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Greetings,
I've called this thread "casual balance" just so that people, at a glance, have an idea of what I want to discuss without getting overly technical. However, for the rest of the thread I will call this tiered balance. So don't get confused, its the same thing.
I've read with interest the many threads on balance in this forum over the past few weeks. Now normally, I wouldn't post a thread about balance myself. This seems kind of perverse, because I'm actually a qualifed game designer. The reason why is simply that, I really love working on games and balance, its a very difficult skill to master but everyone feels like they can do it. So generally complex points get made, ignored and the thread turns into nerd rage.
However, it seems the mods here have an iron grip and a good sense of judgement so I wanted to bring up tiered balance to see what you guys think and just as a education on the subject.
Now I'm sure your tired of my preamble already so on to the meat of the subject. I'm going to make something up so you can enter this without preconceptions as to what "the counter" is.
Imagine if you will that overlords have the ability to infest buildings. This would be silly but hear me out. So, they have this ability and it only works on terrans. The overlord has to float over the command center, some tenticles lower into it. They damage it at 50 HP/Second and once it goes red, it's an SC1 style infested building.
Now, this so far, is balanced on the competitive tier. A competitive terran will -never- allow this to happen. He will have marines out in time and he'll have that overlord shot down so fast it will not know what hit it. Zerg will be down an overlord critically early, so most good players won't even bother to try it. Later on, a single turret will prevent this from ever happening ever again.
On the casual tier, this ability is a huge cheese and it may work almost all of the time. Players with poor timings don't have defences down in time. If they do, they forget the simple things all competitive players remember to do at the same time. Like wall in/off and panic. They lose over and over and they rage all over the forums about it.
So the question is, does this ability I made up need to be changed, presuming it existed? (Lets forget that protoss exist for now).
Competitive players argue no. It's balanced, L2P, etc. All that good stuff. It can be prevented easily what is the issue? Learn to scout it, get marines, simple.
Casuals hate it, it's annoying, it's an instant-loss cheese (SC2 has plenty of these) and it's off putting. A massive arguement ensues. No-one wins, everyone is sad and worst of all, everyone thinks they are right.
The point I am trying to make is this. A casual player could be the next WhiteRa or Sen. You just don't know. But if they lose 10 times to a cheese, they aren't going to think "well, I need to L2P". They will just leave because they think the game is shit and your game will die. Had they stayed, prehaps they would have become great. But they didn't because the cheese has killed the game for them early, when they are still deciding "Do I like this game?".
No hardcore fanbase is an island. You need the new blood. Once casuals are addicted to the game and -not- before, will they decide "I want to be better" and start playing hard to win. Maybe, a year down the line, one of these guys will be epic and Day[9] will be blah-blah-blahing about him being a hero. You just don't know.
So what about the problem above?
Blizzard would probably balance it by making the ability cost 200 energy and adding energy to the overlord. This delays the cheese, probably by about 30-40 seconds, giving the casuals more time to combat it. Many will see this as a mistake, because it changes a game that was "fine" before. I respectfully disagree.
When I see this change, I quickly realise that, it's not going to change competitive play, because that tier will adapt. Cheese rarely ever works against competitive players, so why even have it all (The cheese not the ability) if you can prevent it? Plus, in this example, overlords now having energy means that you could kill them with feedback. This is a change, maybe for the better, maybe not. Imagine a doomdrop being stopped with feedback. Sometimes when we elimate cheese we can create new, epic plays.
So, in conclusion I would say. Whatever the cheese is, be it void ray, reaper, cannons. I ask not that you say "L2P, L2S, etc" and just stop and think... can we keep these players without ruining the competitive game? Can we remove the cheese but keep the strategy? Can it be balanced for both tiers?
I would argue that a good balance designer can have his delicious competitive cake and have a casual player eat it and that this is what will determine if this game is still around 10 years from now. So the next time a flavour of the month cheese fills the forum, I would ask only that you think of a solution, before reaching for the L2P-bat.
Because in the end, it will make the game better for everybody if you do.
Thanks for reading.
Update:
You will find my update on this thread here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=127450¤tpage=14#265
Update #2:
Read this recent thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163417
Oh look, I totally called it in this thread, months and months ago.
Whos right now? :D. This is a Clear case of casual balance.
Q. There are opinions that the variety in choice of strategies for Terran have decreased due to the recent nerf
A. There were a lot of strategies terrans could use before scouting their opponent. We were planning to decrease the number of possible strategies because we felt they were having a negative effect, and the reaper happened to be problematic in team games so we adjusted the balance with a focus on reapers. In the case of barracks before depot, there were a lot of games that ended before it was even scouted. It didn't happen very often on the pro level, but it was becoming a problem in lower tier play. The main focus is the pro level, but our ultimate goal is for players of all levels to be able to play a fair and balanced game. Barracks first builds were too strong in that regard and created a lot of problems in low level play, which is why we made the adjustments.
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United States22154 Posts
I dont really have anything to add, I just think this is a great well though out post, now if we could get all the people raging over how "imbalanced" Terran is to read this and think, rather than rage...
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Your post relies solely on situational evidence, If you do not balance a game at the higher levels then pro players abuse certain strategies that are the most imbalanced. Causal players will not, and should not care that they lose maybe 10 games in a row to cheese, one because this is just beta, and two, winning isn't everything and you can still have fun while losing. In short balancing at higher levels of play ensures that the game is balanced to its fullest, and provides more causal players a chance to stop cheese.
Additionally no matter how much this game is balanced you cannot account for the fact that many causal players are very bad, and you should never balance for those that are bad.
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I think you make some excellent points, and I think that casual balance is an excellent thing to strive for, but I think the vast majority of cheese just comes from the way that the game flow works out. There's no reason (and it's nonsensical and ugly) to like put a restriction on, say, the construction time of a spawning pool, which means that even though it costs 200 minerals, it's still possible for any player to construct it very early. You can't really raise spawning pool cost, because that impacts competitive balance. The ability to trade away a significant portion of your economic sustainability for extremely early aggression is something that just results from the way that Starcraft works, and you can't really remove it in a natural way.
Understandably, early rush or pressure strategies tend to be very difficult for newer players to handle. Again, you can't really change stats so much in that respect, because of the ramifications they could have for competitive play. I think that this is acceptable, because of the lack of a better option. Maybe the aspiring player is going to have to take a less economic build order to hold off prevalent rushes, but I don't see a way to really change this for the better while still allowing early pressure at the competitive level (White-Ra's proxy gates are an excellent example of this).
As for mid- and late-game cheeses, like mass void ray or something like that, again, I feel that Blizzard should take steps to help out at the lower levels without significantly changing higher level play (if it is indeed balanced there). The void ray range decrease was a strong indicator of Blizzard's willingness to do something like that, though it should be noted that this does lower the void ray's power levels by a small margin.
There are other gimmick strategies too, like hidden tech to massive amounts of cloak banshees or a ridiculous amount of base-sniping speed reapers, but given Blizzard's inability to tweak too much with stats, I think that at some point, casuals aspiring to become more than that really need to take a step to improve themselves and their capabilities to the point that they can respond to the cheese effectively, since there's only so much Blizzard can do for them without changing the competitive scene.
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Good thoughts overall.
But as far as "cheesing", you are playing to win. The game ends when one person's buildings are all destroyed. If you're in a best of 5 series against someone else, and you can pull off a "cheese" to snag a win, then go for it. Of course "cheesing" can be a risky maneuver, but that's why you don't do it every game. It's based on surprising an opponent.
If there is something completely imbalanced, go ahead and fix it, but if the only problem is that people feel it's "cheese", that's not a problem because the game doesn't care about style points.
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Game should be made tailored to competitive play and casual cakes have to sit still and accept it or gtfo. So what if that casual player might be the next god of sc.
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United States12235 Posts
Something that I think you may be glossing over is the history of SC and BW. There are always "unstoppable cheeses" and some are so egregious that they cause players to quit the game.
Mass Hydras were unstoppable.
Mass Zeals were unstoppable.
The Muta rush was unstoppable.
The Reaver drop was unstoppable.
Mass Carriers were unstoppable.
Corsairs were unstoppable.
The DT rush was unstoppable.
The Lurker rush was unstoppable.
In each phase, a lot of players quit the game because "bullshit cheese" was ruining the fun. They either went to play UMS maps or moved on to another game entirely. That is just the nature of a casual player. I should know, I've tried to train dozens of players on gaining a competitive mindset. In most cases, even "catering to the casuals" by balancing it for them won't affect their decision. In fact, it's arguable that War3's anti-harassment, anti-rush functions did nothing to stave off the gradual exodus from that game. Then it's not rushes that kill you, it's containment, or it's map control, or it's tech, or anything really -- there are a myriad of reasons.
I think you need to approach the situation from a broader perspective. The skill levels of players range from extremely skilled to absolutely terrible. There is no way to please everyone. Some players will lose to gimmick strats and give up, and some will stick around and try and discover a counter themselves, while others will investigate forums or replays for possible solutions.
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Sorry to use your post Morayfire, but I think it's the perfect example of the sort of "wrong" train of thought that I was trying to get you to think around.
Your post relies solely on situational evidence, If you do not balance a game at the higher levels then pro players abuse certain strategies that are the most imbalanced.
Not sure what you are trying to say about evidence here, I am making a point of theory. I never said you shouldn't balance at a high level, I simply addressed the "issue" of balancing for both, at the same time. Note that in my example, I may have actually added high level play (by adding a feedback play) while keeping the normal play (prehaps to infest an undefended expand) the same while removing the cheese (first overlord takeover).
Causal players will not, and should not care that they lose maybe 10 games in a row to cheese, one because this is just beta, and two, winning isn't everything and you can still have fun while losing.
No, no, no. This is the attitude that will cost you playerbase. Tons and tons of players will not be content to lose 10 times in a row to a cheese and continue to play your game. After a game "grows" for the first 1-2 years it is almost in perminant decline. You need to keep players in your game. This helps it grow and become epic.
Do you more fully understand my point now?
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I think i misunderstood the thread, i re-read it now and i still dont really understand what he says
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your points are correct in what you are trying to say.
however be aware that the SC2 MP is not a casual game just 4 fun. its a very competive, esport oriented one. its just not meant to be fun for everyone
its fun for the winners.
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By using the word casual 100 times that doesn't make this a small change. This changes too much in terms of defense, etc. I don't know how many ways I can say no to this proposition.
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Wasn't this the whole point of the forge nerf?
It made cannon rushing harder at lower levels while having no effect on competitive play.
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nice read. I think design priorities need to balance both fun and balance at every level, where lower (average) level play has maximum fun, and higher level play has maximum balance and interesting strategic decisionmaking. of course for both levels a "fun" and "balanced" game sort of overlap in their definitions, but there is some distinction at least.
with that sort of design philosophy I think you get a wide player base while the top players (who rise up from that base) will stay with the game for a long time.
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Edmon, you are a casual player.
I am neither a casual player, nor a competitive one. I am a game designer who happened to amble past. Though, I don't mind being called a casual player, I certainly won't deny the charge. How does my status as a player affect the point that I make as a designer? The problem with playing a game you design too competitively is your view becomes skewed towards the strategies you use and the perferences you have.
You really need to try to be as neutral a party as possible in my humble opinion.
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Whats the purpose of this thread?
You made up an ability and then say its bad for the game?
You wouldn't say like "well football is difficult, how can we make new players shoot the ball very hard and still make the keeper be able to save a goal every now and then?"
I mean, nothing in this game is an instant win, you have to play better then your opponent, and if you lose, its because your opponent played better then you.
Now some players might not enjoy that fact, but alot of players do.
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On May 26 2010 07:49 Tropics wrote:
Wasn't this the whole point of the forge nerf?
It made cannon rushing harder at lower levels while having no effect on competitive play.
Yes, exactly this. Blizzard already knows what I've written, since undoubtedly they too have a skilled an experienced game designer (or 3) on board. Just thought I would try and explain the theory and see what people thought.
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Casual gamers, by their very industry-made definition, aren't interested in learning game mechanics and intricacies at all, so the idea that one could be the next WhiteRa or Sen is quite a stretch.
The SECOND that a casual gamer starts enjoying a game enough to the point that they want to get better at it, visit a website, post on forums like the official forums, or TL.net, BAM, they're now graduated from casual status. How often does this happen? Well, everyone who is a hardcore gamer today was probably a casual gamer at some point. Either for their first playthrough of PacMan, who then decided they want to really master the intricacies of dodging those motherfucking Ghosts and reach the next level (my brother's story). Or, years after you've been playing video games for maybe around 2-hours a week, and then suddenly found Unreal Tournament and decided to get good at it (my story).
Here's some quick questions to determine whether you're a casual gamer or not:
If you've never completed the single-player campaign of any video game, ever? You might be a redne- err, casual gamer.
If you play video games (maybe one game, multiple games, short sessions, long session) for about 2 hours a week, tops? You might be a casual gamer.
If you prefer games to be played, and completed, in about 20 minutes? You might be a casual gamer.
If you've never visited a website about a video game, read a video game magazine, or cared about the mechanics of a video game? You might be a casual gamer.
If most of your video games reside on your iPhone? You might be a casual gamer.
If the #1 game you've spent the most time on is Solitaire? You might be a casual gamer.
This is the demographic you should be thinking of when thinking of a casual gamer. Pretty much NOBODY that visits this site, is a casual gamer.
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On May 26 2010 07:28 ToT)OjKa( wrote:
get good or die hard
that's pretty to the point. I'd really only be interested in the players that go 'ah he fucking rushed me, im gonna learn how to beat that!' and stuff instead of going wah wah cheese is unfair.
Have to balance only for the highest levels cause you know shit runs down hill and money runs up and all that, i mean especially with a community like tl it wouldnt be hard to find people of a similar skill level to play with who arent going to rush you every game. And if they dont come to tl then who cares right
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I'm really confused by the OP post cause on one hand he is asking to remove easy mode (cheese) which keeps casuals around if they use it but at the same time is asking to remove it. If you truly are a balance designer for games I think you could make a more convincing post than this. If you suck use cheese to make up for the rest you suck at. If you are really good then you wouldn't need cheese to win.
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EPT
