EPT[SC2B] Power Overwhelming - Page 7
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commanderchobo
Canada53 Posts
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Getz
United States559 Posts
Agree 100% with adding health bars to force fields. It would be a nice fix to the problem without nerfing how the ability works. | ||
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Sa1KoRo.O
Canada3 Posts
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The_DarkAngelz
Brazil221 Posts
I guess that unbalanced units give more dynamics to gameplay. Only uncounter units has to be changed... otherwise its ok !! | ||
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Zalan
Canada18 Posts
It is a good summary of why we should think twice before asking for a nerf. I really like how you compared Broodwar to SC2 and it really makes sense. I've seen some tweaking that Blizzard did and really ask myself if it wouldn't be possible to counter it properly instead (as the mothership one). At least, I'm very happy how the beta seems to run: Blizzard makes great efforts to balance the game, but I'm sure they will be tweaking the game long after the launch. | ||
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OrtegaPeru
79 Posts
Here are some thoughts I had in no particular order from watching replay videos of SC2 on Youtube: -There are way too many variables aside from unit health and armor to mathematically balance the game perfectly. The speed of the unit, it's rate of attack, whether it's ground or air, whether it can attack ground or air, is its attack continuous or a projectile, does it have energy, how much energy if it does, etc. -Many people (not all of course) ignore the fact that there are only a handful of maps in the beta, which is why I think it's extremely important that Blizzard release the editor or inject new maps before the beta is over, as many perceived unit imbalances could just be due to the smaller maps. Though I think they are smart enough to realize this. -It seems to me like players focus a lot on the early game and if they can't pull off a quick win they transition directly to late game and start to turtle so they can mass. When you have hundreds of units attacking each other in one big battle, the tiniest differences in their stats or the way they move and attack are going to be amplified. I think a lot of perceived imbalance is actually do to lack of player creativity in the mid-game. -I'm not sure if it should be implemented, but it occurred to me that it might be a good idea for statistical purposes to force people to play random in ladder matches in the beta (not in the release game). -I agree with the person who posted above that a lot is missed when people are worried about their personal win-loss stats. In those cases I think a lot of people just go along with the meta-game and hope their macro/micro holds up rather than explore crazy new strategies. Also just a few quick observations from a spectator perspective as to units that are underused or underpowered for w/e reason: -Nobody ever seems to use carriers or dark templar -Nuke seems weak (and is quite boring to see in use as most of the time it really only seems to deny the opponent a little bit of mining time and doesn't kill most buildings) -Psi-storm seems weak -Neural parasite seems weak Again I'm not in the beta, so feel free to critique what I said. | ||
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Comeh
United States18918 Posts
Unfortunately, people in their mind see things that are "good" as being imbalanced. If they lose a game, the FIRST thing they do is blame it on imbalance and that some other race needs to be nerfed while theirs needs to be buffed. I'm glad i'm not the only one that see it that way. | ||
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AncienTs
Japan227 Posts
But I just want to make a point that having so-called "overpowered units" in starcraft 2 may not be such a good idea in the pursuit of maintaining a wide skill gradient among players. The new game controls i.e. smart-casting, MBS, multiple-unit selection creates an atmosphere where technical difficulties of executing counters like dark swarm and psi storms are greatly diminished. Also, where certain units become "nerfed" is where other units begin to shine... so... don't make any conclusions just yet! | ||
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ShaperofDreams
Canada2492 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28634 Posts
the force field nerf I suggested, well, it's definitely out of place. I considered just making sure I was here when this article was posted so I could post that as a suggested nerf in the first reply. consequentially, as it is, this suggestion was not intended to be taken completely seriously. however, I DO feel that force field is flawed in a way that no brood war spells or abilities were flawed. essentially, the successfulness of force field depends entirely on the protoss. storm, irradiate, dark swarm, plague, stasis, all the game-turning spells of brood war, were all possible for the opposing player to if not defend completely against, then at least reduce the effectiveness of. in fact, I think watching a zerg player instantly split out his one irradiated muta from the bunch, or a zerg player perfectly dodging storms with his 4 control groups of hydralisks is just as exciting (or quite possibly more) as watching the protoss player throw those storms. with force field, it's just not like that. you can reduce the effectivity of it through engaging in an open area, but apart from that, how effective it is depends entirely on how well the protoss throws down a wall of them. making it actually possible to counter force field through actions of your own (granted, terran can do this with EMP) is essential for an overpowered ability to be balanced. that being said, the suggested 400 hp is way too little. it'd probably have to be at least double that amount. also, someone noted how my example of dark swarm + lurker having only one terran counter, yet being a combination enhancing the game, yet me feeling differently about force field which also only has one counter, and how this was kind of inconsistent. this is correctly observed, the article is a tad inaccurate here. irradiate is not THE only counter to dark swarm+ lurkers. mines counter them to some degree, sieged tanks delay the push, firebats can kill lurkers under swarm if there aren't too many of them (and sieged tanks are actually able to deal damage to lurkers under swarm IF there are a lot of lurkers burrowed. ) further, having a separate squad of m&m can allow you to cut off reinforcements and snipe defilers wanting to advance the swarm. in theory, you can even kill them with yamato gun. basically, the multiple tactics terran players employed attempting to counter the dark swarm+ lurker combination is the ultimate example of players making adjustments to an ability that happens to be ridiculously powerful. and finally, force field is probably the single coolest ability to actually use in starcraft 2. but it's the most annoying ability to play against. Ideally, I'd want it balanced through just removing smart cast - this would make it absolutely amazing but actually difficult to use, but I am confident that ship has sailed and there's no way blizzard is making a that major interface change at this stage of the game. giving them health bars (once again - this would have to be more than 400 hp despite what I stated in the article) would give zergs some way of actually microing against it. | ||
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VV4113
Sweden8 Posts
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hejakev
Sweden518 Posts
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foozoo
United States26 Posts
On April 13 2010 22:04 Crisium wrote: So they make cool units, regardless of the balance. This gets Roaches with rapid healing, Reapers that throw D8 Charges, Mothership with Planet Cracker, etc. Then the plan is to let gameplay and time balance it out. Blizzard seemed to think that balance would be adjusting HP, damage, costs, build time, etc. But instead balancing lead to making the "cool" units very uninteresting. Roach is just a cheap Tank, Reapers D8 is now only against buildings and makes the unit harass only, Mothership is just a big, slow, expensive, powerful Arbiter. The cool is gone, but the units are still there, boring and all. I think SC1 took a similar approach, but kept the cool in because they weren't so pressed for balance right away (think 1998). That allowed us to have cool things with crazy micro such as Reavers, Vultures (with and without mines), "invincible" M&M balls vs nearly instant-marine-killing Lurkers. People would cry IMBA today and we would lose them. Does anyone think Colossus Micro is as exciting as Reaver? Can Hellions even compare to Vultures? They have to stop to attack (balance). Where are the imba spells of SC1, such as Irridate (delay kill almost any Zerg unit, and splash damage), Spawn Broodling (instant kill many units), and anything the Defiler has. Seriously - consider the Defiler on paper. It's way too good. Sacrifice a few 25 mineral units and you can spam countless Plagues that reduce units with a couple hundred HP to 1. Or spam countless Dark Swarms against Terrans who can only send in weak firebats or use splash damage. These Imba spells do not exist in SC2 because out of the fear of balance. I'd rather they did, because they are cool and can be managed by strategy and/or patches instead of outright removal. The general consensus seems to be that these overpowered abilities are partially balanced by their difficulty to use. Smart casting has removed a lot of mechanical difficulty in spell abilities, so they need to be watered down to become balanced. But by watering them down they become boring (and in some players eyes, useless). So what is Blizzard to do? Throw caution to the wind and allow "imba" units/abilities to stay and hope players figure out counters? | ||
Chairman Ray
United States11903 Posts
I like in scbw how units counter other units by how you use them. Vultures only counter dragoons with the right micro, and dragoons only counter vultures with the right micro. It's the same with MM vs lurkers, zealots vs hydras, lings vs rines, mutas vs scourges, and every single other unit matchup. In scbw, you don't get into situations where a unit counters another unit in itself rather than in its micro abilities. In sc2, that seems to be the usual case. | ||
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6pool
Canada9 Posts
Some people forget that they can burrow under forcefields and i have never ever seen that used in a high level game. Thats one counter to the forcefield but adding health might help terran or protoss, maybe even zerg that doesn't want to get burrow. | ||
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Vattilega
United States52 Posts
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. If you think that the people balancing SC2 are the same people who balanced BW then you are gravely mistaken! SC2 will be balanced thanks to communitiies like this but seriously, SC2 is as if some random company won the license to create a sequel to BW. | ||
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ZaaaaaM
Netherlands1828 Posts
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Rising_Phoenix
United States370 Posts
However, doing a balance change every time someone says "nerf" is also ridiculous. I think they probably collect hard data from game play and see what unit composition happens that causes a certain win percentage on certain maps. So far I think the nerfs have been intelligent and not over-dramatic, but hopefully they won't feel the force of the loud crowd killing everything. | ||
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Axonn
Croatia287 Posts
only thing there is to discuss is how to balance those overpowered spells/units. Seriously can you imagine BW without overpowering spells of any race? That would be whole another game | ||
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HALLUcareface
Denmark12 Posts
Well written! | ||
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