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I think one of the options in Starcraft 2 should be to enable Casting different abilities through control groups, ie, remove the need to Tab through different unit types.
Right now, if you have sentries, templar - you need to press G for shield, F for forcefield, Tab T for storm.
After, you could have both selected and press G for guardian shield, T for storm and F for forcefield.
This would ease up the micro (and probably one of the most frustrating aspects of army control) from all Races (Stim, Snipe, Emp, Siege mode) and enable players to finally use the races to more potential.
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Just read that JDG is quitting the game and returning back to BW because he feels SC2 isn't fun.
I admit i didn't have the courage to read your whole post LSN, but browsing through it rapidly i noticed some points that are similar to what i've been saying about SC2 for a while now. However, the OP vs OP dynamic is pretty specific to LOTV, i feel. However, right now it's pretty obvious that terran is forced into liberators in TvP with bio support that only serves the purpose to run after harass, for instance.
About the risk/reward thing i remember i was complaining in wol that everything protoss did was a gamble. Play macro, gamble, play agressive, gamble. Because if you went for drop DTs and failed, you were gonna die to the terran counter attack. Blizzard's way of fixing it was to give PO to protoss, and making investments such as DT shrines less costly. But without removing some of the DTs strength. Therefore DTs drop have a potential to end games, and even if you don't, you're fine.
That's not specific to protoss. In WOL, each form of harass was an investment, and a (most of the times) manageable risk. Cloack was 200/200, d'y'all remember? You had to research siege for tanks, therefore if you went for too much hellion harass and didn't switch in time, boom, punished. Muta health is a good exemple. Taking a thor volley on your muta stack was a fucking stab to the testicules in WOL. It significatively gave space to the terran. Also, and because worker harass is SO COOL, the weakening of macro mechs also increase the harass' efficiency. If you don't risk much by harassing and each time you kill a worker you hit the jackpot, why not harass all the time, with the best option you have, and without any sort of strategic thinking?
In LOTV, there's no way to create yourself space from harass options that are basically riskless unless you fuck up. Disruptor drop TvP openings and tankivac TvZ openings are good exemple.
As a terran, I hate the state of the game right now. I'm forced into one single style, and even though i played mech only 15% of my games at most in WOL, it pains me to see every single SP/Facto unit be bio support. And as i've said many times in the past, there's absolutely no way blizzard make all those units viable for terran alongside bio. However i don't see DK doing anything about it, he's managing the community's expectations by doing stale and pointless changes. Again, i'm gonna blab about terran, but once we see only tankivacs and liberators win games 1k times, everyone's gonna be bored with terran.
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Very nice post Jack.
The game is no fun mostly. I can be fun for some time ofc.
When ppl ask me about SC2 I have to tell them that they are better off with their time with just playing some CS:GO or mobas and you need a very high frustration threshold for SC2 - even tho it is way easier than BW.
If the game was fun, why would players like grubby, hasuobs, all the koreans and many more turn their back to it and play other games on their streams?
I myself haven't had the motivation to play my bonus pool to zero in any season within 5 years of time. Not a single time. When I play the game for some weeks I need 4x as time break after.
When I watch TakeTV I see Naruto being frustrated about the game all the way. He even talks about playing CS:GO. When I watch nate playing on stream, he is so much frustrated about the game that he cant even hold it back (and I honestly watched about 30-60 minutes of him max in total). When I see big tournament casts I see that casters for their own and the games benefit hold back with their true opinions.
Guys, I don't care if you like me or hate me. Also there is no other game to ever come close to SC/SC2 RTS. We got one chance to have a decently playable RTS for the next couple of years, and that is that blizzard gets these things right.
We might want to forget about all the balance hatred here in forums and help together to make SC2 the game it should and very well could be.
One problem about this however is that there are too many voices for DK & Blizzard, I assume and I know. One issue there is, is that every kid of age 18 who reached GM by training how to be the most abusive in ladders values their own opinion higher than anyone else. Another issue is that korean pro feedback might be race biased as well. Ppl. who earn money with playing SC2 or plan to do so have a legitimate reason to talk for their own race and where they put time and effort in.
These things are obstacles for DK and Blizzard to have good decisionmaking. They want to satisfy everyone. However they can't. They don't know which voices to listen to.
Now that is something that we as a community have to get under control first. Best players not necessarily or even not at all make best game designers. I know that huge parts of the community believe this tho.
Life is a matter of focus and priorities. I believe that someone who has picked his focus to be to become the best player on earth cannot at the same time be the best game designer on earth, because it required a shift in priorities which the individual has obviously chosen not to do.
Of course there are exceptions and multitalents but these will be the rarities, and I don't want to blame anyone. However Broodwar wasn't designed by progamers. From what I know mapmakers who many ppl rightfully claim to have balanced broodwar were not the top notch players but ppl. who tried to figure out every single detail about what is important for mapping and focused mainly on that.
I am trying to be constructive here and figure out sources of failure first as any common business would do that. And with that much amount of failure that has found its way into SC2 after broodwar was the perfect way, I think it is a good idea to do that first.
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A lot of the people remaining and defending SC2 hardcore are ones that did not play BW and legitemily do not know any better. I know it sounds arrogant but it is what it is. If you discovered Starcraft through SC2, you are going to form an emotional attachment to it and we go in "emotional" mode when we defend something we have feelings for.
For me, the first Total War game i ever played was Empire. A game that 100% of the existing community disliked. But to me, it was amazing. There i had my first Total War experience and i didn't know how much better it could be.
It's worth bearing in mind that both Browder and DK had to fallow one of the biggest geniuses of game design in Rob Pardo at one of the most prestigious game developers ever, for a game that defined RTS for a long time. It wasn't difficult to fail at meeting expectations let alone improve on the original. What was bad IMO was that for most of SC2s history they did not work with the community to incrementally improve the game. Now is to late IMO.
And i will never understand why Blizzard decided to keep the man that created the best RTS games ever in BW and WC3 away from such a big project like SC2. Wow made a lot of money sure, but where would SC2 be now if it were made by Pardo? Lucky for WoW fans and unlucky for SC2 fans.
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Actually I've built a lot of affection for SCII during WOL. I still go play the WOL ladder and i'm having a blast, because despite some amount of flaws, the good designed stuff outshined the bad one. Every single unit added to SCII after WOL has terrible design. Naturally i've also built up so much dissapointment : remember the teasers for HOTS? Oracles building forcefields on mineral lines instead of being a dumb banshee on steroids. Even the warhound's design was one of a mech unit that could chase and answer to multi proned attacks.
I'd like the pros to assume a more active role in game design. When Sea said he performed because adepts were so broken, DK went into direct submission and adepts got nerfed. Asking the pro's opinion on game design is possible, but talking about balance is impossible i guess, because they live of their race's strength. But the main split between DK and the community is that DK/blizzard consider the game is finished, and simply needs balance tweaking/metagame fixes, while the community is still waiting for the big design changes promised during the lotv beta.
And last : about LOTV's fun. Fun has a lot to do with frustration. And where we've somewhat talked about the risk/reward issues of LOTV, there's also the counterplay issue, which is something i'm bitching about since the lotv beta. Frustration comes a lot from the feeling that you can't do anything about something. Sure, it's got something to do with risk/reward : when you get DT rushed, and the guy kills you, you leave. Log into another game, get DT rushed again, you manage to defend with few losses, try to counter... You can't. You may take an advantage, but if the guy doesn't suicide units you can't punish him hard. The guy had the potential to end the game with a strat you can't punish if you counter well. And this idea of lack of counterplay is fucking EVERYWHERE in LOTV. I often take protoss as an exemple, but terran has a lot of shit like that. Liberator finding the "sweet" spot where he can deny a mineral line. As a toss you feel helpless if you didn't go for SG. Mine drops killing 10 probes, you feel helpless. As a zerg, you go hatch => speed => 3rd hatch on a macro map. Terran comes with a tankivac : you have NO WAY to shut it down. You can only manage the losses. And that's incredibly frustrating. And it also influences watching streams : when you got abused by invulnerable adept shades in your mineral lines on the ladder, and see masa loose a game to showtime's adept drop allin, you don't enjoy what you see. I'm not having fun seeing iaguz abuse liberators and deny protosses mineral lines. I don't go "woooo what a play" when i see a liberator helplessly die to 3 biles.
I think the thing that embodies the most both the points i'm trying to make is the 1g expo => SG with an oracle in PvT. Protoss has the potential to kill 13 scvs with this unit, aka finish the game. It needs a perticular counter from the terran player. The risk is absent, because you can't loose the oracle, unless you get reckless and move over a mine. Reward wise, you can finish the game straight up... or you can have a perpetual scout of the terran army with envision, that allows no counterplay whatsoever. So the oracle's envision embodies both this failing risk/reward relation, AND the lack of terran counterplay who can merely "manage the losses" (being perma envisioned is a loss in itself) I'm taking protoss as an exemple again, but terran's tankivac in tvz works the same way. Also, terran right now has much more of a problem with the liberator being OP as balls.
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On May 16 2016 21:48 JackONeill wrote: In LOTV, there's no way to create yourself space from harass options that are basically riskless unless you fuck up. Disruptor drop TvP openings and tankivac TvZ openings are good exemple. I wish zerg had some way of punishing harassment units. Terran has widow mines and protoss can open phoenix and run down those super-fast, super-annoying units. The closest thing zerg has is mutalisk (fast because it's a harass unit and only harass units are allowed to be fast) but rushing mutalisks is pretty risky and bad, especially if it's phoenix or liberators.
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On May 16 2016 23:18 JackONeill wrote: And last : about LOTV's fun. Fun has a lot to do with frustration. And where we've somewhat talked about the risk/reward issues of LOTV, there's also the counterplay issue, which is something i'm bitching about since the lotv beta. Frustration comes a lot from the feeling that you can't do anything about something. Sure, it's got something to do with risk/reward : when you get DT rushed, and the guy kills you, you leave. Log into another game, get DT rushed again, you manage to defend with few losses, try to counter... You can't. You may take an advantage, but if the guy doesn't suicide units you can't punish him hard. The guy had the potential to end the game with a strat you can't punish if you counter well. And this idea of lack of counterplay is fucking EVERYWHERE in LOTV. I often take protoss as an exemple, but terran has a lot of shit like that. Liberator finding the "sweet" spot where he can deny a mineral line. As a toss you feel helpless if you didn't go for SG. Mine drops killing 10 probes, you feel helpless. As a zerg, you go hatch => speed => 3rd hatch on a macro map. Terran comes with a tankivac : you have NO WAY to shut it down. You can only manage the losses. And that's incredibly frustrating.
You just described 3 light harass options. All 3 of these strategies are designed to put on some light harass while transitioning into the rest of the game. None are all ins or expose you to serious counters and likewise, none require a huge investment from the opponent to minimize damage.
TvZ tankivacs are handled well with queens and a few lings and good map awareness and positioning.
Liberators are dealt with by pylons or queens. Range liberators are a larger investment that's dealt with by corruptors or a stargate (larger investment in fusion core + range upgrade = larger investment to defend).
TvP mine drops are dealt with by moving your probes away when terran flies in.
And my final point will be that Starcraft has never been a game of just build X unit to counter Y unit and wait patiently for X unit to win cleanly with no control. There is always some element of control. This is what makes Starcraft a good game.
Sure these attacks can potentially do a lot of damage if handled poorly, but your scouting, preparation, and control create your ability to get an advantage and are often what define you as a good player or not. If devastating damage arises from light harass, then you have only yourself as the defender to blame. It is not a fault with the game and is only frustrating if you allow it to be frustrating. It should be a learning experience.
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Polt got raped by nerchio! when are blizzard gonna buff terran?
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no balance patch in 3 months and counting, a meaningful redesign of LOTV bullshit for more than 6? I don't understand how anybody could work this slowly.
All you need, is a oerson with a functioning brain, 2 days tops, and access to the internet and prior knowledge of the game and you should be able to at least make a patch that changes SOMETHING for the better.
There's so much shit that just plain doesn't have any place in sc2 like parasitic bomb, mass air being so dominant for all 3 races, tankevac, immortal being tanky AND high damage, warp prism... so much BS ravagers... and WTF tankevacs? MOBILE SIEGE UNIT?! blizz pls stop
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Czech Republic12128 Posts
On May 17 2016 00:03 Therapist. wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2016 23:18 JackONeill wrote: And last : about LOTV's fun. Fun has a lot to do with frustration. And where we've somewhat talked about the risk/reward issues of LOTV, there's also the counterplay issue, which is something i'm bitching about since the lotv beta. Frustration comes a lot from the feeling that you can't do anything about something. Sure, it's got something to do with risk/reward : when you get DT rushed, and the guy kills you, you leave. Log into another game, get DT rushed again, you manage to defend with few losses, try to counter... You can't. You may take an advantage, but if the guy doesn't suicide units you can't punish him hard. The guy had the potential to end the game with a strat you can't punish if you counter well. And this idea of lack of counterplay is fucking EVERYWHERE in LOTV. I often take protoss as an exemple, but terran has a lot of shit like that. Liberator finding the "sweet" spot where he can deny a mineral line. As a toss you feel helpless if you didn't go for SG. Mine drops killing 10 probes, you feel helpless. As a zerg, you go hatch => speed => 3rd hatch on a macro map. Terran comes with a tankivac : you have NO WAY to shut it down. You can only manage the losses. And that's incredibly frustrating. You just described 3 light harass options. All 3 of these strategies are designed to put on some light harass while transitioning into the rest of the game. None are all ins or expose you to serious counters and likewise, none require a huge investment from the opponent to minimize damage. TvZ tankivacs are handled well with queens and a few lings and good map awareness and positioning. Liberators are dealt with by pylons or queens. Range liberators are a larger investment that's dealt with by corruptors or a stargate (larger investment in fusion core + range upgrade = larger investment to defend). TvP mine drops are dealt with by moving your probes away when terran flies in. And my final point will be that Starcraft has never been a game of just build X unit to counter Y unit and wait patiently for X unit to win cleanly with no control. There is always some element of control. This is what makes Starcraft a good game. Sure these attacks can potentially do a lot of damage if handled poorly, but your scouting, preparation, and control create your ability to get an advantage and are often what define you as a good player or not. If devastating damage arises from light harass, then you have only yourself as the defender to blame. It is not a fault with the game and is only frustrating if you allow it to be frustrating. It should be a learning experience. This "just get good" is getting annoying for me too much so I cannot resist...
I don't have the time to learn from my mistakes. I want to log in, play few games, enjoy the fun. Losing to a single moment in a game is frustrating to me, because I invested my energy and my FREE TIME into something that was lost in a single moment of "oops, you just lost the game". I don't like losing. I know I cannot win all the time. But the hell I feel better when I lose after a fight instead of "you didn't know the oracle can be here so fast, right?" ><
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I think the problem is that all those plays mentioned (tvz tankivac etc.) Require more attention and control on the defenders side. Of course, once certain level of skill is reached that is no longer a problem, but before that it is just frustrating and unfair.
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I think the problem is that all those plays mentioned (tvz tankivac etc.) Require more attention and control on the defenders side. Of course, once certain level of skill is reached that is no longer a problem, but before that it is just frustrating and unfair.
defending tankevacs takes way less attention on the defenders side, its not even close, but its irrelevant because its so effective. its just a stupid idea in general, it ruins tvt completely and is a bandaid to ravagers + marauder nerf.
mobile siege units why blizzard why. can't imagine whats next, phoenix speed tempests? "we felt that tempests could use some sick repositioning micro tricks so we made them faster herp derp im blizzard"
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On May 17 2016 01:11 SwiftCrane wrote:Show nested quote +I think the problem is that all those plays mentioned (tvz tankivac etc.) Require more attention and control on the defenders side. Of course, once certain level of skill is reached that is no longer a problem, but before that it is just frustrating and unfair. mobile siege units why blizzard why. can't imagine whats next, phoenix speed tempests? "we felt that tempests could use some sick repositioning micro tricks so we made them faster herp derp im blizzard" actually that was in the beta. Not quite phoenix speed but pretty fast.
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On May 17 2016 00:51 Nazara wrote: I think the problem is that all those plays mentioned (tvz tankivac etc.) Require more attention and control on the defenders side. Of course, once certain level of skill is reached that is no longer a problem, but before that it is just frustrating and unfair.
It if required more attention and control on the attackers, no one would attack in higher levels of play, just like it was towards the end of WoL where the games that did not involve some kind of 2 base all in basically consisted in a never-ending eye-staring contest from both players.
Likewise, units being too easily "countered" (someone spoke about DTs) make them not being used at all in any form of solid play, which occurs quite fast a few months after a game/patch release when everything has been figured out.
"Ooops I looked away, I lost!" => this occured many times in WoL/HotS, you just did not know about it before making the armies clash because the macro perfection required is less visual than the current harass in LotV, but lack of knowledge about things never made them less real. At least in LotV you can watch streams without falling asleep, which is a plus.
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On May 17 2016 01:11 SwiftCrane wrote: mobile siege units why blizzard why. can't imagine whats next
I predict flying planetary fortresses, along with boosted Missile turret drops.
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On May 16 2016 20:10 LSN wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2016 20:01 Tyrhanius wrote: You're arrogant and act like only you understand the game while you only have superficial game knowledge.
You say things based on your opinion like they are admitted facts while it's just some bias ideas.
Now you're martyring yoursef rather that argue with facts, use persuasion :authority argument ("i've host games some i'm right), or discredit me with condescendant :he must be too young ("i'm superior, so i'm right).
You're using exactly the speech of the people who want to manipulate the truth for their own benefit and not the speech of someone impartial and open minded that just want to say the truth.
When WOL was new, these problems I describe where initially recognized by alot of ppl who played broodwar. But it took almost no time that everybody accepted this as that what blizzards wants and stopped questioning it. I am sorry to say that a certain arrogance is required to deal with people like you who are arrogant themselves. You wont make me feel bad about it. ;-) Read what I edited into the post above. Watch nerchio vs. polt. It is imbalance vs. imbalance. It is who abuses his op mechanics more than the other - only. It might be fun to watch for some time but it is in no way fun to play and maximum frustrating. This causes all the hate see here in the forums. I can't bring more evidence to my arguments than what reality provides me. SC2 is in a very bad spot design and balance vs. design wise and the more DK goes into this direction the more difficult it gets to balance this game by design and metagame. Basically in every ladder game I play ppl. claim balance and are highly frustrated. I am sometimes myself. Almost everyone else I know who cares does. When I talk about balance, I stopped looking at winrates, I only look at game mechanics. Cause when TvZ has a 50/50 winrate and terran wins 100% of all-ins but loses 100% of macrogames and lets assume both are equally played as often then we get a 50/50 winrate where ppl. assume it is 100% balanced. It is not. And this is one of the major problems we have here in TL forums when discussing it. As ppl still come up with aligulac and all the other things and base their arguments on it take my approach to psuh the balance and design discussion to another more reasonable level. You have to admit that something is wrong at least, don't you? If you don't like my approach, which makes sense overall and gives reason for all that, then come up with your own. I might be wrong on certain details as everyone is here and then but I am pretty sure that what I came up with overall explains the status of SC2 - with an experience of 20 years in my back, which is nothing I am ashamed of telling you. The thing is each one having OP stuff is kind of asymetric balance. The balance is better than during WOL/HOTS.
WOL/HOTS were too often : "who plays the OP race of the moment". Early Wol, terran was OP with bunker rush, really fast stim, very strong tank on tiny maps. Then nerf, hellions/banshee reck Z until Z got queen range buff, and then it becomes broodlords/infestor area.
On HOTS, Terran OP again with hellbat drop, until they nerf, still OP with WM rally build. Then WM gets nerf too hard, and Zerg got favored (+overseer speed buff). Until they nerfed SH, and terran mech become OP.
SC2 have always been frustrated for some aspect, but at least now, you don't have to wait the next patch to expect winning games, just to change your play and abuse of some strength of your race.
LOTV is much more strategic than WOL/HOTS were. You don't spam the same build order, do good micro/mecanism, and 100% win (wasn't really the case on WOL/HOTS, but it's more true on LOTV). And for me, it's the reason why MVP/life were so sucessful on SC2, while Flash/Jaedong weren't.
You take a risk, or play safe, it will pay or not. It makes LOTV much more versatile, and now every progamer can loose a game vs anybody, just because they do the wrong choice, while "their mecanism were on point".
It's not the best player who win, but the one who does the right choice at the right time.
It could be really frustrated to lose, while you'r a good player, but did a wrong choice, and get crushed and humiliated, but honestly, it's exactly how life (not the player ^^) works.
SC2 is kind of weird game, you don't play it to relax, but you want big challenge, and SC2 is exactly that : a game you can't never truly master, or passionate love that will end bad anyway.
The only big regret of LOTV is they nearly kill LBM vs 4M on ZvT which was so good to watch, and even better to play, for this: survive drop with only ground unit, until hive/ultras, and try to kill Terran before it gets mass liberator/ghost.
I'm mad of "community" that ask for "macro change" resulting -25% larvas nerf, and addition of a muta hard counter while the MU was near perfect.
But Overfall, LOTV is better than WOL/HOTS.
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On May 16 2016 20:10 LSN wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2016 20:01 Tyrhanius wrote: You're arrogant and act like only you understand the game while you only have superficial game knowledge.
You say things based on your opinion like they are admitted facts while it's just some bias ideas.
Now you're martyring yoursef rather that argue with facts, use persuasion :authority argument ("i've host games some i'm right), or discredit me with condescendant :he must be too young ("i'm superior, so i'm right).
You're using exactly the speech of the people who want to manipulate the truth for their own benefit and not the speech of someone impartial and open minded that just want to say the truth.
When WOL was new, these problems I describe where initially recognized by alot of ppl who played broodwar. But it took almost no time that everybody accepted this as that what blizzards wants and stopped questioning it. That is not true. For most of WoLs time there were a lot of threads and blogs, some of them very, very thorough. Even during HOTS.
The problem was, no one was listening, and eventually people just gave up and left. It was hoped that HOTS might be the saving grace, but after an initial returning of players and spectators it became obvious that none of the major complains were addressed and people left again. By the time of LOTV it was late IMO, especially since there are still things that are not addressed.
So people did have a lot of patience and some put in a lot of effort to explain. But you can only keep hope for so long especially since there were other developers and esports out there that had a different attitude let's say. Even so, you have players like Flash that play the "old" game and gets more views then major tournaments of SC2. So it's not a RTS in general problem, it's a SC2 problem.
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On May 17 2016 00:29 SwiftCrane wrote: no balance patch in 3 months and counting, a meaningful redesign of LOTV bullshit for more than 6? I don't understand how anybody could work this slowly.
All you need, is a oerson with a functioning brain, 2 days tops, and access to the internet and prior knowledge of the game and you should be able to at least make a patch that changes SOMETHING for the better.
There's so much shit that just plain doesn't have any place in sc2 like parasitic bomb, mass air being so dominant for all 3 races, tankevac, immortal being tanky AND high damage, warp prism... so much BS ravagers... and WTF tankevacs? MOBILE SIEGE UNIT?! blizz pls stop
Uh because the metagame barely started to settle probably a month ago? Starcraft has a delicate metagame, this isn't a MOBA.
The only thing you stated that isn't senseless crying is how powerful mass air is, and then you turn around and say Parasitic Bomb (the one singular tool Zerg has to fight against Mass air because Infestors are never getting buffed) has no place in the game lol
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On May 17 2016 03:47 Beelzebub1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2016 00:29 SwiftCrane wrote: no balance patch in 3 months and counting, a meaningful redesign of LOTV bullshit for more than 6? I don't understand how anybody could work this slowly.
All you need, is a oerson with a functioning brain, 2 days tops, and access to the internet and prior knowledge of the game and you should be able to at least make a patch that changes SOMETHING for the better.
There's so much shit that just plain doesn't have any place in sc2 like parasitic bomb, mass air being so dominant for all 3 races, tankevac, immortal being tanky AND high damage, warp prism... so much BS ravagers... and WTF tankevacs? MOBILE SIEGE UNIT?! blizz pls stop Uh because the metagame barely started to settle probably a month ago? Starcraft has a delicate metagame, this isn't a MOBA. The only thing you stated that isn't senseless crying is how powerful mass air is, and then you turn around and say Parasitic Bomb (the one singular tool Zerg has to fight against Mass air because Infestors are never getting buffed) has no place in the game lol parasitic bomb may discourage other races from going air but it makes the zerg air deathball far stronger and because broodlords can only be fought with air units the other player is forced to mass air regardless. So parasitic bomb promotes mass air deathballs instead of discouraging it.
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