|
I was just watching TING on BasetradeTV and I heard Demuslim talk about something interesting. He mentioned "the problem with tvp right now" - and he talked about an issue with potential income rates of Protoss vs Terran. His argument seemed to be that it is much easier for Protoss to rapidly gain income than it is for Terran.
A quick note - I am not trying to claim there are no balance issues that need to be taken care of. Also, please note that this post isn't to call out Demuslim. It's actually being made to call out about 90% of the outspoken community. And I like Demuslim, he seems like a cheerful and easy to get along with guy. But, he did make the fatal mistake of making a balance complaint while casting. And it inspired me.
To make my point, I am going to take us back in time, with a little history lesson. We are going to talk about sc2's predecessor, brood war.
Before the sc2 pro scene, the brood war pro scene was at the forefront of RTS e-sports. And before that, there was a time when esports was a fledgeling idea. At this point in time, there were almost *no* esports opportunities outside of korea...and in korea it was just beginning. Once a year we got the World Cyber Games. That was pretty much it. Everything else was made by the community, and the competition was mostly for honor - often there were no monetary prizes whatsoever. It was purely love of the game that drove competition during this period.
Now, other high level players from this period might have a different perspective - particularly ones that actually went to korea. So if they would like to contribute a differing view I would love to hear it. But from my own personal recollection - I almost never saw actual balance complaints from high level players. And ironically, as far as statistics go, Brood War was *less* balanced than sc2 has been for most of it's existence. Not by much, but there were clear racial imbalances that I believe continue to this day.
P>T>Z>P. Everyone knew. Sometimes we would see specialists or innovators rise up to defy the odds. But in general, Protoss knew they had to play exceptionally to win vs a good Zerg. I say this as a Protoss main. But it wasn't really something to complain about, it was just a fact of life. Each race had it's most challenging matchup. And the best players, they accepted that fact, and they rose to the challenge. In Korea, we saw numerous legends born - players who defied the odds and consistently won in all matchups. Players who could not be held down.
Since my experience was with Protoss, pvz is what I want to talk about. Note that the following are generalities, there are always exceptions. When I played pvz, there were two main ways to play. The first was to tech quickly into storm or reaver(probably storm), trying to survive early game and then leverage the tech advantage to slowly put yourself in an advantageous position. The second was to open with dedicated pressure, sacrificing your own tech and economy to attempt to slow down the Zerg even more(quick note, I am from before when corsair openings rose to popularity).
Here is the thing about these playstyles. In both cases, if you didn't outright win the game with a rush, you knew you would be behind in economy if the Zerg was playing macro. You'd likely be way behind in income. But that's okay, that was expected. That was part of the matchup.
Likewise, the Zerg knew they had to be way ahead in economy, or they were in for a rough time. Or, in PVT, there was a reverse situation. You typically expected to get a little bit ahead in economy. If you had managed to get up to 4 bases, but the Terran had somehow managed to accrue a similar income rate... well you were probably in deep shit.
So, where am I going with this? Well, I want to go back to what Demuslim was talking about. I think his statement is something a lot of people would agree with. The Terran can't safely match Protoss income rate, and that's a problem with the matchup.
I don't agree. I think we should look at the brood war examples as to why. I think, for some reason, too many people have decided *how the game is supposed to be*. I think that this rigidity of thinking sets people back, and makes them miss out on understanding and fail to see potential opportunities. Players, especially pro players, should be embracing the strengths of the race they are using - while working around the weaknesses.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Terran having to open up with hyperaggressive openings vs Protoss, for example. Maybe that's how the game should be played! It's all in your mind that there is something *wrong* with that. Maybe the best players are players who can embrace this playstyle, seeking to do the most damage possible and if not winning the game with it then *coming out ahead* to go into the later game. A lot of players act like the only thing you can do with an aggressive opening is win or lose, but that's silly. It's just an opening, and it puts you in some sort of position for later into the game. The amount of times I see players say *if X fails you lose*, is sad. Because it's not true. An opening can fail to kill an enemy but still put you in a great position if you do it well enough.
Players should not be looking at weaknesses as imbalances in the game. The races should not be directly compared. But they are, constantly.
If brood war came out now, instead of 20 years ago, the amount of complaining would be through the roof. It would be absolutely bonkers.
#You can't move out against Zerg it's impossible and they expand all over the map #All Terran can do is turtle while Protoss can take a million bases #I can't even get out of my base vs Terran all I can do is make a thousand sunkens and try desperately to get to lurkers so that I don't instantly die
etc etc
But instead, because brood war was new, players didn't know better. So, they embraced these aspects of the game and played around them. They perfected them. They weren't balance issues... they were the game.
To sum it up, I think that many members of the community need to re-think how they view balance between the races... and I think that pros should be gleefully embracing the strengths and weaknesses in the matchups.
|
Thank you! There's definitely been times when balance was an issue (e.g., queen patch BL-infestor, 1-1-1), but you make things too balanced / similar, and people complain about design
|
|
As a terran hearing statements like this really confuses me every time. (Demuslims statement) Zerg has been superior in income rate compared to the other race for ages and nobody thinks it's a problem because people are used to it and Zerg is balanced around it. In TvP however people think Protoss shouldn't have superior income because it's not how it has been in the previous expansions...
Protoss may be too strong right now in TvP but that may as well be a problem with unit balance and not with the economy. Back when liberators were strong macro TvP was balanced as well despite Protoss having the superior economy.
However I disagree with this statement There is nothing inherently wrong with Terran having to open up with hyperaggressive openings vs Protoss, I think when the matchup dictates too much how the players are supposed to play it makes the game really stale. The best example for this is Immo Sentry allin vs BL/Infestor.
|
There is a significant difference that is missing. The big difference is that Blizzard continues to balance SC2 while it left BW alone for almost all of its professional existence. You could complain all you wanted in BW, nothing would change. It was a complete waste of time.
In SC2, if the community gets loud enough, Blizzard tends to cave to the demands. If your race is stronger, you'll do better in tournaments and get more money. So a pro player actually has an incentive to complain.
I'd be very cautious about listening to balance complaints from anyone who isn't a dedicated random player because they have an incentive to complain. And of course, I'd be cautious about listening to balance complaints from less than a professional level because there is so much they could do to improve their win rate before balance becomes an issue.
And the number of extremely high level dedicated random players is... 0? So I'd just suggest that Blizzard should be extremely slow in implementing changes.
|
People complain because complaining causes changes.
Protoss players complained that the skill ceiling for controlling the protoss army was too high, so they added an auto attack to high templar.
Zergs complained that proxy rax was impossible to hold, and blizzard made it fucking impossible to misclick the scv building a bunker.
Terrans complained about cancelling stim by accidentally lifting their barracks, and blizzard just changed the game so that can't happen anymore.
When you have a developer that's sitting beside it's community bending over to their every whim, of course people are going to complain.
Those are just the most recent patches, the list of balance changes to SC2 over the years is staggering.
|
On January 16 2019 02:25 RenSC2 wrote:
I'd be very cautious about listening to balance complaints from anyone who isn't a dedicated random player because they have an incentive to complain. I think when you listen to pro players of all 3 races you will get to some conclusions despite the biases of the individual players.
|
No direct link with your subject but i m pretty much surprised to never see a ghost in early TvP, On the paper, he looks as good as a high templar and you can tech faster to produce them ?!
I m missing something ?
|
On January 16 2019 02:24 Charoisaur wrote: I think when the matchup dictates too much how the players are supposed to play it makes the game really stale. The best example for this is Immo Sentry allin vs BL/Infestor.
This kind of statement I can agree with. If the argument is that some aspect of the game makes it boring for viewers or players then I think it is a debate people should be having. It's certainly ideal for the game to be a fun one... though I do fear some people don't find games fun simply because they aren't able to win with the playstyle they want to win with.
|
As long as everyone who reads this post and says "yeah I agree" realizes that the natural conclusion that follows is that there should be no balance changes, I will be happy. And yes, I agree with this post generally speaking.
|
I remember DeMuslim talking once about his WC3 days where orc was considered to be in a bad position. Even Grubby allegedly made a blog about the issue. Then a player came with a completely different hero strategy and "fixed" orc.
Too bad that Blizzard decided - due to popular demand - to patch orc somewhere around the same time, leading to a lot of tournament wins for orc players.
I don't know when this was and how it developed from there but it speaks volumes to me.
By the way I mostly end the stream when a player starts to blame balance... Not my idea of entertainment.
|
Travis I'll try to respond as fairly and thoroughly as I can, as saying something in a 20 second segment over a relaxed and laid back cast and that being used to start a discussion can often be misleading. But also I want to start off by saying, I absolutely disagree that you should just accept something because "That's the way it is".
"Players should not be looking at weaknesses as imbalances in the game. The races should not be directly compared. But they are, constantly."
You did a lot of comparing between sc2 and BW, which I think is fair given that both are related in that they have the same 3 races and share a lot of the same basics. But what they are is anything but the same. Sc2 as its progressed has just grown further and further from it's predecessor, and not in a bad way. The jump in workers from BW from 4, to 6 in sc2, to 12 were all done to improve certain things, be it simply to negate very early game cheese outs, or to skip the mundane opening minutes to a game. BW has gone 20 years without a single change to anything besides maps. Sc2 on the other hand goes through a major Balance patch every year, heck just a week ago they tested removing a bug in beam damage and reverting it. One has balance patches, one doesn't, this makes change in one game something that can and should be talked about, so of course they are different.
With a major balance patch coming every year and the most recent happening in November which changed very integral things about the game, new to everyone, I think talking about the changes is fine to do. Now, there have absolutely been times in sc2's history which grows longer by the day in which things weren't deemed best for competition, the most notable being the "broodlord infestor" era of the game which to this day is highly regarded as the most imbalanced portion of sc2's history. You could even mention the blinkstalker Yeon su days where MSC had 13 vision range for blink stalkers, neither was balanced, but more importantly neither was good for the game viewer wise or fun wise.
Sc2 matchups generally have rules, one very simple one which I don't think anybody would disagree with for example is how Terran vs Zerg is played. Terran works on slowing down the zergs economy with things like Hellions, Banshees, Vikings killing overlords, BC's, Hellbat pushes etc. You don't see Terran not open up aggressive vs zerg, this isn't something that's "imbalanced" as after all the early game aggression is done, you can see situations where both players are 130 ish supply and the game goes on. Arguing the whys of this would be that Zerg economy can grow quicker than terrans, thus terran work at slowing it down which is a terran utilizing its aggressive potential thus minimizing a zergs strengths and making the line of where both races should be more equal. TvZ has been like that for a while, and I think it's in a really great spot especially with the number of openings that are viable becoming more varied with things like the BC viability and transfusion with the slight nerf opens up possibilities.
Moving onto TvP, the general rule has changed throughout time making it far less consistent in how to actually judge it or balance it.
Back in HoTS, Recalling the time of viking scv all ins (Terran would get a superior economy, hit protoss before they get a supreme army and win) this then was altered by Maru where Maru just doom dropped every protoss with medivacs instead of viking usage etc. But the general gist of things was that Terran's economy bloomed faster than a Protoss, but the Protoss if reaching max would have a better army. This is no longer HoTS obviously, and talking about rules things have changed. Protoss with the macro changes, chronoboost better, new units, mules nerfed the way things usually work is that Protoss get ahead economically. This is a tad weird since that's a role reversal of how things used to be, especially without really nerfing or buffing anything besides the macro mechanics (mule was nerfed slightly also).
One way that terran dealt with these changes and the flip to the rule, was proxy factory reactor builds and the like, they were deemed incredibly strong, even imbalanced throughout the latter seasons of GSL 2018. We saw TY and Maru used them to great effect, come Super tournament and Blizzcon, we saw Protoss learn to deal with these builds which was a sigh of relief for Protoss players. One thing that's worth mentioning though, is these builds came out of necessity due to the macro builds of terran no longer working, thus resorting to different methods. The recent patch disabled the reactor cyclone, thus removing the 1 slowing down ability of the terran. To compare this to a different matchup, if you removed queens in ZvT, their defensive capabilities would be ridiculously stunted and maybe you'd never see zerg recover vs terran, the same could be said if you removed Hellions, zergs would never take damage and would always be ahead vs terran resulting in grand zerg favour. If you remove the current 1 method that terran have of slowing down a Protoss, aka the proxy factory reactor, it results in a similar effect in TvP, this doesn't mean there aren't other methods, but a lot of what terran did revolved around this being a possibilty in slowing down a Protoss, just like Hellions are a possibility vs zerg, so you make those 12 extra lings instead of 6 drones. The fear of it and potential of it slows a race down.
This isn't a direct comparison of how 1 race is to another, this is talk of a constantly evolving and progressing game and a different take on the hows and why terran resort to the style of play they currently take vs Protoss, without saying anything about the strength of 1 races units to another races.
Also, just to clarify, I don't find TvP as fun as it used to be to watch (Which maybe I should have clarified when I said the problem with it) when it featured a lot of late game terran vs Protoss armies (Need I mention squirtle vs MvP with BC's vs Mothership and blackhole etc) or simply the Ghost vs HT snipe vs feedback situation. It now mainly features 2 base all ins and Protoss' attempts holding it, Maybe i'm alone in thinking the matchup can be more enjoyable for everyone, but all in all I just think it can be more and has been more than it currently is.
|
Anytime anyone starts talking about balance, I generally ignore them.
|
I kinda get both sides of this one, on one hand players would be well served to embrace the strengths of their race, even if its not exactly how one would want to play a matchup
On the other hand I get the frustration that arises from being "forced" to play a matchup a certain way in order to win
Also:
On January 16 2019 03:35 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote: Anytime anyone starts talking about balance, I generally ignore them. Awesome contribution
|
The match-up has turned into a master/slave relationship and nobody likes being a slave. Protoss currently have nothing but advantages and hopefully blizzard will continue to address them. There is no point in settling for anything less than balance perfection when there is a team of people who get paid to look after the game. Perfection may not be attainable but I am sure we as a community can help the game developers get close, there is no point of throwing in the towel now.
"I used to walk 20 miles to school, both ways up hill and through snow." I'm sure it made you work harder in order to make sure your children did not have to do the same.
|
I think the game should be fun to play first and balanced after...
Currently Zerg vs Protoss starts with the Zerg defending 1-2 Adepts, then Oracle (phoenix) then chargelot (archon) while being behind in eco for the first 3:30 - 4:00 minutes of the game and being "forced" to play defensive. All because we lost our offense (early drops).
Now I personally don't think it is imbalanced because Zerg clearly can defend all Protoss aggression. I am just not really a fan of playing the game like that. A race being able to perform strong harrass without giving up too much eco or tech. But it is how the game is designed and I doubt much will change.
That is just one example. To me Starcraft just feels unfun to play at the moment :/ but you can't please everybody.
|
Czech Republic12115 Posts
Demuslim has some right thoughts though. While the "BW this, BW that" statement is right too, Travis forgot, as Demu pointed out, that Blizzard constantly patches SC2. So when somebody is arising with a new idea or some shit, it's usually when Blizzard says "CHANGE PLACES!!!!!!" and shuffles the game around.
I find it weird that Travis did NOT mention this. But maybe I overlooked it, it was a big wall. I dare to say... Should I say? Trump would love it!
|
Its true to an extent, but i have to somewhat disagree.
In starcraft2, they come out with these balance patches that havent had much playtesting and no mathematical analysis behind it.
Also, the one thing I think can be unfair is how certain matchups have VERY imbalanced number of available builds and playstyles between the races.
ZvT is the biggest example in my honest opinion.
The new BC openings added to the plethora of openings terran can do.
There is now virtually no choices for zerg in the first 6 minutes or more. You mass queen and drones with early third base and defend with as few units as possible, always ling/bane or roaches. If you mass queen, you cant attack, since they took out early ovie drops and nerfed nydus to hell. You cant use mass queen to punish someone playing greedy using air tech units to stay safe versus all rushes zerg can do.
Meanwhile, here are some of the infinite terran openings versus zerg.
1) Proxy 4 rax all-in gasless 2) Proxy 2 racks gas opening 3) mass reaper ( not very popular anymore, but can be deadly since we are out of practice versus it, ask ziggy) 4) classic hellion banshee 5) 2-1-1, not as strong as the other builds, but since it requires completely different answer than other builds, can still be good. 6) battle cruiser hellion rush (2 main version,s the 1 starport one, and the 2 starports one where u get a siege tank for defense and delay the bcs a bit to hit with 2) 7) cyclone/hellion ( not very viable as an opening anymore, but maybe) 8) hellion/liberator 9) widowmine/marine drop 10) stim marine/hellbat timings 11) super fast hellbat rush 12) 2 base marine tank all-in ( great on some maps) 13)...etc..i could go on all day And we're not even talking about mid game unit composition, where terran has many more viable styles than zerg once again in tvz.. I think every terran unit can be rushed and be a viable tvz openings, thats just crazy.
Meanwhile from the zerg side we have:
1) pool before hatchery run lings around reaper and hope terran does not scout or make a marine after reaper 2) shitty ravager build ( a bit less shitty than before patch, still auto lose versus banshee or siege tank openings or good scouting 3) ling/bane bust ( not very viable as we are mostly always facing hellion openings) 4) mass queen ( pretty much the only build that doesnt auto lose against many builds from terran)
The problem is, terran has so many openings that looks somewhat similar that anything other than mass queens is incredibly risky or all-in. When you go mass queen, you forfeit any chance at being aggressive, letting the opponent do any tech opening he wants while not sacrificing economy himself.
The first 7 minutes of a ZvT, terran has many many opportunities to do game ending damage, at many point in those first minutes. Zerg on the other hand, even with perfect defense does not gain a significant lead, if at all. Zerg is fighting the entire early game to stay even with terran, while terran is fighting to gain a lead.
I feel like for the matchup to be a bit more fair, zerg would need a new hatchery unit ( not the queen) that can attack air, not even be great against air, but at least attack it so that one banshee or one oracle does not completely shut down the rush super cost effectively. This would keep terran a bit more honest, and maybe they would need to make a siege tank or two to be safe while going fast BCS or things like that.
|
broodwar pros went back to broodwar for a reason
|
On January 16 2019 04:25 Marl wrote: broodwar pros went back to broodwar for a reason
Because SC2 was too hard
|
Demuslim is just whiner who likes to whine. You went too deep.
User was warned for this post
|
On January 16 2019 04:33 Elantris wrote: Demuslim is just whiner who likes to whine. You went too deep. Absolutely incorrect! you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
|
On January 16 2019 03:58 Aveng3r wrote:I kinda get both sides of this one, on one hand players would be well served to embrace the strengths of their race, even if its not exactly how one would want to play a matchup On the other hand I get the frustration that arises from being "forced" to play a matchup a certain way in order to win Also: Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 03:35 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote: Anytime anyone starts talking about balance, I generally ignore them. Awesome contribution
I see the community hasn't changed at all in my time away
|
On January 16 2019 05:10 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 03:58 Aveng3r wrote:I kinda get both sides of this one, on one hand players would be well served to embrace the strengths of their race, even if its not exactly how one would want to play a matchup On the other hand I get the frustration that arises from being "forced" to play a matchup a certain way in order to win Also: On January 16 2019 03:35 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote: Anytime anyone starts talking about balance, I generally ignore them. Awesome contribution I see the community hasn't changed at all in my time away Care to elaborate?
|
On January 16 2019 04:19 Snakestyle11 wrote:
3) mass reaper ( not very popular anymore, but can be deadly since we are out of practice versus it, ask ziggy) 5) 2-1-1, not as strong as the other builds, but since it requires completely different answer than other builds, can still be good. 7) cyclone/hellion ( not very viable as an opening anymore, but maybe) 9) widowmine/marine drop
When you list those as "viable openings" you might as well say for Zerg: 5) 2 Base Muta (not that strong but can be deadly if unscouted) 6) Nydus (kills terran if they don't expect it) 7) 7 Roach rush after expansion 8) Proxy Hatchery (kills terran if they don't scout) 9) 12 pool (kills terran if they don't know how to play) 10) Ling runby to kill every scv while the hellions are across the map 11) Mass Ravager ling Queen drop bust (this is actually really legit and common)
|
On January 16 2019 04:33 Elantris wrote: Demuslim is just whiner who likes to whine. You went too deep.
I don't like seeing this here. Being publicly criticized makes anyone feel bad, even people who are public figures for a living. Based on what I have seen, I don't think Demuslim is a "whiner", and I don't think personal attacks have any place here. I chose his statements as a basis for the thread because he is a good player and a good caster and he is very well known in esports.
Everyone: nothing in this thread should be personal. This is just a game that we hopefully all love, so we are all linked by that. If you don't want to get along with others please refrain from posting here.
|
Asymmetrical balance is hard. Hard to for people to understand, and even harder to achieve.
But it's possible. And the developers have to ignore those who make comments like Demuslim make, because they are viewing the game through a lense of symmetrical balance. But the sides aren't symmetrical. The game isn't as simplistic as that.
One side can have more income and the game can still be balanced. Just like one side can have more units and the game still be balanced.
|
There are several different aspect when talking about balance
1) Winrates and tournament performance at pro level. This is what we typically talk about when discussing balance. This is the most important aspect for pro player but may not be the most important aspect for viewers and normal players.
2) How difficult a race is to use A race can be perfectly balanced at the top 0.1% level but too hard to use for normal players. So you handicap yourself by playing race if you do not have top level mechanics.
3) How restricted you are when you play. For instance, if you fall behind automatically if you choose to play macro instead of proxy cheese, the winrates may be balanced if you play optimally, but is an awful game play experience. Or if you are forced to use bio every single game in a certain mathup. It may be balanced but it restrict the gameplay experience.
I would argue that SC2 is doing good for 1) but less so for 2) and 3).
|
Even if the issue was economy it doesn't change the fact that there is no benefit for terran to go into the lategame vs protoss, ever. P keeps unlocking extremely strong tech and units that complement eachother. Best thing terran has to look forward to is ranged libs which require a critical number to not get picked off in 1/2 second with blink or a couple of tempests. Factory units lose value if playing bio from not being on the same upgrade path and having most of their sweet breakpoints at high attack upgrades.
Terran hasn't wanted to play lategame vs P since forever. You can keep trying to change the economy assymetries of the matchup all you want but its not gonna change the fact that going into the lategame is simply not something that benefits T in any way and if there is a timing they can go for they will continue to do so. I'm not even playing the game anymore but really enjoy spectating, watching every variation of a tank push with bunkers in tvp gets old, really fast.
|
On January 16 2019 06:19 MockHamill wrote: There are several different aspect when talking about balance
1) Winrates and tournament performance at pro level. This is what we typically talk about when discussing balance. This is the most important aspect for pro player but may not be the most important aspect for viewers and normal players.
2) How difficult a race is to use A race can be perfectly balanced at the top 0.1% level but too hard to use for normal players. So you handicap yourself by playing race if you do not have top level mechanics.
3) How restricted you are when you play. For instance, if you fall behind automatically if you choose to play macro instead of proxy cheese, the winrates may be balanced if you play optimally, but is an awful game play experience. Or if you are forced to use bio every single game in a certain mathup. It may be balanced but it restrict the gameplay experience.
I would argue that SC2 is doing good for 1) but less so for 2) and 3).
Re: 2)
Blizzard should never be intentionally reducing the skill ceiling. They've done this so many times in recent years: Stacking injects, HT auto attack, auto warp gate, no lift off while addon is researching, easier to click building scvs, even way back in hots when they allow tumours to be placed on ramps.
Their reasoning for these changes have always been about reducing unnecessary actions, accidental game ending moment, and the amount of attention a player has to split to play the game optimally.
The problem is that "unnecessary actions" separate one playing who can do those actions, and a player who can't. If you forget to turn your gateways to warp gates and you lose, that's on you. A better player would not have made that mistake. The same can be said about attention splitting. If you need to control 17 spell casters, and some of them keep wandering into the enemy and dying - that's on you. A better player wouldn't make that mistake. If you micro your heart out in a ling bane war and never inject - that's on you. A better player wouldn't make that mistake.
Every time blizzard makes the game easier, even in the smallest way, the reduce the gap between players, and I think that's a problem.
|
Czech Republic12115 Posts
On January 16 2019 07:16 InfCereal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 06:19 MockHamill wrote: There are several different aspect when talking about balance
1) Winrates and tournament performance at pro level. This is what we typically talk about when discussing balance. This is the most important aspect for pro player but may not be the most important aspect for viewers and normal players.
2) How difficult a race is to use A race can be perfectly balanced at the top 0.1% level but too hard to use for normal players. So you handicap yourself by playing race if you do not have top level mechanics.
3) How restricted you are when you play. For instance, if you fall behind automatically if you choose to play macro instead of proxy cheese, the winrates may be balanced if you play optimally, but is an awful game play experience. Or if you are forced to use bio every single game in a certain mathup. It may be balanced but it restrict the gameplay experience.
I would argue that SC2 is doing good for 1) but less so for 2) and 3).
Re: 2) Blizzard should never be intentionally reducing the skill ceiling. They've done this so many times in recent years: Stacking injects, HT auto attack, auto warp gate, no lift off while addon is researching, easier to click building scvs, even way back in hots when they allow tumours to be placed on ramps. Their reasoning for these changes have always been about reducing unnecessary actions, accidental game ending moment, and the amount of attention a player has to split to play the game optimally. The problem is that "unnecessary actions" separate one playing who can do those actions, and a player who can't. If you forget to turn your gateways to warp gates and you lose, that's on you. A better player would not have made that mistake. The same can be said about attention splitting. If you need to control 17 spell casters, and some of them keep wandering into the enemy and dying - that's on you. A better player wouldn't make that mistake. If you micro your heart out in a ling bane war and never inject - that's on you. A better player wouldn't make that mistake. Every time blizzard makes the game easier, even in the smallest way, the reduce the gap between players, and I think that's a problem. Have you ever seen soO view when he was the best Zerg around? He a-moved(ish) units and when back to inject because injects >> micro units. That was when I realized how shitty this inject mechanic is. Just my view
|
On January 16 2019 07:16 InfCereal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 06:19 MockHamill wrote: There are several different aspect when talking about balance
1) Winrates and tournament performance at pro level. This is what we typically talk about when discussing balance. This is the most important aspect for pro player but may not be the most important aspect for viewers and normal players.
2) How difficult a race is to use A race can be perfectly balanced at the top 0.1% level but too hard to use for normal players. So you handicap yourself by playing race if you do not have top level mechanics.
3) How restricted you are when you play. For instance, if you fall behind automatically if you choose to play macro instead of proxy cheese, the winrates may be balanced if you play optimally, but is an awful game play experience. Or if you are forced to use bio every single game in a certain mathup. It may be balanced but it restrict the gameplay experience.
I would argue that SC2 is doing good for 1) but less so for 2) and 3).
Re: 2) Blizzard should never be intentionally reducing the skill ceiling. They've done this so many times in recent years: Stacking injects, HT auto attack, auto warp gate, no lift off while addon is researching, easier to click building scvs, even way back in hots when they allow tumours to be placed on ramps. Their reasoning for these changes have always been about reducing unnecessary actions, accidental game ending moment, and the amount of attention a player has to split to play the game optimally. The problem is that "unnecessary actions" separate one playing who can do those actions, and a player who can't. If you forget to turn your gateways to warp gates and you lose, that's on you. A better player would not have made that mistake. The same can be said about attention splitting. If you need to control 17 spell casters, and some of them keep wandering into the enemy and dying - that's on you. A better player wouldn't make that mistake. If you micro your heart out in a ling bane war and never inject - that's on you. A better player wouldn't make that mistake. Every time blizzard makes the game easier, even in the smallest way, the reduce the gap between players, and I think that's a problem. Thank you for typing that "Blizzard should never be intentionally reducing the skill ceiling." id just change your wrap up a little, if i may
"Every time blizzard makes the game easier, even in the smallest way, this reduces the interest involved in playing/viewing it for everyone, and I think that's a problem."
...
Many streamers try to make their viewers follow their quips about the state of sc2 lit from their own corner, their own brand of "humor" ..more often than not it is so bad that yes this sort of thread seems warranted.
However (after 8 years + of sc2) i bizarrely still like people who explain their thoughts about sc2 "balance"... Case in point, i humbly put that Demuslim should voice his thoughts the way he does since it happens that he is not just whining but trying his best to articulate said thoughts to make hopefully the game he plays be made more interesting/competitively driven! by its developer at the next round of changes.
(edit/disclaimer: i didn't see the ting thingee .. i'm referencing the streamer playing the game and talking about it on his stream after having played the thing he is discussing)
|
I feel like the opener went right into the unwanted hole. To me this was supposed to be about different approaches to sc2 matchups and how a fixed mentality forces players to be dependant on patch fixes instead of rewarding creative solutions. Maru pretty much defined a full matchup by finding a missed opportunity in TvP last year, but here Demuslim and 9/10 of TL think this is about how different or similar are Sc2 and BW.
|
Bisutopia19027 Posts
On January 16 2019 08:59 Malongo wrote: I feel like the opener went right into the unwanted hole. To me this was supposed to be about different approaches to sc2 matchups and how a fixed mentality forces players to be dependant on patch fixes instead of rewarding creative solutions. Maru pretty much defined a full matchup by finding a missed opportunity in TvP last year, but here Demuslim and 9/10 of TL think this is about how different or similar are Sc2 and BW. Ypu. I personally loved the OP and was really excited that Travis authored up such a big post. He is a long time quality poster and guy. I think he did a great job of separating his thoughts from personal attacks unlike some people in this thread. I also thought demuslim's response was a great one too.
I feel like there has to be a middle ground on this discussion. The fact that blizzard continues the patch the game and listens to the community is great, but does elicit these kinds of reactions because of it. At some point though, the community will have to really debate wether yearly patches for the next 5-10 years is a good thing, or is an end to 1v1 balance changes the right thing to do. Once there is a close to balance changes, everyone should come back to this OP cause it will mean much more to readers at that time.
|
i think you're overanalyzing the fact that people like to balance whine about their own race and trying to make it into a kind of unnecessary narrative that i'm not sure actually expresses any particular idea. you're just kind of rambling from point to point like every other balance bible everyone else has tried to write
|
On January 16 2019 04:19 Snakestyle11 wrote: There is now virtually no choices for zerg in the first 6 minutes or more. You mass queen and drones with early third base and defend with as few units as possible, always ling/bane or roaches. If you mass queen, you cant attack, since they took out early ovie drops and nerfed nydus to hell. You cant use mass queen to punish someone playing greedy using air tech units to stay safe versus all rushes zerg can do.
Meanwhile, here are some of the infinite terran openings versus zerg. -cut-
Though you can argue that playing Z has always been like that.
Remember back in WoL when zerg would 3hatch pretty much every game vs P? To ultimately transition into BL infestor?
Everyone was lamenting how OP z is to macro up so hard and then do that comp. Forgetting how back then Z had no other options.
3 hatch was a response to forge fast expand, which P would do every game since it negated all early aggression from zerg until they had a deathball going in which case they could just roll over anything the Z could have at that point. Many zergs realised that their only option is to take a quick third and survive the harass until all bases are up and tech to hive, since lair tech would melt to the P army.
Then broodlord infestor vs mothership archon isn't anything anyone wants back...
As for a hatch tech anti air unit, I thought before about swapping roach and hydra in the tech tree and balance accordingly, but it's too big of a change. I'd rather see a queen rally point. Maybe some hive upgrade for the queen... not sure what would make sense though.
Zerg has always been rather locked in their choices (I don't think protoss is very different in this regard, especially in their mirror) if you don't like having 1-2 stable openings then probably you would enjoy playing terran more. Races are just different this way and have always been.
|
Czech Republic12115 Posts
On January 16 2019 08:59 Malongo wrote: I feel like the opener went right into the unwanted hole. To me this was supposed to be about different approaches to sc2 matchups and how a fixed mentality forces players to be dependant on patch fixes instead of rewarding creative solutions. Maru pretty much defined a full matchup by finding a missed opportunity in TvP last year, but here Demuslim and 9/10 of TL think this is about how different or similar are Sc2 and BW. It's not like Travis didn't use this and the games ARE different. Blizzard has a different approach towards them. So if you use "in BW this while in SC2 that" approach be prepared, that the reaction is - different games.
The fact that the games have similar name and some similar units doesn't mean they're same. If you want to get rid off this comparisons then you have to remove the BW comparison yourself and, surprise surprise, then you're left only with SC2
|
On January 16 2019 03:34 DeMusliM wrote: But also I want to start off by saying, I absolutely disagree that you should just accept something because "That's the way it is".
Sc2 matchups generally have rules, one very simple one which I don't think anybody would disagree with for example is how Terran vs Zerg is played.
Isn't this quite contradictory?
Your major point of disagreement with OP is that you think matchups can change. But then you enforce a set of reasoning on the base of: matchups have rules and therefore we have to stick to them.
Isn't just OP saying that matchup rules do not exist and therefore you should stick and how the game it is; and not to, on the contrary, force the game to change to fit to your playstyle?
|
In Warcraft 3 it used to be the case that UD players would just play a different race versus Orc, because the match-up was so lopsided. But I don't think that's allowed in SC2, I can recall some rule where Blizzard disallowed it for their tournaments? It's not practical obviously, because players are so much weaker with their off-races.
But it's actually the standard within e-sports to continuously add new units, races, heroes in order to sell content. And that's forced all those games into these sort of complex counter relationships where there are all sorts of options, which are balanced only by virtue of the demand on the player that they master and immerse themselves into this network. You have to know everything at risk of being figured out, to refuse is to become an open target. Personally I think it's charming SC2 is not like this. In my opinion SC2 has too many units already and would benefit from more clarity, with strategy deriving from map design and differentiation between early and late game and so on.
Also, with the assumption that every match-up can never be fully balanced, then there are only two options: either one race is superior to the other two, or there is a cyclical counter relationship. Given that Blizzard tries to balance the game by avoiding the first at all costs, it's only natural the latter would constantly crop up. But of course that's a crude way of conceiving balance.
Note that there is a minor effect where one match-up being uneven, say P > T, then in tournament or league scenarios there is a faint echo such that T > Z, and fainter still Z > P, - because only the stronger terrans survive to face weaker zergs. It's a minor effect, (iic) I tested it once with a 60% P > T winrate, which then caused a 52% T > Z winrate.
In any case, given these factors such as the inability to exploit cyclical counter relationships due to players being locked into their race choice, and the fact that it's more about the degree to which one race dominates, I don't think pointing out this cycle is sufficient in casting aside balance concerns. SC2 is a game which has a relatively fragile balance. I don't think people appreciate the fact that BW is badly balanced, but due to its difficulty it lets players overcome most balance deficits, whereas SC2 is very well balanced, but also requires more effort because there are more units, more strategies and (slightly) easier controls. For BW the fact that Blizzard abandoned it proved to be a boon, but SC2 was created specifically so that Blizzard would have control over it, and unsurprisingly people are still asking Blizzard every day to make changes to the game.
To my knowledge SC2 is the only mainstream game which locks players out of options and therefore adds extreme urgency to game balance which does not exist for any other game where a player can just switch their main. In every other game the designers want unbalanced counter relationships in order to add strategy, but in SC2 you have to be extremely cautious.
|
|
On January 16 2019 17:27 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 08:59 Malongo wrote: I feel like the opener went right into the unwanted hole. To me this was supposed to be about different approaches to sc2 matchups and how a fixed mentality forces players to be dependant on patch fixes instead of rewarding creative solutions. Maru pretty much defined a full matchup by finding a missed opportunity in TvP last year, but here Demuslim and 9/10 of TL think this is about how different or similar are Sc2 and BW. It's not like Travis didn't use this and the games ARE different. Blizzard has a different approach towards them. So if you use "in BW this while in SC2 that" approach be prepared, that the reaction is - different games. The fact that the games have similar name and some similar units doesn't mean they're same. If you want to get rid off this comparisons then you have to remove the BW comparison yourself and, surprise surprise, then you're left only with SC2
My point wasn't about similarity between the games, my point was about mindset of players and viewers. It happens to be the case that brood war is similar to sc2, but my point could have been made with any game. Brood war makes a good example because of it's long history of success and early appearance in the timeline of esports, so it's players are representative of what I feel is a positive mindset for the game.
|
people + Show Spoiler +below Masters need to accept that a diverse race RTS game won't be balanced for their level of play. I"m 100% satisfied with that state of affairs.
I played Brood War, Red Alert 3 , SC2 and, Company of Heroes. They were all imbalanced at my level of play. I had great fun with all those games. Did I lose a few games to players slightly less skilled than me due to some imbalance... probably. Meh, who cares.
In 2003 i lost my Brood War disk and played the famously imbalanced vanilla SC1 for 3+ months. It was fun. I probably lost a few games I didn't deserve to lose.. and i probably won a few games i didn't deserve to win. meh, who cares.
Fun is more important than winning exactly 50% of your games.
|
This is a really interesting discussion, thanks travis for the quality OP.
I also like more the BW community mindset about balance than the one of SC2. It is true that in BW there is no other choice, but still, the result is better. Balance gets too much attention in SC2.
Asimmetric balance is good for the game. It strengthens the strategic component of it, because you need to work on strategies to benefit from your better tools and also to minimize the impact of the best tools of the adversary. That said, the assimetry has to end in the extreme late game. Matchups have to be balanced when all units and upgrades are available. If not, one race always has an advantage in the matchup. Unfortunately these scenarios are the most rarely played and therefore difficult to balance.
|
T>P so hard in brood war
BS overpowered vultures and siege tanks. Protoss hilariously weak in BW
|
On January 17 2019 15:56 BerserkSword wrote: T>P so hard in brood war
BS overpowered vultures and siege tanks. Protoss hilariously weak in BW
As a (mostly) terran main in bw, i always felt that indeed TvP was much easier than TvZ. ( Maybe i needed to learn mech instead of SK terran in tvz, woulda been easier maybe)
Siege tanks and vultures/mines with turrets with good macro was almost unbreakable...
Until arbiters.
I think arbiters and carriers is what made Protoss strong versus terran. Without those, it did indeed feel weak.
|
Czech Republic12115 Posts
On January 17 2019 01:32 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 17:27 deacon.frost wrote:On January 16 2019 08:59 Malongo wrote: I feel like the opener went right into the unwanted hole. To me this was supposed to be about different approaches to sc2 matchups and how a fixed mentality forces players to be dependant on patch fixes instead of rewarding creative solutions. Maru pretty much defined a full matchup by finding a missed opportunity in TvP last year, but here Demuslim and 9/10 of TL think this is about how different or similar are Sc2 and BW. It's not like Travis didn't use this and the games ARE different. Blizzard has a different approach towards them. So if you use "in BW this while in SC2 that" approach be prepared, that the reaction is - different games. The fact that the games have similar name and some similar units doesn't mean they're same. If you want to get rid off this comparisons then you have to remove the BW comparison yourself and, surprise surprise, then you're left only with SC2 My point wasn't about similarity between the games, my point was about mindset of players and viewers. It happens to be the case that brood war is similar to sc2, but my point could have been made with any game. Brood war makes a good example because of it's long history of success and early appearance in the timeline of esports, so it's players are representative of what I feel is a positive mindset for the game. I get it, but if you use the comparison people will attack the comparison
Anyway, my point was actually confirmed by Flash himself I believe. He said in some interview translated here(or maybe on youtube, but I 100 % read the quote here) that he was thinking about some issue in TvX and he was nearing a perfection which meant he would be able to perform it and then a balance change happened.
With this approach I don't blame pros trying to force the change via Blizzard and "whine" rather than solving it. Because solving it may result in a lost time.
|
On January 17 2019 18:55 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2019 01:32 travis wrote:On January 16 2019 17:27 deacon.frost wrote:On January 16 2019 08:59 Malongo wrote: I feel like the opener went right into the unwanted hole. To me this was supposed to be about different approaches to sc2 matchups and how a fixed mentality forces players to be dependant on patch fixes instead of rewarding creative solutions. Maru pretty much defined a full matchup by finding a missed opportunity in TvP last year, but here Demuslim and 9/10 of TL think this is about how different or similar are Sc2 and BW. It's not like Travis didn't use this and the games ARE different. Blizzard has a different approach towards them. So if you use "in BW this while in SC2 that" approach be prepared, that the reaction is - different games. The fact that the games have similar name and some similar units doesn't mean they're same. If you want to get rid off this comparisons then you have to remove the BW comparison yourself and, surprise surprise, then you're left only with SC2 My point wasn't about similarity between the games, my point was about mindset of players and viewers. It happens to be the case that brood war is similar to sc2, but my point could have been made with any game. Brood war makes a good example because of it's long history of success and early appearance in the timeline of esports, so it's players are representative of what I feel is a positive mindset for the game. I get it, but if you use the comparison people will attack the comparison Anyway, my point was actually confirmed by Flash himself I believe. He said in some interview translated here(or maybe on youtube, but I 100 % read the quote here) that he was thinking about some issue in TvX and he was nearing a perfection which meant he would be able to perform it and then a balance change happened. With this approach I don't blame pros trying to force the change via Blizzard and "whine" rather than solving it. Because solving it may result in a lost time. Pro players complain about balance because it's in their interest to do so. And the opportunities readily present themselves as Blizzard solicits their opinion or the question comes up in interviews. But pro players are not full-time lobbyists, and they are not lazy. I think it's a bit silly to state that balance being in flux destroys pro players' will to innovate. Of course they are still practicing to circumvent whatever real balance problems might exist. At the very least, I don't know of any empirical evidence for SC2 being less strategically rich than BW due to player despondency.
|
On January 16 2019 02:09 travis wrote: I think, for some reason, too many people have decided *how the game is supposed to be*.
YES finally someone points this out. As if the different races should only differ in some units.
Many players think the game should be so that they have an (if just slightly) higher win rate than 50%. It is too easy to point out balance issues. Even if they do exist. I think in most cases they exist only if one tries to repeat the builds one knows already. As if there should be right that an approach to the game should have a good chance to win.
Shifting strategies can force a player to modify the build. That is not necessarily imbalance.
|
On January 17 2019 19:47 [F_]aths wrote: Many players think the game should be so that they have an (if just slightly) higher win rate than 50%. It is too easy to point out balance issues. Even if they do exists. I think in most cases they exists only if one tries to repeat the builds one knows already. As if there should be right that an approach to the game should have a good chance to win.
People also tend to leave out imbalances that happen to favor them, since those are "fine".
How incredibly boring this game would be if strategies that always win if executed correctly existed, yet so many seem to be asking for just that.
|
On January 17 2019 01:32 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 17:27 deacon.frost wrote:On January 16 2019 08:59 Malongo wrote: I feel like the opener went right into the unwanted hole. To me this was supposed to be about different approaches to sc2 matchups and how a fixed mentality forces players to be dependant on patch fixes instead of rewarding creative solutions. Maru pretty much defined a full matchup by finding a missed opportunity in TvP last year, but here Demuslim and 9/10 of TL think this is about how different or similar are Sc2 and BW. It's not like Travis didn't use this and the games ARE different. Blizzard has a different approach towards them. So if you use "in BW this while in SC2 that" approach be prepared, that the reaction is - different games. The fact that the games have similar name and some similar units doesn't mean they're same. If you want to get rid off this comparisons then you have to remove the BW comparison yourself and, surprise surprise, then you're left only with SC2 My point wasn't about similarity between the games, my point was about mindset of players and viewers. It happens to be the case that brood war is similar to sc2, but my point could have been made with any game. Brood war makes a good example because of it's long history of success and early appearance in the timeline of esports, so it's players are representative of what I feel is a positive mindset for the game. StarCraft is pretty much the only competitive game in existence which divides players into factions such that balance becomes an existential issue. In every other game players are expected to utilize the full range of options the game has to offer, and navigating complex counter relationships between different factions, classes, cards and so on are a key component of strategic mastery.
But in StarCraft 2 there is the somewhat ludicrous situation of (pro) players being dependent on Blizzard to constantly rebalance the game for them, a process still continuing nine years and counting. Compare BW, which did receive significant balance touch-ups after release, but which still received only a fraction of the development time yielded to its successor. Granted, there is a frontpage article now which delineates the controversy of terran dominance in BW, but any fair assessment of the record should tell you that BW is remarkably balanced for a game with such paucity of changes.
The interesting counter-factual here is to ask if SC2 strictly needed the changes it received, or whether the results would be similar without Blizzard's constant attention. And even if they would be similar, does it affect integrity of the competitive scene to have occasional minor tweaks to nudge balance?
|
On January 16 2019 04:32 InfCereal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 04:25 Marl wrote: broodwar pros went back to broodwar for a reason Because SC2 was too hard
They were better at BW then SC2. So relax and stop freaking out man.
|
Czech Republic12115 Posts
On January 17 2019 19:59 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2019 01:32 travis wrote:On January 16 2019 17:27 deacon.frost wrote:On January 16 2019 08:59 Malongo wrote: I feel like the opener went right into the unwanted hole. To me this was supposed to be about different approaches to sc2 matchups and how a fixed mentality forces players to be dependant on patch fixes instead of rewarding creative solutions. Maru pretty much defined a full matchup by finding a missed opportunity in TvP last year, but here Demuslim and 9/10 of TL think this is about how different or similar are Sc2 and BW. It's not like Travis didn't use this and the games ARE different. Blizzard has a different approach towards them. So if you use "in BW this while in SC2 that" approach be prepared, that the reaction is - different games. The fact that the games have similar name and some similar units doesn't mean they're same. If you want to get rid off this comparisons then you have to remove the BW comparison yourself and, surprise surprise, then you're left only with SC2 My point wasn't about similarity between the games, my point was about mindset of players and viewers. It happens to be the case that brood war is similar to sc2, but my point could have been made with any game. Brood war makes a good example because of it's long history of success and early appearance in the timeline of esports, so it's players are representative of what I feel is a positive mindset for the game. StarCraft is pretty much the only competitive game in existence which divides players into factions such that balance becomes an existential issue. In every other game players are expected to utilize the full range of options the game has to offer, and navigating complex counter relationships between different factions, classes, cards and so on are a key component of strategic mastery. But in StarCraft 2 there is the somewhat ludicrous situation of (pro) players being dependent on Blizzard to constantly rebalance the game for them, a process still continuing nine years and counting. Compare BW, which did receive significant balance touch-ups after release, but which still received only a fraction of the development time yielded to its successor. Granted, there is a frontpage article now which delineates the controversy of terran dominance in BW, but any fair assessment of the record should tell you that BW is remarkably balanced for a game with such paucity of changes. The interesting counter-factual here is to ask if SC2 strictly needed the changes it received, or whether the results would be similar without Blizzard's constant attention. And even if they would be similar, does it affect integrity of the competitive scene to have occasional minor tweaks to nudge balance? That's because the Blizzard decided to keep in touch and balance!
BW had to develop AROUND this, SC2 can't develop around this because Blizzard has everything under their control. Map pool and game itself.
And BW is balanced by maps, now imagine that this would be strictly controlled by Blizzard and they would place there THEIR maps. Now imagine the situation, just try it. The last time I checked Blizzard maps were completely fine and balanced
BTW what happened with "balance" when they needed Flash to lose? Maps were shifted less Terran friendly?
If SC2 would stay without any Blizzard interaction it would have developed in the same way but Blizzard is controlling everything in the game. That's why it's different situation. Don't use BW to comparison because this is a huge condition why it's different. SC2 was balanced 5 years ago into a good state that wouldn't require any interaction from Blizzard if they decided to do so. They didn't.
Edit> Also if you take into account other games, they have self balancing mechanism. You can ban heroes, you switch sides. This doesn't happen in SC2. You can ban the most unbalanced map you don't like unless it's finals. If the map pool has 4 strongly Terran favored maps and the balance is shifted towards Terrans there's NOTHING you can do other than fight an uphill battle(which even Flash wasn't able to overcome ). Check CS - if there's an OP T weapon on an OP T map you will play as T if you start as CT. So while you're playing an uphill battle in the end it's turned around by you playing the game as T. Or you can ban OP heroes in MOBAs(if they still use this system). Imagine playing PvT and then TvP on the same map pool and only after that the score would decide who advances
We. Don't. Have. This. Mechanisms.
|
Very nice read, very well written and I agree with your sentiments 100%.
|
@deacon.frost
The point of interest here is to question why BW did well without Blizzard and to ask whether SC2 needs Blizzard to keep patching it. I could very easily argue that BW, with its obvious disadvantages, is well balanced because of certain design choices, whereas SC2 is more fragile and requires more maintenance.
|
On January 17 2019 21:19 Grumbels wrote: @deacon.frost
The point of interest here is to question why BW did well without Blizzard and to ask whether SC2 needs Blizzard to keep patching it. I could very easily argue that BW, with its obvious disadvantages, is well balanced because of certain design choices, whereas SC2 is more fragile and requires more maintenance.
BW has fewer units and is balanced by extremly high mechanical skill ceiling due to an arcane user interface and by awful pathing-AI, and by maps.
SC2 have more units, is a more complex game overall, is not balanced much by maps, have a modern user interface and the mechanical skill ceiling is not as game deciding as it was in BW. Plus consumers now are much more demanding compared to 20 years ago and will not accept a hands-off approach.
The BW approach would not work for SC2.
|
On January 17 2019 21:30 MockHamill wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2019 21:19 Grumbels wrote: @deacon.frost
The point of interest here is to question why BW did well without Blizzard and to ask whether SC2 needs Blizzard to keep patching it. I could very easily argue that BW, with its obvious disadvantages, is well balanced because of certain design choices, whereas SC2 is more fragile and requires more maintenance. BW has fewer units and is balanced by extremly high mechanical skill ceiling due to an arcane user interface and by awful pathing-AI, and by maps. SC2 have more units, is a more complex game overall, is not balanced much by maps, have a modern user interface and the mechanical skill ceiling is not as game deciding as it was in BW. Plus consumers now are much more demanding compared to 20 years ago and will not accept a hands-off approach. The BW approach would not work for SC2. But the latter seems a bit self-defeatist, since ideally the goal of the developers should not be “to be seen doing something”, when doing nothing could suffice. Would the game collapse if Blizzard abandoned it? It can’t really be proven, because even if it worked for BW, SC2 is a different game like you explained. But it seems psychologically healthier for the community to not have to depend on Blizzard.
edit: and personally I just find these frequent community updates really insipid: “we have seen liberators/adepts/battlecruisers/hobgoblins/... are a bit strong and we are monitoring this development”. My opinion is that I think they should keep quiet unless there is some sort of external demand by the community to fix something. Otherwise the developers should focus on improving the game, not on micromanaging it.
|
If the 'This is how the game is supossed to be played' mentality were to take over, then you'd only be left with people who like to play/watch that way. Wether that's a good thing or not is subjective.
|
It's really sad that Demuslim has fallen so far into a typical balance whiner on a regular basis. I can barely tolerate his stream anymore, the chat is so close to avilo's.
|
On January 16 2019 02:09 travis wrote: But, he did make the fatal mistake of making a balance complaint while casting. And it inspired me.
Fatal? Really? As a pro player or as a caster he has every right to give his opinion.
So, where am I going with this? Well, I want to go back to what Demuslim was talking about. I think his statement is something a lot of people would agree with. The Terran can't safely match Protoss income rate, and that's a problem with the matchup.
I don't agree. I think we should look at the brood war examples as to why. I think, for some reason, too many people have decided *how the game is supposed to be*. I think that this rigidity of thinking sets people back, and makes them miss out on understanding and fail to see potential opportunities. Players, especially pro players, should be embracing the strengths of the race they are using - while working around the weaknesses.
I don't agree with you. You should not compare SC2 with other games. Not even broodwar. It's also wishful thinking to think a hero will rise and defy all balance odds.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Terran having to open up with hyperaggressive openings vs Protoss, for example. Maybe that's how the game should be played! It's all in your mind that there is something *wrong* with that.
I've been watching SC2 since 2010 and seeing games lately where a terran player is being forced to use the same opening is just boring. I haven't seen any TvP lategames the past months and it's not fun to watch at all. Don't you want to see Maru fight an equally skilled Protoss player where they both have a giant army and multitask as much as they can instead of the cheesy play we've lately been seeing?
Maybe the best players are players who can embrace this playstyle, seeking to do the most damage possible and if not winning the game with it then *coming out ahead* to go into the later game. A lot of players act like the only thing you can do with an aggressive opening is win or lose, but that's silly. It's just an opening, and it puts you in some sort of position for later into the game. The amount of times I see players say *if X fails you lose*, is sad. Because it's not true. An opening can fail to kill an enemy but still put you in a great position if you do it well enough.
Players should not be looking at weaknesses as imbalances in the game. The races should not be directly compared. But they are, constantly.
If brood war came out now, instead of 20 years ago, the amount of complaining would be through the roof. It would be absolutely bonkers.
#You can't move out against Zerg it's impossible and they expand all over the map #All Terran can do is turtle while Protoss can take a million bases #I can't even get out of my base vs Terran all I can do is make a thousand sunkens and try desperately to get to lurkers so that I don't instantly die
etc etc
But instead, because brood war was new, players didn't know better. So, they embraced these aspects of the game and played around them. They perfected them. They weren't balance issues... they were the game.
To sum it up, I think that many members of the community need to re-think how they view balance between the races... and I think that pros should be gleefully embracing the strengths and weaknesses in the matchups.
Weaknesses indeed are okay as long as there are counters for each situation. Demuslim has been constantly providing impartial feedback on balance. Since you've not replied to any point he made you don't seem to be taking his feedback seriously or have no interest in coming with counter arguments.
Balance updates are necessary in my opinion to keep the game less stale and fun to play/watch.
What I do think is that people who complain about balance should analyse the game from all 3 races and mirror matchups. Explain why it's a problem and how it could be solved. If someone complains about balance ask him why and don't get upset it's just a game.
|
On January 17 2019 16:00 Snakestyle11 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2019 15:56 BerserkSword wrote: T>P so hard in brood war
BS overpowered vultures and siege tanks. Protoss hilariously weak in BW
As a (mostly) terran main in bw, i always felt that indeed TvP was much easier than TvZ. ( Maybe i needed to learn mech instead of SK terran in tvz, woulda been easier maybe) Siege tanks and vultures/mines with turrets with good macro was almost unbreakable... Until arbiters. I think arbiters and carriers is what made Protoss strong versus terran. Without those, it did indeed feel weak.
I agree. Arbiters and Carriers were somewhat of an equalizer. But they are late game units and Goliaths can still easily challenge carriers. Carriers require critical masses and tons of minerals to maintain as well.
Basically it is a Terran player having insane advantage until late game (if the protoss player even survives) and then it becomes more of an equal match than anything, except the Terran usually has a bigger bank and mines and turrets all over the map.
Terran is lowkey broken in BW. The Vulture and Siege tank are too strong. 75 minerals for the fastest unit in the game, meat shield, that can produce 3 "cloaked" units that helps in zoning out. then only 2 supply for a siege tank....lol
even scvs have so much more fighting ability than the P/Z counterparts. there's a reason all but one bonjwa was a terran player
|
This is a "weird" time for sc2
have you seen the number of people streaming sc2? so high!
This idea that the game should never ever get stale and therefore has to constantly / regularly be patched (while possibly ant frogging to where a would be perfect balance would be) is almost here?! almost accepted?
i for one hope that sc2 's survival / betterment is not in both blizzard's and the "community's hands". It has to be "us" telling blizzard what the game needs.. "us" making the tournaments that show the changes required! Alas that is not happening / catching on really?
From my attic i feel there won't be a day of reckoning, a cataclysm everyone seems to hope for.. .. there will be a slight raise or a slight fall in numbers.. gradually.
Whether blizzard lets it go or re invests even more is very much up for grabs.. no?
Did you see the money twit ch footed for rivals? so high!
This is the crossroads i believe. This (this year) will decide the fate of sc2. maybe it will return to its community or maybe it will fade slowly into oblivion. i don't pretend to know.
Sorry for side rant + Show Spoiler [spoilered for good behavior] +Also almost forgot, adding observing with much more exiting camera angles / movements / moves / strategy would greatly improve sc2 marketshares.. .. and no one is doing that .. whether that be all knowing blizzard itself or deaf toned drift kins streamers! alike. It is not acceptable that no one's doing it.. trust me i've been lobbying all of them since day one (all but blizz of course) they think they are above getting outside their comfort zone.. so sad!
i say this because i have been offering to increment that "service" for them for free and that they are all ignoring the HUGE potential for a huge boost in viewership by adding immersion to the viewer / game by dedicating two extra mechanics/ingame observers (one per 1v1 player) to add camera moves on top of the "only god mode view", this to better showcase high quality pro games ! with camera moves unseen yet in any esport game <3 sc2 would be the # 1 rts in numbers too
intchalla Sorry again for rant
hf
rts hype
User was temp banned for this post.
|
A bw cultists thread on sc2 who just come to spit on sc2 pros, nice. You don't play the game anyway so why bothering to come in? No offense, Bw is amazing blabla, it is such an exceptionnal game he does not need other babysitting than changing the map... But it is not necesseraly the case for others rts you know. I get it is somewhat hard to grasp for some but changes can be necessary. Like in war3, Orc utterly dominated the ud race for 15 years, making this race a joke, too bad, the game had so much potential... The stagnation hits it so much despite some innovation, it was very depressing to see it. Same goes for BL/infest, golden armada and all the others imbalance stuffs throw at us, I am glad it changed, everyone is.
It is how it is, deal with it. "Close minded" ppl are the one which apply every bw concept and elements to sc2.
|
8715 Posts
If you want to talk and think about balance, you have to consider two things:
(1) How this behavior/mindset/perspective affects your experience with the game (2) How this behavior affects the balance of the game
I think everyone tries to justify the community's obsession with thinking about everything (tournament results, strategies, play styles, units, build orders, everything) in terms of balance by saying that this ongoing conversation about balance actually contributes to the game being more balanced. That is, they're totally considering the second thing.
But I think the point of this thread is to consider the first thing. Is it healthy to think of so much stuff in terms of balance? Would people enjoy the game more and the community more if we didn't think about balance at all? I think so, yes. I think it's obviously yes. I think this obsession with balance is really unhealthy.
So how much are we hurting ourselves in order to "contribute" to the game's balance? I think we do way more damage to ourselves than we actually contribute to improving the game's balance. There are people employed at Blizzard responsible for balancing the game. Sometimes they need players' feedback (both common players and pros). When they need it, they can ask for it and receive it. But data and the games themselves provide the bulk of information they need to do their jobs. Feedback just enriches the info they already have. And as long as matchups stay within the 45-55% range and tournaments continue to use diverse map pools and the veto system, which enables players to use map selection to mitigate balance issues, then there's no problem.
I think the community conversation on balance could absolutely disappear and future patches would not be any worse at balancing the game at all.
Feeling like you're the victim of an unfair system is not a mindset good for success. If each time you lose, you consider both whether you personally failed or whether the game failed you (it's imbalanced), then you will not enjoy the game as much as you could if you were purely focused on yourself.
So I'd advise everyone to focus purely on themselves and stop questioning the game. The game might be imperfect but you aren't playing it to determine whether it's imperfect; you're playing it to enjoy it and win games. Also face the reality that you thinking and talking about balance is not actually accomplishing anything. So put an end to the rationalization that what you're doing is productive. It's not. It's a vice that you indulge in.
But the other reality is that people are always gonna want to hear about it and there are personalities who make careers based on attracting attention to themselves. So I don't think it's gonna go away. But you as an individual fan or player can choose to create your own environment. I'd advise you to block out as much of the balance talk as you can. Of course, your ladder opponents will still whine about it. And tournament broadcasts will occasionally slip up and allow some balance talk to air. It is inescapable. But you can control most of it.
edit: I am focused on running now as my main hobby and it's a simple fact that running isn't balanced in the sense that some people are much more genetically gifted for running than others. It's like one guy was born as an ultra with +3 upgrades and another guy was born as a probe. It is obviously unfair. But there's no consolation in thinking the guy that just beat you was genetically superior to you. You train and you race and you do the best you can. The mindset of some video game players of trying to be hyper-aware and concerned about whether every time they get bested, was it a fair interaction? It's so toxic and ridiculous from a lot of different perspectives.
|
On January 20 2019 05:01 stilt wrote: A bw cultists thread on sc2 who just come to spit on sc2 pros, nice. You don't play the game anyway so why bothering to come in?
Not remotely true. I've played brood war much less than sc2 in the last 10 years, and I watch it much less too. and I certainly didn't "spit on any pros". I think you completely missed any point I was trying to make.
And Nony, unsurprisingly I think you saw what I was trying to say exactly as I was intending.
|
Watching Neuro stream has been a eye opening experience. That dudes mentality is so great for the community. If he loses to something others would consider worse or cheesy play he commends the opponent for using a strategy that won. And its true. There is no proper way to play StarCraft.
Players should approach the meta in a similar fashion. If you keep losing to a specific strategy that you consider imbalanced, try three different approaches next time or downvote the map you think is strongest for that strategy. Chances are in a few months players will have figured out the weaknesses to said imbalanced strategy.
|
On January 16 2019 04:32 InfCereal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 04:25 Marl wrote: broodwar pros went back to broodwar for a reason Because SC2 was too hard i think they just wanted to play a good game
|
I'm sorry but this thread title has been bugging the hell out of me. It's "closed-mindedness", not "closemindedness". Yes, it's a big deal (to me).
|
I'm actually really surprised how even pros are sometimes so 1 dimensional in their balance views and their bias towards their own race.
i would never argue against my own race being the strongest if it objectively is at the moment. Zerg players were surprised at terran buffs couple of months ago - and now that terran is acutally doing well again in korea, they are surprised at possible protoss buffs.
It's like people disregard facts and get influenced by their own gameplay, even at highest level, or are of the opinion that "their race is supposed to win if played correctly.
|
On January 20 2019 09:49 Achamian wrote: Watching Neuro stream has been a eye opening experience. That dudes mentality is so great for the community. If he loses to something others would consider worse or cheesy play he commends the opponent for using a strategy that won. And its true. There is no proper way to play StarCraft.
Players should approach the meta in a similar fashion. If you keep losing to a specific strategy that you consider imbalanced, try three different approaches next time or downvote the map you think is strongest for that strategy. Chances are in a few months players will have figured out the weaknesses to said imbalanced strategy.
OR the game is no longer in that specific state of balance by then, which is way more likely considering the approach Blizzard has taken with this game.
|
On January 20 2019 21:28 litLikeBic wrote: I'm sorry but this thread title has been bugging the hell out of me. It's "closed-mindedness", not "closemindedness". Yes, it's a big deal (to me).
lol, yeah. well, can't do anything about it now. maybe a mod will. I can see how that would bug you.
|
How this doesn't get deleted ? I though teamliquid bans people for talking about balance ? By the way when i say protoss is broken, because terran mule was nerfed and he gets third nexus when yours didn't even started yet for free everygame, mod say that i am thinking it is broken, while everygame is scv pull in tvp. People like this don't even play this game LOL...
|
|
You have a point travis. but the time of age is different. Now with the internet, you can hear the voice of people. You hear the complains. You even said it yourself. If BW was out now then we would see exactly the same thing.
It's how gaming is today. It's how the internet turned it. Is it a bad thing ? Maybe yes maybe not.
But when you hear stuff like Blizzard kept the skill ceiling too low it's something you hear since WoL. And what do you know... Koreans are still on top of the world. Yes there's Serral but there is noneother. If the skill ceilling was so reduced then why are we still seeing the same names at the top. Where's the new blood ? With the amount of players SC2 had, if the skill ceilling was that low we would see a lot more turn over.
Was Terran OP during the Boxer/iloveoov period. YES ! It's was fucking broken. And no patch arose and suddenly... Zergs were winning all tournaments because some guy just saw what needed to be done.
So yeah... i'm all with you travis but ... Like you said in your post : "you need to see what's strong and what's weak". This is exactly what people are doing with voicing their opinions. The see that if they complain, it changes so why would they not ?
Why would people not play the early game like : "i want this" , "i want that" ? It's what gaming is today. We also have to accept it.
|
I took the time, and read every comment on this thread. I must say, for my two cents, the conversation has been great up to this point. No shots have been taken at anyone (for the most part) and everyone is trying to stay objective in their thoughts and feelings. The OP did a great job framing his thought process and why he felt the way he did. That being said, we all have to love this game to be reading threads like this years after the original release of the game. Balance, is irrelevant for 99% of us. We love to discuss it because we all feel we are right in our feelings and we get those feelings ratified by others who play the same race and feel they are "weak". At the end of the day, every single one of us has to deal with the cards we have with the race we choose to play with that particular day. No matchup is broken at this point, not even close. Could some things be better, i guess so. Could some things be worse, absolutely! But that does not change our ability to enjoy the game we love to play. The skill ceiling of this game is higher than almost any other game i have seen in recent memory. Therefore, if you win or lose a game it is YOUR fault, not the game, not blizzard, you. This is not meant to attack anyone, this post by myself is meant to show that everything revolves on how you look at the game through your own eyes. If you choose to blame outside factors, you will always be angry about what happens even blizzard does exactly what you want them to do. We have to control only what we CAN control, and that is how we play, how we control, and the decision we make in each individual game. Im sure ill get a lot of hate for this post, but i hope a few people can get something positive from this. Good luck my friends, we are all in this together to get better.
|
You are all cucks, only demuslim has balls here. It seem like these players who posting don't even play the game. You know nothing, free will is illusion you are just slaves, travis probably average idiot with iq 100 posting like. Geez you are all delusional you don't understand nothing, you are stupid as shit.... Go look to hearh of the swarm tvp, if protoss choose to build 8 gates and 2 forge he will be on 2 base, fact he can get all tech upgrades production and third it is broken and yes there is no way around this, u just dumb idiots retards... Tired of this shit, dumb people......
User was temp banned for this post.
|
On January 20 2019 07:05 NonY wrote: If you want to talk and think about balance, you have to consider two things:
(1) How this behavior/mindset/perspective affects your experience with the game
I think the issue can be thought of from the opposite perspective too, how the game affects your behavior and makes you feel.
Balance is inextricably linked to game design. Poorly balanced interactions cause frustration, but they are often rooted in poor game design in Starcraft 2, and instead of just simply tweaking some unit stats to achieve balance, the game often requires wholesale changes because instead of following modern game design tenets, Browder and Kim choose to buck them. And thus a lack of counterplay is often the issue in Starcraft 2, and counterplay is such an important game design tenet in modern game design. League of Legends is built around it.
Let's think about the 1-1-1 in WOL PvT for a moment. There was a lack of counterplay opportunities for Protoss, so the build dominated for a long stretch of time. In fact, Photon Overcharge had 13 range initially in HOTS to counter Siege Tanks.
The lack of counterplay led to a situation where the strategy was considered imbalanced, and thus people got frustrated. I think it is important that people voice their frustration with things that are imbalanced because we have a shared experience with this game. No one is special, we all feel similar things in similar situations. And when enough people raise their voice, the chances of something changing increases. Ignoring that and basing design decisions purely on data is foolish, because frustration from imbalances is almost always a shared experience. And often, a win rate or whatever can be 50/50, but there are poorly design game mechanics cause players frustration that, if not addressed, can lead to the player base dwindling.
I also take offense to the idea that it is a vice to indulge in analyzing balance. Yes, the game will likely always imbalanced and we can't directly control it, but the discussions can be informative and instructive, where people learn. And we aren't achieving anything more or less with our life playing than we are analyzing the game, provided we find the analysis enjoyable as I do and learn from it.
Of course, some people can be very toxic too and they have to be ignored, just some people can also be toxic while playing the game and have to be ignored... and it doesn't damn the game, why should it damn balance discussions? There will always be bad apples who rage.
The fact is, some people can discuss balance without getting toxic, and it isn't a negative environment for them. I can separate my feelings on balance from the times I play the game, and thrive on challenges (I enjoyed trying to defeat the 1-1-1 as a Protoss player). But I also see myself as a victim of nothing, I am always a survivor.
So if this isn't a good environment for you, leave. But don't tell me it is a bad environment for me because you can't participate in it without negative feelings.
|
On January 20 2019 22:51 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2019 21:28 litLikeBic wrote: I'm sorry but this thread title has been bugging the hell out of me. It's "closed-mindedness", not "closemindedness". Yes, it's a big deal (to me). lol, yeah. well, can't do anything about it now. maybe a mod will. I can see how that would bug you. No worries, but I see a smartarse mod added the hyphen but neglected to change "close" to "closed".
|
One of the really few long posts that I fully read and enjoyed. Agree 100% but think it's too late to change something in SC2, they went too far with it, especially with LotV expansion.
|
On January 21 2019 13:16 kronos500 wrote: You are all cucks, only demuslim has balls here. It seem like these players who posting don't even play the game. You know nothing, free will is illusion you are just slaves, travis probably average idiot with iq 100 posting like. Geez you are all delusional you don't understand nothing, you are stupid as shit.... Go look to hearh of the swarm tvp, if protoss choose to build 8 gates and 2 forge he will be on 2 base, fact he can get all tech upgrades production and third it is broken and yes there is no way around this, u just dumb idiots retards... Tired of this shit, dumb people......
User was temp banned for this post.
Avilo? That' you ?
|
On January 16 2019 02:09 travis wrote: There is nothing inherently wrong with Terran having to open up with hyperaggressive openings vs Protoss, for example. Maybe that's how the game should be played!
This way of thinking is wrong and hurting the game. When you want a game to be balanced around one or two playstyles and just say "maybe this is how they want us to play" then you are losing diversity, the most important part of the game. Diversity is even more imporatant than balance.
Do you want to see a lot of different game with struggeling terrans that at least try something different every game or do you want to see the perfectly balanced game with every race having one strategy?
What if building a spawning pool ended the game right away with 50% winrate? The game would be perfectly balanced, you would see the same zerg game every game. Is that what you want?
Diversity in gameplay is more important than balance, stop shutting down calls for diversity with close mindedness of "maybe they want us to".
|
On January 21 2019 18:12 graNite wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 02:09 travis wrote: There is nothing inherently wrong with Terran having to open up with hyperaggressive openings vs Protoss, for example. Maybe that's how the game should be played! This way of thinking is wrong and hurting the game. When you want a game to be balanced around one or two playstyles and just say "maybe this is how they want us to play" then you are losing diversity, the most important part of the game. Diversity is even more imporatant than balance. Do you want to see a lot of different game with struggeling terrans that at least try something different every game or do you want to see the perfectly balanced game with every race having one strategy? What if building a spawning pool ended the game right away with 50% winrate? The game would be perfectly balanced, you would see the same zerg game every game. Is that what you want? Diversity in gameplay is more important than balance, stop shutting down calls for diversity with close mindedness of "maybe they want us to".
I fail to see how macro every game is any more appealing than proxying every game. At least you don't have to wait 5 minutes for something to happen when someone proxies.
|
In 1998 Blizzard introduced deeply asymmetric races to the world of RTS. There were some slight asymmetries tried before that, but nothing like Starcraft. To this day this concept boggles people's minds and produces countless discussions and endless strategy development.
|
On January 21 2019 14:38 BronzeKnee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On January 20 2019 07:05 NonY wrote: If you want to talk and think about balance, you have to consider two things:
(1) How this behavior/mindset/perspective affects your experience with the game
I think the issue can be thought of from the opposite perspective too, how the game affects your behavior and makes you feel. Balance is inextricably linked to game design. Poorly balanced interactions cause frustration, but they are often rooted in poor game design in Starcraft 2, and instead of just simply tweaking some unit stats to achieve balance, the game often requires wholesale changes because instead of following modern game design tenets, Browder and Kim choose to buck them. And thus a lack of counterplay is often the issue in Starcraft 2, and counterplay is such an important game design tenet in modern game design. League of Legends is built around it. Let's think about the 1-1-1 in WOL PvT for a moment. There was a lack of counterplay opportunities for Protoss, so the build dominated for a long stretch of time. In fact, Photon Overcharge had 13 range initially in HOTS to counter Siege Tanks. The lack of counterplay led to a situation where the strategy was considered imbalanced, and thus people got frustrated. I think it is important that people voice their frustration with things that are imbalanced because we have a shared experience with this game. No one is special, we all feel similar things in similar situations. And when enough people raise their voice, the chances of something changing increases. Ignoring that and basing design decisions purely on data is foolish, because frustration from imbalances is almost always a shared experience. And often, a win rate or whatever can be 50/50, but there are poorly design game mechanics cause players frustration that, if not addressed, can lead to the player base dwindling. I also take offense to the idea that it is a vice to indulge in analyzing balance. Yes, the game will likely always imbalanced and we can't directly control it, but the discussions can be informative and instructive, where people learn. And we aren't achieving anything more or less with our life playing than we are analyzing the game, provided we find the analysis enjoyable as I do and learn from it. Of course, some people can be very toxic too and they have to be ignored, just some people can also be toxic while playing the game and have to be ignored... and it doesn't damn the game, why should it damn balance discussions? There will always be bad apples who rage. The fact is, some people can discuss balance without getting toxic, and it isn't a negative environment for them. I can separate my feelings on balance from the times I play the game, and thrive on challenges (I enjoyed trying to defeat the 1-1-1 as a Protoss player). But I also see myself as a victim of nothing, I am always a survivor. So if this isn't a good environment for you, leave. But don't tell me it is a bad environment for me because you can't participate in it without negative feelings. spoilered, since it's a bit reflective/meandering..
+ Show Spoiler +I used to enjoy engaging in the balance and design discussion threads a lot. I feel like it taught me a lot about game design. SC2 was more interesting in that respect than BW, because BW just happened and was something of a miracle, whereas SC2 is a very painstaking effort which has been patched a million times with a lot of community participation. And even if I prefer BW as a game I find SC2 more interesting as a failure, in contrast with BW, than BW as a success, on its own. It's like the Tolstoy quote about unhappy families. But those threads were often very toxic too, they required a lot of moderation, but eventually scared orf outsiders because of the opaqueness of the discussion, since the same 20 people were active in all the threads. I kinda feel like the psychology of a normal person is not suited to abstract discussion. I thought it was fair for TL to contain all the design and balance discussion to one thread + blogs, much like how political discussion is contained to a handful of threads.
But I also thought that from my personal perspective balance discussion on TL could be unsatisfying, since I would often come up with interpretations or ideas that I had difficulty fleshing out, so I would post my thought process about them, but then it's difficult to get constructive responses since people can't see into your mind. I think for the most part, even in well moderated threads, balance discussion attracts polemics. It's not really the vaguely academic research program that I envisioned as ideal. But to me the most interesting posts were always by Lalush, Day9, TheDwf, Hider, decembers..calm(?) about game mechanics and such.
|
8715 Posts
On January 21 2019 18:12 graNite wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2019 02:09 travis wrote: There is nothing inherently wrong with Terran having to open up with hyperaggressive openings vs Protoss, for example. Maybe that's how the game should be played! This way of thinking is wrong and hurting the game. When you want a game to be balanced around one or two playstyles and just say "maybe this is how they want us to play" then you are losing diversity, the most important part of the game. Diversity is even more imporatant than balance. Do you want to see a lot of different game with struggeling terrans that at least try something different every game or do you want to see the perfectly balanced game with every race having one strategy? What if building a spawning pool ended the game right away with 50% winrate? The game would be perfectly balanced, you would see the same zerg game every game. Is that what you want? Diversity in gameplay is more important than balance, stop shutting down calls for diversity with close mindedness of "maybe they want us to". Diversity is good and should exist, but even when matchups have been at their most diverse, there has been a standard way to play them. There always exists some underlying dynamic which is how we all understand the matchup is "supposed to go" if both players play "normally".
So the point is that this issue isn't against diversity. Everyone wants diversity. The argument is about what types of builds and styles are reasonable to accept as the standard way to play -- the underlying dynamic of the matchup.
Over the years, there have been groups of people who expect and then demand that a matchup consist of certain things. When a patch changes the viability of those things and throws those players into a different dynamic for that matchup, they get upset. But it'd be better if these players didn't have attitudes that resulted in them getting upset over this.
If the way they like playing PvZ is safely getting to 3-4 bases, defending the whole time while building up a death ball, they hate when the script gets flipped and it's now zerg who has the superior late game army, and it's protoss who is obligated to pressure, harass, do timing attacks, all-ins, etc, to prevent the zerg from getting to late game. So they say it's imbalanced because the only thing they know how to do is now bad and they are unwilling to start the project of learning how to do everything else.
So I actually think you're on the same side. The people who demand consistency are enemies of diversity. If terrans have been going fast expand against protoss for years and now they have to do 1base tech builds before they can expand, they get upset, call it imbalance, etc. They feel entitled to play the way they've been playing.
When they're forced to diversify, they are the ultimate pessimists and say there is no good solution and the game is imbalanced.
Diversity is good but you have to be careful about the people who are demanding that a certain way of playing be made viable when their motivation is based on their personal preference. They are not asking in the name of diversity, though they might be claiming so because it benefits their argument. The truth is that if their preferred way to play was the only way to play, they'd be happy.
People should work on several different styles and builds. They should figure out what works slightly better on each map. If by the middle of the season, they realize that their least favorite way to play is also having the most success, that's a bit unlucky. They have a tough choice to make between committing to that for the rest of the season to maximize MMR, or continuing to work on things that have been less successful but they enjoy more. It could be that if they work on those things more, they end up being great by the end of the season. It could be they never come around. Whatever the player decides to do, there should never be a point where they say "I must speak out to try to get Blizzard to buff my favorite strategy so that I can have it all". There is fun to be had in pursuing MMR and there's fun to be had in tinkering with unpopular strategies. Just pick one or do a bit of both and play the game. Don't think about trying to have the rules of the game changed to suit you.
edit: To be clear, having several styles be viable is ideal. And actually that's very common to see in every tournament. But it's inevitable that one style will prevail over others and that a very base-level dynamic for the matchup will emerge as the standard. People need to be able to go with the flow with respect to how that base-level dynamic can change. To a certain extent, you "have" to do certain things in each matchup. People need to be okay with those obligations changing and enjoy diversity where it exists in the current patch and meta.
|
On January 22 2019 00:09 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2019 14:38 BronzeKnee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On January 20 2019 07:05 NonY wrote: If you want to talk and think about balance, you have to consider two things:
(1) How this behavior/mindset/perspective affects your experience with the game
I think the issue can be thought of from the opposite perspective too, how the game affects your behavior and makes you feel. Balance is inextricably linked to game design. Poorly balanced interactions cause frustration, but they are often rooted in poor game design in Starcraft 2, and instead of just simply tweaking some unit stats to achieve balance, the game often requires wholesale changes because instead of following modern game design tenets, Browder and Kim choose to buck them. And thus a lack of counterplay is often the issue in Starcraft 2, and counterplay is such an important game design tenet in modern game design. League of Legends is built around it. Let's think about the 1-1-1 in WOL PvT for a moment. There was a lack of counterplay opportunities for Protoss, so the build dominated for a long stretch of time. In fact, Photon Overcharge had 13 range initially in HOTS to counter Siege Tanks. The lack of counterplay led to a situation where the strategy was considered imbalanced, and thus people got frustrated. I think it is important that people voice their frustration with things that are imbalanced because we have a shared experience with this game. No one is special, we all feel similar things in similar situations. And when enough people raise their voice, the chances of something changing increases. Ignoring that and basing design decisions purely on data is foolish, because frustration from imbalances is almost always a shared experience. And often, a win rate or whatever can be 50/50, but there are poorly design game mechanics cause players frustration that, if not addressed, can lead to the player base dwindling. I also take offense to the idea that it is a vice to indulge in analyzing balance. Yes, the game will likely always imbalanced and we can't directly control it, but the discussions can be informative and instructive, where people learn. And we aren't achieving anything more or less with our life playing than we are analyzing the game, provided we find the analysis enjoyable as I do and learn from it. Of course, some people can be very toxic too and they have to be ignored, just some people can also be toxic while playing the game and have to be ignored... and it doesn't damn the game, why should it damn balance discussions? There will always be bad apples who rage. The fact is, some people can discuss balance without getting toxic, and it isn't a negative environment for them. I can separate my feelings on balance from the times I play the game, and thrive on challenges (I enjoyed trying to defeat the 1-1-1 as a Protoss player). But I also see myself as a victim of nothing, I am always a survivor. So if this isn't a good environment for you, leave. But don't tell me it is a bad environment for me because you can't participate in it without negative feelings. spoilered, since it's a bit reflective/meandering.. + Show Spoiler +I used to enjoy engaging in the balance and design discussion threads a lot. I feel like it taught me a lot about game design. SC2 was more interesting in that respect than BW, because BW just happened and was something of a miracle, whereas SC2 is a very painstaking effort which has been patched a million times with a lot of community participation. And even if I prefer BW as a game I find SC2 more interesting as a failure, in contrast with BW, than BW as a success, on its own. It's like the Tolstoy quote about unhappy families. But those threads were often very toxic too, they required a lot of moderation, but eventually scared of outsiders because of the opaqueness of the discussion, since the same 20 people were active in all the threads. I kinda feel like the psychology of a normal person is not suited to abstract discussion. I thought it was fair for TL to contain all the design and balance discussion to one thread + blogs, much like how political discussion is contained to a handful of threads.
But I also thought that from my personal perspective balance discussion on TL could be unsatisfying, since I would often come up with interpretations or ideas that I had difficulty fleshing out, so I would post my thought process about them, but then it's difficult to get constructive responses since people can't see into your mind. I think for the most part, even in well moderated threads, balance discussion attracts polemics. It's not really the vaguely academic research program that I envisioned as ideal. But to me the most interesting posts were always by Lalush, Day9, TheDwf, Hider, decembers..calm(?) about game mechanics and such. TL has done an amazing job with moderation, and I think the analogy to political discussions, while imperfect, is a good one.
People get heated about certain topics. A lot of people can't handle them. And most of it comes back to the fact that most people can't control their emotions. It's why they rage in game, and then these kind of discussions devolve into personal attacks.
It's hard to learn self control, it's hard to be educated, it's hard to be knowledgeable. It's harder than playing Starcraft. Most people will never be able to do it, because you have to admit when you are wrong and learn. It takes courage.
But when we let people that aren't educated, knowledgeable or have self control take over, then ignorant and rash decisions get made. And if we decide these discussions aren't worth having because they are hard, then we stop learning and we stop improving, both in politics and game design.
Don't cater to those who can't control themselves. Accept them for who they are, and ignore them. And I don't do that because I am hateful, I do that because it is the only way to advance the discourse.
|
Excellent post by Nony. Hits the nail right on the head. Couldn't have written it better myself.
|
On January 16 2019 02:26 InfCereal wrote: People complain because complaining causes changes.
Protoss players complained that the skill ceiling for controlling the protoss army was too high, so they added an auto attack to high templar.
Zergs complained that proxy rax was impossible to hold, and blizzard made it fucking impossible to misclick the scv building a bunker.
Terrans complained about cancelling stim by accidentally lifting their barracks, and blizzard just changed the game so that can't happen anymore.
When you have a developer that's sitting beside it's community bending over to their every whim, of course people are going to complain.
Those are just the most recent patches, the list of balance changes to SC2 over the years is staggering.
Complaining in the last year has been the best way to get changes that you want into the game.
I am guilty of it too because it works and I fucking know it.
I actually love this recent balance announcement not because it slightly buffs protoss in some ways, but because it is not what the community was whining for.
I have a feeling the balance team is too whimpy to go through with the changes however after people whined.
|
|
|
|
|