Thanks to KeksX for providing these updates in the LR thread!
On November 05 2016 09:03 KeksX wrote: David Kim talking about "looking into new units in a balance patch". Meaning they don't need big expansions to do that, but no plans atm.
Still exciting.
On November 05 2016 09:06 KeksX wrote: Also they're mentioning that they explored the Goliath for SC2 and a new Z unit.
On November 05 2016 09:09 KeksX wrote: more from current multiplayer panel for everyone watching the WCS stream not wanting to switch threads So why did Goliath not work out? - Because it overlaps with Thor - felt like mech marine - were thinking about adding more anti-ground, felt more like mech marine - added fast attacks, didn't feel like goliath anymore
So thats why that they decided instead of putting goliath in for the sake of having something new, they decided to overhaul the Cyclone. The results from exploring the goliath were put into current T unit changes, though.
now for Z
On November 05 2016 09:03 KeksX wrote: - they had a "15 unit max rule", restriction: "not going to put >15 units on any race" - not because it's a magic number, it was just a good restraint to have to create a clean set of units with clean rules - was kinda abandoned, but the spirit of this rule was kept(clear units)
e.g. zergling = fast, fragile, small; roach = tanky, short range; hydra = long range, all round etc
- they were thinking about a more tanky unit that spawns in group of three - were used pretty much like zerglings - created confusion about wheter to go ling/roach/new unit; counter-tech options weren't clear - felt really muddy and so they didn't like it and moved on
- they've done this process for all 3 races. it didn't really work out for them; but they still got something out of it as they used the results for current balance patch - changes to current units "feel like new units" according to them
- "that said, that doesn't mean we're never going to add new units to the game, this is just the current situation"
now david kim will talk about the future and then Q&A
On November 05 2016 09:03 KeksX wrote: not much for the future apparently. - they will release patch in "a couple of weeks" so much testing is needed - they will also explore if there are big changes needed or just smaller ones; so they're not set on the current direction but will still allow bigger changes to come.
Q&A with giveaways now
On November 05 2016 09:03 KeksX wrote: Q1: just feedback: ultralisk cripples terran so much, friends can't keep up, happy to see mech being more viable. that guy won a collector's edition. yay.
somewhat A: they will roll out changes to ultralisk soon so that should help.
Q2: Cyclone gonna have a different attack for air/ground, what about priority for colossus? A: air is ability, ground is normal attack. against colossus, if you have ability, just the ability. if not, not. [wow...]
Q3: different race MMRs: what has this done internally, was it a mistake to not have fresh MMR for the other races? A: top on the list to talk about, they were surprised at the graph on reddit. top comment made sense. we will look into it.
man these questions are useless
On November 05 2016 09:03 KeksX wrote: Q4: more dynamic multiplayer maps with larva etc? A: "So you're saying... you want to see this on the ladder?" LOL david ... "we actually tested this, it was too restricting for strategies"
I don't think there will be any useful questions. Let's watch the games instead.
On November 05 2016 09:38 KeksX wrote: First Winter asked a question about newbie stuff, now Tempo.
And Temp0 asks the first good question: "Do you want to shake things up after WCS, or do you want to do it every once in a while?" Answer sounds like they want to do smaller changes throughout the year and design-changing patches like once per year.
Follow-up: Will they revert patches if they turn out to be bad or go through with it all the time? Answer: Watching patch very closely, they will be careful and they will make changes as needed. Showmatches from totalbiscuit will be important. David kim hopes they will find broken stuff there, so that they can fix them before they go live.
Temp0 to the rescue \o/
Q&A closes with that
Some follow up clarifications:
On November 05 2016 09:28 KeksX wrote: To be fair they clarified that they actually tried out all these units themselves.
I just wish they'd push them on PTR for us to try out as well.
On November 05 2016 09:32 Hider wrote: Sure, but it's honestly not hard to dismiss bad ideas on paper. Like figuring out if a unit fits a speific role or not is the easiest thing in the world. You don't need to test it.
What you need to test is two things (1) is it actually fun to micro and (2) how does it fit in terms of gamedyanmics.
On November 05 2016 09:34 KeksX wrote: Thats exactly what they were talking about, though. Though they focused more about unit overlap instead of dynamics, which I think is an important point you bring up. It sounded more like "this unit feels too much like X." and then the follow-up should be "is X more fun, or the new unit?", instead they went with "lets just keep what we have"
But yeah, the general idea you had was what they talked about. And they apparently spent a lot of time on this.
On November 05 2016 09:45 Penev wrote: Winter?
THE Winter?
On November 05 2016 09:47 KeksX wrote: Yes
He asked about post-match info and things to help newbies get better / analyse their play.
Shit had I known that you'd use them I would have put more effort into them. I was literally watching the panel, the games, and playing gwent at the same time.
If there's any confusion through my terrible writing, let me know.
I skipped winter's question, but he was asking about more post-match info and other stats to help new players get better at the game. They acknowledged that this was a good idea, but also pointed about the communtiy's importance for this(specifically that streamers like him can help with this)
Thank you KeksX. Don't sweat it I read TL posters comments every day
Q3: different race MMRs: what has this done internally, was it a mistake to not have fresh MMR for the other races? A: top on the list to talk about, they were surprised at the graph on reddit. top comment made sense. we will look into it.
I appreciate that they must say that. But I also know they're idiots for starting people at their main races MMR.
On November 05 2016 09:49 KeksX wrote: Shit had I known that you'd use them I would have put more effort into them. I was literally watching the panel, the games, and playing gwent at the same time.
If there's any confusion through my terrible writing, let me know.
<3 they're good enough for this thread at least thanks for posting them for us!
I'm disappointed that they didn't go over the new arcade features, watch tab, and custom tournaments that were mentioned in the official recap blog, but at least we know that they're in the works and will make 2017 a decent year for new features and content.
In general they're pretty confident with the current direction, but David Kim made it very clear that they need more feedback on the current patch waiting. He was clearly pointing out that they have high hopes for today's shoutcraft.
more from current multiplayer panel for everyone watching the WCS stream not wanting to switch threads So why did Goliath not work out? - Because it overlaps with Thor - felt like mech marine - were thinking about adding more anti-ground, felt more like mech marine - added fast attacks, didn't feel like goliath anymore
No Blizzard it overlaps with the Viking. You would need to compeltely redesign terran anti-air for the Goliath to work. But I would suggest to just make the Thor much more alike the Goliath (faster + better vs armored) and the viking a unit that is better vs light units.
This is how mech anti air should work:
1. Vs mobile/light air units --> You get vikings for support mixed with the medium mobility mech ground AA unit. 2. Vs expensive slow tier 3/armored air units --> You get the medium mobility mech ground AA unit
All other "solutions" for anti-air will create a shitty dynamic and its unbelieveable how these guys getting paid for doing absolutely nothing.
more from current multiplayer panel for everyone watching the WCS stream not wanting to switch threads So why did Goliath not work out? - Because it overlaps with Thor - felt like mech marine - were thinking about adding more anti-ground, felt more like mech marine - added fast attacks, didn't feel like goliath anymore
No Blizzard it overlaps with the Viking. You would need to compeltely redesign terran anti-air for the Goliath to work. But probably just make the Thor a Goliath and The viking a unit that is better vs light units.
Seriously, how are these guys getting paid for doing absolutely nothing.
They spend "hours" testing stuff, but then they find it doesn't work, even though its obvious it shouldn't work. But on top of that they also use the wrong reasons.
Funnily enough I think the Viking was not mentioned afaik
They also said that in small numbers goliaths were weak to void rays, and mutalisks were really good vs goliaths as well which wasn't the case in BW, so they had trouble translating the goliath.
Which was why they were exploring more anti-ground possibilities, and then from there on they were like "Okay let's look at how we can make the Cyclone/Thor work better instead" because it didn't feel like a proper Goliath anyway
Also the point about this >15 units rule is quite important. They look pretty closely at units' roles and what roles are missing or not, but they seem to favor existing concepts heavily over bringing in new ones just to have something new.
On November 05 2016 09:49 KeksX wrote: Shit had I known that you'd use them I would have put more effort into them. I was literally watching the panel, the games, and playing gwent at the same time.
If there's any confusion through my terrible writing, let me know.
<3 they're good enough for this thread at least thanks for posting them for us!
hey also said that in small numbers goliaths were weak to void rays, and mutalisks were really good vs goliaths as well which wasn't the case in BW, so they had trouble translating the goliath.
That was exactly how it worked in BW. Goliaths were never good in low numbers. But surely Zerg can produce alot more Mutas and much faster, hence why terrans should have Vikings as support vs Mutas (or widow mines).
And when it comes to Void Rays, it confuses me that they still haven't realized they need to redesign everything about air and ground. They can't just make isolated unit changes. It's all messed up.
HOTS and LOTV have brought alot of bandaid solutions, but now that they can make changes at less risk of "messing up", they need to redesign big parts of the game from the bottom.
And they do need to question whether the Void Ray even needs to be in the game and if so, what its role should be in relation to other protoss air units.
My point is that the whole focus on adding new units is so misguided by blizzard. Instead they should first create sound fundaments so each unit have unique roles and make sure that all of these roles makes a fun gamedynamic.
hey also said that in small numbers goliaths were weak to void rays, and mutalisks were really good vs goliaths as well which wasn't the case in BW, so they had trouble translating the goliath.
That was exactly how it worked in BW. Goliaths were never good in low numbers. And when it comes to Void Rays, it confuses me that they still haven't realized they need to redesign everything about air and ground. They can't just make isolated unit changes. It's all messed up.
HOTS and LOTV have brought alot of bandaid solutions, but now that they can make changes at less risk of "messing up", they need to redesign big parts of the game from the bottom.
And they do need to question whether the Void Ray even needs to be in the game and if so, what its role should be in relation to other protoss air units.
I'm now interpreting a bit, but the point I got was "Okay the Goliath is supposed to be a good AA unit with anti-harrassment potential, and it turns out that the air it is supposed to clean up is actually really effective vs it. That doesn't make sense, so we explored new roles for the Goliath. But then we kinda created a mech marine that wasn't really a Goliath anymore - so why implement it in the first place? Let's look at how we can make the things that were cool about the Goliath work with the existing units"
Not a terribly unreasonable thing, though I agree that it'd be cool to see more major gameplay revamps. But from their point of view, what they did in the current patch is already somewhat of a revamp. Thor is dedicated AA option(taking Goliaths role), Cyclone is a core ground option which they previously tried to apply to the Goliath and so on.
On November 05 2016 09:49 KeksX wrote: Shit had I known that you'd use them I would have put more effort into them. I was literally watching the panel, the games, and playing gwent at the same time.
If there's any confusion through my terrible writing, let me know.
<3 they're good enough for this thread at least thanks for posting them for us!
Okay the Goliath is supposed to be a good AA unit with harrassment potential,
Harass potential? Terran has the Viking, Cyclone and WM for harass potential (and AA). BW Goliath never had that.
Why even mention the name Goliath here - I guess they are just using it for nostalgia. What the Goliath provided in BW was anti-air vs armored units (from a ground unit). That's it!
Okay the Goliath is supposed to be a good AA unit with harrassment potential,
Harass potential? Terran has the Viking, Cyclone and WM for harass potential. BW Goliath never had that.
Why even mention the name Goliath here - I guess they are just using it for nostalgia. What the Goliath provided in BW was anti-air vs armored units (from a ground unit). That's it!
Sorry, anti-harrassment. He phrased it this way "Zerg attacks with like 20 mutalisks, if you try to respond with Goliaths you're out of luck." The Goliath couldn't fill a role that was needed in SC2.
The thor overlap is quite obvious here, because their first solution was to add splash damage to the goliath. So then they basically had a mini-thor.
Okay the Goliath is supposed to be a good AA unit with harrassment potential,
Harass potential? Terran has the Viking, Cyclone and WM for harass potential. BW Goliath never had that.
Why even mention the name Goliath here - I guess they are just using it for nostalgia. What the Goliath provided in BW was anti-air vs armored units (from a ground unit). That's it!
Sorry, anti-harrassment.
Well the Viking is always better at anti-harassment (preventing drops) so I still don't see that making a whole lot of sense.... Unless they intended to remove the Viking.
Okay the Goliath is supposed to be a good AA unit with harrassment potential,
Harass potential? Terran has the Viking, Cyclone and WM for harass potential. BW Goliath never had that.
Why even mention the name Goliath here - I guess they are just using it for nostalgia. What the Goliath provided in BW was anti-air vs armored units (from a ground unit). That's it!
Sorry, anti-harrassment.
Well the Viking is always better at anti-harassment (preventing drops) so I still don't see that making a whole lot of sense.... Unless they intended to remove the Viking.
Okay the Goliath is supposed to be a good AA unit with harrassment potential,
Harass potential? Terran has the Viking, Cyclone and WM for harass potential. BW Goliath never had that.
Why even mention the name Goliath here - I guess they are just using it for nostalgia. What the Goliath provided in BW was anti-air vs armored units (from a ground unit). That's it!
Sorry, anti-harrassment. He phrased it this way "Zerg attacks with like 20 mutalisks, if you try to respond with Goliaths you're out of luck." The Goliath couldn't fill a role that was needed in SC2.
The thor overlap is quite obvious here, because their first solution was to add splash damage to the goliath. So then they basically had a mini-thor.
Funnily enough, one iteration of the Warhound was basically the mini-Thor with splash damage anti-air and a bonus vs mech modifier on the auto-attack. This was back when the Thor was redesigned to be a silly hero unit. I honestly thought that was the best version of the Warhound unlike the monstrosity that got unleashed and cut in the beta.
i hope they keep the thor as the main mech anti-air, but buff its anti-air attacks to an absurd degree, so it can used as a zoning/area control unit operating in small groups.
Okay the Goliath is supposed to be a good AA unit with harrassment potential,
Harass potential? Terran has the Viking, Cyclone and WM for harass potential. BW Goliath never had that.
Why even mention the name Goliath here - I guess they are just using it for nostalgia. What the Goliath provided in BW was anti-air vs armored units (from a ground unit). That's it!
Sorry, anti-harrassment. He phrased it this way "Zerg attacks with like 20 mutalisks, if you try to respond with Goliaths you're out of luck." The Goliath couldn't fill a role that was needed in SC2.
The thor overlap is quite obvious here, because their first solution was to add splash damage to the goliath. So then they basically had a mini-thor.
Funnily enough, one iteration of the Warhound was basically the mini-Thor with splash damage anti-air and a bonus vs mech modifier on the auto-attack. This was back when the Thor was redesigned to be a silly hero unit. I honestly thought that was the best version of the Warhound unlike the monstrosity that got unleashed and cut in the beta.
It really sounds like they just did a Warhound 2.0 with the Goliath lol
On November 05 2016 10:29 -NegativeZero- wrote: i hope they keep the thor as the main mech anti-air, but buff its anti-air attacks to an absurd degree, so it can used as a zoning/area control unit operating in small groups.
It's their intention to have the Thor as a core AA option, with Cyclone being the ground core option for mech
On November 05 2016 10:31 Dumbledore wrote: So no news? Just saying they tried stuff and it didn't work out? Lol
The news part is basically the patch we already know, yeah ...
Though in a roundabout way they pretty much said that they don't get enough feedback for that. They'd love to do more changes if necessary even right now and putting hopes on things like Shoutcraft Kings (which is soon btw, rip my sleep schedule)
In a way, the lack of new stuff from the panel just makes me appreciate how open and frequent their communication has been this year for all the changes. Everything is already out on the table and open for discussion and testing.
- they were thinking about a more tanky unit that spawns in group of three - were used pretty much like zerglings - created confusion about wheter to go ling/roach/new unit; counter-tech options weren't clear - felt really muddy and so they didn't like it and moved on
Damn, I totally disagree with that design philosophy. Having to think about whether to make x or y unit, and then the opponent having to carefully consider what to build in order to best fight against that comp... that sure sounds like the trappings of a great strategy game to me. The unit you make shouldn't be an 100% given thing.
"muddy" aka actually having to think.. is a good thing IMO.
I know I'm kind of cherrypicking with that partial, second-hand quote but it just rubbed me the wrong way. Like damn let's limit SC2's strategic potential, we don't want people to have to think too hard about what to build.
Okay the Goliath is supposed to be a good AA unit with harrassment potential,
Harass potential? Terran has the Viking, Cyclone and WM for harass potential. BW Goliath never had that.
Why even mention the name Goliath here - I guess they are just using it for nostalgia. What the Goliath provided in BW was anti-air vs armored units (from a ground unit). That's it!
Sorry, anti-harrassment. He phrased it this way "Zerg attacks with like 20 mutalisks, if you try to respond with Goliaths you're out of luck." The Goliath couldn't fill a role that was needed in SC2.
The thor overlap is quite obvious here, because their first solution was to add splash damage to the goliath. So then they basically had a mini-thor.
Funnily enough, one iteration of the Warhound was basically the mini-Thor with splash damage anti-air and a bonus vs mech modifier on the auto-attack. This was back when the Thor was redesigned to be a silly hero unit. I honestly thought that was the best version of the Warhound unlike the monstrosity that got unleashed and cut in the beta.
It really sounds like they just did a Warhound 2.0 with the Goliath lol
On November 05 2016 10:29 -NegativeZero- wrote: i hope they keep the thor as the main mech anti-air, but buff its anti-air attacks to an absurd degree, so it can used as a zoning/area control unit operating in small groups.
It's their intention to have the Thor as a core AA option, with Cyclone being the ground core option for mech
but with the current balance patch i don't think they buffed it to enough of a significant degree, it needs to completely shut down air options rather than merely counter/deflect them
On November 05 2016 10:40 Ansibled wrote: I'm not really sure why people expected new stuff from this panel, they give updates every week.
Well the thing is that they the stuff they have added into the testmap takes like 3 hours to create in the editor. So after they spent 3 hours on that and then let it idle by itself. What are they doing with the rest of the time?
Sc2 has a ton more fundamental issues that it doesn't seem like they are trying to fix. Why not just move the Sc2 design team onto Wc4 if they aren't even working parttime on the game.
On November 05 2016 10:40 Ansibled wrote: I'm not really sure why people expected new stuff from this panel, they give updates every week.
Well the thing is that they the stuff they have added into the testmap takes like 3 hours to create in the editor. So after they spent 3 hours on that and then let it idle by itself. What are they doing with the rest of the time?
Sc2 has a ton more fundamental issues that it doesn't seem like they are trying to fix. Why not just move the Sc2 design team onto Wc4 if they aren't even working parttime on the game.
3 hours hours for someone who already know what to change? Your statement doesnt even make sense and there will no WC4... jesus...
On November 05 2016 10:40 Ansibled wrote: I'm not really sure why people expected new stuff from this panel, they give updates every week.
Sc2 has a ton more fundamental issues that it doesn't seem like they are trying to fix. Why not just move the Sc2 design team onto Wc4 if they aren't even working parttime on the game.
- they were thinking about a more tanky unit that spawns in group of three - were used pretty much like zerglings - created confusion about wheter to go ling/roach/new unit; counter-tech options weren't clear - felt really muddy and so they didn't like it and moved on
Damn, I totally disagree with that design philosophy. Having to think about whether to make x or y unit, and then the opponent having to carefully consider what to build in order to best fight against that comp... that sure sounds like the trappings of a great strategy game to me. The unit you make shouldn't be an 100% given thing.
"muddy" aka actually having to think.. is a good thing IMO.
I know I'm kind of cherrypicking with that partial, second-hand quote but it just rubbed me the wrong way. Like damn let's limit SC2's strategic potential, we don't want people to have to think too hard about what to build.
I think your point is something they agree with, though that they don't want to artifically make it harder to think about something than it already is.
Let me put my understanding of it: This more tanky unit that spawns in groups of 3 was supposed be T1.5 (in their definition: requires tech building on hatchery), and thus it could be out at relatively the same time as roaches or speedlings. So an opponent now had 3 relatively different units that required different answers, but could not really be sure about what type of unit will actually be used by a zerg user. Especially if that new unit doesn't require another tech building, but uses an existing one.
I have no idea what they mean with "muddy" btw, but that was their wording. But go back to the point of "not more than 15 units per race". Having clear, seperate unit roles is really important to them.
The original plan for this unit was to be "a buffer unit for the hydralisk". Then they pointed out that the swarmy part of the unit(groups of 3 etc) was overlapping with speedlings, and the high health/tank part was overlapping with the roach.
What I don't understand is: Why did they look for a buffer for the hydralisk in the first place? I'm pretty sure the Roach fills that role just fine - there are way more interesting roles that could be explored for the zerg imho. But it sounds like this unit exploration resulted in the new hydralisk.
On November 05 2016 21:33 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: No information about the next year of WCS? Would be nice if information about that would be timely for once.
Timely WCS information? I don't think the technology is there yet.
So goliaths cant fight mutas cost for cost.. But widowmines exist for terran as support(?) Also raven could use a redesign, so a good opportunity to work as support as well?
Also, does it really have to be a goliath from bw? Maybe the goliath from bw but version 2.0 or just some added things to it. 1) Gets stationary like siegetank, with higher range or some extra armor. 2. Press button->can fly for a short moment(but not attack), this way can block muta harass better since it moves better with terrain, also can be used as harass. But need brain when to use it cuz you cant be in air for ever when pressed.
And just work on viking from here. As mentioned before, maybe have viking in ground able to shoot air. Now if mutas fly in to harass terran, you can use vikings against mutas since you can be there in time much faster.
Just feels like sc2 has so much potential but nothing happens. As hider says, its not a question of what is fun, what feels rewarding its just there for the sake of it. I remember when they started to create this game, they started with terran and protoss and had a bunch of units ready for them. No thought about fun interactions, fun early game, fun poke game. They might have thought about fun/cool tactics but it went to hell with that as well.
Just feels like they went with the wrong philosophy from the start.
On November 05 2016 21:37 Foxxan wrote: So goliaths cant fight mutas cost for cost.. But widowmines exist for terran as support(?) Also raven could use a redesign, so a good opportunity to work as support as well?
Also, does it really have to be a goliath from bw? Maybe the goliath from bw but version 2.0 or just some added things to it. 1) Gets stationary like siegetank, with higher range or some extra armor. 2. Press button->can fly for a short moment(but not attack), this way can block muta harass better since it moves better with terrain, also can be used as harass. But need brain when to use it cuz you cant be in air for ever when pressed.
1) They tried higher range, but not stationary. Thats part of what made it feel like mech marine, because you'd stutter step and kite etc. 2) I think this would overlap with pretty much everything terran has, so it wouldn't fit at all into their design philosophy
And just work on viking from here. As mentioned before, maybe have viking in ground able to shoot air. Now if mutas fly in to harass terran, you can use vikings against mutas since you can be there in time much faster.
Just feels like sc2 has so much potential but nothing happens. As hider says, its not a question of what is fun, what feels rewarding its just there for the sake of it. I remember when they started to create this game, they started with terran and protoss and had a bunch of units ready for them. No thought about fun interactions, fun early game, fun poke game. They might have thought about fun/cool tactics but it went to hell with that as well.
Just feels like they went with the wrong philosophy from the start.
I don't think Hider is correct with his assumption here though. They do ask what is fun, they just also ask what fits. Just because something is fun does not mean it fits into the game. And looking at BW for inspiration is an obvious choice, since BW pretty much defined what fits into a StarCraft game.
And as I wrote in the summary already, they pointed out that those two units aren't the only thing they explored. Then again - I wonder why we never hear about that.
Talking about underused units - the PTR is probably the most underused one.
On November 05 2016 10:40 Ansibled wrote: I'm not really sure why people expected new stuff from this panel, they give updates every week.
Well the thing is that they the stuff they have added into the testmap takes like 3 hours to create in the editor. So after they spent 3 hours on that and then let it idle by itself. What are they doing with the rest of the time?
Sc2 has a ton more fundamental issues that it doesn't seem like they are trying to fix. Why not just move the Sc2 design team onto Wc4 if they aren't even working parttime on the game.
3 hours hours for someone who already know what to change? Your statement doesnt even make sense and there will no WC4... jesus...
Yes it takes 3 hours if you know what to change. Not sure how that statement didn't make sense. Obviously you should have a very good idea of what to change if you have 6+ years of working experience as a full time game developer for an AAA-company.
Otherwise you are not qualified for the position. Hence I hope your not implying that multiple employees need to spend 40 hours per week on figuring out what to change.
Maybe the balance/design team are working on co-op missions or other casual stuff and not the multiplayer.
You can have one Blizzard design guy spend 5-10 hours per week looking at the multiplayer while he spends the rest of his time on other projects.
I genuinly hope that is what's actually going on right now - otherwise it makes no sense given how little they actually seem to be doing.
I don't think Hider is correct with his assumption here though. They do ask what is fun, they just also ask what fits.
I am confused. What assumption are you referring to?
Because my point is that a game designer you should have a very strong idea of the unit roles of all races and have a general idea on how to redesign all of the units to accomplish that goal.
The time consuming part is the refinement proces and making sure micro interactions are fun.
Their whole adventure onto the Goliath seems like a gigantic waste of time if they didn't plan on redesigning existing units. I could easily have told them that in advance and saved them that time.
I actually have a specific plan on how to make all terran units have a unique role, and if interested i can provide you with that. But it does involve a ton of fundamental changes across the board.
And my second point is that if you don't plan on fundamentally reworking the game then there isn't really anything to spend time on because the game is relatively decent, and can't be signficiantly improved by more band-aids.
Hider I was referring to the perceived notion that you don't think David Kim cares about fun stuff first, only about bringing but "old stuff".
I also don't think that it is impossible to know what works and what doesn't before you actually try it out. So I don't agree that Blizzard wasted their time on the Goliath.
If we're talking about game design goals btw, I'm going to throw in my opinion; I don't even agree with making mech viable at all. The general idea of mech, sitting at your base throwing high burst damage things at your enemy every once in a while is utterly boring. So in that sense, the whole balance patch for Terran is a waste of time. But thats just my opinion, not a general rule.
2) I think this would overlap with pretty much everything terran has, so it wouldn't fit at all into their design philosophy
Why would it not fit terran? I can see it overlapping with viking - being to similar but with terran? My idea was to change goliath to something with transform - potentially atleast, and if something works great, change viking.
Because lets face it, their transforms for terran doesnt work "properly" in my eyes, could be so much more. Blizzard doesnt even look into it at all it seems, why? They are happy with transforming from viking air to viking ground(?)
Would be much cooler to have a goliath on factory with transform ability than this viking we have now.
They do ask what is fun, they just also ask what fits. Just because something is fun does not mean it fits into the game.
Yep agree, pretty standard. But i dont know about the fun part. They just started to look at "fun" recently imo, just recently they started mentioning stuff about micro for both sides etc
If we're talking about game design goals btw, I'm going to throw in my opinion; I don't even agree with making mech viable at all. The general idea of mech, sitting at your base throwing high burst damage things at your enemy every once in a while is utterly boring.
As a mech fantast, i agree with you. If thats what its all about then its just a boring playstyle. Mech has the potential to be fun as hell - But this is sc2 we are talking about so i dont get to excited for this new patch tbh.
On November 05 2016 23:07 KeksX wrote: Hider I was referring to the perceived notion that you don't think David Kim cares about fun stuff first, only about bringing but "old stuff". .
Yeh don't think I ever said that. I said they need to priortize reworking old stuff.
If we're talking about game design goals btw, I'm going to throw in my opinion; I don't even agree with making mech viable at all. The general idea of mech, sitting at your base throwing high burst damage things at your enemy every once in a while is utterly boring. So in that sense, the whole balance patch for Terran is a waste of time. But thats just my opinion, not a general rule.
Look through some Bw TvZ late game vods. Mech can be awesome if done correctly. The concept is that when you can split your army across multiple locations all over the map and the enemy can attack you and can army trade into you --> You get a great dynamic.
But for such a dynamic to work you need reworks across the aboards. And I am pretty sure David Kim and his buddies doesn't really understand what needs to be done.
If we're talking about game design goals btw, I'm going to throw in my opinion; I don't even agree with making mech viable at all. The general idea of mech, sitting at your base throwing high burst damage things at your enemy every once in a while is utterly boring. So in that sense, the whole balance patch for Terran is a waste of time. But thats just my opinion, not a general rule.
Look through some Bw TvZ late game vods. Mech can be awesome if done correctly. The concept is that when you can split your army across multiple locations all over the map and the enemy can attack you and can army trade into you --> You get a great dynamic.
But for such a dynamic to work you need reworks across the aboards. And I am pretty sure David Kim and his buddies doesn't really understand what needs to be done.
I'm not sure why do you think "you can split your army across multiple locations all over the map and the enemy can attack you and can army trade into you" is not existing in SC2, it sounds to me as typical endgame unit trading and it's not WoL with deathballs 100% of the time anymore. With more spread-out maps and better vision letting players take their positions better (whether maps get different design direction, vision gets buffed somehow or just used far more in the metagame) you can have the same effect.
To add to that I think some improvements to the UI could be made to make map awareness more of a standing out part of the game given how important it is to react much quicker in SC2 than in Brood War.
But I think aggressiveness towards David Kim and his buddies adds you credibility in this community so I don't know how to discuss with that, I can't say anything against that since I will become an apologist
EDIT: I think it would be interesting if they tried out removing textures from the minimap, showing just a map wireframe + vision, it could make a good option instead of the other one that is "make everything black and show units/buildings+resources with no map vision".
On November 05 2016 23:07 KeksX wrote: Hider I was referring to the perceived notion that you don't think David Kim cares about fun stuff first, only about bringing but "old stuff". .
Yeh don't think I ever said that. I said they need to priortize reworking old stuff.
Thats why I said perceived. It's just what it sounds like when you talk about David Kim and his team sometimes.
When I talk about mech being not fun for me, I'm referring to most of BW as well. Yes there are players that might have been able to make mech somewhat exciting (specifically on the non-meching side), but >90% of the players are just turtling and being static, which is extremely boring for me.
If I play you on ladder and I realize you're meching, I either die all inning or simply quit. It's just that boring to me. And, though this is just anecdotical, many others I know and see as well.
But thats not the point I want to make anyway. I just want to point out that this is an extreme view of mine. I hate mech. I think it's bad, no matter what you do. Yet there are a ton of players that think completely differently - and Blizzard's task is to find out who's "wrong" or "right". Not an easy thing to do.
Well if mech sits and camp for lets say 15min. Both in bw and sc2. The way to look at it is its a rts game we are playing, you are supposed to interact with the enemy -If you dont interact with the enemy for 1-2min, FINE. But we are talking 15min roughly.
It does not fit a modern rts game. Yes the camping part is utterly boring, even in broodwar. What hider said though wasnt that the camping part was fun, he said the lategame was fun, when you have options where to attack and how and where to split your armee.
The camping part is utterly boring, i think this is a general opinion because lets face it, it should be about interactions and when you dont interact then whats the point of playing.
It would be one thing if one decides to camp and the enemy has options here, but enemy doesnt really have options either way
I'm not sure why do you think "you can split your army across multiple locations all over the map and the enemy can attack you and can army trade into you" is not existing in SC2, it sounds to me as typical endgame unit trading and it's not WoL with deathballs 100% of the time anymore
What you see in Sc2 is harass not army trading. The economy is not set up for a proper army trading dynamic that can result in back-and-fourth games (it will snowball too hard).
Hence the only way Blizzard knows to create more action is through buffing harass units.
Contrary to popular belief, what we need is higher late game income rate.
With more spread-out maps and better vision letting players take their positions better (whether maps get different design direction, vision gets buffed somehow or just used far more in the metagame)
You won't get army trading. Only one race that will try to prevent action from occuring in the first place because the overall income rate is too low for the low for the immobile/(the player that scales better) too afford any type of army trading.
For army trading to be sustainable it needs to be possible for both races too relatively quickly rebuild the lost army. Like losing one battle at one side of the map only needs to be a small disadvantage.
However in Sc2 the immobile player can not just set 7-8 tanks to defend a location, lose it, lose the expo and then come back later on.
On the other hand, this was a very typical phenomena in BW.
It does not fit a modern rts game. Yes the camping part is utterly boring, even in broodwar. What hider said though wasnt that the camping part was fun, he said the lategame was fun, when you have options where to attack and how and where to split your armee.
in my opinion the midgame should (generally) be about harass. Because you can't really have "army"-trading until the late game in a mobile vs immobile dynamic.
However the issue is that in LOTV the real "lategame" never takes place.
On the other hand BW midgame could often time be very passive. Hence why I believe combining some of the harass strenghts from LOTV with the BW late game is ideal.
On November 05 2016 10:29 -NegativeZero- wrote: i hope they keep the thor as the main mech anti-air, but buff its anti-air attacks to an absurd degree, so it can used as a zoning/area control unit operating in small groups.
that's a good idea and congruent with DK's stated goals re: factory built AA.
I am talking about Sc2 balance/design team. They surely are not spending any noticeable time on "maintaining" the multiplayer.
you are speculating. the seeing units behind barriers thing. resolving memory issues with the # of skins and voice packs. these are just a couple of the things they've dealt with in 2016. multiplayer servers require maintenance.
If we're talking about game design goals btw, I'm going to throw in my opinion; I don't even agree with making mech viable at all. The general idea of mech, sitting at your base throwing high burst damage things at your enemy every once in a while is utterly boring. So in that sense, the whole balance patch for Terran is a waste of time. But thats just my opinion, not a general rule.
Look through some Bw TvZ late game vods. Mech can be awesome if done correctly. The concept is that when you can split your army across multiple locations all over the map and the enemy can attack you and can army trade into you --> You get a great dynamic.
But for such a dynamic to work you need reworks across the aboards. And I am pretty sure David Kim and his buddies doesn't really understand what needs to be done.
To add to that I think some improvements to the UI could be made to make map awareness more of a standing out part of the game given how important it is to react much quicker in SC2 than in Brood War.
Please don't make assertions about a game you seemingly have never played. Reacting as fast as possible, both on the mini-map as on screen, is PIVOTAL in many match ups in brood war (dodging storms with drones, hydralisks, mutalisks, taking out drop ships with scourge, EMPing an arbiter that's planning a recall, killing scourge in ZvZ, blocking ramps with workers such as SCVs or probes against a zergling run-by, microing dragoons against vultures with spider mines...).
Lol, if the Goliath overlaps too much with the Thor, then remove the Thor. The Cyclone is a joke of a unit, a complete gimmick, and always will be. I'd much rather have a "mech marine" (why is that a bad thing?) than either the Thor or Cyclone. Just another huge letdown from the SC2 team. Oh well, looks like the game is winding down anyway. Had some good times in the past but good riddance.
I am talking about Sc2 balance/design team. They surely are not spending any noticeable time on "maintaining" the multiplayer.
you are speculating. the seeing units behind barriers thing. resolving memory issues with the # of skins and voice packs. these are just a couple of the things they've dealt with in 2016. multiplayer servers require maintenance.
On November 05 2016 10:29 -NegativeZero- wrote: i hope they keep the thor as the main mech anti-air, but buff its anti-air attacks to an absurd degree, so it can used as a zoning/area control unit operating in small groups.
On November 06 2016 04:33 coolman123123 wrote: Lol, if the Goliath overlaps too much with the Thor, then remove the Thor. The Cyclone is a joke of a unit, a complete gimmick, and always will be. I'd much rather have a "mech marine" (why is that a bad thing?) than either the Thor or Cyclone. Just another huge letdown from the SC2 team. Oh well, looks like the game is winding down anyway. Had some good times in the past but good riddance.
They just can't acknowledge they fkced up. They whole design concept of SC2 was "not copying BW", as if they were afraid people would accuse them in releasing bw 2.0. In terms of marketing and maintining the blizzard's image of making only solid, stand-alone projects it was absolutely right though. So vulture became hellion, goliath merged with wrath to become a viking, they couldn't let the viking be invisible so they passed the ability to banshee. To ensure noone would say they blindly copied bw they removed lurker and reaver saying they got no place in the meta only to reintroduce them later (in reavers case in form of a horrid abomination), etc etc. Right from the start these "improvements" were nothing but futile and artificial attempts to make SC2 look fresh and not bw-like. But in reality Bw was just too good to be surpassed in terms of design. And then everything started to fall apart. They started adding units left and right, all of them were badly designed and overlapped with each other, got no distinct role but w.e. Now it's just out of hand. Noone remembers exactlty what role did thor have. He was rebalanced so many times anyways. Who came up with cyclone and with what purpose? Noone explained that. Ever. Forget it. I'll remind you they wanted to add herk in the lotv beta. They are thinking about adding goliath now... Like. Why not?
On November 05 2016 10:29 -NegativeZero- wrote: i hope they keep the thor as the main mech anti-air, but buff its anti-air attacks to an absurd degree, so it can used as a zoning/area control unit operating in small groups.
Doesn't that cause problems in large groups?
should be ok if it's still weak to ground anti-armor in large groups imo
It will be interesting to see where they take the game next year, it is generally going in a pretty good direction and they seem to be interested in continuing to tweak and improve multiplayer. which is cool Making mech better is not easy because LotV is all about mobile harassment, multitasking and low econ, ByuN is the exact example of the ideal LotV terran and he rarely plays mech (never?). Can there be a new faster version of mech? The cyclone is a good start I hope they keep its speed where it is right now, the new one feels slow.
On November 06 2016 04:33 coolman123123 wrote: Lol, if the Goliath overlaps too much with the Thor, then remove the Thor. The Cyclone is a joke of a unit, a complete gimmick, and always will be. I'd much rather have a "mech marine" (why is that a bad thing?) than either the Thor or Cyclone. Just another huge letdown from the SC2 team. Oh well, looks like the game is winding down anyway. Had some good times in the past but good riddance.
They just can't acknowledge they fkced up. They whole design concept of SC2 was "not copying BW", as if they were afraid people would accuse them in releasing bw 2.0. In terms of marketing and maintining the blizzard's image of making only solid, stand-alone projects it was absolutely right though. So vulture became hellion, goliath merged with wrath to become a viking, they couldn't let the viking be invisible so they passed the ability to banshee. To ensure noone would say they blindly copied bw they removed lurker and reaver saying they got no place in the meta only to reintroduce them later (in reavers case in form of a horrid abomination), etc etc. Right from the start these "improvements" were nothing but futile and artificial attempts to make SC2 look fresh and not bw-like. But in reality Bw was just too good to be surpassed in terms of design. And then everything started to fall apart. They started adding units left and right, all of them were badly designed and overlapped with each other, got no distinct role but w.e. Now it's just out of hand. Noone remembers exactlty what role did thor have. He was rebalanced so many times anyways. Who came up with cyclone and with what purpose? Noone explained that. Ever. Forget it. I'll remind you they wanted to add herk in the lotv beta. They are thinking about adding goliath now... Like. Why not?
Very well said. The one thing i'll add to that is a shooting pylon which is the best indicator of how a game design can become a victim of patching the issue, but not finding the reason. Tell a person 10 years ago: hey imagine in SC2 pylons are going to shoot! He would die from laughter.
On November 06 2016 04:33 coolman123123 wrote: Lol, if the Goliath overlaps too much with the Thor, then remove the Thor. The Cyclone is a joke of a unit, a complete gimmick, and always will be. I'd much rather have a "mech marine" (why is that a bad thing?) than either the Thor or Cyclone. Just another huge letdown from the SC2 team. Oh well, looks like the game is winding down anyway. Had some good times in the past but good riddance.
They just can't acknowledge they fkced up. They whole design concept of SC2 was "not copying BW", as if they were afraid people would accuse them in releasing bw 2.0. In terms of marketing and maintining the blizzard's image of making only solid, stand-alone projects it was absolutely right though. So vulture became hellion, goliath merged with wrath to become a viking, they couldn't let the viking be invisible so they passed the ability to banshee. To ensure noone would say they blindly copied bw they removed lurker and reaver saying they got no place in the meta only to reintroduce them later (in reavers case in form of a horrid abomination), etc etc. Right from the start these "improvements" were nothing but futile and artificial attempts to make SC2 look fresh and not bw-like. But in reality Bw was just too good to be surpassed in terms of design. And then everything started to fall apart. They started adding units left and right, all of them were badly designed and overlapped with each other, got no distinct role but w.e. Now it's just out of hand. Noone remembers exactlty what role did thor have. He was rebalanced so many times anyways. Who came up with cyclone and with what purpose? Noone explained that. Ever. Forget it. I'll remind you they wanted to add herk in the lotv beta. They are thinking about adding goliath now... Like. Why not?
Very well said. The one thing i'll add to that is a shooting pylon which is the best indicator of how a game design can become a victim of patching the issue, but not finding the reason. Tell a person 10 years ago: hey imagine in SC2 pylons are going to shoot! He would die from laughter.
I bet similar type of laughter would happen if people were told you will be able to warp dark templars directly into opponent's base.
Or being able to pick up and move sieged tanks for that matter, which is regarded by significant amount of players as a dynamic and exciting mechanic (while others think it's too hard). Imagine it happening in BW, the response would be "imba imba imba imba imba imba imba imba" while recent WCS finals were played with it in the game and it was fine.
Mocking such stuff because they don't really tick with the lore and the franchise overall is rather a poor argument against it on its own. Photon overcharge existed in the game since Heart of the Swarm, an expansion that arguably provided best games over its longer lifespan, it was nerfed in LotV and it's going to be nerfed even more in PvT with cyclone changes. Getting rid of it would mean a need for redesign of basically everything Protoss has and it would mean changing all other matchups as well. In a perfect world probably Blizzard could do it, but making a different game from ground up, and probably it just meant too much of an effort to funnel all their resources to.
While being a band-aid, it provides more positional gameplay and decision-making to Protoss while leaving the army interactions revolving around Protoss unchanged. Removing overcharge would mean much more danger to Protoss with even more mobility other races got, forcing a lot of forces left around bases making the main army much weaker, photon cannons as an alternative are a joke compared to their older brothers from BW, regarding how armies look number-wise and how they engage into them in both games, in SC2 they are overrun and die instantly, they should have at least small aoe if overcharge was to be removed (I think so while thinking about it right now).
Missile turrets have almost 40 dps - two of them well positioned basically prevent drops coming into the base, with cannons little over 20 dps. Two of them won't make a medivac take much damage before they get destroyed by dropped bio because most of the time players don't focus medivacs or just medivacs can easily avoid the shots.
On November 06 2016 04:33 coolman123123 wrote: Lol, if the Goliath overlaps too much with the Thor, then remove the Thor. The Cyclone is a joke of a unit, a complete gimmick, and always will be. I'd much rather have a "mech marine" (why is that a bad thing?) than either the Thor or Cyclone. Just another huge letdown from the SC2 team. Oh well, looks like the game is winding down anyway. Had some good times in the past but good riddance.
They just can't acknowledge they fkced up. They whole design concept of SC2 was "not copying BW", as if they were afraid people would accuse them in releasing bw 2.0. In terms of marketing and maintining the blizzard's image of making only solid, stand-alone projects it was absolutely right though. So vulture became hellion, goliath merged with wrath to become a viking, they couldn't let the viking be invisible so they passed the ability to banshee. To ensure noone would say they blindly copied bw they removed lurker and reaver saying they got no place in the meta only to reintroduce them later (in reavers case in form of a horrid abomination), etc etc. Right from the start these "improvements" were nothing but futile and artificial attempts to make SC2 look fresh and not bw-like. But in reality Bw was just too good to be surpassed in terms of design. And then everything started to fall apart. They started adding units left and right, all of them were badly designed and overlapped with each other, got no distinct role but w.e. Now it's just out of hand. Noone remembers exactlty what role did thor have. He was rebalanced so many times anyways. Who came up with cyclone and with what purpose? Noone explained that. Ever. Forget it. I'll remind you they wanted to add herk in the lotv beta. They are thinking about adding goliath now... Like. Why not?
Very well said. The one thing i'll add to that is a shooting pylon which is the best indicator of how a game design can become a victim of patching the issue, but not finding the reason. Tell a person 10 years ago: hey imagine in SC2 pylons are going to shoot! He would die from laughter.
I bet similar type of laughter would happen if people were told you will be able to warp dark templars directly into opponent's base.
Or being able to pick up and move sieged tanks for that matter, which is regarded by significant amount of players as a dynamic and exciting mechanic (while others think it's too hard). Imagine it happening in BW, the response would be "imba imba imba imba imba imba imba imba" while recent WCS finals were played with it in the game and it was fine.
Mocking such stuff because they don't really tick with the lore and the franchise overall is rather a poor argument against it on its own. Photon overcharge existed in the game since Heart of the Swarm, an expansion that arguably provided best games over its longer lifespan, it was nerfed in LotV and it's going to be nerfed even more in PvT with cyclone changes. Getting rid of it would mean a need for redesign of basically everything Protoss has and it would mean changing all other matchups as well. In a perfect world probably Blizzard could do it, but making a different game from ground up, and probably it just meant too much of an effort to funnel all their resources to.
While being a band-aid, it provides more positional gameplay and decision-making to Protoss while leaving the army interactions revolving around Protoss unchanged. Removing overcharge would mean much more danger to Protoss with even more mobility other races got, forcing a lot of forces left around bases making the main army much weaker, photon cannons as an alternative are a joke compared to their older brothers from BW though regarding how armies engage into them in both games, they are overrun and die instantly, they should have at least small aoe if overcharge was to be removed (I think so while thinking about it right now).
There is a great difference between "close to 50% win rate in matchups" and "fine". Starcraft 2 is not at its lowest point because this is fine. Brood War isn't as popular and increasing because Starcraft 2 is "fine". There is not a balance patch due shortly to remove some of these things that are said to be fine.. because they are "fine".
Even Blizzard has accepted a stance of no faith in their own design this time.
On November 06 2016 04:33 coolman123123 wrote: Lol, if the Goliath overlaps too much with the Thor, then remove the Thor. The Cyclone is a joke of a unit, a complete gimmick, and always will be. I'd much rather have a "mech marine" (why is that a bad thing?) than either the Thor or Cyclone. Just another huge letdown from the SC2 team. Oh well, looks like the game is winding down anyway. Had some good times in the past but good riddance.
They just can't acknowledge they fkced up. They whole design concept of SC2 was "not copying BW", as if they were afraid people would accuse them in releasing bw 2.0. In terms of marketing and maintining the blizzard's image of making only solid, stand-alone projects it was absolutely right though. So vulture became hellion, goliath merged with wrath to become a viking, they couldn't let the viking be invisible so they passed the ability to banshee. To ensure noone would say they blindly copied bw they removed lurker and reaver saying they got no place in the meta only to reintroduce them later (in reavers case in form of a horrid abomination), etc etc. Right from the start these "improvements" were nothing but futile and artificial attempts to make SC2 look fresh and not bw-like. But in reality Bw was just too good to be surpassed in terms of design. And then everything started to fall apart. They started adding units left and right, all of them were badly designed and overlapped with each other, got no distinct role but w.e. Now it's just out of hand. Noone remembers exactlty what role did thor have. He was rebalanced so many times anyways. Who came up with cyclone and with what purpose? Noone explained that. Ever. Forget it. I'll remind you they wanted to add herk in the lotv beta. They are thinking about adding goliath now... Like. Why not?
Very well said. The one thing i'll add to that is a shooting pylon which is the best indicator of how a game design can become a victim of patching the issue, but not finding the reason. Tell a person 10 years ago: hey imagine in SC2 pylons are going to shoot! He would die from laughter.
I bet similar type of laughter would happen if people were told you will be able to warp dark templars directly into opponent's base.
Or being able to pick up and move sieged tanks for that matter, which is regarded by significant amount of players as a dynamic and exciting mechanic (while others think it's too hard). Imagine it happening in BW, the response would be "imba imba imba imba imba imba imba imba" while recent WCS finals were played with it in the game and it was fine.
Mocking such stuff because they don't really tick with the lore and the franchise overall is rather a poor argument against it on its own. Photon overcharge existed in the game since Heart of the Swarm, an expansion that arguably provided best games over its longer lifespan, it was nerfed in LotV and it's going to be nerfed even more in PvT with cyclone changes. Getting rid of it would mean a need for redesign of basically everything Protoss has and it would mean changing all other matchups as well. In a perfect world probably Blizzard could do it, but making a different game from ground up, and probably it just meant too much of an effort to funnel all their resources to.
While being a band-aid, it provides more positional gameplay and decision-making to Protoss while leaving the army interactions revolving around Protoss unchanged. Removing overcharge would mean much more danger to Protoss with even more mobility other races got, forcing a lot of forces left around bases making the main army much weaker, photon cannons as an alternative are a joke compared to their older brothers from BW though regarding how armies engage into them in both games, they are overrun and die instantly, they should have at least small aoe if overcharge was to be removed (I think so while thinking about it right now).
There is a great difference between "close to 50% win rate in matchups" and "fine". Starcraft 2 is not at its lowest point because this is fine. Brood War isn't as popular and increasing because Starcraft 2 is "fine". There is not a balance patch due shortly to remove some of these things that are said to be fine.. because they are "fine".
Even Blizzard has accepted a stance of no faith in their own design this time.
On a side note, do you have statistics proving that Brood War's popularity is increasing besides stream numbers? Popularity doesn't equal size of a playerbase. True, SC1 is more popular as a PC bang game and it has been for a long time, but is it rising to use it as an argument against design choices like overcharge? "Korean sources" as quoted in community feedback say that the game is too hard, and they are removing medanks () because of that. Terran will be back to more leapfrogging armies with less possibilities of abusing them offensively with tanks overall being more bw-like again.
On November 07 2016 08:50 Probe1 wrote: Do you actually want mech?
Do you want bio all the time? Even after 6 years nonstop bio, from early to late stage bio everywhere. It would be good if mech is at least possible.
.. mech is entirely possible right now. That did not answer my question however.
On November 07 2016 22:34 aQuaSC wrote:
On November 07 2016 22:30 fLyiNgDroNe wrote:
On November 07 2016 07:39 insitelol wrote:
On November 06 2016 04:33 coolman123123 wrote: Lol, if the Goliath overlaps too much with the Thor, then remove the Thor. The Cyclone is a joke of a unit, a complete gimmick, and always will be. I'd much rather have a "mech marine" (why is that a bad thing?) than either the Thor or Cyclone. Just another huge letdown from the SC2 team. Oh well, looks like the game is winding down anyway. Had some good times in the past but good riddance.
They just can't acknowledge they fkced up. They whole design concept of SC2 was "not copying BW", as if they were afraid people would accuse them in releasing bw 2.0. In terms of marketing and maintining the blizzard's image of making only solid, stand-alone projects it was absolutely right though. So vulture became hellion, goliath merged with wrath to become a viking, they couldn't let the viking be invisible so they passed the ability to banshee. To ensure noone would say they blindly copied bw they removed lurker and reaver saying they got no place in the meta only to reintroduce them later (in reavers case in form of a horrid abomination), etc etc. Right from the start these "improvements" were nothing but futile and artificial attempts to make SC2 look fresh and not bw-like. But in reality Bw was just too good to be surpassed in terms of design. And then everything started to fall apart. They started adding units left and right, all of them were badly designed and overlapped with each other, got no distinct role but w.e. Now it's just out of hand. Noone remembers exactlty what role did thor have. He was rebalanced so many times anyways. Who came up with cyclone and with what purpose? Noone explained that. Ever. Forget it. I'll remind you they wanted to add herk in the lotv beta. They are thinking about adding goliath now... Like. Why not?
Very well said. The one thing i'll add to that is a shooting pylon which is the best indicator of how a game design can become a victim of patching the issue, but not finding the reason. Tell a person 10 years ago: hey imagine in SC2 pylons are going to shoot! He would die from laughter.
I bet similar type of laughter would happen if people were told you will be able to warp dark templars directly into opponent's base.
Or being able to pick up and move sieged tanks for that matter, which is regarded by significant amount of players as a dynamic and exciting mechanic (while others think it's too hard). Imagine it happening in BW, the response would be "imba imba imba imba imba imba imba imba" while recent WCS finals were played with it in the game and it was fine.
Mocking such stuff because they don't really tick with the lore and the franchise overall is rather a poor argument against it on its own. Photon overcharge existed in the game since Heart of the Swarm, an expansion that arguably provided best games over its longer lifespan, it was nerfed in LotV and it's going to be nerfed even more in PvT with cyclone changes. Getting rid of it would mean a need for redesign of basically everything Protoss has and it would mean changing all other matchups as well. In a perfect world probably Blizzard could do it, but making a different game from ground up, and probably it just meant too much of an effort to funnel all their resources to.
While being a band-aid, it provides more positional gameplay and decision-making to Protoss while leaving the army interactions revolving around Protoss unchanged. Removing overcharge would mean much more danger to Protoss with even more mobility other races got, forcing a lot of forces left around bases making the main army much weaker, photon cannons as an alternative are a joke compared to their older brothers from BW though regarding how armies engage into them in both games, they are overrun and die instantly, they should have at least small aoe if overcharge was to be removed (I think so while thinking about it right now).
There is a great difference between "close to 50% win rate in matchups" and "fine". Starcraft 2 is not at its lowest point because this is fine. Brood War isn't as popular and increasing because Starcraft 2 is "fine". There is not a balance patch due shortly to remove some of these things that are said to be fine.. because they are "fine".
Even Blizzard has accepted a stance of no faith in their own design this time.
On a side note, do you have statistics proving that Brood War's popularity is increasing besides stream numbers? Popularity doesn't equal size of a playerbase. True, SC1 is more popular as a PC bang game and it has been for a long time, but is it rising to use it as an argument against design choices like overcharge? "Korean sources" as quoted in community feedback say that the game is too hard, and they are removing medanks () because of that. Terran will be back to more leapfrogging armies with less possibilities of abusing them offensively with tanks overall being more bw-like again.
Would you consider the sidebar right now to be a valuable source of statistics?
When Destiny started streaming SC2 last night he had double the viewers than SC2 averages all month. Right now EffOrt has nearly as many viewers as the entire SC2 streaming scene. Surely that puts it beyond argument and I don't need to dredge up the repeated articles from 2016 on how BW is increasing in popularity while SC2 is holding or decreasing.
My point wasn't that I was opening an invitation to argue about what game was better. I really am not interested in that. I am very interested in making Starcraft 2 a better game and to do that we all must acknowledge SC2 is not a great game and needs to be changed.
For this particular point of discussion, tankivacs, we have discussed it and even Blizzard agrees at this point that they were a bad addition. Which returns me to my original point - If you guys want a mech marine then why don't you play bio? The purpose of bio is high mobility high fragility. The purpose of mech is not high mobility high fragility. So asking mech to be like bio is both bad for the game and ultimately once you realize what you've asked for, bad for your own enjoyment.
To be fair, the only thing that the sidebar proves is that BW is more popular in Korea than SC2 which was the case ... pretty much always.
In terms of actual playerbase though BW isn't rising, at least not in Korea. It's sitting at like 2.3~2.7% market share for the last few years. The big difference to SC2 is that it's staying there. It hasn't gone below 2%, whereas SC2 right now is at a laughable 0.30%(down from 0.7~1%) after the KeSPA doom.
And I don't think any design change will ever change that.
Yes, I agree. A lost Starcraft 2 player does not equate to a gained Brood War player. We have had this discussion countless times and I don't have interest in having it nth + 1
On November 08 2016 00:26 Probe1 wrote: Yes, I agree. A lost Starcraft 2 player does not equate to a gained Brood War player. We have had this discussion countless times and I don't have interest in having it nth + 1
No need to, but it puts things into perspective in terms of design. The big point here is that Koreans don't care about the things we are complaining. They don't want SC2 to be more like Brood War, they just play Brood War instead.
So asking to have SC2's design to be more like Brood War in hopes of fixing anything in Korea or with the Brood War fans worldwide is meaningless. Instead, SC2 should find a way to be fun on its own.
Not sure what you are asking probe, if we want goliath - Then whats the problem? Goliath isnt as a marine at all. Its when the attackspeed got reduced they said it played like a marine or something. Still its not a marine, it has high health, much lower movementspeed and cost for cost bad versus zerglings etc
To put "mobility" on top of immobile units is fine as long as the "finesse" is there. Tankivacs didnt have this finesse since flying away was to low risk - Makes it for bad interaction.
Chess is a good game, because you interact with your opponent from the get go till the end in general.
I wanna bring up the fun aspect again - If goliath overlap with viking and thor - Then why not change thor and viking? IMO - Thor isnt fun to use, nor play against since when you win over mass thors for example you usually do it composition wise and a-move.
Vikings with bio vs gateway units and pure colossus(no hts) can be fun actually, i found that a fun "trait", when you need to build vikings, how many, how many starports? Its a fun dynamic deciding how many starports even.
The control is fluid here as well with the vikings and bio vs gateway units/colossus. When HTs come into the picture it just goes out the wood the fluidness and the better of the interaction.
Vikings against anything else doesnt have any big gameplay advantages i can think of, so why not change viking then?
If goliath came into the picture, its still "how many factories", "how many goliaths", which can be a fun dynamic if u can scout and its not rng
Sc2 and broodwar are two separate and different games. The only thing that binds them is that both are rts with storyline based in same universe with same heroes.
Mechanics are different, interface and pathing are different and units are different. Design is different and interactions between units are different too. U have no guarantee that goliath would work in sc2 as you don't have guarantee that Broodlord or adept would work in BW. Its not logical.
From the same reason it's not reasonable to choose which game is better as the one and only conclusion will be who LIKES which game better. It's all about that person taste. I played BW since its premiere and sc2 since its premiere. As i respect BW I must admit that i prefer sc2 despite its flaws which i still believe will be fixed some day. But that only tells the story of my taste. I'm sure that there are many ppl who prefer BW over sc2 and i respect that.
On November 08 2016 00:52 hiroshOne wrote: Sc2 and broodwar are two separate and different games. The only thing that binds them is that both are rts with storyline based in same universe with same heroes.
Mechanics are different, interface and pathing are different and units are different. Design is different and interactions between units are different too. U have no guarantee that goliath would work in sc2 as you don't have guarantee that Broodlord or adept would work in BW. Its not logical.
From the same reason it's not reasonable to choose which game is better as the one and only conclusion will be who LIKES which game better. It's all about that person taste. I played BW since its premiere and sc2 since its premiere. As i respect BW I must admit that i prefer sc2 despite its flaws which i still believe will be fixed some day. But that only tells the story of my taste. I'm sure that there are many ppl who prefer BW over sc2 and i respect that.
I agree so much. After all comparing BW and SC2 with differences between them is like comparing basketball and volleyball and trying to judge which is better simply on a base that both of them involve a single ball in play. Which doesn't mean that comparisons or stuff from BW can't help SC2 be a more fun game.
I wrote it some time ago somewhere, SC2 always had this problem of being a continuation of SC1, expected to be better, while it never had a chance to be a game on its own and was criticized so heavily by so many people for so long for being different, cleaner game for current technology with no "being better" things for die-hard BW fans. All that alongside Blizzard - KeSPA tensions in the end making Blizzard look as the bad guy who hates BW because of its rampant piracy going on and wants to increase sales by pushing newer product - one of the funny drawbacks was the fact that you had to buy the game, Koreans play the game "for free" (why doing business is bad?). I prefer SC2, I played very little of BW and personally never made comparisons between the two, just started being with SC2 since its infancy as it was so exciting and stuck with it with no regrets. I may check out BW someday though for fun
This game had it hard for esentially forever, some people even now suspect that Deepmind deciding to do their next AI is just a Blizzard PR stunt for the game and they should make it work in BW, the "true RTS".
EPT
... 
) because of that. Terran will be back to more leapfrogging armies with less possibilities of abusing them offensively with tanks overall being more bw-like again.
