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8716 Posts
I just wanted to see if I can perfect the WoL template. As the players perfect the game, you're going to find it's not such an interesting game. It appears to be interesting when the difference between current play and optimal play is an unknown that has the possibility of containing something interesting. But as current play and optimal play naturally merge with player improvement, it becomes clear that all the potential of the unknown amounts to nothing. The only people perpetually entertained by such a game are the ones who refuse to improve themselves. When their play comes up short of spectacular, instead of being tempted by making an ever better play, they just like to imagine how cool it'd be if they did, and then they never discover the emptiness of actually doing so. The only benefit of this mod is removing the obligation to learn how to play the parts of the game that encourage a higher proficiency to enjoy, which happen to be the parts of the game that make it a better game.
This is like if a novice piano player got the easy version of a song, mastered it, and then prefers to play his simple arrangement while imagining the full arrangement instead of learning to play the more intricate parts himself. Why spend so many hours gaining the technical proficiency required to do the activity fully when you can play your approximation and let your imagination do the rest?
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I agree with the overall philosophy. With the exception of FF reliance for P and broodlord infestor, WoL was very sound and simple and its set of units had potential to grow into something very nice. "Simplify, simplify" ; I'd really like someone to just cut the fat out of the ideas HotS and LotV brought, that were mostly overly complicated and in the end bad design-wise. This is in the end what you try to do, with blatant issues underlined by some posts above, but this is an idea I'd be interested in working on.
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On June 03 2017 23:54 reneg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2017 21:56 404AlphaSquad wrote:On June 03 2017 21:49 reneg wrote:On June 03 2017 15:34 dalaiisc2 wrote: why is zerg the only race, that just got nerfs?
without ravager, sentry timings are again really powerfull. bills are the only thing, that zerg can do against FF. without them, you just can watch, how your army dies.. and ravagers were never a problem against mech. swarmhosts are the only problem, mech has atm against zerg. same with abduct.where is the problem with abduct? how do you wanna fight mass air armies without it?
to remove abilities/units from the game is just a cheap way out. its like "i dont have any idea how to balance them, so i removed them". how do you wanna break siegelines before broodlords without swarmhosts? as a zerg, you are forced to turtle to 4-5 base, play a 20min+ game and hope, that they dont kill your broods, or even your base, because broods are so fucking slow.
i appreciate the effort and thoughts, guys like you put into these changes, BUT at the same time, im really happy, that the actuall design/balance team dont do such drastic changes to the game. Because for some reason, the teams who make these mods keep thinking that if they take away the things that can beat their play style. It's just like avilo's, where he nerfed everything that beats mech. I honestly don't understand what all the points of these various mods is. Is it to show us that teams of professional developers can do a better job at balancing video games than random guys who only have their own experiences to go off of? If so, they succeeded. People use the built-in editor and make custom mods they enjoy playing! How horrible! I don't understand what the point of hating these people is either. You make it sound like balancing an RTS is hard, but it is actually easier than you think. "It's easier than you think" Which results in the following: This mod: -Oracle: Removed pulsar beam and revelation -Mothership core: Removed -Adept: Removed their shade. -Muta: Revert movement speed buff -Viper: Abduct removed .............................................
yeah I am not gonna read through everything you just pointed out. he didnt really try to make a 100% balanced mod, he just made a custom game in which he removed everything that he finds annoying. How is this bad?
Balance is complex yes. But the act of balancing nerfing like Blizzard did isn't very difficult. Widowmine too weak against Protoss? +Dmg to shields. Buff Anti-Air in ZvZ? +dmg to biological air units. They are literally one step to balance +dmg against Zerg/terran/protoss.
On June 04 2017 00:49 NonY wrote:As the players perfect the game, you're going to find it's not such an interesting game. It appears to be interesting when the difference between current play and optimal play is an unknown that has the possibility of containing something interesting. But as current play and optimal play naturally merge with player improvement, it becomes clear that all the potential of the unknown amounts to nothing. The only people perpetually entertained by such a game are the ones who refuse to improve themselves. When their play comes up short of spectacular, instead of being tempted by making an ever better play, they just like to imagine how cool it'd be if they did, and then they never discover the emptiness of actually doing so. The only benefit of this mod is removing the obligation to learn how to play the parts of the game that encourage a higher proficiency to enjoy, which happen to be the parts of the game that make it a better game. This is like if a novice piano player got the easy version of a song, mastered it, and then prefers to play his simple arrangement while imagining the full arrangement instead of learning to play the more intricate parts himself. Why spend so many hours gaining the technical proficiency required to do the activity fully when you can play your approximation and let your imagination do the rest? How good do you have to be to start enjoying the game? I think it is the opposite, the better you get at the game the less you enjoy it.
Unfortunately I do not get your analogy. More complexity to a game doesn't necessarily mean a better game. If someone would come up with different go-pieces who do different things or adds new factions in chess, doesn't necessarily make it better. Just as if you add more notes/complexity to a melody also doesn't make it necessarily better to listen to.
Blizzard had to break their own design philosophy rules, where they said that no race should have more than approx. 12 units. Look at where we are now.
Protoss went from 15 to 20 units Terran went from 13 to 17 (16 if you argue that Hellbat/Hellion are the same unit) Zerg went from 11 to 15
If you would make a BW expansion to implement new units, you are going to find it is very hard to find 4-5 spots for every race that get used and without messing up the gameplay.
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On June 04 2017 00:02 beentheredonethat wrote: I just realized that I'd actually love playing WoL. Even HotS. SC2 became so superfast, I don't bother playing.
You can still play WoL. Go to settings -> Gameplay -> Expansion level.
I still play wol all the time.
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On June 04 2017 00:59 404AlphaSquad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2017 23:54 reneg wrote:On June 03 2017 21:56 404AlphaSquad wrote:On June 03 2017 21:49 reneg wrote:On June 03 2017 15:34 dalaiisc2 wrote: why is zerg the only race, that just got nerfs?
without ravager, sentry timings are again really powerfull. bills are the only thing, that zerg can do against FF. without them, you just can watch, how your army dies.. and ravagers were never a problem against mech. swarmhosts are the only problem, mech has atm against zerg. same with abduct.where is the problem with abduct? how do you wanna fight mass air armies without it?
to remove abilities/units from the game is just a cheap way out. its like "i dont have any idea how to balance them, so i removed them". how do you wanna break siegelines before broodlords without swarmhosts? as a zerg, you are forced to turtle to 4-5 base, play a 20min+ game and hope, that they dont kill your broods, or even your base, because broods are so fucking slow.
i appreciate the effort and thoughts, guys like you put into these changes, BUT at the same time, im really happy, that the actuall design/balance team dont do such drastic changes to the game. Because for some reason, the teams who make these mods keep thinking that if they take away the things that can beat their play style. It's just like avilo's, where he nerfed everything that beats mech. I honestly don't understand what all the points of these various mods is. Is it to show us that teams of professional developers can do a better job at balancing video games than random guys who only have their own experiences to go off of? If so, they succeeded. People use the built-in editor and make custom mods they enjoy playing! How horrible! I don't understand what the point of hating these people is either. You make it sound like balancing an RTS is hard, but it is actually easier than you think. "It's easier than you think" Which results in the following: This mod: -Oracle: Removed pulsar beam and revelation -Mothership core: Removed -Adept: Removed their shade. -Muta: Revert movement speed buff -Viper: Abduct removed ............................................. yeah I am not gonna read through everything you just pointed out. he didnt really try to make a 100% balanced mod, he just made a custom game in which he removed everything that he finds annoying. How is this bad? Balance is complex yes. But the act of balancing nerfing like Blizzard did isn't very difficult. Widowmine too weak against Protoss? +Dmg to shields. Buff Anti-Air in ZvZ? +dmg to biological air units. They are literally one step to balance +dmg against Zerg/terran/protoss.
Okay, then I'll make it simpler for you:
Why have a balance mod, but not worry about balance? You're right, there is nothing stopping him from doing it, but does doing it mean the changes proposed should be immune from criticism?
And then to address your point: Yes, the changes they made (+damage to shields, +damage to biological) are simple changes, but they are important ones. If they came in and said, "Widow mine now does 1 damage" - that would effectively remove the widow mine from the game. Surely you can see that the values and figures (while simple changes) actually have an impact on how the game is played.
Show nested quote +On June 04 2017 00:49 NonY wrote:I just wanted to see if I can perfect the WoL template. As the players perfect the game, you're going to find it's not such an interesting game. It appears to be interesting when the difference between current play and optimal play is an unknown that has the possibility of containing something interesting. But as current play and optimal play naturally merge with player improvement, it becomes clear that all the potential of the unknown amounts to nothing. The only people perpetually entertained by such a game are the ones who refuse to improve themselves. When their play comes up short of spectacular, instead of being tempted by making an ever better play, they just like to imagine how cool it'd be if they did, and then they never discover the emptiness of actually doing so. The only benefit of this mod is removing the obligation to learn how to play the parts of the game that encourage a higher proficiency to enjoy, which happen to be the parts of the game that make it a better game. This is like if a novice piano player got the easy version of a song, mastered it, and then prefers to play his simple arrangement while imagining the full arrangement instead of learning to play the more intricate parts himself. Why spend so many hours gaining the technical proficiency required to do the activity fully when you can play your approximation and let your imagination do the rest? How good do you have to be to start enjoying the game? I think it is the opposite, the better you get at the game the less you enjoy it. Unfortunately I do not get your analogy. More complexity to a game doesn't necessarily mean a better game. If someone would come up with different go-pieces who do different things or adds new factions in chess, doesn't necessarily make it better. Just as if you add more notes/complexity to a melody also doesn't make it necessarily better to listen to. Blizzard had to break their own design philosophy rules, where they said that no race should have more than approx. 12 units. Look at where we are now. Protoss went from 15 to 20 units Terran went from 13 to 17 (16 if you argue that Hellbat/Hellion are the same unit) Zerg went from 11 to 15 If you would make a BW expansion to implement new units, you are going to find it is very hard to find 4-5 spots for every race that get used and without messing up the gameplay.
(I believe that) He's saying that if you "perfect it" without trying to bother improving yourself, it's like sitting around playing Mary had a little lamb on the piano. You could play it perfectly, but it's not a complex song, you'll grow bored of it. The way to maintain interest in something is to focus on constant improvement.
If you sat around feeling good about how great you are for playing Mary had a little lamb, you would lose interest after a short amount of time. If you kept trying to improve, and progress on to more difficult songs and abilities, you'll keep finding yourself interested in whatever you're trying,
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On June 04 2017 01:55 reneg wrote: Okay, then I'll make it simpler for you: Why have a balance mod, but not worry about balance? You're right, there is nothing stopping him from doing it, but does doing it mean the changes proposed should be immune from criticism?
But where does he claim it to be a balance mod? You just assumed that he was a random balancewhiner and that is why he made this mod.
On June 04 2017 01:55 reneg wrote: And then to address your point: Yes, the changes they made (+damage to shields, +damage to biological) are simple changes, but they are important ones. If they came in and said, "Widow mine now does 1 damage" - that would effectively remove the widow mine from the game. Surely you can see that the values and figures (while simple changes) actually have an impact on how the game is played.
Oh yes you are so right. It is so hard to have +5 dmg vs biological or something equally stupid for 3 months on a testmap and then roll back on that change later and to come back with another equally light change which theng gets 3 months later pushed into the game.
Also I made a mistake. I was not sure about the 12 unit statement so I wanted to see if I could find that statement again. Seems like they never specified the exact number but they said that they wanted to
keep the amount of units for each race to a certain number to keep the gameplay tight
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Update on my big mod (not this one, this one was just some small changes).
Should be done tomorrow then just lots of testing starting hopefully tomorrow. Hopefully it will be live on Friday if not then Saturday the latest.
Even though the testing isnt much since I've been playing it with a diamond guy lol but at least we can see what is too broken or what doesnt work or what is too useless.
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On June 03 2017 21:49 reneg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2017 15:34 dalaiisc2 wrote: why is zerg the only race, that just got nerfs?
without ravager, sentry timings are again really powerfull. bills are the only thing, that zerg can do against FF. without them, you just can watch, how your army dies.. and ravagers were never a problem against mech. swarmhosts are the only problem, mech has atm against zerg. same with abduct.where is the problem with abduct? how do you wanna fight mass air armies without it?
to remove abilities/units from the game is just a cheap way out. its like "i dont have any idea how to balance them, so i removed them". how do you wanna break siegelines before broodlords without swarmhosts? as a zerg, you are forced to turtle to 4-5 base, play a 20min+ game and hope, that they dont kill your broods, or even your base, because broods are so fucking slow.
i appreciate the effort and thoughts, guys like you put into these changes, BUT at the same time, im really happy, that the actuall design/balance team dont do such drastic changes to the game. Because for some reason, the teams who make these mods keep thinking that if they take away the things that can beat their play style. It's just like avilo's, where he nerfed everything that beats mech. I honestly don't understand what all the points of these various mods is. Is it to show us that teams of professional developers can do a better job at balancing video games than random guys who only have their own experiences to go off of? If so, they succeeded.
?????
There was only one person that my tournament that even went mech in their games. 99% of people that played just played standard bio, proving that the naysayers of my changes were 100% absolutely wrong.
In fact, the finals of my tourney was won by Soul, a polish Terran, who played bio every single game in the tournament.
Mech was made a viable option in my mod as it should be on the live version of the game. IT was in no way, shape, or form imbalanced and nothing was nerf hammered hard other than swarmhosts to allow mech viability.
Also more to reply to this thread - it seems most people that have designed or requested changes in SC2 really want LOTV to go back more towards HOTS/WOL in terms of gameplay. It's almost unanimous everywhere that everyone basically hates LOTV changes such as the economy and speed/pacing, and removal of 1500 mineral patches.
But will any of these mods ever reach Blizzard's ears? Probably not. From what i've seen they basically have ignored my $800 prizepool tourney that showed great changes, and their last balance update literally said "we don't think we need to do anything right now."
I mean it's good people like bareleon and others are doing this stuff too, but the problem is reaching Blizzard seems near impossible atm.
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On June 20 2017 08:42 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2017 21:49 reneg wrote:On June 03 2017 15:34 dalaiisc2 wrote: why is zerg the only race, that just got nerfs?
without ravager, sentry timings are again really powerfull. bills are the only thing, that zerg can do against FF. without them, you just can watch, how your army dies.. and ravagers were never a problem against mech. swarmhosts are the only problem, mech has atm against zerg. same with abduct.where is the problem with abduct? how do you wanna fight mass air armies without it?
to remove abilities/units from the game is just a cheap way out. its like "i dont have any idea how to balance them, so i removed them". how do you wanna break siegelines before broodlords without swarmhosts? as a zerg, you are forced to turtle to 4-5 base, play a 20min+ game and hope, that they dont kill your broods, or even your base, because broods are so fucking slow.
i appreciate the effort and thoughts, guys like you put into these changes, BUT at the same time, im really happy, that the actuall design/balance team dont do such drastic changes to the game. Because for some reason, the teams who make these mods keep thinking that if they take away the things that can beat their play style. It's just like avilo's, where he nerfed everything that beats mech. I honestly don't understand what all the points of these various mods is. Is it to show us that teams of professional developers can do a better job at balancing video games than random guys who only have their own experiences to go off of? If so, they succeeded. ????? There was only one person that my tournament that even went mech in their games. 99% of people that played just played standard bio, proving that the naysayers of my changes were 100% absolutely wrong. In fact, the finals of my tourney was won by Soul, a polish Terran, who played bio every single game in the tournament. Mech was made a viable option in my mod as it should be on the live version of the game. IT was in no way, shape, or form imbalanced and nothing was nerf hammered hard other than swarmhosts to allow mech viability. Also more to reply to this thread - it seems most people that have designed or requested changes in SC2 really want LOTV to go back more towards HOTS/WOL in terms of gameplay. It's almost unanimous everywhere that everyone basically hates LOTV changes such as the economy and speed/pacing, and removal of 1500 mineral patches. But will any of these mods ever reach Blizzard's ears? Probably not. From what i've seen they basically have ignored my $800 prizepool tourney that showed great changes, and their last balance update literally said "we don't think we need to do anything right now." I mean it's good people like bareleon and others are doing this stuff too, but the problem is reaching Blizzard seems near impossible atm.
If only one person went mech, you can't really say you proved anything, except that when there's money to be won people will play what they are comfortable with... what a huge surprise. There's a significant difference between one small tournament and thousands of games being played every day.
As for showing "great changes", many people seem to disagree, why should Blizzard listen to you over them?
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On June 20 2017 10:16 Myrddraal wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2017 08:42 avilo wrote:On June 03 2017 21:49 reneg wrote:On June 03 2017 15:34 dalaiisc2 wrote: why is zerg the only race, that just got nerfs?
without ravager, sentry timings are again really powerfull. bills are the only thing, that zerg can do against FF. without them, you just can watch, how your army dies.. and ravagers were never a problem against mech. swarmhosts are the only problem, mech has atm against zerg. same with abduct.where is the problem with abduct? how do you wanna fight mass air armies without it?
to remove abilities/units from the game is just a cheap way out. its like "i dont have any idea how to balance them, so i removed them". how do you wanna break siegelines before broodlords without swarmhosts? as a zerg, you are forced to turtle to 4-5 base, play a 20min+ game and hope, that they dont kill your broods, or even your base, because broods are so fucking slow.
i appreciate the effort and thoughts, guys like you put into these changes, BUT at the same time, im really happy, that the actuall design/balance team dont do such drastic changes to the game. Because for some reason, the teams who make these mods keep thinking that if they take away the things that can beat their play style. It's just like avilo's, where he nerfed everything that beats mech. I honestly don't understand what all the points of these various mods is. Is it to show us that teams of professional developers can do a better job at balancing video games than random guys who only have their own experiences to go off of? If so, they succeeded. ????? There was only one person that my tournament that even went mech in their games. 99% of people that played just played standard bio, proving that the naysayers of my changes were 100% absolutely wrong. In fact, the finals of my tourney was won by Soul, a polish Terran, who played bio every single game in the tournament. Mech was made a viable option in my mod as it should be on the live version of the game. IT was in no way, shape, or form imbalanced and nothing was nerf hammered hard other than swarmhosts to allow mech viability. Also more to reply to this thread - it seems most people that have designed or requested changes in SC2 really want LOTV to go back more towards HOTS/WOL in terms of gameplay. It's almost unanimous everywhere that everyone basically hates LOTV changes such as the economy and speed/pacing, and removal of 1500 mineral patches. But will any of these mods ever reach Blizzard's ears? Probably not. From what i've seen they basically have ignored my $800 prizepool tourney that showed great changes, and their last balance update literally said "we don't think we need to do anything right now." I mean it's good people like bareleon and others are doing this stuff too, but the problem is reaching Blizzard seems near impossible atm. If only one person went mech, you can't really say you proved anything, except that when there's money to be won people will play what they are comfortable with... what a huge surprise. There's a significant difference between one small tournament and thousands of games being played every day. As for showing "great changes", many people seem to disagree, why should Blizzard listen to you over them?
It proved mech can be made more viable via giving mech an anti-air unit while not overpowering mech to the point it's the only thing you would see. It was an option for players, not mandatory. On top of that, it also proved heavily that the changes i made impacted bio play basically 0% - meaning none of the changes were game breaking yet hit their intended design target of mech viability 100%.
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On June 20 2017 10:54 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2017 10:16 Myrddraal wrote:On June 20 2017 08:42 avilo wrote:On June 03 2017 21:49 reneg wrote:On June 03 2017 15:34 dalaiisc2 wrote: why is zerg the only race, that just got nerfs?
without ravager, sentry timings are again really powerfull. bills are the only thing, that zerg can do against FF. without them, you just can watch, how your army dies.. and ravagers were never a problem against mech. swarmhosts are the only problem, mech has atm against zerg. same with abduct.where is the problem with abduct? how do you wanna fight mass air armies without it?
to remove abilities/units from the game is just a cheap way out. its like "i dont have any idea how to balance them, so i removed them". how do you wanna break siegelines before broodlords without swarmhosts? as a zerg, you are forced to turtle to 4-5 base, play a 20min+ game and hope, that they dont kill your broods, or even your base, because broods are so fucking slow.
i appreciate the effort and thoughts, guys like you put into these changes, BUT at the same time, im really happy, that the actuall design/balance team dont do such drastic changes to the game. Because for some reason, the teams who make these mods keep thinking that if they take away the things that can beat their play style. It's just like avilo's, where he nerfed everything that beats mech. I honestly don't understand what all the points of these various mods is. Is it to show us that teams of professional developers can do a better job at balancing video games than random guys who only have their own experiences to go off of? If so, they succeeded. ????? There was only one person that my tournament that even went mech in their games. 99% of people that played just played standard bio, proving that the naysayers of my changes were 100% absolutely wrong. In fact, the finals of my tourney was won by Soul, a polish Terran, who played bio every single game in the tournament. Mech was made a viable option in my mod as it should be on the live version of the game. IT was in no way, shape, or form imbalanced and nothing was nerf hammered hard other than swarmhosts to allow mech viability. Also more to reply to this thread - it seems most people that have designed or requested changes in SC2 really want LOTV to go back more towards HOTS/WOL in terms of gameplay. It's almost unanimous everywhere that everyone basically hates LOTV changes such as the economy and speed/pacing, and removal of 1500 mineral patches. But will any of these mods ever reach Blizzard's ears? Probably not. From what i've seen they basically have ignored my $800 prizepool tourney that showed great changes, and their last balance update literally said "we don't think we need to do anything right now." I mean it's good people like bareleon and others are doing this stuff too, but the problem is reaching Blizzard seems near impossible atm. If only one person went mech, you can't really say you proved anything, except that when there's money to be won people will play what they are comfortable with... what a huge surprise. There's a significant difference between one small tournament and thousands of games being played every day. As for showing "great changes", many people seem to disagree, why should Blizzard listen to you over them? It proved mech can be made more viable via giving mech an anti-air unit while not overpowering mech to the point it's the only thing you would see. It was an option for players, not mandatory. On top of that, it also proved heavily that the changes i made impacted bio play basically 0% - meaning none of the changes were game breaking yet hit their intended design target of mech viability 100%.
Well as far as I can tell you didn't touch bio (apart from reaper grenade of course), yet you straight up nerfed protoss (apart from charge cost which is in the game now anyway) and mostly nerfed zerg, so if anything you made bio stronger and it's again no surprise that a Terran won with standard bio.
Based on the skill difference between players and small sample size you can't really assert that the changes weren't game breaking, you need more games with players of similar skill levels to really see how the changes play out.
In saying that I do wish Blizzard would be open to testing more significant changes more broadly. Something like a featured balance mod with it's own mini ladder would be cool. They could give out special portraits to users who reach the top or play enough games as incentives.
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