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NOTE TO MODS: If this breaks any rules, feel free to lock. I don't want to incite some sort of flame war here nor balance whine. I feel the game is balanced at the moment although Zerg are ever so slightly weaker than the other two races. However, my argument of imbalance stems from the fact we do not see a wider variety of units in games.
This is a response to SKMC’s thoughts on SC2
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=427728
I don’t know how to word this without sounding overly whiny. I really do not like the direction StarCraft II is going and I hope that Blizzard realizes this and gives Heart of the Swarm a ‘Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn’-style overhaul in terms of multiplayer unit design and balance philosophies.
I did say Heart of the Swarm by the way. HotS took three years to release after WoL and with the way the Korean and North American scenes especially are currently going, Blizzard cannot afford to wait another two years to prepare and release Legacy of the Void and hope to fix things then. Who knows how many viewers and players StarCraft II could face to lose by then.
We’ve already seen MLG come close to dropping SC2 entirely after it was confirmed their next event in Raleigh had replaced the game with Dota 2 and currently 2014 seems like a worrying year for the game.
Likewise in Korea we’ve seen teams such as Woongjin Stars and STX Soul lose their title sponsors and rumours that next year could be the last SC2 Proleague. There are even (badly kept) secrets going around that the motivation for MVP, Incredible Miracle and Prime to leave eSF and buddy up with KeSPA was that they could compete in an upcoming LoL Proleague. This has been all but confirmed as MVP has been bought out by Samsung.
Also, we've seen quite a few pros speak out against the lack of feedback Blizzard has taken about the game, which has even led to SKMC slamming the metagame in a recent blog post. I also feel like the problem that MC mentions of the metagame being one-dimensional is why we've seen players like JangBi, Sea, Jinro and Bisu retire so soon. JangBi was a two-time OSL champion who was suddenly denied of a third Golden Mouse by being told to play a completely different game. Sea retired and returned to Brood War's (now amateur and not KeSPA dominated) scene because he disliked StarCraft II. Bisu and Jinro retired more-so due to declining results but both look back on the golden days of Brood War.
Anyway, before I go off on too much of a tangent, here is the jist of what I am trying to say. Bear in mind I am going to keep this exclusive to just Terran because their metagame on average is the most one-dimensional and horribly designed out of any race.
The vast majority of key Terran units are horrifically underpowered and need a significant buff, if not complete overhaul. All factors of the Terran composition need a significant rework. Bio and Widow Mines need to be toned down while Mech and Sky Terran need to be significantly overhauled.
David Kim has promised time and time again to look at Mech then spends months desiring to make minor tweaks in order to tweak the current metagame which is completely broken.
Let me summarize the complete metagame for Terran in non-mirror matchups:
TvP: Marine, Marauder, Medivac, Hellbat, Viking, Ghost vs Zealot, Stalker, Sentry, Colossus, High Templar, Archon.
The specific problem with TvP is that in almost every single professional level TvP I have ever watched since Wings of Liberty came out, we see the same one-dimensional bio viking ghost versus all of the Protoss splash damage units and what determines whether the Terran wins or loses is how well Protoss can hold drop aggression and pick the perfect engagements. The only time you will ever see any sort of variation in terms of TvP is in the low leagues or with a few rare players like HTOMario and GoOdy who will go Mech. In fact, scratch that because GoOdy opted to play PvP instead of TvP in tournaments by late WoL because Mech was impossible to play.
The reason why you barely see Mech or Sky Terran in TvP is because it has a history of being horrifically underpowered. SC2 bonjwa and 4-time GSL champion LG-IM.Mvp once said it was impossible to win using Mech. If somebody of his skill level is saying this, it is definitely true.
I can highlight a number of problems with playing Mech in TvP such as:
- Susceptibility to early game aggression. Whereas going bio could help you hold certain aggressive builds like 3 gate pressure iinto expand, 4 gate, 3 gate blink stalker, 3 gate robo, going Mech will get you build order countered.
- Early expands often not being safe enough. Whereas in TvZ a fast expand into hellions is viable, the same build in TvP is only possible against a greedy, passive Protoss. And since it’s very difficult to scout early game aggression without a scan, it puts you in a weaker spot.
- Unless you have a criticial mass of (or around 16+) Siege Tanks backed by Hellbats and a good angle of engagement, the Protoss will win an engagement decisively, counterattack and wreck you. That is because of several big reasons such as Siege Tanks being nerfed and much of the Protoss composition being haphazardly designed to counter Mech. (explained more below.
The weakness of the Siege Tank - stemming from it dealing 35 (50 vs Armored) instead of 70 Explosive damage - is why Mech is currently underpowered and can be entirely hard-countered if you know your opponent is playing it.
Did you know for instance that:
- Siege Tanks take 5 hits to kill Zealots in both Brood War and StarCraft II. However, Charge not only closes the gap quicker than Leg Enhancements but also guarantees the Zealot a hit on a Siege Tank. This means that Zealots (still) hard-counter the Siege Tank.
- Stalkers have 20 less Life than the Dragoon but take an extra hit to kill? This is becuase the Siege Tank does 20 less maximum damage than it could in Brood War. The Blink ability also breaks the balance between Stalkers and Siege Tanks by allowing them to Blink on top of a tank line, abusing both the ‘dead zone’ of individual Siege Tanks and friendly-fire mechanics. Thus, Stalkers hard-counter the Siege Tank.
- Archons were the second-tankiest unit against Siege Tanks in Brood War (second only to the Ultralisk) and were an expensive but effective adversary against the Siege Tank, taking six hits to kill due to them being a Large unit. In StarCraft II they are the second tankiest unit in the game, taking eleven hits to kill because they are not Armored and thus only take 35 damage. This means that Archons WTFPWN Siege Tanks.
Colossus take seven hits for a Siege Tank to kill. They are tankier than the BW Archon used to be. Its predecessor, the Reaver, slithered at about a quarter of the speed and took three hits to kill. Thus, Colossi WTFPWN Siege Tanks.
- The Immortal is the single tankiest unit in the game against the Siege Tank, and are overly tanky against all hard hitting units. They take fourteen hits for a Siege Tank to kill and are only tier 2. Even if you EMP an Immortal, they still take four hits to kill (the same as a Stalker.) Words cannot describe how dunked a Siege Tank line gets when Immortals are in the mix.
A lot of pro and amateur gamers have suggested that the Immortal be nerfed or removed but let me reassure you on one thing. The Immortal isn’t the only problem. The Siege Tank is. It deals reduced damage against all Protoss units and no longer works as a method of unit control. For instance you never see a bio player able to suddenly switch into Biomech or Mech because Siege Tanks are now so weak at zone control because everything can now a-move and ROFLstomp it.
The only way to legitimately come close to victory using Siege Tanks now is to pray your opponent doesn’t drop or take every base on the map then turtle and simcity to perfection. Only an abundance of Orbital Commands makes this remotely possible,
Bio is mobile, has the clout to actually take down the Protoss tier 3 provided it hasn’t reached a critical mass and thanks to the abundance of Stimivacs, can really punish a Protoss player with multi pronged drop aggression just for leaving their base. Likewise, if you lose a bio army, you can remake it with ease provided you have the economy and production to back it up. This lets you be liberal about drop harassment and whittle down a Protoss opponent quite effectively if they leave themselves open.
TvZ: Marine, Marauder, Medivac, Widow Mine vs Zergling, Baneling, Mutalisk, Ultralisk.
There is a reason we see biomine in every single TvZ. It is:
- Cheap - Doesn't cost much to commit to.
- Expendable - Lose your army? You can remake it instantly. Look at a lot of TvZs and TvPs where Innovation reaches 3 bases and uses his patented bio train to unleash relentless, nonstop aggression.
- Punishing - This is why you see mutalisks every game. If you can't snipe Terran drops in time, multi pronged drops are going to wreck your economy and number of bases in seconds. This is ABSOLUTELY NOT WHAT TIER 1 UNITS SHOULD DO
- Easy - Widow Mines will do much of the work for you. Sure you may need to micro bio in a few engagements but if you are good at that, you are golden.
- Aggressive - Suits anybody with an aggressive playstyle.
- Defensive - It's better at defending a lot of ultra early game timings like ling baneling all ins and ling bane roach all ins or early muta than mech or sky terran is.
- Powerful - Watching any pro level Terran game makes this word speak for itself.
These seven words describe MMMM in a nutshell. Sure, the only weakness of MMMM is a lack of early game map presence, which can fortunately be obtained with a fast expand into reactor Hellion opening
Widow Mines are so game breakingly overpowered that they have entirely phased out the Siege Tank. They take less time to root than a tank takes to siege up, even before the Drilling Claws upgrade, deal much greater single target damage, has higher splash damage versus light units (40 compared to the 35 of Siege Tanks), are relatively cheap, can be massed in complete abundance and do spell damage (which makes armor/weapon upgrades irrelevant.)
We seldom see pure Mech in TvZ due to its weak anti-air only solvable by a large number of Thors and a large number of Vikings coupled with Ravens to throw down PDDs. Of course you would likely get completely fucked by 40 to 50 mutalisks by the time this transition happens. And no, Thors will not help you because their splash damage does not work in the StarCraft II game engine. This is thanks to magic-boxing, a micro trick that has made meching Terrans cry manly tears for three years straight.
The Goliath was perfect. The Warhound (which was originally intended to replace the Thor and function as anti-air) would have worked perfectly too. Why did David Kim replace the Goliath with a slow, expensive and ultimately flawed behemoth?
The buff to Mutalisks giving them increased movement speed and quadrupled health regeneration has made them an even bigger threat in TvZ. The Swarm Host also allows you to throw free units and overwhelm a Tank line at a cost of nothing. And no, Sky Terran won’t work either as any Zerg with a brain would have brought Spore Crawlers..
The Ultralisk is also far tankier against the Siege Tank than it is against the Widow Mine. Widow Mines deal 40 splash (or 125 single target) damage against an Ultralisk which is anywhere between 8% and 25% of their health pool. This is despite the Ultralisk having 100 more HP than it did in Brood War. Likewise, the Siege Tank deals 20 less damage to them than it used to and takes 11 hits (due to their health regen) instead of the 6 they used to take.
This is why Mech is never used to TvZ. It is weaker than bio, more expensive than bio, and is more punishing than bio.
Of course there is one composition that doesn’t die instantly to Widow Mines and that is Roach Hydra. Unfortunately, said composition is far more expensive, far more susceptible to drops (due to the lack of Mutalisks able to pick off multi pronged Stimivac drops) and sucks even more in a straight up engagement than pure ling bane, even with Infestor support.
Other points:
Siege Tanks are more expensive in SC2 than in Brood War. In Brood War they cost 100 Minerals and 150 Gas. In StarCraft II, they cost 125 Minerals and 150 Gas and have done so since Wings. Not even the removal of Siege Mode as a researchable upgrade has improved their rate of usage.
This is despite dealing less damage.
Siege Tanks also have smart-targeting, which clearly helps when they are criticially massed, but even then units such as Vipers punish them for totally sieging up. While this may explain their lessened damage, the irrelevance of Mech in HotS only cements the point that it's clearly not working further.
Ten suggestions to improve Heart of the Swarm’s metagame:
I am by no means qualified to suggest balance changes. However, the ones I suggest are looking at current problem areas.
1. Nerf bio. Marines need to deal less damage yet still be able to take on airborne units. Even a damage nerf by 1 (and maybe a small health buff to compensate) is good enough. The Marauder either needs removal or a numbers nerf to not be so effective in the later game. Tier 1 should never be the entire solution to later tiers of units.
2. Buff Siege Tank damage to 35 (60 vs Armored, 80 vs Massive.) This will let them three-shot Stalkers, still 4-shot Immortals with an EMP landed down and still keep Roach Hydra just as tanky. This will however greatly improve buff their performance against Ultralisks, Colossus Thors and Archons while not affecting their currently intended counters (Chargelots, Immortals, air units, Swarm Hosts, Vipers.) Even if you have to remove smart targeting and make them overkill units so that we are forced to spread them in all situations, I feel this is a very fair trade-off. Nobody likes the idea of clumped up deathballs anyway.
3. Remove Blink as an ability and replace it with something different like maybe an ability that temporarily gives the Stalker extra range and damage. Blink Stalkers currently outright break the possibility of there ever being mech TvPs due to the sheer strength of Blink Stalker all ins. Temporary extra range and damage could also help greatly against Mutalisks.
4. Buff Psionic Storm damage back to 100 from 80. This was the way it used to be in Brood War.
5. Remove the Widow Mine and replace it with an entirely different unit. Ideally a small anti-air unit creatable from the Reactor but requiring Armory tech. Maybe the Goliath or the (original) Warhound?
6. Allow Hellions to drop Spider Mines in Hellion mode (but make it a researchable upgrade, and make them produce Spider Mines like Carriers produce Interceptors.) This can solve a few issues with zone control that the removal of the Vulture caused.
7. Nerf Hellbat damage by half but greatly buff their health and give them a base Armor of 1. This is what David Kim should have originally done with the Hellbat, not tried to increase their cargo size then nerf their damage to prevent Hellbat drops. The hellbat drops occurred because Hellbats were not fulfilling their original role.
8. Reduce the cost of Point Defense Drones to 75 from 100. This will allow Ravens to cast them upon creation with the Corvid Reactor upgrade.
9. Remove Battlecruiser energy and make Yamato Cannon free but cooldown based. A lot of worthy counters to the Battlecruiser already exist.
10. Remove Medivac boosts. They are the sole reason why Zerg have to make Mutalisks in ZvT. Terrans also had zero problems with dropping without these moronic ‘stimivacs’ put in game.
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would be cool if you made all your changes into a test map.
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I can't speak to the balance issues themselves but nerfing bio would make Terran seemingly unplayable wouldn't it?
I don't know if you could balance out a Spider Mine in this game either, since part of the unit pathing makes your army clump up a lot right? So wouldn't getting struck by a spider mine be almost fatal (or close to it)?
Psi Storm in BW wasn't 100 damage, as I remember. It was 112 and would basically make High Templar ridiculously strong in every matchup (with the aforementioned unit clumping), and its crazy 28 DPS.
In the end it looks like you want to play Brood War or watch Brood War. That's great, so do I. But there is Brood War which you can already watch, so why not let SC2 be SC2 and not BW:HD?
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doesnt this belong in blogs ?
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I agree with proposed changes through 1-10, especially Siegetank buff, Spidermine replacing and Medivac boost removal.
Spidermines from Hellions would make Mech mobile again, which is all Blizzard wants - active, intense gameplay(best case scenario, we got Vulture back - for the microportion).
Medivac Boost makes it so easy to just throw out drops one by one with a pretty much guaranteed net win, and with that ability, Blizzard balances everything based around the assumption that we all spam Medivacdrops now, which I seriously dislike having to do.
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I think a big problem is just how common tournaments are right now. There isn't really a 1-2 month period without a tournament being played for big balance changes like this to be tested properly without potentially ruining an mlg or a dreamhack event by having some really abusive strat win every game.
Take LoL as an example, every year they start a new season, and between seasons (after the finals but before the next year of lcs starts) they have an "off season" where they make big changes, like reworking lots of items or changing major game mechanics like jungle, and just have no big tournaments in that period to give them the freedom to test shit out.
I don't know whether this was one of blizzards aims with making wcs (create a time period void of major play so they could test stuff) but until they have a period where they can truly mess with game balance without risking screwing a tournament over, I don't see any changes anywhere near as drastic as the ones you've suggested coming before Legacy of the void. 
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Am I seeing "Starcraft: BroodWar 2" Instead of Starcraft 2: HoTS?
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On September 16 2013 10:11 IntoTheheart wrote:
I can't speak to the balance issues themselves but nerfing bio would make Terran seemingly unplayable wouldn't it?
I don't know if you could balance out a Spider Mine in this game either, since part of the unit pathing makes your army clump up a lot right? So wouldn't getting struck by a spider mine be almost fatal (or close to it)?
Psi Storm in BW wasn't 100 damage, as I remember. It was 112 and would basically make High Templar ridiculously strong in every matchup (with the aforementioned unit clumping), and its crazy 28 DPS.
In the end it looks like you want to play Brood War or watch Brood War. That's great, so do I. But there is Brood War which you can already watch, so why not let SC2 be SC2 and not BW:HD?
No, but I really don't like the idea that units like Siege Tanks are more expensive and not serving their purpose. I suppose Psionic Storm could be an issue in SC2 due to the engine mechanics and the Spider Mine would likely need reworked stats.
I'm not suggesting Lurkers either. I like the Swarm Host although certain elements (such as being able to offensively lay down creep and plant a load of Spore Crawlers beside it really break its balance. In addition, you never see them in TvZ because bio can completely stomp Swarm Hosts.
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You forgot that tanks do splash damage.
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Hi, interesting post. Unfortunately I do not agree with several points (mostly regarding the siege tank). If you want, I can give a proper reply in the future when I have time.
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damn thats some horrible ideas you got there
also stop comparing bw with sc2, it literally makes 0 sense to argument "thats how it was in bw", cuz its not bw
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On September 16 2013 10:18 Clbull wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2013 10:11 IntoTheheart wrote:
I can't speak to the balance issues themselves but nerfing bio would make Terran seemingly unplayable wouldn't it?
I don't know if you could balance out a Spider Mine in this game either, since part of the unit pathing makes your army clump up a lot right? So wouldn't getting struck by a spider mine be almost fatal (or close to it)?
Psi Storm in BW wasn't 100 damage, as I remember. It was 112 and would basically make High Templar ridiculously strong in every matchup (with the aforementioned unit clumping), and its crazy 28 DPS.
In the end it looks like you want to play Brood War or watch Brood War. That's great, so do I. But there is Brood War which you can already watch, so why not let SC2 be SC2 and not BW:HD? No, but I really don't like the idea that units like Siege Tanks are more expensive and not serving their purpose. I suppose Psionic Storm could be an issue in SC2 due to the engine mechanics and the Spider Mine would likely need reworked stats.
What do you think is the purpose of a tank anyway? That will probably make discussion easier.
Because my current views are that it can control space and defend really well, which if generally can. But it looks like a lot of Protoss units can crush through them given the right engagement.
edit: It sounds like you want to make a lot more units viable in a lot more matchups, which I'd agree with but on the other hand giving people too many options to choose from will make balancing it a nightmare.
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On September 16 2013 10:18 lokes wrote:
You forgot that tanks do splash damage.
As they did in Brood War.
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So basically you want Blizzard to release this new expansion that's basically BW but better graphics?
why is all this cry about TvP being just one-dimensional when it comes to army composition...what about the Protoss POV? why can't they make Skytoss viable against bio then so we don't have to go colo/ht/deathball?
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If somebody of his skill level is saying this, it is definitely true.
This is a classic example of a logical fallacy, argument from authority.
We talk all the time about making mech viable against ground units. I have an idea, let's also make Skytoss viable against Terran bio. Protoss has been playing the same thing against Terran for years too.
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Looks like a long post that says "I want to be able to go mech in all matchups", with a a healthy dose of "stream numbers support my opinion that this is an awful game and also my balance whine".
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Thus, Stalkers hard-counter the Siege Tank.
Sweet mother of god.
The changes you suggest are way to tvp focused. You're making HUGE changes to pvz as a result. In a very, very bad way.
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I would like to see blizzard implement a permanent PTR included in the normal Bnet client where you could opt into test environment with live balance changing as a means to create a live data farming environment based around existing metrics (League, MMR, Spending Skill, etc.)
Like the game as is? No need to change continue on your normal ladder experience. Contribute data and help progress certain elements of balance if you should so choose. Seeing as how few professionals are likely to partake, as what good does practicing theoretical changes provide them it could provide Blizzard with insight into what they always say is important: lower level accessibility.
Any changes to the proper ladder announced as usual, professionals adapt and things move on.
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On September 16 2013 10:25 Jerubaal wrote:
Looks like a long post that says "I want to be able to go mech in all matchups", with a a healthy dose of "stream numbers support my opinion that this is an awful game and also my balance whine".
In all honesty, I want to play more than one style with the assurance it is viable assuming both players are at the same mechanical level.
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Jesus...some of these changes will mess up PvZ
And what if we don't want to go mech? I want to play bio, but if you're going to nerf bio and buff storm to 100 (holy shit..) then I'm fucked
Wouldn't it be so much better for 'variability' if Protoss didn't have to go collosi HT every game
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I skipped to the end and read your proposed 'balance changes', they are pretty ridiculous and most of them have a 0% chance of happening and a wall of text can't convince anyone those changes make sense.
Skimming through:
"[Mech openings are weak due to] Susceptibility to early game aggression. Whereas going bio could help you hold certain aggressive builds like 3 gate pressure iinto expand, 4 gate, 3 gate blink stalker, 3 gate robo, going Mech will get you build order countered."
This is really wrong, opening with a Factory is good against all of these builds :/.
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bla bla bla bla...transform SC to BW... 
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You very well might have some good points because I agree some things need major changes to fix its always been the case. I just dont think Blizzard will ever do any of that they are content with the current balance citing the usual about 50 percent win rates with all matchups. Some things though are just fundamentally goofed up that small tweaks will never fix. Some of the matchups need to be completely broken to get fixed properly and I dont think Blizz will ever do it.
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On September 16 2013 10:32 Clbull wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2013 10:25 Jerubaal wrote:
Looks like a long post that says "I want to be able to go mech in all matchups", with a a healthy dose of "stream numbers support my opinion that this is an awful game and also my balance whine". In all honesty, I want to play more than one style with the assurance it is viable assuming both players are at the same mechanical level.
then keep playing that new style...who's approval are you looking for? mario has been doing mech in all matchups on ladder which generally matches you up against people on the same skill level
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On September 16 2013 10:38 .kv wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2013 10:32 Clbull wrote:On September 16 2013 10:25 Jerubaal wrote:
Looks like a long post that says "I want to be able to go mech in all matchups", with a a healthy dose of "stream numbers support my opinion that this is an awful game and also my balance whine". In all honesty, I want to play more than one style with the assurance it is viable assuming both players are at the same mechanical level. then keep playing that new style...who's approval are you looking for? mario has been doing mech in all matchups on ladder which generally matches you up against people on the same skill level
Be serious, Mario is a top GM player with awesome mechanics, and good game sense among other qualities. Even he made a post recently on things HE feels would make mech better and more viable across all match ups, such as reducing the cost of factories and/or the siege tank.
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On September 16 2013 10:05 Clbull wrote:
[b]
I really do not like the direction StarCraft II is going and I hope that Blizzard realizes this and gives Heart of the Swarm a ‘Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn’-style overhaul in terms of multiplayer unit design and balance philosophies.
Bisu and Jinro retired more-so due to declining results but both look back on the golden days of Brood War.
Ten suggestions to improve Heart of the Swarm’s metagame:
I am by no means qualified to suggest balance changes. However, the ones I suggest are looking at current problem areas.
1. Nerf bio. Marines need to deal less damage yet still be able to take on airborne units. Even a damage nerf by 1 (and maybe a small health buff to compensate) is good enough. The Marauder either needs removal or a numbers nerf to not be so effective in the later game. Tier 1 should never be the entire solution to later tiers of units.
2. Buff Siege Tank damage to 35 (60 vs Armored, 80 vs Massive.) This will let them three-shot Stalkers, still 4-shot Immortals with an EMP landed down and still keep Roach Hydra just as tanky. This will however greatly improve buff their performance against Ultralisks, Colossus Thors and Archons while not affecting their currently intended counters (Chargelots, Immortals, air units, Swarm Hosts, Vipers.) Even if you have to remove smart targeting and make them overkill units so that we are forced to spread them in all situations, I feel this is a very fair trade-off. Nobody likes the idea of clumped up deathballs anyway.
3. Remove Blink as an ability and replace it with something different like maybe an ability that temporarily gives the Stalker extra range and damage. Blink Stalkers currently outright break the possibility of there ever being mech TvPs due to the sheer strength of Blink Stalker all ins. Temporary extra range and damage could also help greatly against Mutalisks.
4. Buff Psionic Storm damage back to 100 from 80. This was the way it used to be in Brood War.
5. Remove the Widow Mine and replace it with an entirely different unit. Ideally a small anti-air unit creatable from the Reactor but requiring Armory tech. Maybe the Goliath or the (original) Warhound?
6. Allow Hellions to drop Spider Mines in Hellion mode (but make it a researchable upgrade, and make them produce Spider Mines like Carriers produce Interceptors.) This can solve a few issues with zone control that the removal of the Vulture caused.
7. Nerf Hellbat damage by half but greatly buff their health and give them a base Armor of 1. This is what David Kim should have originally done with the Hellbat, not tried to increase their cargo size then nerf their damage to prevent Hellbat drops. The hellbat drops occurred because Hellbats were not fulfilling their original role.
8. Reduce the cost of Point Defense Drones to 75 from 100. This will allow Ravens to cast them upon creation with the Corvid Reactor upgrade.
9. Remove Battlecruiser energy and make Yamato Cannon free but cooldown based. A lot of worthy counters to the Battlecruiser already exist.
10. Remove Medivac boosts. They are the sole reason why Zerg have to make Mutalisks in ZvT. Terrans also had zero problems with dropping without these moronic ‘stimivacs’ put in game.
Okay, uhm.. in terms of what I wanted to address
1) What the hell does a "‘Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn’-style overhaul in terms of multiplayer unit design and balance philosophies." mean? To even mention something like this with no additional information is horrendous writing, but even more importantly than that, is the fact that FFXIV has had absolutely NO innovative rehauling or philosophical(?) implications on the MMO world. In fact, FFXIV is BEHIND in the MMO world of creativity, especially compared to teams such as Team Bloodlust, Carbine Studios, PearlAbyss, and many others. So, I have absolutely no idea what was even going on in your head when you typed this....
2) You really shouldn't talk about people's personal reasons for retiring if you do not know them. Not only is it rude when considering their own reasons but it completely skews an argument, with no factual basis, in your favor. This is bad argumentation.
3) After reading your list of proposed changes I have to say that I agree with your 'save-face' qualifier statement at the beginning. You are most certainly not qualified to suggest balance changes.
Let me tell you something special about BW: There was most certainly builds that were incredibly normative to see in pro matches. In fact, you'd often see builds used so many times over that the only thing separating the builds themselves are who was doing them, yet it had a vast difference. I don't quite see how this is a bad thing; that's skill... which is the opposite of what you're trying to say... that 'more eccentric play is great!'. In reality if you're going to have an asymmetrically balanced game there are most certainly going to be certain ways to play the game that are better than others. Just because you want to do other things does not mean they will work, and most certainly, it does not mean it is better for the game to be able to do whatever you want simply because you see a certain build, or final composition, too often. Many of the statements you made throughout the OP are just.... Well... they scream that you have a general lack of understanding of this game.
I'm sorry, but I really just can't handle posts like these. It's when people who don't understand what they're talking about post such long and contrived threads that individuals, and even the developers themselves, take the feedback from the wrong people and everyone ends up with horrible changes.
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On September 16 2013 10:45 Ouija wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2013 10:38 .kv wrote:On September 16 2013 10:32 Clbull wrote:On September 16 2013 10:25 Jerubaal wrote:
Looks like a long post that says "I want to be able to go mech in all matchups", with a a healthy dose of "stream numbers support my opinion that this is an awful game and also my balance whine". In all honesty, I want to play more than one style with the assurance it is viable assuming both players are at the same mechanical level. then keep playing that new style...who's approval are you looking for? mario has been doing mech in all matchups on ladder which generally matches you up against people on the same skill level Be serious, Mario is a top GM player with awesome mechanics, and good game sense among other qualities. Even he made a post recently on things HE feels would make mech better and more viable across all match ups, such as reducing the cost of factories and/or the siege tank.
Let's be honest here
http://www.sc2ranks.com/search/hots/global/1v1/all/all/exact/HTOmario
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/3203375/1/HTOMario/
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Yeah id love mech to be more viable in sc2, because what i really love is playing against and watching people sit there for 40mins until their army is too strong to deal with. The reality of mech in sc2 is its boring as fuck and bad for the game, no one wants to see that in even 50% of games.
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The easiest way to fix this is upgrades for tanks, is to increase exponentially their damage to offset their higher supply cost by the time they hit 3/3, they become the monsters that strike fear into an opponent again.
This would mean it would be a similar BW situation where letting the Terran macro is a bad bad idea.
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On September 16 2013 10:51 MattD wrote:
Yeah id love mech to be more viable in sc2, because what i really love is playing against and watching people sit there for 40mins until their army is too strong to deal with. The reality of mech in sc2 is its boring as fuck and bad for the game, no one wants to see that in even 50% of games.
And nobody wants to see entirely useless tech.
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This isn't productive. You're basically saying you want SC2:BW.
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1) What the hell does a "‘Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn’-style overhaul in terms of multiplayer unit design and balance philosophies." mean? To even mention something like this with no additional information is horrendous writing, but even more importantly than that, is the fact that FFXIV has had absolutely NO innovative rehauling or philosophical(?) implications on the MMO world. In fact, FFXIV is BEHIND in the MMO world of creativity, especially compared to teams such as Team Bloodlust, Carbine Studios, PearlAbyss, and many others. So, I have absolutely no idea what was even going on in your head when you typed this....
I was implying that FFXIV was so poorly designed that SquareEnix not only had to apologize for creating the game but also had to completely rebuild the game from scratch and release it again two years later in a better state. I will not go into the huge glaring problems with FFXIV's original release but if we're only seeing about 30% - 35% of the full Terran composition in a matchup because of glaring unit tuning issues, it is going to make for a one-dimensional game.
My balance change proposals should be taken with a grain of salt which I see nobody here has done. I am merely pointing out glaring problems with mech (especially Siege Tanks) where units are designed to be too tanky against them, thus reducing their viability.
If the Siege Tank gets phased out in favour of something that is less than half the cost and which can be produced in 2s instead of 1s, that is piss-poor game design.
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blog this.
The balance suggestions are just way too big for blizzard to even consider this. You just shouldn't compare sc2 and bw like this at all.
everyone wants mech to work in TvP but it just ain't going to happen this way.
doesn't help that you think units as tier, you need to think of units as part of composition.
you have some points right and just too many points wrong.
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While I agree that Terran could certainly use a nerf to bio and a buff to mech, I don't think buffing the siege tank will help. With HotS, Protoss and Zerg have too many units that hard counter siege tanks. A numbers tweak isn't going to fix that. Tanks are fine in TvT anyway.
What mech really needs is a fast unit from the factory that has strong anti-air. Every Terran unit composition that does not include Marines must include Vikings for anti air. And it is MUCH more expensive to build up a Factory+Starport infrastructure compared to Barracks+Starport infrastructure.
Another problem is the Medivac, which makes it possible to build a cheap T1 army all game long, but does nothing for mech. I'd really like to see a the Medivac boosters removed and then add a tech that allows Medivacs to heal (or repair) mechanical units (not just Hellbats).
Other than that, all mech really needs is a tech that reduces the build time of units from the Factory and Starport. Mech does fine in even supply fights, its main weakness has always been the slow remax compared to bio.
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On September 16 2013 10:47 Whatson wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2013 10:45 Ouija wrote:On September 16 2013 10:38 .kv wrote:On September 16 2013 10:32 Clbull wrote:On September 16 2013 10:25 Jerubaal wrote:
Looks like a long post that says "I want to be able to go mech in all matchups", with a a healthy dose of "stream numbers support my opinion that this is an awful game and also my balance whine". In all honesty, I want to play more than one style with the assurance it is viable assuming both players are at the same mechanical level. then keep playing that new style...who's approval are you looking for? mario has been doing mech in all matchups on ladder which generally matches you up against people on the same skill level Be serious, Mario is a top GM player with awesome mechanics, and good game sense among other qualities. Even he made a post recently on things HE feels would make mech better and more viable across all match ups, such as reducing the cost of factories and/or the siege tank. Let's be honest here http://www.sc2ranks.com/search/hots/global/1v1/all/all/exact/HTOmariohttp://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/3203375/1/HTOMario/
ok... remove the word top from my first sentence. He is a GM level player.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
I appreciate that you put a lot of time into this, but it's still a 'this is how i would make SC2' thread. The only time we (reluctantly) allow these is when it is by a notable progamer. As such, I have to close your thread. I suggest you post your reply in the SKMC thread if you haven't already.
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EPT
