I watched this fantastic Dns interview of Showtime and he brought up some insight into the Balance Council I wanted to surface and discuss, some of which are deeply concerning for the future of the game.
For context, the Council recently released a laughably idiotic patch that demonstrated deep seated concerns with their process and structure. Summarizing some of the points in the video (minute 20:00 onwards) here:
- Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
I hope Dns doesnt get in hot water for adding the tiniest bit of transparency to the process, but nothing he said is surprising. Design by committee is always a subpar average that maximizes no optima, and that's without the massive conflicts of interest. For all the WoL problems, the balance was always done with high integrity - David Kim was a GM random player and forbidden to play in tournaments because he was a Blizzard employee. He used to cite win-rates across every sub league when justifying the balance of a change.
I'd much rather have a system where we have (pay) knowledgeable people who have the least conflict of interest themselves. Someone like PiG, possibly Rotti, (and of course they wouldn't be allowed to compete in tourneys). Thoughts?
EDIT: Risky has shared the selection and deliberation process of the council back when he was on it, mostly confirming the notes above. Players are invited by EPT points and 2 representatives per race make the calls.
Big props to bringing these issues forward. Insta-clicking the video to watch right now!
Kinda of sucks to hear that many of our fears/speculations/observations may be true, but also happy that someone reputable is willing to speak on it. Having pros in a Discord server try to design/balance the game might lead to a lot of issues in the design and balance process - who knew!!
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: I'd much rather have a system where we have (pay) knowledgeable people who have the least conflict of interest themselves. Someone like PiG, possibly Rotti, (and of course they wouldn't be allowed to compete in tourneys). Thoughts?
Microsoft should move a couple of successful managers/employees away from their other RTS projects and onto the SC2 esports project. Those MS management people can then hire and pay a balance council.
You will have users in this forum wielding their pitchforks at the mere quoting of apparent malfeasance from some Balance Council members, but they can't say anything now that pros went on the record about it.
Somebody had to start it. So nice for DnS.
I might have to dig out some yellings from these kind of users, if they try to use their troll card again. Because this isn't really news but implied since quite some time. I don't really mind not knowing the identity of who pulls the curtain to themselves on a playing level, but if the referee has a bias, this is a nono.
It is a very interesting discussion, same as you, I hope DnS doesn't get into trouble for it. However, I think a balance council is still the way the go.
Realistically, we won't be getting community funding to pay people to balance the game, and anyway, ESL/Blizzard probably wouldn't allow it because of the potential legal/PR blowback.
It feels like it's either some kind of community advisory committee or letting a couple of ESL guys do it alone (or likely stop doing it). A balance council, however imperfect, seems better for the state of the game, even if it may be worse for the integrity of professional competitions.
I think a (relatively) easy fix would be to ban any top 20 or top 30 EPT finishers from being on the council. That way you would still have the opinion of high-level players that may be biased, but there would be a healthy distance between the council and the top players trying to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Maybe ESL could also try to change some procedural stuff to help, but we're not prevee to that.
(Also as a sidenote, we may want to take some of the finger pointing keeping in mind DnS is a (relatively) less well established protoss player, I imagine not everyone would see things the same way)
I think one thing that would solve a fair number of issues, would be having the council be more transparent.
Showtime made a really interesting point in that, he dosn't feel like the balance patches start from the stated goals and that the balancing comes first and then the text later. So, I think rather than having a bit of disconnected fluff, it would be better to have some of the discussion made public so that even if we don't agree with the changes, we can understand why the changes where originally made.
I think it also would be nice to get a bit more of a heads up as to what the balance council is looking at, so like 4-5 months ago, or whenever they started talking about this latest patch in earnest, it would have been nice to know about some concepts and ideas just so that when they release a patch for PTR. Because at the moment it feels like being in a car accident and suffering whiplash...
This is merely confirming what many of us thought when Blizzard stopped patching the game and SC2 got a Balance Council. We can tell who is being favoured in the last few patches and what race is being nerfed to oblivion. In the end, the pro scene has become worse and while I still say the drop in Protss win rate is partially due to the skill level of Protoss players compared to Terran and Zerg, these patches have a huge impact as well.
In my opinion, we need to get rid of the Balance Council and leave the game as is, with nerfs to both Terran and Zerg while keeping Protoss the same if we're not going to buff Colossus. The game is already at a poor state with the current maps, strengths, and weakness of each race, and it's only going to get worse after the patch.
Having worked in several early-stage labs and a startup... this is all entirely unsurprising and massively disappointing.
There is no design control. There is no mechanism to counteract conflict of interest. There is no procedure other than the feels of the loudest/most belligerent/most high-profile people at the table.
Might be time to hang up the mouse, so to speak, and find another way to spend my time.
ban any top 20 or top 30 EPT finishers from being on the council.
That's just halfway to my suggestion of "banning" all players in the EPT circuit. I know they probably wouldnt want to because of all the blame and hate headed their way, but casters are the best medium for this; deep knowledge of all matchups, and only financial incentive is for exciting gameplay, since they can't compete.
The world champion is decided by politics, not skill, and any player who is ok with that is no true fan of the game.
Agreed, can't even blame them. If pushing hard was the difference between 200k for me, I'd do it too. It's an incentives problem.
Having worked in several early-stage labs and a startup... this is all entirely unsurprising and massively disappointing... Might be time to hang up the mouse, so to speak, and find another way to spend my time.
Heh same, I've seen this in many other industries, it's not a unique problem. And yes, if this patch goes through I will almost unquestionably uninstall. Not that that's a bad thing, I've been playing on and off for almost 15 years, time to move on.
Going by this video, it seems like more of an ESL/Blizz problem than a player problem.
Having pros involved in balance is perfectly fine. It's not like Blizzard was making decisions out of nowhere back in the day—they were consulting pros regularly before major patches.
Players in that situation are obviously going to have biases (conscious and subconscious) and try to politick. That's no reason to dismiss the knowledge they've gained through thousands of hours of practice. It's the job of the final decision-makers to cut through the bullshit, see what the truly meaningful feedback was, and move forward in the correct direction.
While I don't want to jump to conclusions from the opinions of the two players in the video, it seems like ESL/Blizz just don't have the time/expertise to properly process the pro opinions. That should be no surprise, because that used to be the job of a full-time balance/design team at Blizzard.
In the big picture, I do think this is close to the best we can do given the current situation of StarCraft II. Getting casters or non-pros involved doesn't fundamentally change the situation where someone has to take all those opinions and make some hard decisions. The final decision-makers took on a task that they're not fully equipped to do, and that won't change unless Blizzard puts more resources into SC2 again.
[Also, it's not like people were perfectly happy when Blizzard's dev team was taking a more assertive role in patching either. That can go wrong in its own way as well. At the end of the day, balancing three factions for multiple levels of play is REALLY hard.]
Pros have a place on the council. Back when Blizzard was in charge talking to top level pros was a part of the data collected for balancing. The math can show you how things are working out, and Blizzard certainly had access to a bunch of data that we never saw, but talking to pros also helped collect information on "pain points" and relative effort that highlight potential issues. I don't say this to justify anything the Balance Council is doing, but to say I don't think outright banning pros is the right play. However, pros should not be the final word, they never were for Blizzard, but they do help highlight areas worth looking into.
The biggest thing is that the way the council appears to work currently is just plainly stupid. The council needs a standardized and transparent process to both create and communicate their objections. The apparent lack of a process other than "loudest voice wins" is stupid.
What I would suggest is a process like such:
A group of council members, randomly selected, is made into an executive council for each patch and is in charge of executing on the patch. Each patch, a new executive committee is created.
Patches should work in phases. Phase 1: The executive council sets out the goals of the patch, match-ups to change, units to buff, nerf, or re-work, unit interactions to change, etc Phase 2: The rest of the council (executive committee excluded) vote, anonymously, on which of those goals are most important and the top performers are selected for that patch Phase 3: Council members (executive committee excluded) submit ideas to address the goal Phase 4: The executive committee compiles the ideas, cleans them up, and submits them back to the council in anonymized balance packages for the other council members to review and vote on Phase 5: Based on the voted upon balance packages the committee puts together a rough draft of a patch for active discussion to refine Phase 6: Patch finalized by executive committee and resubmitted to the bulk of the council to review. If it does not clear a 60% yes vote then return to Phase 4/5 to further refine
Since the information is anonymized the various in-progress suggestions can always be released to the community for comments and feedback.
People aregoing to be people, if those in charge lack the ability to process their (naturally more or less biased) opinions, this is kinda unavoidable like Wax said?
But it IS interesting to get some tea about the process that's for sure, it has become somewhat quiet here. :D
The balance council doesn't seem to be following any kind of consistent philiosophy for balancing the game.
They're making changes geared at lower level play, while at the expense of higher level play. They're making decisions based on subjective ideas of what is "fun" and then not even following through on those ideas like in this patch wanting to nerf "camping" playstyles, but yet buffing Immobile units like Broodlords, Thors and Liberators that thrive in those playstyles.
They're making changes no one asked for, and then walking them back in the next patch cycle like the Mothership and Disruptor.
There's no consistent direction with any of it. It's all reactionary without a clear focus.
while I still say the drop in Protss win rate is partially due to the skill level of Protoss players compared to Terran and Zerg, these patches have a huge impact as well.
There's been enormous incentive to switch away from / not get competitive with protoss for many years now because of this bias. Everyone knows about it since a long time ago, especially high level players. Thx Dns for confirming a lot of things.
This one can't be laid at the feet of the balance council I don't think, it's not like the game wasn't biased against protoss before they came in. There were "passive decisions" that were worse, like letting zerg domination periods go on for way too long, but in terms of active decisions the way Neeb's playstyle was patched out is probably still the worst in the game's history.
On October 23 2024 17:53 Nebuchad wrote: This one can't be laid at the feet of the balance council I don't think, it's not like the game wasn't biased against protoss before they came in. There were "passive decisions" that were worse, like letting zerg domination periods go on for way too long, but in terms of active decisions the way Neeb's playstyle was patched out is probably still the worst in the game's history.
I'd still say the worst was the Observer nerf because of how "frustrating" it was for Terrans. However, you are correct that whenever Protoss has some new timing or exploitive strategy it gets rapidly patched out when other races don't receive the same liberal hits from the nerf hammer
wow, if that is true that the actual guy in charge of balancing has a bias against protoss then the game is doomed. Toss might receive some buffs in the future, but i fully expect them to always be the lagging race then.
On October 23 2024 18:25 CicadaSC wrote: wow, if that is true that the actual guy in charge of balancing has a bias against protoss then the game is doomed. Toss might receive some buffs in the future, but i fully expect them to always be the lagging race then.
It would make sense though; Protoss gets tiny sentry and vision buffs but disruptors and shield batteries get mega nerfed.
On October 23 2024 18:25 CicadaSC wrote: wow, if that is true that the actual guy in charge of balancing has a bias against protoss then the game is doomed. Toss might receive some buffs in the future, but i fully expect them to always be the lagging race then.
It would make sense though; Protoss gets tiny sentry and vision buffs but disruptors and shield batteries get mega nerfed.
TBF, Shield Battery was a crutch that made up for poor design.
On October 23 2024 18:25 CicadaSC wrote: wow, if that is true that the actual guy in charge of balancing has a bias against protoss then the game is doomed. Toss might receive some buffs in the future, but i fully expect them to always be the lagging race then.
It would make sense though; Protoss gets tiny sentry and vision buffs but disruptors and shield batteries get mega nerfed.
TBF, Shield Battery was a crutch that made up for poor design.
It was, but we're not exactly deleting warp gate and buffing gateway units so it's sorely needed.
With how many changes the council come out with that seem to solely exist purely because pros get frustrated playing with or against a certain feature, it's obvious the overall progress of the council won't be great.
They aren't trying to make the game good, everyone is just fighting to make their own play style easier.
The zerg players seem to have the best debate skills as well. But how loud or unwavering you are should not be what decides balance changes. Every patch seems to come out with 'silent buffs' to Zerg that the average player won't notice but will sneakily try to improve their winrates.
For example, buffing hatcheries and spore crawlers, Zerg economy never falls behind compared to Toss and Terrain, there's no reason for this other than Zerg players gettng frustrated at worker blocks, drone snipers, bunker rushes etc
On October 23 2024 18:25 CicadaSC wrote: wow, if that is true that the actual guy in charge of balancing has a bias against protoss then the game is doomed. Toss might receive some buffs in the future, but i fully expect them to always be the lagging race then.
A protoss says they're biased against protoss. I'm not sure it's fair to take DnS's word about someone else's view on protoss.
That said, it's obvious that any one person is going to have their singular biases and idiosyncrasies. No one person should be in charge, and it should be a committee. And as long as it's all run on a shoestring, at the very least the process (but maybe not the people involved due to the nature of the internet) should be transparent.
The last bit where they complain about build order variety from Terran in PvT early game right now made me chuckle, because that's what Terran had to deal with for what felt like a decade - you might remember the Protoss book of bullshit article.
Otherwise I can mostly agree with the sentiment of the balance council failing to achieve their proclaimed goals (e.g rework Cyclone to make mech more viable, make Queens more expensive to counter massing them, or make the game less defensive and promote aggressive play).
As much as I hate playing against Protoss as a low-level player it's not really hard to see from a little distance that both Terran and even more-so Zerg get the far more favorable trades here, I mean, seriously, Queens get a 25 mineral cost increase and this is overcompensated with Hatchery cost reduced (just lol) plus Spines and Spores being just outright better?!
On October 23 2024 23:08 Creager wrote: The last bit where they complain about build order variety from Terran in PvT early game right now made me chuckle, because that's what Terran had to deal with for what felt like a decade - you might remember the Protoss book of bullshit article.
At least if you survived something from the book of bullshit you had the game won
On October 23 2024 18:25 CicadaSC wrote: wow, if that is true that the actual guy in charge of balancing has a bias against protoss then the game is doomed. Toss might receive some buffs in the future, but i fully expect them to always be the lagging race then.
A protoss says they're biased against protoss. I'm not sure it's fair to take DnS's word about someone else's view on protoss.
That said, it's obvious that any one person is going to have their singular biases and idiosyncrasies. No one person should be in charge, and it should be a committee. And as long as it's all run on a shoestring, at the very least the process (but maybe not the people involved due to the nature of the internet) should be transparent.
Enough hate against Protoss amongst other parts of the community and some players directly (on stream sometimes) on one hand, and they can't defend their bucket on the other hand without being slightly discounted. Sounds like a catch-22 situation for me.
Either way, I don't care whether this is handled by a Balance Council or by the developers directly, but should it be said that asking for transparency in this matter is too much, this will sum up lots of things, and not in a good way.
There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has famously said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit).
Naming Spirit as a top-level Terran before naming Cure, Byun, and (most importantly) Oliveira, who literally won a WC less than 2 years ago, is kinda funny hahaha. Not to give OP a hard time, I know they were just spitballing names, and I know we're not here to witch hunt & gossip names, so it's not important.
On October 23 2024 23:08 Creager wrote: The last bit where they complain about build order variety from Terran in PvT early game right now made me chuckle, because that's what Terran had to deal with for what felt like a decade - you might remember the Protoss book of bullshit article.
At least if you survived something from the book of bullshit you had the game won
True, but that's more of a general problem with the 12-worker economy.
I'd much rather have a system where we have (pay) knowledgeable people who have the least conflict of interest themselves. Someone like PiG, possibly Rotti, (and of course they wouldn't be allowed to compete in tourneys). Thoughts?
I heavily doubt they'd be willing to do it voluntarily. That's the problem, nobody wants to take responsibility because of all the shit David Kim got. Even Blizzards successor to David Kim prefered to stay anonymous
On October 23 2024 18:25 CicadaSC wrote: wow, if that is true that the actual guy in charge of balancing has a bias against protoss then the game is doomed. Toss might receive some buffs in the future, but i fully expect them to always be the lagging race then.
A protoss says they're biased against protoss. I'm not sure it's fair to take DnS's word about someone else's view on protoss.
That said, it's obvious that any one person is going to have their singular biases and idiosyncrasies. No one person should be in charge, and it should be a committee. And as long as it's all run on a shoestring, at the very least the process (but maybe not the people involved due to the nature of the internet) should be transparent.
Heromarine also said in his video that this patch is biased against Protoss. If he of all people is saying this, alarm bells should be ringing
Seems the common trend is that either protoss players are worse at negotiating or there is a bias against protoss so I ask, who is really running the show?
Naming Spirit as a top-level Terran before naming Cure, Byun, and (most importantly) Oliveira, who literally won a WC less than 2 years ago, is kinda funny hahaha.
Hah yeah definitely not putting him as the same caliber as Oliveira or Korean pros, I just have seen him balance whine on stream before so I figured it may be him. From what Pig (or Harstem idr) said a while ago, the Koreans dont seem very active on the balance council, maybe because of language barrier. Again pure speculation and not a witch hunt, but I am very curious who.
On October 24 2024 04:25 BisuDagger wrote: I’m curious what the happiness ratio is in retrospect of the last few years of balance changes. So far I think they’ve done better than worse.
I think so too. They generaly have had some good idea.
It's fair to say they haven't been willing to truly buff or nerf a race with the explicit goal to change pro results though. Which is something Blizzard use to do in my memory.
And if players getting invited need to be in the top 10-20 of their region, a long-term bias against Protoss would lead to less Protoss representation in the balance council, leading to even less negotiation power for Protoss... it's really problematic
On October 24 2024 04:25 BisuDagger wrote: I’m curious what the happiness ratio is in retrospect of the last few years of balance changes. So far I think they’ve done better than worse.
We are doing just fine tbh
Yes, Toss got overly shafted I feel. But they tend to me more mellow when arguing, and this is not a joke, they legit are, I blame it mostly in PTSD from all the collective bullying they have received in these last few decades
Gosh, turns out giving a bunch of people who are strongly incentivized to NOT balance the game the power to balance the game produces sub-optimal outcomes. WHAT A SHOCKING TWIST!
WombaT’s PatchTM is great, I won’t hear otherwise!
But in seriousness I think the fundamental idea of a balance council is fine, it just needs some process refinement.
You need some kind of overall arbiter(s) with sufficient knowledge to make final calls, sift the good ideas from the bad etc etc
We’ve got some good ideas, good changes, creative tweaks mixed with some bad ones. Sometimes more good than bad, sometimes more bad than good. Or patches that have stated intentions and a bunch of changes that seemingly contradict the intent.
I don’t think it’s a fundamentally flawed idea, it just needs some figures who can do that filtering
I don’t think you really need more transparency and openness or whatever, just a better internal process
On October 25 2024 07:46 WombaT wrote: WombaT’s PatchTM is great, I won’t hear otherwise!
But in seriousness I think the fundamental idea of a balance council is fine, it just needs some process refinement.
You need some kind of overall arbiter(s) with sufficient knowledge to make final calls, sift the good ideas from the bad etc etc
We’ve got some good ideas, good changes, creative tweaks mixed with some bad ones. Sometimes more good than bad, sometimes more bad than good. Or patches that have stated intentions and a bunch of changes that seemingly contradict the intent.
I don’t think it’s a fundamentally flawed idea, it just needs some figures who can do that filtering
I don’t think you really need more transparency and openness or whatever, just a better internal process
Wombat patch is pure trash, it’s time for you to admit it!
Protoss got nerfs across the board with nothing to compensate it.
Pvt was already struggling the previous patch, but this wombat patch will make it even worse. I wouldn’t be surprise to see the win rate % in the 30’s
On October 25 2024 07:46 WombaT wrote: WombaT’s PatchTM is great, I won’t hear otherwise!
But in seriousness I think the fundamental idea of a balance council is fine, it just needs some process refinement.
You need some kind of overall arbiter(s) with sufficient knowledge to make final calls, sift the good ideas from the bad etc etc
We’ve got some good ideas, good changes, creative tweaks mixed with some bad ones. Sometimes more good than bad, sometimes more bad than good. Or patches that have stated intentions and a bunch of changes that seemingly contradict the intent.
I don’t think it’s a fundamentally flawed idea, it just needs some figures who can do that filtering
I don’t think you really need more transparency and openness or whatever, just a better internal process
Wombat patch is pure trash, it’s time for you to admit it!
Protoss got nerfs across the board with nothing to compensate it.
Pvt was already struggling the previous patch, but this wombat patch will make it even worse. I wouldn’t be surprise to see the win rate % in the 30’s
Given this patch is seemingly awful for Protoss, and my other attempt to force my name into a thing was ‘WombaT’s Law’ which said Protoss couldn’t win a tournament if they had to face more than 2 Zergs in playoff rounds, I feel I’ve been consistent in my traitorous ways!
Call me a pessimist or a masochist, or perhaps a realist
On October 23 2024 20:23 Fango wrote: With how many changes the council come out with that seem to solely exist purely because pros get frustrated playing with or against a certain feature, it's obvious the overall progress of the council won't be great.
They aren't trying to make the game good, everyone is just fighting to make their own play style easier.
The zerg players seem to have the best debate skills as well. But how loud or unwavering you are should not be what decides balance changes. Every patch seems to come out with 'silent buffs' to Zerg that the average player won't notice but will sneakily try to improve their winrates.
For example, buffing hatcheries and spore crawlers, Zerg economy never falls behind compared to Toss and Terrain, there's no reason for this other than Zerg players gettng frustrated at worker blocks, drone snipers, bunker rushes etc
Honestly economically this is a nerf for Zerg. Z needs to build way more queens than hatches and the main reason "static" Zerg-D is buffed is probably to offset the nerf to mass queen styles, which are standard in both ZvP and ZvT.
I honestly think the spore buff is too big, but it pales in comparison to the massive buffs to libs, a unit they were supposed to nerf according to the patch goals. Overall I think T got buffed, Z got a wash/slight buff and P got gutted. Which is absurd if you consider current tournament results.
On October 24 2024 04:25 BisuDagger wrote: I’m curious what the happiness ratio is in retrospect of the last few years of balance changes. So far I think they’ve done better than worse.
Mixed bag for me. They've done some really nice and sensitive changes, they've screwed up really badly on occasion too. Overall I think some of the top performing units of well performing races should have received (heavier) nerfs years ago and apparently it's really difficult for them to straight buff P units, while they seem to have less qualms about doing so for Z/T.
Overall it feels like 3/4 of their attention is on T and rarely in a critical way. Things like the cyclone change have made the game worse, eaten a ton of time and T has usages for pretty much every unit in their roster while half of P's roster is pretty garbage.
Like this patch is a good example, we have a ton of T buffs with new functionalities and perhaps positive ways to change your BO. Meanwhile Z gets their main early game defensive tool nerfed (with some compensation in other areas) and P gets their main early game defensive tool removed (without compensation).
I have played SC2 only for the campaign but are a huge fan of watching Pros playing it. So my point of view and interest is only to see good games in the best entertaining way. If you take a look at the last years it is obvious that Protoss have a lot of Problems in comparison to the other two races. With this Patch it seems to me that the Problems will getting even bigger.
I understand that there is the need of doing Balancing not only for the Top Level Players and i know that in the lower Ranks Protoss is much more successfull but frankly, i'm really tired of watching Zergs and Terrans winning nearly every Tournament (this said as a huge Reynor Fan ^^). Just to see more Protoss in the round of 8 now and then, would be a nice and imo from an entertaining Point of view much needed "thing" to do.
And that (Pro) players have any influence on these Balancing Process is imo an absolute No Go. Imo any Pro should say no to such an invitation.
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: - Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
Are we done with the "balance council" yet? Here is a little secret, a group of random people who don't understand game design won't make a good game.
We tried it. We had Dustin "Warhound" Browder, and David "Mothership Core" Kim clowning around in WOL and HOTS and it didn't work. League was writing articles game design and exploding in popularity while they were actively doing the opposite and we watch SC2 tank. We lived through Broodlord Infestor in WOL only to get mass Swarmhosts in HOTS.
I wish we could get a serious individual or team that actually follows tenets of modern game design... What is that I hear? Instant burst damage that has no counterplay and is poor design? But Widow Mines are so cool!
Imagine getting people who actually understand it to create a game.
some things never change, guys stop investing time into something that's out of your control, simple as that
the game will either get fucked by mass public opinion whining or professional gamer bias (but the root of the issue is having a weak game/devs), if you can't have unbiased high lvl people controlling these things then there's nothing to be done, save some hair and just play BW
On October 25 2024 07:46 WombaT wrote: WombaT’s PatchTM is great, I won’t hear otherwise!
But in seriousness I think the fundamental idea of a balance council is fine, it just needs some process refinement.
You need some kind of overall arbiter(s) with sufficient knowledge to make final calls, sift the good ideas from the bad etc etc
We’ve got some good ideas, good changes, creative tweaks mixed with some bad ones. Sometimes more good than bad, sometimes more bad than good. Or patches that have stated intentions and a bunch of changes that seemingly contradict the intent.
I don’t think it’s a fundamentally flawed idea, it just needs some figures who can do that filtering
I don’t think you really need more transparency and openness or whatever, just a better internal process
Wombat patch is pure trash, it’s time for you to admit it!
Protoss got nerfs across the board with nothing to compensate it.
Pvt was already struggling the previous patch, but this wombat patch will make it even worse. I wouldn’t be surprise to see the win rate % in the 30’s
Given this patch is seemingly awful for Protoss, and my other attempt to force my name into a thing was ‘WombaT’s Law’ which said Protoss couldn’t win a tournament if they had to face more than 2 Zergs in playoff rounds, I feel I’ve been consistent in my traitorous ways!
Call me a pessimist or a masochist, or perhaps a realist
If I had the job I'd set us back to lair tech and 3 base blink timings. Lotv players would complain, but balance was much better in 2015.
On October 27 2024 15:14 TT1 wrote: some things never change, guys stop investing time into something that's out of your control, simple as that
the game will either get fucked by mass public opinion whining or professional gamer bias (but the root of the issue is having a weak game/devs), if you can't have unbiased high lvl people controlling these things then there's nothing to be done, save some hair and just play BW
On October 27 2024 15:14 TT1 wrote: some things never change, guys stop investing time into something that's out of your control, simple as that
the game will either get fucked by mass public opinion whining or professional gamer bias (but the root of the issue is having a weak game/devs), if you can't have unbiased high lvl people controlling these things then there's nothing to be done, save some hair and just play BW
As it may surprise you, not everyone like BW.
TT1 was actually half of my favorite pvp from wol. He played against VINES in a qualifier for something.
On October 27 2024 15:14 TT1 wrote: some things never change, guys stop investing time into something that's out of your control, simple as that
the game will either get fucked by mass public opinion whining or professional gamer bias (but the root of the issue is having a weak game/devs), if you can't have unbiased high lvl people controlling these things then there's nothing to be done, save some hair and just play BW
As it may surprise you, not everyone like BW.
TT1 was actually half of my favorite pvp from wol. He played against VINES in a qualifier for something.
As most french Canadian sc2 success, it's saddly just before my time.
On October 27 2024 15:14 TT1 wrote: some things never change, guys stop investing time into something that's out of your control, simple as that
the game will either get fucked by mass public opinion whining or professional gamer bias (but the root of the issue is having a weak game/devs), if you can't have unbiased high lvl people controlling these things then there's nothing to be done, save some hair and just play BW
As it may surprise you, not everyone like BW.
TT1 was actually half of my favorite pvp from wol. He played against VINES in a qualifier for something.
As most french Canadian sc2 success, it's saddly just before my time.
I managed to go back and track down the game, but there's no vid of it.
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: - Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
Are we done with the "balance council" yet? Here is a little secret, a group of random people who don't understand game design won't make a good game.
We tried it. We had Dustin "Warhound" Browder, and David "Mothership Core" Kim clowning around in WOL and HOTS and it didn't work. League was writing articles game design and exploding in popularity while they were actively doing the opposite and we watch SC2 tank. We lived through Broodlord Infestor in WOL only to get mass Swarmhosts in HOTS.
I wish we could get a serious individual or team that actually follows tenets of modern game design... What is that I hear? Instant burst damage that has no counterplay and is poor design? But Widow Mines are so cool!
Imagine getting people who actually understand it to create a game.
The blizzard balance team for sure did mistakes but at least they weren't biased. They broke the game in favor of each of the races at different times, Terran had GomTvT, Hellbat drops and Mass Raven, Zerg had Broodlord Infestor, Broodlord Infestor 2.0 in 2019 and Nydus Swarmhost and Protoss had Blink era and early LotV mass adepts.
The current balance council is pretty clearly biased against Protoss to the point high profile community members have called it out.
On October 27 2024 15:14 TT1 wrote: some things never change, guys stop investing time into something that's out of your control, simple as that
the game will either get fucked by mass public opinion whining or professional gamer bias (but the root of the issue is having a weak game/devs), if you can't have unbiased high lvl people controlling these things then there's nothing to be done, save some hair and just play BW
As it may surprise you, not everyone like BW.
ya that was more of a joke, BW hasn't changed in over 2 decades but it'll still make you lose your hair, the difference is it'll be done by your hands and not someone else's
imo if you have a hobby or profession where the rules of the game are constantly being changed by a 3rd party then you're pretty much guaranteed at some point to not have a good time (regardless of the changes themselves, some of the "knowledge based" portion of the time you spent on that activity is wasted, ofc if bad changes are made it just compounds the tilt effect even more xd)
it's ok to update the structure around a game in order to modernize it (in SC these are mainly maps for example) but the essence/core of any sport/game worth anything is always left untouched (for example adding VAR to soccer/football had a big impact on the game but soccer is still soccer)
the essence/core of a game should be maintained for as long as possible in order to understand it as best as possible (if you can't do this then you have a flawed product), yes sports have rule changes as well but these are done after decades of high lvl competition (and it's usually not stuff that'll change how the game is played)
On October 25 2024 07:46 WombaT wrote: WombaT’s PatchTM is great, I won’t hear otherwise!
But in seriousness I think the fundamental idea of a balance council is fine, it just needs some process refinement.
You need some kind of overall arbiter(s) with sufficient knowledge to make final calls, sift the good ideas from the bad etc etc
We’ve got some good ideas, good changes, creative tweaks mixed with some bad ones. Sometimes more good than bad, sometimes more bad than good. Or patches that have stated intentions and a bunch of changes that seemingly contradict the intent.
I don’t think it’s a fundamentally flawed idea, it just needs some figures who can do that filtering
I don’t think you really need more transparency and openness or whatever, just a better internal process
Wombat patch is pure trash, it’s time for you to admit it!
Protoss got nerfs across the board with nothing to compensate it.
Pvt was already struggling the previous patch, but this wombat patch will make it even worse. I wouldn’t be surprise to see the win rate % in the 30’s
Given this patch is seemingly awful for Protoss, and my other attempt to force my name into a thing was ‘WombaT’s Law’ which said Protoss couldn’t win a tournament if they had to face more than 2 Zergs in playoff rounds, I feel I’ve been consistent in my traitorous ways!
Call me a pessimist or a masochist, or perhaps a realist
If I had the job I'd set us back to lair tech and 3 base blink timings. Lotv players would complain, but balance was much better in 2015.
I dunno if it was, I mean in terms of Protoss being competitive it absolutely was, but at times it felt at the expense of enabling quite a lot of Protoss nonsense that I don’t really like
Granted my memory ain’t what it used to be! These 14 years are gradually mashing into one haze
The problem with the council is, it doesn’t have a boss, or somebody who can veto or throw things out if bias is obviously in play
Pros were consulted behind the scenes back in the day too, the difference was David Kim was the final arbiter, and both an actual design professional + a decent GM level player.
Pros have a lot to offer in terms of sheer technical knowledge of their chosen game, but making it some democratic process has real obvious downsides, as you’ve pointed out.
I’d propose something like this, obviously not fully-fleshed out but, in vague terms. 1. 7 people become the decision-makers. 2 from each faction, and one rep from either Blizz or ESL to break ties. The players should be either ex pros, or high level players who are commentators, or content creators 2. They set the agenda on patch goals, overall what they’re looking to do. 3. They throw that out to the various pros that want to be on this consultative committee for ideas. 4. Together refine the proposals, and the decision-making committee ultimately just decides what to implement
I don’t think the council should be fully transparent either, unfortunately, put a name to a decision and if people don’t like it you’re getting a ton of shit (see David Kim)
I don’t think this is that hard a problem to solve, indeed I’m shocked with some of these details that are (finally) being leaked in some way because they reveal such an obviously flawed process.
I remember the cyclone change for example, and being confused. The relatively few players who’d openly said they were on that council were absolutely unanimously against it, and made videos to that effect. Heromarine who I assumed was on the council, but was not and I’ve subsequently learned refused to partake due to having issues with its form, also was negative.
A lot makes more sense to me now haha. I’d only ever heard from the kinds of folks I think genuinely are trying for a balanced, fun game. Someone like Harstem, or Lambo. Not always correct, but I don’t really doubt their heart is in the right place.
I’d somewhat assumed the council was filtered for such types based on that sample, but it appears not. And, if you’re one of the people who’s using it to tweak balance to your tastes, or indeed advantage, well you’re that bit less likely to make it known you’re participating
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: - Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
We tried it. We had Dustin "Warhound" Browder, and David "Mothership Core" Kim clowning around in WOL and HOTS and it didn't work.
If the WoL and HotS ladders were reinstated, I'd happily play those over LotV.
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: - Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
We tried it. We had Dustin "Warhound" Browder, and David "Mothership Core" Kim clowning around in WOL and HOTS and it didn't work.
If the WoL and HotS ladders were reinstated, I'd happily play those over LotV.
No you wouldn't. You'd quit the minute you had to deal with HoTS era Swarm Hosts just like the rest of us would.
I don't think people remember clearly how horrible the meta was at the end of Heart of the Swarm and Wings of Liberty.
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: - Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
We tried it. We had Dustin "Warhound" Browder, and David "Mothership Core" Kim clowning around in WOL and HOTS and it didn't work.
If the WoL and HotS ladders were reinstated, I'd happily play those over LotV.
No you wouldn't. You'd quit the minute you had to deal with HoTS era Swarm Hosts just like the rest of us would.
Being able to do Mothership Core/Gateway pressure against a greedy Zerg to prevent them from over-droning was much more fun to me than anything in the current meta, and I had a very strong anti-Swarm Host follow-up...
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: - Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
We tried it. We had Dustin "Warhound" Browder, and David "Mothership Core" Kim clowning around in WOL and HOTS and it didn't work.
If the WoL and HotS ladders were reinstated, I'd happily play those over LotV.
No you wouldn't. You'd quit the minute you had to deal with HoTS era Swarm Hosts just like the rest of us would.
I don't think people remember clearly how horrible the meta was at the end of Heart of the Swarm and Wings of Liberty.
Hmmm I remember having lots of fun during that era. People think of Soulkey vs Reality and Mana vs Firecake but that really were exceptions, the average game wasn't anything like that
There's also a ginormous difference between GM play and diamond league play. BL/Infestor was never an issue, because nobody controlled spellcasters well enough. The ladder in WoL wasn't full of Zergs winning because BL/Infestor. It was full of Protoss soul training their way to victory.
On October 28 2024 22:29 Acrofales wrote: There's also a ginormous difference between GM play and diamond league play. BL/Infestor was never an issue, because nobody controlled spellcasters well enough. The ladder in WoL wasn't full of Zergs winning because BL/Infestor. It was full of Protoss soul training their way to victory.
BL/Infestor was still a huge factor, so much so that I switched to Terran for a while
Zerg didn’t have to control their spellcasters all that well, they had instant fungal and if they nailed you, you were fuckkkkkkeed. Another factor versus today is Toss had fewer ways to be active at all on the map outside of committed attacks, nor could you really get your own air ball in time like you can now.
Now I could win, I just had to stop playing like a really shit Liquid HerO, and either blindly Soul TrainTM, or do a +2 blink all in
For some people, winning is all the fun, for others how you do it or what you’re doing is a big component.
I played some of my best SC ever in stubborn attempts to play macro games versus BL/Infestor, usually in losing causes. There’s still a chasm between that low Masters level and GM/pros of course. But I had better results immediately just downloading a few reps, writing the build of a few timings down and practicing a few times and just blindly doing them.
The inverse would also be true for Zergs too of course, the Big Book of Protoss Bullshit brings its own frustration.
I think for many they didn’t think x meta was unbeatable or anything, just unfun to play/watch
I think PvZ is basically doomed to be the worst non-mirror based on how the game is designed, but relative to the past I think the metas of the last year or two have been quite decent. That herO mass gate/mass expand style especially can make for pretty exciting and dynamic matches.
yeah, we talk about BL/Infestor, but honestly the mirror matches were lightyears worse than ZvP, except, I guess TvT, which was probably a good thing for spectators due to it being the days of GomTvT.
On October 28 2024 22:29 Acrofales wrote: There's also a ginormous difference between GM play and diamond league play. BL/Infestor was never an issue, because nobody controlled spellcasters well enough. The ladder in WoL wasn't full of Zergs winning because BL/Infestor. It was full of Protoss soul training their way to victory.
this is actually a really important point, back in WoL when i was giving feedback to the balance team about stuff like BL/inf they'd go and analyze league stats and say that the data didn't show anything wrong with it
i remember mentioning BL/inf some time after they nerfed vortex (mothership) when it was clear that it had a big impact on the MU, P started doing stuff like soul train (literally almost every game) and 3 base colo allins (but eventually good z's optimized a double evo ling/inf opener into corruptor/bl after scouting P going early 3rd, which destroyed 3b colo)
problem is they were looking at stats from diamond or master league upwards (i don't remember exactly if it was diamond or master) whereas the feedback i was giving was from playing top players (mainly Suppy/Scarlett were doing this ling inf into corru/bl bo vs non soul train builds), i wouldn't be surprised that they eventually realized the non relevance of lower level data due to execution flaws/unoptimized b.os which probably lead to giving more emphasis to pro player feedback
i am happy with the balance council. i'm a diamond 1v1 player and a diamond 2v2 player who plays with a 1v1 gold leaguer. i play ~6 months a year. i think most diamond and gold leaguers have enjoyed the game the last few years. we face very little online toxicity from opponents. when i chat with my opponents they rarely get angry.
On October 28 2024 03:05 TT1 wrote: imo if you have a hobby or profession where the rules of the game are constantly being changed by a 3rd party then you're pretty much guaranteed at some point to not have a good time (regardless of the changes themselves, some of the "knowledge based" portion of the time you spent on that activity is wasted, ofc if bad changes are made it just compounds the tilt effect even more xd)
NHL and NBA players have dealt with this a lot. The 3 point line in the NBA was considered a silly gimmick with the NBA reluctantly adding it. It turned out to be an awesome way to space the floor and now its 'obvious' it was a good rule change. The NHL has eliminated the center red line and it worked out great.
On October 29 2024 03:11 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i am happy with the balance council. i'm a diamond 1v1 player and a diamond 2v2 player who plays with a 1v1 gold leaguer. i play ~6 months a year. i think most diamond and gold leaguers have enjoyed the game the last few years. we face very little online toxicity from opponents. when i chat with my opponents they rarely get angry.
On October 28 2024 03:05 TT1 wrote: imo if you have a hobby or profession where the rules of the game are constantly being changed by a 3rd party then you're pretty much guaranteed at some point to not have a good time (regardless of the changes themselves, some of the "knowledge based" portion of the time you spent on that activity is wasted, ofc if bad changes are made it just compounds the tilt effect even more xd)
NHL and NBA players have dealt with this a lot. The 3 point line in the NBA was considered a silly gimmick with the NBA reluctantly adding it. It turned out to be an awesome way to space the floor and now its 'obvious' it was a good rule change. The NHL has eliminated the center red line and it worked out great.
well you named 2 big changes yes but that's pretty much it (i dunno much about basketball but i follow hockey), each of those sports have been around for a very long time
the NHL actually does do a lot minor changes (mainly to streamline the game more) like no touch icing (so dmen don't get injured), no line change after icing etc.. those aren't really core changes tho (as opposed to the stuff you mentioned)
EDIT: actually the NHL made a bunch of important overtime changes too, that's what they've tweaked with the most in modern times (point changes/going from 5 on 5 to 4 on 4 to 3 on 3/adding shootout)
but ya those were changes outside of regulation time to make the game more entertaining in order to attract more viewers imo (hockey isn't as popular as the other mainstream sports so they mess around more than the others)
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: - Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
We tried it. We had Dustin "Warhound" Browder, and David "Mothership Core" Kim clowning around in WOL and HOTS and it didn't work.
If the WoL and HotS ladders were reinstated, I'd happily play those over LotV.
No you wouldn't. You'd quit the minute you had to deal with HoTS era Swarm Hosts just like the rest of us would.
I don't think people remember clearly how horrible the meta was at the end of Heart of the Swarm and Wings of Liberty.
How quickly people forget that the SH meta didn't exist in 2015.
Giving the most winning players the loudest voice seems to be a way to ensure cyclical results -- positive feedback loop, rich get richer. A vague idea would be to do it like they do drafts in US professional sports, where the worst teams get the first picks -- the race that has done the least winning lately should get the loudest voice.
Obviously this is a SUPER half-baked idea since balance changes are far less straightforward than picking prospects, but I think there's a little something to it.
Balancing the game, especially at the highest level, is tricky, and I do think top players being included is a good choice, because at the pro level there are things that happen where just a player or two can require a patch -- ByuN's reaper patch (were there multiple) is the most famous example because he was running through the highest level with a build literally only he could pull off (Maru, at his quickest at the time, tried the 3-rax reaper and even he couldn't make it work), and we saw the infestor burrow get nerfed recently due in no small part to what basically only Serral was doing.
And when we're basing balance on tournament wins, that makes it even crazier because how many guys are realistically in the mix to win major tournaments? A dozen? Less? Off the top of my head, I would say anyone but these guys winning a big tournament would be relatively stunning:
I mean, it was even pretty shocking when Solar won GSL, and that tournament didn't have Serral. Rogue could be back in that mix soon, and poor Cure is always knocking on the door, but if you gave me those 6 players vs. the field for every Premier tournament this year I'd be pretty confident. Plus one of the two best Protoss players in the world doesn't play tournaments because he may or may not be AlphaStar's smurf account.
So you want top players, but then those players are going to ask for changes that will help them stay on top -- it's a tough situation. Plus it's the definition of a thankless job -- people seem much more eager to talk about bad balance than good balance, ya know?
On October 23 2024 12:20 luxon wrote: - Enormous conflicts of interest - pros are vouching for things that not only benefit their race, but their own playstyle - Politics and negotiations - if your race has more passive person championing the changes, then you will lose out to others who are more aggressive. The people unwilling to compromise are rewarded. - There is an unnamed top-level Terran who is given extreme credence to his opinions (HM has publicly said he refuses to join because of such conflict of interest, so not sure who. Clem makes sense but doesnt strike me as the type, possibly Maru or Spirit). - Lower level pro's opinions are disregarded in favor of higher level ones, even when they bring "facts and replay evidence" - The person who is in charge of the actual balance patch changes ("the referee" in the video) has a noticeable bias against protoss, which was noticed by both Dns and Showtime.
Are we done with the "balance council" yet? Here is a little secret, a group of random people who don't understand game design won't make a good game.
We tried it. We had Dustin "Warhound" Browder, and David "Mothership Core" Kim clowning around in WOL and HOTS and it didn't work. League was writing articles game design and exploding in popularity while they were actively doing the opposite and we watch SC2 tank. We lived through Broodlord Infestor in WOL only to get mass Swarmhosts in HOTS.
I wish we could get a serious individual or team that actually follows tenets of modern game design... What is that I hear? Instant burst damage that has no counterplay and is poor design? But Widow Mines are so cool!
Imagine getting people who actually understand it to create a game.
The blizzard balance team for sure did mistakes but at least they weren't biased. They broke the game in favor of each of the races at different times, Terran had GomTvT, Hellbat drops and Mass Raven, Zerg had Broodlord Infestor, Broodlord Infestor 2.0 in 2019 and Nydus Swarmhost and Protoss had Blink era and early LotV mass adepts.
The current balance council is pretty clearly biased against Protoss to the point high profile community members have called it out.
I think this is also a huge part of it. If the blizzard balance team broke the game or over tuned something you didn't feel like they had a vested interest in pushing through certain changes.
Even if this is not the case currently the optics of it are just worse. So imo unless the patches are god tier everytime there is going to be the accusations of bias.
On October 28 2024 11:40 WombaT wrote: The problem with the council is, it doesn’t have a boss, or somebody who can veto or throw things out if bias is obviously in play
Pros were consulted behind the scenes back in the day too, the difference was David Kim was the final arbiter, and both an actual design professional + a decent GM level player. ... Pros have a lot to offer in terms of sheer technical knowledge of their chosen game, but making it some democratic process has real obvious downsides, as you’ve pointed out. ... I don’t think the council should be fully transparent either, unfortunately, put a name to a decision and if people don’t like it you’re getting a ton of shit (see David Kim)
Avilo 'as a joke' bashed to pieces a stuffed animal representation of David Kim on so many occasions that I believe it warranted a full criminal investigation. When you 'joke' about violence 1000 times it is no longer a joke. It morphs into a veiled threat.
Personally, I think he deserved a weekend in jail along with a promise to stop the "jokes".
I commend the work of the balance council. It is sad they do not have the backing of a massive megacorp as David Kim did.
IMO, Browder, Kim, the guy replacing Kim, and the balance council have done a nice job over 14 years.
On October 28 2024 11:40 WombaT wrote: The problem with the council is, it doesn’t have a boss, or somebody who can veto or throw things out if bias is obviously in play
Pros were consulted behind the scenes back in the day too, the difference was David Kim was the final arbiter, and both an actual design professional + a decent GM level player. ... Pros have a lot to offer in terms of sheer technical knowledge of their chosen game, but making it some democratic process has real obvious downsides, as you’ve pointed out. ... I don’t think the council should be fully transparent either, unfortunately, put a name to a decision and if people don’t like it you’re getting a ton of shit (see David Kim)
Avilo 'as a joke' bashed to pieces a stuffed animal representation of David Kim on so many occasions that I believe it warranted a full criminal investigation. When you 'joke' about violence 1000 times it is no longer a joke. It morphs into a veiled threat.
Personally, I think he deserved a weekend in jail along with a promise to stop the "jokes".
I commend the work of the balance council. It is sad they do not have the backing of a massive megacorp as David Kim did.
IMO, Browder, Kim, the guy replacing Kim, and the balance council have done a nice job over 14 years.
Yeah I think people are going a bit over the top on this one, although I do think there’s some procedural flaws
I think Avilo needs some time in a psychiatric institution rather than jail, but yeah some of his behaviour is just completely unacceptable
It’s not been perfect at various junctures, end of the day I’ve either played or followed tournaments of this game, interacted with communities on the regular for 14 years. I’ve founded a local scene/hub, run like 15 tournaments in LAN form
Ya can’t really do that if you don’t have a compelling game that’s largely been decently managed
btw even ~90-95% of GM lvl play is nowhere close to highest lvl play (up until you reach top 5 or top 10 GM where the top players are at), balance decisions should always be based around highest lvl play because that's where the game is played with the least amount of error so it's the most accurate reflection of what the game really looks like
you can even make this argument for the top 1~3 of each race vs the rest of the pro field but at a certain range i think it's fine to factor in midd/lower pro lvl games (to evaluate stuff like ease of execution vs strength of builds/units), that said their weighting for actual balance should also be less than games from the top 1/2/3 of each race (deciding whether to mainly factor in play from top 1 or top 3 or top 5 for balance really depends on the strength/dominance of those players)
pretty simple concept but then incentives/human nature comes into play so u end up losing sight of what really matters
On October 30 2024 03:06 TT1 wrote: btw even ~90-95% of GM lvl play is nowhere close to highest lvl play (up until you reach top 5 or top 10 GM where the top players are at), balance decisions should always be based around highest lvl play because that's where the game is played with the least amount of error so it's the most accurate reflection of what the game really looks like
you can even make this argument for the top 1~3 of each race vs the rest of the pro field but at a certain range i think it's fine to factor in midd/lower pro lvl games (to evaluate stuff like ease of execution vs strength of builds/units), that said the weighting on balance should also be less than games from top 1/2/3 of each race (factoring in play from top 1 or top 3 or top 5 really depends on the strength/dominance of the top players)
pretty simple concept but then bad incentives/human nature comes into play so u end up losing sight of what really matters
I guess this boils down to whether you balance for the best possible viewing experience or the best possible playing experience. If the latter, those 3 players per race can get fucked. If the former, those 3 possible players are the only ones that matter. And not in the sense that their playing experience has to be ez breezy, but that they have to be balanced.
I'd much prefer they balance the play of the 99.9%, and the 0.1% will sort themselves out. The casters and viewers will make up their own narrative anyway.
On October 30 2024 03:06 TT1 wrote: btw even ~90-95% of GM lvl play is nowhere close to highest lvl play (up until you reach top 5 or top 10 GM where the top players are at), balance decisions should always be based around highest lvl play because that's where the game is played with the least amount of error so it's the most accurate reflection of what the game really looks like
you can even make this argument for the top 1~3 of each race vs the rest of the pro field but at a certain range i think it's fine to factor in midd/lower pro lvl games (to evaluate stuff like ease of execution vs strength of builds/units), that said the weighting on balance should also be less than games from top 1/2/3 of each race (factoring in play from top 1 or top 3 or top 5 really depends on the strength/dominance of the top players)
pretty simple concept but then bad incentives/human nature comes into play so u end up losing sight of what really matters
I guess this boils down to whether you balance for the best possible viewing experience or the best possible playing experience. If the latter, those 3 players per race can get fucked. If the former, those 3 possible players are the only ones that matter. And not in the sense that their playing experience has to be ez breezy, but that they have to be balanced.
I'd much prefer they balance the play of the 99.9%, and the 0.1% will sort themselves out. The casters and viewers will make up their own narrative anyway.
viewers and players have a symbiotic relationship but if the game isn't balanced in a way (playability-wise) that attracts and retains top lvl players then the game will eventually fizzle and die out, so basically you'd be updating the game for 99.9% of a endlessly decreasing viewer base
ppl tune in to watch the highest skill players play the game, star power/elite lvl talent is a big draw, look at any real sport
if you balance for entertainment/viewability and top end players leave the game (top players play for competition so if the game isn't fair/balanced then they'll feel like things are out of their control and won't stick around) and if the game doesn't attract talented new players (unlikely to happen unless there's a sugar rush of new money but that's not a sustainable long term strategy anyways) then it'll just turn into lower lvl competition between the ppl who decided to stick around.. it just doesn't have the same appeal
for anyone who understands what real competition is that certainly isn't it, it would turn into placeholder competition more than real competition
On October 30 2024 03:06 TT1 wrote: btw even ~90-95% of GM lvl play is nowhere close to highest lvl play (up until you reach top 5 or top 10 GM where the top players are at), balance decisions should always be based around highest lvl play because that's where the game is played with the least amount of error so it's the most accurate reflection of what the game really looks like
you can even make this argument for the top 1~3 of each race vs the rest of the pro field but at a certain range i think it's fine to factor in midd/lower pro lvl games (to evaluate stuff like ease of execution vs strength of builds/units), that said the weighting on balance should also be less than games from top 1/2/3 of each race (factoring in play from top 1 or top 3 or top 5 really depends on the strength/dominance of the top players)
pretty simple concept but then bad incentives/human nature comes into play so u end up losing sight of what really matters
I guess this boils down to whether you balance for the best possible viewing experience or the best possible playing experience. If the latter, those 3 players per race can get fucked. If the former, those 3 possible players are the only ones that matter. And not in the sense that their playing experience has to be ez breezy, but that they have to be balanced.
I'd much prefer they balance the play of the 99.9%, and the 0.1% will sort themselves out. The casters and viewers will make up their own narrative anyway.
I don't think those things are mutually exclusive at all, in fact I don't think balancing around the 99,9% of people is even a sensible thing. First of all, matchmaking exists so the game below GM level will always be balanced because you will always have a 50% chance of winning. Second, the changes that are implemented to balance the top 0,1% won't even have any impact below pro level because as PiG said, at that level it makes no difference if Immortals for example are 25 minerals cheaper because they float 700 minerals anyway. Low-level players don't lose because of balance but because of skill.
At that level, to quote PiG again, it's just about a perception if the game is balanced or not, and not on actual balance because balance makes no difference there anyway. And the perception whether the game is balanced or not is based on pro play where the players make the least amount of mistakes.
On October 30 2024 03:06 TT1 wrote: btw even ~90-95% of GM lvl play is nowhere close to highest lvl play (up until you reach top 5 or top 10 GM where the top players are at), balance decisions should always be based around highest lvl play because that's where the game is played with the least amount of error so it's the most accurate reflection of what the game really looks like
you can even make this argument for the top 1~3 of each race vs the rest of the pro field but at a certain range i think it's fine to factor in midd/lower pro lvl games (to evaluate stuff like ease of execution vs strength of builds/units), that said the weighting on balance should also be less than games from top 1/2/3 of each race (factoring in play from top 1 or top 3 or top 5 really depends on the strength/dominance of the top players)
pretty simple concept but then bad incentives/human nature comes into play so u end up losing sight of what really matters
I guess this boils down to whether you balance for the best possible viewing experience or the best possible playing experience. If the latter, those 3 players per race can get fucked. If the former, those 3 possible players are the only ones that matter. And not in the sense that their playing experience has to be ez breezy, but that they have to be balanced.
I'd much prefer they balance the play of the 99.9%, and the 0.1% will sort themselves out. The casters and viewers will make up their own narrative anyway.
I don't think those things are mutually exclusive at all, in fact I don't think balancing around the 99,9% of people is even a sensible thing. First of all, matchmaking exists so the game below GM level will always be balanced because you will always have a 50% chance of winning. Second, the changes that are implemented to balance the top 0,1% won't even have any impact below pro level because as PiG said, at that level it makes no difference if Immortals for example are 25 minerals cheaper because they float 700 minerals anyway. Low-level players don't lose because of balance but because of skill.
At that level, to quote PiG again, it's just about a perception if the game is balanced or not, and not on actual balance because balance makes no difference there anyway. And the perception whether the game is balanced or not is based on pro play where the players make the least amount of mistakes.
That isn't really true. Sure, everything is worse at low levels, as I already pointed out, but some things do affect balance at low levels. Disruptor radius is kinda important. Or Broodling duration. Or whatever the hell they want to do with cyclones on any day of the week. Or spore crawlers doing a bajillion damage.
Obviously pros are going to take advantage of that much more than a random diamond league player. But that doesn't mean the diamond league player won't hate it if they cannot possibly beat blink stalkers from their fellow diamond league players (or swarmhosts or whatever). Balance isn't irrelevant at lower levels just because play is not as refined.
On October 30 2024 03:06 TT1 wrote: btw even ~90-95% of GM lvl play is nowhere close to highest lvl play (up until you reach top 5 or top 10 GM where the top players are at), balance decisions should always be based around highest lvl play because that's where the game is played with the least amount of error so it's the most accurate reflection of what the game really looks like
you can even make this argument for the top 1~3 of each race vs the rest of the pro field but at a certain range i think it's fine to factor in midd/lower pro lvl games (to evaluate stuff like ease of execution vs strength of builds/units), that said the weighting on balance should also be less than games from top 1/2/3 of each race (factoring in play from top 1 or top 3 or top 5 really depends on the strength/dominance of the top players)
pretty simple concept but then bad incentives/human nature comes into play so u end up losing sight of what really matters
I guess this boils down to whether you balance for the best possible viewing experience or the best possible playing experience. If the latter, those 3 players per race can get fucked. If the former, those 3 possible players are the only ones that matter. And not in the sense that their playing experience has to be ez breezy, but that they have to be balanced.
I'd much prefer they balance the play of the 99.9%, and the 0.1% will sort themselves out. The casters and viewers will make up their own narrative anyway.
I don't think those things are mutually exclusive at all, in fact I don't think balancing around the 99,9% of people is even a sensible thing. First of all, matchmaking exists so the game below GM level will always be balanced because you will always have a 50% chance of winning. Second, the changes that are implemented to balance the top 0,1% won't even have any impact below pro level because as PiG said, at that level it makes no difference if Immortals for example are 25 minerals cheaper because they float 700 minerals anyway. Low-level players don't lose because of balance but because of skill.
At that level, to quote PiG again, it's just about a perception if the game is balanced or not, and not on actual balance because balance makes no difference there anyway. And the perception whether the game is balanced or not is based on pro play where the players make the least amount of mistakes.
That isn't really true. Sure, everything is worse at low levels, as I already pointed out, but some things do affect balance at low levels. Disruptor radius is kinda important. Or Broodling duration. Or whatever the hell they want to do with cyclones on any day of the week. Or spore crawlers doing a bajillion damage.
Obviously pros are going to take advantage of that much more than a random diamond league player. But that doesn't mean the diamond league player won't hate it if they cannot possibly beat blink stalkers from their fellow diamond league players (or swarmhosts or whatever). Balance isn't irrelevant at lower levels just because play is not as refined.
Agree to disagree then. Sure with increased Disruptor radius a diamond player loses a few more units here and there. But in the grand scheme of things, with how many mistakes they make and how many opportunities to play around Disruptors there are, I don't think it is something that determines the victor of games at all in lower leagues
On October 30 2024 03:06 TT1 wrote: btw even ~90-95% of GM lvl play is nowhere close to highest lvl play (up until you reach top 5 or top 10 GM where the top players are at), balance decisions should always be based around highest lvl play because that's where the game is played with the least amount of error so it's the most accurate reflection of what the game really looks like
you can even make this argument for the top 1~3 of each race vs the rest of the pro field but at a certain range i think it's fine to factor in midd/lower pro lvl games (to evaluate stuff like ease of execution vs strength of builds/units), that said the weighting on balance should also be less than games from top 1/2/3 of each race (factoring in play from top 1 or top 3 or top 5 really depends on the strength/dominance of the top players)
pretty simple concept but then bad incentives/human nature comes into play so u end up losing sight of what really matters
I guess this boils down to whether you balance for the best possible viewing experience or the best possible playing experience. If the latter, those 3 players per race can get fucked. If the former, those 3 possible players are the only ones that matter. And not in the sense that their playing experience has to be ez breezy, but that they have to be balanced.
I'd much prefer they balance the play of the 99.9%, and the 0.1% will sort themselves out. The casters and viewers will make up their own narrative anyway.
I don't think those things are mutually exclusive at all, in fact I don't think balancing around the 99,9% of people is even a sensible thing. First of all, matchmaking exists so the game below GM level will always be balanced because you will always have a 50% chance of winning. Second, the changes that are implemented to balance the top 0,1% won't even have any impact below pro level because as PiG said, at that level it makes no difference if Immortals for example are 25 minerals cheaper because they float 700 minerals anyway. Low-level players don't lose because of balance but because of skill.
At that level, to quote PiG again, it's just about a perception if the game is balanced or not, and not on actual balance because balance makes no difference there anyway. And the perception whether the game is balanced or not is based on pro play where the players make the least amount of mistakes.
That isn't really true. Sure, everything is worse at low levels, as I already pointed out, but some things do affect balance at low levels. Disruptor radius is kinda important. Or Broodling duration. Or whatever the hell they want to do with cyclones on any day of the week. Or spore crawlers doing a bajillion damage.
Obviously pros are going to take advantage of that much more than a random diamond league player. But that doesn't mean the diamond league player won't hate it if they cannot possibly beat blink stalkers from their fellow diamond league players (or swarmhosts or whatever). Balance isn't irrelevant at lower levels just because play is not as refined.
Agree to disagree then. Sure with increased Disruptor radius a diamond player loses a few more units here and there. But in the grand scheme of things, with how many mistakes they make and how many opportunities to play around Disruptors there are, I don't think it is something that determines the victor of games at all in lower leagues
They can also eat shots from disruptors from various units now that they couldn’t before
I’d 100% take the ability to actually kill the likes of Marauders, -1 shots to kill a tank etc etc than have that higher radius
how are people still talking about "viewership" like thats a thing. the people who watch starcraft are just die hards who are crazy about starcraft. theres no new audience coming lol
On November 04 2024 00:37 shikadisoda wrote: how are people still talking about "viewership" like thats a thing. the people who watch starcraft are just die hards who are crazy about starcraft. theres no new audience coming lol
If you lose your existing audience, well you gotta replace it somehow
I don’t think you have many new eyes coming in, so if that’s the case you gotta keep the existing cohort somewhat enthused
Hitting a pillow should place you in jail?, as far as I know Avilo doesn't know voodoo..
End of hots was both well balanced and it didn't have a troubling meta. There were some mech vs. zerg play, but it wasn't at all that bad. Sh's were patched out and zerg relied on tech switching to win the game, it was a super cool active style.
We really need a dkim like figure that mix things up and do actual change. The way it works now, you gain influence as you gain in rank and thereby the system is inclined to keep the status quo. Instead of nerfing zerg to allow toss and terran to shine, they keep it so that serral keeps winning, and then we act surprised when other zergs are stomping as well. The same is now happening with terran with clem at the helm.
Zerg should be buffed at ladder play and in team games, while Protoss is to be buffed at the top lvl. There isn't anything in this patch that actually deals with this, instead protoss will continue to have 20% of earnings, it is absolutely disgusting.
On November 04 2024 20:09 ejozl wrote: Hitting a pillow should place you in jail?, as far as I know Avilo doesn't know voodoo..
End of hots was both well balanced and it didn't have a troubling meta. There were some mech vs. zerg play, but it wasn't at all that bad. Sh's were patched out and zerg relied on tech switching to win the game, it was a super cool active style.
We really need a dkim like figure that mix things up and do actual change. The way it works now, you gain influence as you gain in rank and thereby the system is inclined to keep the status quo. Instead of nerfing zerg to allow toss and terran to shine, they keep it so that serral keeps winning, and then we act surprised when other zergs are stomping as well. The same is now happening with terran with clem at the helm.
On November 04 2024 20:09 ejozl wrote: Hitting a pillow should place you in jail?, as far as I know Avilo doesn't know voodoo..
Try it with any recognized person as the stuffed animal that includes a play on words as the name of the toy. Depending on who the person is youtube might contact the law enforcement. Try it with Benjamin Netanyahu and do it 100 times. Anyone can make a youtube channel. Do it every day for 3.5 months and post it here. Let's see if you are contacted by law enforcement.
When Avilo claims the pillow is David Kim and continued to "joke" about it dozens, if not hundreds of times and make it a regular part of your public show; yes, he should spend a weekend in jail. The message Avilo propagates is that David Kim deserves to be beat to death because he made a bad video game mode for a couple of years out of a product's 10+ year existence. And, if Avilo can not understand why the behaviour is a problem he should remain in jail or in a mental institution.
These are communications of a violent nature. Furthermore, the circus atmosphere Avilo creates winds up providing cover for a few of the anarchists in his circle.
I think once Avilo got banned from Twitch he stopped with the "comedy" act of pretending to beat David Kim. I suspect youtube will ban him. Suddenly, Avilo has "seen the light" and quit with the BS.
Dkim isn't designing the game anymore, so of course he stopped. Avilo would do absolutely nothing to dkim if he stood next to him, it was just stupid play as far as I can tell. Maybe there is some clip that I didn't know though.
On November 05 2024 03:44 ejozl wrote: Dkim isn't designing the game anymore, so of course he stopped. Avilo would do absolutely nothing to dkim if he stood next to him, it was just stupid play as far as I can tell. Maybe there is some clip that I didn't know though.
I don’t think David Kim was ever in particular danger from this behaviour, but he sure as fuck got a ton of abuse back in the day, partly because of idiots like Avilo.
Also players he erroneously accused of maphacking would frequently get the same treatment from his fans.
I wouldn’t go as far as Jimmy and say he should be jailed for that specifically, although being banned from various platforms, fair enough in my book.
Also aside from that, and why he is banned from various platforms is, as I said was actually stalking and harassing women.
He’s one of those deranged fellows where I’m not sure if he got his ass kicked too much growing up, or not enough
Good fucking riddance, hey if he gets his act together, great.
On November 05 2024 03:44 ejozl wrote: Dkim isn't designing the game anymore, so of course he stopped. Avilo would do absolutely nothing to dkim if he stood next to him, it was just stupid play as far as I can tell. Maybe there is some clip that I didn't know though.
There are plenty of reasons specific people are just best kept far away from computers with internet connection - both for the collective's and their own good. Avilo clearly belongs to this demographic.
On October 30 2024 03:06 TT1 wrote: btw even ~90-95% of GM lvl play is nowhere close to highest lvl play (up until you reach top 5 or top 10 GM where the top players are at), balance decisions should always be based around highest lvl play because that's where the game is played with the least amount of error so it's the most accurate reflection of what the game really looks like
you can even make this argument for the top 1~3 of each race vs the rest of the pro field but at a certain range i think it's fine to factor in midd/lower pro lvl games (to evaluate stuff like ease of execution vs strength of builds/units), that said the weighting on balance should also be less than games from top 1/2/3 of each race (factoring in play from top 1 or top 3 or top 5 really depends on the strength/dominance of the top players)
pretty simple concept but then bad incentives/human nature comes into play so u end up losing sight of what really matters
I guess this boils down to whether you balance for the best possible viewing experience or the best possible playing experience. If the latter, those 3 players per race can get fucked. If the former, those 3 possible players are the only ones that matter. And not in the sense that their playing experience has to be ez breezy, but that they have to be balanced.
I'd much prefer they balance the play of the 99.9%, and the 0.1% will sort themselves out. The casters and viewers will make up their own narrative anyway.
viewers and players have a symbiotic relationship but if the game isn't balanced in a way (playability-wise) that attracts and retains top lvl players then the game will eventually fizzle and die out, so basically you'd be updating the game for 99.9% of a endlessly decreasing viewer base
ppl tune in to watch the highest skill players play the game, star power/elite lvl talent is a big draw, look at any real sport
if you balance for entertainment/viewability and top end players leave the game (top players play for competition so if the game isn't fair/balanced then they'll feel like things are out of their control and won't stick around) and if the game doesn't attract talented new players (unlikely to happen unless there's a sugar rush of new money but that's not a sustainable long term strategy anyways) then it'll just turn into lower lvl competition between the ppl who decided to stick around.. it just doesn't have the same appeal
for anyone who understands what real competition is that certainly isn't it, it would turn into placeholder competition more than real competition
valid points,
but the truth is (clearly reflected in the numbers over the past few years) without a casual playerbase you have no viewers or pro scene.
imo, you simply can't balance the game around the highest level of play because then what makes the pro scene what it is (viewers and money) won't be there.
On November 05 2024 22:01 ejozl wrote: Much of this is done by artosis currently, how many protoss players in bw don't you think get verbal abuse online because of artosis succesful stream?
When you have a platform and a big one you should try to behave as a role model, this is obvious.
Protoss players have got abuse for 20+ years for well, playing Protoss.
I’d agree that Artosis’ behaviour would be unacceptable, if he didn’t behave totally differently in other environments. The auld duality of man!
People take his stream with a pinch of salt (joke intended), it’s ridiculous. But hey he’s otherwise a pretty level-headed, good guy who’s done a fucking ton for these games over the years. Given people spam him with Mario erotica, I think most of his viewers are sorta in on the OTT rage being something of a joke.
I mean, maybe the very first time when I was a youngling, I never thought say, the Angry Videogame Nerd was that angry in real life.
I’ve never heard of a player ever being banned from all ESL competition for non-cheating reasons, Avilo was and for good reason. It wasn’t an act, he’s just a piece of shit.
Even aside from the whole stalking farrago, he’d BM constantly. ‘Hey that maphacker I just played is also streaming, go harass him viewers’.
Aside from the obvious of well, broadcasting it, Artosis’ rage is actually pretty self-contained. It’s very much the ‘Protoss’ part of ‘Protoss player’ he’s usually ranting about, he’s not really shitting on the actual person. He also doesn’t really BM that much. Not never, but actually not that often. Like sure he’ll be ranting to his stream about how a fingerless monkey could get to S tier with Protoss for about 5 minutes prior, but more often than not he just gives the GG
On November 05 2024 22:01 ejozl wrote: Much of this is done by artosis currently, how many protoss players in bw don't you think get verbal abuse online because of artosis succesful stream?
When you have a platform and a big one you should try to behave as a role model, this is obvious.
Protoss players have got abuse for 20+ years for well, playing Protoss.
I’d agree that Artosis’ behaviour would be unacceptable, if he didn’t behave totally differently in other environments. The auld duality of man!
People take his stream with a pinch of salt (joke intended), it’s ridiculous. But hey he’s otherwise a pretty level-headed, good guy who’s done a fucking ton for these games over the years. Given people spam him with Mario erotica, I think most of his viewers are sorta in on the OTT rage being something of a joke.
I mean, maybe the very first time when I was a youngling, I never thought say, the Angry Videogame Nerd was that angry in real life.
I’ve never heard of a player ever being banned from all ESL competition for non-cheating reasons, Avilo was and for good reason. It wasn’t an act, he’s just a piece of shit.
Even aside from the whole stalking farrago, he’d BM constantly. ‘Hey that maphacker I just played is also streaming, go harass him viewers’.
Aside from the obvious of well, broadcasting it, Artosis’ rage is actually pretty self-contained. It’s very much the ‘Protoss’ part of ‘Protoss player’ he’s usually ranting about, he’s not really shitting on the actual person. He also doesn’t really BM that much. Not never, but actually not that often. Like sure he’ll be ranting to his stream about how a fingerless monkey could get to S tier with Protoss for about 5 minutes prior, but more often than not he just gives the GG
Artosis is equally as insane as avilo when it comes to BM, the only difference is, he's actually popular. When you are popular you can get away with murder, i've seen it a thousand times over.
On November 05 2024 22:01 ejozl wrote: Much of this is done by artosis currently, how many protoss players in bw don't you think get verbal abuse online because of artosis succesful stream?
When you have a platform and a big one you should try to behave as a role model, this is obvious.
Protoss players have got abuse for 20+ years for well, playing Protoss.
I’d agree that Artosis’ behaviour would be unacceptable, if he didn’t behave totally differently in other environments. The auld duality of man!
People take his stream with a pinch of salt (joke intended), it’s ridiculous. But hey he’s otherwise a pretty level-headed, good guy who’s done a fucking ton for these games over the years. Given people spam him with Mario erotica, I think most of his viewers are sorta in on the OTT rage being something of a joke.
I mean, maybe the very first time when I was a youngling, I never thought say, the Angry Videogame Nerd was that angry in real life.
I’ve never heard of a player ever being banned from all ESL competition for non-cheating reasons, Avilo was and for good reason. It wasn’t an act, he’s just a piece of shit.
Even aside from the whole stalking farrago, he’d BM constantly. ‘Hey that maphacker I just played is also streaming, go harass him viewers’.
Aside from the obvious of well, broadcasting it, Artosis’ rage is actually pretty self-contained. It’s very much the ‘Protoss’ part of ‘Protoss player’ he’s usually ranting about, he’s not really shitting on the actual person. He also doesn’t really BM that much. Not never, but actually not that often. Like sure he’ll be ranting to his stream about how a fingerless monkey could get to S tier with Protoss for about 5 minutes prior, but more often than not he just gives the GG
Artosis is equally as insane as avilo when it comes to BM, the only difference is, he's actually popular. When you are popular you can get away with murder, i've seen it a thousand times over.
He’s not that BM, ranting to yourself (or your Twitch channel) isn’t filtering through to your opponent. Based on previous time watching his stream, if he’s actively BMing his opponents now no, I don’t think that’s cool
It’s like you didn’t even really read my post or something…
Artosis is popular, but it’s really got little to do with it. People cut him slack because in other domains, he’s a pretty good guy and people allow him a salty stream persona.
Met him in real life with Tasteless, 2 very cordial dudes. Randomly messaged him with something very specific I thought he should look at in his ‘In Depth’ show he did with NoRegret and he was receptive and actually covered it. Had a brief chat about parenting as my youngling was a few years old and his 6 months, got some insight into how moving to Korea was. We weren’t exchanging PMs for years but a decent wee exchange
You can be an asshole sometimes if you’re a general good lad the rest of the times, it’s nout to do with popularity
EPT
