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On July 17 2014 03:22 eviltomahawk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 03:15 purakushi wrote:Q: What are your thoughts on the opinion that there needs to be more of a micro-controlling aspect and the controls now are too automated and easy?
A: We feel that some of this problem has been shown among the Protoss players where there was less of a difference in terms of control between the very top and mid to top tier players. This is something that isn’t easy to fix within Heart of the Swarm, but something the development team is working very hard on before the beta of our next expansion. We feel that ultimately it is important to make the very top tier players in each race differentiate themselves through such changes (to micro). Please. SC2 needs more differentiation. Everything and everyone is the same. =\ +1 to changes to warpgate +1 to BW units But since it is good to have a (friendly) Brood War unit come into StarCraft II by changing the design and upgrading it, we are in talks about this and are testing some things. I hope they do not mean automating/making it easier to use by 'upgrading it'. T_T Right when it got removed just before the WoL beta, the SC2 Lurker was basically a Hive-tech, long-range, anti-armor unit very much like the Siege Tank, unlike the BW Lurker. Design changes could be like that. Isn't there a Lurker in the HoTS campaign? How does that work?
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Northern Ireland174 Posts
On July 17 2014 03:12 Pino wrote:
I don't know if I read this correctly, but they might one day consider nerfing WG, wow ...
I'd like to see an actual advantage to having a Gateway as apposed a Warpgate. You never see a Gateway working after the 6 min mark of any game, it's a no brainer to change it to a warpgate for obvious reasons. All I'd suggest is give Protoss a strategic reason to keep them gateways.
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On July 17 2014 04:03 bduddy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 03:22 eviltomahawk wrote:On July 17 2014 03:15 purakushi wrote:Q: What are your thoughts on the opinion that there needs to be more of a micro-controlling aspect and the controls now are too automated and easy?
A: We feel that some of this problem has been shown among the Protoss players where there was less of a difference in terms of control between the very top and mid to top tier players. This is something that isn’t easy to fix within Heart of the Swarm, but something the development team is working very hard on before the beta of our next expansion. We feel that ultimately it is important to make the very top tier players in each race differentiate themselves through such changes (to micro). Please. SC2 needs more differentiation. Everything and everyone is the same. =\ +1 to changes to warpgate +1 to BW units But since it is good to have a (friendly) Brood War unit come into StarCraft II by changing the design and upgrading it, we are in talks about this and are testing some things. I hope they do not mean automating/making it easier to use by 'upgrading it'. T_T Right when it got removed just before the WoL beta, the SC2 Lurker was basically a Hive-tech, long-range, anti-armor unit very much like the Siege Tank, unlike the BW Lurker. Design changes could be like that. Isn't there a Lurker in the HoTS campaign? How does that work?
Yeah, you can morph a Hydra into a lurker, or at least I think it was the hydra. I thought it was cool but i'm no balance designer so no idea how it would work on the ladder. Would definitely help defect bio run-bys 
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"Q: Some of the cast of SHS(including special guest Flash) said that the patches are released too often. What are your thoughts on this?
Korean players tend to give similar feedback, but the western players tell us absolutely the opposite and say that patches should be made more quickly."
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On July 17 2014 04:11 Ctone23 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 04:03 bduddy wrote:On July 17 2014 03:22 eviltomahawk wrote:On July 17 2014 03:15 purakushi wrote:Q: What are your thoughts on the opinion that there needs to be more of a micro-controlling aspect and the controls now are too automated and easy?
A: We feel that some of this problem has been shown among the Protoss players where there was less of a difference in terms of control between the very top and mid to top tier players. This is something that isn’t easy to fix within Heart of the Swarm, but something the development team is working very hard on before the beta of our next expansion. We feel that ultimately it is important to make the very top tier players in each race differentiate themselves through such changes (to micro). Please. SC2 needs more differentiation. Everything and everyone is the same. =\ +1 to changes to warpgate +1 to BW units But since it is good to have a (friendly) Brood War unit come into StarCraft II by changing the design and upgrading it, we are in talks about this and are testing some things. I hope they do not mean automating/making it easier to use by 'upgrading it'. T_T Right when it got removed just before the WoL beta, the SC2 Lurker was basically a Hive-tech, long-range, anti-armor unit very much like the Siege Tank, unlike the BW Lurker. Design changes could be like that. Isn't there a Lurker in the HoTS campaign? How does that work? Yeah, you can morph a Hydra into a lurker, or at least I think it was the hydra. I thought it was cool but i'm no balance designer so no idea how it would work on the ladder. Would definitely help defect bio run-bys
It was definitely a Hydra morph. I forgot how the campaign Lurker worked, but it may have been like the BW Lurker. There was also an alternative Lurker morph called the Impaler that attacked like a Sunken Colony.
I kinda hope that when LotV comes out, Blizzard would support an official game mode with units and upgrades from all three campaigns. There are already custom maps like that, but it would be sick cool to have a casual matchmaking mode like that.
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The interview is pretty good, I wish it was completely on TL and not just in link, several of the answers that aren't quoted in OP are very interesting as well
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On July 17 2014 03:15 purakushi wrote:Show nested quote +Q: What are your thoughts on the opinion that there needs to be more of a micro-controlling aspect and the controls now are too automated and easy?
A: We feel that some of this problem has been shown among the Protoss players where there was less of a difference in terms of control between the very top and mid to top tier players. This is something that isn’t easy to fix within Heart of the Swarm, but something the development team is working very hard on before the beta of our next expansion. We feel that ultimately it is important to make the very top tier players in each race differentiate themselves through such changes (to micro). Please. SC2 needs more differentiation. Everything and everyone is the same. =\ +1 to changes to warpgate +1 to BW units and units that feel important and unique +1 comebacks +1 economy revamp +1 "balance" should be a far second to good design/fun Show nested quote +But since it is good to have a (friendly) Brood War unit come into StarCraft II by changing the design and upgrading it, we are in talks about this and are testing some things. I hope they do not mean automating/making it easier to use by 'upgrading it'. T_T LotV needs to drastically change SC2. Look at Starbow for ideas. Last chance, Blizzard. Please surprise me.
Yeah, starbow is so successful. Clearly the future of RTS right there
I like that he talks about changing how micro works in the next expansion, thats encouraging
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On July 17 2014 04:10 NihilisticGod wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 03:12 Pino wrote:
I don't know if I read this correctly, but they might one day consider nerfing WG, wow ... I'd like to see an actual advantage to having a Gateway as apposed a Warpgate. You never see a Gateway working after the 6 min mark of any game, it's a no brainer to change it to a warpgate for obvious reasons. All I'd suggest is give Protoss a strategic reason to keep them gateways.
Here's how I want Gateways to work:
Warpgate research allows for warp in at a Pylon anywhere, but with a cooldown of double the unit production time. The research would *also* cut down production time of Gateways (not warpgates) by, I don't know, 25%. Increase the transformation time.
This would make Warpgate very obviously used for attack, but simply the prelude to a huge move out, or an attempt to try to finish with one more round of warp ins. Or maybe players leave half and half, or have some dedicated solely to Warp Prism harass, who knows! The point is, there will be more options. And it would also still give players a reason to keep Gateways around, and have a more "normal" macro rotation. If this ends up making Gateways+Warpgate more powerful, then increase research cost/time again.
I don't know, I feel like it's something worth looking into, especially if Blizzard seems unwilling to completely remove/entirely redesign the ability.
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"We feel that some of this problem has been shown among the Protoss players where there was less of a difference in terms of control between the very top and mid to top tier players"....then make some design changes to Protoss units. Of course there will be no difference in control when zealots can just be a-moved thanks to charge. And no redesign for warpgate *heart breaks* 
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Warpgate and force-fields will never be redesigned. What may happen is gateways get a buff somehow, plus a nerf to warpgate (could be just a later, more expensive upgrade) to allow for more options.
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Seriously the only change that really needs to be done to WG is to make it so units take 10 seconds to warp in instead of 5. They could even take 5 seconds off the cooldown period so the overall production cycle still takes the same amount of time. As a Terran right now though, having 15 Zealots in your base in the late game in a matter of seconds is a fucking nightmare to deal with, especially if youre maxed and have to pull army back from the field to go fight it (goodbye addons). Increasing the warp in time will allow more of a chance to kill the prism before that happens. Also, and increased warp in time means Toss will have to warp in reinforcements further away from a fight, or have a greater risk of losing those units if the Terran starts winning the fight, making their ability to win almost any late game fight that much harder.
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As long as the units are simple to understand, have a clear role, and fullfill that same role at the end (and not another) - then new units is a better idea and more required than BW units..
Pls guys, don't go backwards.. There are other ways units can do the same thing in a more creative way.. If you like SBow - play it, it provides good games, but I don't quite like it cause it copies too much BW, and overall it's not the way to go for IMO
EDIT: speaking of which - Is there someone relatively good in the editor to teach/assist (pm me if you wish), kinda want to try some cool stuff, but doing really slow.. :/
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On July 17 2014 04:25 Green_25 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 03:15 purakushi wrote:Q: What are your thoughts on the opinion that there needs to be more of a micro-controlling aspect and the controls now are too automated and easy?
A: We feel that some of this problem has been shown among the Protoss players where there was less of a difference in terms of control between the very top and mid to top tier players. This is something that isn’t easy to fix within Heart of the Swarm, but something the development team is working very hard on before the beta of our next expansion. We feel that ultimately it is important to make the very top tier players in each race differentiate themselves through such changes (to micro). Please. SC2 needs more differentiation. Everything and everyone is the same. =\ +1 to changes to warpgate +1 to BW units and units that feel important and unique +1 comebacks +1 economy revamp +1 "balance" should be a far second to good design/fun But since it is good to have a (friendly) Brood War unit come into StarCraft II by changing the design and upgrading it, we are in talks about this and are testing some things. I hope they do not mean automating/making it easier to use by 'upgrading it'. T_T LotV needs to drastically change SC2. Look at Starbow for ideas. Last chance, Blizzard. Please surprise me. Yeah, starbow is so successful. Clearly the future of RTS right there I like that he talks about changing how micro works in the next expansion, thats encouraging The fact that Starbow was able to gather such a following, which is still enjoys to a degree (300+ concurrent on last ladder cup), proves that the lessons it brings to the table should not just be ignored. Its actually a really fun game to play, and I believe that the only reason its not played by more people is because the ladder system is to complicated. I'm not saying SC2 is a terrible game or that everyone should abandon it to go play SB, but there are definitely things that they did better in SB than Blizz is doing in SC2, and Blizz should address those concerns.
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Honestly, they should just change whatever the fuck they want for LotV. Don't worry about some pussy-ass "it's gonna change too much and the casuals won't like it" approach. Adding 2-3 new units for each race in LotV won't really do much to affect the diminishing SC2 player base.
Doing some crazy shit like no WG or no 1a units like the colossus would definitely attract some of players that went to DotA/LoL back into SC2.
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On July 17 2014 04:02 nuogaiyen wrote:
So many Protoss tears incoming, I'm going to swim in a pool with Protoss tears. NA Protoss players will now drop out of masters and diamond league, watch it happen.
You are almost as delirious as people who expect a warp gate or force field change. While Blizzard is being nonsensical to the point they don't what to do with widow mines anymore - yet cannot help patching it countless times -, a time warp nerf is not going to drastically change anything that players cannot adapt to. Nobody will ever drop from diamond to platinum in terms of skill level because of a nerf like this, that only happens to inactive players. There's a considerable skill gap between platinum and diamond.
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On July 17 2014 04:53 vhapter wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 04:02 nuogaiyen wrote:
So many Protoss tears incoming, I'm going to swim in a pool with Protoss tears. NA Protoss players will now drop out of masters and diamond league, watch it happen. You are almost as delirious as people who expect a warp gate or force field change. While Blizzard is being nonsensical to the point they don't what to do with widow mines anymore - yet cannot help patching it countless times -, a time warp nerf is not going to drastically change anything that players cannot adapt to. Nobody will ever drop from diamond to platinum in terms of skill level because of a nerf like this, that only happens to inactive players. There's a considerable skill gap between platinum and diamond.
I think people are more worried about the widow mine change, but yeah I agree. These are, frankly, minor tweaks. Nothing more. Mothership Core sight range was more game changing, imo
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On July 17 2014 04:39 VArsovskiSC wrote:
As long as the units are simple to understand, have a clear role, and fullfill that same role at the end (and not another) - then new units is a better idea and more required than BW units..
Pls guys, don't go backwards.. There are other ways units can do the same thing in a more creative way.. If you like SBow - play it, it provides good games, but I don't quite like it cause it copies too much BW, and overall it's not the way to go for IMO
EDIT: Is there someone good in the editor to assist (pm me if you wish), kinda want to try some cool stuff, but doing really slow..
Everyone wants completely new units with innovative design that offer cool game play. Problem is, many of the new SC2 units are inferior in all those departments to their BW counterparts, so if the new "original" stuff is so bad, then we'd rather have the old stuff that we know worked very well.
I'm probably exaggerating here, but i can see some people on the design team be a bit offended by the heavy criticism of things like WP, FF, SH, Warhound, MSC, etc and at the desire for the "older" BW designed units to come back.
IMO WG and FF and maybe the way the economy is set up are sacred cows to the design team. It's their "original" stuff. No matter how many arguments you would bring that altering these things would improve the game, they will not listen.
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On July 17 2014 04:25 Green_25 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 03:15 purakushi wrote:Q: What are your thoughts on the opinion that there needs to be more of a micro-controlling aspect and the controls now are too automated and easy?
A: We feel that some of this problem has been shown among the Protoss players where there was less of a difference in terms of control between the very top and mid to top tier players. This is something that isn’t easy to fix within Heart of the Swarm, but something the development team is working very hard on before the beta of our next expansion. We feel that ultimately it is important to make the very top tier players in each race differentiate themselves through such changes (to micro). Please. SC2 needs more differentiation. Everything and everyone is the same. =\ +1 to changes to warpgate +1 to BW units and units that feel important and unique +1 comebacks +1 economy revamp +1 "balance" should be a far second to good design/fun But since it is good to have a (friendly) Brood War unit come into StarCraft II by changing the design and upgrading it, we are in talks about this and are testing some things. I hope they do not mean automating/making it easier to use by 'upgrading it'. T_T LotV needs to drastically change SC2. Look at Starbow for ideas. Last chance, Blizzard. Please surprise me. Yeah, starbow is so successful. Clearly the future of RTS right there I like that he talks about changing how micro works in the next expansion, thats encouraging
It's about the ideas, not the relative success. Expecting a homegrown mod to in any way compete with the officially endorsed and heavily subsidized version is asinine. It has some interesting concepts that are worth exploring. That's really all that is being said.
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37 Posts
I think I have read something quite dangerous as a balance designer from this interview...
The balance issue to StarCraft II cannot be determined or judged with just one aspect, so we receive feedback from many people. For example, from the pro-players, shoutcasters, forums, communities, ladder statistics, top-tier ladder results, tournament results and etc. We check various aspects and make a decision after taking everything into mind.
One thing he simply did not mention is about mechanics; it's all about feedback and statistics, especially at the top level. While this methodology has its merit (basically, you cannot listen to lower skilled players too much as it's hard to distinguish their complaint as from their skill or from a more fundamental problem.), it is quite flawed.
One obvious flaw is the lag. Statistics needs time to be established. Especially when you only look at the top, the samples become more scarce. So even if the change is in the right direction, it often comes too late.
Another big problem is that there are problems that will not manifest at top level. There are things that can be overcome by skill, but nevertheless should not be. The Photon Overcharge is one example of such problem. Many people say a 1-click 1 minute defense is too easy to hold of any early aggression; yet from statistics it does not show that Protoss always have clear edge after early game. The thing is that, any early game defense advantage can be compensated by mid game weaknesses; and in this case, the weakness of early Protoss gateway units are the balancing counterpoint of the Photon Overcharge. So, in David Kim's sense and probably also from the statistics, this setting is actually balanced.
But of course, that is not the whole story. The easy early defense leads to all sorts of all-in builds that makes Protoss a lot easier to play at lower level. Basically you practice those builds, try to do them correctly, and you can already get yourself to Platinum or even diamonds. The problem is, getting on the offense being Protoss on this setting is easier, while getting the proper defense being Terran/Zerg is harder. On the top these evens out, but it is still a problem.
I think it is necessary to look into mechanics to really understand what makes such differences and how it needs to be fixed. For this particular example, the mothership core and photon overcharge is meant to protect the early weakness but it brings too much aggression potential. So maybe nerfing timewarp is a potential way; slowing mothership core down can be another; or maybe, one can stop photon overcharge by killing the mothership core. I mean, there are different ways, but the best changes tend to be deduced from mechanics, not statistics.
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On July 17 2014 04:48 HelloSon wrote:
Honestly, they should just change whatever the fuck they want for LotV. Don't worry about some pussy-ass "it's gonna change too much and the casuals won't like it" approach. Adding 2-3 new units for each race in LotV won't really do much to affect the diminishing SC2 player base.
Doing some crazy shit like no WG or no 1a units like the colossus would definitely attract some of players that went to DotA/LoL back into SC2.
I don't think casuals care about the 'design' so much as the game just being stale, so any changes are good. Overall though moba players aren't playing starcraft because you removed collosi, they have their game and we have ours, its not changing. Don't worry about it
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EPT
