So I couldn't fit the full title I wanted because of the 50 character limit, but the title I wanted to post was, "I hope the balance council is preparing the final version of balance, before Blizzard stops making balance changes for SC2."
There may come a day when Blizzard will stop making balance changes for SC2 altogether. Each balance change requires a Blizzard employee(s) to accept the requests from the balance council, then make the changes, and then prepare server uploads. I am assuming there are no client patches, because if client patches are required, that means even more employees may be involved.
It's very possible that the person making the balance changes is not the same person that uploads the changes to the servers world wide. So that's likely at least 2 people involved. And I am being charitable here. Each balance update actually might involve more than two people, it could involve several people, or even more than that.
The point is, Blizzard doesn't make money off of SC2 anymore. Even though it's inexpensive for Blizzard to have their employees make the balance changes for SC2 and upload the balance changes across the servers, there may come one day when Blizzard decides even that small expense isn't worth it. I think this day draws even closer now, with ESL discontinuing the pro tour of SC2.
The last thing the SC2 community and the pro scene want should that day come, is for the balance to be "in flux" because the balance council had an end goal in mind, but couldn't get to their end goal because Blizzard suddenly stopped balance changes for SC2. I don't think any of us want to see the final balance state of SC2 "in flux."
Now, I am assuming the state is "in flux" now based off of what some of the pros are saying, such as SortOf:
I think the balance council should start to prepare for a final state of balance. And they should not assume that Blizzard will be willing to modify the balance of SC2 forever, and there may come a day, and that day may be even very soon especially with ESL TV stopping the pro tour of SC2.
Realistically, I think the balance council should assume they have maybe 1 more year of Blizzard willing to change the balance for SC2, and beyond 1 year, Blizzard could pull the plug any moment and stop balance changes on SC2 altogether because it is costing them employee resources. So whatever the balance council wants to accomplish, I think they should do it within the next year.
The balance council have been completely ineffective in modifying the game to meet their stated goals, regardless of whether or not those goals even made sense to begin with.
I'd be happier if they stay well away from attempting anything tbh.
On April 15 2025 15:48 MJG wrote: The balance council have been completely ineffective in modifying the game to meet their stated goals, regardless of whether or not those goals even made sense to begin with.
I'd be happier if they stay well away from attempting anything tbh.
I'm not sure what their "goal" is, but they need to consider that they don't have infinite time to reach whatever goal they want to reach, before Blizzard pulls the plug on balance changes.
It's unfortunate after all the years the balance council has been in charge of SC2, they get to a state of balance where pros like SortOf are so frustrated, it gives them another incentive to leave SC2 for AoE4 (I'm sure SortOf had other reasons to switch to AoE4, but balance is one of them).
On April 15 2025 15:48 MJG wrote: The balance council have been completely ineffective in modifying the game to meet their stated goals, regardless of whether or not those goals even made sense to begin with.
I'd be happier if they stay well away from attempting anything tbh.
I'm not sure what their "goal" is, but they need to consider that they don't have infinite time to reach whatever goal they want to reach, before Blizzard pulls the plug on balance changes.
It's unfortunate after all the years the balance council has been in charge of SC2, they get to a state of balance where pros like SortOf are so frustrated, it gives them another incentive to leave SC2 for AoE4 (I'm sure SortOf had other reasons to switch to AoE4, but balance is one of them).
They state their aims in their patch notes and then present patches that run counter to those aims. They're not game designers or developers and, even if they were, self-interest clouds their judgement. They don't really know what they're doing, so I'd rather they did nothing.
They state their aims in their patch notes and then present patches that run counter to those aims. They're not game designers or developers and, even if they were, self-interest clouds their judgement. They don't really know what they're doing, so I'd rather they did nothing.
Yeah, I can't disagree with you there. They have been at it for several years already. And then I see videos like SortOf's video, which tells me the balance is in a pretty poor state now. Pretty disappointing.
On April 15 2025 15:48 MJG wrote: The balance council have been completely ineffective in modifying the game to meet their stated goals, regardless of whether or not those goals even made sense to begin with.
I'd be happier if they stay well away from attempting anything tbh.
I'm not sure what their "goal" is, but they need to consider that they don't have infinite time to reach whatever goal they want to reach, before Blizzard pulls the plug on balance changes.
It's unfortunate after all the years the balance council has been in charge of SC2, they get to a state of balance where pros like SortOf are so frustrated, it gives them another incentive to leave SC2 for AoE4 (I'm sure SortOf had other reasons to switch to AoE4, but balance is one of them).
They state their aims in their patch notes and then present patches that run counter to those aims. They're not game designers or developers and, even if they were, self-interest clouds their judgement. They don't really know what they're doing, so I'd rather they did nothing.
Further, I think the balance council is just malfunctioning seeing we had multiple patches where most pros voiced their disagreement about them (most notably the Cyclone change) but apparently someone pushed them through on the council.
On April 15 2025 15:48 MJG wrote: The balance council have been completely ineffective in modifying the game to meet their stated goals, regardless of whether or not those goals even made sense to begin with.
I'd be happier if they stay well away from attempting anything tbh.
Well they can restore the game to the previous state of balance that it was at in 2020 or 2021. That was better than the state it's in now, at least for the actual people playing the game on the ladder.
The point is, Blizzard doesn't make money off of SC2 anymore.
This is a common statement that I see, also in regards to starcraft 1. Where does the money go then? You can still buy the games. You can still buy skin packs. You can still buy announcer packs. Sure it's not making millions a year, but that money is coming in. Since blizzard is not actually developing the game anymore, thats pretty much free money. Surely that's enough to pay 1 guy to sit down a few times a year to implement a balance patch or push a new map pool. It wouldn't even be a full time position, just part of one dudes job that he does like 5 times a year.
So I only tune into the big SC2 tournaments these days like Katowice and EWC. I will probably tune into EWC this year for SC2. My understanding is that the balance council wants to make Protoss more competitive at the pro level by allowing higher level micro with them, while lower level Protoss players won't benefit as much from the new micro mechanics, right?
I'm totally fine if that is their "goal." But they need to take into account that they don't have all the time in the world to get to this ideal end goal, should Blizzard pull the plug on further balance changes.
If the balance council cannot get to their end goal within the next year, I agree, maybe they should revert back to the balance from 2020 or 2021, or the balance from some earlier date. The balance council needs to figure out what their end goal is, and also figure out how much time they have.
For sure, they should discuss with Blizzard if there is a possibility that Blizzard may pull the plug on future balance changes, and prepare for this eventual date if it comes.
The point is, Blizzard doesn't make money off of SC2 anymore.
This is a common statement that I see, also in regards to starcraft 1. Where does the money go then? You can still buy the games. You can still buy skin packs. You can still buy announcer packs. Sure it's not making millions a year, but that money is coming in.
It comes down to whether they make enough money off the sales, to justify putting resources to making balance changes. In some cases, they don't make enough money from the sales, to justify putting resources on the product line.
For better or worse, I think ESL TV might also factor into Blizzard's decision making. While ESL TV had the pro tour ongoing, Blizzard's reputation was at stake because it's still a professional e-sports tour, and Blizzard refusing to make the basics of balance changes while SC2 was ongoing for ESL TV would be bad for Blizzard's reputation, for the amount of resources Blizzard was spending on balance changes. But now ESL TV will no longer go forward with a SC2 pro tour, so this changes the optics and gives Blizzard more reason to terminate balance changes altogether.
Now back to the bottom line on whether Blizzard is making enough money from SC2 to justify the balance changes. I am also into flight simulation, and I can tell you that when Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 came out, it decimated the P3D market. A lot of 3rd party developers moved from P3D to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 because the sales were so poor for their P3D products.
In various instances, some 3rd party developers decided to make all their P3D products free to use for P3D, but with the stipulation that no support would be provided. One such 3rd party developer was Blackbird/Milviz:
Blackbird/Milviz, was still getting some sales of their P3D products by the 3rd year of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. But the sales was so low, that it didn't justify putting staff to further support their sales of P3D products. So they made their entire line up of P3D products free. Hence when you go to the Blackbird/Milviz page to download their P3D products for free, it explicitly says, "We offer absolutely no support. Install at your own risk."
Whatever sales Blizzard gets from SC2, it can be so low, it doesn't even justify putting employee resources on it to make balance changes. I'm not saying you are wrong and I am right - I am saying we don't know. It could be that you are right. Or it could be the case like Milviz/Blackbird, where the sales are so low, they want to stop putting further employee resources on it. Hence, IMO, this is something the balance council should discuss with Blizzard.
On April 15 2025 19:40 Yrr wrote: I dont think with the balance of 2020/21 the game would play out like it did back then.
But I agree the current situation is not favourable and some minor improvements need to happen.
Aye, I think people discount the possibility that modern knowledge and subsequent experimentations, sent back to a ‘good’ meta, that meta may not stay thus.
Keeping the game balance and fun, with a big hive mind trying to optimise and break it is a tough task.
I think the balance council is falling into the trap of "not getting enough things changed" and also "changing things for no reason" at the same time. Like the Cyclone change was a bad change objectively by itself, but they allow more Mech play in the game, revert them back literally kill the entire Mech play because there is no other change to incentivize that. Then we have the little change like Libs Range, Sensor Tower, Queen cost that serves no real purpose, nor nobody know how that has impacted the game, rather just for the sake of "balance change".
The 2020/21 pro tour had 1P, 1T, and 7Z wins in premier, global events, for a 78% Zerg winrate. Integrating KR, it's 2P, 4T, and 8Z or 57% Z. Even throwing in circuit regionals too only gets it to 4P, 5T, and 11Z, or 55% Zerg. What are any of you talking about.
On April 16 2025 00:06 tigera6 wrote: I think the balance council is falling into the trap of "not getting enough things changed" and also "changing things for no reason" at the same time. Like the Cyclone change was a bad change objectively by itself, but they allow more Mech play in the game, revert them back literally kill the entire Mech play because there is no other change to incentivize that. Then we have the little change like Libs Range, Sensor Tower, Queen cost that serves no real purpose, nor nobody know how that has impacted the game, rather just for the sake of "balance change".
balance council fell*
it's important to remember they do not exist anymore.
On April 16 2025 00:06 tigera6 wrote: I think the balance council is falling into the trap of "not getting enough things changed" and also "changing things for no reason" at the same time. Like the Cyclone change was a bad change objectively by itself, but they allow more Mech play in the game, revert them back literally kill the entire Mech play because there is no other change to incentivize that. Then we have the little change like Libs Range, Sensor Tower, Queen cost that serves no real purpose, nor nobody know how that has impacted the game, rather just for the sake of "balance change".
balance council fell*
it's important to remember they do not exist anymore.
I want the last and final SC2 patch to be a Blizzard Entertainment original. The reasoning for this is that they are the original creators of the game and know it in and out.
I too have been thinking that it may be better to just revert back to the last Blizzard patch. Not because I necessarily think that meta or the game was more balanced and better designed.
But because, the balance council is a failed experiment, and just on principle I see the changes they made to the game as corrupt for the lack of a better word. It's impure, it's not made with qualified and experienced game designers, it's political, etc. It leaves a bad taste knowing that it affected SC2's balance in its last years when Blizzard seemingly got things to a satisfying point where they polished up some loose ends from the main goals they tried to achieve and did implement.
I have to think about all the changes though compared from that time to the current patch. It feels like so many things changed back and forth I have a hard time recalling off the top of my head.
On April 26 2025 10:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: I too have been thinking that it may be better to just revert back to the last Blizzard patch. Not because I necessarily think that meta or the game was more balanced and better designed.
But because, the balance council is a failed experiment, and just on principle I see the changes they made to the game as corrupt for the lack of a better word. It's impure, it's not made with qualified and experienced game designers, it's political, etc. It leaves a bad taste knowing that it affected SC2's balance in its last years when Blizzard seemingly got things to a satisfying point where they polished up some loose ends from the main goals they tried to achieve and did implement.
I have to think about all the changes though compared from that time to the current patch. It feels like so many things changed back and forth I have a hard time recalling off the top of my head.
Other than bug fixes and improved features (of course), I 100% agree.
On April 15 2025 15:48 MJG wrote: The balance council have been completely ineffective in modifying the game to meet their stated goals, regardless of whether or not those goals even made sense to begin with.
I'd be happier if they stay well away from attempting anything tbh.
Yeah, Blizzards last patches from 2020 made SC2 the most popular it had ever been.
On April 26 2025 06:48 Intelligence13 wrote: I want the last and final SC2 patch to be a Blizzard Entertainment original. The reasoning for this is that they are the original creators of the game and know it in and out.
That's not really possible anymore, because most of the people who did know it in and out no longer work at Blizzard.
Which is why Blizzard outsourced balance decisions to the council in the first place.
On April 26 2025 06:48 Intelligence13 wrote: I want the last and final SC2 patch to be a Blizzard Entertainment original. The reasoning for this is that they are the original creators of the game and know it in and out.
That's not really possible anymore, because most of the people who did know it in and out no longer work at Blizzard.
Which is why Blizzard outsourced balance decisions to the council in the first place.
Yeah agreed.I’ve never really felt the Balance Council as an idea was really the problem.
If we assume a goal of balancing from the highest level down, which SC2 has generally skewed towards with a few deviations, well in the absence of an experienced internal team that does balancing, the pro players are the ones with that technical knowledge.
They’ll be biased, as all SC2 folks are to greater or lesser degrees.
The problem seems to be, whoever the Blizz intermediaries are, I’m not sure if they’re good at navigating those waters, figuring out which suggestions come from more or less biased places etc.
Then you have weird anomalies, like the new cyclone, since reverted. Every talking head I follow who was open about being part of said Council didn’t want that change to go through. I’m unsure of how the internals were of course.
But go through it did, and people complained about the Balance Council, even though it appears that it was the opposite of their recommendations.
I mean let’s say I’m in local government or whatever, and I’m drawing up budgets for the fiscal year. Teachers will make their case that they need more for x reason, police the same, the parks services, waste collection etc etc.
They’re all going to be biased to some degree, equally, they’re also going to have a better gauge on their actual needs, their conditions than I can hope to have.
I can’t fill that gap solo, I have to lean on expertise and listen to their lobbying, and then ascertain what is reasonable, what I can accommodate and what I can’t versus my budget and objectives.
I think of the Balance Council in a similar way. You need that pool of expertise. But you also need a framework, and individuals at the Blizzard end with the judgement to harness that expertise while being able to mitigate excessive self-interest or whatever.
I’m not sure Blizz have even those individuals at present.
I will also say that I think the Balance Council patches are a pretty mixed bag, but really not that catastrophic either. Lambo did quite a good breakdown a while back, and the last Blizz patch left PvZ in a void into Skytoss meta for relative aeons. Which wasn’t good either, and I think PvZ was made considerably more dynamic subsequently, although I think currently maybe the pendulum has swung a bit far Toss’ way
Community will create Leagues as they are doing with sc2 complete evolution, then it s necessary to let community their own independant new ladder (for each mod of the game).
That s why they should stop the council balance or rename their team : "sc2 council mod" (with sc2 complete evolution). with a different ladder from the original Blizzard company.
Even if the game is splitted in two or three bigs mods, the only goal by now is to maintain the life of the engine which is the greatest
You don t really need employee at blizzard who make updates, you need an update to open ranking with external ladders
On May 13 2025 19:28 Yrr wrote: Splitting the community isnt the solution imho.
OP : then if the question is only about the end of update, the end of this era started (imo) when they poorly nerf banelings. It was a desperate nerf.
I m convinced than split generally leads to bad things, so you are right (i don t understand myself sometimes)
But the base community looks separated from the council and progamers group and if unsatisfaction becomes too important then i would advocate for this solution
But if it's between pro players with some bias vs 'the community' (leddit, forum, etc.) I'll take people that can actually play the game somewhat.
Not really concerned with what little Timmy's opinion is regarding his silver or grandmaster ladder games.
Probably just fatigue because I feel like I see or read this type of thing absolutely everywhere but it's wild this is where we are at. At the end of the day it's just a bunch of mental gymnastics and goalpost moving.
I'd like to see sweeping changes or a back to basics patch for sc2 as well but I'm not delusional in thinking it is going to arise from a 'balance council'.
The only way that is going to happen is by making and promoting mods to showcase your changes. Chances are if they are well received to the point where people prefer them over the actual game they'll be implemented.
On April 15 2025 15:48 MJG wrote: The balance council have been completely ineffective in modifying the game to meet their stated goals, regardless of whether or not those goals even made sense to begin with.
I'd be happier if they stay well away from attempting anything tbh.
Agreed. Game design isn't best done by democracy. It's best done by people who are educated in modern design and follow those tenets while working together to weed out bad ideas while promoting the best.
At no point has SC2 been managed like that sadly. There was time it was a top E-Sport, but you don't get to make bad decisions and remain on top, that isn't how life works. Swarm Hosts, Mothership Core & Photon Overcharge, Widow Mines... so many bad decisions were made. And only some of the issues that were created by those decisions were addressed.
There isn't much the balance council has done that has advanced the game because they won't go back on the bad decisions that ruined the game in the first place.
On May 12 2025 21:00 WombaT wrote: I mean let’s say I’m in local government or whatever, and I’m drawing up budgets for the fiscal year. Teachers will make their case that they need more for x reason, police the same, the parks services, waste collection etc etc.
They’re all going to be biased to some degree, equally, they’re also going to have a better gauge on their actual needs, their conditions than I can hope to have.
I can’t fill that gap solo, I have to lean on expertise and listen to their lobbying, and then ascertain what is reasonable, what I can accommodate and what I can’t versus my budget and objectives.
I think of the Balance Council in a similar way. You need that pool of expertise. But you also need a framework, and individuals at the Blizzard end with the judgement to harness that expertise while being able to mitigate excessive self-interest or whatever.
This the type of solution I warn about above. The counterpoint is Tesla. How many people said electric cars would fail, that it wasn't possible for them to be profitable, no one would buy them etc... then one company makes a product that is superior in it's infancy to more than a hundred years of evolution for the internal combustion engine, and now every car company has a road map away from internal combustion engines, when prior to the success of Tesla, they had none.
If the decisions of Tesla were made in a democracy, it would have never allowed that innovation to happen not just because most people couldn't see it, but they actively did not believe it would ever work and campaigned against it. They were wrong, and you can't let those people, ignorant as they are, have a say if you want to succeed.
Taking time to placate the naysayers is no way to design a game. It's senseless. The pool of expertise that is needed is people who understand game design, that's it. They don't need to be good players. The designers will see what good players will do with what they design.
There is a reason the fastest racecars aren't designed by the best drivers.
On April 15 2025 19:20 xelnaga_empire wrote: So I only tune into the big SC2 tournaments these days like Katowice and EWC. I will probably tune into EWC this year for SC2. My understanding is that the balance council wants to make Protoss more competitive at the pro level by allowing higher level micro with them, while lower level Protoss players won't benefit as much from the new micro mechanics, right?
I'm totally fine if that is their "goal." But they need to take into account that they don't have all the time in the world to get to this ideal end goal, should Blizzard pull the plug on further balance changes.
If the balance council cannot get to their end goal within the next year, I agree, maybe they should revert back to the balance from 2020 or 2021, or the balance from some earlier date. The balance council needs to figure out what their end goal is, and also figure out how much time they have.
For sure, they should discuss with Blizzard if there is a possibility that Blizzard may pull the plug on future balance changes, and prepare for this eventual date if it comes.
That was the godawful void ray queen walk meta. BC did lots of things right at first-got us out of there, nerfed creep/viper/widow mine, they just went stupid something happened and then they ruin the broodlord, nerf bane hp, cyclones, energy overcharge etc
We should honestly just revert to the prevoius BC patch
On April 15 2025 15:48 MJG wrote: The balance council have been completely ineffective in modifying the game to meet their stated goals, regardless of whether or not those goals even made sense to begin with.
I'd be happier if they stay well away from attempting anything tbh.
Agreed. Game design isn't best done by democracy. It's best done by people who are educated in modern design and follow those tenets while working together to weed out bad ideas while promoting the best.
At no point has SC2 been managed like that sadly. There was time it was a top E-Sport, but you don't get to make bad decisions and remain on top, that isn't how life works. Swarm Hosts, Mothership Core & Photon Overcharge, Widow Mines... so many bad decisions were made. And only some of the issues that were created by those decisions were addressed.
There isn't much the balance council has done that has advanced the game because they won't go back on the bad decisions that ruined the game in the first place.
On May 12 2025 21:00 WombaT wrote: I mean let’s say I’m in local government or whatever, and I’m drawing up budgets for the fiscal year. Teachers will make their case that they need more for x reason, police the same, the parks services, waste collection etc etc.
They’re all going to be biased to some degree, equally, they’re also going to have a better gauge on their actual needs, their conditions than I can hope to have.
I can’t fill that gap solo, I have to lean on expertise and listen to their lobbying, and then ascertain what is reasonable, what I can accommodate and what I can’t versus my budget and objectives.
I think of the Balance Council in a similar way. You need that pool of expertise. But you also need a framework, and individuals at the Blizzard end with the judgement to harness that expertise while being able to mitigate excessive self-interest or whatever.
This the type of solution I warn about above. The counterpoint is Tesla. How many people said electric cars would fail, that it wasn't possible for them to be profitable, no one would buy them etc... then one company makes a product that is superior in it's infancy to more than a hundred years of evolution for the internal combustion engine, and now every car company has a road map away from internal combustion engines, when prior to the success of Tesla, they had none.
If the decisions of Tesla were made in a democracy, it would have never allowed that innovation to happen not just because most people couldn't see it, but they actively did not believe it would ever work and campaigned against it. They were wrong, and you can't let those people, ignorant as they are, have a say if you want to succeed.
Taking time to placate the naysayers is no way to design a game. It's senseless. The pool of expertise that is needed is people who understand game design, that's it. They don't need to be good players. The designers will see what good players will do with what they design.
There is a reason the fastest racecars aren't designed by the best drivers.
What designers?
With recourse to Formula One, Max Verstappen can’t design a car, but he can tell you how it drives. The driver/engineer relationship is a key part of that sport.
If Blizz still had a properly funded team of specialist developers, agreed. But they don’t have a team that can do that anymore.
If Blizz still had a properly funded team of specialist developers, agreed. But they don’t have a team that can do that anymore.
The problem is Blizzard never had a team of true "specialist developers" that understood game design. Remember the Colossus being this slick cliff walking raider unit to devastate mineral lines? Remember that the Warhound came out of a "designers" head and somehow made it into the beta before getting canned because an A-move unit beating Siege Tanks in position was an awful idea?
The Warhound never should have left the designers head and when it did, should have been instantly canned by the lead designer, but the whole team is clueless and couldn't recognize good ideas from ones while they were too busy providing power without game play trying to tune Photon Overcharge. And the irony here is in 2010 League developers were literally writing public blog posts about how to design a game... and we know what happened to League compared to Starcraft.
Browder and Kim threw crap at the wall and hope it stuck. Starcraft II was not a well planned game. There is a reason playing "mech" was never figured out, because they thought they knew better than real game designers.
DOTA, Counterstrike and so many of other top games that are still being played were designed by people who did the work for free. It isn't impossible to do that, but the balance council has to consist of game designers.
On May 14 2025 07:20 WombaT wrote: With recourse to Formula One, Max Verstappen can’t design a car, but he can tell you how it drives. The driver/engineer relationship is a key part of that sport.
It is a bit different with game design, but designers aren't on anyone's team unlike the engineers in Formula One. Good game design takes into account many things to make the game enjoyable and rewarding, and Starcraft II has a lot of frustrating interactions that have to go in order for it to be a good game (and be enjoyable and rewarding for a wider player base).
And I'm not talking about reducing the skill ceiling, in fact the opposite happens with good game design, it increases the skill ceiling. Game design is a science at this point, so the player feedback isn't strictly necessary (though it can be helpful) beyond players simply playing so the designers can review it.
If Blizz still had a properly funded team of specialist developers, agreed. But they don’t have a team that can do that anymore.
The problem is Blizzard never had a team of true "specialist developers" that understood game design. Remember the Colossus being this slick cliff walking raider unit to devastate mineral lines? Remember that the Warhound came out of a "designers" head and somehow made it into the beta before getting canned because an A-move unit beating Siege Tanks in position was an awful idea?
The Warhound never should have left the designers head and when it did, should have been instantly canned by the lead designer, but the whole team is clueless and couldn't recognize good ideas from ones while they were too busy providing power without game play trying to tune Photon Overcharge. And the irony here is in 2010 League developers were literally writing public blog posts about how to design a game... and we know what happened to League compared to Starcraft.
Browder and Kim threw crap at the wall and hope it stuck. Starcraft II was not a well planned game. There is a reason playing "mech" was never figured out, because they thought they knew better than real game designers.
DOTA, Counterstrike and so many of other top games that are still being played were designed by people who did the work for free. It isn't impossible to do that, but the balance council has to consist of game designers.
Mech actually working would be a disaster, just because something was cool in Brood War doesn’t mean it fits the new game. Indeed I think despite saying otherwise for PR reasons the various dev teams over the game’s lifespan knew this and hence never made it a potent, standard way of playing.
It’s unwieldiness in deployment was what made it work in BW, once you make that a lot easier you either end up with a nigh on unkillable deathball, or you leave it as weak and lean into other comps. I think that’s a conscious call and one I largely agree with.
I have my issues as well with some decisions, I think broadly it’s been the dominant RTS game since it came out, so they probably made more good calls than not.
If Blizz still had a properly funded team of specialist developers, agreed. But they don’t have a team that can do that anymore.
The problem is Blizzard never had a team of true "specialist developers" that understood game design. Remember the Colossus being this slick cliff walking raider unit to devastate mineral lines? Remember that the Warhound came out of a "designers" head and somehow made it into the beta before getting canned because an A-move unit beating Siege Tanks in position was an awful idea?
The Warhound never should have left the designers head and when it did, should have been instantly canned by the lead designer, but the whole team is clueless and couldn't recognize good ideas from ones while they were too busy providing power without game play trying to tune Photon Overcharge. And the irony here is in 2010 League developers were literally writing public blog posts about how to design a game... and we know what happened to League compared to Starcraft.
Browder and Kim threw crap at the wall and hope it stuck. Starcraft II was not a well planned game. There is a reason playing "mech" was never figured out, because they thought they knew better than real game designers.
DOTA, Counterstrike and so many of other top games that are still being played were designed by people who did the work for free. It isn't impossible to do that, but the balance council has to consist of game designers.
Mech actually working would be a disaster, just because something was cool in Brood War doesn’t mean it fits the new game. Indeed I think despite saying otherwise for PR reasons the various dev teams over the game’s lifespan knew this and hence never made it a potent, standard way of playing.
It’s unwieldiness in deployment was what made it work in BW, once you make that a lot easier you either end up with a nigh on unkillable deathball, or you leave it as weak and lean into other comps. I think that’s a conscious call and one I largely agree with.
I have my issues as well with some decisions, I think broadly it’s been the dominant RTS game since it came out, so they probably made more good calls than not.
Nigh unkillable deathball you say? Well that's exactly how it is in Broodwar too. A mech army with all upgrades is the strongest thing in the game and it's not really meant to be beaten.
If Blizz still had a properly funded team of specialist developers, agreed. But they don’t have a team that can do that anymore.
The problem is Blizzard never had a team of true "specialist developers" that understood game design. Remember the Colossus being this slick cliff walking raider unit to devastate mineral lines? Remember that the Warhound came out of a "designers" head and somehow made it into the beta before getting canned because an A-move unit beating Siege Tanks in position was an awful idea?
The Warhound never should have left the designers head and when it did, should have been instantly canned by the lead designer, but the whole team is clueless and couldn't recognize good ideas from ones while they were too busy providing power without game play trying to tune Photon Overcharge. And the irony here is in 2010 League developers were literally writing public blog posts about how to design a game... and we know what happened to League compared to Starcraft.
Browder and Kim threw crap at the wall and hope it stuck. Starcraft II was not a well planned game. There is a reason playing "mech" was never figured out, because they thought they knew better than real game designers.
DOTA, Counterstrike and so many of other top games that are still being played were designed by people who did the work for free. It isn't impossible to do that, but the balance council has to consist of game designers.
Mech actually working would be a disaster, just because something was cool in Brood War doesn’t mean it fits the new game. Indeed I think despite saying otherwise for PR reasons the various dev teams over the game’s lifespan knew this and hence never made it a potent, standard way of playing.
It’s unwieldiness in deployment was what made it work in BW, once you make that a lot easier you either end up with a nigh on unkillable deathball, or you leave it as weak and lean into other comps. I think that’s a conscious call and one I largely agree with.
I have my issues as well with some decisions, I think broadly it’s been the dominant RTS game since it came out, so they probably made more good calls than not.
Nigh unkillable deathball you say? Well that's exactly how it is in Broodwar too. A mech army with all upgrades is the strongest thing in the game and it's not really meant to be beaten.
It’s hard to deploy. You don’t have unlimited unit selection. Toss tend to have a big eco lead so you can trade inefficiently to bust, or at least whittle it down before critical mass.
The different economic pacing is a big factor as well.
The game isn’t SC1, the devs I think were judicious in not trying to port everything over. IMO, others will have differing views.
Carriers are another unit I love in BW, hate in SC2.
If Blizz still had a properly funded team of specialist developers, agreed. But they don’t have a team that can do that anymore.
The problem is Blizzard never had a team of true "specialist developers" that understood game design. Remember the Colossus being this slick cliff walking raider unit to devastate mineral lines? Remember that the Warhound came out of a "designers" head and somehow made it into the beta before getting canned because an A-move unit beating Siege Tanks in position was an awful idea?
The Warhound never should have left the designers head and when it did, should have been instantly canned by the lead designer, but the whole team is clueless and couldn't recognize good ideas from ones while they were too busy providing power without game play trying to tune Photon Overcharge. And the irony here is in 2010 League developers were literally writing public blog posts about how to design a game... and we know what happened to League compared to Starcraft.
Browder and Kim threw crap at the wall and hope it stuck. Starcraft II was not a well planned game. There is a reason playing "mech" was never figured out, because they thought they knew better than real game designers.
DOTA, Counterstrike and so many of other top games that are still being played were designed by people who did the work for free. It isn't impossible to do that, but the balance council has to consist of game designers.
On May 14 2025 07:20 WombaT wrote: With recourse to Formula One, Max Verstappen can’t design a car, but he can tell you how it drives. The driver/engineer relationship is a key part of that sport.
It is a bit different with game design, but designers aren't on anyone's team unlike the engineers in Formula One. Good game design takes into account many things to make the game enjoyable and rewarding, and Starcraft II has a lot of frustrating interactions that have to go in order for it to be a good game (and be enjoyable and rewarding for a wider player base).
And I'm not talking about reducing the skill ceiling, in fact the opposite happens with good game design, it increases the skill ceiling. Game design is a science at this point, so the player feedback isn't strictly necessary (though it can be helpful) beyond players simply playing so the designers can review it.
This feels a bit hypercritical considering we are talking about a game with 15 years of runtime that was at its peak in the Top 5 of Esports games, probably still is Top 5 of all time.
Balancing the Blizzard RTS is probably the hardest task in competitive Esport. You have to balance out multipe asymmatrical races and also take into account map-balancing. That is tremendously much harder than balancing out Champions in LoL or anything in Counterstrike If a champion in LoL is too OP you just nerf it. If an item is too OP, you just nerf it or remove it. Because while people are somewhat focused on one of the five positions in the game, they have dozens of champs at their disposal, so if you effectively "remove" one, it doesn't really matter. But SC2 is constantly suffering from the fact that balancing out something in XvY is instantly a problem in XvZ. And people are stuck with their race, you can't just go "mhm, Warpgate seems to be a problem, we will just remove the tech for now and figure something out in the next year", because Protoss would just be dead for that year.
SC2 is by no means perfect, never has. But proclaiming it basically has good-awful design from the start and no designer ever knew what they were doing seems a bit...counter-intuitive? The game would have died in 2011 if that was the case.
I'm not arguing Broodwar SC1 is an example of great game design to be clear.
Mech working would not be a disaster if brought true positional play as it was in Broodwar though. But not in SC2...
"Oh cute a line of Siege Tanks that you spent time carefully positioned for max effect... in seconds I'll just Abduct that one and cast blinding cloud on the rest and A-move with my deathball EZ."
"And I'll just walk through them with Immortals and Zealots because Protoss deathball win."
"And I'll just do the same as Protoss with my Warhounds... oh they removed Warhounds?" I guess I will actually have to play a positional game."
Blizzard nerfed the Siege Tank multiple times and increased map size which destroyed positional play. That along with ridiculous defensive mechanics killed the positional play and the early game.
And those defensive mechanics were largely unnecessary. I was playing Protoss in Masters 1 late in WOL and needed to improve my PvP so I watched every single PvP from the TSL4 replay pack from the Korean qualifier. Zero games were won with 12 gate 4 gate, proxy 2 gate or cannon rush (though to be fair 2 games were won by 10 gate 4 gates because the other player didn't scout.)
One basing in PvP in WOL was essentially solved and dead on the cheesiest server (as it was in every other matchup unless there was extreme greed, which is a cheese in itself), but we still got Photon Overcharge. And the game became boring early because attacking was way too risky versus expanding. So to fill the time Blizzard made all these "harassment units" that could wipe worker lines.
So instead of facing a 3 rax or 4 gate and actually having a battle outside your expansion to decide the game, now you were chasing around Oracles, Hellbats and Widow Mines before they burrow (they were invisible when burrowed all the time upon release) and wipe your worker line out which ends the game too. And when they finally nerfed these solutions, the game was boring again as predicted...
I'm ranting so to wrap we saw the destruction of many of the best parts of the game with ham fisted "solutions" that openly mock modern game design.
On May 14 2025 08:51 Balnazza wrote: SC2 is by no means perfect, never has. But proclaiming it basically has good-awful design from the start and no designer ever knew what they were doing seems a bit...counter-intuitive? The game would have died in 2011 if that was the case.
You have never opened the App Store or Google Play and tried mobile games have you? They aren't good games, in fact many hardly qualify as a game, but people play them. People also smoke cigarettes to be cool. So people doing something including playing a game doesn't mean it is good, and if you can measure how long a game lasts in years and not decades... then it isn't a good game.
Do you guys not have phones? If you don't, here is a little preview, enjoy:
On May 14 2025 09:01 BronzeKnee wrote: I'm not arguing Broodwar SC1 is an example of great game design to be clear.
Mech working would not be a disaster if brought true positional play as it was in Broodwar though. But not in SC2...
"Oh cute a line of Siege Tanks that you spent time carefully positioned for max effect... in seconds I'll just Abduct that one and cast blinding cloud on the rest and A-move with my deathball EZ."
"And I'll just walk through them with Immortals and Zealots because Protoss deathball win."
"And I'll just do the same as Protoss with my Warhounds... oh they removed Warhounds?" I guess I will actually have to play a positional game."
Blizzard nerfed the Siege Tank multiple times and increased map size which destroyed positional play. That along with ridiculous defensive mechanics killed the positional play and the early game.
And those defensive mechanics were largely unnecessary. I was playing Protoss in Masters 1 late in WOL and needed to improve my PvP so I watched every single PvP from the TSL4 replay pack from the Korean qualifier. Zero games were won with 12 gate 4 gate, proxy 2 gate or cannon rush (though to be fair 2 games were won by 10 gate 4 gates because the other player didn't scout.)
One basing in PvP in WOL was essentially solved and dead on the cheesiest server (as it was in every other matchup unless there was extreme greed, which is a cheese in itself), but we still got Photon Overcharge. And the game became boring early because attacking was way too risky versus expanding. So to fill the time Blizzard made all these "harassment units" that could wipe worker lines.
So instead of facing a 3 rax or 4 gate and actually having a battle outside your expansion to decide the game, now you were chasing around Oracles, Hellbats and Widow Mines before they burrow (they were invisible when burrowed all the time upon release) and wipe your worker line out which ends the game too. And when they finally nerfed these solutions, the game was boring again as predicted...
I'm ranting so to wrap we saw the destruction of many of the best parts of the game with ham fisted "solutions" that openly mock modern game design.
On May 14 2025 08:51 Balnazza wrote: SC2 is by no means perfect, never has. But proclaiming it basically has good-awful design from the start and no designer ever knew what they were doing seems a bit...counter-intuitive? The game would have died in 2011 if that was the case.
You have never opened the App Store or Google Play and tried mobile games have you? They aren't good games, in fact many hardly qualify as a game, but people play them. People also smoke cigarettes to be cool. So people doing something including playing a game doesn't mean it is good, and if you can measure how long a game lasts in years and not decades... then it isn't a good game.
Do you guys not have phones? If you don't, here is a little preview, enjoy:
"Good games live forever"...so SC2 is a good game because it is still going on? For more than a decade by now? Or what exactly is your definition of "living"? If it is "is a World Class Esports Game for two decades or more" then there is literally only one "good game" in the history of gaming and that would be Counterstrike. Though technically Counterstrike had multiple iterations, so there are...none. You might say "BroodWar", but SC1 is clearly not on par with LoL and CS2, therefore it is not living - by your definition I guess.
"Good game design" has nothing to do with being perfect. SC1 is clearly not "perfect", still works. Pokemon Red/Blue has godawful game-design, it is literally braindead and often joked to be held together by nothing but dreams and hope. And people still play it and love it. Another example? Gothic 1 is one of the most beloved RPGs in Germany (and Poland) of all time and it is such a not thought-out designed game. In my last playthrough I noticed they kind of forgot to put in sidequests...can you imagine that? An RPG without sidequests? And it still works, is still played and people are actively discussing if the Remake will even live-up to a game that is 25 years old.
Sorry, back to your point, whatever that may be: Yes, people play mobile games - which I wouldn't consider "normal" games in the first place. Kind of how game design for singleplayer and multiplayer games are vastly different, you can't put one label on that. Again, surely SC2 has its flaws, but it still survived and did well for most of its runtime. Still doing okay actually. So they had to do *something* right. Going "well, they clearly had no idea what they are doing and people are just too stupid to see it" 15 years after the fact makes you a bit...iffy, to be polite.
On May 14 2025 14:51 RandomPlayer wrote: It's mind-blowing the current patch has lasted this long. 8 minute 5 base toss with rapid warp-ins is nonsense.
Suggested changes: decrease energy recharge from 75 to 50, disable auto-warpgate.
That has nothing to do with the current patch.
Players taking bases quickly is a problem with the Legacy of the Void design philosophy:
EPT
