Design and balance on StarCraft II has been a combined effort among everyone on the design team and our community for quite a while now. We believe that the ongoing communication and collaboration between the design team, pro players, and community will keep SC2 the best it’s ever been as a competitive game.
I’ve reached a point in my career where I’ve decided to branch out to a different project, to explore, learn, and grow as a game designer. This other project will be right here at Blizzard, so I hope working on this next game will be as awesome as my experience working on SC2 and with the community. The rest of the SC2 balance team will continue to make updates, and communication with the community will not be interrupted.
I want to say thank you to everyone that loves StarCraft. I’ve spent much of my life dedicated to StarCraft like many of you have, and I feel especially connected to our SC2 community as we’ve grown together while making StarCraft II the best and most skill-based esport in the world. It has been such an incredible honor working with you and I will miss seeing how the pure passion flows out of so many people in constructive ways, and having design discussions as a game developer with such a dedicated, intelligent community of gamers was so extraordinary. I will always be grateful for this amazing experience that most game designers around the world just don’t get to experience at such a deep level.
Thank you so much everyone and I will continue playing and watching StarCraft II as a fan of the game!"
We have to thank you Dayvie and wish you all the best with the new project!
He did what he could with what he was given: a game engine and AI fundamentally flawed for multiplayer RTS.
SC2 like to whine their balance, but I guess the balance was ok. Proper balance is done through maps and through the community, as was shown by Kespa.
In the end, SC2 had to mature too fast, had too many gimmicky and broken gameplay elements, and the game engine not suitable for the type of gameplay it was meant to support.
Not to mention the pushback he must have faced at every point, especially at the beginning, from people coming from a completely different gaming mindset.
On April 08 2017 04:09 lestye wrote: I hope they announce who's replacing him. I don't think they even announced who the new director is since Dustin Browder left months ago?
Quick, give me a name I can blame my ladder losses on
David Kim turned sc2 into the greatest game of all time, it's sad that he leaves but I wish him good luck for whatever he's doing next. I just hope Blizzard doesn't do any big changes anymore I can't see that turning out well without David Kim leading..
I interviewed David Kim about SCII at BlizzCon 2015. He asked me if it was fine to check his phone every now and then because he didn't want to miss Classic vs Life. I said sure, I wanted to know what was going on too.
Sometime during the interview I asked him about the score. He said: "1-0 for Life. Well, 1-1 now." "What happened?" "Life made roaches."
Dayvie is actually a great guy but he had the least enviable job in all of gaming. Striking a balance between even win rates, map variation, unit strength, economy, micro, macro, casual and pro player expectations is completely impossible.
When WoL launched, players complained that the game was too easy and lacked depth. Now with HotS and LotV, even pro players complain that the game is too hard and micro is too complicated. The guy can't win.
I'm sure I would have made many of the same decisions regarding game direction over the years. Players think the game is too easy? Give them more buttons to push. Increase the pacing to get them making harder decisions faster. Create new units that are more complex and nuanced. But that's how you end up with things like economic harassment getting out of control, reducing build variation, and so on. There are consequences for everything. It's a conundrum.
Ironically one of the biggest complications (and this is the same thing I would do too) was heavy reliance on in-a-vacuum unit cost efficiency combat tests. 4 tanks vs 8 hydras. 12 zealots vs 24 zerglings. Dayvie ran tests like this extensively and used them to fill gaps in race balance. The community did, too! But it brought a lot of "science" to an "art". Of course he still played the game a ton and watched all the pro games, so it's not like he was lacking context, I just can't think of a better method to balance that's not just "guessing".
Best of luck in his new role. Clearly a meticulous man who will be an asset to any project.
David Kim became a symbol for every problem anyone had with SC II. No matter what he did, there would be public hate towards it. Sure not every of his (or his teams) decisions were perfect, but the amount of shit he got was insane.
Hope he has now a better position, a position where you are not getting hated for anything you do.
Wonder what he's working on, maybe they have some other unannounced project besides the rumored first-person Diablo game.
When WoL launched, players complained that the game was too easy and lacked depth. Now with HotS and LotV, even pro players complain that the game is too hard and micro is too complicated. The guy can't win.
IIRC WoL had a lot more of Browder's influence, and Browder seems to prefer more simple games as we see with Heroes. David Kim comes from a competitive RTS background and we can see the results in HotS and LotV. Whatever he works on next will probably have an esports element as well.
Thanks David Kim. I don't agree with your design philosophy, but I can't deny that you know how to get 50% win rates across the boards. That is an achievement in itself. Goodbye DK!
I dont think goes to another rts or esport game, first , he prefers starcraft so go on Wc4 should be weird and i dont think you take fun when whole of your game community is hating you for 8 years.
Good job David Kim, I love sc2 way more than when I began.
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
Honestly I didn't like his way to look at statistics and downplay the actual gameplay. 50-50 balance while meta is dominated by broodlords or swarm hosts wasn't fun to watch or play. He always seemed to balance around the actual gameplay issues instead of looking at the bigger picture. Even so he did decent job with the game and I definitely appreciate the open communication he had with the starcraft community.
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
If the game is boring and frustranting, there will be less and less people to watch tournaments and complain about it.
I dont wanna be the guy but this "Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
On April 08 2017 05:17 PharaphobiaSC wrote: I dont wanna be the guy but this "Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
Also for everyone so scared, he must noticed his supervisor in advance so there is already another guy to step up, but he is probally still taking over DKs job
I sat next to D Kim at WCS Toronto two years ago. It was the 2v2 Red Bull tournament and I saw him in the seating area when it was on a break and had a chat with him. Nice guy. Hope he does well in his next project.
Wow. Everyone always hated all over David Kim for years and asked for him to step down and all that memery, but I'm legitimately a little sad that he's done. Regardless of if he did great work or not, he has been with us since the very beginning.
DK, I've disagreed (and still do!) with you often, but your passion for this game cannot be denied. Thank you for your hard work, and the best of luck in your future endeavours. May your next game be just as awesome as this one!
Despite all the complaints and the negativity, no one can deny the fact that David Kim worked his butt off for SC2 and really put int a lot of time and effort. Thank you for all that you've done DK and I sincerely hope that you find success in your future endeavors. Best of luck!
It was about time David Kim quit SC2. New LotV meta is just boring. I feel like WoL meta and early LotV were the most enjoyable ones. Broodlord/infestor wasn't great but swarm hosts and cyclones aren't great either.
On April 08 2017 05:17 PharaphobiaSC wrote: I dont wanna be the guy but this "Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
On April 08 2017 05:17 PharaphobiaSC wrote: I dont wanna be the guy but this "Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
While the community can be vocal at times and often you had to take the all the criticism, you did a fantastic job and have helped create such a phenomenal game. You have done so much for this game, the community and the players and to see the place where Starcraft has come from and where it's going is something you should always be proud of. I will always cherish the community feedback when you gave me a shout-out in regards to map making and you have no idea how much that meant to me as a sc2 mapper. It's the little things like that that really stick with you. I wish you nothing but the best going forward and even though you will not be working on Starcraft 2 anymore, I hope you still follow the game, players & community as we continue forward.
Thank you David Kim, best of luck to your future! =)
Change is always a little hard to take for me, especially when DK's been around since the very beginning of SC2. But thanks David for all the time, effort, and memories you gave us, and we wish nothing but the best for your future.
On April 08 2017 05:17 PharaphobiaSC wrote: I dont wanna be the guy but this "Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
Thank you for all your hard work and passion, David. At times the SC2 balance has been incredible, and always at least decent. I wish you success in your next position!
On April 08 2017 05:17 PharaphobiaSC wrote: I dont wanna be the guy but this "Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
I know he got a lot of hate, but I have always respected and liked David Kim. I guarantee he learned a lot balancing SC2 and will only improve from there. I thought he did a pretty good job, a little slow on making changes at times, but he did what he thought was best. I definitely would not have wanted his job, this community is brutal.
On April 08 2017 05:17 PharaphobiaSC wrote: I dont wanna be the guy but this "Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
Tasked with an impossible job you gave it your all. Some good times and some bad times regarding balance and you were never gonna please everyone. But you always came across as a nice guy in interviews and that was appreciated.
Good luck with your future projects, as long as your not taking Swarm Hosts into SC Remastered the SC2 community, well most of it will wish you all the best.
GG WP, certainly was a brutal and unforgiving job you had to do, can't say I loved all the decisions, but after 6+ years I still play the game, so I'd say you did great! GL to your future projects and stop by from time to time!
.. Yeah. Sure. Goodluck on your next project. If you really were just there to get yelled at by the community, good job, you earned your paycheck. I won't give you any accolades for doing your job decently well, on that score.
I dont wanna be the guy but this "Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
On April 08 2017 07:08 Psychobabas wrote: Whatever, wont be missed by me. He was too slow with any balance change.
It will be interesting to see if whoever the replacement is updates/patches the game more frequently as the time it takes to adjust balance has been one reasonable complaint by a lot of people.
On the one hand, I'm glad that he's stating that he'll be working on blizz's new project so i can avoid it like the plague. On the other hand, that means that blizz pulling ressources from SC2 multiplayer because it doesn't bring enough money has gone as far as re-allocating the "head" of the balance team, which means even less patches and changes.
Overall i guess that means changes for SC2 multi are done, which finally extinguishes the last hope people unsatisfied with LOTV.
#7 The game engine for an rts was perfectly fine. The problem was the game was designed around being a competitive rts instead of primarily focusing on it being an extremely fun game to just play. Almost all the units are incredibly boring to play with. Brood War had boring units but how you moved them around and micro'd them made them incredibly fun to play with they should have focused on making every unit exciting and fun to play with.
Well done, David Kim. Thank you for all the hours and days of enjoyment, watching and playing and, yes, even arguing about balance and game design with random people on the Internet. Starcraft II has been, from the beginning, a great and good thing in my life, and I have you to thank for that. I could never possibly repay you for this.
Thank you for all your hard work, your amazingly thick skin, and your respect for the community. I don't think I would be capable of engaging with a group of people as hostile as the Starcraft community for so long, and so closely--but you did it for years, with greater and greater insight and attention as the years stretched on. You showed, day in and day out, enormous respect even for people who did not respect you, and enormous regard for the good of the game and the community alike.
In doing this job, you showed yourself not just a good game designer, but a fundamentally good and decent and virtuous human being. In the end, that's all that will matter. So bravo. Have fun with whatever you're working on now.
On April 08 2017 07:31 XERX wrote: Brood War had boring units but how you moved them around and micro'd them made them incredibly fun to play with they should have focused on making every unit exciting and fun to play with.
You need 'boring' units. The end product is larger than the sum of all components.
Units in SC were nice to micro. You got it backwards. The people that wrote the AI for SC2, the collision mechanics, the way position of units is determined in the game engine, how units move and rotate, those people never ever considered how it would 'feel' to control those units in battles, and how even beginning users would be able to improve the effectiveness of their armies by adjusting and improving upon the default unit behavior/AI.
So maybe Blizzard thought about how the game would be a competitive game. But if so, they did it backwards. Instead of producing a game with good fundamentals, where you don't have units that have a mind of their own and fight your desire to control them, they tried really hard to come up with cool and special units. In the end that just led to gimmicky gameplay mechanics.
Just take the simple example of zerg, creep and unit speed. It is a nice idea at the start. But when you think about it in gameplay terms, all it means is that zerg units are too slow to fight properly, unless the zerg fights on creep. Giving them a speed bonus on creep just means that overall the units have to be slower, or same speed and weaker.
Same with warp gate. Blizzard doesn't get that.
And their game engine is fundamentally unable to facilitate a game where you can properly control units. That's the worst thing. No balance or unit design can ever fix that. And neither did it make the game more fun.
In the end you just need some basic simple units that can be properly controlled. The complexity of the game starts to take over perpetually. You do not try to force it. Just take PvP in SC. Two armies of just two boring units, fighting it out, at the start of the game. Yet in no way is it boring to play. Neither unit would ever be considered for SC2 (or SC3, WC4, etc). So yes, they also tried way too hard to make every unit, in itself, fun to play with. They thought way too long about how much of a 'wow' a unit would give the first moment you got it in single player. Not good for a game you hope to play 1vs1 in 2035.
On April 08 2017 07:08 Psychobabas wrote: Whatever, wont be missed by me. He was too slow with any balance change.
what? too slow!? don't you mean too fast..
Some kids think an RTS can be balanced like LoL with crazy changes every week. I think he patched the game at a good pace, was maybe to slow with some things (BL Infestor) and to fast with other things (WM nerf in 2013 when Zergs were just figuring out how to deal with them).
On April 08 2017 07:08 Psychobabas wrote: Whatever, wont be missed by me. He was too slow with any balance change.
what? too slow!? don't you mean too fast..
Some kids think an RTS can be balanced like LoL with crazy changes every week. I think he patched the game at a good pace, was maybe to slow with some things (BL Infestor) and to fast with other things (WM nerf in 2013 when Zergs were just figuring out how to deal with them).
This is kinda why im super patient with balance. It's very difficult to get it right, hence the number of viable rtses that are being played nowadays can be counted on one hand. Too many casters is bad, too many answers is bad, if stuff doesnt do enough damage it feels like you're hitting with wet noodles, if its too much damage, you dont get many opportunities to micro.
On April 08 2017 08:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: I'm still going to blame David for things, even if they are things he had nothing to do with. He's the new Obama
Thank you Dayvie for all the years together. People may have accused you of questionable balance changes, but I was personally very grateful to you for willingly taking all the negativity as a head of a group with a very heavy burden. Thank you for all the years together, and I wish you a awesome journey in your next project.
On April 08 2017 08:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: I'm still going to blame David for things, even if they are things he had nothing to do with. He's the new Obama
omg imagine the guy who's replacing him
Oh... Oh sweet heavens... oh no oh nononononono D Kim come back I miss you already! D:
On April 08 2017 07:21 JackONeill wrote: On the one hand, I'm glad that he's stating that he'll be working on blizz's new project so i can avoid it like the plague. On the other hand, that means that blizz pulling ressources from SC2 multiplayer because it doesn't bring enough money has gone as far as re-allocating the "head" of the balance team, which means even less patches and changes.
Overall i guess that means changes for SC2 multi are done, which finally extinguishes the last hope people unsatisfied with LOTV.
I wonder if you did not read the post enough times or u just too (slow?) to process this? He himself wanted the change and there is no suprise after 6 years... you saw it with alot of ppl in Blizzard or anywhere else after some time the change is good. Im actually suprised that he were reading this toxic things for 6 years lol
On April 08 2017 08:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: I'm still going to blame David for things, even if they are things he had nothing to do with. He's the new Obama
Awaiting the 'new Donald Trump' of SC2's Game designer
All jokes aside, Thank you for everything done, David Kim! I am so happy to have gotten a chance (well, multiple chances) to enjoy this game! Thank you for all the hard work, contributions and sacrifices you have given to this game!
On April 08 2017 07:31 XERX wrote: Brood War had boring units but how you moved them around and micro'd them made them incredibly fun to play with they should have focused on making every unit exciting and fun to play with.
You need 'boring' units. The end product is larger than the sum of all components.
Units in SC were nice to micro. You got it backwards. The people that wrote the AI for SC2, the collision mechanics, the way position of units is determined in the game engine, how units move and rotate, those people never ever considered how it would 'feel' to control those units in battles, and how even beginning users would be able to improve the effectiveness of their armies by adjusting and improving upon the default unit behavior/AI.
So maybe Blizzard thought about how the game would be a competitive game. But if so, they did it backwards. Instead of producing a game with good fundamentals, where you don't have units that have a mind of their own and fight your desire to control them, they tried really hard to come up with cool and special units. In the end that just led to gimmicky gameplay mechanics.
Just take the simple example of zerg, creep and unit speed. It is a nice idea at the start. But when you think about it in gameplay terms, all it means is that zerg units are too slow to fight properly, unless the zerg fights on creep. Giving them a speed bonus on creep just means that overall the units have to be slower, or same speed and weaker.
Same with warp gate. Blizzard doesn't get that.
And their game engine is fundamentally unable to facilitate a game where you can properly control units. That's the worst thing. No balance or unit design can ever fix that. And neither did it make the game more fun.
In the end you just need some basic simple units that can be properly controlled. The complexity of the game starts to take over perpetually. You do not try to force it. Just take PvP in SC. Two armies of just two boring units, fighting it out, at the start of the game. Yet in no way is it boring to play. Neither unit would ever be considered for SC2 (or SC3, WC4, etc). So yes, they also tried way too hard to make every unit, in itself, fun to play with. They thought way too long about how much of a 'wow' a unit would give the first moment you got it in single player. Not good for a game you hope to play 1vs1 in 2035.
So I stand by my position. You have it backwards.
In game design, there exist things called "core tenets", or "pillars". These are your absolute, most-fundamental, bedrock, foundational concepts that can never change. You construct these core tenets, then you build the rest of your game on top of them.
In BW, the core tenets were clearly: 1. Make the races feel different and unique. 2. Give each unit a specific purpose.
And that's probably about it. For SC2, it was probably the same. Except this is a sequel, so it has to be different enough to not be a replacement. This is the inherent difficulty in designing SC2. The core tenets were probably "do those things but MORE!" and they probably got too specific and narrow. That's how you end up with things like creep speed bonuses and warp-in and Planetary Fortresses. Once you've established those as your immovable principles, you have to build your game around them. They definitely went above and beyond BW's core tenets, and that was probably their goal. And the game does feel familiar but new and different at the same time.
So I'd say you're exactly right about a lot of factors. I believe I recall reading that the first step in designing SC2 was to first build the engine and then recreate SC1 inside of it and work from there. Back in 2002 this was how they started with Diablo3: remake all your assets from D2 in the new engine and go from there. And "go from there" always means "improve it in some way" -- make it bigger, louder, more exciting, more impressive, whatever your design goal is. I'm sure as they played SC1 in the SC2 engine they brainstormed and iterated for years on how to make a proper sequel. I'm sure I would have taken the same approach: "make the races feel even MORE different, even from SC1" and "give the units even MORE specific roles". There's inherent danger in that path, though, as we understand.
Though I have been heavily criticizing some of your decisions and judgement regarding the balance, I still want to express my gratitude towards the effort you and the team put into SC2 and the achievements you have made. Your performance on the position of game designer isn't perfect, yet sufficiently remarkable. For seven years, SC2 has been a vibrant and ever growing game with solid design, and become the sole survivor of RTS genres in e-sport. It is your and the team's effort that maintains this status for such a long period of time. God speed, David!
The way this guy always faced up for Blizzard and talked civilly towards a community that largely treated him like shit is remarkable. Blizzard should be very proud of David, very few people could have done that job and represented the product so well. I always liked listening to DK talk about Starcraft. An amazing player, too.
Good luck in the future David, and don't worry we will keep your name alive for ever in our meme.
By the way if the guy goes to warcraft 4 he has the best self image of the world, he already took so much crap and you know he is destined to take even more if he goes to W4.
Thanks for all the hard work DK. I appreciate the position you held, knowing that a wave of vitriol would be directed at you after almost any significant change you had to make. Thanks for staying thoughtful and passionate regardless of that. And thanks for helping to keep SC2 an enjoyable and satisfying game throughout the years. I'm excited to see what you do next!
Well given the horrible units that had to work with (Swarm Hosts, Tempest, Adepts etc) he did a decent work at balancing the winrates for the top 0.01%.
Only one person can save SC2 now but I do not think he will get the job.
For sake... guys.. stop praying for SC3 or WC4 its not gonna happen.... and here is why:
"Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
On April 08 2017 05:37 LHK wrote: Wow. Everyone always hated all over David Kim for years and asked for him to step down and all that memery, but I'm legitimately a little sad that he's done. Regardless of if he did great work or not, he has been with us since the very beginning.
On April 08 2017 14:29 MockHamill wrote: Well given the horrible units that had to work with (Swarm Hosts, Tempest, Adepts etc) he did a decent work at balancing the winrates for the top 0.01%.
Only one person can save SC2 now but I do not think he will get the job.
On April 08 2017 14:29 MockHamill wrote: Well given the horrible units that had to work with (Swarm Hosts, Tempest, Adepts etc) he did a decent work at balancing the winrates for the top 0.01%.
Only one person can save SC2 now but I do not think he will get the job.
On April 08 2017 14:29 MockHamill wrote: Well given the horrible units that had to work with (Swarm Hosts, Tempest, Adepts etc) he did a decent work at balancing the winrates for the top 0.01%.
Only one person can save SC2 now but I do not think he will get the job.
And who is that one person?
Avilo !!!!
I hear he is busy saving a 'new' game these days. A 'new' game that has a mech friendly meta.
However, I am convinced he is still doing his katas in the sunset by the bunkbed. Soon tanks will shoot up and raven auto-turret will last 600 real time seconds. The 'tiny dick' tag will also be added to the adept.
On April 08 2017 12:16 riotjune wrote: Wow, everyone's so nice now lol
Sometimes you hate someone to the very core but when they actually leave... Don't know, you kinda feel sorry.
You don't speak ill of the death. More to the point, DK in his role as balance designer and public face of the design team might be a disagreeable proposition for some, but no one here has a legitimate reason to dislike him personally.
I think a thread like this is better served with amicable, personal messages, in order not to conflate these various aspects of DK. What is worrisome, however, is that people have an unfortunate tendency towards hagiography and will, in the glow of the moment, unknowingly politicize a departure by whitewashing actual flaws.
On April 08 2017 15:39 PharaphobiaSC wrote: For sake... guys.. stop praying for SC3 or WC4 its not gonna happen.... and here is why:
"Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
David kim, you should have gone away earlier since you only have been able to worsen a game which first chapter was awesome. You should go balance tetris and probably you would ruin that one as well since you' re totally incompetent. And I will always wonder if You ever played even only one game of SC 2 since you never understood anything of it. Please go growing potatos. I hope I' ll never hear of you anymore.
On April 08 2017 07:21 JackONeill wrote: On the one hand, I'm glad that he's stating that he'll be working on blizz's new project so i can avoid it like the plague. On the other hand, that means that blizz pulling ressources from SC2 multiplayer because it doesn't bring enough money has gone as far as re-allocating the "head" of the balance team, which means even less patches and changes.
Overall i guess that means changes for SC2 multi are done, which finally extinguishes the last hope people unsatisfied with LOTV.
I wonder if you did not read the post enough times or u just too (slow?) to process this? He himself wanted the change and there is no suprise after 6 years... you saw it with alot of ppl in Blizzard or anywhere else after some time the change is good. Im actually suprised that he were reading this toxic things for 6 years lol
How naive do you have to be to think that any PR piece issued by a employee of a major company can contain any truth past indisputable facts?
His post can be boiled down to : - i'm leaving the SC2 team - i'm gonna work on another Blizz project
Everything else is pure politics and communication. We don't know if blizzard didn't just reallocate him because they thought SC2 was a commercial dead end, and that it's presented as him leaving the team to smoothe things, for instance.
On April 08 2017 15:39 PharaphobiaSC wrote: For sake... guys.. stop praying for SC3 or WC4 its not gonna happen.... and here is why:
"Blizzard Entertainment is seeking an experienced engine engineer to work on a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project." So it is not WC4 or any RTS
Ok there were lots of bad patches, like the queen range patch in WOL that actually murdered the game BUT that being said. the job was thankless and impossible and difficult. no matter what DK would do, his decisions would get shit on, so he handled that really well. at the end of the day thanks to his work there were still many great and memorable games of SC2, and he did the best he could with the tools he was given. its come a long way since unpatched WOL. Good job!
Good luck to you Mr.Kim and good riddance. The numbers speak for themselves. Viewership and playerbase kept declining through the years you were in charge and plummeted during the LOTV launch. Mr.Kim was a good PR but a bad game designer. I hope the new commander in chief does things better than he did. Blizzard gets to keep him and focus on another project that hopefully suits his skills more. Good news overall.
The argument that no matter what he would do, he would get shit feels very illogical to me, also feels pointless bringing that up. People will always cry and complain but thats how it is to express emotiotions, someone having a bad day, someone that doesnt think deeply about the subject at all and so on.
There were times when I liked what DK did , times when I didnt , but there is no doubt about it , he loved what he did and try to do his best , his heart was in the right place , ty DK.
On another note I HOPE THE OTHER PROJECT ISNT WC4 , I really dont want him of all people balancing that.
On April 08 2017 08:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: I'm still going to blame David for things, even if they are things he had nothing to do with. He's the new Obama
omg imagine the guy who's replacing him
Oh f*ck, yeah. Excited, Terran walls are going to be huge, glorious, 40 feet high things that are impenetrable. Making Terran Great Again, and bombing the f*ck out of Syria Zerg.
But I honestly think you should have stepped down earlier. After HoTS someone else should have been in charge of the balance not because the game is not balanced but because there was only 1 expansion left and something more drastic than we have seen had need to be done for the game.
I always thought that SC2 had large game design problems. One of which was warpgate negating the defenders advantage, meaning the units that could come out of gateways had to be weaker. This led to reliance on hero units, like the colossus, to win games; promoting a turtle-like style of play. There are many other problems I see but they're mostly problems that would have to be fixed by radical overhauls. Instead of overhauling the game Blizzard gave David Kim (and Co.) a stack of band-aids and said "fix our patient that's bleeding out due to massive lacerations".
Realistically, there was only so much David Kim could do to patch up a patient in critical condition, with band-aids. I think he, and the rest of the balance team, did a fine job when you consider their situation. Unfortunately, I found that I was not a member of SC2's target audience. I just didn't find the gameplay that compelling or engaging (when compared to BW). I still checked in every now and then, but never found SC2 gameplay as compelling as BW.
Regardless of this I wish David Kim the best in his future projects. Being the head of the balance team was (is) a rough job. I would liken it to the job of U.S. Federal Reserve's Janet Yellen. Much like Yellen he had the job of soothing the masses; and no matter what he did, someone was going to be pissed.
So good luck David Kim. I hope your next position in Blizzard will be a little less stressful.
Lastly, I'd just like to point out that my view of SC2 is just my opinion. I came from BW and would have liked SC2 to be more like BW; so my opinion is very biased and should be taken with a large amount of salt.
I don't agree with many of the decisions David Kim made as balance designer, like the Queen attack range buff which single-handedly ushered in months of Zerg dominance during late WoL, or even how the units of later expansions were designed around a harassment and aggression heavy meta. The amount of pros that ditched SC2 for other games should be considered a testament to this guy's legacy.
Nevertheless, I wish him luck in his future endeavours, and really hope his replacement will actually revolutionise StarCraft II and make it a fun and worthwhile game again.
On April 09 2017 00:11 Clbull wrote: I don't agree with many of the decisions David Kim made as balance designer, like the Queen attack range buff which single-handedly ushered in months of Zerg dominance during late WoL, or even how the units of later expansions were designed around a harassment and aggression heavy meta. The amount of pros that ditched SC2 for other games should be considered a testament to this guy's legacy.
Nevertheless, I wish him luck in his future endeavours, and really hope his replacement will actually revolutionise StarCraft II and make it a fun and worthwhile game again.
At least someone said it, agree with this completely. Or when Brood/Infestor was not patched out because, "the players will figure it out" but Blue Flame Hellions and Ghosts were castrated the instant they looked imbalanced in a tournament setting while Korea Zergs collected free paychecks. Not trying to attack the guy personally and all of the heartfelt good-byes feel nice but the bottom line is that David Kim's approach to balance was flawed, inconsistent, and lacked a vision that the community and fans could get behind.
Only at the very end did Kim start implementing more community based changes, and low and behold, they were by FAR the best changes he made to the game, (buffing tanks and Hydras for example) but it was too late. Hopefully his replacement has a real vision for this game and understands SC2 on a more fundamental level, because saying Kim was out of touch is just being PC.
I haven't got so much of an informed opinion on his balance decisions, but I definitely always appreciated the fact that he really was trying to do the best he could for the good of the game. Here's hoping the less constructive members of the community didn't get him down - although it certainly seems from his statement that they didn't!
On April 08 2017 04:12 Charoisaur wrote: ... and now David Kim leaving sc2. This is a tough time to be an sc2 fan
I have never been more hopeful for SC2 than now.
this is a great position to have if you want to set yourself up for feeling indignant, angry, and offended in 6 months.
if anything major occurs it'll be Blizzard decreasing the resources devoted to competitive multiplayer. in fact, an incoming decrease in resources may have catalyzed mr. kim's exit from the team. ATVI laid off 5% of its staff recently. The pressure is prolly on for Morhaime to cut budgets where prudent.
I always thought DK was only the guy to take the blame but the actual work was done by other people. So he just took it when we said something was his fault, when in reality he had nothing to do with it. Well, we'll see what's next. Measured in viewing figures and active players, the game is certainly not at a high and the trend is not encouraging either.
He certainly took the blame for mistakes a whole team was behind but I won't miss him at all. Most decisions and additions since HotS' launch were just abysmal.
I definitely do not think that Kim leaving is a) a bad thing or b) even early enough. As head of his department David Kim was responsible for its work and any result thereof. As do many others, I think many bad decisions have been made and the disaffection and disenchantment of so many players with Sc2, because of balance, meta and unit design in Lotv are in no small part due to David Kims work/ decision making. It was his job, he did get paid for it and, at least in my opinion, he had and has to face the criticism for things the customers disagree with.
No, I am not sad to see him go. Had the news struck a year ago or maybe even in November 2015. Maybe we would still have a larger number of players enjoying Sc2.
DK is a nice guy. he's a skilled communicator and passionate about game design. I have nothing against him personally. balancing sc2 while also making it fun to play is an extremely difficult job - and in the end, DK was not able to do this. I'm very interested to know who else was considered for the job. maybe there was someone on the short-list who would have done a better job... who knows. I'm sure DK's skills will be extremely welcome in other departments of Blizzard. I just hope it's not Warcraft IV balance team.
I feel it is kinda sad to see so many comments that talk about him ruining sc2, imo the game is in a very nice place right now. It's a thankless job and I think he did a good job. Thanks for everything mr. Kim
Dayvie was a guy who meant well, worked hard, but at the end of the day just wasn't competent enough. Still, one has to appreciate the years and effort he and Blizzard put into balancing SC2. For comparison, the last balance patch for Brood War was in 2001. There was a total of 5(?) balance patches. And let's not kids ourselves, BW was not balanced at all, saying this as a BW Terran player. Community maps added a great degree of balance but still wasn't absolutely balanced.
It's a bit saddening that despite DK's great efforts, the game still had glaring issues, which along with other matters, disillusioned many pros who went to other esports are retired altogether. SC2 had a great esports run and still has a decent esports scene. It's not like the old days, but there's a few things I'd like to point out:
1) SC2 was a lot bigger in the foreigner (ie non-Korean) scene than BW in popularity, tournaments, etc.
2) RTS is a very difficult genre. This isn't the days of RTS and skill FPSs. Pro gamers have shifted their focus to streamlined FPSs and MOBAs, games which are take little effort to play and get into and so attract higher numbers of players, viewer, and visibility. RTS as a whole has been falling off. Even if SC2 surpassed BW as a game, I'd still expect it to have fallen off in the face of esports competition.
3) SC2 didn't become one of South Korea's biggest professional sports like BW did. There's a number of factors here, but a big reason why BW was alive and well even by the time of SC2's release was the serious and large-scale professional scene in Korea.
Whoever DK's replacement with is hopefully better suited for the position, but at this point it's hard to say how significant it will be considering it's not the heyday of SC2 when this seriously mattered.
On April 08 2017 04:12 Charoisaur wrote: ... and now David Kim leaving sc2. This is a tough time to be an sc2 fan
I have never been more hopeful for SC2 than now.
Going to reinstall SC2. There is hope for the future.
Mr. Kim, don't forget the lessons your learned during your time with SC2. Gameplay >>> all. Don't sacrifice gameplay for the sake of esports or viewership, because good gameplay will lead to esports and viewership but not vice-versa.
On April 08 2017 04:12 Charoisaur wrote: ... and now David Kim leaving sc2. This is a tough time to be an sc2 fan
I have never been more hopeful for SC2 than now.
I feel the same. A lot probably do. We can all respect the time the guy put in, but his approach to balancing was very, very flawed and not good for the game.
I love all of the brilliant contributory comments in this thread that are giving us fantastic ways to dismantle deathballs and fix all of the "gameplay" problems. Thanks for all the insight. Make sure to post all of your wonderful ideas on the Battlenet forums so that Blizzard will know how to fix this game in the future.
On April 09 2017 08:15 MiCroLiFe wrote: Great. Maybe terran can have a chance now? bring tankivac back! remove overcharge! 8 armor ultra need a proper counter
8 armor ultra doesn't exist anymore. They only have max 7 armor now.
peoples memory of him is really bad. but i think he had an impossible job (make millions of competitive ppl playing a videogame happy/somehow balance that with weird videogatme hermits who play 8 hrs a day and break the balance eveyr few months), i think he did pretty well in all honesty. people say he was too knee jerk against terran but honeslty terran was so fucking imbalance @ launch, so thats why he had to be that way. i was playing random at the time and it was wildly apparent to me
peoples memory of him is really bad. but i think he had an impossible job (make millions of competitive ppl playing a videogame happy/somehow balance that with weird videogatme hermits who play 8 hrs a day and break the balance eveyr few months), i think he did pretty well in all honesty. people say he was too knee jerk against terran but honeslty terran was so fucking imbalance @ launch, so thats why he had to be that way. i was playing random at the time and it was wildly apparent to me
true story. I have friends to this day complain about how IMBA Terran is. Given, they are only gold-ish, but they live in the perpetual WoL perception that stimmed marines still own this game and are imbalanced. Even though Terran is in it's worst spot in a long time right now :/
HFGL to David Kim. He did a good job with SC2 given how hostile and whiny people are towards him. He probably had the tough job at Blizzard. I'm sure whichever project has him now is very lucky!
I hope he will continue to support SC2 in some smaller capacity.
On April 09 2017 11:00 BigFan wrote: lol Idra, funny guy. Doubt he'll come to SCII though, I think he's done for good since what, HoTS?
IdrA was basically done at the start of HotS. He didn't finally quit until the end of 2013.
Yeah Incontrol said in a recent AMA that he was back in school and completely out of esports. He said he didnt want to be in the spotlight anymore and faded out. Would love to watch him stream even in a one-time stream because I really think he is a good guy deep down, easily frustrated and verbally toxic, but I'd like to think in person and in small groups he's chill.
On April 09 2017 12:27 ggrrg wrote: I am thrilled to know what project David Kim has moved on to. Let's just hope it is something exciting and not just another WoW expansion...
From the few hints there are, it sounds like it's a new game, and not an RTS. (Dayvie said the new project would help him grow as a game developer, so I don't think he'll be doing the same exact thing on a new RTS)
On April 09 2017 04:54 [PkF] Wire wrote: He certainly took the blame for mistakes a whole team was behind but I won't miss him at all. Most decisions and additions since HotS' launch were just abysmal.
He was in charge. "Lead Designer" had to mean something... the buck should have stopped with him. And if it didn't, then Blizzard is poorly run.
On April 08 2017 04:12 Charoisaur wrote: ... and now David Kim leaving sc2. This is a tough time to be an sc2 fan
I have never been more hopeful for SC2 than now.
this is a great position to have if you want to set yourself up for feeling indignant, angry, and offended in 6 months.
We never agree, but you can cry on my shoulder if you want. I know what it is like to have a game I love ripped out from under me; WOL was an amazing ride. If LOTV does good things for you and this changes that, I am sorry.
But I won't be angry or offended in 6 months.
SC2 will probably be the same, and I'll still be playing other games. But this is the first step necessary for it be something better.
i never understood the hate for david kim.. i only got the chance to speak with a few times on the ladder but he was always down to talk and seemed genuinely interested in the game (this was back in WOL, i went back to broodwar in mid 2012). I imagine that any hatred for him is just because he was the messenger, the people telling him HOW to balance the game (focusing on casuals) were probably much higher up than he was
I love this game you've worked so hard to help create and believe you've done a extraordinary job of balancing. I have always appreciated and respected the positive and candid feedback you've had with the community. I wish you the absolute best in your future project and look forward to it as well!
You should never feel sorry for a person that choose to be in a position of power and great financial award for being criticized on how they do their job. He didn't have to take that position. You will actually feel that people in those kinds of positions have an unusual ability to not be bothered by it. Either out of narcissism or insensitivity. And we 'normal' people feel that so many people having opinions on you would be stressful at best, hurtful at worst. Until it become tasteless, personal, threads of violence, I wouldn't feel sorry for people in prominent positions.
I would be more worried about certain type of people deciding against taking on high profile jobs because they don't have the thick skin or insensitivity to criticism to take on such jobs, despite their ability to do those jobs well. You create a bias in favour of certain people for these important positions.
In the end it was David Kim's job to be a foil for all the criticism customers put out, so that others didn't have to deal with it. They paid him handsomely for that, so they didn't have to pay their other employee's similar money because they remained unaffected.
On April 08 2017 23:27 HalcyonRain wrote: I always thought that SC2 had large game design problems. One of which was warpgate negating the defenders advantage, meaning the units that could come out of gateways had to be weaker. This led to reliance on hero units, like the colossus, to win games; promoting a turtle-like style of play. There are many other problems I see but they're mostly problems that would have to be fixed by radical overhauls. Instead of overhauling the game Blizzard gave David Kim (and Co.) a stack of band-aids and said "fix our patient that's bleeding out due to massive lacerations".
Realistically, there was only so much David Kim could do to patch up a patient in critical condition, with band-aids. I think he, and the rest of the balance team, did a fine job when you consider their situation. Unfortunately, I found that I was not a member of SC2's target audience. I just didn't find the gameplay that compelling or engaging (when compared to BW). I still checked in every now and then, but never found SC2 gameplay as compelling as BW.
Regardless of this I wish David Kim the best in his future projects. Being the head of the balance team was (is) a rough job. I would liken it to the job of U.S. Federal Reserve's Janet Yellen. Much like Yellen he had the job of soothing the masses; and no matter what he did, someone was going to be pissed.
So good luck David Kim. I hope your next position in Blizzard will be a little less stressful.
Lastly, I'd just like to point out that my view of SC2 is just my opinion. I came from BW and would have liked SC2 to be more like BW; so my opinion is very biased and should be taken with a large amount of salt.
The big question here is, who is replacing him? Because if he leaves and such an important position isn't immediately filled by a replacement, that basically confirms SC2 is in maintenance mode now - whatever headless remnant of the design team is still around won't have either the ability or authority to change the game, nevermind revive it from its slump.
On April 08 2017 14:29 MockHamill wrote: Well given the horrible units that had to work with (Swarm Hosts, Tempest, Adepts etc) he did a decent work at balancing the winrates for the top 0.01%.
Only one person can save SC2 now but I do not think he will get the job.
On April 10 2017 12:06 htx.RuNe wrote: The big question here is, who is replacing him? Because if he leaves and such an important position isn't immediately filled by a replacement, that basically confirms SC2 is in maintenance mode now - whatever headless remnant of the design team is still around won't have either the ability or authority to change the game, nevermind revive it from its slump.
Truth is, the design decisions are not his own, it is a team effort, he is just the one that takes the blame. Same for Ghostcrawler and his WoW days.
On April 09 2017 21:46 Eridanus wrote: You should never feel sorry for a person that choose to be in a position of power and great financial award for being criticized on how they do their job. He didn't have to take that position. You will actually feel that people in those kinds of positions have an unusual ability to not be bothered by it. Either out of narcissism or insensitivity. And we 'normal' people feel that so many people having opinions on you would be stressful at best, hurtful at worst. Until it doesn't become tasteless, personal, threads of violence, I wouldn't feel sorry for people in prominent positions.
Please don't rationalize the awful behavior of this community by claiming that dkim doesn't have feelings like a 'normal' person. A lot of the hate directed toward him was exactly that (tasteless, personal, threats of violence)
On April 09 2017 21:46 Eridanus wrote: Until it doesn't become tasteless, personal, threads of violence, I wouldn't feel sorry for people in prominent positions.
except that it happened. we're not thinking that he's a poor baby soul, we're considering that he's a grown professional with the capabilities to handle the pressure and yet we still sympathize; as if you read some of the hate comments, a lot of them quickly became personal for whatever reason, even if we know that he is in a position to receive them.
the alternatives are that we blame dustin browder, blizzard as the entire company, or god forbid.. ourselves, lol, upon realizing that we need to take responsibility for having to improve our own playstyle.
On April 09 2017 21:46 Eridanus wrote: You should never feel sorry for a person that choose to be in a position of power and great financial award for being criticized on how they do their job. He didn't have to take that position. You will actually feel that people in those kinds of positions have an unusual ability to not be bothered by it. Either out of narcissism or insensitivity. And we 'normal' people feel that so many people having opinions on you would be stressful at best, hurtful at worst. Until it doesn't become tasteless, personal, threads of violence, I wouldn't feel sorry for people in prominent positions.
Please don't rationalize the awful behavior of this community by claiming that dkim doesn't have feelings like a 'normal' person. A lot of the hate directed toward him was exactly that (tasteless, personal, threats of violence)
How is it a rationalization? I already know many of Blizzard's customers are complete trash, illogical, and immature people. Never mind the immoral behavior they display online because they think it doesn't matter what you say as long as you think you are anonymous.
I am talking about how sorry we should feel for David Kim. Or Lloyd Blankfein. Or some Kardasian. Or Donald Trump. Or anyone who decides they really want the spotlight. These people get exactly what they want. We shouldn't feel sorry for people getting exactly what they want. If they wanted something else, they can just quit.
On April 10 2017 12:06 htx.RuNe wrote: The big question here is, who is replacing him? Because if he leaves and such an important position isn't immediately filled by a replacement, that basically confirms SC2 is in maintenance mode now - whatever headless remnant of the design team is still around won't have either the ability or authority to change the game, nevermind revive it from its slump.
Truth is, the design decisions are not his own, it is a team effort, he is just the one that takes the blame. Same for Ghostcrawler and his WoW days.
But he was the leader. He is to blame for the decisions of his team when they are bad, and gets the credit when they are good.
People always forget that latter part. There are plenty of the games that don't get the criticism SC2 does. If SC2 was a masterpiece in game design, I'd be happy to heap praise on David Kim.
On April 10 2017 12:06 htx.RuNe wrote: The big question here is, who is replacing him? Because if he leaves and such an important position isn't immediately filled by a replacement, that basically confirms SC2 is in maintenance mode now - whatever headless remnant of the design team is still around won't have either the ability or authority to change the game, nevermind revive it from its slump.
Truth is, the design decisions are not his own, it is a team effort, he is just the one that takes the blame. Same for Ghostcrawler and his WoW days.
"I’ve had weird phone calls in the middle of the night. I’ve had death threats. I’ve had Blizzard security offer to monitor my house. I’ve had designers who had to work with the FBI on threats. I’m also an upper class, straight, white dude, and I know developers who aren’t who have gotten much, much worse from players
Maybe it is a job description thing for Lead Game Designers in general, to be viciously hated?! As in, "please be aware that once you begin work, you are highly recommended that you also take our subsidized self defense classes or consider our bodyguard offer."
best of luck to David Kim, looking forward to his next project. I personally think he faired reasonably well with the adjustments and balancing up to this moment.
GLHF DK. Hard job for sure but I think criticism is valid for the reasons some guy named a few posts earlier.
My sum up:
Patching Pace: I feel like it was as well too fast and too slow at times. In the very beginning it was way too slow. It took ages to create a proper gameplay for zerg in the beginning of WOL, were you simply lost either to all-ins or to your own overreaction in 50% of games. Then BL/Inf was allowed way too long. Later on some changes were probably too quick. I wouldn't name mines though as their nerf was justified imo. I would have buffed tanks or anything else instead in order to get bio complemented with more gas heavy and less mobile units instead of another almost gasless and still quite mobile unit like the mine.
Overall I would say changes came in too slow and with a narrow focus mainly/only on the problem itself and not taking conditions into account enough and if taken into account still not being addressed.
DK vs. JW: Balance Design is the game design of SC2 MP. While it is technically not the same position effectively as the lead balance designer of SC2 you do design the game's impact more than anyone else I guess (after engine and other basics are in place).
The design perspective: Was brought in and came to attention way too late. I remember when I talked about design 80% of TL believed it is not important and the only thing that matters is balance on top level play. It went in the whole wrong direction and majorly blizzard/DK can be blamed for that aside of the people in the community who jumped on that and created an athmosphere were constructive changes was not possible even though for a long time it was already obvious that SC2 did not deliver the way everybody wanted it to and sole and simple focus on little balance changes could not ever get the job done in the right way.
Overall failures of SC2 that required early focus on but were neglected: - macromechanics allow comeback in only very few situations and depending on the respective mechanic only to a certain extend but in most cases allow the player with the advantage to even pull ahead further - macromechanic mule as the main killer of aggression against terran that does not kill the terran. Was required for the following highly detrimental state of the game which only terran players themselves consider as granted: - terran bio gameplay without much need for gas, without impactful transitions and with barely any need to adapt to opponents decisions for long periods of SC2. You simply built more bio against bio hard counters with only very few variations, you didn't need more than 4-5 gas whole game long and were sitting on 2-3k gas after a few minutes into the game, you could and still can trade your SCV against enemy combat units up to a certain extend and in certain situations (mainly in TvZ) which made play against terran mostly passive, boring and one-dimensional. - that was compensated with ridiculous stuff like MSC sight range, warp back, pylon/nexus cannon, Oracles (!), swarmhosts, mutalisk buff, ravagers etc. which took the game again into the wrong direction: - gimmicky units over usual units (tiring) - timing and positioning over strategy and micro (frustrating) - 10% of game has 90% impact while 90% of the game has only 10% of impact (both) - few consitency in both ingame battles and players: does the oracle hit while marines are 1-2 cm out of position or are they perfectly in position, fights over that quickly that top level players can barely make a difference (lose of trust, hope and positive feelings towards the game).
Still one of the best competitive games of the last decade. But the extraordinary high expectations were not met at any single point of time for me. The game is very good, but lacking brilliance and excellence in too many aspects. This is most likely a result of the inevitable larger amounts of person working on such a thing compared to the 90s. It feels like too many compromises and trade-offs were accepted when designing and balancing the game. The game should have instead followed one guys (or limited group of people who work closely together) vision that exactly envisioned what, how and why the final product should look like.
Hence I believe while DK did a good job it is positive to let it do someone else from now. At least there is a very low chance that new approaches create new results and that one of them might hit the nail.
On April 10 2017 12:06 htx.RuNe wrote: The big question here is, who is replacing him? Because if he leaves and such an important position isn't immediately filled by a replacement, that basically confirms SC2 is in maintenance mode now - whatever headless remnant of the design team is still around won't have either the ability or authority to change the game, nevermind revive it from its slump.
Truth is, the design decisions are not his own, it is a team effort, he is just the one that takes the blame. Same for Ghostcrawler and his WoW days.
While that may be true, if you're the lead balance designer and there's a ton of issues that are really obvious with the game, the responsibility falls a lot on your shoulders. I don't know why people here and on reddit keep trying to pretend the patches we were getting were good at all - they weren't.
I think people can respect all the time the guy put in, but i honestly do not think he did a good job. That is self-evident from the state of the game.
I agree there avilo but the question still remains how much freedom he had with his decisions, how much he implemented his own ideas or did he just do what was asked for?
In any way DK is/was part of the problem. From how I imagine - derived from his personalitly and korean behaviour in general - he wasn't making enough impact himself and wasn't leading enough but tried to fulfill too many wishes and requirements of different purpose. SC2 needed someone more narcissistic and selfish in this position, at least I believe it could have created better results but as well higher risk of failure. Sometimes the middleground is the safest solution which as well denies comlete failure but brilliance as well. But we don't know how much this is possible in blizzard's internal structures. Of course they were going for brilliance but probably with the wrong approach of enforcing success and esports instead of letting it grow and develop naturally as someone mentioned earlier.
New Units: -Raider Chieftain(aoe roar to buff friendly damage by 40%) -Holy Footman(Can use invulnerability for 10 seconds on 30 second cooldown) -Wood Elves(automatically gathers 100 wood every 2 seconds when close to trees) -Crazed Ghouls(gains 50% attack speed and damage when fighting on blight)
On April 10 2017 12:06 htx.RuNe wrote: The big question here is, who is replacing him? Because if he leaves and such an important position isn't immediately filled by a replacement, that basically confirms SC2 is in maintenance mode now - whatever headless remnant of the design team is still around won't have either the ability or authority to change the game, nevermind revive it from its slump.
Truth is, the design decisions are not his own, it is a team effort, he is just the one that takes the blame. Same for Ghostcrawler and his WoW days.
"I’ve had weird phone calls in the middle of the night. I’ve had death threats. I’ve had Blizzard security offer to monitor my house. I’ve had designers who had to work with the FBI on threats. I’m also an upper class, straight, white dude, and I know developers who aren’t who have gotten much, much worse from players
Maybe it is a job description thing for Lead Game Designers in general, to be viciously hated?! As in, "please be aware that once you begin work, you are highly recommended that you also take our subsidized self defense classes or consider our bodyguard offer."
It's sad how immature most gaming communities are..
I was initially hype to read the headline, but it'll really come down to who ends up replacing Mr. Kim. If they take the same trajectory then this is a non-story, but if they decide to right the ship it could be a game-changer. The other thing is whether the lost player base (including me) would even come back to the game if it was course-corrected.
We are, after all, talking about a game that's now nearly 7 years old (still crazy for me to think about, feels like it came out 2-3 years ago). I'd personally give it a shot if it looked like it was on the right track, but there are lots of people out there that don't give second chances.
Overall David Kim did an amazing job 'balancing' the races - but the three BIG blunders (broodlord winfestor era, swarmhost turtle period and Hellbat age) were somewhat unforgivable.
HOWEVER: when we look at the GSL Round of 8s for the past 5 years though, the racial balance is beautiful. I for one believe this is the best indicator we have on how DK did his job, he FARKN excelled at it.
I want to take this time to thank him for his efforts and to wish him the best at what he is moving onto.
And to all you sour-puss cry-babies out there bitching about your ass-hurt butt-sadness - GROW the fuck up. Anybody with any REAL knowledge of SC2 knows DK did an amazing job.
Listen to Incontrol, Artosis, Tastosis, Mr Chae, herO, Bomber, Soulkey, Life, Innovation and even MVP talk about DK - they all respected and appreciated the effort and outcome of his work. Just saying...
On April 09 2017 21:46 Eridanus wrote: You should never feel sorry for a person that choose to be in a position of power and great financial award for being criticized on how they do their job. He didn't have to take that position. You will actually feel that people in those kinds of positions have an unusual ability to not be bothered by it. Either out of narcissism or insensitivity. And we 'normal' people feel that so many people having opinions on you would be stressful at best, hurtful at worst. Until it doesn't become tasteless, personal, threads of violence, I wouldn't feel sorry for people in prominent positions.
Please don't rationalize the awful behavior of this community by claiming that dkim doesn't have feelings like a 'normal' person. A lot of the hate directed toward him was exactly that (tasteless, personal, threats of violence)
How is it a rationalization? I already know many of Blizzard's customers are complete trash, illogical, and immature people. Never mind the immoral behavior they display online because they think it doesn't matter what you say as long as you think you are anonymous.
I am talking about how sorry we should feel for David Kim. Or Lloyd Blankfein. Or some Kardasian. Or Donald Trump. Or anyone who decides they really want the spotlight. These people get exactly what they want. We shouldn't feel sorry for people getting exactly what they want. If they wanted something else, they can just quit.
David Kim left the SC2 team though, and so it seems pretty reasonable to expect civility and respect in this thread because it is mostly about well wishes and thanking him for his efforts.
But in general I agree, expecting civility towards people in positions of authority is only one step away from demanding deference. For what it's worth, Blizzard is more likely to respond to community anger than they are to intelligent forum arguments. I can think of a handful of semi-recent cases where Blizzard did implement (minor) community suggestions, but overall they are incredibly insular and will easily wave away even the most reasonable of requests with vague references to internal Blizzard directives. It's only when people spam reddit with "CHAT ROOMS" that they will magically appear in the next patch.
Or think of US politics where it's been proven that 80% of the population has almost zero influence on policy outcomes and a handful of insiders have an extremely disproportionate effect. You can mail a suggestion to your local representative for a better health care program, but what's the point?
I don't know if slavishly following up on community demands necessarily makes for better game design, and of course much of the community feedback towards Blizzard starts from the premise of "making the game good in the way that BW was good", but it's food for thought. It's Blizzard's game, anyhow, as much as people like to think they have a right to be heard.
How fucking sad is it that this has to be stickied to the top of the thread. Disgusting. Shameful. Pathetic.
Fuck off to Reddit if you're here to insult a person who put their heart and soul into this game we all enjoy and love. Yes, he made some mistake, no, he's not perfect. He's a human being. Don't think for a single second he made any of those mistakes on purpose.
Jesus. It's fucking sickening.
Where's the TL of old, where respectful, mature people came to discuss the game.
How fucking sad is it that this has to be stickied to the top of the thread. Disgusting. Shameful. Pathetic.
Fuck off to Reddit if you're here to insult a person who put their heart and soul into this game we all enjoy and love. Yes, he made some mistake, no, he's not perfect. He's a human being. Don't think for a single second he made any of those mistakes on purpose.
Jesus. It's fucking sickening.
Where's the TL of old, where respectful, mature people came to discuss the game.
How fucking sad is it that this has to be stickied to the top of the thread. Disgusting. Shameful. Pathetic.
Fuck off to Reddit if you're here to insult a person who put their heart and soul into this game we all enjoy and love. Yes, he made some mistake, no, he's not perfect. He's a human being. Don't think for a single second he made any of those mistakes on purpose.
Jesus. It's fucking sickening.
Where's the TL of old, where respectful, mature people came to discuss the game.
The sticky was there almost from the start. And I counted and there are about 4 really mean posts and another few posts that maybe nearly cross the line. I don't think that's so bad, given the other 200+ friendly posts. Frankly, this grand melodramatic statement about how TL is ruined and is "fucking sickening" seems a bit silly in light of these facts. It's an internet forum and David Kim is a divisive figure, how can you possibly demand that literally no one on TL will be rude toward DK? On the balance people were very nice. It's like the Seinfeld episode where the sweater is ruined because it has an invisible red dot. (or some idiom like pearl clutching is appropriate here)
On April 12 2017 15:13 AxiomBlurr wrote: Overall David Kim did an amazing job 'balancing' the races - but the three BIG blunders (broodlord winfestor era, swarmhost turtle period and Hellbat age) were somewhat unforgivable.
HOWEVER: when we look at the GSL Round of 8s for the past 5 years though, the racial balance is beautiful. I for one believe this is the best indicator we have on how DK did his job, he FARKN excelled at it.
I want to take this time to thank him for his efforts and to wish him the best at what he is moving onto.
And to all you sour-puss cry-babies out there bitching about your ass-hurt butt-sadness - GROW the fuck up. Anybody with any REAL knowledge of SC2 knows DK did an amazing job.
Listen to Incontrol, Artosis, Tastosis, Mr Chae, herO, Bomber, Soulkey, Life, Innovation and even MVP talk about DK - they all respected and appreciated the effort and outcome of his work. Just saying...
I know this is controversial, but achieving parity for pro-level win rates for a game with only three races is a very low standard to clear (and frankly I don't think it's that difficult). Balance should not be this entirely reductive concept which only applies to maybe fifty players in the world. DK should care about the interests of all players, unit diversity, strategic diversity etc.
It is precisely this attitude which has hurt the game so much: as long as the game is fun to watch at the pro level it's a success, and we shouldn't care whether it is fun to play.
On April 12 2017 15:13 AxiomBlurr wrote: Overall David Kim did an amazing job 'balancing' the races - but the three BIG blunders (broodlord winfestor era, swarmhost turtle period and Hellbat age) were somewhat unforgivable.
HOWEVER: when we look at the GSL Round of 8s for the past 5 years though, the racial balance is beautiful. I for one believe this is the best indicator we have on how DK did his job, he FARKN excelled at it.
I want to take this time to thank him for his efforts and to wish him the best at what he is moving onto.
And to all you sour-puss cry-babies out there bitching about your ass-hurt butt-sadness - GROW the fuck up. Anybody with any REAL knowledge of SC2 knows DK did an amazing job.
Listen to Incontrol, Artosis, Tastosis, Mr Chae, herO, Bomber, Soulkey, Life, Innovation and even MVP talk about DK - they all respected and appreciated the effort and outcome of his work. Just saying...
I know this is controversial, but achieving parity for pro-level win rates for a game with only three races is a very low standard to clear (and frankly I don't think it's that difficult). Balance should not be this entirely reductive concept which only applies to maybe fifty players in the world. DK should care about the interests of all players, unit diversity, strategic diversity etc.
It is precisely this attitude which has hurt the game so much: as long as the game is fun to watch at the pro level it's a success, and we shouldn't care whether it is fun to play.
You say it like some abstract "three races" that are the only factor influencing game balance. Each of the races has a number of units, and each of the units has a number of stats and skills. Add to it the economy system for each race, buildings, and maps, and suddenly the number of things to take into account becomes staggering. Sometimes a small change can have big influence on balance and metagame. And sometimes players figure out a new OP strategy or a way to use a unit and suddenly you have to think about how to control it balance-wise without skewing some other aspect of the game. In such a system of connected factors it's very difficult to find the perfect balance for both pros and casuals, and Blizzard has always been very much focused on the Esport factor - hence they focused the balance on pro games (whether this was the correct decision is another matter whatsoever). Also RTS games have had a rough time in general in the last few years (with the advent of mobas and whatnot), so the decline in viewership and player numbers might not be solely on the game itself, but could also have been influenced by the change of gaming climate, so to speak.
I did not agree with most of his decisions, but Lotv is sometimes, kinda fun. I at least understood why he decided wrong in most situations, this goldie from the LotvBeta still is where he almost got it. He just didn't understand the meaning of the word "want". Because that he can still play the game the way he wanted to, was the whole point of the discussion. But it would have meant that other people could have played the game the way they wanted to aswell.
Further Learnings From Internal Testing Finally, we’d like to talk about a couple major changes suggested by our community that didn’t quite turn out to have as positive of an effect as we had hoped. We’ve been discussing and playtesting the following two areas internally, and have decided that both are not fit for beta testing.
--->didn't even let us test, DURING BETA
And what I sadly will always remember him for:
Reducing the number of workers per base so that army sizes become bigger
When trying out this change, we determined that reducing the workers needed per base isn’t good for the game because many of the coolest moments in StarCraft II come from worker harassment. With fewer workers, it was just too easy to rebuild after taking economic damage, making these moments less meaningful.
We also looked into feedback suggesting we reduce the efficiency of workers when more than 1 is mining at a single mineral patch. This was aimed at making expanding result in a higher income more often than not, even when on an equal worker count. What we found is that expanding quickly and often already feels like a big advantage in Void, so this change does not feel all that different in terms of when you want to expand. Also, when you do expand faster and have your workers more spread out, it’s easier to replenish workers that you’ve lost to harassment. As we stated above, this is the opposite of what we’re looking to accomplish with the economy changes.
WHEN YOU WANT TO EXPAND. YOU. WANT. Such a frustrating person to scream at.
On April 11 2017 21:52 LSN wrote: I agree there avilo but the question still remains how much freedom he had with his decisions, how much he implemented his own ideas or did he just do what was asked for?
In any way DK is/was part of the problem. From how I imagine - derived from his personalitly and korean behaviour in general - he wasn't making enough impact himself and wasn't leading enough but tried to fulfill too many wishes and requirements of different purpose. SC2 needed someone more narcissistic and selfish in this position, at least I believe it could have created better results but as well higher risk of failure. Sometimes the middleground is the safest solution which as well denies comlete failure but brilliance as well. But we don't know how much this is possible in blizzard's internal structures. Of course they were going for brilliance but probably with the wrong approach of enforcing success and esports instead of letting it grow and develop naturally as someone mentioned earlier.
Bingo, this touches some things that the community usually doesn't give the tiniest shit about, but they are critical decisional factors. It's easy to say "David Kim was too lazy / too scared / reluctant to do major changes / his changes were too lukewarm / etc etc" - but so few people understand that most times you simply are not allowed to take such risky decisions, in such huge companies like Blizzard, because high risk decisions can cost the company tremendously, plus you always must follow what your bosses / investors demand, and if they say "whatever you do, you will play it safe", then you play it safe, regardless of how enraged the community is.
I think the mistake that the community does/always did, is to think David Kim had 100% freedom to do major, radical changes at any time, and twist the game as he pleased. I think this is simply not how things work at Blizzard. Anyone instead of DK would have played it safe. He might not have been allowed to take such risks. Especially with a highly competitional game like Starcraft, where you must be extremely careful to not ruin the competition overnight.
You can only judge (fairly) when you know all sides of a story, and about DK nothing was made public about corporate internals and what he was told to do and in what manner. Only THEN you could say "yea, he had the freedom to do this and that, and he did not use it to its fullest advantage / lacked vision / etc etc"
On April 12 2017 19:36 Grumbels wrote: I know this is controversial, but achieving parity for pro-level win rates for a game with only three races is a very low standard to clear (and frankly I don't think it's that difficult).
yep, its easy. that is why there are plenty of well-balanced , diverse-race RTS games out there... because its easy to balance diverse race games. So now you can just quit SC2 and move on to CoH1, RA3, AoE2, CoH2, RA2, C&C3 or Halo Wars .. or any one of a dozen other RTS games.
Unfortunately, its not easy... and the state of the RTS genre reflects that fact.
On April 12 2017 19:36 Grumbels wrote: I know this is controversial, but achieving parity for pro-level win rates for a game with only three races is a very low standard to clear (and frankly I don't think it's that difficult).
Thank you so much. Everyone pretends that creating and balancing a RTS game is like rocket science that only a few privileged people can understand, and thank God that Blizzard employs all of them.
On April 12 2017 19:36 Grumbels wrote: I know this is controversial, but achieving parity for pro-level win rates for a game with only three races is a very low standard to clear (and frankly I don't think it's that difficult).
yep, its easy. that is why there are plenty of well-balanced , diverse-race RTS games out there... because its easy to balance diverse race games. So now you can just quit SC2 and move on to CoH1, RA3, AoE2, CoH2, RA2, C&C3 or Halo Wars .. or any one of a dozen other RTS games.
Unfortunately, its not easy... and the state of the RTS genre reflects that fact.
Balancing is just a trick, if you have seen it once you can do it over and over again. By now the pitfalls are all very well known, and David Kim didn't have to invent the wheel. Even so, he made plenty of mistakes over the years.
You mentioned those other games, but the comparison is pretty ludicrous, because Blizzard has something none of those other developers had: a conception of a game played professionally and balanced for a professional level. This model was, for RTS games, invented by Starcraft and Warcraft and the SC2 team inherited this legacy. Of course it is very difficult to balance a game if you are out in the dark and you don't know what you are trying to achieve outside of a vague concept of "balance", but Blizzard does not live in that world.
Blizzard has access to win rates, GSL games and pro-gamer feedback. Furthermore, they have a vocal community which conveniently diagnoses concrete problems for Blizzard to solve. There are also some aspects inherent to the design / environment which promote parity, such as random distribution of talented players, high skill cap, a constantly evolving competitive community, the ability for tournaments to pick maps and so on.
If you have this entire structure and you insert David Kim, I think it is pretty foolish to witness his success and then to claim: "oh, he is clearly uniquely gifted and brilliant", especially given that SC2 has hardly been an unequivocal success across the board (in terms of community reception, popularity etc.) and has always been plagued by balance issues that fly below the radar of the community's obsession with parity of pro-level winrates.
On April 18 2017 07:48 Grumbels wrote: Balancing is just a trick, if you have seen it once you can do it over and over again. By now the pitfalls are all very well known, and David Kim didn't have to invent the wheel. Even so, he made plenty of mistakes over the years.
nah, the relationships between units as simple and Marines and Banelings are balanced only up to a certain APM. And the Designers have no idea how far pro players can take things. At 10,000 APM the relationship between Banelings and Marines is completely different from the balance at 100 APM with no real way to know how things will look until someone starts innovating in unimaginable ways.
which is why diverse race RTS games are rarely balanced.
Furthermore, DK was the lead multiplayer designer. Not just a balance guy.
David Kim did a great job. Blizzard knows how to hire, nurture and develop game design talent. If he sucked as much as some people in this thread are saying he'd be gone from Blizzard in months.
When Blizzard starts making lousy games i'll stop believing in their management team. So far, all their games are great.
On April 18 2017 07:48 Grumbels wrote: Balancing is just a trick, if you have seen it once you can do it over and over again. By now the pitfalls are all very well known, and David Kim didn't have to invent the wheel. Even so, he made plenty of mistakes over the years.
nah, the relationships between units as simple and Marines and Banelings are balanced only up to a certain APM. And the Designers have no idea how far pro players can take things. At 10,000 APM the relationship between Banelings and Marines is completely different from the balance at 100 APM with no real way to know how things will look until someone starts innovating in unimaginable ways.
which is why diverse race RTS games are rarely balanced.
Furthermore, DK was the lead multiplayer designer. Not just a balance guy.
David Kim did a great job. Blizzard knows how to hire, nurture and develop game design talent. If he sucked as much as some people in this thread are saying he'd be gone from Blizzard in months.
When Blizzard starts making lousy games i'll stop believing in their management team. So far, all their games are great.
On April 18 2017 07:48 Grumbels wrote: Balancing is just a trick, if you have seen it once you can do it over and over again. By now the pitfalls are all very well known, and David Kim didn't have to invent the wheel. Even so, he made plenty of mistakes over the years.
nah, the relationships between units as simple and Marines and Banelings are balanced only up to a certain APM. And the Designers have no idea how far pro players can take things. At 10,000 APM the relationship between Banelings and Marines is completely different from the balance at 100 APM with no real way to know how things will look until someone starts innovating in unimaginable ways.
which is why diverse race RTS games are rarely balanced.
Furthermore, DK was the lead multiplayer designer. Not just a balance guy.
David Kim did a great job. Blizzard knows how to hire, nurture and develop game design talent. If he sucked as much as some people in this thread are saying he'd be gone from Blizzard in months.
When Blizzard starts making lousy games i'll stop believing in their management team. So far, all their games are great.
This example hardly proves the point, because in fact Blizzard, along with the rest of the community, did not anticipate the development of marine micro changing the relationship with banelings. And we did end up with a lengthy period of terran domination before the infamous queen range buff that heralded the dawn of the infestor era. And the infestor is another example, where Blizzard initially considered changing the unit to something approaching its current strength, but decided not to because they didn't want to nerf zerg at a time when they were weak.
But trying to do the right thing and caving under community pressure, or failing to anticipate a development alongside the community hardly proves that Blizzard is smarter than us. I'll believe they're smarter than the Reddit Hivemind, but that's not saying much.
In any case, your example does illustrate why I said balancing was a repeatable trick. Blizzard, as professionals, ought to have known that unit relationships drastically change depending on various execution thresholds, and they ought to have monitored this possible development and evaluated how this would affect the balance long-term, and they ought to have incorporated in the design some structural aspects to make the balance of terran vs zerg more robust in light of future trends.
But that's what we can say in retrospect, and this seems an unfair standard to hold them by. Nevertheless, we are talking about late 2010 here, giving Blizzard ample time to learn and adjust their future methodology. I myself learned a lot from this, so that from this point on I analyzed every future unit suggestion for the potential for this sort of dynamic. If people on TL can do it, then so can Blizzard, and actually you frequently saw David Kim coming with similar comments about how they would keep a close eye on certain developments to see whether this or that race would improve their responses etc. And you would hear Blizzard talking about how offense is easier than defense, and how to take this into account when balancing and prioritizing certain things over others.
Balancing might be an art, but if it was someone's job to balance the game there is enough material there to fashion some sort of systematic approach. It's not like it requires extreme creativity, it's not like actual game design. RTS games might be complex, but you're hardly balancing against the entire game, your purview is merely the differences between races. In SC2 the races are still very similar, with similar economic models, similar upgrade paths and so on. That's all inherent in the design, it's hardly the same complexity as, idk, economic regulation and redistribution in complex societies.
Basically, to do a decent job at balancing (which DK did), requires just some awareness, common sense and dedication. And he has legions of time, he can constantly change the game if he wants to, revert previous changes, experiment with stupid changes on the PTR. The community would hardly notice if DK would go on holiday for a month while the win rates are slightly off, and in fact DK did spend a lot of time on balancing Heroes afaik without serious averse affects on SC2.
But like I said, the community (and to a certain extent Blizzard) has a myopic obsession with parity at the pro-level, since that's the most visible part of the balance, and that is what I'm talking about for the most part. An expanded concept of balance, which is separate from, but deeply integrated with, game design, and which also includes strategic diversity, depth, low level players, robustness of design etc. is of course much trickier to manage. But here I don't think DK necessarily did an amazing job, so that's a moot point.
and to add, I want to mention one more aspect that I never talked about explicitly: the difference between playing in isolation versus a relatively stable metagame developed by constantly evolving competitive players. If you want to know the main difference between any of those other RTS games and Starcraft 2 it's this. If you travel back in time, even if you're armed with all sorts of tools and knowledge, you can not by yourself develop modern society, no matter how smart you are. There are almost no examples of scientists coming up with some sort of remarkable discovery completely in isolation, and every time some counter example is cited you'll find that there were some predecessors you just weren't aware of. For instance, calculus was developed by Newton, but was concurrently developed by Leibniz, proving the idea was "in the air", so to speak, and required an awareness of developments in mathematics. There is a similar example with Darwin and Wallace. And great artists always incrementally improve on their forebears, there is a reason that any music expert will be able to almost instantly date the era some piece of music was written, and that's because all music written in a certain time period shares certain commonalities.
The point is, virtually no one can achieve very much in isolation. But that's what happens when you have a game without a very notable online presence, you have people trying out strategies in isolation, wildly different approaches that can clash and produce unpredictable and unrepeatable results. I can name more effects: a lack of competitive drive meaning that people's fundamentals aren't very well developed, people constantly drifting in and out of the scene, all of this causing strategic trends to be essentially arbitrary and dependent on personal choice. Probably the most significant aspect of this is that most players don't even bother to play to win, they have no conception of what it means to play to win because they are burdened by things that served them well in the campaign, or by favored strategies or races.
Imagine that there is no professional scene, no serious ladder, and you just have people play Brood War as a hobby. This can be witnessed in the first few Korean tournaments: it's just bad maps, bad control and stupid rushes. There is nothing to balance, because people just do random things and win based on some sort of personal charm or intuition which is hardly repeatable.
But a mature, stable metagame is not like this at all. Anyone who has followed the scene knows this difference very well, that it's basically impossible to seriously balance the game without a large pool of good players with good fundamentals playing for money against each other over and over again. This is why all the recent popular multiplayer games are relatively well balanced, it's because when you look at games you can actually reason about them and infer some sort of generalized conclusion about the state of the balance. You can see that this or that hero is highly popular and always dominant late-game, and you know this is meaningful because talented professional players haven't found some sort of counter resource given a couple of months, so you come up with a targeted tweak to its late-game strength.
It's just a much more powerful model, because you have data to work with and your judgement is less likely to be off. To balance a game which is "underplayed" is unfathomably more complex, and to a degree almost meaningless.
I have not always agreed with the decisions of David Kim but overall i think he did a very good job considering the terrible design decisions made by the original lead game designer Dustin Browder. If the game still has a significant fallowing to this day, it is thanks to David Kim and his team for all the efforts they made in to turning a fundamentally flowed game in to a decent one. I believe the if he were in charge from the beginning , SC2 would have looked very different today.
On April 19 2017 03:43 Grumbels wrote: But like I said, the community (and to a certain extent Blizzard) has a myopic obsession with parity at the pro-level, since that's the most visible part of the balance, and that is what I'm talking about for the most part. An expanded concept of balance, which is separate from, but deeply integrated with, game design, and which also includes strategic diversity, depth, low level players, robustness of design etc. is of course much trickier to manage. But here I don't think DK necessarily did an amazing job, so that's a moot point.
you'll never balance a diverse race RTS game at 50 different levels simultaneously.
i was always better with Race X than Race Y in Brood War no matter how much i practised with Race Y. Blizzard never did balance the game at my level of play in Brood War. Because I really like playing Race Y i just kept on playing and losing to some guys who i could defeat playing with Race X. The game was good enough that i just ignored the imbalance at my level.
Some people refuse to accept the reality of imbalance at their level of play and blame EA, Blizzard, Ensemble, Westwood, and Relic whenever they make a diverse race RTS game.
having played games by all these companies i'd say Blizzard is better at balance than these other companies. EALA came pretty close with Kane's Wrath and RA3... but it still was not as close to balanced as Blizzard's RTS games.
On April 19 2017 03:43 Grumbels wrote: But like I said, the community (and to a certain extent Blizzard) has a myopic obsession with parity at the pro-level, since that's the most visible part of the balance, and that is what I'm talking about for the most part. An expanded concept of balance, which is separate from, but deeply integrated with, game design, and which also includes strategic diversity, depth, low level players, robustness of design etc. is of course much trickier to manage. But here I don't think DK necessarily did an amazing job, so that's a moot point.
you'll never balance a diverse race RTS game at 50 different levels simultaneously.
i was always better with Race X than Race Y in Brood War no matter how much i practised with Race Y. Blizzard never did balance the game at my level of play in Brood War. Because I really like playing Race Y i just kept on playing and losing to some guys who i could defeat playing with Race X. The game was good enough that i just ignored the imbalance at my level.
But maybe that is not really an imbalance. Some people "click" with things that others do not. You can like some mechanic a lot more then another and become good at it. Even during WOL when i played mech every game i defeated Protoss players at my level, diamond, while i was playing a "poor" strategy. I liked it a lot and i became rather good at it. Does that mean that had i played bio i would have been top diamond and later masters as it was introduced? NO!. Because i did not like bio and it did not suit my qualities IMO.
Balance is a tricky thing for lower levels because it's about needing people to become good at the things that matter most to the race they play. If you play Zerg and you are a big fan of micro, but are terrible at macro and injecting, then you probably will not have much success. A low level Zerg with decent macro against a low level bio Terran with very poor Marine spliting vs Baneling will look super IMBA.
In BW and to a lesser extent SC2 Protoss is insane at very low level simply because of Zealots. Very poor macro on both sides, Protoss has the stronger basic unit. Is that IMBA? No. L2P basically. It's the same in every game that has different races, classes, etc.
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
No one cares if people complain. Gameplay will always be more important than balance. Look at other games. Or sc2 in 2012/2013. It was far from balanced, but it's where we got huge tournaments and even small tournaments were hyped up! Like Ironsquid etc. Only at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015 did players quit or retire more and more as the year went on. MC/First/Flash/MMA/JaeDong followed by sacsri/Taeja/MarineKing etc. etc.
Because while balance is important, the gameplay is what gets people into the game.
On April 08 2017 08:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: I'm still going to blame David for things, even if they are things he had nothing to do with. He's the new Obama
omg imagine the guy who's replacing him
Oh f*ck, yeah. Excited, Terran walls are going to be huge, glorious, 40 feet high things that are impenetrable. Making Terran Great Again, and bombing the f*ck out of Syria Zerg.
Terran base Zerg
Terran will have yuge walls! Amazing Walls. Believe me, folks. And Zergs are gonna pay for it. |
(A supply depot built by a terran will now be taken from the zerg's resources)
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
No one cares if people complain. Gameplay will always be more important than balance. Look at other games. Or sc2 in 2012/2013. It was far from balanced, but it's where we got huge tournaments and even small tournaments were hyped up! Like Ironsquid etc. Only at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015 did players quit or retire more and more as the year went on. MC/First/Flash/MMA/JaeDong followed by sacsri/Taeja/MarineKing etc. etc.
Because while balance is important, the gameplay is what gets people into the game.
How on earth can you say that gameplay was better in 2012/2013 then most eras after that? Don't you remember the broodlord infestor and swarmhost eras?
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
No one cares if people complain. Gameplay will always be more important than balance. Look at other games. Or sc2 in 2012/2013. It was far from balanced, but it's where we got huge tournaments and even small tournaments were hyped up! Like Ironsquid etc. Only at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015 did players quit or retire more and more as the year went on. MC/First/Flash/MMA/JaeDong followed by sacsri/Taeja/MarineKing etc. etc.
Because while balance is important, the gameplay is what gets people into the game.
How on earth can you say that gameplay was better in 2012/2013 then most eras after that? Don't you remember the broodlord infestor and swarmhost eras?
I feel like there was a sweet spot during HotS's honeymoon era in 2013 when the game felt entertaining and the scene still rode tons of hype, at least in comparison to the dismal BL+Infestor era that just preceded it. Swarmhost play didn't feel like as much of a problem until later that year, and that didn't climax until Stephano vs Petraeus in May 2014. Early 2012 also felt good as a continuation of 2011, at least before BL+Infestor became more prominent later on that year.
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
No one cares if people complain. Gameplay will always be more important than balance. Look at other games. Or sc2 in 2012/2013. It was far from balanced, but it's where we got huge tournaments and even small tournaments were hyped up! Like Ironsquid etc. Only at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015 did players quit or retire more and more as the year went on. MC/First/Flash/MMA/JaeDong followed by sacsri/Taeja/MarineKing etc. etc.
Because while balance is important, the gameplay is what gets people into the game.
I once heard from a person that "people dont care about design, they just want to have fun". Worst saying i have ever heard.
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
No one cares if people complain. Gameplay will always be more important than balance. Look at other games. Or sc2 in 2012/2013. It was far from balanced, but it's where we got huge tournaments and even small tournaments were hyped up! Like Ironsquid etc. Only at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015 did players quit or retire more and more as the year went on. MC/First/Flash/MMA/JaeDong followed by sacsri/Taeja/MarineKing etc. etc.
Because while balance is important, the gameplay is what gets people into the game.
How on earth can you say that gameplay was better in 2012/2013 then most eras after that? Don't you remember the broodlord infestor and swarmhost eras?
I feel like there was a sweet spot during HotS's honeymoon era in 2013 when the game felt entertaining and the scene still rode tons of hype, at least in comparison to the dismal BL+Infestor era that just preceded it. Swarmhost play didn't feel like as much of a problem until later that year, and that didn't climax until Stephano vs Petraeus in May 2014. Early 2012 also felt good as a continuation of 2011, at least before BL+Infestor became more prominent later on that year.
Everyone shits on BL+Infestor but I shit on what was going on before that for way too long. Terrible small maps, one base strats and cheese being 95% of games in tournaments. BL+Infestors was basically heaven compared to that shit.
On May 09 2017 20:57 -Archangel- wrote: Everyone shits on BL+Infestor but I shit on what was going on before that for way too long. Terrible small maps, one base strats and cheese being 95% of games in tournaments. BL+Infestors was basically heaven compared to that shit.
You can't compare 2012 SC2 to 2010 SC2. One base strats/cheese is not an accurate description of the meta as it existed prior to the queen buff.
On May 09 2017 20:57 -Archangel- wrote: Everyone shits on BL+Infestor but I shit on what was going on before that for way too long. Terrible small maps, one base strats and cheese being 95% of games in tournaments. BL+Infestors was basically heaven compared to that shit.
You can't compare 2012 SC2 to 2010 SC2. One base strats/cheese is not an accurate description of the meta as it existed prior to the queen buff.
While possibly true, maps like Steppes of War did nothing but ingratiate that type of meta.
Xel Naga Caverns was considered one of the best maps - and, in comparison to today, that map is tiny.
does any one know the date when David Kim gained complete autonomy as multiplayer designer? i seem to recall Browder speaking in deep authoritative baritones about why he designed certain aspects of certain multiplayer units.
SC2's early success can be attributed in no small part to David Kim. Sure the balance had its ups and downs, but overall I think it's safe to say the balance was very good. It was also a harder task than balancing Brood War, because Brood War had such a high mechanical skill ceiling, it was possible to overcome imbalances through strong mechanics. But when everyone can macro & micro at an almost optimal level, it's a testament to David Kim that the game didn't heavily sway toward any one race's favour (ok, maybe Terran in the early parts of WoL).
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
No one cares if people complain. Gameplay will always be more important than balance. Look at other games. Or sc2 in 2012/2013. It was far from balanced, but it's where we got huge tournaments and even small tournaments were hyped up! Like Ironsquid etc. Only at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015 did players quit or retire more and more as the year went on. MC/First/Flash/MMA/JaeDong followed by sacsri/Taeja/MarineKing etc. etc.
Because while balance is important, the gameplay is what gets people into the game.
How on earth can you say that gameplay was better in 2012/2013 then most eras after that? Don't you remember the broodlord infestor and swarmhost eras?
I feel like there was a sweet spot during HotS's honeymoon era in 2013 when the game felt entertaining and the scene still rode tons of hype, at least in comparison to the dismal BL+Infestor era that just preceded it. Swarmhost play didn't feel like as much of a problem until later that year, and that didn't climax until Stephano vs Petraeus in May 2014. Early 2012 also felt good as a continuation of 2011, at least before BL+Infestor became more prominent later on that year.
Everyone shits on BL+Infestor but I shit on what was going on before that for way too long. Terrible small maps, one base strats and cheese being 95% of games in tournaments. BL+Infestors was basically heaven compared to that shit.
That type of play was bad, but I felt it was only mostly prominent up until early 2011 when tournaments began phasing out those especially bad Blizzard maps and instead began using their own larger tournament maps, and Blizzard slowly began following suit afterwards to adopt those tournament onto ladder. I feel like the game had better map pools and more macro play by mid-2011 and later.
On April 08 2017 05:03 xTJx wrote: Hopefuly his substitute will be someone who looks more into the gameplay aspect before the dead even win-loss ratio.
let's be real if there isn't a 50/50/50 everyone will complain about how they put gameplay before balance
No one cares if people complain. Gameplay will always be more important than balance. Look at other games. Or sc2 in 2012/2013. It was far from balanced, but it's where we got huge tournaments and even small tournaments were hyped up! Like Ironsquid etc. Only at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015 did players quit or retire more and more as the year went on. MC/First/Flash/MMA/JaeDong followed by sacsri/Taeja/MarineKing etc. etc.
Because while balance is important, the gameplay is what gets people into the game.
How on earth can you say that gameplay was better in 2012/2013 then most eras after that? Don't you remember the broodlord infestor and swarmhost eras?
I feel like there was a sweet spot during HotS's honeymoon era in 2013 when the game felt entertaining and the scene still rode tons of hype, at least in comparison to the dismal BL+Infestor era that just preceded it. Swarmhost play didn't feel like as much of a problem until later that year, and that didn't climax until Stephano vs Petraeus in May 2014. Early 2012 also felt good as a continuation of 2011, at least before BL+Infestor became more prominent later on that year.
Everyone shits on BL+Infestor but I shit on what was going on before that for way too long. Terrible small maps, one base strats and cheese being 95% of games in tournaments. BL+Infestors was basically heaven compared to that shit.
For me, the BL-Infestor era was when i began to loose interest in the game and i think that goes for many other people. A foreigner being in the spot light, Stephano, served to somewhat mitigate the downfall, for a while. It's not so much that a bad strategy was used, but of how slow and inefficient Blizzard was to fix it. The nail in the coffin for me was HOTS that after the initial "shiny new thing" feeling was over, it was clear that not only were the main problems with the game not addressed, but new problems were added (SH, Warhound, Tempest) and it was clear that blizzards vision for the game was incompatible with mine. Looking at the big decrease in viewers and players i guess many other people felt the same.
But since DK was balance responsible and not unit and game design, i mainly blame Dustin Go Play BW Big Gold Ship Browder for 99% of the reasons SC2 had such an up and down evolution.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://esportsexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/David_Kim.png)
!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KRUwFLx.jpg)
Zerg
