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Northern Ireland24162 Posts
On March 19 2025 05:20 SharkStarcraft wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2025 04:56 Pentarp wrote:On March 19 2025 04:36 SharkStarcraft wrote:
How should a competitive scene even exist if balance wasn't revolving around the top? Remove Zealot Shields cause noobs can't micro against chargelots? Every game with a pro scene focuses on the top if im not mistaken, and imo for good reason - let's say Terran is the "baseline most difficult race to play well" for this argument's sake and therefore receives buffs not fit for pro play - over time, we would be back to the glory days of GomTvT in a more extreme manner than back then. Competitive scene is suffering despite balancing only around the top. Game is just not fun to play at lower skill levels. I'm not great in Overwatch either but damn is that game fun (until I get burned-out but that's every game). You can aim buffs and nerfs to target units with high skill ceiling vs low skill ceiling so that pro scene vs casual scene are both considered in the process. No one is asking for a drastic change that leads to one race dominating. So save your fearmongering. If you don't see the problem with Clem choosing Protoss vs T because he cannot get enough practice vs T on ladder, that's a sad situation even for the pros. Noobs also matter because when young noobs pick up the game, and gradually get better at it, they might become pros. If you make the game oppressive at lower skill levels, they won't become the next pro players. I don't agree. How could you buff a unit for lower skill levels that wouldn't break them at pro level? Even automatic injects or something like that would give pros a huge edge too. Could you give an example of a sensible change? The high barrier of entry is one of the main reasons SC2 experienced its downfall, I'm not arguing against that - but that's the nature of the game, you can't compare it to Overwatch, it's just a highly complex game by nature. A few tweaks here and there won't change the fact that a competitive SC2 looks like rocket science to the uninformed. In my opinion, making the campaign free to play was a good start, as I feel like it best eases people new to RTS into the game. That and constant patches, let's not call it catering towards lower level play, but quality of life changes for everyone, would have done wonders, especially during a time such as BL inf.
Lambo in a recent video made the point that changing Carrier’s interceptor targeting priority was a big, big help to lower level players, but didn’t affect pro players at all. High level players don’t have an issue target firing Carriers, but lower level players in an A-move versus A-move, or merely bad targeting would get shredded while interceptors tanked a ton of damage.
Not so much a buff, but you can make changes that help the scrubs but don’t really impact pro play.
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On March 19 2025 05:20 SharkStarcraft wrote:I don't agree. How could you buff a unit for lower skill levels that wouldn't break them at pro level? Even automatic injects or something like that would give pros a huge edge too. Could you give an example of a sensible change?
I don't think the injects are problematic especially since it's stackable.
a bad colossus gang swipe, a huge storm, mine hit, a nova hit can be devastating.
but here's one off the top of my head.
a noob friendlier queen: when inject is on auto cast, the queen, after a certain idle period (15+s?) would move closer to the nearest hatch if she would be far away (wandering queen, lost / not hotkeyed creep queens). when a hatchery would be idle (not injected) for more than a certain period (20+s?), one of the nearby auto injecting queens (max energy) would inject it.
they would not stack injects, would not inject asap. inject efficiency could be 50-60% this way.
and an extra
disruptor nova does not explode automatically.
has the same lifetime as now, explosion can and must be triggered manually, using a hotkey (maybe between t+1..end of nova life, can't blow up asap to allow some counterplay if surrounded).
if not triggered, nova would not do damage.
there could be others as well.
why not give some meaning to the metal borders / leagues affecting ladder play only.
for example let the game speed be fast for < plat leagues, maybe even normal for < gold.
disallow constructing or landing of buildings on the opponent's half of the map in the first 5 minutes for < dia.
(I'm looking at my boys playing the game, the older one already played some ladder, but there's no way the younger 2 would have any good experience trying it. they play against each other and/or friends like we did it 25+ years ago heh).
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On March 19 2025 05:20 SharkStarcraft wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2025 04:56 Pentarp wrote:On March 19 2025 04:36 SharkStarcraft wrote:
How should a competitive scene even exist if balance wasn't revolving around the top? Remove Zealot Shields cause noobs can't micro against chargelots? Every game with a pro scene focuses on the top if im not mistaken, and imo for good reason - let's say Terran is the "baseline most difficult race to play well" for this argument's sake and therefore receives buffs not fit for pro play - over time, we would be back to the glory days of GomTvT in a more extreme manner than back then. Competitive scene is suffering despite balancing only around the top. Game is just not fun to play at lower skill levels. I'm not great in Overwatch either but damn is that game fun (until I get burned-out but that's every game). You can aim buffs and nerfs to target units with high skill ceiling vs low skill ceiling so that pro scene vs casual scene are both considered in the process. No one is asking for a drastic change that leads to one race dominating. So save your fearmongering. If you don't see the problem with Clem choosing Protoss vs T because he cannot get enough practice vs T on ladder, that's a sad situation even for the pros. Noobs also matter because when young noobs pick up the game, and gradually get better at it, they might become pros. If you make the game oppressive at lower skill levels, they won't become the next pro players. I don't agree. How could you buff a unit for lower skill levels that wouldn't break them at pro level? Even automatic injects or something like that would give pros a huge edge too. Could you give an example of a sensible change? The high barrier of entry is one of the main reasons SC2 experienced its downfall, I'm not arguing against that - but that's the nature of the game, you can't compare it to Overwatch, it's just a highly complex game by nature. A few tweaks here and there won't change the fact that a competitive SC2 looks like rocket science to the uninformed. In my opinion, making the campaign free to play was a good start, as I feel like it best eases people new to RTS into the game. That and constant patches, let's not call it catering towards lower level play, but quality of life changes for everyone, would have done wonders, especially during a time such as BL inf.
I'm proposing a fundamental change at looking at balance to reward skill and punish mistakes in a manner that recognizes the state of balance across all skill levels.
Buffing Protoss because they're not winning tournaments, while ignoring the very healthy representation of Protoss at lower-tier pro level and GM, is exactly the attitude that lead to BL/Infestor and SHvsSH eras. (GomTvT era was because the game was just so new, imo). If we only balance for the very top players (since Serral and Clem are winning almost everything), the next few years of SC2 scene will be flooded by PvPs.
And I agree with you that GomTvT and BL/infestor was bad for the scene - which is why a flood of PvP will also be bad for the scene that's already struggling.
I also agree that automatic injects would give a huge egde to pros. But it would do less for Serral compared to a lower tier pro. So you can see how chargelots being strong isn't just an issue for the noobs; chargelots demand more APM and attention from opponents than the user. Yeah it's okay for Clem who has plenty of APM and attention to spare, but sucks for everyone else.
Since you asked for a suggestion, I would propose that Protoss units cost a bit less for a bit less HP/supply. Let's tweak that design philosophy a bit. Protoss needs changes, through a combination of buffs and nerfs, that reward skill and nerfs deathball. There's very little difference in gameplay between a top tier pro or lower-tier pro/highGM Protoss once they've got their deathball.
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This is completely the wrong way to look at balance because it is tied to game design.
There are many bad mechanics in Starcraft II (Window Mine, Abduct, etc...) that are difficult for lower level players to handle and are not fun, so they feel imbalanced. Certainly, at some point skill can overcome these bad mechanics, but had Starcraft II followed modern game design tenets and not created power without gameplay (at least they removed Pylon Overcharge which was the worst example) and other mechanics where anti-fun exceeds anti-fun, it would be still the largest E-Sport.
The real solution that allows the game to be balanced at all levels is to fix or remove the bad mechanics.
But like many others, I just play League like so many others.
https://lawofgamedesign.com/2014/02/20/zileas-list-of-game-design-anti-fun-patterns/
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Northern Ireland24162 Posts
Doesn’t League have similarly frustrating things though? I mean I really don’t know much about the game at all so I may be wrong!
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On March 25 2025 21:30 WombaT wrote:
Doesn’t League have similarly frustrating things though? I mean I really don’t know much about the game at all so I may be wrong!
What's different about League or MoBA's in general is that the variety of heroes makes it easier to avoid mechanics players don't find fun.
Don't like how a hero plays? Don't play it. Don't like playing against a certain hero? Ban it, or play a different lane.
In SC2, there's only 3 races, there's only 9 match ups. If there are unfun mechanics in any of the match ups, it's much harder to avoid having to just deal with them.
When one race has more of these unfun mechanics than others, it's a much bigger problem than it is in league if a couple of heroes have unfun mechanics because you can't just avoid fighting one of the 3 races like you can avoid playing against heroes you don't like in league.
Now you can do things like If you hate Skytoss for example, you can just all in them and force the game to be over before Skytoss becomes a factor, but that in turn creates its own problem of feeling like you HAVE to play a certain way just to avoid having to fight something you hate dealing with. There's also the teammate aspect in MoBAs where if you are dealing with something you hate dealing with you can always call allies for help. SC2 doesnt have a teammate option, if you're dealing with something you hate dealing with you either gotta tough it out or just leave.
Now MoBAs have their own set of issues like toxic teammates, griefing, and all kinds of other shit. But in terms of gameplay, it's easier to see how having a few bad mechanics is much easier to work around in those games than in a full RTS like SC2.
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I think it should be balanced around the top 50-100 players or so. And made fun and interesting for the normies - e.g., not too frustrating, not too difficult to start, robust strategies/tactics available, cool, etc.
Like, if you want to play pro, you want to be top hundred-ish, basically regardless of entertainment genre/niche (think other competitive games like Chess, other eSports, major sports, singers, actors, etc.) For the rest of us, it just has to be fun and easy to start, like I could sing songs at a karaoke bar, but I ain't singing like a Bruno Mars. And yeah, the music industry is doing alright (overall, but debatable for whom)
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At this point there should be separate ladder/matchaking with mutators. Like, neutral creeps attack both bases, fliers 2x damage, immortal workers, etc. Something like Hearthstone Tavern Brawl mode.
Ranked is more or less fine at this moment, if you are lower than Diamond you can improve regardless of balance. But we need some innovation to keep the massess playing the game, not just watching.
And of course buff Zerg, not all of us are Serral 
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On March 27 2025 18:42 Ch3rry wrote:At this point there should be separate ladder/matchaking with mutators. Like, neutral creeps attack both bases, fliers 2x damage, immortal workers, etc. Something like Hearthstone Tavern Brawl mode. Ranked is more or less fine at this moment, if you are lower than Diamond you can improve regardless of balance. But we need some innovation to keep the massess playing the game, not just watching. And of course buff Zerg, not all of us are Serral
I agree, the ladder block a ton of possibility, they could reduce the number of league and allow community to play to best mods on some ladders. I mean, sc2 evo complete should be playable in a dedicated ladder,
while starbow even if it has never been fixed, would have been playable as well if they have finished to fix all issues
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Northern Ireland24162 Posts
On March 27 2025 18:42 Ch3rry wrote:At this point there should be separate ladder/matchaking with mutators. Like, neutral creeps attack both bases, fliers 2x damage, immortal workers, etc. Something like Hearthstone Tavern Brawl mode. Ranked is more or less fine at this moment, if you are lower than Diamond you can improve regardless of balance. But we need some innovation to keep the massess playing the game, not just watching. And of course buff Zerg, not all of us are Serral
I wouldn’t go that extreme myself, I’m something of a believer in having some core standard mode. Perhaps I’m too conservative in this sense, I just find too much deviation can maybe dilute the player base further rather than actually boost it.
But I do think they’ve missed a load of tricks with unranked mode. It’s just ladder for those with ladder anxiety and isn’t much more casually-focused at all.
Maybe I just wanna play PvT all day. Or maybe I wanna try a new faction, and start from a fresh MMR rather than that of my main and have to get stomped to find my new starting point. Or on the flip side, if I switch back after my experiment, stomp most of my opponents on my way back up.
I feel there’s a lot more unranked mode could have done to scratch that itch of ‘proper’ StarCraft, but be more casual-friendly and different from ranked ladder.
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On March 25 2025 21:24 BronzeKnee wrote:This is completely the wrong way to look at balance because it is tied to game design. There are many bad mechanics in Starcraft II (Window Mine, Abduct, etc...) that are difficult for lower level players to handle and are not fun, so they feel imbalanced. Certainly, at some point skill can overcome these bad mechanics, but had Starcraft II followed modern game design tenets and not created power without gameplay (at least they removed Pylon Overcharge which was the worst example) and other mechanics where anti-fun exceeds anti-fun, it would be still the largest E-Sport. The real solution that allows the game to be balanced at all levels is to fix or remove the bad mechanics. But like many others, I just play League like so many others. https://lawofgamedesign.com/2014/02/20/zileas-list-of-game-design-anti-fun-patterns/
Why is it wrong to look at balance when tied to game design?
When +light damage was removed from liberators, it was a significant design change because it removed it's function as an anti-light air-to-air unit.
At some point, balance and design are inter-twined. One affects the other. And as it stands, some aspects of the game is not just unfun to play, it's unfun to watch.
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I wonder if the broodwar approach of balancing around maps is the way to go for sc2 and instead leaving the game in a final state of balance. Idk how it turned out this way but sc2 was definitely pretty fun to watch around HOTS to early LOTV
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I agree and bad maps can easily be vetoed or removed from tournaments. Heck you could have a zerg favoured map pool inside of a protoss favoured map pool. So say, there's 7 ladder maps that are decent for zerg(not terrible like current), but then in tournaments it's expanded to and 11 map pool that adds in protoss maps to make it fair so maxpax and hero can also win.
Late hots\early lotv was the bomb.
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EPT
