Starcraft 2 Game Balances

I was thinking about how hard it would be to balance stuff.

Think about all the parameters of the units in starcraft.

You have:

movement speed
hit points
armor
shields (protoss)
attack range
attack speed
attack damage
splash
attack stream (this count as attack speed?)(like collusus)
movement over height levels
and then the hardest of all all of the different unit abilities



Think about the massive amount of work that is needed.

If you change one unit that can throw the entire balance of not only that faction but the two other faction's counter to that unit!!

Then you have to remember that each unit has to have a few different units that can counter it easily and some that it easily beats!

So really, when making a RTS game from scratch (or close enough with just a few returning units from SC1) you would have to take your time and move with systematic changes and see how they effect the entire balance of the game.

Can anyone think of other parameters of units that I missed?

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

size...imagine 100 extra small hydralisk ,marines,immortals ect.

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

cost of the unit (if it costs to little or to much)
build time
what building that unit is in (if you build 1 unit and the other player has to spend ages going through the techtree to get the counter, but then you can counter with a unit thats in the same building as the first unit, then tahts imbalanced)

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

unit type as well,such as zerglings being ground units...what if i gave em wings and made them air units.

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Your original list (minus "attack stream", which, as you suggested, could be considered in "attack speed"):
-movement speed
-hit points
-armor
-shields (protoss)
-attack range
-attack speed
-attack damage
-splash
-movement over height levels
-unit abilities

Gold:
-size (physical)
-build time
-building prerequisites/tech level

WHAT!:
-unit type

Adding to your list:
-attack type (concussive, normal, explosive)
-unit type, extended (combinations of small/med/large "size", biological, mechanical, hovering, air, ground, etc. that effect unit interactions)
-maintenance requirements (Psi/Control/Supply)
-rate of regeneration (Protoss/Zerg, because shields, at least seem to recharge at different rates for different units now)
-upgrade rate (amount of bonus per level of upgrade)
-upgrade cost (cost per upgrade, although these are usually pretty uniform)
-number of weapons (some units can "attack" multiple times per cycle, others use different weapons for air/ground)
-unit AI (workers and unarmed units automatically run when idle and are attacked, combat units engage)

And these are just the parameters they choose to utilize. Balance is scary stuff.

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

-Energy for abilities (maybe the units will have different kinds of energies, and not just the 200 (upgrade to 250) all the units had in sc1
-Energy regeneration
-Line of sight

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Very good stuff you guys, I can't believe all that slipped my mind!

So imagine how much work it is was to even get that gameplay video to work as good as it did!

Then you have to consider you don't want two of a unit on one faction that has the exact same role and or abilities!

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

heyyy i said size! lol. might as well add. Movement type slow,medium and fast you know.

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Does anyone wanna try and make a database of the known units and stuff we saw from the gameplay trailer? The only problem is we don't know what was upgraded, huh...

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Great idea PsiGlaive!!
you can start the database in a new topic and i can sticky it

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Or we make a sort of a website that we can acces through an button. And all the problems with stuff we don't know... we can add them later.. starcraft will have to come out one day

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

It's a bit early for stickying topics of known units, because we're not even sure what units will be in the game and which current units will stay. That and balancing issues.

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

No, but if we post what we know then we have less new people posting the same topics over and over.

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Should we make a separate section for it?

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Thread is made here:

http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/index.php?topic=253.0

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

You forgot about damage type

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Hello. this will be my first post on the forum, and I'd like to discuss about the game balances Blizzard plans to introduce in Starcraft 2.

On the previous starcraft, I noticed a fair gameplay among the three sides of the game having their advantages and disadvantages and unique strategies they could apply in the battlefield. however, after the release of the expansion, Brood War, the game balance declined, with the Protoss side having a unique advantage over the two others. While all three sides are able to produce two new units, the Protoss Dark Templars can be merged to create a new unit (Dark Archon) giving them a total of 3 new units. this small Protoss advantage shouldn't be a problem if only their Dark Archons are not allowed to use its "mind control" ability to acquire worker units like SCVs, and Drones. This gives Protoss players a chance to build Terran and Zerg units in addition to their own units, which could effectively enable them to outnumber their opponents. A tightly balanced gameplay is essential to make the game enjoyable to play.

When I watched the Starcraft 2 game play video which is BTW available for download from their official site, Aside from the superb improvement of the game graphics, I noticed some interesting new units like the collosus (reminds me of the film war of the worlds) with innovative abilities which add up to the game's excitement, But in the part where Siege Tanks are supposed to fire at enemy zealots, I noticed a sharp reduction of their firing speed (rate of fire) which if compared to the first game there is a noticable change, I know both games are totally different, but the level of the siege tank's firing rate from the previous game also adds to its effectiveness in the game.

Lets hope Blizzard will make extensive efforts to make the game firmly balanced as what they promised us

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

If you've ever played a team game, and started with multiple races, you notice that, while you can have all three races at once, it comes at a cost. While you're spending on two or three races worth of tech, you enemy could be spending the same minerals on units and expansions. In a regular game, for a Protoss player to pull off using another race requires a similar tradeoff in resources, the advantage only comes if all of the players are just sitting around waiting to max out.

Also, more units is not the same as a greater advantage. The individual units added to the other races combined are about equal to the added Protoss units combined. The Medic and Lurker are each more useful than any one of the Protoss expansion units.

And as blueblob said, the first demo was a Protoss "feature," showing off the new Protoss units. Expect future Zerg and Terran features to whittle away at any current Protoss advantages.

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

Hey, I thought I would start this poll because I haven't seen anything like it. Every blizzard RTS, especially Starcraft, starts out with usually one race being unfairly overpowered, usually due to one specific unit exploit. This poll is purely speculative but what do you expect will be the race that unbalances the game when it is first released?

 

Re: Starcarft 2 Game Balances

i say zerg cuz they are allready overpowered