Below are the latest balance changes for the StarCraft II Legacy of the Void Beta. Let us know what you think once you've gotten a chance to test them out.
Protoss
Zealot
Zealot Charge damage decreased from 30 to 8.
Chrono boost is back.
No energy cost. Ability is set to autocast by default on the Nexus. Efficiency is reduced to 20%, but never expires.
Warpgate research time increased to 160 from 140.
Photon overcharge
Overcharge can only be cast on Pylons.
Has an attack range of 7.
Has a duration of 30.
Costs 25 energy.
Deals 30 damage every 1.25 seconds.
Colossus
Increased upgraded range to 9 from 8.
Tempest
Now functions as it does in Heart of the Swarm.
Immortal
Barrier ability is set to autocast by default.
Triggers when Immortal is attacked.
Oracle
Revelation cast range increased to 12 from 9.
Carrier
Increased the cooldown for Release Interceptors to 40 from 20.
Terran
Orbital Command
Calldown: MULE is back.
Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals.
No energy cost.
Now has a cooldown.
30 range from casting Orbital Command.
Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
Scanner Sweep cost increased to 100 from 50.
Calldown: Extra Supplies cost increased to 75 from 50.
Siege Tank
Now has a 0.75 second delay before firing when unloading from a Medivac while in siege mode.
Zerg
Spawn larva increased from 2 to 3 per cast.
Creep now spreads and recedes faster.
Ravager
New Upgrade: Increases the corrosive bile range to 13 from 9.
Costs 100/100.
Requires a Lair.
Overlord
Transport upgrade requires a Lair.
For a more in-depth explanation of these changes, read David Kim’s Community Update.
Edit: could a mod please change the title of the thread to something like "Balance Update -- September 3, 2015". I messed up. Edit2: Thank you, mysterious HTML god.
On September 04 2015 07:29 Tuczniak wrote: So what's your opinion Big J?
Not sure. The macro stuff feels a bit like they are just trying to balance it out without having to do deeper changes. Which is not what I would have hoped for, but since I like the idea of not having to inject all game long I still like the general direction of those changes.
Zergling drops, yeah, well it's not something that is necessary to nerf but I personally don't like to have lings in my base at 3mins so designwise I think it's nice. If drops are not good enough later on I believe they should tinker with overlord speed, which is currently slower than unstimmed marines (after the speed upgrade).
Colossus change is a small tweak, no clue what it will do. Probably nothing. But it's nice that they do those little tweaks to underused units.
The zealot thing sounds reasonable.
The warpgate nerf is probably reasonable with the reinstated chronoboost.
The tank thing is not good imo. It makes the unit less responsive. Again, not the biggest fan of tank drops to begin with designwise because you start counteracting the tank weakness and forcing the terran to make medivacs with every composition and micro medivacs regardless of what your gameplan is. But if they go that direction, I really dislike that they make the tank micro pay off less, because it is absolutely not imbalanced right now I think? Maybe it's better for TvT but no clue...
Photon Overcharge no clue... gotta try.
Love the immortal change, it's something I have been suggesting a lot. Makes it really interesting to try and trigger the barrier for the opponent, while the protoss doesn't need to click every ability every battle. It's a nice change for both sides I think.
Creep change sounds great.
Ravager upgrade needs to be tested. Could be nice to make them useful later on and counteract lurkers in ZvZ.
I'm honestly thinking they don't know what to do anymore with the macro mechanics, because having them as auto cast for every race makes them so awkward.
It's a non mechanic that exist only because everything else in the game was balanced around them for years.
On September 04 2015 07:40 Noocta wrote: I'm honestly thinking they don't know what to do anymore with the macro mechanics, because having them as auto cast for every race makes them so awkward.
It's a non mechanic that exist only because everything else in the game was balanced around them for years.
Kind of true for mules and injects, but I mean that's kind of like a reactor, right? I think the automated injects are a bit like a reactor. You could build a second barracks for a similar effect, but build orderwise getting a queen might make more sense and be more costefficient. And you can interact with the ractor/queen more than just with another tanky barracks/hatchery. Mules, yeah, they feel very much like a bandaid solution. But whatever, if you don't have to control it is it really a problem for the actual gameplay? Chrono as they made it still gives you a lot of choices.
On September 04 2015 07:37 mishimaBeef wrote: When does it go live?
On September 04 2015 07:40 Noocta wrote: I'm honestly thinking they don't know what to do anymore with the macro mechanics, because having them as auto cast for every race makes them so awkward.
It's a non mechanic that exist only because everything else in the game was balanced around them for years.
its awkward but i can get used to it after a while. im hoping that this makes the game have less zerg players in it so i dont have to play zvz 9/10 games :D
I still have a bad feeling with queens. Right now they basically just sit there at your hatcheries all game, acting as a point of weakness to drastically affect Zergs ability to produce. A queen is more of a liability than anything. Also building one queen per hatchery is essentially a must in terms of how a Zerg should play. It doesn't really offer any unique style of anything. If you don't do it, you will most likely lose, especially in ZvZ.
I wish a queens role would change more toward a defensive, map control unit more so than a hatchery hugger. If I have to pull my queens away to defend I am punished by potentially delaying an inject. Most games I might end up making an extra queen or two to spread creep, so now I have 2 supply per hatchery just to increase production rates + 4-6 supply to spread creep and maybe transfuse. If I'm on 3 base, that's 6 supply just AFK'ing. It just feels like a big band-aid. Blizzard has the potential to do something really cool with queens, or at least make them more present on the maps.
It would just be huge game changer if queens were more active throughout the entire game, and if they could be used more as a defensive unit without being a liability to macro. I have to say the creep change will be interesting to see, it's just unfortunate that most games I try to limit my queen building to one per base. Also still no fix for auto injecting as soon as the queen spawns, bummer.
I believe the purpose was to try to step away from forcing the different races into doing things to stay alive that didn't really make the game interesting, larva inject, mules, chrono. I hope to see a few more changes to the queen to make it a much more active unit within Zerg games.
On September 04 2015 08:05 WhiteLuminous wrote: I'm really concerned about this overcharge. Have they not considered the potential for offensive pylons....
The new PO is insane. The damage output is so insane and the cost is way too low. It's not even about offensive pylons, it's just insanely strong... 33% more damage, 75% less energy cost, castable on a pylon instead of nexus only for the cost of 6range? Who came up with this?
Edit: Probably shouldn't be too quick on it, but it feels pretty insane...
Why can't overseers just get drop by default? That way Zerg drops in the mid game would actually be useful with a unit that is not only a great forward scouting unit but is relatively speedy with the upgrade.
Also, really digging these changes, I'm really liking the reduced autocast mechanics (am I in the minority on this?) because as long as they are there, Queens/Mules will still be valuable to defend/destroy and it frees up time for better mechanics to shine through, like great creep spread, better unit control ect which in LOTV seems to be alot more important then just massing supply quickly.
A bit sad that some units are not getting the attention they rightfully deserve, the Infestor is still bad, Ultralisks are still OP, Adepts usefulness still tanks in the mid - late game while they are hilariously powerful early game especially vs. Terran.
I don't know, maybe I'm asking for more of these small little balance tunes like this patch appears to be, but time will bring these I guess...if I want to be an optimist even for a second.
What sucks is that automule keeps muling your main so it mines out really quickly. Not beeing able to drop all mules on the third base messes things up badly.
On September 04 2015 08:05 WhiteLuminous wrote: I'm really concerned about this overcharge. Have they not considered the potential for offensive pylons....
The game literally patched itself between the games on my ladder session. Without notifying me. First thing I see is a freaking Pylon shooting my mineral line on dash & terminal over the wall. Never been so confused. Never had so much fun either adapting to the game. That was most random thing to happen to me today.
I'm pretty sure someone is going to break this thing somehow. Let's wait and see.
The automule spams the same patch over and over and over unless it tries to start mining the moment before the old mule dies. This is awful behavior. Optimal macro means having to manually control your mules.
The CCs should do something like prioritize the highest patch or have a secondary mule rally somehow. My dream behavior would be having a mule rally button where you pick a mineral line and then the mule calldown prioritizes the highest patch in that field.
Let's put everything on autocast wooooo. Back when they removed auto-cast from locust I got really hopeful that we were done with that crap. I mean I am fine with it being on charge, but that's about it. Zerg feels way too easy and it's really boring to play without inject. I always figured they added inject to make up for the fact that zerg macro would be way too easy with MBS, but I guess that was never the case. They should at least reward players for turning autocast off and using "makro mechanics" manually. Maybe put a 5 second delay on the autocast version, so they'll still get whatever they want from this, but players with high apm are still rewarded. The drop change sucks as well, it was such a nice addition to zerg, especially given how underused drops are for zerg in sc2 history and it was my favourite counter to cannon rush ever. Also really looking forward to getting pylon rushed.
I honestly thought LOTV was 1000 times better than hots and getting invited to the beta seriously revived my sc2 passion, in fact I haven't been as motivated to play as this since wol. I thought removing mule was a pretty cool move and I was ok with loosing chrono for it, but all this autocast crap has seriously killed my desire to play at all. I might just wait till the next patch tbh...
So now I can pylon rush. I no longer have to get a pylon and a cannon up - just a pylon and then I overcharge it. On a normal cannon rush I kill the pylon before the cannon finishes, but now ...
Might be OK as you would need two pylons to kill a hatch (1440 damage over the 30 seconds plus extra from the probe attacking the Hatch).
So take a depised tactic of cannon rushing which has recently been consigned to the grave and buff it by making it earlier.
On September 04 2015 08:28 DeadByDawn wrote: So now I can pylon rush. I no longer have to get a pylon and a cannon up - just a pylon and then I overcharge it. On a normal cannon rush I kill the pylon before the cannon finishes, but now ...
Might be OK as you would need two pylons to kill a hatch (1440 damage over the 30 seconds plus extra from the probe attacking the Hatch).
So take a depised tactic of cannon rushing which has recently been consigned to the grave and buff it by making it earlier.
Well, you'd have to get a mothership core over there, obviously. Hopefully by the time you can build a core and get it over to your enemy's base, they can deal with a pylon or two.
On September 04 2015 08:25 TheWinks wrote: The automule spams the same patch over and over and over unless it tries to start mining the moment before the old mule dies. This is awful behavior. Optimal macro means having to manually control your mules.
The CCs should do something like prioritize the highest patch or have a secondary mule rally somehow. My dream behavior would be having a mule rally button where you pick a mineral line and then the mule calldown prioritizes the highest patch in that field.
they should just set the mule drop to the CC rally location, problem solved.
The new chronoboost is a nightmare to use. You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three nexus.
On September 04 2015 09:04 Tiaraju9 wrote: The new chronoboost is a nightmare to use. You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three nexus.
It's harder than inject.
But (the old) inject is time sensitive. As a Terran I was always impressed when someone had the rythm of injects. With CB you set it on something and leave it until you want to change it. This cannot be harder than timing injects.
I think the auto-mule and auto-chrono implementations are rather quick ones just for testing purposes. Obviously the auto-mule should either cycle through each mineral patch on each cast or follow the rally of the OC, and the auto-chrono should cycle through each Nexus every time you place it on another building.
On September 04 2015 09:04 Tiaraju9 wrote: The new chronoboost is a nightmare to use. You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three nexus.
It's harder than inject.
But (the old) inject is time sensitive. As a Terran I was always impressed when someone had the rythm of injects. With CB you set it on something and leave it until you want to change it. This cannot be harder than timing injects.
I'm not going to say that the new Chrono is harder than Larvae injects, but you do have to remember which nexus is chronoing which structure. I try to chrono my second forge and then my first forge stops chronoing so I have to specifically select my second nexus to chrono my first forge...
Calldown: MULE is back. Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals. No energy cost. Now has a cooldown. 30 range from casting Orbital Command. Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
40 per trip still sounds incredibly OP. Looks like enough Terrans whined that Chronoboost / Inject got nerfed while T's macro remains relatively unchanged
On September 04 2015 09:11 parkufarku wrote: Calldown: MULE is back. Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals. No energy cost. Now has a cooldown. 30 range from casting Orbital Command. Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
40 per trip still sounds incredibly OP. Looks like enough Terrans whined that Chronoboost / Inject got nerfed while T's macro remains relatively unchanged
Actually its a buff from HOTS when they only carried 30 minerals;
Cant say that I agree with nerfing zerg's only form of early harass (drop overlords). Hell it just doesnt make any sense that at the beginning of these patches it was all about harassment and skirmishing battles, and now its like they want to go the opposite direction. WHY?!
What probably astounds me the most is the buff to carriers... like they need any help.
On September 04 2015 09:11 parkufarku wrote: Calldown: MULE is back. Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals. No energy cost. Now has a cooldown. 30 range from casting Orbital Command. Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
40 per trip still sounds incredibly OP. Looks like enough Terrans whined that Chronoboost / Inject got nerfed while T's macro remains relatively unchanged
I think that this is balanced around the fact that you can not drop the mule hammer anymore due to the cast range.
Don't forget that the OC costs 150 minerals and you lose two workers whilst it builds which is ~ 90 minerals per minute less permanently.
On September 04 2015 09:04 Tiaraju9 wrote: The new chronoboost is a nightmare to use. You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three nexus.
It's harder than inject.
But (the old) inject is time sensitive. As a Terran I was always impressed when someone had the rythm of injects. With CB you set it on something and leave it until you want to change it. This cannot be harder than timing injects.
I'm not going to say that the new Chrono is harder than Larvae injects, but you do have to remember which nexus is chronoing which structure. I try to chrono my second forge and then my first forge stops chronoing so I have to specifically select my second nexus to chrono my first forge...
This is arguably harder than old Chrono.
On top of all that, now we need to be SUPER careful with our pylon and gateway placement. For each pylon we build, one need to assess if its good to power gateways, to use photon overcharge and to prevent ling runby.
I'm not kidding when I say that Protoss macro in LotV is HARDER than in HotS.
On September 04 2015 09:11 parkufarku wrote: Calldown: MULE is back. Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals. No energy cost. Now has a cooldown. 30 range from casting Orbital Command. Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
40 per trip still sounds incredibly OP. Looks like enough Terrans whined that Chronoboost / Inject got nerfed while T's macro remains relatively unchanged
Actually its a buff from HOTS when they only carried 30 minerals;
On September 04 2015 09:04 Tiaraju9 wrote: The new chronoboost is a nightmare to use. You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three nexus.
It's harder than inject.
But (the old) inject is time sensitive. As a Terran I was always impressed when someone had the rythm of injects. With CB you set it on something and leave it until you want to change it. This cannot be harder than timing injects.
I'm not going to say that the new Chrono is harder than Larvae injects, but you do have to remember which nexus is chronoing which structure. I try to chrono my second forge and then my first forge stops chronoing so I have to specifically select my second nexus to chrono my first forge...
This is arguably harder than old Chrono.
On top of all that, now we need to be SUPER careful with our pylon and gateway placement. For each pylon we build, one need to assess if its good to power gateways, to use photon overcharge and to prevent ling runby.
I'm not kidding when I say that Protoss macro in LotV is HARDER than in HotS.
Tracking what Nexus is chrono boosting what is ridiculous. The game should show one of those lines (like it does for the target of a widow mine) that shows where the Nexus is linked to.
On September 04 2015 09:11 parkufarku wrote: Calldown: MULE is back. Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals. No energy cost. Now has a cooldown. 30 range from casting Orbital Command. Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
40 per trip still sounds incredibly OP. Looks like enough Terrans whined that Chronoboost / Inject got nerfed while T's macro remains relatively unchanged
Actually its a buff from HOTS when they only carried 30 minerals;
On September 04 2015 09:04 Tiaraju9 wrote: The new chronoboost is a nightmare to use. You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three nexus.
It's harder than inject.
But (the old) inject is time sensitive. As a Terran I was always impressed when someone had the rythm of injects. With CB you set it on something and leave it until you want to change it. This cannot be harder than timing injects.
I'm not going to say that the new Chrono is harder than Larvae injects, but you do have to remember which nexus is chronoing which structure. I try to chrono my second forge and then my first forge stops chronoing so I have to specifically select my second nexus to chrono my first forge...
This is arguably harder than old Chrono.
On top of all that, now we need to be SUPER careful with our pylon and gateway placement. For each pylon we build, one need to assess if its good to power gateways, to use photon overcharge and to prevent ling runby.
I'm not kidding when I say that Protoss macro in LotV is HARDER than in HotS.
Tracking what Nexus is chrono boosting what is ridiculous. The game should show one of those lines (like it does for the target of a widow mine) that shows where the Nexus is linked to.
Yep. This new iteration is not elegant at all. I played five games so far.
Does blizz really think these drastic changes are going to reinvigorate the scene? All I see happening is plenty of people refusing to switch expansions and maybe a few new people get into starcraft and we end up with yet another split scene.
If they're worried about tank drops being too strong early, why don't' they revert the Siege Mode research from WoL? It makes the timing more of an investment and hits a fair bit later. Not to mention plenty of people feel mech is too strong and should be slowed down a tad.
On September 04 2015 09:35 LHK wrote: If they're worried about tank drops being too strong early, why don't' they revert the Siege Mode research from WoL? It makes the timing more of an investment and hits a fair bit later. Not to mention plenty of people feel mech is too strong and should be slowed down a tad.
I believe that change was a response to the strength of Protoss all-ins in HotS. I feel that those all-ins are a little stronger now if anything. I cannot see this change ever being reverted. The 0.75 delay should help Zerg deal with this much easier if they have speedlings.
I'm liking the new overcharge for muta defense(althought they can just kill the pylon/core)... but for cannon rushing it's pretty hilarious.
Like the Ravager upgrades, I'd like to see some Disruptor upgrades in the Robo Bay that would be fun. Much like the Reaver which was Robo's mainstay had 2 upgrades. Not sure but maybe the ability to hit air/muta's? Robo feels like it needs something like that, although the new PO could suffice.
I Have 2 problems with this patch, the MULE auto calldown, which now mines your main out faster. It should be a choice between auto and manual. WHY NOT?! If you can only call one down every xx seconds, why not be able to choose?!
Second : The tank fire delay when dropping.... I mean are you serious.... Isnt the whole point in picking up a sieged tank so theres no fire delay?? MAKE THE DELAY WHEN PICKING THE TANK UP!? Seems a bit obvious but I donno.. Like a .5 to .75 delay in picking it up, just show a little animation of a cable(with a magnet) picking it up?
Ok thats my first impression, seeing as I cant play it I'll make note I could be wrong.. Now that I think about it more though, when actually playing, having the tank fire delay makes it easier to micro, rather than having your medivac pause to pick up the sieged tank. So I suppose I'll amend this by saying I think the delay picking up the tank makes more sense(to me), but the tank fire delay will be easier. I suppose just even a slight .25-.50 delay pickin it up might be just enough pause to get a couple hits off on the tank and rinse/repeat - eventually push it back.
Zealot Zealot Charge damage decreased from 30 to 8.
Don't zealots already do like 6-8 damage when charging because of their regular attack? Is this just in addition to that?
They have a regular attack when charging. So what this should do is make them do an overall of 24damage. Instead of what blizzard originally wanted (30) and what they accidently implemented (46).
I really liked the macro mechanics being gone, and wanted larvae inject (not queens) to leave also. Too bad they are going the opposite way of what I enjoyed. LotV keeps doing something I think is amazing only to revert it or go the opposite direction the next patch -_-
Zealot Zealot Charge damage decreased from 30 to 8.
Don't zealots already do like 6-8 damage when charging because of their regular attack? Is this just in addition to that?
They have a regular attack when charging. So what this should do is make them do an overall of 24damage. Instead of what blizzard originally had (30) and what they accidently implemented (46).
Cool.
That colossus buff isn't gonna be enough i feel. Seems like the extreme ranges and damage from liberator/ravager would make them worth a lot less even if the LOTV colossus didn't have hugely reduced damage and competed better with the Reaver.
I'm ~55 games deep into legacy archon GM with a ~73% ratio and i have not seen a Colossus yet. Why would you build them?
I like this patch a lot. T and P have to give much more thinking into macromechanics. There is no Mule Hammer anymore, there is no easy way of photonovercharge anymore. In combination with new warpin rules this seems to be great!
Soon we won't even have to make workers or micro units. I mean I know we're trying to make the game more accessible, but this is ridiculous. Auto-cast macro mechanics? Really Blizz?
I like this patch a lot. T and P have to give much more thinking into macromechanics. There is no Mule Hammer anymore, there is no easy way of photonovercharge anymore. In combination with new warpin rules this seems to be great!
Chrono will help, but being a 1 click mechanic instead of something you throw out every 30-35 seconds per nexus is both easier and less entertaining IMO.
Photon Overcharge hasn't really been a notable factor in many of my games recently, unlike HOTS
I like this patch a lot. T and P have to give much more thinking into macromechanics. There is no Mule Hammer anymore, there is no easy way of photonovercharge anymore. In combination with new warpin rules this seems to be great!
Chrono will help, but being a 1 click mechanic instead of something you throw out every 30-35 seconds per nexus is both easier and less entertaining IMO.
Photon Overcharge hasn't really been a notable factor in many of my games recently, unlike HOTS
You can kill a pylon much easier than a nexus, so you have to think more about pylonplacement and which pylon to overcharge to not lose the ability because of losing that pylon.
I like this patch a lot. T and P have to give much more thinking into macromechanics. There is no Mule Hammer anymore, there is no easy way of photonovercharge anymore. In combination with new warpin rules this seems to be great!
Chrono will help, but being a 1 click mechanic instead of something you throw out every 30-35 seconds per nexus is both easier and less entertaining IMO.
Photon Overcharge hasn't really been a notable factor in many of my games recently, unlike HOTS
You can kill a pylon much easier than a nexus, so you have to think more about pylonplacement and which pylon to overcharge to not lose the ability because of losing that pylon.
We have like 3 pylons against the nexus anyway because they have to be close so they can warp in without it taking half a year. At 25 energy a cast you can probably drop 3 of them as well
I like this patch a lot. T and P have to give much more thinking into macromechanics. There is no Mule Hammer anymore, there is no easy way of photonovercharge anymore. In combination with new warpin rules this seems to be great!
Chrono will help, but being a 1 click mechanic instead of something you throw out every 30-35 seconds per nexus is both easier and less entertaining IMO.
Photon Overcharge hasn't really been a notable factor in many of my games recently, unlike HOTS
You can kill a pylon much easier than a nexus, so you have to think more about pylonplacement and which pylon to overcharge to not lose the ability because of losing that pylon.
We have like 3 pylons against the nexus anyway because they have to be close so they can warp in without it taking half a year. At 25 energy a cast you can probably drop 3 of them as well
since the range decreased a lot you can walk around them if they are placed badly
I like this patch a lot. T and P have to give much more thinking into macromechanics. There is no Mule Hammer anymore, there is no easy way of photonovercharge anymore. In combination with new warpin rules this seems to be great!
Chrono will help, but being a 1 click mechanic instead of something you throw out every 30-35 seconds per nexus is both easier and less entertaining IMO.
Photon Overcharge hasn't really been a notable factor in many of my games recently, unlike HOTS
You can kill a pylon much easier than a nexus, so you have to think more about pylonplacement and which pylon to overcharge to not lose the ability because of losing that pylon.
We have like 3 pylons against the nexus anyway because they have to be close so they can warp in without it taking half a year. At 25 energy a cast you can probably drop 3 of them as well
since the range decreased a lot you can walk around them if they are placed badly
Sure, you can walk around photon cannons too. Pretty much the same thing
I think one of the initial things that irk me the most (my god so many of these things irk me) is that the oracle is being buffed. I personally feel like every decision should have a cost to go with it. If your decision is to get detection via an oracle rather than an observer there should be some drawback to that. There should be inherent reasons to want to get an oracle versus wanting to get an observer.
To me it doesn't sound like you'd ever really WANT an observer, as the invisibility doesn't seem to outway the resourcefulness of an oracle, and the overall sense of Stargate > Robo. This last part is coming from a zerg who mostly watches LotV rather than plays, so its possibly off the mark but its my initial observations.
havent played the update yet but the creep spread thing seems very exciting. Was just watching NeuroSwarm's stream and it appears to spread verrrry fast
Wow the overcharge change is massive. I feel like they need to change the msc starting energy and make it only able to cast within a certain range of a nexus to balance it. Mule change is really interesting to me. I wonder if your natural is close enough on some maps that you could send your main mule to the natural to mine more efficiently or after your main mins mine out completely. I need to go ladder now.
I think one of the initial things that irk me the most (my god so many of these things irk me) is that the oracle is being buffed. I personally feel like every decision should have a cost to go with it. If your decision is to get detection via an oracle rather than an observer there should be some drawback to that. There should be inherent reasons to want to get an oracle versus wanting to get an observer.
To me it doesn't sound like you'd ever really WANT an observer, as the invisibility doesn't seem to outway the resourcefulness of an oracle
Maybe you're out of the loop here but the Revelation change only really affects when he has super long range units in his army.
Oracles are completely shit detectors early game to the point where even though they cost 2-3x more gas than observers and likely take longer to build (i don't remember the exact numbers) they can't actually do much detecting at all.
If he walks into your base and sends 1 dt to the main, one to the natural and you have 1 oracle - congrats, you can only put detection on one DT unless you wait a minute or two for your energy to regen. Then what, wait for another oracle to build? while the other one stops half of your mining and unpowers all of your stuff? Yup.
The detection is a thing that you drop on the floor, it doesn't follow the oracle around any more.
To me it doesn't sound like you'd ever really WANT an observer
~55 games of LOTV archon GM, 14 losses overall and several of them were directly because DT's came in and we only had 1-2 oracles instead of having an observer to save our ass. Try actually using the unit before making those conclusions.
Great more siege tank counters for unit that had enough weakness.
What exactly does ravagers have in exchange for their incredible long range and damage? Immobility? Less damage? Nothing? 9 range was long enough for trade off and maybe should have reduced liberator range instead of trying to counter tanks even more than it is right now-tanks wasn't really in great position in lotv other than tank drops with vipers and broodlords and all and now with ravager counters, it takes backseat even more.
The automated macro mechanics does absolutely nothing to "easing" the hardness for newcomers except for new zerg players- Hardest part of sc has always been managing production cycles and buildings and keeping supply consistent IN ADDITION to controlling army that melts in seconds if not tended to. All the automation does is remove that production cycle for zergs in overwhelming favor against other races and thats all.
On September 04 2015 09:11 parkufarku wrote: Calldown: MULE is back. Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals. No energy cost. Now has a cooldown. 30 range from casting Orbital Command. Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
40 per trip still sounds incredibly OP. Looks like enough Terrans whined that Chronoboost / Inject got nerfed while T's macro remains relatively unchanged
Actually its a buff from HOTS when they only carried 30 minerals;
On September 04 2015 10:05 HmmmCookies wrote: Soon we won't even have to make workers or micro units. I mean I know we're trying to make the game more accessible, but this is ridiculous. Auto-cast macro mechanics? Really Blizz?
This is such a ridiculous and stupid argument and I'm tired of seeing it from all these people who don't seem to put even two seconds of thought into it before freaking out over the word "auto-cast" like a knee-jerk reactionary baby.
The only thing automated about the macro mechanics is the mindless clicking involved with executing them once the decision to use them (which is sometimes not even a decision at all, such as in the case of inject larvae) is made.
When it comes to making workers, you're making a decision on how you're spending your money. When it comes to microing your units in combat, you're making a vast series of micro-decisions in a very short amount of time (which units to move/spells to cast, how far/which direction to move them, what to focus fire, what to target with the spells, etc.). There's nothing mindless about these that NEEDS to be automated.
Blizzard finally made some very intelligent insight into the difference between these situations and realized that it improves the game in all aspects, such as from an accessibility standpoint, fun for people playing, and interest for spectators watching pro games, to remove the pointless extra APM tax on making people click to use abilities that don't have much decision in them or very visible impacts, and thus free up APM to do the important things like microing units, harassing, scouting, and multi-tasking.
They are clearly showing that they are finally following a design philosophy that will make for a better and more engaging game, and the community of backseat devs who don't know the first fucking thing about game design is responding as if they're somehow on a slippery slope to do the very opposite of what these changes are achieving.
You whiners are clueless. Just let Blizzard do their job now that they're finally doing it right after 5 years and 2 expansions.
the pylons have to be connected to a nexus for the cannon right ? xD
100 energy scan, guess we are back at orbitaling everything. I would actually treat that as a joke as well. But I am to scared it will make it.
I would see the Immortal ability as a gamebreaker on autocast, but I doubt anyone will turn it off to make it more efficient. Thats I guess something that only happened in warcraft 3, where people could still micro. Sigh I have become bitter on my old days.
Guess we are entering the phase, where they realise they have to turn everything into a-move stuff, like in HotS. But maybe having the computer cast spells for us, will make a difference ?
- Photon Overcharge change is no good. Reasoning: Pylons will just be targeted and killed within 1-2 seconds, negating the whole point of PO.
- Good to see macro boosters back BUT new Chrono method is alot harder than using Chrono in HOTS. Why do Zerg and Terran get EASIER macro boosters and Protoss gets a more awkward more time consuming method ? Revert to HOTS method, that works just fine.
- Autocast is no good. You take away a strategic option that differentiates players. Sure it helps new players, but in the longrun it makes the game not interesting. (Part of the fun of SC2 is improving the macro side of your game).
On September 04 2015 10:05 HmmmCookies wrote: Soon we won't even have to make workers or micro units. I mean I know we're trying to make the game more accessible, but this is ridiculous. Auto-cast macro mechanics? Really Blizz?
This is such a ridiculous and stupid argument and I'm tired of seeing it from all these people who don't seem to put even two seconds of thought into it before freaking out over the word "auto-cast" like a knee-jerk reactionary baby.
The only thing automated about the macro mechanics is the mindless clicking involved with executing them once the decision to use them (which is sometimes not even a decision at all, such as in the case of inject larvae) is made.
When it comes to making workers, you're making a decision on how you're spending your money. When it comes to microing your units in combat, you're making a vast series of micro-decisions in a very short amount of time (which units to move/spells to cast, how far/which direction to move them, what to focus fire, what to target with the spells, etc.). There's nothing mindless about these that NEEDS to be automated.
Blizzard finally made some very intelligent insight into the difference between these situations and realized that it improves the game in all aspects, such as from an accessibility standpoint, fun for people playing, and interest for spectators watching pro games, to remove the pointless extra APM tax on making people click to use abilities that don't have much decision in them or very visible impacts, and thus free up APM to do the important things like microing units, harassing, scouting, and multi-tasking.
They are clearly showing that they are finally following a design philosophy that will make for a better and more engaging game, and the community of backseat devs who don't know the first fucking thing about game design is responding as if they're somehow on a slippery slope to do the very opposite of what these changes are achieving.
You whiners are clueless. Just let Blizzard do their job now that they're finally doing it right after 5 years and 2 expansions.
building workers and supply depots is just as "mindless" as spamming macro mechanics. You always want to build workers/supply depots constantly unless you want to allin or you have enough workers. Wouldn't it be better to be able to turn that on autocast and turn it off when you want to allin or you have enough workers? That way players could focus more on the "interesting" aspects of the game.
I do not necessarily agree with the changes, but overcharge should be restricted to the super pylons.
It is amusing to think about how different LotV singleplayer (the base-building part of it, especially) is going to be from multiplayer. There are differences between elegant solutions and silly bandaids. If the core game were solid, there would be no need for so many exceptions and changes to specifically counter 1 unit.
I have absolutely 0 desire to play this patch. Worse of both worlds bringing back Macro mechanics and automating them. The pacing of the last patch was excellent more fun than I've had in sc2 in years, Queen needed fixing, and balance changes need to be done of course but they didn't give these changes a chance. They are gunna back down from decisions based on the community reaction which is terrible for the game. Most people don't know what they want or think about what implications it has on the game play (outside of balance)
So glad to see blizzard investing so much time and effort into making this a good game. No, I don't agree with every change they've made but I doubt anyone does. Starcraft is probably the greatest game ever made.(altogether) LotV will most likely be the last one for a long time and the last chance to add to the core player base. They are constantly testing, listening and changing things in this game all for us. Most of these companies (96%) don't do jack. Develop, market and collect the checks. Blizzard is doing this the right way and anyone that doesn't see it is a fool.
On September 04 2015 10:05 HmmmCookies wrote: Soon we won't even have to make workers or micro units. I mean I know we're trying to make the game more accessible, but this is ridiculous. Auto-cast macro mechanics? Really Blizz?
This is such a ridiculous and stupid argument and I'm tired of seeing it from all these people who don't seem to put even two seconds of thought into it before freaking out over the word "auto-cast" like a knee-jerk reactionary baby.
The only thing automated about the macro mechanics is the mindless clicking involved with executing them once the decision to use them (which is sometimes not even a decision at all, such as in the case of inject larvae) is made.
When it comes to making workers, you're making a decision on how you're spending your money. When it comes to microing your units in combat, you're making a vast series of micro-decisions in a very short amount of time (which units to move/spells to cast, how far/which direction to move them, what to focus fire, what to target with the spells, etc.). There's nothing mindless about these that NEEDS to be automated.
Blizzard finally made some very intelligent insight into the difference between these situations and realized that it improves the game in all aspects, such as from an accessibility standpoint, fun for people playing, and interest for spectators watching pro games, to remove the pointless extra APM tax on making people click to use abilities that don't have much decision in them or very visible impacts, and thus free up APM to do the important things like microing units, harassing, scouting, and multi-tasking.
They are clearly showing that they are finally following a design philosophy that will make for a better and more engaging game, and the community of backseat devs who don't know the first fucking thing about game design is responding as if they're somehow on a slippery slope to do the very opposite of what these changes are achieving.
You whiners are clueless. Just let Blizzard do their job now that they're finally doing it right after 5 years and 2 expansions.
building workers and supply depots is just as "mindless" as spamming macro mechanics.
No it isn't, so clearly you don't understand the distinctions at play here. There are many times players need to cut workers for various build orders, or build them from a different town hall instead of oversaturating a full mineral line, or need to spend larvae on something that isn't drones. For the times when you just want to keep producing workers, you have a queue (or the larvae mechanic). When it comes to supply depots, there's decision making involved in the placement of them, and the exact timing you place them according to your build, which is further complicated by the supply drop ability, or the new factors in pylon placement, or again, the balance of larvae for Zerg as well as your overlord placement, so that especially shows that you have no idea what you're talking about.
On September 04 2015 07:25 Big J wrote: [*] Ravager
New Upgrade: Increases the corrosive bile range to 13 from 9.
Costs 100/100.
Requires a Lair.
For a more in-depth explanation of these changes, read David Kim’s Community Update.
I can't believe anyone is okay with this. It's like a siege tank with no draw backs
Sure, if Siege Tanks did significantly less splash, had a slower firing rate, had to be manually targeted for every shot, gave the opponent a warning marker for where they were going to fire for 3 seconds, had less HP, and were included in a race with completely different supporting units, synergies and potential compositions leading to a different set of overall strategic drawbacks. But you know.
On September 04 2015 07:25 Big J wrote: [*] Ravager
New Upgrade: Increases the corrosive bile range to 13 from 9.
Costs 100/100.
Requires a Lair.
For a more in-depth explanation of these changes, read David Kim’s Community Update.
I can't believe anyone is okay with this. It's like a siege tank with no draw backs
Sure, if Siege Tanks did significantly less splash, had a slower firing rate, had to be manually targeted for every shot, gave the opponent a warning marker for where they were going to fire for 3 seconds, had less HP, and were included in a race with completely different supporting units, synergies and potential compositions leading to a different set of overall strategic drawbacks. But you know.
Altough your point makes sense, having a mobile unit have more range than an immobile unit is not really ok, ravagers where already good vs tanks, now they are way too good, and on top of that they also nerfed tank drops, I wonder why blizzard thinks they are so broken they require a double nerf.
On September 04 2015 07:25 Big J wrote: [*] Ravager
New Upgrade: Increases the corrosive bile range to 13 from 9.
Costs 100/100.
Requires a Lair.
For a more in-depth explanation of these changes, read David Kim’s Community Update.
I can't believe anyone is okay with this. It's like a siege tank with no draw backs
Sure, if Siege Tanks did significantly less splash, had a slower firing rate, had to be manually targeted for every shot, gave the opponent a warning marker for where they were going to fire for 3 seconds, had less HP, and were included in a race with completely different supporting units, synergies and potential compositions leading to a different set of overall strategic drawbacks. But you know.
Altough your point makes sense, having a mobile unit have more range than an immobile unit is not really ok, ravagers where already good vs tanks, now they are way too good, and on top of that they also nerfed tank drops, I wonder why blizzard thinks they are so broken they require a double nerf.
Last I was aware Siege Tanks also have 13 range, no?
Either way, I'm not saying that I think the new range upgrade is or isn't balanced, I just wanted to address the hyperbole of saying it was like a tank with NO drawbacks, which is very much not the case. Maybe it will turn out to be too powerful, in which case it can be reverted - the beta exists to test these things out after all.
On September 04 2015 07:25 Big J wrote: [*] Ravager
New Upgrade: Increases the corrosive bile range to 13 from 9.
Costs 100/100.
Requires a Lair.
For a more in-depth explanation of these changes, read David Kim’s Community Update.
I can't believe anyone is okay with this. It's like a siege tank with no draw backs
Sure, if Siege Tanks did significantly less splash, had a slower firing rate, had to be manually targeted for every shot, gave the opponent a warning marker for where they were going to fire for 3 seconds, had less HP, and were included in a race with completely different supporting units, synergies and potential compositions leading to a different set of overall strategic drawbacks. But you know.
Altough your point makes sense, having a mobile unit have more range than an immobile unit is not really ok, ravagers where already good vs tanks, now they are way too good, and on top of that they also nerfed tank drops, I wonder why blizzard thinks they are so broken they require a double nerf.
Please don't overanalyze Blizzards reasons for doing this. They are just turning the knobs of the game to watch us like ants scrambling for cover. There is no thinking, there is just doing. And boy are they doing.
On September 04 2015 11:21 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I'm not sure what the point of free MULEs is. The only interesting thing about that thing was having to balance it with scans.
EDIT: I don't even care about automating them, but if they don't compete with scans then there's just no point at all to MULEs being in the game.
It's a respond to the "community" who depended on MULE mineral income rate for years. Without MULEs they are too "slow" or consistently "poor". It's mostly a change to please a group of vocal people who wants to play a certain way.
On September 04 2015 11:21 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I'm not sure what the point of free MULEs is. The only interesting thing about that thing was having to balance it with scans.
EDIT: I don't even care about automating them, but if they don't compete with scans then there's just no point at all to MULEs being in the game.
It's a respond to the "community" who depended on MULE mineral income rate for years. Without MULEs they are too "slow" or consistently "poor". It's mostly a change to please a group of vocal people who wants to play a certain way.
I'm actually fine with MULEs coming back. I'm even fine with auto-casting MULEs if that's the direction they want to go. I just don't understand why they made it non-competitive with scans.
On September 04 2015 11:21 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I'm not sure what the point of free MULEs is. The only interesting thing about that thing was having to balance it with scans.
EDIT: I don't even care about automating them, but if they don't compete with scans then there's just no point at all to MULEs being in the game.
It's a respond to the "community" who depended on MULE mineral income rate for years. Without MULEs they are too "slow" or consistently "poor". It's mostly a change to please a group of vocal people who wants to play a certain way.
I'm actually fine with MULEs coming back. I'm even fine with auto-casting MULEs if that's the direction they want to go. I just don't understand why they made it non-competitive with scans.
Now the game is wayyyy faster than it was in the previous patch, before removing the "Macro Booasters", now re adding the "Macro Boosters" with automation is uh... just bad.
I actually love that recently users who quote Battle.net posts are putting the official link at the BEGINNING of the OP (instead of the traditional "Source" at the very end of a usually long post). I prefer to read these things first-hand, thx Big J!
On topic, I really don't know what to make of these changes anymore. I thought I knew where Blizzard was going with their expansion pack, now I'm not sure :D. I still wonder why they touched macro mechanics when essentially no one was complaining about them. They're attempting some super drastic changes (which is good), but not really in areas where people actually care, I feel, so that's weird.
On September 04 2015 11:21 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I'm not sure what the point of free MULEs is. The only interesting thing about that thing was having to balance it with scans.
EDIT: I don't even care about automating them, but if they don't compete with scans then there's just no point at all to MULEs being in the game.
It's a respond to the "community" who depended on MULE mineral income rate for years. Without MULEs they are too "slow" or consistently "poor". It's mostly a change to please a group of vocal people who wants to play a certain way.
I'm actually fine with MULEs coming back. I'm even fine with auto-casting MULEs if that's the direction they want to go. I just don't understand why they made it non-competitive with scans.
Because the goal is not to add an interesting mechanic into the game. It is there as a crutch that is deemed necessary due to the responds given on the last patch and the reintroduction of Chronoboost. Having it compete with other scans or depot drop would make it a really lame crutch.
To people wondering what's the difference between the auto-MULE and "just" hard-coding a faster harvesting rate or re-adjusting unit costs for Terran (they're essentially the same):
I wondered about that myself. As it stands, auto-mule is a really bland mechanic, no doubt about that: there is no action (because automatic) nor choice (because on cooldown instead of sharing the energy pool of scans) involved. The only thing that makes it remotely interesting for the game is that the opponent can target it instead of SCVs when harassing, and I actually wonder if it is worthwhile to do that or not.
It's kind of the same for zerg, they could have decided to spawn more larvae per hatch, but instead they went for a macro boost that we can kill more easily when harassing. The queen is a little better because it serves other purposes (while the MULE really just boosts your economy).
Auto-chrono is actually the only really nicely implemented one in my opinion. It removes the mechanical requirement (which was their goal), yet preserves all the potential for choice for the user. I just wish they had found something else for Zerg and Terran.
unless you want to allin or you have enough workers.
Are they not decisions? This whole "next thing you know they'll automate everything!" argument can go in the trash where it belongs. It's so ignorant and unintelligent and doesn't deserve to be entertained. It's a cry-baby argument that anyone can just spit out and feel good about themselves and I see it every time macro mechanics changes are brought up. I'm personally not happy with how they are changing the game as far as macro mechanics go but at least I'm not so dense and pessimistic to spew this stupid argument that just seems to be regurgitated by anyone without any actual criticism of the changes. Stop posting this argument and come back with something of substance please. The most automated thing in StarCraft right now is this ignorant point of view because it's posted day after day and thread after thread.
Everything makes sense, but I don't think the ovi drop change was really needed. I mean really... I don't think I have ever seen anyone on stream even abuse early drops.
I do think I agree with some of the auto cast stuff for toss and terran. Just a nice clean answer to the eco probs they apparently had.
Originally I took issue with the auto cast, but this seems like a pretty good fix imo.
I think LOTV should be delayed another year to try more stuff and rethink about what exactly the game should be. I'm happy that Blizzard is trying new things. But I want this game to be great, not good.
On September 04 2015 11:21 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I'm not sure what the point of free MULEs is. The only interesting thing about that thing was having to balance it with scans.
EDIT: I don't even care about automating them, but if they don't compete with scans then there's just no point at all to MULEs being in the game.
It's because they've balanced terran assuming a super saturated mineral income, bio especially. Given the choice to go through and painfully rebalance the entire race without it or to reinstitute it and make that job far, far easier, they've opted for the latter.
Zerg needs to make a queen to use a macro mechanic. Terran needs to make an orbital. Protoss needs to make what? Terran needs to wait 50 seconds after OC completion to use a scan. Also need an ebay to make a turret. Zerg needs spawning pool to make spore. Protoss can just open stargate or robo and have detection. What? All races start with 12 workers. Zerg needs to use workers to make buildings as do terran. Protoss needs a single probe to start warping in structures anywhere on the entire map that can also immediately go back to mining as the structure warps in. what? oracle with 13 range revelation? How can that even be countered? I already believe revelation lasts way too long and has way too big a radius in hots. Now its going to be even better? Nerfing medivac tank drops? Why? its already one of the most time consuming micro intensive things a terran has to do with a pretty high skill ceiling. You literally need to babysit it nonstop. Starting to think that blizzard forgot why things like mule, inject, and chronoboost were even in the game in the first place. I guess this expansion will be good if you still have a hardon for protoss bullcrap after 5 years. As if coll ht deathballs wern't already overkill, add the disrupter to the mix and auto supershield immortals and both bio and mech will be next to useless in tvp. Lets not forget mass carrier late game armies with interceptors that pretty much kill any army or structure in a single instant. Vikings manage to get 2 maybe 3 shots off if their lucky before disappearing forever. It'd be nice if the raven was still an option but the PPD is a joke now and the seeker missle was already super easy to micro against. Don't even need to talk about the ridiculous build time and high gas cost for a unit that barely does anything anymore.
Exact opposite of what they needed to do (except for Protoss, that one is OK)
They removed the possibility of interesting choice.
For MULES -should still have energy requirement. -add the cooldown (but NOT as high as the energy regen time) and range limitation...possibly even autocast as an option Weaken them until they are competitive with scans (they mostly already were) Strengthen Supply Drop until it is competitive with scans/MULES (say 25 energy) Then weaken Orbital until it is competitive with Planetary Fortress or an unmodified CC. (Say 2x energy cost of everything...MULE, Scan=100, drop supply back to 50)
For Zerg..... Allow injects only on larvaless hatcheries...have it cause the hatchery to spawn all 3 larva in 5 seconds.(no natural larva generated by a Injected Hatchery) Move it up to 50 energy and make it autocastable. Queen is just about as good as 1/2 a Hatchery then, but the Queen would be good for remaxes.
This chrono boost seems harder to use (because it only wants to cast chrono from the nexus in your first control group), while getting a rather large nerf...
Assuming they fix the casting thing bug, chrono still seems like a massive nerf to toss. Zerg gets free auto injects, terran gets auto mule drops (but loses some flexibility), while toss gains almost nothing since doing chrono is easy (because even if you miss it for a bit, you can cast it multiple times).
I really don't like the direction this game is going. The biggest 'pro' I see about this patch is sieged tank drops being slightly nerfed (which was annoying in tvz).
pylon overcharge = LOL. I just don't like the new cronoboost thing where its permanently on my nexus. Sometimes I wanna cronoboost more than 2 things at once, and with this new patch i dont have that option.
This is absolutely BS. Not a single one of these updates have any promising value.
Zealot damage charge nerf: We need it to be tanky not damage dealer.
Chrono return: The return of the awful MM.
Warpgates: Because MM is back, lets return all the super long times to balance it out.
Photon over charge: PvT pylon rush is a thing now.
Colossus: Well, that really won't change the unit from trash to be useful.
Tempests: back to no massive air vs protoss.
Immortals: 1 zerglings activate it like baiting a wm, then let it die...
Oracle: Yeah... because in range 9, it was killed by static defense when it tried to cast revelation.
Carriers: Well... I'll admit... Not a bad change. Have to wait and see.
Mule return: Another retarded MM returns....
Scanner cost: Yep... Lets make sure we never scan unless we are 100% sure he is going to make some BS. Now lets die to DT easier than ever before. BTW, there was a reason why scanner was reduced from 75 to 50 like 13 years ago Blizzard... Wanna see again what was that reason?
Supply drop: No one used those, and with the scan cost, no one ever will.
Siege Tanks change: Just remove that BS medivac pickup. Siege tanks need raw power buff not trolling with medivacs.
spawn larva to 3 from 2: Yay just to make sure zerg never ever make macro hatcheries now we have super injects to make zerg even stronger than it was...
Creep change: Not bad and not good, creep will cover the map in like 5 min. But the good thing that will give opponent the chance to reduce fast too.
Ravagers: Remember Artosis first comment ever on the Cyclone? Here it is: LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.
PLEASE revisit the macro changes. The early game has been completely nuked and now we are seeing 5 minute hydras and games end within 12 minutes. I miss the longer intense tug of war games. Not these games where it feels like you are on crack and everything goes so fast. Lairs happen in the first couple minutes. 12 workers is WAY TO MANY. 10 would be more then enough. Also, if you are gonna make macro changes that cause Terran to mine out there main in a couple minutes the weird low mineral patch thing needs to be reverted OR just please look at the reduced efficiency model again. This 12 worker-2/3 minerals every other patch is silly and sloppy. IMO it should be 8-10 workers with full 1500 patches and a reduced efficiency model. If that happens I would be more accepting of these weird auto macro changes. Until economy changes I think I will be sticking with HOTS.
Does anyone else agree or am I in the complete minority?
On September 04 2015 14:45 WhaleOFaTale wrote: PLEASE revisit the macro changes. The early game has been completely nuked and now we are seeing 5 minute hydras and games end within 12 minutes. I miss the longer intense tug of war games. Not these games where it feels like you are on crack and everything goes so fast. Lairs happen in the first couple minutes. 12 workers is WAY TO MANY. 10 would be more then enough. Also, if you are gonna make macro changes that cause Terran to mine out there main in a couple minutes the weird low mineral patch thing needs to be reverted OR just please look at the reduced efficiency model again. This 12 worker-2/3 minerals every other patch is silly and sloppy. IMO it should be 8-10 workers with full 1500 patches and a reduced efficiency model. If that happens I would be more accepting of these weird auto macro changes. Until economy changes I think I will be sticking with HOTS.
Does anyone else agree or am I in the complete minority?
I agree with you. But sadly, we are not the majority here, because by definition. The majority is Blizzard + Reddit retards.
I'm not a fan of the auto cast garbage, but this patch is a million times more fun than the last patch. Seriously can actually afford to have fun armies/upgrades again.
Its a shame the photon overcharge change is not working as they intended it to be. Please remove the damage and make it so the units in the pylon radius powered by photon overcharge have an increased shield regeneration , sort of like the shield battery.
- autocast mechanics are silly, just bring back the old ones and let them be or nerf them a little - remove MSC and make toss early game stronger (maybe it is already, i dont have beta access) or make overcharge a nexus ability which is transferable between all nexi so you can use it at the place where you are attacked
i really wonder how will they design/balance the game in time for release, right now it sounds like a longshot...well balance can be (will be) off in the beginning but this new design direction is terrible, please stop it :D
The new chronoboost is pretty fucking terrible to manage with multiple nexuses, their goal was to make it less mechanically challenging but they actually made it harder. If I want to change a single chrono boosted building to something else I have to redo all of them anyways since there's no way I'll remember which nexus is doing which building and bother to manually select a nexus to change it.
Please just give us back the old one, it was fine as it was. Even the worst players knew how to chrono boost out their tech and stuff.. This is the first patch where I really really lost appetite to ladder in the beta.. Don't even get me started on automatically triggering Immortal shields on first hit lol..
On September 04 2015 15:01 DooMDash wrote: I'm not a fan of the auto cast garbage, but this patch is a million times more fun than the last patch. Seriously can actually afford to have fun armies/upgrades again.
or they could have made expanding as terran viable instead of just increasing income...
When people said that they want more ballsy and bigger changes they didn't talk about ridiculous band-aid fixes, but instead they meant fundamental changes to the races and gameplay. We don't see much of that and instead get these weird toys that look more like Command & Conquer than Starcraft.
And then for some things they're just changing numbers. Why are they changing the colossus at all? It's a dumb unit with bad design - the true ballsy move here would be to remove it completely and redesign the other units accordingly.
Really don't like they are automating, I thought most people disliked it? At this rate I probably won't buy the game if this is the direction they're going. Anyway how come the terran mule ability got least lerfed while also being able to drop down supply depots at the same time, how is that gonna be balanced? Sure very lategame mules got nerfed a lot but I don't think you'll be able to survive that far vs terran now. Also bit disappointed for no liberator nerf
Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
It's Blizzard. They will release it when it's ready. And the game is not ready for sure. We still don't have official release date, so I don't know why you think that it will be november. What are your sources ?
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
It's Blizzard. They will release it when it's ready. And the game is not ready for sure. We still don't have official release date, so I don't know why you think that it will be november. What are your sources ?
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
It's Blizzard. They will release it when it's ready. And the game is not ready for sure. We still don't have official release date, so I don't know why you think that it will be november. What are your sources ?
Ehm, do you remember in what state Wings were released? How many balance patches followed? :-) They will release it once the release date is on. The game is too big from a single player perspective to delay it because of multiplayer which is played by a fraction of total fan base.
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
It's Blizzard. They will release it when it's ready. And the game is not ready for sure. We still don't have official release date, so I don't know why you think that it will be november. What are your sources ?
They will just claim that it's ready.
Yeah, because we are talking about Ubisoft or EA... Oh, wait, we are not.
We still don't have official info on the release date... Complain when we have it.
On September 04 2015 16:30 deacon.frost wrote:
Ehm, do you remember in what state Wings were released? How many balance patches followed? :-) They will release it once the release date is on. The game is too big from a single player perspective to delay it because of multiplayer which is played by a fraction of total fan base.
Yeah man, but you still dont have release date. I don't get it. Why complain when you don't know for certain... Just wait and see. Next week we will know, If they say that it will be released november no matter what, I will be on the same ship. But for now we just don't know.
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
It's Blizzard. They will release it when it's ready. And the game is not ready for sure. We still don't have official release date, so I don't know why you think that it will be november. What are your sources ?
They will just claim that it's ready.
Yeah, because we are talking about Ubisoft or EA... Oh, wait, we are not.
We still don't have official info on the release date... Complain when we have it.
Yeah because only Ubisoft and EA can make mistakes. Remember that Blizzard still has investors and with WoW breaking down they have to please those.
It already made the news that SC2 will releae in 2015. It'd be pretty bad for Blizzard if that changes.
Too many gimmicks such as Pylon Overcharge and spells in this, why dont they just stick core mechanics of the game and make it an RTS, remove Warp gate and force field and adjust it from there for instance
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
It's Blizzard. They will release it when it's ready. And the game is not ready for sure. We still don't have official release date, so I don't know why you think that it will be november. What are your sources ?
They will just claim that it's ready.
Yeah, because we are talking about Ubisoft or EA... Oh, wait, we are not.
We still don't have official info on the release date... Complain when we have it.
Ehm, do you remember in what state Wings were released? How many balance patches followed? :-) They will release it once the release date is on. The game is too big from a single player perspective to delay it because of multiplayer which is played by a fraction of total fan base.
Yeah man, but you still dont have release date. I don't get it. Why complain when you don't know for certain... Just wait and see. Next week we will know, If they say that it will be released november no matter what, I will be on the same ship. But for now we just don't know.
I am not complaining, I am just saying that they will release the game even with unbalanced MP. I will spend first few weeks of LotV playing the SP anyway :-)
Also, they announced that LotV will be released this year. If the don't want to postpone this(doubt it, Christmas and the last part of the story? $_$) it is released before the Proleague starts(this PL started in the 3rd week of December(or the last? not sure now)) and after the Blizzcon. Which gives you a good estimation when it is released :-)
But they can delay it the same way XCOM 2 is delayed
On September 04 2015 16:41 Topdoller wrote: Too many gimmicks such as Pylon Overcharge and spells in this, why dont they just stick core mechanics of the game and make it an RTS, remove Warp gate and force field and adjust it from there for instance
Yes, let's ruin Protoss even more by removing core mechanics that outside of a vocal minority most Protoss players enjoy.
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
It's Blizzard. They will release it when it's ready. And the game is not ready for sure. We still don't have official release date, so I don't know why you think that it will be november. What are your sources ?
Ehm, do you remember in what state Wings were released? How many balance patches followed? :-) They will release it once the release date is on. The game is too big from a single player perspective to delay it because of multiplayer which is played by a fraction of total fan base.
Erh... Balance is not the problem yet as Blizzard not sure what do with MM. We are still at design issue.
On September 04 2015 16:09 Pr0wler wrote: Just remove the fucking "MMs"... Why did they bring them back ? And where the fuck this photon overchage change came from ??? You can use it on pylons ? But why ??? Blizzard seems completely lost, just when I thought that they are on the right path. This game will not be released this year, that is for sure.
Dude, game is being released in Nov at the latest, given that we'll have a release date announced next week. But will the Multiplayer be ready? Probably not, it's still getting released regardless though.
It's Blizzard. They will release it when it's ready. And the game is not ready for sure. We still don't have official release date, so I don't know why you think that it will be november. What are your sources ?
Ehm, do you remember in what state Wings were released? How many balance patches followed? :-) They will release it once the release date is on. The game is too big from a single player perspective to delay it because of multiplayer which is played by a fraction of total fan base.
Erh... Balance is not the problem yet as Blizzard not sure what do with MM. We are still at design issue.
And again, this is not what I wrote. I wrote that Blizzard will release the game with unfinished MP. I mentioned balance patches because they are not called design patches, even this patch is balance update.
On September 04 2015 17:32 TheOneAboveU wrote: I have no words for this patch... like, I don't even want to play LotV anymore, damn...
Yeah because things won't change 20 more times before the release... I love all these drama queens, like it is the end of the world or something. After every patch I am reading a ton of bad responses from some players and how this is "the end" of SC2 for them, just to see them post after a week again.
I am 100% positive that LOTV will be new, better experience and a lot more fun than HOTS was. It is ok to criticize stuff but majority here are jumping to the conclusion way too fast.
Yep, now in LOTV I have a different chronoboost that requires little skill to use, while my race is the one that struggles the most, we get stupid pylons that are paper-made but deal a lot of damage, we get stupid adepts and nerfed collossi, our warpgate mechanic gets nerfed, we struggle the most getting expansions and to win we have to rely on stupid timings based off the adept unit, if i want to play macro i have to make carriers vs zerg and pvp is so stupid... this is what i feel but come on, what the hell David Kim? It seems most zergs terrans and protoss are hating LOTV and yet we get even more unnecessary shitty changes. Why? Why do you this David? Why do you have videos where you say you love starcraft because of awesome communities like TL and then do nothing about the issues that even the site´s staff writers come up with? Why are you making a strategy game that has less options and less decisions? Why do you think there was a problem with macro mechanics because of "clicks required to do so"? Honestly the clicks come from the players wanting to spam. We have seen how players with 100 apm can macro way better than people above that mark...
JUST WHY? Seriously I think that to call this game an expansions is quite laughable, I love starcraft, and Im hating blizzard for doing the things they are doing, we keep on like this the community will grow smaller, some will stick, others will leave because this game is way way worse than HOTS or WOL. God, so pissed right now with Blizzard, and to think they plan on releasing this game this year... secretly I wish this game to be a collossal failure so Big Boy Blizzard gets their shit together and makes a great game...
I really hate this direction of SC2. It's everything SC2 is not supposed to be. Not talking about balance changes like 100 nrg scan (which is ridiculous btw) but the macro mechanic removal...never needed to happen. And they know it. You know it. I know it. We all know it. They're just band-aid patching this game and making it worse with the automation and refusing to revert the game back to the SC2 we all know and love.
Mules, chrono, and inject fundamentally are a part of SC2's identity as a game. What makes the game fun is not the game being easier or automated - but new units, new abilities, that stuff that blizzard should have been focusing on the entire time.
I wonder how much of the SC2 community is really ok with how LOTV is going. I honest to god hope most TL veterans get their opinions out there because i feel like most old school SC1 players and a large majority of TL are going "wtf" on the inside right now even if their opinion is not front and center.
Autocast does not belong in SC2, the macro mechanics do belong in SC2, they were great and i think the version of SC2 we all had played for the last 4-5 yrs was amazing fundamentally with those mechanics. It was not always amazing from the balance side of things because blizzard patched way too infrequently and poorly (making units faster randomly is not an appropriate balance fix to every situation).
I'm just gonna quote some posters here who's sentiments i agree with too and make really good points:
On September 04 2015 09:32 johnbongham wrote: Does blizz really think these drastic changes are going to reinvigorate the scene? All I see happening is plenty of people refusing to switch expansions and maybe a few new people get into starcraft and we end up with yet another split scene.
On September 04 2015 09:29 lichter wrote: "macro mechanics aren't strategic enough"
"so let's automate it!"
srsly
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
I'll add more as i see em, but yeah...i wish more TL people were up in arms over the automation of SC2 tbh.
When most people said they wanted lots of changes to SC2, i believe everyone meant balance, metagame, and generally fixing things that were perceived really annoying or broken...not completely re-designing the game to be Warcraft 4 from scratch.
People wanted to see things like nukes more viable, nydus worms viable, offensive mech possible, no swarmhost turtle games, sentries tweaked, and new units like lurkers/liberators, new abilities, etc...why the hell in the first place is blizzard messing with the fundamental rule set of the game via mule/chrono/inject? It's arbitrary.
Another thing that really annoys me about this entire beta is blizzard's unwillingness to ever test the DH9/DH10 economy models on the live beta servers. They never once let it go live and let players test it and see how it changed the game in a live environment. Instead, they chose their way of removing all macro mechanics for no reason and then realizing that that is going to go horribly and now bringing them back with automation...
On September 04 2015 17:32 TheOneAboveU wrote: I have no words for this patch... like, I don't even want to play LotV anymore, damn...
Yeah because things won't change 20 more times before the release... I love all these drama queens, like it is the end of the world or something. After every patch I am reading a ton of bad responses from some players and how this is "the end" of SC2 for them, just to see them post after a week again.
I am 100% positive that LOTV will be new, better experience and a lot more fun than HOTS was. It is ok to criticize stuff but majority here are jumping to the conclusion way too fast.
There will definitely be more patches, yes. But enough to go for the design changes people wish for? I doubt that. We will see adjustments to the current stuff, maybe things like the pylon overcharge being taken away again etc.
However we won't see things like Blizzard removing units(looking at you colossus) or even introducing new ones, changing the economy model. Bold stuff that would actually bring meaningful change.
On September 04 2015 09:04 Tiaraju9 wrote: The new chronoboost is a nightmare to use. You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three nexus.
It's harder than inject.
But (the old) inject is time sensitive. As a Terran I was always impressed when someone had the rythm of injects. With CB you set it on something and leave it until you want to change it. This cannot be harder than timing injects.
I'm not going to say that the new Chrono is harder than Larvae injects, but you do have to remember which nexus is chronoing which structure. I try to chrono my second forge and then my first forge stops chronoing so I have to specifically select my second nexus to chrono my first forge...
This is arguably harder than old Chrono.
On top of all that, now we need to be SUPER careful with our pylon and gateway placement. For each pylon we build, one need to assess if its good to power gateways, to use photon overcharge and to prevent ling runby.
I'm not kidding when I say that Protoss macro in LotV is HARDER than in HotS.
Tracking what Nexus is chrono boosting what is ridiculous. The game should show one of those lines (like it does for the target of a widow mine) that shows where the Nexus is linked to.
What a bunch of babies haha. That's honestly a VERY basic memory exercise. @avilo : I, for one, wanted a complete redesign of the game and don't see how LotV is going to be a "new Warcraft 4". That being said, DKim and his boys have been going bananas for months now. Shit don't make sense anymore.
On September 04 2015 09:11 parkufarku wrote: Calldown: MULE is back. Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals. No energy cost. Now has a cooldown. 30 range from casting Orbital Command. Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45.
40 per trip still sounds incredibly OP. Looks like enough Terrans whined that Chronoboost / Inject got nerfed while T's macro remains relatively unchanged
Actually its a buff from HOTS when they only carried 30 minerals;
9 x 30 = 270 <- hots 6 x 45 = 270 6 x 40 = 240 <- live beta
I didn't see it, but apparently they still can die on their last trip on far minerals, making it only 200 minerals.
Which with the lost of two workers whilst the OC builds means that (per minute) you get about 100 minerals extra. Woohoo OP!
Really? Even in HOTS you couldn't make workers while it was turning into OC. You cant count that. Retarded Terran fanboy logic.
Can we swop ZerlingShepherd for this guy? It is just explaining that the mineral income is not as much as you think - you do think don't you?
I hope they fix the PO problem quickly. Protoss already gets a ton of hate for cheese but now the amount of cheese is bordering on insanity. Only allow pylons within a certain range of a Nexus be PO'd.
I am surprised how many people like you are here on TL who can't understand what's going on. The reason the mule was reimplemented was becasue terran was balanced around a higher mineral income. It would require big changes to lots of terran cost numbers to make the game works without mules.
So yes adding auto-mules is indeed a band-aid fix, but it doesn't really have any problematic consequences. It's just a way of balancing the game without forcing mechanics down the throats of the playerbase.
With regards to Chronoboost, the attempt is to make it require less APM for newer players, while still maintaining some type of decision on where to use it.
Damn, this is one of the worst updates in a while. Auto-cast macro mechanics are just terrible, you either remove them completely or leave them in weaker but not auto-cast, this change just sucks. Planetary Pylon lol, prepare for some dumb cannon rushes. Ravager change is just horrible, it makes siege tanks unusable outside of medivac abuse, gone forever will be the days of carefully building a tank line, creeping forward, abusing terrain.
On September 04 2015 18:29 Destructicon wrote: Damn, this is one of the worst updates in a while. Auto-cast macro mechanics are just terrible, you either remove them completely or leave them in weaker but not auto-cast, this change just sucks. Planetary Pylon lol, prepare for some dumb cannon rushes. Ravager change is just horrible, it makes siege tanks unusable outside of medivac abuse, gone forever will be the days of carefully building a tank line, creeping forward, abusing terrain.
yeah. i feel normally pretty positive about letting them do their thing and seeing how it goes. First time I read all the patch notes and felt icky at the end
I guess i'm one of the few on this forum who likes the removal of macro mechanics. SC2 bummed me out at some point because the game is too much about macroing, yes I know BW is even more, but I like the game more like wc3 than like bw. Of course I understand the sentiment that people like heavy macro and thus the game should feature that, fair enough. But to me these macro mechanics were mostly a chore, there was rarely a decision with MULE or inject, it was just a cycle you had to time and memorize as well as possible. Chrono boost at least had all kinds of nice implications on build orders and strategy. I get the changes and i think they improve the game, zerg should be less about being good at injecting while stuff is going on but more about tactical management, knowing when to drone or when to build army, controlling units effectively etc. The inject change is good, you will see more focus on other things and you can balance afterwards if it's too easy to macro as zerg.
The terran change seems silly though, it doesn't really change much. You have automuling now just to keep orbitals as a must for terran economy I suppose. And then you still have drop down supply that you want to use on cooldown early basically. Especially as the economic boost of it compared to scan is still big since dropdown will be less energy than scan too. It does fix it at some time though as energy will just all be for scans later. Giving an oppurtunity cost to scanning is good i guess but this one feels a little silly with the automatic mule.
Chronoboost change is alright, still some options with it although it will be just boosting warpgate and then tech units mostly I think. At least it gives some stuff with scouting, not boosting the nexus? He's probably got some tech going.
On September 04 2015 17:32 TheOneAboveU wrote: I have no words for this patch... like, I don't even want to play LotV anymore, damn...
Yeah because things won't change 20 more times before the release... I love all these drama queens, like it is the end of the world or something. After every patch I am reading a ton of bad responses from some players and how this is "the end" of SC2 for them, just to see them post after a week again.
I am 100% positive that LOTV will be new, better experience and a lot more fun than HOTS was. It is ok to criticize stuff but majority here are jumping to the conclusion way too fast.
I just stated my feelings regarding these patch notes, that's what this forum is here for. Nowhere did I say this is the end of SC2 for me or whatever, so the one jumping to a conclusion way too fast is you.
Why do I have these feelings? Well, I didn't like playing on the last patch, this one seems even worse. Auto-casting is something I really, really dislike design-wise. And I also liked the old macro mechanics, especially inject.
30 Range for Mule's if anyone was wondering is the same range of a Sensor Tower.
I hope they made it so Overcharge Pylon is only on 'Warp Pylons' or they just introduced a new kind of Cannon Rush.
I'm not liking the revert on Colossus range, I think it's something that can make it contest Lurkers potentially. Long range has always been a big proponent to the power of death balls.
Immortal auto-Barrier is a super nice change, but already I fear that it won't remember your setting for the followup Immortals and it's extra work for people who actually want to micro. Because you now need to alt+D(I think is the hotkey for Barrier) on every Immortal.
Still don't see why Mule's can't just cost energy.. and the Siege Tank change should rather be: Medivacs can still pick up Sieged Siege Tanks, but they become unsieged inside the Medivac. Rest of the changes are either fine or meh.
Edit: Overcharge works on EVERY Pylon, dno how they could not see rushes come from this, or maybe they're just totally fine with that.
On September 04 2015 18:56 Markwerf wrote: I guess i'm one of the few on this forum who likes the removal of macro mechanics. SC2 bummed me out at some point because the game is too much about macroing, yes I know BW is even more, but I like the game more like wc3 than like bw. Of course I understand the sentiment that people like heavy macro and thus the game should feature that, fair enough. But to me these macro mechanics were mostly a chore, there was rarely a decision with MULE or inject, it was just a cycle you had to time and memorize as well as possible. Chrono boost at least had all kinds of nice implications on build orders and strategy. I get the changes and i think they improve the game, zerg should be less about being good at injecting while stuff is going on but more about tactical management, knowing when to drone or when to build army, controlling units effectively etc. The inject change is good, you will see more focus on other things and you can balance afterwards if it's too easy to macro as zerg.
The terran change seems silly though, it doesn't really change much. You have automuling now just to keep orbitals as a must for terran economy I suppose. And then you still have drop down supply that you want to use on cooldown early basically. Especially as the economic boost of it compared to scan is still big since dropdown will be less energy than scan too. It does fix it at some time though as energy will just all be for scans later. Giving an oppurtunity cost to scanning is good i guess but this one feels a little silly with the automatic mule.
Chronoboost change is alright, still some options with it although it will be just boosting warpgate and then tech units mostly I think. At least it gives some stuff with scouting, not boosting the nexus? He's probably got some tech going.
I, too, have always had more fun playing War3 than BW (albeit not the same type of fun) but the one thing some people don't seem to understand is that SC2 CANNOT become a good micro-oriented RTS in the way War3 is because of the amount of units that you control and of the ridiculous rapidity of mid/late-game engagements.
On September 04 2015 18:29 Destructicon wrote: Damn, this is one of the worst updates in a while. Auto-cast macro mechanics are just terrible, you either remove them completely or leave them in weaker but not auto-cast, this change just sucks. Planetary Pylon lol, prepare for some dumb cannon rushes. Ravager change is just horrible, it makes siege tanks unusable outside of medivac abuse, gone forever will be the days of carefully building a tank line, creeping forward, abusing terrain.
This sums it up nicely but with an addition that I would just like to see macro boosters removed and game rebalanced around that. Or take the ideas from Starbow: Terrans call down SCVs instantly for 50 minerals (not energy). Zerg Queen injects hatchery that speeds up larva production but cannot go over 4 larva per hatchery. Also you can inject the hatcher before last inject ends so new players can have it easier but good players can still achieve maximum efficiency.
The OC/MULE is really, really awkward now and I don't like it.
You will have less OCs than in HOTS, but scans are double the cost. Playing against DT openings with a maximum of 2 saved up scans per OC will be fun. You can't drop clutch-emergency-repair-MULEs, which I think was a really exciting aspect of terran play. You can't control which mineral patch is mined by the MULE. Bases will run out faster because you can't drop all your MULEs on fresh expansions. You will have to move all spare OCs to the location of your mining bases in order to not waste MULEs. If a base has no minerals but gas left you are forced to constantly waste potential MULEs.
This is as inelegant as can be. I'd rather not have MULEs at all than this clusterfuck.
This patch is by far the most disappointing since a long time... Auto Cast mechanics are not interesting at all in my opinion. I rather have no macro booster than auto cast. As Blizzard said, they want to make SC2 more open to new players: I doubt new players will understand why their units are doing stuff alone. "Hey I didn't press any key and a mule is coming down from the sky?"
On September 04 2015 19:52 wjat wrote: This patch is by far the most disappointing since a long time... Auto Cast mechanics are not interesting at all in my opinion. I rather have no macro booster than auto cast. As Blizzard said, they want to make SC2 more open to new players: I doubt new players will understand why their units are doing stuff alone. "Hey I didn't press any key and a mule is coming down from the sky?"
Wait the community feedback. Based on what they were doing, we saw nothing yet... The true horror still lies before us...
On September 04 2015 15:37 Firkraag8 wrote: The new chronoboost is pretty fucking terrible to manage with multiple nexuses, their goal was to make it less mechanically challenging but they actually made it harder. If I want to change a single chrono boosted building to something else I have to redo all of them anyways since there's no way I'll remember which nexus is doing which building and bother to manually select a nexus to change it.
Please just give us back the old one, it was fine as it was. Even the worst players knew how to chrono boost out their tech and stuff.. This is the first patch where I really really lost appetite to ladder in the beta.. Don't even get me started on automatically triggering Immortal shields on first hit lol..
I didn't think of this :D (I'm Terran and I thought the new chronoboost was the best of the 3 new mechanics). But surely once you've played some more games, you'll be used to having your first nexus always chronoing the same thing, your second nexus always chronoing this other thing, your 3rd yet another pre-defined building and so on (like control groups), right?
On September 04 2015 15:37 Firkraag8 wrote: The new chronoboost is pretty fucking terrible to manage with multiple nexuses, their goal was to make it less mechanically challenging but they actually made it harder. If I want to change a single chrono boosted building to something else I have to redo all of them anyways since there's no way I'll remember which nexus is doing which building and bother to manually select a nexus to change it.
Please just give us back the old one, it was fine as it was. Even the worst players knew how to chrono boost out their tech and stuff.. This is the first patch where I really really lost appetite to ladder in the beta.. Don't even get me started on automatically triggering Immortal shields on first hit lol..
I didn't think of this :D (I'm Terran and I thought the new chronoboost was the best of the 3 new mechanics). But surely once you've played some more games, you'll be used to having your first nexus always chronoing the same thing, your second nexus always chronoing this other thing, your 3rd yet another pre-defined building and so on (like control groups), right?
Which would still require you to actively think about chronoboost and apply it through clicking on the correct nexus(that you thought of first). And if you fuck it up, you gotta do it for all nexus again.
So I'm pretty sure this is at least the same work as before.
I do not like the direction of removing macro mechanics. That being said, chronoboost had its issues, but I think that Blizzard could fix those particular issues without actually changing the fundamentals of the chronoboost concept. It's a more narrow issue with early game timings because the race is hard to scout in any reliable manner.
I believe that Blizzard should strongly reconsider implementing more "unit action" at the expense of "macro mechanics" in this game, and instead wait for a Warcraft 4 game which will surely release at some point. It is much more in line with "hero units" and that type of interaction and playstyle (think LOL viewers).
Simply as an example, trying to change CS:GO into Call of Duty because more people watch it and play it would make the entire game fail, in my view. The CS:GO player base will just walk away and say: "If I wanted COD, I would play COD". I believe that the same concept applies for SC2/Warcraft 4/LOL.
We do not watch SC2 games because the graphics and sounds are that much better than Warcraft 3. It is the uniqueness of the SC2 franchise that draws us to it (the most demanding macro mechanics game). We love our average APM spam. Otherwise, we would still be all over Warcraft 3 on Twitch. LOL has that market covered - unit control and constant micro surprises/action. You are not going to take people away from LOL in a game where people will still mass roach or mass hellion now and then.
On September 04 2015 15:37 Firkraag8 wrote: The new chronoboost is pretty fucking terrible to manage with multiple nexuses, their goal was to make it less mechanically challenging but they actually made it harder. If I want to change a single chrono boosted building to something else I have to redo all of them anyways since there's no way I'll remember which nexus is doing which building and bother to manually select a nexus to change it.
Please just give us back the old one, it was fine as it was. Even the worst players knew how to chrono boost out their tech and stuff.. This is the first patch where I really really lost appetite to ladder in the beta.. Don't even get me started on automatically triggering Immortal shields on first hit lol..
I didn't think of this :D (I'm Terran and I thought the new chronoboost was the best of the 3 new mechanics). But surely once you've played some more games, you'll be used to having your first nexus always chronoing the same thing, your second nexus always chronoing this other thing, your 3rd yet another pre-defined building and so on (like control groups), right?
I mentioned earlier that the Nexus should show a faint line to what it is CB'ing (like the unit targeted by a WM). Of course as a Terran if Blizz do not implement this then whatever
Also if Nexus 1 Chrono a thing, then Nexus 2 Chrono another thing and you then apply to a third thing. You'd think Nexus 1 changes Chrono target, but actually it just applies the one closest by UNLESS you do it really fast. So if you have 6 Nexus the only way to get Chrono on 6 Gates with all of the Nexus in the same group you MUST use rapid fire.
On September 04 2015 17:48 avilo wrote: I really hate this direction of SC2. It's everything SC2 is not supposed to be. Not talking about balance changes like 100 nrg scan (which is ridiculous btw) but the macro mechanic removal...never needed to happen. And they know it. You know it. I know it. We all know it. They're just band-aid patching this game and making it worse with the automation and refusing to revert the game back to the SC2 we all know and love.
Mules, chrono, and inject fundamentally are a part of SC2's identity as a game. What makes the game fun is not the game being easier or automated - but new units, new abilities, that stuff that blizzard should have been focusing on the entire time.
I wonder how much of the SC2 community is really ok with how LOTV is going. I honest to god hope most TL veterans get their opinions out there because i feel like most old school SC1 players and a large majority of TL are going "wtf" on the inside right now even if their opinion is not front and center.
Autocast does not belong in SC2, the macro mechanics do belong in SC2, they were great and i think the version of SC2 we all had played for the last 4-5 yrs was amazing fundamentally with those mechanics. It was not always amazing from the balance side of things because blizzard patched way too infrequently and poorly (making units faster randomly is not an appropriate balance fix to every situation).
I'm just gonna quote some posters here who's sentiments i agree with too and make really good points:
On September 04 2015 09:32 johnbongham wrote: Does blizz really think these drastic changes are going to reinvigorate the scene? All I see happening is plenty of people refusing to switch expansions and maybe a few new people get into starcraft and we end up with yet another split scene.
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
I'll add more as i see em, but yeah...i wish more TL people were up in arms over the automation of SC2 tbh.
When most people said they wanted lots of changes to SC2, i believe everyone meant balance, metagame, and generally fixing things that were perceived really annoying or broken...not completely re-designing the game to be Warcraft 4 from scratch.
People wanted to see things like nukes more viable, nydus worms viable, offensive mech possible, no swarmhost turtle games, sentries tweaked, and new units like lurkers/liberators, new abilities, etc...why the hell in the first place is blizzard messing with the fundamental rule set of the game via mule/chrono/inject? It's arbitrary.
Another thing that really annoys me about this entire beta is blizzard's unwillingness to ever test the DH9/DH10 economy models on the live beta servers. They never once let it go live and let players test it and see how it changed the game in a live environment. Instead, they chose their way of removing all macro mechanics for no reason and then realizing that that is going to go horribly and now bringing them back with automation...
What is going on...
I agree with pretty much everything said, really worried for the game ATM especially with some of blizzards attitudes towards some of the real changes that i would like (engine improvements, double harvest etc)
Multiple bases and incentive to expand happens from dropping income per worker as you make more, not 100% income with no loss of efficiency to 44-66 workers (2-3 base) but mining out every 5 minutes.
They completely missed the entire point of an economy model change here.
I think LOTV should be delayed another year to try more stuff and rethink about what exactly the game should be. I'm happy that Blizzard is trying new things. But I want this game to be great, not good.
Add 6 months to the clock and REALLY think about getting it right. Redesign, iterate. We'll be on Legacy for half a decade at least. You do NOT want to fuck up the first impressions and lose half of the playerbase before fixing it.
I believe that Blizzard could have failed to making Protoss macro easier. You have to use more mouse clicks and camera rotations to use chronoboost after the early game. I'll just paste my reddit post (excuse my awful english):
You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three or more nexi. And you do have to remember which nexus is chronoing which structure.
EDIT: After playing more games I'm more confident about my early judgment.
The activity of using chronoboost now is fairly similar to the mechanics of inject in the sense that you need to move your camera to a specific location, then select a unit(queen) or building (nexus), and use a ability (inject/chrono) on some building.
In fact, chronoboost seem to be harder once you consider that the building being chronoboosted can be screens away from the nexus. When you inject the building being injected is usually right next to the thing that injects.
That's ridiculous too. Mechanically, blowing 3-8 chrono boosts was very easy before. It took a couple keystrokes plus one click for every one you wanted to use.
The main difficulty with chrono boost was remembering to use it frequently and mentally timing when it would expire and when you had new ones available, which wasn't critically important to playing the game at a bronze-diamond level and became second nature if you were a sharper player than that.
On September 04 2015 22:08 ejozl wrote: Also if Nexus 1 Chrono a thing, then Nexus 2 Chrono another thing and you then apply to a third thing. You'd think Nexus 1 changes Chrono target, but actually it just applies the one closest by UNLESS you do it really fast. So if you have 6 Nexus the only way to get Chrono on 6 Gates with all of the Nexus in the same group you MUST use rapid fire.
I really hope they implement this, because then we all could see how stupid they are, because thsi way you would need to follow the line from your, lets say, 4th to your main, where the chronoed buildings usually are.
They just failed at testing this properly so they haven;t fixed this control issue. (I still hope this is not intended)
while i agree that blizzard shines in comparison with other companies like EA in respect to actually patching their game, they really suck in comparison to community-made mods or indie games, like path of exile for example.
if you think about what one dedicated person can do with the map editor, and then consider that what we are getting is one or two half-broken patches per month, thats just sad, especially considering this is supposed to be a beta, where stuff is tested.
for example - they fixed the immortal display bug. why not fix charge if its obviously broken? its embarrassing enough that it was put in the patch in the first place, just shows how incompetent blizzard really is. give me one person that actually understands the game and knows his way around in the map editor over the entire blizzard team any day.
this patch is just... i have no words for it really. it was all said plenty of times, but with people overreacting to kind-of shitty patches it is hard to find words drastic enough for this trainwreck of a patch without being insta-banned.
right now i feel like i did halfway through hots beta. i dont know if its better to hope for good changes, or just hope that they ruin the game so thouroughly that the community moves to a mod that is actually good.
I can't wait to be canon rushed and try killing that photon overcharged pylon while the canons are building
I am almost sure the devs didn't even consider that.
They introduce easy auto defense mechanics that require the simple push of a unique button to defend almost any early agression (and now also create more dangerous early aggression).
And on the other side they nerf micro intensive mechanics like tankivac; if you execute it accurately yes it's scary or deadly, but back at home your macro will be lacking in the meantime, and if it's not then you are very good.
If you are GM or silver, you will use photon overcharge exactly in the same way.
On September 04 2015 08:05 WhiteLuminous wrote: I'm really concerned about this overcharge. Have they not considered the potential for offensive pylons....
The game literally patched itself between the games on my ladder session. Without notifying me. First thing I see is a freaking Pylon shooting my mineral line on dash & terminal over the wall. Never been so confused. Never had so much fun either adapting to the game. That was most random thing to happen to me today.
I'm pretty sure someone is going to break this thing somehow. Let's wait and see.
On September 04 2015 22:55 The_Masked_Shrimp wrote: I can't wait to be canon rushed and try killing that photon overcharged pylon while the canons are building
I am almost sure the devs didn't even consider that.
They introduce easy auto defense mechanics that require the simple push of a unique button to defend almost any early agression (and now also create more dangerous early aggression).
And on the other side they nerf micro intensive mechanics like tankivac; if you execute it accurately yes it's scary or deadly, but back at home your macro will be lacking in the meantime, and if it's not then you are very good.
If you are GM or silver, you will use photon overcharge exactly in the same way.
by the time protoss goes gate, core, and forge, hopefully you have things up to deal with the rush. GM's and silvers were already using photon overcharge in the same way before the change
We haven't played enough games (Archon Mode) in the new patch for me to really form solid opinions, other the the ones I voiced a priori.
Initial thoughts: (1) 100 energy for a scan feels like too much. If Blizz wants more creep battles, nerfing scan seems slightly counter to this. Unlock my Reaper Aerial Drone idea once an orbital comes out. Come on, Blizz. Just do it! (2) It's amazing how a week without MULEs changed my feel for macro timings. (3) Most of our games ended up as TvTs, and the Protosses we faced all rushed super hard while getting a fully saturated expo. It felt rough.
Too early for me to tell anything. Should play a fair bit tonight and this weekend.
Yeeeah, in the end the more I think about that patch the more I can get behind it. Except for the pylon overcharge, that is downright stupid and is going to be abused sooooooo heavily. The kind of decisions that makes me doubt they've got a brain.
In the end, the "throwing shit on walls and see what sticks" (dunno who said that, but it's perfectly suited) phase needs to end soon. After months of beta, the game should be at least remotely balanced, and playable. It's barely the case....
I think tank drops should have no delay with the attack but be an upgrade, like at the Factory but requiring armory or something, the delay makes having battle with siege tanks really hard now that every thing counters it.
That or make some buff for the tank. I don't know, tanks dont really feel that useful anymore and after the triple mech nerf (cyclone, tank drops, Split upgrades) maybe making an actual straight not gimmicky buff to the siege tanks can be done finally.
I don't know.
Specially since I wouldn't be surprised if they nerf the liberator soon.
Tanks are really awful at the moment. I don't feel like instant drop-shot is the way to buff them - being able to be lifted up while sieged at all is a huge buff already for repositioning tanks. They're just not strong enough units to be used in a realistic game and leapfrogged across a map.
On September 04 2015 08:05 WhiteLuminous wrote: I'm really concerned about this overcharge. Have they not considered the potential for offensive pylons....
I'm concerned about the energy cost (25 energy). This means a Protoss can camp outside a Terran's or Zerg's base and have continuous overcharge (4 PO with full MSC energy). By the time it expires, they will have 25 more energy - non-stop Photon Overcharge. WTF?
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
And sadly the game will most likely be released after Blizzcon. I'm more and more worried that game simply kills the last glimmer of hope I had that LotV could make SC2 big again.
On September 05 2015 00:47 Cyro wrote: Tanks are really awful at the moment. I don't feel like instant drop-shot is the way to buff them - being able to be lifted up while sieged at all is a huge buff already for repositioning tanks. They're just not strong enough units to be used in a realistic game and leapfrogged across a map.
Blizzard was so adamant in nerfing turtle play that they pretty much outright killed the tank in the process.
The 2 solutions that I've seen make the most sense are either:
Buff the tank straight up but add overkill.
Buff the tank single target damage with an upgrade.
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
And sadly the game will most likely be released after Blizzcon. I'm more and more worried that game simply kills the last glimmer of hope I had that LotV could make SC2 big again.
Ironically enough many of the newer players seem to like those changes and (according to reddit) even people like Incontrol.
On September 05 2015 00:47 Cyro wrote: Tanks are really awful at the moment. I don't feel like instant drop-shot is the way to buff them - being able to be lifted up while sieged at all is a huge buff already for repositioning tanks. They're just not strong enough units to be used in a realistic game and leapfrogged across a map.
This +1
I don't understands David's hesitance to buff the living shit out of area and position denial abilities to the other races while Terran get's one new unit that is undoubtedly going to receive a nerf and gives the ACTUAL unit that is supposed to do that job a gimmick buff that will also be taken away soon enough no doubt.
What is the fear of making the Siege Tank awesome again? It has sucked for years straight so now that every race has very suitable counter play to it why not just BUFF THE SIEGE TANK?
Not buff as in gimmick, not buff as in "Lol medivac pick up that sounds cool David" or "Hey David what if tanks could teleport then they would be more mobile" buff as in raw damage.
Also, I hate that Overseers can't drop, so useless Overlords can drop at lair but Overseers can't while the drop play for Protoss and Terran which was already strong get's buffed into broken?
I'm not a fan of the ovi drop nerf. Zergs should also have an aggressive option in the early game, just like P and T. It didn't appear too strong to me. It didn't appear to end games, but rather punish opponents with bad scouting/building placement or opponents that were too greedy or had no units because they were teching too fast.
Rushing to tank drop is not broken, atm, imho. It's a gigantic investment. The ability to move the tank in siege mode is a nice addition, imo, and yeah, it's definitely a buff. But really, is there any other unit in the game that cannot be picked up with a transport while in some sort of attack mode (that isn't burrowed)? Seems like picking up the tank while in SM should have just always been there. Plus, it completely fills a drop ship (colossus, ultra, thor). The ability itself requires a 100/100/2 unit dedicated to the task. Then, on top of that, completely focused micro.
However; I do think there is an issue with targeting the tank in certain scenarios in between drops. This might need to be tested, but if the micro player is quick enough, he can drop the tank, shoot, and pick up before a banshee can hit the tank with it's rocket. You get the idea. This window might need to be looked at.
But really, once the game gets going, and you're up against any number of units that just fuck tanks in the ass, it's almost impossible to deal with using Medivac micro. You're just going to lose the tanks, and maybe the medivacs too, if not just the whole fight because of how micro intensive it is. The theory that you're going to see the ravager marker, or the disrupter disc, and be able to grab the tank and move it during a fight is just not realistic, imo. In Archon Mode, maybe. I think where it feels incredibly abusive is in snowball situations where you've been caught off guard, don't have the right stuff, or maybe already taken too much damage.
p.s. Obviously the Liberator is going to be nerfed. It actually solves some Terran problems, which means it has to be nerfed into near-oblivion, and soon. Nerfs I heard them considering: each anti-air rocket automatically suicides a friendly marine, and AG mode is changing to Berserker Mode where it randomly fires at friendlies and foes indiscriminately ; )
On September 05 2015 02:32 CheddarToss wrote: I'm not a fan of the ovi drop nerf. Zergs should also have an aggressive option in the early game, just like P and T. It didn't appear too strong to me. It didn't appear to end games, but rather punish opponents with bad scouting/building placement or opponents that were too greedy or had no units because they were teching too fast.
Could you please explain to us what you consider greedy and what you consider an aggreassive option ZS1? Cuz you always talk about those things but I don't think you've ever explained your view on that in detail.
I don't like the Mule or Chronoboost staying in the game. They should just be removed and they should buff both races instead somehow. This implementation just seems too awkward and weird. I do like the queens autocasting injects though. You decide when to build queens for better production and the enemy can interact with the queen and target it down. Queens can do other things than just autocast injects. Mules coming down automatically and having to manage Chronoboost by keeping track of which Nexus is boosting what just seems awkward.
Could you please explain to us what you consider greedy and what you consider an aggreassive option ZS1? Cuz you always talk about those things but I don't think you've ever explained your view on that in detail.
Sure. I don't like players being able to take 3 bases and saturate them, while only having less than 10 supply worth of units. From Protoss perspective, I always cringe, when I see a fellow toss taking a 3rd base, while having only a couple of Adepts and an oracle, or something along those lines. I feel that a Zerg should be able to punish a play like that, especially if the toss is not scouting vigilantly. Along the same lines, I also don't like Zergs droning like crazy and saturating their 3rd base, while having 4-6 zerglings, not having to worry about being punished.
All races should have tools to punish macro players, especially if those are not scouting like crazy.
On September 05 2015 02:32 CheddarToss wrote: I'm not a fan of the ovi drop nerf. Zergs should also have an aggressive option in the early game, just like P and T. It didn't appear too strong to me. It didn't appear to end games, but rather punish opponents with bad scouting/building placement or opponents that were too greedy or had no units because they were teching too fast.
Disagree as a Zerg player, the ovie drops messed up our mirror twice as much as they messed up any other matches where the drops only punished stupid players more then bad players as T and P are both looking to kill any stray overlords just casually perched around their base.
It just made ZvZ a shit fest ling/bling/Ravager all in all day. Being able to bypass a wall off 3 minutes in is just dumb.
Why not make a good change like move drops to Overseers by default that was Zerg drop play might actually not suck for once it's not a total gimmick.
I really hate this direction of SC2. It's everything SC2 is not supposed to be. Not talking about balance changes like 100 nrg scan (which is ridiculous btw) but the macro mechanic removal...never needed to happen. And they know it. You know it. I know it. We all know it. They're just band-aid patching this game and making it worse with the automation and refusing to revert the game back to the SC2 we all know and love.
Mules, chrono, and inject fundamentally are a part of SC2's identity as a game. What makes the game fun is not the game being easier or automated - but new units, new abilities, that stuff that blizzard should have been focusing on the entire time.
I wonder how much of the SC2 community is really ok with how LOTV is going. I honest to god hope most TL veterans get their opinions out there because i feel like most old school SC1 players and a large majority of TL are going "wtf" on the inside right now even if their opinion is not front and center.
Autocast does not belong in SC2, the macro mechanics do belong in SC2, they were great and i think the version of SC2 we all had played for the last 4-5 yrs was amazing fundamentally with those mechanics. It was not always amazing from the balance side of things because blizzard patched way too infrequently and poorly (making units faster randomly is not an appropriate balance fix to every situation).
I'm just gonna quote some posters here who's sentiments i agree with too and make really good points:
On September 04 2015 09:32 johnbongham wrote: Does blizz really think these drastic changes are going to reinvigorate the scene? All I see happening is plenty of people refusing to switch expansions and maybe a few new people get into starcraft and we end up with yet another split scene.
On September 04 2015 09:29 lichter wrote: "macro mechanics aren't strategic enough"
"so let's automate it!"
srsly
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
I'll add more as i see em, but yeah...i wish more TL people were up in arms over the automation of SC2 tbh.
When most people said they wanted lots of changes to SC2, i believe everyone meant balance, metagame, and generally fixing things that were perceived really annoying or broken...not completely re-designing the game to be Warcraft 4 from scratch.
People wanted to see things like nukes more viable, nydus worms viable, offensive mech possible, no swarmhost turtle games, sentries tweaked, and new units like lurkers/liberators, new abilities, etc...why the hell in the first place is blizzard messing with the fundamental rule set of the game via mule/chrono/inject? It's arbitrary.
Another thing that really annoys me about this entire beta is blizzard's unwillingness to ever test the DH9/DH10 economy models on the live beta servers. They never once let it go live and let players test it and see how it changed the game in a live environment. Instead, they chose their way of removing all macro mechanics for no reason and then realizing that that is going to go horribly and now bringing them back with automation...
What is going on...
Well said, Avilo, well said . As someone who has been around for the entirety of SC2's lifetime I can say without a doubt that I despise the current direction of the game. This is not StarCraft. Please...
- Either completely remove macro mechanics, or reduce their potency and make them manual cast again. - Test a different economy system that promotes strategic expanding. - Work on the Protoss mid-game, and fix the nonsensical mess that is the current warp-in system. - Stop giving overcharge random buffs. - Take a strong look at harassment... - Tweak all the problem units (zealot, liberator, carrier) so that we can begin developing a metagame and figure out what LOTV really looks like.
I have bought WoL & HotS on release. I've enjoyed playing them both despite their flaws. But if the game keeps heading in this direction I will not be buying LOTV. I have not even the slightest desire to play the beta, beyond a rough amount of games to form my opinion. That's not good...
- Either completely remove macro mechanics, or reduce their potency and make them manual cast again. - Test a different economy system that promotes strategic expanding. - Work on the Protoss mid-game, and fix the nonsensical mess that is the current warp-in system. - Stop giving overcharge random buffs. - Take a strong look at harassment... - Tweak all the problem units (zealot, liberator, carrier) so that we can begin developing a metagame and figure out what LOTV really looks like.
Good points, although I quite like the new chronoboost. But I agree that the others need to be changed.
The new chronoboost is pretty fucking terrible to manage with multiple nexuses, their goal was to make it less mechanically challenging but they actually made it harder. If I want to change a single chrono boosted building to something else I have to redo all of them anyways since there's no way I'll remember which nexus is doing which building and bother to manually select a nexus to change it.
Exactly, this is what I was trying to say. It's not only harder to manage, but MUCH weaker. It’s a lose/lose…. The only possible way I can think of it being more useful than the last one is in the game, allowing you to set chrono on your gateways or something and forgetting about it.
When people said that they want more ballsy and bigger changes they didn't talk about ridiculous band-aid fixes, but instead they meant fundamental changes to the races and gameplay. We don't see much of that and instead get these weird toys that look more like Command & Conquer than Starcraft.
I agree, both the liberator and the Cyclone feel very newbish and frustrating to play against… While the liberator feels very much like a c&c unit.
Too many gimmicks such as Pylon Overcharge and spells in this, why dont they just stick core mechanics of the game and make it an RTS, remove Warp gate and force field and adjust it from there for instance
I think at its core this is the problem, the gimmicks…. Right now the macro is broken, while the micro feels like gimmicks.
Yeah because things won't change 20 more times before the release... I love all these drama queens, like it is the end of the world or something. After every patch I am reading a ton of bad responses from some players and how this is "the end" of SC2 for them, just to see them post after a week again.
If nobody complains the bad things stay in the game, you need to complain to provide feedback.
What a bunch of babies haha. That's honestly a VERY basic memory exercise.
Try it yourself. It's a mess and gets messier with more nexus. Definitely not 'fun'. The old system was way more powerful and easier to use.
So based on the community surveys, the macro stuff is extremely polarizing. On one hand, you have half the population thinking this is the death of SC2, and the other half, they either embrace the changes or are open to crazy things. I'm trying to put my personal bias aside.
Zealot Zealot Charge damage decreased from 30 to 8.
Balance stuff. As long people use Zealots sometimes and not Adept 100% of the time. Seems like the design goal is making Zealot more DPS, but since Adept is getting a DPS upgrade, perhaps Zealot can get a tank based Charge instead if this falls through.
Chrono boost is back. No energy cost. Ability is set to autocast by default on the Nexus. Efficiency is reduced to 20%, but never expires.
It will be more difficult than the HotS CB and I'm having difficulty teasing out what advantages this form has over the old one. I'm all for innovating, just struggling for what advantages there are that a basic nerf wouldn't accomplish. Could just double the energy cost and double the duration of the HotS CB, making it more committal and a slight early game nerf with worker production since it doesn't kick in as early.
Warpgate research time increased to 160 from 140. Photon overcharge Overcharge can only be cast on Pylons. Has an attack range of 7. Has a duration of 30. Costs 25 energy. Deals 30 damage every 1.25 seconds.
Mobilizing PO will scramble the meta, hopefully for good. I would not trash this idea without keeping in mind that Warp-in tuning isn't set in stone either. I think this is growth, but balancing will take time. Range and DPS are the biggies.
Colossus Increased upgraded range to 9 from 8.
Protoss needs some reliable ground DPS that doesn't require intense babysitting. You could potentially redesign the unit but like macro mechanics, it's a polarizing unit. It's most grievous sin is dominating PvP, but in PvZ and PvT, there's 99 ways to handle it. Its micro potential is no more and no less than that of any other basic ranged unit with stutter.
Tempest Now functions as it does in Heart of the Swarm.
Glad to see the uncounterable death spell is gone, even though it may've incentivized suiciding. I think the failing was because it's still smart to just sac the unit rather than take a bad engagement. It might just be the Broodlord's and Carrier's fault for being too good, which I'm happy Carrier is being addressed.
Immortal Barrier ability is set to autocast by default. Triggers when Immortal is attacked.
This isn't a bad change per se, just too much is in the opponent's court. If the Immortal were more microable, and they could actually avoid being poked, then I'd be more favorable to the change.
Oracle Revelation cast range increased to 12 from 9.
Solid change. Detection balance has always irked me, because of how vulnerable and hard to replace Protoss detection is, while in the lategame unavoidable scans and any supply depot for Zerg can be a detector. This, in conjunction with the energy scan nerf might make detection more balanced. We'll have to see how DTs work against Terran. If it's too energy intesive for scans and Turrets/Ravens can't handle things, then just nerf the production time of DTs to scale with the energy delay.
Carrier Increased the cooldown for Release Interceptors to 40 from 20.
Solid change. Carriers were just too versatile. So now they can keep their strength, but now you have to be more careful about timing and placement. If only Broodlords got similar changes.
Terran Orbital Command Calldown: MULE is back. Ability is set to autocast on nearby minerals. No energy cost. Now has a cooldown. 30 range from casting Orbital Command. Harvest amount decreased to 40 from 45. Scanner Sweep cost increased to 100 from 50. Calldown: Extra Supplies cost increased to 75 from 50.
The Zerg and Terran macro mechanics still don't sit right with me, because now they only serve the purpose of being snipable. This is fine but not sufficient, IMO. Spitballing, why not keep the range. Drop the autocast. And let Mules land on buildings for some X% construction time buff? That way Terran can switch tech more readily but needs to be a dedicated plan. Can bring back the energy tension and just nerf the overall mineral amount so it's not so obvious which would be better: Mule for tech timing, Mule for minerals, Scan, or Calldown Supply. And then just start slightly tweaking the mineral heavy units by small increments so bio doesn't get crippled by the mineral income drop.
Siege Tank Now has a 0.75 second delay before firing when unloading from a Medivac while in siege mode.
I would rather Siege just be able to transform on the ground a lot faster, rewarding leapfrogging, but I acknowledge Terran gets a Reaver harass and I don't like taking away toys.
Zerg Spawn larva increased from 2 to 3 per cast. Creep now spreads and recedes faster. Overlord Transport upgrade requires a Lair.
Do like the creep spread thing. More focus on that. But I do think creep should have less vision, because the map control can't be too easy if the spread is being buffed. Definitely like more creep tumor fights. Perhaps Nydus (like the new Warpgate) should be a lot more useful when near a creep tumor? Then we can drop the invincibility stuff and abandon the idea of balancing Zerg armies that can appear in bases quickly. Speaking of which, that's probably why hatch tech drops are gone. Hatch tech drops probably could be balanced, I'm just not Zerg savvy enough to say anything but suggest nerfing Ling/Roach.
And as for Larva Inject, you should consider just making inject on a much longer interval, with a buffering system where you can fail to inject for 10-20s without real penalty.
Ravager New Upgrade: Increases the corrosive bile range to 13 from 9. Costs 100/100. Requires a Lair.
I presume this is for Liberators and Carriers? I would just nerf those 2 rather than give a highly versatile unit a stupid amount of range. I'm willing to see how it goes though. I just forsee an abundance of Ravagers.
Otherwise, good experiments. People aren't going to like change. Hopefully the merits will shine through once the dust settles.
Kill the mothership/core. If you must keep it and overcharge, make it so that overcharge is only possible on "super" pylons.
It is amusing to think about how different LotV singleplayer (the base-building part of it, especially) is going to be from multiplayer. There are differences between elegant solutions and silly bandaids. If the core game were solid, there would be no need for so many exceptions and changes to counter specific units. That and maps could be more dynamic instead of compensating for things that people have complained about since day 1 (forcefield, etc).
On September 05 2015 04:12 purakushi wrote: Kill the mothership/core. If you must keep it and overcharge, make it so that overcharge is only possible on "super" pylons.
It is amusing to think about how different LotV singleplayer (the base-building part of it, especially) is going to be from multiplayer. There are differences between elegant solutions and silly bandaids. If the core game were solid, there would be no need for so many exceptions and changes to counter specific units. That and maps could be more dynamic instead of compensating for things that people have complained about since day 1 (forcefield, etc).
I've seen this floated by several people, and it seems to make sense to me. This would strongly nerf offensive photon overcharge (PO) while affecting defensive PO very little.
I don't agree. Why would anyone invest in a "super pylon" instead of the real thing (photon cannon)? If I have to invest minerals in defence, then I want something that will protect my base indefinitely and not just for the next X seconds.
Edit: the super pylon thing looks even more like a band aid than the MsC itself.
On September 05 2015 04:34 CheddarToss wrote: I don't agree. Why would anyone invest in a "super pylon" instead of the real thing (photon cannon)? If I have to invest minerals in defence, then I want something that will protect my base indefinitely and not just for the next X seconds.
Edit: the super pylon thing looks even more like a band aid than the MsC itself.
There's no investment. You just have a gateway or nexus connected to the pylon. It is already in LotV. There just isn't a good name for it, and I have seen a few people call it "super pylon", so I used it here.
But yes, SC2 is built on bandaids, so I was suggesting that in the event that Blizzard wants to continue down this path.
I'm a long time Terran starcraft player (played in BW) and was so excited to see the mule removed I started playing LOV beta after quitting when HOTS came out. I hadn't had that much fun playing terran in SC2 since beta WOL. I can not believe they just added the Mule back to the game and made it autocast. Everyone hates the mule, why is it somehow essential to this game? Please lets KILL THE MULE!
Ahhh, I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you were suggesting some kind of upgrade to the pylon, like evolving a spire into a greater spire. My bad. In any case, I'm not a fan of making the mechanic even more convoluted than it already is. The warp in mechanic is already far from elegant.
Maybe if warp in and power fields were split, but that would nerf the warp prism too much, in my opinion.
On September 05 2015 04:57 CheddarToss wrote: Ahhh, I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you were suggesting some kind of upgrade to the pylon, like evolving a spire into a greater spire. My bad. In any case, I'm not a fan of making the mechanic even more convoluted than it already is. The warp in mechanic is already far from elegant.
Maybe if warp in and power fields were split, but that would nerf the warp prism too much, in my opinion.
No worries Agreed. Too many exceptions in SC2. It is not elegant, just silly.
The problem with the current macro mechanics is that it makes zerg macro FAR easier than that of the other races. Also the new mule mechanics is terrible because you can't use mules anymore in the later stages in the game when you build planetaries unless you relocate your orbitals ... but constantly relocating your orbitals makes terran macro even more difficult than in HotS. Very inelegant and unpractical change.
I really hate this direction of SC2. It's everything SC2 is not supposed to be. Not talking about balance changes like 100 nrg scan (which is ridiculous btw) but the macro mechanic removal...never needed to happen. And they know it. You know it. I know it. We all know it. They're just band-aid patching this game and making it worse with the automation and refusing to revert the game back to the SC2 we all know and love.
Mules, chrono, and inject fundamentally are a part of SC2's identity as a game. What makes the game fun is not the game being easier or automated - but new units, new abilities, that stuff that blizzard should have been focusing on the entire time.
I wonder how much of the SC2 community is really ok with how LOTV is going. I honest to god hope most TL veterans get their opinions out there because i feel like most old school SC1 players and a large majority of TL are going "wtf" on the inside right now even if their opinion is not front and center.
Autocast does not belong in SC2, the macro mechanics do belong in SC2, they were great and i think the version of SC2 we all had played for the last 4-5 yrs was amazing fundamentally with those mechanics. It was not always amazing from the balance side of things because blizzard patched way too infrequently and poorly (making units faster randomly is not an appropriate balance fix to every situation).
I'm just gonna quote some posters here who's sentiments i agree with too and make really good points:
On September 04 2015 09:32 johnbongham wrote: Does blizz really think these drastic changes are going to reinvigorate the scene? All I see happening is plenty of people refusing to switch expansions and maybe a few new people get into starcraft and we end up with yet another split scene.
On September 04 2015 09:29 lichter wrote: "macro mechanics aren't strategic enough"
"so let's automate it!"
srsly
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
I'll add more as i see em, but yeah...i wish more TL people were up in arms over the automation of SC2 tbh.
When most people said they wanted lots of changes to SC2, i believe everyone meant balance, metagame, and generally fixing things that were perceived really annoying or broken...not completely re-designing the game to be Warcraft 4 from scratch.
People wanted to see things like nukes more viable, nydus worms viable, offensive mech possible, no swarmhost turtle games, sentries tweaked, and new units like lurkers/liberators, new abilities, etc...why the hell in the first place is blizzard messing with the fundamental rule set of the game via mule/chrono/inject? It's arbitrary.
Another thing that really annoys me about this entire beta is blizzard's unwillingness to ever test the DH9/DH10 economy models on the live beta servers. They never once let it go live and let players test it and see how it changed the game in a live environment. Instead, they chose their way of removing all macro mechanics for no reason and then realizing that that is going to go horribly and now bringing them back with automation...
What is going on...
Well said, Avilo, well said . As someone who has been around for the entirety of SC2's lifetime I can say without a doubt that I despise the current direction of the game. This is not StarCraft. Please...
- Either completely remove macro mechanics, or reduce their potency and make them manual cast again. - Test a different economy system that promotes strategic expanding. - Work on the Protoss mid-game, and fix the nonsensical mess that is the current warp-in system. - Stop giving overcharge random buffs. - Take a strong look at harassment... - Tweak all the problem units (zealot, liberator, carrier) so that we can begin developing a metagame and figure out what LOTV really looks like.
I have bought WoL & HotS on release. I've enjoyed playing them both despite their flaws. But if the game keeps heading in this direction I will not be buying LOTV. I have not even the slightest desire to play the beta, beyond a rough amount of games to form my opinion. That's not good...
Corrosive Bile range finaly gave zerg an answer to early liberator play, and it works really well in battles as you ravagers don't have to step foward to cast it anymore.
No opinion on the other changes. They should fix the overcharge pylon rushes soon. Also it forces zerg to build an overseer for scout, because overlords would just get killed by it. Not sure if it will affect the game, i like going for a fast lair anyways.
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
And sadly the game will most likely be released after Blizzcon. I'm more and more worried that game simply kills the last glimmer of hope I had that LotV could make SC2 big again.
Same, a bit sad because I actually liked legacy and felt that with the right tweaks the game was about to be a big improvement with respect to hots (which I still really like), but that was before all these new bullshit they introduced lately. I feel that this meeting blizzard had few weeks ago with pro player has fucked up everything
i'm having fun with LotV. i like the direction of the game and i love DK correcting people about what Korean pros think.
On September 05 2015 05:47 Charoisaur wrote: The problem with the current macro mechanics is that it makes zerg macro FAR easier than that of the other races. Also the new mule mechanics is terrible because you can't use mules anymore in the later stages in the game when you build planetaries unless you relocate your orbitals ... but constantly relocating your orbitals makes terran macro even more difficult than in HotS. Very inelegant and unpractical change.
I really hate this direction of SC2. It's everything SC2 is not supposed to be. Not talking about balance changes like 100 nrg scan (which is ridiculous btw) but the macro mechanic removal...never needed to happen. And they know it. You know it. I know it. We all know it. They're just band-aid patching this game and making it worse with the automation and refusing to revert the game back to the SC2 we all know and love.
Mules, chrono, and inject fundamentally are a part of SC2's identity as a game. What makes the game fun is not the game being easier or automated - but new units, new abilities, that stuff that blizzard should have been focusing on the entire time.
I wonder how much of the SC2 community is really ok with how LOTV is going. I honest to god hope most TL veterans get their opinions out there because i feel like most old school SC1 players and a large majority of TL are going "wtf" on the inside right now even if their opinion is not front and center.
Autocast does not belong in SC2, the macro mechanics do belong in SC2, they were great and i think the version of SC2 we all had played for the last 4-5 yrs was amazing fundamentally with those mechanics. It was not always amazing from the balance side of things because blizzard patched way too infrequently and poorly (making units faster randomly is not an appropriate balance fix to every situation).
I'm just gonna quote some posters here who's sentiments i agree with too and make really good points:
On September 04 2015 09:32 johnbongham wrote: Does blizz really think these drastic changes are going to reinvigorate the scene? All I see happening is plenty of people refusing to switch expansions and maybe a few new people get into starcraft and we end up with yet another split scene.
On September 04 2015 09:29 lichter wrote: "macro mechanics aren't strategic enough"
"so let's automate it!"
srsly
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
I'll add more as i see em, but yeah...i wish more TL people were up in arms over the automation of SC2 tbh.
When most people said they wanted lots of changes to SC2, i believe everyone meant balance, metagame, and generally fixing things that were perceived really annoying or broken...not completely re-designing the game to be Warcraft 4 from scratch.
People wanted to see things like nukes more viable, nydus worms viable, offensive mech possible, no swarmhost turtle games, sentries tweaked, and new units like lurkers/liberators, new abilities, etc...why the hell in the first place is blizzard messing with the fundamental rule set of the game via mule/chrono/inject? It's arbitrary.
Another thing that really annoys me about this entire beta is blizzard's unwillingness to ever test the DH9/DH10 economy models on the live beta servers. They never once let it go live and let players test it and see how it changed the game in a live environment. Instead, they chose their way of removing all macro mechanics for no reason and then realizing that that is going to go horribly and now bringing them back with automation...
What is going on...
Well said, Avilo, well said . As someone who has been around for the entirety of SC2's lifetime I can say without a doubt that I despise the current direction of the game. This is not StarCraft. Please...
- Either completely remove macro mechanics, or reduce their potency and make them manual cast again. - Test a different economy system that promotes strategic expanding. - Work on the Protoss mid-game, and fix the nonsensical mess that is the current warp-in system. - Stop giving overcharge random buffs. - Take a strong look at harassment... - Tweak all the problem units (zealot, liberator, carrier) so that we can begin developing a metagame and figure out what LOTV really looks like.
I have bought WoL & HotS on release. I've enjoyed playing them both despite their flaws. But if the game keeps heading in this direction I will not be buying LOTV. I have not even the slightest desire to play the beta, beyond a rough amount of games to form my opinion. That's not good...
completely agree
Avilo has a track record of screaming "the sky is falling" and in the end it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. He does it so much about so many topics... so occasionally he is correct. i remember how Allies Vindicator Bombers we're going to become suicide bombers if Greg Black pushed through a speed nerf on their return to base. It turned out to be a really good nerf forcing the Allies to play with much more variety. The silence coming out of the Avilo camp after the patch was deafening. All-in-all he is an entertaining character, but i wouldn't get too caught up in the details of what he says.
On September 04 2015 08:05 WhiteLuminous wrote: I'm really concerned about this overcharge. Have they not considered the potential for offensive pylons....
I'm concerned about the energy cost (25 energy). This means a Protoss can camp outside a Terran's or Zerg's base and have continuous overcharge (4 PO with full MSC energy). By the time it expires, they will have 25 more energy - non-stop Photon Overcharge. WTF?
This means a Protoss can camp outside a Terran's or Zerg's base
Or a protoss base, too. Had someone try this on us.
The main reason for photon overcharge existing was to provide substantial defenders advantage in PvP after years of first-player-to-expand-dies and "every map in existance has to have a small ramp as the only entrance to your main base" play.
They've somehow redesigned it into something that doesn't do that at all.
On September 05 2015 04:56 tQArchaic wrote: I'm a long time Terran starcraft player (played in BW) and was so excited to see the mule removed I started playing LOV beta after quitting when HOTS came out. I hadn't had that much fun playing terran in SC2 since beta WOL. I can not believe they just added the Mule back to the game and made it autocast. Everyone hates the mule, why is it somehow essential to this game? Please lets KILL THE MULE!
It's so obvious macro mechanics removal was a huge improvement on game quality that it is quite surprising they have put it back. It's like they secretly dont wan't LOTV to be successful, as they have to leave room for their new 2016 games (heroes, overwatch).
On September 05 2015 06:49 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'm having fun with LotV. i like the direction of the game and i love DK correcting people about what Korean pros think.
On September 05 2015 05:47 Charoisaur wrote: The problem with the current macro mechanics is that it makes zerg macro FAR easier than that of the other races. Also the new mule mechanics is terrible because you can't use mules anymore in the later stages in the game when you build planetaries unless you relocate your orbitals ... but constantly relocating your orbitals makes terran macro even more difficult than in HotS. Very inelegant and unpractical change.
I really hate this direction of SC2. It's everything SC2 is not supposed to be. Not talking about balance changes like 100 nrg scan (which is ridiculous btw) but the macro mechanic removal...never needed to happen. And they know it. You know it. I know it. We all know it. They're just band-aid patching this game and making it worse with the automation and refusing to revert the game back to the SC2 we all know and love.
Mules, chrono, and inject fundamentally are a part of SC2's identity as a game. What makes the game fun is not the game being easier or automated - but new units, new abilities, that stuff that blizzard should have been focusing on the entire time.
I wonder how much of the SC2 community is really ok with how LOTV is going. I honest to god hope most TL veterans get their opinions out there because i feel like most old school SC1 players and a large majority of TL are going "wtf" on the inside right now even if their opinion is not front and center.
Autocast does not belong in SC2, the macro mechanics do belong in SC2, they were great and i think the version of SC2 we all had played for the last 4-5 yrs was amazing fundamentally with those mechanics. It was not always amazing from the balance side of things because blizzard patched way too infrequently and poorly (making units faster randomly is not an appropriate balance fix to every situation).
I'm just gonna quote some posters here who's sentiments i agree with too and make really good points:
On September 04 2015 09:32 johnbongham wrote: Does blizz really think these drastic changes are going to reinvigorate the scene? All I see happening is plenty of people refusing to switch expansions and maybe a few new people get into starcraft and we end up with yet another split scene.
On September 04 2015 09:29 lichter wrote: "macro mechanics aren't strategic enough"
"so let's automate it!"
srsly
On September 04 2015 08:25 Vanadiel wrote: The game is nowhere near ready for competitive play this year.
I'll add more as i see em, but yeah...i wish more TL people were up in arms over the automation of SC2 tbh.
When most people said they wanted lots of changes to SC2, i believe everyone meant balance, metagame, and generally fixing things that were perceived really annoying or broken...not completely re-designing the game to be Warcraft 4 from scratch.
People wanted to see things like nukes more viable, nydus worms viable, offensive mech possible, no swarmhost turtle games, sentries tweaked, and new units like lurkers/liberators, new abilities, etc...why the hell in the first place is blizzard messing with the fundamental rule set of the game via mule/chrono/inject? It's arbitrary.
Another thing that really annoys me about this entire beta is blizzard's unwillingness to ever test the DH9/DH10 economy models on the live beta servers. They never once let it go live and let players test it and see how it changed the game in a live environment. Instead, they chose their way of removing all macro mechanics for no reason and then realizing that that is going to go horribly and now bringing them back with automation...
What is going on...
Well said, Avilo, well said . As someone who has been around for the entirety of SC2's lifetime I can say without a doubt that I despise the current direction of the game. This is not StarCraft. Please...
- Either completely remove macro mechanics, or reduce their potency and make them manual cast again. - Test a different economy system that promotes strategic expanding. - Work on the Protoss mid-game, and fix the nonsensical mess that is the current warp-in system. - Stop giving overcharge random buffs. - Take a strong look at harassment... - Tweak all the problem units (zealot, liberator, carrier) so that we can begin developing a metagame and figure out what LOTV really looks like.
I have bought WoL & HotS on release. I've enjoyed playing them both despite their flaws. But if the game keeps heading in this direction I will not be buying LOTV. I have not even the slightest desire to play the beta, beyond a rough amount of games to form my opinion. That's not good...
completely agree
Avilo has a track record of screaming "the sky is falling" and in the end it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. He does it so much about so many topics... so occasionally he is correct. i remember how Allies Vindicator Bombers we're going to become suicide bombers if Greg Black pushed through a speed nerf on their return to base. It turned out to be a really good nerf forcing the Allies to play with much more variety. The silence coming out of the Avilo camp after the patch was deafening. All-in-all he is an entertaining character, but i wouldn't get too caught up in the details of what he says.
I'd say that his post is completely on point. There's two different types of Avilo...the entertainer, and the Avilo who is calm headed and reasonable. This post resonates with the latter.
He's saying that:
- He does not agree with automation of macro mechanics. - Macro mechanics are fundamental to the identity of SC2. - He wants Blizzard to focus on different avenues of game play rather than hacking together a new core that feels more like WarCraft 4 than SC2. - He would like an alternative economy model to be tested. - He can't understand why more long standing members of the community aren't up in arms about the changes.
The sky isn't falling, but the new direction Blizzard is taking is cause for concern. It looks more and more like these changes are here to stay and I for one would love to have them reverted...We have to go back to - what was the impetus for such convoluted changes in the first place? Aren't there other issues that are better worth the design team's time? Why not just dampen the effect of macro mechanics by 1/3 or so, until they have the desired effect on the tempo of the game, and then move on? When Koreans complained about the game being too hard, I hardly think they meant mechanically. I'm pretty sure what they were complaining about was the chaotic tempo of the game after so many different crazy harassment units were added.
when i see extreme stuff like "really hate", "ridiculous", "and they know it", "we all know and love" all in 1 paragraph it just sounds like just another emotional child-like Avilo rant. if Avilo criticized Blizzard the way someone like Day[9] does i'd listen to him more carefully. of course you can defend the constant extreme child-like rants by saying 'he is an emotional guy'.
i do not agree with Avilo's critique of the patch nor do i agree with his opinion of "this direction of SC2".
regarding this patch: i basically subscribe to the opinions of Incontrol as outlined in his "iNcontroL Talks: Balance change and discussion Sept 4" on youtube.com. I don't 100% agree with everything word for word, but i'm too lazy to make a 30 minute video about it. i highly recommend the video.. its worth the 26+ minutes.
Well, PhotonCannon on pylons, things like that is why people had that feeling of unfairness or unjustice, and that is why people left the game and doesn´t recommended it to their friends neither, if in HotS the cannon rush is the common to get easy free wins, and you need to have at least diamond lv to response properly, while as protoss you can execute it as bronze or master, doesnt matter, if at newbie leagues suffer that feeling of losing to someone who made less effort than you, now with the photoncannon pylons bullshit gona be worst, blizz should think and take note on that feeling of unfairness of the people, specially the newbies players, before making decisions like that for the healthy and survival of the game, and if they decide to promote that easy free wins, is ok i guess, but they should give the same treatment to the other races to have the same options of get that easy free wins in terms of effort-efectiveness to execute them, also is incongruity that they increase the warpgate research for avoid how they call "gimmicky" things of protoss, but at the opposite of that politic they make photoncannon on pylons, no sense.
Now, why make barrier autocast?, if you gona do that then give the bonus of barrier to inmortals directly and remove barrier ability, no sense being autoactivated when is atackked or they gona need to activate when they aren't.
And what is the point of make changes if you gona regret them at all, the colossus was out, and they bring it back, the mules,cronobust was out, and they bring them back and improved, the tempest comeback as HotS, and transport upgrade ovelord requires lair as HotS, if they gona comeback to the same of HotS, then just make a patch. This looks more like an alpha than a beta, no clear directions of what they want to do.
PD: If cronobust and mules doesnt cost energy now, i supuse that didnt make the same with inject for that creep spreed being faster, but i think is more useful for zerg have more energy on queens than have creepspreed faster, then why not make inject no need energy and put creep spreed like it was.
I LOVE the new photon overcharge. It's extremely interesting both offensively and defensively, so props to Blizzard on this one. And I'm Terran! It also is so much more tactical than the old one, thank gosh.
Opinion: Ugh, playing Zerg right now feels like playing a gloryfied game of Dota. And I love playing Dota - but when I want to play StarCraft, I want to play StarCraft, which means going back to my base, use my mechanics and do some injects, because that's fun for me. I don't want to babysit my army all the time, it's so boring. I want the pressure of having to inject and bouncing around, of having to be faster than my opponent - dodging some stupid skillshots is absolutely not the same. If I want to do that I play - guess what - Dota.
Apart from all the auto cast nonsense, I am disappointed in zerg getting yet another double digit range unit. Zerg should be a short range melee swarm running over the enemy, not have 4 units at double digit range...
I want to play with MORE larva and lots of crappy short range units, not fewer units with 13 range. And I want it to be hard to get many larva! FFS, blizzard removing everything I love with zerg.
Bringing mules back instead of balancing terran around the removal of mules is rather stupid imo. But I am glad they test different things.
I could imagine 20-25 min mules tho. 40 or 45 is too forgiving and creates passivity of terran opponents, which is neither interesting to play nor to watch.
On September 05 2015 04:56 tQArchaic wrote: I'm a long time Terran starcraft player (played in BW) and was so excited to see the mule removed I started playing LOV beta after quitting when HOTS came out. I hadn't had that much fun playing terran in SC2 since beta WOL. I can not believe they just added the Mule back to the game and made it autocast. Everyone hates the mule, why is it somehow essential to this game? Please lets KILL THE MULE!
Exactly this. Mules are the main reason for me to neither want to play nor watch SC2 (the same is defenitely true for alot of other people but they don't know the cause but only the result). They create boring, passive and single sided metagames. You barely can win anything when attacking and committing on attacking a terran on mules economy without all-ining in alot of situations of the game.
Funny fact about this is that alot/almost all people/pros haven't realized that over the years. This gives evidence how few of an idea they in fact have about the general factors and aspects of the game but became specialists in analysing if bunker build time and similar things should be nerfed or buffed a tiny bit.
I LOVE the new photon overcharge. It's extremely interesting both offensively and defensively, so props to Blizzard on this one. And I'm Terran!
The #1 problem by a mile here i think is that while it may be somewhat more fun and tactical against terran/zerg (a few abuses aside, it's quite nice on the defense having lower range ones way more often that rely on pylon placement, can be sniped etc)
It doesn't work well in PvP. The main point of photon overcharge was to add significant defenders advantage to pvp after years of aggression like 4gates and pvp forcing every single map in existance to have a small ramp into the main and no rocks, because any flat ground or a wide opening to the main would mess up pvp. Now it doesn't provide the same defenders advantage, so why is it in the game? What about the old purpose that it has been silently fulfulling for the duration of HOTS, making pvp a much more stable and less map dependant matchup?
I LOVE the new photon overcharge. It's extremely interesting both offensively and defensively, so props to Blizzard on this one. And I'm Terran!
The #1 problem by a mile here i think is that while it may be somewhat more fun and tactical against terran/zerg (a few abuses aside, it's quite nice on the defense having lower range ones way more often that rely on pylon placement, can be sniped etc)
It doesn't work well in PvP. The main point of photon overcharge was to add significant defenders advantage to pvp after years of aggression like 4gates and pvp forcing every single map in existance to have a small ramp into the main and no rocks, because any flat ground or a wide opening to the main would mess up pvp. Now it doesn't provide the same defenders advantage, so why is it in the game? What about the old purpose that it has been silently fulfulling for the duration of HOTS, making pvp a much more stable and less map dependant matchup?
PvP now is mostly adept vs adept at first which isnt very fun. Agree with your point on hots but with the chronoboost changes perhaps it s no longer an issue
On September 04 2015 15:37 Firkraag8 wrote: The new chronoboost is pretty fucking terrible to manage with multiple nexuses, their goal was to make it less mechanically challenging but they actually made it harder. If I want to change a single chrono boosted building to something else I have to redo all of them anyways since there's no way I'll remember which nexus is doing which building and bother to manually select a nexus to change it.
Please just give us back the old one, it was fine as it was. Even the worst players knew how to chrono boost out their tech and stuff.. This is the first patch where I really really lost appetite to ladder in the beta.. Don't even get me started on automatically triggering Immortal shields on first hit lol..
I didn't think of this :D (I'm Terran and I thought the new chronoboost was the best of the 3 new mechanics). But surely once you've played some more games, you'll be used to having your first nexus always chronoing the same thing, your second nexus always chronoing this other thing, your 3rd yet another pre-defined building and so on (like control groups), right?
Which would still require you to actively think about chronoboost and apply it through clicking on the correct nexus(that you thought of first). And if you fuck it up, you gotta do it for all nexus again.
So I'm pretty sure this is at least the same work as before.
I don't get this complaint. I always have all my nexi on one control group. When I need to reset the chronoboosted structures, I select the control group, and reset all of the structures. So, let's say I have 2 stargate and 1 forge currently being chronoboosted, and the 4th nexus just completed and I want to add my 2nd forge to the chronoboosted structures, I just select the control group, and put the chrono on all 4 of the structures. This takes little time and little APM. No need to worry, now, where will I put nexus 1, and nexus 2, and nexus 3 ... I don't care which specific nexus is paired with a specific structures ... just that the correct structures benefit from the effect.
It didn't feel like I had to manage much at all, and once set, it's where I wanted it to be anyhow. Didn't have to jump back to base to reset chronoboost all the time. It seems like it does what it was suppose to do, still there, but very little required to micro manage it.
The more I think about it, the more I really really dislike the pylon overcharge. In fact, the entire mothership core could just be removed and it'd probably be good for the game since you don't need it for defenders advantage now
I LOVE the new photon overcharge. It's extremely interesting both offensively and defensively, so props to Blizzard on this one. And I'm Terran!
The #1 problem by a mile here i think is that while it may be somewhat more fun and tactical against terran/zerg (a few abuses aside, it's quite nice on the defense having lower range ones way more often that rely on pylon placement, can be sniped etc)
It doesn't work well in PvP. The main point of photon overcharge was to add significant defenders advantage to pvp after years of aggression like 4gates and pvp forcing every single map in existance to have a small ramp into the main and no rocks, because any flat ground or a wide opening to the main would mess up pvp. Now it doesn't provide the same defenders advantage, so why is it in the game? What about the old purpose that it has been silently fulfulling for the duration of HOTS, making pvp a much more stable and less map dependant matchup?
PvP now is mostly adept vs adept at first which isnt very fun. Agree with your point on hots but with the chronoboost changes perhaps it s no longer an issue
Chronoboost doesn't really change that much about the expand dilemma in pvp (and forcing maps to be a certain way, as only certain base layouts are properly defendable). The warpgate change does somewhat tip the balance, but not entirely. The big Immortal nerf hurts defensive play, as power units (that the attacker can't afford to wait to walk across the whole map with) were often used in defense
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Also, the talk of changing Adept to armored is scary. That would make them even better against protoss in some ways, because stalkers are really bad at killing anything that threatens your workers - even if it's armored. Their DPS to cost ratio is among the worst in the game. At least when you're defending with Adepts, you can kill the other adepts fairly easily by aiming to match their numbers plus one or two, then throwing in the mothership core.
Although 10 stalkers might now beat 14 adepts if adepts were changed to armored, you can still bet that those 14 adepts will kill an unrecoverable amount of probes before dieing. (adepts cost 100/25, stalker costs 125/50 so ~40% more with 100% extra gas cost)
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I think it's cute but not neccesarily needed in PvT/PvZ defense. It strongly improves PvP, though - HOTS PvP has been miles better than WOL for two main reasons: MSC and Maps. However the MSC allows a wider range of maps to be used, so that's part of both reasons.
Is the end nigh yet again? The world has been predicted to end so many times now I'm starting to wonder if TL is a Jehovahs Witness organisation. I've been playing the patch as Terran and have noticed an improvement. The economy model is a lot more like it was before, which a lot of people liked, yet found too hard. And now, they've taken out some fluffy macro mechanics to assist in the increased difficulty. How they got there really doesn't matter. If you can afford to spend money, especially minerals, then you are expanding faster and able to have more multi-pronged harass. This is what SC is. Perfect economy upkeep, production, and attacking better and smarter than your opponent. Yes there are still problems, but what the fuck people? The beta doesn't end when the beta ends, the game is always going to be updated and eventually we'll find a happy medium of balance. They got close enough to it in the other games at times and they only have more experience now.
These are people trying to make a game, and maybe in a different reality it could be a better game. But there is such a huge lack of support from the community to the developers I genuinely feel bad for them. And everything they have done so far is making the game have more potential in the future. I'm getting a feeling there are a lot of people out there who have bad micro, I mean I got high EU masters with mostly micro so it could be true.
The truth is Macro is easy, if you understand how to play the game. It is no harder to learn a build than it is to play a novice piece of music. You learn the generic structure, how it feels, and through repetition you learn the ins and outs. The more builds you memorise the greater your depth of understanding in Macro is. Players like MVP knew how to improvise perfectly through this kind of understanding. The hard part of the game is taking that knowledge, and correctly enacting it whilst your opponent tries to distract you from doing so. Placing your attention at the correct place, at the correct time, for the most efficient duration. This is the hard part of SC2 and my point is that this is going no where. The units have to be balanced of course, but I really don't understand all the fear and misunderstanding, There are definitely some letting emotion cloud their logic.
I actually really liked mules, just not the extent of the mineral advantage they provide. I would have just rather seen mules giving 15 minerals instead of 30, 40, 45 or whatnot, and attempt to balance around that.
On September 04 2015 09:04 Tiaraju9 wrote: The new chronoboost is a nightmare to use. You have to individually select the nexus if you want to put that nexus's chronoboost in some place. Imagine doing that with three nexus.
It's harder than inject.
I completely agree, you can't even have all your nexus's (nexi?) On one hot key and tab between them to chrono. But even if they fix that and u could I think it's still as apm intensive as old chrono
Any idea how blizzard plan to increase difficulty of playing Zerg after automating that big part of current Zerg gameplay? Zerg is already most top league heavy race on the laddder. I can only imagine how it;s going to look witth amcro being so much easier.
@DeadByDawn not sure hot the 'pylon rush' comes into play here, considering that to even get to get the mothership core, you need the cyber core, and I'm sure that by the time momma core is on her way to the enemy base, he/she would already have more than enough time to kill that pylon rush.
On September 06 2015 03:56 FabledIntegral wrote: I actually really liked mules, just not the extent of the mineral advantage they provide. I would have just rather seen mules giving 15 minerals instead of 30, 40, 45 or whatnot, and attempt to balance around that.
Yes, they went too far back in the other direction now. I don't see what they're trying to do. I thought the whole point was to have the macro mechanics weaker, but 40 MULE is not a difference. Infact Orbitals are now stronger because they have free scans and supply drops added on. Give me back 4 larvae. What the hell are you thinking? Just go back to the standard macro mechanics and make them autocast, stop trying to change things you obviously are not capable of it.
On September 06 2015 07:45 crazedrat wrote: ZvT now if you scout marine your only best bet seems like roach ling bane attack and hope they went bio instead of tanks.
On September 05 2015 20:39 LSN wrote: Bringing mules back instead of balancing terran around the removal of mules is rather stupid imo. But I am glad they test different things.
I could imagine 20-25 min mules tho. 40 or 45 is too forgiving and creates passivity of terran opponents, which is neither interesting to play nor to watch.
On September 05 2015 04:56 tQArchaic wrote: I'm a long time Terran starcraft player (played in BW) and was so excited to see the mule removed I started playing LOV beta after quitting when HOTS came out. I hadn't had that much fun playing terran in SC2 since beta WOL. I can not believe they just added the Mule back to the game and made it autocast. Everyone hates the mule, why is it somehow essential to this game? Please lets KILL THE MULE!
Exactly this. Mules are the main reason for me to neither want to play nor watch SC2 (the same is defenitely true for alot of other people but they don't know the cause but only the result). They create boring, passive and single sided metagames. You barely can win anything when attacking and committing on attacking a terran on mules economy without all-ining in alot of situations of the game.
Funny fact about this is that alot/almost all people/pros haven't realized that over the years. This gives evidence how few of an idea they in fact have about the general factors and aspects of the game but became specialists in analysing if bunker build time and similar things should be nerfed or buffed a tiny bit.
A lot of people say this but they have to take into consideration that diminishing the return from 45 to 40 is the smallest of the changes.
The BIG changes is the fact that is based on cooldown and that it needs the CC to be in a certain range of the resources to work.
This means a couple of things:
1.- No longer can yo mass MULE in the lategame, so you need to have the same amount of workers all game long, also you can't mass orbitals for macro.
2.- The amount of resources is the same all game long since you will have 1 MULE per 1 base as opposed to having multiple MULES as the game goes.
3.- Tied in to 1, since you don't have macro orbitals you also can't simply planetary any base past the third, so you would have to choose between, planetaries for defense or orbitals for macro.
So these changes are a much bigger nerf to terran macro and expanding than it looks like.
Not to mention that it nerfes turtle and passive play by A LOT, since you can't mass orbitals for macro and planetaries for defense, it even nerfs aggressive play since it becomes a lot more difficult to expand, because if you play aggressive you would need orbital bases and thus wouldn't be able to have planetaries (wich was common in ALL terran playstyles from the 4th base and on).
Not saying theres anything wrong with all the changes I like them, but they don't encourage passivity and neither are forgiving.
On September 06 2015 07:42 Cloak wrote: Stalkers vs Adept is basically what PvP boils down to in the early game. Will we see things back to Stalker dominance?
I hope a stalker buff because stalkers are awful at killing anything unless they're fighting for half an hour without dieing. Adept vs Adept is a thing because 3 stalkers cannot do shit if 5 adepts are in your face killing your probes. You kill them eventually but he has double your economy and you lose at the 3 minute mark.
Even if Adept was armored, it wouldn't be an amazing idea to build stalkers against them. You'd build stalkers becuase zealots (no-charge), sentries (..sentries) and adepts (terrible damage to anything that's not light) couldn't do a better job, and by building stalkers you'll lose 5 probes instead of 10
Have not got enough games in yet, i'd say yes early game but people are using adept pressure to keep you busy while they offensively place pylons to overcharge now
Why is chronoboost default set to auto-cast on the nexus when it's permanent?
I like the changes, but with mule now being a cooldown ability I don't like how it's restricted to 30 range from mineral patches. First of all, it makes no sense, it's called down from space. And being a cooldown ability already greatly reduces the overall efficiency of mass orbitals, so it's not necessary. Last but not least, they removed manner mules...
On September 07 2015 00:00 cheekymonkey wrote: Why is chronoboost default set to auto-cast on the nexus when it's permanent?
I like the changes, but with mule now being a cooldown ability I don't like how it's restricted to 30 range from mineral patches. First of all, it makes no sense, it's called down from space. And being a cooldown ability already greatly reduces the overall efficiency of mass orbitals, so it's not necessary. Last but not least, they removed manner mules...
Because it has to be somewhere, and this way new players get the macro benefits, without having to know about it.
On September 07 2015 00:00 cheekymonkey wrote: Why is chronoboost default set to auto-cast on the nexus when it's permanent?
I like the changes, but with mule now being a cooldown ability I don't like how it's restricted to 30 range from mineral patches. First of all, it makes no sense, it's called down from space. And being a cooldown ability already greatly reduces the overall efficiency of mass orbitals, so it's not necessary. Last but not least, they removed manner mules...
Because it has to be somewhere, and this way new players get the macro benefits, without having to know about it.
But will it continually cast itself on the nexus despite being permanent? Might as well let probes build quicker.
Photon overcharge has gone from being the savior of pvp to the curse of pvp
By expanding in PvP now you're opening yourself to somebody dropping 1-4 pylons anywhere and overcharging them, using it as a place to attack you. You can't cover everywhere in the main and natural, you can't reliably stop the core from approaching your base and it's a huge clusterfuck.
It might be figured out some but damn, we had the old overcharge for a reason. Last thing we need is to remove it in the same patch where we add another tool that can be abused in pvp to prevent teching/expanding safely
But will it continually cast itself on the nexus despite being permanent? Might as well let probes build quicker.
It's permanent. It doesn't continuously cast or recast, it's just on
On September 07 2015 00:00 cheekymonkey wrote: Why is chronoboost default set to auto-cast on the nexus when it's permanent?
I like the changes, but with mule now being a cooldown ability I don't like how it's restricted to 30 range from mineral patches. First of all, it makes no sense, it's called down from space. And being a cooldown ability already greatly reduces the overall efficiency of mass orbitals, so it's not necessary. Last but not least, they removed manner mules...
How come mutas can use wings to fly in the vacuum of space?
There are several things that "don't make sense" so that's not really an argument.
They are the way they are for balance's sake.
@Cyro they will 100% make it so super pylons only can overcharge in the next patch
I have managed to watch the quoted vod of catz an co. alongside to the point of where they discuss about the overlord drop change to lair (at about 3:25) with missing about 50% of the talk inbetween. Anyway the situation is quite interesting in the stream, because both sides strongly believe they are right in this case with their opinion. It shows another thing, which you can read between the lines which is beyond overlord drops and I gonna explain what it is.
Morrow says it is just op. Catz says it is a huge commitment of Z that should be rewarded if unscouted as you are pretty much dead if it fails. The important example is a high commitment 8 roach attack into an 8 roach drop for 50/50 in a ZvT early game scenario:
Morrow is right that it is op. What T can have in the best case is 1 tank + 1 marauder + few marines (if no reapers were built). Roaches can dodge those T units (in most cases the non counter units but helions + marines/reapers) once being in T main an circle around and deal damage until reinforcements arrive, either more roaches or speedling follow up which can hit either the main with another drop or the expansion bunker that can then be engaged from 2 sides (8 roaches - casualties from inside and reinforcements from the outside). In any way this is almost not beatable when executed perfectly by zerg.
But catz is also right. What he wants is something else actually. He wants someting that allows zerg to force the terran to adapt and interrupt his standard play. In hots terran pretty much deflects any agression with standard play and only few adaptation. It is highly unrewarding for zerg to commit on anything that doesn't kill the terran. The overlord drop doesn't change this fact. The deceisive factor is only the mule in this situation. When executing such a drop with 8 roaches without killing the terran he will be ahead on 2 OC whenever he saves more than 5-8 SCV + mules on 2OC (or 2-3 SCV +3 OC) as zerg does this on about 22-25 drones without a 3rd hatch and queen, with being massivly behind in tech and options. The existance of mules simply enforces the coinflip in this situation. Zerg must go for the kill (kill almost all SCV depending on how many OC, kill few attachments and depots) with this kind of an attack as he commits that much on it that he cannot comeback from it. If mules didn't exist it would be a much prettier metagame situation: To come out on par with your opponent you had to kill as many scvs as you have committed yourself on it. Killing more puts you slightly ahead and killing less is putting you slightly behind and the game wouldn't be decided at this point.
With mules being in the game this situation enforces coinflip play by zerg. The game is being mainly decided by this drop and its execution. Either you shut down the terran to a point where he cannot come back from or you are massively behind yourself so that you cannot come back. Anyway the game is decided at this point, it is boring to play and watch.
What catz really wants is the potential of zerg to force terran to adapt and take correlating damage to his own commitment. I know this can by default not be achieved with mules being in the game. It is exactly the kind of situation I am talking about all the time when arguing against mules. Just what they are all missing is the fact that without mules zerg wouldn't even need to build 8 roaches to execute this but could go with e.g. only 4 roaches and would be fine with killing 4-5 SCV or similar. The removal of mules would allow so much more interesting play and interactions which wouldn't decide the game but only put one or the other side slightly behind/ahead. Of course overlord drops needed to be delayed by an extra upgrade still, having them just with hatch would be too op as described earlier, even more so without mules.
Does someone have a video/replay of such a roach drop allin? I have never seen it and would have never had the idea that something like that could be any good.
The roach drop was a good bu ild on Lerilak. Alot of that is because Terrans tend to open early CC there; rarely do I see a 1 base opening, and it's hard to scout that map. Scouting shuts it down. You can react
On September 06 2015 07:45 crazedrat wrote: ZvT now if you scout marine your only best bet seems like roach ling bane attack and hope they went bio instead of tanks.
No, actually that just sounds like an all in.
Orbitals are too strong.
On September 07 2015 00:00 cheekymonkey wrote: Why is chronoboost default set to auto-cast on the nexus when it's permanent?
I like the changes, but with mule now being a cooldown ability I don't like how it's restricted to 30 range from mineral patches. First of all, it makes no sense, it's called down from space. And being a cooldown ability already greatly reduces the overall efficiency of mass orbitals, so it's not necessary. Last but not least, they removed manner mules...
You're worried about mass orbitals after your orbital just got buffed. Now you have free energy which translates into calldown supply, 120 minerals. Parse that value in with the MULE cycle and you're making 320 a minute over 270 with the original MULE and 240 with the autocast MULE. You also have free scans now and your orbitals have a casting range which can cover the natural and 3rd on most maps. Repositioning the 4th orbital is such a trivial concern. The orbitals got buffed this patch, while zerg lost a larvae and protoss lost the ability to focus a rush with chrono... terran got its orbital buffed. If Terran simply opens 3 orbitals right now they are well ahead.
On September 06 2015 10:27 Lexender wrote:
1.- No longer can yo mass MULE in the lategame, so you need to have the same amount of workers all game long, also you can't mass orbitals for macro.
2.- The amount of resources is the same all game long since you will have 1 MULE per 1 base as opposed to having multiple MULES as the game goes.
3.- Tied in to 1, since you don't have macro orbitals you also can't simply planetary any base past the third, so you would have to choose between, planetaries for defense or orbitals for macro.
So these changes are a much bigger nerf to terran macro and expanding than it looks like.
1: You actually can mass orbitals, you just have to move the orbital in some cases. It takes about 30 seconds, the orbital has a huge range. It has a base worth of range. 2: During the early and midgame you actually have a resource buff now with free calldown supply and scan. You're making about 320 a cycle over 270, not 240. 3: You can actually drop mules at most 3rds from your natural, and worst case scenario you have to move an orbital. 4: All of what you say is focused on the late game, meanwhile Terran has been buffed stronger than ever before in the early game and the midgame - the most crucial part of the game.
On September 08 2015 00:50 Big J wrote: Does someone have a video/replay of such a roach drop allin? I have never seen it and would have never had the idea that something like that could be any good.
Terran can even die or be put behind by this without drops being used when not being careful (0% scout, 0% adaptation = 2-4 helions + few marines + few dead or alive reapers at this point instead of an early tank or marauder). With drops from overlords terran is required to spread out its army and defend the main + nat while reinforcements of zerg can either continue to drop into main or attack the undefended bunker at nat. If zerg trains this 100+ games it is going to be an easy win in most cases I believe. You learn to arrange and adapt the follow up (deceisive) to what the terran went for (roach or roach/speedling or speedling or speedling/bane etc. follow up). The follow up is deceisive as zerg is all-in already with mules being in the game. If you can kill the terran with only the 8 roaches you are fine anyway (if following up or not), if you are unsure you should at any time follow it up if you see any potential to kill the terran with it as you are behind anyway if the 8 roaches fail and you switch back to macro game. In most cases it is best to fully commit on it and follow the 8 roaches with anything that can kill terran best in this situation as long as mules are in the game or skip it completely. Of course you can switch out of the commitment at anytime where you feel that your investment is lower than the dealt damage to terran and are fine (thats hardly the case with mules being in game and terran getting its 3rd OC before or at the same time as you getting your 3rd hatch tho).
As both mules were out of the game and drops were at hatch before the last balance patch it is hard to compare the situations now.
On September 08 2015 00:52 crazedrat wrote: The roach drop was a good bu ild on Lerilak. Alot of that is because Terrans tend to open early CC there; rarely do I see a 1 base opening, and it's hard to scout that map. Scouting shuts it down. You can react
On September 06 2015 07:45 crazedrat wrote: ZvT now if you scout marine your only best bet seems like roach ling bane attack and hope they went bio instead of tanks.
On September 07 2015 00:00 cheekymonkey wrote: Why is chronoboost default set to auto-cast on the nexus when it's permanent?
I like the changes, but with mule now being a cooldown ability I don't like how it's restricted to 30 range from mineral patches. First of all, it makes no sense, it's called down from space. And being a cooldown ability already greatly reduces the overall efficiency of mass orbitals, so it's not necessary. Last but not least, they removed manner mules...
You're worried about mass orbitals after your orbital just got buffed. Now you have free energy which translates into calldown supply, 120 minerals. Parse that value in with the MULE cycle and you're making 320 a minute over 270 with the original MULE and 240 with the autocast MULE. You also have free scans now and your orbitals have a casting range which can cover the natural and 3rd on most maps. Repositioning the 4th orbital is such a trivial concern. The orbitals got buffed this patch, while zerg lost a larvae and protoss lost the ability to focus a rush with chrono... terran got its orbital buffed. If Terran simply opens 3 orbitals right now they are well ahead.
1.- No longer can yo mass MULE in the lategame, so you need to have the same amount of workers all game long, also you can't mass orbitals for macro.
2.- The amount of resources is the same all game long since you will have 1 MULE per 1 base as opposed to having multiple MULES as the game goes.
3.- Tied in to 1, since you don't have macro orbitals you also can't simply planetary any base past the third, so you would have to choose between, planetaries for defense or orbitals for macro.
So these changes are a much bigger nerf to terran macro and expanding than it looks like.
1: You actually can mass orbitals, you just have to move the orbital in some cases. It takes about 30 seconds, the orbital has a huge range. It has a base worth of range. 2: During the early and midgame you actually have a resource buff now with free calldown supply and scan. You're making about 320 a cycle over 270, not 240. 3: You can actually drop mules at most 3rds from your natural, and worst case scenario you have to move an orbital. 4: All of what you say is focused on the late game, meanwhile Terran has been buffed stronger than ever before in the early game and the midgame - the most crucial part of the game.
How is it really a buff?
vP you need all the energy for scans not depots.
Scans are now 100. Best of luck if a DT gets in the base after scanning.
OCs are now stuck at mineraless bases to mine gas and cannot call down mules at remote expansions.
You cannot build lots of extra OCs and drop mules as you cannot place them close enough to the mineral patches.
If this is a buff then undo it and get me my HotS OCs back.
Again, replay or video. At least some build order would be nice. I dont want to judge this without ever seeing anything like it, but since it was brought up by professionals it sounds discussionworthy.
The OC change is not a buff, it's a massive nerf. You're really delusional if you don't see that.
Nevertheless, the point still stands, you cannot save up 8 mules per OC with this change. Now it's only 1. This in itself clearly already a massive nerf to the mass mule lategame strategy. In addition to the reduced mule efficiency, the radius requirement is just a nerf on top of that, completely uneccessary IMO, at least until we can see how it works out without it.
On September 08 2015 01:29 Big J wrote: Again, replay or video. At least some build order would be nice. I dont want to judge this without ever seeing anything like it, but since it was brought up by professionals it sounds discussionworthy.
this is a game where it works. notice how it punishes a greedy opening.
this is a game where it doesn't. notice how it doesn't work versus a more well balanced opening
On September 08 2015 00:52 crazedrat wrote: The roach drop was a good bu ild on Lerilak. Alot of that is because Terrans tend to open early CC there; rarely do I see a 1 base opening, and it's hard to scout that map. Scouting shuts it down. You can react
On September 06 2015 10:24 GGzerG wrote:
On September 06 2015 07:45 crazedrat wrote: ZvT now if you scout marine your only best bet seems like roach ling bane attack and hope they went bio instead of tanks.
No, actually that just sounds like an all in.
Orbitals are too strong.
On September 07 2015 00:00 cheekymonkey wrote: Why is chronoboost default set to auto-cast on the nexus when it's permanent?
I like the changes, but with mule now being a cooldown ability I don't like how it's restricted to 30 range from mineral patches. First of all, it makes no sense, it's called down from space. And being a cooldown ability already greatly reduces the overall efficiency of mass orbitals, so it's not necessary. Last but not least, they removed manner mules...
You're worried about mass orbitals after your orbital just got buffed. Now you have free energy which translates into calldown supply, 120 minerals. Parse that value in with the MULE cycle and you're making 320 a minute over 270 with the original MULE and 240 with the autocast MULE. You also have free scans now and your orbitals have a casting range which can cover the natural and 3rd on most maps. Repositioning the 4th orbital is such a trivial concern. The orbitals got buffed this patch, while zerg lost a larvae and protoss lost the ability to focus a rush with chrono... terran got its orbital buffed. If Terran simply opens 3 orbitals right now they are well ahead.
On September 06 2015 10:27 Lexender wrote:
1.- No longer can yo mass MULE in the lategame, so you need to have the same amount of workers all game long, also you can't mass orbitals for macro.
2.- The amount of resources is the same all game long since you will have 1 MULE per 1 base as opposed to having multiple MULES as the game goes.
3.- Tied in to 1, since you don't have macro orbitals you also can't simply planetary any base past the third, so you would have to choose between, planetaries for defense or orbitals for macro.
So these changes are a much bigger nerf to terran macro and expanding than it looks like.
1: You actually can mass orbitals, you just have to move the orbital in some cases. It takes about 30 seconds, the orbital has a huge range. It has a base worth of range. 2: During the early and midgame you actually have a resource buff now with free calldown supply and scan. You're making about 320 a cycle over 270, not 240. 3: You can actually drop mules at most 3rds from your natural, and worst case scenario you have to move an orbital. 4: All of what you say is focused on the late game, meanwhile Terran has been buffed stronger than ever before in the early game and the midgame - the most crucial part of the game.
How is it really a buff?
vP you need all the energy for scans not depots.
Scans are now 100. Best of luck if a DT gets in the base after scanning.
OCs are now stuck at mineraless bases to mine gas and cannot call down mules at remote expansions.
You cannot build lots of extra OCs and drop mules as you cannot place them close enough to the mineral patches.
If this is a buff then undo it and get me my HotS OCs back.
I play Zerg so the DTs are not something I'm thinking about. I'm thinking specifically how this effects the econ of Terran in ZvT, and it's a buff in that matchup for the reasons stated. I don't know about TvP, I'm not saying either way for that matchup.
On September 08 2015 03:04 cheekymonkey wrote: The OC change is not a buff, it's a massive nerf. You're really delusional if you don't see that.
Nevertheless, the point still stands, you cannot save up 8 mules per OC with this change. Now it's only 1. This in itself clearly already a massive nerf to the mass mule lategame strategy. In addition to the reduced mule efficiency, the radius requirement is just a nerf on top of that, completely uneccessary IMO, at least until we can see how it works out without it.
The early game deserves more focus than the late game. It's a nerf late game; a fairly reasonable one, and a buff in the early game; while Zerg was nerfed in the early game. The opening favors Terran now quite alot in ZvT, especially 3 orbital openings. That is all.
On September 08 2015 00:52 crazedrat wrote: Parse that value in with the MULE cycle and you're making 320 a minute over 270 with the original MULE and 240 with the autocast MULE.
Note sure what you're saying here, but there's only one type of mule.
On September 08 2015 00:52 crazedrat wrote: Parse that value in with the MULE cycle and you're making 320 a minute over 270 with the original MULE and 240 with the autocast MULE.
Note sure what you're saying here, but there's only one type of mule.
On September 08 2015 03:08 crazedrat wrote: The early game matters more than the late game. It's a nerf late game, and a buff in the early game; while Zerg was nerfed in the early game. The opening favors Terran now quite alot in ZvT, especially 3 orbital openings. That is all.
It is clearly a late game nerf. Don't treat it merely as an early game buff, which is kind of irrelevant for the discussion. The problem with TvZ is not the early game, it's the lategame with mass mule capabilities. The reason why it's irrelevant is that blizzard easily can tune the cooldown timer. You really don't have anything meaningful to contribute to the discussion if you're up in airs about the "early game buff" to terran here.
The discussion is about balance. It's not irrelevant, it's a matter of balance. The orbital is stronger through the early mid game. AND Zerg is down a larvae. Meaning if you open 3 CC, you are ahead alot. You can afford to produce alot of marines now. You apply more pressure. Zerg drones less. Zerg has to make more units. Zerg has more trouble holding bases. Overall you move into the mid late game with an advantage. A failure in scouting is punished harder as well. If you don't scout 3 orbital, you will be further behind. The timings attacks are now sharper, because Terran can afford more and Zerg is weakened in defending them. So it's more of a commitment dealing with those also. Overall it's too many minerals and too volatile. Zerg either needs a larvae back or the MULE needs to be slightly nerfed. Like... 30 minerals returned, something around there.
They should just make the raven the core of terran detection. With the mule not costing energy it is not interesting in any way to have scans for detection to begin with.
On September 08 2015 04:51 Big J wrote: They should just make the raven the core of terran detection. With the mule not costing energy it is not interesting in any way to have scans for detection to begin with.
Raven needs speed increase to be a good detector. I think testing speed increase to be on par with Liberator or Roach (after speed upgrade) won't harm.
On September 08 2015 04:39 Cyro wrote: Just remove mules and put scan/supply drop energy back down again. Maybe even make them cooldown based
They will not do this - they do not want to enter months of unit and building balancing after the removal of the Mule (and other associated macro boosters). They saw what happened to T (and to a lesser extent P) when they did this so they quickly reinstated the macro boosters.
On September 08 2015 04:51 Big J wrote: They should just make the raven the core of terran detection. With the mule not costing energy it is not interesting in any way to have scans for detection to begin with.
Raven needs speed increase to be a good detector. I think testing speed increase to be on par with Liberator or Roach (after speed upgrade) won't harm.
Considering the nerfs to the Raven then this is the least that they can do to make the Raven relevant again. However, with the cost of scan now it seems that Raven may come back into more usage simply as a safeguard, not because they are good value. I have not made a Raven (outside of TvT) for a long time.
They will not do this - they do not want to enter months of unit and building balancing after the removal of the Mule (and other associated macro boosters). They saw what happened to T (and to a lesser extent P) when they did this so they quickly reinstated the macro boosters
That's what extended 9 month beta is for. They shouldn't have removed them in the first place (and reinstated different, weirder versions of them for all 3 races) if they were not planning on causing any balance upset.
In fact they've actively messed up core mechanics that already worked for no real benefit. Chrono got nerfed to hell (and transitioned into general power through 24/7 operation rather than being able to select what you wanted to be sped up by 2.5x as much)
it also got way more awkward (mechanically) to use, as now you can't use a hotkey to use it, you have to manually move the screen to a nexus, click the nexus, hit c and then move the screen over to what you want to chrono boost and click on it.
Before you could just hit 5-c-shiftclickclickclickclickclick and chrono 5 things using the nexus hotkey without having your camera on anything but production.
Everyone hates new chrono, a ton of people hate new orbital. There was little benefit to taking a big chunk of testing time to change HOTS mechanics to these ones. Zerg auto-inject and raised back to queens providing more larvae than hatcheries again is a whole other bag of worms
They will not do this - they do not want to enter months of unit and building balancing after the removal of the Mule (and other associated macro boosters). They saw what happened to T (and to a lesser extent P) when they did this so they quickly reinstated the macro boosters
That's what extended 9 month beta is for. They shouldn't have removed them in the first place (and reinstated different, weirder versions of them for all 3 races) if they were not planning on causing any balance upset. ...
Yes, that is what has upset so many people. This level of change that ripples through every matchup, every unit/building/upgrade cost and time, it was something that could only be done at the start of the beta.Now with a release this year (Nov?), and having to create a gold master of the game before release, they cannot make these big changes.
When LotV releases the competitive scene has to switch as well to maintain/generate interest, so the game must release in a kind of balanced state. It can be updated later but it cannot release in a completely unbalanced state - so what the hell were they thinking when they made these changes so late!
They will not do this - they do not want to enter months of unit and building balancing after the removal of the Mule (and other associated macro boosters). They saw what happened to T (and to a lesser extent P) when they did this so they quickly reinstated the macro boosters
That's what extended 9 month beta is for. They shouldn't have removed them in the first place (and reinstated different, weirder versions of them for all 3 races) if they were not planning on causing any balance upset. ...
Yes, that is what has upset so many people. This level of change that ripples through every matchup, every unit/building/upgrade cost and time, it was something that could only be done at the start of the beta.Now with a release this year (Nov?), and having to create a gold master of the game before release, they cannot make these big changes.
When LotV releases the competitive scene has to switch as well to maintain/generate interest, so the game must release in a kind of balanced state. It can be updated later but it cannot release in a completely unbalanced state - so what the hell were they thinking when they made these changes so late!
Games are released completely broken all the time. As long as they keep on supporting the game I'm fine with them releasing the game in whatever fucked up state they want. But I guess I'm kind of the minority with that opinion.
They will not do this - they do not want to enter months of unit and building balancing after the removal of the Mule (and other associated macro boosters). They saw what happened to T (and to a lesser extent P) when they did this so they quickly reinstated the macro boosters
That's what extended 9 month beta is for. They shouldn't have removed them in the first place (and reinstated different, weirder versions of them for all 3 races) if they were not planning on causing any balance upset. ...
Yes, that is what has upset so many people. This level of change that ripples through every matchup, every unit/building/upgrade cost and time, it was something that could only be done at the start of the beta.Now with a release this year (Nov?), and having to create a gold master of the game before release, they cannot make these big changes.
When LotV releases the competitive scene has to switch as well to maintain/generate interest, so the game must release in a kind of balanced state. It can be updated later but it cannot release in a completely unbalanced state - so what the hell were they thinking when they made these changes so late!
Games are released completely broken all the time. As long as they keep on supporting the game I'm fine with them releasing the game in whatever fucked up state they want. But I guess I'm kind of the minority with that opinion.
I don't mind so much either. But as I mentioned the pro scene will likely switch too and there people will win/lose money because of the balance of the game. If the balance is way off then that would be a disgrace. Though of course that happened during early WoL (T advantage), late WoL (Zerg advantage) and HotS (Protoss advantage).
Now with a release this year (Nov?), and having to create a gold master of the game before release, they cannot make these big changes.
They have to, they released an extended 9 month beta then wasted most of the first half of it IMO.
It's way better to delay the game for 3-6 months and actually get it right than to launch in an unchanged state - we'll still be playing LOTV in 2020, so when do you propose they make these changes? Never?
Now with a release this year (Nov?), and having to create a gold master of the game before release, they cannot make these big changes.
They have to, they released an extended 9 month beta then wasted most of the first half of it IMO.
It's way better to delay the game for 3-6 months and actually get it right than to launch in an unchanged state - we'll still be playing LOTV in 2020, so when do you propose they make these changes? Never?
I don't think that they wasted the whole of the beta so far - there are some really nice things coming in LotV. What I mean is that with the tweaked macro economy they should still be able to get the game into some semblance of balance before release. Then they can patch the hell out of it - and TBH I think that at release, or soon after, we will have the best RTS available but not the best RTS possible and I am really looking forward to it.
The next balance patch will show if they are going to fix the economy and balance around it or leave the current economy and balance around that.
On September 08 2015 06:03 Rowrin wrote: Haven't played in ages, got about 30 games in this weekend and is it just me or are Adepts really good vs Terran?
Like, Reeaally good. No, like reeeaaally.
Yep. They are not unstoppable but the defence has to be executed so much better than the attack and that is just plain unfair.
I don't think that they wasted the whole of the beta so far
The entire beta so far is coming up to the length of the HOTS beta and they did very little in comparison at the start. They did a lot now but where were these changes 2-3 months ago - now everyone is crying that it's too late to make serious changes
on the last beta for the last expansion the game will ever see, and after this is over nobody will want significant changes to the economy, macro mechanics or anything else. When serious changes were not made in HOTS to those things, everyone said wait for LOTV, it'll be fine. We waited for LOTV, it's not fine.
Yep. They are not unstoppable but the defence has to be executed so much better than the attack and that is just plain unfair.
High lvl terrans are not having much trouble meeting my adept play when doing relatively sane openings. The people going straight tank drop, reactor liberator or 3 CC tend to die, if you go rax-rax-cc-factory or any other similar opening (like the protoss going gate-gate-nexus-robo) then it's mostly fine.
It makes me wonder what openings people are doing when they complain, because @ master MMR i still see a lot of very silly openings against a protoss who drops 2 gates before nexus or cyber core when it's extremely easily scouted
Econ/adept plays only need one gas too, yet nobody checks it. Actually, i can't remember the last time a terran scanned me before i had 40 probes. The info that they do see (2 gate before cyber or nexus) isn't used - So i don't feel bad for those half of terrans with the bad openings that take an economy/tech lead and then die.
I don't think that they wasted the whole of the beta so far
The entire beta so far is coming up to the length of the HOTS beta and they did very little in comparison at the start. They did a lot now but where were these changes 2-3 months ago - now everyone is crying that it's too late to make serious changes
on the last beta for the last expansion the game will ever see, and after this is over nobody will want significant changes to the economy, macro mechanics or anything else. When serious changes were not made in HOTS to those things, everyone said wait for LOTV, it'll be fine. We waited for LOTV, it's not fine.
I agree with some of the things you have said. I was surprised when Mike Morhaime announced that the game would release this year - I had March/April of next year in mind. When I bought my copies of the game to get in the beta I thought that I would be playing the beta for 6 months! Actually, considering the state of the game I will be playing a beta game for a long time
Now the release is being driven by the suits, not the developers - and it sucks a little.
Edit: one thing I would add - During WoL and HotS I only played as Terran, never wanted to play as anything else. Now I pay P&Z as well for the variety and fun. The game must be doing something right.
I think I never understood the new chronoboost. How does it work? If you cast it on a building, is it permanent even if you cast it on something else later (so that you eventually have every building chronoboosted), or is it active only while selected on a building of your choice (so that you constantly have a fixed number of buildings chronoboosted, equal to the number of nexuses)?
On September 08 2015 21:59 cheekymonkey wrote: I think I never understood the new chronoboost. How does it work? If you cast it on a building, is it permanent even if you cast it on something else later (so that you eventually have every building chronoboosted), or is it active only while selected on a building of your choice (so that you constantly have a fixed number of buildings chronoboosted, equal to the number of nexuses)?
Basically it is just a fixed boost to production out of a single building selected from your Nexus. The more nexus you have the more buildings you can select to game this production boost. You can switch around to new buildings as you like, although right now the way it works this is a bit of a pain.
I wonder if there is a decent way to indicate which Nexus is chronoboosting which building to make switching buildings more intuitive and less cumbersome. Perhaps a sort of visual like a rally point or highlighting on the minimap?
Great, ruining the game more and more and more! Never ending patches of ruin, with more easy to play, 10yo childish elements being added.
While the gaming audience is increasing in age, so now its about 24yo average age, Blizzard is stuck back in time when it was usually 12yo and so they are designing the next SC2 expansion for 12yo and lower kids.
They are literally removing skill, they are removing all manual operations, they are removing all tactics, all strategy and just having an automated turd play itself! Talk about garbage design, garbage balance, garbage development!
I haven't see this much incompetence in Blizzard since their art studio came back from WOW to work on SC2 and it was like they were designing rainbows and unicorns and bright colors. But now its on the gameplay level, which is worse, models you can look like, but if the gameplay sucks then its a useless game!
They are never going to restore SC2 esports potential and view friendlyness my making the game dumber and dumber to play and watch, where even 10yo kids can do all the "macro" and "micro" stuff that is auto-cast, smart-cast, AI-cast, attack-triggered, you name it, if it automation and removing skill, they've got it!
On September 08 2015 22:56 BillGates wrote: Great, ruining the game more and more and more! Never ending patches of ruin, with more easy to play, 10yo childish elements being added.
While the gaming audience is increasing in age, so now its about 24yo average age, Blizzard is stuck back in time when it was usually 12yo and so they are designing the next SC2 expansion for 12yo and lower kids.
They are literally removing skill, they are removing all manual operations, they are removing all tactics, all strategy and just having an automated turd play itself! Talk about garbage design, garbage balance, garbage development!
I haven't see this much incompetence in Blizzard since their art studio came back from WOW to work on SC2 and it was like they were designing rainbows and unicorns and bright colors. But now its on the gameplay level, which is worse, models you can look like, but if the gameplay sucks then its a useless game!
They are never going to restore SC2 esports potential and view friendlyness my making the game dumber and dumber to play and watch, where even 10yo kids can do all the "macro" and "micro" stuff that is auto-cast, smart-cast, AI-cast, attack-triggered, you name it, if it automation and removing skill, they've got it!
Blizzard has addressed this, and the thing is, Korean professionals disagree with you. They generally think HotS is too difficult to master, and LotV is even more difficult.
On September 08 2015 22:56 BillGates wrote: Great, ruining the game more and more and more! Never ending patches of ruin, with more easy to play, 10yo childish elements being added.
While the gaming audience is increasing in age, so now its about 24yo average age, Blizzard is stuck back in time when it was usually 12yo and so they are designing the next SC2 expansion for 12yo and lower kids.
They are literally removing skill, they are removing all manual operations, they are removing all tactics, all strategy and just having an automated turd play itself! Talk about garbage design, garbage balance, garbage development!
I haven't see this much incompetence in Blizzard since their art studio came back from WOW to work on SC2 and it was like they were designing rainbows and unicorns and bright colors. But now its on the gameplay level, which is worse, models you can look like, but if the gameplay sucks then its a useless game!
They are never going to restore SC2 esports potential and view friendlyness my making the game dumber and dumber to play and watch, where even 10yo kids can do all the "macro" and "micro" stuff that is auto-cast, smart-cast, AI-cast, attack-triggered, you name it, if it automation and removing skill, they've got it!
Blizzard has addressed this, and the thing is, Korean professionals disagree with you. They generally think HotS is too difficult to master, and LotV is even more difficult.
According to Catz and co on The Patch the other day, this is bullshit. None of the Koreans said anything like this apparently (http://www.twitch.tv/rootcatz/v/14777104 Around 3hr40 in). The new larva inject is universally disliked by all progamers. I think Blizzard's 'source' was just that crap Canata said.
LotV Protoss/Terran take more skill than their HotS counterparts for sure though, and likely Zerg will too before the game officially launches .
I don't think that they wasted the whole of the beta so far
The entire beta so far is coming up to the length of the HOTS beta and they did very little in comparison at the start. They did a lot now but where were these changes 2-3 months ago - now everyone is crying that it's too late to make serious changes
on the last beta for the last expansion the game will ever see, and after this is over nobody will want significant changes to the economy, macro mechanics or anything else. When serious changes were not made in HOTS to those things, everyone said wait for LOTV, it'll be fine. We waited for LOTV, it's not fine.
Yep. They are not unstoppable but the defence has to be executed so much better than the attack and that is just plain unfair.
High lvl terrans are not having much trouble meeting my adept play when doing relatively sane openings. The people going straight tank drop, reactor liberator or 3 CC tend to die, if you go rax-rax-cc-factory or any other similar opening (like the protoss going gate-gate-nexus-robo) then it's mostly fine.
It makes me wonder what openings people are doing when they complain, because @ master MMR i still see a lot of very silly openings against a protoss who drops 2 gates before nexus or cyber core when it's extremely easily scouted
Econ/adept plays only need one gas too, yet nobody checks it. Actually, i can't remember the last time a terran scanned me before i had 40 probes. The info that they do see (2 gate before cyber or nexus) isn't used - So i don't feel bad for those half of terrans with the bad openings that take an economy/tech lead and then die.
We're getting more changes now because 2-3 months ago nobody played the game. There's no point making big changes without feedback from good players.
On September 08 2015 22:56 BillGates wrote: Great, ruining the game more and more and more! Never ending patches of ruin, with more easy to play, 10yo childish elements being added.
While the gaming audience is increasing in age, so now its about 24yo average age, Blizzard is stuck back in time when it was usually 12yo and so they are designing the next SC2 expansion for 12yo and lower kids.
They are literally removing skill, they are removing all manual operations, they are removing all tactics, all strategy and just having an automated turd play itself! Talk about garbage design, garbage balance, garbage development!
I haven't see this much incompetence in Blizzard since their art studio came back from WOW to work on SC2 and it was like they were designing rainbows and unicorns and bright colors. But now its on the gameplay level, which is worse, models you can look like, but if the gameplay sucks then its a useless game!
They are never going to restore SC2 esports potential and view friendlyness my making the game dumber and dumber to play and watch, where even 10yo kids can do all the "macro" and "micro" stuff that is auto-cast, smart-cast, AI-cast, attack-triggered, you name it, if it automation and removing skill, they've got it!
Blizzard has addressed this, and the thing is, Korean professionals disagree with you. They generally think HotS is too difficult to master, and LotV is even more difficult.
According to Catz and co on The Patch the other day, this is bullshit. None of the Koreans said anything like this apparently (http://www.twitch.tv/rootcatz/v/14777104 Around 3hr40 in). The new larva inject is universally disliked by all progamers. I think Blizzard's 'source' was just that crap Canata said.
LotV Protoss/Terran take more skill than their HotS counterparts for sure though, and likely Zerg will too before the game officially launches .
Nonono. What he says seems to be totally right. It seems to be totally right that the Koreans said that HotS is already very hard and that LotV is getting even harder.
The part that isn't right is that the Koreans said this is because of the macro abilities. But blizzard also never said that they did. Blizzard said that they are trying to fix the hard-game issue by making macro easier. It has always been a community interpretation that the Koreans have directly complained about macro boosters. But blizzard has never claimed this. Here are a few excerpts from blizzard's Community Updates:
We’d also like to remind everyone that the direction we’ve taken here has come out of the community summit where top-tier Korean pro players nearly unanimously said that even HotS is way too difficult to master in all aspects. As we discussed the topic with them, reducing the clicks and work needed on macro mechanics was the best solution we came up with in that discussion group.
--> blizzard (maybe in conjunction with a few Koreans pros, who they might have just talked into it.. or who just didn't talk against it out of respect or being taken by surprise) came up with removing macro boosters. "We" came up with it. That actually confirms that it wasn't Koreans who brought up macro boosters. Removing macro boosters was only brought up as a solution when discussing how to make the game easier again. They are phrasing it in a way so that the community hopefully believes it was the Koreans who came up with it. It's PR, but they never actually say that Koreans said "please remove macro boosters".
Overall, the coolest thing we’re seeing is the freed up clicks needed on this side going to more interesting parts of the game, and our worry of some of the races becoming too easy to play doesn’t seem to be the case. We agree with the Korean pros/community on this side point - that because Starcraft 2 is already one of the most difficult games to master by far out there, and LotV added much more skill needed to play, helping out on this end looks to be the correct move.
Nowhere does blizzard clarify what exactly the point is in "on this side point". It's the community interpretation that they are saying "removing macro boosters" is the point, when blizzard is probably meaning "that the game needs too many clicks" is the point. Again, they just use clever PR for their change to an issue brought-up by Koreans so that a skimming reader believes that the brought-up solution comes from the Koreans as well.
TLDR: He is (probably) right when saying that Koreans brought up the game being very hard, or even too hard in some ways. Blizzard has taken that as justification to remove macro boosters. The opinion of Koreans on the blizzard solution to remove macro boosters is unknown. It's just a community speculation started and fueled by blizzard PR that Koreans wanted this change. But blizzard has actually never claimed that.
So Big J, what you are saying is that some (not the) Korean complained that the game was being too difficult, to which Blizzard responded by making a part of the game which was not problematic much more easier. How is this a correct answer from Blizzard.
The opinion of pro player on the blizzard solution is not so unknown: TLO and Snute found it boring, and all the the cast of #thepatch seems to agree it was a stupid idea, and the pros which were at Redbull Battleground all agreed that auto-inject was a stupid idea.
On September 09 2015 01:06 Vanadiel wrote: So Big J, what you are saying is that some (not the) Korean complained that the game was being too difficult, to which Blizzard responded by making a part of the game which was not problematic much more easier. How is this a correct answer from Blizzard.
The opinion of pro player on the blizzard solution is not so unknown: TLO and Snute found it boring, and all the the cast of #thepatch seems to agree it was a stupid idea, and the pros which were at Redbull Battleground all agreed that auto-inject was a stupid idea.
Well, the whole game difficulty is connected, right? So yes, the Koreans (according to ZombieGrub) brought up the "many abilities in battles are not manageable"-issue which isn't directly connected to macro boosters. But they are both connected via time management and I hugely agree with blizzard when they say that managing macro boosters takes away from managing combats and that managing combats is the more fun and visual part of gameplay that should be emphasized.
My personal opinion is that blizzard is just trying to sell their design shift to the community and the whole "Korean"-argument was only brought into play because of the stuchiu article on "soO's macro". That article in essence says "it's important that the game is X-hard for the Koreans", which blizzard is trying to trump with "those Koreans that you value so much actually want an easier game." I personally don't think this discussion is of any use either way. When I play the game myself I couldn't care less whether Life or TLO (big fan of both) think the game is too hard or too easy. And in that regard I agree with the original argumentation given by blizzard - before the community turned it into a discussion on whether the game becomes too hard or too easy - which is that injects + Show Spoiler +
and I'm talking about the mechanic itself; if there are issues with zerg not paying enough attention to their bases then I believe those should be solved seperately and not held as an argument for injects
are hardly interesting from a viewer or player standpoint.
And it isn't true that all the pros are against it. I think CatZ and inControl both have said that it is interesting. Some of the comments were plainly mixed because the patch in which they introduced it broke the game (e.g. Happy wrote something about liking to make the game micro focused, but Terran being unplayable). Lowko also said he liked it afaik. That Community Survey shows it as very mixed. It is a philosophical question, moreso than a practical one. Where should attention go. And people just have different opinions on this topic.
It isn't only important that the game is hard enough, it is rather important that it is hard enough in a lot of different areas. The removal of manual injects doesn't achieve this goal though.
Where should attention go. And people just have different opinions on this topic.
Attention should go wherever the player wants it to go (so we have players with vastly different playstyles) The best case scenario would be a game where you can specialize on macro OR micro (and anything in between)
On September 09 2015 01:53 The_Red_Viper wrote: It isn't only important that the game is hard enough, it is rather important that it is hard enough in a lot of different areas. The removal of manual injects doesn't achieve this goal though.
Where should attention go. And people just have different opinions on this topic.
Attention should go wherever the player wants it to go (so we have players with vastly different playstyles) The best case scenario would be a game where you can specialize on macro OR micro (and anything in between)
Removing macro requirements does balance the skewed macro:micro relation of the game a bit to become more equal. I know you hold the stance that instead of taking away from the macro side, they should add to the micro side. And I believe that is a valid opinion. But I'm not sure how this could be achieved. Changes to unit-control only go that far, you're still going to lose to someone who hit his injects better and made 15 extra roaches, even if your roaches now have 0damage point and you do fancy burrow micro and all that nice stuff.
I'm of the opinion that things in the game should be "equally strong" to begin with. Because that's what makes you make decisions. And inject for 25energy on a T1-150/0/2 spellcaster simply is better than abduct, blinding cloud, parasitic bomb, spawn IT, fungal growth, neural parasite and so on and so on.
If we take what DKim says at face value the people who play the game at the highest level don't want to add micro depth while maintaining the status quo of macro depth. A bunch of people on forums who don't play the game may think it sounds good in theory but I think in execution the best way to try and achieve macro:micro equilibrium is to simply strip away from the macro side and add to the micro side.
On September 08 2015 22:56 BillGates wrote: Great, ruining the game more and more and more! Never ending patches of ruin, with more easy to play, 10yo childish elements being added.
While the gaming audience is increasing in age, so now its about 24yo average age, Blizzard is stuck back in time when it was usually 12yo and so they are designing the next SC2 expansion for 12yo and lower kids.
They are literally removing skill, they are removing all manual operations, they are removing all tactics, all strategy and just having an automated turd play itself! Talk about garbage design, garbage balance, garbage development!
I haven't see this much incompetence in Blizzard since their art studio came back from WOW to work on SC2 and it was like they were designing rainbows and unicorns and bright colors. But now its on the gameplay level, which is worse, models you can look like, but if the gameplay sucks then its a useless game!
They are never going to restore SC2 esports potential and view friendlyness my making the game dumber and dumber to play and watch, where even 10yo kids can do all the "macro" and "micro" stuff that is auto-cast, smart-cast, AI-cast, attack-triggered, you name it, if it automation and removing skill, they've got it!
Blizzard has addressed this, and the thing is, Korean professionals disagree with you. They generally think HotS is too difficult to master, and LotV is even more difficult.
According to Catz and co on The Patch the other day, this is bullshit. None of the Koreans said anything like this apparently (http://www.twitch.tv/rootcatz/v/14777104 Around 3hr40 in). The new larva inject is universally disliked by all progamers. I think Blizzard's 'source' was just that crap Canata said.
LotV Protoss/Terran take more skill than their HotS counterparts for sure though, and likely Zerg will too before the game officially launches .
Nonono. What he says seems to be totally right. It seems to be totally right that the Koreans said that HotS is already very hard and that LotV is getting even harder.
The part that isn't right is that the Koreans said this is because of the macro abilities. But blizzard also never said that they did. Blizzard said that they are trying to fix the hard-game issue by making macro easier. It has always been a community interpretation that the Koreans have directly complained about macro boosters. But blizzard has never claimed this. Here are a few excerpts from blizzard's Community Updates:
We’d also like to remind everyone that the direction we’ve taken here has come out of the community summit where top-tier Korean pro players nearly unanimously said that even HotS is way too difficult to master in all aspects. As we discussed the topic with them, reducing the clicks and work needed on macro mechanics was the best solution we came up with in that discussion group.
--> blizzard (maybe in conjunction with a few Koreans pros, who they might have just talked into it.. or who just didn't talk against it out of respect or being taken by surprise) came up with removing macro boosters. "We" came up with it. That actually confirms that it wasn't Koreans who brought up macro boosters. Removing macro boosters was only brought up as a solution when discussing how to make the game easier again. They are phrasing it in a way so that the community hopefully believes it was the Koreans who came up with it. It's PR, but they never actually say that Koreans said "please remove macro boosters".
Overall, the coolest thing we’re seeing is the freed up clicks needed on this side going to more interesting parts of the game, and our worry of some of the races becoming too easy to play doesn’t seem to be the case. We agree with the Korean pros/community on this side point - that because Starcraft 2 is already one of the most difficult games to master by far out there, and LotV added much more skill needed to play, helping out on this end looks to be the correct move.
Nowhere does blizzard clarify what exactly the point is in "on this side point". It's the community interpretation that they are saying "removing macro boosters" is the point, when blizzard is probably meaning "that the game needs too many clicks" is the point. Again, they just use clever PR for their change to an issue brought-up by Koreans so that a skimming reader believes that the brought-up solution comes from the Koreans as well.
TLDR: He is (probably) right when saying that Koreans brought up the game being very hard, or even too hard in some ways. Blizzard has taken that as justification to remove macro boosters. The opinion of Koreans on the blizzard solution to remove macro boosters is unknown. It's just a community speculation started and fueled by blizzard PR that Koreans wanted this change. But blizzard has actually never claimed that.
Excellent thoughts, as usual, Big J.
Addressing activated abilities: design a more useful selection HUD. Example: If I have marines, marauders, Ghosts, and Medivacs in a selection, why do I have to make additional sub-selections, or secondary direct selections (several hotkeys) to activate these abilities? I think this can all be accomplished with an enhanced unit selection HUD.
I should just be able to make that selection, press T (for stim), press B (medivac boost), press C (for Cloak), then press E (for EMP), then click to cast EMP, then begin the necessary stutter-step micro, or whatever.
If the abilities do not have unique key-bindings, you can easily compensate for this with the CTRL / ALT modifier, or by creating custom key-bindings. Example: E and D are commonly used for transforming helions/hellbats, or entering and exiting siege mode for the tank and liberator. Have a default--modifiable in preferences--that says if these units share a selection, E/D is for tanks, CTRL modifies the order for Liberators, and ALT modifies the orders for Hellbats, etc ...
I've always wondered why the activated abilities in a selection require additional sub-selections.
On September 09 2015 01:53 The_Red_Viper wrote: It isn't only important that the game is hard enough, it is rather important that it is hard enough in a lot of different areas. The removal of manual injects doesn't achieve this goal though.
Where should attention go. And people just have different opinions on this topic.
Attention should go wherever the player wants it to go (so we have players with vastly different playstyles) The best case scenario would be a game where you can specialize on macro OR micro (and anything in between)
Removing macro requirements does balance the skewed macro:micro relation of the game a bit to become more equal. I know you hold the stance that instead of taking away from the macro side, they should add to the micro side. And I believe that is a valid opinion. But I'm not sure how this could be achieved. Changes to unit-control only go that far, you're still going to lose to someone who hit his injects better and made 15 extra roaches, even if your roaches now have 0damage point and you do fancy burrow micro and all that nice stuff.
I'm of the opinion that things in the game should be "equally strong" to begin with. Because that's what makes you make decisions. And inject for 25energy on a T1-150/0/2 spellcaster simply is better than abduct, blinding cloud, parasitic bomb, spawn IT, fungal growth, neural parasite and so on and so on.
See i mostly talk abot larva inject cause i think reducing the efficiency of the macro mechanics was a good decision. (even though i think automatic chrono and mules is questionable too) But when we look at injects i get the feeling that blizzard pretty much removed the terran/toss equivalent of building units in time. Terran and Toss still have to do this (yes there are queues, but still), if you don't build the marines in time you simply will have less army and bad macro. While there still is some of that for zerg (mostly workers though tbh, sometimes timings) you simply always have the larva you need to mass produce your units no matter what. So i definitely see a macro problem for zerg, macro is simply too trivial with zerg right now. Add to this that zerg always was the race which could a move to victory (kinda) and you will see that the inject change created huge balance problems too.
Toss and Terran are in a good spot i think (even though i still would prefer harder macro in general) but zerg is a joke imo.
Yeah they really need to look into limiting larvae per hatch if they're removing injects. I don't disagree. Maybe even try a harsh limit with the next patch of like 6-8 per hatch max and then probably float it up from there.
One solution, although kind of awkward, would be to simply give auto-inject a delay. So that a queen would not inject the moment it was possible, but in about 10 seconds or so. This way the people who don't have the time to inject optimally will even have more energy on their queens for transfuses and creep tumors in the long run, still maintaining an overall decent inject rate. Pros can still inject perfectly as they please, whenever this is possible, and will do significantly better than people who don't.
I like the auto-mule, since good players will definitely turn this off (on their main, anyway) to mule the appropriate expansion, which is the latest acquired expansion. The cooldown on the mule will actually make terran macro a lot harder if you're insistent on muling the right base. I do really hate the radius requirement, as this forces you to mule only patches within this reach. This will make for awkward situations where your OC is just out of range of your third expansion to mule it (so you will have to send two mules from third OC and natural OC to the third base, and the mule from the main OC to your natural), and where you have to move several OC's after patches are gone closer to mining bases just to be able to mule. I don't think this makes it easier at all, just annoying.
On September 09 2015 05:06 cheekymonkey wrote: One solution, although kind of awkward, would be to simply give auto-inject a delay. So that a queen would not inject the moment it was possible, but in about 10 seconds or so. This way the people who don't have the time to inject optimally will even have more energy on their queens for transfuses and creep tumors in the long run. Pros can still inject perfectly as they please, and will do significantly better than people who don't.
I don't like those kinds of fixes. If they want to get rid of forcing the player to call in their macro mechanics they should go full on one way or the other. I don't like dipping your toe in there. LotV should give players the toolset and framework to show off their skills in other ways if Blizzard removes the necessity of macro mechanics. I'd prefer no macro mechanics or complete (HotS) macro mechanics than a half measure macro mechanic.
On September 09 2015 05:06 cheekymonkey wrote: One solution, although kind of awkward, would be to simply give auto-inject a delay. So that a queen would not inject the moment it was possible, but in about 10 seconds or so. This way the people who don't have the time to inject optimally will even have more energy on their queens for transfuses and creep tumors in the long run. Pros can still inject perfectly as they please, and will do significantly better than people who don't.
I don't like those kinds of fixes. If they want to get rid of forcing the player to call in their macro mechanics they should go full on one way or the other. I don't like dipping your toe in there. LotV should give players the toolset and framework to show off their skills in other ways if Blizzard removes the necessity of macro mechanics. I'd prefer no macro mechanics or complete (HotS) macro mechanics than a half measure macro mechanic.
Then how is the new muling mechanic and the chronoboost change not half measures? The radius requirement, and only auto-mule on the closest mineral patch is terrible for optimal muling, and really an awkward change in itself. Chronoboosting your nexus on default is pretty bad for optimal macro. So why should auto-inject be optimal?
On September 09 2015 05:06 cheekymonkey wrote: One solution, although kind of awkward, would be to simply give auto-inject a delay. So that a queen would not inject the moment it was possible, but in about 10 seconds or so. This way the people who don't have the time to inject optimally will even have more energy on their queens for transfuses and creep tumors in the long run. Pros can still inject perfectly as they please, and will do significantly better than people who don't.
I don't like those kinds of fixes. If they want to get rid of forcing the player to call in their macro mechanics they should go full on one way or the other. I don't like dipping your toe in there. LotV should give players the toolset and framework to show off their skills in other ways if Blizzard removes the necessity of macro mechanics. I'd prefer no macro mechanics or complete (HotS) macro mechanics than a half measure macro mechanic.
Then how is the new muling mechanic and the chronoboost change not half measures? The radius requirement, and only auto-mule on the closest mineral patch is terrible for optimal muling, and really an awkward change in itself. Chronoboosting your nexus on default is pretty bad for optimal macro. So why should auto-inject be optimal?
Chronoboost is optimal, because it has been averaged out. It is actually nerfed in the way that you can't pre-store energy and then chrono a thing for it's whole duration to get 50% faster production for that thing, and 0% for everything else. You now get continuously 20%. 20% when you would have stored, 20% for the thing itself. It makes Protoss less binary, but still keeps the nice effects of chronoboosts in the game. And outside of rushes, you wouldn't do the store+burst out chronos perfectly anyways, so it isn't that different for things like upgrades. The only thing that is left that is "kind of worse" than for the other two is that it still requires quite some management.
Auto-mule is just badly implemented at the moment. There would be simple solutions to the "always mule the closest patch", if blizzard would give a conditionbased trigger a try. E.g.: Cast on the closest patch without a mule on it (given that the first mule should barely live when the second one is casted). Which would be good enough and still a thousand times better than manual muling. Auto-inject suffers similarily in a way: You cannot prevent the first inject and put down a creep tumor or store energy for transfusions. And you need extra micro to prevent a queen from injecting in a situation in which you wouldn't want to when it stands next to a hatch. A simple solution would be to only let queens autoinject if they aren't on a different order and have been idle for like 1-2seconds.
Pylons completely change the opening in PvZ. Can't take a very fast 3rd except on 2 maps, ruins and bridgehead... assuming you scout right. Macro hatch or open gas. As if adepts were not strong... 25 energy overcharged pylons at the 3rd off 1 gateway 1 gas nexus. 4 of maps I'm opening speed or some early pressure... previously it was fast 3rd every map.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote:Chronoboost is optimal, because it has been averaged out. It is actually nerfed in the way that you can't pre-store energy and then chrono a thing for it's whole duration to get 50% faster production for that thing, and 0% for everything else. You now get continuously 20%. 20% when you would have stored, 20% for the thing itself. It makes Protoss less binary, but still keeps the nice effects of chronoboosts in the game. And outside of rushes, you wouldn't do the store+burst out chronos perfectly anyways, so it isn't that different for things like upgrades.
Not sure what you're point is, but what I'm saying is that protosses will want to chrono buildings other than their nexuses. Hence chronoboost is not "full on" automated.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-mule is just badly implemented at the moment. There would be simple solutions to the "always mule the closest patch", if blizzard would give a conditionbased trigger a try. E.g.: Cast on the closest patch without a mule on it (given that the first mule should barely live when the second one is casted). Which would be good enough and still a thousand times better than manual muling.
This doesn't fix the inability to auto-mule patches on different bases. You always want to mule your latest acquired expansion. Auto-muling your main while having a third is terrible. It should really just auto-mule whatever patch your rally point is set on. But if you're not sure whether it's in 30 range this becomes hopelessly awkward. If you turn it off, then you're losing minerals every second the cooldown timer is done. But I agree, it's obviously badly implemented.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-inject suffers similarily in a way: You cannot prevent the first inject and put down a creep tumor or store energy for transfusions. And you need extra micro to prevent a queen from injecting in a situation in which you wouldn't want to when it stands next to a hatch. A simple solution would be to only let queens autoinject if they aren't on a different order and have been idle for like 1-2seconds.
A better solution (for your first point) would be to be given the option to disable auto-inject from the menu (for all games) so that you'd have to manually put them on auto-inject, just like for the automated worker starts.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote:Chronoboost is optimal, because it has been averaged out. It is actually nerfed in the way that you can't pre-store energy and then chrono a thing for it's whole duration to get 50% faster production for that thing, and 0% for everything else. You now get continuously 20%. 20% when you would have stored, 20% for the thing itself. It makes Protoss less binary, but still keeps the nice effects of chronoboosts in the game. And outside of rushes, you wouldn't do the store+burst out chronos perfectly anyways, so it isn't that different for things like upgrades.
Not sure what you're point is, but what I'm saying is that protosses will want to chrono buildings other than their nexuses. Hence chronoboost is not "full on" automated.
Ah yeah, that's what I was saying too. I thought you complained about the chronoboost starting on the nexus for some reason being a drawback when you want to switch it. You're completely right on that, the chronoboost is not automated at all, it's only extended.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-mule is just badly implemented at the moment. There would be simple solutions to the "always mule the closest patch", if blizzard would give a conditionbased trigger a try. E.g.: Cast on the closest patch without a mule on it (given that the first mule should barely live when the second one is casted). Which would be good enough and still a thousand times better than manual muling.
This doesn't fix the inability to auto-mule patches on different bases. You always want to mule your latest acquired expansion. Auto-muling your main while having a third is terrible. It should really just auto-mule whatever patch your rally point is set on. But if you're not sure whether it's in 30 range this becomes hopelessly awkward. If you turn it off, then you're losing minerals every second the cooldown timer is done. But I agree, it's obviously badly implemented.
Hardly any automation is ever perfect in every single way. Is it good enough to balance around it? Or will people turn it off and do it manually instead? I believe the first one is the case - at least if they would deal with the issue of mining out a single patch very fast -, hence the patch fullfills its purpose.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-inject suffers similarily in a way: You cannot prevent the first inject and put down a creep tumor or store energy for transfusions. And you need extra micro to prevent a queen from injecting in a situation in which you wouldn't want to when it stands next to a hatch. A simple solution would be to only let queens autoinject if they aren't on a different order and have been idle for like 1-2seconds.
A better solution (for your first point) would be to be given the option to disable auto-inject from the menu (for all games) so that you'd have to manually put them on auto-inject, just like for the automated worker starts.
I don't like the menu changing the AI behavior. AI should always be the same, so that you and your opponent knows what they are dealing with.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-mule is just badly implemented at the moment. There would be simple solutions to the "always mule the closest patch", if blizzard would give a conditionbased trigger a try. E.g.: Cast on the closest patch without a mule on it (given that the first mule should barely live when the second one is casted). Which would be good enough and still a thousand times better than manual muling.
This doesn't fix the inability to auto-mule patches on different bases. You always want to mule your latest acquired expansion. Auto-muling your main while having a third is terrible. It should really just auto-mule whatever patch your rally point is set on. But if you're not sure whether it's in 30 range this becomes hopelessly awkward. If you turn it off, then you're losing minerals every second the cooldown timer is done. But I agree, it's obviously badly implemented.
Hardly any automation is ever perfect in every single way. Is it good enough to balance around it? Or will people turn it off and do it manually instead? I believe the first one is the case - at least if they would deal with the issue of mining out a single patch very fast -, hence the patch fullfills its purpose.
That's another good point, mining out a single patch quickly, as well as muling your main is really bad. It might be tweaked so that it mules uniformly across the patches, but this is kind of an odd fix.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-inject suffers similarily in a way: You cannot prevent the first inject and put down a creep tumor or store energy for transfusions. And you need extra micro to prevent a queen from injecting in a situation in which you wouldn't want to when it stands next to a hatch. A simple solution would be to only let queens autoinject if they aren't on a different order and have been idle for like 1-2seconds.
A better solution (for your first point) would be to be given the option to disable auto-inject from the menu (for all games) so that you'd have to manually put them on auto-inject, just like for the automated worker starts.
I don't like the menu changing the AI behavior. AI should always be the same, so that you and your opponent knows what they are dealing with.
Right now you can turn the automated worker start off. I don't see any reason why this should not be an option, practically every player above a certain rank would have it off anyway. Everything which has an auto-cast on by default should be an option IMO. This way no one have to deal with stupid AI behavior against their will when there's an easy solution which no one suffers from.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-mule is just badly implemented at the moment. There would be simple solutions to the "always mule the closest patch", if blizzard would give a conditionbased trigger a try. E.g.: Cast on the closest patch without a mule on it (given that the first mule should barely live when the second one is casted). Which would be good enough and still a thousand times better than manual muling.
This doesn't fix the inability to auto-mule patches on different bases. You always want to mule your latest acquired expansion. Auto-muling your main while having a third is terrible. It should really just auto-mule whatever patch your rally point is set on. But if you're not sure whether it's in 30 range this becomes hopelessly awkward. If you turn it off, then you're losing minerals every second the cooldown timer is done. But I agree, it's obviously badly implemented.
Hardly any automation is ever perfect in every single way. Is it good enough to balance around it? Or will people turn it off and do it manually instead? I believe the first one is the case - at least if they would deal with the issue of mining out a single patch very fast -, hence the patch fullfills its purpose.
That's another good point, mining out a single patch quickly, as well as muling your main is really bad. It might be tweaked so that it mules uniformly across the patches, but this is kind of an odd fix.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-inject suffers similarily in a way: You cannot prevent the first inject and put down a creep tumor or store energy for transfusions. And you need extra micro to prevent a queen from injecting in a situation in which you wouldn't want to when it stands next to a hatch. A simple solution would be to only let queens autoinject if they aren't on a different order and have been idle for like 1-2seconds.
A better solution (for your first point) would be to be given the option to disable auto-inject from the menu (for all games) so that you'd have to manually put them on auto-inject, just like for the automated worker starts.
I don't like the menu changing the AI behavior. AI should always be the same, so that you and your opponent knows what they are dealing with.
Right now you can turn the automated worker start off. I don't see any reason why this should not be an option, practically every player above a certain rank would have it off anyway. Everything which has an auto-cast on by default should be an option IMO. This way no one have to deal with stupid AI behavior against their will when there's an easy solution which no one suffers from.
Dat elitism tho.
I'm so incredibly awesome that I turn off my medivac's auto-cast. I manually heal. Manual. Heal.
Sometimes the game actually starts late for players which is one reason the worker autocast was added. When the game starts you'll find the workers are already moving at times. It's not 'gosu' or even good to turn the autocast off.
On September 04 2015 07:29 Tuczniak wrote: So what's your opinion Big J?
If drops are not good enough later on I believe they should tinker with overlord speed, which is currently slower than unstimmed marines (after the speed upgrade).
As they should be. They're overlords not foot soldiers. Do you actually think your overlords, which give supply and 13 vision, should move as fast as combat units?
On September 04 2015 07:29 Tuczniak wrote: So what's your opinion Big J?
If drops are not good enough later on I believe they should tinker with overlord speed, which is currently slower than unstimmed marines (after the speed upgrade).
As they should be. They're overlords not foot soldiers. Do you actually think your overlords, which give supply and 13 vision, should move as fast as combat units?
You are right. My preferred option would be to remove overlord drops completely and give zerg a dedicated, strong drop unit. E.g. they could remove the two semi-useful spells from the overseer and give it the ability to drop instead and increase the cost for them.
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-mule is just badly implemented at the moment. There would be simple solutions to the "always mule the closest patch", if blizzard would give a conditionbased trigger a try. E.g.: Cast on the closest patch without a mule on it (given that the first mule should barely live when the second one is casted). Which would be good enough and still a thousand times better than manual muling.
This doesn't fix the inability to auto-mule patches on different bases. You always want to mule your latest acquired expansion. Auto-muling your main while having a third is terrible. It should really just auto-mule whatever patch your rally point is set on. But if you're not sure whether it's in 30 range this becomes hopelessly awkward. If you turn it off, then you're losing minerals every second the cooldown timer is done. But I agree, it's obviously badly implemented.
Hardly any automation is ever perfect in every single way. Is it good enough to balance around it? Or will people turn it off and do it manually instead? I believe the first one is the case - at least if they would deal with the issue of mining out a single patch very fast -, hence the patch fullfills its purpose.
That's another good point, mining out a single patch quickly, as well as muling your main is really bad. It might be tweaked so that it mules uniformly across the patches, but this is kind of an odd fix.
On September 09 2015 07:45 Big J wrote:
On September 09 2015 07:12 cheekymonkey wrote:
On September 09 2015 06:37 Big J wrote: Auto-inject suffers similarily in a way: You cannot prevent the first inject and put down a creep tumor or store energy for transfusions. And you need extra micro to prevent a queen from injecting in a situation in which you wouldn't want to when it stands next to a hatch. A simple solution would be to only let queens autoinject if they aren't on a different order and have been idle for like 1-2seconds.
A better solution (for your first point) would be to be given the option to disable auto-inject from the menu (for all games) so that you'd have to manually put them on auto-inject, just like for the automated worker starts.
I don't like the menu changing the AI behavior. AI should always be the same, so that you and your opponent knows what they are dealing with.
Right now you can turn the automated worker start off. I don't see any reason why this should not be an option, practically every player above a certain rank would have it off anyway. Everything which has an auto-cast on by default should be an option IMO. This way no one have to deal with stupid AI behavior against their will when there's an easy solution which no one suffers from.
Dat elitism tho.
I'm so incredibly awesome that I turn off my medivac's auto-cast. I manually heal. Manual. Heal.
On September 09 2015 12:55 crazedrat wrote: Sometimes the game actually starts late for players which is one reason the worker autocast was added. When the game starts you'll find the workers are already moving at times. It's not 'gosu' or even good to turn the autocast off.
Two things you're misunderstanding. 1) I'm talking about auto-inject. 2) I'm talking about toggling off an option "queens start with auto-inject". That doesn't mean that you don't put it on.
On September 09 2015 01:53 The_Red_Viper wrote: It isn't only important that the game is hard enough, it is rather important that it is hard enough in a lot of different areas. The removal of manual injects doesn't achieve this goal though.
Where should attention go. And people just have different opinions on this topic.
Attention should go wherever the player wants it to go (so we have players with vastly different playstyles) The best case scenario would be a game where you can specialize on macro OR micro (and anything in between)
Removing macro requirements does balance the skewed macro:micro relation of the game a bit to become more equal. I know you hold the stance that instead of taking away from the macro side, they should add to the micro side. And I believe that is a valid opinion. But I'm not sure how this could be achieved. Changes to unit-control only go that far, you're still going to lose to someone who hit his injects better and made 15 extra roaches, even if your roaches now have 0damage point and you do fancy burrow micro and all that nice stuff.
I'm of the opinion that things in the game should be "equally strong" to begin with. Because that's what makes you make decisions. And inject for 25energy on a T1-150/0/2 spellcaster simply is better than abduct, blinding cloud, parasitic bomb, spawn IT, fungal growth, neural parasite and so on and so on.
See i mostly talk abot larva inject cause i think reducing the efficiency of the macro mechanics was a good decision. (even though i think automatic chrono and mules is questionable too) But when we look at injects i get the feeling that blizzard pretty much removed the terran/toss equivalent of building units in time. Terran and Toss still have to do this (yes there are queues, but still), if you don't build the marines in time you simply will have less army and bad macro. While there still is some of that for zerg (mostly workers though tbh, sometimes timings) you simply always have the larva you need to mass produce your units no matter what. So i definitely see a macro problem for zerg, macro is simply too trivial with zerg right now. Add to this that zerg always was the race which could a move to victory (kinda) and you will see that the inject change created huge balance problems too.
Toss and Terran are in a good spot i think (even though i still would prefer harder macro in general) but zerg is a joke imo.
I play Zerg and I feel exactly the same as you. It's both unfair to protoss and terran which have not being made easier and boring to me how easier Zerg has become, and it will be a nightmare to balance. We are going to see a lot of pro Zerg player playing at high level given they will all have the same injects mechanics. Creep spread might different them, but except in ZvT it is not so important in the game to have insanely good creep spread, and anyway, everyone will get better at it. Strategies might differentiate them for a while, but in the end everything will be more or less map downed. Micro and Multitask will probably be the main differentiate parameter between Zerg player, but in the end when all your attention is focused on it everyone will be good at it.
So in the end, what I was trying to say is that there will be a shit lot of Zerg with apparent similar level, and if you balance the game so Zerg is not over-represented in leagues, it will result to Zerg being a bit underpowered and the highest level Zerg will get fucked by it. If you balance the game so at the highest level is balanced and fair, you'll get a lot of Zerg in every leagues like infestor-BroodLord area (which was both too strong and too easy to get) and a *vZ fest in Plat-Diam-Master ladder.
@Big J : The_Red_Viper summed up more or less what I think. You say that this changed of macro mechanics, even though not desired by korean player, was a response from Blizzard to answer the complaints from said Korean players that the amount of micro/abilities was not manageable: They made macro easier so more time/actions can be given to micro and multi-tasking. Although it is (personally) a direction I would not like the game to take, it's an acceptable position in principle. In practice, it is a complete failure: Terran might have become, with auto-cast mules, only slightly easier, Chronoboost, funny enough, seems to be a bit more difficult, and Zerg is a shit ton easier.
And I completely disagree when you said that inject was not interesting, please do not speak for everyone here. It is a valid and respectable opinion, but do not pretend that it is one that is shared by everyone.
On September 04 2015 07:29 Tuczniak wrote: So what's your opinion Big J?
If drops are not good enough later on I believe they should tinker with overlord speed, which is currently slower than unstimmed marines (after the speed upgrade).
As they should be. They're overlords not foot soldiers. Do you actually think your overlords, which give supply and 13 vision, should move as fast as combat units?
You are right. My preferred option would be to remove overlord drops completely and give zerg a dedicated, strong drop unit. E.g. they could remove the two semi-useful spells from the overseer and give it the ability to drop instead and increase the cost for them.
maybe a 100/100 zero supply costing "unit" that can transport your whole army but can't move?
perhaps they could just find a way to better balance the cost / reward for nydus (like making it 50/50 that builds almost instantly but can only transport 8 supply)
So why don't just give Overseers drop capability? Makes sense to me, they are upgraded overlords. Could also remove the dumb contaminate spell, if that thing is still in the game (haven't seen it in ages).
If it's too good in early game then make them cost more or Lair tech?
On September 09 2015 19:30 Salteador Neo wrote: So why don't just give Overseers drop capability? Makes sense to me, they are upgraded overlords. Could also remove the dumb contaminate spell, if that thing is still in the game (haven't seen it in ages).
If it's too good in early game then make them cost more or Lair tech?
Mmmh let's consider this, this change would imply that
* drop a lair tech. * oviedrop cost twice * drop faster as overseer are faster than overlord * you can't fake that you have drop with overlord.
On September 09 2015 19:00 y0su wrote: maybe a 100/100 zero supply costing "unit" that can transport your whole army but can't move?
ahaha, described like that, the nydus sounds like a completely nonsensical unit.
Let's make a dropship! But it costs NO SUPPLY!! And it can carry INFINITELY MANY UNITS!! That makes it very powerful, so we counter that by making it reaaally slow! In fact, it CAN'T MOVE AT ALL!!!
On September 09 2015 18:52 Vanadiel wrote: @Big J : The_Red_Viper summed up more or less what I think. You say that this changed of macro mechanics, even though not desired by korean player, was a response from Blizzard to answer the complaints from said Korean players that the amount of micro/abilities was not manageable: They made macro easier so more time/actions can be given to micro and multi-tasking. Although it is (personally) a direction I would not like the game to take, it's an acceptable position in principle. In practice, it is a complete failure: Terran might have become, with auto-cast mules, only slightly easier, Chronoboost, funny enough, seems to be a bit more difficult, and Zerg is a shit ton easier.
And I completely disagree when you said that inject was not interesting, please do not speak for everyone here. It is a valid and respectable opinion, but do not pretend that it is one that is shared by everyone.
I respect your and his opinion, but I don't feel obligated to respond to that argument anymore, because I have done so in the past. The tldr of it is that I don't think the HotS situation is equally hard in the macro and difficulty of fundamental asyemtric features and strategies is balanced through overall balance.
I'm not speaking for everyone here. It's my opinion, even if I don't add "in my opinion" to every sentence. Same goes obviously vis-verca when you state things like
In practice, it is a complete failure: Terran might have become, with auto-cast mules, only slightly easier, Chronoboost, funny enough, seems to be a bit more difficult, and Zerg is a shit ton easier.
That's also just your opinion, even if you do not imply a phrase specifiying it.
On September 04 2015 07:29 Tuczniak wrote: So what's your opinion Big J?
If drops are not good enough later on I believe they should tinker with overlord speed, which is currently slower than unstimmed marines (after the speed upgrade).
As they should be. They're overlords not foot soldiers. Do you actually think your overlords, which give supply and 13 vision, should move as fast as combat units?
You are right. My preferred option would be to remove overlord drops completely and give zerg a dedicated, strong drop unit. E.g. they could remove the two semi-useful spells from the overseer and give it the ability to drop instead and increase the cost for them.
maybe a 100/100 zero supply costing "unit" that can transport your whole army but can't move?
perhaps they could just find a way to better balance the cost / reward for nydus (like making it 50/50 that builds almost instantly but can only transport 8 supply)
Doomdrops, Nydus and 20zealot in your base warpins are the dark side of transportation. I hope that therefore nydus stays as gimmicky/situational/weak as it is in HotS. Unless they redesign it. Your suggestions sounds very interesting.
On September 09 2015 18:52 Vanadiel wrote: @Big J : The_Red_Viper summed up more or less what I think. You say that this changed of macro mechanics, even though not desired by korean player, was a response from Blizzard to answer the complaints from said Korean players that the amount of micro/abilities was not manageable: They made macro easier so more time/actions can be given to micro and multi-tasking. Although it is (personally) a direction I would not like the game to take, it's an acceptable position in principle. In practice, it is a complete failure: Terran might have become, with auto-cast mules, only slightly easier, Chronoboost, funny enough, seems to be a bit more difficult, and Zerg is a shit ton easier.
And I completely disagree when you said that inject was not interesting, please do not speak for everyone here. It is a valid and respectable opinion, but do not pretend that it is one that is shared by everyone.
I respect your and his opinion, but I don't feel obligated to respond to that argument anymore, because I have done so in the past. The tldr of it is that I don't think the HotS situation is equally hard in the macro and difficulty of fundamental asyemtric features and strategies is balanced through overall balance.
I'm not speaking for everyone here. It's my opinion, even if I don't add "in my opinion" to every sentence. Same goes obviously vis-verca when you state things like
In practice, it is a complete failure: Terran might have become, with auto-cast mules, only slightly easier, Chronoboost, funny enough, seems to be a bit more difficult, and Zerg is a shit ton easier.
That's also just your opinion, even if you do not imply a phrase specifiying it.
Does anyone would actually disagree that Zerg has became easier with this patch compared to LoTV pre-macromech changed, while the "macro-difficulty" of playing terran or protoss remained more or less untouched? You can think that in the end it is not a problem because you feel that Zerg was more difficult mechanically before so in the end it's even things, or that difficulty was not even before so it's not problematic that it is not even now. I disagree with that but it's a respectable opinion, but there can be no denial to the fact that Zerg has been made easier while terran and protoss did not. Of course, the scale at which Zerg has been made easier is debatable, but I think pretty much would agree that it is not negligible.
I'm not in the beta but I do think the new automule and constant chronoboost should have made protoss and terran macro easier. Not better, but easier. Their implementation probably needs some tweaks tho.
edit: I stand corrected by brickrd, thanks for the tip because I haven't watched that many games lately.
On September 09 2015 19:30 Salteador Neo wrote: So why don't just give Overseers drop capability? Makes sense to me, they are upgraded overlords. Could also remove the dumb contaminate spell, if that thing is still in the game (haven't seen it in ages).
If it's too good in early game then make them cost more or Lair tech?
contaminate is used regularly at pro level especially to delay upgrades in zvz
Has anyone figured out if there is a rhyme or reason to where the MULE is called down to from an OC? Yesterday I was playing on Dash & Terminal and a Zerg went Ravager and it seemed without fail my MULE would spawn on the mineral patch most exposed to the Ravager skill shot. I wanted it to spawn on the other side of the mineral field but I don't think I have any control over that.
On September 09 2015 23:32 Tenks wrote: Has anyone figured out if there is a rhyme or reason to where the MULE is called down to from an OC? Yesterday I was playing on Dash & Terminal and a Zerg went Ravager and it seemed without fail my MULE would spawn on the mineral patch most exposed to the Ravager skill shot. I wanted it to spawn on the other side of the mineral field but I don't think I have any control over that.
The usual SC2-criterium is closest target from the caster. So in this case it should simply be the closest mineral patch. If there are two mineral patches equally close, I believe the tiebreaker is some rule like "right before left". It probably roots in the way the search algorithm for targets is implemented. For example a simple search algorithm could look like this: So in this example the CC would search for a target in concentric circles and end its search when doing the third round and running into a mineral (which must be closest, otherwise there would have been a mineral within the first 2circles). That mineral would now be selected for muling. Note that the mineral is not the only closest mineral in this example (bottom blue is equally close). But everytime this algorithm is performed from this CC (unless the CC could turn, which it can't in it's static form) it would find the same mineral patch first.
On September 09 2015 23:32 Tenks wrote: Has anyone figured out if there is a rhyme or reason to where the MULE is called down to from an OC? Yesterday I was playing on Dash & Terminal and a Zerg went Ravager and it seemed without fail my MULE would spawn on the mineral patch most exposed to the Ravager skill shot. I wanted it to spawn on the other side of the mineral field but I don't think I have any control over that.
The usual SC2-criterium is closest target from the caster. So in this case it should simply be the closest mineral patch. If there are two mineral patches equally close, I believe the tiebreaker is some rule like "right before left". It probably roots in the way the search algorithm for targets is implemented. For example a simple search algorithm could look like this: So in this example the CC would search for a target in concentric circles and end its search when doing the third round and running into a mineral (which must be closest, otherwise there would have been a mineral within the first 2circles). That mineral would now be selected for muling. Note that the mineral is not the only closest mineral in this example (bottom blue is equally close). But everytime this algorithm is performed from this CC (unless the CC could turn, which it can't in it's static form) it would find the same mineral patch first.
this is very close to what I think it does but more specifically I believe it uses Dijkstra's Algorithm in a nutshell, its a pathing algorithm that searches a nearby space, then if it didn't find anything it searches a bigger space, repeat until you find what you are looking for or until all space has been searched.
the main difference between your explanation and dijkstras algorithm is you mentioned a circular area, dijsktra uses "adjacent nodes" instead.
On September 09 2015 23:32 Tenks wrote: Has anyone figured out if there is a rhyme or reason to where the MULE is called down to from an OC? Yesterday I was playing on Dash & Terminal and a Zerg went Ravager and it seemed without fail my MULE would spawn on the mineral patch most exposed to the Ravager skill shot. I wanted it to spawn on the other side of the mineral field but I don't think I have any control over that.
The usual SC2-criterium is closest target from the caster. So in this case it should simply be the closest mineral patch. If there are two mineral patches equally close, I believe the tiebreaker is some rule like "right before left". It probably roots in the way the search algorithm for targets is implemented. For example a simple search algorithm could look like this: So in this example the CC would search for a target in concentric circles and end its search when doing the third round and running into a mineral (which must be closest, otherwise there would have been a mineral within the first 2circles). That mineral would now be selected for muling. Note that the mineral is not the only closest mineral in this example (bottom blue is equally close). But everytime this algorithm is performed from this CC (unless the CC could turn, which it can't in it's static form) it would find the same mineral patch first.
this is very close to what I think it does but more specifically I believe it uses Dijkstra's Algorithm in a nutshell, its a pathing algorithm that searches a nearby space, then if it didn't find anything it searches a bigger space, repeat until you find what you are looking for or until all space has been searched.
the main difference between your explanation and dijkstras algorithm is you mentioned a circular area, dijsktra uses "adjacent nodes" instead.
Interesting one, do you happen to know whether this is the current state of the art? Also, does Dijkstra's algorithm find the closest mineral patch amonst multiple ones though? Because the way I understand it what it does is that it finds a way to one specific target and once it has found that target, it also knows the shortest way to the target. But I wonder if it always finds the closest target first if I gave it multiple possibilities. But yeah, obviously they are using some more advanced algorithm than what I painted. One that is using the underlying board-structure of maps and maybe other SC2-specific stuff like Dijkstra's.
On September 09 2015 23:32 Tenks wrote: Has anyone figured out if there is a rhyme or reason to where the MULE is called down to from an OC? Yesterday I was playing on Dash & Terminal and a Zerg went Ravager and it seemed without fail my MULE would spawn on the mineral patch most exposed to the Ravager skill shot. I wanted it to spawn on the other side of the mineral field but I don't think I have any control over that.
The usual SC2-criterium is closest target from the caster. So in this case it should simply be the closest mineral patch. If there are two mineral patches equally close, I believe the tiebreaker is some rule like "right before left". It probably roots in the way the search algorithm for targets is implemented. For example a simple search algorithm could look like this: So in this example the CC would search for a target in concentric circles and end its search when doing the third round and running into a mineral (which must be closest, otherwise there would have been a mineral within the first 2circles). That mineral would now be selected for muling. Note that the mineral is not the only closest mineral in this example (bottom blue is equally close). But everytime this algorithm is performed from this CC (unless the CC could turn, which it can't in it's static form) it would find the same mineral patch first.
this is very close to what I think it does but more specifically I believe it uses Dijkstra's Algorithm in a nutshell, its a pathing algorithm that searches a nearby space, then if it didn't find anything it searches a bigger space, repeat until you find what you are looking for or until all space has been searched.
the main difference between your explanation and dijkstras algorithm is you mentioned a circular area, dijsktra uses "adjacent nodes" instead.
Interesting one, do you happen to know whether this is the current state of the art? Also, does Dijkstra's algorithm find the closest mineral patch amonst multiple ones though? Because the way I understand it what it does is that it finds a way to one specific target and once it has found that target, it also knows the shortest way to the target. But I wonder if it always finds the closest target first if I gave it multiple possibilities. But yeah, obviously they are using some more advanced algorithm than what I painted. One that is using the underlying board-structure of maps and maybe other SC2-specific stuff like Dijkstra's.
I don't think we can assume they use advanced algorithms. They probably just take the minimum distance nodes checked within a region and in case of ties they may very just pouch the one that happens to be first in their vector. I guess we should try to place the minerals in different order in the map editor and see if the mile always good to the first place one. not sure that the map making order will be retained to the mile search of course, they probably resort them by x-y coordinates or something well before that.
On September 10 2015 01:27 Tenks wrote: I wish the MULE would get called down on the SCV rally point instead of using some way to scan for which patch to drop the MULE upon
If their goal is to eliminate the screen movement and number of clicks, then they shouldn't do that. It should just call down on the patch with the highest mineral amount. If they want to let you pick the mule calldown spot, it should fall on the highest patch in the currently rallied mineral line.
On September 10 2015 06:51 Charoisaur wrote: having to relocate orbitals at mined out bases is a nightmare. terran macro surely hasn't become easier with this patch.
The idea is that you simply don't. If you start relocating to get extra value you are either doing it wrong, or the patch didn't nerf it hard enough.
On September 10 2015 01:27 Tenks wrote: I wish the MULE would get called down on the SCV rally point instead of using some way to scan for which patch to drop the MULE upon
There are several problems with this, if you misrally you will call down your mule somewhere random. And usually you will rally to nearly finished bases, and sometimes away from patches in case of harassment or attacks. But you don't want to mule there. There are just so many problems with auto-muling. As much as I hate the radius restriction, I'd rather keep it and have the mule going back to energy.
Game pathfinding doesn't use Djikstra's. It'll use something like A* instead, which takes advantage of a heuristic (like Euclidean distance) to do an informed search.
As far as muling goes, it almost certainly just choose the closest node that it can reach (in other words, the closest node for which the pathfinder can find a path). Unless you're in the habit of building sim-cities around your mineral patches, that's just the closest node.
Zerg macro is all about not forgetting injects, and creep. Even under stress, even if not all injects are lined up. and can be be done 1,2,3. Doing multiple things under stress perfectly is the definition of the mechanic in SC2.
It's hard when you are getting attacked some secondes before you had to inject. Yeah. So is forgetting 1 Round of marines from 12 Rax, because you just had to defend some mutas.
But with Auto inject its SUPER FORGIVING. It's like Archon mode for 1v1.
Protoss and Terran are given a faster rate at the income, at best. Zerg gets a fully automated Production, if you add a hatch and a queen, once in a while. That's plain BS. Its boring for Good zerg even in 1v1 it's making zerg archon obsolete.
Yes its a mindnumbing taskt by it self, but it added balance to the game, in a sense that Macro was hard for every race. But since the Races play out so uniquely, you can not throw Mule,chrono and inject in the same category. Mule made up for slowest worker production, and slowest remax, and repair-Ability for burning Buildings. Chrono can be used to boost eco. Or sharpen timings, or getting even on upgrades...but it requiered decisions. Inject is stupid (almost) no decsion, but its unforgiving to those zergs who forget about it. And that was okay. Starcraft is an serial game. You can not give 2 orders at once, you have to do them one after another. Critical micro in two places + Macro is almost impossible.
Inject was one of the critical tasks, you could always inject over micro, or you can go for the micro, and inject later. And once on the task of micro, bad players almost always delay their inject.
TL;DR Unless you give terran the possibility to spent 4000 mins from automule instantly into 80 Marines, remove the auto-inject from the Game.
On September 10 2015 19:57 Endymion wrote: blizz honestly needs to wipe all LOTV changes, go to dh9/10, and balance from there.. otherwise i'm convinced LOTV will be dead on arrival in korea
That would be so good. DH 9/10 model (with a spice of Blizzard own change on the economical model, after all I do not think that they are incompatible), removed auto-cast stuff but maybe improve macro mechanics so these are less punishing if they really want it. I feel sad because I actually like all the new units except the cyclone and I feel they improved the game quit a lot, but as as KT_Elwood says, this autocast macro mechanics are a deal breaker for me.
My TvZ mech went from a 75% win rate to about 10% since the Ravager change went live. Anyone else feel this was a completely ridiculous change? Feel like it hard counters everything mech has.
I switched out liberators for medivacs to heal hellbats and pick up tanks, as well as mixed in some cyclones, but nothing can seem to compete.
On September 11 2015 15:55 DooMDash wrote: My TvZ mech went from a 75% win rate to about 10% since the Ravager change went live. Anyone else feel this was a completely ridiculous change? Feel like it hard counters everything mech has.
I switched out liberators for medivacs to heal hellbats and pick up tanks, as well as mixed in some cyclones, but nothing can seem to compete.
Any advice to mechers or Zergs?
I've been playing Zerg recently with limited success with the ravager upgrade specifically due to medivac tanks. They simply move it over where I mortar and then drop the tanks and fire on my units themselves. Note: my opponents are using some, but notably less liberators as well as a result.
On September 11 2015 15:55 DooMDash wrote: My TvZ mech went from a 75% win rate to about 10% since the Ravager change went live. Anyone else feel this was a completely ridiculous change? Feel like it hard counters everything mech has.
I switched out liberators for medivacs to heal hellbats and pick up tanks, as well as mixed in some cyclones, but nothing can seem to compete.
Any advice to mechers or Zergs?
I've been playing Zerg recently with limited success with the ravager upgrade specifically due to medivac tanks. They simply move it over where I mortar and then drop the tanks and fire on my units themselves. Note: my opponents are using some, but notably less liberators as well as a result.
Yeah I've been trying this, and so far I haven't had much luck. I will keep trying though.
HOTS wasn't too hard, it was/is too easy! I can do ALL the macro, well not now, haven't played for so long, but I could do all the perfect macro. In fact the "macro" mechanics were nothing more than EASY MECHANICS, mules make the game easier for terran, charge makes the game easier for protoss, only zerg macro mechanics required skill, but not a lot.
So instead of increasing the difficulty and making the "macro"(easy) mechanics more hard, they decided to make it easier so that 10yo and younger kids can play.
Its like playing football with robot legs, where is the fun in that?
On September 13 2015 11:39 BillGates wrote: HOTS wasn't too hard, it was/is too easy! I can do ALL the macro, well not now, haven't played for so long, but I could do all the perfect macro. In fact the "macro" mechanics were nothing more than EASY MECHANICS, mules make the game easier for terran, charge makes the game easier for protoss, only zerg macro mechanics required skill, but not a lot.
So instead of increasing the difficulty and making the "macro"(easy) mechanics more hard, they decided to make it easier so that 10yo and younger kids can play.
Its like playing football with robot legs, where is the fun in that?
Sounds extremely interesting, considering even Maru says he`s not fully mastered HotS yet.
Maybe you can be the greatest foreigner in SC2 history.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Ny20qn4.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gNyw1lP.jpg)
