EPTOn October 16 2025 20:36 Captain Peabody wrote:
everything people complain about with the Queen and larvae and Chronoboost and Warp Gate and M&M&M is in fact just good asymmetric design. SC2 is very well designed precisely because all three races have unique things that not only are, but feel strong to the point of busted, but in reality are made up for by things that the other races have. that's precisely what makes the game fun and successful. players want to feel like they can explode and do crazy things and get away with things: that's the whole appeal of an RTS game with asymmetric balance.
this is in fact just as if not more true in BW, where every race has things that are absolutely busted and would be unplayable if ported into SC2.
the opposite is what makes dime-a-dozen RTSes fail, when races are either more or less identical except for slightly different units, with no mechanics that set them strongly apart in terms of playstyle, or when special units and mechanics feel weak and like they don't have much visceral impact on the gamestate.
everything people complain about with the Queen and larvae and Chronoboost and Warp Gate and M&M&M is in fact just good asymmetric design. SC2 is very well designed precisely because all three races have unique things that not only are, but feel strong to the point of busted, but in reality are made up for by things that the other races have. that's precisely what makes the game fun and successful. players want to feel like they can explode and do crazy things and get away with things: that's the whole appeal of an RTS game with asymmetric balance.
this is in fact just as if not more true in BW, where every race has things that are absolutely busted and would be unplayable if ported into SC2.
the opposite is what makes dime-a-dozen RTSes fail, when races are either more or less identical except for slightly different units, with no mechanics that set them strongly apart in terms of playstyle, or when special units and mechanics feel weak and like they don't have much visceral impact on the gamestate.
SC2 is very well designed not only with asymmetric design but asymmetric strength that changes throughout the game. Consistent change in racial imbalance in-game is what makes RTS great. Simple harmonic motion of strength displacement in a 1v1 game. When this motion gets heavily impeded or stops by and not by player intervention the game losses its defining quality as a great RTS game. Imagine a pendulum that swings both ways and in different magnitude representing maximum potential of a faction at any given time. The pendulum gets stuck one way and doesn't fall back down for a very long time once Z max out and turtles.
This is bad because all other timing Z can take to get ahead pales in comparison to this one late game strategy and is just not worth taking. I assume by giving Z quicker access to spire and better Banes Blizz intern is pushing for increased variety and incentivize Z enough to take a different path. But without addressing late game mechanics that's fundamental to the game, there is now more tools for Z to get there.
