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In my opinion, the main reason sc2 is dying is because its changing -too much- and it is driving players away, much like WoW. Nobody wants to invest 20 hours a week into something, to have their progress made largely irrelivant by a balance patch or expansion.
Adding a new race would probably get you a big influx of players, but you would hugely irritate all the existing players who have spent months of time perfecting their build orders for each match up.
I think instability is the greatest threat to esports
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Why would you need a new race when you can just fix Protoss?
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On March 17 2015 23:55 TheDwf wrote: Why would you need a new race when you can just fix Protoss? Because Blizzard doing that is less likely than a new race in SC2
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On March 17 2015 17:37 Scorch wrote: 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.
Crazy idea: How about balancing each match-up individually, with their own stats of research time, damage output, etc...
For example: Blink research time In PvZ: X seconds, in PvT: Z seconds, in PvP: Y seconds Roach: X damage against terran, Y damage against protoss, etc...
It'd probably be simpler than this whole armored, light, psionic thing
This way you balance each match-up without breaking the others
It's an easy way out, even though completely inelegant
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On March 18 2015 00:00 Ace Frehley wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 17:37 Scorch wrote: 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. Crazy idea: How about balancing each match-up individually, with their own stats of research time, damage output, etc... For example: Blink research time In PvZ: X seconds, in PvT: Z seconds, in PvP: Y seconds Roach: X damage against terran, Y damage against protoss, etc... It'd probably be simpler that this whole armored, light, psionic thing This way you balance each match-up without breaking the others That's like way too much work compared to just keeping it as it is and balancing races as whole across matchups when needed.
On March 17 2015 23:40 Raneth wrote:In my opinion, the main reason sc2 is dying is because its changing -too much- and it is driving players away, much like WoW. Nobody wants to invest 20 hours a week into something, to have their progress made largely irrelivant by a balance patch or expansion. Adding a new race would probably get you a big influx of players, but you would hugely irritate all the existing players who have spent months of time perfecting their build orders for each match up. I think instability is the greatest threat to esports  I have to disagree. Balance patches are absolutely necessary to keep SC2 going on the level of actual professional esports. I've heard way more people say "I've stopped playing SC2 because Blizzard doesn't fix X" than say "I've stopped playing SC2 because Blizzard changes too many things all the time." In an RTS, stagnancy is death for competitive esports because it will become boring as a spectator sport and will then be unable to sustain itself.
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U can theorycraft all u want, but Blizzard has lotsa stuff to do with the current game. It's very safe to say, that any kind of 4th race or derivations of existing races is/ are unlikely to be implemented. U can use ur idea for a new game, maybe sc3? Sc2 won't "benefit" from this idea.
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Balancing four races is almost impossible, especially if you want them to have different playstyles. Besides, what kind of race could be added? Xel'naga would be stupid, because OP. Same goes for the hybrids. Factions of existing races might be an idea, but I don't think that something like this will ever be considered by Blizzard.
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On March 16 2015 23:12 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: I'm surprised by the overall negative response. Surely there'd be issues but overall its an interesting enough idea to look into I'd think the problem is that it's not just "one new race to balance," it's four new matchups to balance, all of which will indirectly affect 6 other matchups. if banshees are overpowered against race X, what do you do? nerf banshees? then what happens in tvz and tvt? then you change other zerg and terran units which affect the other matchups, etc. etc. the structure of codependent balance in six matchups is bad enough, and you're not going from "3 to 4 races" you're going from 6 to 10 matchups. is it impossible? no, but 6 matchups isn't impossible either and it's already really hard. 10 matchups would be really really really hard.
they'd either have to do a miracle job of balancing or simplify a lot of game elements to simplify balance, which i don't think most people want. it's especially difficult because t/p/z are pretty asymmetrical in style and all have unique requirements for adaptability & survivability, like bunkers and mules for terran, forcefields for protoss, overlord scouting and mass larvae for zerg, etc. it's not a matter of doing some math to make a new balanced race, you have to come up with a concept that's unique, balanced, survivable and cool, AND make sure that nothing about it breaks the survivability mechanics for the other three races. balance isn't just unit interaction, it's also "allow each race to play defensively against aggression and not automatically fall behind in the long game," which is already one of the big issues people have with protoss for example
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Katowice25012 Posts
On March 17 2015 23:40 Raneth wrote: In my opinion, the main reason sc2 is dying is because its changing -too much- and it is driving players away, much like WoW. Nobody wants to invest 20 hours a week into something, to have their progress made largely irrelivant by a balance patch or expansion.
For some perspective, Dota has sweeping changes two to three times a year (drastic changes to many heroes and sometimes reworking core mechanics) and League does this in between LCS seasons and they're among the biggest games out there. In the past I would have agreed with you but after some time I think it breathes a lot of life into the game, giving new chances to try out old strategies and mess with new ones. I don't think SC2 is even close to the point of being too frequently updated yet.
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On March 17 2015 23:55 TheDwf wrote: Why would you need a new race when you can just fix Protoss? your right, toss could use a buff
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On March 18 2015 00:42 virpi wrote: Xel'naga would be stupid, because OP. Same goes for the hybrids. Factions of existing races might be an idea, but I don't think that something like this will ever be considered by Blizzard. starcraft is already about humans discovering two alien races, i'm not sure it's implausible to add another one
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I'm in the "interesting but too hard" camp. Anymore balance changes (mostly revolving around the new HotS units) just feel shoehorned because if they change one aspect it breaks another. Like spores now doing +bio because mutas were not working ZvZ. Tempest doing massive damage to air but not ground. Widow Mines doing shield damage. It is all very unintuative and sloppy. To add another race I feel they'd have to go almost back to the drawing board on all three and start from scratch. Trying to shoehorn in another race into SC2 at the moment would just be insanely difficult to impossible.
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On March 18 2015 01:00 Heyoka wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 23:40 Raneth wrote: In my opinion, the main reason sc2 is dying is because its changing -too much- and it is driving players away, much like WoW. Nobody wants to invest 20 hours a week into something, to have their progress made largely irrelivant by a balance patch or expansion. For some perspective, Dota has sweeping changes two to three times a year (drastic changes to many heroes and sometimes reworking core mechanics) and League does this in between LCS seasons and they're among the biggest games out there. In the past I would have agreed with you but after some time I think it breathes a lot of life into the game, giving new chances to try out old strategies and mess with new ones. I don't think SC2 is even close to the point of being too frequently updated yet.
It is difficult to compare SC2 to DOTA/LoL simply because of the drafting process. I actually had an idea for a custom map which gives SC2 a drafting screen. Sort of like monobattles but you select your race then you draft units. So if one unit is completely broken in say TvP you can ban it out during the pick/ban phase. I have no idea if it would work but it seemed like a novel idea. No clue if it exists already. It obviously wouldn't work in SC2 as it stands because if I banned out say Colossus in TvP the matchup would be horribly broken.
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On March 18 2015 01:16 Tenks wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2015 01:00 Heyoka wrote:On March 17 2015 23:40 Raneth wrote: In my opinion, the main reason sc2 is dying is because its changing -too much- and it is driving players away, much like WoW. Nobody wants to invest 20 hours a week into something, to have their progress made largely irrelivant by a balance patch or expansion. For some perspective, Dota has sweeping changes two to three times a year (drastic changes to many heroes and sometimes reworking core mechanics) and League does this in between LCS seasons and they're among the biggest games out there. In the past I would have agreed with you but after some time I think it breathes a lot of life into the game, giving new chances to try out old strategies and mess with new ones. I don't think SC2 is even close to the point of being too frequently updated yet. It is difficult to compare SC2 to DOTA/LoL simply because of the drafting process. I actually had an idea for a custom map which gives SC2 a drafting screen. Sort of like monobattles but you select your race then you draft units. So if one unit is completely broken in say TvP you can ban it out during the pick/ban phase. I have no idea if it would work but it seemed like a novel idea. No clue if it exists already. It obviously wouldn't work in SC2 as it stands because if I banned out say Colossus in TvP the matchup would be horribly broken. It wouldn't work with units but I think that a system like that could work with upgrades instead of units. If you add all the crazy upgrades from the campaigns and then make a draft so that each player can prevent his opponent from using a fixed number of them, I mean.
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On March 18 2015 01:23 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2015 01:16 Tenks wrote:On March 18 2015 01:00 Heyoka wrote:On March 17 2015 23:40 Raneth wrote: In my opinion, the main reason sc2 is dying is because its changing -too much- and it is driving players away, much like WoW. Nobody wants to invest 20 hours a week into something, to have their progress made largely irrelivant by a balance patch or expansion. For some perspective, Dota has sweeping changes two to three times a year (drastic changes to many heroes and sometimes reworking core mechanics) and League does this in between LCS seasons and they're among the biggest games out there. In the past I would have agreed with you but after some time I think it breathes a lot of life into the game, giving new chances to try out old strategies and mess with new ones. I don't think SC2 is even close to the point of being too frequently updated yet. It is difficult to compare SC2 to DOTA/LoL simply because of the drafting process. I actually had an idea for a custom map which gives SC2 a drafting screen. Sort of like monobattles but you select your race then you draft units. So if one unit is completely broken in say TvP you can ban it out during the pick/ban phase. I have no idea if it would work but it seemed like a novel idea. No clue if it exists already. It obviously wouldn't work in SC2 as it stands because if I banned out say Colossus in TvP the matchup would be horribly broken. It wouldn't work with units but I think that a system like that could work with upgrades instead of units. If you add all the crazy upgrades from the campaigns and then make a draft so that each player can prevent his opponent from using a fixed number of them, I mean.
Interesting twist. I like it. So you could draft things like having medivacs pick up sieged tanks, Viking splash and the likes. May be a fun map.
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Katowice25012 Posts
I've always wanted to experiment with a draft system in SC2, I love the idea but its a totally different approach so you probably can't do it alongside how SC2 actually exists now. It seems like it would have some merit to explore.
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you could accomplish something similar by having a tech system like some other RTS where tech isn't tied to the same resource pool as units and infrastructure, like having tech unlock over time based on research structures or just using a separate resource altogether. again, not directly applicable to SC2 but worth thinking about
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I do know a common complaint about previous eSport fans of SC2 is that the games were monotonous. As an avid player I understand the subtle differences and mindgames going on during the games but the majority of the games still end up with MMMV vs Gateway+Colossus and often times it is difficult to understand why one side won unless you really know the intricacies. So the complaint of "every game is the same" is somewhat valid. With some form of ban/draft phase you could at least force the metagame a tad. But I do like the idea of being able to ban/draft upgrades instead of units. That is a really smart idea IMO.
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Screw Xel'naga, make the new race Hybrids!! I know it would be hard but I think it would be awesome. If given the time and resources I definately think it could be done. However, I also know it will never happen. SC2 is the pinnacle of RTS. The whole triangle thing just cannot be outdone. Starcraft just hit that perfect note and blizzard is going to let it ring as long as we'll pay to listen.
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I would love to see that faction idea
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