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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 September 10 2011 00:27 jdsowa wrote:
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.
You have a short memory, and seems like you don't watch most of the PvZ at pro-level anyway, some people use NP but most of the time NP is never used anyway, and the best way to deal with the so-called deathball is to fungal and banes drop as Morrow does all the time. Or to completely overwhelm your opponent (Losira Vs. MC Up & Down matches for instance)
There is no such thing as the deathball at korean pro level. You have to be aggressive.
NP just destroy the end game when it was used 'cause Toss manage to survive all the attacks of the Z and died to a stupid spell with an advantage he had hardly won.
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I wonder how the game would have played out if nothing changed from the start. Seems to me like everytime a patch is coming out is when people are starting to figure things out
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On September 10 2011 00:22 Cyrak wrote:
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?
I love the PTR conspiracy theory but it doesn't fit at all. Are you the one talking about Occam a few posts back???
You can question the usefulness of the PTR (as it was said in SOTG, no pro will ever play on it), but the point remains that if they want players to build ultra, they HAVE to force it. The hypothese is that the NP nerf is here to force ultra against colossi (ultras are supposed to be the counter to colossi).
The hypothesis is that the nerf is not here to teach them anything like you said. The nerf is there to see if ultras are too powerful with the buff.
When it goes live, NP nerf or not, players will make more ultras because of the nerf (and will discover how strong they are over months) but right now they have no reason to make them so Blizz has to force it.
Or at least, this is the hypothesis.
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On September 10 2011 00:29 BUfels wrote:
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).
I completely agree with this except that I think that the match has become completely stagnant and they don't know what to do about it.
PvZ has devolved into trying to find some weird timing window to do an all-in cheese before the Zerg can get their macro up. I honestly think that you'll be surprised at how little this changes anything. The baneling bomb + fungal strat was always far stronger than this anyway.
I am honestly surprised that anyone in this thread thinks that this is going to affect PvZ at the pro level. TvZ seems so much more interesting in this context.
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On September 10 2011 00:29 BUfels wrote:
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).
Yeah cause a 3 base all in exist...
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I like the NP change, though I hope they reduce the mana cost to 50 again, or make it non-channelled or something. 100 mana, channeled, needing research and not affecting massive units really does limit the spell's effectiveness. The only units I can think of worth parasiting now are immortals and tanks, and it's totally not worth 1 infestor to do that (essentially what you're trading since it's vulnerable and out of mana afterwards)
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As a Protoss player I'd like to add my voice to those who think the neural nerf is a bit silly. There really isn't anything worth neuraling now except High templar..... but the ability used to be really useful. Not impossible to counter though! infestors are pretty easy to snipe to begin with, especially if they just sit there and let you kill them like they do when neuraled. Hopefully, this change will be removed. The fungal change is probably enough, honestly, for ZvP.
Why not nerf the range of neural a little bit instead? That would definitely make it weaker without making it totally useless.
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On September 10 2011 00:34 ZeGzoR wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:29 BUfels wrote:
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). Yeah cause a 3 base all in exist...
you know...the one where you send your 80 probes with your army.
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Can we agree that it was at least somewhat strange that you could NP a mothership? That clunky, slow-moving poor man's arbiter was almost never used, and when it was, it could end up being a huge liability.
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On September 10 2011 00:34 AlgoFlash wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:22 Cyrak wrote:
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? I love the PTR conspiracy theory but it doesn't fit at all. Are you the one talking about Occam a few posts back??? You can question the usefulness of the PTR (as it was said in SOTG, no pro will ever play on it), but the point remains that if they want players to build ultra, they HAVE to force it. The hypothese is that the NP nerf is here to force ultra against colossi (ultras are supposed to be the counter to colossi). The hypothesis is that the nerf is not here to teach them anything like you said. The nerf is there to see if ultras are too powerful with the buff. When it goes live, NP nerf or not, players will make more ultras because of the nerf (and will discover how strong they are over months) but right now they have no reason to make them so Blizz has to force it. Or at least, this is the hypothesis.
Uh, I think that you must be misinterpreting my posts. What I am saying is that the likelihood of this change being a fake-out to get people to play without Infestors on the PTR is ludicrous and next to 0%.
The idea that Blizzard is introducing changes that they have no intention of making live to get some mysterious (and useless) PTR information is the actual conspiracy theory. I can't believe the intellectual level that some people are on.
edit: Please read what you just wrote:
if they want players to build ultra, they HAVE to force it. The hypothese is that the NP nerf is here to force ultra against colossi
You actually think that Blizzard is changing neural parasite on the PTR to force Zergs to make ultras? Like, this is 9/11 truther levels of stupid.
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i guess thors are a massive unit? :S
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Really hope the Neural Parasite change goes through. I can understand that Infestors should be a strong unit due to it's cost and tech requirements, but at the moment it counters way too much. I think even some of the Zoogies in here have to admit that it was quite ridiculous how you could absolutely decimate any tier 1 and tier 3 army with only Infestors.
I really don't understand how people can say that NP is useless now. It can still target units like Tanks, Void Rays, Vikings, Immortals, High Templar and Ghosts. All of which can be very effective. Especially NP'ed Tanks are a utter BITCH to deal with since you it's so hard to target down some Infestor way in the back while a million Zerglings are getting shoved down your throat.
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On September 10 2011 00:36 Attilanator wrote:
As a Protoss player I'd like to add my voice to those who think the neural nerf is a bit silly. There really isn't anything worth neuraling now except High templar..... but the ability used to be really useful. Not impossible to counter though! infestors are pretty easy to snipe to begin with, especially if they just sit there and let you kill them like they do when neuraled. Hopefully, this change will be removed. The fungal change is probably enough, honestly, for ZvP.
Why not nerf the range of neural a little bit instead? That would definitely make it weaker without making it totally useless.
As another protoss player, I think that nerfing the range would be too strong of a nerf as well, since they die instantly to colossus anyways. Couldn't they just decrease the length of time neural worked against massive? If it's 15 seconds for nonmassive units, make it 10 seconds for massive units? Or make it cost more energy to neural a massive unit? I personally don't think they really need to nerf it, but if Blizzard even wants to consider nerfing it, I think this is another over the top nerf.
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On September 10 2011 00:30 immortlone wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:22 Cyrak wrote: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?
No. You're misinterpreting him. He's saying it's pointless to have the PTR server. No one plays them and Blizzard gets absolutely no information from them. There is no testing their changes on other strategies. It's simply Blizzard releasing these for fun because there is absolutely no point in the PTR. There's no incentive to put fake notes on the PTR.
I don't use mass Infestor Neural Parasite enough to comment, but from what I've seen Infestors are overpowered. There's really no denying that. The problem is now we don't have a solution to Colossi anymore other than Corruptors, which brings back the deathball games.
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On September 09 2011 23:14 Cibron wrote:
I think this is a step in the right direction.
We need more spellcaster nerfs to balance the game faster. They should be good but not as good as they are right now.
TvP depends too heavily on good EMP hits.
Any PvX depends on good forcefields & storms(fixed).
Imba infestors are almost as bad as amu templars. This is not C&C - no mass single unit should beat any other unit combo.
Spellcasters in SC1 were completely imba also and that's partly why it took several years to balance the game.
Like marines, or blink stalkers?
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hmm, with neural parasite gone, i really wonder what zergs are gonna come up with against thor/hellion midgame pushes....
i still absolutely despise the terran barracks build time increase. if they want to nerf the 1-1-1, then increase the buildtime of factories and/or starports, but dont delay everything any terran in any matchup going for any build could ever do. -.-
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On September 10 2011 00:40 Blisse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2011 00:30 immortlone wrote:On September 10 2011 00:22 Cyrak wrote: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? No. You're misinterpreting him. He's saying it's pointless to have the PTR server. No one plays them and Blizzard gets absolutely no information from them. There is no testing their changes on other strategies. It's simply Blizzard releasing these for fun because there is absolutely no point in the PTR. There's no incentive to put fake notes on the PTR. I don't use mass Infestor Neural Parasite enough to comment, but from what I've seen Infestors are overpowered. There's really no denying that. The problem is now we don't have a solution to Colossi anymore other than Corruptors, which brings back the deathball games.
Thanks, you summed it up pretty well.
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Yeah.. Every time I try to go on to the PTR and look for a game, I get nothing for like 10 minutes then give up, lol. Not nearly enough people play on it to get any real results from testing.
Blizz should just cut deals with pro teams to hire pros for testing shit outa, and have little closed circle pros and friends of pros testing groups imo.
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lol does this mean you cant neural thors anymore? i guess my tvz mech builds just got a big buff. honestly even though it would be beneficial to me, i have to admit that this would be terrible for the game.
the real problem in pvz imo is that protoss cant seem to keep the zerg's economy in check. toss needs some kind of mobile map controlling unit. i imagine they get one in hots
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On September 10 2011 00:29 BUfels wrote:
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?
Are you seriously calling 3 base play an all-in? How about 4 base play?
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EPT
