On November 22 2020 15:06 Kanil wrote: I wouldn't mind seeing a change to make hive tech ZvZ more viable without screwing up the rest of the game. I couldn't possibly tell you how to do such a thing, though.
Each ZvZ starts with both players already having the buildings necessary to force a Hive Tech scenario - I forget what they were from the great era of ZvZ, but there was a definite "formula" whereby two people pursuing different builds resulted in a nearly-forced Hive scenario. It's like starting in Castle Age in AoE2.
That sounds great, but I don't know if making the matches kinda asymmetrical would be embraced by the community. The perception of an RTS being "equal to equal" on every case/scenario is a hard totem.
On November 22 2020 18:07 TaardadAiel wrote: The meta game always considers players' own limitations in the structure of the game besides more "hard" stuff like unit costs or training times. Take disruption web, for example. It's way too apm intensive - even if fleet beacon tech and researching disruption web isn't that costly in itself compared to, say, arbiter tech. But with arbiters you get a small number of auto-cloaking, somewhat sturdy units, that don't need extreme micromanagement to stasis a clump of tanks. Ghosts are another example - you'd get a science facility anyway for upgrades, the add-on isn't that expensive, the ghost itself is tiny on the screen so somewhat harder to target, but you need a bunch of them to be effective and say, lock down a few carriers. You need to micro all those separately while moving a large mech force and macroing at the same time.
The reason the defiler is arguably the most effective spellcaster in the game is that you usually don't need more than just a few with you army (consume takes care of energy issues) and both spells are 1) AoE 2) a lot of bang for the buck action-wise, i.e. with comparatively few actions you can cripple an army with plague or turn a battlefield unwinnable for ranged troops.
Of course, devourers and scouts are straight-up fighter units that require little babysitting and therefore are just less bang for the buck because of associated costs or mechanical limitations (the devourer attack animation is ridiculous sometimes). The scout is particularly bad because not only the unit cost is high, but the only useful upgrade comes through tech that is rarely if ever used in PvZ and in PvT you get it for a different unit.
On November 22 2020 19:47 Severedevil wrote: I want to hear NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED. Buff nukes so they're not just a stylish way to lose.
Imho touching nukes is way too risky. The amount of damage you can get with one (good) nuke is too high to try to expand that into competitive gaming.
If you buff a tiny bit an specific unit, well, you're touching specific scenarios. Maybe you kill 4 drones instead of 3 or wipe 10 marines instead of 8 on a tiny spectrum of the games... but buffing nukes is too much. You could end making them mainstream and boring to deal with since they don't require to much micro or strategy (besides getting your ghost to actually nuke a position).
Reaver attack is so hard to control.. everytime i try to hit something, the scarab stay on hold for a few seconds and i miss my attack. They should fix that
I don't think they should change anything, because even the tiniest change can completely change the balance of something else or introduce a bunch of new bugs/break a lot of other things. It's too risky to do I think.
It's interesting how the units that come to mind for most people are always scouts and queens when the elephant in the room is the ghost. This unit was build for single player only and while you might see it just about as often as a scout, the scout could also be simply removed from the game (if BW was still in an active balance patching state that is exactly what would happen) while the ghost basically represents a whole branch of Terran tech. You need barracks, academy, science facility, covered ops to build one, then you need a nuke silo and a nuke to get use out of it. It has 4 upgrades, of which one is basically required to even use the unit. The ghost is basically a spell caster with an attack which is so bad it would be better without it (like an arbiter) that comes with no spells.
I can see the rage bars filling, so let me go first: I don't say you should buff the ghost, it might just break the game to give Terran just about anything in addition to what they have today. But if you want to change an aspect of the game, the ghost is first on the list. It just hurts the most to have a fully fleshed out tech tree with so many buildings, upgrades and units that is completely and utterly useless, both at lower and pro levels, except for the once per decade stunt that fails 9 out of 10 times and makes pimpest plays if it does not fail for once.
So just for the purpose of floating some ideas (that all might very well break the game), how about any of those (one or two, not all): - make lock down work on ALL unit types - give the ghost a meaningful attack with normal damage type - make the nuke silo an upgrade to the scanner so you can keep the scanner - make ghosts start with the cloak ability (remove the upgrade or make the upgrade change cloak from energy to permanent) - remove the vision and energy upgrade and replace them with good upgrades like doing more damage and/or splash damage or make them benefit from the stim pack upgrade as well
The whole idea should be the give terran more options, not more power. What if instead of rushing for vessels to counter stacked mutas, you could choose to rush ghosts with splash damage upgrade and maybe even the ability to lock down ultras? :-)
The liquipedia article on the ghost puts it nicely when it lists "as a means to show one's dominance or to subtly tell opponents that they have lost" as one of the usages of the ghost - to bm you opponent.
On November 22 2020 22:12 Poly_Optimize wrote: Reaver attack is so hard to control.. everytime i try to hit something, the scarab stay on hold for a few seconds and i miss my attack. They should fix that
There were a lot of people asking for this since the game came out.
On one side, I understand it is quite frustrating, but:
- Maybe "fixing" the attack and making it 100% reliable will be too much. That is a huge buff. - The hype before a scarab hitting or missing is part of the show.
On November 22 2020 22:29 Qikz wrote: I don't think they should change anything, because even the tiniest change can completely change the balance of something else or introduce a bunch of new bugs/break a lot of other things. It's too risky to do I think.
My personal fear is that changing something could mutate the game and getting into the "everything is viable" of SC2.
I mean, BW is more about hard counters than SC2, and nerfing/buffing stuff too much could reduce strategy instead of expand it.
That's why I'm talking about introducing "atomic" changes to see if those obscure units/abilities can be considered into the competitive scene.
On November 22 2020 22:46 Chosi wrote: It's interesting how the units that come to mind for most people are always scouts and queens when the elephant in the room is the ghost. This unit was build for single player only and while you might see it just about as often as a scout, the scout could also be simply removed from the game (if BW was still in an active balance patching state that is exactly what would happen) while the ghost basically represents a whole branch of Terran tech. You need barracks, academy, science facility, covered ops to build one, then you need a nuke silo and a nuke to get use out of it. It has 4 upgrades, of which one is basically required to even use the unit. The ghost is basically a spell caster with an attack which is so bad it would be better without it (like an arbiter) that comes with no spells.
I can see the rage bars filling, so let me go first: I don't say you should buff the ghost, it might just break the game to give Terran just about anything in addition to what they have today. But if you want to change an aspect of the game, the ghost is first on the list. It just hurts the most to have a fully fleshed out tech tree with so many buildings, upgrades and units that is completely and utterly useless, both at lower and pro levels, except for the once per decade stunt that fails 9 out of 10 times and makes pimpest plays if it does not fail for once.
So just for the purpose of floating some ideas (that all might very well break the game), how about any of those (one or two, not all): - make lock down work on ALL unit types - give the ghost a meaningful attack with normal damage type - make the nuke silo an upgrade to the scanner so you can keep the scanner - make ghosts start with the cloak ability (remove the upgrade or make the upgrade change cloak from energy to permanent) - remove the vision and energy upgrade and replace them with good upgrades like doing more damage and/or splash damage or make them benefit from the stim pack upgrade as well
The whole idea should be the give terran more options, not more power. What if instead of rushing for vessels to counter stacked mutas, you could choose to rush ghosts with splash damage upgrade and maybe even the ability to lock down ultras? :-)
The liquipedia article on the ghost puts it nicely when it lists "as a means to show one's dominance or to subtly tell opponents that they have lost" as one of the usages of the ghost - to bm you opponent.
Even I don't like some of the suggestions, I think the Ghost is, as you said, one of the most forgotten units of course.
Making them benefit from stim pack and nuking 2-3 seconds faster would be madness haha.
Some suggestions in here are related to developing new features which Blizzard is clearly incapable of delivering without any major fallback (as shown by the last few patches)
Anything related to cost/build time/upgrades should be trivial to implement (no matter if the game is old, new etc).
Come to think of it. I wonder who would Blizzard listen to if somehow the community (I'm guessing the Korean one) would like some of these things at least tried out.
Given the current state of things I would guess that even something as simple as this would require some bureaucracy justification internally to Activision, which come to think of it, is quite sad.
On November 22 2020 06:45 Jealous wrote: While some units may not be "meta" that doesn't mean they don't see use in other game modes. Better to leave things as they are not just because of the impact on the competitive scene but also on the intangible and hard to calculate/adapt cases like BGH 3v3, Blizz map FFA, etc.
Simply, why risk ruining something just to see Scouts used more often or something? Is that really something that we need? We have players on these forums who argue for making Guardians stronger simply because they are their favorite units, that's really what it boils down to and it's pure nonsense.
Yeah good point. For example, imagine someone making the point in MTGA that each and every card needs to be viable in competetive play... It's ok to have some units that barely see any use. Maybe they have uses in other game modes. Also, I don't think there is a way to buff a single unit, which is not used at all in competivie play right now (e.g. the scout), to appear 2 % more often. That would imply you would give them a niche and you would have to know that niche prior to the change... If you don't do that you will only be able to straight up buff the unit, which will either be not enough so it remains irrelevant or it's enough to take the spot of another unit.
On November 22 2020 06:45 Jealous wrote: While some units may not be "meta" that doesn't mean they don't see use in other game modes. Better to leave things as they are not just because of the impact on the competitive scene but also on the intangible and hard to calculate/adapt cases like BGH 3v3, Blizz map FFA, etc.
Simply, why risk ruining something just to see Scouts used more often or something? Is that really something that we need? We have players on these forums who argue for making Guardians stronger simply because they are their favorite units, that's really what it boils down to and it's pure nonsense.
Yeah good point. For example, imagine someone making the point in MTGA that each and every card needs to be viable in competetive play... It's ok to have some units that barely see any use. Maybe they have uses in other game modes. Also, I don't think there is a way to buff a single unit, which is not used at all in competivie play right now (e.g. the scout), to appear 2 % more often. That would imply you would give them a niche and you would have to know that niche prior to the change... If you don't do that you will only be able to straight up buff the unit, which will either be not enough so it remains irrelevant or it's enough to take the spot of another unit.
Well to be honest, the Scout and Corsair, if both economically viable would not completely cancel one over the other since the Scout can shoot ground.
Maybe Scouts win over in PvZ because they also have an use later in game (as opposed to Sairs being a supply dump in some scenarios of the MU)
Truth of the matter is we don't know until some of the best players in the world try it out for a period of time and adapt their builds to the new changes.
Soccer is boring and stale. I am very smart guy, and I know FIFA will listen to my genius suggestions. Maybe two footballs instead of just one? Lets also give the goalies jetpacks? I think that make for more fun and interesting soccer matches. Sincerely, guy in the chat.
On November 23 2020 02:01 tankgirl wrote: "Monthly Topic Rotation" thread
Soccer is boring and stale. I am very smart guy, and I know FIFA will listen to my genius suggestions. Maybe two footballs instead of just one? Lets also give the goalies jetpacks? I think that make for more fun and interesting soccer matches. Sincerely, guy in the chat.
Automatic redcard for simulation, video review after each game and ban from following 2 games if not caught during the game.
On November 22 2020 07:29 subanchoide wrote: Plus, it is not about "Oh I want to see Scouts used more" as a personal desire or anything related. It's more about how can you expand the vast strategy of the game.
I don't understand this tendency, but I see it often. I'm busy focusing on mastering the game, and you have some people (often more than enough to succeed) interested in changing that game. I'm not talking about Starcraft here either, but it's the same issue. Luckily, Starcraft has enough diehard people willing to resist that temptation that it doesn't happen. But I've had to quit playing games before because they got ruined by ideas like this.
On November 22 2020 09:03 TT1 wrote: Imo they should turn reavers into a hybrid flyer/ground unit, like vikings in sc2. That way P can harass without a shuttle, you'd have great anti air splash damage and you could land them wherever you want for ground harass. You could also add a speed upgrade for them but that might be too OP... it's worth exploring tho.
The speed upgrade is definitely too OP for a single unit. Imagine a ball of mutalisks that kills 20 workers at a time instead of 1. That's what you're talking about. I think the logical extension of your idea would be to make shuttles a ground unit, and give them the ability to have a reaver landing pad which can also launch reavers into the air. And keep them as a unit that attacks ground only, like guardians. This way the speed of the shuttle is separate in one unit and the power of the reaver, still slow, is separated into a different one.
niche units are good because when you see them, it's really interesting. See: stork using (a single) scout this ASL. There's also a couple of legitimate uses for scouts, they are pretty good vs BCs for instance, if they ever entered the tvp meta.
ghosts - there was that nuke sunken bust build a couple of ASLs ago, and I think they have a lot of potential in tvp because hitting the lockdown on arbs is easier and cleaner than EMP.
queens - the only reason you don't see these right now is because nobody is playing long mech tvz games... as a direct result of the queen shutting down this style. Zero also used queens vs flash in asl9 to ensnare bio, and has used them in the past in zvp.
devos - doesn't need any changes, you don't see these because no matchup other than zvz turns into a late game air domination battle, mostly as a result of the devo being strong in those situations.
DAs - fills its niche well of countering lategame HT muta snipes, no changes needed.
The reason you wouldn't want to add +2 attack to scouts is a matter of breakpoints - how many hits it takes to kill a unit. Add 2 ground and it goes from 16 hits to kill a gol to 13, which is pretty significant because gols actually suck against mass air, evidenced in similar upgrade muta vs gol battles, which has a nonzero chance to alter the meta, and at that point - we're basically throwing out 18 or so years of map development. Maybe this would only affect lategame tvp because they take so long to make, but still. I don't think it's necessary as all the p matchups operate pretty smoothly without scouts.
Tweaks I'd like to see are in adding more features that map makers can abuse in melee, like air blocking tiles or timers on openable doors or something.
The meta definitely needs a shake-up after all this time: 10+ years with limited drastic changes to pro play.
The meta does not need shaking up with balance patches, and if you think it does, you aren't looking closely enough. Practically every ASL season there's an entirely different meta, and *definitely* from 2010.
On November 22 2020 12:24 Jealous wrote: I mean, you can see Scouts being used here at like ~2200+ MMR, that's already the top 5% of the player population or something, right? Why do all units need to be mainstream and no niche? I believe this is the mistake Blizzard made with SC2 to some extent.
Great example. Didn't see that game, and the results seem promising. I wonder if he kept looking at it or just discard it after trying the same thing on a couple of games.
I'm not saying all units should be mainstream. Some units are niche, guardians, firebats... But seeing scouts or ghosts (besides nuking) is kinda anecdotical. Of course if you look for it on the 15 years of BW competitive scene you would find some examples.
As I said before, for me it's like the game has X units/abilities and that number leads to Y strategies. Why not try to tweak those units and abilities that are kinda useless on 99% of the games and see if the game gets even more complex. Again, I'm not into extremely buffing stuff to make it viable on all games or creating a new meta, but make it useless on 90% of the games instead of 99%.
Earlier in the same video, Snow talks about how Movie had prepared a Scout strategy specifically to counter Jaedong on a specific map in OSL - highest level of competition. Only reason it didn't see the light of day is because Jaedong died to the first part of the build (Cannon rush). This is why niche units are needed, because they are SO unexpected and rarely fought against.
If these niche units become even 9% more likely, it puts undue pressure on the opponent and can swing balance/affect decision-making and actually limit the amount of builds the opposing race can opt for, because now there is a 900% increase in how likely it is for X strategy to just fail.