And to anyone saying that 'NS1' vets just want NS1 with new graphics; that is entirely not true, and so far from the truth that it's insulting. I am tired of again and again, seeing the same excuse raised for valid criticism of the game. What I want, and most others here, is for a game that has the strategic depth, skill progression and intense team play that at least comes close to the original. If the mechanics or abilities/technologies are different to accomplish that, I highly doubt that anyone would be upset. I hope that things continue to improve with regards to a lot of the mechanics and abilities, and I think we have all seen how things have worked previously, but I at least feel slightly optimistic about what’s coming (eventually )
I'd like to believe that, but the constant refrain from unhappy NS1 vets is to criticize the major differences between NS1 and NS2 and propose solutions that basically revert the undesired mechanics back to how they worked in NS1. Tweadle's post is a great example as its basically a list of the major, non-graphical changes between NS1 and NS2. You may not intend it, but the practical effect is that many NS1 vets are proposing an "NS1 with better graphics" type of game.
ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
If the devs had remade ns1 but with better graphics, would most of these new ns2 players decide not to play ?
All I see is people defending poorly implemented features for the sake of it and basically would be happy with anything the devs dish up to them. If the devs decided tomorrow to make dramatic changes such that ns2 would more resemble ns1 you'd all just go along with it and bow before the almighty devs and their wisdom.
It's kind of sad when people such as tweadle or xDragon put in time and effort to explain why certain mechanics or features are bad only to be responded with low IQ responses such as "well i like it coz its cool" or even worse being told to shut up and stop whining. Believe it or not charlie has changed his mind before and I am fairly certain that they do read these forums. Unfortunately, since release we've seen an influx of generally clueless and deranged posters who keep ruining any higher level discussion of mechanics such that most of the more clued-in posters no longer bother due to utter frustration.
The reason me and so many others suggest ideas to fix problems in NS2 that are from NS1, is because we have had 7+ years of experience with it, and know the ins and outs of the mechanic, how it works/doesnt work, and why its good. Developing new mechanics takes creativity, dedication and above all time, time that NS2 really doesnt have to be experimenting with new or unproven mechanics. If you have a list of 10 possible fixes for a problem, 1 having been used for 7 plus years in a very similar game, and 9 that are complete unknowns, which one are you going to logically select?
I don't have any problem with people suggesting changes to the game. It's the way people decry in such a strong manner how ineptly put together the game is as it currently stand which I have a problem with. NS1 and beta NS2 enthusiasts should realise that while they have a great perspective on the first game and reams of experience in the build up to release, they don't have an outsiders perspective of a wholly new game, which is what it is.
The game as it stands is NOT ****, which is the impression some people seem to be trying to put across (which bemuses me).
This game is the same. I love it, but I wish it'd be better.
It makes me all kinds of sad when people point out valid concerns, only to be drown out by a sea of overly-attached-fans.
Of course, the people pointing out concerns sometimes have awful suggestions, but thats ok. They're not game designers PAID to make the game better.
If raising the concerns allows the devs to take notice, and find a solution that's an improvement on the current situation, well, the original posters with conerns, will have done everyone a great service, by allowing this great game to be even better!
Thus, my suggestions to all, please do not shoot down opinions solely on the basis that the devs made the game, and the devs are perfect, thus the game is perfect.
I think it's important to seperate the concerns from the suggestions.
The poster's (anyone, no one specifically) might have the worst ideas ever, but if he/she/it raises a valid concern, let's focus on that!
Tweadle's post is a great example as its basically a list of the major, non-graphical changes between NS1 and NS2. You may not intend it, but the practical effect is that many NS1 vets are proposing an "NS1 with better graphics" type of game.
Could you try to sell some of the changes to me with a good sales pitch? I can see the res model working better than the worst case scenario of NS1, but after that it gets a bit harder already.
What kind of new and interesting stuff I'm supposed to explore and embrace in NS2?
Defend NS2 by its own merits, not by downplaying arguments with catchphrases.
To be clear, I'm not even trying to argue against NS2 here, I'm just bothered by the way you're defending it.
UWE's frequent patches are usually 90% about balancing. All the post-release updates are mostly new content, game-play adjustments with few technical innovation. They even blogged about their http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/ns2-balance-and-feedback-process/
And to anyone saying that 'NS1' vets just want NS1 with new graphics; that is entirely not true, and so far from the truth that it's insulting. I am tired of again and again, seeing the same excuse raised for valid criticism of the game. What I want, and most others here, is for a game that has the strategic depth, skill progression and intense team play that at least comes close to the original. If the mechanics or abilities/technologies are different to accomplish that, I highly doubt that anyone would be upset. I hope that things continue to improve with regards to a lot of the mechanics and abilities, and I think we have all seen how things have worked previously, but I at least feel slightly optimistic about what’s coming (eventually )
I'd like to believe that, but the constant refrain from unhappy NS1 vets is to criticize the major differences between NS1 and NS2 and propose solutions that basically revert the undesired mechanics back to how they worked in NS1. Tweadle's post is a great example as its basically a list of the major, non-graphical changes between NS1 and NS2. You may not intend it, but the practical effect is that many NS1 vets are proposing an "NS1 with better graphics" type of game.
I'm german so let's go with a car-analogy.
Let's say there is this car company who up to now has one car model available. It's quite a good car with very good driving properties and good milage. I've been driving it for years now.
Now they say for whatever reason "Let's make a new model... not just a refresh of the old one but a really new thing"
Ok.
So they make this new model which actually is quite a good car.
BUT it looks basically the same, only the paint is more shiny.
It drives the same except for it being not as much fun driving as the old one.
The milage is far worse than with the old one.
The engine and transmission are not as good as with the old model.
So you buy this new car as well and think it's a good car. And you know what? Your are right! It's good.
BUT the old one was the same except for the paintjob but with far superior engine and driving characteristics(and better sound syastem).
So wouldn't it be justified for me to ask the company why they rebuilt basically the same car but made it worse in the progress?
So wouldn't it be justified for me to ask the company why they rebuilt basically the same car but made it worse in the progress?
I'm german as well, so I try to comment on the car-analogy.
I'd assume because the company, creative as they are, had several ideas in their heads for some time - people call it vision, though doctor throughout the world are still unsure whether vision are healthy or not. Anyhow, designing cars and building them is their job and a part of their life and like every person they seek for pleasure, excitement. They don't want to do the same old procedure all over again but want to try out something new. But every new approach and idea you try to realize - pretty much everytime when you try do something you've so far never done before - prospects are that you might fail. You might not fail hard but still, things might not work out fine at first. Usually the customer won't notice it because it is a long way from the blueprint to the retail-product. The shorter the difference, the more likely that the product lacks a bit of fine tuning. Now we know that UWE is quite a little team and NS2 might have needed a bit more time but then again, it's not broken and did not fail.
What it needs is time. Why? Of course they could've just re-done NS1 with better graphics but then again, it's always easy to walk on well-known paths but after it might not be very interesting after a while. Sooner or later you start looking for a new experience, as a player but as a developer as well, and you simply don't want to re-do what you've already done. I think the new elements of NS2 have great potential. Speaking of a car, I think it is very solid, in fact, very good - it just needs more fine tuning. With that it might not be better than the previous model, it might just be as good but different and I think that's what NS2 tries to do. It isn't NS1:Revolution or NS1:Evolution or whatsoever, it is NS2. It is a different game and I, who've liked NS1 very much, don't mind the devs looking for new shores. They're creative people and doing the ol' good game just once more would, I think, feel a bit dull in fact as NS1 isn't that old either and there hasn't been any other project inbetween.
Speaking of your analogy, that's like you spend several years in designing and building a car just to do it once again a few years later, just a bit more polished and good looking. Rather dull, eh. And me, as a customer, I would ask myself why I should buy the car new if it's bascially the same as the old one, just better looking, I mean - why not getting creative? O'course, you might fail but then again, UWE didn't fail. They did a good job and what's left to do is some polishing and lifting. I like the new concepts, though I admit, something should be done about the implementation.
Just some random notes from someone who stumbled onto the forums and knows jack about NS2.
I play Magic and Street Fighter, and used to be a Starcraft fan until Blizzard ruined the game. Some observations:
Blizzard balances Starcraft by spreadsheet and statistics, and seems to be clueless. The game has several deep issues like the way the economy works on a fundamental level, and the lack of meaningful terrain leading all maps to be the same because only choke points matter. The rest could as well be flat ground.
People don't experience spreadsheets. People experience individual games and gut feelings. Those may eventually converge to what the spreadsheet says, but a fun game that makes sense trumps statistical balance every day of the week.
Games have certain fundamental things to them - for example, RTSes are about troop and infrastructure production and movement. I like to take as an example a sub-game of Starcraft. Let's call it MarineCraft. Marinecraft has Command Centers, Barracks, Gas Extractors, perhaps even the Factory and Starport. Unit-wise, we have the common worker, the Marine with a gun, a dropship and perhaps a Siege Tank that deals AoE damage.
It's a very, very simple game, but when you play it it lays done some emergent ground rules about things like troop movement - cutting off reinforcements, defender's advantage and so on, and the tension between economy, tech and army as broad strategic foci. (NS2 seems to lack the last one - can anyone clarify if there's an equivalent?). These emergent rules create basic expectations for how the game is supposed to work - who has the advantage and what should theoretically work against some line of play and so on.
There was a time in SC2's life that Terran players struggled a lot against both Zerg and Protoss. Most were very, very frustrated with Terran vs. Protoss simply because it didn't make sense. Terran was disadvantaged against both factions at the time, but playing vs. Zerg was apparently tolerable because Zerg didn't grossly violate the basic rules of Marinecraft. Protoss, on the other hand, did. They had all manner of silliness like frontloaded production and no travel times that frankly kill Marinecraft, bury it and spit on it's grave.
There has been some talk about economy. How gross is the disparity, and what is it's nature? In SC2, for example, the Zerg economy has the ability to grow drastically faster than the Terran one because the Zerg are able to use all their production slots to make workers. This ability is completely broken if left unchecked. It results in Terran having to pressure Zerg early lest the economy run rampant and Terran be drowned by sheer numbers. It used to be that Zerg had to invest production slots into units if the opponent did some light pressure. The mere act of making the units made the pressure worthless in that it realistically couldn't do damage, but resulted in a situation where both sides made army, econ and teched at the same time, instead of Terran doing all of that a little while Zerg maxed out on econ and then just went nuts, so the game continued.
People celebrated the matchup as the best and most glorious thing in the game - varied, relatively balanced and all around interesting. The Zerg had a distinct advantage late game, but they had to fight through a very even early and midgame to reach it, and it was reached late. Terran lategame was much weaker, but Terran had time to compensate and adequately prepare. Many great battles were fought against the Zerg leviathan.
Then Blizzard did something utterly ridiculous - they made the Queen, Zerg's only unit that doesn't require larvae, their universal production slots - better. The Queens also happened to be production structures and provide vision via creep. Suddenly, Zerg didn't have to spend larvae to defend early game pressure. They just made Queens and Drones, and were safe from anything but the most severe all-in attack. Naturally, the economy went nuts and Zerg had more resources in the midgame, completely killing Terran midgame potential. This allowed them to tech faster because less army was needed. 17-minute Hive timings being greedy were replaced by 12-minute ones being utterly safe. Given Terran's need to have lots of expensive infrastructure to try holding their own in the late game, you can imagine what happened.
Also, some people genuinely like difficulty - they love stuff being hard to do. The one fault in these people is that they typically want everything to be difficult to do for others, too, who may not enjoy it. Starcraft example, Terran having to micro more than the Zerg, all other things being equal. Zerg may not have needed micro, but they used to need to outplay the Terran opponent in those other fields to win, and the same was true of a decently-microing Terran player. If he didn't outplay the Zerg player, he wouldn't win. In Magic, some decks are just a lot harder to play than others while not being necessarily more powerful. But there's an enjoyment to doing that, and I like the possibility of doing that while not disadvantaging myself. Same with Street Fighter. There's a ton of characters, some weaker, some stronger. Some harder to play, some easier. As long as there's choice, it's fine.
Which leads to the next points - imbalance makes itself felt very differently in different kinds of games. A 6-4 matchup in a fighting game is no big deal - you feel it, sure, but it's not torture. 6-4 in Starcraft can feel completely hopeless in a way the SF match never could. It's more imperative to get SC2 with few factions and matchups balanced relatively tightly than Street Fighter with 40 characters and less severe-feeling imbalance. One reason this is the case is because SF doesn't have much of an economy and has reads - few options are universally right, and there's not much of a slippery slope. Numbers can't drown you most of the time.
So, given that NS2 is basically RTS + a shooter where player skill matters a ton: get the economy and RTS-level Marinecraft equivalent about right, and the rest follows to a relatively great extent. If you feel you have to outplay the opponent a lot and success isn't logically rewarded - say the Terran push-out that gets deflected by Zerg's impenetrable-for-free defences despite an attack being the logical response to greedy play. It makes you just not care. If, on the other hand, it's harder for you to push and harass, but the rewards for success are at least the same as for the opponent, the game is skewed but makes sense. You can actually try stuff. You get properly rewarded for proper action. This is good. If the econ is fine but higher lifeforms are monsters, for example, it makes decent flavour sense and means they can still be individually outplayed. If the numbers mean outengaging the Alien players means jack, well...
Also, are there tooltips with hints or whatnot? Something that would encourage Marines to play aggro for example could help shift the turtly attitude on pubs a bit.
Lastly, how about freeing up the matchups? There's a certain attraction to "being the Alien player" or "the great Marine team" that gets diluted a bit by comp games being both sides as both factions. I'd want to see Alien and Marine mirrors. It'd also allow more specialization and thus higher skill.
Finally, all the egg trap stuff sounds horrible from a fun perspective. Don't know the specifics, buts spawn camping sucks. Fixfixfix.
Also I think that the attempts to get rid of / minimize stalemates are causing the game to be predictable and prevent most matches from being long and rewarding, which I miss in NS2. A complete stalemate might be terrible, but it can be extremely fun to turtle a while, just to wait for the right moment of weakness and then fight back room by room and turn the match in your favor after some hard fights. Even if you're losing after having total dominance for a while, you will know that the other team earned it by actually delivering a good fight and if you're adult, you'll respect that instead of rage about just having lost a match.
I think that getting rid of stalemates equals total lack of match dynamics and surprises, equals predictable matches after a few minutes, equals boredom. It can be so much better to win if you actually earn it by playing together as a team and push coordinated through the enemy defense. In the current state of the game, there is very few possibility of defense at all, if you're being pushed back. You can't afford to defend yourself and sort of bleed out quickly, resulting in short, one-directional matches. The more I think of this, the more I think that it ruins the game entirely and that this problem deserves its own thread.
The reason me and so many others suggest ideas to fix problems in NS2 that are from NS1, is because we have had 7+ years of experience with it, and know the ins and outs of the mechanic, how it works/doesnt work, and why its good. Developing new mechanics takes creativity, dedication and above all time, time that NS2 really doesnt have to be experimenting with new or unproven mechanics. If you have a list of 10 possible fixes for a problem, 1 having been used for 7 plus years in a very similar game, and 9 that are complete unknowns, which one are you going to logically select?
NS1 was a great game, but it wasn't flawless, and many of the major changes in NS2 were made to address those flaws. I'll certainly admit that the new features haven't solved all of them, but they were legitimate attempts to solve problems NS1 never fully fixed.
Could you try to sell some of the changes to me with a good sales pitch? I can see the res model working better than the worst case scenario of NS1, but after that it gets a bit harder already.
What kind of new and interesting stuff I'm supposed to explore and embrace in NS2?
Defend NS2 by its own merits, not by downplaying arguments with catchphrases.
To be clear, I'm not even trying to argue against NS2 here, I'm just bothered by the way you're defending it.
Fair enough. There have been tons of threads arguing the changes ad naseum such that I wasn't going to rehash all of the debates (unless its truly desired). I view many of the changes as trying to fix the atrocious learning curve and general unfriendliness to newbs that was common in NS1. Unfortunately, that may seem unnecessary or even counterproductive (since these changes can have negative side-effects) for NS1 vets who need no primer to NS1/2 gameplay.
ScardyBob: I feel like they've had some success with this. Reducing learning, but also a lot of the changes don't make it easier to play and just make the game demonstrable worse.
The PRES/TRES economy is a good example of a change that worked out pretty well and made the game easier for new players. You'll note that competitive players rarely complain about this. It comes up some times but not often. This change was a success
The addition of the alien commander, makes it a little easier to play gorge, and leads to fewer games where you lose because 'no one went gorge.' Unfortunately it kind of guts the gorge, and we have games were new players try and alien comm. I'd call this one a toss up.
Infestation slows down the alien expansion, which is needed now that the aliens use a comm to drop structures. Unfortunately it doesn't add a lot of strategic depth, but it doesn't remove much depth either. The cysts are newb bait for the most part, as destroying them rarely has a significant strategic or tactical value. I think infestation is actually a pretty reasonable change.
Removing bunny hop, and added wall jump. In this case you've removed a really wonderful, but counter intuitive mechanic, bunny hopping, and you've replaced it with a stilted and still fairly counter intuitive mechanic. New players have no way of knowing wall jumping gives them a speed boost, and the correct way to use it involves complicated timing and aiming. I think this isn't the best change ever.
Power Nodes are just newb bait. In most situations it is actually optimum to go after specific marine structure rather than a power node. They end up slowing marine expansion a lot, adding nothing to the game at high levels, distracting new players from real objectives and reducing the viability and creativity of marine play. To me, this seems like a no brainer, just removing power nodes will be a big buff to marines and reduce the complexity of NS2.
Comments
All I see is people defending poorly implemented features for the sake of it and basically would be happy with anything the devs dish up to them. If the devs decided tomorrow to make dramatic changes such that ns2 would more resemble ns1 you'd all just go along with it and bow before the almighty devs and their wisdom.
It's kind of sad when people such as tweadle or xDragon put in time and effort to explain why certain mechanics or features are bad only to be responded with low IQ responses such as "well i like it coz its cool" or even worse being told to shut up and stop whining. Believe it or not charlie has changed his mind before and I am fairly certain that they do read these forums. Unfortunately, since release we've seen an influx of generally clueless and deranged posters who keep ruining any higher level discussion of mechanics such that most of the more clued-in posters no longer bother due to utter frustration.
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/128119/suggestion-on-improving-the-perceived-game-balance#latest
The game as it stands is NOT ****, which is the impression some people seem to be trying to put across (which bemuses me).
This game is the same. I love it, but I wish it'd be better.
It makes me all kinds of sad when people point out valid concerns, only to be drown out by a sea of overly-attached-fans.
Of course, the people pointing out concerns sometimes have awful suggestions, but thats ok. They're not game designers PAID to make the game better.
If raising the concerns allows the devs to take notice, and find a solution that's an improvement on the current situation, well, the original posters with conerns, will have done everyone a great service, by allowing this great game to be even better!
Thus, my suggestions to all, please do not shoot down opinions solely on the basis that the devs made the game, and the devs are perfect, thus the game is perfect.
I think it's important to seperate the concerns from the suggestions.
The poster's (anyone, no one specifically) might have the worst ideas ever, but if he/she/it raises a valid concern, let's focus on that!
Could you try to sell some of the changes to me with a good sales pitch? I can see the res model working better than the worst case scenario of NS1, but after that it gets a bit harder already.
What kind of new and interesting stuff I'm supposed to explore and embrace in NS2?
Defend NS2 by its own merits, not by downplaying arguments with catchphrases.
To be clear, I'm not even trying to argue against NS2 here, I'm just bothered by the way you're defending it.
I'm german so let's go with a car-analogy.
Let's say there is this car company who up to now has one car model available. It's quite a good car with very good driving properties and good milage. I've been driving it for years now.
Now they say for whatever reason "Let's make a new model... not just a refresh of the old one but a really new thing"
Ok.
So they make this new model which actually is quite a good car.
BUT it looks basically the same, only the paint is more shiny.
It drives the same except for it being not as much fun driving as the old one.
The milage is far worse than with the old one.
The engine and transmission are not as good as with the old model.
So you buy this new car as well and think it's a good car. And you know what? Your are right! It's good.
BUT the old one was the same except for the paintjob but with far superior engine and driving characteristics(and better sound syastem).
So wouldn't it be justified for me to ask the company why they rebuilt basically the same car but made it worse in the progress?
I'm german as well, so I try to comment on the car-analogy.
I'd assume because the company, creative as they are, had several ideas in their heads for some time - people call it vision, though doctor throughout the world are still unsure whether vision are healthy or not. Anyhow, designing cars and building them is their job and a part of their life and like every person they seek for pleasure, excitement. They don't want to do the same old procedure all over again but want to try out something new. But every new approach and idea you try to realize - pretty much everytime when you try do something you've so far never done before - prospects are that you might fail. You might not fail hard but still, things might not work out fine at first. Usually the customer won't notice it because it is a long way from the blueprint to the retail-product. The shorter the difference, the more likely that the product lacks a bit of fine tuning. Now we know that UWE is quite a little team and NS2 might have needed a bit more time but then again, it's not broken and did not fail.
What it needs is time. Why? Of course they could've just re-done NS1 with better graphics but then again, it's always easy to walk on well-known paths but after it might not be very interesting after a while. Sooner or later you start looking for a new experience, as a player but as a developer as well, and you simply don't want to re-do what you've already done. I think the new elements of NS2 have great potential. Speaking of a car, I think it is very solid, in fact, very good - it just needs more fine tuning. With that it might not be better than the previous model, it might just be as good but different and I think that's what NS2 tries to do. It isn't NS1:Revolution or NS1:Evolution or whatsoever, it is NS2. It is a different game and I, who've liked NS1 very much, don't mind the devs looking for new shores. They're creative people and doing the ol' good game just once more would, I think, feel a bit dull in fact as NS1 isn't that old either and there hasn't been any other project inbetween.
Speaking of your analogy, that's like you spend several years in designing and building a car just to do it once again a few years later, just a bit more polished and good looking. Rather dull, eh. And me, as a customer, I would ask myself why I should buy the car new if it's bascially the same as the old one, just better looking, I mean - why not getting creative? O'course, you might fail but then again, UWE didn't fail. They did a good job and what's left to do is some polishing and lifting. I like the new concepts, though I admit, something should be done about the implementation.
I play Magic and Street Fighter, and used to be a Starcraft fan until Blizzard ruined the game. Some observations:
Blizzard balances Starcraft by spreadsheet and statistics, and seems to be clueless. The game has several deep issues like the way the economy works on a fundamental level, and the lack of meaningful terrain leading all maps to be the same because only choke points matter. The rest could as well be flat ground.
People don't experience spreadsheets. People experience individual games and gut feelings. Those may eventually converge to what the spreadsheet says, but a fun game that makes sense trumps statistical balance every day of the week.
Games have certain fundamental things to them - for example, RTSes are about troop and infrastructure production and movement. I like to take as an example a sub-game of Starcraft. Let's call it MarineCraft. Marinecraft has Command Centers, Barracks, Gas Extractors, perhaps even the Factory and Starport. Unit-wise, we have the common worker, the Marine with a gun, a dropship and perhaps a Siege Tank that deals AoE damage.
It's a very, very simple game, but when you play it it lays done some emergent ground rules about things like troop movement - cutting off reinforcements, defender's advantage and so on, and the tension between economy, tech and army as broad strategic foci. (NS2 seems to lack the last one - can anyone clarify if there's an equivalent?). These emergent rules create basic expectations for how the game is supposed to work - who has the advantage and what should theoretically work against some line of play and so on.
There was a time in SC2's life that Terran players struggled a lot against both Zerg and Protoss. Most were very, very frustrated with Terran vs. Protoss simply because it didn't make sense. Terran was disadvantaged against both factions at the time, but playing vs. Zerg was apparently tolerable because Zerg didn't grossly violate the basic rules of Marinecraft. Protoss, on the other hand, did. They had all manner of silliness like frontloaded production and no travel times that frankly kill Marinecraft, bury it and spit on it's grave.
There has been some talk about economy. How gross is the disparity, and what is it's nature? In SC2, for example, the Zerg economy has the ability to grow drastically faster than the Terran one because the Zerg are able to use all their production slots to make workers. This ability is completely broken if left unchecked. It results in Terran having to pressure Zerg early lest the economy run rampant and Terran be drowned by sheer numbers. It used to be that Zerg had to invest production slots into units if the opponent did some light pressure. The mere act of making the units made the pressure worthless in that it realistically couldn't do damage, but resulted in a situation where both sides made army, econ and teched at the same time, instead of Terran doing all of that a little while Zerg maxed out on econ and then just went nuts, so the game continued.
People celebrated the matchup as the best and most glorious thing in the game - varied, relatively balanced and all around interesting. The Zerg had a distinct advantage late game, but they had to fight through a very even early and midgame to reach it, and it was reached late. Terran lategame was much weaker, but Terran had time to compensate and adequately prepare. Many great battles were fought against the Zerg leviathan.
Then Blizzard did something utterly ridiculous - they made the Queen, Zerg's only unit that doesn't require larvae, their universal production slots - better. The Queens also happened to be production structures and provide vision via creep. Suddenly, Zerg didn't have to spend larvae to defend early game pressure. They just made Queens and Drones, and were safe from anything but the most severe all-in attack. Naturally, the economy went nuts and Zerg had more resources in the midgame, completely killing Terran midgame potential. This allowed them to tech faster because less army was needed. 17-minute Hive timings being greedy were replaced by 12-minute ones being utterly safe. Given Terran's need to have lots of expensive infrastructure to try holding their own in the late game, you can imagine what happened.
Also, some people genuinely like difficulty - they love stuff being hard to do. The one fault in these people is that they typically want everything to be difficult to do for others, too, who may not enjoy it. Starcraft example, Terran having to micro more than the Zerg, all other things being equal. Zerg may not have needed micro, but they used to need to outplay the Terran opponent in those other fields to win, and the same was true of a decently-microing Terran player. If he didn't outplay the Zerg player, he wouldn't win. In Magic, some decks are just a lot harder to play than others while not being necessarily more powerful. But there's an enjoyment to doing that, and I like the possibility of doing that while not disadvantaging myself. Same with Street Fighter. There's a ton of characters, some weaker, some stronger. Some harder to play, some easier. As long as there's choice, it's fine.
Which leads to the next points - imbalance makes itself felt very differently in different kinds of games. A 6-4 matchup in a fighting game is no big deal - you feel it, sure, but it's not torture. 6-4 in Starcraft can feel completely hopeless in a way the SF match never could. It's more imperative to get SC2 with few factions and matchups balanced relatively tightly than Street Fighter with 40 characters and less severe-feeling imbalance. One reason this is the case is because SF doesn't have much of an economy and has reads - few options are universally right, and there's not much of a slippery slope. Numbers can't drown you most of the time.
So, given that NS2 is basically RTS + a shooter where player skill matters a ton: get the economy and RTS-level Marinecraft equivalent about right, and the rest follows to a relatively great extent. If you feel you have to outplay the opponent a lot and success isn't logically rewarded - say the Terran push-out that gets deflected by Zerg's impenetrable-for-free defences despite an attack being the logical response to greedy play. It makes you just not care. If, on the other hand, it's harder for you to push and harass, but the rewards for success are at least the same as for the opponent, the game is skewed but makes sense. You can actually try stuff. You get properly rewarded for proper action. This is good. If the econ is fine but higher lifeforms are monsters, for example, it makes decent flavour sense and means they can still be individually outplayed. If the numbers mean outengaging the Alien players means jack, well...
Also, are there tooltips with hints or whatnot? Something that would encourage Marines to play aggro for example could help shift the turtly attitude on pubs a bit.
Lastly, how about freeing up the matchups? There's a certain attraction to "being the Alien player" or "the great Marine team" that gets diluted a bit by comp games being both sides as both factions. I'd want to see Alien and Marine mirrors. It'd also allow more specialization and thus higher skill.
Finally, all the egg trap stuff sounds horrible from a fun perspective. Don't know the specifics, buts spawn camping sucks. Fixfixfix.
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I think that getting rid of stalemates equals total lack of match dynamics and surprises, equals predictable matches after a few minutes, equals boredom. It can be so much better to win if you actually earn it by playing together as a team and push coordinated through the enemy defense. In the current state of the game, there is very few possibility of defense at all, if you're being pushed back. You can't afford to defend yourself and sort of bleed out quickly, resulting in short, one-directional matches. The more I think of this, the more I think that it ruins the game entirely and that this problem deserves its own thread.
Fair enough. There have been tons of threads arguing the changes ad naseum such that I wasn't going to rehash all of the debates (unless its truly desired). I view many of the changes as trying to fix the atrocious learning curve and general unfriendliness to newbs that was common in NS1. Unfortunately, that may seem unnecessary or even counterproductive (since these changes can have negative side-effects) for NS1 vets who need no primer to NS1/2 gameplay.
The PRES/TRES economy is a good example of a change that worked out pretty well and made the game easier for new players. You'll note that competitive players rarely complain about this. It comes up some times but not often. This change was a success
The addition of the alien commander, makes it a little easier to play gorge, and leads to fewer games where you lose because 'no one went gorge.' Unfortunately it kind of guts the gorge, and we have games were new players try and alien comm. I'd call this one a toss up.
Infestation slows down the alien expansion, which is needed now that the aliens use a comm to drop structures. Unfortunately it doesn't add a lot of strategic depth, but it doesn't remove much depth either. The cysts are newb bait for the most part, as destroying them rarely has a significant strategic or tactical value. I think infestation is actually a pretty reasonable change.
Removing bunny hop, and added wall jump. In this case you've removed a really wonderful, but counter intuitive mechanic, bunny hopping, and you've replaced it with a stilted and still fairly counter intuitive mechanic. New players have no way of knowing wall jumping gives them a speed boost, and the correct way to use it involves complicated timing and aiming. I think this isn't the best change ever.
Power Nodes are just newb bait. In most situations it is actually optimum to go after specific marine structure rather than a power node. They end up slowing marine expansion a lot, adding nothing to the game at high levels, distracting new players from real objectives and reducing the viability and creativity of marine play. To me, this seems like a no brainer, just removing power nodes will be a big buff to marines and reduce the complexity of NS2.