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On August 29 2015 05:48 ohmylanta1003 wrote:
The funniest part is that the Reddit thread is more constructive and less hostile than this Team Liquid one. And David Kim even is responding in the Reddit thread. I wouldn't come to this forum if I was him either.
Pretty sad to say, but for some people thats actually true. I don't know how people can be so entitled sometimes. I am disappointed as well but I'd never not appreciate the work Kim is doing.
But alas, I edited my post a bit and am copying it into here again:
+ Show Spoiler +
While I really appreciate that they're trying out so much stuff, it also feels like they're completely crippling themselves by not going into the fundamentals more.
Many people in this thread are pretty stupid about how to say it and just flame ahead as if this was a reddit thread, but they have a point: Instead of fixing the core problems of the game, Kim has to come up with bandaid fixes to make the game more appealing to casual players as well as more fun and an overall better experience for higher level players(i.e. everyone not playing once a month).
Things like "engine flaws/technical flaws" that Blizzard doesn't see as flaws(overkill protection screwing with Terran mech/tanks comes to mind, or damage point and other things, referring to Lalush's posts mainly about unit control) exist next to a not-optimized and outdated economic growth model that always leads to the same number of optimal bases/workers and some archaic unit concepts such as the colossus, roach or marauder and many others that are either boring or completely hard-countering certain playstyles.
I don't know if it's Blizzard telling Kim to not do it, or Kim not being confident enough. But these changes are so well thought out that I firmly believe that given the proper amount of time, Kim and his team can do a proper redesign of some core-aspects of the game so that they can stop the bandaid fixing and concentrate on whats important: Making all elements of the game more fun - instead of increasing the already existing fun elements while completely having to ignore the frustrating, non-fun elements of the game.
It seems like it's too late for that now and we're past a point where this is the biggest change we will see in Beta.
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I was going to make a new thread but fuck it. I'll just post it here.
Automation and Efficiency: Easy Next Step
This change was expected in some form or another and I’ve already thought about what I felt should be the next step.
Their purpose was always to make the game easier for newer players and less punishing for slip ups in macro mechanics. Automation was pretty clearly a good answer to both of these issues and allows us to move past those particular issues in discussing macro mechanics.
I believe that macro mechanics should be altered as follows:
Macro mechanics should be more difficult but less punishing.
Automation takes care of the second part and now I’d like to deal with the first.
Inefficient Automation:
While automation seems at first to be dumbing the game down, it allows for the introduction of inefficiency within the system without being overly punishing for newer players.
Inefficiency already exists in many areas of Starcraft so it’s not unprecedented to introduce them here. Take 2 options for building marines:
Option A is easier but has less benefits. (Queue 5 marines in a barracks)
Option B is harder but more benefits. (build 1 marine at a time and use the freed up money to do other things)
As long as option A exists for new players, option B can also exist for higher skill players. HOTS had only 1 option (inject or die) and thus tampering with it was very problematic as it effects pros and noobs alike.
Proposed System:
All races have a 2 macro mechanics system; manual and automatic.
An orbital will have a spell that is called MULE and another called auto-MULE. Same for inject and chrono.
Increase the frequency these spells need to be cast greatly. MULEs in HOTS were cast every 90 seconds. Decrease that to 15 or 30 seconds.
The manual cast cooldown will always be shorter than the automatic cast.
For example MULE cooldown is 15 seconds and the auto-MULE is 20 seconds.
The cooldowns BOTH reset when either of the spells are used.
The numbers are very easily tweaked depending on how harsh or lenient Blizzard wants to be. A harsh punishment would be for example a manual MULE having a 10 second cooldown while the auto-MULE having a 30 second cooldown.
In the example of MULE=15 second cooldown and auto-MULE= 20 second cooldown; at best you can have 4 MULEs every minute. At worst you can have 3 MULEs every minute.
Similarly, queen inject now spawn only 1 larva but you manually inject every 10 seconds and auto-Inject occurs every 15 seconds. Over 1 minute you have between 4-6 larva per hatch depending on your execution. Again, numbers are easily tweaked as the inefficiency is the main point here.
Difficulty scales into later game scenarios. A terran with 1 orbital is losing 1 mule every minute if they auto-MULE every single cycle. When you move up to 3 orbitals, this can be up to 3 MULEs lost per minute. Perfect muling from 3 orbitals every 15 seconds would be quite difficult but perhaps a task worth pursuing if you are looking to compete in GSL.
Smoother learning curve and Multiple Chances to improve:
The system is much smoother and easy to understand compared to the HOTS model. A newer zerg can manually inject for the first 5 minutes of a game and then, because the game is hard, let auto-Inject take over for the rest of the game. The player can manually inject periodically over the course of the game but it will only yield a few extra larva. Only through consistent concerted effort to manually inject can the Zerg yield any major benefits over their auto-Injecting counterparts.
Maybe next game the same players try to manually inject for the next 5:30 minutes and so on and so forth. This is a clear and simple improvement process that allows the player to make mistakes and have a safety net so they can try again.
In a gold vs gold league match, the difference between manual inject and auto-Inject over the course of a minute would only be 2-4 roaches but doing so over the course of 5 minutes could lead to game winning macro (10-20 excess roaches). It’s not so loaded on that single inject that led to 8 less roaches in your battle. Automation means slip ups are not so punishing but stronger players can clearly distance themselves from their weaker opponents.
Conclusion:
The introduction of automation actually provides benefits for competitive players as long as inefficiency comes along with it. Automation means new players do not even have to be part of the equation when discussing the difficulty and punishment of macro mechanics as the automation efficiency can be tweaked accordingly.
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Mules not being a choice anymore in the early game is.... Strange. It removes strategic depth from the race.
Even as a lower league player i think they're removing 'clicks' from the wrong place.... Just provide more diverse units which don't need spells or micro.
I get the feeling with LotV Blizzard doesn't want to change the game for the better, they just want to change it with no idea where to take it.
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On August 29 2015 05:47 ohmylanta1003 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 05:34 Aocowns wrote:On August 29 2015 05:30 ohmylanta1003 wrote:On August 29 2015 05:21 Aocowns wrote:On August 29 2015 05:19 ohmylanta1003 wrote:On August 29 2015 05:02 ffadicted wrote:On August 29 2015 04:56 ohmylanta1003 wrote:
God. Everyone here is so fucking entitled. It's ridiculous. Can we stop with these comments? Lol this is the beta, we are supposed to give feedback, and tons of it. When things are going the wrong way, you better damn voice your opinion, otherwise what's the point of even participating in beta testing?? Lol. Cause the feedback people are giving back in this thread is so constructive, right? Give me a break. Let people advertise for the game they want dude It's impossible for Blizzard to please everyone. You know this, I know this, we all know it. People in this thread aren't advertising for the game they want. They're bitching about what has been given to them. That's all they ever do. oh shit it's almost as if they're giving feedback about what they want instead of all supporting one thing You should be a little more sarcastic. It might help Blizzard make this game the best it can be. I'm not saying everyone should support one thing. But this community is so divided on EVERY FUCKING ISSUE that it's impossible for Blizzard to make this game without a chunk of people saying "guess I won't be purchasing LOTV". Great comment. 10/10. Just shut your fucking mouth, honestly, if that's all you have to say.
Jesus fuck man, im just saying it's retarded to say people should stop voicing their opinions just because blizz cant please everyone
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On August 29 2015 05:13 BaronVonOwn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 04:56 ohmylanta1003 wrote:
God. Everyone here is so fucking entitled. It's ridiculous. Actually, Blizzard is not entitled to my money and they've made it clear through these community updates that they appreciate the feedback. It's free information and market data and the only reason we give it is because we love Starcraft. Starcraft's saving grace right now is its devoted community so how about you stop shitting on it?
There are many different ways to provide feedback. Moaning and crying on the TL.net forums is not one that does anything useful, helpful or constructive. If people really love the game, they should give feedback that is more thoughtful than, "No more macro mechanics??? That's it, I'm never playing SC2 again!" So, ya, the stupid, entitled comments are getting really old. For those that truly care about the game try this...test out the new changes and offer something constructive.
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Seems decent, however, still waiting for a change to warp prism warp in duration. Balance aside, I don't think it creates a healthy dynamic if protoss in the early midgame can warp in half an army inside the enemy base within 2 seconds.
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On August 29 2015 05:57 Aocowns wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 05:47 ohmylanta1003 wrote:On August 29 2015 05:34 Aocowns wrote:On August 29 2015 05:30 ohmylanta1003 wrote:On August 29 2015 05:21 Aocowns wrote:On August 29 2015 05:19 ohmylanta1003 wrote:On August 29 2015 05:02 ffadicted wrote:On August 29 2015 04:56 ohmylanta1003 wrote:
God. Everyone here is so fucking entitled. It's ridiculous. Can we stop with these comments? Lol this is the beta, we are supposed to give feedback, and tons of it. When things are going the wrong way, you better damn voice your opinion, otherwise what's the point of even participating in beta testing?? Lol. Cause the feedback people are giving back in this thread is so constructive, right? Give me a break. Let people advertise for the game they want dude It's impossible for Blizzard to please everyone. You know this, I know this, we all know it. People in this thread aren't advertising for the game they want. They're bitching about what has been given to them. That's all they ever do. oh shit it's almost as if they're giving feedback about what they want instead of all supporting one thing You should be a little more sarcastic. It might help Blizzard make this game the best it can be. I'm not saying everyone should support one thing. But this community is so divided on EVERY FUCKING ISSUE that it's impossible for Blizzard to make this game without a chunk of people saying "guess I won't be purchasing LOTV". Great comment. 10/10. Just shut your fucking mouth, honestly, if that's all you have to say. Jesus fuck man, im just saying it's retarded to say people should stop voicing their opinions just because blizz cant please everyone
And I'm just trying to say that no one is even voicing anything useful!
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On August 29 2015 03:26 TheDougler wrote:
I like the cast range on mule, that's a great change. However, with no energy cost on mules, even if they increase the energy cost for supply drops or scans to 75 energy, that's still more resources than terrans had before these changes. I dunno if that will affect anything but it seems like something to consider.
Yeah, I wonder how they are going to handle that. Maybe they consider the queen creep change (buff?) and mothershipcore change (nerf?) to balance it out somehow? I can understand why they did that with mules, they wanted nothing autocast to permanently block scan usage since you won't have extra orbitals like you'd have extra queens for creep. But... I dunno.
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On August 29 2015 06:01 spydog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 05:13 BaronVonOwn wrote:On August 29 2015 04:56 ohmylanta1003 wrote:
God. Everyone here is so fucking entitled. It's ridiculous. Actually, Blizzard is not entitled to my money and they've made it clear through these community updates that they appreciate the feedback. It's free information and market data and the only reason we give it is because we love Starcraft. Starcraft's saving grace right now is its devoted community so how about you stop shitting on it? There are many different ways to provide feedback. Moaning and crying on the TL.net forums is not one that does anything useful, helpful or constructive. If people really love the game, they should give feedback that is more thoughtful than, "No more macro mechanics??? That's it, I'm never playing SC2 again!" So, ya, the stupid, entitled comments are getting really old. For those that truly care about the came try this...test out the new changes and offer something constructive.
Seriously would it matter anymore? Half of the "Last Month" already passed. People already gave a lot of constructive feedback in the non-QQ methods, what was it from Blizzard? Complete ignore and doing their own shit. People already gave up on giving constructive feedback thanks to the way they handle it.
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On August 29 2015 05:45 Little-Chimp wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 05:39 Gfire wrote:On August 29 2015 05:04 Big J wrote:
I don't understand the hate for the automatization in itself as a mechanic. Something automated is something you don't have to control in the game, it is literally the same thing as not having it to begin with controlwise.
I understand the argument about making macro hard (even though I don't support it), but I can't understand the stance that abilities must not be automated ever. That just doesn't make sense. Yeah it seems like people just find it "icky" for some reason. Really their solution seems to hit all the points they want it to. I understand if you disagree with those points, but if you agree with the goals this seems like a fine way to achieve them. I guess it's a little bit of the lazy solution as some of the reason for it is fixing the balance concerns with completely removing the boosters. I just thought they'd re-balance the game. Autocast doesn't change things up too much so everything should be closer to how it was. If you're someone who was excited about slowing down macro in general or getting rid of cheesier chrono builds or more common PFs or some other side-effect this might not have the advantages of cutting the boosters, in any case. I think people care way too much about "elegance" in game design when it doesn't even effect the way the game plays. It's only a bit of a burden for new players to learn what mules and chrono are. Other than the "complication" of their very existence, they don't really make the game clunkier or anything. Cutting them altogether would make the end product simpler but the process to balance the game around that would be much more work. An argument could also be made that a race's abilities are features in a game and it's kinda lame to cut features in an expansion. That's more from a traditional average consumer's point of view, and obviously more abilities doesn't mean more quality gameplay or anything, but it's still the what I would have expected from an expansion before I really tried much competitive play in RTS games. It's pretty much a giant dirty nasty band aid of all band aids instead of balancing the game around no macro mechanics. Some people enjoyed the macro mechanics, some people hated them. I'm pretty sure no one wanted them to just exist in the background except for some terrans last week who got nailed hard by the last patch. That issue could have been fixed a million other ways than automating old mechanics. It's a bit like the HOTS spore crawlers doing a million damage to mutas only but for macro.
Yeah, it certainly is a band-aid for not rebalancing for the original change. But you could say the whole concept of macro boosters was a band-aid to begin with. The next version will still be less of a band-aid than the original macro boosters, it's a bit of a 2step forward, 1step back patch in that direction and I don't like it in comparison to the status quo of LotV. But the most important parts for me are kept, which is the whole concept of not having to care about those things as much.
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You know, this reminds me of the time when IceFrog posted pictures of his cat on the then official DotA website (PlayDota.com). He got flamed relentlessly, with people telling him to get back to work on DotA instead of posting cat pics, and some even sent him death threats. He stopped participating in Western communities and focused on the Chinese community, which was much more respectful and positive towards him and his cat.
To this day, IceFrog has an active Weibo account but doesn't directly communicate with the Western fanbase. He does still communicate with prominent community members as well as progamers, but never directly with the fans. I think those death threats made him keep his identity hidden to this day.
He did make one relatively recent post in the DotA 2 developer forums:
http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=107817&page=16982&p=1218412#post1218412
But this has been his only communication to Western fans for a very long time.
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On August 29 2015 06:07 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 05:45 Little-Chimp wrote:On August 29 2015 05:39 Gfire wrote:On August 29 2015 05:04 Big J wrote:
I don't understand the hate for the automatization in itself as a mechanic. Something automated is something you don't have to control in the game, it is literally the same thing as not having it to begin with controlwise.
I understand the argument about making macro hard (even though I don't support it), but I can't understand the stance that abilities must not be automated ever. That just doesn't make sense. Yeah it seems like people just find it "icky" for some reason. Really their solution seems to hit all the points they want it to. I understand if you disagree with those points, but if you agree with the goals this seems like a fine way to achieve them. I guess it's a little bit of the lazy solution as some of the reason for it is fixing the balance concerns with completely removing the boosters. I just thought they'd re-balance the game. Autocast doesn't change things up too much so everything should be closer to how it was. If you're someone who was excited about slowing down macro in general or getting rid of cheesier chrono builds or more common PFs or some other side-effect this might not have the advantages of cutting the boosters, in any case. I think people care way too much about "elegance" in game design when it doesn't even effect the way the game plays. It's only a bit of a burden for new players to learn what mules and chrono are. Other than the "complication" of their very existence, they don't really make the game clunkier or anything. Cutting them altogether would make the end product simpler but the process to balance the game around that would be much more work. An argument could also be made that a race's abilities are features in a game and it's kinda lame to cut features in an expansion. That's more from a traditional average consumer's point of view, and obviously more abilities doesn't mean more quality gameplay or anything, but it's still the what I would have expected from an expansion before I really tried much competitive play in RTS games. It's pretty much a giant dirty nasty band aid of all band aids instead of balancing the game around no macro mechanics. Some people enjoyed the macro mechanics, some people hated them. I'm pretty sure no one wanted them to just exist in the background except for some terrans last week who got nailed hard by the last patch. That issue could have been fixed a million other ways than automating old mechanics. It's a bit like the HOTS spore crawlers doing a million damage to mutas only but for macro. Yeah, it certainly is a band-aid for not rebalancing for the original change. But you could say the whole concept of macro boosters was a band-aid to begin with. The next version will still be less of a band-aid than the original macro boosters, it's a bit of a 2step forward, 1step back patch in that direction and I don't like it in comparison to the status quo of LotV. But the most important parts for me are kept, which is the whole concept of not having to care about those things as much.
What really makes me mad is that they have no goal in each change. They removed macro mechanics and wanted to test the result. Even by a simple theorycrafting, you will see that Terran will be the most effected and that with how worker harassment balanced around macro mechanics will be broken after they removed them. Now they restored the macro mechanics in a nerfed version. So what did we exactly achieve in the last week? What was the point of testing when you say "Well, we will just change things again, though mostly we did not get that much of data to work on anyway".
This is how we wasted 5 months of the beta without addressing:
1- Economy.
2- Pathing.
3- Macro Mechanics (Being addressed in a very very strange way).
4- Worker Harassment.
5- Protoss Gimmickness.
6-... etc.
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Indigested mashup. The WORST choice ever.
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On August 29 2015 06:17 WrathSCII wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 06:07 Big J wrote:On August 29 2015 05:45 Little-Chimp wrote:On August 29 2015 05:39 Gfire wrote:On August 29 2015 05:04 Big J wrote:
I don't understand the hate for the automatization in itself as a mechanic. Something automated is something you don't have to control in the game, it is literally the same thing as not having it to begin with controlwise.
I understand the argument about making macro hard (even though I don't support it), but I can't understand the stance that abilities must not be automated ever. That just doesn't make sense. Yeah it seems like people just find it "icky" for some reason. Really their solution seems to hit all the points they want it to. I understand if you disagree with those points, but if you agree with the goals this seems like a fine way to achieve them. I guess it's a little bit of the lazy solution as some of the reason for it is fixing the balance concerns with completely removing the boosters. I just thought they'd re-balance the game. Autocast doesn't change things up too much so everything should be closer to how it was. If you're someone who was excited about slowing down macro in general or getting rid of cheesier chrono builds or more common PFs or some other side-effect this might not have the advantages of cutting the boosters, in any case. I think people care way too much about "elegance" in game design when it doesn't even effect the way the game plays. It's only a bit of a burden for new players to learn what mules and chrono are. Other than the "complication" of their very existence, they don't really make the game clunkier or anything. Cutting them altogether would make the end product simpler but the process to balance the game around that would be much more work. An argument could also be made that a race's abilities are features in a game and it's kinda lame to cut features in an expansion. That's more from a traditional average consumer's point of view, and obviously more abilities doesn't mean more quality gameplay or anything, but it's still the what I would have expected from an expansion before I really tried much competitive play in RTS games. It's pretty much a giant dirty nasty band aid of all band aids instead of balancing the game around no macro mechanics. Some people enjoyed the macro mechanics, some people hated them. I'm pretty sure no one wanted them to just exist in the background except for some terrans last week who got nailed hard by the last patch. That issue could have been fixed a million other ways than automating old mechanics. It's a bit like the HOTS spore crawlers doing a million damage to mutas only but for macro. Yeah, it certainly is a band-aid for not rebalancing for the original change. But you could say the whole concept of macro boosters was a band-aid to begin with. The next version will still be less of a band-aid than the original macro boosters, it's a bit of a 2step forward, 1step back patch in that direction and I don't like it in comparison to the status quo of LotV. But the most important parts for me are kept, which is the whole concept of not having to care about those things as much. What really makes me mad is that they have no goal in each change. They removed macro mechanics and wanted to test the result. Even by a simple theorycrafting, you will see that Terran will be the most effected and that with how worker harassment balanced around macro mechanics will be broken after they removed them. Now they restored the macro mechanics in a nerfed version. So what did we exactly achieve in the last week? What was the point of testing when you say "Well, we will just change things again, though mostly we did not get that much of data to work on anyway". This is how we wasted 5 months of the beta without addressing: 1- Economy. 2- Pathing. 3- Macro Mechanics (Being addressed in a very very strange way). 4- Worker Harassment. 5- Protoss Gimmickness. 6-... etc.
I disagree. They have goals with their changes. It is plainly you not agreeing with their goals. I also don't agree with them, but the list you gave is relatively easy to work through:
1 - has been adressed a ton of times. You may not like it, but they like the half-base/12worker start/slower pace through macro boosters economy.
2 - this has not been adressed in LotV, I give you that. They have said previously that they like the pathing and don't want to alter it. And I agree with them to a large degree. The only thing I would alter is remove air stacking, but otherwise I'm very much fine with the SC2 pathing, as the whole game has been designed well for it.
3 - You already said it. You think it's a weird way to adress them, but as I said, that's just you not agreeing with them. Not them not adressing it.
4 - they have been adressing it. They want more harassment and thus have included a lot of new ways to harass, from early drops and tank drops to adepts and I guess the one or other change I'm missing that goes into that spirit.
5 - They try to adress it with the warpgate changes and MsC changes they are talking about. Again, something you (and I) may not agree with but they are adressing it.
6 - they are adressing other stuff too
For the macro changes in particular they have given a very clear direction: People should not be forced to repetitively click them. That's exactly what their changes do. They have given a goal and hitting it. There may be other (better?!) ways to do it, but they are doing what they gave out as their design goal (in a way that is supposed to alter the game as little as possible beyond that I believe).
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Really happy with the 3 larva. Playing with 2 was just really awkward for me.
Implementing mule radius is a pretty genius idea, I like it.
Scan thing was 100% predictable but oh well.
Chronoboost better still have a duration and cooldown because otherwise it'll be impossible to guess what build protoss is doing if they can just switch it to a decoy building at will
Moving drop to lair is really meh, i'd rather have normal ventral sacks back then. Don't really see the use of the change now.
Also David Kim mentioned south holland  
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Things I'd like to see addressed/added to LotV before it's out of beta
1. DH Econ Model
2. Ground Unit Clumping
3. Removal of Siege tank drops
4. Other "depth of micro" changes since we're focusing on micro more anyway
Sadly, Blizzard has written off DH Economy without trying it and not understanding it. Ground unit clumping seems to have been ignored. They're nerfing tank drops and have mentioned removing it as a last option if it continues to be OP and they'll never take a serious look at Lalush's comments. LotV could be so much more than it currently is but it's rapidly becoming too late
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On August 29 2015 06:33 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:
Things I'd like to see addressed/added to LotV before it's out of beta
1. DH Econ Model
2. Ground Unit Clumping
3. Removal of Siege tank drops
4. Other "depth of micro" changes since we're focusing on micro more anyway
Sadly, Blizzard has written off DH Economy without trying it and not understanding it. Ground unit clumping seems to have been ignored. They're nerfing tank drops and have mentioned removing it as a last option if it continues to be OP and they'll never take a serious look at Lalush's comments. LotV could be so much more than it currently is but it's rapidly becoming too late
Damage point. Just damage point to 0 as standard value please and then have certain units have a higher one. At least make it so that the damage point is a percentage of the attack speed, instead of making fast shooting units like hydras even less micro-able with a higher-than-usual damage point when they should have a lower-than-usual one, since it happens more often that they shoot.
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On August 29 2015 06:33 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:
Things I'd like to see addressed/added to LotV before it's out of beta
1. DH Econ Model
2. Ground Unit Clumping
3. Removal of Siege tank drops
4. Other "depth of micro" changes since we're focusing on micro more anyway
Sadly, Blizzard has written off DH Economy without trying it and not understanding it. Ground unit clumping seems to have been ignored. They're nerfing tank drops and have mentioned removing it as a last option if it continues to be OP and they'll never take a serious look at Lalush's comments. LotV could be so much more than it currently is but it's rapidly becoming too late
Some of Lalush and the economy were adressed here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/488139-lotv-community-feedback-update-june-19
and I'm pretty sure they said they tested bigger unit seperation but did not like it.
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On August 29 2015 06:27 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 06:17 WrathSCII wrote:On August 29 2015 06:07 Big J wrote:On August 29 2015 05:45 Little-Chimp wrote:On August 29 2015 05:39 Gfire wrote:On August 29 2015 05:04 Big J wrote:
I don't understand the hate for the automatization in itself as a mechanic. Something automated is something you don't have to control in the game, it is literally the same thing as not having it to begin with controlwise.
I understand the argument about making macro hard (even though I don't support it), but I can't understand the stance that abilities must not be automated ever. That just doesn't make sense. Yeah it seems like people just find it "icky" for some reason. Really their solution seems to hit all the points they want it to. I understand if you disagree with those points, but if you agree with the goals this seems like a fine way to achieve them. I guess it's a little bit of the lazy solution as some of the reason for it is fixing the balance concerns with completely removing the boosters. I just thought they'd re-balance the game. Autocast doesn't change things up too much so everything should be closer to how it was. If you're someone who was excited about slowing down macro in general or getting rid of cheesier chrono builds or more common PFs or some other side-effect this might not have the advantages of cutting the boosters, in any case. I think people care way too much about "elegance" in game design when it doesn't even effect the way the game plays. It's only a bit of a burden for new players to learn what mules and chrono are. Other than the "complication" of their very existence, they don't really make the game clunkier or anything. Cutting them altogether would make the end product simpler but the process to balance the game around that would be much more work. An argument could also be made that a race's abilities are features in a game and it's kinda lame to cut features in an expansion. That's more from a traditional average consumer's point of view, and obviously more abilities doesn't mean more quality gameplay or anything, but it's still the what I would have expected from an expansion before I really tried much competitive play in RTS games. It's pretty much a giant dirty nasty band aid of all band aids instead of balancing the game around no macro mechanics. Some people enjoyed the macro mechanics, some people hated them. I'm pretty sure no one wanted them to just exist in the background except for some terrans last week who got nailed hard by the last patch. That issue could have been fixed a million other ways than automating old mechanics. It's a bit like the HOTS spore crawlers doing a million damage to mutas only but for macro. Yeah, it certainly is a band-aid for not rebalancing for the original change. But you could say the whole concept of macro boosters was a band-aid to begin with. The next version will still be less of a band-aid than the original macro boosters, it's a bit of a 2step forward, 1step back patch in that direction and I don't like it in comparison to the status quo of LotV. But the most important parts for me are kept, which is the whole concept of not having to care about those things as much. What really makes me mad is that they have no goal in each change. They removed macro mechanics and wanted to test the result. Even by a simple theorycrafting, you will see that Terran will be the most effected and that with how worker harassment balanced around macro mechanics will be broken after they removed them. Now they restored the macro mechanics in a nerfed version. So what did we exactly achieve in the last week? What was the point of testing when you say "Well, we will just change things again, though mostly we did not get that much of data to work on anyway". This is how we wasted 5 months of the beta without addressing: 1- Economy. 2- Pathing. 3- Macro Mechanics (Being addressed in a very very strange way). 4- Worker Harassment. 5- Protoss Gimmickness. 6-... etc. 2 - this has not been adressed in LotV, I give you that. They have said previously that they like the pathing and don't want to alter it. And I agree with them to a large degree. The only thing I would alter is remove air stacking, but otherwise I'm very much fine with the SC2 pathing, as the whole game has been designed well for it.
You really like the current pathing? It creates so many problems though :/
A pathing change alone could make the game A LOT better imo.
Visually alone this would make bigger engagements look way better, this is still a huge factor why people don't like protoss if you ask me.
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Also, general observation, I'm OK with most of these changes if it doesn't turn the game into turtle mass army vs. mass army again. The new MULE and Chrono should be nerfed a decent amount I bet.
Macro mechanics: It sounds easier to balance out and still takes a step away from too much base babysitting which is their goal. Zerg still is getting the most benefit out of this it would seem, so I wonder what else is on the horizon.
Mule tweak: the range is a good idea. No, it's a great idea. This has surely been tossed around for years. This potentially fixes so many things that caused mules to be broken like gold minerals, SCV sacrifice, sucking a risky expansion dry and letting your other bases mine slowly. I could go on.
Adept: I'm glad Protoss can move out on the map early. With slow units and armies, you don't want to encourage P to sit around and defend from the get go, etc.
MSC spell on pylon: I feel weird on this one. I want to see how it plays out. With the adept being helpful, maybe it's fine. PvP seems like it will be too weak though on defense. It also makes late game P expansions even that much harder to keep I guess.
Creep change: It sounds good to me. Faster is better. I hated waiting for it to grow as Zerg or waiting for it to dissipate playing against Zerg.
More larva: nothing to say, it must be needed if you give chrono and mule back.
Chrono on auto: sounds reasonable to me if it is nerfed. Part of me still would rather just not ever have it, but I bet it'll be fine. You can't save up energy and use it to speed up mass gateways anymore. After probes, you'll mostly just used for upgrades and slow production units on robo and stargate. OK. Or wait... maybe you can set it to say three warpgates and build your slow units out of there and your other 5 warpgates will be fast building units, so you can sync things better. Well what is the rule for what warpgate is used first when they are all done with cooldown... as in how do you know which warpgate to cast it on... I don't recall, is it range dependent with respect to your screen like chrono is? Probably won't matter often though.
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