reason it wasn't a massive problem is because it wasn't something that became popular until the very end of WoL, but the fact that it was becoming popular towards the end of WoL meant that it was picked up on very quickly during the early stages of HotS. The MSC made 4 Gate Blink all-ins stronger and there's no denying that (especially during the beta when the MSC was also capable of granting detection) but pretending as if a large cliff-face isn't brilliant for Blink all-ins in the absence of the MSC is an absolute fallacy.
You're really good at this strawman stuff, aren't you. I didn't say that a large cliff isn't brilliant for blink all-ins. But instead of having maps with no cliffs - where blink is unuseable and little cliffs - where blink is strong
it would be better for the game to have maps with no cliffs - where blink is unuseable little cliffs - where blink might be possible, but weak large cliffs - where blink is good
Not possible. If Blink exists then maps with large, exposed cliffs will always be a bad idea. The only way to make such maps balanced would be to remove Blink (or to nerf it into irrelevance, which would be the same thing) and that would be an awful idea. Stalkers with Blink are very mobile units, as a map-maker that is your problem to deal with. It isn't Blizzard's job to make map-making easier for you when the units themselves work fine in absence of blatantly awful map features.
No. Plainly no to your "always". Only if blink exists as fast as it exists now and getting highground vision is as easy as it is now and blink exists as strong as it is now. A lot of "ifs" for an always-statment.
It's the exact same as when people argued that fungal growth will always be broken as long as it roots... No, it is not as HotS has shown. These always-arguments always stink, because you can always balance things so that they are less strong.
Blink all-ins are all about mobility because in a straight up fight Stalkers are trash. On maps like Ohana, where there is only one place to get up into the opponent's main, it is very hard to exploit the mobility of Blink Stalkers. This is why Ohana was always seen as one of the maps were Blink openings were bad in PvP.
I'm not talking PvP.
If a map is bad for Blink in PvP then it is also bad for Blink in PvT because you're trying to exploit the exact same map advantages. My 4 Gate Blink guide mentions how maps that are good for that build are the same as those good for Blink in PvP. I thought the connection was obvious but I guess not.
Every map is OK for blink in PvP, as far as I have seen from professional play. There is no map where blink is not a standard build. So the implication blink bad for PvP --> blink bad for PvT is worthless. However, there are maps where blink is bad in PvT. So there is not a 1-to-1 relationship between blink builds in these two matchups. It can be good in one and bad in the other. So I don't see why you bring PvP up when talking about PvT.
On October 01 2014 01:50 SatedSC2 wrote: (Blink is a map problem whether you like it or not; none of Blizzard's unit changes had a bigger effect on Blink Stalker all-ins than the maps changing did)
Must be why Blink attacks are no longer an issue in PvT despite the map pool still being Blink-friendly with Catallena, Deadwing, King Sejong and Foxtrot top left vs bottom right...
But lately, it seems that SC2 just keeps getting patched whenever Blizzard hears cries from the community.
See this seems silly to me, it doesn't really get patched very often. Key point in this case though is that this game is NOT Brood War, so the same rules don't necessarily apply. In addition, even if we tried to believe that it would be able to reach the same level of apparent near-perfect balance, who is to say that this game is up to Brood War's level of patching yet? Why would NOW have to be the time to have stopped patching? I also believe that if the professional players felt the game had become stale (not saying they have though), there should be patching to try to fix that, as we all want entertaining but balanced play.
On July 02 2014 00:30 evilCursor wrote: I like the idea to constantly patch the game. It is an extra nudge to think out of the meta.
I wouldn't agree with constantly but I agree with the general sentiment.
I like the idea to constantly patch the game. It is an extra nudge to think out of the meta.
This is the way of DotA, it's about who's best at analyzing the patches, hide strats and then suddenly pull it out.
In Starcraft I expect more, I want players to overcome imbalances, with great skill. Like MarineKing splitting his Marines vs Banes and making it the new standard.
On October 01 2014 01:50 SatedSC2 wrote: Map-makers know how the units work when they start making a map and so they should cater their maps towards that. If Blizzard make big changes to the game in the future then map-makers should cater their future maps towards those changes.
Well it's not like we got a choice or anything.
On October 01 2014 01:50 SatedSC2 wrote: What map-makers should not do is make maps that don't fit how the game is currently played by top professionals and then complain that Blizzard have fucked up. Blizzard have not fucked up, you have fucked up.
I'm sorry for introducing the mothership core to the game
On October 01 2014 01:50 SatedSC2 wrote: Sometimes things like Blink Stalker all-ins aren't foreseeable and that's fine, people are allowed to make mistakes, but when such issues crop up and are clearly down to the maps themselves (Blink is a map problem whether you like it or not; none of Blizzard's unit changes had a bigger effect on Blink Stalker all-ins than the maps changing did)
gee it's not like we had to design a gigantic chasm next to every main since.
On October 01 2014 01:50 SatedSC2 wrote: then map-makers should hold their hands up and admit they got something wrong. I suppose Blizzard should also recognise that the problem is map-based and not make a secondary map-pool containing even more problematic maps, but it's a lot easier to hate on Blizzard so whatever. This argument is pointless.
we did, and blizzard didn't listen, so now we're stuck with extreme limitations on maps, and so we designed maps with extreme limitations, and everybody seems to be cool with that we're gonna run super similar maps til LotV.
seriously why the fuck would you even try to argue on a ground that you have no knowledge off.
I hope demuslim and the others agreeing with things said by the panel on twitter realise the program was made on July the 6th so the terran buffs on the 25th of July were not in place. Not to mention the new maps which are better for terran were introduced on the 7th of July. The state of balance in HoTs is very good nothing is glaringly broken I think the only area which should be switched around a bit more is the maps.
According to Aligulac the leading race balance wise is Terran by 2% and Protoss is lacking by 1%.
When it comes to LotV I think a lot of the problems can be addressed, mainly micro potential on units and the comment "I that when they win against their opponents, they win way too easily and it looks like they're just fighting with the attack command" 41:04 in the video. Micro potential should be addressed, part of why Terran is the most played/popular race is because of their insane micro potential whereas the other races don't have as much blatant micro moves.
edit- Love the show, hope the english translations can be done at a faster pace though edit2- You can tell the date when they say about Hyun posting today on his twitter about recent tournament results, I checked Hyuns twitter found the picture and that's how I got the date. edit3- 53:43-54:40 can not agree more, the main change they need in LotV.
EPT
When a race is struggling, buff stuff they can't use rather than the few things they use. Patching like it is now leads to such a stale game.
