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On March 17 2015 07:55 Ace Frehley wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 07:49 The_Templar wrote:On March 17 2015 07:48 Ace Frehley wrote:On March 17 2015 06:47 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:On March 17 2015 06:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 17 2015 06:35 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:On March 17 2015 06:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 17 2015 06:19 capu wrote:
if the balance doesnt work out with 4 races we could add in the fifth race to help out balancing things out. Just split each of the three current races into two sub-races each and voila!, six races! That's... Actually a cool idea. Reminds me of Red Alert where you had several Allied and Soviet countries each having a unique unit. I'd imagine they can't really take only half of one race and make a new race, so obviously the solution would be to have the following six races: BW Terran (T1) SC2 Terran (T2) BW Zerg (Z1) SC2 Zerg (Z2) BW Protoss (P1) SC2 Protoss (P2) That way there's still many of the same core units, and they'd just need to re-balance old with new races  Imagine not just having a TvZ, but a T1 v Z2, etc. We could even keep it somewhat within lore and have Confederate Terran Rebel Terran Auir Protoss Shakuras Protoss Primal Zerg Kerrigan's Zerg Each with minor differences and maybe a unique unit or something. It'd be a good way to mix it up without having horrible balance issues and wouldn't take nearly as long to design, all the pieces are already there to do that That is a good idea and quite feasible. But if we think Terran-mech and Terran-bio as different 'races' that could work too. The problem is make bio and mech work in every matchup. Of course, the same would go to Zerg: 'muta-bane-ling faction' and 'roach-hydra-corruptor faction', and Protoss: 'templar faction' and 'robo faction' You'd have to make all these factions work. Some of us like to go bio-mech though, what happens then? I like the confederate/rebel terran etc idea. What I mean is that: if bio and mech are viable in every match-up, it'd be like you have 2 races in one terran, because bio and mech are completely different. Therefore, the only thing needed would be to balance what we already have to make all 'factions' to be viable. Of course if you want to mix the 'factions', you can, too. If mech was viable against protoss, or roach-hydra was viable against bio long term, we'd have 'new' matchups Just an idea
I wouldn't want the races to be so defined to one style. One of beauties of starcraft is you can play races with multiple styles, or even change up style midgame. I'd want to maintain that, but with some minor variations to keep it a fresher.
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Balancing 3 races around various playstyles should be a higher priority than adding a 4th race.
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They added new races into Dawn of War all the time and it kept things fresh and interesting, though that game is a lot less complex.
It'd be harder to balance, but awesome nonetheless.
That said, you'd need to find a race within the lore. Unless they invent something new entirely for SC3.
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Would have kept SC2 fresher for players and fans, that's for sure.
Fun and a little imbalance here and there > Total Balance.
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It would be interesting to say the least.
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On March 17 2015 08:01 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 07:55 Ace Frehley wrote:On March 17 2015 07:49 The_Templar wrote:On March 17 2015 07:48 Ace Frehley wrote:On March 17 2015 06:47 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:On March 17 2015 06:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 17 2015 06:35 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:On March 17 2015 06:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 17 2015 06:19 capu wrote:
if the balance doesnt work out with 4 races we could add in the fifth race to help out balancing things out. Just split each of the three current races into two sub-races each and voila!, six races! That's... Actually a cool idea. Reminds me of Red Alert where you had several Allied and Soviet countries each having a unique unit. I'd imagine they can't really take only half of one race and make a new race, so obviously the solution would be to have the following six races: BW Terran (T1) SC2 Terran (T2) BW Zerg (Z1) SC2 Zerg (Z2) BW Protoss (P1) SC2 Protoss (P2) That way there's still many of the same core units, and they'd just need to re-balance old with new races Imagine not just having a TvZ, but a T1 v Z2, etc. We could even keep it somewhat within lore and have Confederate Terran Rebel Terran Auir Protoss Shakuras Protoss Primal Zerg Kerrigan's Zerg Each with minor differences and maybe a unique unit or something. It'd be a good way to mix it up without having horrible balance issues and wouldn't take nearly as long to design, all the pieces are already there to do that That is a good idea and quite feasible. But if we think Terran-mech and Terran-bio as different 'races' that could work too. The problem is make bio and mech work in every matchup. Of course, the same would go to Zerg: 'muta-bane-ling faction' and 'roach-hydra-corruptor faction', and Protoss: 'templar faction' and 'robo faction' You'd have to make all these factions work. Some of us like to go bio-mech though, what happens then? I like the confederate/rebel terran etc idea. What I mean is that: if bio and mech are viable in every match-up, it'd be like you have 2 races in one terran, because bio and mech are completely different. Therefore, the only thing needed would be to balance what we already have to make all 'factions' to be viable. Of course if you want to mix the 'factions', you can, too. If mech was viable against protoss, or roach-hydra was viable against bio long term, we'd have 'new' matchups Just an idea I wouldn't want the races to be so defined to one style. One of beauties of starcraft is you can play races with multiple styles, or even change up style midgame. I'd want to maintain that, but with some minor variations to keep it a fresher.
I agree. I wouldn't want people to be forced into picking a tech route before the game even starts. Why bother scouting if you know your opponent *can't* go bio, lol.
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To me it feels like adding a fourth race in starcraft would be like adding a third color in chess. Starcraft is strarcraft. If you want more races make a new game. I'm usually liberal & open minded but in this matter I am as conservative and religious as you can get 
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but they can't even balance 3 races
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I think some progamers would have a backup race in case their main ever became the worst of the 4.
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It would be cool to have a mech/robotic exclusive race... artificial race created by Terran/Protoss ... but again... difficult to balance ...
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Balance, in terms of having winrates between 45% and 55% for all matchups wouldn't be much of a problem. Don't think sc2 has been significantly more than 5% of at any point, except maybe very early WoL or something, so I really don't understand what people are complaining about. Inf act, sc2 has been very close to 50% in all three matchups a lot of the time I think.
The problem would be to make the matchup interesting. Like "the SH vs mech issue" will now have 6 (10 with mirrors) matchups to appear rather than 3 (6), so there will be more things like that, and the devs will have less time to make each MU refined.
Would be fun to see if they can come up with new mechanics though! It'd have to be a really different feel to the fourth race for it to make any sense.
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in classic literature, satanic symbolism and RTS....
3 is the ultimate number.
they should just stay with 3 races .. it facilitates the perfect mix of simplicity and depth.
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It worked for WC3 because of the way the game worked, which is pretty different to SC2. The biggest concern I have, despite theorycrafting a lot of this, is that balancing all 4 races is neigh-impossible and it will make an already difficult game, extremely confusing for new players, remember, SC2 needs growth, now a supremacist ideology.
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Wc3 is not a great example of a game with 4 races. Some of the matchups were terribly balanced (orc vs. undead). And then the rng... pray your blademaster gets claws of +6 attack and not ring of protection. Not to rip on wc3, I find it to be a fun game, and in the end it's not terribly balanced, but it's not exactly something to point to either.
As for a fourth race in sc2, you'll be increasing the matchups from 3 to 6 (not including mirrors). Even if we assume it's only twice as difficult (this is almost certainly wrong), it's really not worth it. It's significantly more important to have 3 deep matchups than 6 shallow matchups.
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Adding a new race would bring 10 instead of 6 total matchups and 6 instead of 3 non-mirrors. That's twice as many interactions as there are now. Balancing a game with 3 fundamentally distinct races in terms of win rate is hard, 4 is much harder. Each balance change to fix one matchup has more side-effects on other matchups. Add to that the design goal that each matchup should also be fun, varied, dynamic, skill-based and exciting to play with multiple viable styles, and you have a truly Herculean task that, to my knowledge, has never been accomplished in video game history.
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I think WC3 was the better game but the worse E-Sport. That is due to its random nature, but also due to its four races which made it more difficult to balance. So adding a fourth race would be a double edged sword. On the one hand, you'll likely get more eyes, on the other hand, the game would be a competitive farce.
If WC3 players had been as good the best SC2 players are now, no Orc would have ever lost against an Undead or won against a Human.
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I think adding a race is a cool item to speculate about. Purely speculation. The more matchups you throw in that we the developers need to balance around locks up the other matches to have less balance variance.. theoretically.
Maybe it would be a different story if Blizzard had developed (and continued to develop) this game differently.
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I think people are too afraid of balance problems.
As i said before, we have matchmaking these days and a lot more data available to make games balanced.
Four races would be totally doable in that regard imo.
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I'd rather see more variety in the units of the three existing races going forward than have their options further limited by the introduction of a fourth race. EG: terrans have the marine, so neither Zerg nor Protoss can have anything too similar to the marine. I think a fourth race would consume all the remaining air, as it were.
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EPT
