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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
As suggested by ToKoreaWithLove I make a thread about this.
SC:BW and SC2 a while ago were well balanced games and only trolls or people who did not understand enough of the game would blame a pro player's loss on the game balance. So to keep these people in check it made sense to forbid "balance talk" in LR threads. Blaming balance on a loss was respectless towards the winner and devaluated their well earned victory. It was also appropiate to call it "balance whine" because complaining about something that is actually fair is whining.
Now the base for such a rule was that the game is actually balanced. But SC2 currently is not balanced. Zerg is actually overpowered - tournament results and the opinion of the vast majority of the community show this. So if the base of something changes, you need to adapt the rules.
For example we have a company and the food in the canteen of said company is great. The ingredients are of high quality and for each meal there is a variety of food to choose from so everyone can find something. In this company employees probably frown upon everyone who complains about the food because the food is actually great and if you complain about great food you have no clue. But if that company suddenly fires the good cook and hires an idiot, and reduces the quality of the ingredients and only offers one choice then the behavior of the employees should and would adapt. Instead of just sitting there awkwardly, eating the disgusting food and smiling at each other while frowning upon those who dare to "food whine" they would obviously go and complain about the terrible food.
Likewise the current terrible state of the game should have consequences on the moderation of posts regarding the game balance.
1. if the reason why a player loses a game is actually game balance then it should not be forbidden to call it what it is. The food is actually janky - players lose games because of the game's imbalance and nothing else. "lol Infestor", "Zerg imba" and "lol Zerg" are appropiate LR post game comments of the majority of yesterday's games just like "well played gg" or "lol nice strategy" or "yay player XY" are in a balanced atmosphere.
2. it does not make sense to officially call balance talk "balance whine" like TL does in the topic of the IPL3 LR thread because appropiate complaints are not whining. If you call something bad "bad" then you are not whining. If you blame Squirtle's loss to Xigua on balance then you are not whining but giving an exact description of the game.
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1: I read and post in LRs to talk with other persons about a tournament, the games and moments and so on, not about the balance of the game
2: What is wrong with surprises? I don't think many people predicted that Lucifron, Vortix AND Lowely was going to be in the top 4 of WCS Europe.
Edit: And I really really dislike the term patchzerg. The way it is used completely excludes the possibility that the so called patchzergs has improved independent of patches.
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lol the funny thing is, I just saw that there are about 4 pages worth of poster banned because of balance whine in the past 2 days.
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The problem with this IMO is very few people, even most professional players, aren't qualified to say a game was lost specifically because of balance. Surely no amateurs on TL can consider all of the variables and come to the conclusion that a game was lost purely because of balance issues.
It opens up the floodgates that makes it impossible to moderate...
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On December 02 2012 06:40 Complete wrote:
The problem with this IMO is very few people, even most professional players, aren't qualified to say a game was lost specifically because of balance. Surely no amateurs on TL can consider all of the variables and come to the conclusion that a game was lost purely because of balance issues.
It opens up the floodgates that makes it impossible to moderate...
This. Also LR threads aren't so people can go bitch about balance it's to talk about the game or for people who can't watch can look at the thread to see what is going on.
It is also a joke when you try to discredit a player from what he accomplished just because of his race. It's like back when terran dominated hard for 2 years, it was just as much of a joke whenever a terran won they were blamed for being OP, it was retarded even if they were that is no reason to say EVERY time a terran won that he only won because of his broken race.
Sorry to tell you but those comments are stupid and I am glad you got banned for balance whining btw.
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Canada11603 Posts
We do have a balance discussion thread.
It is simply the case that LR is not the place for analyzing balance... assuming that there is any discussion at all. Mostly it's just variants of "patchzerg" gglords, and winfestors. There is just nothing of value that allowing balance 'discussion' into LR. It won't be a discussion because by its very nature, LR goes way too fast.
Just like caster 'feedback' in LR. We have threads where people can have actual constructive feedback. But most of the feedback in LR consists "X caster so bad" "I just hit mute" and similar intellectually stimulating comments.
What LR will become is the Live Moaning, Groaning, Whining, and Complaining Report thread. Not a very enjoyable place to hang out in my opinion.
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
For discussion value: LR threads have never been more than "stating the obvious". 99% of the posts are "GG well played", "awesome game" or "go player XYZ <3". And there is nothing wrong with that, it is fun and you want to tell the world that you are happy that your favortie player won and that you saw a good game. Or that you are sad because your favorite player lost or that you watched a bad game. LR threads were never a port of discussion or brilliant posts. So the "value" argument does not hold true.
Caster bash is different because it is personal attacking a single person so even if it would be true (which it usually isn't) this should be an exeption.
You can ban the "Live Moaning, Groaning, Whining, and Complaining" for as long as you want but it won't fix the game. The game is currently broken. Infestors are majorly overpowered and worse than that they make the game boring and low skill, I think everybody except a few people at Blizzard agrees with that. The games reflect in the comments and that is why you had to ban so many people in the last couple of days. The LR threads are "not enjoyable places to hang out" because the games are boring to watch. I bet no one during the last few days got banned after a Muta/Ling/Baneling game or one of the rare TvPs or TvTs because these games were awesome to watch and it reflected in the LR threads.
That you still call it "balance whining" shows the problem with TL's stance on the subject. You apply the proper moderation for awesome balanced games onto an unfun, boring game and that causes problems. The GSL grand finals thread was the least commented of all time despite being a best of seven and two guys playing their heart out.
If Blizzard still refuses to balance the game appropiately until Code A I would not mind a short note that balance related complaints are allowed. It would be opening the floodgates but it also would be taking a stand.
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Canada11603 Posts
On December 04 2012 07:12 Fenrax wrote:
For discussion value: LR threads have never been more than "stating the obvious". 99% of the posts are "GG well played", "awesome game" or "go player XYZ <3". And there is nothing wrong with that, it is fun and you want to tell the world that you are happy that your favortie player won and that you saw a good game. Or that you are sad because your favorite player lost or that you watched a bad game. LR threads were never a port of discussion or brilliant posts. So the "value" argument does not hold true.
You can ban the "Live Moaning, Groaning, Whining, and Complaining" for as long as you want but it won't fix the game. The game is currently broken. Infestors are majorly overpowered and worse than that they make the game boring and low skill, I think everybody except a few people at Blizzard agrees with that.
Banning won't fix the game, but so to complaining about the game in LR report won't fix the game either. As you say, by its very nature LR threads were never a port of discussion or brilliant posts.
It may be that that the majority view is that SC2 is in a miserable state. But clogging up LR threads with that misery serves no purpose except to create black holes of negativity. Live report is to report what is happening on screen and to cheer for or against those that are playing. Any balance or game design discussions have no place there and if there is a general dissatisfaction with the game itself... a different thread is needed to talk about the state of the game.
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On December 04 2012 08:06 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 07:12 Fenrax wrote:
For discussion value: LR threads have never been more than "stating the obvious". 99% of the posts are "GG well played", "awesome game" or "go player XYZ <3". And there is nothing wrong with that, it is fun and you want to tell the world that you are happy that your favortie player won and that you saw a good game. Or that you are sad because your favorite player lost or that you watched a bad game. LR threads were never a port of discussion or brilliant posts. So the "value" argument does not hold true.
You can ban the "Live Moaning, Groaning, Whining, and Complaining" for as long as you want but it won't fix the game. The game is currently broken. Infestors are majorly overpowered and worse than that they make the game boring and low skill, I think everybody except a few people at Blizzard agrees with that. Banning won't fix the game, but so to complaining about the game in LR report won't fix the game either. As you say, by its very nature LR threads were never a port of discussion or brilliant posts. It may be that that the majority view is that SC2 is in a miserable state. But clogging up LR threads with that misery serves no purpose except to create black holes of negativity. Live report is to report what is happening on screen and to cheer for or against those that are playing. Any balance or game design discussions have no place there and if there is a general dissatisfaction with the game itself... a different thread is needed to talk about the state of the game.
The bolded part is contradictionary. The misery is what is happening on screen. People just report what is happening on screen, it doesn't need to serve a purpose, the reporting is already the purpose. What is happening on screen is T/P players being forced into dumb all-ins and fakeouts because it is their only chance, what is happening on screen is Zs forced into a boring style because it gives the best EV, what is happening on screen is mass spells that deny micro.
If you report what is happening on screen you have two options:
- talk about balance
- suppress what you actually think
We already have casters faking excitement about "beautiful fungals", we don't need to do that ourselves.
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Canada11603 Posts
You don't need to fake excitement about fungals. People bashing casters and players also feel that they are just reporting it as they see/hear it on screen. They also need to supress what their urge to 'tell it like it is' and find a more appropriate thread to express it.
See the thing is despite your conclusion that the game currently sucks, there are people trying to enjoy the game in LR. The solution is not to poop in everyone else's sandwich.
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
That is why I want TL staff to evaluate what is actually happening on screen. We all see the same games and I do not believe that a large percentage of TL staff is satisfied with the way the games play out at the moment. It is not always everything just opinion. There is a difference between "Tasteless=noob" and "Infestors=imba".
I do not think that blocking out the truth of LR threads with heavy moderation is the right choice. What I do think is that the red letters on top of every page of the thread that warn you to not mention "what everybody knows anyway" is also a giant poop on everybody's sandwich.
I do understand that actively allowing balance talk is a bit too much, so maybe just consider these two ideas:
- agree in the internal forum to loosen the moderation on balance talk until the game is fixed and only moderate abusive posts.
- don't officially use the term "balance whine" for a while. It feels mocking to use this term at this point of time.
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Canada11603 Posts
Well I don't think you'd exactly call me a apologist for the current state of SC2, but that has more to do with design than balance. But when it comes to LR, I just don't think that's the right place for any of that stuff. For instance, I don't see LR as a place I would start explaining how I think Collosus is a poor design even if that's all I can think about as soon as they come into the battle.
It's all about time and place in my opinion.
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Norway25712 Posts
On December 04 2012 07:12 Fenrax wrote:
For discussion value: LR threads have never been more than "stating the obvious". 99% of the posts are "GG well played", "awesome game" or "go player XYZ <3". And there is nothing wrong with that, it is fun and you want to tell the world that you are happy that your favortie player won and that you saw a good game. Or that you are sad because your favorite player lost or that you watched a bad game. LR threads were never a port of discussion or brilliant posts. So the "value" argument does not hold true.
You're plain wrong here. Get this, I'm on TL mainly because of the LR threads. The GSL LR threads have practically become a part of my morning routine. I wake up, I shower, eat breakfast, make coffee, and sit down to watch GSL and visit the LR thread. It's come to be a place where I know I'll meet someone I've talked to a lot. I will laugh, sob, and talk about the players and the games being streamed. I have never said anything along the lines of "Infestors are a terrible unit" or "Colossus definitely needs a change". Sure enough I'll voice my grievances when the player I'm rooting for makes a mistake or loses a game, and I'll cheer when he wins, everyone does it, but usually it's more than "Oh, that was a beautiful spread", "Perfect positioning before going into that engagement" or "YEAAAAH BOMBEEER" (I'll admit to that last one actually being posted quite often by me). We rarely discuss balance, but there are plenty of brilliant posts. I consider LR threads to be more of a chat room for people watching the same thing. A barcraft without actually being there in person.
On December 04 2012 07:12 Fenrax wrote:
Caster bash is different because it is personal attacking a single person so even if it would be true (which it usually isn't) this should be an exeption.
It's all in the word "bash". People will say that they don't like a caster. That they don't like how they hype, or that they lack game knowledge. It's all good until someone calls the caster an idiot that belongs elsewhere. Agree with you on this.
On December 04 2012 07:12 Fenrax wrote:
You can ban the "Live Moaning, Groaning, Whining, and Complaining" for as long as you want but it won't fix the game. The game is currently broken. Infestors are majorly overpowered and worse than that they make the game boring and low skill, I think everybody except a few people at Blizzard agrees with that. The games reflect in the comments and that is why you had to ban so many people in the last couple of days. The LR threads are "not enjoyable places to hang out" because the games are boring to watch. I bet no one during the last few days got banned after a Muta/Ling/Baneling game or one of the rare TvPs or TvTs because these games were awesome to watch and it reflected in the LR threads.
I could mostly just refer to my first paragraph here. Yes, the game is unbalanced, and yes, everyone knows why. How does it help that people say it over and over again in an LR thread that no-one from Blizzard will ever look at? If Blizzard wants to hear about balance they'd probably go to their pro forums, they'd look in the thread called "Balance discussion", read up on well-written articles about the current state of the game, and so on. They wouldn't go into an LR thread and think that, hey, this guy Gladiator333 really hates the Infestor. Whining and complaining and groaning and moaning does nothing but ruin the LR experience for people like me and so many others, that just want to talk to people with common interests on Team Liquid while enjoying a high quality streaming experience. When you say that LR threads are not enjoyable because of bad games, you're definitely onto something. The thing is, LR threads are not enjoyable because of the repeated whining and salty cries after a game has ended.
On December 04 2012 07:12 Fenrax wrote:
That you still call it "balance whining" shows the problem with TL's stance on the subject. You apply the proper moderation for awesome balanced games onto an unfun, boring game and that causes problems. The GSL grand finals thread was the least commented of all time despite being a best of seven and two guys playing their heart out.
I'd like an example from you. I want you to let me know what you feel the moderators here on TL view as "balance whining", and I want you to let me know why it isn't. I want to know why "Winfestors" and "GGlords" isn't balance whine. I want to know how this contributes to anything at all. I want to know exactly why it belongs in an LR when all it does is give someone +1 to the post count.
On December 04 2012 07:12 Fenrax wrote:
If Blizzard still refuses to balance the game appropiately until Code A I would not mind a short note that balance related complaints are allowed. It would be opening the floodgates but it also would be taking a stand.
Again, I don't see how hundreds of "Winfestors imba"-styled posts would make Blizz think anything different. THey already have that on the official b.net forums, and absolutely everywhere else.
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
On December 04 2012 13:56 KristofferAG wrote:
You're plain wrong here. Get this, I'm on TL mainly because of the LR threads. The GSL LR threads have practically become a part of my morning routine. I wake up, I shower, eat breakfast, make coffee, and sit down to watch GSL and visit the LR thread. It's come to be a place where I know I'll meet someone I've talked to a lot.
I will laugh, sob, and talk about the players and the games being streamed. I have never said anything along the lines of "Infestors are a terrible unit" or "Colossus definitely needs a change". Sure enough I'll voice my grievances when the player I'm rooting for makes a mistake or loses a game, and I'll cheer when he wins, everyone does it, but usually it's more than "Oh, that was a beautiful spread", "Perfect positioning before going into that engagement" or "YEAAAAH BOMBEEER" (I'll admit to that last one actually being posted quite often by me). We rarely discuss balance, but there are plenty of brilliant posts. I consider LR threads to be more of a chat room for people watching the same thing. A barcraft without actually being there in person.
Me too. For me it was a long time in BW Proleague the same thing and I guess for many in SC2 as well. I would get up at 4 in the morning to watch BW with Korean commentary that I did not understand a single word of (except the occasional "Plaguuu" or "Stooooooorm" of course) so the LR threads were the only form of other opinions that I had so I aprreciate them a lot. I even made quite a few LR threads myself when there was need for one or when there was a game that I especially looked forward to.
My point is that whenever someone came to the LR thread and be like "Siege Tanks = imba, how can you beat that??? Stupid Terran" you knew better and smirked when the red ban text under the post appeared.
This was the same when the BW players switched to SC2 and I switched with them. You would be like "lol a balance whining noob" and enjoy his inevitable ban. These people were annoying but because there were so few of them and they got so strictly moderated they were also kind of amusing so in no way they were ruining the LR thread experience. But by now I don't have the same feeling when someone rages on the Infestor and gets banned anymore. At some point since the Queen/OL speed buff balance whine has turned into legitimate complaints and subsequently banning annoying noobs turned into locking out unpleasant truths.
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Norway25712 Posts
Sure enough they're legitimate complains, but the issue to me is that these posts do not contribute to the LR in any way shape or form, unless you count the sour mood that they set for the entire thread. The fact that people mention something as imbalanced isn't what gets them banned, the way they deliver their message is what does. In some cases the mods might have been too strict, sure, but opening the floodgates for balance whine over a period of time, untill the patches come, doesn't help anyone, it will only make it worse when people realize that, hey, they can increase their post count while shouting at no-one about how terrible this game is and how Blizzard hates their fans and ruined their own masterpiece.
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