EPTTake your time on balance Blizzard.
Community Feedback Update - March 8 - Page 12
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sagefreke
United States241 Posts
Take your time on balance Blizzard. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20326 Posts
I for one love the fact that Blizzard is being slow and methodical with their balance tweaks and not instituting balance changes based off knee jerk reactions by the community. The problem is inconsistency, they have created balance problems with exactly one of those knee-jerk reactions to design problems | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On March 10 2016 05:09 Ouija wrote: I guess good job in creating something that you think is boring? I guess mech will stay that way forever since you don't want to make any changes to it? Do you just not care that part of your game is boring? If terran strategic diversity was really what you are worried about then you would want mech to be a stand alone comp. I don't really consider MMM + anything every game to be diverse. It just depends on what you need as a terran, whether it be a meat shield, splash dmg, or AA support. The core army is always the same though... That sounds a bit stale to me. Exactly this. Isnt that what professional designers are for, fixing things that is boring and lame(?) In the beta, it felt like you didnt change much at all when it comes down to it. You still have a great opportunity to change things around NOW but feels like you guys dont want to. I dont buy "carrers on the line". With PTR patches and really bold changes, i really think alot of people would play those PTR, including me. Right now I never play them. And could you answer some questions in your next community feedback such as, what do you feel about air vs air, i found it super boring and uninteresting and always has but what do you feel about it? Is that something you would like to change or are you happy with it? How do you feel about ravens? Why not redesign this unit quite dramatically? What do you guys feel about this sentence: "Ground should counter air", is this something you could agree on at all? | ||
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Cloak
United States816 Posts
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crazedrat
272 Posts
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Vanadiel
France961 Posts
On March 10 2016 14:45 Foxxan wrote: Exactly this. Isnt that what professional designers are for, fixing things that is boring and lame(?) They did fix it: they removed this option from the game, same as they did with swarmhost. At least mech units are still usable, even if pure mech is not possible, while the only reason you would build SH is because of a missclick. | ||
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SC2Toastie
Netherlands5725 Posts
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only. Designs a race to have no viable lategame other than by turtling hard and massing starport tech - complains about games with turtling being boring. Clueless. Dear David, you fucking job is to prevent that first issue from occuring. Instead, you are now using your own shortcomings as an argument to not pursue solid mech play any further, all because you're afraid of importing the Goliath and Spider Mine. Why? | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20326 Posts
ZvP drops: I do not think Protoss have been reacting well to drops, probably because this is a new thing. With the strength of phoenix and templars Protoss have what they need to respond The strength of drops is not @ the phase of the game where phoenix squads and templar are out. It's when Z is dropping with about 18-30 drones & protoss is scrambling to get production up from the natural. If anything, zerg drops are weaker than WOL+HOTS in the mid and lategame - they used to be able to give all of their overlords drop capability with a single upgrade. The new power comes from drop being on t1 now with no significant research time; speedling drops can now hit before warpgate research. | ||
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Salteador Neo
Andorra5591 Posts
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
On March 10 2016 07:26 Spyridon wrote: The thing is, he was originally just a player, then a balancer... not a designer. But they started putting design decisions in his hands... They started blurring the liens between the two. While the two should at times work together to come up with a solution, in the end they should be completely separated, as design should be set as a priority THEN balancing work can take place. The balance must be applied in the framework of the design, not the other way around. But as you stated, much (most?) of it is PR. These reasons we're being given in most circumstances aren't even what's really going on. You can find many examples of them bending the truth, or just straight up not telling the truth, at least when it comes to the dev team behind this game. To the earlier posts saying hes a "9.5/10" game designer... By what standards or credentials??? He was only a CS major with no design history when he was hired by Blizzard for balancing. He has no actual game design history or credentials, and many of the decisions he makes are straight up rookie mistakes in software development (not even getting in to game design, where he admits to choosing inferior design decisions). I don't even think his analytical skills are the problem. He's just not an actual designer so he's chasing the wrong carrot for solutions, instead of sticking to what he's good at, which is balancing the numbers. afaik David Kim has a bachelor in CS and he worked at balancing Dawn of War before being hired by Blizzard. I think that for a long time Blizzard has been in a position where they do not have to hire people without experience in the industry. For instance, multiple members of the SC2 team have their roots in C&C games. Because it was obvious that they needed someone to balance Starcraft II, Blizzard looked around and discovered two people with previous experience balancing a well received multiplayer RTS game in David Kim and Matt Cooper, maybe the only two people in the world with this background. source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-cooper-42b9388 https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-kim-90b45a6 By the way, I don't think that being the lead multiplayer designer for Starcraft 2 for the latter half of the development taxes one's creative ability that much, especially if you take into account the community feedback and suggestions that arise and can substitute for original ideas. If you think of a spectrum ranging from on one end: creative, artistic and intuitive temperament and on the other hand rigorous, analytical, logical temperament, then I'm sure that the role of balance designer draws heavily on skills and mindsets associated with the latter end of the spectrum. For instance, I've often thought that Blizzard should pick a random person with a PhD in theoretical physics to balance their games. And maybe that's slightly excessive, but at least it proves high analytical ability. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3485 Posts
On March 10 2016 14:45 Foxxan wrote: What do you guys feel about this sentence: "Ground should counter air", is this something you could agree on at all? I don't agree with that. Anti Air in general should be stronger than Anti Ground though | ||
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JackONeill
861 Posts
On March 10 2016 13:38 Cyro wrote: You're being a lot more critical of terran than protoss when you write those options. You don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options, you also take 6 items on the list to describe similar strategies for toss vs only 2 for terran. Seriously there - protoss gets 3 different items for dropping units, yet terrans can only drop widow mines? Terrans have dropped religiously in TvP forever. There's a widow mine drop opening that is popular, but that's only a small fraction of the usage that medivacs get. Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran because what does and doesn't fit on the list or get its own line is so extremely subjective Subjective? Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings. Even TY, the guy which is probably the most succesfull terran ATM plays the TvP full turtle. And "you don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options"? Really? Have you watched any pro stream recently? The adept drops are omnipresent, and very effective. Disruptor drops with speed prism too. Anything I listed actually. "Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran" => be my guest. Really. List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games). Just as a precision, this has nothing to do with balance. The liberator is more broken than the warhound was, which makes many TvP fights hilarious because you're just not allowed to walk into liberator fire. Ever. The aim here is to show how assymetrical balance at different moments of the game is terrible (leading to turtling/ultra defensive play) On March 10 2016 14:10 seemsgood wrote: Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice. Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race. How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut? Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke. "Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice" => agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit". "Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race." => makes no sense whatsoever "How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship? "Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke" => Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
On March 09 2016 22:34 Big J wrote: Wasn't it obvious that the community updates weren't meant as sudden change in policy and community participation, but rather as a feel-good move that shows they care? If we could evaluate the number of community suggestions that made it through the community updates to be considered that weren't already considered by blizzard I think we would find a pretty circular number on the other side. Let me give a few examples of things that were showcased by blizzard as community suggestions: individual overlord drops: the obvious solution to buff zerg drops without overpowering mass overlord drops. That one, or make overseers the dropship. Tank unsiege when loaded up: wasn't that originally a blizzard suggestion "if tank drops were to be too strong" that wasn't tested in the beta and now gets thrown around as if the community came up with it. Adept damage -1: sure, we came up with it. It's not like, you know, blizzard gave the adept 10(+13 vs light) for the exact purpose of two-shoting SCVs and marines. Nono, that just happened to happen.  I mean, we are talking about some of the best paid and most prestigeous jobs in game design in the whole world. The feedback threads are there to create a resonance, to lead the discussion of the game and prevent negativity and to sell us their ideas as our own. They are not there to fundamentally change the game. They have proven they could do that through betas and expansions. The only reason they don't is that they don't want to. (that still means I like the feedback threads as a source of acquiring knowledge and insights) In recent months I've occasionally suspected Blizzard of almost outsourcing the development of the game by posing questions and then testing popular suggestions posted on reddit. I forgot about some other changes, but they include most of the ones you mentioned. I think that it might be that they are loathe to do anything radical which is not widely popular and supported on reddit, so they wait for popular suggestions as a pretext to changing the game in ways they want to. The process of selecting, arranging or editing other people's ideas leaves plenty of room to push the game towards a certain direction anyhow. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20326 Posts
List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games). If that's the standard of evidence you're using, i'd like to see the multiple pro games of the 1 base all ins w/ DT rush, inbase robo and inbase stargate PvT. I don't think i've seen any of those even once in 700 games of Legacy, success or fail. If you're counting them like that (and listing each unit drop as a seperate strategy) then you can write a dozen ways for terran to be aggressive on 1 cc in about 20 seconds and have it be just as solid as your list. Whereas toss... - - - - - - - 1 base allins (robo allin, SG allin, DT rush, proxy stargate, etc etc etc) This is exactly what i'm talking about, you're judging your own races capabilites far more harshly than that of other races because you have a better understanding of the drawbacks of different styles from your own race than you do of others | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16061 Posts
On March 10 2016 19:04 Cyro wrote: If that's the standard of evidence you're using, i'd like to see the multiple pro games of the 1 base all ins w/ DT rush, inbase robo and inbase stargate PvT. I don't think i've seen any of those even once in 700 games of Legacy, success or fail. This is exactly what i'm talking about, you're judging your own races capabilites far more harshly than that of other races because you have a better understanding of the drawbacks of different styles from your own race than you do of others I don't know if you are serious but from watching progames it's clear that protoss has far FAR more options then terran. You don't even have to make a list to notice that. but I think it's already far better than in HotS where all terran could do was 3 rax or widowmine drop. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20326 Posts
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seemsgood
5527 Posts
On March 10 2016 18:50 JackONeill wrote: Subjective? Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings. Even TY, the guy which is probably the most succesfull terran ATM plays the TvP full turtle. And "you don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options"? Really? Have you watched any pro stream recently? The adept drops are omnipresent, and very effective. Disruptor drops with speed prism too. Anything I listed actually. "Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran" => be my guest. Really. List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games). Just as a precision, this has nothing to do with balance. The liberator is more broken than the warhound was, which makes many TvP fights hilarious because you're just not allowed to walk into liberator fire. Ever. The aim here is to show how assymetrical balance at different moments of the game is terrible (leading to turtling/ultra defensive play) "Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice" => agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit". "Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race." => makes no sense whatsoever "How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship? "Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke" => Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP "agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit"." -If you call all in include aggressive then assymetrical balance does nothing here. "makes no sense whatsoever" -Thank for your helpful and insight feedback! "how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship??" Does it relate to assymetrical balance ? " Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP" Sr for call it hellbat I won't quote you again if you keep being ignorance like that. | ||
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PinoKotsBeer
Netherlands1385 Posts
On March 10 2016 18:50 JackONeill wrote: "How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship? Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
On March 10 2016 19:52 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D tbh it would be nice if siege tank had immunity from that. similarly, if you could not adbuct sieged tanks. not for gameplay reasons, but just cuz of the laws of physics. so it would make a lot of sense for players and it would not be a very difficult exception to remember, and it makes the game more realistic | ||
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Extenz
Italy822 Posts
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