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Hi everyone, when we were at WCS we had a chance to do a brief interview with David Kim. We talk about LotV, game design and balancing strategies, Brood War vs SC2 and a few other topics.
Enjoy!
So to start things off, talking about Legacy of the Void. When you make a new unit for StarCraft do you prioritize balance, the current needs of the race or thematic/lore based considerations.
So on the StarCraft II design team we think of three things as the most important especially when it comes to multiplayer stuff. It's the fun, diversity, and fairness. So when we think of balance we try to think of all these three things together, we don't try to make a call where its like "Because this is fair it's all good even though its not fun and its not diverse" we try to have a good mix of the three in all areas throughout the course of the game.
Ok, so it's not really a priority based thing its more of a balance between all of them?
Yeah for sure because sometimes maybe the diversity factor is not as optimal as it could be but because the other two factors are so high maybe it's ok, but other times we just kind of want to keep those three very strong no matter what issue we're talking about.
So the thing that immediately comes to mind is the change to the Swarm Host. It kind of did take a while to come in because you could say that with the old Swarm Host the game was very balanced but not exactly...fun at times.
So I think that's a good example of that and I think that looking back we should have acted much quicker on it but the reason why we couldn't, or reason why we didn't is because it only happened at this specific region and skill, it was very common in the European skill level and the European region. We were seeing it moreso on the ladder especially and we saw it maybe once or twice per year but we kind of hoped because we didn't see so much of it in Korea for example we kind of hoped it would lean one way or the other; so if it kind of goes more towards one way (The European style) across the whole pro level, if everyone's using Swarm Host that way then we can react and patch real quick versus if it leans the other way then maybe we didn't have to do anything. We were kind of waiting to see if it would go one way or the other but it didn't and it kind of stayed there for such a long time so it was kind of difficult for us to choose when to step in. Looking back we feel like we should have done something about it much sooner.
Read more here
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Nice! Thanks for sharing Bacon~
Will check it out now! Keep up the good Bacon work!
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We always keep up the bacon work :p
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David Kim has his solution right in front of him. Map tweaking for balance. Leave the game alone, let the pros play and figure it out.
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So we definitely agree when it comes to getting your fourth expansion or fifth expansion Protoss has the hardest time in Heart of the Swarm and I think they would currently as well (in the beta) but because so many other factors were added, for example; Adepts are really strong early game, harrassment using Warm Prism's is also extremely powerful especially when you combo them with Immortals or Disruptors and enemy air units are not out yet. So it's kind of difficult to conclude that Protoss is just weaker because of it but expansion wise I totally agree that what you said is the case.
Translation: Protoss should win earlier. This is like telling Zerg "kill the Terran before he mass-Ravens....oh btw, he's gonna turtle on 3 bases with no hope of you getting in... good luck."
Are you kidding me? Just stupid. SC1 games were more exciting than this "ouch... I lost a battle... GG" crap they're force-feeding our pro players. Where are the epic SC1 comebacks? Where are the tit for tat slugfests?! I find 1 GOOD match every 20 matches? If I wanted to see teenagers play rock, paper, scissors, I would just play with my kids.
Rant over.
Jaedong is my boy.
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On June 30 2015 14:17 midnjerry wrote:Show nested quote +So we definitely agree when it comes to getting your fourth expansion or fifth expansion Protoss has the hardest time in Heart of the Swarm and I think they would currently as well (in the beta) but because so many other factors were added, for example; Adepts are really strong early game, harrassment using Warm Prism's is also extremely powerful especially when you combo them with Immortals or Disruptors and enemy air units are not out yet. So it's kind of difficult to conclude that Protoss is just weaker because of it but expansion wise I totally agree that what you said is the case. Translation: Protoss should win earlier. This is like telling Zerg "kill the Terran before he mass-Ravens....oh btw, he's gonna turtle on 3 bases with no hope of you getting in... good luck." Are you kidding me? Just stupid. SC1 games were more exciting than this "ouch... I lost a battle... GG" crap they're force-feeding our pro players. Where are the epic SC1 comebacks? Where are the tit for tat slugfests?! I find 1 GOOD match every 20 matches? If I wanted to see teenagers play rock, paper, scissors, I would just play with my kids. Rant over. Jaedong is my boy.
The "win before that happens" answer was a bit problematic but it is nice that at the end he stated that they will look into it before Legacy actually launches. It's good to hear that they at least know that protoss late game economy is in a bad state and are considering ways to fix it
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Yea, we can only hope. Good job btw! Thanks for the hard work you put in!
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It's not a problem at all. We knew we had to try to do this as soon as they announced he would be there, just glad it worked out
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Very nice interivew, thanks a lot Bacon! Really nice to see so much communication with DK these days .
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On June 30 2015 14:50 Bacon_Infinity wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2015 14:17 midnjerry wrote:So we definitely agree when it comes to getting your fourth expansion or fifth expansion Protoss has the hardest time in Heart of the Swarm and I think they would currently as well (in the beta) but because so many other factors were added, for example; Adepts are really strong early game, harrassment using Warm Prism's is also extremely powerful especially when you combo them with Immortals or Disruptors and enemy air units are not out yet. So it's kind of difficult to conclude that Protoss is just weaker because of it but expansion wise I totally agree that what you said is the case. Translation: Protoss should win earlier. This is like telling Zerg "kill the Terran before he mass-Ravens....oh btw, he's gonna turtle on 3 bases with no hope of you getting in... good luck." Are you kidding me? Just stupid. SC1 games were more exciting than this "ouch... I lost a battle... GG" crap they're force-feeding our pro players. Where are the epic SC1 comebacks? Where are the tit for tat slugfests?! I find 1 GOOD match every 20 matches? If I wanted to see teenagers play rock, paper, scissors, I would just play with my kids. Rant over. Jaedong is my boy. The "win before that happens" answer was a bit problematic but it is nice that at the end he stated that they will look into it before Legacy actually launches. It's good to hear that they at least know that protoss late game economy is in a bad state and are considering ways to fix it How I know blizzard I bet the solution is going to look somewhat like this: Mothership gets new ability: Super Photon Overcharge: Its like regular photon overcharge but it insta kills anything. Now you can super easily take a fourth and fifth base!
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Answers of David Kim are written in pretty awful english, couldn't force myself to read it till the end. Hope there were some useful information.
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DK as always. A lot of text but hardly any information.
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I wonder how the aspects of fun, diversity and fairness were done for the tempest
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On June 30 2015 19:48 Charoisaur wrote: I wonder how the aspects of fun, diversity and fairness were done for the tempest Sadly I don't think the answer were for adressing all units, but rather the current meta game.
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Norway839 Posts
On June 30 2015 19:48 Charoisaur wrote: I wonder how the aspects of fun, diversity and fairness were done for the tempest all the fun and diversity went into one big sound effect + Show Spoiler + >_< so it was true that SH would've been nerfed sooner if more people used them. Special thanks to all the Zergs that didn't play SH for helping it stay alive just a little bit longer x)
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On June 30 2015 20:41 Liquid`Snute wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2015 19:48 Charoisaur wrote: I wonder how the aspects of fun, diversity and fairness were done for the tempest all the fun and diversity went into one big sound effect + Show Spoiler +>_< so it was true that SH would've been nerfed sooner if more people used them. Special thanks to all the Zergs that didn't play SH for helping it stay alive just a little bit longer x)
And all I wanted was to be appreciated for being as clever as you are
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On June 30 2015 14:17 midnjerry wrote:Show nested quote +So we definitely agree when it comes to getting your fourth expansion or fifth expansion Protoss has the hardest time in Heart of the Swarm and I think they would currently as well (in the beta) but because so many other factors were added, for example; Adepts are really strong early game, harrassment using Warm Prism's is also extremely powerful especially when you combo them with Immortals or Disruptors and enemy air units are not out yet. So it's kind of difficult to conclude that Protoss is just weaker because of it but expansion wise I totally agree that what you said is the case. Translation: Protoss should win earlier. This is like telling Zerg "kill the Terran before he mass-Ravens....oh btw, he's gonna turtle on 3 bases with no hope of you getting in... good luck." Are you kidding me? Just stupid. SC1 games were more exciting than this "ouch... I lost a battle... GG" crap they're force-feeding our pro players. Where are the epic SC1 comebacks? Where are the tit for tat slugfests?! I find 1 GOOD match every 20 matches? If I wanted to see teenagers play rock, paper, scissors, I would just play with my kids. Rant over. Jaedong is my boy.
No.
What he's saying is Protoss has effective harassment tools that it can use early to make sure that the other races don't get too far ahead in the late game.
If all the races sit back passively and macro then yes Protoss might have a harder time expanding. But using Adepts early and Warp Prism / Disruptor harass you can hurt the other races' economies to keep them level with yours and stay in the game.
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On June 30 2015 20:41 Liquid`Snute wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2015 19:48 Charoisaur wrote: I wonder how the aspects of fun, diversity and fairness were done for the tempest all the fun and diversity went into one big sound effect + Show Spoiler +>_< so it was true that SH would've been nerfed sooner if more people used them. Special thanks to all the Zergs that didn't play SH for helping it stay alive just a little bit longer x)
Yeah i feel that his answers are really bad. Dissapointed with that logic
Tho SH in LotV are decent now 200/100 3spply, flying locusts from start and nascar speed )
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