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David Kim interview @ DH Montreal: What's the end game for SC2?
August 18th, 2016 20:34 GMT
At DreamHack Montreal, David Kim announced an upcoming design change patch that will bring enormous change to StarCraft II. TeamLiquid had a chance to sit down and talk to David Kim about his long term goals for StarCraft II, contrasting feedback from the Korean and Western scenes, and the many elements of balance. Waxangel:You've never done such a sweeping patch before. Is this because LotV is the last expansion? David Kim: Because Legacy of the Void was the last expansion and we wanted to take a pass at it, we decided to do a major patch. Originally we were thinking maybe it would be as big as a multiplayer-only expansion type of thing. But when we tried adding new units and stuff, it didn’t turn out so well. We’re approaching the limit of max unit count per race already [note: At the SC2 community summit, David Kim explained how Blizzard had tested out adding new units, and how they ended up overlapping significantly with existing units.], so we just decided to do a major patch like this. Can we expect this every year after BlizzCon? What’s the plan going down the line? David Kim: So the plan originally was to get everything in the right place design wise, and to do balance patches after Legacy of the Void. But, as we know, there were a few major things we could address, so we decided to do this pass.
But going forward, it’s hard to say. If we get everything right with this patch, then probably only balances patches in the future. But if we don't get everything right, then yeah, we can do it again, maybe around the same time frame next year. We really don’t know yet, because we really want to address the issues we have right now. What do you think is an ideal state for the game? Do you think it can be "finished" per se? David Kim: Yeah, that’s what we’re working towards. And I think ideal is having each match-up in a good place, with good diversity in different match-ups, especially on different maps. We want the game to be in a place where major changes aren’t happening, but… ...you know how maps get rotated out every season? If we just do that, the strategies change per season, the game stays very diverse, it’s fun to play, fun to watch, things like that. That’s what we’re kind of working toward. So as a designer, someone who looks at games as art, that’s an ideal end goal: a game that’s “done” and doesn’t have to be iterated upon. David Kim: It depends on the game I think, but for StarCraft, yeah, we believe that. But for say example, HearthStone or Heroes of the Storm, they have very different goals, because the goal there is to always bring in new updates so that the game stays fresh that way. But StarCraft is obviously not a game like that so, that’s what we think for StarCraft. You're a huge fan of real time strategy, with it being your favorite genre. Looking around the competitive games landscape, do you feel that it's inevitable in the future that RTS will have to be constantly updated? David Kim: I don’t think so, like we saw with StarCraft 1. We’re definitely putting in a lot more work, especially together with community members, together with progamers, so I think we can get there with StarCraft 2. But I don’t think that’s the only way games can be good, right? That’s not the only way competitive games can be good.
But for StarCraft 2, we believe that we can get there, and I think that we are getting there. We're definitely heading in the right direction with HotS changes as well as LotV changes, so maybe we’re 80%, 90% there. And because we have been going forward incrementally like that, we believe that the end is somewhere near, but we don’t know exactly when that will be. I’ve been reading some of the community feedback. Western feedback is positive, or takes a wait-and-see stance. I feel the Korean feedback has been very different. It’s a very ironic situation where the West is asking for things to be more like Brood War while the Koreans say that the game is too hard.
What do you think about that situation? The Korean community is especially critical of the fact that there are too many active abilities and that harassment is too forced, making the game very hard for new players to get into. David Kim: What’s funny is that it’s not just the Korean community that says that, it’s also the pro players. When we meet with KeSPA—for example, our producer just went to Korea to meet with KeSPA around last week. I wanted to go also, but I had this event so I couldn't. One of the main feedback there from the KeSPA coaches was that the game is too hard [for pros].
We thought that was very interesting, because that’s not what the WCS pros say, right? Because they say the game should be HARDER so that no one can master it, in which case I think we're in a pretty good state there, but… ...I think the main goal for us is to have that game that is the most impossible to master in the world in StarCraft 2, because that’s what we’ve been working toward. And obviously there will be people who think, "I spent this much time as a pro player, maybe I should have perfectly mastered it." But the fact that they haven’t I think is kind of a cool factor. At the same time we don’t want to make it more difficult.
And I think for active abilities, I don't think it's right to say just because there’s an active ability it makes the game harder. For example, it really depends on the active ability. For example, the Disruptor shot is very hard to master versus Void Ray attack. Anyone can do it. A bronze-silver level player, I think their favorite unit, especially in team games, through what we see in stats, is the Void Ray. It’s definitely not hard to use, because all you do is: engagement started, press one button, everything powers up, and I can kill everything. So it really depends.
With this patch, we definitely should make sure that the game is not harder than it is now. But our goal is definitely not to make the game much easier so that anyone can master the game, or that some number of pro players can master the game. We kind of like the state of the game currently.
How do you address those Korean concerns, though. How do you try to reconcile the different wants of the East and the West? David Kim: So our thinking is—and we don’t know if it's working super well—is for the non-pro level players, because there’s so much to do and to master, we believe that spending time just mastering a smaller part of the game is the fun of the experience, not necessarily making it so people think "I can do everything that the pro players can do." And we kind of have to make sure that it's something the players are okay with, and if they’re not, then maybe we can look at some changes to lessen the difficulty at those levels without hurting the pro level too much.
What those changes are, I’m not really sure right now, but we can definitely work toward that. And if there’s suggestions, especially from the Korean side, I think it would be better that we work together. You know that we have the weekly updates, where we communicate back and forth with the community. So rather than just saying the game is too hard, that we have to fix everything—if players can actually point out what parts should be looked at, then we can definitely look at it, especially when we start public testing with these major change patches. How does Korean progamer feedback differ qualitatively from Western progamer feedback? Does one side tend to talk more about specific details on balance, while the other talks about more conceptual design issues? David Kim: I think we get both from both sides, but I would say the main difference is that Korean players USED to say that we should never patch, and that has changed with Legacy of the Void. Like, up to Heart of the Swarm they were saying things like you should never patch the game, because pros will always figure it out, so just leave everything alone. Versus the non-Korean pros who were the complete opposite, right? They’ve become kind of the same in Legacy.
But just recently, especially with the latest changes that we’ve been talking about, the Korean feedback has been “you don’t have to do this patch because the balance has been very solid in Korea right now.” And that’s why we were a little bit worried about the major patch announcement, because we definitely want to do this patch, but at the same time, the feedback has definitely been swinging a little more toward don’t do any patches. What do you think changed? Something in the gameplay, or something in the esports environment? David Kim: I’m not sure. Maybe because the game changed so much with Legacy of the Void, maybe the Korean pros were in the mindset that the changes were SO big that an initial polish patch had to happen for the game to be in a good place, especially with units like the Adept toward the beginning. Now that we’re in a slightly better place, maybe the feedback is going back to what they used to think.
The Korean community complains about the game having too much harassment shoehorned into it. Do you believe aspects of that are true? Also, some people on TeamLiquid say harassment is less impressive because now it's required, compared to back in Wings where if someone could medivac drop three places, it was impressive BECAUSE they were trying very hard to make it work when it wasn’t as easy. David Kim: So the first part, I think we agree. With the last balance patch we did, we increased the effectiveness of the queen, and what that’s doing is effectively nerfing harassment against Zerg. So we definitely think that we were going a little too far in that direction. And that’s why we took a step back.
And the second part, I don’t know if we agree. Whether it’s a requirement or not, the players who really have mastered that micro, will shine. Like for example, Dark using a zergling-baneling strategy is very different from an average pro player using the same strategy. Or, the Warp Prism use yesterday, when Neeb used it against Scarlett. Clearly, average pro level players would have lost the Warp Prism twice in that engagement but he didn’t. So it’s more about the pro players mastering this specific thing, and I think less about whether this type of strategy is the most ideal or not.
What do you think is the ability of a player base, of pro players, to solve a balance problem over time? Say like, Brood Lord-Infestor, was it fixable, solvable given say three, five, seven years? David Kim: Probably, but, it’s just always a matter of time. We didn’t think like this back then, but we should have—right now what we think is that we have to gauge the situation to see how bad it is in terms of playing the game or watching the game, because the BL-infestor situation was pretty bad. So even if it's the case that we could wait three years until players can figure it out, we shouldn’t wait because the quality of the games during those three years will be bad.
The Warp Prism is talked about a lot as being overpowered. Things like that we believe a players can also figure out over a long course of time. But because it’s creating more action, making each game play very differently depending on how the harassment happens, we believe things like that we can wait a little longer. But because the feedback on this specific issue has been so heavily toward nerfing it, we’ve been exploring it.
However, the community is now a bit split with the pro players, with the latest feedback saying you don’t have to nerf or buff anything since the game is in a really good place, versus the community that’s obviously not thinking like that. It's not just the prism, but also things like a slight nerf to the Adept cooldown or shade vision and Ultralisk 1 armor reduction—on all those things it’s very split right now between the pro players and the community, so we’re very mixed on what to do. We’ll see going forward. Do you feel like something has been lost, since modern games have their gameplay issues actively fixed? I feel like one of the great moments for Brood War fans was when Protoss versus Zerg was "solved" by Bisu after seven years. Even if PvZ was terrible before that, it's a moment where you realized something about the beauty of the game. David Kim: I don’t think it was completely lost, right? We still see that here and there, for example, the Adept stuff or Warp Prism works itself out—and it may already have according to pros—I think we see a mix of changing the game so things get better, versus pros figuring stuff out so things get better.
But what you’re talking about I think is the end goal for us, though. We want to have the game in a place where changes aren’t coming frequently, so maybe there’s a balance patch once a year or less, at some point. And the pro players just have time to figure that stuff out on their own. I think that’s where we definitely want to get to.
I read an interesting post by an Overwatch designer where he talked about the "perception" of balance. This might just be me reading between the lines, but do you feel like you're forced to manage the community's perception of balance versus what the stats are telling you? David Kim: Every game is different so I can’t really speak to Overwatch and what’s right for that, but for StarCraft what we think is that the perception is part of the balance. Like, if perception was bad and the data was good, then we would say that a part of balance is bad because community perception is such a huge part of getting balance right.
I have an example when new designers come in and they say like “it’s only about the data, not what people think.” When they say that, my extreme example is “say the numbers are 50/50 but everyone thinks the balance sucks right now—is that a good place to be in?” Obviously not, right? So my response to that is, yeah, then the game’s not balanced.
So we think the community perception is important, data is important, tournament results as well as quality of games within the tournaments are important. It’s all these various factors that make the balance, so in some ways it’s very difficult to achieve a place where balance is really solid across all these different angles. That’s why we work so hard toward making it better over a long period of time. I guess the short answer is that community perception is super important, and it is a part of game balance as well.
Regarding testing, do you believe you can achieve useful testing? Because we talked in the past about how you can have the test maps and you can try to get people to play them, but in the end you kind of just have to throw it out there in Proleague and see what sticks. David Kim: It depends on what you mean by useful. If you’re saying, is it useful in the sense that can we get the same type of testing that we get on live? Then probably not, because obviously not as many people play test maps compared to people playing live. But if you’re talking about is it useful to polish a little bit more before the changes go live? Then I think it’s very useful. Because if we don’t do that, if we put it out live on Tuesday, imagine how bad the balance would be. Yeah, we don’t get the most ideal number of people participating in testing, but still, it’s better than nothing.
So we definitely think it’s super useful, and we definitely think by the time we go live with these changes, because we have been doing these months of testing beforehand, the game will be in a much better state. But obviously we will have to continue polishing after the changes go live.
Is there anything you want to say to wrap up? David Kim: The main thing for us is when the matchmaking queue goes in for the test map, we all know that not as many people will play this matchmaking queue compared to live queues. The reason matchmaking quality is so good on live is because there are so many people playing each of the formats.
We really need that to be the same for the balance test map, so the players will to be able to gauge balance the same way that they do on live. So we really want to ask everyone to play as much as they can so that the quality of testing will be much higher than before.
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Thanks for the indepth interview.
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Fairly sure the test map matchmaking queue will be popular because players want to be familiar with the changes before they go live. Sort of like a beta. This isn't some minor nerf or buff like you'd ordinarily see on a test map.
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I might not like the answers completely, but I liked the questions a lot. Nice interview.
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Appreciate yall posting this, good stuff and addressing many questions on our minds.
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I really hope they reconsider adding new units going forward. I can think of at least 1 role per race that is needed.
Zerg 1. Muta evolution-Hive unit that can attack ground and air and keep the fast paced nature of mutas going, but is more sturdy.
2. Protoss AA unit at the robo
3. Terran Mid game support unit like the infestor or sentry
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Yeah, the moment when reading the questions, reveals more than the answers. I hate the interviews with officials.
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There are so many definitely maybes in those answers I'm sure a small village east of Tucson was deprived of all of their stock in the process...
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Great interview. Makes SC2 future look bright.
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if you speak to people around Blizzard .. Tim Morten has done a nice job revitalizing the aspects of SC2 tthat are not 1v1 and 2v2.
Add water and create naval and amphibious units guys. Swimming Zerglings seriously though, i want a game where 1 player can be more of a macro player and lean on that to win at the top level and another player can have sloppy macro but amazing micro and win at the top level by leaning on his micro strengths. I want hugely divergent styles all having a legit shot to win at the top level.
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I Love how he wraps up the interview by basically saying "play more starcraft." Even though he's referring to the balance test map match making, I think it's cool.
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I really agree with the theory that there is too much worker harass going on in the game. Good thing they actually realized it. Let's hope they will actually really do something about it.
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frankly id love a casual mode ladder (bit like some mobas do) for new/casual players with things like slower speed etc BW had big game hunters and that was always more popular then regular melee. I'd reinstall if something like this happened since I love RTS games but not really a fan of the sc2 ladder. Arcade was fun as hell though haha.
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Think one of the things with making area control units stronger without overly encouraging turtling is to make clumping them up less strong than when spread out. Overkill is the easiest way to ensure this, so that 5 tanks spread out is stronger than 5 tanks clumped together. But other mechanisms can be put in place, so long as area control units don't "critical mass" too well
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The reason why I lost interest in SC2 after LotV is because you can get punished so bad with a single mistake, that you just cannot come back. You can lose the game in a matter of seconds, when you miss a single thing on the minimap. That is just not appealing, cause on some games you get the feeling you lost undeservingly. For me, the game would be way more enjoyable, if you win by getting a lot of small victories. Imo, they should not have introduce units that have a very strong focus on harassement like the oracle, early adepts, reapers, speedivacs even widow mines when combined with medivacs. All those force you to go off a standard build, instead of having units ready to fend it off. in WoL, you could harass, but the units werent especially designed to harass.
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Nice interview. Would be wonderful if a Bisu article would come out soon.
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On August 19 2016 06:48 Kurbz wrote: frankly id love a casual mode ladder (bit like some mobas do) for new/casual players with things like slower speed etc BW had big game hunters and that was always more popular then regular melee. I'd reinstall if something like this happened since I love RTS games but not really a fan of the sc2 ladder. Arcade was fun as hell though haha.
Have you tried coop? Seems like something you'd like
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"I have an example when new designers come in and they say like “it’s only about the data, not what people think.” When they say that, my extreme example is “say the numbers are 50/50 but everyone thinks the balance sucks right now—is that a good place to be in?” Obviously not, right? So my response to that is, yeah, then the game’s not balanced."
this is so wrong though, the people with negative feedbacks will speak a lot more and much louder than people who feel the game is ok
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My favorite part is where he confirms that official stats say that the favorite unit of bronze/silver players is the VOID RAY!
void rays, void rays, gotta mass up myyyyyy vooiiiid raays.
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On August 19 2016 06:04 NewSunshine wrote: I might not like the answers completely, but I liked the questions a lot. Nice interview.
Exactly how I feel. Just because ur passionate about something doesn't make you good at it. He's a typical CEO type who thinks he knows what's best and does something just to exercise his power. 4 teenagers balancing StarBow blows his idea of a competent design team out of the water.
Reminds me of the classic Skinner mindset: + Show Spoiler +
But what can we do? We are all consumers of his product and in the end he gets the last word. Lucky kid.
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On August 19 2016 08:14 TheLordofAwesome wrote: My favorite part is where he confirms that official stats say that the favorite unit of bronze/silver players is the VOID RAY!
void rays, void rays, gotta mass up myyyyyy vooiiiid raays. yeah, and the following is even better; "engagement started, press one button, everything powers up, and I can kill everything"
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When are these new patch changes coming into effect? Would be nice if Blizzard implemented them after the finals of SSL and GSL. Kind of sucks for the pro-gamers to have to adapt in the middle of a tournament and especially near the end of it.
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On August 19 2016 08:10 ROOTFayth wrote: "I have an example when new designers come in and they say like “it’s only about the data, not what people think.” When they say that, my extreme example is “say the numbers are 50/50 but everyone thinks the balance sucks right now—is that a good place to be in?” Obviously not, right? So my response to that is, yeah, then the game’s not balanced."
this is so wrong though, the people with negative feedbacks will speak a lot more and much louder than people who feel the game is ok I don't think the negative feedback is the problem. I think its about Blizzard filtering out the noise and poor feedback so they can get to the productive feedback.
Sometimes, the signal to noise ratio can be so high Blizzard might miss an important piece of information.
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Great questions, great interview.
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On August 19 2016 09:33 MoonyD wrote: When are these new patch changes coming into effect? Would be nice if Blizzard implemented them after the finals of SSL and GSL. Kind of sucks for the pro-gamers to have to adapt in the middle of a tournament and especially near the end of it.
After blizzcon. Basically it's an offseason patch which is the best timing possible for something that huge.
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On August 19 2016 09:46 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2016 08:10 ROOTFayth wrote: "I have an example when new designers come in and they say like “it’s only about the data, not what people think.” When they say that, my extreme example is “say the numbers are 50/50 but everyone thinks the balance sucks right now—is that a good place to be in?” Obviously not, right? So my response to that is, yeah, then the game’s not balanced."
this is so wrong though, the people with negative feedbacks will speak a lot more and much louder than people who feel the game is ok I don't think the negative feedback is the problem. I think its about Blizzard filtering out the noise and poor feedback so they can get to the productive feedback. Sometimes, the signal to noise ratio can be so high Blizzard might miss an important piece of information.
i'd say the signal to noise ratio is low and also various competing interests make it tough. its hard to make the game balanced at the top level and fun at 5 or 10 other levels of play.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22271 Posts
On August 19 2016 09:46 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2016 08:10 ROOTFayth wrote: "I have an example when new designers come in and they say like “it’s only about the data, not what people think.” When they say that, my extreme example is “say the numbers are 50/50 but everyone thinks the balance sucks right now—is that a good place to be in?” Obviously not, right? So my response to that is, yeah, then the game’s not balanced."
this is so wrong though, the people with negative feedbacks will speak a lot more and much louder than people who feel the game is ok I don't think the negative feedback is the problem. I think its about Blizzard filtering out the noise and poor feedback so they can get to the productive feedback. Sometimes, the signal to noise ratio can be so high Blizzard might miss an important piece of information.
this is what the summits are presumably for
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On August 19 2016 08:10 ROOTFayth wrote: "I have an example when new designers come in and they say like “it’s only about the data, not what people think.” When they say that, my extreme example is “say the numbers are 50/50 but everyone thinks the balance sucks right now—is that a good place to be in?” Obviously not, right? So my response to that is, yeah, then the game’s not balanced."
this is so wrong though, the people with negative feedbacks will speak a lot more and much louder than people who feel the game is ok
Maybe but the idea is good.
During the broodlord/infestor era PvZ was rather balanced because of immortal/sentry, but was that good? Just because the data shows a MU is balanced doesn't means the game is in a good state.
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That answer about community perception is pretty interesting, I just wish the community voice of the b.net forum wasn't so loud.
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Somewhere in there, what I read between the lines from David is :
Executives are tired of putting ressources into starcraft 2 and want as little to do with it as possible once it's in this "finished state" they keep talking about so they can developp something else.
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It’s a very ironic situation where the West is asking for things to be more like Brood War while the Koreans say that the game is too hard.
Afaik, both Koreans and Westerners want the game to be like BW; the thing is, Koreans consider that BW is 'uncomfortable but does not requires much micro to play', while Westerners think that BW requires more micro.
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On August 19 2016 06:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
seriously though, i want a game where 1 player can be more of a macro player and lean on that to win at the top level and another player can have sloppy macro but amazing micro and win at the top level by leaning on his micro strengths. I want hugely divergent styles all having a legit shot to win at the top level.
At the top level players there are a lot of players that can do both. IMO multitasking is what's more important right now. That said MyuNgSiK is the perfect example of someone with terrible macro but amazing strategy/micro. sOs was like that for a period but he's now solid all around. As for players who are more macro oriented - any zerg LUL. Solar, Rogue and Dark have some sick micro though. There was another zerg who'd recently impressed me with their fungal/bile usage though. I think it might have been Dark but the confidence to drop the biles as soon as you throw out the fungal (before it connects) is something few zergs currently do.
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I would assume that koreans are more talking about the general pace of sc2, it's so quick, everything dies fast, it snowballs pretty hard, etc when they talk about "hard to play". Obviously i have no source or anything, but it imo would make more sense this way? Also wanting the game to be more like bw doesn't necessarly include the mechanical limitations and thus "fighting the ui", which is why i think that question is phramed in a quite dishonest way tbh
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My goodness, DK saying that they may have gone overboard with the harassement??? Wasn't harassement the coolest thing in the game???
More seriously, useless PR is useless. The guy is simply stating stuff that will make him look good, or saying he doesn't know. His denial that there's so much BS abilities in the game is revolting though
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Maybe now that the interviewer talked about Bisu DK will fix Protoss for players like Bisu to really show their skill and multi tasking, but I doubt it.
I feel like the interviewer should of asked DK if there were any major changes coming to protoss for players like Bisu :p
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Some easy ways for Blizzard to make test maps popular: -Test map matchmaking -Achievements for playing test maps -A box where players can write feedback in game after every match.
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Good changes! Hope they stick
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On August 19 2016 11:29 The_Red_Viper wrote:I would assume that koreans are more talking about the general pace of sc2, it's so quick, everything dies fast, it snowballs pretty hard, etc when they talk about "hard to play". Obviously i have no source or anything, but it imo would make more sense this way? Also wanting the game to be more like bw doesn't necessarly include the mechanical limitations and thus "fighting the ui", which is why i think that question is phramed in a quite dishonest way tbh
Things can get lost in translation, and what Koreans mean by 'hard' may not be what we English-speakers understand as 'hard' in the literal sense.
Maybe 'hard' here means 'hard to juggle so many things at once, especially when dropping a single ball means an auto-loss'. The game is too punishing and volatile. It's 'hard' to practice and master a game where the basic skills needed are so high (i.e. juggling 10 balls at minimum). Whereas an 'easy' game is where you only start with 3 balls, and the goal is to juggle as fast and long as possible (and maybe score points on finesse, almost like artistic juggling). It may be easy to pick up the game, but at competitive levels, it becomes difficult to out-juggle your opponent.
And I feel that's the difference between SC2 and BW. SC2 has too many balls, BW has less. SC2 games end fast and anti-climatically because it forces so many required actions on the players, hence likely for a player to drop a ball within the first minute. But BW can go on and on, back and forth, because the game takes on more depth as it stretches on.
Not sure if I'm making sense with the analogy.
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On August 19 2016 06:01 Barrin wrote: Running out of ways to improve SC2... it's never been better!
I find it odd that you think the game has never been better but it has a smaller player base, smaller prize pools and less tournaments than in WOL...
The very definition of the word better contradicts what you say.
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And I feel that's the difference between SC2 and BW. SC2 has too many balls, BW has less. SC2 games end fast and anti-climatically because it forces so many required actions on the players, hence likely for a player to drop a ball within the first minute. But BW can go on and on, back and forth, because the game takes on more depth as it stretches on.
This.
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On August 19 2016 08:29 sc2chronic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2016 06:04 NewSunshine wrote: I might not like the answers completely, but I liked the questions a lot. Nice interview. Exactly how I feel. Just because ur passionate about something doesn't make you good at it. He's a typical CEO type who thinks he knows what's best and does something just to exercise his power. 4 teenagers balancing StarBow blows his idea of a competent design team out of the water. Reminds me of the classic Skinner mindset: + Show Spoiler +But what can we do? We are all consumers of his product and in the end he gets the last word. Lucky kid.
Thanks for the complement, but I'm 31.
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that's a fluff piece. No hard questions at all.
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On August 19 2016 14:39 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2016 06:01 Barrin wrote: Running out of ways to improve SC2... it's never been better! I find it odd that you think the game has never been better but it has a smaller player base, smaller prize pools and less tournaments than in WOL... The very definition of the word better contradicts what you say. It's not contradicting. Better game does not equate a bigger game. Popularity isn't a 1:1 related to game's quality when they were released in different time frame
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I wonder what kind of difficulty the Koreans are criticizing. Since they could mean difficulty in so many different ways.
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Hm, not too many clear insights. Great questions and a big blob of many words with not that much content as an answer.
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David Kim: What’s funny is that it’s not just the Korean community that says that, it’s also the pro players. When we meet with KeSPA—for example, our producer just went to Korea to meet with KeSPA around last week. I wanted to go also, but I had this event so I couldn't. One of the main feedback there from the KeSPA coaches was that the game is too hard [for pros].
We thought that was very interesting, because that’s not what the WCS pros say, right? Because they say the game should be HARDER so that no one can master it, in which case I think we're in a pretty good state there, but… ...I think the main goal for us is to have that game that is the most impossible to master in the world in StarCraft 2, because that’s what we’ve been working toward. And obviously there will be people who think, "I spent this much time as a pro player, maybe I should have perfectly mastered it." But the fact that they haven’t I think is kind of a cool factor. At the same time we don’t want to make it more difficult.
This sentiment from koreans gets brought up from time to time. I think their perception of "hardness" does not necessarily directly have to relate to mechanics. A game can also be perceived as hard because your attention is constantly interrupted by harassment. A game can feel very hard because the control and attention required to differentiate yourself from another player is super intense. A game can be perceived as hard because you need to respond in fractions of a second to every threat, lest you lose the game immediately. Usually I argue for the notion that macromanagement should made "harder" or rather a more prevalent aspect of Starcraft 2. I'm not sure whether David Kim views that position as equal to "wanting to make the game harder", but I suspect he does. But I do not think it's as simple as saying "more macro" = "harder game".
The perceived difficulty for professionals in a more macro focused game may be less than in an micro-intense game. I've always felt that macro focused gameplay has a bit more of a "preparatory" aspect attached to it. You can prepare and train the macro aspect -- because there is not as much interaction involved in macro. You cannot to as large of a degree "automate" the process for how you're gonna respond to high intensity micro situations. So I'd wish David Kim and that producer would try to clarify exactly what those koreans perceive makes the game "feel" hard. Personally I do not think it's as easy as "less macro" = "easier game".
I think that's looking at the issue in a shallow way. LotV is much more micro intense than previous iterations of the game. But micro intense action is very very disruptive to one's attention and very difficult to rote memorize, in contrast to macro play. That may be perceived as "hard" in comparison to something which can be trained and memorized.
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A shame we don't get to here more of this indepth stuff from david kim, you sometimes forget that he's such a smart guy.
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"I have an example when new designers come in and they say like “it’s only about the data, not what people think.” Yeah that makes sense this quote says it all. Screw the elite level players opinions who are at the highest level of the game instead lets listen to the balance junkies who are probably at platinum level and employed by Blizzard on the in house balance team that's why this game is broke as hell what a joke
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On August 19 2016 17:48 LaLuSh wrote:Show nested quote +David Kim: What’s funny is that it’s not just the Korean community that says that, it’s also the pro players. When we meet with KeSPA—for example, our producer just went to Korea to meet with KeSPA around last week. I wanted to go also, but I had this event so I couldn't. One of the main feedback there from the KeSPA coaches was that the game is too hard [for pros].
We thought that was very interesting, because that’s not what the WCS pros say, right? Because they say the game should be HARDER so that no one can master it, in which case I think we're in a pretty good state there, but… ...I think the main goal for us is to have that game that is the most impossible to master in the world in StarCraft 2, because that’s what we’ve been working toward. And obviously there will be people who think, "I spent this much time as a pro player, maybe I should have perfectly mastered it." But the fact that they haven’t I think is kind of a cool factor. At the same time we don’t want to make it more difficult. This sentiment from koreans gets brought up from time to time. I think their perception of "hardness" does not necessarily directly have to relate to mechanics. A game can also be perceived as hard because your attention is constantly interrupted by harassment. A game can feel very hard because the control and attention required to differentiate yourself from another player is super intense. A game can be perceived as hard because you need to respond in fractions of a second to every threat, lest you lose the game immediately. Usually I argue for the notion that macromanagement should made "harder" or rather a more prevalent aspect of Starcraft 2. I'm not sure whether David Kim views that position as equal to "wanting to make the game harder", but I suspect he does. But I do not think it's as simple as saying "more macro" = "harder game". The perceived difficulty for professionals in a more macro focused game may be less than in an micro-intense game. I've always felt that macro focused gameplay has a bit more of a "preparatory" aspect attached to it. You can prepare and train the macro aspect -- because there is not as much interaction involved in macro. You cannot to as large of a degree "automate" the process for how you're gonna respond to high intensity micro situations. So I'd wish David Kim and that producer would try to clarify exactly what those koreans perceive makes the game "feel" hard. Personally I do not think it's as easy as "less macro" = "easier game". I think that's looking at the issue in a shallow way. LotV is much more micro intense than previous iterations of the game. But micro intense action is very very disruptive to one's attention and very difficult to rote memorize, in contrast to macro play. That may be perceived as "hard" in comparison to something which can be trained and memorized.
Agreed, just like my juggling ball analogy
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I might only play the test map once the matchmaking for it goes live.
Thanks for the great interview!
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Great interview! Ty ! Always fun to see how much hard work it is, for a balance team, to get things right by listening every players. :D GL to the team!
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I read an interesting post by an Overwatch designer where he talked about the "perception" of balance. This might just be me reading between the lines, but do you feel like you're forced to manage the community's perception of balance versus what the stats are telling you? David Kim's answer to this seemed a bit dubious, because balance is more than the one metric 50/50. I think he should have clarified here, because he makes it seem like any complaints about the balance are about a negative perception, like people worrying for their safety after watching too much fox news when actual crime numbers are down.
But there are other metrics that Blizzard doesn't take into account, the classic example being those situations where you can maintain parity with all-in attacks at varying stages. This is not perceived as balanced because you can't actually play a balanced game, you just happen to win 50% of the time.
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interesting interview from the expert itself interviewing an other expert
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I still think the adept needs a nerf
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On August 19 2016 14:39 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2016 06:01 Barrin wrote: Running out of ways to improve SC2... it's never been better! I find it odd that you think the game has never been better but it has a smaller player base, smaller prize pools and less tournaments than in WOL... The very definition of the word better contradicts what you say.
By it's never been better, he's talking about the actual game itself, which is true. The game itself has never been better entertainment wise. It's way better then WOL and HOTS.
Just because it doesn't have as many tournaments, player base, etc doesn't take away from that point.
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On August 19 2016 14:39 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2016 06:01 Barrin wrote: Running out of ways to improve SC2... it's never been better! I find it odd that you think the game has never been better but it has a smaller player base, smaller prize pools and less tournaments than in WOL... The very definition of the word better contradicts what you say.
BW has a smaller playerbase today than it did in 1998 so per defintion it must - according yo our logic - be a worse game.
Nonsense logic is nonsense logic.
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If i remember correctly blizzard did say they might remove some units and add new units(can't find source ).Not just adding new units and got overlapped. #removeswarmhost,liberator,tempest.
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They really need to simplify the game. Removed some of the active abilities and gimmicky things that kill you in less than a second. Let the complexity and mastery come out of how the players engage and pull apart their opponents, not how well they defend adept shades or shoot disrupter balls or pick up and drop tanks or micro a warp prism. Open up the maps, slow down the game a bit, decrease backstabbing, increase defenders advantage, let the skills be based on map control and positioning rather than a player's ability to dodge things.
The game is already complex, its already well-designed at its core, they just need to stop going for all this overkill bs.
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On August 20 2016 08:52 seemsgood wrote: If i remember correctly blizzard did say they might remove some units and add new units(can't find source ).Not just adding new units and got overlapped. #removeswarmhost,liberator,tempest.
Lurkers/infestors/broodlords will be imbalanced without tempests. Void rays aren't good. Carriers take too long to build.
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On August 20 2016 13:09 My_Fake_Plastic_Luv wrote: They really need to simplify the game. Removed some of the active abilities and gimmicky things that kill you in less than a second. Let the complexity and mastery come out of how the players engage and pull apart their opponents, not how well they defend adept shades or shoot disrupter balls or pick up and drop tanks or micro a warp prism. Open up the maps, slow down the game a bit, decrease backstabbing, increase defenders advantage, let the skills be based on map control and positioning rather than a player's ability to dodge things.
The game is already complex, its already well-designed at its core, they just need to stop going for all this overkill bs.
I agree with this very much. RTS shouldn't need to be so dominated by spells / extras on every single unit you might have in the army composition.
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I read the answers in his voice, he tends to answer questions in a specific way (which is of course partly PR, but not like you can blame him for that). Thanks for the interview!
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On August 20 2016 21:43 BaneRiders wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2016 13:09 My_Fake_Plastic_Luv wrote: They really need to simplify the game. Removed some of the active abilities and gimmicky things that kill you in less than a second. Let the complexity and mastery come out of how the players engage and pull apart their opponents, not how well they defend adept shades or shoot disrupter balls or pick up and drop tanks or micro a warp prism. Open up the maps, slow down the game a bit, decrease backstabbing, increase defenders advantage, let the skills be based on map control and positioning rather than a player's ability to dodge things.
The game is already complex, its already well-designed at its core, they just need to stop going for all this overkill bs. I agree with this very much. RTS shouldn't need to be so dominated by spells / extras on every single unit you might have in the army composition.
And this is what Blizzard keeps doing for protoss. It's so annoying.
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Just watched Bisu play a 30-40 minute PvZ on his stream. The only active unit ability he used in the entire game was psi storm. All of the micro was done controlling his archons, shuttles, reavers, dragoons, zealots, observers, etc. Obviously in a lot of brood war games there are more abilities to cast, for instance in a PvT the terran will be sieging/unsieging, laying spider mines with vultures, and using science vessels, for example, but the amount of units with abiltiies you have to activate in fights is far greater in sc2 than in brood war.
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On August 20 2016 23:29 goswser wrote: Just watched Bisu play a 30-40 minute PvZ on his stream. The only active unit ability he used in the entire game was psi storm. All of the micro was done controlling his archons, shuttles, reavers, dragoons, zealots, observers, etc. Obviously in a lot of brood war games there are more abilities to cast, for instance in a PvT the terran will be sieging/unsieging, laying spider mines with vultures, and using science vessels, for example, but the amount of units with abiltiies you have to activate in fights is far greater in sc2 than in brood war.
Because they let the early player base scream about the need for "cool micro like in BW!" Thing is the BW micro is player created and SC2 could have the same thing if they just made quality dynamic units and then let the players create the micro.
See that's what Blizzard doesn't get right now. You shouldn't try to force cool play or micro and you can't get that by just adding a million abilities. What Blizzard hopes people watching SC2 will say is "wow that player can use so many abilities I can't do that!" Instead of just letting the spectator organically appreciate what the player is doing(positioning, pulling units back, flanking).
What the side effect has been of so many abilities is that it has simply frustrated the casual player. Back in BW you wanted to just mass dragoons or hydras have at it, you'll win some BGH games. Will you go pro? Of course not but it offered a fun and easy way to enjoy the game. You can't do that in SC2. Hell even just making gateway units is an absolutely confusing situation. Explain to a new player, "see you first make units like Terran but that's not good you have to get this upgrade then you can warp in units anywhere but sometimes it will be faster and sometimes it will be slower and to be faster the pylon must touch a warpgate or the nexus if not the warp in time is longer or you can make a warp prism which is good too but if it dies you need to probably pull back." Umm... Yeah I'm good I'll go play LoL.
We don't even know what cool things people could do with the units in SC2. The game could have neat unit interactions like BW but everyone is too busy trying to use all these abilities to make the game seem harder. Artificially hard. The reality is the skill ceiling of any RTS is infinite. You'll never macro or micro perfectly, we know that because we've seen those Bot programs do splits and micro a player could never do but it's possible.
I bet if they made the game simpler, made the units serve real purpose, reduced the extreme hard counters, you'd see a really beautiful game at the highest level and at the lower levels people could enjoy the game much more.
Start by getting rid of warpgate and buffing gateway units. That alone would make this game so much better.
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Less is more. Complexity in simplicity.
Yes, that's how SC2 should be designed.
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On August 21 2016 00:32 RKC wrote: Less is more. Complexity in simplicity.
Yes, that's how SC2 should be designed.
Agreed, but I doubt Blizzard will do it. They're too stubborn. Maybe this is what Koreans are telling Blizzard by saying the game is too hard.
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On August 21 2016 01:24 Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 00:32 RKC wrote: Less is more. Complexity in simplicity.
Yes, that's how SC2 should be designed. Agreed, but I doubt Blizzard will do it. They're too stubborn. Maybe this is what Koreans are telling Blizzard by saying the game is too hard. They do, Canata did so explicitly
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On August 21 2016 01:36 Penev wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 01:24 Shield wrote:On August 21 2016 00:32 RKC wrote: Less is more. Complexity in simplicity.
Yes, that's how SC2 should be designed. Agreed, but I doubt Blizzard will do it. They're too stubborn. Maybe this is what Koreans are telling Blizzard by saying the game is too hard. They do, Canata did so explicitly
Ahhhh that was my first thread.
BTW, according to JYP, he said everything which Koreans concern at the summit; most of`em are ignored tho.
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Honest interview. I like it. Weak answers on the push to harassment in five flavors and active abilities pushing things too far towards spellcaster wars.
And I think for active abilities, I don't think it's right to say just because there’s an active ability it makes the game harder. For example, it really depends on the active ability. For example, the Disruptor shot is very hard to master versus Void Ray attack. Anyone can do it. A bronze-silver level player, I think their favorite unit, especially in team games, through what we see in stats, is the Void Ray. It’s definitely not hard to use, because all you do is: engagement started, press one button, everything powers up, and I can kill everything. So it really depends. No, it's a cumulative effect when many active abilities from many kinds of units lower the effective micro possible. Hold off on army positioning, just amove I got two spellcaster groups to micro and a third group of specialty units to protect! His answer is a dodge by deflecting to single units and how the complaint doesn't apply to every active ability.
In pursuit of more exciting spectator games, they've lowered the more RTS-flavored feel of bulk army management (for the Kim proteges, lowered not completely removed is the intent here). You're not the battlefield commander of an army, but a personnel manager of the 10% Marvel superheroes in the army.
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Engagements are fun, this should be the basis of any changes.
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On August 20 2016 13:09 My_Fake_Plastic_Luv wrote: They really need to simplify the game. Removed some of the active abilities and gimmicky things that kill you in less than a second. Let the complexity and mastery come out of how the players engage and pull apart their opponents, not how well they defend adept shades or shoot disrupter balls or pick up and drop tanks or micro a warp prism. Open up the maps, slow down the game a bit, decrease backstabbing, increase defenders advantage, let the skills be based on map control and positioning rather than a player's ability to dodge things.
The game is already complex, its already well-designed at its core, they just need to stop going for all this overkill bs.
Agree 100%
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On August 19 2016 07:14 realityyy wrote: The reason why I lost interest in SC2 after LotV is because you can get punished so bad with a single mistake, that you just cannot come back. You can lose the game in a matter of seconds, when you miss a single thing on the minimap. That is just not appealing, cause on some games you get the feeling you lost undeservingly. For me, the game would be way more enjoyable, if you win by getting a lot of small victories. Imo, they should not have introduce units that have a very strong focus on harassement like the oracle, early adepts, reapers, speedivacs even widow mines when combined with medivacs. All those force you to go off a standard build, instead of having units ready to fend it off. in WoL, you could harass, but the units werent especially designed to harass.
This is also the incredible beauty of the most difficult game to master.
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United States32511 Posts
a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all
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On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all
Who is vocal minority? I think both sides have a lot of supporters. More difficult game vs less spells/less complex game.
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On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all "utterly different" doesn't mean anything though. It's not realistic because blizzard didn't use the two addons to try anything radical, i never played wc3 but people always tell me how different the game was after the expansion.
You can say that it's a vocal minority, but that's probably ALWAYS true for any kind of game, that doesn't mean that these other people who don't have an opinion on it wouldn't like the game better if it changed though, most "casuals" simply don't give a damn about different game design concepts, etc. Add a real high ground advantage to sc2 right now and most people won't even notice it, that doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be better for them and people who actually care. Same with a lot of other things. This "vocal minority" concept is nice to deny any form of discussion about issues though, i don't think it's a good way to think about the scene though.
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On August 21 2016 06:08 Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all Who is vocal minority? I think both sides have a lot of supporters. More difficult game vs less spells/less complex game.
i have several silver and gold friends who've solved this issue of too much complexity in LotV. they play WoL on 2v2 Ladder.
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On August 21 2016 06:09 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all "utterly different" doesn't mean anything though. It's not realistic because blizzard didn't use the two addons to try anything radical, i never played wc3 but people always tell me how different the game was after the expansion. You can say that it's a vocal minority, but that's probably ALWAYS true for any kind of game, that doesn't mean that these other people who don't have an opinion on it wouldn't like the game better if it changed though, most "casuals" simply don't give a damn about different game design concepts, etc. Add a real high ground advantage to sc2 right now and most people won't even notice it, that doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be better for them and people who actually care. Same with a lot of other things. This "vocal minority" concept is nice to deny any form of discussion about issues though, i don't think it's a good way to think about the scene though. Virtually every change ever happens because a vocal minority wants something. Lobbies by definition are vocal minorities and drive much progress. Most people don't care enough to investigate certain issues, so that their voice carries little power to shape outcomes.
Of course it comes in various forms and shapes, so that the situation where you have a small group of cranks perpetually whining about their unrealistic goals falls in the same category as, to pick an extreme example, civil rights activism.
Studies show that for many domains the majority opinion will typically be correct, but there are many exceptions to this. In the case of this talk about fundamental design changes it is compounded by the fact that there is partly a discussion of values taking place: what type of game do you want Starcraft 2 to be? And whose voices should carry more weight? Yet there is also an element of what empirically might be most enjoyable for most people of some group, so that expert opinion does creep in. Many that call for fundamental changes believe that everyone will benefit from them.
etc. I think it's a fairly interesting topic: when should you listen to a vocal minority?
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United States32511 Posts
On August 21 2016 06:09 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all "utterly different" doesn't mean anything though. It's not realistic because blizzard didn't use the two addons to try anything radical, i never played wc3 but people always tell me how different the game was after the expansion. You can say that it's a vocal minority, but that's probably ALWAYS true for any kind of game, that doesn't mean that these other people who don't have an opinion on it wouldn't like the game better if it changed though, most "casuals" simply don't give a damn about different game design concepts, etc. Add a real high ground advantage to sc2 right now and most people won't even notice it, that doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be better for them and people who actually care. Same with a lot of other things. This "vocal minority" concept is nice to deny any form of discussion about issues though, i don't think it's a good way to think about the scene though.
I guess that on the other end, Blizzard's track record where they're willing to make drastic changes to "broken" games will always give fans hope that the game can change in the direction they want
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On August 21 2016 06:35 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:09 The_Red_Viper wrote:On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all "utterly different" doesn't mean anything though. It's not realistic because blizzard didn't use the two addons to try anything radical, i never played wc3 but people always tell me how different the game was after the expansion. You can say that it's a vocal minority, but that's probably ALWAYS true for any kind of game, that doesn't mean that these other people who don't have an opinion on it wouldn't like the game better if it changed though, most "casuals" simply don't give a damn about different game design concepts, etc. Add a real high ground advantage to sc2 right now and most people won't even notice it, that doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be better for them and people who actually care. Same with a lot of other things. This "vocal minority" concept is nice to deny any form of discussion about issues though, i don't think it's a good way to think about the scene though. Virtually every change ever happens because a vocal minority wants something. Lobbies by definition are vocal minorities and drive much progress. Most people don't care enough to investigate certain issues, so that their voice carries little power to shape outcomes. Of course it comes in various forms and shapes, so that the situation where you have a small group of cranks perpetually whining about their unrealistic goals falls in the same category as, to pick an extreme example, civil rights activism. Studies show that for many domains the majority opinion will typically be correct, but there are many exceptions to this. In the case of this talk about fundamental design changes it is compounded by the fact that there is partly a discussion of values taking place: what type of game do you want Starcraft 2 to be? And whose voices should carry more weight? Yet there is also an element of what empirically might be most enjoyable for most people of some group, so that expert opinion does creep in. Many that call for fundamental changes believe that everyone will benefit from them. etc. I think it's a fairly interesting topic: when should you listen to a vocal minority?
Studies show that for many domains the majority opinion will typically be correct Can you give some examples here? Initially i wouldn't believe this at all tbh, i would argue that typically people don't have a real opinion on a lot of stuff, mostly because it wasn't important enough in their mind to actually think about it. Imo this is also true for sc2, it's kinda enjoyable and that is enough for the majority i think. But yeah you are right with: "what type of game do you want Starcraft 2 to be?" But again, i doubt many people actually think about this very question and thus their opinion is mostly about enjoyment atm, not if they would enjoy it more if x happens.
On August 21 2016 06:48 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:09 The_Red_Viper wrote:On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all "utterly different" doesn't mean anything though. It's not realistic because blizzard didn't use the two addons to try anything radical, i never played wc3 but people always tell me how different the game was after the expansion. You can say that it's a vocal minority, but that's probably ALWAYS true for any kind of game, that doesn't mean that these other people who don't have an opinion on it wouldn't like the game better if it changed though, most "casuals" simply don't give a damn about different game design concepts, etc. Add a real high ground advantage to sc2 right now and most people won't even notice it, that doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be better for them and people who actually care. Same with a lot of other things. This "vocal minority" concept is nice to deny any form of discussion about issues though, i don't think it's a good way to think about the scene though. I guess that on the other end, Blizzard's track record where they're willing to make drastic changes to "broken" games will always give fans hope that the game can change in the direction they want Sure sc2 isn't really "broken", but that doesn't mean that it reaches its potential. Was Wc3 extremely broken before the addon?
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On August 21 2016 07:00 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:35 Grumbels wrote:On August 21 2016 06:09 The_Red_Viper wrote:On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all "utterly different" doesn't mean anything though. It's not realistic because blizzard didn't use the two addons to try anything radical, i never played wc3 but people always tell me how different the game was after the expansion. You can say that it's a vocal minority, but that's probably ALWAYS true for any kind of game, that doesn't mean that these other people who don't have an opinion on it wouldn't like the game better if it changed though, most "casuals" simply don't give a damn about different game design concepts, etc. Add a real high ground advantage to sc2 right now and most people won't even notice it, that doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be better for them and people who actually care. Same with a lot of other things. This "vocal minority" concept is nice to deny any form of discussion about issues though, i don't think it's a good way to think about the scene though. Virtually every change ever happens because a vocal minority wants something. Lobbies by definition are vocal minorities and drive much progress. Most people don't care enough to investigate certain issues, so that their voice carries little power to shape outcomes. Of course it comes in various forms and shapes, so that the situation where you have a small group of cranks perpetually whining about their unrealistic goals falls in the same category as, to pick an extreme example, civil rights activism. Studies show that for many domains the majority opinion will typically be correct, but there are many exceptions to this. In the case of this talk about fundamental design changes it is compounded by the fact that there is partly a discussion of values taking place: what type of game do you want Starcraft 2 to be? And whose voices should carry more weight? Yet there is also an element of what empirically might be most enjoyable for most people of some group, so that expert opinion does creep in. Many that call for fundamental changes believe that everyone will benefit from them. etc. I think it's a fairly interesting topic: when should you listen to a vocal minority? Show nested quote +Studies show that for many domains the majority opinion will typically be correct Can you give some examples here? Initially i wouldn't believe this at all tbh, i would argue that typically people don't have a real opinion on a lot of stuff, mostly because it wasn't important enough in their mind to actually think about it. Imo this is also true for sc2, it's kinda enjoyable and that is enough for the majority i think. But yeah you are right with: "what type of game do you want Starcraft 2 to be?" But again, i doubt many people actually think about this very question and thus their opinion is mostly about enjoyment atm, not if they would enjoy it more if x happens. Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:48 Waxangel wrote:On August 21 2016 06:09 The_Red_Viper wrote:On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all "utterly different" doesn't mean anything though. It's not realistic because blizzard didn't use the two addons to try anything radical, i never played wc3 but people always tell me how different the game was after the expansion. You can say that it's a vocal minority, but that's probably ALWAYS true for any kind of game, that doesn't mean that these other people who don't have an opinion on it wouldn't like the game better if it changed though, most "casuals" simply don't give a damn about different game design concepts, etc. Add a real high ground advantage to sc2 right now and most people won't even notice it, that doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be better for them and people who actually care. Same with a lot of other things. This "vocal minority" concept is nice to deny any form of discussion about issues though, i don't think it's a good way to think about the scene though. I guess that on the other end, Blizzard's track record where they're willing to make drastic changes to "broken" games will always give fans hope that the game can change in the direction they want Sure sc2 isn't really "broken", but that doesn't mean that it reaches its potential. Was Wc3 extremely broken before the addon? The game changed a lot in the expansion and subsequent patches: more macro oriented, more unit diversity, slower tech, higher unit count, less caster units, more expanding, resources became more important etc. The funny thing is that in retrospect most people will say that the game was broken (or at least one dimensional) before the expansion, even if that wasn't the prevailing opinion at the time.
Show nested quote +Studies show that for many domains the majority opinion will typically be correct Can you give some examples here? To be honest I was thinking of this article I read a while ago. But I didn't mean to imply that the majority always knows best, I probably expressed myself clumsily. The point is that this is a topic which has been studied by psychologists and the like, so I would encourage everyone to track down some research on it and consider it from a scientific angle in terms of asking 'for what domains would the majority opinion be correct more often?' and so on.
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It's an interesting article, thanks. But in the case of sc2, what is this majority opinion? I absolutely believe that most people playing/watching the game right now are happy with it. I am kinda "happy" with it as well, the difference is that i think it could be better. I don't think that the majority thinks that it couldn't be better with some changes here and there. Would they actually think it is "better" with changes i would like? I don't know. It's just that in the case of sc2 these things are fairly vague, the only real option might be to simply test it. I feel blizzard didn't really do that with their expansions/betas.
One big "problem" i personally think is still part of sc2 is that maxed army engagements are not fun to play or watch for the most time. I don't think anybody knows if the majority agrees with this or not.
Btw in the case of art you could argue that majority opinion is always right because in the end people need to enjoy the product/work. Changes obviously a little bit with if we have clear expectations/target audiences.
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On August 21 2016 06:48 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:09 The_Red_Viper wrote:On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all "utterly different" doesn't mean anything though. It's not realistic because blizzard didn't use the two addons to try anything radical, i never played wc3 but people always tell me how different the game was after the expansion. You can say that it's a vocal minority, but that's probably ALWAYS true for any kind of game, that doesn't mean that these other people who don't have an opinion on it wouldn't like the game better if it changed though, most "casuals" simply don't give a damn about different game design concepts, etc. Add a real high ground advantage to sc2 right now and most people won't even notice it, that doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be better for them and people who actually care. Same with a lot of other things. This "vocal minority" concept is nice to deny any form of discussion about issues though, i don't think it's a good way to think about the scene though. I guess that on the other end, Blizzard's track record where they're willing to make drastic changes to "broken" games will always give fans hope that the game can change in the direction they want
i think some people want the MULE, Chronoboost, Larva Inject removed as macro-mechanics.. and its clear from DKs paragraph about drastic changes that just ain't gonna happen. Red_Viper does make a good point though that DK's granularity was low making it hard to tell exactly what did and did not constitute a "drastic change". its clear DK is providing macro/big-picture type direction here. I can smell what hte Rock is cookin' with DK's comments though.
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I’ve been reading some of the community feedback. Western feedback is positive, or takes a wait-and-see stance. I feel the Korean feedback has been very different. It’s a very ironic situation where the West is asking for things to be more like Brood War while the Koreans say that the game is too hard.
Like others have said I'm not really sure what this means and I wish I knew how David Kim interpreted it. Between SC2 and BW there are many different kinds of difficulty and both games are harder and easier along different axes. Depending on which you're talking about it would be possible to make SC2 easier *by* making it more like BW.
On August 21 2016 06:08 Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all Who is vocal minority? I think both sides have a lot of supporters. More difficult game vs less spells/less complex game.
Are those really the sides? I get a sense that wanting to lessen the surface-level complexity of unit/ability bloat is a view shared by a lot of people with otherwise very different opinions about what the game should be.
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So Korean pros are now the 'vocal minority'?
Plus most of the existing Korean pros come from a BW background. Arguably, it is the newer generation (i.e. ESL players) who have mostly dropped off the game, whilst KeSPA players being more resilient and staying in stronger. It's worrying that that former top players (e.g. Flash and Effort) are going back to BW, and even those who did well in SC2 (e.g. Rain and Soulkey) have given up. And worst of all, there is lack of new blood.
Meanwhile, BW is gaining back hype amongst Korean viewers.
It's quite clear that the Korean scene wants a return to a more BW-esque game play. Whether it's due to nostalgia or entertainment, it doesn't matter. They have spoken up, and the question is whether Blizzard wants to heed this 'vocal minority'.
Of course, if Blizzard wants to build the SC2 scene around WCS and international tourneys, that's purely within its prerogative (and may actually work in widening its player base and popularity). But that would bring the end to the Korean SC2 scene.
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On August 21 2016 12:12 RKC wrote:
Of course, if Blizzard wants to build the SC2 scene around WCS and international tourneys, that's purely within its prerogative (and may actually work in widening its player base and popularity). But that would bring the end to the Korean SC2 scene.
After reading news for SC2 and BW, I think that what you said is the target of Blizz, encouraging SC2 for the foreign scene, where it is still popular but declining, and support BW for Korea where BW is far more popular than SC2 and it just will be forever. The question for SC2 is with these changes they can make a wider scene? I doubt that seriously, the game reached its peak long time ago and now theres not way for this to recover.
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On August 21 2016 06:00 Waxangel wrote: a vocal minority want an utterly different game; that's not realistic at all Is asking to stop buffing and start nerfing plus stop adding and maybe remove some abilities the same as asking for an utterly different game?
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On August 21 2016 08:04 The_Red_Viper wrote: It's an interesting article, thanks. But in the case of sc2, what is this majority opinion? I absolutely believe that most people playing/watching the game right now are happy with it. I am kinda "happy" with it as well, the difference is that i think it could be better. I don't think that the majority thinks that it couldn't be better with some changes here and there. Would they actually think it is "better" with changes i would like? I don't know. It's just that in the case of sc2 these things are fairly vague, the only real option might be to simply test it. I feel blizzard didn't really do that with their expansions/betas.
One big "problem" i personally think is still part of sc2 is that maxed army engagements are not fun to play or watch for the most time. I don't think anybody knows if the majority agrees with this or not.
Btw in the case of art you could argue that majority opinion is always right because in the end people need to enjoy the product/work. Changes obviously a little bit with if we have clear expectations/target audiences. I think it's a bit tricky, because obviously most players still left are the ones that enjoy the game. I guess this shows that when one considers majority opinions first one has to decide what group of people to listen to. And there are many such groups. And what should be the ranking? Progamers > current players > viewers > former players > casual fans > potential fans? Any discussion like that is a minefield. I sometimes think that if you don't play the game your opinion automatically should carry less weight, but at the same time I have opinions about what sort of changes would entice me to consider picking up the game again, since I haven't played LotV myself because I strongly suspected I wouldn't like it. I could understand if someone presently enjoying the gameplay would take a somewhat dismissive view of my perspective. Should Blizzard really risk potentially destructive overhauls of fundamentals only to chase after some elusive ex-player coming from a dysfunctional relationship with Starcraft 2?
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On August 22 2016 05:40 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 08:04 The_Red_Viper wrote: It's an interesting article, thanks. But in the case of sc2, what is this majority opinion? I absolutely believe that most people playing/watching the game right now are happy with it. I am kinda "happy" with it as well, the difference is that i think it could be better. I don't think that the majority thinks that it couldn't be better with some changes here and there. Would they actually think it is "better" with changes i would like? I don't know. It's just that in the case of sc2 these things are fairly vague, the only real option might be to simply test it. I feel blizzard didn't really do that with their expansions/betas.
One big "problem" i personally think is still part of sc2 is that maxed army engagements are not fun to play or watch for the most time. I don't think anybody knows if the majority agrees with this or not.
Btw in the case of art you could argue that majority opinion is always right because in the end people need to enjoy the product/work. Changes obviously a little bit with if we have clear expectations/target audiences. I think it's a bit tricky, because obviously most players still left are the ones that enjoy the game. I guess this shows that when one considers majority opinions first one has to decide what group of people to listen to. And there are many such groups. And what should be the ranking? Progamers > current players > viewers > former players > casual fans > potential fans? Any discussion like that is a minefield. I sometimes think that if you don't play the game your opinion automatically should carry less weight, but at the same time I have opinions about what sort of changes would entice me to consider picking up the game again, since I haven't played LotV myself because I strongly suspected I wouldn't like it. I could understand if someone presently enjoying the gameplay would take a somewhat dismissive view of my perspective. Should Blizzard really risk potentially destructive overhauls of fundamentals only to chase after some elusive ex-player coming from a dysfunctional relationship with Starcraft 2?
No i don't think that they should necessarily risk it, but i absolutely think that this isn't even the only option these days. Today it is easier than ever to simply test it and work with the community on iterations. Have a ptr, make it easily accessible for everyone, maybe even give people something for testing it. I mean even little indi studios do this with "open access" titles these days, the community is basically part of the development and i think that is great. You obviously still need a good idea in which direction the game has to go, but community feedback is a great tool imo. I will completely ignore the monatory aspect right now and if it's actually viable for blizzard to put in that much effort, but i surely would hope so, everything you can read about the future of sc2 would at least make it a realistic possibility. I mean blizzard's goal since forever was to destroy the "deathball". Did they do a good job with it? Not really imo. Was a different pathing system tested publicly? No. (they said they tested it internally, but i am not sure about that one tbh) Blizzard does somewhat listen to feedback, the problem (imo) is that their solutions are never all that great. We never tested more economy models (ok let's be real the current one is the same economy model, the maps changed not how the economy works) We never got a protoss redesign, we got "bandaid" fixes like the mothershipcore. Imo you can break down these things and make good points why their solutions aren't good. Most people playing some ladder games here and there will never actually think about any of that though. They will play, have a decent enough experience to come back later on but that's about it really. And as you said, the people still playing the game like it (enough) to still be here, that doesn't make it easier.
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These are questions that sum up the majority of what the community has been feeling. I don't feel like David really addressed any of the major concerns. It sounds like the same general answers that any employee at blizzard would say about balance. I feel like the take-away from this interview is "there are a lot of players and the game is pretty difficult to balance overall, so we're catching feedback in the meantime. We just want you to know that player opinions matter."
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On August 21 2016 12:12 RKC wrote: So Korean pros are now the 'vocal minority'?
Plus most of the existing Korean pros come from a BW background. Arguably, it is the newer generation (i.e. ESL players) who have mostly dropped off the game, whilst KeSPA players being more resilient and staying in stronger. It's worrying that that former top players (e.g. Flash and Effort) are going back to BW, and even those who did well in SC2 (e.g. Rain and Soulkey) have given up. And worst of all, there is lack of new blood.
Meanwhile, BW is gaining back hype amongst Korean viewers.
It's quite clear that the Korean scene wants a return to a more BW-esque game play. Whether it's due to nostalgia or entertainment, it doesn't matter. They have spoken up, and the question is whether Blizzard wants to heed this 'vocal minority'.
Of course, if Blizzard wants to build the SC2 scene around WCS and international tourneys, that's purely within its prerogative (and may actually work in widening its player base and popularity). But that would bring the end to the Korean SC2 scene. At the same time, I feel like this is a wasted opportunity. Is the correct path to be more like Brood War or take the opportunity to have a different type of RTS experience?
Yeah, you could argue that as a sequel, it should be very similiar to BW, but I think if they're going to go ahead and made an HD version of BW anymore, having 2 games that cover the same aspects of an RTS is redundant, wouldnt it make sense for SC2 to be different/cover a different skillset? Or is that alienating fans and potential players?
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On August 22 2016 06:24 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 12:12 RKC wrote: So Korean pros are now the 'vocal minority'?
Plus most of the existing Korean pros come from a BW background. Arguably, it is the newer generation (i.e. ESL players) who have mostly dropped off the game, whilst KeSPA players being more resilient and staying in stronger. It's worrying that that former top players (e.g. Flash and Effort) are going back to BW, and even those who did well in SC2 (e.g. Rain and Soulkey) have given up. And worst of all, there is lack of new blood.
Meanwhile, BW is gaining back hype amongst Korean viewers.
It's quite clear that the Korean scene wants a return to a more BW-esque game play. Whether it's due to nostalgia or entertainment, it doesn't matter. They have spoken up, and the question is whether Blizzard wants to heed this 'vocal minority'.
Of course, if Blizzard wants to build the SC2 scene around WCS and international tourneys, that's purely within its prerogative (and may actually work in widening its player base and popularity). But that would bring the end to the Korean SC2 scene. At the same time, I feel like this is a wasted opportunity. Is the correct path to be more like Brood War or take the opportunity to have a different type of RTS experience? Yeah, you could argue that as a sequel, it should be very similiar to BW, but I think if they're going to go ahead and made an HD version of BW anymore, having 2 games that cover the same aspects of an RTS is redundant, wouldnt it make sense for SC2 to be different/cover a different skillset? Or is that alienating fans and potential players?
There is nothing wrong with Bliz trying to make a different RTS game with SC2 - different from even its prequel. Bliz has done it before, with some fair amount of success - it's called WC3.
(Ironically, I sometimes feel SC2 resembles a lot like with WC3, due to the emphasis to heroes or 'OP units' that could make all the difference - for instance early game Demon Hunter and Blademaster harass feels like Oracle and dropship WP harass. And WC3 armies clump together, almost like SC2 death-balls, causing many games to be decided after a major engagement. But perhaps this is a debate for another day.)
The difference is that the SC2 competitive scene rides on the wave and backbone of BW - at least for Korea. And in the early years, Bliz was happy for these two worlds to merge. So that makes both games intertwined. Perhaps some of the Korean pros (especially KeSPA) feel somewhat hurt and even betrayed that SC2 has been diverging further and further away from BW. This is not what they sign up for, so to speak, hence their frustration now. And maybe the feeling cascades to the fans, too. "This is not the game that we want to watch, let's watch some BW instead!"
SC2 can still succeed in the future, by carving a new player and fan base across the world. And Bliz has every right to do so - it's their baby, after all. But doing so would likely be at the expense of killing off the SC2 Korean scene. That's all I'm concerned about. By dismissing them as 'vocal minority', I guess their fate is pretty much sealed.
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On August 22 2016 06:24 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2016 12:12 RKC wrote: So Korean pros are now the 'vocal minority'?
Plus most of the existing Korean pros come from a BW background. Arguably, it is the newer generation (i.e. ESL players) who have mostly dropped off the game, whilst KeSPA players being more resilient and staying in stronger. It's worrying that that former top players (e.g. Flash and Effort) are going back to BW, and even those who did well in SC2 (e.g. Rain and Soulkey) have given up. And worst of all, there is lack of new blood.
Meanwhile, BW is gaining back hype amongst Korean viewers.
It's quite clear that the Korean scene wants a return to a more BW-esque game play. Whether it's due to nostalgia or entertainment, it doesn't matter. They have spoken up, and the question is whether Blizzard wants to heed this 'vocal minority'.
Of course, if Blizzard wants to build the SC2 scene around WCS and international tourneys, that's purely within its prerogative (and may actually work in widening its player base and popularity). But that would bring the end to the Korean SC2 scene. At the same time, I feel like this is a wasted opportunity. Is the correct path to be more like Brood War or take the opportunity to have a different type of RTS experience? Yeah, you could argue that as a sequel, it should be very similiar to BW, but I think if they're going to go ahead and made an HD version of BW anymore, having 2 games that cover the same aspects of an RTS is redundant, wouldnt it make sense for SC2 to be different/cover a different skillset? Or is that alienating fans and potential players?
I agree with you in some degree. SC2 should be different from its prequel, because it`s been almost 20 yrs since BW was released.
However, the problem is, it seems that SC2 developers are possessed with the idea that SC2 must not take a single part of BW. I cannot find any reason why they cherish this insane pace of the game but the antipathy against BW.
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I've known this for years, but this patch and this interview make it increasingly apparent that Blizzard has a very shallow understanding of their own game and the problems within it. From other Blizzard games we've seen mistakes made but they are almost always corrected. SC2's team on the other hand, has adopted a sort of trial and error spitballing approach to development rather than thinking critically about the underlying problems with the game. The battles are still too short, harassment is too powerful and frequent, the economy is still flawed, several unit designs are terrible, yet Blizzard's ideas to improve the game are unit changes, which don't get me wrong I like these changes but it isn't going to improve the game long term.
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mech coming back? great, i cant wait to see every fucking TvT beeing a mech vs mech and TvZ as well... Thanks David Kim for finally, FINALLY pissing me off enough of this game, to stop playing it. Just no fun getting forced into a stalemate playstyle. F*** this s***
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On August 23 2016 17:18 Dungeontay wrote: mech coming back? great, i cant wait to see every fucking TvT beeing a mech vs mech and TvZ as well... Thanks David Kim for finally, FINALLY pissing me off enough of this game, to stop playing it. Just no fun getting forced into a stalemate playstyle. F*** this s***
Call it a wash, because I quit this game after I got tired of playing Bio every game for 5 years.
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quit this game when T became swarm, and zerg became another protoss. marines are new zerg free mual no gas hit air and ground shit ton of great upgrades. oh oh oh marine is 1 supply. zerg don't have that. only have supply 3 raveger in lotv as core unit. now reveger will be nerfed, and got weak hydra with some buff. hydra compare to marine. marine will always be swarm queen.
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i hope someone run david kim over with car so we can have new guy in. jk but really want them to replace him. we need new mind working on this game. guy who is keeps ruining this game should not have he's job.
User was temp banned for this post.
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