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On February 04 2016 15:21 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 15:18 BronzeKnee wrote:
Right... so now I'm facing a fallacious authority argument.
Just become Mother Teresa says something, doesn't mean it is right. And just because the devil says something, doesn't mean it is wrong. It is about what is said, not who says it. You appealing to authority because you don't know what you're talking about. Educate yourself and read up on game design.
Morhaime, Sigaty and Pierce have a track record. You do not have a track record. Furthermore, i like SC2 and most of the stuff Blizzard makes. Overwatch is great. Since RnR Racing i've thought Blizzard has made great games. Due to their extensive 20+ year track record and watching how they speak in interviews i'm willing to go with their judgement.
You have no idea who I am. But that doesn't matter good sir, because the basis of my argument is the design blogs from the LoL team.
And as I said: "it validates what I am saying when I use other team's designs to compare against the designs of the SC2 team, because it shows that things can be done the correct way and I'm not just picking apart a team for making mistakes, because everyone make mistakes as you mentioned, from doctors to politicians. But some people make more mistakes than others, and should be held accountable."
So there we have it. League has a track record too. You can read their design blogs, process them and make a determination for yourself on what good game design mechanics are. Or you can choose to do "whatever feels right."
And you can choose to believe whatever you want. But when you blindly believe something because of who said it, know that is not something science does, so I won't do it. And thus, it doesn't surprise me that games with science behind them outperform those without science backing them.
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Russian Federation104 Posts
Have to admit, that after a while i am okay with current mappool, ofcourse a lot of maps are certain race favoured, but since i am not playing on professional lvl its ok (mid dia currently, top ml last season hots).
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On February 04 2016 14:22 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 04:55 pure.Wasted wrote:
Doctors and politicians have - literally - thousands of years of encyclopedias, expertise, and history to fall back on. They go to school specifically to learn what they will do as professionals. And then they fuck up. All the time.
All I can think about, is how doctors used to treat people with the Black Death. But seriously, game design has been around forever, at least as long as medicine and politics, probably longer. The day the bored yet content caveman who just ate and went to the bathroom looked over at the other cavemen who had done the same and threw a rock at him for fun, was the day game design was born. MOBA game design has a decidedly shorter history than RTS game design, yet has been vastly more successful (at least for Riot and League) because they've focused very hard on making the game fun and reducing frustrations. We play games to have fun. Riot's design blogs are amazing. It is a masterclass in game design. That doesn't mean that Riot doesn't mistakes, but it validates what I am saying when I use other team's designs to compare against the designs of the SC2 team, because it shows that things can be done the correct way and I'm not just picking apart a team for making mistakes, because everyone make mistakes as you mentioned, from doctors to politicians. But some people make more mistakes than others, and should be held accountable. So I don't believe it is the case that game design lacks history or anything like that. And I don't believe it is the case that Big J pointed out where I'm jaded because SC2 has changed from what happened in WOL. The game can, and should evolve into a better game (better defined as more fun) over time. What makes games fun? Start here: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417SC2 doesn't do those things, and in fact, does completely the opposite in many cases. Anti-fun literally exceeds fun in many SC2 interactions and that makes players upset and they complain about said features. It is really a poorly designed game when looked at from a game design perspective. And I say that as someone who designs games. The very first thing Zileas lists is "Power without Gameplay", which is literally exactly what Photon Overcharge is. You press 1 key and click on a Pylon and suddenly you are safe, and there is basically no gameplay. It is such a bad design and I don't understand why it is still in the game. As he says: "The problem with using a "power without gameplay" mechanic is that you tend to have to 'over-buff' the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it. " Anyone think Photon Overcharge was overbuffed or creates balance problems? And that piece was written in 2010, ancient history for League. But the SC2 design team is still try to balancing power without gameplay mechanics like Photon Overcharge... I'll let you decide why.
I don't disagree with any of this, and that blog by Zileas was a very nice read. However it only reaffirms my point about Blizzard's lack of experience.
Riot has released an infinite number of balance and design changes to LoL since the game's release. If you go back to launch, the game was worse designed than it is now. It's through constant iteration that they learned what produces good gameplay in MOBA and what doesn't.
Blizzard, OTOH, take as hands off an approach to SC2 as is humanly possible. LotV has been out for almost three months and in that time Blizzard can barely be said to have touched the game. Yet its undeniable that LOTV is much better designed than WOL, with the possible exception of TvT. Every other MU has improved significantly.
My point is this: imagine how much more refined Blizzard's ideas would be if instead of doing an average of one number tweak every month, they had spent the last five years iterating and reiterating everything in the game.
But there's no money to be made in microtransaction-less SC2, so no incentive to push tweaks, so no tweaks, so the speed of lessons being learned first hand by the dev team is permanently set to snail's pace. I'm not excusing the incompetence of which there is plenty, I'm saying that the stars were never aligned in our favor.
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On February 04 2016 16:58 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 14:22 BronzeKnee wrote:On February 04 2016 04:55 pure.Wasted wrote:
Doctors and politicians have - literally - thousands of years of encyclopedias, expertise, and history to fall back on. They go to school specifically to learn what they will do as professionals. And then they fuck up. All the time.
All I can think about, is how doctors used to treat people with the Black Death. But seriously, game design has been around forever, at least as long as medicine and politics, probably longer. The day the bored yet content caveman who just ate and went to the bathroom looked over at the other cavemen who had done the same and threw a rock at him for fun, was the day game design was born. MOBA game design has a decidedly shorter history than RTS game design, yet has been vastly more successful (at least for Riot and League) because they've focused very hard on making the game fun and reducing frustrations. We play games to have fun. Riot's design blogs are amazing. It is a masterclass in game design. That doesn't mean that Riot doesn't mistakes, but it validates what I am saying when I use other team's designs to compare against the designs of the SC2 team, because it shows that things can be done the correct way and I'm not just picking apart a team for making mistakes, because everyone make mistakes as you mentioned, from doctors to politicians. But some people make more mistakes than others, and should be held accountable. So I don't believe it is the case that game design lacks history or anything like that. And I don't believe it is the case that Big J pointed out where I'm jaded because SC2 has changed from what happened in WOL. The game can, and should evolve into a better game (better defined as more fun) over time. What makes games fun? Start here: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417SC2 doesn't do those things, and in fact, does completely the opposite in many cases. Anti-fun literally exceeds fun in many SC2 interactions and that makes players upset and they complain about said features. It is really a poorly designed game when looked at from a game design perspective. And I say that as someone who designs games. The very first thing Zileas lists is "Power without Gameplay", which is literally exactly what Photon Overcharge is. You press 1 key and click on a Pylon and suddenly you are safe, and there is basically no gameplay. It is such a bad design and I don't understand why it is still in the game. As he says: "The problem with using a "power without gameplay" mechanic is that you tend to have to 'over-buff' the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it. " Anyone think Photon Overcharge was overbuffed or creates balance problems? And that piece was written in 2010, ancient history for League. But the SC2 design team is still try to balancing power without gameplay mechanics like Photon Overcharge... I'll let you decide why. I don't disagree with any of this, and that blog by Zileas was a very nice read. However it only reaffirms my point about Blizzard's lack of experience. Riot has released an infinite number of balance and design changes to LoL since the game's release. If you go back to launch, the game was worse designed than it is now. It's through constant iteration that they learned what produces good gameplay in MOBA and what doesn't. Blizzard, OTOH, take as hands off an approach to SC2 as is humanly possible. LotV has been out for almost three months and in that time Blizzard can barely be said to have touched the game. Yet its undeniable that LOTV is much better designed than WOL, with the possible exception of TvT. Every other MU has improved significantly. My point is this: imagine how much more refined Blizzard's ideas would be if instead of doing an average of one number tweak every month, they had spent the last five years iterating and reiterating everything in the game. But there's no money to be made in microtransaction-less SC2, so no incentive to push tweaks, so no tweaks, so the speed of lessons being learned first hand by the dev team is permanently set to snail's pace. I'm not excusing the incompetence of which there is plenty, I'm saying that the stars were never aligned in our favor.
tweaking a moba (how many heros and spells and items?) is very different. Changing one number doesn't have the same impact so it's less damaging to over balance. It's like adding salt to one dish in a buffet. Doing that in SC2 is quite different. You're playing with one meal.
I'm not saying Blizz has done as good (or fast) a job as I would like or expect but I don't think a fair comparison is being made. Maps are where they've done the most tweaking and they're trying something new with them. We'll see how it turns out...
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I'm not a fan of that Zileas blog, as a Dota player it seems completely laughable. Dota does the exact opposite as that list and is also incredibly enjoyable. And those example he gives is strategically limiting in favor of being extremely care-bear with your playerbase. Hell, most of Brood War would be written off by those philosophies, So I'm certainly not a fan.
But I digress, we can spend all day talking abut photon overchage, but that he's not what he's talking about. The putting up pylons and moving mothership core and pressing the button, that's gameplay. Power without gameplay, he's talking about shit you don't notice, like auras, where you don't put any thought into it, it's just there.
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On February 04 2016 06:51 BaronVonOwn wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2016 21:25 kasapanos wrote:
I left starcraft 2 for Dota 2 a few years back. I really liked the game for some time and played and watched it a lot back then. The problems came more and more evident later on and I'm going to give my full opinion of them now.
Brood war was an awesome game. It was a game where space control mattered. You could put a few tanks to cover a narrow route to a location to block access. This would be almost impenetrable. What the opponent would have had to do can be something like:
1. Find different route to flank the formation.
2. Attack the formation knowing the weakness (in this case, send air units to attack).
3. If also flanks are covered well you take control of the rest of the map, because the enemy invested a lot to defend that specific location and can't be that strong elsewhere -> take the initiative.
4. try to use some fancy spell to cover your attack moves.
5. force the enemy to move
This resembles chess. There were multiple units (lurker, arbiter, reaver, defiler..) that had really strong location control. But they had evident weaknesses. High manacost, slow, up in the tech tree... So you could rush, flank, drop, avoid, outmacro, outmicro the units but not rush on to them. And oh dear the games in BW... And the maps. They were fun and diverse.
Starcraft 2 on the other hand took a completely different path. Even with 200/200 all the tanks covering one narrow ledge, you can not block the protoss ground forces. As they just demolish you. But...YOU CAN LIFT THE TANK!! Who wants to lift a tank that is supposed to defend? It's the speed of the brain and not (only) the speed of the hands that should differ players. In SC2 Zerg had no way to really control any kind of terrain. It was some kind of weird hit and run game the TvZ. Protoss of course just a-moved always. Gateway was plain useless path to choose apart from rushing as they fell on tech rapidly and even big gate-army got demolished in seconds. Fuck I loved gateway on BW!!! It was the backbone of protoss!! Now it was some weird deathball-colossi-hit-and-run-cannon-defence-weird-mommaship-core-whaaaaatisthis?? I wanted to have the epic gateway-massing fights or sneaky carrier-stomps but not one OP-unit destroying everything.
Hello, are you my sock puppet account? Because these are basically my exact feelings towards SC2. Good explanation and glad to see somebody taking a higher level view of the game and not just another balance gripe.
Thanks for your words mate. I have the feeling that some readers before me expressed that Blizzard does not have a clear vision of what the game should be. Before they can fix the game they need to find this vision. If they don't, the game will be ripped apart by people wanting different things. In my opinion the fundamentals of SC2 are broken and no balance patch fixes them.
The different paths that I see are:
1. Try to make SC2 as "attractive" to a big audience as possible. Make good graphics, cool gimmicky units that can be rushed by anyone playing the first time. Easy to start, but falls short pretty quickly. Many "real-time-strategy" games tried this fancy-cool-lots of explosions and I have hard time to even recall one name from that swamp of games.
2. Try to really make it a BW-successor. A computer-chess with a space theme for ADHD-generation in a way that players have a set of units that have clear upsides and downsides. Clear rules and strong locational control units and get rid of the strong fast tier-1 rush units or make them less powerful and upgradeable later to support the overall vision of the game. Make maps count again. Ledges, distances, cliffs, water etc. would have meaning again and not just be a location where the units collide and a-move to each other or who rushes who. This makes it possible to find innovative uses of units and terrain and makes the game to age much better as there are new things to invent and strategies to discover.
If they clearly choose path 1. that's completely fine, it's their game. I'm off this forum and I will not start SC2 again but maybe when I'm drunk or in a LAN and some friend insists me play some 3n3.
If they choose path 2. that's completely fine too. I would probably regain interest to the game. Someone who is not so interested in RTS but likes the strategical depth might give it a shot too.
If someone asks me how I would personally like the game be on a long term, I would instantly answer 2. This option does not rule out micropayments. I can pay micro transactions but it must be a fun game.
Chess had no balance-updates in decades and not even new maps and still people play it.
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tweaking a moba (how many heros and spells and items?) is very different. Changing one number doesn't have the same impact so it's less damaging to over balance. It's like adding salt to one dish in a buffet. Doing that in SC2 is quite different. You're playing with one meal.
Hence why Blizzard - while releasing an expansion pack - should tweak all of the units. I believe that LOTV should have received 300-400 number changes in total to take into account the domino effect that only a couple of changes will make.
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I think Blizzard can TOTALLY conform to both casuals and hardcore players.
Just look at BW.
Casuals play UMS, hardcore players do 1 vs 1.
The thing is that they fucked up both ends by having a shitty arcade system and they rendered 1 vs 1 experience to be less mechanically difficult to pull off amazing feats.
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On February 04 2016 19:45 kasapanos wrote:
Thanks for your words mate. I have the feeling that some readers before me expressed that Blizzard does not have a clear vision of what the game should be. Before they can fix the game they need to find this vision. If they don't, the game will be ripped apart by people wanting different things. In my opinion the fundamentals of SC2 are broken and no balance patch fixes them.
I think they did have a vision for LOTV, it was just horrible and wrong. They decided the game wasn't hard or intense enough, which is actually hilarious. So they added more multitasking and micro opportunities. They also increased the worker count to speed up the action even more. I have to say, SC2 was already the most intense game I play. If you look at ANY other game, from LoL to CSGO to Fallout, there are significant periods of downtime. In LoL it might be farming or returning/leaving base for example. This idea that SC2 doesn't have enough action or isn't hard enough is just absurd. Most of the other LOTV changes were a grab bag of half-baked community ideas.
You have no idea who I am. But that doesn't matter good sir, because the basis of my argument is the design blogs from the LoL team.
Whoa now, let's not start getting crazy and pointing to LoL as an example of good design. if you read their design notes and patch changes then you've probably noticed how every other patch there's a hilariously bad change, for example they buff an item, then a champ who synergizes with that item becomes super-strong, so instead of admitting their mistake they nerf the champ into uselessness. Honestly they're just as clueless as Blizzard. LoL's success is due more to crowd-pleasing gimmicks which manage to keep people's attention and provide a revenue stream (constant releases of new champs). Probably only 20% of those champs are actually competitively viable. How is that good design?
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On February 04 2016 23:33 ErectedZenith wrote:
I think Blizzard can TOTALLY conform to both casuals and hardcore players.
Just look at BW.
Casuals play UMS, hardcore players do 1 vs 1.
YES. One of the big mistakes of SC2 is they kinda just funneled everyone into "hard mode" (1v1 ladder). Most games guide people toward lower difficulty challenges first, and let them find or graduate to higher difficulty.
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David Kim can be such a stubborn fuck at times.
The reason HE likes all these maps is not lost on us. We understand the gimmicks. This map has a short rush distance and this one has a gold base. GOT IT. We're not idiots.
Standard maps add diversity. You can do anything you want on a standard map. Idiotic gimmicky maps remove diversity, precisely because they force you to play to whatever stupid gimmick they've put in place. Oh, there are gold bases on this map? Watch Zerg players take them EVERY GAME. Short rush distance? Rushes every game!
The most liked maps in the pool right now are the ones where we can play the way WE want.
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On February 04 2016 11:54 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 05:54 TimeSpiral wrote:On February 04 2016 04:21 BronzeKnee wrote:On February 03 2016 19:51 ZombieFrog wrote:
Eh I do feel for DK and his team. I'm certain without a doubt that no matter what changes they made, even if they followed all of the communities ideas to the letter (which would be a silly thing to do) people would inevitably bitch endlessly about something in SC2. I've seen it from the beginning and I'm certain it will continue until the end. Constructive criticism is cool and what you should give to game developers, but that is sadly not what people give Do you think it is too much to expect politicians to draft good laws? Is it too much to expect a doctor to treat someone effectively? Is it too much to expect the the trashman to actually pick your trash every week? So why is it too much to expect the design team to just do their job and create a great game? They are paid to do that. The tidal wave of criticism the design team faces is a result of poor performance. It didn't exist when the game was at its height (sure there was some criticism, but not to the enx FIXED IT:Do you think it is too much to expect politicians to draft laws? Is it too much to expect a doctor to treat someone ? Is it too much to expect the the sanitary worker to collect your trash every week? So why is it too much to expect the design team to just do their job and design a game? They are paid to do that. The tidal wave of criticism the design team faces is a result of a variety of things that I don't know about, but I have my opinions. I didn't notice this level of criticism when the game was at an arbitrary point in its life-cycle. NOTE: took out most of the meaningless qualifiers which essentially render your entire point unproductive. Let politicians, doctors, trashmen and game designers do a bad job in some cases purposely in order to make a profit against everyone else's interests without even expecting them to do it right, because that would be... unproductive! (???)
In the context I was referencing, the qualifiers are unproductive specifically because they are too subjective. "Good and great, even effective (to some extent)" can't reasonably be part of an official expectation because your "good" may be diametrically opposed to someone else's "good".
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On February 04 2016 23:44 DinoMight wrote:
David Kim can be such a stubborn fuck at times.
The reason HE likes all these maps is not lost on us. We understand the gimmicks. This map has a short rush distance and this one has a gold base. GOT IT. We're not idiots.
Standard maps add diversity. You can do anything you want on a standard map. Idiotic gimmicky maps remove diversity, precisely because they force you to play to whatever stupid gimmick they've put in place. Oh, there are gold bases on this map? Watch Zerg players take them EVERY GAME. Short rush distance? Rushes every game!
The most liked maps in the pool right now are the ones where we can play the way WE want.
Standard maps strongly favor what we call "standard strategies" and you can do far from anything you want. It's rather like you say/imply towards the end, there are ways we want to play.
Which are usually ways that remove options from the opponent. Most players are very willing to sacrifice offensive and action-based play for defenders advantages that grant stability, longer games and let you experience the full content you paid for, not just the first 3 units of the tech tree.
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streamers advertise themselves as former such-and-such players--perhaps from a difference of genre than what they play currently.
just let david do what he wants. starcraft 2 is a very active game where you fall behind by the second if you do nothing.
by the same token [of logic], you can deviate from normal play if you have incredible knowledge of the game and its players which then enables you to do creative shit that in reality may or may not pay off (from the spectator's PoV).
there are much more chill games out there to suit your mood and your needs. for example, i play high mmr dota 2 on NA to mostly PvE and hit creeps. i like the pacing, queuing up commands, and watching my character progress as expected, or to work as a team and problem-solve certain situations. you are up to your own devices with a game like starcraft except that every bit of inefficiency in your play is damaging both in present-day games and for games in the future through your own habits and stubbornness.
everybody wants to think they were screwed out of a win when in hindsight they could have done so many different things to affect the outcome. balance will change, no problem whatsoever, but should you lose interest in the game in the meanwhile, just play something else that makes you happier.
in my opinion, the largest limiting factor i see when i sit down and look at players (mostly here, on the forums) and what they say, is their own mentality (sometimes crab mentality when it comes to players of the same race).
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On February 05 2016 00:11 TimeSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2016 11:54 ProMeTheus112 wrote:On February 04 2016 05:54 TimeSpiral wrote:On February 04 2016 04:21 BronzeKnee wrote:On February 03 2016 19:51 ZombieFrog wrote:
Eh I do feel for DK and his team. I'm certain without a doubt that no matter what changes they made, even if they followed all of the communities ideas to the letter (which would be a silly thing to do) people would inevitably bitch endlessly about something in SC2. I've seen it from the beginning and I'm certain it will continue until the end. Constructive criticism is cool and what you should give to game developers, but that is sadly not what people give Do you think it is too much to expect politicians to draft good laws? Is it too much to expect a doctor to treat someone effectively? Is it too much to expect the the trashman to actually pick your trash every week? So why is it too much to expect the design team to just do their job and create a great game? They are paid to do that. The tidal wave of criticism the design team faces is a result of poor performance. It didn't exist when the game was at its height (sure there was some criticism, but not to the enx FIXED IT:Do you think it is too much to expect politicians to draft laws? Is it too much to expect a doctor to treat someone ? Is it too much to expect the the sanitary worker to collect your trash every week? So why is it too much to expect the design team to just do their job and design a game? They are paid to do that. The tidal wave of criticism the design team faces is a result of a variety of things that I don't know about, but I have my opinions. I didn't notice this level of criticism when the game was at an arbitrary point in its life-cycle. NOTE: took out most of the meaningless qualifiers which essentially render your entire point unproductive. Let politicians, doctors, trashmen and game designers do a bad job in some cases purposely in order to make a profit against everyone else's interests without even expecting them to do it right, because that would be... unproductive! (???) In the context I was referencing, the qualifiers are unproductive specifically because they are too subjective. "Good and great, even effective (to some extent)" can't reasonably be part of an official expectation because your "good" may be diametrically opposed to someone else's "good".
it's hard to define good and bad, but there are still ways to do it. Ignoring community opinions (though they are very diverse), and make believe there is going to be major changes done to the game since beta with lines like "we'll aggressively patch the game" or "we'll change core mechanics" and talk about contents but not doing anything about maps that most people are clearly not happy about instead focusing on stuff that will be sold again..? there are bad things in there mixed up with maybe marketing lies and make believe, it's normal to expect better than that and no lies or make believe. It's bad enough that everything is so tightly controlled by blizzard, not only the map pool which should definitely have more maps or some rotation at least (maybe they keep the same few maps cause there are huge balance or gameplay problems in the game unless maps are set up a certain way?) but even which patch you have to play in tournaments cause there is no lan mode which justifies not patching the game very much and focusing on 50% winrates instead of fun and still the balance is not there and.... these are a lot of the discussions that go around, bronzeknee explains why DK gets so much uproar cause people have higher expectation for a game that sells itself as such a big thing and sells itself 3 times to people adding then more pay-content it's hardly satisfying for many customers and more importantly players many of which have just left? It's not unproductive to define your expectation of what's good and that's what the community has been doing for a long time and many feel they have not really been listened to. Doesn't the community feedback thing feel like PR words to direct discussions on a few small topics rather than discuss other things? Can't remember DK talking anything about the WCS changes has he? Or about the bad chat ? Or about the bad "arcade", custom games which is so important for community? Have custom games been killed in order to avoid the creation of a new "DoTa" phenomenon that would be out of control by blizzard, as well as trying to turn as many customers as possible towards their esport-spectator revenue model? Isn't that a bad self-interest business orientation that doesn't respect customers and players? Only now when the community made it super clear with poll-backed stats that maps are not good enough he has to go "well let's see about the maps then" but before that there has been so much explained and justified criticism about them almost since they were out there on the field and not a word? Remember how the words in community PR always make believe that some good things are coming as hoped and asked for by community but then everyone realizes it was misleading? Why is DK the only person who communicates with the community, is that because it is his job to create illusions against transparency of what's going on in the company so other developpers don't get to communicate?
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On February 05 2016 02:18 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2016 00:11 TimeSpiral wrote:On February 04 2016 11:54 ProMeTheus112 wrote:On February 04 2016 05:54 TimeSpiral wrote:On February 04 2016 04:21 BronzeKnee wrote:On February 03 2016 19:51 ZombieFrog wrote:
Eh I do feel for DK and his team. I'm certain without a doubt that no matter what changes they made, even if they followed all of the communities ideas to the letter (which would be a silly thing to do) people would inevitably bitch endlessly about something in SC2. I've seen it from the beginning and I'm certain it will continue until the end. Constructive criticism is cool and what you should give to game developers, but that is sadly not what people give Do you think it is too much to expect politicians to draft good laws? Is it too much to expect a doctor to treat someone effectively? Is it too much to expect the the trashman to actually pick your trash every week? So why is it too much to expect the design team to just do their job and create a great game? They are paid to do that. The tidal wave of criticism the design team faces is a result of poor performance. It didn't exist when the game was at its height (sure there was some criticism, but not to the enx FIXED IT:Do you think it is too much to expect politicians to draft laws? Is it too much to expect a doctor to treat someone ? Is it too much to expect the the sanitary worker to collect your trash every week? So why is it too much to expect the design team to just do their job and design a game? They are paid to do that. The tidal wave of criticism the design team faces is a result of a variety of things that I don't know about, but I have my opinions. I didn't notice this level of criticism when the game was at an arbitrary point in its life-cycle. NOTE: took out most of the meaningless qualifiers which essentially render your entire point unproductive. Let politicians, doctors, trashmen and game designers do a bad job in some cases purposely in order to make a profit against everyone else's interests without even expecting them to do it right, because that would be... unproductive! (???) In the context I was referencing, the qualifiers are unproductive specifically because they are too subjective. "Good and great, even effective (to some extent)" can't reasonably be part of an official expectation because your "good" may be diametrically opposed to someone else's "good". it's hard to define good and bad, but there are still ways to do it. Ignoring community opinions (though they are very diverse), and make believe there is going to be major changes done to the game since beta with lines like "we'll aggressively patch the game" or "we'll change core mechanics" and talk about contents but not doing anything about maps that most people are clearly not happy about instead focusing on stuff that will be sold again..? there are bad things in there mixed up with maybe marketing lies and make believe, it's normal to expect better than that and no lies or make believe. It's bad enough that everything is so tightly controlled by blizzard, not only the map pool which should definitely have more maps or some rotation at least (maybe they keep the same few maps cause there are huge balance or gameplay problems in the game unless maps are set up a certain way?) but even which patch you have to play in tournaments cause there is no lan mode which justifies not patching the game very much and focusing on 50% winrates instead of fun and still the balance is not there and.... these are a lot of the discussions that go around, bronzeknee explains why DK gets so much uproar cause people have higher expectation for a game that sells itself as such a big thing and sells itself 3 times to people adding then more pay-content it's hardly satisfying for many customers and more importantly players many of which have just left? It's not unproductive to define your expectation of what's good and that's what the community has been doing for a long time and many feel they have not really been listened to. Doesn't the community feedback thing feel like PR words to direct discussions on a few small topics rather than discuss other things? Can't remember DK talking anything about the WCS changes has he? Or about the bad chat ? Or about the bad "arcade", custom games which is so important for community? Have custom games been killed in order to avoid the creation of a new "DoTa" phenomenon that would be out of control by blizzard, as well as trying to turn as many customers as possible towards their esport-spectator revenue model? Isn't that a bad self-interest business orientation that doesn't respect customers and players? Only now when the community made it super clear with poll-backed stats that maps are not good enough he has to go "well let's see about the maps then" but before that there has been so much explained and justified criticism about them almost since they were out there on the field and not a word? Remember how the words in community PR always make believe that some good things are coming as hoped and asked for by community but then everyone realizes it was misleading? Why is DK the only person who communicates with the community, is that because it is his job to create illusions against transparency of what's going on in the company so other developpers don't get to communicate?
Okay, sure. What you're talking about, that "definition", is more useful if it is a measurement (i.e., a metric). I can tell you, with 100% certainty, that Kim's team has a variety of metrics they are required to monitor and improve, via their bosses. It seems unlikely to me that "Community Disposition About Balance / Design [TOPIC]" is one of them. Do you see what I'm saying?
Let me try a different approach.
Someone said, "is it unreasonable to expect the design team to produce a great game?", or something nonsensical. Any one of us can disqualify that argument by saying, "the game is great." Who are any of us to say that claim is wrong? Hence, this approach is unproductive, because what he is really saying is, "I wish I was more satisfied by the game."
That is also unproductive. Instead, that same person could say something like, "I wish Prion Terraces played differently, because as a Protoss I feel it is unfair the burden put on me to take a natural at the gold compared to Zerg". That is a specific reason why the game is falling short for that player and can be aggregated by their community cultivation team, and could even make its way to the discussion table, and maybe into development. This is all I'm saying.
Even when a small segment of a community (like TL is a small segment of the active SC2 player pool) seems to hold a strong consensus (60+%) that doesn't mean they are actually the majority, nor does it mean that a majority decision is going to--or should--change the design team's goals. Sometimes majorities are wrong--often, even.
I believe Kim could enhance his level of community communication by more-clearly defining expectations. If the community legitimately believes they can have a direct 1:1 impact on core mechanics, that is probably bad, because they probably don't or won't (unless it is incidental). *shrugs*
I'm not going to address everything you said, because, well, you said a ton of stuff, a lot of it just seems like venting. Yes, PR is political, and it's not bad. It's necessary in the commercial world.
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Fair enough TimeSpiral, I read what you say, I don't necessarily agree with all but ok. I would respond to your conclusion that there is good and bad PR, and good and bad ways to do business, but these may sound like unproductive qualifiers  j/k
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On February 04 2016 14:54 JackONeill wrote:
That's a huge missunderstanding.
The problem with high skill ceilling is that there's always be MU where it's simpler mechanically for one race, until top masters/GM. It's not about a high skill floor, it's about balance for the best players. It's been like that since WOL.
Playing TvP in WOL? Enjoy microing your ass out while protoss Amoves his 30 zealots 6 archons with +2 defense.
Playing ZvT against mech in WOL? Enjoy empaling 40 roaches on 15 tanks with no micro whatsoever from the mech player.
Starcraft II is a mechanical, and very hard to master game. It's like a musical instrument. Other games (such as Dota of course) make you feel like you're contributing. Because it's not a mechanically demanding game, and because you're playing as a team.
Starcraft II is a personal thing. You have to get better. You're the only one responsible for your victories and losses. You can't blame others, you can only blame yourself, or the game. Some people just can't handle it.
Others don't wanna invest in getting better. Which is fine ! Play 3v3, play arcade, play 1v1 bronze league, it doesn't matter.
The problem isn't that there's a high skill floor, it's that you can easily see how bad you are compared to a professionnal player. There's no MU you "can't" play because of your mechanics, because bronze league TvZ doesn't have a meta.
On February 04 2016 15:18 y0su wrote:
You're saying sc2 isn't fun because you can't beat a better player because you aren't carried? Have you tried archon mode?
Edit: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that... But you're comparing a team experience to single player. Your experince in dota would have fared quite differently in a different role. Your sc2 experience might also be quite different in another game mode.
No you are both missing the point. The point (and the difference) is that Dota and Lol and Smite to my limited experience in it, feels balanced at all levels. You don't walk into a matchup knowing you will lose because you can't do XYZ. I'm talking about 2 players of equal skill. The matchups in Lotv at the moment it's exactly like that. Can't perfectly handle adepts, you've lost. Cant perfectly micro around liberators. You've lost. The skill required to do an adept drop is far lower than the skill required to stop it. The skill required to plant liberators at your opponents base is far lower than actually stopping the push. Therefore at a lower skill level with 2 players. One will always come out on top.
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Okay, sure. What you're talking about, that "definition", is more useful if it is a measurement (i.e., a metric).
I believe the terms you're looking for is quantative is more useful than qualitative.
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On February 05 2016 09:13 hZCube wrote:Show nested quote +Okay, sure. What you're talking about, that "definition", is more useful if it is a measurement (i.e., a metric). I believe the terms you're looking for is quantative is more useful than qualitative.
Nope! I meant exactly what I said, but qualitative and quantitative works too, but would require a different explanation : ) But yes, a report full of useful metrics is most likely going to be predominantly quantitative data points. Are you trying to confuse these poor souls?!
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On February 04 2016 15:23 BronzeKnee wrote:
You have no idea who I am. But that doesn't matter good sir, because the basis of my argument is the design blogs from the LoL team.
i know Morhaime's track record.... urs is an unknown... i'll go with Uncle Mike.
On February 04 2016 15:23 BronzeKnee wrote:
And as I said: "it validates what I am saying when I use other team's designs to compare against the designs of the SC2 team, because it shows that things can be done the correct way and I'm not just picking apart a team for making mistakes, because everyone make mistakes as you mentioned, from doctors to politicians. But some people make more mistakes than others, and should be held accountable."
this "even pros make mistakes" comment did not come from me. you are mistaking comments made by someone else. MOBA is not RTS. Riot is not rushing to make an RTS game.. nor are the makers of DOTA2.
On February 04 2016 15:23 BronzeKnee wrote:
So there we have it. League has a track record too. You can read their design blogs, process them and make a determination for yourself on what good game design mechanics are. Or you can choose to do "whatever feels right."
And you can choose to believe whatever you want. But when you blindly believe something because of who said it, know that is not something science does, so I won't do it. And thus, it doesn't surprise me that games with science behind them outperform those without science backing them.
science? LOL.
craftsmanship is what i want.
masterminding a class of interactive experiences with a digital product is an act of craftsmanship. i want a master craftstman.. not a scientist.... see Alan Cooper's masterpiece About Face 3 for more on that.
now this craftsman may know a few things about computer science and software engineering... but i want Alan Cooper... not the guy who graduated #1 in the best computer science school in the world. or even the guy who graduated from some Game Design school and is running around calling himself a "Game Designer" because he memorized a few "principles". that theoretical guy probably knows more about science than Cooper. I'll take Cooper every time over any science guy any where.
regarding design philosophy...
Blizzard's name indicates their over all development process from a macroscopic level. They were briefly called Chaos Studios. as a consumer i'm satisified with the fun i've had playing their games for the last 18 years. I like Blizzard's experimental approach as they craft and tune their games.
calling my support of Blizzard blind is a straw man.
i base my judgement on
R'n'R Racing, Warcraft2 and 3, Diablo2 and 3, WoW, Hearthstone, Lost Vikings, SC1 and SC2 and how they'll cancel projects 5 years in because the game is not quite good enough.
i'm buying Overwatch on Day 1. I'll be having a bunch of giggling, silly, idiotic fun while you're running around expounding about design principles. To each their own.
Tying this back to the topic. Saying DK is grossly incompetent means Morhaime, Sigaty, and Pierce are not doing their jobs. Given their track record since 1991 this is unreasonable to believe. Your argument is invalid via Reductio Ad Absurdum.
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EPT
