Community Feedback Update - June 26

Thank you for the responses regarding last week’s update and the continued discussion on those topics. Let’s get right into the topics for this week.

New Ghost ability
Before we discuss the new ability, we’d like to point out that the beta exists so that we can test various changes, and some will be bigger changes like this. As we’ve pointed out before, we’re still in beta and nothing is final. If we end up feeling the change doesn’t work, it’s easy to just revert the change, and there was no harm done. On the other hand, by trying out bigger changes such as this one, we can learn more about a tool that the Ghost can potentially use, or even give us more ideas in terms of what else we can try next. We saw a range of responses to this change, from those immediately dismissing the change based on the description to some analyzing the changes and providing constructive feedback. In order to help the development process and work together, the first type of stance mentioned above helps no one, and the second type of stance is what we do internally. We’d really like to give shout-outs to people who are also willing to work for the better of the game like this.

Getting into the details of where we’re at with this ability. We agree with you guys in that this is probably not the final version of the ability. This ability was created with two main factors in mind:
Something fills the role of Snipe
Snipe, at its core, was used to help take down larger units (before it was changed to mostly focus on eliminating High Templars).
The problem was that there was little micro on both sides, since Snipe is instant burst damage. And it was moved to a spot where it’s rarely used due to how it was used. Games where Snipe would take down a few critical units instantly and the game would end.

Something that has more interaction, unlike Snipe.
There are many potential interactions with the new ability. Say one of my Carriers got tagged. Now I can make a choice out of many options: I can move that Carrier out of range to not take additional damage from the Vikings, focus fire down the drone, move back out of range if too many drones were used in a specific location, or not care and deal damage through the armor debuff.
Compare this with being hit with Snipe: he used Snipe enough times to kill my Broodlord or he didn’t and my Broodlord survived. There really isn’t a choice for me here.

It’s too early to make a judgment on this new ability, but that was our thoughts regarding why we wanted to try this ability out. One point we saw from the community was that the fantasy of the new ability isn’t as strong for the Ghost as Snipe was. We agree here, and this will need to factor into the final decision when we decide to keep, improve, redesign, or revert this change.

New Medivac upgrade
As with the Ghost ability, this was a bigger change we wanted to test that isn’t final.

Here are our thoughts behind this change:
Splash damage options have been buffed against Bio
Lurkers and Ultralisks for Zerg.
While we don’t exactly know where Disruptors will end up, we’d like the unit to be in a very powerful place against Bio.

If we had to buff Bio, we thought we’d buff in an area that’s the most exciting.
So in this specific case, the ability wasn’t added because Marine drops were underpowered, but we wanted to try this buff to see if a strategy that we want to see a lot of in Void could also be more interesting after the upgrade has been purchased. For example, even in some cases where lots of Mutalisks are flying around, it may be possible to do a forced drop.
We’ve also tried straight up buffs in main engagements, but we felt this route helped distinguish bio play more so from Mech play.
Mech can be more about the direct engagement strength whereas Bio, while it may be weaker in Void due to changes to other races, we wonder if they can hold up better due to stronger harassment play.

We obviously don’t know the full effect of the changes, and also it’s not possible to make a call on whether this was a good add or not this early, but we just wanted to clear up our thoughts behind this change.

Disruptor Update
We’ve been testing various changes here and we want a version of the Disruptor where each hit isn’t that big, but it’s possible to save and reuse each Disruptor so there’s a lot more micro and decision making needed on both sides. This week we’re trying a version of the Disruptor that has much less impact per hit, but stays in its “phased out” mode for a few seconds after the hit has gone off. One concern here is that the Disruptor could feel too difficult to kill, and this is why we’d like to internally explore more in detail before deciding on the list of changes for the beta.

assive abilities vs. Active abilities
One thing we’d like to clear up here is that we iterate and polish our design philosophies and processes as well. What we said ~10 years ago regarding this topic is a good example of us having changed our stance in an area. We have design philosophies we follow and try our best to improve over time. Currently, we believe both active abilities and passive abilities can offer interesting additions to the game. But with that said, if there are specific, solid suggestions on a new unit improvement in this area, we agree that could be a potential win. But we’d like to consider this on a case by case basis and just saying “get rid of all actives on new units” isn’t very helpful. It’s also incorrect to say that active abilities are always more difficult to use than passive abilities. For example, outside of high-level play, the passive Voidray ability was very difficult to use for lower-level players because it’s very difficult to have the powered up state stay on and the exact right times. In comparison, pressing one button to activate all your Voidrays for a power boost right when you need it is much easier for lower-level players to use.

We’d like to also point out there are different degrees of active abilities. The Liberator’s active isn’t something that must be done at that split second moment and also doesn’t need to be done with completely accurate and precise clicks. Compare this to the Disruptor’s active ability where you have to manually micro each one to each different location after using the ability. In this specific situation, the reason Disruptors require such high micro is because we agree with community suggestions that Protoss can use more skill differentiating units especially during engagements, whereas Terran has a lot of it so we went with easier to use units on that side.

Thanks to your feedback, we’re exploring potential ways to tone down the Siege Tank without nerfing it too much. We’re not saying we know for certain if the current version is too strong, but we’re exploring this area internally to see what we can find. This week, we’re trying a version where the pick-up is instant (but the tank still stays in Siege Mode), and when this type of Siege Tank is dropped, the tank itself needs time to set up at that new location. This way, there’s a bit of a delay before firing each shot, and the Medivac is still free to move around since both the pick-up and drop on this side is instant. We don’t know what the optimal number of seconds will be for the tank to set up, but it’s something we’re playing around with.

Some additional thoughts on other threads and topics this week:
An Archon Mode suggestion thread discussed displaying more clearly which player within a team just made a cool move. Our previous thought was that in Archon Mode, it’s about the team doing cool stuff as one person, and less about each person doing cool stuff individually. But after reading the thread and comments within it, we’re wondering if the other route can be cooler. We don’t have immediate solutions here, but we’ll be discussing and exploring options our end regarding this topic.
We’ve seen a few different threads on strategies regarding the Overlord drop change. It’s always great to see this kind of discussion as it helps in our balance discussions.
We also wanted to give BasetradeTV a shout out here, because the uptime of their stream on various events is really impressive to us.

On June 27 2015 06:43 dislike wrote:


Shoutout to TakeTV for 76 days IN A ROW streaming HotS and LotV! These guys are a real treat for the german community. Also: Its HOMESTORY CUP NEXT WEEK EVERYBODY!