EPTIf you see me on the ladder, please... don't make DT's past the 15 minute mark. Its for my own personal safety T.T;;;;
The next major balance patch - David Kim - Page 15
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Joedaddy
United States1948 Posts
If you see me on the ladder, please... don't make DT's past the 15 minute mark. Its for my own personal safety T.T;;;; | ||
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csikos27
United States135 Posts
gj | ||
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ZjiublingZ
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 04 2012 13:30 Wombat_NI wrote: Why are guys like you not finding my thread on game design being the issue we have to make Blizzard aware of, not 'Infestor OP' nonsense.  I mean simply, Protoss can be the 'timing attack' race. However they should at least have other styles that certain guys like to use, like a 'macro Protoss' is a term I've never really heard used apart from European PvZ when everyone played macro games, but passively. In fact MC had his identity, his style as a timing attack player formed ages ago, when nobody else had really refined the concept to the level he had. The styles don't necessarily have to be as potentially good as each other, but should exist as options I saw it. Feel free to copypaste my post and add it in there, if it's something you want to discuss. To be quite honest, after this latest patch, I agree with the general idea of everything they are trying to accomplish. Literally everything. Of course maybe when we see the specifics but perhaps more likely after that when we develop some semblance of a meta-game, there might be design flaws we can see. But before then, I'm content. Everyone I have seen in the thread I appear to just fundamentally disagree with about this, and so there isn't much to be said. On top of that, I really don't like the idea of talking about "finding a way to reach Blizzard" or something, I think it's all nonsense. Nobody has an idea they have even tested thoroughly and people are talking about how to get their message through to Blizz or something. Not to mention us on TL are a specific demographic that's only a minority of the consumers they are trying to appeal to... Sorry if this offended you. It's not a bad thread, it's just not my cup of tea. | ||
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avilo
United States4100 Posts
On December 04 2012 07:42 Markwerf wrote: mech and air combined sort of removes the distinct styles though, it would just airmech as you can mix at will then. I don't like it and i also feel it would just buff mech way too much. Mech play only fears air later on mostly and with this you automatically have 3/3 vikings ready to pump out, zerg would be beyond screwed. Just make the air and maybe mech upgrades a little cheaper so you can transition easier, perhaps even reduce research time by a little but mixing them sucks i think. So what you're saying is this could be an indirect buff to vikings so they aren't trash vs literally everything in the game that's not a broodlord...interesting, that would be a good idea! Might help lategame T (obvious). I still think tempest are an issue for mech, but now at least you won't have 0/0 vikings vs 3/3/3 protoss ground or 1/1 protoss air. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24390 Posts
On December 04 2012 13:36 ZjiublingZ wrote: Well to put it simply - diversity is the only reason. But to elaborate on that idea, it gives us more variety of games. It gives Protoss more viable compositions, and thus the opposing races more viable counter-compositions. Even more, it allow players to play stylistically, this army composition might stress more of X skill that a player excels in, while a Robo composition might stress Y skill that a different player can show off. Different players playing the same race differently is huge. On top of all that, it can give us some more options for maps. Maybe one map is pretty weak for Robo play because of a lack of mobility, but Protoss can go Stargate their because it's solid too (and maybe there are some mind-games where the opponent blindly counters Stargate and then Robo build is more effective, even if the map discourages it). This allows us to have more variety in our map pool - something that's sorely lacking in WoL. Consider MC and HerO, two fundamentally different stylistic players I guess. They've both got pretty equivalent mechanics I'd imagine, being top Korean Protoss players. HerO's also one of the only Protoss I see trying to not counter BL/Infestor before it happens, but after. MC- Timing attack king. Initial success exploited the lack of understanding of the concepts of frontloading production for gateway timings, having better forcefields etc. His revelations in this respect, or in refining Stargate openers for map control back when he started popularising it, are concepts that lose their mystery as soon as he uses them. Thus, he continues to do timing attacks, but incredibly refined ones based on execution, with some weird builds thrown in. The initially advantage he had strategically, is gone, but he's still doing well because he's executing the basic concept of timing attacks (kill your opponent at a time, or die trying). 'Me all in, me win' HerO- Closest to a 'macro Protoss' I can think of. Initially came to prominence with his stylistic approach that he shared with JYP, especially the Warp Prism play. Was liked for his style even before he had his successes, because it was a different style and also approach to the game, fundamentally. It wasn't timing attacks, it wasn't passive macro. He used warp prisms to figure out a way to harass Zerg in a fundamentally intelligent way. He either was showing off and discovered it worked, or he was at a deeper level figuring it out. Basically, you can't harass with Zealots like you can vs T, in terms of they are too slow to do runbys vs Zergs faster units, trade horribly vs roaches, and creep lets you know they're coming. HerO figured out/popularised a concept of playing PvZ that enabled a more passive style to work. He is not the fucking 'warp prism' guy, he's the guy who figured out you can make Zealot harass effective. Zealots are the only unit you can really afford to throw away as a mineral dump routinely, so the risk of losing them isn't huge, but the issue of trying to get into positions to actually harass (vs speedlings and roaches) was one HerO solved too. He went to the third dimension, you could use warp prisms and zealots which are slow (before speed research) to circumvent terrain and thus outposition the faster Zerg units. This creates decisions, such as 'has he committed too many Zealots with that warpin, should I attack, should I defend so I don't lose tech?' All this while, if the Zerg makes the wrong decision HerO can expand behind it if the Zerg miscalulates and is too passive, or the Zerg is too aggressive and maybe loses his spire, or a lot of drones. The central premise of HerO's style is not using warp prisms. They enable it. The actual strategical idea is trying to figure out how to pressure, but without using the gas units that Protoss can't fuck up and lose. The solution is trying to do harass that you can afford to lose without doing damage, either through pinning your opponent down positionally, or having enough money to throw away enough units. Zealots are mineral dumps for Protoss that aren't very effective outside of warpins for harass in that specific matchup. HerO/JYP figured out a solution, i.e circumventing the terrain and the warp prism enabled it. The benefit of doing this, is some semblance of map control, in terms of a threat being out, or exploiting a Zerg moveout to snipe tech. The threat of this enables HerO to expand behind it to push his economic advantage. HerO is the only Protoss who ever seemed to play with a 'I have a central idea and I'll improvise a bit as I go along'. I'm not saying that he's a genius who makes it up on the fly, I just mean he's the only Protoss akin to a Terran going 'I'll go Marine-Tank into a drop-based midgame and do it well, and if I do I can win' This fundamental strategical idea is what a strategy game is actually about, and if fun and challenging and occasionally maddening. Figuring out problems either unintentionally because it works and figuring out why it does (as I'm exemplifying here), or working from a basic concept and building it and refining the timings that will allow it to work (like MC does) HerO's strategy is to me more elegant than MC's, not as brutally efficient, but a nice bit of lateral thinking to get around problems. MC's beauty is refining a style that everyone still uses to this day, but to really tight timings. The execution in MC's sake is impressive. We need more MC's and HerO's. MC is typical now because everyone uses his central defining strategy albeit in differing ways, and HerO's central strategy is getting countered by Zerg's ridiculous lategame being more refined. | ||
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
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NeXSC2
5 Posts
2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration Am I missing something here? Why is this needed? Other than that super good. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
On December 04 2012 13:58 avilo wrote: So what you're saying is this could be an indirect buff to vikings so they aren't trash vs literally everything in the game that's not a broodlord...interesting, that would be a good idea! Might help lategame T (obvious). I still think tempest are an issue for mech, but now at least you won't have 0/0 vikings vs 3/3/3 protoss ground or 1/1 protoss air. I'm not saying vikings couldn't use a little buff when adding them to the mech army, I just rather see it done in a different way then combining the mech and air upgrade. A buff like this paves the way for mech play in TvZ and TvT too much imo (and probably it would still be crap in TvP). Just make the air upgrades 100/100, 150/150 and 200/200 for both weapons and plating, that way it's cheaper too but also promotes the bio -> air transition. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24390 Posts
On December 04 2012 13:52 ZjiublingZ wrote: I saw it. Feel free to copypaste my post and add it in there, if it's something you want to discuss. To be quite honest, after this latest patch, I agree with the general idea of everything they are trying to accomplish. Literally everything. Of course maybe when we see the specifics but perhaps more likely after that when we develop some semblance of a meta-game, there might be design flaws we can see. But before then, I'm content. Everyone I have seen in the thread I appear to just fundamentally disagree with about this, and so there isn't much to be said. On top of that, I really don't like the idea of talking about "finding a way to reach Blizzard" or something, I think it's all nonsense. Nobody has an idea they have even tested thoroughly and people are talking about how to get their message through to Blizz or something. Not to mention us on TL are a specific demographic that's only a minority of the consumers they are trying to appeal to... Sorry if this offended you. It's not a bad thread, it's just not my cup of tea. Oh I'm not offended in any way! I'll probably stick your post in my dank, everexpanding 'notes' bit so I can maybe use the concepts or whatever. You addressed the actual point of the thread, but disagreed on whether it personally motivated you, plus you responded to me in terms of a reply. It is people who don't do either of those things that actually piss me off here  I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with what they're going to accomplish. I fucking like the potential of the Protoss changes, as I personally see them leading into a more harass-macro heavy style, maybe with a more smooth Stargate transition. I think they're good changes, but I have no idea if my interpretation at all reflects Blizzard's intent behind them. Like to this day, an idea I liked was phase shield, the anti-spell ability the Oracle had for a bit. I liked the approach to a problem like fungal, that didn't necessarily involve nerfing fungal which had other implications. I thought that central idea was interesting, but don't know why they abandoned it other than it wasn't seeing much use apparently. I mean, it had a lot of specific potential in terms of a balance between the potency of the ability, and the drawbacks that could balance it. If you made it a small AoE so you couldn't say, coat your deathball with it, or even a single target spell. Oracles are too expensive to build a ton of, so to coat your entire army with an anti-fungal spell would take away from it. I mean imagine a PvZ stalemate just a few DTs thrown in a speed warp prism or something and dropped behind enemy lines. An inquisitive Oracle appears, and decides to phase shield the DTs who charge into the lines of the Infestor, who are positioned a bit behind the army. 'Oh my god, I didn't bother to build overseers because I didn't choose to do so, either through laziness or intent, I have DTs who can't be fungalled amongst my infestors'. Guy figures the solution, burrows his infestors, so the remainder are just chilling, waiting for the overseer that will save them. An observer appears, it's robotic visage peering down at these strange worm things burrowed in the earth. That's a really hypothetical example, but it's about good useage of actual dynamic unit interaction, combining with solid prior decision making. The Protoss player didn't preemptively have that observer there, it was there for one purpose, to spot the positions of the Zerg army. This decision, lead into a conscious choice to take a risk and try to exploit the small gap in coverage of the immobile deathball. The Zerg had never seen this before, but intuitively could burrow his infestors. The Protoss player's initial intelligence, having the obs to spot had a further advantage in spotting for the infestors. My fundamental personal approach to balance is, if you can encourage/create a solution that simultaneously allows bad players to counter thing but in the hands of a good player, cooler things to be done potentially, you have to go for that option if at all possible. Whatever your conception of 'good' play is, it's not necessarily something flashy. I don't see how you can disagree with that central premise anyway :p I don't agree or disagree with Blizzard actually, been a fan since Diablo 1. It's only lately where they're half explaining things that I've been confused as hell about what they're doing. I mean they'll talk about 'the winrates are close to balanced' based on their own internal ranking, rather than release say, the raw data. I'm not saying they should expose their raw data either, but they could expand upon their points man. It's the cause of so much whine on here as well as overly ambitious ideas like mine | ||
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gengka
Malaysia461 Posts
"a new unit to buff bio late game" fuck yeah if both mech and bio are viable late game, i would pick bio over mech every time | ||
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Forikorder
Canada8840 Posts
On December 04 2012 14:07 NeXSC2 wrote: Am I missing something here? Why is this needed? Other than that super good. not "needed" but mutas have pretty much fallen off its rare(er) to see them in TvZ since T has gotten so good at having turrets up, hitting upgrades and defending with marines so mutas can be dead weight and waste of gas you need since T has gotten better at pushing and splitting and macroing agaisnt P they were popular for a bit but then Toss just learnt to adapt so they fell off Mutalisks are still useful and used as surprise guess blizz wants them more viable | ||
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ref4
2933 Posts
On December 04 2012 14:23 Forikorder wrote: not "needed" but mutas have pretty much fallen off its rare(er) to see them in TvZ since T has gotten so good at having turrets up, hitting upgrades and defending with marines so mutas can be dead weight and waste of gas you need since T has gotten better at pushing and splitting and macroing agaisnt P they were popular for a bit but then Toss just learnt to adapt so they fell off Mutalisks are still useful and used as surprise guess blizz wants them more viable Problem with mutalisks is that they are never good in direct engagement, whereas infestors are, AND on top of that, I think infestors are actually a superior harassing units than mutalisks. I can't tell you how many games I lost due to borrowed infestor spewing out 50 IT and instantly destroying my base.....I gotta start building a raven or two. | ||
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Forikorder
Canada8840 Posts
On December 04 2012 14:33 ref4 wrote: Problem with mutalisks is that they are never good in direct engagement, whereas infestors are, AND on top of that, I think infestors are actually a superior harassing units than mutalisks. I can't tell you how many games I lost due to borrowed infestor spewing out 50 IT and instantly destroying my base.....I gotta start building a raven or two. or a missile turret or just wall | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24390 Posts
On December 04 2012 14:23 Forikorder wrote: not "needed" but mutas have pretty much fallen off its rare(er) to see them in TvZ since T has gotten so good at having turrets up, hitting upgrades and defending with marines so mutas can be dead weight and waste of gas you need since T has gotten better at pushing and splitting and macroing agaisnt P they were popular for a bit but then Toss just learnt to adapt so they fell off Mutalisks are still useful and used as surprise guess blizz wants them more viable They're not lacking viability in vT through a lack of mobility though, I don't really get the rationale they don't really make up for their weakness in vT by emphasising their strength more. Marines with ups will still shred them if you screw up. Maybe it's to catch things like speed warp prisms and other things of that nature better? In terms of using them like Jaedong's infamous 1 muta purely to snipe obs? If that's a thing people use their mutas for, that'd be pretty cool even if it wasn't intended. However the problem that's introduced is that the interaction between stalkers and mutas is different. Stalkers have one advantage in terms of mobility over marines, both in non-stim speed being slower for marines, and stalkers circumventing terrain. However, Stalkers even with a surprise blink, tend not to have the DPS to punish even an inattentive muta player, really badly in the same way marines do. If you give mutas a bigger advantage vs stalkers, especially on maps with dead air space, it's going to make them incredibly annoying to deal with. I suppose another fringe benefit of being faster would be making splitting your mutas against storm that little bit more effective in terms of limiting damage taken.` This is the kind of thing I don't get though, the logic. Mutalisks are already good at harassing, they've always been good in that capacity. The reason they're not being used is because there are both strategically 'better' options such as Infestor play (atm in WoL), but also that there's no real advantage to using them. Even great muta players except when metagaming don't really gain a huge advantage over a merely good Infestor player. | ||
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Forikorder
Canada8840 Posts
On December 04 2012 14:35 Wombat_NI wrote: They're not lacking viability in vT through a lack of mobility though, I don't really get the rationale they don't really make up for their weakness in vT by emphasising their strength more. Marines with ups will still shred them if you screw up. Maybe it's to catch things like speed warp prisms and other things of that nature better? In terms of using them like Jaedong's infamous 1 muta purely to snipe obs? If that's a thing people use their mutas for, that'd be pretty cool even if it wasn't intended. However the problem that's introduced is that the interaction between stalkers and mutas is different. Stalkers have one advantage in terms of mobility over marines, both in non-stim speed being slower for marines, and stalkers circumventing marines. However, Stalkers even with a surprise blink, tend not to have the DPS to punish even an inattentive muta player, really badly in the same way marines do. If you give mutas a bigger advantage vs stalkers, especially on maps with dead air space, it's going to make them incredibly annoying to deal with. I suppose another fringe benefit of being faster would be making splitting your mutas against storm that little bit more effective in terms of limiting damage taken.` This is the kind of thing I don't get though, the logic. Mutalisks are already good at harassing, they've always been good in that capacity. The reason they're not being used is because there are both strategically 'better' options such as Infestor play (atm in WoL), but also that there's no real advantage to using them. Even great muta players except when metagaming don't really gain a huge advantage over a merely good Infestor player. there not good at harassing anymore though since unless there surprise mutas they dont do enough damage to justify the cost you said it yourself theres no real advantage to using them because they cant get off the harass damage needed to slow the push, a speed boost would help with the harassing making it harder for units like marines and stalkers to zoen them out and also help in non-economic harassing like picking off tank and other stray units itll be interesting to see how they change the muta blizz seems to be trying to make every unit viable tech path and not just a unit you make a couple off then becomes useless | ||
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ref4
2933 Posts
gotta lower my wall to let my units out bro X_X | ||
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sc2pal
Poland624 Posts
![[image loading]](http://postmediaprovince.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/slow-clap.gif) | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24390 Posts
On December 04 2012 14:39 Forikorder wrote: there not good at harassing anymore though since unless there surprise mutas they dont do enough damage to justify the cost you said it yourself theres no real advantage to using them because they cant get off the harass damage needed to slow the push, a speed boost would help with the harassing making it harder for units like marines and stalkers to zoen them out and also help in non-economic harassing like picking off tank and other stray units itll be interesting to see how they change the muta blizz seems to be trying to make every unit viable tech path and not just a unit you make a couple off then becomes useless This is the kind of bizarre thing that could be good for the game, but is kind of inexplicable that makes me want to either force Blizzard to address us more clearly 'Helps harassment' doesn't really fit into the rationale at all. Making every unit more extreme in terms of its role just seems strange I guess. The coolest way to balance is giving us a tool, but not knowing 100% what we're going to do with it, unless it perhaps leads to some broken issue we hadn't considered. The warp prism was buffed because it was a glass cannon, without the weaponry, and probably to help harassment, at least in terms of exploration of figuring out how to do that. However I'm not sure David Kim necessarily did this with certain cool interactions and synergies in mind. He probably could have predicted some of them, but perhaps not something like the combo of storm/entomb drops that were sick. | ||
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Visage814
United States109 Posts
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DemigodcelpH
1138 Posts
The Protoss and Terran changes are <3 and much needed though. | ||
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