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http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/19267196539#1
Welcome back for another Community Feedback Update. We’ve got some topics to discuss regarding balance, as well as some topics on Terran and Protoss.
Perfect Balance Thread
We saw the popular thread this week stating how Heart of the Swarm has near perfect balance. We wanted to say a few things about that. First is the game’s current balance is really a combined effort of everyone doing his or her part to make the results this good. For example, if players of a certain race aren’t playing as well as they would normally, even with our current numbers, the in-game stats wouldn’t look as good. Also, due to the heavy collaboration with our community, we feel that the perception around good stats has improved. In the past, we’ve seen many negative responses to posts like this due to less people being connected. Now however, due to increased community collaboration, we feel that this weird negativity has largely been dispelled.
The other important thing we’d like to point out is that while it’s true that LotV balance definitely won’t start off this good, this post and your thoughts around it was a good example of how there’s an extremely high confidence that we can get there over time. We say this because our processes having improved over the years, many community members have leveled up in their thought processes and suggestions, and players playing the game at a much higher level.
Thank you everyone for the high positive engagement throughout this year, and we hope that we can continue this throughout LotV as well.
Heart of the Swarm Patch?
Balance is looking pretty good right now, better players seem to win in each matchup, and we don’t want to risk Zerg being on the stronger side for BlizzCon finals, so we’ve decided not to do a HotS patch. Thank you for your feedback regarding this, and thank you for playtesting in the latest balance test map. Your efforts are always appreciated and helpful when we make these kinds of decisions.
Terran MULE
We’ve seen that the mining rate nerf wasn’t a good choice for the MULE. It’s hurting the cases where MULE’s need to be pulled off of minerals, and the randomness that can occur of a MULE not being dropped optimally causes more varying return amounts per MULE than we expected. Therefore, we’d like to revert this nerf, and reduce the harvest amount per trip instead to not have these effects. Also, the harvest amount nerf was too much, so we’ll be looking at a slightly smaller overall nerf to the MULE for the next patch. This should bring Terran up a bit in strength overall, which we think is a good thing since Terran is the slightly weaker of the 3 races currently.
Adept
Adepts do look to be in a much better place like you guys point out, but we also agree with the feedback that they probably need to be nerfed slightly more. We’d like to go for a slight nerf again to see where the unit stands. We’re currently thinking of reducing its life by 10.
Warp Prism and Warp-in Changes
The reduction in warp-in time is looking like it has a very small impact on the defensive case (units already warped in fast enough), and on the offense, the defending player really has no time to move the defending units around. We believe this is the issue with the Warp Prism, and would like to try out going to 4-5 seconds to warp in units. In this scenario, we would also remove the double-damage penalty for units warping in. We’re not too worried about the defensive warp-in case with these changes, because defensive units being warped-in to defend has always been strong and quick enough throughout Wings and HotS.
We did also look into the popular suggestion of making faster warp-ins an upgrade, but during internal playtesting, we realized it just pushes the problem to a later timing where the issue is arguably worse. Not having time to react in terms of army movement is the issue, so we felt the super quick warp-in ability just isn’t that great at any stage of the game.
Cyclone
We’ve had many discussions with players regarding this unit in the past week, and there seems to be a general consensus that Cyclones, when in small numbers, need to be buffed. We definitely agree but we want to make sure any buff we apply doesn’t make massing only Cyclones a viable strategy. We feel that it’s the 7 range required to lock-on that makes mass Cyclones much less effective than before, so we will try to avoid a buff in areas such as this.
For the early/mid game buff, we have been playtesting with a movement speed increase to the base unit to allow the Cyclone to be microed a bit easier, and it’s looking pretty solid so far. It definitely buffs both the defensive and offensive Cyclone usage in the early/mid game, so we would like to try out this change in the beta.
We also heard the feedback that they should be removed from the game, and while this is doable if it truly came down to it, we’d like to explore getting them to a good place first. We also wanted to remind everyone that being too extreme in feedback generally isn’t as helpful as offering constructive ways to solve issues within the game.
The Disruptor and the Warp Prism
We heard your feedback about allowing the Disruptor to load into the Warp Prism while Purification Nova is active and we also agree that this would be a good change. This will add new tactics in Disruptor versus Disruptor fights where, in the past, the person who fired off their nova second would be guaranteed dead. How it will work is if you have fired the ability, but pick up the Disruptor before the damage goes off, the damaging effect will fizzle, dealing no damage. This will create for cool micro moments in game where players will need to decide if they would rather save their Disruptor or deal damage. We’ll be making this change in the next balance update.
We’re aiming to get the next balance update out as soon as possible, and while we don’t know for certain yet, we’d like to release the update as soon as tomorrow afternoon.
That’s it for this week. We’re looking forward to hear your thoughts after you’ve given these changes a go.
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Phoenix wars in pvp?
Liberators?
Disruptor vs Disruptor wars?
No comment on these areas?
Times ticking and we need these adressed too...
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Disrupter vs Distuptor wars is *literally* addressed.
Reasonable update; taking things one step at a time. It's only normal they don't respond to everyone's Christmaslist, although I could also be mad that they didn't look at mine. But that would be highly unreasonable.
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Ultras? Parasitic bomb? Carriers? I thought this is the balance phase so why don't you focus on the most broken things first?
Also remove tank drop, tvt is simply retarded with that.
And what about terribly designed units like tempests, oracles and swarmhosts, are they staying in their current form?
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Good call on the warp ins.
Also good to see they see the issue with Adepts, but disappointed they're looking at stat tweaks instead of addressing their timing, or the timing of their ability (no core unit starts with a special ability without upgrade).
Cyclone: I wish they considered a damage point of 0, if they are keen on making it more microable.
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On October 09 2015 08:01 Charoisaur wrote:
Ultras? Parasitic bomb? Carriers? I thought this is the balance phase so why don't you focus on the most broken things first?
Also remove tank drop, tvt is simply retarded with that.
And what about terribly designed units like tempests, oracles and swarmhosts, are they staying in their current form?
Base on the devs past work, by 'balance', i think they mean, just making the game hit the 50/50 win ratio, regardless of the design.
They will probably only touch upon them if it skewes the win ratios.
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For the early/mid game buff, we have been playtesting with a movement speed increase to the base unit to allow the Cyclone to be microed a bit easier, and it’s looking pretty solid so far. It definitely buffs both the defensive and offensive Cyclone usage in the early/mid game, so we would like to try out this change in the beta.
On October 09 2015 00:00 Athenau wrote:
And let's be realistic, the unit is not going to be removed at this late stage, and it isn't going to be redesigned. So the best we can hope for is that Blizzard balances it properly. And, give them credit, Blizzard is very good at making these sorts of fine balance adjustments.
The unit seems a touch undertuned at the moment, so I expect the next patch to bring a small buff (like lower lock-on cooldown or slightly higher speed).
Called it.
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On October 09 2015 07:57 Espartaquen wrote:
Phoenix wars in pvp?
Liberators?
Disruptor vs Disruptor wars?
No comment on these areas?
Times ticking and we need these adressed too...
You can start by introducing the problems.
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I agree that they shouldn't patch HotS just before Blizzcon, but I have a hard time seeing any Zerg player win it, if they have to go through a strong meching Terran. Luckily most of the Blizzcon Terrans are Bio players and Rogue has shown promise vs Mech.
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Geez. All the changes they are making are fine. I'd rather them fix things in small batches and do it correctly rather than try to fix EVERYTHING in one giant patch and fail.
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No mention of siege tank
No mention of cycloen being re-purposed for AA
No mention of PO
No mention of prevalence of Air focused compositions (BL/viper, carrier/tempest, ect)
eh...
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Please don't remove the double damage from warp ins! Don't go back to HotS warp-ins now with 4-5seconds and no downsides for the warping unit. I really liked the extra damage to the units, it gave you a clear incentive to targetfire in combats. If the damage is too extreme with the normal HotS warp time, maybe reduce it to 150% instead of 200%, but I feel like cutting it completely just takes away a lot from the new warpgate.
Also I want to add that I believe the adept should not be nerfed further right now with the warp change. It's base stats are worse than those of a bio-unit and comparable to the roach. The issue is only partly the adept but in general the warpgate/warp prism allins against Terran. The combination of cyclone buff and warp in nerfs could deal with that. In that light it also makes sense to keep extra damage for the warping units to counteract this timing play!
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Infestor still unviable?
Liberators still way better then the tank at holding ground?
Tank still able to be picked up yet sucking at doing it's original job of holding ground?
Adept still hella good early game (less so now) and sucks really bad late game.
Why do Cyclones even shoot at the ground? Mech has plenty of anti ground, Cyclone should be reworked into having a super crappy ground damage with better anti air capabilities (since they are obviously not going to put in the Goliath)
So many things that seem to be getting overlooked without even a mention.
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Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved.
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The new disruptor is really awkard to control.
I much preferred the old version of the disruptor because it wasn't as complicated and simpler to use.
Especially when combined with other units like high templars or sentries it becomes really difficult to control everything.
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On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved.
Which problem?
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On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved.
And change Bunker build time.
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For the early/mid game buff, we have been playtesting with a movement speed increase to the base unit to allow the Cyclone to be microed a bit easier
Was microing an auto-kiting unit really such a problem before, that the best solution they can come up with is to make it even easier? Removing it seems a more sensible of fixing such a stupid unit tbh.
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On October 09 2015 08:50 wongfeihung wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. And change Bunker build time.
Or roach burrow move speed^^
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I don't know, i still get the feeling that blizzard does the absolute minimum to make the community happy overall.
Dreamhack will be a big test and i hope it works out
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Adept issue is not about damage to light, not hp
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On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem?
The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did.
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On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did.
It's a problem, but it's a problem for another 30 days..
I'd rather see Blizzard focusing their effort on LOTV and not HOTS right now.
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On October 09 2015 08:29 jpg06051992 wrote:
(since they are obviously not going to put in the Goliath)
The Goliath exists, it just needs to transform to attack ground or air. It's built at the starport fyi.
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On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did.
So overpowered that the tvz winrate has been sub - 50% for the last two months and terran winning 3 premier tournaments this year.
Only because you have problems with mech on ladder doesn't mean it's overpowered.
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Pwah I don't know
I feel like giving them credit for making Protoss overall more interesting than it's ever been (which really wasn't too hard haha), especially with the current disruptors which are, IMO, the best designed unit in a long time.
I'm also happy with the lurker, the ravager and the new viper.
New Terran units are however problematic. Cyclone is, as has been stated lately, bound to either uselessness or complete imbalance. Liberators still have a horrible (HORRIBLE) model and pose a serious overlapping problem to the Tanks.
Tanks are long long overdue (five years really) a proper buff. They've been running around it by giving other unsatisfactory space-control options to Terran while they should just have made the Tank better.
I feel like it's time to definitely give up on simple changes that would redefine the game as a whole and make it a lot better to watch/play, such as high ground advantage, the removal of the warp-in mechanic or a deeper economy model.
LotV might turn out to be a good game... but I don't think it will.
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I like the overall tone of this weekly update. Speaking of collaboration is nice, and sounds like Blizzard is eventually open to removing the cyclone if needed, was surprised to hear that.
Like I said, nice tone. I feel hopeful.
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Anyone else notice how when it comes to balance, they didn't use numbers, like they always used to? I mean, they have them, why not just hit us with the statistics and drop that hammer? I smell stank.
Balance is looking pretty good right now, better players seem to win in each matchup, and we don’t want to risk Zerg being on the stronger side for BlizzCon finals, so we’ve decided not to do a HotS patch. Thank you for your feedback regarding this, and thank you for playtesting in the latest balance test map. Your efforts are always appreciated and helpful when we make these kinds of decisions.
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People need to stop asking for goliaths, goliaths don't work without BW pathing.
I'm glad they are searching for ways to keep the cyclone, but they really should consider making it cheaper and less supply heavy, some thing like 150/100/2 or 125/75/2, so it can be used as skirmish unit and as cheap AA. Of course with the necessary stat changes to make them balanced.
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I think the distruptor-Prism change will be good BUT idk while u are busy microing that shit..opponent has 2 carriers out lol. I think this econ model favors protoss bec you can tech really fast to carriers. Haven't lost a single game that I went to mass carriers lol. Also agree to others that cyclone can be a goliath 2.0 AA focused
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Regardless the outcome of the patch. Im still happy with the weekly feedback from blizzard
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Heart of the Swarm has a near perfect balance? I am extremely confused.
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remove liberator, buff tanks, nerf ultras, remove parasitic bomb, add scourge, gg
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David Kim's chiding tone is really obnoxious. It's almost if he is implying the problem is the community's attitude and not that the game itself. And honestly if drastic changes are needed to the game (removal of cyclone), then drastic changes should be made.
Also please at least mention some of the other main issues the community has. I.e. oracles, tank drops, warp-prism pickup, po, etc and other abusive tactics which will be no doubt be amplified when the pro start to use them
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On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did.
Its really interesting that people blame swarm hosts for it yet with swarm hosts gone the problem still exists. At least ZvT anyway, ZvP is in an awesome state
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I really don't think another adept HP nerf is necessary(Or even called for, I personally did not see it). General judgement from most people seems to be there in a much better spot.
Surely any lingering adept all-in issues will be fixed with a return to 5second warpin on the Prism?
What happened to not making too many counter active changes at once and seeing how they balance out? Prism + ANOTHER adept nerf and ALSO a MULE buff. It's going to be hard to figure out which changes helped Terran and where.
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Dear Terrans,
I'd like to assure you that continued requests for the Cyclone to be removed and a new unit to be put in its place will result in Blizzard hearing LOUD AND VERY CLEAR your desire for the Cyclone to be removed.
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I guess zerg underperforming is the standard balance for blizzard.
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If they're serious about nerfing the Adept, they should've simply delayed the timing of it. Without any minor change such as HP decrease or upgrade, just make Twilight Council a requirement to unlock the unit.
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On October 09 2015 11:51 xTJx wrote:
I guess zerg underperforming is the standard balance for blizzard.
byul has made it to like every finals in the past 3 months wtf are u talking about
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On October 09 2015 09:36 ThunderBum wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:29 jpg06051992 wrote:
(since they are obviously not going to put in the Goliath)
The Goliath exists, it just needs to transform to attack ground or air. It's built at the starport fyi.
Actually the viking was designed to be the new goliath since WoL, but I wish it had a better performance in its ground mode.
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On October 09 2015 12:43 oGsTOP wrote:
nerf warp prism speed
Medivacs too
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"since Terran is the slightly weaker of the 3 races currently." . . so, no where have i heard on any of the community talk shows and streams that this is the case. Is this a metric from their end? Almost everyone is saying terran if u let them get there its all over . . .so then the dumbest come back is . . dont let them get there. Ok, in my strategy game the only way i play this race is the same every time . .early all in . . .i feel empowered already! much choice, much wow!
going off the rest of the post, ive never been one to balance whine because how can i . . im not GM. i know everyone involved with sc will get the game to a good state within 6 months of final release anyway and i actually look forward to massive changes as it keeps the game fresh. Just keep it up guys!
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On October 09 2015 13:10 StatixEx wrote:
"since Terran is the slightly weaker of the 3 races currently." . . so, no where have i heard on any of the community talk shows and streams that this is the case. Is this a metric from their end? Almost everyone is saying terran if u let them get there its all over . . .so then the dumbest come back is . . dont let them get there. Ok, in my strategy game the only way i play this race is the same every time . .early all in . . .i feel empowered already! much choice, much wow!
going off the rest of the post, ive never been one to balance whine because how can i . . im not GM. i know everyone involved with sc will get the game to a good state within 6 months of final release anyway and i actually look forward to massive changes as it keeps the game fresh. Just keep it up guys!
This is on the latest patch, and the patch before where adepts made terran unplayable. The mule nerf hurt terran more than the chrono and inject nerf their respective races. They are doing a lesser % nerf to mule and making it mine faster with less minerals per trip. Terran was really awkward to play economically last patch compared to other 2 races which may have made them weaker overall.. you would fall behind very slightly.
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How is Heart of the Swarm balanced? Mech in TvZ is a nightmare.
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We saw the popular thread this week stating how Heart of the Swarm has near perfect balance. We wanted to say a few things about that. First is the game’s current balance is really a combined effort of everyone doing his or her part to make the results this good. For example, if players of a certain race aren’t playing as well as they would normally, even with our current numbers, the in-game stats wouldn’t look as good. Also, due to the heavy collaboration with our community, we feel that the perception around good stats has improved. In the past, we’ve seen many negative responses to posts like this due to less people being connected. Now however, due to increased community collaboration, we feel that this weird negativity has largely been dispelled.
How blizz could have a totally missread of the situations, people in HotS still having complains about forcefields, widowmines, and the most recent the mech in ZvT, the difference is just the people was giving up, tired of expressing their complains and have no answer of blizz, and with upcoming of LotV no have sense to being angry about the balance of HotS, but for blizz they get the almost perfect balance ,lol.
Confusing resignation with positiveness about balance.
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On October 09 2015 07:57 Espartaquen wrote:
Phoenix wars in pvp?
Liberators?
Disruptor vs Disruptor wars?
No comment on these areas?
Times ticking and we need these adressed too...
Whats wrong with Disruptor Wars?
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My thoughts:
-mule needs to be fully reverted T is weak as hell mid/late game because of reduced mineral income that T normally had from mules...please blizzard stop messing with essential economy/macro of SC2 and just revert it and work on balance/design
-disruptor ok cool change, never see them in games tho because adept is still broken
-adept nerf again...ok thank god? Like...this unit is warhound 2.0 it really needs to be toned down
-cyclone speed buff is not the answer to the cyclone sucking. It was severely overnerfed across 3-4 patches. AT the start of beta it was so refreshing being able to play offensive mech and move out of your base pre 15 min and actually trade units with your opponent. Now tho...cyclones are absolute trash against every unit in the game, especially air units which they are supposed to counter...
As it currently stands, there is no anti-air unit from the factory that can be built to counter brood/viper, carriers, BCS, liberators, etc...MECH NEEDS AN ANTI-AIR UNIT, PLEASE FOCUS ON THE ANTI-AIR ASPECT OF THIS UNIT BLIZZARD.
I played a game recently where i went mech and built cyclones as efficiently and as fast as i possibly could...my opponent had 4 carriers at the point in the game where i had 3 cyclones...what the fuck? The unit was overnerfed and is too expensive...and doesn't even do the anti-air job it's supposed to. It needs more changes than just the typical blizzard "LET'S MAKE IT FASTER GUYS :D "
-warp-in changes to warp prism...good idea as the insta-warp-in was pretty BS
Overall tho...blizzard is really ignoring a lot of key things that are broken in beta still and what i'm about to say you will notice a trend - THEY ARE ALL AIR UNITS
Broodlord+viper is essentially a new brood+infestor insta-win comp because broods were buffed some but mostly because vipers are probably the most broken unit in the game. Parasitic bomb in combination with blinding cloud and abduct is way too much versatility for a single unit to have, especially a unit that can go back and regain all of it's energy.
Carriers in general are absurd and don't need the release interceptor ability, it's gimmicky and the new carrier itself is way too strong as well and needs to be toned down. Any time i off-raced as Protoss even if i was losing the game, if i could collect 8-10 carriers and a few high templar suddenly i was winning and my opponent couldn't do anything to stop me even with a 200/200 army of hydra lol.
Tempests are also "carrier tier" in terms of lategame bullshit.
Liberators are the new raven for Terran in terms of "let's just mass this thing late game because there's no better options." I'm not sure partly if it's because the liberator itself is strong...i know i'll have some Terran bias but i'd like to think the liberator has a lot of weaknesses that things like that viper and carrier don't have...mainly set-up time, an essential upgrade to be researched, and the fact that if the opponent moves out of the circle the liberator will do nothing. Or the liberator is simply the go-to late game because every single other option Terran has sucks and the raven was NERFED INTO THE GROUND.
And also, even though BCS are absolute trash in low numbers, BCS are ridiculous OP when you get 10+ of them with full energy.
All of the above are air units guys. This is a worrying trend (no meme intended) because every single one of the above units requires the opponent to sit back and turtle and get sufficient anti-air to deal with. Massing air vs air makes it near impossible for both players to trade units, unless you count brood+viper being an autowin because vipers obliterate every air unit in the game with 2 key presses and no micro.
I feel like Blizzard should nerf all of the above air units and make ground anti-air better so all SC2 games will trend towards ground vs ground trading of units rather than the slow accumulation of a ridiculous air army that cannot be engaged into until both players have an "ultimate composition."
Trust me when i say the above because i know best when it comes to massing ravens in WOL/HOTS late game. The thing is people don't understand the main issue of why that was necessary for Terran mech - Terran mech has no good ground anti-air. So it meant if Zerg built even a few brood lords, you had no valid AA option from mass factories -> you had to start massing air yourself in anticipation of that.
I have off-raced a lot in the beta and i get the same feeling when i play Zerg and Protoss. If my opponent starts massing liberators, well fuck. Now i have to start massing tempests and carriers myself because stalkers are absolute trash against broodlords or liberators in high numbers. Or if i'm playing Zerg vs Protoss and my opponent is turtling 3 base into carriers...well FML looks like i have to sit here and mass 20+ corruptors and get the broken parasitic bomb so nothing is gonna happen for another 10-20 min in the game.
Ground units in SC1 were powerful enough to fight versus air counter parts. If a Protoss was massing carriers, Terran mech players already had 8-10 factories and had a valid counter in simply amassing goliaths and even sometimes ghosts with lockdown in rare cases. You could mass produce a very cheap anti-air option that would force action to happen.
Even things like mass wraiths and mass scouts were absolute trash in SC1...because these units were just light harrass and ground units in high numbers demolished them.
That's probably the best comparison i can give - the Scout (from the stargate) for Protoss in SC1 was really really bad against ground units, which allowed mech play to entirely be viable because there was no random void rays or phoenixes or oracle that you had to prepare against every game. It was just robo tech, so all games went to ground vs ground armies, and then late game goliath vs carriers.
All of the bullshit mass air compositions in SC2 though are late game oriented and i think that's why blizzard is either ignoring them or does not understand about them to start balancing them properly.
Thoughts on my thoughts? lol
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
My Community Feedback posting streak on TL got broken because DK decided to post it 2 AM... Damn you DK!!!
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On October 09 2015 13:10 StatixEx wrote:
"since Terran is the slightly weaker of the 3 races currently." . . so, no where have i heard on any of the community talk shows and streams that this is the case. Is this a metric from their end? Almost everyone is saying terran if u let them get there its all over . . .so then the dumbest come back is . . dont let them get there. Ok, in my strategy game the only way i play this race is the same every time . .early all in . . .i feel empowered already! much choice, much wow!
going off the rest of the post, ive never been one to balance whine because how can i . . im not GM. i know everyone involved with sc will get the game to a good state within 6 months of final release anyway and i actually look forward to massive changes as it keeps the game fresh. Just keep it up guys!
Mule nerf is a really hardcore nerf anytime it happens because Terran than starts to miss thousands of resources over the course of an SC2 game that are necessary for T to function vs larva remax and mass warpgates late game.
Larva inject nerf doesn't matter once Zerg gets to 60 drones - they will have the same exponentially growing economy as they did pre-patch b4 that point, and then once they're at that point it's as if nothing changed while T/P were nerfed.
Same for Protoss - not as bad as mule nerf because once Protoss gets to their worker count then their economy is the same as pre-nerf.
Terran basically got a ridiculously hard nerf to the entire race from mule nerfs that are arbitrary. Protoss got a ridiculous chrono nerf that does similar, tho not as bad. And Zerg is essentially left as the god tier race because their economy doesn't change and they already have an exponentially increasing economy compared to T/P economy.
People can verify all of the above with graphs with economy over time and such if they really want to. I'm just describing it from a gameplay stand point as math bores me though it's nice to know in general how the races function on an economic level.
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To elaborate on avilo's post about the strength of air units above:
One thing that blizzard has done in HotS and LotV is severely screwed with the dynamic of long-range air to ground units. Units like the broodlord, the tempest, and to an extent the carrier, and now the liberator, require air-based responses most of the time if they are massed; killing these units with ground usually requires a hail-mary flank or blink underneath to pick them off.
This is an arguably bad dynamic, and Blizzard has made it significantly worse by buffing broodlord range, buffing carriers, adding tempests, creating the oracle's revelation for the tempests, and adding liberators. These progressive buffs to long-range AtG units are perhaps the single most important factor in creating this shift to air that avilo mentions.
This becomes a bad direction for blizzard to go in when despite forcing races into air-based armies, they do not make them interesting, and they insert hard counters to air (like parasitic bomb) into the game. Does it make even an iota of sense that zerg should have a unit that forces terran to make air or lose (the broodlord) but also has a spell that slaughters the air that terran must make? It's out of the game, but did the tempest's ability to kill units over time and force vikings/corruptors to commit into fights in storms make any sense, given that terran and zerg were forced to make air units to kill tempests? Of course not; none of these make any sense at all. But blizzard is, for some unknown reason, creating these situations with unbeatable compositions (carriers, broodlord-viper), turtle games (as avilo mentions), and plain boring unit interactions (anything with corruptors at all.)
The solution to this would be to either nerf the air units in some way, lower their range (average range of these units has just slowly gone up for no apparent reason), or create better ground-based anti-air for every race. If Blizzard is going to put these strong long-range AtG units in the game, then every race needs something like the goliath, which provided good long-range GtA damage against armored. There isn't really much in the game like this currently, except maybe the cyclone, but it's awful. The thor had an attack that filled this role but it was always too weak to work properly and thors were too clunky to fight well anyway.
If blizzard refuses to do that, then the least they could do would be to at least make the air vs air fights interesting and fair. Currently they are neither.
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RKgA2NU.jpg)
this is exactly what terran needs for now - weak AG, powerful AA.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On October 09 2015 12:12 Wrathsc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 11:51 xTJx wrote:
I guess zerg underperforming is the standard balance for blizzard. byul has made it to like every finals in the past 3 months wtf are u talking about
One player has no impact on the grand scheme of balance whatsoever.
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On October 09 2015 10:36 PinoKotsBeer wrote:
Regardless the outcome of the patch. Im still happy with the weekly feedback from blizzard
Sorry, but I'd rather have it the other way round. While I initially liked their change of mind regarding those frequent updates, I have grown wary of these updates, because they are just PR with hardly any useful data provided, just dropping key words here and there to give readers the illusion they really care about the game instead of money.
Problems many people like to see addressed aren't mentioned, at all.
But to not be completely negative, patch 3.0 is indeed visually appealing, so thank you for that.
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On October 09 2015 10:50 usopsama wrote:
Heart of the Swarm has a near perfect balance? I am extremely confused.
Since it came up a few times, this is how the balance in the past 12 months looked like (according to Aligulac):
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/O7yam0P.png)
That's... the most balanced period this game ever had. The win rates in each match-up have been between 46-53% the entire time.
For comparison, this is how the entire graph for SC2 looks like:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NA9G39q.png)
I've highlighted the past 12 months. If we can trust Aligulac ratings then yes, the game has near perfect balance right now.
Whether or not the individual match-ups have their own problems or not is a different matter entirely, though. I dislike watching Mech vZ atm, but that doesn't mean that the races are severely imbalanced right now.
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On October 09 2015 15:03 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:
To elaborate on avilo's post about the strength of air units above:
One thing that blizzard has done in HotS and LotV is severely screwed with the dynamic of long-range air to ground units. Units like the broodlord, the tempest, and to an extent the carrier, and now the liberator, require air-based responses most of the time if they are massed; killing these units with ground usually requires a hail-mary flank or blink underneath to pick them off.
This is an arguably bad dynamic, and Blizzard has made it significantly worse by buffing broodlord range, buffing carriers, adding tempests, creating the oracle's revelation for the tempests, and adding liberators. These progressive buffs to long-range AtG units are perhaps the single most important factor in creating this shift to air that avilo mentions.
This becomes a bad direction for blizzard to go in when despite forcing races into air-based armies, they do not make them interesting, and they insert hard counters to air (like parasitic bomb) into the game. Does it make even an iota of sense that zerg should have a unit that forces terran to make air or lose (the broodlord) but also has a spell that slaughters the air that terran must make? It's out of the game, but did the tempest's ability to kill units over time and force vikings/corruptors to commit into fights in storms make any sense, given that terran and zerg were forced to make air units to kill tempests? Of course not; none of these make any sense at all. But blizzard is, for some unknown reason, creating these situations with unbeatable compositions (carriers, broodlord-viper), turtle games (as avilo mentions), and plain boring unit interactions (anything with corruptors at all.)
The solution to this would be to either nerf the air units in some way, lower their range (average range of these units has just slowly gone up for no apparent reason), or create better ground-based anti-air for every race. If Blizzard is going to put these strong long-range AtG units in the game, then every race needs something like the goliath, which provided good long-range GtA damage against armored. There isn't really much in the game like this currently, except maybe the cyclone, but it's awful. The thor had an attack that filled this role but it was always too weak to work properly and thors were too clunky to fight well anyway.
If blizzard refuses to do that, then the least they could do would be to at least make the air vs air fights interesting and fair. Currently they are neither.
I agree with you. The range of most air units is just way too much. BL cried for speed buff to be in the same category as BC and Carriers. The range buff made them much more easily to leave them alone in safe distance instead of microing them back a little...
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On October 09 2015 15:29 Zealously wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 12:12 Wrathsc2 wrote:On October 09 2015 11:51 xTJx wrote:
I guess zerg underperforming is the standard balance for blizzard. byul has made it to like every finals in the past 3 months wtf are u talking about One player has no impact on the grand scheme of balance whatsoever.
Haha, could you please hop on your time machine and go tell Mvp of 2011?
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
Still nothing about MULE hammer 
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On October 09 2015 15:56 Nezgar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 10:50 usopsama wrote:
Heart of the Swarm has a near perfect balance? I am extremely confused. Since it came up a few times, this is how the balance in the past 12 months looked like (according to Aligulac): That's... the most balanced period this game ever had. The win rates in each match-up have been between 46-53% the entire time. For comparison, this is how the entire graph for SC2 looks like: I've highlighted the past 12 months. If we can trust Aligulac ratings then yes, the game has near perfect balance right now. Whether or not the individual match-ups have their own problems or not is a different matter entirely, though. I dislike watching Mech vZ atm, but that doesn't mean that the races are severely imbalanced right now.
Yeah, contrary to the common belief that everyone at blizzard is an incompetent blabbering idiot, I think they are able to do the sums and divisions to calculate balance stats.
And I perfectly understand that they don't give numbers, as the above properties, again contrary to common belief, actually describes some vocal community members sometimes, and the numbers could be misinterpreted.
I should apply for blizzard community communication, I'm getting the hang of this condescending tone!
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On October 09 2015 08:58 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:50 wongfeihung wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. And change Bunker build time. Or roach burrow move speed^^
And ultra redesign.
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I like where the Adept is going, now I would like them to remove the extra damage on charge and give it +20 Shield instead, so the Zealot has it's clear tank role while the Adept is the damage dealer.
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On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did.
Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games.
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why still no info about carriers? omfg. worst unit in the game....
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LOTV is going to kill the name Starcraft. The dev team is a bunch of stubborn imbeciles. The reality is that this game is horrible atm
Mods: Please ban me, I am never coming back to discuss this game anyways. bye
User was banned for this post.
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I like what I read.
But I really would like Blizzard to rethink photon overcharge on pylons. I still can't see the point of this.
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4713 Posts
I think one big problem with air engagements is that air units in general have some pretty terrible interactions overall.
Viking vs Mutalisk sucks because mutas are just too fast for vikings to catch and even in a head to head engagement mutalisks would still trade favorably due to glaive bounce. BC vs Carrier vs Corrupter is terrible because there isn't any micro you can insert to make it more dynamic and fun.
And no, Phoenix vs Muta isn't a good example either, because its a asymmetric match up where for the first couple of minutes the protoss has to work his ass off because mutas will destroy his small phoenix force, then the protoss just rolls over the zerg because phoenixes in big numbers destroy mutalisks. What air units actually need in SC2 is a BW esque interaction. Think back to wraith vs muta, it was fun, dynamic, wasn't extremely one sided, and required a lot of control from each side.
Unfortunately that kind of dynamic can't exist in SC2 partially because of how well mutalisks scale in numbers and partially because of how fast zergs can amass said numbers of mutalisks. Also Blizzard lost their window of time to rework mutalisks before Legacy launch.
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On October 09 2015 17:03 AyaaLa wrote:
LOTV is going to kill the name Starcraft. The dev team is a bunch of stubborn imbeciles. The reality is that this game is horrible atm
Mods: Please ban me, I am never coming back to discuss this game anyways. bye
Ppl are so short-sighted.
On topic: I do not like another Adept nerf. And the cyclone is not fun at all.
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On October 09 2015 17:01 AcerBly wrote:
why still no info about carriers? omfg. worst unit in the game....
I still wonder why P is given THREE huge late-late-game air units - Tempest, Carrier and Mothership - while none of them is more threatening than 3/3 zealot prism warp-in everywhere if a game has really progressed into that stage.
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@ the Mule nerf: I don't believe that this makes Terran weak and should be undone. Of course Terran is weaker, Zerg also feels mega-weak since the larva nerf.
But that's the nature of those things, you nerf the pace of the game and then you feel like you are behind all the time, but the truth is that you just haven't adjusted your inner Starcraft-clock to the new pace.
That being said I would like it if they also nerfed the zerg remax potential from injects, not just the injects. Put the maximum amount of larva a hatchery can hold down to a more restrictive number from 19, maybe 9 maybe even go to 6 (can't store more than 1inject).
Back to Terran: Terran is weak because there are obvious unit problems, at least in TvZ. Like the Ultralisk vs bio. Or the Viper vs Mech.
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On October 09 2015 17:50 Big J wrote:
@ the Mule nerf: I don't believe that this makes Terran weak and should be undone. Of course Terran is weaker, Zerg also feels mega-weak since the larva nerf.
But that's the nature of those things, you nerf the pace of the game and then you feel like you are behind all the time, but the truth is that you just haven't adjusted your inner Starcraft-clock to the new pace.
That being said I would like it if they also nerfed the zerg remax potential from injects, not just the injects. Put the maximum amount of larva a hatchery can hold down to a more restrictive number from 19, maybe 9 maybe even go to 6 (can't store more than 1inject).
Back to Terran: Terran is weak because there are obvious unit problems, at least in TvZ. Like the Ultralisk vs bio. Or the Viper vs Mech.
I actually like the larva stack mechanic. It adds macro skill to zerg after 200 supply. It allows for the zerg end game composition to be a bit weaker and getting hard countered by other races end game composition (while the opposite wouldn't work well). It allows for more zergy style where you have to send waves and waves of units to win.
But if you don't like that, and want three end game compositions of more equal strength, then yeah, lowering the Max larva is probably the way to go.
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On October 09 2015 17:50 Big J wrote:
@ the Mule nerf: I don't believe that this makes Terran weak and should be undone. Of course Terran is weaker, Zerg also feels mega-weak since the larva nerf.
But that's the nature of those things, you nerf the pace of the game and then you feel like you are behind all the time, but the truth is that you just haven't adjusted your inner Starcraft-clock to the new pace.
That being said I would like it if they also nerfed the zerg remax potential from injects, not just the injects. Put the maximum amount of larva a hatchery can hold down to a more restrictive number from 19, maybe 9 maybe even go to 6 (can't store more than 1inject).
Back to Terran: Terran is weak because there are obvious unit problems, at least in TvZ. Like the Ultralisk vs bio. Or the Viper vs Mech.
Well, I guess ground mech is expected to become the new norm in TvZ. If it's countered with roach/ravager/hydra/lurker, ultra will be in disadvantage because its weapon upgrade will fall behind. Viper and corruptor are pretty broken, though. I think they should be fixed.
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On October 09 2015 18:03 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 17:50 Big J wrote:
@ the Mule nerf: I don't believe that this makes Terran weak and should be undone. Of course Terran is weaker, Zerg also feels mega-weak since the larva nerf.
But that's the nature of those things, you nerf the pace of the game and then you feel like you are behind all the time, but the truth is that you just haven't adjusted your inner Starcraft-clock to the new pace.
That being said I would like it if they also nerfed the zerg remax potential from injects, not just the injects. Put the maximum amount of larva a hatchery can hold down to a more restrictive number from 19, maybe 9 maybe even go to 6 (can't store more than 1inject).
Back to Terran: Terran is weak because there are obvious unit problems, at least in TvZ. Like the Ultralisk vs bio. Or the Viper vs Mech. I actually like the larva stack mechanic. It adds macro skill to zerg after 200 supply. It allows for the zerg end game composition to be a bit weaker and getting hard countered by other races end game composition (while the opposite wouldn't work well). It allows for more zergy style where you have to send waves and waves of units to win. But if you don't like that, and want three end game compositions of more equal strength, then yeah, lowering the Max larva is probably the way to go.
I don't think the balance will ever work out well in the endgame without somewhat similar production and army strenght, given the SC2 economy. It's been a common theme in SC2 that players win matchups "because they got there" and other advantages couldn't be used properly against "that army".
It's the root of all turtle games. It might end up balanced in some numbers, but you give players a clear incentive to play horseshit playstyles because they know their opponent has to come to them eventually.
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On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games.
Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done.
Mech is overpowered against zerg because :
1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has
2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...)
3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way
Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio.
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Still nothing on Carriers, Liberators and Vipers?
Losing hope
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I pretty much agree with all PinheadXXXXXX said,+ Show Spoiler +On October 09 2015 15:03 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:
To elaborate on avilo's post about the strength of air units above:
One thing that blizzard has done in HotS and LotV is severely screwed with the dynamic of long-range air to ground units. Units like the broodlord, the tempest, and to an extent the carrier, and now the liberator, require air-based responses most of the time if they are massed; killing these units with ground usually requires a hail-mary flank or blink underneath to pick them off.
This is an arguably bad dynamic, and Blizzard has made it significantly worse by buffing broodlord range, buffing carriers, adding tempests, creating the oracle's revelation for the tempests, and adding liberators. These progressive buffs to long-range AtG units are perhaps the single most important factor in creating this shift to air that avilo mentions.
This becomes a bad direction for blizzard to go in when despite forcing races into air-based armies, they do not make them interesting, and they insert hard counters to air (like parasitic bomb) into the game. Does it make even an iota of sense that zerg should have a unit that forces terran to make air or lose (the broodlord) but also has a spell that slaughters the air that terran must make? It's out of the game, but did the tempest's ability to kill units over time and force vikings/corruptors to commit into fights in storms make any sense, given that terran and zerg were forced to make air units to kill tempests? Of course not; none of these make any sense at all. But blizzard is, for some unknown reason, creating these situations with unbeatable compositions (carriers, broodlord-viper), turtle games (as avilo mentions), and plain boring unit interactions (anything with corruptors at all.)
The solution to this would be to either nerf the air units in some way, lower their range (average range of these units has just slowly gone up for no apparent reason), or create better ground-based anti-air for every race. If Blizzard is going to put these strong long-range AtG units in the game, then every race needs something like the goliath, which provided good long-range GtA damage against armored. There isn't really much in the game like this currently, except maybe the cyclone, but it's awful. The thor had an attack that filled this role but it was always too weak to work properly and thors were too clunky to fight well anyway.
If blizzard refuses to do that, then the least they could do would be to at least make the air vs air fights interesting and fair. Currently they are neither.
And BigJ's posts above are pretty good too. Even with being able to remax very fast it's necessary to have an army very costefficient in the lategame.
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On October 09 2015 17:40 TedCruz2016 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 17:01 AcerBly wrote:
why still no info about carriers? omfg. worst unit in the game.... I still wonder why P is given THREE huge late-late-game air units - Tempest, Carrier and Mothership - while none of them is more threatening than 3/3 zealot prism warp-in everywhere if a game has really progressed into that stage.
Because that'd either require a nerf to zealots (or any other unit that is as threatening) resulting other problems with that unit, or buffing those late game air units resulting in potential power creep.
The best thing I read in this update is that scratching units is still an option for Kim. This is great to hear. Hopefully they actually have the guts to do it if it turns out that the Cyclone is just not good enough.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On October 09 2015 16:16 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 15:29 Zealously wrote:On October 09 2015 12:12 Wrathsc2 wrote:On October 09 2015 11:51 xTJx wrote:
I guess zerg underperforming is the standard balance for blizzard. byul has made it to like every finals in the past 3 months wtf are u talking about One player has no impact on the grand scheme of balance whatsoever. Haha, could you please hop on your time machine and go tell Mvp of 2011?
That's not what I mean. One player can very well influence patches, but a single player performing well does not say anything about balance on the whole.
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On October 09 2015 15:56 Nezgar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 10:50 usopsama wrote:
Heart of the Swarm has a near perfect balance? I am extremely confused. Since it came up a few times, this is how the balance in the past 12 months looked like (according to Aligulac): That's... the most balanced period this game ever had. The win rates in each match-up have been between 46-53% the entire time. For comparison, this is how the entire graph for SC2 looks like: I've highlighted the past 12 months. If we can trust Aligulac ratings then yes, the game has near perfect balance right now. Whether or not the individual match-ups have their own problems or not is a different matter entirely, though. I dislike watching Mech vZ atm, but that doesn't mean that the races are severely imbalanced right now.
These are very interesting, thanks. Lol at clearly visible GomTvT and BL Infestor era's. But most importantly, the highlighted (current) era that indeed looks to be the most balanced ever.
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On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio.
Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously.
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On October 09 2015 08:50 wongfeihung wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. And change Bunker build time.
Yes. This and barracks before supply
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On October 09 2015 20:36 FFW_Rude wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 08:50 wongfeihung wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. And change Bunker build time. Yes. This and barracks before supply
Bunkers should give supply
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On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously.
Tell that to WoL where Brood Lord - Infestor composition had ~50% WR because a lot of Zergs were dying to Immortal/Sentry all-ins before they even got there. It still didn't mean that it was balanced, on the contrary it was very very boring and imbalanced.
Looking just at the statistics is very narrow way of doing things if you don't care about other factors.
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On October 09 2015 20:53 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously. Tell that to WoL where Brood Lord - Infestor composition had ~50% WR because a lot of Zergs were dying to Immortal/Sentry all-ins before they even got there. It still didn't mean that it was balanced, on the contrary it was very very boring and imbalanced. Looking just at the statistics is very narrow way of doing things if you don't care about other factors.
You need to look at the right statistics of course. If you want to to find out whether Bl/Infestor is imbalanced, you need to pick the games where the zerg reaches that composition. Mech games could be classified as games that take longer than e.g. 10 minutes and only one baracks is built or no stim was researched etc... If you want to find out if the ulta lategame mech composition is overpowered vs. zerg, you have to look at the games that qualify. So I don't think it is narrow minded to only look at statistics.
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Players have to remember that if it took a few years for HOTS to reach its good balancing, it may just take until end of 2017 or even 2018 before LOTV will be at its best.
With respect to the cyclone, my thoughts are that it is such an "all-around" unit in terms of its function that it should be possible to modify it or balance it to be a useful unit. I would think that balancing a unit such as a Stalker (for example) would be more easy than one such as the Disruptor where the dynamics of how it interacts in the game might change drastically from one situation to the next. The cyclone should be fairly easy to work into the gameplan.
Also, compare the use of the cyclone to the Hellion, reaper or roach - it's not a unit that needs to be completely useful at every stage of the game, including the late game. It seems to be a great stepping stone to plug some holes within early to mid-game Terran defense and aggression (particularly with Mech).
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To elaborate on avilo's post about the strength of air units above:
One thing that blizzard has done in HotS and LotV is severely screwed with the dynamic of long-range air to ground units. Units like the broodlord, the tempest, and to an extent the carrier, and now the liberator, require air-based responses most of the time if they are massed; killing these units with ground usually requires a hail-mary flank or blink underneath to pick them off.
This is an arguably bad dynamic, and Blizzard has made it significantly worse by buffing broodlord range, buffing carriers, adding tempests, creating the oracle's revelation for the tempests, and adding liberators. These progressive buffs to long-range AtG units are perhaps the single most important factor in creating this shift to air that avilo mentions.
Well there are a few problems with how Blizzard think in terms of design here. First of, they for some reason like long-run free units where the opponent cannot attack the enemy unit. In HOTS we saw the Swarm Host and Tempest be introduced. Then in LOTV it got a ton worse with Cyclone (constant kiting), changed Carrier, new Disruptor and the new Swarm Host still suffer from this issue.
From my experience interactions are the most fun when both players can kill the enemy units. That's the case when you need to take a "risk" when attacking with the unit and you are not overly incentived to just run away all day.
Secondly, there is this specific issue with air-to-ground. I firmly belive that the model of having a ground unit as anti-air vs ARMORED AIR units is the best solution. That's what we saw in BW and it worked a ton better. In Sc2, however, you need Tempests, Vikings and Corrupters to counter mass air units.
The issue with the Sc2-approach is twofold:
1. The micro interactions are almost always going to be a-move vs a-move since you can't take advantage of terrain.
2. In temrs of balance since the air AA units are more mobile then ground AA units, they need to be less cost effective. So whereas a BW terran could defend vs Carriers with 50% of the army value of Goliaths, you need much closer to 100% in sc2. That makes the game too much about scaling or killing the opponent before he reaches critical mass.
My suggested solution has for a while been to make the Thor faster and more repsonsive and make it the primary anti-armored with the Viking better vs light air units.
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On October 09 2015 20:53 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously. Tell that to WoL where Brood Lord - Infestor composition had ~50% WR because a lot of Zergs were dying to Immortal/Sentry all-ins before they even got there. It still didn't mean that it was balanced, on the contrary it was very very boring and imbalanced. Looking just at the statistics is very narrow way of doing things if you don't care about other factors.
Statistically speaking it was still imbalanced though. Since zerg dominated terran so badly, it meant that more and more zerg players qualified to tournaments = god their games into the Aliguac database. This inflated the average skill level of zerg players, meaning that lesser skilled players were being matched up against better protoss (and especially better terran players).
Under those circumstances, the expected win/rate (given perfect balance) is not 50%.
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I think blizzard intend to make adept a mineral harass unit only... i'm really disappointed.
I'd like to trade the shade for a combat boost increase any day ... they're not viable past early game and they 'll be even worse next patch.
So tired to play with blink stalker in every match up and seeing that on every GM stream aswell.
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On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously.
Before the broodlord/infestor era, zerg players were struggling to take a third base, so the winrate for zerg was pretty low against terran.
But zergs learnt slowly to play broodlord infestor, and then the winrate in ZvT became absurd.
The winrate was higher and higher for zerg because the opponent had no counterplay except killing the zerg before broodlord infestor (lol).
This is the same thing with mech play, terrans players are slowly learning how to play mech against zerg. if you look at the winrate few months ago, mech players were very bad against zerg (mostly because only Avilo was playing mech :p), now you have the very best korean players playing battlecruiser camping bullshit.
My point is that terran players might not win every TvZ yet (like zerg in the middle of Wol), but it doesn't mean this is balanced. Indeed, it is imbalanced because there are no counterplay. Your statistics will never show if there is a counterplay nor how to fix a broken match up, that's why they are useless.
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On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio.
wrong, zerg is op against mech because:
1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has
2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff)
3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way.
see why you need statistics to bback your statements up?
Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba.
Edit: just saw who wrote that so scrap the comment with the ladder.
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good you want to revert mules as they were
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On October 09 2015 22:29 FireCake wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously. Before the broodlord/infestor era, zerg players were struggling to take a third base, so the winrate for zerg was pretty low against terran. But zergs learnt slowly to play broodlord infestor, and then the winrate in ZvT became absurd. The winrate was higher and higher for zerg because the opponent had no counterplay except killing the zerg before broodlord infestor (lol). This is the same thing with mech play, terrans players are slowly learning how to play mech against zerg. if you look at the winrate few months ago, mech players were very bad against zerg (mostly because only Avilo was playing mech :p), now you have the very best korean players playing battlecruiser camping bullshit. My point is that terran players might not win every TvZ yet (like zerg in the middle of Wol), but it doesn't mean this is balanced. Indeed, it is imbalanced because there are no counterplay. Your statistics will never show if there is a counterplay nor how to fix a broken match up, that's why they are useless.
the difference is that mech has been beaten in lategame multiple times. Byul vs ty. Byul vs inno, flash vs curious g2.
it's not like you insta-win with that composition once you reach it like it was with BL/infestor.
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On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba.
There isn't a single high level zerg that doesn't think mech is too strong (in hots). Call it subjectivity but everyone hates playing against it. You don't need statistics on this one, you just need to play or watch the game. Mech is completely absurd. It's things like Terran mech in HoTS which drive good players away from playing the game. BL/Infestor wasn't unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination, but it was absurd and bad for the game. Same with Terran mech.
One race having the ability to play ultra defensive and build a godlike army is absolutely cancerous.
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On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba.
I didn't explain the whole Match up because that would take a very long time, i have sum up the key points of why mech is broken.
I have a very short argument that should convince you that there is a huge problem with mech play.
Months ago, during the WCS season 2, i lost against a mech terran in RO16.
He won 2 times with the pure mech camping style.
The day after i talked with David Kim for hours about many things, especially game balancing.
I asked him how can i beat a camping mech player ?
I will give you his answer, you might not believe me but this is was he said :
"don't worry FireCake, in legacy of the void this kind of play won't be possible".
He didn't tell me that i should experiment this or this against mech. Instead he told me that he wanted to bring back SH but it was not possible because of the community being too harsh about SH.
As a player it's my job to find ways to deal with strategies but after 2 years i have no idea how to beat mech, and i have seen no ways to deal win mech style.
On October 09 2015 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:29 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously. Before the broodlord/infestor era, zerg players were struggling to take a third base, so the winrate for zerg was pretty low against terran. But zergs learnt slowly to play broodlord infestor, and then the winrate in ZvT became absurd. The winrate was higher and higher for zerg because the opponent had no counterplay except killing the zerg before broodlord infestor (lol). This is the same thing with mech play, terrans players are slowly learning how to play mech against zerg. if you look at the winrate few months ago, mech players were very bad against zerg (mostly because only Avilo was playing mech :p), now you have the very best korean players playing battlecruiser camping bullshit. My point is that terran players might not win every TvZ yet (like zerg in the middle of Wol), but it doesn't mean this is balanced. Indeed, it is imbalanced because there are no counterplay. Your statistics will never show if there is a counterplay nor how to fix a broken match up, that's why they are useless. the difference is that mech has been beaten in lategame multiple times. Byul vs ty. Byul vs inno, flash vs curious g2. it's not like you insta-win with that composition once you reach it like it was with BL/infestor.
You are proving my point. Terran players are still learning how to play mech, that's why sometimes they are losing because they are doing mistakes, not because zerg players are playing well.
Look the broodlord infestor era, i am sure you know the game between Kiwikaki and Stephano were Kiwikaki won with a double vortex. Does it mean broodlord/infestor was a weak strategy ? No, Stephano was surprised because he didn't have yet much practice against Mothership play. Later, he won everything with broodlord/infestor.
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On October 09 2015 17:10 Asturas wrote:
I like what I read.
But I really would like Blizzard to rethink photon overcharge on pylons. I still can't see the point of this.
Totally agree ... It does stop almost every aggression
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On October 09 2015 22:56 FireCake wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba. I didn't explain the whole Match up because that would take a very long time, i have sum up the key points of why mech is broken. I have a very short argument that should convince you that there is a huge problem with mech play. Months ago, during the WCS season 2, i lost against a mech terran in RO16. He won 2 times with the pure mech camping style. The day after i talked with David Kim for hours about many things, especially game balancing. I asked him how can i beat a camping mech player ? I will give you his answer, you might not believe me but this is was he said : "don't worry FireCake, in legacy of the void this kind of play won't be possible". He didn't tell me that i should experiment this or this against mech. Instead he told me that he wanted to bring back SH but it was not possible because of the community being too harsh about SH. As a player it's my job to find ways to deal with strategies but after 2 years i have no idea how to beat mech, and i have seen no ways to deal win mech style. Also, as you may have noticed, i am not talking about ladder games, but tournament games. Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 22:29 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously. Before the broodlord/infestor era, zerg players were struggling to take a third base, so the winrate for zerg was pretty low against terran. But zergs learnt slowly to play broodlord infestor, and then the winrate in ZvT became absurd. The winrate was higher and higher for zerg because the opponent had no counterplay except killing the zerg before broodlord infestor (lol). This is the same thing with mech play, terrans players are slowly learning how to play mech against zerg. if you look at the winrate few months ago, mech players were very bad against zerg (mostly because only Avilo was playing mech :p), now you have the very best korean players playing battlecruiser camping bullshit. My point is that terran players might not win every TvZ yet (like zerg in the middle of Wol), but it doesn't mean this is balanced. Indeed, it is imbalanced because there are no counterplay. Your statistics will never show if there is a counterplay nor how to fix a broken match up, that's why they are useless. the difference is that mech has been beaten in lategame multiple times. Byul vs ty. Byul vs inno, flash vs curious g2. it's not like you insta-win with that composition once you reach it like it was with BL/infestor. You are proving my point. Terran players are still learning how to play mech, that's why sometimes they are losing because they are doing mistakes, not because zerg players are playing well. Look the broodlord infestor era, i am sure you know the game between Kiwikaki and Stephano were Kiwikaki won with a double vortex. Does it mean broodlord/infestor was a weak strategy ? No, Stephano was surprised because he didn't have yet much practice against Mothership play. Later, he won everything with broodlord/infestor.
You may be right but at the moment there is no clear indication that mech is overpowered and with lotv coming so soon nerfing it and risking making terran underpowered before blizzcon would be a huge mistake... only because some players predict mech will be unbeatable once it's figured out more.
nerfing a race that is statistically not to strong is always a bad move.
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In before blizzard removes all new terran units.
Just like always.
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On October 09 2015 23:05 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:56 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba. I didn't explain the whole Match up because that would take a very long time, i have sum up the key points of why mech is broken. I have a very short argument that should convince you that there is a huge problem with mech play. Months ago, during the WCS season 2, i lost against a mech terran in RO16. He won 2 times with the pure mech camping style. The day after i talked with David Kim for hours about many things, especially game balancing. I asked him how can i beat a camping mech player ? I will give you his answer, you might not believe me but this is was he said : "don't worry FireCake, in legacy of the void this kind of play won't be possible". He didn't tell me that i should experiment this or this against mech. Instead he told me that he wanted to bring back SH but it was not possible because of the community being too harsh about SH. As a player it's my job to find ways to deal with strategies but after 2 years i have no idea how to beat mech, and i have seen no ways to deal win mech style. Also, as you may have noticed, i am not talking about ladder games, but tournament games. On October 09 2015 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 22:29 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously. Before the broodlord/infestor era, zerg players were struggling to take a third base, so the winrate for zerg was pretty low against terran. But zergs learnt slowly to play broodlord infestor, and then the winrate in ZvT became absurd. The winrate was higher and higher for zerg because the opponent had no counterplay except killing the zerg before broodlord infestor (lol). This is the same thing with mech play, terrans players are slowly learning how to play mech against zerg. if you look at the winrate few months ago, mech players were very bad against zerg (mostly because only Avilo was playing mech :p), now you have the very best korean players playing battlecruiser camping bullshit. My point is that terran players might not win every TvZ yet (like zerg in the middle of Wol), but it doesn't mean this is balanced. Indeed, it is imbalanced because there are no counterplay. Your statistics will never show if there is a counterplay nor how to fix a broken match up, that's why they are useless. the difference is that mech has been beaten in lategame multiple times. Byul vs ty. Byul vs inno, flash vs curious g2. it's not like you insta-win with that composition once you reach it like it was with BL/infestor. You are proving my point. Terran players are still learning how to play mech, that's why sometimes they are losing because they are doing mistakes, not because zerg players are playing well. Look the broodlord infestor era, i am sure you know the game between Kiwikaki and Stephano were Kiwikaki won with a double vortex. Does it mean broodlord/infestor was a weak strategy ? No, Stephano was surprised because he didn't have yet much practice against Mothership play. Later, he won everything with broodlord/infestor. You may be right but at the moment there is no clear indication that mech is overpowered and with lotv coming so soon nerfing it and risking making terran underpowered before blizzcon would be a huge mistake... only because some players predict mech will be unbeatable once it's figured out more. nerfing a race that is statistically not to strong is always a bad move.
One year ago, some terrans player started to discover that mech was imbalanced.
So some terrans players started to train in ladder games.
After months of trainings some terrans players (mostly Happy, Kas and goody) started to play mech in tournaments.
The success of some terrans players inspired some other terrans players to play mech.
So the other terrans players (mainly koreans players) started to play mech.
Then some months later most terrans players were practicing mech.
Now, most of the terrans player are playing mech.
And finally we are seeing some terrans player winning with mech style.
It took many months (i would say approximately 10 months) before the imbalance in game start to be seen in tournament.
I think that would have been a lot better to fix mech months ago instead of waiting to have statistics that doesn't help fix the problem but simply show how broken the game is.
edit : fixing mech doesn't necessary mean nerfing terran. This is a more general problem i see in the starcraft community : a change is not always either a nerf or a buff.
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On October 09 2015 22:56 FireCake wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba. I didn't explain the whole Match up because that would take a very long time, i have sum up the key points of why mech is broken. I have a very short argument that should convince you that there is a huge problem with mech play. Months ago, during the WCS season 2, i lost against a mech terran in RO16. He won 2 times with the pure mech camping style. The day after i talked with David Kim for hours about many things, especially game balancing. I asked him how can i beat a camping mech player ? I will give you his answer, you might not believe me but this is was he said : "don't worry FireCake, in legacy of the void this kind of play won't be possible". He didn't tell me that i should experiment this or this against mech. Instead he told me that he wanted to bring back SH but it was not possible because of the community being too harsh about SH. As a player it's my job to find ways to deal with strategies but after 2 years i have no idea how to beat mech, and i have seen no ways to deal win mech style. Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 22:29 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously. Before the broodlord/infestor era, zerg players were struggling to take a third base, so the winrate for zerg was pretty low against terran. But zergs learnt slowly to play broodlord infestor, and then the winrate in ZvT became absurd. The winrate was higher and higher for zerg because the opponent had no counterplay except killing the zerg before broodlord infestor (lol). This is the same thing with mech play, terrans players are slowly learning how to play mech against zerg. if you look at the winrate few months ago, mech players were very bad against zerg (mostly because only Avilo was playing mech :p), now you have the very best korean players playing battlecruiser camping bullshit. My point is that terran players might not win every TvZ yet (like zerg in the middle of Wol), but it doesn't mean this is balanced. Indeed, it is imbalanced because there are no counterplay. Your statistics will never show if there is a counterplay nor how to fix a broken match up, that's why they are useless. the difference is that mech has been beaten in lategame multiple times. Byul vs ty. Byul vs inno, flash vs curious g2. it's not like you insta-win with that composition once you reach it like it was with BL/infestor. You are proving my point. Terran players are still learning how to play mech, that's why sometimes they are losing because they are doing mistakes, not because zerg players are playing well. Look the broodlord infestor era, i am sure you know the game between Kiwikaki and Stephano were Kiwikaki won with a double vortex. Does it mean broodlord/infestor was a weak strategy ? No, Stephano was surprised because he didn't have yet much practice against Mothership play. Later, he won everything with broodlord/infestor.
I'm enjoying hearing your thoughts, FireCake.
I've been all-in LotV since the beta started, but I still enjoy watching SC2 quite a bit, and there is just not that much LotV content to watch (pro matches with quality casting, etc ...). So I've tuned in to a few HotS games, and where TvZ used to be my favorite match to watch--because it could go either way, was high-octane, and comebacks were possible--I cringe every time I see a TvZ because I know it's going to be a 45 minute lol-fest where neither side attacks until Zerg has a 10k 10k bank and the Terran has built 100+ Turrets, PFs everywhere, has no SCVs, and is building a mass raven mass BC army. Then some fights. Then a tech switch. Then some fights, and eventually one guy just taps out. It's silly and stupid.
I think the economy changes in LotV will largely prevent this from happening, but also because of the extreme hard counters to mech and Sky Terran that Zerg has at the moment (not to mention that Bio cannot kill upgraded Ultras without mass Ghost).
Many people have said HotS has achieved excellent balance, and this might be true, but the mech play in TvZ is the worst thing I've ever seen in the pro SC2 spectator scene. Have you been playing much LotV?
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As a Zerg i feel like Adepts are totally fine. Other units in the game need a workover though:
liberators shoot to fast and are to good in harrasment and lategame fights
mothership core strategys allow for abusive earlygame that nobody wants to watch, play or play against (like making 3 pylons at ur opponents ramp or early third and overcharge them)
and lurkers are simply to good vs protoss in early midgame (you can have like 10 lurkers when he has 2/3 disruptors and just push him regardless of the disrupters killing ur lurkers you have to many left over to kill all the ground army)
also i feel like ultralisks are slightly too good vs bio and to bad vs liberator counterplay
cyclones feel to weak vs the first arriving air units which i feel like they should be a counter against (my suggestion for cyclones would be: instead of the current lock on give them a CYCLE: let them have an abillity that when activated increases their attackspeed by 20% per sec for 4 sec. to a total of 80% and after that it reduces their movement speed for 4 seconds with a 16 second cooldown. That allows them to be a situation based hit and run unit that can be really powerful or extremly weak depending on the situation and it increases their defensive power when behind a wall or defending a mineral line vs an oracle. You could argubly still make an upgrade to nurf and buff the early or lategame usage.
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On October 09 2015 23:25 TimeSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:56 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba. I didn't explain the whole Match up because that would take a very long time, i have sum up the key points of why mech is broken. I have a very short argument that should convince you that there is a huge problem with mech play. Months ago, during the WCS season 2, i lost against a mech terran in RO16. He won 2 times with the pure mech camping style. The day after i talked with David Kim for hours about many things, especially game balancing. I asked him how can i beat a camping mech player ? I will give you his answer, you might not believe me but this is was he said : "don't worry FireCake, in legacy of the void this kind of play won't be possible". He didn't tell me that i should experiment this or this against mech. Instead he told me that he wanted to bring back SH but it was not possible because of the community being too harsh about SH. As a player it's my job to find ways to deal with strategies but after 2 years i have no idea how to beat mech, and i have seen no ways to deal win mech style. On October 09 2015 22:37 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 22:29 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 20:31 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. Because statistics is the only reliable, non subjective way to measure balance. If Mech has <50% win percentage vs Zerg in high level HOTS games, mech is not imbalanced obviously. Before the broodlord/infestor era, zerg players were struggling to take a third base, so the winrate for zerg was pretty low against terran. But zergs learnt slowly to play broodlord infestor, and then the winrate in ZvT became absurd. The winrate was higher and higher for zerg because the opponent had no counterplay except killing the zerg before broodlord infestor (lol). This is the same thing with mech play, terrans players are slowly learning how to play mech against zerg. if you look at the winrate few months ago, mech players were very bad against zerg (mostly because only Avilo was playing mech :p), now you have the very best korean players playing battlecruiser camping bullshit. My point is that terran players might not win every TvZ yet (like zerg in the middle of Wol), but it doesn't mean this is balanced. Indeed, it is imbalanced because there are no counterplay. Your statistics will never show if there is a counterplay nor how to fix a broken match up, that's why they are useless. the difference is that mech has been beaten in lategame multiple times. Byul vs ty. Byul vs inno, flash vs curious g2. it's not like you insta-win with that composition once you reach it like it was with BL/infestor. You are proving my point. Terran players are still learning how to play mech, that's why sometimes they are losing because they are doing mistakes, not because zerg players are playing well. Look the broodlord infestor era, i am sure you know the game between Kiwikaki and Stephano were Kiwikaki won with a double vortex. Does it mean broodlord/infestor was a weak strategy ? No, Stephano was surprised because he didn't have yet much practice against Mothership play. Later, he won everything with broodlord/infestor. I'm enjoying hearing your thoughts, FireCake.
I am very happy to hear that.
At the beginning of the year i remember some people wishing i win in tournaments so they can hear my awful english in winner interview ^^
I played a lot of LoTv. I really enjoyed my switch to LoTv but i miss the changes that slowdown the economy. I think there are more diversity with a slower economy because it gives opportunity to both opponents to tech to higher tech units.
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Every race needs a stationary AA unit that they can move around in battle to gain that edge over the up-coming AIR POWER! cyclone, swarmhost, and a protoss unit, each with 5-7 range and any air that comes within the circle get auto targeted.
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On October 09 2015 18:42 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 18:03 Cascade wrote:On October 09 2015 17:50 Big J wrote:
@ the Mule nerf: I don't believe that this makes Terran weak and should be undone. Of course Terran is weaker, Zerg also feels mega-weak since the larva nerf.
But that's the nature of those things, you nerf the pace of the game and then you feel like you are behind all the time, but the truth is that you just haven't adjusted your inner Starcraft-clock to the new pace.
That being said I would like it if they also nerfed the zerg remax potential from injects, not just the injects. Put the maximum amount of larva a hatchery can hold down to a more restrictive number from 19, maybe 9 maybe even go to 6 (can't store more than 1inject).
Back to Terran: Terran is weak because there are obvious unit problems, at least in TvZ. Like the Ultralisk vs bio. Or the Viper vs Mech. I actually like the larva stack mechanic. It adds macro skill to zerg after 200 supply. It allows for the zerg end game composition to be a bit weaker and getting hard countered by other races end game composition (while the opposite wouldn't work well). It allows for more zergy style where you have to send waves and waves of units to win. But if you don't like that, and want three end game compositions of more equal strength, then yeah, lowering the Max larva is probably the way to go. I don't think the balance will ever work out well in the endgame without somewhat similar production and army strenght, given the SC2 economy. It's been a common theme in SC2 that players win matchups "because they got there" and other advantages couldn't be used properly against "that army". It's the root of all turtle games. It might end up balanced in some numbers, but you give players a clear incentive to play horseshit playstyles because they know their opponent has to come to them eventually.
I worry about that quite a bit.
"It's the root of all turtle games. It might end up balanced in some numbers, but you give players a clear incentive to play horseshit playstyles because they know their opponent has to come to them eventually."
Turtle into unstoppable is bad when it is encouraged on both sides of the game and ongoing counterplay doesn't work.
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On October 09 2015 21:57 owlman wrote:
I think blizzard intend to make adept a mineral harass unit only... i'm really disappointed.
I'd like to trade the shade for a combat boost increase any day ... they're not viable past early game and they 'll be even worse next patch.
So tired to play with blink stalker in every match up and seeing that on every GM stream aswell.
While I love the shade ability for filling in Protoss holes early game and general micro of it, what you say is also a big concern of mine. Adepts should be slightly more like Terran bio... flexible to harass or use in main army with support. Adepts are seeing less play. Protoss gateway is not flexible except for mass blink stalker with some tier 3 mixed in, basically the deathball. Blink stalkers are great and all, but let's see some better general usage capabilities of the adept so there are reasons to build them.
Midgame I'm going to make blink stalkers because you could face air units, you can use blink for survivability, etc. And if you go ground you are going to be making colossi and you have to have stalkers to keep colossi alive.
Late game I'm not going to warp in 12 adepts in my enemy's base, I'm going to warp in zealots b/c they can kill workers, buildings, static defense, and cost less.
When would I make adepts after early game now?
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@BigJ's comment: "Back to Terran: Terran is weak because there are obvious unit problems, at least in TvZ. Like the Ultralisk vs bio. Or the Viper vs Mech." ... I agree, and in TvP it is adept allins still skewing winrates because some people still don't know how to deal with them or don't recognize they are incoming soon enough or misidentify another all-in. However, I do think the liberator could be the answer against Ultras while you kite with bio (maybe throw some widowmines in there).
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@the many comments on air armies, I have many things to say.
The prevalence of Mass Air Armies that can't be killed from the ground are bad for the game. Why?
1. There is no way to get more out of your slow moving air units. There is no back and forth, counterplay, or micro. Slow moving capital ships are bad in low numbers, so you can't risk sending them out early. They force an air deathball.
2. Ground armies are about positioning and unit control. Big air armies are the opposite of that.
3. Air harassment makes sense for dynamic play. Mass air armies do not make sense for an enjoyable, dynamic game.
If ground armies were strong and just needed air armies as supplemental forces, then the game is still more positional based and fun with unit interactions and less a-move. Liberators and tempests are trying to be that supplemental role, but mass carriers and vipers overshadow how this works.
Protoss has a weaker late ground game in LOTV and carriers in the current form are there to keep their winrates up. Protoss tend to turtle to mass air lategame b/c Lurkers, Ultras, and Liberators are too scary. Plus muta and medivac threat encourage more stargate play which sets Protoss up for a mass air game later. Circular problem.
Zerg is having a similar problem against mass air armies, and Vipers + more air units are the most obvious way to deal with them. This is a circular problem.
Terrans will have starports in any build any matchup, and in LOTV tend to go liberators because they are great against ground and most air. Eventually this forces air armies from the enemy, which forces more air armies from Terran. Circular problem.
Everything is slowly pushing the meta to mass air armies.
It's this weird circular dynamic that we are trapped in. Break the circle, make ground to air attacks better across the board (or weaken mass air armies by weakening range or something), make gateway stronger for non-deathball ground battles in PvX so mass carriers or deathballs aren't the answer, and we are on the path to fixing it. This might mean even weaker remote warpins and weaker MSC. Weakening air might mean reducing range
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This is where Stationary Anti-Air defense comes into play that you can position yourself, and there can be a unit from each race that has this... my choices would be:
1. Cyclone
2. Swarmhost
3. Immortal.
These units could essentially play a roll of Stationary Ground to Air, to help compositions fight heavy air these units hold up pretty well under pressure(as it is *unit stats*). 5-7 range with an auto shot to anything inside that radius.
I want to promote this idea so much cause it seems legit and like most other RTS war games they have stationary AA units.
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On October 10 2015 00:57 Blacklizard wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 18:42 Big J wrote:On October 09 2015 18:03 Cascade wrote:On October 09 2015 17:50 Big J wrote:
@ the Mule nerf: I don't believe that this makes Terran weak and should be undone. Of course Terran is weaker, Zerg also feels mega-weak since the larva nerf.
But that's the nature of those things, you nerf the pace of the game and then you feel like you are behind all the time, but the truth is that you just haven't adjusted your inner Starcraft-clock to the new pace.
That being said I would like it if they also nerfed the zerg remax potential from injects, not just the injects. Put the maximum amount of larva a hatchery can hold down to a more restrictive number from 19, maybe 9 maybe even go to 6 (can't store more than 1inject).
Back to Terran: Terran is weak because there are obvious unit problems, at least in TvZ. Like the Ultralisk vs bio. Or the Viper vs Mech. I actually like the larva stack mechanic. It adds macro skill to zerg after 200 supply. It allows for the zerg end game composition to be a bit weaker and getting hard countered by other races end game composition (while the opposite wouldn't work well). It allows for more zergy style where you have to send waves and waves of units to win. But if you don't like that, and want three end game compositions of more equal strength, then yeah, lowering the Max larva is probably the way to go. I don't think the balance will ever work out well in the endgame without somewhat similar production and army strenght, given the SC2 economy. It's been a common theme in SC2 that players win matchups "because they got there" and other advantages couldn't be used properly against "that army". It's the root of all turtle games. It might end up balanced in some numbers, but you give players a clear incentive to play horseshit playstyles because they know their opponent has to come to them eventually. I worry about that quite a bit. "It's the root of all turtle games. It might end up balanced in some numbers, but you give players a clear incentive to play horseshit playstyles because they know their opponent has to come to them eventually." Turtle into unstoppable is bad when it is encouraged on both sides of the game and ongoing counterplay doesn't work.
I think the encouragement on both sides usually just means that there just aren't a lot of good attacking options. Like for Mech vs Zerg, the ways to play aggressive often hinge largely on a compositional mistake from the zerg or a semi-successful hellbat timing. But out of your own power there is little you can force on your opponent, bar hellion runbies in HotS. (could be much better in LotV with liberators and speed banshees I think)
And I think the encouragement to go for later technologies doesn't inherently imply turtling. TvT is a matchup that heavily rewards higher tech units like tanks and air units, but you are still encouraged to attack and play timings a lot. Similarily the Protoss matchups have traditionally had Protoss players teching a lot, but they also have rewarded Protoss to play a lot of timing builds. (not just the supercheesy ones; also rather scoutable 2base colossus, 3base pushes of all forms and just steady harassment play)
I think a lot of the badness/staleness of turtling is always just a product of "free" or "cheap" trading. Swarm Hosts, spellcasters like Infestors or Ravens, partly high templar or the current carrier, viper, partly just rather mobile highrange units like Tempests/Vikings all can/could kill without too much danger to the unit and make it too easy to be rewarded for always falling back into defenses after doing damage. If we removed that (and some of it has already been removed) then turtling vs turtling becomes a lot more fun, because there is no ultimate way to just chip away at the opponent. If you want to win you have to go out and fight. That's just it, no more option to launch free units and play for the mine out.
@the thing about the ultralisk. I agree that the liberator could work, at least on some maps. Also ghosts have become quite good from what I have seen with the recent patch. But at that moment in time I would give the advantage to zerg, even if it may balance out if the new tools given to terran really work out. But the popular parade pushing feels very allin in LotV to me at least, as the Terran eventually ends up on a mediocre tech setup to combat ultralisks.
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could be much better in LotV with liberators and speed banshees I think
Well yeah, because it is air and doesn't get detected by creep spread (i still hate the vision concept with it) and is harder to deal with in general.
I actually dislike the importance of air units in LOTV quite a bit.
Happy birthday!
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On October 10 2015 02:03 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2015 00:57 Blacklizard wrote:On October 09 2015 18:42 Big J wrote:On October 09 2015 18:03 Cascade wrote:On October 09 2015 17:50 Big J wrote:
@ the Mule nerf: I don't believe that this makes Terran weak and should be undone. Of course Terran is weaker, Zerg also feels mega-weak since the larva nerf.
But that's the nature of those things, you nerf the pace of the game and then you feel like you are behind all the time, but the truth is that you just haven't adjusted your inner Starcraft-clock to the new pace.
That being said I would like it if they also nerfed the zerg remax potential from injects, not just the injects. Put the maximum amount of larva a hatchery can hold down to a more restrictive number from 19, maybe 9 maybe even go to 6 (can't store more than 1inject).
Back to Terran: Terran is weak because there are obvious unit problems, at least in TvZ. Like the Ultralisk vs bio. Or the Viper vs Mech. I actually like the larva stack mechanic. It adds macro skill to zerg after 200 supply. It allows for the zerg end game composition to be a bit weaker and getting hard countered by other races end game composition (while the opposite wouldn't work well). It allows for more zergy style where you have to send waves and waves of units to win. But if you don't like that, and want three end game compositions of more equal strength, then yeah, lowering the Max larva is probably the way to go. I don't think the balance will ever work out well in the endgame without somewhat similar production and army strenght, given the SC2 economy. It's been a common theme in SC2 that players win matchups "because they got there" and other advantages couldn't be used properly against "that army". It's the root of all turtle games. It might end up balanced in some numbers, but you give players a clear incentive to play horseshit playstyles because they know their opponent has to come to them eventually. I worry about that quite a bit. "It's the root of all turtle games. It might end up balanced in some numbers, but you give players a clear incentive to play horseshit playstyles because they know their opponent has to come to them eventually." Turtle into unstoppable is bad when it is encouraged on both sides of the game and ongoing counterplay doesn't work. @the thing about the ultralisk. I agree that the liberator could work, at least on some maps. Also ghosts have become quite good from what I have seen with the recent patch. But at that moment in time I would give the advantage to zerg, even if it may balance out if the new tools given to terran really work out. But the popular parade pushing feels very allin in LotV to me at least, as the Terran eventually ends up on a mediocre tech setup to combat ultralisks.
I mean, this goes without saying, but the Liberator only works--against Ultras specifically--if the opponent willingly walks into the targeting area, and then stays there for long enough for each Ultra to take 4-6 shots from the Liberator (assuming some minor damage from other units). Then, the moment the Ultra ball is free of the targeting areas, it is quite impossible to re-target them. It is very, very, very difficult to defeat a Zerg who makes it to Ultras.
I think the reason you are seeing some Terran saying "Ghosts!" against Ultras--myself included--is because it actually does some damage instead of zero damage. Even a huge 3/3 MMM ball stutter-stepping back across the entire map will get slaughtered by Ultras, killing very few, or zero of the Ultras. And you're big-time fucked if they bring their mass Queens along (they always do). It feels so incredibly broken.
So yes, Ghosts are the best answer right now, but you can't just build a few Ghosts. You need mass Ghost with enough energy for multiple Snipes from each one. Then, of course, every single Snipe is manual cast on a specific Ultra (and let's face it, the Ultra ball, for the most part is 1a, when compared to a Ghost counterplay). You can't react with Ghosts either, you have to confirm, for certain, that Ultras are coming, and start preparing your Ghost ball well in advance. And if they don't build Ultras, and you're stuck with mass Ghost, well ...
RE: Parade Pushing - doesn't work, at least in my experience. Creep spread is way too impossible to deal with, especially with the current MULE nerf. But keep in mind, I play Archon. Creep is fucking OP in Archon mode, my god ... But that's just me QQ'ing. In all seriousness, you just have to focus on killing the fourth or fifth hatch, over and over again, and then not dying to the Ultra switch in order to starve out the Zerg. So impossible to kill a Zerg it feels.
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On October 09 2015 22:49 91matt wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba. There isn't a single high level zerg that doesn't think mech is too strong (in hots). Call it subjectivity but everyone hates playing against it. You don't need statistics on this one, you just need to play or watch the game. Mech is completely absurd. It's things like Terran mech in HoTS which drive good players away from playing the game. BL/Infestor wasn't unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination, but it was absurd and bad for the game. Same with Terran mech. One race having the ability to play ultra defensive and build a godlike army is absolutely cancerous.
What ppl consider a problem with mech is a problem based on mules actually. If mules were removed or weakened then mech couldn't use over supply and at the same time harrassment on T eco would matter more than it does now. The natural weakness of mech is to have the terran split its army up.
I think it is not enough time now before release to do big changes. Mid and long term Blizzard needs to find a way to remove mules and potentially replace them with anything else and adapt other race's MM. Mules are the most detrimental unit to the game.
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Kinda funny that the one pro who's only claim to fame is like 3 hour long swarmhost stalemates is complaining about 45 mech tvz games.
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On October 10 2015 08:31 johnbongham wrote:
Kinda funny that the one pro who's only claim to fame is like 3 hour long swarmhost stalemates is complaining about 45 mech tvz games.
He is complaining about balance. About the game being unfair. Right or wrong, that's a complaint of completely different nature than you picture about not having enough patience skill.
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On October 10 2015 08:37 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2015 08:31 johnbongham wrote:
Kinda funny that the one pro who's only claim to fame is like 3 hour long swarmhost stalemates is complaining about 45 mech tvz games. He is complaining about balance. About the game being unfair. Right or wrong, that's a complaint of completely different nature than you picture about not having enough patience skill.
I don't remember seeing him complain when he was able to abuse swarmhosts in pretty much all 3 matchups to the detriment of pretty much any tournament he was playing in. Ill take a 45min mech game over a 2-3 hour free-unit fest every single time. I also dont believe the winrates suggest any serious imbalance. Late game tvp has been pretty screwed up since WOL but terrans were told they just had to deal with it and win in the midgame. Not only that but I see zergs beating maxed mech armies often so just because it takes longer than a bio game doesn't make it imbalanced.
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On October 10 2015 09:23 johnbongham wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2015 08:37 Big J wrote:On October 10 2015 08:31 johnbongham wrote:
Kinda funny that the one pro who's only claim to fame is like 3 hour long swarmhost stalemates is complaining about 45 mech tvz games. He is complaining about balance. About the game being unfair. Right or wrong, that's a complaint of completely different nature than you picture about not having enough patience skill. I don't remember seeing him complain when he was able to abuse swarmhosts in pretty much all 3 matchups to the detriment of pretty much any tournament he was playing in. Ill take a 45min mech game over a 2-3 hour free-unit fest every single time. I also dont believe the winrates suggest any serious imbalance. Late game tvp has been pretty screwed up since WOL but terrans were told they just had to deal with it and win in the midgame. Not only that but I see zergs beating maxed mech armies often so just because it takes longer than a bio game doesn't make it imbalanced.
You're getting silly. Of course he was not complaining when he thought that previously it was balanced and then it wasn't. You'r just fucking with words to make you sound clever, but what you do is a prime example of bad discussion style.
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On October 10 2015 09:29 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2015 09:23 johnbongham wrote:On October 10 2015 08:37 Big J wrote:On October 10 2015 08:31 johnbongham wrote:
Kinda funny that the one pro who's only claim to fame is like 3 hour long swarmhost stalemates is complaining about 45 mech tvz games. He is complaining about balance. About the game being unfair. Right or wrong, that's a complaint of completely different nature than you picture about not having enough patience skill. I don't remember seeing him complain when he was able to abuse swarmhosts in pretty much all 3 matchups to the detriment of pretty much any tournament he was playing in. Ill take a 45min mech game over a 2-3 hour free-unit fest every single time. I also dont believe the winrates suggest any serious imbalance. Late game tvp has been pretty screwed up since WOL but terrans were told they just had to deal with it and win in the midgame. Not only that but I see zergs beating maxed mech armies often so just because it takes longer than a bio game doesn't make it imbalanced. You're getting silly. Of course he was not complaining when he thought that previously it was balanced and then it wasn't. You'r just fucking with words to make you sound clever, but what you do is a prime example of bad discussion style.
And you are just avoiding making an actual argument in the same way he is. There is pretty much no data to backup the argument that mech in tvz is op. Sure, games take longer than we have been used to but its not given that terran will win the majority of the time. Usually, the better player wins.
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On October 10 2015 09:41 johnbongham wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2015 09:29 Big J wrote:On October 10 2015 09:23 johnbongham wrote:On October 10 2015 08:37 Big J wrote:On October 10 2015 08:31 johnbongham wrote:
Kinda funny that the one pro who's only claim to fame is like 3 hour long swarmhost stalemates is complaining about 45 mech tvz games. He is complaining about balance. About the game being unfair. Right or wrong, that's a complaint of completely different nature than you picture about not having enough patience skill. I don't remember seeing him complain when he was able to abuse swarmhosts in pretty much all 3 matchups to the detriment of pretty much any tournament he was playing in. Ill take a 45min mech game over a 2-3 hour free-unit fest every single time. I also dont believe the winrates suggest any serious imbalance. Late game tvp has been pretty screwed up since WOL but terrans were told they just had to deal with it and win in the midgame. Not only that but I see zergs beating maxed mech armies often so just because it takes longer than a bio game doesn't make it imbalanced. You're getting silly. Of course he was not complaining when he thought that previously it was balanced and then it wasn't. You'r just fucking with words to make you sound clever, but what you do is a prime example of bad discussion style. And you are just avoiding making an actual argument in the same way he is. There is pretty much no data to backup the argument that mech in tvz is op. Sure, games take longer than we have been used to but its not given that terran will win the majority of the time. Usually, the better player wins.
Stop with that silly bullshit about games taking longer. You're the only one who brings that argument to the table. You're the only one here that whined about the notion that a game can take too long and trying to make it sound like anyone else does is a plain strawman. Firecake literally said that he thinks the game is imbalanced and you keep on distracting with gamelength perceptions. That he doesn't have data to support it is a different discussion, call him out all you want for it, though he already gave his opinion on that matter. But that was not your original statemsnt, it was some silly bullshit about gamelength comparisons.
And since you want my opinion, I think if you are not doing what's the best strategy even if it takes a "2-3 hour free-unit fest every single time" you are a shit strategy player and should lose every single game to a 1APM player whose only skill it is to have the will to do whatever it takes.
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On October 10 2015 06:24 LSN wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 22:49 91matt wrote:On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba. There isn't a single high level zerg that doesn't think mech is too strong (in hots). Call it subjectivity but everyone hates playing against it. You don't need statistics on this one, you just need to play or watch the game. Mech is completely absurd. It's things like Terran mech in HoTS which drive good players away from playing the game. BL/Infestor wasn't unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination, but it was absurd and bad for the game. Same with Terran mech. One race having the ability to play ultra defensive and build a godlike army is absolutely cancerous. What ppl consider a problem with mech is a problem based on mules actually. If mules were removed or weakened then mech couldn't use over supply and at the same time harrassment on T eco would matter more than it does now. The natural weakness of mech is to have the terran split its army up. I think it is not enough time now before release to do big changes. Mid and long term Blizzard needs to find a way to remove mules and potentially replace them with anything else and adapt other race's MM. Mules are the most detrimental unit to the game.
People throw away scv in lotv? I haven't done it yet since I find them too valuable to keep with reduced income and all..
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On October 10 2015 18:15 jinjin5000 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2015 06:24 LSN wrote:On October 09 2015 22:49 91matt wrote:On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba. There isn't a single high level zerg that doesn't think mech is too strong (in hots). Call it subjectivity but everyone hates playing against it. You don't need statistics on this one, you just need to play or watch the game. Mech is completely absurd. It's things like Terran mech in HoTS which drive good players away from playing the game. BL/Infestor wasn't unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination, but it was absurd and bad for the game. Same with Terran mech. One race having the ability to play ultra defensive and build a godlike army is absolutely cancerous. What ppl consider a problem with mech is a problem based on mules actually. If mules were removed or weakened then mech couldn't use over supply and at the same time harrassment on T eco would matter more than it does now. The natural weakness of mech is to have the terran split its army up. I think it is not enough time now before release to do big changes. Mid and long term Blizzard needs to find a way to remove mules and potentially replace them with anything else and adapt other race's MM. Mules are the most detrimental unit to the game. People throw away scv in lotv? I haven't done it yet since I find them too valuable to keep with reduced income and all..
Currently there is too much imbalanced stuff in the game, which is why games tend to end rather early. As soon as the game is sufficiently balanced and games go to the late game more often, you will see it.
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On October 10 2015 21:42 CheddarToss wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2015 18:15 jinjin5000 wrote:On October 10 2015 06:24 LSN wrote:On October 09 2015 22:49 91matt wrote:On October 09 2015 22:32 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 18:58 FireCake wrote:On October 09 2015 16:48 cmdspinner1 wrote:On October 09 2015 09:30 Pugfarmer wrote:On October 09 2015 08:46 Charoisaur wrote:On October 09 2015 08:44 Pugfarmer wrote:
Just separate mech upgrades in HOTS and problem solved. Which problem? The problem with Mech being overpowered vs Zerg, and creating the same slow turtle games that the old swarm hosts did. Are there any statistics that prove that mech is overpowered vs. Zerg? A lot of people just claim that, but i don't get the impression from watching pro games. Why do you care so much about statistics ? They give no explanation about how the game works and thus how to change the game if it needs to be done. Mech is overpowered against zerg because : 1) Their late game army destroys with ease everything zerg has 2) It became very easy to play mech (combined upgrade, tanks buff, hellbat buff, SH nerf, banshee buff...) 3) Zerg has no tools to harass the terran player in a somehow cost-effective way Terrans players played bio everytime they play a zerg for years, suddendly terrans play mech... This strategy needs to be insanely broken for terran to do something else than 3 CCs into bio. wrong, zerg is op against mech because: 1) Their midgame destroys with ease everything mech has 2) it became very easy to play zerg (blinding cloud buff, roach burrow movespeed buff, mutalisk speed/regen, hydralisk speed, ultra buff) 3) terran has no tools to harass the zerg player in a somehow cost-effective way. see why you need statistics to bback your statements up? Without statistics everyone can just spew subjective bullshit. Fact is if statistics are fine the game isn't imbalanced. Doesn't matter if you have problems with mech on ladder. I also have problems with protoss but I don't say it's imba. There isn't a single high level zerg that doesn't think mech is too strong (in hots). Call it subjectivity but everyone hates playing against it. You don't need statistics on this one, you just need to play or watch the game. Mech is completely absurd. It's things like Terran mech in HoTS which drive good players away from playing the game. BL/Infestor wasn't unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination, but it was absurd and bad for the game. Same with Terran mech. One race having the ability to play ultra defensive and build a godlike army is absolutely cancerous. What ppl consider a problem with mech is a problem based on mules actually. If mules were removed or weakened then mech couldn't use over supply and at the same time harrassment on T eco would matter more than it does now. The natural weakness of mech is to have the terran split its army up. I think it is not enough time now before release to do big changes. Mid and long term Blizzard needs to find a way to remove mules and potentially replace them with anything else and adapt other race's MM. Mules are the most detrimental unit to the game. People throw away scv in lotv? I haven't done it yet since I find them too valuable to keep with reduced income and all.. Currently there is too much imbalanced stuff in the game, which is why games tend to end rather early. As soon as the game is sufficiently balanced and games go to the late game more often, you will see it.
The games, on the whole, cannot be longer than what we're seeing in HotS though. Once you hit the 25-30 minute mark in LotV bases 1-3 are completely mined out and you're in a split-map situation, usually. It's completely crazy, with fights happening everywhere (at least in Archon mode, probably not so much in 1v1).
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On October 09 2015 15:56 Nezgar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 10:50 usopsama wrote:
Heart of the Swarm has a near perfect balance? I am extremely confused. Since it came up a few times, this is how the balance in the past 12 months looked like (according to Aligulac): That's... the most balanced period this game ever had. The win rates in each match-up have been between 46-53% the entire time. For comparison, this is how the entire graph for SC2 looks like: I've highlighted the past 12 months. If we can trust Aligulac ratings then yes, the game has near perfect balance right now. Whether or not the individual match-ups have their own problems or not is a different matter entirely, though. I dislike watching Mech vZ atm, but that doesn't mean that the races are severely imbalanced right now.
Oh crap. It happened.
I sent a message to Aliguac a long time asking for this chart, because it had important information in regards to balance the other chart they have up does not, and avoids several problems. They listened and created it because they are awesome, but warned me people might misuse it.
"The performance difference chart shows the approximate difference between actual performance as evidenced by results and predicted performance by rating"
So what it shows is that if there a trend where Terran is too strong, it will predict that lesser Terran players will beat better Protoss players. Therefore, even if Terran is too strong, if lesser Terran players are beating better Protoss players, the chart will have everything at the 50% line, because it is as predicted.
Overtime time, patches. the map pool and the metagame disrupts balance, so while that lesser Terran might have won against the superior Protoss earlier, he is now losing. If we charted that, it would show a dramatic rise for Protoss above 50% and drop for Terran below 50%. Despite how the chart would look, the game would be more balanced.
Overtime, the chart would predict this new metagame where the lesser Terran loses to the superior Protoss, and it would trend toward 50% until reaching it. So this chart does not show or predict balance, it just shows when the performance of a race changes.
The chart is very useful when you have an established baseline to see how certain races responds to changes in the map pool, metagame or balance patches. But it is the this last, key line that matters more than anything when it comes to this chart:
"However, as ratings catch up to the performances of the players, this chart will tend toward equilibrium, even if balance never changes."
So you misrepresented the chart, and thus you're argument is based on flawed data.
The balance report is the chart you meant to use, but unfortunately for your argument, it is far more volatile.
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and we don’t want to risk Zerg being on the stronger side for BlizzCon finals
Blizzard admitting that the current map pool is good for Zerg I guess. Zerg is probably the weakest race but has the best maps, and they don't want to create another late 2014 situation where they buffed Terran right after giving them a favored map pool.
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On October 09 2015 15:56 Nezgar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2015 10:50 usopsama wrote:
Heart of the Swarm has a near perfect balance? I am extremely confused. Since it came up a few times, this is how the balance in the past 12 months looked like (according to Aligulac): That's... the most balanced period this game ever had. The win rates in each match-up have been between 46-53% the entire time. For comparison, this is how the entire graph for SC2 looks like: I've highlighted the past 12 months. If we can trust Aligulac ratings then yes, the game has near perfect balance right now. Whether or not the individual match-ups have their own problems or not is a different matter entirely, though. I dislike watching Mech vZ atm, but that doesn't mean that the races are severely imbalanced right now.
That's admirable but it doesn't make the game more interesting
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On October 13 2015 19:14 PVJ wrote:
That's admirable but it doesn't make the game more interesting
perfect description why 50-50 or 33-33-33 balance doesn't attract anything.
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EPT
