Bashiok says Blizzard ok with worthless units

[n00bonicPlague]

Speaking of Dsquid, shouldn't his ban be over soon? Or was it permanent?

[ArcherofAiur]

Archer, you're like a fucking Blizzard Tabloid. Everytime I see your posts, your titles and content are taking Blizzard "news" or posts, and twisting and sensationalizing them to make them seem more sinister and bigger than they are. I used to really respect your opinions and posts. I'd rather hear from DSquid than you these days. How about a little respect and integrity?

?

I really dont get your point. I see what your trying to say. That somehow Blizzard's directive for (the minimal standard of) unit usefullness shouldnt be classified as "worthless". But honestly if you have a better word I am all ears. I honestly want to earn you respect and if you have a better way of phrasing it....


"Bashiok says Blizzard ok with units that are "LOL LOOK HOW MUCH MUNEY I HAV!"" is a bit too long




And where is Dsquid..... i miss him

[SaharaDrac]

?

I really dont get your point. I see what your trying to say. That somehow Blizzard's directive for (the minimal standard of) unit usefullness shouldnt be classified as "worthless". But honestly if you have a better word I am all ears. I honestly want to earn you respect and if you have a better way of phrasing it....


"Bashiok says Blizzard ok with units that are "LOL LOOK HOW MUCH MUNEY I HAV!"" is a bit too long




And where is Dsquid..... i miss him

It's not just this thread, I've been irked by numerous examples of you sensationalizing Blizzard's words and intents, trying to "stir the pot" for no reason, if you will.

[Drake Clawfang]

Well said.

[Sietsh-Tenk]

Archer, you're like a fucking Blizzard Tabloid. Everytime I see your posts, your titles and content are taking Blizzard "news" or posts, and twisting and sensationalizing them to make them seem more sinister and bigger than they are. I used to really respect your opinions and posts. I'd rather hear from DSquid than you these days. How about a little respect and integrity?

It's funny how the SC:L staff always want to avoid the elephant in the room. To name a few recent treads on serious, long-term and fundamental issues:

-The Activision-Blizzard merger and how it might affect Blizzard as a developer in the long run, with specific concerns about the corporate culture CEO Robert Kotick is trying to get off the ground, which is geared towards sequels, cash-cows and a culture of fear. The thread was based on an excellent article with a huge amount of factual back-up, notable the story about Infinity Ward. All a big portion of the SC:L staff had to contribute was "Well it's a company and of course they are supposed to make money, and they haven't done anything massively wrong yet, right?". Which is a great example of missing the point, because not only did the article cite several questionable steps Blizzard has taken in recent years, not in the least monetising a large part of services that should come for free, or would have come in the elder days of Blizzard yore. In addition, the article mostly voiced concerns about the future, which is what a lot of essays are about - otherwise it's called history.

-The threads about the lack of chat channels and cross-realm possibilities due to Battle.net 2.0. Based on concerns of a huge amount of people who had friends on multiple continents, private communities like clans who worried about a lack of ways to communicate on a large scale and organise tournaments, and players who simply liked to be able to chat with others every now and then without getting a gazillion people in their friends list in order to do so. Then there was also the half-our spoken essay of Husky about these issues, which were a damning indictment of the current state of Battle.net, and really made a lot of sense. Finally there was the question-dodging of senior game-developers, from whom all we got were some vague mentioning of the possibility of addressing these issues somewhere in the future. Again, a lot the SC:L staff had to say was "Well don't worry I'm sure they'll do something about in the future, and it's not that bad, right? Don't whine". It really makes no sense, it's a big issue, why should people just have faith if six weeks before release nothing has been done about it? Also, I have a laptop, I live abroad in Asia whereas I'm from Europe, and until recently I had a girlfriend in Australia whom I visited every 2-3 months. How the hell am I supposed to play SC2 without cross-realm play? This makes me seriously consider not to buy the game I have been waiting for thirteen years, and which will probably be the last game I ever buy, anyway.

And now there is this post buy Archer, which provided me with some baffling information, namely that Blizzard doesn't care about the useability of a unit even before the game is released, while in beta-testing phase, which is specifically intended to address balance-issues like these! And what does SaharaDrac come up with? And ad-hominem argument about how Archer is a douche for bringing up information. Then ex-staffer Drake Clawfang, who basically strawmanned Archer earlier in this thread, seconds it.

I understand you guys sometimes want to douse the flames a little bit, but this is too much. I've been on this forum for ages, sometimes contributing, sometimes just absorbing, and though I don't always agree with Archer's points, he is definitely one of the most active members whose contribution often focus on more long-term and fundamental issues with the game or Blizzard as a developer, rather than 'z0mg mauradeers are liek OP'. Most of his threads are well read and responded to extensively, and he usually backs it up with a lot of info.

I respect SC:L immensely, and I have visited this site for some six or seven years now - it remains my main source of SC news. Do keep up the good work. But I find it worrying the staff often want to decide what is worth debating and what isn't. This thread is a case in point, where within two days there are eight pages worth of comments, so it clearly concerns others beside Archer, and a staffer promptly says he sensationalises too much. Not only does it show an unhealthy desire to dictate what people should and shouldn't think, in this case, it doesn't even make sense! Archer opened with a quote and the question:

"What are your thoughts? Do you think a unit like the mothership belongs in multiplayer as opposed to a unit that would see all levels of play like the arbiter?"

Whether or not you agree with his questioning the state of the mothership, or his usage of the Arbiter, an SC1 unit, as a positive reference point, this is in no possible way an inflammatory or overly dramatic opening of the thread. It seems that SaharaDrac let his personal feelings towards Archer, or maybe a sense of jealousy stemming from his prolific usage of TeamLiquid articles as reference, override his reason. I do believe that, while of course the staff consist of individuals, that coloured name implies that somehow what this person is saying is representative of the opinion of SC:L as an entity. And it worries me.

I can imagine this post will be moved to another thread, but I just had to get this off my heart. Sorry for the long OT-comment.

Now, as for the concerns about the mothership, I find this reasoning of Blizzard, if this comment of Bashiok's is representative of Blizzards opinion, completely baffling. I accept the idea that, over the years, some units might turn out to be less useful than others. The Scout and the Ghost of SC:BW come to mind, which I only saw used as counters to massed capital ships. But actually stating ahead of these developments in strategy and the meta-game, which is in a way beyond the control of Blizzard, that you are fine with a unit being redundant even before the game is released, truly boggles the mind.

Not only is Blizzard slacking off hugely if this is their attitude (as with chat channels, for which there is no good reason not implementing), but it also attests of a lack of vision. It seems to me that every unit, at least at the outset of designing the game, should have an envisioned role. Whether this role turns out to be sustainable or not over the years is something Blizzard cannot foresee now, but at least a developer should have the intention of not including redundant units. It's like having a button in the interface that doesn't do anything. It makes no sense. It is beyond me why such a brilliant company, masters of game-balance, should take this approach. I am susceptible to the argument that the Mothership's existence is justified by the Rule of Cool as defined by TV Tropes, but as others said, if this is the only reason for the unit to be in the game, just put in in Single Player only.

As for the actual worth of the Mothership in gameplay, I'm very skeptical. I'm a terran player, and whenever I scout a Mothership, which is usually accompanied by a large contingent of Carriers, I just pump out 10-15 Vikings and keep the numbers around this level if they die, until the Mothership and the Carriers are gone. (I only use MULEs if I lack minerals, because A. why mine more minerals than you need, it only affects your late-game status negatively, and B. seriously, com-sat is such a ridiculously good skill that proper usage of com-sat should almost always enable a win, especially since SC2 is a game of hard counters.)

I can imagine, however, that it's a lot more useful against zerg. But versus terran is absolutely useless, since Vikings can snipe it so easily. If the protoss moves it back, he exposes his Carriers to Viking-sniping, if he keeps it there, it dies. Completely useless in my opinion against anything but zerg, and Blizzard should either scrap it (protoss has the most units as it is, after all), or make it more useful all-round, but I doubt it's possible since there has been such a giant amount of shuffling around abilities that it really seems to be doomed.

Thanks to Archer for posting this, thanks for SC:L for facilitating the debate. Keep it up.

PS: people who regularly read my posts should think I'm schizophrenic by now

[SaharaDrac]

There's a difference between "presenting information" as you put it, and wording things in sensationalist, exaggerated ways just to stir the shit. If you can't see the difference, then that's unfortunate for you.

If you're going to make posts like you are some kind of news source, then you need to have some semblance of neutrality.

If you need it spelled out for you further, A blue poster saying "We don't mind a frivolous unit (on a race that has 1 more unit than all the others, by the way.), as long as we are accounting for it and balancing with it in mind."

ArcherofAiur takes a post like this and the thread title becomes something along the lines of "BLIZZARD OFFICIALLY STATES THAT THEY DONT CARE ABOUT MANY OF THEIR UNITS, DETAILS INSIDE!!!!!!!!111!1!" and it pisses me off. It's happened like 5 times so I called him out on it.

So of course, you come in and start telling me I'm trying to be a thought-controlling Orwellian dictator just because I called the guy on his bullshit title. Hmm... perhaps the thread got so much attention BECAUSE of the exaggerated title? Did you stop to consider that?

Wait, wait...hold on. I just re-read over some more of your blather. Jealousy over TL.net? Where in the name of fucking left field are you getting this stuff from? Talk about over-analyzing a forum post. Wow.

Hold on, hold on, one more...You just opened your post by stating that SC:L is ignoring the big fundamental issues, while not TWO DAYS AGO, we published a seventeen-thousand word article literally and specifically addressing every issue you say we try to shush, and dozens of others!! Before your little fingers start click clacking away, just think about that for a minute or two.

[Triceron]

Bashiok was not making a case statement, he was simply saying useless units can be present if they don't break the game; where fan perception of SC2 should be a game where every unit has use. Bashiok was simply stating the obvious. SC2 can have units with little use as long as it's balanced as a whole. That's not what the fans want to hear, and because of it, it's 'controversial'. Is it really? no. It's simply the truth.

Every unit in the game is situational, and because the game revolves around unit composition and effective counters, there will be many cases when a low tech unit will no longer be effective past a certain point, or times when a high tier unit wouldn't be as effective as cheaper alternatives. It doesn't break the game, so why are we so caught up on fixing what is not broken?

[n00bonicPlague]

The problem is that the developers will try to include a "useless" unit into the balancing act, in some sense forcing use to use it. Just look at the SC2 Ultralisk. It saw little to no use thanks to semi-overlapping units like the Roach and Broodlord. Thus, the devs added an ability to the Infestor and even nerfed a few other zerg units to make the Ultralisk more desirable/useful.

We're worried that something similar will happen with the Mothership — that they will hinder other Protoss units so much that the Mothership will become desired. A parallel issue is that, if and when the Mothership reaches a useful stage, it will no longer be even half of the unit it was meant to be. Just look at it now. People scream that this is SC2 and they don't want Arbiter 2.0, yet that is practically what we now have! Is it too hard to ask for a fresh unit with a fresh model and a fresh start?

[Cheesenium]

Mothership is a crap unit,and it never have the coolness or the fear that a Tiger in CoH or a Relic unit like Land Raider in Dawn of War gives.

Please cut it and make it an upgraded version of Arbiter.

[DemolitionSquid]

I love the Mothership. Its the cherry on top of the chocolate sunday that is SC2.

And by chocolate I mean "2 girls 1 cup."



Also, my two arch-nemeses at each others throats?

Ah, its good to be back