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On October 09 2017 02:27 Descent wrote:
To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes.
The fact that they are still tweaking the economy system, including the macro mechanics, which is the backbone of every RTS 7 years after the game has been released, is pretty telling. The unit design dont give them the games they want, so they still tweak at sc2s core, hoping it will solve the problems. On top of that map designers cant make maps that make it on ladder, where they try stuff like "mineral onlys" or less/more mineral patches which makes looking for community solutions impossible.
Blizzard creates these artificial metas and everytime something comes up that they dont like, they patch it out. There are only 2 explainations for constant balance/design patching.
1) Either the game is imbalanced or the game is badly designed.
2) for many people it was their first RTS and to be fair, despite its flaws, sc2 is a good game, so they may not understand criticism from high horse BW snobs, coming in and ranting about mbs and unlimited unit selection and how they feel its a degenerate game. Generally speaking people who have played BW or alot of other classic RTS games generally want to push sc2 into that certain direction, because its the "right" one.
On top of that the game had so many different iterations and everyone has a different opinion about what they liked and what they didnt like. Tankivacs for example was a case where the community was very split.
What i am trying to say is, the second explaination why Blizzard is constantly patching because they have cornered themselves where old school players will never be happy and "relatively new" players will never be happy and both sides call for constant patching/fixing of the game for different motives.
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Or they just make constant changes because they think shaking things up is cool and keeps things fresh. (unfortunately a significant part of the community agrees with this)
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When BW was designed, it was never intended to be a vehicle for e-sports. That said, the design revolved around what made the game fun, rather than "fun to watch". The players with their brilliancy made the game fun to watch.
Think of all the things that got patched in and out of SC2 over the years, a lot of those are done because Blizzard wanted to generate hype when certain strategies are used, only to get patched out because "fun to watch" isn't the same as "fun to play".
Blizzard needs to decide whether they should entertain viewers with their designs or give players the tools to entertain viewers.
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United States752 Posts
On October 09 2017 05:27 Descent wrote:
BW was incredibly balanced, which was fortunate because it then did not need balance/meta patches and also because patches were not so easily deployed compared to today. It had player-driven meta changes, from BoxeR's micro Terran to iloveoov's macro Terran through to sAviOr's dominance as Zerg followed by Bisu's Revolution and ending with the fantastic rivalry between Flash and JaeDong.
SC2 has Blizzard-driven meta, where constant patching changes which strategies work and which don't based on their perception of how the previous meta worked. David Kim's balancing used to be a joke for good reason. Tournament results shift depending on the latest balance patch implemented--I would argue there would be a reasonably strong correlation between current dominant player/race and patch history, if anyone does the analysis. In SC2, who are the bonjwas? It's difficult to be a bonjwa when, regardless of how good you are, Blizzard decides your strat is OP and it's better to patch the meta than let another player figure out the counter.
unfortunately this game just isn't as balanced as broodwar and therefore the patching is sometimes necessary, although im sure there are patches that any given player is salty about (cough queen range, cough) some changes, like the fix to brood lord infestor I'm sure most players can agree were healthy for the game in the long run.
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On October 09 2017 08:15 404AlphaSquad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2017 02:27 Descent wrote:
To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes. The fact that they are still tweaking the economy system, including the macro mechanics, which is the backbone of every RTS 7 years after the game has been released, is pretty telling. The unit design dont give them the games they want, so they still tweak at sc2s core, hoping it will solve the problems. On top of that map designers cant make maps that make it on ladder, where they try stuff like "mineral onlys" or less/more mineral patches which makes looking for community solutions impossible. Blizzard creates these artificial metas and everytime something comes up that they dont like, they patch it out. There are only 2 explainations for constant balance/design patching. 1) Either the game is imbalanced or the game is badly designed. 2) for many people it was their first RTS and to be fair, despite its flaws, sc2 is a good game, so they may not understand criticism from high horse BW snobs, coming in and ranting about mbs and unlimited unit selection and how they feel its a degenerate game. Generally speaking people who have played BW or alot of other classic RTS games generally want to push sc2 into that certain direction, because its the "right" one. On top of that the game had so many different iterations and everyone has a different opinion about what they liked and what they didnt like. Tankivacs for example was a case where the community was very split. What i am trying to say is, the second explaination why Blizzard is constantly patching because they have cornered themselves where old school players will never be happy and "relatively new" players will never be happy and both sides call for constant patching/fixing of the game for different motives.
They didn't patch much in WoL (in terms of impact) when things were going very well. They've been patching a lot in LotV because the game is struggling and they're trying to find a solution.
And anyway, of all the reasons of why SC2 hasn't lived up, frequent patching is may be the least plausible.
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It becomes ridiculous ...
Yes, I'm sure you, TL posters, know the market better than Blizzard, and know what actions are beneficial and which ones pull SC2 down, I'm really sure.
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AndAgain, I agree, the fact that Blizzard keeps changing SC2's meta with the frequent balance patches is a bit of a problem, but it's actually more of a symptom than a core problem.
DieuCure, it's not really ridiculous. We have a saying, "the customer is always right." While that may not always be true, is it wrong for a game reviewer to critique a game and give it a lower score that does not match the developer's advertising? No, of course not. There is no need to put Blizzard on a pedestal, we are just talking about game mechanics, as we have every right to do as gamers, fans, and customers.
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On October 09 2017 13:34 DieuCure wrote:
It becomes ridiculous ...
Yes, I'm sure you, TL posters, know the market better than Blizzard, and know what actions are beneficial and which ones pull SC2 down, I'm really sure.
Well, some may be experts, others aren't, but at the end of the day there are quite a few people around who've been playing video games for 1-2 decades now, with a certain taste for RTS.
Additionally, I don't think being a huge company means being immune to mistakes, as you can see with that recent re-branding attempt of battle.net.
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On October 09 2017 02:27 Descent wrote:
Most of you guys that are slanted towards SC2 probably weren't around during BW's era based on join dates, in which case it's natural to be biased towards what you know better. Not trying to start a flame war, just make an observation. As to SC2's international reach, it's pretty piddling to be honest when no foreigner in all of these years has really competed evenly with the Koreans except for Neeb recently--look at GSL vs. the World results, for example. The only reason it has more foreign competitive success than BW is because of basically affirmative action by creating separate WCS regionals, and the awesome HSC by Take (major props to him).
To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes.
BW didn't get balance patches because blizzard didn't care, that's it. Not because "they got it right".
This myth that bw is perfectly balanced is a complete lie, in reality the balance in bw is way worse than the balance in sc2.
People simply had to deal with it and find ways to make the matchups playable, we still have T>Z>P>T going on.
Should a game be patched often or not? There is no right answer to this tbh, yes people can figure out things on their own. But sometimes somethign is simply oppressive for the game and a slight nerf makes the game better because it opens up possibilities.
In general people enjoy variety, if every game looks the same then it will get boring for most players and viewers. Patching the game to shake things up is a good way to engage this problem. People who are more competitive don't want any changes ever, they simply wanna perfect their gameplay. You cannot please everybody 
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On October 08 2017 17:25 AssyrianKing wrote:
The one thing that will make me come back to playing is 6 worker start hahaha
Yeah me too.. Action never has been so poor in the history of sc2.. Even on WoL...
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On October 08 2017 18:26 Fecalfeast wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2017 17:43 starkiller123 wrote:On October 08 2017 17:25 AssyrianKing wrote:
The one thing that will make me come back to playing is 6 worker start hahaha god i hope that i dosent happen, i don't need to go back to 5 minutes of nothing in the early game What about a happy middle ground? 9 workers?
Yeah the best way
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I disagree with this notion that BW was not balanced at all or that Blizzard didn't care. Rob Pardo was the key factor in making Brood War multiplayer when it came to balance. Because there wasn't a way to look at spreadsheets or understand the different unit vs. unit outcomes Rob basically developed a "feel" for balance.
I'm not just spouting this out of my ass either. He talked about this process in great length in an interview that he did. I'll try to find it and post the source.
It's also important to consider he was one of the core people that pushed for MBS and unlimited unit selection in SC2. I believe he said, "I didn't understand why it was such a big deal" when talking about why some people at Blizzard didn't want such things.
In hindsight I wonder if he would consider those design changes a mistake given that MBS and unlimited unit selection kind of took away some of the uniqueness between the races. For example, most races can be hot keyed in identical fashion.
The main complaint that I have about SC2 (and other blizzard games) is that Blizzard doesn't rely on having a "feel" for balance anymore. They use spreadsheets, community feedback and win percentage mostly. The races no longer feel that unique, and I'd argue Protoss suffers the most from this. Blizzard no longer develops races (or classes in WoW for example) on the basis of making each have huge strengths and weakness. Granted, strengths and weakness exist to a certain extent, but still they are no where near as glaring as previously designed games. The principles they use now seem to be based around every race/class being capable of the same things. Essentially they aim for equality which I think is a mistake.
Just my two cents.
Edit: Here is the source for the Rob Pardo interview. I recommend listening to all of them.
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On October 07 2017 06:53 Zulu23 wrote:
What I would wish to see is the barracks requirement for the factory beeing removed from the tech tree. Thus enabling Terran factory first openings
what a great idea, remove the same for robo and stargate and hydraden.
Hell Yeah, why not. I mean not necessarily the Stargate, but the Cybercore and the Robo, and not the Hydra Den but the Lair and the Roach Warren.
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EPT
