Then he told me "Check, 72 patchs in 5 years without counting patch 3.x.x, where 90% of them are Balance Changes"
There I thought "Definitely something is wrong, because if something is blamed so badly is how slowly the Dev Team (AKA David Kim now mainly) patch the game with some balance changes".
Now I wonder, why if the game got constantly patched it always felt like the same thing, specially when it was falling in the monotony of the same build for every MU over and over?
Did we get more useless balance changes than good ones? If that is the case, wouldn't be LotV now the same even with more patches if the quality of them does not help to improve the game posibilities?
im not sure what the topic of your post is because you're sorta all over the place. but balance patches happen all of the time and the game is definitely different than it was 6 months, a year, or 5 years ago.
go watch GSL season 1 and see if you still feel the same way at the end of WoL. same with HOTS.
I know that it is different, I remember it myself. But there has been several times the game seemed to be stuck in the same place, which is why most people blame balance team about things that should be addressed fast and the didn't in a long time.
Also there was obviously a huge change between expanions, but talking about the state of the game itself where always people blame the balance team, like the OP Terran early WoL, 4 Gate all MU FTW, 1-1-1 in TvP, then the Brood Infestor at WoL ending, the HPM early HotS, Sentry Immortal, 4M vs MutaLing, 7Gates Blink, toxic Spore SwarmHost -> toxic MassRaven Mech
Why did those things last so long before some of them being fixed if there were constantly balance patches. That is what I ask, wasn't the patches enough or wasn't really useful to adress those things specifically? I wonder because even now there has been several changes in the Beta the past months and post launch still there are things that "seem" to be broken and we have no comments about them (Parasitic Bomb, Ultras Armor).
Where did the huge ammount of patches failed to accomplish that? Weren't they trying to adress those problems or weren't they enough? In LotV right now, will more patches really translate in a faster fix of problems?
23 Balance Patches over 5 years are "balance patches every 5 minutes" which failed to accomplish what they wanted to do?
Seriously?
Not to mention that Balance patches are not made to push a certain meta into a certain direction, but to... erm, balance the game out, mostlikely based on that current meta.
I'm guessing "5 minutes" is a hyperbole that doesn't really make sense in English. No amount of bad math can lead a man to believe that 72 patches in 5 years amounts to 1 patch every 5 minutes.
Anyway, the pre-LotV "balance" changes are rendered largely moot by the latest expansion, so the number of balance patches is irrelevant.
On November 30 2015 00:18 Clonester wrote: 23 Balance Patches over 5 years are "balance patches every 5 minutes" which failed to accomplish what they wanted to do?
Seriously?
Not to mention that Balance patches are not made to push a certain meta into a certain direction, but to... erm, balance the game out, mostlikely based on that current meta.
lol 36 Balance Patches,where only 22 are Balance related without Beta... I should have checked by myself first. At least I am not crazy, I was like "The heck? How did we get so many patches and people blamed broken things always (even myself)"
Nevermind then, at least I know there wasn't a lot of patches, my bad. Well it will be a good reference now to see how many times they try to fix things in LotV now.
And still I hope if they patch more often in this last expansion, the patchs aren't useless to show "we are changing things".
Lol most of the patches are bug fixes, not balance changes.
Quick math says more than two months between each balance patch. Now if 50% of them are effective, then they force a meta shift every 4-5 months. That is a long time.
For example League of Legends does balance patches way more often, and the changes are much bigger. But for Riot its easier because everyone knows MOBAs are not balanced and they dont need to be. That is thanks to the draft stage in each game.
On November 30 2015 00:58 FireCake wrote: There are a lot more balance patches than this, they are simply not mentionned.
could you give one example?
Some changes might be mentionned as "bug fixing". There were a lot of changes in the pathfinding of the units (mostly because of the stupidity of the ultralisk). Many changes on the attack priority (such as which units cast their spell, viper grab or ht feedback for example). How harvesters spread among the minerals. The add of a weird state where workers can't be askeds actions when they are about to take a mineral. The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?). Probably a lot more that i don't even know.
On November 30 2015 00:58 FireCake wrote: There are a lot more balance patches than this, they are simply not mentionned.
could you give one example?
Some changes might be mentionned as "bug fixing". There were a lot of changes in the pathfinding of the units (mostly because of the stupidity of the ultralisk). Many changes on the attack priority (such as which units cast their spell, viper grab or ht feedback for example). How harvesters spread among the minerals. The add of a weird state where workers can't be askeds actions when they are about to take a mineral. The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?). Probably a lot more that i don't even know.
Not every bug is a feature though. Fixing something to behave to the assumed state is not a balance change (like a unit cleverly taking the shortest way, aka pathing).
The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?).
Did they change anything other than adding servers? I'm in the UK but my effective ping is probably half of what it used to be.
Couldn't see anything at all on beta because i had 170-250 ping all the time. Now it's live on EU, i'm sitting around mid teens to low 20's on the display though the game is laggier than that as always, it's nowhere near as laggy as it used to be
On November 30 2015 00:58 FireCake wrote: There are a lot more balance patches than this, they are simply not mentionned.
could you give one example?
Some changes might be mentionned as "bug fixing". There were a lot of changes in the pathfinding of the units (mostly because of the stupidity of the ultralisk). Many changes on the attack priority (such as which units cast their spell, viper grab or ht feedback for example). How harvesters spread among the minerals. The add of a weird state where workers can't be askeds actions when they are about to take a mineral. The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?). Probably a lot more that i don't even know.
Not every bug is a feature though. Fixing something to behave to the assumed state is not a balance change (like a unit cleverly taking the shortest way, aka pathing).
It is a balance change when it changes the balance, every changes i mentionned affects the balance. If the ultralisk (not only) could take the shortest way it would change the balance a lot.
The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?).
Did they change anything other than adding servers? I'm in the UK but my effective ping is probably half of what it used to be.
Couldn't see anything at all on beta because i had 170-250 ping all the time. Now it's live on EU, i'm sitting around mid teens to low 20's on the display though the game is laggier than that as always, it's nowhere near as laggy as it used to be
Maybe they improved the game engine and the units reacts faster, maybe they improved the server and the units reacts faster, I don't know.
The latency displayed in game is wrong. Sometimes it is written 20ms or less when it is at least 100ms.
On November 30 2015 00:58 FireCake wrote: There are a lot more balance patches than this, they are simply not mentionned.
could you give one example?
Some changes might be mentionned as "bug fixing". There were a lot of changes in the pathfinding of the units (mostly because of the stupidity of the ultralisk). Many changes on the attack priority (such as which units cast their spell, viper grab or ht feedback for example). How harvesters spread among the minerals. The add of a weird state where workers can't be askeds actions when they are about to take a mineral. The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?). Probably a lot more that i don't even know.
Not every bug is a feature though. Fixing something to behave to the assumed state is not a balance change (like a unit cleverly taking the shortest way, aka pathing).
The most reasonable definition of a 'balance change' is "any change at all, whatsoever, that affects the balance of the game." Therefore, any given "bug-fix" may also be a balance change.
On November 30 2015 00:58 FireCake wrote: There are a lot more balance patches than this, they are simply not mentionned.
could you give one example?
Some changes might be mentionned as "bug fixing". There were a lot of changes in the pathfinding of the units (mostly because of the stupidity of the ultralisk). Many changes on the attack priority (such as which units cast their spell, viper grab or ht feedback for example). How harvesters spread among the minerals. The add of a weird state where workers can't be askeds actions when they are about to take a mineral. The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?). Probably a lot more that i don't even know.
Not every bug is a feature though. Fixing something to behave to the assumed state is not a balance change (like a unit cleverly taking the shortest way, aka pathing).
The most reasonable definition of a 'balance change' is "any change at all, whatsoever, that affects the balance of the game." Therefore, any given "bug-fix" may also be a balance change.
I agree but there are many bug-fix that are not a balance change.
On November 30 2015 00:58 FireCake wrote: There are a lot more balance patches than this, they are simply not mentionned.
could you give one example?
Some changes might be mentionned as "bug fixing". There were a lot of changes in the pathfinding of the units (mostly because of the stupidity of the ultralisk). Many changes on the attack priority (such as which units cast their spell, viper grab or ht feedback for example). How harvesters spread among the minerals. The add of a weird state where workers can't be askeds actions when they are about to take a mineral. The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?). Probably a lot more that i don't even know.
Not every bug is a feature though. Fixing something to behave to the assumed state is not a balance change (like a unit cleverly taking the shortest way, aka pathing).
The most reasonable definition of a 'balance change' is "any change at all, whatsoever, that affects the balance of the game." Therefore, any given "bug-fix" may also be a balance change.
There is still a HUGE difference between a bug that changes balance and a balance patch.
A bug should NOT be even in the game in the first place and in most cases are removed from the game as fast as possible.
On November 30 2015 00:58 FireCake wrote: There are a lot more balance patches than this, they are simply not mentionned.
could you give one example?
Some changes might be mentionned as "bug fixing". There were a lot of changes in the pathfinding of the units (mostly because of the stupidity of the ultralisk). Many changes on the attack priority (such as which units cast their spell, viper grab or ht feedback for example). How harvesters spread among the minerals. The add of a weird state where workers can't be askeds actions when they are about to take a mineral. The latency reduction from hots to lotv (i didn't see anything about this ?). Probably a lot more that i don't even know.
Not every bug is a feature though. Fixing something to behave to the assumed state is not a balance change (like a unit cleverly taking the shortest way, aka pathing).
The most reasonable definition of a 'balance change' is "any change at all, whatsoever, that affects the balance of the game." Therefore, any given "bug-fix" may also be a balance change.
Obviously a "balance change" is a "change of balance" or "something that is a change of balance" or "any change at all, whatsoever, that affects the balance of the game", those are all just different wordings. That's not a definition at all, that's a Tautology.
Also I believe most people are aware what the word "change" means. The word in question is "balance". I believe what you mean to say is "any change at all, whatsoever, that affects the ruleset of the game", no?
If a "balance change" is "any change that affects balance," isn't every new map pool a balance change? Those affect balance a lot more than most bug fixes.
So I think what OP is asking is that why are there so many complaints about balance? And if that's the case why doesn't Blizz patch the game more, or more quickly? Then someone told him that there were a lot of patches for SC2.
Well I believe most of the complaining is just people complaining cause they like complaining. An actual patch of the game where they tune numbers should be the last resort option and it should be somewhat slow to implement. A good way to tune the game is with maps (4gate is harder if there is a ramp to the main, so add ramps) but the most important reason is because players aren't very good at dealing with a new meta. If anyone remembers the hatch+spine vs P push on bridgehead, people were complaining so much that it was impossible to hold for protoss. Then protoss players got better, they knew how to scout it, how to defend it and it was rarely used after that.
For example now, IF people say disruptor is unbalanced now, well Blizz should wait a little bit because right now player's micro against disruptors are pretty bad. Maybe they'll get better at it, maybe they won't. But you don't want to just keep changing the game when people still need time to let the game mature as is.
Lastly as the final proof for why Blizz should be a bit slow (not completely slow, the BL/Infestor probably stuck a little too long) is in BW zerg dominated protoss. Until a guy named bisu showed everyone how to play and flipped the matchup completely upside down. If Blizz patched BW too quickly then this new playstyle that existed till the end of BW would never have come up. Day9 and Nony talk about the games here ->