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Hello. This is going to be a discussion on the design of Starcraft 2 as a game. Right now I believe Starcraft 2 is at a very important point right now. Starcraft is getting more attention than ever. People are so focused right now on balancing Starcraft, finding sponsors, bringing money into the game, etc. All this is extremely important, but I believe a equally important aspect of the game is being left behind. Something no one is talking about or seem to care about. I'm talking about design of the game.
Now I recognize this is a competitive game. People are going to be more concerned about balance. What do they care about design as long as everything is balanced? But you have to understand, the lifeblood of an e-sport aren't the competitive players. It's the people watching. It's the casuals that might play a couple hours a week. While it is extremely important to keep the game balanced, it is even more important to keep the games exciting and fresh for the casual players, the watchers of the Starcraft tournaments. It is super important to keep the game varied for players of all levels.
The way Blizzard seems to be pulling the direction of the game is very worrying to me. They seem to be streamlining the game, making sure the current metagame strategies remain balanced and remain the dominant strategies. This is extremely dangerous. Now matter how balanced a game is, Starcraft 2 must have variety at the highest level of play. Pros may not care, but the people watching do. Starcraft 2 may be the most balanced game in the world, but if the games play out similarly, observers will become bored and stop watching. Less observers = less interest = less sponsors = the death of SC2 as an esport.
Let me give an example of what I'm talking about.
Briefly skim through the Starcraft 1 Patch Notes.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Patches
Now skim through the Starcraft 2 Patch Notes.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Patch_Notes
Notice anything different between the Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 2 changes. Starcraft 1 only had tweaks and changes to the stats of units. The tech tree was never altered. No upgrade were ever removed. The only changes were changes to damage, changes to hp, build times. Just pure number changes.
Look at the Starcraft 2 changes. Look how drastic some of these changes are:
Nitro Packs speed upgrade now has a Factory Requirement.
Barracks requirement changed from Command Center to Supply Depot.
Flux Vanes speed upgrade removed.
Khaydarin Amulet upgrade (+25 starting energy) has been removed.
There are several more gameplay changes used to balance the game. Fungal stopping blink, removal of energy, etc. I'm not saying all these changes were bad. Some have proven to be incredibly good for strategic development, such as the Flux Vane removal. Some have proven to be very effective in balancing the game.
However, what should be very worrying to players, is how blizzard is completely OK with just removing gameplay elements from the game to balance it out. Blizzard was completely OK with removing Terran cheese. Blizzard is completely OK with contemplating removing warping storms. The reason Starcraft 1 has always been hailed as one of the best designed strategy games of all time is because back then Blizzard never removed strategies. They tweaked key units in certain strategies to alter their strength and speed. Never did they out right move an upgrade into another tier. Never did they flat out remove a key upgrade.
The point of this post was not to convince you that the way Blizzard is balancing the game is bad. It is to bring awareness to just how Blizzard is balancing the game. Players, casual, enthusiasts, and pros alike, should be wary of gameplay changes. Blizzard has generally been pretty good on keep such changes to a minimum, but it is slowly becoming a disturbing trend. When a balance change is proposed in a patch, think hard about whether or not that change will remove or completely invalidate current strategies. It is OK to make a strategy weaker or strong, but the outright removal of a style of play is something no one should ever hope for. When pros are surveyed for their thoughts on balance, please keep in mind just how far reaching non-number value balance changes are.
This has been some thoughts on design. Please keep it in mind.
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I do think that some of the larger balance changes in Starcraft 2 are reasonable. For example, I think that Reapers really were a problem for Zergs and that it had to be changed. The Khydarian Amulet is also a bit too strong, in that it shuts down late game harass a little too easily.
I agree that some of these major changes should stay to a minimum, but I don't find it too much of a problem. The game will work itself out eventually.
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It's because SC2 gameplay was much more flawed when it went to beta, and even live. Some concepts just were really poorly thought-out and hence they needed to change a lot of stuff. Like the alpha Roaches and the early Reapers... how could they even put them in the game in the first place?
SCBW had a lot of imba stuff but every race had them so they balanced each other out... And I think there's a pretty significant luck factor as well in that the game became as good as it is. I guess the biggest change was spawning pool cost.
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There are still 2 expansions that will bring large gameplay changes including new units, so I wouldn't be too worried about this even if they are removing stuff now.
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Terran cheese is not removed, it is still pretty darn rampant.
On March 05 2011 20:47 Animostas wrote:
I do think that some of the larger balance changes in Starcraft 2 are reasonable. For example, I think that Reapers really were a problem for Zergs and that it had to be changed. The Khydarian Amulet is also a bit too strong, in that it shuts down late game harass a little too easily.
I agree that some of these major changes should stay to a minimum, but I don't find it too much of a problem. The game will work itself out eventually.
The reason reapers were nerfed is because reaper/ling 2s were dominating the 2s scene. It was literally impossible for comps like P/P to beat this. I do not have a source I think it was in an interview.
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On March 05 2011 20:52 Drium wrote:
There are still 2 expansions that will bring large gameplay changes including new units.
no. probably not. read the recent interview.
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On March 05 2011 20:51 Shikyo wrote:
It's because SC2 gameplay was much more flawed when it went to beta, and even live. Some concepts just were really poorly thought-out and hence they needed to change a lot of stuff. Like the alpha Roaches and the early Reapers... how could they even put them in the game in the first place?
SCBW had a lot of imba stuff but every race had them so they balanced each other out... And I think there's a pretty significant luck factor as well in that the game became as good as it is. I guess the biggest change was spawning pool cost.
I believe it's also the fact that they didn't create the structure from ground up. I read somewhere that the BW designers had a formula for the techtrees. This is not to take anything away from the Starcraft 2 designers. It's a great and very fun game, but it is build up on a system they didnt create and sometimes doing changes on a very stable system you didn't design from ground up can lead to all kinds of unforeseeable outcomes.
To me it is understandable to tweak the game in the way they have to do it now. Suddenly what was in BW plays out completely different in SC2. And what was added might sit way too loose in the system.
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On March 05 2011 20:55 lofung wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2011 20:52 Drium wrote:
There are still 2 expansions that will bring large gameplay changes including new units. no. probably not. read the recent interview.
Blizzard has lied before about games, patches, expansions. The game will actually most likely contain more units if it didn't why would anyone pay for it? The hella boring campaign which you can play one race in? No thanks if there are no new units I will pirate it.
I personally think blizzard has a dart board with every in game aspect on it and they also have another board with things like remove, totally modify, increase, decrease, and fuck with the gamer's heads.
All kidding aside I don't think they actually know what they're doing with this game. Some things that probably should be balanced are being ignored where some other things were removed or changed that could have stayed that way. When they said reapers in 2v2 were not balanced that was the end all. They're seriously thinking like this? If so good luck with that pro scene that you guys claim you wanted to support. Hopefully they just STOP patching the game and actually just let the meta game and map pool develop first then see what must be changed. When X strategy is dominating the scene against Y race after 4 weeks then you can spend 2 additional weeks deciding on a logical way to modify something to make the matchup even.
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I agree with op. While I like playing SC2 as it is nice and fun game, watching it is pretty boring and uninteresting compared to BW. Units themself lack any excited abilities and its ussually just clash of mass a-move in centar of map with sligh simple micro.Just compare anything in SC2 to late game mayhem between Terran vs Zerg in BW. Hope Hots will bring same interesting twists is game dynamics.
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I'm pretty much OK with how Blizzard makes changes to the game. They can make "drastic" changes because they have PTR.
To add, SC2's appeal as an esport not only depends on how good or perfectly balanced the game is but also on how good the progamers appeal to the fans, with their unique gameplays, as well.
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I agree with the spirit and theme of the OP. Blunt instruments don't fix balance issues well.
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I disagree with the spirit and theme of the OP. If they perceive an imbalance, what's so bad about making favourable changes to the metagame as a side consequence of balancing it. 5 rax reaper? Lol.
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intention of sc1 was by far no esport title, while it was on the board with sc2 creation. So while sc1 found its balance due to the players. sc2 had it in there already, and now the players find the imbalances the staff never thought of. (and since those imbalances are found one by one and everyone screams imbalance they have to patch it out since when its imba people stop fighting against it in a creative way)
PS: 5 rax reaper was a free win for zerg, because everyone went for reapers, its like you play against a zerg, going for mutas every game around the 10 minute mark. Roaches/queen before the spine done with the aggression, waiting for the marauder gathering energie on queens to heal the spines slowly going for infestors, building a snipeable spire to trick the reapers into a death trap. I miss these times ^^.
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Kinda off topic, but in the Patch changes for SC1, patch 1.06 is identical to patch 1.14. I think patch 1.14 has the wrong notes.
On topic. No, I dont like the way they dont seem to have a general idea of how each race should function. This directionless approach has very little appeal to me.
EDIT: It seems its 1.06 that is wrong
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- patch 1.06 - (Battle.net client patch)
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- Adds Battle.net support for Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition.
- Adds command completion to Battle.net chat. It can be accessed by pressing
the <tab> key.
- Fixes some minor battle.net issues.
- Displays cancel dialog in situations when server is busy.
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I think the OP is actualy asking for better maps with out realizing it.
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Because SC2 was designed to be an esports, it was designed to be watched, but that doesn't just mean variety, it means clarity as well. If you have too many units, too many upgrades, etc., that sucks as well.
I'm not saying I agree with the changes, but this is my outlook: Blizzard is preparing for HoS and its new units and upgrades (hopefully) by removing the unnecessary ones here now. Not to mention SC2 will have two expansion packs as opposed to SC's only BW
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Starcraft 2 and its abilities are much more volatile compared to BW. Back then you had no MBS or even unlimited unit selection and the unit movement AI was terrible. You lost a huge amount of efficiency to that complicated control. Thus it wasnt really that necessary to take out any ability in BW because none of them were able to remove an entire army like the "Archon toilet" is able in SC2.
If you want to blame anything then blame the "unlimited unit selection" and the macro mechanics which make the game much faster compared to BW. Sure they were also put in by Blizzard, but the dev team has to live with them now and a complete redesign on the macro mechanics seems very unlikely. Personally I would think it entirely reasonable to cut the efficiency of MULE, spawn larva and chronoboost in half and that would make the game much more stable.
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Actually i think the improved UI is one major reason why SC2 is so much more popular than BW outside of Korea. As a former war3 player i wouldn't tolerate the BW UI at all nowadays.
But i share the OPs apprehension. SC2 doesn't seem to be as well designed (balance wise) as war3 or BW, which now results in forcing Blizzard to make more drastic changes - and this is kinda dangerous.
On the other hand i think that even casual gamers and observers notice when something isn't really balanced. It is probably even more likely that a game with a lot of broken units will be more monotone since everybody will do the same thing over and over again. Reapers jumping on and off cliffs for example might be exciting for a while, but there would have been a point where everyone got bored by it.
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that's because Dustbin Browder is an idiot. SC2 gameplay and balancing has got to be the dumbest and most backwards in today's RTS standards, which isn't suprising since all the CnC games Browder was involved in were horribly inbalanced.
As an example, back in the days of BW, all races have pretty much equal chances of winning whether it be early, mid, or late game. Of course, Dustbin Browder for some reason thinks that this is a bad thing, thus he changed it so that in SC2, certain matchups have racial specific strengths in early, mid, and late game. TvZ, ZvP is a freaking joke, since T has no hope of defeating Z late game while Z has no hope defeating P late game. I even remembered once in an interview where Dustbin Browder mocks the 2 rax SCV all-in as 'rubbish', when in fact it's his whole rubbish system that's forcing Terran players to all-in every game against every Zerg that goes 14 hatch.
User was temp banned for this post.
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I think the OP is over analysing the situation. The reason why we never saw any tech tree changes in SC:BW was because it was more tedious to implement and test for programmers. I doubt it was because they didn't want to, you have to consider multiplayer and singleplayer was a single game in SC:BW but are two seperate games in SC2. With the new editor and test environment for SC2 changing tech trees are super easy for Blizzard.
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