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On July 18 2017 23:46 ihatevideogames wrote:
All I know is, I stopped watching foreign tournaments because ZvZ is boring AF to watch.
I don't know or care WHY it happens, but it does. And it's hurting the game.
all diverse race RTS games suffer from imbalance below the top level of play. imbalance was a big reason why some in Blizzard resisted making a diverse race game 20+ years ago.
very little can be done about this and i've never seen imbalance below top level alleviated in any other game in the history of the genre. if someone knows of a game that did manage to be balanced below top level it'd be great to hear about.
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On July 18 2017 23:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2017 23:46 ihatevideogames wrote:
All I know is, I stopped watching foreign tournaments because ZvZ is boring AF to watch.
I don't know or care WHY it happens, but it does. And it's hurting the game. all diverse race RTS games suffer from imbalance below the top level of play. imbalance was a big reason why some in Blizzard resisted making a diverse race game 20+ years ago. very little can be done about this and i've never seen imbalance below top level alleviated in any other game in the history of the genre. if someone knows of a game that did manage to be balanced below top level it'd be great to hear about.
Well, if WCS Valencia was an event below the top level of play, then maybe balance at the top level of play is nothing worth striving for.
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On July 18 2017 23:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2017 23:46 ihatevideogames wrote:
All I know is, I stopped watching foreign tournaments because ZvZ is boring AF to watch.
I don't know or care WHY it happens, but it does. And it's hurting the game. all diverse race RTS games suffer from imbalance below the top level of play. imbalance was a big reason why some in Blizzard resisted making a diverse race game 20+ years ago. very little can be done about this and i've never seen imbalance below top level alleviated in any other game in the history of the genre. if someone knows of a game that did manage to be balanced below top level it'd be great to hear about.
I dunno, the game feels pretty balanced to me (Diamond 2 EU). Maybe I'm not low level enough ?
I really feel like every race has cheeses/compositions that feel imba at this level. I'm not such a cheeser, but in the one occasionnal I do, I got BMed because lings are imba. But when my cheese fails, then I got crushed, which reflects the balance of the game I think.
If I wanna be like everyone, I would say that T drops feels really good, even if this is prob my best matchup right now. But I know I just got to work on my map vision and army spliting. Even if this is harder to properly do than multidrops, I guess it's the opposite in the bane/marines fight, harder for T.
I'm actually pretty happy with the state of the game.
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i play at Diamond. my rank as Zerg is higher than my rank as Terran even though i've played 10X as much Terran as Zerg in my life. at my level i'd estimate that the game is imbalanced in favour of Zerg. i don't care. the game is fun and the matchmaker sets me up with opponents at my level. i don't care if, in some theoretical game, i could smash my opponent with a race other than Terran.
i'm 99% happy with the game. Complaints: reaper is a Red Alert 3 unit and Terran is slightly too air focused. Even if this stuff doesn't change i'll keep on playing because there is nothing else out there that is better; furthermore, these are nit-picky points i'm making.
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But when my cheese fails, then I got crushed, which reflects the balance of the game I think.
Sounds to me the balance is total crap if the a game is balanced around stuff like this.
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On July 19 2017 00:05 QuinnTheEskimo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2017 23:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On July 18 2017 23:46 ihatevideogames wrote:
All I know is, I stopped watching foreign tournaments because ZvZ is boring AF to watch.
I don't know or care WHY it happens, but it does. And it's hurting the game. all diverse race RTS games suffer from imbalance below the top level of play. imbalance was a big reason why some in Blizzard resisted making a diverse race game 20+ years ago. very little can be done about this and i've never seen imbalance below top level alleviated in any other game in the history of the genre. if someone knows of a game that did manage to be balanced below top level it'd be great to hear about. Well, if WCS Valencia was an event below the top level of play, then maybe balance at the top level of play is nothing worth striving for.
I agree. It's weird to consider top level play just the top 16 or top 4 or THE champion of GSL. I view it as pro play in general. In that regard, Zerg is fantastic in Europe and consistently reaches the GSL final. Not saying reaper openings are a non issue, but i see no balance problems with Zerg at top level; maybe actually overachieving in Europe.
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GSL players are better than WCS Valencia players. If they balance the game around the WCS-Valencia RO32,RO16, etc play level it will muck up balance for GSL level play. its up to the Terrans in Europe and NA to match what Korean Terrans can do. Welcome to the brutal, ruthless world of pro esports.
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On July 19 2017 01:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
GSL players are better than WCS Valencia players. If they balance the game around the WCS-Valencia RO32,RO16, etc play level it will muck up balance for GSL level play. its up to the Terrans in Europe and NA to match what Korean Terrans can do. Welcome to the brutal, ruthless world of pro esports.
I understand where you're coming from but if you balance around only 8-16 players and ignore the rest of dozens and dozens of pros then you don't have a very good, entertaining esport anymore IMO. I'm not saying that this is necesarily the case with Starcraft right now, but i would say that if i were a pro in EU or NA i would pick Zerg every time and Terran never.
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On July 18 2017 08:23 avilo wrote:
We all agree this is a problem but Terran players seem to be the "good guys" in the community for balance. We will be open and honest when things are broken with Terran but apparently it's perfectly fine for Zerg to have coin flip ravager all-ins, overlord drop tech on tier 1, and invincible nydus worms?
Aahahahah i laughed really hard.
It's known that Terran are the hardest "my race is the best the hardest skillest UP race" whiners of this games.
Protoss just stopped arguing since they got really hated by everyone a long time ago (mb even BW in essence), even when the race was truely stastically UP in some matchup.Eventually you argue about design.
The number of P player who stay silent when T&Z bash FF because "it break fundamental RTS tenets" (this one was a funny one) while obviously most P like this mechanics. (i mean go play older boring RTS if you want to)
Zerg players on their side argue with Terran and some whine with T against P occasionally (maybe when it's due time)
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On July 19 2017 01:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
GSL players are better than WCS Valencia players. If they balance the game around the WCS-Valencia RO32,RO16, etc play level it will muck up balance for GSL level play.
If the design doesn't allow for a balanced game for a couple of 1000 players, then the design is bad. If you have to focus on a group small enough to fit into a RO16 and have some cannon fodder for "creative gameplay", a.k.a. making fun of people in front of a big audience, we are all better off, if they just drew straws at the next tournaments.
If "balance" means I have to watch ZvZ in 60-80% of all European match ups I will not care for this game anymore. Just like hundrets of thousands before me over the last two years. I care much more for an inbalanced game I can enjoy, than for a game which yields about 20 matches worth watching a year.
There was a large pro scene for SC:BW and WC3 and even once for SC2. So you can have a game that is balanced for enough players so that there can be an interesting pro scene. You dont have to build the game around 10-20 people. The metrics chosen to measure SC2 balance are just bad and ill suited to create a game with a fanbase that is worth mentioning. They are actively doing it wrong. It doesn't have to be this way. Blizzard did prove it themselves.
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The way blizzard looks at balance has been proven completely and utterly nonsensical.
Giving a random +5 health to banelings to specifically diminish Byun's playstyle was the best exemple.
The result was that Byun is still sniping banelings with squads of marines because 6 marine shots instead of 5 don't change much. However, EU/NA terrans had an even harder time playing against zerg since their splitting isn't, by any mean, KR level in most cases.
Meanwhile reapers were still horribly abused (and by Byun too), and still are despite the 14 sec CD.
However since DK left, the balance team came up with some very late and scarce, but somewhat intelligent changes. The void ray one is very well thought, the thor one is quite elegant, and while the reaper obviously needs a complete overhaul, the CD nerf is a nice emergency change.
Now the colossus change and the raven one are interesting, even if they need to be very carefully thought through.
So maybe there's hope in the years to come if the pro scene doesn't die off from starvation.
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On July 19 2017 06:51 QuinnTheEskimo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2017 01:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
GSL players are better than WCS Valencia players. If they balance the game around the WCS-Valencia RO32,RO16, etc play level it will muck up balance for GSL level play. If the design doesn't allow for a balanced game for a couple of 1000 players, then the design is bad.
depends how big the player population is and how much money there is to be made by playing full time. there just aren't that many open spots for full time players of SC2 any longer.
generally speaking, diverse race RTS games are imba for the overwhelming vast majority that play. people just play because its fun.
very few diverse race RTS games ever come close to being balanced even at the top level never mind any other play level. imbalance is inherent in going down the "diversity" path. its a hard road and i applaud any RTS developers ambitions for going the racial diversity road... but its a tough problem it solve.
for me at Diamond i'd say the game is not balanced but it is "balanced enough". its not like i'm Silver Terran who turns into a Masters player when i play Zerg. I'm in Diamond for all 3 races and i've always been in teh same league for all 3 races throughout SC2's history. That's close enough to balanced for me.
the friends i have that play Sc2 range from Silver to Diamond and they're pretty much in the same boat as me. When they play all 3 races they generally stay in the same league.. maybe top of 1 league and bottom of a higher league. So from Diamond on down i think Blizz has done a nice job making the game "balanced enough".
i'm very satisfied with the game and the franchise.. i've listed my "nit picky" complaints in previous posts.
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Swarmhost are even worse to play against on many of the new maps. Can we as a community come together and ask for fixes to this unit?
At this point it's not debateable that the swarmhost, carrier, and raven ruin most mech games. IDC if you don't like mech play - SC2 needs diversity in gameplay to thrive and grow.
A Zerg player building 20 swarmhosts as his entire army because he saw you build 3 factories is terrible and it's been terrible since Nov 2016.
We need to get Blizzard to address this, no more talk, no more non sense updates. Address the swarmhost, either delete it or severely nerf it so that a Zerg player can't make his entire army swarmhosts when he sees you are going mech.
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On July 19 2017 02:38 Kenny_mk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2017 08:23 avilo wrote:
We all agree this is a problem but Terran players seem to be the "good guys" in the community for balance. We will be open and honest when things are broken with Terran but apparently it's perfectly fine for Zerg to have coin flip ravager all-ins, overlord drop tech on tier 1, and invincible nydus worms?
Aahahahah i laughed really hard. It's known that Terran are the hardest "my race is the best the hardest skillest UP race" whiners of this games. Protoss just stopped arguing since they got really hated by everyone a long time ago (mb even BW in essence), even when the race was truely stastically UP in some matchup.Eventually you argue about design. The number of P player who stay silent when T&Z bash FF because "it break fundamental RTS tenets" (this one was a funny one) while obviously most P like this mechanics. (i mean go play older boring RTS if you want to) Zerg players on their side argue with Terran and some whine with T against P occasionally (maybe when it's due time)
hehe you certainly were not around during the sad zealot era...that was the worst whining i have ever seen when it comes to Sc2 (or any other game tbh)
People these days blame way to much on balance.
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On July 19 2017 13:06 avilo wrote:
Swarmhost are even worse to play against on many of the new maps. Can we as a community come together and ask for fixes to this unit?
At this point it's not debateable that the swarmhost, carrier, and raven ruin most mech games. IDC if you don't like mech play - SC2 needs diversity in gameplay to thrive and grow.
A Zerg player building 20 swarmhosts as his entire army because he saw you build 3 factories is terrible and it's been terrible since Nov 2016.
We need to get Blizzard to address this, no more talk, no more non sense updates. Address the swarmhost, either delete it or severely nerf it so that a Zerg player can't make his entire army swarmhosts when he sees you are going mech.
You're literally saying you don't care about others' opinions, don't want people to talk about the game's design and balance and you don't want any other updates until Swarm Hosts are removed from the game. Hello? This isn't how anything works. You have to actually have a discussion, interact (act reciprocally with other people), do testing and iterate. Not "do what I say without question, despite much of what I say demand either blatantly ignoring ongoing discussions and/or having been proven irrational several times."
How about, instead of that, we come together as a community to be more open-minded and intelligent about how we do things, balance whining/discussion or otherwise?
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I try to remember you guys on what I am convinced of since years. The issues of this game are fundamental and it is not possible to fix it by simple adjustments of some unit numbers.
What the game has achieved in the past years, is a shift within these fundamental problems, withoug fixing them. So e. g. TvZ is not stuck anymore on midgame units, which was mmmm vs. muta bling, but went to new unit interactions, however with the same underlying problems. PvT was already before not stuck on midgame units only, but it was even worse with e.g. SCV pull meta. As well people consider new TvZ worse than the old HOTS which was stuck in midgame.
What is common amongst these things is the skipping of game phases. The current dynamics of SC2 fit more on a kind of minigame. I know many people consider HOTS TvZ the best state of the game - I do not. But that means, that about 1/3 of each race units could be removed technically. And I believe with the current dynamics really just two tech levels of each race would be enough. There are too many units in the game to make it work with the current game speed and dynamics, even redundancies like colossi and disroptor.
I am not very familiar with current meta, and I believe it is really not that important. Cause sure, we can remove swarmhosts, change reapers and whatever else, but the game would remain to have the same fundamental problems it has now, and the past has proven me to be right. And the future will continue to do so.
What all have in common is the skipping of game phases. No matter if it is the whole lategame at HOTS TvZ or if it is most of the midgame like with current matchups, such as building a few adepts and going straight air with protoss. In opposite to what one might think, the game speed and dynamics are not increasing the skill ceiling but lowering it. It takes away options and puts you on a very narrow path of options and pressure.
Game phases need to be played out longer in general in SC2. The reference is broodwar. To pick the most simple example lets talk about carrier. It was simply not possible to go straight carrier in PvT, you had to fully play out early and midgame in order to switch to carrier air. How it played out decided about how strong your switch would be and if you could switch a bit earlier or later. And when you switched to carriers, it didn't put your opponent on a timer. Being behind in one game phase could be made up for to a better extend than in SC2 at a later phase of the game. A protoss switch to carriers was at the same time very strong and very counterable by early enough adaption with goliaths while maintaining enough bases in order to be able to add a dozen wraiths to shut down carriers completely, what forced protoss switch back to ground units. In SC2, however, if you go carrier in PvZ, you put your opponent on a timer, that says, either you kill me in the frame of time you've got, or you are gonna die. Simple as that, boring as that.
Lets analyse HOTS TvZ, as in strutcure it is the same, however played out differently a bit for some reasons that I want to show here. What Zerran did was putting Zerg on a timer. It forced zerg into full all-in playstyle on whatever units and tech he was on, which was always muta bling at that time in the meta. Can't afford tech switch, can't afford but have to expand and build drones, can't afford tier 3 upgrades, just play all-in playstyle, which is to build as many units as you can in order not to die.
This timer was just interrupted by the fact that Terran ran out of minerals earlier than Zerg on same/-1 bases (mules) and the fact that maps didn't allow Terran to take a 4th/5th as easily as the 2nd/3rd. That put himself on a timer, hence it was kind of balanced. But strictly speaking it was bullshit. It is the minigame style I was talking about. Each player builds his perfect composition of units from the beginning, no strategical diversity and everything is just and only decided about luck based micro (baneling hits, mine hits), when taking perfect or almost perfect macro as a basis, which seriously was not that hard to achieve for players on the top level and even a bit below.
The same or similar mechanisms we got with reapers, forcing zerg to all-in on the tech and units that he is on, which is zerglings, don't lose any drones and surround/kill enough reapers so that any follow up play is getting possible.
Even tho I haven't got enough experience withe the current game, I can assume it is very similar with swarmhosts. It kind of puts terran on a timer to play/react perfectly from then on or simply die mid or long term. What would removing hosts do? I am not all that sure but again I assume that it would turn things around and put Zerg on a timer vs. mech instead, which is what avilo is arguing for, basically, when glancing over his very own balance mod. This is not the case with a reaper change, as Terran got enough options of harassment as Scarlett has shown.
Could go on with in detail examples where you can put your opponent on a timer too easily in present or past, but lets skip this.
I have to stop here as I got other tasks to do, coulnd't make my point yet. Lets make it short.
Adjusting numbers wont bring fully satisfying solutions, can help at certain things of course.
If I was Blizzard, I would try and think about why it is so easy to put opponent on timer. Why is skipping of game phases happening.
I myself assume (yes assume, as I have no time/capacities to try and figure it all out myself), as the game plays out too fast. Base saturation, expanding, teching, pumping units, everything feels too fast.
My approach for bigger changes at the end of the year would be to try around with worker production speed, complemented probably with macro ability adjustments (mule/inject/boost). Would say try 10-15% slower and see what happens, if it opens up the game a bit more.
The game ends up too quickly in extremes. Either stuck on certain composition and play all-in against each other (HOTS TvZ) or skipping all phases, be unatackable (too narrow timings of opponent makes it all-in or semi), and build perfect lategame compositions too quickly. Leaves no room for creative play, makes it too unforgiving, too narrow, etc.
Is worker build speed going to fix it? I for hells sake dont know. We can just try around and see what can help, the guys who are paid for that are obligated to do so in fact. It might, however.
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SC2 is not BW, you can't just say it should be like BW for the sake of being like BW and compare it thusly. They're different games and if you want BW then BW exists for you to play and it is everyone's best interest that SC2 plays differently.
I don't really understand your logic with timers, as, while they don't exist as much in BW nowadays (that I see) because the game has been so untouched and figured out so much since 1998 that players are better (but not entirely) able to avoid having an hourglass turned over on them, it has been a key part of SC2 since the beginning and drives players to be interactive by forcing them to do something or driving them to be creative from the pressure. Game phases aren't skipped compared to past expansions either, they just happen in a different way and happen faster than before in a way that causes less stagnating play and more interaction between players of equal skill.
As for the team being obligated to test out an incredible amount of worker build speed changes? No, that would flip the entire game's design on its head and isn't something that can be simply tweaked. That's something for pre-alpha phases within RTS game design, maybe alpha and beta, but definitely not at this point. Imo you may as well suggest they start on a new RTS brand because of the amount of time it would take to test. Slowing down the economy would also put it closer to how it was in WoL/HotS where nothing of much importance would happen for a few minutes in pro games and several minutes anywhere else, which isn't fun to play nor to watch.
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A game CANT be balanced around cheese and all-ins. It cant be based at what % a all-in has. Its complete nonsense.
A good balance=Good amount of skill.
@blunder
His point ISNT TO HAVE sc2=BW. You didnt get that one bit? Really?
His point is that theres to much all-in,timer based gameplay THAT IS UNHEALTHY GAMEPLAY and needs to change. NEEDS TO CHANGE.
All-in and cheeses are so fucking boring to play and watch either way. And i cant believe people argue that the game is in a healthy balanced state, because the % is good and builds have % wise good chance of winning.
WTF!
very few diverse race RTS games ever come close to being balanced even at the top level never mind any other play level. .
Yeah, and? It doesnt proof anythjing because.
In general, how many rts games have good unit control? Sc2 has the best one and that says alot.
In general, how many games use hardcounters in their games? Like every one?
Balancing a game around all-ins and cheeses and hardcounters just screams for unhealhty gameplay + terrible balance in the end aswell.
My point is. THEY ALL DO IT WRONG!
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On July 19 2017 20:34 LSN wrote:
Game phases need to be played out longer in general in SC2. The reference is broodwar.
On July 19 2017 21:46 Foxxan wrote:
@blunder
His point ISNT TO HAVE sc2=BW. You didnt get that one bit? Really?
His point is that theres to much all-in,timer based gameplay THAT IS UNHEALTHY GAMEPLAY and needs to change. NEEDS TO CHANGE.
Yes, let's use a bunch of caps and freak out about this. -_- Chill out, dude.
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On July 19 2017 21:46 Foxxan wrote:
Yeah, and? It doesnt proof anythjing because.
In general, how many rts games have good unit control? Sc2 has the best one and that says alot.
In general, how many games use hardcounters in their games? Like every one?
Balancing a game around all-ins and cheeses and hardcounters just screams for unhealhty gameplay + terrible balance in the end aswell.
My point is. THEY ALL DO IT WRONG!
all of them? nah.
they are not "wrong" they are just unwilling to dedicate resources to keeping the balance right many months and years after release. Companies that stick with it can get a game close to balanced.
balancing a diverse race RTS game at even 1 level of difficulty is a tough problem. New micro techniques get developed by dedicated players as the game ages. the stuff Byun does with Reapers was considered not possible not too long ago. Also, micro techniques get executed more cleanly and consistently as the game ages.
this also happened with Brood War and every other diverse race RTS game with a strong enough following that players spent countless hours developing new micro techniques months after the game's official release
Usually what happens is.. you just end up with an imbalanced game.
your perception that "everyone does it wrong" speaks to the brutal difficulty of balancing a game.
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