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United States238 Posts
PlayXP's admin, Nios, had some time to talk with David Kim over some interesting stuff before the BlizzCon.
Source: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/news/view.php?article_id=2218155
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Q. It's unfortunate that everyone hates you due to the balance issues in this game. Tell us what other people are there in the balancing team.
A. There's Matt Cooper and Dustin Browder in addition to myself, and there are additional people who give us feedback. I don't think negatively about the hate people have due to the balancing. I think of it as that, since players are interested about the game that much, they are giving us the feedback. We do take note of a lot of different information, play at the high ranked ladder games, and through those, we try our best to get feedback from the users as much as possible.
Q. Matt Cooper? That is the guy that showed up in the old battle reports back in the closed beta?
A. Yes, that is him. I shouldn't have to mention Dustin Browder, he's pretty famous as it is.
Q. Been thinking that Dustin Browder says things about balance in-depth.
A. He is our boss (team leader). Q. Is 'dayvie', the ID at near top of NA ladder rank, you?
A. Yes. Around ELL rank 200th skill level, as a random, I'm the best.
Q. What kind of things do you take in consideration for balancing?
A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Q. How do you decide the 'good point' to start balancing from?
A. First, I play at pro-level, and mostly receive feedback from top players. Matt Cooper plays at below ELL 200th rank, and Dustin Browder plays at lower ranks of Diamond. Balancing is done through combining different feedback across different ranks. There are times when progamers personally contact us, and we do receive a lot of replay files. We also watch e-sports tournament replays and note the ladder percentile data. Of course, we do look at the feedback from our forums. Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
Q. Do you play often with other progamers?
A. I do not get to much nowadays. I do not have Korean citizenship number, so I cannot connect to the Korean server (David Kim is an American citizen). I plan to talk to the Korean branch to get me an account so that I can play there.
Q. Does GSL's race matchup statistics cause any changes in balancing?
A. The matchup statistics do not have much impact in balancing. We are more interested in the games themselves. The match result itself is impacted by not only the game's balance, but the player's skill level. Therefore, we focus more on the games themselves rather than the match results.
Q. Were you surprised that Fruitdealer won as a Zerg?
A. The balancing team thought it was possible, but other teams were very surprised. Sammy even drew a fan art for him. That's how much he was excited. We (balancing team) think that Zerg race might be a bit hard to play with, but it's not impossible to win. With skills, we expected it to be possible.
Q. There are opinions that Zerg is difficult to play.
A. That is right to a certain extent. A lot of new players find it difficult to manage larva and timing of producing offensive units. But, this doesn't really impact much at the top level of play. Pros already deal with this through high level of skill. So, balancing is more or less done around the pros.
Q. Do you separately produce statistics reports for GSL?
A. We don't produce each league's statistics, but we do produce a lot of ladder statistics. For example, we produced statistics around Diamond top ranked players. It will be revealed tomorrow in BlizzCon, that there will be a new "Grand Master League", a step above the Diamond League. It's going to be the league for the pros, where only top 2% of Diamond League, or top 100 overall, or something like that will be playing at.
Q. So the "Pro League" that were talked about before is becoming a reality.
A. It's the same thing. Just the naming has changed.
Q. But, is it okay to tell about things that is to be revealed tomorrow?
A. Ah... Oh. Haha. I'm not supposed to?
Q. What do you think of SlayerS_BoxeR making it to RO32 of GSL Open Season 2, personally?
A. As it is with other people, we are excited. We can't wait for tomorrow's special event match either.
Q. What changes do you think, would come to StarCraft 2 with SlayerS_BoxeR winning GSL?
A. We think it'll impact e-sports fan culture moreso than StarCraft 2.
Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games. While Zerg won the Season 1, recent patch buffed Zerg and nerfed Terrans. As you can see, what race won is not important, but the match content themselves are more important. We check tournament replays, and watch replay files sent in by progamers. In other words, finals don't really mean much in terms of balancing.
Q. Anything about patching Marauders?
A. Marauder is one of the units that we are looking at through various data, and we think that we nerfed them indirectly in the recent patch through nerfing Medivacs. We don't think Marauders are, either unit stat wise or statistics-wise, strong, but we are continuing to check the feedback. So, if we find any special overpoweredness, we are willing to provide a solution. For now, we are watching.
Edit: Wording in regards to Void Ray Q.
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Interesting about the "Grand Master League". I hope its invite only or something to that sort. Should be very interesting ^^
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nice, thanks for the translation. I'm not a top player nor a statistics pro so I'm going to let the balance experts talk about this interview.
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Grandmaster league???? OMG another league i cant get into ><
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interesting article, thanks for the translation.
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United States7481 Posts
finally confirmation that dayvie is in fact him
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Wtf, that's one hell of a question to open an interview with. Nice interview overall though, concrete confirmation on dayvie's identity, etc.
It seems weird that he tiptoes around using the word "strong" to describe marauders...is it bad for a unit to be strong? (too strong yes, but just strong, no)
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You don't think Marauders are 'strong,' really?
Blizzard, PLEASE don't call it something stupid and chess-ey like 'Grand-Master.' Pro League, PLEASE!
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I think David Kim should be in charge of Balance PR from now on, because reading this, he actually made me happy.
Also, its awesome to know that such a high level player is responsible for a lot of balance changes. I'm sure there are many occasions where DB is like "OMG we should give Roaches like 8 range, and let them shoot while underground" (the example is just exaggerated, obviously) and then Dayvie goes, "Now, calm down, Dusty, that's a bit too much."
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Russian Federation410 Posts
What's the point in having GM League with only top 2% from your server Diamonds, would make more sense making it a global pool.
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On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Ughhhh
DO NOT WANT
Balanced for silver leagues and team play
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51126 Posts
i guess they couldn't use 'pro league' due to conflict of interest with 'proleague'
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I don't understand how increasing the zealot building time doesn't affect top levels as well as lower silver leaguers can someone explain?
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Marauders are a hard issue. On one hand they rape the hell out of buildings, but it's very easy to send Terran into the depths of being an UP race with just a couple nerfs in the wrong places.
Also: Instead of nerfing Zealot build time, just produce better maps.
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Thanks for the interview, stoked for grand master league(Though I'll never be in it) but it's what's needed for the top top tier players.
[e] Also grand master league should have the sc2 equivalent of HLTV, where ppl can just join and spectate a game(perhaps specified if they want to watch T/Z/P or map specific or specific match ups etc just ideas). It shouldn't matter because if the pro player playing wanted to practice stuff he'd be doing in a custom game, so spectating random ladder matches through a sc2 type server would be cool.
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Use a hyphen or something, just not Grand Master!!!
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Grand Master League, I predict "I'm GML" smugness :D
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On October 22 2010 14:12 Vortok wrote: Marauders are a hard issue. On one hand they rape the hell out of buildings, but it's very easy to send Terran into the depths of being an UP race with just a couple nerfs in the wrong places. It's easy, nerf marauder hp or slow effect, and buff the hell out of seige tank attack damage and make seige tanks overkill. Done.
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There should be 2 leagues above diamond.
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A Grand Master league? It looks like the "pro league" is finally coming to light. I am really wondering how it will be managed.
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United States5162 Posts
It's a shame they really are changing top level balance in favor of team play and lower leagues.
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Great interview, thanks for posting.
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Don't know how you can be confident with this...
2v2 + silver players + "uh, a korean players showed me a replay were VR were imba so we nerfed it lol"
It sounds so... naive.
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On October 22 2010 14:14 skindzer wrote: There should be 2 leagues above diamond.
I agree with this guy. The skill level difference from the top of diamond to the bottom of diamond is almost as big as the skill level difference from diamond to bronze. It's seriously mind blowing the range of players that are in diamond. They should put players into 2 leagues about diamond to give it a better split.
"Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced."
..... Seriously David Kim.... NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING should be done based upon silver level play. It seriously upsets me that changes like the zealot build time nerf was made because silver level players were qqing.
Also the reaper nerfs were nice, but I thought there were a little much (being a zerg player). Now I find out that they were nerfed because of 2v2 play. Great....
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Man I got to get better so I can be a Grand Master of Starcraft!
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Excited about this new league, but "Grand Masters League" sounds really lame. "Masters League" by itself sounds much better.
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On October 22 2010 14:10 frogmelter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Ughhhh DO NOT WANT Balanced for silver leagues and team play Read the bold you made and the underlined i made and stop whining.
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While I appreciate his honestly, it seems kind of distressing that the core of the balance team consists of just three guys (and only one of them plays at a top diamond level). His answers about why the void ray was nerfed and why zealot build time was increased by 5 seconds were pretty face-palm inducing. Granted, the zealot build time increase probably could've been PR spun to be a nerf against two-gate rather than something to nerf proxy gates.
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lol GM league seems so... odd... since at a 2000+ diamond you probably only play people around that skill level anyways, and not lower tier players
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Vancouver14381 Posts
On October 22 2010 14:17 Zerksys wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:14 skindzer wrote: There should be 2 leagues above diamond. I agree with this guy. The skill level difference from the top of diamond to the bottom of diamond is almost as big as the skill level difference from diamond to bronze. It's seriously mind blowing the range of players that are in diamond. They should put players into 2 leagues about diamond to give it a better split.
so what you're saying is keep the grand master league and then adding another one to split top and bottom diamond? there will always be a big discrepancy between the top and the bottom of a league, so will they need to constantly add new leagues?
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Btw, I just realized, the name "Grand Masters League" sounds really lame, but since we're looking at a Korean interview, could there be other translations for what he said?
^Yeah, we know what it means, but it sounds much cooler when you call a person a "Grand Master" than calling it a "Grandmaster League".
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Wow this interview shits on the "what is your favourite unit" crap that usually is in every other blizzard employee interview!
Really interesting to hear the reason for the vr nerf and im looking forward to seeing the grandmaster league !
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Thankfully we can now consider the question of whether DKim is the "dayvie" account settled!
Nice interview, thanks for the post.
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On October 22 2010 14:21 JBright wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:17 Zerksys wrote:On October 22 2010 14:14 skindzer wrote: There should be 2 leagues above diamond. I agree with this guy. The skill level difference from the top of diamond to the bottom of diamond is almost as big as the skill level difference from diamond to bronze. It's seriously mind blowing the range of players that are in diamond. They should put players into 2 leagues about diamond to give it a better split. so what you're saying is keep the grand master league and then adding another one to split top and bottom diamond? there will always be a big discrepancy between the top and the bottom of a league, so will they need to constantly add new leagues?
No just something that will break diamond up. When you hear that a player is in the silver league, platinum league, or bronze league, you get a general idea about how good of a player the person is. There will be anomalies of course, but most of the people follow a general skill level. With diamond you can't really tell how good people are because there are people in diamond who know how to execute only 1 build order really well and have a basically notion of how to counter things their opponent throws at them. Then you have the people who know how to carry out several build orders, know how to react to their opponent, and know how to play a good late game, then you have the pros all clumped up into one league known as diamond.
I'm not saying that we should keep adding leagues, but the skill gap from the top of diamond to the bottom is HUGE, whereas in the other leagues it's not anywhere near that big.
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On October 22 2010 14:17 Zerksys wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:14 skindzer wrote: There should be 2 leagues above diamond. I agree with this guy. The skill level difference from the top of diamond to the bottom of diamond is almost as big as the skill level difference from diamond to bronze. It's seriously mind blowing the range of players that are in diamond. They should put players into 2 leagues about diamond to give it a better split.
After you remove the top 100 players from diamond and shove them into master league I'm not sure that the remaining diamond players are going to be THAT good to warrant another division within them.
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On October 22 2010 14:10 frogmelter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Ughhhh DO NOT WANT Balanced for silver leagues and team play ITs not what you want but whats healthy for the game! And for balancing the game overrall!
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Who cares what the league is called?
I don't understand how increasing the zealot building time doesn't affect top levels as well as lower silver leaguers can someone explain?
I think he meant that they are trying to balance for lower levels while trying minimize the impact to the upper echelon players. I don't think it's possible to accomodate lower players in a way that it wouldn't affect better players too. But I haven't seen too much of difference with the zealot change so I could say they did an ok job :>
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I'd love to see that void ray replay
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Very nice interview. After the most recent balance patch (1.12) I am finally at least somewhat satisfied with the state of balance (although I still think it could have gotten to here by release or a month after).
The latest void ray nerf seemed a bit too strong to me though. Sure any VR rush/timing-attack imbalances should be removed, but I feel like the changes made hurt it so much that it's not even a good unit now.
On October 22 2010 14:14 skindzer wrote: There should be 2 leagues above diamond. Not so much that as the fact that there shouldn't be a bronze, silver, and gold that all take up 20%. I'd say aside from the bottom most 5-10% of players (who are really terrible), 40% of them could all fit into one league, and the rest of the leagues would use up the remaining space (less and less for each one the higher they are)
I think they have 20/20/20 right now so that people don't think they are terrible when they are "gold".
Adding another league will also do a same effect, but I feel more than 6 leagues seems a bit messy and cluttered.
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According to sc2ranks.com, the top 2% of Diamond would be the top 885 players in the world. I imagine they're probably just going to round that make it like the top 2-300 people on each region get in their own division.
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On October 22 2010 14:10 Go0g3n wrote: What's the point in having GM League with only top 2% from your server Diamonds, would make more sense making it a global pool.
Global pool makes no sense also, how would they compete with each other....
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Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games.
Does this sound contradictory for anyone else ? They receive a replay from a guy who doesn't even play protoss as a main race and patch VRs, then a few questions later they say they don't do changes for one or ten games ?
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On October 22 2010 14:29 Reesj wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:10 frogmelter wrote:On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Ughhhh DO NOT WANT Balanced for silver leagues and team play ITs not what you want but whats healthy for the game! And for balancing the game overrall!
I still agree with
"Ughhhh
DO NOT WANT
Balanced for silver leagues and team play"
A strategy game should be balanced around gameplay of the best and not midlevel players. If they can do the balancing of silver league games and team play without taking away from the content of the game for top level 1v1s (for which it should be balanced), then I'd be happy to oblige it. Thus far every change they've made to team games has had some sort of impact upon 1v1s.
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For the GM League I really hope it is not split up into divisions even if there is more than 100 players. Also, unless the GM League players cannot play Diamond league players (unlikely) I don't see this changing much other than aesthetics.
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On October 22 2010 14:33 ryanAnger wrote: According to sc2ranks.com, the top 2% of Diamond would be the top 885 players in the world. I imagine they're probably just going to round that make it like the top 2-300 people on each region get in their own division. no it would be top 885 for north america only. Other areas would have additional people.
On October 22 2010 14:33 zor.au wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:10 Go0g3n wrote: What's the point in having GM League with only top 2% from your server Diamonds, would make more sense making it a global pool. Global pool makes no sense also, how would they compete with each other.... Yeah global pool would kinda be nice, but it's impossible due to the way the servers and accounts work in this game. I guess they could change the way things work, that would certainly be nice. There'd still be lag issues, but I don't know how bad they would really be, since most high level people probably have good internet connections.
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There's two things I think reading this.
#1 - Dayvie makes a ton of real world sense in this. I love his explanations of the balance changes. They are very logical.
Howevar
#2 - It confuses me that 1v1 changes and 2v2 changes have to be the same. He admits that Reapers were fine in 1v1 during 1.1.1, but says they have to nerf them for 2v2. I do not mind balancing 2v2, but there is literally zero reason why 1v1 and 2v2 have to follow the same ruleset. It is perfectly okay for Reaper speed to require a factory in 2v2 and not require a factory in 1v1. But, oh well. No speed reapers for us.
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On October 22 2010 14:31 Xapti wrote:Very nice interview. After the most recent balance patch (1.12) I am finally at least somewhat satisfied with the state of balance (although I still think it could have gotten to here by release or a month after). The latest void ray nerf seemed a bit too strong to me though. Sure any VR rush/timing-attack imbalances should be removed, but I feel like the changes made hurt it so much that it's not even a good unit now. Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:14 skindzer wrote: There should be 2 leagues above diamond. Not so much that as the fact that there shouldn't be a bronze, silver, and gold that all take up 20%. I'd say aside from the bottom most 5-10% of players (who are really terrible), 40% of them could all fit into one league, and the rest of the leagues would use up the remaining space (less and less for each one the higher they are) I think they have 20/20/20 right now so that people don't think they are terrible when they are "gold". Adding another league will also do a same effect, but I feel more than 6 leagues seems a bit messy and cluttered.
Well like you said people are going to feel terrible if one day they're in gold and feeling like they're decent at the game and all of a sudden they get clumped together with players down in bronze league. Blizzard need to keep people playing the game in order to make money so it is not in Blizzard's best interests to demote people as of this point.
Would having 6 leagues be that messy? I've made posts about this already, but I think the whole notion of diamond league is terribly messy. The skill gap between bottom level diamond players and top is HUGE. I'd like to be able to clean that up in any way possible. I do like your idea of clumping masses of people together though but it's never going to happen.
By the way as it stands I BELIEVE the leagues are
Bronze 35 percent Silver 20 Gold 20 Platinum 15 Diamond 5
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I hope the "Grand Master" league gets the option of cross-server play.
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Bronze-Gold is pretty much the same skill level, I can turn a bronze player into high gold/plat in a week. Gold should be low diamond, plat should be mid diamond, and diamond should only have the current top 2-3%.
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On October 22 2010 14:34 endy wrote:Show nested quote +Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received. Show nested quote +Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games. Does this sound contradictory for anyone else ? They receive a replay from a guy who doesn't even play protoss as a main race and patch VRs, then a few questions later they say they don't do changes for one or ten games ?
Sounds like this guy was getting a void ray so fast or with such a perfect build order that it was literally impossible to stop it. No other reason to hit them with the nerfbat as hard as they did otherwise
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On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote:
Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games. While Zerg won the Season 1, recent patch buffed Zerg and nerfed Terrans. As you can see, what race won is not important, but the match content themselves are more important. We check tournament replays, and watch replay files sent in by progamers. In other words, finals don't really mean much in terms of balancing.
Did I miss something or did he completely contradict himself here?
I mean it's not a big deal or "ZOMG BLIZZ IZ STUPID" but I think he really screwed up his wording or something here. I wish Blizz had people that were competent at interviews.
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MUAHAHA, ME LOVE VR NUFF SO MUCH. ty progamer who sent the replay
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On October 22 2010 15:08 deth2munkies wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote:
Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games. While Zerg won the Season 1, recent patch buffed Zerg and nerfed Terrans. As you can see, what race won is not important, but the match content themselves are more important. We check tournament replays, and watch replay files sent in by progamers. In other words, finals don't really mean much in terms of balancing.
Did I miss something or did he completely contradict himself here? I mean it's not a big deal or "ZOMG BLIZZ IZ STUPID" but I think he really screwed up his wording or something here. I wish Blizz had people that were competent at interviews.
The gamer probably found out a timing impossible to stop. Maybe a timing where VR vs. Zerg in Scrap Station, getting 2 queens out in time is impossible. Since 1 VR > 1 Queen, it would be 100% win chance considering a 14hatch or something. Just sayin'
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On October 22 2010 15:08 deth2munkies wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote:
Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games. While Zerg won the Season 1, recent patch buffed Zerg and nerfed Terrans. As you can see, what race won is not important, but the match content themselves are more important. We check tournament replays, and watch replay files sent in by progamers. In other words, finals don't really mean much in terms of balancing.
Did I miss something or did he completely contradict himself here? I mean it's not a big deal or "ZOMG BLIZZ IZ STUPID" but I think he really screwed up his wording or something here. I wish Blizz had people that were competent at interviews.
I think what he means is that a Zerg winning the GSL doesn't mean OVERALL that Zerg is balanced.
The thing with the Void Ray sounds, to me, like some kind of an exploit/abuse or something that is seriously overpowered. Seems like something that hasn't been "discovered".
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On October 22 2010 15:08 deth2munkies wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote:
Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games. While Zerg won the Season 1, recent patch buffed Zerg and nerfed Terrans. As you can see, what race won is not important, but the match content themselves are more important. We check tournament replays, and watch replay files sent in by progamers. In other words, finals don't really mean much in terms of balancing.
Did I miss something or did he completely contradict himself here? I mean it's not a big deal or "ZOMG BLIZZ IZ STUPID" but I think he really screwed up his wording or something here. I wish Blizz had people that were competent at interviews.
Yes, they should have done more testing with this void ray claim, but he might be the most competent person they can interview since he plays in the top of the ladder. It's nice to see how the some of the mentality works behind balancing (even if it has some flaws).
Or maybe it was Boxer's replay hence 1 game turned into 100 games worth of replays in their eyes.
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Funny people are jumping up and down over a new league...I am raging over the whole interview. Well they can't possibly nerf protoss anymore than they have? Is it even possible to balance the game at every level, and team play? Exactly how many patches is that going to take.
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Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced. what really? that is not how balancing should work >__>
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ATTENTION BLIZZARD: 99% of the people in the lower leagues haven't even begun to understand the depth of the game. There for IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to balance the game for them. Also do you realize there are 9 possible matchups in 1v1 (TvT,TvZ,TvP,ZvP,ZvZ,PvP and mirror matchups don't require much balancing one would think) in 2v2 there are 21 possible matchups! (subtract 3 mirror vs mirror) It is IMPOSSIBLE to balance 18 matchups when you can't balance 6!
Edit: Math was way off, I guess the nerd rage took over! There are 21 possible matchups in 2v2.
These people get paid WAY to much if they don't realize these things! You fools haven't realized that until you balance the 1v1 matchups everything else is MEANINGLESS balance wise?
Here is the only way to balance 2v2, first balance 1v1, 2nd only allow 1 race per team.
Blizzards Balance Team Hiring add:
"Want to smoke CRACK and try to balance starcraft 2?"
I really hope this is not a real interview.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
I don't understand the problem of balancing 1v1 and team games separately. They have done it with the single player campaign, so why not split 1v1 and team game unit stats?
Also I think they are overnerfing too much. Reapers, void rays, neural parasite, hydras, ultralisk splash, hunter-seeker missile - all were arguably OP but now are next to useless. We have yet to see a single of these fixed.
Actually roach is something that they buffed after nerfing too much. I would really like to see more of these changes instead of more nerfs.
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Well first of all thanks for posting the interview and haha I love how the interview starts. "Everyone hates you" LOL that is such a harsh way to start. He has a hard job I have to admit but balancing by adjusting damage still feels kinda odd to me.
Even tough he mentioned that one replay led to the VR change I'm sure that they put a reasonable amount of tought into it. But then again, changing damage and not cost or buildtime is in my eyes a lot more dangerous for the role of a tier2 unit.
The thing with 2vs2 is probably that there are a so many more variables to consider. If you look at 2vs2 in BW the balance was miles away from 1vs1. But the question probably is, should 2vs2 balance changes ever be alowed to have a drastic impact on 1vs1? And is it nearly as evolved as 1vs1 that changes are justified? I don't know, but then again I'm not nearly smart enough and I don't play 2vs2...
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What's up with the interviewer talking about everybody hating David Kim? For as long as I can remember, and all throughout the beta, most people thought David Kim rocked. It was usually Dustin that the anger was directed towards.
It's awesome that dayvie has finally been confirmed as David Kim himself. As a fellow Random player whenever I watched his replays I've always been amazed at how good he was. It's great that somebody that good is part of the balancing team.
Kinda sucks that they had to make some patches due to silver players being terrible, and due to some 2v2 team imbalances though. Reminds me of the nerfs that happen to WOW raids due to PVP imbalances and vice versa.
This stuff is easily solved with separate rulesets for 1v1, silver, and team games. Nerf silver and leave the rest of us alone
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On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: Q. What kind of things do you take in consideration for balancing?
A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Way to go kim way to go... You literally balanced 2vs2 at cost of TvZ 1vs1. Just awesome.
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United States238 Posts
On October 22 2010 16:06 tubs wrote: What's up with the interviewer talking about everybody hating David Kim? For as long as I can remember, and all throughout the beta, most people thought David Kim rocked. It was usually Dustin that the anger was directed towards.
In Korean SC2 communities, all the hate is directed toward David Kim. No one thinks Dustin is to blame there.
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Honestly? they couldn't think of a better name than Grand Master League? Really blizz?
Oh i dont know.. professional league? ruby league? anything but a name that seems to come from a 1957 kung fu movie?
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If they want to balance team games perhaps they should have different gameplay attributes for different modes. If you change one thing for 2v2 it will mess up 1v1 and visa versa.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
On October 22 2010 16:15 Vz0 wrote: Honestly? they couldn't think of a better name than Grand Master League? Really blizz?
Oh i dont know.. professional league? ruby league? anything but a name that seems to come from a 1957 kung fu movie?
Kung Fu league? :D
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On October 22 2010 16:13 Selith wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 16:06 tubs wrote: What's up with the interviewer talking about everybody hating David Kim? For as long as I can remember, and all throughout the beta, most people thought David Kim rocked. It was usually Dustin that the anger was directed towards.
In Korean SC2 communities, all the hate is directed toward David Kim. No one thinks Dustin is to blame there. Hate should be directed towards Blizzard because David Kim is just doing blizzard policy and balancing game arround casuals. Would be ridiculous saying that few people have full control over balance of starcraft 2.
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On October 22 2010 15:40 Reborn8u wrote: ATTENTION BLIZZARD: 99% of the people in the lower leagues haven't even begun to understand the depth of the game. There for IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to balance the game for them. Also do you realize there are 9 possible matchups in 1v1 (TvT,TvZ,TvP,ZvP,ZvZ,PvP) in 2v2 there are 36 possible matchups! (subtract 3 mirror vs mirror)It is IMPOSSIBLE to balance 33 matchups!
These people get paid WAY to much if they don't realize these things! You fools haven't realized that until you balance the 1v1 matchups everything else is MEANINGLESS balance wise?
Here is the only way to balance 2v2, first balance 1v1, 2nd only allow 1 race per team.
Blizzards Balance Team Hiring add:
"Want to smoke CRACK and try to balance starcraft 2?"
I really hope this is not a real interview.
You should probably review your math before going ballistics on blizzard. There are 27 2v2 matchups in total including mirrors. How you arrived at 36 is beyond me. Also there is a difference between understanding the game and being able to execute effectively. Some of my friends know all the theory of good gameplay but have 2 zealots 5 minutes into the game. 99% of the people are not vegetables you know.
I do not agree with blizzard's reasoning for the balance changes but from a business perspective this makes sense. Lower leagues (plat and below) make up 93% of all ladder. blizzard simply can't just ignore them.
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Oh man.. Grandmaster League... But I spent a whole two days getting Diamond in everything!
lol seriously though I'm glad I have a league above me it felt so stupid being in the top league. I'm pretty bad.
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From SC2ranks: http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all/ (Source)
North America 7.84% (44,271) 14.83% (83,793) 18.44% (104,157) 18.33% (103,582) 40.56% (229,152)
(D P G S B respectively)
It was 5% diamond yesterday..... this is worrying me.
What's interesting is as you go up in leagues, there are, % wise, fewer terran.
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whats wrong with you guys?
grandmaster league sounds fucking awesome lol
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Very interesting read, thanks a lot.
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This interview really hasn't filled me with much confidence about blizzard continuing to balance the game... The fact that he states that zealot build time was increased purely to help people in silver league annoys me greatly - even if the change was a good one, if they keep making tweaks to accommodate players below diamond then things will go badly very quickly...
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Nice Itw !
Blizzard is wathcing us !
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On October 22 2010 16:27 Selkie wrote:From SC2ranks: http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all/ (Source) North America 7.84% (44,271) 14.83% (83,793) 18.44% (104,157) 18.33% (103,582) 40.56% (229,152) (D P G S B respectively) It was 5% diamond yesterday..... this is worrying me. What's interesting is as you go up in leagues, there are, % wise, fewer terran.
Why does it worry you? Because other people are also getting better at the game and getting into diamond?
I dont see the reason why you guys are all upset. If Diamond is supposed to stand for the best players based on skill (before this GML gets implemented) what difference does it make if its 5% or 15% of the player base that is in it?
(Besides the obvious, oh i want to stroke my epeen and feel special that i am in the top 5% )
Anyways, back to topic, over all the interview is nice, its interesting to see that blizzard has people playing the game in diamond at various stages of diamond. Its more interesting to see how their balance changes work.
The jury is still out (at least for me) if they are approaching balancing correctly or not. As with broodwar, only time will tell.
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I guess I'm no expert, but the way he explained how they make balance choices is pretty much terrible.
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On October 22 2010 16:40 Boonbag wrote: I guess I'm no expert, but the way he explained how they make balance choices is pretty much terrible.
agreed...quite shocking really. Although, it does explain a lot.
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I like his straighforward answers, he doesn't bs at all even when he knows the target audience wont like what he has to say. That being said fuck balancing things at the silver league level, it doesn't make any sense.
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Cool interview, thanks for posting!
But... Grandmaster league? Everyone who played Cabal knows that before Grandmaster, there needs to be Expert, advanced Expert, Master and Advanced Master. Seriously, tsk tsk tsk.
Also... balancing around silver league - lol.
I totally missed the Void Ray nerf btw... no wonder it's used less now, haha. Maybe razing entire bases in 2secs was a bit OP after all. I agree with him on marauders. I'd like to see marines nerfed instead from 6 range to 5 range. The DPS is already vast, no need to make them outrange everything, too. T_T
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Blizzard is rooting for SlayerS_BoxeR. I am delighted beyond measure.
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We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Wow, that is just quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Nerfing something because newbies can't deal with it? I bet that is why they nerfed the void ray too. Makes me want to quit SC2 knowing these people are in charge of it.
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On October 22 2010 16:57 Gudeldar wrote: I bet that is why they nerfed the void ray too.
If you'd have read the whole interview, he talks about the void ray nerf and specifically states it was a progamer finding an unknown timing that was apparently unbeatable.
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On October 22 2010 14:10 frogmelter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Ughhhh DO NOT WANT Balanced for silver leagues and team play You know the beauty is it nerfs terran which was needed in their opinion, while fixing the broken team play. You don't have to sacrifice one for the other. Just becuase reapers were fine in 1 v 1, doesnt mean terran was fine in 1 v 1.
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YAY! Good interview. Also, as someone in Dayvies league, it is refreshing to know I may actually reach #1 diamond for the first time ever (I've been #2 behind him off and on since day 1 of retail).
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leomon
Canada169 Posts
Everyone complaining about the "Grand Master league" name needs to keep in mind that this is a translation of a korean interview, so there might be translation errors.
Everyone who plays in a high level are going to complain about how blizzard is balancing the game around lower levels and team games, and I too, am also shocked at the fact that THIS is how they balance things. However, while I don't think this is the best way to balance the game, I do understand that blizzard wants to keep the majority of the people happy, including players who play at a lower level, as well as people who play team games. Besides, I'm sure blizzard will find the correct balance 'eventually'
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On October 22 2010 17:02 TheFinalWord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:10 frogmelter wrote:On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Ughhhh DO NOT WANT Balanced for silver leagues and team play You know the beauty is it nerfs terran which was needed in their opinion, while fixing the broken team play. You don't have to sacrifice one for the other. Just becuase reapers were fine in 1 v 1, doesnt mean terran was fine in 1 v 1. By that logic you like MMM. Alright.
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Q. Is 'dayvie', the ID at near top of NA ladder rank, you?
A. Yes. Around ELL rank 200th skill level, as a random, I'm the best. Good! Finally confirmed.
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United States238 Posts
On October 22 2010 17:07 leomon wrote: Everyone complaining about the "Grand Master league" name needs to keep in mind that this is a translation of a korean interview, so there might be translation errors.
Unless Nios understood it incorrectly, it is indeed "Grand Master League". Source sentence is here:
"내일 블리즈컨에서 공개될 내용이지만, 다이아몬드 리그 위에 "그랜드 마스터 리그"를 새로 만들 예정이다."
Seeing how Nios used quotes around it, it is possible that the name is not final. But we'll see tomorrow, eh?
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They are basically telling that starcraft 2 will be balanced around team games and lowers league and no one cares ? blizzard his murdering his own game :s
I don't understand they say that they care about esports blablabla ... Run the GSL with gomTV who by the way is a 1on1 competition in case they didn't know.
And now they say that they will balance the game for lower leagues and team games ? No one give a fuck about team games they are not meant to be competitive for Esports. now balacing the game for lowers league really lol ... so basically when Joes will complain about something and cry all day they are going to nerf it because 90% of the time he can't move his fucking fat ass to scout or dont have proper micro to hold it ?
I got a really bad feeling for Starcraft 2 future if they keep that politic to balance for 95% of the customers who dont know anything instead of listening to the 5% top players and work with them to achieve better balance.
Seems to me that all they care is that the 95% customers buy the next expasion and give them their money -_-
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On October 22 2010 14:14 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:12 Vortok wrote: Marauders are a hard issue. On one hand they rape the hell out of buildings, but it's very easy to send Terran into the depths of being an UP race with just a couple nerfs in the wrong places. It's easy, nerf marauder hp or slow effect, and buff the hell out of seige tank attack damage and make seige tanks overkill. Done. I wouldnt mind siege tank supply decrease to 2. But with that "smart targeting" it could be overkill.
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On October 22 2010 17:01 dcemuser wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 16:57 Gudeldar wrote: I bet that is why they nerfed the void ray too. If you'd have read the whole interview, he talks about the void ray nerf and specifically states it was a progamer finding an unknown timing that was apparently unbeatable.
You're right I couldn't stomach any more idiocy so I quit reading. They changed the void ray based on a single replay? Good decision making there Blizzard.
Edit- Oh god I got to the marauder part. Marauders aren't strong?! Even if marauders are balanced they are definitely strong units. I think my brain just exploded.
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wow, he seems really cocky! xD
but, nice with the new league, cant wait so see the battle for the top-spot
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I don't get the hate here. All of the balance changes so far have been quite sensible and really well thought out. I don't remember any of you would be balance experts suggesting that something as simple as a 1 range increase on a T1.5 unit would fix a lot of the issues Z were facing. Also the VR issue that likely caused the nerf, a push with gateway units and VRs that got precharged on rocks and then charg-juggled using forward pylons really seemed borderline abusive and unfair. I quite like their balancing attitude so far.
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Come on. You seriously expect a game to ever be ONLY balanced around less than .01% of the player base? Because that's an overestimation of the percentage of pro players.
I think Dayvie states it pretty diplomatically--unless 2v2 is outright completely broken, they won't try to fix it, and similarly, unless they can find a change for lower than diamond that doesn't have a large effect, they won't try to change it.
Everyone here, at some time or another, was one of those dreaded BAD PLAYERS.
Also, I don't get the 2v2 hate. If they can make 2v2 balanced enough to play professionally, we'll get another awesome format to watch with it's own strategies.
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oh god! i just checked the rankings, and i really admired the top random player, dayvie, at rank 6 in US. I never even seen him play, i just think people who go random should get some respect. I NEVER KNEW IT WAS DAVID KIM!!! the dude who owned everyone in the battle reports
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A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received. [...] We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game.
"okay"
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i'm not totally happy that they balance the game around 2v2 and the lower leagues but i can perfectly understand why.
for the game to be popular, it needs to be balanced around ppl who plays 1-2 hour a day and those who plays 6 hours a day. And if you only have 1 or 2 hour a day to play , you don't want to spend it just making probes and pylon and practicing timings and perfecting build order. You want to build army and fight. The balances ( reapers and zealots ) are necesarry so that these people are not fed up with the game.
E-sports needs this group of people to stay interested in the game as casual fans. No sport can survive without its armchair fans and bandwagoners. Not football ( soccer), basketball, baseball.
We can be elitist and says "ok screw them then who needs casuals" , but this is not how the real world works. casual fans bring sponsorships which brings money and prestige and acknowlegdement towards esports.
I am happy that david kim is actually very upfront and honest about this and he understands the need for casual fans even though he is a top 200 player himself ( guy beat top players like huk etc quite often).
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Q. It's unfortunate that everyone hates you due to the balance issues in this game
Um what? haha what an awkward way to start an interview. I don't think anyone here ever blamed David Kim?
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A. Marauder is one of the units that we are looking at through various data, and we think that we nerfed them indirectly in the recent patch through nerfing Medivacs. We don't think Marauders are, either unit stat wise or statistics-wise, strong, but we are continuing to check the feedback. So, if we find any special overpoweredness, we are willing to provide a solution. For now, we are watching. Not only not overpowered, but he doesnt even think they're 'strong'. ^^ Thanks for the translation!
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At least we know who dayvie is now...
Thanks, great stuff!
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Nice interview, some interesting things were said, a New League sounds reasonable; BUT, how on earth can someone start an interview with such an stupid question ( they way it was done ). ..."Q. It's unfortunate that everyone hates you due to the balance issues in this game. Tell us what other people are there in the balancing team."...
Loved the answer tho ^^
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United States238 Posts
I've mentioned this a few pages back, but Nios is a Korean. In Korean SC 2 community, David Kim is seen as the "anti-christ" in SC 2 balancing. So...
Also, the interview is not formal. So he can get away with starting an interview with a question like that.
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On October 22 2010 17:07 leomon wrote: Everyone complaining about the "Grand Master league" name needs to keep in mind that this is a translation of a korean interview, so there might be translation errors.
Nope. It's written phonetically, "Gu Ren Du Ma Su To Ri Gu." "Grandmaster League" is exactly what he meant.
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On October 22 2010 18:22 .Aar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 17:07 leomon wrote: Everyone complaining about the "Grand Master league" name needs to keep in mind that this is a translation of a korean interview, so there might be translation errors. Nope. It's written phonetically, "Gu Ren Du Ma Su To Ri Gu." "Grandmaster League" is exactly what he meant.
haha reading that is hilarious
On October 22 2010 14:19 PrinceXizor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:10 frogmelter wrote:On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Also, forward proxy gate Zealot rush was popular for a bit after release. This didn't get much use among the top players, but it was near impossible to stop at silver-level play. So we pondered how to fix this balance issue without affecting top players, and in the end, we decided to increase the time required to build Zealots to get it balanced.
Ughhhh DO NOT WANT Balanced for silver leagues and team play Read the bold you made and the underlined i made and stop whining.
Except the last underlined part doesnt make any sense. Little timings like a 5 second build time increase influences top lvl play WAY, way more than silver level play.
Still, I like David Kim and respect him a lot, he's a strong player and while I dont always agree with their balance decisions they are definitely heading the right direction overall. I just hope they stop patching because of silver league players from now on ^^
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On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
...We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games...
...We don't think Marauders are, either unit stat wise or statistics-wise, strong... So basically he contradicted himself and then went on to say marauders aren't even considered strong -.-
The reason for the void ray nerf in particular just blows my mind. I wish a korean progamer would send a Terran rep in sometime so they could base a huge balancing decision off of it.
edit: not to mention balance decisions based on Silver league and 2v2
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Yeah i suspected the additional reaper nerfs were due to team games. Kind of unfortunate, but its nice they dont totally neglect the other modes of play, and that they atleast seem thoughtful/careful about it.
I like David Kim's interviews. Kind of funny he has to request a Korean account hehe. They need to fix that somehow.
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Except the last underlined part doesnt make any sense. Little timings like a 5 second build time increase influences top lvl play WAY, way more than silver level play.
Still, I like David Kim and respect him a lot, he's a strong player and while I dont always agree with their balance decisions they are definitely heading the right direction overall. I just hope they stop patching because of silver league players from now on ^^
Exactly, it is completely impossible to balanced for 2v2 or silver league players without affecting high level players. I don't understand how a high level player like him can believe something else.
It really disturbs me that they are making balance changes in what sounds like a haphazard way. How do they even know what the changes will do to the game when there are probably only a handful of people at Blizzard testing the changes?
They need to do what they did for WOW and have a test server that has potential changes that players can test. That way they can test how the changes will affect actual play and they can spot bugs before they push the patch to millions of people. Stuff like the phoenix bug wouldn't happen.
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On October 22 2010 18:39 Scarecrow wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
...We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games...
...We don't think Marauders are, either unit stat wise or statistics-wise, strong... So basically he contradicted himself and then went on to say marauders aren't even considered strong -.- The reason for the void ray nerf in particular just blows my mind. I wish a korean progamer would send a Terran rep in sometime so they could base a huge balancing decision off of it. edit: not to mention balance decisions based on Silver league and 2v2
Regarding the void ray, I assume that the rep showed a bigger problem that they where able to reproduce and verify. They did not change it because of the rep, they changed it because of a timing issue, wich the rep showed.
The marauders quote is blowing my mind tho...
And he states that they primarily balance based in1v1 and only balance around other/lower leages if there is some really big issue (Reaperling was absolutely horrible).
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The pros in chess are called grand masters, I think that's where they picked it from.
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This was a slightly infuriating interview.
ofc. an offrace player sent a voidray nerf. The zealot timing was really appreciated too -.- Silver level... srysly? I mean plat low D I could well not really understand, but silver?
Marauders aren't strong... Yeah They clearly watch the tournaments. -.-
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The voidray replay was obviously a timing exploit against proabbly Zerg. There was probably a timing where a Zerg player cannot stop a voidray rush no matter what he does, Blizzard assessed and obviously thought it was appropriate for void rays to be nerfed.
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They are doing the right thing.
If they will focus only on 1v1 at pro level then they will ruin lower leagues and team games which is 90% of gamers.
This is the only way to balance: 1. Play yourselves in different levels. 2. Listen to pro's 3. Community feedback. 4. And the last, statistics (not so important)
I don't see any other way to fix the balance imo
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On October 22 2010 14:17 Zerksys wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:14 skindzer wrote: There should be 2 leagues above diamond. I agree with this guy. The skill level difference from the top of diamond to the bottom of diamond is almost as big as the skill level difference from diamond to bronze. It's seriously mind blowing the range of players that are in diamond. They should put players into 2 leagues about diamond to give it a better split.
just hope they make an invite-only or have a player-cap on both leagues, or else it will be like diamond all over again - with time, the better will hold the top posisions and the lower will be held by those of "lesser" skill. but, having the new league have a player-cap on 100 is a good start.
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I seriously dot get all the hate here?
This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
He says they balance primarily around 1v1 but if there is an issue breaking 2v2 they have to fix that, and will try to do so in a way that affects 1v1 as little as possible. Same for the silver issue, if there is something breaking a match-up there they have to fix it. Imbalances are fine, a broken game is not and should not be ignored in any league.
If they ignore it a huge % of the players (read FANS) will get frustrated, stop playing, tell thier friend SC2 sucks and stop watching SC2 as an e-sports. And it will suffer way more.
When I read that interview I was pleasantly suprised, they balance around 1v1 top diamond, but if there is an issue breaking the game at any other level they deal with it, and try to deal with it in a way that has as little impact as possible for 1v1 top. Exactly as i would want it...
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Marauders are quite a balanced unit. It's just that its abilities are imba, specifically concussive shells. 50% slow wtf. reduce the slow percentage to 40 or 30%
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New league should be cool. Wonder when it will be implemented.
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I'd make the top league gated. Get an initial number of seeded players, the 'cream of the crop' and then implement some sort of challenge mechanic for players [with something like "positive w/l record over past 10 games" or "Bo7" added] so that new players can enter the league. Sort of like the black spider in Hunter x Hunter. ;P
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I dont get some peoples rationality here.
I think most would agree that no patch blizzard has put out has ruined the game quite yet. So they admit that they do look at the lower leagues and team leagues and all of a sudden all they cant patch worth for shit? What I read was that they look at the team leagues and lower leagues, but try hard to not affect 1v1 too much. I say if they can succeed, thats great.
I agree that blizzard should make sure that 1v1 is their primary concern, but I dont get why people are hating on blizzard for looking at other parts of the game.... Otherwise they should of just removed everything else.
Its like hating someone for thinking of doing something lol, that seems a bit silly doesnt it? Ill be right there pitchfork in hand if they make a patch for 2v2 but screws up high level 1v1, but until then I say we wait and see...
Also, I feel the replay was a little more then just "Oh this guy lost to void rays, we must nerf them" Come on guys, even if you doubt their brilliance, Im pretty sure they arent THAT stupid lol
Anyways cool interview thanks
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The simple fact is that if we want SC2 to become a major e-sport outside Korea then we need the silver leaguers and if they're not enjoying themselves then they will stop playing. There seems to have been big problems with Protoss at the lower levels, we've seen over 60% win rates which is an absolutely enormous discrepancy when you're talking about hundreds of housands of players. They're not trying to balance silver league completely but if there is a major problem they have to fix it. Personally I don't think the Zealot or Reaper nerfs have had a negative effect on top-end play at all, quite the opposite.
As for the one-game contradiction there is no contradiction at all. He clearly says that the outcome of a single game or ten does not bear any weight at all but that what specifically happens in the game can be very meaningful. This is the same philosophy they have always claimed, a million whiners make no difference but a single good argument can.
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It's good to hear they actually listen to direct comment from players tho it worries me a bit too. GM league should be interesting tho I'd rather see 2 leagues above Diamond.
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I too think there should be a league between Pro and Diamond. Basically a "High point diamond league", since this would show the difference better between the really good Diamond players who aren't pro, and the not so good ones.
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good article, hopefully the new pro league will have invitations, otherwise some pro players who play more on tournaments and not so much on ladder may not find themselves into it.
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You guys realise that if half the bronze and silver levels quit, lower diamond will be in platinum and platinum in gold right? You will become the very thing you scorn.
Sure diamond level players will have better game mechanics and will notice balance issues sooner except when it comes to abusive builds, they counter them handily and either gloat in the easy win or whine about lousy cheese. Silver level players however don't know how to deal with them, and have a hard time finding a matchup that is actually fun to play. Telling them to suck it up and l2p will not help anybody here.
Game balance affects every league differently, so yes changing the zealot build time can be huge in silver but minor in diamond+. I think the 1.1 and 1.1.2 changes have been sensible for all levels of play, I really doubt platinum and diamond level players rely on proxy gate and proxy reaper so much that these changes really upset their builds.
Don't hate the silver level players, you were once (if even briefly) at their skill level!
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Dustin Browder plays at lower ranks of Diamond
lol that explains a lot
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David Kim is actually the highest ranked random player in the world. So theoretically he is the person with the most knowledge of balance because he's the highest ranked random. And he works in the balance team. How fitting.
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lol marauder isn't a strong unit ?
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I thought David Kim was Korean-Canadian. That he lived in Korea in his early life and played there with players who later became progamers, like Zeus and that he moved to Canada later. There did play a Dayvie in WCG Canada. Are there two different Dayvie/David Kims?
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Seriously, unless they're planning to get 2v2 back into professional e-sports leagues, I don't see why the Reaper and Depot before Rax nerfs should have been done. One or the other would have sufficed for the core e-Sport 1v1 meta.
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On October 22 2010 19:10 Slyda wrote: Marauders are quite a balanced unit. It's just that its abilities are imba, specifically concussive shells. 50% slow wtf. reduce the slow percentage to 40 or 30%
maurauders would never be able to catch and pick off stalkers then -_-
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I bet the korean progamer who send him that replay contain void play was codname angryGrack :D
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United States22883 Posts
Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games.
Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
C'mon, Dayvie.
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i'm glad he is being straight up with us but i'm depressed that what i suspected appears more true with each blizzard interview and blog update. that being, they have a highly inconsistent strategy for balancing the game. i just hope no more units are broken by either being useless or insanely overpowered at some point in the future of 1-2 years.
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I'm pretty sure he meant that replay showed him the timing window, and then they gathered more information on the subject. That replay was just the catalyst to get the ball rolling.
At least, thats what I got from it.
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I so hope, they will make it top 2%. Then I can play :D
After reaching Diamond leagues are no fun anymore. So new challenges would be great!
Kind of fun that none of their own balancing members thought that a zerg would make it in GSL1 xD
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On October 22 2010 22:30 Jibba wrote: Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games.
Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
C'mon, Dayvie.
my favorite part was this
who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss
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It's ridiculous that even David Kim struggles to get a Korean account, to be honest he should have been playing there since Beta/launch just as much as the NA server, not completely neglecting it.
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United States4126 Posts
So we've finally confirmed the rumors that dayvie is David Kim Nice interview!
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Reading david kim is like putting a bandaid on your open cut. It doesn't really do that much but psychologically it makes you feel a bit better.
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I was wondering what happened to him after Beta. He should get involved with more Tourneys, I'd like to see him more popular as a gamer.
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I dont understand why you all go crazy because of the voidray... I am sure they got a replay by a good player offracing and showing how to use the build/voidray and that its not stoppable without ending way behind and so they took the build in own games with knowing it would come and werent able to stop it without ending way behind too and so they started to think about the problem and what to do to fix this and so they made the charged attack weaker but the uncharged stronger so the problem has to do with charged voids and imo it was ridiculous that a charged voidray was like ZZZZZZZPPP ZZZZZZPPP and everything popping out was just dead i mean it even killed 2 viking nearly instantly if it was above the production buildings. Without the replay we cant know for sure what the problem was, but I dont think that they got the replay, just saw it and were like "ok lets nerf it". seriously what are you all thinking?
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On October 22 2010 23:06 GreEny K wrote: I was wondering what happened to him after Beta. He should get involved with more Tourneys, I'd like to see him more popular as a gamer.
afaik blizzard didnt allowed him and some other blizzard employee to take part in tours. I think he even posted it himself in some thread on tl.net if I am not totally wrong.
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^ Yes, David Kim is not allowed to participate in tourneys. Sucks for him, really :p
On October 22 2010 19:08 DND_Enkil wrote:I seriously dot get all the hate here? Show nested quote +This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
He says they balance primarily around 1v1 but if there is an issue breaking 2v2 they have to fix that, and will try to do so in a way that affects 1v1 as little as possible. Same for the silver issue, if there is something breaking a match-up there they have to fix it. Imbalances are fine, a broken game is not and should not be ignored in any league. I agree about 2v2 but how can anything possibly be breaking a match-up at silver lvl? Wtf does that mean? Imbalance means something is unfair, if proxy 2 gates beat you all the time, learn how to defend vs that, there you go, problem solved, nothing's broken whatsoever.
On October 22 2010 22:30 Jibba wrote: Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games.
Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
C'mon, Dayvie.
yea that was a big wtf.
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Grandmaster League - This is just what I needed for the ladder. Hopefully it wont contain a bonus pool.
Very excited for Blizzcon information
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Bisutopia18991 Posts
Sweet, nice interview. DK is my favorite!
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On October 22 2010 22:30 Jibba wrote: Q. We had a Zerg winner in GSL Season 1. Will that have an impact in balancing?
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games.
Q. Recent patch changed how Void Rays work?
A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received.
C'mon, Dayvie. I think the distinction he is making is clear enough. Balance changes can't be made on the basis of the outcome of a series when ambiguous positions arise within the game. But a single example is enough to recognize an abusable timing or technique which is subject to patching.
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It seems to me that a group of people already wanted to think that Blizzard only cares about "casuals" and balances the game around silver league play, and as soon as an interview comes around where a blizzard employee admits that there are leagues other than 1v1 diamond, they take it as an opportunity to rage about imba. If one wants to argue with the results then that is fine, and judging by the general state of the forums, lots of people were unhappy with the state of balance before patches anyways. Blizzard possibly being more transparent about how the balance process occurs or having more of an open discussion with the community about certain changes would be good, but seeing that there's a massive shitstorm no matter how they choose to do it, it's not surprising that they go about it this way.
Is high-level 1v1 broken because of depot before racks? If 2v2 or silver-level balance is inconsequential than this is the only question that matters. There are some high-level players who like the change, and there are probably some who don't. Questioning blizzard's competency seems like a way of discussing balance without having to get actual evidence or a coherent argument.
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On October 22 2010 14:20 TheSCII wrote: lol GM league seems so... odd... since at a 2000+ diamond you probably only play people around that skill level anyways, and not lower tier players Warming up for MLG DC on the ladder HuK played against Ret, Ret being Platinum at the time..
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If they needed a mineral designation above Diamond, they should have gone with Unobtanium.
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"It's unfortunate that everyone hates you"
I lol'd.
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On October 23 2010 00:14 TheSs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:20 TheSCII wrote: lol GM league seems so... odd... since at a 2000+ diamond you probably only play people around that skill level anyways, and not lower tier players Warming up for MLG DC on the ladder HuK played against Ret, Ret being Platinum at the time..
If it's LiquidRet on the NA ladder, he's still Platinum, at 2300 points with ~65 games played (55-10).
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The amusing thing to me is that the GM league will likely have way less BM than Diamond, per capita.
Also, it lets random forumites who care about such numbers to scoff at people saying they're #### Diamond. "What? Only Diamond? Come back when you're Grand Master, scrub!"
I'm ok with them keeping an eye on 2v2. It was a format that was played professionally for a number a years in Proleague, so it's not like wanting to keep 2v2 playable is just some casual catering decision out of the blue.
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They're not balancing around Silver/team games... they're trying to improve them without changing much at higher levels
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Why does the interview read like it was done at gun point?
Either way, very good stuff.
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On October 23 2010 01:03 dcberkeley wrote: They're not balancing around Silver/team games... they're trying to improve them without changing much at higher levels
well since silver/team games use the same units and same buildings, with the same stats, and same rules, it's literally impossible to make balance changes that ONLY affect team games/bad players without affecting the game at higher levels as well.
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Holy crap, looking at the picture in this interview, I just realized that David Kim is the same David Kim I went to school with in Canada! We were dormmates one year, I hardly saw him because he had a Korean roommate and they played BW ALL THE TIME! Wow, I'm glad that it kinda worked out for him after all...
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On October 23 2010 01:28 aidnai wrote: Holy crap, looking at the picture in this interview, I just realized that David Kim is the same David Kim I went to school with in Canada! We were dormmates one year, I hardly saw him because he had a Korean roommate and they played BW ALL THE TIME! Wow, I'm glad that it kinda worked out for him after all...
rofl you KNOW david kim, on this board its like knowing britney spears in real life :D
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Grand Master League -> rename it plz!
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Great interview, thanks for translating. This interview had a lot of great informative information. I am very happy with Blizzard lately. I just hope 1.2 brings all the promised changes though.
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Grand Master League is awesome name! Will be interesting to see how it works though. For example huk is high on both European and American ladder so I wonder how that works.
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On October 22 2010 22:28 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 19:10 Slyda wrote: Marauders are quite a balanced unit. It's just that its abilities are imba, specifically concussive shells. 50% slow wtf. reduce the slow percentage to 40 or 30% maurauders would never be able to catch and pick off stalkers then -_-
Because they don't beat them in a 1v1 battle anyway, right?
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I don't get why everyone is so pissed off about his quote about Zealot build time nerf being designed to help lower level players without overly effecting high level play. All these people are throwing a fit, saying "thats impossible, obviously it will effect higher level play, he's an idiot!!1!"
Except....you know, he was 100% right. The Zealot nerf made it easier for low level players to react to certain cheeses and early all-ins, but it had essentially no effect on top level play, where everyone could defend against those sorts of all-ins anyway. When that build time nerf was announced, there were like fifty pages of qqing in the patch notes thread, and all these idiots saying "now stopping 6 pools is impossible! Zealots suck!"...and then once people got around to actually, you know, playing the game, it turned out it made essentially no difference whatsoever. You could still defend 6 pools. Zealots still kicked ass. 2-gate, 4-gate, 3-gate robo and all the other builds which relied on Zealots were still fully viable.
So the patch did exactly what they'd designed the patch to do, make things slightly easier for lower level players without affecting it for top-level players. So why would that ever be a bad thing? Of course preserving the integrity of top-level 1v1 is priority number 1. But if you can figure out a way to help other levels of play without harming top-level play, then why wouldn't you? People act like thats impossible, but the Zealot build time nerf proves it definitely isn't.
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This interview brings out mixed feelings for me :x
Some parts make perfect sense and speak into my heart, while some others make me wanna smash my head on the keyboard.
The same feeling I get when I read the patch notes hehe. I hope BoxeR demands ICCUP maps to be implemented by the way :D I find it strange that he talks so much about balance and doesn't mention how the maps influence directly.
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ugh I don't like the fact that they are balancing around 2v2 and silver league players instead of around 1v1 players who know what they are doing -_-.
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Very interesting to see how they go about balancing stuff. Thanks for the interview.
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I think David Kim did a good job of explaining why there may be some balances centered around 2v2 and lower leagues. It doesn't sound like they're going to great lengths to balance 2v2, but instead that they want to correct the problems that make it no fun (like reaperling imba) without affecting 1v1.
I only play 1v1 myself, but the casuals in 2v2 shouldn't be ignored as long as we don't feel it in 1v1.
I also thought it was interesting that while plenty of players have been complaining about void rays, which are difficult to stop in lower leagues, it apparently took a pro level player's opinion/replays for the void ray change to happen.
Edit: Damn, there is a lot of hate here.
1. Many are jumping on David Kim over his comment about the void ray replay. This was most likely a summary of what happened, and maybe he was just trying to point out that a replay from a progamer was among the evidence they considered (to let haters know that they pay attention to pro play).
If anyone bothered to reasonably interpret his comment (while noting that it's a translation from Korean) they should have been able to figure out that his job is balance 24/7, and that it is doubtful that changes are decided upon so lightly.
2. Many are whining about the 2v2/silver league balancing. David Kim pointed out twice that their priority remains 1v1 at top levels, and that they only seek to fix the most broken of cheese strategies in the casual games.
It may indeed be impossible to make changes aimed at those leagues without shifting 1v1, but at least it's their goal to prioritize the experience of the top/elite players.
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So sad that so many people are acting like elitists in this thread.
A small percentage (7-8% in NA according to a post earlier?) are diamond, and not all are top level diamonds with strong fundamentals. 100% of players forked over a hard earned $60 to enjoy a game. It only makes sense that each decision they make is based on that 100% and not only that 7% of diamonds or 1% or w/e pros. They need buyers, they need fans, they are a company selling a product first and foremost.
And even with all that said. We still have a number of players from all three races in GSL2, and we had a zerg, terran, and protoss take 1,2,3rd place respectably in MLG DC, so things aren't too bad for high level players. I commend him for trying to reach a level of balance for all levels of play in a very complex game, and so far, Kim and the rest of the team are doing a great job imo.
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I must say, it's pretty silly that David Kim can't get an account on Korean battle.net because he doesn't have a citizenship number.
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On October 22 2010 14:12 Vortok wrote:Marauders are a hard issue. On one hand they rape the hell out of buildings, but it's very easy to send Terran into the depths of being an UP race with just a couple nerfs in the wrong places. Also: Instead of nerfing Zealot build time, just produce better maps.
Terran mech is still really strong. It never really got nerfed. People just figured out that bio is even stronger.
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good interview, looking forward to grand masters league, im fine with the name
but how he can claim that the marauder is not "strong" "stat-wise" is beyond me. anybody with an understanding on how rts games work could see the marauder is totally op looking at his hp/dps/stim ability dps/healability/slow-effect
i remember i was like "wtf that unit is strong" upon first seeing them in one of the pre-beta BRs.
so as a unit on their own they are totally overpowered, especially vs protoss. what makes them beatable in the game are other abilities like force field
claiming they are not "strong" "stat-wise" is just silly period.
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You guys are seriously dumb. While the game doesn't need to be balanced perfectly for lower leagues, you can't have some races be so much easier to play than others that they completely dominate the lower leagues. There still needs to be some semblance of balance at the lower leagues, even if it isn't as balanced as the top. Making things terrible for 99% of your customers is a bad business model, elitists be damned.
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On October 22 2010 22:30 FlatLineX wrote: I bet the korean progamer who send him that replay contain void play was codname angryGrack :D
Haha. That's what I was thinking, too. Grack is the first person to come to mind. Though I suppose he could mean ethnic Korean.
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I want to be in Grand Master League! :O This gets me motivated so much more than trying to stay high rank in Diamond League since players in Grand Master League may get a lot of invitations to play at huge tournaments. :D That would be so fun. And I can't wait to watch SlayerS_'BoxeR' play!
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Wow DK sure likes his battlecraft.
This interview really boosts my confidence on the balancing team. It's also crazy that he can get so high playing random.
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Im glad they're making the Master League but we should be able to watch replays with friends.
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Grand Master league? thast the best name they can come up with.. what a rip off from WOW.
sometimes blizzard has no imagination. :-/
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On October 23 2010 08:32 PhiliBiRD wrote: Grand Master league? thast the best name they can come up with.. what a rip off from WOW.
sometimes blizzard has no imagination. :-/
Would you prefer Rainbow Sherbert division?
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Rainbow Sherbet division would be much cooler than Grand Master League, tbh.
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So, what we get from this Q+A session.
Is that because the non-pro people who play SC2 2v2's are using a good decent strategy that has no really good counter yet are having trouble with strategy X they are deciding to patch the game based on it.
And that because one Korean Progammer sent then replays (against random opponents) they felt like void rays were IMBA. Did the enemy scout the void rays? Scout Protoss' army size? We'll never know.
Then they cast this fail stream to follow it up.
Either way the game was balanced before and it is balanced now (for the most part). Perhaps next we can balance out FFA.
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Grand Master league is about the lamest possible name they could of come up with. I am disappoint
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Whut? Nerfed Void Rays to obsolete thanks to one korean?? Damn, that must've been one helluva replay.
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I really like the grand master league addon, totaly worth it, i still think they should slim down diamond abit.
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I certainly hope that VR replay was an uncounterable timing attack, although I would apprecate a replay to actually prove that this drastic of a nerf was needed. Marauders not being a strong unit was.... very offputting and kinda pisses me off, since anyone can tell him that as a 1.5 tier unit marauder is just incredibly strong and counters a very large number of units on top of just demolishing buildings
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On October 22 2010 16:06 Kachna wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:01 Selith wrote: Q. What kind of things do you take in consideration for balancing?
A. We take teamplay seriously as well as 1v1. Recent 1.1.2 patch changed Reapers. While Reapers had no problem in 1:1, if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling. This problem is same in NA as well as in Korea. This means that you can't succeed all that well in teamplay unless you play a Terran+Zerg combination, so we try to fix it if the problem is as big as that. If not, then we try to balance around 1:1.
Way to go kim way to go... You literally balanced 2vs2 at cost of TvZ 1vs1. Just awesome.
Except the zealot change really didn't affect top level 1v1 play in any significant manner. Reading comprehension and logic is tough stuff?
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On October 23 2010 23:19 Varth wrote: I certainly hope that VR replay was an uncounterable timing attack, although I would apprecate a replay to actually prove that this drastic of a nerf was needed. Marauders not being a strong unit was.... very offputting and kinda pisses me off, since anyone can tell him that as a 1.5 tier unit marauder is just incredibly strong and counters a very large number of units on top of just demolishing buildings
There are very few units that marauders act as a "leave no doubts" hard counter, they're an excellent complementary unit because of their tankish ability, the slow and the fact that they can handle themselves vs mostly every armored unit. But both races have very good ways to deal with marauders with force fields and every zerg unit that isn't a roach.
Anyway, it's pretty clear the whole "marauders aren't strong" portion is a slight mistranslation. They're obviously strong, they just aren't -too- strong.
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On October 23 2010 02:35 awesomoecalypse wrote: I don't get why everyone is so pissed off about his quote about Zealot build time nerf being designed to help lower level players without overly effecting high level play. All these people are throwing a fit, saying "thats impossible, obviously it will effect higher level play, he's an idiot!!1!"
Except....you know, he was 100% right. The Zealot nerf made it easier for low level players to react to certain cheeses and early all-ins, but it had essentially no effect on top level play, where everyone could defend against those sorts of all-ins anyway. When that build time nerf was announced, there were like fifty pages of qqing in the patch notes thread, and all these idiots saying "now stopping 6 pools is impossible! Zealots suck!"...and then once people got around to actually, you know, playing the game, it turned out it made essentially no difference whatsoever. You could still defend 6 pools. Zealots still kicked ass. 2-gate, 4-gate, 3-gate robo and all the other builds which relied on Zealots were still fully viable.
So the patch did exactly what they'd designed the patch to do, make things slightly easier for lower level players without affecting it for top-level players. So why would that ever be a bad thing? Of course preserving the integrity of top-level 1v1 is priority number 1. But if you can figure out a way to help other levels of play without harming top-level play, then why wouldn't you? People act like thats impossible, but the Zealot build time nerf proves it definitely isn't.
Winner.
You're the first person to actually say this and while everyone else has been theorycrafting, you actually brought up ... you know, the actual in-game results of this change. Kudos.
As for you who can't compartmentalize the difference between an imbalanced timing and balancing on a limited sample size, basically all I read after that is "my nerd rage is so great I cease being able to think logically". It's obvious what David Kim meant - stop raging over nothing.
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One thing that I dont understand, is that he contridicts himself in this interview. First off he states this regarding the void ray nerf.
"A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received."
and then later goes on to say this.
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games. While Zerg won the Season 1, recent patch buffed Zerg and nerfed Terrans. As you can see, what race won is not important, but the match content themselves are more important. We check tournament replays, and watch replay files sent in by progamers. In other words, finals don't really mean much in terms of balancing.
I dont get it. they nerfed voidrays based off 1 replay of a korean offracing, but then state they dont balance around 1 or even 10 games.......confusing stuff.
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I just wonder why the changes specific to 2v2 can't apply only to 2v2? For example, if they knew reapers weren't a problem in 1v1 but were a huge problem in 2v2, why can't they make it so the changes only affect 2v2 ladder games?
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And as you can see, no matter how many Marauders he throws at me, he can't stop the Void Rays! Nurf Blizz, please.
WTB Banshee and Marauder secret korean programer offrace replays.
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I totally love that he invests so much time into actually playing the game that he maintains such a high ranking.
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The balance panel Q&A just mentioned the void ray nerf at blizzcon. Apparently Maka came up with a very powerful zealot/sentry/voidray build that motivated blizz to nerf voidrays.
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On October 23 2010 03:59 brain_ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2010 14:12 Vortok wrote:Marauders are a hard issue. On one hand they rape the hell out of buildings, but it's very easy to send Terran into the depths of being an UP race with just a couple nerfs in the wrong places. Also: Instead of nerfing Zealot build time, just produce better maps. Terran mech is still really strong. It never really got nerfed. People just figured out that bio is even stronger.
Yes it did. Tanks were nerfed multiple times.
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I think the new league thing will be very good and def help about the competitive seen.
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Whenever David Kim speaks, I feel so much calmer and more trusting of Blizzard.
"First, I play at pro-level, and mostly receive feedback from top players." I love this; he doesn't take shit from anyone who's not top 100 or a Korean progamer. Which makes the rest of us irrelevant to him.
"if you look at the top of the 2:2 team ranks, almost half of them are Terran+Zerg, and they all use Reaperling" Say what you want about 2v2 3v3 or 4v4, some minority of us occasionally play them, and when every top team uses Zerg/Terran and the same unstoppable build, it gets lame fast.
"Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received" I really want to see that replay. Apparently some timing was so unstoppable that David Kim himself decided to nerf Void Ray after only one replay.
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On October 24 2010 03:06 eXigent. wrote: "A. A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray. Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received."
and then later goes on to say this.
A. We can't do balancing patch around just 1 game or 10 games. While Zerg won the Season 1, recent patch buffed Zerg and nerfed Terrans. As you can see, what race won is not important, but the match content themselves are more important. We check tournament replays, and watch replay files sent in by progamers. In other words, finals don't really mean much in terms of balancing.
I dont get it. they nerfed voidrays based off 1 replay of a korean offracing, but then state they dont balance around 1 or even 10 games.......confusing stuff.
I am not so sure why people are confused about this. David Kim made it crystal clear about his balance team decision.
David Kim said if you can actually pinpoint a problem, the balance team will look at it extensively before they consider any possibilities for changes. However, if you just took 10 replays of Protoss winning-games and tell them to balance the game, they will not even bother. So obviously, the replay indeed showed the problem, their team did enough tests to implement VR nerf.
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On October 23 2010 10:11 NoobSkills wrote: So, what we get from this Q+A session.
Is that because the non-pro people who play SC2 2v2's are using a good decent strategy that has no really good counter yet are having trouble with strategy X they are deciding to patch the game based on it.
And that because one Korean Progammer sent then replays (against random opponents) they felt like void rays were IMBA. Did the enemy scout the void rays? Scout Protoss' army size? We'll never know.
Then they cast this fail stream to follow it up.
Either way the game was balanced before and it is balanced now (for the most part). Perhaps next we can balance out FFA.
So what we get from your answer is that you are dumb and shouldnt be posting at all? That interview showed very good reasoning behind their actions.
Saying stuff like balancing FFA is just increasing your dumbness level, because FFA lives from imbalances, but im sure you never even played teamgames or FFA so that you would be able to judge it or their decisions on it.
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On October 24 2010 17:32 hunter3 wrote: "Through the replay, we gave Void Ray the change that it received" I really want to see that replay. Apparently some timing was so unstoppable that David Kim himself decided to nerf Void Ray after only one replay.
I think it was translated poorly:
"A Korean progamer, who played a Protoss although his main race isn't Protoss, sent us a replay showing a weakness of opponents in a certain specific period of time when a Protoss is using a Void Ray."
Replay is singular but opponents is plural. I'm leaning to the side of David Kim getting a replay pack which was so brutal that he made the balance changes.
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I don't know if i like the idea of nerfing HT, they are alredy wery hard to get. If they decide to nerf storms , they should then atleast make them easier to get, curently it takes so long to get them out.
Any while we are talking about HT, does anybody else think that they should buff feedback, so HT are more usefull early, while you are waiting for storms?
In my opinion a good buff would be to alow feedback to destroy the shields of protoss units, it would certainly make PvP a lot more interesting than it is now.
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they just say terran hast a 6% adventage and they want to nerf protoss???? WTF?? if they nerf HT´s its really terrancraft
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whats the next thing? supernova elite league?
why not go backwards with copper and wood league.
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What bothers me is that in my experience if there was soemthing I couldnt beat... I practiced, practiced, oh and practiced some more.. with different build Ideas and such Until I could beat it...
Now it seems silver level newbs run into something they cant beat and cry imba until it gets patched... And Blizzard accually Does this?!?!
I thought the point of a strategy game like this was to learn to be better and grow in skill...
"well we know platinum and diamond players dont have a problem with this but silver guys are losing." .... Maybe this is why they are in silver maybe?? Maybe they need to learn timing and strategy to win?
Maaaaaybe its idiotic to balance a game around people who have no IDEA about balance because they cant counter something as silly as reaper ling... >.< I mean come on its team play I figured any newb would make a couple cannons , spine srawlers, or a bunker and a couple marauders... Yeah yeah static defense sucks in 1v1... but if you know your going to be hit by two people... it might not be a bad investment to protect your workers and ramp eh?
Wonderful way to balance a game as anticipated and proffesionally important as starcraft.... gg blizzard G G
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On October 22 2010 14:14 skindzer wrote: There should be 2 leagues above diamond.
OH MY GOD, how did you know?
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On October 24 2010 05:56 allyourbase wrote: The balance panel Q&A just mentioned the void ray nerf at blizzcon. Apparently Maka came up with a very powerful zealot/sentry/voidray build that motivated blizz to nerf voidrays. There goes my haunch about Idra sending them his GSL 1 loss to voidrays.
I think a little transparency would have helped them in the PR department, if they released the build and nobody could counter it then the nerf wouldn't seem so out of the blue.
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