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With the recent announcement of a second straight year of major game design changes to SC2, it has become clear that Blizzard is taking an approach where overhauling several unit identities on a regular basis is acceptable or perhaps even the norm, so I figured I'd take the time to write a little bit about my thoughts. I'd just like to preface this by saying this piece is solely my opinion and is by no means an objective truth, and I recognize that someone could disagree with me while making perfectly logical arguments as to why they disagree (CatZ comes to mind). With that being said, I'd like to focus on two aspects of the changes - the philosophy behind major design changes in general, and the specific changes themselves.
Change, Change, and More Change
Having played a significant amount of somewhat competitive Dota 2, I am very familiar with a game being turned on its head on a regular basis. Dota's yearly revamp has become a point of excitement for players, where every year they have a new set of toys to play with and the hero balance is flipped on its head. This philosophy works well in Dota, where the huge pool of heroes with extensive counterplay as well as the pick-ban system prevent any one hero or strategy from becoming too oppressive, and of course, minor balance tweaks can be made to deal with unintended circumstances quickly. Another perk of making such big changes on a regular basis is that by the time people figure out what the best strategies are, they may be well on their way to changing and falling out of favor. Being a competitive Dota 2 player is a constant state of adapting to change.
In Starcraft II, we don't have quite the same case. Strong strategies can dominate the meta for months at a time with no way to avoid them, and it's not quite so simple to pick up a new race if you don't like the direction your race is going. Every time you make sweeping changes, you run the risk of nearly ruining the game for months at a time. Players build their playstyles and their enjoyment of the game over the course of a year, only to see them fall apart when a major change is made. For example, I built my original Legacy of the Void style around my love for Tankivac aggression, perfecting my micro as well as an array of build orders around my strength with the unit. We can see something similar in regards to ByuN's mastery of Reapers.
Completely removing a tactic (Tankivac) outside of a major expansion seems, to me, unfair to players who are caught completely off guard by such a major change. The reaper nerfs, on the other hand, are an example of a good StarCraft-y approach to toning down a strategy that is healthy for the game in theory, but perhaps just a bit too strong in practice. ByuN's reaper play is action-packed, with constant back-and-forth micro and multitasking, and the only real problem was that it was just a bit too good. For casual players who don't play the game as often, the threat of change is even more severe - it's easy to imagine a scenario where a player who only logs on a couple times a month is quickly overwhelmed by the massive strategic shift.
To me, one of the coolest things about Starcraft is that we don't need constant change for the meta to develop - we have seen proof in Brood War that even with many years of balance inactivity, new strategies can be discovered with just map pool changes and different players coming along. For example, the dominant PvZ opener of Forge FE was not even thought to be viable until the mid-2000s, nearly half a decade since a single balance change. This development was brought on solely by player innovation and map changes. In the late 2000s, we saw mech play become popular in TvZ, followed by further evolution to a bio-goliath style, and then a bio midgame followed by a mech lategame.
With this in mind, I don't agree with the philosophy of constant change in Starcraft II. It goes against the reasons I fell in love with the game - the constant pursuit of mastery, developing strategies bit by bit with the tools you are given. Everyone gets the same tools, and it's what you do with them that sets you apart. Even with something as simple as 2-base marine tankivac all-in, I spent an entire year ironing out different parts of my build orders, overall strategy, and execution, just to have it completely removed.
While some may argue that major design changes can improve the game, Blizzard had their chances with two major expasions - Starcraft II is now seven years past release and the people who are still playing the game are the ones who enjoy the game as it is currently designed. Alienating your remaining fanbase that has already dwindled from the glory days doesn't seem practical, even if the game does end up "better" in the long run. It's understandable to make changes when strategies become too dominant, but change for the sake of change is not something I see a need for in Starcraft II.
The Elegance of Simplicity
Now independent from the idea of whether or not you think change is a good thing, I'd like to discuss another core principle of Starcraft that I believe Blizzard is straying away from. One of the trends I see in the patch changes is overcomplicating units - it's no longer enough for a unit to do just one thing, and it's no longer enough for an ability to just do one thing. Some examples:
- Mines now are invisible only before they shoot, but after they shoot, they're visible despite still being burrowed
- Cyclone Lock On fires faster, but only for the first few attacks
- The High Templar can now attack, because just casting spells wasn't enough
- The Observer now has an active ability
- Infestor spells function differently on creep and off creep
These changes are a continuation of changes we saw throughout HotS and LotV, where, for example, the Immortal gained an active ability (that was later removed), the Hellion gained a transformation, the Battlecruiser gained a new ability, etc. Overall, there just seems to be a trend towards ability overload, and unit mechanics getting more and more complex to be shoehorned into designated roles.
Many of the most entertaining moments in Starcraft history have been created by units that do nothing but the simplest tasks - move and shoot, with perhaps one simple ability like stimpack or blink to give the unit a unique identity. Units did one or two simple things, and we didn't have a whole bunch of conditionals and abilities surrounding every unit interaction. One of the biggest things that people freak out about is something like ByuN's ability to target banelings with marines - literally nothing but attacking a unit with another unit! But we recognize the skill that such a tactic requires and are rightfully in awe of an all-time great player's ability to use a simple unit in ways that mere mortals cannot.
To summarize, I feel that Blizzard's constant design changes as well as the actual changes themselves are both taking Starcraft II in the wrong direction. Not because I think the actual changes have a negative effect on gameplay, but because they are detaching Starcraft II from some of the core principles that make the Starcraft franchise the best RTS games of all time.
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I also like simplicity. Great post! Complicated things often have this feel of bandaid solutions.
I do feel though SC2 right now might benefit from some changes.
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I think saying Blizzard has had their chance and that things should be left alone is an absurd position, and people are massively overreacting to the extent of the changes. So the Raven has different abilities, Terran is still Terran. It's not like you suddently lose all that time you put into the game as though it's worthless. You see way more change in DotA/League patches than you do in StarCraft, this kind of update is hardly comparable to the iterations those games go through.
I don't understand why changes cannot be tried out, and that's what this. You talk about being against changes for the sake of it because you will alienate the remaining fans, I mean you can leave it alone and alienate fans or you can change things and alienate fans does it really matter which path you take? There's nothing inherently right about doing either way, there's not some fundamental aspect of StarCraft that means the game must be what it is now and never vary from that. Trying things out and talking to the community about the proposed way forward seems better to me than doing nothing.
It also seems very deceptive to say things like adding the ability to atttack with HT or root an Oracle for vision is an overload of abilites and adding too much complexitiy when these are largely added to be ease of use features.
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Thanks for writing this, I completely agree. I really dislike this approach of making random changes just to shake things up. Letting the meta develop without interfering is way more interesting.
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I think that there's a new balance team in place and this is the first of their work since D.Kim (and company?) went to work on other things.
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On August 18 2017 08:45 Ansibled wrote: I think saying Blizzard has had their chance and that things should be left alone is an absurd position, and people are massively overreacting to the extent of the changes. So the Raven has different abilities, Terran is still Terran. It's not like you suddently lose all that time you put into the game as though it's worthless. You see way more change in DotA/League patches than you do in StarCraft, this kind of update is hardly comparable to the iterations those games go through.
I don't understand why changes cannot be tried out, and that's what this. You talk about being against changes for the sake of it because you will alienate the remaining fans, I mean you can leave it alone and alienate fans or you can change things and alienate fans does it really matter which path you take? There's nothing inherently right about doing either way, there's not some fundamental aspect of StarCraft that means the game must be what it is now and never vary from that. Trying things out and talking to the community about the proposed way forward seems better to me than doing nothing.
It also seems very deceptive to say things like adding the ability to atttack with HT or root an Oracle for vision is an overload of abilites and adding too much complexitiy when these are largely added to be ease of use features. Yes but what's the reason for those changes? Raven were problematic that change is good but Ghosts or Infestors are completely fine so why are they changing them?Just to shake things up because they think that will attract new viewers? Kinda misses the point since every major patch upsets a part of the player base because their strategies are getting invalidated.
I want SC2 to be the best game it can possibly be but when you change things that are working perfectly fine I think the risk of making the game worse is very high.
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On August 18 2017 09:09 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2017 08:45 Ansibled wrote: I think saying Blizzard has had their chance and that things should be left alone is an absurd position, and people are massively overreacting to the extent of the changes. So the Raven has different abilities, Terran is still Terran. It's not like you suddently lose all that time you put into the game as though it's worthless. You see way more change in DotA/League patches than you do in StarCraft, this kind of update is hardly comparable to the iterations those games go through.
I don't understand why changes cannot be tried out, and that's what this. You talk about being against changes for the sake of it because you will alienate the remaining fans, I mean you can leave it alone and alienate fans or you can change things and alienate fans does it really matter which path you take? There's nothing inherently right about doing either way, there's not some fundamental aspect of StarCraft that means the game must be what it is now and never vary from that. Trying things out and talking to the community about the proposed way forward seems better to me than doing nothing.
It also seems very deceptive to say things like adding the ability to atttack with HT or root an Oracle for vision is an overload of abilites and adding too much complexitiy when these are largely added to be ease of use features. Yes but what's the reason for those changes? Raven were problematic that change is good but Ghosts or Infestors are completely fine so why are they changing them?Just to shake things up because they think that will attract new viewers? Kinda misses the point since every major patch upsets a part of the player base because their strategies are getting invalidated. I want SC2 to be the best game it can possibly be but when you change things that are working perfectly fine I think the risk of making the game worse is very high. Every major patch upsets part of the player base, but every time you don't patch something you also upset another part of the playerbase. The question is what moves StarCraft in the best direction as a game, and I fail to see how testing stuff is a negative. It's not like they let out a huge patch onto the live server and were like lol guys have fun.
So maybe the ghost and infestor changes don't work out, but maybe they make the game more enjoyable to the majority of players or potential players. There is no harm in trying things, and overall I think the game can only be made better through this process.
SC2 can't be the best game it could be if you change nothing, and again I think it's important to say that these changes are nowhere near close to the kind of reworks you get in games like LoL.
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As someone who has played Starcraft 1 and 2 both from the beginning, I disagree with the entirety of the first sentiment, but agree mostly with the second.
First, Starcraft 2 is a fundamentally different game than Starcraft 1. The goal of this game has seemed from the start to allow strategic diversity while rewarding solid mechanics and tactics. While I understand that some people enjoy spending a year perfecting a single build, I would say this is not the case with the majority of the SC2 player base. While the current state of SC2 is not completely stale, I think we can do a lot better in terms of strategic diversity.
Now, I basically agree with your second point. Design is hard work, and we can't be satisfied with band-aid fixes that don't make any sense. For instance, making hellbats take the same space in a medivac as an immortal does for protoss is nonsense. It should have been a temporary fix, but it has stayed in the game since it solved the issue in TvT at the time. Meanwhile, this change takes a unit that is already undesirable and hampers its usage even more. Simplicity is an important value in games, as looking at the game now there is no way to understand why many things are the way they are other than that it might have caused a balance issue at some time in the game. Because of situations like this, you end up with units that are underutilized, and I completely agree with an approach that tries to keep these units interesting.
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I mostly agree with your point about elegance, but I don't think all your examples are good. The high templar attacking isn't anything inelegant, do you complain about ghosts or sentries attacking? The infestor change though is absolutely awful from an elegance standpoint.
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I think it's good that they are making massives changes as long as it provides an increased avenue for interacting with your opponent at all stages of the game. I strongly feel that being able to interact with your opponent on a frequent basis is the most important factor of RTS. Removing the mothership core allows exactly this. It allows terran to interact with protoss more early game. New builds will arise, old builds from wol may become useful again. It also provides for more entertaining games to watch. Now I won't have to listen to as much filler/banter from casters during event casts.
@Pokebunny- I think in regards to your complaint about units doing more than 1 thing, or having more than 1 purpose may be a little premature. I don't think having the extra abilities will take away from anything, however, there is a chance it could limit diversity if those extra abilities are too good so i do see space for potential concern or at least close monitoring.
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It's about which aspect SC2 wants to emphasize - micro or macro? I always preferred the macro-approach of SC compared to the micro-intensive and spelloverloaded WC3, but somehow they try to bring even more spells and active abilities into SC2.
I have to agree with Pokebunny here, I feel "overcomplicating" how abilities function and change just to keep people occupied is not good for the overall quality of the game. One of the main problems with SC2 throughout it's whole lifespan is the clusterfuck of gamechanges just to keep players interested without properly or timely identifying and fixing real problems of the game and leaving it at that. There will be certain units that won't be used as frequently as others, simply, because some unit will always outperform another. I don't want a semi-new game every year, just fix broken stuff without changing the game otherwise, and yeah, it may be sound a bit entitled, but I put a lot of effort into learning how to play the game and I like improving on small aspects of my play which I figure out over time, but having to re-learn timings, builds etc. on such a frequent basis makes it harder for me to hop on and off. When I want to learn new stuff, I go play a different game, I don't need a game I bought 7 years ago to change that constantly, because at some point it may not be the game I bought anymore.
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I agree with the overall point : change for the sake of change does not make much sense to me in sc2, and simple and elegant game/unit design should be the goal.
That being said, most of the changes proposed make sense to me. There are some changes that look really problematic to me that I don't see the point of (fungal no longer hits air for instance, this looks stupid to me) but extensive testing should allow to get rid of anything nonsensical.
What I hope is that they don't go for major overhauls each year for the sake of doing it. It's unsettling, especially for the less dedicated part of the fanbase - people who play 5-10 games a month - and doesn't allow for the meta evolutions and switches I personally relish. If the game at one point reaches a solid state - which is what they're trying to achieve here - I don't want it to be thrown away altogether. But as far as this year's update goes, I'm rather optimistic it will turn out well.
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I wonder how does high templar attacks =( Archon like attack ?
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On August 18 2017 18:34 elmerpogs wrote: I wonder how does high templar attacks =( Archon like attack ?
It's going to be the same as in the campaign and co-op, I guess.
I actually like this particular change. The DPS are negligible, but given how many active abilities there are for Protoss players, it will remove one of the single most frustrating events in 1v1 games: HTs walking dumbly into enemy forces when you a-move your army. I know I'm supposed to keep them back in a separate group or make them follow ranged units, but for lower-level players too often there simply isn't enough APM to do it.
Plus: no more 1 hp zerglings sniping my HTs, which is barely noticeable from the balance standpoint, but making me happier nonetheless :D
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This whole F2-thing shouldn't even exist, it's just so anti-strategic and encourages bad habits. I really don't care much about HT auto attacks, but boy this is one stupid change to come up with, because noone ever even asked for this, it's totally not needed. So, if it has such a miniscule impact on the game, why not have it in there? Because that's exactly what I don't want, random changes just to be able to go around and show everybody the long list of potential changes you thought up.
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This always is funny for me to see SC2 community react to anything happening before testing things out. I understand your point. But really, try new changes before jumping to conclusion after 1 read.
In any case, balance team can do w/e they want, changes or no changes people will complain. So in the end, I can understand that they listen more to themselves than the community.
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I agree with you in part, I dont' want SC2 to turn into a moba, that needs a major update at least once every year to keep the game "fresh", however, there is something big that you are missing: SC2 must be untouched only if its design is fun, which is the main goal of every videogame. You make the reference on two units, tankivac and reaper, that you maybe consider rewarding to master, but you can just surf a bit through the bnet forums, TL or reddit and you'll find that most of the community absolutely hated those things, not because they were "just a bit too good" ,but because they were , according to most of us, just terrible designed. And now that Blizzard finally started to listen to us, we need to support their job. I don't care about pros because ,if the game is fun , new players will take their place anyway
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I wasn't around for a while, and holy shit , tankivac was a thing. What a shitty concept.........
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I personally wonder why can't we have race specific balance? I.E an upgrade that does bonus damage to SHIELDS for mutalisks or a protoss upgrade that grants bonus disrupter damage on creep?
Or something like photon cannons make marines fire slower?
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On August 18 2017 20:42 Kingsky wrote: I personally wonder why can't we have race specific balance? I.E an upgrade that does bonus damage to SHIELDS for mutalisks or a protoss upgrade that grants bonus disrupter damage on creep?
Or something like photon cannons make marines fire slower? it's not really in the spirit of starcraft so far
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Both change for the change's sake and not changing for not changing's sake are wrong approaches. If you have a change in mind, think would this be better for Starcraft, if the answer is yes, then we should find an opportuned time for the change (after Blizzcon in most cases.) There are both players who thrive in mastery, when the game sees little changes and players who thrive when many changes are happening. It's wrong to only cater to one of these types of players.
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I don't care about elegance, I want to play a game where you don't simply die to retarded stuff like 1 widowmine at your mineral line that will shoot twice before detection is done.
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Nice, 2:55 oracle in the terran base. "gg" if you reaper expand. Oh wait, thats fair. mines arent fair ofcourse.
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It s just a test so we ll see how it ends up. I was really excited about the eco change in the beta but then they scrapped it and it caused me to stop sc2 altogether shortly afte release. I hope they wont do the same this time but at any case I think it s a bit late and there is a risk or further breaking (what s left of) the scene. Especially after sc:r, that s a bold move.
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I dont quite understand what is not simple with these changes to those units?
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On August 18 2017 08:03 Pokebunny wrote:- Mines now are invisible only before they shoot, but after they shoot, they're visible despite still being burrowed
- Cyclone Lock On fires faster, but only for the first few attacks
- The High Templar can now attack, because just casting spells wasn't enough
- The Observer now has an active ability
- Infestor spells function differently on creep and off creep
You missed the most inelegant hack, disruptor nova has a 2 second cooldown when unloading from a prism. This is a totally made up rule that appears nowhere else in the game, it should not be added regardless of balance. They must find another way to balance this.
Regarding your list: Mines: Maybe if they look half-burrowed after firing, it would be fine. Cyclone: The change is perfectly fine. It's a spell, it can do damage how it wants. HT: Sentries are casters that have an attack. This is fine. Observer: I somewhat agree that this is not elegant. Infestor: This doesn't break any established rules. It is fine.
Regarding on-creep and off-creep interactions: Having the creep speed bonus be the same for every zerg units except 2, the queen and the swarm host, is very inelegant. They should be given the same creep speed bonus plus a passive that increases their on-creep speed bonus with the number chosen to match their current movement speed.
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On August 18 2017 20:12 raff100 wrote: I agree with you in part, I dont' want SC2 to turn into a moba, that needs a major update at least once every year to keep the game "fresh", however, there is something big that you are missing: SC2 must be untouched only if its design is fun, which is the main goal of every videogame. You make the reference on two units, tankivac and reaper, that you maybe consider rewarding to master, but you can just surf a bit through the bnet forums, TL or reddit and you'll find that most of the community absolutely hated those things, not because they were "just a bit too good" ,but because they were , according to most of us, just terrible designed. And now that Blizzard finally started to listen to us, we need to support their job. I don't care about pros because ,if the game is fun , new players will take their place anyway I agree on tankivacs and reapers but what about ghosts, Infestors or vipers? Is there really a need to change them? I think those units are currently working really well.
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On August 18 2017 20:42 Kingsky wrote: I personally wonder why can't we have race specific balance? I.E an upgrade that does bonus damage to SHIELDS for mutalisks or a protoss upgrade that grants bonus disrupter damage on creep?
Or something like photon cannons make marines fire slower?
Its also kind of difficult to keep track of if there are too many of these units, like "ok, these stalkers will deal extra damage to marines, but since the marines reduce the movement speed of adepts it should be ok with marauder support, considering adepts reduce healing received from medivacs but medivacs reduce the damage of adepts by 50%. Maybe I win."
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United States12175 Posts
Reavers have an artificial cooldown when dropping from Shuttles in BW too. The Disruptor/Warp Prism interaction is no different and isn't something to get worked up about.
The history of Starcraft 2 is one of chasing balance numbers. Certain strategies were not in line with others or had no counterplay for same-skill opponents, so they were changed. That's why we have a lot of seemingly weird exceptions and one-offs like Massive units being able to destroy Force Fields (and Ravager Corrosive Bile too), Ultralisks gaining a hidden Frenzy modifier that makes them immune to Neural Parasite, Massive units being immune to Concussive Shells, and so on. "Massive units cannot be slowed" sounds like an overarching rule change, until you realize that Concussive Shells are the only thing in the game that slows and they only attack ground units, and Ultralisks were the main target of that change (it had only a minor impact on the Thor matchup and moderate impact on the Colossus matchup). All of that makes the numbers look good on paper, but the per-unit interactions require a lot to keep in mind.
The other side of it is the balance team (especially David Kim) really liked the idea of out-controlling your opponent. In BW, this was simple stuff like Patrol micro or Muta stacking or worker drilling. In SC2, now that everything moves more fluidly, they had to apply a bunch of differentiators to nearly every unit in the game. Vikings have an air-ground transformation and you can use that to dodge threats. Hellions have a Hellbat transformation and you can use that to suit your tanking or close-quarters AoE needs. Reapers have a bomb that you can use to displace enemies and score more kills. Almost everything in the game does a little extra something unique to itself that lets you outplay the opponent. In BW it was much more sweeping. If you can stack Mutas, you can stack Wraiths. If you can moving shot with Wraiths, you can moving shot with Corsairs, Scouts, Vultures, and Mutas. In SC2 you have to learn race-specific, unit-specific strategies and there's very little carryover.
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I don't rly get this... there is nothing for like 2 months from the and community is "omg omg mainterance mode, we done boys gg..." than we have a patch which tweaks (i really want to use the f word here, but BigFan is watching me) and the reaction is "changes for sake of changes are bad...."
And there is me sitting what the **** is going on? I mean we had mainterance mode in hots and wol for a long time and you saw hot it went... from exodus to even bigger exodus of players, and it doesn't even sound good on the paper... "Oh hey man lets play this RTS... WHICH HAVEN'T BEEN PATCHED IN YEARS, bcs community is pissed about pretty much everything at this point... lets have some fun ^.^/" I mean that's a nogo for most ppl I know right there...
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On August 18 2017 22:43 xTJx wrote: I don't care about elegance, I want to play a game where you don't simply die to retarded stuff like 1 widowmine at your mineral line that will shoot twice before detection is done.
I have this feeling, that elegance and simplicity correlates with "good design" though. Think of it like this: If you build a house and it is crappy, you need to fix, add and alter things very often making it very complicated in the end. If you build a house and its good. You don't need to fix it as often and it remains simple. Both houses serve the same purposes in the end.
It's the same with programming and maintenance. Ideally you want simple code which is easy to maintain and not patch things up on the fly every time.
And also what makes a good theory in science. If a theory is simple and explains a lot of things it's better than a theory which is complicated, has a lot of exceptions/interpretations and explains little (aka religion). E.g.:Newton's law is so genius, because it is so simple and explains a lot.
In the end you are right though. If the game is elegant, but not fun, then it also doesn't help. It has to be both: simple and fun. My opinion would be: SCII does need changes, but why not try to change it to something which is also more elegant and simple at the same time?
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On August 19 2017 04:11 PharaphobiaSC wrote: I don't rly get this... there is nothing for like 2 months from the and community is "omg omg mainterance mode, we done boys gg..." than we have a patch which tweaks (i really want to use the f word here, but BigFan is watching me) and the reaction is "changes for sake of changes are bad...."
And there is me sitting what the **** is going on? I mean we had mainterance mode in hots and wol for a long time and you saw hot it went... from exodus to even bigger exodus of players, and it doesn't even sound good on the paper... "Oh hey man lets play this RTS... WHICH HAVEN'T BEEN PATCHED IN YEARS, bcs community is pissed about pretty much everything at this point... lets have some fun ^.^/" I mean that's a nogo for most ppl I know right there... Implying that constant patches attract more players when there's absolutely zero evidence for that.
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In my opinion all of these changes appear to serve two major purposes:
- Increase the diversity of viable strategies
- Make the game less punishing and increasing comeback potential
Changes such as allowing mules to mine gas, and the new raven abilities, appear to increase strategic diversity (namely, improving the viability of mech). Most of the other changes seem to be about making the game less punishing, especially for Protoss. I would actually argue that the majority of these changes go in the direction of making the game simpler for players.
- MSC Removal - The Mothership Core is an exceptionally complicated unit that has (in my opinion) far too much importance placed onto it. The positioning of this one unit can either deny attacks completely, or cause you to lose games. Pylon overcharge also means that for the early game the placement of every single pylon has to be considered with respect to potential defense. This unit can also be used offensively, which basically gives Protoss players a very risky option to send it out of their base and further increases the coinflip aspect of the game.
- New Nexus Abilities - While these are essentially the same band-aid that has been applied to Protoss since HoTS, it is a mechanic that is much more consistent and predictable than the mothership core.
- Widow Mines - While the theoretical complexity of the widow mine has been increased, due to it now having two separate states (armed and hidden, reloading and visible), the practical aspect of this change is that a player will no longer have to scramble to assemble detection while painstakingly ensuring that only a single worker dies to each volley in order to maintain the ability to mine with minimal damage. This change puts the onus on the mine user to actively manage mines if they want to produce additional value beyond the first shot, instead of the other player. I think this is perhaps a little bit more fair.
- Raven - I will admit that I'm not thrilled about these changes. Pinning the viability of mech on a fragile spellcaster with strange abilities isn't my idea of fun.
- Cyclone - I don't really think this change affects the complexity of the unit very much. I think of it more as a basic damage buff especially since there's not a practical way to compensate for the fact that the initial shots come out more quickly without breaking the lock-on, which is what you would already do if you didn't want to get hit.
- High Templar - Arguing that the Templar's auto attack makes it a more complicated unit is a little bit disingenuous in my opinion, because the change was specifically added to remove the need to baby this unit during large engagements.
- Observer & Overseer Ability - Again, these units have technically gained an ability, but the practical effect of having this ability is that it becomes unnecessary to individually account for these units when moving large unit groups (especially if you push F2 a lot). If you are already a player that is well practiced in observer or overseer management, then there isn't a need for you to ever use this "active ability," as PokeBunny calls it.
- Fungal - Pretty much agree with OP's position.
I will admit that I am not particularly happy with the overall complexity of SC2. However, I think the punishing aspect of it which can cause you to lose in two seconds is worse. And for that reason I'm happy with the changes since they appear to move away from that.
Some of these changes introduce complexity, but some of these changes also remove complexity as well. I don't think this patch would be particularly egregious in terms of moving the game in a direction where the player is casting more active abilities than they already do.
EDIT:
On the subject of changes for the sake of changes:
Starcraft 2 as a game is still in active development as Blizzard tries to find new ways to attract players and monetize the game with micro-transactions. I think it's a little bit foolish to believe that they won't try to improve the multiplayer experience. The attitude the community has in believing that no new players will come to the game is unnecessarily pessimistic, but you also have to look at it in terms of retaining the people who do play the game already. If Blizzard thinks they can find a cost-effective way to make the game more fun for its player base, then they will attempt to do so. And one obvious way is balance updates and unit re-design. The truth is that large balance updates such as the one from last year and the one they're proposing now do generate interest and will cause old players to come back and try the new mechanics. I realize this may be frustrating for high-level players that have spent a lot of time specifically practicing with a singular style of play. However, the truth is that super hardcore players are not the ones paying the bills. And to Blizzard's credit, they have had a relatively light touch with respect to updating the balance and design of the game compared to studios that manage other highly competitive eSport titles.
As a final note, if you were to ask me what the best possible direction for SC2 would be in it's current state. I would be a proponent of attempting to trim the fat. Choose one or two units from every race that can be removed from the game and re-balance from there.
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I neither agree or disagree with the OP. However, I think complexity is not a bad thing. SC2 is a very complex and difficult game. In order of mastering it (or simply playing it at a decent level), you have to practice a bit and learn over time. To me personally, playing SC2 is never boring because it is so complex as there are many different strategies and styles you can try out. It is certainly not one of those games which you click some buttons and that is it. So, simplicity may be appealing to general public in term of being easier to play but overall does it really make the game better? I think not.
On the second point of being elegant, game design is not graphic design or architecture. So elegance is not required. Perhaps, the word "logic" may be a better term. As long as the unit is designed with a goal and purpose in mind, I think that is good enough. It may have a bit too many "abilities" but in the end it is up to players to choose which ability to use more often than the others.
Personally, all proposed changes are fine except the default cloaked ghost (it is a no-no for me). However, I guess we will have to see the changes in action in order to judge them accordingly.
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However, I think complexity is not a bad thing. SC2 is a very complex and difficult game.
The main issue that I think people have with strategic complexity is the relative unimportance of positioning that comes about as a result. It's way more important to have exactly the right unit composition and to cast all of your spells than it is to control a part of the map or set up that perfect flank. It also makes it harder to find reliable macro builds, which in turn makes it harder to practice hardening those builds as well. To be frank, there are a LOT of ways to lose early in Starcraft 2 and it's pretty unreasonable to think you can be aware of them all.
This isn't to say that one design philosophy is better than another. However, I think many players would prefer if positioning and battle management were at least a little more important compared to what the game currently feels like where you are always frantically searching for the next trick that will keep you alive.
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On August 19 2017 04:02 Excalibur_Z wrote: Reavers have an artificial cooldown when dropping from Shuttles in BW too. The Disruptor/Warp Prism interaction is no different and isn't something to get worked up about.
The history of Starcraft 2 is one of chasing balance numbers. Certain strategies were not in line with others or had no counterplay for same-skill opponents, so they were changed. That's why we have a lot of seemingly weird exceptions and one-offs like Massive units being able to destroy Force Fields (and Ravager Corrosive Bile too), Ultralisks gaining a hidden Frenzy modifier that makes them immune to Neural Parasite, Massive units being immune to Concussive Shells, and so on. "Massive units cannot be slowed" sounds like an overarching rule change, until you realize that Concussive Shells are the only thing in the game that slows and they only attack ground units, and Ultralisks were the main target of that change (it had only a minor impact on the Thor matchup and moderate impact on the Colossus matchup). All of that makes the numbers look good on paper, but the per-unit interactions require a lot to keep in mind.
The other side of it is the balance team (especially David Kim) really liked the idea of out-controlling your opponent. In BW, this was simple stuff like Patrol micro or Muta stacking or worker drilling. In SC2, now that everything moves more fluidly, they had to apply a bunch of differentiators to nearly every unit in the game. Vikings have an air-ground transformation and you can use that to dodge threats. Hellions have a Hellbat transformation and you can use that to suit your tanking or close-quarters AoE needs. Reapers have a bomb that you can use to displace enemies and score more kills. Almost everything in the game does a little extra something unique to itself that lets you outplay the opponent. In BW it was much more sweeping. If you can stack Mutas, you can stack Wraiths. If you can moving shot with Wraiths, you can moving shot with Corsairs, Scouts, Vultures, and Mutas. In SC2 you have to learn race-specific, unit-specific strategies and there's very little carryover. this is a good historical perspective, thx 4 posting. I'm not sure if the evolution from BW/WC3 to SC2 is just DK though. SC2 is now on its 4th multiplayer designer. Due to so many ex-C&Cers on the RTS team i think we've got a game that is about 3/4 Starcraft and 1/4 Red Alert. RA2 and RA3 are my 2 favourite non-Blizz RTS games... so for me .. its great.
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Historically the bullshit started with HOTS. In WOL there was very little niche, extremely specific changes because design was good overall. On the top of my head i can only think about the snipe nerfed with low base damage +X vs psionic, or the ultralisk frenzy. But overall they made "sense". There were "consistent". You can "get" why an ultralisk would be immune to movement-limiting things. You can "get" why snipe deals more damage to casters.
Then came HOTS, with bad designs. Bad designs that needed to be solved with changes that were inconsistent and going against the "general rules". The best exemple is hellbats and medivacs. 2 hellbats per medivacs goes against the base rule that the room units occupy in transport ships is determined by their supply.
Then the devs went further and further with this lazy (yeah, it's laziness) way of doing things, adding +15 dmg vs bio to spores instead of noticing that mutas with a speed buff plus an insane regen buff would dictate a lot of changes not to be gamebreaking.
At the end of the day the new patch has 3 major good ideas (remove MSC, semi-reverse the economy and the disruptor nerf), some half assed decent ideas (cyclone AA upgrade that nowhere good enough, SH movespeed nerf that doesn't address the underlying problems of the units, etc.) and A WHOLE LOT of terrible ones (terrible raven redesign, hysterically bad widow mine nerf, stupid way of buffing the stalker instead of changing the adept, colossus change, etc.)
I just hope they start realizing that changing things to be healthy and fair is more important than changing things to be fun. - revert economy - remove MSC - slightly buff the stalker damage to 12/14 and removing the adept shade but increase its shields a lot - have a 150/150 upgrade that give cyclone AA a moderate boost (and not a ridiculously low one) - buff the infested terran the way they want to - nerf the disruptor the way they want to
That would be awesome and the rest can be discussed.
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Let's be careful that stating this patch overcomplicates things. Removing things like the MSC simplifies things. Also the Widow Mine isn't anymore complicated than it was before for the player to control, and it is easier to counter. That overall is a simplification.
And while I do agree about ability overload talked about the shoehorning of strategy here... http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/525868-saving-sc2-the-removal-of-power-without-gameplay
Photon Overcharge was so powerful at halting early aggression that it became part of the equation that led the early game at a high level to become dull and stale. It pigeon holed defensive strategy for Protoss, removing the flexibility of being able to use the same units for defense as offense, and gave free expansions which increased the pace of the game.
Blizzard then tried to add excitement to the early game with new “harass” units, made specifically for killing workers. Again, the problem with this approach is that it pigeon holed strategy: nothing outside of a small number of specific harass plays were effective early at a high level. And once defending those early harass strategies was figured out, the game got stale again. Precisely carving out a role for units and abilities is lazy game design that does not encourage strategy, innovation, or mastery. ...this patch seems like the first step in the other direction to me. Less complication, less ability overload, and it should really open things up when versatile units like the Stalker get a buff and simplify the game (less shoehorning).
This is the first patch I've seen that actually makes sense from a game design perspective and is literally 90% of what I've been clamoring for.
I can't wait.
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On August 19 2017 04:02 Excalibur_Z wrote: Reavers have an artificial cooldown when dropping from Shuttles in BW too. The Disruptor/Warp Prism interaction is no different and isn't something to get worked up about.
The history of Starcraft 2 is one of chasing balance numbers. Certain strategies were not in line with others or had no counterplay for same-skill opponents, so they were changed. That's why we have a lot of seemingly weird exceptions and one-offs like Massive units being able to destroy Force Fields (and Ravager Corrosive Bile too), Ultralisks gaining a hidden Frenzy modifier that makes them immune to Neural Parasite, Massive units being immune to Concussive Shells, and so on. "Massive units cannot be slowed" sounds like an overarching rule change, until you realize that Concussive Shells are the only thing in the game that slows and they only attack ground units, and Ultralisks were the main target of that change (it had only a minor impact on the Thor matchup and moderate impact on the Colossus matchup). All of that makes the numbers look good on paper, but the per-unit interactions require a lot to keep in mind.
The other side of it is the balance team (especially David Kim) really liked the idea of out-controlling your opponent. In BW, this was simple stuff like Patrol micro or Muta stacking or worker drilling. In SC2, now that everything moves more fluidly, they had to apply a bunch of differentiators to nearly every unit in the game. Vikings have an air-ground transformation and you can use that to dodge threats. Hellions have a Hellbat transformation and you can use that to suit your tanking or close-quarters AoE needs. Reapers have a bomb that you can use to displace enemies and score more kills. Almost everything in the game does a little extra something unique to itself that lets you outplay the opponent. In BW it was much more sweeping. If you can stack Mutas, you can stack Wraiths. If you can moving shot with Wraiths, you can moving shot with Corsairs, Scouts, Vultures, and Mutas. In SC2 you have to learn race-specific, unit-specific strategies and there's very little carryover. Those cases you mentioned are of general rules being applied, even if there is only one unit in the set of things they apply to.
That is different from this disruptor-warp prism interaction. It's not a general rule, it's an ad hoc rule that specifically applies to one unit interaction only. Why doesn't the warp prism put all abilities on a 2 second cooldown? That would be a general rule that isn't so inelegant as this.
An alternative: disruptors have a 2 second cast time (like yamato), and balance around that.
Another alternative: The warp prisms load/unload ability increases the cooldown on all energy costing abilities by 2 seconds (this would be stated on the tooltip), and the HT and sentry gets a passive ability that prevents its abilities from having their cooldowns increased.
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And speaking of inelegant changes, what is this?
"MULEs will now be able to mine Vespene gas at a rate higher than SCV’s but lose efficiency if more than one MULE is assigned per refinery."
Can someone explain? To my knowledge normal workers don't mine like this.
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On August 19 2017 13:26 BronzeKnee wrote: Let's be careful that stating this patch overcomplicates things. Removing things like the MSC simplifies things. Also the Widow Mine isn't anymore complicated than it was before for the player to control, and it is easier to counter. That overall is a simplification.
nah, the rules governing the Widow Mine unit are more convoluted than ever. there are plenty of units becoming more complex in this patch. this does not mean i side with everything the OP says but his point about increasingly convoluted//complex unit behaviours is a good one.
i play 2v2s with some Silver thru Plat guys who work in the IT department of my #1 customer. these guys all have full time jobs and wives etc. we play WoL and they prefer WoL because its simpler. i prefer LotV but every else plays WoL so when i 2v2 i play WoL.
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So I agree with OP.
But I think we need to reach a point where the game is 1. really fun (for all levels of play), and 2. really open/diverse in strategy from game to game (which has a lot of things under its umbrella, such as making units not hard-counter each other as much)
Until we reach that point I am 100% in support of large game-destroying patches. Once we get there, then you can put the brakes on.
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I couldn't agree with you more, Poke.
We saw the beginnings of this in WoL. People complained that Protoss was too A-Move. All of their units synergized pretty well together, simply because they all had (about) the same move speed. Stalkers didn't need a lot of attention, and were just good ranged units. Blink micro was cool and interesting.
Zealots bunched up under colossi, and it all just rolled around together. Blizzard saw that, and said, "we need to protoss more ability heavy."
They then turned around and gave almost every single protoss unit some kind of ability (void ray alignment, disruptor shots, shade ability) or nerfed the units so badly that you never see them in a real competitive environment (rip colossus.)
Changing everything so they all have a wild assortment of tags, that change, just make things needlessly complicated.
Hellions are mech units, unless they transform, then they're mech AND bio. Oh, AND they get more HP when in hellbat mode. Then they lose those HP in hellion mode. I understand the reasoning behind it (make them little front line tank units) but these HP & tag changes make no sense from a consistency perspective.
With the way things are going, they might as well just change everything so it looks like this: "Zealot does 16 damage to zerglings, 11 damage to drones, 14 damage to SCVs, and 13 damage to probes." There's a needlessly complex set of rules that goes into a lot of these things that, frankly, do not need to be there.
And as an aside, one thing that I don't like about the constant comparisons to LoL & DOTA: these games have mechanics to prevent wildly OP characters & strats. If something comes out as incredibly OP, there's the hero ban system, where each side would just pick the OP character, and prevent them from being used.
Unfortunately, with SC, you don't have that option at all. You just have to sit back and deal with [pick your flavor of the month that you hate, be it 5raxreaper, swarm hosts, proxy oracles, mass queen, whatever].
On August 20 2017 05:18 Fatam wrote: So I agree with OP.
But I think we need to reach a point where the game is 1. really fun (for all levels of play), and 2. really open/diverse in strategy from game to game (which has a lot of things under its umbrella, such as making units not hard-counter each other as much)
Until we reach that point I am 100% in support of large game-destroying patches. Once we get there, then you can put the brakes on.
With regards to things like this - I have thought for a long time that SC2's issue is that damage is dealt too quickly.
If you aren't babysitting your army to make sure that you stim and split from those banes, or if you miss the raven turret in your mineral line, or that mine drop, you're screwed. You just lost the game.
If we toned the attack speed of EVERYTHING down just a little bit, it wouldn't seem as insane and unforgiving as it is.
Edit: which means I kind of agree with you Fatam, since the hard-countering is largely based upon how fast all the damage gets dealt, if you counter someone. If someone doesn't split their marines vs. a group of banes, the marines are just erased from the game in a matter of seconds.
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it's much easier to control different types of units together in unison in starcraft 2, therefore it's alright for units to have multiple control quirks to them. + unit production/rally is easier while doing multiple things at once. + unlimited units in hotkeys. + smartcasting, rather than spending time in battle selecting and casting multiple spells. + units are more than likely to follow in on what you want them to do via AI. all of these things and similar lend to having more complicated units, but one of the major issues being the pacing of the game shoots up, and static defenses are generally a waste of money as they do not buy you very much time.
if you are likely to screw up control while devoting time to it as is the case in starcraft 1, the casual player won't do these strategies or won't be aware of them. simplicity can be very important in meta play in sc1 because it helps a lot with controls during the game. - hotkeys using simple units (eg. hydras in PvZ) makes it easier to rebind and execute with than with multiple groups of different types/spellcasters. - slower overall pacing, meaning you have time to preplan and react well. - spellcasters and gas units being generally stronger in part because they are not so simple.
i don't believe sc2 requires simplicity in that same way because the game is less taxing in some ways which allows more details in others. as for defending against aggression, most players are not adequately prepared for what hits them. this can be so difficult in sc2 because everything produces so quickly and efficiently whereas there is a lot of room for mechanical error in sc1.
i just think sc2 by now has trained most players to be lazier and this has more of an effect on players who don't put pressure on themselves to constantly perform at their best. having a slower economy and slower pacing in general made the first game much more a mechanical game foremost after learning basic strategy and tactics. it was also much harder to attack into someone because of AI and ramps (bridges), making for smaller skirmishes and forcing the player to use effective forms of harass.
so no, i don't think simplicity makes for a better game. i believe the level of reward or the feeling received from playing well is much less visible for starcraft 2's engine and gameplay, because it has an otherwise extremely high skill cap that would go beyond human capability. the process of reaching that level (at least for me) is arduous and questionable because you can achieve the same results by trying much less and using better strategy. your opponent, so long as he's at around the same decent level as you are, can react and deflect you with simple low-cost units with enough practice, making it much more difficult for you to be on that next level of creativity.
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On August 20 2017 05:42 reneg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2017 05:18 Fatam wrote: So I agree with OP.
But I think we need to reach a point where the game is 1. really fun (for all levels of play), and 2. really open/diverse in strategy from game to game (which has a lot of things under its umbrella, such as making units not hard-counter each other as much)
Until we reach that point I am 100% in support of large game-destroying patches. Once we get there, then you can put the brakes on. With regards to things like this - I have thought for a long time that SC2's issue is that damage is dealt too quickly. If you aren't babysitting your army to make sure that you stim and split from those banes, or if you miss the raven turret in your mineral line, or that mine drop, you're screwed. You just lost the game. If we toned the attack speed of EVERYTHING down just a little bit, it wouldn't seem as insane and unforgiving as it is. Edit: which means I kind of agree with you Fatam, since the hard-countering is largely based upon how fast all the damage gets dealt, if you counter someone. If someone doesn't split their marines vs. a group of banes, the marines are just erased from the game in a matter of seconds.
Yeah, I'm not a "do everything like BW" purist but I do prefer how BW handles counters. You have soft counters and not hard counters because of a lot of things, but one big one is indeed the slower damage. If units are going to be clumped up more due to better pathing then damage absolutely needs to be slower. Slower damage has other nice effects, such as making SC2 worker harass not as ridiculously strong.
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I agree with the arguments on The Elegance of Simplicity but sadly this is not what SC2 is and it has never been. From the start the game was made to include armies of as many different unit types as possible with as many abilities as possible. If we don't like that, then no patch or lack thereof will change this, only SC3 could.
About the patches themselves, i think it's good that they listen to the player base and they remove things that no one ever asked for or even wanted (MSC, Tankvacs,mass caster armies).
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On August 20 2017 17:55 Sapphire.lux wrote: I agree with the arguments on The Elegance of Simplicity but sadly this is not what SC2 is and it has never been. From the start the game was made to include armies of as many different unit types as possible with as many abilities as possible. If we don't like that, then no patch or lack thereof will change this, only SC3 could.
About the patches themselves, i think it's good that they listen to the player base and they remove things that no one ever asked for or even wanted (MSC, Tankvacs,mass caster armies).
That's just not true when you take a look at Wings of Liberty. Most common army comps rarely included more than two to three abilities and some abilities are just hitting a button and that's it, no targeting or additional actions required, like Stim, Siege or Cloak. Zerg for example had no abilities to use in fight aside from Funghal -> a-move, maybe manually exploding your banelings if you're the shit. Only quite ability-heavy match-up was TvP, where you had Guardian Shield/Force Field/Storm vs. EMP/Snipe/Stim with two hit-button abilities at the start of the fight (Guardian Shield and Stim), aside from that it was all about army movement and positioning.
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While I agree with the OP's philosophy, I think with the current state of the game, there is little else one can do.
I personally would love to see a new try on mule / chrono / larva inject removal and even a try to go back to a fixed damage percentage bonus / penalty depending on attack type vs armor type, like in SC1.
All this SC2 changes with individual numbers and unique abilities make the game more like WC3.
However I am afraid that for SC2, the ship of simplicity has sailed. Now some unit re-designs and some other changes, while perhaps just band-aides, can be aides nonetheless.
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On August 18 2017 20:12 raff100 wrote: I agree with you in part, I dont' want SC2 to turn into a moba, that needs a major update at least once every year to keep the game "fresh", however, there is something big that you are missing: SC2 must be untouched only if its design is fun, which is the main goal of every videogame. You make the reference on two units, tankivac and reaper, that you maybe consider rewarding to master, but you can just surf a bit through the bnet forums, TL or reddit and you'll find that most of the community absolutely hated those things, not because they were "just a bit too good" ,but because they were , according to most of us, just terrible designed. And now that Blizzard finally started to listen to us, we need to support their job. I don't care about pros because ,if the game is fun , new players will take their place anyway
tankivac & reaper is only fun for the user not so much fun for the opponent & spectators sans terran fans
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On August 20 2017 20:04 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2017 17:55 Sapphire.lux wrote: I agree with the arguments on The Elegance of Simplicity but sadly this is not what SC2 is and it has never been. From the start the game was made to include armies of as many different unit types as possible with as many abilities as possible. If we don't like that, then no patch or lack thereof will change this, only SC3 could.
About the patches themselves, i think it's good that they listen to the player base and they remove things that no one ever asked for or even wanted (MSC, Tankvacs,mass caster armies). That's just not true when you take a look at Wings of Liberty. Most common army comps rarely included more than two to three abilities and some abilities are just hitting a button and that's it, no targeting or additional actions required, like Stim, Siege or Cloak. Zerg for example had no abilities to use in fight aside from Funghal -> a-move, maybe manually exploding your banelings if you're the shit. Only quite ability-heavy match-up was TvP, where you had Guardian Shield/Force Field/Storm vs. EMP/Snipe/Stim with two hit-button abilities at the start of the fight (Guardian Shield and Stim), aside from that it was all about army movement and positioning. Compared to BW it was more. From 2 core units mm, tank vulture, hidra lurker, etc it got to at least 3: marine maruder medvac, ling bling muta, etc. Protoss got decimated in this department with a philosophy of almost some of everything to make a functional army comp. It's true that T and Z did not have that many abilities, but protoss had on almost every unit. The warning sighs were from WoL and it got worse along the way.
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I like this post a lot. Simplicity is indeed key. Excellent write-up, also the arguments are great.
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the mothership core has plagued design decisions for 2 expansions (almost as much as warp in!!) so it's great that they're removing it. we'll see about the other changes..
with regard to dota, i despised how they would really shake up the game every few patches because as a casual player i could take a month off, come back, and have a COMPLETELY different game to learn..
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the best part is explaining changes like this to someone who is coming back after a couple of years break. adds a lot to the WTF factor.
excellent points.
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On August 20 2017 17:43 Fatam wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2017 05:42 reneg wrote:On August 20 2017 05:18 Fatam wrote: So I agree with OP.
But I think we need to reach a point where the game is 1. really fun (for all levels of play), and 2. really open/diverse in strategy from game to game (which has a lot of things under its umbrella, such as making units not hard-counter each other as much)
Until we reach that point I am 100% in support of large game-destroying patches. Once we get there, then you can put the brakes on. With regards to things like this - I have thought for a long time that SC2's issue is that damage is dealt too quickly. If you aren't babysitting your army to make sure that you stim and split from those banes, or if you miss the raven turret in your mineral line, or that mine drop, you're screwed. You just lost the game. If we toned the attack speed of EVERYTHING down just a little bit, it wouldn't seem as insane and unforgiving as it is. Edit: which means I kind of agree with you Fatam, since the hard-countering is largely based upon how fast all the damage gets dealt, if you counter someone. If someone doesn't split their marines vs. a group of banes, the marines are just erased from the game in a matter of seconds. Yeah, I'm not a "do everything like BW" purist but I do prefer how BW handles counters. You have soft counters and not hard counters because of a lot of things, but one big one is indeed the slower damage. If units are going to be clumped up more due to better pathing then damage absolutely needs to be slower. Slower damage has other nice effects, such as making SC2 worker harass not as ridiculously strong.
I feel the exact same way. I enjoy BW, I enjoy SC2. I don't want them to be the exact same game, but the unit clumping makes AOE damage SO powerful that it's ridiculous in SC2.
The speed with which light units (workers) can be shredded really makes harass a powerful strategy, to the point where it just causes a snowball.
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