On October 23 2020 01:42 MockHamill wrote: I do not agree with the BW nostalgia.
BW was a great game but the interface was horrible and the game was very hard to control. It was popular in Korea but died out in the rest of the world very fast.
i disagree. 2007, BW was teh #`17 best selling game in NA. the game was available every where. GameStop, EB Games, Best Buy, Staples, FutureShop, ..etc etc. BW had a fuck-tonne of staying power. Retail space is valuable. Retail doesn't stock an 8 year old game unless it sold well in years 5, 6 and 7.
At that time, most of the very best players in Canada were Korean. However, a big portion of the Canadian Brood War fandom were non-Korean.
I don't play Brood War any longer. I prefer SC2 to Brood War. However, IMO, Brood War is one of the best games ever made.
i assumed there were some good ideas driving the desire to make a new rts. instead it's just a gathering of ppl who are gonna figure it out starting now. not really interested in following this development anymore. i'll check out what they make once they've made something
On October 23 2020 01:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote: SC2 can't balance the game by map due to the way the races are designed. In BW, all three races had powerful defensive options, splash damage, area control and ways to break the defences to break a stalemate. Units for every situation no matter how unlikely. "Useless" units like scout became useful in island maps.
Meanwhile SC2 was designed from the bottom up which never developed into whatever the designers originally wanted it to be. Zerg was designed to be weak at the start of the game, defending with creep with weak anti-air, Protoss was designed to be a deathball, and oddly enough terran had so many options in WoL that balance was tuned to limit T's opening BO. Hence why queens were buffed, swarmhosts and vipers were introduced as Z lacked options to break defences and in WoL the infestor was a swiss army knife of abilities. Forcefields intended to be a crux of protoss defence essentially meant that maps had to be made as a series of narrow corridors and end up looking the same. Terran's plethora of options lead to bunker build time being changed 999 times and eventually builds being pared down to reaper opening, everytime otherwise playing against T would be like roulette.
In BW, Zerg was made thematically swarmy by making all units move in a slithering animation and when upgraded the land ranged units moved at the same speed as each other and the melee land units moved at the same speed as each other. In SC2 Zerg was thematically swarmy with creep mechanics and making lings very weak at the start of the game. It was the race that depended the most on gas. In BW protoss looks thematically high tech, but relied on and can do the most with on their basic units, the humble zealot and dragoon. In SC2 protoss was made to rely on units up the tech tree.
BW relied on art to impart flavour, but SC2 relied on race mechanics to impart flavour. Which ironically led to BW being balanced around maps and SC2 to be locked into the same style of maps.
All three races had powerful defensive options because of chokes and high ground mechanics.
I don't understand how your points show why BW could be balanced by maps and SC2 could not.
On October 23 2020 01:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote: SC2 can't balance the game by map due to the way the races are designed. In BW, all three races had powerful defensive options, splash damage, area control and ways to break the defences to break a stalemate. Units for every situation no matter how unlikely. "Useless" units like scout became useful in island maps.
Meanwhile SC2 was designed from the bottom up which never developed into whatever the designers originally wanted it to be. Zerg was designed to be weak at the start of the game, defending with creep with weak anti-air, Protoss was designed to be a deathball, and oddly enough terran had so many options in WoL that balance was tuned to limit T's opening BO. Hence why queens were buffed, swarmhosts and vipers were introduced as Z lacked options to break defences and in WoL the infestor was a swiss army knife of abilities. Forcefields intended to be a crux of protoss defence essentially meant that maps had to be made as a series of narrow corridors and end up looking the same. Terran's plethora of options lead to bunker build time being changed 999 times and eventually builds being pared down to reaper opening, everytime otherwise playing against T would be like roulette.
In BW, Zerg was made thematically swarmy by making all units move in a slithering animation and when upgraded the land ranged units moved at the same speed as each other and the melee land units moved at the same speed as each other. In SC2 Zerg was thematically swarmy with creep mechanics and making lings very weak at the start of the game. It was the race that depended the most on gas. In BW protoss looks thematically high tech, but relied on and can do the most with on their basic units, the humble zealot and dragoon. In SC2 protoss was made to rely on units up the tech tree.
BW relied on art to impart flavour, but SC2 relied on race mechanics to impart flavour. Which ironically led to BW being balanced around maps and SC2 to be locked into the same style of maps.
All three races had powerful defensive options because of chokes and high ground mechanics.
I don't understand how your points show why BW could be balanced by maps and SC2 could not.
They’re different games, approached differently.
It’s been 10 years and most maps adhere to the same principles. Brood War tbf has way more imbalance than SC2 maps, but they just put up with a pool with imbalance and get on with it and count on people to use vetos.
SC2 tries to have a whole pool that strives to be largely balanced in all matchups and generally always had that approach.
On October 23 2020 01:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote: SC2 can't balance the game by map due to the way the races are designed. In BW, all three races had powerful defensive options, splash damage, area control and ways to break the defences to break a stalemate. Units for every situation no matter how unlikely. "Useless" units like scout became useful in island maps.
Meanwhile SC2 was designed from the bottom up which never developed into whatever the designers originally wanted it to be. Zerg was designed to be weak at the start of the game, defending with creep with weak anti-air, Protoss was designed to be a deathball, and oddly enough terran had so many options in WoL that balance was tuned to limit T's opening BO. Hence why queens were buffed, swarmhosts and vipers were introduced as Z lacked options to break defences and in WoL the infestor was a swiss army knife of abilities. Forcefields intended to be a crux of protoss defence essentially meant that maps had to be made as a series of narrow corridors and end up looking the same. Terran's plethora of options lead to bunker build time being changed 999 times and eventually builds being pared down to reaper opening, everytime otherwise playing against T would be like roulette.
In BW, Zerg was made thematically swarmy by making all units move in a slithering animation and when upgraded the land ranged units moved at the same speed as each other and the melee land units moved at the same speed as each other. In SC2 Zerg was thematically swarmy with creep mechanics and making lings very weak at the start of the game. It was the race that depended the most on gas. In BW protoss looks thematically high tech, but relied on and can do the most with on their basic units, the humble zealot and dragoon. In SC2 protoss was made to rely on units up the tech tree.
BW relied on art to impart flavour, but SC2 relied on race mechanics to impart flavour. Which ironically led to BW being balanced around maps and SC2 to be locked into the same style of maps.
All three races had powerful defensive options because of chokes and high ground mechanics.
I don't understand how your points show why BW could be balanced by maps and SC2 could not.
They’re different games, approached differently.
It’s been 10 years and most maps adhere to the same principles. Brood War tbf has way more imbalance than SC2 maps, but they just put up with a pool with imbalance and get on with it and count on people to use vetos.
SC2 tries to have a whole pool that strives to be largely balanced in all matchups and generally always had that approach.
Let's just show that on 1 thing - ramp has to be exactly wide on a single force field, natural has to be exactly wide on 3 building wall and nothing more. Because otherwise bad things tend to happen. And that\'s just 2 map limitations without which the map pool becomes unplayable. At the same time if you wanna go the BW way - how do you compensate Protoss(e.g.) for wider ramps to main and nat?
The best question is BY FAR the first one: What was it like trying to get funding for an RTS studio in this day and age? The outside perception of RTS is that it's in decline, it's not a hot genre. What were your pitches to investors like?
If you had not asked this question, you would not have been a mature adult that understands the capital involved in making a game...especially potential RTS. Great question.
On October 23 2020 01:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote: SC2 can't balance the game by map due to the way the races are designed. In BW, all three races had powerful defensive options, splash damage, area control and ways to break the defences to break a stalemate. Units for every situation no matter how unlikely. "Useless" units like scout became useful in island maps.
Meanwhile SC2 was designed from the bottom up which never developed into whatever the designers originally wanted it to be. Zerg was designed to be weak at the start of the game, defending with creep with weak anti-air, Protoss was designed to be a deathball, and oddly enough terran had so many options in WoL that balance was tuned to limit T's opening BO. Hence why queens were buffed, swarmhosts and vipers were introduced as Z lacked options to break defences and in WoL the infestor was a swiss army knife of abilities. Forcefields intended to be a crux of protoss defence essentially meant that maps had to be made as a series of narrow corridors and end up looking the same. Terran's plethora of options lead to bunker build time being changed 999 times and eventually builds being pared down to reaper opening, everytime otherwise playing against T would be like roulette.
In BW, Zerg was made thematically swarmy by making all units move in a slithering animation and when upgraded the land ranged units moved at the same speed as each other and the melee land units moved at the same speed as each other. In SC2 Zerg was thematically swarmy with creep mechanics and making lings very weak at the start of the game. It was the race that depended the most on gas. In BW protoss looks thematically high tech, but relied on and can do the most with on their basic units, the humble zealot and dragoon. In SC2 protoss was made to rely on units up the tech tree.
BW relied on art to impart flavour, but SC2 relied on race mechanics to impart flavour. Which ironically led to BW being balanced around maps and SC2 to be locked into the same style of maps.
All three races had powerful defensive options because of chokes and high ground mechanics.
I don't understand how your points show why BW could be balanced by maps and SC2 could not.
They’re different games, approached differently.
It’s been 10 years and most maps adhere to the same principles. Brood War tbf has way more imbalance than SC2 maps, but they just put up with a pool with imbalance and get on with it and count on people to use vetos.
SC2 tries to have a whole pool that strives to be largely balanced in all matchups and generally always had that approach.
Let's just show that on 1 thing - ramp has to be exactly wide on a single force field, natural has to be exactly wide on 3 building wall and nothing more. Because otherwise bad things tend to happen. And that\'s just 2 map limitations without which the map pool becomes unplayable. At the same time if you wanna go the BW way - how do you compensate Protoss(e.g.) for wider ramps to main and nat?
Sorry yes that’s something I should have stated in my post, it’s a combo of things. You have the constraints you’re talking about, in addition to trying to made a map pool that is all x v x balanced as well.
You need chokey bases that can be walled or Terran and Protoss especially get murdered by Zerg especially, but Zerg thrive in open areas.
Yeah I don’t think balancing by maps is possible if you’re trying to balance across every matchup, given those restrictions you mentioned, and I hope this proposed title avoids those pitfalls.
That said, we could have more variety if we dropped that requirement and had a bigger map pool, bit of room for experimentation. A map maker could make the greatest PvT map ever currently but if it’s bad for Z matchups it’s never getting in the pool. BW maps aren’t quite as bound by this
On October 23 2020 01:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote: SC2 can't balance the game by map due to the way the races are designed. In BW, all three races had powerful defensive options, splash damage, area control and ways to break the defences to break a stalemate. Units for every situation no matter how unlikely. "Useless" units like scout became useful in island maps.
Meanwhile SC2 was designed from the bottom up which never developed into whatever the designers originally wanted it to be. Zerg was designed to be weak at the start of the game, defending with creep with weak anti-air, Protoss was designed to be a deathball, and oddly enough terran had so many options in WoL that balance was tuned to limit T's opening BO. Hence why queens were buffed, swarmhosts and vipers were introduced as Z lacked options to break defences and in WoL the infestor was a swiss army knife of abilities. Forcefields intended to be a crux of protoss defence essentially meant that maps had to be made as a series of narrow corridors and end up looking the same. Terran's plethora of options lead to bunker build time being changed 999 times and eventually builds being pared down to reaper opening, everytime otherwise playing against T would be like roulette.
In BW, Zerg was made thematically swarmy by making all units move in a slithering animation and when upgraded the land ranged units moved at the same speed as each other and the melee land units moved at the same speed as each other. In SC2 Zerg was thematically swarmy with creep mechanics and making lings very weak at the start of the game. It was the race that depended the most on gas. In BW protoss looks thematically high tech, but relied on and can do the most with on their basic units, the humble zealot and dragoon. In SC2 protoss was made to rely on units up the tech tree.
BW relied on art to impart flavour, but SC2 relied on race mechanics to impart flavour. Which ironically led to BW being balanced around maps and SC2 to be locked into the same style of maps.
All three races had powerful defensive options because of chokes and high ground mechanics.
I don't understand how your points show why BW could be balanced by maps and SC2 could not.
They’re different games, approached differently.
It’s been 10 years and most maps adhere to the same principles. Brood War tbf has way more imbalance than SC2 maps, but they just put up with a pool with imbalance and get on with it and count on people to use vetos.
SC2 tries to have a whole pool that strives to be largely balanced in all matchups and generally always had that approach.
Let's just show that on 1 thing - ramp has to be exactly wide on a single force field, natural has to be exactly wide on 3 building wall and nothing more. Because otherwise bad things tend to happen. And that\'s just 2 map limitations without which the map pool becomes unplayable. At the same time if you wanna go the BW way - how do you compensate Protoss(e.g.) for wider ramps to main and nat?
Sorry yes that’s something I should have stated in my post, it’s a combo of things. You have the constraints you’re talking about, in addition to trying to made a map pool that is all x v x balanced as well.
You need chokey bases that can be walled or Terran and Protoss especially get murdered by Zerg especially, but Zerg thrive in open areas.
Yeah I don’t think balancing by maps is possible if you’re trying to balance across every matchup, given those restrictions you mentioned, and I hope this proposed title avoids those pitfalls.
That said, we could have more variety if we dropped that requirement and had a bigger map pool, bit of room for experimentation. A map maker could make the greatest PvT map ever currently but if it’s bad for Z matchups it’s never getting in the pool. BW maps aren’t quite as bound by this
I don't want to derail the conversation so this will be my last post on this.
If there is a perfect TvP map and is poor for Zergs. Put it in the map pool so Terran and Protoss can enjoy it and if you play Zerg veto it.
The point about chokes to the main and natural actually promotes what I am trying to say. Imagine a world where we had double wide ramps to the main and wide open naturals. Protoss would feel underpowered and their units buffed accordingly when the solution would be to modify the map. To be clear, I am not talking about a need for a variety of maps. I am talking about balancing the game using map design as the first option.
On October 24 2020 03:11 xuanzue wrote: caster units must not even be in an RTS
I disagree. Science vessels, defilers, high Templar, arbiters, are all great parts of Brood War and help to make each race fun, unique, and balanced.
Although casters are a core part of both BW and sc2 I have never much liked them tbh. They often contribute to imbalnce more so than other units since their impact+ ability to get value over time is really difficult to tune. Spells tend to be either really strong or a bit underwhelming without much middle ground. For abilities I actually much preferred the way that red alert 3 did it. Nearly every unit had an ability that was either a transformation that changed something about the unit or an active ability with a cooldown having every unit have abilities that were situationally use-full was really cool and increased the skill cap a lot.It was also more friendly to noobs since every unit just had one castable ability and they all used the same hotkey. I’d much rather see more units with utility abilities like the reaper grenade or corrosive bile than more straight up spell casters. Although this does not necessarily stop infinite value units from occurring cough bcs cough, it definitely limits it.
This was a fantastic interview and gets me even more excited. Feels like they know exactly what they're talking about and are going to make a fantastic RTS.
On October 24 2020 03:11 xuanzue wrote: caster units must not even be in an RTS
I disagree. Science vessels, defilers, high Templar, arbiters, are all great parts of Brood War and help to make each race fun, unique, and balanced.
Although casters are a core part of both BW and sc2 I have never much liked them tbh. They often contribute to imbalnce more so than other units since their impact+ ability to get value over time is really difficult to tune. Spells tend to be either really strong or a bit underwhelming without much middle ground. For abilities I actually much preferred the way that red alert 3 did it. Nearly every unit had an ability that was either a transformation that changed something about the unit or an active ability with a cooldown having every unit have abilities that were situationally use-full was really cool and increased the skill cap a lot.It was also more friendly to noobs since every unit just had one castable ability and they all used the same hotkey. I’d much rather see more units with utility abilities like the reaper grenade or corrosive bile than more straight up spell casters. Although this does not necessarily stop infinite value units from occurring cough bcs cough, it definitely limits it.
Casters just require the anti-caster unit. In SC1 it was the UI(no smart casting), in SC2 this role was filled by the long range units and/or micro (wp with templars against ghosts). Infinite value can happen but doesn't happen that often, especially with the ground casters. Issue is usually happening with the flying casters and even then its just 1 caster as Ravens in TvT die as well(check Maru's games).
On October 23 2020 08:47 NonY wrote: i assumed there were some good ideas driving the desire to make a new rts. instead it's just a gathering of ppl who are gonna figure it out starting now. not really interested in following this development anymore. i'll check out what they make once they've made something
I also kinda agree with this take. The whole approach of "we want your feedback - listening to the community" is unlikely to lead to best results. Community is good at identifying what they don't like. They are terrible at actually figuring out the underlying causes for not having fun and will confuse correlations with causations, and won't properly be able to analyze effects of the changes they propose.
They should have a strong opinion on where they would want to take the game. Rather it appears that they will make a new SC2 with a lower skill flor to make it easier for new players to learn the game. That's not very ambitious in my book although if they executive it well, it could still turn out to be a fun game.
I am sorry for painting the devil on the wall, but I just watched this video about the decline and death of the Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander studio and franchise:
They will have their hands full making this game successful, especially considering the insane cost (10 million+) and production time (~4 years) it takes to make a good, polished big rts game.
On October 23 2020 08:47 NonY wrote: i assumed there were some good ideas driving the desire to make a new rts. instead it's just a gathering of ppl who are gonna figure it out starting now. not really interested in following this development anymore. i'll check out what they make once they've made something
it could still turn out to be a fun game.
For sure. A lot of talented and experienced people are on their team. I think they can make something very good. I was just excited to read a TL interview, which are always in-depth and asking poignant questions, to learn more about their vision. But it's a blank slate. Once they've nailed down some direction, I'll be excited and interested.
I imagine they already have some strong opinions or at least a little more direction than they revealed (probably also willing to scrap it and go in any direction at this point), but they're not comfortable sharing it yet.
EPT
