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On April 02 2015 20:33 Big J wrote:Holy fuck, is the Liquipedia article for the  Ravager for real? That thing has like marine-dps. :O I have the feeling we won't see many hydralisks in LotV... Even if they nerf it somewhat, if they keep the design like that the only advantage of hydras is anti-air and we've got much better options for that so who cares.
Those numbers are in real-time seconds, not Blizzard time seconds. The blizzard-time cooldown is 0.8, so 20 dps, not 28. Still high, but not outrageous.
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On April 02 2015 20:48 Athenau wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 20:33 Big J wrote:Holy fuck, is the Liquipedia article for the Ravager for real? That thing has like marine-dps. :O I have the feeling we won't see many hydralisks in LotV... Even if they nerf it somewhat, if they keep the design like that the only advantage of hydras is anti-air and we've got much better options for that so who cares. Those numbers are in real-time seconds, not Blizzard time seconds. The blizzard-time cooldown is 0.8, so 20 dps, not 28. Still high, but not outrageous.
ah ok, that makes much more sense then
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On April 02 2015 19:15 Hider wrote:
I honestly never had any idea how Blizzard thought the current beta was close to balanced.
They don't. If they did, that would be a release, not a beta.
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On April 02 2015 20:57 Telenil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 19:15 Hider wrote:
I honestly never had any idea how Blizzard thought the current beta was close to balanced. They don't. If they did, that would be a release, not a beta.
That's not true. The beta is there for much more than just balance purposes.
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They don't. If they did, that would be a release, not a beta.
This is nonsense. Balance isn't the only thing to take into account when releasing a game. They need to have proper models, removal of bugs, sounds, redeisgn of old units and the new units must be implemented properly as well.
The point here is that these balance issues weren't unexpected, and Blizzard has had lots of months since Blizzcon to come up with ways to give toss a proper midgame in order to prepare them for a world where Forcefields can be countered and they need to take bases faster. All they have managed to do since then is create a shadow-unit that doesn't really fit in anywhere....
Exactly because this is a beta, they should have been experimented with more radical changes that potentially could be balanced, but would require testing to confirm (and tweak).
Like why not reduce the cost of the Robo Facility to like 150/50 and/or make templar tech more accessible as well? These changes would boost toss in the midgame.
Maybe it would result in unintended consequences or maybe it could actually result in giving toss a much more solid core army composition. But that's the point of the beta, you test out changes that theoretically could work, but which you are unsure of in practice.
On the other hand, testing out stuff that's obviously imbalanced is wasting alot of playtesters time.
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Exactly because this is a beta, they should have been experimented with more radical changes that potentially could be balanced, but would require testing to confirm (and tweak).
After blizzcon they made a comment that they want to test more crazy stuff during the beta... I wonder what that means and if they keep word.
I have a tiny glimmer of hope that this means they don't really care about balance problems right now, because they want to work on certain fundamentals and maybe change core units instead of trying to start of with something rather balanced.
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On April 02 2015 21:08 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +Exactly because this is a beta, they should have been experimented with more radical changes that potentially could be balanced, but would require testing to confirm (and tweak). After blizzcon they made a comment that they want to test more crazy stuff during the beta... I wonder what that means and if they keep word.
Well, there's at least the new terran unit to experiment with.
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On April 02 2015 20:33 Big J wrote:Holy !@#$%^&*, is the Liquipedia article for the Ravager for real? That thing has like marine-dps. :O I have the feeling we won't see many hydralisks in LotV... Even if they nerf it somewhat, if they keep the design like that the only advantage of hydras is anti-air and we've got much better options for that so who cares.
I start to feel like another issue with the Ravager is related to the weakness of the Immortal. IMO the Immortal must take a stronger role in LOTV with the addition of the Adept (that's anti light) + neccesity of protoss army being stronger in the core midgame. The Hydra would then be better against the Immortal, and the Immortal should be pretty strong against the Ravager.
A design I have been experimenting briefly with this (for the Ravager), is this:
Ravager tweaks
- 7-8 attack range
- 75 HP (and much much lower model size... smaller than Roach)
- Armored
- Skillshot cast range slightly reduced (in order to force Ravagers to come into "risky" zone for a brief period before getting back into range).
- 24 damage (so very high DPS)
- Cooldown on skillshot = 15 seconds (from 10)
- Skillshot AOE radius = Increased by 30%.
- Movement speed = Not sure about this one. Currently just using default of 2.75, but should it scale w/ Roach speed?
These are just some early testings of mine, but it completely changes how you use the Ravager. Rather than amoving into the enemy line and spamming the ability, you now need to be a lot more careful about when you use it as it is easiy sniped and the CD is higher. On the other hand there is also a stronger reward for landing the skillshot well, and the Ravager does also function well as a long range DPS unit.
In order to further differentiate this from the Hydra, there are a lot other variables that I am considering tweaking such as;
- Hydralisk DPS reduction + HP increased to 90 (Hydralisk becoms the "mid"-tank then)
- Ravagers core attack has higher damage vs light or armored and the skillshot has the reverse of that (so its core attack is good vs certain units and the skillshot attack is good vs other types of units).
So lots of potential here with the Ravager, and it's why I still love the concept, but it does need a good deal of work and experimentation.
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On April 02 2015 21:15 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 20:33 Big J wrote:Holy !@#$%^&*, is the Liquipedia article for the Ravager for real? That thing has like marine-dps. :O I have the feeling we won't see many hydralisks in LotV... Even if they nerf it somewhat, if they keep the design like that the only advantage of hydras is anti-air and we've got much better options for that so who cares. I start to feel like another issue with the Ravager is related to the weakness of the Immortal. IMO the Immortal must take a stronger role in LOTV with the addition of the Adept (that's anti light) + neccesity of protoss army being stronger in the core midgame. The Hydra would then be better against the Immortal, and the Immortal should be pretty strong against the Ravager. A design I have been experimenting briefly with this (for the Ravager), is this: Ravager tweaks- 7-8 attack range - 75 HP (and much much lower model size... smaller than Roach) - Armored - Skillshot cast range slightly reduced (in order to force Ravagers to come into "risky" zone for a brief period before getting back into range). - 24 damage (so very high DPS) - Cooldown on skillshot = 15 seconds (from 10) - Skillshot AOE radius = Increased by 30%. - Movement speed = Not sure about this one. Currently just using default of 2.75, but should it scale w/ Roach speed? These are just some early testings of mine, but it completely changes how you use the Ravager. Rather than amoving into the enemy line and spamming the ability, you now need to be a lot more careful about when you use it as it is easiy sniped and the CD is higher. On the other hand there is also a stronger reward for landing the skillshot well, and the Ravager does also function well as a long range DPS unit. In order to further differentiate this from the Hydra, there are a lot other variables that I am considering tweaking such as; - Hydralisk DPS reduction + HP increased to 90 (Hydralisk becoms the "mid"-tank then) - Ravagers core attack has higher damage vs light or armored and the skillshot has the reverse of that (so its core attack is good vs certain units and the skillshot attack is good vs other types of units). So lots of potential here with the Ravager, and it's why I still love the concept, but it does need a good deal of work and experimentation.
Personally, I don't like that. The hydralisk and the roach are already overlapping in many functions, in particular against midgame protoss. The ravager should really try to stand out from that, which I believe your design does not and for the blizzard one I'm not too sure either.
Also the corrossive bile shot already looks quite short ranged in comparison to most artillery in the game. I'd much rather have the ravager have garbage combat stats but be focused on a strong corrosive bile spell for support/artillery purposes (like the ghost has an attack but his actualy job is EMP/Snipe) or straight up make corrosive bile his standard attack with an attack ground option.
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On April 02 2015 20:25 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 19:15 Hider wrote:from what I have seen so far, playing protoss in the current LotV version is not a lot of fun. it might also be in conjunction with the atrocious mappool though. and everytime when warped in units die because it now takes like twice as long and they are literally made of paper - I too die a little inside and can feel the void. I honestly never had any idea how Blizzard thought the current beta was close to balanced. Giving protoss lots of nerfs and then adding a huge change to the economy on top of that punishes immobility. While I understand that balance isn't first priority in the beta, the issue here was so incredibly obvious, and if you can improve balance easily, why not just do it before you launch the beta (?) It's the same Blizzard that thought the warhound was balanced in HotS beta and warpgate was balanced in WoL beta. I have my doubts about their playtesters.
Warhound was probably the most idiotic thing ever. You could run it through the unit testers and see that it was cost efficient vs basically everything. That never made sense.
At least prior to this alpha, you would need to understand the change to the economy would be an indirect nerf to immobile compositions (typically protoss) and you would also have to realize that the Ravager would be a huge buff vs toss primarily.
There is something completely suboptimal/wrong with the methdology Blizzard uses in the alpha-phase.
The ravager should really try to stand out from that, which I believe your design does not and for the blizzard one I'm not too sure either.
The tough part of the Ravager is to make it both feel different micro-wise and role-wise from the Roach and the Ravager.
From a micro-perspective, I think its an issue if it stays as a short-range/front-line unit like the Roach as the positional element is lost (and you a-move + spam the skillshot then). For that reason I prefer its more fragile and longer-range and you need to move it in position when you want to cast the skillshot and then quickly get it out of range against.
From a micro-perspective that will definitely make it feel very different from both the Roach and the Ravager + make it less of a spambot.
However, from a role-perspective, further experimentations w/ different damage values along with tweaks to the Roach and Hydralisks are needed.
Also the corrossive bile shot already looks quite short ranged in comparison to most artillery in the game. I'd much rather have the ravager have garbage combat stats but be focused on a strong corrosive bile spell for support/artillery purposes (like the ghost has an attack but his actualy job is EMP/Snipe) or straight up make corrosive bile his standard attack with an attack ground option.
If the Ravager was balanced around very weak core stats, but a much better skillshot, there would be two different solutions:
(1) Very low CD (7-12 seconds) + medium damage (25% more damage than it currently deals
(2) Medium CD (15 secs) + very high damage (50-100% more damage)
The issue with the former solution is that its gonna feel so spammy that its never properly rewarded to attempt to dodge individual skillshots.
The issue with the latter is that it could create more "unforgiveable" moments. You look away for one moment and your entire mineral line is gone or 50% of you army value is lost.
I think therefore one should try to heavily reward countermicro but be careful about not making splitsecond mistakes too punishable. For that reason I prefer that its core stats are pretty decent.
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On April 02 2015 22:04 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 20:25 Grumbels wrote:On April 02 2015 19:15 Hider wrote:from what I have seen so far, playing protoss in the current LotV version is not a lot of fun. it might also be in conjunction with the atrocious mappool though. and everytime when warped in units die because it now takes like twice as long and they are literally made of paper - I too die a little inside and can feel the void. I honestly never had any idea how Blizzard thought the current beta was close to balanced. Giving protoss lots of nerfs and then adding a huge change to the economy on top of that punishes immobility. While I understand that balance isn't first priority in the beta, the issue here was so incredibly obvious, and if you can improve balance easily, why not just do it before you launch the beta (?) It's the same Blizzard that thought the warhound was balanced in HotS beta and warpgate was balanced in WoL beta. I have my doubts about their playtesters. Warhound was probably the most idiotic thing ever. You could run it through the unit testers and see that it was cost efficient vs basically everything. That never made sense.
Those stupid things are even cost efficient against max level Kerrigan in the HotS campaign.
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On April 02 2015 21:15 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 20:33 Big J wrote:Holy !@#$%^&*, is the Liquipedia article for the Ravager for real? That thing has like marine-dps. :O I have the feeling we won't see many hydralisks in LotV... Even if they nerf it somewhat, if they keep the design like that the only advantage of hydras is anti-air and we've got much better options for that so who cares. I start to feel like another issue with the Ravager is related to the weakness of the Immortal. IMO the Immortal must take a stronger role in LOTV with the addition of the Adept (that's anti light) + neccesity of protoss army being stronger in the core midgame. The Hydra would then be better against the Immortal, and the Immortal should be pretty strong against the Ravager. A design I have been experimenting briefly with this (for the Ravager), is this: Ravager tweaks- 7-8 attack range - 75 HP (and much much lower model size... smaller than Roach) - Armored - Skillshot cast range slightly reduced (in order to force Ravagers to come into "risky" zone for a brief period before getting back into range). - 24 damage (so very high DPS) - Cooldown on skillshot = 15 seconds (from 10) - Skillshot AOE radius = Increased by 30%. - Movement speed = Not sure about this one. Currently just using default of 2.75, but should it scale w/ Roach speed? These are just some early testings of mine, but it completely changes how you use the Ravager. Rather than amoving into the enemy line and spamming the ability, you now need to be a lot more careful about when you use it as it is easiy sniped and the CD is higher. On the other hand there is also a stronger reward for landing the skillshot well, and the Ravager does also function well as a long range DPS unit. In order to further differentiate this from the Hydra, there are a lot other variables that I am considering tweaking such as; - Hydralisk DPS reduction + HP increased to 90 (Hydralisk becoms the "mid"-tank then) - Ravagers core attack has higher damage vs light or armored and the skillshot has the reverse of that (so its core attack is good vs certain units and the skillshot attack is good vs other types of units). So lots of potential here with the Ravager, and it's why I still love the concept, but it does need a good deal of work and experimentation.
Glass cannon units? "terrible terrible damage!" 3 tanks can demolish a whole army of them in 2-3 volleys? Bio shredding it?
No thanks.
I'd prefer a very Tanky Ravager, with the buffed skill shot, and decreased DPS. High attack, very slow rate of fire.
Siege-type.
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On April 02 2015 22:14 JCoto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 21:15 Hider wrote:On April 02 2015 20:33 Big J wrote:Holy !@#$%^&*, is the Liquipedia article for the Ravager for real? That thing has like marine-dps. :O I have the feeling we won't see many hydralisks in LotV... Even if they nerf it somewhat, if they keep the design like that the only advantage of hydras is anti-air and we've got much better options for that so who cares. I start to feel like another issue with the Ravager is related to the weakness of the Immortal. IMO the Immortal must take a stronger role in LOTV with the addition of the Adept (that's anti light) + neccesity of protoss army being stronger in the core midgame. The Hydra would then be better against the Immortal, and the Immortal should be pretty strong against the Ravager. A design I have been experimenting briefly with this (for the Ravager), is this: Ravager tweaks- 7-8 attack range - 75 HP (and much much lower model size... smaller than Roach) - Armored - Skillshot cast range slightly reduced (in order to force Ravagers to come into "risky" zone for a brief period before getting back into range). - 24 damage (so very high DPS) - Cooldown on skillshot = 15 seconds (from 10) - Skillshot AOE radius = Increased by 30%. - Movement speed = Not sure about this one. Currently just using default of 2.75, but should it scale w/ Roach speed? These are just some early testings of mine, but it completely changes how you use the Ravager. Rather than amoving into the enemy line and spamming the ability, you now need to be a lot more careful about when you use it as it is easiy sniped and the CD is higher. On the other hand there is also a stronger reward for landing the skillshot well, and the Ravager does also function well as a long range DPS unit. In order to further differentiate this from the Hydra, there are a lot other variables that I am considering tweaking such as; - Hydralisk DPS reduction + HP increased to 90 (Hydralisk becoms the "mid"-tank then) - Ravagers core attack has higher damage vs light or armored and the skillshot has the reverse of that (so its core attack is good vs certain units and the skillshot attack is good vs other types of units). So lots of potential here with the Ravager, and it's why I still love the concept, but it does need a good deal of work and experimentation. Glass cannon units? "terrible terrible damage!" 3 tanks can demolish a whole army of them in 2-3 volleys? Bio shredding it? No thanks. I'd prefer a very Tanky Ravager, with the buffed skill shot, and decreased DPS. High attack, very slow rate of fire. Siege-type.
But with that, zerg has tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 siege options, is that really necessary? Would this not make lurkers obsolete?
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Think the point behind ravager's ability is not to decimate opponents army, but to act as a tactical spell to control enemy movement akin to force fields and nukes to an extend. Ravager also allows zerg to pressure protoss in early game without being as bad to economy as early mass ling.
In it's current form it accomplishes this task just fine and unlike force fields, the slime allows opponent to do some counter micro against it.
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On April 02 2015 22:11 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 22:04 Hider wrote:On April 02 2015 20:25 Grumbels wrote:On April 02 2015 19:15 Hider wrote:from what I have seen so far, playing protoss in the current LotV version is not a lot of fun. it might also be in conjunction with the atrocious mappool though. and everytime when warped in units die because it now takes like twice as long and they are literally made of paper - I too die a little inside and can feel the void. I honestly never had any idea how Blizzard thought the current beta was close to balanced. Giving protoss lots of nerfs and then adding a huge change to the economy on top of that punishes immobility. While I understand that balance isn't first priority in the beta, the issue here was so incredibly obvious, and if you can improve balance easily, why not just do it before you launch the beta (?) It's the same Blizzard that thought the warhound was balanced in HotS beta and warpgate was balanced in WoL beta. I have my doubts about their playtesters. Warhound was probably the most idiotic thing ever. You could run it through the unit testers and see that it was cost efficient vs basically everything. That never made sense. Those stupid things are even cost efficient against max level Kerrigan in the HotS campaign.
Warhounds were simply too cheap for what they did. At good cost, like 200/150 3/4 supply, they would have been quite balanced. They were mostly A-move and did extra damage to toss, but quite dynamic and kite-friendly.
At 150/75 they were the beast deal ever. However I think that they could have been a very good replacement to Thors if balanced adequately.
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Glass cannon units? "terrible terrible damage!" 3 tanks can demolish a whole army of them in 2-3 volleys? Bio shredding it?
Obviously exact stats are debateable, however, I don't mind the idea that focus firing (with Siege Tanks) is heavily rewarded against the Ravager.
I'd prefer a very Tanky Ravager, with the buffed skill shot, and decreased DPS. High attack, very slow rate of fire.
Siege-type.
My concern w/ this solution is that it kinda plays like a Roach. You amove them and they tank well. Now the skillshot thing is still pretty fun and overall the Ravagers is still gonna be reasonable fun. But ideally I prefer not to have more than 1 tanky shortrange/meele units per race as they typically are the least microable. And what weakness will this unit have relative to the Roach? What is the argument for not massing Ravagers over Roaches? From my perspective, it will either end up dominating the Roach (be better in every regard) or be inferior and useless.
Therefore, I believe it is important that it has some type of significant weakness against an enemy that micros very well. E.g. if he is good at focus firing them and if your not good at carefully positioning them, then it should be punishable.
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On April 02 2015 22:19 JCoto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 22:11 Elentos wrote:On April 02 2015 22:04 Hider wrote:On April 02 2015 20:25 Grumbels wrote:On April 02 2015 19:15 Hider wrote:from what I have seen so far, playing protoss in the current LotV version is not a lot of fun. it might also be in conjunction with the atrocious mappool though. and everytime when warped in units die because it now takes like twice as long and they are literally made of paper - I too die a little inside and can feel the void. I honestly never had any idea how Blizzard thought the current beta was close to balanced. Giving protoss lots of nerfs and then adding a huge change to the economy on top of that punishes immobility. While I understand that balance isn't first priority in the beta, the issue here was so incredibly obvious, and if you can improve balance easily, why not just do it before you launch the beta (?) It's the same Blizzard that thought the warhound was balanced in HotS beta and warpgate was balanced in WoL beta. I have my doubts about their playtesters. Warhound was probably the most idiotic thing ever. You could run it through the unit testers and see that it was cost efficient vs basically everything. That never made sense. Those stupid things are even cost efficient against max level Kerrigan in the HotS campaign. Warhounds were simply too cheap for what they did. At good cost, like 200/150 3/4 supply, they would have been quite balanced. They were mostly A-move and did extra damage to toss, but quite dynamic and kite-friendly. At 150/75 they were the beast deal ever. However I think that they could have been a very good replacement to Thors if balanced adequately.
How about giving warhounds anti-air, making them worse in stats and slightly more expensive? The warhound design is much cooler than the cyclone  .
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On April 02 2015 22:21 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 22:19 JCoto wrote:On April 02 2015 22:11 Elentos wrote:On April 02 2015 22:04 Hider wrote:On April 02 2015 20:25 Grumbels wrote:On April 02 2015 19:15 Hider wrote:from what I have seen so far, playing protoss in the current LotV version is not a lot of fun. it might also be in conjunction with the atrocious mappool though. and everytime when warped in units die because it now takes like twice as long and they are literally made of paper - I too die a little inside and can feel the void. I honestly never had any idea how Blizzard thought the current beta was close to balanced. Giving protoss lots of nerfs and then adding a huge change to the economy on top of that punishes immobility. While I understand that balance isn't first priority in the beta, the issue here was so incredibly obvious, and if you can improve balance easily, why not just do it before you launch the beta (?) It's the same Blizzard that thought the warhound was balanced in HotS beta and warpgate was balanced in WoL beta. I have my doubts about their playtesters. Warhound was probably the most idiotic thing ever. You could run it through the unit testers and see that it was cost efficient vs basically everything. That never made sense. Those stupid things are even cost efficient against max level Kerrigan in the HotS campaign. Warhounds were simply too cheap for what they did. At good cost, like 200/150 3/4 supply, they would have been quite balanced. They were mostly A-move and did extra damage to toss, but quite dynamic and kite-friendly. At 150/75 they were the beast deal ever. However I think that they could have been a very good replacement to Thors if balanced adequately. How about giving warhounds anti-air, making them worse in stats and slightly more expensive? The warhound design is much cooler than the cyclone .
Just bring back the Goliath huehue
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On April 02 2015 22:22 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 22:21 Elentos wrote:On April 02 2015 22:19 JCoto wrote:On April 02 2015 22:11 Elentos wrote:On April 02 2015 22:04 Hider wrote:On April 02 2015 20:25 Grumbels wrote:On April 02 2015 19:15 Hider wrote:from what I have seen so far, playing protoss in the current LotV version is not a lot of fun. it might also be in conjunction with the atrocious mappool though. and everytime when warped in units die because it now takes like twice as long and they are literally made of paper - I too die a little inside and can feel the void. I honestly never had any idea how Blizzard thought the current beta was close to balanced. Giving protoss lots of nerfs and then adding a huge change to the economy on top of that punishes immobility. While I understand that balance isn't first priority in the beta, the issue here was so incredibly obvious, and if you can improve balance easily, why not just do it before you launch the beta (?) It's the same Blizzard that thought the warhound was balanced in HotS beta and warpgate was balanced in WoL beta. I have my doubts about their playtesters. Warhound was probably the most idiotic thing ever. You could run it through the unit testers and see that it was cost efficient vs basically everything. That never made sense. Those stupid things are even cost efficient against max level Kerrigan in the HotS campaign. Warhounds were simply too cheap for what they did. At good cost, like 200/150 3/4 supply, they would have been quite balanced. They were mostly A-move and did extra damage to toss, but quite dynamic and kite-friendly. At 150/75 they were the beast deal ever. However I think that they could have been a very good replacement to Thors if balanced adequately. How about giving warhounds anti-air, making them worse in stats and slightly more expensive? The warhound design is much cooler than the cyclone . Just bring back the Goliath huehue
That design sucks tho. This vs. this.
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On April 02 2015 22:20 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Glass cannon units? "terrible terrible damage!" 3 tanks can demolish a whole army of them in 2-3 volleys? Bio shredding it? For that reason it heavily rewards focus fire from the enemy tank player. That's quite comparable to how you play vs other spellcasters. Show nested quote +I'd prefer a very Tanky Ravager, with the buffed skill shot, and decreased DPS. High attack, very slow rate of fire.
Siege-type. My concern w/ this solution is that it kinda plays like a Roach. You amove them and they tank well. I prefer not to have more than 1 tanky shortrange/meele units per race as they typically are the least microable. I think it is important that it needs some type of significant weakness against an enemy that micros very well. E.g. if he is good at focus firing them and if your not good at carefully positioning them, then it should be punishable.
Otherwise you just have a Ravager better than hydralisks, which actually covers 75% the role of the Hydralisk. Glass cannon, main AG DPS in a heavy roach composition, AA capabilities.
The Ravager does not need to be efficient in direct combat, it needs to land good skillshots. Hydras should be the main generalistic DPS.
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EPT
