On March 20 2019 03:30 Amui wrote: I'm in the leave most of them be category. To get them into even into a niche role means buffing them, which will necessarily screw up balance if it's strong enough to be used.
Infested terran is probably the only one that it almost doesn't matter. Could be free on a 1 minute spawn timer and I doubt you'd see more than a couple times each season, and even more rarely have it decide a game.
Indeed. The game stats are fine as is. I'd rather we didn't risk it with Blizzard's track record. Best thing to do is have more wacky maps that force different strats out much like ASL has been doing. I mean, we even saw bio terran vs protoss in ASL6 and we saw ghosts vs corsairs in ASL4.
Can you possibly link that game with Ghosts vs Corsairs you mentioned in ASL 4 ?? Would like to watch that
Agreed with s1 above, move Scout upgrades the Cybernetics Core and maybe decrease cost from 275m to ~250m, I think it would be enough to bring them to the game, nn to removing upgrades imo.
Ghost: give them Lockdown as default and decrease time of Ocular Implants research from 105!! lol to ~60 so make them some useable against Carriers/Arbiters and maybe Shuttles in TvP.
Queen: ez, drecrease cost of Spawn Broodling to 125e and increase Ensnare radius from 4 to 5.
Nuke: remove supply cost completely ( what a strange design, bomb costs supply lol) and decrease Nuclear Silo costs from 100m 100g to 75m 75g
Corsair - increase Disruption Webs duration time from 15secs to 20secs
Dark Archon - Maelstrom is still decent vs Mutas and Ulralisks (look at some games with Best), but Argus Talisman should increase starting energy to 62.
Adding scout movement speed to the cyber core is actually a really good change, nice suggestion. Dweb doesn't need to be buffed, dark archons definitely dont need to be changed. Nothing else really in the game needs to be changed, that's the only change i'd make.
We would need a whole new PTR and thousands upon thousands of games; most of them played by ex-pros and current streamers in order to even start to timidly think about tweaking in-game numbers of spells. This seems hardly likely to happen, doesn't it? So my conclusion would be "Let's just keep it as it is and enjoy it while it lasts; let's drain every drop of joy from this glorious game as a balance change is unreasonable without extensive testing."
Soccer is staling, always the same round ball, always the same 22 humans running back and forth...
Lets not end like sc2 with the devs obsessed to make every single unit usable at any given time. I love to have super rare units/abilities to make an appear even just once a year in the pro scene, it makes for super exciting moments. Look at how we started ASL7, Nada nuke-rushing Larva... yes he lost but who cares (perfect start for a fantastic season btw).
Adding and changing gameplay items is just a trend of a immature western esport driven by a speculative gaming industry that only see esport as a marketing tool or a money machine to milk as many kids as possible.
One day esport will be more about viewers then players so we will start to apreciate a sport for what it is and not for how profitable it is or for how much is going to feed the competitive players hunger of grandiosity by smashing as many noobs as possible in a tranding videogame.
EDIT: Ppl tend to forget that BW is not a native 1v1 game, team games are actually pretty good for many reasons, much better the other rts. All the units mentioned in this topic have a role in team games situations, both a banter and a serious role.
EDIT2:
On March 19 2019 18:17 M3t4PhYzX wrote: I would love to see more DA for protoss against zerg. I think it is the most underused unit in BW, actually. Looking at the potential this unit has, especially in mid and late game scenarios. But it is a matter of build order and creativity and not balance per se.
DA is a trending unit like many others in the pro scene eras. They were quite tranding in pvz around 2006/2007 if I remember correctly.
it's not like the game isn't on the decline anyway i would be all for slight buffs to the scouts and ghost, ideally after blizzard talks to the pros and makes sure the game isn't just ruined for zerg i think the devourer is a little too expensive, island maps shouldn't be the only time they appear (if even that) and it's pretty easy to deal with them with magic. queens on the other hand are totally fine as is
On March 20 2019 19:09 TT1 wrote: Adding scout movement speed to the cyber core is actually a really good change, nice suggestion. Dweb doesn't need to be buffed, dark archons definitely dont need to be changed. Nothing else really in the game needs to be changed, that's the only change i'd make.
interesting idea indeed. Would like to see that implemented, but there's about 0.00001% chance of it happening, so.. yeah.
Took long enough for an answer like antihack's to come along. Always hated the concept of "balance patches" in modern games, because the dev goal is ultimately not to achieve balance but to induce changes in meta to bait players to return periodically to play/watch the game (and in the process give dev money). No more than a marketing ploy
On March 21 2019 00:50 tube wrote: it's not like the game isn't on the decline anyway i would be all for slight buffs to the scouts and ghost, ideally after blizzard talks to the pros and makes sure the game isn't just ruined for zerg i think the devourer is a little too expensive, island maps shouldn't be the only time they appear (if even that) and it's pretty easy to deal with them with magic. queens on the other hand are totally fine as is
The fact that a 21 year old eletronic game is in "decline" is proof that the game is amazing and timeless. Most 21 year old games are simply not played at all.
On March 20 2019 03:30 Amui wrote: I'm in the leave most of them be category. To get them into even into a niche role means buffing them, which will necessarily screw up balance if it's strong enough to be used.
Infested terran is probably the only one that it almost doesn't matter. Could be free on a 1 minute spawn timer and I doubt you'd see more than a couple times each season, and even more rarely have it decide a game.
Indeed. The game stats are fine as is. I'd rather we didn't risk it with Blizzard's track record. Best thing to do is have more wacky maps that force different strats out much like ASL has been doing. I mean, we even saw bio terran vs protoss in ASL6 and we saw ghosts vs corsairs in ASL4.
Can you possibly link that game with Ghosts vs Corsairs you mentioned in ASL 4 ?? Would like to watch that
On March 20 2019 09:28 EndingLife wrote: I just want to be able to scout harass the way zerg does with muta and terran does with wraiths. The one and only change i'd make to the game would be to make scout upgrades available via the cybernetics core instead of the fleet beacon. The cost and build time of the scout is fine. It would basically only change the PvZ meta anyways.
The only change that needs to happen is making hydra upgrades take longer so that PvZ isn't always a toss up of whether or not protoss defends against hydra rushes. It wouldn't affect TvZ or ZvZ at all, so make hydra upgrades take longer.
As far as underutilized units I would make the scout upgrades already part of the unit instead of a separate upgrade. Scouts cost enough as it is, and they may have a place on island maps but I don't think they should be a regular occurrence otherwise in land maps they may change the balance of other match ups.
Corsairs I would make d-web cost 100 energy instead of 125. Squeezing out 2 d-webs per corsair only when they max out energy takes a long time and it only lasts 15 seconds so I'd say its fair especially when it has to be researched and upgraded energy as well. I would like to see more corsair usage in PvT and PvZ. I think it's underutilized when arbiters often disable only 2-3 tanks sometimes if they have a good spread, while corsairs are built cheaper and faster and with a couple d-webs could produce the same results or possibly more.
The seconds it takes for siege tanks to unsiege and move would turn the tide easily, as well as make carrier transitions more common. I think in mid- late game PvZ corsair usage can definitely help against atking bases heavily defended with sunk/lurker spores, reduces surface area for zerg units to atk and make it harder for them to whittle down protoss army making them more survivable for longer. The savings of not having to reproduce units as fast will pay dividends if d-web is utilized to its maximum potential while being used alongside psi-storm. Protoss is the race with the most spell abilities, might as well utilize them to maximize Protoss potential instead of trying to compete in numbers with other races. Trading inefficiently with Terran or Zerg will make Protoss lose.
Theres a 4p Manhattan Project map that used neutral units on the map to encourage these common units. Terran - all naturals have a neutral Nuclear Silo Zerg - CC in middle of map to be infested (like Holy World) Protoss - neutral SCVs (i think) on the map that can be mind controlled
And as always, if you want to try different unit stats, there's MPQ editor for that. You can give ghosts shields, broodlings permanent cloak, and scouts do splash ground damage or whatever you want.
Underused units are interesting because they are underused. If everything was equaly viable, games would be less predictable and just a random shitfest with too much luck.
On March 21 2019 03:15 MooPower92 wrote: The only change that needs to happen is making hydra upgrades take longer so that PvZ isn't always a toss up of whether or not protoss defends against hydra rushes. It wouldn't affect TvZ or ZvZ at all, so make hydra upgrades take longer.
As far as underutilized units I would make the scout upgrades already part of the unit instead of a separate upgrade. Scouts cost enough as it is, and they may have a place on island maps but I don't think they should be a regular occurrence otherwise in land maps they may change the balance of other match ups.
Corsairs I would make d-web cost 100 energy instead of 125. Squeezing out 2 d-webs per corsair only when they max out energy takes a long time and it only lasts 15 seconds so I'd say its fair especially when it has to be researched and upgraded energy as well. I would like to see more corsair usage in PvT and PvZ. I think it's underutilized when arbiters often disable only 2-3 tanks sometimes if they have a good spread, while corsairs are built cheaper and faster and with a couple d-webs could produce the same results or possibly more.
The seconds it takes for siege tanks to unsiege and move would turn the tide easily, as well as make carrier transitions more common. I think in mid- late game PvZ corsair usage can definitely help against atking bases heavily defended with sunk/lurker spores, reduces surface area for zerg units to atk and make it harder for them to whittle down protoss army making them more survivable for longer. The savings of not having to reproduce units as fast will pay dividends if d-web is utilized to its maximum potential while being used alongside psi-storm. Protoss is the race with the most spell abilities, might as well utilize them to maximize Protoss potential instead of trying to compete in numbers with other races. Trading inefficiently with Terran or Zerg will make Protoss lose.
Good points about the hydra and the corsair, actually..
initially was going to post that this is more an issue of aesthetics than design, and people just have gotten attached to the way starcraft is and won't want to change it
after thinking about it some more, i've come to the idea that some minor tweaks can actually introduce new "mini games" into the game and keep it fresh (a minigame is something like a common interaction in a matchup like a group of speed vultures with mines micro vs a group of dragoons)
probably a tough sell still
oh another thing: the core of starcraft is so good (pathing, control groups, mining) that it is a ripe opportunity to make it even better with a more diverse gameplay... even if something new creates expected dynamics in a matchup (i.e. new late game fundamentals or timings) building off already established dynamics (i.e. the classic established fundamentals of a matchup) this can be a good thing
On March 21 2019 05:20 Navane wrote: Underused units are interesting because they are underused. If everything was equaly viable, games would be less predictable and just a random shitfest with too much luck.
you can make a unit predictably viable consecutively instead of viable at a concurrent time with other units thus done one way could create more transitions throughout the game but not more options at once (e.g. a late game viable transition that couldn't be an option in the mid game, thus predictable)