|
Hi guys,
I'm gonna try to discuss the state of counterplay in LOTV here. I'd like to keep balance out of this. What I mean by counterplay here is what allows a player to react and deny/limit/counter/shut down what his opponent is doing. Splitting marines to limit baneling splash. Use snipe to kill ultras. Build liberators to limit mutalisk harass. It covers build orders, micro, army positionning, ect. It also includes a question of risk/cost versus reward. Scanning doesn't allow counterplay, but we've seen from pro matches over 5 years now that it greatly limits terran early/mid game economy : high cost, high reward. Going 1g expand => DTs against terran is costly, risky, but there is only "have detection when DTs are up" counterplay. High risk, high reward too. Positionning a ling on the map to scout an army movement : low risk (you'll loose a ling), nice reward (scout an army movement that could cost you the game), but kinda costly APM-wise (you've got to think about it when you're busy doing something else)
In HOTS and LOTV I feel like counterplay has been limited in a very strange way. I'd like to give you a few examples : - we see protoss pro players use warp prism + 2 disruptors to harass terran in early mid game. Terran counterplay is very weak and random : with warp prism speed, you're only allowed to shoo it away a little with a viking. The only real counterplay terran has is to split his units whenever the protoss uses the disruptor. Which is very weak as counterplays go - nydus network has been buffed to increase the amount of army you need to have next to it when it pops. You see the nydus preparing, you know it's there, but if you're outta position, you're gonna take a huge chunk of zerg in your base - terran drops with the boost have counterplays in every matchup. Detection towers, phenixes, mutalisks... However, tankivac come in play so early that when you don't have your spire up yet, as a zerg, you can only limit the amount of damage terran can deal - liberators are such strong positionnal units that counterplay is virtually denied if they hold a choke in many situations - oracle's revelation, in many matchups, has no counterplay. Oracle comes in, gives vision of your army, goes back. It has very little cost (50 energy on a 150/150 caster that can also harass), very little risk until late game (where terran may have 10 vikings for instance), and extremly high reward. And we see protoss players in pro games make use of that A LOT
It seems to me that a lot of the frustration in this game comes from "unfair" stuff that isn't necessarly imba, but doesn't allow you to do much to counter it. I'd like to leave balance out of this discussion, because I think it's much more of a design issue.
Thanks.
|
On February 15 2016 02:13 JackONeill wrote: It seems to me that a lot of the frustration in this game comes from "unfair" stuff that isn't necessarly imba, but doesn't allow you to do much to counter it.
You hit the nail on the head there when it comes to game design. Forcefield had no real counter in WOL and HOTS, nor did Vortex, and Fungal Growth is still problematic. You can add Abduct and Blinding Cloud to the list. Early Widow Mine drops can cause problems similar to Tankivacs, and can be frustrating to deal with.
These issues are a product of Blizzard making a series of design decisions that are abhorred by many other game designers, literally increasing the frustration of playing SC2.
You are one hundred percent right that players want an opportunity to counter the play of their opponent. It is the difference between the ultimate of Zeus of DOTA (at least when I played years ago) and Karthus in LOL. With Zeus you simply pressed the button and immediate damage was done, your opponent had no ability to counter. With Karthus, your opponent gets a warning for 3 seconds before the damage is done, allowing your opponent to activate barrier/heal, prompting an ally to heal/shield you, giving you time to activate Zhonyas, ect... Imagine for a second if the Viper had a few seconds delay when casting Abduct... imagine the counter play opportunities.
5 years ago, Zileas wrote the article below on anti-fun in game design, and if you read through it, you'll understand how poorly the SC2 team has designed their game, with the ability Photon Overcharge giving power without gameplay and Forcefield, Fungal and Vortex being examples where Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun.. ect ect ect
I've been asked a few times, "Why don't you do stuff like Rupture (from DOTA Bloodseeker) in LoL?"
I usually respond -- Rupture contains several basic design 'anti-patterns'. I thought I'd post for the benefit of those who are interested what strong anti-patterns I am aware of.
So... Here are a few that come to mind.... Note that you can find an example of each of these somewhere in our game at some intensity level. Sometimes this is just bad design. Sometimes this is because we got something else in exchange. Design is an optimization -- but these anti-patterns are of negative design value, so you should only do them if you get something good in return.
To be clear, LoL has a number of abilities that use these anti-patterns. Sometimes it's because we got something good in return. Sometimes it's because we made design errors. However, we generally avoid them nonetheless, and certainly use them a lot less than other games in our genre.
Note: All WoW examples refer to original and BC WoW, not cataclysm.
Power Without Gameplay This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don't find satisfying or don't notice. The classic example of this is team benefit Auras. In general, other players don't value the aura you give them very much, and you don't value it much either -- even though auras can win games. As a REALLY general example, I would say that players value a +50 armor aura only about twice as much as a +10 armor aura... Even though +50 is 5x better. Another example would be comparing a +10 damage aura to a skill that every 10 seconds gives flaming weapons that make +30 damage to all teammates next attack (with fire and explosions!). I am pretty sure that most players are WAY more excited about the fiery weapons buff, even though the strength is lower overall.
The problem with using a "power without gameplay" mechanic is that you tend to have to 'over-buff' the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it. As a result, we tend to keep Auras weak, and/or avoid them altogether, and/or pair them on an active/passive where the active is very strong and satisfying, so that the passive is more strategic around character choice. For example, Sona's auras are all quite weak -- because at weak values they ARE appreciated properly.
Burden of Knowledge This is a VERY common pattern amongst hardcore novice game designers. This pattern is when you do a complex mechanic that creates gameplay -- ONLY IF the victim understands what is going on. Rupture is a great example -- with Rupture in DOTA, you receive a DOT that triggers if you, the victim, choose to move. However, you have no way of knowing this is happening unless someone tells you or unless you read up on it online... So the initial response is extreme frustration. We believe that giving the victim counter gameplay is VERY fun -- but that we should not place a 'burden of knowledge' on them figuring out what that gameplay might be. That's why we like Dark Binding and Black Shield (both of which have bait and/or 'dodge' counter gameplay that is VERY obvious), but not Rupture, which is not obvious.
In a sense, ALL abilities have some burden of knowledge, but some have _a lot more_ -- the ones that force the opponent to know about a specific interaction to 'enjoy' the gameplay have it worst.
Good particle work and sound -- good 'salesmanship' -- will reduce burden of knowledge (but not eliminate it). We still would not do Rupture as is in LoL ever, but I would say that the HON version of Rupture, with it's really distinct sound effect when you move, greatly reduces the burden of knowledge on it.
In summary, all mechanics have some burden of knowledge, and as game designers, we seek to design skills in a way that gives us a lot of gameplay, for not too much burden of knowledge. If we get a lot more gameplay from something, we are willing to take on more burden of knowledge -- but for a given mechanic, we want to have as little burden of knowledge as possible.
Unclear Optimization This is a more subtle one. when players KNOW they've used a spell optimally, they feel really good. An example is disintegrate on Annie. When you kill a target and get the mana back, you know that you used it optimally, and this makes the game more fun. On the other hand, some mechanics are so convoluted, or have so many contrary effects, that it is not possible to 'off the cuff' analyze if you played optimally, so you tend not to be satisfied. A good example of this is Proudmoore's ult in DOTA where he drops a ship. The ship hits the target a bit in the future, dealing a bunch of damage and some stun to enemies. Allies on the other hand get damage resistance and bonus move speed, but damage mitigated comes up later. Very complicated! And almost impossible to know if you have used it optimally -- do you really want your squishies getting into the AOE? Maybe! Maybe not... It's really hard to know that you've used this skill optimally and feel that you made a 'clutch' play, because it's so hard to tell, and there are so many considerations you have to make. On the other hand, with Ashe's skill shot, if you hit the guy who was weak and running, you know you did it right... You also know you did it right if you slowed their entire team... Ditto on Ezreal's skill shot.
Use Pattern Mismatches Surrounding Gameplay I won't go into too much detail on this, but the simple example is giving a melee DPS ability to a ranged DPS character -- the use pattern on that is to force move to melee, then use. This does not feel good, and should be avoided. I'm sure you are all thinking -- but WoW mages are ranged, and they have all these melee abilities! Well... Frost Nova is an escape, and the various AEs are fit around a _comprehensive_ different mage playstyle that no longer is truly 'ranged' and is mechanically supported across the board by Blizzard -- so the rules don't apply there ;p
Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun Anti-fun is the negative experience your opponents feel when you do something that prevents them from 'playing their game' or doing activities they consider fun. While everything useful you can do as a player is likely to cause SOME anti-fun in your opponents, it only becomes a design issue when the 'anti-fun' created on your use of a mechanic is greater than your fun in using the mechanic. Dark Binding is VERY favorable on this measurement, because opponents get clutch dodges just like you get clutch hits, so it might actually create fun on both sides, instead of fun on one and weak anti-fun on another. On the other hand, a strong mana burn is NOT desirable -- if you drain someone to 0 you feel kinda good, and they feel TERRIBLE -- so the anti-fun is exceeded by the fun. This is important because the goal of the game is for players to have fun, so designers should seek abilities that result in a net increase of fun in the game. Basic design theory, yes?
Conflicted Purpose This one is not a super strong anti-pattern, but sometimes it's there. A good example of this would be a 500 damage nuke that slows enemy attack speed by 50% for 10 seconds (as opposed to say, 20%), on a 20 second cooldown. At 50%, this is a strong combat initiation disable... but at 500 damage it's a great finisher on someone who is running... but you also want to use it early to get the disable -- even though you won't have it avail by the end of combat usually to finish. This makes players queasy about using the ability much like in the optimization case, but it's a slightly different problem. If the ability exists for too many different purposes on an explicit basis, it becomes confusing. this is different from something like blink which can be used for many purposes, but has a clear basic purpose -- in that place, players tend to just feel creative instead.
Anti-Combo This one is bad. This is essentially when one ability you have diminishes the effectiveness of another in a frustrating manner. Some examples: - Giving a character a 'break-on-damage' CC with a DOT (yes, warlocks have this, but they tuned it to make it not anti-combo much at all) - With Warriors in WoW -- they need to get rage by taking damage so that they can use abilities and gain threat -- but parry and dodge, which are key to staying alive, make them lose out on critical early fight rage. So, by gearing as a better tank, you become a worse tank in another dimension -- anti combo! - With old warrior talent trees in WoW, revenge would give you a stun -- but stunned enemies cannot hit you and cause rage gain... So this talent actually reduced your tanking capability a lot in some sense! Anti-combo!
False Choice -- Deceptive Wrong Choice This is when you present the player with one or more choices that appear to be valid, but one of the choices is just flat wrong. An example of this is an ability we had in early stages recently. It was a wall like Karthus' wall, but if you ran into it, it did damage to you, and then knocked you towards the caster. In almost every case, this is a false choice -- because you just shouldn't go there ever. If it was possible for the character to do a knockback to send you into the wall, it wouldn't be as bad. Anyhow, there's no reason to give players a choice that is just plain bad -- the Tomb of Horrors (original module) is defined by false choices -- like the room with three treasure chests, all of which have no treasure and lethal traps.
False Choice -- Ineffective Choice Similar to above, except when you give what appears to be an interesting choice that is then completely unrewarding, or ineffective at the promised action. An older version of Swain's lazer bird had this failing... Because the slow was so large, you could never run away in time to de-leash and break the spell and reduce damage, and in cases you did, you'd just dodge 20% of the damage at a big cost of movement and DPS -- so running was just an ineffective choice.
Or We Could **** the Player!!1111oneoneone This is where you straight up screw over the player, usually with dramatic flair, or maybe just try to make the player feel crappy in a way that isn't contributing to the fun of the game. These range in severity, but examples usually are spawned because the designer is a pretentious wanker who likes to show what a smart dude he is and how stupid the player is. I do not respect designers who engage in this pattern intentionally, and encourage any design lead out there to immediately fire any of your staff that does. I do understand that it can happen inadvertently, and that you might cause some of this stress on purpose in an RPG for character development.. And of course, I love you WoW team despite the 'playing vs' experience of Rogue and Warlock, as you DO have the best classes of any MMO, and they look even better in Cataclysm.... But, on Bayonetta, did the developers really think the stone award was a good idea? But I digress...
Very Severe: The original tomb of horrors D&D module is the worst in existence. Good examples are the orb of annihilation that doesn't look like one and instakills you and all your gear if you touch it, and the three treasure chests where each has no loot and deadly traps and no clues that this is the case.
Severe: There's a popular wc3 map in China where you enter a bonus round, and have a 2% chance of just straight up dying rather than getting cool loot.
Situationally Moderate:Horrify + fear kiting from a competent warlock who outgears you in WoW. Guess what? You die before getting to react, while watching it in slow motion!
Mild: Stone award in Bayonetta. So... you barely get through the level for the first time, then get laughed at by the game with a lame statue of the comic relief character, and a mocking laugh. Please -- maybe a bronze award and a 500 pt bonus might be more appropriate? The player might have worked VERY hard to get through the level, espec on normal and higher difficulties.
Non-Reliability Skills are tools. Players count on them to do a job. When a skill is highly unreliable, we have to overpower it to make it 'satisfying enough'. Let me give you an example: Let's say Kayle's targeted invulnerability ult had a 95% chance of working, and a 5% chance of doing nothing when cast. We'd have to make it a LOT stronger to make it 'good enough' because you could not rely upon it... and it would be a lot less fun. Random abilities have this problem on reliability -- they tend to be a lot less satisfying, so you have to overpower them a lot more. Small amounts of randomness can add excitement and drama, but it has a lot of downsides. There are other examples of non-reliability, but randomness is the most obvious one. Abilities that require peculiar situations to do their jobs tend to run into the same problems, such as Tryndamere's shout that only slows when targets are facing away from him.
http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417
|
I strongly disagree. In Legacy there is much more of this than there ever was in HotS or WoL. I'd go so far and say that some of the examples you give are outright wrong.
Disruptors offer a ton more counterplay than Colossi or basically every splash unit except for the baneling or high templar ever did. Liberation zones take quite some time to set up, that's what you have to abuse about it, by forcing them out and falling back or overwhelming the liberators in the process of setting up. Also they are limited in size, single liberators cannot hold properly controlled armies, while mass liberators often cannot cover the whole area. Ravagers are another obvious introduction.
The only one I agree with is the mentioned warp prism, which is a specific problem with fast dropships and fast or longranged air units of SC2. There are very few units that are both fast or longranged and can shoot air. If you don't use those, you are often bound to sit such attacks out because you can't shut them down or force them away, which might take several minutes. This is more than anything a problem with unit relations though, the basic interaction is the same as with any air units in the game.
Also, this is a strategy game, not a MobA or shooter. The idea behind many interactions is that there is a clear winner (i.e. a countersystem and techtree to force you into choices and strategies), even if there is counterplay to mitigate the damage in unit vs unit combat, the advantages of one side may be too overwhelming so that you don't consider it worth your attention to use proper counterplay. Even though it often exists.
|
The Disruptor is an example of a very poorly designed unit that can't be balanced. As Zileas says "Skills are tools. Players count on them to do a job. When a skill is highly unreliable, we have to overpower it to make it 'satisfying enough."
Either the Disruptor is reliable and it is easy to hit targets and then it is ridiculously strong, or it is too easy to dodge the shots, which is why we've seen increasingly less Disruptor usage at the top in LOTV. The pro players can dodge the shots well, and you need reliability in RTS, just as you do in MOBAs. Good players don't count on non-reliable abilities.
To balance it, you could make it is easier to land shots but reduce the damage, but then you are slowly making it into the Colossus.
|
On February 15 2016 03:48 BronzeKnee wrote: The Disruptor is an example of a very poorly designed unit that can't be balanced. As Zileas says "Skills are tools. Players count on them to do a job. When a skill is highly unreliable, we have to overpower it to make it 'satisfying enough."
Either the Disruptor is reliable and it is easy to hit targets and then it is ridiculously strong, or it is too easy to dodge the shots, which is why we've seen increasingly less Disruptor usage at the top in LOTV. The pro players can dodge the shots well, and you need reliability in RTS, just as you do in MOBAs. Good players don't count on non-reliable abilities.
To balance it, you could make it is easier to land shots but reduce the damage, but then you are slowly making it into the Colossus.
I generally agree, but this is only true to some extent. Disruptors (and also ravagers) are very strong against static targets with their dodgable skills, so there is are plainly scenarios in which those units are going to be good. Additionally the traditional RTS genre unlike the MobA genre allows you to have multiple copies of the same unit and therefore multiple sources of the same ability. Therefore an ability on its own doesn't need to be as reliable, as long as using multiple ones of it are available. You can waste a disruptor shot and you are still not screwed if you have a few backup disruptors. Again, I do generally agree though on this notion about the disruptor and always have said that I would like it to be more spamy and less severe, however, blizzard did take this direction during the alpha/beta and has decreased the gas-costs severely to allow Protoss players to get to higher amounts of disruptors.
Also, unlike a fast skillshot projectile, the disruptor shot 100% comes down much less to reaction time and more to execution. No amount of splitting and running can prevent it from hitting a target unless you shoot it from too far away.
|
The state of counterplay has never been better in Starcraft 2.
|
On February 15 2016 03:02 Big J wrote: I strongly disagree. In Legacy there is much more of this than there ever was in HotS or WoL. I'd go so far and say that some of the examples you give are outright wrong.
Disruptors offer a ton more counterplay than Colossi or basically every splash unit except for the baneling or high templar ever did. Liberation zones take quite some time to set up, that's what you have to abuse about it, by forcing them out and falling back or overwhelming the liberators in the process of setting up. Also they are limited in size, single liberators cannot hold properly controlled armies, while mass liberators often cannot cover the whole area. Ravagers are another obvious introduction.
The only one I agree with is the mentioned warp prism, which is a specific problem with fast dropships and fast or longranged air units of SC2. There are very few units that are both fast or longranged and can shoot air. If you don't use those, you are often bound to sit such attacks out because you can't shut them down or force them away, which might take several minutes. This is more than anything a problem with unit relations though, the basic interaction is the same as with any air units in the game.
Also, this is a strategy game, not a MobA or shooter. The idea behind many interactions is that there is a clear winner (i.e. a countersystem and techtree to force you into choices and strategies), even if there is counterplay to mitigate the damage in unit vs unit combat, the advantages of one side may be too overwhelming so that you don't consider it worth your attention to use proper counterplay. Even though it often exists. This is basically right. There's more counterplay than ever in LotV, and, in any event, counterplay is just one element in SC2's design...basically, a micro element. SC2 is a balance between different comprehensive elements, like macro, micro, base management, army control, strategy, harassment, etc, etc. "Counterplay" is not a silver bullet...what makes SC is the balance and combination of elements.
If there were too much counterplay...that is, if every unit could be countered perfectly or effectively with micro, then it would balance the game too far in favor of micro over macro and other elements. SC2 is a complex game, and it needs to stay that way.
There may be specific relationships that are problematic, and I think it's definitely worthwhile to discuss this, but I think these things should be kept in mind.
|
There is a lack of counter play in the early game, and while some examples are wrong, stuff like sweet spots for liberators should be adressed.
But too much counterplay can make the game poor instrategy with rock paper scissors interations. It can also kill early game harass, which in LotV, due to the economy changes, can result in a meta with no agression until late game.
It must be properly balanced, no counter play at all, or extremely frustrating strategies are bad design, but in a competitive games the opponent must be able to create problems that are hard to deal with (and ideally its not easy to execute either).
So i think LotV has minor, specific issues in counterplay.
|
Agree so much with this thread.
Also, this is a strategy game, not a MobA or shooter. The idea behind many interactions is that there is a clear winner (i.e. a countersystem and techtree to force you into choices and strategies), The game is not strategic. A lot of the strategy is based around unit counter system or twitch reflexes.
Example - When you go for a drop, this is your strategy - make units that can bypass the cliffs or carry other units over them into enemy base to do damage. If you fail, or you are scouted, you cannot do any damage, and because of your tech choice you are now behind both in tech, and economy/direct engagement unit count. That's how it should look like in a proper real-time Strategy game. Your strategy has been scouted, and prepared for, you are now behind.
SC2 example - Mine drop. Medivac is used for MMM anyway, so rushing it you are not risking anything. Mines are so cheap you can afford to throw it away and require no additional tech to unlock them. You don't commit anything into a Widow Mine drop. Even if your opponent scouts you, and prepares for it, you still don't end up behind, because the tech (factory) can be used for everything, the dropship (Medivac) has amazing utility beside drops, Mine is great defensively, and your opponent had to invest into detection/anti-air in all of his bases.
Also, counter systems and hard counters should not be considered strategy. You see Roaches and build Immortals as a response to kill them? Well, this is not strategy. A strategy would be to harass the enemy and force his Roaches to stay at home, while you take more bases behind it and come out ahead in unit count, even if those units are not the best counter to the Roach itself. A strategy would be to somehow fake Immortals so the enemy switches from Roaches to a unit that your army already is good against. A strategy would be to build static defense and prepare for the push, and your static defense should be strong enough to hold it - static defense is immobile, therefore, should be strong. In SC2, the first response (getting Immortals) is the correct one, not because it is the best strategy - choosing a unit on the basis of its effectiveness against another unit is not strategy, it is common sense. It is the correct response, because it is the strongest one, and the unit choice trumps strategy choice.
Disruptor? There is one counterplay for 80-90% of players - you run away. Splash damage is 100% in the whole area, not like 100%, 50% and 25% in case of Tank's splash. While in highest levels it means players may be able to split their units, in the lower leagues it means you have only one counterplay - run away or suffer 100% damage, no matter if you split quite well, a bit, or not at all. Disruptor is also very punishing - you look away for 2 seconds, and your army is gone. At the same time, Disruptor is very unreliable.
Warp Prism - pick up range is so high, units can be saved from dying from large distance. This means that Warp Prism can drop some Adepts (or other units, DT, Zealots, whatever you fancy), they focus fire workers, then you pull injured Adepts one by one, and be gone before your opponent even has a chance to shot the Warp Prism down. Low risk, low cost, high reward, way too forgiving.
Banshee with speed upgrade - nothing can chase it down in TvZ or TvT. Mutalisks can only chase them away, but not take them down, same with Vikings. Mobile detection is also too slow to catch up. In late game it is a relatively low cost, but again, high reward, if the game lasts long enough.
Nydus - Invincible. You either made the right units, or not.
Reapers early game - if controlled well, they are ridiculously good thanks to quick regeneration. Only counterplay is to blindly counter them - if you don't get early speed or Roaches in ZvT, you're done. Low cost, moderate risk, high reward, forces another player into specific build order/tech. Also a problem in TvT from what I've heard.
Medivac Boost - you either go Spire every game, or spend most of the time with units defending your bases. If you spot a Medivac early and decide to take it down on its route, bad luck, it will boost and you won't be able to catch it anyway. The only counter is to have units/static defense in base, or go air. Low risk, high reward.
Meditank - So you put your Tank in a bad spot where it can be surrounded/flanked (your mistake), you pick it up and boost away. Your bad positioning cannot be punished. It is too forgiving.
Overlord Drop - being so cheap (25/25 on top of a unit that you must build anyway), and so early, it is also a bad design - it's a low cost, low risk, high reward.
Oracle's Revelation - no counterplay, unless you kill all the units affected. Oracle harass - low risk, high reward, low cost - Oracle has great utility mid-game, see above.
Force Field? Unforgiving. No counter play whatsoever for 2 expansions. In LotV Zerg got Ravager, but this is more of a band-aid then a proper fix.
Fungal Growth? No counterplay when it lands. At the same time, a projectile means it is unreliable.
Ravager's Bile, Adept's shade, Disruptor's attack, Reaper grenades, Medivac Boost and Tank pickup, Force Fields, Guardian Shield, Parasitic Bomb, Feedback - all with a low skill ceiling, not requiring strategy, but twitch button presses. On the other hand we still don't have high ground advantage, or good defenders advantage, or a good reason to spread out your bases more, other then "your minerals are running low in base x". Cliff walking and ignoring units are prevalent and even available at tier 1/1.5 (Reaper, Overlord Drop, Adept, Mothership Core). SC2 is more of a Real-Time Multitasking then Real-Time Strategy. A strategy game has units that trade some features for other features. A Tank that trades firepower for mobility, for example, not a pea shooter that can be picked-up and saved from dying, because it fails as a Tank.
Thing is, there is a lot of units/mechanics/abilities that have little or very specific counterplay. But all the races have them, therefore, the balance is somehow achieved at the higher levels. But it also means that players are more frustrated by the units themselves, at all levels. A pro player will counter the Bunny Build with a Spire, or a timing attack to kill T before Liberator with range is out. But a simple ladder player, the one below Masters (so roughly 90% of population), will just be frustrated by this particular build/unit.
|
I have to disagree with the assertion that Legacy of the Void is specifically worse in this regard. Virtually everything in the game has more counterplay than it did in HotS. Examples: Marauders and Immortals are less hard counter anti-armor. Roach tech can now deal with air and Force Fields. Colossus are still viable (sort of) but do not require a massive commitment to deal with. Warp in can be stopped by killing the Warp Prism. Photon Overcharge can be stopped by killing the pylon. The Cyclone is very good all purpose defense for TvP.
Looking at some of your examples, I don't thing tank drops are particularly hard to deal with before Spire. They are expensive and require an insane amount of APM so a small amount of "guaranteed damage" isn't necessarily bad. Liberators have plenty of counter play and I'm surprised you would say otherwise. Just because they are good at locking down a position (something this game desperately needed) does not mean they lack counterplay.
Games in LotV are also lower econ and more scrappy, thus I've found 2 base play is more viable and it is actually possible to come back from an economic deficit more so than HotS. Having your third base delayed in HotS was a death sentence but now we are seeing a much wider variety of economic strategies thus far.
So while I do agree there are still many areas where the game suffers from "hard counters", I think it's improved drastically and almost all units have multiple ways to deal with them. I think the Warp Prism may still be too important and require too specific a response, likewise the Oracle, but overall things seems better.
|
Very much agree with the OP as far as my knowledge and understanding of SC2 goes, that's a key weakness in design that spawns from design being at root much too centered on making "cool individual units". It could be tweaked but that would take large amounts of work to get blizzard to understand/acknowledge/act on it, it seems.
|
On February 15 2016 05:16 Nazara wrote:Show nested quote +Also, this is a strategy game, not a MobA or shooter. The idea behind many interactions is that there is a clear winner (i.e. a countersystem and techtree to force you into choices and strategies), The game is not strategic. A lot of the strategy is based around unit counter system or twitch reflexes. A countersystem is one of the typical ways to implement strategy in any game. Twitch reflexes is a typical barrier implemented to produce skill differences in real-time games. Together this means we talk about a real-time strategy game.
Example - When you go for a drop, this is your strategy - make units that can bypass the cliffs or carry other units over them into enemy base to do damage. If you fail, or you are scouted, you cannot do any damage, and because of your tech choice you are now behind both in tech, and economy/direct engagement unit count. That's how it should look like in a proper real-time Strategy game. Your strategy has been scouted, and prepared for, you are now behind. 1) Going for a drop is a very small part of your overall gameplan, based on combat interaction, which should usually be referred to as tactics to begin with if we want to use the proper terminology which seems to be your intent here. 2) When I go for a drop and force a reaction of it, that might get ahead just from the reaction. This is totally just up to the specifics of the game and has nothing to do with whether there is strategy, only with the efficiency of certain strategies which there are always higher and lower ones. The concept of strategy is just about having various approaches to play the game, whether they are good or not is totally irrelevent to whether the game offers strategies or not. Obviously when some strategies are extremely dominant a skilled player will always just go for those and the strategicial element might be pseudo-existant, which is not the case in SC2. And even when there are rather dominant strategies, the game allows you to mix in a ton of small deviations from standard strategical elements which have a huge impact on how the game turns out. Therefore you still have a ton of options (i.e. there is strategy), they might just not look as impressive as the difference between Mech and Bio play.
SC2 example - Mine drop. Medivac is used for MMM anyway, so rushing it you are not risking anything. Mines are so cheap you can afford to throw it away and require no additional tech to unlock them. You don't commit anything into a Widow Mine drop. Even if your opponent scouts you, and prepares for it, you still don't end up behind, because the tech (factory) can be used for everything, the dropship (Medivac) has amazing utility beside drops, Mine is great defensively, and your opponent had to invest into detection/anti-air in all of his bases. Here is a different example: I build a drone at the start of the game, because regardless of what I do, I will need money for it, so opening with drones is never wrong. This is as I say above a dominant strategical element It's what we call a good, standard strategy, that we can employ pretty much regardless of what the opponent does for as long as we react properly during its execution and leave enough room to deviate if necessary. Now whether your chosen strategy is to mine drop or to macro up is completely irrelevant for whether there exists strategy. As I have already said, it's a matter of their efficiency and finding the more efficient ones. And mine drops are surely not at the very top for Terran at the moment, which means you lose out by comparison to other builds with higher winchances. So even it the mine drop build might not fall behind to a point that you get a freewin against it if you defend it properly, it loses out.
Also, counter systems and hard counters should not be considered strategy. You see Roaches and build Immortals as a response to kill them? Well, this is not strategy. Fact is that it is a strategical element, even if it is obvious. Though it actually isn't, since you need a robo for it and you might have already invested into killing roaches in certain situations, so killing roaches even more might not be a good choice anyways.
A strategy would be to harass the enemy and force his Roaches to stay at home, while you take more bases behind it and come out ahead in unit count, even if those units are not the best counter to the Roach itself. A strategy would be to somehow fake Immortals so the enemy switches from Roaches to a unit that your army already is good against. A strategy would be to build static defense and prepare for the push, and your static defense should be strong enough to hold it - static defense is immobile, therefore, should be strong. In SC2, the first response (getting Immortals) is the correct one, not because it is the best strategy - choosing a unit on the basis of its effectiveness against another unit is not strategy, it is common sense. It is the correct response, because it is the strongest one, and the unit choice trumps strategy choice. A strategy is whatever you do or plan to do. You want to sit on 12 workers and mass canons? Well, that's a strategy. It might not be a good one, but it is one.
|
Yes I agree.
Problem is, they go with a statistical approach to balancing. But balancing goes beyond that.
It's more important to make sure a game "FEELS" fair, not just is statistically fair.
This means as you say, counterplay needs to be involved. It also means that options typically should not feel "forced" but rather a "choice".
It means that if you lose, the reason you should lose should be somewhat clear. If your working to constantly scouting as a priority and doing everything right on that end, and then end up losing, then watch a replay and the only thing you could have done is scout something better, that indicates an issue. Limited information is a bad thing if it is not somewhat attainable, and the fact that you need to sometimes build blind anti air in just the early-mid game in LotV indicates a big issue in this department.
Hard counters also cause issues with this. Units that require hard counters should require a lot of investment (of resources and time) to attain. It's a completely retarded situation if you have to kill your own units in order to make enough supply to counter your opponents composition, and that's happened in SC2 more often than idea;.
So many design issues with the game, and instead of improving, we're getting further and further from ideal design. The direction of this game is so depressing for me. SC is a series I am very passionate about, but I really am having trouble finding any sort of faith in the game these days...
|
Thanks for your answers : I'd just like to adress something I've seen.
I wasn't really talking about "hard counters". I know the line is blurry, but the exemple of marauders vs stalker/roach has been used. This isn't really "counterplay". It's just a unit that's strong against another type of unit. You're going for roach hydras, you're being dropped : 4 marauders in your mineral line. Your counterplay will be to bring 10 roaches, instead of 6 if it was marines. It's like saying, back in HOTS with the 2000 vision range MSC, that the problem withblink stalkers are that they hard counter tanks. No, really not. The problem was that against blink allin, tank counter play was one of the only ways to be safe, and allowed protoss to macro up because you weren't able to push across the map ever.
Compare this to the f****ing revelation, where protoss basically comes in with a very fast unit, and acquires vision of your whole army for 30 secs. There are terran units that could help you : 10 vikings, turrets... but none that is realisticly possible to have at 6-7 min in the game. You're forced to suffer and let the ennemy take an advantage without anything you can do about it. You can scan obs, you can kill changelings, you're f***ing glad when a terran scans an empty spot because you're like "yaaay, 5 less marines next fight", but there's nothing to do against revelation.
|
I wasn't really talking about "hard counters". I know the line is blurry
I personally don't think the line is blurry. I think it's just how you describe counter-play. Counter-play has a lot to do with how your opponent is able to reacts to the race/tactic/unit/ability. Risk/reward is how easy it is to do something successful. Counter is more about having the means to beat the race/tactic/unit/ability. I think a better way to phrase counter-play is probably something along the lines of: 1) The variance degree of impact of the design and how common it is to hit points that feels fair to both sides 2) The amount of influence the opponents feels like they have playing against the race/tactic/unit/ability 3) How many options the opponent has to play against it and the ease using/performing those options.
Very important note: Something that has good counter-play doesn't mean your opponent can completely negate the impact. Good counter play just means, the opponent hast the time to see it, response to it, and minimize their lost to the point where they feel like they did something good.
But most important, Counter-play is NOT about the strength of the race/tactic/unit/ability. And that's the thing that I think you, JackONeil, are confusing counter-play with. For example, 3 out the 5 things examples you gave (warp prism, liberator, medivac) are really poor examples of 'lack of counter-play'. Those examples are most about, they feel to strong instead of 'the variety options to play against it doesn't feel like they exist'. But honestly, you shouldn't lump risk/reward with counter-play. It undermines the fundamental thing that counter-play is trying to look at, which are the mechanics of both using and playing against the thing in question.
I'm just going to end my thoughts with, I do think SC2 is poorly designed, and there are abilities & units out there (included with the fact that this is a game about making armies) that has really poor counter-play, but many of the issues aren't actually because of lack of counterplay but rather, there is too many low risk/high reward, high burden of knowledge, & too many things dependent on small reaction time that causes most of the frustration in the game.
|
On February 16 2016 01:04 Clear World wrote: I'm just going to end my thoughts with, I do think SC2 is poorly designed, and there are and abilities & units out there (included with the fact that this is a game about making armies) that has really poor counter-play, but many of the issues aren't actually because of lack of counterplay but rather, there is too many low risk/high reward, high burden of knowledge, & too many things dependent on small reaction time that causes most of the frustration in the game.
Very well put.
Best reward in this game is often the lowest risk. It seems intentionally designed that way, according to their reasoning in weekly updates.
So much that dont make sense...
|
On February 16 2016 01:17 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2016 01:04 Clear World wrote: I'm just going to end my thoughts with, I do think SC2 is poorly designed, and there are and abilities & units out there (included with the fact that this is a game about making armies) that has really poor counter-play, but many of the issues aren't actually because of lack of counterplay but rather, there is too many low risk/high reward, high burden of knowledge, & too many things dependent on small reaction time that causes most of the frustration in the game. Very well put. Best reward in this game is often the lowest risk. It seems intentionally designed that way, according to their reasoning in weekly updates. So much that dont make sense...
From a strategical perspective good players will always seek the plays that grant the highest reward for the lowest risk. That is just the nature of effieciency. If these plays are defensive plays the game will trend towards defensive turtle play. The design team isn't stupid, their intention with the game was to meet the popular demand to have a fast paced game and for that the offensive plays must offer a better risk/reward ratio than only trying to defend them. Which so far is a good approach.
I just believe that players actually don't want to play a game in which their opponent's have such tools, no matter how much they are crying about stale metagames, deathballs and swarm hosts. But viewers like to watch fast paced games, at least if they are played by capable players with very low reaction times who can identify a build based one 10 second timing differences. TheDwf's article comes to mind, the dictatorship of the viewers in SC2 over the subsequentally shrinking playerbase...
|
On February 15 2016 04:17 ejozl wrote: The state of counterplay has never been better in Starcraft 2.
Maybe so, but it's still not perfect. Cheesy/cheap tactics are still difficult to counter.
|
On February 16 2016 01:04 Clear World wrote:I personally don't think the line is blurry. I think it's just how you describe counter-play. Counter-play has a lot to do with how your opponent is able to reacts to the race/tactic/unit/ability. Risk/reward is how easy it is to do something successful. Counter is more about having the means to beat the race/tactic/unit/ability. I think a better way to phrase counter-play is probably something along the lines of: 1) The variance degree of impact of the design and how common it is to hit points that feels fair to both sides 2) The amount of influence the opponents feels like they have playing against the race/tactic/unit/ability 3) How many options the opponent has to play against it and the ease using/performing those options. Very important note: Something that has good counter-play doesn't mean your opponent can completely negate the impact. Good counter play just means, the opponent hast the time to see it, response to it, and minimize their lost to the point where they feel like they did something good. But most important, Counter-play is NOT about the strength of the race/tactic/unit/ability. And that's the thing that I think you, JackONeil, are confusing counter-play with. For example, 3 out the 5 things examples you gave (warp prism, liberator, medivac) are really poor examples of 'lack of counter-play'. Those examples are most about, they feel to strong instead of 'the variety options to play against it doesn't feel like they exist'. But honestly, you shouldn't lump risk/reward with counter-play. It undermines the fundamental thing that counter-play is trying to look at, which are the mechanics of both using and playing against the thing in question. I'm just going to end my thoughts with, I do think SC2 is poorly designed, and there are abilities & units out there (included with the fact that this is a game about making armies) that has really poor counter-play, but many of the issues aren't actually because of lack of counterplay but rather, there is too many low risk/high reward, high burden of knowledge, & too many things dependent on small reaction time that causes most of the frustration in the game.
I like many of the points you make, however I don't think you should completly separate counterplay from risk/reward. I don't think counterplay is only about how "well you feel" after doing the best you could to counter a scouted strategy. It also has to do about how much of an advance in the game you took by successfully countering the ennemy strategy.
That's where I feel like my disruptor/warp prism exemple was on the spot : if terran perfectly splits, looses only 2-3 scvs to the harass, and then pushes, he won't be ahead in the game. Because prism + disruptor aren't bad at all in a fight, and that the ennemy didn't invest in a strategy that necessarly has to kill 10 scvs to be paid.
Amen to "SC2 is poorly designed".
|
On February 16 2016 02:42 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2016 01:17 Spyridon wrote:On February 16 2016 01:04 Clear World wrote: I'm just going to end my thoughts with, I do think SC2 is poorly designed, and there are and abilities & units out there (included with the fact that this is a game about making armies) that has really poor counter-play, but many of the issues aren't actually because of lack of counterplay but rather, there is too many low risk/high reward, high burden of knowledge, & too many things dependent on small reaction time that causes most of the frustration in the game. Very well put. Best reward in this game is often the lowest risk. It seems intentionally designed that way, according to their reasoning in weekly updates. So much that dont make sense... From a strategical perspective good players will always seek the plays that grant the highest reward for the lowest risk. That is just the nature of effieciency. If these plays are defensive plays the game will trend towards defensive turtle play. The design team isn't stupid, their intention with the game was to meet the popular demand to have a fast paced game and for that the offensive plays must offer a better risk/reward ratio than only trying to defend them. Which so far is a good approach. I just believe that players actually don't want to play a game in which their opponent's have such tools, no matter how much they are crying about stale metagames, deathballs and swarm hosts. But viewers like to watch fast paced games, at least if they are played by capable players with very low reaction times who can identify a build based one 10 second timing differences. TheDwf's article comes to mind, the dictatorship of the viewers in SC2 over the subsequentally shrinking playerbase...
BigJ, I am fully aware of the devs designed directions and I personally have given up in hoping to see the devs make a more well designed game for the 90% playerbase. I don't have any hope for that. Also, I should clarify, I'm not talking about the elita players because of course the elita players will do that. That's why they are elita. Players will seek the easiest solutions to win. I am talking about the 90%. The subsequentally shrinking playerbase and those who tries to get into the game but leaves. Everything I talk about is geared towards that population.
I also want to clarify to you BigJ, if your comment is towards what I'm saying, I'm not against risk/reward being skewered towards those who play aggressive. Aggression should always be incentivized and that should be the path that the better player should take. But that doesn't mean that aggression should be at the point in reach the only response is to know it beforehand and already prepare before it ever happens (if it even happens). Just like how people don't like hard counters, but they still want counters to exist in the game. Most people who plays it don't want the extreme of the other.
Blizzard made their choice, and I don't see any reason why they would change it. If Blizzard wants to put more time, money, and investment into other things that isn't part of their core gamemode to keep the causal players without wanting to tackle the design issues in the core gamemode, they made their choice. The 1v1 is not designed for for the causal gamer.
Last to note, I personally believe that the game should be designed for the casual audience, but the balance should be made for the hardcore & elite.
I like many of the points you make, however I don't think you should completly separate counterplay from risk/reward. I don't think counterplay is only about how "well you feel" after doing the best you could to counter a scouted strategy. It also has to do about how much of an advance in the game you took by successfully countering the ennemy strategy.
That's where I feel like my disruptor/warp prism exemple was on the spot : if terran perfectly splits, looses only 2-3 scvs to the harass, and then pushes, he won't be ahead in the game. Because prism + disruptor aren't bad at all in a fight, and that the ennemy didn't invest in a strategy that necessarly has to kill 10 scvs to be paid.
The reason why I say you should separate them or to better phrase myself, you shouldn't talk as if counter-play is directly tied to low risk/high reward. Those are two 2 different aspect for designing something, and, as I repeat, you're under cutting the point of counter-play by lumping it with how strong it a certain aspect is at the moment. In other words, their is no point in calling it lack of counter-play.
In your example, you're just saying, it's low risk but high reward. And if you're using that as a valid reason to say it lacks counter-play, then you might as well say that 'anything too powerful lacks counter-play' because anything too powerful always grants a low risk but high reward. To shorten it up, you might as well be more clearer with, 'This tactic is too strong'.
|
|
|
|