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Starcraft was not designed or balanced to be played at a full 24 fps on today's resource-rich maps. It was designed for 18 fps on sparse islands and other shitty maps. Today, given how far the best players in the world are from the level of tactical depth nearer the theoretical management skillcap, it's apparent that Brood War is one of the very few games you could make an argument for being "too fast" despite the long length of matches (it's an RTS, so who's complaining, lol)
If you want to redesign the game for its current speed by increasing the reward relative to its difficulty for underused abilities, be my guest. In my opinion you should leave the three matchups alone and go for the mirrors, since the matchups are helped by maps and apparently even out entirely as player skill approaches infinity. (FJB had a reverse counter triangle going!)
Now for actual core balance suggestions:
If you want to fix ZvZ without harming the other matchups, give Spore Colonies a 0 range splash effect, large enough to only affect ultratight stacks. This opens pandora's box on ZvZ (since Zerg has the ability to hardcounter every unit combination it can throw at itself) without severely affecting the early mutaling dynamic. Chamber builds, which, by the way, can be countered, would as a result lead to more long hivetech ZvZs. That idea I got from someone in the TLBW IRC, and I can't recall who.
I have no idea how to open up TvT without reducing the game speed enough to facilitate lockdown/optical flare in 200/200. The best idea I can think of is to have a new secondary effect of the Science Vessel's EMP cause an 8-second stun on grounded mechanical/robotic units (compare to Disruption Web). The sprite limit bug being fixed would definitely be amazing in this matchup since Valkyries have a strong niche in the making to be mixed in against mass wraith, and that bug really doesn't affect the Valk's strong role in TvZ.
PvP opens up by itself if both players go safe, but if you want to see more stargate builds I think Apial Sensors needs to be reworked. Scouts should have that 10 sight by default, and the Apial Sensors upgrade at the Fleet Beacon should instead grant them the ability to detect stealthed units, permitting them to be used for observer hunts while already being decent at chasing shuttles and arbiters. It would be just enough to give the Scout a lategame niche against Zerg and Terran, providing mobile detection for corsairs and an alternative (but expensive) means to clear minefields and put more pressure on the T to maintain map control.
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On January 21 2015 09:08 Tadah wrote:
So, to name a few problems I have with the game:
3. A zealot being able to survive a Yamato Gun blast. Yuck.
That made me "WTF" until I looked it up... ohh, Yamato does 260 explosive damage. A zealot WILL survive it, lol. Yes, that is whacked. I picture of a very charred zealot looking up and extending his middle finger skyward in defiance afterwards, to the BC crew's shock. 
4. Scout ATG attack is equal to that of the Wraith? Nope. Make it 10. Then you would have a nice arithmetical progression in the ATG attack damages done by Wraiths, Mutas and Scouts - 8, 9 and 10, respectively. Thats some nice shit right there.
One thing I never got... Bliz nerfing the ground attack of the Scout and Wraith in the big 1.04 balance patch, while leaving mutas' ground attack alone. And this even though new BW units (sairs, valks) had just come out that were EXPRESSLY DESIGNED to deal with things like mid-game air unit packs. Yeah, makes no sense. Would be cool/interesting to have Scouts and Wraiths get their air-to-ground damage up'd a bit. People might even use Scouts again, lol.
6. I also don't like that Battlecruisers lose so comprehensively against Wraiths (when equal supply numbers of both units engage each other). Therefore I propose giving Wraiths a 2x8(+2x1) attack instead of 1x20(+1x2) attack. Thereby letting one Battlecruiser barely win out against 3 Wraiths and live up to their percieved stature as the most intimidating (air-) units in the Terran arsenal, not to mention making lategame TvT more interesting (to me at least).
BCs are supposed to lose to Wraiths, it's in the Blizzard Air Model (look it up in Bliz's Starcraft Compendium).
The Wraith is a 'capital ship hunter', along with Scouts and Devs. Also, BCs don't lose to Wraiths by much if at all, if you factor in Yamato. Cloaking is sort of the saving grace, letting Wraiths get in a couple of sucker punches before getting scanned (and vessels ruin even that).
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reminisce12, regarding you comment on my first point, I feel I should stress that it is not the egg I am talking about, but rather the cocoons from which Guardians and Devourers "hatch" from.
I think a simple fix to the Zealot/Yamato issue is to up the Yamato Gun blast damage from 260 to 310. A nice (aesthetically satisfying) effect of this change is that one full health Battlecruiser with full armor upgrades would be destroyed by 1 Yamato and EXACTLY 7 shots from a Battlecruiser with a fully upgraded attack.
As for your last point about Wraiths not possessing the same anti-ground capability. That is only true when evaluating Wraiths and Battlecruisers on a unit per unit basis and not in terms of equal supply numbers. 6supply of Wraiths (equal to that of one Battlecruiser) originally do 24 ATG damage (33 when fully upgraded) whereas 6 supply of Battlecruisers, i.e. one, will do 25 ATG damage (34 when upgraded). So I don't think your reasoning holds here.
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The Wraith is a 'capital ship hunter', along with Scouts and Devs. Also, BCs don't lose to Wraiths by much if at all, if you factor in Yamato. Cloaking is sort of the saving grace, letting Wraiths get in a couple of sucker punches before getting scanned (and vessels ruin even that).
I can assure you, I have done countless and countless tests with 33 Battlecruisers against 100 Wraiths and I have never been able to even make it interesting. Wraiths just tear Battlecruisers a new one.
(This was in response to Starlight. I fucked up the quoting)
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On January 21 2015 09:38 Tadah wrote:Show nested quote +
The Wraith is a 'capital ship hunter', along with Scouts and Devs. Also, BCs don't lose to Wraiths by much if at all, if you factor in Yamato. Cloaking is sort of the saving grace, letting Wraiths get in a couple of sucker punches before getting scanned (and vessels ruin even that).
I can assure you, I have done countless and countless tests with 33 Battlecruisers against 100 Wraiths and I have never been able to even make it interesting. Wraiths just tear Battlecruisers a new one. (This was in response to Starlight. I fucked up the quoting)
Did you use mass Yamato?(33x, lol, probably not). That'd make it interesting.... but moreso at the scale of more realistic-sized battles. There's no real situation where you'd have 33 BCs after all, but 4-6, yes, and you can make good use of Yamato then.
And again, Wraiths are supposed to win.
I think a simple fix to the Zealot/Yamato issue is to up the Yamato Gun blast damage from 260 to 310. A nice (aesthetically satisfying) effect of this change is that one full health Battlecruiser with full armor upgrades would be destroyed by 1 Yamato and EXACTLY 7 shots from a Battlecruiser with a fully upgraded attack.
Or you could just change Yamato to Normal damage, as someone else suggested.
Issue solved, without potentially messing up other things. I honestly don't know why it should be Explosive. Can anyone think of a good reason?
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On January 21 2015 09:33 Tadah wrote:
reminisce12, regarding you comment on my first point, I feel I should stress that it is not the egg I am talking about, but rather the cocoons from which Guardians and Devourers "hatch" from.
I think a simple fix to the Zealot/Yamato issue is to up the Yamato Gun blast damage from 260 to 310. A nice (aesthetically satisfying) effect of this change is that one full health Battlecruiser with full armor upgrades would be destroyed by 1 Yamato and EXACTLY 7 shots from a Battlecruiser with a fully upgraded attack.
As for your last point about Wraiths not possessing the same anti-ground capability. That is only true when evaluating Wraiths and Battlecruisers on a unit per unit basis and not in terms of equal supply numbers. 6supply of Wraiths (equal to that of one Battlecruiser) originally do 24 ATG damage (33 when fully upgraded) whereas 6 supply of Battlecruisers, i.e. one, will do 25 ATG damage (34 when upgraded). So I don't think your reasoning holds here.
But ur also forgetting BCs get yamato guns and has better range.
and I didn't know bout the cocoons, that is indeed weird then.
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On January 21 2015 04:53 neobowman wrote:
I would say get rid of the Arbiter attack but everyone knows it doesn't do shit anyway.
Funnily enough, I've always thought that the Arbiter's attack is what keeps it balanced. The situation of an arbiter contributing meaningful damage is far less common than an arbiter's control being deferred in the midst of a hectic engagement. In those cases, the arbiter will stay to attack an offending turret instead of fleeing out of range after being attacked. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the arbiter count whittled down like this in pro games.
As for whether this topic is warranted, I think it's fun to theorycraft considering how unrealistic another balance patch is.
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On January 21 2015 09:45 [[Starlight]] wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2015 09:38 Tadah wrote:
The Wraith is a 'capital ship hunter', along with Scouts and Devs. Also, BCs don't lose to Wraiths by much if at all, if you factor in Yamato. Cloaking is sort of the saving grace, letting Wraiths get in a couple of sucker punches before getting scanned (and vessels ruin even that).
I can assure you, I have done countless and countless tests with 33 Battlecruisers against 100 Wraiths and I have never been able to even make it interesting. Wraiths just tear Battlecruisers a new one. (This was in response to Starlight. I fucked up the quoting) Did you use mass Yamato?(33x, lol, probably not). That'd make it interesting.... but moreso at the scale of more realistic-sized battles. There's no real situation where you'd have 33 BCs after all, but 4-6, yes, and you can make good use of Yamato then. And again, Wraiths are supposed to win. Show nested quote +I think a simple fix to the Zealot/Yamato issue is to up the Yamato Gun blast damage from 260 to 310. A nice (aesthetically satisfying) effect of this change is that one full health Battlecruiser with full armor upgrades would be destroyed by 1 Yamato and EXACTLY 7 shots from a Battlecruiser with a fully upgraded attack. Or you could just change Yamato to Normal damage, as someone else suggested. Issue solved, without potentially messing up other things. I honestly don't know why it should be Explosive. Can anyone think of a good reason?
The explosive dmg on the yamato is weird, the only small unit it doesn't kill is the protoss zealot, but funnily enough the zealot was initially designed with 80 shields and 80hp in mind but later changed to 100/60 . In other words blizz made it so it died to the yamato. Captial ships and ultralisks are not effected by the change.
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On January 21 2015 06:59 QuickStriker wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2015 06:04 neobowman wrote:
I'm totally fine with criticism. Yet, I think it's also important, even for a concretely developed scene like that in BW, to be open to ideas of change. I totally get that people like it how it is, but if don't understand why people wouldn't even contemplate ways to potentially improve the game.
Now, I will come out and say I haven't been following the amateur scene since the last OSL, but I have been following the current season of KSL and SSL. I have been thinking about this idea of potential change for years. My thoughts and ideas may be outdated but I don't have access to current statistics in race trends so I have to go with what I have. If I'm wrong about the statistics, all you have to do is tell me.
I understand that the units I mentioned aren't considered game-breakers. Sure, hydras are countered by storm. Sure, science vessels can be sniped by scourge. I'm not saying these units are completely overpowered. But in tweaking balance, you can come closer to the perfect 50% winrate for each matchup. I don't think there's any reason to have to avoid conversation or discussion about it.
Sure, there are occasionally reversed trends in the meta like the period after Bisu beat Savior where Protoss were hugely favored against Zerg. But even that trend was stabilized into the current standard of Zergs having a slight advantage against Protoss.
I'm not saying this game is bad. I love this game. I think it's amazing, I think the meta's constantly evolving and growing. I agree that outside factors are totally at play. But I don't think that's any reason to try to avoid talking about balance at all. ...Not mentioning any other particular/specific game outside of SC BW but in a general POV, every time there is a "balance patch" or "gameplay" changes in the game, who benefits the most, who benefits the least? Who becomes the winners and losers? The answer is whoever can adapt to new changes, exploit the new changes and lead the new changes. So what about the rest of people who can't adapt as well as Player 1, or stuck in a limbo of this new change, or find themselves in a whole different position than before (ie. one of the better players before change but not anymore due to factors like balance change or unable to adapt to new settings)? Their answers will be "the game isn't what it used to be", "lack/lost of interest", "unfair", "retirement". This may very well be minority or majority but you cannot call the game SC BW 1.16.1 anymore, some will say you cannot even call it the same game anymore. Sure there may be more people welcomed by whatever new set of changes are but there's always a consequence, a pro/con, and those who will be affected by it. What if a balance patch end up being (or even partially) a reason that this/that progamer we know and love quit/retire? What if that turns into a domino factor where the active player base is reduced to 70%, 50%, 25% or even 10%?
You could've made that same argument against every balance patch Blizzard did, especially the comprehensive ones (1.04 and 1.08). Yet, rather than costing Bliz players, every balance patch seemed to make the game better and stronger.
If Bliz had left balance at what it was initially (i.e. NO balance changes after release), best guess is that SC would've been a flash in the pan. Would've been a boring Zerg-fest, with many broken things staying broken. Many of Bliz's RTS competitors never got balance right or even close, and their games faded in part as a result. It goes to re-playability.
There's some truth to reasons why last "official" universal change/patch of board game Chess was last seen in 19th century.
And as you probably know, prior to that, chess underwent a great many gameplay changes, usually for the better. 
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lol, MIRV upgrade for Ghost's nuke.
Ppl would be begging to use Ghosts.
(yes I know, totally imba unless each of the nukes did considerably less dmg)
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Id give Crack lings splash damage. a Reaver/Archon/Zealot/HT army is to strong and tooo costly for zerg to deal with. Protoss always makes profit vs Zerg in the Late game armywise, zerg has to make 3 armies just to beat 1 of those armies.
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On January 21 2015 10:46 ICanFlyLow wrote:
Id give Crack lings splash damage. a Reaver/Archon/Zealot/HT army is to strong and tooo costly for zerg to deal with. Protoss always makes profit vs Zerg in the Late game armywise, zerg has to make 3 armies just to beat 1 of those armies.
awesome suggestion, i should nominate you for next sc2 balance team
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Don't fucking buff EMP
TvP should not be changed
It's a balanced match up that is entirely dependent on maps. Some maps favour T slightly, others favour P slightly.
Examples of Terran favoured maps:
Circuit Breaker
Fighting Spirit
Examples of Protoss favoured maps:
La Mancha
I can't think of any more right now.
If you think that the match up is slightly P favoured, then you're stuck in the past. Things have changed. Terrans have gotten better. In the past, every one except Flash struggled slightly vs Protoss, but not any more.
Ghosts are already good in endgame TvT and in TvP if you play a turtle style and the map allows it, or if Protoss goes straight to carriers and skips arbiters. Then, vessels are pointless, and it's better to get ghosts.
The TvZ idea seems reasonable. I'd be willing to try a longer duration to cause the same damage for irradiate for a year, and see how it affects the statistics. If the change had bad effects, we'd revert to the past values.
But if I was the supreme overlord of Brood War, I wouldn't change the balance. I would just fix the following errors and add the following features:
-The ramp error, which struck Bisu on his stream once. It permanently makes units get stuck on a ramp, and other units who walk in to the blob become sucked in and are also stuck. It only happens on some ramps, like fighting spirit's 12'o clock one.
-Units getting stuck when, and needing a "stop" command to be released. If you are trying to attack move and then walk, but you mess up the timing, then having the unit not fire and play its weapon lowering animation for a few frames is punishment enough. This is too much, and it's just annoying. There is no thing that is fun about it.
-Spawn points. When a Terran walls off and gets 4 pooled, the starting location is a matter of life and death, because it's not possible to decide where the marine will spawn. So if you started at a location that will make him spawn on the outside, you're dead. It's also unfair to Protoss players defending vs hydra busts, who want to warp in high templars. Adding spawn points would remove pylon prisons vs dragoons in PvP, but in my opinion it's worth it.
-The sprite limit. I would increase it by over 9000%.
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i dont think there needs to be any real balance patches at all, its been long since last one and it remained almost perfectly balanced id say all this time, with the help of map makers ofcourse. its one thing that will never happen with sc2 and it boils down to design, the volatile nature of sc2 simply demands balance patches all the time and its actualy gotten quite ridiculous with how many special rules in gameplay they introduce to potentialy fix a balance issue but just break other stuff
so for bw, what would be best is to fix any kind of remaining bugs or similar things that still linger around, like dragoon glitches, obs turret bug, reaver scarab, dark archon amulet upgrade not giving +12 mana, ensnare is kinda weird too with the slow having diffrent percentages vs diffrent units right?, zerg eggs dissapearing when atacked, valkyrie rocket limits etc, im not really in the loop with this, im sure theres way more, maybe how mining speed is diffrent for all 3 races because of hqs sizes, although currently seems fine toss has best and terran worst
for the balance changes if there really must be, id prefer to only do very small things with least number changing although they might have significant impact, for example if scout AtG dmg is bad, make it have 2x8 (as the name implys they have dual photon blasters, why dont they do 2x dmg like firebats/zealots), or firebat/ghost what would they be like without concussive dmg, nuke not cost suply or seperate building, infested terran actualy buildable with larva, hive tech? i dont know, maybe able to morph greater spire at lair, but still need hive for guardian/devouer (since theyre both not that good)
as for the casters maybe bigger changes, because some spells always seemed off, iradiate 75 mana, while emp matrix are 100, halucination 100 mana, could be 75, maybe maelstrom/discuprtion web each cost 25 too much too, ensnare is kinda weird which i mentioned before, optical flare/restoration could probably use either mana reduce or having aoe effect, i think ghost spells themselves are prety fine (wonder why pros never use lockdown to counter arbiters instead of emp). at the very least it would be interesting to see spellcasters used them where they werent previously and new counters that already exist, like dark archon feedback vs queen/medic/ghost if useage of them would spike or restoration vs plague/ensnare/maelstorm. halucination vs mines, ensnare vs bio, etc. theres quite alot of rarely seen spellcaster interactions
still im not sure how much is needed, what i can say for sure that nobody would mind is non balance bug fixing and updates to bnet, even new features. i would also love to see higher resolution support and actually able to customise hotkeys ingame, or well just make the damn game free download its old enough
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75 energy on High Templars on spawn.
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One would of course have to buff Scourge HP to 30 instead of 25 in order for them not to be one-shoted by the Spore Colonies.
This is where balance gets tough. Do this and all of a sudden scourges become dramatically more effective against corsairs.
On January 21 2015 10:46 ICanFlyLow wrote:
Id give Crack lings splash damage. a Reaver/Archon/Zealot/HT army is to strong and tooo costly for zerg to deal with. Protoss always makes profit vs Zerg in the Late game armywise, zerg has to make 3 armies just to beat 1 of those armies.
And nonetheless zerg is by far the superior lategame race in that MU. I'd be 100% confident in saying toss would literally never win a ZvP past midgame ever again if cracklings also did splash.
Unless we are talking about late, late, late game with the map mining out, at which point P absolutely does become imba as fuck
what would be best is to fix any kind of remaining bugs or similar things that still linger around, like dragoon glitches, obs turret bug, reaver scarab
You would need to completely rework the reaver if you did that. The fact that scarab damage is lessened or eliminated by running away is part of what makes the reaver worked. If scarabs always struck, reaver would be incredibly powerful. Certainly enough to dramatically alter gameplan and potentially create new balance issues.
For me, scarab duds have never felt like a bug but rather a natural aspect of the game.
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I disagree with both of your statements. Neither Z nor P dominates the other in the lategame. Whichever race gets the better economy dominates. It's that simple.
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On January 21 2015 11:30 vOdToasT wrote:
I disagree with both of your statements. Neither Z nor P dominates the other in the lategame. Whichever race gets the better economy dominates. It's that simple.
I guess that depends on how we define economy. In a relatively typical, fairly passive macro PvZ zerg usually ends up on 4 bases with toss on 3 at the start of the early late game. At this point, assuming both players have played somewhat passive with no significant damage being incurred zerg is usually in that 70 drone range, but spread out over 4 bases, and possessing an extra gas.
It's hard to categorize because we don't keep stats that way, but when I watch afreeca and toss passively takes a third and sometimes even a quick fourth in response to a zerg that goes for low unit, drone away 4 base play toss loses much more than they win. Maybe not as much as 2/3, but certainly more than 50%. Even players like Bisu I've watched lose numerous games when he elects for passive play just taking bases of his own.
Doesn't mean PvZ is imba by any stretch, but from all my observations a macro oriented playstyle in response to zerg playing "4 base, drone till 70 food" is not a favorable matchup for P. It always surprises me when pros elect for this style in light of that. I'll have to try and keep some sort of stats on that specific situation, but I'll bet my life on toss losing that much more than 50%.
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On January 21 2015 11:43 L_Master wrote:
Even players like Bisu I've watched lose numerous games when he elects for passive play
Bisu never does passive play in PvZ, even when taking bases and without a main army he always actively controls his sairs/dt/shuttle and look for opportunities to do damage. bisu is like one of the few toss that push his multitasking to the highest and try to retain their sair count even going into the lategame.
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On January 21 2015 10:50 Probemicro wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2015 10:46 ICanFlyLow wrote:
Id give Crack lings splash damage. a Reaver/Archon/Zealot/HT army is to strong and tooo costly for zerg to deal with. Protoss always makes profit vs Zerg in the Late game armywise, zerg has to make 3 armies just to beat 1 of those armies. awesome suggestion, i should nominate you for next sc2 balance team
BAM!! 
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EPT
