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Since this whole topic degenerated into the usual balance flamefest where every topic ends up if unmoderated it's time for it to clean up. Locking this down for a while. Any posts made after my post [page 233] not addressing the changes in this patch directly and containting flames or general balance whine will get banned for at least a week. ~Nyovne
There is way too much flaming in this thread right now. Calm down before you post! (Page 271) ~iamke55 |
On August 30 2011 16:40 usethis2 wrote:
Zerg is such a hot potato for Blizzard when it comes to balance. It's a design issue and macro mechanic that can make everything x10 times more powerful than Blizzard expected, if players finds a way. Thusly Zerg "buffs" almost always come in the form of nerfs to the other races.
Very good point, that especially zerg players themselves often don't seem to acknowledge. If you buff infestors, that means that zergs suddenly have the capability of producing "X" infestors at the same time due to larvae mechanics. If you, say, buff immortals, they are still highly limited by the amount of robotics facilities a player can rationally afford. Massing immortals, while good on paper, will never happen, as you just can't build that many robotics facilities in any reasonable time.
Without wanting to turn this into an infestor-QQ-thread, the infestor indeed is a great example of how a slight change can snowball out of control. Previously, zergs hardly ever used infestors - now that they are recognized as a strong unit, they can make full use of their strong macro mechanics, bank up and produce a really threatening amount of them extremely early.
I completely, that the majority of the balance has to be done by changing protoss or terran, as it's much harder to implement "minor" changes of the zerg race.
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On August 30 2011 17:47 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 16:40 usethis2 wrote:
Zerg is such a hot potato for Blizzard when it comes to balance. It's a design issue and macro mechanic that can make everything x10 times more powerful than Blizzard expected, if players finds a way. Thusly Zerg "buffs" almost always come in the form of nerfs to the other races. Very good point, that especially zerg players themselves often don't seem to acknowledge. If you buff infestors, that means that zergs suddenly have the capability of producing "X" infestors at the same time due to larvae mechanics. If you, say, buff immortals, they are still highly limited by the amount of robotics facilities a player can rationally afford. Massing immortals, while good on paper, will never happen, as you just can't build that many robotics facilities in any reasonable time. Without wanting to turn this into an infestor-QQ-thread, the infestor indeed is a great example of how a slight change can snowball out of control. Previously, zergs hardly ever used infestors - now that they are recognized as a strong unit, they can make full use of their strong macro mechanics, bank up and produce a really threatening amount of them extremely early. I completely, that the majority of the balance has to be done by changing protoss or terran, as it's much harder to implement "minor" changes of the zerg race.
Actually this is only true for late late game, as the larva mechanic for cost-effective units is limited by resources. In late game when there are plenty of resources then "minor" changes can have a snowball effect
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I think this game is fundamentally flawed
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the build time increase for the rax was wierd but i guess its to help zerg with the 2 rax and bunker rushes since the not so good zergs have a hard time dealing with it
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On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed
If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly.
Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with.
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On August 30 2011 18:00 Wafflesman wrote:
the build time increase for the rax was wierd but i guess its to help zerg with the 2 rax and bunker rushes since the not so good zergs have a hard time dealing with it
I guess you have been asleep during any recent bigger tournament if you think this is true.
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On August 30 2011 14:45 Ihpares wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 14:41 tuho12345 wrote:On August 30 2011 14:01 KimJongChill wrote:On August 30 2011 13:39 SoKHo wrote:On August 30 2011 11:49 pwadoc wrote:
The more I play the PTR, the more I realize how much a joke this game is. The zerg race is fundamentally broken. It's poorly designed, and no amount of patching is going to fix it. Blizzard expects us to wait a year and pay money just to give them the chance to actually balance the game. It's absurd. It's a sign for zergs to invest their time in a different game. oh i'm sorry, you must have been living in a cave when nestea won 4 GSL championships He's won three. Zerg isn't a bad race at all, or even very weak. It's just that the design of the race is very stale, and balance changes are really just mediocre attempts to cover up these fundamental flaws. Now obviously, they can't make any large, sweeping changes to the race design now, but hope things will become more interesting in hots. Zerg isn't stale, they're more flexible than Protoss. Protoss has fewer options than Zerg, and weaker response. Can't really tell if you're serious. Protoss has more units, of greater variety. Does that not translate to greater options?
On a brief sidenote, why does no Protoss "Destiny" exist that utilizes almost purely Zealot/Senty/High Templar? It seems like with half-decent unit control and flanking, you could force an opponent into a bubble of Forcefields, then just storm them repeatedly. Caster units really can swing an entire match into one's favor rather quickly.
No, not if you have 2 units (Mship, Carrier), which are useless, because they are in the game solely for the casual gamers pleasure. ANd one more unit, which till now was to weak, to be used consistently. (WP)
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On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with.
I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics.
They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard.
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On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard.
How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say.
Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1.
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On August 30 2011 18:36 Biggun69 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard. How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say. Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1.
Artificially create boosts in economy that then in term create imbalances due to them. Also create other oddities
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On August 30 2011 18:45 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:36 Biggun69 wrote:On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard. How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say. Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1. Artificially create boosts in economy that then in term create imbalances due to them. Also create other oddities
I fail to see how economic boost mechanics are "fundamentally flawed." They might or might not be imbalanced but that's another issue.
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On August 30 2011 18:48 nihlon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:45 Numy wrote:On August 30 2011 18:36 Biggun69 wrote:On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard. How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say. Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1. Artificially create boosts in economy that then in term create imbalances due to them. Also create other oddities I fail to see how economic boost mechanics are "fundamentally flawed." They might or might not be imbalanced but that's another issue.
he's completely wrong.
if anything, the only fundamentally wrong mechanic is the tendancy for units to 'ball up'. it makes AOE damage completely destroy everything in nano seconds, makes the game look totally unrealistic and reduces the surface area of units making melee sucky.
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United Kingdom12026 Posts
On August 30 2011 18:28 IVN wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 14:45 Ihpares wrote:On August 30 2011 14:41 tuho12345 wrote:On August 30 2011 14:01 KimJongChill wrote:On August 30 2011 13:39 SoKHo wrote:On August 30 2011 11:49 pwadoc wrote:
The more I play the PTR, the more I realize how much a joke this game is. The zerg race is fundamentally broken. It's poorly designed, and no amount of patching is going to fix it. Blizzard expects us to wait a year and pay money just to give them the chance to actually balance the game. It's absurd. It's a sign for zergs to invest their time in a different game. oh i'm sorry, you must have been living in a cave when nestea won 4 GSL championships He's won three. Zerg isn't a bad race at all, or even very weak. It's just that the design of the race is very stale, and balance changes are really just mediocre attempts to cover up these fundamental flaws. Now obviously, they can't make any large, sweeping changes to the race design now, but hope things will become more interesting in hots. Zerg isn't stale, they're more flexible than Protoss. Protoss has fewer options than Zerg, and weaker response. Can't really tell if you're serious. Protoss has more units, of greater variety. Does that not translate to greater options?
On a brief sidenote, why does no Protoss "Destiny" exist that utilizes almost purely Zealot/Senty/High Templar? It seems like with half-decent unit control and flanking, you could force an opponent into a bubble of Forcefields, then just storm them repeatedly. Caster units really can swing an entire match into one's favor rather quickly. No, not if you have 2 units (Mship, Carrier), which are useless, because they are in the game solely for the casual gamers pleasure. ANd one more unit, which till now was to weak, to be used consistently. (WP)
To be honest, have you seen how powerful Carriers are?
The only reason why people don't go for them is much like BCs they're a costly investment which doesn't pay off right away. If you can get to like 5 carriers then you're laughing. When people go for Stargate tech I often wonder why they don't go for carriers, but as with BCs if you don't have either a split map game or a window of time to do it, you can't really do it as you'll get rolled over.
That's why BCs are mainly only used in TvT as both of you get seige lines and neither of you can really push into the other.
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On August 30 2011 18:53 shizna wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:48 nihlon wrote:On August 30 2011 18:45 Numy wrote:On August 30 2011 18:36 Biggun69 wrote:On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard. How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say. Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1. Artificially create boosts in economy that then in term create imbalances due to them. Also create other oddities I fail to see how economic boost mechanics are "fundamentally flawed." They might or might not be imbalanced but that's another issue. he's completely wrong. if anything, the only fundamentally wrong mechanic is the tendancy for units to 'ball up'. it makes AOE damage completely destroy everything in nano seconds, makes the game look totally unrealistic and reduces the surface area of units making melee sucky.
So I am completely wrong but you are perfectly right? It's an opinion, I have my thoughts to back up why I think it creates flaws in the game but that's not a discussion for here. Spawn larvae I believe is what makes zerg units individually so weak when in BW this wasn't the case.
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On August 30 2011 19:06 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:53 shizna wrote:On August 30 2011 18:48 nihlon wrote:On August 30 2011 18:45 Numy wrote:On August 30 2011 18:36 Biggun69 wrote:On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard. How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say. Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1. Artificially create boosts in economy that then in term create imbalances due to them. Also create other oddities I fail to see how economic boost mechanics are "fundamentally flawed." They might or might not be imbalanced but that's another issue. he's completely wrong. if anything, the only fundamentally wrong mechanic is the tendancy for units to 'ball up'. it makes AOE damage completely destroy everything in nano seconds, makes the game look totally unrealistic and reduces the surface area of units making melee sucky. So I am completely wrong but you are perfectly right? It's an opinion, I have my thoughts to back up why I think it creates flaws in the game but that's not a discussion for here. Spawn larvae I believe is what makes zerg units individually so weak when in BW this wasn't the case.
With infestors, zerg can cosf effectively kill any kind of unit composition so I don't really agree that zerg units are weaker.
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On August 30 2011 17:47 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 16:40 usethis2 wrote:
Zerg is such a hot potato for Blizzard when it comes to balance. It's a design issue and macro mechanic that can make everything x10 times more powerful than Blizzard expected, if players finds a way. Thusly Zerg "buffs" almost always come in the form of nerfs to the other races. Very good point, that especially zerg players themselves often don't seem to acknowledge. If you buff infestors, that means that zergs suddenly have the capability of producing "X" infestors at the same time due to larvae mechanics. If you, say, buff immortals, they are still highly limited by the amount of robotics facilities a player can rationally afford. Massing immortals, while good on paper, will never happen, as you just can't build that many robotics facilities in any reasonable time. Without wanting to turn this into an infestor-QQ-thread, the infestor indeed is a great example of how a slight change can snowball out of control. Previously, zergs hardly ever used infestors - now that they are recognized as a strong unit, they can make full use of their strong macro mechanics, bank up and produce a really threatening amount of them extremely early. I completely, that the majority of the balance has to be done by changing protoss or terran, as it's much harder to implement "minor" changes of the zerg race.
I want to point out that while it's true that the larva mechanic allows for simultaneous production of mulitple units, one factor that applies to all races is the time it takes to gather resources. Let's say that it takes 2 min to produce enough resources and make 5 immortals and that you're producing them one or two at a time but it also takes 2 min to produce resources for 5 infestors which are done all at the same time when you have enough money, same amount of time. IMO The larva mechanic exists so that zergs can wait and react, do I make drones or units? Other races cannot do this, they must make both at the same time all the tmie.
In fact good zergs try not to wait to bank 1000 gas to make 6 or 7 infestors, they keep their money low and make them one or two at a time as soon as they can. I know it's very hard to keep your money low in the late game.
Also in this regard the larva mechanic can be forgiving in that if you are a lower level player and you're focused on a micro intensive battle, you realise that you accumulated lots of resources and can spend them all in one shot to catch up.
At the same time forgetting to inject is killer, if you don't have the larva you will not spend the money and you will be behind or lose.
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On August 30 2011 18:48 nihlon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:45 Numy wrote:On August 30 2011 18:36 Biggun69 wrote:On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard. How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say. Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1. Artificially create boosts in economy that then in term create imbalances due to them. Also create other oddities I fail to see how economic boost mechanics are "fundamentally flawed." They might or might not be imbalanced but that's another issue.
I think the problem is that they add some huge complications that we need to first understand before we really understand how to balance this game. They just ruin the math in different ways in different situations.
I do think that there are also philosophical problems with the game. I think the game can reach a balanced state with this current design by changing numbers like they are now. But I don't think it will lead to a healthy living breathing game like BW unless they address some key issues. In fact, I don't think BW was good in this regard either, we can do better!
Some things that need to be under scrutiny (not necessarily changed, just discussed) are:
1) Mechanics discrepancies between the races.
2) Deathball tendencies and strength of AoE attacks.
I'll stop there just because there are a lot of things people can discuss. One thing I really wish Blizzard would consider is a change to warp gates. At it's present stage, the warp-gate upgrade isn't even a decision. The only reason normal gates exist is because they existed in Brood War. No one designs a game to say "Hey, let them make this building, but let it be practically unusable until they do this other thing". Why not start it as a warp-gate and play around with the timings?
Or even better, why not add complexity and control to the player by giving said player choice? Make normal gateways make units a few seconds faster, while warp-gates can warp but a bit slower. The complexity this adds is incredible. Aside from the obvious implication of Use-Gateway-When-Defending-and-Warpgate-When-Offensive, it adds a good dynamic when you go into midgame. How many of your gates do you have as warp? You never know when you need to defend against drops, when to maximize production output to match your economy, when to lower output but add versatility and mobility, etc. It also makes hallucination a viable scouting option (although numbers will need to be adjusted). Scouting outside of Robo is a problem, and this adds a real choice.
I think the sooner that Blizzard makes massive over-hauls to game design, the better. They really have the option to do this when HotS launches and when the P game launches. At some point after that, it will be way too late.
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On August 30 2011 15:00 Bubble-T wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 14:45 Ihpares wrote:
Can't really tell if you're serious. Protoss has more units, of greater variety. Does that not translate to greater options? I'm not going to bite on whether one race is more flexible than the other but it should be obvious that that options have to be viable for them to be meaningful options. You could remove carriers from the game at the moment and it probably wouldn't affect Protoss at all, despite the loss of a unique unit. Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 14:45 Ihpares wrote:
On a brief sidenote, why does no Protoss "Destiny" exist that utilizes almost purely Zealot/Senty/High Templar? It seems like with half-decent unit control and flanking, you could force an opponent into a bubble of Forcefields, then just storm them repeatedly. Caster units really can swing an entire match into one's favor rather quickly. Well for starters how do you intend to kill any number of roaches with this composition? What about massive units? FF/storm is not fungal growth, and there's no equivalent here to neural parasite or even infested terrans for killing buildings. I'm not complaining about balance or anything here, you're forcing a comparison where you shouldn't be doing so.
Hmm, the only interesting unit zerg has is the infestor. Take that out, and zerg has no staying power until hive tech, and even then, the units are pretty pathetic without infestor support. Protoss just seems much more fun, with sentries and mixing in templar tech with robo, gateway, and stargate compositions. There is definitely a lot of synergy with the units. Now fun obviously doesn't translate into race flexibility, but the race as a whole is definitely much more interesting, and doesn't rely on one unit as a crutch for the whole race.
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On August 30 2011 18:45 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:36 Biggun69 wrote:On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard. How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say. Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1. Artificially create boosts in economy that then in term create imbalances due to them. Also create other oddities
Btw if you are complaining about races having different amounds of resources, it was the same in BW.
SCVs mined the slowest (for like 5%) and probes were the fastest. The only difference is that in BW it probably wasn't intentional. 
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On August 30 2011 19:32 Blaz3k wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 18:45 Numy wrote:On August 30 2011 18:36 Biggun69 wrote:On August 30 2011 18:30 -Archangel- wrote:On August 30 2011 18:01 Xarayezona wrote:On August 30 2011 17:59 Lordwar wrote:
I think this game is fundamentally flawed If it's balance, that's why it's being patched repeatedly. Please elaborate if it's something else you have an issue with. I agree with him. Spawn larva, mules, chrono, warpgates and reactors are all flawed mechanics. They should have just stuck to BW more in this regard. How are they flawed? That's a pretty random thing to say. Starcraft 2 is a different game to sc1. Artificially create boosts in economy that then in term create imbalances due to them. Also create other oddities Btw if you are complaining about races having different amounds of resources, it was the same in BW. SCVs mined the slowest (for like 5%) and probes were the fastest. The only difference is that in BW it probably wasn't intentional.
It's not that, it's just the lack of any ramp up time for your economy which makes comebacks really hard. Advantages compound incredibly fast. Anyway back on patch notes
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