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I would bet the delay of the patch is mostly based on feedback from kespa and gsl.
As much as everyone of their respective race wants to whine about the unit comp they struggle vs - the current meta is pretty balanced. You saw the top Korean toss wreck the top Korean terran with liberators at their current strength (though I do think the nerf is based more for tvz it will also have an impact on tvp) - you see in proleague week after week great games in tvz which is almost completely balanced results wise this season - if the zerg survives until late game he is favored - if not the terran is - basically same story up until blord/infestor and the widowmine nerf in hots.
As much as it's easy to get drawn into the whine - to me if the game is very close to balanced (which it is not possible to be completely 100% balanced) we should tread carefully with changes - which seems like they are doing - which I think is a positive thing. We've seen more times than not (for sure) that changes made when the game is showing very close to balanced results can have a tremendous negative impact on the overall balance - so waiting for more sample size to me is the wise thing.
Disclaimer- when I say close to balanced results I'm referencing at the highest level of play - which is where the balance is most exploited and absolutely where the changes that are made need to be coming from - no one cares that you can't deal with some unit comp on ladder - just enjoy the game at your level and try to improve.
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As much as I dislike microtransaction models, particularily for an RTS game like SC2, I think I have to agree with BisuDagger here, as it would most likely help keeping Blizzard's continued investment in the game justified.
As a former WoW-player I honestly don't know if I would support a monthly subscription model, probably not, because I overall (and in hindsight) disliked the direction they went with that game over the years albeit them spending huge budgets on further development, which would, at least according to my personal experience, contradict your presumption that such measure would improve the game long term.
In addition to that there's no guarantee you'd be happy with the direction the game is going despite having a substancial increase in development funding, maybe if they decide to shift on their target audience (which I guess they already did somehow with LotV).
In the process of the development of LotV there as been a lot of eyewashing on Blizzard's end, I feel, maybe their hands are tied due to some shareholder decisions, I don't know, maybe they really wanna try and do the best they can to help the game, but reality for me is that I was a happy SC2 player at the end of HotS, game was good, a bit stale maybe, but I really liked it. Now, with LotV, although they made all those big announcements and even implemented some new stuff like co-op and DLC missions, I'm not a happy SC2 player anymore, at all.
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Wait what, they never went ahead with the tank patch ? O.o
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Mr. Kim,
Patch version, (what you got now) A balance map, (what you've been proposing) And a Nightly-build-balance map. (what could have been around since Wing of Liberty launched from beta... no big deal didnt miss any potential, with all the brilliant talent around to experiment with random changes the results can still be amazing.)
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I agreed that Blizzard shouldn't go to the whole community (bronze,plat, diamond player) to balance the game. They should focus on listening feedbacks from pro players and observe matches at the highest level. IMO, anyone else who ain't a GM have too much bias and don't have the skills to push the game to its full potential to determine whether any race is not balance.
Sure, the lower level players can complain about certain units feeling abusive (widow mines, liberators etc.). But their own skills limitation makes it hard to compare. I am just a mid Diamond player and I know my own input might not be the fact that the game is imbalance but rather my own skill level limitation.
I rather they focus on refining the game like they did with BW. Too many chefs spoil the broth.
...
As a separate note, we often argue that if Blizzard has more financial incentive they will be better at balancing the game. The point is that I do not know if this arguement works..or the logic works. They are already doing micro-transaction-like manner with the Nova campaign. Even if they roll out more micro-transactions for decals or special unit models, i really doubt it will change the way they manage the game balancing aspect. I thought the original Arcade was also have micro-transactions as well (to buy a custom game) but that didn't roll out.
Personally, i feel like they are trying to hit too many targets at once (Nova campaign, Arcade, balancing the game etc). Wheras in BW, they only focus on 1v1 balancing.
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Maybe this is crazy, and obviously I'm not a pro player, but at this point, why do we even need balance changes anymore? I feel like the game is balanced enough that it can be changed/tweaked primarily through community maps at this point, like in BW. Having pro players and random forum members having this much power over the game, with people having the idea that if they whine hard enough, Blizzard will change the game in their favor, is just weird. BW worked fine without any balance changes, even if sometimes crap did get unbalanced.
I'm kind of an old grump at this point, though, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
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On May 04 2016 19:01 Cyro wrote:
Stalkers are very weak against non-armored AA, that's most obvious against phoenix and mutas. They hit 1.4x higher against armored air and that damage point seems to be in a good place (for example, look at stalker vs medivac, stalker vs liberator, stalker vs viking, flying buildings, battlecruisers, void rays, carriers) but it's obvious that the AA-nonarmored damage is very low, maybe too low. It's been kinda that way for a very long time but we have gone along with it.
This has nothing to do with stalkers. Stacked air units are always very strong, no matter what, because you stack all the health and damage to one point or to a small area. Thats why you need aoe damage against air.
You can buff as much as you want, there will be always a number of mutas that will be stronger because of stacking. Thats how air units work. They stack all the health and damage at one point. Thats why you combat mass air units always with aoe which counters stacking.
Nontheless sentry shield and stalkers do well against mutas and you can counter micro (circle, stutter step when low numbers).
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United Kingdom20145 Posts
why do we even need balance changes anymore? I feel like the game is balanced enough that it can be changed/tweaked primarily through community maps at this point
Blizzard runs the ladder and nonkorean map pools right now
This has nothing to do with stalkers. Stacked air units are always very strong, no matter what, because you stack all the health and damage to one point or to a small area. Thats why you need aoe damage against air.
You can buff as much as you want, there will be always a number of mutas that will be stronger because of stacking. Thats how air units work.
It's clearly different w/ the stalker - this point in the scaling happens way way earlier for stalkers than for units like the Marine for a few different reasons. One of the main ones being that marines will never waste a shot because they fire an instant attack, while stalkers will waste 0% of their damage in a 1v1 but maybe 20%+ of their damage when there are a lot of stalkers and a lot of stacked mutas.
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I am curious , which community are Blizzard using to interface with. I only know of two TL or Reddit. Is there any others?
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United Kingdom20145 Posts
On May 05 2016 14:44 Topdoller wrote: I am curious , which community are Blizzard using to interface with. I only know of two TL or Reddit. Is there any others?
Bnet forums and some kespa guys
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On May 05 2016 14:44 Topdoller wrote: I am curious , which community are Blizzard using to interface with. I only know of two TL or Reddit. Is there any others? And PlayXP (https://www.playxp.com/sc2/)
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Even DK seems to think that winrates settling means balance getting better. Judging from stats, it seems that this current "protoss getting better" is just protoss players distribution settling to lower leagues.
In a ladder system where system tries to get every player to winrate of 50%, winrates obviously don't mean much if anything. However, if we take a look how players are distributed to leagues, we see the following:
Protoss players in platinum or higher out of all protoss players: 28,5% Terran players in platinum or higher out of all terran players: 35,3% Zerg players in platinum or higher out of all zerg players: 40,8%
I think the difference between P and Z is massive. The percentage of zerg players in diamond or higher is pretty close to protosses in platinum or higher (out of all players in respective races).
That being said, on the top level balance seems pretty good, all races have made finals and it doesn't seem like players race is barring players from doing good. It just seems that Blizzard doesn't really see what happens below top level.
Source: http://www.rankedftw.com/stats/races/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&l=-2
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In my view, the pro balance of the game is only really an important/significant issue after most people that have been playing this game at a fairly high level for several years believe that the game design itself is in a good state.
There are many other games/titles on the PC that may be proven to be balanced for competitive play, but you will not necessarily see very many players, spectators or even a community rally behind the game if the game design is deemed to be poor for the year 2016.
The community had a certain level of expectation with respect to SC2 game design for the last expansion in the series. There were expectations of improvement, not of regression (HOTS). Rather than building over fundamentals, it seems that Blizzard has invested too heavily in the shiny/flashy mechanics (to the detriment of fundamentals), and the result is disappointing game design.
Fix the game design, and then I am sure you will be able to still balance it for the 0.01% of top players (GSL). GSL balance should not be the most important thing at this stage of the LOTV process, because whether anyone wants to admit/accept it or not LOTV should still be considered in development as it relates to the multiplayer aspect.
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On May 05 2016 05:34 Ignorant prodigy wrote: these community posts make me so sad.. why on earth would you go to the community to balance your game? Because there's no point in balancing a game that no one plays? If all you do is force-feed the community shit sandwiches, that's what you'll end up with. I don't think the community is good for proposing changes but it's pretty good for vetoing bad changes.
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as a person who did heavy test map testing during thor flat splash period, let me offer some opinion on the thor change
I really don't like it- I believe that single target long range AA should go into cyclone and make it cheaper/more disposable instead of the current mess of the lock on mechanics.
Even if the above wasn't possible, Thor being single target could use more help in that department as it is losing the splash damage
Now onto my points:
Thor change:
Thor change is really overall nerf to utility of the unit- Thor is 6 supply unit that does 35+15- numbers may look impressive at glance, but it really is population inefficient. Its not really useful at all but vs broodlords- which it doesn't do great against since both sides can kite each other and broodlings block the thors. Thors also have clunky firing delay that worked with burst damage nature of the javline missles, but doesn't work as well with faster-firing current change missles.
Not only that, the damage isn't really great- 25 air DPS vs armored for 6 pop unit isn't really "worth" it when its huge, blocky (blocks other thor from firing at same time) when vikings can stack and do just as well and offer fast, reliable single target focus-
You may argue that Parasitic bomb is a big threat for the vikings, but binding cloud does just as much vs AA thors in denying damage. There is no real reason to make thors against lategame air except in TvT when it becomes liberator coutner.
For comparison, Vikings do 19.6 single target DPS vs armored air, while thor offers 25 single target dps. Thors cost 6 supply while vikings cost 2 and is more mobile. There is no real incentive to make thors for the anti air capacity when it does so poorly. It had its niche as AA vs muta in past, now it doesn't do anything much.
--- build diversity:
Also, opening factory is difficult now with 2 base muta becoming a much larger threat- turret+thor isn't enough anymore vs 2 base muta openers since thors do so poorly against mutas as it became a single target 17.5 dps unit-
What made thors great vs muta was the splash and also the burst damage of thor that punished mutas flying into base. Thor offered an instant, splash damage response but with change, it doesn't anymore. Thor right now offers 14 dps over 3 seconds with small splash, while the change makes thor a 17.5 dps SINGLE target over 2 seconds, which is whole lot worse against mutas.
Not only is it less burst and instantaneously punishing. it loses the splash damage for very minor 3.5 dps upgrade.
Its worse even vs magic boxed muta. Factory openings are simply discouraged with this change going through.
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fix tempests, fix liberators, fix siege tanks, fix ravagers, fix ravens, fix vipers, fix cyclones
....
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To me, the biggest problem with protoss is that twilight council, immortals and warp prism are just too good. Let me explain a bit: every all-in are done with putting a TC and a robo to get the prism just before starting to push. Then, if the all-in fails, the protoss already have a robo (and even often an empty but up third for a few weeks), and with prism being so good, the protoss can still prevent the zerg from attacking for a few minutes with adept harass or possibly a DT that also can be used to defend (or kill a third...). This gives him the time to build 3-6 immortals (possibly be adding a second robo) so that he can still secure a third easily.
My point is the following: before, when a protoss failed a all-in, it was hard to come back as the protoss needed to go for colossus (so possibly robo + bay + upgrade) and terran/zerg was able to punish the protoss. Now, with immortal being so good and so easy to build (just robo, no upgrade, robo already used for prism), it is much harder to punish an all-in if the protoss is good at harassing with a prism (which is very easy against zerg).
Conclusion: nerf immortal/prism!
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On May 04 2016 13:33 Cascade wrote: Can't do game design by community democracy, or you'll end up with Boaty McBoatface.
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Maybe you could, if there was a system of polls and something to help decide what to put in the polls by the community, and then those polls decide of the proposed modification (of course after enough discussion). But with a "CFU" weekly arbitrarily deciding which feedback is heard and which is ignored (including polls), it makes it look like community democracy is bad but really it's not at all the community who decided of these changes at all is it. You'd need polls on various topics and iterations on polls.
Skilled developpers can still make great games without community polls...
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Protosses are like unicorns... so rare these days :/
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