Re: David Kim Blizzcon Interview

Troop — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:26:24 GMT

Good read, thanks.

DarkAstraea:

We are looking into ways of decreasing the size of Thors further, since repairing them is so effective...

LOL. Reminds me of that time we used ALL the resources on that 3v3 map and pretty much all of our bases were destroyed multiple times, and I went out with Thors and SCV's as a last push and we managed to win it. Works really well with BC's too :).

David Kim Blizzcon Interview

DarkAstraea — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 04:46:11 GMT

Here's an interview with David Kim, game balance designer for Starcraft 2 at Blizzcon.

1. Community Feedback
Pros: All players may participate.
Cons: Issues can become exaggerated (opinion swings).

2. Progamer Feedback
Because of the skill level of Korean pros, we try to pay a lot of attention to this. We observe focusing our attention on a specific player. Also, we look at a lot of tournament replays. But the fact that progamers play only one race can be a drawback.

3. Tournaments
Many people tend to focus on the results, but we try to focus on the process (of the game) instead. The fact that FruidDealer won does not necessarily mean Zerg is strong, as the fact there was a high ratio of Protoss doesn't necessarily mean Protoss is strong. We focus on the content of the games. But since there is a range in skill depending on brackets and placement, it's difficult to get accurate [information].

4. Excel Statistics
We record the timings of a specific race and look at the statistics. However, it's hard to see certain game elements such as unit size and micro.

5. Battle Tester
We have a tool that lets us create unit mixes that lets us pit armies of corresponding cost against each other. For example, we can test how a mix of Roaches, Hydras, and Ultras fares against certain Protoss unit combinations. But we cannot know the timings. A Roach/Hydra combo with 5 Roachs or 10 Roaches will have different timings in-game, but we cannot know this with this tool.

6. Statistics by Race/Win:Lose Ratios in Matchups
In North America, we feel that ZvT/ZvP are balanced. Protoss seems to be favored in PvT with a 60% win percentage.

The reason why Korea is so important is the fact that there are a lot of gosu gamers in Korea. Also, strategies tend to be developed first in Korea. Even in beta, Korean zergs were sweeping the floor in ZvP with a 70% win rate, while in NA/Europe, the opposite was true (70% win rate for toss).

When we analyzed the games, we learned that Korean Zergs' strategy was different. They were easily defeating protoss with a spine crawler+mutalisk combo, and this strategy was never used in NA. After 1~2 weeks, NA players started copying the strategy. By the end of the second week, the Win rates became the same as in Korea, and we were able to make our decisions regarding ZvP balance.

ZvP balance is still good. In PvT however, top-tier terrans have a 6% win rate advantage over protoss. We generally don't see a difference within 5% as a balance issue, but 6% is a little bit outside that range. As in the past, Terran may become more powerful once Korean strategies make their way to other regions. We are keeping an eye on it at the moment.

Also, if we look at the case of PvT, we've never before had pros send us such varying feedback. When we asked 5 pros for feedback, MakaPrime said PvT was balanced, whereas 2 others said Protoss could never win, and the remaining 2 thought Terran could never win. Normally, 70-80% of pro gamers give us the same opinion when asked for feedback. This time, the opinions are so varied that we are wondering if it's an inherent issue with TvP.

In the early game, Terran has an advantage with stimpack, micro, and medivac drops, but the late game protoss has a lot of powerful units such as high templars with upgrades casting storm immediately after warping in. The Phoenix+Collossus combo of NEXGenius has also been giving Terrans a hard time.

What we want isn't a game where one side has an advantage in the earlygame and the other in the lategame, but rather a game where both sides have opportunities in both the early and late game. We will continue to balance out these issues as we find them.

Lately we've been working to accuarately analyze balance in TvP. We don't think there is an issue with stimpack, but we are looking into it closely in order to accurately understand the issues at hand.

Q. There are opinions that Carriers and Mothership are not being used often
A. Foreign gosus are making good use of them in PvT. We do not think they are useless. We don't think all units need to be seen at frequently in top-tier play. Even if we see battle cruisers in only 1 match out of 100, we don't think this in itself is the problem. A lot of the focus with StarCraft II is about eSports, but we are making a game for all gamers. But if gosu players come up with new strategies utilizing these units, we expect it would be very fun to watch.

Q. Some people are disappointed at how short the matches are
A. We think this is a problem with the maps. StarCraft 1 (probably typo, means SC2) was developed with to balance the game through the maps. We had match duration for broadcasting in mind, but we made the maps diverse for Ladder play so that a player would, in, say, 10 games, get to play a vareity of games, such as getting rushed early, playing 10 minute games and 40 minute games and so on. I think it would be a good idea for the hosts of the tournaments to make maps of their own. When you're on the ladder, however, you should inevitably get a variety of matches.

Q. Is balance the reason why there are no island maps in SC2?
A. You don't get fun games on island maps. That, and we intentionally included no island maps because it's so early after launch. If there are new units in the expansions that allow island maps to be fun (**to watch, probably) we will release island maps later.

Q. There are a lot of opinions regarding the slow movement speeds of Hydralisks.
A. This was a design choice. If there was a unit that was strong against both air and ground, the other units would inevitably be used less. That is why there was a strong tendency for players to mass hydras in StarCraft 1. We want units with strengths to also have weaknesses. Without being damaged by splash, hydras reign supreme on creep, but their slow speed becomes their weakness off creep.

Q. Do you only pay attention to feedback from within [South Korea]?
A. We take feedback from gosu players everyewhere.

Q. There are opinions that the balance patches (**maybe he means changes) happened too abruptly
A. In this patch, it was just the Roach range getting increased by 1, but we feel that balance has improved. We will be making balance changes with smaller changes in the future.

Q. Do you take progamer feedback on a regular basis?
A. We ask pros for feedback when a few weeks have passed since a patch, we feel the strategies have stabilized, or special situations arise. A while ago, protoss could do a timing push against terran with zealots, sentries, and void rays. We ask pros for feedback when there are issues like this.

Q. Is there a difference between Korean and foreign progamer feedback?
A. Korean players come up with strong, new strategies. There are times when foreign players fall behind, but there is no big difference in opinion worldwide. Also, the feedback from the average player is pretty similar worldwide. Korean players give a lot of feedback regarding Marauders, and so do the foreign players. Same goes for void rays. There is no huge gap at the community level.

Q. There are opinions that the variety in choice of strategies for Terran have decreased due to the recent nerf
A. There were a lot of strategies terrans could use before scouting their opponent. We were planning to decrease the number of possible strategies because we felt they were having a negative effect, and the reaper happened to be problematic in team games so we adjusted the balance with a focus on reapers. In the case of barracks before depot, there were a lot of games that ended before it was even scouted. It didn't happen very often on the pro level, but it was becoming a problem in lower tier play. The main focus is the pro level, but our ultimate goal is for players of all levels to be able to play a fair and balanced game. Barracks first builds were too strong in that regard and created a lot of problems in low level play, which is why we made the adjustments.

Q. Are there any plans to buff terran in the next patch?
A. We are looking at PvT and High Templar's Psionic Storm. It's only been a week after patch, so we are still analyzing how it is affecting gameplay.

Q. Did you schedule the patch to go with GSL?
A. We try to release patches in time for tournaments. Because GSL is the largest, we try to release them in time for GSL. We have plans to create a tournament server unaffected by balance or bugs, but I don't know when it will actually be happening.

Q. Some people say repair is imba
A. We are looking into it, but we haven't made any decisions. We are looking into ways of decreasing the size of Thors further, since repairing them is so effective, or making the AI target repairing scvs with priority in order to kill them more easily. There are no decisions yet, we are keeping on eye on it.

Q. I would like to ask you for your opinions regarding the banshees
A. We're getting a lot of feedback regarding banshees. We don't think it's overpowered at this point in time, and we will make decisions in 1~2 weeks after discussion. However, we've nerfed terran so much that if we do end up nerfing terran, we will do so very carefully. We are trying to avoid nerfing terran if we can.

Q. We are seeing a decrease in cheesy play?
A. We aren't looking to remove cheese. There are cannon rushes and gateway rushes, but we are trying to patch cheeses that are too strong. But again, we are not trying to remove them altogether.

[Rawr]

Starcraft II

Re: David Kim Blizzcon Interview

David Kim Blizzcon Interview