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Not to start another balance thread (we have enough), but the issue I have here is in balancing itself. My key question is: does Blizzard have a responsibility to alter game mechanics to "revitalize" the game if it stagnates?
If one (or few) strategies truly become dominant, and, over time, a balance sets in, is Bliz obligated to stir up the pot to make things interesting again? People talk about "QQ" and "Learn to play," but it's obvious that even small changes to the game mechanics enormously change the viability of certain strategies. For instance, post-patch, I haven't seen many reapers around. Is this because people transitioned to better strategies? No, it's because they were made less effective due to some minor mechanical alterations, and now an effective strategy (reaper harass) is significantly less effective... so we're seeing a transition out of it.
The issue I have is of a not-so-hypothetical situation where a few strategies come to dominate. For example, let's say marine-marauder-medivac became so powerful in TvP that we never saw anything else - a dominant strategy. And let's say that colossus/stalker became the dominant strategy against it. Let's also say that, hypothetically, these strategies were perfectly balanced, such that the TvP win ratio between players both using these strategies was globally somewhere around 50%.
Over time, as this "sets in" and it becomes apparent there are few other builds with as good a probability of winning... is it time for a patch? Statistically, the game is perfectly balanced, but it's stale, boring, and predictable. It comes down to who has the best micro while executing these well-practised and statistically-favoured strategies.
My concern is this: that patching for "balance" is itself a Quixotic task. Ask yourself: why is balance important at all? Race attachment aside, balance is important so everyone doesn't all pick the same race in order to win. We like the diversity of having games that aren't chess-matches of identical sides, it's something unique to RTS play (especially Starcraft). The most important thing is that the game is diverse and "unbalanced" such that we can have games with many different strategies and the possibility of "swings" in favour. It's always awesome to see one player come back from a deficit to win.
So, should Blizzard make alterations to the game that incentivize diverse play, or is it more important that the win ratios all be identical?
EDIT: I should've called this thread "Perpetual Patching," as I don't really care about balance at all, though I do use the term.
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SC2 is a real time strategy game. If there exists a set of strategies dominant enough that no strategy outside that set can compete with any in that set, you remove an element of strategy - because you know the only case you need to consider is one or two strategies the opponent can execute. When the game comes down to execution of a couple of strategies, it ceases to be a strategy game. Sure, there is still a strategic aspect to it in positioning (much like there are strategic aspects to games like street fighter), but what truly defines a game as a strategy game is the ability for players to make informed decisions and for those decisions to affect the outcome of the game. At some point, in the game you describe (where dominant strategies are the only ones used), the game comes down only to who clicks the most accurately.
Edit: I guess my answer here is - I feel play should provide various options to succeed in order for the game to be correctly labelled a strategy game, but it doesn't have to fullfill that criteria to still be a very good game.
Also, Blizzard does not have an obligation to do anything to maintain balance. It's their game - if they want it to be ridiculously unbalanced, then they can do that (note that this is a big "if" - it's pretty balanced as is). But inherently they have a motivation to encourage diverse play - they spent design time on every unit and concept, so it's unfortunate if 75% of those units and game mechanics never see the light of day.
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Treehead has excellent points. I also think that part of what made Brood War so good wasn't the fact that it was so well balanced, but the fact that it was so well balanced and diverse. StarCraft has a huge edge on this already, because it has 3 different races.
What's more diverse? A game with 3 different races, all with their own mechanics, or a single race, maybe with minor tech modifications and unique units, ala Age of Empires? Answer: Clearly StarCraft.
What's more diverse? StarCraft with 1 or 2 dominant strategies for each race, or Age of Empires with 5 or 6 Tier 1 strategies? The answer here seems like it's even, but it's not. When you open Age of Empires, you know you will be facing one of 5 or 6 strategies, which also increases the amount of combinations you play against if you know several BO's but only one race, as is often the case in StarCraft.
Basically my point is, StarCraft's biggest advantages are A) It's balance and B) It's diversity. I think StarCraft II is superbly balanced for a game of it's age, and has heaps of diversity. However, should the situation lowercase described come to pass, it'll lose half it's appeal, and never be as fun as Brood War was. It'd also slow down or end the evolution of the game since you'd just get punished for deviation.
So yes, Blizzard must patch to ensure two things: balance and diversity, though balance must come first. If the game is unbalanced, diversity will suffer hugely. Balance between races and balance between strategy is essential to ensure this game is played for years to come.
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I personally think Blizz has a financial duty to keep the game interesting, or people will stop playing it and watching it. They will accomplish this easily with the expansions, but I think minor changes will still be put out to "refresh" the game as it gets old. They have already proven they will patch for diversity rather than balance, by nerfing VR, etc.
And what the hell is with the expansions by the way? I get the feeling they shipped Wings of Liberty as an incomplete game, holding back planned units for the expansions. I would've preferred a complete game and then had them actually add new stuff for the expansions.
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Don't forget there will be two expansions. Even if Blizzard can somehow get a perfect balance, the zerg expansion will be out. And then they will have to balance that. And then the protoss expansion will be out.
I don't think you need to worry about too many patches.
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