I used dgVoodoo & ReShade.Now BW supports 1080P and owns customized graphic effects.
This one only used dgVoodo.
This one added ReShade effects,AdaptiveSharpen+Colourfulness,you can compare it with above.(The border is made by myself)
Next three used AdaptiveSharpen+Colourfulness+CA for my BW mod.
I am trying to make a little BW enhanced mod named "StarCraft Caprice",here are some features I thought: 1. graphic HD enhancement 2. music quality enhancement (use BW remaster music in SC2) 3. some bugs and glitches fix (icon,sound,etc) 4. slight game balance change
Bottom three are a little oversatured imo but that can be fixed in-game and is more of a personal preference. Can I get a DL link? This is awesome, I'd love to contribute to this.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Anything starcraft related, I like... so there's somewhat of a bias. This though, I likey. I would try to gear more towards sharpness of graphics versus color enhancement, in my opinion(if that's possible(is that possible(triple parenthesis))).
I don't think color enhancements are useful. Default color settings in BW are easy on the eyes. Sure, some people might like brighter colors, but that's it.
Perhaps if you added a way for people with bad eyesight to change color settings, that would be useful to some players.
I like this, I think it should have a settings file where you can turn each of these off and on however you want. Note, I have no idea if that's actually feasible, as I haven't programmed for BW specifically before (nor do I plan to in the future)
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
Whoever says he wants balance changes, is clueless. I might have argued to buff some units like ghost or scouts myself, but I would never actually want any changes at all. Yes there are some units that are under-used like the scout, ghost, queen, infested terran, but I'd rather have perfect balance than force units into the game.
I've never cared for Reshade or similar software, increasing contrast and saturation seldom make games look any better, many times it feels like you're actually loosing image information.
It's only really good for removing piss filters etc. from games that have it, but a game like SC is colorful enough as it is with its neutral color palate.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
Whoever says he wants balance changes, is clueless. I might have argued to buff some units like ghost or scouts myself, but I would never actually want any changes at all. Yes there are some units that are under-used like the scout, ghost, queen, infested terran, but I'd rather have perfect balance than force units into the game.
ehh when i think about balance i dont think of making the less units used more automatically, in fact that might just be bad, if i want balance for bw it should be about more core things than getting underused units being used more..
If scout got used more(lets say ground attack higher), it would probably remove the gameplay ALOT.
Pretty dope. Make sure you enable users to pick their own images and it will be very popular. Oh, and the higher contrast is appealing to me as well, but it's hard to tell without testing that it wouldn't just make us turn contrast down on monitor eventually etc. Bright colors can hurt eyes However, with that being said, again, I personally think it looks pretty cool atm.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
Whoever says he wants balance changes, is clueless. I might have argued to buff some units like ghost or scouts myself, but I would never actually want any changes at all. Yes there are some units that are under-used like the scout, ghost, queen, infested terran, but I'd rather have perfect balance than force units into the game.
ehh when i think about balance i dont think of making the less units used more automatically, in fact that might just be bad, if i want balance for bw it should be about more core things than getting underused units being used more..
If scout got used more(lets say ground attack higher), it would probably remove the gameplay ALOT.
I kinda like Scout doing shit damage versus ground units it already does insane damage versus air, how about we gave scouts insane damage versus buildings, but have them be just as shit versus ground troops, maybe they'd end up useful in a PvZ, and you'd add in a scout to snipe spores
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
On December 20 2016 12:30 EmuSirius wrote: I am trying to make a little BW enhanced mod named "StarCraft Caprice",here are some features I thought:
[...] 4. slight game balance change
I'd seriously reconsider doing this. You're opening a can of worms, and the graphical updates would make this a very interesting mod on their own.
Agreed.
Once you touch game balance it is essentially no longer the BW that people love (but then again this is a mod). In the end the option is up to you if you want to fiddle with balance, but even changing numbers slightly makes the game different than BW. If you for some reason want to change more complex things (like pathing or unit properties or even tile properties, etc.), there's no telling what the side effects could be. Maybe changing one little AI behavior leads to unforeseeable ramifications somewhere else in the game... how would you know for certain that it did or did not change anything?
Another point: Even if the game could be balanced better, doing so leads a big chance that less people will be interested in using the mod. Even if it's better, less people will touch it... because it won't be BW anymore. BW game balance is a sacred thing to some people. I kinda see it like the dilemma for those in the hip hop community: sell out for the popularity/money/fame, or stay faithful to yourself but be ok with not blowing up or your work not catching on. Except here, it's less certain if game balance is even needed (could go either way, honestly).
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
Can you guys keep the discussion to the thread and not balance talk? Like really, go to SC2 forums and talk about balance these days. BW doesn't need patched. It's still an amazing game. If you really think hard about it you realize it's beauty is not even fully discovered yet. The more you get to know Brood War, the more it amazes you.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
Dark Archon a joke BM unit? Maybe on D-, but in PvP and PvZ Dark Archons are used to counter high templars and defilers
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
imo this balance change would be terrible, really terrible. Zerg has so many larva comapared to lets say terrans factories with machine shops. So if every queen of yours can trade against one tank, you will win. What a lame gameplay this would be.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
imo this balance change would be terrible, really terrible. Zerg has so many larva comapared to lets say terrans factories with machine shops. So if every queen of yours can trade against one tank, you will win. What a lame gameplay this would be.
I doubt that would happen considering how gas reliant zerg is.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
We just saw Queens being used this season by Effort to counter mech, and it has been shown to be effective already in the pro scene...
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
Dark Archon a joke BM unit? Maybe on D-, but in PvP and PvZ Dark Archons are used to counter high templars and defilers
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
they have an upgrade for that
Someone plays with scouts a lot but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
imo this balance change would be terrible, really terrible. Zerg has so many larva comapared to lets say terrans factories with machine shops. So if every queen of yours can trade against one tank, you will win. What a lame gameplay this would be.
It takes 150 energy to broodling a tank, that's 2 minutes and a half. The Queen starts with 50 energy, meaning it takes 100 in game seconds to get enough energy to trade with a tank, then after spending your energy another 150 seconds.
If you get the upgrade the Queen starts with 62 energy and has maximum 250 energy instead of 200. Soo if it were buffed to start with 50 extra energy, with the upgrade it would still take 38 in game seconds to get enough energy for broodlings, and then after that another 150 seconds to get it off again.
Not to mention the fact that you already need to research Ensnare and Spawn Broodling.
Where as Siege tanks are you know, actually useful whenever, Queens can trade 1:1 every 2 and a half minutes, buffing them slightly sure as fuck wouldn't hurt.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
imo this balance change would be terrible, really terrible. Zerg has so many larva comapared to lets say terrans factories with machine shops. So if every queen of yours can trade against one tank, you will win. What a lame gameplay this would be.
It takes 150 energy to broodling a tank, that's 2 minutes and a half. The Queen starts with 50 energy, meaning it takes 100 in game seconds to get enough energy to trade with a tank, then after spending your energy another 150 seconds.
If you get the upgrade the Queen starts with 62 energy and has maximum 250 energy instead of 200. Soo if it were buffed to start with 50 extra energy, with the upgrade it would still take 38 in game seconds to get enough energy for broodlings, and then after that another 150 seconds to get it off again.
Not to mention the fact that you already need to research Ensnare and Spawn Broodling.
Where as Siege tanks are you know, actually useful whenever, Queens can trade 1:1 every 2 and a half minutes, buffing them slightly sure as fuck wouldn't hurt.
Poor analysis.
Lets take a look at an alternative Zerg caster, defiler. Has an insanely powerful spell, Dark Swarm. Can be casted immediately when the defiler is spawned, imagine how much the defiler would be used if it would take a 100 seconds before it could cast Dark Swarm then another 150 seconds before it could cast it again.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
1. Dark Archons and Queens both see competitive play. 2. The reason Queens and Ghosts are not used more is because it just adds more complexity, having to use the abilities on top of controlling a lot of units is too much even if you have 300APM. 3. If you want units to have more starting energy simply research the max energy upgrade, it may only give 12.5 more energy, but that's more than enough in most cases. And having units come out spell ready would be ridiculous in too many cases.
No we don't Queens sometimes get used but not often enough precisely because it takes too long for the firstbroodling. I believe that even with 50 extra energy it would still take a few seconds before they could get used.
And Dark Archon are a joke BM unit.
Starting energy is literally the most liberal buff possible. If you think that this would make queens OP you've clearly never played BW
We just saw Queens being used this season by Effort to counter mech, and it has been shown to be effective already in the pro scene...
You mean the game where he died because he had to wait too long to get enough energy to take out his opponents tanks. A not that insane 50 energy buff to Queens, him only needing to wait 1 minute instead of 2 sure would have helped him there to not make it a one sided stomp!
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
they have an upgrade for that
Someone plays with scouts a lot but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
Devil's advocate: I don't think the Scout should be buffed, out of Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost, it's actually the best unit believe it or not.
Sure it's utter shit in Single Player, but in team games especially Hunters Scout/Siege Tank is the most efficient combo, it's insane if you can get it going, soo it actually has a niche, if you buffed it too much it might make it OP in Team games, if you only care about 1v1, making it a bit cheaper would be nice though.
I think I've seen Professional game where Scout was useful. The Protoss player went 2 base Carrier versus Terran on Colloseum II and the Protoss made 2 or 3 Scouts while waiting for his Carrier tech to finish, he sniped SCVs building turrets and a few siege tanks with it. I think the Protoss won that game, but other than that I can't imagine it not helping if Scouts cost 250/100 instead of 275/125 and maybe cut the build time by 5 to make it 45 instead of 50
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
they have an upgrade for that
Someone plays with scouts a lot but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
Devil's advocate: I don't think the Scout should be buffed, out of Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost, it's actually the best unit believe it or not.
Sure it's utter shit in Single Player, but in team games especially Hunters Scout/Siege Tank is the most efficient combo, it's insane if you can get it going, soo it actually has a niche, if you buffed it too much it might make it OP in Team games, if you only care about 1v1, making it a bit cheaper would be nice though.
Except team games arent what starcraft should be balanced around. DA, Ghosts, and Queens have seen far more competitive play than scouts, and pretty sure the only actual games that scouts were used not as a BM move was i think Jangbi vs forgg on colloseum to break a contain, and one where someone actually did the stove in a tournament game.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
they have an upgrade for that
Someone plays with scouts a lot but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
Devil's advocate: I don't think the Scout should be buffed, out of Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost, it's actually the best unit believe it or not.
Sure it's utter shit in Single Player, but in team games especially Hunters Scout/Siege Tank is the most efficient combo, it's insane if you can get it going, soo it actually has a niche, if you buffed it too much it might make it OP in Team games, if you only care about 1v1, making it a bit cheaper would be nice though.
Except team games arent what starcraft should be balanced around. DA, Ghosts, and Queens have seen far more competitive play than scouts, and pretty sure the only actual games that scouts were used not as a BM move was i think Jangbi vs forgg on colloseum to break a contain, and one where someone actually did the stove in a tournament game.
Also keep posts within one post please
I edited my comment, and mentioned that game.
I did say it was devil's advocate, because while I agree the game shouldn't be balanced around Team Games, at the very least the Scout is good at something, and it's VERY good at that. If you can get a maxed out Scout Army with a supporting Terran Siege Tank army. Good fucking luck killing that.
Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost remain "fun" only units, they don't have much competative use and it's a shame because all 3 are very fun to use, if I had to only buff 1 unit per race. It would be those 3, if I could balance as I could, I might buff Scout by a bit, and maybe make Valkyries build 5 seconds faster 32 to 27 or increase their attack speed from 2.688 to 2.5 or maybe increase their acceleration or speed slightly, this is purely because I think Valykries are the shit and Fantasy build needs a comeback and a Valkyrie being slightly slightly better might make that a reality. It's sad that you can be the best Protoss, Terran or Zerg on the planet without ever having to play with those 3, seems a bit sad.
For the people arguing against these buffs especially for Queen, Ghost and Dark Archon let's ignore Valkyries. I really don't understand the mentality, there is a golden middle ground, where they get seldom used, but don't fuck up balance and being OP. If Blizzard were still supporting the game, I'd ask them to gradually buff those units up incrementally until they saw some competative play, if the buffs were too much I'd roll them back, I really don't think anything else in the game needs balancing because it would just screw up how delicate Brood War is. To be clear I don't want to see a Dark Archon, a Queen or a Ghost in every game, I just want them to be viable late game alternatives
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
they have an upgrade for that
Someone plays with scouts a lot but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
Devil's advocate: I don't think the Scout should be buffed, out of Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost, it's actually the best unit believe it or not.
Sure it's utter shit in Single Player, but in team games especially Hunters Scout/Siege Tank is the most efficient combo, it's insane if you can get it going, soo it actually has a niche, if you buffed it too much it might make it OP in Team games, if you only care about 1v1, making it a bit cheaper would be nice though.
Except team games arent what starcraft should be balanced around. DA, Ghosts, and Queens have seen far more competitive play than scouts, and pretty sure the only actual games that scouts were used not as a BM move was i think Jangbi vs forgg on colloseum to break a contain, and one where someone actually did the stove in a tournament game.
Also keep posts within one post please
I edited my comment, and mentioned that game.
I did say it was devil's advocate, because while I agree the game shouldn't be balanced around Team Games, at the very least the Scout is good at something, and it's VERY good at that. If you can get a maxed out Scout Army with a supporting Terran Siege Tank army. Good fucking luck killing that.
Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost remain "fun" only units, they don't have much competative use and it's a shame because all 3 are very fun to use, if I had to only buff 1 unit per race. It would be those 3. It's sad that you can be the best Protoss, Terran or Zerg on the planet without ever having to play with those 3, seems a bit sad.
For the people arguing against these buffs. I really don't understand the mentality, there is a golden middle ground, where they get seldom used, but don't fuck up balance and being OP. If Blizzard were still supporting the game, I'd ask them to gradually buff those units up incrementally until they saw some competative play, if the buffs were too much I'd roll them back, I really don't think anything else in the game needs balancing because it would just screw up how delicate Brood War is. To be clear I don't want to see a Dark Archon, a Queen or a Ghost in every game, I just want them to be viable late game alternatives
Each unit has its place. You hardly ever see Devourers being used but they have their place too. Also, when doing balance, its inportant to look at what needs to be changed and also what occurs because of that change. Lets say you buff DAs maelstrom. You're subsequently making PvZ more Protoss favored and they already have a very strong late game vZ. You also make it so that since DAs will be seen more, every other spellcaster just got a small nerf since feedback is a thing as well.
How about Queen buff? Well, early game mech is now generally unfeasible, since your first tank push gets crushed and Zerg counter attack is super strong, hell with earlier broodlings, Id say Zergs are actually the aggressors vs early mech play. So you nerfed Tanks straight into the ground early game with the SB buff. But wait theres more! With earlier broodlings, you just made Queens also stronger in ZvP! Now they can broodling HT more readily so timing attacks like the Zero game on Fighting Spirit happen much more.
Ghosts are incredibly delicate to balance because they have potential to be the strongest unit in the game with nukes.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
they have an upgrade for that
Someone plays with scouts a lot but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
Devil's advocate: I don't think the Scout should be buffed, out of Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost, it's actually the best unit believe it or not.
Sure it's utter shit in Single Player, but in team games especially Hunters Scout/Siege Tank is the most efficient combo, it's insane if you can get it going, soo it actually has a niche, if you buffed it too much it might make it OP in Team games, if you only care about 1v1, making it a bit cheaper would be nice though.
Except team games arent what starcraft should be balanced around. DA, Ghosts, and Queens have seen far more competitive play than scouts, and pretty sure the only actual games that scouts were used not as a BM move was i think Jangbi vs forgg on colloseum to break a contain, and one where someone actually did the stove in a tournament game.
Also keep posts within one post please
I edited my comment, and mentioned that game.
I did say it was devil's advocate, because while I agree the game shouldn't be balanced around Team Games, at the very least the Scout is good at something, and it's VERY good at that. If you can get a maxed out Scout Army with a supporting Terran Siege Tank army. Good fucking luck killing that.
Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost remain "fun" only units, they don't have much competative use and it's a shame because all 3 are very fun to use, if I had to only buff 1 unit per race. It would be those 3. It's sad that you can be the best Protoss, Terran or Zerg on the planet without ever having to play with those 3, seems a bit sad.
For the people arguing against these buffs. I really don't understand the mentality, there is a golden middle ground, where they get seldom used, but don't fuck up balance and being OP. If Blizzard were still supporting the game, I'd ask them to gradually buff those units up incrementally until they saw some competative play, if the buffs were too much I'd roll them back, I really don't think anything else in the game needs balancing because it would just screw up how delicate Brood War is. To be clear I don't want to see a Dark Archon, a Queen or a Ghost in every game, I just want them to be viable late game alternatives
Each unit has its place. You hardly ever see Devourers being used but they have their place too. Also, when doing balance, its inportant to look at what needs to be changed and also what occurs because of that change. Lets say you buff DAs maelstrom. You're subsequently making PvZ more Protoss favored and they already have a very strong late game vZ. You also make it so that since DAs will be seen more, every other spellcaster just got a small nerf since feedback is a thing as well.
How about Queen buff? Well, early game mech is now generally unfeasible, since your first tank push gets crushed and Zerg counter attack is super strong, hell with earlier broodlings, Id say Zergs are actually the aggressors vs early mech play. So you nerfed Tanks straight into the ground early game with the SB buff. But wait theres more! With earlier broodlings, you just made Queens also stronger in ZvP! Now they can broodling HT more readily so timing attacks like the Zero game on Fighting Spirit happen much more.
Ghosts are incredibly delicate to balance because they have potential to be the strongest unit in the game with nukes.
No your logic is flawed, you assume that every Zerg gets allocated X amount of Queens and every Protoss gets allocated X amount of Dark Templars.
Currently the resources you would need to spend on Dark Archons and Queens would be better spent elsewhere, meaning you are shooting yourself in the foot and aren't spending those resources better, I'm proposing for those options to be equal or slightly worse than the current options, but viable.
Also we are talking about energy buffs, we can both agree that Dark Archons and Queens are under tunned, and giving them slightly more energy is a very liberal buff.
50+ Starting Energy for DA and Queen isn't going to break the game, if you think it is you don't play enough. Also considering that T>Z>P>T, even if the 50+ starting energy somehow made Zerg win 0.5% more versus Terran and Protoss win 0.5% more versus Zerg, I'd call that a job well done.
I'm not asking for huge buffs here, I said incrementally, but that was an update soo you might not have read it.
Also on your analysis on Queens, I think you totally missed the mark there. It currently takes 100 in game seconds to get the first broodling off, 88 seconds if you get the upgrade. If we buff the Queen by 50 energy you only need to wait 67* seconds or 51* with the upgrade (Not to mention you still need to research those spells). Having to wait 1,12* minutes instead of 2.24* minutes isn't going to break any early game TvZ, Queens would still be pretty bad, except it would take you 67* seconds to make your return investment and 269* seconds to outvalue the Terran instead of 134* and 336*. (Slight Edit: It currently takes you 5.6 fucking minutes to outvalue the Terran with a Queen if you trade with Siege Tanks, not factoring that you can lose your queen or mismicro it)
You really don't understand balance if you think small buffs like these would break any match up.
EDIT: Look I understand your sentiment, Brood War is in a magical place in terms of Balance, it's pretty incredible, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have flaws. There are a few units that could be tunned a bit better to be seen a bit more, they don't need big buff, for a unit like the Queen energy buffs would do.
If you think 50 energy is too much, then let's make it 40 energy buff or 30 or 20 or maybe 50 is not enough and let's make it 60. Currently it takes the Queen to long for it to get it's ROI back, and the timing window is too big. If the Terran sees you started making Queens he just pushes you and you die before you get a chance to even use Broodlings.
This is exactly what happened in the Light vs Effort Game
Effort gets Queens at 2:37:25
Light sees the Queens with his drop, and decides to push out immediately
2:38:15 Effort does a very clever move, and forces the Terran army back to give his Queens additional time, but even with this genius distraction the Queens simply take too long to get ready
2:39:00 Light arrives at Efforts base and starts Siegeing him down, Broodlings are not ready, yet
2:39:40 Effort finally uses broodlings, but sadly Light already broke his Sunken Defense.
If Queen started with 30 more energy, no 20. Effort could have held that, he would still be behind, but it would have been a better game. You need to understand even if Queens started with 50 energy, if the Terran was shelling your base down and you decided to go for Queens you'd still need to wait 67* seconds before you could broodling his tanks.
Not to mention after you broodlinged it would still take ANOTHER 201.6* seconds to use Queens again.
EDIT2: It's even worse than I thought, I looked up how Energy regen works and it's 0.744 energy per second which means it takes 134.4 Real Seconds to generate 100 energy or 201.6 seconds to generate 150 energy.
This means it takes 2 minutes and 14 seconds to get your first Broodling off, which works out perfectly with my analysis in the Light vs Effort game.
With my proposed buff, it would only take 1 minute and 7 seconds to get your first broodling off, but it would still take another 3 minutes and 22 seconds to use your spawn broodling ability again.
On December 20 2016 12:47 [[Starlight]] wrote: [quote] Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
they have an upgrade for that
Someone plays with scouts a lot but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
Devil's advocate: I don't think the Scout should be buffed, out of Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost, it's actually the best unit believe it or not.
Sure it's utter shit in Single Player, but in team games especially Hunters Scout/Siege Tank is the most efficient combo, it's insane if you can get it going, soo it actually has a niche, if you buffed it too much it might make it OP in Team games, if you only care about 1v1, making it a bit cheaper would be nice though.
Except team games arent what starcraft should be balanced around. DA, Ghosts, and Queens have seen far more competitive play than scouts, and pretty sure the only actual games that scouts were used not as a BM move was i think Jangbi vs forgg on colloseum to break a contain, and one where someone actually did the stove in a tournament game.
Also keep posts within one post please
I edited my comment, and mentioned that game.
I did say it was devil's advocate, because while I agree the game shouldn't be balanced around Team Games, at the very least the Scout is good at something, and it's VERY good at that. If you can get a maxed out Scout Army with a supporting Terran Siege Tank army. Good fucking luck killing that.
Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost remain "fun" only units, they don't have much competative use and it's a shame because all 3 are very fun to use, if I had to only buff 1 unit per race. It would be those 3. It's sad that you can be the best Protoss, Terran or Zerg on the planet without ever having to play with those 3, seems a bit sad.
For the people arguing against these buffs. I really don't understand the mentality, there is a golden middle ground, where they get seldom used, but don't fuck up balance and being OP. If Blizzard were still supporting the game, I'd ask them to gradually buff those units up incrementally until they saw some competative play, if the buffs were too much I'd roll them back, I really don't think anything else in the game needs balancing because it would just screw up how delicate Brood War is. To be clear I don't want to see a Dark Archon, a Queen or a Ghost in every game, I just want them to be viable late game alternatives
Each unit has its place. You hardly ever see Devourers being used but they have their place too. Also, when doing balance, its inportant to look at what needs to be changed and also what occurs because of that change. Lets say you buff DAs maelstrom. You're subsequently making PvZ more Protoss favored and they already have a very strong late game vZ. You also make it so that since DAs will be seen more, every other spellcaster just got a small nerf since feedback is a thing as well.
How about Queen buff? Well, early game mech is now generally unfeasible, since your first tank push gets crushed and Zerg counter attack is super strong, hell with earlier broodlings, Id say Zergs are actually the aggressors vs early mech play. So you nerfed Tanks straight into the ground early game with the SB buff. But wait theres more! With earlier broodlings, you just made Queens also stronger in ZvP! Now they can broodling HT more readily so timing attacks like the Zero game on Fighting Spirit happen much more.
Ghosts are incredibly delicate to balance because they have potential to be the strongest unit in the game with nukes.
No your logic is flawed, you assume that every Zerg gets allocated X amount of Queens and every Protoss gets allocated X amount of Dark Templars.
Currently the resources you would need to spend on Dark Archons and Queens would be better spent elsewhere, meaning you are shooting yourself in the foot and aren't spending those resources better, I'm proposing for those options to be equal or slightly worse than the current options, but viable.
Also we are talking about energy buffs, we can both agree that Dark Archons and Queens are under tunned, and giving them slightly more energy is a very liberal buff.
50+ Starting Energy for DA and Queen isn't going to break the game, if you think it is you don't play enough. Also considering that T>Z>P>T, even if the 50+ starting energy somehow made Zerg win 0.5% more versus Terran and Protoss win 0.5% more versus Zerg, I'd call that a job well done.
I'm not asking for huge buffs here, I said incrementally, but that was an update soo you might not have read it.
Also on your analysis on Queens, I think you totally missed the mark there. It currently takes 100 in game seconds to get the first broodling off, 88 seconds if you get the upgrade. If we buff the Queen by 50 energy you only need to wait 50 seconds or 38 with the upgrade (Not to mention you still need to research those spells). Having to wait 1 minute instead of two isn't going to break any early game TvZ, Queens would still be pretty bad, except it would take you 50 seconds to make your return investment and 200 seconds to outvalue the Terran instead of 100 and 250.
You really don't understand balance if you think small buffs like these would break any match up.
EDIT: Look I understand your sentiment, Brood War is in a magical place in terms of Balance, it's pretty incredible, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have flaws. There are a few units that could be tunned a bit better to be seen a bit more, they don't need big buff, for a unit like the Queen energy buffs would do.
If you think 50 energy is too much, then let's make it 40 energy buff or 30 or 20 or maybe 50 is not enough and let's make it 60. Currently it takes the Queen to long for it to get it's ROI back, and the timing window is too big. If the Terran sees you started making Queens he just pushes you and you die before you get a chance to even use Broodlings.
This is exactly what happened in the Light vs Effort Game
Light sees the Queens with his drop, and decides to push out immediately
2:39:00 Light arrives at Efforts base and starts Sieging him down, Broodlings are not ready, yet
2:39:40 Effort finally uses broodlings, but sadly Light already broke his Sunken Defense.
If Queen started with 30 more energy, no 20. Effort could have held that, he would still be behind, but it would have been a better game. You need to understand even if Queens started with 50 energy, if the Terran was shelling your base down and you decided to go for Queens you'd still need to wait 50 seconds before you could broodling his tanks.
Not to mention after you broodlinged it would still take ANOTHER 150 seconds to use Queens again.
EDIT2: It's even worse than I thought, I looked up how Energy regen works and it's 0.744 energy per second which means it takes 134.4 Real Seconds to generate 100 energy or 201.6 seconds to generate 150 energy.
This means it takes 2 minutes and 14 seconds to get your first Broodling off, which works out perfectly with my analysis in the Light vs Effort game.
With my proposed buff, it would only take 1 minute and 7 seconds to get your first broodling off, but it would still take another 3 minutes and 22 seconds to use your spawn broodling ability again.
TLDR: There is a 134.4s(Energy Regeneration time)+13.4s(Queen Build Time)=148.8s timing window between when you start building Queens and when you can actually use them. That's a big enough timing window for the Terran to unsiege, get to your base and kill you.
This is the reason why Queens don't see play because they are just too big of a liability to invest in.
If they started out with more energy the initial timing window would be shorter, but later on it would still take quite a bit between broodling attacks, meaning that it would not impact the Zerg over a long game, but it would allow more Zergs to successfully transition to Queens without dying.
There is an argument to be made for simply dropping the energy cost of the broodling, depending on how much the drop would be, say 125 it could be a nice change, but I think dropping ability costs instead of Starting energy could make the Queen legit overpowered, this is why I proposed 50+ starting energy buff.
On December 22 2016 06:43 Kairo wrote: Mutas should be medium size
Turrets doing 5 damage to a single mutalisk is ludacris.
Opens up Goliaths, dragoons and Hydralisks as options (although still a poor ones) as being not completely crap vs muta gaming.
Thoughts all?
I'd avoid touching the *core* units, I think it could seriously damage Brood War as a game, I thought this over before. The only main unit I'd change is give Hydralisks a damage bonus vs Air Biological, this would only impact ZvZ and it would make Hydralisks in ZvZ more viable diversifying the match up.
I don't even know if this is possible within the Brood War game engine as + Bio wasn't a thing in Brood War.
If I could I'd make Hydralisks Damage 10 (+1) +5 vs Biological air. Or I'd just buff it incrementaly first I'd try +1 then +2 then +3, and I'd keep raising the bar until in ZvZ at least a small portion of the games would see hydralisks, I wouldn't go overboard though, I'd keep ZvZ predominantly as it is, but offer Hydralisks as a viable alternative. I think this would only serve to improve the game, especially with such a limited implication for the buff (Meaning only ZvZ as only Zerg has Biological flying units), but as I said this might literally be impossible with Brood War's engine.
If this change came through, you might see games like this occasionally if both playeres opted for hydralisks (As I said I wouldn't overbuff the hydralisks overtaking the current meta, I'd simply buff it enough to make it an alternative maybe something like 30%Hydralisk/70%Mutalisk, maybe players would open Mutalisk and transition to Hydra later, who knows, it's hard to tell, but in my opinion it would make ZvZ better.
(No Spire ZvZ, a really interesting tournament ran a couple of years back Match between TrutaCz and Technics)
On December 22 2016 07:52 vndestiny wrote: Seriously we're even entertaining the thought of tinkering mutalisk match up ? In a way that nerf Zerg mid game Z v T ? Really ?
Did you read, only vs Biological Air. Which means it has zero impact on ZvT. I also mentioned this might be impossible within the Brood War Engine, but I think if done correctly it would probably make ZvZ a better and more diverse match up.
I implore you to actually read the posts you are responding to.
On December 22 2016 08:24 duke91 wrote: The last balance patch was 1.08 in 2001. BW did fine without any patch since then.
Some of you want some units to get more action. This is not SC2 where Blizzard determines what is the meta.
I agree that there probably aren't going to ever be any patches, but that doesn't change if a change is warranted or not and if it would improve the game or not.
On December 22 2016 08:24 duke91 wrote: The last balance patch was 1.08 in 2001. BW did fine without any patch since then.
Some of you want some units to get more action. This is not SC2 where Blizzard determines what is the meta.
I agree that there probably aren't going to ever be any patches, but that doesn't change if a change is warranted or not and if it would improve the game or not.
Haven't we learned the lesson of what happens if you attempt to foresee the consequences of a balance change? Nobody is even remotely able to do so.
You could probably compare it to removing a predator in an ecosystem. No more wolves -> elk reproduce faster -> destroy more trees -> trees grow less high -> beavers find less material -> beavers build less dams -> rivers change their flow.
As has already been pointed out, there are secondary effects to balance changes: buff queen a bit -> see less tanks -> maybe see more hydras, potentially less mutas -> who knows what consequences follow...
On December 22 2016 08:24 duke91 wrote: The last balance patch was 1.08 in 2001. BW did fine without any patch since then.
Some of you want some units to get more action. This is not SC2 where Blizzard determines what is the meta.
I agree that there probably aren't going to ever be any patches, but that doesn't change if a change is warranted or not and if it would improve the game or not.
Haven't we learned the lesson of what happens if you attempt to foresee the consequences of a balance change? Nobody is even remotely able to do so.
You could probably compare it to removing a predator in an ecosystem. No more wolves -> elk reproduce faster -> destroy more trees -> trees grow less high -> beavers find less material -> beavers build less dams -> rivers change their flow.
As has already been pointed out, there are secondary effects to balance changes: buff queen a bit -> see less tanks -> maybe see more hydras, potentially less mutas -> who knows what consequences follow...
No you can make resonable predictions, especially when you have resonable balance changes.
The reason SC2 for instance has such weird meta swings is because Blizzard introduces big changes, something I wouldn't do.
Reading your comment feels like you really haven't read my posts. No, more energy for queens wouldn't kill Siege tanks, and it sure as fuck wouldn't make Hydralisks more useful in TvZ. I can say this being 99.999% certain. Most probably a small buff cutting the window down from 134 seconds to 67 seconds wouldn't even make the Queen much better than it is, I mean we aren't even talking about touching the stats, cost or the build time of the unit, just the starting energy and you are talking as if this has some kind of potential to kill the tank.
If we say, reduced Broodling cost to 75. You'd have a point, but you are kind of talking out of your ass, if you make resonable changes you can make resonable predictions, if you make wild changes, you can't make resonable predictions. It's as simple as that.
You could take a look at every Professional game where the Zerg went for Queens or look at all available replays from High level players where they for some reason decided to go queens. Mark when the Queens got 150 energy, subtract 67 seconds and then with reasonable accuracy predict how different the game could have gone if that small change would have been introduced. Balancing is really not as big a shoot in the dark as you think it is.
The difference with balancing in SC2 is:
-The meta is not as settled down as it is in BW -More than 1 change at a time (You can resonably predict how a balance change will play out among established units, but you cannot as accurately predict when another change might influence the equation as well) -SC2 and other games make big and drastic changes instead of small and incremental ones
I really don't know why I spent so much time arguing this, especially one specific completely theoretical change, it is kind of pointless since the Queen most certainly will never be changed, but it just seems like the majority of Teamliquid doesn't understand how Brood War "could" be better balanced, and because they don't understand it, they cannot even comprehend the idea that you can balance something in a slow and predictable manner (A technique most developers don't often employ, they prefer more interesting sweeping changes that throw the metagame out of whack) and end up with a better game at the end
Light sees the Queens with his drop, and decides to push out immediately
2:38:15 Effort does a very clever move, and forces the Terran army back to give his Queens additional time, but even with this genius distraction the Queens simply take too long to get ready
2:39:00 Light arrives at Efforts base and starts Siegeing him down, Broodlings are not ready, yet
2:39:40 Effort finally uses broodlings, but sadly Light already broke his Sunken Defense.
Subtract 67 seconds from 2:39:40 which is 2:38:33 and you can accurately predict how this particular change would affect this match, you can do the same with any small scale incremental change, the less drastic, the more accurate predictions you can make.
Do this with enough games and you have a pretty good model of how the game will change.
On December 22 2016 08:24 duke91 wrote: The last balance patch was 1.08 in 2001. BW did fine without any patch since then.
Some of you want some units to get more action. This is not SC2 where Blizzard determines what is the meta.
I agree that there probably aren't going to ever be any patches, but that doesn't change if a change is warranted or not and if it would improve the game or not.
Haven't we learned the lesson of what happens if you attempt to foresee the consequences of a balance change? Nobody is even remotely able to do so.
You could probably compare it to removing a predator in an ecosystem. No more wolves -> elk reproduce faster -> destroy more trees -> trees grow less high -> beavers find less material -> beavers build less dams -> rivers change their flow.
As has already been pointed out, there are secondary effects to balance changes: buff queen a bit -> see less tanks -> maybe see more hydras, potentially less mutas -> who knows what consequences follow...
No you can make resonable predictions, especially when you have resonable balance changes.[...] if you make resonable changes you can make resonable predictions, if you make wild changes, you can't make resonable predictions. It's as simple as that.
It's not as simple as that. if you make a change so small it has absolutely no effect on player decisions then I agree. But that's not what we are talking about. A patch is meant to make something viable that was not viable before. But the problem is, you can't examine a unit in isolation.
If a player produces a unit he didn't produce before, then at the same time he omits another unit that he did produce before. That fact follows from resources being limited and investment decisions always being a trade-off.
Why would a player substitute unit x for unit y in his composition? Only because it makes his new composition stronger than the old one. In a rock paper scissors game that is BW (every unit has a counter) a given composition is usually not just stronger on an absolute scale, but instead requires a different answer from the opponent in order to counter it. Hence you can conclude that the opponent will adapt his composition too.
(If that was not true and a buff would indeed make a composition stronger on an absolute scale, then it would alter the win rate of the matchup.)
By now we have concluded that buffing 1 unit to the point where it has any effect in the game at all at the very least changes usage of 4 units. (because the same principle holds for the opponents adaption of his composition: increasing the quantity of one unit automatically decreases the quantity of another unit too). And it doesn't necessarily stop there, composition changes could further ripple through different units.
by the way: matchup balance has continued to be adjusted post-1.08 patch. It was just done via the maps. Example: the balance between sunkens and marines is a function of rush distance.
Well.... I guess I have to back off in the face of reason on the medium sized mutas :S
For the sake of theorycrafting, turrets 13 normal damage instead of 20 explosive? Should such a change be considered a buff or a nerf to TvP, considering shuttles/arbiters/carriers vs observers/interceptors?
Would probably be a strong Terran buff TvZ, since overlords are not nearly as impactful as mutas in the meta...
well so this mod hmm, its just those third party graphic progs giving color saturation and i hardly believe any remastred music is actualy improved, much less sc2 sc1 track remaster. theres a couple more remastred sc1 sounds existing in sc2, did u know, like the probe and protoss announcer are straight from sc1, in my opinion sound worse played side by side. so much for remastering sounds and music if u ask me
so the real modding thatd be done here: bugfixes and balance changes then, thats hard, because bugs are prety much considered as features by now and fixing them would have balance implications along with balance changes themselves means an impossible task of ever getting anyone to play this. for example, fixing scarab and goon ai bugs would most certainly have impact, even without any balance changes
the community could never agree what balance changes shoudl be done and i dont think theres trust in blizzard to be capable themselves, that time has gone past 15 years ago, but i think most coudl agree not changing anything balance wise, because to be fair, game is balanced right now, there are just a few criminaly underused units and spells. it is fine, although just saying how its already perfect and cant be improved is sad and defeatist. and yes changing just one number could make it a sc2 clusterfuck of balance, more can probably go wrong than right, at least in blizzards hands. the game infact already has all the ingridients in the underused units/spells with existing counters too, but most of them are brought down by various bugs
theres also stuff thats just outright bad, like blind and restore, but are they really? imagine if theyd be area spells, restore woudl be nice plague and possible ensnare counter, i doubt it could make bio op, more like balanced. scouts, oh man they are basicly 2 wraiths glued, except they only do 8 ground dmg, despite graphic attack suggesting they have dual attack, why dont they have 2x8, they are also the most microable unit in the game once they get speed upgrade, better than vulture, which is ofcourse never seen. they can never be op cause cors/devour/valk (they got the misle sprite limit bug) counter them hard. why are infested terrans so specific and not buildable, such cool unit, ofc with its own attackmove only working on minimap bug. shiled battery coudl really use some kind of upgrade for the lategame, or even protoss shields way too high upg cost. what about firebats/ghost dmg itself, they got concussive with hardly any reason, firebats with normal dmg under swarm wouldnt kill lings any faster, theyd just not totlay suck vs lurker/ultra, theyd esentialy be a zealot with low hp and gas cost its not so insane. then maybe halucination for 75 energy, nukes not costing supply, devour at lair tech, still needing greater spire would save zvz, or maybe fixed ensnare woudl already do that. all just theorycrafting but its pretty intriguing
in any case, ye it might be prety cool to have more start energy on queen/da/ghost, because their default spells are quite weaker than defiler/vessel/ht, so u need to wait on secondary and its just soooo long making these units very hard to utilise while cheapenig their spell costs could just make them op. but ye +50 is way too much, +25. theres also things like dark archon not getting +12 energy at morph bug and ensnare being all over the place in its stats what and how much it slows. ofc to this day i wonder why pros dont use lockdown to lock arbiters, its the perfect counter, better than widely used emp, u lock recaling arbiters, u even disable their cloak when their locked, its brillaint and ghosts are cheap
but theres an even bigger perceived problem than all of this, theres always someone who says how bad pathing is, the way it works is bugged by itself, a meme status by now. i mean what should thered be an attempt to fix it? no i dont think its bad, it has flavor, it makes the units feel to occupy space and have presence, unlike the floaty, fluid pathing sc2 has, that is btw imo just as limited, but in all the diffrent areas than sc1 pathing. for instance stuff like movign around minerals/blocked cliffs, units themselves moving out of the way even tho u dont give order, all the units having mandatory damage point delay to firing making micro feel shit, the weird flying unit 3d hitbox, the invisible radar vision that all units got which makes them delay atacks, the stacking of ground units/spreading of air units (exactly reverse of what it is in sc1) etc etc all make sc2 pathing or rather gameplay (i gues its not all strictly pathing) so much worse than baybysitting a few goons if u ask me. and then theres the classic omg 12 unit select limit and no automining or multiple building select. might be true, but it works in an enviroment that is bw perfectly, which again sc2 brining modernity to the hurdles of life just means they then compensated for apm with macro mechanics and they have strong balance impacts to the point of doing harm and limiting the game much more than ui limitations ever could.
bottom line is, its so very complex exactly what and how much would be good to fix or change and all wed end up doing is going in circles discussing it. i feel like if u go in this direction might aswell go all out and mod in new units and stuff along with bugfixes and other balance changes. color saturation and music is just extra, anyone can swap those files right now.
On December 22 2016 07:52 vndestiny wrote: Seriously we're even entertaining the thought of tinkering mutalisk match up ? In a way that nerf Zerg mid game Z v T ? Really ?
Did you read, only vs Biological Air. Which means it has zero impact on ZvT. I also mentioned this might be impossible within the Brood War Engine, but I think if done correctly it would probably make ZvZ a better and more diverse match up.
I implore you to actually read the posts you are responding to.
I was talking about Kairo's post above not yours... Guess should've directly quoted his then.
On December 22 2016 07:52 vndestiny wrote: Seriously we're even entertaining the thought of tinkering mutalisk match up ? In a way that nerf Zerg mid game Z v T ? Really ?
Entertaining the idea of touching any balance in Broodwar what so ever is laughable
On December 20 2016 12:47 [[Starlight]] wrote: [quote] Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
The only balance changes should be making scouts either faster or cost 25 minerals less. Any more than that and brood war is no longer the same anymore.
This. Making scouts slightly faster would actually be cool imo.
they have an upgrade for that
Someone plays with scouts a lot but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
Devil's advocate: I don't think the Scout should be buffed, out of Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost, it's actually the best unit believe it or not.
Sure it's utter shit in Single Player, but in team games especially Hunters Scout/Siege Tank is the most efficient combo, it's insane if you can get it going, soo it actually has a niche, if you buffed it too much it might make it OP in Team games, if you only care about 1v1, making it a bit cheaper would be nice though.
Except team games arent what starcraft should be balanced around. DA, Ghosts, and Queens have seen far more competitive play than scouts, and pretty sure the only actual games that scouts were used not as a BM move was i think Jangbi vs forgg on colloseum to break a contain, and one where someone actually did the stove in a tournament game.
Also keep posts within one post please
I edited my comment, and mentioned that game.
I did say it was devil's advocate, because while I agree the game shouldn't be balanced around Team Games, at the very least the Scout is good at something, and it's VERY good at that. If you can get a maxed out Scout Army with a supporting Terran Siege Tank army. Good fucking luck killing that.
Dark Archon, Queen and Ghost remain "fun" only units, they don't have much competative use and it's a shame because all 3 are very fun to use, if I had to only buff 1 unit per race. It would be those 3. It's sad that you can be the best Protoss, Terran or Zerg on the planet without ever having to play with those 3, seems a bit sad.
For the people arguing against these buffs. I really don't understand the mentality, there is a golden middle ground, where they get seldom used, but don't fuck up balance and being OP. If Blizzard were still supporting the game, I'd ask them to gradually buff those units up incrementally until they saw some competative play, if the buffs were too much I'd roll them back, I really don't think anything else in the game needs balancing because it would just screw up how delicate Brood War is. To be clear I don't want to see a Dark Archon, a Queen or a Ghost in every game, I just want them to be viable late game alternatives
Each unit has its place. You hardly ever see Devourers being used but they have their place too. Also, when doing balance, its inportant to look at what needs to be changed and also what occurs because of that change. Lets say you buff DAs maelstrom. You're subsequently making PvZ more Protoss favored and they already have a very strong late game vZ. You also make it so that since DAs will be seen more, every other spellcaster just got a small nerf since feedback is a thing as well.
How about Queen buff? Well, early game mech is now generally unfeasible, since your first tank push gets crushed and Zerg counter attack is super strong, hell with earlier broodlings, Id say Zergs are actually the aggressors vs early mech play. So you nerfed Tanks straight into the ground early game with the SB buff. But wait theres more! With earlier broodlings, you just made Queens also stronger in ZvP! Now they can broodling HT more readily so timing attacks like the Zero game on Fighting Spirit happen much more.
Ghosts are incredibly delicate to balance because they have potential to be the strongest unit in the game with nukes.
50+ Starting Energy for DA and Queen isn't going to break the game, if you think it is you don't play enough. Also considering that T>Z>P>T, even if the 50+ starting energy somehow made Zerg win 0.5% more versus Terran and Protoss win 0.5% more versus Zerg, I'd call that a job well done.
I'm not asking for huge buffs here, I said incrementally, but that was an update soo you might not have read it.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
Personally, I wouldn't mind some kind of test map for some basic changes. I think changing starting energy really defeats the simplicity of BW, all units starting with 50, so I wouldn't go with that.
For Dark Archons, small changes to the upgrade costs, increasing the length of maelstrom, or modifying the upgrade cost could make for some interesting gameplay.
Queen I wouldn't change too much, potentially stuff like making ensnare longer range, greater aoe... Spawn broodlings is fine I think, maybe 125 energy instead of 150, idk.
Ghosts, no idea how I'd change those, but I think it's fairly fine.
Either way, I agree that most changes should not be gameplay related. Creating a better platform to play BW on (Shield Battery), and making it HD, adding replay viewer features like rewind (OpenBW), etc... Adding compatibilities with stuff like Spotify and Twitch (MCA64) is the way to go.
On December 22 2016 07:52 vndestiny wrote: Seriously we're even entertaining the thought of tinkering mutalisk match up ? In a way that nerf Zerg mid game Z v T ? Really ?
Entertaining the idea of touching any balance in Broodwar what so ever is laughable
Ok apparently I did not make myself clear.
Mutalisk vs x is a very staple but delicate match up, and has swung to Z or the opponents' favor more than a few times. Thus we do not have enough evidence to suggest mutalisk is op or up, therefore should not make rash balance change towards the mutalisk vs x match up.
Second of all (regards to my second sentence originally) Zerg mid game vs T is pretty difficult right now, and there's no reason to make it even harder.
I was being quite specific please don't generalize my words ;_;
Maybe I'm blind but if you ask me all I see is some contrast, gamma and sharpness changes - it doesn't look "HD" for me. And it hurts eyes, so no thanks! Keep experimenting.
i think the only change that would not hurt BW would be increasing resolution twice (make same models have twice more details) so like 1280x960 and announce big BW comeback wolf has satisfied his hunger and the sheep is in one piece :3
On December 25 2016 23:28 DracoMortuiVolantus wrote: i think the only change that would not hurt BW would be increasing resolution twice (make same models have twice more details) so like 1280x960 and announce big BW comeback wolf has satisfied his hunger and the sheep is in one piece :3
This is pretty much the approach we are taking at OpenBW. We settled on making models 4.5x original size and possibly rendering them at 2.25x in standard zoom.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
Ive seen DAs and queens used plenty on pro level, ghosts not so much. Mutas would become worthless if DA starting mana would increase this much. Maybe queens starting mana could be increased a bit, but not by 50, that is huge and would cause way too fast broodlings.
Please, for all of you aspiring low-level balancers, don't. Each unit already has a place in the game. Not every unit is supposed to be viable in every match-up and in every situation. Change is not necessarily a good thing.
Let's focus on the graphics please. Gameplay does NOT need to be changed.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
Personally, I wouldn't mind some kind of test map for some basic changes. I think changing starting energy really defeats the simplicity of BW, all units starting with 50, so I wouldn't go with that.
For Dark Archons, small changes to the upgrade costs, increasing the length of maelstrom, or modifying the upgrade cost could make for some interesting gameplay.
Queen I wouldn't change too much, potentially stuff like making ensnare longer range, greater aoe... Spawn broodlings is fine I think, maybe 125 energy instead of 150, idk.
Ghosts, no idea how I'd change those, but I think it's fairly fine.
Either way, I agree that most changes should not be gameplay related. Creating a better platform to play BW on (Shield Battery), and making it HD, adding replay viewer features like rewind (OpenBW), etc... Adding compatibilities with stuff like Spotify and Twitch (MCA64) is the way to go.
It's been many years since I've touched any BW mapping tool (StarEdit or SCMDraft) but I'm pretty sure that unlike WC3 and SC2 you can't actually change things like unit energy, energy cost for abilities, research effects, research time etc. Only very basic HP/Shields/Attack (and name). Beyond that you'd need to actually mod the game, create a mod, and have people play on that mod.
Basically what I'm getting at is that a "balance test map" with those kinds of changes would be impossible in the super-convenient way that SC2 does it. Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
But as for balance, I think that should be left untouched. That's the one thing nobody ever wants touched.
Not entirely true. But it is true that of the ppl who want even slight balance changes, they can never seem to agree on what those should be.
So, Blizzard would have to make any of those type of changes.
If I had to change something, I'd buff Dark Archons, Queens and Ghosts a bit, soo that they saw SOME competative play. Those units might as well not exist in the competative sense.
Increase starting energy of all those units by 50. Increase Ghosts HP by a bit, don't see this having a negative impact on the game, worst case scenario Queens become legit option in lategame PvZ
Personally, I wouldn't mind some kind of test map for some basic changes. I think changing starting energy really defeats the simplicity of BW, all units starting with 50, so I wouldn't go with that.
For Dark Archons, small changes to the upgrade costs, increasing the length of maelstrom, or modifying the upgrade cost could make for some interesting gameplay.
Queen I wouldn't change too much, potentially stuff like making ensnare longer range, greater aoe... Spawn broodlings is fine I think, maybe 125 energy instead of 150, idk.
Ghosts, no idea how I'd change those, but I think it's fairly fine.
Either way, I agree that most changes should not be gameplay related. Creating a better platform to play BW on (Shield Battery), and making it HD, adding replay viewer features like rewind (OpenBW), etc... Adding compatibilities with stuff like Spotify and Twitch (MCA64) is the way to go.
[...]I'm pretty sure that unlike WC3 and SC2 you can't actually change things like unit energy, energy cost for abilities, research effects, research time etc[...]
SCM Draft lets you adjust values like research time in the "upgrade settings" and "tech settings" tab (check e.g. "Tech Settings - Zerg - Spawn Broodling - Energy"). But I do indeed not see an option to change starting energy of units.
Funny how this thread evolved into a walls-of-text-balance-crap-battle. When it was clearly about graphics...
You should post a screenshot of the same things from the original game for side by side comparison. As others have said the colours are really bad. GL.
On December 26 2016 20:43 RouaF wrote: Funny how this thread evolved into a walls-of-text-balance-crap-battle. When it was clearly about graphics...
You should post a screenshot of the same things from the original game for side by side comparison. As others have said the colours are really bad. GL.
Funny how you did not even read the OP. Let me quote it for your convenience:
On December 26 2016 20:43 RouaF wrote: Funny how this thread evolved into a walls-of-text-balance-crap-battle. When it was clearly about graphics...
You should post a screenshot of the same things from the original game for side by side comparison. As others have said the colours are really bad. GL.
Funny how you did not even read the OP. Let me quote it for your convenience:
Oh I did read it and saw that. Don't think it deserved so much pointless discussion when it wasn't the main point . Balance changes in BW is a dead horse deader than dead. I thought my post was pretty clear sorry if it wasn't.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ak7CwTJ.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CAo7hKz.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Iyx83DF.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JiFNfnE.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Ha0yD9A.jpg)
However, with that being said, again, I personally think it looks pretty cool atm.
but for real i had no idea haha. Then yeah make them like 25 minerals cheaper haha
