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I've restructured this post so I can make my point more clearly and I think it is a central point about game design that can be discussed with regard to SC2. I've included the original and my response to FrozenArbiter about issues with the post at the end so as to avoid too much confusion from my edit, my argument and point are the same.
Proposition: SC2 has too many gimmick game design choices that will damage the game and possibly leave it in an unbalanceable state.
Note I said unbalanceable rather than unbalanced, these are not the same things, unbalanceable means that no matter how you tweak values it is not possible to reach a state where a large range of strategies, unit timing and composition choices can have valid applications in the game.
When you design a game you are building a set of interactions out of rules. There are two major kinds of rules that you can apply- you have core rules, usually a small number that govern interactions. On top of this you apply gimmick rules, basically specific case rules to get a small subset of interactions arising from the main rules to work the way you want. Good game design is about using the core rules to achieve subtle specific interactions, bad game design is to apply many gimmick rules to separate areas of the game to get your final result.
Gimmick rules are sometimes necessary and using only core rules is hard work, they're also not always out of place. The game chess can be said to have a number of hacks to make it work and flow smoothly but these are fairly limited in number after exploring the interactions of the base rules. The danger of gimmick rules is that to tweak them you usually have to apply new rules to fix special cases and these fixes create new problems where as when designing with pure rules the change to the whole system often, if correct, fixes problems instead of opening up new ones.
This is something I've learned from game design so is perhaps difficult to back up, an analogy I'd draw is to Occam's Razor and to mathematical elegance. If your equation to describe an interaction in Physics is complicated it's likely to require additional amendments when you discover something new. That also suggests that your equation is wrong. If your equation is correct it can be simple but will still cover corner cases and unexpected interactions without requiring new terms. Game design is exactly the same: in essence you want the game to be complex interactions arising out of a simple equation. Ironically a complex equation gives rise to simple interactions and a bad game.
A number of the changes in SC2 seem to be pure gimmick and damage the elegance of pure design possessed by SC. This isn't a hysterical statement against change, my background in game design is as design lead in the Challenge Promode Arena modification for Quake 3 designing new gameplay and features, I don't have a problem with change, my focus is only on superior gameplay, not conservatism.
There are new 'pure design' choices in SC2, an example of this is the terrain level walkers such as the Protoss Colossus. This is a new interpretation of the divisions between ground and flier units and leads to new gameplay in a natural manner. A hack is a unit specific or race specific function that has knock on effects but doesn't relate to any other game rules in a logical manner, the Zerg Queen being an example with its spawn larvae ability. This destroys the link between hatcheries and Zerg unit production and economy. Even if this ability is some how balanced I predict it will have negative consequences on game depth due to the poor interaction it will have with other elements of the game (the definition of a hack rule). Marauder Slow also seems like a hack, it's an ability that has been throw in there without sufficient consideration frankly. Consider the knock on of slowing- speed is potentially almost no longer an option as a balancing mechanism when considering issues with a TvX matchup, you have damaged the core rules simple interactions of SC- speed, hitpoints, range and damage with a more complicated ability that is not apparently limited by unit scarcity, tech level or mana. I will happily bet now that SC2 balance issues, which will seemingly be made better with various tweaks will keep coming back to these design choices that are fundamentally a bad idea and would only be balanced by removal.
I'll explain the idea in terms of chess- the game is created through the interactions of pieces, the core ideas of chess are having a board with pieces and two sides with opposing directions of play. The first idea was that each piece has a move and if it finishes its move on the same square as an enemy piece it kills that piece. This is deconstructing the rules of chess, what we have now is the evolution of many different board games. You can see that many pieces are logical variations of how a piece can move on a board- pawns one square forwards at a time, a rook is in straight lines, a bishop is diagonal and a Queen is both. I suspect pieces like the Knight and the rules for the King were later ideas as they're less natural. Then you can see there are rules that have been added on top of the whole to streamline the game or deal with interactions that are hacks. The first hack, in this case necessary (as I said not all hacks are a disaster) is breaking the link between movement and taking power with the pawn. The pawn moves forwards but to create gameplay must take diagonally, otherwise there are no defensive pawn structures and the game cannot function, never the less you've broken a core rule (movement = taking) into two separate rules, move and taking. Later hacks (oddly linked to the more hackish chess pieces) include the two square pawn movement to speed the game up, much as I argue hack rules do this rule necessitated an additional rule- en passant to allow pawns to take other pawns that move past them. Castling is also something of a hack and involves rooks (a pure piece) and kings (a hack rules piece), further demonstrating the snowball nature of hack rules.
Original post: SC2 seems to have many abilities that are not 'pure concepts', that is what SC has are mostly direct abilities that are appropriate for units and designed in such a way that leads to depth of gameplay and balance. It's a little hard to express beyond a game designer's instinct. Something about the SC2 abilities- slow on Marauders, a standard unit, blink on Stalkers and the mess of designs such as the Thor they want but has no role makes me think Blizzard are stuck in something of a gameplay quagmire with SC2. They can't balance it nor make a broad range of the units relevant and the current team doesn't really understand why. Poor base design choices, much like some of WC3s mean that stat tweaking of units cannot create overall balance with everything being viable. There are too many gimmick abilities for good balance to be possible but Blizzard's team are not experienced enough to understand the danger of gimmicks over pure concepts. A pure concept is a unit that does something specific well using the core mechanisms of the game- range, reload, damage and splash.
An analogy would be chess- the game is created through the interactions of six different pieces, each piece is a fairly obvious concept based on combinations of x/y and diagonal movement with a few hack rules on top that improve the game (en passant, 2 square first moves for pawns and castling). SC2 seems like chess with a thick layer of new rules added on top where pieces have special case rules, creating an unmanageable map of interactions that is impossible to improve logically.ke other pawns that move past them. Castling is also something of a hack and involves rooks (a pure piece) and kings (a hack rules piece), further demonstrating the snowball nature of hack rules.
Justification of arguments to FrozenArbiter: - How do you know the game isn't balanced? At the moment it isn't balanced and we know this as it's still alpha, no one expects it to be balanced at the moment. What you mean is how do I know it's not balanceable. The reasoning is this: there are a lot of gimmick/hack rules. It is the nature of gimmick rules that the only way to fix them is to add more gimmick/one case rules. New rules must also be fixed and because the new ones are also gimmicks rather than pure concepts they also require new rules. As soon as you dabble in gimmicks you get into an unbalanceable situation that can look OK as WC3 does but games ignore many of the units and have almost no variation in tech timings because the game is locked into a single, unbalanced path.
- How do you know their team isn't experienced enough? This is the conclusion to my belief that they're using gimmicks too much, if they were sufficiently experienced at designing competitive games they would understand the danger of gimmicks and have avoided them. Another thing that leads me to believe this is the Thor. They are emotionally attached to it and obviously want it in while it lacks a role. That's terrible game design. The role comes first, you fill it with something that fits, you don't make something you like then figure out where to put it.
- What is en passant if not a gimmick rule? It is a gimmick rule, I said it was one of a few hack rules added on top but they are in the minority in chess. It's also a very good example of a hack rule because adding the first hack rule (2 square pawn moves) necessitated its addition. I assumed 'hack' made it obvious.
I'll expand the post with the points I've made to you here.
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Sweden33719 Posts
SC2 delays have nothing to do with multiplayer balance.
And saying the Blizzard team is "not experienced enough" seems stupid - how do you know?
EDIT: Re-opening this after talking Ix. He's got some more to add so I think the topic deserves a shot.
I'm still not sure if this thread will go anywhere (it's kind of a tough topic to discuss without having access even to the beta), so it will be kept on a short leash.
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Interesting thoughts, but you're basing this upon pure speculation and your own opinion that you have formed of the game.
Not to mention, stating that Blizzard's team is inexperienced prettymuch sums up your knowledge of what you're talking about.
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Basic Gameplay seems alright and can change rapidly throughout beta if necessary. The problem would appear to lay within the new Battle.net structure. They obviously want to have it proven before going through with the beta and going through the logistics to make it compatible with World of Warcraft is going to take time.
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On October 31 2009 03:38 ix wrote: SC2 seems to have many abilities that are not 'pure concepts', that is what SC has are mostly direct abilities that are appropriate for units and designed in such a way that leads to depth of gameplay and balance. It's a little hard to express beyond a game designer's instinct. Something about the SC2 abilities- slow on Marauders, a standard unit, blink on Stalkers and the mess of designs such as the Thor they want but has no role makes me think Blizzard are stuck in something of a gameplay quagmire with SC2. They can't balance it nor make a broad range of the units relevant and the current team doesn't really understand why. Poor base design choices, much like some of WC3s mean that stat tweaking of units cannot create overall balance with everything being viable. There are too many gimmick abilities for good balance to be possible but Blizzard's team are not experienced enough to understand the danger of gimmicks over pure concepts. A pure concept is a unit that does something specific well using the core mechanisms of the game- range, reload, damage and splash.
An analogy would be chess- the game is created through the interactions of six different pieces, each piece is a fairly obvious concept based on combinations of x/y and diagonal movement with a few hack rules on top that improve the game (en passant, 2 square first moves for pawns and castling). SC2 seems like chess with a thick layer of new rules added on top where pieces have special case rules, creating an unmanageable map of interactions that is impossible to improve logically.
I love you.
The unfortunate thing about your assertion is that I cannot understand how you have evidence to justify it. But it's nice seeing that people actually understand game design, at least a little bit.
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The more times go by, the more convinced I am that it's NOT that hard to make a good 3 race game.
Before, I was convinced we'd never see anything like SC ever again, I thought it was pure luck and that it couldn't happen again. I was right about the luck part I think, but now I'm almost sure it's possible to make a 3 races game that'll be completely different than SC and still be balanced.
And it's not all that hard I think... they'll maybe need some more time, but I'm sure SC2 will rock the world once it comes out.
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Balance issues would be no reason at all to hold off beta. Beta would actually be the reason to improve and test balance and get massive scale (and very cheap) feedback. I won't say that SC2's damage rules and mechanics are good enough, but analysis of the beta feedback should prove or disprove that.
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I can understand the point you're trying to make, but I don't think it is the case.
Blizzard approached this project in a very intelligent way, in that every single ability has a variable which can be raised or lowered to balance them all out.
Take for instance the blink with stalkers. By introducing an absolute, which is the fact that the unit could travel instantly, you would instinctively think that it would create gameplay imbalances. And I do agree, this creates volatility in balance, however there are several other variables that can be manipulated to balance out this absolute game mechanic. The first is obvious, you could change how often the unit can blink. How about how much HP the blinking unit has, or damage. A blinking unit is only as powerful as its payload.
I think the game, in its current state, has some of what you might call "gimmicks" but every new feature falls under fire until someone comes and does it right, and it goes from gimmick, to "the standard".
With a game with this many units, it takes a while to get the game to a point where its close enough to balanced to be acceptable. That's why I think the game is taking awhile, on top of the fact that the company dedicated to the level of precision we've seen in their other titles.
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Very good and interesting post. It's a good thing this game is just still in its early beta stages... but I worry...
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Very good post. That's my concern since most of the units were announced, and that's what I thought when I played at Blizzcon too.
SC2 feels very gimmicky here and there. Many people believe what made Starcraft so great was it's balance, but I always thought it was the units. Every single unit in Starcraft is so simple but at the same time, extremely creative and awesome. Most new units in SC2 are either boring or unintuitive.
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If valve can mess up counter strike
Blizzard can mess up starcraft
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Really good post, I have to agree. I've always thought simplicity was a large factor in what allowed games to be played competitively.
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On October 31 2009 05:33 andeh wrote: If valve can mess up counter strike
Blizzard can mess up starcraft
CS:S is a big improvement from the orignal CS U Mad cuase u cant bunny hop anymore?
Great Post OP i agree just look at the collosus
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I agree somewhat but I think SC2 still has a good underlying system. It's not like War3 with 5-7 different attack and armor types each. Starcraft was so great because the units were simple, like in chess, but it still created a lot of possibilities.
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Katowice25012 Posts
I think this is actually very possible, as after hearing a lot of things Browder/Karune say when we ask them questions regarding gameplay I'm not entirely convinced they understand the game or issues any more than "we" (the collective of people on TL) do. The biggest problem is if they were to "fix" a lot of these things (worse unit pathing for easier scouting, no automine - trading these for the gimmicks we keep seeing) it would change the game into one that is potentially very difficult to market.
That being said, we certainly don't have enough information to judge it yet, and if any company in the world can solve the 'gameplay mess' its clearly Blizzard. Also considering it will have 2 expansions, it seems difficult to mess the game up so badly it could never be fixed.
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First response: The delay has nothing to do with balance. We've already gotten the explanation: battle.net. Due to the delay, Blizzard took the opportunity to work on the campaign as well.
On October 31 2009 03:38 ix wrote: - How do you know the game isn't balanced? At the moment is isn't balanced and we know this as it's still alpha, no one expects it to be balanced at the moment. What you mean is how do I know it's not balanceable. The reasoning is this: there are a lot of gimmick/hack rules.
And can you prove these are gimmicks? A lot of StarCraft I abilities could be referred to as "gimmicks" and a lot of them (eg StimPack) can be found on the most basic units.
- How do you know their team isn't experienced enough? This is the conclusion to my belief that they're using gimmicks too much, if they were sufficiently experienced at designing competitive games they would understand the danger of gimmicks and have avoided them.
Assuming your comments on gimmicks are accurate, then I think this is untrue. Blizzard is the same game company that made Warcraft III, filled with the very "gimmicks" you hate.
Another thing that leads me to believe this is the Thor. They are emotionally attached to it
The artist, I believe Samwise Didier, is emotionally attached to it. So? Blizzard gets attached to a lot of units they dumped.
In fact, Blizzard has "strike teams" designed to avoid this very problem. A "strike team" is a group of employees who aren't emotionally invested in something. For instance, if Didier and Browder love the Thor, but a strike team from cinematics says it's terrible in play (too big, too ugly, whatever) then it gets altered. Strike teams are chosen because they can offer more honest criticism than the designers themselves. Same thing goes for beta, which of course hasn't been reached yet.
and obviously want it in while it lacks a role. That's terrible game design. The role comes first, you fill it with something that fits, you don't make something you like then figure out where to put it.
The thor has had a role from the beginning. Barring Karune's strange post which has convinced people, more than a year later, that it's primarily a GtA unit, it originally appeared as a "tanking pusher" meant to spearhead assaults on enemy bases. To do that, it needs to be tough, and tough units are big. For it to not be overpowered, they gave it a reasonable (rather than siege) range.
The primary complaints about the original thor is that terrans never had meatshields before, and its strike cannon ability was too similar to siege mode. Considering this is a new game, I consider the first point invalid. The second is quite valid.
So Blizzard removed it. At WWI 2008 they gave the thor a cool (IMO) ability; revive upon death. The video showed how the enemy player had to choose -- kill the thors that are still alive now (and fighting), or kill the husks before they can be more cheaply replaced (probably a better move in the long-term, but not so great if you're being smashed by thors now). Alas, it didn't seem to work out.
So Blizzard tried a new ability - the old strike cannon, but (as far as I can tell) without AoE and stuns the victim. I don't think Blizzard should be bashed for trying out new abilities.
Furthermore, Blizzard removed the Predator, since it's special ability (one used by the Raven now) didn't work well. Even as of BlizzCon 2009 it still had problems (it's not easy to tell when it's actually blocking an attack, how many it can attack, etc). Blizzard may eventually get this to work, or maybe they'll just dump the ability, but either way they removed the Predator for a while, leaving the terrans without a counter for those giant muta balls. To reintroduce it would require removing another unit, and I personally can't picture a unit that can be safely removed. (Some people will say "the thor" but that leaves the terrans without a pushing option that isn't a siege tank.) And of course, the thor's GtA attack is almost the opposite of a goliath's. (Goliaths ensured that AtG was weak, unless it was mutalisks, in SC 1).
slow on Marauders, a standard unit, blink on Stalkers and the mess of designs such as the Thor they want but has no role makes me think Blizzard are stuck in something of a gameplay quagmire with SC2.
You haven't explained why the thor has "gimmicks".
The original marauder had an AoE slow effect. The point was to slow down swarms of zerglings (or zealots) rushing up to your base or troops, then use marines to mow them down. They took away the AoE, which IMO makes the slow ability useless. I suspect it will be removed when the giant strike team known as beta testers get a look at it. I don't think it was a bad idea in the first place; they should at least try new things instead of being afraid of violating some metaphysical rules.
And Blink ... you must have seen the BlizzCon 2008 spectacle and Battle Report 3. In both cases, we've seen it used in awesome ways by higher-skilled gamers. (And you'll notice, especially with the BC 08 match, Yellow did not pull it off 100% successfully. It's not too easy to use, he'd have to practice to get really good at it. And while David Kim can pull it off very well, he gets to play StarCraft II anytime he feels like it, since it's literally part of his job description.) If Blink is a gimmick, then my view is the term "gimmick" shouldn't be used as a negative.
They can't balance it nor make a broad range of the units relevant and the current team doesn't really understand why. Poor base design choices, much like some of WC3s mean that stat tweaking of units cannot create overall balance with everything being viable. There are too many gimmick abilities for good balance to be possible but Blizzard's team are not experienced enough to understand the danger of gimmicks over pure concepts. A pure concept is a unit that does something specific well using the core mechanisms of the game- range, reload, damage and splash.
This almost seems like "fear of the unknown" to me. I don't think a unit has to be poorly designed because of a "gimmick"; a unit can be poorly designed without a "gimmick". It's not very different from a game stat like range, reload, splash, etc, it just takes more effort to tell if it's balanced.
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I feel that these problems, especially taken at an alpha stage of the game, aren't something that should have us claiming sc2 is already fundamentally flawed. Blizzard has experience balancing things at a much deeper complexity level than the original starcraft, this isn't some bold new world they are stepping into by adding a couple more features and strategic options to the units.
Compared to the complexity of attempting to balance dozens of separate units that are overpowered by design against each other in an RTS setting during War3, as well as the basic units themselves having some additional functions other than a-move, I can't really believe that the company as a whole doesn't have the experience necessary to attempt to add more tactical features to SC2 units.
Clearly, starcraft is a much deeper and balanced game than war3, but if anything, we should be looking back on war3 as valued experience for the company in adding more complex and strategically diverse units. After all, there's no way that after a decade, the units themselves would still remain as comparatively simplistic. I don't think many people want to just see SC1 in 3D, and since blizzard will inevitably attempt to add more features and options to the units themselves in their sequel, I'm glad they have the experience of designing war3's abilities to fall back on. Especially to see what didn't work.
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Great Post OP i agree just look at the collosus
Thank you, but I would actually characterize the Colossus as a pure design choice and therefore probably having potential to be a positive element of the game, don't take this as a rant against SC2 or change. Fliers are blocked by nothing, ground units are blocked by impassables, units and height changes, the Colossus falls as a sane point between these being blocked only by impassables. The rest of the unit is a standard set of damage/health/AOE and range that are a use of core rules.
Compared to the complexity of attempting to balance dozens of separate units that are overpowered by design against each other in an RTS setting during War3, as well as the basic units themselves having some additional functions other than a-move
Warcraft 3 could not be balanced for exactly the kinds of reasons I discuss here and is a strong example of the state of balance that an unbalanceable game reaches- set tech paths, set unit and hero choice, no metagame. This is not meant to be a WC3 argument, although I do back my opinion by having been a high level ladder player in Solo on Northrend since WC3 was released.
You haven't explained why the thor has "gimmicks".
I didn't say the Thor has gimmicks, I mean it IS a gimmick. Units are logical combinations of the abilities provided by the core rules that create roles for units. For example the siege tank is high range, AOE and damage with a long reload, if you are considering combinations of abilities you will come up with this although probably not the very clever limitation mechanism of siege. It has a role and it has a simple set of abilities that lead to it fulfilling the role. The Thor had a planned role and some complicated design elements to try to fulfill that role that didn't work. Now they seem to be trying to create a role to place the unit in rather than having a role that is suggested by the game and needs filling. Again in maths terms- I think of gameplay rather like some of the tools used in population genetics, one of which is phase planes, a three dimensional surface. We use those to create something called a fitness landscape, this is basically what you get by looking at the Earth's surface from above, hills, valleys and so on. A unit is a peak in the landscape of the core rules of interaction, a place where the combination of certain choices makes sense. A zergling is a simple combination of low cost, low health with high damage and movement. It creates so much depth from such simple elements.
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On October 31 2009 06:45 ix wrote: This is not meant to be a WC3 argument
That is not an argument for or against War3. That is a counter point to your claim that blizzard lacks the experience to add additional "gimmicks" to their traditionally a-move basic starcraft units. They have a ton of experience with those "gimmicks" from war3, and though the game itself lacks the complexity and balance of starcraft, that experience is most certainly useful in the type of things they are attempting to add to SC2, regardless of what you think of the game.
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