Serious Balance Changes Suggestions Topic - Page 7

On July 08 2004 03:41 born-to-porn wrote:
Decrease scv hp to 40 or at least 45. Right now they are overpowered for no apparent reason

On July 07 2004 21:51 green-tea. wrote:
I haven't read all the posts in the thread, But I would like to say that there is a difference between being underused and underpowered. Let's face it, We've all been copying stuff from replays scince they came out.
I think that part of people don't use queens/dark archons/ valkyries used is because we don't see them used.(in replays) Then the reason we don't see them used in replays is not certainly because they suck, but simply becasue of personal preference and style. This might sound a bit stupid and incoherent, but in short I think It's simply a lack of orignality That prevents them from being used. I have seen ensnare used to win a game, there was a pvz on about starcraft, where it was used. The only thing I could make a case for buffing would be valks, if they were buffed up a bit, just enough so that a force of valkyries of equivilent cost could compete with carriers.

On July 08 2004 06:17 Yang wrote:
firstly, u guys should make UMS map and test as much things as possible. No patch after test!

On July 08 2004 06:24 STIMEY d okgm fish wrote:
imo everyone should always play maps in UMS and map makers should feel free to put small changes in their map if they dare and those changes can simply be considered part of the map (costs, units you start with, etc.). unfortunately there's zero audience for playing such maps.

On July 07 2004 22:26 tfeign wrote:


I disagree. There IS a difference between underused and underpowered and trust me, the units and spells that I listed falls under BOTH categories.

An instance of an underused strategy is mass reavers. A good example is zealotito. He uses reavers almost all the time vs every race, including pvz. Now you won't see too many good protoss players use reavers all the time, especially in pvz, where reavers are almost non existent. However, they're not used at all in this matchup because of more like personal preference and style. Zealotito has displayed that reavers are still very effective when used right.

The above paragraph displays something that is underused, not underpowered, since I sure don't think that reavers are underpowered.

However, dark archons, queens, scouts, nuke, infested terrans, valkyries and the spells that I listed fall under the underpowered category, not just underused. Top gamers do not use these in any serious game because they are cost-ineffective, and that there is something else better to use.

(Why use Dark Archon when I can just make high templars, why queens when I can get filers, why scout when I can make corsair, etc...)

High templars, defilers, and corsairs are very cost-effective, which is the reason why they are always chosen over the other underpowered units. That's why I suggest these balance changes. Not to make them overpowered, but to make them stronger -- strong enough so that they are balanced, the way they were originally intended to be.

On July 07 2004 22:34 tfeign wrote:


Starcraft is the most balanced in the RTS family, but that has nothing to do with it completely balanced or not. For example, if I say that I'm the smartest person out of all my friends, it doesn't mean that I'm smart, it might be because my friends are all not too intelligent.

That's the case with Starcraft, it's the most balanced RTS because all the other RTS are nowhere near as balanced. However, even though Starcraft is the closest to being a balanced game it doesn't mean that it is completely balanced. There are units and spells that were designed to make players think of using them in a game, but they are way underused because the cost, time, and micro to use them do not justify the effectiveness in which they bring.

Again, I'll just write this up again, a repeat of my first post because I can't understand why some people disagree with it.


Why would you want to see high templars chosen instead of dark archons 99.9% of the time, Why would you want to see corsairs chosen over scouts 99.9% of the time, Why would you want to see defilers chosen over queens 99.9% of the time?

On July 07 2004 23:01 A3iL3r0n wrote:
Ok...,

Queens - Not underpowered, and is adsurdly underused due to player ignorance and/or playing habits as stated by knowledgeable players on this forum. Making the energy cost for broodling 125 would have a devastating effect on the average life span of high temps. Already if you happen to kill 2 or 3 temps with one queen, that's pretty cost effective right there.

Dark Archons - Not underpowered, and if Boxer had played Protoss, it would be widely be considered one of the most art units in the game The only thing that I would consider up for tweaking would be research cost, but c'mon 50 mana for feedback, that's awesome!

Valkyries - Right now, part of their lack of use is that they tend not to fire properly if you have a group of them. You also have to remember that valks are supposed to counter wraiths, scouts, devs and scourge, but not carriers. And in TvZ, vessels counter Zerg air, so there's no need to build valks. So, their main use is in TvT, which I've seen them used in.

Infested Terrans - Their low hp and thus lower chance of detonating successfully is in relation to how devastating a success is. This units was never intended to be a main part of the zerg army anyway, as you have to infest a specific race's command center, and Terran shouldn't be penalized that much by losing a command center by way of giving the enemy another effective unit to use.

Nukes - Same as above, high risk maneuver but a big payoff, although I do think people should probably use nukes more often, it's the current player mindset as with dark archons.

As I re-read these, it occurs to me that most of the so-called balance changes that you want, is really the symptom of people not playing with units enough to become good with them, not the game itself.

On July 07 2004 23:50 tfeign wrote:


Okay, it looks like you missed one of my posts in this thread where I responded to a guy thinking that pvz would be impossible when queens's broodlings cost less energy, so I'll just copy and paste:




"Making queens stronger will NOT make pvz impossible because remember we're making dark archons stronger as well. Dark archon with can counter queens with feedback. Queens counter high templars with spawn broodling. High templars counters defiler (swarm) with storm, etc.

Think of how fun pvz will be when Dark Archons and queens are made stronger so they can become cost-effective. Battles will become even more micro-intensive than the way they are now...."


...Besides storming, toss players will now have to worry about queens, and zerg players have to worry about dark archons. Feedbacks, maelstrom, storm, broodling, ensnare, hallucinations, all coming into play in a battle to see who can utilize them most effectively. I don't know what about you, but I think that would be a ton of fun.

Sadly, the thought above is only a dream because the high templar is the only cost-effective unit out of the 3. You will only see toss players making high templars and no zerg will make queens 99.9% of the time. That mean every pvz, expect high templars and storms. You won't be seeing maelstrom, feedback, broodling any time soon unless some balances can be made.

On July 08 2004 00:28 tfeign wrote:
Saying that protoss players do not need storm to beat zerg is complete ignorance. WTF does sair + reavers strat has anything to do with it? So what? There's a lot of different strategies, but the problem is that some strategies are inferior to others, like dark archons / queens. Buffing them to make them a viable strategy nothing out of reach.

And why the hell would muta rush be ineffective when maelstrom costs less? It'll be as effective, if not less effective, than 2 high templars with storm, which costs roughly the same. Even an archon which doesn't need any research costs will be as effective.

And what are you talking about that zerg cant go hydra when maelstrom costs as much as storm? That's like saying a zerg can't go 3 hatch hydra by risk of losing every single micro battle to high templar storms.

Seriously, how long have you played Starcraft RuGbUg?

On July 08 2004 02:30 WtF.Dondy wrote:
actually, i like the idea of queens having more initial mana AND lowering the spell to 125. this would make queens be usefull alot earlier than around the seventh minute, at least that's when i have them with 150 mana. also browsing the blizzard page (and reading a thread at starcraftgamers) i realized that ensnare actually doesn't help as much as i tought before as it doesn't lower the cooldown rate?

i'm a z player so i might be subjective in the matter of queens (and yes, i tried to use them fairly often but with the high cost of the spells like broodling and the low upcoming it's very very hard. also it requires insane micro imho). the infested cc and the infested terran are only a goodie for the zerg, nothing really serious imho.

it would be nice tough to see queens used EFFECTIVELY, rep anyone?
i've already seen reps, tough the queens were only used to show off

valkyres are actually pretty nice already.

dark archons are probably underused because of their micro intensenes, together with hts. reducing the cost of maelstorm or improving the duration would make them too usefull imho. possibly lowering the cost of the update would be better.

in pvz i find scouts already usefull, at least, i tried them out. a tech build like:
gate (2 zeals), core, stargate(2 sairs, 1 scout) -> overlord hunt to dts worked fine for me, the scout really helped too. i don't know about other match ups tough.

nukes are just as dark archons, underused because of beeing much too micro intense. i tough don't think there's a really good solution to that.

that are just my two bits to that.