I kinda like the pace of LotV so far, it's less volatile so better player has higher chance of winning.

I agree with zerglings speed is too fast though. They should make speedlings a little slower.
- Firstly they are so fast that you can't really micro them
- Secondly, when terran or protoss moves out with little pokes, speedlings punishes them so hard because they are so fast means instant surround. If we want to encourage more action, then reduce speed.

I also want to see more responsive units. Make hydralisk more microable, like in BW.

Hider

Denmark9376 Posts

August 23 2015 12:32 GMT

#22

I also want to see more responsive units. Make hydralisk more microable, like in BW.

Hydras were less responsive in BW though. But it wasn't unresponsive in the same way as it is in Sc2 where it has a damage point.

It could feel more like Sc2-Marines if it received a lower damage point.

p14c

Vatican City State431 Posts

August 23 2015 17:35 GMT

#23

Nerfing anti-air and buffing Brood Lords and especially Carriers is a terrible idea. Who needs Collosus when you have Carriers with reavers. Brood Lord with Hydra support will also be OP as hell. Brood Lords is such an awful designed unit. It spawns free units that messes with all ground units AI.

Pontius Pirate

United States1557 Posts

August 23 2015 18:11 GMT

#24

I agree with most of your suggestions, apart from the notable exception of removing Mutalisk's tissue regeneration, and to a lesser degree, the BL and TLO Ultralisk suggestions. There is a lot of value in having harass units self heal. They can afford to take risks and trade off damage with opposing units and structure, and then come in again, wearing the opponent down through relentless harass. If anything, I think we need some radical mid-late game upgrade for Reapers to give them a similar level of harass usage as the Mutalisk. I'm also in favor of completely reverting LotV's flavor changes to the Zealot and the Adept, and retooling the shield-heavy Adept as the harasser of the two, and the Zealot as the tank/main army comp unit. A high shield pool can allow it to tank some damage while poking away at the margin's of someone's base, or at workers directly, and then retreat out and heal their shields entirely.

The Tempest was originally planned as an AA splash unit, and this would be an excellent avenue to explore, considering how painfully boring the current and LotV incarnations are.

Your tone is excessively doom-and-gloom though, and it's laughable that you think that there are no more great games yet to be played.

Pontius Pirate

United States1557 Posts

August 23 2015 18:12 GMT

#25

Shit, I pressed quote instead of edit. Damn website redesign...

Lexender

Mexico2628 Posts

August 23 2015 18:19 GMT

#26

The changes you propose sound an awful lot like Starbow, wich is ok Starbow is fucking great

JCoto

Spain574 Posts

August 23 2015 19:48 GMT

#27

I smell the BW nostalgia drama here disguised as a design critic.... SC2 is not BW and it shouldn't, no need to recopy-paste BW units, or to eliminate new units with interesting design and uses...

We need better design definitely, specially on caster units like the Raven or Oracle, and more positional abilities instead of damage, but please, no more BW drama. Starbow exists for a reason, even when their Protoss is very oversimplified.

BronzeKnee

United States5217 Posts

August 23 2015 20:28 GMT

#28

On August 23 2015 03:56 Filter wrote:

Simple is Beautiful

Looking forward at the design of Legacy of the Void for all three races, their new units and the new abilities something doesn’t add up. The most exciting players to watch in HoTS have chosen to simplify their armies, forgoing “intended use” and instead choosing to get more out of their personal skillset. Maru is the best example of this, if I told you in 2013 the best TvP player in the entire world would not be making Vikings or Ghosts in TvP and instead relying entirely on his ability to control Marines, Mines, Marauders and Medivacs with flawless precision you would call me insane. Maru has decided that controlling simple units more effectively is better than using the intended “counters”.

Have we seen the last great game?

Wow that was a long, but good read. I don't agree with all of the unit changes necessarily, but the design ideas echo many of things I've said and have thought.

But I really want to highlight that piece regarding simplicity being beautiful. I've tried to argued that for a long time, but you very eloquently spelled it out.

The best interactions we've seen in Starcraft, the most exciting engagements, the back and forth contests that kept me glued to the screen, were between simple unit compositions.

You see a lot more micro and opportunities for skill when you have Blink Stalker/Sentry going up against Roach/Hydra/Ling than you do when Colossus, Void Rays, Infestors or Vipers get involved. And Marine and Marauders will always take more skill to use, and have a high ceiling than Hellbats and Thors.

Those intended counters (ie hard counters) you so rightly point out, literally bleed skill out of the game. We need units with a low floor and high ceiling, that lead to extended engagements with back and forth play.

And those units cannot be one shot units (like the old Disruptor, HT with Storm, Ghost with EMP, MS with Vortex, Infestor with Fungal, ect) not only because the skill difference between a Gold player and a GM using Fungal Growth, while great, is much smaller than the skill difference between Gold player and a GM microing Marines, but because they don't lead to extended engagements that provide opportunities to come back.

I think we have seen the last great game honestly. I am of the belief that the pinnacle of Starcraft 2 was the time beginning around TSL3 and ending just after TSL4.

Blacklizard

United States1194 Posts

August 26 2015 16:14 GMT

#29

This 100% I have always agreed with:

quote:

"Every race needs POWERFUL ground based anti-air, so much so that using the skies for anything more than harassment should be heavily discouraged. The biggest problems in terms of stale gameplay have all revolved heavily around air control being nearly impossible for one side to wrestle back. So much that ground control starts to no longer be of any importance. The current flavour of this is are the Terran’s going to Raven/Viking/Banshee/Battlecruiser against Zerg. The darkest days of Starcraft were dominated by the Broodlord, with infestors patrolling on the ground Protoss relied on a massive gimmick to win and Terran had to pray to god the zerg made a major mistake in order to win.

Air is a major problem for a very simple reason. It completely removes the ability to hold ground and buy time."

Big J

Austria16289 Posts

August 26 2015 16:34 GMT

#30

On August 27 2015 01:14 Blacklizard wrote:
This 100% I have always agreed with:

quote:

"Every race needs POWERFUL ground based anti-air, so much so that using the skies for anything more than harassment should be heavily discouraged. The biggest problems in terms of stale gameplay have all revolved heavily around air control being nearly impossible for one side to wrestle back. So much that ground control starts to no longer be of any importance. The current flavour of this is are the Terran’s going to Raven/Viking/Banshee/Battlecruiser against Zerg. The darkest days of Starcraft were dominated by the Broodlord, with infestors patrolling on the ground Protoss relied on a massive gimmick to win and Terran had to pray to god the zerg made a major mistake in order to win.

Air is a major problem for a very simple reason. It completely removes the ability to hold ground and buy time."

Air is a problem because not even half of the units in the game can interact with air. If your opponent goes air, half of your options disappear or become supertiming dependent. The remaining options still undergo the normal unit counter systems and thus are very situational. You are usually left with very limited gameplay choices.

The way the game should be designed is that you have ground units with good interactions and reasonable balance. Then, to fight the best and most postional dependent ground options and prevent them from becoming "the ultimate army" you should have air and air support options.
What shouldn't be there in the first place are heavy air-to-ground units that can combat with ground-to-air units like Broodlords, Carriers, Voidrays, Ravens or BCs, to some degree even the (HotS-buffed) Mutalisk. Such units plainly shouldn't exist. Air-to-ground should be there to abuse ground-to-ground units or for certain support functions like dropping or no-damage spellcasters like (HotS-)Vipers or Medivacs (for healing).

Blacklizard

United States1194 Posts

August 26 2015 18:51 GMT

#31

quote:
"What shouldn't be there in the first place are heavy air-to-ground units that can combat with ground-to-air units like Broodlords, Carriers, Voidrays, Ravens or BCs, to some degree even the (HotS-buffed) Mutalisk."

Yes, I think it would play out better that way. Positional play is very fun such a huge part of the RTS genre, air needs to be supplemental not end game army. I'm very fine with harassment from the sky that can be dealt with, but whole armies based on air units just doesn't work to keep the game fun and skillful IMO.

NexT_SC2

United States117 Posts

August 27 2015 18:52 GMT

#32

Fusion core upgrade to give marines and/ or marauders giant lazors that shoot up XD jk. Maybe take a page from the real world and make it so that air units must fly "forward" and can only turn while going forward so in order to hit the same target multiple times they will have to circle back around. Obviously units like mutalisks, phoenix, ravens, or banshees can be exempt from this. Or destroyed air units explode and deal splash damage in a small radius around them to both friendly and enemy units? Another random idea could be to add more "towers" that block air movement or add clouds and whatnot to imitate the difficulties actual aircrafts have when flying.

Also I think the marine is a very good unit in terms of design and balance. It does ok on its own but has a significant weakness(splash), but once they get support from other units like medivacs, marauders, hellbats, etc. they become better. Then when they're positioned and microed properly, marines are amazing. Giving other units 0 damage point would be very beneficial to the game as a whole imo and would help eliminate deathball armies as OP said.

my rant about mech:
+ Show Spoiler +

I also hate terran mech. One of the most satisfying parts of playing terran is playing bio and its positioning, decision making, and micro requirements. The fast-paced multitasking and adaptive play style of bio feels like a trademark of terran to me and mech just completely ruins it. Watching mech(I rarely play mech myself) feels like watching a protoss deathball except it has to siege up first. I'm fine with small squads of tanks and hellbats defending bases or pressuring expansions but I'm not fine with a giant mass of hellbats, thors, siege tanks, and vikings walking across the map wrecking three zerg armies and winning the game. Same goes for protoss deathballs.