On April 20 2010 23:30 mcneebs wrote:
I still don't know why so many new players feel that they know how to balance a game better than those who have been designing them for the past 15 years.

this because many people talk out of their ass

wbz0rn

Germany29 Posts

May 01 2010 09:34 GMT

#262

On April 20 2010 23:23 Liquid`Drone wrote:
...the best balancing happens when players come up with a way to counter units, not when Blizzard just makes that unit or ability less powerful.

Nice article man. I totally agree.

vibemytribe

Israel29 Posts

May 01 2010 12:34 GMT

#263

good article...another prespective look on sc2

Sgt.Fluffy

United States15 Posts

May 01 2010 20:21 GMT

#264

I like the force field health bar idea a lot (because I don't play protoss mostly)

teekesselchen

Germany886 Posts

May 01 2010 21:47 GMT

#265

Nice Article, however this one here:

"Many units in Brood War had the potential to kill more than 10 times their own cost. "
was always closely related to micro. Good micro on Vultures against a bad micro toss with dragoons? That will come up cost efficiently for the terran!
Siegetanks? High Templar? They are the essence of cost efficiency. They need other units to protect them often but from a good position they can do horrific damage, same goes for lurkers.

So I think the question "to what degree may a unit be used cost efficient?" (given that there is resistance! any whatsoever unit could deal a great economic damage when there is no protection to the eco line) MUST be related to micro. Right now there are few situations to use units extremely cost efficiently and those which can - like Ghost vs Protoss, HTs or Sentries - do often not require a great deal of micro to do so !

tjoonz

United States11 Posts

May 02 2010 18:26 GMT

#266

the mothership is probably the most powerful unit in sc2, yet i haven't seen it wreaking mass amounts of havoc and is definitely not impossible to take down. i agree that powerful units in the game don't guarantee victory, and believe they just make for interesting gameplay

Blacklizard

United States1194 Posts

May 04 2010 13:58 GMT

#267

Nice article. Reminds me of something I wrote about 2 years ago

, but this article rings truer since we've had the beta in hand for months now. It's still pretty early to say things are totally off in SC2, but it's something to keep a very very close eye on. My biggest beef is when AOE/Splash that is microable against (read, the guy who micros the best gets ahead) is nerfed too much, it definitely creates a muted atmosphere of high level play.

About ForceField. It's way too soon to nerf it. In theory, I see a few counters besides Broodlords that hopefully will see the light of day.

1. Overlord drop abilities! For some reason everybody thinks turning 20 overlords into dropships is suddenly overpriced in SC2. Combined with mutas and/or empty overlords to draw fire, carry your units on top of the enemy and drop on them.
Apparent weaknesses: load time and drop time. Do you load half your units before the fight? Can you move units during a fight? In smaller numbers probably.

2. Roach burrow. I'm pretty sure people have mentioned and used this already. Retreat or advance through FF.

Weaknesses: You need to have roaches and burrow? I don't see many weaknesses.

3. Bait and retreat. It is very possible to bait wasted FF use. And that's mana that takes time to come back.

Weaknesses: You can't be cornered, but if you are cornered that's your fault anyway.

4. The OP mentioned Broodlords. Seems like a fine answer to me. How about air in general. If Protoss has a strong ground, you can go strong air and counter. There are no corsair yet and storm sucks against air.

Weaknesses: Zerg may need to be ahead on gas by one base to really make this work, I don't know. Maybe not though... sentries are also very gas intensive. Sentries are good against mutas head to head, and that's a real weakness up front. But muta vs worker/base harass is still really powerful.

5. [EDIT] And something with a Nydas or three. Haven't figure it out yet, but I feel there i something there. Think about it, if you run into a Nydas you are essentially "safe", b/c if they kill the Nydas they don't kill the units. Perhaps if you could control/predict the ground army class, you could always have a couple of Nydases flanking the enemy.

Anyway, still way early to say. With interesting unit dynamics, most late game strats are counterable in some way or another. BW proved this.

--slightly off topic below--
Now extreme late game (map almost mined out) is much trickier to balance for a few reasons. For one, 99% of beta games never get there. Two, extreme defense becomes viable. Three, because of #2, non-mineral/gas air siege is very good (BroodLords, Yamato). Four, energy-based specials are more powerful because if you are defending and running the clock you are building energy.

I believe that Terran extreme-late game is the best at this point due to Siege tanks, Yamato, Banshees+Vikings+scan, Nukes, and the Raven. Oh the Raven, how I love thee. Nukes plus Yamato plus defense drones against a turtle, anyone?

Protoss don't have a safe way to siege a dedicated turtled cliff/island base from air (interceptors cost money, hallucinate maybe can help a mothership get in but not likely), and while Zerg have Broodlords they don't have any really powerful offensive spellcasters to bank on. Maybe you could get creep near the enemy base with Queens to heal Broodlords/Corruptors and Defilers to slime enemies that poke their noses out. Feels a little flimsy though, but maybe.

noSunset

United States2 Posts

May 09 2010 23:23 GMT

#268

true

teekesselchen

Germany886 Posts

May 10 2010 01:09 GMT

#269

Strong units or combinations would break SC2 because there is literally no game deciding micro anymore. Battles are, instead of tons of micro, a-click 1:1-stats-comparison+rock-paper-scissor-events in which players' actions do not have a great input anymore.

Lawls

United States20 Posts

May 22 2010 23:52 GMT

#270

Nice and neat good read

NAquariti

Canada3 Posts

May 27 2010 16:04 GMT

#271

the best balancing happens when players come up with a way to counter units, not when Blizzard just makes that unit or ability less powerful.

Very well written, I agree on most points
Too many impatient players nowadays who think that they are greater than they are, and can balance a game better than professionals by nerfing, not finding new ways to counter

Elprede

74 Posts

June 02 2010 00:51 GMT

#272

I liked it

Packerz4life

United States4 Posts

June 08 2010 21:28 GMT

#273

awesome article. im one of those inexperienced zerg players who hates late game terran mech and am always complaining, but this article really opens up my eyes. i think ill give it some more time before i ragequit lol

Angra

United States2652 Posts

August 16 2010 01:26 GMT

#274

I was reminded of this article by a lot of the recent discussions about ZvT and what needs to be done to fix it, and I've been SO worried that there will just be more and more nerfs to SC2 rather than buffs to compensate for imbalances. It scares me a lot because I'm always reminded of this article and how BW is. If everything is nerfed, the game won't be fun anymore.

This is probably one of my favorite articles concerning SC2 and balance in all of TL because it describes EXACTLY what made Broodwar such an amazing and fun game. I really hope for the sake of SC2 and esports that everyone takes the things in this article into consideration when discussing and implementing the balance of SC2.

pechkin

158 Posts

August 27 2010 23:03 GMT

#275

Looks like they are going the nerfland way...

konadora