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On September 10 2010 12:20 fugimax wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 12:16 0neder wrote:On September 10 2010 12:06 Musiq wrote:
The medivacs from the alpha build of SC2 were suppose to only be dropships. The Healing was an upgrade you can research turning the Dropship -> Medivac I like this idea a lot. Would allow for more choices, plus a minor nerf. But again, this would delay healing drops by maybe a minute or two ... is that really enough? Further, most drops I see involve a bunch or marauders pwning a nexus/hatch/cc and then hoping back into the medivac ... the role of the healing isn't key to the strat that many cry is OP..
A Medivac heals 13.5 HPS.
A Stalker deals 10/14 (Armoured) damage every 1.44 seconds. (A DPS of 6.94r/9.7r).
This gives a problem where 2 Stalkers (250/100) against 1 Marine and 1 Medivac would lose because the Stalker's combined DPS is (6.94 x 2 ) 13.88r meaning that against the 13.5 HPS the Stalkers are dealing (13.88r - 13.5 hps) 0.388r DPS. Against a Marine without combat shields (45 hp) this would cause the 2 Stalkers (note we're dealing with 250/100 against 150/100) to take 118.4 seconds to kill the Marine (assuming the Medivac never runs out of energy). If you were to target the Medivac first, however, it would take (150/17.4(-2[+1 armour reducing 1 damage from both Stalker attacks])) 8.6 seconds followed by a further 3.2 seconds to kill the Marine for a total of 11.8 seconds. In this 11.8 seconds, however, the Marine is dealing 6.97 dps (factoring in the -1 damage from the Stalker armour). In the 11.8 seconds it takes to kill both the Medivac/Marine [assuming you target the Medivac first) the Marine deals 82.2 damage.
This is the problem I find, as Protoss, against Terran. If both armies are equal the Protoss gets absolutely crushed because of the insane healing of the medivac. With proper control, from the Terran player, it takes 3 Stalkers to do enough damage to negate the healing effect of 1 Medivac against 1 Marine. While the Medivac is healing, however, the Terran army is at full strength because it's not losing numbers.
Posted by me. Medivac healing accounts for HUGE differences.
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I have to disagree..... it is way eaiser to tech switch with zerg. Sure you have to build a building.. But then you ccan mass produce that unit INSTANTLY. Terran may be able to switch buildings, but you need to actually build like 3-5 of those buildings to actually produce anything out of them...
I mean you dont often see mass rax's, tech switching to mass factory then mass starport ... where as zerg that happens nearly every game. Zergs always tech switch..."wait my roach/hydra isnt working, Ill build a spire and the second its done mass 20 mutas in the build time of a single muta... Ok now hes got a ton of marines, ill just drops a baneling nest and spawn tons of banelings immediatly. " that doesnt happen with terran as they would need to drop factories to try and counter banelings. Tech switching with terran (aside from units out of the same building, which isnt really tech switching btw) requires a much greater investment.... E.g. from bio to big air ---> cost of 3-5 starports is huge (tons of gas). Tech switching to air with zerg = spire cost/build time, and mass production of that unit thereafter. In addition, alot of the time when you want to tech switch as terran, you still need those tech labs on your other structures to continue producing effective units. eg. if you are facing mass roach and want to switch to banshee you are not going to lift all your rax off and start producing marines against roaches, just so you can immediatly produce banshees.
I completely disagree with the tech lab analysis....However, the rest of your post is fairly reasonable. I agree that sensor towers are pretty huge, but im not sure if thats blizz's attempt to make up for the lack of mobility of alot of terran builds. The same could be argued for the medivac, but I agree that the medivac is hugely strong unit.
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On September 10 2010 12:19 Cranberries wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 12:12 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:10 EliteAzn wrote:On September 10 2010 12:05 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:01 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 11:59 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 11:50 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 11:48 fugimax wrote:
Here's a thought:
Why not leave Terran the way it is an tweak the other races? Terran is the most accessible race. It's fairly straightforward, you don't need crazy APM to just keep up, and it's downright fun to play. Why not lower the need for "macro APM" on the other races and focus on making APM really shine in micro?
This would let pros do amazing things and let the casuals play all three races. I don't play either Zerg or Protoss because the necessity of downright annoying actions (queen larva spewing, chronoboost, etc.) makes me not interested in those races at all. They are not accessible to me, really. I wouldn't have fun playing the game.
My guess is that Blizzard probably agrees with most of this given their previous statements on accessibility and leveling the field in certain regards.. If you reduce the skill level in a game that's supposed to be an esports because of it's uncapped skill level I'd argue pretty strongly it's counter intuitive and bad, overall, for the game's progression: both as an esports and as a business venture. I'm not saying reduce the skill level ... I'm saying redistribute the skill into micro. Most people complain that SC2 is not as micro intense as SC1 ... ok, then take the annoying macro APM required and push that into micro. You can still make a game that has "no skill cap" ... but don't make the fundamentals annoying and inaccessible. As a casual, playing anything but Terran would just be stupid for me. Do you know how APM works, or what it means? If you reduce the APM needed to macro, and increase the APM needed to micro, you haven't reduced the APM: you've just made it easier for Terran (as their macro is already easier) and made it harder for Z/P (who already have to micro more than a Terran). Yes, I know what APM is. I'm saying to reduce the amount of macro APM needed for Z/P, basically. Why reduce the APM for TWO races when you can increase the APM for ONE. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.. Does anyone really believe that managing a queen spweing larva is an *enjoyable* game mechanic? At least with chronoboost it lets you boost research/builds, but larva spewing is literally busy work... Larva injection is a measure of skill: someone who is a pro will have a near 98% success with timings, and as a result will be able to field more units than a Zerg player who doesn't have a near 100% 25 energy larva injection rate. Likewise, a Protoss player who randomly Chrono Boosts anything will be significantly disadvantaged when playing a Protoss with a solid understanding of how many Chrono Boosts should be used on Warp Gate research, Probes, Thermal Lance, Colossus etc.
I know what the result is. I'm arguing with the means to get there. Sure it's a measure of skill if you can do 6 other things while remembering to spit larva, but it's not a very interesting mechanic. Why not let the queen do something similar to chronoboost where there's more than just clicking a hatch involved (spew onto structures to speed up production or some other interesting mechanic). Make the mechanic meaningful..
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On September 10 2010 12:23 fugimax wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 12:19 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 12:12 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:10 EliteAzn wrote:On September 10 2010 12:05 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:01 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 11:59 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 11:50 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 11:48 fugimax wrote:
Here's a thought:
Why not leave Terran the way it is an tweak the other races? Terran is the most accessible race. It's fairly straightforward, you don't need crazy APM to just keep up, and it's downright fun to play. Why not lower the need for "macro APM" on the other races and focus on making APM really shine in micro?
This would let pros do amazing things and let the casuals play all three races. I don't play either Zerg or Protoss because the necessity of downright annoying actions (queen larva spewing, chronoboost, etc.) makes me not interested in those races at all. They are not accessible to me, really. I wouldn't have fun playing the game.
My guess is that Blizzard probably agrees with most of this given their previous statements on accessibility and leveling the field in certain regards.. If you reduce the skill level in a game that's supposed to be an esports because of it's uncapped skill level I'd argue pretty strongly it's counter intuitive and bad, overall, for the game's progression: both as an esports and as a business venture. I'm not saying reduce the skill level ... I'm saying redistribute the skill into micro. Most people complain that SC2 is not as micro intense as SC1 ... ok, then take the annoying macro APM required and push that into micro. You can still make a game that has "no skill cap" ... but don't make the fundamentals annoying and inaccessible. As a casual, playing anything but Terran would just be stupid for me. Do you know how APM works, or what it means? If you reduce the APM needed to macro, and increase the APM needed to micro, you haven't reduced the APM: you've just made it easier for Terran (as their macro is already easier) and made it harder for Z/P (who already have to micro more than a Terran). Yes, I know what APM is. I'm saying to reduce the amount of macro APM needed for Z/P, basically. Why reduce the APM for TWO races when you can increase the APM for ONE. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.. Does anyone really believe that managing a queen spweing larva is an *enjoyable* game mechanic? At least with chronoboost it lets you boost research/builds, but larva spewing is literally busy work... Larva injection is a measure of skill: someone who is a pro will have a near 98% success with timings, and as a result will be able to field more units than a Zerg player who doesn't have a near 100% 25 energy larva injection rate. Likewise, a Protoss player who randomly Chrono Boosts anything will be significantly disadvantaged when playing a Protoss with a solid understanding of how many Chrono Boosts should be used on Warp Gate research, Probes, Thermal Lance, Colossus etc. I know what the result is. I'm arguing with the means to get there. Sure it's a measure of skill if you can do 6 other things while remembering to spit larva, but it's not a very interesting mechanic. Why not let the queen do something similar to chronoboost where there's more than just clicking a hatch involved (spew onto structures to speed up production or some other interesting mechanic). Make the mechanic meaningful..
It can transfuse and lay Creep Tumours. Top Zergs will generally make an extra Queen (Dimaga does this a lot against Terran) purely for Transfuse/Creep Tumour massing for more mobility. I think Transfuse is an awesome ability and I'd love to see some Queen/Ultralisk play where the Queens take out air, and the Ultras get healed by transfuse. Not sure how viable it is, due to Queen's requiring Creep to move, but it could be a fun idea.
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The T 'problems' are nowhere NEAR what the whiners are making it out to be. Tweaks may (probably) need to be needed, but nowhere near to the degree people (including OP) think.
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On September 10 2010 12:19 red_hq wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 10:05 Dog22 wrote:On September 10 2010 10:03 MegaBUD wrote:
Medivac cost 100/100... and are light units with low hp... compare that to toss warp in...
I WISH medivacs were light... They also have 150 hp while warp prism has 100 HP and 40 Shield (correct me if I'm wrong) edit: Oh and medivacs have 1 armor as well, warp prism has 0 Warp prisms are also only made of Balsa wood.
I love how in the old school battle reports pre beta, the commentators introducing the warp prisms were like OMG THEY POWER BUILDINGS TOO!!!....Yeah, when was the last time you've seen the warp prism power buildings? The only reason for them are just for warping in/carrying units...
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On September 10 2010 12:05 cArn- wrote:
The race actually able to tech switch like wtf are zergs. Once a spire, hydra den and roach warren are down, at any point of time it could be ANYTHING coming out of the next larva set. When you see a terran with 10 raxes, hey guess what, he's going to make marauders and marines, and that'll be what you'll have to worry about.
The funny thing is that with just those 2 types units, Mutas will die to a large number of rines and Roaches will die to Rauders. Throw in a Medivac and Hydras won't be that much of a problem as well. Banelings? Keep your Marauders in front to limit the damage from them. You would need a good flanking position as Zerg or you're going to get steamrolled.
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On September 10 2010 12:25 Cranberries wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 12:23 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:19 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 12:12 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:10 EliteAzn wrote:On September 10 2010 12:05 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:01 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 11:59 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 11:50 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 11:48 fugimax wrote:
Here's a thought:
Why not leave Terran the way it is an tweak the other races? Terran is the most accessible race. It's fairly straightforward, you don't need crazy APM to just keep up, and it's downright fun to play. Why not lower the need for "macro APM" on the other races and focus on making APM really shine in micro?
This would let pros do amazing things and let the casuals play all three races. I don't play either Zerg or Protoss because the necessity of downright annoying actions (queen larva spewing, chronoboost, etc.) makes me not interested in those races at all. They are not accessible to me, really. I wouldn't have fun playing the game.
My guess is that Blizzard probably agrees with most of this given their previous statements on accessibility and leveling the field in certain regards.. If you reduce the skill level in a game that's supposed to be an esports because of it's uncapped skill level I'd argue pretty strongly it's counter intuitive and bad, overall, for the game's progression: both as an esports and as a business venture. I'm not saying reduce the skill level ... I'm saying redistribute the skill into micro. Most people complain that SC2 is not as micro intense as SC1 ... ok, then take the annoying macro APM required and push that into micro. You can still make a game that has "no skill cap" ... but don't make the fundamentals annoying and inaccessible. As a casual, playing anything but Terran would just be stupid for me. Do you know how APM works, or what it means? If you reduce the APM needed to macro, and increase the APM needed to micro, you haven't reduced the APM: you've just made it easier for Terran (as their macro is already easier) and made it harder for Z/P (who already have to micro more than a Terran). Yes, I know what APM is. I'm saying to reduce the amount of macro APM needed for Z/P, basically. Why reduce the APM for TWO races when you can increase the APM for ONE. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.. Does anyone really believe that managing a queen spweing larva is an *enjoyable* game mechanic? At least with chronoboost it lets you boost research/builds, but larva spewing is literally busy work... Larva injection is a measure of skill: someone who is a pro will have a near 98% success with timings, and as a result will be able to field more units than a Zerg player who doesn't have a near 100% 25 energy larva injection rate. Likewise, a Protoss player who randomly Chrono Boosts anything will be significantly disadvantaged when playing a Protoss with a solid understanding of how many Chrono Boosts should be used on Warp Gate research, Probes, Thermal Lance, Colossus etc. I know what the result is. I'm arguing with the means to get there. Sure it's a measure of skill if you can do 6 other things while remembering to spit larva, but it's not a very interesting mechanic. Why not let the queen do something similar to chronoboost where there's more than just clicking a hatch involved (spew onto structures to speed up production or some other interesting mechanic). Make the mechanic meaningful.. It can transfuse and lay Creep Tumours. Top Zergs will generally make an extra Queen (Dimaga does this a lot against Terran) purely for Transfuse/Creep Tumour massing for more mobility. I think Transfuse is an awesome ability and I'd love to see some Queen/Ultralisk play where the Queens take out air, and the Ultras get healed by transfuse. Not sure how viable it is, due to Queen's requiring Creep to move, but it could be a fun idea.
Queens are basically chained to hatcheries in early game due to the lack of creep. In late game, they'd get focused too fast they wouldn't have a chance to transfuse. Maybe if they were as cheap as SCVs and you could bring 10 of them with you ... but they're not (and shouldn't be).
I get that the queen needs to be multitasked, but injections a mechanic you *have* to use to play Zerg and it's just not a fun mechanic at all. Really ... can one Zerg stand up and say it's a mechanic they enjoy? Let Zergies focus their time on cool "rush mechanics" like the race is supposed to be all about (nydus worms, spreading creep, overlord drops, etc.)
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On September 10 2010 12:25 oxxo wrote:
The T 'problems' are nowhere NEAR what the whiners are making it out to be. Tweaks may (probably) need to be needed, but nowhere near to the degree people (including OP) think.
The T problems ARE much worse then the T players who just shrug of said "whining" think they are. but thats one problem in its self. everyone has bias views. im a little bias to zerg, because i play them.
honestly we should start having protoss players analysing zvt.
terran players analysing zvp
and zerg players analysing pvt.
since their race isnt affected by the matchup, they can give unbias opinions(to a much lesser degree then matchups including their race.)
though i have a feeling that T will still get the small stick, since there seems to be alot more terran hate then toss/zerg hate.
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On September 10 2010 12:30 fugimax wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 12:25 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 12:23 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:19 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 12:12 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:10 EliteAzn wrote:On September 10 2010 12:05 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:01 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 11:59 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 11:50 Cranberries wrote:
[quote]
If you reduce the skill level in a game that's supposed to be an esports because of it's uncapped skill level I'd argue pretty strongly it's counter intuitive and bad, overall, for the game's progression: both as an esports and as a business venture. I'm not saying reduce the skill level ... I'm saying redistribute the skill into micro. Most people complain that SC2 is not as micro intense as SC1 ... ok, then take the annoying macro APM required and push that into micro. You can still make a game that has "no skill cap" ... but don't make the fundamentals annoying and inaccessible. As a casual, playing anything but Terran would just be stupid for me. Do you know how APM works, or what it means? If you reduce the APM needed to macro, and increase the APM needed to micro, you haven't reduced the APM: you've just made it easier for Terran (as their macro is already easier) and made it harder for Z/P (who already have to micro more than a Terran). Yes, I know what APM is. I'm saying to reduce the amount of macro APM needed for Z/P, basically. Why reduce the APM for TWO races when you can increase the APM for ONE. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.. Does anyone really believe that managing a queen spweing larva is an *enjoyable* game mechanic? At least with chronoboost it lets you boost research/builds, but larva spewing is literally busy work... Larva injection is a measure of skill: someone who is a pro will have a near 98% success with timings, and as a result will be able to field more units than a Zerg player who doesn't have a near 100% 25 energy larva injection rate. Likewise, a Protoss player who randomly Chrono Boosts anything will be significantly disadvantaged when playing a Protoss with a solid understanding of how many Chrono Boosts should be used on Warp Gate research, Probes, Thermal Lance, Colossus etc. I know what the result is. I'm arguing with the means to get there. Sure it's a measure of skill if you can do 6 other things while remembering to spit larva, but it's not a very interesting mechanic. Why not let the queen do something similar to chronoboost where there's more than just clicking a hatch involved (spew onto structures to speed up production or some other interesting mechanic). Make the mechanic meaningful.. It can transfuse and lay Creep Tumours. Top Zergs will generally make an extra Queen (Dimaga does this a lot against Terran) purely for Transfuse/Creep Tumour massing for more mobility. I think Transfuse is an awesome ability and I'd love to see some Queen/Ultralisk play where the Queens take out air, and the Ultras get healed by transfuse. Not sure how viable it is, due to Queen's requiring Creep to move, but it could be a fun idea. Queens are basically chained to hatcheries in early game due to the lack of creep. In late game, they'd get focused too fast they wouldn't have a chance to transfuse. Maybe if they were as cheap as SCVs and you could bring 10 of them with you ... but they're not (and shouldn't be). I get that the queen needs to be multitasked, but injections a mechanic you *have* to use to play Zerg and it's just not a fun mechanic at all. Really ... can one Zerg stand up and say it's a mechanic they enjoy? Let Zergies focus their time on cool "rush mechanics" like the race is supposed to be all about (nydus worms, spreading creep, overlord drops, etc.)
Nydus Worms suck, they're weak and very expensive and rely on the opponent not properly scouting. Spreading creep is just as tedious as injecting Larva and creep tumours can be easily sniped and all the work to build up map mobility can be lost in seconds. Overlord drops just don't work.
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Okay, I only read part of the first post and i can conclude that this is just another QQ thread. Who cares if they are imbalanced or not, just play the game. My main race is Protoss and I honestly don't know as much as I would like about Zerg and Terran, but every time someone beats with me a build I feel i can't beat I just practice and figure out how to hold it off.
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It comes down to this, if you could rate all the races in various areas:
-mobility
-scouting
-ability to deny scouting
-tech switching ability
-economy
-ability to control space
-detection
-number of viable allins/cheeses
-hard counters available
-harrassment
-early defense
-late game defense
-ability to dominate air.
etc etc
then Terran would rate as an A or B in every single area, whereas the other races are a mixed bag. In short Terran doesn't really have any defined weaknesses so to speak, they're either strong or at least decent in any given situation you can throw at them.
That's why I agree with the OP in that nerfing this unit or that unit isn't the problem, the race overall just doesn't have weaknesses to balance out its strengths
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On September 10 2010 12:33 Cranberries wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 12:30 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:25 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 12:23 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:19 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 12:12 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:10 EliteAzn wrote:On September 10 2010 12:05 fugimax wrote:On September 10 2010 12:01 Cranberries wrote:On September 10 2010 11:59 fugimax wrote:
[quote]
I'm not saying reduce the skill level ... I'm saying redistribute the skill into micro. Most people complain that SC2 is not as micro intense as SC1 ... ok, then take the annoying macro APM required and push that into micro. You can still make a game that has "no skill cap" ... but don't make the fundamentals annoying and inaccessible. As a casual, playing anything but Terran would just be stupid for me. Do you know how APM works, or what it means? If you reduce the APM needed to macro, and increase the APM needed to micro, you haven't reduced the APM: you've just made it easier for Terran (as their macro is already easier) and made it harder for Z/P (who already have to micro more than a Terran). Yes, I know what APM is. I'm saying to reduce the amount of macro APM needed for Z/P, basically. Why reduce the APM for TWO races when you can increase the APM for ONE. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.. Does anyone really believe that managing a queen spweing larva is an *enjoyable* game mechanic? At least with chronoboost it lets you boost research/builds, but larva spewing is literally busy work... Larva injection is a measure of skill: someone who is a pro will have a near 98% success with timings, and as a result will be able to field more units than a Zerg player who doesn't have a near 100% 25 energy larva injection rate. Likewise, a Protoss player who randomly Chrono Boosts anything will be significantly disadvantaged when playing a Protoss with a solid understanding of how many Chrono Boosts should be used on Warp Gate research, Probes, Thermal Lance, Colossus etc. I know what the result is. I'm arguing with the means to get there. Sure it's a measure of skill if you can do 6 other things while remembering to spit larva, but it's not a very interesting mechanic. Why not let the queen do something similar to chronoboost where there's more than just clicking a hatch involved (spew onto structures to speed up production or some other interesting mechanic). Make the mechanic meaningful.. It can transfuse and lay Creep Tumours. Top Zergs will generally make an extra Queen (Dimaga does this a lot against Terran) purely for Transfuse/Creep Tumour massing for more mobility. I think Transfuse is an awesome ability and I'd love to see some Queen/Ultralisk play where the Queens take out air, and the Ultras get healed by transfuse. Not sure how viable it is, due to Queen's requiring Creep to move, but it could be a fun idea. Queens are basically chained to hatcheries in early game due to the lack of creep. In late game, they'd get focused too fast they wouldn't have a chance to transfuse. Maybe if they were as cheap as SCVs and you could bring 10 of them with you ... but they're not (and shouldn't be). I get that the queen needs to be multitasked, but injections a mechanic you *have* to use to play Zerg and it's just not a fun mechanic at all. Really ... can one Zerg stand up and say it's a mechanic they enjoy? Let Zergies focus their time on cool "rush mechanics" like the race is supposed to be all about (nydus worms, spreading creep, overlord drops, etc.) Nydus Worms suck, they're weak and very expensive and rely on the opponent not properly scouting. Spreading creep is just as tedious as injecting Larva and creep tumours can be easily sniped and all the work to build up map mobility can be lost in seconds. Overlord drops just don't work.
Have you seen high-level nydus usage? It's insane. Additionally, if they're "weak and expensive" that can be fixed.
Zerg is supposed to be this race that has you constantly feeling like there's a bug in your bed and you can't find it. It keeps biting you and then his 200 friends show up. It just doesn't play like that right now.
Spreading creep is also a mechanic that could be tweaked. Instead of tumors, maybe unit presence pushes creep out (as you hold regions of the map with large numbers of units, creep starts to form / connect).
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Medivacs not only get everything for no extra cost but can be double produced as soon as you get a fast starport up (you have a reactor built already from a rax).
How would a speed upgrade on them look? They are awfully quick, having them move slower than marine speed (no stim) base and upgrade to current speed would make them usable defensively but require an upgrade to keep up offensively and do proper drops. This also means the starport couldn't start double producing right away as it needs to stop at a tech lab.
The auto repair should simply be coded so a unit repairing/healing another gets the same target priority as the unit they are healing/repairing. So medivacs get the priority of the marine they are healing, scvs get the priority of the thor they are repairing but an scv repairing a mining scv would remain low priority.
The tech switching is the Terran mechanic so they keep that, remember it also makes good muta targets :p.
The sensor towers are a bigger problem ... They are just such a non RTS concept. Suddenly one race can remove fog of war for a quarter of the map? Seems rather silly. Maybe it should be a 50 energy activated ability that actually reveals everything (gives full sight) for 3-4 seconds. So if the Terran was afraid of some kind of harass he could use energy to keep track of it. Essentially a larger, dedicated and fixed scan.
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so you're off the 'zerg is fine and zerg needs to l2p soapbox'? Now you acknowledge Terran needs changes? Hmm, wonder what it will be next week. At least you're starting to go in the right direction.
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Before I start I just want to know why people expect this game to be the most balanced thing ever just one and a half months after release is absolutely stupid. Just because it has the word "Starcraft" in it doesn't mean its going to as balanced as a 12 year old game, and everyone is acting like spoilt children because of that. There are going to be 2 expansions over the next couple of years with new units and mechanics, so the whole balance will change then anyway. How many games that are this new are this balanced? None that I can think of, so some people need to cool off on the whole imbalance issue.
That aside, this is by far one of the best written and thought through threads about this subject that has been posted here, so here are my thoughts on this...
#1 I see where you're coming from with this. While it is easy for Terran to change everything around like such, it's sort of needed and has costs to it anyway. First you need to make the add ons, which takes time, and a bit of minerals and gas, but you need them on most buildings, and as such can lead to situations where you don't have a large enough army because of the time they take to build. Switching them around so easily balances out that Protoss can build what they want out of 3 structures providing they have the tech building, meaning they don't need anything like the add ons. All the Zerg needs is a building. This just boils down to unique mechanics for each race and could do with a bit of changing, but nothing drastic. Also, the add ons can be sniped very easily so they have a weakness there.
I do agree about how there aren't that many tech buildings, and I think that maybe reintroducing the merc compound from early alpha for upgrades and reapers would be interesting, but it's probably gone for a reason. If you compare the add ons to BW, the way it's set up is almost the same, just now they are usable through all structures and there is now the reactor.
#2 Changing this would be hard to do right. The way it works now is that they're only really used late game or during certain situations like contains, so changing its cost or build time won't really do much and would just be a needless change. An idea that I have is removing the red dots they show on the mini map and only in the fog of war like you said, but having an upgrade where they morph into another tower like was shown in the Terran demonstration video ages ago, but it changes it so it shows it on the mini map as well as the fog of war (essentially making it like it is now). The difference would be that it becomes a large investment time wise, money wise if it costs a lot, and possibly tech wise if you make it a research from the fusion core or something.
#3 This is a sensitive topic which can fuck things up in several ways if you change things. They are already quite high in the tech tree, so getting one early for the point of doing an early game drop wouldn't work any more if drop became an upgrade. They have high health because they are in the middle of your army during a battle so it's kind of needed there. Imo, this unit is quite balanced as it is and I don't think that tweaking it would do, well, anything too important. It will always heal and drop like it was designed to do.
If you compare terrans drop to that of other races, their actual drop unit is the only one that costs gas. Warp prisms are 200min and overlords are 100min (plus being a supply unit but that's kind of taken into consideration with it). No one is exploring the best use of warp prisms at all, just storm drops and a few other things, but I think they have a lot of potential that no one has discovered yet. Regarding overlords, the reason why you need 300/300 for the drop/speed upgrades is because you already, and always will, have overlords. Once you research drop, all overlords become useful in that sense. Plus 300/300 = 3 medivacs compared to drop tech and speed for every overlord you will ever have. If you want to drop early then i think that nydus worms are a better idea...
#4 Auto repair with SCV's being the lowest priority is one of the few things that is ridiculous and should be changed. Getting rid of auto repair would make micro more important but I think they have it for the new players, and it becomes hard to click on the SCV's to tell them what to repair if they're in the middle of a unit ball.
We are not balance designers at blizzard so we cannot really understand how hard it is to change the game, which you mention with your solutions. So what should we do? Just calm down, play the game more and figure it out better, and wait 3 or 4 years for the game to refine and have both expansions... Brood War wasn't balanced in a few months, and Starcraft without BW is horribly imbalanced. BW made Starcraft what it is today, and the same should be said about the coming expansions..
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On September 10 2010 12:38 fugimax wrote:
Have you seen high-level nydus usage? It's insane. Additionally, if they're "weak and expensive" that can be fixed.
Zerg is supposed to be this race that has you constantly feeling like there's a bug in your bed and you can't find it. It keeps biting you and then his 200 friends show up. It just doesn't play like that right now.
Spreading creep is also a mechanic that could be tweaked. Instead of tumors, maybe unit presence pushes creep out (as you hold regions of the map with large numbers of units, creep starts to form / connect).
Nydus needs some tweaking. I have seen several of the better examples of recent pro nydus play and ... I kept thinking that if they had a muta for every worm they could have a-moved and won. If they were cheaper (50 gas?) for the worm and either came in faster or was burrowed while coming in they would see more use. I would really like them to be burrowed until they pop as it would make pylons ineffective at scouting for nydus. It also means a nydus network would force turrets.
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On September 10 2010 12:57 Sixes wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 12:38 fugimax wrote:
Have you seen high-level nydus usage? It's insane. Additionally, if they're "weak and expensive" that can be fixed.
Zerg is supposed to be this race that has you constantly feeling like there's a bug in your bed and you can't find it. It keeps biting you and then his 200 friends show up. It just doesn't play like that right now.
Spreading creep is also a mechanic that could be tweaked. Instead of tumors, maybe unit presence pushes creep out (as you hold regions of the map with large numbers of units, creep starts to form / connect). Nydus needs some tweaking. I have seen several of the better examples of recent pro nydus play and ... I kept thinking that if they had a muta for every worm they could have a-moved and won. If they were cheaper (50 gas?) for the worm and either came in faster or was burrowed while coming in they would see more use. I would really like them to be burrowed until they pop as it would make pylons ineffective at scouting for nydus. It also means a nydus network would force turrets.
I dont play much SC2, but shouldnt Nydus Worms be used the same as the Nydus Canal in BW? Having the ability to defend a base really easy by having a worm at each expansion.
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If blizz does decide that terran is OP, I hope they decide to buff P and Z instead of just swinging the nerf hammer. I main toss, but the few times I've played terran I've thought the way everything works together is cool and fun. Not only that, but terran is fun to watch, because of the massive field of viable options available (just look at TLO :D). It seems like a mistake to ruin the coolness of terran in order to balance the game.
If I were going to buff Z or P, I would focus on increasing viability of earlier tech. For instance, make lair cheaper, or faster, or allow zerg to build queen and upgrade lair at the same time. For toss, I would probably reduce the cost or build time of the twilight council, and possibly also the cost/time on the TC upgrades.
Now, I'm not a good enough player to truly say whether balance changes are necessary, but if they are, I would MUCH prefer to see buffs than nerfs.
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All of the OP's points revolve around scouting. I've been playing a lot more tosses that are rushing to observers just to see if I'm doing a bioball or something else. As for zergs, I rarely see them poke in my base more than once or twice.
I wouldn't be too surprised if overseer and obs costs or build times go down.
As for the gameplay, Tosses need to build more than 1 obs for scouting purposes and zergs need to abuse the overseer much more. The sensor tower might be a problem for zerg, but I've seen more zergs lose because of poor decision making rather than being ambushed by banshees or ravens.
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