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| Thread: The art of B-A-L-A-N-C-E |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 06, 2009 06:18 PM |
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What if you were pro with that vacuum cleaner? 
People say btw that modern games are easier than the older ones. That is not entirely true: many old rpgs had fatal flaws in mechanics. Especially Betrayal at Krondor which I've mentioned already The biggest problem with older games was that they were rarely (if ever) patched, so if a flaw made it through the release, it remained there forever.
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted November 06, 2009 06:37 PM |
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What if you were pro with that vacuum cleaner?
Still dead, unless you go for headshot, but Crossbow headshot is instant death even with armor anyway. (and it's much easier from afar because of zooming/scope)
anyway sorry for off topic in your thread.
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The above post is subject to SIRIOUSness.
No jokes were harmed during the making of this signature.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 06, 2009 06:44 PM |
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No prob. This is after all a balance discussion 
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 06, 2009 07:49 PM |
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ah yeah, the instant kill crossbow (the sniper of the game) but unlike the vacuum cleaner, you needed skills to use it
I remember that in half life opposing force I abused the electric machine gun a lot. it was weak but had unlimited ammo.
and what about imbalance in maps? it is mostly obvious in user created maps, most people build horribly designed and very unbalanced maps, but seriously, even devs seem to have trouble building balanced maps.
some of the common mistakes are :
-one team has a huge fort, and the other one must attack it. usually the team with the fort has a huge advantage and the outcome of the battle makes no doubt.
-only one way out of the base. that way, it's very easy to trap the enemy team. in another hand, in ctf the flag is extremly easy to defend.
-large open field with no cover. you have no chance to cross it alive, you'll get killed by a sniper before.
-very large map with lots of cover. unless you play with 64 players, you'll have a hard time finding anyone, especially since most players are campers and will make their best to be as hard to find as possible.
-all the spawnpoints of a team in the same room. will usually result in spawnkilling, unless the players agree to not abuse such flaws.
-near uncounterable strategic spots. for example, you have to come in front of a turret, and there is no cover and no good shooting position. killing the guy using it is going to be snowing hard.
-randomly built maps (which are about 99% of the maps) how something which is random can be well balanced?
-etc...
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted November 06, 2009 09:09 PM |
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Also, the fact that I proposed to combine skills doesn't mean I don't advise other skills at the same level INSTEAD of one of the former that would be a) original b) gave a choice. Making two damage skills just gives you the choice of taking the one that works early or the one that works late; with a respec skill you make use of both at the proper time. But making one good combined damage skill and, say, a good summoning skill gives you a choice.
Err what? All i said is that replacing long term benefits and short term benefits with just benefits isn't beneficial to the player.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 06, 2009 09:22 PM |
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I think it is. Removes the annoying "oh crap this spell is useful at levels 1-5 only and sucks snow at the other 95 levels" thing. If a skill works in a fraction of the actual gameplay, it's not balanced imho, it just sucks.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted November 06, 2009 11:15 PM |
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What doom says is that rather than :
"one completely useless skill which you question why you even put points is, its useless anyway. Most of the times its worse than mediocre even at the places its needed for, its just awfulČ"
Now, what is there was actual choices and balance instead of this?
There exists to many map mappers with no clue on the word "balance", balance is when not everything is equal but rather everything is a viable option. I have seen this countless times 
Kotor? Guns is inferior to meele weapons.
The common ranged vs meele in many games: Meele deals damage, ranges sucks because its just underpowered compared to many factors.
Other games? There is certain skills that is so superior its questionable why it was not spotted by looking at it. Or combos which are insane game breakers.
A "quirky wizard" is not a gamebreaker, usually. Because there is usually all that is needed is to break the flow. Example: The pirate in the AoS map "Age of Myths" for Warcraft III. The entire skillset allows fun stuff, its quirky. And it pwns people with no idea of the skillset so bad its fun  In a game with people with a little on on each hero the pirate is a viable backstabber with decent HP In a nub one, its one of the most powerful hero killers.
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted November 07, 2009 12:16 AM |
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I think it is. Removes the annoying "oh crap this spell is useful at levels 1-5 only and sucks snow at the other 95 levels" thing. If a skill works in a fraction of the actual gameplay, it's not balanced imho, it just sucks.
That is poorly balanced. but replacing it with. "This spell is good all the way through and so are the rest of your choices" isn't good.
The choice no longer matters. Who cares for skill as long as you can click buttons mindlessly.
Poorly designed because the game can work with it and expand its utility but fails to. like digging for treasure in heroes 5, why should players only dig for the grail? And thus tears of asha vision isn't useful because it only has one use.
I'm saying being useless 90% of the time is bad.
You are making it sound like you dislike skills that aren't 100% useful.
There needs to be multiple builds for a hero, not one. And there needs to be a time to want that extra damage and a time to want that late game bonus.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 07, 2009 10:09 AM |
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"Multiple builds" doesn't necessarily imply "100 different damage skills, out of which 99 are usually useless" type of choices game creators usually present us
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted November 07, 2009 12:38 PM |
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You make a good point there.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 15, 2010 05:47 PM |
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As a happy beta key owner, I must admit that I'm disappointed by Blizzard. After so many years of balancing games and trying to make the perfect online RTS, their overhyped new game aka SC2 is simply... a failure.
No, I'm not saying it's not enjoyable. And I won't criticize that it's pretty much the same game we received 12 years ago, wrapped in better graphics and different units. I think the game became so much of a legend that they decided to make the sequel pretty much the same game. Which is ok.
The balance however... 
First of all, I feared it would quickly become like all other modern RTS. YOu get, say, 10-15 available units, but you focus on spamming one type of unit which happens to be the most universal killer. It went way worse however, because the cookie-cutter strategy emerged pretty much INSTANTLY. When the first gameplay vids came, I've seen korean pro gamers spamming marauders from the start. It was their first game or so, and I can't guess whether that was because of intuition, or some other feat, but they picked the right thing. Marauders are pretty much the only units that good Terran players build nowadays. As the beta progresses, it gets even worse. With the support of Marines and Medivacs, the MMM happens every game.
Question is: why? Why after such a long period, Blizzard did this to us? Was it that hard to notice that players show an annoying tendency to mass exactly this type of unit against pretty much everything and change it entirely instead of lame "upgrade cost increased by 10 minerals" or "Unit build time increased by 10 seconds" ? Was it that hard to do the math and notice that stimmed Marauders' damage per second exceed pretty much everything, with them being a cheap tier 1 unit? Pro players go for DPS alone, which ends up in what we see. Again and again.
SC2 went in the direction settled by EA games: rock-paper-scissors and of course it sucked. It's not a secret that SC1, designed without the "counter" system, worked way better. In SC2, you see light/armored units and corresponding damage bonuses for certain units against those types of armor, and it blows, because of over-efficient counter system. A few units designed to counter a specific unit can in reality rape a huge number of those. A system designed that way ALWAYS ends up in one unit picked, with additional few units (consisting maybe 20-30% of total army size) picked to counter the units that can endanger the main unit in any way. And that's what happened here, of course. Why am I not surprised?
Tradition or no, SC2 follows what it shouldn't follow:
1. Outdated tier system. How many games and sequels will it take for the balance teams to notice that in EVERY game where tier system is implemented, late-tier units are underused and easily overwhelmed by cheaper units? In sc2, three marines offer more DPS than most tier 3 units and cost less. The damage per second difference in a game where DPS is the king pretty much means there is no need to tech. The vulnerability teching brings, the time wasted to reach the powerful units, and the cost of the tech itself means that it's not worth it most of the time, especially when what you get has nearly no means to win against already massed legions of units.
2. Outdated economy system - Who gets more expansions win when units take 20 seconds to produce and you can put 20 raxes without any restrictions. This goes along with the upper point. Player who techs will be unable to stop the massed units, and unable to expand, while the masser expands with ease due to massive army dominating most of the game. The economy system used promotes massing a single unit, simply because that can gain you both AND long term advantage.
3. Outdated pathfinding - when you put a unit that takes 10% of the screen, is slow and is melee in the game, you should have enough brain cells to imagine that it will be useless. The fiasco of ultralisk proves that SC design team has little to no idea on how things work in reality. Because the give the unit 600 HP doesn't mean it will last against kiting units while being much slower. To be certain, even 1000 HP wouldn't help. ANd what they did was a NERF of the HP so they can die even faster, instead of fixing the unit collision size and pathfinding.
4. Outdated counter system - as specified before, the counter system never worked. Surprisingly, in games where units had no "strong vs XXX weak vs YYY" units - such as Starcraft 1 - we could see bigger variety of units made in online games. The only game which made an okay counter system - warcraft 3 - suffered from a different sort of balance issue: the counters were often too weak to stop a massed army, leading to absurds such as massed units defeating their massed counter units. Still, it worked better in general, simply because the counter units didn't MURDER the units they were supposed to counter: they had a slight advantage over them, and were ok vs. everything else. What blizzard showed in SC2 is an EA approach of overpowered counter units, which again, promotes picking the best DPS unit and surrounding it with anti-counter additions.
The counter system based on BONUS DAMAGE against XXX doesn't work. We've seen it in C&C3, and Red Alert 3 - and now we see it in SC2. The "counter system" works mainly when units have INDIRECT advantages over certain units, such as helpful ability, better speed, better range or so. Much as SC1 proved (SC1 of course wasn't perfect, but...) SC2 took the number approach - which sucks.
I could point out another issues with the game itself. The first 3-4 minutes of every game consist of exactly the same worker build and build order. Yes, in every matchup, one build order is quickly picked and done over and over. Instead of forcing the players to do this and waste 25% of every game on the same boring as **** buildup, why not ask a few korean pro gamers to find one, and then, START THE GAME WITH THOSE 20 SCVs AND BARRACKS ALREADY BUILT, with enough surplus minerals and gas to involve personal strategy instantly such as making a factory instead of making any marines? Seriously, what would happen if you made such a move? Other than effectively removing the "dead 5 mins" of every game you play?
I could go on for hours. SC2 disappoints me in every way. THe mechanics the game utilizes are simply outdated, proven ineffective in terms of balance and entertainment by a good bunch of real strategy games. After 12 years, we could certainly ask for something better in a game hyped to be the next RTS king for a few years. Yet what we get is basically... ****.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Azagal
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Smooth Snake
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posted July 15, 2010 07:20 PM |
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Edited by Azagal at 20:02, 15 Jul 2010.
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I'm very sorry Doomforge but I'll have to correct you on a few issues. I'm not saying that you're a bad player but there are somethings you either haven't noticed or fully understood yet.
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..., because the cookie-cutter strategy emerged pretty much INSTANTLY.
I think you've come to misinterpret something. Over the phases of the beta people played arround with different strategies and there were indeed those that became very popular. The maaaaaass Marauder for example was extremely popular in the beginning of the beta (where they also came with the default concussive shells upgrade). But the game evolved from there. Then game M&M, then MMM, then Tech got really popular, the LiquidTLO pioneered the 1-1-1 build and other things. I don't know how many pro games you watch my dear Doom but apparently they are few (trust me I watch a lot). The top tier players play by forcing their opponents or responding to something their opponents do. It's not "I will build units X,Y and Z and win the game!!!".
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Marauders are pretty much the only units that good Terran players build nowadays. As the beta progresses, it gets even worse. With the support of Marines and Medivacs, the MMM happens every game.
As I already said this is not only a missconception on your part it, it's dead wrong. Pardon me being so blunt... from all the pro games I've seen (again many many many many) Mech seems to be really popular (just watch Jinro (from Team Liquid) slow pushing everything to death oO).
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Was it that hard to do the math and notice that stimmed Marauders' damage per second exceed pretty much everything, with them being a cheap tier 1 unit?
Again, unfortunately you're a wrong. A stimmed marauder does less damage to more things than a stimmed marine does. Stimmed marauders excell and killing armoured targets. Again a stimmed marine actually does more damage to more things than a marauder!!
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SC2 went in the direction settled by EA games: rock-paper-scissors and of course it sucked. It's not a secret that SC1, designed without the "counter" system, worked way better. In SC2, you see light/armored units and corresponding damage bonuses for certain units against those types of armor, and it blows, because of over-efficient counter system. A few units designed to counter a specific unit can in reality rape a huge number of those. A system designed that way ALWAYS ends up in one unit picked, with additional few units (consisting maybe 20-30% of total army size) picked to counter the units that can endanger the main unit in any way. And that's what happened here, of course. Why am I not surprised?
Oh dear you probably lost a few games badly by being "countered" didn't you? Just watch this Day[9] can obviously explain the illusions of counters infinitely more elloquent than me. Just skip to 19:20 if you can't be bothered to watch the whole thing. That's where he covers your issue.
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In sc2, three marines offer more DPS than most tier 3 units and cost less. The damage per second difference in a game where DPS is the king pretty much means there is no need to tech.
Excuse me? How do 3 marines do more damage than a tank, void ray, broodlord, ultralisk, COLOSSUS (most freakishly beastly dps unit out there), Battle Cruisers, etc. etc. ? That's right they don't. Especially if you have to consider that dps only lasts while something is alive and as you may have noted Marines aren't exactly the longlived kind of unit especially when compared to their higher tech brothers and sisters.
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The vulnerability teching brings, the time wasted to reach the powerful units, and the cost of the tech itself means that it's not worth it most of the time, especially when what you get has nearly no means to win against already massed legions of units.
No no no no no big missconception my frustrated friend. Upgrade are awesome. a) you set yourself up for a good mid/late game b)their cost is relatively proportionate to your state in the game. You don't have to cut too much (or anything at all if you have a build relying on upgrades) and they do make a big impact (for example a Zealot will only take 3 hits to kill a zergling instead of 4 with Weapons+1. Huuuuuge difference). Apart from those upgrades I understand that you also speak about the fresh units... well dude... The high tier units will more often save your butt than fail you if you chose the right one. A colossus backed up with a few zealots to tank for example can SAVE you if you have a lot of marines knocking at your door (PERFECT example in the link I gave you at 19:20 ). And that's just one example... often enough teching will save you (ever zeen Raoches pop out just in time to kill a two gated 5 zealot attack? It's awesome ).
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Who gets more expansions win when units take 20 seconds to produce and you can put 20 raxes without any restrictions. This goes along with the upper point. Player who techs will be unable to stop the massed units, and unable to expand, while the masser expands with ease due to massive army dominating most of the game.
Another illusion, forgive me for saying so. First let me conceed that OBVIOUSLY having operational expansions is great and if you have superior macro the odds will obviously be in your favour. But it's not nearly as simple as you put it lol.
If you mass a unit you don't have money to expand because you're... well massing a unit d'uh.
Sure if you just sit in your base and tech and build like 4 marines and a bunker for defence you're OBVIOUSLY going to get crushed by someone who spent money on an actual army but should you manage to barely surive YOU will be ahead because you teched! And if you fast exspand you don't have money to build units ergo you'll be very vulnerable to early pressure. It's a lot more complex as you can hopefully see lol?
Massing a single unit does NOT ensure you any long term benefits lol on the contrary. Massing a single unit is very all in-ish since it will get raaaaaped by opponents who have a better unit compositions (and that's not only the so called "counter" you're talking about). Dude teching is essential to any game in which you wish to reach the mid/late game.
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3. Outdated pathfinding
You adress the issue but you only complain about 1 unit. Are there any other issues you have except the indeed clunky and difficult to handle ultralisk? If you get Ultralisks you've got to get creep everywhere and make sure to engagage at the right positions. If you can get a flank off with Ultras you annihilate a mech army or anything armoured, no sweat. If you don't have creep anywhere and you just 1a-move your units into an enemy they'll get smacked that's true. The ultralisk could indeed use some buffing but it is by no means useless, you're just not using it right.
About the whole counter issue just watch the Daily. You'll be surprised.
And the early game isn't dead by, no means! Quite the contrary. It's where you set the rails for your strategy. That's why there are different oppenings. Dude it's so simple. There isn't ONE build to rule them all. It's probably your nature as a powergamer that prevents you from understanding this games variety. I'm not saying this because I'm a fanboy (I'm really not) but simply because you're giving people wrong information. It is your oppinion but it is very far from the truth so stating it as facts is most misleading... Maybe SC2 just isn't your type of game since judging from your comments you don't have a particularily good understanding of it.
EDIT: Please Doom you know I respect you but I just had to say something so don't get it down the wrong throat. Oh and in case you were wondering I'm not just watching games online and repeat what the pros say. I do play.
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"All I can see is what's in front of me. And all I can do is keep moving forward" - The Heir Wielder of Names, Seeker of Thrones, King of Swords, Breaker of Infinities, Wheel Smashing Lord
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 15, 2010 08:23 PM |
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I'm very sorry Doomforge but I'll have to correct you on a few issues. I'm not saying that you're a bad player but there are somethings you either haven't noticed or fully understood yet.
np, discussion is always welcome.
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I think you've come to misinterpret something. Over the phases of the beta people played arround with different strategies and there were indeed those that became very popular. The maaaaaass Marauder for example was extremely popular in the beginning of the beta (where they also came with the default concussive shells upgrade). But the game evolved from there. Then game M&M, then MMM, then Tech got really popular, the LiquidTLO pioneered the 1-1-1 build and other things. I don't know how many pro games you watch my dear Doom but apparently they are few (trust me I watch a lot). The top tier players play by forcing their opponents or responding to something their opponents do. It's not "I will build units X,Y and Z and win the game!!!".
It's not exactly that I meant MMM or 1-1-1 build. Thing is, that the "test" phase were people build different units and try out things was unusually short. Seems like after 2-3 days everyone competent jumped to things like MMM. Sure, standards changed through time, still, when I recall W3 beta...
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As I already said this is not only a missconception on your part it, it's dead wrong. Pardon me being so blunt... from all the pro games I've seen (again many many many many) Mech seems to be really popular (just watch Jinro (from Team Liquid) slow pushing everything to death oO).
Well, I watched as much replays as I could (gosugamers/replayers, not replays.net) and played a few games too, and all I've seen was MMM every game. Yes, I've seen a mech strategy once or twice, but it seemed inferior in many aspects to MMM in PvT.
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Again, unfortunately you're a wrong. A stimmed marauder does less damage to more things than a stimmed marine does. Stimmed marauders excell and killing armoured targets. Again a stimmed marine actually does more damage to more things than a marauder!!
Well, with the rock-paper-scissors system, I must be wrong here, the specified counters will always do more dps There is a reason why MMM (with emphasis on marauders) is a top strategy tho.
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Oh dear you probably lost a few games badly by being "countered" didn't you? Just watch this Day[9] can obviously explain the illusions of counters infinitely more elloquent than me. Just skip to 19:20 if you can't be bothered to watch the whole thing. That's where he covers your issue.
Thing is, whatever theory people bring, EVERY game under the sun ended like that. For instance, show me a pro game in warcraft 3, orcs vs night elf MU where elves don't go mass talons. It NEVER happens and if it does, it's like 0,001% of all games.
EA had to patch the game every two weeks becase C&C3 just jumped from a tactic to a tactic. Once mass scorpion tanks was nerfed to oblivion, they started doing mass venoms every game.
SC2 seems no different atm and usually, as the game gets older, cookie cutters get even more inevitable.
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Excuse me? How do 3 marines do more damage than a tank, void ray, broodlord, ultralisk, COLOSSUS (most freakishly beastly dps unit out there), Battle Cruisers, etc. etc. ? That's right they don't. Especially if you have to consider that dps only lasts while something is alive and as you may have noted Marines aren't exactly the longlived kind of unit especially when compared to their higher tech brothers and sisters.
Oh yes they do - stimmed, of course. Note their attack speed. Gets even more obvious after upgrade. Colossus doing beastly DPS? if it hits 5+ units at once, sure... As for their health, you seem to miss that focus fire has a bigger impact on high-hp units. Once you are done attacking a marine, you lose time to click another target and let your army regroup (usually the back row has to move a few pixels to reach or smth). In a big battle, that extra bit becomes big enough to indirectly boost mass little units' survivability to top levels compared to big units with mass HP. Not exactly SC2 issue, happens every game.
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No no no no no big missconception my frustrated friend. Upgrade are awesome. a) you set yourself up for a good mid/late game b)their cost is relatively proportionate to your state in the game. You don't have to cut too much (or anything at all if you have a build relying on upgrades) and they do make a big impact (for example a Zealot will only take 3 hits to kill a zergling instead of 4 with Weapons+1. Huuuuuge difference). Apart from those upgrades I understand that you also speak about the fresh units... well dude... The high tier units will more often save your butt than fail you if you chose the right one. A colossus backed up with a few zealots to tank for example can SAVE you if you have a lot of marines knocking at your door (PERFECT example in the link I gave you at 19:20). And that's just one example... often enough teching will save you (ever zeen Raoches pop out just in time to kill a two gated 5 zealot attack? It's awesome).
Well, obviously MMM doesn't need any tech at all, and saves resources that would go for tech buildings. That cash can support an expansion. Either way, if a tier 1 strategy is effective in such a way that you can win the game by tier1 unitspam, why bother with T3? See orcs in warcraft 2, which rarely went beyond T2 because it never brought anything useful aside from lightning orb for blademaster.
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Another illusion, forgive me for saying so. First let me conceed that OBVIOUSLY having operational expansions is great and if you have superior macro the odds will obviously be in your favour. But it's not nearly as simple as you put it lol.
If you mass a unit you don't have money to expand because you're... well massing a unit d'uh.
Period 1: I start massing units, you start teching.
Period 2: I'm done massing and have a stronger army than yours. I send a scv to build a base while using my stronger army to keep you in check. You can expand but I will defeat your army and destroy the expansion if I find it. Mine expansion can't be stopped however because you can't leave your base unprotected and go for it with my big army waiting to kick your butt.
Period 3: I have expansion and my initial army and I start pumping even bigger mass. You are with 1 base and your high tier units still can't stop my MMM ball. Especially with my expansion.
It's something like that.
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Sure if you just sit in your base and tech and build like 4 marines and a bunker for defence you're OBVIOUSLY going to get crushed by someone who spent money on an actual army but should you manage to barely surive YOU will be ahead because you teched! And if you fast exspand you don't have money to build units ergo you'll be very vulnerable to early pressure. It's a lot more complex as you can hopefully see lol?
Not really. Starcraft was always about having exact build and exact units, or else you were getting rushed and defeated. Even if it's not exactly like that now, it will happen in time anyway. Much like in SC, where without a certain build you'd get the same zergling rush EVERY GAME and lose EVERY GAME because of it until you've learned the build that stops it. There is no room for teching with such a standard being an absolute MUST. And the mere fact of this is what makes the game outdated mechanics annoy me.
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Massing a single unit does NOT ensure you any long term benefits lol on the contrary. Massing a single unit is very all in-ish since it will get raaaaaped by opponents who have a better unit compositions (and that's not only the so called "counter" you're talking about). Dude teching is essential to any game in which you wish to reach the mid/late game.
I won all my games by massing marines and marauders with medivacs. Some people say I should use ghosts vs protoss, but I don't care, I win anyway. And you say I need other units? really? Ok, I don't mass a single unit type. I mass two unit types out of, how many, 15? Big improvement )
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You adress the issue but you only complain about 1 unit. Are there any other issues you have except the indeed clunky and difficult to handle ultralisk? If you get Ultralisks you've got to get creep everywhere and make sure to engagage at the right positions. If you can get a flank off with Ultras you annihilate a mech army or anything armoured, no sweat.
Ultralisks lose to everything. Mechs they are supposed to counter just rape them with kiting. You know, fire, take a step back, fire... I'm just surprised it wasn't OBVIOUS that Ultras designed like that would suck badly. Makes me doubt the SC2 design team's competence.
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If you don't have creep anywhere and you just 1a-move your units into an enemy they'll get smacked that's true. The ultralisk could indeed use some buffing but it is by no means useless, you're just not using it right.
Give me 1 use of ultralisk what other units can do better/faster and I'll agree - keep in mind that getting the ultras means going for the longest tech tree in the game, so it SHOULD give you some benefit rather than an EXTREMELY situation unit at best (imho just plain useless, but whatever... Not a zerg expert)
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And the early game isn't dead by, no means! Quite the contrary. It's where you set the rails for your strategy. That's why there are different oppenings. Dude it's so simple. There isn't ONE build to rule them all. It's probably your nature as a powergamer that prevents you from understanding this games variety. I'm not saying this because I'm a fanboy (I'm really not) but simply because you're giving people wrong information. It is your oppinion but it is very far from the truth so stating it as facts is most misleading... Maybe SC2 just isn't your type of game since judging from your comments you don't have a particularily good understanding of it.
SC2 is as much "complicated" as any other RTS of that kind. It will not be magically different when the rules are exact copies of the games that came and went before. Thus, I don't have to be a diviner to predict that, like in starcraft or Warcraft 3 (or C&C3/red alert for that matter) a PERFECT cookie cutter build will emerge. Look at current WC3 games of best Korean players. Their early builds are so identical (on same maps - yeah I know they differ for each map) that you'd probably not find a single difference for the fist 3-4 minutes between 10 different games.
The standards aren't here YET for SC2, but it WILL happen. Trust me.
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EDIT: Please Doom you know I respect you but I just had to say something so don't get it down the wrong throat.
Why no problem, friend Enjoying the discussion, actually. Happy to have a competent SC2 player to discuss with here.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted July 16, 2010 02:38 AM |
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I believe an old friend of ours can solve your dispute.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Azagal
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Smooth Snake
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posted July 16, 2010 05:28 PM |
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Alright Doom thank god you're not going "UARGH RAGE!! YOU NOOB! etc. etc." alright so let's talk about SC2.
First of all I can't really respond to any comments/comparisons made to the WC III beta since I wasn't into gaming back then.
So about your MMM-dominance comment. I'm not saying that you don't see it often (especially in anything below gold) but simply because it's used much doesn't mean it's "The cookie-cutter". Bio is simply easier to controle than a good Mech attack so a lot of people will probably prefer it. And about Mech being the inferior choice in a TvP think again and bathe in the awesome that is Jinros Mechpush. With Terran you basically go Mech or Bio but even within these brances there's variety. It's just that the Beta hasn't been both stable or long enough to explore all the possibilities. And the guys who find a build are usually the higher tier guys since the rest either just copies something the pros do fool arround. And once they've found something they're relatively succesfull with they're going to stick to it and bring it evvvvvvvvvery game simply because it's the easiest for them. They disregard the special features of a map or spawning positions or their matchup, they're just on that narrow path. But that's not SC2 fault, it's the players fault for not exploring more and simply being content with doing X (which may be a good strategy but it doesn't mean that there aren't better out there).
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Well, with the rock-paper-scissors system, I must be wrong here, the specified counters will always do more dps There is a reason why MMM (with emphasis on marauders) is a top strategy tho.
Yes Doom on paper a Stalker will always lose to a Marauder but that doesn't mean that if you see him go stalkers you just spam marauders and suddenly you've won. If you get Marauders at exactly the right time against his push he doesn't have the time to transition out of it assuming you crushed his attack and can now waltz down into his natural/main. It's true that some units were designed to do more damage to specific units but that alone doesn't make them a "counter". Sure it'll be great to have that unit against unit X but it won't be enough and just to get the unit isn't all that easy...(you know with teching and scouting or scouting and teching depending on your mindset).MMM is a good strategy because it's really basic: it covers all possible threats (air and ground), it's relatively cheap and it's very mobile. If you saw SC1 you also had gigantic marine balls with medics. But just because it's good doesn't mean it's awesome, imbalanced, unbeatable or the only good thing out there.
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SC2 seems no different atm and usually, as the game gets older, cookie cutters get even more inevitable.
It's not cookie cutters that emerge it will be different openings with different goals. Doom there is no cookie-cutter build, there can't be because there isn't a build that's good against EVERYTHING. You have builds that will win against opponents who do a), struggle against opponents who do b) and struggle heavily or most likely lose to opponents who do c).
So say you six pool as Zerg you will a) kill the guy that super fast exspands b)struggle against a walloff c)...probably nothing since you should still have time to transition out of it but thaT's not the point. See what I mean?
If you have an army you can only be succesfull if your unit composition matches your opponents units. And I'm not talking about "omg he has mass marine I better build 4 robo bays and chrono boost out 201349123 collosi" obviously it will be good to have Collosi but on their own they'll die so you have to supplement them.
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Oh yes they do - stimmed, of course. Note their attack speed. Gets even more obvious after upgrade.
AHA!!So you do admit that upgrades are the shizzle. And no matter what you say Doom marines will still die pretty fast you can focus fire as much as you want but if your units drop like flies there won't be much to do the dps. And yeah collosi do crazy dps since they usually hit 5+ targets it's what they're designed for (not to mention their ridicolous range). Target fireing isn't as easy to do efficiently if you don't want your units to just run towards target B and get slaughtered by everything else on their way.
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It's something like that.
On paper. No plan survives contact with the enemy. If I tech I will have the tech advantage. If I chose right that should even out our game. Assume that I rushed for Banshees. My super fast 2 cloacked banshees anihilate your marauder ball with its little marine back up (just as an example). I regain map controle and depending on what's going on I'm save to exspand aswell or I kill your exspansion off. It's not "something like that".
I don't get your complaining about the build orders. If you wall of with a supply depot and a racks your 1 marine laughs in the face of the 10 zerglings. Sure if you have a build it should be safe against a few other standard openings of your opponents, if it isn't it's just a bad build. And there is plenty of room for teching within that. Your opponent can't go everything at once so you just have to either force him to either go X or respond to him going Y. I really don't think you've played/watched enough. Because this statement is wrong on 2 levels:
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Starcraft was always about having exact build and exact units, or else you were getting rushed and defeated.
1. Every RTS is about building timing and what units you get. Of course it is.
1.5 Micro and Macro~
2. "or you were getting rushed and defeated" lol? You're saying that if you don't do X you WILL GET RUSHED. Dude that's not what's happening. Not to mention that your opponent would have to decide to rush you.
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I won all my games by massing marines and marauders with medivacs.
That's all good and dandy for you Doom but it doesn't mean it's inbalanced. What league do you play? It doesn't really matter but sooner or later you will face a protoss who will storm you to death, a zerg with Broodlords, or a player that's good with Collosi, or Baneling Bomber Overlords, or what not there are plenty of different ways to kill MMM. The idea of a Strategy game isn't to force you to get a lot of different units but the units that work the best together. You simply don't see the uses of other units to your MMM ball. Ghosts are the **** against Protoss emp = a TON of shields gone and no forcefields and storms that otherwise RAPE your MMM ball and it's so freakin sweet because you already have the Tech! So you're complaining about the fact that these unit work so good together? MMM+G is 4 different units out of maybe 15 and you'll need all 3 tech structures. That's already pretty huge. You make it sound so plain but it's actually really complex.
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Mechs they are supposed to counter just rape them with kiting.
Come on Doom... you can't be serious. Show me a player that can kite a sieged Tank. And as I already stated the Ultra isn't a great unit but it rapes Mech. It has a very narrow application (for now) that's true but if you use it correctly (with creep and semi-decent placement) they will demolish any mech army. You can't kite an Ultra on creep just in case your tanks weren't siged. Just to show you how great Ultras can be (against Mech) LiquidTLO vs Cola ZvT. He spreads the creep and gets a flank of and 8 Ultras demolish a superior army (part to at 5:30 if you're impatient). Nothing kills mech units or buildings as fast as an Ultra.
And yeah you're right Standards will emerge I never argued that, but a Standard does not equal cookie-cutter build.
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"All I can see is what's in front of me. And all I can do is keep moving forward" - The Heir Wielder of Names, Seeker of Thrones, King of Swords, Breaker of Infinities, Wheel Smashing Lord
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Nebdar
Promising
Supreme Hero
Generation N
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posted July 16, 2010 10:09 PM |
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Both of you should try Supreme Commander Forged Alliance....... try that to find it weakness....
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 17, 2010 10:07 AM |
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Alright Doom thank god you're not going "UARGH RAGE!! YOU NOOB! etc. etc." alright so let's talk about SC2.
First of all I can't really respond to any comments/comparisons made to the WC III beta since I wasn't into gaming back then.
I noticed many similarities of wc3 beta to sc2 beta - if SC2 ends like Wc3 too... We'll see one strat each matchup, nothing more For some races it may be even one strategy vs.all (Orc: grunts, raiders, blademaster and shadowhunter/Tauren chief)
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So about your MMM-dominance comment. I'm not saying that you don't see it often (especially in anything below gold) but simply because it's used much doesn't mean it's "The cookie-cutter". Bio is simply easier to controle than a good Mech attack so a lot of people will probably prefer it.
True But, something being hard to control doesn't mean it's bad. On the contrary. Once you master MMM, you will never go back to mechs.
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And about Mech being the inferior choice in a TvP think again and bathe in the awesome that is Jinros Mechpush. With Terran you basically go Mech or Bio but even within these brances there's variety. It's just that the Beta hasn't been both stable or long enough to explore all the possibilities. And the guys who find a build are usually the higher tier guys since the rest either just copies something the pros do fool arround. And once they've found something they're relatively succesfull with they're going to stick to it and bring it evvvvvvvvvery game simply because it's the easiest for them. They disregard the special features of a map or spawning positions or their matchup, they're just on that narrow path. But that's not SC2 fault, it's the players fault for not exploring more and simply being content with doing X (which may be a good strategy but it doesn't mean that there aren't better out there).
Lack of proper counters to MMM ball means you're not penalized in any way for spamming one type of unit. (okay, three.)
Rock paper scissors was meant to stop the spam of one single unit because then you'd be stopped by your opponent's counter unit and would need to adapt.
Even psionic storm isn't THE counter here, though.
http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/
Try Marrow vs Socke games, the Terran player might even have lost some (haven't watched all) but some were awesome display of MMM power. Heck, he didn't even need medivacs, he just went for pure MM spam and won anyways.
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Yes Doom on paper a Stalker will always lose to a Marauder but that doesn't mean that if you see him go stalkers you just spam marauders and suddenly you've won. If you get Marauders at exactly the right time against his push he doesn't have the time to transition out of it assuming you crushed his attack and can now waltz down into his natural/main. It's true that some units were designed to do more damage to specific units but that alone doesn't make them a "counter". Sure it'll be great to have that unit against unit X but it won't be enough and just to get the unit isn't all that easy...(you know with teching and scouting or scouting and teching depending on your mindset).MMM is a good strategy because it's really basic: it covers all possible threats (air and ground), it's relatively cheap and it's very mobile. If you saw SC1 you also had gigantic marine balls with medics. But just because it's good doesn't mean it's awesome, imbalanced, unbeatable or the only good thing out there.
It's just too universal, thus boring, because the game doesn't penalize me for overusing it. I can spam those all the way with my opponent switching strats and still win a game. And after a year of MMM, everyone will puke like in WC3 when Nightelf does DH BM talons in NE vs ORC matchup. And sure he does - every game
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It's not cookie cutters that emerge it will be different openings with different goals. Doom there is no cookie-cutter build, there can't be because there isn't a build that's good against EVERYTHING. You have builds that will win against opponents who do a), struggle against opponents who do b) and struggle heavily or most likely lose to opponents who do c).
Right now it seems like it will follow WC3. In SC2, I just spam MMM against every protoss and zerg (mirrors are different story), and I don't need to fear about my build because the same fast barracks-orbital command-mule spam works every game.
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AHA!!So you do admit that upgrades are the shizzle. And no matter what you say Doom marines will still die pretty fast you can focus fire as much as you want but if your units drop like flies there won't be much to do the dps. And yeah collosi do crazy dps since they usually hit 5+ targets it's what they're designed for (not to mention their ridicolous range). Target fireing isn't as easy to do efficiently if you don't want your units to just run towards target B and get slaughtered by everything else on their way.
I only fear colossi when they are walled by 2487502837502 zealots. The mere fact that I engage in small battles are the time so the numbers are never overwhelming means my marauders can reach colossi easily tho, and because of that, kill them faster than you say "imbalanced"
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On paper. No plan survives contact with the enemy. If I tech I will have the tech advantage. If I chose right that should even out our game. Assume that I rushed for Banshees. My super fast 2 cloacked banshees anihilate your marauder ball with its little marine back up (just as an example). I regain map controle and depending on what's going on I'm save to exspand aswell or I kill your exspansion off. It's not "something like that".
I spam orbital command every game - since I expanded I have two of them - so cloak is not a problem Against MMM, there is no "killer" unit. If my marines aren't enough, I'll withdraw my army using super stim speed while making more marines from 2 reactored barracks. In a minute I will have 20 marines more or so, should be enough.
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I don't get your complaining about the build orders. If you wall of with a supply depot and a racks your 1 marine laughs in the face of the 10 zerglings. Sure if you have a build it should be safe against a few other standard openings of your opponents, if it isn't it's just a bad build. And there is plenty of room for teching within that. Your opponent can't go everything at once so you just have to either force him to either go X or respond to him going Y. I really don't think you've played/watched enough.
It's more of a SC1 complaint - there was a period when I played that game where you were zergling rushed EVERY game. And only a very specific build would save you from getting your butt handed to you. So, every time you saw zerg, you were sure that mass zerglings will come in minute x and you NEED x, y, z to defend in correct order and place, else you die.
SC2 uses similar mechanics, so it may as well end up like that too.
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1. Every RTS is about building timing and what units you get. Of course it is.
1.5 Micro and Macro~
In such a mass, there is no room for micro. My fingers cry when I control mass 50hp units that die in a milisecond all that warcraft 3 practice of saving every unit goes to the garbage bin. SC2 is ALL about macro. When I see pro gamers sending units to harass workers, and then forgetting about them (they idle on a cliff or get killed by a single counterunit), I wonder where the heck is micro.
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2. "or you were getting rushed and defeated" lol? You're saying that if you don't do X you WILL GET RUSHED. Dude that's not what's happening. Not to mention that your opponent would have to decide to rush you.
IF he doesn't, he may lose. If he rushes me while I'm unprepared, he will win. So, rushing me - if such a rush like zergling rush in SC1 is discovered - would be a natural choice. Meaning I would need to defend with exactly an anti-rush build. Every game. Which is BORING. Made me quit SC1.
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That's all good and dandy for you Doom but it doesn't mean it's inbalanced. What league do you play? It doesn't really matter but sooner or later you will face a protoss who will storm you to death, a zerg with Broodlords, or a player that's good with Collosi, or Baneling Bomber Overlords, or what not there are plenty of different ways to kill MMM. The idea of a Strategy game isn't to force you to get a lot of different units but the units that work the best together. You simply don't see the uses of other units to your MMM ball. Ghosts are the **** against Protoss emp = a TON of shields gone and no forcefields and storms that otherwise RAPE your MMM ball and it's so freakin sweet because you already have the Tech! So you're complaining about the fact that these unit work so good together? MMM+G is 4 different units out of maybe 15 and you'll need all 3 tech structures. That's already pretty huge. You make it sound so plain but it's actually really complex.
Well, if the game allows me to win every matchup on every map with just 4 same units, there is something really wrong. I've played gold but I'm done atm with SC2, I probably won't even buy it until situation changes and SOMETHING is done with
a) MMM
b) ultralisks
giving me a hint that balance team knows something about their own game. Especially ultralisks are a disgrace.
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Come on Doom... you can't be serious. Show me a player that can kite a sieged Tank. And as I already stated the Ultra isn't a great unit but it rapes Mech. It has a very narrow application (for now) that's true but if you use it correctly (with creep and semi-decent placement) they will demolish any mech army. You can't kite an Ultra on creep just in case your tanks weren't siged. Just to show you how great Ultras can be (against Mech) LiquidTLO vs Cola ZvT. He spreads the creep and gets a flank of and 8 Ultras demolish a superior army (part to at 5:30 if you're impatient). Nothing kills mech units or buildings as fast as an Ultra.
I was talking about kiting ultras, obviously
Besides, I won with mass workers in WC3 a few times for fun. Does it mean mass worker is a potent strategy?
Nah, the player was simply better, or he managed to find a great situation to use those ultras. Normally they fail badly because marauders RAPE them before they even get close. And if they do... stim+kite or just plain run because you've already done damage and can safely regroup/heal. If you are good you may spread your army, micro the one that ultralisks go for, attack with the other.
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And yeah you're right Standards will emerge I never argued that, but a Standard does not equal cookie-cutter build.
Well... if its done every game... against every race, like grunt raider in WC3... you may as well call it cookie-cutter
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 14, 2010 11:13 AM |
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I finished Fallout: NV. It sucks.
Mechanics wise.
The companions are walking tanks. Give them good armor and creatures bar deathclaws will just bounce off them on very hard over and over again. Gunfire does nearly nothing to them and they regenerate health after combat. On non-hardcore, they can't die, too. Lol. Getting one is EZmode.
The VATS is too good. It's not turn-based combat, because there is no "enemies" turn. it's basically bullet time with auto aim. since headshot deals double damage... yeah, you get the picture.
And some guns are just a joke. Too strong! Literally. with 20% CC sniper rifles automatically score a critical hit. Talk about murder. Headshot with sniper rifles kill all creatures except cazadors and deathclaws with one hit - and the latter by two. Geez, what a "challenge".
Combine those three together and you have a shoot fest with an immortal tank taking hits in front of you. Oh, the tank, given decent weapon, can murder a whole team of cazadors alone, too.
As a cherry on top of the pie, we have stealth hit crits. When the weapon is silenced, the enemies have no clue about what just popped the head of their mate standing 1 feet away from them. They either ignore the fact that someone's brains just hit them in the face entirely, or go to quick and erratic patrol mode consisting of running back and forth a few seconds to go to "casual" mode again. And you just repeat your shot with silenced sniper rifle. If you are bored to, since you can just charge, pump their butts full of lead and go away singing happy songs.
At least the world feels fall-outish. The difficulty? On Very Hard, there is none. Pretty much from start to finish.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Darkshadow
Legendary Hero
Cerise Princess
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posted November 14, 2010 11:59 AM |
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Why bother with companions? Enclave Power Armour + YCS186 or Tesla Beaton=You don't have to worry about anything ever again.
Btw, you should try no armour unarmed run on very hard
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted November 14, 2010 12:23 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 13:44, 14 Nov 2010.
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Luck plays a huge role in the game anyway because creatures use randomized damage. That one has some uses though, if there are spells that cause creatures to do max or min damage (and we obviously have those). It gives some strategic value of casting a correct spell at the correct time... but... yeah, it has no value when you don't have the spell.
HoMM5: Based on luck almost entirely. If it wasn't for the custom made ToH maps the game would drown in the pit of snowiness ages ago. Those maps fixed it, but the core mechanics are horrible.
Doom, First let me say thanks for taking the time to write this out. I've not thought near that far about 'battle balance' etc. The discussion that has followed has definitely shown me how my definition of balance needs a re-define in HoMM More like "Beginning Balance" (map start). Anyway....a reduced scope since mine is hardly complete.
I cannot comment on any game but HoMM. Since H6 is still in the works (We hope) and possibly open to change yet. Could you provide your thought's on what to do about "Luck"?
Luck's been bugging me and now far more after you made the connection of the i.e."ranges of damage" that in essense are a factor of luck. I don't like having 'any' modifiers available anymore. Why have it a skill? Morale for that matter too?
I have had a Knight and took morale and luck since I already had the annointed Light magic and yet; come up on an enemy that is just as good or superior...without the skills?...all from the gimmes of the game. <IMO> Why even be a Knight? Clearly the Dev.s wanted this to be a big part of gameplay because if you go random; bonus-sites pop up everywhere. Bash? Why would that not be a 'training skill' and not Luck and better triggered w/ Soldier's luck?
I don't have to tell you what luck does when it hits those Arcane archers...they can become Titans.
How can this <imo> weakness in gameplay be improved? Since damage is luck m/l. It seems an endless circle with different causes to the same efect.
edit= Changed range to damage as it should have been.
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"Do your own research"
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