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On October 24 2016 12:30 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2016 12:05 The_Red_Viper wrote:On October 24 2016 11:26 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On October 24 2016 09:20 The_Red_Viper wrote:On October 24 2016 08:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On October 24 2016 06:05 The_Red_Viper wrote:Our main goal for StarCraft 2 is to create the best game of its type that it can ever be No it is not, if it were you would have tested a lot of stuff the community wanted to try out. You want the game pace to be slower? Then change how the economy works. they did everything they could within the budget allotted the game. very few RTS games get as long as a multiplayer beta as LotV had. i'm happy with how they sped up the economy and the pace of the game. i prefer more "fast and fluid" C&C style game play. WIth guys like Tim Morten, Greg Black, and Dustin Browder its no surprise that SC2 eventually took a turn towards the C&C style of RTS. We get lots and lots of testing and tuning that other RTS games can only dream of. this puppy only sold a million copies at $40 each. we are getting absolutely incredible support considering the revenue BLizzard is getting from the game. Compare it to CoH2 where it was $60 for 2 factions and 1 matchup; they absolutely bled every last nickel they could out of the multiplayer community by charging another $15 for the 3rd faction. CoH2 has sold around 2 million copies. right beside the quote of DK that you highlighted it mentions that sales are not their #1 priority. Blizzard is investing in the SC IP/franchise in order to keep the brand/franchise strong so that can make an SC game in another genre. Blizzard thinks loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong term. we're pretty lucky, as RTS fans, to get this kind of investment into the genre. no other RTS franchise gets it. I really don't care about this angle at all, you repeat the same stuff all the time and there surely is truth to it. Still, the comments i quoted are beyond ridiculous. It's not (only) about the support they do, it's about the quality of it. Sure, we get weekly udates, we get patches, etc. All that stuff is amazing. But the end result is not that good, you can talk about your numbers all you want, at the end of the day i am reading these updates with ideas for the future, with phrases which claim they wanna have the "best sc2 possible" and i ask myself: "what happened in the past few years?" There was tons of feedback, dozens of well written articles about certain design choices, etc. Now they wanna have "specific feedback" ? Really? It was there all these years for things they apparently have problems with right now, for me this is a joke, a bad one. But yeah, pls tell me again that it's the only successful rts game in the past x years, pretty irrelevant to the discussion at hand though. The name alone sells the product at this point, it's blizzard and not some no name company. Most people don't even care about multiplayer at all, we do though. We discuss these things. The tons of feedback that the community generates is a mountain of generalities, flawed ideas, and terrible suggestions. Your "dozens of well written articles" exist only through statistical inevitability due to the shear volume of ideas the community has. If Blizzard's request for "specific feedback" is a joke, your comment is the punchline. I am not talking about the random guy posting his "solution to the problems". I am talking about stuff which was discussed over the years, where the problems of sc2 lie, how to fix them. I am talking about articles written about micro, economy, pathing, defenders advantage, pacing of the game, etc. A lot of great feedback, a lot of specific feedback. Blizzard always more or less ignored it, chose to use a different solution to a problem. Now we have stuff like photon overcharge in the game. One of the worst game mechanics in sc2 ever. Ask people here on TL, hardcore sc2 fans what they think about matchup quality comparisons hots -> lotv. Most people will probably say that the matchups got worse to spectate and worse to play as well. Are my comments overly negative? Maybe. But i simply get angry when it read the statements i quoted in my first post in this thread, it IS simply absurd. I'm not nearly as convinced as you that all that was written in these articles about economy, pathing, and pacing are relevant and helpful in practice, but let's assume. Let's assume that all this feedback given to Blizzard was written by well-meaning, thoughtful, intelligent people who considered the problems in depth and have a deep understanding of game design. Let's assume moreover that Blizzard's balance team has read and considered all this feedback, and that it hasn't either been lost in the inchoate masses of poor advice, or simply not passed on by community managers. If Blizzard followed that advice it still wouldn't make for a good game. The proverb that "Too many captains will sink the ship" applies here. All the feedback given by the community doesn't result in a holistic game if you will. The solutions provided by one person clash with that of another. LaLush's ideas about what Starcraft's economic model should be to prevent stalemates aren't entirely compatible with what Zeromus suggested LotV's economic model should be, or Uvantak's ideas about worker pairing. Those ideas are probably reconcilable, but someone with the skill and understanding to reconcile them would no doubt have their own different ideas on what the game should be. Certainly there is much room to be critical of Blizzard's decisions, but always following community advice (even good community advice) does not result in a good game. The community does much better as a barometer for problems than a compass for solving them.
Obviously you cannot take everything 1:1 and be done with it, that is the part an actually skilled game designer comes in and makes it work though. A lot of these articles, videos, etc talk about general things, things even blizzard agreed on doing (more action, less deathballs, more bases all over the map, more micro opportunity, yada yada yada).
Ofc you cannot take everything the community wrote, throw it in and hope for the best. You take it as inspiration, think about the general concept (do we want an economy which gives the player the choice of expanding and gaining an advantage that way, or do we want to force players to expand because minerals run out faster). Then you choose an implementation, something which creates the least concerning new problems.
Do we want the defender to have an advantage? Can there be warpgates in the game if we really want that as a core concept? Do we maybe need high ground advantage of some sorts?
More micro opprtunity as a goal? Do we just add spells after spells and call it a day, or do we focus on unit movement, positioning relative to other units, etc. Do we think unit interactions at a certain supply count get worse? (deathball) Why?
Is it maybe really the pathing which allows this to happen in that form?
It is easy to say that blizzards knows best, just as easy as me saying the community wrote good stuff about all these topics.
At least my pov has actual evidence you can read for yourself, decide if the general goals make sense, if even the implementation might be good and then discuss it with other members which are interested in this part of sc2, the design.
If you "trust blizzard because they are so experienced" you appeal to authority, you appeal to authority in a field which isn't even clear cut at all, this is no science, there is no 100% right or wrong. Which makes discussing these things so important.
Which makes trying it out so important. So no i don't just trust blizzard that different pathing wouldn't do much for the game, we never even saw the actual implementation of that pathing iirc.
It took blizzard years to actually give zerg something to deal with forcefields and you guys want to tell me they simply know best? Really?
But yeah this is beating a dead horse, whatever i try to not care anymore. That should be the best solution.
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On October 24 2016 12:56 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2016 12:30 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On October 24 2016 12:05 The_Red_Viper wrote:On October 24 2016 11:26 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On October 24 2016 09:20 The_Red_Viper wrote:On October 24 2016 08:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On October 24 2016 06:05 The_Red_Viper wrote:Our main goal for StarCraft 2 is to create the best game of its type that it can ever be No it is not, if it were you would have tested a lot of stuff the community wanted to try out. You want the game pace to be slower? Then change how the economy works. they did everything they could within the budget allotted the game. very few RTS games get as long as a multiplayer beta as LotV had. i'm happy with how they sped up the economy and the pace of the game. i prefer more "fast and fluid" C&C style game play. WIth guys like Tim Morten, Greg Black, and Dustin Browder its no surprise that SC2 eventually took a turn towards the C&C style of RTS. We get lots and lots of testing and tuning that other RTS games can only dream of. this puppy only sold a million copies at $40 each. we are getting absolutely incredible support considering the revenue BLizzard is getting from the game. Compare it to CoH2 where it was $60 for 2 factions and 1 matchup; they absolutely bled every last nickel they could out of the multiplayer community by charging another $15 for the 3rd faction. CoH2 has sold around 2 million copies. right beside the quote of DK that you highlighted it mentions that sales are not their #1 priority. Blizzard is investing in the SC IP/franchise in order to keep the brand/franchise strong so that can make an SC game in another genre. Blizzard thinks loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong term. we're pretty lucky, as RTS fans, to get this kind of investment into the genre. no other RTS franchise gets it. I really don't care about this angle at all, you repeat the same stuff all the time and there surely is truth to it. Still, the comments i quoted are beyond ridiculous. It's not (only) about the support they do, it's about the quality of it. Sure, we get weekly udates, we get patches, etc. All that stuff is amazing. But the end result is not that good, you can talk about your numbers all you want, at the end of the day i am reading these updates with ideas for the future, with phrases which claim they wanna have the "best sc2 possible" and i ask myself: "what happened in the past few years?" There was tons of feedback, dozens of well written articles about certain design choices, etc. Now they wanna have "specific feedback" ? Really? It was there all these years for things they apparently have problems with right now, for me this is a joke, a bad one. But yeah, pls tell me again that it's the only successful rts game in the past x years, pretty irrelevant to the discussion at hand though. The name alone sells the product at this point, it's blizzard and not some no name company. Most people don't even care about multiplayer at all, we do though. We discuss these things. The tons of feedback that the community generates is a mountain of generalities, flawed ideas, and terrible suggestions. Your "dozens of well written articles" exist only through statistical inevitability due to the shear volume of ideas the community has. If Blizzard's request for "specific feedback" is a joke, your comment is the punchline. I am not talking about the random guy posting his "solution to the problems". I am talking about stuff which was discussed over the years, where the problems of sc2 lie, how to fix them. I am talking about articles written about micro, economy, pathing, defenders advantage, pacing of the game, etc. A lot of great feedback, a lot of specific feedback. Blizzard always more or less ignored it, chose to use a different solution to a problem. Now we have stuff like photon overcharge in the game. One of the worst game mechanics in sc2 ever. Ask people here on TL, hardcore sc2 fans what they think about matchup quality comparisons hots -> lotv. Most people will probably say that the matchups got worse to spectate and worse to play as well. Are my comments overly negative? Maybe. But i simply get angry when it read the statements i quoted in my first post in this thread, it IS simply absurd. I'm not nearly as convinced as you that all that was written in these articles about economy, pathing, and pacing are relevant and helpful in practice, but let's assume. Let's assume that all this feedback given to Blizzard was written by well-meaning, thoughtful, intelligent people who considered the problems in depth and have a deep understanding of game design. Let's assume moreover that Blizzard's balance team has read and considered all this feedback, and that it hasn't either been lost in the inchoate masses of poor advice, or simply not passed on by community managers. If Blizzard followed that advice it still wouldn't make for a good game. The proverb that "Too many captains will sink the ship" applies here. All the feedback given by the community doesn't result in a holistic game if you will. The solutions provided by one person clash with that of another. LaLush's ideas about what Starcraft's economic model should be to prevent stalemates aren't entirely compatible with what Zeromus suggested LotV's economic model should be, or Uvantak's ideas about worker pairing. Those ideas are probably reconcilable, but someone with the skill and understanding to reconcile them would no doubt have their own different ideas on what the game should be. Certainly there is much room to be critical of Blizzard's decisions, but always following community advice (even good community advice) does not result in a good game. The community does much better as a barometer for problems than a compass for solving them. Obviously you cannot take everything 1:1 and be done with it, that is the part an actually skilled game designer comes in and makes it work though. A lot of these articles, videos, etc talk about general things, things even blizzard agreed on doing (more action, less deathballs, more bases all over the map, more micro opportunity, yada yada yada). Ofc you cannot take everything the community wrote, throw it in and hope for the best. You take it as inspiration, think about the general concept (do we want an economy which gives the player the choice of expanding and gaining an advantage that way, or do we want to force players to expand because minerals run out faster). Then you choose an implementation, something which creates the least concerning new problems. Do we want the defender to have an advantage? Can there be warpgates in the game if we really want that as a core concept? Do we maybe need high ground advantage of some sorts? More micro opprtunity as a goal? Do we just add spells after spells and call it a day, or do we focus on unit movement, positioning relative to other units, etc. Do we think unit interactions at a certain supply count get worse? (deathball) Why? Is it maybe really the pathing which allows this to happen in that form? It is easy to say that blizzards knows best, just as easy as me saying the community wrote good stuff about all these topics. At least my pov has actual evidence you can read for yourself, decide if the general goals make sense, if even the implementation might be good and then discuss it with other members which are interested in this part of sc2, the design. If you "trust blizzard because they are so experienced" you appeal to authority, you appeal to authority in a field which isn't even clear cut at all, this is no science, there is no 100% right or wrong. Which makes discussing these things so important. Which makes trying it out so important. So no i don't just trust blizzard that different pathing wouldn't do much for the game, we never even saw the actual implementation of that pathing iirc. It took blizzard years to actually give zerg something to deal with forcefields and you guys want to tell me they simply know best? Really? But yeah this is beating a dead horse, whatever i try to not care anymore. That should be the best solution.
When did I ever say that Blizzard knew best? My argument isn't anything close to that. I don't believe that Blizzard has done a great job with SCII for that matter.
My argument is that your position that following the community's advice would have given a better game are false. At the end of the day you disagree with the decisions Blizzard has made. Fine. But your suggestions for a better decision-making process aren't well reasoned.
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Blizzard does a decent job keeping SC2 around. I guess the bean-counters are already go haywire that the company keeps bnet 1.0 up and still invests Millions every year into a game that is almost not selling anymore.
Imagine Blizzard was EA. Theyd killed of sc2 in 2013.
If you look at the numbers, you get the impression of balance. If you look at the competitors for an RTS game, you find none.
zero, nada, niente.
Well there are other games, but none remotely like sc2.
So make the hardest 3D game in the world stick aroun for over half a decade, noone else is even trying.
To the multiplayer design, I'd like less fokus on harassment, more on strategy. LOTV is giving the attacker every advantage.
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On October 24 2016 15:03 KT_Elwood wrote:
Blizzard does a decent job keeping SC2 around. I guess the bean-counters are already go haywire that the company keeps bnet 1.0 up and still invests Millions every year into a game that is almost not selling anymore.
Imagine Blizzard was EA. Theyd killed of sc2 in 2013.
If you look at the numbers, you get the impression of balance. If you look at the competitors for an RTS game, you find none.
zero, nada, niente.
Well there are other games, but none remotely like sc2.
So make the hardest 3D game in the world stick aroun for over half a decade, noone else is even trying.
To the multiplayer design, I'd like less fokus on harassment, more on strategy. LOTV is giving the attacker every advantage.
I agree I'm so glad this game is still around with prologue closing I've been all sentimental. I hope sc2 manages to last because I don't see another rts on the horizon, the genre has had very few titles these past few years and none have been as good as sc2.
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For example, when being harassed by Mutalisks, I can stim pack and quickly chase them off.
Mutalisks are the best unit in the game for harassment. When unscouted it's almost instant GG, otherwise they force you to stay on base and invest a lot on turrets, which hurts your production and expand potential... at that point the zerg is free to take the whole map. If you make liberators, then your medevac count drops, and you can't abuse stim to chase the mutas. There is a reason they were called "the free win unit". I wonder how many times the guy that wrote this have played as terran.... Come on Blizzard.... Do you work on balance playing VS the CPU or what?? 
With Ultralisk armor, we can try the popular suggestion of increasing the base armor by 1 point and reducing the armor the upgrade provides by 2 points for a slight buff to the base unit
Is this for real? Ultralisk buff? Because how would the zerg win games if the game is balanced, right? This is ridiculous, Blizz pls...
Please remember that this is a group effort
So you want the community to balance the game now. Nice move. 
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On October 24 2016 15:03 KT_Elwood wrote:
zero, nada, niente
I bet you are very popular with the ladies.
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On October 24 2016 17:49 rqPlan wrote:Show nested quote +For example, when being harassed by Mutalisks, I can stim pack and quickly chase them off. Mutalisks are the best unit in the game for harassment. When unscouted it's almost instant GG, otherwise they force you to stay on base and invest a lot on turrets, which hurts your production and expand potential... at that point the zerg is free to take the whole map. If you make liberators, then your medevac count drops, and you can't abuse stim to chase the mutas. There is a reason they were called "the free win unit". I wonder how many times the guy that wrote this have played as terran.... Come on Blizzard.... Do you work on balance playing VS the CPU or what??
The hell are you even talking about? Free win unit? What?
On October 24 2016 17:49 rqPlan wrote:Show nested quote +
With Ultralisk armor, we can try the popular suggestion of increasing the base armor by 1 point and reducing the armor the upgrade provides by 2 points for a slight buff to the base unit
Is this for real? Ultralisk buff? Because how would the zerg win games if the game is balanced, right? This is ridiculous, Blizz pls...
It's a nerf to chitinous plating, at least try to finish reading the sentence you quoted.
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On October 24 2016 17:49 rqPlan wrote:Show nested quote +
With Ultralisk armor, we can try the popular suggestion of increasing the base armor by 1 point and reducing the armor the upgrade provides by 2 points for a slight buff to the base unit
Is this for real? Ultralisk buff? Because how would the zerg win games if the game is balanced, right? This is ridiculous, Blizz pls...
I recommend you to read the whole sentence.
Armor changed from 3+5 (=8) to 4+3 (=7)
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Say what you want, It's still a buff.
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What The_Red_Viper said is also why you can hardly speak of specific changes that are significant without them going hand in hand with other changes that lead to a coherent overall better design. It's very questionable that you'd want the community to talk about little details rather than what kind of vision they want for the game overall. Everything works with everything else in a game, even more so a RTS. So the first step is to think of a overall intent, and then pinpoint all the spots that you want to change in order to achieve it. If you have no overall intent and just think of specific changes, the game ends up inconsistent.
For example, if I discuss the warpgate problem. As we know it comes with much all-in potential in the beginning of the game, and as a result early P units need to be weak enough that something like PO is also needed. I would suggest moving warpgate tech much later in the game, such as in dark shrine tech or perhaps templar archive or robo bay or fleet beacon level kind of tech. This is a significant change. If you make this change alone, first of all P loses in the early game a lot, so it's a balance problem. But it's also a design problem, because suddenly the early game of P has lost most of the harass. So you'd make changes to gateway units so they can be stronger and design new styles for P early game. By design the stalker is rather weak because it can blink. So you might want the stalker to lose blink. The relationships between the stalker and units in the game are now quite off, and you end up wanting to change most things. Tbh, I think that's the kind of change SC2 needs to be much better, something accross the board (and removing units), slower pace, less dps, less all in, less damaging harass, less volatility, less game breaking spells/abilities, more nuanced resource gathering system, and a different pathing with more defender advantage (this is extremely important for a strategy game so that things don't only happen on one spot in the map most times, since you can leave some things defending somewhere and have another bunch of units do something else elsewhere and.. things begin to spread out and engage more tactics and strategy ; it also frees up ofc your strategic options in terms of what you build) and more micro. Most importantly, make sure there are many styles available from early game with many nuances. In the end you could have a much better game with a lot more tactics and strategy and skill.
Regarding the T bioball. If the pathing is not so bally and units are more obstacles to each other (bit more collision radius look @war3 as an example not just BW if you want, its good example), the bio units will make positioning matter in order to let all units shoot (while the default pathing will also not provide a large default advantage to any AoE attack). Also, the Marine lol, it should not be able to move and shoot without losing damage, because it already has enormous damage value for cost, with instant ranged attack and stim. The animation is even broken. It should be locked in place while the rafale is shot, and only then move and if it does move you lose damage. It's just an example, you can't just change this alone, but that's a core mistake with the bioball from WoL that broke the game. Ofc it's easy to play so I know why they did this, having a T only campaign on release is also a way to tell new players what race they should play most comfortably in multiplayer at first. There is a lot to change with T and every race.
PS: this is also btw why I never use the vocabulary "buff" and "nerf", I think way too many people think of changes in terms of "buffing" and "nerfing" but in truth when you change something it rarely is just a matter of making something a little stronger or weaker, it changes the relationships of it with everything else, game design is not so simple minded as "buffing" and "nerfing" // which is why again usually changes should go hand in hand with other changes and most importantly be part of an overall intent, everything taken into account
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On October 24 2016 18:15 rqPlan wrote:
Say what you want, It's still a buff.
I doubt that +3 armor is meaningless so that everyone will stay at 4 armor.
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I would love to see a Thor that is somewhat reduced in scale, and a bit more mobile. This would make pathing/AA more viable in my view.
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On October 24 2016 20:25 Dingodile wrote:I doubt that +3 armor is meaningless so that everyone will stay at 4 armor.
There is a window and oportunity for the zerg with that buff. There are situations where this is a buff.
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On October 24 2016 18:15 rqPlan wrote:
Say what you want, It's still a buff.
Yeah after seen this kind of persons, blizzard definetly shouldn't listen the community at all
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On October 24 2016 21:40 rqPlan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2016 20:25 Dingodile wrote:On October 24 2016 18:15 rqPlan wrote:
Say what you want, It's still a buff. I doubt that +3 armor is meaningless so that everyone will stay at 4 armor. There is a window and oportunity for the zerg with that buff. There are situations where this is a buff.
This is only a buff for that less than a minute time frame every game where the Terran is pushing and ultras are out but don't have plating yet. For however long the game goes on after that it's a big nerf.
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On October 24 2016 22:13 Aegwynn wrote:Yeah after seen this kind of persons, blizzard definetly shouldn't listen the community at all
id be very entertained if rqPlan and the parkofou guy debated balance
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On October 24 2016 22:34 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2016 21:40 rqPlan wrote:On October 24 2016 20:25 Dingodile wrote:On October 24 2016 18:15 rqPlan wrote:
Say what you want, It's still a buff. I doubt that +3 armor is meaningless so that everyone will stay at 4 armor. There is a window and oportunity for the zerg with that buff. There are situations where this is a buff. This is only a buff for that less than a minute time frame every game where the Terran is pushing and ultras are out but don't have plating yet.
And that minute is one of the worse parts about TvZ anyway. Gameplay that revolves about T hitting a timing like that sucks.
It's better if zerg has a better chance at surviving during that minute and Terran a better chance at winning afterwards.
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On October 24 2016 22:40 Musicus wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2016 22:34 Elentos wrote:On October 24 2016 21:40 rqPlan wrote:On October 24 2016 20:25 Dingodile wrote:On October 24 2016 18:15 rqPlan wrote:
Say what you want, It's still a buff. I doubt that +3 armor is meaningless so that everyone will stay at 4 armor. There is a window and oportunity for the zerg with that buff. There are situations where this is a buff. This is only a buff for that less than a minute time frame every game where the Terran is pushing and ultras are out but don't have plating yet. And that minute is one of the worse parts about TvZ anyway. Gameplay that revolves about T hitting a timing like that sucks. It's better if zerg has a better chance at surviving during that minute and Terran a better chance at winning afterwards.
Do you realize that timing won't exist anymore because there is no need to push since ultras are easy to deal with?
Do you remember the utter garbage hots ultras? This will be just 1 armor above it, they will be ok vs bio but not that great.
No zerg will put their all eggs in the ultra basket anymore because it doesn't put you in a great spot that worth the investment.
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On October 24 2016 22:54 Aegwynn wrote:
Do you remember the utter garbage hots ultras?
Even those wouldn't be so garbage against bio now. You have to remember they had to deal with HotS marauders. In HotS 3/3 marauders dealt 20 damage per attack to 6 armor ultras. A 3/3 LotV marauder deals 14 damage per attack to a 6 armor ultra. That's like 10 extra marauder shots to kill an ultra.
But Blizzard are planning to change so many things at once (tank damage, ultra armor, baneling health, liberator AA) that I think TvZ might change a lot. Again.
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The problem with ultras always was that you can kite them forever. What did blizzard do? Make it so they cannot be reasonably killed so you would need to kite forever. (and drain more and more energy to heal because of stim) That's not a good fix.
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EPT
