New Terran Unit Before we get into the changes for existing units, we’d like to first discuss the status of the new Terran unit. We’ve been experimenting with various ideas, from a new base defense structure, to an add-on that allows production facilities to change their type. At this time however, it seems we may move forward with a unit from the Starport. There are various ways we’ve been experimenting with this unit:
High damage, low rate of fire
Low damage, high rate of fire
Variable attack “modes” – High damage w/ low range & Low damage w/ high range.
Small radius area attack w/ high damage
And more…
In general, we believe that armies made from the Factory or Starport will be more capable as independent compositions in Legacy of the Void. Players will be able to commit to a tech-path specifically, and so we are also interested in splitting out the mech and air upgrades again. We believe that bringing back this choice is a potential improvement for the game.
We would also like to take a closer look at Terran bio play in Legacy of the Void. With the changes to bio and the many buffs to mech, it is possible that the advantage might be tilting too heavily towards mech armies right now. Ideally, we’d like to have a good mix of options by the time we ship the game.
Now let’s move on to the changes we’re planning for the next balance patch. Gameplay Changes
Reaper
New grenade ability
This activated-ability will allow Reapers to launch a grenade that deals damage and knocks units in that area back. What we’re hoping for on this front is not necessarily to make Reapers a must have in every combat situation, but something that would allow micro with and against the Reaper to be more interesting early on, as well as something that could be a combat bonus in some situations.
Minerals
Amounts changed from 100%/50% to 100%/60%
We discussed this a bit earlier this week and we feel that the pressure to expand might be too great in its current state. Our goal for Legacy of the Void is still to encourage more aggressive expansions, but we’d like to tune this a little bit in hopes of finding to the correct place.
Protoss
Warp-in duration reverted to Heart of the Swarm.
Our goals on this front were to weaken Protoss Warpgate all-ins and increase strategic decision making for where to use each warp in. The resource changes look to already be getting us into a good spot for the all-in case. Focusing on strategic use however, it currently feels too punishing for the Protoss. We’re finding that you’ll always want to pick the safer warp-in spot for your units. In changing this, we’ll create more interesting decisions for the other player on whether or not to go for the vulnerable units that are warping in, or to continue battling the units already on the field. Therefore, we’d like to see how this works out with just the increased damage and the warp-in time reverted back to its original value.
Adept
Adept’s weapon’s damage point changed from .4 to default (0.167)
We heard your feedback in that the Adept feels clunky to use, so we made some tweaks in this area.
Cyclone
Can no longer target air.
New upgrade: allows Cyclones to target air (fusion core requirement, researched from factory tech lab). 100/100 cost.
The Cyclone is currently too good at stopping early game harassment. This is the opposite of what we want in Legacy of the Void, as we want to see more harassment play happening on both sides. The idea here is to still have Cyclones as an option early on, but not so all-around to the point that most harassment openings can be prevented just by opening Cyclones. In the late game, when the upgrade is researched, we believe players’ bases would be spread out so much that even though the Cyclones themselves become well-rounded options, opponents fighting against them will have numerous harassment options and can more readily find vulnerable positions.
Ravager
Weapon period changed from 0.8 to 1.6
Weapon range reduced from 6 to 4
There looks to be some Ravager early game all-ins that are very difficult to stop. While we don’t know with 100% certainty that this is actually a problem, we decided to tone down the Ravager anyway so that we can see more units being used on the Zerg side. We have many more strategies and units that need to be tested and hope this change brings these into play. We chose these specific changes to create a clear distinction between Ravagers and Roaches. In short, Roaches will be better units for cost efficiency, whereas Ravagers are meant to be built in strategic numbers when their ability can prove useful.
Swarm Host
Cost changed to 200/100/3
No longer requires to upgrade for flying locusts (flying locusts are enabled from the start)
Locust health down from 65 to 50
Swarm hosts can burrow move at 2 speed
We also talked about Swarm Host changes earlier this week. With the Swarm Host, we’d like to explore getting to a good place sooner than with most unit changes in Void. The main reason is that HotS could potentially use a different design of the Swarm Host. We’d like to use the beta as a rough testing ground to see how the unit can turn out in both games potentially. Our goal here was to do the cost/supply cost changes to make Swarm Hosts more accessible. Locust health has also been reduced so that the mass Swarm Host case isn’t so good, and the Swarm Host burrow move change should help them be more effective at harassment.
Thanks you all for your feedback so far in the Legacy of the Void beta. As always, none of this is final and we will continue to make changes in the beta regularly. So please keep on play testing and keep the feedback rolling in!
(Vote): Looks Good (Vote): Meh (Vote): Don't like it (Vote): Interesting, Needs adjusting
Poll: Mineral Change?
Dual Harvest when? (385)
64%
Looks Good (114)
19%
Needs to be adjusted further (62)
10%
Meh (27)
4%
Don't like it. change it back (16)
3%
604 total votes
Your vote: Mineral Change?
(Vote): Looks Good (Vote): Meh (Vote): Don't like it. change it back (Vote): Needs to be adjusted further (Vote): Dual Harvest when?
Poll: Warp-In Duration?
Looks Good (262)
51%
Still too strong (153)
30%
Meh (45)
9%
Still too weak (27)
5%
Don't like it, it was better as it was (26)
5%
513 total votes
Your vote: Warp-In Duration?
(Vote): Looks Good (Vote): Meh (Vote): Don't like it, it was better as it was (Vote): Still too strong (Vote): Still too weak
Poll: Adept Damage Point?
Why aren't we lowering more unit's DP? (226)
57%
Looks Good (92)
23%
Meh (41)
10%
Still too weak (21)
5%
Still too strong (14)
4%
Don't like it, it was better as it was (2)
1%
396 total votes
Your vote: Adept Damage Point?
(Vote): Looks Good (Vote): Meh (Vote): Don't like it, it was better as it was (Vote): Still too strong (Vote): Still too weak (Vote): Why aren't we lowering more unit's DP?
Poll: Cyclone Changes?
Still too strong (244)
47%
Looks Good (104)
20%
Needs to be adjusted further (72)
14%
Upgrade too hard to get (59)
11%
Don't like it, it was better as it was (26)
5%
Meh (16)
3%
521 total votes
Your vote: Cyclone Changes?
(Vote): Looks Good (Vote): Meh (Vote): Don't like it, it was better as it was (Vote): Still too strong (Vote): Upgrade too hard to get (Vote): Needs to be adjusted further
Poll: Ravager Nerf?
Needs a different adjustment (229)
50%
Looks Good (120)
26%
Is now too weak (53)
12%
Meh (25)
5%
Still too strong (20)
4%
Don't like it, it was better as it was (9)
2%
456 total votes
Your vote: Ravager Nerf?
(Vote): Looks Good (Vote): Meh (Vote): Don't like it, it was better as it was (Vote): Still too strong (Vote): Is now too weak (Vote): Needs a different adjustment
Poll: Swarm Host Changes?
Needs a different adjustment (169)
38%
Looks Good (126)
29%
Remove Burrow Move (47)
11%
Meh (31)
7%
Un-nerf locust (17)
4%
Too strong (16)
4%
Too weak (16)
4%
Bring back upgrade (10)
2%
Don't like it, it was better as it was (7)
2%
439 total votes
Your vote: Swarm Host Changes?
(Vote): Looks Good (Vote): Meh (Vote): Don't like it, it was better as it was (Vote): Too strong (Vote): Too weak (Vote): Needs a different adjustment (Vote): Remove Burrow Move (Vote): Un-nerf locust (Vote): Bring back upgrade
Poll: Are you pleased at the overall direction of these changes?
I like some changes, but others not so much (265)
51%
Yes, good on ya Blizz (160)
31%
No, we need to focus on other aspects (97)
19%
522 total votes
Your vote: Are you pleased at the overall direction of these changes?
(Vote): Yes, good on ya Blizz (Vote): No, we need to focus on other aspects (Vote): I like some changes, but others not so much
The grenade sounds interesting. If the damage isn't too high and the pushback effects friendly units, could it be used to help with quick marine splits?
On April 28 2015 03:11 Yonnua wrote: The grenade sounds interesting. If the damage isn't too high and the pushback effects friendly units, could it be used to help with quick marine splits?
Yeah they gutted the cyclone. The upgrade is WAY too far in the tech tree, but it is understandable that it got that big of a nerf. That reaper change came out of nowhere, wow. Wonder if that is going to be an upgrade of a default spell, because early reaper rushes would be fucking strong if default.
Also it seems like they really have no grasp on the new unit. They have two polar opposite ideas, and one middle ground, which seems really.... basic. Just give us Wraiths and call it a day....
The reaper ability sounds interesting, can´t really imagine what it will look like. Cyclone is still a stupid unit with its range, doesn´t matter how they tweak around it.
I like the idea behind Terran having more independent units and tech paths, looking forward to see what will they do with Bio.
Reaper Love the idea, we don't know what will the damage be but with little tweaks it might get Reaper into great spot and they might become useful mid-late game units with this. Now, if only they would make Ghosts more useful but we will see.
Adept This should have been in the last update that didn't manage to get included. Probably a good change, pushing Adepts towards core units.
Cyclone It makes sense, but I don't think that it will solve the problems with the unit.
Ravager They should probably change them a little and make it feel like a different unit. In the last patch it felt like big Hydralisk, now it feels like big Roach.
Swarm Host Wow, didn't expect this. This might even make them broken to be honest. I would love to see these Swarm Hosts in action.
They know what damage point is and adjusted it with something that's slightly contradicting "Adept’s weapon’s damage point changed from .4 to default (0.167) We heard your feedback in that the Adept feels clunky to use, so we made some tweaks in this area"
You know what would make everything feel less clunky a value of 0.
On April 28 2015 03:20 ShowTheLights wrote: Can someone explain what "damage point" is?
Damage point is a variable that affects every attacking unit in Starcraft 2. It represents the time between when an attacking unit attacks, and when it can receive new commands.
Interesting round of changes. Ravager nerfs seem a bit much, but happy to see them anyway because it will lead to more interesting unit comps and strategies.
Looking forward to seeing some games played on this patch!
The problem with the Ravager isn't the attack period or the weapon range. It's how overpowered Corrosive Bile is. Corrosive Bile offers an early game method for Zerg players to:
Reliably all-in on one or two bases.
Decimate structures and immobile units (i.e. Siege Tanks) through unavoidable and unpreventable damage, via Corrosive Bile.
Bust forcefields; something which Terran and Protoss cannot do until they tech into Tier 3 units (i.e. Archons, Thors and Colossus)
In fact, some of the changes that have been made in Legacy of the Void so far have really weakened Protoss. Protoss are heavily reliant on forcefields to hold all-ins. This nerf to the Ravager won't change the fact that forcefields can easily be busted via this all in and a Roach/Ravager flood can straight-up instagib the defender.
Ravagers either need a redesign, a nerf to Corrosive Bile in the early game, or a nerf to the unit itself to move it up to Hive tech.
On April 28 2015 03:24 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: BURROW
MOVE
SWARMHOSTS
HOLY FUCK
Actually that's not even the biggest change, but giving them back the cost of 200/100/3 and removing the upgrade for flying locusts. Burrow move is just icing on the cake.
Just get rid of the Swarm-Host Blizzard, stop trying to make this abomination work. It's just a silly unit and with the return of the Lurker (which you can tweak) Zerg now has a viable replacement that isn't just another free unit factory.
Hosts got a buff, Ravagers a nerf. Not sure if Hosts buff will be enough to make people actually use them. They still take away from your core army and don't help with stopping the Mech/Protoss deathball.
IF they move the Cyclone upgrade to the Armory as suggested, they HAVE to nerf that thing's rate of fire.
Person ally, I like it at the Fusion Core. Together with the Banshee upgrade, they're trying to make sure that there are no buildings in the game that lack relevance, and the only building that currently does in HotS is the Fusion Core. You can see any other structure built in a competitive series and not be surprised.
I'd feel much better about their decisions if they would cite reasons why the community suggestions are bad (DH8/9/10 and new terran units). I like that they explain the changes to other facets of the game but I'd love it if they would address more of the community directly. We (the community) have already explained the advantages and disadvantages of the new LotV economy model...
(1) If it's an air unit, bin it. (2) If it's a melee unit, bin it. (3) If it's beefier or more expensive than the Tank, bin it.
Ghosts, Reapers (seems they're looking at it, though it's far from being a priority!), Hellbats, Mines, Thors, Vikings, Banshees, Ravens all need to undergo mild to drastic changes in their roles and/or stats. There is already enough work to be done here, without making the burden heavier for dubious reasons. The idea of an autonomous Starport tech path is ridiculous. Splitting mech/air upgrades anew is most welcome though.
This is what's cool about Beta. The entire game just changed and people are rolling with it. Wild changes can happen at the drop of a hat and people will experiment with them in all sorts of cool ways.
we only gave terran 1 new unit in HotS, fucking hell just add something so they wont be left out.
Just such a shame they are now deciding to not do baracks unit again. With lurkers, 8 armor ultralisk, disruptors, pick up siege tanks and nerfed marauders, seems like going bio is not an option in any match up atm.
Also does that ravager change mean that they attack 2 times slower? As in half DPS with 2 lower range? If so this is by far the biggest nerf any unit has received in the history of SC2. Even bigger than the Mothership in WoL beta.
On April 28 2015 03:25 Clbull wrote: The problem with the Ravager isn't the attack period or the weapon range. It's how overpowered Corrosive Bile is. Corrosive Bile offers an early game method for Zerg players to:
Reliably all-in on one or two bases.
Decimate structures and immobile units (i.e. Siege Tanks) through unavoidable and unpreventable damage, via Corrosive Bile.
Bust forcefields; something which Terran and Protoss cannot do until they tech into Tier 3 units (i.e. Archons, Thors and Colossus)
Ravagers either need a redesign, a nerf to Corrosive Bile in the early game, or a nerf to the unit itself to move it up to Hive tech.
No, actually you hardly hit anything with Corrosive bile(not including buildings). You can't hit Siege Tanks if they have Medivac Support at all and a lot of Terran players open like that nowadays. Reason why Ravagers were too good is because you had to evade Corrosive Bile while Ravagers were dealing enormous damage with their auto-attacks as they have damage of the Roach with attack speed of Hydralisks. Ravager's dps was so high that Corrosive bile didn't matter in a lot of cases as it wasn't reliable.
Neither Protoss nor Terran has so much problems with Force Fields that Zerg has for 5 years already so it is pointless to compare Zergs to the rest in that regard.
Corrosive bile is strong and it should be, but it probably should be less spammable. Their stats however, need to be different from Roaches/Hydralisks in my opinion, they don't feel like different units, just big Hydras/Roaches with Corrosive Bile.
sooooo what is this new terran unit that they speak of? Also wtf air upgrade for cyclone from fusion core!? That's so faaaaaaaaar away wtf.. I was looking forward to not having to build useless fucking thors against Muta harrasment but guess thats out the window now
On April 28 2015 03:12 Topin wrote: the cyclone upgrade is too far in the tech tree imo, it should be in the armory
Ehh, the armory is almost too easy though (usually you could get in around the same time as any significant number of air units), especially since the upgrade is so cheap... and, it has the bonus of incentivizing BC play
On April 28 2015 03:34 spirates wrote: sooooo what is this new terran unit that they speak of? Also wtf air upgrade for cyclone from fusion core!? That's so faaaaaaaaar away wtf.. I was looking forward to not having to build useless fucking thors against Muta harrasment but guess thats out the window now
Welcome to SC2: Legacy of the Harrasment. Blizzard wants you to suffer.
Interested to see how the reaper works out. Bio kinda looks dead in LotV - not seen any of it but maybe due to the strength of the Cyclone and siege tank pickup harass. Regardless of whether Mech works or not, if Bio is not viable then a large group of Terran players will be lost.
The ghost, please fix it. This is an iconic unit and I have not seen one in LotV despite watching many hours of Terran play.
Cyclone change makes no sense. Cyclone should not be able to lock onto ground, but should keep it's regular ground attack.
Mech needs an anti-air unit, it doesn't need the cyclone to be a boring amove ground attack unit. Anyone that wants to play mech wants to build siege tanks against ground.
Currently protoss blind counter cyclones by going Stargate. With this change you will have no choice but to start 1. Rushing fusion core to get the upgrade to deal with protoss air 2. Mass vikings, thors are not viable anti-air against protoss.
This is absolutely the opposite of the change they should've made. I'd be more inclined to get the upgrade if it allowed you to lock onto ground, not air. I already didn't build them because they were boring, now I won't build them because they're boring AND useless
I would like to see lock-on not give vision so that we can see some cute counter-micro with units abusing terrain to break out of lock-on. Maybe revert the anti-air nerf if they try that.
- Could be interesting, need to see in action. Having a unit with knock back certainly sounds cool, dunno how useful it'll be.
Warp
- Not nearly enough, but I guess they're starting small. Why can't there simply be more diversity to Protoss production? Why can't gateways have more appeal in conjunction with warpgate?
Adept
- I like it. Moving in the right direction. I still think this unit needs an aoe upgrade rather than shields though.
Ravager
- At least they're doing something to the base attack to differentiate it more from roach/hydra. I still support removing it and compensating elsewhere though.
Swarm Host
- I'm just going to fucking say it, redesign Zerg AA and let these things spawn scourge for resources.
Knockback? Like, really? I mean I'm all for a new WarCraft RTS, but please make it a totally different game... And yeah sick economic changes, 5/5. Proud to see you listening to the community, Blizzard.
Reaper - I don't understand the point of this. Reapers are harass/scout units. Wouldn't they be better served by a cloak upgrade?
Warp-in - I don't think warp-ins are the problem with protoss and I don't see that protoss all-in's need to be nerfed.
Minerals - There are so many ways to do this. You could have more patches, but less minerals in total. Either way I think it is good to encourage expanding and being active on the map, so long as you don't also make cheese go extinct.
Cyclone and terran - I wasn't aware terran needed counter-harass. They already have long-ranged vikings, thors, and siege tanks which are quite good at base defense. If anything, I feel Terran could use structure that can shoot ground, without eating up supply like bunkers do. Maybe like the automated bunkers from the WoL campaign?
@topic: They seem to be kind of clueless when it comes to the whole warp gate problem. Maybe they should adjust the bunker build time instead.
The SH and reaper changes look interesting. Nerfing ravagers is fine, imho, the game isn't very stable atm anyway. I need to play more terran to really say something useful about the Cyclone. It's very strong, and I actually like cyclone heavy TvT.
On April 28 2015 04:00 OtherWorld wrote: Knockback? Like, really? I mean I'm all for a new WarCraft RTS, but please make it a totally different game... And yeah sick economic changes, 5/5. Proud to see you listening to the community, Blizzard.
What are you talking about? There werent any pushing spells in any Warcraft game ...
On April 28 2015 04:00 OtherWorld wrote: Knockback? Like, really? I mean I'm all for a new WarCraft RTS, but please make it a totally different game... And yeah sick economic changes, 5/5. Proud to see you listening to the community, Blizzard.
What are you talking about? There werent any pushing spells in any Warcraft game ...
I was thinking of the Tauren Chieftain's War Stomp, but upon verification it only stuns ennemies. My mistake. Edit : however a knockback spell would be fitting in a new WC RTS d:
On April 28 2015 04:09 TheWinks wrote: The Reaper does not need an active ability
Why not? It doesn't do much besides in the first few minutes of a game right now.
If its role as a scout/harass is impacted do something to it to make it better at its role rather than just trying to shoehorn it in as a mainline army unit somehow.
That's a odd way to go about nerfing cyclone. I suppose it aims at encouraging air counter-play but that just punishes mech play. Same attack for air and ground will never work with a long range unit anyway.
Changes are overall nice, even as zerg I accept Ravager nerf, it is too strong now. Nice to see SH buff (finally!), hope smthing like this will be done to them already in HotS. Reaper tweaking sounds interesting, excited to see what it will bring. Splitting mech upgrades is long-awaited measure, mech is too strong now with single upgrade path for all stuff. Cyclone still needs tuning I guess, its brokenness isn't in AA damage, but in sick lock-on cooldown and auto-cast even in the unseen spaces. And WTB more bio buff, it is pretty dead as it is. ZvT(bio) is awesome to watch and demanding to play in HotS, want the same in LotV.
The biggest problems about the cyclone where always:
1) the range, too long that the unit locked-on died before counter micro was posible 2) the capacity to keep lock on without visión, again tacking away counter micro (not to mention its currently the only unit that can attack without visión)
I don't know how much attacking air was a problem, specially since nerfing it means that the cyclone becomes hard countered by air units, wich means there is no counter play, you are forced to get air units to fight ciclones, and we all now how bad that is for the game (like vikings vs colossus).
I don't know about another air unit. Air units are inherently less interesting because they don't care about terrain and there is no unit collision.
I wish they pushed ravager later. -50% dmg and -33% range is very severe. While terran mech against ground is as good as before. Cyclone nerf is most likely not enough. It's still ridiculous against anything ground. And with how good it is, getting fusion core is no problem.
I hope we will not get any closer to HotS, they seems to be scaling back on resource changes and warpgates.
At least they acknowledge that SH is currently useless. I wish they had realized that before changing HotS.
I pretty much don't like any of these changes tbh. At Blizzcon i was so hyped about LOTV, but now? In general i still think the ressource change could be a good change, but everything else is rather disappointing tbh (ok lurkers, disruptors and the new spell on the oracle are interesting)
On April 28 2015 04:00 OtherWorld wrote: Knockback? Like, really? I mean I'm all for a new WarCraft RTS, but please make it a totally different game... And yeah sick economic changes, 5/5. Proud to see you listening to the community, Blizzard.
What are you talking about? There werent any pushing spells in any Warcraft game ...
I was thinking of the Tauren Chieftain's War Stomp, but upon verification it only stuns ennemies. My mistake. Edit : however a knockback spell would be fitting in a new WC RTS d:
Educate yourself in Tauren awesomeness, little Orc.
Interesting round of changes that at last begins to deal with the real problems : warpgate nerf, eco, cyclone and ravager. Still not enough, but that's better than the last update after which I thought all hope was lost.
When I read such chaotic ideas or the way they design a new unit (before even fixing the existing ones) or how they give a big finger to the community's work concerning the economy it seems like they don't have a clue about what to do with the game. I am not saying I know what to do either but the beta is pleasant to play right now. Unfortunately I have the feeling it will go downhill until they seriously consider hiring a new balance/development team.
On April 28 2015 04:00 OtherWorld wrote: Knockback? Like, really? I mean I'm all for a new WarCraft RTS, but please make it a totally different game... And yeah sick economic changes, 5/5. Proud to see you listening to the community, Blizzard.
What are you talking about? There werent any pushing spells in any Warcraft game ...
I was thinking of the Tauren Chieftain's War Stomp, but upon verification it only stuns ennemies. My mistake. Edit : however a knockback spell would be fitting in a new WC RTS d:
Can't wait to play this new Moba :3 . When I read what they are experimenting with as a new unit I thought they were talking about giving the Scout to Terran. Though I wouldn't mind a high attack speed mech unit, but they just have to remove the armored tag from the ground mode Viking and they got an awesome unit.
On April 28 2015 04:41 TheDwf wrote: There's some serious answer inflation in some of your polls, SGTK! Beware or there will be 27 different choices at the next BU preview.
People got mad last time cause I didn't have anough options. Now Ihave too many. this is horseshit!
On April 28 2015 03:16 Ramiz1989 wrote: I like the idea behind Terran having more independent units and tech paths, looking forward to see what will they do with Bio.
Reaper Love the idea, we don't know what will the damage be but with little tweaks it might get Reaper into great spot and they might become useful mid-late game units with this. Now, if only they would make Ghosts more useful but we will see.
Adept This should have been in the last update that didn't manage to get included. Probably a good change, pushing Adepts towards core units.
Cyclone It makes sense, but I don't think that it will solve the problems with the unit.
Ravager They should probably change them a little and make it feel like a different unit. In the last patch it felt like big Hydralisk, now it feels like big Roach.
Swarm Host Wow, didn't expect this. This might even make them broken to be honest. I would love to see these Swarm Hosts in action.
On April 28 2015 04:41 TheDwf wrote: There's some serious answer inflation in some of your polls, SGTK! Beware or there will be 27 different choices at the next BU preview.
People got mad last time cause I didn't have anough options. Now Ihave too many. this is horseshit!
Now you know how it feels to be a Blizzard employee
Wasn't the Cyclone meant to fight vs Air Units when a Terran goes Mech? I don't see the sense in removing its ability to fight air this will just end in another unit conjunction than hellion/cyclone is it? :O Pls if i forgot something point it out for me so i can understand if this nerf is good or bad :O
Seriously stop adding abilities to the SH in order to try to make it "good". Where I work it's called futile medical care, please just unplug the fucking unit already.
As for the rest I kinda like the direction, maybe the ravager nerf is a tad brutal and I still don't like the cyclone design idea, but overall it's all better. I'd like the reaper to be able to lay a smoke screen instead of doing dmg, so it becomes even more infuriating for Zerg to kill them with queens. But I like the idea to make it viable past 5 minutes/cheese. :D
On April 28 2015 04:45 emin wrote: Wasn't the Cyclone meant to fight vs Air Units when a Terran goes Mech? I don't see the sense in removing its ability to fight air this will just end in another unit conjunction than hellion/cyclone is it? :O Pls if i forgot something point it out for me so i can understand if this nerf is good or bad :O
It's to "delay" its ability to shoot air, since with the current situation Terran can just fast tech to cyclone and be nearly invulnerable to a great deal of air based (incl drops) harass, plus has a very potent way to hunt overlords of the map. Now Terran will have some weakness vs air if they go fast cyclones and may need to invest a little in defense like a couple marines or a turret (don't even need ebay now...) or even try save some gas to get the AA ability.
I like it for the fact cyclones are OP in low unit number battles (early game) while loosing lots of their shinning later. This upgrade requirement nerfs it a little early game and gives all three races an easier tech "counter" as an option to a cyclone/hellion play.
On April 28 2015 03:25 Clbull wrote: The problem with the Ravager isn't the attack period or the weapon range. It's how overpowered Corrosive Bile is. Corrosive Bile offers an early game method for Zerg players to:
Reliably all-in on one or two bases.
Decimate structures and immobile units (i.e. Siege Tanks) through unavoidable and unpreventable damage, via Corrosive Bile.
Bust forcefields; something which Terran and Protoss cannot do until they tech into Tier 3 units (i.e. Archons, Thors and Colossus)
In fact, some of the changes that have been made in Legacy of the Void so far have really weakened Protoss. Protoss are heavily reliant on forcefields to hold all-ins. This nerf to the Ravager won't change the fact that forcefields can easily be busted via this all in and a Roach/Ravager flood can straight-up instagib the defender.
Ravagers either need a redesign, a nerf to Corrosive Bile in the early game, or a nerf to the unit itself to move it up to Hive tech.
It doesn't need to be at Hive tech that's absurd, but it does need to be at Lair tech with Ravager morph preferably as a researched upgrade at the Roach Warren similar to Brood War Lurkers. That would allow Zergs to make their Ravager all ins vs Protoss but it would be much later than they can now which also helps to alleviate the impact Ravagers are making to early game ZvZ.
Cyclones need a range nerf and a nerf to their hit points or they will continue to rule the early game of both TvT and TvP. They have more hit points than fucking Siege Tanks for crying out loud. If nothing else AT LEAST make them require an Armory.
Swarm Hosts in this form seem like they could be more fun, but I think giving them both the innate flying Locust and the Burrow move is too much. Burrow Move Swarm Hosts would be interesting on their own without their payload being able to bypass terrain.
Those are some of my thoughts on this. I still hate Disruptors and I'm convinced in their current form they are way too powerful in PvZ, hopefully the nerfs to the Ravagers help stabilize the match up more so that more games actually go far enough for Protoss to use them so everyone else can see what I'm seeing.
Wait do reapers require tech lab again now? Extra damage on the super fast available reapers seems a bit insane. I like the ravager nerf, cyclone nerf seems too weak. I like the warpin change. Swarmhosts gonna be strange xD
On April 28 2015 03:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: New Terran Unit Before we get into the changes for existing units, we’d like to first discuss the status of the new Terran unit. We’ve been experimenting with various ideas, from a new base defense structure, to an add-on that allows production facilities to change their type. At this time however, it seems we may move forward with a unit from the Starport. There are various ways we’ve been experimenting with this unit:
Oh my God, I had missed this... Here we go:
On April 11 2015 06:39 TheDwf wrote: Completeness is toxic for the game. Structural holes are what makes things interesting. For instance, Terran would stop being Terran if they received some metaphysical horror like the “tech reactors” from the campaign or static defence (or more brainless melee units). Having those structural holes within the architecture of the race is what defines it. Working around structural holes is players' job.
I shudder to think of what they will do with Terran.
Reaper Dno how it works out, but I agree with the notion of giving the Reaper some type of weak AOE ability. I hope this is a skillshot as well.
Ravager Ravager doesn't become more differentiated just by cuttings its DPS in half. Balance change =/ Gives a proper role to the unit.
Cyclone Cyclone has lame interations against almost all units. The AA removal/upgrade-thing is a balance change mainly, and that doesn't deal with the issue properly. I am already incredibly tired of watching this unit in play, not just because of how OP it was, but because of how predictable it is: Amove with it --> Lock on --> Move back --> Repeat. Compare that to a Marine on the other hand, and notice how many more different ways there is to micro this unit dependant on the compostion of the enemy. Swarm Hosts Maybe it's a small improvement, but I don't really care. The the idea of free units flying around the map is retarded.
At this point I am very close to just accepting that LOTV isn't the game for me. While last patch wasn't as well received, I overall thought it had more steps in the "right direction" (not my desired solution, but still led to improved gameplay). However, at this point in time it has become clear to me that Blizzard is pretty far off.
Why aren't we lowering more unit's DP?
You should have asked "why stop at 0.167 DP?"
0.167 is the default DP, andt the Adept just received that. Why not go further down?
On April 28 2015 03:16 Ramiz1989 wrote: I like the idea behind Terran having more independent units and tech paths, looking forward to see what will they do with Bio.
Reaper Love the idea, we don't know what will the damage be but with little tweaks it might get Reaper into great spot and they might become useful mid-late game units with this. Now, if only they would make Ghosts more useful but we will see.
Adept This should have been in the last update that didn't manage to get included. Probably a good change, pushing Adepts towards core units.
Cyclone It makes sense, but I don't think that it will solve the problems with the unit.
Ravager They should probably change them a little and make it feel like a different unit. In the last patch it felt like big Hydralisk, now it feels like big Roach.
Swarm Host Wow, didn't expect this. This might even make them broken to be honest. I would love to see these Swarm Hosts in action.
Well ... you said nothing useful
That's my opinion on all these units changes.
You, however, really said nothing useful with that quote.
Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
On April 28 2015 04:45 emin wrote: Wasn't the Cyclone meant to fight vs Air Units when a Terran goes Mech? I don't see the sense in removing its ability to fight air this will just end in another unit conjunction than hellion/cyclone is it? :O Pls if i forgot something point it out for me so i can understand if this nerf is good or bad :O
It's only pushing it back. The upgrade is available for research 46 seconds (and 150/150 resources) after the first starport is built. It's not like there's no way to reach it. So instead of instantly shutting down mutas/oracles/whatever, it may require a bit more scouting and planning this way.
Until then, it can still kill anything on the ground without getting hit.
Really interesting changes, I like almost all of them. Cyclones may still be too strong, though. That SH change looks weird, but at least it may be actually used in games.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
The first idea is cool.
The second idea sounds devastating with cannon rushes.
Why not just scale the immortal down and move it to gateway?
No thanks, the revamped Valkyrie can safely stay in its original home. Terran should suffer against mutas and mech should have a calculated weakness in the anti-air department.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for Protoss, Which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all Protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
The first idea is cool.
The second idea sounds devastating with cannon rushes.
Why not just scale the immortal down and move it to gateway?
O_O. Never in a million years would I have imagined a zerg suggesting warp in immortals.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for Protoss, Which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all Protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
So now will be going form a few ravagers each game to 0 against most a a couple maybe vs Protoss, talking about bad changes, now it really feels like a true Zerg unit, extremely overpriced, while not adding anything in most situations.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
The first idea is cool.
The second idea sounds devastating with cannon rushes.
Why not just scale the immortal down and move it to gateway?
O_O. Never in a million years would I have imagined a zerg suggesting warp in immortals.
The idea is to make the Immortal act like the Dragoon that the Protoss race desperately needs (the Adept is bound to become a fiasco). It's indeed incompatible with Warpgate at Core tech + 120-160s, but it's more than time to delay Warpgate until at least the beginning of midgame. (Ideally, Protoss players should have the decision to play with or without.)
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
The first idea is cool.
The second idea sounds devastating with cannon rushes.
Why not just scale the immortal down and move it to gateway?
O_O. Never in a million years would I have imagined a zerg suggesting warp in immortals.
Well...I also support bringing the hydra down to hatch tech with similarly nerfed stats xD
But really, maybe a potential idea for warp gate is only being able to warp in certain units.
Zealot, Stalkers, DTs, and Adepts can be warped in, but everything can be produced from gateways.
Immortals, HTs, and sentries have to traverse the map or be transported via a warp prism. Additonally, if HTs were only from gateways maybe they could bring back Khaydarin Amulet to compensate.
Those are some of my thoughts on this. I still hate Disruptors and I'm convinced in their current form they are way too powerful in PvZ, hopefully the nerfs to the Ravagers help stabilize the match up more so that more games actually go far enough for Protoss to use them so everyone else can see what I'm seeing.
I actually hate the Disruptor balance too. It fits a campaign unit, but right now it's simply too hardcountering.
Disruptor is designed to 1-shot things, and it's like 50% like a baneling. Get a good hit or shit, since it becomes very exposed after firing, so it has to be balanced on big damage or it wouldn't be built at all.
I think that the Disruptor should become some kind of baneling (relatively disposeable) without hardcountering too much ground units, or be fused with the Reaver Design. We could combine Reaver design (building expensive projectiles) with the micro aspect of the disruptor, which is quite nice, and get a unit that doesn't 1-shot things because otherwise it would be unplayable since it would get cost innefficent.
The micro concept is really good, but not at "terrible terrible damage/ high risk and cost/ money shot" design.
I think that by combining the micro design of Disruptors, with the "ammo builder" at cost concept of the Reaver, we could get some improved design, some kind of "baneling launcher" that would be close to the Reaver but with full micro control, and far easier to balance.
It's funny how Blizzard wants to share meaningless details about rejected unit designs that honestly just make them look like they don't know what they're doing. My university professor told me this: when you write a report don't turn it into a travel blog about all the different paths you took to get to the destination.
On April 28 2015 05:38 Bazik wrote: So now will be going form a few ravagers each game to 0 against most a a couple maybe vs Protoss, talking about bad changes, now it really feels like a true Zerg unit, extremely overpriced, while not adding anything in most situations.
If you want individually better units, reduce the amount of larvae available. Other races will have to follow the movement and the game will only be better at the end.
Why not just scale the immortal down and move it to gateway?
Or reduce Robotics cost (and perhaps - if needed - increase Robo Bay cost to make tier 3 cost unchanged) --> Similar effect as you can get 2-3 Robotics in the early part of the midgame --> Immortals can now be produced easier and you avoid the whole extra complication of needing seperate hotkeys for some of your Gateways.
I actually hate the Disruptor balance too. It fits a campaign unit, but right now it's simply too hardcountering.
Disruptor = The opposite of a hardcounter as it comes down to micro.
It's funny how Blizzard wants to share meaningless details about rejected unit designs that honestly just make them look like they don't know what they're doing. My university professor told me this: when you write a report don't turn it into a travel blog about all the different paths you took to get to the destination.
I dont get what Blizz and DK are going to accomplish with this new flying AA unit... People only mass air units in TvZ and there we got widow mines and the Thor. We don't need another AA unit. We need a well designed unit with new mechanics.
It's funny how Blizzard wants to share meaningless details about rejected unit designs that honestly just make them look like they don't know what they're doing. My university professor told me this: when you write a report don't turn it into a travel blog about all the different paths you took to get to the destination.
I dont get what Blizz and DK are going to accomplish with this new flying AA unit...
(1) Pick an arbitrary rule: “add two units per race”. (2) Realize the race has no need/room for such a thing. (3) Apply anyway.
On April 28 2015 05:41 Hider wrote: Disruptor = The opposite of a hardcounter as it comes down to micro.
No, not really because it is faster than a lot of ground units when purification nova is activated and you simply can't split fast enough. Or when few Disruptors charges into you together with 120+ Supply of Protoss army and you are trying to split your units because Disruptors will kill them all if you don't, and while you are doing that Protoss death ball is wiping the floor with you.
The whole "I am doing massive AoE damage while being faster than your units and being immune to everything" is horrendous design.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
You know, one thought I had was to give sentries a shield battery ability. Balancing would be required, but I think it would fix the issues with gateway units. It would be like a medic for protoss.
It's funny how Blizzard wants to share meaningless details about rejected unit designs that honestly just make them look like they don't know what they're doing. My university professor told me this: when you write a report don't turn it into a travel blog about all the different paths you took to get to the destination.
I dont get what Blizz and DK are going to accomplish with this new flying AA unit...
(1) Pick an arbitrary rule: “add two units per race”. (2) Realize the race has no need/room for such a thing. (3) Apply anyway.
Because it's a marketing tool. New expansion new units is a lot more attractive to the general public then fixed units. Look how much they are trying to find a place for the stupid SH instead of removing it.
EDIT: just look at the cluster fuck that is the factory. Hellion, Hellbats, Mines, Cyclones, doing the same thing that only one unit was able to do in BW. They have no concept of elegance and depth when making units.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
The first idea is cool.
The second idea sounds devastating with cannon rushes.
Why not just scale the immortal down and move it to gateway?
O_O. Never in a million years would I have imagined a zerg suggesting warp in immortals.
Well...I also support bringing the hydra down to hatch tech with similarly nerfed stats xD
But really, maybe a potential idea for warp gate is only being able to warp in certain units.
Zealot, Stalkers, DTs, and Adepts can be warped in, but everything can be produced from gateways.
Immortals, HTs, and sentries have to traverse the map or be transported via a warp prism. Additonally, if HTs were only from gateways maybe they could bring back Khaydarin Amulet to compensate.
Well, IMAO there are few things to get done with design, specially design of intended Core units.
Adept needs to be a decent fighter, not a shit that spends almost 5 s to kill a Zergling or almost 7s (in HotS time values) to kill a marine with shields. DPS isn't all. Instead of balancing it to be a clunky infantry that moves slow, shots as slow as a siege unit and is a meatshield better than Zealots, I'd rebalance it much more like a Marauder. Old HP values, relatively high DPS output, mid-short weapon cooldown, and with 5 range and more mobile. Infantry. For example, a 10+8vs light with 1.5 CD it would be only 20% better in terms of DPS, but would kill Zerglings and Marines 50% faster (always 2-shot zerglings and 3 shot marines no matter if combat shields is reasearched, except if armor upgrades are rushed). That would make the unit much more core, and then we could focus in the dedicated upgrade for it.
Immortals IMAO are quite well positioned in Robo. They were simply too "heroic" as they were extremely efficient hardcounters with their old passive. Right now, it would make sense to have them a bit tuned down in damage, slightly reworked and get a big cost reduction, moving to 150/100 or 200/100 at max with reduced build time, and bring back the alpha range upgrade (range up to 7). Immos would feel really strong, being a ground supperiority fighter, and possibly used as core army. Maybe it's time to have a very cost efficient unit by itself with general use. Dragoons were quite decent all-around units. Stalkers are also quite all-around, extremely mobile and micro dependant, but struggle in terms of DPS. Immortals could take that old Dragoon role and empower it, acting as strong DPS and being relatively masseable.
I also think that Hydras are placed in a correct tech level, since early game they would be very destructive, specially vs protoss, and early Lair lurker timings could be devastating. Their problem is that they get outclassed very easily. Too strong to be Hatch, decent at early lair timing, pure shit after few minutes.Hydras are still shit after 5 years. They are balanced to be early/early-midgame units, but get trashed in the lategame by AoE damage or abilities to zone them out since they aren't cost efficient by themselves as the game moves on, and have no fancy micro to revamp them like Stalkers or have efficiency upgrades like marines or marauders. IMAO, the Hydralisk problem is solved by giving them 6 as default range, and providing them a good upgrade to keep them usable in the later game, like an HP buff or Frienzy. Campaign upgrades are a good reference. Hydraliks needs upgrades to give them more later utility, specially considering that any kind of efficient infantry (Bio, Adepts) and any form of AoE damage trashes them since they are very fragile and relatively slow.
On April 28 2015 06:04 Sapphire.lux wrote:
EDIT: just look at the cluster fuck that is the factory. Hellion, Hellbats, Mines, Cyclones, doing the same thing that only one unit was able to do in BW. They have no concept of elegance and depth when making units.
We'll, I'd say that Hellion/Hellbat and Widow mines actually split the roles of Firebats and Vultures, so that makes 2 units, and reworks a bit their roles, since Widow Mines can target air. So it's 3 units reworking the role of 2.
Cyclone has nothing to do with Vultures BTW. It's a tanky, kiting unit, that allows you to deal sustained DPS without getting in range of most units and very strong vs all kind of units, flyiers and ground ones, which is the opposite of Vulture's attack. The only thing they have in common is that they are relatively mobile and reward micro-intensive plays.
On April 28 2015 06:09 MrMatt wrote: They should make cyclone have a zone of attack. If you can micro closer or further than that area it loses its lock on.
Yes Terran needs an air based AOE unit that can be micro'd against phoenix and muta. Phoenix has a speed of 4.25, mutalisk has a speed of 4, viking has a speed of 2.75 (lol). The viking is a terribly designed unit and should just be replaced.
The Thor anti air should be removed. Instead of having to upgrade an air attack for cyclone (this would be like making mutalisk require an upgrade to shoot ground units, it's just dumb), just get rid of locking on air units and replace with a decent single target air attack, which requires the cyclone to be stationary, so cyclones have to be stutter stepped to shoot air.
Mech and air upgrade should probably be split, best to keep combined armor for mech and air, but split air attack and mech attack.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
The first idea is cool.
The second idea sounds devastating with cannon rushes.
Why not just scale the immortal down and move it to gateway?
O_O. Never in a million years would I have imagined a zerg suggesting warp in immortals.
Well...I also support bringing the hydra down to hatch tech with similarly nerfed stats xD
But really, maybe a potential idea for warp gate is only being able to warp in certain units.
Zealot, Stalkers, DTs, and Adepts can be warped in, but everything can be produced from gateways.
Immortals, HTs, and sentries have to traverse the map or be transported via a warp prism. Additonally, if HTs were only from gateways maybe they could bring back Khaydarin Amulet to compensate.
Immortals IMAO are quite well positioned in Robo. They were simply too "heroic" as they were extremely efficient hardcounters with their old passive. Right now, it would make sense to have them a bit tuned down in damage, slightly reworked and get a big cost reduction, moving to 150/100 or 200/100 at max with reduced build time, and bring back the alpha range upgrade (range up to 7). Immos would feel really strong, being a ground supperiority fighter, and possibly used as core army. Maybe it's time to have a very cost efficient unit by itself with general use. Dragoons were quite decent all-around units. Stalkers are also quite all-around, extremely mobile and micro dependant, but struggle in terms of DPS. Immortals could take that old Dragoon role and empower it, acting as strong DPS and being relatively masseable.
OneGoal's interpretation of a warpgate Immortal was executed quite well, if not perhaps even a bit underpowered. They swapped it with the Sentry going to Robotics Facility and buffed the Sentry's shields, so that FFs were rarely available en masse, but Sentries were also slightly less squishy and vulnerable to getting summarily executed in a quick surround. I think the Immortal was 150/100, with 100/250 shields and health, and had an attack that did 15 + 10 armored, and hardened shields was removed. Personally, I'd probably nudge it up just a teeny bit in both cost and armor bonus, just to reinforce its role as a high-damage output unit. I'm thinking 175/100 cost, the same shields and healthy, and a attack of 15 + 15 armored, and then keep its new barrier ability from LotV. The Sentry could maybe go up to 60/60 shields and health if it was restricted to being produced one by one from the robo.
On April 28 2015 05:59 EleanorRIgby wrote: new terran aa unit like the valkyrie? suck it mutas
Actually, the last developers' statement on it made it sound more like a Terran corsair with a toggled non-splash siege mode.
It's funny how Blizzard wants to share meaningless details about rejected unit designs that honestly just make them look like they don't know what they're doing. My university professor told me this: when you write a report don't turn it into a travel blog about all the different paths you took to get to the destination.
I dont get what Blizz and DK are going to accomplish with this new flying AA unit...
(1) Pick an arbitrary rule: “add two units per race”. (2) Realize the race has no need/room for such a thing. (3) Apply anyway.
FYI - David Kim mentioned why they wanted to have a starport specific AA splash uni
In general, we believe that armies made from the Factory or Starport will be more capable as independent compositions in Legacy of the Void. Players will be able to commit to a tech-path specifically, and so we are also interested in splitting out the mech and air upgrades again. We believe that bringing back this choice is a potential improvement for the game.
However, under that logic - I think that the Cyclone upgrade will then be out of place...factory unit with a T3 Starport Tech Structure upgrade. That goes against what I quoted above. Maybe Tech Lab with Armory upgrade? Like the WM upgrade. Personally I don't think that's enough though, as other have mentioned - the Lock on ability needs tweaking a little bit.
The other changes - let them test it and revert or further change as needed. I think the swarm host change has interesting potential. If a player does build say 3 or 4... You could, perhaps, view it like having a DT hit squad out on the map?
In saying that...I hope everyone realises that these changes are experimental. No doubt that there's going to be further buffs/nerfs to all these new units.
On April 28 2015 05:15 Grumbels wrote: Blizzard should have the energize pylons from Starbow for protoss, which makes them shield batteries. Instantly fixes all protoss defensive issues (maybe). And chronoboost on photon cannons, but with removal of photon overcharge. And keep the warpgate nerf.
The first idea is cool.
The second idea sounds devastating with cannon rushes.
Why not just scale the immortal down and move it to gateway?
O_O. Never in a million years would I have imagined a zerg suggesting warp in immortals.
The idea is to make the Immortal act like the Dragoon that the Protoss race desperately needs (the Adept is bound to become a fiasco). It's indeed incompatible with Warpgate at Core tech + 120-160s, but it's more than time to delay Warpgate until at least the beginning of midgame. (Ideally, Protoss players should have the decision to play with or without.)
Even Dragoons are way too strong to be warped in. See starbow.
I think taking away some of the cyclone's power and restoring it with later upgrades is a bit crude, a heavy handed way to balance the unit. Upgrades can be more inspiring than that.
At this point I think Blizzard's problem is that they are trying to fit too many units into the game. They really need to trim the fat. Here's what I think:
-The factory has too many overlapping units. If I had my way, I'd remove the Widow Mine, Thor and Cyclone. Replace them with a straightforward mobile ground anti-air (Goliath), and possibly a tank buff or something. Also, I still think the Hellbat looks silly as fuck. But whatever.
-The ghost still sucks, as does late game Bio Terran. Ghost redesign seems like a no-brainer. I imagine they are working on this.
-I think the new air unit should just replace the Viking. They currently overlap far. far too much, and the Viking is boring as shit. The BC could be adjusted to fit the tiny hole left by the Viking.
-I'm actually okay with them trying to make the SH work, but I don't think they will. At this point they almost seem to be designed for the same style of play as burrowed infestors.
-speaking of infestors, they seem mostly useless now. The Viper skill replaces fungal as the best anti air splash. just cut the unit.
-Their approach to the adept makes little sense to me. It seems like they are trying to make this weird compromise between a Reaper-esque harassment unit and a core fighter. They really need to figure out what they want it to be.
-I really wish they would just grow a pair and remove the Colossus. they clearly don't want it to be a big part of the game, just let it go.
Don't they think the base trade scenario is something that needs adjustments?
Why not make terran buildings take damage over time if they are lifted for more than 3 or 4 minutes? This would characterize the attempt to stall the game and the runaway would have to land and repair it, giving the opportunity to the opponent who doesn't have flying units to finish it. It could have been fixed in 1998/1999 already. Retreating is one thing, running from the fight is another, wars don't reward cowards.
I remember a game, some non-kr zerg was 1x0 against a kr terran, and winning the 2nd game. Then the terran forced the draw then won 2x1 when the defeat by 2x0 was imminent. Not sure if it was Goswser X Bomber, someone please correct me if it is wrong. But I myself have been through countless games, in SC1 and 2, having ground army and the other guy having just a building already on yellow. And I'm not the only one.
PS: time to rename the mutalisk, or maybe make it mutate into something again?!
On April 28 2015 03:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: There looks to be some Ravager early game all-ins that are very difficult to stop. While we don’t know with 100% certainty that this is actually a problem
When Blizzard says stuff like this, it makes it seem like they think there is something people aren't doing that they should be that will just nullify that all-in.
And that is probably why the 4 Gate and 1-1-1 existed for so long without meaningful balance changes. It is as if David Kim has some secret strategic understanding of the game that no one else can figure out.
On April 28 2015 03:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: ]There looks to be some Ravager early game all-ins that are very difficult to stop. While we don’t know with 100% certainty that this is actually a problem
When Blizzard says stuff like this, it makes it seem like they think there is something people aren't doing that they should be that will just nullify that all-in.
And that is probably why the 4 Gate and 1-1-1 existed for so long without meaningful balance changes. It is as if David Kim has some secret strategic understanding of the game that no one else can figure out.
Phoenix and Oracle openings shut it down very hard according to professional players.
We'll, I'd say that Hellion/Hellbat and Widow mines actually split the roles of Firebats and Vultures, so that makes 2 units, and reworks a bit their roles, since Widow Mines can target air. So it's 3 units reworking the role of 2.
If this is true I have to say that hellion widow mine is the poorest imitation of vulture spider mine blizzard could have done.
omg LOL i was just joking with someone about how stupid it would be to give swarmhost burrow movement omg LOL this is as bad as burrow movement banes. god just remove the unit its just bad for sc2 and bad for rts why is blizzard so hell bent on making the swarmhost work it suck. everything else meh i dont know what to think anymore, honestly i think blizzard is just throwing shit on the wall and hoping it sticks. not saying everything is bad but not sure i like whats happening to sc2 atm, maybe im just pessimistic right now about sc2 in general but more and more becoming less a fan maybe if and when i get beta or the game comes out it will be different but idk man.
On April 28 2015 06:35 coolman123123 wrote: At this point I think Blizzard's problem is that they are trying to fit too many units into the game. They really need to trim the fat. Here's what I think:
-The factory has too many overlapping units. If I had my way, I'd remove the Widow Mine, Thor and Cyclone. Replace them with a straightforward mobile ground anti-air (Goliath), and possibly a tank buff or something. Also, I still think the Hellbat looks silly as fuck. But whatever.
-I think the new air unit should just replace the Viking. They currently overlap far. far too much, and the Viking is boring as shit. The BC could be adjusted to fit the tiny hole left by the Viking.
-speaking of infestors, they seem mostly useless now. The Viper skill replaces fungal as the best anti air splash. just cut the unit.
-Their approach to the adept makes little sense to me. It seems like they are trying to make this weird compromise between a Reaper-esque harassment unit and a core fighter. They really need to figure out what they want it to be.
You know that Vikings and Goliaths are 85% the same? Same type of damage, same movement values, almost same damage values, same ranges, close costs.... Viking was a refitted morphing Goliath that was however rebalanced during beta. . Goliaths were as fast as Vikings are on air, and Vikings on air are far less vulnerable than Goliaths were on ground. Vikings only need more ground speed and damage to match Goliaths per cost and stats almost perfectly. Vikings are versatile and have some uses, but suffer from the same issue than most air units.... engine incompatibility with micro. (Bad move-shot mechanics). With extra damage and speed they could be very usable on ground.
I would also like to know what do Mines, Cyclones and Thors in common. Plz explain it.
Infestor is very different from Viper. Infestor wasn't intended to be a dedicated AA, it was a support mechanic (stun) to combine with AoE (banelings, lurkers, Ultras). Their secondary use was AA. But it is true that they need a supportive mechanic. Vipers take the role of hardcasters, being more costly, while infestors are ground support mostly.
Adept design is pretty stupid, I agree with you, and even more right now. 230HP per 100/25 and inneficient shooting WTF... is this some miniarchon? It shouldn't even be harasser. Good base stats, and good DPS vs light. Protoss needs the equivalent of a Marauder in that aspect: a core, relatively dispensable and efficient fighter. The added mechanic is up to them, but at least the base design should point towards a more "core fighter" infantry. But they are experimenting with it the hard way.
IMAO the first thing I would do with the adept is to reduce their weapon CD and damage. An antilight infantry unit cannot spend 4.5 seconds to kill a zergling (2.25 weaon cd) or 6.75 to kill a CS marine, specially considering that ranged units like the Adept or Stalkers don't have smartfire and waste a lot shots. For example, 10+8vs light and 1.5 CD. Almost same DPS, but 50% less time to kill zerglings or marines.
On April 28 2015 03:05 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: There looks to be some Ravager early game all-ins that are very difficult to stop. While we don’t know with 100% certainty that this is actually a problem
When Blizzard says stuff like this, it makes it seem like they think there is something people aren't doing that they should be that will just nullify that all-in.
And that is probably why the 4 Gate and 1-1-1 existed for so long without meaningful balance changes. It is as if David Kim has some secret strategic understanding of the game that no one else can figure out.
i think this is soooooo true. its like blizzard wants the game to be one way that they like, and its a RTS its supposed to be figured out by the players( didnt really play BW ) but isnt that why BW became what it was/is. I feel that blizzard is trying to hard to make a perfect Esport viewing game and not just a Great game. I think and this is just me that blizzard needs to go back and make the best game they can and let the game figure its self out with balance and everything else, then worry about viewers and whatever. but where too deep into it now this is the 3rd expo of the game so idk anymore what to do. its not like they can just scrap everything and start a new.
I don't like the econ changes. I really liked the way it was before. The games feels so fast paced and action packed. If you are not expanding all the time you are gonna mine out, which i think is great. Forces you to fight over locations all the time, and makes it more impactful to take out an exspansion of your opponent.
I'm wondering how meny people that actually know what they are talking about when wanting the DH9 econ. There is so many people being vocal on the subject and there is only so many in the beta. It kinds feels like people are just saying whatever the TL team is suggesting, without actually having played any games with the LotV econ.
I like the 100/50% model, and haven't had any problems with not having enough time to tech before mining out or whatever. The games feel great, and i think people SHOULD get punished for not expanding.
On April 28 2015 07:24 Huxii wrote: I don't like the econ changes. I really liked the way it was before. The games feels so fast paced and action packed. If you are not expanding all the time you are gonna mine out, which i think is great. Forces you to fight over locations all the time, and makes it more impactful to take out an exspansion of your opponent.
I'm wondering how meny people that actually know what they are talking about when wanting the DH9 econ. There is so many people being vocal on the subject and there is only so many in the beta. It kinds feels like people are just saying whatever the TL team is suggesting, without actually having played any games with the LotV econ.
I like the 100/50% model, and haven't had any problems with not having enough time to tech before mining out or whatever. The games feel great, and i think people SHOULD get punished for not expanding.
Strange that you don't like their econ change when difference between 100/50% and 100/60% is minor. I am not all that sure about economic changes that TL has suggested at all(DH10/9/8).
and so we are also interested in splitting out the mech and air upgrades again
Really like that, upgrading pattern was becoming mindless for Terran...
And holy fuck is the community stubborn with their fucking DH hahaha. Well, I hope this gets tested, but I'm convinced it's really not as good as you all believe it to be (and don't tell me I just don't understand the math behind it, I'm quite ok, thank you very much).
Way too many options in the polls, like wtf, pick 3-4 choices at most... Overall the changes sound good to me. I like how they're handling it. Still a bit too conservative to my taste, but it's not like I can actually play the damn beta to see for myself :/
Edit: And I agree with most about the SwarmHost, that unit just doesn't work...
i had really hoped for some more interesting changes. Im going to talk about protoss, because its the race i know best.
Defending
The mothership core is flawed. A defensive unit is fine, a unit to recall is fine, both together dont make sense. While thats great for 3 bases - as it goes later, the MSC loses effectiveness as a defensive tool. Imagine a game with unlimited possible recall units, splitting your army with the option to recall multiple groups (with the investment of multiple mscs) sounds great. An extra option to defend your bases also sounds good.
Secondly, i dont understand why every base defence has to involve something shooting. There would be a significant defenders advantage if instead of shooting, the MSC or chronoboosting something, provided an armor / damage or regeneration bonus to units within the nexus range. \ That would allow protoss to defend more easily, while not buffing their offensive potential. It would also only be effective if you actually had units ready. Or what about something like sentries "forcefielding" a friendly building for extra HP/ firerate.
The defenders advantage is actually the worst for protoss. Fighting on creep gives the strategival advantage of maphack, queens and movement speed. Fighting near a terrans base - bunkers and planetary with repairs. Fighting near a protoss - i guess warpins?, or cannons in the mineral lines? - the fix definitely isnt the MSC (which is too strong, and too weak at the same time)
Secondly, AOE abilities
I feel like the colossus nerf was way overdue. However, I also feel like the disruptor will cause a lot of pain as the game progresses. Its an extremely expensive unit, that - as people get better at splitting, will lose effectiveness - and im guessing will stop trading cost effectively at some point. The obvious synergy with stasis ward is there, but thats like relying on burrowed banelings every single game.
I guess you could say we got the Adept - but that hasnt been gamebreaking yet.
The colossus was a key tool in dealing with terran mech - and not the most effective one at that.
Protoss air
With many units performing below avarage, protoss admittedly has the strongest air units in the game. Terran can, however already contest it fairly well in HotS with ravens and vikings - and with a new unit AA unit on the horizon - i feel like mech might pose a wall for protoss at some point.
I also think Mutas will become problematic again, with the new Viper air bomb. Cracklings, Hellbats and Zealots- the mineral dump
Protoss has the worst mineral dump of the 3 races. Yes zealots are good for harassing (only because of warpprism warpins), but with the new zerglings - at 3/3 they trade very efficiently. While i dont know how big a problem this really is - in conjunction with the worse AOE abilities - defending your outlying bases against speedlings might become pretty ineffective. Maybe the adept (with its low gascost) is supposed to be this unit. But it still costs gas.
here are my thoughts on this patch: 1)cyclone: good change, but i still think a small dmg nerf is needed as well. with the ravager nerf zerg have to open fast mutas against mech, and i doubt that blizz wants zerg to have only 1(!) viable counter to early game mech pushes, not to mention protoss who are forced to open blink EVERY SINGLE GAME against terran.
2) ravager- i actually don't mind this change. i think blizz want to see more lurker play and i agree with them. HOWEVER, if blizz vision of the ravager is only as a roach upgraded with a skill, then this skill HAS to be more significant, either in dmg or, preferably, in AoE.
3) SH- as always blizz chooses the radical options, and rightly so since this is the beta. SH borrow movements is something i thought should have been implemented in hots along with the last patch. next, i don't really know if SH should be 4 supply or 3, but if blizz want to see extensive use of them i guess 3 is better, since u need at least 10 (30-40 supply) to effectively harass and it just takes too much out of your army. as for the SH cost, it should have been tested at 150/150 with flying locust as the get go, OR 200/100 with the flying locust requiring an upgrade, but then again- beta->testing->radical... i think it's safe to assume that we'll see this unit tweaked more in the near future.
as for the rest of the changes i generally approve of them (YES, including not implementing dual harvest).
I'm usually really fond of Blizzard's work of balance, but I must admit than since HotS, I feel like the game is not going where it is supposed to be.
I dislike the idea of giving the reaper an active ability, it feels too much like a moba... I personnaly would give only spellcasters powerfull and diverse abilities and other units not so much.
Burrowing, siege mode, stimm, blink... These are fine, simple abilities for me. But every unit does not need an ability to be good. What makes a unit good is how it interracts with other unit : it's fun to have diverse army composition and positional play, it's not so fun when the game only revolve around unit abilities.
Protoss Deathballs used to revolve around the enormous range and insane damage of the colossus. Brood Lord infestor revolved around a lockdown + long range and insane dps. Mech in TvZ revolved around siege tank turtling + hunter seeker missile. Swarm host play was an entire thing of it's own...
I'm not sure at this point even more abilities is going to be the answer. I think the existing abilities should be balanced around the kind of game we want. I totally agree on the politic of pushing the player to expand & to harass... I think it's a step in the right direction. Constant harassment means constant defenses means having to control the map and fighting for it. Today, I feel like map control is underrated because defense is IMHO too strong against harass : it is too easy to shutdown harass now. I don't think buffing the harass unit is the answer : the Oracle was a unit that was insane at harassment but was useless once it was shut down. I think the kind of harassment that work the most is the harassment with non specialized units : compare repear, oracle play to terran drop, protoss dt/ht drop, muta play... What's the most fun ?
I really like the damage reduction from the colossus. I think Protoss gameplay could be changed a bit more allowing protoss unit to be less specialized and more versatile - less deathbally as possible. I dislike the adept for this reason and I think it serves too much as a harass focus oriented destined to do nothing in lategame (see repear, oracle...). I think the colossus nerf is good but I think the colossus should change it's course to something different - maybe deadlier but riskier ? Knowing that the new exploding Protoss unit is doing to do just that (forgot the name).
I like the direction of the Banshee which become less and less a specialized harass unit and more of an army composition unit. I think it makes it a really interesting option, and adds a lot of diversity. So about this new terran unit, I'm not sure... I think terran gameplay is one of the most versatile of the game right now and that terran doesn't specifically need units. I think some terran units could be reworked instead : the widow mine doesn't feel right as this time and it feels like it's either too strong or useless, the tank is a really cool designed unit but unfortunately not effective enough in tvz tvp, the ghost is only about countering templars which is quite sad since the unit is awesome. The rest of the terran arsenal is cool (maybe the hunter seeker could be removed for something less heavy like a shield ... And bring the irradiate back ?? ). Btw, I don't know much about the cyclone but I think a kindof goliathy unit would be fun to play with. And if it was the case, maybe we could tweak a bit the viking role ?
The zerg is taking really the right direction IMHO with the Ravager that might need to be tweaked down a bit. Zerg desperately needs some cost effective units to be feared and it's good to give zerg player the option in a matchup to viably diverse his/her composition in the matchup - I think the new units are going to achieve this role really well. Healthy early game with handfull of roach ravagers in TvZ could be fun, and it could give Z other option than zergling baneling mutas which feels too much limited. The new viper ability is awesome, and Lurker is a superfun unit, allowing a lot of positional play.
to sum up: we didn't make reapers OP enough in HOTS, so we're making it worse. We still refuse to admit how ridiculous cyclones are especially in the early game, so we're going to nerf it in a way that doesn't do anything to fix the early game, and we're going to let it be the same level of OP in the lategame. however, when zerg actually manages to win games early on, which we at blizzard believe just should be impossible, we sit bolt upright and take serious notice of that and immediately nerf whatever it was that allowed zerg to win those games.
Warp in time is a good change. I'd have liked to see them lower the damage a bit, maybe 150.
I don't get what all these mech buffs they are talking about. It's literally a unit (Cyclone) and an ability from the Medivac. That doesn't seem like a buff to me..
The whole reason people wanted mech upgrades combined was Vikings vs toss and tvt mech. That really doesn't change if you're making the cyclones ability a fusion core upgrade.
Moving the cyclones upgrade to Fusion Core seems stupid. But I'd like to see how it plays out with the new Terran air unit. Hopefully after that we can see where exactly Thors come into play in the new game and how to make them not suck.
Swarm Host.. I dunno. Seems like too much. Burrowed movement and flying locusts. Just seems like they are better served in making a whole new unit. It's basically a specialized Infestor now that can only spawn Marines. Which is cool, by all means, but it's not what the Swarm Host was meant to be.
Nope, unnecessary, forced onto the unit to give it *something*. Also it is another stupid activated ability, fuck up Protoss all you want but please keep your hands of the still RTS-worthy races with this bullshit.
Minerals
Amounts changed from 100%/50% to 100%/60%
Still worse of an economy than standard HotS economy and obviously DH economy. You're wasting your precious beta time by tweaking this.
Protoss
Warp-in duration reverted to Heart of the Swarm.
One of the more meaningful changes to make Protoss matchups enjoyable reverted for some dubious reasoning that producing units inside your opponents army should be rewarded.
Adept
Adept’s weapon’s damage point changed from .4 to default (0.167)
Exactly... to the default one. Speak, to the one that has been critizised all along. Way to go understanding what a responsive unit is blizzard but you are getting there.
Cyclone
Can no longer target air.
New upgrade: allows Cyclones to target air (fusion core requirement, researched from factory tech lab). 100/100 cost.
yeah, that's not really the problem with the cyclone. Keep guessing. Hint: high Hitpoints+ high damage + high range + high speed... guess how many other units feature all of those aspects...
Ravager
Weapon period changed from 0.8 to 1.6
Weapon range reduced from 6 to 4
Good start changing the ravager and you got the right idea saying "Roaches will be better units for cost efficiency, whereas Ravagers are meant to be built in strategic numbers when their ability can prove useful." Now their ability just has to be made useful for a 100/100 unit. Also: JUST REMOVE FORCEFIELD ALREADY
Swarm Host
Cost changed to 200/100/3
No longer requires to upgrade for flying locusts (flying locusts are enabled from the start)
Locust health down from 65 to 50
Swarm hosts can burrow move at 2 speed
Please remove that unit, thanks in advance for your understanding. This is beginning to become worse than the HotS beta Oracle/MsC debacle...
Those are some weird and cool ideas, however, some are "meh" IMO
Don't like the Reaper being a "Tychus 2.0" unit , may have some cool play, but - don't think that this game needs knockback TBH.. It's far too annoying to deal against and can cause more of rng/undesired effects rather than a good dynamic of the game IMO
Perhaps have an upgrade that makes them change the pistol ammo individually and have some of them deal more damage to armored and some of them keep as are vs light.. Maybe.. I just DK what do give to the unit (perhaps extra HP but don't like that cause of it potentially becomming a Marine 2.0).. Perhaps keep the Cyclone as is, and give the Anti-Air upgrade to the Reaper.. I just DK
For Ravage - sure feels fine to reduce the rate of fire, but - not sure about the range change though.. This way Ravagers are used from the back line and with 4 range they'd "mix" and "mess" up the frontline of the Roach comp.. Unless the idea is to encourage Ravagers to be used with something else (not Roaches) then it's fine, otherwise don't think that the range reduction is a good move overall
SwarmHost is totally the different direction of which I thought.. I mean - SH is "tricky" in terms of even though you have the Air Locusts upgrade you'd still want the ground locusts sometimes instead lol.. IDK - could be good at LotV, surely we need a separate ground and separate air launch on the SHosts in HotS however
Terran = new unit should be Air unit - couldn't agree more.. Mainly cause even now we can see the amount of Mech and Bio games are overwhelming whilest we almost never see sky Terran (unless played by Avilo )
Could be something that has a small range (almost melee) and has some AoE and then able to deploy on the Ground to deal sniping damage to a single target from afar, probably with bonus damage vs Armored.. That's not a bad idea overall
Protoss changes = although I hoped to see more diverse response, still reverting back the warp-in is the right move cause of PvP attacker's advantage being too strong and the fact that PvT vs bio is almost impossible to defend drops (other than with some Stasis-ward shenanigans overall).. Still - could experiment with something like - IDK - make Sentries and Adepts be built faster in regular Gateways or sth like that overall
Oh, and almost forgot - really - to avoid very unnecessary balancing head-aches - rework how the Nydus works.. Make it have 3 armor or something, perhaps make it unload 4 units right away when up but yeah - don't make those things invulnerable lol
Haha love all the comments before one game with this patch is even played haha!I really like it that blizzard don't immediately nerf everything into oblivion, but give the units and the economy time to develop.
I hope that with this patch the beta becomes more playable for protoss, and balance just enough to see more strategies pop up.
It would be cool to see a new Terran Starport harass unit, perhaps somewhat similar to the Wraith's capabilities in BW but with new design and slightly new purpose (harassment being a focus word in LotV). I was thinking, why not use our current military ideas, such as the Osprey (which transforms from helicopter to plane), and implement it into the future of the Starcraft.
For instance, it would be built like a helicopter (its main state), but it can transform on cooldown into a fast, jet-propelled plane in order to get out of tricky situations. This ability should have a straight trajectory without chance of deviation but incredibly quick transform-to-plane mode and incredibly fast speed. When coming out of the transformation, a cool animation could consist of the plane gliding into a stall, in which it transforms back into helicopter mode.
While in its main mode, it could be a fast-shooting but low damage harass unit that is good against all light and light-armored units . . . and I realize I'm just describing the new banshee. Never mind.
On April 28 2015 08:50 nickbradvica wrote: It would be cool to see a new Terran Starport harass unit, perhaps somewhat similar to the Wraith's capabilities in BW but with new design and slightly new purpose (harassment being a focus word in LotV).
But why would Terran need a new “harass unit”? Wasn't the Oracle fiasco enough? Terran has already Banshees and Medivac + anything (Marines, Marauders, Hellions, even the nonsensical Sieged Tank drop). You speak of Wraiths: imagine if Colossi were reworked to make sense, this would free Vikings from their anti-Colossi duty and allow a reduction in the transformation time, raising their currently laughable raiding potential while keeping them useful in battles (unlike Oracles).
its so weird how blizzard want to mech mech viable but wants air to like hard counter it..... how about instead of unit X can't shoot up until a special upgrade... its special ability is upgradable after the armory.....
Nope, unnecessary, forced onto the unit to give it *something*. Also it is another stupid activated ability, fuck up Protoss all you want but please keep your hands of the still RTS-worthy races with this bullshit.
One of the more meaningful changes to make Protoss matchups enjoyable reverted for some dubious reasoning that producing units inside your opponents army should be rewarded.
Adept’s weapon’s damage point changed from .4 to default (0.167)
Exactly... to the default one. Speak, to the one that has been critizised all along. Way to go understanding what a responsive unit is blizzard but you are getting there.
New upgrade: allows Cyclones to target air (fusion core requirement, researched from factory tech lab). 100/100 cost.
yeah, that's not really the problem with the cyclone. Keep guessing. Hint: high Hitpoints+ high damage + high range + high speed... guess how many other units feature all of those aspects...
Good start changing the ravager and you got the right idea saying "Roaches will be better units for cost efficiency, whereas Ravagers are meant to be built in strategic numbers when their ability can prove useful." Now their ability just has to be made useful for a 100/100 unit. Also: JUST REMOVE FORCEFIELD ALREADY
No longer requires to upgrade for flying locusts (flying locusts are enabled from the start)
Locust health down from 65 to 50
Swarm hosts can burrow move at 2 speed
Please remove that unit, thanks in advance for your understanding. This is beginning to become worse than the HotS beta Oracle/MsC debacle...
Agree with this completely. It seems they are stuck in the same mind frame from HOTS. Abilities galore, forcing their ideas in spite of better ones being suggested, transforming mech in to mobile kiting blob, etc. It's just hopeless.
can someone explain in very simple terms about the Double harvest thing vs the current one? hard to keep up with all these tldr threads with graphs etc etc. lol
On April 28 2015 09:35 shin_toss wrote: can someone explain in very simple terms about the Double harvest thing vs the current one? hard to keep up with all these tldr threads with graphs etc etc. lol
It's a system designed to break 16 workers on 1 base = 16 workers on 2 bases so that we no longer have 48 workers on 3 bases = 48 on 4 = 48 on 5.
Reaper Interesting stuff that you might as well try out.
Minerals I dont mind them thoroughly testing their economy before testing the no harvester pairing thing but honestly I will be surprised if they do.-edit- I actually do mind them testing their thing. the worker pairing thing worked i broodwar and I see no reason for it not working now.
Protoss Baaahhh the more nerfs to warpgate the better..
Adept The fact that the Adept was released with damage point .4 to begin with speaks loads of the effort blizzard put in to it... And as long as it is warpable it will never be strong enough to add anything.
Cyclone BAAADDD CHANGEEEEE Having the Cyclone as an alternative to Thors for AA with mech was the only good thing the cyclone brought.... If this is the direction they are looking with it I rather see them remove it.
Ravager I wouldnt mind if they removed the ravagers normal attack altogether.
Swarm Host Just remove this piece of shit unit.
I could go on harping about stuff like space control and shit but everyone already knows about that.. From the changes I have seen so far I just have to accept that blizzard is never going to make starcraft multiplayer as good as I think it could be.. When I buy lotv it will be solely for the singleplayer.
Reaper/Warp-in changes are good for hopefully obvious reasons.
I'm sad they aren't trying the mineral changes. We're approaching the optimal time to resume experimenting with new fundamentals rather than tweaks on existing stuff. I don't think this will end up working, although I'm fine with them trying it out more first.
Adept/Ravager changes are boring. Cyclone/SH seems wrong.
Lol, who in the fuck balances this game? Some of the changes sound quite good, like the cyclone change, until the next line. The ravager changes sound great, honestly. I think it may do an adequate job of fixing the unit. The SH changes......? seriously man? lmao wtf
Warp-In change reversion is bad, it was a good thing that warping-in was requiring more thought and was less of a kneejerk anti-harass tool. On that note I can't see them trying the DH model if a much-requested change to warp-in causes so much outcry that they don't even go through with it, makes me feel any fundamental changes are hopeless at this point.
Mineral change - aka they won't bother trying the TL eco but here's something to sweeten the blow.
Reaper grenade sounds good, Cyclone should just be gone, SH changes are wtf? Their direction with the Ravager sounds awful, just mellowing the unit because it's too strong for timing attacks? Would've preferred Lair tech...
I think that these changes are good overall. Although I will admit I am a little sad to see the power of both the ravager and the cyclone disappear.
The best change is by far the adept in my opinion. Every time I used them they felt so clunky and unresponsive, which is the opposite of what you want while doing a micro heavy harass.
I think one big thing people need to remember is that because this is the early stage of such an extended beta we are a part of finding a unit's identity. We are seeing a stage of development that we are not used to from Blizzard and should be ready for out units to change iterations once or twice, and I'm sure many mistakes will be made.
Waited 4-5 years for a mech unit that can shoot up. Tries to tell blizzard reason mech is not viable is because we have no unit that can shoot up.
What does blizzard do? Remove the capability of the new mech unit to shoot up.
Community wants economy changes that will improve SC2, at least to be tested. What do we get? No real changes, blizzard being stubborn and does a change so negligible that we all are like..."come on man..."
Swarmhosts ruin SC2 gameplay for 1 yr+. Blizzard wants to "buff swarmhosts and make them more accessible."
Disruptor is boring, dont let it make it to the LotV Blizz, a pair of balls that move slow and explode. Please, give us something Warhammer 40K style, not Mario brothers style. I wont use the disruptor, what for ? For more worker killing (primary function of SC2 these days).
Protoss wants something ALOT cooler.
Otherwise good to see Blizz moving in the right direction, kudos for that !
Also, with the push to expand more, will mean Terran drops will be harder to deal with. So how are the other races supposed to deal with the increased strength of already very strong boost medivacs ? Adepts and Ravagers ? Really ? I would like to hear a solid explanation.
Would also like to see Templar openings not nerfed to non-exsistence. The restriction of tech paths (ie. OP widow mine) to protoss , does not improve this RTS, it limits options and makes the game more one dimensional. More options not less.
Why does NOBODY, talk about DOUBLE HARVEST. Blizzard, please just add DOUBLE HARVEST.
Because it makes sense... plain and simple. It makes a lot of sense that if you take the risk to expand you should be REWARDED for it... Right? Am I crazy for thinking this?
I watched the games between Parting and Scarlett, and even though Scarlett lost it didn't look like the slaughter it normally does for late game without old swarm hosts (and it was still a slaughter, yes I realize it was Parting).
We have been trying "unit buff/nerf" for the entire lifetime of the games... and it hasn't really worked.
Adding double harvest isn't some "buff", it's about fixing a part of the game that is broken... Blizzard are you going to tell me you intended the economy to work like that????? This is just plain reasonable and will be good for the game.
On April 28 2015 12:16 ShambhalaWar wrote: Why does NOBODY, talk about DOUBLE HARVEST. Blizzard, please just add DOUBLE HARVEST.
Because it makes sense... plain and simple. It makes a lot of sense that if you take the risk to expand you should be REWARDED for it... Right? Am I crazy for thinking this?
I watched the games between Parting and Scarlett, and even though Scarlett lost it didn't look like the slaughter it normally does for late game without old swarm hosts (and it was still a slaughter, yes I realize it was Parting).
We have been trying "unit buff/nerf" for the entire lifetime of the games... and it hasn't really worked.
Adding double harvest isn't some "buff", it's about fixing a part of the game that is broken... Blizzard are you going to tell me you intended the economy to work like that????? This is just plain reasonable and will be good for the game.
Those Scarlett vs Parting games to me seemed to show that there has to be a lot of tweeking done to the double harvest before it can be implimented. Not that the current LotV doesn't also need tweeking, but double harvest simply didn't provide enough incentive to expand past the normal 3-4 bases because it became far too difficult to defend.
On April 28 2015 12:16 ShambhalaWar wrote: Why does NOBODY, talk about DOUBLE HARVEST. Blizzard, please just add DOUBLE HARVEST.
Because it makes sense... plain and simple. It makes a lot of sense that if you take the risk to expand you should be REWARDED for it... Right? Am I crazy for thinking this?
I watched the games between Parting and Scarlett, and even though Scarlett lost it didn't look like the slaughter it normally does for late game without old swarm hosts (and it was still a slaughter, yes I realize it was Parting).
We have been trying "unit buff/nerf" for the entire lifetime of the games... and it hasn't really worked.
Adding double harvest isn't some "buff", it's about fixing a part of the game that is broken... Blizzard are you going to tell me you intended the economy to work like that????? This is just plain reasonable and will be good for the game.
Don't seem that different from normal games.
BTW I like that they are moving the ravager to more of a specialized unit. Their actual combat power should be nerfed. I don't care about the reaper change. The cyclone change is needed but I think there should be more. I am patient enough to watch how things turn out without acting all-knowing about everything like some people like to do:D
On April 28 2015 04:42 FeyFey wrote: Can't wait to play this new Moba :3 . When I read what they are experimenting with as a new unit I thought they were talking about giving the Scout to Terran. Though I wouldn't mind a high attack speed mech unit, but they just have to remove the armored tag from the ground mode Viking and they got an awesome unit.
I miss the old WoL beta vikings with a couple of extra points of ground damage... Scrap Station 1 base mass viking TvZ into killing all overlords then landing 20 vikings and killing their base )))))))))
On April 28 2015 10:56 Espers wrote: Warp-In change reversion is bad, it was a good thing that warping-in was requiring more thought and was less of a kneejerk anti-harass tool. On that note I can't see them trying the DH model if a much-requested change to warp-in causes so much outcry that they don't even go through with it, makes me feel any fundamental changes are hopeless at this point.
Mineral change - aka they won't bother trying the TL eco but here's something to sweeten the blow.
Reaper grenade sounds good, Cyclone should just be gone, SH changes are wtf? Their direction with the Ravager sounds awful, just mellowing the unit because it's too strong for timing attacks? Would've preferred Lair tech...
They kept the extra damage to warping in units. Damage + increased time was really bad and hurt Protoss way too much.
wasnt the point of adding the cyclone to add a none shitty AA mech unit, the thor is slow and clunky and the cyclone is quick i dont get why they would take away air or make it so far away. i get ppl think its OP but come on LOL.
On April 28 2015 06:45 HellHound wrote: Every Lotv update makes me hate it more lol
Yeah I've kind of given up hope tbh
wow im glad im not the only one. I love sc2 its a great game (idea) but what blizzard has done or i should say hasnt done(listen to good ideas) and being stubborn(swarmhost) makes me sad, and when i read each update im falling less in love with the game more and more.
Nope, unnecessary, forced onto the unit to give it *something*. Also it is another stupid activated ability, !@#$%^&* up Protoss all you want but please keep your hands of the still RTS-worthy races with this bullshit.
If the ability results in forcing the opponent to split/dodge, it adds more micro to the game which is good. Don't understand how you can be negative of this is an advantage. You can only have so much of the classical RTS-micro, (focus fire --> pull away, moving shot) before it gets repetitive. Having well-designed skillshots adds an extra element to the game.
In my opinion, I liked that Cyclone could help against early Oracles.
I would rather just see that the Cyclone has a range upgrade at the tech lab on a factory, or a range upgrade that extends how the unit can lock on. Without the upgrade, units that run from the Cyclone lock on might be able to get away unless the Cyclone explicitly chases them. This could lead to more interesting micro situations (micro away the locked on unit, if Cyclone chases, the zealots/stalkers can fire at it, etc.).
Don't tamper with it's anti-air. Although I guess this helps against it's ability to clear ovie scouts.
I'd also LOVE to see an upgrade that reduces the amount of time it takes a hellion/helbat and viking to transform into one mode from another. It would be sick to see vikings be able to land quickly and get back up quickly in a harass mode.
Finally, is there any reason they aren't offsetting the reduced minerals on some patches with extra minerals on others? Why not make it 2100 / 900 alterations so it still adds up to 3,000 total?
At this point I think anything is more interesting than the current swarm host... Make Swarm Host spawn larvae, larvae can make any units except drones. Units cost the same money. (No more free units YAY!) You can use queen to inject swarm host every 60secs. (Up larvae count from the usual 2 larvae per swarm host)
Hive Upgrade, Flying Larvae. 200/200/100 You can now launch flying larvae over a great distance.
On April 28 2015 15:41 Highways wrote: They need to make warp-ins be based off distance from the nexus. The further away from a nexus, the longer it takes.
So it helps with defence, but nerf the warp-in allin builds.
They already mentioned they dislike the fact protoss can just warp in instant defense vs harass. This would not help accomplish that.
I'd also LOVE to see an upgrade that reduces the amount of time it takes a hellion/helbat and viking to transform into one mode from another. It would be sick to see vikings be able to land quickly and get back up quickly in a harass mode.
I think Vikings could just get much faster transfomation for free (no upgrade needed).
For Hellion/hellbats, the damage of the latter vs light must be reduced. Otherwise there is no reward of Speedlings surrounding Hellions, and I actually prefer the role of Hellbats being better vs armored than light.
Imagine the following microinteraction:
--> You run up to an enemy armored unit with the Hellion --> Transform into Hellbat --> Kills the enemy armored unit if it isn't microed --> If the enemy is skilled, he micro's it back. --> Hellbats are re-transformed into Hellions and chases the enemy armored unit once again... etc.
oh no zerg has a strong new unit that's also pretty fun to use, better make it useless. Maybe tone it down slowely like they seem to do with the cyclone? Anyway if they want to make it useless in direct combat they better give some huge buff to it's ability
On April 28 2015 16:29 mCon.Hephaistas wrote: oh no zerg has a strong new unit that's also pretty fun to use, better make it useless. Maybe tone it down slowely like they seem to do with the cyclone? Anyway if they want to make it useless in direct combat they better give some huge buff to it's ability
Nope, better make it useless so people tests the new dumb Swarm Host instead...
Biggest problem with ability on Reaper is actually that it forces another control group as you can't stim and use its ability at the same time. Thus, tbh I would just give both Ghost and Reaper stim and balance the gameplay around this. I hate the whole 1a2a3a4a-concept. Micro should mainly be about how you move your units around and not about forcing players to press the most amount of buttons BEFORE they can micro.
On April 28 2015 10:45 -Kyo- wrote: Lol, who in the fuck balances this game? Some of the changes sound quite good, like the cyclone change, until the next line. The ravager changes sound great, honestly. I think it may do an adequate job of fixing the unit. The SH changes......? seriously man? lmao wtf
Its not only about balance. Its about fun, unit design and game flow. WoL and HotS failed at everything very hard except balance for me (design: hardcounter, 2sec fights etc, fun; basically 90% of all units are pretty boring to play).
I think ravagers ability should have a much lower range. This would still make it very good vs FF but would require it be more vulnerable when pushing defensive positions. It would still be usable in combat but not as easily if ravagers are out of position.
As a mule dropping terran I mine out the far patches WAY too fast. I think the split should be top/bottom patches instead of near/far. (For those that don't know, dropping a mule on a close patch will cause it to mine one additional trip but expire before returning. This results in LOST minerals unless micro is used to manually stop the mining - or just dropping on far patches.)
On April 28 2015 17:47 Hider wrote: Biggest problem with ability on Reaper is actually that it forces another control group as you can't stim and use its ability at the same time. Thus, tbh I would just give both Ghost and Reaper stim and balance the gameplay around this. I hate the whole 1a2a3a4a-concept. Micro should mainly be about how you move your units around and not about forcing players to press the most amount of buttons BEFORE they can micro.
I couldn't agree more! I'm all for having a few cool abilities that work into micro (blink, stim, burrow, cloak, boost, charge if it wasn't auto cast etc) but otherwise I do wish Blizzard took a long look at unit movement (NOT JUST SPEED) and positioning. I think the fact that they're actually addressing the damage point of a unit is AWESOME! (Seriously, the Adept patch note might be the most promising sign I've ever seen from Blizzard.)
However, I do think that in this particular case it's okay. I don't think this will result in the reaper being used past the early game anyway (it's role as a scout/harassment unit won't change - unless I really underestimate this ability, will have to test).
On April 28 2015 17:47 Hider wrote: Biggest problem with ability on Reaper is actually that it forces another control group as you can't stim and use its ability at the same time. Thus, tbh I would just give both Ghost and Reaper stim and balance the gameplay around this. I hate the whole 1a2a3a4a-concept. Micro should mainly be about how you move your units around and not about forcing players to press the most amount of buttons BEFORE they can micro.
So basically you want super fast 1a bio deathball?
I'd hate to be SC designer. Everyone wants to change something in the game but everyone wants different things and in the best case scenario they playtested that supposed change for a couple of hours. I wonder how much people demanding DH actually watched Scarlett vs Parting showmatch to see possible problems with that economy.
So basically you want super fast 1a bio deathball?
I prefer 1a over 1a2a3a ceteris paribus. Marine/Maurauder/Medivac functions great because its relatively easy to learn but has an insanely high skillcap. However, forcing the whole "1a2a3a"-concept is just annoying and has a limited skillcap.
I am sure that every terran player in the world also hates mixing in Ravens in TvT with their Marine/Tank as it takes priority over Siege/Stim. I fear that the same thing will happen to the Reaper (FYI: Easy fix, reduce subgroup priority of Raven please).
I think the fact that they're actually addressing the damage point of a unit is AWESOME! (Seriously, the Adept patch note might be the most promising sign I've ever seen from Blizzard.)
I don't agree that they are really adressing it though. They are merely putting it back to default of 0.167. IMO the default should be at the level of Marine/Maurauder (0-0.05). I don't see any unintended consequences of giving the Adept a DP 0.
However, I do think that in this particular case it's okay. I don't think this will result in the reaper being used past the early game anyway (it's role as a scout/harassment unit won't change - unless I really underestimate this ability, will have to test).
I would have thought the main reason the Reaper needed an ability was to give it utility besides the very early game.
On April 28 2015 03:11 Yonnua wrote: The grenade sounds interesting. If the damage isn't too high and the pushback effects friendly units, could it be used to help with quick marine splits?
that would be interesting
Couldn't this be to strong against banes? (or will perhaps fill the exact same role as marauder slow?) But a more diverse bio-army would be nice =)
Should reapers have to "modes"? One regular (like the one they have now for worker harass) and a push-back mode with less dmg for army engagements?
I'd also LOVE to see an upgrade that reduces the amount of time it takes a hellion/helbat and viking to transform into one mode from another. It would be sick to see vikings be able to land quickly and get back up quickly in a harass mode.
I think Vikings could just get much faster transfomation for free (no upgrade needed).
For Hellion/hellbats, the damage of the latter vs light must be reduced. Otherwise there is no reward of Speedlings surrounding Hellions, and I actually prefer the role of Hellbats being better vs armored than light.
Imagine the following microinteraction:
--> You run up to an enemy armored unit with the Hellion --> Transform into Hellbat --> Kills the enemy armored unit if it isn't microed --> If the enemy is skilled, he micro's back. --> Hellbats are re-transformed into Hellions and chases the enemy armored unit once again... etc.
All this sounds really nice to me. Vikings in general feel like a missed opportunity to me, it's like... its landed form is almost so bad that it's like giving your opponent minerals via direct transfer, and then it's gonna take forever to transform back...
Wish they would shorten its range, make it waaaaaay more maneuverable and maybe remove the armored tag when its landed. Could give it a fusion core upgrade that extends the range back up for later in the game.
Nope, unnecessary, forced onto the unit to give it *something*. Also it is another stupid activated ability, !@#$%^&* up Protoss all you want but please keep your hands of the still RTS-worthy races with this bullshit.
If the ability results in forcing the opponent to split/dodge, it adds more micro to the game which is good. Don't understand how you can be negative of this is an advantage. You can only have so much of the classical RTS-micro, (focus fire --> pull away, moving shot) before it gets repetitive. Having well-designed skillshots adds an extra element to the game.
I have no clue what this ability should do on the reaper. It's going to knock my workers and units around and possibly cancel out the orders i have given them and encourage players to cheese with reapers early in the game.
Vikings in general feel like a missed opportunity to me, it's like... its landed form is almost so bad that it's like giving your opponent minerals via direct transfer, and then it's gonna take forever to transform back...
Wish they would shorten its range, make it waaaaaay more maneuverable and maybe remove the armored tag when its landed. Could give it a fusion core upgrade that extends the range back up for later in the game.
The whole transformation aspect feels like it could have been so awesome if properly executed. It could have taken mech from just being a move + Siege up to having a completetely unique form of micro if you were rewarded for transforming back and fourth more frequently.
Wish they would shorten its range, make it waaaaaay more maneuverable and maybe remove the armored tag when its landed.
Actually to make it synergize a bit with the Hellion/Hellbat-proposal above, I created an Sc2-based mod where I gave the Viking almost the reverse stats. (That's however in the context of some changes in unit-roles that functions like this: Thor AA vs armored = Goliath, Viking = Valkyrie/Wraith. Thors anti-light mode = Irradiate/Valkyrie.)
Viking changes - Viking air mode = Faster, moving shot and lower range - Very fast transform - Viking ground mode = 1.8 movement speed, 90 HP and 10 range.
Ground-Viking effect on micro interaction --> Imagine you have 5 Hellions and 2 Vikings vs 6 Stalkers --> The hellions move into the Stalkers, transform and the protoss player micros the Stalker away --> Your Vikings synergize here as they can deal damage while the Stalkers are trying to dodge damage from Hellbats. --> If the toss is good, he won't just kite away from the Hellbats, but will attempt to move around the Hellbats in a circle and focus fire the Vikings (since they are slow and have low HP).
The terran player can counter-counter micro against that in two ways:
(1) Retransform into Hellions and block the path of the Stalkers (so they can't reach the Vikings) (2) Kite back with Vikings and (3) Transform into Air to fly away quickly (since they are faster).
Summary There is no right or wrong way to solve the transformation thing, but imo transformations should in general be faster, and the two modes should have very different advantages and disadvantages. In my opinion, it makes the mose sense that Vikings are fast in air, so they can help vs Mutas and the Thor works more like the Goliath but can transform into splash mode to assist Vikings vs large groups of Mutas. The Viking in ground mode has high range + slow/fragile, which will make them synergize well with Hellion/Hellbat harass.
On April 28 2015 16:08 Hider wrote: For Hellion/hellbats, the damage of the latter vs light must be reduced. Otherwise there is no reward of Speedlings surrounding Hellions, and I actually prefer the role of Hellbats being better vs armored than light.
Mech TvT already has mass Hellbats in Medivacs, even versus Tanks, and there will be more of it. So, no.
Mech TvT already has mass Hellbats in Medivacs, even versus Tanks, and there will be more of it. So, no.
Hellbat Medivac interaction is the only good part about the Hellbat since it actually rewards a lot of micro for both players. Otherwise its simply a boring amove unit. With the suggestion I propse, this interaction can now be created without the presence of the Medivac and in all matchups.
Im not a fan of splitting air/ground upgrades. If you want to go a air/mech mix u have to build 3-4 armorys, even with that you cant keep up with chrono boost and both is really gas heavy. I still dont get the Cyclone, he becames totally useless in late game. Why we cant remove the Cyclone and get a ground Mech unit that is good vs Massive Air (Carrier etc.)? If you opponent choose to make a Massive Air composition you can only build Vikings,Vikings and more Vikings. There is not a single alternative for Mech players and now the Vikings will have no upgrades -_-! I´m a Terran and i hate the Cyclone really!
Hm I think they should not have nerfed the range on the ravager or just make it lair tech and hydras hatch tech (hydra upgrades still lair tech).
Now it's really too expensive if you compare it to roaches, it has less health, less armor, same range, a little bit more damage, is more clunky and costs 1 supply and 25/75 more. It really is only good for the ability now, but will be useless in direct engagements since it simply dies way too fast if it has to get that close. Seems that's what they want though and we'll have to test it I guess.
On April 28 2015 20:32 Lomo wrote: Im not a fan of splitting air/ground upgrades. If you want to go a air/mech mix u have to build 3-4 armorys, even with that you cant keep up with chrono boost and both is really gas heavy. I still dont get the Cyclone, he becames totally useless in late game. Why we cant remove the Cyclone and get a ground Mech unit that is good vs Massive Air (Carrier etc.)? If you opponent choose to make a Massive Air composition you can only build Vikings,Vikings and more Vikings. There is not a single alternative for Mech players and now the Vikings will have no upgrades -_-! I´m a Terran and i hate the Cyclone really!
Uh, Cyclones are completely broken en masse, I don't see how they are becoming useless in the late game. The AA attack isn't gone, it just requires an upgrade that you will have in the late game and Cyclones are probably among the strongest units in the game when massed.
Right now air and ground mech upgrades being the same is really dumb and should be split again. Vikings will have upgrades if you upgrade them, they shouldn't be at 3-3 by default because you were upgrading ground mech, what a non-sense...
It worked in the past because mech wasn't as strong and buffs were somewhat needed, but right now when mech is probably the strongest option that Terran has these combined upgrades create a bunch of problems for all races.
Right now air and ground mech upgrades being the same is really dumb and should be split again. Vikings will have upgrades if you upgrade them, they shouldn't be at 3-3 by default because you were upgrading ground mech, what a non-sense...
Disagree. I think designing the game around combined upgrades is ideal as it makes it easier to create synergy between air and ground-mech.
In terms of balance, I don't think it results in any serious unintended consequences that cannot easily be adressed by unit changes.
I hope there's some sort of drawback to this, but I guess we have to wait to see what damage/aoe the grenade does. Reapers were certainly nerfed by proxy in LOTV because of how the economy works - harrassment units aren't as effective anymore. However, this might be a bit too powerful by the sound of it - again I guess we'll have to wait and see if there's any drawback to the ability or if reapers cost will be modified, or if it's something you'll need to upgrade and how much damage / aoe if any it does.
Mineral amounts changed from 100%/50% to 100%/60%
Dumb. Change economy to the TL proposed Econ Mod, it'd fix most related problems imo, speed up the game, encourage expansions, discourage turtle play. The problem I have with this change is even on 3 base T and P can turtle to a high enough supply of a deathball to move out and take a 4th while being cost efficient, it's just not the right direction, the 10% bonus difference will only push things further into the direction we know no one wants. Especially with how strong the lategame units are atm (Ultras, Carriers, teleporting BC's, uncatchable banshees). Now don't get me wrong, the Economy in LOTV is much better than in HotS, the game is faster paced and better, but this change won't help that, and the TL proposed Econ Mod is in my opinion the best solution anyway, would be nice to at least hear why that's not an option, if that's the case.
Protoss: Warp-in duration reverted to Heart of the Swarm.
That's cool, almost irrelevant - This patch is good for Protoss however - as both the cyclone and ravager got nerfed, those are the early/mid game units that Z and T got in LOTV - Protoss got a harrassing unit (Adept) which was hardly comparable or as impactful. However, with the cyclone change P will likely be locked into stargate openers in PvT - With the ravager change Protoss won't have to worry as much about well the ravager - regardless super fast burrow roaches are still a huge problem for P vs Z in the mid game, and the new SH will be insane vs P for a while too, so I think Z is still favored in the matchup - And PvT might be a bit too one-dimensional when it comes to openers + the cyclone is still too good on the ground so im sure we'll see marine cyclone timings and things like that a lot. So... I guess for P, and speaking for P alone, it's a step in the right direction when it comes to balance, but not necessarily when it comes to design. I'd propose the Disruptor to cost something like 50/50 more and not require a Robotics bay as a simpler more fun way to approach the problems P has in the mid game.
Adept Adept’s weapon’s damage point changed from .4 to default (0.167)
cool
Cyclone Can no longer target air. New upgrade: allows Cyclones to target air
Still too good of a unit imo, but a step in the right direction
Ravager - Weapon period changed from 0.8 to 1.6. Weapon range reduced from 6 to 4
I would be ok with ONE of these 2 nerfs, corrosive bile isn't a reliable spell, it's more of a zoning tool than anything else, and it can be really powerful during fights but it can also end up doing not much - if the intention was to nerf early Ravager all-ins they could've just nerfed corrossive bile to not have such a fast cooldown, or/and one of the changes they made OR they could've just made it so that ravagers require a lair... and then like MAGIC the early game all-in is gone, MAGIC I tell you.
With both changes implemented the ravager is a MUCH more expensive version of a WORSE roach with corrosive bile, also costs 1 additional supply and has 1 less armor (big deal). The Ravager can only now be cost efficient against large armies basically - problem with that of course is even the old ravager wasn't particularly cost efficient against large T and P armies, so I guess we'll see it sprinkled in ZvZ for the most part, but that's about it - this change really bothers me. Without a doubt the Ravager was too strong, but this is just too big of a nerf. The reasoning for these changes is really terrible as well.. "we want to see more units used?" well gj, I guess that's certainly happening.
Swarm Host Cost changed to 200/100/3. No longer requires to upgrade for flying locusts Locust health down from 65 to 50. Swarm hosts can burrow move at 2 speed
Cost change makes sense, 4 supply for a sh was too much. However, not requiring upgrade for flying locusts is crazy. The problem with units like this is: it requires very little effort, it will be very frustrating for P to play against. I've always said I hate units where the micro potential is entirely on one side and swarmhosts are not even that, as there isn't a lot of micro, just positioning, if you can get into the right position as zerg, it devastates, completely.
The drawback of getting swarm hosts is they are not great defensively because of the long locust cooldown, so if it's an even game / P was going for an all in and you were going straight for sh, you could die. however this punishes macro protoss a bit too hard I think. Swarmhosts are gonna be too "swingy" of units and it'll be very hard to punish them with Micro or by outplaying your opponent. There are things P will learn to do like leave spotting zealots / observers similar to what they would do on TvP to spot drops incoming. That's where the swingy bit happens - Either the swarmhosts will get ambushed and put the zerg in a rough spot in the game, or they will kill a nexus for free and pretty much win zerg the game because.. yeah well killing a nexus for free is pretty good. Either way, I know i'll play a lot with SH, they're actually fun to use - just not sure if the free flying upgrade was the best way to go about it, the supply, yes that was good. The movement while burrowed? while I don't think it'll have a big impact at all in most games, it might be cute and make for more 'hype' plays from time to time, so that's fine, but by no means a big deal/buff. The Free upgrade to flying locusts? way too much in my opinion, way too good. why not just 1 buff or 1 nerf at a time anyway?
My head is currently filled with a ton more opinions on the changes, but im honestly bored of writing so i'll cut it "short". I am glad that Blizzard is willing to make changes, but I personally don't agree with most of these - There's a Player/Blizzard chat on skype with lots of ideas being thrown around by players all the time - Personally I feel like I've been wasting my breath as most of it seems to gets ignored - This is of course no one's fault, Blizzard representatives in the chat are not necessarily game developers, they are community managers and what that means is they are a bridge that tries as best as they can to convey our opinions to the Balance/Game Developers who we never hear back from, so we're waiting like everyone else to see what they come up with.
Please Blizzard: Open more lines of communications between developers and professional gamers and personalities - Open discussions private or public where we can work together to create a better final product with less bumps down the road, not just talking about balance, but the game in general. Atm to me it mostly feels "this is what david and his friends came up with, have fun" and it's really frustrating, can we know why there will or won't be skins? is there anything the community can do to help? - there are plenty of people who understand this game deeply and have ideas that could help out a lot when it comes to balance and design - and if our ideas are too ambitious, if there isn't enough budget to execute them, if there are other reasons for which you chose to ignore them, at least it would be nice to know the reasoning behind it. It's frustrating and discouraging as hell to waste breath and continue to write 8000 word essays for absolutely nothing. To read things like:
"While we don’t know with 100% certainty that this is actually a problem, we decided to tone down the Ravager anyway so that we can see more units being used on the Zerg side"
On April 28 2015 20:52 Ramiz1989 wrote: @Big J I was talking to him and he posted another one with fixes because he didn't know that Swarm Hosts is changed to 200/100 instead of 100/200.
On April 28 2015 20:40 Ramiz1989 wrote: Right now air and ground mech upgrades being the same is really dumb and should be split again. Vikings will have upgrades if you upgrade them, they shouldn't be at 3-3 by default because you were upgrading ground mech, what a non-sense...
Yep. Consequence of (1) Blizzard refusing to understand what mech is (not lategame air transitions, but a midgame style based around the Tank) and (2) SC2's hyper-development quartering Terran's SC1 model. Hence why Terran loses upgrades upon upgrades over time (Siege Mode, Moebius Reactor, Transformation Servos, air upgrades, etc.).
Ironically, we'll probably get separate upgrades again... for bad reasons, because they're apparently into the ridiculous project of promoting the nonsense that is “skyterran”.
Nope, unnecessary, forced onto the unit to give it *something*. Also it is another stupid activated ability, !@#$%^&* up Protoss all you want but please keep your hands of the still RTS-worthy races with this bullshit.
If the ability results in forcing the opponent to split/dodge, it adds more micro to the game which is good. Don't understand how you can be negative of this is an advantage. You can only have so much of the classical RTS-micro, (focus fire --> pull away, moving shot) before it gets repetitive. Having well-designed skillshots adds an extra element to the game.
I have no clue what this ability should do on the reaper. It's going to knock my workers and units around and possibly cancel out the orders i have given them and encourage players to cheese with reapers early in the game.
Yeh maybe. Knock-up wouldn't be the first idea for an AOE-abilty on my list, but I definitely think the Reaper needs something for the mid and late game. Some times I think Blizzard is too hesistant to use concepts from other races and reapply it (with tweaked stats).
For instance I would like to see more of these types of abilites: - Slow moving projectile that when it lands deals damage over time (concept = Fungal growth, excl. root-effect) - AOE ability that deals damage over time to all units inside it (concept = Psi Storm) - AOE skillshot with marker on ground (concept = Ravager).
I think one of those concepts could be heavily modified and reapplied to several of the current abilites in the game (incl the Reaper). Knock-up is probably the thing that might look visually cool, but doesn't change its interactions. But lets wait and see before drawing too strong conclusions.
Lets remove the cyclone, lets remove the Swarmhost, lets remove the disruptor, ravagers sucks ( not zergy enough) No economic changes needed, no new units needed, we should even remove half of them to make the game feel more like BW. It would be nice to pay 40 euro for a patch.
On April 28 2015 03:11 -NegativeZero- wrote: no change to worker pairing? blizz i am disappoint
They don't have the technology to implement it. Maybe it will be possible in a few years.
They don't have the tech? LMAO LOL
Of course they have. Is a very simple AI tweak. Changing how do workers manage automining orders.
It was just a dank blizzard meme, buddy. Though the reality is just as absurd as the joke.
On April 28 2015 22:19 polpot wrote: Lets remove the cyclone, lets remove the Swarmhost, lets remove the disruptor, ravagers sucks ( not zergy enough) No economic changes needed, no new units needed, we should even remove half of them to make the game feel more like BW. It would be nice to pay 40 euro for a patch.
Whooosh, good thing I'm a cd-key guy now! I'll probably save 10 euros on that deal!
I don't find the current economy terrible, I look forward to experimenting with the 10% difference. Right now it seems like once you get to mid/late game, the current model becomes a race to expand/deny, and the game is solely based on that, at least from my experience. It's pretty action packed and can be quite fun, but it doesn't really feel like -Starcraft- more like some macro trainer UMS.
Edit - How long was it before the patch went live last time? Was it the same Tuesday or the Tuesday after?
Aye I've only played maybe 15 games of LotV but I like the economy. The first phase is pretty much about denying harassment on your 3 bases then after that phase it ramps into "I need 3 new bases" and the game changes from being everywhere on the map harassing every base you can find. I've actually enjoyed it.
On April 28 2015 22:43 Tenks wrote: Aye I've only played maybe 15 games of LotV but I like the economy. The first phase is pretty much about denying harassment on your 3 bases then after that phase it ramps into "I need 3 new bases" and the game changes from being everywhere on the map harassing every base you can find. I've actually enjoyed it.
Generally it seems that most people who play LOTV like the econ, and most people who hasn't, dislikes it.
On April 28 2015 22:43 Tenks wrote: Aye I've only played maybe 15 games of LotV but I like the economy. The first phase is pretty much about denying harassment on your 3 bases then after that phase it ramps into "I need 3 new bases" and the game changes from being everywhere on the map harassing every base you can find. I've actually enjoyed it.
Generally it seems that most people who play LOTV like the econ, and most people who hasn't, dislikes it.
It's definitely fun, feels more like a map control game than an army game... if that makes sense.
Edit. I played a 50 minute (Real Time obv) PvZ Yesterday, every base was taken, got to the point where we were stealing each others bases to try and keep our economies going. kind of reminded me of a fast paced settlers of catan or risk, rather than a deathball vs deathball.
With that said about the eco I'd still like them to just try out DH for a few patches. Just throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. Modifying patches from 50% to 60% is not the answer. Either have the frantic expansion pace we currently have or go a different direction, IMO.
On April 28 2015 22:43 Tenks wrote: Aye I've only played maybe 15 games of LotV but I like the economy. The first phase is pretty much about denying harassment on your 3 bases then after that phase it ramps into "I need 3 new bases" and the game changes from being everywhere on the map harassing every base you can find. I've actually enjoyed it.
Generally it seems that most people who play LOTV like the econ, and most people who hasn't, dislikes it.
Edit. I played a 50 minute (Real Time obv) PvZ Yesterday, every base was taken, got to the point where we were stealing each others bases to try and keep our economies going. kind of reminded me of a fast paced settlers of catan or risk, rather than a deathball vs deathball.
This is what I really like about LotV even if I feel the game -- in it's current state -- is not as fun as HotS. I'm very, very rarely sitting around in my base building up army with the objective to go do something and deliver a crushing blow. Because in LotV it almost feels like crushing blows don't exist. Oh you took out my 3rd? I don't give a fuck I have two other expansions over here you didn't touch. Commiting a ton of army supply to one area seems like a complete non-starter in this game and I love it. I don't think I've been 200/200 for longer than a minute any game.
Also what is funny is they talk about raising the skill ceiling in LotV -- and they have, don't mistake this -- but the Terran mechanics are actually easier because you're constantly trading supply. I've been missing depots less in LotV because I'm always losing supply.
I agree. In the games I've played my 200/200 armies haven't put the nail in the coffin until I've successfully shut down his ability to expand. Map control >>>> Army size more so than ever before with the current system.
My idea was air uppgrades'should be divided over bio and mech, like air attack added to bio weapons nd defense added to mech plating. That way it's not "part of mech" but it's still scales.
On April 28 2015 23:54 Grumbels wrote: My idea was air uppgrades'should be divided over bio and mech, like air attack added to bio weapons nd defense added to mech plating. That way it's not "part of mech" but it's still scales.
So you have to upgrade Bio weapon just for Air attack even if you are playing mech? I don't know, it seems bad and counter-intuitive.
On April 28 2015 22:43 Tenks wrote: Aye I've only played maybe 15 games of LotV but I like the economy. The first phase is pretty much about denying harassment on your 3 bases then after that phase it ramps into "I need 3 new bases" and the game changes from being everywhere on the map harassing every base you can find. I've actually enjoyed it.
Generally it seems that most people who play LOTV like the econ, and most people who hasn't, dislikes it.
Edit. I played a 50 minute (Real Time obv) PvZ Yesterday, every base was taken, got to the point where we were stealing each others bases to try and keep our economies going. kind of reminded me of a fast paced settlers of catan or risk, rather than a deathball vs deathball.
This is what I really like about LotV even if I feel the game -- in it's current state -- is not as fun as HotS. I'm very, very rarely sitting around in my base building up army with the objective to go do something and deliver a crushing blow. Because in LotV it almost feels like crushing blows don't exist. Oh you took out my 3rd? I don't give a fuck I have two other expansions over here you didn't touch. Commiting a ton of army supply to one area seems like a complete non-starter in this game and I love it. I don't think I've been 200/200 for longer than a minute any game.
This is the part I don't understand. I feel like this has nothing to do with 1500/750 mineral patches. You can do the exact same thing in HotS economy too, but you are going to die because your opponent kills you when you make those investments. Now in LotV, you don't magically have the freedom to expand more through the 1500/750 mineral change, as you don't get any short or midterm advantages out of expansions. I feel like this is plainly a result of: - increased worker start giving you more money early that is currently* just spent in faster expanding - new units being overpowered and all very gas heavy which leaves you with a lot of spare minerals currently* - timings and cheeses not being figured out well past the 5minute mark currently*
*this will change with the game being figured out and balanced more. Too which degree is uncertain, but as we know the Koreans they will probably spend their extra money on extra production to hit everyone who builds a 4th CC before his main has mined out in the face with 3more barracks worth of production. And then your extra expansions becomes worthless because they will sit in your main base, wiping out your army and your tech and your production still having the same income because it is still 3base cap. This is the reason we are not seeing it in HotS, enemy timings kill you when you try it. You can't open with a fast 4th hatch against a blink/sentry opponent, because you can't afford to drone and protect that 4th. In LotV, these forms of standard aggression that dictate what the players can do and what they can't is far from figured out and cannot be figured out before a somewhat finalized balance is achieved.
On April 28 2015 23:54 Grumbels wrote: My idea was air uppgrades'should be divided over bio and mech, like air attack added to bio weapons nd defense added to mech plating. That way it's not "part of mech" but it's still scales.
So you have to upgrade Bio weapon just for Air attack even if you are playing mech? I don't know, it seems bad and counter-intuitive.
As opposed to upgrading mech things when you're playing bio though, either way someithng is off. And it worked like this in wc3 for air units, infantry attack and artillery plating.
On April 28 2015 23:54 Grumbels wrote: My idea was air uppgrades'should be divided over bio and mech, like air attack added to bio weapons nd defense added to mech plating. That way it's not "part of mech" but it's still scales.
So you have to upgrade Bio weapon just for Air attack even if you are playing mech? I don't know, it seems bad and counter-intuitive.
As opposed to upgrading mech things when you're playing bio though, either way someithng is off. And it worked like this in wc3 for air units, infantry attack and artillery plating.
Oh come on, don't compare this to WC3. It's not like the game was completely different or something lol.
WC3 also had a ton of stuff that didn't make much sense, from casters not getting the attack upgrades, to some units getting bonuses from melee upgrades when they are ranged and stuff like that.
On April 28 2015 23:54 Grumbels wrote: My idea was air uppgrades'should be divided over bio and mech, like air attack added to bio weapons nd defense added to mech plating. That way it's not "part of mech" but it's still scales.
So you have to upgrade Bio weapon just for Air attack even if you are playing mech? I don't know, it seems bad and counter-intuitive.
As opposed to upgrading mech things when you're playing bio though, either way someithng is off. And it worked like this in wc3 for air units, infantry attack and artillery plating.
Oh come on, don't compare this to WC3. It's not like the game was completely different or something lol.
WC3 also had a ton of stuff that didn't make much sense, from casters not getting the attack upgrades
C'mon, Sorceresses were far too elegant to wear brutish swords.
On April 28 2015 22:43 Tenks wrote: Aye I've only played maybe 15 games of LotV but I like the economy. The first phase is pretty much about denying harassment on your 3 bases then after that phase it ramps into "I need 3 new bases" and the game changes from being everywhere on the map harassing every base you can find. I've actually enjoyed it.
Generally it seems that most people who play LOTV like the econ, and most people who hasn't, dislikes it.
Edit. I played a 50 minute (Real Time obv) PvZ Yesterday, every base was taken, got to the point where we were stealing each others bases to try and keep our economies going. kind of reminded me of a fast paced settlers of catan or risk, rather than a deathball vs deathball.
This is what I really like about LotV even if I feel the game -- in it's current state -- is not as fun as HotS. I'm very, very rarely sitting around in my base building up army with the objective to go do something and deliver a crushing blow. Because in LotV it almost feels like crushing blows don't exist. Oh you took out my 3rd? I don't give a fuck I have two other expansions over here you didn't touch. Commiting a ton of army supply to one area seems like a complete non-starter in this game and I love it. I don't think I've been 200/200 for longer than a minute any game.
This is the part I don't understand. I feel like this has nothing to do with 1500/750 mineral patches. You can do the exact same thing in HotS economy too, but you are going to die because your opponent kills you when you make those investments. Now in LotV, you don't magically have the freedom to expand more through the 1500/750 mineral change, as you don't get any short or midterm advantages out of expansions. I feel like this is plainly a result of: - increased worker start giving you more money early that is currently* just spent in faster expanding - new units being overpowered and all very gas heavy which leaves you with a lot of spare minerals currently* - timings and cheeses not being figured out well past the 5minute mark currently*
*this will change with the game being figured out and balanced more. Too which degree is uncertain, but as we know the Koreans they will probably spend their extra money on extra production to hit everyone who builds a 4th CC before his main has mined out in the face with 3more barracks worth of production. And then your extra expansions becomes worthless because they will sit in your main base, wiping out your army and your tech and your production still having the same income because it is still 3base cap. This is the reason we are not seeing it in HotS, enemy timings kill you when you try it. You can't open with a fast 4th hatch against a blink/sentry opponent, because you can't afford to drone and protect that 4th. In LotV, these forms of standard aggression that dictate what the players can do and what they can't is far from figured out and cannot be figured out before a somewhat finalized balance is achieved.
This is somethin I've realised watching LotV streams, the players haven't got a hang of how to macro, I see players floating a ton of minerals and making a lot of gas heavy units, but they don't seem to know how to macro well, they just aren't used to it yet.
I think it once players get a hang of it it will just become HotS with bases that mine a bit faster.
On April 28 2015 23:54 Grumbels wrote: My idea was air uppgrades'should be divided over bio and mech, like air attack added to bio weapons nd defense added to mech plating. That way it's not "part of mech" but it's still scales.
So you have to upgrade Bio weapon just for Air attack even if you are playing mech? I don't know, it seems bad and counter-intuitive.
As opposed to upgrading mech things when you're playing bio though, either way someithng is off. And it worked like this in wc3 for air units, infantry attack and artillery plating.
Oh come on, don't compare this to WC3. It's not like the game was completely different or something lol.
WC3 also had a ton of stuff that didn't make much sense, from casters not getting the attack upgrades
C'mon, Sorceresses were far too elegant to wear brutish swords.
Yeah, but Shamans got Claws and Spirit Walkers got Axes. Didn't help either.
Are there people who have actually played SC2 with the proposed Econ Change (DH, etc.) suggestion that everyone seems to be band-wagoning about? Have they also played in the LotV beta?
Would be nice to hear their thoughts on how each economy plays out, instead of all the theorycrafting. Get's a little old when everyone sings the proposed changes praises, yet no ones actually tested it out vs the LotV econ and given feedback between the 2. Sure, the article made it sound like its better than the current 100/60% LotV econ on paper, but, has anyone actually seen it in practice?
On April 28 2015 23:54 Grumbels wrote: My idea was air uppgrades'should be divided over bio and mech, like air attack added to bio weapons nd defense added to mech plating. That way it's not "part of mech" but it's still scales.
So you have to upgrade Bio weapon just for Air attack even if you are playing mech? I don't know, it seems bad and counter-intuitive.
As opposed to upgrading mech things when you're playing bio though, either way someithng is off. And it worked like this in wc3 for air units, infantry attack and artillery plating.
Oh come on, don't compare this to WC3. It's not like the game was completely different or something lol.
WC3 also had a ton of stuff that didn't make much sense, from casters not getting the attack upgrades, to some units getting bonuses from melee upgrades when they are ranged and stuff like that.
I don't know if realism is a good argument when siege tanks are upgraded in the armory and infantry in the engineering bay. The point is that for gameplay purposes air upgrades always come too late since you never want to upgrade air units early on, that's why you might decide to incorporate them into earlier generic upgrades. But at that point you're privileging either mech or bio, but you might not want to force air units to be partnered with either way. So you divide between weapons and plating. I don't know, I think it makes sense and it wouldn't be that weird. The tooltip could just say: "increases attack damage of all barracks and starport units" & "increases armor of all factory and starport units".
The biggest cost of upgrades for Terran feels more like the initial cost of the building(s) and time. The problem with the unification of mech upgrades is the latter is removed from if you go mech and transition into air. You're getting the upgrades anyways. Since they've added tools into the arsenal of the Starport such as speed banshees and possibly warp BCs the Starport units can become a more fundamental core unit than they are in HotS where they are more a fringe unit you don't necessarily want to mass (barring super late game.) I don't think making awkward unifications is the answer I feel splitting them makes the most sense. It also allows the bio player the opportunity to pay in time for Starport upgrades while still upgrading/going bio where the mech player has to choose to strengthen their army. Because the mech army stays relevant longer anyways.
On April 29 2015 04:30 Afterhours wrote: Are there people who have actually played SC2 with the proposed Econ Change (DH, etc.) suggestion that everyone seems to be band-wagoning about? Have they also played in the LotV beta?
Would be nice to hear their thoughts on how each economy plays out, instead of all the theorycrafting. Get's a little old when everyone sings the proposed changes praises, yet no ones actually tested it out vs the LotV econ and given feedback between the 2. Sure, the article made it sound like its better than the current 100/60% LotV econ on paper, but, has anyone actually seen it in practice?
I've played over 200 games of LotV Beta, and about 20 with DH mod. LotV beta feels better than HotS but it also NEVER feels like you have a good economy. no matter how many command centers/bases you have it never seems like you have a solid income, and you still feel the need for another base.
With Double Harvest you can get a good income going on a few bases, however your opponent can get a BETTER income going with additional bases.
The difference is clear, LotV starves you out to the point that a solid income is practically unattainable, while double harvest gives you the opportunity to get a superior economy to your opponent. It feels obvious that double harvest is a better model.
The reward/punish dynamic has been used repeatedly and probably seems like propaganda at this point, but play both and it makes perfect sense and really shows. LotV right now gives you no opportunity to add on production, because your extra money had better be going into new expansions rather than facilities you won't be able to afford in a couple minutes. Double harvest however allows you to actually power and produce units, while still having a focus on improving your economy with more bases.
If I had to choose between Legacy economy and HotS economy I'd take Legacy every time. However I really hope we get the opportunity to try better models more thoroughly.
Edit: I think I can count on my hands the number of games where I built more than 5 barracks, and actually had the money to produce off them all in Legacy of the void so far. Most times I regret building any more barracks because by the time they've finished building I wish I built another CC instead.
On April 29 2015 04:30 Afterhours wrote: Are there people who have actually played SC2 with the proposed Econ Change (DH, etc.) suggestion that everyone seems to be band-wagoning about? Have they also played in the LotV beta?
Would be nice to hear their thoughts on how each economy plays out, instead of all the theorycrafting. Get's a little old when everyone sings the proposed changes praises, yet no ones actually tested it out vs the LotV econ and given feedback between the 2. Sure, the article made it sound like its better than the current 100/60% LotV econ on paper, but, has anyone actually seen it in practice?
I've played over 200 games of LotV Beta, and about 20 with DH mod. LotV beta feels better than HotS but it also NEVER feels like you have a good economy. no matter how many command centers/bases you have it never seems like you have a solid income, and you still feel the need for another base.
With Double Harvest you can get a good income going on a few bases, however your opponent can get a BETTER income going with additional bases.
The difference is clear, LotV starves you out to the point that a solid income is practically unattainable, while double harvest gives you the opportunity to get a superior economy to your opponent. It feels obvious that double harvest is a better model.
The reward/punish dynamic has been used repeatedly and probably seems like propaganda at this point, but play both and it makes perfect sense and really shows. LotV right now gives you no opportunity to add on production, because your extra money had better be going into new expansions rather than facilities you won't be able to afford in a couple minutes. Double harvest however allows you to actually power and produce units, while still having a focus on improving your economy with more bases.
If I had to choose between Legacy economy and HotS economy I'd take Legacy every time. However I really hope we get the opportunity to try better models more thoroughly.
Edit: I think I can count on my hands the number of games where I built more than 5 barracks, and actually had the money to produce off them all in Legacy of the void so far. Most times I regret building any more barracks because by the time they've finished building I wish I built another CC instead.
Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted to hear, and would love more discussion centered around players experiences with both models. That being said, I will try to make a bigger effort of testing out DH econ as well, and relaying my experiences here. I would encourage any players who make it into the beta to give both changes a chance and really back up their posts with facts based on their games. Feel is everything here, and it would behoove us to articulate that to Blizzard in the best way possible.
Reaper Added new ability. Toss a grenade which, after 2 seconds, causes 10 area of effect damage and knockback. Cooldown is 10 seconds.
Cyclone Can no longer target air by default. New Upgrade: Surface to Air Targeting. Allows Cyclone to target air. Requires Fusion Core. Researched from Factory Tech Lab. Cost 100/100. Research time: 110. Unit radius increased from 0.625 to 0.75. Unit scale increased by 15%.
Zerg
Ravager Weapon period changed from 0.8 to 1.6. Weapon range reduced from 6 to 4.
Swarm Host Cost changed to 200/100 and requires 3 supply. Flying locusts no longer requires research. Locust health down from 65 to 50. Swarm hosts can now move while burrowed.
can i have anti air plz Blizzard? I would really like anti air... instead of making the cyclone's very special "special ability" .... the ability to shoot up.... just make their lock on special ability..... researchable..... maybe you could make it unlock able after you make the armory..... that would make it so mech could .... i dont know defend a single mother ship core.... and then there wouldn't be 1 base bio cyclone all ins..... how shallow of an understanding does the dev team have.... to "fix" early game harass by making a unit unable to shoot up....
On April 29 2015 04:30 Afterhours wrote: Are there people who have actually played SC2 with the proposed Econ Change (DH, etc.) suggestion that everyone seems to be band-wagoning about? Have they also played in the LotV beta?
Would be nice to hear their thoughts on how each economy plays out, instead of all the theorycrafting. Get's a little old when everyone sings the proposed changes praises, yet no ones actually tested it out vs the LotV econ and given feedback between the 2. Sure, the article made it sound like its better than the current 100/60% LotV econ on paper, but, has anyone actually seen it in practice?
I've played over 200 games of LotV Beta, and about 20 with DH mod. LotV beta feels better than HotS but it also NEVER feels like you have a good economy. no matter how many command centers/bases you have it never seems like you have a solid income, and you still feel the need for another base.
With Double Harvest you can get a good income going on a few bases, however your opponent can get a BETTER income going with additional bases.
The difference is clear, LotV starves you out to the point that a solid income is practically unattainable, while double harvest gives you the opportunity to get a superior economy to your opponent. It feels obvious that double harvest is a better model.
The reward/punish dynamic has been used repeatedly and probably seems like propaganda at this point, but play both and it makes perfect sense and really shows. LotV right now gives you no opportunity to add on production, because your extra money had better be going into new expansions rather than facilities you won't be able to afford in a couple minutes. Double harvest however allows you to actually power and produce units, while still having a focus on improving your economy with more bases.
If I had to choose between Legacy economy and HotS economy I'd take Legacy every time. However I really hope we get the opportunity to try better models more thoroughly.
Edit: I think I can count on my hands the number of games where I built more than 5 barracks, and actually had the money to produce off them all in Legacy of the void so far. Most times I regret building any more barracks because by the time they've finished building I wish I built another CC instead.
Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted to hear, and would love more discussion centered around players experiences with both models. That being said, I will try to make a bigger effort of testing out DH econ as well, and relaying my experiences here. I would encourage any players who make it into the beta to give both changes a chance and really back up their posts with facts based on their games. Feel is everything here, and it would behoove us to articulate that to Blizzard in the best way possible.
Again, thanks for the response!
THANK YOU BOTH!
While units should have adjustments it still baffles me why economy isn't discussed more.
If I had access to the Lotv beta... I would be in there testing it out for sure!
@Bacon infinity, I was really happy you did the show match to test out the Double Harvest economy. Please do more show matches with pros so we can see how it plays out.
Reaper Added new ability. Toss a grenade which, after 2 seconds, causes 10 area of effect damage and knockback. Cooldown is 10 seconds.
Cyclone Can no longer target air by default. New Upgrade: Surface to Air Targeting. Allows Cyclone to target air. Requires Fusion Core. Researched from Factory Tech Lab. Cost 100/100. Research time: 110. Unit radius increased from 0.625 to 0.75. Unit scale increased by 15%.
Zerg
Ravager Weapon period changed from 0.8 to 1.6. Weapon range reduced from 6 to 4.
Swarm Host Cost changed to 200/100 and requires 3 supply. Flying locusts no longer requires research. Locust health down from 65 to 50. Swarm hosts can now move while burrowed.
Changes not in the balance blog are some more specifics about the Reaper ability (delay, damage, cooldown), plus a unit size change for the Cyclone.
Nice, I was expecting 10-15 damage at most for Reaper Grenades and I like it and also like the delay. Only thing I really dislike is 10 seconds cooldown as it's the same cooldown of Ravager's Corrosive Bile and I think it's too spammable. 15-20 seconds feels far more appropriate but we will see.
On April 29 2015 04:30 Afterhours wrote: Are there people who have actually played SC2 with the proposed Econ Change (DH, etc.) suggestion that everyone seems to be band-wagoning about? Have they also played in the LotV beta?
Would be nice to hear their thoughts on how each economy plays out, instead of all the theorycrafting. Get's a little old when everyone sings the proposed changes praises, yet no ones actually tested it out vs the LotV econ and given feedback between the 2. Sure, the article made it sound like its better than the current 100/60% LotV econ on paper, but, has anyone actually seen it in practice?
I've played over 200 games of LotV Beta, and about 20 with DH mod. LotV beta feels better than HotS but it also NEVER feels like you have a good economy. no matter how many command centers/bases you have it never seems like you have a solid income, and you still feel the need for another base.
With Double Harvest you can get a good income going on a few bases, however your opponent can get a BETTER income going with additional bases.
The difference is clear, LotV starves you out to the point that a solid income is practically unattainable, while double harvest gives you the opportunity to get a superior economy to your opponent. It feels obvious that double harvest is a better model.
The reward/punish dynamic has been used repeatedly and probably seems like propaganda at this point, but play both and it makes perfect sense and really shows. LotV right now gives you no opportunity to add on production, because your extra money had better be going into new expansions rather than facilities you won't be able to afford in a couple minutes. Double harvest however allows you to actually power and produce units, while still having a focus on improving your economy with more bases.
If I had to choose between Legacy economy and HotS economy I'd take Legacy every time. However I really hope we get the opportunity to try better models more thoroughly.
Edit: I think I can count on my hands the number of games where I built more than 5 barracks, and actually had the money to produce off them all in Legacy of the void so far. Most times I regret building any more barracks because by the time they've finished building I wish I built another CC instead.
Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted to hear, and would love more discussion centered around players experiences with both models. That being said, I will try to make a bigger effort of testing out DH econ as well, and relaying my experiences here. I would encourage any players who make it into the beta to give both changes a chance and really back up their posts with facts based on their games. Feel is everything here, and it would behoove us to articulate that to Blizzard in the best way possible.
Again, thanks for the response!
I've played a few games with DH10, not enough to give a super informed opinion, but anyway I felt that up until 3 bases, everything feels more or less the same (some early game timings shifted but we all knew that). It's like after both players remax for the first time the player with 1 or 2 more bases gets a lot stronger than they would be in hots. But before that it doesn't really feel different to me, maybe someone else has different experience.
I haven't played beta but if DK speaks the truth I should have it to play this weekend.
The more I watch games and the conversations unfold the less convinced I am that each model is actually addressing the same issue. My impressions at this point are that whatever Blizzard decides to do with their FRB model, removing worker pairing within that model can only be a good thing.
DH10 isn't there to prove that it's the best and only way forward, it's there to prove that worker pairing restricts strategic choice, and I think it does that.
I would actually like to play lotv with DH10 and see what that feels like. Because DH10 is so subtle, it might complement their model really well.
On April 29 2015 04:30 Afterhours wrote: Are there people who have actually played SC2 with the proposed Econ Change (DH, etc.) suggestion that everyone seems to be band-wagoning about? Have they also played in the LotV beta?
Would be nice to hear their thoughts on how each economy plays out, instead of all the theorycrafting. Get's a little old when everyone sings the proposed changes praises, yet no ones actually tested it out vs the LotV econ and given feedback between the 2. Sure, the article made it sound like its better than the current 100/60% LotV econ on paper, but, has anyone actually seen it in practice?
I've played over 200 games of LotV Beta, and about 20 with DH mod. LotV beta feels better than HotS but it also NEVER feels like you have a good economy. no matter how many command centers/bases you have it never seems like you have a solid income, and you still feel the need for another base.
With Double Harvest you can get a good income going on a few bases, however your opponent can get a BETTER income going with additional bases.
The difference is clear, LotV starves you out to the point that a solid income is practically unattainable, while double harvest gives you the opportunity to get a superior economy to your opponent. It feels obvious that double harvest is a better model.
The reward/punish dynamic has been used repeatedly and probably seems like propaganda at this point, but play both and it makes perfect sense and really shows. LotV right now gives you no opportunity to add on production, because your extra money had better be going into new expansions rather than facilities you won't be able to afford in a couple minutes. Double harvest however allows you to actually power and produce units, while still having a focus on improving your economy with more bases.
If I had to choose between Legacy economy and HotS economy I'd take Legacy every time. However I really hope we get the opportunity to try better models more thoroughly.
Edit: I think I can count on my hands the number of games where I built more than 5 barracks, and actually had the money to produce off them all in Legacy of the void so far. Most times I regret building any more barracks because by the time they've finished building I wish I built another CC instead.
Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted to hear, and would love more discussion centered around players experiences with both models. That being said, I will try to make a bigger effort of testing out DH econ as well, and relaying my experiences here. I would encourage any players who make it into the beta to give both changes a chance and really back up their posts with facts based on their games. Feel is everything here, and it would behoove us to articulate that to Blizzard in the best way possible.
Again, thanks for the response!
Well, since you're interested in game experience I have like 200+ wins or something in LotV beta as protoss. I can certainly say that this economy model they have is bad. That's all you have to say. It's horrendous for protoss. You either seem to have no mineral, or no gas, and the fact that you have spread out earlier is horrendous. vs players with great mechanics it will only be worse.
Now, what ever economy model you want to propose instead of this model I already go in favor of simply because the lotv model is clearly not the one we should be using. Unless you can somehow make a worse economy model, which at the very least, we know DH is not.... then @_@;;;;;;; they should at least try it.
Honestly makes the beta not very fun/even worth playing/testing atm as toss
On April 28 2015 20:32 Lomo wrote: Im not a fan of splitting air/ground upgrades. If you want to go a air/mech mix u have to build 3-4 armorys, even with that you cant keep up with chrono boost and both is really gas heavy. I still dont get the Cyclone, he becames totally useless in late game. Why we cant remove the Cyclone and get a ground Mech unit that is good vs Massive Air (Carrier etc.)? If you opponent choose to make a Massive Air composition you can only build Vikings,Vikings and more Vikings. There is not a single alternative for Mech players and now the Vikings will have no upgrades -_-! I´m a Terran and i hate the Cyclone really!
Cyclones are far better at killing Carriers than Vikings in a direct engagement, there's little incentive to use vikings over carriers with the exception of maneuverability. You may have had a bad experience with them, but your extrapolation to how they are used generally is just silly.
I still maintain removing GtA attack is a terrible choice. Instead, it would be much nicer just to heavily decrease the lock on range so it requires the cyclone to actually follow the opponent's unit if it tries to retreat, increasing micro potential as the other player can do things to block it. This would also let phoenix/oracles who get in the range of the lock on escape, but also keep proxy oracles and shit like that away. Just reintroduce the increased lock on range with an upgrade at the factory.
I'd also LOVE to see an upgrade that reduces the amount of time it takes a hellion/helbat and viking to transform into one mode from another. It would be sick to see vikings be able to land quickly and get back up quickly in a harass mode.
I think Vikings could just get much faster transfomation for free (no upgrade needed).
For Hellion/hellbats, the damage of the latter vs light must be reduced. Otherwise there is no reward of Speedlings surrounding Hellions, and I actually prefer the role of Hellbats being better vs armored than light.
Imagine the following microinteraction:
--> You run up to an enemy armored unit with the Hellion --> Transform into Hellbat --> Kills the enemy armored unit if it isn't microed --> If the enemy is skilled, he micro's it back. --> Hellbats are re-transformed into Hellions and chases the enemy armored unit once again... etc.
Well consider that it would be an upgrade you need to tech to. It's not as if right now transforming is viable at all. Keep in mind there would still be a transformation time in which the lings would be damaging the hellbats. Honestly, if it still proved too strong, you could just make it so the transformation from Hellbat back to Hellion is faster to allow them to escape.
On April 29 2015 04:42 Tenks wrote: I also wish Blizzard increased the attack priority of unburrowed Lurkers. They are pretty much ignored.
Please do NOT change this! This is an awesome feature. In fact, I wish they would add it to HT, Infestors, and other "attack-less" spellcasters/units. It heavily promotes micro. You want to take out the unit? Manually attack it. BW worked this way, and it was GREAT!
I'd also LOVE to see an upgrade that reduces the amount of time it takes a hellion/helbat and viking to transform into one mode from another. It would be sick to see vikings be able to land quickly and get back up quickly in a harass mode.
I think Vikings could just get much faster transfomation for free (no upgrade needed).
For Hellion/hellbats, the damage of the latter vs light must be reduced. Otherwise there is no reward of Speedlings surrounding Hellions, and I actually prefer the role of Hellbats being better vs armored than light.
Imagine the following microinteraction:
--> You run up to an enemy armored unit with the Hellion --> Transform into Hellbat --> Kills the enemy armored unit if it isn't microed --> If the enemy is skilled, he micro's back. --> Hellbats are re-transformed into Hellions and chases the enemy armored unit once again... etc.
All this sounds really nice to me. Vikings in general feel like a missed opportunity to me, it's like... its landed form is almost so bad that it's like giving your opponent minerals via direct transfer, and then it's gonna take forever to transform back...
Wish they would shorten its range, make it waaaaaay more maneuverable and maybe remove the armored tag when its landed. Could give it a fusion core upgrade that extends the range back up for later in the game.
I would love to see a "goliath mode" for vikings. When vikings land, they should retain their AA capabilities, like a goliath. Also, allow vikings in "goliath mode" to be produced out of factories, but they can only transform when starport tech is built.
I'd also LOVE to see an upgrade that reduces the amount of time it takes a hellion/helbat and viking to transform into one mode from another. It would be sick to see vikings be able to land quickly and get back up quickly in a harass mode.
I think Vikings could just get much faster transfomation for free (no upgrade needed).
For Hellion/hellbats, the damage of the latter vs light must be reduced. Otherwise there is no reward of Speedlings surrounding Hellions, and I actually prefer the role of Hellbats being better vs armored than light.
Imagine the following microinteraction:
--> You run up to an enemy armored unit with the Hellion --> Transform into Hellbat --> Kills the enemy armored unit if it isn't microed --> If the enemy is skilled, he micro's back. --> Hellbats are re-transformed into Hellions and chases the enemy armored unit once again... etc.
All this sounds really nice to me. Vikings in general feel like a missed opportunity to me, it's like... its landed form is almost so bad that it's like giving your opponent minerals via direct transfer, and then it's gonna take forever to transform back...
Wish they would shorten its range, make it waaaaaay more maneuverable and maybe remove the armored tag when its landed. Could give it a fusion core upgrade that extends the range back up for later in the game.
I would love to see a "goliath mode" for vikings. When vikings land, they should retain their AA capabilities, like a goliath. Also, allow vikings in "goliath mode" to be produced out of factories, but they can only transform when starport tech is built.
Blizzard is playing this too safe. They said the Beta would be long and a time of massive changes and experimentation, but all I see is minor tweaks. They have already entered the stage of trying to find the "correct place" for now predetermined units, their abilities, the economy and other major game aspects (like warpgate).
For example, there is zero chance for units that are in the beta right now being removed again. With the exception of the terran unit to come, they decided on the set of units before the beta (when they actually removed the herc). SH, Tempest, Thor, etc. will stay.
There is also zero chance for community inspired changes to units and abilities at this point because those are not playing it safe enough. In years of reading TL I saw nobody suggesting another high range unit from the starport or more armor for the ultralisk. Community participation in the design of the new terran unit is an illusion.
There is zero chance for a redesign of warpgates and zero chance for any economic model that is much different from the current one.
It hurts so much to witness the last Starcraft there will ever be to become a pretty good game when it could have become a timeless classic.
I'm noticing a trend of Cooldown Abilities that have no cost and I think it all stems from trying to avoid being Feedback targets. We saw this was an issue with Corruptors at a time where they had energy and Zergs most staple anti air unit, simply got countered by High Templars. I wonder if they should just make Feedback only deal damage to Feedbacked Psionic Units or if it's actually by design that they want all these abilities that if you have spare apm, you can use it more and it helps you out a little. I'd like that there at least would be a little bit of a decision element in using said abilities.
On April 29 2015 19:38 dust7 wrote: Blizzard is playing this too safe. They said the Beta would be long and a time of massive changes and experimentation, but all I see is minor tweaks. They have already entered the stage of trying to find the "correct place" for now predetermined units, their abilities, the economy and other major game aspects (like warpgate).
For example, there is zero chance for units that are in the beta right now being removed again. With the exception of the terran unit to come, they decided on the set of units before the beta (when they actually removed the herc). SH, Tempest, Thor, etc. will stay.
There is also zero chance for community inspired changes to units and abilities at this point because those are not playing it safe enough. In years of reading TL I saw nobody suggesting another high range unit from the starport or more armor for the ultralisk. Community participation in the design of the new terran unit is an illusion.
There is zero chance for a redesign of warpgates and zero chance for any economic model that is much different from the current one.
It hurts so much to witness the last Starcraft there will ever be to become a pretty good game when it could have become a timeless classic.
On April 29 2015 19:38 dust7 wrote: Blizzard is playing this too safe. They said the Beta would be long and a time of massive changes and experimentation, but all I see is minor tweaks. They have already entered the stage of trying to find the "correct place" for now predetermined units, their abilities, the economy and other major game aspects (like warpgate).
For example, there is zero chance for units that are in the beta right now being removed again. With the exception of the terran unit to come, they decided on the set of units before the beta (when they actually removed the herc). SH, Tempest, Thor, etc. will stay.
There is also zero chance for community inspired changes to units and abilities at this point because those are not playing it safe enough. In years of reading TL I saw nobody suggesting another high range unit from the starport or more armor for the ultralisk. Community participation in the design of the new terran unit is an illusion.
There is zero chance for a redesign of warpgates and zero chance for any economic model that is much different from the current one.
It hurts so much to witness the last Starcraft there will ever be to become a pretty good game when it could have become a timeless classic.
Lol. You don't know that there is zero chance and frankly, you're talking out of your butthole.
I wonder if the reaper knockback over supply depot walls will unlock any weird strategies where you can try and hop some hellions over a wall with a reaper to hit a pseudo hellion drop timing earlier since it won't require a port/medi
On April 30 2015 00:35 Tenks wrote: I wonder if the reaper knockback over supply depot walls will unlock any weird strategies where you can try and hop some hellions over a wall with a reaper to hit a pseudo hellion drop timing earlier since it won't require a port/medi
I feel like it won't hit units up, will it? I don't think units will be able to go past buildings...
On April 30 2015 00:35 Tenks wrote: I wonder if the reaper knockback over supply depot walls will unlock any weird strategies where you can try and hop some hellions over a wall with a reaper to hit a pseudo hellion drop timing earlier since it won't require a port/medi
On April 30 2015 00:35 Tenks wrote: I wonder if the reaper knockback over supply depot walls will unlock any weird strategies where you can try and hop some hellions over a wall with a reaper to hit a pseudo hellion drop timing earlier since it won't require a port/medi
On April 29 2015 19:38 dust7 wrote: Blizzard is playing this too safe. They said the Beta would be long and a time of massive changes and experimentation, but all I see is minor tweaks. They have already entered the stage of trying to find the "correct place" for now predetermined units, their abilities, the economy and other major game aspects (like warpgate).
For example, there is zero chance for units that are in the beta right now being removed again. With the exception of the terran unit to come, they decided on the set of units before the beta (when they actually removed the herc). SH, Tempest, Thor, etc. will stay.
There is also zero chance for community inspired changes to units and abilities at this point because those are not playing it safe enough. In years of reading TL I saw nobody suggesting another high range unit from the starport or more armor for the ultralisk. Community participation in the design of the new terran unit is an illusion.
There is zero chance for a redesign of warpgates and zero chance for any economic model that is much different from the current one.
It hurts so much to witness the last Starcraft there will ever be to become a pretty good game when it could have become a timeless classic.
Lol. You don't know that there is zero chance and frankly, you're talking out of your butthole.
I think putting an IMO in front of every post is redundant because it is implied. Let's hope I will be wrong.
Well, knockback is an example of a mechanic not used in SC2 which we know from other games to have ..interesting potential. On some level it's cool Blizzard is experimenting with it, but you can be worried it seems to have been inspired by MOBA games and might therefore naturally feel more at home with early game reaper interactions (which are kind of like MOBA micro) and not with mid-to-late-game engagements.
And also, why is Blizzard so quick about reverting one of the warpgate nerfs when there are almost no protoss players in the beta and apparently it survived six months of internal playtesting. You'd think that they'd wait until there'd actually exist protoss players in the beta so that they would have the opportunity to test this (significant, difficult to evaluate) change.
Warpgate is problematic, that's why it being a bit hard to use was a potentially acceptable sacrifice. And I don't think being able to warp in units directly underneath enemy forces was gameplay worth preserving as an option. They just had to rebuild protoss with stronger gateway units and so on, the opportunity was there and they promised to have a lengthy beta period specifically so they could be bolder.
By now I'm fully expecting the colossus to keep only its range nerf and have the damage nerf reverted as well.
On April 30 2015 03:42 Grumbels wrote: Well, knockback is an example of a mechanic not used in SC2 which we know from other games to have ..interesting potential. On some level it's cool Blizzard is experimenting with it, but you can be worried it seems to have been inspired by MOBA games and might therefore naturally feel more at home with early game reaper interactions (which are kind of like MOBA micro) and not with mid-to-late-game engagements.
I have no problems with these sorts of mechanics, but don't make it a fucking spell. Tabbing through armies is so boring and noone that just digs into the game will ever use it.
On April 30 2015 03:53 Grumbels wrote: And also, why is Blizzard so quick about reverting one of the warpgate nerfs when there are almost no protoss players in the beta and apparently it survived six months of internal playtesting. You'd think that they'd wait until there'd actually exist protoss players in the beta so that they would have the opportunity to test this (significant, difficult to evaluate) change.
Warpgate is problematic, that's why it being a bit hard to use was a potentially acceptable sacrifice. And I don't think being able to warp in units directly underneath enemy forces was gameplay worth preserving as an option. They just had to rebuild protoss with stronger gateway units and so on, the opportunity was there and they promised to have a lengthy beta period specifically so they could be bolder.
By now I'm fully expecting the colossus to keep only its range nerf and have the damage nerf reverted as well.
I agree, the warpgate and colossi nerfs represented a huge opportunity for them to address protoss' issues. Instead they pulled the bandage off, took one look at the infection, and just wrapped it up again. If they revert the colossi nerf I'm going to riot.
On April 30 2015 03:42 Grumbels wrote: Well, knockback is an example of a mechanic not used in SC2 which we know from other games to have ..interesting potential. On some level it's cool Blizzard is experimenting with it, but you can be worried it seems to have been inspired by MOBA games and might therefore naturally feel more at home with early game reaper interactions (which are kind of like MOBA micro) and not with mid-to-late-game engagements.
I have no problems with these sorts of mechanics, but don't make it a fucking spell. Tabbing through armies is so boring and noone that just digs into the game will ever use it.
Exactly. I don't have any problem with new mechanics, bring them on, but the number of point-click smart cast spells in this game is getting ridiculous. Battle micro is going to devolve into wow-esque button rotations.
I also don't think Terran needs another unit with a spell to cast. Terran has enough of that already. If I have 5 unit spells to cast, but my APM is 120, I am only going to cast 2 spells at most or avoid comps that are spell dependent.
Couldn't they just put a minor knockback / snare into the Reaper's attack? Call it "Weighted Slugs" or something.
On April 30 2015 03:42 Grumbels wrote: Well, knockback is an example of a mechanic not used in SC2 which we know from other games to have ..interesting potential. On some level it's cool Blizzard is experimenting with it, but you can be worried it seems to have been inspired by MOBA games and might therefore naturally feel more at home with early game reaper interactions (which are kind of like MOBA micro) and not with mid-to-late-game engagements.
I have no problems with these sorts of mechanics, but don't make it a fucking spell. Tabbing through armies is so boring and noone that just digs into the game will ever use it.
I think the reaper is quite a sad unit because Blizzard placed it right at the point in the game where it was the most potentially broken. A unit with very high speed and with cliff walking and with health regeneration is naturally very powerful at the start of the game; for some reason Blizzard added all of those features to a T1 unit. And then of course they had to make the cost of the reaper prohibitive for use later in the game.
If Blizzard was ever in the mood for removing units they should have axed the reaper a long time ago because outside of its niche it doesn't do anything the medivac can't provide for terran. I think the cliff walking ability could be interesting on a slightly later tech protoss or zerg unit though, but stalkers already fulfill that role for protoss and roaches don't really need cliff-tunneling or whatever. I think zerglings being able to jump off cliffs would be funny, just as long as they couldn't jump up, they would be like lemmings. :p
On April 30 2015 03:42 Grumbels wrote: I think zerglings being able to jump off cliffs would be funny, just as long as they couldn't jump up, they would be like lemmings. :p
Haha only if they take damage when they land so the wounded die on impact.
On April 30 2015 03:53 Grumbels wrote: And also, why is Blizzard so quick about reverting one of the warpgate nerfs when there are almost no protoss players in the beta and apparently it survived six months of internal playtesting. You'd think that they'd wait until there'd actually exist protoss players in the beta so that they would have the opportunity to test this (significant, difficult to evaluate) change.
Warpgate is problematic, that's why it being a bit hard to use was a potentially acceptable sacrifice. And I don't think being able to warp in units directly underneath enemy forces was gameplay worth preserving as an option. They just had to rebuild protoss with stronger gateway units and so on, the opportunity was there and they promised to have a lengthy beta period specifically so they could be bolder.
By now I'm fully expecting the colossus to keep only its range nerf and have the damage nerf reverted as well.
Don't even try to compare internal playtesting to pro/community testers. From what we've saw in many years of Starcraft2, the "design team" seems to play at relatively low levels of play (I remember when long ago, Devs profiles could be accessed and they were Dia/low master). Everytime they bring out an "internal tested unit" is extremely broken or poorly designed, doesn't matter if it's tested for more than 6 months or not.
Good examples: Warhound, Cyclone, Ravager, Disruptor, and poor unit designs with bad stats or very improvable design (WM, MSC, SwarmHost)
Hopefully the reaper knockback works on disruptors so you can knock them back into the protoss army :D Otherwise the reaper will remain as a useless unit past 5 minutes.
On April 30 2015 06:56 WhenRaxFly wrote: Hopefully the reaper knockback works on disruptors so you can knock them back into the protoss army :D Otherwise the reaper will remain as a useless unit past 5 minutes.
Disruptors are invulnerable to everything and ignore pathing, so I don't think so.
On April 28 2015 04:41 TheDwf wrote: There's some serious answer inflation in some of your polls, SGTK! Beware or there will be 27 different choices at the next BU preview.
People got mad last time cause I didn't have anough options. Now Ihave too many. this is horseshit!
Now you know how it feels to be a Blizzard employee
no if he was a blizzard employee he would say "do you really want polls?" and go golfing instead of implementing 12 year old features
On April 30 2015 14:01 shin_toss wrote: Carriers are super expensive and doesn't pop out by tens from eggs. its not op
Yeah as far as I can tell carriers are still weak when you've just got a few so it should be pretty easy to punish a player teching fast to carriers with the new LotV economy once build orders get more rigid.
On April 30 2015 14:01 shin_toss wrote: Carriers are super expensive and doesn't pop out by tens from eggs. its not op
Yeah as far as I can tell carriers are still weak when you've just got a few so it should be pretty easy to punish a player teching fast to carriers with the new LotV economy once build orders get more rigid.
But it's not like people will be teching fast to carriers that often. And as far as I can tell, the LOTV carrier is much better than its HOTS counterpart.
I can see 5-10 reapears mid game permanently pushing back banelings while the rest of the bio kills them :o
hell even a bunch of them accompanying tanks and bumping back attacking enemies to let tanks have 1 more round of fire before getting hit (ultralisks pushed back lol)
Also about carriers, I don't know if you guys watched white-ra stream a few weaks ago but he had a very nice fast carrier build (in PvZ) with nice defense using 1-2 void ray + canons.
On May 01 2015 01:43 The_Masked_Shrimp wrote: I can see 5-10 reapears mid game permanently pushing back banelings while the rest of the bio kills them :o
hell even a bunch of them accompanying tanks and bumping back attacking enemies to let tanks have 1 more round of fire before getting hit (ultralisks pushed back lol)
I don't know for sure (obviously), but I feel like massive units won't be affected.
I'm worried about the protoss race, not because it is weak now, but because everybody knows it is the race that needs the most tweaks out of the 3.
It's been a month and 2 patchs now, and there is no big change in sight to the Protoss race, only minor stuff. When you look at the changes being made to Zerg and Terran, you start to wonder...
-Is part of Blizzard plan to only touch Protoss after all major Zerg and Terran changes, because they think it's gonna be easier to adress protoss problems later?
-Is Blizzard trying to fix Protoss by changing the other races, instead of changing Protoss?
-They still have no idea on how to start changing protoss? or they think the race doesn't need any big change?
I usually trust blizzard, so I hope they have their reasons for not touching protoss yet.
On May 01 2015 03:28 rpgalon wrote: I'm worried about the protoss race, not because it is weak now, but because everybody knows it is the race that needs the most tweaks out of the 3 races.
It's been a month and 2 patchs now, and there is no big change in sight to the Protoss race, only minor stuff. When you look at the changes being made to Zerg and Terran, you start to wonder...
-Is part of Blizzard plan to only touch Protoss after all major Zerg and Terran changes, because they think it's gonna be easier to adress protoss problems later?
-Is Blizzard trying to fix Protoss by changing the other races, instead of changing Protoss?
-They still have no idea on how to start changing protoss? or they think the race doesn't need any big change?
I usually trust blizzard, so I hope they have their reasons for not touching protoss yet.
They haven't even acknowledged that protoss has problems. They added some band-aid fixes for 4gate and BL/infestor madness, because it was ruining their esports scene. Then they finally nerfed swarm hosts, because it was a joke in the esports scene. Every other change, like adepts and oracles, have only added to protoss's cheesiness factor. It seems that this is what they want.
I used to trust Blizzard, but they haven't actually made a great game since WC3, 12 years ago. They make bucketloads of cash on HS and WoW and it's pretty clear where their priorities are.
On May 01 2015 02:31 Foxxan wrote: What bafflez me is, why give terran this ability on reaper while not giving anything to zerg or protoss to compensate.
And here i thought, blizzard did not like the corsair/valkyrie vs mutas in broodwar. Therefore they made the phoenix instead.
What is your basis for that thought? I always wondered why Blizzard didn't mimic BW's anti air since it seemed to work out okay. Didn't phoenixes use to have some sort of aoe attack too? They're adding two aoe aa units / abilities in lotv too.
god would i love an actual schedule. when is this patch dropping? when are the beta waves going out? why is it so difficult to say, "this patch is planned to drop next tuesday during maintenance."? jeez...
I love the reaper grenade, something to make it actually useful to mix in a couple of reapers into a composition so that if you can separately hotkey them and launch a wave of knockback grenades to zone out ling baneling or to ruin the concave of roach/hydra or something like that, hell even killing workers and knocking others off the mineral line depending on how the knockback functions.
Protoss warp in is a little too strong in HotS, instant defense of any kind of drop or runby, but double nerfing is a little too much. 200% damage, but for a significantly shorter period of time seems fair to me, and i am the first to hate on protoss. I like that change.
Ravager rushes do seem a little too strong, maybe a cheap/fast upgrade to be able to use the corrosive bile on lair tech so that the siege/forcefield busting ability can't be used right off the bat?
Pretty much all the changes are in the right direction, although the problem with swarm hosts in HotS is that they were the backbone of the zerg army, and have been completely repurposed. Zerg army now has no backbone. How do you beat mass blink stalker? TIming attack on the third before they can get to +2 and blink. Fungal is okay, expensive though and very hit or miss. Ultras are garbage since they usually mix in a few immortals, and even blink stalkers can deal with ultras with good kiting, which is easy with blink. Zerg needs a primary army unit that can deal effectively on some level with a mass protoss stalker/sentry/immortal army. By the time they mix in tech units, templar or colossus or air, you're basically screwed. No locusts to fight the ground or to buffer for your army...
The new swarm host is fun, i like the fast moving hit and run unit that is vulnerable in between volleys. But now there is no good army choice vs mech or protoss. Counter attacks and base trades or extreme turtling with infestors and tons of static defense seem to be the only option vs mech or protoss.
after playing 30 games with the latest changes I feel justified in saying they've turned what use to be a fun and quick expand style of mech into hots turtle mech in all three matchups.... so disappointed right now... the earliest you can get cyclones to "shoot up" as Fing ridiculous as that sounds... is 6 minutes.... 6 minutes, 2 unnecessary buildings, and 600 gas (not including the cost of the unit or the +3 range) just... to... shoot... up....
On May 01 2015 02:31 Foxxan wrote: What bafflez me is, why give terran this ability on reaper while not giving anything to zerg or protoss to compensate.
New Terran Unit
And here i thought, blizzard did not like the corsair/valkyrie vs mutas in broodwar. Therefore they made the phoenix instead.
What is your basis for that thought? I always wondered why Blizzard didn't mimic BW's anti air since it seemed to work out okay. Didn't phoenixes use to have some sort of aoe attack too? They're adding two aoe aa units / abilities in lotv too.
Ye they used to have that in the aplha. You are right. Not much basis, its just that i never rly liked the hardcounter of corsairs->mutas and thought that "hey, maybe blizzard didnt like it either and decided to try something which didnt hard counter"
But iam probably wrong, especially if we look at how they rly like hardcounters overall.
On May 01 2015 06:55 crown77 wrote: after playing 30 games with the latest changes I feel justified in saying they've turned what use to be a fun and quick expand style of mech into hots turtle mech in all three matchups.... so disappointed right now... the earliest you can get cyclones to "shoot up" as Fing ridiculous as that sounds... is 6 minutes.... 6 minutes, 2 unnecessary buildings, and 600 gas (not including the cost of the unit or the +3 range) just... to... shoot... up....
Theb make a thor? Cyclone still too strong as it is but with air was even worse. Shouldn't be able to hit air at all with its cutest damage output and how much health it's got .
On May 01 2015 05:42 fenix404 wrote: god would i love an actual schedule. when is this patch dropping? when are the beta waves going out? why is it so difficult to say, "this patch is planned to drop next tuesday during maintenance."? jeez...
the patch is already out. beta wave is end of the week.
why is it so difficult for people to look for info instead of posting these sorts of things on forums? just drop by a stream lol
On May 01 2015 06:55 crown77 wrote: after playing 30 games with the latest changes I feel justified in saying they've turned what use to be a fun and quick expand style of mech into hots turtle mech in all three matchups.... so disappointed right now... the earliest you can get cyclones to "shoot up" as Fing ridiculous as that sounds... is 6 minutes.... 6 minutes, 2 unnecessary buildings, and 600 gas (not including the cost of the unit or the +3 range) just... to... shoot... up....
Oh no!!! What a tragedy! It's not like Terran has the earliest (and most versatile) ground and air shooting unit in the whole game! Oh wait...
On May 01 2015 06:55 crown77 wrote: after playing 30 games with the latest changes I feel justified in saying they've turned what use to be a fun and quick expand style of mech into hots turtle mech in all three matchups.... so disappointed right now... the earliest you can get cyclones to "shoot up" as Fing ridiculous as that sounds... is 6 minutes.... 6 minutes, 2 unnecessary buildings, and 600 gas (not including the cost of the unit or the +3 range) just... to... shoot... up....
Oh no!!! What a tragedy! It's not like Terran has the earliest (and most versatile) ground and air shooting unit in the whole game! Oh wait...
I love that Blizzard made Bio viable all game for Terran in SC2. I just wish they didn't kill the Siege Tank (and therefore Mech) while doing that.
On May 01 2015 15:21 purecarnagge wrote: so by the time protoss gets blink or col range, they will have mined out there main. How is this good for the game?
With the new patch it's a bit better than before at least. 150 more minerals = about 1:30 worth of mining.
On May 01 2015 15:21 purecarnagge wrote: so by the time protoss gets blink or col range, they will have mined out there main. How is this good for the game?
How is two base turtletoss good for the game either? They are trying to find a balance.
I have the same problem too. I can login and play custom games but when i queue ladder unranked i get an "missing required game site information" error
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
The problem is not that it's “physically impossible” (lore is always an excuse), it's that it makes no sense as you say. Abduct is a stupid “your position is wrong now” tool (just like Forcefield) because Zergs don't evolve in their natural environment, i. e. the whole map with their superior maneuverability. That's why they “had” to implement Pudge's spell on a flyer so that Zerg had an anti-high value target button (because they can't dodge/delay enough the big army), resulting in the Vikings vs Viper and the HT vs Viper game of cubes.
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
The problem is not that it's “physically impossible” (lore is always an excuse), it's that it makes no sense as you say. Abduct is a stupid “your position is wrong now” tool (just like Forcefield) because Zergs don't evolve in their natural environment, i. e. the whole map with their superior maneuverability. That's why they “had” to implement Pudge's spell on a flyer so that Zerg had an anti-high value target button (because they can't dodge/delay enough the big army), resulting in the Vikings vs Viper and the HT vs Viper game of cubes.
I've always defended that Abduct is not a bad spell to have but it's poorly balanced. Vipers are very strong and interesting casters, and nerfing Abduct wouldn't be the end of the world. Units have a variable called "mass" and Abduct should be based on that.
It's physics and it's more fair for counterplays, specially since Abduct is a money shot against capital targets. For example, 1 Abduct is usually 1 free kill of of a Colossus, the unit that makes Protoss playable against many swarmy styles. I think that making Abduct only pull units based on their size would be okay. It can be easily adapted to balance it to each situation. It might be not the best mathematical, clear design, but it should work.
Maybe now that Vipers are going to have a very strong AA mechanic with their parasitic bomb, we can really nerf abduct to make Massive units immune to it, and leave it as a mechanic to displace some Siege-like units Like Tanks and Lurkers, annoying casters like Oracles and Ravens, detectors or transports.
The only fun we have had using Abduct was in ZvZ when Broodlords were relatively popular to break ZvZ stalemates, because the Zerg could tactically abduct their own units back. That was before the BL change.
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
The problem is not that it's “physically impossible” (lore is always an excuse), it's that it makes no sense as you say. Abduct is a stupid “your position is wrong now” tool (just like Forcefield) because Zergs don't evolve in their natural environment, i. e. the whole map with their superior maneuverability. That's why they “had” to implement Pudge's spell on a flyer so that Zerg had an anti-high value target button (because they can't dodge/delay enough the big army), resulting in the Vikings vs Viper and the HT vs Viper game of cubes.
I've always defended that Abduct is not a bad spell to have but it's poorly balanced. Units have a variable called "mass" and Abduct should be based on that.
It's physics and it's more fair for counterplays, specially since Abduct is a money shot against capital targets. For example, 1 Abduct is usually 1 free kill of of a Colossus, the unit that makes Protoss playable against many swarmy styles.
I think that making Abduct only pull units based on their size would be okay. It can be easily adapted to balance it to each situation. It might be not the best mathematical, clear design, but it should work.
Maybe now that Vipers are going to have a very strong AA mechanic with their parasitic bomb, we can really nerf abduct to make Massive units immune to it, and leave it as a mechanic to displace some Siege-like units Like Tanks and Lurkers, or annoying casters like Oracles and Ravens.
The only fun we have had using Abduct was in ZvZ when Broodlords were relatively popular to break ZvZ stalemates, because the Zerg could tactically abduct their own units back.
Abduct only got introduced because Corruptors never cut it against Colossi and because blizzard rightfully wanted to get rid of rush-to-Broodlord-or-die-trying ZvP. With the Colossus nerf, there is little reason for it to exist. I do think it is not the worst spell in the book, because it makes for an interesting balance that makes massing these capital units kind of bad (you pull them one-by-one). It makes Zerg robust against other races having more efficient units in the endgame. But everyone saying it is a one-click kill spell fucking over positioning most of the time is right and that is really not cool design.
I mean there's just no way that the Viper will keep having 4 spells, it goes against every spell caster we've had beforehand. Parasitic Bomb is a very needed spell on the Zerg side though, but I did quite like where Vipers were in HotS and have nothing against Abduct. I think what will ultimately end up happening, is something along the lines of: Abduct gets removed from Viper and the pissing ability gets removed from the Corruptor and Abduct gets put on Corruptor in either the same or weaker fashion.
On May 06 2015 01:05 ejozl wrote: I mean there's just no way that the Viper will keep having 4 spells, it goes against every spell caster we've had beforehand. Parasitic Bomb is a very needed spell on the Zerg side though, but I did quite like where Vipers were in HotS and have nothing against Abduct. I think what will ultimately end up happening, is something along the lines of: Abduct gets removed from Viper and the pissing ability gets removed from the Corruptor and Abduct gets put on Corruptor in either the same or weaker fashion.
The Viper has not 4 spells. Spells drain energy and have an effect. It has 3 spells and a mechanic to recover energy.
The Sentry also has 3 spells and a mechanic (basic attack). The infestor also has 3 spells and a mechanic (burrow) The Ghost has 2 spells, 1 energybased mechanic (cloak) and a mechanic (basic attack)
It's not that rare.
I think Abduct is too good in Corruptor. But it could be very interesting to test, at least with owned units.
But the strength of a corruptor as AA + Abduct would completely break any air strategies except Viking ones since they can move at almost the same speed than corruptors but have more range.
In any other case, an attacking unit would get in range of the Corruptor normal range (which is quite short) but they could simply rapidfire Abduct and get every air unit in.
On May 06 2015 00:57 Big J wrote: Abduct only got introduced because Corruptors never cut it against Colossi and because blizzard rightfully wanted to get rid of rush-to-Broodlord-or-die-trying ZvP. With the Colossus nerf, there is little reason for it to exist. I do think it is not the worst spell in the book, because it makes for an interesting balance that makes massing these capital units kind of bad (you pull them one-by-one). It makes Zerg robust against other races having more efficient units in the endgame. But everyone saying it is a one-click kill spell fucking over positioning most of the time is right and that is really not cool design.
I'm 100% with you. Considering the Colossus Nerf and the new approach to the SH, Neural Parasite range buff, Lurker range, the AA mechanic of Viper (which completely shuts down the Voidray/Colossus Deathball combo)... Zerg has more than enough counter mechanisms to that.
It is fun as a mechanic, but cuts absolutely the utility of some capital units. Again, that's not a bad spell at all, but it might need tweaks, specially considering that cases. And bringing it back to ZvZ would be a ton of fun
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
But m-m-m-m-uh mutas, they're flapping their wings i-i-in SPACE.
On May 06 2015 01:05 ejozl wrote: I mean there's just no way that the Viper will keep having 4 spells, it goes against every spell caster we've had beforehand. Parasitic Bomb is a very needed spell on the Zerg side though, but I did quite like where Vipers were in HotS and have nothing against Abduct. I think what will ultimately end up happening, is something along the lines of: Abduct gets removed from Viper and the pissing ability gets removed from the Corruptor and Abduct gets put on Corruptor in either the same or weaker fashion.
The Viper has not 4 spells. Spells drain energy and have an effect. It has 3 spells and a mechanic to recover energy.
The Sentry also has 3 spells and a mechanic (basic attack). The infestor also has 3 spells and a mechanic (burrow) The Ghost has 2 spells, 1 energybased mechanic (cloak) and a mechanic (basic attack)
It's not that rare.
I disagree. HT's have Feedback, Storm and Archon (Special, but counts as a spell.) Defilers(BW) have Consume (Sacrifices a unit for energy, very similar to Consume on Viper,) Plague and Dark Swarm. Infestor have Burrow because it's a ground based Zerg unit, I don't think being able to attack means anything.
Spells and abilities are different. Blink, charge, stim doesnt count as spells, they count as abilities. Dont know the criteria for them100% but they are very different.
Two things i think need to be addressed as well - Infestors and Broodlords. I know everyone is terrified of broodlord infestor since late WoL, but really with the air upgrades and all terrans going for vikings with mech AND the existence of the tempest that puts a super hardcore timer on broodlords - basically its a timing attack unit, kill the army or a base or win the game within a couple of minutes of having broodlords scouted, or else they get hard countered and killed OR you have to go pure corrupter/brood lord which is a slow boring turtle composition.
Broodlords need to be changed. Faster with less damage and range? Maybe some kind of broodling tweak like the carriers, so that you can spawn a wave of broodlings on the ground where you want them?
Infestors are also just too weak. Fungal growth is only really good for holding things in place but the damage is a JOKE. to kill anything that isn't banelings or marines, you need to land at least 5 fungals in a row and odds are fairly good you'll wind up taking tank/colossus/anything fire while trying to chain and you lose more money in the infestors than the clump of units you kill, unless you get the ridiculous 20 raven fungal or something - which relies on your opponent messing up way more than it relies on your skill. Fungal damage increase but a slightly slower projectile? There's gotta be some wiggle room. So many pro games ive seen have the zerg land HUGE fungals on the entire army, and the other player just stands in the fungal and tanks the damage and still wins the fight because the 5.25 damage a second is negligible except on VERY low health units.
Infested terrans are quite weak. They were absolutely too strong, and fungal was absolutely too strong in WoL. How about some minor tweaks, such as infested terrans get carapace upgrades but not attack upgrades so they can tank a little extra? they still die brutally to splash but you could at least use them to tank up a few extra shots instead of just evaporating immediately. Brood lords are just plain boring.
Zerg just needs some way to scale better into the late game. In HotS we are stuck on midgame tech the entire time. How about some extreme late game upgrades? Like a hive tech hydra buff for +20 health to make them slightly less fragile, like combat shields. 2 stimmed marines with equal upgrades already outdps a single hydra (depending on upgrades of course), plus marines can stim and move wayyyyyyyyy faster than a hydra and they can be healed + picked up when in danger.
So far i am stoked as is humanly possible for LotV, just a few more things need reconsidering. Carriers and battlecruisers got a quite significant buff in LotV, how about some love for brood lords too? I agree, mass infestor should never be viable - it was disgusting spawning an entire army with upgrades wherever you needed it in WoL, but the pendulum has swung the other way and now infestors are fairly laughable. They definitely have their uses still, i'm not saying they don't. Just a thought.
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
That's nothing compared to the unsightly blob of bio terran that moves as if it's a giant clump of gello. But what's worse is there's a giant blob of medivacs above it making it look even more unnatural and unrealistic, putting it into the realm of ridiculous and comical. But even worse is that they somehow magically heal the giant blob of terran bio below with magical green light, defying all known laws of physics and sensibility.
Only in the mind of Dustin Browder is this COOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!! He thought It was so ceeeewl, he made it the cornerstone of the terran army... lol
On May 06 2015 20:38 Highways wrote: Where is double harvest??
Remove warpgate and rebalance Protoss, the race is badly designed.
Do you play Protoss? I agree with you on poor design, but I think Warpgate it's decent.
The race is not strong per se. Warpgate can be easily balanced with the actual nerfs as it doesn't add much offensive strength other than timings and in base warpins (ignoring that it boosts production which is the problematic point). And Speedyvac drops are fairly more abusive than lategame warpins.
What warpgate provides is mobility. Something that protoss lacks. Warping is fairly strategical, as it allows you to easily rethink your basic army each round, and be active on the map instead of turtling.
Protoss basic army is basically the same than in BW with few tweaks, while the basic army of Terran and Zerg has been amazingly revamped with their macrobooster strength and strong midgame units (Marauders, Roaches).
The macro strength of Protoss is very low, at minute 10-11 Protoss falls behind in production very easily, there relies their poor strategic design.
Also the poor efficiency of Gateways to balance out the potential cheese as Chronoboost is set by default (something that is poor design, macrobooster for free) forces Warpgate to be set early as a compensatory macro upgrade. Then Warpgate becomes a macrobooster upgrade, instead of an utility optional upgrade. That's the problem of the protoss race. The macro/production structural design is fairly non-sense. Free default access to macrobooster mechanic, mobility upgrade used as a production upgrade set up really early, initial production mechanics incompetent with other races (that was the cause of Photon overcharge introduction).... It should be Gateway > Warpgate in terms of production, not what we have now.
Being a follower of SC2 developement for years, I think that the problem comes with the removal of the Obelisk, completely removing the standard macro play from protoss, that would innitially be the same as other races. (Build supply, build first production building, build macrobooster unit/building (queen, OC', Obelisk))
Rethinking that would open a lot of space to rebalance the Protoss early/early midgame, and opening space for aditional reworks to their timing potentials and additional buffs, without being rigged to immediate production needs and early game weaknesses or midgame all-in potentials.
is there any talk at all about possibly increasing the supply cap and/or adding upgrade levels?
id love to see those changes, and an increased supply cap could solve the mining problem by itself
also:
On April 29 2015 19:38 dust7 wrote: Blizzard is playing this too safe. They said the Beta would be long and a time of massive changes and experimentation, but all I see is minor tweaks. They have already entered the stage of trying to find the "correct place" for now predetermined units, their abilities, the economy and other major game aspects (like warpgate).
For example, there is zero chance for units that are in the beta right now being removed again. With the exception of the terran unit to come, they decided on the set of units before the beta (when they actually removed the herc). SH, Tempest, Thor, etc. will stay.
There is also zero chance for community inspired changes to units and abilities at this point because those are not playing it safe enough. In years of reading TL I saw nobody suggesting another high range unit from the starport or more armor for the ultralisk. Community participation in the design of the new terran unit is an illusion.
There is zero chance for a redesign of warpgates and zero chance for any economic model that is much different from the current one.
It hurts so much to witness the last Starcraft there will ever be to become a pretty good game when it could have become a timeless classic.
On April 29 2015 19:38 dust7 wrote: Blizzard is playing this too safe. They said the Beta would be long and a time of massive changes and experimentation, but all I see is minor tweaks. They have already entered the stage of trying to find the "correct place" for now predetermined units, their abilities, the economy and other major game aspects (like warpgate).
For example, there is zero chance for units that are in the beta right now being removed again. With the exception of the terran unit to come, they decided on the set of units before the beta (when they actually removed the herc). SH, Tempest, Thor, etc. will stay.
There is also zero chance for community inspired changes to units and abilities at this point because those are not playing it safe enough. In years of reading TL I saw nobody suggesting another high range unit from the starport or more armor for the ultralisk. Community participation in the design of the new terran unit is an illusion.
There is zero chance for a redesign of warpgates and zero chance for any economic model that is much different from the current one.
It hurts so much to witness the last Starcraft there will ever be to become a pretty good game when it could have become a timeless classic.
my thoughts exactly!
Please, no more ultra armies beyond 200 supply or even longergame upgrade levels, Bio could get out of control with that.
Personally, I don't see why Tempests or Thors should go. But almost any high-cost/big unit needs adjustements.
Tempests could have tweaks to make it less late-late game or more accessible, since I think that it is going to be interesting as a counter Lurker/Cyclone/SiegeMedivac combo, considering how Widow mines and Vipers can trash Carriers and interceptors. Obviously, it needs to be really more interesting as a unit itself, having better utility instead of lame "1-click, enjoy free kill" mechanics. A little cost decrease, more micro with some range nerf, utility vs buildings (antiturtle), support debuffs...
Thors are actually the best option for Mech to go against ultras on creep because of the insane DPS,and we haven't seen the new air unit yet, so it would be bad to remove them. But the introduction of a new air unit opens a lot of space for new mechanics out of the Thor. A barricade ability would be god-like on the Thor. MMMMThor compos would have much more sense in a LBM that now will go for Ultralisk switches.
On May 06 2015 10:41 DemigodcelpH wrote: Remove Warpgate and stop trying to bandaid fix it.
Yea, that will fix everything. Actually that will just make protoss even weaker than it is now. >_<
Thats the point. Those units are weak exactly because of warpgate. Removing it would allow us/them/whoever to make them stronger since players wouldn't have to fear that 10 of them are being warped in into their base at once.
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
That's nothing compared to the unsightly blob of bio terran that moves as if it's a giant clump of gello. But what's worse is there's a giant blob of medivacs above it making it look even more unnatural and unrealistic, putting it into the realm of ridiculous and comical. But even worse is that they somehow magically heal the giant blob of terran bio below with magical green light, defying all known laws of physics and sensibility.
Only in the mind of Dustin Browder is this COOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!! He thought It was so ceeeewl, he made it the cornerstone of the terran army... lol
For all the physics whiners out there, why not just make the viper a ground unit for the second or so it's abducting. Ie. it roots to the ground to abduct thereby conforming to Newtons 3rd law. The tinniest of nerfs and maybe even a buff as it would stop vikings from shooting it for the second or so.
On April 29 2015 19:38 dust7 wrote: There is also zero chance for community inspired changes to units and abilities at this point because those are not playing it safe enough. In years of reading TL I saw nobody suggesting another high range unit from the starport or more armor for the ultralisk. Community participation in the design of the new terran unit is an illusion.
I don't know, the new terran unit reminds me a bit of Gretorp's suggestion here:
Is a support AOE air to air damage dealer with ability utility to help out ground. It does bonus damage to armored.
Abilities Disabling Field: Units that are inside or walk inside this field are unable to attack or cast. Grenade: shoots a grenade charge that slows and reduces armor of all units inside.
Here's the reason why it should exist.
TvZ: seeing muta ling bling the whole game makes the matchup very linear. We want it to move past tier 2 units for zerg while maintaining their viability. If terran techs up to this unit we can force them to lay off the mass mutas, else this AOE unit will be able to eventually be amassed in larger numbers, and it can deal with the heavy muta counts in larger numbers with the grenade + light AOE dmg.
Lurker ling/bling seems unreasonable to attack into. This allows bio to be viable.
TvP Bio needs help in late game. Not in early game. This unit can be a helping solution to the constant problem of HT/Collo. That combination is so good at end game stages. With this unit, zoning sides and not having to worry about them against hts makes the match a lot more interesting
TvT Nobody likes raven/viking. It's random. It's silly at times, and it's a very unrewarding feeling when you're playing it/playing against it/watching it. because of its burst AOE against armored units, I hope to remove the capacity for the raven to be the go to AOE air unit. Thereby giving a more expected result when we see these armies collide.
In summation, we have a utility spell casting unit that's a splice of the valkyrie/queen/corsair/Devouruer from BW that is tier 2.5ish and can live in mid game to late game. It forces other races not to just defend, else they'll get punished with the disabling field, while still being expensive enough to be of high opportunity cost. It forces zerg to end game compositions, strays the TvTaway from RNG wins, and gives bio a potential way to deal with HTs and blink stalkers killing all our vikings and our units.
It could be that Blizzard didn't read that and wasn't inspired by it however.
This might not be the right place for my comment but there it is.
I think there is a big issue with the Viper. It's a great unit but very unbalanced.
Abduct ability NEEDS modification. It is not normal and PHYSICALLY IMPOSIBLE for a unit like the viper to pull back a
massive unit like a Mothership, a Battlecruiser or even a thor or an ultralisk...
Plus the fact that abducting so easily a Unique Unit like the Mothership is Unba for Protoss.
I think that one solution would be to change the size/price/speed of the Viper to make it a massive Unit that can abduct other massive units, or it can be an upgrade for normal Vipers that would make them massive.
Another solution would be to change the abduct ability. Very simple, to abduct a massive Unit you would need several Vipers...
That's nothing compared to the unsightly blob of bio terran that moves as if it's a giant clump of gello. But what's worse is there's a giant blob of medivacs above it making it look even more unnatural and unrealistic, putting it into the realm of ridiculous and comical. But even worse is that they somehow magically heal the giant blob of terran bio below with magical green light, defying all known laws of physics and sensibility.
Only in the mind of Dustin Browder is this COOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!! He thought It was so ceeeewl, he made it the cornerstone of the terran army... lol
For all the physics whiners out there, why not just make the viper a ground unit for the second or so it's abducting. Ie. it roots to the ground to abduct thereby conforming to Newtons 3rd law. The tinniest of nerfs and maybe even a buff as it would stop vikings from shooting it for the second or so.
Conservation of momentum is not exactly an obscure law though, everyone knows that when you pull a heavy object towards you, you'll end up pulling yourself toward it if not careful. Abduct looks equally ridiculous to me as if marines could walk on water and zerglings could fly. Actually, in both those cases you'd get used to it about 10 games in anyway.
Anyhow, intuitive ability design doesn't mean that one ability needs to operate the same way on every single unit. Players look at the graphics of the ability and will realize that it shouldn't work on massive units and units which are grounded such as a sieged tank. That's easy to understand, you could even have a funny graphic where the viper torpedoes itself towards such targets.
On May 06 2015 20:38 Highways wrote: Where is double harvest??
Remove warpgate and rebalance Protoss, the race is badly designed.
Do you play Protoss? I agree with you on poor design, but I think Warpgate it's decent.
The race is not strong per se. Warpgate can be easily balanced with the actual nerfs as it doesn't add much offensive strength other than timings and in base warpins (ignoring that it boosts production which is the problematic point). And Speedyvac drops are fairly more abusive than lategame warpins.
What warpgate provides is mobility. Something that protoss lacks. Warping is fairly strategical, as it allows you to easily rethink your basic army each round, and be active on the map instead of turtling.
Protoss basic army is basically the same than in BW with few tweaks, while the basic army of Terran and Zerg has been amazingly revamped with their macrobooster strength and strong midgame units (Marauders, Roaches).
The macro strength of Protoss is very low, at minute 10-11 Protoss falls behind in production very easily, there relies their poor strategic design.
Also the poor efficiency of Gateways to balance out the potential cheese as Chronoboost is set by default (something that is poor design, macrobooster for free) forces Warpgate to be set early as a compensatory macro upgrade. Then Warpgate becomes a macrobooster upgrade, instead of an utility optional upgrade. That's the problem of the protoss race. The macro/production structural design is fairly non-sense. Free default access to macrobooster mechanic, mobility upgrade used as a production upgrade set up really early, initial production mechanics incompetent with other races (that was the cause of Photon overcharge introduction).... It should be Gateway > Warpgate in terms of production, not what we have now.
Being a follower of SC2 developement for years, I think that the problem comes with the removal of the Obelisk, completely removing the standard macro play from protoss, that would innitially be the same as other races. (Build supply, build first production building, build macrobooster unit/building (queen, OC', Obelisk))
Rethinking that would open a lot of space to rebalance the Protoss early/early midgame, and opening space for aditional reworks to their timing potentials and additional buffs, without being rigged to immediate production needs and early game weaknesses or midgame all-in potentials.
I think WG is a good mechanic actually, just badly implemented, as right now it imposes too many restriction on the protoss race.
The problem is that as long as WG are the default production for protoss, you can't make meaningful changes to the units themselves.
I always tought that the Sbow solution was really good.
WG: fast harras, easy reinforces units, not too strong, good mobility. Less cost efficient but with more utility GW: strong, slow to make but good in low numbers, hard to reinforce with but can be the core of an army. Cost efficient but army becomes weak without them.
The robo+wg combo was not a bad one, but since wg was how it was robo units had to be too strong and so they became too vulnerable and that forced deathball play.
If GW only become a thing, protoss will have a cheaper faster version of robo units, since they would more of them and losing 1 or 2 wouldn't be such an investment compared to robo units, protoss wouldn't need to death ball as much.
There are a few ways to go about, a simply one would be:
WG: Stalker, DT (zealots maybe) GW: Adept or other (if they keep the adept they need to make a core army unit and not a harass one) zealot maybe too. If they keep zealots on WG no changes, if they move them to GW they could be buffed if needed. I'm not sure where to put sentrys and templars, stalkers and DT could still be made from GW but in a less efficient way. Also put a certain limit in how to change between WG and GW as needed.
This gives option to keep WG, make GW useful and make the core changes to a protoss Gateway army that players have asked since forever without the limits of WG.
Here are some potential redesigns ideas of current units.
Thor: Add Railgun Ability Deals 100 damage to single target (ground or air) within range 7. This ability ignores armor and should have a long cooldown maybe 60 seconds.
Cyclone: Change Lock-On so is stops as soon as the target is out of vision. Can Attack ground and air without upgrade.
Adept: Remove Psionic Transfer Add Psionic Lash Adept pulls the target of Psionic Lash to it the target is stunned for 1 seconds. Psionic Lash has a range of 6 and cooldown of 30 seconds. Massive targets are immune to this ability and only ground units can be targeted. This new ability works perfectly with the shield boost upgrade. It would become a Archon/ HERC hybrid.
On May 06 2015 20:38 Highways wrote: Where is double harvest??
Remove warpgate and rebalance Protoss, the race is badly designed.
Do you play Protoss? I agree with you on poor design, but I think Warpgate it's decent.
The race is not strong per se. Warpgate can be easily balanced with the actual nerfs as it doesn't add much offensive strength other than timings and in base warpins (ignoring that it boosts production which is the problematic point). And Speedyvac drops are fairly more abusive than lategame warpins.
What warpgate provides is mobility. Something that protoss lacks. Warping is fairly strategical, as it allows you to easily rethink your basic army each round, and be active on the map instead of turtling.
Protoss basic army is basically the same than in BW with few tweaks, while the basic army of Terran and Zerg has been amazingly revamped with their macrobooster strength and strong midgame units (Marauders, Roaches).
The macro strength of Protoss is very low, at minute 10-11 Protoss falls behind in production very easily, there relies their poor strategic design.
Also the poor efficiency of Gateways to balance out the potential cheese as Chronoboost is set by default (something that is poor design, macrobooster for free) forces Warpgate to be set early as a compensatory macro upgrade. Then Warpgate becomes a macrobooster upgrade, instead of an utility optional upgrade. That's the problem of the protoss race. The macro/production structural design is fairly non-sense. Free default access to macrobooster mechanic, mobility upgrade used as a production upgrade set up really early, initial production mechanics incompetent with other races (that was the cause of Photon overcharge introduction).... It should be Gateway > Warpgate in terms of production, not what we have now.
Being a follower of SC2 developement for years, I think that the problem comes with the removal of the Obelisk, completely removing the standard macro play from protoss, that would innitially be the same as other races. (Build supply, build first production building, build macrobooster unit/building (queen, OC', Obelisk))
Rethinking that would open a lot of space to rebalance the Protoss early/early midgame, and opening space for aditional reworks to their timing potentials and additional buffs, without being rigged to immediate production needs and early game weaknesses or midgame all-in potentials.
I think WG is a good mechanic actually, just badly implemented, as right now it imposes too many restriction on the protoss race.
The problem is that as long as WG are the default production for protoss, you can't make meaningful changes to the units themselves.
I always tought that the Sbow solution was really good.
WG: fast harras, easy reinforces units, not too strong, good mobility. Less cost efficient but with more utility GW: strong, slow to make but good in low numbers, hard to reinforce with but can be the core of an army. Cost efficient but army becomes weak without them.
The robo+wg combo was not a bad one, but since wg was how it was robo units had to be too strong and so they became too vulnerable and that forced deathball play.
If GW only become a thing, protoss will have a cheaper faster version of robo units, since they would more of them and losing 1 or 2 wouldn't be such an investment compared to robo units, protoss wouldn't need to death ball as much.
There are a few ways to go about, a simply one would be:
WG: Stalker, DT (zealots maybe) GW: Adept or other (if they keep the adept they need to make a core army unit and not a harass one) zealot maybe too. If they keep zealots on WG no changes, if they move them to GW they could be buffed if needed. I'm not sure where to put sentrys and templars, stalkers and DT could still be made from GW but in a less efficient way. Also put a certain limit in how to change between WG and GW as needed.
This gives option to keep WG, make GW useful and make the core changes to a protoss Gateway army that players have asked since forever without the limits of WG.
The Starbow solution as you said it's pretty good. It's the very simple concept:
Reversed WG and Gateway build times. Warpgate delayed in tech
- Gateway as main production. More faster building
- Warpgate as aggressive production, chronoboost soaker, timings, reinforcements (aggressively) and harass. Only available as a mid/lategame tech. But less efficient (longer build times)
However that implies reworking the Protoss macro in some aspects, as you have default acces to CB. In other words: that means standarizing Protoss macro.
- Making Protoss pay 150 each base for access to their macrobooster (like Terran and Zerg) Fun fact, it was the way Protoss was exactly pre-beta release with the Obelisk.
- Giving them strong macroboosters and defensive options. The Starbow chronoboost is a 100% boost for 20s (40s of build time) for 15 energy. Limited to 50 max energy. (3 chronos) The SC2 chronoboost is 50% bonus for 20s (30s of build time) for 25 energy. Limited to 100 energy. (4 chronos) Fun fact 2: SC2 chronoboost was nerfed from 30s (45s of build time) in WoL beta patch 5.
There is an obvious correlation between removing the need to pay for your macrobooster and the initial strength you can give to it and to your production.
I've defended for years that the Macro weakness (compared to Terran and Zerg) and the Gateway/Warpgate problems of Protoss came all from the rebalancing as the Obelisk was removed.
- Giving a macrobooster mechanic by default is problematic if your production is strong per se initially. That leads to nerfs in early game production.See WoL beta patches about Gateway build time, Chronoboost duration and Zealot build time. - Then you have to reintroduce the production strength relatively early -> Warpgate as earlygame boost to production, must-have upgrade, main building structure. - As you can't compete in production pre-warpgate, you turtle. You eat roach all-ins, speedlings and bio tank pushes for years at your nat. - Then someone "clever" decides to give you a 1-click safety mechanic to let you play safe. - Then you can abuse very safe turtling 2-base and go awesome all-ins combined with the comfort of having Warpgates early. - Then people complains for 2 years about OP. - Then in the new expansion, economic changes lead to faster start early game, where you are fairly vulnerable. - You are forced to be defensive again, and new units are going to be problematic to balance early game.
Anyone knows the history?
I think that the game works fairly balanced even with the non-standarized Protoss, and I want to clarificate that I still like how Protoss is able to be aggressive with Warpgate relatively earlygame, specially since time-wise, the all-ins and timings have been nerfed by the effect of the economy, making them more doable.
However, for design reseasons, re-standarizing the Protoss macro, giving room for rebalancing the early game and the mid-game production would be really interesting, specially considering how a DH-like econ could affect the game (with fast expansion of Zergs, and MULES still in the game)
What's more, delaying a bit the Cybercore in favor of the Obelisk would help with balancing oracles, solving some Terran complains about that. Obviously, as long as Warpgate gets direct or indirect nerfs, and we don't need to have much the imminent issue of Proxy gate strenght because of the delayed CB, we can have buffs to Gateway units. For example, Adepts are extremely uberbuffed with 180 HP early game and there has been relatively few complaints about that for now, comparing the volume of complaints about the Cyclone.
I have an idea for a new aerial Terran unit that Blizzard are going to add to the game.
It has an AoE AA attack and ~range 9 AG normal attack. Also, it has transformation ability like a Viking. It can land and have AoE GG attack and ~range 9 AA normal attack.
EPT![[image loading]](http://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/blog_header/ZIBRBIXE7F5K1426688146595.jpg)
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