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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 |
SoCal8910 Posts
On September 10 2011 00:12 Maxie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:08 GuardianEU wrote:On September 09 2011 23:59 ThirdDegree wrote:
As a toss myself, I agree that massive being immune to NP is pretty lame, but when you have enough infestors to just take over all collossi, it gets frustrating. What about having NP be a channeling spell? That way it could be cast, but the HT/Ghosts could get off their spells to cancel it out. That, or you could have the cost of the spell directly related to the unit they are trying to control (light, armored, massive etc)
My bigger problem is the FG snare. Slow would be better, or at least have massive immune to the snare rather than NP. Neural parasite is a channeling spell... EMP:ing an infestor using NP doesn't do jack shit though. I mean, it removes whatever little energy is left but it doesn't break the NP.
but snipes are pretty good at breaking the spell >:D
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On September 10 2011 00:05 immortlone wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 23:58 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:55 immortlone wrote:On September 09 2011 23:51 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:40 zalgolisk wrote:
My personal suspicion is that the NP nerf is being placed in PTR primarily to force Zerg players there to actually /test/ the changes. As it is, too many people may be using Infestors "too much" for a proper test of the balance changes.
Now the counter to mothership is to scout and start Hydras if it's backed by air, or ignore it and overrun with Roaches if it's backed by ground, in the same way that Roaches can end up countering void ray builds. This tests the cost buff for Overseers indirectly.
The counter to ground massive units is, of course, Ultras. People may simply not be building them enough for a test, since we're used to them taking 70 (70!) seconds to see a possible return on investment. (Though Zealot/Archon may still be challenging to fight.)
The NP nerf is likely too severe to be left in the game proper -- its only reasonable targets are casters now. Once they gauge the strength of the Overseer/Ultralisk buffs, we will probably see a gentler nerf of NP at worst. We may even see an energy cost buff -- if its only reasonable targets are casters, then it needs to be brought in line with Feedback and EMP (especially since you actually have to research it).
Purely speculation, of course; I have no affiliation with Blizzard's testers. You actually think that Blizzard's master plan is to get Zergs to test the PTR changes by not building the unit that they would be building anyway were this change not to be implemented? That is pretty far out there. "Guys, we're not going to be going to a parallel bizzaro universe, but we're going to have you test some stuff to see what would happen if we did even though it we aren't and after you're done testing it you can go back to doing the stuff you always did." Sounds productive. edit: I'd bet money that almost no-one here even plays the PTR at all. I tried to do a bunch of testing but I went undefeated and eventually hit 8+ minute queue times because there was literally no one queuing at the PTR diamond level. no.. it would be to get zergs to test different unit compositions VS the changes they made. Okay, now, again, please explain how there is any utility in that whatsoever when that's not how Zergs play on live. I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to. Occam's razor says that this change is a direct response to the <30% GSL win rates in PvZ rather than some temporary social experiment on a PTR that noone actually plays on. there are a lot more things related to the 30% increase in z wins for pvz. i've watched every single GSL match (not an exaggeration) and koreans do not use neural parasite (EDIT: or infestors) nearly as much as someone like destiny. but you nailed it when you said "I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to." - thats why they're FORCING players to use other units on the PTR to make sure that these balance changes work. for instance, on the mothership. great, neural still can grab one..that doesn't test whether it can escape from hydras or coruptors attacking it. is it easier/safer to neural a mothership than attack into it? yes. but does that test the acceleration change? absolutely not.
You still haven't explained to me how it would be useful for people to test an artificial version of the game that had nerfed infestors in it. What good is it to test a version of the game that they have no intention of ever making live? It would be completely pointless.
The best way to test balance changes is to test them under the conditions that you intend them to exist in which means that you don't put versions of the game on the PTR that you have no intention of using.
Also, and more importantly, Blizzard doesn't really use the PTR to test anything at all. The PTR at this point is good for nothing other than giving them a way to release interactive patch notes which are then discussed on various forums. No pros play PTR and, speaking from experience, there seems to actually never be anyone good at all playing. I'm a masters P and I have never lost a game on any PTR and I've also never got a single useful piece of information from it that I didn't get in a custom game with friends.
I think iNcontroL went over this on SOTG or ITG where he basically said that pros have scarce practice time and it's a complete waste of time for them to test PTR changes rather than practicing the game as is. There is no good testing done on the PTR, it's a PR device that gives Blizzard cover when they release ridiculous patch notes. Patch notes are reverted on the basis of community outcry and pro-gamer opinion, not on what happens on the PTR itself.
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Zerg strong. Protoss weak. 
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SoCal8910 Posts
On September 10 2011 00:13 Cyrak wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:05 immortlone wrote:On September 09 2011 23:58 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:55 immortlone wrote:On September 09 2011 23:51 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:40 zalgolisk wrote:
My personal suspicion is that the NP nerf is being placed in PTR primarily to force Zerg players there to actually /test/ the changes. As it is, too many people may be using Infestors "too much" for a proper test of the balance changes.
Now the counter to mothership is to scout and start Hydras if it's backed by air, or ignore it and overrun with Roaches if it's backed by ground, in the same way that Roaches can end up countering void ray builds. This tests the cost buff for Overseers indirectly.
The counter to ground massive units is, of course, Ultras. People may simply not be building them enough for a test, since we're used to them taking 70 (70!) seconds to see a possible return on investment. (Though Zealot/Archon may still be challenging to fight.)
The NP nerf is likely too severe to be left in the game proper -- its only reasonable targets are casters now. Once they gauge the strength of the Overseer/Ultralisk buffs, we will probably see a gentler nerf of NP at worst. We may even see an energy cost buff -- if its only reasonable targets are casters, then it needs to be brought in line with Feedback and EMP (especially since you actually have to research it).
Purely speculation, of course; I have no affiliation with Blizzard's testers. You actually think that Blizzard's master plan is to get Zergs to test the PTR changes by not building the unit that they would be building anyway were this change not to be implemented? That is pretty far out there. "Guys, we're not going to be going to a parallel bizzaro universe, but we're going to have you test some stuff to see what would happen if we did even though it we aren't and after you're done testing it you can go back to doing the stuff you always did." Sounds productive. edit: I'd bet money that almost no-one here even plays the PTR at all. I tried to do a bunch of testing but I went undefeated and eventually hit 8+ minute queue times because there was literally no one queuing at the PTR diamond level. no.. it would be to get zergs to test different unit compositions VS the changes they made. Okay, now, again, please explain how there is any utility in that whatsoever when that's not how Zergs play on live. I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to. Occam's razor says that this change is a direct response to the <30% GSL win rates in PvZ rather than some temporary social experiment on a PTR that noone actually plays on. there are a lot more things related to the 30% increase in z wins for pvz. i've watched every single GSL match (not an exaggeration) and koreans do not use neural parasite (EDIT: or infestors) nearly as much as someone like destiny. but you nailed it when you said "I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to." - thats why they're FORCING players to use other units on the PTR to make sure that these balance changes work. for instance, on the mothership. great, neural still can grab one..that doesn't test whether it can escape from hydras or coruptors attacking it. is it easier/safer to neural a mothership than attack into it? yes. but does that test the acceleration change? absolutely not. You still haven't explained to me how it would be useful for people to test an artificial version of the game that had nerfed infestors in it. What good is it to test a version of the game that they have no intention of ever making live? It would be completely pointless. The best way to test balance changes is to test them under the conditions that you intend them to exist in which means that you don't put versions of the game on the PTR that you have no intention of using. Also, and more importantly, Blizzard doesn't really use the PTR to test anything at all. The PTR at this point is good for nothing other than giving them a way to release interactive patch notes which are then discussed on various forums. No pros play PTR and, speaking from experience, there seems to actually never be anyone good at all playing. I'm a masters P and I have never lost a game on any PTR and I've also never got a single useful piece of information from it that I didn't get in a custom game with friends. I think iNcontroL went over this on SOTG or ITG where he basically said that pros have scarce practice time and it's a complete waste of time for them to test PTR changes rather than practicing the game as is. There is no good testing done on the PTR, it's a PR device that gives Blizzard cover when they release ridiculous patch notes. Patch notes are reverted on the basis of community outcry and pro-gamer opinion, not on what happens on the PTR itself.
i absolutely explained it to you. you just didn't like my answer.
EDIT: if blizz doesn't use the PTR for anything, why don't they just drop patch notes on us immediately? that's a pretty ignorant statement. it is exactly what it says. a public "TEST" realm.
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On September 10 2011 00:07 Demigod18x wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 23:58 Jakkerr wrote:On September 09 2011 23:46 Demigod18x wrote:
Masters zerg here,
I believe this change won't go live, for several reasons.
1) Blizzard has already stated on several occasions that they are not in the habit of removing aspects from their gameplay. Rather they prefer to balance the other races to compensate for other race's abilities. After all, a game with less options is less fun...
2) If neural can't target massive, it is utterly useless. The only units that it would work on now are siege tanks, immortals, and air units besides battlecruisers and carriers/mothership. But mutalisks are better at dealing with siege tanks and hydras are better at dealing with immortals, both cheaper zerg units than the infestor. Of course it can work on ghosts and high templar but good luck getting that to work in a battle...
3) The infestor is tier 2 with neural being the second upgrade it can get... and this lets zerg contest with a tier 3 army composition. Given the fragility of the infestor and the cost... meaning you can only have lings or at best roaches (which delays your hive timing) in your army composition, I feel like this is extremely fair. The problem most people have is that they let a zerg with infestors sit on their energy for too long, then are surprised when they are facing broodlords and 10+ infestors with near maxed energy. But zerg never lets a high templar protoss sit for too long... nor a ghost heavy terran (IMMvp vs July). So I think the problem is protoss and terran's resistance to REACT to a zerg unit composition. After all, zerg is the reactionary race... why should they have to do anything more than build units and attack like always.
As a suitable balance change, I would increase the energy to 125 so you can't neural twice with one infestor and/or decrease the range to 7 so siege tanks/thors and colossi can still target them but normal units (marine/marauder and gateway) can't.
Fair? I believe this change will go live for several reasons: 1)Blizzard has 'removed' aspects of the game before, reaper nerf, High templar ugrade remove, Void ray upgrade remove. I agree it's not the most ideal way of fixing something, but maybe they don't see another way 2)Will it be useless? at this moment it's easily the best ability in the game, if ur protoss opponent has 6 Colossi it's so easy to counter them with a couple of upgraded infestors, especially in ZvP people just get demotivated to even make T3 units in the lategame. Because what's the point? With every Colossus you made you only make the Zerg army stronger. 3) The infestor allready has 2 very very strong abilities, Infested terrans and Fungal growth, The infestor became an 'I counter everything' unit the last few months which wasn't intended at all. Can you honestly tell me there is a situation in where you wouldn't make Infestors nowadays in all matchups? They should buff some other things for Zergs to make up for this change because I agree it's a big, but justified nerf. Masters Protoss btw Your second point makes no attempt to explain how it will not be useless. Rather you go on about how overpowered it is. And if you've made 6 colossi without any high templar support against infestors you deserve to have them all neuraled for your poor army composition. This game isn't who can make the most badass army. It's who can make the strongest army composition and control it the best. You have no answer to neural with 6 colossi but to hope your stalkers snipe the infestors. Why should you win the fight when you've made poor decisions?
This is true in theory, and in the midgame this indeed works.
But in the lategame it doesn't work very well at all, why do you think all those Progamer Protosses are struggling that hard.
Most zergs make a LOT of infestors in the lategame, also High templars are very expensive and only affordable of atleast 3 bases. Those high templars also tend to get stuck behind ur army a lot since they are so insanely slow and Neural Parasite has a pretty big range.
By the time u canceled all those Neural's it's allready too late almost allways, the most reliable way of countering Neural parasite for Protoss at the moment is phoenix lifting off the infestors. Which still doesn't really work that well
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Mass Carrier v Zerg? Say it ain't so!
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On September 10 2011 00:01 Sina92 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 23:58 Jakkerr wrote:On September 09 2011 23:46 Demigod18x wrote:
Masters zerg here,
I believe this change won't go live, for several reasons.
1) Blizzard has already stated on several occasions that they are not in the habit of removing aspects from their gameplay. Rather they prefer to balance the other races to compensate for other race's abilities. After all, a game with less options is less fun...
2) If neural can't target massive, it is utterly useless. The only units that it would work on now are siege tanks, immortals, and air units besides battlecruisers and carriers/mothership. But mutalisks are better at dealing with siege tanks and hydras are better at dealing with immortals, both cheaper zerg units than the infestor. Of course it can work on ghosts and high templar but good luck getting that to work in a battle...
3) The infestor is tier 2 with neural being the second upgrade it can get... and this lets zerg contest with a tier 3 army composition. Given the fragility of the infestor and the cost... meaning you can only have lings or at best roaches (which delays your hive timing) in your army composition, I feel like this is extremely fair. The problem most people have is that they let a zerg with infestors sit on their energy for too long, then are surprised when they are facing broodlords and 10+ infestors with near maxed energy. But zerg never lets a high templar protoss sit for too long... nor a ghost heavy terran (IMMvp vs July). So I think the problem is protoss and terran's resistance to REACT to a zerg unit composition. After all, zerg is the reactionary race... why should they have to do anything more than build units and attack like always.
As a suitable balance change, I would increase the energy to 125 so you can't neural twice with one infestor and/or decrease the range to 7 so siege tanks/thors and colossi can still target them but normal units (marine/marauder and gateway) can't.
Fair? I believe this change will go live for several reasons: 1)Blizzard has 'removed' aspects of the game before, reaper nerf, High templar ugrade remove, Void ray upgrade remove. I agree it's not the most ideal way of fixing something, but maybe they don't see another way 2)Will it be useless? at this moment it's easily the best ability in the game, if ur protoss opponent has 6 Colossi it's so easy to counter them with a couple of upgraded infestors, especially in ZvP people just get demotivated to even make T3 units in the lategame. Because what's the point? With every Colossus you made you only make the Zerg army stronger. 3) The infestor allready has 2 very very strong abilities, Infested terrans and Fungal growth, The infestor became an 'I counter everything' unit the last few months which wasn't intended at all. Can you honestly tell me there is a situation in where you wouldn't make Infestors nowadays in all matchups? They should buff some other things for Zergs to make up for this change because I agree it's a big, but justified nerf. Masters Protoss btw Agreed, NP renders too many protoss units completely useless.
If you are agreeing with this then you haven't played against coL.Minigun. He plays exactly how you should against Infestors and as far as I can tell, never has any real problems with them. He will blink 5-6 Stalkers forward and snipe the target Infestors while also using Feedback on several. Killing the Infestors will release your units from NP and will also kill the Infestor, a large investment on the Zerg side.
The key to fighting Infestors is to simply kill them any chance you get. The reason that people have trouble against them is they don't ever go and kill them so then by the end of the game, the Zerg has 12+ instead of 4+ which makes a HUGE difference in what you are able to do (number of Fungals/IT/NP, etc.)
On that note, another cute strategy that I've seen out of Protoss is using a couple Pheonix to lift my Infestors off (which does cancel NP). Not only does this mess with the standard Ling/Infestor combo pretty badly but it also generally lets you kill the Infestor very easily as well.
I don't even think Infestors are that good once Terran/Protoss start to deal with it correctly. I honestly think the unit will become less of a MAKE AS MANY AS YOU CAN unit and will become a support unit, as it should have been in the first place. There are just too many easy ways to counter them for them to continue to be as dominant as they currently are.
In the end, these nerfs (damage and NP) to the Infestor are simply too early. I think Terran/Protoss are just figuring out how to deal with it and we should let it shake out a little more before forcing it one way or the other.
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On September 10 2011 00:16 Jakkerr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:07 Demigod18x wrote:On September 09 2011 23:58 Jakkerr wrote:On September 09 2011 23:46 Demigod18x wrote:
Masters zerg here,
I believe this change won't go live, for several reasons.
1) Blizzard has already stated on several occasions that they are not in the habit of removing aspects from their gameplay. Rather they prefer to balance the other races to compensate for other race's abilities. After all, a game with less options is less fun...
2) If neural can't target massive, it is utterly useless. The only units that it would work on now are siege tanks, immortals, and air units besides battlecruisers and carriers/mothership. But mutalisks are better at dealing with siege tanks and hydras are better at dealing with immortals, both cheaper zerg units than the infestor. Of course it can work on ghosts and high templar but good luck getting that to work in a battle...
3) The infestor is tier 2 with neural being the second upgrade it can get... and this lets zerg contest with a tier 3 army composition. Given the fragility of the infestor and the cost... meaning you can only have lings or at best roaches (which delays your hive timing) in your army composition, I feel like this is extremely fair. The problem most people have is that they let a zerg with infestors sit on their energy for too long, then are surprised when they are facing broodlords and 10+ infestors with near maxed energy. But zerg never lets a high templar protoss sit for too long... nor a ghost heavy terran (IMMvp vs July). So I think the problem is protoss and terran's resistance to REACT to a zerg unit composition. After all, zerg is the reactionary race... why should they have to do anything more than build units and attack like always.
As a suitable balance change, I would increase the energy to 125 so you can't neural twice with one infestor and/or decrease the range to 7 so siege tanks/thors and colossi can still target them but normal units (marine/marauder and gateway) can't.
Fair? I believe this change will go live for several reasons: 1)Blizzard has 'removed' aspects of the game before, reaper nerf, High templar ugrade remove, Void ray upgrade remove. I agree it's not the most ideal way of fixing something, but maybe they don't see another way 2)Will it be useless? at this moment it's easily the best ability in the game, if ur protoss opponent has 6 Colossi it's so easy to counter them with a couple of upgraded infestors, especially in ZvP people just get demotivated to even make T3 units in the lategame. Because what's the point? With every Colossus you made you only make the Zerg army stronger. 3) The infestor allready has 2 very very strong abilities, Infested terrans and Fungal growth, The infestor became an 'I counter everything' unit the last few months which wasn't intended at all. Can you honestly tell me there is a situation in where you wouldn't make Infestors nowadays in all matchups? They should buff some other things for Zergs to make up for this change because I agree it's a big, but justified nerf. Masters Protoss btw Your second point makes no attempt to explain how it will not be useless. Rather you go on about how overpowered it is. And if you've made 6 colossi without any high templar support against infestors you deserve to have them all neuraled for your poor army composition. This game isn't who can make the most badass army. It's who can make the strongest army composition and control it the best. You have no answer to neural with 6 colossi but to hope your stalkers snipe the infestors. Why should you win the fight when you've made poor decisions? This is true in theory, and in the midgame this indeed works. But in the lategame it doesn't work very well at all, why do you think all those Progamer Protosses are struggling that hard. Most zergs make a LOT of infestors in the lategame, also High templars are very expensive and only affordable of atleast 3 bases. Those high templars also tend to get stuck behind ur army a lot since they are so insanely slow and Neural Parasite has a pretty big range. By the time u canceled all those Neural's it's allready too late a lot of time, the most reliable way of countering Neural parasite for Protoss at the moment is phoenix lifting off the infestors. Which still doesn't really work that well
most pvz in GSL doesn't even last that long anymore. I don't recall last game I have seen a pvz which has more than 4 colossus against a zerg.
I haven't seen a lot of neural parasite in gsl, that's for sure. most would just use it for fungal and rush to broodlords instead
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Blizzard nerfs Infernal Pre-Igniter and Reaper upgrade into essentially obscurity and then Zergs say that Blizzard won't nerf NP because they don't like removing things from the game. Sure.
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Again some changes blow my mind so actually we are going back in beta style turtle toss on 3 bases with colo,voidray+some gateway mix fun times hah and about TvZ maybe mech will make a return or something because Thors will be unbeatable? Kinda funny change I have no idea why blizzard wants to brake this spell because now i think its useless.
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On September 10 2011 00:15 immortlone wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:13 Cyrak wrote:On September 10 2011 00:05 immortlone wrote:On September 09 2011 23:58 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:55 immortlone wrote:On September 09 2011 23:51 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:40 zalgolisk wrote:
My personal suspicion is that the NP nerf is being placed in PTR primarily to force Zerg players there to actually /test/ the changes. As it is, too many people may be using Infestors "too much" for a proper test of the balance changes.
Now the counter to mothership is to scout and start Hydras if it's backed by air, or ignore it and overrun with Roaches if it's backed by ground, in the same way that Roaches can end up countering void ray builds. This tests the cost buff for Overseers indirectly.
The counter to ground massive units is, of course, Ultras. People may simply not be building them enough for a test, since we're used to them taking 70 (70!) seconds to see a possible return on investment. (Though Zealot/Archon may still be challenging to fight.)
The NP nerf is likely too severe to be left in the game proper -- its only reasonable targets are casters now. Once they gauge the strength of the Overseer/Ultralisk buffs, we will probably see a gentler nerf of NP at worst. We may even see an energy cost buff -- if its only reasonable targets are casters, then it needs to be brought in line with Feedback and EMP (especially since you actually have to research it).
Purely speculation, of course; I have no affiliation with Blizzard's testers. You actually think that Blizzard's master plan is to get Zergs to test the PTR changes by not building the unit that they would be building anyway were this change not to be implemented? That is pretty far out there. "Guys, we're not going to be going to a parallel bizzaro universe, but we're going to have you test some stuff to see what would happen if we did even though it we aren't and after you're done testing it you can go back to doing the stuff you always did." Sounds productive. edit: I'd bet money that almost no-one here even plays the PTR at all. I tried to do a bunch of testing but I went undefeated and eventually hit 8+ minute queue times because there was literally no one queuing at the PTR diamond level. no.. it would be to get zergs to test different unit compositions VS the changes they made. Okay, now, again, please explain how there is any utility in that whatsoever when that's not how Zergs play on live. I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to. Occam's razor says that this change is a direct response to the <30% GSL win rates in PvZ rather than some temporary social experiment on a PTR that noone actually plays on. there are a lot more things related to the 30% increase in z wins for pvz. i've watched every single GSL match (not an exaggeration) and koreans do not use neural parasite (EDIT: or infestors) nearly as much as someone like destiny. but you nailed it when you said "I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to." - thats why they're FORCING players to use other units on the PTR to make sure that these balance changes work. for instance, on the mothership. great, neural still can grab one..that doesn't test whether it can escape from hydras or coruptors attacking it. is it easier/safer to neural a mothership than attack into it? yes. but does that test the acceleration change? absolutely not. You still haven't explained to me how it would be useful for people to test an artificial version of the game that had nerfed infestors in it. What good is it to test a version of the game that they have no intention of ever making live? It would be completely pointless. The best way to test balance changes is to test them under the conditions that you intend them to exist in which means that you don't put versions of the game on the PTR that you have no intention of using. Also, and more importantly, Blizzard doesn't really use the PTR to test anything at all. The PTR at this point is good for nothing other than giving them a way to release interactive patch notes which are then discussed on various forums. No pros play PTR and, speaking from experience, there seems to actually never be anyone good at all playing. I'm a masters P and I have never lost a game on any PTR and I've also never got a single useful piece of information from it that I didn't get in a custom game with friends. I think iNcontroL went over this on SOTG or ITG where he basically said that pros have scarce practice time and it's a complete waste of time for them to test PTR changes rather than practicing the game as is. There is no good testing done on the PTR, it's a PR device that gives Blizzard cover when they release ridiculous patch notes. Patch notes are reverted on the basis of community outcry and pro-gamer opinion, not on what happens on the PTR itself. i absolutely explained it to you. you just didn't like my answer. EDIT: if blizz doesn't use the PTR for anything, why don't they just drop patch notes on us immediately? that's a pretty ignorant statement. it is exactly what it says. a public "TEST" realm.
You need to read what I wrote instead of reflex posting garbage. The PTR is the less important part of the 'patch delay' process. The main reason why they don't just drop patches instantly is that they want to gauge public opinion on them.
And, no, it's not that I didn't like your answer; it's that your answer makes no sense. Unless your assertion is that players are using inferior strategies to win and that some fake PTR patch will mystically teach them the errors of their ways and force their play to evolve then what you say has no bearing on the reality of what would happen.
Even if I bought the incredibly optimistic and naive idea that the PTR is a worthwhile device for advancing the live-server metagame by shining light on inferior-but-viable strategies by nerfing existing strong strategies that would still be completely thrown out the window when said strong strategies remained in tact on the live servers.
Am I being more clear now?
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NP change is a strange one. I didn't know it needed twisting.
Why not apply the same nerf to ghosts' snipe and thors' 250mm strike canons ? As it is now, it feels a bit unfair. But maybe i'm just biased. We'll see how things will evolve.
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Forgive my continued ignorance to zerg, but how badly would is screw up NP if they just reduced the range to 7 or 8 and left everything else as is (still allowing for the unit to move farther than that once it's been controlled)? Would it be too damaging to put the infestors in harms way, or would it balance the risk/reward?
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Alternatively, make NP have the same range as Seeker Missile. Then i'd enjoy watching zergs use it.
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On September 10 2011 00:16 Jakkerr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:07 Demigod18x wrote:On September 09 2011 23:58 Jakkerr wrote:On September 09 2011 23:46 Demigod18x wrote:
Masters zerg here,
I believe this change won't go live, for several reasons.
1) Blizzard has already stated on several occasions that they are not in the habit of removing aspects from their gameplay. Rather they prefer to balance the other races to compensate for other race's abilities. After all, a game with less options is less fun...
2) If neural can't target massive, it is utterly useless. The only units that it would work on now are siege tanks, immortals, and air units besides battlecruisers and carriers/mothership. But mutalisks are better at dealing with siege tanks and hydras are better at dealing with immortals, both cheaper zerg units than the infestor. Of course it can work on ghosts and high templar but good luck getting that to work in a battle...
3) The infestor is tier 2 with neural being the second upgrade it can get... and this lets zerg contest with a tier 3 army composition. Given the fragility of the infestor and the cost... meaning you can only have lings or at best roaches (which delays your hive timing) in your army composition, I feel like this is extremely fair. The problem most people have is that they let a zerg with infestors sit on their energy for too long, then are surprised when they are facing broodlords and 10+ infestors with near maxed energy. But zerg never lets a high templar protoss sit for too long... nor a ghost heavy terran (IMMvp vs July). So I think the problem is protoss and terran's resistance to REACT to a zerg unit composition. After all, zerg is the reactionary race... why should they have to do anything more than build units and attack like always.
As a suitable balance change, I would increase the energy to 125 so you can't neural twice with one infestor and/or decrease the range to 7 so siege tanks/thors and colossi can still target them but normal units (marine/marauder and gateway) can't.
Fair? I believe this change will go live for several reasons: 1)Blizzard has 'removed' aspects of the game before, reaper nerf, High templar ugrade remove, Void ray upgrade remove. I agree it's not the most ideal way of fixing something, but maybe they don't see another way 2)Will it be useless? at this moment it's easily the best ability in the game, if ur protoss opponent has 6 Colossi it's so easy to counter them with a couple of upgraded infestors, especially in ZvP people just get demotivated to even make T3 units in the lategame. Because what's the point? With every Colossus you made you only make the Zerg army stronger. 3) The infestor allready has 2 very very strong abilities, Infested terrans and Fungal growth, The infestor became an 'I counter everything' unit the last few months which wasn't intended at all. Can you honestly tell me there is a situation in where you wouldn't make Infestors nowadays in all matchups? They should buff some other things for Zergs to make up for this change because I agree it's a big, but justified nerf. Masters Protoss btw Your second point makes no attempt to explain how it will not be useless. Rather you go on about how overpowered it is. And if you've made 6 colossi without any high templar support against infestors you deserve to have them all neuraled for your poor army composition. This game isn't who can make the most badass army. It's who can make the strongest army composition and control it the best. You have no answer to neural with 6 colossi but to hope your stalkers snipe the infestors. Why should you win the fight when you've made poor decisions? This is true in theory, and in the midgame this indeed works. But in the lategame it doesn't work very well at all, why do you think all those Progamer Protosses are struggling that hard. Most zergs make a LOT of infestors in the lategame, also High templars are very expensive and only affordable of atleast 3 bases. Those high templars also tend to get stuck behind ur army a lot since they are so insanely slow and Neural Parasite has a pretty big range. By the time u canceled all those Neural's it's allready too late almost allways, the most reliable way of countering Neural parasite for Protoss at the moment is phoenix lifting off the infestors. Which still doesn't really work that well
I have to disagree with your claim that high templars are very expensive and only affordable off 3 base. High templars are CHEAPER than infestors, are capable of rendering ling support useless with an upgrade, and if kept idle all game, can KILL four infestors. Did I mention they're cheaper? If you're going for a 2 base blink timing with obs, and you see ling infestor, it's just one more building to completely hard counter that composition. They go roaches? You go immortals since you already have a robo. They go broodlords, make stargate... Terran has stimmed marines and still makes one, so why do you think blink stalkers are enough. And don't get me started on storm drops...
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Basically, in ZvP, if the collossi are allowed to live and get off attacks, the Z army will melt away quickly. Z has to take the collossi out of the fight quickly. They can either do this by NPing, or they can send in corruptors so that the P runs his collossi away. If this change goes live, we will be back to the pre-April 2011 state of the game, where we guess how many corruptors to build so that we don't have too many worthless units left over, should we win the engagement. Is this what Blizzard intended the match-up to be? I hope not.
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On September 10 2011 00:19 arsenic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:01 Sina92 wrote:On September 09 2011 23:58 Jakkerr wrote:On September 09 2011 23:46 Demigod18x wrote:
Masters zerg here,
I believe this change won't go live, for several reasons.
1) Blizzard has already stated on several occasions that they are not in the habit of removing aspects from their gameplay. Rather they prefer to balance the other races to compensate for other race's abilities. After all, a game with less options is less fun...
2) If neural can't target massive, it is utterly useless. The only units that it would work on now are siege tanks, immortals, and air units besides battlecruisers and carriers/mothership. But mutalisks are better at dealing with siege tanks and hydras are better at dealing with immortals, both cheaper zerg units than the infestor. Of course it can work on ghosts and high templar but good luck getting that to work in a battle...
3) The infestor is tier 2 with neural being the second upgrade it can get... and this lets zerg contest with a tier 3 army composition. Given the fragility of the infestor and the cost... meaning you can only have lings or at best roaches (which delays your hive timing) in your army composition, I feel like this is extremely fair. The problem most people have is that they let a zerg with infestors sit on their energy for too long, then are surprised when they are facing broodlords and 10+ infestors with near maxed energy. But zerg never lets a high templar protoss sit for too long... nor a ghost heavy terran (IMMvp vs July). So I think the problem is protoss and terran's resistance to REACT to a zerg unit composition. After all, zerg is the reactionary race... why should they have to do anything more than build units and attack like always.
As a suitable balance change, I would increase the energy to 125 so you can't neural twice with one infestor and/or decrease the range to 7 so siege tanks/thors and colossi can still target them but normal units (marine/marauder and gateway) can't.
Fair? I believe this change will go live for several reasons: 1)Blizzard has 'removed' aspects of the game before, reaper nerf, High templar ugrade remove, Void ray upgrade remove. I agree it's not the most ideal way of fixing something, but maybe they don't see another way 2)Will it be useless? at this moment it's easily the best ability in the game, if ur protoss opponent has 6 Colossi it's so easy to counter them with a couple of upgraded infestors, especially in ZvP people just get demotivated to even make T3 units in the lategame. Because what's the point? With every Colossus you made you only make the Zerg army stronger. 3) The infestor allready has 2 very very strong abilities, Infested terrans and Fungal growth, The infestor became an 'I counter everything' unit the last few months which wasn't intended at all. Can you honestly tell me there is a situation in where you wouldn't make Infestors nowadays in all matchups? They should buff some other things for Zergs to make up for this change because I agree it's a big, but justified nerf. Masters Protoss btw Agreed, NP renders too many protoss units completely useless. If you are agreeing with this then you haven't played against coL.Minigun. He plays exactly how you should against Infestors and as far as I can tell, never has any real problems with them. He will blink 5-6 Stalkers forward and snipe the target Infestors while also using Feedback on several. Killing the Infestors will release your units from NP and will also kill the Infestor, a large investment on the Zerg side. The key to fighting Infestors is to simply kill them any chance you get. The reason that people have trouble against them is they don't ever go and kill them so then by the end of the game, the Zerg has 12+ instead of 4+ which makes a HUGE difference in what you are able to do (number of Fungals/IT/NP, etc.) On that note, another cute strategy that I've seen out of Protoss is using a couple Pheonix to lift my Infestors off (which does cancel NP). Not only does this mess with the standard Ling/Infestor combo pretty badly but it also generally lets you kill the Infestor very easily as well. I don't even think Infestors are that good once Terran/Protoss start to deal with it correctly. I honestly think the unit will become less of a MAKE AS MANY AS YOU CAN unit and will become a support unit, as it should have been in the first place. There are just too many easy ways to counter them for them to continue to be as dominant as they currently are. In the end, these nerfs (damage and NP) to the Infestor are simply too early. I think Terran/Protoss are just figuring out how to deal with it and we should let it shake out a little more before forcing it one way or the other.
I have to agree with this post. For all the QQ about infestors, at my level of play (mid master) I almost never see my opponents target them. They never snipe, blink ahead to pick off, or focus infestors at all during a battle. They won't even target the infestors unless the AI does so in a battle, it seems.
The infestor is such a fragile unit, and for all the complaining about it, I almost never see people try to kill it outright preemptively.
That being said, I guess we will see how this patch affects things. I hardly used NP myself (was more a corruptor to BL kinda player) but this will dramatically affect ZvP deathballs and ZvT mechballs. Should be interesting to watch if...
a) people figure out new strats to deal with the above and/or
b) the game starts to look and feel more one-dimensional
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How incredibly stupid.
Do Blizzard realise how badly they've designed Protoss? That they rely far far too much on 3 base collossi centric all-ins?
Why the fuck do they decide to make these all-ins even stronger? Where, in the Blizzard decision making room, did they think "alright lads, we gotta get Protoss to finally start fuckin' buildin' colossi."
So, so, so stupid. For a matchup that was looking promising as it constantly developed, this will only make it dull as fuck.
If this makes it in, I will be pissed(it's gotten to the point where I wouldn't be surprised).
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SoCal8910 Posts
On September 10 2011 00:22 Cyrak wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:15 immortlone wrote:On September 10 2011 00:13 Cyrak wrote:On September 10 2011 00:05 immortlone wrote:On September 09 2011 23:58 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:55 immortlone wrote:On September 09 2011 23:51 Cyrak wrote:On September 09 2011 23:40 zalgolisk wrote:
My personal suspicion is that the NP nerf is being placed in PTR primarily to force Zerg players there to actually /test/ the changes. As it is, too many people may be using Infestors "too much" for a proper test of the balance changes.
Now the counter to mothership is to scout and start Hydras if it's backed by air, or ignore it and overrun with Roaches if it's backed by ground, in the same way that Roaches can end up countering void ray builds. This tests the cost buff for Overseers indirectly.
The counter to ground massive units is, of course, Ultras. People may simply not be building them enough for a test, since we're used to them taking 70 (70!) seconds to see a possible return on investment. (Though Zealot/Archon may still be challenging to fight.)
The NP nerf is likely too severe to be left in the game proper -- its only reasonable targets are casters now. Once they gauge the strength of the Overseer/Ultralisk buffs, we will probably see a gentler nerf of NP at worst. We may even see an energy cost buff -- if its only reasonable targets are casters, then it needs to be brought in line with Feedback and EMP (especially since you actually have to research it).
Purely speculation, of course; I have no affiliation with Blizzard's testers. You actually think that Blizzard's master plan is to get Zergs to test the PTR changes by not building the unit that they would be building anyway were this change not to be implemented? That is pretty far out there. "Guys, we're not going to be going to a parallel bizzaro universe, but we're going to have you test some stuff to see what would happen if we did even though it we aren't and after you're done testing it you can go back to doing the stuff you always did." Sounds productive. edit: I'd bet money that almost no-one here even plays the PTR at all. I tried to do a bunch of testing but I went undefeated and eventually hit 8+ minute queue times because there was literally no one queuing at the PTR diamond level. no.. it would be to get zergs to test different unit compositions VS the changes they made. Okay, now, again, please explain how there is any utility in that whatsoever when that's not how Zergs play on live. I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to. Occam's razor says that this change is a direct response to the <30% GSL win rates in PvZ rather than some temporary social experiment on a PTR that noone actually plays on. there are a lot more things related to the 30% increase in z wins for pvz. i've watched every single GSL match (not an exaggeration) and koreans do not use neural parasite (EDIT: or infestors) nearly as much as someone like destiny. but you nailed it when you said "I've been through enough games with enough balance patches to tell you definitively that players do not adjust their play until they are forced to." - thats why they're FORCING players to use other units on the PTR to make sure that these balance changes work. for instance, on the mothership. great, neural still can grab one..that doesn't test whether it can escape from hydras or coruptors attacking it. is it easier/safer to neural a mothership than attack into it? yes. but does that test the acceleration change? absolutely not. You still haven't explained to me how it would be useful for people to test an artificial version of the game that had nerfed infestors in it. What good is it to test a version of the game that they have no intention of ever making live? It would be completely pointless. The best way to test balance changes is to test them under the conditions that you intend them to exist in which means that you don't put versions of the game on the PTR that you have no intention of using. Also, and more importantly, Blizzard doesn't really use the PTR to test anything at all. The PTR at this point is good for nothing other than giving them a way to release interactive patch notes which are then discussed on various forums. No pros play PTR and, speaking from experience, there seems to actually never be anyone good at all playing. I'm a masters P and I have never lost a game on any PTR and I've also never got a single useful piece of information from it that I didn't get in a custom game with friends. I think iNcontroL went over this on SOTG or ITG where he basically said that pros have scarce practice time and it's a complete waste of time for them to test PTR changes rather than practicing the game as is. There is no good testing done on the PTR, it's a PR device that gives Blizzard cover when they release ridiculous patch notes. Patch notes are reverted on the basis of community outcry and pro-gamer opinion, not on what happens on the PTR itself. i absolutely explained it to you. you just didn't like my answer. EDIT: if blizz doesn't use the PTR for anything, why don't they just drop patch notes on us immediately? that's a pretty ignorant statement. it is exactly what it says. a public "TEST" realm. You need to read what I wrote instead of reflex posting garbage. The PTR is the less important part of the 'patch delay' process. The main reason why they don't just drop patches instantly is that they want to gauge public opinion on them. And, no, it's not that I didn't like your answer; it's that your answer makes no sense. Unless your assertion is that players are using inferior strategies to win and that some fake PTR patch will mystically teach them the errors of their ways and force their play to evolve then what you say has no bearing on the reality of what would happen. Even if I bought the incredibly optimistic and naive idea that the PTR is a worthwhile device for advancing the live-server metagame by shining light on inferior-but-viable strategies by nerfing existing strong strategies that would still be completely thrown out the window when said strong strategies remained in tact on the live servers. Am I being more clear now?
then you're misinterpretting what im saying. im not saying that blizzard would be doing this because they want to shine light on other strategies. im saying they want to test their changes on other strategies (no matter what their strength is) by FORCING players to not use an easier to use or more cost effective strategy.
to continue the example i used earlier, using hydras or corruptors VS a mothership is just as viable as a neural parasite. albeit sacrificing cost efficiency, its still viable. now consider that the acceleration makes it impossible to defeat with a group of corruptors and you're chasing the damn thing down to no avail. something eats your corruptors, be it voids or stalkers. if its easier and safer to use neural, players (especially if there arent a lot on the PTR) will be more likely to use neural to capture the mothership and the change won't be tested!
another example would be hellion thor vs roach hydra as opposed to a standard roach infestor. does the preignitor nerf make roach hydra a viable strategy? well we won't know if people are using roach infestor (since they know how to use it and we all prefer familiarity with strategies over risking losing a game to unfamiliarity) to grab the thors and roaches to eat the hellions. blizzard would be forcing us to try a different strategy to see if roach hydra is now overpowered VS hellion thor with the hellion nerf not doing as much dmg to the light hydras.
does that make more sense now?
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oh interesting nerf on neural parasite. Maybe a bit too much, but now infestors definetly don't counter everything anymore. But i fear thors are to strong now. (they do well against broodlords if you do some medivac lifting action to keep them in range of the broodlords.) And i think neuraling colossi was pretty neat for a zerg. On the other hand archons and zealots together were really screwed against infestors in multiple ways x3. And well bc and ms were contered by neural parasite alone ...
I would have probably given some immune to neural parasite, to archons and bcs and the ms(like the ultra already has). But not to massive units.
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EPT
