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BlizzCon 2010: Sci-fi RTS designers and balancers delve into the process behind honing gameplay; Battle.net Marketplace not before Heart of the Swarm.
Who was there: Starcraft II design director Dustin Browder was again joined by associate game balance designers David Kim and Matt Cooper, as well as multiplayer systems designer Josh Menke.
What they talked about: In what could be considered a continuation of yesterday’s “Secrets of the Masters” panel, Blizzard’s Starcraft II design and balance team returned to the stage to talk about what goes into honing multiplayer for the popular sci-fi real-time strategy title.
To accomplish the daunting task, Blizzard relies on a number of tools, including community feedback, pro feedback, tournaments, and statistics, as well as a prototyping program called “Make Combat”. Browder emphasized that taken individually, these tools would be insufficient for properly balancing the game. However, taken together, they provide a comprehensive look at many of the different facets that can impact game balance.
The first step toward tuning the game, the team said, is player feedback. Since the community is made up of hundreds of thousands of players, playing millions of games, they are able to really put the game through its paces. Plus, community can inspire productive debate about strategies and counters. The drawback with community input, though, is that the loudest voices tend to come to the fore.
Pro feedback is also useful, primarily because they know the game very, very well. As such, they often offer in-depth critical feedback after truly studying the game. Unfortunately, this feedback often only takes into account a single race, since nearly all pros only focus on the Terran, Zerg, or Protoss factions. Also, it’s difficult to tell whether a pro’s victory is as the result of skill or imbalance.
Tournaments are also a useful balancing tool, in that competitive play tends to expose cracks in the game. After all, if there is a weakness in the game, the pros will exploit it to win. However, the sample size is small in these scenarios, and it’s also difficult to tell the reason for a defeat, due to variables ranging from preparation of players to whether the competitors were playing at the top of their game or not.
The more traditional spread sheet route of balancing is also employed by Blizzard. The team noted that its incredibly helpful to lay out all the different numbers side by side in a spread sheet, as it helps them analyze build times and the cost of units very quickly. However, spread sheets don’t account for a large number of variables, including unit pathing, terrain, and strategies.
One tool that Blizzard thought would turn into the be all, end all form of game balancing was called Make Combat. With it, the team could simulate battles very quickly to see how certain changes would impact the tides of war. As it takes place in-game, it accounts for pathing and movement, as well as other intangibles not captured by spread sheets such as unit size.
However, the problem with the tool is that real-life scenarios typically never play out the way they do in these pitched battles, and it fails to take into account player strategy. In the end, while helpful, the tool creates a false sense of security for the team, they said.
The Blizzard team then broke down current win/loss ratios for one-on-one matches on Battle.net. In Terran vs. Zerg games, the humans hold an edge of 51 percent to 49 percent. Protoss hold a slight advantage of Terran, 53 percent to 47 percent. Lastly, Protoss also outdo Zerg 51 percent of the time.
These numbers, the team notes, are misleading. After all, Battle.net’s matchmaking functionality aims to accurately match players by skill, so the fact that the stats are even can be misleading in terms of future game balance.
As for future developments, the team said that it feels there is some imbalance in the Protoss vs Terran matchup, which they plan to address. They also feel that Terran marines and marauders may gain a bit too much of an advantage from the Stimpack ability at its current levels. Lastly, they said they are also looking to possibly tweak the Protoss’ psi storm.
As one bit of news from today’s session, Browder also briefly addressed the Battle.net’s Marketplace. First detailed at BlizzCon 2009, the Marketplace would allow Starcraft II players to sell their custom creations through Battle.net. According to Browder, though, players shouldn’t hold their breath for this feature to arrive, saying that it is unlikely to be available before the launch of Starcraft II’s second chapter, Heart of the Swarm, which may arrive in mid-2012.
Quote: “Every one of these tools have failed us at some critical point.”–Dustin Browder, on the importance of using all of Blizzard’s balancing tools together.
Takeaway: Even the most minute of changes can dramatically impact the way Starcraft II plays, creating ripple effects that extend to one-versus-one pro matches to three-vs-three exhibitions between friends. As such, the team has to very carefully weigh the implications of a change before implementing it, and then reacting to the outcome.
Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
“Blizzard balances Starcraft II” was posted by Tom Magrino on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 16:46:52 -0700 -
BlizzCon 2010: Sci-fi RTS designers and balancers delve into the process behind honing gameplay; Battle.net Marketplace not before Heart of the Swarm.
Who was there: Starcraft II design director Dustin Browder was again joined by associate game balance designers David Kim and Matt Cooper, as well as multiplayer systems designer Josh Menke.
What they talked about: In what could be considered a continuation of yesterday’s “Secrets of the Masters” panel, Blizzard’s Starcraft II design and balance team returned to the stage to talk about what goes into honing multiplayer for the popular sci-fi real-time strategy title.
To accomplish the daunting task, Blizzard relies on a number of tools, including community feedback, pro feedback, tournaments, and statistics, as well as a prototyping program called “Make Combat.” Browder emphasized that taken individually, these tools would be insufficient for properly balancing the game. However, taken together, they provide a comprehensive look at many of the different facets that can impact game balance.
The first step toward tuning the game, the team said, is player feedback. Since the community is made up of hundreds of thousands of players, playing millions of games, they are able to really put the game through its paces. Plus, community can inspire productive debate about strategies and counters. The drawback with community input, though, is that the loudest voices tend to come to the fore.
Pro feedback is also useful, primarily because they know the game very, very well. As such, they often offer in-depth critical feedback after truly studying the game. Unfortunately, this feedback often only takes into account a single race, since nearly all pros only focus on the Terran, Zerg, or Protoss factions. Also, it’s difficult to tell whether a pro’s victory is as the result of skill or imbalance.
Tournaments are also a useful balancing tool, in that competitive play tends to expose cracks in the game. After all, if there is a weakness in the game, the pros will exploit it to win. However, the sample size is small in these scenarios, and it’s also difficult to tell the reason for a defeat, due to variables ranging from preparation of players to whether the competitors were playing at the top of their game or not.
The more traditional spreadsheet route of balancing is also employed by Blizzard. The team members noted that it’s incredibly helpful to lay out all the different numbers side by side in a spreadsheet, as it helps them analyze build times and the cost of units very quickly. However, spreadsheets don’t account for a large number of variables, including unit pathing, terrain, and strategies.
One tool that Blizzard thought would turn into the be-all, end-all form of game balancing was called Make Combat. With it, the team could simulate battles very quickly to see how certain changes would impact the tides of war. As it takes place in-game, it accounts for pathing and movement, as well as other intangibles not captured by spreadsheets, such as unit size.
However, the problem with the tool is that real-life scenarios typically never play out the way they do in these pitched battles, and it fails to take into account player strategy. In the end, while helpful, the tool creates a false sense of security for the team, they said.
The Blizzard team then broke down current win/loss ratios for one-on-one matches on Battle.net. In Terran vs. Zerg games, the humans hold an edge of 51 percent to 49 percent. Protoss hold a slight advantage of Terran, 53 percent to 47 percent. Lastly, Protoss also outdo Zerg 51 percent of the time.
These numbers, the team notes, are misleading. After all, Battle.net’s matchmaking functionality aims to accurately match players by skill, so the fact that the stats are even can be misleading in terms of future game balance.
As for future developments, the team members said that they feel there is some imbalance in the Protoss vs. Terran matchup, which they plan to address. They also feel that Terran marines and marauders may gain a bit too much of an advantage from the Stimpack ability at its current levels. Lastly, they said they are also looking to possibly tweak the Protoss’ psi storm.
As one bit of news from today’s session, Browder also briefly addressed the Battle.net’s Marketplace. First detailed at BlizzCon 2009, the Marketplace would allow Starcraft II players to sell their custom creations through Battle.net. According to Browder, though, players shouldn’t hold their breath for this feature to arrive, saying that it is unlikely to be available before the launch of Starcraft II’s second chapter, Heart of the Swarm, which may arrive in mid-2012.
Quote: “Every one of these tools have failed us at some critical point.”–Dustin Browder, on the importance of using all of Blizzard’s balancing tools together.
Takeaway: Even the most minute of changes can dramatically impact the way Starcraft II plays, creating ripple effects that extend to one-versus-one pro matches to three-versus-three exhibitions between friends. As such, the team has to very carefully weigh the implications of a change before implementing it and then react to the outcome.
Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
“Blizzard balances Starcraft II” was posted by Tom Magrino on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 16:46:52 -0700 -
BlizzCon 2010: Blizzard’s dev team goes into the nuts and bolts of crafting its celestial action role-playing game.
Who was there: Jay Wilson, game director of Diablo III, was joined by Kevin Martens (lead content designer), Josh Tallman (concept artist), Peet Cooper (senior environment artist), Jason Bender (senior systems designer), Jill Harrington (senior technical artist), Steve Shimizu (lead gameplay programmer), Christian Lichtner (art director), and Michael Nicholson (senior user interface artist).
What they said: The BlizzCon 2010 panel served as a breakdown of Blizzard’s methodology in designing all aspects of Diablo III. One of the more interesting topics came from what the development team learned from Diablo II. More specifically, something that bothered Blizzard about Diablo II was the introductory conversation that set the scene for the story. At a little over a minute, it was simply too long and prevented players from getting into the game itself. Ultimately, this went against Blizzard’s policy of action-based storytelling. It wants the player to be able to experience aspects of the story without drawn-out expository sequences that interrupt the flow of the game.
The end result of this is a game that tries to tell a story in multiple ways, some more direct than others. For example, a level can tell a story based on its finer details, whereas interacting with non-player characters during a dungeon sequence creates opportunities for smaller bits of story.
What’s more interesting is the addition of optional story elements in the form of lore books, which players can choose to ignore completely or they can track down every single one, depending on what they want out of the story. When used, these lore books play an audio file narrated by the character they’re associated with, but the key is that the player can still fight and do other things while it’s playing.
The panel then transitioned into some visual design elements surrounding the siege of Bastion–a fortification being attacked by the forces of hell. The concept team originally thought of a battleship when coming up with a structure capable of defending itself. As such, the outside portions of Bastion look similar to that of a ship, with a lot of sharp angles forged in iron, ballista perched on the walls, and objects that look like anchors but serve as anti-siege weapons.
Conversely, the inside is meant to look a little warmer and lived in, as if soldiers are there prepping for battle. The end result is the use of more wood and less iron for a generally softer but well-worn look. All of these visual elements then combine together to tell a story that players can fill in on their own.
From there, the discussion moved toward game design elements, specifically treasure distribution and environmental interaction. Not surprisingly, Blizzard wants to make sure barrels, chests, and anything else that contains loot are all placed in logical places and given context. For example, a player is more likely to find a treasure chest in something like a library where people store things than in something like a stable.
Treasure is one easy way to interact with the world around the player, but Blizzard knows that people just like being able to smash various things, whether they’re barrels, walls, or some kind of device. But the team also stressed how objects in the environment can tell a story with expressly doing so, citing the torture racks in the Hall of Agony as a major example.
Eventually, the subject of loot and customization popped up to the delight of the Diablo fans in the audience. First, the team stressed how important customization is for Diablo III, and armor is reflective of that. Players will be able to customize the color of their armor by securing dyes found throughout the world, some of which will be incredibly rare. Likewise, the team revealed that there will be 14 levels of gems (and six types), which can be found in the world, but anything past radiant has to be made by the jeweler.
And speaking of the jeweler, the panel revealed some inspiration for the artisans, which includes the jeweler, the mystic, and the blacksmith. The existence of the jeweler is in direct response to people not willing to part with their gems in Diablo II for fear that they could use them in a better-socketed item later. The jeweler can remove gems from any weapon for a small fee. Meanwhile, the mystic can craft wands, identify items, and even enchant some equipment. The previously revealed blacksmith can add sockets to items, as well as repair them. All of the artisans level up as a player’s character does, and this is reflected in their respective store fronts.
There was also quite a bit of discussion about Diablo III’s monsters, and how they die is ultimately more important than how they live. Members of the team explained that if monsters aren’t fun to fight, then the player ultimately isn’t enjoying the game. As such, enemies are designed in such a way that they can be difficult to combat, but that difficulty springs from not making effective use of abilities as opposed to just being completely cheap.
The team also stressed how important death animations are, as they generally deliver a sense of satisfaction for the player. There was a funny moment where a movie revealed how people don’t generally pay attention to various animation states of creatures before engaging them in combat, so Blizzard has to find other means to give enemies personality, such as spawning animations, when they’re not fighting.
Takeaway: It’s really interesting to get some insight into why and how Blizzard approached Diablo III’s design. What’s clear is that the team is trying to make a cohesive world that not only gives context to everything in it, but also makes the game fun to play. The byproduct seems to be a game that focuses on action but manages to tell an engrossing story through its finer details.
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“Diablo III design disassembled” was posted by Giancarlo Varanini on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 15:24:45 -0700 -
BlizzCon 2010: Blizzard shows off mods built by members of the Starcraft development team, including ones inspired by Left 4 Dead and Defense of the Ancients.
Who was there: Matt Morris (lead level designer on Starcraft II) was joined by Richard Khoo (senior level designer), Jason Huck (Starcraft II level designer), Matt Gotcher (Starcraft II level designer), and Justin Kalinchuch (data specialist).
What they talked about: The entire focus of the panel was Starcraft II mods developed by Blizzard employees and produced entirely with the Starcraft II editor. Morris started the panel by essentially pointing out that each of the mods on display Blizzcon showcase a fundamental aspect of the editor, whether it’s the actual gameplay mechanics or finer details such as the user interface. Morris went over some of the basic principles involved in making these mods, including things like fun factor. Morris said that fun factor comes first because it’s what drives the game. He went onto say that making something too complicated dilutes the fun and can turn off people attempting to play a custom map or mod for the first time.
Along those same lines, he stressed creating something that’s conceptually easy to learn. If the player’s been fumbling around for three to four minutes and they’re already losing then there’s a good chance you’ve lost that player. He cited tower defense games as a concept that’s easy for a new player to understand and quickly figure out. Morris concluded by saying that feedback is incredibly important and that if you’re a map or mod maker then you need to seek others out to get feedback on your project because it can make a major difference.
Richard Khoo then started speaking about Left 2 Die–the Left 4 Dead-inspired mod he developed. Much of the basis for the mod came from the campaign mission where players expand during the day and then defend their base from zerg-infected humans at night. Khoo said he was able to focus on a certain fun factor because so many people said they enjoyed that mission as well as just being able to kill zombies. He then noted how the different personalities of the zombies permeate Left 4 Dead’s gameplay mechanics, and as such, wanted to take a similar approach with his mod.
Much like Morris, Khoo stressed the need for mod designers to focus on the new player experience, stating that too many custom games are too difficult to play and normal users don’t necessarily have the same patience he has. He then said designers should go the extra mile and include things like loading screen tips or even give some hints in the dialog.
Next up was Jason Huck and his mod Aiur Chef, which is more than just a play on the Iron Chef TV show’s name. In fact, the mod actually requires players to collect ingredients (using their characters) for recipes so that they can create specific dishes. It’s a competitive game that supports up to eight players and features three rounds of play. Interestingly, Huck said that the inspiration for this mod came from when he happened to find some fruit art assets in the Starcraft editor.
After Huck, Matt Gotcher took some time to talk about Blizzard DOTA, which is based on the very popular Defense of the Ancients mod created for Warcraft III. Gotcher said he took the base idea and then asked, ’Wouldn’t it be cool if you could play as an iconic Blizzard character?’ Blizzard DOTA features up to 12 heroes so far, and Gotcher made special mention of the character select screen that was built entirely using the dialog trigger system in the editor. He also added that a bunch of people helping out on the project and that the feedback–both positive and negative’was instrumental in its design.
Finally, Justin Kalinchuch spoke about combining art assets with programming work through the actor data feature. He cited an example from Left 2 Die where they were using original Starcraft II assets, specifically the infected, but they were able to make them do different things. Another example was taking a standard protoss unit, but changing the data in such a way that made it possible for players to control its movement using keyboard keys as opposed to just clicking a point on the map and making it move in that direction.
Kalinchuch also explained that designers can do really simple things through the actor data feature to make certain aspects of their games standout. One example he showed was changing the tint on a unit and having it cycle to indicate that it’s capable of doing something different than other units. He also demonstrated effects via the missile mover system, which allows designers to mess around with the physics of projectiles.
The Takeaway: This entire session was a demonstration of what mod makers can and should do. The major points were to make things as simple as possible to ensure that designers don’t lose their audience within the first few minutes. Additionally, the discussion really showed a lot of flexibility with the Starcraft editor and it seems that Blizzard really wants the community to fill in the content gaps between official expansions.
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“Starcraft II: Custom Maps and Editor Panel” was posted by Giancarlo Varanini on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 13:39:41 -0700 -
Probably.
Blizzard will not release the second game in the StarCraft II trilogy, Heat of the Swarm, until after 2011 probably.
That’s according to lead producer Chris Sigaty, who offered the titbit during a story question and answer panel at BlizzCon, reported by IGN,
Sigaty’s comments tally with those of Battle.net project director Greg Canessa, who hinted earlier this month that Heart of the Swarm was scheduled for release in early 2012.
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Computer says no.
Platinum Games’ Vanquish launched in Europe yesterday to a range of mostly positive reviews, including a glowing 9/10 score from Eurogamer. However, comments from a lukewarm Game Informer write-up stating that Vanquish could be completed in under four hours have raised alarm for many players, along with incredulity from Platinum Games’ writer JP Kellams.
In an age where games are still expensive enough to be considered investments rather than impulse buys, does Vanquish offer enough to warrant its price-tag? Digital Foundry decided to put this to the test. During the creation of our Face-Off coverage, I captured our entire playthrough of the game on Xbox 360 – a mammoth 1.29TB of lossless 720p60 game footage, and subsequent to the feature’s completion I rounded off my playthrough of the PlayStation 3 game.
While Vanquish maintains its own in-game timers that measure progress as you move from level to level, by stitching together all of the captures into one enormous video, we can time exactly how long it took to complete the game. The result? Eight hours, 47 minutes. However, my completion stats were rather poor. I died many, many times: 54 to be precise, although admittedly many of them were down to one particular boss with an extremely annoying one-touch kill attack. Regardless, the completion stats made it clear that there was still much to learn in mastering this game… which is perhaps the whole point.
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Also: featured replays of top matches.
Blizzard has announced that it’s adding two new high-level leagues to the StarCraft II multiplayer ladder system, introducing seasons, and adding an option to view featured replays of top matches.
Battle.net project director Greg Canessa revealed the new features at BlizzCon in Anaheim, near Los Angeles, today.
Master league will be comprised of the top five per cent of players in the current top league, Diamond – the top 1 to 2 per cent of all StarCraft II players.
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Plus StarJeweled, Left 2 Die and Aiur Chef.
Blizzard has shown four internally-developed mods for StarCraft II at BlizzCon, all of which it will be releasing for free download: Blizzard DOTA, StarJeweled, Left 2 Die and Aiur Chef.
The biggest project of the four, Blizzard DOTA, is “further out” from release according to StarCraft II producer Chris Sigaty. A variation on the ever-popular Defence of the Ancients, which began life as a Warcraft III mod, it’s a competitive map for single hero units – in this case, drawn from across Blizzard’s franchises (“a bit like Super Smash Bros”).
In the BlizzCon demo, Raynor, Kerrigan and Zeratul from StarCraft fight alongside Sylvanas and Muradin from Warcraft and comedy hybrid characters like Grunty (a baby Murloc in a space marine suit) and Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftan, the mascot of Blizzard’s house band.
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This week saw a bevy of content, including a Dan Houser Q&A, Fallout: New Vegas review, and all the latest from BlizzCon 2010.
The past week has seen a cornucopia of news, previews, videos, and reviews at GameSpot. The latter category has been particularly productive, with write-ups of such high-profile games as DJ Hero 2, Vanquish, and Fallout: New Vegas surfacing. The newsdesk was busy with preemptive game reveals, sales milestones, and the latest from BlizzCon 2010. Previews also had a big week, having had the rare opportunity to chat with Rockstar Games creative guru Dan Houser.
THE LAST WORD: OCTOBER 18-22
NEW RELEASES
Shippin’ Out: Oct 17-23: Fallout: New Vegas, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, DJ Hero 2, EA Sports MMA
Costume Quest invades PSN
Super Meat Boy cuts up XBLA this week
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest travels to Virtual Console
Big in Japan Oct. 11-17: Kirby’s Epic YarnNEWS
It was a mixed bag of news this week, with headlines ranging from prospective new games to hardware watersheds. The latter happened when Sony announced the PlayStation Move had shipped 1 million units during its first 30 days on the market in the western hemisphere. The former happened not once, but thrice, with Remedy revealing a new AAA Xbox 360 game, Wipeout developer Sony Liverpool unmasking a new racer, and EA confirming a new Command & Conquer title is en route. Other highlights include Fallout: New Vegas patches, Kinect marketing budgets, Medal of Honor sales, and the latest from BlizzCon 2010 in Anaheim, California.
Diablo III’s demon hunter unmasked at BlizzCon 2010 opening ceremony
Blizzard goes Demon Hunting
New Command & Conquer incoming
Kinect launching with 17 titles in Nov.
30 million Steam-ed
First Fallout: New Vegas DLC to be Xbox 360-exclusive
Microsoft to spend $500M on Kinect marketing – Report
Wii gets Netflix native app
Remedy working on new ‘AAA’ Xbox 360 project
Medal of Honor tops 1.5M worldwide, gets free DLC
Assassin’s Creed creative director founding THQ Montreal studio
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood sets Ubisoft preorder record
Civilization V Mac-bound this holiday
Halo: Reach #1 US game SKU of 2010 – NPD
Fallout: New Vegas patches arrive
Medal of Honor scores $100 million in 5 days
Sony Move-s 1 million in the Americas
Mario anniversary bundles, Wii Remote Plus coming Nov.
Q&A: Gaming hits the Supreme CourtPREVIEWS
This week, the GameSpot Previews team continued its coverage of Red Dead Redemption’s Undead Nightmare expansion. In a Q&A with Rockstar’s Dan Houser, the publisher’s VP of creative said, “We wanted the game world to feel like a 1970’s movie set in which by day people shot a serious revisionist Western, and by night some maniacs invaded the studio and filmed a somewhat insane horror movie using the same sets and cast.” The team also posted a new preview for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood detailing the first few hours of the game. And in Nintendo news, there are new previews for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn and Disney’s Epic Mickey.
Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare Q&A
Diablo III Hands-On – The Demon Hunter
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Hands-On – The First Hours
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn Hands-On
Disney’s Epic Mickey Updated Hands-OnREVIEWS
It’s been a great week on the reviews front, as a number of the editors’ most anticipated games arrived both at the office and on store shelves. We also welcomed a new reviewer to the in-house team, Carolyn Petit, who after freelancing for us for about two years earned her stripes with Wednesday’s review of Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes. Next week, you can look forward to reviews of Fable III, Rock Band 3, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, The Sims 3 on consoles, and Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, to name but a few. For right now, though, here’s what we’ve been working on this past week, just in case you missed anything:
Arcania: Gothic 4 (X360) Review
Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland
(PS3) Review
Costume Quest (PS3, X360) Review
DJ Hero 2 (X360) Review
EA Sports MMA (PS3, X360) Review
Fallout: New Vegas (PS3, X360) Review
Fallout: New Vegas (PC) Review
FIFA Soccer 11 (Wii) Review
John Daly’s ProStroke Golf (PS3) Review
Lionheart: Kings’ Crusade (PC) Review
Lost Planet 2 (PC) Review
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes (PS3, Wii) Review
Super Meat Boy (X360) Review
Vanquish (PS3, X360) Review
VIDEO
The GameSpot Live team had a busy week in reviews. Kevin VanOrd gave you the lowdown on Vanquish and Fallout: New Vegas, Justin Calvert grappled with EA Sports MMA, Tom Mc Shea splattered his way through Super Meat Boy, and Giancarlo Varanini played hide-and-seek with Costume Quest. GameSpot also got to sit down with Daniel Sussman from Harmonix for an episode of Behind the Games. Today on the Spot featured games like God of War: Ghost of Sparta, The Sims 3 on consoles, Sonic Free Riders on Kinect, and more! To round out the week, Justin Calvert and Sophia Tong brought you Now Playing with the first hour of Fable III.
Vanquish Video Review
Fallout: New Vegas Video Review
Super Meat Boy Video Review
EA Sports MMA Video Review
Costume Quest Video Review
GameSpot Presents: Now Playing – Fable III
Rock Band 3 Pro Mode: Guitar Controllers Video
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“The Last Word: October 18-22” was posted by Tor Thorsen on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:02:51 -0700 -
BlizzCon 2010: Sci-fi RTS game director Dustin Browder joined by game balance designers David Kim and Matt Cooper to talk strategy.
Who was there: StarCraft II game director Dustin Browder was joined by Battle.net project director Greg Canessa and associate game balance designers David Kim and Matt Cooper.
What they talked about: Few games are as synonymous with competitive gaming as Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft franchise. And while most of the planet isn’t likely to be able to go toe-to-toe with the wunderkinds of South Korea, where Starcraft tournaments are a national pastime, a handful of Blizzard designers were on hand to give a few pro tips to the work-a-day multiplayer gamer in a BlizzCon 2010 panel titled “Starcraft II: Secrets of the Masters.”
Canessa kicked off the panel by first explaining a bit about how Battle.net’s matchmaking and ladder system for Starcraft II works. First, he noted that the matchmaking system is an adaptive, learning one, where the more matches a player undertakes, the more accurate the matchmaking system becomes. He also noted that a player’s win-loss ratio isn’t particularly important; instead, a player’s skill versus the opponent’s skill is what matters.
Blizzard’s Battle.net chief also noted that skill tracking is per match type, so a one-vs.-one match operates separately than a two-vs.-two game. That way, he said, players of a high skill rank shouldn’t be deterred from playing with their less-skilled friends, as it won’t impact their individual rank.
Canessa also made a couple of announcements, saying that Starcraft II would soon feature a master league, which would be a level above the current top-tier, diamond. The top 1-2 percent of players in any given region will be invited to this league. A second new tier, the grandmaster league, will also be introduced, where only the top 200 players in a region will be invited to compete.
The discussion then turned to just how the top-tier players became as good at Starcraft II as they are. The Blizzard team noted that these players all compete in ladder play like everyone else, but they also spar with one another in custom games. Practice makes perfect, and the team noted that the pro players often spend more than 12 hours a day honing their skills, trying new strategies, and watching film.
The team also noted that psychology is a major element of top-tier play, and they offered a few words from the best Starcraft II competitors. “Don’t stress over losses. Use them to learn your faults. No pain, no gain,” commented Select, with QXC adding, “If you’re not attacking you’re probably losing.”
Watching top players compete is also an excellent way to learn, but the team noted that their strategies are not the end all be all. After all, the average gamer isn’t a pro, and the people they’re competing against aren’t top players either. As such, it’s a good idea to gain inspiration from the pros, and then adapt the strategies for their level.
As for the nitty-gritty basics of improving, the team noted that it’s important to build lots of workers to grow a substantial economy of resources. With 80 workers, for example, a gamer’s army can be that much bigger, thanks to all of the resources those units are bringing in. Adding to that, poverty is a good thing in Starcraft II, and players shouldn’t horde their resources.
More advanced economy strategy involves figuring out in advance a strategy for attack, and then determining how integral vespene gas is to that equation. Expansion is also important. If the strategy involves lots of fast units, spreading out is a good idea. However, if a player builds a slow-moving army, it may be best to keep expansion close to the home base.
Shifting to combat, the team emphasized the importance of terrain. Choke points, walls, and high ground are all integral to success, as they can help a smaller army route a much larger army. Flanking the enemy, whereby a group of units are attacked from multiple sides, can help win a battle.
The team also cautioned against directly controlling units during a battle. If it’s an important battle, the team highly advocated it, noting that it can make all the difference in winning that individual encounter. However, participating in that battle instead of just letting units attack can greatly impact a player’s ability to continue growing their army and producing new units, which can ultimately lose them the war.
Quote: “Poverty is a good thing in Starcraft II.”–David Kim, on resource management.
Takeaway: Not to state the obvious, but Starcraft II strategy runs deep. The easiest way to gain a step on the competition seems to be to pump out resource-gathering units, as well as making sure that battles are undertaken with choke points and other terrain in mind. As for the rest, it’s best to just go online and watch what the pros are doing.
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“How to play Starcraft II like a pro” was posted by Tom Magrino on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:02:04 -0700
